Mm ' " i-(.(ii/ /J/ )|,(,lll|j €oLDfieL'^§ // -r • ^v; '^ii ""nn.'p M J fi^h or-- 4^ I, ,4. f> ^ ro w S o w H O h < O w h O w > I— I Q O OVERLAND KULTE TU KLONDIKE ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE GOLD FIELDS CONTAINING A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD ; ENORMOUS DEPOSITS OF THE PRECIOUS METAL; ROUTES TRAVERSED BY MINERS; HOW TO FIND GOLD; CaMP LIFE AT KLONDIKE Practical Instructions for Fortune Seekers, Etc., Etc. INCLUDING A GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE GOLD REGIONS; LAND OP WONDERS; IMMENSE MOUNTAINS, RIVERS AND PLAINS; NATIVE INHABITANTS, ETC. By a. C HARRIS The Well-Known Author and Traveler INCLUDING Mrs. Eli Gage's Experiences of a Year amongf the Yukon Mining Camps ; Mrs. Schwatka*s Recollections of her husband as the Alaskan Pathfinder; Prosaic Side of Gold Hunting, as seen by Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras EMBELLISHED WITH MANY ENGRAVINGS REPRESENTING MIMNG AND OTHER SCENES IN ALASKA Monroe Book Company, CHICAGO, ILL. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897 by J. R. JONES, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. All Rights Reserved. PREFACE. KLONDIKE is the magic word that is thrilHng the whole country. It stands for millions of gold and great for- tunes for hundreds of miners, who have risen from poverty to affluence in the brief period of a few months. Thou- sands are reading of fortunes made in the .Klondike Gold Fields, and thousands of others are turning their longing eyes toward the new El Dorado. The old Spanish dreams of a wonderful realm somewhere in the Western Continent, made of gold and precious stones, -seem almost on the point of being realized. Not since 1849, when the marvellous discoveries of gold were made in Cali- fori.ia, has there been such excitement among all classes of people. Everybody wants to know the real facts concerning the new discoveries. On ever}- hand there is an eagerness for the most reliable information, which is furnished by this new and comprehensive work, containing a full description of Alaska and the Gold Regions. The author writes from personal ex- perience and observation, as he has been an eye-witness of the scenes, incidents and facts which he describes and narrates. The work gives a complete account of the rise of the gold fever, the excitement produced by the news of unlimited deposits of the precious metal ; the rush of miners seeking fortunes at Klondike ; hasty preparations for the long and perilous journey ; and the formation of companies eager to take possession of the region abounding in untold wealth. The thousands of prospectors hurrying to the Gold Fields give us a picture of the rush to California when the discoveries of gold were made in that State in 1849. :iii) iv PRr:i"ACE. How to get there is a question fully answered in this vol- ume. The different routes are described, together with the best modes of transportation. This work tells you what is required for the trip ; the clothing, food and implements that are needed ; the hardships and dangers to be encountered ; the difficulties arising from extreme cold in winter, and all the trying expe riences awaiting the gold-seekers. Alaska is a land of wonders. It is a vast region and one of the least known, yet one of the most remarkable countries in the whole world. Its history is fully related ; its purchase by our Government from Russia ; its slow^ development and its peculiar characteristics. It has vast tracts of primeval forests; mountains of awful sublimity ; rivers that rival the largest in other parts of the world ; Arctic snows and summer foliage and flowers ; deep canons and grand water-falls ; solitudes peopled only by polar bears and other fur-bearing animals ; and weird scenes that startle the beholder and fill him with awe. These are all viviJly described, together with the towns and settlements ; the appearance, habits and customs of the native inhabitants ; the climate in different parts of the country, and the progress of civilization up to the present time The min- eral resources and wealth of Alaska are fully treated, showing^ it to be a country rich in natural products. Its important fisheries and possibilities for agriculture are all set forth, to- gether with its industries, including its famous traffic in seals. How to mine for. gold is a subject on which the informa- tion is most complete and valuable. The reader follows the miners to their camps ; learns the process by which they extract the precious metal from the recesses where it is stored ; how it is separated from the ore ; what machinery is employed, and what are the most successful methods for obtaining the coveted prize. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. A Country Frozen by the Lapse of Time — Discovery of Gold Not New — News is Flashed Over the World and Creates a Furore — Old Dig- gings are Soon Abandoned — EflFect of the Find on the People of the United States and on the Money Centres of the World — Region which may Properly be called the Land of Gold once Thought so Worthless the Russians Offered to Give it Away for Nothing — Testimony as to the Richness of the Deposits — The Popular Demand for Information as to the Country, its Inhabitants, Scenery, Resources and the Like — Camp Life and Experiences . . 17 CHAPTER n. SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. Arrival of the Portland with more than a Ton of Gold on Board — Miners Tell of their Marvelous Strikes — Gold and the Aborigines — First Great Gold Craze — Prospecting in Early Dajs — Rich Gold Discovery on Bonanza Creek — Argonauts Flock to the Steamers — Scenes at the Wharves — Companies Formed in Response to the Rush — Millions of Money and Thousands of Men — Craze in Wall Street — Royalty Affected — Money in Grub-stakes — ^Joaquin Miller Lender Waj- — " Lucky " Baldwin After Mother Lode — Bright and Dark Sides of Story 33 CHAPTER III. "STRIKE IT RICH" ON KLONDIKE. Gold-seekers who " Made their Pile " in the Placers — Tales Brought Back by Returning Argonauts — Fabulous Stakes made b}- Novices — The ' ' Tenderfoot ' ' Has His Day — Clarence J. Berry, the ' ' Barney Barnato " of the Diggings— His Wonderful Streak of Luck — Gives the Credit to His Wife — Captain McGregor's Wonderful Panning Results — Fortune Favors an Indiana Boy — Some of the Dark Sides, by People who Saw Them — Miners Go Insane — Death on the Glacier —Hard Work and Lack of Supplies — Advice of a California Pioneer 75 (V) vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. HOW TO GET THERE. Main Routes to the Klondike — By Water and Land — Voyage via St. Michael's — Trip Up the Yukon — Choice of Trails via Juneau and Dyea— In by Chilkoot Pass— Over the Chilkat— The White Pass Route — Lieutenant Schwatka's Trail via Taku — By Way of Fort Wrangel and Lake Teslin — Railroads Suggested — The ' ' Back T^oor " Route — Up the Copper River — By Moose Factory and Chester ncid Inlet — Other Trails — Telegraph and Telephone — Postal Service — Outfits for Miners — List of Necessaries 12^ CHAPTER V. A LAND OF WONDERS. Land of the Midnight Sun — Great Distances — Primitive Conveyances — ■> Terrors of the Arctic Regions — World of Wonders — Dangers of Travel — A Great Glacier — A Frozen Cataract — Beautiful Scenery — Rush of Torrents — Marvelous Sunsets — Great Yukon River — Caiion of Lewis River — Dominion of the Frost King — Towering Volcanoes — The Winter Moon — A Country of Romance — Totem Poles — Salmon Fisheries — Vast Solitudes — The Alaskan Natives. . 182 CHAPTER \T. WOMEN AT THE MINES. Schemes for Obtaining Wealth — Mrs. Gage and Mrs. Schwatka in the Frozen North — The Mosquito Pest — ^Juneau and the Lynn Canal — Climbing the Mountains — Difficulties of Mining — Scarcity of Game — The Scurvy Terror — Morals of Klondike Mining Camps — Female Enterprise — Scarcity of Amusements — Sisterhood of St. Anne — The Four-leaf Clover — Bridal Trip to Klondike — Romance of Joseph Ladue — Women's Klondike Syndicate — A Lucky Seam- stress 210 CHAPTER VH. POET OF THE SIERRAS' VISION. Rushes off to the Diggings at the First Report — Mining in '49 — Goes in to Rough It — Carries His Own Pack, Pick and Pan — W;!l Hunt CONTENTS. vii for a Good Job— Coming Back With Bed-rock Facts— Contradicts Some Horse Stories — Schemes of the Pioneers — Not a Pistol in the Crowd— One Way to Get Bear Meat— Recalls Other Big Strikes — On Mary Island — With Father Duncan's Flock — No Jail Noi Police at Metlakahtia — Hay on the Klondike — None Coming From Yukon — Frolic with Indian Children 245 CHAPTER VIII. HISTORY AND PURCHASE OF ALASKA. One of the Happiest Deals Ever Made by American Statesmen — Seward's Glory — His Prophecy on Retiring to Private Life Verified — Comparatively Few People in the Territory — Story of the Early Days of Russian Occupation — The First Massacre — Country Once Offered to the United States for Nothing — Appropriation for Mone}- to Pay for the Tract Opposed b}- Congress Bitterly — Efforts to Provide Country with a Government — Interior containing Gold Fields once thought Worthless was Parceled Out in Thirds between as many Nations — Recent History 256 CHAPTER IX. TOPOGRAPHY. Country of Vast Extent and Remarkable Features — Like an Ox's Hea I Inverted — Yukon District Described as a Great Moorland — Its Archipelago a Wonderland of Immense Mountain Peaks — Legends of the Indians are Many — Tributes of Visitors to the Wilderness Magnificent Auroral Displays — The Reports Brought Back as to the Differences of Temperature — Mr. Weare Gives Some Interesting Information — Bitter Cold in the Region in Which the Mines are Located 281 CHAPTER X. FLORA, FAUNA AND CLIMATE. Agricultural Industries in Alaska — Vegetables and Small Fruits in the Southeastern Portion — Grasses and Fodder — Panorama of Blossoms in the Short Summer — Seasons in the Yukon Basin — Sea Otters and Fur Seals — Food Animals and Caruivorae — Moose and Caribou — Value of Pelts — Fish of the Territorj- — Salmon Canning and viii * CONTENTS. Salting — A Dog Fish Story — Birds of Alaska — Among Ibc Ceta- ceans — Mosquitos and Gnats — Weather Bureau Report — Tempera- ture at Klondike — Animals and Vegetation in British Columbia . . 2<.)5 CHAPTER XI. INDUSTRIES AND INDUSTRIAI. DEVELOPMENT. Chief Occupations of the Natives and the Settlers — The Four Remark- able Seal Islands — How the Animals Have Been Ruthlessly Slaughtered — When the Fur is at Its Best — The Great Fishing Plants of the Country — Alaska the Home of the Salmon^Cod and Other Fish Abound — Trapping and Hunting on the Decline — Current Belief that the Outlook for Lumbering is Not Good — Probability that this Opinion may be Reversed by Later Discover^' — Trees on the Islands — Agricultural Development one of the Great Needs at the Present Time — Land Simply Needs Tilling — Vegetables and Berries Grown in Quantities — Reports of Travelers 324 CHAPTER XII. RESOURCES AND WEALTH. ■Record as a Fur Country — State of Development Twenty Years Ago — How the Golden Treasures were Discovered and Developed — Re- port of Geological Survey Expert Spurr — Professor Elliott's Review —Alaska Richer than Klondike — West of the Coast Range^Mint • Director Preston's Views — United States Leads the World in Gold Production — From the Alaska Mining Record — Value of Yukon Gold — Cook's Inlet Diggings — Some Scattered Streaks — Experts in the Field — ^John W. Mackey Quoted — Other Mineral Resources — Canadian Report 349 CHAPTER XIII. GOLD MINING IN ALASKA. Antiquity of Placer Mining — How Nature has Filled the Gravel with Gold— Selecting a Locality — Building a House— Out Prospecting — Thawing the Ground — How to Distinguish Gold from other Minerals — Pyrites, INIica, Black Sand — Mechanical Assay— Locating the Claim — Local Customs — Commissioner Hcrrman's Digest— Getting Out the Gold— Mining in Winter — Work Along the Yukon — Sluic- CONTENTS. ix ing for Gold — Dry Placer Miners — Dredging for Gold — Old Miner's Advice — Gold-bearing Quartz — How Gold Came to Klondike — Banks and Banking 375 CHAPTER XIV. RESUME OF MINING LAWS. Law and Order — Fees for Mining — Rights of Miners — Quartz Mining — Surveys and Reservations — Voice of the Press — Penalties Imposed — Call for United States Troops — Size of Claims — Canadian Laws . 402 CHAPTER XV. GOLD CRAZES OF OTHER DAYS. Mining Excitements in Other Countries — Australia and South Africa lay the Old World under Tribute — Outbreaks of the Fever in America — Early Case in North Carolina — Stampede of '49 — '-Pike's Peak or Bust "^Recollections of the Argonauts — The Rock}' Belle Camp Craze — Rush to Stevens' Claim — Excitement About Tombstone — Placers in Baja, California — Harqua Hala Diggings — Randsburg and Its Boom — Comparisons with Klondike — What the Early Stampedes Cost in Cash and Life 422 CHAPTER XVI. SIDE-LIGHTS. Oddities and Freaks of the Klondike Craze — To the Gold Fields via Baloon — Bicycles for Argonauts — Swim or Slide — Fancy Stock in Dogs — Chopping Wood to Pay Passage — Grub-stakers and "Angels" — Schemes of Worn-out Prospectors — Clairvoyants as Gold-finders — Mining Stocks and Sharpers — Magic in the Name — Barber's Syndicate — Sleuths to the Yukon — Samples of Argonauts — Freaks of " Tenderfeet " — Bogus Bureaus — Hard Work to Keep Gold — Gamblers and Miners — Type of a Miner's Paper 440 CHAPTER XVII. CAMP LIFE AND MORALS. Mining Towns in the Alaskan Wilderness Similar to Other Rude Com- munities, with such Peculiarities as are Born of Climatic and Topo- CONTEXTS. graphical Features — All Have Their Social Amenities — The Bible and Shakespeare Appeal to the Literary Tastes of the Fortune Seekers — Watching of Property Early a Necessity — Sharpers Lose no Time in Getting in Their Work — Gamblers also Flock Toward the Yukon to Intercept the Returning Miners and Fleece Them — Whiskey Trade Flourishes in the Wilds 453 CHAPTER XVIII. DOMESTIC LIFE IN THE WILDS. Miners' Experiences not those of a mere Romantic Sojourn in the Wilderness — Absence of Conveniences and Comforts — The Older Towns Antiquated and, during the Gold Craze, Overcrowded — Graphic Pictures of Skaguay, Dawson City, Circle City, and Camp Lake Liuderman — Hotel Project for the Territory that Promises to be the Means of Furnishing a Larger Quota of Comforts — Women's Influence on the Domestic Life — Some of Those Who Grace the Camps with their Presence, and the Particular Line of Work to which they Devote Themselves — Sisters of Mercy for the Sick and Dying, and Sisters of Cookery for the Well 465 CHAPTER XIX. ETHNOGRAPHY, Census of Alaska— Russian Estimates of Population — Classification of the Indians — History of the Thlinkets — Characteristics Suggestive of Asiatic Origin — Savage Customs Largely Abandoned — Chilkats and their Traits — Hootzanoos and " Hoochinoo" — The Sitkans and Stickines — Among the Aleuts 4^8 CHAPTER XX. NATIVE RELIGION AND TRAITS. The Alaskan Indians a People of Curious Customs and Habits — Are Intelligent, Inventive, and Imitative — Are Adepts in the Vices of the White Men Who Visit Them — Are Natural-born Drunkards and Gamblers — Totem Poles Their Pride in the Olden Times — The Significance of these Barbaric Symbols of the People — Are Rich in Oral Traditions — The Theological and Cosmological Belief of the CONTENTS. xi Indians — Odd Notions of the Aboriginal Thinkers — Samples of the Rites Practiced — Cannibalism and Shamanism — Law and Home Life — Description of the Innuits of the North 491 CHAPTER XXI. SPREAD OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. Empress Catherine Takes the Initiative in Bringing a Purer Religion to the Savages — Work of the Early Russian Missionaries and the Pro- gress of Their Work — Schools Early Established — Introduction of the Luthern Church Due to the Efforts of Commercial Bodies to Provide for Their Employes — Sad Result of the Transfer of the Territory to the United States — Deed Interest shown By the Natives — Some Striking Literature from the Wilds — Methodists Follow the Presbyterians in Their Missions — Great Hope for the Future. . . . 503 CHAPTER XXn. BRITISH COLUMBIA AND NORTHWEST TERRITORY. Region is One of Vast Extent and Diversified Features — Has a Magnifi- cent Ocean Frontage — A Land of Great Rivers which Afford Internal Highways — Greatest of All is the Columbia — Has a Large Ocean Trade Even Now — Experiments in Fruit Growing Successful— Con- struction of Railwa3-s Has Given an Impetus to Development — Many Districts Famous for Their Grain and Others for Their Mineral Deposits — Gold Mines in Abundance — Klondike Within the Cana- dian Territory — Some of the Mines Now Worked — Silver Not Wanting 516 CHAPTER XXIII. ADVENT OF WINTER. Confirmation of Stories About the Wealth of Klondike and Alaska — Perils of the Passes — Dark and Bright Sides of the Picture, as Seen by Argonauts — New Diggings Opened — Copper River and Cook's Inlet — New Strikes in the Yukon Basin — Two Experiences in Cross- ing Chilkoot Pass— Over the White Pass— Belated Gold Seekers Camping on the Trail — Woes of the Horses — New Routes — Tram- way at Dyea — Via the Snow Train — At St. Michael's — In Dawson and Skagway— Glacier Slide and Flood — Mt. St. Elias Scaled . . o2y m w m D O X O o J Q < H w H 73 W (United States Survey.) c OFFICIAL MAP OF THE KLONDIKE AND YUKON REGION- (United States Sun-ey.) c CHAPTER I. Land of the Argonauts. A Country Frozen by the Lap^e of Time — Discovery of Gold Not New — News is Flashed Over the World and Creates a Furore — Old Diggings are Soon Abandoned — Effect of the Find on the People of the United States and on the Money Centres of the Work! — Region which may Properly be called the Land of Gold once Thought so Worthless the Russians Offered to Give it Away for Nothing — Testimony as to the Richness of the Deposits — The Popular Demand for Information as to the Country, its Inhabitants, Scenery, Resources and the Like — Camp Life and Experi- ences. ALASKA is the land of the Nineteenth Century Argon:iuts ; and the Golden Fleece hidden away among its snow- capped and glacier-clad mountains is not the pretty creation of mythological fame, but yellow nuggets which may be trans- formed into the coin of the realm. The vast territory into which these hardy soldiers of fortune penetrate is no less replete with wonders than the fabled land into which Jason is said to have led his band of adventurers. There is this difference, however, between the frozen land of of the North and the fabled land of niythology. There is nothing conjectural about Alaska or its golden treasure. Jason led his band into an unknown country without the certain knowl- edge that the treasure he was seeking was there. The men and women who brave the perils of the wilderness to seek their fortunes in Alaska, go with a certainty that the treasure is there. It is a mere matter of finding it when once they have readied the fields. What is more the Land of Gold, as we may properly term Alaska, has proved and will prove to tourist and prospector as rich in delights and marvels as the land which l:a3 cov.V2 2 . 17 18 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. down to us in legend. It seems to be a spot chosen by nature as a field of adventure. The person, therefore, who goes from the South to the Yukon Valley will be sure to find, even though disappointed in the quest for which primarily he went, enough of the beautiful and martelous to pay him for his trip. Frozen by Lapse of Time. And first a word about this land of bleakness and grandeur. Captain Butler, an English officer who crossed the great country some little time ago, writes in the most enthusiastic terms of its scenery, and one cannot do better than quote his picturesque words. Says he : " Nature has here graven her image in such colossal charac- ters that man seems to move slowly amid an ocean frozen rigid by the lapse of time — frozen into those things we call mountains, rivers and forests. "Rivers whose single length roll twice 2,000 miles of shore line ! Prairies over which a traveler can steer for weeks without resting his gaze on aught save the dim verge of the ever-shifting horizon ! Mountains rent by rivers, ice-topped, glacier seared, impassable ! Forests whose sombre pines darken a region half as large as Europe ! " In summer a land of sound ; a land echoed with the voices of birds ; the ripple of running water ; the mournful music of the waving pine branch ! In winter a land of silence ; its great rivers glimmering in the moonlight, wrapped in their shrouds of ice ; its still forests rising weird and spectral against the auroral lighted horizon ; its nights s© still that the moving streamers across the northern skies seem to carry to the ear a sense of sound." The land thus strikingly described has been deemed since early in 1887 the FJdorado where nature has apparently strewn LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 19 her golden gifts most lavish!}'. It is to this land that thousands have wended their way in the hopes of wresting from their hidden beds enough of these treasures to lift them to opulence. Not a New Discovery. The knowledge of these gold fields in the North is not new. From early in the days of the Russian occupation it has been known that there were vast deposits of the precious metal in Alaska, practically under the Arctic Circle. Year by year the gold fields have attracted adventurous for- tune seekers, who have gone thither in ever-increasing numbers. Following the discovery of the rich deposits in the Klondike region, however, there has been an influx of people into these frozen wilds, such as has never been known before. The first chance discovery was for a long time virtually held in secret, not intentionally, but because the lack of transit facil- ities made it difficult to get the news to civilized communities. When at length, however, the story of the find was brought south, and with the story was brought specimens of nuggets and gold dust which had been found, the news was put upon the wires and flashed through the length and breadth of the land, and the excitement caused gave every promise of a repetition of the memorable scenes which made Cariboo and Cassiar famous a generation ago. In New York, in Chicago, in London, in Paris, throughout the world, the attention alike of rich and poor, was directed to the marvelously rich, but almost wholly unknown wilds of Alaska. People talked of the days of '49 and devised a new slogan, "The days of '97." The rich immediately began to organize new companies and map out new enterprises, such as made fortunes for thousands in days of other gold excitements ; and multitudes of the poor, dissatisfied with their opportunities 20 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. in districts longer settled and better improved, made haste to provide their outfits and take passage to the Yukon. In former days it was " Pike's Peak or Bust." Now the watch-word became " On to the Klondike." In the gold mining regions of Alaska there were, in 1893, not more than about 300 miners all told. This number was doubled practically the following year. Owing to the glowing reports of successful operators, the number of miners attracted by 1895 was 3000. Probably twice that number of miners and prospectors invaded the country in 1 896. In 1897 came this furor that caused the Klondike district to rank with the great historical gold fields of the world. This LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 21 year witnessed the greatest influx of people into the territory on record, and there was every prospect that the year following would see the number quadrupled, possible many times over. Old Diggings Abandoned. And in the excess of enthusiasm and the wild hurrah raised when the new fields on the Klondike were discovered the old diggings were virtually abandoned. For ten years, at least, men worked placers in the Yukon district. Leaving Juneau early in the spring, they went out over the Chilkoot Pass and down the little chain of lakes on the other side, making long portages, it is true, and enduring some hardsliips, to the Yukon River. They returned to Juneau in the fall, year after year, bringing with them from ;$2000 to $3500 each in gold dust, the product of the summer's work. But they were improvident, these men who won gold from the beds of rivers, and when the spring came they were stranded financially, many of them without a grub-stake, but they " won out" some way and got back again to return — unless they had crossed the divide forever — and repeated the same old story of excess and extravagance. They never grew money wise, these grizzled veterans of the rocker, the gold pan, the pick and the shovel, but after all they are of God's people. Quartz lodes were worked in ten or more districts, some of which are large and contain many district claims. The tun dis- tricts referred to are as follows : Sheep Creek region, which yields ore containing silver, gold and other metals ; Salmon Creek, near Juneau, silver and gold ; Silver Bow Basin, mainly gold ; Douglas Island, mainly gold ; Fuhter Bay, on Admiralty Island,' mainly gold ; the Silver Bay mining district, near Sitka, gold and silver ; Besner's Bay, in Lynn Canal, mainly gold ; 22 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. Fish River mining district, on Norton Sound ; Unga district and Lemon Creek. But the furor over Klondike brought revokition. A change came over the spirit of the miners' dreams. This country has been seized with the gold fever man)' times in the last half century, but never since yellow deposits were discovered in the Sacramento Valley was there such universal interest as was displayed over the discovery of gold on the Yukon and the Klondike. In many districts men and women talked of nothing else than of the new find. They were enthusi- astic beyond bounds. Experienced miners who had spent years in Alaska came to the front with words of caution and advice to let these enthu- siasts know that the road to wealth in the Alaskan gold fields was even more beset with hardships in the way of cold, hunger and toil than the fields to which they were accustomed, and with which they had become dissatisfied. The friendly counsel, however, was disregarded. The one cry was " On to the Klon- dike," and one and all were apparently seized with the mad fever to leave civilization and seek wealth in the wilds. Made His Blood Boil. " What makes my blood run faster in my veins is to think that I have walked all over that gold and that now others are digging it. It prevents me from sleeping at night. The speaker was Francois Mercier, a resident of Montreal, who can claim the honor of having been one of the first band of hard}^ pioneers who raised the American flag over the now celebrated gold fields of Alaska, and who spent seventeen winters in that desolate country. Thousands besides Mercier found it difiicult to sleep, and Alaska suddenly arose from an obscure district, w hich had ofte" LAND OF THI<: ARGONAUTS. 23 been called the " back dooryard of the United States," into the most talked of region of America. People then began to learn something of the history, the resources, the climate and the future of the country. They were surprised to find that this vast territory, which was purchased in 1867 by Secretary Seward for half a cent an acre, had already paid $103,000,000. This was the returns of thirty years on an investment of 5/, 200,000. This enormous sum they then learned had been derived from furs, herring, salmon, cod, ivory, whalebone and gold. Gold, of course, was the most interesting item. They found at the time of the last census the United States had taken out ;^76,ooo,ooo in the precious metal. They found that since then the mines of the country had enriched the world's gold supply by about $27,000,000. Came Like a Whirlwind. It is no wonder, therefore, that the discovery of gold in the Yukon region should have come like a whirlwind among the people and that there should have been such an exodus from the southern States to the frozen regions of the North. The figures that came to light then about the Alaskan territory were giant figures, but they were the exact truth. From the "-Jays when the Czar of Russia, in his zeal for dis- covery, sent hip 'i"':nions to find the fabled land of Vasco da Gama to the ti^.t^ of the discovery, the regions lying under the Arctic Circle had wooed but few, and those few were those who had drifted thither from adjacent territory. The real settlement of Alaska may, in a sense, be called the influx of people that resulted from the '^^xcitcment incident to the discov^erj^ of gold on the Klondike. It was an ca^^y matter to compute what had come to the 24 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. United States from Alaska up to that time, but it was then said throughout the land, and in thousands of organs, that the sum which would be added to the world's wealth within a few years by this territory passed all surmise. Thus hope fanned conjec- ture and desire. The wealth to be expected was thought to be a pile of money a? mountainous and as sublime as the country itself. It is of interest to note in this connection that this territory of Alaska which was not then declared to be the world's storehouse of gold, was once offered to the United States by the Emperor Nicholas, of Russia, for nothing, if our government would merely pay for the transfer papers and agree by thus accepting the gift from Russia to bar England from coast territory on the Pacific. It is also of interest to note that almost similar propo- sitions were repeatedly made, for the simple reason that no one suspected that enormous wealth lay hidden under the snows of this Arctic region. Precaution of the Russians. More properly speaking, some did suspect the existence of the boundless treasure. But those who did, discretely kept it to themselves, so that the news did not reach the people who might have profited by it. It is a singular fact that the existence of gold in quantities along the tributaries of the Yukon was known to a few men a century and a half ago. The truth has been held back by the fur trading companies. They were not after minerals, and they feared the ruin of their industr}^ which was in itself a gold mine. Trappers, explorers, and men who lived with the Indians were forbidden to tell what they knew on pain of death. The Russia Fur Company did summarily shoot one man who <'-rew excited with drink and blabbed. That death is still remem- LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 25 bered in Alaska, having been passed from mouth to mouth, as is the manner of unlettered peoples. Other fur companies have done nothing to develop the country and have kept their lips sealed. They foresaw the effect of a torrent of immigration Such things cannot be hidden, however. The secret is out at last. No, such things cannot be kept hidden. They came out, and the world had the secret as soon as the first ship from the North reached Seattle with the men who had "struck it rich," and brought back with them evidence of their good luck in the shape of gold dust and nuggets. Then a state of affairs resulted comparable with the days of '49. It was said that the world's richest deposit of gold had been discovered. To the average man in the coast States, who had been nurtured virtually on stories of vast fortunes easily made in California, this news was not more acceptable than exciting. It was true that the Yukon region was 2000 miles away, across a trackless desert, over snow-bound mountains, and through passes beset with dangers. But the fabulous tales of wealth that were brought south made the distance and the danger practically sink into insignificance and stimulated all with a desire to brave the unknown and investigate for themselves the great mineral belt in the Klondike region. Evidence of Authorities. This popular excitement was backed up by the testimony of men competent to speak of the country and its resources. They declared unqualifiedly that the gold districts on the Yukon and Klondike were but a speck in the gold territory of Alaska. They said that the placer mining which had resulted in such wealth thus far, was but an indication of the larger wealth to be acquired by a different process of mining. 26 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. When the miners find it no longer profitable to wash out the gravel they can attack the conglomerate, where they will be able to accomplish something by hand labor. Finally, there is the original source of gold, the veins in the hills. These must be of enormous value. They must lie untouched until the proper machinery for obtaining the gold is erected. A clear, scientific, and authoritative explanation of the geological condi- tions of the Klondike and neighboring gold-bearing rocks is furnished by Professor S. F. Emmons, of the United States Geolological Survey. Professor Emmons said : " The real mass of golden wealth in Alaska remains as yet untouched. It lies in the virgin rocks, from which the particles found in the river gravels, now being washed by the Klondike miners have been torn by the erosion of streams. These parti- cles, being heavy, have been deposited by the streams, which carried the lighter matter onward to the ocean, thus forming, b}- gradual accumulation, a sort of auriferous concentrate. Richness of the Soil. " Many of the bits, especially in certain localities, are big enough to be called nuggets. In spots the gravels are so rich that, as we have all heard, many ounces of the yellow metal are obtained from the washing of a single panful. That is what is making the people so wild — the prospect of picking money out of the dirt by the handful literally." Hardly had the news of the great find been flashed over the world when Director of the Mint Preston was asked for his views as to the Alaskan gold fields and their influence. His words but added fuel to the flames that were then consuming the masses. Said he : " That gold exists in large quantities in the newly discovered Klondike district is sufficient!}' proven by the large amount LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 27 recently brouglit out by the steamship companies and miners returning to the States who went up into the district within the last eight months. "So far ^1,500,000 in gold from the Klondike district has been deposited at the mints and assay offices of the United States, and from information now at hand there are substantial reasons for believing from ^3,000,000 to $4,000,000 additional will be brought out by the steamers and returning miners sailing from St. Michael's the last of September or early October next. " One of the steamship companies states that it expects to bring out about $2,000,000 on its steamer sailing from St. Mich- ael's on September 30th, and has asked the government to have a revenue cutter to act as a convoy through the Rehring Sea. In view of the facts above stated I am justified in estimating that the Klondike district will augment the world's gold supply in 1897 nearly $6,000,000." Demand for Information. As might be expected, the prominence given to Alaska by the discovery of the gold fields, resulted in a demand for a detailed statement of information as to the country in all its relations. So little was the country known, however, and so meager were the reports 'that had been brought to civilized communities con- cerning it, that the multitude found it difficult to obtain the information desired. How were they to get there ? What was there of interest or of importance connected with the history and purchase of the countr}' ? What could be learned of the various industries of the territory? What of the fauna and flora? What of the mineral wealth. Under what conditions and amenable to what laws would the prospectors have to work ? What outfits were required for safety, comfort and convenience ? What conditions 28 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. of domestic life would those who left their homes in the south have to face in the unknown regions to which they contemplated going ? What of the topography of the country they would have to traverse ? These and a thousand of other things became matters of prime importance, and it is to place such information in the hands of the public that this volume is issued. A Land of ^A^onde^s. Literally the land of Alaska is a Land of Wonders, a land dif- fering markedly in its natural features from the districts of the south and bound to excite the admiration and awe of visitors by its natural features. These are so unlike the natural phenomena to be beheld in other parts of United States territory that the person who ventures into the region of the gold fields will find himself practically in a new world. As will be seen in the following chapters, it is a country ot almost boundless extent where the rivers, the mountains, the plains, the glaciers, everything, is in keeping with the distances that have to be traversed by the tourist or the prospector. It is a land of strange sights and stranger experiences, where much that is never dreamed of in the south will be found to be the commonplaces of an unknown people. As will be seen in the following pages, it is the land of sunless days and moonless nights ; where Nature apparently has transposed the natural order of things, as is observed in southern latitudes, and inaugu- rated a new regime for visitors to wonder and marvel at. Everything is mapped out on a gigantic scale and is clothed in such a way with its covering of ice and snow, and its strange forestation, and is overarched with such peculiar skies, that the voyager will not marvel less at what he sees than, to revert again to the opening passage from mythology, Jason and his LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 29 band of adventurers marveled at what they are supposed to have seen in the fabled land of the Golden Fleece. The Lesson of History. The story of the history and purchase is not without its touch of romance and its lesson of wisdom. There is certainly food for thought in the narrative of a region so boundless in extent that Vas once thought so valueless as to be offered as a gift, owing to the ignorance of the people owning it as to its actual wealth. Secretary Seward always maintained that it was his crowning glory to have purchased the Alaskan territory. He and his staunch supporter, Senator Charles Sumner, always declared that the country had a future which would make it a profitable investment for the United States to purchase it at a far higher figure than had to be given. The wisdom of their decision in the matter was shown within a few years after the transfer was made from Russia to the United States, and, as will be set forth in a chapter to follow, long before ever gold was discovered in the Klondike region the purchase money of the United States was returned over and over again, and the wisdom of Seward and his friends was established beyond a doubt. Incident to the purchase and transfer of the territory, grave international questions arose which are well worthy of the atten- tion of any one interested in the history of the country and the development of its latest possession. These are all carefully set forth in the following pages and will be deemed an acceptable contribution of information by those who, influenced by the ex- citement incident to the recent discovery of gold, may wish to invade the northern regions. The fauna and flora of the territory, too, are of deep interest, especially from the fact that for many years one of the chief 30 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. sources of wealth in the country was the furs. The Russians, who first owned the country, were not slow to recognize the value of the fur-bearing animals and to develop the industr}'- of hunting them for their pelts. Following the initial steps taken by the Russians. John Jacob Astor sent his army of hunters and trapper? into the northwest and carried the business far beyond the limits ever dreamed of by the Russians who began it. Of late years, however, trapping in Alaska has, in a measure, fallen into abeyance, and in those regions where the miners have begun their work the difficulty of securing fresh^meat has caused them to drive away all game from the districts invaded. Still it is of importance to those likely to go to the gold fields to know that there is still ample field for the hunter, and that fortunes are even yet to be made in trapping the animals for their furs. Touching on furs Mr. Olgivie writes : " The principal furs procured in the district are the silver-gray and black fox, the number of which bears a greater ratio to the number of red foxes than in any other part of the country. The red fox is very common, and a species called the blue is very abundant near the coast. Marten, or sabie, are also numerous, as are lynx ; but otter are scarce, and beaver almost unknown. Value of the Fox Skins. " It is probable that the value of gray and black fox skins taken out of the country more than equals in value all the other furs. I could get no statistics concerning this trade for obvious reasons. " Game is not now as abundant as before mining began, and it is difficult, in fact impossible, to get any close to the river. "A boom in mining would soon exterminate the game in the district along the river." Directly connected with the discover}^ of gold and of vast LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 31 importance to prospective mineri-, there is miuch to be learned relative to the necessities of those visiting the territory. Prime among these items of interest is the matter of getting to the diggings. Many have been deterred from making the trip by the reported inaccessibility of the gold-bearing region, and the interminable stretches of the country that have to be traversed by all who seek fortunes in the wilds. Route after route has been mapped out until there is scarcely a way by which it would be possible to go from Sitka to the Yukon, that has not been laid down as more or less practicable. It is safe to say that many of the routes outlined for the benefit of the public are thoroughly impracticable. The mere enumera- tion and explanation of the many courses prospective miners may follow, is not less an item of interest than of importance. Features of the Journey. To reach the distant fields, it will be neccssar}^ for any one to take an ocean voyage on landlocked arms of the sea, traverse trackless prairies, skirt mountain ranges, thread rivers lined with falls and rapids, that are a constant menace to life, andeven,in a region for a large share of the year covered with an unbroken blanket of ice and snow, go in sledges or on snow-shoes in a way that adds to the fatigues and dangers of the journey. Many are the wild schemes that have been devised by so-called " tenderfeet," of getting from civilization to the camps, and those who have had their interest awakened to the extent of wishing to undertake the journey to Alaska, will welcome a careful state- ment of the most desirable ways of getting there, and an outline of the principal courses which may be followed in the under- taking. Another matter of importance, and one that is replete with interest and romance, is the domestic life of the mining region. 