Chilkat Indians had several fixed villages near the head of the inlet,
and were accustomed to go back and forth over the mountains to trade
with the interior Indians, whom they would not allow to come to the
coast. They thus enjoyed not only the monopoly of the business of
carrying supplies over to the Yukon trading posts and bringing out the
furs, and more recently of assisting the miners, but made huge profits
as middle-men between the Indians of the interior and the trading posts
on the coast. They are a sturdy race of mountaineers, and the most
arrogant, treacherous and turbulent of all the northwestern tribes, but
their day is nearly passed. The early explorers--Krause, Everette and
others--took this pass, and it was here that E. J. Glave first tried (in
1891) to take pack horses across the mountains, and succeeded so well as
to show the feasibility of that method of carriage, which put a check
upon the extortion and faithlessness of the Indian carriers. His account
of his adventures in making this experiment, over bogs, wild rocky
heights, snow fields, swift rivers and forest barriers, has been
detailed in The Century Magazine for 1892, and should be read by all
interested. "No matter how important your mission," Mr. Glave wrote,
"your Indian carriers, though they have duly contracted to accompany
you, will delay your departure till it suits their convenience, and any
exhibition of impatience on your part will only remind them of your
utter dependency on them; and then intrigue for increase of pay will at
once begin. While en route they will prolong the journey by camping on
the trail for two or three weeks, tempted by good hunting or fishing. In
a land where the open season is so short, and the ways are so long, such
delay is a tremendous drawback. Often the Indians will carry their loads
some part of the way agreed on, then demand an extravagant increase of
pay or a goodly share of the white man's stores, and, failing to get
either, will fling down their packs and return to their village, leaving
their white employer helplessly stranded."
The usual charge for Indian carriers is $2 a day and board, and they
demand the best fare and a great deal of it, so that the white man finds
his precious stores largely wasted before reaching his destination.
These facts are mentioned, not because it is now necessary to endure
this extortion and expense, but to show how little dependence can be
placed upon the hope of securing the aid of Indian packers in carrying
the goods of prospectors or explorers elsewhere in the interior, and the
great expense involved. This pass descends to a series of connected
lakes leading down to Lake Labarge and thence by another stream to the
Lewes; and it requires twelve days of pack-carrying--far more than is
necessary on the other passes. As a consequence, this pass is now rarely
used except by Indians going to the Aksekh river and the coast ranges
northward.
Chilkoot, Taiya or Parrier Pass.--This is the pass that has been used
since 1885 by the miners and others on the upper Yukon, and is still a
route of travel. It starts from the head of canoe navigation on Taiya
inlet, and follows up a stream valley, gradually leading to the divide,
which is only 3,500 feet above the sea. The first day's march is to the
foot of the ascent, and over a terrible trail, through heavy woods and
along a steep, rocky and often boggy hillside, broken by several deep
gullies. The ascent is then very abrupt and over huge masses of fallen
rock or steep slippery surfaces of rock in place. At the actual summit,
which for seven or eight miles is bare of trees or bushes, the trail
leads through a narrow rocky gap, and the whole scene is one of the most
complete desolation. Naked granite rocks, rising steeply to partly
snow-clad mountains on either side. Descending the inland or north slope
is equally bad traveling, largely over wide areas of shattered rocks
where the trail may easily be lost. The further valley contains several
little lakes and leads roughly down to Lake Lindeman. The distance from
Taiya is twenty-three and a half miles, and it is usually made in two
days. Miners sometimes cross this pass in April, choosing fine weather,
and then continue down the lakes on the ice to some point where they can
conveniently camp and wait for the opening of navigation on the Yukon;
ordinarily it is unsafe to attempt a return in the autumn later than the
first of October.
Lake Lindeman is a long narrow piece of water navigable for boats to its
foot, where a very bad river passage leads into the larger Lake Bennett,
where the navigation of the Yukon really begins.
