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it rich,"

and as a matter of fact, they had taken out about forty thousand dollars in coarse gold.

Crossing the river, Butler began prospecting up the Klondike, a tributary stream, in country that up to this time had been passed by by more experienced miners as not being of the right sort for gold. Prospectors are a superstitious class, and something in the look of the ground, the "taste of the water," or the turn of their willow rods, made them pass it over for other ter

15th, and then obtained credence only as a grub stake rumor. But with corroboration, a mad rush for the new diggings ensued, which threatened to depopulate all the camps in the vicinity.

Dawson sprang from a hamlet of a dozen houses to a town of many thousand inhabitants. Every foot of land along the Klondike and its tributaries was located by eager miners, and as soon as the weather permitted, the range of prospecting grew wider in the swamps and forests beyond.

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ritory where the indications were more favorable. It was chee chacoe (tenderfoot) luck; but Butler struck it; and four miles above Dawson, from his first prospect hole, he took ten thousand dollars in the first ten days.

The news spread slowly. On August 12th, George Cormack made the first great strike on Bonanza creek, a small tributary of the Klondike near at hand, and on August 19th, seven claims were filed in that region. The news did not get to Circle City and Forty Mile, the nearest posts, until December

How far it will go and how much of success will attend the going, are problems that only the future can decide. But enough has already been exploited to show that the Klondike diggings are the largest rich placer fields of which the world has ever known. There have been other finds that have been richer in individual yields, but none that can compare with the general richness of the territory worked in these new mines.

There are probably five thousand men now working on the Klondike, and all along

the various roads leading into Dawson there are multitudes of tireless feet hurrying towards the desired goal. The difficulties of the way are greater than those attending the reaching of any other gold field known to history. The long distance, the inclemency of the climate, the absolute lack of anything like civilized roads or trails, the necessity of taking enormous burdens in the way of provisions, tools, and clothes, and the terrors of the snow-covered mountain passes and dangerous river rapids, would deter from attempting them any but a man eaten up with the fever for getting gold. Yet there is scarcely a town along the Pacific coast that has not sent its contingent, and the sailing of a steamer for Alaskan ports draws envious crowds to the wharves, so large as seriously to block the business of departure.

There are, in general, two ways of reaching the Klondike. The easier way, but the longer, is entirely by water, and occupies forty days. The adventurer, taking ship at San Francisco, sails direct to St. Michael, sixty miles up the Yukon river from its mouth, a distance of 2850 miles. Deep-watervessels cannot go beyond this point, as the river is broad and shallow along its whole length, and the further journey must be made in flat-bottomed, sternwheeled boats which feel their way among the sand bars and slip across the mud banks with almost human intuition. There are but few of these boats, and their progress is necessarily slow. Those arriving at St. Michaels and not bringing their own boats for the river have to wait their turn before going up, and two weeks before this writing it was estimated that more waiting men were camped at the river's mouth than could be taken up to Dawson before the freezing of the river in September. Those who are left will have to remain till April of next year, when the breaking of the ice will allow traffic to be resumed.

The shorter route, but the one most fraught with difficulty and danger, is the overland trail which starts at Juneau and crosses the mountains into the valley of the Yukon. The passage for ninety-six miles is by water to Ty-ao, or Dyea, as it is now commonly called. This is a little fishing village at the head of navigation on Dyea inlet.

From Dyea inlet there are three ways of crossing the low mountain range to the east. The first of these trails starts from Chilcat station on the northern fork of the inlet and goes through the Chilcat pass. This once crossed, the road is mainly by water, passing along the western shore of Lake Maud and thence down the Takeena river to Lake Le Barge. The second trail goes from Dyea over the Chilcoot pass, and the third keeps to the south and by a longer route at a lower elevation avoids the dangers of the summits and reaches Lake Tagish and Marsh lake, when it becomes one with the trail over the Chilcoot. Thence the route is by river to Lake Le Barge, from which point there is but one trail to the Yukon and Dawson City.

A fourth route, and one which may in the future develop into the best and easiest, starts at Fort Wrangel, many miles south of Juneau, and follows the course of the Stikeen river and Telegraph creek as far as

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navigation permits. Thence there is a long portage to Lake Teslin over a comparatively open coun

TESLIN LAKE

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water mark on the shore, and the tide rises twenty-two feet, and with a rapidity only equaled by that in the Bay of Fundy. No matter how strenuously one may work, it is a matter of chance if he gets all his stores across the intervening space before the water rises up and covers them. And many a poor fellow has to stand helpless and see his whole outfit carried out to sea before his eyes.

