ALONG THE LAKES.
[Illustration: IN A STORM ON THE LAKES.]
This large lake near the head of the Yukon I named in honor of Dr.
Lindeman, of the Bremen Geographical Society. The country thus far,
including the lake, had already received a most thorough exploration
at the hands of Dr. Aurel Krause and Dr. Arthur Krause, two German
scientists, heretofore sent out by the above named society, but I was
not aware of the fact at that time. Looking out upon Lake Lindeman a
most beautiful Alpine-like sheet of water was presented to our view.
The scene was made more picturesque by the mountain creek, of which
I have spoken, and over which a green willow tree was supposed to do
duty as a foot-log. My first attempt to pass over this tree caused it
to sink down into the rushing waters and was much more interesting
to the spectators than to me. Lake Lindeman is about ten miles long,
and from one to one and a-half wide, and in appearance is not unlike
a portion of one of the broad inland passages of south-eastern Alaska
already described. Fish were absent from these glacier-fed streams and
lakes, or at least they were not to be enticed by any of the standard
allurements of the fishermen's wiles, but we managed to kill a few
dusky grouse and green-winged teal ducks to vary the usual government
ration; though all were tough beyond measure, it being so near their
breeding season.
Over the lake, on quiet days, were seen many gulls, and the graceful
little Arctic tern, which I recognized as an old companion on the
Atlantic side. A ramble among the woods next day to search for raft
timber revealed a number of bear, caribou and other game tracks,
but nothing could be seen of their authors. A small flock of pretty
harlequin ducks gave us a long but unsuccessful shot. The lakes of the
interior, of which there were many, bordered by swampy tracts, supplied
Roth, our cook, with a couple of green-winged teal, duck and drake, as
the reward of a late evening stroll, for, as I have said, it was light
enough at midnight to allow us to shoot, at any rate with a shot-gun.
While the lakes were in many places bordered with swampy tracts, the
land away from them was quite passable for walking, the great obstacle
being the large amount of fallen timber that covered the ground in all
directions. The area of bog, ubiquitous beyond the Kotusk range, was
now confined to the shores of the lakes and to streams emerging from or
emptying into them, and while these were numerous enough to a person
desiring to hold a straight course for a considerable distance, the
walking was bearable compared with previous experience.
Two of the _Tahk-heesh_ or "Stick" Indians, who had come with us as
packers, had stored away in this vicinity under the willows of the
lake's beach, a couple of the most dilapidated looking craft that
ever were seen. To call them canoes, indeed, was a strain upon our
consciences. The only theory to account for their keeping afloat at all
was that of the Irishman in the story, "that for every hole where the
water could come in there were a half a dozen where it could run out."
These canoes are made of a species of poplar, and are generally called
"cottonwood canoes;" and as the trees from which they are made are
not very large, the material "runs out" so to speak, along the waist
or middle of the canoe, where a greater quantity is required to reach
around, and this deficiency is made up by substituting batten-like
strips of thin wood tacked or sewed on as gunwales, and calking the
crevices well with gum. At bow and stern some rude attempt is made
to warp them into canoe lines, and in doing this many cracks are
developed, all of which are smeared with spruce gum. The thin bottom is
a perfect gridiron of slits, all closed with gum, and the proportion
of gum increases with the canoe's age. These were the fragile craft
that were brought to me with a tender to transport my effects (nearly
three tons besides the _personnel_ of the expedition) almost the whole
length of the lake, fully seven or eight miles, and the owners had the
assurance to offer to do it in two days. I had no idea how far it was
to the northern end or outlet of Lake Lindeman, as I had spent too many
years of my life among Indians to attempt to deduce even an approximate
estimate from the assurances of the two "Sticks" that "it was just
around the point of land" to which they pointed and which may have been
four or five miles distant. I gave them, however, a couple of loads
of material that could be lost without serious damage, weighing three
hundred to four hundred pounds, and as I did not know the length of
the lake I thought I would await their return before attempting further
progress. Even if they could accomplish the bargain in double the time
they proposed I was quite willing to let them proceed, as I understood
the outlet of the lake was a narrow river full of cascades and rocks
through which, according to Indian reports, no raft of more than a few
logs could possibly float. I did not feel disposed to build a couple
of such cumbersome craft to traverse so short a distance. A southern
gale setting in shortly after their departure, with waves running on
the lake a foot or two high, was too terrible a storm for the rickety
little boats, and we did not see any thing of them or their owners
until three days later, when the men came creeping back overland--the
gale still raging--to explain matters which required no explanation.
[Illustration: LAKE LINDEMAN. CAPE KOLDEWEY ON THE RIGHT.
The view is taken from the upper (southern) end of Payer Portage,
looking (south) toward Kotusk Mountains. Perrier Pass is on the extreme
left wrapped in fog. Named after Captain Koldewey of the German Navy.]
In the meantime, having surmised the failure of our Indian contractors,
the best logs available, which were rather small ones of stunted spruce
and contorted pine, had been floated down the little stream and had
been tracked up and down along the shores of the lake, and a raft made
of the somewhat formidable dimensions of fifteen by thirty feet, with
an elevated deck amidships. The rope lashings used on the loads of the
Indian packers were put to duty in binding the logs together, but the
greatest reliance was placed in stout wooden pins which united them by
auger holes bored through both, the logs being cut or "saddled out"
where they joined, as is done at the corners of log cabins. A deck was
made on the corduroy plan of light seasoned pine poles, and high enough
to prevent ordinary sized waves from wetting the effects, while a pole
was rigged by mortising it into one of the central logs at the bottom
and supporting it by four guy ropes from the top, and from this was
suspended a wall tent as a sail, the ridge pole being the yard arm,
with tackling arranged to raise and lower it. A large bow and stern oar
with which to do the steering completed the rude craft. On the evening
of the 14th of June the raft was finished, when we found that, as a
number of us had surmised, it was not of sufficient buoyancy to hold
all our effects as well as the whole party of whites and natives.
