P

ORT SIMPSON, but a few miles north of Prince Rupert, is the last stop in British territory, on the northbound trip, and after the excitement of the "boom" town, it was too tame to make much of an impression on us.

Oysters are proverbially quiet, but the ones in question, while not noisy, according to the conversation carried on between the ship and the shore across the gang plank, which happened to be placed near our stateroom, were noisome. The consignee refused to receive them and the ship refused to take them back, and while not

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destroy your appetite at the table, and get between you and all the choice bits of scenery.. Doubtless if this had happened south of parallel forty-nine, and the oysters had complained of "discrimination" to the Interstate Commerce Commission, that body would have championed their cause and seen that the poor dumb oyster was placed on a parity with other crustaceans, raw or half-baked.

There are two international complications on the Alaskan trip; one is that the Canadian boats, on account of custom duties, carry little or no freight for American ports (excepting such through freight which is transshipped, in bond, to points in Canadian territory) and in consequence their stops at the American ports are very brief, and through passengers have little or no opportunity for seeing these towns, while on the other hand the American ships make just as brief stops at British Columbian ports. There is no appreciable difference in the rate in using one line north and the other south bound, but this entails a somewhat indefinite layover at Skagway and, in the busy season, a chance of getting unsatisfactory accommodations on the southbound ships.

The other complication is in the use of postage stamps; unless you keep a map before you, or are certain of your territory, you are likely to go ashore and drop mail, with American stamps affixed, in a Canadian postoffice, or with Canadian stamps attached, into an American postoffice, and in either case, it is treated in the same manner as if no stamps were placed on it, i. e., it is destroyed and your friends will look skeptical when you return home and tell them of the cards and letters you mailed them en route. There is the alternative of mailing them on shipboard, where the purser will sort themaccording to the stamps affixed, but the chances are, knowing that the ship he is on is likely to be the first to reach the railway postal service of either country, he will carry them for the round trip and mail them in a lump at the southern termini, and the letters which you proudly dated at various points along the coast, and expected to bear Alaskan postmarks, will all bear Vancouver or Seattle postmarks, and unless your friends have an immense amount of confidence in your integrity and veracity, they are likely to class you with Dr. Cook, and make sarcastic allusions to the mythical northern lodge-room of the Ananias Club.

Wrangel is the next stopping point. The town is named for Baron von Wrangel, a famous explorer, and the Russian governor of Alaska, in the early '30s, and not from any disposition on the part of the inhabitants to be unduly contentious. On the contrary, it seemed to be an unusually peaceful village, but this may have been because nearly all the men were away from home at the fishing grounds. We went into one general store whose comprehensive stock included bibles and freshly-taken bear pelts, and the proprietor informed us on account of this yearly exodus he was badly in need of a clerk, and insinuated if we liked the looks of things we could easily arrange to stay in Wrangel indefinitely. When we got outside I asked Mrs. K. if this was a proposal of marriage or an offer of a job, or both, and if so, which one it was intended for. On account of its indefiniteness on those vital points (and for other reasons) we decided not to pursue the subject.

Wrangel is a town of considerable importance in Alaskan history. It was established by the Russians as a fur-trading post in 1825, on account of which they had a clash with the Hudson Bay Company which came near precipitating serious trouble between Russia and Great Britain. The matter was settled by Russia paying an indemnity and leasing to the Hudson Bay Company the strip of territory extending along the coast of British Columbia from Dixon's Entrance to the southern border of Alaska, known as the lisiere, or thirty-mile strip, through which Canada so much desired a passage after the discovery of gold in the Klondike.

After Alaska became the property of the United States, Wrangel was made a military post, and two companies of United States soldiers garrisoned there, rather extensive barracks being built for their occupancy and on this account the town is still known as Fort Wrangel. The post was abandoned in 1870, the buildings sold to private individuals, and are now nearly all destroyed, one small building remaining, which we were told is now used as the city prison. prison. Judging from its appearance, it would not be safe to incarcerate a really unscrupulous malefactor therein when an excursion steamer was in port, as he might be tempted to dispose of the village bastile, in its entirety, to some souvenir-hunting tourist as a curiosity.

When the Klondike mines were first

White Pass and the town fell back to its former quiet existence.

Wrangel is now a town of some 800 to 1,000 inhabitants and is a Paradise for tourists and big-game sportsmen. Its climate is delightful and the growing of fruit and berries, particularly the latter, is a much more profitable occupation than mining, although there are some paying gold, silver and copper mines in the vicinity, likewise valuable timber and fine fishing grounds.

A considerable amount of freight is here transshipped for points on the Stikine River

it was thought it would double discount in value any gold mine in Alaska, for the stones were the largest ever found, ranging in size from a small pea to a hickory nut and the shale foundation was thickly studded with them, but, alas, never a clear, unclouded, flawless crystal has as yet been found, and the stones are, therefore, practically valueless, except as curiosities or cabinet specimens.

