"And none was left to tell me, Tom,And few was left to knowWho played upon the village green,Just twenty year ago!"
I admired him beyond expression. "How long," thought I, "does one have to stay in Alaska before one gets so indifferent to mosquitoes as this? Or is it simply the phlegm of the Norwegian—magnificent in mosquito time?" Just then Pete broke in his song and began a refrain of curses in Norwegian and English and some other languages—allapropos of mosquitoes. He averred emphatically that never—no, never—had he seen mosquitoes quite so disagreeable. This lasted about five minutes; then he settled down to a calm again. I perceived that men's tempers may be something like geysers—some keep bubbling hot water continually, while others, like Pete's, keep quiet for a while and then explode violently.
It seems strange to many that a country like Alaska, sub-Arctic in climate, should be so burdened with a pest which we generally associate with hot weather and tropical swamps. But the long warm days of summer in these high latitudes seem to be extraordinarily favorable to all kinds of insect life—mosquitoes, gnats, and flies—which harbor in the moss and dense underbrush. Other countries similarly situated, such as the region between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Arctic Ocean—Northern Finland—which is north of the Arctic Circle, are also pestered with mosquitoes during the summer months.
In Alaska the mosquitoes are so numerous that they occupy a large part of men's attention, and form the subject for much conversation as long as they remain—and they are astonishing stayers,appearing before the snow is gone and not leaving until the nights grow comparatively long and frosty. They flourish as well in cool weather as in hot, thawing cheerfully out after a heavy frost and getting to work as if to make up for lost time. We were able to distinguish at least three species: a large one like those met at the seaside resorts, which buzzes and buzzes and buzzes; then a smaller one that buzzes a little but also bites ferociously; and, worst of all, little striped fellows who go about in great crowds. These last never stop to buzz, but come straight for the intruder on a bee-line, stinging him almost before they reach him—and their sting is particularly irritating. Many stories have been told of the mosquitoes in Alaska; one traveller tells how bears are sometimes killed by these pests, though this story is probably an exaggeration. But men who are travelling must have veils and gloves as protection against them. Even the natives wrap their heads in skins or cloth, and are overjoyed at any little piece of mosquito-netting they can get hold of. With the best protection, however, one cannot help being tormented and worn out.
We always slept with gloves and veils on, and with our heads wrapped as tightly as possible, yet the insects would crawl through the crevices of the blankets and sting through the clothes, or where the veil pressed against the face,—not one, but hundreds—so that one slept but fitfully and woke to find his face bloody and smarting, and would at once make for the cold river water, bathing hands and face to relieve the pain, and dreading to keep his veil up long enough to gobble his breakfast.
The climate of this interior country is dry, and the rains infrequent. We worked so long during the day that we seldom took the trouble to pitch a tent at night, but lay down with our backs against some convenient log, so that the mosquitoes had a good chance at us. Even in the day, when protected by veil and gloves, I have been so irritated by them as to run until breathless to relieve my excitement, and I can readily believe, as has been told, that a man lost in the underbrush without protection, would very soon lose his reason and his life. As soon as the country is cleared up or burned over, the scourge becomes much less, so that in the mining camps theannoyance is comparatively slight. Mosquitoes are popularly supposed to seek and feed upon men, while the reverse is true. They avoid men, swarming most in thick underbrush and swamps which are difficult of access, and disappearing almost entirely as soon as the axe and the plow and other implements in the hands of man invade their solitudes.
Out of Mud Lake we floated into the river again, and slipped easily down between the sandbanks. Ducks and geese were plentiful along here, and we practised incessantly on them with the rifle, without, however, doing any noticeable execution. On the second day we knew we must be near the famous canyon of the Lewes; and one of our party was put on watch, in order that we might know its whereabouts before the swift current should sweep us into it, all heavily laden as we were. The rest of us rowed and steered, and admired the beautiful tints of the hills, which now receded from the river, now came close to it. Presently we heard a gentle snore from the lookout who was comfortably settled among the flour sacks in the bow; this proved to us that our confidence hadbeen misplaced, and all hands became immediately alert. Soon after, we noticed a bit of red flannel fluttering from a tree projecting over the bank, doubtless a part of some traveller's shirt sacrificed in the cause of humanity; and by the time we had pulled in to the shore we could see the waters of the river go swirling and roaring into a sudden narrow canyon with high, perpendicular walls.
We found the parties of miners already landed, and presently, as we waited on the bank and reconnoitered, Danlon's party came up, and not long after, the barge, so that we were about twenty in all. Wiborg, and Danlon's guide, Cooper, were the only ones that had had experience in this matter, so all depended on their judgment, and waited to see the results of their efforts before risking anything themselves.
