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CHARLES
SHELDON
B.A. 1890
OF BOOKS
ON NATURAL HISTORY
EXPLORATION • HUNTING & FISHING
GIFT OF
FRANCIS p.
B.A. 1897
GARVAN
THE PROSPECTOR.

Associate of the Royal School of Mines; Editor of the
Mining and Scientific Press and The Mining Magazine;
Formerly State Geologist of Colorado.

SAN FRANCISCO
Mining and Scientific Press
1909

Copyright 1909
By the Mining and Scientific Press.

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Printed by
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San Francisco.

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CONTENTS

Chapter. Page.
I. The Inland Sea  1
II. Discovery and Development  9
III. Juneau  15
IV. The Treadwell Mines  23
V. The Men In the Mines  37
VI. The Glaciers of Alaska  47
VII. The Silent City  63
VIII. Sitka  77
IX. Historical  89
X. Alaska and California  105
XI. Chinook, Natives, and Game  119
XII. Skagway  131
XIII. The Stampede to Dawson  137
XIV. On the White Pass Railway  153
XV. White Horse  160
XVI. On the Upper Yukon  173
XVII. Dawson  183
XVIII. The Gold of the Klondike  189
XIX. The Diggings  199
XX. Development of Mining Methods  209
XXI. On Bonanza Creek  227
XXII. The Yukon Ditch  239
XXIII. From Dawson to Fairbanks  249
XXIV. Fairbanks  263
XXV. Cleary Creek  ,.  271
XXVI. Arctic Agriculture  279
XXVII. On the Lower Yukon  287
XXVIII. St. Michael and Nome  299
XXIX. Nome and the Eskimo  307
XXX. The Dog Race  321
XXXI. The Three Swedes  327
XXXII. The Golden Beaches of Nome  337
XXXIII. Anarchy at Nome  345
XXXIV. The Ride to Ophir  363
XXXV. San Francisco  381

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Prospector  Frontispiece Page.
The Midnight Sun  3
The 'Jefferson' in Queen Charlotte Sound  5
Ketchikan  7
On the Turn of the Tide  11
On the Mush  13
Moonlight on Sumdum Bay  17
The Sumdum Chief Mine  19
Looking Across Gastineau Channel, From Juneau to Treadwell .... 25
The Glory Hole  27
Working in the Glory Hole  27
Underground in the Alaska Treadwell Mine  29
A Big Stope  31
One of the Stamp-Mills at Treadwell  33
Alaska Treadwell Mine in Winter  S5
Alaska Perseverance Mill in Silver Bow Basin  39
An Indian Camp in Southeastern Alaska  41
Treadwell, Alaska  49
The Taku Glacier  51
Another View of the Taku Glacier  53
The Eagle River Glacier, near Juneau  55
On Taku Inlet  57
The Pace of the Glacier  59
In a Snow Drift  61
An Ice-Berg in Taku Inlet  61
In Chatham Strait  65
The Silent City  67
The Professor at Work  69
In Sitka Harbor  71
Sitka, with Mt. Bdgcumbe in the Background  73
An Alaskan Trout Stream  75
The Esplanade, Sitka  79
Totem-Poles in Indian Park, Sitka  81
Totem-Pole at Sitka  83
Interior of Russian Church, Sitka  84
The Lady of Kazaan  85
A Baidarka and Eskimo  87
Indian River Park, Sitka  91

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page.
The Baranoff Castle, Before the Fire  93
Russian Block-House at Sitka  95
A Snow-Storm at Sitka  97
Indian Women Selling Salmon-Berries, at Sitka.  99
The Bay of Sitka  107
Sun-Dogs in a Winter Sky. . ,  109
Sitka and Mt. Verstovia  Ill
In Quiet Waters  115
Sitka and Mt. Edgcumbe  117
The Musher  121
Thlingit Women  123
Totems of the Thlingit Indians  125
Moose Swimming  126
The Moose Hunter  127
When Wind Helped Muscle  128
Mining on Chichagoff Island  129
Evening Light on Lynn Canal  133
Evemng  135
Loring; A Fishing Village  136
On the White Pass Railroad  139
Looking Down the White Pass  139
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass During the Klondike Rush  141
White Pass City. On the Trail to the Klondike  142
The Rush to the Klondike in the Spring of 1898  143
The Stampede. On the Chilkoot Pass  145
The Line of Stampeders  147
On the Summit of the Chilkoot Pass  149
Camp of Klondikers on Lake Lindeman in May 1898  151
On the White Pass Railroad  155
On the Shore of Lake Bennett  157
Lake Lewis and the Yukon Railway  159
Remains of the Klondike Rush, on Lake Bennett, 1908  160
White Horse, Yukon Territory  163
Steamboats on the Stocks at White Horse  ;  165
Crossing the Yukon in Winter  167
Old Tramway at White Horse  171
Diagram of Navigation  174
The Barge in Front of Steamer 'White Horse', Showing Method of
Attachment  175
Steamer and Barge on the Way to Dawson  177
The Steamer 'White Horse'  179
Coming up the Five Finger Rapids  181
In the Environs of Dawson  183

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page.
Dawson at Midnight, June 20, 1908  185
The Regina Hotel, Dawson  187
Carmack's Stakes  191
Old Gold Creek  193
Transport of Supplies  197
In the Miners' Boarding-House  201
A Meandering Stream in Gold-Bearing Alluvium  203
On Dome Creek, Yukon  205
Drift-Mining in Frozen Ground  211
Steam-Points in Place Underground  213
Section of a Drift Mine  215
A Steam-Point  216
Steam-Points in Action Underground  217
Dredge No. 6 of the Yukon Gold Company  219
Dredge on Bonanza Creek  221
Thawing with Steam-Points Ahead of a Dredge  225
A Home in the North  226
In the Early Days. Washing the Golden Gravel  229
Partners  231
Flat Creek, A Tributary of the Klondike  233
The Prospector and His Rocker  235
On the Valdez Trail in Winter  237
The Tombstone River at the Intake  241
Finishing the Ditch  243
Assembling Stave-Pipe on the Line of the Yukon Ditch  245
Wooden Stave Pipe-Line  247
Pipe Crossing the Klondike  247
Arriving a,t Ea£le  251
Camp on the Innoko  253
Steamer 'White Horse' on the Yukon  255
Steamer Receiving Wood on the Yukon  257
Poling on the Innoko  259
Leaving Camp  261
The First Camp at Fairbanks; in 1903  265
Lower Clearly Creek in 1907  273
Cleary Creek in Winter  275
A Clean-Up on Cleary Creek  277
Manley's Hotel, Hot Springs  281
Vegetables Grown at Latitude 64° 51' North  283
Manley's Hot Springs  285
Steamer at Fort Gibbon  289
Malamutes in Chorus  291
xi

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page.
Nulato  295
Hauling Freight Over the Ice of Bering Sea  297
St. Michael  299
Landing Passengers at Nome  301
Front Street, Nome  303
Disabled Dredge on Bourbon Creek, Nome  305
Nome  307
Eskimo Woman and Child  309
A Relic of the Boom on the Beach at Nome  311
An Eskimo Belle  313
Eskimo Girls  315
Reindeer  317
An Eskimo in His Kayak  317
Eskimo Children  319
Polar Bear and Hunter  319
A Dog Team on the March  323
The Team that Won the Race at Nome in April 1908  325
Campbell and Samuelson Arriving at Nome from Valdez on April
3, 1908  329
On the Beach of Nome in Winter  331
A Team of Huskies  333
Unloading Freight from the 'Corwin', Off Nome  335
Workers on Nome Beach, 1908  339
On the Beach, Nome, 1908  341
Washing Gold-Bearing Sand  341
Nome in 1899  347
A Mine on the Tundra, Near Nome  349
In a Drift Mine  351
Nome in Winter  .•  353
Winter Dumps at Little Creek, Near Nome  355
A Malamute Team  357
An Eskimo Camp  359
Walruses Asleep on the Ice  361
Solomon River, Alaska, Showing the Three Friends and the Nome-
Montana-New Mexico Dredges at Work  365
Council. A Pioneer Settlement  369
A Typical Landscape on the Seward Peninsula  373
Bering Sea  377
After the Ride to Ophir. September 1908  379

LIST OF MAPS Page.
Map of Alaska  1
Map Showing Relative Size of Alaska  9
Juneau and Vicinity  21
Southeastern Alaska  101
Part of the Yukon Territory, Canada  152
Alaska  158
Sketch Map of the Klondike Region  188
The Golden Beaches of Nome  343
The Seward Peninsula  367

ise'  fBz' lis' n't' 170' iM' loa'

IB'f IflO' im' 14a' 138' 134'

:b' 13B' ufl'  11*1  HO

MAP OF ALASKA.
Sliowing the journeys recorded in this book.

Through the Yukon and Alaska.

CHAPTER I.
THE INLAND SEA.

The quiet of evening lies like a benediction on the dreaming
earth ; the air is still ; the ship ploughs her way to the sound of
many waters. Although eight bells struck an hour ago, the
twilight is luminous. It is late in June ; we are on the steamer
Jefferson, bound from Seattle to Juneau. Our vessel is moving
swiftly through calm waters separating the islands that fringe
the coast of British Columbia and southern Alaska. It is a
fiord 1000 miles long, with the blended beauty of Norway and
New Zealand. On the port side the land overshadows the
narrow waterway and the dark eddies are fringed with silver ;
in the distance the shores of an island are surmounted by high
mountains flecked with snow and hooded in mist. On the star
board side the silvery waves break on a sandy beach, above
which the forest extends inland to low hills, silhouetted against
a gray sky, and beyond them are more dark mountains outlined
against a pallid background of cloud. Ahead is a narrow space
of water between two mysterious shores ; we seem to be explor
ers plunging forward into an unknown region; we feel as if
we were the first to penetrate this mysterious wonderland.
That impression is constantly renewed. Narrow inlets are
framed in a theatrical perspective ; between ranges of hills are

2 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
films of blue mist, giving the scenic effect of depth ; the prospect
widens continuously, one horizon succeeds another, hills upon
hills arise, and there are hills upon hills behind.

No vestige of man appears ; neither his work nor his dwell
ings are in sight. A new land untouched by the devastating
hand of civilization ; a land of mystery and beauty unsoiled by
the wheels of industry ! "We pass through straits where the tide
races furiously; we advance smoothly along echoing reaches
separating verdant islands from wooded shores; and yet for
hours we see no trace of human handiwork. We might be with
Vancouver feeling his way amid uncharted seas; we might be
with an expedition sent from Sitka by Baranoff in search of
furs; we might be the companions of a Hudson's Bay trader
poaching on the preserves of the Russian fur company. Of
later British energy there is no sign; of the latest American
exploitation there is no suggestion. We have gone back at
least a century and are cruising along shores never trodden by
the men of our race !

Evidence of modern industry is not wholly lacking, as is
discovered later. A saw-mill or a pulp-mill is detected on the
edge of a bay, and behind it the flash of a waterfall suggests a
source of power for machinery. Salmon canneries remind the
traveler that the fisheries of Alaska are gold mines. A smelter,
a tramway up the steep hillside, a group of cabins in the forest,
a white scar on the mountain — all these suggest the activities
of the miner. But sueh evidences of industry, while collec
tively important, separately are insignificant in the vastness
of the region. Pictorially, they play a part only at rare
intervals.

The shores of the islands, and of the mainland, are thickly
wooded. Spruce and hemlock prevail, but the trees are small,
and unsuited for lumber. In an acre of forest only three or
four spruce will exceed 5 feet in diameter. The hemlock, when

THE MIDNIGHT SUN.

4 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
thick enough, is used in the mines. At an altitude of 500 to
1000 feet above tide-water yeUow cedar succeeds the spruce,
and at 1000 to 5000 feet only scrub pine or pinon and other low
brush finds a foothold. The scars made by landslips and snow-
slides are healed by a thick growth of alder, in patches of
velvety green. The soil is scant, the forest growing from a
tangle of decayed vegetation and moss. When the large trees
are cut down, this moss dries, and the forest is killed. Pros
pecting is difiScult, for the explorer has almost to hew his way.
The perpetually misty climate of this southeastern portion of
Alaska favors a growth tropical in its luxuriance. During the
short summer of four or five months the vegetation waxes riot
ous. While walking from Juneau to Silver Bow basin during
June I noted that the roadside was already thickly fringed
with white spirea, red columbine, and pink huckleberry; all
the shrubs were ready to burst into bud while stiU under their
coverlet of snow, flowering before the leaves were out. At
Treadwell the violets had a longer stem and a lovelier color
than the Neapolitan, and with them went a perfume exquis
itely delicate.

The intemational boundary between British Columbia and
Alaska runs through Cape Chacon, the southern extremity of
Prince of Wales island, and thence northeastward up the nar
row fiord called the Portland Canal. At Cape Chacon, Juan
Perez, the Spanish navigator, landed in 1774 ; finding a native
with a Russian gun in his hands, he marked the line of 54° 40'
north latitude as the limit of Russian rule southward and of
Spanish dominion northward. This proved strangely prophetic
as to the boundary, but an ironical fate decreed that neither
the Russian nor the Spaniard should long enjoy it as a line of
international contact.
"Fifty-four forty" became the war-cry of a belligerent
party led by Lewis Cass in 1843, when Great Britain and the
United States were quarreling over the international boundary.
"Fifty-four forty, or fight!" was the motto of the supporters
of Polk, but in 1846 Buchanan signed the Oregon treaty making

THE INLAND SEA.

the forty-ninth parallel the line of demarcation between Ameri
can and British territory in the Northwest.

The Jefferson is 216 feet long and is rated at 1615 tons. She
flies the flag of the Alaska Steamship Co. Everything aboard
is scrupulously clean and the food is good. Nevertheless, I
venture a criticism : dinner is served at 5 p.m. ; owing to the
long daylight the time seems like mid-afternoon, and to many

THE 'JEFFERSON' IN QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND.
of the passengers the custom is annoying. Another criticism
can be made upon the elaborate character of the menu; it is
absurd in the small galley of a ship like this to attempt to
give a dinner that if properly done would tax the resources
of a large kitchen. The consequence is number without variety,
for the various dishes are cooked so closely together as to lose
their distinctive flavor. There may be persons who travel on
coastwise vessels to enjoy French cooking, and there may be
those that go away from home to dine better, but is it not
unfair to make the average traveler suffer for the sake of such

p THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
simpletons? While dwelling on these minor matters, it is
worth recording that on none of the dozen steamboats on
which I traveled in this journey to the North did I find a bath
or a bath-room available. There was a bath on one boat, but it
was used for pickling pigs' feet; there was a bath-room on
another steamer, but it was filled with stores. If cleanliness
be next to godliness, you do not travel heavenward when you
go northward. 
The dark woods are turned gray by dead trees, which stand
out amid the green like the gray hairs of a badger. This is
due to the decay of trees that have reached the maximum
growth permitted by the thin soil and short summer. Most of
this timber is only fit for making pulp to be used in manufac
turing paper. It is a curious example of national lack of thrift
that the lordly forests of California and Oregon should be
destroyed for making paper-pulp when these Alaskan woods,
useless for any other purpose, are so readily available. The
climate being excessively humid, no harm would be done in
this case by the destruction of the forest, viewed as a preserver
of moisture. Moreover, the soil on the islands being non
productive, the destruction of the trees, and later of the moss,
would facilitate exploration and expedite the search for mineral
wealth. Ketchikan is a typical Alaskan port. It is the 'distributing
point for the miners and fishermen on the islands of Revilla-
gigedo and Prince of Wales. The town is on stilts, that is, it is
built on piles; over them are laid the weatherbeaten gray
boards that constitute streets; these are scrupulously clean,
for no horses traverse them. We happened to land on a Sunday
morning and as we strolled along the quiet avenues, the strains
of a hymn came sweetly from a Methodist church. Ketchikan
wears a sober look; it is far from the stamping ground of the
great herd ; in whatever rampaging its own inhabitants might
indulge, such exuberance would raise no dust, for a mist is in
the air and water is underfoot.

THE INLAND SEA. 7
¦At 9- o'clock on June 21 we are threading the famous
Wrangell Narrows. This is a strait 19 miles long, tortuous,
and in places only 100 yards wide. It was long considered
navigable only by vessels of the lightest draught, until Capt.
J. B. Coghlan, U.S.N., surveyed and buoyed the channel in
1884. At low tide there is a bar that leaves only 14 feet of
water, but as the tide rises 10 feet there is ample clearance at
high water. The Jefferson drew 15 feet when we left Seattle;
her commander is himself the pilot. In the fading daylight

KETCHIKAN.

our course is steered by aid of white monuments of concrete
surmounted with white crosses on shore, while in the water the
red buoys guide the navigator in finding the narrow channel
in a strait that is so serpentine and shallow as to seem more
like a river than an arm of the sea. On one small island we see
a fence enclosing a grave that marks the last prospect hole of ^
a pioneer, who was killed by the Indians, and just beyond; a
half-sunken barge lies wrecked on a reef. The wild duck
examine it curiously. On several trees eagles are perched; on
others, the grouse ; while overhead a flock of geese flies athwart

8 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the sky in characteristic procession. It is said that on the
islands deer abound; but on the mainland they are scarce,
because the timber wolves hunt them.

The daylight fades, but we can see the green moss along
the shore and the russet seaweed floating on the edge of the
waterway. A bend brings to view a deserted saltery, for it is
too early for the fishing season; another turn in the channel
and a smaU settlement emerges from the forest. The blue
smoke curls peacefuUy in token of rest after labor. We issue
from the narrow strait into a mystic lake. The succession of
pictures is so rapid that nothing can be entirely unexpected
and the attention is held so strongly that even at midnight in
this luminous atmosphere the senses are wakeful and sleep
seems but waste of time.

Entering Lynn Canal, the fiord is six miles wide. On a gray
day the scenery is grandly desolate. To the west is a moun
tainous coast; being on the cold side of the range, the snow-
fields reach to a broad band of dark forest, which, in purple
shadow, mantles the foot of the mountains to the water 's edge.
Torn fragments of mist fly wildly and the wind blovidng off the
ice-fields is as cold as man's ingratitude. On the eastern side
the mountains rise abruptly for 5000 feet above the tide, and
the timber-line is clearly marked at 1500 feet. Above this level
the bare rock, in brown and purple, with patches of green moss,
reaches to the snow-fields. In every ravine a cascade comes
tumbling in reckless haste and on the crest the piled mass of
neve marks the foot of the glacier. One of these perched high
on the rock-slope seems ready to faU upon the ship. The sun
light breaking through the clouds irradiates the blue cHffs of
ice and places a coronet of sapphire upon the mountain's brow.
To starboard, to port, aft, ahead, wherever the eye turns, are
snowy mountains, blue ice-fields, and gray skies. We are enter
ing the Northland.

CHAPTER II.
DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT.
Alaska is a great land. That is what the word alaksa origi
nally signified. When the flrst Russian adventurers reached

MAP SHOWING RELATIVE SIZE OF ALASKA.
(After U. S. Geological Survey.)
the Aleutian islands they were told by the natives that east
ward lay a great stretch of country, which they called al-ak-shak
or al-ay-ek-sa. The island of Unalaska was then known among
the natives as Na-gun-alayeksa, or "the land near Alayeksa."
In time the native name was corrupted to Alaska ; it is an Eng-

IQ THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
lish version, for the Russians never used it. Thus the name
was in effect a prophecy, the true significance of which was
not understood until 240 years after the first European landed
on the northern coast of western Alaska.
The relative size of Alaska is shown by the accompanying
map. This illustrates the fact that the east and west points of
Alaska are as far apart as the Atlantic is from the Pacific in
the latitude of Los Angeles, whUe the northerly and southerly
extremities are as widely separated as the Mexican and Cana
dian boundaries of the United States. It is often said that San
Francisco is east of the centre of the United States. This
apparent paradox is explained by the fact that the most west
erly island of the Aleutian chain is farther west from San
Francisco than San Francisco is from New York. The Seward
Peninsula at Cape Prince of Wales is only 60 miles from the
Siberian coast of Asia. The distance by sea from San Fran
cisco to Skagway is 1696 miles; from Skagway to Nome, by
the Yukon, is 2274; and from San Francisco to Nome, 2731.
Owing to the fact that Alaska is usually shown on maps either
by itself or as part of the continent of North America, most
persons acquire wrong conceptions of its size and position ; the
study of maps is a remedy, and a journey to Alaska a cure, for
any such misunderstanding.
The early history of a country is linked to its topographic
features. Mountains are barriers, rivers are avenues. The first
foreigners to greet the natives of this big corner of the Ameri
can continent came from Asia, for the Pacific afforded an
approach to the islands that, like sentinels, are thrown far out
to sea from an inhospitable shore. The Russians crossed Siberia
and explored the Arctic coast of Asia. In 1728 a band of
Cossacks was driven by a storm eastward, landing in Norton
Sound. Others came across from Kamchatka and settled on
the islands and peninsulas of southeastern Alaska. The moun
tains guarding the coast discouraged exploration into the inte
rior. Another range — ^the extension of the Rocky Mountains —
barred the westward progress of the French voyageurs and the
English fur-traders of the Hudson's Bay Company. After the
Russians had obtained a foothold among the Indians, the vice-

ON THE TURN OF THE TIDE.

12 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
roys of Mexico sent successive expeditions up the coast, such
as that of Perez in 1774. If the English fur-traders had not
interfered, the Spanish and Russian spheres of influence would
have conflicted and a contest for control would probably have
ended in the establishment of the Sacramento river as the line
of demarcation. The British navigator Captain Cook landed
near Sitka in 1778, while seeking a way by water to Hudson's
Bay. Fifteen years later his midshipman, Vancouver, surveyed
the coast carefully and completely from latitude 35 to 60°
north. Meanwhile the English were finding a way overland
from Canada. Mackenzie, in behalf of the Northwestern Fur
Company, ascended the Peace river, crossed the Rocky Moun
tains, and reached Pacific tide-water in Queen Charlotte sound,
only to learn that Vancouver had preceded him by a short
interval, in 1793. Thenceforward the known portion of Alaska,
from Unalaska along the fringe of islands to Sitka and thence
to British Columbia, was the battle-ground between the agents
of the two fur companies, namely, the Russian American Com
pany and the Hudson's Bay Company. Not until 1826 did the
Russians extend their explorations along the northwestern
coast to the mouth of the Yukon. The establishment of a post
at St. Michael prepared the way for trade up the great river
of Alaska. In 1843 Zagoskin reached the mouth of the Tanana
and built Nulato.
While the Russians were exploring the west coast of Alaska,
the English were finding their way along the Arctic. In 1789
Mackenzie descended the river that now bears his name and
reached the frozen sea. In 1826 Franklin went westward from
the mouth of the Mackenzie. Then the relief expeditions sent
from England (between 1845 and 1853) in search of Franklin
explored and charted portions of the Seward Peninsula.
The great interior region was stiU unknovra, although the
Hudson's Bay Company was persistently advancing its out
posts westward. In 1840 a 'factor' or agent of that company
established a trading post at the head of the Pelly, a tributary
of the Yukon. In 1847 Fort Yukon was built by Murray. The
English traders heard that the Russians were in the lower
Yukon, and in 1850 they descended to Nulato. Thus here and

DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT. 13
there at enormous distances apart the lonely outposts of the
European races were gaining a foothold. The only object of
their intrusion into the inhospitable wilderness was the trade
in furs. No whisper of gold was heard.
In 1863 the Western Union Telegraph Company sent an
expedition to survey a telegraph line that was to connect
America and Europe, by way of Asia. Submarine transmis
sion by cable under the Atlantic was believed to be imprac-

ON THE MUSH.
tieable. The survey of the proposed route through British
Columbia, Alaska, and Siberia, involved the exploration of
regions but little known. In Siberia, George Kennan did good
work; in Alaska, Robert Kennicott was the leading spirit.
Although the project of a telegraphic system was nipped in
1867 by the announcement that the Atlantic cable was a suc
cess, the explorations made then and thereafter by the men in
charge of the Western Union expeditions proved most impor
tant. They ascended the Yukon, and they crossed the Seward
Peninsula. The information they procured proved of great

14 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
value in the negotiations between the American and Russian
governments at the time of the transfer, and the routes they
mapped were followed by the telegraph lines built as soon as
the country became famous for its gold deposits.
In 1867 Russian America was purchased by the United
States for the sum of $7,200,000, and the 'district,' at the sug
gestion of William Seward, the Secretary of State, was named
'Alaska'. At that time the finding of gold had been reported
in a vague way, but no profitable mining had been done. The
Chilkoot Indians opposed the incoming prospector until 1880,
when 16 miners, under Edmund Bean, crossed the Chilkoot
pass and descended the upper branches of the Yukon. In 1883
Frederick Schwatka crossed the same pass and followed the
Yukon all the way to the sea. His graphic account of the expe
dition appeared in the Century magazine and did much to excite
interest in Alaska. But an event even more important was the
voting by the American Congress in 1895 of a small appropria
tion enabling the Geological Survey to send a party into Alaska.
From that year up to the present, successive parties of scien-
tiflc explorers have carried the investigations of the Survey
across the rivers, mountains, and morasses of Alaska, doing a
work the value of which is now fully appreciated.
A little desultory gold and copper mining had been done in
a few localities, but with the exception of the great Treadwell
mine and one or two others in the vicinity of Juneau, mining
in Alaska was a negligible quantity. Then suddenly, as out of
a clear sky, came the tremendous shout of a big boom, with all
the excitement that follows wonderful discoveries of gold. In
1896 George Carmack found gold on the Klondike, in the
Yukon Territory. A mob of 50,000 adventurers rushed to the
diggings. In 1898 the golden beach of Nome was discovered
and another stampede ensued. Alaska had arrived.

CHAPTER III.
JUNEAU.
On the morning of the fourth day from Seattle the Jefferson
reaches Juneau. It it early dawn ; the mists are climbing the
wooded slopes of the mountains that border the straight course
of Gastineau Channel. To our left, or westward, the dwellings,
ofiices, and shaft-houses of the Treadwell mines form a long
settlement along the shore of Douglas island, whose higher
contours are surmounted by the snowclad peak named Jumbo.
Close to the water are several large buildings emitting the
muffled roar that proves them to be stamp-mills. The red head-
frame of No. 2 shaft of the Alaska Treadwell mine is silhou
etted against the gray wall of the cavernous opening called the
' glory hole '. On the beach a gray building, resembling a nata-
torium, is the club where the miners congregate. The big
bunk-houses, one of them in process of repair, suggest other
human aspects of the mining business. On the first rise above
the shore are a number of new cottages, giving a touch of the
picturesque to this industrial settlement. A long wharf indi
cates the magnitude of the trade in supplies and machinery
arising from the operation of mines producing $3,250,000 per
annum and employing 1200 men. Oil tanks, freshly painted
bright red, punctuate the foreshore and assert the economy
of liquid fuel over coal. They give a chromatic liveliness to
the quiet landscape. Behind the wharf the residence of the
general manager suggests the watchful skill dominating large
operations, while the lace curtains and neat lawn bespeak the
womanly grace that makes of every abiding place a home.
Two miles northward, up the channel, on the other side,
whieh is the mainland, the pretty town of Juneau lies ensconced

16 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
in the lap of the mountains guarding the passes into the North
land. Above the town is the alluvial fan at the mouth of
Gold creek, the stream that led the pioneers of 1880 to the
rich deposits of Silver Bow basin, a glacial cirque, five miles
above Juneau.
It has been said that Juneau is the gateway to the mining
regions of Alaska; undoubtedly, this pioneer settlement has
been the point of departure for the adventurous spirits that
explored the wilderness and laid the foundations of existing
industrial development. Up to the time of the transfer of
Alaska from Russia to the United States, in 1867, there had
been no gold mining. The Russian governors, of whom Bara
noff was chief, had discouraged the search for gold because it
might have interfered with the fur trade, which was their
source of profit. Por gold mining they had no liking, and of
it they had no knowledge. Some old records prove that the
Russians had observed the occurrence of gold in several locali
ties but made no effort to exploit the deposits. The Stikine
river, about 1865, was invaded by prospectors and in 1874 the
Cassiar diggings were established on the Canadian side of the
boundary, just out of Alaska. In 1869 some of the miners from
the Stikine went north and made placer discoveries on Wind
ham bay and Sumdum bay. In 1870- '71 about $40,000 was
obtained from these two localities. This was the beginning of
gold mining in Alaska.
Near Sitka, on Baranoff island, mining began in 1877, with
the location of the Lucky Chance and Stewart on Silver bay.
One of the operators on the Stewart was George E. Pilz, who
erected the first 10-stamp mill in Alaska on that mine in 1879.
Rumors of gold had been afloat among the people of Sitka for
many years before, and ever since. It is said that more than
30 years ago the Auk Indians used to eome to Sitka wearing
gold ornaments; for Sitka was then the centre of the coastal
trade. In 1878 John Muir was deputed by the United States
Government to explore southeastern Alaska, and in his report
he stated that the region between Windham bay on Stephens
passage, about 65 miles southeast from the site of Juneau, and
Sullivan island, 60 miles northwest, in Lynn Canal, would make

MOONLIGHT ON SUMDUM BAT.

18 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
a second California. This report in pamphlet form came to
Sitka in the early spring of 1880. George E. Pilz had just
completed his stamp-mill. He and N. A. Fuller, a local mer
chant, after reading Muir 's report, decided to send prospectors
into the gold-bearing region described by the celebrated natu
ralist. As soon as spring opened and the snow was off the
mountains, Pilz and Fuller engaged Joseph Juneau, a French
Canadian, and Richard T. Harris, an American. These two
miners were properly outfitted; accompanied by three Indians,
they started on July 19, 1880. From Sitka they went in a small
boat first to Windham bay, then, to Sumdum, then back to
Windham bay, where they located several claims. Crossing
Taku inlet, a treacherous passage, they sailed north to the
head of Ljom Canal. Coming back they called at the Auk
village 12 miles north of the site of Juneau and obtained some
information from the Indians. Skirting the eastern shore they
ran aground on the bar of Gastineau Channel at the north end
of Douglas island, and camped on August 16. While prospect
ing they found a creek so full of dead salmon that they named
it Salmon creek, the name it now bears. Rowing four or five
miles farther south along the east shore they came upon
another stream, at the mouth of which they found sand con
taining gold. This they named Gold creek. The date was
August 17, 1880. They made their way up the canyon for about
two miles, where they found some rich quartz veins and located
several claims. Being short of provisions, the two explorers
went back to Sitka on August 23, but returned immediately to
Gold creek, whieh they examined carefully from its mouth to
Silver Bow basin, a distance of five miles. Many more claims
were located- With the aid of the Indians they cut a trail and
packed 800 pounds of specimen ore, with which they returned
to Sitka in November.
Juneau and Harris gave a frank account of their discoveries.
Inevitably, there was much excitement in the little frontier
outpost. A stampede followed. Among the first to go was
Edmund Bean, who camped on the site of Juneau, then covered
with a forest of spruce and hemlock. Juneau and Harris,
together with five others, hurried thither in a steam launch

THE SUMDUM CHIEF MINE.
(Photographed by Moonlight.)

20

THROUGH THE TUKON AND ALASKA.

borrowed from the U. S. gunboat Jamestown, then lying in the
harbor of Sitka. Eleven other men, including John Olds, Hugh
CampbeU, and John Dix, hired the steamer Favorite and left
Sitka on November 26. On arrival they found that the pre
ceding party had located by proxy, which was contrary to the
regulations of the Cassiar district, where most of the pros
pectors had obtained their notions of mining law. The town-
site also was located, covering everything except what is now
Main street. During the winter a dozen cabins were built. In
the spring of 1881 the Northwest Trading Co. sent a repre
sentative, Edward De Groff, to open a store. He came in a
sloop with a party of seven others and a stock of supplies.
Shortly afterward a post-office was established with De Groff
as postmaster. In October 1880 before returning to Sitka, Dick Harris and
Juneau, with three natives, held a so-caUed miners' meeting
on the site of Juneau. Harris wrote the laws of the mining
district. The preamble states that the meeting was organized
"by Richard T. Harris, Joseph Juneau, and three representa
tives of Geo. E. Pilz and N. A. FuUer." The natives and
Juneau could neither read nor write, so that everything was
left to Dick, who named the future town Harrisburg and also
gave his own name to the mining district.
Harris and his friends returned to Sitka, bringing the books
with them; when the rush commenced and the miners arrived
at Juneau, they found no way to record their claims, the
Recorder and the books being at Sitka. A strong demand was
made for the return of both. Harris sent the records in the
Jamestown launch in February 1881, by the hands of Lieut.
Commander C. H. Rockwell. At a meeting called soon after,
Richard Dixon was elected Recorder, and Harris being unpop
ular just then, the 72 miners present voted to christen the town
Rockwell, to which Rockwell objected; therefore, the name
Harrisburg was retained until December 1881, when at a mass
meeting called to settle disputes and make town regulations,
the name of the settlement was changed to Juneau. Harrisburg
was "too commonplace." De Groff was secretary of the meet
ing and the minutes now form part of the records at Juneau.

JUNEAU.

21

Some of the resolutions were unique in their way but they have
been used as precedents in recent litigation. Poor Dick Harris
had tried hard to perpetuate his name but he was destined to
lose the distinction. First the name of the town was changed
to Juneau, as described above, and when the District of Alaska
was organized in 1900, the Harris Mining District became the

Scsl.: a f miles
0 I 2

JUNEAU AND VICINITT.

Juneau Recording District. Thus Dick 's illiterate partner won
fame without an effort.
John Olds, now proprietor of the Occidental hotel, at Ju
neau, was the second man to reach (in April 1881) the ridge
above Silver Bow basin, where the outcrops of the Alaska-
Perseverance and Groundhog lodes cross the mountain. He
tells me that wherever the snow was gone he saw lots of loose
'float' — pieces of ore from a vein — and in these fragments of
quartz he could see gold. The veteran acknowledges that he
became excited and thought he had found "the richest country
on earth." He located the claims, but when the experts came
and condemned the discovery, he dropped his locations. Sub-

22 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
sequently the 'float' was gathered and carried for treatment
to a little arrastre that was built near the head of the present
Perseverance ditch. Another of the pioneers of Alaska is Hi
Chung or 'China Joe', who came to Wrangell in '74 and to
Juneau in '81. When the Chinese were driven out in 1885, he
was allowed to remain, because he had a house and lot, and a
bakery. "Many a hungry white man and Indian has he fed,
you bet," and the prospectors are always owing him money
for bread. He attends meetings of the pioneers and is proud
to participate. Juneau was incorporated on June 29, 1900, and in 1906 it
became the capital of the District of Alaska. Thereby hangs
a tale. At the time of the transfer, in 1867, Sitka was chosen
as the headquarters of the commanding officer attached to the
department of the Columbia ; in 1879 a naval officer was placed
in command; in 1884 a civil government was established, con
sisting of a governor, a judge, a marshall (who was ex-officio
surveyor general) , a district attorney, and a clerk of the Court.
At first there was only one judicial district, but later two more
were established. Until 1900 the laws of Oregon were made
applicable to Alaska. In 1900 a code of laws was given by the
Congress of the United States and in some of these enactments
the District of Alaska is first called a 'territory'. In 1906
Alaska was given the right to elect a delegate to the Congress,
like the other Territories. The code of 1900, known as the
Carter code, established the seat of government at Juneau,
providing however that it should remain at Sitka until suit
able buildings became available "by purchase or otherwise" at
Juneau. In May 1906 the Congress arranged that the contin
gent fund appropriated for the Governor of Alaska should be
available for the rent of an office and residence at Juneau.
Suitable buildings were leased and the seat of government was
transferred from Sitka to Juneau on October 1, 1906, by Wil
ford B. Hoggatt, the sixth Governor of Alaska.

CHAPTER IV.
THE TREADWELL MINES.
The beginnings of big enterprises are always romantic when
viewed through the telescope of success; the story of a mine
that has yielded millions in gold will command interest, espe
cially among those engaged in the search for a duplicate.
Herewith is the tale of the discovery and development of the
Alaska Treadwell, whieh has produced $22,500,000 and paid
$10,500,000 in dividends :
The man who found the Treadwell lode was Pierre Erussard,
a French Canadian, known to his acquaintances as French
Pete. He lived among the Indians and was a prospector. Some
of the veterans describe him as tall, well built, and dark, with
the black hair, mustache, and tufted beard common to his
countrymen. When Juneau and Harris came to Sitka with
their news concerning Gold creek, Pierre started forth on a
similar quest, accompanied by several Indians, one of whom
was his wife's brother. They landed on the beach of Douglas
island in November 1880 and found gold in the sand. Pierre
also found an outcrop of gold-bearing quartz on the hillslope,
about a quarter of a mile from the shore. He located two
claims to cover this ore ; one of them was called the Paris, after
the capital of France, and the other he named the Bear 's Nest,
because he found the ground occupied by a bear and her two
cubs. The original discovery was made on the west side of Paris
creek, a streamlet, long since obliterated, that formerly ran
down the slope now deeply scarred by the big excavations of
the Alaska Treadwell mine. The creek exposed the outcrop of
white quartz ; but this was only a small part of the top of the

24 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
lode, the rest of it being covered vsrith blue clay containing
numerous barnacles. Remnants of this deposit are stiU visible
nearer the beach. This is evidence of a former shore-line and
one proof, out of many, that southeastern Alaska is undergoing
slow elevation. The disintegrated quartz of the outcrop was
shoveled by Pierre into his sluice-boxes and a little later he
drove a shaUow adit or 'tunnel' to cut the lode a few feet below
the moss-covered surface. This was the first mining on Douglas
island. The Paris claim covered the site of the present ' glory hole. '
Pierre worked the smaU placer formed by the concentration
of the gold eroded from the big outcrop of the quartz lode and
he also dug into the softer superficial portion of the lode itself,
washing the gold-bearing material thus obtained. He had
rockers and sluice-boxes of the conventional kind, with which
he did fairly weU. But it was no bonanza, compared to Gold
creek. Therefore it is not surprising that Pierre sold the better
of his two claims a year later. The record states : ' ' Septem
ber 13, 1881. Transfer of Paris lode from Pierre Joseph Erus
sard (or 'French Pete'), original locator, to John Treadwell,
in consideration of the sum of five doUars ($5.00)."
John Treadwell was a builder and contractor, with experi
ence in mining, for as early as 1869 he had worked in White
Pine county, Nevada, and for 12 years before going to Alaska
he had been engaged both in quartz and hydraulic mining in
Nevada and California. In 1881 he had charge of the buUding
of a house for John D. Fry, a banker who took a prominent
part in the early development of San Francisco and was one
of the founders of the California Safe Deposit & Trust Co. To
Colonel Pry and to his friend James Freeborn there came the
story of a rich prospect in the hills behind Juneau. Looking
around them for a man to be sent in their behalf to inspect the
mine. Pry suggested Treadwell as being both trustworthy and
possessed of enough mining experience to be able to appraise a
prospect. It was arranged to pay Treadwell 's expenses and to
give him a one-third interest in the mine, if the purchase was
recommended. Treadwell went north, saw the prospect, and
found that it was a stringer of quartz carrying free gold. This

LOOKING ACROSS GASTINEAU CHANNEL, FROM JUNEAU TO TREADWELL.
Photograph by Winter & Pond, Juneau. Published by permission.

26 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
small vein was in the slate belt close to the present Ebner
mine, near Silver Bow basin, and whatever other unfavorable
marks it may have had it was plain to Treadwell that most of
the rich ore had been dug out. Naturally disappointed, he de
cided to return to San Francisco, and it was while waiting for
a steamer at Juneau that he first met French Pete (otherwise
Pierre Erussard) , who had opened a store in that town. Pierre
happened to need ready money to pay for freight on stores that
had just arrived from the south; he wanted $500, and was
willing to accept that sum for an interest in his mine on
Douglas island. Without going to see the claim, Treadwell
"took a flyer," and advanced $500 from the funds intended
for the purchase of the other mine. Then he went across the
water to see what Pierre possessed. Treadwell liked the look
of the lode and took a bond on the Paris claim for $20,000.
He then went prospecting, spending the remainder of the time
before the close of the season in testing his new acquisition.
Before returning to San Francisco he stayed with Pierre for
two weeks. Treadwell stated that the Paris ore was too low-
grade and suggested that if Pierre would give him a quit-claim
deed for $5 he would try to sell the mine in San Francisco, and
would undertake to trade at Pierre's store if the sale were
effected. The deal was made. Treadwell went to San Fran
cisco and returned on May 17, 1882, with a 5-stamp mill, which
he erected on the Paris claim. Fry and Freeborn completed
their agreement, and thus Treadwell got a third of the mine.
A few years later Freeborn was prompted by ill health to sell
his interest, which was then offered to D. 0. Mills, who, after
making a trip to Alaska personally to inspect the mine, decided
to make the purchase, and thus obtained Freeborn's holding.
The Alaska MiU & Mining Co. was formed and controlled the
Paris mine, together with adjoining property, until June 1,
1890, when the Alaska TreadweU Gold Mining Co. was incor
porated under the laws of Minnesota. In deference to his
great business ability, Mr. MiUs has always remained in control,
though a majority interest was purchased in 1890 by the Ex
ploration Company, of London, on the advice of Hamilton
Smith. He was the first consulting engineer to the Alaska

THE GLORT HOLE.

WORKING IN THE GLORT HOLE.

28 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
TreadweU Co. and was foUowed successively by H. C. Perkins,
Thomas Mein, and F. W. Bradley. Thus this great mining
enterprise was started. In 1883 work was begun on the first
large mUl, of 120 stamps, and was completed two years later.
In 1887, 120 more stamps were placed under the same roof.
Between 1893 and 1899 the Mexican, Seven Hundred Foot, and
Ready BuUion mills were erected, and the new 300-stamp mill
of the Alaska TreadweU. Thus 880 stamps were put to work.
All of these are now active, treating 1,360,000 tons and yield
ing $3,250,000 per year.
Every visitor to Douglas island climbs the short slope that
leads to the ' glory hole. ' This is an enormous pit made in the
course of mining. The lode has been removed to a maximum
width of 420 feet and for a length of 1400 feet. The deepest
point of the bottom is now at 580 feet below the surface.
Standing on the edge of this cavernous excavation the traveler
will realize what a vast amount of ore is crushed within the
relentless maw of the big stamp-mills. The 540 stamps of the
Alaska Treadwell require 2750 to 3000 tons per day to keep
going. From the glory hole 5,086,500 tons has been taken out.
In 1895, the first underground stojping was done, but since 1905
practically all ore milled has come from underground stopes,
which, up to May 31, 1908, have yielded 4,141,682 tons on a
total amount milled to that date of 9,228,182 tons of ore. Even
a careless observer will note that the rock is not all quartz. On
the foot-wall or western face the black slate is exposed and
on the opposite side, called the hanging wall, the gray-green of
gabbro is contrasted with the white ore. In the midst of the
ore a tongue of slate protrudes, widening to the south so as
to split the lode. This will suggest something of the geology.
The orebodies of the Treadwell group of mines consist of
dikes of diorite penetrating the contact between an older up
turned bed of this green gabbro and the slate itself. The
diorite is of volcanic origin and came from below through frac
tures in the crust of the earth after the manner of water rising
in the cracks formed in overlying ice. Subsequently the molten
rock cooled, shrank, cracked, and was penetrated by thermal
waters, such as usually mark the quiescent stages of volcanic

UNDERGROUND IN THE ALASKA TREADWELL MINE.

30 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
activity. These waters contained the gold, derived from other
rocks below, and as they circulated along the lines of least re
sistance established first by the intrusion and then by the cool
ing of the diorite they precipitated the gold through inter-
.stices in the diorite, together with quartz. Thus the lode was
formed. This, however, is not the place for scientific detail; I re
alize that my readers are with me on a holiday journey to the
North and must not be bored with too much geology. Atten
tion easily wanders from scientific considerations to others not
less interesting. Looking down, the mine workings that pierce
the sides of the immense excavation and penetrate into mys
terious inner chambers appear like the tunnelings of a mole.
A ladder resting near the bottom emphasizes the dimensions
and the throwing of a stone across the void suggests the de
ceptive largeness of it. The accompanying photograph does
not do justice to the subject because the colors are lacking : the
white quartz, the blue-black slate, the fringe of green bushes,
the gray stems of the spruce, and the reddish splashes where
wind and weather have decomposed the iron minerals. The
yellow sunshine bathes one side of the pit while deep blue
shadows lurk on the other side ; over the edge is the dark red
head-frame of a shaft-house; beyond it the flash of waters
marks Gastineau Channel, with a green shore on the farther
side ; and more distant still are the blue hills silver-crested with
eternal snow.
But to see the real Alaska Treadwell mine you must go un
derground, descending one of the shafts in a 'cage,' only
slightly less pretentious than an office elevator. This brings
you to a 'station,' from which galleries extend into the heart
of the rock. FoUowing the rails of the car-track, you step
to one side as a train of cars, pulled by a horse, comes rattling
past; then you ascend a short ladder and reach a cavernous
opening, dimly illumined by candles placed at the points where
men are at work. The great opening is 180 feet wide and 100
feet long, it is separated by piUars 18 to 25 feet thick from
similar chambers, so that a space 410 feet long and from 150
to 200 feet wide has been excavated. The gold-bearing rock

oOi

32 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
has been broken for a height of 160 feet above the tenth level,
but as yet only a little of the broken ore has been removed,
enabling the miners to stand on it while they attack the ground
above them. The general effect is that of a flatly arched low-
roofed cavern with an irregular rugged floor of broken ore.
The lights show dimly and the chugging of the machine-driUs
fills the vault with sound. This stope is so large that each foot
of additional height over the entire area yields 1000 tons of ore.
As seen from the level the men in the distant corners of the
stope look like gnomes, but the candle-light throws shadows of
giant size. This stope communicates with others, both above
and below.
The non-technical visitor will wonder how such openings
are made without danger of the rock collapsing on the workers.
The solution of this problem involves an important phase of
mining engineering. In this case safety is secured by leaving
a thickness of 25 feet of rock across the width of the lode at in
tervals of 70 to 80 feet. This makes a 'pillar' able to sustain
the 'walls' and from these 'pillars' the roof arches flatly in
such fashion as to support the overhanging mass of rock. Yet
many men are killed. When a fatal accident happens it is
usually due to carelessness on their part ; experienced men can
tell whether a crack means loose rock, by sounding with a ham
mer ; a fall of rock is heralded by crackling, even for a week be
forehand, and thus gives warning. But some men will take
needless risks; a miner will sometimes deliberately cross a
stope under ground he knows to be bad, to avoid making a
circuit when carrying his machine-drill to another place. He
pays the forfeit.
The main levels are lighted by electricity, but tail-rope
systems of mechanical haulage are used for traction because the
distances are short and the tracks crooked. The horses em
ployed for traction weigh from 1050 to 1200 pounds apiece
and cost $200 at Seattle. They are lowered into the mine in
a special harness, so made as to prevent them from kicking.
When about to be taken into the mine, the horse is tied so that
he cannot move and is then swung into the cage, with his head
held up. Most of the horses are scared at first, but after a

34

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

couple of days they become broken to their work and learn to
know what is wanted of them.
On returning to the surface from the gloom of the mine,
the sunlight seems all the sweeter and the movement of life
and color is keenly appreciated. The superintendent leads the
visitor to one of the big mills, for instance, the one that con
tains 300 stamps and crushes 1650 tons of ore per day. The
mills of the gods crush exceeding fine, but so does this one ; and
even the thunders of Jove would not silence the roar that comes
from the batteries of the Alaska Treadwell. A stamp is like a
hammer and it falls on a die that takes the place of the anvil.
By dropping on the pieces of ore, the particles of gold are re
leased, as a kernel in the nut that is cracked. The operation of
crushing takes place within a closed iron box, called the 'mor
tar.' This has an opening guarded by a wire screen, so that
the ore cannot issue until it has been pulverized. Water is
fed into the mortar, and when the stamp falls this water is
splashed against the screen. As it escapes from the mortar
the water carrying the crushed ore runs down an inclined
table covered with amalgamated copper plate. This arrests the
gold, which readily combines with the mercury on the surface
of the copper plate and forms an amalgam, that is, an alloy
with mercury. While the gold is caught thus by the interven
tion of mercury, the pyrite, quartz, and other lighter minerals
in the ore are washed to the foot of the tables and are led to
vanners or concentrators on which further separation takes
place, the worthless refuse flowing into Gastineau Channel
while the heavy pyrite is saved, together with the flne gold
closely associated with this iron mineral. The concentrate thus
obtained is shipped in bulk by steamer to the smelter at Ta
coma, where it is smelted with lead ore. The gold obtained as
amalgam is retorted, that is, the mercury is distilled, leaving
the gold behind in a spongy mass, which is finally purifled by
being melted with fluxes in a crucible.
Each stamp consists of a stem and a heavy shoe, the total
falling weight being 1100 pounds. This mass falls 7 inches
and 98 times per minute, so that it represents 62,883 foot
pounds or 1.9 horse-power. But much of the energy thus de-

ALASKA TREADWELL MINE IN WINTER.

36 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
veloped is wasted. Each stamp crushes an average of 51/2 tons
per 24 hours to a powder so smaU that it will pass through a
wire-screen corresponding to a sieve having 400 holes per
square inch. The ore contains $2.35 per ton and yields $2.15,
the waste assaying 20 cents. This accumulates along the fore
shore and forms a long white spit of sand. The cost of miUing
ranges from 12 to 22 cents per ton, the low figure appertain
ing to the newest mill. The total cost of mining and milling,
together with general expenses, is only $1.35, so that a profit of
43% is earned. During the year ending May 31, 1908, the
Alaska Treadwell mine produced 743,097 tons of ore, yielding
$887,509 in gold from amalgam, and $736,636 from the concen
trate, so that the total yield was $1,624,145. Of this not less
than $577,493 was profit. This is a grand old mine. Since June
1890 it has yielded $22,359,934 in gold, of which $10,438,933
has been profit.
If opportunity offers, go into one of the mills at night.
Then the thunderous power and insistent energy of the stamps
are emphasized by the stillness of the sleeping earth. Two rows
of electric lights illuminate the building brightly ; the splash of
the water, the movements of the mill-men, even the voice of a
speaker a few feet distant, are apparently soundless, for the
rhythmic reverberations of the mill drown them completely.
And yet it seems a quiet place ; the big noise kills all the irri
tating little noises of life, as small cares are drowned by a
calamity.

CHAPTER V.
THE MEN IN THE MINES.
It is related that some fool who landed from a Seattle
steamer was heard asking an acquaintance at Treadwell:
' ' Where are the slaughter-pens and the swill boarding-houses ? ' '
Somewhere and somehow this ignoramus had got it into his
head that the workmen employed in the mine were poorly fed,
badly housed, and engaged in a dangerous occupation. The
subject is interesting.
To keep account of the men employed, the following system
has been adopted: Every man working underground is given
a smaU brass tag, equal in size to a 25-cent piece, with a num
ber upon it. This number is placed against the man's name in
the time-book kept by the foreman; when the worker comes
out of the mine he deposits his tag in a box; the shift-boss on
duty takes the tags and hangs them on a series of hooks having
corresponding numbers. These hooks with their numbers at
tached are arranged in rows upon a board hanging in the fore
man's office. When the last cage-load of men reaches the sur
face every number on the board should be covered by a brass
check. If one is missing, the shift-boss and hoist-crew are held
at the shaft pending a search for the holder of the missing tag ;
he may have met with an accident or failed to come out of the
mine. Twice a Slavonian was found asleep ; on other occasions
new hands have lost their way ; but the most common source of
trouble is the forgetfulness of men who walk off with their
tags. On various occasions during the three months preceding
my visit half a dozen workmen had been left in the Alaska
Treadwell mine through losing their way or ignorance of the
fact that it was 'quitting time.' These were all new hands. If

38 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
a man walks off with his tag, a search is made for him at his
quarters or at the boarding-house. It is probable that the men
detained at the shaft by such stupidity do, or say, something
picturesque. If a man is guilty of this blunder twice, he is
'fired.' The management, in co-operation with the men, has organ
ized a club. This is a commodious building on the shore and
near the boarding-house. It includes a large billiard-room, a
reading-room, a writing-room (paper and envelopes supplied),
bowling-alleys, a dark room for photography, a barber's shop,
ordinary bath-rooms and also a steam bath (towels and soap
provided), a small circulating library, and an auditorium, cap
able of seating 500 and equipped with a stage and scenery. No
charge is made for anything except barbering, but food and
drink are not served, that being left entirely to the boarding-
house. The administration of this club is in the hands of a board of
directors elected by the members; every employee must be a
member, for each one is docked $1 per month on the payroll,
from the manager to the nipper. The only ones exempt are
the Japanese and the Indians employed in the mines. At pres
ent the membership totals 1500; these elect 21 directors, who
choose a president, a secretary, and a treasurer. The last is
usually the cashier of the Company, which originally provided
everything at a cost of $28,000 and now furnishes water, heat,
and light. The debt of the club has been reduced to $6000,
equivalent to the amount for which it is insured. The profits
are devoted to betterments and entertainments. In regard to
these, the policy is to give the men what they want, such as
an occasional prize-fight, minstrel shows, vaudevilles, amateur
theatricals. Three dramatic companies have been organized by
the employees and their women folk. There is a band of 25
pieces, the instruments being provided by the Club, and its
reputation resounds throughout the Northwest. There is also
a Fire Brigade consisting of volunteer flremen under a paid
chief ; the men are divided into six companies that meet twice
a month at the Club to transact business and hold a discussion,

ALASKA PERSEVERANCE MILL IN SILVER BOW BASIN.

40 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
foUowed by an entertainment, for which the Company sup
plies the cigars.
The reading-room has a large array of newspapers and
magazines. Any group of flve men can ask for a paper; for
instance, some Greeks complaining that journals of every na
tionality were on hand except their own, a Greek paper was
ordered. In English there is everything from The Spectator and
The Nation to The Commoner and the Christian Socialist. Maga
zines are apt to be taken from their covers ; out of two dozen
fully half a dozen are stolen each month. The Slavonians
particularly are regular in removing the papers in their own
language. Naturally, such trash as Puck and Judge, Leslie's
Weekly and Harper's Weekly are popular. The Nation and The
Spectator are supplied for the benefit of one or two of the more
thoughtful. The first attempt to provide a library ended in
the disappearance of the books. During six months, when the
doors of the library were left open, 60 oiit of 250 volumes
were purloined, including Drinker on 'Tunneling.' The only
valuable books left were an ornamental Bible and a Webster
dictionary. Now the books are locked up and can be obtained
from the janitor by means of a signed card. At present the
library contains 600 volumes, of which 100 are in use at any
time. Among the popular authors are Ralph Connor, E. P. Roe,
Mary J. Holmes, Wilkie Collins, and Dickens. But Kipling
is "not at all popular," nor are Ruskin and Stevenson. It is a
nice point whether popularity or disfavor be the greater honor.
A worker at Treadwell pays $1 for the Club, $1.50 for
medical service, $2 for his bunk, and $25 for his board. This
makes a total deduction of $29.50 out of an average wage of
:$100 per month. The company's boarding-houses are not ex
pected to make money ; in fact, they ran $4000 behind last year.
'The men are not under compulsion either to sleep in the com
pany's bunk-house or to get their meals at the company's
l)oarding-house. Wages used to be $2.50, with board and lodg
ing at $1 per day; now standard wages are $3.50, with bunk
and board at $27 per month, as already stated. When a man
is entered on the payroll, he is asked to state whether he wants
to board down-town or with the Company. The cost in the

AN INDIAN CAMP IN SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA.

42 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
town is $1 per day for board, except in the cheapest Japanese
restaurants, to which the miners rarely go.
In all these matters it is apparent that the management
recognizes the fact that the workers in the mine are more than
machines, requiring care and attention, apart from any hu
mane sentiment. Not that such sentiment is lacking. Both
the manager and his assistant are educated kind-hearted fel
lows, whose duty and pleasure it is to supervise the men under
their charge with a proper mixture of sense and sentiment.
Their policy is to encourage married men to come to Treadwell.
Married men are more steady in their habits and less migra
tory. To attract the best class of men, the Company has built
a number of attractive cottages for the use of such foremen and
shift-bosses as are married, and also for other members of the
staff possessed of a legal mate. These cottages now form a
prominent feature of the picture presented by the settlement
as seen on an incoming steamer. In their red paint, with a
background of green scrub and forest, they give a touch of
pleasant vividness to the scene. The houses are better built
than the average suburban cottage and they are cheerfully
perched on the slope overlooking Gastineau Channel. Some
of them have six rooms, including a bath-room and an attic, the
last being used for drying clothes, a convenience necessary in
this damp climate. Electric light, steam heat, and water are
provided, with complete sewerage. These houses cost $1750
and are rented for $12.50 per month. The smaller houses, cost
ing $1000 to $1500, have four rooms, including kitchen and
attic, but no bath-room. They rent for $10 per month. Each
group of houses has a telephone connecting with the general
system. The tenants are allowed some say as to the arrange
ment and details of the houses. Any man wishing to get a
cottage applies at the office, and when a vacancy occurs he has
the option of renting. If a new married foreman arrives, it is
usual to build a house for him, rather than keep him waiting
for his turn. Last year the Company spent $105,000 on cot
tages. Apart from the inadequate return on the expenditure
involved, the Company gains by being able to retain its best
employees. Viewed in a broad way, it is a good investment.

THE MEN AND THE MINES. 43
The miners work for 10 hours; mill-men, for 12. Those
working underground come up for their midday or midnight
meal, an hour being allowed for this purpose. They go to work
at 7 and quit at 6. Nevertheless, a large proportion of the force
works on an 8-hour shift, especially where continuous labor is
necessary, as among those attending on the hoists, cages, crush
ers, trams, and chutes. In the mines it is impossible for one
shift to relieve another immediately on account of the gas
liberated from the large amount of explosives used in breaking
the ore.
The force employed in the mines and mills is both heteroge
neous and polyglot. An effort is made to adjust the ratio of
races so as to have more than half English-speaking, dividing
the remainder between Scandinavians and Slavonians, that
is, between the peoples of northern and southern Europe.
Those labeled Slavonian include Montenegrins, Rumanians,
Albanians, Dalmatians, Herzegovenians, Croatians, in fact, all
the immigrants from southeastern Europe, including the north
ern borders of Turkey. The least literate are the Montenegrins ;
they are big men but lazy and stupid. An effort is being made
to get more Italians, especially Piedmontese, who come from
the Val D'Aosta and the French-Italian border. They are
splendid miners.
The Indians native to the district make good workmen.
They belong to the Thlingit nation, inhabiting southeastern
Alaska from Ketchikan to the Copper river. In the big open-
cut or pit only Indians are employed, because they can keep
steady while perched on narrow benches overlooking the caver
nous hole. They work by day only. All the young Indians
speak English well. They get instruction at the Silkoh mission
and the schools for natives established by the American govern
ment 20 years ago. In the Treadwell mine from 60 to 80 of
them are employed. They are mostly machine-men, that is,
operating the air-drills ; they work steadUy all the year round,
and receive the regular wages, $3.50 per shift.
All the employees in the boarding-house are Japanese, except
the head steward and his assistant. The dining room is a clean
and cheerful place, with long tables covered with white oil-

44 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
cloth. Imitation palms serve as a graceful decoration. The
kitchen is a model of its kind. Dish-washing is done mechan
ically by a conveyor traveling in water that is heated by live
steam to a temperature ensuring sterilization. A cold-storage
room is provided. I saw the pies and bread prepared for the
coming meal; they were as exceUent as those obtainable in a
good hotel. Plies are not a nuisance, owing to the coldness of
the climate.
Cleanliness and despatch characterize the boarding-house
system. Both are needed in providing for 1200 hungry men.
By erecting the buildings over tide-water there is no trouble in
getting rid of refuse ; and in this the flocks of seagulls play a
useful part. While the Treadwell boarding-house has been
considered a model of its kind, the new establishment for the
Mexican and Ready BuUion mines includes several improve
ments, mainly mechanical, such as a Garis-Cochrane dish-wash
ing machine, a patent vegetable steamer, roll-warmers, plate-
warmers, steam-jacketed stock kettles, vegetable-peelers, power-
driven ice-cream freezers, and many other kitchen conveniences
such as are found in modern hotels. Tea and coffee are made
in copper urns by the wholesome method of percolation, so that
the vile hard-boiled decoctions of the average mining settle
ment do not poison the good food. As an example of the variety
of dishes served in these boarding houses, I quote, on the oppo
site page, the menu on the day of my inspection and the day
previous. Sherbet or ice cream is served once a week; green onions,
lettuce, radishes, and oranges are provided at frequent
intervals. The bunk-houses are of two types. In one there is a corri
dor running the length of the building and into it two rows of
rooms open, the general entrance being through a central door
with a transverse passage. This form of construction is objec
tionable on account of the noise ; the men loiter in the corridor ;
when going to and fro they disturb those who are sleeping. It
is not practicable to restrict a house to men on the same shift,
as there are frequent changes from one shift to another. The
new bunk-houses are made so that the rooms are back to back

THE MEN AND THE MINES. 45
SAMPLE BILL OF PARE AT BOARDING HOUSE.
Jane 26, 1908.
BBEAKFAST. NOON LUNCH.
Rolled Oats and Milk. Oyster Soup.
Beef Steak. Onions. Boiled Mutton. Pickle Sauce.
Corned Beef Hash. Frankfurter Sausage.
Boiled Potatoes. Cod Fisli Balls.
Eggs. Mashed Potatoes. Sauerkraut.
Hot Rolls. Flannel Cakes. Green Peas.
Bread and Butter. Rhubarh Pie.
Honey. Syrup. Coffee. Milk. Tea.
DINNER.
Baked King Salmon
Roast Beef.
Baked Potatoes.
Sugar Corn. Boiled Beans.
Bread Pudding. Fresh Strawberries.
Cake and Tea.

June 27, 1908.

BBEAKFAST. NOON LUNCH.
Germea Mush. Milk. Vegetable Soup.
Beef Steak. Pork Sausage. Roast Beef. Brown Gravy.
Pried Potatoes. Corned Beef and Cabbage.
Hot Cakes. Hot Corn Bread. Mashed Potatoes.
Bread. Butter. String Beans. Tomatoes.
Honey. Syrup. Stewed Prunes and Rice.
Coffee and Milk. Pie. Tea.
DINNER.
Boiled Beef. Horseradish.
Ox Tongue.
French Fried Potatoes. Lima Beans.
Lettuce Salad. Canned Peaches.
Cake and Tea.

