Golden Alaska Part 1

Golden Alaska.

by Ernest Ingersoll.

INTRODUCTION.

To make "a book about the Klondike" so shortly after that word first burst upon the ears of a surprised world, would be the height of literary impudence, considering how remote and incommunicado that region is, were it not the public is intensely curious to know whatever can be said authentically in regard to it. "The Klondike," it must be remembered, is, in reality, a very limited district--only one small river valley in a gold-bearing territory twice as large as New England; and it came into prominence so recently that there is really little to tell in respect to it because nothing has had time to happen and be communicated to the outside world. But in its neighborhood, and far north and south of it, are other auriferous rivers, creeks and bars, and mountains filled with untried quartz-ledges, in respect to which information has been acc.u.mulating for some years, and where at any moment "strikes" may be made that shall equal or eclipse the wealth of the Klondike placers. It is possible, then, to give here much valuable information in regard to the Yukon District generally, and this the writer has attempted to do. The best authority for early exploration and geography is the monumental work of Capt. W. H. Dall, "Alaska and its Resources," whose companion, Frederick Whymper, also wrote a narrative of their adventures. The reports of the United States Coast Survey in that region, of the exploration of the Upper Yukon by Schwatka and Hayes of the United States Geological Survey, of Nelson, Turner and others attached to the Weather Service, of the Governor of the Territory, of Raymond, Abercrombie, Allen and other army and naval officers who have explored the coast country and reported to various departments of the government, and of several individual explorers, especially the late E.

J. Glave, also contain facts of importance for the present compilation.

The most satisfactory sources of information as to the geography, routes of travel, geology and mineralogy and mining development, are contained in the investigations conducted some ten years ago by the Canadian Geological Survey, under the leadership of Dr. G. M. Dawson and of William Ogilvie. Of these I have made free use, and wish to make an equally free acknowledgement.

It will thus be found that the contents of this pamphlet justified even the hasty publication which the public demands, and which precludes much attention to literary form; but an additional claim to attention is the information it seeks to give intending travelers to that far-away and very new and as yet unfurnished region, how to go and what to take, and what are the conditions and emergencies which they must prepare to meet. Undoubtedly the pioneers to the Yukon pictured the difficulties of the route and the hardships of their life in the highest colors, both to add to their self-glory and to reduce compet.i.tion. Moreover, every day mitigates the hardships and makes easier the travel. Nevertheless, enough difficulties, dangers and chances of failure remain to make the going to Alaska a matter for very careful forethought on the part of every man. To help him weigh the odds and choose wisely, is the purpose of this little book.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF ALASKA.]

GOLDEN ALASKA.

ROUTES TO THE YUKON GOLD-FIELDS.

The gold-fields of the Yukon Valley, at and near Klondike River, are near the eastern boundary of Alaska, from twelve to fifteen hundred miles up from the mouth of the river, and from five to eight hundred miles inland by the route across the country from the southern Alaskan coast. In each case an ocean voyage must be taken as the first step; and steamers may be taken from San Francisco, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Wash., or from Victoria, B. C.

The overland routes to these cities require a word.

1. To San Francisco. This city is reached directly by half a dozen routes across the plains and Rocky Mountains, of which the Southern Pacific, by way of New Orleans and El Paso; the Atchison & Santa Fe and Atlantic & Pacific by way of Kansas City, and across northern New Mexico and Arizona; the Burlington, Denver & Rio Grande, by way of Denver and Salt Lake City; and the Union and Central Pacific, by way of Omaha, Ogden and Sacramento, are the princ.i.p.al ones.

2. To Portland, Oregon. This is reached directly by the Union Pacific and Oregon Short Line, via Omaha and Ogden; and by the Northern Pacific, via St. Paul and Helena, Montana.

3. To Seattle, Wash. This city, Tacoma, Port Townsend and other ports on Puget Sound, are the termini of the Northern Pacific Railroad and also of the Great Northern Railroad from St. Paul along the northern boundary of the United States. The Canadian Pacific will also take pa.s.sengers there expeditiously by rail or boat from Vancouver, B. C.

