delighted _voyageurs_ are from Portland, Maine. When
they had journeyed some 1,500 miles to Omaha they imagined themselves
at least half way across our continent. Then, when they had finished
that magnificent stretch of some 1,700 miles more from Omaha to
Portland, Oregon, in the palace cars of the Union Pacific, they were
quite sure of it. Of course, they confessed a sense of mingled
disappointment and eager anticipation when they learned that they were
yet less than half way. 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. It is
twelve times as large as the State of New York, with resources that
astonish every visitor, and a climate not altogether bad, as some would
have it. The greatest trouble is that during the eighteen years it has
been linked to our chain of Territories it has been treated like a
discarded offspring or outcast, cared for more by others than its
lawful protector. But, like many a refugee, it is carving for itself a
place which others will yet envy. But, to

OUR TRIP.

There are seven in our party, mainly from Chicago. After a week of
delightful mountaineering at Idaho Springs, in Platte Canon, and other
Union Pacific resorts in Colorado, we indulged in that delicious plunge
at Garfield Beach, Salt Lake, and, en route to Portland over the Union
Pacific Ry., quaffed that all but nectar at Soda Springs, Idaho, and
dropped off a day to take a peep, at Shoshone Falls, which, in all
seriousness, have attractions of which even our great Niagara can not
boast. We found that glorious dash down through the palisades of the
Columbia, and the sail, through the entrancing waterways of Puget Sound,
a fitting prelude to our recent Alaskan journey.

The Alaskan voyage is like a continuous dream of pleasure, so placid and
quiet are the waters of the landlocked sea and so exquisitely beautiful
the environment. The route keeps along the east shore of Vancouver Island
its entire length, through the Gulf of Georgia, Johnstone strait, and out
into Queen Charlotte Sound, where is felt the first swell of old ocean,