DAWSON

“The Yukon district is a vast tract of country which forms the extreme north-westerly portion of the north-west territories of Canada. It is bounded to the south by the northern line of British Columbia, to the west by the eastern line of the United States territory of Alaska, to the east by the Rocky Mountains, and to the north by the Arctic Ocean. The district has an area of 192,000 square miles, or about the size of France. The region, as a whole, is mountainous in character, but it comprises as well an area of merely hilly or gently undulating country, besides many wide and flat bottomed valleys. It is more mountainous in the south-east and subsides generally and uniformly to the north-westward, the mountains becoming more isolated and separated by broader tracts of low land. The Yukon or Pelly River provides the main drainage of this region, passing from Canadian into American territory at a point in its course 1600 miles from the sea. The two hundred miles of its course in Canada receives the waters of all the most important of its tributaries the Stewart, Macmillan, Upper Pelly, Lewes, White River, &c., each with an extensive subsidiary river system, which spreading out like a fan towards the north-east, east, and south-east facilitate access into the interior.” So writes my friend Mr. Ogilvie, the Dominion Surveyor, who has an experience of over twenty years of this country and who is probably better acquainted with its natural characteristics and resources than any other living white man.

On the occasion of my last attempt to travel overland from New York to Paris the spot upon which Dawson City now stands was occupied by perhaps a dozen Indian wigwams. The current was so strong that we only landed from our skiff with difficulty and the timely assistance of some natives in birch bark canoes, the first of these graceful but rickety craft we had yet encountered. Just below the village a small river flows into the Yukon from the east, and the water looked so clear and pure that we filled our barrels, little dreaming that in a few months this apparently insignificant stream would be the talk of the civilised world. For this was the Thron-diuck, a word eventually corrupted into “Klondike” by the jargon of many nationalities. Then we visited the village, in search of food; finding in one hut some salmon, in another a piece of moose meat, both of venerable exterior. Most of the braves of the tribe were away hunting or fishing, but the old men and maidens were eager for news from up river, the sole topic of interest being, not the finding of nuggets, but the catching of fish. Strange as it may seem the name of Klondike is to this day associated in my mind with comparatively clean Indians and a good square meal. But hardly a year had elapsed before I discovered that on that quiet, sunlit evening, I was carelessly strolling about over millions of money without being aware of the fact.

Dawson City stands on the right bank of the Yukon on a plain almost surrounded by picturesque and partly wooded hills. There are towns existing much further north than this notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary. Many a cheap tripper from Aberdeen or Newcastle has been a good deal nearer the Pole, so far as actual latitude is concerned, for Dawson is south of the Norwegian towns of Hammerfest and Tromso; Archangel on the White Sea being situated on about the same latitude as the Klondike metropolis. The latter was founded shortly after the first discovery of gold in 1896, and a few months afterwards seven or eight thousand people were living there in tents and log huts. In 1898 a fire occurred and the whole town was rebuilt on more business-like lines, buildings, streets, and squares being laid out with regularity. The fire had not been wholly disastrous, for before its occurrence typhoid fever was raging amongst the miners, chiefly on account of improper food, impure water, and the miasma arising from the marshy, undrained soil. But when the town was restored, these evils were remedied, and, at the present day, Dawson contains about 30,000 inhabitants (probably more in summer), who, save for a rigorous winter, live under much the same conditions as the dweller in any civilised city of England or America. Out on the creeks, the life is still rough and primitive, but all the luxuries of life are obtainable in town, that is if you can afford to pay for them, for prices here are, at present, ruinous. This is chiefly due to the almost prohibitive tariff imposed upon everything, from machinery to cigars, by the Canadian Government. During our stay much discontent also prevailed in consequence of the vexatious gold-mining regulations which had lately come into operation and which had already compelled many owners of valuable claims to sell them at a loss and quit the country. An Englishman residing here told me that so long as the present mining laws exist prospectors will do well to avoid Canadian territory, and this I could well believe, for while we were there, Dawson was, on this account, in a ferment of excitement which threatened shortly to blaze into open rebellion unless the tension was removed.