4. To Vancouver and Victoria, B. C. Any of the routes heretofore mentioned reach Victoria by adding a steamboat journey; but the direct route, and one of the pleasantest of all the transcontinental routes, is by the Canadian Pacific Railway from Montreal or Chicago, via Winnipeg, Manitoba, to the coast at Vancouver, whence a ferry crosses to Victoria.

Regular routes of transportation to Alaska are supplied by the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, which has been dispatching mail-steamships once a fortnight the year round from Tacoma to Sitka, which touch at Juneau and all other ports of call. They also maintain a service of steamers between San Francisco and Portland and Puget Sound ports. These are fitted with every accommodation and luxury for tourist-travel; and an extra steamer, the Queen, has been making semi-monthly trips during June, July and August. These steamers would carry 250 pa.s.sengers comfortably and the tourist fare for the round trip has been $100.

The Canadian Pacific Navigation Company has been sending semi-monthly steamers direct from Victoria to Port Simpson and way stations the year round. They are fine boats, but smaller than the others and are permitted to land only at Sitka and Dyea.

Such are the means of regular communication with Alaskan ports. There has been no public conveyance north of Sitka, except twice or thrice a year in summer, in the supply-steamers of the Alaskan commercial companies, which sailed from San Francisco to St. Michael and there transferred to small boats up the Yukon.

Whether any changes will be made in these schedules for the season of 1898 remains to be seen.

Special steamers.--As the regular accommodations were found totally inadequate to the demand for pa.s.sage to Alaska which immediately followed the report of rich discoveries on Klondike Creek, extra steamers were hastily provided by the old companies, others are fitted up and sent out by speculative owners, and some have been privately chartered. A score or more steamships, loaded with pa.s.sengers, horses, mules and burros (donkeys) to an uncomfortable degree, were thus despatched from San Francisco, Puget Sound and Victoria between the middle of July and the middle of August. An example of the way the feverish demand for transportation is found in the case of the Willamette, a collier, which was cleaned out in a few hours and turned into an extemporized pa.s.senger-boat. The whole 'tween decks s.p.a.ce was filled with rough bunks, wonderfully close together, for "first-cla.s.s"

pa.s.sengers; while away down in the hold second-cla.s.s arrangements were made which the mind shudders to contemplate. Yet this slave-ship sort of a chance was eagerly taken, and such s.p.a.ce as was left was crowded with animals and goods. Many persons and parties bought or chartered private steamers, until the supply of these was exhausted by the end of August.

Two routes may be chosen to the gold-fields.

1. By way of the Yukon River. This is all the way by water, and means nearly 4,500 miles of voyaging.

2. By way of the seaports of Dyea or Shkagway, over mountain pa.s.ses, afoot or a-horseback, and down the upper Yukon River and down the lakes and rivers by raft, skiff and steamboat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GLACIER BAY. STEAMSHIP QUEEN.]

To describe these routes is the next task--first, that by the way of St.

Michael, and second--up the Yukon River.

Route, via St. Michael and the Yukon River.--This begins by a sea-voyage, which may be direct, or along the coast. The special steamers (and future voyages, no doubt) usually take a direct course across the North Pacific and through the Aleutian Islands to St.

Michael, in Norton Sound, a bight of Bering Sea. The distance from San Francisco is given as 2,850 miles; from Victoria or Seattle, about 2,200 miles. The inside course would be somewhat longer, would follow the route next to be described as far as Juneau and Sitka, then strike northwest along the coast to St. Michael.

This town, on an island near sh.o.r.e in Norton Sound, was established in 1835 by Lieut. Michael Tebenkoff, of the Russian navy, who named it after his patron saint. Though some distance to the mouth of the Yukon entrance, St. Michael has always been the controlling center and base of supplies for the great valley. The North American Trading and Transportation Company and the Alaska Commercial Company have their large warehouses here, and provide the miners with tools, clothing and provisions. Recently the wharf and warehouse accommodations have been extended, and the population has increased, but if, as is probable, any considerable number of men are stopped there this fall by the freezing of the river, and compelled to pa.s.s the winter on the island, they will find it a dreary, if not dangerous experience.