32 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS The camps of the North, thus far at least, have been unique in the great mining enterprises of the world. It is probable that the days of '97 will be attended by no such forms of life and forms of depravity as marred the days of '49. Many women, and these in a large measure women of culture and education, have gone to the north to grace the camp life with their pres- ence. They have gone, however, with a legitimate and honor- able purpose in view, and the inaccessibility of the region, and the dangers and hardships that are reported to attend the jour- ney to the diggings have had the result of keeping away the lawless classes. Camp Life Comparatively Pure. As a consequence, camp life is pure and better in every way than it was in the days of the gold excitement in California, and those who read the following pages will be pleased with the remarkable contrast that is pointed out. Immediately on the discovery of gold and its announcement to the world, grave questions arose as to the international boundaiy between the United States and the British territory, and it became a matter of importance to miners and prospectors to study the mining laws of two countries, partly to provide against personal annoyance and partly to protect their individual inter- ests. On the opposite sides of the boundary line different sets of laws and regulations were in force, and miners were expected to observe the laws obtaining in the respective districts. That these laws were often disregarded, goes without saying. Canada, in a grasping spirit of gain, proceeded without delay to modify her mining laws for her own benefit and to the detri- ment of Americans who went to the Klondike district. The old dispute as to boundary and territorial jurisdiction arose, and for a time there was the prospect of a grave international dis- pute. Not content to live and let live, Canada undertook to 33 34 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. impose a tax on all Americans crossmg the real or alleged boun- dary line, and this measure was bitterly opposed by the mmers. Would Keep the Gold. Further than this, the Dominion Cabinet devised a scheme to limit the flow of gold to the United States from the diggings, and this too caused a protest in the entire region, from the fact that a large percentage of the miners were Americans who had gone thither on the mere chance of winning fortunes, and who naturally objected to being taxed for their enterprise and to being placed in leading strings as to the disposition of whatever they might acquire In the following pages a digest of the min- ing laws of both countries, together with the history of the con- tention that arose and its development to the time of publication, is given : In the wild rush for the diggings incident upon the news coming to the more settled States, thousands of people with no experience whatever in mining life set out immediately to tempt fortune in the territory Many of the outfits they provided for themselves were very curious, and it became necessary for those furthering the enterprise of the fortune seekers in a commercial way, to make a schedule of the necessary outfits they should provide for themselves. For the most part these specially devised outfits received pub- lication in the daily press, and then from lack of novelty were allowed to fall into abeyance and practically be forgotten. As a result, many of those who took their traps and started for the overland journey from Juneau and St. Michael's, found themselves, when on the way, practically destitute of the things which expe- rience showed to be necessary for effective work. The fortune seekers were likewise equally without knowledge of the methods of working claims, should they secure them L\ND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 34 Very few of the thousands who took their way to the Klondike region, knew the first thing of how to mine gold. They were obliged to trust to fortune and pick up from those already in the field the rudiments of the new calling to which they proposed to devote themselves. Many, to their sorrow, deplored the fact that ignorance or oversight had led them to overlook this im- portant preparation for their work. " If I had had but a manual telling me what to provide and how to do the work on arriving at the diggings, I should have deemed myself a fortunate person." This was a saying of almost daily occurence wherever the work of mining was under- taken by "tenderfeet" from the south. Naturally they worked at a disadvantage as compared with the men of experience, who flocked to the new fields from W^eare, Circle City and other camps where mining had been followed for a length of time. In the following pages all this information, which those who early flocked to the diggings lacked, has been gathered together for the instruction and convenience of those who may propose to make the journey in the future. Food Question Paramount. Food is the great problem of life in this district. Cold does not cause much worry, for men can wrap themselves warmly enough to guard against loss of life from exposure, but few things grow in that northern clime and there is a lack of animal food which can be sacrificed to support the life of man. Hence enormous prices are charged for provisions. Reports sent back by the miners in the Klondike region show that potatoes are twenty-five cents a pound and bacon forty cents. These are the cheapest articles of diet, and others sell at. proportionate prices based upon the cost of their transporta- tion to the gold fields as well as upon their power to sustain life. 36 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. Starvation is the real danger that confronts the miner who goes there in search of gold. Although ten dollars a day is paid for labor, no man is given work unless he brings some provisions with him, this being due to the fact that the claim owner cannot afford to supply his workman with food nor even sell him any from his own scanty store. The rapid growth in the population of Alaska has made this problem seem of sufficient importance to Congress to appropri- ate ;$50oo to pay for an investigation of the food resources, and in addition, under the present law, the experiment stations which will be established will be entitled to $15,000 per annum for their support. Field for Enterprises. Apart from all consideration of the discovery of gold and the excitement incident to it, the Territory of Alaska has a deep interest for Americans in many lines of commercial enterprise. The remoteness of the countr}^ and its inaccessibility, owing to poor methods of transit, has thus far had the effect of shrouding the region in a certain myster}^, which lack of interest, appar- ently, has not cleared away. The rise of the Klondike fever has opened up to the public the fact that the gold fields are only one of a number of interests that claim attention. This is shown by such reports as the following, which was made by one who spent many years in the interior of the countr}-. "It is a prevalent idea that the Alaskan Territor)- produces only gold and things of the sea, but this is wrong. Even in Klondike, which is far removed from the mollifying influences of the Japanese current, hardy vegetables grow in profusion, although cauliflower and asparagus will not ripen. Hay is as high as a man's head. When the country comes to be better known it will be found capable of making many things for humanit}' now unthought of ^v^, CHILKOOT PAS? SHOWING SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. 37 " Although for some undiscovcrable reason, reports have gone abroad that there is no game, the fact remains that there is plenty of it. Moose, elk and cariboo, or the American reindeer, abound. ' Every river is stocked with fish. No man should starve who has a hook and a flint-lock musket. When we were school children we used to read of the musk-oxen of Alaska, but none are there. The musk-ox is not found in America any- where west of the great continental divide, or Rocky Mountains." Another Fine Possibility. Professor Allen thinks Alaska has before it a great future as a stock-raising country, and declares that stock can be raised there as successfully as in Montana or Wyoming. At present, how- ever, there are practically no domestic animals in the country, the chief being reindeer. Explorers will experiment and learn what domestic animals are best adapted to the climate. Sheep, pigs and goats can live there with proper treatment, and it is thought that, in the islands of the coast, they will flourish all winter on the wild grasses, even if left to their own devices. Farther north and in the interior it is probable they would have to be sheltered dliring the two or three months of the severest weather. Poultry can probably be raised to advantage. It has been the aim in the following pages to gather together, from every possible source, such information relative to the min- eral wealth, the fisheries, the agricultural development, the ethnology of the country and all similar lines of interest such as would naturally be sought by a public whose interest had been aroused by the recent developments in the Territory, and to give as fully as possible the stor}' of the rise of the Klondike fever, with all the wealth of romantic experiences and fortunate dis- coveries that has been made public since Alaska stepped so prominently into notice, 38 LAND OF THE ARGONAUTS. The narrative, in a sense, will of necessity read like a chapter of fiction, for the camp life of the Klondike, like the camp life of similar regions, has its light and shade, its amenities and hardships, its pecuKaritics and its streaks of fortune, 'that will ever be of interest to those who have a love of the unusual and the unexpected. Miners' experiences, in a district so remote, must ever have the element of oddit}^, and this, coupled with the peculiar characteristics of life in a region which is little less than a new world, makes the story of the Yukon, as the follow- ing pages will show, one virtually of romance. What Gold Seekers Will Find. The Argonauts of 1898 will see that their contemplated journey is as likely to be one of good luck as of disappointment ; that the journey is as likely to be one of delight as of hardship; and that, while they are leaving home with all its comforts and conveniences, and society with its pleasures, for a country devoid for the most part of the experiences of ordinary life, they are going to a wilderness, nevertheless, in which they will find, dis- guised it may be, cut short it may be, a fair quota of what they have been used to. Further, the Argonauts of 1898 will not be content with the answers to their questions that literature will give them. They will want and long to read the great unwritten book of Alaska on the plains and glaciers, along the rivers and passes of the vast territory. Their desire will simply be whetted by printed stories and their longing will be that of Joaquin Miller. Says the Poet of the Sierras : " You want to ask questions. You wonder why the other islands of black-white mountains, a thousand of them on either hand, so stupendous, so steep, so sublimely majestic, mysterious, solemn and silent, are so voiceless, so utterly empty and still. LAND OF THP: ARGONAUTS. 39 " You want to ask questions of Alaska, but Akiska is the sphinx with a forehead of gold. We have now steamed up the straits and out and away from under the mantle of fire and gold that hung above Juneau and Douglas City — a mantle woven in some sort from the smoke and chemicals of the great gold mine — and the morning is crisp, blue, white, clear as a bell. " If one cared to look on the gray side of the situation, he might easily write of the location and all the land about " the abomination of desolation." But, on the contrary, the scene is grand, grand, sublimely grand, and the air is sweet, healthful and invigorating as wine. The heavens' breath smells wooingly here. You never saw snow so white anywhere as here. " White as snow ; whiter than any miller can whiten. This is because this is a land of granite ; no dust in the air as in Cali- fornia or Colorado ; no tall trees to scatter bits of bark and leaves and litter through the air and over the snow. One con- stantly thinks of the transfiguration all along this land of white- ness and blue ; white clouds, white snow, blue seas and blue skies. Heavens ! Had I but years to live here and lay my hand upon this color, this fearful and wonderful garment of the most high God ! " CHAPTER II. Spread of the Klondike Fever. Arrival of the Portland with More than a Ton of Gold on Board — Miners Tell of their Marvelous Strikes — Gold and the Aborigines — First Great Gold Craze — Prospecting in Early Days — Rich Gold Discovery on Bonanza Creek — Argonauts Flock to the Steamers — Scenes at the Wharves — Companies Formed in Response to the Rush — Millions of Money and Thousands of Men — Craze in Wall Street — Royalty Affected — Money in Grub-stakes — ^Joaquin Miller Under Way — "Lucky" Baldwf** After Mother Lode — Bright and Dark Sides of Story. WHEN the steamer Portland reached Seattle from St. Michael's, Alaska, on July 17, 1897, bringing not only the verified news of the great gold discoveries in the upper Yukon region, but nearly a million and three quarters in gold " dust" as freight, beside a cabin full of bronzed miners to bear witness to the Golconda-Hke find, not only the Pacific coast, but the whole northern country as well, whether British or American, began to go stark, staring mad over the well-nigh incredible reports from the new diggings. Some of the miners had with them $75,000 and even twice that sum, and not a man had less than $3000, every ounce taken from the placers of the Klondike within the year. Over a Ton of Gold. More than a ton of gold was on board the steamer as It came up the sound. In the captain's cabin were three big chests full of the yellow " dust," and the large safe had no room for more of the precious nuggets which had been taken out of the orround in less than three months of last winter. o In size the nuggets ranged from that of a pea to a guinea hen's egg. 40 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 41 Surely, it was enough to set the land wild with excitement. And yet, it was no news there was gold in and near Alaska, and in fabulously paying quantities. The marvelous tales of wealth sent out by the California pioneers were no less wonderful than those brought back by men who had braved the last cold season in the frigid mineral belt. The great Klondike strike was made in the early winter of 1896-97, but nothing was known of it in the United States until June 15, 1897, when the Excelsior arrived in San Francisco laden with Klondike miners who were in turn laden with gold. Then came the Portland and the *' craze." " Chechockoes " Make Their Piles. In speaking of the miners who came out on the Portland, Captain Kidston was enthusiastic. "These men," said Captain Kidston, "are every one what the Yukoners call ' Chechockoes ' or newcomers, and up to last winter they had nothing. To-day you see them wealthy and happy. Why, on the fifteen days' trip from St. Michael's 1 never spent a pleasantcr time in my life. These fortunate people felt so happy that anything would suffice for them, and I could not help contrasting them with the crowd of gold hunters I took with me on the last trip up. They were grumblers, with- out a cent in the world, and nothing on the boat was good enough for them. Some of these successful miners do not even own claims. They have been working for other men for $15 a day, and thus have accumulated small fortunes. Their average on this boat is not less than 510,000 tc the man, and the very smallest sack is ;^3000. It is heir' ' / C. A. Branan, of Seattle, a happy young fellow just eighteen years old. There is no country on earth like the Yukon." Gold has been a familiar metal to the Alaskan aborigines for a time that is old even in their legends, but, lacking civilization, 42 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. they lacked also the knowledge of the highest use of the pre- cious metal, and the yellow nuggets which they gathered from the beds of their Arctic streams played no other part than that of savage ornaments until the land passed under the dominion of the white man. The earliest white voyagers to the Aleutian coasts had their cupidit}- kindled, like the soldiers of Cortez and Pizarro, by the bits of gold shining here and there among the barbarous trap- pings of the natives who came, half menacing, to the iron-girt coasts to barter with them for the rare treasures of sharp knives and gaudy fabrics, but, be)'ond the trivial ounces secured in shorewise trade, it was years after white sails had become familiar sights, winging their intricate way among the devious channels of the island-dotted coast, th.t civilized men began to think it worth the peril to brave the dangers of the iron land in quest of the golden stores Nature had so lavishly treasured in the strong- holds of her cliffs and torrents. Behring Found Gold. When Behring, after whom the great Northwestern sea beyond the Aleutian Island is named, discovered and explored the Alaskan coast in 1741, he found gold, but he found, as befitted the climate and people, more furs and, with auriferous supplies nearer home in the convict-worked mines of the Czar's domain, the country was granted for fur-gathering purposes alone by the Emperor Paul to the Russo-American Fur Company, and with it remained until the Seward purchase in 1867 transferred it to the United States for a consideration (long since repaid in full) of $7,200,000. Mineral riches were hinted at, however, by the early explor- ers. In 1885 the director of the mint credited Alaska with $300,000 in gold and ^$2000 in silver, most of the precious SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 43 metal coming from Douglas Island. In 1896 the total output of lode and placer mines in Alaska was put at ^4,670,000 and in 1897 the gold output, it is estimated, will reach ^10,000,000, or nearly twice that of Colorado in 1892. The first great gold craze in the extreme Northwest came in 1858. The Kootenai region was famous a f.-w }-cars ago, per petuating the fame of the Frazer River mines. The Cariboo region on the fifty-third parallel, proved a steady and constant producer. Placers were also worked on the Peace river. In the 6o's there was a period when the annual production ot the northwest province exceeded 5-, 000, 000, the highest figure being ;^3,73 5,8 50. Through the exhaustion of the known deposits, however, the product fell off until, in 1890, it was less than half a million. Prospecting in 1883. Charles McConky, Ben Beach, George Marx and Richard Poplin set out from Juneau in the spring of 1883 to prospect the interior for gold. The rich deposits which were making the Tread well mine famous had stimulated inquiry among practical miners, and science had answered that the mother lode lay somewhere waiting to be tapped in the fastnesses of the giant Rockies. The quartette meant to find it. Crossing the divide in the early spring, they reached the lakes Avhich constitute the head waters of the Yukon River, while they were yet frozen, and remained there building their boats preparatory to going down the river as soon as the opportunity availed. The boats built and the ice having disappearecL they continued their journey on the unknown waters of the Yukon. Upon arriving at the mouth of Stewart Ri\'cr and being favor- ably impressed that their fortunes lay in that direction, they proceeded to stem this stream in the hopes of finding things 44 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. more favorable, as they had seen nothing that they had con- sidered diggings up to that time. They had traveled about four miles up this river when they came to a bar that carried gold of a fine order, and then continued up the ri\'er, finding many bars which were afterwards worked to the satisfaction of the owners. Dr. C. F. Dickenson, of Kadiak Island, which lies just at the A PROSPECTOR S TENT. mouth of Cook's Inlet, says : "When I left Kodiak, two weeks ago, the people were leaving all that section of country and flocking in the direction of Klondike. In a way, the situation is appalling, for many of the industries a.e left practically without the means of operation. " Mines that were paying handsomely at Cook's Inlet have been deserted. < u X u < cu, D O z w SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 45 " In my opinion there arc just as good placer diggings to be found at Cook's Inlet as in the Klondike region, " There is not a foot of ground in all that country that does not contain gold in more or less appreciable quantities. " There is room there for thousands of men, and there is cer- tainly no better place in the world for a poor man." There is good reason for believing from the reports of men well acquainted with the whole region that there is gold to be found anywhere in Alaska. The streams flowing into the great salt channel which bounds the coast below Sitka bear many auriferous evidences, and several of them, as for example in the neighborhood of Fort Wrangel, have been worked successfully heretofore. Some, indeed, have been literally " washed " out, J. W. McCormick's Strike. The richest gold placers in the upper Yukon were discovered by a white man in August, 1896. The find was due to the reports of Indians. J. W. McCormick, a Scotchman, who had been in the employ of William Ogilvie, Dominion Land Surveyor, for seven years in the same region, was the lucky prospector. He located a claim on the branch of the Klondike, which has since become known to fame as Bonanza Creek. McCormick located late in August, 1 896, but had to cut some logs for the mill to get a few pounds of provisions to enable him to begin work on his claim. The fishing of Klondike having totally failed him, he returned with a few weeks' provisions for himself, his wife and brother-in-law (Indians) and another Indian in the last days of August, and immediately set about working his claim. As he was \'cry short of appliances he could only put together a rather defective apparatus to wash the gravel with. The gravel itself he had to carr)- in a box on his back from thirty to one hundred feet. Notwithstanding this the three men, working ~^Vr;-^ -^^- '^'^^ %::'ilr^'^^--- u ^:feiry%rr?> PLACER MIXING ON THE KLONDIKE RIVER. SPREAD OF THE KT.ONDIKE FEVER. 4', very irregularly, washed out ;$I200 in eight days, and McCormick asserts with reason that had he had proper facilities it could have been done in two days, besides having several hundred dollars more gold which was lost in the tailings through defective apparatus. On the same creek two men rocked out ^75 i'l about four hours, and it is asserted that two men in the same creek took out 1^4008 in two days with only two lengths of sluice boxes. A branch of Bonanza named Eldorado has prospected mag- nificently, and another branch named Tilly Creek has prospected well ; in all there are some four or five branches to Bonanza which have given good prospects. There were about one hun- dred and seventy claims staked on the main creek in the summer of '97, and the branches are good for about as many more aggregating say three hundred and fifty claims, which will require over one thousand men to work properly. Spread of Klondike Fever. The Klondike fever spread wherever telegraph wires and newspapers disseminated the wonderful news of the marvelous diggings. The Londoner, educated to gold fevers by the Rand and Barney Barnato, began besieging the trans-Atlantic transporta- tion companies for intelligence about Alaska and the gold region of his own Northwest Territory. Experienced gold miners from South Africa thought they saw a bigger st-ike than the one which had lured them to the Cape of Good Hope. The new Canadian Trans-Atlantic line began work at once on a fleet of new boats. In America, capitalists and poor men. Argonauts and " tender^ feet" went well-nigh crazy — literally daft with the mania for gold. In the cities of the Pacific coast employes in all industries threw down their tools and abandoned their pursuits to go to 48 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. Alaska and dig in the river bed for the shining nuggets. In Tacoma and Seattle telegrams were received from New York and London inquiring how many hundred men could be equipped on short notice for a journey to the gold fields. The street car employes of Tacoma, at a mass meeting, selected nine men to go to the Klondike for the benefit of the rest to prospect and locate claims, and raised a sufficient sum to equip and main- tain them. Hardly had the news of the Klondike strike got fairly started in its meteor-like circuit of the country than Seattle and Tacoma began to fill with men and women hurrying to the diggings. In a week beds could not be had at the hotels, and still the throngs of gold-seekers poured in from all directions except the West, and struggled and schemed and, in a bloodless way, fought for fabulous priced chances to sail for the Yukon mines. First cabin, steerage, 'tween-decks or "on deck" — it was all one to these feverish Argonauts so long as they found themselves under way to Eldorado. Scene on " Steamer Day." Here is a sample description of a Tacoma scene on "steamer day," August /th, when the Willamette cast off for Alaska: " The most excited and largest crowd of people that has ever gathered on the ocean docks in this city, on any occasion, gathered to-day to see the steamer Willamette off for Alaska. Four hundred people boarded the vessel here, and their friends and relatives and thousands of sight-seers gathered to see the start. The passengers came from all parts of the State and a sprinkling from all over the United States. The baggage was carried mostly on horseback, only a few mules being used. The pack trains marched through the city in droves, and Grand Army men said it reminded them of war times. SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 49 "All sorts of outfits for making money were taken aboard, from a bakery to gambling tables. Nearly every person aboard has a list of from six to three dozen persons who had been promised letters. Fathers parted from families and young men from their sweethearts at the docks. Not a few of the men have pledged their families and friends that they will not return from the Eldorado of the North, until they have amassed a fortune, if it takes ten years to accom- plish it. "Aboard this vessel, Tacoma sent forward its first installment of physi- cians and surgeons to the Klondike. The doctors will dig for nuggets, if they cannot get patients." Here is another scene on "steamer day," de- scribed by an eye-witness : " The Alki started for Alaska this afternoon with 125 passengers, 800 sheep OFF FOR THE MINES. and 50 horses. Crazed with the gold fever and the hope of reaching Klondike quickly, the passengers bade good-bye to thousands on shore, who were crazed because they could not go. Food, comfort, sleep were ignored in the fierce desire to get to the gold fields. Those 50 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER who could not go to Alaska stayed on the dock :ill day, shaking hands with those who were going, and gazing with eyes of chagrin and envy on the lucky ones as the steamer started for the North. "There was grim pathos in the scene on the dock while the goldhunters were waiting for permission to go on board. Some were taking passage who would surely never leave Alaska alive. They had heard stories of the returned miners, that health was an absolute requisite in the terrible climate of the Klondike district. They smiled and knew better. The Ruling Passion. " One man said he was suffering from lung trouble, but that he might as well die making a fortune as to remain on the shores of Puget Sound and die in poverty. " Not an inch of room was left on the Alki. It was tested to its utmost capacity. Excited men, drunk with visions of fortunes, were huddled among the sheep, horses and baggage. Space was valuable, and a cattle pen had been constructed on the main deck, which had hitherto been reserved for passengers. The sheep were put on board only after the crowd had been driven back from the steamer. On the main deck the horses and sheep will stay until the journey by water is ended. When port is reached the pen will be reduced to its original state and the lumber put to new use." The same day the Willamette steamed out c f Tacoma the Queen sailed from Seattle with 400 passengers for Dyea. And over twenty steamers were then due to sail before September ist and passage on any one was already at a premium. New charters were being made daily and three schooners and even two scows were pressed into service in Seattle the day the Queen sailed. It is estimated Seattle has supplied already 3500 pros- pectors and Tacoma 1600. SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 51 Chicago became a centre for Klondike news and outfitting at the start of the craze. Over five hundred men had either left the Windy City, or were practically ready to leave, for the Klondike, at the end of the first week in August, r.nd the fever had only been in the air three weeks. All sorts and descriptions of men were in the ranks of prospectors — lawyers, doctors, merchants, bankers, farmers' and city men, stalwart giants and men whose physique gave promise rather of a grave beside the trail than of lasting long enough to " wash " a fortune out of the frozen Alaskan gravel. And there were women, too, in plenty, considering the hardships to be encountered, who were just as anxious to get into the wilderness to locate claims as any man who wore boots in the crowd. Deny Women and Weaklings. In fact, so great did the rush of women and of men of seem- ingly weak physique become, that many transportation agents at last refused to book any but those evidently the most robust, lest they should die enrcute to Dawson. This order was later revoked as to women. Among those who went from Chicago in early August were William H. Hubbard, in the party of Mrs. Eli Gage and her brother, W. W. Weare, going to Dawson to take the manage- ment of the banking system to be established by the North American Transportation and Trading Company in every mining camp in Alaska ; Dr. G. E. Meryman, Gustave Peterson and his two sons, Daniel Wright, Joseph Roman, F. J. Richardson, Mortimer Stevens, Dr. C. W. Chamberlain and wife, F. M. Sessoies and wife, F. H. Searle, E. H. Craig and Miss Alice Ross. Miss Minnie Goddard, the well-known organist and pianiste of Aurora, 111. ; Miss Grace Allaire, daughter of the late Dr. Allr.irc, of the same city, and Mrs. Ira W. Lewis, of 52 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. Dixon, 111., were three refined and dainty who left with a party of Chicago to cast in their lot with the masculine argonauts in the land of frozen gravel ^nd marvelous " pans." Montreal sent out three parties the first and second weeks in August, numbering altogether some fifty men. They were in charge respectively of Ernest Genest, representing the Canadian- Yukon Company; C. J. McQuaig, for the Montreal- London Gold and Silver Development Company, limited ; and W. H. Scroggic, the St. Catherine Street dry-goods merchant, whose companoins were principally his employes. Ex-Governor John H. McGraw and General E. M. Carr left Seattle for Alaska on the first steamer out after the Portland arrived with its golden cargo — as luck would have it, the steamer was the treasure boat, the Portland itself They went as the representatives of the Yukon, Caribou, British Columbia Gold Mining Development Company, limited, capital ^i, 000,000. J. Edward Addicks, of Delaware, is the head of the company and Senator John L. Wilson is interested in it. Craze in W^all Street. On July 31st, so early had the Klondike fever reached the great money centres of the land, the following report from Wall Street was sent over the country : " W^all Street has been seized by a genuine ' '49 ' gold fever as a result of the discoveries in the Klondike. Men who have mined and made money ; men who have mined and lost money ; men who have always thought they might speculate a little in mining, and men who have had a complete abhorrence of mining ■ — all seem to be affected the same way. More than half a dozen banking concerns, and as many individuals in Wall Street, whose standing in the financial world is the very best, have actually turned away from ^5000 to ^125,000 each which clients and mim:ks' rAiwNs near dawson city SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 53 customers wished to invest, under their guidance and supervision in the great gold fields of Alaska. Ladenburg, Thalman & Co., H. L. Horton & Co., Kean, Van Cortlandt & Co., R. P. Lounds- berry & Co., and Charles Head & Co., arc some of these firms who have more money offered them for investment in the Klon- dike than they have desired. The prejudice against mining is waning. Only recently bankers who dabbled in mines were looked upon with about as much suspicion by their cu.stomer£ and the money world as a bank clerk or cashier who regularly played faro, roulette and the races. But that is wearing off and the best concerns are beginning to mine in one way or another. Among these various down-town banking and business houses who are either interested in the Klondike, who have sent a rep- resentative there for themselves or customers, or who have made up their minds to do so, arc R. P. Loundsberry & Co., N. Gug- genheim Sons, Kean, Van Cortlandt & Co., Nicholas Chemical Company, H. B. Rollins & Co., H. L. Horton & Co., Charles Head & Co., and Seligman & Co. Heard from Grub-stakers. Seven men living near Trenton, N. J., "grub-staked" by busi- ness men of Trenton and merchants of Philadelphia, started in April for the Alaska gold fields. W. J. Hibbcrt headed the expedition. He writes that they have laid claim to eighty miles of dredger land, and have received a grant of twenty-one placer claims, which will be added to the dredger lands. He says that the ground is rich, and within a mile and a half of their claim a man by the name of Lercno, after working five days, found, on clearing up, that he was worth $40,000 in gold. Another story told by Hibbert in his letter is that another miner, after two months' work, was $150,000 to the good. Daniel Guggenheim, of the firm of M. Guggenheim & 54 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. Sons, who has large smelting interests, when seen at his Long Branch cottage, confirmed the reported discoveries in the Yukon countr)', and prophesied that the new fields would yield far in excess of even present roseate indications. He said : " For some time my firm has had expert mining engineers at work in Alaska, and their reports leave no doubt that the Yukon gold fields will prove the richest in the world. My opinion is that as soon as the countr}' has been opened up and shipping facilities furnished the output of gold will be simply enormous. As the production of gold increases silver will be enhanced in value. This I regard as certain." English Royalty Affected. English royalty fell before the golden idol of the Klondike. No less a personage than the Duke of Fife, son-in-law of the Prince of Wales, subscribed to an incorporation formed in Lon- don for the purpose of exploring the Klondike region and pur- chasing such mines as its accredited representatives may decide are worth the investment. The enterprise will be known as the Klondike Exploration Company, limited. It is stated that the company in which the Duke of Fife is interested will operate along lines similar to the British South Africa Company. But great as was the number, considering the time available for catching a good hard case of the Klondike fever, who had succeeded in getting away for the diggings in person before the marvelous news from the Northwest was yet a month old ; they were but a fraction of the total, who had fallen ready victims to the " placer malady." r^Iany hundreds of men and m;aiy more hundreds of women, who were crazy to own some kind of an interest in the wonderful gold fields, but who were prevented by other business, by family cares, SPREAD UF illE KLUNDIKI': Fi:\'ER. 55 by sickness of a strictly pathological kind, by poverty, or by other insuperable reasons, from taking personal part with the adventurers going into the Klondike, had syndicated their money with their friends and arranged to send " grub-stakers " into tb.e new Galconda, hoping thus vicariously, at least, to partake of the profits, if they could not share in the hardships and the hazards of gold seeking. It is estimated that at least five times as many people put up their money on "grub-stakes" as attempted to become advent- urers in person, and it would require a much larger figure to express the probable ratio of the money applied to outfitting representative prospectors and the cash spent in personal equip- ment by intending argonauts. Besides this, in estimating the prevalence of the gold craze in terms of dollars and cents, account must be taken of the mush- room-like appearance of "Mining Co-operations " and " Placer Syndicates" and "Poor Men's Chances," to say nothing of the host of legitimate incorporated mining or prospecting or develop- ment concerns, which by presenting shares at low figures, draw tens of thousands of dollars from thousands of pockets into their coffers and which quite as emphatically represented the virulence of the Klondike fever as did the steamer lists, or the names of those who meant to brave the Chilkoot Pass with the slogan Df " Klondike or Bust." Table of New Companies. No better illustration of the extent and vigor of the Klondike craze can be given than is exhibited in the following table of com.panies organized or in process of formation for the develop- ment of the gold fields in the upper Yukon region. The total capitalization of the different syndicates foots up 5164,512,500. After allowing for the regular syndicate grain of salt, the 56 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. remaining total is still vast enough to indicate that no small portion of the American temperate zone has gone daft over the reported strikes in the Arctic mountains. The stream of humanity, setting toward the north pole, is a veritable exodus toward a new Land of Promise. Up to August 8th, over 8000 men are officially reported to have started for the Klondike, or made arrangements to do so. Statistics of Millions, Here are the naked figures :• Companies. Town. Bohemian Klondike Syndicate Baltimore . . Three Syndicates Boston . . . Cudahy-Hcaly-Yukon Klondike Mining Company Chicago . . . Alaska Transportation and Development Company . . . • Chicago . . . Transportation and mining company in processor organization, not yet named . Chicago . . . Wilkins Syndicate • Cleveland . . Unnamed syndicate Cleveland . . Two companies Cripple Creek Alaska-Klondike Gold ]Mining and De- velopment Company Col. Springs. Council Bluffs Mining and Exploration Company Council Bluffs Six companies Denver . . . Indiana Mining Company Indianapolis General INIining and Developing Co. . . Kansas Citj- . Herald Employees Lexington . Lincoln Gold and Improvement Co. . . Lincoln . . . Acme Development Company New York . Yukon-Caribou British Columbia Gold Mining Development Company . . . New York . Northwest Mining and Trading Companj-. New York . Exploration Syndicate New York . Xo. who Capital- have left izatiou. for gold fields. Not decided 5-50,000 120 150 25,000,000 500 5,000,000 . . . 