The natural charms of Dawson have hitherto been sadly neglected by writers on Klondike, and yet it is in summer one of the prettiest places imaginable. Viewed from a distance on a still July day, the clean bright looking town and garden-girt villas dotting the green hills around are more suggestive of a tropical country than of a bleak Arctic land. An interesting landmark is the mighty landslip of rock and rubble which defaces the side of a steep cliff overlooking the city, for this avalanche of earth is said to have entombed some fifty or sixty Indians many years ago, and is of course therefore, according to local tradition, haunted. Notwithstanding its remoteness Dawson may almost be called a gay place. Stroll down the principal street at mid-day and you will find a well-dressed crowd of both sexes, some driving and cycling, others inspecting the shops or seated at flower-bedecked tables in the fashionable French “Restaurant du Louvre” with its white aproned garcons and central snowy altar of silver, fruit, and hors-d’oeuvres all complete. Everything has a continental look, from the glittering jewellers’ shops to the flower and fruit stalls, where you may buy roses or strawberries for a dollar apiece. I recollect discussing a meal of somewhat rusty bacon and beans (or Alaska strawberries as they were then called) when we landed for the first time amongst the Indians of Thron-diuck, and it seemed like some weird dream when one sultry afternoon during my recent stay I was invited by a party of smartly dressed ladies to partake of ices in a gilded cafe with red-striped sun-blinds on the very same spot. But you can now get almost anything here by paying for it, on a scale regulated by the local daily newspapers, which are sold for a shilling and sometimes more. Even in the cheaper eating-houses, where sausages steam in the window, the most frugal meal runs away with a five dollar note, while at the Regina Hotel (by no means a first-class establishment) the price charged for the most modest bedroom would have secured a sumptuous apartment at the Ritz palaces in Pall Mall or the Place Vendome! On the day of our arrival I thought a bar-tender was joking when he charged me three dollars for a pint of very ordinary “Medoc,” but quickly discovered that the man was in sober earnest. Nevertheless, only big prices are to be expected in a region almost inaccessible ten years ago. And what a change there is since those days. In 1896 it took us two months to reach Thron-diuck from the coast, and on the last occasion I received a reply from London to a cable within seven hours! This new era of progress and enlightenment seemed to have scared the insect creation, for, in 1896, “smudges” were lit here to drive away the clouds of mosquitoes which mingled with our very food; and now not a gnat was to be seen in Dawson, although the creeks around were said to be alive with them.

This is essentially a cosmopolitan city, and you may hear almost every known language, from Patagonian to Chinese, talked in its streets. “First Avenue,” about a mile long and fronting the river, is the finest thoroughfare, and the high-sounding title is not incongruous, for several handsome stone buildings now grace this street which in a few years will doubtless be worthy of Seattle or San Francisco. One side of the road is lined by busy wharves, with numberless steamers ever on the move, the other by shops of every description, restaurants, and gorgeous drinking-saloons. A stranger here cannot fail to be struck with the incongruity with which wealth and squalor are blended. Here a dainty restaurant is elbowed by a cheap American gargote, there a plate-glass window blazing with diamonds seems to shrink from a neighbouring emporium stocked with second-hand wearing apparel. Even the exclusive Zero Club with its bow window generally crowded with fashionable loungers, is contaminated by the proximity of a shabby drinking-bar, which, however, does not impair the excellence of its internal arrangements, as the writer can testify. For a Lucullian repast, of which I was invited to partake at this hospitable resort of good fellows of all nationalities, yet lingers in my memory!

