The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-02-28
A TRIP TO THE FAR NORTH

| trip to Alaska. Mr.. Beach Is an old
time resident of Hays, and his letter
will no doubt be of interest to the
readers of the Free Pres:
My trip to Alaska of 1000 miles
the round trip, with the Inghams,
commenced at 9 p. m, at Vancouver,
in the boat princess Alice" a beau
tiful boat, but not large, carrying on
~ 220 passengers. The eats and ser
vice were extra fine, and the boat
carried a large amount of freight,
| nearly all of which went to Skagway
where it goes over the Narrow Guage
White Pass and Yukon Railroad as
far as White Horse to the end of the
road, some 12O miles and then by lake
and river transportation to interior
points, as it is all freight and sup
plies for the Dawson and Yukon
country.
During the night we passed
| through the Seymour Narrows which
is a narrow rocky passage Some of
| the passengers remained up to see 1t,
but not I. As we came through 1T
again in the night when returning
only know about by hearsay.
Our first stop of about two hours
next day was at Alert Bay an Indian
fishing village, where all kinds and
| sizes of Indians were seen but few
white people. The Government sup
ports a mission here for the young
Indian children, with the Church of
English religious services Sunday.
Monday morning at 9 a. m. after
| a somewhat monotonous trip over
perfectly still water with the wooded
shores too far away for one to see
much, except for a three hours run
| through Queen Charlotte Sound
! which opens out into the ocean, and
was rough enough to cause some sea-
| sickness.
We arrived at Prince Rupert, the
| Western terminal point of the Grand
| Trunk Railroad, and which is the far
| thest north of any continuous rail-
road, and remained four hours. This
| city was started with a great boom
| and its population at one time was
| over six thousand, now around TWEEN
| ty-fve hundred. The business streets
are fairly good, having been blasted
out of the rocks and were reached
| by team, by a roundabout climb, by
plank sidewalks and several pair of
stairs by foot people. Back from
the business center was a city laid
cut in city blocks large enough to
! have $4,000 people, and all on planks
| supported by upright timbers or pill
| ings. There were some nice houses
| but a large number vacant. Where
the lawns should be are rocks and
stumps only. In returning to the
waterfront 1 climbed down stairs
with 167 steps.
In the evening we reached Ketchi-
kan, the first port of entry, so called,
into Alaska. We were here quizzed
| 0y the American Customs House Of
ficers and had to pass single file be-
fore an American doctor. Two thous-
| horo Tho o1fu b1IIlf on
| piling over the bay, at the foot of
! Dee Mountain, all plank roads and
walks. Here are some fish canneries
| and mining prospects a few miles in
terror. AS the of fall from Gamer
les is all dumped into the bay, when
| the tide is low as it was when we re-
| turned, one feels like clamping
clothes pin on his nose. The same
condition prevails at Wrangle, our
next stop early Tuesday morning
About one thousand people here, at
| least half Indians and it seems to
the home of the totem pole-One in
front of nearly every Indian house
which is built largely of cedar
shakes. From here was stolen the
| totem pole now located on Pioneer
| Square, Seattle, by a bunch of Seattle
| business men on their return from a
trip, in the days when business men
used more liquid refreshment than
they do now. Fishing and selling
curios seem to be the only business
here, which, with the addition of min
| ing, is the business condition at all
our stops.
Our inland passage narrows up
from this point and was very inter
esting. In the forenoon we passed
through the Petersburg Narrows. In
the afternoon the boat makes a spe-
cial side trip to an inlet, where we
saw the Taku moving or sliding gla-
cier. 1t is a wonderful sight, three
miles wide where it reaches the bay,
and extends back through mountain
crevice sixty miles. 1t is at all times
moving and as it reaches the bay 1t
breaks off and fills the bay with small
floating ice bergs. They are all col
| ors of the rainbow and are irregular
in shape, some of them as large
around as a good sized house but not
so high. We also saw in this bay the
Dead Glacier so called because it is
huge mass of ice and dry snow, ex-
tending back eighty miles, but it is
stationary.
i We reached Juneau, the capital of
the territory, in the evening IN a pour
ing rain, and remained there about
three hours (There are $500 people
L
mountain which goes up nearly
straight for thousand feet. I think
mining is the principal industry here,
as it is at Douglas, across the inlet,
reached by ferries. They claim Jun
eau to be the wettest point on the
Pacific coast. They admit they get
more rain fall than Prince Rupert
where the~annual rain fall is $50 to
$50 inches. We inquired here as to
their annual rainfall, but they said,
eve don't count it by inches, it rains
every day in the year"
At Douglas is located the famous
Treadwell gold mines, said to have
been the largest gold producing mine
in the world, but last spring it had a
cave-in and the mine filed with wa
ter, covering all the rich ore and all
the steel and mining tools, and fifty
miles of railroad tracks They are
now working some low grade sur
face ore, and it is not expected the
mining property now flooded will
ever be reclaimed.
It is one hundred miles from here
to Shagway, through narrow pas
~ Co-a1 -o1I