46 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
each opening outdoors and with no hall-way of any kind, so
that they are like elementary semi-detached residences.
This industrial community on Douglas island is a queer
medley of races, creeds, and languages. The Slavonians and
most of the common people of southeastern Europe when they
arrive in America are polite to the point of servility, they doff
their hats and scrape the floor with their heavy feet ; soon they
learn to keep their hats on their heads, often with a truculent
slant, which is in strong contrast to the spiritless attitude
assumed in their former habitat, where, in the presence of an
employer, theyhave an air as if to say: "Excuse me for living."
They easily get grouches and hatreds among themselves and
their standard of fair play permits curious expression. A Sla
vonian will think nothing of getting behind a dump and. throw
ing a 'rock' at another man. They rarely become naturalized
citizens and they acquire the English language painfully. Out
of 600 Slavonians only 4 or 5 are naturalized; they herd to
gether, like the Chinese. When one of them has saved $500 to
$1000, he returns to his native land and spends his money there ;
in four or five years he comes back and begins to accumulate
once more. The Montenegrins claim to be warriors; they cer
tainly are not workers, for they are accustomed to having the
manual labor performed by their women. No Hindoos are
employed at Treadwell ; they offered, but were refused, because
of possible complications with the other races. Certainly, it is
a queer olla podrida of nationalities and yet in time, and in a
comparatively short time, these diverse racial ingredients will
be fused in the melting pot of American life and out of it will
come a product as unlike the original material as the bullion
that is obtained from the crude ore placed in the assayer's
crucible. It will not be refined bullion and it is not ready for
the best uses, but it is a product of definite value.

CHAPTER VI.
THE GLACIERS OF ALASKA.
Most of the tourists who travel in Alaska go to Ketchikan,
Juneau, and Sitka ; they are shown the Muir glacier ; they call
at Skagway, and, if the weather permit, they are taken in an
excursion train to the summit of the White Pass, where they
get a glimpse of the 'inside' — that vast hinterland whence
comes the gold that has enticed civilization to transgress the
Arctic Circle. In the southeastern portion of Alaska the tourist
sees many glaciers; the indented coast is everywhere guarded
by the protruding snout of a leviathan body of creeping ice;
every river issues from the blue grottoes under the ice-fields,
every avenue through the coast range appears to be filled by
vast glacial stretches that block access to the other side. Thus
the general idea of Alaska, as seen from the Portland Canal
to Skagway, and from Haines Mission to Seward, is of a region
invaded by glaciers, leaving a few picturesque islands and a
narrow strip of shore on which Indians and white men gain
a precarious livelihood by fishing and mining. '
This impression is wrong. The glacier-infested portion of
Alaska is only the southeastern coast; the far western shores
of the Seward Peninsula are free from perpetual ice-fields, and
once the traveler crosses the coast range, in going to Dawson
from Skagway, or to .Fairbanks from Valdez, he is in a region
devoid of glaciers. Between latitude 56 and 61° north, for a
distance of 500 miles and a width of 100 miles, the ice-fields
prevaU. North of 61° glaciers are less prominent as far as
63°, and still farther north they do not exist. The reason for
this distribution is simple. The clouds rising from the Pacific
are blown eastward against the coast range, and when they

48 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
strike the snowclad summits their moisture is condensed and
precipitated in the form of snow. This snow feeds the glaciers
near the coast. On the other hand, within the interior of the
country tfie altitude is low, ranging from 1000 to 1200 ft., there
are no lofty mountain ranges, and the climate is particularly
dry, so that the snow-fall is sUght. Speaking broadly, the
coast province of Alaska is mountainous, misty, and ice-bound,
while the interior province is undulating, arid, and sunny.
Alaska covers an area of nearly 600,000 square miles, and
of this total only 43,710 square miles appertains to the part
known as Southeastern Alaska, the province usually assumed
by tourists to be Alaska. The Cordillera or main mountain
system of North America follows the Alaskan coast as far as
Cook inlet and then forms the backbone of the Aleutian islands,
sweeping westward in a broad crescent from the British
Columbia boundary far out into the Pacific Ocean. On the
northern side of this curved backbone is a region distinct in
its climatic conditions. The mists of the coast do not penetrate
the dry sunny atmosphere on the northern watershed; the
short summer is intensely invigorating ; the long winter is crisp
and cold, but also marked by clear weather. The low moun
tain ranges rarely reach an altitude of 5000 ft., while the big
Cordillera attains such heights as 17,500 and 20,464 ft. The
slope of the vast hinterland is westward and it is drained by
the great Yukon river, which flows through the very heart of
it for a length of 2300 miles, emptying into Bering Sea. There
the coast is low and marshy, with long beaches surmounted
by the tundra. For eight months Bering Sea is ice-bound and
the fog sweeps over the lowlands of the coast. This is also
true, in lesser degree, of that part of Alaska nearest the States.
While the scenery of the inland sea between Seattle and Juneau
is lovely in the extreme, it is fair to say»that appreciation is
never dulled by seeing too much of it; clear days are infre
quent; the traveler enjoys a day of rare loveliness and then
is granted a couple of days of veiled modesty during which
the mist hides the landscape so as to sharpen his desire for the
uncovering when Nature is again in a complacent mood.
On June 24 Mr. Robert A. Kinzie took us to see the Taku

THE GLACIERS OP ALASKA.

49

glacier. We left Treadwell on the morning of a day so misty
as to be on the verge of rain. The tops of the hills were
shrouded. Passing down Gastineau Channel we saw the string
of cottages, offices, mills, and shaft-houses that mark the
activities of the Alaska Treadwell, Alaska Mexican, and Alaska
United mining companies, all of which exploit the same lode
and are under the same technical direction. At the southern
end of the settlement a large open-cut near the shore, and
pointing under the Channel, suggested the fact that the work
ings of the Ready Bullion mine (belonging to the Alaska

TREADWELL, ALASKA.
United Co.) reach 1500 feet under the water. These workings
are not aUowed to come nearer than 300 feet from the surface
of the rock, the intervening 'sea piUar' being left to protect
the mine from flooding. The little railroad between the mines
and the wharf can be seen edging the shore and passing over
trestles untfl it 'ends at a group of cabins occupied by the In
dian employees. They are charged a rent of $1 per month, but
this they evade by quitting just before the month expires. Two
or three families wiU pUe into a single cabin and the Company
is not particular about exacting its rental. As the launch

50

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

glided southward we saw Sheep creek on the left, with an
old sawmill and concentrator, to remind us of past mining
schemes and of present litigation in New York. On the right,
a tramway terminating at the shore indicated a mine on Ne
vada creek, but the forest had overgrown the tramway, as time
had hidden the memory of an abandoned enterprise.
Passing the southerly extremity of Douglas island we
turned into Taku inlet, skirting the mainland on the east so
that we could see a small Indian village and its neighboring
cemetery. Old graves are scattered in the brush close to the
water ; they are queer little structures like dog-kennels or doll-
houses with picture-writing preserving the heraldic record of
the incumbent. White and red paint gives this graveyard a
chromatic gaiety, in contrast to the dark forest of spruce and
the sombre canopy of mist. No totem-poles are visible. The
natives do not bury their dead, but wrap them in their blankets,
with their trinkets and weapons ; thus equipped the body is
laid in a box and a little house is built above it. The ground
is rocky and digging is difficult, hence the custom.
This village is mentioned by Vancouver, who gave the name
of Point Bishop to the adjacent cape. Rounding the point, we
saw the first ice-berg moving down the Taku inlet, which is
three miles wide. The mist had lifted, the light played on the
floating ice, which shone white as sugar where vesicular, and
a vivid blue where clear, both colors being doubled by reflec
tion in the smooth waters of the estuary. It was now nearly
noon and the fog had risen, uncovering snowy summits, grand
mountains, and wooded slopes threaded by waterfalls. The
air was still and the water smooth, we heard the call of the
cataracts and the boom of the glacier; the clouds, the vivid
green of the shore, and the dark woods were all reflected in
the mirror over which we glided with tremulous speed. Many
small bergs drifted past. The sunlight broke through the
clouds and bathed the peaks and snowflelds in matchless splen
dor. Soon we passed the snout of a dead glacier — the Windom.
This is soiled by the dirt of the moraine and is but little cre-
vassed. Turning the next point we faced the front of the
great Taku glacier. We approached as close as possible, but

THE GLACIERS OF ALASKA.

51

no nearer than 11/2 miles, for the ice-bergs broken from the
front of the glacier made navigation dangerous to our smaU
craft. The engine was stopped. As the movement of the screw
ceased, the silence intensified the beauty of the scene.
The front of the glacier spreads forward from a vaUey en
closed by high rocky slopes; looking into this valley we see
that it issues from a vast amphitheatre in the high ranges,
whence the river of ice can be traced to its source among the
snow-fields half-hidden in the rising mists.

THE TAKU GLACIER.

What is a glacier?
A glacier is an ice river. The rate of movement depends
upon the slope of its bed, the volume of ice, and the momentum
resulting. Like a river, the movement is most rapid in the
centre and at the top; this is due to the retarding effect of
friction on the sides and bottom. Glacial ice is compressed
snow and is formed wherever the snow-fall is so excessive as
to cause compression to a viscous condition, permitting flow to
a lower level. This condition is explained by the fact that

52 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
water at the freezing point is transformed, under varying
pressure, from the solid to the liquid state. Although brittle
as glass and inelastic as granite, ice fuses at 32° P. under the
atmospheric pressure of 15 pounds per square inch; if the
pressure be increased, the fusion point is lowered, that is, the
water will not freeze at 32° P., but will assume a liquid state.
In a glacier the ice is subject to alternations of pressure caus
ing transformation of the compacted snow from a solid to a
liquid condition so that it acquires a viscous flow. Owing to
the tension due to motion over an irregular rocky surface, the
ice cracks, forming those fissures called 'crevasses.' As the
glacier descends a valley the slopes on either side shed their
debris upon the stream of ice. This debris may have been
loosened by frost, rain, or snowslides ; however formed, it rolls
onto the edge of the glacier and creates a fringe, called a
lateral 'moraine.' In describing glaciers the terms used are
of French derivation because they originated in the western
portion of Switzerland where French is spoken. When two
ice streams meet, the inner lateral moraines unite and thus a
medial moraine results. All the debris borne upon the ad
vancing glacier is deposited at its front as the ice either melts
or breaks away and the pile of rock thus formed is called a
terminal moraine. While rock material is thus carried on the
top of the ice stream, the glacier also moves gravel and boul
ders along its bed. Some of these fragments of rock are em
bedded in the ice as it advances and scratch the rock surface.
Thus striations are made by the small pieces, and grooves by
the large ones. These are parallel to each other, and indicate
the line of motion. When glaciers recede or become extinct,
by diminution of the snow-fall and change of climate, these
marks on the worn surface of the rock will survive and testify
to the agency that made them. They are the evidence of vio
lent friction and powerful erosion; their formation is accom
panied by attrition resulting in rock dust, which, mingling
with the water running under the ice makes the muddy stream
that issues at the front of every glacier.
A glacier is regarded as having two parts, known respec
tively as the 'accumulator' and the ' dissipator. ' These two

THE GLACIERS OF ALASKA.

53

parts are separated by the ' snow-Une, ' above which the stream
of ice is being constantly fed, while below the snow-line the
stream moves ahead but never diminishes. In winter this
dead line dividing the two stages of glacier existence is nearer
the front and in summer it is nearer the head, but it always
marks the critical stage of development. Let us apply these
definitions: A fall of snow mantles the accumulator and be
gins to move down-stream until its lower edge crosses the
dead line, where it melts and is dissipated. The upper edge
of this snow-fall is buried by later snow-falls before it reaches

ANOTHER VIEW OP THE TAKU GLACIER.

the dead line and by that time the original snow is deep down
in the body of the glacier. The rocks that fall upon the margin
at the extreme head of the ice river also pass downward, to
emerge only at the extreme foot, while those that drop upon the
ice near the dead-line appear the more quickly and contribute
to the lateral moraines. Indeed, this new conception, first
suggested by Harry Fielding Reid, modifies our old views of
moraines as well as our ideas of ice accumulation and motion.
During a geologic period immediately preceding the advent
of man, portions of the earth were covered with vast sheets
of ice, as the Arctic region is today. At one time it was sup-

54 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
posed that one continuous ice-sheet reached southward from
the North Pole, over northern Europe and northern America,
but later scientific investigation proves that this was not the
case. The ice-sheet did not cover the whole of the North, it
was disconnected from the Polar cap, and existed in the form
of great blankets, which, in North America, had three main
centres of dispersion, namely, Labrador, Athabasca (in north
western Canada), and the Cordillera, which includes the ranges
now known as the Rocky Mountains and the Cascades. The
ice moved not only southward but also northward from a gen
eral centre around Hudson's Bay. The fringes of these ice-
sheets terminated in numerous glaciers that reached as far
south as New York, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Dakota, Montana,
and British Columbia. A broad belt across North America
was thus buried, except where the mountain peaks held their
heads above the blanket of ice, which was 2000 to 2500 feet
thick on the level and even a mile thick in the deep valleys.
When the climate became milder the ice-sheet retreated, that
is, its front, in every direction, melted faster than it was fed,
until only relatively small and local portions survived in the
form of glaciers such as we see today. The formation of this
vast body of ice was due in a general way to a period of ex
cessive cold, but the distribution of it was determined by the
prevalence of moisture in the atmosphere as modified on the
one hand by ocean currents and on the other by the configura
tion of the land. Thus, the warm moist air of the North Pa
cific is arrested and cooled by the coast ranges so as to compel
a precipitation of the snow from which an ice-sheet derives
its origin.
Alaska was not buried under the ice blanket, the northern
limits of which reached only as far as the seaward slope of the
coast range. While, therefore, southeastern Alaska, the region
now distinguished by glaciers, was under the Cordilleran ice-
sheet, on the other hand, the interior, constituting the main
land portion of the country, escaped cold storage, save where
Pleistocene glaciers existed in the high mountains. Then, as
now, the interior was comparatively arid; the moisture blown
from the ocean being arrested near the coast, and there was no '

THE EAGLE RIVER GLACIER. NEAR JUNEAU.
Photograph by Winter & Pond, Juneau. Published by permission.

56 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
piling of snow adequate to form a persistent ice-sheet. Then, as
now, soiitheastern Alaska was the land of snow and ice. Owing
to the cold climate, the moist air moving with the Japanese
current, and the high ranges fronting the coast, this part of
America is still pervaded with ice, in the form of glaciers.
Between Juneau and Skagway there are 20 glaciers in sight
of those on board the passing steamer. In Taku inlet there are
fully a dozen of them in a distance of 20 miles. Taking the
entire sweep of the Alaskan coast from the British Columbia
border to the first of the Aleutian islands there are fully 5000
glaciers, that is, there are a number of immense ice-fields de
bouching as numberless glaciers of varying size. This fact
escaped early explorers, although Vancouver was not blind to
it. Even the Muir glacier, in Glacier bay, which is now an
object of interest to a host of tourists every summer, was not
described until 1879, when John Muir and S. H. Young made
an investigation followed by a scientific report. From a later
survey made in 1886 by a party headed by G. P. Wright, it
was ascertained that the Muir glacier is "a stream of ice 5000
feet wide and 1000 feet deep, entering the inlet at an average
rate of 40 feet per day." At that time the front rose 250 to
300 feet above the water and the central portion of it was
said to be advancing at the rate of 65 to 70 feet per day. This
in itself is not incredible, because the Augpadlartok glacier
in Greenland has been known to advance 100 feet in 24 hours,
but there are good reasons for doubting the accuracy of
Wright's surveys. In 1890 H. P. Reid found the ice-front 130
to 210 feet high, and the depth of water 720 feet, so that the
total thickness of the ice was 900 feet. Excluding the wings
of the glacier, it had then a breadth of 9200 feet, or ten times
as much as its depth — a relation prompting Reid to observe
that "rivers are generally much broader than this in com
parison to their depth." This careful observer found a velo
city of 7 feet per day; therefore, while it is probable that
in 1886 the Muir glacier was moving more rapidly than in
1890, there is good reason for believing that Wright made a
serious error, the real advance being at most from 8 to 10 feet
per day. But it is melting faster than it is advancing. The

THE GLACIERS OP ALASKA.

57

loss of ice by melting of the surface is at the rate of 15 feet
per annum. Between 1880 and 1890 measurements proved a
recession of 250 yards per annum; the glacier being fed from
a source that no longer supplies ice as heretofore.
The retreat of the glaciers in Alaska began 150 years ago;
at that time the Muir had "a magnificent front, 6 or 8 miles
across, though its height was probably not much over 300 feet.
Large bergs must have broken off in great numbers and made
Cross Sound difficult to navigate, which accords with Van-

ON TAKU INLET.

couver 's report. ' ' This retreat is stiU in progress, the glaciers
dwindling while the inlets enlarge. Prom Vancouver's notes,
made 115 years ago, it is inferred that the front was fully 25
miles farther south, that is, near the entrance of the bay into
which the excursion steamers now make their voyages de
curiosite. But all the glaciers of Alaska are not receding. The Brady
has advanced since Vancouver saw it. In September 1899 the
whole front of the Muir glacier, for five mfles back, was broken
by an earthquake. This earthquake started the Malaspina to

58 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
life; the latter has advanced since then, crushing the trees
that had grown up since its previous retreat. Recessions and
processions of glaciers are due to local climatic changes and to
geologic disturbances; as long as the supply of down-coming
ice at the back is more than equal to the thaw and disrup
tion at the front, the glacier gains ; when the supply diminishes,
the glacier shrinks.
The earthquake that shattered the Muir glacier was felt in
Juneau. For eight years the floating masses of ice blocked
Glacier bay for a distance of 14 to 18 mfles, preventing any
close approach. At the same time serious damage was done in
Yakutat bay and even farther west. In Disenchantment bay
the beach was raised 40 feet.
The face of the Muir glacier is now 160 to 180 feet high;
this means about 1000 feet of ice below water-level, for the front
of the glacier is floating, and when afloat there is nearly nine
times as much ice under water as there is above. The density
of ice is 0.92, while the mean density of sea-water is 1.02.
Owing to the air imprisoned in glacier ice, the bergs lie with
one-seventh of their mass above the water. The face of the
Taku glacier at high water is 140 to 160 feet high, plus the
difference of the tide, namely 24 feet, so that as much as 184
feet is exposed at low water. This indicates that the bottom
of the ice-front is grounded. The manner in which the ice
breaks also indicates this fact, for the blocks tip forward, per
mitting the more rapid movement near the surface of the
glacier to gain on the slow advance on the bottom, so that as
the ice cracks the big bergs tumble forward with a terrific
smash. At the time of the high tides, as the flood advances, the
air and water are forced under the ice ; then the glacier splits,
crevasses are formed, and bergs are detached.
In many cases the front of the glacier at water-level is
hollowed so that the ice is undermined until a crack is formed.
The water near its surface is from 38 to 40° P. and melts the
ice. When a mass breaks off in front there is a sound as of a
cannonade, and since these movements take place in localities
undisturbed by human industry the noise is tremendous. It
has been supposed that the explosive violence associated with

THE GLACIERS OF ALASKA.

59

the detachment of bergs from the glacier was due to the sud
den release of air imprisoned in a vesicular condition in the
ice; but this pretty theory is inconsistent with the facts of
later scientiflc observation. The thunderous salute of the
glacier is simply caused by the cracking of the ice. When
freshly broken the surface is blue; after exposure it becomes
white, because the ice is composed of interlocking crystals.

THE FACE OP THE GLACIER.

which refract and reflect the sunlight at the intersections.
Owing to melting at the junctions of crystals their partings be
come visible, producing a heterogeneous surface, which breaks
up the light, as snow does.
The bergs like stately argosies go seaward; they are not
wasted. Some of them serve to cool the throat of the thirsty
and perform other similar beneficent functions. The local fisher
men catch them ; in fact, they may be said to lassoo them. Such

60 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
ice is worth a cent per pound. At TreadweU any berg that
comes in sight is promptly arrested and put in storage for
use in the compressor. Every lowering of temperature 5° P.
means 1% saving in efficiency. As the compressor develops
800 horse-power, S% means 24 horse-power, at $50 per annum
per horse-power. The trade in ice was an important item more
than fifty years ago. In 1851 a group of men at San Francisco
contracted for 250 tons of ice to be shipped from Sitka at $75
per ton. In October of the following year the price was re
duced to $35 and a new contract was made for 1000 tons an
nually for three years. Between 1852 and 1859, 13,960 tons
were shipped from Sitka and 7403 tons from Kadiak.
Red patches on the glacier are due to the same cause as the
red snow, which has astonished people in other regions. The
discoloration is due to the presence of a minute and low form
of vegetable life, the protococcus nivalis.
The Taku glacier is moving at about the same rate as the
Muir ; the front of it, nearly 200 feet high and a mile wide, is
cleft by numberless cracks; these traverse the coiled mass of
ice and give it a serrated outline. The steep shore on either
side has been eroded by the grinding of the moving ice and
the rock is bare, save for the clinging moss, streaked by the'
white filaments of cascades. On the eastern side the shore
rises to a rounded mountain, 2400 feet high, separated by a
low saddle from its counterpart. These two smooth hilltops
probably constituted at one time a nunatak twin, upstanding
through the ice when the glacier was bigger. On the western
side the mountains are nearly twice as high — fully 4000 feet —
and their summits are not glaciated, but jagged. On that side
several small cirques or hollows indicate places from which
tributary glaciers formerly descended; for even the immense
body of moving ice now called the Taku glacier is but a shriv
eled remnant of a much larger mass that once pervaded this
region. This ice-field from which the glacier issues is over
looked by peaks rising to 7600 feet. The Taku ice-river is
2 miles wide for a length of 8 miles, becoming constricted to
one mile at the outlet ; it is the protruding paw of an ice-field
reaching for 30 miles, close to the British Columbian boundary.

AN
ICE-BERG IN
TAKU INLET.

62 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Taku inlet affords the contrast between a dead and a live
glacier. The Windom glacier is bespattered with dirt and the
forest grows up to the edge ; the ice is not moving. The Taku
or Poster glacier is alive, it is moving, and as the ice enters
the waters of the inlet it is broken with a roar that reverber
ates among the mountains.
When the throbbing engine of our launch was stopped, the
silence was intense. The air was perfectly still and the water
refiected the surrounding shore. We were close to the bergs
coming from the glacier's front. White and blue, as the light
played on them, they glided like stately sail-ships to the sea.
Suddenly a huge splash, as of a leviathan bathing, indicated
that a berg had lost its balance, by melting, and toppled over.
Our launch rocked and the waves made all the other ice-bergs
tremble. Other mysterious noises, both near and far, betokened
restless movement all around us. When a small piece of ice
breaks from a berg the equilibrium of the floating mass is up
set ; it splashes and threshes around like a porpoise. We heard
the constant call of the waterfall. Then there came the boom
of a cannonade and an echo like thunder. Surely something
tremendous had happened. A crack had been formed, a mass
of ice detached itself from the glacier, and a berg was created.
And if these noises were vivid, the colors in the scene fairly
shouted. The rock slopes are purple with moisture, the scrub
and forest are massed in dark blue and gray, the ice-bergs are
azure, the glacier is white, save where cracks show in bands
of sapphire. And all these colors are repeated, with a thou
sand tints, in the water that is moving gently seaward.
The wind veered and we were in danger of being sur
rounded by ice-bergs ; we had to proceed down the inlet, pass
ing near enough to the Windom glacier to be able to see the
crevassing along its broken back. Lifeless and decrepit it
seemed in contrast to its brother glacier. The sunshine break
ing through the mists flooded it momentarily with light, but
vainly. Warm upon the dying glacier fell the gleam of living
day. A dead glacier and an extinct volcano are types of power
laid low, of youthful tempers disciplined by age and reduced
to an equilibrium so perfect as to be incompatible with life.

CHAPTER VII.
THE SILENT CITY.
This is the story of a scientific fake. It was skilfully done,
so that many were fooled for a long time. The perpetrator was
Richard G. Willoughby, known to his friends as Dick and to
the public as the Professor. He came to Alaska from South
Carolina, where he had been a Methodist preacher. This was
an avocation for which he was well fitted by the possession of
a long white beard and a resonant voice. The Professor was
a good talker and, among other accomplishments, he was a
ventriloquist. When he left the South he went northwestward
to the Cariboo and the Cassiar mining districts, and finaUy
reached Juneau in 1881.
In 1885 Dick Willoughby brought news to the people of
Juneau that he had discovered a wonderful mirage; it was to
be seen above the Muir glacier. He described the vision as
that of a modern city, with church-towers, large buildings,
vessels in the docks, and people moving in the streets. The
wonderful mirage had been seen by him on several occasions,
but especially on June 21, the longest day of the year, when
the sunlight was particularly strong. This story was repeated
by him at intervals on his return from various prospecting
expeditions, until 1889, when a sensation was caused by the
statement that he had actually succeeded in getting a photo
graph of the "silent city." Great was the excitement at
Juneau and throughout southeastern Alaska.
An association of local men was formed at Juneau for the
purpose of exploiting the discovery and of selling the prints
struck off Willoughby 's wonderful negative. It was decided
to investigate the phenomenon and to get more photographs

64 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of it. In June 1889 an expedition was organized. At the head
of it were the Professor himself and a man named Minor W.
Bruce. Bruce represented the Omaha Bee and other news
papers. He was an enterprising journalist of the irresponsible
kind and made an excellent second to Willoughby. Bruce
had come to Alaska to 'write up' the country and some of the
business men of Juneau thought that he was well qualified to
advertise both the Silent City and, incidentally, the mineral
resources of the region. Even those residents of Juneau who
were sceptical as to the mirage were alive to the fact that the
story served as a good drawing card to attract the people from
'below,' that is, the dwellers in the States. Under these au
spices an expedition was equipped to observe and photograph
the mirage, which, so said the Professor, was due on or about
the longest day of the year, known to astronomers as the sum
mer solstice. The expedition set sail, proceeding down Gas
tineau Channel, around the southern end of Douglas island, up
Chatham strait, and thence to the inlet leading to the Muir
glacier. A few weeks later an excursion steamer, the George
W. Elder, returning from a visit to the glacier, brought news
that a member of the Willoughby expedition had come aboard
in Glacier bay and had stated that on the day previous Bruce
had gone forth over the glacier with his camera to take a shot
at the Silent City, which, so Willoughby said, was about to
appear. A fog had settled over the ice, and although Bruce's
camera was found, he was missing. Not far away from the
spot where his camera lay, there was a wide crevasse, and it
was feared that Bruce while wandering in the fog had fallen
into this crevasse. The young man who brought this news to
the captain of the excursion steamer asked for ropes and grap
nels wherewith to explore the crevasse. He also requested
some provisions. These requests were met, with assurances of
sympathy and interest on the part of the excursionists; and
when the George W. Elder arrived at Juneau the news of the
mishap created much excitement, not only in Alaska but also
in the States, the fellow journalists of Bruce doing their duty
nobly. This stimulated the demand for photographs of the
Silent City; "they went like hot cakes."

THE SILENT CITY. 65
Nearly a month later the expedition returned to Juneau
and as it disembarked it was seen that Bruce had been found ;
his head was heavily bandaged and a boy was needed to lead
him to his cabin. Evidently he had suffered. All the town
was agog to hear the news. He was interviewed. His story
was that when the fog enveloped him while crossing the glacier,
he had tried to reach the camp, but wandered in the wrong
direction, so that when the sun finally broke through the fog
he found himself isolated from his party. While trying to
find his way back, he became snow-bUnded. To be blinded by

IN CHATHAM STRAIT.
the glare from sunlit snow is painful, as those who have suf
fered ean testify. Bruce had to stop; he sat down on the ice
under the shadow of a large hummock, where he was found
next day. His companions had searched for him and had heard
his call. This was a fine yarn. The expedition brought Bruce
to Juneau in order that he might get medical attendance. Wil
loughby explained that it was then too late in the season to
get a new photograph of the mirage. But the sale of prints
from his first negative proceeded in a lively manner and the
tourists came to Juneau to hear all about the wonderful phe
nomenon seen by the Professor.

66 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
As a matter of fact Bruce really was snow-blinded, but he
soon recovered. About this time, in July 1889, another steamer,
the Ancon, went to Glacier bay and many of the passengers
saw the mirage of a single spruce tree above the Muir glacier.
The 150 excursionists returned to testify to this fact and the
news stimulated interest in the Willoughby legend. More
prints of the Silent City were purchased. In the following
winter Willoughby sold the original negative for $500 to a
photographer at San Francisco.
A print from the original negative of the Silent City was
given to me by a friend at Sitka, and is reproduced here, to
gether with the portrait of the perpetrator of this colossal fake.
The Professor is shown in the act of shooting at Nature in one
of her wonderful moods. The Silent City looks like a large
English town ; the negative has been over-exposed and the out
lines are dimmed. The trees in the foreground are leafless;
evidently it is not midsummer, and yet the Professor claimed
that he had obtained the photograph on June 21, for only on
the longest day of the year was the mirage perfect. This little
discrepancy escaped general notice. The negative was on glass,
8 by 10 inches ; it had been poorly developed and it did not fit
Willoughby 's plate-holder, nor could it have been taken by his
lens, which was a portrait lens. These facts were ascertained
by my informant early in the game, and if he did not hasten
to expose the fraud, it was because he liked the old Professor,
he saw that the myth helped to bring tourists to Alaska, and
he could not see what harm was being done to anyone, the
credulity of the public being scarcely worthy of any particular
protection. At Juneau people used to stand in a row waiting
their turn to buy one of the photographs of the Silent City, and
the demand occasionally exceeded the supply.
The truth is that in 1887 Willoughby happened to be at
Victoria, on Vancouver island, and whfle strolling on the dock
he saw a young tourist from Bristol, England, who was in the
act of selling a photographic outfit, including a box of plates
all of which had been exposed. The negatives, together with
the outfit, were bought by Willoughby for $10. Among them
was an over-exposed and badly developed picture of the city

THE SILENT CITY.
The photograph of the supposed mirage.

68 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of Bristol. It probably reminded him of a mirage and of the
optical effects seen above the glacier. His imaginative mind
came to the aid of his loose morality and from the union of the
two arose the idea of the photograph of a Silent City vibrating
in the tenuous air of Glacier bay. During the excitement that
followed the events in 1889 the American consul stationed at
Bristol, while on a visit to San Francisco; happened to see one
of the photographs of the Silent City on exhibition in a store-
window and recognized it as Bristol. This fact was not gen
erally known. Upon sending a print to my cousin, J. C. Hurle,
at Bristol, he was kind enough to make enquiries concerning
the date of the building operations at the cathedral, the towers
of which are readily seen to be undergoing construction in the
photograph of the Silent City, otherwise the City of Bristol.
The Clerk of the Chapter testified that "the western towers
of the cathedral were completed in 1888, when the capstone
of the pinnacles was laid by Mrs. Norris. ' ' It was in 1887 that
Willoughby got hold of the photograph, which evidently was
taken before the work on the cathedral towers had been fin
ished, probably in the winter of 1886. Willoughby used to say
that as he saw the mirage in successive years the church-towers
appeared taller, but he never explained why the trees were
without leaves in June. On the back of the photograph of the
Silent City is the following inscription, which is well calculated
to stir the somnolent intelligence of a tourist:
The Glacial Wonder or 'The Silent City.'
"For the past fifteen years Prof. Richard Willoughby has
been a character in Alaska as well known among the whites
as he has been familiar to the natives. As one of the early
settlers of old Fort Wrangel, in which his individuality was
stamped among the sturdy miners who frequented the then
important trading post of Alaska, he has grown with the Ter
ritory, and is today as much a part of its history as the totem
poles are identified with the deeds of valor, or commemorative
of the past triumphs of prominent members of the tribes, which
their hideous and mysterious characters represent.

w

"^fl

w

m--

^KS^^'f'{^^^^ Jt^^^^^^A

f3

Wij^^^^gi

) "T- vLtf

UIW

'^fSm

^ ^^^*^

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^^^

' .''C* '-'V ""^*^^^|u^*^j|^^;^jj?^pPB@^^^^^^", '
K^H
¦hh..
- •^^^&;3m.i^' ... .. - .^aiia^l
THE PROFESSOR AT WORK.
Willoughby and His Camera.
70 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
"To him belongs the honor of being the first American who
discovered gold within Alaska's icy-bound peaks, but his great
est achievement, from a scientific standpoint, is his tearing
from the glacier's chilly bosom the 'Mirages' of cities from
distant climes.
"After four years of labor, amid dangers, privation and suf
ferings, he accomplished for the civilized world a feat in pho
tography heretofore considered problematic.
"It was on the longest day in June 1888 that the camera
took within its grasp the reproduction of a city, remote, if in
deed, not altogether within the recesses of another world. The
'Silent City'
Is here presented for the consideration of the public as the
wonder and pride of Alaska's bleak hills, and the ever chang
ing glaciers may never again afford a like opportunity for the
accomplishment of this sublime phenomena. ' '
This queer rigmarole was the work of Bruce. Of course,
Willoughby was not the first discoverer of gold in Alaska,
although he was the perpetrator of a "sublime phenomena."
Among his other discoveries was that of "coal-oil in chunks,"
namely, asphaltum. He was able to scare the Indians by his
tricks as a ventriloquist and he passed among them in safety
by utilizing this accomplishment. On one occasion he had a
companion who wore false teeth and a glass eye ; between the
two of them they buffaloed the natives much in the manner
of the Major in Rider Haggard's story of 'King Solomon's
Mines. '
Willoughby died two or three years ago. He made a living
by selling mining claims, clearing $1500 to $3000 each year
by quick deals, for he had a plausible manner and was an
entertaining talker, with a great fund of anecdote. Among
the miners he was particularly popular, for they were im
pressed by his smattering of leaming. Willoughby was for 25
years one of the living landmarks of Alaskan development and
his memory should be preserved as a warning to the credulous.
It will be interesting to separate the grain of truth from

IN SITKA HARBOR.
Photograph by B. W. Merrill, Sitka. Published by Permission.

72 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the chaff of charlatanism apparent in the story of the Sflent
City. What is a mirage?
A mirage is an optical effect by virtue of which distant
objects are seen out of their real position. Light in traveling
from an object to the eye of the observer passes through the
air ; this air is not always of uniform density ; in a hot country
the layer nearest the earth will be so heated as to be rarified ;
in a cold country the lowermost layer over the ground is con
densed by contact with the ice or snow. Above this lowermost
layer will eome others in succession and these may be suc
cessively rarer or denser. Such layers of air serve as mediums
for bending the rays of light out of their straight course, so
that they proceed apparently from a new position. The result
is to give a magnified or a distorted image or even to bring
into view an object not otherwise visible. For" example, the
men on the whaling ships that cruise in the Arctic are reported
to have seen Nome while still north of Bering Strait. Nome is
a small town on the shore of Bering Sea and to the explorers
in that remote corner of the world it is the outpost of civiliza
tion, a place for comforts not obtainable in the wilderness of
ice and snow; in other words, Nome is as the sight of home.
Sailors and fishermen that are steering for the roadstead off
Nome will be astonished to see Nome pictures in the sky, real
as life, while still so distant from it as to be normally out of
sight. When this happens the air is still, the layer near the
surface is chilled so as to be more dense than the average.
Light normally travels in a straight line. If it passes from
one layer to another of different density, it will be subject to
deviation; it is possible for the variation in density in going
upward to be of such magnitude that the light will follow the
curvature of the earth, so that an object actually below the
horizon will be clearly seen at a great distance, but in an ele
vated position corresponding to the direction in which the light
is traveling when it enters the eye. If the distribution of den
sity is such that the rays from the upper portion of the object
cross those coming from the lower portion, the object will be
inverted. Most of these effects can be observed by viewing
objects through a bad pane of window-glass, that is, glass of

SITKA, WITH MT. EDGCUMBE IN THE BACKGROUND.
Photograph by B. W. Merrill. Sitka. Published by Permission.

74 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
unequal thickness, producing a result like that due to layers
of air of unequal density.
In hot and arid regions, where sandy plains stretch forth
to a low horizon, the lowermost layer of air becomes rarified
by the hot ground, provided that no breeze stirs the atmos
phere so as to mix the layers of unequal density. A condition
of atmospheric calm is necessary for the formation of a mirage.
Under such circumstances the prospector in Western Australia
or Arizona will see a lake with trees reflected along its shore,
and many a man half-crazed with thirst has seen limpid water
where only an alkaline waste existed. Imagination comes to
the aid of refraction and the brain persuades the eye that it
sees things that do not exist. The mirage is due to an inverted
image of the sky appearing beyond the portion of the plain
visible to the observer. This inverted sky simulates a body
of water, and if any object, such as a tree, happens to break
the horizon, there is the appearance of a reflection in a lake.
In cold regions the distribution of a layer of cold air high above
the ground will cause the lower homogeneous layer of air to
transmit an image in its true position, while the reflection
from the upper layer yields another but inverted image of the
same object. Many strange effects are produced and the
strangeness of them is heightened by the imagination of the
observer. A mirage can be photographed, but a hallucination
will make no impression on a sensitized plate; a mirage is a
true image of a real object; a hallucination is a condition of
thought in a distempered brain; one is objective, the other is
subjective. What Willoughby really saw above the Muir glacier we can
judge from what yo.u or I can see there today. Mirages are
not infrequent ; the air above the mass of ice is rendered dense
and the dense layer serves as a medium for the phenomenon
of refraction. On sundry occasions he probably saw the hum
mocks and pinnacles of ice refracted and reflected by the over
lying air until they seemed like the minarets and towers of a
city not made with hands, or, by aid of his imagination, he
even saw a resemblance to the church-towers and belfries of
towns many thousand miles away from the Muir glacier. Un-

AN ALASKAN TROUT STREAM.
Photograph by E. W. Merrill, Sitka. Published by Permission.

76 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
loose the imagination of a man so fundamentaUy ignorant and
so constitutionally visionary as the Professor, and something
was bound to happen. The mirage looked somewhat like a
city. When he bought the photographic equipment at Vic
toria and found a foggy picture of a city, that looked to him
like the mirage. He looked at it again, and yet again, and the
more he looked at the over-exposed plate the more the image
upon it looked like his city of the mirage, until finally, by aid
of a stimulant not unknown in Alaska, he came to the irrevoca
ble conclusion that he had at last obtained the photograph of
the silent city above the glacier. Having persuaded himself,
it was easy to deceive others. The fake prospered amazingly.
Two men knew the truth. One of them, whom we may call
the Judge, measured Willoughby 's plate-holder and satisfied
himself that the photograph could not have been taken by the
Professor. The other was Colonel Richard Dixon, a kindly old
Southern gentleman who suspected a fraud; he went to the,
Judge on the quiet and asked him to "put him onto the game,"
so that he might enjoy the fun. The Judge trusted the Colonel*
and told him what he believed to be the truth. Thereafter these
two old jokers used to meet, compare notes, and enjoy the
humor of the performance, which kept Juneau in the fore
front of tourist interest and newspaper notoriety for many
years. *Col. Dixon was the recorder of the Harris mining district, having
been elected in 1881. When asked how he obtained his military title,
the Colonel answered: "My boy, I won that title at the Battle of Pork
and Beans on the Fraser river in the early days." This brevet rank
was won at least more worthily than that of the Kentuckian who de
rived his title from having married the widow of a Colonel!

CHAPTER VIII.
SITKA.
Sitka is picturesque and historic. This little trading post
on Baranoff island stands on the shore of a waterway that is
guarded by pretty islands ; in front rises the lofty cone of Mt.
Edgcumbe, its fires extinguished and its crater capped with the
cold snow; in the background is Mt. Verstovia, the name re
calling Russian rule. It means that the mountain is one verst,
or 3500 feet, high. Sitka lies off the main line of coastal traffic
and, being now no longer the capital, it has not much to give
it importance in the way of business; but as a museum of
Alaskan history, Sitka is unique. Being also a clean pleasant
village set in exquisite scenery, it is a place every traveler
should visit.
Sitka is the native name and means high land; Sheet-kah
represents the Indian pronunciation. Incidentally, I may add
that Yakutat was the first Russian penal settlement and de
rives its name from the Siberians or Yakuts who served as
guards for the prisoners. The native name for Yakutat bay is
Thlah-kah-cek, meaning 'the breeding place for hair seal.' The
old settlement of St. Paul is now Kadiak ; the steamship maps
spell it Kodiak, which is wrong.
Sitka has a population of 400 whites, including 200 Rus
sians and Russian Creoles, that is, descendants from the first
mixture of Russian and Aleut. In addition, there are 700 na
tives. The chief citizen is Sergius Kostrometinoff, called
George, for short. He is a Russian by birth who was living in
Sitka at the time of the transfer; hence his friends label him
"an American by purchase." Mr. Kostrometinoff is extremely
well versed in Alaskan history and to him I owe much of the
information conceming the early days of the settlement.

78 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Sitka was built close by the shore ; the Russians were afraid
to push inland on account of the Indians. The Russian houses
were made of hewn logs, with low ceilings, weather-boarded
outside, snug and warm. Double windows, and a big tile stove,
more than sufficed to withstand the winter. The climate is
milder now than it was a hundred years ago; there is more
rain, less snow, and the glaciers are retreating.
The Russian settlement at Sitka was a fort and a trading
post. Both were designed for business with the natives. The
block-houses were built in Governor Btolin's time, between
1850 and 1854. The one that survives used to stand 50 yards
north of the pond behind the Post exchange or canteen; an
American officer. Major Campbell, took this block-house and
placed it on its present site. The stockade that protected the
trading post had a zig-zag course from the foreshore to the
lake; and at each corner stood a block-house. The stumps of
the posts of this stockade are still visible, although rotted and
almost hidden by the grass.
The captain of the City of Seattle is so inconsiderate as to
land us at 3 a.m. We are given the rare chance of seeing the
awakening of Sitka. On every roof the ravens roost, like
mourners for departed Russian glory. One or two of them
lift an inquisitive glance and croak solemnly. The flapping
of wings stirs the dreaming silence. Suddenly, at 6 o'clock,
the bugler of the U. S. Marine Corps sounds the reveille. Surely
that inspiring clarion will awaken the town. It does not. At
6 :10 the ravens utter raucous croaks and one of them flies
away with a shrill scream. Sitka still sleeps. At 6 : 12 smoke
curls lazily from a chimney on the main street. That looks
hopeful. At 6 : 14 a childish treble is heard from an upper
window. At 6 : 15 an alarm-clock goes off in the house opposite.
At 6 : 20 two cats awake the incense-breathing morn with
melancholy anthems, punctuated with expressions of vicious
disapproval. At 6 : 25 the ravens drop from their perch and
flutter restlessly. At 6 : 30 the bugler sounds another call and
a suggestion of breakfast floats in the air. At 6 : 35 a work
man strolls down the street with his dinner pail ; simultaneously

Photograph by E. W. Merrill, Sitka.

THE ESPLANADE, SITKA.

Published by Permission.

80 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
a distinguished citizen is seen going to bed. Sitka salutes the
dawn! After Sitka finally awoke, and breakfast had been obtained
at the Hotel Baranoff, Turner and I strolled along the shore
to the Indian River park. On the way we met a Russian priest
with black cassock and long hair — an unpleasant anachronism
in western America. Dominating the main street, the Greek
church lifts its green cupola assertively. It is a hideous struc
ture ; not ever the kindly haze of romance can soften its ugly
lines. It was built in 1848 and is deemed an antiquity. To men
who speak of ten years ago as the 'early days' and look upon
the time of the Californian pioneers as historic, 1848 seems long
ago, for many things have happened since then. But a church
sixty years old would in Europe be considered so new as to re
quire apology.
We pass the museum (which we visit later) and several
pretty cottages, some of them old log-cabins. The path is near
the shore and the scene is full of charm. An Indian in his
canoe paddles across the bay, a flsherman spreads his nets in
the sun, ducks fly athwart the shimmering water, the sea
swirls round the little islands, and the splash of the incoming
tide echoes among the rocks.
Entering an avenue in the forest reserve, we reach the
Park. It is a Government reservation covering a bit of virgin
forest through which flows a trout-stream, the Indian river.
Among the trees are totem-poles ; these were bought from the
Indians for display at the St. Louis Exposition (1904) and then
returned, at the instance of Governor Brady, to adorn this
park at Sitka. In a clearing four large totem-poles have been
erected; these represent the corner posts of a chief's house;
they are carved on the side facing inward and upon them the
sill of the roof would ordinarily be placed.
According to custom, the totem stood close to the door of
the chief's house; it bore his heraldic record. Although the
uncouth carvings on the totem-poles suggest idolatrous worship,
it is certain that the Haidas and Thlingits, who developed
totemism, used it merely to represent family characteristics,
and to symbolize qualities belonging to individual chiefs. It

TOTEM-POLES IN INDIAN PARK, SITKA.
Photograph by E. W. Merrill, Sitka. Published by Permission.

82 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
would be as reasonable to impute sinister ideas to the European
who puts his crest on his ring, his linen, or his carriage. Like
most savages, the natives recognized a supernatural power and
ascribed human intelligence to birds and beasts ; this led easily
to the idea of transmigration and to mythical notions concern
ing the change of shape from men to birds or other animals,
especially the lordlier species, such as the eagle, the bear, and
the whale. Certain characteristics of their chiefs were symbol
ized by animals, which were carved on the totem-poles. Bach
family displayed the crest of its head-man and when they inter
married the totem recorded the fact, for example, that the
eagle clan had mated with the wolf. Families having the same
emblem are held to be blood relations, between whom mar
riage is forbidden. Each house shelters several families and
the carving on the door-post signifies to what totem they be
long. On the graves of the Haidas and Thlingits, other totems
are placed, not so ornate as those that stand before the houses.
The whale or a monstrous cetacean resembling the orca or
grampus, is often portrayed on the grave-totems, to typify
power and voracity. The bear, called hoots in Thlingit, is the
crest of the Shakes family and was adopted to symbolize the
bravery of their ancestors. On a Kake grave-totem the figure
of a white man is carved to remind the Raven clan that their
tribesman must be avenged. A raven is about to swallow a
halibut, symbolizing the fate of the white man. This is not so
bad as the latest development of the totem idea. In front of
the house of an Indian chief recently deceased I saw the flgure
of a bear badly carved in white marble with gilded eyes, teeth,
and claws. It cost $220. What is taste? an appreciation of
what is fitting. But the Indian is no worse than the white man :
at Dawson I saw a tombstone made of galvanized iron. There
is no accounting for taste, or the want of it.
In the evening Sitka is not without diversions. There is
canned music. Two gramophones — one in the Court House and
one in the Marine barracks — enter into a contest, calling to
each other over the diagonal of the parade-ground. As there
is no traffic, the air is fully possessed by these mechanical song
sters. The strains of 'Cheer up, Mary' answer to 'Walz me

SITKA.

83

around again, Willy. ' Mt. Verstovia and Mt. Edgcumbe, across
the water, look on imperturbably. The smoke wreathes itself
in blue whirls as it rises from the chimneys of the dreaming
village; the mists are laid in long bands that belt the dark
woodland; the water reflects the dying day. No footfall is

TOTEM-POLE AT SITKA.

heard. This is elysium. No, by thunder, this is only civiliza
tion. One gramophone calls to another: 'Keep a little cozy
corner in your heart for me ' ; and ' Cheer up, Mary, there is a
rainbow in the sky' peals forth from the opposite side. I feel
sad. My mother always said I was not musical.
The church contains several remarkable pictures. Most of

84

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

these are oil paintings covered with a sheet of metallic silver,
except the hands, feet, and heads of the sacred figures or
ikons. One is an ivory carving, and underneath it is a paint
ing on ivory overlaid with gilded plate. The halos around the
sacred heads are made of gilded silver. Of the two pictures of
St. Michael, the patron saint of this church, one is painted on
wood and covered with gilded silver, while the other is on
canvas. The most celebrated picture in the church is the Lady

INTERIOR OF RUSSIAN CHURCH, SITKA.

of Kazaan ; this is kept under glass ; as much as $25,000 has
been offered for it. Everything in the church was carried in
sailing vessels around the Horn, the Lady of Kazaan having
been brought sixty years ago. Several of the pictures belonged
to the first church, built in 1816 and destroyed by the Indians
in 1852. In the cemetery of the Greek church, north of the
present parade ground, there is a monument containing the
cross of the church that stood on that site, at the time when
the Indians rushed it and used it as a point of vantage in their

THE LADT OP KAZAAN.

86 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
attack on the Castle. The chapel of the Lady of Kazaan, in
the present church of St. Michael, contains a picture that was
saved from the old church ; it hung out of reach of the Indians,
who stabbed it in four or five places with their spears. The
canvas shows the marks, although it has been repaired.
We were shown the marriage crowns; these are silvered,
gilded, and decorated with Siberian stones. They are held
over the heads of the bride and groom by the 'crown-holders,'
who take the place of the groomsman and bridesmaid, in the
procession around the altar. The wedding takes place in the
middle of the church and lasts three-quarters of an hour. We
were also shown the robes of the priests and of the bishop.
The former are old and worn; the latter are handsome in gilt
and silver, and were brought by the bishop himself when he
came to Sitka from Russia five years ago. The big bible is
bound in solid silver, gilded. Each corner of the book, and the
centre, bears a painting on porcelain decorated with imitation
brilliants. This bible is used only on special feast-days. The
silver is stamped with the hall-mark 84. The eight pfllars that
support the dome of the ehurch are solid hewn logs fully 20
inches in diameter. Large swinging candelabra and banners
complete the decorations. The banners include an American
flag, a Russian mercantile flag, and the standards of the re
ligious societies connected with the church.
All the paraphernalia mentioned are interesting as relics of
a passing era. They are less interesting to the European than
to the American unused to the fripperies of medievalism. The
totems of the Indian seem barbarous to the Russian priest ; the
veneer of silver and gold, with sham jewelry, and queer por
traits of mythical personages, seem barbarous to the modern
American; and the modern American's worship of the ticker
and the tape will seem someday a queer form of idolatry to
Macaulay's New Zealander.
In the museum the most interesting objects are the canoes,
by aid of which the country was explored both by natives and
by the Russians from the Siberian coast. The kayak of the
Eskimo and the Aleut was called a Udarka or baidarka by the
Russians. I saw one being built at Nome. It consisted of a

SITKA.

87

frame of spruce ribs, over which is drawn a cover of walrus
skin that has been sewn into one piece, the last stitching being
completed when the skin has been stretched over the wooden
frame. The skin is wet ; as it dries it contracts and hardens so
as to fit the frame closely. This boat is usually built to hold
one occupant, who sits erect in a hole at the centre, the rim of
which serves as an attachment for a waterproof covering or
shirt, called by the Russians a gamlinka, which goes over the

A BAIDARKA AND ESKIMO.

head so that no water can enter the interior of the canoe. This
covering is made of membrane obtained from the intestines of
the walrus or seal ; it is thin, light, and strong. When securely
tied around the wrists and neck with cord made of walrus
ligature, the boatman is well equipped to face the spray. The
larger boat, able to hold a family, is called an oomiak or uniak.
The Russians call it a bidarra or baidarra. It is flat-bottomed,
and consists of a wooden frame tied with seal-skin thongs,
over which the skins of seals are stretched after having been

88 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
prepared, oiled, and sewn together with walrus thongs to hold
them in place. At the mouth of the Yukon, while aground on
the bar, we saw many of these aboriginal boats. Each boat
man had several spears, used for sticking fish, and to these an
infiated bladder was attached so that the spear would float in
the water. Some of the boats were provided with large blad
ders, serving as corks to render the vessel unsinkable. The
armor wom by the native warriors was also made from material
of marine origin; it was a coat having three thicknesses of
walrus hide, padded heavily at the shoulders. Speaking of
armor, the cuirass of woven steel links worn for 27 years by
Baranoff was found by Sergius Kostrometinoff in the possession
of Shaketoo, an Indian chief. Mr. Kostrometinoff bought this
coat of mail from the Indian chief and gave it to the Smith
sonian Institution in 1906.
Prom a point of vantage in the Russian Lutheran cemetery,
the traveler ean obtain a good view of the Bay with its "thou
sand islands," the northern approach through Whitestone
Narrows, and the wireless telegraph station on Japonsky
island (where a Japanese junk was once wrecked). On the
south shore are the Agricultural building standing on Castle
hill, the Russian gray barracks now used as a Court House and
jail ; next to it, the Custom House and Post-Office ; on the wharf,
a big red warehouse ; while near-by are the tops of the houses
in the Indian village. To the east, half-hidden by the trees, is
the old block-house and the new magnetic station ; beyond are
Silver bay and snowy peaks. Behind the town is Swan lake
and Mt. Verstovia, with an intervening valley in which the
experiment farm battles aggressively with the stubborn wilder
ness. Close at hand the graves with their Greek crosses are
almost smothered by salmon-berry bushes and the rank vegeta
tion of a brief summer, including the briar rose, now in bloom
and bearing the perfume of other days.

CHAPTER IX.
HISTORICAL.
Let us turn back to the pages of history and seek the story
of Sitka and the Russian occupation. In June 1741 Vitus
Bering, a Danish captain in the Russian service, sailed from
Kamchatka hoping to reach the American mainland. Ten years
earlier some Cossacks, caught in a gale, had been driven across
the ;paciflc to the shores of the eastern islands and had seen the
continent of America. This had excited interest at St. Peters
burg. On July 15, 1741, one of Bering's lieutenants, Alexis
Chirikoff, anchored off the coast, near Cross Sound. This event
marked the discovery of Alaska. Bering himself, an incom
petent navigator and a court favorite, made no useful explora
tions, but hovered on the coast until his death in December,
1741. The furs his sailors brought back to Kamchatka aroused
the greed of the Russians and led many of them to brave the
crossing to the opposite coast. The fur-traders or promishleniki
sailed the stormy sea in boats 30 feet long and 12 feet broad,
with flat bottoms, made of plank fastened by walrus thongs and
calked with moss. The sails were made of soft dressed rein
deer skins, such as the Eskimo wear, and for ropes they had
straps of elk skin. Thus a fur trade with the Aleuts was begun,
and with it came the usual atrocities perpetrated by the semi-
civilized adventurer when deaUng with defenceless natives.
Bancroft observes: "As the little sable had enticed the Cos
sack from the Black Sea and the Volga across the Ural moun
tains and the vast plains of Siberia to the shores of the Okhotsk
Sea and the Paciflc, so now the sea-otter lures the same venture
some race out among the islands, and ice, and fog-banks of
ocean. ' '

90 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
In 1779 the Empress Catherine II issued a ukase ordering
the Aleuts, or inhabitants of the then known portion of Alaska,
to pay tribute. In 1781 Ivan Golikoff and Gregory Shflikoff
formed an association for the effective control of the fur trade.
In 1783 Shflikoff erected a factory on Kadiak island, and in
1790 at Irkutsk he organized another fur company. In that
year Alexander Baranoff, a sailor conspicuous for his energy,
was put in charge of the trading post of Kadiak. He was soon
appointed one of the directors of the Russian colonies.
In 1795 Shflikoff died. In 1799 the Emperor Paul gave the
control of the Russian colonies to the members of the old fur
company under the name of the Russian American Company,
Alexander Baranoff was placed in charge and became the Chief
Director or Governor. He ruled with a rough hand from July
27, 1791, to January 11, 1818. Astor 's agent. Hunt, describes
Baranoff as "a hyperborean veteran, overflowing with hos
pitality, who, if his guests do not drink raw rum and boiling
punch as strong as sulphur, will insult them when ' he gets
drunk, which will be shortly after he sits down to table."
On May 25, 1799, Baranoff established the flrst trading post
at a spot six miles north of the present site of Sitka. This is
now called Old Sitka, but the Russians called it Fort Archangel
Gabriel. Nothing remains of this flrst settlement, but the
natives use it as a fishing station in summer. The Russian
church has placed a cross on the site.
Baranoff then returned to St. Paul, on Kadiak island. Dur
ing his absence, in June 1802, the Indians massacred the Rus
sian settlement, killing all the officers and 30 men. Only 5 Rus
sians survived. It is claimed that the Hudson's Bay Company
was interfering with Russian trade by selling muskets to the
natives; the British traders would come as far as Lindenberg
harbor (near Silkoh bay) , sending an Indian in a canoe to tell
the natives at Sitka, and the latter would then pack up their
pelts and meet the Hudson 's Bay factor, bartering furs for guns
and ammunition. The Indians then lived on Crab Apple island,
at the entrance of Whitestone Narrows. After the massacre,
the natives moved to the mouth of what is now known as Indian
river and built a stockade. Prom this stronghold they defied

HISTORICAL. Qi
the Russians. In September 1804 Baranoff arrived with two
ships and shortly after he was joined by Capt. Lisiansky, with
the gunboat Neva. They anchored their vessels between Colum
bine island and the mouth of Indian river. The Neva opened
fire with her guns and Baranoff made an unsuccessful assault

INDIAN RIVER PARK, SITKA.
upon the fort, being wounded himself. Five days later the
natives evacuated the fort, because their ammunition was ex
hausted. They had killed their children and their dogs, lest
by making a noise they might give the alarm when the retreat
was made. Baranoff landed and found the fort empty, save
for dead children and dogs, and one live old woman. He estab-

92 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
lished a new post and called it the Fort Archangel Michael, and
the settlement he called Novo Arkhangelsk or the New Arch
angel. This became the existing town of Sitka. Baranoff lived
there. He built his flrst dwelling where the kitchen of the pres
ent Court House stands ; later he erected a residence on the hill
where the building of the Agricultural Department now looks
out to sea. In 1813 he improved this house, which was finaUy
reconstructed by Governor Kuprianoff in 1836. It was then
called the Baranoff castle, and had two stories made of large
logs, traversed by iron bolts between each window. On the top
of this structure was a cupola, used as lighthouse, and in the
basement a cellar for storing ammunition. In 1867 Alaska was
transferred to the United States. On March 17, 1894, the castle
was consumed by fire. It is suspected that the disaster was
caused by an incendiary who wanted to destroy certain court
records. A year before the fire the United States Government
had repaired the building and made it suitable for the sittings
of the District Court. The officials were just moving in, and
the only occupant at the time was the U. S. Commissioner,
Robert C. Rogers, an old man, who lived upstairs on the north
west side of the building. The fire broke out on the east side
under the Judge's chamber, and on that very day the Judge
had been examining certain accounts in which irregularities
were suspected.
After the burning of the castle the present Marine Hospital
was used as the residence of the governors of Alaska, until
Juneau was made the capital. The site of Baranoff 's castle is
now occupied by the Alaskan office of the U. S. Department of
Agriculture. This ornate colonial building was erected in 1902
and bespeaks the systematic effort to encourage the primal in
dustry. An army post was established at Sitka after the transfer,
and persisted until 1877. The marines were first stationed here
in 1880, and two companies are in residence today. They oc
cupy the former hospital, the old Russian barracks being used
as a jail. On the wharf is a large warehouse built of heavy
logs; when the transfer from Russia was made, this building
contained 30,000 seal-skins which were sold for $2.65 apiece.

THE BARANOFF CASTLE, BEFORE THE FIRE.
From an Old Photograph.

94 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
In the spring of this year (1908) seal fur sold for $25. The
large log building on the right, going up the main street from
the landing, was the warehouse of the Russian American Com
pany. The United States paid $7,000,000 for Alaska, and $200,000
for the property of the Russian company, including the castle,
warehouse, barracks, and so forth. The smaller part of this
transaction has always been involved in mystery. At the time
of the transfer Prince Demetrius Maksutoff was Governor ; he
had occupied this position since 1864. Among those who landed
from the steamer John L. Stevens, bringing the officials that
took part in the ceremony by which the transfer of Alaska
was effected on October 18, 1867, was a San Francisco merchant
named H. M. Hutchinson. He proceeded at once to the castle,
and made an arrangement with Maksutoff whereby he acquired
the Russian company's vessels and other property for the firm
of Hutchinson, Kohl & Co. Later, there was a sign on the door
of an office in San Francisco reading the Maksutoff, Hutchin
son, Kohl Company. When the Russian government learned of
this, an objection was raised to the use of the Governor's name,
and it was stricken out, but he retained an interest and is said
to have made a lot of money by his participation. In 1869 the
Alaska Commercial Company was incorporated with a capital
of $2,000,000. In 1870 Congress granted a lease of the Prybiloff
islands to this company for 20 years. In 1872 the Alaska Com
mercial Company purchased the property of Hutchinson, Kohl
& Co. In 1876, a year before the withdrawal of the troops, a
man named Whitford rented a portion of the warehouse and
used it as a store. After the withdrawal of military authority
he took possession of the entire building, until Brady, a mis
sionary who was appointed Governor, joined Whitford under
the name of the Sitka Trading Company. They were never dis
possessed, and in 1888 a law was passed confirming their rights.
At the time of the anarchy in 1877 the people of Sitka appealed
for protection to the British authorities at Esquimalt, the U. S.
Government having apparently left them in .the lurch. It is
said to this day that thp Alaska Commercial Company was
anxious to prevent interference from Federal authority, hence

RUSSIAN BLOCK-HOUSE AT SITKA.

96 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the apathy of the department at Washington. The matter was
never elucidated, and the disposal of the $200,000 remains un
known. Alaska has had a variety of mle and misrule. After the
transfer the district was under military control for ten years.
Garrisons were stationed at Sitka, WrangeU, and Tongass. In
June 1877 the soldiers were withdrawn and the region came
under the administration of the Treasury Department. The
Collector of Customs became the sole representative of Federal
authority. When the troops were withdrawn the people of
Sitka were left without protection. The Indians, thinking that
the U. S. Government had abandoned the country, became
troublesome. Within a week after the soldiers' departure, the
Indians cut down the stockade and invaded every unoccupied
Government house, removing the windows, doors, and parti
tions. A period of disquiet ensued. This culminated in riot in
1878. On February 6 the chief named Kaht-le-ahn had given a
feast or potlach, accompanied by free drinking of hoot-che-noo,*
and the Indians went on the rampage. The Kah-sat-tee clan,
led by Kaht-le-ahn, murdered the American in charge of the
Hot Springs, 18 miles from Sitka, on the same island.f These
Indians were about to make an attack on the Sitka settlement
when the Kah-quan-tan tribe, led by Ah-nah-hootz, came to the
rescue of the white people. The Indians fought among them
selves and this caused a postponement of the assault on Sitka.
A steamer (the California) arrived next day and some of the
settlers embarked, carrying the news to Victoria, British Co
lumbia. Twenty days later (on March 1) the British warship
*Hootclienoo is made from molasses, to which are added flour, dried
apples or rice, yeast powder, and sometimes hops. A thin batter is
made by adding water to this mixture, and when fermentation has
taken place a sour, highly alcoholic liquor is obtained. It has an
abominable taste and odor.
tThe Hot Springs are south of Sitka. Even before the coming of
the Rusisans, in 1805, the Indians used the thermal waters. Up to
the time of the transfer the Russians maintained a hospital at the
Springs, the magnesian waters having proved beneficial to sufferers
from cutaneous and other disorders. The principal spring has a
temperature of 154° F.

A SNOW-STORM AT SITKA.
Photograph by E. W. Merrill, Sitka.

Published by Permission.