"The Chilkoot Pass," writes one of its latest travelers, "is difficult,
even dangerous, to those not possessed of steady nerves. Toward the
summit there is a sheer ascent of 1,000 feet, where a slip would
certainly be fatal. At this point a dense mist overtook us, but we
reached Lake Lindeman--the first of a series of five lakes--in safety,
after a fatiguing tramp of fourteen consecutive hours through
half-melted snow. Here we had to build our own boat, first felling the
timber for the purpose. The journey down the lakes occupied ten days,
four of which were passed in camp on Lake Bennett, during a violent
storm, which raised a heavy sea. The rapids followed. One of these
latter, the "Grand Canyon," is a mile long, and dashes through walls of
rock from 50 to 100 feet high; six miles below are the "White Horse
Rapids," a name which many fatal accidents have converted into the
"Miner's Grave." But snags and rocks are everywhere a fruitful source of
danger on this river, and from this rapid downward scarcely a day passed
that one did not see some cairn or wooden cross marking the last resting
place of some drowned pilgrim to the land of gold. The above is a brief
sketch of the troubles that beset the Alaskan gold prospector--troubles
that, although unknown in the eastern states and Canada, have for
many years past associated the name of Yukon with an ugly sound in
western America."
[Illustration: RAFT ON LAKE LINDEMAN.]
It is probable that few if any persons need go over this pass next year,
and its hardships will become a tradition instead of a terrible
prospect.
White Pass.--This pass lies south of the Chilkoot, and leaves the coast
at the mouth of the Shagway river, five miles south of Dyea and 100 from
Juneau. It was first explored in 1887 and was found to run parallel to
the Chilkoot. The distance from the coast to the summit is seventeen
miles, of which the first five are in level bottom land, thickly
timbered. The next nine miles are in a cañon-like valley, beyond which
three miles, comparatively easy, take one to the summit, the altitude of
which is roughly estimated at 2,600 feet. Beyond the summit a wide
valley is entered and leads gradually to the Tahko arm of Tahgish lake.
This pass, though requiring a longer carriage, is lower and easier than
the others, and already a pack-trail has been built through it which
will soon be followed by a wagon road, and surveys for a narrow gauge
railway are in progress. At the mouth of the Shkagway River ocean
steamers can run up at all times to a wharf which has been constructed
in a sheltered position, and there is an excellent town site with
protection from storms.
An English company, the British Columbia Development Association,
Limited, has already established a landing wharf and is erecting a wharf
and sawmills at Skagway, whence it is proposed (as soon as feasible) to
lay down a line of rail some thirty-five miles long, striking the Yukon
River at a branch of the Marsh Lake, about 100 miles below Lake
Lindeman. By this means the tedious and difficult navigation between
these two points will be avoided, and the only dangerous parts of the
river below will be circumvented by a road or rail portage.
Light-draught steamers will be put on from Teslin Lake to the cañon and
from the foot of the latter to all the towns and camps on the river.
Dyea is a village of cabins and tents, and little if anything in the way
of supplies can be got there; it is a mere forwarding point.
Pending the completion of the facilities mentioned above, miners may
transport their goods over the pack trail on their own or hired burros,
and at Tahgish Lake take a boat down the Tahco arm (11 miles) to the
main lake, and down that lake and its outlet into Lake Marsh. This chain
of lakes, filling the troughs of old glacial fiords to a level of 2,150
feet above the sea, "constitutes a singularly picturesque region,
abounding in striking points of view and in landscapes pleasing in their
variety or grand and impressive in this combination of rugged mountain
forms." All afford still-water navigation, and as soon as the road
through White Pass permits the transportation of machinery, they will
doubtless be well supplied with steamboats. Marsh Lake is 20 miles long,
Bennett 26, and Tagish 16½ miles, with Windy Arm 11 miles long, Tahko
Arm 20 miles, and other long, narrow extensions among the terraced,
evergreen-wooded hills that border its tranquil surface. The depression
in which this group of lakes lies is between the coast range and the
main range of the Rockies; and as it is sheltered from the wet sea-winds
by the former heights, its climate is nearly as dry of that of the
interior. The banks are fairly well timbered, though large open spaces
exist, and abound in herbage, grass and edible berries. Lake Marsh,
named by Schwatka after Prof. O. C. Marsh of Yale, but called Mud Lake
by the miners, without good reason, is twenty miles long and about two
wide. It is rather shallow and the left bank should be followed. The
surrounding region is rather low, rising by terraces to high ranges on
each side, where Michie mountain, 5,540 feet in height, eastward, and
Mounts Lorue and Landsdowne, westward, 6,400 and 6,140 feet high
respectively, are the most prominent peaks. "The diversified form of the
mountains in view from this lake render it particularly picturesque,"
remarks Dr. Dawson, "and at the time of our visit, on the 10th and 11th
of September, the autumn tints of the aspens and other deciduous trees
and shrubs, mingled with the sombre greens of the spruces and pines,
added to its beauty."
