Chapter II: Part 2

An English company, the British Columbia Development Association, Limited, has already established a landing wharf and is erecting a wharf and sawmills at Skagway, whence it is proposed (as soon as feasible) to lay down a line of rail some thirty-five miles long, striking the Yukon River at a branch of the Marsh Lake, about 100 miles below Lake Lindeman. By this means the tedious and difficult navigation between these two points will be avoided, and the only dangerous parts of the river below will be circumvented by a road or rail portage. Light-draught steamers will be put on from Teslin Lake to the cañon and from the foot of the latter to all the towns and camps on the river.

Dyea is a village of cabins and tents, and little if anything in the way of supplies can be got there; it is a mere forwarding point.

Pending the completion of the facilities mentioned above, miners may transport their goods over the pack trail on their own or hired burros, and at Tahgish Lake take a boat down the Tahco arm (11 miles) to the main lake, and down that lake and its outlet into Lake Marsh. This chain of lakes, filling the troughs of old glacial fiords to a level of 2,150 feet above the sea, "constitutes a singularly picturesque region, abounding in striking points of view and in landscapes pleasing in their variety or grand and impressive in this combination of rugged mountain forms." All afford still-water navigation, and as soon as the road through White Pass permits the transportation of machinery, they will doubtless be well supplied with steamboats. Marsh Lake is 20 miles long, Bennett 26, and Tagish 16½ miles, with Windy Arm 11 miles long, Tahko Arm 20 miles, and other long, narrow extensions among the terraced, evergreen-wooded hills that border its tranquil surface. The depression in which this group of lakes lies is between the coast range and the main range of the Rockies; and as it is sheltered from the wet sea-winds by the former heights, its climate is nearly as dry of that of the interior. The banks are fairly well timbered, though large open spaces exist, and abound in herbage, grass and edible berries. Lake Marsh, named by Schwatka after Prof. O. C. Marsh of Yale, but called Mud Lake by the miners, without good reason, is twenty miles long and about two wide. It is rather shallow and the left bank should be followed. The surrounding region is rather low, rising by terraces to high ranges on each side, where Michie mountain, 5,540 feet in height, eastward, and Mounts Lorue and Landsdowne, westward, 6,400 and 6,140 feet high respectively, are the most prominent peaks. "The diversified form of the mountains in view from this lake render it particularly picturesque," remarks Dr. Dawson, "and at the time of our visit, on the 10th and 11th of September, the autumn tints of the aspens and other deciduous trees and shrubs, mingled with the sombre greens of the spruces and pines, added to its beauty."

Near the foot of this lake enters the McClintock river, of which little is known. The outlet is a clear, narrow, quiet stream, called Fifty-mile River, which flows somewhat westerly down the great valley. Large numbers of dead and dying salmon are always seen here in summer, and as these fish never reach Lake Marsh, it is evident that the few who are able, after their long journey, to struggle up the rapids, have not strength left to survive.

The descent of the Lewes (or Yukon) may be said to begin at this point, and 23 miles below Lake Marsh the first and most serious obstacle is encountered in the White Horse Rapids, and Miles Cañon. Their length together is 2¾ miles, and they seem to have been caused by a small local effusion of lava, which was most unfortunately ejected right in the path of the river. The cañon is often not more than 100 feet in width, and although parts of it may be run at favorable times, all of it is dangerous, and the White Horse should never be attempted. The portage path in the upper part of the cañon is on the east bank, and is about five-eighths of a mile long. There a stretch of navigation is possible, with caution, ending at the head of White Horse Rapids, where one must land on the west bank, which consists of steep rocks, very awkward for managing a boat from or carrying a burden over. Usually the empty boat can be dropped down with a line, but when the water is high boat as well as cargo must be carried for 100 yards or more, and again, lower down, for a less distance. The miners have put down rollways along a roughly constructed road here to make the portage of the boats easier, and some windlasses for hauling the boats along the water or out and into it. It would be possible to build a good road or tramway along the east bank of these rapids without great difficulty; and plans are already formulated for a railway to be built around the whole three miles of obstruction, in the summer of 1898, to connect with the steamboats above and below that will no doubt be running next year.

The river below the rapids is fast (about four miles an hour) for a few miles, and many gravel banks appear. It gradually subsides, however, into a quiet stream flowing northwest along the same wide valley. No rock is seen here, the banks being bluffs of white silt, which turns the clear blue of the current above into a cloudy and opaque yellow. Thirteen miles (measuring, as usual, along the river) brings the voyager to the mouth of the Tah-Keena, a turbid stream about 75 yards wide and 10 feet deep, which comes in from the west. Its sources are at the foot of the Chilkat Pass, where it flows out of West Kussoa lake (afterwards named Lake Arkell), and was formerly much employed by the Chilkat Indians as a means of reaching the interior, but was never in favor with the miners, and is now rarely followed by the Indians themselves, although its navigation from the lake down is reported to be easy.

