Klondike and the Yukon Country: A Description of Our Alaskan Land of Gold from the Latest ...

Louis Arthur Coolidge · 1897 · Historical

Klondike and the Yukon Country: A Description of Our Alaskan Land of Gold from the Latest ... by Louis Arthur Coolidge (1897). Full text and reference in the…

Public-domain full text preserved in the Mountain Man Mining Library. Original source: archive.org.

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By L. A. COOLIDGE,

with A chapter by

JOHN F. PRATT. Chief o(

Alaskan Boundary Expedition

of 1894.

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Price 50 Cents

Klondike

And The Yukon Country

A Description Of Our

Alaskan Land Of Gold

FROM THE I,ATEST OFMCIAI, AND SCIENTIFIC SOURCES AND FERSONAI, OBSERVATION

L. Ar COOLIDGE

With a Chaptbr by JOHN F. PRATT

CHmF OV TSS AIiASKAN BOUNDARY BXPBDITION OF 1894

Jwbw Maps And Photographic Illustra 7 Ions

Philadelphia

Henry Altemus

Orighted by Henry A Itemus, of Philadelphia , in the State of Pennsylvania A. D. i8g7, in the One Hundred and Tiuenty-firH Year o/ the Independence of the United States of America.

F

HbNKY ALTBMUSf MANUFACTURER, PUILADBLPHIA.

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Introduction.

The object of this book, as explained in an introduction to the first edition, is to furnish the latest authentic information concerning a portion of our country which until very recently has been little thought of, but which is now the magnet for many minds. The favor with which it has been received by press and public has led to the preparation of a new edition, revised, enlarged, and brought thoroughly up to date. It has been the aim to make an accurate and comprehensive handbook of the Alaskan country, and with this end in view all available authorities on the subject have been consulted. The new edition contains four new chapters and many additional half tone illustrations and maps. The illustrations are largely from photographs taken by official expeditions of the United States and Canadian Governments. Most of them are published now for the first time. The maps are from maps and hitherto unpublished data in the possession of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. They

/

Introduction-

are believed to be more nearly accurate than any others which have yet appeared. The author wishes to renew his acknowledgment of indebtedness to officers of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey and the U. S. Geological Survey. He is more than ever under obligation to Mr. John F. Pratt, of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, whose chapter entitled "Characteristics of Our Northwestern Possessions" has contributed greatly to the success of the book, and whose counsel has been of peculiar value in the preparation of the new edition. He wishes also to express his thanks to Prof. Otis T. Mason, of the Smithsonian Institution, the distinguished authority on ethnology; tc Mr. O.H.Tittmann, assistant in charge of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey; to Mr. Marcus Baker, of the Geological Survey, and to Mr. Harold B. Goodrich, one of the associates of Mr. Spurr in the Geological Survey expedition of 1896, w*ho has been kind enough to make valuable suggestions. To Mr. J. Harry Cunningham, of Washington, is due much of the artistic excellence and accuracy of the maps and illustrations.

Washington, D. C, September, 1897.

Contents.

New Lands of Gold 7

Klondike and the Yukon Diggings 22

Seeking the Pot of Gold 37

Life in Camp 63

Mining Experts and Scientists 78

Placer Mining and Hydraulics. 94

Alaska no

Quartz Mining in Southeastern Alaska 132

The Wonderful Yukon Country 144

Mineral Resources 168

Gold Production of the World 182

Our Northwestern Possessions 185

Laws Governing the Location of Claims 194

Climate of Alaska 208

Opening up the Country 214

Traits of the Native Population 233

A Bit of History 243

The Boundary Dispute 247

Klondike

Chapter I.

New Lands Of Gold.

On Wednesday, July '14th, 1897, the little steamer Excelsior arrived in the harbor of San Francisco with forty miners on board, each one of whom had brought with him from the icebound interior of Alaska a fortune in gold. From that day may be said to date the Klondike gold craze which already rivals in extent the three other great gold crazes of the century, California in 1849, Australia in 1851 and South Africa in 1890. Already the amcmnt known to have been brought back by the returning miners exceeds $4,000,000, and nearly $3,000,000 more is said to be on the way. It is estimated by some experts that before the full returns come in it will be

8 Klondike.

found the total output of the Alaskan mines has been $8,000,000. California yielded $60,000,000 five years after Marshall's discovery, and all from place diggings, as are the diggings in the Klondike region; but the facilities for mining in California, with its salubrious climate, its comparative nearness to civilization, its all-year-round conveniences, were infinitely superior to the facilities in the Yukon Basin, where winter lasts for- three-quarters of the year, where the thermometer drops to 75 degrees below zefo in the

winter and climbs to 120 degrees above zero in the summer, and where the nearness of the Arctic circle practically divides the year into one long day and one long night, each extending over a period of six months.

When millions of gold can be taken out in a single year nder all these disadvantages of climate by laborers working with the most primitive implements of mining life it is difficult to conceive of the opulence of a soil whose grudging tribute to the energy of the modern argonaut is so fabulous in extent.

These forty men who came down on the Excelsior from the port of St. Michael, near the m9Uth of the Yukon, had among them over half

New Lands Of Gold. 9

a million dollars in gold dust, ranging in size from a hazel nut to fine bird shot and kernels of sand. All of them were penniless, or nearly so, when they left the United States, some of them having taken their departure within a year,, others having been prospecting on the fields alongthebranchesofthe Upper Yukonfor several years. They brought back fortunes ranging from $5000 to $90,000 and the most extraordinary tales of their experience in the mining countries. Their descriptions of thd vast amounts of gold still remaining in the regions from which, they had come were so tempered with cautions and warnings against a mad rush for the new fields that tales which otherwise might have been deemed improbable gained- credence t4irough their very conservatism. But whatever might be thought of the tales, there was no disputing the tangible fact of the yellow metal which was laid down in the Selby smelting works, San Francisco, and when a second ship, .the Portland, from St. Michael, arrived at Seattle, three days later, with more miners aboard and $700,000 in bullion, it was as if a spark had set afire the enthusiasm for liuriting gold which had been lying dormant since the days of the Argonauts of 1849. There

10

have been few scenes in mining history more striking than that which was enacted when the men landed from the Excelsior, weather beaten, roughly dressed, with scraggly beards and fur- ' rowed cheeks, and marching straight to the smelting works, proceeded to produce bags of gold, dirty and worn, containing thousands dollars in the precious metal.

As fast as the bags were weighed they were ripped open with a knife and the contents were allowed to scatter over the counter; and then some of the miners produced from bundles and coat pockets gold dust in all sorts of queer receptacles, such as fruit jars and jelly tumblers, and even writing paper, carefully secured with twine. No wonder the spectators looked on with fascinated amazement. No wonder the strange news spread like wildfire. The gold fever of 1897 had begun to burn.

These miners brought the news that the new Eldorado was situated on the Klondike River, nearly two thousand miles from the mouth of the Yukon, just escaping the Arctic circle by a bare 150 miles, and situated in Canadian territory, a meagre 60 miles east of the 141st degree

of longitude, which constitutes the boundary between Alaska and British America.

New Lands Of Gold. 11

They told, too, of the terrible hardship through which they had gone in order to reach these marvelous gold fields and uncover their hidden wealth. Joseph Ladue, who left Plattsburg, N. Y., a few years ago, an impecunious farm hand, too poor to marry the woman of his choice, described how he had forced his way into the new diggings, established the city of Dawson, which is the metropolis of the gold region, and come back with thousands of dollars in hand and millions in prospect. 15ut his most emphatic words were words of warning against those who would rush madly to the new field without considering the hardships they would have to undergo. Starvation and want, he said, would be the lot of those who ventured into the new Eldorado without a supply of provisions sufficient to last for months, and he said that those who ventured to leave for the North as late as August i were wasting their time, besides subjecting themselves to needless peril, for by the time tiiey had traversed the long stretch of inhospitable country they would find winter setting in with Arctic vigor and they would be shut up in an ice-bound region hundreds of miles from telegraph or postoffice, a prey, to starvation and cold.

12 Klondike.

Dawson City, which had sprung up in an Arctic night, was situated, they said, near the junction of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, had a population when the miners left of 3,500, was laid out on modern lines with sixty-foot avenues and fifty-foot streets and had all the ambitious scope of a bonanza town with a few score log cabins and innumerable tents.

While the voyagers on the Excelsior were still telling their n?marvelous stories in San Francisco fuel was added to the fire by the arrival at Seattle of the steamer Portland, also straight from St. Michael, with sixty miners aboard and over $700,000 in gold. The excitement aroused by the arrival of the Portland surpassed even that of the earlier arrival, and it had hardly touched the wharf before hundreds of men in Seattle were crowding over one another to get an opportunity to board her for her return trip to the mouth of the Yukon.

These miners had been hunting for gold in the Yukon country for years. Some of them had found it in generous quantities lying in the streams and in the beds of creeks flowing into the Yukon just west of the spot where the river crosses the boundary between Alaska and Brit-

New Lands Of Gold. 13

ish America — along Forty-mile Creek, Sixtymile Creek and Birch Creek. They would have continued digging along, these creeks for months longer content with the moderate but certain retumsi. of 'their labors bad it not been for the sudden discovery on the Klondike pouring into the Yukon over on the British side, of gold nuggets so large and handily found that, carried away with the news, they pulled up stakes and abandoned in a day the claims upon which they had been toiling for months. Circle City, the largest camp in the Yukon district, was deserted over night, and Dawson City, at the junction of the Klondike and the Yukon, sprang into being in a day. This was a year ago, at the beginning of the short summer season. The gold the returning miners brought to San Francisco and Seattle was the product of one season's pickings. They worked the Klondike and the banks of two creeks flowing into it, which they called appropriately the Eldorado and the Bonanza, until winter shut in- on them, and for nine

months orf the cheerless Arctic season they kept up the search for gold, until the breaking up of the ice in the following June gave them their first chance to escape back home with their

U Klondike.

treasure. They had been shut out from the world for nine months as completely as if they had been dead. They did not even know the result of the election for President. They were strangers in their own country.

What is believed to be the richest gold strike the world has ever known was made on Bonanza Creek, a branch of the Klondike River, in August, 1896. A miner named George W. Cormack has received the credit for the discovery. Some say that Cormack only followed the lead pointed out to "him by others, but there seems to be no doubt about his having been the first to take advantage of rumors and locate a claim. William Ogilvie, the Canadian land surveyor, suggests that the discovery was due to reports of Indians. Cormack had an Indian wife, and he had for partners his brotlier-in->law, Tagish Charley, and another Indian. Ogilvie says he set about working his claim late in August. He was short of appliances and could put together only a defective apparatus to wash the gravel with. The gravel itself he "had to carry in a box on his back from thirty to one hundred feet. Notwithstanding this, the three men, working very irregularly, washed out $1200 in eight days. "Cormack asserts with rea-

New Lands Of Gold 15

son," says Ogilvie, *'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 throug'h defective apparatus."

In his report of November 6, 1896, to the Canadian Government Ogilvie says that on Bonanza Creek two men rocked out $75 in about four hours, and he speaks of two men on the same creek who were said to have taken out $4000 in two days with only two lengths of sluice boxes. In the same report Mr. Ogilvie says:

"A branch of Bonanza, named Eldorado, has prospected magnificently, and another branch, named Tilly Creek, has prospected well; m all there are some four or five branches to Bonanza Which have given good prospects. There are about 170 claims staked on the main creek, and the branches are good for about as many more, aggregating say 350 claims, which will require over 1000 men to work properly.

"A few miles further up Bear Creek enters Thron-Diuck (Klondike), and it has been prospected and located on. About twelve miles above the mouth Gold-bottom Creek joins Thron- Diuck, and on it and a branch named Hunker

16 Klondike.

Creek very rich ground has been found. One man showed me $22.75 he took out in a few hours on Hunker Creek with a gold oan, prospecting his claim on the surface, taking a handful hre and there as fancy suggested. On Gald-bottom Creek and branches there will probably be 200 or 300 claims. The Indians have reported another creek much farther up, which they call "Too Much Gold Creek," on which the gold is so plentiful that as the miners say in joke you have to mix gravel with it to sluice it."

"From all this we may, I think, infer that we have here a district which will give 1000 claims oi 500 feet in Hengtlh each. Now, 1000 such claims will require at least 3000 men to work them properly, and, as wages for working in the mines are from $8 to $10 a day, without board, we have every reason to assume that this part of our territory will in a year or two contain 10,000 souls at least. And this is not all, for a large creek, called Indian Creek, joins the Yukon about midway between Thron-Diuck and Stewart Rivers, and all along this creek good pay dirt has been found. All that has stood in the way of working it heretofore has been the scarcity of provisions and the difficulty of getting them up there. Indian Creek

New Lands Of Gold. 11

is qviite a large stream, and it is probable it will yield five or six hundred claims."

Nearly, a year after Ogilvie wrote thus, word came that a strike had been made on one of the tributaries of Indian Creek, which rivalled, if it did not excel, the Klondike find. Sulphur Creek is the scene of this last excitement. It is a branch of Dominion Creek, which is in turn a branch of Indian Creek and early, in the summer of 1897- gold was found just below the surface here which was said to run $34 to the pan. Men took out $300 in a day* simply by prospecting their claims. The reports reached Dawson City August 15, 1897, and within a week 500 men had crossed the mountains between Eldorado and Dominion. They traveled day and night and in two weeks the w'hole stream was staked out.

There are persistent reports of extraordinary findings along the Stewart River, which empties into the Yukon more than one hundred miles nearer its source than the Klondike . It is declared by some that the headwaters of the Stewart

will be found far richer in coarse gold than any other spot which has been prospected.

On December 9, 1896, Mr. Ogilvie reports officially:

18 Klondike.

"Since my last the pr6spects on Bonanza Creek and tributaries are increasing in richness and extent, until now it is certain that millions 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 washed a single pan of dirt on one of the claims on the Bonanza and found $14 in it. Of course, that may be an excep-tionally rich pan, but $5 to $7 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 five hundred feet long; nearly $4,000,000 at $5 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 $2 per pan and width not less than thirty feet. Enough prospecting has been done to show that there ar 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."

This is striking testimony. But the evidence is cumulative. In his verv latest utterance made

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New Lands Of Gold. 19

since his return from the Yukon in September, 1897, Mr. Ogilvie reiterates his former predictions and emphasizes them. Ogilvie is as hardheaded a pioneer as ever tramped over a new country, and 'he apparently has never thought of turning aside from his official duties to chase the glimmer of gold; but his latest estimate is that at the rate the Klondike claims are now producing, and considering ground still to be worked, they will aggregate about $70,000,000 in the next three years.

He remarks in his undemonstrative way: "I will select thirty claitns on Eldorado Creek and win allow the owners $1,000,000 each and take Wfhat is over for myself and consider that I have an A No. i stake." Ogilvie says that when he left in June ride-hill claims located on Eldorado, Hunker and Bonanza Creeks were in some instances prospecting as high as $6 to $8 a pan. "All the miners," he says, "concede that dirt with five cents in every shovelful, when it is three feet and upward deep, is rich, but on Bonanza and Eldorado when a man found only cents he was somew'hat indignant. Unless he found $1 in every pan at least he was dissatisfied, and sma'Il wonder, for his neighbors were panning from $5, $10, $15

20 Klondike.

to $30 and $40 to the pan and often into the hundreds."

Ogilvie also tel'ls of some of the most recent rich strikes. He says: "On April 16 George Cormack, acting for Tagish Charlev sold one-half of a claim below Bonanza for $5000, one-tenth down, the balance to be paid on July i, or forfeit the money and claim. Passing Cormack's on July I, I called to see him and found the purchaser paying the balance of $4500. When the business was finished I asked the purchaser how he had succeeded.

'Oh/ he said, 'pretty well.' I asked him if he had any objections to telling me what he did do. 'No,' he said; 'I drifted twenty-four feet long by fourteen feet wide and cleared up $8000.' I said to him : 'Now, I know the area of your claim, and assuming that your claim is all equally rich, we will see how much you will take out of it.'

"The problem was very simple. Given the length and width, these multiplied together gives us the area in square feet. Divide this by result of multiplying twenty-four by fourteen, multiply the quotient by 8000, and the result in this case is the sum of $2,400,000. He said: 'My God, what will I do with all that monev? 'Don't

New Lands Of Gold. 21

worry,' I said, 'you will not be troubled to that extent. It is hardCy possible that your claim will average anything like that in richness. Assuming it will average one-quarter of that, you will still have $600,000/ "

One of the striking features of the gold finds along the Yukon is the number of big nuggets which have come to light. The largest yet reported is declared to be worth $583.25. It was found on Eldorado Creek by a miner named Kutzon.

The largest found along the Yukon prior to 1897 was taken out by one Conrad Dahl from Franklyn gulch March 26, 1894. It weighed exactly thirty ounces before being melted at the mint in San Francisco, and twenty-nine and forty-five one-hundredths ounces afterwards. It brought $491.45. This on the authority of Miner W. Bruce in his book on Alaska. Nuggets have been taken from Bonanza Creek worth. $250 and $231, respectively. A miner named Clements found the smaller of these. The same miner took out four pans in succession, averaging $500 each, according to the report, one of them going; as high as $775.

23 Klondike.

Ever since the arrival of the Excelsior on July 14, steamers have been putting in at San Francisco, Seattle and Takoma at frequent intervals with g-old on board. Up to September 20 the Director of the Mint had been notified of the deposit of $%oooooo in the mints at San Francisco and Helena. Not all the gold finds its way immediately to the mints. It is safe to estimate that between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 had been brought down the middle of September.

Chapter Ii.

The Klondike And The Yukon

Diggings.

The richest yields of gold in the Yukon region have come from the territory embraced by the 138th and 145th degrees of longitude and the 62d and 66th degrees of latitude, between th upper ramparts on the East — steep bluffs frowning on a picturesque bend in the river, and Fort Yukon on the west. The greatest extent of gold-

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 23

bearing territory thus far explored is the American side of the 141st degree of longitude, which is the accepted boundary line. The most sensational discoveries have been on the British side, about 60 miles to the east of the line.

On the American side gold has been found in liberal quantities along a number of creeks. Forty Mile creek, Sixty Mile creek and Birch creek having been developed in the order named. Forty Mile Post, Fort Cudahy and Circle City are the distributing points for these diggings, and Circle City is the most important of these mining camps. On the British side, the Klondike River and the Eldorado and Bonanza Creeks, tributary to it near its junction with the Yukon, have proved the miners* paradise. There is a group of creeks very near the boundar} tributary to Sixty-mile Creek, which have contributed most generously to the gold supply. Ogilvie, the Canadian surveyor, has placed these on his map east the boundary and in Canadian territory, but there are some who dispute the accuracy of this survey.

Miller Creek, up to ine time of the discovery of Klondike, was credited with the richest diggings along the Yukon in proportion to their

24 Klondike.

extent. Over $300,000 was taken out last season. The creek is only six miles long, but fifty-four claims were staked out on it. The creek is surrounded at short distances by Poker, Davis, Glacier and Little Gold Creeks, all running into Sixty-mile Creek.

M'Unook creek runs into the Tanana, near its junction with the Yukon. It is the farthest \vest of all the diggings. Rich pay has been found there, and miners have been pouring in of late.

The Klondike river enters the Yukon from the east at a bend about 200 miles east of Circle City, and fifty miles north of Sixty-mile Creek. From Sixty-mile Creek the course of the Yukon is due north to the Klondike and then it starts again toward the west. The copper vein of Ogilvie and Wilson crosses the Yukon just at this point and the Indians have had a fishing camp there for years, the Klondike having been noted for its salmon. Its waters are clear and shallow, as befits it source up along the snow-capped ranges.

"Klondike" is a corruption of the Indian name.

M'r. Ogilvie,, the Canadian surveyor}, says It

should be Thron-Diuck,and that is the form given

in Canadian official reports. At the United

States Coast and Geodetic Survev it is said the

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 26

word ought really to be spelled "Tlondak," which is Indian for **fishing grounds," and that is the name given to the stream which has now become synonymous with Eldorado in maps which were made in 1887 by Mr. McGrath, Coast Survey official detailed at that time to explore a country which was then quite unknown. McGrath very nearly starved to death on the very spot whence millions of dollars in yellow metal have been taken during the last twelve months, and he never suspected the presence at that immediate place of the precious metal. But that is another story.

Miners have been taking out gold since 1886 from the placer diggings on the American side of the line. The earliest diggings were at Forty Mile Creek, about sixty miles east of the Klondike, and then came discoveries at Sixty Mile Creek, a little farther south, and at Birch Creek, a good deal farther west. Of these diggings those along Birch Creek have been the most profitable, and the camp of Circle City, which was founded in the fall of 1894, was for a time a place of considerable importance. It was the distributing point for the whole region and was, in a measure, the metropolis of the Yukon Val-

26 Klondike.

ley. Now it has been eclipsed, for a time, at any rate, by the new settlement at Dawson City. Circle City has the great advantage, however, of being on American soil, for whatever the present temporary tendency, it is believed by those who have studied the country most closely that the American side of the 141st parallel of longitude, which constitutes the Alaskan boundary, will eventually prove the richest and most profitable portion of the gold-bearing territory. Over 500 men wintered at Circle City last year. The town, which is situated near the head waters of the Yukon, about 170 miles from Forty Mile Creek, is laid off in streets, with the main street facing the river, and it is so near to Birch Creek that a portage of six miles brings it to the banks of Birch Creek, two hundred miles from the mouth, and thus in a position to bring the gold dust taken out of this great American gold-bearing basin to the navigable waters of the Yukon. The gold diggings on American soil which have been prospected extend from the 141st to the T46th degree of longitude. The Klondike region is just to the west of the 141st degree, Dawson City being situated at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon, about sixty miles to the west

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 27

The experts of the Coast and Geological Surveys who have explored the country to some extent estimate that the gold-yielding territory extends over at least five hundred miles and that the richest portion of it is on American soil. The Cassiar Mountain region, as far east as the 130th degree of longitude on the northern border of British Columbia, has been worked with a good deal of success for the last eleven years, although the yield now seems to be falling off. The gold in this region comes from the same mother lode as that at Klondike, at Sixty Mile Creek, at Forty Mile Creek and at Birch Creek. Scientists believe it is from the same mother lode as the gold from the Sierras, and they even go so far as to assert that the gold mines of the Ural Mountains in Siberia go back to the same origin. In other words, the whole country of two continents, from the Ural Mountains to the Rockies, is impregnated with a mineral which is apparently exhaustless in extent and which will suffice to keep the world supplied with gold for ages to come.

Nobody seems to know just when gold was 'irst discovered in the Yukon Basin, for no two niners can be found to agree on the subject. It

28 ' Klondike.

seems to be certain that none was ever found there before i860, although it is said that some of the Hudson Bay Company's men ran on to gold at about that time. But if they did the discovery was never followed up, and they are hardly entitled to the credit. It does not appear that tlie Russians, during their ownership and occupation of the country, ever instituted any thorough search for the precious metals. It is true that gold was discovered by Doroshin on the Kenai Peninsula in 1848, and that he afterwards, in 1850-51, made further explorations of the same neighborhood, but it has always been charged that the Russian-American Company, regarding, as it did, any effort to develop the mineral resources of the country as in the highest degree inimical to the business in which it was wholly engaged and of which it held an exclusive monopoly, induced him, by the payment of a consideration, to suppress the truth in regard to what he may really have discovered. There is a tradition, too, among old Russian residents that a Russian engineer sent out by the Imperial Government to examine and report on the mineral resources of the country, made some rich discoveries on Taranoff Island, which he reported in Sitka,

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 29

whereupon, being of convivial habits, he was taken in charge by the governor, who was also the company's manager, by whom he was wined and dined and his appetite for drink ministered to until he sank into a drunkard's grave, and was thus prevented from making any report of his discoveries to the Imperial Government. Doroshin did, however, report finding gold on the Kaknu River, which empties into Cook's Inlet, though it appears that his explorations were wholly confined to an examination of the alluvial sands of the streams and gulches in that neighborhood. To the fact that the Russian-American Company, like the Hudson Bay and American Fur Companies, believed that its interests would be jeopardized by the bringing to light of any natural resources which would invite immigration, and thus tend to the early settlement and development of the country, is no doubt due the further fact that nothing was publicly known before the transfer of the existence in Alaska of gold and silver in paying quantities.

So far as is known, the first genuine prospector in the Yukon region was one George Holt, who is declared to have been the first white man to cross the coast range for that purpose. About

30 Klondike.

all that is known of Holt is that he made his journey in 1878, but nobody seems to know what path he followed or whether he took tlit trail over the Chilkoot or White Pass. It is known only that he descended the chain of lakes above the Chilkoot Pass, which have since been traversed by so many other seekers after gold, that he followed the Indian trail to the Hootalinqua River and that he returned the same way in the fall. The Hootalinqua River region, which he penetrated, is about two hundred and fifty miles to the southwest of the Klondike. Holt reported that he found coarse gold near there, but no coarse gold has been discovered in that region since, although flour gold has been yielded up from the bars of the river. In any event. Holt did not find encouragement enough to continue his exploration. The next that is known is the expedition of Edward Bean, who started out from Sitka in 1880 at the head of a prospecting party. There were twenty-five men in the company. They crossed Chilkoot Pass to Lake Lindemann, built boats and descended the Lewis River as far as the Hootalinqua. Their success amounted to the finding of gold in a small stream fifteen miles above the canon yield-

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 81

ing $2.'i5 per day. This was not a discovery calculated to encourage further attempts, but about this time many other small parties began to force their way through the Chilkoot Pass farther and farther up the lakes and the rivers. All of them found gold in greater or less quantities. The first party to discover gold in really paying q-uantities in the Yukon Basin consisted of four miners, who crossed the range in 1881 and descended the Lewis River as far as the Big Salmon River, ascending that stream for over two hundred miles and finding gold on all its bars. The Cassiar Bar was not located until 1886, and up until a comparatively recent time this was the richest of all the bars prospected near the Yukon or any of its tributaries. It was in the same year that coarse gold was found on Forty Mile Creek on American soil several hundred miles down the river. This discovery drew off all the miners who had been digging in the upper river country on Canadian territory. The bars at Forty Mile Creek were worked for some years at a good profit, but they have now been abandoned owing to the discovery of coarse gold more easily accessible in the gulches. Forty Mile Creek, which will always be of interest from the fact that it

82 Klondike.

was the scene of the first touch of gold excitement in Alaska, owes its name to the fact that it enters the Yukon about forty miles from Old Fort Reliance. It is about two hundred and fifty miles long and has many tributaries, all of which carry gold in paying quantities. Sixty Mile Creek enters the Yukon River from the southwest and about seventy miles above the mouth of the Stewart. It has given up excellent yields of gold, and about loo miners have wintered year of late at a trading post and a saw mill which have been established on one of its islands Birch Creek was not prospected until 1893, and then only just enough to show that the countrywas rich with gold. In the season of 1894 nearly one h-undred men prospected this country and staked off their claims. It was found that bedrock was much nearer the surface than in the Forty Mile Creek district, and the claims yielded very good returns. They drew many men away from the Forty Mile Creek mine.

The mining of these regions is still in its infancy, although it has been going on in more or less desultory fashion for the last fifteen years, and only a few of the most accessible streams have ever been prospected. All the larger rivers

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 88

of the upper country furnish flour gold which increases in coarseness as the rivers are ascended, and from this it is argued that the aunrounding gulches in many places must furnish exceedingly rich diggings. The territory cut by these streams has never been explored even suexcept as it may have been explored in the last year by miners hunting for gold, and yet it is almost unlimited in extent. A hundred thousand men could be hunting gold in the Yukon Basin at the same time without ever crossing one another's tracks and each would be lost to the world.

Running nearly parallel with the great bend of the Yukon, and forming the divide between the streams flowing into that river from various directions is a low range of mountains set down on the map as the Ketchumstock hills. Forty-mile and Sixty-mile Creeks flow eastwardly from these hills into the Yukon, Birch Creek toward the north, and the Tanana river turns to the west. All these streams have yielded p-old in paying quantities, and some of them have yielded richly. The streams running into the Tanana on the west side of the Ketchumstock hills have not yet been explored, but lower down, along the banks of the

84 Klondike.

Tanana itself, gold has been found and the bars have been worked. Five years ago rich discoveries were made on the Koyukuk river, which flows into the Yukon from the north about loo miles below the mouth of the Tanana, after running almost parallel with the Yukon from a source nearly due north from Fort Yukon. A number of creeks near the source of the Koyukuk have been prospected with fairly good results, and parties have been formed recently to se& out gold in this most northern region.

