HUSKY DOG—RAMPART HOUSEHUSKY DOG—RAMPART HOUSE
“All of us boys got gay and went over on the other side of the Boundary and took off our hats and gave three cheers for America. We were glad we were on American soil once more. We feel now as if we were getting out of the fur-trading country. Am not sorry. I don’t like the country or the people in it very much. Everything seems so shiftless. Still, they manage to get on. I suppose if I lived up here a hundred years things might look different.“Monday, August 4th.—Breakfast 10.30. We’ve got some supplies here. Nothing much to boast of. Fixed up our boat again for the long run for home. We feel pretty safe now. Left Andrew at Old Crow, but saw some people at Rampart who knew about him and other travelers who are back of us on the Porcupine. We hope they will all get out. Winter will come any time now. Left at 4.30 in the afternoon. Ran two hours and had tea. River rising very fast, and current swift, so that we thought we made five or six miles an hour at least. Ran two and a half hours, some of us paddling, and thought we made thirty miles. We are trying to use this rise in the river allwe can. Camped on a stony beach. Sand is very wet and cold for a bed, but we cut some willows and did fairly well. Not very cold.“Tuesday, August 5th.—Struck an Indian camp and traded tea for some fresh moose meat, which we were mighty glad to get. I am like John—I never want to see a rabbit again.“To-day passed a boat tracking up-stream for Rampart. A man and dog were pulling. They had a sail set to help, and the steersman was poling and paddling the best he could to help. Even so, it was a slow way to get up-stream. We felt sorry for them when we left them. Later in the day met still another boat, two Indians tracking freight up to Rampart House. They say sometimes freight is carried up this river with a powerboat. These Indians say we’ve come about a hundred miles from Rampart, and that in about twenty miles we will be half-way to the mouth of the river. Wish it were not so far.“Wednesday, August 6th.—This is hard work. We rested and paddled and slept and paddled. Too much wind, and we had to quit toward evening. When thewind lulled we started again. Much rain and dark weather. Water very fast, probably six to seven miles an hour. We eat at least four times a day, so as to keep strong as possible. Considerable wind now, and fall seems coming. Whenever the sun comes out and we can lie down in the sun, we do, so as to keep warm while we sleep. Don’t know how far it is to Yukon, but have been making good time.“Thursday, August 7th.—Head winds again, but sun bright and warm. Spent considerable time ashore, resting, as we were about played out, and we thought that we might now be safe in a little delay. Got off late in the afternoon, and did well. Uncle Dick says the Yukon can’t be more than fifty to seventy-five miles ahead. Camped late in a bunch of spruce, and slept until 2 o’clock in the morning. When we began to run we saw signs of a salmon fishery such as we have in Alaska. There is a man here named Martin, and his squaw and children all camped on the beach. He says it is only thirty-five miles to the Yukon, and that we can do it in six or seven hours. Hurrah!“Friday, August 8th.—We can stillpaddle, but are not very strong, any of us. Uncle Dick is cheerful. He never has been out of sorts. We boys have been pretty tired, and sometimes Jesse has felt almost like crying, he was so played out; but we have all done the best we could to keep a stiff upper lip. Hope Uncle Dick will think we have done all right. Just the same, we are glad we are coming out of the worst of this trip. It has been worse than we thought.“Passed two Indian camps in late evening. Then they said we were within three hours of Yukon. Entered the mouth of a white-stained slough which meant different waters from those of the Porcupine. We feel that we are now in the Yukon country—and that’sourcountry, because the Yukon and Alaska are one!“Tenp.m.Hurrah! Hurrah! At Fort Yukon! Here is the American flag flying from the Anglican mission-house! We are crazy with joy, all of us boys, and Uncle Dick smiles all the time. We are safe now, because they say there’ll be several boats up-stream yet this fall. Uncle Dick says there’ll be no more danger, and he now begins to tell us that we have been through worse dangersthan maybe we thought of. I suppose it was a pretty rough journey. Certainly we all got awfully tired. We are thin as snakes, all four of us.“There is an Indian village below here, and a government school for Indian boys, besides the Anglican mission-house and church. It certainly does seem more civilized. This is our own country.“And this is the Yukon that runs between the banks here—our own old Yukon! I love it better than the Mackenzie. For a while at least we will be under our flag, and not any other. All tired. Next we’d better go to bed. However, made camp near a road-house, almost a mile from the Indian village. Some whites live here who seem tough and noisy. Some liquor here with them, for they seem to be shouting and singing.“Although we have been on American soil or American water since we left Rampart House on the Porcupine, this seems to us like the first time we have really been in our own country. Good night! Wish we were all home at Valdez with our people.”
“All of us boys got gay and went over on the other side of the Boundary and took off our hats and gave three cheers for America. We were glad we were on American soil once more. We feel now as if we were getting out of the fur-trading country. Am not sorry. I don’t like the country or the people in it very much. Everything seems so shiftless. Still, they manage to get on. I suppose if I lived up here a hundred years things might look different.
“Monday, August 4th.—Breakfast 10.30. We’ve got some supplies here. Nothing much to boast of. Fixed up our boat again for the long run for home. We feel pretty safe now. Left Andrew at Old Crow, but saw some people at Rampart who knew about him and other travelers who are back of us on the Porcupine. We hope they will all get out. Winter will come any time now. Left at 4.30 in the afternoon. Ran two hours and had tea. River rising very fast, and current swift, so that we thought we made five or six miles an hour at least. Ran two and a half hours, some of us paddling, and thought we made thirty miles. We are trying to use this rise in the river allwe can. Camped on a stony beach. Sand is very wet and cold for a bed, but we cut some willows and did fairly well. Not very cold.
“Tuesday, August 5th.—Struck an Indian camp and traded tea for some fresh moose meat, which we were mighty glad to get. I am like John—I never want to see a rabbit again.
“To-day passed a boat tracking up-stream for Rampart. A man and dog were pulling. They had a sail set to help, and the steersman was poling and paddling the best he could to help. Even so, it was a slow way to get up-stream. We felt sorry for them when we left them. Later in the day met still another boat, two Indians tracking freight up to Rampart House. They say sometimes freight is carried up this river with a powerboat. These Indians say we’ve come about a hundred miles from Rampart, and that in about twenty miles we will be half-way to the mouth of the river. Wish it were not so far.
“Wednesday, August 6th.—This is hard work. We rested and paddled and slept and paddled. Too much wind, and we had to quit toward evening. When thewind lulled we started again. Much rain and dark weather. Water very fast, probably six to seven miles an hour. We eat at least four times a day, so as to keep strong as possible. Considerable wind now, and fall seems coming. Whenever the sun comes out and we can lie down in the sun, we do, so as to keep warm while we sleep. Don’t know how far it is to Yukon, but have been making good time.
“Thursday, August 7th.—Head winds again, but sun bright and warm. Spent considerable time ashore, resting, as we were about played out, and we thought that we might now be safe in a little delay. Got off late in the afternoon, and did well. Uncle Dick says the Yukon can’t be more than fifty to seventy-five miles ahead. Camped late in a bunch of spruce, and slept until 2 o’clock in the morning. When we began to run we saw signs of a salmon fishery such as we have in Alaska. There is a man here named Martin, and his squaw and children all camped on the beach. He says it is only thirty-five miles to the Yukon, and that we can do it in six or seven hours. Hurrah!
