Klondyke Nuggets Part 5

"Six miles below this, as already noticed, Rink Rapids are situated.

They are of no great importance, the westerly half of the stream only being obstructed. The easterly half is not in any way affected, the current being smooth and the water deep.

"Below Five Finger Rapids about two miles a small stream enters from the east. It is called by Dr. Dawson Tatshun River. It is not more than 30 or 40 feet wide at the mouth, and contains only a little clear, brownish water. Here I met the only Indians seen on the river between Teslintoo and Stewart Rivers. They were engaged in catching salmon at the mouth of the Tatshun, and were the poorest and most unintelligent Indians it has ever been my lot to meet. It is needless to say that none of our party understood anything they said, as they could not speak a word of any language but their own. I tried by signs to get some information from them about the stream they were fishing in, but failed.

I tried in the same way to learn if there were any more Indians in the vicinity, but again utterly failed. I then tried by signs to find out how many days it took to go down to Pelly River, but although I have never known these signs to fail in eliciting information in any other part of the territory, they did not understand. They appeared to be alarmed by our presence; and, as we had not yet been a.s.sured as to the rumor concerning the trouble between the miners and Indians, we felt a little apprehensive, but being able to learn nothing from them we had to put our fears aside and proceed blindly.

"Between Five Finger Rapids and Pelly River, fifty-eight and a half-miles, no streams of any importance enter the Lewes; in fact, with the exception of the Tatshun, it may be said that none at all enter.

"About a mile below Rink Rapids the river spreads out into a lake-like expanse, with many islands; this continues for about three miles, when it contracts to something like the usual width; but bars and small islands are very numerous all the way to Pelly River. About five miles above Pelly River there is another lake-like expanse filled with islands. The river here for three or four miles is nearly a mile wide, and so numerous and close are the islands that it is impossible to tell when floating among them where the sh.o.r.es of the river are. The current, too, is swift, leading one to suppose the water shallow; but I think even here a channel deep enough for such boats as will navigate this part of the river can be found. Schwatka named this group of islands "Ingersoll Islands."

"At the mouth of the Pelly the Lewes is about half a mile wide, and here too there are many islands, but not in groups as at Ingersoll Islands.

"About a mile below the Pelly, just at the ruins of Fort Selkirk, the Yukon was found to be 565 yards wide; about two-thirds being ten feet deep, with a current of about four and three-quarter miles per hour; the remaining third was more than half taken up by a bar, and the current between it and the south sh.o.r.e was very slack.

"Pelly River at its mouth is about two hundred yards wide, and continues this width as far up as could be seen. Dr. Dawson made a survey and examination of this river, which will be found in his report already cited, "Yukon District and Northern British Columbia."

"Just here for a short distance the course of the Yukon is nearly west, and on the south side, about a mile below the mouth of the Lewes, stands all that remains of the only trading post ever built by white men in the district. This post was established by Robert Campbell, for the Hudson's Bay Company in the summer of 1848. It was first built on the point of land between the two rivers, but this location proving untenable on account of flooding by ice jams in the spring, it was, in the season of 1852, moved across the river to where the ruins now stand. It appears that the houses composing the post were not finished when the Indians from the coast on Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets came down the river to put a stop to the compet.i.tive trade which Mr. Campbell had inaugurated, and which they found to seriously interfere with their profits. Their method of trade appears to have been then pretty much as it is now--very onesided. What they found it convenient to take by force they took, and what it was convenient to pay for at their own price they paid for.

"Rumors had reached the post that the coast Indians contemplated such a raid, and in consequence the native Indians in the vicinity remained about nearly all summer. Unfortunately, they went away for a short time, and during their absence the coast Indians arrived in the early morning, and surprised Mr. Campbell in bed. They were not at all rough with him, but gave him the privilege of leaving the place within twenty-four hours, after which he was informed that he was liable to be shot if seen by them in the locality. They then pillaged the place and set fire to it, leaving nothing but the remains of the two chimneys which are still standing. This raid and capture took place on the 1st August, 1852.

"Mr. Campbell dropped down the river, and met some of the local Indians who returned with him, but the robbers had made their escape. I have heard that the local Indians wished to pursue and overtake them, but to this Mr. Campbell would not consent. Had they done so it is probable not many of the raiders would have escaped, as the superior local knowledge of the natives would have given them an advantage difficult to estimate, and the confidence and spirit derived from the aid and presence of a white man or two would be worth much in such a conflict.

"Mr. Campbell went on down the river until he met the outfit for his post on its way up from Fort Yukon, which he turned back. He then ascended the Pelly, crossed to the Liard, and reached Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie, late in October.