100,000,000 , . . 4,000 . . . 400 .. . 300,000 30 1,000,000 . . . 100,000 8 2,825,000 35 200,000 . Not dnncd. 10 1,000 12 50,000 11 150,000 100 5,000,000 . 5,000,000 . 100,000 . , , SPREAD OK THK KLONDIKE FEVER. 57 The Gold Syndicate New York . . 5,000,000 . . The New Vork and Alaska Gold Explo- ration and Trading Company New York . . 1,000,000 . . . Norse- American Gold Company (Ltd. )• New York . . 750,000 . . . The Philadelphia and Alaska Gold Mining Syndicate . Philadelphia . 500,000 52 Alaska Gold Company Pittsburg . . 1,000,000 . . . Pittsburg- Alaskan Company Pitisburg . . . 25,000 . . . Four transportation companies Portland, Ore. -j Two trading companies Portland, Ore. 1- 500,000 52C Six mining companies Portland. Ore. J Register employees Richmond, Ky. 1,200 . . . McDonald Syndicate St. Louis . . . 50,000 . . . Minnesota-Ontario Gold Mining Co. . . St. Paul . . . 1,000,000 . . . Klondike Mining Company, vSt. Paul . . St. Paul ... 900 .. . Yukon-Klondike Mining and Investment Company St. Paul . . 5,000,000 . . . Eight companies San Francisco . 800,000 1,400 Unnamed syndicate San Francisco . 1,000,000 . . . Klondike Commercial and Transportation Company Seattle .... 1,000,000 3,500 SeattleandYukon Commercial Company. Seattle .... 1,000,000 . . . Alaska Transportation Company . . . .Seattle .... 100,000 . . . Dodwell and Corlill Steamship Company. Tacoma . . . . 250,000 1,600 Twenty-one syndicates Tacoma. . . . 755,000 . . . Old Miners Catch the Fever. Old miners on the Pacific slope supplied some of the earliest victims of the fever and some of the first recruits in the rapidly- swelling awny of the gold seekers. The rush to the Klondike seriously affected the mine owners on the mother lode in the vicinity of Senora, Jackson and Sutter Creek, California, and threatened to cause the closing down of the mines in Calaveras, Amador and Tualumne counties. A large party of skilled miners from this region sailed from San Francisco for Alaska on August /th, and another party was then forming which expected to go in by way of Dyea before the winter grasp of September was upon the passes. The Oneida and Kennedy mines, near 1 1 58 SPREAD OF Till': KLONDIKl': l-'EVjJ<. 5 J Jackson, had lost the majorit\- of ihcir men before the news by the Portland was ten days old. Joaquin Miller Among the First. Nor was the rush to the new diggings confined to the wage- earning miners. One of the first of the '49crs to respond was Joaquin Miller, " the Poet of the Sierras." The steamer Port- land made port from St. Michael's with its wonderful cargo ol yellow dust and nuggets on July 17th, and on the 26th of the same month the venerable and veteran miner of the earliest California and Nevada and Idaho gold fields had forsaken his cozy home nestled among the foothills of Oakland, and was steaming out of the harbor of Victoria, B. C, on the good ship City of Mexico, bound with pick, pan and pack like any other lover of roughing it, on the long road to Dyea and over the Chilkoot Pass to the Klondike. Some of his impressions enroute will be found elsewhere in this volume, and their bright, buoyant wording shows the Klon- dike fever could set the blood throbbing as fiercely in senile veins as in the arteries of the most recklessly sanguine lad of a " tenderfoot " that ever w^cnt to the mines to learn that all is not gold that glitters. One of the aged poet's fancies was to pack his own outfit in and earn his living by day's work, and to make his election sure he carried a ridiculously small sum of money with him, though he had a buckskin bag all read}' for the " dust " he expected certainly to find even more lavishly distri- buted in the Yukon valley than in California in the golden days when the bed of every stream held a yellow fortune. E. J. Baldwin, of San I'rancisco, better known as " Lucky " Baldwin, millionaire hotel man, miner, landowner, turfman and orange grower, himself a California argonaut of the days of '49, who had had hard attacks in his time of the Washoe and 60 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. Frazer River gold fevers, was another of the first "big" men on the coast to catch the Alaska fever. The millionaire announced his intention to go to the Klon- dike, not to seek the great nuggets and coarse" grains of gold found in the creek beds, but to find, if possible, the ledge, the mother lode from which all this treasure comes. He will not go in until spring, however. " I will not stop at Klondike," said he, "but will push right into the mountains, where I am sure there must be rich quartz ledges. Ample machinery will be shipped to Dawson or else- where, if I succeed in locating a paying claim. I think the big fortunes will be made in the quartz districts and not in the placers, which will be sure to give out if so many thousands of people will persist in rushing into the country. " I am going next spring," continued Mr. Baldwin, " and expect to take twenty-five or thirty husky young men with me who can work and endure the hardships. I am seventy-one years old, but still feel strong enough to do a little prospecting. It is also my intention to take a lot of machinery along for lode mining. My notion of the situation there is that the placer mining they are carrying on is an indication that there is gold in large quantities back in the mountains. I shall hunt out these deposits, and, equipped with modern machinery, will do a regu- lar mining business. I am convinced the gold is there ; conse- quently, I will be taking no long-risk chances." " Lucky's " Idea of an Outfat. Mr. Baldwin also gave his ideas of the provisions a man starting to the Klondike should provide himself with. He excluded coffee and ham from the supplies, would fill a box with articles of this sort, giving the amount for one month's use : Chocolate, /^^ pounds, or tea, 3^ pounds; rolled oats, jy^ 'J5 -3 n ■A D SPREAD OF THE K-LONDIKE FEVER. 61 > . - pounds; navy beans, 22 '< pounds, or bacon, 37jE^ pounds; flour, 30 pounds; salt, 3?^ pounds; pickles, 60 cents' worth; cayenne pepper, '^ pound for eighteen months, four cakes dry yeast. Wonderful Letter of G. H. Cole. Some of the stories told about the marvelous golden wealth of the Klondike would be ample excuse for the worst recorded cases of the fever. , Here is one written from Dawson Cit\^ by G. H. Cole to his wife in Seattle, which speaks for itself Mr. Cole says : "This is a wonderful country. There is enough gold here to load a steamboat. Lots of men have made all they want since last fall, and gone out. There is hardly a day but there is from one to half a dozen come from the mines with all the gold they can carry. One man had so much he had to get several men to help him carry it out. He gave the mine to a friend to do what he wanted with it. He was a Seattle man. " Some of the men who have been out to the mines say there is more gold here than they ever saw in their lives, and some of the old miners, who have been in most all the mining countries in the world, say it beats anything they ever saw. Around some of the camps they have it piled up like farmers have their wheat, and in other camps they have all their cooking utensils full of gold and standing in corners as if it were dirt. Some are taking out ;$ 100,000 a day. Old miners say there has been enough gold located to dig up for the next twenty years." Many and queer are the schemes that have grown out of the Klondike craze, and the more and the queerer they are the more virulent is the attack. The very air is full of schemes ; some alluring, some preposterous, more merely audacious. The gold fever marked the heyday of the dreamer and the enthusiast, not to say the crank. 62 SPREAD OV 11 IK KLONDIKI': FEVER. But some attention is wortli payin^j to these projects of vision- aries if for no other reason than to show how far-reaching and insidious is the Klondike mania — for dreamers have little merit unless there are enough of people who believe in dreams. " If I were to giv^e you the details of some of the schemes that have been submitted to me recently for making money in the Klondike," said one Chicago capitalist, "you would think some insane asylum had been thrown open, and the inmates turned loose. Some of the ideas are not bad in themselv^es, but arc impracticable owing to the conditions of the country. Others are simply the rankest form of lunacy, while others yet are downright swindles. People who would not even think of sug- gesting a fraud in connection with ordinary business have no hesitation in boosting up a fraud in a mining boom. As a rule, however, the irresponsible schemers are merely wild-eyed cranks, who have an honest confidence in their own plans." Traps for Ready Money. Inventors, speculators, promoters, and prospectors are going about like modern genii with propositions for making everybody immensely rich. Acquiring great wealth depends solely upon immediate use of a little ready money. Shares in the Consoli- d.:ted Trans-Alaskan Gopher Company, offered at one dollar each, will return dividends of ten dollars a minute as soon as the com- pany gets to work. The idea is to take contracts for tunneling cL^ims with trained gophers. Nothing is impossible, nothing chimerical. Men with seedy garments and faces bearing all too plainly tlie marks of hunger and want, rub elbows with portly, well-fed individuals and talk glibly about millions to be had in various ways. Newspapers are full of advertisements calling for finan- cial aid in developing Alaskan projects, offices of transportation SPREAD OF THE KLONDiKP: I i:vi:k. on lines are besieged by hundreds of impecunious beings who seek to make their wits pay the price of passage to the Eldorado, and on every street corner people are encountered with Klondike schemes in varying forms of development. Women have the craze as badly as men ; and some of their hobbies are, if any- thing, even more outlandish. But while the schemes- and yams of visionaries, charlatans and cranks are worth laughing at for their absurdity or avoiding for their concealed rascality, there is another side to the story which appeals to earnest men with almost irresistible force. That is the record of the men who have " struck it rich " in the placers of this ver}' Klondike — of the men who have gone in poor and come out in a few short months, or even weeks, rich for life ; of the men who took stock in the tales of the fabulous wealth wait- ing in that frozen Yukon valley gravel to be " washed " out, and who, with wise forethought, prepared themselves for a fierce battle with the Arctic elements and then braved the hardships and privations of the wilderness to emerge in time laden with their golden fruits of victory. From Alaska Mining Record. Elsewhere in this volume will be found a more detailed account of those who " struck it rich" on the Klondike; to" show that there is a bright side to the picture, the following from the Alaska Mining Record, of Juneau, of June 30th, is sufficient. It ' relates to the arrival of Jack Hayes, the mail carrier from the Yukon. : " Much excitement prevails all through the Yukon district over the Klondike discoveries, and all kinds of stories of the richei there are told, many of which j\Ir. Hayes says are true. It is true that two tenderfeet, railroad men from Los Angeles, Cal. — Frank Summers and Charles Clemens — have struck it rich. 64 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. They went in a year ago and located on the Klondike last fall. Clemens sold his interest for $35,000 cash, and his partner, Summers, held on two weeks later and got $50,000. The money to pay the men was taken out of the dump which had been lifted from the shaft on the claim during the winter. These two men had each panned out $2500 on their claim while pros- pecting it. The man that bought Clemens' interest bound the bargain with a $232 nugget which had been taken from the Klondike. Neither man had had any experience in mining. " Alec McDonald took one pan from his claim which tipped the scales to the tune of $800, and offered a wager of $1000 that he could pick his dirt and in twenty minutes get a pan that would go over 100 ounces ($1600). No one cared to cover the wager. " Dick Lowe is panning for a living, and is taking out the modest sum of $100 a day. "Two 'tenderfeet' from Chicago, named Wier and Beecher, leased a piece of ground for sixty days, paid a royalty of $10,000, and divided $20,000. The miners have only advanced up the Klondike nine miles, and at that distance there are several claims that will produce $1,000,000 apiece. Assays Enormously Rich. The latest reports from this cold gold clime consist of speci mens which were sent to California for assay tests, and the) show enormous returns of gold. The gold find, however, in this Alaskan Territory' is not new. although the facts are just beginning to be appreciated by the public. The unanimous verdict of investigators in this northern countr)' has always been that gold abounded in great quantities, but the difficulty has been to get it out and away with any degree of profit. Mining on a small scale has been practically SPREAD OF THE K1,0.\DIKE FEVER Oo impossible. The adventurer without money would lidve no chance to strike it rich, e\'en if lie could manaLje to raise the sum necessary to take him to the country. The rigors of the winter preclude any work in that se;ison, and the absence of any commercial facilities in the new minint^ districts prevents any digging that is not connected with some large organized plan. But for the company or individuals with capital and enterprise the prospect seems to be of the best. The introduction of improved machinery — which has already begun — and the en- largement of the transportation "Tacilities on the long Yukon River will soon bring these golden riches within easy reach of the States. Natural Exaggerations. The stories of finds, however, must be taken with usual reser\'ations. There will be natural exaggerations not only of the richness of the gold but of the character of the hardships that must be endured. Alaska is no balmy California. There is no comforting warmth most of the )'ear to sustain the spirits of the wearied seeker after wealth. The battle for gold there includes a battle with a hostile nature which has guarded her treasure house with icy blasts for all these centuries. It is no place for the lag- gard if all reports be true, but for the man of courage and deter- mination it seems to be a land of great promise. One of the evidences of the Klondike craze is freighted with ill omen to the owners of salmon canneries and of whaUng vessels. Startling rumors have come from the north that parties of fishermen and sailors are coming across countr)- from the mouth of the Mackenzie River into the Klondike, and, should this prove true, many vessels now staunch and trim will be rotting on the Arctic coast when the snows of next winter have cleared away. At Herschel Island, which is situated in the Arctic Ocean 5 66 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. near the mouth of the Mackenzie River, a large number of salmon fishers have niarle their headquarters. During the summer months, when the Mackenzie River is open, these fisher- men, in their myriad of small craft, go up the river in quest of salmon. There are a number of canneries on the Mackenzie. Ov'er lOO deep-sea vessels are annually needed to bring the sea- sons pack down from the Arctic. It is believed the fishermen and crews which went north to bring back the pack ha\e heard of the wonderful gold strikes and, taking the provisions with which their vessels were stored^have deserted and struck out for the gold fields. Owners of whaling vessels which winter at Herschel Island are as much alarmed as are the canning companies. There are at least 300 men belonging to the whaling fleet, and it is proba- ble that they and the fishermen are now delving into the Klondike soil for gold. Days of '49 and '97. In many ways the " days of '49 " in California and the " days of '97 " in the Klondike are alike. To the average man the treasures of the coast State were seemingly as inaccessible as those of the Yukon and its tributaries. The one lay beyond 2000 miles of trackless desert and snow-clad mountains beset ivith savage hordes whose bloody welcome to the gold seeker ■narked the trail from the Missouri to the coast with the whitening .^Dones of "pale-face" prospectors ; the other lies 7000 miles by water, or 4000 miles by land and water, from civilization, beyond mountain passes as hazardous to scale as those of the Swiss Alps • and guarded from the greed of man by the icy rigors of the Arctic climate hardly less effectually than were the riches of California by the sanguinary red man. The tales of fabled wealth which set the world crazy to go to the CaUfornia mines were not less wonderful than those which SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 67 returning argonauts bring from the upper Yukon country, and both are confirmed by the yellow nuggets whose mute testimony to the modern Cathay is unimpeachable. And the excitement in America is greater than in the wildest days of the South African or the Australian strikes. Both in California and in the Klondike, the first mining was in placers, " poor man's mining," because no expensive machinery is required — onl}' a pick, spade and pan, with nature's sluiceway of a nearby stream for water. And, again, the "tenderfoot" often struck it rich where the old miner had trouble to find enough "dust" to buy his daily food. It was every man's gold mine. Nature had no favorites. No wonder people went gold crazy. Fever Reaches a Climax. The symptoms of the climax of the first attack of the Klon- dike fever came relatively soon after the yellow malady became epidemic. The fever began on July 27th, 1897 ; by August 1 5th the worst was over, and the tens of thousands of poor men who wanted to be rich in a hurry, and of rich men who wanted to be richer, of adventurers who were always ready for anything excit- ing, and of level-headed business men who had been crazy for only a few brief days over the marvelous tales oc' wealth to be had for the washing, had begun to convalesce and reason that if the Klondike was really as fabulously rich as it was reported to be, there would likely be some gold left at the diggings when spring came, and the perils to health and even life on the long journey "in" were somewhat diminished by mild weather. Would-be argonauts who could not get passage to Dyea or Juneau on the overcrowded steamers began to content themselves perforce to stay at home ; and weary and disgusted prospectors, GS SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. who had been stranded by the stampede at the mouths of the mountain passes, began to pour back to winter amid creature comforts in the homes of civilization, and pack up at leisure for another venture in the spring. People found time to get cool, and they took it. But what a craze it was while it lasted ! Even the days of '49 were fairly eclipsed by the universality of the gold insanity of '97. Every city in the Union contributed to the horde of gold hunters pressing and pushing and scrambling on to the new Eldorado. Even the little hamlets of the land sent their quota, and men swarmed by thousands around the wharves of San Francisco, Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle, and "put up" their last cent for a fighting chance in the mad rush for the Yukon placers. Canada sent its thousands through the States and along its own routes, and across the Atlantic the fever spread 'till even the great house of Rothschild was infected and sent a confiden- tial agent to inspect the wonderful gold fields in its behalf. London Gets the Craze. A London correspondent of a New York newspaper wrote in these words on August ist: "Were it not so late both in the London and the Yukon sea- son, the fashionable thing for society young men to-day would be to make up a party to dare the dangers of the Chilkoot Pass and explore the Yukon River, even at the risk of gold-laden aristocrats meeting mythical pirates on their homeward journey. The gold fever has spread here far wider than the narrow limits of so-called London society, and there would have been a mad rush to the diggings from England of all the men and boys who could beg, borrow, or steal ;$200 had not one or two explorers sounded a shriek of alarm, and the Emigration Information Office issued a plain warning to the effect that it would be quite useless I z t < 1^^ ■ji -^ ';*.■ •A ^o\ D *£'.'' < a. [_' '72 CO J < a CO g z ' g 2 w X 'J Qi D X u W Pi o o w h O 1— ( O X m < H >— • :4 01 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 69 to start hence before next April. Meanwhile such terrible pict- ures are being painted, in colors laid on so thickly, and the deadly perils of White Horse Rapids and Chilkoot are so strongly emphasized that tlioughtful men are not without the keen sus- picion that the worthy Canadians arc doing their best to scare away intruders and keep their own treasure at home," New York and Chicago. New York and Chicago had the fever hard. Men who had mined and made money, men who had mined and lost money, men who had always thought they would like to speculate in mining, and men who had abhorred the very word, were stricken. Bankers, brokers, business men and nonentities, from James R. Keene to plain John Smith, went wild. Before July was out, companies representing an aggregate capitalization of ^18,000,000 had been organized in New York City alone to traffic, or dig, or grub-stake in the Yukon Basin. Men who were blind on every other subject saw the wonderful Alaskan rainbow of promise and rushed off to find the pot of gold at its Klondike end with the infantile assurance of the tot in the nursery tale. Perhaps the date of the placer discovery — coming at the close of a period of general business depression, had something to do with the virulence of the fever. Anyway, a fortnight after the news of the strike steamed into port the countr\' was stark, staring, raving mad. "Klondike" was the topic at the lunch counters, men talked " outfits " on the street cars and " L " trains, women found themselves abandoning the fashions to read up on routes and fares to Dawson City, farmers drove to town in the middle of a " hay day" to hear the latest from "the diggings," and technical mining phrases became the cant of the day. Nothing could head off the enthusiasm of the horde of would-be 70 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. miners. They sailed out of the Pacific coast ports, crowded Hke animals in and upon vessels known to every sailor as long unsea- worthy, and periled their lives over the " Boneyard of the Pacific" or through the devious, rock-studded, fog-enshrouded channels of the Sitka route ; they trusted to captains who had never been out of sight of land and to pilots who had never sailed the courses ; they heard, unmoved, warnings of deadly hardships enroute and of probable starvation at the mines ; they gave up good positions and spent small fortunes for transportation, and with scuppers awash sailed away in death traps to the frozen North. So reckless did the mad stampeders to the Klondike become at last that the highest public officials were forced to take notice of the epidemic folly and try to head it off. Secretary Bliss' "Warning. Secretaiy of the Interior Bliss, on August loth found it neces- sary to issue the following warning, a state paper almost without a precedent on this continent : " To Whom It ]\Iay Concern: In view of information received at this department that 3000 persons with 2000 tons of baggage and freight are now waiting at the entrance to White Pass, in Alaska, for an opportunity to cross the mountains to the Yukon River, and that many more are preparing to join them, I deem it proper to call the attention of all \\\\o contemplate making that trip to the exposure, privation, suffering, arfW even danger inci- dent thereto at this advanced period of the season, even if they should succeed in crossing the mountains. To reach Dawson City, when over the pass, 700 miles of difficult navigatioii on the Yukon River without adequate means of transportation will still lie before them, and it is doubtful if the journey can be com- pleted before the river is closed by ice. " I am moved to draw public attention to these conditions by SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 71 the gravity of the possible consequences to people detained in the mountainous wilderness during five or six months of an arctic winter, where.no relief can reach them, howev^er great the need. "C. N. Bliss, " Secretary of the Interior.'* The Hon. Clifford Sifton, Canadian Minister of the Interior, had already issued a notice to the public of the Dominion that the government would not be responsible for getting provisions into the Yukon during the coming winter tantamount to warning the gold seekers to stay out till spring. Mad Rush Goes On. Yet, in the face of all these official warnings, chronicled and spread broadcast by the same press and in the same columns in which the other Klondike news was daily printed, twenty-one steamers, three sailing vessels and two scows, each laden to the utmost carrj-ing capacity, had put out from Pacific coast ports for Alaska before the warnings were a fortnight old. The North American Transportation and Trading Company repeatedly issued public warnings of the hazards attending an attempt to get into the mines during the remainder of the season of 1897, and finally raised the fare for the last trip of the steamer Portland to $1000, only guaranteeing to get passengers to Dawson City by way of St. Michael's by June 15, 1898, Yet the passenger list was full of names of men who were willing to spend a winter in the Yukon ice or on the cheerless shores of Norton Sound, even at that price. And those who could not muster patience to go by that route, with Secretary' Bliss' warning ringing in their ears, swarmed at the wharves where other steamers were preparing to start with their herded loads of self-deluded gold-seekers, and paid $500 bonus, where they coulc' find a taker, for the privilege of 72 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. the voyage to overcrowded Dyea or Juneau. They knew the Canadian mounted police were on guard at the passes over the mountains, turning back all who had not a year's provisions in their outfits, but they bid high for the chance to go, just the same. They knew they stood a chance of having to winter at Juneau or Dyea, and eat up their supplies, but they spent their last cent to get there, just the same. It ceases to be a " play" rush for gold and became the wild exodus of a rabble in which men totally unfitted for the rough work and hardships of the miner's life, and unmindful that failure would be the lot of hundreds, and that many would find graves among the frozen placers or along the desert trails, joined with the enthusiasm of devotees. Said by P. B. Weare. " There is barely a chanv^e of any of the gold-seekers getting across the divide so as to reach the Klondike region this year, to say nothing about the perils of the long trip beyond, but still the rush goes on," says P. B. Weare, of the North American Com- pany, early in August. " We advise the people now not to attempt to get to Dawson City this year, but it doesn't seem to be any use talking. We hear from our representatives in Alaska and they say it is no use trying to stop the march — in some cases to certain death." " They go on the theory that the first there will be first served," said John Cuhahy in speaking of the race for wealth ; " but I believe some of the first to go now will be the fi^rst dead." Still the rush to the harvest of hardship and death went on. Then the shock of disillusion came, and it brought some peo- ple to their senses. Word came back from the North that gold- seekers were making famine on the bleak Alaska mountains as fast as they knew how. Winter storms had begun to obliterate SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 73 the trails and bury the passes. Old timers said again the reck- less argonauts could not get through to the Klondike, and that Arctic tempests would cut off their return and force them to fight for life all winter in famine-stricken camps — and this time the warning was heeded. The object lesson from Dyea which was shown to the world on the morning of August loth was too fearful not to be heeded. Misery at Dyea. Hal Hoffman, writing from Juneau undei date of August 3d, said of Dyea and Skagway, the ports at the head of lynn Canal, these graphic and awful words : " These are the last salt water ports and the points of debark- ation for the mountain trails and passes. The number of Indians and whites and packers and horses is totally inadequate to move the vast quantities of freight over the mountains, and a blockade that is daily assuming more formidable proportions has resulted. "Tons of supplies are piled high on the beach, and they will likely remain there for an indefinite length of time. Every incoming steamer dumps scores of excited gold seekers and tons of freight on the beach. The confusion is indescribable. Much of the freight is dumped on a long sand spit at Dyea at low tide, as there are no wharfs at that place. Before the supplies can be sorted, claimed, and removed, the tide has risen and ruined or carried entirely away large quantities of supplies. " By far the largest portion of the supplies must be packed over the passes by their owners if they are packed at all. Only about one hundred and fifty Indians, fifty white men, and ten horses are now packing over the Dyea trail. It is good to be an Indian now at Dyea. He is making at least ten dollars a day. He lets the palefaces in search of gold bid against each other for his services as a packer, and calmly takes up the burden 74 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. of the highest bidder. His squaw and his children also carrj." heav}^ packs up the steep mountain trail. " The white man with his ten horses is making $ioo per day. It is estimated that there will be fifty additional white packers and forty more horses on the trail in a week or ten days, but on the other hand the rush still keeps up, and the end is not in sight. The end is too far away to see. It is back in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and has not started yet. Every man who has set foot in Juneau, Dyea, or Stagua has friends back East who are coming. " When the rivers freeze overland travel to Dawson must stop, except at the greatest peril, till spring smiles again. The Yukon and Lewis have been known to freeze by the middle of August, but while this is an exception it is more than a possibility. Unless an unexpectedly large number of horses and packers arrive soon many men will camp on the route to the Yukon, and eat the supplies in idleness through the long winter. " Many men are starting for the Yukon with inadequate sup- plies and little money. It takes gold to hunt gold. One can hardly make a necessary step on the journey here without it costing $10 for each step. Timber Runs Short. " There is a great scramble for timber at Lake Bennett, with which to build boats. A little saw mill there is capable of an output of 800 feet of lumber per day. Ten dollars per hundred was first asked, and now twenty dollars for lumber. The whip- saw of gold-seekers is heard throughout the woods. Owing to the great rush there must be more delay at the lakes. " Prospectors in the Valley of Yukon have returned here from Dyea, and will wait till spring before attempting to make the Klondike. But not so the tenderfoot. He is swarmine for the SPREAD OF THE' KLONDIKE FEVER. 75 summit in many instances with an outfit unsuitable in kind and quantity. He is leaving here every day with pretty red, frail two-wheeled carts and wheelbarrows, piled high with much super- fluous baggage which he cannot hop'e to push over the mountain trails. " His vehicle will smash, and his supplies scatter and break before he is out three hours from Dyea. But you can't make NATIVES OF ALASKA BUILDING HOUSES. him believe it. lie is so excited he can't or won't listen to reason. His one idea is gold and he is going after it with sacks and carts to bring it back in. As these outfits pass through the streets from wharf to wharf old prospectors laugh. " It looks as though the Canadian customs officials will liavc an opportunity to report back to their government that they arc unable to collect customs duties without reinforcements. 76 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. "All the incoming gold hunters are incensed at the action of the Canadian authorities, at Ottawa, in levying a duty on supplies they are taking into the mines. The rougher element among them is intemperate in its language, and has made threats to ignore the customs officials, peaceably if possible, but forcibly if necessary. " The general prospect, as viewed from the border of the land of gold at this lime, is that the route to the Yukon will be strewn with bones as well as blasted hopes. Hurts Alaska Industries. " The Klondike craze is having a disastrous effect on the industries of Alaska. The great salmoa cannery at Chilkat has been compelled to close down from lack of fishermen in the middle of a very fine season. Nearly every white man in the cannery deserted and started for Dawson City. Manager Mur- ray tried to get men to take the vacant places, but soon gave up the attempt. " Men are insulted now when asked to work for a cannery. " The Klondike fever is at a very high pitch in Alaska, as well as elsewhere. The Chilkat cannery is controlled by the Alaska Packers' Association, which operates nearly all the canneries on the coast. Employes are leaving the canneries for the Klondike. The probability is that work at nearly all of them will be aband- oned soon, owing principally to a lack of fishermen. "At Douglas City, across the channel, about fifty men have given notice to quit work next pay day. They are employed in the big Treadwell Gold Mine and Mills. Others are leaving without notice and heading for Klondilce. Every shift one or more man are missed. It is feared that so many desert that the mines and mills cannot be worked. " The fever has also seized the men in the mines and stamp H I— I < < W O H CO D H W Q O < < 4 J w o < H O SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 77 mills at Berner Bay. A large number have thrown up their jobs there and started for the Klondike." Could anything better express the utter folly of some of the gold-seekers, who were probably types of a large class, than this, clipped from a letter written from Dyea ? " Such is the innocence of some of the ' tenderfoot ' prospec- tors that they have taken bicycles to Dyea. They have found the park commissioners neglected to boulevard the trail to Daw- son and the bicycles being, even in an extremity, unfit for food, are now very cheap." One of the possible and much-feared episodes in the Klon- dike sensation may yet add a bloody page to the histor>^ of North Pacific navigation, and cause to be re-enacted in American waters some of the fierce buccaneering scenes of the Straits Settle- ments on the Spanish Main. Chinese Pirate Scare. Word was received early in August by the officials of the North American Transportation and Trading Company that a band of Chinese pirates had been organized for the express pur- pose of intercepting and looting the steamer Portland on its last trip down from St. Michael's in October, 1897. It was known that a large number of Klondike miners intended to come out in the Portland, bringing their dust with them, and the last com- pany shipment of gold would also be brought down on the same boat. Altogether, it had been reported, about $2,000,000 of yellow treasure would be aboard, and the company officials were informed a pirate crew recruited from the Highbinders in the Chinese slums of San Francisco, aided by a few renegade white men, would lie in wait to loot and destroy the treasure ship and murder its crew and passengers at some point between St. Michael's and Dutch Harbor. 