THE 



National Geographic Magazine 



Vol. IX APRIL, 1898 No. 4 



THE NORTHWEST PASSES TO THE YUKON 

 By Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore 



While Vancouver's ships lay at anchor in July, 1794, in his 

 Port Frederick, the Komtokton of the natives and the Hoonah 

 post-office of today, at the northwest end of Chichagof island, 

 Messrs Whidby and Lemesurier, in a small boat, followed the 

 north shore of Icy straits and penetrated the long Lynn canal, 

 bringing back reports that ended Vancouver's hope and search 

 for a northwest passage through from the Atlantic — De Fuca's 

 straits and Del Fonte's river myths and dreams of " by pothetical 

 projectors " and " closet navigators," as this greatest of surveyors 

 and explorers bitterly termed them. 



Whidby 's men rowed up that finest fiord of all that landscape 



coast to Point Seduction, so named because of the " exceedingly 



artful character " of the natives, who met them at that point and 



iftred them further on up the western arm (Chilkat inlet) to the 



'mouth of the river, just beyond the modern Pyramid Harbor. 



These artful natives had then enjoyed trade with white men, 

 and the Chilkats and Chilkoots, really one tribe and closely 

 related, were not only the greatest warriors and boldest bucca- 

 neers of the coast, but were great " grease-traders " and middle- 

 men as well. Two '"grease trails " led away from the two inlets 

 a.cross the range to the game country beyond, where the milder 

 plains people, the " Stick " or Tinneh tribes of Athabascan stock, 

 were content to trap and trade at great disadvantage, exchanging 

 their pelts and horns for the fish oil and sea products of the coast 

 tribes and the goods which the latter obtained from white traders. 

 Russian, ' Boston,' and Hudson's Bay Company traders realized 



