From Vancouver, British Columbia, to Skagway, Alaska, is one thousand miles.
This is a most fascinating steamer trip, which may also be made from either Seattle or San Francisco. Winding between islands and the mainland, passing glaciers with the summer sun shining overhead, the steamers stop at various places, and the interesting Totem Pole People (the Alaskan Indians), may be interviewed.
Captain Stretch, whose many years of connection as an engineer with mining and railroad enterprises in the West and Alaska render him an authority, says: “Alaska is a country unique in its geographical situation, unique in its climate, and unique in its physical beauties. Cape Barrow, its northernmost cape, is warmer than any point in the world as far north of the equator; and its southern shores bordering the North Pacific Ocean are likewise warmer than any point in the world in similar latitudes during the winter months as the result of the beneficent influence of the Japan current. Norway alone can approach it in these respects, but in Norway the mountain backbone runs parallel to the coastline, and its rivers are insignificant streams, and there is no room for extensive valleys; while in Alaska the immense quadrangle is divided into three zones by lofty mountains ... which leave between them broad plains, through which such streams as the Kuskokwin, with 600, and the Yukon, with 2,000 miles of navigable waters, open up its vast interior. Norway and Sweden are the Mecca and Medina of the European tourist in search of the picturesque and sublime, and the latter country takes its annual toll of American pilgrims on similar sights intent; but Alaska can discount anything which these countries can boast. Its mountains overtop Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, or the Matterhorn; its glaciers dwarf the Mer de Glace....
“At the Childs Glacier you may loll at ease by the river bank on a carpet of flowers while the glacier splits with a noise like a cannon shot or the staccato reports of small arms, and watch avalanche after avalanche start 300 feet above, driving the water in mighty waves up the general slope below you as they take the final plunge and float away in the narrow river. When the mist has drifted by, the dead-white face of the ice disappears. The new dress glistens with the brilliancy of diamonds, and the deeper recesses of the façade gleam blue as a summer sky unflecked by clouds.