Eleven and a half miles of quiet boating takes one to the head of Lake Labarge. This lake is 31 miles long, lies nearly north and south, and is irregularly elongated, reaching a width of six miles near the lower end. It is 2,100 feet above sea level and is bordered everywhere by mountains, those on the south having remarkably abrupt and castellated forms and carrying summits of white limestone. This lake is a very stormy one, and travelers often have to wait in camp for several days on its shores until calmer weather permits them to go on. This whole river valley is a great trough sucking inland the prevailing southerly summer winds, and navigation on all the lakes is likely to be rough for small boats.

The river below Lake Labarge is crooked, and at first rapid--six miles or more an hour, and interrupted by boulders; but it is believed that a stern wheel steamer of proper power could ascend at all times. The banks are earthen, but little worn, as floods do not seem to occur. Twenty-seven miles takes one to the mouth of a large tributary from the southeast,--the Teslintoo, which Schwatka called Newberry River, and which the miners mistakenly call Hotalinqu. It comes from the great Lake Teslin, which lies across the British Columbia boundary (Lat. 62 deg.), and is said to be 100 miles long; and it is further said that an Indian trail connects it with the head of canoe navigation on the Taku river, by only two long days of portaging. Some miners are said to have gone over it in 1876 or '77, Schwatka and Hayes came this way; and it may form one of the routes of the future,--perhaps even a railway route. This river flows through a wide and somewhat arid valley, and was roughly prospected about 1887 by men who reported finding fine gold all along its course, and also in tributaries of the lake. As the mountains about the head of the lake belong to the Cassiar range, upon whose southern slopes the Cassiar mines are situated, there is every reason to suppose that gold will ultimately be found there in paying quantities.

This part of the Lewes is called Thirty-mile River, under the impression that it is really a tributary of the Teslintoo, which is, in fact, wider than the Lewes at the junction (Teslintoo, width 575 feet; Lewes, 420 feet), but it carries far less water. From this confluence the course is north, in a deep, swift, somewhat turbid current, through the crooked defiles of the Seminow hills. Several auriferous bars have been worked here, and some shore-placers, including the rich Cassiar bar. Thirty-one miles below the Teslintoo the Big Salmon, or D'Abbadie River, enters from the southeast--an important river, 350 feet wide, having clear blue water flowing deep and quiet in a stream navigable by steamboats for many miles. Its head is about 150 miles away, not far from Teslin Lake, in some small lakes reached by the salmon, and surrounded by granite mountains. Prospectors have traced all its course and found fine gold in many places.

Thirty-four miles below the Big Salmon, west-north-west, along a comparatively straight course, carries the boatman to the Little Salmon, or Daly River, where the valley is so broad that no mountains are anywhere in sight, only lines of low hills at a distance from the banks. Five miles below this river the river makes an abrupt turn to the southwest around Eagle's Nest rock, and 18½ miles beyond that reaches the Nordenskiold, a small, swift, clear-watered tributary from the southwest. The rocks of all this part of the river show thin seams of coal, and gold has been found on several bars. The current now flows nearly due north and a dozen miles below the Nordenskiold carries one to the second and last serious obstruction to navigation in the Rink rapids, as Schwatka called them, or Five-finger, as they are popularly known, referring to five large masses of rock that stand like towers in mid channel. These other islands back up the water and render its currents strong and turbulent, but will offer little opposition to a good steamboat. Boatmen descending the river are advised to hug the right bank, and a landing should be made twenty yards above the rapids in any eddy, where a heavily loaded boats should be lightened. The run should be made close along the shore, and all bad water ends when the Little Rink Rapids have been passed, six miles below. Just below the rapids the small Tatshun River comes in from the right. Then the valley broadens out, the current quiets down and a pleasing landscape greets the eye as bend after bend is turned. A long washed bank on the northeast side is called Hoo-che-koo Bluff, and soon after passing it one finds himself in the midst of the pretty Ingersoll archipelago, where the river widens out and wanders among hundreds of islets. Fifty-five miles by the river below Rink Rapids, the confluence of the Lewes and Pelly is reached, and the first sign of civilization in the ruins of old Fort Selkirk, with such recent and probably temporary occupation as circumstances may cause. Before long, undoubtedly, a flourishing permanent settlement will grow up in this favorable situation.

The confluence here of the Lewes and Pelly rivers forms the Yukon, which thenceforth pursues an uninterrupted course of 1,650 miles to Behring Sea. The country about the confluence is low, with extensive terrace flats running back to the bases of rounded hills and ridges. The Yukon below the junction averages about one-quarter of a mile in width, and has an average depth of about 10 feet, with a surface velocity of 4¾ miles an hour. A good many gravel bars occur, but no shifting sand. The general course nearly to White River, 96 miles, is a little north of west, and many islands are seen; then the river turns to a nearly due north course, maintained at Fort Reliance. The White River is a powerful stream, plunging down loaded with silt, over ever shifting sand bars. Its upper source is problematical, but is probably in the Alaskan Mountains near the head of the Tenana and Forty-mile Creek.