"Mr. Campbell's first visit to the site of Fort Selkirk was made in 1840, under instructions from Sir George Simpson, then Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company. He crossed from the head waters of the Liard to the waters of the Pelly. It appears the Pelly, where he struck it, was a stream of considerable size, for he speaks of its appearance when he first saw it from 'Pelly Banks,' the name given the bank from which he first beheld it, as a 'splendid river in the distance.' In June, 1843, he descended the Pelly to its confluence with the larger stream, which he named the 'Lewes.' Here he found many families of the native Indians--'Wood Indians,' he called them. These people conveyed to him, as best they could by word and sign, the dangers that would attend a further descent of the river, representing that the country below theirs was inhabited by a tribe of fierce cannibals, who would a.s.suredly kill and eat them. This so terrified his men that he had to return by the way he came, pursued, as he afterwards learned, by the Indians, who would have murdered himself and party had they got a favorable opportunity.

Thus it was not until 1850 that he could establish, what he says he all along believed, 'that the Pelly and Yukon were identical.' This he did by descending the river to where the Porcupine joins it, and where in 1847 Fort Yukon was established by Mr. A.H. Murray for the Hudson's Bay Company.

"With reference to the tales told him by the Indians of bad people outside of their country, I may say that Mackenzie tells pretty much the same story of the Indians on the Mackenzie when he discovered and explored that river in 1789. He had the advantage of having Indians along with him whose language was radically the same as that of the people he was coming among, and his statements are more explicit and detailed. Everywhere he came in contact with them they manifested, first, dread of himself and party, and when friendship and confidence were established they nearly always tried to detain him by representing the people in the direction he was going as unnaturally bloodthirsty and cruel, sometimes a.s.serting the existence of monsters with supernatural powers, as at Manitou Island, a few miles below the present Fort Good Hope, and the people on a very large river far to the west of the Mackenzie, probably the Yukon, they described to him as monsters in size, power and cruelty.

"In our own time, after the intercourse that there has been between them and the whites, more than a suspicion of such unknown, cruel people lurks in the minds of many of the Indians. It would be futile for me to try to ascribe an origin for these fears, my knowledge of their language and idiosyncrasies being so limited.

"Nothing more was ever done in the vicinity of Fort Selkirk[7] by the Hudson's Bay Company after these events, and in 1869 the Company was ordered by Capt. Charles W. Raymond, who represented the United States Government, to evacuate the post at Fort Yukon, he having found that it was west of the 141st meridian. The post was occupied by the Company, however, for some time after the receipt of this order, and until Rampart House was built, which was intended to be on British territory, and to take the trade previously done at Fort Yukon.

[Footnote 7: This is now a winter port for steamboats of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, plying the Yukon and its tributaries. There is also a trading post here owned by Harper & Ladue.]

"Under present conditions the Company cannot very well compete with the Alaska Commercial Company, whose agents do the only trade in the district,[8] and they appear to have abandoned--for the present at least--all attempt to do any trade nearer to it than Rampart House to which point, notwithstanding the distance and difficulties in the way, many of the Indians on the Yukon make a trip every two or three years to procure goods in exchange for their furs. The clothing and blankets brought in by the Hudson's Bay Company they claim are much better than those traded on their own river by the Americans. Those of them that I saw who had any English blankets exhibited them with pride, and exclaimed 'good,' They point to an American blanket in contempt, with the remark 'no good,' and speak of their clothing in the same way.

[Footnote 8: Since the date of this report the North American Transportation and Trading Company, better known in the Yukon valley as "Captain Healy's Company," has established a number of posts on the river.]

"On many maps of Alaska a place named 'Reed's House' is shown on or near the upper waters of Stewart River. I made enquiries of all whom I thought likely to know anything concerning this post, but failed to elicit any information showing that there ever had been such a place. I enquired of Mr. Reid, who was in the Company's service with Mr. Campbell at Fort Selkirk, and after whom I thought, possibly, the place had been called, but he told me he knew of no such post, but that there was a small lake at some distance in a northerly direction from Fort Selkirk, where fish were procured. A sort of shelter had been made at that point for the fishermen, and a few furs might have been obtained there, but it was never regarded as a trading post.

"Below Fort Selkirk, the Yukon River is from five to six hundred yards broad, and maintains this width down to White River, a distance of ninety-six miles. Islands are numerous, so much so that there are very few parts of the river where there are not one or more in sight. Many of them are of considerable size, and nearly all are well timbered. Bars are also numerous, but almost all are composed of gravel, so that navigators will not have to complain of shifting sand bars. The current as a general thing, is not so rapid as in the upper part of the river, averaging about four miles per hour. The depth in the main channel was always found to be more than six feet.

"From Pelly River to within twelve miles of White River the general course of the river is a little north of west; it then turns to the north, and the general course as far as the site of Fort Reliance is due north.