But hospitality seems ingrained in the nature of the Klondiker high or low, and during its short stay here the Expedition was regally received and entertained. A wood-cut, which appeared in the principal newspaper representing “Dawson City extending the glad hand of welcome to Explorer De Windt” was no mere figure of speech, for we were seldom allowed to pay for a meal, while the refreshments and cigars lavished upon me by total strangers at every moment of the day would have set up a regimental mess. My host here was the manager of the “Alaska Commercial Company,” which has practically ruled the country from the year of its annexation, and without whose assistance I should often have fared badly during my travels in the interior. Mr. Mizner, the agent, occupied one of the newest and finest houses in Dawson, but I was awakened the first night by a sound suggestive of a spirited wrestling bout in an adjoining apartment. The noise continued almost without cessation, and only ceased when the business of the day recommenced in the streets. Then the mystery was explained; my imaginary wrestlers were rats, which are not, I believe, indigenous to Alaska. Originally brought to St. Michael during the gold rush by an old and patched-up barque from San Francisco, the enterprising rodents boarded a river steamer and landed here, where conditions appear especially favourable to their reproduction. Scarcely a house in the place was free from them, and at night, or rather through its twilight hours, the streets swarmed with the disgusting brutes who seemed to regard human beings with supreme indifference. From latest advices this annoyance still exists and a fortune therefore awaits a good London rat-catcher in Dawson.

Dissipation used to reign here supreme as it does to-day at Nome, but the Canadian authorities have now placed a heavy heel upon gambling-saloons, dancing-halls, and similar establishments. And although the closing of these places has caused much dissatisfaction amongst those who profited by them, the measure has undoubtedly been for the general good of the community. Many a poor miner has come in from the creeks with gold-dust galore, the result of many months of hard work and privation, and found himself penniless after a single night passed amongst the saloons, dives, and dens of an even worse description which formerly flourished here. In those days the place swarmed with women of the lowest class, the very sweepings of San Francisco, and with them came such a train of thieves and bullies that finally the law was compelled to step in and prevent a further influx of this undesirable element. Dawson is now as quiet and orderly as it was once the opposite, for ladies unable to prove their respectability are compelled to reside in a distant suburb bearing the euphonious name of Louse-Town. This place is probably unique, at any rate amongst civilised nations, although the Japanese Yoshiwara, outside Tokio, where every dwelling is one of ill-fame, is, although, much larger, almost its exact prototype.

Crime in and about Dawson is now rare thanks to that fine body of men, the North-west Mounted Police. Piccadilly is no safer than the streets here, which, during the dark winter months, blaze with electricity. The Irish ruffian, George O’Brien, who, a couple of years ago, built a shanty in a lonely spot and robbed and murdered many prospectors, was arrested and hanged with a celerity which has since deterred other evil doers. For the system of police surveillance here is almost as strict as in Russia, and although passports are not required the compulsory registration of every traveller at the hotels and road houses answers much the same purpose.

Although rowdy revelry is discountenanced by the authorities Dawson City can be gay enough both in summer and winter. In the open season there is horse-racing along First Avenue, where notwithstanding the rough and stony course and deplorable “crocks” engaged, large sums of money change hands. There are also picnics and A. B. floaters, or water parties organised by a Society known as the “Arctic Brotherhood,” who charter a steamer once a week for a trip up or down river, which is made the occasion for dancing and other festivities entailing the consumption of much champagne. At this season there is also excellent fishing in the Yukon and its tributaries, where salmon, grayling, and trout are plentiful. The first named run to an enormous weight, but are much coarser and less delicate in flavour than the European fish. The Fourth of July is a day of general rejoicing, for there are probably as many, if not more, Americans than Canadians here. There is good rough shooting within easy distance of Dawson, and the sporting fraternity occasionally witnesses a prize fight, when Frank Slavin (who owns an hotel here) occasionally displays his skill.