The next day only three white men, Mr. Homan, Mr. McIntosh and Corporal
Shircliff, were placed in charge. About half the stores were put on the
deck, the raft swung by ropes into the swift current of the stream so
as to float it well out into the lake, and as the rude sail was spread
to the increasing wind, the primitive craft commenced a journey that
was destined to measure over thirteen hundred miles before the rough
ribs of knots and bark were laid to rest on the great river, nearly
half a thousand miles of whose secrets were given up to geographical
science through the medium of her staunch and trusty bones. As she
slowly obeyed her motive power, the wind began blowing harder and
harder, until the craft was pitching like a vessel laboring in an ocean
storm; but despite this the middle of the afternoon saw her rough
journey across the angry lake safely completed, and this without any
damage to her load worth noticing. The three men had had an extremely
hard time of it, and had been compelled to take down their wall tent
sail, for when this was lashed down over the stores on the deck to
protect them from the deluge of flying spray breaking up over the
stern there was ample surface presented to the furious gale to drive
them along at a good round pace, especially when near the bold rocky
shores, where all their vigilance and muscle were needed to keep them
from being dashed to pieces in the rolling breakers. They had started
with a half dozen or so good stout poles, but in using them over the
rocks on the bottom one would occasionally cramp between a couple of
submerged stones and be wrested violently from their hands as the raft
swept swiftly by before it could be extricated. The remainder of the
_personnel_, white and native, scrambled over the rough precipitous
mountain spurs on the eastern side of the lake, wading through bog
and tangled underbrush, then up steep slippery granite rocks on to
the ridge tops bristling with fallen burned timber, or occasionally
steadying themselves on some slight log that crossed a deep cañon,
whose bed held a rushing stream where nothing less than a trout could
live for a minute, the one common suffering every where being from the
mosquitoes. The rest of the stores not taken on the raft found their
way along slowly by means of the two dilapidated canoes, previously
described, in the hands of our own Indians.
As we neared Camp 7, at the outlet of Lake Lindeman, on the overland
trail we occasionally met with little openings that might be described
by an imaginative person as _prairies_, and for long stretches, that
is, two and three hundred yards, the walking would really be pleasant.
An inspection of the locality showed that the lake we had just passed
was drained by a small river averaging from fifty to seventy-five feet
in width and a little over a mile long. It was for nearly the whole
length a repetition of shallow rapids, shoals, cascades, ugly-looking
bowlders, bars and network of drift-timber. At about the middle of its
course the worst cascade was split by a huge projecting bowlder, just
at a sudden bend of the stream, and either channel was barely large
enough to allow the raft to pass if it came end on, and remained so
while going through, otherwise it would be sure to jam. Through this
narrow chute of water the raft was "shot" the next day--June 16th--and
although our predictions were verified at this cascade, a few minutes'
energetic work sufficed to clear it, with the loss of a side-log or
two, and all were glad to see it towed and anchored alongside the
gravelly beach on the new lake, with so little damage received. Here
we at once commenced enlarging its dimensions on a scale commensurate
with the carrying of our entire load, both _personnel_ and _materiel_.
Around this unnavigable and short river the Indian packers and
traders portage their goods when making their way into the interior,
there being a good trail on the eastern side of the stream, which,
barring a few sandy stretches, connects the two lakes. I called these
rapids and the portage Payer Portage, after Lieutenant Payer, of the
Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872-74.
By the 17th of June, at midnight, it was light enough to read print,
of the size of that before my readers, and so continued throughout the
month, except on very cloudy nights. Many bands of pretty harlequin
ducks were noticed in the Payer Rapids, which seemed to be their
favorite resort, the birds rarely appearing in the lakes, and always
near the point at which some swift stream entered the smoother water.
Black and brown bears and caribou tracks were seen in the valley of a
small stream that here came in from the west. This valley was a most
picturesque one as viewed from the Payer Portage looking westward, and
was quite typical of the little Alpine valleys of this locality. I
named it after Mr. Homan, the topographer of the expedition. We were
quite fortunate in finding a number of fallen logs, sound and seasoned,
which were much larger than any in our raft, the only trouble being
that they were not long enough. All of the large trees tapered rapidly,
and at the height of twenty or twenty-five feet a tree was reduced to
the size of the largest of its numerous limbs, so that it did not offer
surface enough at the small end to use with safety as the side-log or
bottom-log of a well-constructed craft. We soon had a goodly number
of them sawed in proper lengths, or, at any rate, as long as we could
get them, their numerous limbs hacked off, and then, with much labor,
we made log-ways through the brush and network of trunks, by means of
which we plunged them into the swift river when they were floated down
to the raft's position. One of the delights of this raft-making was
our having to stand a greater part of the day in ice-water just off
the mountain tops, and in strange contrast with this annoyance, the
mosquitoes would come buzzing around and making work almost impossible
by their attacks upon our heads, while at the same time our feet would
be freezing. When the larger logs were secured, they were built into
the raft on a plan of fifteen by forty feet; but, taking into account
the projections outside of the corner pins, the actual dimensions were
sixteen by forty-two. These were never afterward changed.
Two elevated decks were now constructed, separated by a lower central
space, where two cumbersome oars might be rigged, that made it possible
to row the ponderous craft at the rate of nearly a mile an hour, and
these side-oars were afterward used quite often to reach some camping
place on the beach of a lake when the wind had failed us or set in
ahead. The bow and stern steering-oars were still retained, and we thus
had surplus oars for either service, in case of accident, for the two
services were never employed at once under any circumstances. There was
only one fault with the new construction, and that was that none of
the logs extended the whole length of the raft, and the affair rather
resembled a pair of rafts, slightly dove-tailed at the point of union,
than a single raft of substantial build.
The new lake on which we found ourselves was named Lake Bennett, after
Mr. James Gordon Bennett, a well-known patron of American geographical
research. While we were here a couple of canoes of the same dilapidated
kind as those we saw on Lake Lindeman came down Lake Bennett, holding
twice as many Tahk-heesh Indians who begged for work, and whom we
put to use in various ways. I noticed that one of them stammered
considerably, the first Indian I ever met with an impediment in his
speech.
Among my Chilkat packers I also noticed one that was deaf and dumb,
and several who were afflicted with cataract in the eye, but none were
affected with the latter disease to the extent I had observed among
the Eskimo, with whom I believe it is caused by repeated attacks of
snow-blindness.
[Illustration: LAKE BENNETT FROM PAYER PORTAGE.