"White River enters the main river from the west. At the mouth it is about two hundred yards wide, but a great part of it is filled with ever-shifting sand-bars, the main volume of water being confined to a channel not more than one hundred yards in width. The current is very strong, certainly not less than eight miles per hour. The color of the water bears witness to this, as it is much the muddiest that I have ever seen.[9]

[Footnote 9: The White River very probably flows over volcanic deposits as its sediments would indicate; no doubt this would account for the discoloration of its waters. The volcanic ash appears to cover a great extent of the Upper Yukon basin drained by the Lewes and Pelly Rivers.

Very full treatment of the subject is given by Dr. Dawson, in his report ent.i.tled "Yukon District and Northern portion of British Columbia."]

"I had intended to make a survey of part of this river as far as the International Boundary, and attempted to do so; but after trying for over half a day, I found it would be a task of much labor and time, altogether out of proportion to the importance of the end sought, and therefore abandoned it. The valley as far as can be seen from the mouth, runs about due west for a distance of eight miles; it then appears to bear to the south-west; it is about two miles wide where it joins the Pelly valley and apparently keeps the same width as far as it can be seen.

"Mr. Harper, of the firm of Harper & Ladue, went up this river with sleds in the fall of 1872 a distance of fifty or sixty miles. He describes it as possessing the same general features all the way up, with much clay soil along its banks. Its general course, as sketched by him on a map of mine, is for a distance of about thirty miles a little north-west, thence south-west thirty or thirty-five miles, when it deflects to the north-west running along the base of a high mountain ridge. If the courses given are correct it must rise somewhere near the head of Forty Mile River; and if so, its length is not at all in keeping with the volume of its discharge, when compared with the known length and discharge of other rivers in the territory. Mr. Harper mentioned an extensive flat south of the mountain range spoken of, across which many high mountain peaks could be seen. One of these he thought must be Mount St. Elias, as it overtopped all the others; but, as Mount St. Elias is about one hundred and eighty miles distant, his conclusion is not tenable. From his description of this mountain it must be more than twice the height of the highest peaks seen anywhere on the lower river, and consequently must be ten or twelve thousand feet above the sea. He stated that the current in the river was very swift, as far as he ascended, and the water muddy. The water from this river, though probably not a fourth of the volume of the Yukon, discolors the water of the latter completely; and a couple of miles, below the junction the whole river appears almost as dirty as White River.

"Between White and Stewart Rivers, ten miles, the river spreads out to a mile and upwards in width, and is a maze of islands and bars. The survey was carried down the easterly sh.o.r.e, and many of the channels pa.s.sed through barely afforded water enough to float the canoes. The main channel is along the westerly sh.o.r.e, down which the large boat went, and the crew reported plenty of water.

"Stewart River enters from the east in the middle of a wide valley, with low hills on both sides, rising on the north sides in steps or terraces to distant hills of considerable height. The river half a mile or so above the mouth, is two hundred yards in width. The current is slack and the water shallow and clear, but dark colored.

"While at the mouth I was fortunate enough to meet a miner who had spent the whole of the summer of 1887 on the river and its branches prospecting and exploring. He gave me a good deal of information of which I give a summary. He is a native of New Brunswick, Alexander McDonald by name, and has spent some years mining in other places, but was very reticent about what he had made or found. Sixty or seventy miles up the Stewart a large creek enters from the south which he called Rose Bud Creek or River, and thirty or forty miles further up a considerable stream flows from the north-east, which appears to be Beaver River, as marked on the maps of that part of the country. From the head of this stream he floated down on a raft taking five days to do so. He estimated his progress at forty or fifty miles each day, which gives a length of from two hundred to two hundred and fifty miles. This is probably an over-estimate, unless the stream is very crooked, which, he stated, was not the case. As much of his time would be taken up in prospecting, I should call thirty miles or less a closer estimate of his progress. This river is from fifty to eighty yards wide and was never more than four or five feet deep, often being not more than two or three; the current, he said, was not at all swift. Above the mouth of this stream the main river is from one hundred to one hundred and thirty yards wide with an even current and clear water. Sixty or seventy miles above the last-mentioned branch another large branch joins, which is possibly the main river. At the head of it he found a lake nearly thirty miles long, and averaging a mile and a half in width, which he called Mayhew Lake, after one of the partners in the firm of Harper, McQuestion & Co.

"Thirty miles or so above the forks on the other branch there are falls, which McDonald estimated to be from one to two hundred feet in height. I met several parties who had seen these falls, and they corroborate this estimate of their height. McDonald went on past the falls to the head of this branch and found terraced gravel hills to the west and north; he crossed them to the north and found a river flowing northward. On this he embarked on a raft and floated down it for a day or two, thinking it would turn to the west and join the Stewart, but finding it still continuing north, and acquiring too much volume to be any of the branches he had seen while pa.s.sing up the Stewart, he returned to the point of his departure, and after prospecting among the hills around the head of the river, he started westward, crossing a high range of mountains composed princ.i.p.ally of shales with many thin seams of what he called quartz, ranging from one to six inches in thickness.

