Miners Pay Duty. Americans are Met by Customs Officers at Victoria

Bellingham Bay Reveille
July 30, 1897

VICTORIA B.C., July 28-Seventy-five miners’ outfits arrived from the sound this morning for shipment to Alaska on the Islander tomorrow. The owners of these outfits will arrive tomorrow morning, and will be met at the wharf by a bevy of customs officers, and compelled to pay duty on their goods. It is considered better to collect duty here than to cause the miners to be delayed at Dyea and the customs stations along the route, where new officers will not be in as good a position to handle the rush as are the experienced officers here.