98 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Osprey came to Sitka and protected the settlement until the
U. S. gunboat Alaska arrived, on April 3. In June 1879 the
Alaska was succeeded by the Jamestown, and thenceforth the
territory remained under the protecting wing of the Navy De
partment until civil govemment was established by the Organic
Act of May 17, 1884. Thus three departments of the Federal
government, namely, the War, the Treasury, and the Navy, in
turn administered this "non-contiguous possession" of the
United States. These changes of administration were accom
panied by lax government, prejudicial to business. In August
1877 there were only 15 Americans and 5 Russians at Sitka.
Bancroft emphasizes the demoralization during the military
oecupation of the first ten years ; the soldiers behaved disgrace
fully, and the settlement was full of disreputable people of both
sexes. Sitka was " a grand house of ill fame. " Even after the
change to naval control, the affairs of this distant American
colony were allowed to drift, and Alaska, as a whole, suffered
for a long time from the predatory schemes of adventurers and
politicians. Bancroft speaks of Alaska's "midnight suns in
midsummer, her phantom auroras in midwinter, and her phan
tom government at all seasons of the year. ' '
The settlements at Sitka, Wrangell, Juneau, and Skagway
at different dates improvised various crude but effective forms
of municipal government. At Juneau, mining regulations were
devised on the basis of early Californian custom. The code of
California had become the foundation of the mining laws of
the United States. It expressed the conventions of a democracy
pure and simple, for the regulations were passed in open meet
ing and the vote of the majority was final. The rules for locat
ing claims and for holding possession were just, brief, and to
the point. Public opinion made them effective and a sense of
fair play made them respected. Equity was law.
The Organic Act created an executive and a judiciary, but
omitted a legislature. The gap thus left was supposed to be
filled by the declaration that "the laws of the State of Oregon,
so far as the same are applicable and not in conflict with the
laws of the United States and the Organic Act," should be
the law of Alaska ; but from the first a doubt has been expressed

INDIAN WOMEN SELLING SALMON-BERRIES, AT SITKA.
Photograph by E. W. MerrUl, Sitka. Published by Permission.

100 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
by the courts as to appUcation of these laws. This afforded
a signal example of the difficulty of governing one community
by reference to the laws of another. On October 1, 1906, the
capital was moved from Sitka to Juneau, as elsewhere related.
For several years there has been agitation for a Territorial
government with a legislature able to enact laws for Alaska.
This would mean that gambling would be legalized and saloons
would be operated under a low Ucense, as is usual when a Ter
ritory is organized. On applying for Statehood these disrepu
table features are usually withdrawn. The Organic Act made
gambling a crime, but it is not possible to get a jury to convict ;
the Marshal seizes the paraphernalia and thus stops "the music
of the little rolling ball" and the shuffling of many cards.
During the last two years the judges have enforced the law.
No open gambling exists in Alaska. The same is true under the
British flag in the Yukon Territory. It is believed that the
grant of a legislature and Territorial government would give
political control to the labor-union and saloon elements of the
population. Under the government of a Territory the 30,000
people of Alaska* would have to assume the burden of main
taining law and order, and of protecting life and property
over 580,000 square miles.
Crime, except counterfeiting and offences against the Cus
toms, would have to be detected and punished by Territorial
officials. At present the Federal Court has jurisdiction, both
civil and criminal. The cost of maintaining the courts of the
District of Alaska in 1906 was $587,000 ; in 1907, it was $490,000.
Compare Arizona, a Territory, with Alaska, a Federal District :
In Arizona in 1906 the United States Government, through ap
propriation by Congress, paid $89,000, representing only the
salaries of the court officials and of the Court itself when sit
ting as a Federal department. Under the dual system all crimes
against the laws of the Territory are tried on the Territorial
side of the Court, and the expense thereof is borne by the dif
ferent counties of the Territory. All offences against the laws
*In 1908 the population of Alaska consisted of 31,000 whites and
35,000 natives, besides a floating population of six to seven thousand
miners and cannery men, who come to the country for the summer.

SOUTHEASTERN ALASKA.

102 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of the United States are tried in the United States courts, this
expense being debited to the Government. Offences against the
United States include, besides counterfeiting and infraction of
Customs, the selling of liquor to Indians, violations of the Ed
munds Act, infraction of the postal laws, the revenue laws, and
the like. The Government, of course, also pays the salaries of
its own officials in the Territory and legislative expenses. The
salaries of the judges are also paid by the Government, although
the Territory usually sets aside additional sums for expenses of
the judges when holding Territorial courts in counties where a
Federal court is not held. In Alaska, the cost under Terri
torial govemment would have been $398,000 in the same year.
Taxable property in Alaska is extremely limited; the land, ex
cept a few mining claims and townsites that are patented, is
owned by the Government and pays no taxes. Agricultural
land is negligible. The demand for Territorial government
seems premature.
The most pressing need of the District of Alaska is a speedy
and economical method of acquiring title to land. The system
of United States surveys by which land is divided into whole,
half, and quarter sections, has never been extended to Alaska,
although for several years there has been an endeavor to engage
someone able to make these surveys' under the meagre appro
priation allowed. In consequence. Congress has been obliged
to enact so-called land laws for Alaska. These laws all neces
sarily contemplate a special survey by the applicant; there
fore anyone at the present time jiesiring to acquire a title,
whether mineral or agricultural, must employ a deputy sur
veyor, and have his survey approved by the Surveyor General,
before he can buy the land. In all places where the system of
Federal surveys has been extended, this preliminary work has
been obviated.
Even the observations of a traveler warrant comment upon
another matter pertaining to the administration of Alaska.
Owing to the remoteness of the country and the scope of in
dustrial activities, the scattered community needs judges,
marshals, and other Federal appointees that have been carefully
selected for the discharge of varied duties. It is fooUsh to try

HISTORICAL. 103
to govern the District from Washington, and it is criminal to
appoint needy politicians to posts of unusual responsibility. A
judge who has never even seen salt water before is sent to
Alaska to decide important questions of admiralty jurisdiction.
A man who is innocent of any knowledge of mining is appointed
to adjudicate on fundamental questions affecting the develop
ment of the mining industry. Examples could be multiplied.
Both as regards the flsheries and the mineral industry, the con
ditions obtaining in Alaska are unique ; they demand a special
system of rules and regulations, and they demand the services
of men of approved character.

A few notes concerning the transfer of Alaska to the United
States will be proper. Negotiations were commenced in 1861.
In 1866 the Russian government refused to renew the charter
of the fur company. Russia was unwilling to continue the ex
pense of protecting a vast territory that was so unproductive,
and she needed all her navy and resources to meet British
aggression in Asia. Finally a treaty was arranged by William
Seward, as Secretary of State, with the Russian envoy, Edward
de Stoeckl, and it was signed at Washington on March 30, 1867.
The United States agreed to pay $7,200,000 in gold.
On Friday, October 18, 1867, the steamer John L. Stevens
arrived at Sitka ; on board were the Russian commissioner,
Captain Alexis Pestehouroff, and the American commissioner.
General Lovell N. Rousseau, the latter being escorted by a com
pany of the Ninth infantry. The 200 American soldiers, under
General Jefferson C. Davis, marched up the hill and took a
position on the east side of the flagstaff, whieh stood southeast
of the castle. An equal number of Russian soldiers was drawn
up west of the flagstaff. It was 3 : 30 in the afternoon. An ac
count of the proceedings was given to me by Mr. Sergius Kos
trometinoff, who, as a boy of 13, was present at the ceremony.
All being assembled. Captain Pestehouroff ordered the Russian
flag to be pulled down. The wind had twisted the flag round
the ropes and by pulling them the flag was torn. This, as Mr.
Kostrometinoff says, was a "pathetic sight" to the Russians.

104 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
A Russian soldier was told to climb the flagstaff and disentangle
the flag. When half-way up he became exhausted and slid
down. Another soldier failed likewise. Then a boatswain's
chair was rigged up and a man was hoisted. His orders were
to loosen the flag and bring it down with him ; but he became
excited and dropped the flag. The wind carried it away so
that it fell on the bayonets of the Russian soldiers, at which
they were visibly affected. In the meantime the shore battery
and the American gunboat Ossipee were firing a salute. The
Russian flag being down, the American was hoisted without any
further incident. Captain Pestehouroff stepped forward and
addressing General Rousseau, said: "By the authority which
is vested in me by his Imperial Majesty the Russian Emperor
Alexander the Second, I transfer the territory of Alaska to the
United States." He spoke in English. General Rousseau re
plied, accepting the transfer. That ended the affair. "Thus,
without further ceremony, without even banqueting or speech-
making, this vast area of land, belonging by right to neither,
was transferred from one European race to the offshoot of
another." So says the American historian, Bancroft. It was
an event of greater signiflcance than anyone then living sup
posed, and it gave imperishable fame to the statesman respon
sible. Seward was severely criticized at the time, but he had
been in the country and he believed that it had a future.
"What, Mr. Seward," asked a friend, "do you consider the
most important measure of your political career ? " " The pur
chase of Alaska," he replied; "but it will take the people a
generation to find it out. ' ' If the time of a generation be taken
as 33 years, the fulfilment of his prediction was due in 1900.
Assuredly Seward had been amply justified by that date, and
he has been more than justified since.

CHAPTER X.
ALASKA AND CALIFORNIA.
The historic relation between Alaska and California is
worthy of recital. It was founded on the fact that the one
region lacked what the other produced, namely, grain and vege
tables. If the Russians had been able to get supplies of green
food in Alaska, their trading company might have done as well
as the British East India and the Hudson 's Bay companies. But
the soil of the Alaskan islands and peninsulas was considered
too sterile for cultivation, and the opposite shores of Kam
chatka and Okhotsk were barren. Vegetables were scarce and
scurvy was common. It was no wonder then that Baranoff wel
comed the American vessel, commanded by Captain O'Cain,
that brought a cargo of wheat and barley to the starving Rus
sian settlement in 1803. This was the beginning of trade with
California. Before trade was established with the Spanish settlement at
San Francisco, there was exchange between Alaska and the
Sandwich islands, now known as Hawaii. Whaling vessels
manned by Kanakas would put in at Sitka for fresh water and
supplies. At Redoubt, 12 miles south of Sitka the Russians
had a saltery and from it they used to send salt fish to the
Sandwich islands, taking in exchange the brown or 'coffee'
sugar. Several Kanaka words in the Chinook jargon serve as
reminders of the early link between the cold shores of Alaska
and the tropical islands of Hawaii.
After O'Cain discharged the cargo from his vessel, the
Russian company under Baranoff had many dealings with
American ship-masters and arranged for the sale of otter and
beaver skins obtained outside of the company's possessions.

106 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Baranoff supplied O'Cain with a party of Aleuts who caught
otters along the coast from the strait of Juan de Fuca to the
Golden Gate at San Francisco. The Spanish laws prohibited
trade between Californians and foreigners, but the mission
friars bought the otter skins under cover of night and paid for
them in barley, wheat, peas, beans, and fruit. Baranoff 's
Aleuts took otter skins into the very Bay of San Francisco,
the Spanish officials being unable to enforce their own regu
lations. And still the supply of food at Sitka continued scanty.
The prospects of the Russian colony were gloomy, when, in
1805, Nikolai Rezanoff, the Imperial Commissioner, came to
Sitka. Soon after his arrival he purchased the American ship
Juno and her cargo of provisions. This prevented a famine.
Then he sailed for San Francisco, with a view to making ar
rangements with the Spanish authorities for a regular supply
of foodstuffs. Unfortunately the Spanish laws were clearly against the
exportation of grain. Don Luis de Arrillaga, the Governor of
the Spanish colony, regretted that he had to enforce the ordi
nances of the King. He could neither sell grain nor buy the
goods brought by Rezanoff on the Juno. Then came the ro
mance of Concepcion, the 15-year old daughter of the com-
mandante, Don Jose de Arguello. The Muscovite fell in love
with the Spanish maiden; he was a manly and accomplished
fellow; she was a beautiful and graceful girl. They were be
trothed. Rezanoff told his sweetheart that he would die rather
than go back to Sitka without food for his people, and the dark-
eyed Concepcion assured her father that if her betrothed died,
she would soon follow him to the grave. Thereupon Don Jose
told Don Luis to regard him as an enemy if his obstinacy be
came the cause of a beloved daughter's death; and the friars
all declared it was a flouting of Providence to deny them a
market for their produce. The Governor perforce yielded.
Rezanoff sold his goods and bought grain ; the Juno was loaded
with the necessary supplies and returned to Sitka in June
1806. Shortly after, Rezanoff returned to St. Petersburg, to
obtain the imperial consent to his marriage. Being in a hurry,
he went overland across Siberia from Kamchatka, and whfle

Photograph by E. W. Merrill, Sitka.

THE BAY OF SITKA.

Published by Permission.

108 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
on his way was killed by a fall from his horse. His betrothed
waited for him year after year, vainly, watching the Golden
Gate for the ship that never came. Bret Harte tells us :
"So each year the seasons shifted — wet and warm and drear and dry;
Half a year of clouds and flowers — half a year of dust and sky:
Yet she heard the varying message, voiceless to all ears beside :
'He will come,' the flowers whispered; 'Come no more' the dry hills
sighed.
Still she found him with the waters lifted by the morning breeze —
Still she lost him with the folding of the great white-tented seas."
The world moved forward ; on the ashes of the romance of
Concepcion de Arguello, the missions in California established
a regular trade with the fur-traders in Alaska.
Rezanoff left his mark oil Russian policy. While dallying
near San Francisco he wrote to the directors at St. Petersburg
advising the establishment of a Russian settlement at the
mouth of the Columbia river and another on the estuary of
the Sacramento. "In this way," he said, "in the eourse of
ten years we should be strong enough to make use of any
favorable turn in European politics to include the coast of
California in the Russian possessions. The Spaniards are
very weak in these countries; if, in 1798, when war was de
clared with Spain, our company had had an adequate force
on the ground, it would have been very easy to seize a piece
of California stretching as far south as Santa Barbara." Ap
parently this suggestion was well received, for in October 1808
a vessel named the Kadiak was outfitted at Sitka for a fili
bustering expedition, under command of Alexander Kuskoff,
a wooden-legged veteran. Loaded with rum, the Kadiak went
to the Columbia river and did .some successful trading. In
1810 Kuskoff went to California and was refused water by the
Spanish officials. Cruising northward, he cast anchor in Bo
dega bay, 65 miles north of San Francisco. He reported a
tolerable harbor, a fine building site, a mild climate, abun
dance of fish and fur-bearing animals, with friendly Indians
and no Europeans. The Spaniards at San Francisco did not

SUN DOGS IN A WINTER SKY.

110 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
molest him, but they sent a protest to Madrid, and from there
it was transmitted to St. Petersburg. The Russian Emperor
Alexander I notified the directors of the Russian American
Company that they might rely upon his protection. Soon
afterward a convention was signed between John Jacob Astor
and the Russian company, whereby an exchange of furs for
provisions was arranged.
Surveys and negotiations conceming the settlement in Cali
fornia consumed a year. In 1811 a tract 18 miles north of
Bodega bay was bought from the Indians for 3 blankets, 3
pairs of breeches, 2 axes, 3 hoes, and some beads. There was
no anchorage, but in other respects this locality was prefer
able to the one first selected. Here in April 1812, just as
Napoleon was preparing to invade Russia, a party of 95 Rus
sians, of whom 25 were mechanics, landed. They were accom
panied by 80 Aleuts. All hands set to work forthwith to fell
trees for building purposes. By the end of September Kus
koff had erected a fortified village on a bluff 110 feet above
tide-water and about eight miles from the mouth of the Slav-
ianka, called San Sebastian by the Spaniards, and now known
as the Russian river. The stockade and block-houses resem
bled those built by Baranoff at Sitka. A rectangular enclosure,
250 by 300 feet, was formed with posts 12 to 15 feet high, sur
mounted by a bar in which were set obstructing spikes of wood
and iron. Hexagonal block-houses guarded each corner and
in them cannon were mounted. This fortified enclosure was
strong enough to deter Spanish attack. Outside of the stock
ade the Aleuts had their huts, and close to them were the wind
mill, granaries, cattle-yards, tannery, and workshops. A well
kept garden adjoined these buildings. Thus the settlement
was strongly protected and intelligently planned. It was
called Port Ross, or Russian Port. Ross is the root of Rossia,
the vernacular for our word 'Russia.'
The Spaniards disliked this Russian trespass into their
sphere of influence and annoyed the new settlement as much
as possible, but they could not stop the contraband trade
maintained between Fort Ross and San Francisco. The au
thorities were compelled to wink at the infraction of regu-

Photograph by E. W. Merrill, Sitka.

SITKA AND MT. VERSTOVIA.

Published by Permission.

112 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
lations. In 1817 the padres founded the mission of San Rafael ;
this seemed to menace the Russians, but they sent gifts to the
church. Soon afterward Canonigo Fernandez came from San
Francisco as a representative of Mexico and notified the Rus
sian commander that he must evacuate Fort Ross within six
months. The commander glanced at his fortifications and told
the envoy that the region had not been in possession of any
other power when the Russians occupied it, that the site had
been bought from the Indians, and that he was quite pre
pared to meet force with force. A similar attitude was assumed
by Kostrometinoff, who was the next commander.* Nothing
happened; possession was retained, trade was maintained, and
the Russians began to have a title by prescription.
In 1831 Baron P. P. Von WrangeU was appointed Director
of the Russian American colonies. He was an Arctic explorer,
a scientific authority, a statesman, and a sailor ; in fact, Wran
gell was much the highest type of man ever connected with
the Russian settlements in America. He visited Fort Ross in
1832 and it devolved upon him to decide what to do with this
isolated possession. Being a diplomat, he began to fence with
the Spaniards. To force the position, he established a trading
post at Sausalito and negotiated for the cession of San Rafael
to the Russian company. The Spanish governor retaliated by
planting a settlement at Sonoma. Nevertheless, Wrangell
was not enthusiastic over the future of Port Ross. He reported
to his company that unless they annexed the country eastward
as far as the upper Sacramento valley and southward as far
as San Francisco bay, they had better abandon Port Ross en
tirely. It was costing 45,000 to 70,000 rubles annually, while
the revenue from furs and other products ranged between
8000 and 25,000 rubles only. Another authority states that
between 1825 and 1830 the expenses of the Ross settlement
were 45,000 rubles, while receipts averaged less than 13,000
per year. The Russian company tried to persuade the Gov
ernment at St. Petersburg that it would be well to secure a
slice of California before it changed hands, but Nesselrode
*And uncle of the Sergius Kostrometinoff, of Sitka, to whom ref
erence has been made.

ALASKA AND CALIFORNIA. 113
was unwilling to embroil his country with the United States
and tumed a deaf ear to the proposal. [California was ceded
by Mexico to the United States by the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848.] Thereupon Kuprianoff,
who succeeded Wrangell in 1836, suggested the abandonment
of Port Ross. In April 1839 the directors passed a resolution
to this effect. Kuprianoff offered the Russian property in
California to the Hudson's Bay Company for $30,000, and
then, when they declined to buy, he offered it, in 1840, to the
Mexican government, which also refused to consider the pur
chase. Thereupon Captain John A. Sutter appeared on the
scene. He was in the habit of buying property on credit and
he made a proposal to the Russian officials. On December 13,
1841, a formal contract was signed in the office of the sub-
prefect at San Francisco between Sutter and Kostrometinoff,
by which the latter assigned to the former all the property at
Port Ross and Bodega. This included 1700 head of cattle, 940
horses, 900 sheep, besides improvements and implements. The
price was $30,000, divided in four annual installments : two
of $5000 each, payable in wheat; a third of $10,000, also in
wheat; and a fourth of $10,000, to be paid in cash. The sale
included all the improvements, but not the land. On the day
before the deed was signed, the manager, Rochef, executed a
private deed assigning to Sutter for $30,000, the receipt of
which was acknowledged, all the lands held by the Russians.
This part of the transaction was kept secret, but nearly twenty
years afterward, when property on Russian river became valu
able, the deed came to light and many ranch-owners paid Sut
ter for quit-claims. The Russian government never asserted
title to the land at Port Ross, nor was there any reference to
the subject in the negotiations preceding the transfer of Alaska
to the United States.
The Russian garrison at Fort Ross embarked on the ship
Constantine in February 1842. A single Russian remained as
watchman until the arrival of John Bidwell, who assumed
charge in behalf of Sutter.
The Russian American Company found it difficult to col
lect its price from Sutter. He was an impecunious person.

114 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
For three years no payment was made, either in wheat or
money. Then a small contribution was made in the form of
a consignment of wheat. It was believed at Monterey, which
was the Mexican headquarters, that Sutter was negotiating
for the transfer of his estate, then called New Helvetia, to
other Americans; to prevent this, it was proposed by the
Mexican authorities to pay off the Russian claim and acquire
the mortgage on Sutter's property. These plans were never
consummated, for soon afterward California passed under the
American flag. The Russian company recorded its mortgage,
but the influx of population following upon the annexation
and the discovery of gold, in 1848, set Sutter on his feet. Be
fore 1850 he had liquidated his debt. The last installment of
$15,000 was paid to the company's agent at San Francisco, but
the man absconded. In consequence of this theft and the ex
pense of prosecution, a deficit appeared on the Russian com
pany's books for 37,484 rubles and 50 kopeks. Thus ended the
Russian occupation in California.

Sutter's name was made famous later by becoming con
nected with the discovery of gold in California. He was of
Swiss parentage, born in the Grand Duchy of Baden, whence
he emigrated to New York in 1834, at the age of 31 years.
Arriving in California from the Sandwich islands, now cafled
Hawaii, with a company of Kanakas, he became naturalized
as a Mexican and obtained a license to settle in the valley of
the Sacramento. At the confluence of the American and Sac
ramento rivers he established a colony called New Helvetia,
on the site of the city of Sacramento. There he built a stock
ade or fort. As a naturalized citizen of Mexico, in 1842 he
was called upon by the Spanish governor to oppose the in
vasion of California by the bands of Americans then begin
ning to come overland to the Pacific slope from Missouri and
Arkansas. But Sutter was not solicitous for the integrity of
the Mexican territory. He realized that it was to his interest
to welcome, rather than oppose, the newcomers; he saw that
they were destined to become the masters of California, and

ALASKA AND CALIFORNIA.

115

that their friendship was more advantageous to him than their
enmity. Thus he excited the suspicion of the Mexican officials,
who, however, were helpless to discipline him at this juncture.
In 1844 he organized a military company, receiving the appoint
ment of captain at the hands of Micheltorena, the Governor of
Alta California. These preparations were against Alvarado
and Castro, who had started a revolution, at a time when war
with the United States was imminent. Micheltorena and Sut
ter united in fighting Alvarado and Castro. The former were

IN QUIET WATERS.

accompanied by a number of Indians and took with them the
Russian cannon from Port Ross. The opposing forces met at
Cahuenga, near San Fernando, close to the present city of Los
Angeles, in February 1845. Micheltorena and Sutter were
easily beaten, and capitulated. Sutter was permitted to return
to Sacramento, a sadder and a wiser man. But fate was kind
to him; he was destined to win a distinction through which
this fiasco would be forgotten. When war broke out between
Mexico and the United States in 1845, the American flag was

116 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
raised at Monterey on July 6 and at Sutter's fort on July 8,
and from that date it has been the sign of American dominion
in California. Sutter served as Indian agent under the American admin
istration, and in 1847 he was appointed special commissioner
by Governor Mason. In the same year he did himself credit
by promptitude and generosity in fitting out an expedition to
relieve the party of 80 immigrants from Illinois, of whom 36
perished in the Sierra Nevada near Donner lake. Sutter be
haved well ; but his great opportunity was coming. His forti
fied enclosure on the Sacramento river had become a large
establishment, ovw which he presided in a patriarchal way.
Before the county was wrested from Mexico, this enterprising
Swiss had power to inflict punishment and he was monarch of
all he surveyed; when American settlers poured across the
mountains from the East he saw that there would be a good
market for lumber, so he planned the building of a saw-mill
on one of the streams issuing through the foot-hills of the
Sierra Nevada. Among others sent by Sutter to search for a
suitable site was James W. Marshall, a carpenter from New
Jersey. This was in the summer of 1847. Marshall returned
in a month saying that he had found a suitable spot on the
south fork of the American river, at a place now known as
Coloma, about 35 miles northeast of Sacramento. It was ar
ranged for Marshall to build and run the mill, whieh was
erected by the middle of January 1848. When ready it was
found that the ditch or race, leading the water from the wheel,
was not deep enough. Marshall scoured it with the swift cur
rent, opening the flood-gates to fuU capacity. The water was
allowed to run all night, and in the morning the gates were
closed while Marshall examined the mill-race. In the gravel
loosened by the current he saw several bits of gold. By ham
mering a specimen with a stone he ascertained that the heavy
yellow metal was gold. That was on January 19, 1848. A few
days later he went down to New Helvetia or Sutter's fort and
told Sutter that he had discovered gold. Sutter tested the
metal with aqua-fortis or nitric acid, which he found among
his apothecary stores; he read the article on gold in his copy

SITKA AND MT. EDGCUMBE.
Photograph by Winter & Pond, Juneau.

Published by Permission.

118 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of the Encyclopedia Americana; he weighed the metal and
compared it with coins ; thereupon he pronounced the substance
to be gold and nothing else.
That incident marks the beginning of the Golden Age of
California 's youth. A wide-spread mining excitement foUowed
and fortunes were made by thousands of men. But neither
Sutter nor Marshall had any legal claim to the ground on
which the gold was found, although a few months later Sutter
sold his supposed rights for $6000 and Marshall disposed of a
one-third interest in the miU and timber for $2000. Neither
Sutter nor Marshall benefited by the historic discovery with
which their names are indelibly associated. In 1870 the Legis
lature of California passed a bill appropriating to "General
John A. Sutter, the pioneer of 1839 and founder of New Hel
vetia, once the richest and most powerful foreigner in the
country, but by that time reduced to poverty, a sum of two
hundred and fifty dollars per month." I quote Hittell. A
similar grant for Marshall was passed, but not being approved
by the Governor, it failed to help the poor man who had opened
the natural treasury of California. In 1872, however, an ap
propriation of $200 per month for his support was granted and
was paid to him for two years ; and in 1874 he was voted $100
per month for the next two years; that was all he ever got
from the State. In 1885, at the age of 73, he died alone and in
poverty. After his death, in 1887, the State, at an expense of
$5000, erected a monument to his memory on the spot where
he first found the gold. Such is the irony of fame.

CHAPTER XI.
CHINOOK, NATIVES, AND GAME.
In New Zealand and in Hawaii the natives have been deci
mated in a century; in Tasmania the aborigines are extinct.
The disappearance of native races is due in part to the intro
duction by the white man of new diseases that attack the
natives with great virulence, and it is traceable in part to
alcoholism induced by the excessive use of stimulants sold to
the natives by traders. The chief factor, however, in destroy
ing the vitality of the Maoris, the Kanakas, and the Haidas has
been the imperfect adaptation to a new environment created
by the introduction of civilization. Thus the Alaskan Indian,
becoming employed by the white man and earning wages,
adopted the white man's food without donning his warm
clothing. Previously, the healthy savage had fed on fish and
seal-oil, especially oil, which, on account of its heating quality,
enabled him to withstand extreme cold and excessive damp.
When he came within the white man's camp he bought cakes,
biscuits, hard tack or pilot bread, and similar non-heating food.
That made him less robust and predisposed him to tubercu
losis. He continued to wear a shirt and drawers made of cotton
cloth, over which he .threw his blanket. When hunting he
wore moccasins; otherwise his feet were bare. Nowadays,
however, many of the Indians, especially around Sitka, wear
the clothing of the ordinary white laborer and they are the
healthier for it. By living indoors they have become soft; to
protect themselves against the effect of a change in food, they
must be better clothed. Those that do so, are increasing ; those
that accept part of the gifts of civilization without its burdens,
are dying of lung trouble. Westward and in the northern in-

120 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
terior, among the Eskimo, the conditions of life are still as they
were in southeastern Alaska twenty years ago. When the
native tribes first come in contact with the advancing wave of
modernism, they wilt. When they change their clothing and
their dwellings in complete acceptance of new habits and con
ditions of life, they survive. It is an interesting example of
natural selection as influenced by adaptation to environment.
The medicine men of the Thlingits are called shamans, and
like the priestly caste of other peoples they made trouble.
When chant or hocus-pocus failed to cure the sick, they de
manded the death of another whom they charged with be
witching the invalid. Thus they vented their spite on enemies.
It is related that Captain B. C. Merriman of the American
navy destroyed shamanism in southeastern Alaska by captur
ing some of the shamans, taking them on board his ship, cut
ting off their long sacred hair, and sending them bald to their
tribe, by whom they were received with uproarious laughter.
Ridicule killed their black art.
In their dealings with white men, the Indians speak Chinook.
This is a jargon composed of many tongues. When the voy
ageurs and coureurs de bois of French Canada traveled over the
wilds of the Northwest, they made acquaintance with many
tribes of Indians speaking different languages ; they also traded
with the Scotch factors of the Hudson's Bay Company. Thus
they gradually gathered a composite speech containing words
of French and English origin, as well as sundry words picked
up from native tribes, such as the Kietatats, Haidas, and Thlin
gits. After a certain number of mixed words had come into
use, the Hudson 's Bay factors went to work and developed this
lingo, called ' Chinook, ' so that it might serve them in dealings
with the various tribes from whom they bought furs and fish.
Chinook consists of about 300 words and is easily learned; it
has a vocabulary, but no grammar. Most of the words are cor
ruptions. Thus 'siwash ' is the general term for Indian through
out the Northwest; it comes from sauvage, just as 'musher' is
corrupted from marcheur. 'Mush on' is probably a corruption
of the French marchons. Klahowyah, the native salutation, is
said to be derived from "Clark, how are you?" the greeting

CHINOOK, NATIVES, AND GAME.

121

given to the old-time traders. 'Sour dough' and 'cheeehako'
are complementary. 'Sour dough' is the emblem of the sea
soned frontiersman. Being unable to procure yeast, the pros
pector or woodsman carries a little can filled with soured dough-
batter; with this and by the addition of a little baking soda,
he starts the leavening of his bread, in the form of pancakes,
or 'flapjacks.'' The men of the North will allow the lump of
sour dough to freeze and as the stock is diminished they add

THE MUSHER.

flour and water, mixing the mass, so that it performs for them
the function of yeast. 'Cheeehako' or 'chiehaco' is probably
of Kanaka origin. Chi or chee means 'new' and chaco or chako
means 'to come'; a 'cheeehako' is a newcomer. The term cor
responds to 'tenderfoot' in the West and 'new chum' in Aus
tralia. Chinook is composed of derelicts from English, French, In
dian, and even Kanaka. Long before the Russian or the

122 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
American controlled Alaska, there was trade between the Rus
sian colonists and the islanders in the South Seas. But that is
another story. Klootchman is the Chinook for native 'woman';
in the Thlingit language it is sha-wat. Skookum is the word for
'strength' of any kind; thus skookum tumtum is 'strohg heart'
or 'courage'; skookum sick means 'very ill' or 'about to die';
skookum koolie is ' to go fast. ' Koolie is probably from the French
coule, which also appears in our word 'guUy. ' Cultus is Chi
nook for 'worthless.' If you say a man is 'cultus' you mean
he is worthless, a 'waster,' or vaurien. Cultus wawa means
worthless conversation. If you joke with a native or tell him
a story he cannot believe, he will laugh and say: "Cultus
wawa." As in most primitive languages, emphasis is obtained
by doubling; thus the Australian Yarra Yarra is the aboriginal
equivalent of 'ever flowing.'
As an example of the development of local jargon, I quote
the expression : "to siwash a line. ' ' To explain it, I shall de
scribe an interesting bit of pioneer engineering. The Alaska
Treadwell company is building a dam in the natural basin or
cirque two miles south of the mine and under the shadow of
Mt. Jumbo; the dam is to be 60 feet high and will impound
240,000,000 gaUons or 34,000,000. cubic feet of water, sufficient
to afford a flow of 200 miner's inches for 78 days. The area
to be transformed into a reservoir covers 35 acres. In under
taking the construction of the dam, the first thing was to get
a donkey-engine to pull logs, for the mossy nature of the
ground precluded the use of horses. The machine consisted of
a horizontal engine having a 9 by 10 inch cylinder with a ver
tical boiler, both boiler and engine being set on a solid cast-
iron base, placed upon a heavy sled. The sled was built of
two 16 by 28 inch timbers, faced on three sides, the bottom
having its original log surface. Each end of these 'runners'
is 'sniped off,' so as to present a slanting point like the prow
of a boat.
At flrst sight it seems absurb to think of pulling such a
machine, weighing 10 tons, over the moss, morass, and rock of
a primeval sub-arctic forest. But it was done, thus: A light
cable is paid out to some suitable mooring, sueh as a tree, and

THLINGIT WOMEN.
Photograph by Winter & Pond, Juneau. Published by Permission.

124 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
then a block is fastened to the same hold ; the Une is placed in
the block and the end of the light line is attached to the block
of the heavy line. The donkey-engine puUs in the Ught line,
thereby pulling out the heavy cable ; the block of the latter is
attached to a tree, either the one already in service or a larger
one, or the cable is even run around two or three trees, if a
single one does not suffice. Then the engine pulls on the heavy
line and drags the whole machine forward; if the gradient
be too heavy, another block is used, multiplying the mechanical
advantage. Thus the donkey-engine pulls itself forward. It
is astonishing to see over what rough country the engine on
the sled will advance — down into a creek-bed, up the steep
bank, over fallen trees, through the swamp, across ditches.
The sled is 40 feet long and 8 feet wide. The 'donkey' also
tows a second sled on which are placed provisions, coal for the
engine, tools, extra rope, axes, and other necessaries, the entire
load weighing fully 30 tons.
Now you will understand what 'siwash' signifles. When.
a line is passed around a tree, and not through a block, the
line is said to be 'siwashed. ' Again, a 'choker' is a short
piece of cable at each end such as is wrapped round a tree to
hold a block. The engine is called a ' donkey, ' and it performs
feats worthy of the patient 'burro' who is the friend of the
Western prospector. But the 'burro' is not in fashion in the
North, he is ill fitted either to traverse the tundra in summer
or the snow in winter; moreover, his propensity to lift up his
voice in song would not accord with the spirit of the Arctic
wild over which a Great Silence broods eternally.
Moose and caribou are plentiful in parts of Alaska. The
caribou make an annual migration in a vast herd, which has
been seen by several men whom I met. Thus Angus Macdonald
told me how in the spring of 1902, at the head of Tombstone
creek, he "rode through them for a week." A party of pros
pectors coming south from the Peel river met the herd, which
was moving slowly northward while grazing ; these men walked
within sight of the caribou for six days. In the spring they
go to the Arctic slope of the northern mountains and in the
fall they return to British Columbia. Smaller bands of 30 to

m <PZMEh3Zt-HJffiHffioCO%O

126

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

60 are to be found on the Mackenzie range. When these tens
of thousands of caribou passed through the Tanana region in
1906 the miners shot them from the doors of their cabins and
thus obtained a winter supply of fresh meat.
Soon after leaving Forty-Mile we saw a bear swimming
the Yukon. Of other large wild animals seen in the course of
the journey, the whales were the most noteworthy. On the re
turn from Sitka to Juneau, as we stood on the deck of the
Georgia, which was steaming through Sergius strait, a narrow
waterway, we saw the fountain made by a spouting whale.
Passing close to him, we noted that he was about 45 feet long,

MOOSE SWIMMING.

and as he sped through the water alongside, rising at intervals
to 'sound,' we eould see the barnacles clinging to his snout and
tail. Every time he sounded he made a whistling noise like
the wire-drawn exhaust of a large compressor, the air and
water shot upward and the dark bulk dived beneath the water,
leaving the big tail fanning the air as he disappeared, to re
appear in half a minute. This young leviathan was proceeding
slowly, evidently feeding on herring, a shoal of which was
swimming through Sergius strait.
The law prohibits the killing of game in spring. This would

CHINOOK, NATIVES, AND GAME.

127

be proper enough in most regions, but in the distant portions
of Alaska the prohibition is a hardship because the spring is
the very time when supplies of meat and foodstuffs of every

'Jdk.

I S:.::^l ¦.ff% : i- ¦• ¦¦ ^-

^W4

THE MOOSE-HUNTER.

kind are apt to run short among prospectors and explorers. It
should be legal to kill game for food at any time. At Fair
banks, in winter, moose sells for 30 cents per pound ; beef, for
45 to 75 cents. On the other hand, head-hunters, killing ani-

128

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

mals for decorative use in Chicago and New York, ought to be
summarily suppressed.
The Alaskan Indian so much resembles the Japanese, and
the distance from the Seward Peninsula to Northeast Siberia
is so short — only 36 miles across Bering strait — that a racial
origin is readily suggested. The Kuro Siwo or Japanese cur
rent touches so close to the shores of Queen Charlotte island
that it has been suggested that junks from over the sea may

WHEN. WIND HELPED MUSCLE.

have been stranded there in those forgotten centuries when
the Japanese built sea-going vessels and traveled afar.
Speaking of Japanese, I am reminded of that Alaskan
celebrity Jurio Wadda. He is the great 'musher,' a redoubt
able explorer, and an indomitable adventurer, giving that word
both its modern meaning and the more honorable older one.
In Cornwall the shareholders in mines were called 'adventur
ers, ' that is, they were the persons who shared in the venture ;
and even to this day the president and shareholders of a his-

CHINOOK, NATIVES, AND GAME.

129

toric enterprise are called to annual meeting under the name
of "the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England
trading into Hudson's Bay." Wadda is not so grand as all
that, but he is a good deal of a man. His expedition to Her-
schel island is proof sufficient. With his dog-team and sled he
went from Nome to Cape Prince of Wales, thence round the
Arctic coast to Cape Blossom, on to Point Barrow, and so to

MINING ON CHICHAGOFF ISLAND.
Herschel island. A glance at the map will indicate the dis
tance covered. He was 32 days making the last stage of this
journey from Point Barrow to the island, and for those 32 days
he traveled continuously. A little bell-shaped tent was his only
cover; in his team were nine dogs, but they were never un
hooked from the tow-line or unharnessed during those 32 days.
Then he ' mushed ' from Herschel island to a point 90 miles east
of the Mackenzie river, trying to find the position of a gold dis-
coverv the news of which he had obtained from the natives.

130 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Returning to Herschel island, he started back to Nome. The
season was near its close and six days from Point Barrow he
found himself without food ; he cut the seal lashings on his sled
and the seal 'mukluks' on his feet, and fed them to the dogs.
Leaving Point Barrow, where food was obtained from the Es
kimo, he worked his way as far as Point Hope and then in an
oomiak or skin-boat he paddled to Cape Blossom, where he
caught the steamer Corwin for Nome.
When one hears the true stories of the feats of travel over
ice and snow accomplished by the unrecorded heroes of these
frontier mining camps, the much advertised expeditions of
scientific-newspaper enterprise seems hollow shows. If any
millionaire wants to see his house-flag placed on the North
Pole, I would advise him to engage Wadda, Scotty Allen, Louis
Lane, Sport Smith, John Hignes, Hart Humber, and Clarence
Hawkins. These are the men to get there; when they return
they can engage Peary and Nansen to deliver the necessary
lectures and submit to the requisite interviews in their stead.

CHAPTER XIL
SKAGWAY.
Alaska holds much beauty, but also ugliness enough to force
a contrast. Skagway or Skaguay, as it is variously speUed, is
the scrap-heap of creation. As the steamer turns from Lynn
Canal and approaches this terminal point in a voyage of ex
ceeding beauty, the charred forest on the right suggests the.
devastating hand of man, heretofore so notably absent. Long
wharves, ugly cattle-pens, and empty warehouses bespeak the
activity of the past. A Sabbath quiet reigns, as if to compen
sate for the most unholy doings of the boom days. Skagway
was then the place to 'take a drink' and 'mush on.' The first
was easiest, and most favored by the wayfarer. East of the
wretched settlement rises a ridge the face of which is painted
with garish advertisements and cabalistic signs. The tide is
out; the fiats, wide and long, are covered with noisome sea
weed through which the creek finds a dreary way. Four long
weather-beaten spindle-legged piers, lightly braced, reach from
the town to the warehouses, whieh are clad in corrugated iron.
The railroad clings to the base of the east cliff. All the frothy
gaiety of Skagway is gone. The town is an ungainly collection
of shanties, mostly saloons and gambling houses, now out of
business. A few good stores and a cheerful group of offices
bespeak steamship and railway transport, and suggest that the
traveler at least can get away without loss of time.
' Skag-waugh ' is the Indian for cruel wind ; the natives were
afraid of the icy blast that blew down the canyon from the
White Pass. Many a man must have shivered as he landed
from the steamer and looked at that cold gray landscape where

132 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
in the distance the savage peaks beckoned to hidden gold in
the unknown wilds of the mysterious North.
Skagway is associated with the doings of Soapy Smith, a
desperado who terrorized the trail to the Klondike at the time
of the rush, at the end of 1897 and in the succeeding year. He
was killed on July 8, 1898. His name was Jefferson Randolph
Smith, a man of ordinary education, but possessed of extraor
dinary cunning and unflinching nerve. At one time he was a
newspaper reporter in Georgia, and he had operated in con
fidence games all over the West, especially in Colorado, be
coming prominent at Creede in 1891. His sobriquet originated
from a scheme for selling soap ; in one of the packages of soap
sold by him he placed a $5 bill ; this always went to a confed
erate, but the chance of getting it would excite the cupidity
of simpletons, who bought 5 cents worth of soap for 50 cents
in the hope of getting 5 dollars. Soapy Smith began opera
tions at Skagway in July 1897. He had an organized gang of
desperadoes who worked under his direction. They did not
attack well known men, citizens of the town, or anyone capable
of prosecuting them in ease of assault. Their depredations
were restricted to ' tenderf eet, ' to greenhorns, to those who
were friendless and alone. Violence was avoided, as far as
possible; the plan usually was to excite cupidity by a 'shell'
game, by roulette wheels that were mechanically 'fixed,' by
picking pockets, by inciting a fracas or ' rough house, ' and by
making their victim drunk.
For instance, a man named Stuart, who was the first to
come out of Dawson in the spring of 1898, carried $2600 in
gold 'dust.' He placed his gold in the safe of a merchant at
Skagway and then went to Soapy 's saloon. There he entered
into conversation with Tripp, one of Soapy 's men, the leader
himself never appearing on the scene. Tripp played the part
of a newcomer, and told Stuart that he had not seen any Klon
dike gold; would Stuart show some of it to him? So Stuart
went to get the sack of gold, and on his return to the saloon
a play was enacted for his benefit. Some other men were gam
bling with a stupid fellow, who was losing money right and
left. This was brought to the notice of Stuart and he was

EVENING LIGHT ON LYNN CANAL.

134 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
persuaded by the confederates that a chance 'to make easy
money ' was offered. Thus Stuart was induced to make a small
bet, necessitating the opening of his 'poke' or sack. Then,
somehow — but no one knew why — there was a rumpus and a
fight ; Stuart was elbowed out of the back door, and when the
excitement was over he hastened back to the saloon only to find
that everyone had decamped, and with them his 'dust.' Tripp
and others who were present swore to the deputy marshall that
Stuart had lost his money by betting.
This incident led people to realize that unless Smith was
driven out of Skagway all the trade incidental to the stam
pede would go to Dyea or to St. Michael. The robbery occurred
at 11 o 'clock on the morning of July 8, 1898. A mass meeting
was called for 8 o'clock that night at Sylvester's store, and the
attendance being too large for the store, the meeting was ad
journed to the wharf at the foot of State street. It was broad
daylight. Soapy Smith and a number of his fellow ruffians
went toward the place of meeting in the hope of creating a
disturbance and dispersing the crowd before it had determined
upon a plan of action. Prank H. Reid, a civil engineer, and
two or three others had been appointed to guard the approach
to the wharf and prevent any of Smith 's men from getting into
the meeting. When Smith approached Reid, the latter said:
"You can't go down there. Smith." To which the latter re
pUed : "Damn you, Reid, you have been at the bottom of all my
troubles. If I had got rid of you three months ago, I would
never have had this trouble." He then started to club Reid
with his rifle, but Reid caught hold of the rifle with his left
hand and pulled a revolver with his right. The revolver fafled
to go off and Smith managed to point the rifle downward,
pulling the trigger, and wounding Reid fatally in the groin.
But before he fell Reid also managed to pull his trigger a sec
ond time and shot Smith through the heart. Smith had ex
claimed a second earUer : "Don't shoot!" He was killed in
stantly. In his pocket was found a note reading : ' ' The crowd
is angry, if you want to do anything, do it quick." This was
signed with the initial S, and was identifled as the handwriting
of W. F. Saportas, a correspondent of the New York World,

EVENING.

Pliotogi-aph by E. AV. Merrill, Sitka.

Published by Permission.

136

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

well fitted to represent an infamous newspaper — the predeces
sor of the yeUow journals that disgrace America today. Reid
lived for ten days. A monument to his memory was erected
by the people of the town and on it was engraved: "He died
for the honor of Skagway."
The rest of Smith's gang took to the hiUs. Most of them
surrendered through stress of starvation. Among these was
Tripp. The committee of citizens ordered 35 persons out of
town, including Dr. J. Allan Hornsby, editor of the Daily
Alaskan, also Saportas, sundry barkeepers, thugs, and so forth ;
18 were held for action by the Grand Jury; of these 9 were
sentenced to the penitentiary, on evidence and confession. It
is only just to .add that Dr. Hornsby protested his innocence
from the beginning and after the excitement had subsided he
returned to Skagway, becoming employed as a physician in
the hospital service of the White Pass & Yukon Route. This
indicates the favorable opinion of the railroad officials.

LORING; A FISHING VILLAGE.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE STAMPEDE TO DAWSON.
Skagway is the portal of the Yukon. Prom the wharf the
rails of the White Pass & Yukon River route lead up the valley
and over the White Pass, thence down the watershed of the
Yukon to White Horse, where steamers start for Dawson. The
summit of the pass is 20 miles from Lynn Canal and 2886 ft.
above tide-water ; it is 111 miles by rail from Skagway to White
Horse, and 460 miles by the river from White Horse to Dawson.
At Skagway the traveler hears much concerning the great
stampede to the Klondike, and, if observant, he will see many
mementos of that remarkable episode. I went by train to the
summit of the White Pass, and then walked down the old trail,
so as to obtain a nearer view of the path over which the gold-
seekers trudged at the time of the big rush.
The railroad and the trail both ascend the gravel-strewn
valley of the Skagway river; when the latter forks, the trail
takes the west branch, while the railroad makes a big loop up
the east branch before re-joining the path of the Klondikers.
The old trail is partly obliterated by the Brackett road. At
the beginning of the rush, in the winter of 1897-98, George A.
Brackett built a wagon-road as far as White Pass City, 10
miles from Skagway. The toll was one cent per pound. By
filing his maps in the Recorder's office he secured the right to
charge toll, but it was not collected without an occasional
fight. Brackett built two or three gates along the route, hop
ing to control the migration, but the packers would combine
and rush these gates. Thereupon, he employed armed guards,
and some shooting ensued. It was claimed that Brackett
blocked the old trail at the foot of the canyon above White

138 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Pass City; this caused bitter feeling, but it did not last long,
for the railroad company bought his rights. Grading began
in May 1898, and the railroad was built to the summit by Janu
ary 20, 1899 ; to Lake Bennett on July 6, 1899 ; and to White
Horse on July 31, 1900.
On the west side of the creek a couple of log-cabins mark
former outposts of Soapy Smith. It is estimated that from 75
to 80 men were murdered by this desperado and his gang, the
victims being thrown into the icy waters of the estuary. At
the 12-mile post a splendid cascade is seen in a canj'^on oppo
site. Here the railroad begins a sweeping curve to the station
called Glacier. The brown pile of debris just above the track
marks the moraine of a glacier that reaches from the cirque
on the right. Prom this point the railroad is cut into the face
of a precipitous slope; approaching a tunnel the track crosses
a high wooden trestle from whieh a splendid view is obtained
of snowy mountains, then the vista framed by the walls of the
canyon, and a glimpse of Lynn Canal at the far end. Near the
head of the White Pass the train swings round a curve, the
track passing over a high steel trestle with concrete piers. The
old trail can be seen threading the bush-covered slope on the
other side of the. gully.
The best outlook is from Inspiration Point, just beyond
the big curve at Glacier. The view is down the canyon to
Lynn Canal. On the right is the rough and rocky shoulder of
a mountain, bare save for moss, being above timber-line; on
the left is the straggling upper limit of forest growth, then
come glaciated granite bosses, bearing patches of snow, which
merge into snowflelds and mist-covered summits. Looking
down the canyon, the sunlight plays on the bright verdure of
the Alaskan highlands, the stream appears as a broken silver
thread amid brush and rocks, the dark perspective of the val
ley leads to a sunlit space of water where Lynn Canal, like an
enchanted lake, sleeps under the frowning ramparts of the
coast range. Beyond is mist, broken by shafts of light, and
the cold breath of an air more akin to the bitter tragedy of
fact than the warm romance in which the search for gold is
wrapped.

ON THE WHITE PASS RAILROAD.

LOOKING DOWN THE WHITE PASS.

140 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
I left the train at the Summit station and followed the
old trail down the canyon. This was the highway of those
excited Argonauts who scrambled toward the Pactolus of the
Yukon in the winter of 1897 and the spring of 1898. The trafl
is not steep, it requires none of the skill of a mountaineer;
indeed, the ascent from Skagway to the summit of the White
Pass can be described as a good long walk, with a rise of less
than 3000 feet in 16 miles. The other pass, at Dyea, which is
in the next valley to the west, was much steeper, especially
close to the summit.
The trail descends gently to the meeting of two rivulets,
where, on a small flat, was the site of White Pass City. This
served as a relay station ; firewood and water were handy, and
being at the timber-line, it was the last place for a convenient
camp. Ten years ago 1500 to 2000 people congregated at
White Pass City in tents, log-cabins, shanties, and improvised
shelters. Drinking, dancing, and gambling shamed the night
and mocked the day. Many a young and healthy man suc
cumbed to perils more trying than fatigue and more deadly
than the snow. It was the mockerj'^ of the romance of mining,
a sordid debauchery, an unveiled licentiousness, the procurers
of which were Soapy Smith and his gang of ruffians. Not
much remains of White Pass City ; half a dozen log-cabins and
the frames of a dozen unsubstantial structures bespeak the
wreckage of a frontier settlement. The largest of the shaky
buildings was a dance-hall ; it is now invaded by alder bushes,
and alongside the doorway the humble gooseberry grows con
fidently. The wreck of an old sled is wreathed in blossoms of
elderberry. In front of what evidently was a store, a pair of
scales and some bottles lie untidily. A delapidated dwelling,
with the sign 'Hotel' hanging loosely, suggests the mob of ad
venturers and harlots that gathered there not long ago. And
yet the spot has more than ordinary beauty. Kingsley spoke of
"ancient and holy things" that "fade to the earth again";
fortunately, the unholy things decay even more rapidly. White
Pass City and its inhabitants are gone, leaving few traces, in
sufficient to soil the face of Nature. It is a picturesque spot
where several cascades meet joyously; the confident curve of

CROSSING THE CHILKOOT PASS DURING THE KLONDIKE RUSH.

142

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

the railroad belts the hiUslope in front ; and far overhead noble
peaks look down in eternal calm; the air is perfumed with
blossom, the murmur of the stream is soothing, the sunlight
suffuses the lush grass. Man's unrest is petty indeed in con
trast to Nature's imperturbability.
The motto of Alaska is, 'Mush on!' In the North that is
what the mother says to her chfld, the man to his dogs, the
barkeeper to the drunken loafer; that is what destiny says

WHITE PASS CITY. ON THE TRAIL TO THE KLONDIKE.

to Alaska. It was the watchword of the stampede that startled
civilization when the gold began to come from the Klondike
diggings. To 'mush' is to walk; the word is derived from
the French marcher and was brought into the Northwest by the
coureurs de bois and the voyageurs from Quebec and New Orleans.
The crowd that crossed the passes during the excitement of
1898 were ' mushers, ' not mountaineers ; they were gold-hunters
from the cities, not prospectors ; they were ' eheechakos ' of the
greenest kind. Hence their troubles. If the unholy pilgrim-

^ V

t,
,-«^

THE RUSH TO THE KLONDIKE IN THE SPRING OF 1898.

144 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
age to Dawson was marked by the horrors of death and pri
vation, it was due largely to the inexperience of the pflgrims,
and also to the exaggerations of the scribes who snatched an
ephemeral fame by misinforming a credulous public. For in
stance, Harry De Windt crossed the Chilkoot pass in 1896 on
his way— theatricaUy speaking— "from New York for Paris
by land," and in the inevitable book he submits a picture of
the pass by which he crossed the range; it is represented as a
precipice, having a slope of 65 to 80°. A man cannot walk
up a slope of 40°. This highly imaginative illustration*
based upon the memories, and exaggerations, of an irrespon
sible author, affords a good example of the way in which
the passage over the coast range was made to appear a tre
mendous feat of mountaineering. As a matter of fact all of
the passes were ascended by men ignorant of mountaineering
and loaded with heavy packs; even the Chilkoot has been
crossed by cattle and horses; any one of the ascents would
constitute a pleasant excursion for men accustomed to the
mountains and unburdened with the supplies needed by the
prospector on his way to diggings flve or six hundred miles
distant. The horrors of the White Pass and the Dyea trails
were due to the unintelligent scramble of a mob eager to reach
the scene of gold discovery. Men from the cities, unused to
open-air life, unaccustomed to packing, wholly ignorant of how
to take care of themselves, in a frenzy to reach Eldorado, were
bound to get into trouble on a rough trail crowded by others
like unto themselves. The 'rush' was composed largely of
people unfitted by physique or temperament for the hardships
of the frontier. It was a mob of inexperienced men ; there was
no directing head, no organization; if properly organized un
der experienced leaders, the whole of the feverish migration
*Wrong ideas concerning the steepness of the ascent along the
trails are induced through the foreshortening of the line of slope and
also by views of declivities, the angle of which is exaggerated by the
cutting of the photographic print so that a false base is made. Men
walking up a gentle slope can thus be made to appear climbing a
precipice.

THE STAMPEDE TO DAWSON.

145

might have been effected with a fraction of the labor spent
and the hardships endured.
During the winter of 1897 not less than 33,000 men and
women passed through Skagway on their way to Dawson over
the trails of Dyea and the White Pass. Owing to their in
ability to transfer their outfit across the range after the snow
had fallen, thousands of men were stalled at Skagway, Dyea,

THE STAMPEDE. ON THE CHILKOOT PASS.

and White Pass City. These small settlements became badly
congested. The conditions of living were wretched; dissipa
tion, poor food, excitement, and inadequate clothing combined
to decimate the mad throng of gold-seekers. In April 1898,
42 were killed by a snowslide on the Dyea trail. During the
winter 46 died of spinal meningitis, due to over-exertion and
exposure. Many young men from decent homes were victim
ized; they found a "wide open town," with saloons, dance-

146 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
halls, and gambUng-dens at high tide ; they easfly went wrong,
spending their stake-money. These never reached Eldorado,
although many crossed that far range from which no traveler
returns. The difficulties of the Klondiker arose from the need of
carrying supplies on his back. The flrst and last method
of transport is human porterage or 'packing.' In a new coun
try like Alaska, where vehicular traffic does not exist, where
railways are rarely available, where roads are scarce and
trails are poor, the load on a man's back often represents
all his possessions, including provisions and tools. It is true
that navigation on the rivers, effected in shaUow boats and
punts, serves to facilitate exploration, but even where rivers
give access to the interior, the end of the journey, with many
interruptions, is sure to be marked by a 'portage.'
To all men it is hateful to do the work of a beast of burden,
and only the 'old hands' will do it with equanimity. The
'packing' killed newcomers at the time of the big rush. But
it is a truism that men will get used to almost anything. The
'old timers' spent all summer packing 'grub' for the winter;
for example, Joe Barrette told me how he went up the Sixty-
Mile river in '93; he went to Miller creek, which is 125 miles
from the Yukon, on foot, prospecting on his way; he carried
an average load of 100 pounds and made 20 miles per day.
Some men carry 125 to 130 pounds habitually. Barrette and
his partner made $300 apiece by 'rocking' the river bars on
their way to Miller creek. Again, John Plygar, now at Pair-
banks, related how he hauled 1000 pounds on a sled from Fort
Yukon to the Birch Creek diggings, completing the 150 miles
in 20 days. He did it in three relays ; thus he was compelled
to walk the entire distance flve times, his sled being loaded
three times, and empty twice. In consequence he tramped 750
miles in the 20 days. This meant from 10 to 11 hours of ' mush
ing.' The road was well traveled, having been used for haul
ing during the previous winter. This was in April 1898. In
1899 many men walked down the river from Dawson to Nome,
a distance of 1117 miles. In 1898 the Canadian government
passed a bill to prevent ill-equipped persons from entering the

THE STAMPEDE TO DAWSON.

147

Yukon Territory; by this law each person must have 1100
pounds of supplies, or more than enough for one year. Two
pounds per day is deemed an adequate ration ; one pound of
meat and one pound of bread.
At the time of the rush the outfit of the Klondiker averaged
nearly 2000 pounds, or one ton. Some of them packed 50 to
100 pounds at a time, making numerous trips ; others pulled a
sled, carrying 200 pounds. With a harness over his shoulders,
tugging a sled heavily loaded, with eyes bulging out, sweating.

THE LINE OF STAMPEDERS.

swearing, excited, the 'musher' would advance a few miles and
deposit his load. While he returned for more, his partner
stood on guard. Usually the Klondikers worked in parties of
two or three, taking weeks or even months before they reached
the summit of the pass. After a day of unremitting feverish
toil, these men would come back either to a green log-cabin or
a fiimsy tent. This was dangerous, although it was not un
usually cold that winter, the worst being 5° below in February
1898. Nevertheless, the incoming 'tenderf eet' suffered se-

148 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
verely, while the seasoned 'sour-doughs' returning from Daw
son were 'mushing' with a temperature of -50°, sleeping in
tents, and doing nicely. The trails in the vaUey were mired
by the constant traffic and a single path in the snow limited
progress to the speed of the slowest in the long file of trudging
humanity. No man who now travels up the White Pass in a
comfortable railroad train can have any idea of the hardships
endured unless he has seen something of the kind in other
gold-rushes. One young fellow 'packed' the 1500 to 2000 pounds con
stituting his outfit from Dyea over the Chilkoot pass to Lake
Lindeman, where he built a boat. Going down the rapids to
Lake Bennett, he ran against a rock and lost everything.
Thereupon he walked back to Skagway and procured another
outfit which he carried, as before, over the pass. Having built
another boat, he descended the rapids, struck the very same
rock, and was wrecked. Going ashore, he blew out his brains.
A more cheerful tale is that of a Klondiker who bought a
newspaper at Lake Bennett. This newspaper contained an
account of the naval battle at Manila. On arrival at Dawson
the paper was sold for 10 ounces of gold, equivalent to $160,
and that seemed an excellent trade, for it had cost only 50
cents. The last purchaser immediately rented a hall and
charged $1 admission to those who came to hear him read the
description of Dewey 's great victory ; he cleared ' ' better
than" a thousand dollars.
Mules and horses were used in packing. Since the men took
so little care of themselves, it was unlikely that they would
show any consideration for animals; and they did not. The
death-rate among the horses was frightful ; it is estimated that
2500 of them died on this side of the summit during the fall
of 1897. Angelo Heilprin, who crossed in July 1898, records
counting more than a thousand rotting carcasses, the stench
from which made travel over the White Pass unbearable.
The Indians helped the gold-seekers. These wretched-look
ing natives had made a business of packing long before the
rush. J. E. Spurr, who crossed the Chilkoot pass in 1896, paid
the Indians 7 cents per pound for carrying his outfit, and he

THE STAMPEDE TO DAWSON.

149

makes note concerning the toughness of the Chilkoots, who car
ried from 125 to 160 pounds apiece over the rough trail a dis
tance of 13 miles and yet at the end of the carry only rested
an hour before returning to Sheep Camp. On the Dyea trail
the Indians charged 10 to 15 cents per pound for packing the
50 miles. The ascent to the pass is gentle except on the immedi-

5l^Ultl-,.rvl-_*UlllHIir

ON THE SUMMIT OP THE CHILKOOT PASS.
ate approach to the summit, where, at the Stone House (a big
boulder beside the trail), it is very steep for about a mile.
"So steep the hill the leg was fain.
Assistance from the hand to gain."

An Indian buck would pack 100 to 140 pounds; a squaw
80 to 100; girls and boys, from 25 to 65 pounds apiece. The
portage from Dyea to the foot of Lake Lindeman was done in
12 to 15 hours. On the steep pitch the pack is divided in two.
White men have been known to carry 150 pounds, with a pick
or shovel extra, as 'trimmings.'
During the rush one man cut steps in the snow for 150 feet

150 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
near the top of the Dyea trafl. He and a hired man worked
for one night only. They collected a voluntary toU from the
'mushers' and made from $80 to $100 per day for about six
weeks. Then this enterprising individual "went on a tear,''
otherwise a drunken debauch, and during his absence another
man annexed the steps, together with such rights as he could
enforce on those who came that way.
Similar stories are common. Everyone was in a hurry;
anything that facilitated progress was liberally compensated.
Thus, a man landed at Skagway without a dollar ; another man
brought 12 horses ; the latter ' ' got cold feet, ' ' that is, lost his
courage to go forward ; the former had no capital but pluck, so
he borrowed money from a saloon-keeper, bought the horses
at a bargain and began 'packing,' namely, the transport of
baggage and supplies for the horde of gold-seekers. He made
$300,000. And then he also "went on a tear," degraded him
self with drink and other debauchery, and blew out his brains.
An enterprising fellow threw a log across the stream and
charged 50 cents for a dry crossing; the 'mushers' were glad
to pay the toll rather than get wet by fording the creek.
One of the 'old timers' — how quickly men and events be
come old on the rapidly shifting frontier! — told me that he
packed 850 pounds over the Dyea trail. On his last trip he
carried 147 pounds of bacon. His expression bespoke fatigue,
but his face lit up : "I had two men packing money for me
when I came out." "Money" meant gold 'dust.' Within a
year he was able to retrace his steps down that same trail, this
time with a fortune. He was one of the few that kept their
heads and returned home with a competence for life.
That is the sunny side of the story : a few level-headed fel
lows made money rapidly and returned home with enough
capital to buy a farm, a business, or a home. Without loss of
health or self-respect — on the contrary, the hardier for their
experience, both physical and moral, they obtained a new start
m the careers open to strong men. The romance of the rush
was not with the frenzied ' mushers, ' the greedy harlots, or the
drunken desperadoes who figure in the tales of the period, but
with the quiet strong men who greatly endured and nobly over-

CAMP OF KLONDIKERS ON LAKE LINDEMAN IN MAY. li

98.

152

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

came the trials of an unaccustomed life and returned home to
be the leaders of a peaceful community.

PART OF THE YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA.