"On the west side of this range he found a river flowing out of what he called Mayhew Lake, and crossing this got to the head of Beaver River, which he descended as before mentioned.

"It is probable the river flowing northwards, on which he made a journey and returned, was a branch of Peel River. He described the timber on the gravel terraces of the watershed as small and open. He was alone in this unknown wilderness all summer, not seeing even any of the natives. There are few men so const.i.tuted as to be capable of isolating themselves in such a manner. Judging from all I could learn it is probable a light-draught steamboat could navigate nearly all of Stewart Iver and its tributaries.

"From Stewart River to the site of Fort Reliance,[10] seventy-three and a quarter miles, the Yukon is broad and full of islands. The average width is between a half and three quarters of a mile, but there are many expansions where it is over a mile in breadth; however, in these places it cannot be said that the waterway is wider than at other parts of the river, the islands being so large and numerous. In this reach no streams of any importance enter.

[Footnote 10: This was at one time a trading post occupied by Messrs.

Harper & McQuestion.]

"About thirteen miles below Stewart River a large valley joins that of the river, but the stream occupying it is only a large creek. This agrees in position with what has been called Sixty Mile Creek, which was supposed to be about that distance above Fort Reliance, but it does not agree with descriptions which I received of it; moreover as Sixty Mile Creek is known to be a stream of considerable length, this creek would not answer its description.

"Twenty-two and a half miles from Stewart River another and larger creek enters from the same side; it agrees with the descriptions of Sixty Mile Creek, and I have so marked it on my map. This stream is of no importance, except for what mineral wealth may be found on it.[11]

[Footnote 11: Sixty Mile Creek is about one hundred miles long, very crooked, with a swift current and many rapids, and is therefore not easy to ascend.

Miller, Glacier, Gold, Little Gold and Bedrock Creeks are all tributaries of Sixty Mile. Some of the richest discoveries in gold so far made in the interior since 1894 have been upon these creeks, especially has this been the case upon the two first mentioned. There is a claim upon Miller Creek owned by Joseph Boudreau from which over $100,000 worth of gold is said to have been taken out.

Freight for the mines is taken up Forty Mile Creek in summer for a distance of 30 miles, then portaged across to the heads of Miller and Glacier Creeks. In the winter it is hauled in by dogs.

The trip from Cudahy to the post at the mouth of Sixty Mile River is made by ascending Forty Mile River a small distance, making a short portage to Sixty Mile River and running down with its swift current.

Coming back on the Yukon, nearly the whole of the round trip is made down stream.

Indian Creek enters the Yukon from the east about 30 miles below Sixty Mile. It is reported to be rich in gold, but owing to the scarcity of supplies its development has been r.e.t.a.r.ded.

At the mouth of Sixty Mile Creek a townsite of that name is located, it is the headquarters for upwards of 100 miners and where they more or less a.s.semble in the winter months.

Messrs. Harper & Co. have a trading post and a saw-mill on an island at the mouth of the creek; both, of which are in charge of Mr. J. Ladue, one of the partners of the firm, and who was at one time in the employ of the Alaska Commercial Company.]

"Six and a half miles above Port Reliance the Thron-Diuck[12] River of the Indians (Deer River of Schwatka) enters from the east. It is a small river about forty yards wide at the mouth, and shallow; the water is clear and transparent, and of beautiful blue color. The Indians catch great numbers of salmon here. They had been fishing shortly before my arrival, and the river, for some distance up, was full of salmon traps.

[Footnote 12: Dawson City is situated at the mouth of the Thron-Diuck now known as Klond.y.k.e, and although it was located only a few months ago it is the scene of great activity. Very rich deposits of gold have been lately found on Bonanza Creek and other affluents of the Thron-Diuck.]

"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 got some of his information at second hand. The water being so beautifully clear I thought it must come through a large lake not far up; but as far as he had gone no lakes were seen. He said the current was comparatively slack, with an occasional 'ripple' or small rapid. Where he turned back the river is surrounded by high mountains, which were then covered with snow, which accounts for the purity and clearness of the water.

"It appears that the Indians go up this stream a long distance to hunt, but I could learn nothing definite as to their statements concerning it.

"Twelve and a half miles below Fort Reliance, the Chandindu River, as named by Schwatka, enters from the east. It is thirty to forty yards wide at the mouth, very shallow, and for half a mile up is one continuous rapid. Its valley is wide and can be seen for a long distance looking north-eastward from the mouth.