Iron-capped mountains on the right, covered with fog.]
On the summits of high mountains to the right, or eastward of Lake
Bennett, were the familiar blue-ice glaciers, but in charming relief to
these were the red rocks and ridges that protruded amid them. Specimens
of rocks very similar in color were found on the lake beach and in the
terminal moraines of the little glaciers that came down the gulches,
and these having shown iron as their coloring matter, I gave to this
bold range the name of the Iron-capped Mountains.
On the morning of the 19th of June the constructors reported that their
work was done, and the raft was immediately hauled in closer to shore,
the load put on and carefully adjusted with reference to an equitable
weight, the bow and stern lines cast loose, and after rowing through a
winding channel to get past the shallow mudflats deposited by the two
streams which emptied themselves near here, the old wall tent was again
spread from its ridge-pole, lashed to the top of the rude mast, and our
journey was resumed.
The scenery along this part of Lake Bennett is very much like the
inland passages of Alaska, except that there is much less timber on the
hills.
I had started with four Chilkat Indians, who were to go over the
whole length of the Yukon with me. One of them was always complaining
of severe illness, with such a wonderful adaptation to the amount
of labor on hand that I discharged him at Lake Bennett as the only
method of breaking up the coincidence. The best workman among them
discharged himself by disappearing with a hatchet and an ax, and I was
left with but two, neither of whom, properly speaking, could be called
a Chilkat Indian; in fact one was a half-breed Tlinkit interpreter,
"Billy" Dickinson by name, whose mother had been a Tsimpsean Indian
woman and whose father kept the store of the North-west Trading
Company in Chilkat Inlet. "Billy," as we always called him, was a
rather good-looking young fellow of about twenty-five years, who
understood the Tlinkit language thoroughly, but had the fault of
nearly all interpreters of mixed blood, that when called on for duty
he considered himself as one of the high contracting parties to the
bargain to be made; a sort of agent instead of an interpreter, and
being a wonderfully poor agent he became still worse as an interpreter.
He was as strong as two or three ordinary men of his build and in any
sort of an emergency with a sprinkle of dangerous excitement about
it he put all his strength to use and proved invaluable, but in the
hum-drum, monotonous work of the trip, such as the steering of the raft
or other continuous labor, his Indian nature came to the front, and he
did every thing in the world on the outskirts of the work required,
but would not be brought down to the main issue until compelled to do
so by the application of strong language. Our other native companion
was named _Indianne_, a Chilkat Tahk-heesh Indian, whose familiarity
with the latter language, through his mother, a Tahk-heesh squaw, made
him invaluable to us as an interpreter while in the country of this
tribe, which stretches to the site of old Fort Selkirk at the mouth
of the Pelly River. Physically, Indianne was not all that might be
required in an Indian, for they are generally supposed to do twice as
much out-of-door work as a white man, but he was well past fifty years
and such activity was hardly to be expected of him. Besides being a
Tahk-heesh, or Stick interpreter, he was fairly familiar with the
ground as a guide, having traveled over parts of it much oftener than
most Indians, owing to the demand for his services as an interpreter
among the Sticks. Through the medium of our two interpreters, and the
knowledge found in each tribe of the language of their neighbors,
we managed to get along on the river until English and Russian were
again encountered, although we occasionally had to use four or five
interpreters at once.
There was a fair wind in our favor as we started, but it was
accompanied with a disagreeable rain which made things very unpleasant,
as we had no sign of a cover on our open boat, nor could we raise one
in a strong wind. Under this wind we made about a mile and a half an
hour, and as it kept slowly increasing we dashed along at the noble
rate of two or two and a half miles an hour. This increasing wind,
however, also had its disadvantages, for on long, unprotected stretches
of the lake the water was swelling into waves that gave us no small
apprehension for our vessel. Not that we feared she might strike a
rock, or spring a leak, but that in her peculiar explorations she might
spread herself over the lake, and her crew and cargo over its bottom.
By three in the afternoon the waves were dashing high over the stern,
and the raft having no logs running its entire length, was working in
the center like an accordion, and with as much distraction to us. Still
it was important to take advantage of every possible breath of wind in
the right direction while on the lakes; and we held the raft rigidly to
the north for about two hours longer, at which time a perfect hurricane
was howling, the high waves sweeping the rowing space so that no one
could stand on his feet in that part, much less sit down to the oars,
and as a few of the faithful pins commenced snapping, we headed the
vessel for the eastern shore at as sharp an angle as it was possible
to make running before the wind, and which I do not think was over two
points of the compass, equal to an angle of about twenty degrees.
This course brought us in time to a rough, rocky beach strewn with big
bowlders along the water's edge, over which the waves were dashing
in a boiling sheet of water that looked threatening enough; but a
line was gotten ashore through the surf with the aid of a canoe, and
while a number of the crew kept the raft off the rocks with poles,
the remainder of the party tracked it back about a half a mile along
the slippery stones of the beach, to a crescent-shaped cove sheltered
from the waves and wind, where it was anchored near the beach. We at
once began looking around for a sufficient number of long logs to run
the whole length of the raft, a search in which we were conspicuously
successful, for the timber skirting the little cove was the largest and
best adapted for raft repairing of any we saw for many hundred miles
along the lakes. Four quite large trees were found, and all the next
day, the 20th, was occupied in cutting them down, clearing a way for
them through the timber to the shore of the lake, and prying, pulling,
and pushing them there, and then incorporating them into the raft. Two
were used for the side logs and two for the center, and when we had
finished our task it was evident that a much needed improvement had
been made. It was just made in time, too, for many of our tools were
rapidly going to pieces; the last auger had slipped the nut that held
it in the handle, so that it could not be withdrawn from the logs to
clear it of the shavings, but a small hand-vise was firmly screwed on
as a substitute, and this too lost its hold and fell overboard on the
outer edge of the raft in eight or ten feet of water, and ice-water
at that. A magnet of fair size was lashed on the end of a long pole,
and we fished for the invisible implement, but without avail. "Billy"
Dickinson, our half-breed Chilkat interpreter, of his own free will and
accord, then stripped himself and dived down into the ice-cold water
and discovered that near the spot where it had sunk was a precipitous
bank of an unknown depth, down which it had probably rolled, otherwise
the magnet would have secured it. Other means were employed and we got
along without it.