The history of the Klondike gold-fields has so often been told that I shall not weary the reader by going over old ground: how George Cormack made his lucky strike on Bonanza Creek, taking out L240 of gold in a couple of days from a spot which, with proper appliances, would have yielded L1000, or how the steamship Excelsior arrived in San Francisco one July day in 1897 with half a million dollars and thirty old timers whose tales of a land gorged with gold were almost universally discredited. But these were confirmed by the arrival of the Portland a few days later with over a million dollars’ worth of dust stowed away in oil cans, jam-tins, and even wrapped in old newspapers, so desolate and primitive was the region from whence it came. Then, as every one knows, the news was flashed over the world and was followed by a stampede the like of which had not been witnessed since the days of ’49. Unfortunately, the simple and primitive way in which the gold was gained seemed suggestive of a poor man’s “El Dorado,” and consequently many of those who went into the Klondike with the first batch of gold seekers were small tradesmen, railway officials, clerks, and others, whose sedentary occupation had rendered them quite unfit for a life of peril and privation in the frozen north. The tragic experiences of these first pilgrims to the land of gold are probably still fresh in the mind of the reader the deaths by cold and hunger on the dreaded Chilkoot Pass, or by drowning in the stormy lakes and treacherous rapids of the Yukon. The death list during the rush of 1897 will long be remembered in Dawson City, for many of those who survived the dangers of the road were stricken down on arrival by typhoid fever, which allied to famine, claimed, in those days, a terrible percentage of victims. And yet if the risks were great, the rewards were greater for those blessed with youth, perseverance and, above all, a hardy constitution. Perhaps the most notable case of success in the early days was that of Clarence Berry (then known as the “Barnato of the Klondike"). When Berry left California his capital consisted of L20 which enabled him to reach the scene of operations and to take L26,000 out of the ground within six months of his departure from home. Mrs. Berry, who pluckily joined her husband at Dawson, is said to have lifted no less than L10,000 from her husband’s claims in her spare moments. About this period many other valuable discoveries took place and amongst them may be mentioned MacDonald’s claim on “El Dorado” which yielded L19,000 in twenty-eight days, Leggatt’s claims on the same creek which in eight months produced L8400 from a space only twenty-four square feet, and Ladue, a Klondike pioneer, who for seven consecutive days took L360 from one claim and followed his good fortune with such pluck and persistency that he is now a millionaire. Of other authentic cases I may mention that of a San Francisco man and his wife who were able to secure only one claim which to their joy and surprise yielded L27,000, and that of a stoker on board a Yukon river boat who in 1896 was earning L10 a month and who, the following summer, was worth his L30,000!

“The Thron-diuck river enters the Yukon from the east, it is a small stream about forty yards wide at the mouth and shallow; the water is clear and transparent and of a beautiful blue colour, the Indians catch great numbers of salmon here. A miner had prospected up this river for an estimated distance of forty miles in the season of 1887. I did not see him.”]

But the foregoing are only individual cases which have come under my personal notice. There were, of course, innumerable others, for it was a common thing in those days for a man to return to California after a year’s absence with from L5000 to L10,000 in his pocket. Take, for instance, the case of the lucky bar-tender of Forty Mile City who joined the general exodus from that place which followed Cormack’s first discovery. This man came out of the country with $132,000 in gold dust which he had taken out of his stake, and after purchasing an adjoining claim for another $100,000 (all taken from his original claim), it is said (though I cannot vouch for this statement) that the fortunate cock-tail mixer eventually sold his property to a New York Syndicate for L400,000. Of course at this time fairy tales were pretty freely circulated; how, for instance, one man with very long whiskers had been working hard in his drift all through the winter and, as was the custom, neither washed nor shaved. In the spring when the whiskers were shaved off his partner is said to have secured them, washed them out in a pan, and collected $27 as the result! This is of course absurd, but facts in those days concerning discoveries were so marvellous that they were easily confused with fiction. Thus Mr. Ogilvie, the Dominion Surveyor and a personal friend of mine, told me that he went into one of the richest claims one day and asked to be allowed to wash out a panful of gold. The pay streak was very rich but standing at the bottom of the shaft, and looking at it by the light of a candle, all that could be seen was a yellowish looking dirt with here and there the sparkle of a little gold. Ogilvie took out a big panful and started to wash it out, while several miners stood around betting as to the result. Five hundred dollars was the highest estimate, but when the gold was weighed it came to a little over $590, or nearly L120. This I can vouch for as a fact.