For the next ten miles the river spreads out to more than a mile wide and becomes a maze of islands and bars, the main channel being along the western shore, where there is plenty of water. This brings one to Stewart river, which is the most important right-hand tributary between the Pelly and the Porcupine. It enters from the east in the middle of a wide valley, and half a mile above its mouth is 200 yards in width; the current is slow and the water dark colored. It has been followed to its headquarters in the main range of the Rockies, and several large branches, on some of which there are remarkable falls, have been traced to their sources through the forested and snowy hills where they rise. These sources are perhaps 200 miles from the mouth, but as none of the wanderers were equipped with either geographical knowledge or instruments nothing definite is known. Reports of traces of precious metals have been brought back from many points in the Stewart valley, but this information is as vague as the other thus far. All reports agree that a light draught steamboat could go to the head of the Stewart and bar up its feeders. There is a trading post at its mouth.

The succeeding 125 miles holds what is at present the most interesting and populous part of the Yukon valley. The river varies from half to three-quarters of a mile wide and is full of islands. About 23 miles below Stewart River a large stream enters from the west called Sixty-mile Creek by the miners, who have had a small winter camp and trading store there for some years, and have explored its course for gold to its rise in the mountains west of the international boundary. Every little tributary has been named, among them (going up), Charley's Fork, Edwards Creek and Hawley Creek, in Canada, and then, on the American side of the line, Gold Creek, Miller Creek and Bed Rock Creek. The sand and gravel of all these have yielded fine gold and some of them, as Miller Creek, have become noted for their richness. Forty-four miles below Sixty-mile takes one to Dawson City, at the mouth of Klondike River,--the center of the highest productiveness and greatest excitement during 1897, when the gold fields of the interior of Alaska first attracted the attention of the world. Leaving to another special chapter an account of them, the itinerary may be completed by saying that 6½ miles below the mouth of the Klondike is Fort Reliance, an old private trading post of no present importance. Twelve and a half miles farther the Chan-din-du River enters from the east, and 33½ below that in the mouth of Forty-mile Creek, or Cone Hill River, which until the past year was the most important mining region of the interior. It took its name from the supposition that it was 40 miles from Fort Reliance, but the true distance is 46 miles. On the south side of the outlet of this stream is the old trading post and modern town of Forty-Mile, and on the north side the more recent settlement Cudahy. Both towns are, of course, on the western bank of the Yukon, which is here about half a mile wide. Five miles below Cudahy, Coal Creek comes in from the east, and nearly marks the Alaskan boundary, where a narrowed part of the river admits one to United States territory. Prominent landmarks here are two great rocks, named by old timers Old Man rock, on the west bank, and Old Woman, on the east bank, in reference to Indian legends attached to them. Some twenty miles west of the boundary--the river now having turned nearly due west in its general course--Seventy-mile, or Klevande Creek, comes in from the south, and somewhat below it the Tat-on-duc from the north. It was ascended in 1887 by Mr. Ogilvie, who describes its lower valley as broad and well timbered, but its upper part flows through a series of magnificent cañons, one of which half a mile long, is not more than 50 feet wide with vertical walls fully 700 feet in height. There are said to be warm sulphur springs along its course, and the Indians regard it as one of the best hunting fields, sheep being especially numerous on the mountains in which it heads, close by the international boundary, where it is separated by only a narrow divide from Ogilvie River, one of the head streams of the Peel river, and also from the head of the Porcupine, to which there is an Indian trail. Hence the miners call this Sheep River. The rocks along this stream are all sandstones, limestone and conglomerates, with many thin calcite veins. Large and dense timber prevails, and game is abundant.

Below the mouth of the Tat-on-duc several small streams enter, of which the Kandik on the north and the Kolto or Charley's River--at the mouth of which there used to be the home of an old Indian notability named Charley--are most important. About 160 miles from the boundary the Yukon flats are reached, and the center of another important mining district--that of Birch Creek and the Upper Tenana--at Circle City, the usual terminus of the trip up the Lower Yukon from St. Michael.

HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UPPER YUKON VALLEY.

The sources of the Yukon are just within the northern boundary of British Columbia (Lat. 62 deg.) among a mass of mountains forming a part of the great uplift of the Coast range, continuous with the Sierras of California and the Puget Sound coast. Here spring the sources of the Stikeen, flowing southwest to the Pacific, of the Fraser, flowing south through British Columbia, and of the Liard flowing northeasterly to the Mackenzie. Headwaters of the Stikeen and Liard interlock, indeed, along an extensive or sinuous watershed having an elevation of 3,000 feet or less and extending east and west. There are, however, many wide and comparatively level bottom lands scattered throughout this region and numerous lakes. The coast ranges here have an average width of about eighty miles and border the continent as far north as Lynn Canal, where they trend inland behind the St. Elias Alps. Many of their peaks exceed 8,000 feet in height, but few districts have been explored west. Eastward of this mountain axis, and separated from it by the valleys of the Fraser and Columbia in the south and the Yukon northward, is the Continental Divide, or Rocky Mountains proper, which is broken through (as noted above) by the Laird, but north of that cañon-bound river forms the watershed between the Liard and Yukon and between the Yukon and Mackenzie. These summits attain a height of 7,000 to 9,000 feet, and rise from a very complicated series of ranges extending northward to the Arctic Ocean, and very little explored. The valley of the Yukon, then, lies between the Rocky Mountains, separating its drainage basin from that of the Mackenzie, and the Coast range and St. Elias Alps separating it from the sea. Granite is the principal rock in both these great lines of watershed-uplift, and all the mountains show the effects of an extensive glaciation, and all the higher peaks still bear local remnants of the ancient ice-sheet.