78 SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. P. B. Weare, of the company, communicated his fears to Secretary of the Treasury Gage, and the latter at once ordered Commander Hooper, of the Revenue Service, to send a cutter to convoy the treasure ship safely into the Pacific. The Portland is a staunch vessel, well armed and carries a good crew, and when aided by the fighting tars of the Bear or Rush, is expected to not only come through safely but to give the Mongolian marauders a hot reception if they venture out. Craze Is Epidemic. Another effect of the Klondike fever was to cause a similar malady of strictly local extent to break out in a dozen places which had not had a case of genuine gold fever in years. California promptly "saw" the Klondike and "went it one better" with some remarkable strikes in the Trinity County placers. The largest nugget reported was said to be worth $42,000, and weight 2400 ounces. Little Rock, Arkansas, went wild over the reputed rediscovery of some old Spanish mines in the neighborhood. Nevada got a latter-day Washoe shock in an old mine in Elko County. The Kootenai and Cari- boo districts suddenly discovered that they contained mineral enough to warrant a population of 100,000 in a few years, and hearalded the fact to the world. Colorado got up a boom over some sylvanite quartz at Silver Cliff, an old camp. Rat Port- age, Ontario, suffered a depopulating exodus over some reported rich finds in the Rainy Lake and Seine River country. Dead- wood put in a claim to notice by announcing a new lead in Ragged Top, which assayed $1048 a ton in gold. Altoona, Pennsylvania, temporarily forgot the coal rumpus while it dis- covered gold ore going $62'^ a ton on Tussey Mountains. Elizabethtown, Kentucky, got up a little excitement over a gilt bottomed farm near Summit. Columbia, Missouri, ran across SPREAD OF THE KLONDIKE FEVER. 79 a lot of gold in the banks of Dry Creek. Ashland and Mari- nette, Wisconsin, came in neck and neck with stories of gold discoveries. Marquette, Michigan, found it was roosting on top of a gold lead forty feet wide and hadn't suspected it before. Peru came to the front with a revival of the famous mines of the Incas. Mexico owned up to having gold in the Yaqui country. Russia declared there were fabulously rich new mines in Okhotsk, just across from Alaska. And China came in late in the game and announced the biggest find of all. It mattered not that the Missouri gold was pronounced pyrites and some of the other "discoveries" mere stock jobbing schemes — it showed how the fever spread. About Bogus Stock Companies. A word to the people who did not catch the stampede craze hafd enough to get them out of the country, but who are left behind with the " Alaska Mining and Klondike Development Stock Companies : " The man who goes in person to the Klondike takes great risks, but his success or failure will depend largely on himself in the long run. At any rate, he knows what he is staking on the issue. But the man who would stay at home and still be a Klondiker has to reckon not only with nature, but with rascals. There will be stock companies innumerable, organized ostensi- bly to exploit the Northwest. Som.e will do it. They will be directed by men who will set honestly about the business of trade and transportation and mining, who will handle honestly the funds intrusted to them, and who, by enterprise and square dealing, will make dividends for the stockholders. There will be other companies organized to exploit the pockets of the people at home. They will not move a boat, they will not grub-stake a miner, they will not sell a shovel, a pick, or a 80 SPREAb OF THE KLOxNDlKP: FEVER. pan. Their directors will get money from the unsuspecting and use it for their own purposes. If the boom holds out and grows to sufficient size they will play the part of the adventurers who turned the city of Panama into a modern Babylon with the money contributed by the people of France. In short, sending capital into the Klondike will be even more precarious than going yourself, for the risks of nature will be added to the risk of man's rascality. Yet capital is needed in the Klondike, and those who send it there under the proper sort of management will make legitimate ■orofits, and possibly big ones. CHAPTER III. "Strike it Rich" on Klondike. Gold-seekers who " Made tbeir Pile " in the Placers — Tales Brought Back by Returning Argonauts — Fabulous- Stakes made by Novices — The "Tenderfoot" Has His Day — Clarence J. Berry, the " Barney Barnato " of the Diggings— His Wonderful Streak of Luck — Gives the Credit to His Wife — Captain McGregor's Wonderful Panning Results — Fortune Favors an Indiana Boy — Some of the Dark Sides, by People who Saw Them — Miners Go Insane— Death on the Glacier — Hard Work and Lack of Supplies — Advice of a California Pioneer. THAT men, even a few, have "struck it rich" and "made their pile " on the Klondike, or anywhere else on the Upper Yukon, has put the whole question of gold pros- pects in Alaska beyond cavil or doubt with the masses, for the coming close season at least. Much good advice will be given — and wasted — before the ice moves in 1898 in the upper chan- nels in the Alaskan rivers, but not a word of it, nor all of it together will be potent to overcome the attraction there is in the list of those who have washed fortunes out of the frozen Klon- dike gravel. That tons and more of new gold, a million and three-quarters of dust and nuggets, that the Portland brought in July, and the inen who had "struck it" who came with her, and the stories they told of other lucky ones who were still washing away at the auriferous soil — these things settled it. Alaska is Eldorado and the cry is " Klondike or Bust." It seemed strange as the passengers landed from the Portland to gaze upon a small satchel tightly grasped in a brown hand, and realize that it contained probably over $10,000, the reward of untold hardship. The blanket securely strapped and the leather gripsack seemed favorite packages for the yellow metal. 6 81 82 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. This time of '97, unlike all other times, Fortune played no favorites. 1897 on the Klondike was the " tenderfoot's " year for gold. The inexperienced men have been the lucky ones, individuals in several instances taking out approximately $150,- 000 in two months and a half, while the old miners, after spending years and suffering hardships and privations innumer- able in the far Northwest, had only a few thousands to show for all their pains and perils. Clarence Berry's Strike. Clarence J. Berr}% of Fresno, California, was one of the luckiest of the " tcnderfeet ; " in fact, his strike was a proverb in the entire region, and he is known among the Yukoners as " the luckiest man on the Klondike," and the " Barney Barnato of the Klondike," though he is unlike the South African Crcesus in all but luck. A few years ago, Berry said, he did not have enough to pay house rent, and did not dare ask Ethel. Bush, of Fresno, to share his poverty. But he brought back from the Klondike, on the Portland, $ 1 30,000 in gold nuggets, and the prettiest wife in the territory' and a helpmeet, too, for Mrs. Ethel Berry, nee Bush, didn't begin the honeymoon under the midnight sun by asking her husband for pin-money. Not she. She just took a pan and washed out $10,000 or so on her own account. Clarence Berry was described by Mrs. Eli Gage, who was a passenger with him and his wife on the Portland, as being ** the most modest millionaire," she ever saw. But he was wiUing to. talk Klondike after he had turned his dust and nuggets over to Wells, Fargo & Co., at Seattle, on July 17th. " Yes, I am a rich man," said he, " but I don't realize it. My wife and little ones will, though. I took out my gold last win- ter in box lengths twelve by fifteen, and in one length I found the sum of $10,000. The second largest nugget ever found ip STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 83 Alaska was taken out of my claim. It weighed thirteen ounces and is worth $230. Why, I have known men to takeout $1000 from a drift claim, and some have taken out several thousand. This gold was found in pockets, and it is not an ordinary thing to make such marvelous finds. " Yes, there is plenty more of gold there. I expect to take many more thousands from my claim ; others on this boat expect to do the same. Those who have good claims will undoubtedly be millionaires in a few years. The gold will not give out for a long time. There is room for more miners in Alaska, but they must be strong men, must have money, and should know about mining. The hardships are many. Some will fail to make for- tunes, where a few are successful. A man may have to prospect for many years before he finds a good claim. That means tljat he needs money and strength to help him along ; but if he sticks to it he will come out all right." Captain McGregor's Big Pans. Captain John G. McGregor, of Minneapolis, I\Iinn., a placer miner for thirty years, and one of the pioneers at Confederate Gulch, Montana, has been in the Klondike a year. In August he wrote home that his men were washing gravel that occasion- ally goes ;$3000 to the pan, and that $1000 is common. He has several miners working for him, and expects to bring out as his own profits next June not less than $1,200,000. Frank Phiscator, of Gallon, Indiana, came in on the Portland with $50,000, which he washed out in forty days. He left Indiana a year before for the Pacific Slope to begin life anew, having failed in the fruit business. He had never heard of the Alaska gold mines until he reached Seattle, which place he reached " broke." He was grub-staked by a friend who went through from Michigan with him, and together they started for 84 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. the new Eldorado. For day.s after they left Circle City they were lost in a blinding .storm, and for three days found refuge in a hole in the hardened snow. They reached the Klondike in the dead of winter, and when the weather moderated they were pre- pared for business. In forty days they sluiced and washed out $125,000 of gold, of v.diich Frank received as his share $50,000. William Stalley and C. Worden were Phiscator's companions, and they divided $75,000 between them. William Sloane, a merchant of Nanaimo, B. C, went North for pleasure one year ago. He had no money. A friend in- duced him to go to Klondike. He came back Avith $52,000, the amount he received for his claim. He says he will not re- turn, but advises others who want gold to go. Dougal M'Arthur's Romance. Younp- Doueral M'Arthur came down from Klondike with $25,000 in dust and a story no one could doubt. He said : " I left the good old countr)' when a mere boy, determined, if possible, to carve out a fortune for myself Coming to America I drifted from place to place with varying success and finally, six years ago, determined to try my luck in Alaska. It was hard working at first, but I soon got used to it, and I determined to stay there until I struck something that would pay me for my trouble. " At Forty-mile camp I made some money and then I drifted over to Circle City. There I did not do so well, but I kept peg- ging away, believing like Micawber, that something would turn up after a bit. Well, last fall came the news of a tremendously rich strike on the Klondike. We — that is, ni}- partner, Neal McArthur and myself — pulled up stakes and started for the new discovery. Neal went ahead and was fortunate in locating a good claim. j\Iy part of the work consisted in hauling our pro- < < < < W z D < 2; o, O O O z < STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 85 visions and camping outfit over the snow and ice to the new location. I was compelled to make two trips, and it was the hardest work I ever did -in my life. " I reached Dawson City finally just two days before Christ- mas. Neal had prospected the claim and found it rich beyond our fondest anticipations. Before we could begin work there SCENE NEAR DAWSON CITY. was an offer to buy it and we sold out for $50,000. It was a lucky turn of the wheel of fortune for us. Without practically a stroke we cleaned up ^25,000 apiece. " Now we are going home to see our people. My own folks have not heard from me in a long time, and maybe they think I am dead. It will be a joyful home-coming for all." 86 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. Among the first people to come back to civilization were Mr. and Mrs. Lipton, who, though they had been at the diggings only since April, 1896, returned with^ $60,000. Mo.st of the party were " tendcrfeet," and had spent but one season at the mines, yet some of them had taken out from $10,000 to $25,000 in a few weeks. In the nine miles advance up the Klondike, it is said, there are several mines that will yield over $1,000,000, one piece of ground on the Eldorado, forty-five feet wide, having yielded $90,000. The Berry claim has produced $145,000 in a few months, and there is a pile of gravel on the dump, ready to be washed as soon as sufificient water can be obtained, which contains as much more. Sample*" Piles " on the Portland. Among the passengers on the Portland, July 17th, Clarence Berr}', Frank Phiscator, and Frank A. Kellar, of Los Angeles, each had from $35,000 to $100,000. Henry Anderson and Jack Morden, of Chicago ; William Stanley, of Seattle ; and R. Mc- Nulty and N. E. Pickett, each had at least $20,000. M. Mercer, J. J. Hillerman, and J. Moran, had each from $12,000 to $15,000. The average pile of dust on board the Portland was probably $12,000, and these people, the captain said, are only a handful. Michael Hickey, of Great Barrington, Mass., brought down $60,000, which he had taken from Klondike placers in the last eighteen months. Hickey is a widower. He left Great Barring- ton for Alaska in the spring of 1 896. In his letters home he has not complained about the hardships he has met. He spent the winter of 1896-97 in the gold regions. William Stanley, of Seattle, "struck it" rich. He came down with $90,000. His two sons are in the Klondike, looking after their claims, out of which they hope to make at least $300,000. Henry Anderson, a native of Sweden, had no money when STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 87 he left Seattle two years ago. Now he has $45,000 and states that he received it for a half interest in his claim. Pack Home, a pugilist who use to work for variety theatres on Puget Sound for ten dollars per week, displayed $6000, the result of a year's work. T. J. Kelly and son, of Tacoma, went north in the fall of 1896. The father brought back $10,000 and the son is holding the claim. Gold Breaks the Gripsack. John Wilkinson, a passenger on the Portland, had his gold in a leather gripsack, and in carrying it out of the social hall of the steamer, in spite of the fact that he had three straps around the bag, the main handle piece broke, and he had to secure a broader strap before he could carry his treasure ashore. Henry Anderson, another passenger, refused to talk, hurrj-ing aft to get away, but it was said by his companions that he brought down $65,000, and that he had a claim like a river of gold. He sold out a half interest for $45,000 cash. In six hours' shoveling he secured 1025 ounces from his claim. Thomas Moran, of Montreal, brought out as the proceeds of five years' work $20,000, and still has interests in several claims. ]\Ioran will go back. Victor Lord, an old Olympia logging man, brought out $io,ooo' after four years on various, parts of the Yukon. He owns a half interest in two claims, and will return in the spring. M. N. Murcier, of Shelton, Mason & Co., came out with about $160,000. Among the passengers via the Portland were Fred. Price, Aueust Galbraith, L. B. Rhoads, Thomas Cook and Alexander Orr. Each one had from $5000 to $12,000. Joseph Ladue, the owner of the townsite of Dawson Cit}', was also aboard. Land is selling there, he reported, at $5000 a lot. Fred. Price, who brought out a snug fortune, said : " I was 88 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. located on the Bonanza with Harry McCullough, my partner. I brought down ;$ 5000 in gold dust and made $20,000, which is invested in more ground. There were good stakes on the boat coming down — from $5000 to $40,000 among the boys. I refused $25,000 for my interest before I left. My partner remains, and I shall return in the spring after seeing my family , in Seattle. I was in the mines for two years. One can't realize the wealth of that creek. There are four miles of claims on the Eldorado, and the poorest is worth $50,000. The Bonanza claims run for ten miles, and range from $5000 to $90,000." August Galbraith said : " The development of Alaska has only just begun. If I were not an old man, I would have remained where I was. There is no doubt in my mind that all of the country for hundreds of miles around Dawson is rich in gold. It is the best place that I know of for a poor man to go. If a man has $500 when he starts, well and good, for it may be useful if he should not be fortunate the first season." Rock Lined "With Gold. L. B. Rhoads said: "I am located on Claim 21, above the discovery on Bonanza Creek. I did exceedingly well up there. I was among the fortunate ones, as I cleared about $40,000, bui brought only $5000 with me. I was the first man to get to bedrock gravel and to discover that it was lined with gold dust and nuggets. The rock was seamed and cut in V-shaped streaks, caused, it is supposed, by glacial action. " In those seams I found a clay which was exceedingly rich. There was a stratum of pay gravel four feet thick upon the rock, which was lined with gold, particularly in these channels or streaks. The rock was about sixteen feet from the surface." Alexander Orr, who brought out $12,000 in dust, said: " In winter the weather is extremely cold at Dawson, and it is neces- STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 89 sary that one be warmly clad. The thermometer often goes sixty or seventy degrees below zero. Ordinary woolen clothes would afford little protection. Furs are used exclusively for clothing. Dawson is not like most of the large mining camps. It is not a " tough " town. Murders arc almost unknown. A great deal of gambling is done in the town, but serious quarrels are an exception. Stud poker is the usual game. They play $1 ante and oftentimes $200 or $500 on the third card." Thomas Cook expressed himself as follows : " It's a good countr>% but if there is a rush, there is going to be a great deal of suffering. Over 2000 men are there at present, and 2000 more will be in before the snow falls. I advise people to take provisions enough for eight months at least. If they have that, it is all right. The country is not exaggerated at all. The mines at Dawson are more extensive and beyond anything I ever saw." William Sloan, of Nanaimo, B. C, sold his claim for $52,000 and came home to stay. A man named Wilkenson, of the same place, had $40,000. The smallest sack of gold among the Yukoners aboard the Portland on July 17th was $3000. It belonged to C. A. Branan, of Seattle, a youth of eigliteen years. Over $100,000 for a Boy. The richest strike was made by a twenty-one-year-old boy named George Hornblower, of Indianapolis. In the heart of a barren waste known as Boulder Field he found a nugget for which the transportation company gave him $5700. He located his claim at the find and in four months had taken out over $100,000. Henry Lamprecht wrote from the Klondike to say that there are miles of rich pay dirt all through the region. Men have 90 STRIKE IT RICH OX KLONDIKE. taken a tub of water into their cabin and with a pan " panned out " $2000 in less than a day. This is said to be equal to about 540,000 a day in the summer with sluice boxes. They get from $10 to $100 a pan average and a choice or picked pan as high as 5250, and it takes about thirty minutes to wash a pan of dirt. Three hundred thousand dollars' worth of gold from the Klondike found its way to Minnesota in the possession of Peter Olafson and Charles Erickson, two Scandinavians, who returned to Two Harbors after putting in fiv^e years in Alaska. A little over five years ago the two men, aged twenty-seven and thirty years, respectively, were employed in the blacksmith shops of the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad at Two Harbors. They heard of the gold fields in Alaska and decided to go there and seek a fortune. For three years they labored in vain, but two years ago they discovered a rich placer bed on the Stewart River, and later located claims on the Klondike. In the two years they say they cleaned up ^ 150,000 each. A new mint record for one day's receipts at the San Francisco Mint was made August 3d, when 53. 77 5. 000 in gold was deposited at the branch mint for coinage. This represented the accumulation of six weeks. Three-quarters of a million of this was owned by the Alaska Commercial Company and was mainly from the Klondike. A large portion of the balance was also from the rich northern placers, and was deposited by various miners and smelting companies to whom it had been sold. This is said to be the largest sum deposited at a mint in a single day. Allan McLeod's Big Stake. Allan McLeod, of Perth, Scotland, came back with 592,500. His hands and feet were tied up in bandages, and his clothing was ragged and dirty as a result of a long sojourn in Alaska. STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 91 He looked anything but prosperous, yet in his pocket reposed a draft for $92,500, and an attendant took care of a deer hide sack heavy with gold nuggets. ]\Ir. McLeod is a baker by trade, a restaurant cook and pro- prietor by circumstance, a gold miner by accident and a rich man by luck. Inflammatory rheumatism, contracted in the gold fields, made a temporary cripple of him and rendered his journey painful, yet he had a light heart as he pictured the surprise he would give his old friends in Scotland when he landed with his treasure. Sold Out For $5,000. "I went to Alaska early last summer," said Mr. McLeod, ■' with a crowd of miners who came up the Sound from San Francisco. I was out of money and work, or I doubt whether I would have accepted the offer they made mc to go along as cook. We reached Cook's Inlet June 20th, and things looked so discouraging we went back to Juneau. There we bought sup- plies and started for Dawson City, 750 miles away. We camped there, and I did the cooking for the boys. They did very well, but the gold fever took them farther east, and I remained to cook for another gang of miners. I made good wages, and finally had enough to start a restaurant. In two weeks I sold the place for $5000, and went placer mining with a half-breed for a partner. " We had good luck from the start, and I would have remained but for a severe attack of inflammatory^ rheumatism. It would have killed me but for the nursing of my partner. He carried me most of the way to Juneau, where I got passage on a fishino- schooner to 'Frisco. I am satisfied with what I've got in money, and hope to get rid of my rheumatism before long. Great for- tunes are being found by many men, and no one knows the ex- tent of the gold fields that are constantly developing." 92 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. A San Francisco paper, under date of July 23d, prints the fol- lowing ; " Five French Canadians who were successful on the Klon- dike, and are now bound for Montreal, are at the Commercial Hotel in this city. They came from Seattle, having reached that city by the steamer Portland. They could not get the prices for their nuggets that they wanted there, nor will they accept the bid made by the Selby smelting works in this city. As the San Francisco mint is closed pending the change of administration, these five miners will carry their bulhon to Philadelphia and ex- change it there for coin of the United States." J. O. Hestwood Sees Millions. J. O. Hestwood, of Seattle, is a typical returned Argonaut. He is a small man, weighing not over 140 pounds, and has light blue eyes, clear skin and a firm square jaw. He has been a preacher, teacher and lecturer, having delivered lectures all over the coast of Alaska to pay his way up there. He spent three years in the territory before his great opportunity came. He was at Glacier Creek when the news was brought down of the immense strike in Bonanza Creek. Here is his stor)' in his own words, which gi\'e an admirable idea of the way the mines are worked : "With hundreds I rushed to the new fields. After a few days I became disgusted and started to leave the countr}'. I had gone only a short distance down the river when my boat got stuck in the ice and I was forced to foot it back to Dawson City. "Well, it was Providence that did that. I purchased claim No. 60, below Discovery claim, and it proved one of the richest pieces of ground in the district. My claim will average 16 or 17 dollars to the pan, and in addition to what I have already taken w u t— 1 c < o Q < w u < o O 2 u < 3 z Q < U O X CO o t/5 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 93 out, there is at least $250,000 in sight. Last season I worked thirty men, and I intend to employ more next year." B. W. Shaw, a former insurance man of Seattle, writing from Klondike, says he does not expect to be believed when he says he counted five five- gallon oil cans full of gold dust in one cabin, the result of a winter's work by two men. He adds that 100 ounces have been taken out of a single pan. William Kulju sold his claim for $25,000, brought down 1000 ounces of dust and started home for Fin- land. Fred. Lendeseen went to Alaska two years ago, and in July brought down 513,000 in dust, besides having an in- terest in a claim. Greg Stewart sold his share in a claim for $45,000. Thomas Flack brought along $6000 in dust - for expenses, and said he had refused $50,000 for his share of a claim, out of which his partners realized, respecti^-ely, $50,000 and $55,000. J. B. Hollingshead had $25,000 in dust to show for two years" work. M. S. Norcross said : " I was sick and couldn't work, so I cooked for Mr. IMcNamee. Still I had a claim on the Bonanza. ONE OF THE FIRST SETTLERS. 94 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. but didn't know what was in it because I couldn't work it. 1 sold out last spring for $io,ooo, and was satisfied to get a chance to return to my home in Los Angeles." John Marks reported thus about his "pile:" "I brought ;^l 1,500 in gold dust with me, but I had to work for every bit of it. There is plenty of gold in Alaska — more, I believe, than the most sanguine imagine — but it cannot be obtained without great effort and endurance." This is Talbot Fox's story : " I and my partner went into the district in 1895 and secured two claims. We sold one for ;$45,000. I brought 300 ounces, which netted 5 5 000. Every- body is at Dawson for the present. The district is apt to be overrun. I wouldn't advise anyone to go there this fall, for people are liable to go hungry before spring. About 800 went over the summit from Juneau, 600 miles, so there may not be food enough for all." Riches on the American Side. F. G. H. Bowker, a Yukoner of six moni;hs' standing, brought out ;^40,000 and the information that the placers were richer on the American than on the Canadian side of the boundary line. Wonderful tales are told of the great richness of the Klondike placers. More than one man reports having obtained $1000 from a single pan washing, while reports of yields of ^500 and ^600 to the pan are numerous. An ordinary pan of gravel will weigh twenty-five pounds and a yield of $1000 worth of gold means sixty-two ounces, or nearly one-sixth of the entire bulk in precious metal. The average is said to be fifty dollars to the pan, and this is phenomenal when it is taken into consideration ihat the California pan washer was well pleased with a aniform product of three dollars to a washing, and could niakv money with a yield running as low as fifty cents. With thi^ kind of STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 95 field to work in, it is small wonder that claim-holders gladly pay fifteen dollars a day for common labor, and are unable to get anything like a fair supply at that. It is only men who are "broke" who are willing to work for wages. Fever Strikes the Navy. Lieutenant John Bryan, of Lexington, who is f^n the revenue cutter Rush, stationed at Unalaska, Alaska, watching the seal fisheries, writes under date of July 9th to relatives in Kentucky that the Alaska gold fields are not overestimated. H-- says the placer mining is in the old bed of the Yukon River. He says : " You dig no deeper than fifteen feet into the rivei bed when you strike a strata of pure gold nuggets among the stones. There are eight-y claims already taken, each 5 ,000 feet long and the width of the river bed. " The great obstacle in reaching the gold fields is the uncom- fortable mode of travel. Steamers go no further than the mouth of the Yukon, and you have to walk the 1000 miles or pay the extravagant fare asked by the company, which runs a small boat up the river and finally lands you near the gold fields. " All who are fortunate enough to reach the country are cer- tain to find employment, even if they do not strike a claim, which at present they could avoid only by not looking for it. The poorest miners will pay fifteen dollars a day for help on their claims, but it will cost five dollars per day to live unless you take your provisions with you." The lieutenant says he has the gold fever badly, and if it were not for the fact that he is in the government servdce he would go to the new Eldorado. The Toronto Globe says editorially of the Klondike situation : " While there is probably much exaggeration in the storie? that are brought back from the Yukon, it is only necessary to 96 STRIKE IT RICH OX KLONDIKE. read the calm official reports of Mr. Ogilvie, the well-known officer of the Geological Survey, to realize that it is equally possible that there is no exaggeration in them at all. Mr. Ogil- vie's notes read like passages from Monte Cristo. Writing on December 9, 1896, he said : ' Bonanza Creek and tributaries are increasing in richness and extent until now it is certain that mil- lions will be taken out of the district in the next few years. On some of the claims prospected the pay dirt is of great extent and very rich. One man told me yesterday that he had washed out a single pan of dirt on one of the claims on Bonanza and found fourteen dollars and twenty-five cents. Of course that may be an exceptionally rich pan, but five to seven dollars per pan is the average on that claim it is reported, with five feet of pay dirt and the width yet undetermined ; but it is known to be thirty feet even at that ; figure the result at nine to ten pans to the cubic foot, and 500 feet long — nearly ^4,000,000 at five dollars per pan. One-fourth of this would be enormous. Another claim has been prospected to such an extent that it is known there is about five feet pay dirt averaging tv\-o dollars per pan, and width not less than thirty feet: Enough prospecting has been done to show that there are at least fifteen miles of this extraordinary richness, and the indications are that we will have three or four times that extent, if not all equal to the above, at least very rich.' " Captain McGregor's Story. Captain John G. ^McGregor, of Minnesota, went into Alaska last March, and the last of letters to his relatives came from the land of gold June 14th. This was before the rush of the fortune hunters had begun or before, in fact, much was known of the Dawson City diggings. Notwithstanding that fact, the letter contains estimates of wealth which distance far and away any of STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. f)7 the hitherto published accounts of the yield from Alaska's glit- tering sands. "We have washed 53000 to a single' pan," says the captain, in one of his letters. This is almost incredible. It would be quite so in fact were it not for his well-known reputation. He has been a mining expert for thirty years, and much of that time has been engaged in the very work he is now doing — placer mining. Up to date the world's record has been $1000 a pan. This was in Montana at Montana Bar. There was a group of prop- erties in what was known as the Confederate Gulch, and every 100 feet for half a mile along the shore produced $1000 a pan for every washing. The year was 1868. Captain McGregor owned those properties then, and does now, so that in the present instance his word must command^a good deal of respect on that ground alone. Results of Prospects. His attention was directed to the Yukon valley basin some time ago, and a year ago last March he sent two men who had been in his pay for a^number of years out to prospect. He heard from them from time to time, but the message he waited for did not come until last March. Then the word he received caused him to form a party immediately. He had had his prep- arations all planned, and within a very short time was breasting the mountain snows in the Chilkoot pass. He could not wait for the warm season, and made the trip successfully, though at the expense of considerable suffering by members of his expedition. On his arrival he immediately assumed charge at the claims which had been located and staked out by his men, with the result that he uncovered the tremendously rich find he reports. Captain McGregor began his prospecting immediately after the war. He came into control of the Confederate Gulch properties 7 98 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. shortly after his start, and most of the gold taken out was washed under his direct management. The gulch was then 500 miles from the borders of civilization, and each installment of the yellow stuff had to be escorted down to the railroad by armed bodies of 200 or 300 men. The metal was packed in beer kegs and so carried without trouble. The captain is a Scotchman and has all the caution and con- servatism characteristic of the nationality. Coming from such a source, the character of his statement is far superior to the report which might be brought from some prospector or from entirely irresponsible parties. Captain McGregor has had men in his employ and prospecting various regions since the seventies. He is now looking for quartz, and will undoubtedly, later on, place himself at the head of some very important deep-earth operations. Placer mining will pay when not more than twenty-five cents is realized on a pan. The operation is very generally familiar, ^ven to those who know nothing about mining. The earth washed in the Confederate Gulch was so dazzlingly heavy with gold that it seemed as if it were neatly pure, so it can be imagined what description the wash from the Klondike soil must take on. How Berry Got His Stake. Clarence Berry, the " Barney Barnato " of the Klondike, tells a thrilling story of his experience. Berry was a fruit raiser in the southern part of California. He did not have any money. There was no particular prospect that he would ever have any. He saw a life of hard plodding for a bare living. There was no opportunity at home of getting ahead, and, like other men of the far West, he only dreamed of the day when he would make a strike and get his million. This was three years ago. There had then come down from the 100 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. frozen lands of Alaska wonderful stories of rewards for men brave enough to run a fierce ride with death from starvation and cold. He had nothing to lose and all to gain. He concluded to face the danger. His capital was forty dollars. He proposed to risk it all — not very much to him now, but a mighty sight three years ago. It took all but five dollars to get him to Juneau. He had two big arms, the physique of a giant and the courage of an explorer. Presenting all these as his only collaterals, he managed to squeeze a loan of sixty dollars from a man who was afraid to go with him, but was willing to risk a little in return for a promise to pay back the advance at a fabu- lous rate of interest. Juneau was alive with men three years ago who had heard from the Indians the yarns of gold without limit. The Indians brought samples of the rock and sand and did well in trading them. A party of forty men banded to go back with the Indians. Berry was one of the forty. Each had an outfit — a year's mess of frozen meat and furs. It was early spring when the first batch of prospectors started out over the mountains, and the snow was as deep as the cuts in the sides of the hills, the natives packed the stuff to the top of Chilkoot pass. It Was life anci death every day. The men were left one by one along the cliffs. Disaster to the Outfit. The timid turned back. The whole outfit of supplies went down in Lake Bennett. The forty men had dwindled to three • — Berry and two others. The others chose to make the return trip for more food. Berry wanted gold. He borrowed a chunk of bacon and pushed on. He reached Forty Mile Creek within a month. There was not a cent in his pocket. The single chance for him was work with those more prosperous. His pay was 5100 a month. It was not enough, and, looking for better < Q < < STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 101 pay, he drifted froin one end of the gulch to the other, always keeping his shrevvcd eye open for a chance to fix a claim of his own. There was a slump in the prospects of the district and he concluded to go back to the world. The slump was not the only reason. There was a young woman back in Fresno who had promised to be his wife. Berry came from the hidden world without injury and Miss Ethel D. Bush kept her pledge. They were married. Berry told his bride about the possibilities of Alaska. She was a girl of the mountains. She said she had not married him to be a drawback, but a companion. If he intended or wanted to go back to the Eldorado, she proposed to go with him. She reasoned that he would do better to have her at his side. His pictures of the dangers and hardships had no effect upon her. It was her duty to face as much as he Avas willing to face. They both decided it was worth the tr>' — success at a bound rather than years of common toil. Berry declared he knew exactly where he could find a fortune. ]\Irs. Berry convinced him that she would be worth more to him in his venture than any man that ever lived. Furthermore, the trip would be a bridal tour which would certainly be new and far from the beaten tracks of sighing lovers. A MINER IN H.\RD LUCK. 102 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. Mr. and Mrs. Berry reached Juneau in May, 1896. They had httle capital but lots of determination. They took the boat to Dyea, and the rest of the journey was made with dogs. They slept on a bed of boughs under a tPnt. They reached Forty- Mile Creek a year ago in June, three months after they were married. They called it their wedding trip. Off for the Discovery. Klondike was still a good way off, and it was thought at first that the claims closer at hand would pay. One day a miner came tearing into the settlement with most wonderful tales of the region further on. His descriptions were like fairy tales from "Arabian Nights " — accounts fitting accurately the scenes in spectacular plays, where the nymph or queen of fairy land bids her slaves to pick up chunks of gold as big as the crown of a hat. Berry told the tale to his wife. She said she would stay at the post while he went to the front. There was no rest that night in the camp. ]\Ien were rushing out pellmell, bent on nothing but getting first into the valley of the Klondike and establishing claims. Mrs. Berry worked with her husband with might and main, and before daylight he was on the road over the pass. There were fifty long miles between him and fortune, and he worked without sleep or rest to beat the great field which started with him. He made the track in two days. He was among the first in. He staked Claim 40, above the Dis- covery; which means that his property was the fortieth one above the first Aladdin. It was agreed that each claim should have 500 feet on the river — the Bonanza. This was the begin- ning of Berry's fortune. He then began to trade for interests in other sites. He secured a share in three of the best on Eldorado Creek. There is no one living who can tell how much this property is worth. It has only been worked in the crudest way. STRIKE YV RICH ON KLONDIKE. 