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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, 11 est filmA A partir de Tangle supArieur gauche, de gauche h droite. et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nicessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 ' *' r. ,1 -. f MICiOCOfY MSOIUTION TMT CHAIT (ANSI and ISO TtST CHAUT No 2) /APPLIED I IVHGE ^SF m '^'-i tast Ma;,, 5 a A BUSINESS TALK ON THE YUKON A lUJSINHSS TALK ON THH YUKON • Hv /■: r. 11,/,/,. I r i% riilhtr prriiiiei»»i (ferm iuld he well to point «)ul one or two features with rej^ard to its an-a and extent. To hejjin with, the Nukon is situated on our west <.oast, locking' arms with Alaska in fact, there is a little too much lockiu); arms on the part of Alaska at the present time. That lonjf arm that f^ocs down on the western coast, seems to j{et longer all the tirne. so that it is dilVicult to tell which is our own country and which is the .Alaskan arm with which we are eiit circled from time to time. In the fact that Alaska at the north was purchased by the United States Government from the Russians, we have the first error or misfortune made with rejfdrd to the Yukon, and one of the most unfortunate thing.s that ever occurred so far as the development of the north-western part of Canada is concerned. It was bad enough to have an immcise hostile country below the 49th parallel, and all along our south. It was worse to allow that country to become possessed on the north of a large district which must ever remain hostile to us. We see the difficulties of it every day— customs difficulties, the trouble in delimiting our boundary, the tearing down of the British flag at Skagway, and other matters which might at any time lead to international complications. The Kl>>ndyke, which is .» p«irlion of the Vukon, i» situated in aKuH sinly.four degrees north latitude ; in fact, fircle lity, a little below the Vukon, was so called becuus-7 it wm« supponed to be within the Arctic Circle; if wa* afterwards found out not to be within the Arctic Circle, but it was sufficiently far north to juvtify the name. The Vukon country itself is it)H,iHH) square miles in extent, which is considerably more than the area of Quebec, and very considerably more than the area of Ontario twice the area of Ontario as it used to be given in the geographies. The Klondyke mining camp, of the tr.ide of which I have to speak, is a circumscribed .irca, bi>unded on the south hy the Indian River, on the north by the Klondyke River, on the west by the Rocky Mountains, and on the east by the Vukon. It is some «<>«> square miles in extent. The mileage of creeks actually oper- ated in the \'ukon does not go over fifty miles. Professor McConnell, Mr. Meyers, and others who have visited the country agree that there is no rea- son for imagining that the gold area will not extend to almost all the creeks in the Vukon, and when I tell you that only fifty miles have been worked, and that there are seven thousand miles of creeks in the Vukon, almost all of which are unprospected, you can have some idea of the future which lies be- fore that country. (Hear, hear.) As to the little area of the Klondyke, with which wc have to deal, 1 would like to make it clear to you that it has only been actively developed during the last four or five years. The first stake was driven by George Cormack on Discovery Claim at Bon- anza, on August 16th, i8q6. The stampede into the country commenced in 1897, and continued in i8g8. The first large gold production was made * An aiKlr.'ss .l.liv.-n-d bt-foro thi- C;>n.uli.in Club of Toronto. I ftrs/XMSS TALK 0\ THK VfKOX in iMt^, when tio,nnn,noi> w«rt t«li«n from th« p^y Kmvala of ih« country. Thai \% accordini; lo ihc (lovernmtnial return*, but ■« K^ivcrnmtni r«iurn i* lik« an Income T«i« return I Jo not Cart what the iiovcrnmeni is, or whiii tha municipal body that i» at lh« hcaU of affairk «uch a return mu«i ittwM) « Ha mialtau Vou remcmhar that o\^ •lory wh» i i< told in Kawctlt'i. " Poli- iIchI Kconomy," alH>ut a itrcct in Lon- don where the income tax wa* levied, and nobody *m\ the street had an income at all, although it wa* one of the rich- est streets in I ondoii ; Hut afterwards when the street was closed and every resident had to he paid damages ac- cordini; to his