Near the foot of this lake enters the McClintock river, of which little
is known. The outlet is a clear, narrow, quiet stream, called Fifty-mile
River, which flows somewhat westerly down the great valley. Large
numbers of dead and dying salmon are always seen here in summer, and as
these fish never reach Lake Marsh, it is evident that the few who are
able, after their long journey, to struggle up the rapids, have not
strength left to survive.
[Illustration: DOG PACK TRAIN.]
The descent of the Lewes (or Yukon) may be said to begin at this point,
and 23 miles below Lake Marsh the first and most serious obstacle is
encountered in the White Horse Rapids, and Miles Cañon. Their length
together is 2¾ miles, and they seem to have been caused by a small
local effusion of lava, which was most unfortunately ejected right in
the path of the river. The cañon is often not more than 100 feet in
width, and although parts of it may be run at favorable times, all of it
is dangerous, and the White Horse should never be attempted. The portage
path in the upper part of the cañon is on the east bank, and is about
five-eighths of a mile long. There a stretch of navigation is
possible, with caution, ending at the head of White Horse Rapids, where
one must land on the west bank, which consists of steep rocks, very
awkward for managing a boat from or carrying a burden over. Usually the
empty boat can be dropped down with a line, but when the water is high
boat as well as cargo must be carried for 100 yards or more, and again,
lower down, for a less distance. The miners have put down rollways along
a roughly constructed road here to make the portage of the boats easier,
and some windlasses for hauling the boats along the water or out and
into it. It would be possible to build a good road or tramway along the
east bank of these rapids without great difficulty; and plans are
already formulated for a railway to be built around the whole three
miles of obstruction, in the summer of 1898, to connect with the
steamboats above and below that will no doubt be running next year.
The river below the rapids is fast (about four miles an hour) for a few
miles, and many gravel banks appear. It gradually subsides, however,
into a quiet stream flowing northwest along the same wide valley. No
rock is seen here, the banks being bluffs of white silt, which turns the
clear blue of the current above into a cloudy and opaque yellow.
Thirteen miles (measuring, as usual, along the river) brings the voyager
to the mouth of the Tah-Keena, a turbid stream about 75 yards wide and
10 feet deep, which comes in from the west. Its sources are at the foot
of the Chilkat Pass, where it flows out of West Kussoa lake (afterwards
named Lake Arkell), and was formerly much employed by the Chilkat
Indians as a means of reaching the interior, but was never in favor with
the miners, and is now rarely followed by the Indians themselves,
although its navigation from the lake down is reported to be easy.
Eleven and a half miles of quiet boating takes one to the head of Lake
Labarge. This lake is 31 miles long, lies nearly north and south, and is
irregularly elongated, reaching a width of six miles near the lower end.
It is 2,100 feet above sea level and is bordered everywhere by
mountains, those on the south having remarkably abrupt and castellated
forms and carrying summits of white limestone. This lake is a very
stormy one, and travelers often have to wait in camp for several days on
its shores until calmer weather permits them to go on. This whole river
valley is a great trough sucking inland the prevailing southerly summer
winds, and navigation on all the lakes is likely to be rough for small
boats.
The river below Lake Labarge is crooked, and at first rapid--six miles
or more an hour, and interrupted by boulders; but it is believed that a
stern wheel steamer of proper power could ascend at all times. The banks
are earthen, but little worn, as floods do not seem to occur.
Twenty-seven miles takes one to the mouth of a large tributary from the
southeast,--the Teslintoo, which Schwatka called Newberry River, and
which the miners mistakenly call Hotalinqu. It comes from the great Lake
Teslin, which lies across the British Columbia boundary (Lat. 62 deg.),
and is said to be 100 miles long; and it is further said that an Indian
trail connects it with the head of canoe navigation on the Taku river,
by only two long days of portaging. Some miners are said to have gone
over it in 1876 or '77, Schwatka and Hayes came this way; and it may
form one of the routes of the future,--perhaps even a railway route.