The day we spent in repairing the raft a good, strong, steady wind from
the south kept us all day in a state of perfect irritation at the loss
of so much good motive power, but we consoled ourselves by observing
that it did us one service at least--no mean one, however--in keeping
the mosquitoes quiet during our labors.
Across Lake Bennett to the north-westward was a very prominent cape,
brought out in bold relief by the valley of a picturesque stream,
which emptied itself just beyond. I called it Prejevalsky Point after
the well-known Russian explorer, while the stream was called Wheaton
River after Brevet Major-General Frank Wheaton, U. S. Army, at the time
commanding the Military Department (of the Columbia) in which Alaska is
comprised, and to whose efforts and generosity the ample outfit of the
expedition was due.
On the 21st we again started early, with a good breeze behind us
that on the long stretches gave us quite heavy seas, which tested the
raft very thoroughly, and with a result much to our satisfaction. It
no longer conformed to the surface of the long swelling waves, but
remained rigidly intact, the helmsman at the steering oar getting
considerably splashed as a consequence. The red rocks and ridges of
the ice-covered mountain tops that I have mentioned finally culminated
in one bold, beetling pinnacle, well isolated from the rest, and quite
noticeable for many miles along the lake from either direction. This I
named Richards' Rock, after Vice-Admiral Richards, of the Royal Navy.
The country was becoming a little more open as we neared the northern
end of Lake Bennett, and, indeed, more picturesque in its relief to
the monotonous grandeur of the mountain scenery. Lake Bennett is
thirty miles long. At its north-western extremity a couple of streams
disembogue, forming a wide, flat and conspicuous valley that, as we
approached it, we all anticipated would prove our outlet. Several well
marked conical buttes spring from this valley, and these with the
distant mountains give it a very picturesque appearance, its largest
river being sixty to seventy-five yards wide, but quite shallow. It
received the name of Watson Valley, for Professor Sereno Watson, of
Harvard University.
About five o'clock the northern end or outlet of the lake was reached.
As the sail was lowered, and we entered a river from one hundred to two
hundred yards wide, and started forward at a speed of three or four
miles an hour--a pace which seemed ten times as fast as our progress
upon the lake, since, from our proximity to the shore, our relative
motion was more clearly indicated, our spirits ascended, and the
prospects of our future journey when we should be rid of the lakes were
joyfully discussed, and the subject was not exhausted when we grounded
and ran upon a mud flat that took us two hours of hard work to get
clear of. This short stretch of the draining river of Lake Bennett,
nearly two miles long, is called by the natives of the country "the
place where the caribou cross," and appears on the map as Caribou
Crossing.
At certain seasons of the year, so the Tahk-heesh Indians say, these
caribou--the woodland reindeer--pass over this part of the river in
large numbers in their migrations to the different feeding grounds,
supplied and withdrawn in turn by the changing seasons, and ford its
wide shallow current, passing backward and forward through Watson
Valley. Unfortunately for our party neither of these crossings occurred
at this time of the year, although a dejected camp of two Tahk-heesh
families not far away from ours (No. 10) had a very ancient reindeer
ham hanging in front of their brush tent, which, however, we did not
care to buy. The numerous tracks of the animals, some apparently as
large as oxen, confirmed the Indian stories, and as I looked at our
skeleton game score and our provisions of Government bacon, I wished
sincerely that June was one of the months of the reindeers' migration,
and the 21st or 22d about the period of its culmination.
The very few Indians living in this part of the country--the
"Sticks"--subsist mostly on these animals and on mountain goats, with
now and then a wandering moose, and more frequently a black bear. One
would expect to find such followers of the chase the very hardiest
of all Indians, in compliance with the rule that prevails in most
countries, by which the hunter excels the fisherman, but this does not
seem to be the case along this great river. Here, indeed, it appears
that the further down the stream the Indian lives, and the more he
subsists on fish, the hardier, the more robust, the more self-asserting
and impudent he becomes.
After prying our raft off the soft mud flat we again spread our sail
for the beach of the little lake and went into camp, after having been
on the water (or in it) for over thirteen hours.
The country was now decidedly more open, and it was evident that we
were getting out of the mountains. Many level spots appeared, the hills
were less steep and the snow was melting from their tops. Pretty wild
rose-blossoms were found along the banks of the beach, with many wild
onions with which we stuffed the wrought-iron grouse that we killed,
and altogether there was a general change of verdure for the better.
There were even a number of rheumatic grasshoppers which feebly jumped
along in the cold Alpine air, as if to tempt us to go fishing, in
remembrance of the methods of our boyhood's days, and in fact every
thing that we needed for that recreation was to be had except the fish.
Although this lake (Lake Nares, after Sir George Nares) was but three
or four miles long, its eastern trend delayed us three days before we
got a favorable wind, the banks not being good for tracking the raft.
Our old friend, the steady summer south wind, still continued, but
was really a hindrance to our progress on an eastern course. Although
small, Lake Nares was one of the prettiest in the lacustrine chain,
owing to the greater openness of country on its banks. Grand terraces
stretching in beautiful symmetry along each side of the lake plainly
showed its ancient levels, these terraces reaching nearly to the tops
of the hills, and looking as if some huge giant had used them as
stairways over the mountains. Similar but less conspicuous terraces had
been noticed on the northern shores of Lake Bennett.
Although we could catch no fish while fishing with bait or flies, yet
a number of trout lines put out over night in Lake Nares rewarded us
with a large salmon trout, the first fish we had caught on the trip. I
have spoken of the delay on this little lake on account of its eastward
trend, and the next lake kept up the unfavorable course, and we did not
get off this short eastern stretch of ten or fifteen miles for five or
six days, so baffling was the wind. Of course, these protracted delays
gave us many chances for rambles around the country, some of which we
improved.
Everywhere we came in contact with the grouse of these regions, all of
them with broods of varying numbers, and while the little chicks went
scurrying through the grass and brush in search of a hiding place,
the old ones walked along in front of the intruder, often but a few
feet away, seemingly less devoid of fear than the common barn fowls,
although probably they had never heard a shot fired.
