One MOnth's Trip from Puget Sound, and Return
| 1st day | Tacoma., Seattle, Victoria: Leave by steamer from any one of these ports the same day. The tourist steamers usually leave twice a month during June, July and August. |
| 2d day | Ketchikan and Metlakahtla, prosperous mining towns of Alaska. |
| 3d day | Wrangel, named after Baron Wrangel, a Russian governor, now a town of considerable size, and a lumber and fishing center. Travelers will probably see Alaska totem poles here. At the northerly end of the archipelago is Douglas Island, where are the famous Treadwell Mines. Long before reaching them their direction may be located by the uncanny roar proceeding from their mills, where 900 ore-breaking (and ear- splitting) stamps are constantly at work. |
| 4th day | Skaguay, the gateway to the Klondike, from which a railroad now runs over the White Horse Pass, the once formidable and fatal obstruction in the gold-miner's journey to this Eldorado |
| 5th day | Glacier Bay. The great Muir Glacier, which empties its thousands of tons of ice into the sea, and is one of the great " sights" of the world. |
| 6th day | Sitka. The latitude of Sitka is about the same as that of Balmoral in Scotland, and records show that Sitka has a higher average winter temperature than Balmoral. |
| 7th day | Back to Skaguay. |
| 8th day | Leave Skaguay by rail via the White Horse Pass (3,000 feet), for White Horse. |
| 9th day 10th 11th |
Leave White Horse by steamer via Lebarge Lake and Lewes River, for Fort Selkirk, where the Yukon River is entered and Dawson reached in about forty hours. |
| 12th day 13th |
Dawson (563 miles from Skaguay), the Mecca of the great Klondike gold rush of 1898, now a well-regulated city, with telegraph, telephone and electric services. A short distance from Dawson are Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks, where the rich "strike" was made in the summer of 1896. The news of the wonderful strike did not, however, reach the outside world until July 17, 1897, when the steamer "Portland" entered Seattle with one million in gold-dust on board. A fine view of the midnight sun and of the surrounding country is obtained from the Dome, at the base of which lies Dawson. |
14th day |
On the Yukon River. The Arctic Circle is crossed at Fort Yukon. The scenery around Rampart City, or Minook, where the Rampart Mountains separate the Yukon from the Tanana River, is wild and rugged. Several Indian villages are passed, and at the lower end, where the river is several miles wide, are the Holy Cross and Russian Missions. The distance from Daw- son to St. Michael is about 1,601 miles. About the last of May the ice goes out with a mighty roar, and navigation usually closes in September. |
| 23d day to 30th day |
Cape Nome is 115 miles across the sound fromSt. Michael, and 2,487 miles to Seattle by direct steamer. Sometimes the steamers touch at the Aleutian Islands, where hunters are likely to find fine specimens of black bear. |
