Until the Grand Trunk is completed, the one and only way to reach Alaska is by the sea. If you were making for St. Michael’s or Nome or the territory around the mouth of the Yukon, this would mean an outside ocean voyage longer than that across the Atlantic to England.

But the nearest way to Juneau, the capital of Alaska, is by the inside passage along the coast of British Columbia. In order to bring this “Inside Passage” before the minds of those who have never taken it, please image yourself taking a boat at Albany down the Hudson to New York. Stretch out the distance to 1,000 miles, enlarge and magnify the Palisades into mountains 5,000 feet high – place here and there deep fjords, beautiful waterfalls and glaciers – then perhaps you can make some faint mental picture of this “Inside Passage.”

50 years ago, 1958

• In preparing 1957 income tax reports, taxpayers may deduct 31.08 percent of the purchase price of liquor bought in state liquor stores, seven cents a gallon on gasoline and five cents on a pack of cigarettes, according to Ernest M. Shapiro, Lewiston public accountant.

• Steel for the Central Maine Youth Center is expected to arrive today from the Lyon’s Iron Works at Manchester, N.H. Three truckloads will come in today, and trusses, weighing about 15 tons each, are slated to begin arriving Wednesday.

25 years ago, 1983

BETHEL – Yes, there is a ski season in Maine this winter, but it has not been the best that ski areas have had. Trail conditions at areas in western Maine range from none at all to “super,” according to sources at five local ski slopes.

Sunday River in Bethel has seven trails open, with 100 percent loose granular cover and a 6- to 24-inch base. Sugarloaf USA in Carrabassett Valley has five trails open, with “very good spring conditions.”

Saddleback Ski Area in Rangeley reports one chairlift and one trail open full time. Mt. Abram Ski Slope in Locke Mills has not opened at all this season. Lost Valley Ski Area in Auburn is closed, but it will open “as soon as we can make snow again, which depends on Mother Nature.”