Ogilvie says there are not less than 1400 miles of stream in the Canadian part of the district, upon all of which gold has been found. It is believed that these figures will be exceeded on the American side of the boundary when it is explored with anything like the thoroughness that has characterized the labors of Messrs. Ogilvie and Dawson. As soon as the army of gold hunters now marching northward begins to scatter in search of undeveloped fields it is beheved that this part of the country will give a good account of itself. Prof. John Mnir, who was one of the earliest of Alaskan travelers, a scientist, who discovered the famous Miiir glacier and who has written fascinatingly of the splendid scenery of

Klondike And Yukon Diggings. 36

the country, has declared that hundreds of placers as rich as the Klondike await discovery. He says that as great discoveries will be made on one side of the boundary as the other. "In California," he says, "th*e gold is all on the western slopes; in Southern Oregon the field varies and broadens out again, and in Northern Oregon or Washington and British Columbia it is the same. But it reaches its greatest extent in Alaska and the northwestern territory."

Prof. Muir's predictions harmonize with those of other observers, and they go to bear out the opinion expressed by Mr. Pratt in his chapter on "Characteristics of Our Northwestern Possessions." Indeed there are signs already that they will be verified by actual results before long. The Copper River does not belong to the Yukon system, but it takes its rise in the region of the Ketchumstock hills, not far from the sources of Tanana. For years the Copper River Indians have been supplied with gold dust which they used in trade with the whites, and there have been stories of nuggets of gold brought down to the mouth of the river by the natives. Allowance may be made for Ihe imagination of travelers, but there seems to be little doubt that gold

36 Klondike.

is to be found along Copper River in paying quantities. Some even predict that the findings there will be more sensational than any that have yet been made. James R. Thompson, who went up to the Yukon diggings in 1894, and came out by way o'f the Copper River with three companions, reports that the Indians were excessively cautious and evidently anxious to get them out of the country, and that the reason for this appeared when he saw some of those who accompanied his party deUver stealthily to their chief on arrival at one of the villages a quantity of coarse nuggets of gold. There are those who believe that the lode to which all the placer deposits along the numberless branches of the Yukon are supposed to ewe their origin will yet be discovered near fhe headquarters of the Copper.

Mr. C. E. Spurr, in his report of the Geological Survey expedition of 1896 through the Yukon country, says:

"The Yukon districts lie in a broad belt of gold-producing rocks, having a considerable width and extending in a general east and west direction for several hundred miles. Throughout this belt occur quartz veins which carry gold, but so far as yet found out, the ore is of low

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 37

grade, and a large proportion of the veins have been so broken by movements in the rocks that they can not be followed. For this reason, the mines in the bed rock can not be worked, except on a large scale with improved machinery, and even such operations are impossible until the general conditions of che country in reference to transportation and supplies are improved."

Still, it is believed that the real wealth of this wonderful country will eventually be found in the veins.

Chapter Iii.

Seeking The Pot Of Gold.

The first requirement for one seeking the gold fields is a hardy constitution; the second is capital. For the Yukon is not, as some other gold countries have been, a poor man's paradise. Gold is there in Aladdin-like profusion, but it is not to be had for the asking. It comes only as

38 Klondike.

the fruit of wearisome and perilous travel, of desperate combat with the rigors of an Arctic climate, of deadly waiting for Arctic winters to unloose their icy hands. For the privilege of a few months of toil the prospecting miner must endure many months of unremunerative delay, during which he must pay extortionately for the mere privilege of living. For the season of plaeer mining lasts only during June, July and August.

Before beginning even to hunt for gold the aspiring miner must prepare himself for the long and tedious trip to the fields, and this is a task that will tax the endurance and nerve of the most hardy. It means, according to one who has made the trip, ''packing provisions over pathless mountains, towing a heavy boat against a five to an eight-mile current, over battered boulders, digging in the bottomless frost, sleeping where night overtakes, fighting gnats and mosquitoes by the millions, shooting seething canyons and rapids and enduring for seven long months a relentless cold which never rises above zero and frequently falls to 80 below.''

Any man who is physically able to endure all Vus. who will go to the gold fields for a few

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 39

years, can, by strict attention to business, make a good strike, with the possibilities of a fortune.

But he must have money to start with. All who have been to the gold fields agree in saying that no man should undertake the journey with less than $400 in capital. And he had better have $1000. The expense of reaching the mines is considerable. One hundred and fifty dollars is a modest figure for the journey from Seattle, and when once in the gold region the expense of living is enormous. The prices of even the most ordinary provisions are fabulous, and the companies doing business there refuse to give credit, as they can sell all their goods and more for ready cash. Provisions are almost unobtainable at any price. An officer of the U. S. Geological Survey, who has traveled through this country, has assured the author of this book that if he were looking for certain profit and had the necessary capital he would never think of hunting for old, but would invest everything in provisions and groceries, which would yield enormous profits should they be got into the Yukon region.

If the traveler contemplates the overland trip 'ms outfit should be bought in Juneau, the metropolis of Southeastern Alaska, the last out-

40 Klondike.

post of civilization in the path of the voyager for gold. The needs of the traveler can be gauged there better than anywhere else, nearer the centre of population and wealth. Experienced men have found that the provisions a man ought to lav by before starting on the overland journey from Juneau make a formidable list. The articles required for one man for one month are somewhat as follows:

Twenty pounds of flour, with baking powder.

12 pounds of bacon.

6 pounds of beans.

5 pounds of dried fruits.

3 pounds of dessicated vegetables.

4 pounds of butter.

5 pounds of sugar. 4 cans of milk.

1 pound of tea.

3 pounds of coffee.

2 pounds of salt.

Five pounds of corn meal.

Pepper.

Matches.

Mustard.

Cooking utensils and dishes.

Fryin.q- pan.

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 41

Water kettle.

Tent.

Yukon stove.

Two pairs good blankets.

One rubber blanket.

Bean

Two plates.

Drinking cup.

Tea pot.

Knife and fork

Large cooking pan.

Small cooking pan.

These are simply for sustenance. In addition the traveler will find it necessary to build his own boat with which to thread the chain of lakes and rivers leading to the gold basin. He will need the following tools :

Jack plane.

Whip saw.

Hand saw.

Rip saw.

Draw knife.

Ax

Hatchet.

Pocket rule.

Six pounds of assorted nails.

42 Klondike.

Three pounds of oakum.

Five pounds of pitch.

Five pounds of five-eighths rope.

He will also find that he must have some protection against the deadly assaults of gnats and mosquitos, which fill the air throughout Alaska; that he will have to be provided for mountain climbing and for protection against snow blindness, whch is one of the most demoralizing afflictions that can befall the traveler over the snowcovered passes. So he will need:

Mosquito netting. One pair scrag-proof hip boots.

Snow glasses.

Medicines.

These are the provisions necessary for a miner for a single month, and whether he will need more for his journey depends somewhat upon the manner in which he travels. In the first place nobody should undertake to travel alone. The trip should be made in parties of two or more, which will conduce to safety and also lightness of the individual's load. It is possible for parties to attend to their own transportation over the divide between Juneau and the lakes. I- that case they should start before the first of

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 48

April so as to catch the snows and ice. They can use sleighs over the summit of Chilkoot Pass and along the lakes down to the place of junction with the river. By the time the river is reached the ice will have begun to break away and the rest of the journey can be managed by boat. By this arrangement the gold fields can be reached four weeks earlier than by waiting for the opening of the summer season before starting froiji Juneau. Should the start be deferred till after April 30, Indians will have to be employed to do the packing across the pass. The Indians charge $14 per hundred for this service, and each is accustomed to carry about a hundred weight.

Before making a start the wise traveler will consider the cost of living in the diggings and provide himself accordingly. Following are a few of the average prices of provisions and articles of common use:

Cost of shirts $5-00

Boots, per pair 10.00

Rubber boots, per pair 25.00

Caribou hams, each 40.00

Flour, per fifty pounds 20.0c

Beef, per pound (fresh) 50

44 Klondike.

Bacon, per pound 75

Coffee, per pound i.oo

Sugar, per pound 50

Eggs, per dozen 2.00

Condensed milk, per can i.oo

Live dogs, per pound 2.00

Picks, each IS-OO

Shovels, each i5-00

Wages, per day 15.00

Lumber, per 1000 feet 150.00

When the miners left Dawson City the following prices were in vogue:

Flour, per 100 lbs $12.00

Moose ham, per lb i.oo

Caribou meat, per lb 65

Beans, per lb 10

Rice, per lb 25

Sugar, per lb 25

Bacon, per lb 40

Butter, per roll 1. 50

Eggs, per dozen 1.50

Better eggs, per dozen 2.00

Salmon, each $1 to 1.50

Potatoes, per lb 25

Turnips, per lb 15

Tea, per lb i.oo

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 45

Coffee, per lb 50

Dried fruits, per lb 35

Canned fruits .50

Canned meats 75

Lemons, each 20

Oranges, each 50

Tobacco, per lb 1.50

Liquors, per drink 50

Shovels 2.50

Picks 5.00

Coal oil, per gallon i.oo

Overalls 1.50

Underwear, per suit $5 to 7.50

Shoes 5.00

Rubber boots $10 to 15.00

The tourist from the Atlantic seaboard will find in the following table information concerning the expenses of travel according to his means and inclination:

Fare from New York to Seattle, Takoma or San Francisco, $81.50.

Fee for Pullman sleeper, $20.50.

Fee for tourist sleeper, run only west of St. Paul, $5.

Meals served in dining car for entire trip, $16.

Meals are served at stations along the route a la carte.

46 Klondike.

Distance from New York to Seattle, 3290 miles.

Days required to make the journey, about six.

Fare for steamer from Seattle to Juneau, including cabin and meals, $32 cabin; $17 steerage.

Days, Seattle to Juneau, about five.

Number of miles from Seattle to Juneau, 725.

Cost of living in Juneau, about $3 a day.

Distance up Lynn Canal to Dyea, steamboat, 75 miles.

Number of days New York to Dyea, twelve.

Cost of complete outfit for overland journey, about $150.

Cost provisions for one year, $200.

Cost of dogs, sled and outfit, about $150.

Steamer leaves Seattle once a week.

Best time to start is early in the spring.

Total cost of trip New York to Klondike, about $667.

Number of days required for journey. New York to Klondike, thirty-six to forty.

Total distance, Juneau to the mines at Klondike, 650 miles.

Having settled the question of expense, the next thing is to select a route. The routes that go into Klondike are two. The most expensive

Hydraulic Monitors at work on Bed Rock.

Treadwdl Mines, Poulaa UUuOi.

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 4;

is by steamer from Seattle to St. Michael, a distance of 2500 miles, and then by river boat up the Yukon, 1700 miles to Dawson City. By this route it takes thirty-five or forty days, and the fare is $180. The steamers permit only 150 pounds of baggage for each passenger. The two steamers that leave before the river is closed by ice this fall cannot carry more than 150 passengers each. This route is the more expensive, and some think the more comfortable.

The second route is overland from Juneau, and is the most perilous, the most subject to hardships and consequently the most fascinating fortune-hunting journey that could be imagined. Steamers run from Seattle to Juneau, which is the metropolis of Alaska, and thence a small steamer transports the seeker after gold up Lynn Canal and Chilkoot Inlet to Dyea, sometimes called Taiya, which has just been made a port of entry by Secretary Gage for the benefit of the incoming horde of miners. The distance is 650 miles. Dyea is just at the head of the northernmost branch of Chilkoot Inlet, which is itself a branch of Lynn Canal, the extreme northern limit of navigation, and is one hundred miles due north of Juneau. At Dyea the overland jour-

48 Klondike.

ney begins. The outfit, which for the long period of isolation in the interior is no small affair, is packed on sleds and hauled for twenty-seven miles over the mountains and over the deadly Chilkoot Pass to Lake Lindeman, the first of the series of lakes reaching up into the interior. This passage of twenty-seven miles is the most difficult part of the whole journey. It would be bad enough if it were made without baggage. A good traveler, in prime condition, unhampered by an elaborate outfit, can make the summit of Chilkoot Pass from Dyea in twelve hours. Mr. Pratt, of the United States Coast Survey, who was in Alaska on the boundary commission several years ago, left Dyea with a companion at 9 o'clock one morning and reached the summit of Chilkoot Pass at 9 o'clock the same night. But that was a case of moving light infantry. Ordinarily it will take a miner at least two days to make the difficult ascent with a portion of his outfit, and sometimes it is necessary for him to go back to the starting point for the rest of his outfit, for it is to be borne in mind that transportation companies have not yet secured a charter to do business in Chilkoot Pass. Thus it is that at least six days might be used up in getting over

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 49

the short distance from salt water to fresh. Sometimes it takes even longer than that. The only assistance that can be obtained is that of the Indians, who can be hired to carry outfits over the divide at an expense of $14 for every hundred pounds. This is done in the absence of snow, which precludes sledding. With the present rush to the gold fields the natives will receive large profits. The overland trip involves a climb of 3500 feet to the summit of Chilkoot Pass, and it is one of the most impressively picturesque journeys that can be imagined. The landscape is resplendent with glaciers, the ice sparkles like jewels in the Alaskan sun, the mountains rise in the distance on every side, and it is all impressive beyond the power of description. Beyond this the trip is exhausting, though necessarily not so dangerous as in the pass, for there are times when sudden snows come to fill in the pass without warning, and there are few who have survived such an encounter with the elements as this. But with Lake Lindeman a new feature of the journey presents itself. Those who make the journey in summer will find the ice out of the lakes, Ixit if an early start were to be made they would be able to cross Lake Lindeman or the other lakes of the

60 Klondike.

chain on foot or else by means of ice boats temporarily constructed. The ice breaks up in the lake about the first of May, and then it becomes necessary for the travelers to stop and build boats. Until the last year it was necessary lor every miner to carry a whip saw with him with which to cut the timber for his craft, and whipsawing was one of the picturesque, although not especially inviting, incidents of the trip. But a saw mill has recently been constructed. The only timber used in the construction of boats on the lakes is spr-uce or Norway pine. In the first place, the timber has to be located, and this is not the easiest thing in the world, because the timber around the lake is nearly all burned off, and there is none suitable for boat building. After the timber has been located comes the construction of a saw pit. To construct a saw pit it is necessary to find trees so arranged as to support cross-pieces, the stumps being cut at a proper distance from the ground so as to take the notched cross-pieces in. This requires four trees about equi-distant from one another, and the cross-pieces have to be fixed very firmly in place so as not to slip, a.> the log which is to be sawed is likely otherwise to be the cause of an accident. Often a good

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 51

woodsman will be able to fell the tree which is to be sawed in such a way that it will fall into the pit, which saves the time and trouble of skidding the log up and rolling it in place after felling, which is frequently a very difficult task. From the slabs and boards thus roughly made the flatboats are constructed, upon which the miners traverse the chain of lakes extending north from Chilkoot Pass. Lake Lindeman is some six miles long, with an average width of one mile, and is cleared to navigation usually after May 15th, although sometimes not before June loth. Connecting with it is Lake Bennett, which is twentysix miles long, with an average breadth of one mile; and then comes Tagish Lake. Lake Bennett is surrounded by high mountains, which rise abruptly on either side, making it exceedingly difficult to find a landing place. It is rather perilous for rafts and boats on account of the strong winds which sweep up from the south through Chilkoot Pass, Lake Bennett acting as a funnel for that norrow passage. The winds are always in the south and are caused by the hot air of the inland valleys, supplemented by the cooler air of the coast, rushing inland over the low passes and down the lakes. As Lake Bennett is only

52 Klondike.

five miles wide at its broadest place, and at many points is much less than a mile, the air is forced over it between the high ridges of mountains at a tremendous rate. Some of the mountains reach a height of 8000 feet. The climate is dry, and what little rain falls consists of an occasional thunder shower. The air is cool and bracing from the snow-capped peai.s, which temper the warmth of a down-pouring sun.

Lake Bennett is connected with Lake Tagish by a very crooked and shallow channel with a slight current known as Caribou Crossing, from the fact that it was used by the bands of barren land caribou in their migrations in the fall and spring. Tagish Lake is an irregular body of water with two arms, known as Windy Arm and Taku Arm, stretching off to the south and southeast. Taku Arm is really a larger body of water than that particular portion known as Tagish Lake, biit Tagish Lake acquires its importance from being directly in line of travel between Lake Lindeman and Lake Bennett on the south and Lake Marsh on the north. Tagish Lake is connected with Lake Marsh by a broad river with slow current, lined with wooded slopes and plenty of Cottonwood and white spruce. The river is

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 53

about five miles long, and on it is situated the Tagish House, where yearly festivals and councils of war are held by the natives, the buildings being the only permanent structures in hundreds of miles above where the Pelly and Lewis Rivers join to make' the Yukon.

Lake Marsh, which is next entered, stretches along at a width of two miles for a distance of twenty, the most notable feature of all these lakes being their narrowness as compared with their length. Lake Marsh is in the middle of a broad valley, from which high ranges of mountains stand out prominently at a considerable distance. Its banks, like the banks of the other lakes, are well wooded. From Lake Marsh the seeker for gold finds his way into Lewis River, which he follows for a distance of nearly five hundred miles to the northwest until he reaches the gold fields around the Klondike Basin, lliis journey along Lewis River, with its canons and rapids, is one of the most picturesque and interesting that can possibly be imagined. One of the features of the trip is the high cut banks which stretch along for mile after mile and which are completely honeycombed by martins, which resort thereto rear their young. Lake Marsh is the limit for

64 Klondike.

the migration of the salmon, which arrive there in small numbers, although those who do brave the journey are said to be the finest to be found anywhere in the world, averaging forty pounds in weight. The swift waters of the Grand Canon are too powerful ever for the salmon whose hardihood brings them as far up the river as this.

The Grand Canyon, or "Miles" Canyon is marvelously beautiful. It is cut through a horizontal basalt bed, and the walls range in height from fifty to one hundred and twenty feet, being worn into all sorts of fantastic shapes. The average width of the canon is about one hundred feet, and as the average width of the river above it is over seven hundred feet, the force with which this great volume of water cuts through the steep ledges of rock may be imagined. Mr. Wilson, who made this trip in 1894 and who has described it at length in his "Guide to the Yukon Gold Field," says that he shot through the canon for a distance of three-quarters of a mile in two minutes and twenty seconds, and when his boat emerged from the chasm it was leaking badly and nearly every nail was started. Two miles beyond come the White Horse Rapids, which form a perilous passage even for the best of

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 55

boats, and farther down comes Lake Labarge, at a distance of about fifty miles from Lake Marsh. Lake Labarge is thirty-one miles long, with an average width of five miles, and is very windy. It is the last of the remarkable series of lakes beginning with Lake Lindeman in the south. And here attention should be drawn to the singular conformation of the country which makes the springs no farther distant than thirty miles from , tidewater on the south find their outlet in the great system of rivers which pour their waters through the Yukon into Bering Sea thousands of miles away.

The Hootalinqua River enters the Lewis twenty-eight miles below Lake Labarge and has acquired an interest apart from its size owing to the fact that it was the limit of the journey of the earliest prospector for gold in this region. Thirty-one miles farther down is the Big Salmon, and thirty-five miles still farther comes the Little Salmon, both of which are great streams for fishing, many Indians spending the summer months on the larger river preparing their winter salmon. After proceeding eighty miles farther the argonauts come to old Fort Selkirk, at the junction of the Pelly and Lewis Rivers,

56 Klondike.

where there is a trading post. This is the farthest point to which the shallow boats which ply the Yukon reach, and the P. B. Weare, which will be a familiar name no doubt to those miners hereafter who endeavor to reach the gold fields by the water route, has been accustomed to winter. Ninety-six miles farther down the White River, whicli is described as the most wonderful of all the great system, enters the Yukon from the west. The volume of water is vast; it is muddy in color, and the current flows at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour. It discharges itself into the Yukon with such force that the roar can be heard for a long distance, and it muddies the larger river until the waters of the two can hardly be distinguished. The White River comes from a glacier region and is supposed to flow over volcanic deposits, but the meagreness of the information which exists in regard to this whole interior country appears in the fact that little more than has been said is known about one of the largest and most remarkable streams in the territory of the United States. Ten miles farther down the Yukon receives the waters of the Stewart River, along which rich finds of gold have recently been made. It is a quartz forma-

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 57

tion and the rock assays $300. Seventy miles farther Sixty Mile Creek joins the swelling stream and fifty miles beyond Sixty Mile Creek the Klondike River enters from the east. The' Yukon between the Klondike River on the east, and where Sixty Mile Creek enters it on the west, runs almost directly north and south. The geld discoveries on Sixty Mile Creek have been far to the west on the American side of the boundary, while the discoveries on the Klondike River have been to the east and altogether on Canadian soil. Continuing down the river from Klondike the traveler would come to Forty Mile Creek, which awhile ago was the centre of such gold mining excitement as there was, but for the present at any rate no seeker after wealth will venture a step beyond the Klondike region. The reports of miners coming from the gold fields all agree that the placer diggings along Forty Mile Creek, Sixty Mile Creek and Birch Creek have been abandoned for the more spectacular, sensational findings on the Klondike River.

that Circle City is occupied by only a stray miner or two, and that Forty Mile Post, which in 1895 boasted ten saloons, two restaurants, three billiard halls, two dance houses, an opera house, a

58 Klondike.

cigar factory, a barber shop, two bakeries, several breweries and distilleries and a store, is nuw a deserted camp.

This desertion of Forty Mile Post and of Circle City, which is one hundred and seventy-live miles farther down the river, is believed by mining experts to be temporary, for the fields which feed them are practically exhaustless, although they have been abandoned now for diggings which will yield speedier returns.

But for the present the traveler may be safely left at Klondike, which was his original destination, having spent seven weeks in traversing the 650 miles between Lynn Canal and Dawson (xity, with dangerous and exciting experience, through swift and treacherous currents, log jams, ilo.iting ice and debris, whirl pools and rapids and dark canons full of unknown difficulties. The quickest time which can be made under existing conditions between Juneau and Dawson City is about a month.

Those who wish to take the route bv wav of St. Michael can board the steamer at San francisco or Seattle, travel twenty-five hundred miles St. Michael, which is the Alaskan seaport near the mouth of the Yukon River, then travel on

Seeking The Pot Of Gold. 59

the little river steamer 1895 miles clear acro-s American territory and well into British Columbia. This trip takes about thirty days and the traveler is subject to tedious delays caused by ice jams and sand bars, so that by the time he reaches the gold field he is hardly in condition to take advantage of his opportunities. The period during which the Yukon River is navigable is so short that some think it hardly pays to attempt the journey in this way, ah hough hundreds have essayed the trip in the first flush of the gold excitement. The ice does not break up at the mouth of the river earlier than the first of June and by the time the traveler reaches the fields and locates his claim winter is almost ready to set in and he is obliged to exist as best he can through the bitter cold of Arctic days. So it is that the majority of prospectors v/ill continue to avail themselves of the overland trip from Juneau which has been described in detail.

A new route to the Klondike will be opened next spring. It is overland from Juneau to Fort Selkirk, on the Yukon, and is entirely by land. Captain Goodall, of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, inspected it this summer and reported it practicable. It is about 700 miles long, and it

60 Klondike.

crosses the divide over Cliilkat Pass, which is about fifty-five miles to the west of Chilkoot Pass. No lakes or rivers are on the route, but the trail runs over a high, level prairie. Old Pioneer Dalton, after whcni the trail is named, has driven many bands of sheep over it to the diggings. White Pass seems to be destined to be a popular trail as soon as it is in working order. It is entered by way of the Skaguay River, about four niiles below Dyea Inlet and leads direct to Tagish Lake.

One who is now at the Klondike diggings writes from there of his journey overland as follows :

"We arrived here from Dyea after seventy days of the hardest travel I ever experienced. We bad all our provisions in cache at Chi'loot Pass. We loaded everything on three sleds and turned them loose down the three-mile declivity. Thev landed all safe at the bottom on the Yukon side.

"Then we followed, winging and tumbling after. We crossed Lake Lindeman on the ice all riht at the foot of the mountains, and got safely to tlic head of Lake Bennett. ]>y this time the weather was getting warmer and the snow meltincf. The snow crust on the lake would support

62 Klcl1Ke.

which requires four days' hard work to get over, while to shoot the canon only takes two and one-half minutes.

soon as the boat entered the canon she seemed to shiver and then plunged head foremost into the first waves, and about a half barrel of water came over the bow. Then she straightened out and rode through the rapids without shipping a drop more water. We continued down the river to Lake Labarge, thirtyfive miles. There our boat riding ended for the present, the lake being still frozen solid. It is thirty miles long. The ice was smooth as glass, so we rigged up two sails on the boat (which we had deposited on two sleds).

days later we once more launched into the friendly Yukon and floated calmly down the river to Klondike, a distance of four hundred miles from the last lake, in eight days."

There is talk already of building a railroad into the gold diggings, and the Canadian Government has been asked to help. An appropriation of $5000 was passed by the present Parliament to send surveyors into the field.

Two routes are suggested — one from a point on the Canadian Pacific, the other from Dyea.

Life In Camp. 68

It is said that neither offers serious difficulties from an engineering point of view. From Dyea only eighty miles of road would have to be built, the rest of the route being to the mines by means of the lakes and rivers. This road would abolish the peril of the Chilkoot Pass. The other route is 500 miles long and entirely within the jurisdiction of the Dominion of Canada, while the Dyea route would have its terminus in the soil of the United States. The dav mav not be far distant when the Alaskan country will be traversed by rail from the Canadian Pacific to Bering Straits. American enterprise may run a road all along the coast from Seattle to Asia.

Chapter Iv.

Life In Camp.

A mining camp is always a spot of intense human interest. It is the breaking of the frontier — the first contact of civilization with the wilderness — and it brings into play all the rough elemental qualities of the human animal. The Yukon minmg camps have been little worlds by

64 Klondike.

themselves, isolated and ice-bound, and they have been rich in incident, thcmgh from all accounts they seem to have lacked the easy indifference to the sanctity of human life which characterized the earlier mining camps of California and Colorado. Forty Mile Post, for example, has been described as a characteristic gold town in every way but one. It boasts the company stores, an opera house, a barber shop, two bakeries, two restaurants, three billiard parlors, two terpsichorean resorts, several distilleries and ten saloons. Its exceptional feature is the utter absence of that lawlessness and disorder always looked for in frontier places. This same peaceful state of affairs obtains throughout the country. Law there is none, except miner's law, that stern, Draconian code, wliich decrees the extreme penalty for the least offense. The fact that there has never been a lynching or shooting affray there is testimony of the efficiency of self-government, where the consent of the governed has been secured.

It is not unlikely that some part of the general obedience is due to the liberality with which the moral obligation is constr-ued. The Yukon Decalogue contains rather less than ten command-

Life In Camp. 66

ments. Thou shalt not avoid thy just debts: thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's claim, nor his sluiceboxes, nor his cabin, nor his mission squaw, nor anything that is his, make up the prohibited list.

One can hang a sack of gold dust outside of his cabin and it is perfectly safe. One saloonkeeper has $160,000 in gold in a little shack and he never locks his door.

A returning traveler says the only reminder of law and vested authority that he saw on the entire journey down the Yukon was at Forty Mile, or, to speak more precisely, at Fort Cudahy, which is across the bend of the river a mile or two away from the former place. There was a low stockade and a flagpole with the union jack flying.

There is a detachment of twenty-five Canadian mounted police stationed here and a magistrate, ind the whole machinery of the law as applied to territories is in operation. They have very little to do in maintaining order, and the police may be pardoned for assuming a little commission on the side, as it were, in going over the line into American territory to put . MessrSo Van Wagenen

66 Klondike.

and Hestwood in possession of their mine, which was. held by indignant miners. The poHce are a well-equiped and well-drilled body of men, armed with Lee-Metford rifles. As cavalry or mounted police they are out of their element, as it is impracticable to use horses here.

It is now proposed by the United States Government to establish an army post in the neighborhood of the diggings, with headquarters probably at Circle City. The troops will act as police.

There is a marked difference between the attitude of the two governments toward their pioneers. Four-fifths of the men in the interior are Americans, and more than two-thirds of the whole number have been in American territory. On the British side, with one-fourth the interest at stake, the Canadians have a picked and athletic body of men ready to respond in any emergency. Should disaster befall any man or body of men within the Dominion's jurisdiction, these police would hasten to the rescue as rapidly as it is within human power to do, and without any question as to w hether or not the unfortunates were citizens.