“Friday, August 8th.—We can stillpaddle, but are not very strong, any of us. Uncle Dick is cheerful. He never has been out of sorts. We boys have been pretty tired, and sometimes Jesse has felt almost like crying, he was so played out; but we have all done the best we could to keep a stiff upper lip. Hope Uncle Dick will think we have done all right. Just the same, we are glad we are coming out of the worst of this trip. It has been worse than we thought.
“Passed two Indian camps in late evening. Then they said we were within three hours of Yukon. Entered the mouth of a white-stained slough which meant different waters from those of the Porcupine. We feel that we are now in the Yukon country—and that’sourcountry, because the Yukon and Alaska are one!
“Tenp.m.Hurrah! Hurrah! At Fort Yukon! Here is the American flag flying from the Anglican mission-house! We are crazy with joy, all of us boys, and Uncle Dick smiles all the time. We are safe now, because they say there’ll be several boats up-stream yet this fall. Uncle Dick says there’ll be no more danger, and he now begins to tell us that we have been through worse dangersthan maybe we thought of. I suppose it was a pretty rough journey. Certainly we all got awfully tired. We are thin as snakes, all four of us.
“There is an Indian village below here, and a government school for Indian boys, besides the Anglican mission-house and church. It certainly does seem more civilized. This is our own country.
“And this is the Yukon that runs between the banks here—our own old Yukon! I love it better than the Mackenzie. For a while at least we will be under our flag, and not any other. All tired. Next we’d better go to bed. However, made camp near a road-house, almost a mile from the Indian village. Some whites live here who seem tough and noisy. Some liquor here with them, for they seem to be shouting and singing.
“Although we have been on American soil or American water since we left Rampart House on the Porcupine, this seems to us like the first time we have really been in our own country. Good night! Wish we were all home at Valdez with our people.”
It was a ragged and dirty party of travelers, to be sure, who lay in the litter of the dooryard of the road-house, wrapped in their blankets, and sleeping late in spite of the warm morning sun which shone into their faces. They were exhausted by the long, trying, and hard work of their dangerous journey, and, once they felt safe, had fallen into the half-stupor which follows such fatigue. Therefore they did not at first know of the presence of the dignified and well-dressed man who stood hanging over the gate of the road-house, looking at the sleepers as they lay in the yard, rolled up in their blankets. Uncle Dick, always alert, was first awake, and sat up in his blankets.
“Good morning, sir,” said he to the stranger.
“Good morning, sir,” replied the other, in turn. “Excuse me, but I’ve been asked to look for the party of Mr. Richard McIntyre,himself and three young boys, who are reported to be lost somewhere between here and the mouth of the Mackenzie River. The relatives have sent in word by cable, and naturally it has come into my hands.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Uncle Dick, sitting still, half-clad in his blankets, “but, although you may not suppose it, I am Mr. McIntyre, and these are the young men referred to, no doubt. You have word from outside?”
“From Mrs. Vernon Wilcox, of Valdez, and from Mrs. Henry D. Hardy, of the same city; I have the message here. It came down from Circle City on the last boat.”
“And you, sir? I beg your pardon—”
“I am the archdeacon of the Anglican Church in this district,” replied the other, “and my name is Hudson. I have come this morning to ask you to our house to live during your stay here. There will be no boat out for some days as yet.” Still he looked half-doubtfully at the man whom he addressed, as though possibly he might be some impostor, so strange did he appear, unshaven, with long hair, and in garments which barely clung together.
Uncle Dick laughed at this, and explained that he did not blame any one for suspectinghimself and his party of anything in the world. Then he called to his young companions, and the archdeacon himself smiled when he saw the four standing, the fresher for the pails of water which they threw over one another, in the front yard.
“I am a traveler myself,” said he, “and have mushed dogs many thousand miles in this northern country. So I know what hard travel is, winter and summer. Come with me, if you please.”
So they accompanied him to his home, the only civilized place, as Uncle Dick was disposed to say, in all the settlement thereabouts. Here the boys of the party had the best meal they had known for many a day, with real meat and gravy and actual bread and butter, such as they had been used to at home. Although, of course, they displayed no curiosity in their host’s house, they were well pleased enough, as they later saw signs of comfort and good taste all about them.
“Now,” said the archdeacon, after they had breakfasted, “I know how you feel about your clothes. Happily, I have some such clothing provided for our own needs here. Although the things will not be in the latest fashion, perhaps we can fix you up better than you now are.
“As for you,” he said to Uncle Dick, “you are welcome to a suit of my own clothing if it will serve you. We are not dissimilar in build, I believe. Come with me and let us see what we can do for you.”
In half an hour the four emerged from another room in the house, each with a complete new outfit, and to each of them it seemed, in the circumstances, that they were especially well-dressed.
“Well,” said Uncle Dick, “you certainly are Good Samaritans in your church here in the North. I shall not offend you by offering pay for what you have done for us, but we have some boats here, with a canoe and a few odds and ends of that sort, which we shall be most happy to leave with you when we go out.”
“I thank you very much for that,” said the reverend gentleman. “All such things are very useful to us indeed. And I shall be glad to have them, provided that you are quite finished with their use.
“And now will you tell me of your trip?” he resumed. “It was over the old Klondike trail of twenty years ago—a dangerous trip for you to take with just boys like these.”
“Well, you see,” said Uncle Dick, with a look of pride on his face, “these are not just ordinary boys. They are an Alaskan product,‘young Alaskans,’ all three of them, and more used to out of doors than are most young folk of their age. They are good travelers already, better than many a man; they have made the Peace River and the Saskatchewan, have run the Big Rapids of the Columbia, and have killed their Kadiak bear in southwest Alaska. I knew what they were or I never would have taken on this trip in their company. I fancy”—and he smiled—“that they did better than many a tenderfoot who came over the Rat Portage twenty years ago.”
“No doubt, no doubt!” replied the archdeacon. “I join you in your pride that you are all Americans, like myself. I, too, am something of an explorer, as I may say modestly. I am just back from the climbing of Denali, and I had a boy with me in that ascent—an Indian boy he was!”
“Denali!” exclaimed Uncle Dick, excitedly. “You mean Mount McKinley—I know the Indian name.”
The older man nodded with gravity. “Yes,” said he. “We climbed it for the first time—the first scientific time. Of course you know about the false claims that have been made?”
Uncle Dick rose and grasped him by the hand warmly. “Sir,” said he, “you are a great man, even had you never lived so longand useful a life here in your work. I am glad that the Church and not the traders put the first flag on top of the highest mountain on this continent. I congratulate you, and I am proud that my young friends can meet you here.”
“It was not so difficult,” said the reverend gentleman, modestly, once more. “Only, be sure, it actually was done. Be sure also that it was a boy—an Indian boy—who first set foot upon the top of Mount Denali. I held back when we got to the very summit, thinking it appropriate that a native of the people who owned this land before we came should be the first to set foot upon its highest summit.”
“Fine!” said Uncle Dick. “That’s what I call sportsmanship, and I want you boys to remember it. That’s something different from what Admiral Peary did when he found the North Pole. We are well met here, Archdeacon, if you will allow me to say so, and if you will accept us I may say that we all are sportsmen, and sportsmen are always well met.”
He motioned to his young companions, and each of them in turn came up and shook hands with this explorer of the Far North, who greeted them with gravity and kindness.
“Well,” said he, at length, smiling, “hereis our little wretched town, as bad, perhaps, as any white and Indian settlement in Alaska. I have spent many years among these people, and I presume I am disliked as much as any man along the Yukon! As you see, we stand for law and order here, and we churchmen are hated here for that reason. We arrest some of the lawbreakers and take them down to Ruby to the courts, and have them fined or imprisoned. They threaten us—but none the less you see we have not run away.