The Doctor and I sat down to rest on a large rock with a perturbed
mother grouse on another not over three yards away, and we could
inspect her plumage and study her actions as well as if she had been in
a cage. The temptation to kill them was very great after having been so
long without fresh meat, a subsistence the appetite loudly demands in
the rough out-of-door life of an explorer. A mess of them ruthlessly
destroyed by our Indian hunters, who had no fears of the game law, no
sportsman's qualms of conscience, nor in fact compassion of any sort,
lowered our desire to zero, for they were tougher than leather, and
as tasteless as shavings; and after that first mess we were perfectly
willing to allow them all the rights guaranteed by the game laws of
lower latitudes.
[Illustration: CARVED PINS FOR FASTENING MARMOT SNARES.]
Quite a number of marmots were seen by our Indians, and the hillsides
were dotted with their holes. The Indians catch them for fur and food
(in fact, every thing living is used by the Indians for the latter
purpose) by means of running nooses put over their holes, which choke
the little animal to death as he tries to quit his underground home. A
finely split raven quill, running the whole length of the rib of the
feather, is used for the noose proper and the instant this is sprung
it closes by its own flexibility. The rest is a sinew string tied to
a bush near the hole if one be convenient, otherwise to a peg driven
in the ground. Sometimes they employ a little of the large amount of
leisure time they have on their hands in cutting these pegs into
fanciful and totemic designs, although in this respect the Sticks, as
in every thing else pertaining to the savage arts, are usually much
inferior to the Chilkats in these displays, and the illustrations give
on page 112 are characteristic rather of the latter tribe than of the
former. Nearly all the blankets of this Tahk-heesh tribe of Indians
are made from these marmot skins, and they are exceedingly light
considering their warmth. Much of the warmth, however, is lost by the
ventilated condition in which the wearers maintain them, as it costs
labor to mend them, but none to sit around and shiver.
The few Tahk-heesh who had been camped near us at Caribou Crossing
suddenly disappeared the night after we camped on the little lake, and
as our "gum canoe" that we towed along behind the raft and used for
emergencies, faded from view at the same eclipse, we were forced to
associate the events together and set these fellows down as subject
to kleptomania. Nor should I be too severe either, for the canoe had
been picked up by us on Lake Lindeman as a vagrant, and it certainly
looked the character in every respect, therefore we could not show the
clearest title in the world to the dilapidated craft. It was a very
fortunate circumstance that we were not worried for the use of a canoe
afterward until we could purchase a substitute, although we hardly
thought such a thing possible at the time, so much had we used the one
that ran away with our friends.
The 23d of June we got across the little lake (Nares), the wind dying
down as we went through its short draining river, having made only
three miles.
The next day, the 24th, the wind seemed to keep swinging around in
a circle, and although we made five miles, I think we made as many
landings, so often did the wind fail us or set in ahead.
This new lake I called after Lieutenant Bove of the Italian navy. Here
too, the mountainous shores were carved into a series of terraces
rising one above the other, which probably indicated the ancient
beaches of the lake when its outlet was closed at a much higher level
than at present, and when great bodies of ice on their surface plowed
up the beach into these terraces. This new lake was nine miles long.
The next day again we had the same fight with a battling wind from half
past six in the morning until after nine at night, nearly seventeen
hours, but we managed to make twelve miles, and better than all, regain
our old course pointing northward. During one of these temporary
landings on the shores of Lake Bove our Indians amused themselves in
wasting government matches, articles which they had never seen in such
profusion before, and in a little while they succeeded in getting some
dead and fallen spruce trees on fire, and these communicating to the
living ones above them, soon sent up great billows of dense resinous
smoke that must have been visible for miles, and which lasted for
a number of minutes after we had left. Before camping that evening
we could see a very distant smoke, apparently six or seven miles
ahead, but really ten or twenty, which our Indians told us was an
answering smoke to them, the Tahk-heesh, who kindled the second fire,
evidently thinking that they were Chilkat traders in their country,
this being a frequent signal among them as a means of announcing their
approach, when engaged in trading. It was worthy of note as marking
the existence of this primitive method of signaling, so common among
some of the Indian tribes of the plains, among these far-off savages,
but I was unable to ascertain whether they carried it to such a degree
of intricacy with respect to the different meanings of compound smokes
either as to number or relative intervals of time or space. It is very
doubtful if they do, as the necessity for such complex signals can
hardly arise.
This new lake on which we had taken up our northward course, and which
is about eighteen miles long, is called by the Indians of the country
Tahk-o (each lake and connecting length of river has a different name
with them), and, I understand, receives a river coming in from the
south, which, followed up to one of its sources, gives a mountain pass
to another river emptying into the inland estuaries of the Pacific
Ocean. It is said by the Indians to be smaller than the one we had just
come over, and therefore we might consider that we were on the Yukon
proper thus far.
Lake Tahk-o and Lake Bove are almost a single sheet, separated only
by a narrow strait formed by a point of remarkable length (Point
Perthes, after Justus Perthes of Gotha), which juts nearly across to
the opposite shore. It is almost covered with limestones, some of them
almost true marble in their whiteness, a circumstance which gives a
decided hue to the cape even when seen at a distance.
[Illustration: LOOKING ACROSS LAKE BOVE FROM PERTHES POINT.
Field Peak in the far distance. (Named for Hon. David Dudley Field.)]
Leaving the raft alongside the beach of Lake Tahk-o at our only camping
place on it (Camp No. 13), a short stroll along its shores revealed
a great number of long, well-trimmed logs that strongly resembled
telegraph poles, and would have sold for those necessary nuisances in
a civilized country. They were finally made out to be the logs used by
the Indians in rafting down the stream, and well-trimmed by constant
attrition on the rough rocky beaches while held there by the storms.