income, the amount dwelled to tremendous proportions. Itmust not He expected that a royalty otBcial return will he any more accur- ate than an income tax return, especi- ally when the miners arc not the old miners of the old '49 days, the old miner or old prospector who spends all his life in the mountains, whether it be on the American or on the Canadian aide, and whose single boast is his honour, and especially when they are dealing with a substance in which so much value is incorporated in so small a space or bulk a?, it is in the case of Kold. Mowever, taking; the returns as they are, ten millions of dollars were taken out of the soil in i8<)8, sixteen millions in iHqc), twenty-two millions of dollars in 1000, and twenty-four millions in ntoi. And yet people ask us every Jay on the street, in the face of these figures, if the jfold production of the Klondyke is fallinjj off. It has almost trebled in four years. When we first arrived in the Yukon in 1897, and, traveilinjif over the ice during,' that winter, came to Dawson, the sensation that I, in common with ^11 others, no doubt experienced, was a very composite one. It did seem strange, alter passinj,' over hundreds or even thousands of miles of forest, stream and wilderness, to suJJenly \Xk- scenJ iiiiij .t littic b.isiii fornicil i>v the junction of the Yukon and Klondyke Rivers in amonjj the hills, under the ■hadow of VliMMcmin Mountam, and ftnd a little city 4II by itself, a sort of micriK'osm, a cominy metrop>t|i». Kven then, in the dead of winter, Dawst^n lily was compv>»«d of tents and huts made up of rou|;h frame* covered with tarred paper, with "iMno whipped lumber made in the liualily, but largely maJc up of packing boxes, and anythini; else that could be obtain- ed. Windows there were none. What mt){ht be called the windows of the cabins were made up larj^ely, at the mines and in the city, of boiiles set side by side. Strange to say anJthis IS a matter to be comiJereJ in i oniu-c- tion with the refercnJum. no matter how remote the country/anJ no matter how impossible it is to gel wintlow jflats, if you penetrate into the rejfions adjoininjf Ihe North I'ole. you find bottles, bottles, everywhere There they were turneJ to a useful purpose, because they were set side Oy side, and chinkeJ in with moss, anJ they made a very good window indeed. However, such was Dawson in iS*,;- X, a collection i.\i lents adjoining the old fishery hut of (ieorge I'ormack, a collection of tar paper .oul canvas houses scattered around without any regard to sanitary arr.ingemenis, and with no street. Nothing better ctuild have been expected. We were in our infancy, and just then Miss Flora .Shaw, of ihi Londtni Timeo, descended upon Ihe camp and fi>und that we had not good roads, and that the billiard tables were not strictly up to date, and ihe I.ondvn Timvi has been talking nit it ever since. However, the spirit of enterprise soon became very evident in the camp, with the result that after the lapse of lour years we have to present to you the City of Dawson. In iH<>8 a clus- ter of huts, to-day a city with an assessment of $i2,ooo,oocj real est.itc .md personalty. (Applause.) In iHr>« there was not a steamer on the Cpper N'ukon River ; the first small steamer a very smaii one indeed — arrived in Jime, i8«)H, and the succession ot steamers arriving has been so tremen- A HVrtXKSS TALK ON TNM Vlh'US Joii» ihm ruiw wrt i4n •huw you i»« lh« rpp«r Vukon a .1««i of i wanly • k«v«n •ti!Mm«f» v.iliiaU «i §t\-jH,,mnU>r n«iirly ti.tNiti.fHRi On lh« |.ow«r Vitkiin Kiver wcr* formsrly the Anta i«nU the tl'tir u»ij « few .»! th« olJ tuba of «h« Alookit C'omm«ri-tal Company thui w^rc Jwuik OfHrrMleil. W'« now Hmvo Iwd fl««i<« Th« Heel o» Iha Norlharn Niivi(fjtlion Compiiny, of tw«niy.