“You will come to our services to-morrow?” he added. “Yonder is our little log church. Perhaps our services will prove interesting for a special reason. I speak in our tongue, but what I say must be interpreted to my Indian audience.”
“Certainly; we’ll be glad,” said Uncle Dick. “We feel as though we had somewhat lapsed these last few weeks. It is fine to be with you here and in these surroundings.”
“I see that your young friends carry books in their pockets, and papers,” rejoined the archdeacon, nodding to Rob and John.
“Oh, that’s nothing, sir,” said Rob. “We just make notes of things as we go along, you see. John here is our map-maker. He always makes maps of the countries which we visit. So you see—”
“And did you make a map of the summit of the Rockies—the old Rat Portage of the traders, young man?”
“Why, yes, sir,” said John. “I put it all down here as we went along, and Uncle Dick says it’s pretty good. He’s an engineer.”
He now spread out his map upon the table, as their host suggested.
“I’ll tell you why I asked,” said the latter. “As I have said, I have been obliged to be an explorer and a traveler myself—my field is very large. It is nothing for me to travel a hundred miles behind a dog-sled in the winter-time to hold services or to make a baptism or a wedding. Sometime I hope to make that very journey that you have made. At Dawson I have seen some maps, or alleged maps, but no two are alike.”
“That’s what Uncle Dick told us and what we have found out,” said Rob. “We couldn’t get any idea of that country at all, and had to find it out for ourselves.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, sir,” said John. “When I get back home and into Uncle Dick’s engineering office I’ll make you a tracing of my map, and you can have it for your very own. I shall be very glad to do that.”
“And if you will I shall be very much inyour debt, my young friend,” said the archdeacon. “That will be fine, and I shall value it. I fancy that many a Klondiker who was cast away in the winter-time in that wild country would have been glad to have had such assistance as this. But not even Harper or McQueston or any of the other early explorers on the Peace and the Liard and the Mackenzie and the Peel and the Rat and all these rivers running into the Yukon which have been so famous for their gold—not one of these men, I will say, could ever make an exact map of the country he had crossed. As for the traders—well, you know that yourself. They don’t want new-comers, and they don’t help them any too much.” He sighed, spreading out his hands with but partial resignation.
“It is a hard fight which the Church wages with the fur trade in the North. We are antagonistic, although we live side by side, both Anglican and Catholic missions, almost in the dooryard of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Revillons and all the smaller fry of independents which are pushing in now. But we do our best.
“Now, then, young sir,” he resumed, turning to Rob, “I have no doubt that your notes are as good as this young man’s map. I hopeyou will keep up your diary just as I have done in much of my exploration work in Alaska and the Northwest Territory. These things are invaluable in later life.”
Rob thanked his host very much, and promised to do as he advised. Therefore, what he found of interest at this, the first considerable American settlement they met on the Yukon, should prove worth setting down in his own words.
The memoranda which the historian of the party set down regarding Fort Yukon had more or less to do with the scenes and incidents connected with the fur trade which had come under his observation. But before coming to these Rob put down a few things regarding the nature of this American settlement on the great river of Alaska:
“Saturday, August 9th.—We had forks and napkins at the archdeacon’s house. Went out to see the town. Indian tents scattered over three-fourths of a mile. Three stores, a post-office, a church, and a road-house. Found the owners of the store at Old Crow which we burglarized, and paid them for what we got. They said it was all right. Seems as though there are hundreds of dogs here. Boat expected up the Yukon almost any day—thereis no regular time for their landing here.“Sunday, August 10th.—Went to church in the log church. The archdeacon preached. A full-blood by the name of David interpreted. Another native read the liturgy, but not very well. The sermon was simple and plain. He touched the natives’ pride. Told them how they used to get along with bows and arrows and stone axes, how they conquered the wilderness; told them not to forget those virtues and not to give way to the vices of white people. Many strange faces in the audience. Saw one like a Japanese samurai, with bristling beard and stiff black hair. Have seen this type everywhere these last 1,500 miles—people who look like Japs. I don’t think much law and order here. White men married to Indian women. There is a government school and a good many Indian children go there. The men get too much whisky here.“The archdeacon is a great traveler. He told me why people up north like bright-colored clothes. He says that the hind sack on his sled is brilliantly embroidered, and when he is mushing dogshe finds himself looking at this bright piece of color. All the landscape is very monotonous, and the night is hard to endure so long. He says that is why the natives like bright colors.“This afternoon in the archdeacon’s house I found a strange old book. It seems to have been written by some preacher some hundreds of years ago. His name was Bartolomeo de Las Casas. He must have been a Spaniard, for he is writing about the Indians. He says, ‘We are killing them, and have done so relentlessly.’ Seems to me that was a good deal like the fur trade. He goes on and says some more from Ecclesiastes: ‘The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked. Neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doth as one that killeth the son before the father’s eyes.’“Well, that sounds as though some one were writing at the big fur monopolies and the way they handle the Indians. Las Casas says that his Church thought they owned all the middle part of this continent. The Hudson’s Bay Company started in to own all the northern partof it. I can’t see the difference. Las Casas says the discovery and conquest of the American dominions has wrought ruin to Spain as a nation. The results were ‘disastrous to her power.’ I am only a boy, and don’t know much about things, but I know perfectly well the fur trade is based on injustice. I consider it the most ignoble form of business in the world. I think it is pulling down the Indians—as the archdeacon said in his sermon, they were more manly and self-respecting before the traders came. If the government of Canada claims to be so good, it might look into the injustice done to the native people by some of the traders, both the old companies and the independents. I have read somewhere, ‘No right is or can be founded on injustice.’ So what rights have they got?“The Spaniards were after gold, and these big companies are after fur. They have both relied on keeping the natives down. That’s why they are so jealous of outsiders getting any knowledge about their ways.“I have heard that an Indian always pays his debts to the trader. On this trip I heard a man say that the big companiesnever forgive an Indian a debt in all his life. He would not dare to let his debt run if he could pay it, because if he did he would starve.“I wonder if old Mr. Las Casas was any relation to the archdeacon here. They both preach a good deal alike, it seems to me. He says, ‘The system of oppression and cruelty in dealing with the natives makes them curse the name of God and our holy religion.... For should God decree the destruction of Spain it may be seen it is because of our destruction of the Indians, and that His justice may be made apparent.’“Well, I guess that will be all I will write out of the book. I was just thinking that what the Spaniards did in getting gold was something like what the white men are doing to-day in getting fur in this northern country. It never did look good to me.“But though the Indians don’t always remember everything they hear in church, I believe the Church is honester, whether it is the English Church or the Catholic, or any of them, because they haven’t anything to get out of it, so far as I can see, and the traders have. I don’t think I shall very much enjoy seeing fine furs worn by ladies in my own country afterthis—I know where they come from and what they cost. I wonder what Las Casas would say if he were here.“A good many Scotchmen are through this northern country, and some Scandinavians. I read in a book by Mr. Stewart that you could tell the Scotchman even in a half-breed because he always says ‘boy’ and ‘whatever’ the way the Highlanders do—no matter how old you are a Highlander always calls you ‘boy.’ He says the Bishop of Saskatchewan had a half-breed boy working for him who always called him ‘Boy my Lord.’ That seems odd to me! And then about their saying ‘whatever’—a Scotch half-breed said, ‘We use it because we could not express ourselves without it whatever.’ And then he said, ‘Is it not correct whatever?’ And after a while he said he could see no objection to that word whatever. A Highlander always says ‘whatever,’ and you can’t keep him from it. I noticed that in some of the posts we came through.“A woman here was sixty years old, and she married a carpenter, and he took her money and started a sawmill. They haven’t got any sawmill now.“A good many people here talk about other people. I have noticed that in almost any small place, but I think it is worse up here in the North. I suppose they get lonesome and have to talk.“Another thing is, they drink so much up in this country whenever they get a chance. They don’t keep their gallon of Scotch whisky, which is supposed to last them a year, but sit down and drink it up in two days. So they get out of whisky and some people get crazy for it. In this same book by Mr. Stewart he tells about some men at one of the trading-posts of the Mackenzie who didn’t have any liquor, but the summer before there had been a party of scientists there who had left some insects, bugs, and snakes and things, done up in alcohol. Some other traders visited this agent, and he was sorry not to have anything to give them to drink. So he thought he would pour off this alcohol from the bugs and things. Still, he thought it might be poison, so he tried it on a half-breed dog-driver. It did not kill him, so he served it to his friends, and said nothing about it, and they all thought it was very good! I believe this is a true story, becauseso many things happen up in this country that we don’t hear about at home.“Monday, August 11th.—This is on the steamshipSchwatka, and we are bound up the Yukon! We said good-by early this morning to the good archdeacon. It was dark when he heard the dogs howling, and knew a boat was coming, so he called us and we hurried and got dressed, and just got on this boat in time. She isn’t towing any barge, so ought to make good time up to Dawson. We were sorry to leave the archdeacon, but we are glad to be on our way home.“We get four meals a day on theSchwatka, and very good ones. John is happy! We think we will all put on a little flesh before we get home. Uncle Dick is writing and going over his notes. John is making his map. Jesse is reading. So I write.“Tuesday, August 12th.—At 1.30 in the morning we made Circle City, which, as everybody knows, is right on the Arctic Circle, or was supposed to be. This was the first time Uncle Dick could get out any word. He sent out a message by wireless which will be relayed to Skagway and cabled to Valdez. He said inabout ten days we would be at Skagway. Our folks will be mighty glad to hear from us—and how glad we’ll be to get home! We are still inside the limit of the time schedule which Uncle Dick set for us. Now we think we are safe to finish the journey inside our schedule. Pretty good, we all think.“Wednesday, August 13th.—At 8.30 this morning got to Eagle, which is an old Alaska settlement and was once an army post. There is an Anglican mission here. The scenery around here is far beyond anything that was on the Mackenzie River. We all like the Yukon better than the Mackenzie. Some Church people going out on the boat from here.“I don’t know how the Klondikers got up the Yukon after they had come over the Rat Portage; but Dawson is three days above Fort Yukon by steamboat. If they tracked or poled or rowed up I bet it took them a good deal more than three days.“Uncle Dick has asked me to set down everything I see at Dawson, which is the big gold-camp that caused the Klondike stampede in 1897; so I think I will do that the best I can.”
“Saturday, August 9th.—We had forks and napkins at the archdeacon’s house. Went out to see the town. Indian tents scattered over three-fourths of a mile. Three stores, a post-office, a church, and a road-house. Found the owners of the store at Old Crow which we burglarized, and paid them for what we got. They said it was all right. Seems as though there are hundreds of dogs here. Boat expected up the Yukon almost any day—thereis no regular time for their landing here.
“Sunday, August 10th.—Went to church in the log church. The archdeacon preached. A full-blood by the name of David interpreted. Another native read the liturgy, but not very well. The sermon was simple and plain. He touched the natives’ pride. Told them how they used to get along with bows and arrows and stone axes, how they conquered the wilderness; told them not to forget those virtues and not to give way to the vices of white people. Many strange faces in the audience. Saw one like a Japanese samurai, with bristling beard and stiff black hair. Have seen this type everywhere these last 1,500 miles—people who look like Japs. I don’t think much law and order here. White men married to Indian women. There is a government school and a good many Indian children go there. The men get too much whisky here.
“The archdeacon is a great traveler. He told me why people up north like bright-colored clothes. He says that the hind sack on his sled is brilliantly embroidered, and when he is mushing dogshe finds himself looking at this bright piece of color. All the landscape is very monotonous, and the night is hard to endure so long. He says that is why the natives like bright colors.
“This afternoon in the archdeacon’s house I found a strange old book. It seems to have been written by some preacher some hundreds of years ago. His name was Bartolomeo de Las Casas. He must have been a Spaniard, for he is writing about the Indians. He says, ‘We are killing them, and have done so relentlessly.’ Seems to me that was a good deal like the fur trade. He goes on and says some more from Ecclesiastes: ‘The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked. Neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices. Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doth as one that killeth the son before the father’s eyes.’
“Well, that sounds as though some one were writing at the big fur monopolies and the way they handle the Indians. Las Casas says that his Church thought they owned all the middle part of this continent. The Hudson’s Bay Company started in to own all the northern partof it. I can’t see the difference. Las Casas says the discovery and conquest of the American dominions has wrought ruin to Spain as a nation. The results were ‘disastrous to her power.’ I am only a boy, and don’t know much about things, but I know perfectly well the fur trade is based on injustice. I consider it the most ignoble form of business in the world. I think it is pulling down the Indians—as the archdeacon said in his sermon, they were more manly and self-respecting before the traders came. If the government of Canada claims to be so good, it might look into the injustice done to the native people by some of the traders, both the old companies and the independents. I have read somewhere, ‘No right is or can be founded on injustice.’ So what rights have they got?
“The Spaniards were after gold, and these big companies are after fur. They have both relied on keeping the natives down. That’s why they are so jealous of outsiders getting any knowledge about their ways.
“I have heard that an Indian always pays his debts to the trader. On this trip I heard a man say that the big companiesnever forgive an Indian a debt in all his life. He would not dare to let his debt run if he could pay it, because if he did he would starve.
“I wonder if old Mr. Las Casas was any relation to the archdeacon here. They both preach a good deal alike, it seems to me. He says, ‘The system of oppression and cruelty in dealing with the natives makes them curse the name of God and our holy religion.... For should God decree the destruction of Spain it may be seen it is because of our destruction of the Indians, and that His justice may be made apparent.’
“Well, I guess that will be all I will write out of the book. I was just thinking that what the Spaniards did in getting gold was something like what the white men are doing to-day in getting fur in this northern country. It never did look good to me.
“But though the Indians don’t always remember everything they hear in church, I believe the Church is honester, whether it is the English Church or the Catholic, or any of them, because they haven’t anything to get out of it, so far as I can see, and the traders have. I don’t think I shall very much enjoy seeing fine furs worn by ladies in my own country afterthis—I know where they come from and what they cost. I wonder what Las Casas would say if he were here.
“A good many Scotchmen are through this northern country, and some Scandinavians. I read in a book by Mr. Stewart that you could tell the Scotchman even in a half-breed because he always says ‘boy’ and ‘whatever’ the way the Highlanders do—no matter how old you are a Highlander always calls you ‘boy.’ He says the Bishop of Saskatchewan had a half-breed boy working for him who always called him ‘Boy my Lord.’ That seems odd to me! And then about their saying ‘whatever’—a Scotch half-breed said, ‘We use it because we could not express ourselves without it whatever.’ And then he said, ‘Is it not correct whatever?’ And after a while he said he could see no objection to that word whatever. A Highlander always says ‘whatever,’ and you can’t keep him from it. I noticed that in some of the posts we came through.
