Golden Alaska Part 4

17. Every miner shall, during the continuance of his grant, have the exclusive right of entry upon his own claim for the miner-like working thereof, and the construction of a residence thereon, and shall be ent.i.tled exclusively to all the proceeds realized therefrom; but he shall have no surface rights therein, and the Gold Commissioner may grant to the holders of adjacent claims such rights of entry thereon as may be absolutely necessary for the working of their claims, upon such terms as may to him seem reasonable. He may also grant permits to miners to cut timber thereon for their own use, upon payment of the dues prescribed by the regulation in that behalf.

18. Every miner shall be ent.i.tled to the use of so much of the water naturally flowing through or past his claim, and not already lawfully appropriated as shall in the opinion of the Gold Commissioner be necessary for the due working thereof, and shall be ent.i.tled to drain his own claim free of charge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHILKOOT Pa.s.s.]

19. A claim shall be deemed to be abandoned and open to occupation and entry by any person when the same shall have remained unworked on working days by the guarantee thereof or by some person in his behalf for the s.p.a.ce of seventy-two hours unless sickness or some other reasonable cause may be shown to the satisfaction of the Gold Commissioner, or unless the guarantee is absent on leave given by the commissioner, and the Gold Commissioner, upon obtaining satisfactory evidence that this provision is not being complied with, may cancel the entry given in the claim.

20. If the land upon which a claim has been located is not the property of the Crown it will be necessary for the person who applies for entry to furnish proof that he has acquired from the owner of the land the surface right before entry can be granted.

21. If the occupier of the lands has not received a patent thereof the purchase money of the surface rights must be paid to the Crown and a patent of the surface rights will issue to the party who acquired the mining rights. The money so collected will either be refunded to the occupier of the land when he is ent.i.tled to a patent there or will be credited to him on account of payment of land.

22. When the party obtaining the mining rights cannot make an arrangement with the owner thereof for the acquisition of the surface rights it shall be lawful for him to give notice to the owner or his agents or the occupier to appoint an arbitrator to act with another arbitrator named by him in order to award the amount of compensation to which the owner or occupier shall be ent.i.tled.

The royalty and reserve additions to this, made since the recent discoveries and on account of them, are as follows:

1. A royalty of 10 per cent will be collected for the government on all amounts taken out of any one claim up to $500 a week, and after that 20 per cent. This royalty will be collected on gold taken from streams already being worked, but in regard to all future discoveries the government proposes

2. That upon every river and creek where mining locations shall be staked out every alternate claim shall be the property of the government.

These regulations, say the Canadians, are made with the purpose of developing a country, which, as elsewhere shown in this pamphlet, is capable of supporting a large permanent population and varied industries. Whether they can be enforced remains to be seen, and difficulties will certainly attend the collection of a royalty on gold-dust. The effect of these regulations, it is believed by the authors, will be to encourage permanent settlement and the treatment of mining as a regular industry and not simply as an adventurous speculation. Another effect, undoubtedly, will be to cause immigrants, including Canadians themselves, to prospect and mine on the United States side of the line, whenever they have an equal opportunity for success.

The boundary dispute does not as yet seriously affect the question or rights and privileges in the new gold regions, as the disputed part of the line, southeast of Alaska, runs through a region not yet occupied, and practically the whole of Lynn Ca.n.a.l is administered by the United States, and the Canadians act as though it were decided that their boundary was farther inland than some of them pretend. From Mt. St.

Elias north, the 141st meridian is the undisputed boundary, and this has been fixed by an international commission, crossing the Yukon at a marked point near the mouth of Forty Mile Creek. Nearly or quite all of the diggings upon which are written Alaskan territory, as also are the valuable placers on Birch and Miller creeks. It will be a matter of extreme difficulty along this part of the boundary to prevent smuggling, to discover and collect Canadian royalties, and to capture criminals except by international cooperation.

CLIMATE, AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH.

The Weather Bureau has made public a statement in regard to the climate of Alaska, which says: "The climates of the coast and the interior of Alaska are unlike in many respects, and the differences are intensified in this as perhaps in few other countries by exceptional physical conditions. The fringe of islands that separates the mainland from the Pacific Ocean from Dixon Sound north, and also a strip of the mainland for possibly twenty miles back from the sea, following the sweep of the coast as it curves to the northwestward to the western extremity of Alaska form a distinct climatic division which may be termed temperate Alaska. The temperature rarely falls to zero; winter does not set in until Dec. 1, and by the last of May the snow has disappeared except on the mountains.