In former years all travellers made a portage around this very difficult place, hauling their boats over the hill with a rude sort of a windlass; but a man having been accidentally sucked into the canyon came out of the other end all right, which emboldened others. In this case Wiborg and Cooper decided that the canyoncould be run, although the water was very high and turbulent; and they thought best to run the boats through themselves. Our own boat was selected to be experimented with; most of the articles that were easily damageable by water were taken out, leaving perhaps about eight hundred pounds. I went as passenger sitting in the bow, while the two old frontiersmen managed paddles and oars. Rowing out from the shore we were immediately sucked into the gorge, and went dashing through at a rate which I thought could not be less than twenty miles an hour. So great is the body of water confined between these perpendicular walls, and so swift is the stream, that its surface becomes convex, being considerably higher in the centre of the channel than on the sides. Waves rushing in every direction are also generated, forming a puzzling chop. Two or three of these waves presently boarded us, so that I was thoroughly wet, and then came a broad glare of sunlight as we emerged from the first half of the canyon into a sort of cauldron which lies about in its centre.
Here we were twisted about by eddying currents for a few seconds, and then precipitatedhalf sidewise into the canyon again. The latter half turned out to be the rougher part, and our bow dipped repeatedly into the waves, till I found myself sitting in water, and the bow, where most of the water remained, sagged alarmingly. It seemed as if another ducking would sink us. This fortunately we did not get, but steered safely through the final swirl to smooth water. During all this trip I had not looked up once, although as we shot by we heard faintly a cheer from the rocks above, where our companions were.
Next day, after a night made almost unbearable by mosquitoes, we rose to face the difficulties of White Horse Rapids, which lie below the canyon proper, and are still more formidable. Here the river contracts again, and is confined between perpendicular walls of basalt. The channel is full of projecting rocks, so that the whole surface is broken, and there are many strong conflicting currents and eddies. At the end of these rapids, which extend for a quarter of a mile or so, is a narrow gorge in the rocks, through which the whole volume of water is forced. This is said to be only twenty or thirtyfeet wide, although at the time of our passing the water was sufficiently high to flow over the top of the enclosing walls, thus concealing the actual width of the chute. Through this the water plunges at a tremendous velocity—probably thirty miles an hour—forming roaring, foaming, tossing, lashing waves which somehow make the name White Horse seem appropriate.
Above the beginning of the rapid we unloaded our boat, and carefully lowered it down by ropes, keeping it close to the shore, and out of the resistless main current. After having safely landed it, with considerable trouble, below the chute, we carried our outfit (about twelve hundred pounds) to the same point. Danlon's boat and that belonging to the miners were safely gotten through in the same way, all hands helping in turn.
When it came to the scow, it was the general opinion that it would be impossible to lower it safely, for its square shape gave the current such a grip that it seemed as if no available strength of rope or man could hold out against it. As carrying the boat was out of the question, the only alternative was to boldly run it through therapids, in the middle of the channel; and this naturally hazardous undertaking was rendered more difficult by the frail construction of the scow, which had been built of thin lumber by unskilled hands. The scow's crew did not care to make the venture themselves, but finally prevailed upon Wiborg and Cooper to make the trial.
Shooting the White Horse Rapids.
Shooting the White Horse Rapids.
Reflecting that at any time I might be placed in similar difficulties, in this unknown country, and thrown upon my own resources, I resolved to accompany them, for the sake of finding out how the thing was done; but I was ruled out of active service by Wiborg, who, however, consented finally to my going along as passenger. Two of the scow's own crew were drafted to act as oarsmen, and we pushed out, Cooper steering, and Wiborg in the bow, iron-shod pole in hand, fending off from threatening rocks; and in a second we were dancing down the boiling rapids and tossing hither and thither like a cork. I sat facing the bow, opposite the oarsmen, who tugged frantically away, white as death; behind me Cooper's paddle flashed and twisted rapidly, as we dodged by rocks projecting from thewater, sometimes escaping only by a few inches, where a collision would have smashed us to chips. The rest of the party, waiting below the chute, said that sometimes they saw only the bottom of the scow, and sometimes looked down upon it as if from above. As we neared the end, Cooper's skillful paddle drove us straight for the centre, where the water formed an actual fall; this central part was the most turbulent, but the safest, for on either side, a few feet away, there was danger of grazing the shallow underlyingrocks. As we trembled on the brink, I looked up and saw our friends standing close by, looking much concerned. A moment later there was a dizzying plunge, a blinding shower of water, a sudden dashing, too swift for observation, past rock walls, and then Wiborg let out an exultant yell—we were safe. At that instant one of the oarsmen snapped his oar, an accident which would have been serious a moment before. On the shore below the rapids we found flour-sacks, valises, boxes and splintered boards, mementoes of poor fellows less lucky than ourselves.
We camped at the mouth of the Tahkeena River that night, and arrived the next day at Lake Labarge, the last and longest of the series. When we reached it, at one o'clock, the water was calm and smooth; and although it was nearly forty miles across, we decided to keep on without stopping till we reached the other side, for fear of strong winds such as had delayed us on Lake Bennett. Danlon's party concluded to do the same, and so we rowed steadily all night, after having rowed all day.
About two o'clock in the morning a favorable wind sprung up suddenly, and increased to agale. At this time we became separated from the other boats, which kept somewhat close to the shore, while we, with our tiny sail, stood straight across the lake for the outlet. As soon as we stopped rowing I could not help falling asleep, although much against my will, for our position was neither comfortable nor secure; and thus I dozed and woke half a dozen times before landing. On reaching the shore we found difficulty in sleeping on account of the swarms of hungry mosquitoes, so we soon loaded up again.