«iKht «lt«mer». VMliied to ih« H<»«s*or nl «li, i j5,tHiij, tinil the fleet of the North America Trannporlation Compttny, of seven ■hip* worth aK»ut hctlf n million of (Jotlnrti. So thm Oil the two eiidt of the river we have about two and a hall million dollam' worth o( itteamer*. In the City of Dawson we have ahotit Si J,ui>o,tiuo worth of real eilate and personally. In the two years we have priuJticed about !fi46,tKH),ncxi of jfold. in housen and land alone the assess- ment amounts to some Sj.ooo.ootn So that in four years that little country has piled up a total I am not iakinif into account all the public building's built by the Gi vernment. or the Ji« miles of roads built by the (iovernment with all these public im- provements—of over $n)o,ooo,cxx), and that not at some railroad centre in Kastcrn ' inada, and not at some KTtM lake terminus in the Province of Ontario, but at sixty-four and oneh.df Uejfrees north latitude, under the very shadow of th, North Pole. It seems to me that is very excellent evidence o( wh it enterprise in a country can accomplish. The White Pass Railway was also built, and last year that White Pass Railway netteii some om- million and a qur.-ter of dollars in profits, and paid a dividend of twenty-five per cent, to its shareholders. On all sides, then, you have evidences of entcr'«risc, trade and pronn-ss. f)urin^' last ye.o there were larried into the country by the White Pass Railway and the steamers in connec- tion with it, no less Uum ;f).otx> tons of freight, ass against ;,2,ooo tons in lh« y«ar previous. .And last year there were taken in from Vancouver alone •».'>«■) lallle, bo as and •heep, as aKainsi some i,«s«i in the latter part oi iNi|N, So mut.h for our trade in the Vukon, Hut what cao be said with re^-ard lo our trade interests in the N ukon 'f What trade interests have the Ca.ia- dions as a people managed to seiur> in the Vukon, and lo what enienl have they shared in the marvellous prosperity ol that camp ? It is indeed retcretlable that a camp of such Value, so lar as ({old mining is concerned, has to be opened up lo the entire world. It does seem regrettable that foreigners and aliens Irom every- where should be allowed lo swo«ip down on that camp and without "by your leave " or " if you please," or without even an epithet to command your admiration and attention, simply take possession of our mines on Kido- rado and llonan/a— on KIdorado, where the gold mines run $j, to the lineal fool. It seems hard that these men should be able to take posecssion of the mines and to send and carry the gold away lo Seattle and other places, and build public build- ings in a magnanimous way in the dif- ferent cities of the I'niled States, build great stone blinks in Seattle, Portland and San Krancisco, and that we in Canada should have nothing whatever left in return for all that is taken away. I say that it seems unfortunate that this should be so. It is dilficult to distin- guish between this state of things and simply allowing our friends on the other side o( the line to enter the Treasury at Ottawa with wheelbarrows or what- ever other utensils they may prefer, and to carry away the gold that belongs to the country. However it cannot be helped. .\ii alien l.iw in a mining camp ci>tild never possibly succeed in I'anada. The Cana- dian people, so far, have not developed as a mining people. The alien law was tried in Atlin. with the result that the /I flt'S/XAW TA/h- OX Tfffi ifAOX i I I \aw WAV PmbucU ; itml tl Ih* wli^n liiv^ hml h««n iippli«U in ih» Viihtui, ih« VukiNi womIiI hdve b««n •lrrtn»{l«d 4t iU v«ry Nrlh. Th« l'«M»d StHit* nmion H»m, with iU SMr«U«« 4riii (•i;rm ii»« lilt ••iime juror* over itnil over Htfain, oMtn)( to the Uilliculty in ({«(<•»>; ""f- Ikicnt British nubject*. While the Knjfliih ami the Caniulinn ihow no «p. liluJe for mining (whether it it «hhor. rcmc to working' unJer^TounU or lux, I do not know), the French I am lian in the Viikon lian «hown him«clf an ex- celkiit miner, and today very tlonely conlenlt the belt with the Swede, the Norweifian, the Scandinavian and the hardy Norseman that we have in that cv>untry. The only excii'»e that can he ^''ven for allowing,' a country to be exploited in thin way, allowinjf the jfold to he du|f from the boweU of the earth and carried off to a lorei^^n country by foieiffnern, it that it develop* Cana- dian trade, and that is the point upon which I wi*h to address the Canadian llub. Because persons interested in Canadian trade have not put forward sutlicient energy to ^^•^in that trade in the N'ukon, i am here to*day to say a few word.s. It is true that in the be>;innin|,' of the country the Canadians had no share in the trade at all ; but during the last Jew- years their interest in the trade has very considerably increased. Vancouver has become a lar^i' shippinj,' point. Victoria is shipping' to some oxteni. The North- west Territories are sliippinj; to some extent, and you will often be fold, and I have no doubt th.it yon h;ivo b-jen told, that the Canadian trade with the Yukon is so frrown tliat to-cJ,iy we my vonirol MXly p«r icnt »i( the Irwd* fhjf h true in i» *«nk«, bul if i« not iru« in ih« •«(!