This river flows through a wide and somewhat arid valley, and was
roughly prospected about 1887 by men who reported finding fine gold all
along its course, and also in tributaries of the lake. As the mountains
about the head of the lake belong to the Cassiar range, upon whose
southern slopes the Cassiar mines are situated, there is every reason to
suppose that gold will ultimately be found there in paying quantities.
This part of the Lewes is called Thirty-mile River, under the impression
that it is really a tributary of the Teslintoo, which is, in fact, wider
than the Lewes at the junction (Teslintoo, width 575 feet; Lewes, 420
feet), but it carries far less water. From this confluence the course is
north, in a deep, swift, somewhat turbid current, through the crooked
defiles of the Seminow hills. Several auriferous bars have been worked
here, and some shore-placers, including the rich Cassiar bar. Thirty-one
miles below the Teslintoo the Big Salmon, or D'Abbadie River, enters
from the southeast--an important river, 350 feet wide, having clear blue
water flowing deep and quiet in a stream navigable by steamboats for
many miles. Its head is about 150 miles away, not far from Teslin Lake,
in some small lakes reached by the salmon, and surrounded by granite
mountains. Prospectors have traced all its course and found fine gold in
many places.
[Illustration: DAVIDSON GLACIER. CHILKAT INLET.]
Thirty-four miles below the Big Salmon, west-north-west, along a
comparatively straight course, carries the boatman to the Little Salmon,
or Daly River, where the valley is so broad that no mountains are
anywhere in sight, only lines of low hills at a distance from the banks.
Five miles below this river the river makes an abrupt turn to the
southwest around Eagle's Nest rock, and 18½ miles beyond that
reaches the Nordenskiold, a small, swift, clear-watered tributary from
the southwest. The rocks of all this part of the river show thin seams
of coal, and gold has been found on several bars. The current now flows
nearly due north and a dozen miles below the Nordenskiold carries one to
the second and last serious obstruction to navigation in the Rink
rapids, as Schwatka called them, or Five-finger, as they are popularly
known, referring to five large masses of rock that stand like towers in
mid channel. These other islands back up the water and render its
currents strong and turbulent, but will offer little opposition to a
good steamboat. Boatmen descending the river are advised to hug the
right bank, and a landing should be made twenty yards above the rapids
in any eddy, where a heavily loaded boats should be lightened. The run
should be made close along the shore, and all bad water ends when the
Little Rink Rapids have been passed, six miles below. Just below the
rapids the small Tatshun River comes in from the right. Then the valley
broadens out, the current quiets down and a pleasing landscape greets
the eye as bend after bend is turned. A long washed bank on the
northeast side is called Hoo-che-koo Bluff, and soon after passing it
one finds himself in the midst of the pretty Ingersoll archipelago,
where the river widens out and wanders among hundreds of islets.
Fifty-five miles by the river below Rink Rapids, the confluence of the
Lewes and Pelly is reached, and the first sign of civilization in the
ruins of old Fort Selkirk, with such recent and probably temporary
occupation as circumstances may cause. Before long, undoubtedly, a
flourishing permanent settlement will grow up in this favorable
situation.
The confluence here of the Lewes and Pelly rivers forms the Yukon, which
thenceforth pursues an uninterrupted course of 1,650 miles to Behring
Sea. The country about the confluence is low, with extensive terrace
flats running back to the bases of rounded hills and ridges. The Yukon
below the junction averages about one-quarter of a mile in width, and
has an average depth of about 10 feet, with a surface velocity of 4¾
miles an hour. A good many gravel bars occur, but no shifting sand. The
general course nearly to White River, 96 miles, is a little north of
west, and many islands are seen; then the river turns to a nearly due
north course, maintained at Fort Reliance. The White River is a powerful
stream, plunging down loaded with silt, over ever shifting sand bars.
Its upper source is problematical, but is probably in the Alaskan
Mountains near the head of the Tenana and Forty-mile Creek.
