Recipient
John Muir
Transcription
Northern Pacific Railroad Company General Passenger and Ticket Department St. Paul Minn. [Minnesota] Chas. [Charles] S. Fee Gen. Pass & Ticket Agt. [Agent] Jas. [James] C. Pond Asst. Gen. Ticket Agt. B. N. Austin Asst. Genl. Pass. Agt. Yellowstone Park and Dining Car Route to Pacific Coast October 31, 1890 J Subject: Manuscript for Alaska Folders. Prof. [Professor] John Muir, Martinez, California. My Dear Sir; Your favor of Oct. 21st just at hand. I have gone over the matter of this Alaska Folder again very carefully and have decided that we will cut down the advertising features, that is time tables, miscellaneous excursion rates, etc., to such an extent that we will be able to allow you eight full pages. I would much prefer to have this manuscript set in a little larger type than that used in the Pacific Coast Steamship Folder, or if the size of the type is the same, that the article should be leaded. I find that the eight pages, if set in the same sized type as used in the Pacific Coast Steamship Folder and not leaded, would allow for a trifle more than six thousand words. I think however, if you can get the article down into five thousand words, which will give you two thousand more than my first estimate, we can get the folder out in reasonably good shape. In preparing your manuscript for the Alaska Folder, you need not necessarily bother to say anything with reference to the means of reaching Alaska from the East, as we will take care of that in another part of the folder, although it might be well to state as an opening, that the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad over the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound in the summer of 1887, opened wide the gate to a new and unexplored field for tourists, as the well filled excursion steamers sailing for Alaska from the Northern Pacific Wharf at Tacoma every season since bare ample testimony. Brief mention might then be made of the striking features of the trip from a scientific standpoint, Tacoma to Chilkat, the most northern point reached, merely mentioning towns like Wrangle, Juneau and Sitka, ad bringing out strong the facts that the chief advantage this trip has over other ocean voyages is the fact that it is taken amidst magnificent scenery with scarcely the possibility of sea sickness. The chief interest of tourists as well as scientist must always center about the wonderful glaciers of Alaska. In this connection, I would suggest that you give something of your own experience among the glaciers of Alaska, when you first visited them, something of what you learned in regard to them, their extent and the manner of their birth and decay; this portion of the story to be put in such language as to be easily understood by anyone or ordinary intelligence. Not versed in scientific terms or technicalities. I have given you above my idea of what the folder should be in a general way. You may be able to improve upon the program and I therefore want you to feel at entire liberty to do so, the object you understand, being to put before the people a map folder of Alaska in such shape that not only can we give in stereotyped form information as to rates, sailing dates, etc., but a general idea of what is to be seen in the Alaska trip, with [such] specific information in regard to the wonderful glaciers which constitute the crowning feature, to the tourists mind, of the voyage to Alaska Yours truly, Chas. S. Fee
Location
St. Paul, Minnesota
Date Original
1890-10-31
Recommended Citation
Fee, Chas. [Charles] S., "Letter from Chas. [Charles] S. Fee to John Muir, October 31, 1890" (1890). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 7003.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/7003
File Identifier
Chas Fee to Muir letter
Collection Identifier
This correspondenc is part of the John Muir Papers, MSS 048.
Owning Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Pages
2
