26 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



by employes of the great English company ; he fired upon them, 

 beat them off, and held his own so well that the grateful Baron Von 

 Wrangel, who then was governor-in-chief, bestowed the name of 

 the plucky officer upon the large, rugged island which overshadows 

 the scene of the conflict, and which it bears upon every chart to- 

 day.* 



Again, in 1862, the solitude of Wrangel was broken by the 

 sudden eruption of over two thousand British Columbia and Cali- 

 fornian miners, who rushed up the Stickeen River on a gold 

 "excitement." Quite a fleet of sail and steam-vessels hung about 

 the place for a brief season, when the flurry died out, and the rest- 

 less gold-hunters fled in search of other diggings, taking all their 

 belongings with them. 



The steamer does not tarry long at Wrangel ; a few packages 

 fall upon the shaky wharf, the captain never leaves the bridge, and 

 in obedience to his tinkling bell, the screw scarce has paused ere it 

 starts anew, and the vessel soon heads right about and west, out to 

 the open swell of the great Pacific ; but it takes six or seven hours 

 of swift travel over the glassy surface of Clarence Strait to pass the 

 rough heads of Kuprianov Island on the right, flanked by the 

 sombre, densely wooded elevations of Prince of Wales on the left. 

 The lower, yet sharper spurs of the straggling Kou forests force 

 our course here directly to the south. It is said that more than 

 fifteen hundred islands, big and little, stud this archipelago from 

 Cape Disappointment to Cross Sound. You will not attempt to 

 count them, but readily prefer to believe it is so. From the great 

 bulk of Vancouver's Land to the tiny islet just peeping above 

 water, they are all covered to the snow-line from the sea-level with 

 an olive-green coniferous forest islands right ahead, islands on 

 every side, islands all behind. You stand on deck and wonder 

 where the egress from the unruffled inland lake is to be as you 

 enter it ; no possible chance to go ahead much faster, is your con- 

 stant thought, which keeps following every sharp turn of the vessel 

 as she rapidly swings right about here, there, and everywhere, in 

 following the devious path of this weird course to her destination. 



Unless the fog shuts down very thick, the darkness of night 

 does not impede the steamer's steady progress, for the pilot sees 



* Zarenbo Island it blocks the northern end of Clarence Strait, and af 

 fords many varied vistas of rare scenic beauty. 