CHAPTER XIV.
ON THE WHITE PASS RAILWAY.
Leaving Skagway at 9 : 30 a.m. the train reaches the sum
mit of the White Pass at 12 : 20. The distance is 20^/2 miles,
but the ascent is performed leisurely. Here runs the inter
national boundary between Alaska and British Columbia. One
of the survey monuments can be seen on the hillside just above
the snowshed; it is a cement pillar, on the southern face of
which is inscribed UNITED STATES; and on the opposite
side, CANADA.
The mountain surface at the top of the White Pass is bleak
and bare, for in the past it has been subjected to tremendous
glaciation and during the winter it is now swept by terrific
storms. Three miles beyond the Pass the traveler on the train
gets his first glimpse of Summit lake, one of a chain of milky
emerald pools down which the Klondikers floated in the sum
mer of 1898. The lowest of the three lakes, called Shallow,
was so true to its name that the gold-hunter left the uncertain
waterway for the mossy bank, preferring to follow the cordu
roy trail, now fallen into decay. A little farther, the railroad
traverses an intensely glaciated tract, an area of inundated
roches moutonnes, in which is Mud lake, bordered on two sides
by a moraine sufficiently regular in outline to be mistaken for
a railway embankment.
Log Cabin and Tagish Post are associated with memories of
boundary disputes; for the Canadians thought the line ran
first through one of these points, and then the other. The
Northwest Mounted Police collected the duty — 25 to 30 per
cent — but they had trouble when the boundary post was

154 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
moved from Log Cabin to Summit, the packers claiming that
they were in American territorj'.
The Klondike trail crosses the line of the railroad several
times between Log Cabin and Lake Bennett, and runs parallel
most of the way. Those who went over the Dyea trail at the
time of the rush came by way of Lake Lindeman, which is
separated from Lake Bennett by a short run of rapids. At
1 : 25 p.m. Lake Lindeman is passed and, looking back, a notch
in the range indicates the pass. On a bleak ridge to the left
is a cemetery, where lie 28 victims out of some 20,000 people
who, in the spring of 1908, camped at the head of Lake Ben
nett while awaiting the breaking of the ice. All of them had
tramped during the winter over the passes from Skagway
and Dyea.
At Lake Bennett the train stopped long enough to permit
a short walk. By going over the shoulder of a hillock to the
west, the traveler obtains a fuU view of the ruins of the settle
ment that marked the so-called head of navigation at the time
of the Klondike excitement. Skeletons of shanties and a
weatherbeaten wharf, the hulk of a boat, and the wreck of a
wheelbarrow, some rotting sleds and rusting cans, old boots
and bottles galore — that is all that survives.
' ' Man marks the earth with ruin.
His control stops with the shore."
The lake bears an impassive face, and its waters lap the
beach as gently as before the ' ' alarums and excursions ' ' of the
stampede. The faint murmur of the rapids is borne upon the
mountain air Uke the sound of the surf heard far inland ; the
wind rustles the brush growing amid the litter left by the gold-
seekers, and above the sordid disarray of old boots and empty
bottles a meadow lark carols gaily.
The only structure surviving in anything Uke decent order
is the church, built in 1899, but even this suggestion of morality
amid sin and canned vegetables appears old and sightless, for
the windows are boarded and the bell dismantled. On the
west shore of the inlet at the head of the lake are the charred

ON THE WHITE PASS RAILROAD.

156 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
remnants of Mike King's sawmfll, an establishment that did
great service at the price of $80 per thousand, "and upward,"
as hotel men say. Eight years ago from 10 to 15 steamboats
churned the waters of Lake Bennett, and countless vessels of
every kind and shape bore the Argonauts toward the golden
sands of the Klondike.
The railroad* follows the east shore of the lake, which is
26 miles long. As a lower altitude is reached, vegetation be
comes more assertive. On pretty little beaches the force of
the wind is indicated by the wrecks of several boats, some of
which were lined with canvas and others with sheets of gal
vanized iron. Approaching the West Arm, the expanse of still
water spreads under the shadow of a conical mountain, which,
with snow and cloud, is reflected faithfully in the unruffled face
of the lake. On the West Arm was another sawmill, now the
residence of a solitary hunter and trapper. Near the north
end of the lake, the opposite slope exhibits two former shores
of recent origin, for they show but little erosion. The railroad
gets gravel for ballast from one of these old beaches. At the
outlet of Lake Bennett, the train crosses a drawbridge and
enters the settlement of Caribou.
Caribou is the point of departure for the Atlin district. The
town stands upon a sandy soil recalling the mining camps of
southern Nevada. Beyond Caribou the railroad traverses a
forest of scrubby growth, devastated by flre and hideous to the
sight. It is a sandy tract, formerly the bed of Lake Bennett.
The prospect improves and begins to look like northern Michi
gan, as the railroad follows the course of a meandering stream
— the Watson river — ^which has cut deeply into the sandy gravel
of the old lake-bed. Then Minto is reached, 81 miles from
Skagway. *Our impressions of the scenery along the White Pass & Yukon route
were of the best, for our point of view was delightful. Mr. Scott
Turner and I traveled" with Mr. A. L. Berdoe, the general manager,
and Mr. V. I. Hahn, the superintendent of the road, in their private
car. Thus we became indebted not only for adequate nourishment
but for information prompted by the sights viewed from the rear of
the train.

ON THE SHORE OF LAKE BENNETT.

158

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

The Watson has dwindled to a series of pools, and the scenery
resembles the 'bad lands' of North Dakota. Old beaches are in
evidence and deep narrow gulUes, cut in the sand, suggest
unusual erosion. Our perplexity is removed by an explanation
from Mr. Berdoe : The railroad company wanted to lower the
level of Lake Lewis in order to use the level shore for the grade
and shorten the line by several thousand feet. It was planned
to lower the water about seven feet ; a ditch was dug 10 feet
deep and 5 feet wide for a length of 350 feet. The water ran

ALASKA.

gently for six hours and then cut its way with increasing force,
until it rushed violently along a channel 500 feet wide. Lake
Lewis was lowered 83 feet and was emptied into Lake Bennett.
Thus geologic action was accelerated and the scenery was
spoiled, so that now the weird expanse of sand and reeds looks
a fitting habitat for a dinotherium or a glyptodon.
Leaving the shrunken waters of Lake Lewis, the landscape
becomes less abnormal ; pleasant bits of water with ducks swim
ming on their surface and grayling underneath, with a fringe
of rushes along the shore, and pine, cottonwood, and spruce
for a background. But the outlook is soon obscured by smoke.

M
<az
o
PHffi
0z

H
<!

160

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

due to careless 'mushers,' who fail to extinguish their camp-
fires and allow the wind to blow cinders into the dry grass be
tween the trees. This year an unusual number of men have
tramped from Skagway to White Horse, on their way to Daw
son. The increase is imputed to bad times in the States. .
Approaching Wigan, 105 miles from Skagway, the Yukon
is seen dashing through Miles canyon. At 5 : 30 p.m. we reached
White Horse.

REMAINS OF THE KLONDIKE RUSH, ON LAKE BENNETT. 1908.

CHAPTER XV.
WHITE HORSE.
White Horse; the origin of the name is obvious: the crests
of the waves in the rapids where the Yukon flings its white
mane to the breeze in a mad gallop over the rocks. Owing to
the dangers of the rapids, the Klondikers found it advisable
to make a 'portage'; thereupon, a tramway was built along
the bank, and a ropeway was stretched across the river, and
thus there was ample reason for the rapid growth of a settle
ment, which served as a depot on the way to the diggings. At
White Horse the Yukon widens and steamboat traffic begins.
Here is the terminus of the White Pass & Yukon railroad and
the headquarters of the winter stage service for Dawson. The
casual visitor will gather the impression of a populous burg
from the bustle and activity of its inhabitants and hardly re
alize that the summer population numbers no more, than about
500. For these things are relative, and after you have traveled
for several days and have seen only two men and a dog, a set
tlement like White Horse is impressive.
The town is situated upon a flat bounded on the west by
sandy bluffs 100 to 150 feet high; the main street runs along
the river bank, where the Lewes or Yukon sweeps by with a
5 to 6-knot current. The railroad terminus is marked by long
gray warehouses made of corrugated iron, facing the wharves,
to whieh steamboats are moored. One of these is the White
Horse on which we expect to sail to Dawson; the other is the
Prospector. A little farther down the river are the 'ways,' on
which steamboats are raised from, and lowered to, the water.
The aeeompaning photograph shows the arrangement. The
'ways' are .timbers (12 by 12 inches) arranged parallel, the

162 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
boat sliding over them in a direction at right angles to their
length. These constitute the 'standing ways' and upon them
is placed the ' slide, ' which is a 9 by 12-inch timber, with ' slip
pers' 3 inches deep and 4 inches thick, to keep the 'slide' in
place. The surface of the incline is greased with tallow, on
which, after it has hardened, dogfish oil is smeared. The grad
ient being about one inch per foot allows the flat-bottomed
steamboats to be lowered by gravity, or to be hauled onto the
'ways' by four capstans, with four tackles and two horses to
each. The steamboats are propelled by a paddle-wheel at the
stern, and are made of a double layer of 3-inch plank attached
to a frame constructed of 3 by 6-inch material. Two large
boats, the Yukoner and the Canadian, stood high and dry on
the ways. The Yukoner is 173 feet long and 32 feet beam ; she
has not run on the river since 1903, for her draft is 3 feet,
which is too much for the shallows of the upper Yukon. Most
of the boats draw 18 inches to 2% feet. By peering underneath
her flat keel we could see where she had scraped over the bars.
Sheets of galvanized iron attached to the sides serve as a pro
tection against floating ice.
The water-front of White Horse is eloquent of the mining
operations of the interior; here are seen the supplies and ma
chinery consigned to Dawson. At the time we were there, in
July 1908, rows of huge pipe bespoke the construction of the
big ditch and water system of the Yukon Gold Co. Pipe from
45 to 54 inches in diameter and % inch thick (some of it manu
factured in Germany), suggested a colossal undertaking and a
lordly expenditure, while the beginnings of agriculture were
indicated by a plough and a mowing machine.
On our arrival we found a comfortable hotel, and after
'supper' we wandered along the river front. It was 8 o'clock,
but, of eourse, broad daylight, for we Avere now in latitude
61° north. A carpenter at work afforded a source of informa
tion. He stated that he was constructing a boat to hold four
men and their provisions ; the cost of the boat was $20 and rep
resented one day's labor on his part, with 140 feet of dressed
lumber worth from $55 to $75 per thousand. If the men trav
eled by steamer the second-class fare was $30, while the boat

WHITE HORSE, YUKON TERRITORY.

164 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
cost $5 apiece for four men and the grub about $2.50 per man.
According to the regulations enforced by the Northwest
Mounted Police aU travelers must give their names, and upon
their boat a number is placed, so that the PoUce may keep
account of accidents, in case boats fail to reach Dawson, and
trace criminals.
Here we obtained an inkling of the supervision exercised
by the Northwest Mounted Police, the finest body of men in
the world engaged in such service. They are the best embodi
ment of authority and to them is accorded the highest respect
in the enforcement of law. No traveler in northwestern Can
ada, whatever his nationality, can fail to be struck by the con
trast between these men and the usual type of inefficient mu
nicipal policemen. When calling upon the officer in command
at the barracks I ventured to suggest that the respect for law
in the Northwest was due to the efficiency of the Mounted
Police, but he modestly and truly attributed the result to the
prompt enforcement of justice and the absence of political un
dercurrents. The Mounted Police was originally modeled after the Irish
Mounted Constabulary, and grew out of the necessity of the
Northwest when that vast region was surrendered by the Hud
son's Bay Company to the Canadian government. The Hud
son's Bay Company was organized in 1670 under a charter
granted by Charles II to the Bavarian soldier. Prince Rupert,
and the friends of the latter. Prince Rupert, the first Gov
ernor of the Company, was succeeded by the Duke of York,
afterward James II, and by John Churchill, afterward Duke
of Marlborough. The only return asked by Charles II for the
empire he gave to the Company was "two elks and two black
beavers. ' ' The beaver was the lure to British Dominion in
northwestern America, as the sable was the prize for which
the Russians traversed Siberia and invaded the country that is
now called Alaska. When the Dominion of Canada was but five
years old, it acquired 2,300,000 square miles^ — a continental area
— from the Hudson 's Bay Company. The Canadian Pacific Rail
way was being built and protection was necessary for those en
gaged in this work and also for settlers. Thus, in September

WHITE HORSE.

165

1873, at Toronto, Colonel George A. French of the Royal Ar
tillery, under the premiership of Sir John Macdonald, organized
the Northwest Mounted PoUce. OriginaUy it was a body of 300
strong. Col. French was made the first Commissioner. What
ever feeling may be entertained against poUcemen, animosity
is rarely felt against disciplined soldiers wearing the King's
uniform. Therefore the men were given the red coat, but with
out any furbelows. As Sir John Macdonald said: "I want as
little gold lace and fuss and feathers as possible, not a crack

STEAMBOATS ON THE STOCKS AT WHITE HORSE.

cavalry regiment, but an efficient police force for the rough
and ready — particularly ready — enforcement of law and jus
tice." Applicants had to be able to read and write "either
the English or the French language." The officers at first
were taken from the active militia, but their titles are not of a
military character; the chief is called Commissioner, the next
in rank are the Superintendents, and then the Inspectors, fol
lowed by Sergeants and Corporals, below whom come the main
body of Constables. They resemble the rurales of Mexico and

166 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the guardia cii-'iles of Spain. The pay is small. A newly en
listed man gets 60 cents per day, to which is added 5 cents per
day annually until his pay reaches $1, with 50 cents extra
when serving in the Yukon Territory. Thus the regimental
pay ranges from $1.10 to $1.50 per day. Anyone engaged in
work outside of the ordinary regimental duties — and nearly
every member of the force is thus engaged — earns from 50
cents to $1.50 more. They also receive food, clothing, medical
care, and so forth. The policeman of San Francisco gets $120
per month, plus graft.
The officers of the Eoyal Northwest Mounted Police rank
with the militia, and are usually accorded equivalent titles;
thus the Commisisoner is called Colonel and the Assistant-Com
missioner is a Major. They come from military colleges, from
civilian appointments, and from the ranks. An intelligent man
wins rapid promotion, one-half of the officers having risen from
the ranks. After 20 years of service a pension equal to 40 per
cent of pay is allowed and by continuous service the pension is
raised to the ratio of 70 per cent. Officers can retire after 25
years service with a pension of 50 per cent, increased to 70
per cent at the end of 35 years of service. The men are above
the average in physique, intelligence, and morality; last Sep
tember only 6 out of 160 applicants were passed. As a rule
these Northwest Police are good woodsmen, excellent horse
men, and handy in a canoe. IMost of their traveling in the
Yukon is done in a light wagon, riding only on the regular
trails. In winter they go across country with dogs, and in
summer they 'mush.' Owing to appointment by the Dominion
Government, this constabularly is independent of local politi
cians and of changes in public sentiment ; it is one of the regu
lations that members of the force must not show political par
tisanship. The Northwest Mounted Police is answerable to the Do
minion Government in the person of the Premier of Canada;
the criminal laws are the same throughout Canada; therefore
there are no complications through extradition. If one of the
Police goes seven miles beyond the boundary of the Province
in which he is stationed, he gets the local Justice of the Peace

CROSSING THE YUKON IN WINTER,

168 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
to back his warrant, but he is not amenable to the local authori
ties. When in the Yukon Territory a commissioned officer has
the powers of a justice of the peace and of a coroner ; in effect,
he becomes stipendiary magistrate.
A record is kept of everyone entering the Yukon, from ar
rival to departure, so that the Police can place a hand on them
if necessary. Por instance, last May three men left White
Horse in a boat (No. 113) ; about 12 mfles below Selkirk one
of the men tried to murder his two comrades and killed one
of them, wounding the other. The murderer started to go
down the river but, being unable to account for his partners,
he was arrested. By referring to White Horse all the neces
sary particulars were obtained. In June he was tried and, four
month later, sentenced to be hung. The postponement of the
hanging was due to the fact that the case had to be sent to
Ottawa for revision and aUowance had to be made for delays
in the mail. Any man going down the river in a small boat is
noted by the Police, a tiescription is recorded with a statement
whence he came. No murder goes unpunished, as is shown by
the fact that while nine murders have been committed in the
Yukon since the rush to Dawson, in eight eases the criminal
has been hung and in one instance sentenced to imprisonment.
Trial is before the Judge of the Supreme Court of the Terri
tory and a jury, but the evidence brought forward by the
Mounted Police has been so complete as to compel the juries
to find a verdict of Guilty. In the case of robberies, it has
been more difficult to get convictions, and the blame is placed
on Americans of lax sentiment. The Police enforce all the or
dinances of the Territory and the criminal code of Canada.
There can be no reason why, to the already multifarious
duties of the Mounted Police, there should be added that of
supplying information abgut mines, yet in the official reports
of the officers in command at the various posts are found de
scriptions of mining operations and conclusions concerning the
richness of mines. These are, of course, of no value, save as
refiecting local gossip, and the publication of them does harm,
in as much as many people are simple enough to believe, for
example, that Commissioner Wood's opinion concerning the

WHITE HORSE. 169
White Horse copper deposits is that of one qualified to express
a correct view, just as there are people who mentally bow to
the views of a bishop on military affairs, or an admiral on
gold-dredging. In the report for 1907 Commissioner Wood
states that ' ' the success of the camp is now assured. ' ' He refers
to copper miniQg in the vicinity of White Horse. I visited the
copper deposits, accompanied by Messrs. J. W. Bryant and
Scott Turner. It is not necessary to describe them, for this
would require technical details ; I have done so in a more suit
able place.* Suffice it to say that "the success of the camp"
is without assurance, although not without hope, if copper rises
in price, and if more work and less talk be devoted to these
interesting deposits of ore.
On returning from the copper mines we followed the Daw
son stage-road, fringed with briar-roses and the bright flowers
of a brief summer season. After the close of navigation the
stage makes one trip weekly over the 330 miles to Dawson, and
when the rivers are frozen this service is doubled. During the
intermediate period, when the steamers are not running, but
the rivers are not completely frozen, the passengers and mail
are conveyed across the streams in canoes. The service is ad
justed to suit the business available ; at the end of March, when
people are returning to the 'inside,' two or even three stages
leave White Horse each day. The stage-coach is a wagon or a
sleigh, according to the condition of the roads; as a sleigh it
holds 13 passengers and "the driver breaks the 'hoodoo, ' making
14"; when replaced by a wagon, 10 passengers find accommo
dation. In spring, a team of six horses is required ; and in the
fall, four, according to the state of the road. When the ground
is partly bare, the sleighs are pulled by six horses, otherwise
four suffice. The fare is $75 to $125 from White Horse to
Dawson, with meals and lodging extra. The company does not
run the road-houses, so the passengers pay $1.50 per meal and
$2 for a room. When all is serene, the trip consumes five days,
so that the road-house expense is about $30. From 700 to 800
people make the joumey each winter; of these 500 are going
*Mining and Scientific Press. December 5, 1908.

170 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
'in' and 300 'out,' the difference being due to the preference
for the steamboats when coming out and the necessity for
getting 'inside' early in the spring, before navigation has been
resumed. In the course of the 330 miles to Dawson, 15 teams are used,
permitting three changes of horses every day. Each team trav
els an average of 22 miles. They are fed compressed hay or oats
at 41/^ cents per pound. Travelers unite in commending the
exceUence of this stage service.
The traveler who reaches White Horse will want to see the
rapids after which the town is named ; but at this point it will
be necessary to elucidate the nomenclature of the Yukon and
its tributaries. The river that sweeps past White Horse is the
Lewes, which along a portion of its length is also called the
Thirty Mile; 90 miles below White Horse, the Lewes unites
with the Hootalinqua or Teslin river, and it may be questioned
which of these is to be regarded as the main stream of the
Yukon. According to volume of water discharged, the Lewes
is the big brother, and I agree with Angelo Heilprin that it will
be simpler, and correct, to regard the Yukon as rising in the
small lakes above Lake Lindeman, so that the Lewes, the Thirty
Mile, and other local names may be disregarded. The Yukon
has its source within 25 miles of the ocean to which it returns
after flowing 2300 miles.
The river, five miles above White Horse, cuts through three
flows af basaltic lava, and in doing so has made the rapids
named Miles, Squaw, and White Horse. On emerging from the
narrow gorge through the basalt the Yukon swings out into
the soft beds of drift and sand, making broad shallows. Dur
ing flood time it is possible to shoot the rapids with reasonable
safety; as the river dwindles, navigation becomes more dan
gerous. Many men tried to shoot the rapids during the ' rush, '
from 1897 to 1899, and of these fully 200 were drowned. At
the end of last June two of the pilots on the upper Yukon were
lost in the White Horse rapids. When the water is low the
river tumbles over the rocks in the centre of the channel,
creating a chute as destructive as a waterfall. Both of the
pilots mentioned were drowned, the body of one of them being

WHITE HORSE.

171

recovered 14 miles down-stream. He was buried on the day
of our arrival at White Horse.
To obviate the perils of the angry river, a portage was early
adopted. Tramways were built on both banks in the spring
and summer of 1898 ; the one on the west bank was 61/2 miles
long and was built by John Hepburn, who sold it for $60,000
to the owner of the tram on the east bank. This was 5 miles
long and was built by Norman Macaulay. The tofl was 3 cents
per pound and $25 for boats, but the latter were usually piloted
through the rapids for $20. A pflot could make 10 trips per

OLD TRAMWAY AT M^HITE HORSE.

day, riding on horseback along the trail from the lower end of
the rapids to the head of the canyon, where there was a camp
of a dozen temporary dwellings. This was Canyon City. On
the completion of the railroad in August 1900, the tramways, of
course, became idle and the owners distributed their money in
the 'wide open' town of White Horse.
We walked along the abandoned tramway on the west bank
into the small grove of alder and cottonwood fringing the river.
An old truck and scattered car-wheels suggested the days gone-
by. The tramway was a crude affair, the track consisting of

172 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
rough hewn 4 by 6-inch timbers, laid 3 feet apart. At intervals
of 5 to 12 feet cross-pieces or ties were placed. A truck with
iron wheels was pulled by a horse. Thus boats and supplies
were transferred past the rapids.
While inspecting the old tramway we had our first experi
ence with mosquitoes. Everybody who goes to the North must
have his fling at this voracious pest. I am unable to add to
the fearful stories that represent Alaska and the Yukon as
being in the possession of the powers of Beelzebub. During
the three months spent in the country, we were annoyed by
mosquitoes on several occasions ; once or twice they were so
pestilent as to cause me to forego a breakfast or supper in
camp, preferring to protect my head under gauze rather than
expose myself to their attack while eating or drinking. At
White Horse I had a protector made; this consisted of the
finest black tulle in cylindrical form, the top provided with an
elastic band to attach it to the hat, and the bottom with an
other band to go around the throat. The base was further
covered by a handkerchief; at the level of the mouth was a
thin hoop of fish-bone, to keep the veil from coming close to
the face, giving a breathing space and preventing mosquitoes
from biting through the mesh of the tulle. This proved an
ample protection and was readily folded into a package that
would go into my coat pocket. Of course, I wore gauntleted
gloves. Thus accoutred I would write peacefully in my note
book and observe the sights without the constant irritation of
a swarm of insects, both gnats and mosquitoes. At night when
in camp I found it well to throw a yard of tulle over my head.
In consequence, my memories of Alaska are not clouded by
swarms of mosquitoes.* At times when my armor was dis
carded I realized that the scenery of the country would be
beautiful if not shared with so many rapacious and triumphant
members of the genus culex; but such a mood quickly passed,
and I am glad to leave to other travelers the tale of battle with
the enemy who comes not singly but in battalions.
*One of the best antidotes against mosquitoes is oil of citronella,
which is distilled from a plant cultivated in Ceylon and the Straits
Settlements.

CHAPTER XVI.
ON THE UPPER YUKON.
After two pleasant days at White Horse, we went aboard
the steamer of the same name on the evening of July 11.
Departure was delayed until midnight, while loading 260 tons
of machinery, consigned to the Yukon Gold Company, on a
barge. This barge was then attached by steel cables to the
bow of the White Horse, as the accompanying photograph will
illustrate. The barge was 106 feet long and 34 feet beam; the
steamer was 167 feet long and carried 180 tons of freight ; and
though the barge was 60 feet shorter, with the same beam, yet
it was able to carry half as much again as the steamer behind
it. The White Horse drew only 4 feet of water and burned about
100 cords on the round trip to Dawson (making 920 miles alto
gether) ; of the wood consumed, 75 cords were burned coming
up-stream. The fuel cost $5 to $6.50 per cord, the wood-cutter
paying the government royalty or 'stumpage' of 50 cents per
cord. At 4 a.m. the steamer stopped at the entrance of Lake
Laberge. The channel was silted, as is frequently the case.
At the beginning of the season, pilots are sent down to stake
the course ; but the debris carried by the swift river and depos
ited at the inlet, forms a shifting bar. Lying in my bunk I
could hear the look-out calling the soundings (made with a
pole), and occasionally the boat would crunch against the sandy
bottom. The sturdy hulls of these steamers find no counter
part in the flimsiness of the upper works ; and with the desire
to minimize weight there is no attempt to save the weary pas
senger from the sleep-destroying jangles of the bell-signals and
the rattling of the steering-chains.

174

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

At 8 o'clock we were in the centre of the lake, advancing
slowly. The opposing shores were half a mile and three miles
distant, respectively. It was a sunny morning and the air was
most stimulating. On the near shore, eastward, the limestone
hummocks showed intensely glaciated. The geologist Dawson
has referred to these evidences of ice-action and of the sloping
surfaces "so smooth that it is difficult to walk over them."
Nowhere is the sculpturing hand of the glacier more obvious;
several river terraces belt the hillsides far above the present
channel of the river, and the fundamental facts of geology are
vividly suggested.

DIAGRAM OF NAVIGATION.

Emerging from Lake Laberge the river is confined to a
narrow channel, 200 to 250 feet wide. The water is clear, for
it has left its silt on the floor of the lake, as the Rhone in Lake
Geneva. The scenery is not impressive but the handling of
the boat with its attached barge furnishes matter for interest
and comment. The river is crooked and the navigable channel
swings from side to side according to the erosion of the banks.
The 6 to 7-knot current compels the pilot to be prompt. A
bend in the river is characterized by a sandy beach on the inner
side of the curve, while across the channel the deep water hugs
the steep bank, as the accompanying diagram will explain. The
paddle-wheel at the stern acts as a pivot on which the boat

ON THE UPPER YUKON.

175

turns in obedience to the five rudders under the wheel. Care is
taken not to get both bow and stern in the current at the same
time, and when the boat has turned into the swift current
(at A) the engines are reversed so as to prevent the boat from
being carried against the near bank. In making the quick turn

THE BARGE IN FRONT OF STEAMER 'WHITE HORSE',
SHOWING METHOD OF ATTACHMENT.

to the right (at B) the boat is run close to the left bank so that
the force of the current will swing the bow around ; if it fails
to do this, then it becomes necessary to back-water in order to
give the current time to aid the helmsman. As soon as the
turn is made, the signal is given for full speed ahead, thereby

176 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
prevented the stern from swinging into the shore as the bow
comes round. At B the bow of the barge in front of the Whife
Horse was within a yard of the shore and to the unsophisticated
disaster seemed imminent. An hour later the barge, forming
the fore-bow of the steamer, ran aground, and the paddle-
wheel was reversed until the current swung the barge out of
the sand. A man was sent to examine the hold of the barge to
see if she had sprung a leak. The river makes a series of
serpentine windings and the pilot needs to be alert in order
to clear the stern while protecting the bow of the tandem
vessel. The engines are as often in reverse as in forward
motion, for the speed of the craft is clearly due to the current,.
steam-power being used almost solely to gain steerage-way.
Often the feeling comes that the boat is grounded, this being
caused by vibration from back-paddling, increased by air
dragged under the keel by the churning of the paddle-wheel.
Soon, however, interest in the pilotage staled and the sudden
changes of direction ceased to attract notice. The boat swept
along with the current, through a landscape consisting of
scrubby forest, shelving sandy shores, banks of gravel, and a
meandering channel. The flutter of a Union Jack gave a touch
of color and authority to the cabin marking an outpost of the
Mounted Police. Later, a boat came alongside with a couple
of men who traded 75 pounds of grayling (a variety of salmon)
for flour and sugar. A trail along the east bank marked the
telegraph line, the wire of whieh was rarely visible on account
of the foliage. The wreck of the steamer Domville suggested
possibilities, without intimidating us with the idea of a proba
bility. At noon, soundings were taken — "Mark Five," was called,
indicating a depth of five feet — preparatory to mooring along
side the bank, where a stack of cordwood stood ready. This
was loaded by the crew, carrying two or even three logs at a
trip, over the gang-plank to the boiler-room. The process is
called ' wooding-up ' ; it was not impressive, and it seemed a
reflection upon the coal of the Tantalus mine, which lies a little
farther down the river.
Then comes the junction with the Hootalinqua or Teslin,

ON THE UPPER YUKON.

177

bringing muddy water into the Yukon. The Hootalinqua is
much less sinuous than the Lewes branch of the Yukon ; it is
also less swift; and on the map it appears as an elongation of
Lake Teslin, itself 125 miles in length. At one time it was
planned to establish navigation on the Teslin, connecting, by
Telegraph creek, with Glenora on the inlet of the Stikine river
and thence to Wrangell on the inland sea. The contractors,
Mackenzie & Mann, had organized a scheme to this effect, but
the failure of the Canadian government to give a subsidy

STEAMER AND BARGE ON THE WAY TO DAWSON.

caused them to desist. Several of the steamers now at White
Horse were meant for this service, and the one on which we
traveled had been intended to ply on tide-water between Wran
gell and Glenora. (See map of southeastern Alaska.)
The next morning I awoke to find our boat alongside the
bank, receiving a supply of cordwood. We met the Victorian,
burning coal from the Tantalus mine. At the junction of the
Little Salmon river we passed an Indian village and a station
of the Mounted Police. It is the custom to stop small boats
and take the names of wayfarers. A boat will drift 60 to 70

178 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
mfles per day of 10 hours when going down-stream; it is an
easy and not unpleasant mode of travel. Up to July 8, in about
five weeks, not less than 270 boats, carrying 1200 men, had
gone down the river since navigation opened, and 1500 had
passed on steamers. In March and April, before the ice broke,
300 men, mostly Slavonians from Treadwell, had walked over
the winter trail to Dawson. One of the stages met 68 men
tramping, the average time made by these 'mushers' being 11
days from White Horse to Dawson. The road-houses, being
placed at intervals of 10 to 20 miles, furnish places for food and
rest to this straggling body of immigrants.
Below the Little Salmon a white tent on stilts came into
view; this was a 'cache', a term taken from the French-Cana
dian trappers, signifying a hidden store of provisions. On a
platform, six to ten feet above the ground, smoked fish and
dried meat are placed so as to be out of the reach of animals,
especially of the dogs used for traction in winter.
In the afternoon highly tilted strata appeared on the right
bank and black little holes where prospectors had dug into a
seam of coal. Then the butte, or knob, above the coal mine at
Tantalus came into view, and shortly after Ave approached the
mine itself, marked by coal-bunkers on the left bank and a
tramway leading to the entry. At the wharf was a barge
loaded with coal for the domestic use of the people at Dawson.
A mile down the river is Carmack's trading post, which was an
important point before the rush. At 5 o'clock, the Northern
day being still young, we approached the celebrated Five
Finger rapids and prepared for excitement.
Here four islands of rock divide the Yukon into five streams.
As the steamer sAvept forward under the combined force of her
own steam and the current, it was difficult for the passengers
to guess through which of the openings the pilot would take
her. It was the one nearest the right bank, yet the boat seemed
to be heading for the central island. Suddenly the current
sAvung her round into the right-hand channel, and in a moment
we were in the midst of the rapids and beyond them into quiet
water. The passage wns made before anyone had time to
develop timidity.

ON THE UPPER YUKON.

179

•Just above the rapids is a hut and near it a steel rope, 2500
feet long, is anchored; it goes under Avater and is attached to
a ring-bolt on the shore below the rapids. This is used by
steamboats that cannot make headway against the current ; the
cable is passed around the capstan and thus the steamer pulls

THE STEAMER 'WHITE HORSE'.

herself through the rapids. In the photograph some of the
creAV are seen at Avork Avith winch and rope. Before this con
trivance was established, boats of small power had great trouble
in stemming the current; they would get their boiler-pressure
up to 250 pounds and when about to ' buck ' the rapids numerous
sides of bacon Avould be stacked ready for feeding into the

180 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
furnace. If they failed, as they often did the first time, there
was nothing to do but to get up steam again and go forward
under excessive pressure with the chance of a boiler explosion.
During the Klondike rush the small boats and rafts took the
opening on the extreme right, and a story is told of two Irish
men, drunk, in a boat, coming through when it was dark. They
wanted to know where the Five Finger rapids were and on
being informed that they had come through them, one of them
replied that he thought the water was "a bit rough". Since
then navigation has been improved by blasting some of the
rocks that endanger the passage.
Six miles lower the Rink rapids are traversed. They look
worse than the Five Finger ; as a man who participated in the
rush of '98 said: "The white line of foam was calculated to
put the fear of God into a man." He hugged the right shore,
where a narrow lane of smooth water may be followed.
At 6 o'clock Yukon Crossing was passed, and mail was
landed. On the left bank are the road-houses of the stage
company, for here the winter trail crosses the river. The
Yukon had now grown to a noble stream 250 to 300 yards
wide; having conquered every obstruction the river flowed
quietly toward the gates of the setting sun. A glorious sunset
at 9 : 30 was succeeded by a moon more lovely than the one
Endymion saw.
The next day opened gray, but the vegetation was less
stunted, willows appeared, and at rare intervals a patch of
green told of a settler's effort to tame Nature to fruitful pur
pose. At noon we were at Sixty-Mile, where the river of that
name enters the Yukon. In the days before Dawson existed the
trading posts on the river were named according to their dis
tance from Port Reliance, formerly an outpost of the Hudson's
Bay Company. This was 6 miles below Dawson; even this
explanation will not elucidate the nomenclature, for it is 48
miles from Dawson up to Sixty-Mile and it is 52 miles down the
river from Dawson to Forty-Mile. The differences are due to
early guesses as to distances. At Sixty-Mfle Joseph Ladue had
a store ; he was one of the men made rich and famous during
the rush. The old road-house and police station are deserted ;

coming up the five finger rapids.

182 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
only a telegraph office now marks this famous point of depar
ture in Northern exploration. The tributaries of the Sixty-
Mile were first worked for gold in 1886, access to the district
being obtained by ascending Forty-Mile creek from its confiu-
ence with the Yukon and thence across the divide separating
Forty from Sixty -JSIile. This was the first systematic mining
in the Par North. Work is still in progress on Glacier and
]\Iiller creeks. Dredging has been started successfully on the
lower reaches of Forty-Mile. A government road has been
built from the Yukon, opposite Dawson, to Glacier creek, a dis
tance of 73 miles.
We were noAV approaching Dawson. High hills enclosed the
river, brush covered their slopes, and small trees clustered in
every protected hoUoAv and on the low-lying flats. On the right
Avas Indian riA^er and Henderson creek. Avith memories of pio
neers and rushes that proved a fizzle. A big hill came into
view; it Avas the famous Dome. The line of the Acklen ditch
appeared across the face of the hill and then a big patch of
broken rock marking the landslide behind Dawson. The
steamer ran alongside the Avharf at 4:15 p.m., nearly three
days after leaving White Horse. It was a longer trip than
usual, for one of the engines was out of order; but that seems
a small matter noAv. We had reached Dawson; that sufficed.
Before landing I took off my hat, mentally, to the memory of
that energetic observer and capable geologist, one of the scien
tific pathfinders of Canada, after whom this modern Eldorado
Avas christened — George M. Dawson.

CHAPTER XVII.
DAWSON.
A stroll through Dawson gives an impression of respecta
bility compelled by impoverishment, of the temperance that
succeeds dissipation, of the bust after the boom. The toAvn

IN THE ENVIRONS OF DAWSON.
faces the river, and covers a flat just below the confluence of
the Klondike with the Yukon. The high ridge, culminating in
the Dome, throws a protecting shadow over the straggling set
tlement. The streets are unpaved black loam, luckily dry just
now, and the wooden sidewalks, in places rickety, are weather-
beaten but clean. The main street foUoAvs the Avater-front and

184 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the wharves are more numerous than required by the dimin
ished traffic. A narrow-gauge railway that goes to the ' creeks, '
and three steamers loading or unloading, betoken mining
activity not far away. Overhead the tall tower of the ferry
and across the broad river the catenary curve of a steel cable
mark the manner in whieh a crossing is effected. Northward
are many untenanted buildings, and even the centre of the
town bears a bedraggled appearance, indicative of shrunken
commerce. During the boom days the population was 50,000;
now it is 2000. Dawson looks like a stout man who has grown
very thin and yet wears the cloths made for him in his adipose
days. Although it has been difficult for Dawson to accommo
date itself to straightened eircumstances, the adaptation has
been effected heroically. The boom has gone, but business re
mains. As our steamer hove alongside the wharf there was a big
crowd to greet the incoming passengers ; the sight was cheerful,
but it indicated that the spectators had spare time in plenty. A
short walk led to the Regina hotel, a three-story structure
sheathed in gray corrugated iron. Hideous it was, but the
explanation offered a satisfactory excuse, for the building is
made of logs and is covered with iron as a protection against
fire. Inside it proved to be an attractive wainscoted hostelry.
On the outskirts, at the foot of the green slope rising to the
Dome, are clusters of little log cabins, pretty and picturesque
as a stage-setting, with overhanging eaves and flowers. Women
in white frocks and a sunny cheery look in the faces of both
man and Nature all bespeak the spring following a long winter.
In the store windows fruit is offered at fabulous prices ; also
nugget jewelry,* and furs. Every patch of soil not covered
*In a Jeweler's store a flat piece of gold, about the size of a man's
hand, was on exhibition. This was found in the summer of 1903 at
the mouth of French gulch and Eldorado creek; it weighed 86%
ounces, was the largest nugget ever discovered in Canada, and was
bought by Clarence J. Berry during my stay at Dawson. Mr. Berry
was one of the first men to come with gold from the Klondike in the
spring of 1898 and he was one of the successful ones whose story
excited the world at that time.

HZi-sEh
ffiOMZQ

«!Z
OtoQ

186 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
by dwellings is green Avith new grass and bright floAvers. Win
dow-boxes of pansies and mignonette lend a sentimental aspect
to the log-cabins. Saloons that are closed and the Mounted
PoUce are suggestive of cause and effect. Nothing rowdy or
exuberant survives. DaAvson looks like a nicely washed young
man of subdued demeanor Avho gives a hint that he has been
extremely gay.
Returning to the hotel, the idea of dinner looms large. Soon
Ave are sitting in a dark low Avainscoted room, old-fashioned and
cozy, beside an open windoAv, affording an outlook upon green
hillsides. The dinner is given a rare distinction by the intro
duction of a steak that looks like beef and tastes like venison,
but is incomparably superior to either. It is young moose,
delicious and savory; preceded by fresh salmon from the
Yukon and foUoAved by a good cup of coffee, plus the first
cigar for a week, it affords keen satisfaction. I shall remember
the occasion for many a year. Weary of the steamer and the
rough people on board, tired of canned vegetables and a dirty
service, it was good to be on land, sitting at a clean table, in
congenial company. The air entering the AA^ndoAV Avas of ex
quisite purity — you must go North to understand that this is
no exaggeration — the outlook Avas pleasant and restful, and in
the hall of the hotel a band played 'Sognando.' It was not
perfect music, but it served an excellent purpose, linking the
cheerful present to the happy past. Sufficit.
Next day we saw a little more of the town, preparatory to
delivering letters of introduction. Dawson has several large
buildings, being the capital of the Yukon Territory. The Ad
ministration building, the Court House, and the Commissioner 's
office are all wooden framed structures painted a neat gray;
sensible, and sightly. A Carnegie library enclosed in tin-plate,
simulating stone, serves as an ugly monument to a great rebater
desirous of notoriety. The barracks of the Mounted Police and
the jail or 'skookum house' are built of uncovered logs. Ten
years ago the flat and the lower hill-slopes were covered with
trees, all of which were rapidly cut down as necessity required.
Meeting a former Dawsonian, who had been a fellow-pas
senger on the WhUe. Horse, he began to bcAvail the quietness of

DAWSON.

187

the toAvn : Oh ! for the ' old days' when bars and dancing saloons
stretched for the depth of a Avhole block, from street to street ;
when the crowd within was so dense that it took half an hour
to go from the front to the back door; in those brave times
there were more people in one block than were now to be seen
in the whole town. This laudator temporis acti became splendide
mendax, explaining in strong vernacular how sic transit gloria
mundi and the deep meaning of hinc illae lacr'iinae — all of whieh

-.1 r\

THE REGINA HOTEL, DAWSON.

goes to shoAV that Latin quotations are a snare and delusion.
Our stray acquaintance continued to revert to the 'old days' —
ten years ago ! ' ' She was a hummer, I tell you. This burg
Avas the speediest town on earth. It makes me feel like an old
man who knows he has lost his opportunities." Let not the
moralist assume that it was the opportunity to be "speedy"
that he regretted, it was the chance to become rich on which
he chiefly lingered. But we refused to linger mentally with
him. This 'might have been' bewailing the former tinseled

188

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

splendors of a wide-open boom mining camp did not win our
sympathy — only a humorous appreciation. The Dawson of
today is as much better than the inferno of a decade ago as
sanity is better than folly, as sobriety is better than debauch
ery. The quiet neat town of orderly people, under an incor
ruptible police, and a competent administration, is not for one
moment to be compared with the rabble of excited adventurers
and degraded women who made the Arctic a hotter place than
the tropics. Let the panegyrist of the past go, with his regrets
for wasted opportunity and his memories of besotted fooleries ;
in his stead is the intelligent engineer, the quiet man of busi
ness, and the orderly conduct of a civilized community.

The pas/f/o/^ of some of m^ CraeA ciai/rts are /h(f/c^rei^ Ay fha/r rrum^ars.
O- Discovarf c/aims

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE GOLD OF THE KLONDIKE.
When George Carmack found gold on Bonanza creek on
August 17, 1896, he started a stampede of world-wide interest.
The rush to the Klondike, due to this discovery and to others
that ensued, was the greatest wave of adventure since the days
of 1849 and 1851, when California and Australia lured the
gold-seeker to the conquest of the wilderness.
Two men figure in the story: Carmack and Henderson.
Carmack was a fisherman, with an Indian squaw ; he had a sort
of trading post on the Yukon 20 miles above the Crossing.
Bob Henderson was a nondescript prospector living at Sixty-
Mile ; he and three others found gold on a tributary of Hunker
creek called Gold Bottom, in the summer of 1896. Henderson
is believed to have been commissioned by Harper and Ladue,
who kept a store at Sixty-Mile, now known as Ogilvie, to create
local excitement by going through the motions of finding pay-
gravel. In the history of the North this motive is frequent;
when business became dull the owner of a store or trading post
would send out prospectors to start an excitement for the
stimulation of local trade. However that may be, Henderson
went prospecting on the streams tributary to the Klondike
river, and found gold on a branch of Hunker creek, which he
reached by going up Indian river, on the «outh side of the
water-shed, as is shown by the accompanying map.
At this time Carmack was fishing for salmon at the mouth
of the Klondike, which enters the Yukon where Dawson now
stands. Bonanza creek joins the Klondike two miles above
the junction of the Klondike and the Yukon. Carmack, being
short of fresh meat, went with his Indian companions, Skookum

190 THROUGH THE YQKON AND ALASKA.
Jim, Indian Pete, and Tagish Charlie, to Bonanza creek on a
hunting expedition. Bonanza creek at that time was known to
Indians and prospectors as a likely place for moose. Carmack
and his friends knew that four white men were working on
Gold Bottom, so they decided to cross the divide and pay them
a visit, probably selling them some of the fresh meat they had
obtained by hunting. Henderson and his partners were not
getting much gold and Carmack soon returned to his camp.
Having seen the mining done bj' the four men on Gold Bottom,
he got the idea of doing a little prospecting himself on his re
turn down Bonanza creek, and he actually found gold on the
rim of the bedrock projecting above the creek. This rich spot
proved later to be only a patch 20 feet square. He did not
test the creek-bottom, for he did not know how, but he did
make a location, and he kncAv enough to go at once down the
Yukon to Forty-Mile, which was the nearest recording office.
He recorded his discovery claim and also the claims located by
the three Indians. He exhibited the gold he had found on the
rim-rock, but the miners at Porty-]\Iile were sceptical as to the
genuineness of the discovery. They had been fooled too often
by discoveries concocted in the interest of store-keepers. But
it happened that one wise head compared Carmack's gold with
that of Forty-Mile, and he noticed a difference in the quality,
for the Bonanza creek gold contains more silver. On this evi
dence it was decided that Carmack's story must be true.
A quiet 'rush' began. David Mackay, Daniel McGillivray,
and Harry Waugh were the first to start. They staked No. 14
Below Discovery on Bonanza, where they themselves found
gold on a shallow bar of gravel, known later as Poverty Bar,
an intermediate or secondary bench deposit. Eventually each
of these three men made a fortune. Andrew Hunker came up
the river later in the fall, and staked a claim on No. 24 Below,
and then Avent over the divide from Bonanza creek to Gold
Bottom; from there he proceeded with his partner Johnson
up what is now called Hunker creek, panning the gravel as he
advanced. His idea was to go over the divide in order to reach
the headwaters of a creek entering the Klondike some 25 miles
above the mouth of Hunker, and even then known by the

CARMACK'S STAKES.
The posts that marked the Discovery on Bonanza Creek.

192 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
mythical name of All Gold- In one of his pannings he hap
pened to find a reef of high bedrock exposed in the creek-bot
tom at the place now known as Discovery on Hunker, and from
this spot he obtained over $25 in coarse gold. He and Johnson
then staked three claims, namely, Discovery, No. 1 Above, and
No. 1 Below. They went back, as they had come, by way of
Gold Bottom, and told Henderson and his partners what they
had found. Thereupon, a number of men, including the
original four from Gold Bottom, staked rich claims on Hunker
creek. The excitement caused by Carmack's and Hunker's discov
eries had spread throughout the upper Yukon ; the few settlers
at Circle City and Forty-Mile all came up the river and staked
Eldorado, Hunker, Bonanza, and their tributary streams. Up
to this time all the pay had been found on the upper reaches
of the gulches and those who staked on the lower portion of
Bonanza and Hunker were considered crazy. It was thought
impossible that the run of gold could extend so far.
During the winter following these events, that is, the win
ter of 1896- '97, nearly everybody who had a claim on the creeks
Avent to work and soon demonstrated the extraordinary rich
ness of the ground. It was not until the summer of '97 that
the high-level benches were investigated. In July Burk and
Hensley made a discovery on the bench opposite No. 5 on El
dorado. One of the first men to start the bench diggings was
Bill Gates, commonly known as Swiftwater Bill, because he was
fond of talking about the kind of boat best fitted to go through
swift water. He paid a man to prospect a high bench on the left
' limit ' of 13 Eldorado, but unfortunately this man struck a spot
Avhere there was no gold to amount to anything. Skiff Mitchell
was the next man to prospect on the high bench. In July he sent
Lancaster and Stimson to do some work on Gold hill, opposite
his own claim of No. 1 Eldorado. Lancaster and Stimson 's
two claims of 100 feet square each proved eventually to be
marvelously rich, but they did not know it at the time they
did their first work, in the faU of 1897. Probably $300,000 was
taken out of these two small claims. There was a record of
$2700 for one day's labor by two men, one trundling a wheel-

OLD GOLD CREEK.
One of the streams tributary to the Klondike.

194 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
barrow Avhile the other manipulated the rocker. Lancaster had
a letter of introduction to Mitchell and the hint to go up the
hill was given in goodwill. At first, as stated, Lancaster and
Stimson were not successful; but an immensely rich strike by
Nels Petersen and N. Kresge on the other side of Gold hfll,
near the mouth of Skookum gulch, gave a flerce impetus to
prospecting along the upper slopes of Bonanza creek.
Petersen and Kresge struck it on September 5, 1897. On
the day of discovery they picked up $29 in coarse gold, and
in 10 days they obtained $6375 by the use of a rocker from a
claim 100 feet square. On the second afternoon they are said
to have gathered $1100 in nuggets lying just under the moss.
They extracted $12,000 from this claim and then sold it, in
November following, for $40,000. Mr. Kresge, whom I met at
Fairbanks, showed me a nugget containing $41 in gold mixed
with double the proportion of quartz, the gold veining the
quartz beautifully. The gold taken out by this prospector and
his partner was found chiefly in the crevices of the bedrock;
coarse gold was found as much as 8 feet down between the
slabs of schist. Later workers penetrated 16 feet into the bed
rock before it ceased to be profltable to dig deeper.
The success of Kresge and Petersen led Lancaster and Stim
son to test the upper portions of their claim, where they also
found rich pay. Shortly afterward William Dietering (or
Caribou Bill, as he was generally known) located a bench
claim on the other side of Skookum gulch, but he did not find
much. He became short of grub and sold a half interest in his
claim for a few sacks of flour and some bacon. His partner
(Small) neither worked nor put a man to work, so they agreed
to sell for $3000 to Chase and Campbell. These two pros
pected deeper into the bedrock, and at the first 'thaw' they
took out $200. They sold the claim for $12,000.
Caribou Bill was an experienced miner from British Colum
bia and he had a good idea of the manner in which alluvial
deposits are disposed. As soon as he had made a little money
he grubstaked men to test the hillslopes for bench-gravels;
thus he found gold on French hill, on Oro Grande, and on
Little Skookum. Tavo other old hands from the Caribou,

THE GOLD OF THE KLONDIKE. 195
named Morrow and McCrimmon, sank a 100-foot shaft on the
top of Gold hill and found rich gravel. This was in June 1898.
Then the stampede for the hills became general and by the
end of the summer of 1898 all the high gravel deposits were
covered Avith locations and work had begun. Thus the won
derful terrace of white gravel flanking the slopes of Bonanza
creek, down to the Klondike, became recognized under the
name of the White Channel. A year later similar benches
were found on Hunker creek.
And gold was found in astonishing quantity. On a day of
June 1899 no less than 29 pack-horses came into Dawson from
'the creeks,' bringing gold belonging to one man, Alec Mac
donald, a Nova Scotian, supposed at one time to be worth
$7,000,000. But he lost most of it before he died — last winter.
Those who came to Dawson with the 'rush' at the end of
1897 and in the spring of the foUoAving year were too late.
All the best ground had already been staked. They had to
buy claims or work for wages. During the winter of 1898- '99
there were fully 10,000 idle and destitute men at Dawson.
Many stories are told of those days. Some of these are
humorous. Thus, there was a Swede named Charles Anderson.
He was an ignorant man living at Forty-Mile, where he had
saved $600 from wages earned as a pick-and-shovel miner.
Being drunk one day he was persuaded by two old prospectors
to buy a claim. No. 29 Eldorado, for the aforesaid $600. The
morning after the SAvede found himself with a headache, less
$600, and he begged for his money to be given back. He was
frantic. But to no avail. The tAvo perpetrators went prospect
ing on Quartz creek, while Anderson decided that the only
thing for him to do was to test his claim. He said: "Ay tank
Ay go to work." He traversed the 80 miles from Forty-Mile
to his claim and then went 18 feet farther, to bedrock, where
he found a fortune ! Just at the psychological moment there
came the two wise men from Quartz creek on their way to the
little settlement at Dawson. They passed the Swede and saw
that he was panning, so they stopped to ask him, in jest, if he
had found anything. He answered: "Ay tank Ay got some
gold here," and shoAved them a pan with $1400 in it. This

196 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
claim yielded about $1,250,000; the purchase for $600 was a
good one.
As a reward for his part in making the discovery of gold,
with Carmack, the Indian known as Tagish Charlie was made
a citizen by the Canadian government. This gave him the right
to buy a drink, all other Indians being prohibited from doing
so, for it is illegal to sell liquor to the natives. Tagish Charlie
has always been proud to assert his unique privilege and loves
to order drinks for anyone that happens along. In conse
quence, he spends much of his valuable time in the 'skookum
house,' otherwise called a jail. Skookum Jim and Tagish
Charlie were the brothers of Carmack's squaw. After living
with this Indian woman for many years, Carmack abandoned
her and his half-breed children. Por this disloyalty he Avas
disliked by the ' old timers. '
In the winter of 1902-03 on No. 28 Above on Bonanza, in a
piece of ground only 40 by 60 feet, four 'lay-men' took out
$208,000 on a 50% lay. The gravel averaged $10 per bucket
(equal to 6 pans). Thus these four men got $104,000 in one
Avinter. Three of them worked in the shaft and one above-
ground, at the windlass. As the time was four months and the
total cost of labor about $5000, the net proflt was close to
$100,000. By their agreement with the owner they could hire
no more men, only four workers being allowed. These fellows
Avent to the Tanana diggings and lost what they had made so
easily on Bonanza.
The 'ladies of adventure' made lots of money at Dawson,
some of them ' cleaned up ' from $25,000 to $100,000. They got
an interest in claims with the diggers and even married them.
Others, returning to 'the States' bought land at Seattle and
doubled their stake. Gambling, however, ruined many of the
prostitutes, as it did their consorts ; and with the dissipated
of both sexes the money was lost usually when they were
drunk. These facts are not romantic, but they throw a side
light on the real life of a 'boom camp.'
Dick Lowe and his fraction contributed to the romance of
the Yukon. When Ogilvie was running a base-line for the
Dominion Government, his party of surveyors included Dick

THE GOLD OF THE KLONDIKE. I97
LoAve. One day Avhen Lowe was carrying the chain for Ogilvie
the latter found that a claim-holder had staked more than the
500 feet allowed by law, and there was a fraction 86 feet 4
inches long that had thereby become subject to location. Ogilvie
told Lowe to stake the 86 feet, but Lowe demurred at first, not
Avishing to lose his 'rights.' For no man could locate more than
one claim in any one of the two mining districts, the Klondike
and Dominion. However, Lowe did stake the fraction. He
cleaned up $46,000 from the bedrock in 8 hours. He paid the
Government tax on .$346,000, and it is probable that this small
claim yielded $500,000. It has been said that Dick Lowe took
$750,000 out of his 86-foot fraction, but the smaller figure

TRANSPORT OF SUPPLIES.
given is more likely to be correct. The mine was run in a care
less way. All sorts of people made clean-ups and gave away
nuggets. One pan yielded $900. The ground was so rich that
in order to prevent trespass a wire was swung along the boun
dary line between the Dick Lowe fraction and No. 2 Below;
the ownership of a nugget lying on the line was determined by
a plumb-bob sliding on the wire, the nugget going to the side
on which the larger part of it lay. Nearly as much gold as was
saved is supposed to have been stolen, for Lowe was drunk
most of the time. He went to Fairbanks in 1905 ; but being un
successful, he soon became poor. He returned to San Fran
cisco, where he died in 1907 at the home of Mrs. James Hall,
Avho cared for him during his last days. Dick Lowe is said on

198 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
one occasion to have thrown as much as $10,000 on the bar
and invited aU the riff-raff of prostitution to drink with him,
but he never helped a friend in need. "He was just naturally
cultus." An expressive epitaph and an inexpressibly pathetic
sequel to the winning of much gold.
In the spring of '98 there, were but few things that could
be bought for less than 50 cents. Eggs were worth $18 per
dozen ; potatoes, $1 per pound ; beef, $1 per pound on the hoof.
Ten head of steers, brought down the river from White Horse,
sold for $11,000. The first chickens (weighing 4 pounds apiece)
fetched $10 each. Tavo crates of cats sold at $25 per cat, al
though they had been collected at Vancouver by boys who re
ceived 15 to 20 cents for them. Labor cost $1.50 per hour and
men earned $15 per day. But a pint of champagne fetched $15
also. At the Porks the diggers paid $1.50 for each dance with
the 'ladies of adventure' — a dance that lasted two or three
minutes. Por this $1.50 the man got a drink and the girl had
one also, the latter receiving a commission of 50 per cent of
the payment. Men would spend $100 in a night in mere danc
ing, without ordering 'wine' or gambling. Beer sold for $7.50
per pint, and many were the fools that paid for it. Some of
the brightest fellows lost their senses and after a hard day's
work would plunge into silly carousals that cost hundreds, even
thousands, of dollars. It was the old story of money easily
made and easily spent ; only a few men of character withstood
the temptations of the gambler and the prostitute, retained the
gold won by hard work, and returned to their homes, the
stronger and the better for the experience. To them the
Klondike rush was a truly romantic episode.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE DIGGINGS.
' Klondike ' is a corruption of Thron-duick, meaning plenty of
fish, for here the Indians had a fishing camp long before the
gold was found. In 1887 Ogilvie reported: "The Indians
catch great numbers of salmon here. A miner has prospected
up this river for an estimated distance of forty miles. I did
not see him. ' ' In 1896 Joseph Ladue built a shanty and started
a store at the mouth of the Thron-duick or Klondike river, in
tending to use it as a branch of his trading post at Sixty-Mile.
When the discoveries of gold were made in the summer of that
year, the land on whieh he had squatted became valuable for
town-lots. He made a fortune, of course. On July 14, 1897, the
Excelsior reached San Francisco with the news of fabulous finds
in the North. She brought half a miUion dollars in gold and
was the first of the treasure-ships that entered the Golden Gate
like Spanish gallions of the olden days. Whatever doubt there
may have been concerning the truth of the stories brought by
her passengers, was removed Avhen three days later the Portland
reached Seattle with more than $1,000,000 of gold on board.
That was enough. The news was flashed around the world and
from every quarter of the globe eager men rushed toward the
Klondike in the hope of winning a fortune.
In the summer of 1908 there were about 6000 people in the
district about Dawson, one-third of these being residents of the
town. The mining activity of the Klondike and its tributary
creeks had undergone concentration through the consolidation
of claims acquired by the Yukon Gold Company. On the south
side of the divide, that is, on Dominion, Sulphur, Quartz, and
adjacent creeks, the ordinary small operations were being con-

200 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
tinned, but on the north side, along Bonanza, Eldorado, and
Hunker creeks, the big company controlled by the Guggen-
heims had secured so much property as to diminish individual
activity to insignificant proportions. In the meantime the
Yukon Gold Company was carrying out important undertak
ings requiring lots of capital and the skill of the best engineers.
Much was said about the Guggenheims and their representa
tives and many of the 'old timers' sneered at their free spend
ing of money and the new ideas introduced into Northern
mining. With such an attitude I have no sympathy, for, while
holding no brief for the clever Hebrews who have won so domi
nant a position in the American mining industry, I know the
engineers in their employ to be professional men of the highest
standing and of ample experience.
The Yukon Gold Company illustrates many interesting
features in mine operation and mine finance. After indiA'idu-
als and small syndicates had hastily garnered the gold in the
richest claims and had proved the existence of gold-bearing de
posits in the creeks and on the hillsides above them, an enter
prising Englishman, named A. N. C. Treadgold, succeeded, by
persistence and obstinate good sense, in obtaining options on
enough ground to form the nucleus of a big mining enterprise
on the Klondike watershed. Some of this ground he secured
during the boom days, but, seeing the extravagance of the
mining methods, he advised his English clients not to exploit
their mines, but to await the reduction of cost and the improve
ment of method that always succeeds the first year or two of
prolific production. When his English backers lost patience,
he enlisted the financial participation of the Guggenheims,
themselves aided in this venture by. J. Pierpont Morgan, and
thus the Yukon Gold Co. was organized in 1906. More claims
were bought outright, options were obtained on others, ex
aminations and surveys were quickly made, and a large scheme
of operation outlined. By the end of 1907 not less than $8,220,-
000 had been spent and since then fully $3,000,000 more. In
April 1908 the enterprise was discredited by a fiasco, 700,000
shares (out of the 3,500,000 shares at $5 par value) being
offered to the public through the medium of flamboyant and

IN THE MINERS' BOARDING-HOUSE.

202 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
meretricious advertising on the part of an irresponsible stock
jobber named Thomas W. Lawson, of Boston. The issue was a
fizzle, only about 300,000 shares were placed, at prices ranging
about $6, and the quotation dropped quickly to $3.50. This
flash-in-the-pan of speculation and attempt to use a legitimate
enterprise for improper purposes hurt the name of the Yukon
Gold Co., injured the reputation of the Guggenheims, and
brought discredit on an undertaking of great importance to
the future development of the Yukon Territory. It is my sin
cere hope that the vagaries of a queer kind of financial leger
demain wiU not imperU the success of an engineering work of
the greatest utility and that it may be carried to completion
under the direction of 0. B. Perry, the consulting engineer,
and Chester A. Thomas, the resident manager.
In this book there is no place for technical details, so I shall
give only a general description of the work as I saw it. Any
one wanting technical information on the subject will find it
elsewhere.* In order to find room for the 'tailing' or waste
resulting from the mining of the deposits on the hiUside it is
necessary to own the valley below. Thus, before commencing
to exploit the bench gravels it is imperative that dumping
facilities be obtained by acquiring the claims along the creeks ;
having acquired these, it is necessary to work out the gold-
bearing gravels contained in the latter before covering them
with the debris from above. Hence dredging and other
methods of working the creek gravel were started at once,
with a view to extracting the gold and preparing for the wash
ing of the bench gravel when sufficient water under pressure
became available. To do this a conduit had to be built bring
ing water a distance of 70 miles and delivering it by pipe under
a head of 350 feet. While the ditch was being built, an electric
poAver-plant was erected and the energy transmitted to the
dredges and other machinery by means of a line 35 miles long.
In July 1908 I found seven dredges at work, a large reservoir
had been finished, the power-plant was in service, the ditch
*Mimng and Scientific Press. August 29, September 12, and De
cember 26, 1908. January 9, 16, and 23, 1909.

A MEANDERING STREAM IN GOLD-BEARING ALLUVIUM.

204 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
was approaching completion, and operations of a wide-spread
and highly technical character were being conducted systemat
ically but with feverish haste, both by day and by night.
On July 14 I had a first glimpse of the celebrated diggings.
It was a fine sunny day, with the thermometer at 85 °P. in the
shade. We drove along the road built by the Territorial gov
ernment, over the Ogilvie bridge, which spans the Klondike
and is named after William Ogilvie, the first Commissioner or
Governor of the Territory. Near the bridge the Williams or
Bonanza Basin dredge was digging the bed of the Klondike;
just above the point where Bonanza creek joins the Klondike,
we saw the No. 1 and No. 2 dredges of the Yukon Gold Co.,
one digging and the other idle pending a clean-up. The famous
vaUey belied its reputation. All was strangely quiet. The
former workings are largely obliterated by a growth of brush
and the destruction of buildings erected during the busy days.
In a country where lumber and fire-wood are expensive, un
used buildings are pulled down without delay for use as fuel.
The 'creek' has the appearance of a mining camp of 50 years
ago instead of one that was at the zenith of its glory barely
10 years past. Even claims worked two years ago look as if
they had not been touched for twenty, for the winter snows
and the spring vegetation quickly heal the scars made by man.
It is difficult to realize that this quiet valley, between rounded
green hillsides, even though marked by open workings, was
lately the scene of fierce activity, intense hurry, and an aston
ishing production of gold. In those days the work of mining
was done by digging holes in the frozen gravel, using wood
fires to thaw the ice and soften the ground, so that it could
be excavated with pick and shovel. If you had gone up the
narrow valleys of Bonanza and Hunker during the long twi
light of the arctic winter ten years ago you would have seen
a picture worthy of Gustave Dore. There was no noise, for
there was no machinery; there were no whistles to announce
the noon hour or the evening rest; there was no drilling in
hard rock nor cheerful hammering. A weird silence brooded
over the waste of snow. The gloom was thickened by a pall
of smoke escaping from holes in the ground, whence an oecas-

ON DOME CREEK, YUKON.