The headwaters of the great river are gathered into three principal streams. First, the Lewes, easternmost, with its large tributaries, the Teslintoo and Big Salmon; second, the Pelly, with its great western tributary, the MacMillon.

The Lewes River has been described. It was known to the fur traders as early as 1840, and the Chilkat and Chilkoot passes were occasionally used by their Indian couriers from that time on. The gold fields in British Columbia from 1863 onwards stimulated prospecting in the northern and coastal parts of that province, and in 1872 prospectors reached the actual headwaters of the Lewes from the south, but were probably not aware of it; and that country was not scientifically examined until the reconnaissance of Dr. G. M. Dawson in 1887. In 1866 Ketchum and La Barge, of the Western Union Telegraph survey, ascended the Lewes as far as the lakes still called Ketchum and La Barge. In 1883 Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, U. S. A., and an assistant named Hayes, and several Indians, made their way across from Taka inlet to the head of Tahgish (a Tako) Lake, and descended the Lewes on a raft to Fort Selkirk, studying and naming the valley. From Fort Selkirk an entirely new route was followed toward the mountains forming the divide between the Yukon and the White and Copper rivers, which flow to the Gulf of Alaska, north of Mt. St. Elias. After discovering a pass little more than 5,000 feet high, they struck the Chityna River and followed that to the Copper River and thence to the coast. The Copper River Valley was thoroughly explored somewhat later by Lieuts. Abercrombie and Allen, U. S. A., who added greatly to knowledge of that large river, which, however, seems to have no good harbor at its mouth. The miners began to use the Chilkoot Pass and the Lewes River route to the Yukon district in 1884. Some additions were made to geography in this region by an exploring expedition despatched to Alaska in 1890 by Frank Leslie's Weekly, under Messrs. A. J. Wells, E. J. Glave and A. B. Schanz. They entered by way of Chilkat pass and came to a large lake at the head of the Tah-keena tributary of the Lewes, which they named Lake Arkell, though it was probably the same earlier described by the Drs. Krause. Here Mr. Glave left the party and striking across the coast range southward discovered the headwaters of the Alsekh and descended to Dry Bay. At Forty-mile creek Mr. Wells and a party crossed over into the basin of the Tanana and increased the knowledge of that river. Mr. Schanz went down the Yukon and explored the lower region. In 1892 Mr. Glave again went to Alaska, demonstrated the possibility of taking pack horses over the Chilkat trail, and with an aid named Dalton made an extensive journey southward along the crest of the watershed between the Yukon valley and the coast.

Turning now to the Pelly, we find that this was the earliest avenue of discovery. The Pelly rises in lakes under the 62nd parallel, just over a divide from the Finlayson and Frances Lake, the head of the Frances River, the northern source of the Liard, and this region was entered by the Hudson Bay Company as early as 1834, and gradually exploring the Laird River and its tributaries, in 1840 Robert Campbell crossed over the divide north of Lake Finlayson (at the head of the Frances), and discovered (at a place called Pelly Banks) a large river flowing northwest which he named Pelly. In 1843 he descended the river to its confluence with the Lewes (which he then named), and in 1848 he built a post for the H. B. Company at that point, calling it Fort Selkirk. This done, in 1850, Campbell floated down the river as far as the mouth of the Porcupine, where three years previously (1847) Fort Yukon had been established by Mr. Murray, who (founded by James Bell in 1842) crossed over from the mouth of the Mackenzie. The Yukon may thus be said to have been "discovered" at several points independently. The Russians, who knew it only at the mouth, called it Kwikhpak, after an Eskimo name. The English at Fort Yukon, learned that name from the Indians there, and the upper river was the Pelly. The English and Russian traders soon met, and when Campbell came down in 1850 the identity of the whole stream was established. The name Yukon gradually took the place of all others on English maps and is now recognized for the whole stream from the junction of the Lewes and Pelly to the delta.

The Yukon basin, east of the Alaskan boundary, is known in Canada as the Yukon district, and contains about 150,000 square miles. This is nearly equal to the area of France, is greater than that of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland by 71,000 square miles, and nearly three times bigger than that of the New England states. To this must be added an area of about 180,000 square miles, west of the boundary, drained by the Yukon upon its way to the sea through Alaska. Nevertheless, Dr. G. M. Dawson and other students of the matter are of the opinion that the river does not discharge as much water as does the Mackenzie--nor could it be expected to do so, since the drainage area of the Mackenzie is more than double that of the Yukon, while the average annual precipitation of rain over the two areas seems to be substantially similar. Remembering these figures and that the basin of the Mississippi has no less than 1,225,000 square miles as compared with the 330,000 square miles of the Yukon basin, it is plain that the statement often heard that the Yukon is next to the Mississippi in size, is greatly exaggerated. In fact, its proportions, from all points of view, are exceeded by those of the Nile, Ganges, St. Lawrence and several other rivers of considerably less importance than the Mississippi.