Over the line, in Alaska, in a stretch of country where two or three New Englands might be

Life In Camp. 67

thrown in at random without touching, the dignity of the United States is upheld by one man, a customs officer, whose duties partake of those of a tax collector and a detective combined. The only- solicitude expressed is in the way of collecting taxes. Recently a United States postmaster has been added to the official life, but nat-urally he has nothing to do except handle mail. A United States commissioner is the latest promised acquisition, although he has not yet put in a formal appearance.

The most prevalent trouble is scurvy, which results from scarcity of vegetables and fresh meats. A diet of beans, salt pork and bad bacon brings trouble. Fresh meat is always scarce. Moose and caribou have been killed off and the chase would not supply a fraction of the population. There are graylings and other fish in the Yukon and they can be hooked through the ice, but few will stand out in the middle of a river at 60 degrees below zero and with time worth $15 a day. Last winter a quarter of beef was sledded into Circle City with dogs. It was viewed with wonder at the store for a while and then raffled off for $400 for the benefit of a projected miners' hospital. This spring an enterprisin

g

G8 Klondike.

Juneau man drove forty head of cattle in from the coast — 800 miles — and beef went at 50 and then at 70 cents a pound. If anybody gets sick there are patent medicines in the stores, and four or five doctors who diagnose a patient's claim before presenting the bill.

Winter in the Yukon Basin is not altogether an unbearable season. The thermometer often falls to 70 and even 80 degrees below zero, but there is neither wind nor moisture, and the extreme cold is not then realized. When working out of doors a miner wears a thermometer as he wears a watch. He consults it every now and then for prudence's sake, and when the mercury freezes he knows that it is time to go in.

Most miners adopt the native dress of skin trousers and parka. The best of these shirt-like garments are brought over from Siberia, and find ready sale at $25.

There are two kinds of boots, the water boot, made of seal and walrus skins, and the dry weather or winter boot, made in all sorts of fashions, some with picturesque fur trimming. The boots as a rule are the handiwork of the coast Indians. They range in price from $2 to $5 a pair. Trousers are made of Siberian fawn skin and the skin

Life In Camp. 69

of the marmot or ground squirrel. The parka or upper garment is usually made of marmot skins and trimmed with wolverine around the hood and lower edge. These parkas are sometimes very elaborate, with hair six inches in length hanging from the hood to protect the face, or made of fawn skins and trimmed with the fur of the white wolf. These elaborate parkas are usually worn by the women and differ in shape somewhat from those worn by the men. They are sometimes beautifully embroidered with colored skins and ornamented with otter's fur and dyed feather, and they have been known to cost as high as $ioo apiece. Flannels are worn underneath and the dress is described by those who have worn it as weighing less than the ordinary clothes of a country where the thermometer only falls to zero.

Women who have drifted in from the coast received an odd rebuke from Captain Constantine, of the Territorial police. The women naturally put on bloomers in coming over the mountains, and when they got on the other side they continued to wear bloomers altogetlicr. Bloomers were more than Captain Constantinc would stand, and he gave orders that if the bloomer? did not ro the wearers would.

70 Klondike.

Help is scarce. Indians who cannot speak either Enghsh or Chinook receive $60 per month and all the tobacco they can use. These are willing to help, but with the judgment of children. Every white man that will act as boss of a gang is pressed into service.

Gold dust and nuggets take the place of currency in the diggings and throughout the Yukon Basin. There is little money in circulation. Every man carries a pair of gold scales, and people learn to make change as quickly as with coin. A hair cut costs 75 cents in gold dust, a glass of whisky 50 cents, and d-uring the winter season, when the thermometer ranges between zero and 70 degrees below, whisky is sometimes sold in solid blocks. The estabHshed value of gold is $15.50 per ounce. Nuggets of one and two ounces are bv no means uncommon.

The principal sport with mining men is found around the gambling table. There they gathi?r after nightfall and play until the late hours in the morning. They have some big games, too. It sometimes costs as much as fifty dollars to draw a card. A game with $2000 as stakes is an ordinary event. But with all that there has not been any decided trouble. If a man is fuss

Life In Camp. 71

and quarrelsome, he is quietly told to get out of the game, and that is the end of it.

Drinks are 50 cents, and returned miners say that when they left some of the saloons were taking in $1000 to $2000 a day.

Whisky will be plentiful hereafter, even if food is not. One trader has secured a permit to send in 2000 gallons of liquor.

The Alaska Commercial Company and the Northwestern Transportation and Trading Company have each received permission to ship across the border 5000 gallons.

Many people have an idea that Dawson City is completely isolated and can communicate with the outside world only once in twelve months. That is a mistake. Circle City, only 200 miles away, has a mail once each month, and there the Dawson City men have their mail addressed. It is true the cost is pretty high, one dollar a letter and two dollars for a paper; yet by that expenditure of money they are able to keep in direct communication with their friends on the outside.

The camp is at present without any public institutions, but by next season they will have a church, a music hall, a school house and a hospital. This last institution will be under the di-

72 Klondike.

rect control of the Sisters of Mercy, who have already been stationed for a long time at Circle City and Forty Mile Camp. Nearly a score of children were in Dawson City when the last party left, and Joseph Ladue, who owns the town site, donated a lot and one hundred dollars for a school. No one can buy anything on credit in Dawson. It is spot cash for every one, and pay ment is always gold dust. Very few have any regular money.

The niosquito is an almost intolerable pest. In the Vukon region he is so small that the finest netting cannot keep him out, but his voracity is seemingly boundless.

During the summer this pest gives the population no rest. The deepest canon and the loftiest ir.ountain top, the open ground or the thickest forest being equally infested. The only relief, if it can be called relief, is when the winds blow the insects to less windy altitudes; but it is not an every day occurrence for the wind to blow. Lieutenant Schwatka, in his account of his trip to Alaska, says that bears under stress of hunger sometimes come down to the river in mosquito season and are attacked by swarms of insects, which sting them about the eyes so that they go bHnd and die of starvation.

Life In Camp. 73

Late reports from Dawson are of a kind to make those even with the stoutest hearts turn back from their quest for gold and await a more propitious time. The town is running on short rations, and with the incoming horde of miners there is fear of famine before the opening of traffic permits the importation of new supplies. There are now in Dawson and in its immediate neighborhood dependent upon the town for supplies over 5000 men, and others are coming in along the overland route. The supplies for the winter, on September i, were sufficient only for 2500 men, and the Alaska Commercial Company and the North American Transportation and Trading Company were not in position to carry food for more than 2000 others up the river. Just how the population of Dawson is going to live through the winter is not clear. It is expected that the scarcity of food in Dawson will compel many miners to seek the old fields farther down the river at Circte City and Forty Mile, which have been deserted of late, but which contain supplies.

It is characteristic of all the Yukon diggings that in spite of the privation which miners have been called on to endure there has been the utmost forbearance and generosity among them.

74 Klondike.

Men on short allowance have not hesitated to share their little with others who were worse off. In spite of all reports, and in spite of many cases of destitution, it appears that such a thing as starvation has not been known. Suffering there has been and privation, but the hardy men who have cast their lot in the forbidding country have shown the best instincts of their race, and in the midst of their struggle for gold have turned aside to help their less fortunate neighbors. How it will be with new adventurers pressing their way in to forage on the limited suppHes remains to be seen. Not until February can stuff be freighted over from Dyea, Juneau and other points down along the southern coast. Prices for food and other supplies were almost beyond belief last winter. Flour was $120 a hundred weight at one time, and beef from $1 to $2 a pound. Moose hams sold for about $30, or $2 a pound. Ordinary shovels for digging brought $17 and $t8 apiece. A few crates of eggs were brought in about March i by pack horses, and these sold readily for $3 to $5 a dozen. They were not fresh bv anv means.

Wages, hovever, were proportional: $2 per hour were common wages and even in the summer a man can command $1.50 per hour.

Life In Camp. 76

A new arrival at Dawson City, writing to his brother, says:

"This is a great camp, and a conservative estimate of its richness sounds Hke exaggeration. I have been here now twelve days and cannot get a hold of anything. I cannot even buy a foot of ground in the town, not to mention the diggings, values are so extremely high. Every foot of ground in this district is claimed, and there are hundreds of prospectors in the adjacent country looking for other rich ground. The gravel must be very rich in gold or nobody wants it. From the amount of gold dust and nuggets I have seen in Klondike, and the mad hunt for it, the district must be all they claim for it."

The mines of the Yukon are of a class by themselves, and it is necessary to follow new methods for getting the gold. To begin with, the ground is frozen. From the roots of the moss, which is often a foot thick, to the greatest depth that ever has been reached the ground is as hard as a bone. The gold is found in a certain drift of gravel, which lies at varying depths, often as far down as twenty feet. Only that portion of the gravel just above hard pan — by whih

76 Klondike.

is usually meant clay — carries gold in any quantity, and in favored localities this particular gravel is extraordinarily rich.

As in nearly all placer mines, the low pla?.?s of what has formerly been the bed of the creek are the richest, the deposits decreasing toward the outer edges.

The size of a claim is fixed by agreement among the miners of any particular locality. Tt is a section of the creek of a certain length — sometimes 200 feet, sometimes 500 — and it extends from rim to rim in width. The reason of this variableness in the size of the claims on the (lifTerent creeks is that on some a greater length is required to make them worth a man's while to work them. The paying deposits may be scattered so a man could make wages only by working here and there over a large territory. Of course, the conditions surrounding the first discovery made on a creek are the basis for fixing the size of a claim on that stream. The discoverer of a new field is allowed two claims, while all others are permitted to take but one at a time, liowever, when a locater has worked out his assessment of a few days' work he is at liberty to take another. When a sulc'ent number of men

Life In Camp. 77

arrive on a new creek to make it impracticable to work together in harmony without organization, they hold a meeting and elect one of their number as a register or clerk, and thereafter a record is made of all locations and all transfers, for which a small fee is charged.

In prospecting the usual method is followed, i. e., sinking holes to bed rock across the stream and testing the dirt until the pay streak is found.

Having located his claim, the miner scrapes off as much moss as he can, and, turning a stream of water on to the frozen ground, gradually thaws, scrapes and digs his ditch. The gold lies at bed rock, fifteen to twenty feet below the surface. A drainage ditch must then be dug, a dam built and sluice boxes placed.

Winter mining has been experimented with to some extent. Work cannot be started until the cold weather is settled beyond the possibility of a surface thaw, nor can it be continued beyond the first promise of spring. A fire is built and kept burning until the ground beneath is thawed to bed rock, after which the drift is removed, leaving a hole several feet wide. By banking the fires against the side of the hole every night and removing the soft earth next morning, a

78 Klondike.

tunnel is formed. A foot and a half a day is as much as the greatest industry can accomplish, but that amounts to 150 feet in the season. The pay dirt is piled up and is not washed until ihe following spring.

Chapter V.

Mining Experts And Scientists.

Professor N. S. Shaler, who is perhaps the best living American authority on geology, has been telling his classes at Harvard for the last twenty years that the coming great discoveries of gold on this continent would be in Alaska. The possibilities for bonanza finds among the Sierras, he explained, had been narrowed to a point where there was little opportunity except to develop known veins, but in the great extension of the Rocky Mountain system to the North there doubtless lay the mother vein, which sooner or later would come to light.

Professor Shaler's prophecy, based on scientific deductions, has come true, and other scien-

Mining Experts And Scientists. 79

tists now agree with him that the Alaskan country contains limitless possibilities for the discovery of gold.

And not the scientists alone. So hard-headed a pioneer as John W. Mackay, the last and greatest of the bonanza kings, who went into the California gold fields and dug out a fabulous fortune, which has been growing ever since, expresses his belief in the reports of the marvelous richness of the newly-discovered fields.

*'I have no reason to doubt them," he says. "I have had great confidence in tne mining possibilities in British Columbia and Alaska — have always believed that those frozen, almost inaccessible regions contain heavy deposits of precious metals. Some enormous finds' of gold have undoubtedly been made there, and yet we know little or nothing of the possibilities of the country. Think of Williams' Creek, for instance, in the Caribou region in British Columbia. As long ago as i860 something like fifty millions of gold were taken out. It was placer mining there, just the same as the Klondike."

Mr. Mackay believes that in time modern mining methods will be carried up into the Yukon country, and that all parts of the country will be

80 Klondike.

opened. "Capital/' he says, "will always go where there is a chance for legitimate investment, and transportation facilities will increase as rapidly as the travelers/'

Mr. Mackay thinks the excitement over the discoveries may increase. "I see in it," he says, something like the excitement of the early fifties over the gold discoveries of the Pacific coast region. The reports of rich individual finds are likely to continue, and the arrival of every ship loaded with fortunate gold hunters will stimulate the imagination, hopes and desires of the would-be gold hunters. We hear nothing of the failures. One man who is lucky is more talked about than a thousand who fail."

Mr. Mackay says that his experience in California was that about one man in ten used to get on, and by "getting on" he means not becoming a millionaire, but making a living and a little more.

R. E. Preston, the Director of the United States Mint, has become convinced of the great possibilities in the Klondike region. While he thinks it is as yet too early to hail the Klondike as a new Eldorado, he says the history of gold production in Alaska hitherto would prepare

Mining Experts Anp Scientists. 81

the mind for the acceptance of a belief in the likelihood of further gold discoveries in that region or. its proximity.

The gold product of Alaska thus far," he says, has been remarkable rather for its regularity than its amount, and is therefore more favorable to the permanency of development of the mineral resources than if it were subject to violent fluctuation.

"Nature seems to have sprinkled Alaska and all Asiatic Russia with gold. The latter region sends annually over $25,000,000 to the mint at St. Petersburg. The production of gold there is such that the annual output of the Russian Empire would, it is claimed, exceed $50,000,000 were it not for the obstacles put in the way of human industry by an inclement climate and an inhospitable soil."

Dr. W. H. Dall, of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, who has for years been regarded as the highest authority on the Alaskan country and who is a geologist of note, says he has no doubt of the truth of the stories told of the richness of the Yukon soil.

"The gold-bearing belt of Northwestern America," he says, "contains all the gold fields

82 Klondike.

extending into British Columbia and what is known as the Northwest Territories and Alaska. The Yukon really runs along in that belt for 500 or 600 miles. The bed of the main river is in the valley. The yellow metal is not found in paying quantities in the main river, but in the small streams which cut through the mountains on either side. Mud and mineral matter are carried into the main river, while the gold is left on the rough bottom of these side streams. In most cases the gold lies at the bottom of thick gravel deposits. The gold is covered with frozen gravel in the winter. During the summer until the snow is all melted, the surface is covered with muddy torrents. When summer is over and the springs begin to freeze, the streams dry up. At the approach of winter, in order to get at the gold the miners find it necessary to dig into the gravel formation."

George Frederick Wright, professor of geology at Oberlin College, thinks that the "mother lode'' may be looked for successfully in Alaska. In his opinion it exists somewhere up the streams on which the placer mines are found. The source of the Klondike gold, he says, is from the south, and the gold was doubtless

Mining Experts And Scientists. 88

transported by glacier action. The Klondike region is on the north side of the St. Elias Alps, and the glaciers flowed both north and. south from these sumroits.

"Placer mines," says Professor Wright, "originate in the disintegration of gold-bearing quartz veins, or mass like that at Juneau. Under subaerial agencies these become dissolved. Then tlie glaciers transport the material as far as they go, when the floods of water carry it on still further. Gold, being heavier than the other materials associated with it, lodges in the crevices or in the rough places at the bottom of the streams. So to speak, nature has stamped and 'panned' the gravel first and prepared the way for man to finish the work. The amount of gold found in the placer mines is evidence not so much, perhaps, of a very rich vein as of the disintegration of a very large vein."

"What the prospectors have found points to more. The unexplored region is immense. The mountains to the south are young, havmg been elevated very much since the climax of the glacial period. With these discoveries and the success in introducing reindeer, Alaska bids fair to support a population eventually of several millions."

84 Klondike.

William Van Slooten, an eminent mining engineer and metallurgist, sees in the reports from the Klondike indications of a more extraordinary deposit of gold than that of California. He says:

"No such specifically large amounts of gold were taken out by individuals during any similar period of California gold hunting. Two months of work in the water has realized more than any six months heretofore known in the history of gold mining.

"We had long been aware that there was gold in tne Yukon basin, but the total output for the last ten years before the Klondike developments amounted to not more than a million dollars' worth at the utmost. Now, within two months, five millions have been taken out of the Klondike regions. It took the first eight months of work in California to pan out that amount under infinitely more favorable conditions of climate and weather. That is a straw worth noting."

The latest and therefore the most important official investigation of the gold fields is that conducted under the auspices of the U. S. Geological Srvey in 1896 by J. Edward -Spurr, accompanied" by H.B.Goodrich and F. C.Schrader.

a

Mining Experts And Scientists. .86

The expedition was sent out in accordance with an appropriation by Congress of $5000 for the investigation of the coal and gold resources of Alaska. A like appropriation for the year before resulted in the expedition headed by Dr. George F. Becker, which investigated the gold fields of Southern Alaska. Mr. Spurr's party crossed the Chilkoot Pass about the middle of June and passed down the Yukon in a small, roughly-built boat to the crossing of Forty-Mile Creek. A summary of his report was submitted to Congress by the director of the Geological Survey through the Secretary of the Interior February 2, 1897. Mr. Spurr's party and Dr. Becker's both took numerous photographs along the routes they traversed. It appears from Mr. Spurr's report that the gold belt is likely to be found running in a direction a little west of northwest.

"Running in a direction a little west of northwest through the territory examined is a broad, continuous belt of highly altered rocks. To the east this belt is known to be continuous for 100 miles or more in British territory. The rocks constituting this belt are mostly crystalline schists associated with marbles and sheared

86 Klondike.

quartzites, indicating a sedimentary origin for a large part of the series. In the upper part a few plant remains were found, which suggest that this portion is probably of Devonian age. These altered sedimentary rocks have been scattered by volcanic action, and they are pierced by many dikes of eruptive rock. Besides the minor volcanic disturbances, there have been others on a large scale, which have resulted in the formation of continuous ridges or mountain ranges. In this process of mountain building the sedimentary rocks have been subjected to such pressure and to such alteration from attendant forces that they have been squeezed into the condition of schist, and often partly or wholly crystallized, so that their original character has in some cases entirely disappeared. In summarizing, it may be said that the rocks of the gold belt of Alaska consist largely of sedimentary beds older than the Carboniferous period; that these beds have underp-one extensive alteration, and have been elevated into mountain ranges and cut through by a variety of igneous rocks.

"Throughout these altered rocks there are found veins of quartz often carrying pyrite and gold. It appears that these quartz veins were

Mining Experts And Scientists. 87

formed during the disturbance attending the uplift and alteration of the beds. Many of the veins have been cut, sheared and torn into fragments by the force that has transformed the sedimentary rocks into crystalline schist; but there are others, containing gold, silver and copper, that have not been very much disturbed or broken. These more continuous ore-bearing zones have not the character of ordinary quartz veins, although they contain much silica. Instead of the usual white quartz veins, the ore occurs in a sheared and altered zone of rock and gradually runs out on both sides. So far as yet known, these continuous zones of ore are of relatively low grade. Concerning the veins of white quartz first mentioned, it is certain that most of them which contain gold carry it only in small quantity, and yet some few are known to be very rich in places, and it is extremely probable that there are many in which the whole of the ore is of comparatively high grade.

quartz or vein mining of any kind has yet been attempted in the Yukon district, mainly on account of the difficulty with which supplies, machinery and labor can be obtained; yet it is certain that there is a vast quantity of gold in

88 Klondike.

these rocks, much of which could be profitably extracted under favorable conditions. The general character of the rocks and of the ore deposits is extremely like that of the gold-bearing formations along the southern coast of Alaska, in which the Treadwell and other mines are situated, and it is probable that the richness of the Yukon ocks is approximately equal to that of the coast belt. It may be added that the resources of the coast belt have been only partially explored.

"Besides the gold found in the rocks of the Yukon district there is reason to expect paying quantities of other minerals. Deposits of silverbearing lead have been found in a number of localities, and copper is also a constituent of many of the ores.

''Since the formation of the veins and other deposits of the rocks of the gold belt an enormous length of time has elapsed. During that time the forces of erosion have stripped off the overlying rocks and exposed the metalliferous veins at the surface for long periods, and the rocks of the gold belt, with the veins which they include, have crumbled and been carried away by the streams, to be deposited in widely different places

min:ng experts and scientists. 89

as gravels, or sands, or muds. As gold is the heaviest of all materials found in rock, it is concentrated in detritus which has been worked over by stream action; and the richness of the placers depends upon the available gold supply, the amount of available detritus, and the character of the streams which carry this detritus away. In Alaska the streams have been carrying away the gold from the metalliferous belt for a very long period, so that particles of the precious metal are found in nearly all parts of the Territory. It is only in the immediate vicinity of the gold-bearing belt, however, that the particles of gold are large and plentiful enough to repay working, under present conditions. Where a stream heads in the gold belt, the richest diggings are likely to be near its extreme upper part.

"In this upper part the current is so swift that the lighter material and the finer gold are carried away, leaving in many places a rich deposit of coarse gold overlain by coarse gravel, the pebbles being so large as to hinder rapid transportation by water. It is under such conditions that the diggings which are now being worked are found, with some unimportant exceptions. The

90 Klondike.

rich gulches of the Forty Mile district and of the Birch Creek district, as well as other fields of less importance, all head in the gold-bearing formation.

"A short distance below the heads of these gulches the stream valley broadens and the gravels contain finer gold more widely distributed. Along certain parts of the stream this finer gold is concentrated by favorable currents and is often profitably washed, this kind of deposit coming under the head of "bar diggings/* The gold in these more extensive gravels is often present in sufficient quantity to encourage the hope of successful extraction at some future time, when the work can be done more cheaply and with suitable machinery. The extent of these gravels which are of possible value is very great. As the field of observation is extended farther and farther from the gold-bearing belt, the gold occurs in finer and finer condition, until it is found only in extremely small flakes, so light that they can be carried long distances by the current.

"It may be stated, therefore, as a general rule, that the profitable gravels are found in the vicinity of the gold bearing rock.

"The gold-bearing belt forms a range of low

Mining Experts And Scientists. 91

mountains, and on the flanks of these mountains, to the northeast and to the southwest, He various younger rocks which range in age from Carboniferous to very recent Tertiary, and are made up mostly of conglomerates, sandstones and shales, with some volcanic material. These rocks were formed subsequent to the ore deposition, and therefore do not contain metalliferous veins. They have been partly derived, however, from detritus worn from the gold-bearing belt during the long period that it has been exposed to erosion, and some of them contain gold derived from the more ancient rocks and concentrated in the same way as is the gold in the present river gravels. In one or two places it is certain that tliese conglomerates are really fossil placers, and this source of supply may eventually turn out to be very important.

"In the younger rocks which overlie the goldbearing series there are beds of black, hard, glossy, very pure lignitic coal. An area of these coal-bearing strata lies very close to the goldbearing district, in the northern part of the region examined, and as the beds of coal are often of considerable thickness and the coal in some of them leaves very little ash and contains volatile

92 Klondike.

constituents in considerable amount, it is probable that the coal deposits will become an important factor in the development of the country. ''There were probably 2000 miners in the Yukon district during the past season, the larger number of whom were actually engaged in washing gold. Probably 1500 of them were working in American territory, although the migration from one district to another is so rapid that one year the larger part of the population may be in American territory and the next year in British. As a rule, however, the miners prefer the American side, on account of the difference in mining laws. These miners, with few exceptions, were engaged in gulch digging. The high price of provisions and other necessaries raises the price of ordinary labor in the mines to $10 per day, and therefore no mine which pays less than this to each man working can be even temporarily handled. Yet in spite of these difficulties there were probably taken out of the Yukon district the past season, mostly from American territory, approximately $1,000,000 worth of gold."

An overland route should be surveyed and 'constructed to the interior of Alaska. All the routes which can be suggested pass through

Mining Experts And Scientists. 98

British territory, and the co-operation of the two governments would be mutually beneficial, since the gold belt lies partly in American and partly in British possessions. At the present time Mr. Spurr thinks that the best route lies from Junea:i by way of the Chilkat Pass overland to the Yukon at the junction with the Pelly. This trail is the Dalton trail which has already been described, and it is said to open up a good grazing country and no great obstacles to overcome. The Chilkat Pass is considerably lower than the Chilkoot, over which the Geological Survey party of 1896 passed. If a wagon road, or even a good horse trail, could be built as indicated, the cost of provisions and other supplies would be greatly reduced, many gravels now useless could be profitably worked, and employment would be afforded for many men. With the greater development of placer diggings would come the development of mines in the bed rock. Besides the coal which has been alluded to there is abundant timber throughout the whole of the interior of Alaska, along the valleys of the Yukon. For four or five months in the summer the climate is hardly to be distinguished from that of the northern United States — Min-

94 Klondike.

nesota or Montana, for example, and although the winters are very severe, the snowfall is not heavy. Work could be carried on underground throughout the whole of the year quite as well as in the higher mountains of Colorado.

The area hastily examined during the past season is but a portion of the great interior of Alaska. That gold occurs over a large extent of country has been determined, but the richness of the various veins and lodes remains to be ascertained by actual mining operations. Gold is known to occur in the great unexplored regions south of the Yukon, because of its presence in the wash of the streams, and it is quite probable that the Yukon gold belt extends to the north

and west; but this can be determined only bv further exploration.

Chapter Vi.

Placer Mining And Hydraulics.

There are four stages in the development of newly-discovered gold fields, such as those which have been brought to light in the Yukon Basin.

First come the men with crude outfits and few

Placer Mining And Hydraulics. 95

resources, who, with pan and pick, gather the gold that lies near the surface, washing out the grosser earths and leaving the precious metal by itself. This is placer mining in its simple form.

After the eold lying on the surface and most readily at hand has been exhausted a little more complicated process is called into play. This is conducted by groups or associations of miners who use **long Toms" and cradles.

Hydraulic mining is the third stage. In hydraulics water is brought from a long distance and applied to the pay dirt at great pressure in order to separate the gold from the dross.

Last of all comes quartz mining, or tearing the gold by main force out of its beds in the rock beneath and separating it by means of stamps and pestles.

In the Yukon region the process has not yet passed the first stage, and so rich are the finds there and so difficult the importation of machinery and supplies that it may be years before the last stages will become available, although the never-satiated thirst for gold, combined with modern enterprise and ingenuity, is likely to make even the frozen rocks of Alaska amenable to modem appliances.

96 Klondike. .

The history of placer mining is full of romance. It is as old as the world itself, if any reliance can be placed upon the traditions that have come down to us from prehistoric times. Gold dust and nuggets came in exchange to the Greeks from the barbarians of the north centuries before the birth of Christ, *and it has been surmised that the precious metal was taken out of the mines in Siberia and in the Ural Mountains, which still yield so generously. The first placer mining of which there is any record was carried on by digging the sand or gravel, mixing it thoroughly with water, and then pouring it over floating platforms covered with skins, in which the gold settled, while the lighter sand flowed off with the water. To this practice we doubtless owe the mythological story of the journey of Jason with his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece, it has been surmised, was simply the skin of the sheep which was used to catch these golden products of the placer miners. And it is significant that the voyage of the Argonauts was up the Black Sea or the Euxine into the very region of the Ural Mountain gold fields which have already been mentioned.

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In ancient times all gold was. obtained by washing, and it has been only within recent years that the more difficult process of digging and smelting gold-bearing quartz has been resorted to. The wealth of the Indies consisted in golden sand, which their rivers washed down from the gold-bearing mountains. So it was with Russia, Africa, Australia and California. All the earlier mining, of which the records are so many' and so fascinating, was done by placers in the old primitive manner. This was true especially of CaHfornia. Mr. Preston, the Director of the United States Mint, estimates that 75 per cent .of the gold production of the United States between 1849 "d 1865 was the result of placer mining. This would make a total of nearly $700,- 000,000 for the United States alone, to say nothing of the placers who are still at work in everdiminishing numbers as the ore becomes more difficult to find. Ore is still being washed out in almost all the gold districts. California, Russia and Alaska are examples in point. There is even a little placer mining in Colorado, which has been distinctively the home of quartz mining from the beginning. Mr. Preston estimates that between fifteen and twenty per cent, of the Cali-

fomian product is still the restilt of placer minings and gives other percentages as follows:

Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho, 12 per cent; Utah, 8 per cent; New Mexico, 6 per cent ; Colorado, i per cent.

The South African mines are almost entirely quartz deposits.