A coach runs daily out from Dawson to the diggings about fifteen miles away, but although the famous Bonanza and El Dorado Creeks are still worth a visit, I fancy the good old days are over here when fortunes were made in a week and saloon keepers reaped a comfortable income by sweeping up spilt gold dust every morning. Klondike is no longer a region of giant nuggets and fabulous finds, for every inch of likely ground has been prospected over and over again. Nevertheless many of the creeks are doing well, notably that of “Last Chance,” which may even eclipse El Dorado when machinery has been brought to bear. Almost any claim on “Last Chance” is now a sound investment, but this was about the only creek which, during our stay, was attracting any serious attention from outside.

It is probably unnecessary to explain that, with one or two exceptions, the gold in Alaska is obtained by placer-mining. This consists simply in making a shaft to bedrock and then tunnelling in various directions. The pay dirt is hauled out by a small hand-windlass and piled up until it is washed out. I am indebted to my friend Mr. Joseph Ladue, for the following description of the various processes which follow excavation.

“The miner lifts a little of the finer gravel or sand in his pan. He then fills the latter with water and gives it a few rapid whirls and shakes. This tends to bring the gold to the bottom on account of its greater specific gravity. The pan is then held and shaken in such a way that the sand and gravel are gradually washed out, care being taken as the process nears completion, to avoid letting out the finer and heavier parts that have settled to the bottom. Finally all that is left in the pan is gold and some black sand, which is generally pulverised magnetic iron-ore. Should the gold thus found be fine, the contents of the pan are thrown into a barrel containing water and a pound or two of mercury. As soon as the gold comes in contact with the mercury it combines with it and forms an amalgam. The process is continued until enough amalgam has been formed to pay for roasting or firing.

“It is then squeezed through a buckskin bag, all the mercury that comes through the bag being put into the barrel to serve again, and what remains in the bag is placed in a retort, if the miner has one, or if not, on a shovel, and heated until nearly all the mercury is vaporised. The gold then remains in a lump with some mercury still held in combination with it.

“This is called the ‘pan,’ or ‘hand-method,’ which is only employed when it is impossible to procure a rocker or to make and work sluices.

“The latter is the best method of placer-mining, but it requires a good supply of water with sufficient head or falls. The process is as follows: Planks are secured and made into a box of suitable depth and width. Slats are fixed across the bottom of the box at intervals, or holes bored in the bottom in such a way as to preclude the escape of any particle of gold. Several of these boxes are then set up with a considerable slope, and are fitted into one another at the ends like a stove pipe. A stream of water is then thrown into the upper end of the highest box, the dirt being shovelled in and washed downwards, at the same time. The gold is detained by its weight, and is held by the slats or in the holes aforementioned. If it be fine, mercury is placed behind the slats or in these holes to catch it. After the boxes are done with they are burnt and the ashes washed for the gold held in the wood.”

These methods seem simple enough and, no doubt, would be in more temperate regions, but the mines of the Yukon are of a class by themselves, and the rigorous climate here necessitates entirely new methods for getting the gold. It was formerly considered impossible to work after the month of September, but experience has now conclusively proved that much may be accomplished during the winter months. The working year is therefore three times as long as it used to be, and the time formerly wasted in idleness is now profitably employed. The difficulty of winter mining is, of course, enormously increased by the fact that the ground is frozen. Every foot of it must be thawed, either in sinking or drifting, by small fires. The shallower mines are worked during the summer in the open air, but when the gravel is more than six feet deep a shaft is sunk, and dirt enough removed to allow space to work in. Thus the gold seeker with a log hut close to the mouth of his shaft and provided with plenty of food and fuel may pass a whole winter in comparative comfort. About a ton of dead ground can be dumped daily, and a few hundred pounds of pay gravel. The latter is piled up until the spring when the thaw comes. It is then “panned” or “rocked” without difficulty, for here, unlike Western Australia, there is no lack of water.