"The mean winter temperature of Sitka is 32.5, but little less than that of Washington, D. C. The rainfall of temperate Alaska is notorious the world over, not only as regards the quant.i.ty, but also as to the manner of its falling, viz.: in long and incessant rains and drizzles. Cloud and fog naturally abound, there being on an average but sixty-six clear days in the year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL VIEW OF SILVER BOW BASIN, NEAR JUNEAU.]

"North of the Aleutian Islands the coast climate becomes more rigorous in winter, but in summer the difference is much less marked.

"The climate of the interior is one of extreme rigor in winter, with a brief but relatively hot summer, especially when the sky is free from cloud.

"In the Klondike region in midwinter the sun rises from 9:30 to 10 a.

m., and sets from 2 to 3 p. m., the total length of daylight being about four hours. Remembering that the sun rises but a few degrees above the horizon and that it is wholly obscured on a great many days, the character of the winter months may easily be imagined.

"We are indebted to the United States coast and geodetic survey for a series of six months' observations on the Yukon, not far from the site of the present gold discoveries. The observations were made with standard instruments, and are wholly reliable. The mean temperatures of the months October, 1889, to April, 1890, both inclusive, are as follows: October, 33 degrees; November, 8 degrees; December, 11 degrees, below zero; January, 17 below zero; February, 15 below zero; March, 6 above; April 20 above. The daily mean temperature fell and remained below the freezing point (32 degrees) from Nov. 4, 1889, to April 21, 1890, thus giving 168 days as the length of the closed season of 1889-'90, a.s.suming that outdoor operations are controlled by temperature only. The lowest temperatures registered during the winter were: Thirty-two degrees below zero in November, 47 below in December, 59 below in January, 55 below in February, 45 below in March, and 26 below in April.

"The greatest continuous cold occurred in February, 1890, when the daily mean for five consecutive days was 47 degrees below zero.

"Greater cold than that here noted has been experienced in the United States for a very short time, but never has it continued so very cold for so long a time as in the interior of Alaska. The winter sets in as early as September, when snow-storms may be expected in the mountains and pa.s.ses. Headway during one of those storms is impossible, and the traveler who is overtaken by one of them is indeed fortunate if he escapes with his life. Snowstorms of great severity may occur in any month from September to May, inclusive.

"The changes of temperature from winter to summer are rapid, owing to the great increase in the length of the day. In May the sun rises at about 3 a. m. and sets about 9 p. m. In June it rises about half past 1 in the morning, and sets at about half past 10, giving about twenty hours of daylight and diffuse twilight the remainder of the time.

"The mean summer temperature in the interior doubtless ranges between 60 and 70 degrees, according to elevation, being highest in the middle and lower Yukon valleys."

Accurate data of the temperature in the Klondike district were kept at Fort Constantine last year. The temperature first touched zero Nov. 10, and the zero weather recorded in the spring was on April 29.

Between Dec. 19 and Feb. 6 it never rose above zero. The lowest actual point, 65 below, occurred on Jan. 27, and on twenty-four days during the winter the temperature was below 50.

On March 12 it first rose above the freezing point, but no continuous mild weather occurred until May 4, after which date the temperature during the balance of the month frequently rose above 60 degrees.

The Yukon River froze up on Oct. 28 and broke up on May 17.

The long and severe winter and the frozen moss-covered ground are serious obstacles to agriculture and stock raising. The former can change but little with coming seasons, but the latter, by gradually burning off areas, can be overcome to some extent. On such burned tracts hardy vegetables have been and may be raised, and the area open to such use is considerable. Potatoes do well and barley will mature a fair crop.

Live stock may be kept by providing an abundance of shelter and feed and housing them during the winter. In summer an abundance of the finest gra.s.s pasture can be had, and great quant.i.ties of natural hay can be cut in various places.

Diseases: In spite of all that is heard in the newspapers regarding the healthfulness of the climate of Alaska and the upper Yukon, the Census Report of Alaska offers its incontestable statistics to the effect that the country is not more salubrious, nor its people more healthy than could be expected in a region of violent climate, where the most ordinary laws of health remain almost totally ignored. From the Government Report we quote the following:

"Those diseases which are most fatal to life in one section of Alaska seem to be applicable to all others. In the first place, the native children receive little or no care, and for the first few years of their lives are more often naked than clothed, at all seasons of the year.

Consumption is the simple and comprehensive t.i.tle for the disease which destroys the greater number of the people of Alaska. Aluet, Indian and Eskimo suffer from it alike; and all alike exhibit the same stolid indifference to its slow and fatal progress, make no attempt to ward it off, take no special precautions even when the disease reaches its climax.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MUIR GLACIER (MIDDLE PORTION).]