We had got caribou meat from some people whom we passed half-way down Lake Labarge; and the next day we saw a moose on an island, but the current swept us by before we could get a shot at him. Large game, on the whole, however, was very scarce along this route. The weather was warm and pleasant after leaving Lake Labarge, and there were no serious obstructions. The swift current bombarded the bottom of the boat with grains of sand, making a sound like a continual frying. "Look out!" Pete would say. "The devil is frying his fat for us!" We travelled easily sixty or eighty miles a day, floating with the current and rowing.
Danlon's party, which we had lost sight of on Lake Labarge, reached us a couple of days afterwards, having pulled night and day to catch up. They were grey and speckled with fatigue and told us of having decided to leave one boat (they came with only one of the two they had started in) at Lake Labarge, and also of leaving some of their provisions. They had unfortunately forgotten to keep any sugar—could we lend them some? We produced the sugar and smiled knowingly; a few days later we ran across the solitary Dutchman, who had engineered his wood-box thus far, and he told us the whole story: how when the boats got near the shore one was swamped in shallow water, losing most of its cargo, and how the occupants had to stand in cold water the rest of the night, finally getting to shore and to rights again. The priest had been naming the camps after the letters of the Greek alphabet, and the night on Labarge should have been Camp Rho; and this was appropriate as we rowed nearly all night.
From here the journey was comparatively easy. The skies were always clear and blue, and the stream had by this time increased to a lordlyriver, growing larger by continual accessions of new tributaries. It is dotted with many small islands, which are covered with a dense growth of evergreen trees. On the side of the valley are often long smooth terraces, perfectly carved and smoothly grassed, so as to present an almost artificial aspect. From this sort of a country are sudden changes to a more bold and picturesque type, so at one time the river flows swiftly through high gates of purple rock rising steeply for hundreds of feet, and in a few moments more emerges into a wide low valley. The cliffs are sometimes carved into buttresses or pinnacles, which overlook the walls, and appear to form part of a gigantic and impregnable castle, on the top of which the dead spruces stand out against the sky like spires and flag-staves. Usually on one side or the other of the river is low fertile land, where grows a profusion of shrubs and flowers.
In the mellow twilight, which lasts for two or three hours in the middle of the night, one can see nearly as far and as distinctly as by day, but everything takes on an unreal air. This is something like a beautiful sunset effect further south,but is evenly distributed over all the landscape. At about ten o'clock the coloring becomes exquisite, when the half-light brings out the violets, the purples, and various shades of yellow and brown in the rocks, in contrast to the green of the vegetation.
Talking it Over.
Talking it Over.
We had some difficulty in finding suitable camping-places in this country. One night I remember, we ran fifteen miles after our usual camping-hour, with cliffs on one side of the riverand low thickets on the other. Three times we landed on small islands, in a tangle of vines and roses; and as many times we were driven off by the innumerable mosquitoes. At last we found a strip of shore about ten feet wide, between the water and the thickets, sloping at a considerable angle; and there we made shift to spend the night.
There are two places below the White Horse Rapids where the channel is so narrowed or shallowed that rapids are formed. At the first of these, called the "Five Finger Rapids," the river is partially blocked by high islets, which cut up the stream in several portions. Although the currents in each of these "fingers" is rapid, and the water rough, yet we found no difficulty in running through without removing any part of the load, although one of the boats shipped a little water. When we arrived at the second place, which is called the "Rink Rapids," and is not far below the Five Fingers, we were relieved to find that owing to the fullness of the river, the rough water, which in this case is caused by the shallowing of the stream, was smoothed down, and we went through, close tothe shore, with no more trouble than if we had been floating down a lake.
During the whole trip the country through which we passed was singularly lonely and uninhabited. After leaving the few huts on Tagish Lake, which I have mentioned, we saw a few Indians in a summer camp on Lake Labarge; and this was all until we got to the junction of the Lewes and Pelly Rivers, over three hundred miles from Tagish Lake. At Pelly we found a log trading-post, with a single white man in charge, and a few Indians. There were also three miners, who had met with misfortune, and were disconsolate enough. They had started up Pelly River with a two years' outfit, intending to remain and prospect for that period, but at some rapid water their boat had been swamped and all their provisions lost. They had managed to burn off logs enough to build a raft, and in that way had floated down the river to the post, living in the meantime on some flour which they had been lucky enough to pick up after the wreck.
Although there are very few people in the country, one is continually surprised at first by perceiving solitary white tents standing on someprominent point or cliff which overlooks the river. At first this looks very cheerful, and we sent many a hearty hail across the river to such places; but our calls were never answered, for these are not the habitations of the living but of the dead. Inside of each of these tents, which are ordinarily made of white cloth, though sometimes of woven matting, is a dead Indian, and near him is laid his rifle, snowshoes, ornaments and other personal effects. I do not think the custom of leaving these articles at the grave implies any belief that they will be used by the dead man in another world, but simply signifies that he will have no more use for the things which were so dear to him in life—just as among ourselves, articles which have been used by dear friends are henceforth laid aside and no longer used. These dwellings of the dead are always put in prominent positions, commanding as broad and fair a view as can be obtained. At Pelly we saw several Indian graves that were surrounded by hewn palings, rudely and fantastically painted.