The beginning of placer mining in America may be said to date from the discovery by James W. Marshall of pieces of gold while digging a race for a saw mill at Coloma, California, January 19, 1848. The announcement of his discovery was the signal for an influx or argonauts, and those who first landed in California had for implements only the pick, shovel, rocker and wheelbarrow. This is about the outfit of a miner in the Klondike region to-day. It was only a few month's, however, before the necessities of the case compelled the introduction of what is known as the "Long Tom/' This is a rough trough ten or twelve feet in length, narrow at the top and wide at the lower end, set on an incline, with an iron plate on the bottom perforated so that the gold will drop through as it is washed along. The "Long Tom" is really a development of the rocker or cradle. The rocker is

Placer Mining And Hydraulics. 99

what its name implies. It has a hopper at one end, with a perforated bottom, and this stands over an incHned canvas stretcher. The gravel is thrown into the hopper, water is poured over it and the cradle is rocked. In this way the line sand and the gold fall through the holes on to the canvas; the gold sticks fast and the sand rolls away. The most primitive of all placer mining is the use of the pan, which consists simply in filling an ordinary pan with pay dirt, stirring it about very slowly and carefully, pouring water over the gravel at the same time, so as to wash away the lighter dirt and let the heavier gold sink to the bottom. The process is exceedingly slow, but in a region like the Klondike it is so full of striking possibilities as to be fascinating. One of those who have just returned from the Yukon describes how he found no less than a thousand dollars in gold dust at the bottom of one of these pans after washing away the dirt.

Placer mining, which depends so greatly upon the effect of water, would seem to be carried on under difficulties in the Yukon River Basin, where water is frozen solid during nearly seven months of the year, but the invention and industry of the Americans now on the field may be

100 Klondike.

depended upon to bring even these hard conditions under their control, and it may be even that the miners there will be using hydraulic methods before very long.

Hydraulic mining is essentially the result of American inventive genius. It is the perfect development of the early form of placer mining as illustrated in the cradle and the rocker, for it may be said that the rocker, which is the rudest and simplest of all machines employed in the separation of gold from gravel, embodies all the essential features of the elaborate machinery used in hydraulic mining. For instance, the cradle is an oblong box, about four feet in length, mounted on a pair of transverse rockers and furnished with a set of graded sieves laid in tiers, "riffles," amalgamated plates and blankets, for the separation and arrest of the gold in its descent from the hopper into which the gold-bearing gravel is placed, to the outlet at the lower end. These devices are all present in hydraulic mining, but they are so enlarged as to be hardly recognizable. Hydraulic mining may be said to have had its origin in the invention of the flume by a Connecticut Yankee named Mattison in California three years after the discovery of gold. The

Placer Mining And Hydraulics. 101

flume was a very simple thing, consisting of a trough to bring water down the hillside from a ditch over where the mine was opened. The first flume gave the water a head of about forty feet, discharging it into a barrel, from the bottom of which depended, a hose about six inches in diameter, made of common cowhide and ending in a tin tube about four feet long, which tapered to a point about an inch in diameter. With the head of water thus obtained, a stream turned dirt, washed off the lighter earth and gravel, while the coarser gravel was washed more carefully and thrown out with a sluice fork, the name of the stick used for that purpose. This flume was called a sluice. Later came the "ground sluice,*' which consisted m making the bed rock on which the pay dirt rested perform tne duty of sluices, while a stream of water, used for washing away the dirt, was constantly trained against the bank. This water had about the same effect as water in any stream rubbing constantly and ceaselessly against its own banks where they offer resistance to the current.

It can be easily seen how modern hydraulic mining grew out of these comparatively simple contrivances. For the cowhide hose, canvas and

102 Klondike.

then iron were substituted, and improvements have been constantly going on, until now it is estimated that $100,000,000 is invested in ditches, dams and tunnels in California alone. Water has been carried from almost incredible distances around apparently insurmountable obstacles so as to be brought into play for the washing of gold out of the gravel of arid diggings. In some instances from 250 to 300 miles of ditches and canals have been built at a cost of millions of dollars before water could be brought to play upon the gold-bearing dirt. Indeed it is an axiom among miners that the richness of the gravel is not so important as the abundance of water, for with water in sufficient quantities gravel containing even insignificant percentages of gold can be made to pay. and through the application of American inventiveness it has been found possible to wasli out the deep gravel deposits on the liigh banks of the canons of streams where gold lias been found. The beginning of this complete method of hydraulic mining is usually given as 1856. It was not until more than ten years alter this that hydraulic mining was revolutionized by the introduction of the "monitor" in place of the discharge pipe of earlier days. After iron began

Placer Mining And Hydraulics. 108

to be employed for the flumes the pipes were gradually enlarged and strengthened, until th:., measure now from fifteen to thirty inches in diameter, terminating in monitors, which discharge the streams of water against the rocks with such tremendous force as to toss about like pebbles rocks which are tons in weight. The hydraulic monitor in action resembles very much a piece of military or naval ordnance. It is united to the supply pipe at the breech with a water-tight socket joint, which enables the miner to direct the nozzle toward any point. In spite of the tremendous force which the hydraulic monitor represents it can be managed almost by a child through a simple and effective arrangement called the "deflector." The deflector consists of a sleeve of sheet iron working on an elbow joint over the nozzle. To this sleeve is riveted an iron handle four or five feet long, by means of which the deflector can be moved so that the lip shall impinge on a column of water emerging from the nozzle of the monitor. An almost imperceptible angle is thus formed in a column of water which slowly moves the monitor in the opposite direction, relieves the friction and straightens the line of discharge. With all this tremendous

104 Klondike.

force at work it is remarkable that modern hydraulic mining should have been carried to such a point of perfection that the amount of gold lost in washing is hardly worth taking account of, although in the old methods of placer mining it was estimated that from one-third to one-half of the fine gold was carried away in the debris. To illustrate the tremendous force of the water brought to bear upon the gold deposits through the hydraulic engines a correspondence, which was begim some years ago by Mr. Justice Field, of the Supreme Court, is of great interest. Justice Field's letter follows:

Washington, D. C, January 23, 1891. Hon. James G. Fair:

Dear Sir: — Last evening I dined at General Schofield's and met the President (Harrison), There were a number of distinguished people present besides the President, among whom were the Chief Justice, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (Mr. Reed), Senators Sherman, Stanford and McMillan, Secretary of the Treasury Windom and Mr. McKinley and Mr. Wheeler of the House. During the evening the conversation turned upon California and her wonderful products and mining operations. I took occasion

Placer Mining And Hydraulics. 105

to speak of hydraulic mining and the wonderful manner in which the hills were torn down by hydraulic machinery. I stated that I had understood you to say that such was the force of the water thrown through a hose when it came from one hundred to two hundred feet in height that boulders weighing half a ton could be moved by streams playing upon them and that the force was sometimes so great that it would be impossible to cut the stream. At this statement much surprise was manifested, and I thought that a smile of incredulity passed over the features of the guests. Seeing this, I said that I would prove the facts stated in a communication to them.

Now I write to you for the information desired. Please send me some carefully prepared statistics as to hydraulic mining, particularly as to the power exerted of a column of water thrown by such machinery, and as to how large boulders can be moved by the force of the stream and on the point whether it is true that the force of the stream is sometimes so great that it cannot be cut. I would be much obliged if you could give me full particulars in regard to these matters in a communication that I can use if necessary. I propose to send a letter to each one of the guests,

106 Klondike.

stating the facts, and thus remove the incredulity which they evinced when the statement was made by me. I want to show that it was only the result of want of experience in hydraulic mining, their situation being somewhat like that of the King of Siam, who was offended when an English visitor told him that in his country water became so hard that he could walk on it.

Please let me hear from it at your earliest convenience and believe me to be

Very sincerely yours,

Stephen J. Field.

In his reply to this petition ex-Senator Fair inclosed the following statements. The first is from Louis Glass:

'*At the Spring Valley Hydraulic Gold Mine in Cherokee, Butte county, California, our largest stream was through an 8-inch diameter nozzle under 311 vertical feet vertical pressure, delivered by about a half a mile of two and a half feet diameter iron pipe; and I have seen one of these streams at, say, twenty feet from nozzle, move a boulder weighing about two tons, in a sluggish way, and throw a rock of five hundred pounds as a man would a twenty-pound weight. No man that ever lived could strike a bar through one of

I'Lacer Mining And Hydraulics. 107

these streams within twenty feet of discharge, and a human being being struck by such a stream would be instantly killed, pounded into a shapeless mass.

verify this here is an estimate of power developed under similar circumstances:

"Say 8-inch diameter nozzle 300 feet head, delivered through iron pipe large enough to eliminate friction ; 300 feet head by 433 pounds by 50 (square of 8-inch diameter) equals 182,000 pounds aggregate pressure, or 91 tons; but by want of cohesion in the column of water after leaving the nozzle this great Torce is rapidly dissipated and at about 240 feet the momentum is lost."

The second statement is by Aug. J. Bowie:

"The water which in large hydraulic mines is used under a pressure varying from 200 to 500 feet, is discharged through machines styled 'giants' or 'monitors,' with nozzles from 4 to 9 inches in diameter. Leading up to these nozzles the supply pipe tapers and is lifted to keep the stream from twisting; hence the water as it issues is practically solid.

"A 6-inch nozzle under a 200 feet pressure will discharge 14 cubic feet of water a second, equal

108 Klondike.

to 326 horse-power. The same size nozzle under 450 feet pressure will deliver 21 cubic feet of water per second, which would be equal to a blow of 588,735 foot pounds per second, equivalent to 1070 horse-power. It is absolutely impossible to cut such a stream with an ax or to make any impression on it with any other implement.

"The velocity of the water as it issues from the nozzles would in the cases mentioned vary from 70 to 105 feet per second. The greater the distance from the discharge nozzle the less effective would be the blow; but were a man to be struck by the stream as it comes from the pipe his body would have to resist a continuous force of from 261,000 to 953,000 foot pounds per second, witli the result that it would be cut into fragments. There never has been such an accident, but at distances of from 150 to 200 feet men have been killed by very much smaller streams."

It only remains to explain that this tremendous stream tearing away the banks of gravel forces tons of gold bearing dirt through the water-tight open drains known as sluice boxes, which are made of heavy boards covered on the bottom with '"riffles" or blocks of stone or wood, with space between them for the gold to settle in.

Placer Mining And Hydraulics. 109

As the water rushes through, the heavy gold settles in these little spaces over which quicksilver has been sprinkled, and uniting with the quicksilver forms an amalgam. At length the water is turned ofif with the exception of a gentle stream, the riffle blocks are taken up, the amalgam is scooped out in buckets, and the residue is washed down to the next riffle and so on through the line of sluice boxes. When the water is turned off the workmen take silver spoons to the nail holes or cracks and gather up any gold or amalgam that may have been caught therein. Then come the various processes of breaking up the amalgam, rubbing it and washing it, straining it through canvas or chamois skin, cleaning it by a hot bath in water and sulphuric acid and packing it tightly in the retort, by means of which the quicksilver is all driven ofif and the pure gold made ready for the assay office.

It may be imagined that the construction of reservoirs to supply water for these geat hydraulic monitors is something of an enterprise. As a matter of fact, it involves vast labor and expense. Suitable valleys are selected near the summit of a high range of mountains, huge dams of solid masonry are built across the gorges at

no KLONDIKE.

the mouths of the valleys, and the meltmg snoivs on the surrounding watersheds supply such a reservoir with water, thus storing it until the natural streams have dried up or run so low that they can no longer be of any service. The Sierras with their numerous valleys almost within the line of perpetual snow are especially adapted to this kind of engineering.

The obstacles to be surmounted before processes like this can be made to apply in a country like the Yukon region where the thermometer goes to 75 degrees below zero in the winter and where the ice is broken up for only two months in the year may be imagined. But it is safe to say that where gold is to be found" American genius will devise some means of bringing it out within the reach of civilization.

Chapter Vii.

Alaska.

It is no unexpected revelation that the soil of Alaska is found to be impregnated with gold. Seward suspected something of the kind when he negotiated the purchase of the territory from the

ALASKA. Ill

Russian Government away back in 1867. He was la-ughed at then for what was termed Seward's folly, and it became quite the fashion for the newspapers of the day to twit the Secretary of State about spending millions of dollars on a stretch of ice and rocks. But Seward never let himself be troubled by the clamor, and he is on record in more than one utterance as declarihis: that the Alaskan purchase would eventually be found to be the richest portion of the territory of the United States. His prophecy seems about to be fulfilled. Indeed, it has been in the process of fulfillment for many years, and the money which the United States invested in the purchase has already been repaid several times over. The value of the furs alone in the Alaskan territories exceeds by milHons of dollars the price paid by Seward for everything. It has been known, too, for many years that the soil was rich in minerals of many kinds. The coal fields are as extensive as any in the world. Copper is known to lie. there in vast quantities, and gold has for years been waiting only for the undaunted band of pioneers who were willing to brave the hardships of cold, starvation and travel in their search for the philosopher's stone. Gold has been taken

112 Klondike.

from Alaska before this. The Treadwell Mines, on Douglas Island, have been worked since 1885, and it is now regarded as the most perfectly equipped quartz mining establishment in the world. In 1895 the Director of the Mint reported that gold to the amount of $1,833,733 had been taken from the Alaskan mine and deposited at the United States mints. But quartz mining is not placer mining. It is not the sort of thing that attracts the argonauts, for it requires a great amount of capital and is devoid of the element of romance which renders the gold beds of the Klondike as fascinating to the fortune-seeker as the Californian gold beds were to the fortune-seeker of 1849. A quartz mine is a huge manufacturing establishment with all that is contained m that term, and the profits go to the head of the concern. Placer mining is the field for individual effort, where every man has at least a chance of making a fabulous fortune on his own account. In placer mining one may pick out the gold with his fingers. There is something about that process which appeals to the imagination. And so it happens that while millions of dollars have already been taken out of the Alaskan territory, it remained for the splendid discoveries at Klondike

Asaska. 113

to Open the eyes of the world to the surpassing richness of the Alaskan field.

Very few people in the United States, even among the more intelligent and educated classes, fully appreciate the immensity of the territory which was added to the public domain by the purchase of Alaska. The total area of the United States proper, including the fully organized territories, is 2,970,000 square miles. Alaska proper in the mainland contains an area of 580,107 square miles; the islands of Alexander Archipelago, off the southeastern coast, contain 31,205 square miles, and the Aleutian Islands, 6391 square miles. In other words Alaska, with its adjacent islands, embraces more square miles oi territory than twenty-one States of the Union east of the Mississippi; that is, all the New England States, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina — States which have a representation in Washington of forty-two Senators and two hundred and fifty members of the House. There are eleven thousand islands along the coast of Alaska, and with the numerous creeks and inlets, these length-

114 Klondike.

en the coast line to twenty-six tlionsaiid miles, an i-'Xtenl greater by ov.t eleven thousand niiies than the entire line of the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts of the United States, and two thousand miles greater than the circumference erf the earth. Cape Murzon,the extreme southern point, lies in north latitude 54.40, and Point Barrow, the northernmost point, lies in latitude 71.23. A line running parallel vvith the trend ot the shore between tJiese two extremities is two thousand eight hundred miles long, Tlie Aleutian Islands are twelve hundred miles in length, and the island of Attou, the last of the Aleutian group, is two thousand miles miles west of Silka. The longitiKJe of Attou is as manv degrees west of San Francisco as Eastport, Maine, is degrees east. It is through the possession of Alaska that the American citizen is able to boast that the sun never goes down upon the dominions of the United States. The Governor of Alaska, sitting in his office in Sitka, is very little farther, measuring in a straight line, from Eastport, Maine, than he is from the extreme western hmit of his own jurisdiction, which extends beyond the most easterly point of Asia, a distance of nearly one thousand miles, to the one

Alaska. 115

luindred and ninety-third degree of west longitude, embracing an area very nearly equal to onefifth of all the States and organized Territories of the Union With its navigable rivers, interminable forests, and lofty mountain ranges, it would be strange, indeed, were it not possessed of natural resources, the development of which is the only condition precedent to the growth of a rich and prosperous Srate. That these resources are even now comparatively unknown is not to be wondered at in view of the long neglect of the territory by the national government. The extent to which this neglect has been carried is shown by the fact that only since the recent startling reports of the development of the gold region in the interior has the United States seen fit to make any provision for the administration of the law in that part of the territory. It is cn!y a little time since the office of United States Commissioner for Western Alaska was created by the President, and Charles H. Isham was appointed to the place. Mr. Isham will be stationed at Circle City, but whether he will find any city there upon his arrival is something of a question. He will be authorized to appoint deputy marshals to aid him in enforcing the laws of the

llii KLUNUlKi:.

United States, Governor Ryan, the first Assistant Secretary of the Interior, admits that the force iployed in the civil government in Alaska is enel y inadequate if there is any appreciable incase at points remote from the towns where ment officials are now located, gold fields are away up in the Yukon, at ; of the Arctic circle, hundreds of miles nil (Vora Sitka and other coast towns, where cated the United States Marshals, United ites Commissioners, Deputy Marshals and ;puty Commissioners. The active force in die itory that das to carry on a civil government lall. The police force, as it may be termed, consists of a United Statls Marshal and eight Deputy Marshals, eight United States Commissioners and eight Deputy Commissioners. Of course, in case of trouble, the Marshal could exercise the power of a high sheriff and summon the posse comitatus. The United States laws are rigidly enforced in southeastern Alaska along the coast and the citizens of the territory are fully protected in the settlement, but the miners who push several hundred miles beyond civilization will have to be a law unto themselves until other arrangements are made for increasing the civil

Alaska. 117

force of the territory. The general land office has recommended the establishment of two land districts in western Alaska and one of tlie officers will be located at Circle City. There has been the greatest confusion among the prospectors owing to the absence of facilities for proving up claims, and it is feared that there will be a great number of contentions over mineral land locations in various sections where the gold discoveries have been made. Some of the prospectors who have arrived in San Francisco and Seattle have endeavored to secure government recognition for their claims, only to find that the processes they had gone through with were valueless and that they would be compelled to make the whole wearisome journey over again with witnesses who could testify to their occupation of the land.

The population of Alaska is largely a matter of estimate. According to the latest reports it amounted to about 35,000. Of these about 10,000 might be described as civilized and this number includes not only the whites but the Creoles and the Aleutians. Most of the whites reside in the southeastern coast country, where the seat of government has been. The people called Creoles are descendants three or four generations re-

118 Klukdike.

mote, of a mixed parentage (Russian fathers an'i native mothers), but it will puzzle even the most learned ethnologist to find anything in their features or complexions by which to distinguish them . from the race to which their fathers belonged. They are, to all intents and purposes, white people, fully as intelligent and well informed as would almost any other class of people have been, if subjected to the same wrongs and disadvantages. They, as well as the Aleuts, are civilized people, in the sense that the first were never in a condition of barbarism, while the last, if indeed not fully enlightened, have most certainly been reclaimed from their original savage state. Under the ride of the Russian-American Company the Creoles were given the same opportunities for acquiring an education as were afforded to pure blood Russian children, up to a certain age, when they were compelled to enter the employ of the company for a long term of years. The brightest among the creoles and Aleutian boys were carefully trained in navigation, ship building and the mechanical arts, while the girls were taught housekeeping, and thus fitted to become wives of the company's employes, and there are said to be now in the Russian army and navy officers of

Alaska. 119

very considerable rank, and a good many who hold high positions in the civil service of the Empire, who are the progeny of these mixed marriages. The Aleuts are a keen, bright and naturally intelligent people, industrious and provident, the larger portion being educated to a greater or less extent in the Russian language, and that they are well advanced in civilization is evidenced by the fact that they live in comfortable houses, are given to finery in their dress, and are, with scarcely an exception, devout members of one of the Christian churches.

The coast Alaskans are a very superior race intellectually, as compared with the people generally known as North American Indians, and are as a rule industrious and provident and wholly self-sustaining. That they yield readily to civilizing influences is evidenced by the fact that wherever the Christian missionaries have gained a foothold, they will be found living in neat comfortable homes of their own construction, and many of them earnestly intent upon bettering their condition, intellectually and morally. They are shrewd and natural-born traders, some are passably good carpenters, and others still are skillful workers in woods and metals. As fast as

120 Klondike.

they can obtain employment from the white men at reasonable wages (and the most ignorant among them know the value of their labor) they abandon the chase and the fishing grounds, and serve their employers faithfully so long as they are well treated. At least a hundred are employed at the great mine and mill on Douglas Island, and as laborers and miners are far superior to the Chinese.

Of course, with the influx of miners to the new placer diggings the population of whites will be greatly increased, and it is certainly not a rash estimate that the total population of the territory will be more than doubled in the next twelve months. So far as is known there are about five thousand white men now scattered over tlie gold fields, and most of these have been concentrated about the Klondike region. Five thousand more are on the way, and with the opening up of spring they will begin to pour in upon the unexplored country by the thousands. With the rapid increase of population and the direction of attention to the new Eldorado there it will only be a short time before transportation facilities are afforded between Juneau and the gold fields and the way paved for establishing the beginnings of a great Commonwealth.

Alaska. 11:1

It appears now that Juneau, situated as it is in the very heart of the known and operated quart mining district will be the most important city of

Alaska. Indeed, it is already the metropolis of the Territory, although Sitka still remains the capital, and, owing to its age and its situation, will continue to be an important point. The population of Sitka, in the latest reports, was about 1 200. Juneau is destined to be the outfitting point for all miners on their way to the Yukon gold fields. It has a population of nearly fifteen hundred, which is bound rapidly to increase. It is more nearly than other Alaskan city on a par with the cities farther south. It is

the headquarters of several steamboat Imes, has a city hall and court house, substantial wharves, water works, electric lights, hotels and a large number of fine buildings. It is a picturesque city, situated at the foot of the mountains, which are snow-capped throughout the year and down which avalanches are constantly tearing. One or more avalanche rushes down the mountain side every day, and these incidents lend to life there an interest peculiarly its own- It is a singular circumstance that glaciers ap-

123 Klondike.

proacli nearer to the ocean liere in Alaska than in any other place in the world. Indeed it is the o:ily place so far as known where glaciers come near to the ocean at all, but here the approach is so close and the motion oceanward is so steady that the waters aroiiml Juneau are iilled with fioatiufi icebergs, somewhat to the peril of seafaring men.

Juneau was founded in the winter of 1880 and six months after the discovery of gold (August 15. 188a) by Joseph Juneau and Richard Harris. It went under the name of Harriaburg at first and afterwards was called Rockwell, but the miners at a meeting about a year after its foundation decided to rechristen it in honor of the discoverer of gold. Within a year it had become a flourishing mining town, and now it is the commercial centre of Alaska. It supports three weekly newspapers.

The cxsloration of the northern coast was chiefly the work of the British navigators, Cook, Eeechy and Franklin, and of the officers of the Hudson Ray Company. The principal river of Alaska is the Yukon, which rises in British America, and. receiving the Porcupine River at I'nrt Yukon, flows westward across the territory

Alaska. 123

and falls into the Pacific Ocean to the south of Norton Sound. At a distance of 600 miles from the sea this magnificent river has a width of more than a mile. Its tributaries would in Europe be reckoned large rivers, and its volume is so great than ten miles out from its principal mouth the water is fresh. Among the other rivers of Alaska are the Copper River, the Suschitna, the Nuschagak and the Kuskokwim, falling into the Pacific, and the Colville, flowing northward into the Arctic Ocean. A great mountain range extends from British Columbia, in a northwest direction,

along the coast of Alaska, the summit being covered with snow and glaciers. Mount St. Elias, an active volcano, in 60.18 north latitude and 140.30 west longitude, rises to the height of 18,000 feet above the sea. The mountain chain runs along the peninsula, which has given its name to the country, and at the western extremity there are several volcanic cones of great elevation, while in the Island of Uminak, separated from the mainland by only a narrow strait, there are enormous volcanoes, one rising to more than 8000 feet in height. In the interior and to the north the country is also mountainous, with great intervening plains.

Ki.Omjikf.

The nonliwest coast oi tins part of America was discovered and explored by a Russian expedition under Behring in 1741, and at subsequent ads settlements were made by the Russians „, .arious places, cliiefly by the prosecution of ilic fur trade. In 1799 the territory was granted , to a Russo- American fur corrpan}' by the Eni- ..ixTor Paul VIII, and in 1839 charter of the pany was renewed. New Archangel, in the id oi Sitka, was tbe principal settiemcnt, but I L:onipany had about fortj' stations. They exported annually 25.000 skir of the seal, seaotter, beaver, etc., besides ab it 20.000 sea-norse teeth. The privilege ci mpaiiy expired in

1863, and in 1867 the , Russian possessions

iTi America were ceded to the United States for a money payment of $7,200,000. The treaty was signed March 30 and ratified on June 20, 1867, and on October 9 following the possession of the country was formerly made over to a military fore* of the United States at New Archangel (now Sitka), Portions of Alaska were explored in 1859 by the employes of the Russo-American Telegraph Company in surveying a route for a line of telegraph which was destined to cross from America to Asia near Behring Strait — a project

Alaska. 125

which was abandoned, after an expenditure of $3,000,000, on communication with Europe being secured by the Atlantic cable.

The government of Alaska lies in a Governor, who is appointed by the President. It has not yet a full territorial form of government.

The climate of the Alaskan coast regions is much milder, even in the higher latitudes, than it is in the interior, or in corresponding latitudes on the Atlantic coast. This is easily explained and understood when the natural forces productive of this milder temperature are contemplated.

The most important among them is a thermal current resembling tht Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. This current, known as the Japanese or Kuro Siwo, has its origin under the equator near the Molucca and Philippine Islands, passing northward along the coast of Japan, and crosses the Pacific to the southward of the Aleutian Islands, after throwing a branch through Bering Sea, in the direction of Bering Strait. The main current strikes the coast of British Columbia, where it divides again, one branch turning northward toward Sitka, and thence westward to the Kadiak and Shumagim Islands.

126 Kijindike.

The comparatively warm waters of these currents affect the temperatures of the superjacent atmosphere, which, absorbing the latent heat, carries it to the coast with all its mollifying effect. Thus the oceanic and atmospheric currents combine in mitigating the coast climate of Alaska, and this process is greatly aided by the configuration of the extreme northwestern shores of the Pacific, backed as they are with an almost impenetrable barrier of lofty mountains, which holds back from the interior the warm, moist atmospheric currents coming in from the ocean. deflecting at the same time the ice-laden northern gale from the coast to the interior.

To Hon. A. P. Swineford, who was Governor of Alaska in 1886, belongs the distinction of having early and strongly called the attention of the United States Government to the splendid possibilities of Alaskan development. In the very first report which he made to the Secretary of the Interior in October, 1885, he declared that the natural resources of Alaska, as yet in the infancy of their development, were such as might be made, in the near future, a most important addition to the aggregate wealth of the nation.

Alaska. 127

"I have seen enough to convince me," he said, "that no other Territory of the Union, at so early a period in its civil, history, presented nearly so many or as great possibilities for the future. That Alaska was not supplied with local civil government a dozen years ago is to be deplored ; that so-called scientists in the pay of the General Government have heretofore damned with faint praise,' if they did not openly condemn the country as utterly worthless, save for its valuable fur trade — basing their statements on what they were able to see, looking at its rugged coast from their favorite standpoint of the Prybilov Islands — is still more to be regretted, for the reason that the tardy and at last only partially performed act of justice on the one hand was but the result of either the ignorant or willful misstatements of those to whom Congress looked for information upon which to base any and all legislation aflPecting the rights, privileges and interests of Alaska and its people.

"Nowhere in my home travels, from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico, from Washington to Sitka, have I seen a more luxuriant vegetation than in Southeastern Alaska. I find the hardier

128 Klondike,

vegetables all growing to maturity and enormous size."

There was a time wlien it was quite the fashion for public officials to suggest the relinquishment of the Alaskan possessions altogether on the ound that the>' would constantly be a source of expense and no revenue. Gen. McDowell, as late as 1879, expressed the opinion that the best thing the United States could do with Alaslca would be to sell it, and there are executive documents making a similar suggestion. The day of belittling has long passed. Alaska has paid for it-self many times over.

