File:Alaska, its history and resources, gold fields, routes and scenery (1899) (14763350885).jpg

Identifier: alaskaitshisto00bruc (find matches)
Title: Alaska, its history and resources, gold fields, routes and scenery
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Bruce, Miner Wait
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Putnam
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
he machinery isset in motion and the vessel again swings on its coursetowards New Metlakahtla. This point is off the mainroute some fifteen miles, so it is only when there aregoods to be discharged that the vessel pauses at one ofthe most interesting points on the whole journey. Anapproach to New Metlakahtla shows, quietly nestling onthe side of a gentle slope of ground, stretching back froma long pebbly beach, two or three hundred houses, manyof them neatly painted, with a church edifice, large schoolbuilding, store, saw-mill, and salmon-canning establish-ment. There is nothing about the appearance of theplace, until the faces of the residents are seen, to suggestthat it is the home of the Chim-sy-an tribe of natives,whom Mr. Duncan brought from Old Metlakahtla a fewyears ago. Every branch of business pursued by whites,in towns of similar size, is here carried on, and the eighthundred and fifty or more people are thrifty and con-tented. In the chapter on the missionaries of Alaska, a
Text Appearing After Image:
PICTURESQUE ALASKA 133 more extended reference is made to Mr. Duncan and thepeople whom he has brought from the degradation ofsavagery to a high state of civilisation. Retracing its course to Tongas Narrows, the steamerruns alongside of the wharf at Ketchikan. Ten yearsago this was the site of a salmon cannery which wasafterwards destroyed by five. It is now a trading-post,and salmon are salted in large numbers. Should it bethe season for the salmon to run, the little stream whichflows down through the hills to the east of the villagewill be literally filled with the humpback variety. Thefirst glimpse of the Alaskan Indian in his native state isobtained here. A stop of an hour, and the steamer is ready to resumeits course towards Loring. The twenty-five-mile distanceis covered in about two hours, and the seat of what was,until the past five years, one of the most prolific red sal-mon streams in all Alaska is found picturesquely locatedon the western slope of a high mountain. For a num

Note About Images