IeHeteernnUe wee beO NG bol Lele tetsl Nn 15 
the capital, in Alaska. At Alert Bay we saw our first salmon cannery and 
a fishing boat unloading its catch onto an endless chain which carried the 
fish directly into the cannery. Here also were the first totem poles standing 
before the Indian homes and in the cemetery. Prince Rupert is the head of 
rail transport for the Canadian west coast and a correspondingly busy town. 
Ketchikan, the first port in Alaska, aside from the canneries was principally 
curio shops and liquor stores (six in two blocks) with a lot of totem poles 
scattered around to give local color. Before reaching Wrangell we were to 
pass through Wrangell Narrows, a shallow and tortuous channel marked 
by forty-six buoys, but there was some fog and the tide was low, so we 
anchored and waited until morning and thus made a daytime stop at 
Wrangell where only a night stop was scheduled on the northward run. 
During the afternoon a visit was made to Taku Glacier, the ship approach- 
ing to within a quarter-mile of the face of the glacier, which was a mile 
across the face where it met the sea, from 100 to 200 feet high, and 95 miles 
long—an enormous mass of solid ice. A number of small floes which had 
broken off were floating around us and we could go no closer because of the 
possible danger if a large one should break off and fall while we were there. 
In the evening we reached Juneau, the capital of Alaska Territory, and 
visited the capitol building and a museum which is in it, hoping to find the 
answers to some questions about water birds we had been puzzling over 
with the inadequate books we were able to carry with us. The lady in charge 
of the museum was not able to satisfy us, but referred us to Mr. O’Neill, 
who had been the naturalist there and was now the clerk at the Baranof 
Hotel. We called on Mr. O’Neill and found him a most interesting and 
entertaining young man who knew his subject and willingly helped us all 
he could in the short time we had left. Several large paintings by an artist 
named Laurence were hung in the hotel rooms which gave a real feeling for 
the days of 98 and the difficulties and perils of that time. The artist has 
since died and you perhaps read of how he predicted his own death within 
a few hours. 
The end of the Princess Alice’s cruise was at Skagway, a town that 
during the gold rush reached 10,000 population and now has about 500, and 
is the sea end of the White Pass & Yukon R.R. which connects the port with 
the Yukon River. We took the railroad as far as Carcross, following for a 
considerable distance the old “trail of 798” that was such a disastrous route 
for many thousands in their rush to the Klondike gold fields. At Carcross 
we changed to a lake steamer, the Tutshi, and were carried about a hundred 
miles to the head of West Taku Arm. We were received at Ben My Chree, 
an old home where “open house” has been the rule for many years. Here 
we saw some of the effects of the long summer days on flowers and plants— 
dahlias well over a foot across; pansies of nearly six inches; delphinium 
seven to eight feet tall; rhubarb five feet tall; and were told about straw- 
berries that required only six to fill a quart box. On our return to Carcross 
the next day, the interval before the train was due to leave was very 
interestingly filled in by a talk by Patsy Henderson, a full blooded Indian, 
who was one of the party of four that discovered gold in the Yukon field in 
1896. He told of his experiences then, and also of old Indian customs and 