Next to consumption, the scrofulous diseases, in the forms of ulcers, eat into the vitals and destroy them until the natives have the appearance of lepers to unaccustomed eyes. As a consequence of their neglect and the exigencies of the native life, forty or fifty years is counted among them as comparatively great age, and none are without the ophthalmic diseases necessarily attendant on existence in smoky barabaras. Against snow-blindness the Eskimo people use peculiar goggles, but by far the greater evil, the smoke poisoning of the opthalmic nerve is neither overcome nor prevented by any of them. All traders carry medicine chests and do what they can to relieve suffering, but it requires a great deal of medicine to make an impression on the native const.i.tution, doses being about four times what would suffice an Englishman or American.

OUTFITS, SUPPLIES, ETC.

Houses.--Almost every item has been taken into consideration by the prospectors starting out to face an Alaskan winter except the item of shelter when they shall have put their boats in winter dock. The result will be that many hundreds will find themselves in the bleak region with plenty of money and victuals, but insufficient protection from the cold weather. From accounts that have come from Alaska and British Columbia, there are more men there skilled in digging and bookkeeping than in carpentry, and more picks and shovels than axes and planes. With the arrival of parties that have lately gone to the headwaters of the Yukon, there will necessarily be an immense demand for houses, for without them the miners will freeze. This matter is beginning to receive attention in San Francisco and Seattle, and preparations are now under way to provide gold seekers with houses.

Within a week negotiations have been conducted between parties in San Francisco and this city for the shipment of entire houses to the gold regions. The houses will be constructed in sections, so that they may be carried easily in boats up the Yukon or packed on sleds and carried through the rough country in baggage trains. A New York firm which makes a specialty of such houses has received orders for as many as can be sent there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUPPLY STATION FOR CIRCLE CITY.]

No tents are used in winter, as they become coated with ice from the breath of the sleepers and are also apt to take fire.

Clothing for Men.--A year's supply of winter clothing ought be taken, especial pains being taken to supply plenty of warm, durable underwear.

Old-timers in the country wear in winter a coat or blouse of dressed deer skin, with the hair on, coming down to the knees and held by a belt round the waist. It has a hood which may be thrown back on the shoulders when not needed. This shirt is trimmed with white deerskin or wolfskin, while those worn in extreme weather are often lined with fur. Next in importance to them are the torba.s.sa or Eskimo boots. These are of reindeer skin, taken from the legs, where the hair is short, smooth and stiff. These are sewed together to make the tops of the boots which come up nearly to the knee, where they are tied. The sole is of sealskin, turned over at heel and toe and gathered up so as to protect those parts and then brought up on each side. They are made much larger than the foot and are worn with a pad of dry gra.s.s which, folded to fit the sole, thickens the boot and forms an additional protection to the foot. A pair of strings tied about the ankle from either side complete a covering admirably adapted to the necessities of winter travel. If the newcomer can get such garments as these he will be well provided against winter rigors.

Women going to the mines are advised to take two pairs of extra heavy all-wool blankets, one small pillow, one fur robe, one warm shawl, one fur coat, easy fitting; three warm woollen dresses, with comfortable bodices and shirts knee length, flannel-lined preferable; three pairs of knickers or bloomers to match the dresses, three suits of heavy all-wool underwear, three warm flannel night dresses, four pairs of knitted woollen stockings, one pair of rubber boots, three gingham ap.r.o.ns that reach from neck to knees, small roll of flannel for insoles, wrapping the feet and bandages; a sewing kit, such toilet articles as are absolutely necessary, including some skin unguent to protect the face from the icy cold, two light blouses or shirt waists for summer wear, one oilskin blanket to wrap her effects in, to be secured at Juneau or St. Michael; one fur cape, two pairs of fur gloves, two pairs of surseal moccasins, two pairs of muclucs--wet weather moccasins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VILLAGE OF ST. PAUL.]

She wears what she pleases en route to Juneau or St. Michael, and when she makes her start for the diggings she lays aside every civilized traveling garb, including shoes and stays, until she comes out.

Instead of carrying the fur robe, fur coat and rubber boots along, she can get them on entering Alaska, but the experienced ones say, take them along. Leggings and shoes are not so safe nor desirable as the moccasins. A trunk is not the thing to transport baggage in. It is much better in a pack, with the oilskin cover well tied on. The things to add that are useful, but not absolutely necessary, are chocolate, coffee and the smaller light luxuries.

Beds are made on a platform raised a few feet from the floor, and about seven feet wide. Often consists of a reindeer skin with the hair on and one end sewn up so as to make a sort of bag to put the feet in. A pillow of wild goose feathers, and a pair of blankets. Sheets, which have been unknown heretofore, may become essential, but such a conventionality as a counterpane would better be left behind.