The vessels supplying this depot can seldom approach the anchorage of St. Michael before the end of June on account of large bodies of drifting ice that beset the waters of Norton Sound and the straits between St. Lawrence and the Yukon Delta.

A temporary landing-place is built out into water deep enough for loaded boats drawing five feet to come up at high tide, this is removed when winter approaches, as otherwise it would be destroyed by ice. The sh.o.r.e is sandy and affords a moderately sloping beach, on which boats may be drawn up. A few feet only from high water mark are perpendicular banks from six to ten feet high, composed of decayed pumice and ashes, covered with a layer about four feet thick of clay and vegetable matter resembling peat. This forms a nearly even meadow with numerous pools of water, which gradually ascends for a mile or so to a low hill, of volcanic origin, known as the Shaman Mountain.

Between the point on which St. Michael is built and the mainland, a small arm of the sea makes in, in which three fathoms may be carried until the flagstaff of the fort bears west by north, this is the best-protected anchorage, and has as much water and as good bottom as can be found much farther out.

The excitement of the summer of 1897 caused an enlargement of facilities and the erection of additional buildings, forming a nucleus of traffic called Fort Get There. Here will be put together in the autumn or winter at least three, and perhaps more, new river steamboats, of which only two or three have been running on the lower river during the last two or three years. These are taken up, in pieces, by ships and fitted together at this point. All are flat-bottomed, stern-wheeled, powerfully engined craft, the largest able to carry perhaps 250 tons, such as run on the upper Missouri, and they will burn wood, the cutting and stacking of which on the river bank will furnish work to many men during the coming winter. To such steamers, or smaller boats, all the persons and cargoes must be transferred at St. Michael.

For the last few years there has been no trader here but the agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, and a story is told of the building of a riverboat there in 1892, which ill.u.s.trates what life on the Yukon used to be. In that year a Chicago man, P. B. Weare, resolved to enter the Alaskan field as a trader. He chartered a schooner, and placed upon it a steamboat, built in sections and needing only to be put together and have its machinery set up, and for this purpose he took with him a force of carpenters and machinists. On reaching St. Michael Weare was refused permission to land his boat sections on the land of the Commercial Company's post, and was compelled to make a troublesome landing on the open beach, where he began operations. Suddenly his ship carpenters stopped work. They had been offered, it was said, double pay by the rival concern if they would desist from all work. Weare turned to the Indians, but with the same ill-success. The Indians were looking out for their winter grub. Here was the Chicago man 2,500 miles from San Francisco and only two weeks left to him in which to put his boat together and then hope for a chance to ascend the river before winter came on. There was no time in which to get additional men from San Francisco. In the midst of his trouble Weare one day espied the revenue cutter Bear steaming into the roadstead. On board of her was Captain Michael A. Healy. That officer, on going ash.o.r.e and discovering the condition of affairs, threatened to hang every carpenter and mechanic Weare had brought up if they failed to immediately commence work. The men went to work, and with them went a gang of men from the Bear. The little steamer was put together in a few days, and the Bear only went to sea after seeing the P. B. Weare steaming into the mouth of the Yukon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEAMER PORTUS B. WEARE.]

The Weare was enabled that summer to land her stores along the Yukon, and was the only vessel available for the early crowds of miners going to Klondike.

The mouth of the Yukon is a great delta, surrounded by marsh of timber--a soaking prairie in summer, a plain of snow and ice in winter.

The shifting bars and shallows face out from this delta far into Bering Sea, and no channel has yet been discovered whereby an ocean steamer could enter any of the mouths. Fortunately the northernmost mouth, nearest St. Michael and 65 miles from it, is navigable for the light river steamers, and this one, called Aphoon, and marked by its unusual growth of willows and bushes is well known to the local Russian and Indian pilots. It is narrow and intricate, and the general course up stream is south-southeast. Streams and pa.s.sages enter it, and it has troublesome tidal currents. The whole s.p.a.ce between the mouth is a net-work, indeed, of narrow channels, through the marshes.