Resuming the historical outline, a short paragraph will suffice to complete the simple story down to the year 1896.

Robert Campbell had scarcely returned from his river voyage to his duties at Fort Selkirk, when he discovered that its location in the angle between the rivers was untenable, owing to ice-jams and floods. The station was therefore moved, in the season of 1852 across to the west bank of the Yukon, a short distance below the confluence, and new buildings were erected. These had scarcely been completed, when, on August 1st, a band of Chilkat Indians from the coast came down the river and early in the morning seized upon the post, surprising Mr. Campbell in bed, and ordered him to take his departure before night. They were not at all rough with him or his few men, but simply insisted that they depart, which they did, taking such personal luggage as they could put into a boat and starting down stream. The Indians then pillaged the place, and after feasting on all they could eat and appropriating what they could carry away, set fire to the remainder and burned the whole place to the ground. One chimney still stands to mark the spot, and others lie where they fell. This act was not dictated by wanton destructiveness on the part of the Chilkats--bad as they undoubtedly were and are; but was in pursuance of a theory. The establishment of the post there interfered with the monopoly of trade that they had enjoyed theretofore, with all the Indians of the interior, to whom they brought salable goods from the coast, taking in exchange furs, copper, etc., at an exorbitant profit, which they enforced by their superior brutality. The Hudson Bay Company was robbing them of this, hence the demolition of the post, which was too remote to be profitably sustained against such opposition.

A little way down the river, Mr. Campbell met a fleet of boats bringing up his season's goods, and many friendly Indians. These were eager to pursue the robbers, but Campbell thought it best not to do so. He turned the supply-boats back to Fort Yukon and led his own men up the Pelly and over the pass to the Frances and so down the Liard to Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie. Such is the story of the ruins of Fort Selkirk. Fort Yukon flourished as the only trading post until the purchase of Alaska by the United States, when Captain Raymond, an army officer, was sent to inform the factor there that his post was on United States territory, and require him to leave. He did so as soon as Rampart House could be built to take its place up the Porcupine. Old Fort Yukon then fell into ruins, and Rampart House itself was soon abandoned. In 1873 an opposition appeared in the independent trading house of Harper & McQuestion, men who had come into the country from the south, after long experience in the fur trade. They had posts at various points, occupied Fort Reliance for several years, and in 1886 established a post at the mouth of the Stewart River for the miners who had begun to gather there two years before. Many maps mark "Reed's House" as a point on the upper Stewart, but no such a trading-post ever existed there, although there was a fishing station and shelter-hut on one of its upper branches at an early day. This firm became the representatives of the Alaska Commercial Company (a San Francisco corporation) and opened a store in 1887 at Forty Mile, where they still do business.

Gold Discoveries.--The presence of fine float gold in river sands was early discovered by the Hudson Bay Company men, but in accordance with the former policy of that company, no mining was done and as little said about it as possible. The richness of the Cassiar mines led to some prospecting northward as early as 1872, and by 1880 wandering gold hunters had penetrated to the Testintos, where for several years $8 to $10 a day of fine gold was sluiced out during the season by the small colony. In 1886 Cassiar Bar, on the Lewes, below there, was opened, and a party of four took out $6,000 in 30 days, while other neighboring bars yielded fair wages. By that time Stewart River was becoming attractive, and many miners worked placers there profitably in 1885, '86 and '87. During the fall of 1886 three or four men took the engines out of the little steamboat "New Racket," which was laid up for the winter there, and used them to drive a set of pumps lifting water into sluice-boxes; and with this crude machinery each man cleared $1,000 in less than a month. A judicious estimate is, that the Stewart River placers yielded $100,000 in 1885 and '86.