206 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
ional figure issued. Not many men were visible, for they were
below in the rabbit warren of their diggings. At the top of a
shaft, here and there, a weary gnome might be espied turning
a windlass and emptying buckets loaded with dirt that came
from a small pit beneath. The flare of red fires parting the
twilight marked the beginning of the work of shaft-sinking.
The snow, the moss, and the fog muffled every foot-faU, dead
ened every sound. It looked like hell — but it was freezing.
In the foregoing account I have used several technical
terms, the explanation of which will throw a light on the local
conditions. At the time of the flrst discoveries a placer claim
Avas 500 feet long measured in the direction of the creek, for
the full width of the creek. These dimensions were subse
quently changed so often as to intimidate speculators. The
prospector Avho made the first find of gold was entitled to an
extra claim, as a reward. This was the Discovery claim. Prom
it all others took their station, thus the third claim above the
Discovery claim Avas called No. 3 Above ; the name of the creek
being added, it became No. 3 Above on Bonanza. If below the
Discovery, then it was No. 3 Below. The sides of the valley
were termed the 'limits' of the creek, so that "the right limit"
meant the right bank going down-stream. A royalty of 10 per
cent "on the gold mined" was collected by the Government of
Canada. No miner could receive "a grant of more than one
mining claim in a mining district," but he could also stake
one hill claim. This was done to prevent a few men pegging
the Avhole country; and yet the law was evaded, so that the
regulations were subsequently modified. I quote them as en
forced during 1898.
In addition to terms connected with the oAvnership of min
ing claims, I have been compelled to use words strange to an
untechnical reader; as I wish to hold his interest in a further
description of the methods of mining, I shall furnish him with
the necessary glossary. It is a courtesy that the author owes
to those who mentally travel with him.
Each mining region has its own local terms, originating
from the interplay of peculiar men and peculiar conditions.
Some of these terms are expressive ; indeed, they may be so

THE DIGGINGS. 207
expressive as to become a necessary part of a telling descrip
tion. Other terms by their wide applicability become service
able in regions beyond the place of their birth and pass into
the linguistic heritage of the race. Others again are merely
the vulgarisms of the moment or the provincialisms of unedu
cated men, and the sooner they are thrown over the scrap-heap
the better.
The arctic moss that carpets the northern wild is called
'tundra'; this is a Russian word and was borrowed from
Siberia. The dirty blanket of frozen mould that covers the
face of the North is called ' muck. ' Under a few inches of dull
green moss there is a thickness, varying according to locality
and exposure, of ice, in Avhieh are embedded fragments of
roots, moss, mould, and rock debris. In a temperate climate
this would mean a layer of soil ; in the North, it means a much
greater thickness of black ice, which thaws to a liquid mud.
Fully 60% of the 'muck' is water, the remainder is mostly
organic material light enough to float. It is present every
where; and as it is ubiquitous in the topography so it is also
omnipresent in speech. There is no synonym to replace
'muck'; mud will not serve, for it is not mud; 'mud' is moist
ened earth; 'loam,' 'soil,' 'mould,' and the like do not express
the frozen condition. It is true, 'muck' signifies nothing to
those who have not been in the North, but to a 'sour-dough' or
old timer, it has a Avorld of meaning, for it is the one great
natural obstacle against which he has fought time and again.
The gold-bearing sediment forms part of the debris de
posited in the former bed of a stream. The gravel is called
'wash'; the rock on which it lies is called 'bedrock'; and Avhen
it rises to the edge of the creek-bottom, it is known as the
'rim' or 'rim-rock.' The richest portion of the deposit is
usually at the base of the gravel, on bedrock; and as it lies
lengthwise with the eourse of the creek, in places being as wide
as the valley, while in others restricted to a riband, it is called
the 'pay-streak.' It would be better to call it a 'channel.' In
Australia, this central portion of the gold-bearing alluvium is
labeled the ' gutter. ' The particles of gold are called 'colors, ' if
small : and 'nuggets,' if large. To ascertain how much gold the

208 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
'dirt' carries, the miner Avashes ten or twenty pounds of it in his
'pan'; this is a sheet-iron dish, nothing less than a frying-pan
without a handle. By use and experience, it is now made of a
shape best adapted to the rough process of concentration per
formed by the prospector Avhen he gives it a shaking motion,
aiding the water in the removal of all the lighter particles of
rock and stone Avherein the gold lies imbedded, until finaUy a
string of yellow particles remains on the bottom of the pan.
The next device is the 'sluice-box,' a board trough into
which the gravel is shoveled Avhile a stream of water is ad
mitted so as to wash away everything except the gold. This
separation betAveen the valuable and the valueless constituents
is facilitated by cleats or 'riffles' nailed across the sluice-box
to arrest the gold when it sinks to the bottom. A sluice cut in
the bedrock is called a ' ground-sluice. ' Water under pres
sure is used to move the gravel; in rudimentary practice this
water is conveyed in a canvas hose and when the scale of opera
tions increases the same service is performed by iron or steel
pipe. The nozzle becomes a 'monitor' and the operation of
driving the gravel with a powerful jet is hydraulic mining or
'hydraulieking. '
The following table of alluvial measures Avill be useful to
those Avho are interested in Alaskan practice :
1 pan holds  25 lb. o£ gravel
6 pans  1 cubic foot
15 pans  1 wheelbarrow
10 wheelbarrows  1 cubic yard
135 pans  1 cubic yard
4 wheelbarrows  1 bucket
These do not agree exactly. A full pan Avill hold from 20
to 25 lb., and it requires from 125 to 135 pans to make a cubic
yard. A cubic yard is usually estimated to weigh 3000 lb., or
11/2 tons. If a pan holds 20 lb. and 150 pans equal a yard, then
a cubic yard weighs 3000 pounds. A loaded wheelbarrow will
hold one tenth of a cubic yard; this is the ratio recognized at
Fairbanks and at Nome.

CHAPTER XX.
DEVELOPMENT OF MINING METHODS.
Gravel mining is a simple process ; the simplicity of empirical
deduction. It is the growth of experience in overcoming nat
ural obstacles. I shall endeavor to describe methods that have
enabled man to extract an astonishing amount of gold. The
creeks at Dawson have yielded $125,000,000 in ten years, the
alluvial flats of Fairbanks have given the world not less than
$32,000,000 in five years, and the golden beaches of Nome have
contributed fully $22,000,000 in eight years.
This gold has come for the most part from deposits of
gravel lying in or beneath the beds of existing streams, mean
dering within the limits of shallow valleys. Here is a typical
example : A small valley overlooked by rounded hillslopes is
traversed by a stream the present bed of which is only a few
yards wide as compared to the flat, half a mile wide, over which
it Avanders. Bare ground, in the form of gravel, is visible only
on the edge and in the bed of the stream ; the remainder of the
valley is covered with moss, out of which arise clumps of spruce,
some a foot in diameter. On the hillsides the forest grows
scantier, and on the summits the ridges are silhouetted in
sweeping lines unbroken by any trees. A few specks of gold
are found in the gravel, and there are rare spots where the
rim shows coarse 'colors.' The bedrock is probably a soft
schist, for that is the formation exposed by landslips; else
where it is covered by moss, by 'muck,' or by gravel. The
prospector cannot sink a pit or shaft in the bed of the stream
because the water will drown his workings. No pumps are
available, nor is it feasible to divert the creek by means of a
dam, because that would bank the water on another man's

210 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
claim ; moreover, the gravel is so porous that the water would
penetrate into any workings sunk in the bed of the stream.
Thereupon the prospector turns to one side and digs into the
valley-bottom at a safe distance from the present stream-bed.
He finds that under the moss the ground is frozen solid ; it is
impossible to sink a shaft with a pick, and expensive to do so
with explosives. Yet he reasons that the indications point to
the existence of gold on the bed of the valley to one side of the
present stream, along a course that it formerly followed. What
is he to do ?
Such was the problem confronting the pioneers in the
Yukon and Alaska ten years ago.
Machinery was lacking. The pick and shovel were the only
tools available. Wood was handy. What more natural than
to overcome ice with fire, to soften the frozen ground by arti
ficial thawing? This was the pioneer's method. He laid his
bundle of sticks and made a fire that melted the adjacent ice.
In this way he sank a small shaft to bedrock. The work of
sinking was done in winter, when surface-water did not im
pede. After the wood had burned so as to soften the ground,
he broke the latter with his pick and hoisted it to the surface
in a bucket with a windlass. Then he piled the gravel near the
shaft's mouth in a heap, which re-froze during the winter and
thawed naturaUy in the spring. As it thawed, he shoveled it
into a sluice-box and washed it by the help of any water avail
able. His whole equipment consisted of a pan, pick, shovel, a
bucket made out of a whiskey-barrel or a hide, fire-wood, a
hemp rope, two or three sluice-boxes each 10 or 12 feet long,
and muscle, and more muscle, and persistence. It is wonder
ful Avhat some of the pioneers accomplished. Thus Sam Sam
son and a partner, in the winter of 1901-02, sank a shaft 115
feet on the Cyrus Noble claim, near Nome. The shaft was
only 2 by 4 feet. It was on the 'tundra.' There was no forest
to yield good firewood, but Samson found scrub willows near
by and he burned them. He would fill a gunny-sack with
willow twigs, dry them in the oven of his stove, and place them
in the bottom of the shaft, under cover of a wash-tub, to retain
the heat. A fire in the morning and another in the evening

DEVELOPMENT OF MINING METHODS.

211

sufficed to soften the frozen gravel. He had to conserve the
air in his shaft as best he could. He worked in his undershirt,
perspiring while the air at the surface was below zero. After
sinking 80 feet without the safeguard of timber, he lined the
shaft to the surface with inch boards. This was an exceptional
ease, but it illustrates that grit can overcome gravel, even
when frozen.
The gold is found concentrated upon the bedrock. This
concentration is more complete in Alaska and the Yukon than

^'¦-''^'" ^

. ' "T^ 1 ; /• F-POZE H \ MUCK -v f ; r— ^ f. -

'i-^^>

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V. \r^7.- ':¦;¦( -C^.i

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DRIFT-MINING IN FROZEN GROUND.

in other mining regions ; it is due to the clean character of the
' wash, ' that is, there is so little clay in the gravel that the de
scent of the heavy gold has not been hindered. It has fallen
to the rock-bottom and lies there, sometimes so thick that the
mass consists of more gold than dirt. In most eases the miner
finds his 'pay' confined to the stuff that lies for a couple of
feet above bedrock, and within the bedrock itself ; for the gold
has sunk into the crevices of the rock, penetrating sometimes
three feet, if the schist be bloeky and shattered. Therefore the
operation of mining includes the removal of the bottom layer

212 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of sediment on the creek-bed and the top of the rock-bottom.
Prom 2 to 6 feet of material is considered rich enough to be
treated as 'pay' and is washed in the sluice-boxes.
While I speak of the rock-bottom, it must be explained that
the bedrock is usually soft. It has undergone disintegration;
it has been shattered by alternations of frost and thaw, in a
by-gone time ; it has been penetrated by water and some of its
constituent minerals have been so dissolved as to leave it no
longer hard and resisting, but docile as clay. The soft, almost
' mushy, ' bedrock of the North is a great aid to the miner. He
does not need explosives.
When the shaft reaches bedrock, it is an exciting moment.
The miner scans the ground to find specks of gold ; if the gravel
be rich, he can see the gold readily. Then he hoists some of
the soft bedrock and the fine sediment lying on its surface. By
the use of a pan he washes this material and ascertains how
rich it is. Often he sees a glittering string of yellow particles
in his pan; sometimes a piece big enough to be called a 'nug
get'; sometimes — nothing, only a little black sand. As an
illustration of the extraordinary richness of some of these de
posits, I cite the following: In August 1899 on No. 2 Above
Discovery on Bonanza, adjoining the Dick Lowe fraction,
George T. Coffey took two shovelfuls, that is, enough to fill
a pan, and from it he washed 63 ounces of gold. This in
cluded three pieces worth over $100 each. It was possible to
see the gold in the gravel when standing 20 feet away. Among
those present on that occasion was Angelo Heilprin.
Ordinarily, 10 cents worth of gold, or 21/2 grains, per pan,
indicating a yield of $13.50 per cubic yard, say, one yard deep,
Avas rich enough to yield a handsome profit to a man who sank
a shaft 40 feet to bedrock.
If the shaft does not 'bottom' in pay, the prospector be
gins to explore laterally by digging a gallery, or 'drift,' fol
lowing the surface of the bedrock. The shaft may be off the
line of the maximum concentration — it has been sunk to the
rim of the channel rather than the gutter — and a short drift
will enable the miner to find better stuff. Whether he explore
for richer pay or open out into a beautiful layer of golden

STEAM-POINTS IN PLACE UNDERGROUND,

214 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
sediment, he extends a drift from the bottom of his shaft and
removes the ground by thawing with fire, as he did when sink
ing. The removal of gravel by hand-labor in this manner is
called ' drifting, ' as against methods in whieh water is the prime
agent. The thaw affects only a small patch of ground ; it does not
endanger the worker, who burrows patiently under a hard roof
of frozen gravel. Bit by bit all the gold-bearing dirt within
the boundaries of the claim is excavated and raised to the sur
face, to be washed in the sluice-boxes whenever water is avail
able. This method of working frozen ground by thawing with
wood flres was originated in the Forty-Mile and Circle districts
before the discovery of the Klondike. Even where timber is
cheap, it is more economical to exploit frozen ground in this
way than to operate in thawed gravel.
In the days before Columbus discovered America the ancient
miners of central Europe employed the method known as ' fire-
setting. ' A big wood fire was built close to the face of a level,
and when the rock had become thoroughly heated it was cus
tomary to throw water on the hot surface, causing it to crack.
When thus fractured, the ore was extracted by the further aid
of hammers and wedges. According to Henry Louis, this
method was in use in the Sala mines, in Sweden, as late as 1876,
and in the Kongsberg mines, in Norway, it was employed up
to 1884, when improvements in blasting caused the abandon
ment of the ancient practice. I have seen many a face of an old
level in the Alps, on the border of France and Italy, that was
beautifully concave by reason of the application of this method.
On the other hand, in the copper region of Michigan the coun
try is occasionally covered with a blanket of sand, wash, or
gravel, which must be penetrated before the hard copper-bear
ing rock is reached. Sometimes the shaft breaks into a quick
sand, making further sinking impossible in the ordinary way.
Then artificial freezing is employed ; the wet sand is frozen solid
and kept in this condition long enough to aUow the miners to
make the necessary excavation and timber it securely. Thus
man uses fire and frost, air and steam, wood and iron in his

DEVELOPMENT OF MINING METHODS. 215
subterranean operations, overcoming Nature in one place by
the use of the very force she uses to resist him elsewhere.
Wood fires make smoke. The gases liberated are injurious
to health. In the North, men soon learned to keep away from
the shaft or drift until natural ventilation had purified the air.
At best they had to work in a warm moist atmosphere, for they
had to excavate the rock softened by thawing before it could
freeze again. At the surface the air might be 20° beloAv zero ;
in the mine the conditions simulated a Russian bath.
After the pioneers in the North had used wood fires for
thawing during one Avinter season or more, a clever operator
hit upon the idea of employing steam for the same purpose.
Then the 'steam-point' was introduced. It happened thus : In

//////i/'i'/iiin
AS P<rGRAVEL C .STEAM-POINT B TRACK
SECTION OF A DRIFT MINE.
1898 C. J. Berry discovered that steam could be directed to thaw
frozen earth. The steam escaping from the exhaust of his en
gine had accidentally thawed a hole in the soUd ' muck. ' Berry
noticed this and picked up the exhaust pipe, which was a rub
ber hose. On applying it to the frozen ground he found that
it would thaw the muck so as to penetrate for the fuU length
of the hose within a few minutes. This excited the men who
happened to be watching the experiment. AU of them at once
began to devise a scheme for doing this work effectively. A rifle
barrel was chosen, then a small hole was bored into one side
so as to admit the steam. Thus the 'steam-point' was invented.
In its rudimentary form the steam-point was a short length-
of iron pipe, pointed at one end, and attached to a length of

216

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

[—1^^/'

%

'sTc^thci.

J

/4^

y.Ut

rubber hose, through which steam traveled from a smaU bofler
at the surface. The pointed end of the five or six feet of iron
pipe was inserted into the frozen gravel and driven forward
gently by taps from a hammer, as the ground was softened by
the steam issuing from the orifice at the lower end. As finaUy
developed, the steam-point became a specialized tool of great
efficiency. A solid head was added
to the end that is hammered and a
protecting ring was welded to the
forward end; the shank itself was
made of pipe of the strongest kind,
and armored rubber tubing replaced
the ordinary hose. The length of the
'steam-point' ranges from 6 to 16
feet, the usual size being 8 feet. This
is driven home so as to make a hole
about 6 feet deep. The accompany
ing sketch will illustrate the detafls
%"hi)iTauUt/i;^e of construction. The hole in the steel
head allows for the insertion of a bar,
wherewith the point is turned so as
to aid advance. As the operator hits
the head with a hammer, he turns
the point by means of a bar held in
the other hand.
As used two or three years ago, the
cost of thawing was 25 to 30 cents
per cubic yard. With longer points,
y,fyrl^'-r:n) longer 'sweating,' cheaper fuel, bet
ter system, the cost has been reduced
one half. In a 20-ft. deposit, using
12 to 13-ft. points, it is possible to
thaw 3I/2 to 5 cubic feet per point at each setting.
The efficiency of a point will vary according to the pressure
of steam, the length of the tool itself, the distance between the
points, the time allowed for 'sweating,' and the amount of
moisture in the ground. An effort is made to fix the intervals
between points so that their sphere of influence do not overlap.

^s" ir-l'-

y

'%

>L.tUt

A STEAM-POINT.

STEAM-POINTS IN ACTION UNDERGROUND.

218 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA,
By allowing the steam sufficient time to do its work, the area
affected is increased. This is the 'sweating' stage. As the
amount of humidity, in the form of ice, increases, more steam is
required to overcome the latent cold.
When the steam-point was introduced, the extraction of
gravel from the drift-mines was continued in summer, as well
as winter, and the production of gold proceeded concurrently,
as long as the weather at the surface permitted. The dump
accumulated in winter would freeze before spring, necessitat
ing the employment of steam-points before it could be moved.
Moreover, the boiler erected for the purpose of thaAving was
also used for hoisting. Larger buckets and a bigger scale of
operation became possible.
Thus, the frozen condition of the placers in Alaska and the
Yukon, at first an insurmountable obstacle, proved, in the end,
an aid to mining. To sink a shaft in the creek deposits of a
warm climate means a persistent contest with water, for which
pumps are necessary or a costly drainage system. The loose
ground requires careful timbering. Some of the best portions
of the channel may be unworkable because of an excessive in
flux of water. All this would have checkmated the diggers of
the North in the early days of discovery. Pumps were 1500 to
2000 miles away, heavy timbers were scarcely to be obtained in
most localities, a fight with water would have discouraged men
unused to mining, as were most of those that rushed to Daw
son, Fairbanks, and Nome.
The 'frost,' indeed, was the miner's friend. It enabled him
to sink a shaft even in the bed of the creek ; it permitted him to
dispense with timbering ; it allowed him to burrow with safety
and to follow the layer of golden gravel with impunity under
the ice-bound surface. Moreover, it obviated work on a large
scale. One man could, and sometimes did, work alone, descend
ing the shaft, filling the bucket, ascending to the surface, hoist
ing the load, and so forth. No machinery was needed save the
simplest tools ; no organization was required, beyond a willing
partner; no capital, save muscle.
By the method of 'drifting' only the bottom layer of the
gravel deposit was mined; any gold in the overburden re-

DREDGE NO. 6 OF THE YUKON GOLD COMPANY.

220 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
mained untouched. As all the gold is not concentrated on the
bedrock, or in the five or six feet immediately overlying, this
method entailed waste. It was not complete. Also there was
danger of a collapse of the ground Avhen warm air entered the
mine in summer or by penetration of surface water into the
workings. Thereupon the open-cut method was introduced.
By this system the deposit was worked from the surface down
ward, the ground being removed in successive slices by ' scrap
ers ' pulled by horses or by a steam-engine. The portion rich
enough was taken in wheelbarrows or in a self-dumping bucket
to the sluice-boxes, where the gold was extracted. Thus an
other method became successfully established.
Even this method Avas not applicable everywhere. In wet
ground, in gravel partly thawed, and in the channels of live
streams, neither 'drifting' nor 'open-cut' practice served the
miner's purpose. He had to overcome a new difficulty. And
he did it with the dredge, which had been already applied suc
cessfully in New Zealand and California.
A dredge consists of a bucket-elevator placed upon a barge.
The barge is constructed at the bottom of a pit excavated, by
the use of scrapers and horses, to a depth sufficiently below the
expected water-level to ensure flotation and afford room for
movement. Then the machinery is placed in position on the
barge. As water is admitted, the dredge floats, and when it
starts to work it digs its own way, filling the pit behind as it
advances in the eourse of digging. The digging is effected by
a chain of steel buckets, which excavate the gravel in front and
deliver it to the washing apparatus at the rear of the scow or
pontoon. After the gravel has been washed, it is discharged
by an inclined traveling belt, which throws it sufficiently far
behind the dredge as not to impede flotation or to permit of
the same material being raised again by the buckets. As the
ground is mined, the dredge is advanced forward and side
ways by means of winches and ropes moored to posts on shore.
The machinery is actuated by steam from boilers on the scow
itself or by electric motors obtaining their energy from a
plant at a distance. The hull is from 35 to 40 feet wide, 90
to 125 feet long, and 8 to 10 feet deep. The total weight is

DEVELOPMENT OF MINING METHODS.

221

700 to 800 tons. The buckets have a capacity varying on
different dredges; 5 cubic feet is now deemed small; 7 cubic
feet is common; 13 cubic feet is the maximum, as yet. If the
buckets are of 7-foot capacity and they discharge at the rate
of 23 per minute, the dredge when digging to a depth of
14 to 16 feet wiU handle from 90,000 to 115,000 cubic yards
per month, allowing for unavoidable stoppages and repairs.
The lips of the bucket are reinforced with manganese steel, to
withstand the wear and tear. As they discharge at the upper
end of the 'bucket-ladder,' the gravel falls either into a revolv-

DREDGE ON BONANZA CREEK.

ing screen or upon a shaking table, Avith jets of Avater playing
upon it so as to detach any clay and to facilitate the separa
tion of the gold, whieh falls (through perforations in the screen
or the table) on a series of sluices, provided with gold-saving
devices, such as riffles, matting, and mercury.
Apart from economic conditions, whieh vary all over the
world, the distinctive feature of dredging practice on the Yukon
is the necessity for overcoming the frozen condition of the
ground. This is a geologic frost as distinguished from the

222 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
seasonal frost ; the first is the sequel of a Glacial period, that is,
a time when the summer thaw was unable to overtake the win
ter frost; the second is due merely to winter cold. The seasonal
frost, as measured on ground that has been thawed in summer,
reaches down 3 to 5 feet, but the geologic frost extends to a
depth of 230 feet, if not more, wherever the ground is wet, as
in the valley-bottoms. On the other hand, the warmth of the
short summer, lasting 4 to 41/2 months, will thaw the ground
to a depth of 4 to 7 feet, according to local conditions, the
chief of which is the nature of the surface-covering. In two
seasons the frost in a gravel deposit may be conquered by the
seasonal thaw to a depth of 10 to 22 feet. Even in the coldest
Avinter, such as that of 1905, when the thermometer registered
a minimum temperatude of -71° P., the frost did not overtake
the summer thaAA' — on ground that had been 'stripped' — by
three feet.
The Northland is covered by a blanket of moss and loam
due to the decay of vegetation. This overburden is called
'muck' by the miners because when it melts it runs like thin
mud, for it is composed of 25 to 40% organic matter and 60
to 75% ice. When either the summer sun or artificial heat
strikes this black blanket, it disintegrates and is readily floated
on the running stream. Being a mixture of organic matter and
ice, it makes a perfect insulator against heat, and protects the
underlying frozen ground from the warm air of summer. The
thickness of this frozen muck varies from a few inches to 40
feet, the maximum being in gullies where it has accumulated
by sliding from adjoining hillsides. Two feet is an average
thickness. In summer, it melts ; in winter, it freezes solid.
It is obvious that before the seasonal thaw can become effec
tive, the blanket of moss must be removed. This is done
naturaUy by freshets and by meandering streams; it has been
done systematically both by ground-sluicing and also, much
more rapidly, by hydraulieking. Where time is not an im
mediate factor and where bedrock is not more than 15 feet deep,
a gravel deposit can be thawed to bedrock in two seasons by
simply removing the cover of moss and loam so that the summer
heat may get an opportunity to penetrate. But, on the other

DEVELOPMENT OP MINING METHODS. 223
hand, where dredging operations cannot wait for such a sIoav
method, or bedrock is deeper than 15 feet, or where old Avork-
ings exist, it becomes necessary both to accelerate and to per
fect the thawing process by the aid of artificial methods. This
is done by the application of steam.
By introducing steam into the frozen ground, the ice is
melted ; the more water (that is, ice) there is in the gravel, the
more steam will be consumed in converting water from its solid
to its liquid state. Ice is a non-conductor; rock is relatively a
good conductor ; therefore, the less water the gravel contains,
the more easily is it thawed. The stones retain the heat
imparted to them so as to radiate it slowly into the surrounding
mass. The method of thawing by steam was exemplified on
claim 90 Below Discover}' on Bonanza creek, just above the
No. 6 dredge of the Yukon Gold Co. The plant consists of
three boilers, fired with wood at $8 per cord delivered, the
steam-gauge registering a pressure of 150 pounds. The main
pipe-line is 3^?^ inches in diameter, and is carried within boxes
packed with sawdust as an insulator. All the pipes are wrapped
Avith 'asbestos' covering. The branch pipes approaching the
ground to be thawed (at 300 to 400 feet from the boiler-plant)
are 1% inches, also insulated and boxed. At intervals of 8
feet, openings in the pipe connect through nipples with short
lengths of hose. This hose is % inch diameter, and 17 feet
long ; it must be long enough to reach the heads of the ' steam-
points ' when they are being swung into position, and to alloAV
latitude in twisting the 'points' The 'point' is a steel pipe %
to % inch, made in lengths of 14 to 20 feet, one end of which
is hammered while the other end is being driven into the
ground. The point itself, or advancing end, has an orifice "/is
inch, and through this the steam enters the ground. By the
time the steam reaches the place where it escapes into the
gravel the pressure has sunk to 25 pounds per square inch.
In starting a point it is customary to take a 114-inch steel
bar and drive it down with an 8-pound sledge-hammer until
frozen ground is struck; then the steam-point itself is intro
duced, the bar having been withdrawn. The top or head of
the point is pounded by one man with a 4-pound hammer, and

22J. THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
at the same time a twist is imparted by a Avrench held by
another man. This is done at intervals as the ground is softened
by thawing, the man in charge proceeding from one 'point' to
another, in rotation. The rate of thaw is about two feet per
hour. If the point refuses to sink, it is alloAved to rest for a
Avhile, and then if no progress can be made in the usual way, it
is inferred that an obstruction, such as a boulder, exists. The
steam-pipe is puUed out of the hole with the aid of a lifting-
jack and a solid steel bar is introduced; this is then hammered
Avith a sledge so as to penetrate the obstruction or push it aside.
If the incompetence of the steam-point is due to the clogging
of the orifice through which the steam is emitted, this is fol
lowed by condensation at the head, as indicated by chilling of
the pipe, and also by listening for the flow of steam through
the hose. I noted that frozen ground Avas struck in most
cases at six feet, this being the depth to Avhich the seasonal
thaw had progressed after the moss had been removed.
In this manner the ground is softened and made ready for
dredging. The thawed ground will remain warm for a month,
but it is not advisable to apply steam-points too far ahead of
the dredge, lest the material should freeze again when the
Aveather becomes wintry, nor to dig into the ground until the
artificial heat has been fully expended.
Space does not permit, nor the occasion Avarrant, a detailed
description of the process of dredging. Let me take you aboard
the No. 6 dredge of the Yukon Gold Co. for a few minutes. It
is doing Avell; crunching, groaning, and squeaking in the throes
of laborious exertion, the machinery is digging into the gravel
Avith relentless power and raising the gold-bearing dirt into
the big revolving screen, where the pebbles make a great roar
as they are carried a quarter turn before being ejected upon
the rubber belt of the conveyor. This carries the boulders,
pebbles, and roots to the pile of reject in the rear. You can
climb to the extreme end of the 'stacker' or conveyor and
watch the reject issuing from the interior of the dredge in a
steadj' stream. Then go to the winch-room and note how a
single man controls the huge mechanism by means of a few
levers ; there the vibration and straining of the dredge have a

THAWING WITH STEAM-POINTS AHEAD OF A DREDGE.

226

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

meaning, expressing the energy expended in digging the gravel
of the creek and the power consumed in moving the gold-bear
ing material through various stages of treatment. The observer
wiU be impressed at first with the tremendous strain incident
to the operation, and then he will begin to share the confldenee
of the dredge-master who knows that his machine was designed
to overcome all and any of the obstacles presented from moment
to moment and from day to day.
We saw the clean-up, no less than $10,500 being collected as
the result of 44 hours work, or at the rate of 85 cents per cubic
yard, at a cost of 25 cents per yard. This was better than the
average, but it indicated a profitable type of mining.

A HOME IN THE NORTH.

CHAPTER XXI.
ON BONANZA CREEK.
On June 21 at Dawson, which is in latitude 64° north, the
sun sets at 11 p.m. and rises at 1 a.m. As seen from a height
(sueh as the Moosehide Dome) the sun disappears below the
horizon, but the rays do not become extinguished, so that direct
sunlight is appreciable even at midnight. At the close of De
cember the sunshine lasts only from 10 : 30 in the morning to
2 : 30 in the afternoon and the light is feebly actinic. Artificial
illumination is used during 20 hours, yet, owing to reflection
from the snow, no inky darkness supervenes, the black nights
being those that precede the winter before the snow has cov
ered the ground. During July it was never dark enough at
any time to reveal the stars, but in the first week of August I
saw them again at Fort Gibbon, like the face of a friend. To
emphasize the quality of the light up to a late hour in mid
summer, I can state that on July 19 I heard a surveyor com
plain that at 11 : 30 on the previous night he had been unable
to see the cross-hairs in his telescope — half an hour before mid
night ! The long day enables work to proceed throughout the
24 hours and it turns the short season of 4 to 4I/2 months into
a period of intense activity. The air and the light both favor
continued exertion; men lose the habit of sleep, and, like
bears, postpone arrears of slumber until the hibernating season.
To those unaccustomed to these conditions, the difficulty of ex
cluding the brilliant daylight from a bedroom, bunk, or tent
at 10 or 11 o'clock at night prevents restful sleep. Dawson is
quiet until 10 or 11 in the morning; the best time for business
engagements is after the conventional dinner-hour, in the even
ing. Those who have lived in the North for many years tell me.

228 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
as one might expect, that the habitual disregard of regular
hours for sleep affects the nerves; but to the visitor, it is dif
ferent; to be wide awake, mentally and physically, to feel the
exhilaration of an air as of the morning of Time, and to receive
the stimulus of an atmosphere charged with ozone is to realize
the difference between man and a vegetable.
The fact that Dawson is no longer on the ragged edge of
civilization was emphasized by the sight of two automobiles.
One of them belonged to 0. B. Perry, the consulting engineer
of the Yukon Gold Company. With him I made several runs
up the creeks over the corduroy roads. Never seemed the
wilderness so vanquished as when we careered rapidly over
ground impassable a few years ago to vehicular traffic of any
kind. The machine was a Peerless three-cylinder roadster,
specially designed in body and equipment for local conditions.
It seated four persons. The body was made narrow, and stiff
ened by being built entirely of oak and aluminum. Gasoline
sells for 90 cents per gallon, while hay costs $91 per ton, so
that the motor consumes less money per mile than the horse.
Time is worth more than either; to the engineer directing
work in widely separated localities some mode of swift trans
port is essential, and the most rapid is the most economical.
Under the guidance of George T. Coffey, I visited the work
ings of the mines situated on the bench or terrace of gravel
called the White Channel, which is 195 feet above the surface
of Bonanza creek. Into these hillslopes the gold-seekers dug,
making a warren of activity during 1898 and 1899. Men,
singly and in partnership, drove tunnels into the gravel and
extracted the gold-bearing portion by thawing with wood-fires
and steam-points ; then, using pick and shovel, they brought the
'dirt' to daylight in wheelbarrows that were discharged near
the sluice-boxes. Feverish was their haste, for over many of
them hung, like a sword of Damocles, the fear of insecurity of
title ; some desired to clean-up in a hurry and go home, others
were possessed with the gluttony of work, or were spurred by
a greed that knew no limit.
But when I saw Cheeehako hill' on a July evening in 1908,
all was peaceful. No one was at Avork. Before me stretched an

230 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
unassertive topography: rounded hills and gently sloping val
leys, devoid of rocky outcrops, green with rank grass and berry
bushes, the purple patches of wild flower merging into the blue
of the far horizon. A straight line of weather-beaten flume, the
big scar of a hydraulic mine, a few drab dumps in the gufly,
one or two neglected cabins, the winding road — only these sug
gested the irruption of man into the peaceful wild.
The "purple patches of wild flower" in the preceding para
graph refer to the pink fireweed or angustifolium, which grows
AA'herever bush-fires have passed. This 'fireweed' is the char
acteristic flower of the Par North and makes brilliant splashes
of color in the monotonous dark green of Arctic verdure. Yet,
like the 'barrens' of the Labrador and the moors of Nova
Scotia, the Alaskan wilderness is rich in bushes that yield
edible berries. Raspberries and blueberries are plentiful, also
red currant, str aAvber ries, and salmon-berry {tubus spectabilis).
But labor is so costly that each one must pick his own dessert.
Canned raspberries will be supplied at road-houses and in
camps when the neighboring hillsides are burdened with a bet
ter fruit, but it is cheaper to serve the canned variety that has
been transported 2000 miles than to pay a boy to gather the
berries. Similar improvidence is suggested by the fact that
on the steamboats they serve canned salmon within hearing of
the splash made by magnificent fish of the same variety in the
river alongside.
In Skookum gulch, where the gravel had been removed and
the bedrock exposed, we saw tusks of the mastodon, 12 to 15
feet long, lying white and bare ; also horns of the buffalo and
musk ox, Avashed from under the tundra in the intermediate
transverse gullies. On enquiry, it was ascertained that in the
gold-bearing gravel the miners found the tusks of the mam
moth, as well as the skulls and jawbones of the mastodon and
the musk ox. In the White Channel no such remains have been
discovered, suggesting that the bench deposit is of Pliocene
age, or older than the creek gravel enclosing the mammalian
relics. The bones are frequently seen scattered on the bedrock
of abandoned mining claims; teeth of the mammoth weighing
20 pounds apiece were on exhibition in Dawson, as well as

232 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
tusks 8% to 9% feet long and 6 inches in diameter. It is re
lated that on Hunker creek when thawing the gravel the steam
acting on this pre-historic cemetery caused an awful stench.
Stories of the mammoth, and mammoth stories, abound in
Alaska. At least three authenticated cases are recorded of the
finding of portions of the hair and the hide, with the bones, of
the big beast, but no whole body has been found. The hope of
such a find is based on the fact that a mammoth was found
encased in the ice of the morass bordering the Lena river in
Siberia and the carcass was extricated, skinned, and stuffed;
it is now an exhibit in the Museum of Natural History at St.
Petersburg and constitutes one of the great curiosities of the
world. The mammoth flourished 25,000 years ago, and the
body found had been in cold storage for centuries. The interior
of Alaska was not covered by the great ice sheet of the Glacial
period, the small precipitation preventing, and thus failed to
provide means for preserving the remains of a time when man
was beginning to assert himself in the scheme of creation.
Returning to Cheeehako hill, and examining the foreground
of the view, I saw traces of the frenzied men who dug eagerly
for gold and gophered the hill with their tunnelings. Tools
lay scattered in reckless abandonment: picks that must have
cost from $10 to $20, that is, from half an ounce to an ounce
of gold, saws that are worth even now $6 at Dawson, nails that
were bought at $100 per keg; car-wheels, wheelbarrows, and
other implements of mining — all these were rusting on the
wet ground and suggested something of the extravagance of
the 'early' days.
At that period Grand Porks, the little settlement at the
junction of Eldorado and Bonanza creeks, was a pandemonium
of drunken debauchery, where a successful miner would spend
as much as $2000 in a single night, ordering 'drinks' (that is,
pints of champagne) for two or three women at a time and
telling the waiter to subtract the required amount of 'dust'
from the small moose-leather sack, called a 'poke,' in which
the gold was carried. The owners of mines passed the night
in drinking and dancing, sleeping in the day-time, while 'lay
men' on their claims Avere digging the money for these pro-

FLAT CREEK, A TRIBUTARY OF THE KLONDIKE.

234 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
tracted sprees. Miners were paid $15 per shift of 10 hours;
thus a shift was worth the price of a pint of champagne, a re
lation suggestion that the crude political economy of the mining
camp has an ' index number ' of its own. Another unit was the
cost of mining per yard : the output of a man engaged in drift
ing or open-cutting with pick and shovel averaged 5 cubic
yards per shift, so that, includiog miscellaneous expenses, it
was not profitable to exploit ground yielding less than $3 per
cubic yard.
All the best ground on the rich creeks had been located be
fore the 'rush' arrived. Late in 1896 and during the ensuing
winter the miners of Circle City and Forty-Mile arrived and
secured claims, so that by the end of 1897 fully 500 of the old
settlers had planted their stakes. When the crowd arrived
from the 'outside' in the spring of 1898, and in the summer
following, they found themselves too late. Many of them
went home immediately, disillusioned and disgusted. A few
that had seen something of mining, among whom were experi
enced men from California and Australia, persisted in their
search and found the bench gravels that had been overlooked
by those who came first upon the ground.
Englishmen and Americans are prone to compare the
methods of government under their respective flags, and while
I was at Dawson I took pains to interview a few thoughtful
Americans in the hope of eliciting their opinions concerning
the local administration. In the main the verdict is favorable ;
at the present time the Yukon is efficiently and honestly gov
erned, although when the gold excitement was at its height
there was some corruption ; that was inevitable. From the win
ter of 1898 to 1903 there was jobbery in the Administration
building, and a law had to be passed forbidding government
employees to hold claims. After that the officials used go-
betweens, but carefuUy. If a fraction was found to exist be
tween claims, by reason of careless staking, and if then this
vacant ground was located and the locator went to the Re
corder, he was likely to be told that the ground had already
been located ; thereupon someone was tipped to go to the creek
and plant his stakes, unless a half-interest was given by the

ON BONANZA CREEK.

235

locator to some of the friends of the corrupt official. Blanket
concessions also provoked resentment. In 1902 Treadgold ap
plied for a concession of all claims reverting to the Crown in
the entire Klondike district, undertaking to install a compre
hensive water system in return, but, after the lease had been
actually signed by the Minister of the Interior a public meeting

THE PROSPECTOR AND HIS ROCKER.

was eaUed at Dawson and the indignation expressed led to the
canceUation of the agreement. Nor did Treadgold sue the
Government. In '97 and '98 the impression prevafled among the diggers
that the Government would not renew the leases for another
year, it being expected that the claims would be reduced from
500 feet to 100 feet square, as was done in the Cariboo district.

236 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
This made them anxious to get out what gold they could before
anything happened, for it was known that an Order in Council
could modify the local regulations at short order. This fear
led to reckless methods, which, coupled with the high cost of
transport on supplies and equipment, made the cost of mining
most extravagant. Freight was 25 cents per pound. Thus the
claim known as No. 2 Above on Bonanza yielded $800,000 be
tween 1898 and 1902, yet only 37% per cent in dividends was
paid on a capital of $400,000. If worked 10 years later — in
1908 — ^when freight was 1 cent per pound and ordinary labor
$5 instead of $15 per shift, the profit would have been $600,000.
Of the claim-holders on the rich creeks fully two-thirds
were American citizens from the old camps down the Yukon;
moreover, after the rush there were 60,000 people in the dis
trict, and only two rich creeks to divide among them ; thus, any
sub-division of claims would have been popular among the dis
gruntled majority. When Ogilvie talked about the marvelous
richness of the deposits, the Canadian authorities proposed a
royalty of 20 per cent on the gold output, but there arose such
a howl from the diggers that the impost was placed at 10
per cent on the gross value up to 1901, with an exemption of
the first $5000. Later the exaction was reduced to an export
tax of 2% per cent, which is now deducted by the banks when
they purchase the gold.
The Government is generous, and wisely so. Foreigners
have the same privileges as Canadians; no license to mine is
necessary, every one having the rights of a 'free miner.' Not
even during the corrupt period was there any discrimination
against Americans, much as they feared it. On the whole, the
administration of law and order is greatly to the credit of
Ogilvie, of the other Commissioners who succeeded him, and of
the Mounted Police, for all of them underwent the severest
trial of all, namely, the vision of much gold and the chance
to get rich quickly. We shall see that at Nome the temptation
proved too much and that anarchy ensued.
The administration of the Yukon Territory is vested in a
Council, headed by a Commissioner, who is the representative
of the Dominion government. Six commissioners have held

ON BONANZA CREEK.

237

office since 1898, the first being Ogilvie. There is no specified
term of office, the appointraent coming at the hands of the
Premier of Canada. The salary is $12,000, and extras. The
Council is half elective and half appointive, the latter being
usually local officials. As the Council ean act only on the initia
tive of the Commissioner, and no money can be voted except
at his suggestion, the Government at Ottawa is in practical
control. It is not representative government, but it is more
nearly that than the spoils system by which Alaska gets judges
nominated by poUtical bosses in Montana and North Dakota.
The Commissioners have been men of character, even though

ON THE A^ALDEZ TRAIL IN WINTER.

some of them were occasionally bespattered with political mud.
Crude 'graft' has been absent, but during election time the
Commissioner has been known to increase the force on road-
repairs in order to get votes. The Gold Commissioner — and, by
the way, the title of Commissioner is worked to death — is the
most important of the subordinate officers, for it is his duty to
interpret the mining regulations, except in so far as appeal
may be raade to the courts. At one tirae this functionary
held a court for petty offences connected with raining, the cases
being decided forthwith on their merits without excessive tech
nicalities. Now all sueh matters go to the Territorial Court,
which becoraes a Suprerae Court when the three judges sit in
full bench. The Gold Commissioner also is appointed at

238 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Ottawa. Three men have held this office successively. In the
first years, 1897 and 1898, there was crookedness among the
subordinate officials in the Gold Commissioner's department,
notably in the Recorder's office. Men having claims to record
were refused grants because the ground was stated to be not
open for location, although it actually was vacant, but it was
desired to give the friends or accomplices of the Recorder a
chance to locate first. It was the custom also to give women
the right of way at the Recorder's wicket, and this led to col
lusion, particularly through the agency of the loose women
who then infested the town. Mass meetings were held to voice
the public indignation, and as soon as communication was es
tablished with Ottawa these wrongs were righted, the Gold
Coraraissioner then in power was reraoved, and such perforra-
anees have not been repeated. At no other time was there a
real break-down in the system of local government.
The judges are appointed for life and receive good salaries,
from $10,000 to $12,000 a year, besides perquisites. Men of
high character are selected and hold office during good be
havior. The prosecuting attorney or Crown Prosecutor is ap
pointed by the Dominion Government, for life and good be
havior. He is apt to be one of the leading legal practitioners
in the locality. He is paid by fees, not by salary,' rendering
his bill to the Departraent of Justice at Ottawa. In an Ameri
can raining district the District Attorney is usually a small
politician, and the people are likely to be represented by a
second-rate lawyer, while the criminal engages the cleverest
member of the profession. The Territorial Judges are paid by
the Department of Justice at Ottawa ; thus they are independ
ent of local sentiment.

CHAPTER XXII.
THE YUKON DITCH.
The raost important work of engineering connected with the
exploitation of the golden gravels of the Klondike and its
tributary creeks is the construction of the Yukon ditch. This
system of pipe,. ditch, and flume has a total length of 70 mfles.
It was my good fortune to observe the building of this conduit,
which brings the turbulent waters of the Tombstone river over
hill and vale to the diggings near Dawson. In company with
Messrs. 0. B. Perry, C. A. Thomas, Scott Turner, and W. P.
Copeland, I rode to a nuraber of points, affording examples of
types of construction, difficulties of the work, and the charac
ter of the life in camp.
Several scheraes for bringing water under pressure to the
placer raines on Bonanza and Hunker creeks have been consid
ered during the last five years. One of these involved the use
of the water flowing in the Klondike river, but it was ascer
tained by survey that the low gradient of that stream would
necessitate a ditch fully 85 railes long and an expenditure of
about $7,000,000. A. N. C. Treadgold, the promoter of the
enterprise now known as the Yukon Gold Co., raade surveys
along the tributary streams floAving into the Klondike and the
Yukon from the north. Finally, he applied for a right of way
for a ditch to tap the head of the Twelve-Mile river. This
enters the Yukon 18 railes below Dawson, and has its source
in the Tombstone range, a part of the Ogilvie raountains, which
rise to an altitude of 7000 feet, and gather sufficient snow to
furnish a constant supply of water. It was estiraated that a
ditch and pipe-line to the raines near Dawson, with a capacity
of 125 cubic feet per second, delivering water under a head of

240 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
350 feet, would be 70 miles long and would cost $3,000,000. It
has cost over this araount up to the present time, and will
require a further expenditure of $500,000. The total distance
between the head of the ditch and Gold hill, the point of distri
bution, is 70.2 miles, the difference in elevation between these
points being 1112.8 feet. The effective head along Bonanza
creek, in the vicinity of Gold hill, is 375 feet. The construction
includes 19.6 railes of flurae, 38 railes of ditch, and 12.6 miles
of pipe. Owing to the nature of the ground traversed, it has
been necessary to modify the size and gradient of the ditch
according to local conditions, but the standard is a 9-foot
bottom, with 3i/^-foot depth of water, and a gradient of 6 feet
per raile, ranging from a rainiraura of 4 to a raaxiraura of 7
feet per mile. In places the ditch is fully 20 feet wide. The
standard flume is 6 feet wide and 4 feet deep, with a gradient
of 0.2841% or 14 feet per raile. The pipe varies according to
the engineering requireraents and is variously built of steel and
wooden staves, so as to have a diaraeter ranging frora 42 to 54
inches. Wherever practicable the water is conducted by ditch, for
that is the cheapest and most durable conduit. A ditch is neces
sarily dependent upon the contour of the surface ; where depres
sions exist, a long detour is saved by building either a flume
or pipe. If the depresison is a deep ravine or a broad valley,
it becomes impossible to construct a flurae, and recourse is
had to a pipe in U-forra (forraing a so-called inverted siphon),
the loss of effective head being measured by the friction between
the water and the sides of the pipe.
The country traversed by this ditch is a rolling woodland
indented by the alluvial flats of the Klondike, the Twelve-Mile,
and other strearas flowing into the Yukon river. As seen frora
a height the wilderness stretches unbroken from the mean
dering shimraer of the Klondike, enclosed within high banks
on which white scars mark bench-diggings, to the Ogilvie
range, where, far to the north, the snow still lingers in token
of the gift of water that shall enable raan to win the gold from
the deposits of gravel strewing the tortuous valleys. The engi
neer who first planned the line of flume, ditch, and pipe had

THE YUKON DITCH.

241

that kind of constructive imagination Avhieh is the creative
force behind all engineering work. He imagined the deed done,
and then he calmly began to calculate hoAv to accomplish it.

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THE TOMBSTONE RIVER AT THE INTAKE.
As viewed frora afar the panorama of wooded valleys and the
distant ranges serving as a water-shed, afford no suggestion of
the natural obstacles to be overcome, but a closer acquaintance
soon demonstrates that the forest is but a scant growth of
242 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
smafl trees, just fit for telephone poles, not big enough to yield
luraber, struggling to assert a stunted life amid the vast morass
covering the face of the land. A wet blanket of moss mantles
the ground, whieh is held in the grasp of a perpetual frost.
Under the moss is ice; the moss forms an insulating blanket
so that even the short warm suraraer does not thaw the frozen
ground lying beneath this dark green coverlet. In places the
ice raelts slightly and pools of water form. Everywhere the
surface is Avet and sloppy. Our horses splashed through it.
We stumbled over the spongy mass. It is a dismal swamp,
which becomes almost impassable when torn by traffic. Wher
ever a trail was worn by use, it became a quagmire, and it was
best to turn our horses to the untrodden moss alongside; in
this their feet Avould sink only to a depth of 6 or 8 inches, for
beloAV that Avas the frozen ground; but where, in places, the
moss was cut and Avorn aAva.v, the thaw had reached deep
enough to make progress impossible. And these conditions
obtained not only on the flats, but on the slopes. The water is
held by the moss, so that even over an undulating topography
there are no running streams.
In returning, Scott Turner and I took a short cut, leaving
the main road and following a bridle path that ran across
country by the side of the ' pole-line ', that is, the wire of electric
transmission. The trail ascended a hill that would be deeraed
steep under any conditions, but being covered with wet moss it
seemed like the side of a house. The tundra had been trodden
by the hoofs of horses and was soggy, pools of water enclosed
by moss hung to the slanting surface, and when half-way it
seemed as foolish to advance as to retreat. Fortunately neither
the horse nor the rider laboriously leading him sank beyond
a liraited depth, which was fixed by the underlying frozen
ground, so that a footing was obtained even in the worst spots.
The incident is related in order to eraphasize the fact that the
steepness of hillsides does not suffice to drain the ground, the
water from the thawed surface being held as by a sponge
within the covering of moss.
In preparing to build the ditch, the first step was to place
a saAV-mill on the TAvelve-Mile river, and thus to obtain the

THE YUKON DITCH.

243

lumber for construction. Then an electric generating plant Avas
erected, and the wires were strung on poles for 36 miles, trans
mitting power from the Little Twelve-Mile river to Bonanza
creek. While this was being done, surveys for the ditch were
hastened. As soon as the surveys were completed, the right-of-
way Avas cleared. The small growth of forest was removed,
and the moss stripped from the frozen ground for a width of
one chain (22 yards). Then steam-shovels were put to work,
and while they were digging the ditch, the saw-mill on the
Twelve-Mile .Aielded the lumber needed for the construction of
the flume and for other purposes. Seven million feet (board

FINISHING THE DITCH.

measure) of lumber was cut; this depleted th.e small forest
in the vicinity, but it proved sufficient.
Without the steam-shovel it would have been hardly possible
to dig the ditch in an econoraical manner, for manual labor at
$4 per day, plus board at $2, or a total of $6 per day, is a costly
instrument of engineering. Six shovels were employed. These
raade the cut, which was then beveled by hand, to be followed
bv the laying of raoss on the sloping sides, Avith a little fine
dirt as a finishing touch.
Roads of the corduroy type have been constructed, moss
being laid on the poles and dirt on the moss. The trails traverse
the brush in straight lines. Horses and men, steam and muscle.

244 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
have fought against the wilderness and subdued it. The big
ditch looks like a Panama canal, and the steam-shovels groan
ing and digging in the deep cuts recall pictures of Culebra.
Many of the laborers had worked on the Isthmian canal, and
assuredly the young engineers were as proud of the work they
were accomplishing as if it were a national or even an inter
national enterprise. The wildemess that had lain in shivering
silence for untold ages, responsive only to the footfall of the
moose and the caribou, hearing only the voice of the streara
and the crash of the terapest, has been invaded to the very
threshold of the Arctic by insistent man, determined to use
Nature to his purpose, to overcorae her obstacles by turning
her own energy and her own power to his good in the quest
for gold.
While riding to various points of interest and noting the
progress of the work, I had an excellent opportunity of viewing
this Northern land as it looks before it is scarred and disfig
ured by the encroachments of civilization. The dominant
feature is spaciousness ; it is a land of magnificent distances.
Standing on the top of any of the higher ridges the landscape
is impressive rather than beautiful, and splendid because it is
vast; the shadows of swiftly moving clouds sweep over the
green slopes, the air is still, the undulating forest is unruffled,
and a great repose broods over nature as at the dawn of crea
tion. It is a primeval wilderness ; man and his handiwork are
lost in the immensity of the setting, the only suggestion of his
invasion being the white dots of tents, the slight scar of the
ditch belting a hill, and the undeviating line of poles carrying
the wire wherewith the engineer harnesses the torrent to his
bidding. There is no sound; every footfall is muffled by the
moss; no birds sing, no insects are heard, even the predatory
mosquito attacks in silence. That multiplicity of life, of insect,
bird, and beast, whieh raakes the tropics intensely alive, is
absent in the region bordering the Arctic Circle. Only at the
noon hour or in the evening we heard the whistle of a steara-
shovel, its little call to rest and food being instantly swallowed
in the vast stillness. There was no echo. Approaching Lepine
creek where pipe-joints were being raade, there came a cheerful

ASSEMBLING STAVE-PIPE ON THE LINE OF THE YUKON DITCH.

246 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
sound of crimping and rivetting, reminding the citizen of San
Francisco of the re-building of his ruined city and of Charles
Field's lines: "From mighty roots ot concrete deep
The giant flowers spring from sleep
Along the barren highways of the city of my love."
Our short sojourns at the camps were most pleasant; the
food was excellent and the keen interest taken by the raembers
of the engineer staff in anything relating to their work, or to
mining generally, prorapted many interesting conversations.
The men in charge were young, the chiefs of divisions being
about 30, even the general manager and consulting engineer
had only seen 33 years, and anyone over 40 was rare. Most
of these intelligent and energetic young fellows were graduates
of universities and schools of mines; the consulting engineer
came frora Colurabia, the raanager from Stanford ; among other
universities Harvard, California, and Michigan were repre
sented ; if Stanford had the lion 's share of appointments no one
complained, for the manager Avas a famous football player
from Palo Alto.
Among raany pleasant evenings I remember best the one
spent at the camp on Lepine ridge. The sun set in golden
curtains, and day lingered so long that at 10 o'clock we were
still playing quoits with horseshoes. When it was time to
sleep it still seemed too early despite the exertions of the day.
The camp commanded a fine view, looking toward the Twelve-
Mile valley and the Ogilvie range. In the west the clouds are
still edged with glowing light; against this background the
mountains stand sflhouetted in sculptured masses of deep
purple ; in the middle distance stretches a trackless expanse
of rolling woodland from which rises a thin wreath of sraoke —
not the incense frora an altar, but the exhaust of a steara-shovel,
marking the farthest outpost of industrial conquest, and near
it is seen the line of pipe and ditch, becoming a mere thread
in the gathering twilight. As the brief night approaches even
these traces of man's doings are lost in the boundless wfld,
and the scene loses a jarring note. A pearly light suffuses the

WOODEN STAVE PIPE-LINE.

PIPE CROSSING THE KLONDIKE.

248

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

wilderness, the band of clear amber on the horizon fades into
the pale flawless blue of the arching sky, in which even now no
stars are visible. In the farthest distance the serrated moun
tains are shrouded in a night mist, and from the valley coraes
the faint voice of the river. Peaceful and vast is the picture.
Thus it raust have been at the beginning when the Creator
brooded over His handiwork, before the footfall of man's on
coming had been heard, before bird sang or flower grew, while
as yet the earth was fresh from the making, and strife had not
begun.

CHAPTER XXIII.
FROM DAWSON TO FAIRBANKS.
On July 28 at 11 p.m. we left Dawson on the Lavelle Young,
and in a few minutes we were gliding northward on the full
flood of the Yukon, whose silvery waters caught the glow of a
twilight that joined the beauty of the sunset with the promise
of the dawn. The next morning, just beyond Forty-Mile, we
crossed into Alaska, the boundary being indicated by a clear
ing 20 feet wide cut straight through the bush with undeviating
line. We were once more in American territory. The scenery
continued monotonous: on one side a headland; on the other,
flat high bank and low shore alternated as the river followed
its sinuous channel to the sea. Eagle, one of the pioneer settle
ments, is interesting on account of its association with Jack
McQuesten, a hero of the days when starvation threatened the
widely scattered band of adventurers in the northern wild.
The old store, marked McQuesten & Co., belongs to the North
em Commercial Co., and over it looms tall and spare the tower
of the wireless telegraph station, indicating that this, one of
the oldest mining camps in Alaska, is at last in touch with the
outside world. Here an Army post has been established. The
next port of call was Circle City, another old settlement, de
riving its name from the supposition that it stood on the Arctic
Circle, which is still several miles north. Just below Circle the
Yukon widens into the Flats, a dreary stretch of sand-bars and
swampy islands.
Early next morning we crossed and re-crossed the Arctic
Circle, that iraaginary line whieh runs around the earth at the
latitude of 66° 33' north. At 8 a.m. on July 30 we called at
Port Yukon, which is 8 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and I

250 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
wrote a few letters to friends to tell them that "we change our
skies but not our hearts." The settlement noAv called Fort
Yukon is a few miles below the old Hudson's Bay post, founded
in 1847 ; it is a river station for those going to the Koyukuk
mining district, the centre of which is Bottles, 150 railes by trail
northAvard. Below this "farthest north" of the Yukon, the
river swings southwestward and opens into a continuation of
the Flats — a raonotonous scenery. The smoke from forest fires
smothered the landscape, and Ave were not surprised to pass a
new settlement labeled Purgatory.
The voyage is punctuated by frequent halts for 'Avooding-
up, ' the term given to the process whereby fuel is transferred
frora shore to boiler-roora. Thus two hours are consumed each
day, for the Latwlle Young burns 26 cords of wood in 24 hours.
She is 140 feet long, 32 feet in the beam, and draAvs 3 feet of
water. The current of the Yukon between DaAA^son and the
Tanana averages 414 railes per hour and by the aid of it the
stearaer covers 15 to 16 railes per hour. Prom Dawson to
Forty-Mile the current attains a velocity of 6 miles per hour.
Here are the distances and the time made by the Lavelle Young ;
someday the.A' will be interesting, although today thej^ are not :
Miles. Hours.
Dawson to Forty-Mile  54 31/2
Forty-Mile to Eagle  54 3%
Eagle to Circle  165 lOVi;
Circle to Fort Yukon  80 6
Fort Yukon to Rampart  225 13%
Rampart to Tanana  75 5^4
Prom the captain I learned that skilful navigation on the
Yukon is unlike the kingdom of Heaven, for it "coraeth by
observation. ' ' and not by charts. The channel is changing con
tinually, owing to the underraining of the banks by the ice and
the shifting of the current. How rapidly the banks are under
cut is indicated by the fact that wood-piles placed 50 to 60
feet frora the edge are now, only two months later, close to the
water, while on the opposite shore the river is depositing silt
Avith compensating rapidity. At one place on the Yukon Flats
the river had encroached 125 feet up to the end of July; at

FROM DAWSON TO FAIRBANKS.

251

another place on this river about 50 miles beloAv Tanana, col
umns of frozen earth fully 100 feet high are constantly being
loosened from the bank ; these tough frozen masses gradually
incline forward as they become undermined by the current,
until finally they fall into the water with a splash tbat would
endanger even the largest boat on the river. On the Koyukuk
these masses detached frora the bank contain enough ice to float
on the stream and enough soil to bear standing trees ; thus they

ARRIVING AT EAGLE.

constitute veritable floating islands. Capt. Gray tells me that
he has seen thera as long as 150 feet, drawing 9 feet of Avater.
Hence the particular difficulty of piloting vessels of even shal-
loAv draft in this part of the Yukon ; hence also a special pilot
comes aboard at Circle City, taking the boat in hand as far as
Fort Yukon. To overcome the dangers due to shoals the steam
ers are built in the forra of mere skiraraing dishes ; for example,
the Koyul-uk. which runs 520 miles up the river of that name,
is 24 feet Avide and 120 feet long, she is made of inch boards

252 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
on the sides and 1%-ineh stuff on the bottora. When empty she
draws 6 inches forward and 10 inches aft, when her boiler is
full of water she draws 10 inches forward, and when loaded
with 60 tons of freight her draft is 21 inches only. The Lavelle
Young, on which we traveled, had a history : she was originally
designed as a scow for a dredge which some Colurabia river
pflots purposed placing on the Koyukuk. Under her own steam
she was taken from Portland to St. Michael, where a fancy
price was offered for her in 1898, the dredging scheme being
abandoned in favor of the assured gains of river traffic; thus
the Lavelle Young was chartered for passenger and freight busi
ness on the rivers of Alaska. She has three main rudders each
12 feet long and two monkey-rudders each 8 feet long. No sur
vey has been made of the river, so that all the pilot has to aid
him is a track chart prepared by himself or the captain, record
ing the course with regard to prorainent objects. The points
on the river are naraed after the wood-yards or the camps of
Indian traders. A slough will be christened with the name of
a steamboat that made a mistake and roosted there for a raonth
or SO; sand-bars are named after boats that got into trouble
upon them ; thus a haphazard nomenclature is evolved.
At 1 p.m. of July 31 we reached the confluence of the Tanana
and the Yukon, the meeting of river-trails being marked by a
settleraent having three naraes — Tanana, Fort Gibbon, and
Weare. An Army post is here established, two companies of
the Twenty-Second regiment being in quarters. The vfllage
stretches along the right bank of the Yukon and consists of
many saloons, several large mercantile stores, and the barracks ;
at the northern end of the settlement a dozen tents along the
river bank are occupied by prospectors, about to proceed up
the Innoko, Koyukuk, and other strearas offering a golden lure.
It is a pity that the coraing and going of these nomads is not
recorded, together with information concerning their finds and
the conditions observed on the various creeks; they seem to
follow each other in a shiftless manner, one party going where
only the season before another party had tested the ground
without success. They suggest a pitiful waste of energy and
time, as well as knowledge.