Prior to the development of her mineral resources Alaska's visible wealth was in her fisheries and furs. For years the popular imagination conceived of little in connection with the Territory except fur seals, and the complicated questions arising with regard to the protection of seal life have been the occasion of long-pending diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Great Britain, of a costly court of arbitration and of the employment of experts by the dozen to travel to the seal islands and express their views. More has been -written on the subject of the seal fisheries than on all other topics connected with

r

Asaska. 129

Alaska twenty times over, but to everybody's relief the seal, with its retinue of experts and diplomats, will hereafter occupy a s-ondary place in the economy of the Territory. The Pribylof Islands in Bering Sea are the breeding places for the seal herd. At the time of the transfer to the United States the herd numbered in the millions. Russia limited herself to the capture of between 50,000 and 70,000 annually. 'The United States took 100,000 from the beginning:, and continued to make these annual drafts down to the year 1890. In 1891 the number of the herd was placed at 500,000. In 1895 this -had been still further reduced to 237,500, according to the report of Mr. Murray, the United States special agent. Since then the number has b.een still further diminished. Indeed, it has been manifest for abou'. twelve years that through pelagic or deep sea sealing by Canadian marauders the herd was rapidly approaching extinction. Since 1890 the United States, through negotiation diplomatically, has been endeavoring to put a stop to pelagic sealing in Bering Sea, and the legitimate catch has been limited. The arbitration commission which sat in Paris in 1893 made an award which had no apparen*. good result, and further efforts

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arc still being made to protect the fisheries. The vahie of the product of the fur seal fislieries between 1868 and 1890 was $48,518,929. The management of the seal islands paid into the U. S. Treasury in twdve years nearly $7,000,000.

Of late years the salmon fishing has been by far Che largest and most important industry. Indeed, the salmon catch of Alaska exceeds that of all the rest of the world. The product of the salmon canneries between 1883 and 1890 was valued at $ro,- 337,031. The report for 1895 of Joseph Murray, special agent to inspect tlie fisheries in Alaska, says that during the year nearly 7,000,000 cases, of 48 pounds to the case, were packed, and the total value of the salmon canned was over $2,000,-

Gov. Knai in his report for 1892 says:. The wfliaCing business, in which forty-eight vessels were engaged, resulted in a catch for 1891 of 12,- 228 barrels of oil, 186,250 pounds of bone, and 1000 pounds of ivory. The total value was $1,- 218,293.

The cod banks in Bering Sea and off the southwestern coast near the Shumagin archipelago are more extensive even than those of Newfoundland. Tlie catch of 1890 amounted to a total of 1,138.-

Asaska. 181

ooo fish, of the value of $569,000. Since the beginning of the codfishing business in 1865 the total number of fis'h taken is 25,723,300, valued at $12,861,650.

H-erring arc as a])undant as ofY the Norwegian coast, altliougli the industry has not been developed -far. Halibut may be taken ])y the ton along the southeastern coast and farther west. Whitefish, losh, and graylings abound in the Yukon, and trout and pike inhabit almost all the rivers.

According to the report of the United States Fish Commisssioner for 1893 the amount of capital then invested in Alaskan fisheries and canneries was $2,609,650.

In the census of 1890 the value of the products of Alaska between 1868 and 1890 was given as follows :

Furs $48,518,929

Canned salmon 9,008,497

Salted salmon 603,548

Codfish 1 ,246,650

Ivory H7'047

Gold and silver 4,631,840

Whale oil 2,853,351

Wlialeibone 8,204.067

Aggregate $'7;,2T3,92

132 Kl-ONDIKE.

Chapter Viii.

Quartz Mining In Southeastern

Alaska.

This handbook would not approach completion if it refrained from a destription of the wonderfully productive gold mines which have been worked in southeastern Alaska for the past twelve years, and which in 1895 contributed nearly $2.- 000,000 to the gold supply of the world. These quartz mines are the most perfectly developed in the world, and are increasing in productiveness every year. The gold yield of Alaska in 1894 was $1,288,334. In 1895 it increased to $2,328,419.

For 1895 the yield of the quartz mines en Douglas and Unga Islands alone equaled the entire product of the territory the years before, without counting the other mining fields which have been more fully developed.

During the year 1895, 300 stamps were dropping on Douglas Island and during the summer 125 stamps were dropping on the mainland.

Other outlying districts are also coming into prominence, mainly on Admiralty Island, upon which a new ten-stamp mill is now ready for run-

Quartz Mining In Southeastern Alaska. 133

ning, being operated by the Alaska-Willoughby Gold Mining Company. On Unga Island some very extensive and productive quartz operations are being carried on.

In southeastern Alaska, so far, all the placer mining has been done in gravel deposits, which were made auriferous by the wash from quartz veins.

The distinction of the first discovery of gold in that extensive and important mining region of which the town of Juneau is the centre, is shared by two pioneer prospectors, Richard Harris and Joseph Junea-u. In the summer of 1880 these men started in a canoe from the quaint old town of Sitka to prospect the mainland coast, and about August 15 discovered gold in a stream which they aptly named Gold Creek. Their stock of provisions being nearly exhausted, they did not ascend the stream to its source and soon returned to Sitka, taking with them 150 pounds of gold quartz and 13 grains of "dust." Having secured another outfit, they hurried back to Gold Creek, and soon found its source in a little round valley inclosed by steep, glacier-capped mountains. This spot they named Silver Bow basin, after a place of that name in Montana. On the

niomitaii) slopes, encircling the basin, gravel was found worth from 15 to 30 cents a pan, and quartz that seemed to have been splashed with gold. October 4 Juneau and Harris, with the aid of three natives, located their choice of the placer ground, and within a month located 18 quartz claims, organized Harris mining district, adopted local tiles for the new district, and staked off a town site near the mouth of Gold Creek, which they named Harrishurg. They then returned to Sitka with 960 pounds of gold ore, worth $14,000, Tills goidcn cargo crazed the quiet town, and a nmber of adventurous fellows, procuring boats, canoes, or steam launches, rushed off to the new digjings with Juneau and Harris. The season was too far advanced for prospecting in the basin, so log cabins were built on the site staked off by the founders of the camp. During the winter of i88o-i88i the town of Harrishurg flourished; five general merchandise stores were established and saloons appeared so quickly as to seem spontaneous; miners and frontiersmen generally flocked in from ran gell and British Columbia, and all waited impatiently for spring. At a miners' meeting in February, 1881, the town name was changed to Rockwell, in honor of Lieutenant

Quartz Mining In Southeastern Alaska. 136

Rockwell, United States Navy, and the following November, at another meeting, the place was rcchristened J-uneau, in honor of Joseph Juneau. On the 27th of January John Pryor, Antonc Marx, Frank Berry, James Rosewald and William Mehan discovered placer and quartz on the beach of Douglas Island, four miles from the town. They began working the placers early in March, washing out 2y ounces of gold in the first three days* work.

The first shipment of gold from the new camp was taken from this claim and amounted to 84 ounces. The claim, still known as Ready Bullion, yielded about $12,000 in 1881, $3000 in 1882 and in 1884 was sold to John Treadwell. These are the beginnings of. the famous Treadwell mines, from which enough ore has been taken out in the last ten years to pay the purchase of Alaska and more.

An expedition of great value m the exploration of the gold resources of southern Alaska was undertaken under the auspices of the United States Geological Survey in 1895, under the direction <.f Dr. George F. Becker. Dr. Becker was assisted by Mr. C. W, Purington, who devoted himself especially to the examination of the gold deposit?.

Klondike.

and associated with him was Dr. W. H. Dall, the Alaskan authority, who had immediate charge of an examination of the coal resources.

The instructions to the party were to examine the gold and coal deposits in the vicinity of the shore line and islands along the coast of the territory, and not to attempt to penetrate into the interior.

Dr. Becker and Mr. Purington examined the Treadwell mine, on Douglas Island, and found that the mine was in slates of sedimentary origin, probably of Triassic age, and that it had been penetrated by a heavy dike of dioritc or tonalite and by two other intrusive masses. The last of these is a rock of basaltic character, and its eruption seems to have occurred at the same time as the mineralization. Both the diorite and the slate were ruptured along a zone which is at some points several hundred feet in width, and the interstitial spaces have been filled with ore. In the diorite the masses were in great part reduced to fragments, and these have been decomposed and impregnated. In the slate the fractures mostly followed the cleavage, and the deposit there assumes the form of a "'stringer lead." The claims to the southward of the Treadwell are controlled

Quartz Mining In Southeastern Alaska. 137

by the same company, and are profitable, but the next claim to the northward is said to be too poor to pay. The ore of Treadwell averages only $2.50 to $3 per ton, but, owing to the enormous scale of the workingsthere is a large profit in working it.

The Silver Bow basin lies about three miles north of east of Juneau. A considerable number of small veins of rather rich ore occur in the southern side of the basin. The basin was formerly occupied by a large glacier. After the retreat of the glacier the basin was occupied by a lake, and the lake beds are successfully worked for gold by the hydraulic process.

Sheep Creek basin is separated from Silver Bow basin by a divide, and the same series of quartz veins extend into it. About 55 miles to the southeast of Juneau, at Sumdum, there is a very promising vein which is yielding good bullion, although the property is only just being developed. At Seward City, near Berners Bay, about 50 miles north of Juneau, there are also veins which are extremely rich at some points and are yielding gold. On Admiralty Island, about 30 miles from Juneau, there are promising veins, on which it is expected that mining will

18B k;,onjiike.

be commenced during the summer of i8y6. Near Sitka, especially along Silver Bay and in tlie country to the southeast of i;, there are numerous veins, some of which have yielded a little gold. Tlic coni3itions do not warrant an opinion as to their future.

Ai Yakutat Bay, just to the eastward of Mount St. Elias. there has been some beach mining, as there has also been along the west shore of Kadiak Island. The case of working and the unlimited supply of sand make beach mining on the western coast of Xorth America very attractive, but the capiiciousness of the distribution of pay streaks and the difficulty of saving the gold commonly rob such iindtrlakings of success. Tli'i amount of gold which occurs in this manner in the sand is enormous, but as yet there are few if any reliable records of large profits having been made from beach mines, either in Alaska or to the southward.

On Kadiak Island, in Uyak Bay, there are several promising-looking gold-quartz veins, 2 feet or so in thickness, upon which prospecting is new going on. Stream gravels are also being worked on Turn-again Arm, at the head of Cook Inlet. The only successful working was on Bear' Creek,

Quartz Mining In Southeastern Alaska. 139

but the capriciousness of the distribution of pay Becker could obtain the average results were not more than $5 per day per man . A later report, received after Dr. Becker's visit, is that richer gravel has been discovered near the head of Turnagain Arm.

The island of Unga is in the Shumagin Archipelago, about a thousand miles south of west from Sitka. Near Delaroff Bay, on this island, is the Apollo Consolidated mine, which is now yielding at the rate of over $300,000 a year. The ore occurs in interstitial spaces in a crushed zone of andesite. It averages between $8 and $9 per ton, much of the gold being free, though heavy bunches of sulphurets are of frequent occurrence in it.

Although auriferous quartz has been found on the island of Unalaska, nothing like a mine has yet been discovered.

Speaking of the gold mines of Southeastern Alaska as early as 1886 Governor Swineford said:

"The extensive reduction works on Douglas Island, opposite Juneau, are, perhaps, the most complete of any to be found on the Pacific slope.

ItO KLONDIKE.

They are supplied with twenty-four batteries of five stamps eacli, with all the necessary machinery and appliances for the extraction of the free gold, and chlorination works for the treatment of the sulphurets. During July and August the mill, running to not much more than half its full capacity, turned out $ii5,cxxi in gold bullion, while the accumulated sulphurets (concentrates i awaiting treatment were shown by frequent assays to be worth not less than $100,000 more.

"Since the middle of September the mill has been running to its full capacity, and a personal examination of the mine from which it is supplied with ore leads me to confidently expect very much better results from this time forward. The mine itself is located in what appears to be simply a great mountain of gold-bearing quartz. Into this immense repository of the precious metal a tunnel has ben driven to a length of nearly, if not quite, 500 feet, as nearly as I could judge, at right angles with the trend of the ledge, and on a level at least 250 feet below the outcrop on which the miners were at work breaking and milling the rock down through a winze to the tram-cars in the tunnel. A careful examination

Quartz Mining In Southeastern Alaska, 141

of the tunnel reveals well defined foot and hanging walls, very nearly 400 feet apart, between which nothing but the same kind of rock as that being milled at the time of my visit can be seen on either side. The rock is what is called "low grade miUing," carrying free gold and sulphurets, and yields an average, I am told, of about $8 per ton. No selection of the rock is necessary, everything from between the walls going to the stamps. It is truly a phenomenal deposit and the mine one that promises to figure more largely in the mining history of the world than any other of which we have any record.

"In the rear of Juneau two or three miles, on the mainland, is Silver Bow Basin, where some rich placer mines are being worked, but thus far I have not been afforded an opportunity to visit or examine them. The value of the product of these mines, however, has been estimated by wellposted persons at not less than $150,000 in 1884, and the opinion prevails that the shipment of "dust" will be much larger the present year. I noticed while in Juneau that most of the traders were buying gold dust, and was told that many of the miners in the basin were doing well, and some of them amassing comfortable fortunes.

U2 Klondike,

"In [lie absence of other discoveries it would yet be hardly probable that the gold-bearing ledges and basins of tlie Territory should be confined to this one particular locality. Fortunately there is abundant evidence going to show that the developments at Juneau are but the precursors of others yet in abeyance, and which await only the application of similar effort in the way of the expenditure of labor and capital to make them profitably productive. In the near vicinity of Sitka there are promising ledges, one of which has been wrought for years in a desultory .way by a single prospector, who, doing only the assessment work required by the mining law, lias yet been able to support himself and family from the proceeds extracted from his incipient rains by the most primitive appliances — principally an ordinary hand pestle, mortar and pan. While there can be little doubt of the existence of gold along the coast range of mountains, and on many of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago, the geological formation and general characteristics of which appear to be identical with those of' the mainland, the work of development will necessarily proceed slowly as compared to the prog-

Quartz Mining In Southeastern Alaska. 143

ress made in the other mining districts of the United States, owing to the difficulties which beset the path of Ihe prospector, unless, indeed, convenient access to tidewater may wholly or in part be found to counterbalance the disadvantages of high and precipitous mountains, covered with a dense growth of timber, underbrush and fallen trees, with two or three feet of intertwining, closely woven vines and moss covering the ground itself, and which will obstruct and render more than usually difficult ithe work of exploration, though not necessarily an obstruction in the way of subsequent mining operations. The difficulties mentioned will, however, be partially obviated by the first discovery in any particular locality, which will serve as a starting point from which to prosecute explorations w'th a better knowledge of the formation, and, consequently, with much less labor and expense. In addition to the compensating advantage of contiguity to navigable waters there is unlimited water power for the operation of mining and mining machinery and an abundance of timber for all purposes."

Klondike.

Chapter Ix.'

The Wonderful Yukon Country.

Althoug-h the eyes of the world are only just beginning to be opened to the surpassing interest of Llie immense area of country watered by the Yukon River, there are men living to whom the marvelous features of that great stretch of countryare no new thing. A very good authority on all questions pertaining to the Yukon is Dr. W. H. Dall, of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, who more than a generation ago went up into that country with the Western U'nion expedition sent out to survev for the proposed Russian- American telegraph line and who has made several journeys to the same region since. Dr. Dall embodied the observations of his early visits in a book published in 1870, entitled, "Alaska and its Resources," which is easily the most comprehensive work issued on the general subject of our Alaskan possessions. No subsequent explorers have succeeded in fully replacing it, although the latest census reports are very complete, considering the difficulties of exploration.

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 145

What the Amazon is to South America, the Mississippi to the central portion of the United States, the Yukon is to Alaska. It is a great inland highway, which will make it possible for the explorer to penetrate the mysterious fastness of that still unknown region. The Yukon has its source in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, and the Coast Range Mountains of southeastern Alaska, about 125 miles from the city of Juneau, which is the present metropolis of Alaska. But it is only known 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, about 125 miles southeast of the Klondike. The Yukon proper is 2044 miles in length From Fort Selkirk it flows northwest 400 miles just touching the Arctic circle; thence southward for a distance of 1600 miles, where it empties into Bering Sea. It drains more than 600,000 miles square of territory, and discharges one-third more water into Bering Sea than does the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. At its mouth it is sixty miles wide. About 1500 miles inland it widens out

Im Klondike.

from one to ten miles, A thousand islands send the channel in as many different directions. Only natives who are thoronghly familiar with the river are trusted with the piloting of boats up the stream during the season of low water.

Even at the season of high water it is still so shallow as not to be navigahle anywhere by seagoing vessels, but only by flat-bottomed boats with a carrj'ing capacity of four to five hundred tons.

The Yukon River is absolutely closed to travel save during the summer months. In the winter all approaches are locked with impenetrable ice and the summer lasts only from ten to twelve weeks, from about the middle of June to the early part of September. Then an unending panorama of extraordinary picturesqueness is unfolded to the voyager. The banks are fringed with flowers carpeted with the all pervading moss or tundra. Birds, countless in numbers and of infinite variety of plumage, sing out a welcome from every tree top. Pitch your tent where you will be midsummer, a bed of roses, a clump of poppies and a bunch of blue bells will adorn your camping. But high above this paradise of almost tropical exuberance, giant glaciers sleep in the sum-

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 147

mit of the mountain wall, which rises up from a bed oi roses, has disappeared before icy breath of the Winter King, which sends the thermometer down to eighty, degrees below the freezing point.

The Lewis River is the best known of the tributaries to the Yukon, having been used for the past twelve years as the highway from Southeastern Alaska to the gold diggings on the Yukon. Its length from Lake Lindeman, one of its chief sources, to the junction with the Pelly is about 375 miles, and it Hes entirely in British territory, with the exception of a few miles of the lake at its head.

The Pelly River takes its rise about Dease Lake, near the headwaters of the Stikine River, with a length of some 500 miles before joining the* Lewis to form the Yukon River. The union of these two streams forms a river varying from three-quarters of a mile to a mile in width. For many miles on the northern bank is a solid wall of lava, compelling a swift current to follow a westerly course in search of an outlet to the north. The southern bank is comparatively low, formed of sandy, alluvial soil. A few miles above the White River the stream takes a northerly course through a rugged, mountainous country,

1*8 KI.UNliJKE.

receiving tiie addition of the waters of tiie White River on the south, so calkd from the miilcy color of its water, and a few miles farther onlhe waters of the Stewart on the north. The current is. exceedingly swift here, especially at a high stage of water, being at least six or seven miles an hunr. From Stewart River to Fort Reliance both hanks are closed in by high mountains, formed chiefly of basalt rock and slaty shale. Many of the bluffs are cut and worn into most picturesque shapes by glacial action. At Fort Reliance, an abandoned trading post, the general course of the stream changes to northwest, continuing thus for a distance of about 500 miles, or as far as the confluence with the Porcupine River, which flows from the north.

Some forty miles from Fort Reliance the mouth of Forty Mile Creek is passed, where is located the miners' trading post and where for some time were found the chief gold digjrmgs. Some thirty-eight miles from there the river crosses the eastern boundary of Alaska. For a hundred miles after crossing the boundary the river runs in one broad stream, confined on either side by high banks and a mountainous country, known as the "Upper Rampart." It

The Wonderful Yukon Country 149

then widens out, and for a distance of 150 miles is a network of channels and small islands. At Old Fort Yukon, an abandoned Hudson Bay post, it attains its high northern latitude, bcmg just within the Arctic circle. From main bank to bank the distance has been found to be exactly seven miles at a point just above the site of Fort Yukon. This place is probably the only serious obstacle to navigation that is met with from the mouth of the river to Fort Selkirk, a distance of over one thousand six hundred miles, the channel here shifting from year to year, and at certain stages of water it is difficult to find. From Fort Yukon to the mouth the river has been frequently traveled and well described.

According to Dr. Dall the character of the country in the vicinity of the Yukon River varies from low, rolling and somewhat rocky hills, usually easy of ascent, to broad and rather marshy plains, extending for miles on either side of the river, especially near the mouth. There are no roads, except an occasional trail, hardly noticeable except by a voyageur. The Yukon and its tributaries form the great highways of the country .

The soil is usually frozen at a depth of three

or four feet in ordinary situations. In colder ones it remains icy to within eighteen inches of the surface. This layer of frozen soil is six or eight feet thick. Below that deplh the soil is usually destitute of ice.

This phenomenon appears to be directly traceable to want of drainage, combined with nonconductive covering of moss, which prevents the scorching sun of the boreal midsummer from thawing and warming the soil.

A singular phenomenon on the shores of Escholtz Bay, Kotzebue Sound, was first observed and described in the voyage of the Rurik by Kotzebue and Chamisso, and afterwards in the appendix to the voyage of the Herald by Buckland and Forbes.

It consists of bluffs or banks {thirty to sixty feet high) of apparently solid ice, fronting the water, which washes on a small beach formed by detritus, at the foot of the bank. These continuous banks of ice, strange to say, are covered with a layer of soil and vegetable matter, \vhcre, to use the words of the renowned botanist. Dr. Seemann, "herbs and shrubs are flourishing- wiili a luxuriance only equaled in more favored climes."

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 161

The climate of the Yukon Territory in the interior (as is the case throughout Alaska) differs from that of the sea coast, even in localities comparatively adjacent. That of the coast is tempered by the vast body of water contained in Bering Sea, and many southern currents bringing warmer water from the Pacific, making the winter climate of the coast much milder than that of the country, even thirty miles into the interior; this, too, without any high range of mountains acting as a bar to the progress of warm winds. The summers, on the other hand, from the quantity of rain and cloudy weather, are cooler and less pleasant than those of the interior. The months of May and June, however, and part of July, are delightful — sunny, warm and clear. To quote Seemann again, on the northern coast, "the growth of plants is rapid in the extreme. The snow has hardly disappeared before a miss of herbage has sprung up, and the spots which a few days before presented nothing but a white sheet are teeming with active vegetation, producing leaves, flowers and fruits in rapid succession." Even during the long Arctic day *he plants have their period of sleep, short, though plainly marked, as in the tropics, and indicated

152 Klondike.

by the same drooping of the leaves and other signs, which we observe in milder climates. Tlie following table shows the mean temperature o£ the seasons at St. Michael's, on the coast of Norton Sound, in latitude 63 degrees 28 minutes; at the Mission, on the Yukon River, one hundred and fifty miles from its mouth, in latitude or degrees 47 minutes; at N'ulato, four hundred and fifty miles farther up Ihe river, in latitude 64 degrees 40 minutes (approximate), and at Fort Yukon, twelve hundred miles from the mouth of the river and about latitude 66 degrees 34 minutes: Means for St.MicU's, Mission. Nulato. Ft.Y'n.

Summer 53,0 59.32 60.0 59.67

Autumn 26.3 36.05 36.0 17-37

Winter 8,6 0.95 14.0 23.S0

Year 29.3 26.48 27.8 16.92

The mean annual temperature of the Yukon Territory, as a whole, may be roughly estimated at about 25 degrees. Open water may be found on all the rivers in the coldest weather and nnny springs are not frozen up throughout the year.

At Fort Yukon Dr. Dall says he has seen the thermometer at noon, not in the direct rays of the

u

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 163

sun, Standing at 112 degrees, and he was informed by the commander of the post that several spirit thermometers graduated up to 120 degrees had burst under the scorching sun 01 the Arctic midsummer, which can only be thor oughly appreciated by one who has endured it. In midsummer on the Upper Yukon the only relief from the intense heat, under which the vegetation attains an almost tropical luxuriance, is the brief space during which the sun hovers over the northern horizon.

The rain fall is much greater in summer on the coast than in the interior. The months of May, June and part of July bring sunny, delightful weather; but the remainder of the season, four days in a week at least, will be rainy at St. Michael's. October brings a change. The winds, usually from the southwest from July to the latter part of September, in October are mostly from the north, and, though cold, bring fine weather. They are interrupted occasionally by gales, the most violent of the season, from the southwest: piHng the driftwood upon the shores, where it lies until the succeeding fall, unless carried off by the natives for fuel.

The valley of the Lower Yukon is somewhat

Klondike.

foggy in ihe latter part of tiie summer; but us the river is ascended the climate improves and the short siiiiiiTfer at Fori Yukon is drj-, hot and pleasant, only varied by an occasional shower.

The timber growths of the country are mostly evergreen, and art not so sparse as might be supposed. Dall says almost all parts of the Yukon territory are well supphcd. Ivan Petroff, special agent for the tenth census, says the timber line follows the coast line at varying distances of loo to 150 miles from the seaboard. It is of little value for building purposes. The forests are likely soon to be depleted.

The largest and most valuable tree found in this district is the white spruce, which is found over the whole country a short distance inland, but largest and most vigorous in the vicinity of running water. It attains not unfrequently the height of fifty to one hundred feet, with a diameter of over three feet near the butt; but the most common size is thirty or forty feet and twelve to eighteen mches at the butt. It is quite durable. Many houses, twenty years old, built of this timber, contained a majority of sound logs, but when used green, without proper seasoning, it will not last over fifteen years. These trees decrease in

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 165

size, and grow more sparingly near Fort Yukon, but are still large enough for most purposes.

The tree of next importance in the economy of the inhabitants is the birch. This tree rarely grows over eighteen inches in diameter and forty feet high.

Several species of poplar abound, the former along the water side and the latter on drier uplands. The first mentioned species grows to a very large size, frequently two or three feet in diameter and forty to sixty feet high. The timber, however, is of little value, but the extreme softness of the wood, is often taken advantage of by the natives with their rude iron or stone axes, to make small boards or other articles for use in their lodges. They also rub up with charcoal the down from the seed-vessels for tinder.

Willows and alders are the most abundant of trees and all sizes of the former may be found.

The treeless coasts of the territory, as well as the lowlands of the Yukon, are covered in spring with a most luxuriant growth of grass and flowers. Among the more valuable of these grasses is the Kentucky blue grass, which grows as far north as Kotzbue Sound, and on the coast of Norton Sound with a truly surprising luxuriance. It

158 Klondike.

reaches in very favor-able situations fair or even I five fcet in height and averages at least three feet.

Grain has never been sown to any extent in the Yukon territory. Bar'.ev was once or twice tried at Fort Yukon in small patches and succeeded in maturing the grain, tliough the straw was very short. Attempts were also made at Forty- Mile Post in i8go.

Turnips and radishes always flourished extremely well at St. Michael, and the same is said of Nulato and Fort Yukon. Potatoes succeeded at the latter place, though the tubers were smal". They were regularly planted for several years, until the seed was lost by freezing during the winter. At St. Michael they did not do well.

S.ilad was successful, but cabbage would not liead. The white round turnips, grown at St. Michael, from European seed, were very large, some weighing five or six pounds.

The inhabitants of the upper Yukon, from the Tanana River to the boundary, form part of the family known to ethnologists as Athapascan or Tinneh Indians, a widely dispersed people, tribes of which extend over the country enclosed by the Porcupine River, tli Pee! River to the MacKenzie, the upper Yukon to the neighbor-

H

n

'

J

1

THE WONDERFUL \X'KaN COUNTRY. 157

hood of the Stick Indians in the soiith and to the southeast in the McMillan River country. They speak of themselves, however, as Yukon Indians. Their language has been put into print by the venerable Robert McDonald, archdeacon. Bibles and hymn books being universally read by all from Nuklukayet up. They are of average size, lithe and active, many of them being quite graceful in their carriage. In appearance they approach the typical North American Indians; sharp features, aquiline nose, and high cheek bones, with very small feet and hands. They are nomadic in their ways of life, living in temporary camps both winter and summer, either in the mountains or on the river banks, according to the habits of the game they are hunting.

Some few in the neighborhood of the mining camp are perceptibly changing their mode of life. Around the trading post at Forty Mile Creek there are a number of log cabins built and inhabited by them the year around, and they fully appreciate the advantages of stoves and clothing from the States. The younger men are said to be more fastidious in their dress than the average white man. They are industrious and fairly enterprising, many of them working successfully at

U8 Klondike.

mining for wages paid the whites, and soir.p are mining on their own account. They niakf excellent boatmen, poling a boat with skill, boats built of sawed lumber being preferred for river navigation to their own birch canoes. Docile and peaceable both among themselves and with the miners, they are strongly imbued with the teachings of the English missionaries, with whom they had more or less intercourse for many years previous to occupation of the country by [he United States. Formerly their chief subsisteuct was cariboo and moose meal, and tish they only knew during the summer and fall, but since the arrival of the miners they depend each year more and more on white men's provisions. Obtaining pay for work, they also avoid the necessity of hunting for fur to buy provisions with, as used to be the case in former years; hence the falling off of the supply of furs from that section.

The population is very sparse. At certain times during the year a traveler might pass down the Yukon from Forty Mile Creek to Nuklukayct and hardly see a score of natives in a distance of 800 miles. The different villages or communities seem to be under the guidance of chiefs and subchiefs, though there does not appear to be much ai'thority exerted by them.

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 169

Their mode of transportation in summer time is by rafts, boats and birch canoes, and is entirely confined to the streams and water courses; in the winter time sleds are used, drawn by dogs, men or women. Their language is known to the missionaries as a dialect of Tukudh (Tukuth), but they converse with the traders in a jargon called *'Slavey," a mixture of Canadian French and hybrid words of English, something in the nature of the ''Chinook" of southeastern Alaska.