When we reached the White River we found it nearly as broad as the Yukon. The waters of the two rivers are separated by a distinct line attheir confluence and for some distance further down, the Yukon water being dark and the other milky, whence the name—White River. All over this country is a thin deposit of white dust-like volcanic ash, covering the surface, but on White River this ash is very thick, and the river flowing through it carries away enough to give the waters continually a milky appearance. As we approached White River we beheld what seemed a most extraordinary cloud hanging over its valley. It was a solid compact mass of white, like some great ice-flower rising from the hills, reminding one as one explored it through field-glasses, in its snowy vastness and unevenness, of some great glacier. The clouds were in rounded bunches and each bunch was crenulated. Below was a mass of smoke with a ruddy reflection as if from some great fire, and smaller snowy compact clouds came up at intervals, as if gulped out from some crater. This we thought might be the fabled volcano of the White River, but on getting nearer it seemed to be probably a forest-fire. Although there are no railway trains to set fires with their sparks, nowhere do fires start more easily than in Alaska, for the ground is generallycovered deep with a peat-like dry moss, which ignites when one lights a fire above and smoulders so persistently that it can hardly be extinguished, creeping along under the roots of the living moss and breaking out into flame on opportunity.
The Fourth of July was celebrated by shooting at a mark; and that night we had a true blessing, for we camped on a little bare sandspit on an island, where the wind was brisk and kept the mosquitoes away. These insects cannot stand against a breeze, but are whisked away by it like the imps of darkness at the first breath of God's morning light, as we have read in fairy stories. The freedom was delicious, so we just stretched ourselves in the sand, and slept ten hours. We were awakened by a violent plunge in the water and stuck our heads out of the blankets in a hurry, thinking it was a moose; but it turned out to be only one of our party celebrating the day after the Fourth by a bath.
At Sixty Mile we found an Indian trading-post, located on an island in the river, and kept by Jo La Du, a lonely trader who a year afterwards became rich and famous from his participation in the Klondike rush. He had no idea of this whenwe saw him, but shook hands with us shyly and silently, a man whom years had made more accustomed to the Indian than to the white man.
The name Sixty Mile is applied to a small river here, which is sixty miles from old Fort Reliance, an ancient trading post belonging to the Hudson Bay Company. The hardy and intrepid agents of the company were the first white men to explore the interior of Alaska. The lower Yukon in the vicinity of the delta was explored by the Russians in 1835 to 1838, and the river was called by the Eskimo name of Kwikpuk or Kwikpak,—the great river: in 1842-3 the Russian Lieutenant Zagoskin explored as far as the Nowikakat. But the upper Yukon was first explored by members of the Hudson Bay Company. In 1846 a trader named Bell crossed from the Mackenzie to the Porcupine, and so down to the Yukon, to which he first applied the name by which it is now known: it is an Indian, not Eskimo, word. Previous to this, in 1840, Robert Campbell, of the Hudson Bay Company, crossed from the Stikeen to the Pelly and so down to its junction with the Lewes or upper Yukon. At the point of the junction Campbell builtFort Selkirk, which was afterwards pillaged and burned by the Indians, and remained deserted till Harper built the present post, close to the site of the old one. Forty miles below old Fort Reliance is Forty Mile Creek, so that the mouths of Forty Mile and Sixty Mile are a hundred miles apart. The river by this time is a mile wide in places, and filled with low wooded islands: its water is muddy and the eddying currents give the appearance of boiling.
We found no one on the site of old Fort Reliance, and we used the fragments of the old buildings lying around in the grass for fire-wood. It was practically broad daylight all night, for although the sun went down behind the hills for an hour or two, yet it was never darker than a cloudy day.
The day of leaving Fort Reliance we came to the junction of the Klondike or Thronduc River with the Yukon, and found here a village of probably two hundred Indians, but no white men. The Indians were living in log cabins: on the shore numbers of narrow and shallow birch canoes were drawn up, very graceful and delicate in shape, and marvellously light, weighing onlyabout thirty pounds, but very difficult for any one but an Indian to manœuvre. Yet the natives spear salmon from these boats. At the time we were there most of the male Indians were stationed along the river, eagerly watching for the first salmon to leap out of the water, for about this time of the year the immigration of these fish begins, and they swim up the rivers from the sea thousands of miles, to place their spawn in some quiet creek. On account of the large number of salmon who turn aside to enter the stream here, the Indians called it Thronduc orfish-water; this is now corrupted by the miners into Klondike, the Indian village is replaced by the frontier city of Dawson, and the fame of the Klondike is throughout the world.
Alaska Humpbacked Salmon, Male and Female.
Alaska Humpbacked Salmon, Male and Female.