PROM DAAVSON TO FAIRBANKS. 253
A dull day ended in a wonderful night, ushered by a re
splendent sunset. The wretched little steamer moving to the
irregular rhythm of the paddle-wheel at the stern was without
a nautical curve in her design or a glimraer of poetry in her
appearance, but when I stood in the pilot-house beside Capt.
C. A. Boerner while he steered his vessel into the gateway of
the sun, we entered a veritable realm of enchantment. The
vessel is gliding forward on the swift broad current, no sound

CAMP ON THE INNOKO.
is heard save the ripple of the parted wave and the deep breath
ing of the engine; we are hastening into the sunset mirrored
in the shining water, but we come no nearer to the splendor,
which beckons ahead. A headland throws a pyramidal reflec
tion across our path ; we cross it with silver rippling ; the low
dim land on either side fringes the river with mystery, while
far and faint a single mountain peak in the heart of the wild
stands sentinel. An island is passed, and yet another, before
the boat enters a broad sheet of radiant water. The sunset,
still ahead, glorifles the way. Only a purple headland separates
the splendor sailing in the sky from the beauty swiraraing in
the wave. A wind, balray as the breath of spring, is wafted

254 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
from the south ; the frozen land has surrendered to the stainless
glory of the moraent, and the ineffable beauty that looks down
upon the sleeping wilderness.
They say that those who have lived raore than a year with
in the interior of Alaska suffer a nostalgia that knows no cure
save the return to the land they love ; they feel the pull of a
raagnet that draws them frora the busy haunts of raen back to
the lonesorae outposts of the North. It is the love of the sailor
for the sea, of the raountaineer for the peaks, of the prospector
for the desert. If the briefest of sojourns in Alaska may permit
of a true impression and a touch of sympathy with the home
sickness of the Alaskan, I would impute the haunting charm
of the country to the spaciousness, the untrammeled life, the
freedora from restraint, the old ineradicable Adam that loves
to be his own master as in the days before the serpent corapli
cated life by suggestions of disquiet. Prospectors, miners,
woodsmen, and explorers who come to the big cities soon find
that they are nobody; the things they can do well avail them
nothing; the multiplicity of things they cannot do sharaes
them ; from being monarchs of all they survey they are subjects
of all whom they see. No wonder they yearn for the bound
less horizon, the untainted oxygen, and the perfect emancipa
tion of life on the far outposts of empire. To come to the re
laxing atraosphere of civilization is depressing to one of these,
for they have breathed an air as pure as inter-planetary space,
they have felt the physical stimulation of the dawn ' ' when the
mountains were flushed as with wine, in the morning of Time."
At Fort Gibbon passengers are usually transferred to a
sraaller boat, which takes thera up the Tanana river to Fair
banks. Navigation becoraes more difficult, for this tributary
of the Yukon is swift and uncertain;, a shoal may exist today
where adequate flotation was obtainable a week ago ; therefore,
we did not protest when the stearaer ran aground, raerely con
gratulating ourselves when we got off. At 7 p.m. we passed
Nenana, a pretty narae associated in ray memory not with a
lithe Indian maiden or a graceful canoe, but a curious fact in
physiography. By ascending the Nenana river the traveler can
reach a group of lakes on Broad pass, the divide separating the

STEAMER 'WHITE HORSE' ON THE Y-UKON.

256 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
watershed of the Tanana from that of the Susitna, whose waters
flow into Cook's Inlet. Similarly, by following the Delta, an
other tributary of the Tanana, to its source, one can reach
Gulkana lake and proceed down the Gulkana river, a tributary
of the Copper river, into Prince Williara sound. FinaUy, by
proceeding to the headwaters of the Tokio, a third tributary,
the Mentasta lakes are reached, and from thera it is possible to
descend by Mentasta creek into the Salana, thence to the Cop
per river, and onward to the sea. These three instances show
the lowness of the divide between the watersheds, for in each
case a waterway is available by raeans of a lake linking a river
on the east with another on the west. Other cases might be
mentioned in the same region, where a short portage will trans
fer a canoe from one watershed to another. This is an unusual
type of topography. The same condition is indicated by the
sinuous course of the rivers ; from Tolovana to Nenana it is 65
miles by river and 28 miles across country. ' ' Two bends and a
look" is a local mode of describing the distance between
points. When the Lavelle Young raet the Tanana, the passengers for
Fairbanks were transferred to the latter, much to their satis
faction; at the same tirae a nuraber of raail-sacks containing
gold were shifted, each sack holding 22 bars weighing 4 pounds
apiece. They were treated with scant cereraony. The Tanana
is an excellent little boat, ably commanded by Capt. Jaraes T.
Gray; she is 150 feet long and 30 feet in the beam; when
launched her draft was 14 inches, with steam up, but without
equipment; now she draws 18 to 22 inches of water; when
loaded with 150 tons her draft is 32 inches aft and 38 inches
forward, each additional 10 tons lowering her an inch into the
water. Her engines are horizontal, simple, non-condensing,
with 13-inch cylinders and a stroke of 6 feet, the valve-motion
being controlled by a link actuated by two eccentrics from the
paddle-wheel shaft. The hull is coated with carbolineum. The
barge she pushed was 100 feet long, had a draft of 39 inches,
and carried 140 tons. In the raanageraent of this barge, Capt.
Gray showed a skill which it was pleasant to watch. Whfle the
boats on the upper Yukon have a square nose or bow, the

STEAMER RECEIVING WOOD ON THE YUKON.

258 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Tanana has the usual pointed bow, which impinges on the stern
of the barge. By manipulating the ropes attaching the two
vessels to each other, the bow of the stearaer acts as a fulcrum
when turning the barge in a sharp bend of the channel. This
method is called 'jack-knifing.' The deflection of the barge is
managed by means of rope and tackle, operated from a double-
headed winch ; the ropes being pulled in or let out on alternate
sides so as to point the barge this way or that according to the
bell signals of the pilot. While this is being done, two men
(one on each side of the forward end of the barge) are sound
ing, and as they cannot be seen or heard by the pilot owing to
the housing and distance, a third man stands on top and repeats
the soundings to the pilot. By placing the barge ahead of the
steamer, navigation in a tortuous channel is aided, for the barge
acts as a large rudder, preventing a steamer of shallow draft
from being swept around by the current. Note may be made of
the fact that during suraraer in the upper reaches of the Tanana,
there is soraetiraes a daily rise of as rauch as two feet, owing to
the melting of glacier ice during the warra hours of the day,
causing a river tide.
The many tributaries of the Yukon are navigable to their
headwaters by steamers of not over two feet draft, the gradient
of the streams averaging about one foot per raile despite occas
ional rapids. Thus small steamboats have ascended or de
scended the Teslin frora the head of the lake, the Lewes from
Lake Bennett, both the Porcupine and the Chandlar for 150
railes, the Tanana, for 700, the Kojnikuk and the Innoko, for
over 500 railes. All of whieh testifies to the low topography of
the interior of Alaska and the Yukon.
Prospectors ascend the smaller streams by means of 'poling,'
one raan standing at the bow and another at the stern. The
poles are 12 to 14 feet long, pointed with iron, and the boats
are flat-bottoraed for at least two-thirds of their total length.
They draw from 7 to 8 inches and carry 1200 to 1500 pounds.
By this raethod from 10 to 15 miles per day is traveled.
Between Fort Gibbon and Fairbanks, the current averages
4 miles per hour, with a maximum of 7. When pushing a barge,
the Tanana made 6 to 6I/2 miles per hour against the stream

FROM DAWSON TO FAIRBANKS.

259

and a speed of 20 miles coming down-stream, Avhen she "ran
like a scared dog. " The fuel is wood, which is consumed at the
rate of a cord per hour and $7 per cord. At Dawson, owing to
the distance frora uncut forests, the price of wood is $14 ; down
the Yukon it is $7 to $8 per cord.
The little flat-bottomed steamers are well adapted to the
shallow rivers of Alaska. One of the most useful was the first
Koyukuk, which, with steam up, drcAV only 8 inches forAvard

POLING ON THE INNOKO.

and IOV2 inches aft, when loaded Avith fuel for three hours,
besides all her equipment, and stores. Her two engines were
9 by 48 inches. This friend of the prospector was wrecked on
the upper reaches of the Tanana during a severe windstorm,
such as she was ill fitted to meet on account of her lightness
above water. Another boat of the sarae narae has been built,
and to her reference was raade earlier in this chapter.
Meanwhile, we were progressing toward Fairbanks. At Six
teen-Mile the Tanana went over a place where only three years
ago there stood a road-house — a reminder of the vagaries of
stream-erosion. Each break-up of the ice in the spring starts

260 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the cutting of a new channel, according as the ice restrains
or releases the accumulated water. Approaching Chena, we
passed a refrigerator barge, suggesting the raanner in which
perishable foodstuffs are transported to the interior of the
country. This barge was towed frora Seattle to St. Michael,
where she received her cargo, 300 tons of meat and poultry,
worth $200,000. At Fairbanks the retail price is 40 to 50 cents
per pound. As we passed, the ill "regulated explosions of a gaso
line engine indicated the power used for refrigeration. Soon
after, we met a man in a punt, using a single pole. When going
up-stream, keeping to the shallows, he would use two poles, one
in each hand. Prom his boat we saw smoke arising as if from a.
miniature boiler; it Avas a 'smudge' or dank fire to ward off
mosquitoes. At noon on August 2 we 'hove to' at Chena, where the
boats leave the main stream and ascend a slough ten miles to
Fairbanks. Approaching the town, log-cabins come into view
dominated by the tower of a large school-house, proving that a
thirst for knowledge is encouraged in the very heart of the
Alaskan moorland. Another large wooden structure proves to
be a brewery, the evidence of thirst of another kind. On the
outskirts of the settlement, the gardens of potatoes and cab
bage indicate the beginnings of agriculture and a protest
against canned vegetables, the use of which is suggested by
large heaps of discarded 'tins.' Who said there was no tin
in Alaska? More tin has been iraported thither than has been
produced in the raines. Capt. Gray told me that the St. Paul
had taken 10 tons of tin ore in one shipment from. Nome, and,
said he: "Ten tons goes a long way." Truly; but not so far
as the scrapped tin-plate has already come. The erapty tin
cans used to be thrown into the river, where they became filled
with sand and impeded navigation. Now there is a United
States law ageinst the throwing of tin cans into the rivers; in
time there will be a tin mine in Alaska.
At 3:30 p.m. we stepped ashore at Fairbanks and within
an hour we were careering up the valley in a motor-car run
ning on the rails of the Tanana Valley RaUroad. Our host was •
Falcon Joslin, the president of the railroad, a gentleman pos-

ooH-t

262 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
sessed of both humor and knowledge. We ran up to Gilmore
(21 miles) and back, the return being made at a speed trying
to the nerves of a 'cheeehako.' Thus first impressions were
gained and an appetite acquired. As to the latter, it was not
of hopeless yearning, for did we not read in a store window:
"Cracked eggs, 75 cents per dozen." You cannot make an
omelette without breaking eggs; here then there was promise
of an omelette. But we fared even better, dining extravagantly
on perfect grayling and a blueberry pie made with the wild
fruit of the Tanana moors. After 'supper' in the clear light
of the Alaskan summer evening, we strolled through the town,
noting the banners of rival candidates and signs indicating the
headquarters of political parties in an election for delegate to
Congress, Pretty log-cabins, with gardens full of flowers, lined
the river banks and suggested the presence of the plucky
Avomen who accompany their mates in the search for gold.

CHAPTER XXIV.
FAIRBANKS.
The story of the founding of Fairbanks is one of the ro
mances of the North ; and like such romances it has its sordid
page. In 1897 E. T. Barnette brought a boat up the Yukon,
frora St. Michael to Circle City, and thence to Dawson. In the
spring of '98 he went ' outside, ' returning to Seattle for awhile.
The two following years were spent at Dawson. In the spring
of 1901 Capt. Barnette, as he was now called by reason of
having commanded a boat, bought a stock of goods, weighing
100 tons, at San Francisco; these he shipped to St. Michael,
where he chartered the Lavelle Young, intended originally for
a dredge-scow, and with her he steamed up the Yukon and the
Tanana. His intention was to start a store where the Valdez
and Eagle trail crosses the Tanana, at a point about 300 miles
above the present site of Fairbanks. It was generally known
that a belt of copper veins existed at the headwaters of the
Tanana and White rivers. With this in view, Barnette went
up the Tanana, on the Lavelle Young, which he had placed in
charge of a man who proved unaccustomed to the navigation
of swift and shallow rivers. Discovering that the boat had not
sufficient power to go farther without the aid of lines for tow
ing, he went 14 miles above the junction of the Chena to the
foot of the Bates rapids. Unable to proceed farther, Barnette
and his expedition returned to the mouth of the Chena and
worked their way up the slough to the place where Fairbanks
now stands. The site was chosen by reason of the high bank,
promising escape from floods, and an unusual growth of forest,
including many spruce 24 to 30 inches in diameter. Here they
landed on August 24, 1901.

264 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Another version of this part of the story is that Barnette
did not try to go above Chena on the main stream of the Tanana,
as it was then supposed that the Bates rapids began just at
Chena. He went up the slough a few miles above the present
site of Fairbanks, and finding further progress impracticable,
he dropped back, in perplexity as to what to do next. He tied
up for the night to a convenient shore and the next morning
unloaded his goods. The raaster of the boat, Thomas Bruce,
claimed that he had fulfilled his contract, which was to take
Barnette to Mentasta crossing or "as far up as practicable."
Thus the position of Fairbanks was fixed.
The stearaer returned to St. Michael, leaving five men, be
sides Capt. Barnette and his courageous wife. Four of the
party went out prospecting, and, of these, Dan McCarty located
the clairas known later as No. 1 Above on Fairbanks creek.
No. 2 Below on Cleary, and No. 5 on Gold Stream.
Even before these locations were made, in the fall of 1901,
a party of five men had come across country from Circle City,
whieh is 175 miles northeast. Felix Pedro, Tom Jurack, Bert
Johnson, and two others were prospecting for a creek that Pedro
had discovered three years earlier. He had wandered into this
region frora the Forty-Mile, and while alone he had run out of
supplies, lost his way, and finally peached Circle. In the course
of his wanderings he found a creek containing gold ; that creek
has never been re-discovered and remains one of the 'lost
mines' of the prospector's mythology. Knowing that Barnette
was coming up the Tanana with supplies, the five men led by
Pedro took the risk of exploring ahead of hira. From a ridge
east of the river, from a height now called the Pedro Dome,
they saw the Lavelle Young coming up the Tanana. On the first
night following the landing of Barnette, these men came into
his camp. They were out of supplies and had been living on
berries and game. Soon after it became generally known at
Circle City that a trading post had been established on the
Tanana and 30 men came across country in March 1902. On
July 27, of the same year, Pedro made the first discovery of
gold in the district at the head of Gold Stream where it nar
rows into Pedro creek. He picked up some gold in the bed of

THE FIRST CAMP AT FAIRBANKS; IN 1903.

266 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the living stream and sank a hole into the frozen ground to
one side. The discovery was kept secret among the dozen men
then in the vicinity.
In the meantime Barnette was absent. He went ' out ' in the
spring of 1902, going by the trail to Valdez, thence to Seattle,
where he built the Isabelle. This vessel was ' knocked down, ' or
disjointed, and shipped to St. Michael, where she was put to
gether. Barnette arrived at his trading post on September 5,
1902, intending to proceed up the river, as originaUy planned.
He now had a boat of light draft, suitable for his purpose. But,
on arrival, he heard of the discovery of gold, and that, of
course, changed everything. He decided to stay where he was
and himself located several claims, others having been pre
viously staked for him by that legal fiction known as 'power
of attorney' — one of the curses of Alaska.
Among those who came with Barnette on the Isabelle was
Wadda, a Japanese, a redoubtable character, who was then
serving as cook, but intended to trade on his own account with
the Indians. In January 1903, he went with a dog team to
Circle and then to Dawson, where he told the news of the dis
covery made by Pedro and McCarty on Gold Stream. Both
of these finds looked promising, for McCarty was getting as
much as 20 cents per pan. At Dawson, Wadda met Capt. H. H.
Norwood, a whaler with whom he had served in the Arctic ; he
urged Norwood to put up the money required to buy claims in
the new district. Norwood proved unwilliag, but in the mean-
whfle Wadda 's talk had leaked out. A stampede ensued at
once. In February, March, and April 800 men left Dawson for
Gold Stream. Most of these were not real miners, but the fioat-
ing population of Dawson; such men are called 'stampeders.'
Arriving, they were soon disgusted by the absence of garabling
and other gaieties; they were disappointed in seeing so little
gold, forgettuig in their hurry for fortune that it took time and
work to produce an output. Thereupon they asserted that
Wadda had deceived them, and wanted to lynch him. They
also threatened an attack on Barnette 's store; but a few well
armed men thwarted their purpose. Subsequently, several
hundred of these men left the district for the raouth of the

FAIRBANKS. 267
Yukon, departing in small boats and even on rafts. These fel
lows condemned the region, so that the supplies that had been
intended for traders at Fairbanks were either diverted to
other points or countermanded altogether. In consequence, a
severe shortage of food was experienced during the ensuing
winter, and many would have died from starvation, if, for
tunately, great herds of caribou had not crossed the district on
their annual migration southward, and if the supply of ptarmi
gan and rabbits had not been unusually plentiful. Soon after,
Cleary creek was discovered and there was rich ground for
everyone. With the first snow that fell in the fall of 1904 — in October
— a boiler of 40 horse-power was hauled to Cleary and set up
on No. 1 Below. This marked the beginning of real mining.
Previous to that event the work had consisted raainly of ' ' snip
ing around with little porcupine boilers," that is, desultory
digging by raeans of thawing effected with crude appliances.
The men first on the ground had ascertained that the 'pay'
was deep and being themselves too timid to get the requisite
machinery "they sat around and whittled" until the experi
enced rainers from Dawson arrived and bought the clairas.
A settlement sprang up around the camp built by Capt.
Barnette and to the town was given the name of Fairbanks, in
honor of the Senator who became Vice-President of the United
States, In 1903 the population was about 800 and $35,000 in
gold was produced; in 1904 the population increased to 3000
and the gold production to $350,000 ; in 1905, with a population
of 6000, the yield of gold reached $3,750,000 ; and in 1906, with
8000, the output was $9,175,000. At the present tirae the town
has 3500 people and the district about 15,000. In 1908 the
gold output, despite labor troubles, was $9,250,000.
Fairbanks is an attractive settlement and an important dis
tributing point. Someday it will be on a transcontinental rail
road. In regard to this, I was enlightened by Mr. Joslin, an
optimist restrained by good judgment. Alaska needs a trunk
railway system and eventually such a system will become part
of a line of communication between New York and Paris. It is
suggested that a railroad should be built from Haines to Pair-

268 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
banks, 650 miles, and thence to Nome, another 600 miles.
Haines is at the head of Lynn Canal, just south of Skagway;
it is a military post and was long known as Haines Mission.
Frora Pyramid Harbor, near Haines, many prospectors in the
early years started for the interior and bands of cattle were
driven through the Chilkat pass along the Dalton trail to Port
Selkirk aiid Dawson. Over the neighboring passes the Indians
of the interior used to bring the peltry sold to the agents of
the Hudson 's Bay Corapany in the days before Alaska belonged
to the United States. The Chilkat pass is 2800 feet above tide
water and 50 railes frora shore, so that at no place would the
railroad grade be more than 2 per cent. North of the coast
range the line would enter the Alsek valley, which is part of a
broad ancient valley (the Shakwak) partly occupied now by the
Kluane and other lakes. This district is suitable for agricul
ture, and, though but little explored, it is known to contain de
posits of gold and copper ore, as well as coal. Then the rail
road would cross the head of the White river, where are large
copper deposits ; thenee over a grassy plain to the head of the
Tanana and down that river to Fairbanks. No elevation has
to be surmounted except in crossing the coast range at the
Chilkat pass. Near Haines are copper, gold, and iron deposits.
Twelve miles from this deposit, and 32 railes frora Haines, are
the Porcupine placers, in the Yukon, and beyond them in Cana
dian territory are the Alsek diggings. Coal seams are known
to exist on this route at several places. One objection to such
a railroad is the necessity for traversing Canadian territory
for a short distance, but this is not a serious obstacle. As a
stearaer service all the year round is maintained even now
with Haines, and as vessels can keep within the quiet waters
of the 'inland passage' all the way from Seattle, this would
furnish an excellent line of communication. Fairbanks is now
21 days from the 'States'; by building a road through the
centre of the interior country Alaska would practically cease
to be a "non-contiguous possession," becoming an integral
portion of the United States. Two thousand railes of railroad,
at $30,000 per mile, would accomplish this purpose.
Meanwhile we had the advantage of traveling on a railroad

FAIRBANKS. 269
that marked the beginning of improved communication, and
as the train of the Tanana Valley railway system glided from
the siding that constituted the Fairbanks terminus, we could
without cost imagine ourselves on the way from New York to
Paris, including a tunnel transit under Bering strait.
The Tanana Valley railway is ballasted with three feet of
moss, Avhich does not prevent the road-bed from being rough,
in places. The railway gives convenient access to all the centres
of mining activity. On the afternoon of August 3 we went to
Chatanika, proceeding up the valley of Gold Stream, where
men have dug through thirty or forty feet of frozen 'muck'
and 'wash' to the bedrock on which the gold lies. The course
of the former river-bed is marked by heaps of gravel, shaft-
houses, and flumes. From the distribution of activity it can
be seen how the gold-bearing channel traverses the present
valley but follows a line independent of the topography of
today. The train passes close to some of the diggings ; men can
be seen hoisting buckets of 'dirt' with a windlass and dis
charging them into sluice-boxes, where a flow of water separ
ates the gold from the gravel. The valley of Gold Stream is
wide and shallow, a depression in an undulating country, cov
ered with moss. Several lakes diversify the morass, through
which flows a meandering stream, with no more dignity than
an abandoned and overgrown irrigation ditch. The scenery
is not impressive ; it is oppressive ; yet as the train laboriously
puffs its way up a ridge giving a view of Vault creek, the out
look becomes more cheerful. The white tents of the miners,
and the big brown dumps adjacent, look like the anthills of a
larger growth, and on the hillside beyond the lines of birch-
wood cut for fuel simulate the furrows of the farmer, sug
gesting cultivation rather than devastation. The contours are
soft, the hills are velvety, the surface is dark and sodden, the
sky is gray, and man and his doings seem but an insignificant
irruption in this vast wilderness.
As it was only 6 p.m. when we left the train at its terrainus
in the village of Chatanika, we decided to walk to Cleary, a
distance of three miles. After 'supper' a traveling show
offered amusement. It was a biograph entertainment, given by

270 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
a man, his wife, and young daughter. The scenes depicted on
the screen were described by the showman, arousing keen in
terest among the miners and their friends, for the glimpses of
a seaside resort, sail-boats, hotels, and children at play on the
beach offered pictures of a life wholly different to the business
of the 'creeks.' At the door of the hall, instead of carriages
awaiting the play-goers, were the 'huskies' or native dogs,
crouching in wait for their masters.
Next day, having visited three different mines on Cleary
creek, we returned down the valley in the sunny afternoon, to
Chatanika. The evening smoke is enjoyed while sitting on a
bench in front of the hotel, watching the manifestations of
local activity. Men corae to the blacksraith opposite with
'points' that need repair and rainers gather to discuss politics.
Five candidates have been norainated for delegate to Congress
and five newspapers are disserainating misinformation through
out the Tanana region. These papers sell for 25 cents apiece
and they represent the rainiraura return for the expenditure.
It is not surprising that Judge Wickersham, the man who re
ceived the least support from the local press, was elected. But
the pitiful politics of the day are easily forgotten while watch
ing the long shadows creep over the hillsides and the opal tints
of the long Alaskan twilight wrap the hideousness of a mining
camp in a glamot of mystical beauty.
On our return by train to Fairbanks, the passengers in
cluded one or two men who came on board at intermediate
stations, carrying heavily laden coraraon sacks which they
placed to one side casually. Inside these was a leather 'poke'
or bag containing the gold 'dust' from the clean-up of the day
before.

CHAPTER XXV.
CLEARY GREEK.
On Cleary creek the traveler may see examples of the type
of mining most characteristic of Alaska. The raethod is called
'drifting', because it is based upon the driving of a 'drift' or
underground gallery from the bottora of a shaft. Under the
existing surface of the valley lies the forraer bed of the creek,
and on the rock over which the water used to run now lies the
gold; the precious metal has been concentrated by reason of
its greater specific gravity, causing it to sink through the
debris of the streara to the bottom. Later, this old channel,
with its gold-bearing sediment, has been covered by gravel and
by 'muck', both of which, being wet, have been frozen solid.
This freezing took place during a period when the cold of
winter exceeded the thawing in summer, and, by reason of the
subsequent growth of an insulating covering of moss, even the
warmer cliraate of the present geological epoch is unable to
melt the raass of material that lies on top of the old stream-bed.
The creek now fiowing in the valley is a rivulet, barren of gold,
and otherwise of no consequence, except in so far as its living
water has thawed the ground over whieh it courses. Therefore
the miner avoids sinking his shaft along the present stream;
he goes to one side and penetrates through the frozen ground
to the old creek-bottom.
It will be best to illustrate the method by describing a
specific raine, for instance, the one known as No. 11 Below Dis
covery on Cleary. The shaft is 7 feet square, and is 70 feet
deep ; in order to get a well for collecting the drainage, the
shaft is sunk 8 or 10 feet below the surface of the bedrock.
Then a 'level' or 'drift', 6 feet wide and 614 feet high, is run

272 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
up-stream along the top of the bedrock for a distance of 200
feet to the boundary of the claim. This main 'drift' or gang
way is timbered to protect the rainers and to prevent falling
dirt from blocking the passage. Having completed the 'drift',
similar galleries are run at right angles on both sides to the
lirait of the gold-bearing sediment, in this case 240 to 300 feet
wide. Now begins the excavation of the deposit. To thaw the
frozen gravel, 'steam points' are used, as already described in
connection with raining at Dawson. The 'points' are first fed
with hot water while they are being driven into the ground, and
when they have been forced to their full length, steam is turned
on for 24 to 30 hours. This is the 'sweating' period, during
which the ground is thawed around each .point for 2 to 2% feet.
When the gravel has been softened, the points are withdrawn
and the rainers use their picks to break the raaterial so that it
can be shoveled into wheelbarrows, which are then trundled
to the shaft. There the 'dirt' is discharged into a bucket,
which is hoisted by a steara-engine to the surface, for washing
in sluice-boxes. About one foot deep of bedrock and 6 to 7
feet of overlying gravel are removed by these mining opera
tions. The excavation of the top of the bedrock is made neces
sary by the fact that the gold has sunk into the cracks and
crevices of the rock, which, however, is so decomposed usually
as to be soft and easy to dig.
We went underground, standing erect on the edge of the
bucket and holding the steel rope, while being quickly lowered
to the bottom of the shaft. Lighting the candles offered by the
manager, we walked along the boarded way over which the
wheelbarrows pass. Being warned of their approach, we stepped
to one side with our backs against the side of the level, whfle
the procession of six men trundUng wheelbarrows proceeded
toward the shaft. Each barrow holds 15 cubic feet or 375
pounds of gravel, six of them being enough to fiU the bucket.
The men are paid $5 and their board, which is worth $3 more
per day, so that each laborer costs the raine-owner $8 per day.
Each man picks, shovels, and wheels his own share of the out
put of the mine at a pace regulated by the leader, who is chosen
by the manager. Turning to one side we entered a cross-drift

CLEARY CREEK.

273

communicating Avith a low cavernous charaber made by the
removal of the gravel in the course of mining. There we saw
a group of 38 ' points ' silently at work, with nothing to indicate
the process, for all leaks of steara are carefully prevented.
Such leakage not only raeans waste of energy but leads to heat
ing the air in the raine and the consequent thawing of the roof
of the workings. Everything is in a frozen condition. The
air has the feel of a cold-storage charaber. In walking through
the workings one hears the dropping of gravel loosened over-

LOWER CLEARY CREEK IN 1907.

head by the slight warraing of the air by the bodies of the
miners and by the little heat given out by the steam-pipes.
Occasionally the visitor will not only hear, but feel, the crum
bling of the over-arching ground, for a chunk of 'dirt', obedient
to the immutable law of gravity, will tap him on the shoulder.
To avoid danger, it is best to keep close to the frozen sides of
the excavation, avoiding a position under an overhanging
stretch of gravel. Returning to the main gangway, we crossed
to the other side of the mine, where the men were removing the
gravel previously softened by a battery of steam-points such as

274 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
we had seen at work. No time was being wasted. Nowhere
have I seen men working more efficiently, and although their
wages are high, it must be remerabered that the cost of Uving
is abnormal. By examining the sediment on the bedrock it is possible to
see the yellow-red particles of gold. In a country of cheap
pauperized labor, such as Mexico, these nuggets would be pur
loined by the workers. A high price for labor and supplies
tends to depreciate gold ; at Fairbanks a nugget weighing half
an ounce represents only one day's pay.
The mines are worked mainly by lessees ; fully three quar
ters of the gold extracted in the Fairbanks district is taken out
of the ground by 'lay-men', who pay the owners of the claims
a royalty of 25 to 50 per cent on the gross output. For this
rich tribute the claim-holder has usually done nothing beyond
locating the ground or having had it located for him. This is
a striking exaraple of the unearned inereraent and of special
privilege under a deraocracy. Of the hundreds of rich owners
in the district, only a few made a discovery of gold themselves,
and only a few ever did any real work on their claims. Many
of the claims were located under 'power of attorney', and in
sorae instances by abuse of this privilege a few raen have been
able to acquire large areas of profitable ground. A miner can
go up a creek and stake for hiraself and his friends as many
claims as he likes, provided he makes a discovery on each 20
acre claim; although, as a matter of fact, a true discovery is
rarely made, for the gold is thirty or forty feet underground,
and the shaft to bedrock is not sunk until many days after the
legal routine of 'location' has been corapleted. Moreover, a
man can stake an 'association' claim of 160 acres, using the
names of eight men and making only one supposititious dis
covery. By virtue of 'power of attorney' he uses any naraes he
pleases, the fiction involving no perraission or legal authority
frora the owner of the name. In this way Alaska has been
blanketed with claims now belonging to men who sit back,
letting others do the work and incur the risks of mining while
they gather a rich tribute.
In April 1907 there was a strike araong the miners in the

CLEARY CREEK IN WINTER.

276 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Fairbanks district, and in the spring of 1908 this strike was
resumed. At the time of ray visit it was norainally in force, but
the back of it was broken. After visiting the mines, seeing
the conditions under whieh labor is performed, noting the char
acter of the work, and the system of ownership, operation, and
exploitation, I found myself in sympathy with the laboring men.
This does not mean any sort of sympathy with the ignorant
politicians who led them, nor the reptile press that incited
them to reprisals. If one judged the cause by its advocates
one would conderan the labor moveraent in Alaska in short
order, but in justice to the raen the following facts must be
stated : The cost of coraing to the mines is high ; thus, by winter
trail to Fairbanks from Valdez, 376 railes, the fare is $150 and
the road-house expenses average $6 to $7 per day for 10 days.
It costs $250 to come frora Seattle or San Francisco. While
the mine-owners provide board and bunk, the season lasts only
4 to 5 months, for at the first approach of winter all surface
work ceases and half the laboring population is forced into idle
ness. The work in the drift mines is exceedingly hard ; a man
will average from 80 to 100 wheelbarrows, equivalent to 6 or 7
cubic yards, per day, and it needs, an engineer to appreciate
what that means. Suffice it to say, that it represents the maxi
mum of manual labor. Then be it remembered these men are
working for owners and operators of their own kind and class ;
in many cases nothing separates the sturdy miner trundling a
heavily loaded wheelbarrow from the idle man who owns the
mine, except an accident. A few raonths hence the positions
of the two men may be reversed ; not education, not ability, not
technical knowledge, distinguishes the owner of a bonanza
claim from his employees — simply chance and a mining law of
absurd laxity. Of course, $5 per day, with $3 worth of board
besides, looks large wages, but it is only $125 to $150 per month
for four months, and from it must be deducted $300 to $500
for coming and going to the States, plus incidental expenses
while at the raines. Here is another trouble ; the miner pays
25 cents for a glass of beer, 50 cents for a magazine, 25 cents
for a wretched squib of a daily paper, and so forth. And he
needs diversion; a man under laborious exertion for 10 hours

CLEARY CREEK.

277

each day is entitled to relax and to rest, both mentally and
physically. The cure for the abnormal wages is cheaper trans
port into and from the country, less profit to those who sit down
and do nothing, and a resident population.
In the summer of 1908 much was heard concerning 'muck
discoveries', that is, a discovery based on the finding of parti
cles of gold in the black vegetable raatter under the moss and

A CLEAN-UP ON CLEARY CREEK.

above the gravel. This 'muck' covers the country like a dirty
blanket. According to law, a valid discovery necessitates the
finding of mineral in place. In placer raining the mineral is
native gold, therefore the dispute involves the question whether
the gold particles in the muck are part of the deposit which the
miner is seeking, or whether it is an accidental occurrence in
no way related to the actual gravel deposit underneath. The

278 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
prospectors ridicule a 'muck discovery', clairaing that the gold
in the overburden is accidental and no more significant than if
found in the bark of a neighboring tree ; indeed, gold has been
found in clear ice. The lawyers interpret the evidence other
wise, claiming that any gold found on the claim is adequate to
establish a proper title. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that
many shrewd prospectors when they locate a claim attach a
lawyer's name, as well as their own, to the location notice,
arguing that it is cheaper to have a lawyer for a partner than
to hire him later. The cry of the average unlettered miner is
like that of the French at the outset of a revolution : "A bas les
sacres arocats." Surprising is it not; it is not.

CHAPTER XXVI.
ARCTIC AGRICULTURE.
On August 10 we left Fairbanks on the Tanana and went
down the river to a point 80 miles above Port Gibbon ; disem
barking, we boarded a small steam-launch that took us 7 miles
eastward up a slough to Manley's Hot Springs. This is a
notable resort. A hotel, bath-house, and farm have been estab
lished by Prank G. Manley, a successful rainer, who co-operates
in the management of the property with J. P. Karshner. This
old prospector, formerly a farmer in Kansas, discovered a hot
spring and ascertained that the ground near it was warmed
enough not to freeze even in winter. He took up a homestead
of 320 acres, and in the spring of 1903 made a clearing for a
garden; then, his first effort being surprisingly successful, he
commenced systeraatic cultivation. Later Manley established a
trading post on the horaestead, building a hotel and bath-house
in 1907. At this spot there stood a grove of evergreen poplar,
known as Balra of Gilead, and frora thera were sawed the logs
for the erection of the roomy hotel building — a sightly struc
ture, as the accompanying photograph shows. The adjoining
bath-house contains two small plunges and a large swiraming
pool. The water has a temperature ranging frora 115 °P. in
the small baths to 100° in the large one. The springs are about
a hundred yards from the hotel, and from them the water
issuing at 135° is piped as required. On the adjacent hill-slope
the ground is warmed by the thermal springs so as to afford
abnormal conditions highly favorable to agriculture. It is a
natural hot-bed. Snow falling on the warm ground thaws
rapidly so that the surface is rarely white for more than a
couple of days. At the most the surface-frost penetrates only

280 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
to a depth of one inch. On the edge of the warm area, young
parsnips have been dug in March from under two feet of snow.
The water issuing from one spring will fill an 8-inch pipe and
another spring higher up will fill a 3-inch pipe. A pent-house
has been made by cutting into the side of the hill, where the
ground is heated sufficiently to aUow poultry to live in com
fort throughout the winter. Mr. Manley has 650 hens and 50
ducks, 8 cows and a buU, 70 pigs, and 25 horses. To appreciate
what this signifies it must be remembered that this farm is in
latitude 65° north. Altogether, 62 acres are under cultivation;
of these, 32 are devoted to potatoes, which retail at 12i^ cents
per pound at Fairbanks. Usually the yield is 7 to 8 tons per
acre, and a ton of potatoes in this part of the world is worth
$250, be it noted. In 1908 the lack of rain injured the crop, so
that the yield was only 3 tons per acre. Five acres are given to
turnips, lettuce, cabbage, and carrots. Fodder is obtained from
14 acres of oats, barley, and wheat. Near the springs the
ground is covered with wild peas and bracken, for the moss
does not thrive on the warm land. The soil is a sandy loam of
light chocolate color, derived from the disintegration of granite.
As indicating agricultural possibilities I cite the experience
of J. C. Riley, of Tolovana, who planted half a crate of potatoes
in 1908 and obtained 11 crates therefrom; in 1907 he planted
an equal amount and the ground yielded him 16 crates of mar
ketable potatoes, worth 12 to 15 cents per pound or $250 to
$300 per ton. That is the price for which they sold at Fair
banks. Last season, a woman living at Gilmore, on Gold
Stream, cleared one acre and sold $3000 worth of potatoes
frora it. Apparently there is no excuse for failure to cultivate
locally at a profit, but the fact is the population is raigratory
and extravagant, and also intimidated by the big trading com
panies, which may at short notice spoil the local market for
any commodity. Moreover, the indigenous crop is uncertain,
making it necessary for the provident to order their staple
food-supplies from the 'outside' two or three months before
the opening of the season.
Hay is worth $125 per ton. Native red top seUs for $80 to
$100 per ton. Other necessaries, such as cabbage, turnips.

ARCTIC AGRICULTURE.

281

dairy products, eggs, can be produced locally at a large profit,
if grown at all, for the freight from Seattle and San Francisco
represents a margin big enough to make the indigenous article
highly remunerative.
These successful attempts at cultivation prompt an enquiry
into the possibilities of agriculture in Alaska. Por light on
the subject I went to C. C. Georgeson, Special Agent in charge
of the Alaska Experiment Stations, and to him I owe most of

.,? !,

MANLEY'S HOTEL, HOT SPRINGS.

the information that follows. Broadly speaking, any kind of
hardy vegetable can be grown even as far north as the Arctic
Circle, 66°33' north latitude. During the suraraer season,
which varies frora 3 months at Rampart to 6 months at Sitka,
fodder is obtainable from a luxuriant growth of native grasses,
timothy, and oats. It is true, on the coast there is trouble in
making hay on account of rains at the gathering period, espe
cially at Sitka, where the annual precipitation is 8 feet. 'In
side, ' within the vast interior of the country, the light precipi-

282 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
tation may necessitate the aid of irrigation; thus in the Cop
per River vaUey the precipitation is only 91^ inches annuaUy,
and the lack of water is a drawback. On the other hand, the
ground of interior Alaska is frozen to a depth of 200 feet, and
it is found that the subsoil ice actuaUy assists cifltivation in
summer because as the thaw proceeds the moisture rises by cap-
iUarity to the roots of plants. The most northern experiment
station, at Rampart, in Lat. 65°40', was begun in 1900. On a
tract of 6% acres, it has been found possible to mature barley
and oats from year to year. In addition, vnnter rye, winter
wheat, spring rye, spring wheat, and buckwheat have come to
maturity in three years out of four. There are now 16 acres
under cultivation at this station. At Rampart, and elsewhere
in the Yukon, the settlers have groAvn vegetables with unquaU
fied success. Potatoes always do well, and they are doing bet
ter as potatoes groAvn in Alaska are used for seeding. It is a
fact that this staple tuber has been grown 60 miles north of
the Arctic Circle ; that is as far as any pioneer gardener has
yet ventured. Cabbages also, with cauliflower, peas, turnips,
radishes, lettuce, carrots, parsnips, parsley, beets, onions,
squash, and rhubarb, aU flourish during the short warm sum
mer. In the more favored regions, such as the Tanana, it has
been found that beans, celery, cucumbers, and salsify wiU
grow weU; even cucumbers, musk melons, squash, and water
melons have raatured outdoors at the Hot Springs farm. For
age crops for Uvestock can be cultivated successfully. Timothy
springs up as a volunteer crop along every trail where hay has
been carried. In many loeaUties the nutritious grasses native
to the country cover large areas with lush growth, affording
rich pasturage. At Rampart the horses employed at the experi
ment station are fed on native hay in winter. Emphasis must
be placed on the fact that the seeds from which crops have been
obtained heretofore in Alaska are of southem origin, that is,
from a latitude foUy 20° farther south; in consequence, the
plants have not been adapted to the cUmatic conditions of
Alaska, and it is reasonable to expect better results from
northern seed. For this purpose the experiment stations are
weU fitted, and it is likely that they wiU do useful service in

VEGETABLES GROWN AT LATITUDE 64°51' NORTH.

284 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the development of varieties suited to the new environment.
This beneficent work has been weU started, but it is hampered
by the need of funds. The first appropriation voted by Con
gress was only $10,000, and although the sum was increased
to $15,000, it has barely sufficed to start and equip the five
experiment stations at Rampart, Fairbanks, Copper River,
Kodiak, and Sitka. The Kodiak station, which is newly estab
lished, is devoted to the breeding of livestock, and to this end
has been provided with well bred GaUoway cattle. These run
free all Avinter and are fed only when the snow covers the
ground, and then on native hay. Another station has been in
operation at Kenai, on Cook Inlet, for nine years. It was
demonstrated that grain would not mature in that cUmate ; but
on the other hand, that Uve stock could be kept successfully.
A dairy was operated on the station and first-class butter and
cheese is made from the milk of cows fed exclusively on native
grown fodder. The station is now closed and the stock trans
ferred to Kodiak station. Sitka station, which is also head
quarters for the agricultural investigations, is devoted to ex
periments in horticulture, while the interior stations above
mentioned are reserved chiefly for the culture and breeding of
grains. Back from the coast the soils are commonly of a light loamy
character in the vaUeys, becoming graveUy and thin on the
higher ground. The river bottoras also afford extensive areas
containing a mixture of silt and fine sand, which is exceedingly
fertfle. These are overgroAvn with wiUows stretching back to
the universal waU of the spruce forests. The sofls of the inte
rior are entirely free from 'sourness', whieh affects much of the
coast land. Thus no lime is needed.
It is estimated that the interior of Alaska contains 90,000
square mfles avaflable for pasturage and agriculture ; this area
is nearly equal to the two States of New York and Pennsyl
vania. In 1900 New York had a population of 152 persons per
square mfle and Pennsylvania had 140. Of the whole of Alaska
only one sixth is deemed fit for cultivation, and it is reasonable
to hope that this favored portion of the country wfll eventuaUy
support 25 persons per square mile, this being the average

ARCTIC AGRICULTURE. 285
density of population in the United States (exclusive of Hawaii
and Alaska) in 1900, even including the deserts, mountains,
and forests now uninhabited. If interior Alaska could yield
products sufficient to support 25 persons per square mile, the
population eould rise safely to 2,250,000. Now it is about
20,000. For a parallel we can go to Finland, which is bounded on
the south by latitude 60° and on the north by latitude 70°.
Finland has an area of 148,000 square miles, or about one
quarter of Alaska. Of Finland, one third is lake and marsh

MANLEY'S HOT SPRINGS.
land, another third is covered with forest, leaving only about
50,000 square miles ava,ilable for agriculture. Yet this country
in northern Europe supports a population of 3,000,000, or 60
persons per square mile utilized for cultivation. Why should
Alaska be less productive ? Temperature is a controlling factor.
From this standpoint, it is interesting to note that at Helsing-
fors, the southernmost point in Finland, the average annual
temperature is 38.7°P. ; at Sitka, it is 43.3°. In northern Pin-
land the average annual temperature is 27.05 °P.; at Rampart,
it is 27.50°. Finland exports butter, beef, bacon, and even grain,
chiefly oats. There is hope for Alaskan agriculture. If it has

286

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

made but little progress as yet, the failure is due largely to the
greater attractiveness of the Canadian Northwest, and to the
great expense of transport to, and in, Alaska. So far the
farraing in Alaska has been done by disappointed prospectors
and diggers who seize the opportunity of making a little money
by groAving garden truck for the mining camps.

^-

CHAPTER XXVII.
ON THE LOWER YUKON.
We spent a week at Hot Springs, five days more than
planned, for the movements of the river steamers are irregular
and the agents of the Northern Comraercial Co. inforra travel
ers that the receipts frora passenger traffic are of no conse
quence compared to the freightage of supplies. Yet, on the
Sarah there were 108 first-class passengers, 67 second-class, and
100 deck passengers. The larger steamers, or 'packets,' carry
an average of 100 passengers at $80 and push two barges loaded
with 1000 to 1500 tons, the freightage on which is $75 per ton,
from Seattle or San Francisco to Dawson or Fairbanks, and of
the $75 only $10 is the cost of ocean transport to St. Michael.
Thus receipts of $75,000 to $90,000 per trip are indicated. As
against this, the expenses of a 'packet' for the entire summer
season are $70,000, or $800 per day. Apparently there is a
margin for big profits and no adequate excuse for the high
cost of transport, which is today one of the principal obstacles
to the settlement of the interior portion of Alaska. The fact
is the N. A. T. and N. C. companies, as the two chief trading
concerns are popularly called, control the sale and transport
of the necessaries of life throughout the interior; by combining
and by driving out competitors they are able to prevent inter
ference with their control. At Nome, 2700 miles from Seattle
or San Francisco, prices are but little higher than in the two
commercial centres of the Coast, but at Fairbanks and Daw
son, owing to control of the river traffic, everything is pre
posterously high in price. From Nome to Fairbanks the dis
tance is only 1150 railes or less than half that to San Francisco,
and while allowance raust be made for steaming against the

288 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
river current, the raain reason for higher freight rates is the
fact of a monopoly shared by the two trading companies. St.
Michael is a military reservation and no warehouses can be
maintained there Avithout permission of the War Department ;
in consequence, the right is denied to any but the two trading
companies mentioned. As an example of the spirit shown by
these concerns, I cite the foUowing true story: In 1897 L. R.
Fulda, going up the Yukon to start work for the Alaska Ex
ploration Co. arrived at St. Michael just as the last boat for the
season was going to Dawson. It was a N. A. T. steamer and
J. J. Healy of that company instructed the captain not to give
Fulda a passage, for he guessed his purpose. Thereupon Fulda
changed clothes with a longshoreman and appUed to the mate
for work; being athletic and wiUing, he did weU. FinaUy he
signed ship 's articles and shipped as a deck-hand. The steamer
started. Healy was on board; recognizing Pulda, he told the
captain to put Fulda ashore at the next landing; the captain
gave the order to the mate, but the latter objected because
Fulda was a good worker and could carry more wood than
any other deck-hand, besides he had signed articles and thus
possessed a vaUd contract. In this way Fulda reached Daw
son. Within twelve months he had charge of a big river busi
ness, including 7 or 8 steamboats and 15 barges ; he controUed
transportation and trade amounting to $1,000,000 per annum.
"He got there." The story exempUfies the persistence of an
energetic man and the lawless spirit of a dominant corporation.
It is a legacy frora the days of the Russian American Co. and
the Hudson's Bay Co.; it is an anachronism in a civilized
democracy. The administration of the N. A. T. and N. C. com
panies needs to be investigated and discipUned, not without
recognition of the skfll and resource exhibited by their agents
in the early development of the region, but with an eye upon
their relations to United States senators.
While the above was being Avritten we were on the Schwatka
moving swiftly doAvn the Tanana toward Fort Gibbon, where
connection is to be made Avith the packet Sarah. The Uttle
Schwatka was crowded. Many 'sporting ladies' were aboard
and they were noisy as usual. We slept in bed linen smelling

ON THE LOWER YUKON.

289

of stale food, for the sheets had been rescued from among the
soiled table-cloths with which they had been heaped in prepara
tion for the 'wash.' This is one of the imperfections of travel
on the Yukon. While unwilling to make a futile protest and
observant of the kind of passenger traffic for which the boats
are raainly intended, I could not but regret that the intrepid
geographer Frederick Schwatka should be commemorated on
the noble river of his exploration by nothing better than a
miserable little steamer with a stern-paddle and dirty linen.
But that reminds me that I ran across a more pleasant re-

STEAMERS AT FORT GIBBON.

minder of SchAvatka : in the pilot-house of the Lavelle Young
there was a blue print from Schwatka 's original map of the
Yukon. Capt. Boerner informed me that he found it useful
for reference. Although a rough bit of surveying, the raap is
wonderfully correct; it shows Schwatka 's camps and his daily
runs. However, we were soon transferred to another boat.
Arriving that night at Tanana, we were awakened next morn
ing by the cheerful bugles of the fort. A stroll through the
town or, more accurately, along the single street facing the
river, yielded many interesting sights, although we confess to
having missed "the streets of tropic bloom" described by a

290 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
recent writer, just as we had made no acquaintance either with
the "metropolitan style" of Fairbanks or "the luxurious
steamers" that ply thither. Travelers' tales are often made
SAveet with rhetorical confectionery. Alaska does not need
such literary treatment, for there is enough of interest without
exaggerating. "
At the Army post we inspected the dog-kennels, occupied
by wolfish malamutes, muscular huskies, and 'outside' dogs of
all sorts. The raalamute is the Eskimo dog and is named from
a tribe on the lower Yukon, while the 'husky' came from the
Mackenzie river. They are of ordinary size, but stocky in
shape, sturdy, and muscular, well protected from the cold by
thick woolly hair. Suraraer is hard on these long-haired beasts,
they lie on bare ground to receive the cold of the underlying
ice or else find a place under the bank where the overhanging
moss gives shelter frora the sun. On warm days the dogs lie
panting in the shade and only at evening do they bestir them
selves, or when a steamboat arrives. As soon as the whistle is
sounded they make for the landing, eager for the scraps of food
thrown ashore by the stewards and cooks. The dogs do not
howl at the regular town whistles, but the salute of an in
coming stearaboat or any unfarailiar spectacle, such as a fire,
will cause them to set up a melancholy chorus. At intervals,
and unaccountably, the quiet night air of a town, like Dawson,
Avill be rent by a sudden outburst of howls from the uneasy
malamutes and huskies, who will subside into slumberous
sflence after two or three rainutes. The reason is no more
obvious than the sudden stampeding of cattle or the crowing
of cocks in the middle of the night, although the nocturnal
concerts of the native dogs have some resemblance to the weird
howling of the coyotes at dawn.
The malaraute knows not how to bark, he can only howl.
The following story is apropos : At Nome in the spring of 1899
a setter had a litter of five pups, the father of whom was ob
viously a malamute. The mother dog was proud of her family
and used to bring them into the Ames Mercantile Co's store.
One day, when the pups were big enough to run about, she dis
covered that they howled, but could not bark; this evidently

ON THE LOA/VBR YUKON.

291

disgusted her. Soon afterward she was seen with her five pups
in line on the beach teaching them to bark : she barked and
then looked at them as if giving them a kindergarten lesson.
Many persons saw this performance and noted the progress
of the experiraent. Finally, one pup did actually bark, ranch to
the delight of the mother, as she indicated by wagging her tail
and jumping about. Soon all the pups learned to bark like
civilized dogs.
But the malamute is a savage and is devoid of those in
stincts of faithfulness that make the dog a friend of raan,
although Jack London can spifi fanciful yarns about him. Here
is a true story, to offset London's tales. An 'outside' dog had

MALAMUTES IN CHORUS.

seven pups, of malamute breed; one day the mother got her
paw into a hole between the logs and howled in pain ; her pups
attacked her, killed her, and tore her to pieces before an
observer could drive them off. In summer the dogs become bad
tempered, fight araong theraselves, and attack children. While
at Nome, I saw a crowd gathered around a dog held by a police
man. Bystanders informed me that the dog had snapped at an
Eskimo child, and when the testimony was clear the policeman
hauled the dog by the scruff of the neck to the beach and shot
him. The malaraute 's only raotto is ' ' Woe to the vanquished ; ' '
if one of his brothers goes down in a fight, or accident, the
others all jurap on him at once. This is what makes it danger-

292 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
OUS for children to play with thera, for they will jump on a
child that sturables. In the summer of 1907 a boy eleven years
old was carrying a dinner pail to his father, who was at Avork
at a mine on the tundra a short distance from the town of
Nome. The boy was accompanied by four dogs; he happened
to sturable, and feU ; thereupon the dogs pounced upon hira and
rent him. Again, the inference is that the malamute is an
utterly unredeemed savage; he is to the dog tribe what his
raaster, the Eskimo, is to the huraan species.
Enough of dogs ; let us proceed along the river bank and
see the carap of the prospectors on the outskirts of the town.
A dozen tents are occupied by raen awaiting a chance to go up
the Innoko, the Kantishna, or Sullivan creek — these being the
latest 'starapedes. ' Looking at these adventurous raen, not
particularly robust in appearance nor particularly cheerful, the
idea comes that their lot is not to be envied, that their life is
an exile and their existence barren of corafort; and yet they
would not thank you for syrapathy. They do not need it. To
these hardy explorers the life of the noraad is attractive and
the lure of the 'creek' an excitement that is constantly re
newed; the reward of gold is sufficient to them, for with it
they buy all the creature comforts for which they care — cigars,
whisky, women. A rich gravel claim going $2 to $4 per square
foot 30 feet deep in frozen ground is as good as a potato patch
ready to be gathered and marketed among hungry men.
"Chacun a son go-dt et le marchand vend tout." The rush for
gold on the creeks is no more ignoble than the similar scramble
every day on State Street or Wall Street; the pick is as fine
an instrument as the ticker, and the steam-point is as useful
as the tape.
But these thoughts drop into oblivion as the day wanes and
the panoply of the sunset is spread athwart the gateway of the
West. The blue vault of the upper sky merges through emerald
tints into the golden splendor of clouds radiant with the glint
of the sinking sun. Flat masses of blue-gray mist float sil
houetted against the fading brightness, which illumines the
rolling contours of the wflderness, now purple in the twilight.
The gTea;t river sweeps around a headland ; far away, faint but

ON THE LOWER YUKON. 293
clear, is a mountain range parting the beauty of the earth and
sky. Soon the last rays of the sun are quenched and a dream
ing radiance robes the vast Northland in light that never be
fore was on land or sea.
Next day we waited for the Sarah, but she was delayed.
Late at night she came in sight, and on arrival we were trans
ferred, expecting more comfortable quarters, for was not this
one of the ' ' big packets, ' ' of which the agent at Dawson had
spoken rapturously. On arrival the Sarah's whistle caused all
the dogs in town to set up a melancholy howl, and on recalling
my journey on the Sarah, her accommodations, her service, and
her food, I fain would imitate those malamutes as the only way
of expressing ray feelings.
However, the Sarah finally got away on the day after her
arrival at Tanana and the last stage of our journey on the
Yukon was begun. The river swept through a flood plain
bounded by wooded hills. On the banks the effect of the ice is
seen in the removal of evergreens, such as spruce, causing a
fringe of willow to stand between the river and the forest.
Former sloughs are indicated by a young growth of willows
or a glade of waving grass. Clear streams enter the rauddy
main river and force a contrast.
At Nulato we touch the page of history, for this is an old
trading post. The present settlement consists of a telegraph
station and two stores, a number of Indian shacks, the resi
dences of a U. S. Government doctor and a Russian priest,
with a log church, ornamented in the tawdry style calculated
to impress an Eskimo. The buildings are sufficiently weather-
beaten to appear ancient, but they are all recent. The old set
tlement was a quarter of a mile below the present village, the
site of it being now marked by a clearing covered with brown
grass in which will be found 15 holes, indicating the 'dug-outs'
or igloos of the former Russian carap. All vestiges of the old
Nulato are gone save four graves, in which lie three Russian
traders and an English officer.
Originally known as Port Derabin, from its founder, a Rus
sian, it was a post of the Russian American Corapany in 1841,
having been rebuilt on the site of a trading station established

294 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
by Malakhoff, a Russian Creole, in 1838. Mention has been raade
of the ascent of the Yukon by Lieut. Zagoskin, of the Russian
navy, who carae to Nulato in 1842. Por ten years this lone
sorae little outpost served as a raart for the furs brought in
frora the surrounding country by the Indians. In 1851 Lieut.
Barnard, of the English ship Enterprise, arrived in search of
Sir John Franklin. Making a reraark that was misunderstood,
Barnard angered one of the Indian chiefs. A sudden attack
Avas raade on the post and all the inmates except one young
man and two or three children were massacred. Barnard and
Derabin lie in their abandoned graves, within a stone's throw
of the stockaded fort that in 1859 replaced the former log-
houses. The natives who died in the massacre were buried in
the holes where the Indian houses used to stand. The graves
and the holes are all that survive, and over them the rank
grass has spread an obliterating mantle. Abandoned houses
do not last long in Alaska; they are too valuable for firewood.
Just above the present village of Nulato a cluster of multi
colored Indian graves decorates the crest of a ridge overlook
ing the river. In their red, white, blue, and green these look
like doll's houses, inside of them food is placed, and along
side stand crosses, brilliantly tinted also. In their gaudy
atrocity they serve as landmarks to those who travel on the
river. A mile below another group of graves and caches marks
the site of the reindeer village belonging to the U. S. Govern
ment, but now in charge of the mission. In suraraer the rein
deer are herded at Holy Cross, but in winter they are brought
to Nulato under the charge of Dr. Norton. There are 10,000
reindeer in Alaska. About 28 railes up the river is the mouth
of the Koyukuk and a village of the same narae is near-by.
Good news of the gold diggings has been received, but the
prospectors are said to be short of provisions.
Those were long days on the lordly Yukon ; I have a vivid
raeraory of the rainor happenings that were repeated continu
aUy during the voyage. The regular deep breathing of the
engine as the steara issued frora the exhaust; at intervals the
rattle of the cable of the steering gear, when the pilot turned
the boat in the sinuous channel ; at the end of every half -hour

ON THE LOWER YUKON.

295

an explosive rush of steam as the mud was washed out of the
boiler; the desultory talk of passengers; the fragrance of a
briar pipe; a low shore and a silent land; the scrubby forest
of spruce and the distant ridge of hills; a high bank under
mined by the current, with trees lying prone on the river's
edge; a white tent and a fish-wheel; the splendid splash of
pink fiowers in the middle distance and the dark cloud of a
forest fire far away; sun and air, vivid and vivifying; rapid
and continuous movement into a vast wilderness; a feeling of
mental and physical alertness, with a preparedness for any-

NULATO.

thing that raight happen ; and through it all the strong regular
respiration of the tireless engines that were conquering the
successive railes of travel.
Approaching Kaltag we passed two Indians, a raan and a
woman in a boat; they were 'poling' and their progress was
further aided by two dogs that towed the boat laboriously
against the streara. A little farther we met another party
traveling in the same manner. On the left bank a group of
tents marked a fishing camp, as we could also tell from the red
patches of salmon hung on frames preparatory to being smoked.

296 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Then to the right on a high bank we saw three or four build
ings, one of which was the station of Kaltag, an important
point in the telegraph service. The Sarah blew her whistle,
and before the echoes had died a long-drawn melancholy howl,
as of lost souls in the pit of torraent, carae frora the shore. It
was the raalamute dogs.
At Kaltag the Yukon raakes a big bend southward, so that
while it is 570 miles by water to St. Michael it is only 90 mfles
across country to tide-water. It has been suggested that a rail
road across this low portage would effect the crossing in one
day easily, and thus save two days, at least, for the boats are
often delayed by storms and by going aground on the bar at
the mouth of the Yukon. The telegraph line runs straight
from Kaltag to Unalaklik, on Norton Sound, a distance of only
90 miles. The stakes set in 1867 by . the expedition of the
Western Union Telegraph Company are still visible and at
the seaward end of the portage, 4 miles north of Unalaklik,
the ruins of a station survive, together with a few poles and
sorae wire.
Anvik, the trading post for the Innoko, was passed in the
night, so we raissed raeeting Max Sirael, a squaw-raan and a
notable trader in these parts. His chief rival was Lon Cooper,
who bought fish frora the Indians on the basis of 30 for a dollar,
the regular price being 20 for a dollar. Simel held back until
the end of the season and then offered to buy at 20 fish for a
dollar, much to the discomfiture of Cooper, for, of course, the
Indians responded quickly. All payments were made not in
coin but in staples, chiefly tea. So, Sirael, in paying, measured
a half-pound of tea, instead of a pound, whereupon the Indian
demurred to the smallness of the package ; but Stirael explained
that it was a 'fish-dollar.' He worked the sarae game when
selling reindeer skins : Cooper took two martens for one rein
deer, while Simel asked three martens for his reindeer-dollar.
Thus a new application of the trade dollar was successfully
made and Jerusalem was justified of her children.
At Holy Cross a Russian mission lingers and the tawdry
ehurch and chapel of the Greek church dominate a neat little
settlement, the cleanliness of which is in strong contrast to the

HAULING FREIGHT OVER THE ICE OF BERING SEA.

298 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Indian fishing villages. A black-robed half-breed priest, with
long black hair, a black smock, and a bowler or derby hat,
came aboard^ — a curious anachronism and a depressing object.
Below Holy Cross the Yukon emerges into the flats of the
delta, which reaches inland for 60 miles. Here navigation is
impeded by silting of the channels, for the river has many out
lets meandering through marshes and islands, so that its flood
is abated and spread over a large area, causing shallow water.
During our joumey we had seen how the banks are under
mined and the forest swept into the river each spring, so that
it was easy to understand how big a raass of debris is brought
down each year for deposition on the sea coast. For five miles
from shore soundings show only 4 feet, the cause of which is
seen in the waters discolored by the sediment that settles far
out to sea.
Even in the delta the scenery, though tame, has a quiet
charm, heightened by the prospect of ending the journey. The
yellow marshes, the vividly green brush, the fiocks of geese in
long procession, and the blue bourne of hills on the eastern
horizon give the picture a touch of dignity and a feeling of
spaciousness. Soon we approached the sea. On the right the
raarshes of the delta terrainated in the bold headland of Cape
Romanoff, while on the left the shalloAvs of the estuary merged
far away into the blue of the open sea. Turning northward we
reached St. Michael, four days from Tanana.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
ST. MICHAEL AND NOME.
St. Michael is known to every traveler in the North ; it is a
name to conjure with, for it evokes both curses and praises.
Of all the ports of call on the main lines of travel about the
world there is no place viewed so subjectively as St. Michael.

ST. MICHAEL.