Most of these were observed on the northern shores of the lakes, to
which the current through them, slight as it was, coupled with the
prevailing south wind, naturally drifts them. I afterward ascertained
that rafting was quite a usual thing along the head waters of the
Yukon, and that we were not pioneers in this rude art by any means,
although we had thought so from the direful prognostications they
were continually making as to our probable success with our own. The
"cottonwood" canoes already referred to are very scarce, there probably
not existing over ten or twelve along the whole length of the upper
river as far as old Fort Selkirk. Many of their journeys up the swift
stream are performed by the natives on foot, carrying their limited
necessities on their backs. Upon their return a small raft of from two
to six or eight logs is made, and they float down with the current in
the streams, and pole and sail across the lakes. By comparing these
logs with telegraph poles one has a good idea of the usual size of the
timber of these districts. The scarcity of good wooden canoes is also
partially explained by this smallness of the logs; while birch bark
canoes are unknown on the Yukon until the neighborhood of old Fort
Selkirk is reached.
This same Lake Tahk-o, or probably some lake very near it, had been
reached by an intrepid miner, a Mr. Byrnes, then in the employ of the
Western Union Telegraph Company. Many of my readers are probably not
acquainted with the fact that this corporation, at about the close
of our civil war, conceived the grand idea of uniting civilization
in the eastern and western continents by a telegraph line running by
way of Bering's Straits, and that a great deal of the preliminary
surveys and even a vast amount of the actual work had been completed
when the success of the Atlantic cable put a stop to the project.
The Yukon River had been carefully examined from its mouth as far as
old Fort Yukon (then a flourishing Hudson Bay Company post), some
one thousand miles from the mouth, and even roughly beyond, in their
interest, although it had previously been more or less known to the
Russian-American and Hudson Bay trading companies. Mr. Byrnes, a
practical miner from the Caribou mines of British Columbia, crossed the
Tahk-o Pass, already cited, got on one of the sources of the Yukon, and
as near as can be made out, descended it to the vicinity of the lake
of which I am writing. Here it appears he was recalled by a courier
sent on his trail and dispatched by the telegraph company, who were now
mournfully assisting in the jubilee of the Atlantic cable's success,
and he retraced his steps over the river and lakes, and returned to his
former occupation of mining.
Whether he ever furnished a map and a description of his journey,
so that it could be called an exploration, I do not know, but from
the books which purport to give a description of the country as
deduced from his travels, I should say not, considering their great
inaccuracy. One book, noticing his travels, and purporting to be a
faithful record of the telegraph explorers on the American side, said
that had Mr. Byrnes continued his trip only a day and a half further
in the light birch-bark canoes of the country, he would have reached
old Fort Selkirk, and thus completed the exploration of the Yukon. Had
he reached the site of old Fort Selkirk, he certainly would have had
the credit, had he recorded it, however rough his notes may have been,
but he would never have done so in the light birch-bark canoes of the
country, for the conclusive reason that they do not exist, as already
stated; and as to doing it in a day and a half, our measurements from
Lake Tahk-o to Fort Selkirk show nearly four hundred and fifty miles,
and observations proved that the Indians seldom exceed a journey of
six hours in their cramped wooden craft, so that his progress would
necessarily have demanded a speed of nearly fifty miles an hour. At
this rate of canoeing along the whole river, across Bering Sea and up
the Amoor River, the telegraph company need not have completed their
line along this part, but might simply have turned their dispatch over
to these rapid couriers, and they would have only been a few hours
behind the telegraph dispatch if it had been worked as slowly as it is
now in the interest of the public.
We passed out of Lake Tahk-o a little after two o'clock in the
afternoon of the 26th of June, and entered the first considerable
stretch of river that we had yet met with on the trip, about nine
miles long. We quitted the river at five o'clock, which was quite an
improvement on our lake traveling even at its best. The first part of
this short river stretch is full of dangerous rocks and bowlders, as is
also the lower portion of Tahk-o Lake.
On the right bank of the river, about four miles from the entrance,
we saw a tolerably well-built "Stick" Indian house. Near it in the
water was a swamped Indian canoe which one of our natives bailed out
in a manner as novel as it was effectual. Grasping it on one side, and
about the center, a rocking motion, fore and aft, was kept up, the
bailer waiting until the recurrent wave was just striking the depressed
end of the boat, and as this was repeated the canoe was slowly lifted
until it stood at his waist with not enough water in it to sink an
oyster can. This occupied a space of time not much greater than it
has taken to relate it. This house was deserted, but evidently only
for a while, as a great deal of its owner's material of the chase and
the fishery was still to be seen hanging inside on the rafters. Among
these were a great number of dried salmon, one of the staple articles
of food that now begin to appear on this part of the great river,
nearly two thousand miles from its mouth. This salmon, when dried
before putrefaction sets in, is tolerable, ranking somewhere between
Limburger cheese and walrus hide. Collecting some of it occasionally
from Indian fishermen as we floated by, we would use it as a lunch in
homeopathic quantities until some of us got so far as to imagine that
we really liked it. If smoked, this salmon is quite good, but by far
the larger amount is dried in the open air, and, Indian like, the best
is first served and soon disappears.
Floating down the river, and coming near any of the low marshy points,
we were at once visited by myriads of small black gnats which formed a
very unsolicited addition to the millions of mosquitoes, the number of
which did not diminish in the least as we descended the river. The only
protection from them was in being well out from land, with a good wind
blowing, or when forced to camp on shore a heavy resinous smoke would
often disperse a large part of them.
When we camped that evening on the new lake the signal smoke of the
Tahk-heesh Indians--if it was one--was still burning, at least some six
or seven miles ahead of us, which showed how much we had been mistaken
in estimating its distance the day before. A tree has something
definite in its size, and even a butte or mountain peak has something
tangible on which a person can base a calculation for distance,
but when one comes down to a distant smoke I think the greatest
indefiniteness has been reached, especially when one wants to estimate
its distance. I had often observed this before, when on the plains,
where it is still worse than in a hilly country, where one can at least
perceive that the smoke is beyond the hill, back of which it rises, but
when often looking down an open river valley no such indications are to
be had. I remember when traveling through the sand hills of western
Nebraska that a smoke which was variously estimated to be from eight to
twelve or possibly fifteen miles away took us two days' long traveling
in an army ambulance, making thirty-five or forty miles a day, as the
winding road ran, to reach its site.
[Illustration: LOOKING SOUTHWARD FROM CAMP 14 ON LAKE MARSH
On the left is the Tahk-o Pass, on the right the Yukon Pass in the
mountains, directly over the point of land. Between this point and the
Yukon Pass can be seen the Yukon River coming into the lake.]