Steam power has now supplanted these more or less primitive methods on the most important claims, but here again the enormous duty levied by the Canadian Government on machinery of all kinds, was, while we were at Dawson, causing universal indignation. A single visit to the creeks sufficed for me, for although Dawson was free from mosquitoes, the diggings swarmed with them. And, talking of mosquitoes, no one unacquainted with Alaska can be aware of the almost unbearable suffering which they are capable of inflicting upon mankind. Brehm, the famous naturalist, has furnished about the best description of a luckless prospector caught in the toils. “Before a man knows,” says the professor, “he is covered from head to foot with a dense swarm, blackening grey cloths and giving dark ones a strange spotted appearance. They creep to the unprotected face and neck, the bare hands, and stockinged feet, slowly sink their sting into the skin, and pour the irritant poison into the wound. Furiously the victim beats the blood-sucker to a pulp, but while he does so, five, ten, twenty other gnats fasten on his face and hands. The favourite points of attack are the temples, the neck, and the wrist, also the back of the head, for the thickest hair is of no protection. Although the naturalist knows that it is only the female mosquitoes which suck blood, and that their activity in this respect is connected with reproduction and is probably necessary to the ripening of the fertilised eggs, yet even he is finally overcome by the torture caused by these demons, though he be the most equable philosopher under the sun. It is not the pain caused by the sting, or still more by the resulting swelling; it is the continual annoyance, the everlastingly recurring discomfort under which one suffers. One can endure the pain of the sting without complaint at first, but sooner or later every man is bound to confess himself conquered, and all resistance is gradually paralysed by the innumerable omnipresent armies always ready for combat.”

Although the climate of Dawson is naturally severe a man may live with proper precautions through a dozen winters comfortably enough in Alaska. Many people are under the impression that the winters here are of Cimmerian darkness, with no daylight for weeks at a time, whereas, even on the shortest day of December, there are still two hours of sunligh deg. F. below zero is about the coldest yet experienced, but this is very rare, and here, unlike Canada, there is seldom the wind which makes even 20 deg. below almost unbearable. Winter generally commences in October, but often much earlier, and the Yukon is generally clear of ice by the beginning of June. The snowfall is not excessive, three feet being considered deep. In summer the temperature often exceeds 90 deg. F. but the nights are always cool and pleasant.

The Klondike district had, up to the time of the great gold strike, borne the reputation of being an arid ice-bound waste, incapable of producing anything more nutritious than trees, coarse grass, and the berries peculiar to sub-Arctic regions. On the occasion of my first stroll down First Avenue I was scarcely surprised to find all kinds of fruit and vegetables exposed for sale, the transit now being so rapidly accomplished (in summer) from California. But ocular proof was needed to convince me that potatoes, radishes, lettuce, cucumbers, indeed almost every known vegetable, is now grown around Dawson and on the opposite side of the river. Strawberries and nectarines (Klondike-grown) were served at the restaurants, of course at stupendous prices, as hundreds of acres of glass and costly artificial heat had been needed for their production. Hot-house flowers are now grown here and also sold at a ruinous cost, but the lucky prospector will cheerfully part with $5 for a rose, or five times the amount for a puny gardenia, and some of the market gardens around Dawson are almost as profitable as a fairly rich claim. High prices here even extended to the commonest furs judging from the price I obtained for a tattered deerskin coat which had cost me only eighty roubles at Moscow. But although the garment was now almost unpresentable I sold it to a bar-tender for its original price, and heard, on the same evening, that it had again been disposed of to a “Chechako” from up country for over $200!

Klondike is generally associated in the public mind with intense cold. We suffered from a perpetual and stifling heat which necessitated the wearing of tropical tweeds, a sartorial luxury here where a summer suiting costs about six times as much as in Savile Row. Once there was a sharp thunderstorm and the rain came down in sheets, somewhat cooling the atmosphere, but only for a short time, for when the sky cleared a dense mist arose from the swampy ground, and the air became as heavy and oppressive as I have known it during the hottest season of the year in Central Bornéo. But the nights were always cool and delicious, and these moreover were now gradually darkening, an ineffable blessing which can only be duly appreciated by those who have experienced the miseries of eternal day. The English tourist who in July races northwards in the “Argonaut” to behold the midnight sun should pass a summer or two in Northern Alaska. He would never wish to see it again!