The personal point of view colors the impression of everyone
who ever landed on that lonely island in Bering Sea; for ex
ample, Mr. Jeremiah Lynch found "a poor hotel," "innumer
able dogs, guarded by a few squalid Indians. ' ' He had to stay
there 12 days: "It was a dreary detention." On the other

300 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
hand, Mrs. EUa Higginson found "an excellent hotel at St.
Michael," also "beautiful ivory carvings" and some gorgeous
sunsets. Her mood was most sympathetic: "The tundra is
rolling, with numerous pools that flame like brass at sunset,"
and so forth. Finally, the lady waxes rhapsodical : "In aU the
world there cannot be another spot so noble in which to lie
down and rest when life's fevers and life's passions all are
past." This author is in evident agreement with the steam
ship companies, which have a way of compelling travelers to
spend a few days between boats on a spot the beauties of which
are not visible to the casual observer. St. Michael is a place of
"dreary detention," as Mr. Lynch truly says; it looks like a
penal settlement, and while it may be an excellent spot when
"life's passions" are over, it is a most undesirable place of so
journ as long as anyone can bribe or hire a vessel to carry him
elsewhere. The hotel is execrable, the town is decrepit, the
barracks are hideous; the derelicts rotting in the harbor, the
filthy Indians slouching on the shore, the soggy morass in three
directions and the gray sea in the offing, all combine to make a
picture that has been known to excite a ' ' fitful fever ' ' of great
violence and unexampled eloquence against things in general.
However, I ought not to say too many unkind things about
St. Michael, for I escaped detention, spending only six hours
there. During that interval I saw some of the relics of the Rus
sian occupation. A fort was planted here by Michael Tebenkoff
in 1833, the block-house being built of drift-logs brought down
by the Yukon. This block-house stands on the shore ; inside of
it there remain six toy-like cannon, weighing about 100 pounds
each, on wooden carriages with wooden wheels; and the gun-
ports indicate how they were used. A Greek church survives ;
the ministrations are in the hands of two Russian priests, the
congregation consisting of a dozen Eskimo and a stray tourist.
At the back of the hotel is a sraall fenced enclosure from which
the body of a Russian bishop was taken to be interred in front
of the church, the body and coffin being found preserved in
solid ice. In digging, the wood of the coffin was broken, and
thus by accident the body was exposed to view, proving to be

o2;Eh<i
mAHO%H
0303 <:o2;
Q<

302 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
in perfect preservation and recognizable as one of the earliest
Russian ecclesiastics.
The shore is fringed with blocks of black basalt and on the
horizon several conical hills suggest volcanic vents. In the
topography the lava flows, covered by tundra, are manifest.
Geologically, St. Michael is recent, for it was raised above the
sea not so very long ago, the natives even alleging that it has
been submerged within the memory of their forefathers.
We were fortunate in catching the Victoria, of the Alaska
Steamship line, reaching Nome, 106 miles from St. Michael, in
9 hours. To arrive at Nome is not as simple as it sounds. It
was night ; while the Victoria was yet churning the cold waters
of Bering Sea we saw the electric lights of the town, a flashing
coronet on the cold brow of the North. After nearly a week's
journeying down the sullen Yukon and through the heart of
the inhuraan wilderness it was a pleasant shock to see the
evidence of raodern industry and to be raade aware of this
brave little coraraunity of adventurers so far frora civilization.
After an hour's wait, and signaling with the shore, two
railes to leeward, we saw a lighter towed by a tug approach
within the field of the Victoria's searchlight. Disembarking,
we descended onto the lighter, which was swinging in a gentle
swell. All being aboard, the tug towed the crowded lighter,
but the latter having no steering, she swung first to one side
and then to the other as the waves willed. When about 150
yards from the shore and within sound of the surf, we came
close to a tall steel tower standing in the shallow sea ; it proved
to be the terminal stations of an aerial tramway, used for trans
porting freight, and it also served as the anchorage for an
endless hemp rope that ran to the beach. The men in charge of
the lighter grappled for this rope, but, after several attempts,
failed. While this perforraance was under way the lighter was
drifting orainously near the line of the breakers, so that the
tiig had to be recalled to pull the lighter back over the line of
the cable. Then finally the cable was caught, the attachment
was made secure, and the lighter was pulled rapidly (by the
endless rope) to the landing stage; a gang-plank was dropped
expeditiously, whfle the lighter rose and fell to the motion of

FRONT STREET, NOME.

304 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the sea, and without more ado we- scrambled up the gang
plank to the high wharf. Thus we reached Norae, the raost
northern of the great gold raining caraps of the raodern world.
Next raorning (August 26) a ride on horseback over the
tundra yielded first impressions of the environments of Norae.
Leaving the planked streets of the town we followed the wagon-
road built by the Governraent across the tundra to the mines
on the Third Beach. This road is neither macadam nor cordu
roy, it has simply been drained and graveled, with a result not
wholly satisfactory, leaving a broad black streak stretching
northward to the hills on the near horizon. Looking acrttss
the soft contours of this coastal plain, carpeted with moss, the
tundra is seen to stretch to a number of ridges indented by
valleys. Between Anvil mountain and Newton peak, both of
which rise sUghtly above 1000 feet, is Dry creek. The seaward
slopes are broken by gray outcrops of limestone, whfle on the
crests of the hills fantastic shapes have been weathered out of
schist, one of these being the celebrated Anvil rock, which gave
a name to the wonderfully rich valley in which the pioneers
found fortunes.
On leaving the town the road runs between the shallow de
pressions along which Dry and Bourbon creeks find their way
to the sea; by reason of a natural concentrating process these
small valleys contain deposits of gold-bearing gravel rich
enough to be mined by various methods. A large dredge, evi
dently new, lies with broken back in its own pond in Bourbon
creek, telling of a sad fiasco, whfle close-by two or three ruined
contrivances of queer shape indicate ill-advised efforts at early
dredging. On the tundra in this vicinity an idle Keystone drfll
suggests the service done to mining exploration by this useful
device, whereby a columnar sample of the gravel deposit is
obtained before actual mining begins. Riding on, the next
object to arrest attention is a cluster of stakes — six of thera—
indicating a conflict of ownership, for while four stakes would
be required at the corner where two bench clairas and two
creek clairas intersect, the two extra posts mean that someone
had been 'jumping' the location, with an inevitable sequel of

ST. MICHAEL AND NOME.

305

litigation, such as has embittered the Avhole existence of this
frontier community.
Leaving the main road we follow a trail along Dry creek,
where raining is in progress. A group of raen are shoveling
the gravel into sluice-boxes, the water for washing being eon-
ducted frora a ditch through a canvas hose, whose white ser
pentine length quivers with life as the water courses through
it. This method is siraple and flexible ; it was used by the
pioneers in California. The hose is 14 inches in diaraeter and
is raade of 12 to 14 ounce canvas, sewed with three searas.

DISABLED DREDGE ON BOURBON CREEK, NOME.

Where the men are raining, the gravel has thawed naturally;
this is indicated by clusters of scrubby willow, little bushes
only three or four feet high, but a valuable sign to the miner,
Avho knows that wherever on the tundra he sees the dwarf
Avillows he can be assured of soft ground all the way to bed
rock. Surmounting the rise above Dry creek the trail crosses the
line of a railroad, a branch of the Seward Peninsula Railway.
This narrow-gauge system was originally built, to Anvil creek,
by the Wild Goose Mining & Trading Co. at the time when
Charles D. Lane was in coramand ; it is 80 miles long, with the

306 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
inland terrainus at Lanes Landing in the Kougarok district.
Whfle serving a useful purpose, this is a railway of crude con
struction, without rock ballast and without grading, laid simply
on the rolling tundra. The rails lie on ties and the ties on
'stringers' of three-inch plank placed lengthwise. On slopes
only one stringer is used, namely, on the lower side. The line
is baUasted with moss and foUows the easiest avaflable con
tours, up and down and round about. An attempt was raade
to strip the raoss and lay the track on the gravel, but this plan
proved a failure owing to the raelting of the exposed surface
causing the impermanent way to sink out of sight. I did not
travel on this railroad, although in receipt of a card that would
have made a joumey inexpensive. Nor was this declination
unwarranted, as was proved by a sad fatality a few days later.
On September 15 a train going to Lanes Landing was derailed
without any apparent cause, and when the cars were over
turned several persons were seriously injured; among these
was Cabel Whitehead, who two or three days earlier had re
signed as president of the company controlling the railway.
Whitehead was a chemist and banker, a leader in the develop
ment of the Seward Peninsula and a notable figure in Alaskan
history. He had invited me to go with him on a fishing and
hunting expedition, but another engagement prevented accept
ance of this courtesy. When the train 'jumped the track,' he
was sitting on a flat car, on which lumber was loaded, and as
the car turned over he was thrown into a water hole in the
tundra with some of the lumber on top of him, so that fully
two minutes elapsed before he eould be extricated. His lungs
had becorae filled with the sandy cold water, violent pneuraonia
supervened, and he died two days later. The funeral took
place on the day when the Northwestern sailed, and as we lay
off shore on September 8, a lighter was towed alongside, and a
coffin covered with the national flag was hoisted aboard, with
no further ceremony than the doffing of every hat. He was a
useful man, a scholar, and a gentleraan.

CHAPTER XXIX.
NOME AND THE ESKIMO.
Nome is attractive, a haven alike for the storm-tossed sailor
on Bering Sea and the leg-weary traveler over the interminable
tundra. It is a clean little town inhabited by a cheerful com-

NOME.
mi^nity of hardy people. Stretching along the edge of the
coastal plain, Nome is on the fringe of things in general, but
it has a strong grip on life and happiness. Being on the tundra,
the streets are planked, otherwise they would be mere canals
of bottomless raud. Owing to the mode of construction and
the scarcity of vehicular traffic, the streets are quiet and clean.

308 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
The main thoroughfare is Front street, which is narrow and
crooked, giving picturesque effects. For a raile it extends be
tween the wooden dwellings and shacks dedicated to many and
varied uses, from banks to bagnios, from stores to saloons,
from fish to furs.
Nome has a population of 4500 in suraraer, when business is
most active ; in winter the number shrinks to 3000. In 1908
the town polled 1500 voters. Nome boasts a larger proportion
of women and children than any other settlement in the Far
North, and despite the yearly exodus there is a steady in
crease of those who are willing to reraain through the long
winter. Most of the engineers and other professional men
connected with mining operations go 'outside' just before the
close of navigation, as fixed by the southward movement of the
ice-pack. In 1908 the "last boat" left on October 23. Prom
then until June all communication is overland by dog-team to
St. Michael and thence by way of Fairbanks to Valdez, where
steamship connection is made with Seattle. Early in June the
"first boat" arrives amid great excitement. In the effort to
bring the first stock of supplies to the hibernating folk at
Nome, the steamers from San Francisco and Seattle have been
known to brave the ice-pack, with results disastrous to every
one concerned. In 1903 the Portland and the Jennie were caught
in the ice and were carried through Bering strait into the Arctic
until the ice-drift released thera. In 1908 the Yucatan was 17
days overdue and the Victoria arrived with a hole in her bow,
while the ice-pack gripped the Ohio so securely that she was 33
days overdue. Whether the ice was wholly to blame, or an
over-cautious captain of the Ohio, is a subject that will provoke
violent discussion at Nome even to this day.
When called into being as a place of landing at the mouth
of Snake river, in 1899, Nome consisted of a few tents, to which
log-cabins were added when the pioneers had collected the
drift-wood on the shore. In the first winter no other fuel was
available except the drift-wood brought by the Yukon into
Bering Sea and strewn by the waves along the low coast. It
Avas a providential gift. Even with the help of wood fires that
was a dreary winter for the handful of men who camped on the

ESKIMO WOMAN AND CHILD.

310 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
edge of the coastal plain. They tell me that there was much
fog, causing men to lose their way on the trackless waste;
among these was the present City Attorney, who was lost for
four days. Once away from the shore there was nothing to
serve as a landmark and not many were wise enough to use a
compass. The drinking of tundra water and the general un
sanitary conditions led to an outbreak of typhoid, from which
100 died at Nome, while others died on the stearaers going
horae. This unnerved many of the newcomers, but it had a
good result in stimulating the construction of a pipe-line to
the Moonlight springs, whence excellent water is brought four
miles to the town.
Those gold-seekers who went 'out' in the fall of 1899 and
landed at San Francisco and Seattle announced the richness
of the beach and the creeks of Nome. As nearly $3,000,000
worth of gold testified to the truth of their stories, the interest
excited was keen enough to cause a big stampede, like the one-
to the Klondike two years earlier. But it differed frora that
'rush' in the fact that access to the new diggings was wholly
by sea, and without privation, so that the crowd of raen who
landed on the beach of Norae in June 1900 were even less fitted
for rough work than those who traraped over the White and
Chilkoot passes.
Every calling in life was represented, especially the shift
less and visionary who hoped to raake a short cut to wealth.
They paid from $125 to $300 to come to Nome and they paid
from $100 to $125 to return to 'the States,' as most of them
did after a rapid disillusionment. Steerage passengers paid
$60 to $75. The steamers were terribly crowded, 1100 to 1200
raen were put on boats of 2000 to 2500 tons, and every old hulk
on the Pacific coast was requisitioned for this lucrative service.
There was the inevitable 'graft' that disgraces every episode
of this kind. Empty cabins on crowded ships testified to the
corrupt practices of pursers who made money by selling privi
leges to those who were willing to bribe, while persons who
had paid for berths found themselves shut out unless they "took
care ' ' of those in brief authority.
As seen from the incoming ships the tented city on the

NOME AND THE ESKIMO.

311

edge of the tundra looked like a snow-drift. Tents stretched
from Fort Davis to Penny river, a distance of 22 miles.
Fully 2500 landed at Nome early in the suraraer of 1900 and
camped on the edge of the tundra, where a white city five miles
long faced the shore, then littered with freight and machinery,
including some of the weirdest devices ever invented. Natur
ally "the golden sands of Nome" had served as a fascinating
cry from irresponsible brokers to the gullible portion of the
public. Corapanies were formed without limit and stock was

A RELIC OF THE BOOM ON THE BEACH AT NOME.

sold without stint, the flamboyant promoter spurning the
handicap of truth or limited knowledge of such facts as might
hinder hira in framing his alluring prospectus. Of course, if
individuals without machinery could earn $10 and $20 per day
by mere digging of the sea-beach, it was obvious that with
machinery and expert knowledge, the winnings would be tre
mendous. Thus they salted the tail of the bird of their imagi
nation until they thought they held it fluttering within their
greedy hands. Every kind of gold-saving device was brought
to Nome, from patent cradles to cumbrous dredges. It was

312 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
planned to dredge under the waves, the promoters believing
that the gold was swept shoreward frora the sea, and therefore
the greater the distance frora the shore the richer the sea-
bottom. For this fallacy there was no excuse, because Brooks
and Schrader of the Geological Survey had already published
a preliminary report, giving a simple explanation of the char
acter of the deposits. This is a fitting place to refer to the
great service done by the geologists of the Survey, not to Nome
only, but to Alaska in general, through the publication — with
out delay — of maps and descriptions of local geology such as
the intelligent miner could use as a scientific guide in his daily
operations. At Nome, in particular, the work of the Survey
exemplifies the invaluable aid given by a scientific bureau to a
young industry. The description of the beach deposits and the
explanation of their mode of origin, published in the first recon
naissance reports, were in effect a prophecy that similar concen
trations would be found on the coastal plain, and I do not
doubt that the discovery of the Second and Third beaches was
hastened by the elementary but fundamental geologic principles
enunciated by Brooks and Schrader in 1900.
A few profited by the information published by the Survey,
but to the mob it raattered little, and to the faker it was a
hindrance. Therefore vast sums of raoney were squandered in
the delirious triraraings of raachinery, relics of which can still
be seen cast away upon the shore. One fearsorae raachine is
shown in the accompanying photograph; it had huge iron
wheels with flat broad tires and carried a suction pump by
Avhich the sand was elevated to a washing apparatus. This
contraption was supposed to stand in the breakers and reach
the gold on the bottora of Bering Sea. Several dredges of
nightraare design lie half buried in the sand. If there be few
survivors of the array of machines that crowded the narrow
beach in 1900, it is because a big storm on August 9 smashed
them and swept them high on the tundra. A few linger on the
winding estuary of the Snake river, and there I saw them
standing as a warning, let us hope, to the inexperienced.
In June 1900 the Oregon brought four smallpox cases to
Norae; when this fact becarae known there was a scare that

AN ESKIMO BELLE.

314 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
took the heart out of the mob of disappointed gold-seekers.
Many had come expecting to flnd the beach glittering with
nuggets. Sorae of these simple ones lost their reason. A man
was seen to walk along the shore and reach down for a grab of
sand, which he then spread on his hand; flnding no gold, he
blew out his brains. An old raan and his wife pitched their '
tent on the beach and two days later were found dead; their
disappointment had been too much for thera, so the husband
had first shot the wife and then hiraself. It was a tawdry set
tleraent full of the flotsam and jetsam of the huraan tide. At
one tirae as many as 2000 worked on the beach and the gold
easily won was quickly spent by most of them in the saloons
and dives that were so nuraerous. In the summer of 1900 there
were 30,000 people at Nome, but 16,000 left in 13 weeks. They
left hurriedly, selling their effects as best they could, so that
one or two enterprising men bought supplies for two years
ahead at prices that represented 10 cents on the dollar. The
smallpox scare prorapted many to decamp, the impending win
ter frightened others, inability to get work and the high cost
of living made life irapossible for even those who were willing
to exert themselves, and these were shipped 'outside' either by
the Government or by private charity. The output of gold in
1900, including the creeks, is estimated to have been $4,750,000.
Since then this mining district has been the scene of anarchy
disgraceful to the Governraent of the United States, but that is
so complicated a story that I leave it for the moraent, while
we watch the life of Nome as it is seen today.
Nome, more than any other region, gave an impression of
strangeness such as raay well have befallen the adventurers of
Queen Elizabeth's tirae when they first invaded the Spanish
raain. Here were uncouth simple natives, wholly unlike the
American aborigines; here wood was so scarce that these na
tives treasured a piece of willow as if it were precious metal;
here were no forests, only a dreary waste of tundra ; here the
air was so still that voices could be heard afar; here day and
night were scarcely distinguishable, work proceeding at mid
night as at noon in the ethereal illuraination that raost of the
gold-seekers had never seen before on land or sea.

NOME AND THE ESKIMO.

315

The Front street of Norae has more character than the thor
oughfare of any other Araerican mining camp. This it owes to
the Eskimo. As Cairo is the meeting place of the Eastern and
Western civilizations, so Nome is the spot where the people of
the Arctic mingle with the invaders from the Temperate zone.
This gives a strange diversity of costume. The gay cloak or
parka is worn by both sexes; it is made of colored drilling,

ESKIMO GIRLS.

imported, of course; this is a new fashion, for the old Eskimo
wore only the skins of animals, chiefly squirrel and reindeer
hides. Reindeer-skin is supposed to be the warmest fur; the
hair is close; it belongs to the aniraal living in the bleakest
region of the globe. The undergarments — shirt and drawers —
are made of the skins of reindeer fawns, the hair being worn
against the body. The women wear the same clothing, but

316 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
in the form of a 'combination'. In Siberia the natives wear a
thicker garment of full-grown reindeer-skin. This undergar
ment, with the fur against the body, is covered with another
having the fur outside ; and this completes the costume, except
that in traveling the Eskimo wears an overgarment that serves
to protect him from the wind: a parka made of drilling, and
provided with a wolverine hood. Wolverine is said to be the
only fur on which the frost will not gather, as the long hair
prevents it from matting. Other furs when dampened by the
breath will freeze, forming icicles against the face. The Eski
mo's socks are made of the hide taken from the legs of the
reindeer; over this he wears the mukluk, a high leather boot,
the body of which is made of hair-seal, the hair being some
tiraes reraoved. The top of the mukluk is made of reindeer hide
taken from the animal's legs, and the sole is lined either with
walrus or with seal-skin. In summer they wear a high water
proof covering made of the skin of the hair-seal, which is kept
soft by the application of seal-oil, the smell of which emanates
frora everything belonging to the Eskirao. Rancid seal-oil has
an odor that travels far and is unwearied. The reindeer-skins
are soft and beautifully tanned, the inner bark of willow being
used for this purpose. Deer-skin caps, with the hair outside and
with no lining, are wom in winter. The woraen 's heads are
protected by their own hair, black, thick, and long. It is
washed in an unraentionable fluid, but soap is now being used
also. On first raaking the acquaintance of soap, they ate it,
like the raan who put his feet in the gruel, and drank the raus-
tard and water. Mistakes will happen. The children's little
parkas are fringed with a ruching of land-otter, and their oily
brown faces, with a touch of deep red, are lit by intensely black
eyes and a cheerful sraile. They look happy, even though in
clothing and raanner of life they differ so much from the pink
and white youngsters of the Southern folk.
On the sand-spit at the raouth of the Snake river an Eskimo
settlement has been made. Most of the shelters under which
they live consist of oomiaks, or family boats, turned on edge.
A few tents give variety to the scene. Tom-cod in festoons are
hung on poles, dogs are asleep in the sand, dirty native woraen

REINDEER.

AN ESKIMO IN HIS KAYAK.

318 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
crouch by the camp-fire, a young fellow is finishing a kayak, the
tin debris of the boom days litters the shore, a sraell of seal-
oil is borne on the breeze^it is not an inspiring picture. These
Eskimo live on Cape Prince of Wales and come to Nome in
summer, to fish and to sell curios, such as carved ivory, mainly
walrus tusks.
The Eskimo, or Innuit as they call themselves, live in under
ground hovels called igloos. To them also "there is no place
like hime ' ' and I can vouch for it that there is no place like the
Eskirao 's hom.e. It is not possible to describe the habits of
these people or their queer customs, for some of them would
disgust the polite reader. They have been related in other
books of travel. "One man's meat is another raan's poison"
and one people 's ways would poison the rainds of another. At
night when at horae the men strip nude and the women wear
a breech-clout; as soon as they go indoors they remove their
reindeer clothing, which, of course, is infested with insects that
do not annoy them, mainly because their sraooth hard skin is
continually smeared with seal-oil. The clothes are hung on a
pole above the lamp, fed with seal-oil, standing in the centre
of the igloo, and thus they are dried. In frosty weather the
native takes his skin clothes and beats them with two deer-
horns provided with a crook, like a golf-stick. This they do the
first thing in the morning so as to disengage the vermin.
On the Siberian side the natives rarely die a natural death.
When old or diseased they are killed by hanging or by stabbing,
often at their own request. Suicides are frequent, especially
among the women. These have been known to go out into a
Avinter storm nude and court death by freezing. Their lives are
those of animals, and though they possess some sort of intelli
gence raaking them superior to the beasts that they hunt, it is
a self-consciousness that only adds to their misery. I would
rather be a seal or a polar bear than an Eskimo.
Come and dine with me at the Royal Cafe ; it is not the Cafe
Royal, and yet if previously you have walked over the tundra
or ridden on horseback along the flrm sands of Bering Sea,
you will pronounce it a good restaurant, however you may pro
nounce the name it bears. The place is crowded but clean ; the

ESKIMO CHILDREN.

POLAR BEAR AND HUNTER.

320 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
well intended efforts of a piano and a violin give a touch of
gaiety, and the crowd that passes along the raain street can be
watched with interest while the reindeer stew or the roast
ptarmigan is being prepared. The Eskirao give color to the
scene ; the woraen in their pink and yellow parkas and wolverine
hoods look like ladies on their way to a party; the men in fur
ruffles and light drill parkas wear visored caps or else go bare
headed with masses of long black hair trimmed with a Dutch
cut. Two Eskirao carry the skin of a polar bear on a long pole.
Others have carved whalebone for sale. Dogs are numerous.
The bright tints of the native costume produce a chromatic live
liness unusual in a mining carap. The huskies and the mala-
rautes accorapany the Eskirao and suggest Arctic life. An occa
sional Saxon of fresh complexion looks very pink araid these
black and oily denizens of the North. Stalwart rainers in high
laced boots and stiff broad-briraraed hats recaU Colorado and
Nevada. Woraen dressed conventionally indicate that Nome
has homes as well as mines. The superintendent of a mine rides
past on a handsorae black horse that clatters over the boarded
street and scatters the Eskimo children with the dogs. And all
this tirae the rausicians in the background have been doing their
best, as well as the cook. Silver salmon, reindeer steak, and
ptarmigan, followed by blueberry pie, represent adequate nour
ishraent of a kind suited to the picturesque environraent. A
demi-tasse and a Havana cigar emphasize the fact that Nome is
no jumping-off place, but on the highway of civilization from
New York to Paris, via Bering strait.

CHAPTER XXX.
THE DOG RACE.
Eskimo and dogs make Nome lively, especially at night. A
fire on Sesnon 's wharf incited the dogs to a special outbreak
of howling on one otherwise quiet night. The noise was sorae
thing between the sad plaint of fiends in hell — so I am told —
and the caterwauling of felines on the garden wall — this I
know. The outcry was especially weird when it became faint,
as if in hopeless agony. A few barks from 'outside' dogs eould
be heard clearly, but the uproar came predominantly from the
native canines.
'Huskies' and 'raalarautes' roam on every street and alley
of Nome. Huski is a native word for Eskimo and malamute is
the name of a tribe at the mouth of the Yukon. These dogs
are stocky and sturdy, extremely muscular and long-haired,
so that they are well fitted to pull sleds over the snow. When
on the trail in winter the dogs are fed with dried salmon, one
fish weighing two pounds being given to each dog. After the
fish, the dogs are fed with three-quarters of a pound up to
one pound of fat bacon, of the cheapest variety. Sorae men
cook a raixture of salraon, rice or cornraeal, and bacon drip
pings. When cooled, this raess is arranged in little raounds on
the snow at regula,;r distances, so that the dogs may not poach
on one another's allotment. They will eat anything fat, such
as lard or tallow, the appetite for such food being developed
both by man and beast through adaptation to a cold environ
ment. If the bacon is not rendered out before being raixed
with the cooked food, a clever dog wfll go from one pile to
another and use his paw so as to pick out the scraps of bacon.
This will lead to fighting, of course ; for the dogs recognize

322 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
no friend except the man who feeds them, and only while he
feeds them. When flsh is fed dry to the dogs, it is first thawed
by being broiled slightly over a fire, so as to bring the oil to the
surface. When on the trail the dogs are fed once a day, at the
end of the run ; if fed in the morning, they become torpid.
Travelers must take care not to be frost-bitten in winter
when 'mushing' with a dog-team. In extremely eold weather,
especially when windy, a patch of rabbit skin, with hair at
tached, is put on the tip of the nose and on each cheek-bone ;
this will delay freezing. The fur is moistened and becoraes at
tached on the hairy side, the idea being that it protects the
spots on the face where freezing would otherwise start. The
natives wear wooden spectacles or a wooden eye-raask, with a
slit for each eye, to guard against snow-blindness. If blinded
by the glare of snow, a bit of raw raeat or even a raw potato
serves as a poultice to lessen the inflammation. That is a
remedy used in the mountains of Colorado. When traveling
in the North during winter, care must also be taken not to be
corae so hot as to perspire, for if a raan becoraes warra and then
stops to rest, the raoisture freezes and he is in danger of a sud
den chill, leading to pneuraonia. The aira is to keep cool with
out becoming cold. When on the march the outer garments
are doffed as soon as the traveler becomes warm, the experi
enced men usually wearing only a drill parka to protect them
frora the wind, leaving the fur parka for the tirae when they
are weary or when their vitality has run down. Great care is
taken of the feet, to keep thera warraly clad. A man with frost
bitten toes in the wilderness of snow is in a bad plight. Or
dinary socks, ' German socks, ' straw in the sole, and then ' muk
luks' over everything, constitute the best foot-gear.
The malaraute dogs are raiserable in suramer, but full of
life in winter. On the wildest night that blows a raalamute
will lie where the wind will strike him fair. They are extraor
dinarily hardy. By service with the sleds they develop into
lively bundles of muscle; they enjoy their work in harness
and run like spirited horses, so that the driver is compelled to
apply his brake. The usual price of a good malamute is $50,

THE DOG RACE.

323

although some of the dogs in the celebrated race brought $400
to $500 apiece.
The first dog-team race on the Seward Peninsula started on
April 1, 1908, the course being frora Nome to Candle and re
turn, a distance of 440 miles. Ten competitors started. No
limit was placed to the number of dogs in a team, but each
driver had to return Avith the same dogs as he had at the start,
whether alive in the harness or dead in the sled. This rule was
meant to prevent cruelty or excessive strain on the endurance
of the dogs. For instance, one dog in Bob Adams' team froze
in his traces during the storm that SAvept over the country a

A DOG TEAM ON THE MARCH.
few hours after the start from Nome and his dead body was
carried on the sled for the remainder of the race. The teams
consisted either of seven or nine dogs, the odd one being the
leader, who was an 'outside' dog, that is, a setter or St. Ber
nard of mixed breed. Intelligence and grit, rather than
strength, are required in the leader, and for this reason the
pairs of huskies and raalarautes of the Eskimo follow the dog
brought by the white man from another country. The harness
includes a collar that is pulled over the head and padded, like
a horse-collar. The dogs were fed with fish and bacon in the
usual way, together with rice and condensed milk. Only one
meal a day was permitted, preferably at night, after the day's

324 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
work was over. The dogs in the winning team ranged in
weight from 80 to 97 pounds, the average weight being 86
pounds. The sled used in this race was made of light oak or hickory
slats, shod with brass and overlapped with brass bands. The
maximum weight of the sleds was 45 pounds. Pink's weighing
only 20 pounds. Albert Fink is the Nome lawyer who OAvned
the winning team. The race took 5 days, less 40 minutes, the
first three teams arriving within 30 rainutes of each other as
measured by the actual running time, for they did not start
simultaneously, but at intervals, so as not to interfere. The
ten teams started two hours apart, the order being decided by
casting lots, the winner choosing to start last, thinking it best
to let the other teams break the trail over which he would fol
low. This helped Fink's team. Por it so happened that the
teams which started first felt the brunt of a storra that over
took thera soon after the start, when only 40 miles from Nome.
Six of the teams were held for 20 hours at Brown's road-house
by reason of this blizzard. Thus the three teams that started
last had a big advantage in tirae. And they tried to get every
other advantage, coaxing the extra dogs running loose behind
the sled in front of thera, thereby hindering an opponent from
reaching the next resting place, for each driver had to be sure
of all his dogs, the absence of any one of them disqualifying
the team.
The race was for a prize of $2500, and by private arrange
ment in one case, at least, the driver was to receive half the
purse. But this did not measure the amount of raoney at
stake, for betting was brisk. Pink raade bets of $300 at 4 to
1 against the field in behalf of his driver and each of his three
commissary men. The race was reported by the telephone
service established by A. E. Boyd along the road between Nome
and Candle; thus the arrival and departure of each team at
any one of the thirteen telephone stations was reported, so that
the entire race was watched from start to finish, amid the
greatest local excitement. The bulletin board at Nome was
never without a crowd, the interest being prolonged for five
days. The winner raade the course in 4 days 23 hours 15

THE TEAM THAT WON THE RACE AT NOME IN APRIL 190S.
Photograph by Dobbs, Nome. Published by permission.

326 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
minutes, and the second team made it in 5 days 7 minutes 52
seconds, so that the difference in time over the 440 miles was
only 52 minutes. These teams were delayed 20 and 22 hours,
respectively, by the storm. The average time was 8 miles an
hour. Of the three winning teams not a dog was injured by
the race; in a couple of days afterward they were in harness
again and ready for work. At one tirae it looked as if Fink
would lose, so he hedged miserably. This was neither good
sportsmanship nor good judgment, for he had a splendid
driver — Bert Barber. On arrival he had seven dogs in harness
and two running loose behind. The latter had lain in the sled
for many miles — just tuckered out. Frora Candle to the Tim
ber road-house this team traveled 140 miles without a stop and
the driver states that he never got into the sled except to ride
his brake when going down steep hills. The second team,
driven by Jake Berger, raade the 36 miles from Solomon to
Norae in 4 hours, that is, at an average speed of 9 railes per
hour. The winner arrived after raidnight. The whole town was
agog and Front street was closely lined with the crowd for a
mile long. The air was fifteen degrees below zero, but that
was not noticed. The winning driver arrived hatless, without
a coat, with his thin alpaca shirt thrown open, exposing his
neck and shoulders to the freezing midnight air, arms bared
above the elbows, braces hanging loose, his face red and per
spiration rolling down, the steam of it being visible in the frosty
atraosphere for three or four feet above his head — ^he was a
sight ! Corapletely exhausted, he seemed dazed when the long
rush Avas ended. On his feet he wore mukluks, the native
boots made of seal-skin and soled with walrus hide. His hands
Avere bare, the gloves and fur-coat lying in the sled. It was a
famous race, and the tale of it will long be told by many a
camp-fire in the North.

CHAPTER XXXI.
THE THREE SWEDES.
The story of the gold discoveries that raade Nome famous
constitutes one of the great tales of raining. No flirasy roraance
is needed to decorate the facts and no mythological frills are
required to enhance the results. The first discovery of gold
made by white men was in 1888 when King and Green, who
found the Omalik silver mine on Fish river, panned fine gold
on the bars of Pish river. But they did nothing further to test
the value of this placer. In 1894 Joe Hansen, who later raade
a fortune at Dawson, went with two natives up the Pish river,
and then up the Niukluk, above Casadepaga, and finding more
gold, came back for lumber to raake sluice-boxes. Returning
to the coast, he got word from a partner telling hira of dis
coveries on the Klondike ; thereupon he left for the upper
Yukon. This Norwegian was named Johannson, a name easily
corrupted by his American friends to Joe Hansen. He deserves
to be properly recorded in the archives of the North, for not
only did he make one of the first discoveries of gold, but he
also taught the Eskirao on the Niukluk how to pan. That was
a lesson fruitful in results; he deserves to be styled Professor.
Another important figure was John A. Dexter, a trader on
Golofnin bay, who encouraged the natives to pan the gold of
the creeks when on their fishing and hunting trips. Finally, in
August 1897, an Eskimo, named Tom Guarick, found gold on
Ophir creek and reported the fact to Dexter, shoAving him half
an ounce of gold, which he had panned. Only a month later a
party of prospectors carae to Golofnin bay from St. Michael.
They had come from California under a grub-stake agreeraent
with capitalists at San Francisco. Being shown the gold at

328 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Dexter 's store, they secured Tora as a guide and were taken
by hira to the place on Ophir creek where this Eskirao had
made a discovery.
This party of prospectors consisted of Daniel B. Libby, H.
L. Blake, A. P. Mordaunt, and Louis S. Melsing, under the
leadership of Libby, who knew something about the country,
having been there with the Westem Union Telegraph expedi
tion in 1866 and 1867. When a young man of 25, he had charge
of the Port Clarence station and in the fall of 1866 he had
crossed the Seward Peninsula with Otto von Bendeleben. At
that time they had detected the presence of gold in the gravel
qf the Niukluk river; when, therefore the Klondike excite
raent broke out he organized a party to test the value of the
discovery made 30 years earlier. Landing at Golofnin bay, he
was just in time to be told of the Eskimo's find and promptly
utilized the information, in the raanner narrated. Besides Ophir
creek, they found gold in a neighboring valley called Melsing
creek, christened after one of their own party. Other pros
pectors carae on the ground, for the whole of Alaska was get
ting the benefit of the interest excited by the Klondike rush,
and men continued to arrive from St. Michael. Thereupon, in
accordance with the established custom of Araerican raining
regions, a district was organized and a Recorder duly elected
on April 25, 1898. The district was naraed Eldorado, the organ
izers being the four prospectors already mentioned, as well as
A. N. Kittleson, who had been in charge of the reindeer station
at Port Clarence, N. 0. Hultberg, a missionary of Golofnin bay,
P. H. Anderson, a missionary-teacher from the same station, and
John A. Dexter hiraself. As we shall see, missionaries and
reindeer furnished local color to the romance of the Seward
Peninsula. The first exchange of gold dust for provisions was made by
Nate Vestal, an old Montana miner working at the mouth of
Sweetcake creek, and H. T. Harding, at Council, in August
1898. Council was the settlement established on the Niukluk
at this time. About $75,000 worth of gold was won in the first
season, but the news of the diggings on Ophir and Melsing
creeks did not go far, so thefe was no stampede. At that time

CAMPBELL AND SAMUELSON ARRIVING AT NOME PROM VALDEZ ON APRIL 3, 1908.

330 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
wild stories of gold discovery had become so frequent that
they had ceased to excite.
In June 1898, a party, consisting of J. L. Haggalin, John
Brynteson, Christopher Kimber, H. L. Blake, and N. 0. HuU-
berg left Councfl on an expedition, prompted by a report that
coarse gold had been found on the Sinrock, or Sinuk, river by
a reindeer-herder. Leaving Golofnin bay in a smaU boat on
July 2, 1898, they were driven by a storra to take shelter in
the estuary of the Snake river, close to the present site of Nome.
This party of prospectors went up the Snake as far as Anvil
creek and found some gold, but not enough to justify locations.
They prospected on what was afterward No. 5 Below, but their
work was of a desultory nature on account of a rain-storm then
prevailing. This was on July 26. Returning to the coast, they
went to the Sinuk, where nothing was found. So they retraced
their steps to Council.
Brynteson and Hultberg were probably the first to find gold
in the Nome district, for they found some gold at the tirae when
the first party went up the Snake, and they related the fact on
their return to Golofnin bay, where Hultberg was stationed as
head of the Swedish mission. Another result of the unsuccess
ful expedition was that Brynteson determined to go to Anvil
creek later in the sarae year, accorapanied by Lindeberg and
Lindblom. Here we turn to a page vivid with human achieve
ment. Lindeberg, Lindblom, and Brynteson are known as "the
three lucky Swedes" and the story of their discovery of gold,
with the litigation that followed, is the iliad of Nome.
John Brynteson, a native of Sweden, was an experienced
coal and iron rainer, who had worked for seven years in the
iron raines of Michigan. Determining to go to Alaska and search
for coal, he reached St. Michael. Shortly afterward he directed
work at the coal raine on Norton Sound operated by the Swed
ish raission at Unalakleet, then in charge of Haggalin.
Erik 0. Lindblora, another Swede, for several years a tailor
in San Francisco, hearing of fabulous gold discoveries on Kot-
zebue sound, joined in that starapede and came north on the
bark Alaska. Arriving at Port Clarence, and hearing of the

ON THE BEACH OF NOME IN WINTER.

332 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Ophir creek exciteraent, he left the ship and found his way by
the coast to Golofnin bay, and thence to Council.
Jafet Lindeberg, a Norwegian, came to Alaska as one of the
men in charge of the reindeer herd brought by Dr. Sheldon
Jackson at the instance of the United States Government in
1898. He was to have gone to Plover Bay, in northeast Siberia
to relieve Captain Kelly, who was trading at that place for
reindeer in behalf of the U. S. Government. Arriving at St.
Michael, news came to Jackson that Kelly had been driven
frora Plover Bay by hostile natives, whereupon, it being deemed
unwise for Lindeberg to go to Plover Bay, he was released from
the service of the Government. Then he also went to the new
diggings on the Niukluk, going first to Council.
Thus these three men chanced to meet at Council City in
August 1898. Brynteson was then 40 years of age, Lindblom
was 30, while Lindeberg was a young fellow of 21. While pros
pecting in the vicinity, they also learned the raining laws; for
by that tirae the district was organized and had established
regulations, one of which was the right of location by an agent
or attorney in fact. Going to the Ophir diggings, they found
the creek pretty well covered with locations but not much work
was in progress because the gravel was considered rather poor.
They panned enough to get an idea of the yield requisite to
make operation profitable. Harry L. Blake offered to let them
work and take $20 per day, giving hira 25% of any surplus.
This was on No. 4 Above. But they had forraed a "prospect
ing companionship" (as Lindeberg phrases it) and decided to
search for gold over a wider territory, where there were fewer
people. The Council district was now over-run by 'stampeders'
and the country was staked "to the mountain tops." Return
ing to Golofnin bay, the three procured a large open boat,
stocked her with provisions, and set sail on September 11, 1898,
on a quest that proved eventful. Proceeding up the coast they
stopped at the mouths of the various rivers in order to prospect,
but finding nothing noteworthy they reached the site of Nome,
where the Snake river flows into Bering Sea. Noting its ser
pentine channel, they named it appropriately. Ascending this
stream in their boat, they flnally camped at the mouth of

THE THREE SAVEDES.

333

Glacier creek, where Brynteson had found gold on the occasion
of his previous journey to this region. Then the three tested
the various creeks, including Anvil, Snow, Rock, Dry, Dexter,
and Glacier, besides several (such as Sunset and Buster) creeks

A TEAM OF HUSKIES.

on which they made no locations. It is one of the remarkable
facts in mining history that the hasty exploratory work of
these three raen, comparative novices as they were in prospect
ing for gold, should have resulted in the selection of what
proved later to be the richest portions of the several creeks.

334 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Lindeberg states that they found gold in payable quantity on
Anvil, Snow, Glacier, Rock, and Dry creeks. He says: "We
proceeded to locate claims, first on Anvil creek, because we
found better prospects on that creek than on the others ; there
fore we located the 'discovery' claim there in the naraes of us
three jointly. In addition to this, each one of us staked a sep
arate claim in his own name on the creek. This was the cus
tom in Alaska, as it was conceded that the discoverer was en
titled to a discovery claira and one other."
And they located with rare judgment. The three original
claims staked by them on Anvil proved to be the best. On
Dexter they staked No. 8, 5, and 3 ; of these. No. 8 was the best
of the three, although not the richest on that creek. No. 5 and
3 also proved good. On Snow gulch they got No. 1, 2, and 3 ;
these three clairas proved the only rich ones on that creek. On
Rock they located No. 2, 3, and 5 — undoubtedly the best on that
creek. On Dry they got No. 3, 4, and 5, all above discovery.
The Discovery claira was located by G. W. Price. For the pres
ent it suffices to compliment the three on their skill as pros
pectors and to record the fact that all the claims they located
were subsequently consolidated under the name of the Pioneer
Mining Company of Seattle.
The raissionaries were not without enterprise. The three
located No. 9 Anvil in the name of an Eskimo. To ensure title
the claim was re-located in the name of Gabe Price's brother
and by him deeded to P. H. Anderson, then in charge of the
Swedish mission on Golofnin bay. He took out about $800,000
gross or about $500,000 net, but he clairaed the gold for him
self. Judgraent was obtained by the Mission against him for
$250,000, it being held that he had the property in trust. An
other incident of a more creditable kind was the locating of
No. 15 Ophir by Carlson, head of the Unalakleet mission ; he sold
the claim for $5000 in behalf of the mission. Later this claim
yielded over $1,500,000. It will be noted that by reason of
Swedish missionary work among the Eskimo and the introduc
tion of reindeers by the Government, the Scandinavians figure
largely in the story of gold discovery on the Seward Penin
sula. Many of thera were not naturalized citizens of the United

UNLOADING FREIGHT FROM THE CORWIN, OFF NOME.

336 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
States, and this fact was used as an excuse for an attempt to
despoil them of their mining clairas, leading to an era of gross
political and judicial jobbery.
On the return of the prospectors to Council, in October, the
news quickly spread and caused a rush. A party was organized
by the three Scandinavians, together with A. N. Kittleson, G. W.
Price, and P. H. Anderson. Upon their arrival at the mouth
of the Snake river, on October 18, a raeeting was held, the Cape
Nome district was formed, and A. N. Kittleson was elected re
corder. Although the suraraer season was now ended and it was
therefore too late for surface mining, there was time to stake
claims. This was done without limit. That iniquitous fiction
known as 'power of attorney' was used so recklessly that 7000
acres of rich placer ground was staked by not more than 40
men. Only about 30 clairas were located by the original dis
coverers, for theraselves and for their friends, and by the second
party, consisting of Kittleson, Price, and Anderson; but the
reckless use of powers of attorney by the party from Council
City, or the Eldorado district, soon plastered the region with
locations; these last not only re-located every claim that had
been pegged up to that tirae, but they located on new creeks
without doing any work to ascertain the presence of gold.
When Blake, Mordaunt, Libby, Melsing, and the others who had
done the first gold mining on the Peninsula learned that th*
'three Swedes' had located the best claims, they were chagrined,
for the Scandinavians were inexperienced in gold mining as
compared to the prospectors whom Dexter 's Eskimo retainer
had led to Ohpir creek. Thereupon they jumped the claims of
Lindeberg and his partners on Anvil creek and thereby set an
example that was promptly followed by the crowd of new
comers attracted by the excitement. In consequence, every
original claim was covered two and three deep by re-locations,
preparing the way for endless trouble and litigation. This
ended in anarchy.

CHAPTER XXXII.
THE GOLDEN BEACHES OF NOME.
To dig gold from a sea-beach seems so simple a forra of min
ing as to be highly improbable, and yet that was the raotive to
a strange draraa enacted on the shore of Bering Sea in 1900.
Natives had detected gold on the beach long before the
white raen carae. They had reported the fact to Kogan, the
captain of a whaling ship, who traded with the Eskirao living
on Cape Prince of Wales ; but he paid no attention to the story.
In August 1898, a prospector naraed Tora Mulligan found gold
on the shore at a place half a raile east of the mouth of the
Sinuk river, 30 miles west of Norae. He found enough to war
rant the belief that he could raake wages, that is, $8 to $10 per
day. But the Anvil creek discoveries diverted him. His dis
covery was made known to the thirty men who were camping
on the Sinuk that winter, and they planned to work the place
during the following summer, but the wonderful richness of
the fringe of sand in front of Norae led to the abandonment of
their plans.
On June 28, 1899, a soldier found gold on the beach at Nome.
He belonged to the sraall representation of the United States
army brought thither by the threat of impending disorder.
This soldier used to pan enough gold to pay for an extra meal,
but the first "big raoney" was taken out of the sand by Wil
liam Pee, otherwise known as Missouri Bill, and his partner,
William Cumrains, both old Yukoners. This was on August 1.
The astonishing fact soon became known. All the idle men,
unable to find work owing to the jumping of claims on the
creeks and the impending litigation, hastened to construct
rockers and wash the golden deposit on the shore. By the tenth

338 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
day of August fully 1500 raen were at work on the beach ; from
being 'broke,' they were winning from 2 to 10 ounces of gold
per day. "It livened the town considerable." It is said that
the highest yield from a day's work with a rocker was 129
ounces of gold, which was a clean-up made by Missouri Bill and
his partner. Within three days silver coins disappeared from
circulation, for the dollars were used in the process of saving
the gold by raeans of araalgaraation. Gold dust becarae the sole
raedium of exchange. Mercury went to $5 per pound. All the
sheathing on the boats and the big coffee urns in the restau
rants were utilized for the copper needed in the rockers and
long-toms. Luraber being worth $400 per thousand, the dig
gers constructed rockers out of any sort of raaterial, such as
the boxes in which the condensed railk was packed. In less
than two raonths 2000 men extracted over $1,000,000 from the
beach. The method of mining was simple indeed. First the pros
pector tested the sand by washing it in a pan. If the result in
dicated that he had found a rich spot, he started to dig a hole,
frora which he obtained a supply of gold-bearing material.
This he fed into a 'rocker' or 'long-tora,' two devices of early
origin. The 'long-torn' essentially consists of an inclined sur
face over which the gravel or sand is washed by water fed by
hand. From 6 to 10 feet of launder or sluice-box is set at an
angle steep enough to permit the light particles to be washed
away while allowing the gold to settle on the bottom. At the
head, a hopper or box serves to hold from 50 to 150 pounds of
material which is flushed, a little at a time, down the slope, by
the action of water thrown out of a dipper or small bucket
fixed to a handle. To arrest the gold, cross-bars or riffles are
nailed to the bottom of the launder. In addition, raercury raay
be eraployed, or even amalgamated copper plate. When the
latter is used the plate is covered with wire screen or perforated
sheet-iron, the effect of which is to size the gravel, causing the
larger pebbles to slide down the slope, while the fine stuff sinks
through the apertures and comes in contact with the raercury
and araalgam. The 'long-tora' was familiar to the early Cali
fornian miners, and in its simplest forra dates back to the very

THE GOLDEN BEACHES OP NOME.

339

beginning of the world-wide search for gold. In order to
facilitate the process of concentration, a shaking motion Avas
imparted, raerely by placing the inclined sluice-box or launder
upon rockers. This constituted the 'cradle,' which is shorter
and more compact than the 'long-tom,' the quicker separation
of the gold rendering unnecessary a long surface.
These methods are still in vogue. It so happened that dur
ing August 1908, while I Avas at Nome, there was a sudden in
crease, of beach mining. At one tirae I saw more than 100 men
at work. The beach is steep and forms a fringe only 60 yards

