The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1898-04-05
OLD "AUSTRALIA."
Capt. Houdlette Writes of His
Trip to Alaska.

Capt. Houdlette, of the S. S. Austria
liza writes to San Francisco from Seat
tie as follows:
Here we are back at Seattle after
going the rounds-frst Seattle, then
Tacoma, then Port Townsend, then
Victoria, Juneau and Skaguay, back to
Juneau and Seattle We had AS pas
sengers, horses, cattle and donkeys,
and quarters of beef and mutton the
whole length of the deck.
L think the whole community has
gone mad. Men who call themselves
as gentlemen lose all signs of gentility
when they start for the mines and
act more like beasts than anything
else.
We went from Victoria out the
straits outside of Vancouver Island
up to latitude 90 degrees 20 minutes
north, then in by Cape Ommersey,
hence We had only 243 miles of inland
Steaming. l think by keeping outside
all the time we shall come out all right,
although We have to pass some pretty
bad places and if it should happen
to snow or get thick it would make you
feel very uncomfortable, for the water
is of such great depth that one cannot
anchor.
You never saw such a mob as there
is now here, all madly rushing for the
gold fields. There are thirty-five yes
sells carrying passengers from Port
land and Seattle to Dyea and Skaguay,
and all are going fun, with more
freight than they can carry. Seattle
is booming.
ut is sight worth seeing going up
these channels-mountain on both
sides from 5000 to 5000 feet high, COW
cred with snow and ice. Some of the
glaciers are three miles wide and thirty
miles long and from 1000 to 5000 feet
deep of the bluest ice.
The night we arrived at juneau we
had to keep first to right and then left
to keep clear of icebergs. We broke
the record from Victoria TO Juneau. 5S
hours 1S minutes, and 6 hours SO
minutes to Skaguay. The best trip of
the Queen was so hours to Juneau.
Our time is not bad for the old ship in
waters.
The Cottage City came into juneau
while We were there with her stern
and forty feet of her keel gone. There
were three hundred passengers on
board. She had three feet of water in
her engine room before they could find
a place TO beach her.
The Whitelaw got ashore before she
reached Skaguay, and then burned to
the waters edge about five hundred
yards from US.
Il want to give you little idea
about Skaguay. 1t is buflt, you might
say, on a mud fiat, between high
Everything is mountain
up here, and not a bit of level land to
be seen. The wharf where we lay is a
half-mile long to town, and the rise of
the tide is 2S feet. The tide goes nearly
to the town; and such a town. 1t is full
of gamblers and gin-mills. You will
first come to the house of some family.
next door a shop, next a hotel and next
a gambling den, and that is the way
all over town. Up the valley toward
the White Pass hundreds of dead
horses lie, and the water the people
use comes down that way. When sum-
mer sets in they will die off like sheep.
I'VE took forty Indians at juneau
to work cargo, as the gang at Ska
quay wants 10 cents and 81 per hour.
We had to get United States troops to
patrol the docks to protect the Indians.
The night the Indians were paid off
they got up courage and went up town.
bOut 3 O'clock fbev canoa r,,nuinor
IN board. The gang had fired about a
dozen shots at them. You never
saw such scared lot of Indians in
your life. The head one woke me up,
saying that three of them had been
shot, but the alarm proved to be false,
as no one was shot. You can form
some idea of the tough crowd at
Skaguay."