«# Ill which t ue*tr» to h»ve the maltsf iind«r»lo«Hl by fallow -C'anadtan people, It !• true that the i itnadi.i.i middle- man is used nuuh more than he wns, .Hid that the buyer* m the Vukon to- day buy through middlemen, und in that way all these li|;ures jfo to the C ttmidian trade. But the Canadian maiitit.Kiurer is not by any means ueitinif the trad* of the country to the extent which lht»»e fiKur«« would seem to indicate. To come down to details | nuKhl say that my object in discu»»intf thiM p«»int is simply to urjfe that .me or two thin|;s shoulil be d«>ne ; that is, either that the dovernmcnt should be pre- vailed upon to appoint somebody out of the trade, conversant with the manulacturini; and with all the manu- factured products ol Canai'a, who will iio to the N'ukon and aci|uainl himself with the neeils of the country, and then visit all the factories in v'an.ida, and in I hat way help to increase ihe area and volume of Canadian trade with that country ; or that the .Manufacturers' .Association, which I see is now devot- inif itse.f largely to education in the matter o( manufacturing; and trade, should take that matter up. Certainly the (iovcrnmcnt has had a threat deal to do in connection with that country tor several years past, and has carried im its shoulders much more than it should have attempted to carry. With rcjfard to the trade itself, I may say that it ha- been disappoint- injf to us all up in that country from the very be^innin^;. to notice the very slif,'ht interest which seems to have been taken by Canadians in the country. To be^jiii in hi^^hest circles, let me tell you that but one .Minister in the Government of Canada has ever visited that country as yet the Minis- ter of the Interior I believe three members of I'.irliament, iwo from British C'olumbia and one from Nova w. '.«•:.. I. 1.- \-..i. ... Nuv is it possible, >,'entlemeii, that a new country can be successfully ^'overned ■ ki?!**--.*' ijHiPIi** A Hirs/XF.SS TALK OX TllK iCA'O.V without the member«. of the House of Commons and the members of the Cabinet visitinj; the country and acquainting themselves with its condi- tions and needs ■* If it were the same kind of country as Ontario or any of our Kastern Provin'^es, there would be nothin)^' in my arj; cnt ; but when it is a placer and qua, tz mininjf country, about which you can learn nothinjj in any other part of Canada, surel;. it is necessary to jfo to the mines and un- derstand the needs of the country. What I say is not for the purpose of attacking,' the (lovernment, but I want to awaken all Canadian public men. Althiujfh the Opposition has choke-damped the Houses of P.irlia- ment at Ottawa for yeais with scandals in connection with the country, follow- ed by Royal Commissions of Investifja- tion, which always showed that there was nothinjj in the scandals, not one single member of the Opposition in the Parliament of Canada has up to date visited this Vukon country, a country larjjer than almost any other Province in Canada. Now, with rc>,'ari' to the newspapers of Canada. I produce here one of the Dawson daily papers. We have three daily papers in Dawson, filled from edjfe to edge with all possible despatch- es concerning every item of news that occurs in Canada every day ; and there is also a weekly paper, besides some small magazines and leaflets. Although those papers, with the greatest enterprise and industry, are filled with news from all over Canada, there is not a paper in Canada to-day which contains any news front the Yukon. Seattle papers, ..s well as those of Tacoma and San Francisco are filled with news from the Yukon. It has been their specialty for years. But our Canadian papers contain nothing whatever with regard to that district. Seattle newspapers and other Ameri- can newspapers, especially of New York, are represented by scores of reporters and artists, and have been Iroin 1897 ; while no Canadian newspaper has ever h:id a responsible cortesporsdenl or an artist, or any one in the country