XV. LIEUTENANT SCHWATKA IN ALASKA
1883
Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia
in 1867. It was supposed to be a barren region of ice and
snow, and many people thought that the price of $7,200,000
was an amount far in excess of the value of the land.
For many years no attempt was made to form a territorial government in Alaska, and the country remained in charge of the military forces of the United States. In 1883, Lieutenant Schwatka determined to conduct an exploring expedition into the interior, for the purpose of gaining such information of the country and its wild inhabitants as would be of assistance to the soldiers stationed there. This expedition did not have the support of Congress and was kept as secret as possible. Lieutenant Schwatka feared that, if attention were attracted to the expedition, Congress would forbid its departure.
All Schwatka's plans worked well. With six companions he left Portland, Oregon, at midnight, May 22, and sailed northward, taking the inland route to Alaska. The inland route consists of a channel which lies between the coast of Washington and British Columbia and southeastern Alaska and the line of islands which lie off that coast.
Sitka, then the capital of Alaska, was reached in a little more than a week, and two days later the ship dropped anchor in a pretty port called Pyramid harbor, near the mouth of the Chilkat river. The villages of the Chilkat