The shores of the new lake--which I named Lake Marsh, after Professor
O. C. Marsh, a well-known scientist of our country--was composed of all
sizes of clay stones jumbled together in confusion, and where the water
had reached and beat upon them it had reduced them to a sticky clay of
the consistency of thick mortar, not at all easy to walk through. This
mire, accompanied by a vast quantity of mud brought down by the streams
that emanated from grinding glaciers, and which could be distinguished
by the whiter color and impalpable character of its ingredients, nearly
filled the new lake, at least for wide strips along the shores where
it had been driven by the storms. Although drawing a little less than
two feet of water, the raft struck several times at distances from the
shore of from fifty to a hundred yards, and the only alternative was
to wade ashore in our rubber boots (the soft mud being deeper than the
water itself) and tie the raft by a long line whenever we wanted to
camp.
One night, while on this lake, a strong inshore breeze coming up, our
raft, while unloaded, was gradually lifted by the incoming high waves,
and brought a few inches further at a time, until a number of yards had
been made. The next morning when loaded and sunk deep into the mud,
the work we had to pry it off is more easily imagined than described,
but it taught us a lesson that we took to heart, and thereafter a
friendly prod or two with a bar was generally given at the ends of the
cumbersome craft to pry it gradually into deeper water as the load
slowly weighed it down. When the wind was blowing vigorously from some
quarter--and it was only when it was blowing that we could set sail
and make any progress--these shallow mud banks would tinge the water
over them with a dirty white color that was in strong contrast with
the clear blue water over the deeper portion, and by closely watching
this well-defined line of demarcation when under sail, we could make
out the most favorable points at which to reach the bank, or approach
it as nearly as possible. This clear-cut outline between the whitened
water within its exterior edges and the deep blue water beyond, showed
in many places an extension of the deposits of from four hundred to
five hundred yards from the beach. It is probable that the areas of
water may vary in Lake Marsh at different seasons sufficiently to lay
bare these mud banks, or cover them so as to be navigable for small
boats; but at the time of our visit there seemed to be a most wonderful
uniformity in the depth of the water over them in every part of the
lake, it being about eighteen inches.
Camping on the lakes was generally quite an easy affair. There was
always plenty of wood, and, of course, water everywhere, the clear,
cold mountain springs occurring every few hundred yards if the lake
water was too muddy; so that about all that we needed was a dry place
large enough to pitch a couple of tents for the white people and a tent
fly for the Indians, but simple as the latter seemed, it was very often
quite difficult to obtain. It was seldom that we found places where
tent pins could be driven in the ground, and when rocks large enough to
do duty as pins, or fallen timber or brush for the same purpose could
not be had, we generally put the tent under us, spread our blankets
upon it, crawled in and went to sleep. The greatest comfort in pitching
our tent was in keeping out the mosquitoes, for then we could spread
our mosquito bars with some show of success, although the constantly
recurring light rains made us often regret that we had made a bivouac,
not particularly on account of the slight wettings we got, but because
of our constant fear that the rain was going to be much worse in
reality than it ever proved to be. I defy any one to sleep in the open
air with only a blanket or two over him and have a great black cloud
sprinkle a dozen drops of rain or so in his face and not imagine the
deluge was coming next. I have tried it off and on for nearly twenty
years, and have not got over the feeling yet. If, after camping, a
storm threatened, a couple of stout skids were placed fore and aft
under the logs of the raft nearest the shore to prevent their breaking
off as they bumped on the beach in the waves of the surf, a monotonous
music that lulled us to sleep on many a stormy night. The baggage on
the raft, like that in an army wagon or upon a pack train of mules, in
a few days so assorted itself that the part necessary for the night's
camping was always the handiest, and but a few minutes were required
after landing until the evening meal was ready.
So important was it to make the entire length of the river (over 2000
miles) within the short interval between the date of our starting and
the probable date of departure of the last vessel from St. Michaels,
near the mouth of the river, that but little time was left for rambles
through the country, and much as I desired to take a hunt inland, and
still more to make an examination of the country at various points
along the great river, I constantly feared that by so doing I might
be compromising our chances of getting out of the country before
winter should effectually forbid it. Therefore, from the very start
it was one constant fight against time to avoid such an unwished for
contingency, and thus we could avail ourselves of but few opportunities
for exploring the interior.
On the 28th of June a fair breeze on Lake Marsh continuing past
sunset (an unusual occurrence), we kept on our way until well after
midnight before the wind died out. At midnight it was light enough
to read common print and I spent some time about then in working out
certain astronomical observations. Venus was the only star that was
dimly visible in the unclouded sky. Lake Marsh was the first water
that we could trust in which to take a bath, and even there--and for
that matter it was the same along the entire river--bathing was only
possible on still, warm, sunny days.
Below old Fort Selkirk on the Yukon, at the mouth of the White River
(so-called on account of its white muddy water), bathing is almost
undesirable on account of the large amount of sediment contained in the
water; its swift current allowing it to hold much more than any river
of the western slope known to me, while its muddy banks furnish a ready
base of supplies. Its temperature also seldom reaches the point that
will allow one to plunge in all over with any degree of comfort. One
annoyance in bathing in Lake Marsh during the warmer hours of the day
was the presence of a large fly, somewhat resembling the "horse-fly,"
but much larger and inflicting a bite that was proportionately more
severe. These flies made it necessary to keep constantly swinging a
towel in the air, and a momentary cessation of this exertion might be
punished by having a piece bitten out of one that a few days later
would look like an incipient boil. One of the party so bitten was
completely disabled for a week, and at the moment of infliction it was
hard to believe that one was not disabled for life. With these "horse"
flies, gnats and mosquitoes in such dense profusion, the Yukon Valley
is not held up as a paradise to future tourists.
The southern winds which had been blowing almost continuously since
we first spread our sail on Lake Lindeman, and which had been our
salvation while on the lakes, must prevail chiefly in this region,
as witness the manner in which the spruce and pine trees invariably
lean to the northward, especially where their isolated condition and
exposure on flat level tracts give the winds full play, to influence
their position. Near Lake Lindeman a dwarfed, contorted pine was
noticed, the fibers of which were not only twisted around its heart two
or three times, in a height of fifteen or twenty feet, but the heart
itself was twisted in a spiral like a corkscrew that made two or three
turns in its length, after which, as if to add confusion to disorder,
it was bent in a graceful sweep to the north to conform to the general
leaning of all the trees similarly exposed to the action of the winds.