“A woman here was sixty years old, and she married a carpenter, and he took her money and started a sawmill. They haven’t got any sawmill now.
“A good many people here talk about other people. I have noticed that in almost any small place, but I think it is worse up here in the North. I suppose they get lonesome and have to talk.
“Another thing is, they drink so much up in this country whenever they get a chance. They don’t keep their gallon of Scotch whisky, which is supposed to last them a year, but sit down and drink it up in two days. So they get out of whisky and some people get crazy for it. In this same book by Mr. Stewart he tells about some men at one of the trading-posts of the Mackenzie who didn’t have any liquor, but the summer before there had been a party of scientists there who had left some insects, bugs, and snakes and things, done up in alcohol. Some other traders visited this agent, and he was sorry not to have anything to give them to drink. So he thought he would pour off this alcohol from the bugs and things. Still, he thought it might be poison, so he tried it on a half-breed dog-driver. It did not kill him, so he served it to his friends, and said nothing about it, and they all thought it was very good! I believe this is a true story, becauseso many things happen up in this country that we don’t hear about at home.
“Monday, August 11th.—This is on the steamshipSchwatka, and we are bound up the Yukon! We said good-by early this morning to the good archdeacon. It was dark when he heard the dogs howling, and knew a boat was coming, so he called us and we hurried and got dressed, and just got on this boat in time. She isn’t towing any barge, so ought to make good time up to Dawson. We were sorry to leave the archdeacon, but we are glad to be on our way home.
“We get four meals a day on theSchwatka, and very good ones. John is happy! We think we will all put on a little flesh before we get home. Uncle Dick is writing and going over his notes. John is making his map. Jesse is reading. So I write.
“Tuesday, August 12th.—At 1.30 in the morning we made Circle City, which, as everybody knows, is right on the Arctic Circle, or was supposed to be. This was the first time Uncle Dick could get out any word. He sent out a message by wireless which will be relayed to Skagway and cabled to Valdez. He said inabout ten days we would be at Skagway. Our folks will be mighty glad to hear from us—and how glad we’ll be to get home! We are still inside the limit of the time schedule which Uncle Dick set for us. Now we think we are safe to finish the journey inside our schedule. Pretty good, we all think.
“Wednesday, August 13th.—At 8.30 this morning got to Eagle, which is an old Alaska settlement and was once an army post. There is an Anglican mission here. The scenery around here is far beyond anything that was on the Mackenzie River. We all like the Yukon better than the Mackenzie. Some Church people going out on the boat from here.
“I don’t know how the Klondikers got up the Yukon after they had come over the Rat Portage; but Dawson is three days above Fort Yukon by steamboat. If they tracked or poled or rowed up I bet it took them a good deal more than three days.
“Uncle Dick has asked me to set down everything I see at Dawson, which is the big gold-camp that caused the Klondike stampede in 1897; so I think I will do that the best I can.”
Rob’s diary went on as he had promised, for during the time that they lay between boats at the once famous gold-camp there was abundant opportunity for them to get about and see pretty much everything there was worth seeing. Rob’s record runs day by day as previously:
“Thursday, August 14th.—Dawson at 4a.m.Our boat does not go any farther. We reserved passage on theNorcomfor White Pass. She will sail the evening of next Saturday. On British soil again.“This place has had twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants in boom times, but there are only about twelve hundred people here now, I believe. A good many people are starting off for Chisana district, up the White River, where they say there is a gold strike. All this countryhas been crazy over gold strikes for a good deal more than twenty years.“We went to a hotel here and got baths and got barbered up, which makes a change in our looks. We got a few things to wear which the archdeacon could not give us.“Friday, August 15th.—Went up the famous Klondike River, which comes in here. Half of it is clean and the other half dirty. Saw no more pick-and-shovel work. Everything is run by the big dredges owned by companies, which do the work of hundreds of men. They thaw out the ground now with steam-pipes which they drive down in, and then turn in steam. Then they rip out the ground down twenty feet with the big scoops of the dredges. They just have water enough to float the dredges. Everything is worked and washed right on the dredge. It beats placer mining a whole lot. But a few men can work one of these dredges, and then a few men get all the money they turn out.“Walked on up to Bonanza and some of the famous creeks above the dredges. They are using hydraulic mining up there, another wholesale way. Saw no individual mining.“We boys ate supper with a lot of French people who are working ‘lays’ on some claims which are owned by other people on the hillsides up toward Bonanza. The bed-rock, where the rich gold is, is about the middle of the hill, and runs straight through, and they are following through right along the bed-rock three hundred feet below the surface. They have ‘drifted’ in here, and they are using hydraulic mining, too. They seemed a jolly lot. They have a woman cooking for their crew, and asked us to eat with them—the best they had. We could not talk much in their language, and they did not understand very much of ours.“We walked down from the mountains, four and a half miles, in an hour and five minutes, and were not tired.“Saturday, August 16th.—The Commissioner of Yukon Territory—who is about the same as a governor would be in a Territory of the United States—asked us to luncheon to-day, because he knew of Uncle Dick. So we all went and had a very pleasant time. This is the Government House, and it has the British flag over it, of course. Everybodywas very nice to us, and other ladies and gentlemen asked us a lot of questions, and we did of them, too. We felt very much at home here, and friendly. The Governor, or Commissioner, used to be American himself. He came up here in the early gold days.“One gentleman at the luncheon told a good many stories of the old times. He told how cold it got sometimes. He said once they made some candles out of condensed milk. They sold them to a saloon-keeper, for a joke, because every one wants candles in the winter-time, but the saloon-keeper could not light these candles at all! He said there used to be a young man in Dawson they called ‘The Evaporated Kid’ because he was so thin. He said, too, there was a runaway express agent who had absconded from somewhere in America, and when he got to Dawson he hadn’t anything except one painting, a copy of a celebrated picture in Europe. He sold it for a half-interest in a claim, which proved to be worth $60,000. He went back to the States and gave himself up, and got a month in jail after he had paid what he had stolen. Then he came back to Alaska and has made a goodcitizen! He has always kept the old man who sold the interest in this claim. Of course they wouldn’t tell us the name of this man.“They say the best place for hunting big game is to go up the Pelly River and then up the MacMillan River. White Horse is a good place to start from. There are sheep up in there, of two kinds, and moose and grizzly bear and caribou. September is the best time to go in there, but it would take about a month, and a fellow would have to be careful not to get caught in the snow. The Mount McKinley country is even better as a big-game place, so they tell me. I wish we boys could go in there some time.“They used to get all kinds of money in here in the early days. This same gentleman told me he once had an interest in a claim where they took out $430,000 on a fraction of a claim which was only eighty feet by four hundred. He says the dredge people have found that they can work much poorer dirt than eight dollars a yard, which would pay a shovel-man. One man can only rock about two and a half yards a day. He can sluice about twice that. A dredge, working four men, works from2,400 to 3,000 tons a day. So you see why dredges are in here now. He said nearly all the men who got rich easy lost their money. There was a lucky Swede who married an extravagant woman, and she spent all his money—several hundred thousand dollars—right away; but he only laughed and said, ‘I’ll strike it again pretty soon.’ But he never has. He says there were a good many hundreds of men who held on to their stakes and went out with 50,000 to 100,000 dollars each. It must have been exciting times in this little old town! Very quiet now.“All the pictures of Dawson show the big white scar on a mountain-side where a landslip took off the whole side of the mountain many years ago. The Indians say it buried a village at its foot. This big hole in the mountain is right where you can see it down the street. You can’t help seeing it if you go to Dawson.“I was much interested about the first man who discovered this country. They don’t all tell the same story about it. The Yukon Territory and Alaska are so much alike, and the people settling them have been so much alike, that it seems they are about the same. We crossed the internationalboundary between them away back at Rampart House. From there to here, on both sides of that line, men have been coming into this country, no one knows how long.