At Nuklukayet and down to the vicinity of Nulato changes are to be observed in the natives; though very similar in general appearance, they seem to be a mixture of tribes from the Koyukuk and Tanana Rivers and of Ingalik, from lower down the Yukon.

Their language is different, though many can converse in a dialect that is understood by the Upper Yukon people. They are not so nomadic in their way of life, living in villages, building log cabins and huts of earth and logs. They depend most largely on the supply of fish and not so much on game. They are mostly addicted to paganism, being more superstitious and depending on instructions from the shaman, or medicine man. They also are becoming yearly more

Klondike.

dependent on provisions from the States, but have to procure them by trapping fur-bearin; animals to a far larger extent thanthose of the upper river. They are shrewd traders, taking advantage of every point. They do not so readily adapt themselves to the viiays of the white man. They are more pugnacious, quick-tempered, resenting a fancied injury or insult very quickly with force. Many years ago some of tliem killed a white woman, the wife of a trader at a post a few miles up the Tanana River, at the instigation of a shaman. Some years ago at Nuklukayet, on account of a disagreement with a trader, they broke open the store, scattered the goods about recklessly and would have shed blood if they -had not met with adequate resistance. Religious teaching does not seem to have the same effect upon them as on the natives on the upper river. They have had visits from Russian priests and resident English missionaries in past years, without much notable eect upon their lives or morals. Their villages are only found on the main river, hunting parties only going into the back country temporarily, at which time all the members of the families take part in the expedition. The population found on this part of the

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 161

river is much larger than that of the Upper Yukon. There is no time of the year when more or less people are not to be found in the villages, and we find among -them a larger proportion of females than on the Upper Yukon. Some time ago the lack of females was most noticeable among the Indians of the upper river, attributable to hard usage and the work they were compelled to do, as well as to the lack of care of female children. Of late, however, female children have been better taken care of, and probably, in course of time there will be more marriageable women among them. Most of the married women to be seen there at present -come from the Koyukuk or the Lower Yukon River. The Nuklukayet and Nowikaket people claim to have their origin from the tribe on the Koyukuk River in the north. The Tanana River and Upper Yukon Indians speak an entirely different language, though there is a dialect by which they can communicate with the various tribes.

The fur trade has undergone considerable change of late years, the catch of furs being considerable less than formerly, partly owing to the decrease of fur-bearing animals, and also to their being more white men in the country, indepen-

162 Klondike.

dent of the fur traders, causing the circulation of more money among the natives, with which they buy instead of trading furs. The average catch of land furs for the whole year ranges from 16.- ODo to 20,000 pelts, usually with a large proportion of mink skins, the lowest -priced fur on the niarket.

There are several trading villages along the river in Alaska. The traders, to reach the back country, usually fit out trusty natives with small stock of goods to travel among the distant tribes. Since the discontinuance of opposition the white traders do not travel in the winter. The prices paid are regulated by the standard price of red fox or martin, called one skin, about S1.25. A prime beaver would be two skins, black bear four skins, lynx one skin, land otter two or three skins and so on. Five yards of drilling or one pound of tea or one pound of powder or half a pound of powder with one box of caps and one pound of shot are given for one skin, fifty pounds of flour for four skins, five poimds of sugar for one skin. These are sample prices obtained by the natives, with tittle variation, until the mining district is reached, where the prices are higher, to conform with the prices charged to miners.

Tile merchandise is carried on the river by

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 168

means of stern-wheel steamers, the two principle ones belonging to the Alaska Commercial Company, one of 200 tons, the other of thirty tons capacity, carrying freight and passengers. On the larger boat there is a white man tor captain and another for engineer, but both captain and engineer are unlicensed and without papers; the rest of the crew are Indians. There are three other small steamers, two belonging to the Russian and Catholic missionaries respectively and one to the traders at Fort Selkirk. All supplies are received at St. Michael on Norton Sound, fifty miles north of the mouth of the Yukon, the furs and gold obtained being turned over to the Alaska Commercial Company's agent there and shipped to San Francisco. Once a year, in June, the missionaries and traders assemble at St. Michael's and for a few days that place is doing a rushing business. It has become a regular fair for the natives, who gather in numbers from various points on the coast and river, getting a few days' work from the company and having the satisfaction of seeing the new stock of merchandise.

The influx of miners to the country has produced marked changes among the natives, and

not to their benefit morally. The illicit manufacture and use of liquor, both by the traders of the company and miners, is demoralizing the natives to a great extent. It is openly carried on both the upper and lower rivers. At Andreaisky, on the lower river, it is a common sight to see intoxicated natives, more especially in the winter, and the natives have now learned the process of making liquor themselves, more particilarly on the coast and the Lower Yukon.

On the coast the temperature varies from 70 degrees Fahrenheit in summer to 40 degrees and 45 degrees below zero in the winter. The late summer and fall is usually stormy and wet, the snow fall in winter being from three to five feet on a level. Navigation is closed to the outside for seven months in the year by heavy ice on the sea. The Yukon River is closed by ice from November to the end of May. In the interior the climate is dryer and warmer in summer, but many degrees colder in winter, the thermometer going as low as 75 degrees below zero. The snow fall is excessive, but less wind prevails here in winter than on the coast.

For many miles on the lower river the banks are devoid of timber other than a stumpage

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 165

growth of willow brush, alder and cottonwood. The first spruce timber is seen some fifty miles below the Russian mission, at Ikomiut, and from there up to its head the river is more or less belted with timber, spruce, fir, hemlock, bircli, alder and cottonwood being the varieties most predominant.

On the low islands and flats the spruce attains a considerable size, but as lumber it is not adapted for any purpose beyond the needs of the miners and others in the country, being checked by frost and full of knots. The growth of thii- b'.T seem? to be entirely confined to the margins of the streams and rivers in many instances being merely a fringe on the banks.

There is a great variety of berries to be found all through the country; high and low bush cranberries, blueberries, salmon berries, red currants, and raspberries. The salmon or dewberries abound on the swampy lands of the Lower Yukon, and are gathered by the natives in quantities, who preserve them by burying them in the ground, using them as a delicacy in the winter, mixed with seal oil or deer fat and snow.

Game is said to be scarce, considering the im-

mense stretches of nninliabited country. Numerous signs are to be seen on the banks of the main river, liut so far few wliite men have proved successful hunters, owing to the difficuUies of travel. An Indian traveling with no impediments can scour over the country, and, being acquaintc-d with every game sign, can obtain some reward for his exertion, where a white man would starve.

Though some distance to the north of the en- Irance of the Yukon River, St. Michael has always been a controlling centre and basis of supplies for the great river of the tar northwe.'l. From here the hardy Muscovite pioneers pusiied their advance slowly and laboriously with clumsy boats in skin-covered "bidars," and trudging over the frozen snow plains with their dog teams until the met the forerunners of the Hudson Bay Company on their way down the river, which English geographers of that time pictured as emptying into the Arctic.

As long as the Russians were in possession of this region all furs secured in the Kuskokwiui \'alley were transported over the Yukon portage to St. Michael, and thence shipped to Sitka, together with those obtained by barter from the natives of the shores and islands of Bering

The Wonderful Yukon Country. 167

Strait. The first American traders to engage in the Yukon trade were members of the Western Union Telegraph expedition, and foremost among these pioneers were Ketchum and Clark. Later came Mercier, a brother of the Canadian ex-minister, and a host of other French Canadians, together with three prospectors, McQueston, Mayo (Americans), and Harper (an Englishman), who still control the trade and much of the mining industry of the Upper Yukon and its tributaries from Fort Selkirk westward.

The basis of supplies for the whole district was early taken by the Alaska Commercial Company, who at first utilized a small stern-wheel steamer placed upon the river by the telegraph company, and later built other vessels for the purpose of towing loaded barges -up the river. Later the firms who entered into competition with the company in other districts made a lodgment near St. Michael, and another steamer was placed upon the river.

In the year 1883 this opposition collapsed, but shortly after the bar diggings of Forty Mile Creek and other parts of the Upper Yukon were discovered, which caused a sudden revival of trade, chiefly in miners' supplies, and induced the

Klondike.

traders mentioned above to acquire small steamboats of their own.

It was not long bore new competition appeared, and three years ago the concern known as the North American Transportation and Trading Company, was organized, with

Chicago, and its chief trading and distributing

post at Fort Cudahy. Tnis company dispatches

ocean steamers from San Francisco to St. Mich-

here the merchandise is transhipped into

river steamers and carried to points inland.

Chapter X.

Mineral Resources.

Not until capital flows into the country in great streams will -the real extent of the undeveloped mineral resources of Alaska begin to be revealed. When communication has opened up so that the gold bound up in the cjuartz of the interior can be separated with profit the true wealth of the coutitry will appear. The quartz mines of southeastern Alaska are fullv described

Mineral Resources. 169

in the chapter on that subject, but the quartz of the interior according to all indications is far more rioh in gold.

"I think it may with confidence be asserted," says Ogilvie, "that rich finds will yet be made of both coarse gold and gold-bearing quartz. It is not likely in the nature of things that such a vast extent of country should have all its fine gold deposited as sediment, brought from a distance in past ages of the world's development. If this is not the case, the matrix from which all the gold on these streams has come, must still exist, in part at least, and will no doubt be discovered, and thus enrich this otherwise gloomy and desolate region."

Mr. Ogilvie, in his official reports to the Canadian government during 1895 and 1896, described discoveries of gold which have not perhaps attracted as much attention as they ought. On January 8, 1896, he writes: "Gold bearing quartz has been found in Cone Hill, which stands midway in the valley of the Forty-mile River, a couple of miles above the junction with the Yukon. The quantity in sight rivals that of the Treadwell mine on the coast, and the quality is better, so much so that it is thought it will pay

-aJ

17U Klondike.

well to work it even umler the condilicns existing here. Indications in sight point to the conclusion tnat the whole linl is composed of this metalliferous rock." On June lo, 1896, he writes: "Assays of the Cone Hill quartz are very satisfactory, and the quantity good for generations of work; were it on the coast the Treadwell mine would be diminutive beside it. Five tons of rock are being sent out from it for a mill test and, should they prove as satisfactorj- as the test of a ton sent out last year, I understand the parties owning it will proceed to develop it. If it starts and proves reasonably successful there are scores of other places in the country that may yield as well. An expert here (Fort Gudahy) who prospects for the North American Transportation & Trading Company, found i. ledge last spring on the Chanindu River of Schwatka {known as Twelve-mile Creek here) and located two full claims on it. He told me the assay he made of my specimens of it was much more satisfactory than that at Cone Hill, and this ledge he claims is where a commencement should be made in quartz milling in this country and there would be no fear of the result. He appears to be pretty welt versed in mining lore, is a practical assayer

Mineral Resources. 171

— that is his profession — and lie says he never saw or read of anything Hke it for extent in the world."

IVof. Lindeman, the consulting and mining engineer of Chicago who traveled through the Yukon country in 187 1 and 1873, and for whom Lake Lindeman was named by Schwatka, made a careful examination of the mineral zone so far as he was able. He says he found it extending east and west. "I think/' he says, "that the entire coiintn- is mineral territory and the entire Alaskan range gold bearing, the placers found on every stream leading from the range on either side. The ledges are of tremendous width, but the gold bearing rock is of low grade and cannot be profitably worked without the aid of capital. Were 500,000 people to go there every year for ten years not all the mineral land would be covered." Prof. Lindeman predicts that good districts far prospecting will exist untouched by white men years after the Klondike stampede is over. He says: "When railroads are built, steamboat facilities found, and the civilization of the country advanced there will then be even better opportunities for gold hunting in Alaska than in the present conditions."

179 Klondike.

"Gold is less important than coal," said Charles Sumner, in his remarkable speech of Apiril 8, 1867, when the treaty of cession was under consideration in the Senate, and indeed it may be questioned whether in the future development of Alaska's mineral resources the coal which may be (lug out in great quantities at many widely separated places in the territory will not be found to occupy almost as hih a place in consideration as the more eagerly sought and highly prized metal. For with the rapid depletion of the timber growths of the country and its difficulty of access the question of fuel is bound to be a vital one. In considering this question it is interesting; to know that as far back as [878, Major William Gouveneur Morris, special agent of the Treasury Department, reported officially to Secretarv Sberman that the conditions for successful mining in Alaska were far superior to those afforded in Arizona or the Black Hills, in respect to the abundance of fuel. "Heat," he said, "is looked upon as the great agent in the formation of mineral veins, and with plenty of fuel the metalliirgist and miner can reduce the most rebellious OJes and compel them by scientific process to yield up their concealed wealth." Major Morris

?

Mineral Resources. 178

perhaps had in mind only the minerals of the coast region, but later developments show that what he said is almost equally applicable to the interior.

William Ogilvie, whose researches in the Yukon region have been of hardly estimable value, announced in 1887 in liis report to the Canadian government the discovery of coal in various places along the head waters of the Yukon, and following tne stream down towards the boundary. A thin seam of coal was found on Lewis River, about si' miles above Five Finger Rapids. This seam was about three feet thick, and at that stage of the water was eight or ten feet aibove the river. It could be traced for several hundred yards along the bank. Dr. Dawson, Mr. Ogilvie's companion, after examinmg the seam, describes it as lignite coal, including, within sixty feet of the.>ase of the bluff, at least three coal beds of which the lowest is about three feet thick.

In the drift at the mouth of Coal Creek, five miles below Forty-mile Creek, Mr. Ogilvie picked up specimens of coal much weathered and worn. "I made inquiries of the Indians in the neighborhood," he reports, "but they manifested surprise at my showing it to them and burning it

17* Ki.Undiki:,

before them. Tliey professed entire, ignorance of the existence of any such stuff up the creek and Sai(! lliey had never seen nor heard of it; though the\' must have seen it at Belle Isl, nea'r which pla-ct there is some on a creek that comes in from Hie west." It appeared on inquir tlial an old man who liad gone up the country in the faG had spent of ttie summer prospecting on the creek, and thougli he found no gold, reported amndance of coal. Later, Mr. Ogilvie induced a miner named James McAuIey to go up the creek and lo measure the coal ledges on the British side of the boundary, so far as possible. Mc- AuIey reported that one of the ledges measured five feet, and oik? seven feet, and tliat there were others possibly on the American side of the Ixjundary much larger, hut he did not have time to examine these. Tliere seems to be no question, therefore. the existence of coal in large quantities in the neighborfiood of Forty-mile Crek. When Mr. Oilvie was in the neighborhood again in 1895 he went in person to search for the coal and found it seven miles up Coal Creek, overlying a coarse sandstone and beneath drift clay and gravel. Tiie seam was twelve feet six inches thick, and seemed to Ogilvie a good

Mineral Resources. 175

quality, of lignite. The Canadian surveyor continued his investigations, and on August i8, 1896, reported from Fort Cudahy: "It is now certain that cokl extends along the vallev of the Yukon from Coal- Creek for ten or twelve miles, and from Coal Creek up to TwciVe-mile Creek, which flows into the Yukon about thirty miles above here. The latter stretch is cut oflF from the river by several miles of hills, as it is about six miles direct from the river at Coal Creek and about eighteen on Twelve-mile Creek. This is the stream named Chanindu by Schwatka. There is a seam on it about six feet, as reported by an expert who went in search of it. I found drift coal on the south branch of Coal Creek." Three weeks later Ogilvie reported that coal had been found in abundance only eight miles up the Chanindu River, vVhere a seam over six feet thick had been discovered. In his report of November 6, 1896, he predicts that in the course of a year coal will supersede wood for fuel in the towns .and villages, although mining interests would still require a lot of fuel where coal cannot be taken.

The coal deposits in the interior on the American side have not been explored with anything like the system pursued by Ogilvie, but there is

17B Klondike.

no question about their existence. As far back as 1885 Lieut. Henry T. Allm, U. S. Cavalry, in his military reconn;usance discovered indicalious of coal beds on tlie north bank of the Koyukiik River, which flows into the Yukon on the north. Lieut. Allen explored this river from its mouth near the 158th degree of latitude as far up as the 151st degree. Along the coast, however, the existence of coal has long been known. Captain White years ago was struck with the coal deposits on Cook inlet. "I have seen coal veins," he wrote, "over an area of forty by fifty miles, so thick that it seems one vast bed. It has excellent steam quality; leaves a clear white ash. It comes out in cube blocks, brig-ht and clean. It does not coke. The quantity seems to be unlimited." Miner W. Bruce, in his work on Alaska published in 1895, says of the deposits in the Cook Inlet country that it can be found cropping out on the beaches and along many cA the streams. "Unga island," he says, "has three distinct veins erf coal extending a distance of two miles upon the sides of the mountains, each of them being several feet thick." The coal found in Alaska is bituminous, and of a very good quality. Besides these deposits coal has been found in

Mineral Resources. 177

Chicagoff Island, just north of Sitka. There are indications of extensive deposits on the head waters of the Chilkat River, Lituya Bay and Port Molair on the Bering Sea side. The mine at Port Molair is owned by the Alaska Commercial Company, and is of excellent quality. Extensive coal fields also exist at Cape Lisburne, on the Arctic Ocean, extending for thirty or forty miles parallel with the coast, and for a number of miles back into the interior. Strong indications of petroleum are also found back from the coast a few miles in the Arctic region. There are extensive petroleum fields, it is believed, on the Pacific coast north of Yakutat Bay, and it is reported that an extraordinary lake of petroleum exhaustless in extent iias been discovered some distance back from the coast. *'Coal," said Sumner, in the speech already quoted, "seems to exist all alon the coast; according to Golovin, 'everywhere in greater c r less abundance.' Traces of it are reported in the islands of the Sitkan archipelago, and this is extremely probable, for it has been worked successfully in Vancouver's Island below. It is also found on the Kenaiian Peninsula, Alaska (the Peninsula), the island of Unga, belonging to the Shumagin group, Unal-

ira KLONDIKE.

aska, and far to the north at BeauforL At the latter place it is 'slaty, burning with a pure flame and rapid consumption,' and it is supposed that there are extensive beds in the neighborhood better in fiuality. The natives also report coal in the interior on the Kwichpak (the Yukon)." This was spoken thirty years ago, Sumner relied for his autliority largely upon Russian and German writers and explorers, whose works had never been translated into English, but it is instructive to notice how closely his oaservationsat second-liand so long ago coincide with the reports of recent investigators.

Dr. Dall, in his investigations for the Geological Sur\'ey in 1895, along the southern coast, confirmed these reports of abundance of coal in that region.

It has long been known that Alaska was rich in copper. The early navigators as far back as Captain Cook, were surprised to find the natives using copper tools, and copper was brought down for trading purposes by the Indians. Sumner calls attention to the fact that copper had been found on the banks of the Copper River, and its affluents in masses sometimes as large as forty pounds. It is presumably from this neigh-

Mineral Resources. 179

borhood that the copper was obtained which arrested the attention of the early navigators. Maj. Morris, as far back as 1878, drew attention to the existence on Karta Bay, Prince of Wales Island, about 200 miles from Sitka, of a very valuable mine of bronze copper. "I have seen sacks of ore," he said, "and can safely pronounce it of uncommon richness." Major Morris predicted that when the geological resources of the Copper River region were defined it would rival Lake Superior in the production of the metal. The early Russians told fabulous tales of the existence of both gold and copper in this locality. The Indians use these metals in their ornaments. Mr. Theodore A. Blake, geologist to the coast survey party, w*hich visited Alaska on the revenue cutter Lincoln in 1868, vvites:

"It "has long been known that large masses of native copper are found along Copper River. Some of these masses shown to me by His Excellency, Governor Foumhelm, at Sitka, very closely resembled the specimens formerly picked up on the shores of Lake Superior. From all the information which 1 received I am inclined to believe that a copper bearing region similar to that of Lake Superior exists in the interior."

180 KI.UNUIKi:.

Lieut. Allen, in bin rccuiinaisance, Itani.'d that the copper deposits from whicli he river dcriveii its name, wera situated on its eastern tributary the Chittyna. Lieut. Allen remarks on the fact that pieces of pure copper, and knives and bullets of the same metal had been brought down to the coast by the natives. "Some oi the specimens," he says, "are supposed to be associated with native silver, and in fact I have heard of some brought down which was reported to have assayed in Boston $80 a ton in silver and 60 per cent of copper." A chief on the lower river liad bullets of pure copper in his possession, obtained, he said, from the natives over the mountains."

There is a copper bearing vein which crosses the Yukon near the mouth of the Klondike. Mr. Ogilvie says of it: "It does not appear to be extensive, but there are several small veins in the vicinity, and it may be that a commercially valuable deposit may be found. About twenty-five miles further down I found a small vein, which indicates that this copper deposit is extensive." He also quotes an expert prospector who "has no doubt but that the copper around Fort Reliance will, with better facihties, yet be a valuable

Mineral Resources. 181

feature of the country. He showed me a kimp of native copper some Indians said they found on the head of White River, but could not or would not specify where/'

Rich finds of galena have been made on Golovin Bay, about one hundred miles north of the mouth of the Yukon on Norton Sound. A mine is being worked there. Lieut. Allen, as has been noted, speaks of silver contained in the copper of iC Chittyna. Silver has also been found in conjunction with gold and copper in the qtrartz ledges along the southeastern coast. Ogilvie speaks of traces of silver in specimens of Galena obtained on Forty-mile River. These specitnens were found by accident, and Ogilvie says a closer examination of the localities might reveal valuable seams. He was informed in 1888 that gold and silver bearing specimens of quartz had been found on Sixty-mile Creek.

Iron will sometime be discovered in Alaska in vast quantities; so the scientists say. Large iron fields have been found already. Prof Davidson, of the U. S. Coast Survey, it is reported, while at Chilkat making observations of the eclipse of August 7, 1869, found that the needle to his compass pointed constantly wrong and soon learned

193 Klondike.

the iact that he was near a mountaiti of iron some zooo feet high, which attracted the magnet whereever used, from its base to lis summit, and a further examination showed that this mountain was . only one of a range similar in character and extending fully .o miles; ana as if nature had anticipated its uses to man a coal mine was iound near by.

Marble, graphite, sulphur, platinum and cinnabar have all been discovered in greater or less quantities in Alaska, and the mineral wealth of the country has only been touched

Chapter Xi.

Gold Production Of The World.

The United States is the chief gold producing country in the world. We have held the lead ever since the discovery of gold in California, with the exception o£ 1894, when we fell to third place, surrendering first place to Australia and

Gold Production Of The World. 188

the second to Africa. The United States regained in 1895 the place lost in 1894, its output of gold in the former year having exceeded that of 1894 by $7,110,000. In 1895 *he gold yield of the United States was 2,254,760 ounces fine, valued at $46,610,000, while the yield of Australasia was 2,167,1 17 ounces, valued at $43,893,300. The latest reported findings, as it happens, will not properly be credited to the United States, but with the development of the fields actually situated on the Alaskan side of the boundary, there is almost sui-e to be such an addition to the product of the United States mines as to place them easily and permanently at the head of the gold-producing countries of the world. The largest production of gold in the United States for any single year was $65,000,000, in 1853. The next most productive years were 1852 and 1854, when the returns were $60,000,000 for each year. The least productive year since the gold discoveries in California was 1883, when only $30,000,000 was mined. Since then the advance has been steady.

The gold output of the world from the time of the discovery of America to the close of the fiscal year 1895 has been estimated at $8,781,858,- 700. The California gold field since their discov-

Klondike.

ery in 1849 alone yielded $235,416,000.

The Australian mines up to 1895 had yielded $1,655,713,000, and the African mines $211,632,- 990. The total production of the world in the last four years has been :

1893 $157,494,800

1894 181,567,800

1895 200,215.700

1896 (estimated) 206,000,000

The Director of the Mint estimates the production of the world for 1897 $240,000,000. For three years the figures for the producing countries were:

1893. 1894. 1895.

U. S $35,955,000 $39,500,000 $46,610,000

Auslrahsia . 35,688,600 41,760,8:5:1 44,79,300 Russia 27,808,200 24,133,400 28,894,400 Canada 927,200 1,042,100 1,910,900 Africa 28,943,500 40,271,000 44,554,900

Air. Preston makes tlie following; estimates for 1896 and 1897:

1896. 1897. Increase.

U. S $53,000,000 $60,000,000 $7,000,000

Australasia . 46.250,000 52.000.000 5,750.000

Africa 44.000.000 56,000.000 12,000,000

Canada 2,810.000 10,000,000 7,200,000

Russia 22,000,000 25.000,000 3,000,000

Chapter Xii.

Characteristics Of Our North- Western Possessions.

By JOHN F. PRATT.

To those who are familiar with the story of the northwestern country the rich discoveries of gold in the Yukon Valley are no surprise. They form a chapter in the gold findings of that region which has been writing for many years. Just before the war there was widespread excitement over the discovery of gold in the Caribou district of British Columbia, and the diggings there for a time were very rich. The craze resulted in much hardship and many deaths. Later, subsequent to the purchase of Alaska, gold was found in considerable quantities in the Cassiar district, farther to the northwest in British America.

The Cassiar Mountains are situated between the 6oth and 65th degrees of north latitude, at the headwaters of the Pelly River. They are reached by way of the Stikine River, the outlet of which is near Fort Wrangell. These diggings

180 Klondike.

are still carried on, and they have yielded much gold. There are several quartz lodes in the Cassiar district whjch are rich, but hardly rich enough to mine profitably with the present inadequate facilities for reaching them and for transporting machinery. During high water steamboats can run well up the river, leaving a distance of forty miles hetween Telegraph Creek and Dease Lake to be traveled by pack trains. The Cassiar diggings are far less accessible than the new gold fields.

Now, in this same trend or genera! direction, as if in continuation of the line running northwest from Caribou through the Cassiar range, come tlie diggings near the place where the Yukon River crosses the boundary between Alaska and British North America, and we are bound to suppose that the lode runs still farther along toward the northwest into the country which is not yet prospected at all.

Although the Klondike is on the Canadian side of the boundary, there is reason to beheve that the great bulk of the gold territory is west of the boundary on the American side. This is to be deduced from the peculiar locations of the streams from along which gold has thus far been

Our Northwestern Possessions. 187

-taken. Sixty Mile Creek and Forty Mile Creek lie largely in United States territory. Both flow into the Yukon toward the east. Birch Creek flows into the Yukon toward the north and the Tenanah River toward the northwest. The Sushitna flows toward the south into Cook's Inlet, on the southern coast, where gold has been found. The headwaters of all these gold-bearing streams flowing in different directions are thus seen to be in the same country, about lOO miles west of the boundary and soth of the Yukon. This seems to indicate that the great mother lode is probably within the United States and that the more permanent diggings will be found in United States territory centering about a spot not 'loo miles west of the boundary.

The diggings around Klondike, therefore, are not in the middle of the richest gold territory, but are rather on the northeast edge. Gold has been found as far west as Cook's Inlet on the southern coast, between the 150th and I52d degrees west longitude, and it has been found as far cast as the 128th degree. There is a gold-bearing area of between forty thousand and fifty thousand square miles, and the best part of it is on the United States side of the boundary.

188 Klunuike.

Of course, our actual information is exceeding--

ly limited. Perhaps we know less about the Alaskan Territory than about any other territory of equal size on llie continent. The Yukon River has been explored from its mouth to the region of the gold diggings, and the trail of the miners from Chilkoot Pass to the diggings has given us a knowledge of that region; we know the mouths of the streams as they flow into the Yukon ; but aside from these we have learned very little. Travelers and prospectors have found out more or less by interviewing the Indians, who have a general idea of direction and distance, but this knowledge is not exact. Even our most elaborate maps of Alaska depend upon miners' plot.ings and not upon official surveys tor the location of the creeks anil rivers in the gold region. What other information we have of the interior has been acquired largely from prospectors and on the British side of the boundary from Canadian explorers. We know something about the streams and the outlets, but we have not discovered their sources. The hill country is practically unknown, and there may be large streams concerning which we have no information. There is an immense stretch of territory of perhaps 250,-

Group of Miners, Trading Co.'s

(

U

Our Northwestern Possessions. 189

COO square miles of which we are practically ignorant.