to give them information with regard to that country. I say our public men are at fault, and our newspapers are at fault. And again I want to say that the manufac- turers, and those represented in the trade of the country, have been far more at fault than anybody else. What house of any consequence has sent agents to the Vukon to solicit trade or to seek to understand the trade ques- tion there Y What house of any con- sequence in Canada can show an adver- tisement in the Dawson Daiiy News, or in any daily newspaper in the Klon- dyke? Those papers are full day after day with advertisements from Seattle and all the cities of the United Stj^'es, and scarcely in any paper in Dawson, even to-day, after it has contributed so much to the welfare of Canada, and so much to the production of Canada at any rate, can such a thing as ,1 "an- adian advertisement be found in J902? The great business in the furnishing trade of the Vukon is, of course, the outfitting of the prospector. In the early days that was the greatest busi ness. The prospectors who came to the country claimed that they could not be properly outfitted on the Can- adian coast. The Canadians did not understand the needs of the prospector as the Americans did in those cities of the United States, where they had had much more experience in mining mat- ters than had been gained in Canada. To put it in a rather simple way, the prospector, you remember, goes far away from the centres of population, and travels one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles into the wilderness, .uid he must not only have the staples of existence, flour to make his slap- jacks, the bacon that he requires from time to time, and the tea, but he must have his small and inexpensive luxuries. All the pleasures that enter into the hard existence in those remote points in the wilderness (if he has any pleasures) are very gross and material indeed, and are not to be mentioned in such a select assemblage ; but if the miner does en- joy anything it is sonic luxury, some N A liUS/XESS TALK OX TIIH VVKOX little jelly or preserves piif itmoii^j his uulfit. Tho oiiililters ol ihe Ameri- can coast cities, with due re(,'arJ lo his tastes and pleasures, were ahle lo make a more attractive outfit than were the outfitters of the cities on our siik of the line. There are a fj reat many lines of ^;oods which should be furnished to the Vukon trade. Why is it that we do not fur- nish butter to the Yukon trade ? Surely our butter is better than any 'hat could be furnished from any other part of the world. But our butter is packed in such tins, and in such a way, that the rust and air affect it. My experience is that Canadian butter cannot be bought, because it always spoils. That is the n gular experience in camp. When we arrived at Skagway in iHi)7, four tons of Canadian butter had to be thrown over the edjje i:!^ the dock into the f.ynn Canal, which was certainly a fine advertisement at the outset for Can- adian butter. Then take Canadian bacon. Why do we not use Canadian bacon in the Yukon country ? We want to use it. I say for the credit of the trading insti- tutions up there, whether large or small, they feel that they are to make their money there, and they want to use all the Canadian staples they can ; but they claim they cannot use Can- adian bacon because it is not cured to last a sufficiently long time. Kvery- thing has to be carried in during the summer, to last not four or five months merely, but an entire season and half a season afterwards — a year or eighteen months. So much for our butter and bacon. These are technical matters in which I may be astray, but I tell you simply what all the business men in the country tell me. Why do we not monopolize the Yukon market in canned goods ? Our goods are better and sweeter, and there is probably more food in them than in similar goods from anywhere else. They object to the labels ; they ob- ject to the tins as being too heavy. Why do we not have our rubbei goods in that country ? For the simple reason that if we bought the Canadian rubber miner's boots which are lur nished at Ihe CiVisI, il would take al- nu'si a leain i>f horses to carry lluise bjuUs up to Ihe n>ine. The prospector or miner can go and get a pair of tiold Seal rubber boots from Ihe other side of the