103 yet five months netted him enough to make him a rich man the rest of his life. There are untold and inestimable millions where the small sum from the top was taken. Berry gives all the credit of liis fortune to his young wife. It was possible for her to have kept him at home, after the first trip. She told him to return — and she returned with him. It was an exhibition of rare courage, but rare courage rarely fails. The wedding trip lasted about fifteen months. Berry says it was worth $1,000,000 a month. This estimate is one measured in cold cash — not sentiment. One day while they were working the claim on Eldorado Creek, Mr. and Mrs. Berry gathered $595 from a single pan of dirt. This dust they have saved in a pan by itself. Mrs. C. C. Adams' Letter. Mrs. Chester C. Adams, who went from Tacoma to Dawson City last April, writing under date of June 17th, says that miners were then coming into Dawson City daily with all the gold dust they could carry. It was considered a small matter to have 100 pounds. Many were bringing this amount in as a result of seven or eight months' working of claims on shares. Other men brought to Dawson from 200 to 500 pounds of gold dust, and Mrs. Adams makes the startling statement that one man had brought in 1300 pounds, which would amount to over ;^25o,ooo. Her husband estimated that the steamer then loadiner at Daw- son would take over $2,000,000 to St. Michael's, from which point it will be brought out by the steamers Portland and Excel- sior on their next trips down. They are due between August 1 5th and September ist. Mrs. Adams declares the whole truth regarding Klondike has not been told and cannot be, because people would not believe 104 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. it. She tells of new discoveries this spring on the Stewart River and Henderson Creek and the creeks emptying into them. High water had prevented complete prospecting, but when she wrote it was known that some dirt considerably above bed rock would run ^lo and ^^12 per pan. Bed rock cannot be reached until winter. Miners are also preparing to do more thorough work on Chicken, Mastodon, Miller, American, Last Chance and other creeks, on which men formerly took out as high as $30 per day each. These creeks were deserted by last fall's rush to the Klondike. When she wrote new creeks were being found and prospected in all directions from Dawson, and every day witnessed a stam- pede of men to one or another of them. She speaks of an overland trip as one of pleasure rather than hardship when properly made. Ship Gold in Barrels. Warren Shea, of New Whatcom, Wash., a reputable and re- liable man, writes from Klondike to his brother, S. Shea, of New Whatcom, and says the next boat to leave the gold field will bring out dust and nuggets in barrels. Two days after the boat that brought out the miners, who arrived on Puget Sound aboard the steamer Portland, left Daw- son City one of the largest stores at that place was closed and the building was turned into a gold packing warehouse. So great a quantity of gold was offered for shipment that it was "decided to pack it in barrels holding about twenty-two gal- lons. The barrels have heretofore been used for packing salt fish. An interesting letter from Captain J. F. Higgins, of the steamer Excelsior, describing his last voyage to Alaska, is as follows : STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 105 "Bonanza Creek dumps into Klondike about two miles above the Yukon. "Eldorado is a tributary of the Bonanza. There arc numer- ous other creeks and tributaries, the main river being 300 miles, lone. PUGET SOUND AND MT. RAINER. "The gold so far has been taken from Bonanza and Eldo- rado creeks, both well named, for the richness of the placers is truly marvelous. "The Eldorado, thirty miles long, is staked the whole length, and as far as worked has paid. " Each claim is 500 feet long and is worth half a million. "So uniform has the output been that one miner, who has an interest in three claims, told me that if offered his choice he would toss up to decide. One of our passengers, who is taking $1000 with him, has worked 100 feet of his ground and refused 106 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. $200,000 for the remainder, and confidently expects to clean up $400,000 and more. " He has in a bottle $212 from one pan of dirt. " His pay dirt while being washed averaged $250 an hour to each man shoveling in. " Two others of our miners who worked their own claims cleaned up $6000 from the day's washing. "There is about fifteen feet of dirt above bed rock, the pay streak averaging from four to six feet, which is tunneled out while the ground is frozen, " Of course the ground taken out is thawed by building fires, and when the thaw comes and water rushes in they set their sluices and wash the dirt. Sold Out for $45,000. " Two of our fellows thought a small bird in the hand worth a large one in the bush and sold their claims for $45,000, getting $4500 down, the remainder to be paid in monthly installments of $10,000 each. " The purchasers had no more than $5000 paid. They were twenty days thawing and getting out dirt. ** Then there was no water to sluice with, but one fellow made a rocker, and in ten days took out the $10,000 for the first installments. So, tunneling and rocking, they took out $40,000 before there was water to sluice with. " Of course these things read like the story of Aladdin, but fiction is not at all in it with facts at Klondike. " The ground located and prospected can be worked out in a few years, but there is still an immense territory untouched, and the laboring man who can get there with one year's provisions will have a better chance to make a stake than in any other part of the world." STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 107 W. F. Parish, of Chicago, has received from a business asso- ciate in Spokane, Wash., H. D. Heacock, a letter written to the latter by J. F. Wallace, dated Klondike, Northwest Territory, May 14th. It is as follows : " I have been here a month or so. There is a placer mining camp, discovered last summer and supposed to be as rich as Alder Gulch in Montana. They have got as much as $800 to a pan, and will have out over ;$ 2, 000,000 this winter. There are three creeks known to be good. Eldorado is the richest, there being four miles without a blank claim, and all selling from ;^50,ooo to ;$ 1 00,000 each. Some will not sell at any price. It is in British territory, fifty miles above Forty Mile Post, on the bank of the Yukon River. Mostly every one has left Circle City and come up on the ice. During the winter provisions were scarce. Boats did not get up here last fall on account of the ice. Flour was $1.30 per pound, bacon $1.50 per pound, shovels, ;$20 each. Dogs sold for $200 and ;$300 each for freighting. Freight cost $i per pound from Circle City here. Wages are $1$ per day. Lumber is $600 per 1000 feet at the mines. Mines are from five to twenty miles from Dawson City, situated at the mouth of the Klondike. Claims are 500 feet in length. Ground frozen from top to bottom and has to be thawed with fire. Mostly drifting diggings about twenty feet deep. Some twenty or thirty claims will open from top. I did not get here in time to locate, so I am still a prospector. Very mild winter ; only seventy-four below zero the coldest. River frozen yet, but expect it to break almost any day." Inspector Strickland's Report. A special from Regina, Northwest Territory, says : " Inspector Strickland, of the Northwest mounted police arrived here last night from the Yukon. 108 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. " Mr. Strickland does not believe the story of $250,000 having been made there by any one man, but says the most liberal truths read like fairy tales. It is hard to say just what is being made. The miners are reticent about their earnings. He says that miners who have come out and staked claims this year, number- ing about 100, have taken or sent away sums varying from $5000 to $50,000 each, and have kept back considerable sums for development and other investments. Miners from California, Australia and South Africa say that nothing in the world has been struck as rich. " Inspector Strickland says that if the country fills up as rapidly as it is doing, the two trading companies will not be able to supply food for the inhabitants. Provisions are not so dear as might be expected : Flour is $12 a hundred ; bacon 40 cents a pound ; canned meats 75 cents and $1, and cariboo and moose flesh is sold by the Indians at 50 cents a pound. Inspector Strickland strongly recommends that no person should go out to the Yukon district without taking with him a year's food, as well as some money, because paying claims are not always found immediately, and there is the long and hard work of building a home. He says that mining is not a picnic. All is hard work. Wood is scarce and requires a great deal of labor. The climate is healthy and there is very little sickness. The chief complaints are scur\y, kidney trouble, and rheumatism. " Though the winter is eight months long, it is only three weeks that the sun is not seen. Miners' wages are fifteen dollars a day, but this rate will fall soon if the present rush continues from the Pacific coast." Finds No Hard Times. J. P. Staley, who is working a claim on Bonanza Creek, wrote to C. P. Enright, of Oilman, Ills., as follows : "There is no doubt this is the best place to make money in MM Wi o w -1 >• H O U D < ►-» o to. > w. w Q I— » STRIKE IT RICH OxN KLONDIKE. 109 the world. Sell out and come here. We need live business men. Flour is $12 a hundred, bacon 40 cents a pound, sugar 25 cents a pound, rice 25 cents a pound, any kind of dried fruit 25 cents a pound. All kinds of canned fruit, 75 cents a can. Bring fur moccasins with you. They will fetch from $1^ to ;$2 5 a pair. " Brother Dan and I are working in a mine, or rather in a bed of a creek. We are getting ^15 a day each for ten hours, and it is thought wages will be ;^2 5 a day during the winter. It takes about ;^6oo a year each for provisions, blankets, gloves, mocca- sins, etc. We expect to remain here all winter. It is too long a trip to lose the chance of making a stake by refusing to stay. " Everbody is pleased with the country. There are no hard times. All have buckskin socks, containing more or less gold dust. There is no other kind of money. " During June and the first days of July it was very hot, but under the moss, which is eight inches thick, solid ice is encoun- tered. It has not been dark for over a month, and will not be until the last of September. It is possible to read any time du- ring the twenty-four hours. The sun goes behind the moun- tains about 10.30 p. m. and comes up about i a. m. Old-timers 5ay the winters are not so bad even if the thermometer goes down to 70 degrees below zero. There is no wind. All dress in fur clothing. "I expect to work a claim on shares this week and will make plenty of money. No matter how big the stories are you hear of this place they are not big enough. I have received but one letter from home. It was forty-three da)^s on the way." Go to 'Work for Wages. Two other letters from men who found it necessary to resort to day labor at the start are interesting reading. 110 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. Hart Humber, a young man who left Rossland, B. C, early last spring and arrived at Dawson City, Northwest Territory, on June 9th, over the Chilkoot Pass route, writes the following : "Dawson City, N. W. T., June 18, 1897. — Friend Charlie: After leaving Dyca we had a trip full of hairbreadth escapes and arrived at Dawson City on June 9th. " I will start to work to-morrow morning at ^1.50 per hour. I will work with pick and shovel about three weeks, and will then have a better job with the same outfit and will get an ounce of gold per day (^17). " There are at least fifty people going out on the boat to-mor- row, who are taking out all the way from $10,000 to $100,000. " This is undoubtedly the richest placer camp ever struck. The diggings are fifteen miles from Dawson. One Montana man took $96,000 out of forty-five square feet, another took $130,000 out of eighty-five square feet, and there are many more strikes equally as rich." Klondike Will Kill Bryan. Lewis W. Anderson, a Tacoma machinist, wrote this to his wife : " I have been here a little more than two months and have already secured a quarter interest in a claim for which I have been offered $26,000, but out of which I expect to make as my part more than $100,000 in the next year. This for us, you know, is a big thing, and yet there are dozens of men who are making ten times as much. " When I arrived my money had almost given out. I had only $31 left, so I worked ten days at sawing lumber at $15 per day to get a start. Nothing like this has ever been heard of in the world. Money, that is gold dust, is almost as plentiful as watei There are many hardships to be endured, but I expect STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. Ill to return to Tacoma next year safe and sound with lots of money. " Tell Henry that we will have to change our politics, because the Klondike will kill Bryan and the silver question and the money power of Wall Street will try to demonetize gold. The gold that will come out of here inside of two or three years will make Wall Street more anxious to demonetize gold than it ever was to demonetize silver." But in spite of this long list, at best only partial, of men and women who have " struck it rich," there is another side to the question, and fairness towards the reader demands it to have a showing. Let it speak for itself. Hestwood Tells of Drawbacks. J. O. Hestwood, who brought a small fortune with him to Seattle, in an article telegraphed from Seattle to the New York World, says : " Modern or ancient history records nothing so rich in extent as the recent discoveries of gold on the tributaries of the Yukon River. The few millions of dollars recently turned into the banks and smelters of Seattle and San Francisco from the Klon- dike district is but a slight indication of what is to follow in the near future. When we consider the fact that there is scarcely a shovelful of soil in Alaska and the Northwest Territory that does not yield grains of gold in appreciable quantities, who can compute the value of the golden treasure that the great country' will yield in the next few years ? " The Yukon River, which forms a great artery flowing through this frozen, rock-ribbed region for 2600 miles, seems to be a providential highway, opened up for the pioneer gold hunters and their followers, who are numbered by thousands yearly. There is room in that country for 100,000 miners for 112 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. lOO years. I do not make this statement from wh:it some one else has told me, or from what I have read. I speak from actual experience in that land of gold. I have traveled over her rivers of ice and mountains of snow in the springtime for three years. Perils of the Trail. "Four years ago last ]\Iay, when I first went into that country, little was known of its wonderful possibilities. With a heavy outfit strapped to the backs of Indians, squaws and dogs, I struggled over the trail from Dyea, on the southern coast of Alaska, to Sheep camp, twelve miles distant, which was my first camping place. " The softening snow, under the sun's hot rays, rendered traveling difficult, and it was a pitiable sight to watch the half- starved, half-clothed Indians struggling along with their heavy burdens on their backs, climbing the mountain side, frequently breaking through drifted snow and being buried almost out of sight ; wading icy streams, falling trom foot logs and enduring hardships from which death would seem a welcome relief. "The endurance of these Indians, or human beasts of burden, w'as a constant surprise lo me. I remember one young buck whose smallest load was 150 pounds. His wife was a young squaw, who, with seventy-five pounds strapped to her back and a four-weeks-old child in her arms, struggled up the Chilkoot Pass, where the declivity was so steep that we were compelled to dig steps in the ice and snow in order to make the ascent. One poor old Indian, I remember, had but half a dozen small cawdle fish and one grouse to subsist on for three days. " We w^ere landed on the summit of Chilkoot Pass, 4100 feet above the sea level, at Dyea, in the midst of a terrific snow storm, such as takes place frequently in this pass in the spring of the year, endangering the lives of many who attempt going over STRIKE ir RICH ON KLONDIKE. 113 it. The blinding snow rendered it dangerous in the ex- treme to attempt the descent from the mountain toward Lake Linderman, the headwaters of the Yukon River. To make matters worse, the clouds settled down on the mountain top, and we dared not leave the camp for more than a few hundred feet for fear we might lose our footing and be plunged over a precipice or into some yawning chasm in the mountain. A mis- step meant death. Among the Awful Glaciers. " We took shovels and dug a hole in the ice and snow and spread a tent over it, placing sacks of provisions on the tent to weigh it down so the fierce wind ^^ould not carry it away. Our supper consisted of a cup of tea and a few crumbs of bread. Great glaciers were sleeping all around us, but there was little sleep for the weary travelers that night. The glaciers, however, seemed to be endowed with life and fits of wakefulness, for every now and then wc would hear a crackling sound, followed by a noise as of crashing thunder, and 10,000 tons of sleeping giants would be precipitated from the mountain heights and shattered into icy diamonds to feed the roaring torrents in the chasm below. " ]\Iorning broke bright and clear. There was no wood on the mountain top, and we were compelled to chop up a sled for fuel. This was expensive. We tried to breakfast on a pot of half-cooked beans and a little coffee, which would freeze at the slightest provocation. Two sleds were then loaded with pro- visions and started down the mountain. They went with a velocity as if fired from a cannon until they struck the ice in Crater Lake, three-quarters of a mile below. After that every foot of the ground we gained was by the most excruciating labor a human being can be subjected to. " Two weeks were consumed in reaching Lake Linderman, 6 114 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. *;lcvcn miles farther on. Another week had passed before a boat was completed with which we could make our way down the river. While in camp at Lake Linderman one of the party injured his knee, and three times a hunting knife had to be brought into requisition and incisions made. Only after the most careful nursing was he able to proceed on the journey. Men are often taken with snow blindness in that country and lie helpless for days in their tents, unable to cook enough to sus- tain hfe. If deserted by their companions in this condition their fate is sealed. On to Forty Mile. " From this point we encountered few difficulties in the way of river transportation until we reached Forty Mile, which is located where the 141st meridian crosses the Yukon. Between Marsh Lake and Lake Lebarge there is sixty miles of river, in which occur the Grand Canon and the White Horse Rapids. Before reaching Grand Canon the river is wide and smooth, when all at once the water is forced through the caiion at incredible speed. The canon is a crevice where the mountain has been split in twain, apparently, to make an outlet for the water. The walls are perpendicular on either side, rising to a height of 100 feet. Three miles below is the W^hite Horse Rapids ; the most danger- ous portion of the Yukon River. " I simply mention these facts in order that any one who thinks of going into that country may know before hand that the search for gold there is preceded by hardships and privations which they little dream of unless they have penetrated the American land of the midnight sun. But after the dangers are passed the adventurer finds himself in a country rich in mineral resources. " Mark you, the country has yet given but a faint indication of its real weUth. The gold that has been found only points STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 115 the way to the true deposits, which will prove to be the wonder of the world." John Welch, a former employe in an Indianapolis iron foundry, has Avritten to his mother from Circle City, saying he has been in the Alaskan gold fields for fifteen months and could come home at any time with a few thousand dollars, but he prefers to remain a while longer and return rich. He says that gold nuggets worth from twenty to fifty dollars are being found daily, but many men have become insane from hardships and from dis- appointment. Successful miners are squandering fortunes in reckless extravagance. Says Lucky Ones Are Few. William Ireland has sent a letter from Alaska which ought to be a warning to men who are hastening to the field without due deliberation. He says : "Undoubtedly it is true that some very rich discoveries have been made on the Klondike in the last year or so. I have been in the midst of the excitement and know that a large amount of gold has been taken out. As in California, a few lucky ones have made the killing. " Of the 200 miners working near where I am located thirty- one are mine owners and the others laborers. I receive $10 a day, and I can work about 165 days during the year. The cost of living, I should say, would average about $2 per day per year, and at this price I enjoy none of the luxuries. I am on an equality with the rest of the workers, only three of whom receive higher wages. " The mine-owners are making fortunes. Just how much money has been taken out can only be roughly guessed at, but it is certain that the placers here are exceedingly rich. Those who come from California, if they possess money enough^ may 11 G STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. succeed in making a strike, but I would not advise anyone to come up here without a sufficient supply of money to carry him over a year. There is plenty of country to prospect in, and the summers are delightful, so that for about five and a half months m the year a miner can work out of doors as well here as in California. Be sure and send a big supply of papers. If I were " starting out again, I would carry at least one-third of my load in reading matter. Life in the long months of winter is unbear- ably dull without something to read." Kills Himself on the Road. There is a story of despair and death from the rush into Alaska gold fields. It comes from Lake Linderman on the Dyea route, and the victim was Frank Matthews, of Seattle. Matthews and his partner, George Folsom, had safely crossed the divide, and were rafting their supplies along the lakes toward the Yukon. In the rapids between Lakes Linderman and Ben- nett the raft went to pieces, the supplies were scattered along the river, and Matthews was rescued after a severe injury to his leg. His partner placed him in a comfortable position and started back for help. Before going a hundred yards he heard the report of a rifle and was horrified to find Matthews shot dead. Undoubtedly he committed suicide. Miss Mary E. Mellor, superintendent of the United States Indian Training School at Unalaska, who came on the Portland, July 17th, said the hardships in the Northwestern gold region are terrible. Summers are short, winters long and the supply of food and clothing inadequate. " When I left flour was selling at the rate of ;$50 a sack, and if the luxury of eggs was indulged in, the consumers paid $4 per dozen. Then it must be remembered that each egg of the twelve was not what a Pennsylvania farmer would corL^'der ^^^^^A|^w^ ^^^ ^^^K^^f^fKK^L [ ^^^ft.:#^t:r' ''^''-' ^Kjf^i;^^^^ yW^BSS^m^ ^^^m^^mM Sv^' ^ra r-r/< " "■' •%^^^^'** '^>, #»''^ ' .3: fc^ ^^^^^^■KJ^^^^^ 5 *x"fci»i^ '—- ^ -■ ^» ■■«g"y *?-i PLACER MIXIXc;— HYDRAULIC SYSTEM OLD BLOCK HOUSE BUILT IN 1805 FOR PROTECTION AGAINST THE INDIANS STRIKE IT RICH Ox\ KLONDIKE. 117 freshly laid. Clothing is also hard to obtain and is high in price, the majority of the gold seekers wearing clothes made of coarse woolen blankets." Fred. Moss returned from Klondike to Great Falls, Mont., and said the upper Yukon was a country of starvation, outlawr}^' and death. He had no story about how much he was worth and exhibited no dust. . J. D. Clements, of Seneca Falls, N. Y., told a story something like Moss'. He said he almost starved to death while prospect- ing. But he brought back ;^40,ooo and said he would return to Klondike in the spring Mrs. Poppy Calls on Mrs. Gage. Among the many women who called on Mrs. Eli Gage in Chicago before she started for Dawson City was a Mrs. Poppy, whose husband had spent fifteen years in Alaska. Mrs. Gage told her that if her husband had been long in the gold fields, he could probably give her more information than she could. According to Mrs. Poppy, the stories her husband tells indicate that there are some things in Alaska that are quite as valuable as gold, and his experience has demonstrated that some of them are really " worth their weight in gold." At one time when he was in the gold fields he had in his possession 300 ounces of virgin yellow metal, but not enough food to maintain the spark of life in a rabbit. E. W. Egalbrecht, who went over Chilkoot Pass in February, wrote back from Dawson City in June, as follows : " If I and many another had known anything about the hard- ships and exposures of this trip we would not have gone. It took me three days and half of the nights to reach Pleasant Camp with my outfit, and I will only add that when I slept at 'she foot of the cafion during the last night I awoke to find my 118 STRIKF IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. camp six inches under water. All my clothes were soaked and my misery was indescribable. My feet especially suffered, be- cause the skin had become very soft from perspiring in the rub- ber boots, and sore from walking, so that I suffered excruciating pain at times. I also suffered much from nausea, not being able to accustom myself to the food. The everlasting odor of bacon and beans that clung to everything took away my appetite. The poorest hut in civilization seems like a palace, but people never know when they are well off. " I have worked hard all my life, but it is nothing compared to what one has to accomplish on a trip like this. Snow and ice all around wherever one looks, and one's face feels as though he was being whipped, but we had to push on if we did not want to perish. "At Sheep Camp we found about 200 miners, mostly from the Mexico and Al-Ki, all of whom were unable to proceed to Stone House, owing to the stormy weather. However, the wind died out, and now began some climbing up a steep mountain trail, with 100 pounds on the sled, as much as the strongest man could pull, otherwise he would be dragged backward. I tell 3'ou one's limbs tremble with the horrible exertion. Such a trip takes from two to three hours, and we made three of them. No Laughter in the Camps. " We were allowed thirty minutes for a lunch of frozen beans and a pipe of tobacco, and then forward again. If after such a day's work you pass through a camp you hear no laughter, but see only pale, tired faces. Everthing is quiet, and you might kick their hands and they would not move out of your way. " Fourteen hundred feet up a steep incline, step by step, with your feet firmly planted down and your pack on your back, you push on. If you slipped there would be no stop until you STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 119 reached the bottom. In this way our journey continued for some time. We had many narrow escapes, and suffered severely from cold, but arrived eventually at our journey's end — Klon- dike, the land of promise and of gold." Mrs. Julia Cook, of San Francisco, received the following letter, via the Portland, from her husband, at Dawson City: "At last, at last, we reached here to-day. What we have lived through I will not trust to pen and paper ; the many little crosses on the road here — they count up over a hundred — speak only too plainly of the innumerable dangers of this terrible jour- ney. Let us rather pass over our experiences in silence, for surely we are fortunate to have reached here. Now we must get to work. "The news of the gold strike, though I feared it might be, is not exaggerated. On the contrary, all the stories are surpassed by the facts. There are fellows here of doubtful calling who since last fall have gathered in over $100,000. Two brothers have over $150,000. " We were in a great hurry to get here, and now learn that for a month work cannot be begun in the mines, although the roses and the most beautiful flowers are blooming. Still we can dig down but a few inches without striking ground frozen hard as rock. There is all kinds of work going on in this mushroom city, still there are plenty of idle men." Hurley's Pay-Dirt Swept Away. James Young, General Agent at Milwaukee for the Great Northern Railroad, received a Klondike nugget one day in August from James Hurley, a well-known mining promoter, who was active in operations on the Gogebic iron range during its palmy days. Mr. Hurley has had an interesting experience in Alaska. Mr. 120 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. Young sold him a ticket to that region some months ago, and was surprised to hear from him. Accompanying the package containing the piece of metal was a letter from j\Ir. Hurley which stated that he had not become very rich, although he had acquired more money in Alaska than he ever had before. This is not Mr. Hurley's first experience in gold mining in Alaska. He went to that country with several friends as long ago as the 70's. I\Iost of the miners at that time were so poor they v/ere com- pelled to wash the dirt as fast as possible, that they might get enough gold to exchange at the store for the necessaries of life. Hurley and his companions had plenty of money, and .they conceived and partly carried out the idea of digging out a pile of the pay dirt, building their cabin up against it and washing it out during the winter, alongside of the fire in the cabin. By this plan they expected to keep themselves employed all winter, whereas by the ordinary method they would have to dis- continue operations all through the long winter. Just before the winter set in there was a big freshet that washed away the pile of pay dirt that they had been working all summer to secure. They were nearly out of money and lost courage. They made their way back to their homes, and Hurley did not return until about a year ago. Jerseymen Have Good Luck. W. J. Hibbert, one of a party of seven from Trenton, N. J., who went to the Yukon late in 1 896, grubstaked by some Phila- delphia and Trenton merchants, has written back to his " angels" that the seven prospectors have laid claim to a large tract of rich dredger land, and that they will add to that area twenty-one placer claims. STRIKE IT RICH OX KLONDIKE. 121 He tells some big stories about the luck of the prospectors in that countr)^ One man worked five days, at the end of which time he cleaned up $40,000. Another man who had worked industriously two months found at the end of that time that he was $150,000 ahead of the game. J. R. Fitzgerald, of Springfield, O., wrote that a boat which he and his two companions had built was wrecked on the trip to Dawson City, and they lost everything they had ; but he had some friends connected with the Alaska Commercial Company and vvent to work at ten dollars a day as soon as he got there. Ke said the most dangerous places are the canon, White Horse Rapids, and Leads River, many people being drowned at those three place". Fitzgerald said that reports as to the richness of the Klondike fields have not been exaggerated, and he knows of as high as $1000 worth of dust being taken out of a single pan, while some claims now pa}' as high as Si 2,000 to Si 5,000 a day. The prospectors are locating new claims ever}^ day, which seem to be paying as well as the old. He said that miners frequently came down from the diggings loaded with sacks of dust weigh- ing from 100 to 300 pounds. He said that one eastern young man sold his claim for §30,000 and died of heart disease just as he was about to board the steamer on the return trip. Perish on the Glacier. Few of the tales of hardship endured by gold seekers in the Arctic surpass in thrilling sadness the story of the deaths of Charles A. Blackstone, George Botcher and J. \V. Malinque, ex- pert miners from Seattle, who were killed on the glacier last April. The three men went north on the steamer Lakme in March, 1896. For a tirne they were at Cook's Inlet, and later they went to Circle City. They remained in the district until 12U STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. March of this year, but fortune did not favor them, and March 25th they started back to Seattle, intending to go to Portage Bay, an arm of Prince WiUiam Sound. IVIarch 27th they were seen on the glacier by a Mr. Gladhouse and by a Swede named Peter- son. They were never seen alive afterwards. Before Blackstone left this city he asked a friend, George Hall, to look out for his wife and family should anything happen him. When word reached this city that the three men had left Circle City and had not made connections with the steamer at Portage Bay Hall went to Alaska to investigate. He easily found traces of the men. They had lost their way and had ascended that terrible mountain, coming out on the wrong side of the glacier. Mr. Hall found how Blackstone, Botcher and Malinque, after searching the top of this perpendicular cliff, had crawled under a ledge of ice. Miners Frozen to Death. The following statement was found on Blackstone's body: " Saturday, April 4th 1897. — This is to certify that Botcher froze to death on Tuesday night. J. W. Malinque died on Wed- nesday forenoon, being frozen so badly. G. A. Blackstone had his ears, nose and four fingers on his right hand and two on his left hand frozen an inch back. The storm drove us on before it. It overtook us within an hour of the summit and drove us before it. It drove everything we had over the cliff except blankets and moose hide, which we all crawled under. Supposed to have been 40 degrees below zero. On Friday I started for Salt Water. I don't know how I got there without outfit. On Saturday after- noon I gathered up everything. Have enough grub for ten days, providing bad weather does not set in. Sport was blown over the cliff. I think I can hear him howl once in awhile." The bodies of Malinque and Botcher were never found. H. Juneau, of Dodge City, Kansas, who was one of the STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 123 founders of the town of Juneau, had something to say of the dark side of life in Alaska, in these words : " I have found the country full of disappointments, and I don't want to paint the picture too bright. Enough has not been said of the dark side. " It is no place for men of weak constitution. The hardships to be encountered require the strongest hearts and sinews as well. " I have seen nothing published of the fact that a large portion of the countr}' is covered with a moss and vine which contains sharp thorns, like porcupine quills, with saw edges. These will penetrate leather boots, and when once in the flesh nothing but a knife will remove them. These are worse than the mosquito pest. "Another thing which must not be overlooked is the total lack of law in the interior. When only Indians and a few prospect- ors were in the country there was little need of courts, but with the great influx of mixed humanity lawlessness is almost sure to break out. "Alaska is a country on edge. It is so mountainous. Basins are mainly filled with ice. The weather is always hard in great extremes. Where there is no ice there is moss and devil's club, the latter a vine that winds around everything it can clutch. Persons walking become entwined in a network of moss and devil's club, and passage is extremely difficult and 'torturous' as well as tortuous." Leave Good Claims for Better. The opinion of Mrs. Rli Gage on the Klondike situation is interesting reading, for her opportunities to know have been exceptional. She says : " There are many clainis along the best known creeks that 124 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. have been abandoned. The prospectors would be digging on them contentedly, earning big money every day. There would then come a report from some neighboring place of fabulously rich finds, and there would follow at once a wild rush. In this way sites that paid moderately were passed in the search of others that would banish poverty in a month. The two kings of the region were wise enough to profit by the craze which carried VERTICAL SECTION OF A QUARTZ MINE. the men along, and they bought claim after claim along the Bonanza and the Eldorado. I do not think any man on earth can guess how mud these men are worth to-day. They would be millionaires to stay at home the balance of their lives and sell interests in the mines they now have in operation. " Experts say that the best mines are still to be found. It is an old saying that the existence of the placer mine merely shows that not far away the mother rock must be found. It TOTEM POLE, FORT WRANGEL, ALAb. wiOUSAXDS Ul ^[..\.-^- r... r..Ll. ISLAND. ALASKA STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 12o looks as if the gold in the loose dirt about the creeks had been brought down from the mountains by some great glacier. The men who have gone in, and are going in, have no capital for machinery and the placer mining is the only kind they can undertake. The late comers and the men with money for machinery will probably search for quartz veins and get bigger fortunes with but comparatively small expenditures. It is reported by government officials and everybody else that the whole countr}' is gold producing, and the work of 10,000 men who will be able to get there within the next twelve months will not begin to exhaust the resources. Advice of a '49er. No better words to close a chapter on the " luck " and experi- ences of the Klondike argonauts have been written than these from a '49er who " made his pile" before California was a State, and who still sympathizes with each one of the "thousand" gold seekers in the Arctic wilds who believes he is the " one " who is predestined to have fortune thrust upon him in the Yukon valley. He says, this snow-capped veteran of the early placers : " It was this belief that encouraged the multitude of '49, and populated California with refugees from every quarter of the globe ; it was the same idea that sent the tide of a tumultuous humanity into the deserts of Nevada to hunt for silver ; it was the same egotism that starved on Fraser River and shivered in the blizzards of Cariboo ; it was the same spirit that went up against the false hope of Panamint, and wandered helplessly across the hot sands of Lower California. " So it will be this time ; so it has ever been from the going out of Ishmael ; and so it will ever be until men cease to care for gold — subduing the love of riches, which the wise man has said is the root of evil. 126 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. " Of course, the effort to deter these men from hazarding their lives and risking their fortunes in the Arctic is merely perfunctory. Even those who are advising that the wolf of Unalaska be permitted to howl undisturbed do not expect that the beast will long enjoy that privilege. Survival of the Fittest. " The weaklings may perish, as the advisory Doard of editors predicts, but the strength, the bone and sinew and the brawn of this movement will pull through, barring the accident that the litany refers to as ' battle, murder and sudden death.' " These are of the stuff that builds commonwealths and per- petuates races of men. These are of the lineage that followed the Vikings ; the ancestors of these conquered with William and crossed the storm-lashed Atlantic to subdue a wilderness and found an empire. " These are the kind of men they Wniit, whether they return from the Yukon burdened with wealth or as poor as they went. There's good leather in the stock that v/iU come out of that frozen desolation, and it will work up into excellent material in a land where energy compels prosperity, and industry is rewarded with contentment. " Suppose it is true that hardships must be endured in this quest? Are they any more disheartening than those which the poor man faces in the overcrowded cities ? " Let it be conceded that the climate is rigorous. The winters of Minnesota are almost as severe, and the thermometer often registers as low in Quebec and the northern cities of Europe. "The climate of Alaska may be deadly at certain seasons of the year if the inhabitant exposes himself to its clemency, but the mortality resulting from such foolishness will not, under the most favorable circumstances, equal the record of the recent STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. 