We are about as badly off with regard to the coast line. The southern coast we know fairlv well in a general way, but there has never been an official survey beyond Sitka. Even the maps of the Aleutian Islands are inherited from Russia, and there has never been anything like a survey of the mouth of the Yukon River. It would be of great value, now, if we knew whether there was a channel through which the Yukon could be reached from Bering Sea by deep water ships. We are aware now that shoals extend out for twenty-five miles, apparently stretching all the way across the mouth of the Yukon, but there has never been any survey to discover whether there might not be a passage through. All ships now, owing to lack of knowledge concerning these shoals, are compelled to avoid them altogether by going to St. Michael, thirty miles north of the mouth of the river, there to meet the river boats which are obliged, on that account, to make the dangerous trip outside on the ocean. If seagoing ships could be brought into the mouth of the Yukon they might proceed up the river at least to as great a distance as that between New

190 Klondike.

Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi anti possibly they could continue the journey for several hundred miles. There should be an early appropriation for a survey of the mouth of the .Yukon. There should also be a survey to discover whether some of the portages between the Yukon at different points and Bering Sea might not be available for general traffic. At one place not far from St. Michael Island the Yukon in its windings approaches within a few miles of the coast.

It is peculiar that the two entrances to the gold country should be, one through the head of the Yukon River, the other through the mouth. It is 20OO miles from Sitka to the mouth of the Yukon, and from the mouth of the Yukon to the Klondike is about the same distance, for the river is very winding throughout its course. The route by sea, which takes the traveler through Unimak Pass, separating two of the Aleutian Islands, to St. Michael, and thence by river boat to his destination, will be used largely for getting supplies into the gold country; but it is a long journey, and steamers going tip the Yukon have to wait until the ice leaves the river.

For miners the trails leading up from the head-

Our Northwestern Possessions. 191

waters of Lynn Canal will be more convenient. There are four entrances into the gold country from the coast in this direction, one by the Taku River, just below Juneau, the others by the White Pass, the Chilkoot Pass and the Chilkat Pass. Of these only two, the Chilkoot Pass and the White Pass, are really feasible, and the Chilkoot Pass is so much the better of the two that it is the route almost exclusively used. It is superior to the others because it has a shorter distance to travel and is not so rugged. White Pass is rugged throughout its entire length, and has not been used by travelers until recently. It is just above Skaguay Inlet. The route by the Taku River is very rough and requires many miks of packing. The Chilkat route is what is known as Jack Dalton's trail. Dalton is well known in all that country. He was a scout for Glave, who was the first white man to explore the region, and for the last few summers he has been engaged in carrying whisky and various supplies up into the mining camps. He fits out at Juneau, with his nine horses, a white man and two Indians, crosses to the Chilkat Inlet, and then strikes off into the wilderness toward the headwaters of the White River. No-

1113 Klondike.

body else knew until recently exactly what rout* he took, as he would not tell.

Lynn Canal, as it approaches its head, divides into two branches, Chilkat Inlet on the west and Chilkoot Inlet on the east. Chilkoot Inlet in turn has a branch known as Dyea Inlet, and at the head of Dyea Inlet is a small Indian village and a store known as Healey's store. In 1894 Healey's store was the only house in the place. It acquires its importance because it is the head of navigation and the last base of supplies for miners before striking ofT into the trail tor the gold country.

If a railroad is ever constructed into the gold fields it will probably be through Chilkoot Pass.

The natives of the gold country in the interior are known as Stick Indians. "Stick" is the Chinook expression for wood, and the Slick Indian consequently is the Indian of the interior or forest. He is quite distinct from the Chilkat Indian on the coast. He is short of stature, but stout, his diminutiveness being due to the hardships and privations which he has been compelled to suffer always. But physically he is very strong. He can carry on his back all day a pack which many men would find it uncomfortable to lift.

Our Northwestern Possessions. 198

There are marked differences between the Chilkats and the Sticks. The Chilkats spend most of their time on the streams and use canoes almost exclusively. They do very little tramping. They are a fine race, hardy and well formed. The Sticks never use canoes. Some of them have little dug-outs in the streams in their own country, but when they come down to the coast, as they come occasionally now, they are quite lost.

The Stick Indians are centered around the streams of Alaska, and have to keep pretty near to the main stream in order to get their food. Until very recently they have never dared to come down below the Chilkoot Pass, so completely were they terrorized by the Chilkat Indians. The Chilkats have had absolute control of the country along the coast, so much so that they were able to collect toll from the miners who first went through the Chilkoot Pass. When the Russians were in possession of Alaska the Chilkats were a kind of middlemen between the Russian traders and the Indians of the interior. Indeed, these peculiar relations seem to have had a great deal to do with the drawing of the boundary line between British America and Russian

Im Klondike.

America. The idea of Russia was to contmue the hne of demarkation between the trading settlements of the coast and the Indian settlements of the interior, so that this Hne is really not a geographical line, but is intended rather to mark the extent of the control of the Indians of the coast; that is, to the summit of the mountain ranges extending from Portland Canal north to Mount St. Elias, beyond which the Sticks never dared to come.

Chapter Xiiij

Laws Governing The Location Of Claims.

It is important to know something about the laws of the United States and of Canada which govern the patenting of mineral lands and which must be observed in locating claims. The public land laws of the United States do not apply to Alaska, and neither do the coal land regulations, which are distinct from the mineral regulations. The Territory of Alaska is expressly ex-

Laws Governing Location Of Claims. 196

eluded from the operations of the public land and coai land laws by provisions of the laws themselves. Mineral lands have been patented in Alaska since 1884. Hon. Binger Hermann, Commissioner of the United States General Land Office, has authorized the statement that the following laws are applicable to the Terri-

First — The mineral land laws of the United States.

Second — Town-site laws, which provide for the incorporation of town sites and acquirement of title thereto from the United States Government by the town-site trustees.

Third — The laws providing for trade and manufact4ires, giving each qualified person 160 acres of land in a square and compact form.

The act approved May 17, 1884, providing a civil government for Alaska, has this language as to mines and mining privileges:

*'Tlie laws of the United States relating to mining claims and rights incidental thereto shall, on and after the passage of this act, be in full force and effect in said district of Alaska, subject to such regulations as may be made by the Secretary of the Interior and approved by the President."

Jm Klondike.

"Parlies who have located mines or miningprivileges therein, under the United States laws )plicab!e to the public domain, or have occupied improved or exercised acts of ownership over -ach claims, shall not be disturbed therein, but ,11 be allowed to perfect title by payment so tided for."

re is still more general authority. Without

. a cial authority, the act of July 4, 1866,

s: All able mineral deposits in lands be-

„ii United States, both surveyed and

msu. : hereby declared to be free and

open to e-loration and purchase, and lands in which these are fcmnd to occupation and purchase by citizens of the United States and by those who have declared an intention to become such, under the rules prescribed by law and according to local customs or rules of miners in the several mininff districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States."

Under United States laws only those who are citizens or who have declared intention to become citizens may finally patent claims. There are no "free miners." The government cannot give the right to mine except in public lands.

Laws Governing Location Of Claims. 197

and these must contain valuable mineral deposits. A claim may not exceed beyond 1500 feet along a vein or 300 feet on each side of the middle of the vein. A person may locate a claim through an agent; $100 worth of work must be done each year. Local government prevails in the various mining districts of the United States, each district being free to manage its own affairs so long as it does not do anything inconsistent with the national laws.

Mining operations on the Klondike on the British side of the boundary are subject, not to the regulations of the Province of British Columbia, but to the general mining laws of the Dominion of Canada.

As soon as the mounted police force has been raised to 100 men from the 20 men now keeping order in the country, it will be considered safe to promulgate the new regulations for placer gold mining. These provide that every alternate claim is to be reserved by the crown for the public benefit, and that the royalty to the crown is to be 10 per cent, on the yield up to $500 a month and 20 per cent, over $500 a month.

A difficulty with respect to the alternate claims is that the placer territory is already

Klondike.

staked solid by prospectors, so far as they have gone. Turning out the prospectors on every alternate claim is not likely to prove a pleasant proceeding. Many have staked without registering and those only Who have registered are safe. The registering has been raised from $5 to $15 in each case, with an annual lax of $100.

The miners' tax applies to a'l alike, and will not be levied so as to discriminate against Americans. It will be almost impcKsible to collect more than a small proportion. As regards its effects on the Canadian miners, it will undoubtedly drive the majority of them, as soon as they have made their pile, to take it to the United States to evade full assessment. How mucli of the roynliies wHI ever find their way to Canad.i is a question.

The Canadian Government, on August 14, 1S97, promulgated the following regulations governing placer mining on the Yukon River as approved by order in council of May 21, 1897, and amended August 7:

Interpretation.

"Bar diggings" shall mean any part of a river over which the water extends when the water is

Laws Governing Claims. 199

in its state and which is not covered at low water.

Mines on benches shall be known as "bench diggings," and shall, for the purpose of defining the size of such claims, be excepted from dry diggings.

"Dry diggings" shall mean any mine over which a river never extends.

"Miner" sha'Il mean a male or female over the age of 1 8, but not under that age.

"Claim" shall mean the personal right of property in a placer mine or diggings during the time for whi'ch the grant of such mine or diggings is made.

"Legal post" shall mean a stake standing not less than four feet above the ground' and squared on four sides for at least one foot from the top. Both sides so squared shall measure at least four inches across the face. It shall also mean any stump or tree cut ofT and squared or faced to the above height and size.

"Close season" shall mean the period of the year during which placer mining is generally suspended, the period to be fixed by the gold commissioner in whose district the claim is situated.

"Locality" shall mean the territory along a

900 Klondike.

river (tributary of the Yukon River) and its affluents.

"Mineral" shall include all minerals whatsoever other than coal.

Nature And Size Of Claims.

(i) "Bar diggings," a strip of land loo feet wide at high- water mark and thence extendinginto the river to its lowest water level.

(2) The sides of a claim for bar diggings shall be two parallel lines run as nearly as possible at right angles to the stream and shall be marked by four legal posts, one at each end of the claim at or about high-water mark; also, one at each end of the claim at or about the edge of the water. One of the posts at high-water mark sliall be legibly marked with the name of the miner and the date upon whick the claim was staked.

(3) Dry diggings shall be 100 feet square and shall have placed at each of its four comers a legal post, upon one of which shall be iegibly marked the name of tlve miner and the date upon which the claim was staked.

(4) Creek and river claims shall be 100 feet lonfj, measured in the direction of the general

Laws Governing Claims. 201

course of the stream, and shall extenJ in width from base to base of the hill or bench on each side; but when the hills or benches are less than loo feet apart, the claim may be lOO feet in depth. The sides of a ciaim shall be two parallel lines run as nearly as possible at right angles to the stream. The sides shall be marked with legal posts at or about th-e edge of the water and at the rear boundaries of the claim. One of the legal posts at the stream shall be legibly marked with the name of the miner and the date upon which the claim was staked.

(5) A bench claim shall be 100 feet square, and shall have placed at each of its four corners a legal post, upon which shall be legibly marked the name of the miner and the date upon whidh the claim was staked.

(6) Entry shall only be granted for alternate claims, the other alternate claims being reserved for the Crown, to be disposed of at public auction or in such manner as may be decided by the Minister of the Interior.

The penalty for trespassing upon a claim reserved for the Crown shall be immediate cancellation by the gold commissioner of any entry or entries which the person trespassing may have ob-

202 Klondike.

tained, whether by orighial entry or purchase, for a mining claim, and the refusal by the gold commissioner of the acceptance of any application which the person trespassing may at any time make for a claim. In addition to snch penalty. ihe mounted police, upon a requisition from the gold commissioner to that effect, shall take the necessari* steps to eject the trespasser.

(7) In. defining the size of claims, they shall be measured horizontally, irrespective of inequalities on tJie surface of the ground.

(8) If any person or persons shall discover a new mine and such discovery shall be established to the satisfaction of the gold commissioner, a creek and river claim 200 feet in length may be granted.

A new stratum of auriferous earth or gravel situated in a locality where the claims are abandoned shall, for this purpose, be deemed a new mine, a U ho ugh the same locality shall have been previously worked at a different level.

A claim shall be recorded with the gold commissioner in whose district it is situated within three days after the location thereof i-f it is located within ten miles of the commissioner's office. One extra day shall be allowed for making such record for every additional ten miles or traction thereof.

fe, for every addi

Laws Governing Claims. 203

In the 'vent of the absence of the gold commissioner from his office, entry for a claim may be granted by any person whom he may appoint to perform his duties in his absence.

Entry shall not be granted for a claim which has not been staked by the applicant in person in the manner specified in these regulations.

An entry fee of $15 shall be charged the first year and an annual fee of $15 for each of the following years. This provision shall apply to locations for which entries have already been granted.

A royalty of ten per cent, on the gold mined shall be levied and collected by officers to be appointed for the purpose, provided the amount so mined and taken from a single claim does not exceed $500 per week. In case the amount mined and taken from any single claim exceeds $500 per week there shail be levied and collected a rovaltv of ten per cent, upon the amount so taken out up to $500, and upon the excess, or amount taken from any single claim over $500 per week, there shall be levied and collected a royalty of twenty per cent.

Default in payment of such royalty, if continued for ten days after notice has been posted upon the claim in respect of which it is demanded or in

Klondike.

the vicinity of such claim hy the gold sioner or his agent, shall be followed by cancelation of the claim. Any attempt to defraud the Crown by withholding any part of the revenue thus provided for, by making false statements of tlie amount taken out, shall be punished by cancellation of the claim in respect of which fraud or false statements have been committed or made. In respect of Ihe facts as to such fraud or false statements or nonpayment of royalty, the decision of the gold commissioner shaK be final.

After the recording of a claim, the removal of any post by the holder thereof or by any person acting in his behalf for the purpose of changing the boundaries of his claim shall act as a forfeiture of the claim.

entry of every holder of a grant for placer mining must be renevred and his receipt relinquished and replaced every year, the entry fee being paid each time.

Xo miner shall receive a grant of more than one mining claim in the same locality, but the same miner may hold any number of claims by purchase and any number of miners may unite to work their claims in common upon such terms as they may arrange, provided such agreement be

1/-V

Laws Governing Claims. 205

registered with the gold commissioner and a fee of $5 paid for each registration.

Any miner or miners may sell, mortgage, or dispose of his or their claims, provided such disposal be registered with, and a fee of $2 paid to, the gold commissioner.

Every miner shall, during the continuance of his grant, have the exclusive right of entry upon his own claim for the miner-like working thereof and the construction of a residence thereon, and shall be entitled exclusively to all the proceeds realized therefrom, upon which, however, the royalty prescribed by clause 14 of these regulations shall be payable, but he shall have no surface rights therein; and the gold commissioner may grant to the holders of adjacent claims such nght of entry tliereon as may be absolutely necessary for the working of their claims upon such terms as may to him seem reasonable. He may nlso grant permits to miners to cut timber thereon for their own use upon payment of the dues prescribed by the regulations in that behalf.

Every miner shall be entitled to the use of so much of the water naturally flowing through or past his claim and not already lawfully appropriated as shall, in the opinion of the gold commis-

a06 KLONDIKE,

sioner, be necessary for tlie due working; thereof, and shall be entitled to drain his own daim free of charge.

A claim shall be deemed to be abandoned and open to occupation and entry by any person when the same shall have remained tmworked on working days by the grantee thereof or by some person on his behalf for the space of seventy-two hours, unless sickness or other reasonable cause be shown to the satisfaction of the gold commissioner or unless the grantee is absent on leave given by the commissioner, and the gold commissioner, upon cfctaining evidence satisfactory to himself that this provision is not being complied with, may canceJ the entry given for a claim.

If the land upon which a claim has been located is not Ihe property of Lhe Crown it wilt be necessary for the person who ajhed for entry to furnish proof that he has acquired from the owner of the land the surface rights before entry can be granted.

If the occupier of the land has not received a patent therefor, the purchase money of the surface rights must be paid to the Crown, and a patent of the surface rights will issue to the party who acquired the mining rights. The money so collect-

Laws Governing Claims. 207

ed will either be refunded to the occupier of the land when he is entitled to a patent therefor or will be credited to him on account of payment for land.

When the party obtaining the mining rights to lands cannot make an arrangement with the owner or his agent or the occupant thereof for the acquisition of the surface rights, it shall be lawful for him to give notice to the owner or his agent or the occupier to appoint an arbitrator to act with another arbitrator named by him, in order to award the amount of- compensation to which the owner or occupant shall be entitled. The notice mentioned in this section shall be according to a form to be obtained upon application from the gold commissioner for the district in which the lands in question lie, and shall, when practicable, be personally served on such owner, or his agent if known, or occupant; and after reasonable efforts have been made to effect personal service, without success, then such notice shall be served by leaving it at, or sending by registered letter to, the last place of abode of the owner, agent, or occupant.

Kixjndike.

Chapter Xiv.

Climate Of Alaska.

Willis L. Moore, chief of the United States Weather Bureau, has prepared a valuable and interesting report on the climate of Alaska. "The climates of the coast and the interior," he says, "are unlike in many respects, and the differences are intensified in this, as perhaps in few other countries, by exceptional physical conditions. The natural contrast between land and sea is here tremendously increased by the current of war;Ti water that impinges on the coast of British Columbia, one branch flowing northward toward Sitka, and thence westward to the Kadiak and Shumagin Islands.

'The fringe of islands that separates the mainland from the Pacific Ocean from Dixon Sound northward and also a strip of the mainland for possibly twenty miles back from the sea, following the sweep of the coast, as it curves to the northwestward to the western extremity of Alaska, form a distinct climate division, which

Climate Of Alaska. 209

may be termed temperate Alaska. The temperature rarely falls to zero; winter does not set in tmtil December i, and by the last of May the. snow has disappeared except on the mountains. The mean winter temperature of Sitka is 32.5, but little less than that of Washington, D. C. While Sitka is fully exposed to the sea influence, places further inland, but not over the coast range of mountains, as Killisnoo and Juneau, have also mild temperatures throughout the winter months. The temperature changes from month to month in temperate Alaska are small, not exceeding twenty-five degrees from midwinter to midsummer. The average temperature of Jrly, the warmest month of summer, rarely reaches 55 degrees, and the highest temperature of a single day seldom reaches 75 degrees.

"The rainfall of Temperate Alaska is notorious the world over, not only as regards the quantity that falls, but also as to the manner of its falling, viz., in long and incessant rains and drizzles. Cloud and fog naturally abound, there being on an average but sixty-six clear days in the year.

'Alaska is a land of striking contrasts, both in climqtp. well as topography. When the sun

810

shines the atmosphere is remarkably tiear, the scenic effects are magnificent; all nature seems to be in holiday attire. But the scene may change very quickly; the sky becomes overcast; the winds increase in fon; rain begins to fall; the evergreens sigh ominousfy and utter desolation and loneliness prevail.

"North of the Aleutian Islands the coast climate becomes more rigorous in winter, but in summer the difference is much ls marked. Thus, at St Michael, a short distance north of the mouth of the Yukon, the mean summer temperature is 50 degrees, but four degrees colder than Sitka. The mean summer temperature of Point Barrow, the most northerly point in the United States, is 36.8 degrees, but four-tenths of a degree less than the temperature of the air flowing across the summit of Pike's Peak, Col.

"The rainfall of the coast region north of the Y-ukon delta is small, diminishing to less than ten inches within the arctic circle.

"The climate of the interior, including in that designation practically all of the country except a narrow fringe of coastal margin and the territory before referred to as temperate Alaska, is one of extreme rigor in winter, with a brief, but

Climate Of Alaska. 211

relativel)' hot, summer, especially when the sky is free from clouds.

"In the Klondike region in midwinter the sun rises from 9.30 to 10 A. M., and sets from 2 to 3 P. M., the total length of daylight being about four hours. Remembering that the sun rises but a few degrees above the horizon, and that it is wholly obscured on a great many days, the character of the winter months may easily be imagined.

are indebted to the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey for a series of six months' observations on the Yukon, not far from the site of the present gold discoveries. The observations were made with standard instruments, and are wholly reliable. The mean temperature of the months October, 1889, to April, 1890, both inclusive, are as follows: October, 33 degrees; November, 8 degrees; December, 11 degrees below zero; January, 17 degrees below zero;, February, 15 degrees below zero; March 6 degrees above zero; April 20 degrees above. The daily mean temperature fell and remained below the freezing point (32), from November 4, 1889, to April 21, 1890, thus giving 168 days as the length of the closed season of 1889-90, assuming the

outdoor operations are controlled by temperature only.

Tbt lowest temperature registered during the winter were: 33 degrees below zero in November, 47 below in December, 59 below in January, 55 below in Februar\', 45 below in March, 26 below in April,

"The greatest continuous cold occurred in February, 1890, when the daily mean for five consecutive days was 47 degrees below zero. The weather moderated slightly about the ist of March, but the temperature still remained below the freezing point. Generally cloudy weather prevailed, there being but three consecutive days in any month with clear weather during the whole winter. Snow fell on about one-third of the days in winter, and a less number in the early spring and late fall months,

"Greater cold than that here noted has been experienced in the United States for a very short time, but never has it continued so very cold for so long a time. In the interior of Alaska the winter sets in as early as September, when snow storms may be expected in the mountains and passes. Headway during one of these storms is impossible, and the traveler who is

Climate Of Alaska. 218

overtaken by one of them is indeed fortunate if he escapes with his life. Snow storms of great severity may occur in any month from September to May, inclusive.

"The changes of temperature from winter to summer are rapid, owing to the great increase in the length of the day. In May the sun rises at about 3 A. M. and sets about 9 P. M. In June it rises about 1.30 in the morning and sets at iO-30> giving about twenty hours of daylight and diffused twilight the remainder of the time.

"The mean summer temperature of the interior doubtless ranges between 60 and 70 degrees, according to elevation, being highest in the middle and lower Yukon Valleys."

Klondike.

Chapter Xv.

Opening Up The Country.

Althougli so short a time has elapsed since the riches of the Yukon country attracted the attention of the world the rush of gold seekers to the north as compelled thi; searching out of new means of entrance into the interior. The Chilkoot trail, described at length in the chapter entitled, "Seeking the Pot of Gold," remains the most feasible of all the routes, but the narrow dimensions of the Chilkoot Pass have proved entirely insufficient for the incrowding horde of fortune hunters. The hardship of crossing the pass is not so great as it was. it is said, but the mass of people landed by the boat from Juneau after August 1 glutted it to such an extent that thousands were forced to camp along the road between the head of the inlet and the summit waiting for an opportunity to get through. It is estimaed that io,ooo people started for Alaska from .

Opening Up The Country. 215

ports on the Pacific coast between July 14 and September i, 1897, and comparatively few of these could get through into the interior before spring.

Unscrupulous promoters of selfish enterprises met the early arrivals at Juneau and pictured to them the great advantage of White Pass, leading from the head of Skagiiay River, only a few miles below Dyea Inlet. They described the pass as an easy route and induced the majority of pilgrims to undertake it. When the travelers were landed by hundreds with their baggage at the mouth of the Skagiiay River they were confronted with the disheartening information that the Pass waspractically no pass at all, and they were compelled to camp there with their belongings to await the blasting of a passage through. It was not until the last week in August that a determined effort was made to blast out the pass, and in the meantime a town had grown up at the foot containing three thousand people. The hardships suffered by these people are said to have been very great, but the leading men got together, erected themselves into a town, formed a city council, elected officers and appointed a committee. They have maintained order admirably. Within a fortnight

3ie KLONDIKE.

Skaguay had its streets duly named, and speculators were dealing in corner lots. The town is only a collection of tents and huts and the site is said to He under water for some time each spring, but as the trail is improved and travel becomes more regular the town will doubtless be moved farther up the river to more substantial foundations.

So great was the crush that for the protection of life Secretary Bliss, ai the Interior Department, was constrained on August 9 to issue a proclamation, calling the attention of all who contemplated making the trip to the "exposure, privation, suffering and danger incident thereto at this advanced season even if they should succeed in crossing the mountains." At that time 3000 persons with 2000 tons of baggage were waiting at the entrance to White Pass, and less than fifty had succeeded in working their way through at the peril of their lives. About a thousand people it was said had pushed through Chilkoot Pass, and about 2000 were waiting for a chance. An idea of the difficiiUies offered at the vep.' gateway to the gold regions may be gained from the statement of a San Francisco business man, who went to Juneau in August on a steam-

Opening Up The Country. 217

er and thence to Dyea and Skaguay. "The two so-called towns," he sys, "are about four miles apart, with a big mountain, which runs down to the ocean, dividing them. Two large mountains hem the towns in on the opposite sides. At the foot oif one of these mountains the Dyea River goes rushing down to the ocean; at the base of the other the Skaguay River runs its mad flight. We anchored about a mile and a half from shore. We could get no nearer. The captain, the purser and I went in a small boat to ascertain whether a landing could be made, and it was decided that the only available location was on a big cluster of barren rocks more than a mile out firom shore. "There were four hundred passengers and six hundred tons of freight for Klondike. A lighter was lowered and three hundred men were put aboard and towed to the rocks by a row-boat. Then the freight followed. A line was formed by the passengers, leading from the bottom of the rocks to the top, and it took a day and a half to land the freight on the rocks. From here the freight had to be taken by boat to the shore line. This cost $5 a ton, and another $5 a ton had to be paid to get it over the muddy beach to the mainland. The rocks ire about midway between

?18 Klondike,

Dyea and Skaguay, and the charges to either place were the same. Some erf the passengers wIto landed on the rocks slept in a tent, while others had only blankets."

And he adds: "It is terrifying to think of the fate in store for the unfortunates who will have to winter at Dyea and Skaguay this year. The ice-cold wind comes down through the two passes at a rate of from eighty to one hundred miles an hour, and the ground is covered with snow."

Comment has been made on the fine character of the men who are quartered at the foot of the passes. They are of gentlemanly appearance, determined and patient, just the kind of material with which to open up a new country. They have been chosen like Gideon's band, for the faint hearted have turned back in the first flush of disappointment, selling their outfits for a song. Camp followers and desperadoes do not seem to have been attracted yet to the Alaskan fields.

Mr. John F. Pratt, in his chapter on "Characteristics of Our Northwestern Possessions," has pointed out the superiority of Oiilkoot Pass to White Pass, while others less conscientious or less well informed were luring thousands into unexpected hardships. What he says now about

Opening Up The Country. 219

them will be of great value to any person who is planning for a journey in the spring. The tv/o starting points for the two passes are separated by four miles of salt water. The Dyea trail which goes over Chilkoot Pass, involves a climb of 3500 feet, while the Skaguay trail, not yet completed, involves a climb of 2650 feet and besides being six miles longer, is marshy in places. There is a swamp of seven or. eight miles to cross before reaching Lake Tagish. Mr. Pratt has' furnished for the new edition of this book a series of notes, the result of observations taken by him in the summer of 1894, which may be accepted as altogether authoritative. The notes relating to the approach to Chilkoot Pass are given below:

"The names of the recognized landmarks used by the miners are as follows :

"Dyea" is at the head of Taiya Inlet, and is the head of navigation; at this point "Healey's Store" has been located for some years.

"Mouth of the (Taiya) Canyon" is where the right hand branch of the Taiya River emerges from the gorge that extends up the pass as far as Sheep Camp.

"Sheep Camp" is a camping place well known frcm the fact that it is at the timber limits on the

280 Klondike.

west side of tlie mountain range, and that no more timber is available until Lake Lindenian on the east side of the pass is reached. There is a distance of about sixteen miles that will have to lie traversed without fuel with the exception of a very few small, isolated spots where creeping "scrub" may be found.

"Stone House" is an ufrturned rock, a short distance beyond "Sheep Camp," with space enough under it to shelter eight or ten persons closely huddled tcether,

"Summit" is the summit of the pass, the eastern portion of wliidh is filled with perpetual snow.

"Crater Lakes" are a chain of small lakes, the first one of which is immediatelv under the summit, and only a fe\- hundred feet below it; the" are free from ice during August and a portion of July.

"The trail from Dyea leads up the Taiya River bottom which extends lO the mouth of the Taiya Canyon a distance of about seven miles. This bottom, though comparatively narrow, is composed of numerous sandy and gravelly islands, cutting the stream, which is ven rapid in places, having an average fall for this distance of about 50 feet to the mile into several channels. A ma-

OPENING UP THE COUNxRY. 221

- jority of these islands fiave good-sized cottonwood trees growing on them.

"At: the Mouth of the canyon" the climb actually com,mences ; the trail which during the last mile and a half has been going up the bottom between the' two arms of the river, now crosses the - .right-hand branch and goes up a precipitous hill .4nd bears away to the right from the stream, now become a mountain torrent, and much above *it, winding along the mountain side through the timber until Sheep Camp is reached. From Sheep Camp, around which the timber is rapidly being consumed by the numerous campers, the trail goes along the right-hand side of this stream that has already become much smaller and w'hose size depends upon the rapidity with which the snow melts, until the foot of the pass proper is reached. From here the ascent is made on the left side; it is neariy one thousand feet in altitude; the way is very precipitous and is over broken rocks which lie at a natural slope to the summit, where there is ample room for the short stops usually made there.

