Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1911-09-12
ALASKAN LETTER.
Written by Miss Rosalia Bohrer, Who
Spent Her Vacation in That
Country.
Mr.. IH0ger +:

passage, one passes over thousand
miles of fairly quiet waters, which
have great variety of names such as
the Gulf of Georgia, Seymour Narrows,
JamestOne Strait, Broughton Channel
and many others. Exposure to the
open ocean is experienced in about
four places Seymour Narrows, Char
lotte Sound, and Dixon Entrance,
where one passes from British into
Alaskan waters.
Skagway is an even thousand miles
from Seattle and this inland ocean
passage for the entire distance is quiet
and clear as an inland lake or river.
Not chain of islands, but myriads
of islands separate it from the ocean.
These are covered completely with
evergreen trees, mainly pines, spruce,
and cedar, which subsist upon the
damp atmosphere quite as much as
upon the nourishment derived from
below for in many cases they seem
to spring from barren rocks. The low
islands along the coast of British
Columbia gradually become promon-
tories of considerable height and later
precipitous mountains nearly all of
whose valleys bear glaciers of small
as well as of enormous size. | had the
pleasure of fairly close inspection of
fhran lopmn thn ui6Cnto
Mendenhall and LeConte, but the
Taku, three hundred miles in extent
l saw only at great distance.
The U. S. boats touch at all of the
towns of Southeastern Alaska either
going or coming, and freight, with all
of them is one of the important items.
Each town has it's interesting fea-
lures and there is always time to see
those features while the boat is I'M
loading freight. Ketchikan is hailed
with delight on account of its being
the first Alaskan port. Many boats
are at the wharyes, Canadian as well
United States, though the former
stop at few other ports except Juneau
and SkagWay. At Ketchikan all went
ashore to watch the salmon making
the journey from the ocean up a
swift mountain stream to lay their
eggs. There were many foaming cat
aracts to jump, the smallest of them
as difficult as Big Bull falls, would
be at its highest. The fish were not
always successful at first, but repeat
ed efforts put them in the upper
waters.
The main fault to be found with
southeastern Alaskan ports is, first of
all, that they lack site, but this is a
natural obstacle as the entire coast is
mountainous. In fact the entire
country of Alaska is one OF noun
tains upon mountains, though whose
valleys one can see further vistaS of
ranges upon ranges, looking purple
mysterious and unspeakably wild, I'M
explored and mighty in the distance
Nc, prose-writer can fttingly describe
Alaska the poet only has the license
to trespass upon the Imagination and
to use words which will really picture
the country as it is:
"Monstrous moody pathetic
The last OF lands and the first"
Haines with Fit. Seward close by
has the best site for a town of any
size, and Haines is likely to grow
soon for railroad is presently to be
constructed from that point on the
coast inland to Fairbanks.
The visits made again and again to
salmon canneries were interesting fea-
lures of the trip. These canneries
are built in quiet harbors called coves
and they rarely have much of site,
the mountains rising almost directly
from the waters edge. The green fir
trees are reflected beautifully in these
quiet cove waters whose surface is
disturbed by the constant jumping of
hundreds of salmon, rare place for a
fisherman, only not enough excite
ment in the game, for they are caught
as easily as on fish farm. These can
nerTies are owned and operated by
the Alaskan-Pacific Fisheries Co., who
employ only few white men to man.
age while all the rest are Cinnamon and
Indians of the Thlingit and Chill
coot tribes. We watched the process
of making cans and lids as well as
that of preparing and cooking the
fish. 1t is all done with up-to-date
machinery, the latest and most valu-
able addition to which has been the
iron chink, an invention of untold
value because of the great amount of
work it does in preparing the fish from
the beginning of the process.
The dining room, to accommodate the
Chinaman alone, contained many small
round tables at each of which five
Cinnamon were chattering away and
at the same time eating rice dressed
with Chinese oil, out of small bowls.
In the center of each table was a
large shallow bowl containing fried
cabbage and each man reached PERIOD
ically for bite with his chop-sticks.
This was their dinner. Six hours
were spent at one port alone, Yes Bay,
loading salmon for Seattle.
Another interesting item of FREIGHT
on the return trip was million dol
lars in gold brought from the interior
in stout iron box. Gold is by no
means a rare sight. At one of the
hotels two hundred and fifty miles in
land, the manager was handling large
pokes of placer gold With apparently
as little concern as though it were
brass tacks and 1 vas given ample
opportunity to pick nuggets from a
blower during his absence from the