127 "hot spell" in New York, Chicago, St Louis and throughout the Middle West. "As for starvation, there is less danger of that unhappy con- summation in a mining camp than there is in the most opulent ' centre of civilization.' Makes Light of Journey. " The distance and the difficulty of reaching the mines of Alaska have been urged as an obstacle to be seriously considered by those who contemplate this adventure. " As a matter of fact, it is a less arduous journey from New York to Dawson City than from Sandy Hook to Johannesburg. Steamers comfortably fitted are plying between San Francisco and St. Michael's, at the mouth of the Yukon, and thence to Klondike. " The voyage is long, true, and somewhat expensive ; but, aside from these natural consequences of a trip to the Arctic, there is no valid reason why anyone who wishes to go there should be discouraged. "As for the tedium of the voyage, that can be endured in anticipation of the varied excitement that awaits the traveler at the end of his journey, and the expense that may attend the trip must be hopefully borne in the certainty of a manifold return when the industry and ability of the adventurer is put to the test in the land of the long twilight. " The most encouraging information that has come out of the north with the homing millionaires is the assertion that a miner in Alaska does not need to know anything about mining. If all accounts are accurate, in fact the less a man knows about ' for- mations,' ' strata,' ' deposits,' or ' dips, spurs, and angles,' the more likely he will be to strike it rich." " It is the tenderfoot who finds the plethoric ' pockets ' of the Klondike placers. As soon as he has been in the country long 128 STRIKE IT RICH ON KLONDIKE. enough to think he knows all about it, his 'luck' forsakes him and it is time for him to come home. The ' tip ' of a Freiberg expert on the Yukon isn't worth the icicles on his Vandyke Touting on the sixty-fourth degree of north latitude is not aL absolute as it is at Ingleside. " A great many people are encouraged to believe that the stories of hardships and privation in the diggings are exaggerated because several women have weathered an Arctic winter — some of them have lived for two and three years in Circle City and St. Michael's. But this is no criterion of a possible mildness of cli- mate in that region. " Last season a woman old enough to admit her age climbed Mount Shasta, and, within a thousand feet of the apex, was com- pelled to shame the young men of the party into renewed exer- tion by guying them on their lack of pluck and endurance. The circumstance that women can withstand the rigor of the Arctic is no evidence that a man would not succumb to it, for it is a physiological fact that women may display a more commendable fortitude under stress than her masculine congener. CHAPTER IV. How To Get There. Main Routes to the Klondike — By Water and Land — Voyage via St. Michael's — Trip Up the Yukon — Choice of Trails via Juneau and Dyea — In by Chilkoot Pass — Over the Chilkat — The White Pass Route— Lieutenant Schwatka's Trail via Taku — By Way of Fort Wrangel and Lake Teslin ^Railroads Suggested — The "Back Door" Route — Up the Copper River— By Moose Factory and Chefterfield Inlet — Other Trails— Tele- graph and Telephone — Postal Service — Outfits for Miners — List of Necessaries. THOUGH in a sense all roads lead to the Klondike, the gold-seeker does not become especially interested in a choice of routes until he reaches the Pacific seaboard. Then. Ahcther he be at San Frascisco, Portland, Seattle, Tacoma or Vi( toria, the problem of " how to get there " becomes an engrossing one. Time, money and danger and the season of the year must all be considered, and the question is too often more perplexing than the unposted traveler can successfully grapple alone and hope, to get the best solution. At the present time, in addition to the established routes, there are dozens of projected transportation schemes in the air, all possible to develop into untility on short no' ice. The wise argonaut, then, when settling upon his itinerary, will consult the latest sources of information — railroad and steamship literature and the folders and guides of land transportation concerns — and make up his mind accordingly. Two Main Routes. In a general way there are two main routes into the gold fields — the one entirely by water, via St. Michael's and the Yukon ; 9 ' 129 130 HOW TO GET THERK. the other by water and land, via steamer to Fort Wrangel or Juneau, and then over the passes and down the rivers to Daw- son City. The former is only available during the " open " season, for the Yukon River, throughout the greater portion of its course, is closed by ice from September to May. When the river is open, however, this route, though the longest in point of time and distance, has certain advantages, especially in the line of comforts, for it avoids the hazards of the mountain passes and the perils of the inland rapids, as well as the arduous labor of the portages as yet inseparable from the overland routes ; and the traveler is reasonably sure of three " square " meals daily and a warm, dry bed at night. To people who have money and reasonable leisure, and who are not used to roughing it, these are advantages not to be lightly foregone. On The Overland. The latter, the overland route, is shorter in time and distance, but more laborious, and, if the traveler has much of an outfit, and the "boom" prices for "packing" keep up, not less expensive than the water way. It has the somewhat dubious advantage, as things are now, of being measurably " open " all the year round. But to those who know what a mountain pass in Arctic weather means — rain, snow, hail, mud, ice, glaciers, fords, upsets, wrecks, perilous days of Sisyphean toil and deadly nights in sodden clothing on frosty beds — there will easily be apparent the dark side of the overland route. By St. Michael's and the Yukon, the traveler will find most things done for him ; by the mountain passes and the upper rivers he will have to do most things for himself and the " tenderfoot " is apt to find his troubles multiply as he presses forward, till only the most stalwart and the stoutest hearted will gret throus^h to HOW TO GET THERE, 131 the modern Ophir with heart or health to seek the fortunes hidden in the gravel. There is still another overland route than those via Juneau, Dyea, or Wrangel. It is termed expressively the " back-door" route or " inside track," and is simply the old Hudson Bay trunk line to the North. It goes from Calgary, in Alberta, by railroad, stage or wagon, and cafion to Fort Macpherson at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, and then by the Peel River, leading south- ward to the gold fields. The time via St. Michael's is from thirty-five to sixty days in the summer season ; via Juneau, Dyea or Wrangei, from sixty days upward according to the season ; by the "back door" route from sixty to ninety days. Sailing to St. Michael's. St. Michael's may be reached by the steamers of any of the great commercial companies from San Francisco or Seattle, though up to the present time the bulk of the transportation business has been in the hands of the North American and the Alaska companies, the old-time rivals for the trade of the Yukon country. The former owns the stores along the Yukon River, and has been a practical monopoly except where it has come in contact with the agents of the Alaska Commercial Company. Dutch Harbor, in the Aleutian Archipelago, is the first port made on he outward trip to St. Michael's. Here the company owning the sealing privilege on the Pribyloff Islands has a coal- ing and supply station. It is 1800 miles on the way to the gold fields. Then away to the north, 800 miles through Behring Sea and past the seal islands to St. Michael's. The journey has so far been a pleasant one, unless the weather has been stormy. The one great peril of this route lies in that portion of the sea known as " the Boneyard of the Pacific," from the vast number 132 HOW TO GET THERE. of ships which have gone down beneath its treacherous surface, and which is still one of the most dangerous spots known to northern navigators. This once passed, the other nazards of the long voyage can happily be made light of On St. Michael's Island. St. Michael's, on the island of the same name, near the mouth of the Yukon, used to be a Russian fortification, and some of the old Russian buildings are still standing ; but for many years it has been the transfer and forwarding point for all goods going into or coming out of the interior. Both the commercial com- panies doing business on the river have warehouses here. During the two or three months of open navigation it is a place of con- siderable activity. Then communication is cut off, and it goes into the long, uneventful night of winter. The inhabitants of St. Michael's are the white resident employes of the companies, the collector of customs, several missionaries, and a number of traders. There are several hundred Eskimos on the island. The surface of the country immediately sur- rounding St. Michael's is gently rolling, and in summer it is covered with a great growth of grass, having more the appear- ance of Nebraska prairies than of an Arctic region. A series of six or seven low, cone-shaped hills across the shallow estuary are extinct volcanoes. In all the landscape there is no timber, nor are there trees anywhere near Behring Sea. At St. Michael's passengers and freight are transferred from the ocean liners to the river steamers. These run down the coast sixty miles to the north mouth of the great Yukon, a river larger than the Mississippi and navigable for boats of light draught for 2300 miles above its mouth, and there begins the long journey up stream to Dawson City and the golden placers. The source of tlje Yukon is in the Rocky Mountains and in British < o U w Dl, O oi, a. »^«ap»' r il^^t>:„i54g^-:r^^ t^^4. '^^^^'^ » <^ !' < HOW TO GE'l THERE. 138 teiritory, at a point northeast of Sitka. The river drain.s prac- tically the same territory in its headwaters as the Stickine, Peace, Columbia and Frazer rivers, all well known for many years to treasure-hunters because of the great placers in their valleys. It was natural, therefore, to expect that gold would be found along the main channel of the Yukon or some of its tributaries. E.\- plorers were sent out from two bases. One set went up the river from its mouth, traversing the whole of Alaska from the west to east. Fine gold dust, in small quantities, was found at the mouth of the Porcupine River, a stream that joins the Yukon about loo miles west of the boundary, and also near the mouth of Fort}-- Mile Creek, most of whose course lies in Alaska, but which crosses into British territory before emptying into the big river. Fort Cudahy is situated here, and Circle City, where there were other mining camps, is about fifty miles further west. These places are about 800 or 900 miles from the sea, if one travels by steamboat, and in the winter are completely cut off from the outer world. The discoveries above the Porcupine are the cause of the present rush of gold hunters — they are the richest placers in the world. Stop at Fort Yukon. The first point of more than passing importance on the journey up the river is Fort Yukon, a misnomer as to the " Fort," as is the case with all the stations on the lower river. As stations in the wilderness, most trading posts were fortified after a fashion in the early days, and this custom led to dignifying them by the term " fort." Fort Yukon was established by Robert Bell as a post of the Hudson Bay Company, he assuming that it was in Canadian territory. He made a mistake of 300 miles, measured by the river. Hudson Bay Company held the post until it was warned away by an American officer. 134 HOW TO GET THERE. Here the argonaut finds himself fairly under the Arctic circle. In June and July he will see the sun twenty-four hours without a break, and all along the river at this time he can read a paper at any time of day or night without a lamp. Above Fort Yukon is the once important town of Circle City, formerly a mail station and a thriving post, but now practically depopulated by the stampede to the Klondike gold fields, higher up the stream. Circle City stands on a dead-level plain, twenty feet higher than the river at the ordinary stage of water. In the distant background is a low range of purple hills, which marks the dividing line between the Birch Creek district and the river. On the opposite side from the town the river runs away into space, with no very well defined shore line. It is a town of log huts, square and low, with wide projecting eaves and dirt roofs. Two men would get out the logs, build the cabin and " chink " it with the abundant moss in two weeks ; and before the Klondike fever such a house would rent for fif- teen dollars a month (in gold dust) or sell for ^500. But the inhabitants have fled and most of the cabins are empty. From the present outlook hardly a dozen white persons, and perhaps a dozen Indians, will be left in the town during the coming ivinter. In April it had i 500 white residents. It also had dogs, unlimited quantities of them, worse pests than mosquitos, but the call for dogs in "packing" miners' outfits over the south- eastern passes materially reduced the supply. A good dog is v^orth $100 in dust in Circle City. Gold on Birch Creek Claim. The rich discoveries of gold on Mammoth and Mastodon Creeks and many gulches which terminate in these creeks all tributaries of Birch Creek, "just over the divide," gave Circle City its first boom. Many wise men among the miners prophesy HOW TO GET TIIERK. 135 that when the surrounding country is carefully prospected, its diggings will be found equal to the Klondike, and Circle City will again become a formidable rival of Dawson City. At Forty-Mile, or Fort Cudahy, across the JKHindary line in the British territory, the next important stop, some gold was found by the expedition mentioned heretofore. This place was named for John Cudahy, of Chicago, of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, and was for years the company's headquarters on the upper river. It contains about 200 log cabins of the prevailing Yukon style — square, low, flat, and dirt-roofed — the companies offices, a fjw stores and saloons, and a hotel or two. Whiskey is worth ten dollars a quart, or fifty cents a drink, and half a dollar will buy three loaves of Yukon bread. Arrive At Dawson City. Passing Fort Reliance, the next stop is Dawson City, the metropolis of the gold fields, the Mecca of the 'p/er, the thres- hold of the Klondike treasure house. This new town and trad- ing post, though barely six months old, is already the busiest town on the river. " Old Joe " Ladue, as he is locally and unappropriately named, for he is not old at all, the owner of the town site, was being kept busy selling town lots at ^5000 each when he made up his mind last summer to run back to New York and claim for his bride the sweetheart who had been wait- ing for him to " make a stake " under the Midnight Sun. There were said to be 3000 people in Dawson City in July and that number has been greatly increased since by the influx of men with the gold fever who had had prescribed " Klondike refrigeration" as a remedy for the almost hopeless malad)', Dawson City will probably have to winter 12,000 to 16,000 people, and there has been general fear that there would be great suffering there this winter in consequence of lack of supplies and 136 HOW TO GET THERE. shelter for the great rush of unprepared prospectors. And winter at Dawson City begins in September. However, strenu- ous effort was made up to the last moment by the commercial companies to get in provisions against a possible famine, and as many of the later argonauts carried in fairly good and liberal outfits, it is hoped the long season of cold may pass without general disaster. A miner who came in on one of the late steamers, described Dawson City as wild with speculation. He said : " Speculation is already the ruling idea. A purchaser inspects a claim that he thinks he would like to buy. He offers just what he thinks it is worth. There is no skirmishing over figures ; the owner accepts or refuses, and that is the end of it. With this claim goes the season's work. By that I mean the great pile of earth that may contain thousands or may not be worth the expense necessary to run it through the sluice. That is a chance one must take, however, and few have lost anything by it this season. " It may be said with absolute truth that Dawson City is one of the most moral towns of its kind in the world. There is little or no quarreling, and no brawls of any kind, though there is considerable drinking and gambling. Every man carries a pistol if he wishes to, yet few do, and it is a rare occurrence when one is displayed. Around The Gaming Table. " The principal sport with the mining men is found around the gambling table. There they gather after nightfall and play until late hours in the morning. They have some big games, too, it sometimes costing as much as fifty dollars to draw a card. A game of ^2000 as the stakes is an ordinary event. But with all that, there has not been any decided trouble. If a man is fussy 138 HOW TO GET THERE. and quarrelsome, he is quietly told to get out of the game, and that is the end of it. " Many people have an idea that Dawson City is completely isolated, and can communicate with the outside world only once every twelve months. That is a mistake. Circle City, only a few miles away, has a mail once each month, and there we have our mail addressed. It is true, the cost is pretty high — a dollar a let- ter and two dollars for paper — yet by that expenditure of money we are able to keep in direct communication with our friends on the outside. [The Canadian authorities have since established a post-office at Dawson City, with regular service. — Ed.] In the way of public institutions, our camp is at present with- out any, but by the next season we will have a church, a music hall, school-house and hospital. This last institution will be under the direct control of the Sisters of Mercy, who have already been stationed for a long time at Circle City and Forty- Mile Camp." Mines Not At Dawson. The general impression that the mines are at Dawson City is erroneous. They are twelve to fifteen miles up the Klondike River, and are easily reached by poling up the stream in summer or sledding over its frozen surface in winter. Dawson City is under the British Government, and its laws are enforced by the famous mounted police. Inspector Strickland, of the Canadian mounted police, who came down from Alaska on the Portland, said : " When I left Dawson City there were 800 claims staked out. We can safely say that there was about 51,500,000 in gold mined last winter. The wages in the mines were fifteen dollars a day, and the saw mill paid laborers ten dollars a day. " The claims now staked out will afford employment to about HOW TO GET rHP:RE. 139 5000 men, I believe. If a man is strong, healthy and wants work he can find employment at good wages. Several men worked on an interest, or what is termed a " lay," and during the winter realized $5000 to $10,000 each. The mines are from thirty-five to 100 miles from the Alaska boundary'. " Inspector Strickland paid the miners at Dawson City a com- pliment, saying " they do not act like people who have suddenly jumped from poverty to comparative wealth. They are very level headed. They go to the best hotels and live on the fat of the land, but they do not throw money away, and no one starts in to paint the town red." Price List at Dawson. He gave the following price list as a sample of the cost of living in Dawson City : Flour, $ 1 2 per hundredweight. Following are prices per pound: Moose ham, $1 ; caribou meat, 65 cents; beans, 10 cents; rice, 25 cents; sugar, 25 cents; bacon, 40 cents; potatoes, 25 cents; turnips, 15 cents; coffee, 50 cents; dried fruits, 3 5 cents ; tea, $ i ; tobacco, $ i . 50 ; butter, a roll, $1.50; eggs, a dozen, $1.50; salmon, each, $1 to $1.50; canned fruits, 50 cents ; canned meats, 75 cents ; liquors, per drink, 50 cents ; shovels, $2.50; picks, $5 ; coal oil, per gallon, $i ; overalls, $1.50; underwear, per suit, $5 to $7.50; shoes, $5; rubber boots, $10 to $15. The latest reports are that these figures are still maintained, despite the great amount of supplies brought in by the commer- cial companies, and it is expected they will go higher rather than lower before spring comes around again. Whisky is fifty cents a drink, and some of the saloons are said to be making $6000 to $8000 a day. There is some gambling, though not of a bloodthirsty kind, and chips are commonly $500 a " stack." 140 HOW TO GET THERE. Should the argonaut decide to go in by the Juneau and Dyea, or " mountain" routes, he will find the trail by Chilkoot Pass the one most talked of, and will probably this fall decide to try his fortunes by that way, though the spring and perhaps the winter even may find the Chilkat, the Taku and the White Pass routes, or even the Lake Teslin trail, becoming favorites. Right here the gold-hunter, having fixed on his route, needs to make very sure of one other thing — his " outfit." When he leaves Dyea or Juneau he leaves civilization and all its adjuncts of stores and traders behind him. From Dyea to Dawson he must depend on his outfit for practically everything he has to eat, drink and wear and for every tool and appliance with which to build or repair any article needed for the long journey by trail and stream, 700 miles, to Dawson. Via Chilkoot Pass. If the " outfit" is all right, the prospector engages Indians at Dyea to pack his goods in a dugout and tow them to the head of canoe navigation on the Dyea River which is about six miles. If possible the Indians should be hired to pack the goods over the Chilkoot Pass to Lake Linderman, about twenty-two or twenty-three miles. The old rate for this work was from five to sixteen cents a pound, but the great stampede of prospectors has caused the price to rise to twenty -one and even twenty-two cents, and even at that almost prohibitive figure it is often impossible for prospectors to hire native carriers, and as a result they have to pack their outfits over themselves. A Chilkoot Indian will carry from 250 to 300 pounds over the pass, but even the strongest white man can " tote " little more than 100 pounds, and consequently when the Indians fail him, has to make " double trips," that is, take a pack a mile or two, cache it and return for another one, and keep this tedious and heart burning labor up V ^ w ft: C -J X u < o o a: o ^^^n^m' ^"^t^: HOW TO GET THERE. 141 until the last article has been wearily (h'opped on the shores of Lake Linderman. Many pack horses have been taken to Dyea for use on the Chilkoot Pass trail, and dogs are also to be experimented with this winter hi hauling supplies. From the head of canoe navigation a well-defined trail leads to the cafion at the summit. The first day's camp is made at the entrance to the canon ; the next day's camp is well along in thr.t formidable pass at a natural curiosity known as the " Stone House," a much frequented camping ground for packers. Thc place affords good shelter in stormy weather and, as it is ver)' frequently impossible to cross the Divide on stormy days, pack- ers have here a good place to wait for fair weather before attempt- ing the fearful toil of the ascent. An early start is necessary in crossing the Divide, the great Peraier Glacier, for it is urgent that the march should be made in one day in order to camp three or four miles beyond the Divide, where there are sticks and moss for a fire. Passing the Divide. Dr. E. O. Crewe describes the "passing" in these graphic words : " Having arriv^ed at the foot of the now almost perpendicular mountain of ice and half thawed snow, we struggle upwards, some- times up to our knees in slush, sometimes clingmg with hands and feet to the slippery mountain. Zigzagging from one side to the other until about half way up the ascent we drop our packs and survey the remainder of our journey up the glacier. On our left hand further progress is impossible ; a perpendicular wall of deep blue ice towers up a thousand feet above the actual pass ; on our right, we notice a pile of broken rocks that have crumbled from the cliff that forms the riiiht hand side of the caiion. Towards 142 HOW TO GET THERE. these rocks we slowly pick our way, over which we slowly wend towards the base of the the cliff, and, having gained this com- paratively comfortable foothold, our progress is quite easy and fairly rapid. Ever keeping along the base of the cliff, ever get- ting nearer the crest of the ridge, we have little difficulty in managing our somewhat bulky pack, and almost before we are aware of it we have crossed the Divide and are over the most laborious part of our journey. Off For Lake Linderman. " Of course, if more thaa one trip is necessary the assent will consume much more time. One should easily make the journey from Dyea to Lake Linderman in three days with an ordinary pack if ' double tripping ' is unnecessary. After resting awhile on the summit of Chilkoot Pass, admiring the magnificent grandeur of the scene we begin our decent to the lake ; turning a little towards the left after coming over the divide we follow the trend of the hills which lead us down towards the North and we are very soon able to see Crater Lake (the actual source of the Yukon). Skirting the right hand shore of this lake, we soon find ourselves in a well defined ravine, with a well worn trail running down the right hand side of the little stream that finds its way from Crater Lake and empties into Lake Linder- man. As soon as we find a convenient place to pitch our tent, we make ready for camping, and thoroughly enjoy a hearty meal followed by a well-earned refreshing sleep. The following morn- ing, as early as possible, we break camp and start with our pack toward Lake Linderman. A few hours of easy walking will bring us to the lake, where we must at once break camp and prepare to go the balance of the way by water." The next thing, after getting safely over the pass, is to build a boat. Four men who are handv with tools can take a standing HOW TO GET THERE. 143 » Spruce, saw out lumber and build a boat large enough to carry them and their 4000 pounds of provisions all in a week. It should be a good, staunch boat, for there are storms to be en- countered on the lakes, and rapids, moreover, that would shake a frail craft to pieces. The boat should have a sail that could be raised and lowered conveniently. Some enterprising men have built a saw mill on the shores of Lake Linderman, and sell boats or lumber. A boat large enough for four men and their outfits costs $j^. Lumber is worth ;^ioo a 1000 feet, and 500 feet is enough for a boat. From the end of navigation on Lake Linderman a trail leads over to Lake Bennett, making a portage of a mile and a half There is a river between the lakes, but the rapids are so danger- ous none but the most fool-hardy attempt to run them, and many lives and a great amount of property have been lost in the reck- less ventures. Some gold-hunters who go in by Chilkoot Pass make a raft at Lake Linderman, sail it down to the portage and abandon it there, and carry their goods to Lake Bennett, where there is excellent timber for boat building. Down Lake Bennett. With boat built one starts from the head of Lake Bennett on the last stage of the trip — a sail of 600 miles down stream (not counting lakes) to Dawson Cit}-, at the mouth of the Klondike. With fair weather, at the evening of the second day, one reaches Miles cafion, the beginning of the worst piece of water on the trip. The voyager has passed through Lake Bennett and Takish and Marsh lakes. At the head of Miles cafion begins three miles of indiscribably rough water, which terminate in White Horse Rapids. During the rush of gold-hunters it is probable there will be men at Miles canon who will make a business of takinj? boats 144 . HOW TO GET THERE. through the rapids, and unless one is an experienced river man it is economy to pay a few dollars for such service, rather than to take the greater chances of losing an outfit or even a life, for many have been drowned at this passage. Probably ten per cent, of the men who attempt the rapids are drowned. Even lowering an empty boat through the rapids, with a rope fastened to each end of it, very often results in the loss of the boat, which is at this point of our journey exceedingly valualile. In Miles Canon. Miles Canon, which is also called Grand Cafion, is the first dangerous water that the navigator encounters. Although this section of the river has a normal width of more than 200 yards, it is confined for a distance of three-quarters of a mile to a space hardly fifty feet across, with perpendicular walls of red volcanic rock. This canon is broken in one place — about midway — by a circular enlargement of the channel, which causes a whirlpool of wonderful suction on each side of the river. After the rapids comes Lake LaBarge, a beautiful sheet of water thirty-five miles long, and in this connection a suggestion is desirable. Near the foot of the lake, on the left side, is a creek coming in which marks a good game country. A year ago, and in previous seasons, moose, were plentiful there and in the rugged mountains near the head of the lake there always have been good hunting grounds for mountain sheep. A delay of a week either in this locality or almost any of the small streams that flow into the succeeding 200 miles of river, for the purpose of laying in a good supply of fresh meat, is worth con- sidering. Moose meat that can be preserved until cold weather sets in will sell for a fancy price. There is another suggestion to consider before arriving at Si.xty-mile. All along that part of the rixcr are m.:ny timbered HOW TO GET THERE. 145 islands, covered with tall, straight spruce. With such au influx of prospcctor-s as is expected at Dawson City before winter begins, building logs will be in great demand. Cabin logs ten inches in diameter and twenty feet long sold at Circle City last year, in raft, at three dollars each. With an increased demand, and with better mines, the prices at Dawson City may be much higher, h'our men can handle easily a raft of 500 or 600 such logs. Getting them out would be a matter of only a week or two. From Lake LaBarge the journey is through "^hirty-mile River, the Lewis River, i 50 miles to Five-Finger Rapids, thence to the Yukon at Fort Selkirk and then down stream 2!;omilesto Daw- son City, Gold in Hootalinqua. Within a few hours' run below Lake LaBarge is the Hoota- linqua River, which drains Teslin Lake, the largest body ol water in the Yukon basin. This river has long been a locality of great interest to prospectors because of the wide distribution of gold in its bars and tributaries. The metal is found every- where on the whole length of the stream, but seems rather elu- sive when it comes to the test of actual mining. It has been prospected and worked sporadically for fifteen years, and in all that time the only Hootalinqua gold of any consequence taken out was found on Lewis River, a few miles below the mouth of the former stream, at Sassiar bar, where something like $1 50,000 was mined. It is deserted now for the better mines of the Alaskan side. Five-Finger Rapids is one of the two or three obstructions that interfere with the free navigation of the river. A ledge of rock lies directly across the stream with four or five openings in it that afford a scanty outlet for the congested current. The largest passage and the one commonly used is the one at the 10 146 HOW TO GET THERE. right shore. There is a considerable fall, but the water is not badly broken, the gateway being succeeded by several big waves, over which a boat glides with great rapidity, but with a smooth and even motion. Shooting this rapid is an exhilarating expe- rience, but with careful management is not considered dangerous. A few miles above Five-Finger Rapids is George Mc- Cormick's old Indian trading-post. This is now abandoned by the "venerable" George ; he was the first man on the Klondike. A mile or so beyond McCormick's trading-post, (which by the way is very poorly stocked with anything, except Indian trad- ing articles), on the right-hand side of the river, before turning to the Five-Finger Rapids, you see evidence of McCormick's shrewdness and enterprise. He has drifted a hole in the side of the mountain, and when prospectors last passed this point he was taking out good specimens of coal. Next below Five-Finger Rapids are the Rink Rapids, so named by Lieutenant Schwatka, because of their musical rhythm. To run the Rink is mere child's play. And now all the danger points in the Chilkoot Pass route are passed. It is clear sailing to Dawson City. Past Fort Selkirk. The first trading-post and settlement of white men to be encountered on the river is at Fort Selkirk, opposite the mouth of Pelly River. Thence, it is a little more than a day's run down to Sixty-Mile, and it takes less than a day to go from Sixty-Mile to Dawson City. Dr. Crewe says of Pelly River : " We will just run across the river and see how old man Harper is getting along at Fort Selkirk. He has been in the Yukon Valley, trading first with the Indians and then with the white men, cv':r since the Alaska Commercial Company estab HOW TO GET THERE. 147 lished trading-posts along the riv^er. Before this time, I believe he was employed by the Hudson Bay Company as a post-trader at one of the northern stations. Wishing good-bye to our Selkirk friends, a quick uneventful run of 1 20 miles brings us to Stewart River. Gold was first discovered in the Yukon Valley on this river. The prospects for the future of Stewart River are as bright and hopeful as for any of the creeks that are known to contain gold." Colorado Miner's View. The words of a Colorado miner, \yho went in by the Chil- koot Pass in the early summer and wrote back of his experi- ences, are worth reading as a practical man's summing up of the case. He says : " I think that the difficulties and dangers of the Yukon trip have been much exaggerated. The cold up there is intense, but is dry and a man does not suffer from it as would be supposed. I spent one winter on the Yukon. The thermometer went down to seventy-five degrees below zero, but the coldest day I ever saw in my life was in Chicago last January, " The Chilkoot Pass is only 3000 feet high, and that isn't any height at all to a man used to mountains. With a good sleeping bag a man may sleep out of doors there all of the winter. In the interior there is very little snow. I did not find it over six inches deep. In the dark part of the year there is almost always enough of twilight to see by. " Of course, a man who would kick about a crumpled rose leaf on his couch would have a hard time in Alaska, but a man who is a man could get along all right up there." A company has been formed in Chicago which proposes to build four or six small steamers of light draft which will be launched in Lake Linderman, and will run in the chain of lakes, 14« HOW TO GET THERE. the Lewis River and the upper Yukon River. The same com- pany will build tramways, after the pattern of those in use by the Hudson Bay Company over the old route from the North, to overcome the difficulty of transportation at porta<^e points. The boats will go to their destination in parts, and will be put together on the waters of Lake Linderman. They will be pro- vided with all the comforts that make .steamboat traveling enjoy- able, and will be of sufficent tonnage to carry a considerable amount of freight on each trip. Witli the proposed wagon road that the Dominion Government and the Canadian Pacific. Railway are figuring on, it is thought there will be little trouble in reaching the gold fields, and those who are caught on the Klondike when the lakes and rivers are frozen over can get out by way of the northern route, which is through Edmonton. Over Chilkat Pass. The Chilkat trail leads over the Chilkat Pass and is about 125 miles in length from the head of Chilkat Inlet to where it .strikes the waters of Tahkeena River. This was the old trail used by the Indians to and from the interior, and leads all the way through to old Fort Selkirk by land. "Jack" Dalton has used this trail at times in taking horses and li\'e stock tp the mines, portaging to the Tahkeena, then by raft down that river to the Lewis, thus proving that the Tahkeena is navigable for a small stern wheel steamer for a distance of some seventy miles. For the last three years several California and English com- panies have been studying the lay of the land between Chilkat and Circle City, with a view to establishing a quicker and more practicable way of transportation to the rich gold fields along the Yukon. Goodall, Perkins & Co. have made a thorough investi- gation of the matter. Captain Charles M. Goodall said : HOW TO GET THERE. 