For the next ten miles the river spreads out to more than a mile wide
and becomes a maze of islands and bars, the main channel being along the
western shore, where there is plenty of water. This brings one to
Stewart river, which is the most important right-hand tributary between
the Pelly and the Porcupine. It enters from the east in the middle of a
wide valley, and half a mile above its mouth is 200 yards in width; the
current is slow and the water dark colored. It has been followed to its
headquarters in the main range of the Rockies, and several large
branches, on some of which there are remarkable falls, have been traced
to their sources through the forested and snowy hills where they rise.
These sources are perhaps 200 miles from the mouth, but as none of the
wanderers were equipped with either geographical knowledge or
instruments nothing definite is known. Reports of traces of precious
metals have been brought back from many points in the Stewart valley,
but this information is as vague as the other thus far. All reports
agree that a light draught steamboat could go to the head of the Stewart
and bar up its feeders. There is a trading post at its mouth.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM INDIAN CHURCH, LOOKING NORTHEAST.]
The succeeding 125 miles holds what is at present the most interesting
and populous part of the Yukon valley. The river varies from half to
three-quarters of a mile wide and is full of islands. About 23 miles
below Stewart River a large stream enters from the west called
Sixty-mile Creek by the miners, who have had a small winter camp and
trading store there for some years, and have explored its course for
gold to its rise in the mountains west of the international boundary.
Every little tributary has been named, among them (going up), Charley's
Fork, Edwards Creek and Hawley Creek, in Canada, and then, on the
American side of the line, Gold Creek, Miller Creek and Bed Rock Creek.
The sand and gravel of all these have yielded fine gold and some of
them, as Miller Creek, have become noted for their richness. Forty-four
miles below Sixty-mile takes one to Dawson City, at the mouth of
Klondike River,--the center of the highest productiveness and greatest
excitement during 1897, when the gold fields of the interior of Alaska
first attracted the attention of the world. Leaving to another special
chapter an account of them, the itinerary may be completed by saying
that 6½ miles below the mouth of the Klondike is Fort Reliance, an
old private trading post of no present importance. Twelve and a half
miles farther the Chan-din-du River enters from the east, and 33½
below that in the mouth of Forty-mile Creek, or Cone Hill River, which
until the past year was the most important mining region of the
interior. It took its name from the supposition that it was 40 miles
from Fort Reliance, but the true distance is 46 miles. On the south side
of the outlet of this stream is the old trading post and modern town of
Forty-Mile, and on the north side the more recent settlement Cudahy.
Both towns are, of course, on the western bank of the Yukon, which is
here about half a mile wide. Five miles below Cudahy, Coal Creek comes
in from the east, and nearly marks the Alaskan boundary, where a
narrowed part of the river admits one to United States territory.
Prominent landmarks here are two great rocks, named by old timers Old
Man rock, on the west bank, and Old Woman, on the east bank, in
reference to Indian legends attached to them. Some twenty miles west of
the boundary--the river now having turned nearly due west in its general
course--Seventy-mile, or Klevande Creek, comes in from the south, and
somewhat below it the Tat-on-duc from the north. It was ascended in 1887
by Mr. Ogilvie, who describes its lower valley as broad and well
timbered, but its upper part flows through a series of magnificent
cañons, one of which half a mile long, is not more than 50 feet wide
with vertical walls fully 700 feet in height. There are said to be warm
sulphur springs along its course, and the Indians regard it as one of
the best hunting fields, sheep being especially numerous on the
mountains in which it heads, close by the international boundary, where
it is separated by only a narrow divide from Ogilvie River, one of the
head streams of the Peel river, and also from the head of the Porcupine,
to which there is an Indian trail. Hence the miners call this Sheep
River. The rocks along this stream are all sandstones, limestone and
conglomerates, with many thin calcite veins. Large and dense timber
prevails, and game is abundant.
Below the mouth of the Tat-on-duc several small streams enter, of which
the Kandik on the north and the Kolto or Charley's River--at the mouth
of which there used to be the home of an old Indian notability named
Charley--are most important. About 160 miles from the boundary the Yukon
flats are reached, and the center of another important mining
district--that of Birch Creek and the Upper Tenana--at Circle City, the
usual terminus of the trip up the Lower Yukon from St. Michael.
HISTORY AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE UPPER YUKON VALLEY.