UP THE S KEEN A RIVER. 183 



British Columbia wharves ! What coloring, what a Babel of tongues 

 — Tlingits from Alaska, Haidas from the Queen Charlotte Islands, 

 Tsimshians from the Skeena, Kwakiutls from Vancouver, Chinamen, 

 Japanese, Greeks, Scandinavians, Englishmen, and Yankees; men, 

 women, children, dogs, and from two to six woolly bear cubs. The 

 Caledonia is the exclusive property of the Hudson Bay Company; 

 she is not a common carrier, and does not encourage either passengers 

 or freight, as the tariff rates prove. There is a feverish haste and 

 hustle about the movements of the steamer which are fairly con- 

 tagious. She makes her first trip early, in the spring, as soon as the 

 ice has left the rivers, on the Stickene; then it is a wild, eager 

 ambition of the company to have her make four trips up the Skeena 

 before the river closes up in the fall. 



We had as passengers two prospectors from Spokane, a mining 

 expert from Victoria, a native evangelist from Essington, and about 

 fifty Indians, mostly women and children, each one with a varied 

 assortment of boxes, bales, bundles, and dogs; the crew numbered 

 twenty, and we had about one hundred tons of freight on board. 



From Essington to Hazelton is one hundred and fifty-two miles, 

 a panorama of unending and unbroken beauty; never monotonous, 

 always interesting, it presents a river voyage which is probably not 

 equaled, certainly not excelled, by any other river voyage of the same 

 length on the American continent or in the world. We began the 

 voyage on Sunday morning, we tied up in front of Hazelton on 

 Saturday night. To recount in detail the haps and mishaps of each 

 day's progress would take more time than I can command. In one 

 day we made forty-eight miles, on another day we made one hundred 

 yards, on another day we didn't make a foot. With plenty of water 

 under her keel the Caledonia could run twenty miles an hour; she 

 could cut her way through a sand bar at the rate of a yard or so an 

 hour; and at either rate of progress she burned each hour from one 

 and a half to two cords of wood. 



For the first ten miles the scenery does not differ materially from 

 that which we are accustomed to in the inland sea from Victoria to 

 Alaska. Then we enter fresh water and for the next forty miles 

 steam through one long mountain gorge, for here the river has cut 

 completely through the Cascade Range. The mountains begin at the 

 water's edge and rise almost perpendicularly to heights of from three 

 to four thousand feet. Their lower limits are covered with dense 

 green forests, which seem to grow out of the solid rock. The summits 

 are smooth and glistening, and often covered with snow and ice. 

 Here and there we can trace some tiny rivulet issuing from an ice 

 bed high up among the clouds, and every portion of its course can 

 be traced down the steep mountain wall until it gives one final and 