“Jack McQueston, so Mr. Ogilvie says in his book about the Yukon country, established Fort Reliance, six miles below where Dawson is, in 1871. Then Arthur Harper came in and joined him in trading. One time some Indians got hold of their rat poison, and two old women and one girl died. That made the Indians sore, so the traders had to pay for the women. They said the two old women were no good, but they would pay ten skins for the young woman, about six dollars. The Indians said that was all right! It’s a funny country.“After that a man by the name of Mayo came in with Harper and McQueston, and in 1886, so this book says, they went down to Forty-Mile River, where they found gold already discovered. It was McQueston that founded Circle City, but it is not really on the line—nearly a degree in latitude south of it.“Harper and McQueston seemed to move all around everywhere. They saidthey found color on the Peace River and on the Liard, but did not find anything on the Mackenzie. But on the Peel River they found good prospects, and some on the Porcupine also. They were all over that country, where we’ve been.“This Harper party came over the Rat Portage, too, the way we did, and they describe it about the way we would. But that was long before the Klondike rush, for they got to Fort Yukon on July 15, 1873. The Klondike was not known then, nor until more than twenty years later.“I guess that the man who really ought to have the credit for finding the gold in the Klondike country was Bob Henderson. He was not trading so much as prospecting. Besides, he got his start about the way most prospectors do—an Indian showed him some pieces of gold, and showed him the place where he found them. Anyhow, that is how Harper found some gold in the Tanana country. But Harper, though he was around in this country twenty-four years, never found any big strike. He died in Arizona in 1897. Jack McQueston stayed in later, and everybody remembered him as a generous trader.“They say that the first gold to come out of the Yukon came from the Tanana River in 1880. A Mr. Holt of the Alaska Commercial Company took the first party over the Dyea Pass and down the Yukon, in 1875. They say a very little gold came out in 1882 and 1883, but nobody had ever heard of the Klondike then.“McQueston liked the Stewart River better than any place for a long while. They got gold in a great many streams running into the Yukon, and found it on nine creeks as early as 1894. They sent out about $400,000 that year. There were a good many miners all along the river even in 1894—seventy-five miners in one party of stampeders. But still no one had heard of the Klondike, although they had prospected between the Yukon and the Arctic Ocean and far down to the mouth of the Yukon, and about everywhere else!“Harper and McQueston had been on the Klondike, but did not find anything at first. Bob Henderson had as much nerve as anybody. They went up on Indian River, which runs parallel to the Klondike, about fifteen miles away. Henderson worked on Quartz Creek, they say,and he had to thaw out his ground with log fires the way they used to do, so he did not make much. Then he worked on Australia Creek. Of course these men all moved around a good deal. He only got about 600 or 700 dollars on the creek where he was working, so he moved over to a stream which he thought ran into the Klondike, and he called this Gold Bottom. He got the color here.“Bob Henderson met George W. Carmac, and he offered to share his new strikes up on Gold Bottom, but he drew the line at the Indians Carmac was living with! So Carmac did not go out at first. But Carmac and two Indians, Charley and George, did go up the Klondike, and up Bonanza after a little, about a mile above the mouth. They were looking after logs for lumber. But they found color up in there. The Indians didn’t care much about it. But after Bob told them about strikes higher up in the country, these Indians and Carmac went farther up Bonanza. They all claim to have found the first gold there. Henderson would not let them stake on Gold Bottom because he didn’t like the Indians, so they turned back, because they had found tencents to the pan on Bonanza. They found more gold on Bonanza, and so Carmac staked there on August 17, 1896, the Discovery claim and Number One Below Discovery, each 500 feet long, up and down the creek. They tell me that these claims ran the full width of the valley bottom—that is, from base to base of the hill on either side.“Then some Indians staked above and below, Tagish Charley on Number Two below, and Skookum Jim on Number One above. They had about a cartridgeful of gold when they got down to the mouth of the Klondike, and they still thought there was more money in lumber than in mining.“Everybody got wind of it now, and there were a lot of people in this country already, before the Klondike news got out. There were twenty-five men looking for Henderson’s Creek, and about that many looking for the Carmac claims.“So Henderson didn’t get any of the rich strike on Bonanza, although he had told Carmac about it. He always said Carmac ought to have told him, so he could have got in there, too. Hendersoncouldn’t get out to Forty-Mile in time to record his claim on Gold Bottom, until Andrew Hunker got in on the creek below him, and he recorded his Discovery claim and had the creek named after him—Hunker Creek. But Henderson had cut a blaze on a tree and marked this creek as Gold Bottom Creek long before that.“So they gave a discovery claim to Carmac on Bonanza Creek, and another on Gold Bottom or Hunker Creek to this man Hunker. So Henderson, who had been in here two years, and who had told everybody about what he had found and wanted everybody to share in it, got only a very bad claim, after all. Hard luck.“I wish I could talk with those old-timers and the Indians who were first in this gold country; but Mr. Ogilvie did talk with them all, and I think what he sets down is perfectly true.“What I was rather surprised to learn was that all this country was known as a gold country so long before the Klondike was heard of. Most people think that the Klondike strike brought the first stampedes into the Yukon Valley, but that is not the case at all. So I thought I would set this down, to have it straightwhen we all got older. As time goes by these things seem to get crooked, and sometimes men get credit who do not deserve it.“Well, I have heard a good many stories about wild times in Dawson, but I have not any place to set that down here, nor to tell stories about getting rich quick. We only wanted to keep track of the early times in the wild country. So I guess this will do.“Well, here we go, off for home!—On board the steamerNorcom, bound up the Yukon. Left at 9p.m., after saying good-by to all our friends in Dawson. We liked Dawson, but found it pretty quiet.“Sunday, August 17th.—We are doing about five miles an hour. Current very swift. At noon saw the Stewart valley. Smith’s store on the bank. Saw some boats stampeding for the White River strikes. Passed the mouth of the White River. Saw a new boat full of men turning up that river on the stampede. It must be like old times. Well, all right—we’re goingout.“Monday, August 18th.—Slow plugging up the current. Made Selkirk, an old trading-post and mining hangout, at 2p.m.The scenery here is much finer than on the Mackenzie. I don’t know if tourists will ever come on any of these rivers. It goes a little slow.“A good many wood-yards along the banks of the river. Quite a business selling wood to the steamboats, which burn a lot. They showed us the line where the winter dog-stages carry the mail to Dawson. Someone showed us the O’Brien cabin, where four murders were committed. One white man and three Indians were hanged for it.“Tuesday, August 19th.—We all got up pretty early, although John was sleepy and Jesse a little cross. I told them we ought to see the boat line up through the Five-Finger Rapids. But, pshaw! there wasn’t much about it. We could run these rapids, I am sure, in our canoe, with no danger at all. Of course, going up the current is stiff, so at the bottom of the chute the steamboat takes on a wire cable, and it winds around a drum with a donkey-engine, and that pulls the boat up the rapids. They are not much like some of the rapids we have seen.“Well, it’s twenty years since theKlondike rush, and we’ve been over a good deal of the country that the old-timers saw. Here we come to White Horse, and there we shall take the railroad over the Skagway Pass, where so many men had such awful times trying to get from the salt water into the Yukon Valley.“I don’t think I’ll write any more notes, because when you get to a railroad everybody knows about it all anyhow. John and Jesse and I feel pretty blue, after all. Our trip is the same as done when we get to White Horse, and we are sorry. When we once know we can get home all safe, we sort of feel homesick for the rivers and mountains, too. You know how that is.“I don’t know that we would want to do it all over again, but we’ve had a fine time. I think John and Jesse are both a little taller. Uncle Dick says I am, too.“But it will be fine to get home again. Uncle Dick says he is going to write and telegraph from White Horse once more. So good-by to the Yukon. And good-by to the Rat and the Mackenzie, too! Fine doings!”