Prospecting went on unremittingly, but nothing else was found of promise until 1886, when coarse gold was reported upon Forty Mile Creek, or the Shitando River, as it was known to the Indians, and a local rush took place to its cañons, the principal attraction being Franklin Gulch, named after its discoverer. Three or four hundred men gathered there by the season of 1887, and all did well. This stream is a "bed-rock" creek,--that is, one in the bed of which there is very little drift; and in many places the bed-rock was scraped with knives to get the little loose stuff out of crannies. Some nuggets were found. At its mouth are extensive bars along the Yukon, which carry gold throughout their depth. During 1888 the season was very unfavorable and not much accomplished. Sixty Mile Creek was brought to notice, and Miller Gulch proved richer than usual. It is one of the headwaters of Sixty Mile, and some 70 miles from the mouth of the river where, in 1892, a trading store, saw-mill and little wintering-town was begun. Miller Creek is about 7 miles long, and its valley is filled with vast deposits of auriferous drift. In 1892 rich strikes were made and 125 miners gathered there, paying $10 a day for help, and many making fortunes. One clean-up of 1,100 ounces was reported. Glacier Creek, a neighboring stream, exhibited equal chances and drew many claimants, some of whom migrated thither in mid-winter, drawing their sleds through the woods and rocks with the mercury 30 degrees below zero. All of these gulches and other golden headwaters on both Forty Mile and Sixty Mile Creek, are west of the boundary in Alaska; but the mouths of the main streams and supply points are in Canadian territory. In all, the great obstacle is the difficulty of getting water up on the bars without expensive machinery; and the same is true of the rich gravel along the banks of the Yukon itself. Birch Creek was the next find of importance, and was promising enough to draw the larger part of the local population, which by this time had been considerably increased, for the news of the richness of the Forty Mile gulches had reached the outside world and attracted adventurous men and not a few women from the coast not only, but from British Columbia and the United States. A rival to Harper & McQuestion, agents of the Alaska Commercial Company, appeared in the North American Transportation and Trading Company, which increased the transportation service on the Yukon River, by which most of the new arrivals entered, and by establishing large competitive stores at Fort Cudahy (Forty Mile) and elsewhere reduced the price of food and other necessaries. About this time, also, the Canadian government sent law officers and a detachment of mounted police, so that the Yukon District began to take a recognized place in the world.

Birch Creek is really a large river rising in the Iauana Hills, just west of the boundary and flowing northwest, parallel with the Yukon, to a debouchment some 20 miles west of Fort Yukon. Between the two rivers lie the "Yukon Flats," and at one point they are separated by only six miles. Here, at the Yukon end of the road arose Circle City, so-called from its proximity to the Arctic Circle. This is an orderly little town of regular streets, and has a recorder of claims, a store, etc.

Birch Creek has been thoroughly explored, and in 1894 yielded good results. The gold was in coarse flakes and nuggets, so that $40 a day was made by some men, while all did well. The drift is not as deep here as in most other streams, and water can be applied more easily and copiously,--a vast advantage. Molymute, Crooked, Independence, Mastadon and Preacher creeks are the most noteworthy tributaries of this rich field.

The Koyukuk River, which flows from the borders of the Arctic Ocean, gathering many mountain tributaries, to enter the Yukon at Nulato, was also prospected in 1892, '93 and '94, and indications of good placers have been discovered there, but the northerly, exposed and remote situation has caused them to receive little attention thus far.

THE KLONDIKE.

During the autumn of 1896 several men and women, none of whom were "old miners," discouraged by poor results lower down the river resolved to try prospecting in the Klondike gulch. They were laughed at and argued with; were told that prospectors years ago had been all over that valley, and found only the despised "flour gold," which was too fine to pay for washing it out. Nevertheless they persisted and went at work. Only a short time elapsed, when, on one of the lower southside branches of the stream they found pockets of flakes and nuggets of gold far richer than anything Alaska had ever shown before. They named the stream Bonanza, and a small tributary El Dorado. Others came and nearly everyone succeeded. Before spring nearly a ton and a half of gold had been taken from the frozen ground. Nuggets weighing a pound (troy) were found. A thousand dollars a day was sometimes saved despite the rudeness of the methods, but these things happened where pockets were struck. Probably the total clean-up from January to June was not less than $1,500,000. The report spread and all those in the interior of Alaska concentrated there, where a "camp" of tents and shanties soon sprang up at the mouth of the Klondike called Dawson City. A correspondent of the New York Sun describes it as beautifully situated, and a very quiet, orderly town, due to the strict supervision of the Canadian mounted police, who allowed no pistols to be carried, but a great place for gambling with high stakes. It bids fair to become the mining metropolis of the northwest, and had about 3,000 inhabitants before the advance-guard of the present "rush" reached there.

Hundreds of claims were staked out and worked in all the little gulches opening along Bonanza, Eldorado, Hunker, Bear and other tributaries of the Klondike, and of Indian River, a stream thirty miles south of it, and a greater number seem to be of equal richness with those first worked. All this is within a radius south and east of 20 miles from Dawson City, and most of it far nearer. The country is rough, wooded hills, and the same trouble as to water is met there as elsewhere, yet riches were obtained by many men in a few weeks without exhausting their claims.

So remote and shut in has this region been in the winter that no word of this leaked out until the river opened and a party of successful miners came down to the coast and took passage on the steamer Excelsior for San Francisco. They arrived on July 14, and no one suspected that there was anything extraordinary in the passenger list or cargo, until a procession of weather beaten men began a march to the Selby Smelting works, and there began to open sacks of dust and nuggets, until the heap made something not seen in San Francisco since the days of '49. The news flashed over the world, and aroused a fire of interest; and when three days later the Portland came into Seattle, bringing other miners and over $1,000,000 in gold, there was a rush to go north which bids fair to continue for months to come, for one of the articles of faith in the creed of the Yukon miner is that many other gulches will be found as rich as these. One elderly man, who went in late last fall and with partners took four claims on Eldorado Creek, told a reporter that his pickings had amounted to $112,000, and that he was confident that the ground left was worth $2,000,000 more. "I want to say," he exclaims, "that I believe there is gold in every creek in Alaska. Certain on the Klondike the claims are not spotted. One seems to be as good as another. It's gold, gold, gold, all over. It's yards wide and deep. All you have to do is to run a hole down."