The trip of forty miles from Fort Reliance to Forty Mile Post was made in the morning, and was enlivened by an exciting race between our boat and that belonging to Danlon. We had kept pretty closely together on all our trip, passing and repassing one another, but our boat was generally ahead; and when we both encamped at Fort Reliance, the other party resolved to outwit us. So they got up early in the morning and slipped away before we were well awake.When we discovered that they were gone, we got off after them as quickly as possible, but as the current flows about seven miles an hour, and they were rowing hard besides, they were long out of sight of us. However, we buckled down to hard rowing, each pulling a single oar only, and relieving one another at intervals, tugging away as desperately as if something important depended on it. When we were already in sight of Forty Mile Post we spied our opponents' boat about a mile ahead of us, and we soon overhauled them, for they had already spent themselves by hard rowing. Then Pete knew a little channel which led up to the very centre of the camp, while the others took the more roundabout way, so that we arrived and were quite settled—we assumed a very negligent air, as if we had been there all day—when the others arrived. We called this the great Anglo-American boat race and crowed not a little over the finish.
FOOTNOTE[1]A portion of this description is similar to that used by the writer in an article published in "Outing."
[1]A portion of this description is similar to that used by the writer in an article published in "Outing."
[1]A portion of this description is similar to that used by the writer in an article published in "Outing."
Forty Mile Creek is the oldest mining camp in the Yukon country, and the first where coarse gold or "gulch diggings" was found. In the fall of 1886 a prospector by the name of Franklin discovered the precious metal near the mouth of what is now called Forty Mile Creek. This stream was put down on the old maps as the Shitando River, but miners are very independent in their nomenclature, and often adopt a new name if the old one does not suit them, preferring a simple term with an evident meaning to the more euphonious ones suggestive of Pullman cars. At the time of the discovery of gold there was a post of the Alaskan Commercial Company at the mouth of the stream, but the trader in charge, Jack McQuesten, was absent in San Francisco. As the supplies at the post were very low, and a rush of miners to the district was anticipated for the next summer, it was thoughtbest to try to get word to the trader, and George Williams undertook to carry out a letter in midwinter.
Accompanied by an Indian, he succeeded in attaining the Chilkoot Pass, but was there frozen to death. The letter, however, was carried to the post at Dyea by the Indian, and the necessary supplies were sent, thus averting the threatened famine. From 1887 to 1893 the various gulches of Forty Mile Creek were the greatest gold producers of the Yukon country, but by 1893 the supplies of gold began to show exhaustion; and about this time a Russian half-breed, by the name of Pitka, discovered gold in the bars of Birch Creek, some two hundred miles further down the Yukon.
A large part of the population of the Forty Mile district rushed to the new diggings and built the mining camp to which they gave the name of Circle City, from its proximity to the Arctic Circle. The Forty Mile district is partly in British and partly in American territory, since the boundary line crosses the stream some distance above its mouth, while Birch Creek is entirely in American territory. The world-renownedKlondike, again, is within British boundaries. So the tide of mining population has ebbed back and forth in the Yukon country, each wave growing larger than the first, till it culminated in the third of the great world-rushes after gold, exciting, wild and romantic—the Klondike boom, a fit successor to the "forty-nine" days of California, and to the events which followed the discovery of gold in Australia.
At the time of our visit, in 1896, Forty Mile Post was distinctly on the decline. Yet it contained probably 500 or 600 inhabitants, not counting the Indians, of whom there were a considerable number. These Indians were called Charley Indians, from their chief Charley. There is a mission near here and the Indians have all been Christianized. It is told that the Tanana Indians, who had no mission, and who came here out of their wild fastnesses only once in a while to trade, did not embrace Christianity, which rather elated Charley's followers, as they considered that they now had decidedly the advantage; and they openly vaunted of it. In this country at certain times of the year, particularly in the fall, great herds of caribou pass,and then one can slaughter as many as he needs for the winter's supply of meat, without much hunting, for the animals select some trail and are not easily scared from it. One fall a herd marched up one of the busiest mining gulches of Birch Creek and the miners stood in their cabin doors and shot them.
So the Indians always watch as eagerly for the caribou, as they do for the salmon in the summer. But this particular fall it happened that the animals stayed away from the Charley Indians' hunting grounds, but passed through those of the Tananas in force. The heathen then came down to the trading post laden with meat, and the chief, who knew a little English, taunted Charley in it.
"Where moose, Charley?" he asked.
"No moose," said Charley.
"Woo!" said the Tanana chief, grinning in triumph. "What's the matter with your Jesus?"
The Indians at Forty Mile Post were mostly encamped in tents or were living in rude huts of timber plastered with mud; while the white men had built houses of logs, unsquared, with the chinks filled with mud and moss and theroof covered with similar material. Prices were high throughout: A lot of land in the middle of the town, say 100 by 150 feet, was worth $7,000 or $8,000; sugar was worth twenty-five cents a pound and ordinary labor ten dollars a day. All provisions were also very expensive, and the supply was often short. Many common articles, usually reckoned among what the foolish call the necessities of life, could not be obtained by us. I say foolish, because one can learn from pioneering and exploring, upon how little life can be supported and health and strength maintained, and how many of the supposed necessities are really luxuries.
The Alaskan Eskimo lives practically on fish alone throughout the year, without salt, without bread,—just fish—and grows fat and oily and of pungent odor. But white men can hardly become so simple in their diet without some danger of dying in the course of the experiment, like the famous cow that was trained to go without eating, but whose untimely death cut short her career in the first bloom of success.