141» " The rich find in the Klondike district will probably result in some better means of transportation, though the roughness of the country and the limited open season will not justify anybody in building a railroad for any distance. Recently we sent several hundred sheep and cattle to Juneau, and from there to the head of navigation by the steamer Alki. Dalton, the man who dis- covered the trail across the country from Chilkat River to Fort Selkirk, is taking the live stock to the mines. His route lies from the head of navigation through Chilkat Pass and across a route which is over a prairie several miles to the "Wikon River, near Fort Selkirk. At this time of year the prairie is clear, and bunch grass grows on it in abundance. *' I believe this will ultimately be the popular route. People could go over it in wagons, as the prairie is level and the roads good. Stations could be established, as was done on the plains in 1 849. It would be easy to go down the river in boats from where Dalton's trail strikes it to Dawson City and the other mining camps. " The plan to build a traction road over Chilkat Pass from Dyea, the head of navigation after leaving Juneau, to Lake Linder- man, is not a good business proposition. It has been talked of and the rest of the plan is to have steamers to ply from Lake Linderman through the other lakes to the Yukon. But to do this two portages would have to be made on account of the falls in the river, and these would be enormously expensive." By the White Pass. The White Pass is considered by many one of the best that cuts the mountains of the coast. It is at least looo feet lower than the Chilkoot and little higher than the Taku. It is reported timbered the entire length. Its salt water terminus is about eighty-five miles north of Juneau, and ocean steamers can run 150 HOW TO GET THERE. up to the landing at all times, where there is a good town site, well protected from storms. The pass lies through a box cafion surrounded by high granite peaks and is comparatively- easy. The first seven miles from salt water lie up the bottom lands of the Skagway River through heavy timber. Then for about seven miles farther the way is over piles of boulders and moraines which would prove the most expensive part of the trail. This trail would not exceed thirty-two miles in length, and would strike Windy Arm of Tagish Lake or Taku Arm coming in farther up the lake. All of this part of the lake is well timbered and accessible to Lake Bennett and its connec- tions. White Pass could be used as a mail route any month in the year. Trail Open July i6th. The Alaska Searchlight publishes a letter from William Moore, at Fourteen-Mile Camp, Skagway, Alaska, stating that the White Pass pack trail to the summit of the pass was opened for travel July 1 6th. On reaching the summit the traveler steps upon al- most level country, the grade to the lakes being twenty feet to the mile. The distance from salt water to the Too-Chi Lake is thirty miles, and from salt water to the head of Lake Bennett, the distance is forty-five miles. Both routes from the summit are through rolling country, for the most part open, with plenty of o-rass for feeding stock, water and sufficient timber for all pur- poses. From salt water to the summit, stock and pack horses can be driven through easily. C. H. Wilkinson, on behalf of the British- Yukon Company, has made an offer to the Minister of the Literior to build a wagon road through the White Pass for $2QOO a mile. The distance is about fifty miles. About eight miles of the road would be very difficult to build. It would take $7000 a mile, being all rock excavation, to construct this eight miles. HOW TO GET THERE. 151 At the rate the people are flocking into the new gold region of the Yukon country, something will have to be done soon to provide a way of getting provisions into the mining district. If this road were built Victoria could be reached from the Yukon district in about fourteen days. The Minister has taken the matter into consideration. Mr. Wilkinson is also authority for the statement that the company has completed arrangements for placing a fleet of be- tween ten and twenty steamers on the Yukon River in the .sprinc'", and will probably make an effort in the direction of a narrow guage railway over the pass. Survey for Railroad. George W. Garsidc, a well-known engineer, formerl)- in the employ of the Canadian Government, has recently completed the survey of sixty-two miles of railway running from Skagwav Bay over the White Pass to Lake Tagish, and thence to the uoper Hootalinqua River. He is employed by the British-American Transportation Company, said to be amply supplied with funds with which to complete the" undertaking. It is said work will begin in the spring of 1S98. The new route will be 100 miles longer than that at present followed b}' miners going into the Yukon basin overland from Dyea. The route surveyed leaves tide water at Skagway Bay, close to Dyea, and runs in a northerly direction over the summit by White's Pass, through which a trail has just been completed. The new trail is looo feet lower than Chilkat Pass, at which so much hardship is encountered by prospectors. The route will eliminate all the tlanger of the White Horse Rapids and Miles Cafion, where now portages of from one to three mile:^ are made, and where so many gold hunters have lost their all, in h:iving their supplies turned out of the boat into the water by the bowlders 152 HOW TO GET THERE. The report of the engineers on the project has been filed. It endorses the plan as practical but costly. Skagway Bay has a fine natural harbor, and is good anchorage for vessels of any size. From the harbor the proposed railroad will follow the Skagway River to its head, which is near the summit of the pass. The grade is variable. The first four miles the ascent is gradual. The next seven miles of the route is difficult and even dangerous. In three more miles of easier grade the summit is reached. The descent to Tagish Lake, about twenty miles, is gradual and the total fall less than 400 feet. The surface of the lake is 2200 feet above the sea. Route by Taku Pass. A new route to the Klondike (and it must not be forgotten that " Klondike," as a destination, means anywhere in the great gold-lined Yukon Basin) has been proposed by Mrs. Frederick Schwatka, the widow of the great Northwestern Pathfinder. It is by way of the Taku Inlet, River and Pass. Lieutenant Schwatka discovered the pass and tried it. According to Mrs. Schwatka, who has spent much of her time in Alaska and who is familiar with a large part of the country, the Taku Pass will prove to be a bonanza to the first trading company that establishes a system of pack trains through it to Juneau, the base of supplies for the mining region. It is besides the easiest route for the miners themselves and a shal- low-draft steamer that could be brought to run on Taku River would leave only ninety miles of land to be crossed. Mrs. Schwatka spoke of the Taku route in these words : " Lieutenant Schwatka explored the Taku River and Pass several years ago. He tried to get the people of Juneau to es- tablish a pack train line through the pass, to connect with a steamboat on the inlet. That was before there was much travel HOW TO GP:T there. 153 to Juneau, and the people of the thriving village did not believe it would pay them. Now it certainly would, but I have not seen a word about the pass in any of the newspapers, and there ap- pears to be almost no travel through it. " In fact, the pass contains an excellent railroad grade, and it would cost a comparatively small sum to build and equip a road. The current of the river is strong and there are frequent floods, but a light draught steamer would have no difficulty in ascending it and making connections with the road to Juneau. It would be an easy matter to get supplies from Juneau then. The Canadian Pacific comes so near to that country it seems as if it could profitably build a line through the pass and connect the two branches by steamer. " Lieutenant Schwatka made a map of the region, which I think I shall have published. He made the trip up the river b}' canoe and reported the current there very swift and strong. I am certain that the Taku route is the easiest for persons going from Juneau, however. " From Taku to Lake Teslin it is ninety miles over level prairies, and the country from Lake Teslin is an open valley. With the aid of pack horses the Taku route is by far preferable." Details of the Route. The Taku Pass route may be briefly described as beginning at Juneau, thence up the Taku River to its end, where the portage of ninety miles is made by pack to the Teslin or Aklene Lake, the route through which is northwesterly. Arriving at the farther end of the last mentioned waterway the trip is by heavy canoes along the Hootalinqua or Teslin River to Lewis River, which joins the Yukon at Fort Selkirk. From the latter place Dawson City and other mining places are reached by the Yukon. 154 HOW TO GET THERE. William A. Pratt, professor of electrical engineering at Dela- ware College, and P. I. Packard, of Wilmington, Del., are at the head of a party enroute to survey a line for a railroad to be built by an Eastern s^'ndicate through Taku Pass to Lake Teslin. Another route, whose promoters say is the best highway to SCENE IN ALASKA NEAR THE COAST. the gold fields from the coast yet discovered, is by way of the Lake Teslin, or Aklena Lake trail, and starts in American terri- tory at Fort Wrangel. It leads up the Stickine River and Tele- graph Creek from Wrangel to Glcnora, a distance of 126 miles. The Stickine is navifjable for stern-wheel steamers of four or HOW TO GET THERE. 155 five feet draught, and it is believed the channel of Telegraph Creek can easily be made ample for the same boats all the way to Glenora, The provincial government is at work improving the route. The only point of peril in the water part of this route will be in the rapids in the Stickinc River, but the trouble here is handily overcome at present by making fast heavy lines to trees on the banks and warping the boat up or down the dangeious passages. From Glenora the route will traverse a newly-discovered pass and then straight across the smooth tabic land to Lake T'^slin. Thence it is plain sailing down the Hootalinqua River, a tribu- tary of the Lewis, by the Lewis to Fort Selkirk and thence on the broad Yukon to Dawson City. Five-Finger Rapids. The only danger on this part of the route is the Five-Finger Rapids, where so many prospectors and so much property have been lost. The Canadian Government will appropriate a sum of money to blow out the dangerous rocks at this point and clear the river of dangerous obstructions. This route avoids White Horse Rapids and Miles Cafion, the most dangerous spots in the river routes. The total distance to Dawson City via Telegraph Creek will be approximately 1780 miles. John C. Galbreath, for many years a resident of Telegraph Creek, has been directed by the British Columbia government to open this new route and $2000 will be expended on it immediate!)'. Even now the trip to the gold fields, it is said, can be made with less danger and more quickly by this route than b)- any other. It is open usual)}' until the middle of October and sometimes as late as November. It is also proposed to build a branch from Telegraph Creek to 156 HOW TO GET THERE. Dease Lake, which connects with the upper waters of the MaC' kenzie River. The "back door" route, or " inside track " from civilization to the Klondike diggings, is the old Hudson Bay Company's " trunk line," and has been in use nearly a century. It is said to possess many advantages, except perhaps in the matter of distance, over any of the other land and water trails. Argonauts going in at the " back door " will go to Edmonton, in Alberta, 1772 miles from Chicago, via the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and thence by stage or wagon to Athabasca Landing. Edmonton is on the Saskatchewan River and the portage to the landing places the traveler on the banks of the great Athabasca River and at the head of a continuous waterway for canoe travel to Fort Macpherson, at the north mouth of the Mackenzie River, from which point the Peel River lies south to the gold regions. P"rom Edmonton to Fort Macpherson is 1882 miles. Only Two Big Portages. There are only two portages of any size on the route — that from Edmonton to Athabasca Landing, over which there is a stage and wagon line, and at Smith Landing, sixteen miles, over which the Hudson Bay Company has a tramway. With the exception of five other portages of a few hundred yards there is a fine down-grade water route all the way. Wherever there is a lake or long stretch of deep water navigation, the Hudson Bay Company has small freight steamers which ply during the sum- mer months between the portage points. r>om Edmonton a party of three men with a canoe should reach Fort Macpherson within sixty days, provided they are strong and of some experience in that sort of travel. P2xpcrienced travelers recommend that the canoe be bought at home unless it is intended to hire Indians with large bark canoes HOW TO GET THERE. 157 for the trip. Birch-bark canoes can be purchased large enough to carry three tons, but are said to be unreliable unless Indians arc taken along to doctor thcni and keep them from getting water- logged. The Hudson Bay Company will contract to take freight northward on their steamers until the close of navigation. A recent letter from a missionary says the ice had only com- menced to run on September 30, 1896, in the Peel River, the waterway from Fort Macpherson to the gold fields. If winter comes on the traveler can change his canoe for sleds and dog trains. Advantages to Travelers. The great advantage claimed for the " back door " route is that it is an organized line of communication. Travelers need not carry any more food than will take them from one Hudson Bay post to the next, and there is abundance of fish and wild fowl along the route. They can also get assistance at the posts in case of sickness or accident. If lucky enough to make their " pile " in the Klondike, they can come back by the dog-sled route in the winter. There is one mail to Fort Macpherson in the winter. Dogs for teams can be bought at any of the Hudson Bay posts, which form a chain of roadhouses on the trip. Parties traveling alone will need no guides until they get near Fort Macpherson, the route from Edmonton being so well defined. It is estimated that a party of three could provide themselves with food for the canoe trip of two months for thirty-five dollars. Pork, tea, flour and baking powder would suffice. Parties should consist of three men, as that is the crew of a canoe. It will take 600 pounds of food to carry three men over the route. The paddling is all done down .stream except when they turn south up Peel River, and sails should be taken, as there is often a favorable wind for da\'s. There are large scows on the 158 HOW TO GET THERE. line manned by ten men each, and known as " sturgeon heads." They arc like canal boats, but arc punted along, and are used by the Hudson Bay people for taking supplies to the forts. It is estimated $200 per man will be sufficient for expenses via this route, and that two months, and possibly six weeks, will be an ample estimate of time. Another all-Canadian route to the Klondike is proposed, to enable Eastern Canada to compete in transportation, traffic and trade with the Pacific coast. It includes a railway to Moose Factory, at the foot of James Bay, and a line of steamers thence to the western end of Chesterfield Inlet, a distance of 1 300 miles. The rest of the journey would be mainly by the Mackenzie and Yukon rivers, and it is estimated that in summer it could be made in seven days from Toronto. Between Hudson Bay and the Yukon it is believed the only piece of railway it will be neces- sary to construct is 200 miles or so between the head of Chester- field Inlet and Great Slave Lake. Offers Fine Steamers. The late managing owner of a line of steamers on the great lakes has examined the reports as to the waterways through Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie and Yukon rivers, and offers to undertake to equip the route with a new style of steam- ers, which, while spacious and economical, would develop a reliable speed of twenty miles an hour in slack water. A model of an ice boat has been prepared for winter navigation of these waters. The plan for reaching Hudson Bay is the construction of a railway from Missanabie to Moose Factory, to be operated by electricity furnished by the water power of the Moose River. The propo.sed route to Hudson Bay is disputed by Quebec, which is desirous of securing the western connection f(^r itself, HOW TO GET THERE. 159 and having already constructed a railway to Lake St. John, to within 300 niilc-s of James Bay, is ready, with a certain amount of Government aid, to extend it to Moose Factory by way of the valley of the Ashuamouchouan River. J. M. C. Lewis, a civil engineer, has proposed to the Interior Department, at Washington, a route from the mouth of the Copper River, by which he says the Klondike may be reached by a journey of a little over 300 miles from the coast, a great saving in distance over the other mountain routes. He says the trail could be opened at small expense. The route which he proposes will start inland from the mouth of the Copper River, near the Miles Glacier, twenty-five miles east of the entrance to Prince William Sound. He says the Copper River is navigable for small steamers for many miles beyond the mouth of its principal eastern tributary, called on the latest maps the Chillyna River, which is itself navigable for a considerable distance. From the head of navigation on the Chillyna, Mr. Lewis says, either a highway or a railroad could be constructed without great difficulty or very heavy grades, through what the natives call the " low pass," probably the Scoloi Pass. From the pass the road would follow the valley of the White River to the point where it empties into the Yukon, on the edge of the Klondike gold fields. "Uncle Sam's" Survey. " Uncle Sam " has had his eye on short routes to Alaska for some time. In 1886 a bill was introduced in Congress " to facili- tate the settlement and develop the resources of the Territor)- of Alaska and to open an overland commercial route, between the United States, Asiatic Russia and Japan." The Interior Department referred the subject to Director Powell of the Geological Survey for a report, which was made 160 HOW TO GET THERE. as comprehensive as the knowledge possessed by the survey of the topography of the country, through which the road would have to pass, would permit. In the beginning of his report Director Powell says : " Information on record bearing on the question does not indi- cate any greater obstacles to the construction of such a line than those already overcome in trans-continental railroad build- ing, and the construction of the proposed line must be pro- nounced feasible. " From the geographic knowledge available a tentative line may be indicated extending from the Northern Pacific Railroad in Montana northward to Behring Sea, about 2800 miles in length." This tentative line, divided into three grand divisions, is as follows : 1. From some point on the Northern Pacific Railroad in Mon- tana to the headwaters of the Peace River. 2. From the headwaters of the Peace River to the headwaters of the Yukon. 3. From the headwaters of the Yukon to some point on the shore of Behring Sea. Straight to Klondike. It will be observed that the proposed route would take the road right through the Klondike gold field. From Montana northward through British Columbia as far as the Peace River, Director Powell considered two routes, which he calls plains and valleys, respectively, their names indicating their character. His preference was for the valley route. First, it would have a decided advantage in distance. Second, it would afford ea.sier grades. He admitted the pros- pect for local business over the two routes appeared to be in HOW TO GET THERE. 161 favor of the plains route, " unless important mining districts should be developed on the other line." From the Northern Pacific Railroad to the Canadian Pacific Railroad by the valley route is about 325 miles, and to connect Southern Alaska indirectly with the railway system of the United States via the Canadian Pacific Railroad would require the con- struction of only 840 miles of line, which is exactly the distance from Baltimore to Chicago by the Pennsylvania line. One of the most perplexing problems of transportation to which the gold craze gave rise, in the first months of the epidemic, was to find steamers for the sea voyage either to Juneau or St. Michael's. The regular transportation companies used all their own boats and all that they could hire, and even then were unable to accommodate all who wanted passage, and private enterprise undertook the hazardous trips in almost any old tub that would float long enough to get out of the harbor. The experiences of the season, however, and the demand for passage on the first boats to go North in 1898, which set in as early as the first week in August, set the steamship men hustling to be ready for the expected rush in the spring. More Steamers Next Spring. Manager C. H. Hamilton, of the North American Transporta- tion and Trading Company, announce that his company has let a contract to Cramps, the Philadelphia shipbuilders, for the con- struction of two 2000-ton steel steamers. They will be the finest steamers on the Pacific coast, and will be used exclusively on the Seattle-St. Michael's run. They will have accommodations for 200 first-class and 500 second-class passengers. The American Steel Barge Company, of West Superior, Wis- consin, arranged with a syndicate interested in the Alaskan gold fields to construct saveral small vessels on the whaleback plan to 11 162 HOW TO GET THERE. navigate the Yukon, Arrangements are being made to open the shipyards of the company at Everett, Washington, and the plant at West Superior may be used to get out some of these little ships. The whaleback steamer Everett, which carried the American contributions to the East Indian famine, one of the largest whale- back freighters afloat, will be remodeled to accommodate pas- sengers and put on the San Francisco-Alaska route, making regular trips to the Yukon with gold-seekers who prefer the water route to the diggings. Expert River Men. In preparation for the spring rush up the Yukon River, and over the divide with supplies, a Canadian firm has been hiring lumbermen and river men from the Ottawa region. There is every indication that by the opening of navigation on the upper Yukon there will be abundant work for expert river men in transporting supplies to the Klondike. A Seattle company has been organized to build a sea-going steamship, and also a light draft steamer for the river business between St. Michael's and Dawson City. The Puget Sound Tugboat Company will put a steamer on the Yukon in the spring to carry freight and passengers . from St. Michael's to the Klondike. The Pacific Coast Steamship Company is arranging ro use all its available boats on the northern route to Juneau in 1898, and may decide to make several additions to its fleet. Both the North American and Alaska companies are adding to their facilities for taking care of traffic in the spring and expect to be fully equipped for the great rush of gold-hunters and supplies when the time comes. The North American has ordered several new ocean and river steamers. HOW TO GET THERE. 163 Steamboat men in Seattle estimate that, beginning about the first of Aprii, a large steamer can leave Puget's Sound'for Alaska daily with all the passenger and freight accommodations crowded. Several new steamer companies are already in the field and the promise has been made that next season will see a reduction in the rate of fare. But unless the reports received from the gold fields during the winter indicate that the richness of the placers has been exaggerated and that they give signs of peter- ing out, the rush to the mines in the spring will surpass anything the world has ever seen. Transportation companies assert that those who are waiting until spring to go North will be very much disappointed if they expect a reduction in fares. That some companies will be organ- ized to make trips at reduced rates there is no doubt, but the regular steamship lines say the fare will be the same. Secretary Hamilton, of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, spoke of the fares in the spring as follows : " In my opinion the fare to St. Michael's will not be less than ;$200 in the spring. Transportation facilities will be improved, but fares will not be less." The Pacific Coast Steamship Company officials were equally sure the fares would stay up. "Will Pay To Come Back. The companies generall)- assert that in the early spring they will be carrying to the sound hundreds of passengers who have wintered in the vicinity of Dawson City. All will have money and will be in a position to pay the present fares, which are considered reasonable. The majority of the miners who stay during the coming winter will undoubtedly come out by way of St. Michael's. They will not care to undergo the hard- ships of the trip over the pass. 164 HOW TO GET THERE. The first ship from New York to Juneau with gold-hunters and supplies sailed late in August, going around the Horn. The fare to Juneau was $175. Several other sailing vessels are expected to leave New York for Juneau with miners during the winter. A great demand for small boats arose on the Pacific Coast be- fore the season closed, the argonauts thinking to save time on the overland journey by taking their boats with them. Several styles of boats that could be shipped " knocked down " at once came to the front, and several firms began making specialties of these handy craft. One that will carry a ton costs about ;^i8, and weighs about 200 pounds. It is taken apart with no pieces more than six or seven feet long and packed for shipping. The principal objection to these boats is that the Indians and packers dislike to contract to carry them over the mountains on account of their awkward shape. One builder has worked out a model for a galvanized iron boat that can be carried in sections fitting together like a "nest" of custard dishes, and can be put to- gether with small bolts. A canvas folding boat that would carry two tons would be available on the Yukon. A keel, mast and some additional bracing could be added after reaching the interior. "Wagon Road to Yukon. The Canadian Pacific Railway and Dominion Government are conferring with a view to opening up a wagon road to the Yukon from Edmonton. Such a road is feasible, and would be only between 800 and 900 miles long, passing through a rich aurifer- ous country. The object is to give a short and safe road for prospectors and to make it possible to maintain winter commu- nication. A joint resolution was reported favorably for the United States Senate Committee on Territories on July 2 2d, authorizing the HOW TO GET THERE. 165 construction ot toll roads in Alaska. The resolution authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to grant right of way 200 feet wide. Franchises are to be limited to twenty years. The rates of toll are to be approved by the Secretar)^ of the Interior. One of the features of the stampede to Klondike via Dyea has been the number of burros, cayuses, mules and horses taken up to sepve for packing over the Chilkoot, Chilkat and White Passes! Hundreds have been sent through, and their owners in many cases had contracts in their pockets for all the freight they could expect to handle at from thirteen to nineteen cents a pound. Old mountaineers, however, think the horses, and especially the mules, will prove a failure as a venture, for their hoofs will cut up the road, which has been barely good enough for human feet, so far, and this, in such a moist climate as that of autumn in Southeastern Alaska, will soon make the trails impassable for beast or even, perhaps, for man. There are a few horses in the Yukon countr)', and one of the largest pack trains ever brought into Dawson City, Robert Krook, of Dawson City, says, was brought over the frozen river Yukon by thirteen horses and as many sleds all the way from Circle City. Feed, however, is expensive, and the horses are easily rendered useless. If water gets on the top of the ice and the horses or mules get wet feet, they are practically ruined for all time, as their hoofs split when the water freezes, crippling the animals. To avoid this, moccasins are used and have pro\'ed partially successful. Dogs for Burdens. Dogs are the choice beasts of burden on the overland routes during the long frozen season, and their points of merit have been recognized by a decided stiffening of prices in the canine market. Good dogs, are worth from $100 up, $200 for a fine brute not being an unusual price. There is not much danger of 166 HOW TO GET THERE. the supply running far behind the demand, however, even at Dyea, for if there is anything Alaska is "long" on besides winters and mosquitos, it is dogs. Robert Krook says that Eskimo dogs will draw 200 pounds each on a sled, so that six dogs will draw a year's supplies for one man. He, however, puts in the proviso that the sleds should not have iron runners, because the snow sticks to the iron and increases the friction so much that the dogs cannot haul more than 100 pounds apiece. With brass runners this draw- back is obviated. Moccasins on Dogs. Sometimes the feet of the dogs get sore, and then the Indians fit moccasins on them ; as soon, however, as the tenderness is gone from their feet the dogs will bite and tear the moccasins off. In speaking of the dogs, Mr. Krook said that they need no lines to guide them, and are very intelligent, learning readily to obey a command to turn in any direction or to stop. They have to be watched closely, as they will attack and devour stores left in their way, especially bacon, which must be hung up out of their reach. At night, when camp is pitched the moment a blanket is thrown upon the ground they will run into it and curl up, neither cuffs nor kicks sufficing to budge them. They lie as close up to the men who own them as possible, and the miner cannot wrap himself up so close that they won't get under his blanket with him. They are almost human, too, in their disinclinations to get out in the morning. Where sleds cannot be used the dogs will carry fifty pounds apiece in saddlebags slung across their backs pannier fashion. Nature has fitted these dogs for their work, and so mastiffs and St. Bernards are not as serviceable. The two latter breeds can- not stand the intense cold so well, and, though at first they will draw the sleds cheerfull)', their feet cannot resist the strain and 167 168 HOW TO GET THERE. begin to bleed so freely that the dogs are useless. The pads under the feet of the Eskimo dogs are of tougher skin. Reindeer are to be entered as rivals of the Esquimo dogs. Twenty sturdy bucks have been selected from the United States Government's reindeer herd at Teller's Station and will be taken to Circle City. The design is to materially decrease the cost of overland transportation in winter, for the benefit of the miner. Much care has been exercised in the selection of the herd, and not one of its members is less than four and one-half feet in height and seven feet in length. The minimum weight of these bucks is 250 pounds, but some of them are twenty-five to fifty pounds heavier than the lightest. All are vigorous, healthy and in good working condition. Their antlers, which curve gracefully backward, are about two and one-half feet in length. Their general color is a soft seal brown, shading into black on the legs, which are covered with short, glossy hair, to which the snow does not adhere. A prime advantage of the reindeer over the dog is the fact that he paws away the snow and secures his own food, instead of having to add his rations to the weight of his burden. Many a pioneer prospector, traveling by dog team, has been placed in a position in which his dogs have become useless from lack of provisions. Had these unfortunate pilgrims been provided with reindeer teams, such an emergency would not, in all probability, have arisen ; and in case of threatened starvation the traveler's means of transportation Avould have furnished him with a liberal quantity of meat. Bicycles for Yukon. One of the most novel and absurd of all the schemes of trans- portation fostered by the stampede to the Yukon diggings is the Klondike bicycle, theoretically adapted to carry one man and 500 pounds of outfit, but practically useless because there is not a HOW TO GET THERE. 169 piece of the wheelmen's "good roads" in the territory. Yet some " tenderfcct " have been seen in Seattle armed and equipped with just that thing. But it is to be hoped they were not typical " tenderfeet." The Klondike is promised close communication with the world in a short time. The Alaska Telegraph and Telephone Company has been incorporated in San Francisco to construct a telegraph line from Juneau and Dyea to Dawson and Circle City. Th^ capital stock is ^ioo,ooo. The work of construction is to be pushed and it is hoped the line will be in working order before winter. The estimated length is 10,000 miles. The line will be a novelty, as no poles will be used except in crossing canons and rivers. The wire, which will be of large guage, pure copper, will be heavily coated with insulating sub- stance and will be laid along the ground. Stations will be estab- lished at every fifty miles. It is thought that this line will answer perfectly for the present. How it will be Built. D. E. Bohannon, the chief of construction of the line, ex- plained its details as follows : " Our method is very simple. The line is to be constructed on the same plans as the ordinary military line used by armies for war purposes. We have a wire a quarter of an inch thick and covered with kerite insulation, which has proved able to stand the rigorous climatic conditions prevailing in Alaska. " The wire is wound upon large reels, the same as an ordinary telegraph wire, and these coils are to be placed on dog sleds and dragged over the ice and snow. As we go along the reels will simply pay out the loose wire and run it along the ground, and thus our line will be through in something like six weeks, the time consumed in the ordinary tramp over the country." 170 HOW TO GET THERE. The Dominon Government has made application to the United States Government to be permitted to build a telegraph line from a navigable point on Linn Canal, Alaska, to Tagish, across the summit, a distance of nearly lOO miles, so that communication may be had with the interior of the Yukon all the year around. It is said that the application will raise a new question only compar- able to that which was involved in the establishment of the mixed mail route in Alaska, which gave rise to so much talk. The Klondike will not be so badly off for mails this winter. The monthly letter mail which was started by the United States Government the first of July, 1 897, will be continued, and there will be one round trip a month to Circle City until July i, 1898. The Canadian Government has also arranged for postal service to Dawson City. The scheme of the United States postal service is interesting. Between Seattle and Sitka the mail steamers ply regularly. Between Sitka and Juneau there is a closed pouch steamboat service. Seattle makes up closed pouches for Douglas, Fort Wrangel, Juneau, Killisnoo, Ketchikan, Mary Island, 8itka and Metlakatlah. Service from Sitka. Connecting at Sitka is another sea service between that point and Unalaska, 1400 miles to the west. This service consists of one trip a month between Sitka and Unalaska from April to October and leaves Sitka immediately upon arrival of the mails from Seattle. Captain J. E. Hanson is acting clerk. From Unalaska the mails are dispatched to St. Michael's and thence te points on the Yukon. The Postoffice Department has perfected not only a summer but a winter star route service between Juneau and Circle City The route is overland and by boats and rafts over the lakes and down the Yukon, and is 900 miles long. A Chicago man HOW TO OET THERE. 171 named Beddoe carries the summer mail, making five trips between June and November, and is paid ;$5O0 a trip. Two Juneau men, Frank Corvvin and Albert Hayes, operate the winter service, and draw for each round trip ;^ 1700 in gold. About 1200 letters are carried on each trip. FOREST SCENE NEAR SITKA. The Canadian mail to Dawson City will be carried by the mounted police from Dyea to Skagway. In the expectation that the boom in Alaskan and North British mining stocks will be one of the wildest in the histor}' of 172 HOW TO GET THERE. the world, and that the stock exchanges of London, New York, Chicago and San Francisco will be willing to pay handsomely for inside and speedy news from the centre of excitement on the Klondike, some capitalists have conceived the idea of establish- ing a carrier-pigeon service between Seattle or Victoria and Dawson and Circle Cities, with Juneau as the " way station " in the flight. The experience of Nansen, the Arctic explorer, with carrier pigeons in the ice fields surrounding the North Pole, has demonstrated the practicability of using these birds in Alaska during the coldest months. Plan of the Service. The idea is to transfer a number of " breeders " to Victoria, the nearest telegraphic station to the Klondike district, and also a number of them to Juneau and Dawson City, in the heart of the new Eldorado. It is believed that after the birds shall have been properly trained by frequent flights over the country between Dawson City and Juneau, they will be able to cover that extent of territory in about twenty-four hours. The birds, whose home cotes are located in Victoria, it is believed, can reach that place in less than thirty hours after being released at Juneau, a trip that is seldom made in less than three or four days by steamboat, although on one occasion it was made from Sitka in forty-nine hours. With such a line of communication opened up it ought to be possible for a message written in the frozen interior of Alaska to reach the most distant parts of the world within a few days. A carrier pigeon, which was taken from Portland, Ore., on the steamer Elder, to Dyea, returned to Portland on August 9th with the following message : " Dyea, Aug. 7th. Arrived safely here last night. All well on board. T. Cain." HOW TO GET THERE. 173 In preparing to make the long overland journey into the Klondike, one of the things of most importance to be considered and one in which the " tenderfoot " left to himself, is most apt to make a serious blunder of omission, is the " outfit." There are all sorts of tastes and so there are all sorts of out- fits, but the following table, prepared by a man of ample experi- ence and good appetite, will serve as a sample for preparing a list of the articles necessary for a complete outfit for a year in the Klondike diggings : CLOTHING : — 3 suits heavy woolen underwear, 6 pairs heavy woolen stockings, 2 pairs blanket-lined mittens, i heavy Mackinaw coat, 2 pairs Mackinaw trousers, 2 dark woolen overshirts, i heavy sweater, i heavy rubber-lined top coat, 2 pairs heavy hip rubber boots, 2 pairs shoes, i Canadian toque, 2 pairs extra heavy blankets, i suit oil skins, 2 pairs heavy overalls, i suit buckskin underwear, towels, needles, thread, wax, buttons. FOOD : — 350 pounds flour, 200 pounds bacon, 150 pounds beans, 10 pounds tea, 75 pounds cofifee (browned), 5 pounds baking powder, 25 pounds salt, 150 pounds assorted dried fruits, 100 pounds evaporated vege- tables and dried meats, 10 pounds soap, 3 tins matches, 5 pounds sac- charine, citric acid. HARDWARE:— I long-handled shovel, I pick, i ax, duplicate handles, 5 pounds wire nails, 5 pounds pitch, 3 pounds oakum, 2 large files, hammer, jackplane, brace and bits, large whipsaw, hand saw, 150 feet ^-inch rope, drawknife, chisel, jackknife, whetstone, hand ax, shaving outfit, frying pan, kettle, Yukon stove, bean pot, two plates, cup, teapot, knife, fork and six spoons, 2 buckets, 2 miners' gold pans. ARMAMENT : — Repeating rifle, 40-82, reloading tools and 100 rounds brass shell cartridges, I large hunting knife, fishing tackle, snow spectacles. CAMPING OUTFIT : — Heavy canvas tent, 8x10, pegs and guy ropes, I heavy-lined canvas sleeping-bag, rubber blanket, mosquito netting. These supplies will weigh about 1350 pounds and will cost about ^$225 at Seattle, or at Juneau, if the rush of gold-hunters has not exhausted the supply. It is important to pay attention to a sufficient stock of anti- scorbutics, for scurvy is the scourge of Arctic residence. 