line, which are light and easily worn. Dur shovels are too long in the handle ; our picks are too heavy. Of the steel candlesticks to be driven into the fro/en gravel we have not shipped any into the country. Why does not Canadian cheese take possession ot the market of the coun- try, and Canadi;- -ondensed milk ? In some cases it may be from lack in the supply of the articles themselves, and in other cases through fault in the method of packing and labelling, or in Ihe tins or articles in which the goods .ire placed. Hut above and beyond all other reasons, because the manufac- turers of our country have taken no in- terest in the country, and the newspa- pers have taken no interest in the coimtry, and Parliament has taken little interest in the country beyond the debates which have taken place during the last few sessions. It seemed to me it might be well to bring these matters before this Club, and it might be well worth while lo point out, too, that there is no difficul- ty whatever in entering that country at the present time. I am often asked — everybody who comes from that country is often asked —Isn't it very difficult to get into the country ? Isn't it frightfully cold when you get there ? Here we object to our British friends always alluding to Canada as the Lady of the Snows; but every Canadian seems to hurl the same insult at our Yukon country. It is true we have cold there in the winter time ; but you have it cold down here and in every part of Canada in the winter time. And surely every grown-up Canadian has stamina sufficient to know what a small argu- ment that is. We have the most beautiful summers it is possible to imagine ; a more clori- o>;3 summor climate could not well be ^ /WS/\'ESS TALK ON THE VrKOX conceived. Ill the winter the cold i«* dry. We liave, however, an open siinuncr up to the end of Septemher and well on into October ; then by the niiildle of May thf ice is j,'one out of the N ukon Kiver, and from then on to the en>.\ of .September or October we have as delightful a summer as you have. And we have what you have not in the summer. During' the sum- mer time we have daylight all nifjht, which makes it pos.sible to carry on all the works of the country at a double shift, and in that way to accomplish a great deal more than can be accom- plished anywhere else. We have the country, we have the climate, and we have the products. As to the methods of {jetting into the country. It should be clearly understood that whereas in the old days you had to go by steamer to Skagway, and then scale the passes and endure a good deal of hardship, in the summer time in any case you had to scale the Chilcoot and White Passes and then come down the river in boats at a considerable expense. It is to-day no more difficult to go to the Yukon than it is to go on the steamer down to Quebec. It takes a little longer, perhaps. From Victoria or V'ancouver to Skat;- way you travel on an ocean steamer, well appointed in every way, as pleas- antly as could be. At Skagway you lake Ihi; White I'ass Uailuay i>ver the Pass. \'ou have not to get out and clamber over the pass and carry any- thing, but you can ride in your slippers :md lounging-jacket as well as you can anywhere else in the world ; and when you reach Whitehorse all you have to do is to step on a paliice steamer and in two days you are in Dawson. Surely if all that has been accom- plished in the short space of four years, and if we have to offer you a country which has produced in one-tenth of the time seven-eighths of the gold products of Canada, a country which last year imported thirty-six thousand tons of freight of all kinds for the consumption of the people of that country, and surely if you have the butter, cheese, canned goods, bacon and all the other staples which you hear about all the time, and if this is the growing time of Canada, and if the people of Toronto are as enterprising as they seem to be, and if we are in a period of growth and advancement, then when you and our public men spend so much time loiiking towards the development of trade with Australia and the Antipodes and all other parts of the world, you ought to be equal to reaching out and joining hands with the Yukon and getting close trade relations and securing the benefit of the Yukon trade. H ft 1 j^v^- r r- •J > 2r,