The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-06-13
DESOLATR PACIFIC REGION.
THE HISTORIC WEST COAST OF
 VANCOUVER ISLAND.

CheerIess Land of shipwrecks and a
 Dying Race-Scenes of Many Mur-
 ders of Ship Crews by Indians-EarIy
 Nayfgators Who Landed on These Shores.
 Thirty-six hours ride by rail and steamer from this city will land a Port lander in the heart of the widest re- zion to be found anywhere west of the Mississippi River, says the Portland Oregonian. The west coast of Van couver Island is this untamed spot, where time has stood still for more than one hundred years and where, owing to the topography of the coun- try, there will be little or no advance ment in the ensuing hundred years. Vancouver, Quadra, Gray and Captain Cook all sailed along this coast and visited the numerous little harbors that make indentations in the forbidding Ishore line. They warped and lowed their comparatively small craft around numerous islands and up canals and in- lets, reaching far into the interior of the island and in their wake came the fleets of the traders who bought fish and fur from the Indians. Those were the two great staples of more than one hundred years ago and they are still in the lead, in fact are the only resources on which the degenerate remnants of the once powerful tribe depend for a livelihood.
 White men are scarce along the west coast, about the only representatives being the stcrekeeper at the Indian vil- llages. To supply the wants of these few white traders and to carry the mail, the Canadian Pacific despatches small steamer every seven days. For the past year the Queen City, Capt. Town send, has been covering the route, and round trip voyage on this craft is one of the most interesting trips that can be made in the same length Of time anywhere in the West. More than half of the voyage is spent in cruising well inland on bays and inlets that run back from Barclay, Kyoquot, Nootka, 1 Clayoquet, Quaatsino and other sounds which lead out to the open sea. The steamer usually makes her first ! stop out of Victoria at San Juan and | then at Carmanah Point and Cape Beale Beale.
 The most important landing place in Barclay Sound is the new cable station at Bamfield Creek. This is where the Australian cable leaves the shores of North America, and. there are about twenty men employed here, some of them being fortunate enough, to have l their wives with them. After leaving Bamfield Creek, the Queen City steams up the Alberni Canal far inland to the old town of Alberni, where the ships from England loaded timber" fifty years ago. The ruins of the old mill are still in evidence, but it has been many a day since water lumber carrier sailed up this beautiful inlet The west coast of Vancouver Island is rich in his toric lore, and there is much tragedy mixed with the history. In Friendly Cove Sound, the Northwest America, the first vessel built. on the Pacific Coast, was launched by Capt, Meares k in September 17SS, the American ship Columbia, Capt Gray being in the harbor at the time of the launching. Fifteen years later in the same cove, almost the entire crew of the American ship Boston was massacred by the 1 Indians
 At Clayoquot Sound sthe red devils murdered almost the entire crew of the Tonquinn, which had gone north from Astoria to trade. Then there were tragedies of the sea almost without number, and in the early days the survivors of ships wrecked on the west coast frequently met a death on shore worse than drowning.
 | And over all this forbidding coast there rests a glamer of historic interest that will never be dispelled. The names of Gray, Vancouver, Meares Quadra, Cook and number of others will be remembered until the end of