E. L. Lomax

“ Don't want a man to lose any chances, do you?"
So much has been said of this mighty river that the preconceived idea of the tourist is of a surging flood of unknown depth rushing like a mountain torrent. The plain facts are that the Lower Columbia is rather a placid stream, with a sluggish current, and the channel shoals up to eight feet, then falling to twelve, fifteen and seventeen feet, and suddenly dropping to 100 feet of water and over. In the spring months it will rise from twenty-five to forty feet, leaving driftwood high up among the trees on the banks. ”

“ It enraptures the artist and enthuses even ordinarily prosy folks. There is no single feature wanting to make of such places as Tacoma, Seattle, and Port Townsend, the most delightful and agreeable watering places in the world. Surrounded by magnificent and picturesque scenery, with beautiful drives and lovely bays for yachting purposes, with splendid fishing and sport of every description to be had, with a climate that would charm a misanthrope, why should they not become the favorite resorts on the Great West Coast? ”

“ At midnight the twilight was so bright that one could read a newspaper easily. Then the moon shone in the clear sky with all regal splendor until 3.30 in the morning, when old Sol again put in his claims for admission. He lifted his golden head above the snowy peaks, and spirited away the uncertain light of unfolding dawn by drawing the curtains of the purpling east, and sending floods of radiance upon the entire world. It was a sight never to be forgotten, if seen but once in a lifetime.
Onward once again when the tide was in, and our next awakening was on the grand glacier fields. ”

“ SPOKANE FALLS
is one of those miracles possible only in the alert, aggressive West. When Mr. Hayes was inaugurated it was a blank wilderness. Not a single civilized being lived within a hundred miles of it. One day in 1878 a white man came along in a "bull team," saw the wild rapids and the mighty falls of the Spokane River, reflected on the history of St. Paul and Minneapolis with their little Falls of St. Anthony, looked at the tide of immigration just turning toward the farther Northwest, and concluded he would sit right down where he was and wait for a city to grow around him. ”

“ The theory of the scientists, of course, runs counter to the pretty legend. Science usually does destroy poetry, and they tell us that a part of the mountain slid into the river, thus accounting for the remnant of a forest down in the deep water. Moreover, pieces which have been recovered show the wood to be live timber, and not petrified, as the poetic fiction has it. The Columbia has not changed in the centuries, but flows in the same channel here as when in the remote ages the lava, overflowing, cut out a course and left its pathway clear for all time. ”

“ The steamers "Oregon," "Columbia," and "State of California" are powerful iron steamers, built expressly for tourist travel between Portland and San Francisco. The traveler will find this fifty-hour ocean voyage thoroughly enjoyable; the sea is uniformly smooth, no greater motion than the long swell of the Pacific, and the boats are models of neatness and comfort. It affords a grand opportunity to run down the California coast, always in sight of land, and derive the invigorating exhilaration of an ocean trip without any of its discomforts. ”

“ This sturdy young giant of the North arises from her ashes stronger, more attractive, more substantial, than before. And there is abundant reason for solid faith in the future of Spokane Falls.
It is the metropolis of a region 200,000 square miles in extent, including 50,000 square miles of Washington, or all that portion east of the Cascade Mountains, more than half of Idaho, the northern and eastern portions of Oregon, a large part of Montana, and as much of British Columbia as would make a State as large as New York. ”

“ In the center of all this immense territory is located Spokane Falls, like the hub in the center of a wheel. The word immense is not used unwittingly, for the mountains and plains and valleys make up a country that in Europe would be called a nation, and in New England would form a State. Only a far-off corner of the Union, it may seem to some readers, yet there are powerful empires which possess less natural resources than it can call its own. ”

“ The ashes were scarcely cold when her enthusiastic citizens began to build anew, better, stronger, and more beautiful than before. A city of brick, stone, and iron has arisen, monumental evidence of the energy, pluck, and perseverance of the people, and of their fervent faith in the future of Seattle. ”

“ To view the solid phalanxes of icy floes, as they fill the mountain fastnesses and imperceptibly march through the ravines and force their way to the sea, fills one with awe indescribable. The knowledge that the ice is moving from beneath one's feet thrills one with a curious sensation hard to portray. ”

“ But while Portland may justly claim to be the peer of any city of its size in the United States in all that pertains to social life, in the attractions of beauty of location and surroundings it stands without its peer. ”

“ In the evening after dinner, one can return to the steamer and take possession of a stateroom, for the boat leaves at four in the morning. When breakfast time comes we are well on our return trip, and moving past Port Townsend again. The majestic straits of Fuca, through which we have passed, are well worth a visit; it is a taste of being at sea without any discomfort, for the water is without a ripple. As we steam homeward there is a vision which has been described for all time by a master hand. "One becomes aware of a vast, white shadow in the water. ”