One might go on quoting such rhapsodies, arising from success, to end of the book, but it is needless, for every newspaper has been full of them for a month.

One man and his wife got $135,000; another, formerly a steamboat deck-hand, $150,000; another, $115,000; a score or more over $50,000, and so on. These sums were savings after having the heavy expenses of the winter, and most of them had dug out only a small part of their ground.

It is curious in view of this success to read the only descriptive note the present writer can discover in early writings as to this gold river. It occurs in Ogilvie's report of his explorations of 1887, and is as follows: "Six and a half miles above Reliance the Tou-Dac River of the Indians (Deer River of Schwatka) enter from the east. It is a small river about 40 yards wide at the mouth and shallow; the water is clear and transparent and of a beautiful blue color. The Indians catch great numbers of salmon here. A miner had prospected up this river for an estimated distance of 40 miles in the season of 1887. I did not see him."

THE METHODS OF PLACER MINING

in the Klondike region and elsewhere along the Yukon are different from those pursued elsewhere, owing to the fact that from a point about three feet below the surface the ground is permanently frozen. The early men tried to strip off the gravel down to the gold lying in its lower levels or beneath it, upon the bed rock, and found it exceedingly slow and laborious work; moreover, it was only during the short summer that any work could be done. Now, by the aid of fires they sink shafts and then tunnel along the bed rock where the gold lies. A returned miner described the process as follows, pointing out the great advantage of being able to work under ground during the winter:

"The miners build fires over the area where they wish to work and keep these lighted over that territory for the space of twenty-four hours. Then the gravel will be melted and softened to a depth of perhaps six inches. This is then taken off and other fires are built until the gold bearing layer is reached. When the shaft is down that far other fires are built at the bottom, against the sides of the layer and tunnels made in the same manner. Blasting will do no good, the charge not cracking off but blowing out of the hole. The matter taken out, and containing the gold is piled up until spring, when the torrents come down, and is panned and cradled by these. It is certainly very hard labor."

Another quotation may be given as a practical example of this process:

"The gold so far as has been taken from Bonanza and Eldorado, both well named, for the richness of the placers are truly marvelous. Eldorado, thirty miles long, is staked the whole length and as far as worked has paid.

"One of our passengers, who is taking home $100,000 with him, has worked one hundred feet of his ground and refused $200,000 for the remainder, and confidently expects to clean up $400,000 and more. He has in a bottle $212 from one pan of dirt. His pay dirt while being washed averaged $250 an hour to each man shoveling in. Two others of our miners who worked their own claim cleaned up $6,000 from one day's washing.

"There is about fifteen feet of dirt above bed rock, the pay streak averaging from four to six feet, which is tunnelled out while the ground is frozen. Of course, the ground taken out is thawed by building fires, and when the thaw comes and water rushes in they set their sluices and wash the dirt. Two of our fellows thought a small bird in the hand worth a large one in the bush, and sold their claims for $45,000, getting $4,500 down, and the remainder to be paid in monthly installments of $10,000 each. The purchasers had no more than $5,000 paid. They were twenty days thawing and getting out dirt. Then there was no water to sluice with, but one fellow made a rocker, and in ten days took out the $10,000 for the first installment. So, tunnelling and rocking, they took out $40,000 before there was water to sluice with."

LEGAL ASPECT OF ALASKA.

Commissioner Hermann, of the General Land Office, has announced that the following laws of the United States extend over Alaska, where the general land laws do not apply:

First--The mineral land laws of the United States.

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

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

The coal land regulations are distinct from the mineral regulations or laws, and as in the case of the general land laws Alaska is expressly exempt from this jurisdiction.

On the part of Canada, however, the provisions of the Real Property act of the Northwest Territories will be extended to the Yukon country by an order in council, a register will be appointed, and a land title office will be established.

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

"The laws of the United States relating to mining claims and rights incidental thereto shall, on and after the passage of this act, be in full force and effect in said district of Alaska, subject to such regulations as may be made by the Secretary of the Interior and approved by the President," and "parties who have located mines or mining privileges therein, under the United States laws applicable to the public domain, or have occupied or improved or exercised acts of ownership over such claims, shall not be disturbed therein, but shall be allowed to perfect title by payment so provided for."

There is still more general authority. Without the special authority, the act of July 4, 1866, says: "All valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase, and lands in which these are found to occupation and purchase by citizens of the United States and by those who have declared an intention to become such, under the rules prescribed by law and according to local customs or rules of miners in the several mining districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States."

The patenting of mineral lands in Alaska is not a new thing, for that work has been going on, as the cases have come in from time to time, since 1884.