'The foregoing applies to July and August; during March, April and May the trip is made on the snow, the route following the best grades that

933 Klondike.

the snow and ice at the respective times will permit.

'Tht approximate distances and altitudes, the former by estimation and the latter by barometer determinations, means of going and returning, are as follows:

"Mouth of (Taiya) Canyon" from Dyea about seven miles, altitude about 300 feet,

"Sheep Camp" from Dyea about ten and onehalf miles, altitude about 2050 feet.

"Summit" of the pass from Dyea about thirteen r.iiles, altitude about 3475 feet."

Ogilvie gives a table of distances from the head of Dyea Inlet to various points along the trail leading to the gold country, which is the result of actual surveys and hence may be regarded as correct. This table follows:

Head of canoe navigation, Dyea Inlet. . 5.90

Forks of Dyea River 8.38

Summit of Chilkoot Pass 14-76

Landing at Lake Lindeman 23.06

Foot of Lake Lindeman 27.49

Head of Lake Bennett 28.09

Foot of Lake Bennett 53-8s

Foot of Caribou Crossing (Lake Nares). 56.44

Opening Up The Country. 223

Foot of Tagish Lake 73-25

Head of Marsh Lake 97-21

Head of Miles Canon 122.94

Foot of Miles Canon 123.56

Head of White Horse Rapids 124.95

Foot of W'hite Horse Rapids 125.33

Tahkeena River 139-92

Head of Lake Labarge 1 53-7

Foot of Lake Labarge 184.212

Hootalinqua River 215.88

Big Salmon River 249.33

Little Salmon River 285.54

Five Finger Rapids 344-8'3

Pelly River 403.29

White River 499.1 1

Stewart River 508.91

Sixty-mile Greek 530.41

Dawson City 575-70

Fort Reliance 582.20

Forty-mile River 627.08

Boundary Line 667.43

It was inevitable that many new trails should be suggested and before many months the Yukon region may be accessible by several overl-and routes. The trail by way of Chilkat Pass used

224 Klondike.

by old Jack Dalton does not seem to have attracted travel yet, although it is now known to be a promising route, k crosses the Chilkat Pass, and follows a line nearly due north across the plains until it strikes the Lewis river just above Five Finger Rapids. Other routes are described which bear signs of promise. One of these is by way of the Copper River, and it has the advantage of forming a route exclusively on American soil. It is said that in this way the Klondike may be reached after a journey of not much more than three hundred miles from the coast, and that it would not cost much to open it up. The route proposed would start inland from the of the Copper, near the Miles Glacier, about twenty-five miles east of the entrance to Prince William Sound. It would follow the Copper River to the mouth of the Chittyna River, which is the principal eastemi tributary, and which is said to be navigable for some distance. From the head of navigation on the Chittyna either a highway or a railroad could be constructed without great difficulty, it is said, and the grades through the "low pass," as it is called by the natives, probably the Scoloi Pass, which appears on the maps, would not be heavy. Thence

Opening Up The Country. 225

the road woul- follow the valley of the White River to the point where it empties into the Yukon.

Another overland route which is attracting some attention starts from the upper end of Stuart Lake, about five hundred miles above Ashcroft, a British Columbia mining town. For sixteen miles above Ashcroft there is an excellent wagon road, which brings the traveler to Upper Fraser River, which Is navigable for three hundred and fifty miles for light steamers. Eleven miles above Stuart Lake a series cA waterways is fouTid,'whidh can easily be converted into a steamer route. Freight can now be taken as far as the lake for six cents per pound. From the lake to Fort Connelly the water route would be through Tatcher River, across North Tatlah Lake and Driftwood River.

From Fort Connelly the route would be to Telegraph Creek, over prairie country. From Telegraph Creek to Klondike travel is easy, and, in fact, the entire route is said to present many features preferable to the water route via the coast and through the lakes to the Yukon River.

The Interior Department of the Canadian government is interested in opening up a route by

228 Klondike.

way of Edmonton and the Peace River, which it is asserted offer the advantage of a continuous stretch of country available for horses, and may, therefore, be utilized by pack trains right throtigih to the gold fields. It goes north by way of the Peace River to the Liard, and thence by way of the Dease to the Pelly, which joins the Yukon at Fort Selkirk.

Mr, Ogilvie speaks of another route belween Telegraph Creek and Teslin Lake whicS will soon be opened. Telegraph Creek is the head of steamer navigation on the Stikine River and is about one hundred and fifty miles from Teslin Lake, The Yukon is navigable for steamers from its mouth to Teslin Lake, a distance of 2300

R. H. Horton, coal mine inspector for the State of Washington, says that he rent up the Stikine nine years ago. At that time the Klondike was unheard of, but he was within lOO miles of that river and could easily have reached it. This route shortens the distance, so it is said, and there are no passes to climb. The grass is good all the way and in many places hay could be cut tor stock feed during the winter months. This trip could be comfortably made in thirty days.

Opening Up The Country. 227

The construction of a railroad to the interior is only a question of time, and perhaps of a very short time. The suggestion is by no means new.

In 1886, in reply to an inquiry on the part of the United States Senate, the Director of the United States Geological Survey, Mr. J. W. Powell, presented a report on the feasibility of constructing a railroad between the United States, Asiatic Russia, and Japan. Mr. Powell said that from all available information, the proposed line appeared to present no greater obstacles than those already overcome in transcontinental railroad building. It was sugg-ested that the line start from some point on the Northern Pacific

Railroad in Montana, and run, via the head waters of the Yukon ; and thence to some point on the shore of Bering- Sea, the total distance covered being about 2765 miles. A branch line of 375 miles from the head waters of the Peace River might run to the mouth of the Stikine River, so as to facilitate communication with Sitka.

am thorough'hly convinced," said Ogilvie in his report of June 10, 1896, "that a road from the. coast to some point on the head waters of the river, preferably by the Taku, if at all practicable, would convert all our part of the river into a hive

228 Klondike.

of industry. It may be said there is no competition, and anyway in the present condition of trade things cannot be sold much cheaper at a fair profit. Once let a railroad get from some point on the coast to some ioint on the river so that we can have quick, cheap and certain entrance and exit, and the whole Yukon basin will be worked. At present the long haul makes the expense of mining machinery practically prohibitive, for the cost of transportation is often more than the first cost of the machine."

An English syndicate within a short time after the announcement of the Klondike finds had begun to survey the White Pass for a railroad running from Skaguay to Taku ann Tagish Lake, a distance of sixty-eight miles, and eventually to the Hootalinqua River, a distance of no miles. It is not expected that the road could be completed in less than two years on account of the shortness of the summer season. The syndicate has asked the Canadian government to guarantee 3 per cent interest on its debentures to the extent of $7,500,000, the estimated cost of the construction of the road. This is not the only project by any means, for several companies have been

Opening Up The Country. 229

formed with a view to surveying routes for the construction of railways.

It will probably not be long before channels of regular and reasonably rapid communication with the Yukon region will be opened up. The Canadian government already has made a proposition to the United States looking to the construction of a telegraph line into the center of the Klondike district. The proposals have been approved by the British Secretary of State for foreign affairs and have been forwarded by the Governor General of Canada through the British embassy in Washington to the State Department, and thence referred to the Interior Department.

The proposals, while reserving the rights of either country pending the settlement of the international boundary line between the United States and Canada south of Mount St. Elias, urge the expediency of establishing a permanent route giving access to the interior at all seasons of the year. The most feasible route, in the judgment of the Canadian authorities, would be to start from the head of Winter navigation, on Lynn Canal, cross the mountains by White Pass, or by any other pass which may seem more acces-

Klondike.

sibie, and proceed northward to Tort Selkirk, and thence to Klondike.

Tlie Canadian government' asserts Its readiness to undertake to open communication by constructing a telegraph line from the head of Winter navigation, traversing a distance of eighty miles across the summit of the mountain range, to a convenient point northeast of the mountain range, from which a tnil can be followed to Fort Selkirk and to Klondike. That government also signifies its intention, in case the propositions are adopted, to erect suitable places for shelter at periods of from forty to fifty miles along the line and keep up dog trains during the Winter months for tlie conveyance of the mails to and from the interior.

Those who were interested in the construction of the proposed Russian American telegraph line in the eaily sixties have questioned whether that line could ever have been operated successfully on account of the heavy snows, but there will now doubtless be an opportunity for a practical experiment.

An arrangement has been made by the United States and Canadian authorities by which it is hoped Circle City and Dawson City will have

Opening Up The Country. 281

mails once every fortnight. This will be effected by permitting the postal departments of the two countries to ./orlv togetlier in harmony. Hitherto the cost of a round trip for the United States mail carriers has been $600 and the mails have been delivered once a month when possible. The Chilkoot Pass was crossed with the mail by means of Indian carriers. In the winter transportation has been carried on by means of dog sleds, and there have been occasions when the mail was lost on the way. It is hoped that under the new contracts there will be no stoppage, no matter how low the temperature may go. The contractor has reported that he was sending a boat, in sections, by way of St. Michael, up the Yukon River, to be used on the waterway of the route, and it is thought much time will be saved by this, as in former times it was necessary for carriers to stop and build boats or rafts to pass the lakes.

In additioti to this, for the summer season, contracts have been made with two steamboat companies for two trips from there to Seattle. When the steamers reach St. Michael the mail will be transferred from the steamers to the flat-bot-

888 Klondike.

tomed boats racing up the Yukon as far as Circle City, and perhaps farther.

Postmaster General Gan', on September 2 issued a formal order establishing an exchange of mails once a month between the postoffices at Dyea and Dawson City, the service to consist of one round trip each month, the mails to contain only letters and post cards to the exclusion of all other articles. The contract for performing the service will be let by the Canadian Government, the United Slates paying the latter for its share of the expense based on the stretch of our territory that the route traverses.

The United States Government has taken an important step toward furthering the development of tlie Yukon country, by the establishment of an army post at St. Michael for the protection of life and property. This was decided upon at a meeting of the Cabinet in Washington, Septenrber 17, i8q7.

Traits Of Native Population. 233

Chapter Xvi.

Traits Of The Native Population.

According to the census of 1890 the population of Alaska consisted of 4,298 whites, 23,531 Indians, 2,288 Mongolians and 1,935 of mixed blood. These figures will have to be revised, for another year will see the white population at least quadrupled. The designation "Indian," as applied to natives of the Territory, is misleading. Ethnologically the natives of Alaska may be classed in four divisions or families. The southeastern coast and the islands of Alexander archipelago, from Dixon entrance as far north as Mt. St. Elias, are occupied by the Kolosch or Tlingit family of Indians. The Indians of the interior belong to another family, known among ethnologists as Athapascans or Tinnehs. They occupy the country from Hudson Bay to the mountains skirting the coast, and they touch the sea only in

Klondike.

two places — the Kenai Peninsula on Cook Inlet and the mouth of the Copper Rivr.

Skirting the entire shore north from Mt. SL I Elia5 to Point Barrow and beyond arc the Eski- I nio. The Aleuts occupy the islands of the Aleutian archipelago and the narrow perinsuJa of which those islands are a continuation. The Athapascans and the Kolosclians are divided into innumerable smaller tribes or clans, some of which differ from one another by hardly noticeable pecidiarities, and occasionally travelers have designated an entire family by the name of some one of these smaller tribes, a practice which leads to more or less confusion.

Of all these native Alaskans the greatest interest attaches to the tribes scattered along the southeastern coast. They were known early as a hardy, warlike, dominant race, possessed of high intelligence and of exceptional skill in various arts. Charles Sumner said of them thirty years ago: "For generations they have been warriors, prompt to take offense and vindictive, as is the nature of the Indian race; always ready to exact an eye tor an eye and a tooth for a tooth." This escription of the tribe is borne out bj' history.

was a Koloschan tribe who received two boat

Traits Of Native Population. 235

crews of Tschirikow's expedition in 1841, as they landed in a wooded cove, and no survivor returned to tell their fate.

The Koiosch family are more popularly known as Tlingits. The word "Kolosch," or more properly "Kaluga," is of Aleutian origin, and means "dish," the allusion being to the dish-shaped ornaments worn by this family. Prof. Powell, in his paper on the "Indian Linguistic Families of America North of Mexico," estimates the entire Koloschan family to number 6437, divided into eleven different tribes or kuans.

The Indians who are met with at the foot of the Chilkoot and Wfiite Passes belong to the Chilkat tribe. These are the natives pressed into service for packing across the divide. Of them Lieut. Frederick Schwatka said at the time of his reconnoisance in 1883:

"As traders ihey are equai in every respect to civilized men, and as honesty is by no means a prominent or characteristic trait among them, to deal with them successfully requires the closest attention. Trade with them has always been eagerly sought after by -white men, as they are by far the wealthiest of all these Indians, and through thir great energy have the best furs to dispose of.

236 Klondike,

Formerly all trade between the whites on the coast and the Indians living in the interior had to be conducted through this tribe, and they would not allow white men to venture inland over their trails, which were the only ones, nor would they allow the interior natives to even come to the seacoast. In this way they had a complete and absolute monopoly of the trade, and could dictate almost any terms they chose to both parties."

Since Schwatka's day there has been a change in the condition of these Indians. The opening up of the salmon trade has given them an opportunity to work in the canneries, and tlie increase in overland traffic has enabled them to devote themselves to packing for money, so that they are more amenable than formerly. The Chilkats proper have three permanent villages, the ohid of which is Kloquan on Chilkat Inlet. The Chilkoots, the other division of the tribe, have one village situated on the Chilkoot River, near Dyea Inlet. In th entire tribe of about looo there are between 300 and 400 able bodied men.

The Chilkats and the Chilkoots, like all the tribes belonging to the Koloschan family, are well advanced in native arts, and it is surmised by students that some of these arts were brought over

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Traits Of Native Population. 287

from the Asiatic side. There is a strong resemblance, facially, between these Alaskan tribes of thetsoutheast and the Japanese, and the skill the Iifdiansi. have shown in various arts bears out the theory that the two peoples are distantly akin. Mr. Pratt, of the Coast Survey, says that he '- ourld in the winter house of the chief of the Chil- Tcat tribe at Kloquan in 1894 a blunderbuss of bronze, with flaring mouth, utterly unlike anything to be found elsewhere on the continent, and bearing evidence of having been brought originally from Japan or China. It was preserved as a relic, and by its side was a spear of a very hard dark wood, which might have been 'mahogany, and which the Indians fiad a tradition was brought to them by the first white man who ever came to Alaska. The totem poles and carvings in the chief's house in Kloquan are remarkable, and some of them are exceedingly fine. Noticeable there is the mask of a woman, showing singular skill of workmanship. On inquiry it was found to be the likeness of the dead wife of a former chief, Kohklux. On her death he had sent out for the slaves in his tribe who were skilled carvers and had ordered the one most skillful to execute the mask. The totems of this people are surpris-

238 Kloxdike.

ingly good. They are done in Alaska cedar, which is the most durable wood in that portion of the coTinln-. They also work in slate and in ivory and horn. Tliey make beautiful baskets, which are water-tight; and the finely-wrought Chilkat blankets have carried the name of the tribe far beyond their own borders.

There is a striking difference between the Indians of the coast and those who range the country just the other side of the mountains. The tribes with which those who follow the overland route to tlie gold fields come in contact are as a a wretched lot of savages, inferior in body and in mind. From the Chilkoot and White Passes north to old Fort Selkirk, at tlie junction of the Lewis and Felly Rivers, wander the Tagish Indians. Tliey are commonly known as the "Sticks," and the lattr name is sometimes given to ail the Indians of the interior by miners and explorers. Properly, a "Stick" Indian is one of the tribe who are met with along the chain of lakes and rivers at the headwaters of the Yukon, extending northward from Chilkoot Pass, The word "Stick"' means wood, and these are the in- Jiabitants of the forests. It is thought by Prof. Powell, of the Bureau of Ethnology, that these

Traits Of Native Population. 239

"Stick" or Tagish Indians belong ethnologically to the Kolosch family of the coast, although they share the habits of the Athapascan tribes of the interior. They are a degenerate race, few in numbers and devoid of spirit.

William Ogilvie, the Canadian explorer, estimated their number in 1896 at 112, and these range over a stretch of country 400 miles in length. A few of them live most of the time with the Chilkats, some of the latter having Tagish wives, and the Tagish are little better than beasts of burden for th-e more active race. They complain bitterly of the robbery and tyranny of the Chilkat tribe.

A substantial looking house, known as Tagish House, has been built on the river connecting Lake Tagish and Lake Marsh. It is made of logs and hewn timber, with a roof made of bark, and it presents quite a civilized appearance. The Indians meet occasionally here for a yearly festival or consultation. The "Sticks" are skillful in spearing salmon. They use a spear consisting of three points, the middle one of iron, straight and sharpened, wHile the two on each side are of bone, and barbed with an old nail or other small scrap of iron. When in use these are fastened to

940 Klondike.

a long pole cut especially for the purpose. Small seines are used in addition to the spears. They are somewhat stunted, and present a cadaverous appearance, as if only half nourished, but they are capable of carrying as large packs as the Chilkats, who are a really strong and hardy race.

North of Fort Selkirk tribes of a better quality are met with. These belong unquestionably to the Tinneh or Athapascan family.

Chief among these are David's band and Charley's band, as they are called. David's band has its headquarters about eighty-five miles above Fort Reliance and not far from the deserted trading station known as Belle Isle. It numbers about 70, according to Ogilvie. Charley's band is quartered directly on the Yukon, about 100 miles below the boundary on the American side. The village consists of half a dozen houses built of sticks and brush, with just enough room to accomodate the members of the family, including dogs. There are a few other scattered bands in the region, but their number is very small. The Indians of the Yukon region were decimated by an epidemic a good many years ago, and this partly accounts for the sparseness of the population. These natives are wonderfully skillful with

Traits Native Population. 241

the canoe and with fishing. They are Christianized to some extent by the missionaries of the Church of England. They have Sunday services with Bible lessons, readings and prayers, and according to Ogilvie never go on a journey of any length without their religious books, from which they always read a portion before going to sleep. They are greedy and selfish in their transactions with the whites. Ogilvie estimates the total number of Indians on the upper Yukon at 482, of whom 136 are on the United States side of the boundary.

All the Indians of this section have peculiar ideas of right and honor. They apparently never hesitate about making way with anything that happens to suit their fancy, provided it is not stored away, but if it is "cached'' or pocketed away, at a distance from the owner, they will not touch it, and it is said that they will starve almost before helping themselves to food stored in this manner.

Lieut. Henry T. Allen, U. S. A., who made a military reconnoisance in 1885 exploring the country from the mouth of the Copper River north'Ward along the Tanana and following the Tanana from its source to its junction with the

343 Klondike.

Yukon made some exceedingly interesting observations concerning the Indians of those regions. Tlie region drained by the Copper and its Iribiitaries is about 25,000 square miles in extent, and the Indians in this region, according to Allen, number only about 400. The families are small; the men are capable of great endurance, although not muscular. Special food is always cooked for the men and the refuse given to the women. A boy of five wars has precedence over his mother at meals.

The social organization is very rigid. The tribes are divided strictly into classes. The "tones" are the leaders. They scorn work, and never condescend to earn.- a pack or pull a rope, but other members of the tribe yield absolute allegiance to them. The "skillies" are near relatives of the tones, and come next in rank. Then come the "shamans," or medicine men, and then the vassals of various degree. In all assemblies seats are assigned absolutely according to rank. Many of the skillies ha\'e vassals at their beck and call. Allen saw one of them, fourteen or fifteen years of age, sitting within a few feet of the river, order a man six feet high, a vassal, to bring him water. The wives are treated with little consider-

A Bit Of History. 248

ation, and are valued in proportion to their ability to pack and do general work.

Every house has a sweat bath. It is about ten feet square and four or five feet high, nearly all under ground. It is lighted by a small aperture, over which the intestines of a bear are stretched. Stones are heated by placing them on a close frame of logs in the main room, after the fashion of the old-fashioned lime kiln, and they are transferred to the sweat room by sticks used as tongs. The aperture is closed and water is poured on till the necessary amount of heated vapor is produced. All the traits of which mention is made grow less pronounced the farther into the interior one penetrates.

Chapter Xvii.

A Bit Of History. .

When Seward negotiated the treaty with Russia in 1867, providing for the purchase of Russian America by the United States, it appears that

244 Klondike.

none of the public men of the day were taken into the secret until just before the treaty was sent to the Senate. During the summer of 1867 Congress took recesses from time to time with a view to holding President Johnson in check, and a resolution had been adopted providing for a recess from March 30 to July 3. I.ate on the evening of March 29 Senator Sumner, who \vas chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, found a note from Mr. Seward awaiting him: "Can you come to ray house this evening? I have a matter of public business in regard to which it is desirable that I should confer with you at once." Responding to this note he learned for the first time that a treaty had been negotiated and was on the point of being signcJ. The signatures of Mr. Seward and of the Russian Minister, Mr. de Stoeckel, were affixed to the document at four o'clock the next morning, and the treaty was transmitted to the Senate the same day. On April I an executive session of the Senate was convened by proclamation to consider it, and on the 9th of April Sumner, with a single sheet of paper before him, delivered an oration lasting several hours, which was a mine of information with regard to the Russian possessions, and which has

A Bit Of History. 246

hardly been excelled since in its exhaustive treatment of a country then almost unknown to the American public. The ratification of the treaty was due very largely to Sumner's eloquence. Only two votes were cast against ratification in the Senate, those of William Pitt Fessenden, of Maine, and of Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont. Thaddeus Stevens, who, as leader of the House, was bound to have much to say about the appropriation necessary to carry the treaty into effect, also exerted a powerful influence in favor of ratification. Sumner said in the course of his speech that it was within his knowledge that the Russian Government was sounded on the subject of the purchase of Alaska during the administration of Mr. Buchanan. This was done through Mr. Gwin, at the time a Senator from California, and Mr. Appleton, Assistant Secretary of State. Mr. Gwin had more than one interview with the Russian Minister at Washington some time in December, 1859, and in reply to an inquiry from th€ Russian Minister Mr. Gwin said the United States could go as high as $5,000,000 for the purchase. Gwin professed to speak for the President unofficially. The conversations never reached the stage of formal negotiations. Prince Gortschakof

Klondike.

remarking in a dispatch received early in i860 tliai the sum of $5,000,000 did not seem in any way to represent the real value of the possessions.

In 1861 Captain Lieutenant Golovin, of the Russian navy, made a detailed report on the Russian possessions in America, his voyage having been undertaken by direction of Prince Gortschakof with 2 view to obtaining information which would enable the Russian Government to consider with more intelligence the suggestion for purchase. Tlie subject was submerged by the Presidential election then approaching, and afterwards by the rebellion, to be revived after the close of the war through a suggestion to Seward from the Russian minister.

Few treaties were ever conceived, initiated, prosecuted and completed in so simple a manner, without protocols or dispatches. The whole negotiation appears in the result, unless we except two brief notes, each less than one hundred words in length, which constitute all that passed between die negotiators.

It was Sumner who suggested the name ''Alaska" for the new acquisition.

The Boundary Dispute. 247

Chapter Xviii.

The Boundary Dispute.

Th'ore is every probability that the new di. coveries of gold- will bring the long pending boundary dispute between the United States and Great Britain to a head. The most profitable diggings are situated near the 141st meridian, whidh is the boundary fixed by treaty in the Northiwest- e'rn Territory, and the constant danger of clashing of authcttities will precipitate a determination. This country has never been adequately surveyed, and there is some uncertainty as to whether certain of the gold bearing creeks are on Alaskan or Canadian soil. The determination oif this portion of the boundary, however, is purely a matter for survey. Ogilvie, the Canadian land surveyor, has been carrying on his observations for some years, but so far as the United States is concerned the only surveys have been unofficial.

The most delicate question will arise with re-

248 Klondike.

gard to the boundary of the southeastern strip of the territory. For the last twelve years the British Government has been trying by continually increasing claims to shke tlie hold of the United States upon the strip of mainland in Southeastern Alaska, and upon some of the gold bearing islands.

Up to 1884 both countries were practically as one as to the boundary Hne from ML St. Elias to the sotttheast. According to the terms of the treaty between Russia and Great Britain, the United States, in purchasing Alaska in 1867, acquired all of Russia's rights. In describing the southeastern boundary the Anglo-Russian treaty reads:

"The line of demarkation between the possessions of the high contracting parties upon the coast of the continent and the islands of America to the northwest shall be drawn in the following manner; Commencing from the southernmost point of the island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, and between the 131st degree and the 133d degree of west longitude, the same line shall ascend to the north along the channel called Pordand Channel, as far as the

The Boundary Dispute. 249

point of the continent where it strikes the 56th degree of north latitude; from this last-mentioned point the line of demarkation shall follow the summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as far as the point of intersection of the 141st degree of west longitude (of the same meridian), and finally, from the said point of intersection, the said meridian line of the 141st degree, in its prolongation as far as the frozen ocean, shall form the limit between the Russian and Briitish possessions on t'he continent of America to the northwest.

"Whenever the summit of the mountains which extend in a direction parallel to the coast from the 56th degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of the 141st degre of west longitude, shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to Russia, as above mentioned (that is to say, the limit to the possessions ceded by this convention), shall be formed by a line parallel to the winding of the coast, and which shall never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues therefrom."

On all maps from 1825 down to 1884 the boun-

Klondike.

I dary line, it was declared, had been shown as, in general terms, parallel to the winding of the coast, and thirty miles from it. In 1884, however, an official Canadian map showed a marked deflection in this line at its south end. Instead of passing up Portland Canal this Canadian map showed the boundary as passing up Behm Canal, an arm of the sea some sixty 01 seventy miles west of Portland Canal, this change having been made on the bare assertion that tile words Portland Canal as inserted were an error. By this change the line and an area of American territory about equal in size to the ' State of Connecticut was transferred to British territory. There are several facts which militate against this claim. In the first place, the British Admirality. when surveying the northern limit of British Columbian possessions, in 1868, one year a-fter the cession of Alaska, surveyed Portland Canal, and not Behm Canal, thus by implication admitting this canal as the boundary line. The region now claimed by British Columbia was at that time occupied by a military post of the United States without objection or protest on the part of British Columbia. Annette Island, in this ron, was, by an act of Congress,

The Boundary Dispute. 251

four years ago, set apart as a reservation for the use of the Metlakatla Indians. Within a year the United States Engineers, by authorization of Congress, have made an official survey of the west bank of Portland Canal, building" stone houses at various places, and thus exercising an undoubted act of sovereignty.

British contention is that the boundary is to follow a line ten marine leagues, not from the coast of the mainland but from the coasts of the islands skirting the shore. At certain points this would throw all the mainland and portions of the islands into British territory.

So far have the Canadian pretensions gone thait some of their maps even place Dyea in Canadian teritory and leave the United States without an entrance to the Yukon country by means of their mountains to the southeast. But Secretary Gag'e has forestalled pretensions of this kind by making Dyea formally a sub-port of entry.

Coioeent Of Thb Press.

By far the best. ♦ ♦ Temperate in style, remarkably thorough. — Chicago Tribune.

Mr. Coolidge's book is timely and well done. — New York Sun. .

The book will be accepted as an authority. — New York Press.

Treats the subject in all its varied and interesting phases. — New York Journal.

The mine of information is little short of amazing. If one wishes to go gold hunting he could not have a better guide. — Brooklyn Eagle.

Everything that is known of the new gold region is in this book, and presented in a way that readers will appreciate. — Boston Globe.

The best book on the Klondike country. — Washington Times.

Abounds in facts of interest to all intelligent readers. — Chicago Inter-Ocean.

Every reader will be pleased with the book. There are many facts there that cannot be found elsewhere.' — Boston Journal.

The facts, statistics and history presented are accurate and have the stamp of official authority.

Mr. Coolidge has rendered a valuable service. — New York Mail and Express.

The maps and diagrams may be accepted as the most nearly accurate and up to date in existence. — Philadelphia Bulletin.

Full of good and accurate information. — San Francisco Chronicle.

A very comprehensive book. — Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Should be universally read. — Colorado Springs Gazette.

The book is almost indispensable. — Concord Monitor.

The possible gold seeker, the scientist, the business man and the general reader will find something of profit in its pages. — Harrisburg (Pa.) Telegram.

Interesting as it is timely. — New Haven Register.

A seasonable and useful book, compiled from authentic sources and brought down to date. — Indianapolis Journal.

A vast amount of practical information in a small compass. — The Evengelist (N. Y.).

V