The miners have always been dependent for supplies on steamers from San Francisco orSeattle, which have to make a trip of 4,000 miles or more; and, in the early days, if any accident occurred, there was no other source.
I have heard of a bishop of the Episcopal Church, a missionary in this country, who lived all winter upon moose meat, without salt; and an old miner told me of working all summer on flour alone. When the fall came he shot some caribou, and his description of his sensations on eating his first venison steak were touching. Hardly a winter has passed until very recently when the miners were not put on rations—so many pounds of bacon and so much flour to the man,—to bridge over the time until the steamer should arrive. The winter of 1889-90 is known to the old Yukon pioneer as the "starvation winter," for during the previous summer a succession of accidents prevented the river boat from reaching Forty Mile with provisions. The men were finally starved out and in October they all began attempting to make their way down the Yukon, towards St. Michaels, over a thousand miles away, where food was known to be stored, having been landed at this depot from ocean steamers. Nearly a hundred men left the postin small boats. Some travelled the whole distance to St. Michaels, others stopped and wintered by the way at the various miserable trading posts, or in the winter camps of the Indians themselves, wherever food could be found. It happened that this year the river did not freeze up so early as usual, which favored the flight, though the journey down the lower part of the river was made in running ice.
In connection with the shortness of provisions and supplies in these early years, a story is told of a worthless vagabond who used to hang around Forty Mile Post, and whose hoaxes, invented to make money, put the wooden nutmeg and the oak ham of Connecticut to shame. There was a dearth of candles one year at the post, and in midwinter, when, for a while, the sun hardly rises at all, that was no trifling privation. The weather was cold, as it always is at Forty Mile in the winter time. The trickster had some candle molds in his possession, but no grease; so he put the wicks into the molds, which he filled with water colored white with chalk or condensed milk. The water immediately froze solid, making a very close imitationof a candle. He manufactured a large number and then started around the post to peddle them. All bought eagerly—Indian squaws to sew by, miners, shop-keepers, everybody. One man bought a whole case and shoved them under his bed; when he came to pull them out again to use, he found nothing but the wicks in a pile, the ice having melted and the water having evaporated in the warm room. What punishment was meted out to this unique swindler I do not know, but I could not learn that he was ever severely dealt with.
The evening of our arrival in Forty Mile Post we were attracted by observing a row of miners, who were lined up in front of the saloon engaged in watching the door of a large log cabin opposite, rather dilapidated, with the windows broken in. On being questioned, they said there was going to be a dance, but when or how they did not seem to know: all seemed to take only a languid looker-on interest, speaking of the affair lightly and flippantly. Presently more men, however, joined the group and eyed the cabin expectantly. In spite of their disclaimers they evidently expected to take part, butwhere were the fair partners for the mazy waltz?
The evening wore on until ten o'clock, when in the dusk a stolid Indian woman, with a baby in the blanket on her back, came cautiously around the corner, and with the peculiar long slouchy step of her kind, made for the cabin door, looking neither to the right nor to the left. She had no fan, nor yet an opera cloak; she was not even décolleté; she wore large moccasins on her feet—number twelve, I think, according to the white man's system of measurement—and she had a bright colored handkerchief on her head. She was followed by a dozen others, one far behind the other, each silent and unconcerned, and each with a baby upon her back. They sidled into the log cabin and sat down on the benches, where they also deposited their babies in a row: the little red people lay there very still, with wide eyes shut or staring, but never crying—Indian babies know that is all foolishness and doesn't do any good. The mothers sat awhile looking at the ground in some one spot and then slowly lifted their heads to look at the miners who had slouched into the cabinafter them—men fresh from the diggings, spoiling for excitement of any kind. Then a man with a dilapidated fiddle struck up a swinging, sawing melody, and in the intoxication of the moment some of the most reckless of the miners grabbed an Indian woman and began furiously swinging her around in a sort of waltz, while the others crowded around and looked on.
Little by little the dusk grew deeper, but candles were scarce and could not be afforded. The figures of the dancing couples grew more and more indistinct and their faces became lost to view, while the sawing of the fiddle grew more and more rapid, and the dancing more excited. There was no noise, however; scarcely a sound save the fiddle and the shuffling of the feet over the floor of rough hewn logs; for the Indian women were stolid as ever, and the miners could not speak the language of their partners. Even the lookers-on said nothing, so that these silent dancing figures in the dusk made an almost weird effect.
One by one, however, the women dropped out, tired, picked up their babies and slouched off home, and the men slipped over to the saloon tohave a drink before going to their cabins. Surely this squaw-dance, as they call it, was one of the most peculiar balls ever seen. No sound of revelry by night, no lights, no flowers, no introductions, no conversations. Of all the Muses, Terpsichore the nimble-footed, alone was represented, for surely the nymph who presides over music would have disowned the fiddle.
