Wonderland

In Short

Published in 1886 as a promotional travel guide for the Northern Pacific Railroad, this volume pairs administrative and geographic overviews by John Hyde with Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka’s vivid account of Alaska’s Inland Passage. Moving from the bustling wheat and timber ports of Lake Superior across the plains and ranges of Montana to Puget Sound and the Alaskan archipelago, the book captures the late-nineteenth-century conquest of the wilderness. It lives on as a rich historical snapshot of boomtown industrialism, vanishing megafauna, and early steamship tourism encountering native coastal cultures.

The Story

The narrative follows a continuous westward and northward trajectory, framing the transcontinental railroad and steamship lines as engines of civilization. Starting at Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior—a growing trade hub shipping millions of bushels of wheat and board-feet of lumber—the route pushes through the pine forests and trout streams of Wisconsin. Entering Dakota and Montana, the guide charts the transition from raw frontier to organized commerce. The vast Yellowstone Valley, once the heart of buffalo country, is now dominated by sprawling cattle ranches and growing towns. The text candidly notes that market hunting decimated the great bison herds in the early 1880s, leaving the species virtually extinct in the wild outside a small protected herd in Yellowstone National Park.

Beyond the agricultural basins of the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers, the journey enters the industrial heart of the Rockies. In Butte and Anaconda, massive copper smelters, backed by millions in capital, consume hundreds of cords of wood daily to process mountain ore. Descending the Western slopes into Washington Territory, the guide highlights the natural power of Spokane Falls, where basaltic islands split the surging river, driving lumber and flour mills.

Following the Columbia River past basalt cliffs and towering waterfalls, the journey reaches the Pacific ocean at Astoria. Here, the narrative transitions to Lieutenant Schwatka’s maritime expedition up the Inland Passage to Alaska. Navigating deep, wall-like fjords, the steamship stops at native Tlingit and Haida villages, where intricate totem poles and carved cedar architecture record ancestral lineages. The voyage culminates in Glacier Bay, where the massive wall of the Muir Glacier calves icebergs into the sea under the shadow of the Mount St. Elias Alps. After venturing up mountain trails with native hunters and touring Sitka’s Russian-built Greek Church, the vessel turns back southward, completing a grand loop through the American frontier.

How It Unfolds

Across the timberlands Leaving Lake Superior at Duluth, the line crosses the Brule River, an unpopulated wilderness stream where sports anglers land large trout and hunters ship thousands of pounds of venison by rail.

Through the Bad Lands to the Yellowstone The track passes Sentinel Butte into Montana, following the Yellowstone River past clay bluffs where stock-raising has replaced the recently exterminated buffalo herds.

Over the divide to the mines Ascending steep mountain grades into Bozeman and Butte, the route reveals hard-rock copper and silver mines operating around the clock, powering a new industrial landscape.

Down the Columbia to the coast Navigating past the thundering cascades and dizzying heights of Multnomah Fall, the journey ends at Astoria, where the Columbia River discharges one million gallons of water per second into the ocean.

Up the Inland Passage Boarding an excursion steamer, travelers navigate deep, cliff-bound channels filled with marine life, stopping to inspect carved totem poles in coastal Tlingit villages.

Among the Alaskan glaciers The voyage reaches its northern climax in Glacier Bay, where travelers witness massive ice sheets sliding down from the Mount St. Elias Alps into bottomless ocean waters.

The People

John Hyde The primary narrator of the overland rail journey, Hyde writes as an observant promoter of Western expansion. He views the wilderness through the lens of economic resource, civil engineering, and regional development, eager to show how raw geography transforms into productive cities and farms.

Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka An army officer and Arctic explorer, Schwatka provides the narrative drive for the Alaskan sea voyage. He approaches the northern frontier with an eye for dramatic landscape, native customs, and wilderness recreation, leading excursions up glacial inlets and mountain trails.

The Marquis de Mores A wealthy French nobleman who establishes an ambitious meat-packing and stock-raising enterprise in Medora, Dakota Territory, representing the international capital flowing into the Western cattle boom.

Father Metropaulski The resident priest at the Greek Church in Sitka, who warmly receives visiting tourists, guiding them past gold-leafed icon screens to view historic vestments and jewel-encrusted crowns from Alaska's Russian past.

The Tlingit and Haida Peoples The indigenous inhabitants of the Northwest coast, characterized in the text as master woodcarvers and artists. They maintain patriarchal clan houses, erect carved totem poles representing family lineages, and trade intricate handicrafts with visiting steamship passengers.

In Its Own Voice

"Nature is revealing herself to the traveler in new forms and aspects, and disclosing to his wondering gaze mysterious pages of her great book hitherto hidden from him."

— Context: Hyde introduces the rapid expansion of Northern Pacific rail lines into previously inaccessible wilderness.

"Gigantic representations of these family emblems were erected near the house, on posts, twenty to thirty feet high, covered with carvings of animals, and the devices stained with permanent pigments of black, red and blue."

— Context: Schwatka describes the impressive totem poles standing outside traditional Stickeen Indian dwellings.

"'You can take just what we see here, and put it down on Switzerland, and it will hide all there is of mountain scenery in Europe.'"

— Context: A veteran traveler shares his awe while looking at the Mount St. Elias Alps from the entrance to Glacier Bay.

What It's Really About

Beneath its function as a travel itinerary, the book is a portrait of technological transformation and the rapid enclosure of the American West. It contrasts raw, untouched wilderness with the aggressive march of nineteenth-century industry—showing wild trout streams running alongside freshly laid iron tracks, and serene coastal fjords side-by-side with massive copper smelters.

The text wrestles with the environmental costs of this transition, recording the near-total extinction of the American buffalo within a single decade alongside proud tallies of lumber cut and ore extracted. It captures a pivotal cultural moment when native traditions, wild landscapes, and frontier outposts were suddenly integrated into the global networks of American commerce and tourism.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers modern readers a vivid time capsule of the American Northwest in the 1880s, written at the precise moment the frontier was closing. It combines the precise economic detailing of a regional survey with the high adventure of early Alaskan steamship travel.

The reading experience is crisp, fast-paced, and rich in period detail. Rather than dry listing, the prose brings to life the noise of Butte's stamp mills, the spray of Columbia River waterfalls, and the quiet chill of Glacier Bay. Readers should be prepared for typical late-nineteenth-century perspectives; the text treats natural resources strictly as assets to be harvested and views native cultures through the colonial patronizing lens of "barbaric art" and "artistic savages."

For historians, outdoor enthusiasts, and lovers of vintage travel writing, the book remains a captivating look at how the West was sold to the American imagination—promising luxury rail cars, untamed wilderness, and unprecedented industrial spectacle all in a single journey.