Kutluck, at the outlet of the Aphoon, on Pastol Bay, is an Indian village, long celebrated for its manufacture of skin boats (bidars), and there the old-time voyagers were accustomed to get the only night's sleep ash.o.r.e that navigation permits between St. Michael and Andraefski.

On the south bank of the main stream, at the head of the delta, is the Roman Catholic mission of Kuslivuk; and a few miles higher, just above the mouth of the Andraefski River, is the abandoned Russian trading post, Andraefski, above which the river winds past Icogmute, where there is a Greek Catholic mission. The banks of the river are much wooded, and the current even as far down as Koserefski averages over three knots an hour. Above Koserefski (the Catholic Mission station), the course is along stretches of uninviting country, among marsh islands and "sloughs," the current growing more and more swift on the long reach from Auvik, where the Episcopal mission is situated, to Nulato.

The river here has a nearly north and south course, parallel with the coast of Norton Sound and within fifty miles or so of it. Two portages across here form cut-offs in constant use in winter by the traders, Indians and missionaries. The first of these portages starts from the mainland opposite the Island of St. Michael, and pa.s.ses over the range of hills that defines the sh.o.r.e to the headwaters of the Anvik River.

This journey may be made in winter by sledges and thence down the Auvik to the Yukon, but it is a hard road. Mr. Nelson, the naturalist, and a fur trader, spent two months from November 16, 1880, to January 19, 1891, in reaching the Yukon by this path.

The other portage is that between Unalaklik, a Swedish mission station at the mouth of the Unalaklik River, some fifty miles north of St.

Michael, and a stream that enters the Yukon half way between Auvik and Nulato. In going from St. Michael to Unalatlik there are few points at which a boat can land even in the smoothest weather; in rough weather only Major's Cove and Kegiktowenk before rounding Tolstoi Point to Topanika, where there is a trading post. Topanika is some ten miles from Unalaklik, with a high shelving beach, behind which rise high walls of sandstone in perpendicular bluffs from twenty to one hundred feet in height. This beach continues all the way to the Unalaklik River, the bluff gradually decreasing into a marshy plain at the river's mouth, which is obstructed by a bar over which at low tide there are only a few feet of water except in a narrow and tortuous channel, constantly changing as the river deposits fresh detritus. Inside this bar there are two or three fathoms for a few miles, but the channel has only a few feet, most of the summer, from the mouth of the river to Ulukuk.

Trees commence along the Unalaklik River as soon as the distance from the coast winds and salt air permit them to grow; willow, poplar, birch and spruce being those most frequently found.

The Unalaklik River is followed upward to Ulukuk, where begins a sledging portage over the marshes to the Ulukuk Hills, where there is a native village known as Vesolia Sopka, or Cheerful Peak, at an alt.i.tude of eight hundred feet above the surrounding plain. This is a well-known trapping ground, the fox and marten being very plentiful. From Sopka Vesolia (Cheerful Peak) it is about one day's journey to Beaver Lake, which is only a marshy tundra in winter, but is flooded in the spring and summer months. From the high hills beyond the lake one may catch a first glimpse of the great Yukon sweeping between its splendid banks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD RUSSIAN BLOCK HOUSE AT SITKA.]

The natives call Nulato emphatically a "hungry" place, and it was once the scene of an atrocious ma.s.sacre. Capt. Dall, from whose book much of the information regarding this part of Alaska is derived, describes the Indians here as a very great nuisance. "They had," he explains, "a great habit of coming in and sitting down, doing and saying nothing, but watching everything. At meal times they seemed to count and weigh every morsel we ate, and were never backward in a.s.sisting to dispose of the remains of the meal. Occasionally we would get desperate and clean them all out, but they would drop in again and we could do nothing but resign ourselves."