All the diggings in the Forty Mile district were remote from the Post, and to reach them one had to ascend Forty Mile Creek, a rapid stream, for some distance. Pete left us here, and we three concluded to go it alone. Inasmuch as we were young and tender, we were overwhelmed with advice of such various and contradictory kinds that we were almost disheartened. Every one agreed that it would be impossible to take our boats up the river, that we should take an "up river" boat, (that is, a boat built long and narrow, with a wide overhang, so as to make as little friction with the water as possible, and to make upsetting difficult); but when we came to inquire we found there was no such boat to be had. We were advised to take half-a-dozen experienced polers, butsuch polers could not be found. Evidently we must either wait the larger part of the summer for our preparationsà la mode, or go anyhow; and this latter we decided to do. We announced our intention at the table of the man whose hospitality we were enjoying. He stared.
"You'll find Forty Mile Creek a hard river to go up," he said, slowly. "Have you had much experience in ascending rivers?"
"Very little," we replied.
"Are you good polers?" asked another.
"Like the young lady who was asked whether she could play the piano," I answered, "we don't know—we never tried." Everybody roared; they had been wanting to laugh for some time, and here was their opportunity. Later a guide was offered to us, but we had got on our dignity and refused him; then he asked to be allowed to accompany us as a passenger, taking his own food, and helping with the boat, and we consented to this. He had a claim on the headwaters of Sixty Mile, to which he wished to go back, but could not make the journey up the river alone. A year afterwards this penniless fellow was one of the lucky men in the Klondikerush and came back to civilization with a reputed fortune of $100,000.
We could row only a short distance up the creek from the post, for after this the current became so swift that we could make no headway. We then tied a long line to the bow of the boat, and two of us, walking on the shore, pulled the line, while another stood in the bow and by constant shoving out into the stream, succeeded in overcoming the tendency for the pull of the line to make the boat run into the shore or into such shallow water that it would ground. We soon reached the canyon, supposed to be the most difficult place in the creek to pass; here the stream is very rapid and tumbles foaming over huge boulders which have partially choked it. We towed our boat up through this, however, without much difficulty, and on the second night camped at the boundary line.
Here a gaunt old character, Sam Patch by name, had his cabin. He was famous for his patriotism and his vegetables. His garden was on the steep side of a south-facing hill and was sheltered from the continual frosts which fall in the summer nights, so that it succeeded well.Foreign vegetables, as well as native plants, thrive luxuriantly in Alaska so long as they can be kept from being frost-bitten: for in the long sunshiny summer days they grow twice as fast and big as they do in more temperate climates. "Sam Patch's potato patch" was famous throughout the diggings, and the surest way to win Sam's heart was to go and inspect and admire it. Sam was always an enthusiastic American, and when the Canadian surveyors surveyed the meridian line which constituted the International boundary, they ran it right through his potato patch; but he stood by his American flag and refused to haul it down—quite unnecessarily, because no one asked him to do so.
The next day we reached the mouth of the little tributary called Moose Creek. From here a trail thirty miles in length leads over the low mountains to the headwaters of Sixty Mile Creek, where several of the richest gulches of the Forty Mile district were located. We beached our boat, therefore, put packs on our backs and started. At this time the days were hot and the mosquitoes vicious, and nearly every night was frosty; so we sweat and smarted allday, and shivered by night, for our blankets were hardly thick enough. We used to remark on rising in the morning that Alaska was a delightful country, with temperature to suit every taste; no matter if one liked hot weather or moderate or cold, if he would wait he would get it inside of twenty-four hours.
We were tired when we started over the trail, and the journey was not an easy one, for we carried blankets, food, cameras, and other small necessaries. We camped in a small swamp the first night, where the ground was so wet that we were obliged to curl up on the roots of trees, close to the trunks, to keep out of the water. The second day a forest fire blocked our journey, but we made our way through it, treading swiftly over the burning ground and through the thick smoke: then we emerged onto a bare rocky ridge, from which we could look down, on the right, over the network of little valleys which feed Forty Mile Creek, and on the other side over the tributaries of Sixty Mile Creek, clearly defined as if on a map. The ridge on which we travelled was cut up like the teeth of a saw, so that a large part of our time was spent in climbing up and down.
On the latter part of the second day we found no wood, and at night we could hardly prepare food enough to keep our stomachs from sickening. My feet had become raw at the start from hard boots, and every step was a torture; yet the boots could not be taken off, for the trail was covered with small sharp stones, and the packs on our backs pressed heavily downward. The third day we separated, each descending from the mountain ridge into one of the little gulches, in which we could see the white tents or the brown cabins of the miners, with smoke rising here and there. My way led me down a rocky ridge and then abruptly into the valley of Miller Creek. As I sat down and rested, surveying the little valley well dotted with shanties, two men came climbing up the trail and sat down to chat. They were going to the spot on Forty Mile Creek which we had just left—there was a keg of whisky "cached" there and they had been selected a committee of two by the miners to escort the aforesaid booze into camp. They were alternately doleful at the prospect of the sixty mile tramp and jubilant over the promised whisky, for, as they informed us, the camp had been "dry for some time."
Descending into the camp where the men were busily working, I stopped to watch them. Gaunt, muscular, sweating, they stood in their long boots in the wet gravel and shovelled it above their heads into "sluice boxes,"—a series of long wooden troughs in which a continuous current of water was running. The small material was carried out of the lower end of the sluices by the water. Here and there the big stones choked the current and a man with a long shovel was continuously occupied with cleaning the boxes of such accumulations. Everybody was working intensely. The season is short in Alaska and the claim-owner is generally a hustler; and men who are paid ten dollars a day for shovelling must jump to earn their money.