One of the difficulties that local capitalists find in their negotiations for purchase of mining properties on the Yukon is the lack of authenticated records of owners of claims. Different practices prevail on the two sides of the line and cause more or less confusion. The practice has been at most of the new camps to call a miners' meeting at which one of the parties was elected recorder, and he proceeded to enter the bearings of stakes and natural marks to define claims. Sometimes the recorder would give a receipt for a fee allowed by common consent for recording, and also keep a copy for future reference, but in a majority of cases even this formality was dispensed with, and the only record kept was the rough minutes made at the time.

On the Canadian side a different state of affairs exists. The Dominion Government has sent a commissioner who is empowered to report officially all claims, and while no certificate is issued to the owners thereof, properties are thoroughly defined and their metes and bounds established. The commissioner in the Klondike district, whose name is Constantine, also exercises semi-judicial functions, and settles disputes to the best of his ability, appeal lying to the Ottawa Government.

As to courts and the execution of civil and criminal law generally, none were existent in the upper Yukon Valley on the American side of the line during 1897. The nearest United States judge was at Sitka. At Circle City and other centers of population the people had organized into a sort of town-meeting for the few public matters required; and a sort of vigilance committee took the place of constituted authority and police. As a matter of fact, however, the people were quiet and law-abiding and little need for the machinery of law is likely to arise before courts, etc., are set up. A movement toward sending a garrison of United States troops thither was vetoed by the War Department.

Canada, however, awoke to the realization that her interests were in jeopardy, and took early steps to profit by the wealth which had been discovered within her borders and the international business that resulted. The natural feeling among the Canadians was, and is, that the property belongs to the Canadian public, and that no good reason exists why the mineral and other wealth should be exhausted at once, mainly by outsiders, as has largely happened in the case of Canada's forests. A prohibitory policy was urged by some, but this seemed neither wise nor practicable; and the Dominion Government set at work to save as large a share as it could. As there are gold fields on the Alaska side of the line, and the approaches lie through United States territory, a spirit of reciprocal accommodation was necessary. One difficulty has been averted last spring by President Cleveland's veto of the Immigration bill, one provision of which would have prevented Canadian laborers drawing wages in this country, and probably would have provoked a retaliatory act.

Canada has already placed customs officers on the passes and at the Yukon crossing of the boundary to collect customs duties not only on merchandise but on miner's personal outfits. There is practically no exception, and the duty comes below 20 per cent. on but few articles. On most of the goods the duty is from 30 to 35 per cent., and in several instances higher, but the matter may be very simply adjusted by purchasing tools and outfits in Victoria or Vancouver, for thus far the United States has placed no corresponding obstruction in the way of Canadian travellers to the gold-fields, but, on the contrary, has made Dyea a sub-port of entry, largely to accommodate British transportation lines. The Canadian Government is represented in that region now only by customs officers and 20 mounted police, but it is taking steps to garrison the whole upper Yukon Valley with its mounted police,--a body of officers, whose functions are half military, half civil, and which, it may as well be conceded once for all, cannot be trifled with. There is no question but that they will do their level best to enforce the laws to the utmost. The commander of each detachment will be constituted a magistrate of limited powers, so that civil examinations and trials may be speedily conducted.

The plan is to erect a strong post a short distance north of the sixtieth degree of latitude, just above the northern boundary of British Columbia, and beyond the head of the Lynn Canal, where the Chilkoot Pass and the White Pass converge. This post will command the southern entrance to the whole of that territory. Further on small police posts will be established, about fifty miles apart, down to Fort Selkirk, while another general post will patrol the river near the international boundary, with headquarters, probably, in the Klondike valley.

The mining regulations of Canada, applying to the Yukon placer claims, are as follows:

"Bar diggings" shall mean any part of a river over which water extends when the water is in its flooded state and which is not covered at low water. "Mines on benches" shall be known as bench diggings, and shall for the purpose of defining the size of such claims be excepted from dry diggings. "Dry diggings" shall mean any mine over which a river never extends. "Miner" shall mean a male or female over the age of eighteen, but not under that age. "Claims" shall mean the personal right of property in a placer mine or diggings during the time for which the grant of such mine or diggings is made. "Legal post" shall mean a stake standing not less than four feet above the ground and squared on four sides for at least one foot from the top. "Close season" shall mean the period of the year during which placer mining is generally suspended. The period to be fixed by the gold commissioner in whose district the claim is situated. "Locality" shall mean the territory along a river (tributary of the Yukon) and its affluents. "Mineral" shall include all minerals whatsoever other than coal.

1. Bar diggings. A strip of land 100 feet wide at highwater mark and thence extending along the river to its lowest water level.

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

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

4. Creek and river claims shall be 500 feet long, measured in the direction of the mineral course of the stream, and shall extend in width from base to base of the hill or bench on each side, but when the hills or benches are less than 100 feet apart the claim may be 100 feet in depth. The sides of a claim shall be two parallel lines run as nearly as possible at right angles to the stream. The sides shall be marked with legal posts at or about the edge of the water and at the rear boundary of the claim. One of the legal posts at the stream shall be legibly marked with the name of the miner and the date upon which the claim was staked.

5. Bench claims shall be 100 feet square.