PREFACE. These pages narrate the travels, in a popular sense, of the latest Alaska exploring expedition. In April the expedition was organized with seven members at Vancouver Barracks, Washington Territory, and left Portland, Oregon, in May, ascending the inland passage to Alaska as far as the Chilkat country; there the party employed over three score of the Chilkat Indians to pack its effects across the glacier-clad pass of the Alaskan coast range of mountains to the head-waters of the Yukon. Here a large raft was constructed, and on this primitive craft, sailing through nearly a hundred and fifty miles of lakes, and shooting a number of rapids, the party floated along the great stream for over thirteen hundred miles, the longest raft journey ever made, in the interest of geographical science. The entire river, over two thousand miles, was traversed, the party returning home by way of Bering's Sea, and touching at the Aleutian Islands. 223182 |