Strangers were rare on Miller Creek in those days, and everybody stopped a minute to look and answer my greetings politely, but there was no staring, and everybody went on with his work without asking any questions. Men are courteous in rough countries, where each one must travel on his merits and fight his own battles, and where social standing or previous condition of servitude count for nothing. I wandered slowly downfrom claim to claim. They were all working, one below the other, for this was the best part of one of the oldest and richest gulches of the Forty Mile district. One man asked me where I was going to sleep, and on my telling him that I had not thought of it, replied that there were some empty log cabins a little distance below. Further down a tall, dark, mournful man addressed me in broken English, with a Canadian French accent, and put the same question.
"I work on ze night shift to-night," he continued, "so I do not sleep in my bed. You like, you no fin' better, you is very welcome, sair, to sleep in my cabine, in my bed."
I accepted gratefully, for I was very tired; so the Frenchman conducted me to a cabin about six feet square and insisted upon cooking a little supper for me. He was working for day's wages, he answered to my rather blunt questions, but hoped that he would earn enough this summer and the next winter to buy an outfit and enough "grub" to go prospecting for himself, on the Tanana, which had not been explored and where he believed there must be gold; prospectors getvery firmly convinced of such things with no real reason.
After supper he darkened the windows for me and went to work. I sought the comfort of a wooden bunk, covering myself with a dirty bed-quilt. It was very ancient and perhaps did not smell sweet, but what did I care? It was Heaven. The darkness was delicious. I had not known real darkness for so long throughout the summer—always sleeping out of doors in the light of the Alaskan night—that I had felt continually strained and uncomfortable for the lack of it, and this darkened cabin came to me like the sweetest of opiates.
When I awoke the Frenchman was preparing breakfast. I had slept some ten hours without moving. There was only one tin plate, one cup, and one knife and fork, and he insisted upon my eating with them, while he stood by and gravely superintended, urging more slapjacks upon me. I suddenly felt ashamed that I had told him neither my name nor business, for although I had questioned him freely, he had not manifested the slightest curiosity. So without being asked I volunteered some information about myself. Helistened attentively and politely, but without any great interest. It was quite apparent that the most important thing to him was that I was a stranger. Soon after breakfast I thanked him warmly and went away—I knew enough of miners not to insult him by offering him money for his hospitality.
The night shift of shovellers had given way to the day shift, and work was going on as fiercely as ever. The bottoms of all these gulches are covered with roughly stratified shingle, most of which slides down from the steep hillsides of the creek. Among the rocks on the hillsides are many quartz veins, which carry "iron pyrite" or "fool's gold"; these often contain small specks of real gold. So when all the rubble gets together and is broken up in the bottom of the stream, where the water flows through it, the different materials in the rocks begin to separate one from another, more or less, according to the difference in their weights and the fineness of the fragments into which they are broken. Now gold is the heaviest of metals, and the result is, that through all this jostling and crowding it gradually works itself down to the bottom of theheap, and generally quite to the solid rock below. This has been found to be the case nearly everywhere. In process of time the gravel accumulations become quite thick; in Miller Creek, for example, they varied from three or four feet at the head of the valley, where I was, to fifty or sixty at the mouth. But all the upper gravels are barren and valueless. Where the gravels are not deep, they are simply shovelled off and out of the way, till the lower part, where the gold lies, is laid bare; this work generally takes a year, during which time there is no return for the labor.
Once the pay gravel—as it is called—is reached, a long wooden trough called a "sluice," is constructed, the current turned through it, and the gravel shovelled in. This work can only be carried on in the summer-time, when the water is not frozen, so that the warm months are the time for hustling, day and night shifts being employed, with as many men on each as can work conveniently together. In case the barren overlying gravel is very deep, the miners wait until it is frozen and then sink shafts to the pay dirt, which they take out by running tunnels and excavatingchambers or "stopes" along the bed rock. In this work they do not use blasting, but build a small fire wherever they wish to penetrate, and as soon as the gravel thaws they shovel it up and convey it out, meanwhile pushing the fire ahead so that more may thaw out. In this way they accumulate the pay dirt in a heap on the surface, and as soon as warm weather comes they shovel it into the sluices as before.
At the time of my visit, the construction of the sluices was a work of considerable labor, for as there was no sawmill in the country, the boards from which they were made had to be sawed by hand out of felled trees.
In the last few of the trough-sections or sluice-boxes, slats are placed, sometimes transverse, sometimes lengthwise, sometimes oblique, sometimes crossed, forming a grating—all patterns have nearly the same effect, namely, to catch the gold and the other heavy minerals by means of vortexes which are created. Thus behind these slats or "riffles" the gold lodges, while the lighter and barren gravel is swept by the current of water out of the trough, and the heavy stones are thrust out by the shovel of the miner. Nearly the same process as that which in nature concentrates gold at the bottom of the gravels and on top of the bed-rock is adopted by man to cleanse the gold perfectly from the attendant valueless minerals.