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Wednesday, January 1st, 2014
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4:36p - Picturesque Alaska
I am happy to announce
Celebration Edition #387:
I've long desired to travel up the west coast of North America. Abby Johnson Woodman made just such a trip by steamer in 1888. You can read her account, and explore an attached google map marking her route. It's worth switching over to the sky-view, especially when comparing her descriptions of where the glaciers were in 1888 to today's images in 2014. See:
"Picturesque Alaska: A journal of a tour among the mountains, seas and islands of the northwest, from San Francisco to Sitka."
By Abby Johnson Woodman, 1828-1921.
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company 1889.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/woodman/alaska/alaska.html
Abby Johnson Woodman, 1828-1921, was born in Weare, Hillsborough, New Hampshire, USA on January 10, 1828. She was one of three daughters of Colonel Edmund Johnson and Phebe Whittier. Her sisters were Mary E. (May) Johnson and Caroline (Carolyn) Cartland Johnson. Abby graduated from Charlestown Female Seminary in 1846. She married Henry Hill Woodman on July 21, 1864, but the marriage was brief: Woodman apparently passed away July 21, 1869 in Warner, New Hampshire. Abby's daughter Phebe was adopted: a list of names changed by reason of adoption shows that in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, June 22, 1874 Nellie May Eaton's name was changed to Phebe Johnson Woodman, Boston. Who's Who in England (1915) indicates that Abby Woodman removed from Boston to Oak Knoll, Danvers, Massachusetts, as of 1876.
The Johnson sisters were cousins of the Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892). Whittier stayed with them during the last few winters of his life, from 1876 to 1892, at Oak Knoll. Whittier wrote a brief introduction to Abby Johnson Woodman's travel book, "Picturesque Alaska". In his will, he left the sisters his "furniture, books and pictures at Oak Knoll not otherwise disposed of". Phebe J. Woodman was given $3000 outright, and a share in the income from some of his copyrights. After Whittier's death in 1892, Abby Woodman also wrote "Reminiscences of John Greenleaf Whittier's life at Oak Knoll, Danvers, Mass." Salem, Mass: The Essex institute, 1908. Abby herself passed away in 1921.
It seems likely that Abby's travelling companion to Alaska, "C.C.J.", was her sister Caroline Cartland Johnson. She notes that "M. and P.", Mary and Phebe, did not accompany them. Mrs. Woodman says little of her reasons for travelling. Clearly, the beauty of the west coast and Alaska was of paramount appeal, but she also expresses interest in the economic and cultural development of the U.S.'s "new" territory. Alaska had been purchased from Russia in 1867, through the efforts of William H. Seward, U.S. Secretary of State, and Senator Sumner.
"Mrs. Woodman gives, in an amusing way, her experiences on a recent visit to Alaska. The book contains much information which will be useful to people intending to make the Alaska trip, and gives some clear idea of this wonderful land, which every year attracts an increasing tide of travel." (The Dial, May 1889)
The sisters started from San Francisco on April 5, 1888, travelling northward by train. They took a steamer, the Olympian, from Tacoma, Washington to Victoria, B.C. There, the ladies were lucky in obtaining staterooms on the steamship George W. Elder. The Elder with her freight drew seventeen feet of water: it was the first ship of that size to attempt to traverse Johnstone Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound. On their outward voyage, there was only one other "female fellow-passenger", but the boat was well-filled, including among its passengers "one hundred and fifty Chinamen, about sixty cabin passengers, miners, adventurers, etc.," and "thirty-seven bright Indian boys" travelling with Dr. Sheldon Jackson, U. S. School Commissioner in Alaska.
Mrs. Woodman's account engagingly combines her admiration for the beautiful scenery through which she travelled, her interest in her fellow passengers and others she meets, and her observations of the conditions around her, both physical and cultural. Abby is deeply attracted to the natural beauty of the areas through which she travels. She also appreciates the craftsmanship of the Indian and Alaskan weavers and carvers whose work she sees, though she acknowledges that she finds their symbolism strange and fantastic. "All have significance to these native artists": it is not the Indians' understanding which is at fault, but hers.
She is less appreciative of the poverty and dirt which she sees in coastal villages. Her account is fascinating for capturing glimpses of the region at a point of change. It was still possible to see a "storybook scene" of "Indians in the wild woods" at an Indian fishing camp upon the shore of Kuprianoff. Many of the traditional skills of Indian and Alaskan culture were still being practised, but younger people were learning "the arts and customs of civilization". Totem poles still stood in villages along the shore, but a passing boat carried two totem poles to the Museum of ancient Indian relics at Sitka. "The days of totem poles are over."
Her careful descriptions also make us aware of the physical changes that have occurred since she wrote. "We sighted twelve of these glaciers on our passage up Lynn Channel; the Eagle, Rainbow, and Davidson's being the three largest… Davidson's Glacier comes down to the channel like an immense river of ice, two or three miles in width, and seamed and cut by huge chasms, the edges of which glisten and deepen into an intensely deep blue." Davidson's Glacier has since receded: now tourists must hike inland to reach its glacial lake.
Abby Woodman is relatively complacent about the cultural changes she sees, and only slightly less so about unsightly physical ones. "We observed large tracts of stump land, where the lumbermen had cut, and then devastated by fire, the stately trees and forest lands. It looks very wasteful to our Eastern eyes to see such lavish waste of these noble forests as met our observation upon all sides in our journey from San Francisco to Tacoma. Time will rectify this extravagance, no doubt."
Although signs of carelessness and waste give her pause, her faith in American progress remains unchallenged. "A little below the fountain comes a wide area of several acres, where the waste stones and gravel of the excavated ledges and tunnels on the road above have been dumped by the laborers into an ugly gulch. On this area is Chinatown. The tents of the Chinamen, without whom these feats of engineering would never have been realized, stand close and thick, like the wigwams of an Indian village. Behind them, on the edge of their acres, overlooking the ravine, are all the various implements of their labor, save the broken and dismantled ones, of all descriptions, which lie heaped in indiscriminate confusion at the bottom of the ravine."
Technology and mechanization are Abby's allies in her travels. Descending the Rogue River, she waxes lyrical: "Coming nearer to the level of the valley, our train halted at a water tank. We have a sense of relief that the fearful tension upon our nerves is almost over for the day, and a feeling of thankfulness and grateful appreciation toward our two faithful engines comes into my heart… They have proved so responsive to command, so worthy of trust and confidence, that they almost seem to be sentient creatures."
Whether crossing perilous bridges by rail, or facing serious storms on board ship, Mrs. Woodman was a staunch traveller. Returning along the coast, "We came into Queen Charlotte Sound, where we received the full force of the ocean swells, and for three hours there was nothing for us to do but to patiently suffer and endure. Nearly every one retired during the passage, but I braced myself and kept my eyes upon the sea and the mountains on the coast. The rain sometimes hid them from my sight, but I looked where I knew they were still standing behind the mist, and kept my head level with will-power, while I swayed with the rolling and the plunging of the ship."
One captures only a few such glimpses of Abby Johnson Woodman's personality. I cannot help but be curious about the rest of her life, and wonder what other trials she faced with "her head level with will-power".
And who knows, maybe in 2014 I'll finally take that trip up the coast that I've been imagining.
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