174 HOW TO GET THERE. The shaving utensils listed may cause some to smile, as they think the Klondike is no place for " frills," but the experience of sojourners in those regions of long and intense cold is that a smooth face is a positive comfort. The breath's moisture con- gealing in moustache and beard is well nigh as painful a trial in winter in Alaska as the mosquitos in summer. It is comfort rather than style to shave. In making purchases the argonaut should bear in mind that the very best of everything is none too good and will more than repay the outlay in the long run. The clothing and food in particular should be first quality throughout. One of the most indispensable items in the list is the sleeping bag, with an outside covering of heavy duck and lined with warm lamb's wool. It is fixed up with handles, so that in case of necessity it can be swung up in trees. Hip rubber boots are another necessary article, in addition to which a pair of heavy miner's boots is generally taken. Native Costume. Many miners adopt the native costume — and it is comfortable as well as highly serviceable and picturesque. The boots, usually made by the coast Indians, are of several varieties. The water boot is of seal and walrus skin, while the dry weather or winter boot is of all varieties of styles and material. The more expensive have fur trimmed legs, elabo- rately designed. They cost from ;$2 to ^5 a pair. Trousers are often made of Siberian fawn skin and the skin of the marmot, or ground squirrel. The parka, or upper garment, is usually of marmot skins, trimmed with wolverine around the hood and lower edge, the long hair from the sides of the wolverine being used for the hood. This hair is sometimes five or six inches in length and is useful in protecting the face of the wearer. Good, HOW TO GET THERE. 175 warm flannels can be worn under the parka, and the whole outfit will weigh less than the ordinary clothes worn in a country where the weather gets down to zero. The parka is almost cold proof. But it is expensive, ranging in price from $25 to 5 100. Blankets and fur robes are used for bedding. Lynx skins make the best robes. Good ones cost ;^ioo. But the cheaper robes can be made of the skins of bears, mink, red fox and the Arctic hare. The skins of the latter animal make warm socks to be worn with the skin boots. A Cheap Outfit. Outfits can be purchased more cheaply than the sample given heretofore, by lopping off some of the articles. Here is the bill of one in which each article was of first-class quality, no groceries nor armament being included : 3 suits heavy -woolen underwear, at ^4 50 ^13 50 4 pairs heavy stockings, at 40 cents i 60 2 pairs German socks, at|i.i5 2 30 I pair hunting stockings i 25 I heavy sweater 4 50 I lighter sweater 2 35 I leather fur-lined coat, short 7 00 I pair jeans trousers, lined with flannel 3 00 I Mackinaw coat 3 00 I pair Mackinaw trousers 2 50 I suit buckskin underwear 1200 I pair hip rubber boots 5 25 I pair heavy miners' boots 5 00 I pair heavy overshoes 2 10 4 blankets, at I2.40 9 60 I pair leather-lined mitts I 20 I pair woolen mitts I 00 I sleeping bag 12 50 I sleeping cap 75 4 canvas carrying bags 2 00 Tools, including two miners' pans, picks, shovels, axes, saw, file, knife 7 32 Total I99 72 176 HOW TO GET THERE. Some men buy sheepskin coats and vests, horsehide coats and trousers at ;^i8 a suit and extra supplies of "jumbo " undercloth- ing. Some other men, remembering only the outfits carried to Harqua Hala or Leadville, squeeze all their supplies into a $100 bill, but it is safe to say their frugality is " penny wise and pound foolish." Here is a list of provisions sufficient for one man for a month, made by an expert. [He probably was not a heavy eater. — Ed.] 20 pounds flour, with baking powder, 12 pounds bacon, 6 pounds beans, S pounds desiccated vegetables, 4 pounds butter, 5 pounds sugar, 4 cans milk, I pound tea, 3 pounds coffee, 2 pounds salt, 5 pounds cornmeal, pepper, mustard. One of the men who has " been there " has the following to say of the cost of the provisions a prospector should take with him : " No one should venture into the region without some cash and a sufficient supply of provisions to last eight months. One should buy these things in Juneau, and he should start out with something like the following: 400 pounds of flour, 100 pounds of beans, 100 pounds of bacon, 100 pounds of sugar, "lo pounds of tea, 30 pounds of coffee, 150 pounds of mixed fruit, salt, pepper and cooking utensils. The whole outfit can be purchased well within jggo. The cost of conveying this stock of provisions to the headwaters of Lake Linderman will average about $ 1 5 per 100, but even that makes it considerably cheaper than the same goods can be purchased in the mining camp. Value of Salt. Just how valuable salt sometimes becomes in the gold fields is illustrated in a story told by a miner who lately returned from there. His party ran out of that useful article, and it seemed that they would die without it. They came across another party HOW TO GET THERE. 177 that had salt, but refused to part with it. A pitched battle was about to begin for possession of the salt, when some one sug- gested that those who owned the salt were not overly flush with gold dust, while those who had no salt had plenty of gold. It was then arranged that gold should be weighed against the salt, and this was done. And after this story of the salt, which needs not to be taken with a grain of that condiment, it is well to reiterate to every gold hunter going out to winter in the Klondike fields : " Take your own grub — and plenty of it." Food in Compact Form. To those who find something terrifying about a heavy outfit, with packers' prices over the passes at twenty cents a pound and upwards, it may be suggested that many staple articles of food have been prepared in the utmost condensed or concentrated forms for the use of soldiers in the field, and will no doubt be equally as nourishing.to prospectors, while enabling them to carry extensive supplies in small bulk. For instance, a cup of tea or coffee is crowded into the size and form of a quinine capsule, a mince pie is the size of a cough drop, and other delicacies are in proportion. Soup " buttons " are prepared in the same way, with meat, vegetables and season- ing all ready for hot water. A loaf of bread is compressed into the size and shape of a soda cracker, which swells up to normal size when put in hot water. Ten pounds of vegetables are put into one-pound can, and a cubic ounce of desiccated beef is equal in nourishment to several pounds of fresh meat. Prospectors who go out by the St. Michael's route, if they purpose wintering on the Klondike, or in Upper Alaska, will not need to take so elaborate a provision supply by the amount of at least three months' consumption, but they had better keep 12 178 HOW TO GET THERE. pretty dose to the clothing, hardware, armament and camping schedules. They will find it advisable not to omit the food item altogether unless they have good assurance that the supplies brought in by the trading companies will be ample. Robert Krook's Advice. Lest any should think too much stress has been laid on tht matter of supplies to be taken into the Klondike, these words of Robert Krook, the young Swedish miner, who returned from Dawson City during the summer, are given in full : "Every one who goes to Alaska must rely mainly on two establishments for supplies. Even those who have a good outfit will find it often necessary to patronize one or other of the stores. Prices are on an average three times as high as at Juneau or St. Michael's, and four to five times as steep as in San Francisco. When the winter is nearly over and supplies begin to run short prices are, as a consequence, raised. Toward the close of last winter, before the new supplies came up the river, prices were doubled. "All through the winter men arrive at such mining towns as Dawson City, bringing with them from one to two tons of food and clothing. They go up the streams and peddle their goods, taking care to lose nothing for their time and trouble. "To one blacksmith shop all miners must go or send when they have tools to be repaired, or when they need anything made to order which the stores cannot supply. " Dawson City can boast of two good practicing physicians — Police Surgeon Willis and another doctor who went from Circle City to Dawson last year. They carry their own supplies of staple drugs and medicines, so as to be able to compound their own prescriptions. Ordinary remedies are to be obtained at the two trading stores. HOW TO GET THERE. 179 " I think it well to mention that the credit system has been entirely done away with in Dawson. No one can make a pur- chase of any kind without the necessary cash in the shape of dust. Of course it must not be understood that we would let a man starve, but on the other hand, no one must expect to be sup- ported by the generosity of the people. We are all hard workers up there, and if any man will work he can always make a living. "The impression seems to prevail that the mines are close to Dawson City. That is a mistake. The rich creeks are fifteen miles off, and it is a day's journey to reach them. The camp there is as pretty a place as one desires to see. The white tents and huts of the miners are scattered along the banks of ther creeks or built on the mountain sides, as convenience or fancy dictated." Medicine Chest. Another thing which all prospectors should be careful to take along is a piedicine chest. Doctors are few, distances long and emergencies of health or limb often most urgent in the Yukon mining camps. Here is a list of contents of a medicine chest, whose cost is within ;^io, and every article of which is useful in the wilderness. Quinine pills 50 Compound cathartic pills 50 Acetanilid tablets 3 dozen Chlorate potash I box Mustard plasters 6 Belladonna plasters . 6 Carbolic salve 4 ounces Chloroform liniment 8 ounces Witch hazel i pint Essence ginger 4 ounces Paregoric 4 ounces Laudanum i ounce Borax 4 ounces Tincture iodine i ounce 180 HOW TO GET THERE. Spirits nitre 2 ounces Tincture iron i ounce Cough mixture 8 ounces Toothache drops i bottle Vaseline i bottle Iodoform 2 drams Lint 2 yards Assorted bandages ^ dozen Rubber adhesive plasters 2 feet Absorbent cotton 4 ounces Monsell's salts for hemorrhages — In quantities in accordance with the person's liability to attacks of the trouble. Health and the Klondike. As a rule, no one in ordinary health and strength need fear to winter in the Klondike or to risk the hardships incident to getting there, merely on account of the Arctic cold. The brac- ing effect of the northern climate will probably prove beneficial to many. Snow and ice are in themselves rather unpleasant than unhealthful. Scientific records have well established that longevity increases as residence is advanced from the equator towards the poles. There is more risk of disease in a voyage to Panama or India than in one to Behring Strait or Herschel Island. But weak hearts and weak lungs cannot face northern blasts. Rheumatism unfits for such tests. People of purely sedentary habits take big chances on the overland trails and in the gulches. Weak eyes would be severely tried and, perhaps, blinded by the glare of the snow-clad land. Physical exhaustion, colds, scurvy, rheumastism and snow blindness are the ills chiefly to be dreaded by the Alaskan gold-hunters, and any who are subject to troubles of the heart, throat or lungs should stay religiously away from the Klondike. The medicine chest would be a futile resort for them, and some volunteer sexton would likely do for them the last earthly office before the Alaskan spring bloomed in May. -■i HOW TO GET THERE. 181 But now that the daring prospector is in the Klondike and washing out the precious dust, his next thought will be, as his " pile " grows, to get out and back to the baked meats, and flesh pots of civilization. Hear what Mrs. Frederick Schwatka, who had much personal experience in Alaska, and got the benefit of much more vicariously from pioneers returning from the wilder- ness, has to say about " how to get out : " " This getting back is a formidable undertaking that appalls so many. They choose rather to remain whole winters doing practically nothing that brings in more than a bare existence. In getting out it is necessary to make progress against the 600 miles of swift river current. Rowing is out of the question, walking and poling being the methods used. The poles are about twelve feet long and made of seasoned spruce saplings and sharpened at the butt end. Sometimes an iron spike is put in, otherwise it must be sharpened two or three times a day. Two polemen stand in bow and stern. To stand all day in a wabbling, cranky boat, and work like a beaver until six or seven hundred miles are traversed at about fifteen miles a day is in itself a formidable undertaking. Then the great pass must be scaled without any assistance, for there are no Indians now to help. Here it is that many a discouraged miner has given up all hope and found a grave in the ice-covered mountains. It is the thought of again seeing something of civilization and the outside world that buoys up the traveler by this difficult trail." CHAPTER V. A Land of Wonders. Land of the Midnight Sun — Great Distances — Primitive Conveyances — Ter rors of the Arctic Regions — World of Wonders — Dangers of Travel — A Great Glacier — A Frozen Cataract — Beautiful Scenery — Rush of Tor- rents — Marvelous Sunsets — Great Yukon River — Cation of Lewis River — Dominion of the Frost King — Towering Volcanoes — The Winter Moon — A Country of Romance — Totem Poles — Salmon Fisheries — Vast Solitudes — The Alaskan Natives. THE man who goes from southern latitudes to seek his for- tune in Alaska will leave familiar scenes for a land of wonders. His first experience will of necessity be one of surprise. He will find a country of new people, new scenes, and new modes of life. Every one who has visited the land about which so much has been written and printed relative to the gold findings tells the same story of the matchless grandeur of the territory. With few exceptions all give the same report of the peoples and mar- vels there to be seen. It is the land of the midnight sun and the mid-day moon ; of salt water intruding hundreds of miles into the country, between mountains that overhang it in such a way as to excite a feeling of awe ; of the Aurora Borealis, the displays of which are more mafinificent than are ever witnessed in southern regions. It is a land of majestic mountains, of vast inland seas, of stupendous glaciers, compared with which those of the old world are but trifling affairs. It is a land from which thundering icebergs come plunging into the sea and float off in their glory of inimitable splendor. It is a land of exceeding wealth in fish, in timber, in minerals. And, above all, it is the land in which many think the 182 A LAND OF WONDERS. 183 mother lode of the gold supply of the Western Continent is to be found. One of the first things that will be forced upon the visitor will be the fact that Alaska is a country of magnificent distances. It is nine times the size of the New England states; twice the size of Texas and three times as large as California. It stretches more than looo miles from north to south, and extends west to the extreme limit of the Aleutian Islands. Few people in the United States, probably, are aware of the fact that the gold fields which are attracting so much attention are pretty nearly on the medial line of the United States from east to west. From Sitka, for instance, westward to the limit of the Aleutian Islands, it is nearly 3000 miles ; and eastward from the same point it is not over about 3500 miles to the most east- erly coast of Maine. The name of the country itself is simply a designation for the immensity of its territory — a wonder. It is a corruption of the Indian name Al-ay-ke-sa, which was given by the native island- ers to the mainland, and which signifies "great country." As a matter of fact, the territory contains nearly 600,000 square miles ; and it is thus nearly one-fifth as large as all the other states and territories of the Union combined. It would make more than twelve states the size of New York. Poor Transit Conveyances. These enormous distances soon impress themselves upon the traveler, and the sense of interminable space is accentuated by the lack of ordinary transit facilities. Alaska is a land in which the steam train is not known, and it may safely be said that a large proportion of the people living in the country have never heard of such a thing as a railroad. Even horses and wagons are virtually things unknown. The country has too rigorous a 184 A LAND OF WONDERS. climate for the successful use of any beasts of burden other than dogs. Hence, dogs as pack animals and as steeds for sledges have become one of the chief possessions of the people. These vast stretches of country are also observable in the marked differences of climate. Southern Alaska is really a dif- ferent country than the more northern districts in which the gold fields of the Yukon have been found. William H. Seward some years ago, writing from Berlin, makes use of these words: "We have seen of Germany enough to show that its climate is neither so genial, nor its soil so fertile, nor its resources of forests and mines so rich as those of southern Alaska." Akin to Norway. In climate and all physical features southeastern Alaska is but a repetition of southern Norway. It enjoys, however, a greater wealth of forests. In latitude, configuration, temperature, rain- fall and ocean currents it is identical. Norwegians, therefore, could be transplanted to Sitka and its neighborhood, and, barring the lack of improvements of the old world, would scarcely real- ize that their location had been changed. During the thirty-six years that the Russians kept meteorological records in Sitka the mercury went below zero but four times. A comparison here may be of interest. St. Johns, New- foundland, is literally beset by icebergs in summer, and its har- bor in the winter time is virtually frozen solid. Yet Sitka, which is ten degrees north of it has always an open roadstead, and it is only the ends of the longer fiords that are ever covered by ice. Again it is pointed out that Sitka Castle, which is three miles north of Balmoral Castle, in Scotland, has a higher average win- ter temperature than the highland home. In southern Alaska the snow rarely lies on the ground at the sea level. The mist and rains reduce it to slush almost as quickly as in Kentucky or A LAND OF WONDERS. 185 the District of Columbia, the isothermal equals of this region. We hear much of snow shoes in connection with Alaskan life, and yet skating is one of the rarest of pleasures for the Sitkans. It is a different matter, however, when one pierces the interior and wends his way over the mountain tops or through the valleys or along the mighty streams to the gold fields. As one ascends farther north, with the change of scenes comes a change of air, till in the neighborhood of Dawson City, Circle City, Klondike, and the other mining camps, it is no unusual thing for the mer- cury to fall from sixty to ninety degrees below zero. Nine months of the year in these ncrthern regions the ground is frozen to the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet as solid as a rock. Even in summer, which there is virtually but three months, the ground rarely thaws out more than from two to two and a half inches. People who invade these northern districts find that a new mode of life is forced upon them. The clothing which would be comfortable even in Sitka no longer furnishes adequate warmth, and as a result, those who can do so, usually adopt the native costume, and dress largely in furs. W^onders to Marvel At. The voyager, be he excursionist or miner, thus finds an endless variety of things to admire, to wonder at and to ponder over. He will scarcely believe his senses or realize the fact that in sail- ing up the vast inland arms of the sea, which extend often hun- dreds of miles toward the interior, to which he is bound, he is really riding on salt water, mere inlets of the Pacific Ocean. It scarcely seems possible to one that he can glide along day after day and week after week, if need be, without encountering a single wave or a single ripple to disturb the motion of the vessel, 186 A LAND OF WONDERS. and yet, at the same time, be all the time on the ocean and have the benefits of an ocean trip. Those who have made the journey over Alaskan waters say the only realizing sense they have of the character of the voyage is the voracious appetite engendered, without the accompaniment of the much dreaded monster — sea sickness. The islands, too, by which the vessel glides, will be a constant source of wonder. One will marvel how, and when, and why, these islands past which he rides were formed — islands, some of them no larger than a good sized house, and others large enough to be empires in themselves. Channels a Menace. Not infrequently the traveler has to pass through narrow and serpentine passages, which can only be navigated at slack and high tide on account of the teriffic current which rushes through the straits at other times. These channels are often hundreds of miles in length and as straight as an arrow. Many of them are almost unfathomable in depth and are banked on either side by perpendicular and gigantic mountains, whose untrod summits are clothed in ice and clouds. The impression given the traveler is very much the same as that afforded by the somewhat similar scenery of upper Norway. In a general sense there is the same bleakness observable on the mountains, a somewhat similar stunted vegetation and an almost identical invasion of the mainland by the sea. But what the trav- eler will not find in Norway or in any other part of the world are the matchless glaciers that, in common acceptance, are one of the most remarkable features of Alaska scenery. The traveler will see a number of them on his way to Juneau, glittering in the distance and apparently bleak and inaccessible. As he gets farther into the country, these glaciers become A LAND OF WONDERS. 107 greater in size and more numerous. It ha.s been said that the largest glacier in Switzerland would not make more than a respectable sized nose if it could be transferred bodily, to the face of one of these sleeping giants in the fastnesses of Alaska. The Great Muir Glacier. Here, again, a comparison will be of service to enable one to appreciate the wonders of Alaska scenery. Of the Norwegian glaciers, which may be most fairly used for comparison with the Muir, the Jodtesalbrae, the largest glacier in Europe, lies three degrees north of the Muir, at an elevation of 3000 feet above the sea. It covers 470 square miles. The Muir glacier drains an area of 800 square miles, and the actual ice surface covers about 350 square miles. The mass of it is thirty-five miles long and from ten to fifteen miles wide, and lies but a few hundred feet above the sea level. It is fed by twenty-six tributary streams, seven of which are over a mile in width. If all their affluents were named and counted, as in Switzer- land, the Muir might boast two hundred branches or tributary glaciers in its system. The mountain gateway, two and a half miles wide, through which it pours to the sea, is formed b}- spurs of Mt. Case, 5510 feet high, and Mt. Wright, 4944 feet high. All the mountains in the immediate vicinity of the glacier average from 4000 to 6000 feet in height. For further comparison it may be pointed out that the Svartisen, the snow glacier of the Norway coast, about eight degrees north of the Muir and on the line of the Arctic circle, is an ice mantle forty-four miles long and from twelve to twenty-five miles wide, occupying a plateau 4000 feet above the sea. The Swiss glaciers, all lying from 4000 to 6000 feet iibove the sea are Hke those of Mt. Ranier, and in no way to be 188 A LAND OF WONDERS. compared with the Muir, twenty of whose arms exceed the Mer de Glace in size ! Apropos of the Muir glacier one cannot do better than to quote a few words from the lamented Kate Field on Alaskan glaciers in general and the Muir glacier in particular. Says she: " Soon after leaving Wrangel, the first Alaskan glacier is seen in the distance, looking like a frozen river emerging from the home of the clouds. The sea is glassy, and a procession of small bergs, broken away from the glacier, float silently toward the south. It is Nature's dead march to the sun, to melt in its burning kisses, and to be transplanted into happy tears. Wild ducks fly past, and from his eyrie a bald-headed eagle surveys the scene — deeply, darkly, beautifully blue — apparently con- scious that he is the symbol of the Republic. " There are glaciers and glaciers. In Switzerland a glacier is a vast bed of dirty air-holed ice that has fastened itself, like a cold porous-plaster, to the side of an Alp. Distance alone lends enchantment to the view. In Alaska a glacier is a won- derful torrent that seems to have been suddenly frozen when about to plunge into the sea. Down and about mountains wind these snow-clad serpents, extending miles inland, with as many arms sometimes as an octopus. A Frozen Niagara. " Wonderfully picturesque is the Davidson glacier, but more extended is the Muir glacier, which marks the extreme northerly points of pleasure travel. Imagine a glacier three miles wide and three hundred feet high at its mouth. Think of Niagara Falls frozen stiff, add thirty-six feet to its height, and you have a slisrht idea of the terminus of Muir Glacier, in front of which your steamer anchors ; picture a background of mountains fifteen A LAND OF WONDERS. 189 thousand feet high, all snow clatl, and then imagine a gorgeous sun lighting up the ice crystals with rainbow coloring. " The face of the glacier takes on the hue of aquamarine, the hue of every bit of floating ice, big and little, that surrounds the steamer and makes navigation serious. These dazzling serpents move at the rate of sixty-four feet a day, tumbling headlong MOUNTAIN SCENE IN ALASKA. into the sea, and, as it falls, the ear is startled with submarine thunder, the echoes of which resound far and near. Down, down, down goes the berg, and woe to the boat in its way when it again rises to the surface." If the tide is right, the traveler will hear the thundering crash caused by the icebergs breaking off from the glaciers and 100 A LAND OF WONDERS. Lumbling into the water. It is no unusual thing for a vessel on these inland arms of the ocean to be literally in a sea of ice. A Picture of Beauty. This is declared to be one of the most beautiful pictures man ever witnessed, and many of the thousands of people, who have left southern latitudes to wend their way into the fastnesses of Alaskan territory have written home in the most glowing terms of the wonders, witnessed, especially in the ocean part of their journey. Of these descriptions none, perhaps, is more striking or will convey a better idea of what travel in these solitudes really is than the words of Miss Skidmore, who threaded the wilderness and wrote a book on her experierces Says she : " Life on the waveless arms of the ocean „as a great fascina- tion on one of these Alaskan trips, and, crowded with novelty, incidents and surprises as each day is, the cruise seems all too short when the end approaches. One dreads to get to land again and end the easy, idle wandering through the long archi- pelago. " The voyage is but one protracted marine picnic, and an unbroken succession of memorable days. Where in all the list of them to place the red letter or the white stone puzzles one. The passengers beg the captain to reverse the engines, or boldly turn back and keep up the cruise until the autumn gales make us willing to return to the region of earthly cares and responsi- bilities, daily mails and telegraph wires. The long nightless days never lose their spells, and in retrospect the wonders of the northland appear the greater. " The weeks of continuous travel over deep, placid waters, in the midst of magnificent scenery, might be a journey of explora- tion on a new continent, so different is it from anything else in American travel. Seldom is anvthinsf but an Indian canoe met. A LAiND OF WONDERS. 191 ('"or days no sign of settlement is seen along the quiet fiords, and making nocturnal visits to small fisheries, only the unbroken wilderness is in sight during waking hours. " The anchoring in strange places, the going to and fro in small boats, the queer people, the strange life, the peculiar fas- cination of the frontier and the novelty of the whole thing affects one strangely. Each arm of the sea, and the unknown, unexplored wilderness that lies back of every mile of shore, continually tempt the imagination." No one can give so good an idea of the marvels and delights of this strange and virtually unknown country as those who have actually made an extended journey in it, and no apology, therefore, is made for the insertion of a passage written by another traveler, who, like Miss Skidmore, went where few readers of this book have been privileged to go. Speaking of the won- derful scenery of the country the writer says : " It is, perhaps, a little remarkable that the marvelous pano- rama of fantastic peaks, rushing streams, huge glaciers and mad- dened cataracts in no way lessens the enjo)'ment or appreciation of the mountains by the-s^a, that pass in review during the trip to Alaska. Through Noisy Torrents. " In one case the traveler is rushing onward, literally at rail- way speed, now passing through the shoulder of a mountain, and now round the base of another, sometimes through primeval forests, sometimes by the side of a noisy torrent or deep caiion, and sometimes through a secluded valley ; and in the other instance he is gliding along the deep but placid waters of the landlocked arms of the Pacific Ocean, on the undisturbed sur- face of immeasurable depths, while the snow capped heights are within pistol shot of where he sits, and the rugged precipices fall sheer into the depths almost at his side. 192 A LAND OF WONDERS. " The entire length of this inland passage of over looo miles is heavily timbered. Great avalanches of snow have swept down the mountains here and there, and in their devastating tracks long streaks of timber have been mowed down. At intervals, little Indian villages dot the shores, resting most picturesquely upon narrow shelves just at the edge of tide water, Through- out the whole stretch of country, travel by land is almost impos- sible owing to the dense timber and underbrush that cover its surface." By Another W^itness. One who nas traveled far and wide (the Marquis of Dufiferin and Ava) pithily describes the trip through these waters : " Such a spectacle as its (British Columbia) coast line presents is not to be paralleled by any country in the world. Day after day, for a whole week, in a vessel of nearly 2000 tons, we threaded an interminable labyrinth of watery lanes and reaches, that wound endlessly in and out of a network of islands, prom- ontories and peninsulas for thousands of miles, unruffled by the slightest swell from the adjoining ocean, and presenting at every turn an ever-shifting combination of rock, verdure, glacier and snow-capped mountains of unrivalled grandeur and beauty. " H. Juneau, one of the founders of Juneau, Alaska, giv^es a similar account. Says he : " Along the seacoast Alaska presents a grand and picturesque view for miles in extent, from an ocean steamer. It is a good idea to get acquainted with Alaska and enjoy its scener)^ It is a grand country to visit, and its scenery surpasses any mountain- ous scenery in the world. Travel on water can be provided for in comfort.and be enjoyed without great risk of danger. " Alaska is a country on edge. It is so mountainous. Basins are mainly filled with ice. The weather is always hard in great extremes. Where there is no ice there is moss and devil's club, A LAND OF WONDERS. 1C3 tiie latter a vine that winds around evcrytliin^ it can clutch. Persons walking become entwined in a network of moss and dex'il's club, and passage is extremely difficult and ' torturous' as well as tortuous." Miss Skidniore has another interesting passage relative to the beauties to be seen on the trip north from Sitka. Speaking on the straits and narrows, she says : " The tourist should not miss any part of this scenic passage ; the near shores, the forested heights and the magnificent range of peaks around the Stikines delta, composing one of the noblest landscapes he will see. The sunset effects in the broad channels at cither end are renowned, and possessor of a Claude Lorraine glass is the most fortunate of tourists. Marvelous Sunrise Effects. " He who has seen the sunrise lights in the narrows has seen the best of the most marvelous atmospheric effects and color displays the matchless coast can offer. It is a place of resort for eagles, whose nests may be seen in many tree tops, and is a nursery for young gulls, who float like myriad tufts of down in the still regions. " A hedge of living green rises from the water's edge, every spruce twig festooned with pale green mosses. At low tide broad bands of russet sea weed frame the islets and border the shores, and fronds, stems and orange heads of the giant kelp float in the intensely green waters. " The tides, rushing in from either end, meet off Finger Point, whose two red spar buoys are prominent in the exciting naviga- tion. The tide-fall varies from fourteen to twenty-three feet, and salmon, entering with the tide, turn aside at the red spar buoys, clear an islet, manoeuvre to the foot of the falls, leap its eight feet at high tide and swim to a mountain lake." 13 101 A LAND OF WONDERS. Nor is the clement of the wonderful lost as one leaves these deep inlets of the sea and penetrates into the interior fastnesses. One leaves in a measure the stunted, yet luxuriant, forestation of the southern and coast districts for a bleaker and more repel- lant landscape. But the great water courses, such as the Yukon and the Klondike, with their numerous tributaries, in a sense take the place of the salt water inlets. The rivers alone would suffice to give a fair idea of the immensity of the country. And right here a word about the Yukon. What the Amazon is to South America, the Mississippi to the central portion of the United States, the Yukon is to Alaska. It is the great inland highway of the countiy. It makes it possible for the explorer to penetrate to the very heart of this unknown region. This mighty stream rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, and the Coast Range Mountains in southeastern Alaska, about 135 miles from the city of Juneau, which is the present metropolis of Alaska. It is only known, however, as the Yukon River at the point where the Pelly River, the branch that heads in British Columbia, meets with the Lewis River, which heads in southeastern Alaska. This point of confluence is at Fort Selkirk, in the Northwest Territory, something like 125 miles southeast of Klondike. Giant Among Rivers. The Yukon River proper, therefore, is 2044 miles in length. From Fort Selkirk it flows northwest 400 miles and touches the Arctic Circle. Thence it bends in a southward course for a dis- tance of 1000 miles and empties into Behring Sea. The mighty stream drains more than 600,000 miles of territory and dis- charges at least a third more water into Behring Sea than the Mississippi River discharges into the Gulf of Mexido. A LAND OF WONDERS. 195 At its mouth it is sixty miles wide. As far inland as i 500 miles it widens out from one to ten miles. ThrouL^hout its course it is dotted with inland islands, more than lOOO of these, it is said, sending the course of the stream in as many different directions. The stream thus merits being considered as a geo- graphical wonder, and from mouth to head there is scarcely a point devoid of interest to the traveler. SCENE ON THE YUKON RIVER. Like most of the great streams of Alaska the navigation of the river is attended with danger, and the sense of constant peril affords one of the pleasures of the excursionist's trip to the inte- rior. Only natives who are thoroughly familiar with the river are intrusted with the piloting of boats up the stream during tht 193 A LAND OF WONDERS. season of low water. Even at the season of high water there are places where the stream is so shallow that it is not navigable by sea-going vessels ; but only by flat-bottom boats of a carry- ing capacity of from 400 to 500 tons. Canon of Le^A;^is River. As an illustration of the danger incident to this river travel, a few words may be quoted relative to the canon of the Lewis River, which were written by ore who recently made a trip to the inte- rior. Says he : "Before reaching the canon, a high cut bank of sand on the right hand side will give warning that it is close at hand. Good river men have run the cafion safely even with loaded rafts ; but it is much surer to make a landing on the right side and portage the outfit around the caiion three-quarters of a mile and run the raft through empty. " The sameness of the scenery on approaching the cafion is so marked that many parties have gotten into the canon before they were aware of it. Below the cafion are the White Horse rapids — a bad piece of water ; but the raft can be lined down the right hand side until near the White Horse, three miles below. This is a box canon about a hundred yards long; and fifty in width, a chute through which the water of the river, which is nearly 600 feet wide just above, rushes with maddening force. " But few have ever a tempted to run it, and four of them have been drowned. Of two men who made the attempt in May, '88, nothing was found save a bundle of blankets." Reference has been made to the intense cold of the northern regions where gold abounds, and it must be borne in mind that during the winter season, which is practically nine months of the year, the Yukon is absolutely fro/.en solid and thus closed to travel. The Frost King asserts his dominion and locks up all A LAND OF WONDERS. 107 approaches with impenetrable ice. Only for ten or twelve weeks, that is, from the middle of June to the early part of September, is the river for use in travel, except by way of sledges drawn by dogs. When, however, in the early spring the bonds of ice are riven, a never-ending panorama of extraordinary picturcsqueness is unfolded to the voyager. The banks of the stream are then fringed with flowers and carpeted with the all-pervading moss or tundra, as it is called. Then birds in countless number and of infinite variety in plumage, sing out a welcome to the traveler from every tree top. One may pitch his tent wherever he likes in midsummer, and a bed of roses, a clump of poppies or a bunch of blue bells will adorn his camp. Above all the Glaciers. One is never allowed to forget, however, that high above this brief paradise by the river side, which for a time is almost of tropical exuberance, the giant glaciers sleep in the summit of the mountains above the bed of roses. With the first days of Sep- tember, and here the traveler will experience a deep sense of regret — everything is changed. The bed of roses has disap- peared before the ice breath of the Winter King. This, as has been said before, often sends down the mercury to from eighty to ninety degrees below zero. The birds, as might be expected, hie themselves southward. The white man has to take to his cabin and the Indian to his hut, and even the bears are early driven away from the field and begin their sleep of nine months. Throughout