“Thursday, August 14th.—Dawson at 4a.m.Our boat does not go any farther. We reserved passage on theNorcomfor White Pass. She will sail the evening of next Saturday. On British soil again.
“This place has had twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants in boom times, but there are only about twelve hundred people here now, I believe. A good many people are starting off for Chisana district, up the White River, where they say there is a gold strike. All this countryhas been crazy over gold strikes for a good deal more than twenty years.
“We went to a hotel here and got baths and got barbered up, which makes a change in our looks. We got a few things to wear which the archdeacon could not give us.
“Friday, August 15th.—Went up the famous Klondike River, which comes in here. Half of it is clean and the other half dirty. Saw no more pick-and-shovel work. Everything is run by the big dredges owned by companies, which do the work of hundreds of men. They thaw out the ground now with steam-pipes which they drive down in, and then turn in steam. Then they rip out the ground down twenty feet with the big scoops of the dredges. They just have water enough to float the dredges. Everything is worked and washed right on the dredge. It beats placer mining a whole lot. But a few men can work one of these dredges, and then a few men get all the money they turn out.
“Walked on up to Bonanza and some of the famous creeks above the dredges. They are using hydraulic mining up there, another wholesale way. Saw no individual mining.
“We boys ate supper with a lot of French people who are working ‘lays’ on some claims which are owned by other people on the hillsides up toward Bonanza. The bed-rock, where the rich gold is, is about the middle of the hill, and runs straight through, and they are following through right along the bed-rock three hundred feet below the surface. They have ‘drifted’ in here, and they are using hydraulic mining, too. They seemed a jolly lot. They have a woman cooking for their crew, and asked us to eat with them—the best they had. We could not talk much in their language, and they did not understand very much of ours.
“We walked down from the mountains, four and a half miles, in an hour and five minutes, and were not tired.
“Saturday, August 16th.—The Commissioner of Yukon Territory—who is about the same as a governor would be in a Territory of the United States—asked us to luncheon to-day, because he knew of Uncle Dick. So we all went and had a very pleasant time. This is the Government House, and it has the British flag over it, of course. Everybodywas very nice to us, and other ladies and gentlemen asked us a lot of questions, and we did of them, too. We felt very much at home here, and friendly. The Governor, or Commissioner, used to be American himself. He came up here in the early gold days.
“One gentleman at the luncheon told a good many stories of the old times. He told how cold it got sometimes. He said once they made some candles out of condensed milk. They sold them to a saloon-keeper, for a joke, because every one wants candles in the winter-time, but the saloon-keeper could not light these candles at all! He said there used to be a young man in Dawson they called ‘The Evaporated Kid’ because he was so thin. He said, too, there was a runaway express agent who had absconded from somewhere in America, and when he got to Dawson he hadn’t anything except one painting, a copy of a celebrated picture in Europe. He sold it for a half-interest in a claim, which proved to be worth $60,000. He went back to the States and gave himself up, and got a month in jail after he had paid what he had stolen. Then he came back to Alaska and has made a goodcitizen! He has always kept the old man who sold the interest in this claim. Of course they wouldn’t tell us the name of this man.
“They say the best place for hunting big game is to go up the Pelly River and then up the MacMillan River. White Horse is a good place to start from. There are sheep up in there, of two kinds, and moose and grizzly bear and caribou. September is the best time to go in there, but it would take about a month, and a fellow would have to be careful not to get caught in the snow. The Mount McKinley country is even better as a big-game place, so they tell me. I wish we boys could go in there some time.
“They used to get all kinds of money in here in the early days. This same gentleman told me he once had an interest in a claim where they took out $430,000 on a fraction of a claim which was only eighty feet by four hundred. He says the dredge people have found that they can work much poorer dirt than eight dollars a yard, which would pay a shovel-man. One man can only rock about two and a half yards a day. He can sluice about twice that. A dredge, working four men, works from2,400 to 3,000 tons a day. So you see why dredges are in here now. He said nearly all the men who got rich easy lost their money. There was a lucky Swede who married an extravagant woman, and she spent all his money—several hundred thousand dollars—right away; but he only laughed and said, ‘I’ll strike it again pretty soon.’ But he never has. He says there were a good many hundreds of men who held on to their stakes and went out with 50,000 to 100,000 dollars each. It must have been exciting times in this little old town! Very quiet now.
“All the pictures of Dawson show the big white scar on a mountain-side where a landslip took off the whole side of the mountain many years ago. The Indians say it buried a village at its foot. This big hole in the mountain is right where you can see it down the street. You can’t help seeing it if you go to Dawson.
“I was much interested about the first man who discovered this country. They don’t all tell the same story about it. The Yukon Territory and Alaska are so much alike, and the people settling them have been so much alike, that it seems they are about the same. We crossed the internationalboundary between them away back at Rampart House. From there to here, on both sides of that line, men have been coming into this country, no one knows how long.
“Jack McQueston, so Mr. Ogilvie says in his book about the Yukon country, established Fort Reliance, six miles below where Dawson is, in 1871. Then Arthur Harper came in and joined him in trading. One time some Indians got hold of their rat poison, and two old women and one girl died. That made the Indians sore, so the traders had to pay for the women. They said the two old women were no good, but they would pay ten skins for the young woman, about six dollars. The Indians said that was all right! It’s a funny country.
“After that a man by the name of Mayo came in with Harper and McQueston, and in 1886, so this book says, they went down to Forty-Mile River, where they found gold already discovered. It was McQueston that founded Circle City, but it is not really on the line—nearly a degree in latitude south of it.
“Harper and McQueston seemed to move all around everywhere. They saidthey found color on the Peace River and on the Liard, but did not find anything on the Mackenzie. But on the Peel River they found good prospects, and some on the Porcupine also. They were all over that country, where we’ve been.
“This Harper party came over the Rat Portage, too, the way we did, and they describe it about the way we would. But that was long before the Klondike rush, for they got to Fort Yukon on July 15, 1873. The Klondike was not known then, nor until more than twenty years later.
“I guess that the man who really ought to have the credit for finding the gold in the Klondike country was Bob Henderson. He was not trading so much as prospecting. Besides, he got his start about the way most prospectors do—an Indian showed him some pieces of gold, and showed him the place where he found them. Anyhow, that is how Harper found some gold in the Tanana country. But Harper, though he was around in this country twenty-four years, never found any big strike. He died in Arizona in 1897. Jack McQueston stayed in later, and everybody remembered him as a generous trader.