^1

i

~~~m %^E^v

^•r^

'flH|V

Kr'^i?>aM||n

H

WORKERS ON NOME BEACH, 1908.

wide between the tundra and the tide. The scene of greatest
activity in 1908 was in front of the town itself, under the
wharves and in the rear of the houses. As the beach is a Gov
ernment reservation, no location is possible, each man holding
a small patch of ground only as long as he works upon it.
Where the beach had been found most productive, the long-
toms were thick and the workers nuraerous, but without any
suggestion of disorder. Each raan knew his rights and forbore
to trespass. The apparatus varied according to the raeans of
the operator. Most of the long-toms had a false bottom of gal-

340 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
vanized iron or else tin-plate torn from oil-cans. This is punc
tured with holes so as to act as a screen separating the fine
stuff from the coarse ; the latter runs down the slope into the
sea, on the edge of which the apparatus is erected. The fine
sand, including the particles of gold, drops through the false
bottom onto amalgamating plates. These are of copper, usually
silver-plated. At the end of the copper plate there is, ordi
narily, a bit of carpet, matting, or wire netting to serve as a
check on any gold or amalgara escaping from above. At the
upper end of the box or launder, the sides are raised or a hop
per is constructed; into this the sand is discharged from a
bucket, emptied from a wheelbarrow, or shoveled direct from
the ground that is being exploited. While one operator attends
to this part of the work, his partner is furnishing the water to
wash the sand down the incline, standing with rubber boots in
the tide and swinging a ladle consisting of a bucket fixed to a
long wooden handle. Sometiraes, for convenience, a temporary
dam is made with bags of sand, forming a pool which is re
newed by the waves that break over it at intervals. Sorae of
the contrivances that I saw were pathetically crude; in one
instance a sraall strip of old carpet and a few globules of mer
cury constituted the entire gold-saving system.
A raore systeraatic arrangeraent comraonly seen on the beach
is a series of 6 to 10 sluice-boxes, set on a slope so that the re
ject falls into the sea and is reraoved by the tide. The boxes
are lined with woven wire, having 2 to 4 holes per square inch,
lying upon the cocoa raatting that covers the bottom. Mercury
is sprinkled on the matting by shaking it from a bottle through
a cloth stopper. In order to expedite operations a small gaso
line engine works a pump to supply the water for washing.
The intake pipe of the purap rests on two wheels so that it can
be withdrawn during stormy weather and the mouth of the
pipe is protected with a wire net to shut out drift-wood.
The distribution of the gold is erratic, so that constant pan
ning is necessary in order to ascertain whether it is rich enough
to be profitably worked. Thus I saw a man, shovel in hand,
scrape the top sand to one side and then dig into the red layer
underneath. Shoveling about 20 pounds of this stuff into his

ON THE BEACH, NOME, 1908.

WASHING GOLD-BEARING SAND.

342 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
pan, he walked to the edge of the sea, dug a hole, which, be
coraing filled by the incoraing wave, served as a basin in which
he panned the sample. He obtained three "good colors," that
is, three particles of gold worth about 10 cents. This was the
first gold I had ever seen won from the sea-shore, although
sirailar deposits are known in Oregon and California, in Tierra
del Fuego, and also off the west coast of New Zealand.
The gold in the beach at Nome is the result of a natural pro
cess of concentration, in which the surf is the final agent. The
gold-bearing raaterial thus concentrated is derived frora the
rocks of the coast, the gold occurring in small quartz veins in
soft schist, which is the prevailing formation. As the schist
is weathered and eroded, the softer portions are swept into
the strearas and carried by thera far out to sea, while the shat
tered quartz yields particles larger than silt but small enough
for transport by running water. When borne to the mouths
of the rivers this gold-bearing quartz gravel meets the tide and
the surf, and by them it is washed to and fro, until the heavier
particles are thrown in a narrow band at the upper edge of the
beach where it is topped by the tundra. Among the heavier
particles thus deposited is the gold, which, by disintegration of
the quartz that contained it, has been released and now in the
form of flakes of metal lies concentrated in a fringe along the
30 miles of Arctic coast.
In tlie hills four miles north of Nome are found quartz veins,
carrying gold and traversing the soft schist similar to that
which in a former period yielded the material for the beach
placer. Between these hills and the beach, a coastal plain ex
tends, flat and undulating, crossed by several meandering
streams in the beds of which gold-bearing sand is found. This
coastal plain is covered with the tundra or Arctic moss, man
tling a deposit about 100 feet thick of gravel and sand, all of
whieh is gold-bearing, although not all of it is rich enough to
be mined. Only where concentrated by the running stream or
by the sea is the deposit enriched. Under the deposit is the
rock, either soft schist or limestone, sirailar to the forraation
observed on the hillsides to the north. Approaching the sea the
surface of the plain slopes gently until it ends in an escarpment

THE GOLDEN BEACHES OF NOME.

343

or abrupt slope only 10 to 15 feet high. At the foot of this de
clivity the beach slopes to the sea at an angle of 4 to 5 degrees,
and for a width of 50 to 75 yards. During stormy weather the
action of the waves extends for the fufl width of the beach, but
ordinarily such action is restricted to the lower half of the
shelving strand.
The beach is composed of sand and shingle, in which both
the quartz and the schist are easily recognized. At the limit of
the tide a reddish band is noticeable. This is the celebrated

THE GOLDEN BEACHES OF NOME.

'ruby sand' of the miners. On exaraination it is found to owe
its color to particles of garnet, with which a little black raag-
netite is also present, darkening the tint. At the foot of the
tundra, that is, at the upper edge of the beach, a layer of clay
can be detected, dipping under the ruby sand. This clay serves
as a 'false bottom' under the gold-bearing gametiferous sand,
and upon it the valuable concentrate has been deposited.
By digging a hole into the beach, it can be ascertained that
below the covering of barren gray shingle and sand is a layer

344 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of ruby sand lying on clay. The clay is from 3 to 7 feet deep ;
the gold-bearing red sand is from 6 inches to 2 feet thick ; the
fringe that represents the raarine concentration is from a few
inches to three or four feet wide. Sometiraes two gold-bearing
layers exist, separated by nearly barren sand. As the deposit
lies on the bed of clay the dip is toward the sea. The flakes of
gold are small, the largest weighing one pennyweight; these
particles of metal are bright and amalgamate freely, although
the grains of quartz associated with it are iron-stained. About
$5,000,000 has been Avon frora this beach deposit.
In 1899, the beach-workers got as rauch as $5 to $10 per
pan ; and even with the roughest contrivances, of the kind al
ready described, sorae individuals in one summer season of only
four months took $30,000 to $40,000 from the diggings on the
shore. Today a man can still make $3 per day on the Nome
beach. Two partners told me that they had made $60 in 3 days.
Another operator and his partner got 3% ounces of amalgam,
yielding a little over an ounce of gold, on the day previous.
Storms re-concentrate the sand repeatedly; the appliances re
quired are cheap and easily constructed. It is a poor man's
mine.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
ANARCHY AT NOME.
No account of Nome is coraplete without detailed reference
to the anarchy that prevailed in 1900, 1901, and even later.
Owing to the lax administration of law, due to the unorganized
condition of the coraraunity and the great distance from the
seat of national government, the titles to mining clairas were
disputed soon after the three Scandinavians and their friends
had located the gravel on Anvil, Dexter, and other creeks that
proved so productive. In the first place, the raethod of making
locations was careless; it is true that the claims located in
1898 by the discoverers and the party who organized the Nome
district were marked with six stakes, and although such stakes
were sraall, being made from willow brush, they indicated an
intention to conform with the legal requireraents. But this
good exaraple was not generally followed ; it soon became the
custom, in marking a claira, to take a sprig of scrub-willow,
blaze it, cut off the top, and split it. In the cleft was lodged
the paper giving notice of location; then two end stakes were
placed 1320 feet apart, up and down stream, fixing the centre
line of the claim; from this line 330 feet on each side was
assumed, so that an area of 20 acres was delimited. No stakes
were placed at the comers. This perfunctory procedure be
came the recognized custom early in 1899 and was respected
on account of the lack of such timber as was needed for com
plete legal marking of boundaries. Other than the scrub-
willow there was no possible source of timber except the drift
wood on the beach four or flve miles distant. During the sum
mer of 1899 prospectors began to mark their corners with sticks
of crooked wiUow and even drift-wood ; but these, being stuck
into frozen ground, were apt to fall down, and as they were
rarely supported by a mound there was a tendency for boun-

346 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
daries to becorae questionable, especially when the pencil-marks
on the location-notice becarae obliterated by the sap of the
wood enclosing the paper.
In September of that year the big rush to Dawson, in Can
ada, caused many locators to depart for the Klondike diggings,
and in their absence the clairas were 'juraped' by newcomers,
whose title in turn was disregarded by later claim-jurapers.
Thus extreme confusion of title prevailed. Most of the people
attracted by the excitement on the creeks near Nome were
ignorant of mining and of mining regulations; yet some of
them had sufficient education to undertake to interpret the law
against the Scandinavians and others having no experience in
such matters. A few really experienced miners, disgusted to
see the best ground gobbled by the lucky Swedes and Nor
wegians, sailors and reindeer-herders, took it upon themselves
to over-ride the law, as they themselves knew it, by jumping
sorae of the best claims on Anvil creek. This gave a lead to
the mob that was then arriving frora the States. Among them
were many lawless individuals and, worst of all, a nuraber of
unscrupulous lawyers. These, uniting, soon brought Norae to
the verge of riot. A few Northwest Mounted Police or an
honest Coraraissioner backed by his Government, as at Dawson,
would have put an end to the trouble ; but Norae was not Daw
son ; Nome was in Alaska, neither a State nor a Territory, but
a 'district' governed from Washington, 5500 miles distant; the
nearest United States commissioner was at St. Michael, more
than 100 miles away ; there was no raeans of enforcing the civil
law. It is true a small detachment of soldiers had been sent
from St. Michael in the spring of 1899, and upon the young
lieutenant in command of this handful of soldiers devolved the
duty of maintaining order araong a crowd of angry raen ; but •
he could not do much, for he had no legal authority. Unfor
tunately, he exceeded what little authority he had by dispers
ing a proper meeting of rainers and thereby perraitted the idea
to spread that he had taken sides. Finally, on July 13, the
military issued an order stating that all disputes over claims
were to be brought before the civil authorities, neither dis
putant being allowed to do any Avork pending a settlement.

Photograph by U. S. Geological Survey,

NOME IN 1899.

By courtesy of A. H. Brooks.

348 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
This only made raatters worse, for it raeant that practically
every claim would remain idle and thousands of raen would be
thrown out of work in a region where the cost of living was
abnorraally high. Moreover, it was unfair to many bona fide
owners who had been victimized by irresponsible claira-jump-
ers. To meet the demands of the situation, the military order
was modified.
But relief carae suddenly in another way. In June gold
was discovered on the beach at Norae and the mutterings of
discontent were silenced in the excitement of profitable dig
ging along the water-front. According to United States law a
strip 60 feet wide of the shore is the property of the Govern
raent. Thus there was no title save that of Uncle Sara. A
company, which had obtained control of a nuraber of claims
on the edge of the tundra so as to cover the beach, claimed
ownership and proceeded to exact a royalty of 50 cents per
day for the right to mine on the sea-shore. The miners ob
jected, the military were invoked, and several hundred men
were marched off the beach. But there was no magistrate to
try them, no jail to hold thera, and no funds to provide for
them pending a trial, so the perplexed officer in coraraand of
the troops had to release thera; whereupon they returned
promptly to the work on the beach.
During this time the trouble on the creeks siraraered, pend
ing further developments. In the winter of 1899 the matter
was brought to the attention of Congress and on June 6, 1900,
an act was passed creating a new judicial district for the
Seward Peninsula. The newly appointed judge and his court
officials arrived at Nome early in the suraraer of 1900. Here
we raust leave the current of events in order to raake a few
necessary explanations.
The raining law of the United States requires the discovery
of mineral on the ground located; in most cases the gold lay
on bedrock at a depth of ten or twenty feet beneath the surface
of the gravel ; and yet some men staked a dozen or more claims
in the course of two or three days. Moreover, none but citizens
or those who have declared their intention to becorae citizens
have the right to raake locations; yet raany of the richest

ANARCHY AT NOME.

349

claims were taken up by aliens, but in such eases the question
of ownership could not be raised against the claimant by any
one except the United States government, whose land was thus
pre-empted. A citizen has no right to jump a claim located by
an alien until such time as the Government ejects the latter.
Furthermore, raany clairas were taken up under the cloak of
that legal fiction called 'power of attorney,' by virtue of which
a man locates half a dozen claims in the name first of himself,
and then of his father, brothers, and mother-in-law's relatives.

A MINE ON THE TUNDRA, NEAR NOME.
until a whole creek deposit has been blanketed. On top of all
these complexities add unscrupulous lawyers eager to make
matters worse, and it is easy to imagine what a devil's cauldron
of litigation was brewed.
In the next scene the chief actor is a corrupt judge and his
sateflites, backed by equally corrupt United States senators,
under the leadership of one of those predatory financiers who
have been the curse of American industry. It was a gigantic
conspiracy, the inner workings of which were finally dissected
and exposed in the courts.
During the early part of 1900, Avhfle Congress was engaged

350 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
in drafting a code of laws for Alaska, the ownership of many
of the richest placer claims in the Nome region was in question,
and many lawsuits over titles were pending, owing to the fact
that a majority of the best claims had been originally located
by illiterate aliens; Nome was far away; here was a great
opportunity for those to whom legislation is a financial game.
Three local lawyers saw the chance; one of them went post
haste to Washington. There he enlisted the cupidity of sev
eral senators and one political boss, Alexander McKenzie, a
Scotch-Irishman who had risen to wealth and power in iNTorth
Dakota, becoming Republican leader in the days when Mark
Hanna dominated McKinley. Hubbard, a lawyer frora Norae,
and Chipps, who had jumped one of Lindeberg 's richest claims,
joined with McKenzie in organizing the Alaska Gold Mining
Company, capitalized at $15,000,000 under the laws of Alaska,
49 per cent of the stock being set aside to pay for the so-called
title of the 'jumpers,' while 51 per cent was intended for dis
tribution among McKenzie 's political and financial 'friends,'
by whom the nefarious scheme was to be backed in Congress
and supported on Wall Street. The plan was to obtain title
to the rich clairas, which had been juraped, either by act of
Congress or by decisions of the local court established at Nome
and under the thumb of the gang. Even if the rightful owners
fought against confiscation, the mines would be placed in a re
ceiver's hands, the receiver to b« appointed by the judge whom
McKenzie had hired, and thus while the litigation was pending
the gold would.be garnered and sent to New York for exhibi
tion with a view to selling the stock of the Alaska Gold Mining
Company at such prices as would enrich all concerned. In
order to accoraplish this purpose the judge at Nome had to be
perfectly pliant. He was. His name was Arthur H. Noyes.
"He did the rest." If the scheme failed it was because a few
resolute raen fought like a moose at bay, fought so courageously
and persistently that the scandal was flnally exposed.
A bill providing civil government for Alaska was passed
by Congress on June 6, 1900, and at the same time a code of
laws was enacted, under which the district judges were given
unusual powers. This bill as originally reported to the Senate

ANARCHY AT NOME.

351

provided that the laws of the United States relating to mining
claims and mineral locations should be extended to Alaska.
Numerous decisions of the courts had held that under the laws
of the United States the citizenship of a locator of a mining
claim could not be questioned by anyone save the Government ;
thereupon, while the bill was under discussion in the Senate,
Hansborough, the senator from North Dakota, proposed an
amendment to make it illegal for aliens to locate or to hold
mining clairas in the District of Alaska, thereby perraitting

IN A DRIFT MINE.
litigants to raise the question of aUen ownership. The amend
ment was also made retroactive, declaring null and void the
title to claims located by an agent or attorney in fact. Finally,
by declaring illegal all transfers of claims so located, the
amendraent destroyed the property rights acquired by pur
chase. This last Uttle 'joker' was aimed at Charles D. Lane,
who had acquired many clairas, and was one of the leaders of
the opposition. Lane was at the head of the Wfld Goose Min
ing & Trading Co.; Lindeberg was president of the Pioneer

352 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Mining Co.; these two companies had consolidated the richest
claims on Anvil, Ophir, and other notable creeks. Several men
hastened from Nome to Washington to explain what the effect
of this enactment would be. Of course, it was unconstitutional,
but that did not deter the conspirators nor help the rightful
owners, for before it could be declared unconstitutional by the
Suprerae Court, the raines would be gutted. Additional proof
of the conspiracy at Washington is afforded by the following
fact: When the Senate committee on Territories had under
consideration the law regulating appeals from the Alaska
courts. Senator Carter insisted that a provision in the law
allowing appeals from orders appointing receivers should be
stricken out, and this was done, over the protest of two attor
neys from Alaska who did not represent the Nome country and
knew nothing of the conspiracy. However, later, a special
statute allowing such appeals was, at the very end of the
session, passed by Congress. Evidently the conspirators were
caught napping. Fortunately, the dangerous character of the
Alaska legislation was appreciated by several leaders in Con
gress, such as Spooner, Nelson, Jones, and Stewart in the
Senate; these raen obtained sufficient support and the araend-
raent was killed. Thus the mining regulations of Colorado,
California, and the other States became applicable to Alaska,
and McKenzie 's gang had to depend upon oA'er-riding the laws
by means of a corrupt judge. The scene was shifted to the
court of the Second District at Nome.
On July 19, 1900, Noyes and the officials of the Court
reached Norae. On the sarae steamer was McKenzie. Among
his schemes was the Golden Sands Mining Company, whieh
claimed title to the shore and tried to eject the beach-workers,
as already described, under an interpretation of the law given
by Noyes in open disregard of the statute. On July 23, before
the Court was organized and before the filing of any paper
of any kind with the clerk of the Court, Noyes appointed Mc
Kenzie receiver of a nuraber of mines the titles to which were
disputed, giving him instructions to take imraediate possession,
with perraission to operate the raines, and hold the proceeds
subject only to the Court's order. The defendants were or-

ANARCHY AT NOME.

353

dered to yield possession at once and were enjoined from inter
fering with the management of the mines. In each case the
receiver's bond was fixed at $5000, although the output of gold
frora any one of the mines was worth more than that in a single
day. All this was done in impudent disregard of the law,
without citing the defendants, who were taken completely by
surprise. As the jumpers' titles were largely vested in Mc
Kenzie by this time, it is not necessary to comment on the.
Judge's action in appointing him, one of the litigants, as re-

NOME IN WINTER.

ceiver. The next day the lawyers for the Scandinavians and
for Lane appeared before Noyes praying for a hearing. He re
fused. They then asked for an appeal ; again he refused. "The
Court clairaed, in effect, that its jurisdiction in the raatter was
exclusive." All this took tirae. Meanwhile McKenzie had
hired all the men available and was gutting the mines. On
July 25 Noyes issued a further order empowering the receiver
and his hirelings to seize everything on the mines, inclusive of
personal property and gold extracted from other mines. Con
cerning this order the Circuit Court of Appeals at San Fran-

354 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Cisco stated, at a later date, that it was "so arbitrary and un
warranted in law as to baffle the mind in its effort to corapre
hend how it could have been issued from a court of justice."
But as Alaska was neither a Territory nor a State, and there
being no official higher than this Federal judge, who promul
gated edicts like those of a South Araerican dictator, the people
of Nome had a taste of anarchy in Araerica. It was the com
plete subjection of law and the domination of piracy.
Meanwhile the nearest Court of Appeals was 3000 miles
away and the gold was near. McKenzie or one of his raen was
raade receiver under twenty different injunctions, the owners
of the claims being refused permission to be present at the
clean-ups or to exercise any sort of protection against whole
sale fraud. Nor did they stop at Swedes ; a native of Ohio was
dispossessed on the allegation of his being an alien. McKenzie
became too bold, he boasted of his backing at Washington, he
hinted at the support of the biggest men in public life, he sug
gested that the looting of the land was under government pro
tection. It became a national scandal. Exploration and de
velopment of raines practically stopped. Miners were afraid
to work profitable ground lest McKenzie and his gang should
annex their claims. Local industry was paralyzed as by a
Central American revolution. But the United States is not
Guatemala; at length the higher Court at San Francisco
granted the appeal that Noyes had denied. McKenzie was
coraraanded to cease all action in the suits and turn back to the
defendants their mines and other property. Noyes was directed
to stay all proceedings in his court, the raatter being taken
out of his jurisdiction.
On Septeraber 14, 1900, the papers for the defence reached
Nome ; local feeling ran high ; McKenzie was threatened with a
violent death, but he stood his ground, refusing to recognize
the writs or deliver the gold, and Noyes declined to act in
accordance with the directions of the upper Court; instead, he
called upon the troops to guard the buUion in the bank. Thus
the Judge employed the United States Army to prevent the en
forcement of the orders issued to him by the higher Court. It
was the very burlesque of law, a travesty on civilization, the

WINTER DUMPS AT LITTLE CREEK, NEAR NOME.

356

THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.

complete conquest of graft. There was nothing to do but to
send the news to San Francisco and wait for further action.
This meant another month's delay. And all this time Mc
Kenzie and his gang were gutting the mines. But Noyes was
careless and timid, he rendered no written opinions and took
no pains to lend an air of regularity to his court procedure;
even the records of his court, with the affidavits of the defence,
were sufficient to convict hira. Noyes becarae scared. It was
about time. On October 15 two deputy marshals sent by the
Court of Appeals landed at Nome with instructions to produce
the body of the raan who was charged with conterapt. Mc
Kenzie accompanied the deputies to San Francisco, but before
they left they had to break open the Alaska Banking & Safe
Deposit Co.'s vault, in which he had placed his gold. Gold
dust to the amount of $400,000 was reraoved frora the vault to
the Alaska Coramercial Co.'s office and was subsequently re
turned to its owners. On the last boat to leave Nome, late in
October, were the certified copies of the Court records; these
had been secured by Sarauel Knight, whose departure Noyes
tried hard to prevent. The trial of the conterapt cases took
place at San Francisco. On February 11, 1901, McKenzie was
sentenced to one year in prison, but he reraained in jail for a
few weeks only and was then pardoned on the score of ill
health. He was then a meraber of the National Republican
Committee and his pardon was obtained by the personal re
quest of President McKinley. At that tirae McKinley hap
pened to be in California; while at Monterey he telephoned to
Judge Morrow, of the Court of Appeals, expressing a wish to
see the latter. On the arrival of the Judge, the President
stated that never had so rauch pressure been brought to bear
in favor of a convicted person as in this McKenzie ease, in fact,
he doubted whether, if the positions were reversed, he himself
could command as much political influence in his own behalf;
and while, of course, he would not for a moment be a party to
allowing wrong-doing to go unpunished, yet in this case, etc.,
etc. ; whereupon McKenzie was promptly released. This is an
excellent example of the subraission of justice to politics ; it
illustrates the systera under which the noraination of judges is

ANARCHY AT NOME.

357

the perquisite of the political boss. Although in Federal cases
the President is vested with the pardoning power, McKinley
preferred to act on the recommendation of the Judges because
the charge against McKenzie was contempt of court. Morrow
had served in Congress with McKinley; the Judge needed no
explanations. But conditions at Nome continued bad. Injunctions were
issued freely; corruption was rampant. Noyes became more
vacillating and more drunken. He reversed himself, he ren
dered no written opinions, he delayed decisions ; then the long

A MALAMUTE TEAM.
winter came, there was no coraraunication with the outer world,
Nome was helpless. At one time preparations were made to
hang Noyes and the court gang, and in the vigflance com
mittee then organized were raost of the leaders of the com
munity, not ruffians but professional and business men of
¦character. Just at this time the Judge was cited to appear
before the Court of Appeals to answer for contempt. He de
cided to go. He was found guilty, and fined $1000 in lieu of im
prisonment. Two of his assistants, named Frost and Wood,
were imprisoned. Frost was the special examiner frora the

358 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Department of Justice sent to Norae by the Attorney General,
but easily captured by McKenzie, who 'loaned' him money.
Wood was U. S. Attorney and one of McKenzie 's appointees.
Political appointments at that time and by the gang then in
control of the American administration were made in cynical
disregard of decency. When someone protested against one
of the appointments to the Court at Norae, Senator Carter
replied: "He was a good man to get out of Montana, wasn't
he?" An affirmative was inevitable. Even Griggs, the Attor
ney General of the United States, backed Noyes and wrote to
hira, in the suraraer of 1900, commending his acts in appointing
a receiver under the circumstances related.
Judge Ross, who delivered the opinion in these cases, said
that "the records and evidence show very clearly that the
contempts of Judge Noyes and Frost were comraitted in pursu
ance of a corrupt conspiracy with Alexander McKenzie and
with others not before the court, and therefore not necessary
to be named, by which the properties involved in the suits
mentioned in the opinion, among other properties, were to be
wrongfully taken, under the forms of law, from the possession
of those engaged in mining them, and the proceeds thereof
appropriated by the conspirators." Coraraent is superfluous.
Noyes was only sentenced to pay a fine ; out of respect for
his judicial position he was not sent to prison ; he was successful
in delaying the execution of his sentence; he and Frost con
tinued to draw their salaries, even though Frost was in jafl.
The district attorney. Wood, who was sentenced to four
raonths, also reraained on the pay-roll of the Government, and
it was not untfl February 1902, five months later, that their
pay was stopped.
In the meantime, in September 1901, Judge Wickersham
had been transferred from Juneau to Nome, and had begun to
disentangle the maze of iniquity left by Noyes. But corrup
tion was still rampant. The marshal, Richards, was packing
juries, and the new district attorney, Griggsby, a Rough Rider
appointed by President Roosevelt at the instance of the senator
from North Dakota, was emulating his predecessor. Finally
President Roosevelt caused a thorough investigation to be

ANARCHY AT NOME.

359

made, whereupon Richards and Griggsby were summarily
removed. It is to the honor of American journalism that the Wash
ington Post was instrumental in exposing the whole shameful
story, causing the Senate to caU for an investigation. In the
debate that followed, Stewart of Nevada made a clear state
ment of the whole amazing affair, and it was such a thorough
exposure that, upon request, a large part of it was expunged
from the Congressional Record. But it fulfiUed its purpose.
The new Attorney-General caused a search to be made for the

AN ESKIMO CAMP.
documents in the case against Noyes, and thus, 18 raonths after
they were filed, the charges carae to a hearing. The judge was
dismissed on the records of his own court, whieh had lain in
the Department of Justice for a year and a half.
It is fortunate that the conspirators were not more careful ;
if they had exercised greater caution it would have been even
more difficult to circumvent them. McKenzie and Noyes did
coarse work, they did not follow the forms of law, they did
not cover their tracks, evidently expecting that their actions
were not subject to review save at the hands of their allies at
Washington. They failed to appreciate the fact that appeals
from Alaska went to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Judi-

360 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
cial Circuit, sitting at San Francisco. This circuit included
Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands. Moreover, McKenzie blun
dered in not realizing that this Court of Appeals could not be
'reached' by him or the like of him.
After Noyes had been punished, and after Wickersham had
served temporarily, the appointment of Judge of the Second
District was given to Alfred S. Moore, at the request of Quay,
the Pennsylvania political boss and arch corrupter. Moore is
judge now, and a poor judge too, from all I could learn while
at Norae. He presides over a court infested by men most of
whom, under the guise of lawyers, are mere tricksters and
thieves. When the Third Beach was discovered, in the fall of
1905, the lawyers banded to make the raost of their chance to
get rich. Only one claira escaped litigation. The methods
adopted varied: one of the most successful was to secure per
jured testimony as to the marking of boundaries from mep in
the vicinity at the date of location, and thus shift the lines,
raoving one claim on top of the other, so as to cover the coveted
ground. The buying of jurors was even easier, as the jury
was not confined but allowed to go home; in some instances
two detectives were employed in shadowing each juror to
prevent either side frora getting at him. Most of the cases
were concocted by the lawyers, who received one third of the
claira if retained by a miner and an exorbitant fee if retained
by a corapany. Thus it became expedient, as a raan said half
in joke, half seriously, to deed a claim, after location, to a
lawyer, then take a 75% 'lay', meaning, to work the ground
on a 75% royalty, thus giving the lawyer 25%, because if the
miner kept the claim and sunk a shaft to 'pay', the ground
would certainly be 'jumped', and in the litigation that followed
the owner would have to give the lawyer one third before he
could begin to protect himself in a lawsuit. The lawyers have
fattened on such practices. The looting of the mines by these
methods was even farther reaching than the infamous con
spiracy of 1900, and it has despoiled raore individuals.
Unfortunately, the complexities of the mining law subserve
the chicanery of lawyers whose life-work is to defeat justice
and aid the purposes of tricky adventurers whose hope is to

ANARCHY AT NOME. 361
get rich without labor. Even today Nome is peculiarly cursed
with corrupt lawyers; the leading practitioners of the town
will accept a retainer from both sides in a lawsuit, and while
acting for a client they will take advantage of the confidence
reposed in them to obtain knowledge concerning the ground
and then buy an interest in property their client is likely to
purchase later. The fees charged are exorbitant and the men
who receive thera are charged with inciting schemes leading
to costly litigation and professional corruption. A weak judge
presides. He is ignorant of mining law and unstable in his

WALRUSES ASLEEP ON THE ICE.
judicial opinions, so that his decisions are not respected. It is
a disgrace to the American flag that justice should be such a
by-word in Alaska, especially on the Seward Peninsula.
Every judge appointed in Alaska has sooner or later been
fiercely attacked; while this has been due in part to the per
sonal incapacity or corruption of the judge, inevitable under
the system by which he is selected, yet even a good man would
have a hard time, because the industries of Alaska are con
trolled largely by two or three strong corporations ; if a judge
gives a decision in favor of one of these, he is pretty sure to be
abused by one or more of the others. Corporate influences
dominate the noraination of the judges through the senators

362 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of the party in power, the naming of judges being a part of the
spoil of political victory, so that while a President may be
innocent of choosing an unfit raan, he is helpless, it being the
custom for him to distribute the patronage of his office in
accordance with the wishes of the leaders of his party. Thus
Carter of Montana and Quay of Pennsylvania, two notorious
political bosses, were the senators who chose the judges whom
McKinley appointed and whom even Roosevelt sent to Alaska.
Until the judiciary ceases to be the footstool of a political
spoils system, such scandals as the Noyes-McKenzie affair are
possible, although in this ease the developraent of crirae was
facilitated by the distance from the centre of government.
But these eruptions of greed and chicanery are not peculiar
to any one country. Curiously enough, at the very time when
McKenzie and Noyes were exploiting Nome, another group of
spoofers were working Manchuria. Instead of No^es was
Alexieff, instead of McKenzie was Bezobrazoff, and in lieu of
Chipps was Vonlalarski. The amiable and worthless character
decorated with the name of Admiral was the tool of the two
schemers, who in turn were supported and abetted by the
Grand Dukes — the Grand Dukes of a hereditary bureaucracy
playing the part of the Senators of an undeveloped deraocracy.
Bezobrazoff and Vonlalarski got Alexieff to grant them conces
sions of various kinds, notably a timber concession on the
Yalu ; this, by causing trespass on the Korean side of the river,
led to the Japanese war, whieh upset the scheme of the gang.
In Norae there was no war, no bloodshed. One reason for such
marvelously peaceable behavior under extrerae provocation
was the fact that the victiras of the McKenzie-Noyes conspiracy
were raostly Scandinavians unused to firearms or to other
reprisals of an explosive character. As a matter of fact, 'gun
play' was a minor feature of this burlesque of republican insti
tutions, but the presence of the military served as an excellent
deterrent. The officer in command conceived it to be his duty
to abide by the directions of the Judge, who had authority
frora Washington. The national capital was the headquarters
of this travesty upon representative government;

CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE RIDE TO OPHIR.
On August 30 a party consisting of C. H. Munro, T. M.
Gibson, Jafet Lindeberg, A. E. Boyd, Scott Turner, and the
writer left Nome for Ophir creek. Going aboard the Flyer, a
30-ton gasoline launch, we went eastward, keeping within sight
of the coast as far as Solomon, where the river of that name
enters Bering Sea, forming a shallow estuary. Landing would
have been siraple if we had not run aground and the voyage
would have been pleasant if the cold spray had not been fla
vored with the sraell of gasoline, but these are details in which
any Alaskan traveler will recognize only bits of local color. At
Solomon horses were awaiting us, and I found, rauch to my
pleasure, that 'Tony' was allotted to me. Tony is the finest
horse I have ridden in any of my travels about the world;
spirited but gentle, strong and willing, with a steady trot that
knows no weariness, I found rayself raounted in a style not to
be expected in a region where horses are scarce. The owner
of Tony is T. M. Gibson ; to his kindness I ara deeply indebted.
Henceforth I shall have two ideals of self-denying courtesy:
The first is that of a woman, a musician and a singer, who plays
perfectly an accompaniment for a friend, the friend singing
badly a song which the accompanist 'sings exquisitely. The
other is that of a man possessing a fine horse, raost corafortably
gaited, which he lends to a friend, while he himself accom
panies the party on a hired animal.
Owing to sundry delays we did not leave Solomon until
dark, intending to spend the night at the camp of the Three
Friends, whither we had been bidden by W. L. Leland. The
distance was only 7 miles, but we must have forded the river

364 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
fully 17 times. As the horses had been standing in the stable
all day and were cold, and as there were many of them to
gether, stimulating to rivalry, we went helter-skelter over cor
duroy roads, moss, and gravel, taking the fords at a trot, if not
at a gallop, splashing in and out of the river, plunging along in
the dark, until I wondered which moment was to be my last.
In an hour we saw a light ahead and found a man with a lan
tern to guide us to the road that soon ended at the door of Mr.
Leland's hospitable abode. There, in the raidst of the cold
wilderness, we found "all the coraforts of horae." An abun
dant 'supper', a good smoke, and a raost interesting discussion,
were eventually followed by unfathoraable sleep.
The next day opened wet and stormy. Encased in 'slick
ers', or water-proof coats, hats, and rubber hip-boots, we went
to see the dredge of the Three Friends Mining Corapany. This
successful enterprise was organized by three raen who knew
Avhat they were about, so that the common blunders of the in
experienced were avoided. Firstly, the ground was carefully
tested by drilling ; secondly, a strong machine was designed on
the raodel of one of the best dredges then working at Oroville,
California; thirdly, an experienced crew was engaged; finally,
care was taken to avoid frozen ground. These four precautions
constitute the A B C of dredging in Alaska, but they are often
disregarded. The Three Friends dredge is raaking handsome
profits, and affords an example to the organizers of corapanies
intending to dig for gold in river-bottoms.
The dredge has turned over the bed of the Solomon river,
raaking successive piles of debris that look like the furrows of
a giant plowman. Even a casual glance shows that this reject
is not all gravel, but fragmentary rock. On most of the 70
acres that have been over-turned the bedrock is schist, but
where the dredge was at work last August the gravel lay on
limestone, into which the buckets bit courageously. Indeed, it
was remarkable how this Bucyrus machine dug into the
weathered limestone of the river-bottom, bringing up chunks
of white rock that looked as if they had passed through a rock-
breaker. It is astonishing what work a raodern dredge will
accoraplish.

SOLOMON RIVER, ALASKA, SHOWING THE THREE FRIENDS AND THE
MONTANA-NEW MEXICO DREDGES AT WORK.

NOME-

366 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
Under the guidance of Mr. Leland we went on board the
dredge and watched the operations, which, although familiar,
are always interesting. Each bucket holds five cubic feet, the
spacing of the buckets and the speed of their travel being such
as to give the dredge an actual daily capacity of 3500 cubic
yards. The gravel yields about 50 cents' worth of gold per
yard, at a cost of 18 cents. As the gravel and two feet of the
limestone on which it lay, were brought up by the buckets,
they discharged upon a tabular shaking screen, 24 feet long
and 15 feet wide; this screen-table is made of steel-plate
punched with holes, through which the fine stuff, including the
gold, is washed by the play of strong jets of water. The
boulders and other refuse proceed to the rear of the dredge,
where they are rejected, while the screened material is washed
over a series of riffles, arranged in three tiers, to arrest the
gold. Mr. Leland was kind enough to stop the dredge, so that
by aid of the electric light we could see the gold nesting under
the riffles — and it is always pleasant to see gold thus, not so
much as the expression of wealth but as the evidence of skill
in extracting it from places that seem a little beyond the
reach of raan.
In the afternoon the weather cleared sufficiently to warrant
a start. As Tony was restless, I rode ahead of the party to the
road-house on the East Pork of the Soloraon river, obtaining
directions frora Mr. Leland. The trail was easy to follow, for
it was raainly in the river. Soon after starting I found that I
had to cross the river where the water had been deepened by a
dara built by the dredging corapany; while this ford was not
deep enough to compel the horse to swim it made me thoroughly
wet, for I had declined the loan of rubber-boots as being awk
ward when riding. On the Seward Peninsula the rubber-boot
is continually required ; everything is wet ; the moss is soaking,
and even when on horseback the frequent fording of icy-cold
streams renders such protection advisable. The roads, for the
most part, cling to the river beds, where gravel affords fairly
good footing as compared to the soggy tundra ; in consequence,
the road is in the river, and the river is in the road, making it
immaterial whether it be labeled a water-way or a trail.

THE SEWARD PENINSULA.
Illustrating Route from Nome to Ophir,

368 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
A series of short trots over the bare gravel and a nuraber of
splashes through the streara brought rae to a lateral gulch
which I recognized, from description, as the one that led to
the Big Hurrah mine. This is remarkable as the preraier gold-
quartz mine on the Peninsula, that is, a mine from which gold-
bearing ore was extracted from a quartz lode, as distinguished
from the gravel of the placer deposits constituting the source
of nearly all the gold won in northern Alaska. The Big Hurrah
was one of the undertakings of that fine old Californian,
Charles D. Lane. The lode consists of several quartz veins tra
versing graphitic schist. The quartz is banded with graphite,
which hindered amalgamation, although much of the gold was
so free as to be visible. Many beautiful specimens came from
this raine, and there is no doubt that the erosion of this lode
was one of the factors enriching the Soloraon river.
Proceeding up the river I saw several derelict dredges of
rudimentary design and heard the coughing of the gasoline
engine actuating one that was still at work. Tony pricked up
his ears and gave signs of dissatisfaction with this asthmatic
mechanism, but it was soon passed, like a memory of the crudi
ties that have raade the dredging branch of gold raining a night
mare of blunders.
The seven or eight railes were shortly covered; there had
never been any danger of losing ray way, for the river was a
sufficient guide, and on the adjoining hillslope the line of the
Council City & Solomon River Railway afforded assurance of
the direction to be taken, ailthough it provided no more than
that, being only the sign of a dormant system of transportation.
No trains puffed along the quiet valley, no whistle broke the
heavy silence; the railway was not in operation, because the
traffic was inadequate. However, there it was: a thread link
ing the desolate foreground to a radiant distance, connecting
this great lone land with horae. I liked to see it.
Meanwhfle Tony raaintained a steady trot and when the
trail passed under the railway bridge I found myself close to
a group of buildings which I knew must be the road-house. So
it proved. Getting rid of ray wet clothes and borrowing sorae
commodious sUppers, I was soon toasting beside the hot stove.

COUNCIL. A PIONEER SETTLEMENT.

370 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
while waiting for my friends, who arrived half an hour later.
We fared well that night. Of course, road-houses vary. For
tunately, I did not sample raany of thera while in Alaska.
Sheets are not provided; instead, the traveler wraps hiraself
in blankets used by his predecessors, and it is only the fatigue
following exercise in a cold bracing air that enables him to
overcorae the anticipation of attack from various forms of in
sect life. In the morning the traveler is invited to "take a
shot" before breakfast; this pre-prandial drink being offered
by the proprietor as a courtesy. It is also custoraary for the
bar-tender to invite the habitues of the establishment, or those
who have patronized the place on the preceding night, to take
a drink before breakfast at the expence of "the house." It is
a villainous custom and creates a vicious habit. Men get so
used to it that they cannot eat their breakfast without the
alcoholic stimulus, or, as Dr. Wiley would phrase it, surprising
the expanse of expectant pepsin with a flood of ardent alcohol.
We needed no such stimulant. We felt like eupeptic heroes.
The food served was excellent, for this road-house was raan
aged by a clean thrifty woman. The raspberries from the
neighboring moor and the fish frora the river were both de
licious. Even if the eggs were overdue that did not raatter,
for we were used to 'case' eggs; in fact, one of ray friends at
Dawson told rae that he had become so accustomed to the ripe
rich flavor of case eggs that when he went home and his mother
took pains to have perfectly fresh eggs served at breakfast on
the morning following his arrival, he complained that they
were insipid ! Eggs intended for raining camps and other dis
tant places are packed in sectionalized cardboard boxes, each
egg being in a separate partition, and 30 dozen in one 'case.'
In order to preserve such eggs they undergo treatment previous
to being packed, the essential feature of all the various methods
being exclusion of air. In the old days eggs were buried in
salt and kept in a cool place. Nowadays eggs intended for
transport are immersed in a solution of water-glass or in lime-
water ; the first of these is a soluble silicate of soda, while the
second is ordinary unslaked lime in water. By this treatment
the decay is retarded and in a cold country they keep for a

THE RIDE TO OPHIR. 37I
long time ; the freshest egg eaten at Nome raust have been laid
five months, while the age of the oldest a polite man would no
more care to guess that the years of an old maid. Even the
eggs that seera but unhatched chickens are palatable to hungry
men. Another staple article of food is condensed milk; as co
that it is safe to say that good condensed railk is raore whole
some than most of the milk sold in cities; certainly, the miner
gets to like it, especially with his coffee, and he adds it to the
wild raspberries and blueberries with gusto. Habit is second
nature. Leaving the East Fork next morning we crossed the divide
separating the watersheds of the Solomon and Fox rivers. At
noon we halted at Hatch 's cabin on I. X. L. creek. Etiquette in
Alaska, or elsewhere, requires that if you use another man's
cooking utensils, you shall clean them after using. Also you
shall put at least as much firewood beside the stove as that
consumed by your own use. For the rest, the prospector in the
North is generous, and in his absence, is not averse to the con
sumption of his bacon and beans, leaving it to you to return
the hospitality when he coraes to your ' creek. '
The scenery in this part of the Peninsula is subdued : Low
rounded ridges, clad in tundra, are crested with outcrops of
schist, of fantastic form, due to accidents of weathering on a
rock of tabular structure. As seen through flying veils of mist
these isolated rocks took the shape of men and monsters; to
the first invaders of the wilderness they must have been un
canny, and to an iraagination distorted by hunger or -weariness
they probably looraed like the figures of a disterapered dream.
To those who know Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand,
I can say that in rock-weathering this part of the Seward
Peninsula resembles the ridges near Barewood.
The landscape was not without color, for the first frosts
had already touched the foliage; in the valleys the willows
and blueberry bushes had the glint of gold, and on the hill
sides the imperial purple of autumn was thrown over a wilder
ness whose furthest rim was silhouetted against a gray sky.
Tony was full of vigor and led the cavalcade. In the stream,
repeatedly forded, the trout darted from underneath the hoofs

372 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
of the horse, while the frightened duck flew in near circles.
Finally, leaving Fox creek I ascended a short rise and found
myself on the edge of the Niukluk valley. A perfectly straight
road, about five railes long, stretched across the tundra to
Council, a cluster of white buildings on the farther bank of
the river. This bit of good road was built by the Road Com
mission and consists of corduroy, covered with moss and topped
with gravel. It connects the trail or water route of the Niukluk
with the Solomon river, and has proved a great help in the
haulage of supplies to the mines.
Council saw the beginning of gold mining on the Seward
Peninsula, as has already been recorded; but it is quiet now,
with a population of 200 only. At the ford of the Niukluk the
members of our party re-united and after plunging through the
river we skirted the village, taking a trail that followed the
left 'limit' of the Niukluk. A curious bit of physiography is
here exhibited: the Niukluk and a tributary stream — Ophir
creek — are parallel, occupying the sarae valley without loss of
identity ; thus for a mile Ophir creek runs within 100 yards of
the Niukluk river. In order to float a dredge from Council to
Ophir, a cut was blasted between the two water-channels.
Turning into the canyon of Ophir creek we passed the dredge,
called the Blue Goose, and just above it we reached our destina
tion, the carap of the Wild Goose Mining & Trading Company,
distant 42 miles frora Solomon.
Here we spent four days. There was much to see in the
way of mining operations, including the use of elevators and
dredges, but this is not the place for technical details. They
will be found elsewhere.* During the daytime we rode or
walked to the various centres of mining activity, as, for in
stance, to the Blue Goose dredge. This we found idle, owing
to an accident such as may befall even the best-managed enter
prise. An unexpected encounter with a patch of frozen ground
had strained the bucket-line, breaking some of the teeth of the
main driving wheel, and some of these broken pieces becoraing
caught in the pinion had cracked the rim of the driving-wheel
*Mining and Scientific Press, November 28, 1908; also March 13, 1909.

A TYPICAL LANDSCAPE ON THE SEWARD PENINSULA.

374 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
itself. At the same tirae the big wooden anchorage or 'spud'
was shattered. Altogether it looked like a serious disaster, for
Ophir creek is a long way from timber-yards and foundries.
Nevertheless, ingenuity and hard work overcame the damage
without delay ; anxious to make the most of the only too brief
season, the crew worked by night and day, with a right good
will, so that within three days the raachine onee raore was dig
ging. G. H. Russell, the manager, and Jafet Lindeberg, the
president of the company, are to be congratulated on this ex
ample of efficiency. As stated already, the accident was due
to 'bucking' frozen ground; in fact, if anything goes wrong
with a dredge in the North, cherchez la glace !
This little dredge is a self-contained machine; on board I
found a machine-shop, smithy, and mess-room. The crew
take their midday meal on board, and as the soup is agitated
by the vibrations of the dredge they must feel as if they were
on a Yukon steamer aground. The running time is 110 days
each summer, and of this 31 per cent is lost by stops for re
pairs and other causes. About 100,000 cubic yards are dug, for
a yield of $85,000 and a profit of $50,000. This is encouraging.
On Septeraber 3 we rode to No. 24 Above, or 8 miles beyond
the camp on Discovery where the Wild Goose company has its
headquarters. We passed the old carap on No. 15 Above where
Charles Lane lived several years ago. Claira No. 15 yielded
$1,400,000. On No. 14 a piece of ground 1100 feet long and
125 feet wide yielded $800,000. At the upper end of No. 20 the
gravel was worth $20 per cubic yard. It was well named Ophir.
Yet, although so near to Solomon, these gold diggings are
not iraputed as the source of the Jewish king's wealth. In the
Zarabesi region of central Africa there is a raountain naraed
Pura, a name taken by the Portuguese from Arab traders, who
corrupted it from the Hebrew word Ophir. Indeed, the word
Africa itself, which the Romans took from the Carthaginians,
is a modification of Afur or Aufur ; thus from Ophir, through
Afir, Afer, Afur, was Africa evolved. Carl Peters is my
authority, but he went farther, he went to the Zarabesi. Be
tween that great river and the Sabi, in modern Rhodesia, he
found many thousand old mines some of which, ten years ago.

THE RIDE TO OPHIR. 375
afforded the foundation for company finance in London. These
old workings are scattered over a region covering 750,000
square miles, and within this area are ruins of cities, fortresses,
and temples bearing evidence of the ancient worship of Baal-
Ashera and of the civilization that characterized the Himyar-
ites of southern Arabia. Prom the hot sands beside the Red
Sea to the frozen gravel by Bering Sea is a far cry, but the
human motive is the same ; despite changes of time and place,
the digging of gold has been the spur to exploration and the
pioneer of civilization.
At claim No. 19 on Ophir a sharp turn in the creek coincides
with a sharp turn in the sentiment of these pages, for here is
recalled the long litigation known technically as Walton v.
Wild Goose. Walton was, and is, a colored lady, whom I hap
pened to see at Norae, while at the Golden Gate hotel. A tele
phone in the lobby Avas used by Miss Walton with such noisy
insistence as to give an idea of her possibilities as a litigant.
In local history she will figure as the poor lone negro-woman
who sued a soulless corporation, and lost. It was thus : In the
early days of Ophir creek the prospectors used printed location
forms claiming the bed of the creek and "the meanderings
thereof." On No. 19 the stakes were not placed in accordance
with this description, but in a straight line across the bend of
the channel. A claim-jumper took advantage of this fact, and
Miss Walton became a partner with hira. After a long struggle
in the courts it was decided, as is usual in sueh cases, that the
actual position of the stakes took precedence over the descrip
tion appearing on the location notice. This decision was ap
pealed and sustained. Another interesting point arising in
this litigation was the assertion that Capt. Walker, the locator
by proxy, had not done sufficient assessment work. Walker
was stationed at St. Michael ; after the close of navigation he
sent three men overland, instructing them to comply with the
mining regulations. They dug a trench, which, it was said,
took 10 days of work. The Walton people clairaed that such a
trench could be dug in 3 days, and they caused such a trench
to be dug in that araount of tirae. The Judge, however, in
structed the jury that they raight consider the distance from

376 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
the source of supplies, and the consequent expense involved, in
estimating the cost of the work done on the claim. It was 175
miles to St. Michael and cost the captain $300 to send the three
men, therefore the jury found that he had shown good faith in
maintaining his title by doing the work required by law.
On 24 Above we lunched with J. L. Wilson and saw the
operation of his bucket dredge, a small raachine raoving on a
turn-table; this dredge was doing good work, digging to a
depth of 15 feet, with 12 to 15 horse-power, obtained from the
combustion of distillate.
That evening snow fell and the rapidly shortening days
gave warning to the mine operators that their season was
already waning. The absence of smoke, either from forest fires
or factories, caused the atmosphere to be wonderfully clear. It
was to this cause that I impute the marvelous coloring at sun
set: A gray sky, belted near the horizon by a broad band of
pink; under it purple clouds, against which the long curve of
the hills and the sweeping contours of the darkly green tundra
were thrown in exquisite purity of line and color.
On the morning of September 4 we started on the return
journey, leaving Ophir creek at 9 : 40 a.m. and reaching Le
land's camp at 5:10 p.m., thus covering the 42 miles in 7%
hours, including the half-hour halt at midday in Skookum
gulch. It was cold and windy weather, culminating in a slight
fall of snow. On this day my saddle-bags contained 561 ounces
of gold, in two bars, but the additional weight did not bother
Tony, who maintained a steady trot over the uneven trail.
Crossing the divide into the valley of the Solomon, I noted the
dome-shaped hills of limestone, weathered and gray, with
tundra clinging to their feet. It was a forbidding landscape :
cold gray hills against a wintry sky. But the air was bracing
and the swinging gait of the horse made exhilarating exercise,
ending in a comfortable rendezvous at Oro Pino, as the camp
of the Three Friends is called. At 7 : 40 the next morning we
were in the saddle again, arriving at Soloraon at 8 : 25 ; here
the gold was taken from me for shipment by the Flyer, that un
happy vessel being visible off-shore, where she was again
stranded on a bar ; as the tide was ebbing, the prospects of a

378 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
start were poor. This was fortunate, for it decided us to ride
to Norae on our trusty horses rather than risk a voyage along
the coast in a miserable launch. Munro, Turner, and I left
Solomon at 9 : 15, and then coraraenced the finest ride of ray
Ufe. The road ran along a sand-spit, formerly a bar, but now
green with tough grass. With firra ground underfoot and
willing horses, the telephone poles flanking the road in long
perspective were passed in quick succession. Only a hundred
yards to the left was Bering Sea, sraooth and sunlit, with no
suggestion of the storms that had flung the gray driftwood
high on the edge of the land. On the right, also a hundred
yards away, a long lagoon mirrored the blue and white of the
sky ; inland stretched the tundra, in the tawny livery of auturan,
crossed by the purple shadows of traveling clouds, while in
the distance northward rose the liraestone hills whence come
the Bonanza and Flambeau rivers. At 18 railes frora Solomon
the road is interrupted by an estuary at the mouth of which
is Port Safety. Here is the Governraent wireless telegraph
station. As we waited for the ferry the only sound to be heard
was the coughing of the gasoline engine that runs the dynamo
of the wireless equipment. This station is said to be the. raost
successful of its kind in catching raessages frora passing ships,
and it is also the only raeans of telegraphic coraraunication be
tween the Seward Peninsula and the outer world, messages
being transmitted to St. Michael, whence they are forwarded
overland by the military telegraph system, which crosses
Alaska by way of Eagle and Fairbanks.
Beyond Port Safety the road continued excellent, clinging
to the edge of the land, so that we were always close to the
sea. Several Eskimo caraps were passed. Countless dogs raade
the quiet air vibrate with their raelancholy howls. The squaws
were picking blueberries, using wooden rakes raade from the
covers of cigar-boxes. One young woman in a gay parka was
attended by a young man who lay idly watching his belle at
her pleasant task. An Eskirao idyll — the same old garae ! On
a tent-pole the skin of a hair-seal was drying and on other
frames fish were hanging like bananas. We saw an oomiak or

T, W. Gibson.

AFTER THE RIDE TO OPHIR. SEPTEMBER 1908.
Scott Turner. T. A. Rickard. C. H. Munro. Jafet Lindeberg.

380 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
native boat containing a family of ten, the father steering with
the paddle, while the boat was towed by six dogs, tended by
a young man and woman, walking together. At 12 : 45 we
reached the road-house near Cape Nome, remaining there until
2 : 30, so as to give the horses a proper rest. It was frora Cape
Nome that the district obtained its name ; on the western side
of the cape we abandoned the road and took to the beach,
riding along the shore for 10 miles, as far as Fort Davis.
The tide is out and the firm wet sand affords excellent foot
ing. Our horses are willing and full of life, emulous to keep
ahead, so that they move gladly. Tony wiU not be denied;
maintaining a fast trot as if he had just come out of his stable.
The cold wind blows from Bering Sea, the breakers curl to the
shore, the horse treads on the silver fringe of the waves as
they ripple over the sandy beach; the strong pulsating move
raent of the noble animal, the exhilaration of an air fresh as
the breath of dawn, the feeling of perfect freedora and un
limited expansiveness, a sense of coraplete well-being and gay
adventure, touch every tingling nerve and stiraulate every
willing muscle, until I shout with delight. It is well for a brief
space to feel like a viking when the world was young, as if the
complexities of civilization had been swept away by the cold
breath of the sea, as if money and business, steam and elec
tricity, factories and libraries, no longer existed, while the tide
of life fills every corner with exultant joy.
At Fort Davis we had to return to the road, for the beach
was being mined for gold, but it was only three railes to Norae.
Although we had ridden 43 miles in 5% hours of actual travel
our horses were still unwearied, whieh is further evidence of
the invigorating nature of this Northern atmosphere. We
rattled down the planked way of the long Front street, and
disraounted at the Wild Goose office at 4 : 30. After a change
and a bath we raade tracks for the Royal Cafe and there cele
brated the termination of a glorious trip by dining on wild
goose and reindeer stew, washed down with a bottle of Cali
fornian burgundy, followed by the smoke that makes all men
brothers.

CHAPTER XXXV.
SAN FRANCISCO.
The joumey from Norae to Seattle calls for no special com
ment. The Northwestern, of the Alaska Steamship Company,
was not as big as an Atlantic liner, having a register of 3396
tons and a length of 350 feet only, but she was comfortable.
Her hold being almost empty, she threshed about in the trough
of the seas, but after the river boats it seeraed luxurious to be
on a well appointed vessel. The passengers included a nuraber
of raining men, among whom were several who had taken part
in the early development of Nome and whom therefore I found
particularly interesting. Two days after leaving Nome a light
on the port side indicated the beacon guarding the strait of
Unimak, in the Aleutian islands. No stop was made at Dutch
Harbor, we passed through the strait and our course was laid
due east, emphasizing how far "the path of Erapire" has led
westward. The best day's run was 316 knots; the poorest, 284.
On Septeraber 15, seven days out, we sighted Vancouver island,
and the next sunrise saw us in the quiet waters of Puget Sound.
It was a fine morning ; to starboard the snow-clad peaks of the
Olympic range, which three raonths earlier, on the outset of my
joumey to the Northwest, had seeraed a bit of grand scenery,
now wore a familiar look and spoke of the nearness to horae.
Landing at Seattle, I found that the steamer for San Francisco
did not leave for 48 hours. Accordingly, after spending a night
in Seattle, I took the boat for Victoria. When the Governor, of
the Pacific Coast Steamship line, arrived on the evening of
Septeraber 18 I went aboard and on Septeraber 21 the long
journey ended at the port of San Francisco.
At break of day the Governor was gliding slowly over a gray

382 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
sea into a silver mist from which issued the hoarse warnings
of foghorns. The opalescent light illumined the inflowing tide
and glanced upon the sails of a fishing boat; the delicious
stillness was only broken by the lapping of the water against
the sides of the ship, until suddenly the fierce blast of our siren
made the air vibrate with waves of sound that were quickly
swallowed by the fog.
It was early dawn; as the mist took form momentarily
the blue sky lit by the morning sun flashed a Californian
greeting overhead. Thereupon the white curtains of the fog
were swept aside, and like a splendid scene in a theatre, the
whole panorama of the Bay of San Francisco was spread to
view. We were close to Alcatraz, the island prison, which
like a fortress bars the Golden Gate ; to the left were the hills
of the Marin shore, with Sausalito, like Sorrento, clinging to
the cliffs at whose feet the white sails come and go with the
sea-gulls; ahead rose Angel island, with suggestions of naval
activity, and Goat island, the Capri of these waters ; across the
calm expanse of the Bay, now laughing in the sun, stood the
Contra Costa foot-hills, with all the farailiar lines of grassy
slope and oaken glade, at the base of which the linked com
munities of Berkeley, Oakland, and Alameda lay spread in
peaceful security, forgetful of the tremor that had rocked the
earth on the morning of April 18, 1906. The white buildings
of the University, framed in groves of eucalyptus and acacia,
were distinguishable, and over the intervening space of water
the ferry-boats churned in orderly succession to and from the
wharves of San Francisco. She, the warder of two continents,
whom the poet in prophetic words called ' ' indifferent of fate, ' '
rose above the swift tide and filled the picture, as she fulfilled
my iraagination. I saluted the most imperturbable of cities,
the survivor of earthquake and fire, the vice-ridden, graft-
cursed coraraunity, that, with heroic courage and splendid
audacity had risen in self-assertive strength frora ruins scarcely
cold. Two years ago she lifted an ashen face to the blue of a
pitilessly perfect sky ; now the same site was covered by splen
did structures of steel and stone, traversed by orderly streets,
and thronged by happy faces.

SAN FRANCISCO. 383
On August 1, 1836, Jacob P. Leese wrote from Yerba Buena
to a friend at Monterey, California, saying: "Leigh low and
look out sharp for this Place as we are a gowing to do a snort
ing Buisiness. Do not make yourself uneasy about Buisiness
here for all gows on straight." The Yerba Buena thus com
mended was the settlement that became San Francisco, and
Jacob Leese was the first merchant of what was destined to
be a great mercantile community. His optimism, told in homely
language and early reformed spelling, has often been expressed
since then in more resplendent phrase ; it has passed from
words to deeds. The barren sand-hills facing the surf of the
Pacific have been raade gracious with verdure ; on the wind
swept dunes rise many-storied structures, knit with steel and
clothed with stone ; the shallows of the shore have been won to
traffic, and the waters of the estuary bear the comraerce of a
continent. Yerba Buena has emerged from its Spanish back
ground and has become the San Francisco of an Araerican
California. San Francisco : The narae has a raelancholy cadence to
those who have known her in the days of her prosperity, her
disaster, and her shame. Today she guards the portal of the
Pacific and takes it upon her to forbid the entrance of the
coolies of Japan, with a manner in which are blended dignity
and burlesque ; in the midst of a reconstruction that challenged
the admiration of the world she sent her indicted mayor, the
first violin of a vaudeville, and the latest expression of labor
unrest, to represent her in an international negotiation at
Washington ; in the very act of rising gloriously from the effects
of a conflagration that enkindled the generosity of the world,
she exposed a scandal of municipal corruption that made the
smoke of her fire drift to heaven like the reek of a tannery.
San Francisco epitomizes the greatness and the smallness of
humanity; those who love her know that beneath the tawdry
politics and the reckless industrialism beats the warra heart of
a great personality. For cities have characteristics that give
them an identity. The City beside the Golden Gate wears her
heart upon her sleeve, she is the most Bohemian of her kind,
neither self-conscious nor conventional, artless as a spoilt child

384 THROUGH THE YUKON AND ALASKA.
and sensitive as a woraan. Proud of her origin as the haven
of the Argonauts, confident in the promise of her dominion of
the Pacific, headstrong in the insistence upon her supposed
rights, serene amid the shock of cosmic unrest, she appeals to
the imagination of the poet and to the perception of the artist.
It was well to have known her at her worst, under her mounte
bank mayor and thieving political boss, in the thrall of muni
cipal corruption and amid the stench of putrifying incivism;
it was well to have known her at her best, facing a catastrophe
that looked like the end of the world and repairing a disaster
that had no promise of a morrow; it was well to have shared
her ruin and her resurrection, to haA'e felt her shame and glo
ried in her greatness.
As the tattered veil of fog was blown southward by the
morning breeze, I looked at the awakening city, now radiant
in the sunlight, and seemed to see the day when San Francisco
should glow in the dawn of a civic regeneration and feel the
bracing air of a sane patriotism, before which the greed and
graft, the corruption and chicanery, should be blown as a fog
frora the sea. Then, firmly poised on her peninsula, San Fran
cisco shall face her destiny with proud serenity. With her back
to the trails that brought her people over raountain and plain
frora the distant seaboard on the other side of the continent,
she shall face the sunset with an earnest face. The Atlantic
breakers sound faint ; the surf at her feet thunders a welcome.
Her eyes have caught the glow of the setting sun and in her
ears is the song of the Pacific, bringing the promise of com
merce with the iraraemorial East that has become a new West.

€fe^

BOOKS OF REFERENCE
'Through the Yukon Gold Diggings'. By J. E. Spurr. 1900.
'Three Years in the Klondike'. By Jeremiah Lynch. 1904.
'Alaska and the Klondike', By Angelo Heilprin. 1903.
'The Geography and Geology of Alaska'. By Alfred H. Brooks. 1906.
'Glacier Bay and Its Glaciers'. By Harry Fielding Reid. U. S. Geo
logical Survey. Sixteenth Annual Report, Part 1.
'The Looting of Alaska'. By Rex E. Beach. Appleton's Magazine.
January to May, 1906.
'Voyage of Discovery'. By George -Vancouver. 1798.
'History of California'. By Theodore H. Hittell. 1898. >-
'The Land of Nome'. By Laurier McKee. 1902.
'Alaska, The Great Country' By Ella Higginson. 1908.
'Alaska and Its Resources'. By AVilliam H. Dall. 1897.
'Alaska.' Vol. I, II, and III. Harriman Expedition. 1902.
'The Gold Placers of Parts of SeAvard Peninsula, Alaska'. Bulletin No.
328, U. S. Geological Survey.
'The Ice Age in North America'. By G. Frederick Wright. 1888.
'History of Alaska'. By H. H. Bancroft.
'Guide-book to Alaska'. By Eliza R. Scidmore. 1899.

INDEX

Page.
Adams, Bob  323
Agriculture, Arctic  279
Beginnings of  260
Experiment Stations. .281, 284
U. S. Department of  92
Alaska and California, Rela
tion BetAveen  105
Area Available for Agri
culture  284
Commercial Co  94
Discovery and Develop
ment of  10
Experiment Stations. 281, 284
Exploration Co  288
Federal Courts of  100
Glaciers of  47
Gold Mining Co  350
History of  89
Judiciary of  361
LoAV Topography of.. 256, 258
Mill & Mining Co  26
Origin of Name of  9
Population of  100
Purchase of, by United
States  14, 94, 103, 104
Size of  10
Steamship Co  5, 302, 381
Treadwell Mines  23
Allen, Scotty  130
American Citizens in Yukon
Territory  236
Anderson, Charles  195
Anderson, P, H  328, 334
Anarchy at Nome  345
Anvik  296
Arctic Circle, The  249
Agriculture  279
Astor, John Jacob  110
Baranoff, Alexander, First Gov
ernor of Alaska  2, 88, 90
Baranoff Island  77
Barber, Bert  326

Page.
Barnard, Lieut, Death of  294
Barnette, Captain E. T  263
Barrette, Joe  146
Beach Mining at Nome  337
Bean, Edmund  14, 18
Berdoe, A. L  156, 158
Berger, Jake  326
Bering Sea  337
Bering, Vitus  89
Berry, Clarence J  184
Introduces Steam-Point. . . 215
Bidarka  86
Bidarra  87
Big Hurrah Mine  368
Blake, Harry L  328, 330
Blue Goose Dredge  372
Boat Building, Cost of  162
Bodega Bay, Russian Settle
ment at  110
Boerner, Captain C. A  253
Bonanza Creek, Discovery of
Gold on  189
Boyd, A. E  363
Brackett, George A  137
Bradley, F. W  28
Bristol, the Original of the Si
lent City  66
Brooks, A. H  312
Bruce, Minor AV  64, 70
Bruce, Thomas  264
Bryant, J. AV  169
Brynteson, John  330
Bucyrus Dredge  364
'Cache', a  178
California and Alaska, Relation
betAveen  105
Russian Settlements in . . 108
Canyon City  171
Capital of Alaska, The  22, 100
Carmack, George  189
Trading Post of  178
Carter Code, The  22

388

INDEX.

Page.
Charles H's Charter to Hud
son's Bay Co  164
Chatanika  269
'Cheechaco', Meaning of  121
Hill  228, 232
Chilkoot Pass  144
'China Joe'  22
Chinook  120
Chirikoff, Alexis, Discovers
Alaska  89
Circle City  234, 249, 264
City of Seattle, The  78
Cleary Creek  269, 271
Club House at TreadAvell, The 38
Coffey, George T  228
Coghlan, Captain J. B., U.S.N. 7
Cook, Captain, at Sitka  12
Cooper, Lon  296
Copeland, W. F  239
Copper Mines near White
Horse  169
Council City  332, 372
Council City & Solomon River
Railroad Co  368
Cummins, William  337
Davis, General Jefferson C . . . 103
DaAvson, Automobiles at  228
Capital of Yukon Terri
tory  183, 199, 227
Gold Production from  209
Local Administration at. 234
Regina Hotel at  184
The Stampede to  137
DaAvson, George M  182
Daylight, Length of Arctic... 227
de Arguello, Concepcion, Ro
mance of  106
Don Jose  106
de Arrillago, Don Luis  106
Debauchery  150, 187, 232
dc Groff, EdAvard  20
de Stoeckl, EdAvard  103
Dexter, John A  327
De Windt, Harry  144

Page.
Dietering, William, or 'Caribou
Bill'  194
Diggings, The  199
Discovery Claim, Meaning of. 206
Ditch, The Yukon  239
Dixon, Colonel Richard  76
Dog Race at Nome  321
Dredging for Gold..202, 220, 224, 364
Dress, Native  315
Drift Mining at Cleary Creek. 271
Eagle, on the Yukon River...249, 250
Erussard, Pierre, Discoverer
of the Treadwell Lode  23
Etolin, Governor  78
Expenses in the Interior  276
Fairbanks  260, 263
Pounding of  263
Gold Production from  209
Fee, AVm., or 'Missouri Bill'. . . 337
"Fifty-Four Forty or Fight". . 4
Fink, Albert, Winn-er of the
Dog Race  324
Five Finger Rapids, The  180
Flygar, John  146
Fort Derahin  293
Gibbon  254
Ross, Russian Settlement
in California. . .110, 112, 113
Forty-Mile.. 180, 190, 195, 234, 250
Freeborn, James  24
French, Col. George A  165
'French Pete', Cognomen of
Erussard  23, 24
Frost, as an Aid to the Miner. 218
Frost-bite, The Danger of  322
Fruit and Flowers  230
Fry, John D., Sends Treadwell
to Juneau  24
Fulda, L. R  288
Fuller, N. A  18, 20
Pur Trade  89, 105, 164
First Association  90
Gambling  100, 140
Game, Abundance of  124, 267

INDEX.

389

Page.
Gastineau Channel  15
Gates, Bill, or 'Swiftwater Bill' 192
Geological Survey, Tribute to. 312
Geology of the Treadwell Lode 28
Georgeson, C. C  281
Gibson, T. M  363
Glacier, Description of a  51
Glaciers of Alaska, The  47
Augpadlartok  56
Brady  57
Eagle River  55
Malaspina  57
Muir  56, 58
Taku  48, 60
Windom  62
'Glory Hole' at Treadwell  28
Gold Commissioner of the
Yukon  237
Nuggets  184
Of the Klondike, The  189
Royalty Collected on  206
Russian Discouragement of
Search for  16
Stream, near Fairbanks.. 266
Golden Beaches of Nome, The
209, 310, 337
Sands Mining Co  352
Golikoff, Ivan  90
Golofnin Bay  328, 332
Gray, Captain J. T... 251, 526, 260
Greek Church at Sitka. . .80, 83, 84
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of . 113
Haggalin, J. L  330
Hahn, V. 1  156
Haidas  80, 82, 120
Hansen, Joe  327
Harding, H. T  328
Harris, Richard T  18
Harrisburg, the Original Name
of Juneau  20
Hawkins, Clarence  130
Healy, J. J  288
Heilprin, Angelo  148, 170
Henderson, Bob  189

Page.
Hepburn, John  171
Higginson, Mrs. Ella  300
Hignes, John  130
Hoggatt, Wilfred B  22
Holy Cross   294, 296
Hootalinqua or Teslin River. .
170, 177
Hoot-che-noo  96
Hot Springs, near Fort Gib
bon  279, 287
Near Sitka  96
Hudson's Bay Co  12, 90, 164
Hultberg, N. 0  328
Humber, Hart  130
Hunker, Andrew  190
Hunker Creek  189, 192
Hurle, J. C  68
Huskies  270, 290, 321
Hutchinson, H. M  94
Ice-Bergs, The Value of  60
Ice-Sheet, The Northern  54
Igloos, Eskimo Houses  318
Inland Sea, The  1
International Boundary.. .4, 153, 249
' Jack-Kniflng'  258
Jackson, Dr. Sheldon  332
Ja-mestown, U. S. Gunboat. . .20, 98
Japanese, Alaskan Indian's
Resemblance to the  128
Jefferson, The  5
Johnson, Bert  264
Joslin, Falcon  260, 267
Juneau  15, 98
Juneau, Joseph  18
Jurack, Tom  264
Kadiak  77, 90
Kaht-le-ahn, Chief of the Kah-
sat-tee Clan  96
Kaltag  295
Karshner, J. P  279
Kayak, the Eskimo Canoe. ... 86
Kazaan, The Lady of  84
Kennan, George  13

390

INDEX.

Page.
Kennicott, Robert  ; 13
Ketchikan  6
Kietatats  120
Kimber, Christopher  330
Kinzie, Robert A  48
Kittleson, A. N  336
Klondike Gold Discoveries . . . 189
Derivation of Name  199
Kodiak Livestock Station.... 284
Kostrometinoff, Sergius...77, 78, 103
Koyukuk River, The  251
Koyukuk, The  251, 259
Kresge, N  194
Kuskoff, Alexander  108
'Ladies of Adventure'.. 196, 198, 288
Ladue, Joseph  180, 189, 199
Lake Bennett  148, 154
Laberge  174
Lewis  158
Lancaster and Stimson's
Claims on Gold Hill  192
Land Laws  102
Lane, Charles D  : .305, 351, 368
Lane, Louis  130
Lavelle Young, The.. .249, 263, 289
Lawson, Thomas W  202
Lawyers, Chicanery of Corrupt 360
'Lay-men'  196
Leland, W. L  363
Lepine Ridge, Camp on  246
Libby, Daniel B  328
Lindblom, Erik O  330
Lindeberg, Jafet. .332, 351, 363, 374
'Long-tom', A  338
Louis, Henry  214
Lowe, Dick  196
Lynch, Jeremiah  299
Lynn Canal  8, 138
McCarty, Dan  264
Macaulay, Norman  171
Macdonald, Alec  195
Macdonald, Angus  124
Macdonald, Sir John  165
McGillivray, Daniel  190

^ ' Page.
Mackay, David  190
McKenzie, Alexander  350
McQuesten, Jack  249
Maksutoff, Prince Demetrius. . 94
Malamutes  290, 296, 321
Mammoth Stories  232
Teeth of  230
Manley, Frank G  279
Marshall, James W  116
Mastodon, Tusks of  230
Measures, Table of Alluvial . . 208
Mein, Thomas  28
Melsing, Louis S  328
Men in the Treadwell Mines. 37
Merriman, Captain E. C  120
Mills, D. 0  26
Mining Methods, Development 209
Methods at Cleary Creek. . 272
Operations  202
Regulations  20, 98
Mirage, Explanation of  72
Of the Silent City  66
Moore, Alfred S  360
Mordaunt, A. P  328
Morgan, J. Pierpont  200
Mosquitoes  172
Mt. Verstovia  77
'Muck' Discoveries  277
Meaning of  207, 222
Munro, C. H  363
Muir Glacier  56, 58, 63
Muir, John  16, 56
'Musher', Meaning of  120
Navigation on the Yukon. .174, 250
On the Tanana  254
Niukluk River, Gold Discov
ered on the  328
Valley  372
Nome  302
Anarchy at  345
First Discoveries of Gold 327
Golden Beaches. . .209, 310, 337
Indians at  315
The Landing at  302

INDEX.

391

Page.
Population of  308
Royal Cafe  318
North American Trading &
Transport Co  287
Northern Commercial Co. .249,287
Northwest Mounted Police. ..164, 166
Novo Arkhangelsk  92
Noyes, A. H., Judge at Nome . . 350
Fined and Dismissed  358
Nulato, Originally Fort Dera
bin  293
Ogilvie, William  204, 236
Olds, John  21
Oo-miak, Eskimo Canoe  87, 316
Ophir, The Ride to  363
Organic Act of May 17, 1884. . 98
Pacific Coast Steamship Co. . . . 381
Packing Burdens  146, 149
Paris Claim, Afterward the
Treadwell 'Glory Hole' . . 24, 26
Pedro, Felix  264
Perez, Juan, Spanish Navi
gator  4
Perkins, H. C  28
Perry, O. B  202, 228, 239
Pestehouroff, Captain Alexis . . 103
Petersen, Nels  194
Pilz, George E  16, 18
Pioneer Mining Co. of Seattle . 334
Power of Attorney, Unscrupu
lous Use of  349
Price, G. W  334, 336
Promishleniki, Russian Fur-
Traders  89
Railroad, Need for a Trunk. . . 267
Records of Persons Entering
Yukon Territory  168
Red Snow  60
Reid, Frank H., Killed by
Soapy Smith  134
Reid, Harry F  53, 56
Reindeer  294, 332
Rezanoff, Nikolai  106, 108
Ride to Ophir, The  363

Page.
Riley, J. C  280
Rink Rapids, The  180
Rogers, Robert C, U. S. Com
missioner  92
Rousseau, General Lovell N . . 103
Royalty on Gold Mined  206, 236
Ruby Sand at Nome  343
Russell, G. H  374
Russian American Co  110, 293
Settlements in California. 108
St. Michael  299, 378
St. Paul, Early Russian Settle
ment  77, 90
Samson, Sam  210
San Francisco  383
Saportas, W. F  134
Sarah, The  287, 293
Sausalito, Russian Trading
Post at  112
Schrader, F. C  312
Schwatka, Frederick  14, 289
Seward Peninsula  361, 366, 371
Seward, William, Secretary of
State  103, 104
ShilikofC, Gregory  90
Silent City, The  63
Simel, Max  296
Sitka, Derivation of Name .... 77
Greek Church at  80, 84
Hotel Baranoff at  80
Museum  86
Totems  80, 82
Sixty-Mile  180, 189
Skagway  98, 131
Skookum Gulch  194
Prehistoric Bones at  230
Sluice-Box, A  208, 305
Smith, Soapy  132
Smith, Sport  130
Solomon River, Dredge on the. 364
'Sour Dough', Meaning of  121
Spurr, J. E  148
Stage Service, The Dawson . . . 169
Staking Claims, Method of . . . 345

392

INDEX.

Page.
Stamp-Mills at Treadwell.. .28, 34, 36
Stampede to Dawson, The. . . . 137
'Steam-Points' for Thawing
Gravel  215, 223, 272
Stewart, Senator W. M., of Ne
vada  359
Sumdum  18
Supplies, Cost of  198, 280
Transport of  260
Sutter, Captain John A  113
Discovery of Gold by  114
Swedish Mission on Golofnin
Bay  334
Tagish Charlie  190, 196
Taku Glacier  48, 60
Tanana  252
River  254
Valley Railroad  260, 269
Tanana, The  256
Tantalus Coal Mine, The. .176, 177
Tebenkoff, Michael  300
Terms, Technical Northern . . . 207
Teslin or Hootalinqua River 170, 177
Thawing Gravel by Fire  210
By Steam-Points  215, 223
Thlingits  80, 82, 120
Thomas, Chester A  202, 239
Three Friends Mining Co  . 363
Swedes, The  ,  327, 345
Tin Cans, General Use of. .230, 260
Tombstone River  239
Totem Poles  80, 82
Treadgold, A. N. C  200, 235, 239
Treadwell, John  24, 26
Treadwell Mines, The  23
Dwelling Houses  42
Men at the Mines  37
Miners' Club House  38
Nationality of Workers .. . 43
Sample Bill of Pare at. . . 45
Stamp-Mills  28, 34, 36
Underground Workings.. 30
Trees and Flowers  2

Page.
'Tundra'  207
Twelve-Mile River  239, 242
Unalaska, Island of  9
Vestal, Nate  328
Victoria, The  302
Von Wrangell, Baron F. P  112
Wadda, Jurio  128, 266
Walton V. Wild Goose  375
Washington, D. C, Conspiracy 352
Waugh, Harry  190
'Ways' for Steamboats  161
Western Union Telegraph Co. 13, 296
White Channel, The  195, 228
White Horse  161
Copper Mines Near  169
Rapids  170
River Steamer  173
White Pass  137, 140
White Pass & Yukon River
Railroad  138, 153
Whitehead, Cabel  306
Wigan  160
Wild Goose Mining & Trading
Co  305,351,372
Willoughby, Richard G., His
Fake Mirage  63
Wilson, J.L  376
Wireless Telegraph Station ... 378
'Wooding-up'  176, 250
Wrangell Narrows  7
Wright, G. F  56
Yakutat, First Russian Penal
Settlement  77
Yerba Buena  383
Young, S. H  56
Yukon Ditch, The  239
Yukon Gold Co. . .162, 199, 223, 239
Yukon River, The  294
And Its Tributaries  170
Navigation on  jy^ 250
Yukon Territory, Administra-
""'^"^  234,236

3 9002 00826 9608