“ It is a pleasant journey of 150 miles through the pine forests from Portland to Tacoma. Any one of the splendid steamers of the Union Pacific may be taken for a trip to Victoria. Leaving Tacoma in the morning, we sail over that noble sheet of water, Puget Sound. The hills on either side are darkly green, the Sound widening slowly as we go. Seattle is reached in three hours, a busy town of 35,000 people, full of vim, push, and energy. Twenty million dollars' worth of property went up in flame and smoke in Seattle's great fire of June 6, 1889. ”

“ As the ship neared the bay, these huge bergs increased in size and number, with such grotesque and weird shapes, that the mind is absorbed in shaping turrets, ghosts, goblins, and the like, each moment developing more and more of things unearthly, until the heart and eyes seem bursting with the strain, when suddenly a great roar, like the shock of an explosion of giant powder, turns the eyes to the parent glacier to see the birth of these unnatural forms. ”

“ This Oregon country is said to be the largest lava district in the world. The basaltic formations in the volcanic lands of Sicily and Italy are famous for their richness, and Oregon holds out the same promise for agriculture. The lava formation runs from Portland to Spokane Falls, as far north as Tacoma, and south as far as Snake river—all basaltic formation overlaid with an incomparably rich soil.
The trip from Portland by rail to "The Dalles," if the tourist should chance not to arrive in Portland by the Union Pacific line from the east, will be found charming. ”

“ The average traveler has but a faint idea of the wonderful resources of this grand empire. Puget Sound has about 1,800 miles of shore line, and all along this long stretch is one vast and almost unbroken forest of enormous trees. The forests are so vast that, although the saw-mills have been ripping 500,000,000 feet of lumber out of them every year for the past ten years, the spaces made by these inroads seem no more than garden patches. ”

“ From Astoria, one may drive eighteen miles to Clatsop Beach, famous for its clams, crab, and trout, and Ben Holliday's hotel. But the fullest enjoyment is obtained by making a round trip, including a lay-over at Ilwaco all night, and returning to Portland next day, and sleeping on board the boat. A railway runs from the town to the outside beach, a mile and a half distant. There is a drive twenty-five miles long up this long beach to Shoal Water Bay, which is beautiful beyond description. ”

“ They came as seeking a better and wider field to engage in the same occupations they had followed in their Eastern homes, and bringing with them all the love of polite life which they had acquired there, have established here a new society, equaling in all respects that which they left behind. Here are as fine churches, as complete a system of schools, as fine residences, as great a love of music and art, as can be found at any city of the East of equal size. ”

“ Exquisitely moulded islands are scattered about in the most enchanting way, all shapes and sizes, with now and then a little garden patch, and ever verdant with native woods and grasses and charming rockeries. As far out as the eye can reach the beautiful isles break the cold sea into bewitching inlets and lure the mariner to shelter from evil outside waves. ”

“ It seems to be the generic home of storms, and the mountains, the rocks, the buildings, and trees, and all, show the weird workings of nature's wrath. In 1863 it was a thriving town where miners outfitted for the mines of the Stikeen river and Cassian mines of British Columbia; but that excitement has temporarily subsided, and the $150,000 government buildings are falling in decay. The streets are filled with debris, and everything betokens the ravages of time. The largest and most grotesque totem poles seen on the trip here towered a height of fifty feet. ”

“ They learned what is a fact—that the extreme west coast of Alaska is as far west of Sitka as Portland, Maine, is east of Portland, Oregon, and the further fact that San Francisco lacks 4,000 mile's of being as far west as Uncle Sam's "Land's End," at extreme Western Alaska. It is a great country; great enough to contain one river—the Yukon—about as large as the Mississippi, and a coast line about twice as long as all the balance of the United States. ”

“ An official estimate places the amount of standing timber in that area at 500,000,000,000 feet, or a thousand years' supply, even at the enormous rate the timber is now being felled and sawed.
In the vicinity of Olympia, the capital of Washington, are a number of popular resorts for sportsmen and campers—beautiful lakes filled with voracious trout, and streams alive with the speckled mountain beauties. The forests abound in bear and deer, while grouse, pheasants, quail, and water-fowl afford fine sport to the hunter of small game. ”

“ The tribe approaching in canoes had their representative men dressed in the same styles, only gayer, if possible. When the canoes glided onto the beach, four abreast, it was the signal to drop the canvas hiding the host and party, and advance a little distance to meet them. Then they broke ranks and made way for the visitors to approach the house with their gifts of blankets or other valuables for the tyhee. Most of the Indians convert their riches into blankets. These nations, seen by the tourist in an ordinary trip to Alaska, seem very much the same in all points visited. ”