There was a general brash condition of all the wood which was very
apparent when we started to make pins for binding the raft, while it
was seldom that a log was found large enough for cutting timber. The
little cove into which we put on the 19th of June, when chased by a
gale, by a singular freak of good fortune had just the logs we needed,
both as to length and size, to repair our raft, and I do not think
we saw a good chance again on the upper waters of the Yukon. Further
down, every island--and the Yukon has probably as many islands as any
half-dozen rivers of the same size in the world put together--has its
upper end covered with enough timber to build all the rafts a lively
party could construct in a summer.
Lake Marsh also had a few terraces visible on the eastern hillsides,
but they were nearer together and not so well marked as those we
observed on some of the lakes further back. Along these, however, were
pretty open prairies, covered with the dried, yellow grass of last
year, this summer's growth having evidently not yet forced its way
through the dense mass. More than one of us compared these prairies,
irregular as they seemed, with the stubble fields of wheat or oats
in more civilized climes. I have no doubt that they furnish good
grazing to mountain goats, caribou and moose, and would be sufficient
for cattle if they could keep on friendly terms with the mosquitoes.
According to the general terms of the survival of the fittest and the
growth of muscles the most used to the detriment of others, a band of
cattle inhabiting this district in the far future would be all tail and
no body unless the mosquitoes should experience a change of numbers.
[Illustration: TYPICAL TAHK-HEESH OR "STICK" INDIANS.
From sketches by Sergeant Gloster.]
At Marsh a few miserable "Stick" Indians put in an appearance, but not
a single thing could be obtained from them by our curiosity hunters.
A rough-looking pair of shell ear-rings in a small boy's possession
he instantly refused to exchange for the great consideration of
a jack-knife offered by a member of the party, who supposed the
ornaments to be purely local in character and of savage manufacture.
Another trinket was added to the jack-knife and still refused, and
additions were made to the original offer, until just to see if there
was any limit to the acquisitiveness of these people, a final offer was
made, I believe, of a double-barreled shot-gun with a thousand rounds
of ammunition, a gold watch, two sacks of flour and a camp stove, and
in refusing this the boy generously added the information that its
value to him was based on the fact that it had been received from the
Chilkats, who, in turn, had obtained it from the white traders.
A few scraggy half-starved dogs accompanied the party. An unconquerable
pugnacity was the principal characteristic of these animals, two of
them fighting until they were so exhausted that they had to lean up
against each other to rest. A dirty group of children of assorted sizes
completed the picture of one of the most dejected races of people on
the face of the earth. They visited their fish lines at the mouth of
the incoming river at the head of Lake Marsh, and caught enough fish to
keep body and soul together after a fashion. This method of fishing is
quite common in this part of the country, and at the mouth of a number
of streams, or where the main stream debouches into a lake, long willow
poles driven far enough into the mud to prevent their washing away are
often seen projecting upward and swayed back and forth by the force
of the current. On closer examination they reveal a sinew string tied
to them at about the water-line or a little above. They occasionally
did us good service as buoys, indicating the mud flats, which we could
thereby avoid, but the number of fish we ever saw taken off them was
not alarming. The majority of those caught are secured by means of the
double-pronged fish-spears, which were described on page 76. I never
observed any nets in the possession of the Tahk-heesh or "Sticks," but
my investigations in this respect were so slight that I might easily
have overlooked them. Among my trading material to be used for hiring
native help, fish-hooks were eagerly sought by all of the Indians,
until after White River was passed, at which point the Yukon becomes
too muddy for any kind of fishing with hook and line. Lines they were
not so eager to obtain, the common ones of sinew sufficiently serving
the purpose. No good bows or arrows were seen among them, their only
weapons being the stereotyped Hudson Bay Company flintlock smooth-bore
musket, the only kind of gun, I believe, throwing a ball that this
great trading company has ever issued since its foundation. They also
sell a cheap variety of double-barreled percussion-capped shot-gun,
which the natives buy, and loading them with ball--being about No. 12
or 14 gauge--find them superior to the muskets. Singular as it may
appear, these Indians, like the Eskimo I found around the northern
part of Hudson's Bay, prefer the flintlock to the percussion-cap gun,
probably for the reason that the latter depends on three articles of
trade--caps, powder and lead--while the former depends on but two of
these, and the chances of running short of ammunition when perhaps at
a distance of many weeks' journey from these supplies, are thereby
lessened. These old muskets are tolerably good at sixty to seventy
yards, and even reasonably dangerous at twice that distance. In all
their huntings these Indians contrive by that tact peculiar to savages
to get within this distance of moose, black bear and caribou, and thus
to earn a pretty fair subsistence the year round, having for summer a
diet of salmon with a few berries and roots.
The 28th we had on Lake Marsh a brisk rain and thunder shower, lasting
from 12.45 P.M. to 2.15 P.M., directly overhead, which was, I believe,
the first thunderstorm recorded on the Yukon, thunder being unknown
on the lower river, according to all accounts. Our Camp 15 was on a
soft, boggy shore covered with reeds, where a tent could not be pitched
and blankets could not be spread. The raft lay far out in the lake,
a hundred yards from the shore, across soft white mud, through which
one might sink in the water to one's middle. When to this predicament
the inevitable mosquitoes and a few rain showers are added, I judge
that our plight was about as disagreeable as could well be imagined.
Such features of the explorer's life, however, are seldom dwelt upon.
The northern shores of the lake are unusually flat and boggy. Our
primitive mode of navigation suffered also from the large banks of
"glacier mud" as we approached the lake's outlet. Most of this mud
was probably deposited by a large river, the McClintock (in honor of
Vice-Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, R. N.), that here comes in from
the north-east--a river so large that we were in some doubt as to its
being the outlet, until its current settled the matter by carrying us
into the proper channel. A very conspicuous hill, bearing north-east
from Lake Marsh, was named Michie Mountain after Professor Michie of
West Point.