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The Alaskan tour is one that is somewhat closely connected with the Lewis and Clark Exposition. Those who visit Portland must necessarily, in going by the Northern Pacific, pass through the beautiful Puget sound country and Seattle and Tacoma. From Tacoma and Seattle the Alaskan steamers start. Of all trips by water, this one along the indented Northwestern coast, by way of the inland passage, is the cream.

Good steamers, enchanting scenery, and an entire absence of seasickness give to this tour, the land where midnight is almost a fiction, in fact, a charming individuality. The coast line is broken and beautiful, innumerable islands dot the watery expanse, the great white mountains stand athwart the vision, hiding the strange land beyond, and the fiords and glaciers give us another Norway, one entirely our own. The towns of this white land, Juneau, Skagway, Sitka, etc., with their quaint, unfamiliar environment, afford new and interesting subjects for study.

The completion of the railway across the White Pass above Skagway opens an easy route into the upper Yukon region and around Atlin lake, and into the Klondike.

The excursion steamer Spokane will make six excursions from the Sound ports northward during the tourist season. This steamer is new, is used exclusively for first-class passenger excursion business, and stops at all important points, including Glacier bay.