Very recently a company, composed of St. Paul and Minneapolis women, has been formed, which purposes mining and prepar

were limited to the feminine sex. In reply they only smiled and shook their heads and shut up like clams, and we were left to infer that the men of the Twin Cities are so full of flaws that the Alaskan garnets seem perfect by comparison.

Our visit to Juneau, the capital of Alaska, was not very satisfactory. We arrived early in the morning, about the time people were getting out of bed. It was drizzling rain, the streets were slimy, and the few stores open had a frowzy appearance, which was borne out by the few frowzy, half-awake

in Juneau is one foot in ten, and within the city limits there is not one naturally level spot 100 feet square. The streets are narrow and winding, and rise sharply in terraces, one above the other, while the roadways are trestles, plank covered. The houses hang on the side of the mountain, like bird cages on a wall, and are reached by flights of steps so long and steep it must require a clear head and strong legs to reach them. The capitol is on a hill quite a distance above the town, and is an example of faith rewarded, for this eminence was named

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and when sheltered from the breeze, or when the boat was not in motion, heavy wraps were superfluous.

The Gastineau Channel, quite narrow at this point, separates Juneau and the mainland from Douglas Island, on which is located the stamp mills and dwellings of the employes, numbering some 3,000, of the great Treadwell gold mine, the largest quartz mine in the world. Gold was discovered in this region in 1880 by Joseph Juneau, for whom the mountain and town are named. A year later it was discovered on Douglas Island, and John Treadwell very reluctantly took some of the original claims staked out thereon, and which formed the nucleus around which the great Treadwell mines have developed, in payment for a bad debt. To-day over 2,000 stamps, each one dropping on an average of ninety times per minute, operate continuously, days, nights and Sundays, stopping but twice per year, Christmas and Fourth of July. The shafts are sunken to a depth of 700 to 900 feet, one of them being directly under the Gastineau Channel, and while the ore is of a very low grade, averaging less than $2.00 per ton, yet it is estimated that the net income to the owners, from the four mines located on the island, averages $6,000 per day. The island is about twenty-five miles long, and seemed to be brilliantly lighted with electricity from end to end, but the rain and mist were so thick both times we passed, we could not see even the faintest outlines, and it looked like a big bright city imprisoned under a heavy ground-glass dome, through which only the combined rays of millions of electric bulbs could pene

trate.

Vessels drawing more than three feet of water cannot pass through the Gastineau Channel, so the "Princess" had to retrace her course around the southern end of Douglas Island, thence head due north into the fifty-five-mile-long Lynn Canal, the last lap of the course via the Inner Passage.

The last two days of the trip we had visible evidences that we were nearing arctic regions in the form of icebergs and glaciers, but there was very little change in the temperature. Possibly the wind blowing across the ice fields had a keener edge to its breath, but the sun was bright and warm,

The glaciers were something stupendous

an entire valley as far back as the eye, even when assisted by a powerful marine glass, could see. The snows of unnumbered seasons continually press the mass forward, inch by inch, until it reaches the sea, there to melt as the warm Kuro Siwo, or Japan Current, laves its borders, or breaks off and floats out to sea in the form of icebergs. We saw no very large icebergs, but there were numbers of them floating around, their tops rising to a considerable distance above the blue-gray water, gleaming white and a luminous exquisite blue, so deep and beautiful it hurt, not one's eyes, but one's heart to look at it. It must have been a blue like this which Lafcadio Hearn, in his "Azure Psychology," likens to a "soul made visible through which there may somehow quiver back to us out of the Infinite something of all the aspirations of the ancient faiths, and the power of the vanished gods, and the passion, the beauty of all the prayers ever uttered by the lips of men."

The

The trip through the Lynn Canal is exquisitely beautiful, all the way, and of itself would repay one for the voyage. water is clear, calm and sparkling; there are practically no inlets along the shores, but the mountains rise out of the sea, sometimes in grand upward, pine-clad sweeps, down the sides of which little brooks have started trickling merrily to meet the dark blue water below, but have been touched en route by the powerful hand of the Frost King and transformed into miniature glaciers, down which the frost fairies might delight to toboggan, sometimes in bold cliffs and palisades, reaching up to crowning domes of perpetual ice and snow.

"There where the mighty mountains bare
their fangs unto the moon;
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in
the snow-bright bitter noon,
And the glacier-gutted streams sweep
down at the clarion call of June."

There where the northern end of the Lynn Canal is reached, the trip to Alaska, via the Inner Passage, is ended. Like a grand Wagner chorus, rising in stately progressions of harmony, wider and deeper, until it ends in a climax of clanging chords which reverberate in the memory forever, so the North Pacific coast scenery, for the