If, however, he passes this ordeal safely, there is still the river to be crossed before the post is reached. It is broad but not deep-reaching only to the armpits at the deepest points-but it is dizzily swift, and as cold as the snows from which it comes.

To one who has never been over the road it is very hard to carry an idea of the absolute dearth of facilities one meets in Alaska. All the things that one takes for granted in other countries turn up lacking when you look for them there. You have to do for yourself ab initio in all things. You are set on shore at Dyea with your beCourtesy of the Examiner longings, and they constitute your world.

SOL. RUPINSKY, POSTMASTER AT CHILCAT

try, after which, the remainder of the journey is by boat down the Hootalinqua river to the Yukon.

If it were not for the long land portage this route would by all means be the best. But the frantic hurry of the gold seekers to be first on the working field leads them to discard all questions except that of time, and for this reason the main travel goes from Dyea by way of the most difficult trail and crosses the mountains by the Chilcoot pass. The hard work all comes at the start, and is of a character to chill the ardor and break the spirit of all but the most adventurous men.

The trouble begins with the landing at Dyea. There are no wharves on the inlet and the water is so shallow that vessels have to anchor from a mile and a half to two miles off shore. There are long ridges of rock above tide water that run out from the shore and on these the miners are landed with their goods. From thence both must be transported by canoes through water passages in the mud flats, and the Indians demand from a cent and a half a pound up for all supplies carried. The final landing is still half a mile short of high

There are no accommodations and no resources in this town or country to fall back on. You take care of yourself and live on what you bring with you or you don't live at all.

In civilized countries the terms road or trails, have within limits a definite meaning. There is no such certainty about the words as used in the far north. There is not a made road in the Yukon country and the trails are as bad as it is possible for them to be and preserve the name. When the snow is hard they are fairly passable, except that they then become invisible and can be traveled safely by Indians only or whites. well up in woodcraft. When the snow is soft as it more commonly is - one plows into it up to the hips, the sledges sink, and the effort at advancement is prodigious. When the snow is off or the trail worn through, the ground is covered for an average depth of two feet with moss in which the feet sink at every step, and as often as not the soil beneath is a bog which lets you still further down.

It is over such roads as these that the miner must go, and contrive by himself to transport his goods. Horses and pack animals are unknown. Dogs are the native beasts of burden. It is astonishing how much these animals can pull in the way of

freight. And it is also astonishing how much less a man can pull than he thinks he can. Until he has tried it, one has the impression that three or four hundred pounds ought not to be too much for him to pull on a sledge. As a matter of fact that is the weight most sleds take out of Dyea. But by the time a man has pulled this load for half a day, pried it out of crevasses and raised it over logs, it begins to gather weight in a way that is amazing. Two hundred pounds is as much as one ought to expect to pull without wearing out. On leaving Dyea, after a few miles the

and except at rare intervals there blows over the summit a wind that chills the very marrow in one's bones. It is cold enough at the best of times; but more often it increases to a perfect blizzard and is accompanied by snow storms so thick and heavy that the way is impossible to see. During these flurries no one attempts the trail and the unfortunates who are caught on the road have no alternative but to camp in holes dug in the snow and wait as best they may for clearer weather.

So much has been said and written about the terrors and dangers of this pass that I

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trail enters the cañon, which is narrow and steep and gradually ascends to within six miles of the summit, where a station called Sheep Camp is established. This is the line of lumber growth and here it is customary to make a stop, leaving what was brought on the first trip cached in the snow, and backsled for that portion of the outfit which was left behind. When all is together at the camp, if the weather is propitious, the crossing of the summit is begun. This is the hardest and most dangerous place on the road. The rise in elevation is only twenty-four hundred feet, and as the snow is hard, the ascent is not difficult physically. But the last half of the climb is almost straight up and down,

believe no one approaches it now for the first time without a certain sinking at the heart. My own opinion is that it is no more fearsome than a hundred other passes in the mountains. It is because one does not simply come to it, surmount it, and go on, that it seems so arduous a task. If one simply went up with one load to the summit and then followed the loosened sleds down the steep incline beyond, there would be no such talk about the horrors of the Chilcoot pass.

But when by strenuous efforts load after load has been dragged to the top, the weary gold hunter sees the place with altogether different eyes. Each time he back-sleds, the road seems steeper and harder to over

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