“ One will have no desire to remain over there a trip. The tourist goes necessarily when and where the steamer goes, will have an opportunity to see all there is of note or worth seeing in Southeastern Alaska. The steamer sometimes goes north as far as Chilcat, say up to about the 58th degree of north latitude. The pleasure is not so much in the stopping as in the going. One is constantly passing through new channels, past new islands, opening up new points of interest, until finally a surfeit of the grand and magnificent in nature is reached. ”

“ Pieces of rock made small islands above the lost bridge, but below that the river fretted and shouted and plunged over jagged and twisted boulders for miles down the stream, throwing the spray high in air, madly spending its strength in treacherous whirlpools and deep seductive currents—ever after to be wrathful, complaining, dangerous. The stoutest warrior could not live in that terrible torrent. ”

“ Spokane's population, in a degree greater than that of most all these new cities, consists of young men and young women from the New England and Middle States. They have enjoyed a remarkable and wholly uninterrupted period of prosperity. Some of them have grown quickly and immensely rich from real estate operations, but the great majority have yet to realize on their investments because of the large sacrifices they have made in building up the city. ”

“ There are two tribes at Juneau, located at each extreme of the town. The water was black with canoes coming to the feast and dance, bringing gifts to the tyhee, who, in return, gives them gifts according to their wealth, and a feast of boiled rice and raisins and dog-meat. The richest men of the tribe dressed, in the rear of the building, in the wildest and most fantastic garbs, some in skins of wild animals. There was a full panoply of blankets, feathers, guns, swords, knives, and, as a last resort, an old broom was covered with a scarlet case. ”

“ We string it in many strands and hang it around the neck of one we love—namely, each man his own neck. And with this we buy what our hearts desire. Hiaqua, we call it, and he who has most hiaqua is wisest and best of all the dwellers on the Sound.
"Now, in old times there dwelt here an old man, a mighty hunter and fisherman. And he worshipped hiaqua. And always this old man thought deeply and communed with his wisdom, and while he waited for elk or salmon he took advice within himself from his demon—he talked with tamanous. ”

“ The Continent is yet in ignorance of what will be one of the grandest show places, as well as sanitariums. If Switzerland is rightly called the play-ground of Europe, I am satisfied that around the base of Mt. Rainier will become a prominent place of resort, not for America only, but for the world besides, with thousands of sites for building purposes that are nowhere excelled for the grandeur of the view that can be obtained from them, with topographical features that would make the most perfect system of drainage both possible and easy, and with a most agreeable and health-giving climate. ”

“ The river trip will be found a very pleasant diversion after the long railway ride, and a day's sail down the majestic Columbia is a memory-picture which lasts a life-time. It is eighty-eight miles by rail to Portland, the train skirting the river bank up to within a few miles of the city. By river, it is forty-five miles to the Upper Cascades, then a six-mile portage via narrow-gauge railway, then sixty miles by steamer again to Portland. The boat leaves The Dalles at about 7 in the morning, and reaches Portland at 6 in the evening. ”

“ The advantages of this charming ocean trip to the tourist are most obvious; there is the healthful air of the grand old Pacific Ocean, complete freedom from dust, heat, cinders, and all the discomforts which one meets in midsummer railway travel. ”

“ A ride over these placid waters, in and out, around rocky headlands, among woody mountains, along beautiful beaches and graceful tongues of velvety meadows—all 'neath the shadows of towering, snow-clad peaks, is a delight worth days of travel to experience. ”

“ But the early French hunters and trappers called a chasm or a defile or gorge, "dalles," meaning in their vernacular "a trough"—and "Dalles" it has remained. There is a quaint Indian legend connected with the spot which may interest the curious, and it runs something on this wise, Clark's Fork and the Snake river, it will be remembered, unite at Ainsworth to form the Columbia. It flows furiously for a hundred miles and more westward, and when it reaches the outlying ridges of the Cascade chain it finds an immense low surface paved with enormous sheets of basaltic rock. ”

“ The great plains of the Upper Columbia, stretching from the river away to the far north, are incomparably rich, the soil of great depth and wondrous fertility, rainless harvests, and a luxuriance of farm and garden produce which is almost tropical in its wealth. This favored region has been for years known as the
PALOUSE COUNTRY,
and is reached from Portland via Pendleton, on the main line of the Union Pacific Ry. From Pendleton to Spokane Falls on the north the soil is rich beyond belief; a black, loamy deposit so deep that it seems well-nigh inexhaustible. ”