376 



THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



ALASKA-YUKON-PACIFIC EXPOSITION. 



The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, now in prog- 

 ress at Seattle, Wash., is not the largest of expositions. 

 Comprehensive and extensive as it is, the assertion is not 

 advanced for the fair that, like some of the Northwest's 

 strikingly beautiful flowers, will blossom respendently until 

 the middle of October. But it is to be the most beautiful. 

 The thing of all things that has lifted the Alaska-Yukon- 

 Pacific Exposition above its predecessors is the fact that 

 its natural advantages have never been equaled. Tower- 

 ing even above the loftiest structures are the trees of 

 Washington's famous forests, and everywhere a skyline 

 of beautiful firs, typical of the rugged spirit of the west, 

 makes a picture unique in the gallery of exposition mas- 

 terpieces. To the east the Cascade Mountains, through 

 whose beauties thousands must travel to reach their desti- 



seen almost within walking distance, when, as a matter of 

 fact, they are many miles away. 



Lakes Washington and .Union are beautiful boundaries 

 for the grounds, and Puget Sound, far-famed as one of the 

 world's most important highways of commerce and most 

 beautiful bodies of water, intervenes to make the distant 

 Olympics more magnificent. Stretching for miles from 

 the exposition gates is the great City of Seattle, with a 

 population of 300,000 and a throbbing pulse of almost 

 feverish activity. 



To the great mass of its visitors, the Alaska-Yukon- 

 Pacific exposition will be an excursion into lands un- 

 known. As its three-part title would indicate, its purpose 

 is to exploit the Northland and the states and countries 

 bordering on the great ocean which seems destined to 

 replace the Atlantic as the theater of the events which 



View from Government Building, Mt. Ranier in the Background. 



nation, are just far enough away to display their snow- 

 clad beauty in soft outlines and picturesque contour. To 

 the east the jagged Olympics, rock-buttressed against the 

 sea. thrust inaccessible peaks abruptly into a sky that at 

 sunset is as truly glorious as any in the world. Rainier, 

 a sublime mountain that because of its 15,000 feet in 

 height, is a byword wherever geography is a study, and 

 Mounts Baker and St. Helena, two other stately peaks. 



make up the scenario of the drama of world politics. Here, 

 where the personification of culture and progress, as 

 represented in the art of formal exposition buildings and 

 gardens, is strangely set down in an almost primeval 

 forest, mingle the oldest and newest civilization. The far 

 Occident and the far Orient are bartering learning as well 

 as goods, and many religions, philosophies, cults and isms 

 (Continued on page 383.) 



