14 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



is at once well appreciated when the largest States or Territories are 

 each held up in contrast. 



The bewildering indentation and endless length of the coast, the 

 thousands of islands and islets, the numerous volcanoes and tower- 

 ing peaks, and the maze of large and small rivers, make a com- 

 parison of Alaska, in any other respect than that of mere super- 

 ficial area, wholly futile when brought into contrast with the rest 

 of the North American continent. Barred out as she is from close 

 communion with her new relationship and sisterhood in the Ameri- 

 can Union by her remote situation, and still more so by the un- 

 happiness of her climate, she is not going to be inspected from 

 the platforms of flying express trains ; and, save the little sheltered 

 jaunt by steamer from Puget Sound to Sitka and immediate vicin- 

 ity, no ocean-tourists are at all likely to pry into the lonely nooks 

 and harbors of her extended coasts, surf-beaten and tempest-swept 

 as they are every month in the year. 



But, in the discharge of official duty, in the search for precious 

 metals, coal and copper, in the desire to locate profitable fishing 

 ventures, and in the interests of natural science, hundreds of ener- 

 getic, quick-witted Americans have been giving Alaska a very keen 

 examination during the last eighteen years. The sum of their 

 knowledge throws full understanding over the subject of Alaskan 

 life and resources, as viewed and appreciated from the American 

 basis ; there is no difficulty in now making a fair picture of any 

 section, no matter how remote, or of conducting the reader into 

 the very presence of Alaska's unique inhabitants, anywhere they 

 may be sought, and just as they live between Point Barrow and Cape 

 Fox, or Attoo and the Kinik mouth. 



In going to Alaska to-day, the traveller is invariably taken into 

 the Sitkan district, and no farther ; naturally he goes there and no- 

 where beyond, for the best of all reasons : he can find no means of 

 transportation at all proper as regards his safety and comfort which 

 will convey him outside of the Alexander archipelago. To this 

 southeastern region of Alaska, however, one may journey every 

 month in the year from the waters of the Columbia River and 

 Puget Sound, in positive pleasure, on a seaworthy steamer fitted 

 with every marine adjunct conducive to the passenger's comfortable 

 existence in transit ; it is a landlocked sea-trip of over eighteen 

 hundred miles, made often to and from Sitka without tremor 

 enough on the part of the vessel even to spill a brimming glass of 



