Daily capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1896-1899, 1897-09-03
ON PUGET SOUND.
More About the Towns and People OF
the Northern Mediterranean.

FAlRHAvEN, Wash, Aug. 3l.-TO
get from Victoria to Bellingham bay,
we found it necessary to return by
steamer to Seattle and then go north
100 miles by the Great Northern
railroad or steamer on the eastern
side of the sound. 1t requires greater
delay and expense to cut across by
Vancouver, although the distance is
not half so great.
Crossing the sound we saw hundreds
of canoe loads of Siwash and Makah
Indians working their way down from
Cape Flattary and the Neah bay res
,rvation. for the hop fields of the
Puyallup and Snoqualamie districts.
At these points they are paying 5O
cent to IS cent per box for picking
hops. and pickers are in ready de-
mand. Here as in Oregon, hop rails
ing has been a losing business for Two
years, and many growers have given
il up. Ezra Meeker, the former hop
king and millionaire operator of Puy-
allup. is completely broken up. and he
some time since went to Rossland to
mend his broken fortunes. In ten
short years he was raised from mod
crate means to the rank OF a million
aire, and again descended to the start
ing point. A head of silvered hair
with vast fund of experience is all
he has to show for it. Such is life in
the northwest.
The arrival of the steamer Portland
from tho Yukon with only few hun
dred thousand of gold dust, instead or
the expecten millions, is serving as
cold blanket on the wild expectations
of Puget Sound business people, and
they are once more living on their
vast stack of hope and confidence.
Saturday evening we boarded tile
little steamer Bay City for Fairha-
ven where we arrived next morning.
We learned that the Bay City is the
former Willamette river steamer
Wasco remodeled and renamed. She
is doing a good business apparently,
carrying an abuL dance of freight and
passengers, nor did she seem to be
suffering from the want of bed bugs,
as all the passengers agreed there
we're enough of these interesting COM
panions to go round. The route up
| the sound is through a magnificent
| body of water, and among chain Of
beautiful islands. Many of these are
occupied by ranchers who raise veg
etables, fruit hay and grain, while
others seem to he barren rock piles or
sound bodies of fir and cedar.
Anacortes was reached shortly after
daylight, and presented most dilapi-
dated and dead appearance. This is
the boom town that some years ago
spent thousands of dollars for pub
fishing bogus dispatches in the Ore
gonian and other papers. Salem was
once offered in glowing terms use of
the Oregonian columns for similar IL
legitimate purposes, at the modest
rate of 81 800 or more a month, but
she resisted the tempting offer, and is
now deprived of all the vain glory
that awaited her.
Fairhaven and WhatCom form a
handsome city on Bellingham Bay, the
latter having recovered considerably
from her bursted boom. The tive
towns join together but haYe sepa-
rate governments. Fairhaven is not
as fat as Whatcom in topography, but
lIs more so in business conditions.
The former also has a deep harbor
right into vhe city, while the latter
has extensive mud flats. Business has
considerably improved in Whatcom,
and many still hope to realize their
most sanguine expectations of boom
days. In FairhaYen many of the best
buildings are vacant and not few
have been burned. as the people be-
lieve to get the insurance.
At aud adjoining these towns the
Great Northern Railroad company and
its operators own twenty miles OF
water front, and the fact that none OF