THROUGH WONDERLAND . 
51 
when the tourist travels through the greatest Wonderland of the wide West to 
reach these curious sights, he or she will be paid over and over tenfold. 
So far everything may be seen from the decks of an elegant steamer; but, 
should the tourist want a little “ roughing it,” let him stop over in Glacier Bay, 
from one steamer’s visit to another, two weeks to a month apart, and clamber 
over the glaciers and row around among the icebergs to his heart’s content, and 
until he almost imagines he is an arctic explorer. He will descend from the 
tumbled surface of the frozen seas of ice on the glacier’s surface, only to wade 
through grass up to his waist, that waves in the light winds like the pretty pam¬ 
pas fields of South America. In these fields of grasses he may pitch his tent, 
which, with a cook stove and a month’s rations for each person, is all that 
is needed, beyond the baggage of the other tourists. Hunting is found 
in the mountains back of the bay, fish in the waters, and small game in the 
woods near by. 
Or, if longer and rougher jaunts are wanted, ascend the Lynn Channel, and 
then the Chilkat, or Chilkoot, Inlet, hiring two or three Indians to carry one’s 
camping effects on their backs to the lakes at the source of the great Yukon 
river of the British Northwest Territory and Alaska,—the third river of Amer¬ 
ica. Going by the Chilkoot trail, over the Alaskan coast range of mountains, 
which will furnish Alpine climbing enough to suit the most eager, on snow and 
glacier ice, one comes to a series of lakes aggregating 150 miles in extent; 
and along these he may paddle and return, shooting an occasional brown 
or black bear, moose, caribou or mountain goat, while aquatic life is every¬ 
where on these pretty Alpine lakes. 
Throughout the whole inland passage, one is passing now and then some 
Indian village, of more or less imposing appearance and numbers. In Alaska 
they all belong to a single great tribe, the T’linkit, bound together by a com¬ 
mon language, but by no stronger ties, for each village, or cluster of villages, 
makes a sub-tribe, having no sympathies with the other, and they often war 
against one another. 
It is not often that one would want to call a tourist’s attention to an Indian 
village, for the average encampment or habitation of the “noble red man” is 
not the most attractive sight or study ; but, in the T’linkit towns, we have no 
such hesitation, for, in the curiosities to be seen in their houses and surround¬ 
ings, they are certainly one of the strangest people on earth. They are the 
artistic savages of the world. In front of each log house, and often rearing its 
head much higher than it by two or three fold, are one or two posts, called 
“totem poles,” which are merely logs on end; but, on the seaward face, the 
savage sculptor has exhausted all the resources of his barbaric imagination 
in cutting in hideous faces and figures, that, with a hundred or so such terrible 
“totems”.in front of a village, makes one think of some nightmare of his 
childish days. The houses, too, are carved inside and out. Every utensil they 
have is sculptured deep with diabolical but well executed designs, and their 
spoons of mountain sheep and goat horn are marvels of savage work. All 