“They say that the first gold to come out of the Yukon came from the Tanana River in 1880. A Mr. Holt of the Alaska Commercial Company took the first party over the Dyea Pass and down the Yukon, in 1875. They say a very little gold came out in 1882 and 1883, but nobody had ever heard of the Klondike then.
“McQueston liked the Stewart River better than any place for a long while. They got gold in a great many streams running into the Yukon, and found it on nine creeks as early as 1894. They sent out about $400,000 that year. There were a good many miners all along the river even in 1894—seventy-five miners in one party of stampeders. But still no one had heard of the Klondike, although they had prospected between the Yukon and the Arctic Ocean and far down to the mouth of the Yukon, and about everywhere else!
“Harper and McQueston had been on the Klondike, but did not find anything at first. Bob Henderson had as much nerve as anybody. They went up on Indian River, which runs parallel to the Klondike, about fifteen miles away. Henderson worked on Quartz Creek, they say,and he had to thaw out his ground with log fires the way they used to do, so he did not make much. Then he worked on Australia Creek. Of course these men all moved around a good deal. He only got about 600 or 700 dollars on the creek where he was working, so he moved over to a stream which he thought ran into the Klondike, and he called this Gold Bottom. He got the color here.
“Bob Henderson met George W. Carmac, and he offered to share his new strikes up on Gold Bottom, but he drew the line at the Indians Carmac was living with! So Carmac did not go out at first. But Carmac and two Indians, Charley and George, did go up the Klondike, and up Bonanza after a little, about a mile above the mouth. They were looking after logs for lumber. But they found color up in there. The Indians didn’t care much about it. But after Bob told them about strikes higher up in the country, these Indians and Carmac went farther up Bonanza. They all claim to have found the first gold there. Henderson would not let them stake on Gold Bottom because he didn’t like the Indians, so they turned back, because they had found tencents to the pan on Bonanza. They found more gold on Bonanza, and so Carmac staked there on August 17, 1896, the Discovery claim and Number One Below Discovery, each 500 feet long, up and down the creek. They tell me that these claims ran the full width of the valley bottom—that is, from base to base of the hill on either side.
“Then some Indians staked above and below, Tagish Charley on Number Two below, and Skookum Jim on Number One above. They had about a cartridgeful of gold when they got down to the mouth of the Klondike, and they still thought there was more money in lumber than in mining.
“Everybody got wind of it now, and there were a lot of people in this country already, before the Klondike news got out. There were twenty-five men looking for Henderson’s Creek, and about that many looking for the Carmac claims.
“So Henderson didn’t get any of the rich strike on Bonanza, although he had told Carmac about it. He always said Carmac ought to have told him, so he could have got in there, too. Hendersoncouldn’t get out to Forty-Mile in time to record his claim on Gold Bottom, until Andrew Hunker got in on the creek below him, and he recorded his Discovery claim and had the creek named after him—Hunker Creek. But Henderson had cut a blaze on a tree and marked this creek as Gold Bottom Creek long before that.
“So they gave a discovery claim to Carmac on Bonanza Creek, and another on Gold Bottom or Hunker Creek to this man Hunker. So Henderson, who had been in here two years, and who had told everybody about what he had found and wanted everybody to share in it, got only a very bad claim, after all. Hard luck.
“I wish I could talk with those old-timers and the Indians who were first in this gold country; but Mr. Ogilvie did talk with them all, and I think what he sets down is perfectly true.
“What I was rather surprised to learn was that all this country was known as a gold country so long before the Klondike was heard of. Most people think that the Klondike strike brought the first stampedes into the Yukon Valley, but that is not the case at all. So I thought I would set this down, to have it straightwhen we all got older. As time goes by these things seem to get crooked, and sometimes men get credit who do not deserve it.
“Well, I have heard a good many stories about wild times in Dawson, but I have not any place to set that down here, nor to tell stories about getting rich quick. We only wanted to keep track of the early times in the wild country. So I guess this will do.
“Well, here we go, off for home!—On board the steamerNorcom, bound up the Yukon. Left at 9p.m., after saying good-by to all our friends in Dawson. We liked Dawson, but found it pretty quiet.
“Sunday, August 17th.—We are doing about five miles an hour. Current very swift. At noon saw the Stewart valley. Smith’s store on the bank. Saw some boats stampeding for the White River strikes. Passed the mouth of the White River. Saw a new boat full of men turning up that river on the stampede. It must be like old times. Well, all right—we’re goingout.
“Monday, August 18th.—Slow plugging up the current. Made Selkirk, an old trading-post and mining hangout, at 2p.m.The scenery here is much finer than on the Mackenzie. I don’t know if tourists will ever come on any of these rivers. It goes a little slow.
“A good many wood-yards along the banks of the river. Quite a business selling wood to the steamboats, which burn a lot. They showed us the line where the winter dog-stages carry the mail to Dawson. Someone showed us the O’Brien cabin, where four murders were committed. One white man and three Indians were hanged for it.
“Tuesday, August 19th.—We all got up pretty early, although John was sleepy and Jesse a little cross. I told them we ought to see the boat line up through the Five-Finger Rapids. But, pshaw! there wasn’t much about it. We could run these rapids, I am sure, in our canoe, with no danger at all. Of course, going up the current is stiff, so at the bottom of the chute the steamboat takes on a wire cable, and it winds around a drum with a donkey-engine, and that pulls the boat up the rapids. They are not much like some of the rapids we have seen.
“Well, it’s twenty years since theKlondike rush, and we’ve been over a good deal of the country that the old-timers saw. Here we come to White Horse, and there we shall take the railroad over the Skagway Pass, where so many men had such awful times trying to get from the salt water into the Yukon Valley.
“I don’t think I’ll write any more notes, because when you get to a railroad everybody knows about it all anyhow. John and Jesse and I feel pretty blue, after all. Our trip is the same as done when we get to White Horse, and we are sorry. When we once know we can get home all safe, we sort of feel homesick for the rivers and mountains, too. You know how that is.
“I don’t know that we would want to do it all over again, but we’ve had a fine time. I think John and Jesse are both a little taller. Uncle Dick says I am, too.
“But it will be fine to get home again. Uncle Dick says he is going to write and telegraph from White Horse once more. So good-by to the Yukon. And good-by to the Rat and the Mackenzie, too! Fine doings!”
Our party of explorers, who by this time felt entirely civilized, went about the streets of White Horse with a certain air of superiority over the individuals who had never been farther north than this railroad town. They were the heroes of the hour, with their tales of the Rat Portage, over which no party had come in in recent years, and each of them had to tell to many listeners the story of this or that incident of the long trail. Old graybearded men listened with respect to what these young boys had to say, and a newspaper man was very glad to make a copy of some of Rob’s careful diary, which he now began to value more and more.
All too soon they were to leave this place and to pass up over practically the original Klondike trail which came from the salt water over the White Pass and down the headwaters of the Yukon to this point. Theydid not visit the once famous White Horse Rapids, where so many of the boats of the Klondikers came to grief, but declared it would only bore them, since they had seen waters so much more imposing! The local inhabitants laughed at this, but admitted that many of the teeth of this once dangerous water had been extracted since the early days.
As Rob had said, Uncle Dick took time here to do a little of his correspondence. He sent out a message by wire once more to the families of his companions, and to this added a letter which he said would go north to Valdez with the boys themselves, in case he himself received news at Skagway which would make it impossible for him to accompany them to their homes.
One letter he wrote to the company which had sent him as its representative into this northern country, in the following terms: