British Columbia (Lat. 62 deg.) among a mass of mountains forming a part
of the great uplift of the Coast range, continuous with the Sierras of
California and the Puget Sound coast. Here spring the sources of the
Stikeen, flowing southwest to the Pacific, of the Fraser, flowing south
through British Columbia, and of the Liard flowing northeasterly to the
Mackenzie. Headwaters of the Stikeen and Liard interlock, indeed, along
an extensive or sinuous watershed having an elevation of 3,000 feet or
less and extending east and west. There are, however, many wide and
comparatively level bottom lands scattered throughout this region and
numerous lakes. The coast ranges here have an average width of about
eighty miles and border the continent as far north as Lynn Canal, where
they trend inland behind the St. Elias Alps. Many of their peaks exceed
8,000 feet in height, but few districts have been explored west.
Eastward of this mountain axis, and separated from it by the valleys of
the Fraser and Columbia in the south and the Yukon northward, is the
Continental Divide, or Rocky Mountains proper, which is broken through
(as noted above) by the Laird, but north of that cañon-bound river forms
the watershed between the Liard and Yukon and between the Yukon and
Mackenzie. These summits attain a height of 7,000 to 9,000 feet, and
rise from a very complicated series of ranges extending northward to the
Arctic Ocean, and very little explored. The valley of the Yukon, then,
lies between the Rocky Mountains, separating its drainage basin from
that of the Mackenzie, and the Coast range and St. Elias Alps separating
it from the sea. Granite is the principal rock in both these great lines
of watershed-uplift, and all the mountains show the effects of an
extensive glaciation, and all the higher peaks still bear local remnants
of the ancient ice-sheet.
The headwaters of the great river are gathered into three principal
streams. First, the Lewes, easternmost, with its large tributaries, the
Teslintoo and Big Salmon; second, the Pelly, with its great western
tributary, the MacMillon.
[Illustration: SCENE IN JUNEAU--MOUNTAINS AND INDIAN HOUSES.]
The Lewes River has been described. It was known to the fur traders as
early as 1840, and the Chilkat and Chilkoot passes were occasionally
used by their Indian couriers from that time on. The gold fields in
British Columbia from 1863 onwards stimulated prospecting in the
northern and coastal parts of that province, and in 1872 prospectors
reached the actual headwaters of the Lewes from the south, but were
probably not aware of it; and that country was not scientifically
examined until the reconnaissance of Dr. G. M. Dawson in 1887. In 1866
Ketchum and La Barge, of the Western Union Telegraph survey, ascended
the Lewes as far as the lakes still called Ketchum and La Barge. In 1883
Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, U. S. A., and an assistant named Hayes, and
several Indians, made their way across from Taka inlet to the head of
Tahgish (a Tako) Lake, and descended the Lewes on a raft to Fort
Selkirk, studying and naming the valley. From Fort Selkirk an entirely
new route was followed toward the mountains forming the divide between
the Yukon and the White and Copper rivers, which flow to the Gulf of
Alaska, north of Mt. St. Elias. After discovering a pass little more
than 5,000 feet high, they struck the Chityna River and followed that to
the Copper River and thence to the coast. The Copper River Valley was
thoroughly explored somewhat later by Lieuts. Abercrombie and Allen, U.
S. A., who added greatly to knowledge of that large river, which,
however, seems to have no good harbor at its mouth. The miners began to
use the Chilkoot Pass and the Lewes River route to the Yukon district
in 1884. Some additions were made to geography in this region by an
exploring expedition despatched to Alaska in 1890 by Frank Leslie's
Weekly, under Messrs. A. J. Wells, E. J. Glave and A. B. Schanz. They
entered by way of Chilkat pass and came to a large lake at the head of
the Tah-keena tributary of the Lewes, which they named Lake Arkell,
though it was probably the same earlier described by the Drs. Krause.
Here Mr. Glave left the party and striking across the coast range
southward discovered the headwaters of the Alsekh and descended to Dry
Bay. At Forty-mile creek Mr. Wells and a party crossed over into the
basin of the Tanana and increased the knowledge of that river. Mr.
Schanz went down the Yukon and explored the lower region. In 1892 Mr.
Glave again went to Alaska, demonstrated the possibility of taking pack
horses over the Chilkat trail, and with an aid named Dalton made an
extensive journey southward along the crest of the watershed between the
Yukon valley and the coast.
Turning now to the Pelly, we find that this was the earliest avenue of
discovery. The Pelly rises in lakes under the 62nd parallel, just over a
divide from the Finlayson and Frances Lake, the head of the Frances
River, the northern source of the Liard, and this region was entered by
the Hudson Bay Company as early as 1834, and gradually exploring the
Laird River and its tributaries, in 1840 Robert Campbell crossed over
the divide north of Lake Finlayson (at the head of the Frances), and
discovered (at a place called Pelly Banks) a large river flowing
northwest which he named Pelly. In 1843 he descended the river to its
confluence with the Lewes (which he then named), and in 1848 he built a
post for the H. B. Company at that point, calling it Fort Selkirk. This
done, in 1850, Campbell floated down the river as far as the mouth of
the Porcupine, where three years previously (1847) Fort Yukon had been
established by Mr. Murray, who (founded by James Bell in 1842) crossed
over from the mouth of the Mackenzie. The Yukon may thus be said to have
been "discovered" at several points independently. The Russians, who
knew it only at the mouth, called it Kwikhpak, after an Eskimo name. The
English at Fort Yukon, learned that name from the Indians there, and the
upper river was the Pelly. The English and Russian traders soon met, and
when Campbell came down in 1850 the identity of the whole stream was
established. The name Yukon gradually took the place of all others on
English maps and is now recognized for the whole stream from the
junction of the Lewes and Pelly to the delta.
The Yukon basin, east of the Alaskan boundary, is known in Canada as the
Yukon district, and contains about 150,000 square miles. This is nearly
equal to the area of France, is greater than that of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland by 71,000 square miles, and nearly three
times bigger than that of the New England states. To this must be added
an area of about 180,000 square miles, west of the boundary, drained by
the Yukon upon its way to the sea through Alaska. Nevertheless, Dr. G.
M. Dawson and other students of the matter are of the opinion that the
river does not discharge as much water as does the Mackenzie--nor could
it be expected to do so, since the drainage area of the Mackenzie is
more than double that of the Yukon, while the average annual
precipitation of rain over the two areas seems to be substantially
similar. Remembering these figures and that the basin of the Mississippi
has no less than 1,225,000 square miles as compared with the 330,000
square miles of the Yukon basin, it is plain that the statement often
heard that the Yukon is next to the Mississippi in size, is greatly
exaggerated. In fact, its proportions, from all points of view, are
exceeded by those of the Nile, Ganges, St. Lawrence and several other
rivers of considerably less importance than the Mississippi.
[Illustration: EARLY MORNING AT JUNEAU.]
Resuming the historical outline, a short paragraph will suffice to
complete the simple story down to the year 1896.
Robert Campbell had scarcely returned from his river voyage to his
duties at Fort Selkirk, when he discovered that its location in the
angle between the rivers was untenable, owing to ice-jams and floods.
The station was therefore moved, in the season of 1852 across to the
west bank of the Yukon, a short distance below the confluence, and new
buildings were erected. These had scarcely been completed, when, on
August 1st, a band of Chilkat Indians from the coast came down the river
and early in the morning seized upon the post, surprising Mr. Campbell
in bed, and ordered him to take his departure before night. They were
not at all rough with him or his few men, but simply insisted that they
depart, which they did, taking such personal luggage as they could put
into a boat and starting down stream. The Indians then pillaged the
place, and after feasting on all they could eat and appropriating what
they could carry away, set fire to the remainder and burned the whole
place to the ground. One chimney still stands to mark the spot, and
others lie where they fell. This act was not dictated by wanton
destructiveness on the part of the Chilkats--bad as they undoubtedly
were and are; but was in pursuance of a theory. The establishment of
the post there interfered with the monopoly of trade that they had
enjoyed theretofore, with all the Indians of the interior, to whom they
brought salable goods from the coast, taking in exchange furs, copper,
etc., at an exorbitant profit, which they enforced by their superior
brutality. The Hudson Bay Company was robbing them of this, hence the
demolition of the post, which was too remote to be profitably sustained
against such opposition.
A little way down the river, Mr. Campbell met a fleet of boats bringing
up his season's goods, and many friendly Indians. These were eager to
pursue the robbers, but Campbell thought it best not to do so. He turned
the supply-boats back to Fort Yukon and led his own men up the Pelly and
over the pass to the Frances and so down the Liard to Fort Simpson, on
the Mackenzie. Such is the story of the ruins of Fort Selkirk. Fort
Yukon flourished as the only trading post until the purchase of Alaska
by the United States, when Captain Raymond, an army officer, was sent to
inform the factor there that his post was on United States territory,
and require him to leave. He did so as soon as Rampart House could be
built to take its place up the Porcupine. Old Fort Yukon then fell into
ruins, and Rampart House itself was soon abandoned. In 1873 an
opposition appeared in the independent trading house of Harper &
McQuestion, men who had come into the country from the south, after long
experience in the fur trade. They had posts at various points, occupied
Fort Reliance for several years, and in 1886 established a post at the
mouth of the Stewart River for the miners who had begun to gather there
two years before. Many maps mark "Reed's House" as a point on the upper
Stewart, but no such a trading-post ever existed there, although there
was a fishing station and shelter-hut on one of its upper branches at an
early day. This firm became the representatives of the Alaska Commercial
Company (a San Francisco corporation) and opened a store in 1887 at
Forty Mile, where they still do business.
Gold Discoveries.--The presence of fine float gold in river sands was
early discovered by the Hudson Bay Company men, but in accordance with
the former policy of that company, no mining was done and as little said
about it as possible. The richness of the Cassiar mines led to some
prospecting northward as early as 1872, and by 1880 wandering gold
hunters had penetrated to the Testintos, where for several years $8 to
$10 a day of fine gold was sluiced out during the season by the small
colony. In 1886 Cassiar Bar, on the Lewes, below there, was opened, and
a party of four took out $6,000 in 30 days, while other neighboring
bars yielded fair wages. By that time Stewart River was becoming
attractive, and many miners worked placers there profitably in 1885, '86
and '87. During the fall of 1886 three or four men took the engines out
of the little steamboat "New Racket," which was laid up for the winter
there, and used them to drive a set of pumps lifting water into
sluice-boxes; and with this crude machinery each man cleared $1,000 in
less than a month. A judicious estimate is, that the Stewart River
placers yielded $100,000 in 1885 and '86.
[Illustration: HARBOR OF SITKA.]
Prospecting went on unremittingly, but nothing else was found of promise
until 1886, when coarse gold was reported upon Forty Mile Creek, or the
Shitando River, as it was known to the Indians, and a local rush took
place to its cañons, the principal attraction being Franklin Gulch,
named after its discoverer. Three or four hundred men gathered there by
the season of 1887, and all did well. This stream is a "bed-rock"
creek,--that is, one in the bed of which there is very little drift; and
in many places the bed-rock was scraped with knives to get the little
loose stuff out of crannies. Some nuggets were found. At its mouth are
extensive bars along the Yukon, which carry gold throughout their depth.
During 1888 the season was very unfavorable and not much
accomplished. Sixty Mile Creek was brought to notice, and Miller Gulch
proved richer than usual. It is one of the headwaters of Sixty Mile, and
some 70 miles from the mouth of the river where, in 1892, a trading
store, saw-mill and little wintering-town was begun. Miller Creek is
about 7 miles long, and its valley is filled with vast deposits of
auriferous drift. In 1892 rich strikes were made and 125 miners gathered
there, paying $10 a day for help, and many making fortunes. One clean-up
of 1,100 ounces was reported. Glacier Creek, a neighboring stream,
exhibited equal chances and drew many claimants, some of whom migrated
thither in mid-winter, drawing their sleds through the woods and rocks
with the mercury 30 degrees below zero. All of these gulches and other
golden headwaters on both Forty Mile and Sixty Mile Creek, are west of
the boundary in Alaska; but the mouths of the main streams and supply
points are in Canadian territory. In all, the great obstacle is the
difficulty of getting water up on the bars without expensive machinery;
and the same is true of the rich gravel along the banks of the Yukon
itself. Birch Creek was the next find of importance, and was promising
enough to draw the larger part of the local population, which by this
time had been considerably increased, for the news of the richness of
the Forty Mile gulches had reached the outside world and attracted
adventurous men and not a few women from the coast not only, but from
British Columbia and the United States. A rival to Harper & McQuestion,
agents of the Alaska Commercial Company, appeared in the North American
Transportation and Trading Company, which increased the transportation
service on the Yukon River, by which most of the new arrivals entered,
and by establishing large competitive stores at Fort Cudahy (Forty Mile)
and elsewhere reduced the price of food and other necessaries. About
this time, also, the Canadian government sent law officers and a
detachment of mounted police, so that the Yukon District began to take a
recognized place in the world.
Birch Creek is really a large river rising in the Iauana Hills, just
west of the boundary and flowing northwest, parallel with the Yukon, to
a debouchment some 20 miles west of Fort Yukon. Between the two rivers
lie the "Yukon Flats," and at one point they are separated by only six
miles. Here, at the Yukon end of the road arose Circle City, so-called
from its proximity to the Arctic Circle. This is an orderly little town
of regular streets, and has a recorder of claims, a store, etc.
Birch Creek has been thoroughly explored, and in 1894 yielded good
results. The gold was in coarse flakes and nuggets, so that $40 a day
was made by some men, while all did well. The drift is not as deep here
as in most other streams, and water can be applied more easily and
copiously,--a vast advantage. Molymute, Crooked, Independence, Mastadon
and Preacher creeks are the most noteworthy tributaries of this rich
field.
The Koyukuk River, which flows from the borders of the Arctic Ocean,
gathering many mountain tributaries, to enter the Yukon at Nulato, was
also prospected in 1892, '93 and '94, and indications of good placers
have been discovered there, but the northerly, exposed and remote
situation has caused them to receive little attention thus far.
THE KLONDIKE.
During the autumn of 1896 several men and women, none of whom were "old
miners," discouraged by poor results lower down the river resolved to
try prospecting in the Klondike gulch. They were laughed at and argued
with; were told that prospectors years ago had been all over that
valley, and found only the despised "flour gold," which was too fine to
pay for washing it out. Nevertheless they persisted and went at work.
Only a short time elapsed, when, on one of the lower southside branches
of the stream they found pockets of flakes and nuggets of gold far
richer than anything Alaska had ever shown before. They named the stream
Bonanza, and a small tributary El Dorado. Others came and nearly
everyone succeeded. Before spring nearly a ton and a half of gold had
been taken from the frozen ground. Nuggets weighing a pound (troy) were
found. A thousand dollars a day was sometimes saved despite the rudeness
of the methods, but these things happened where pockets were struck.
Probably the total clean-up from January to June was not less than
$1,500,000. The report spread and all those in the interior of Alaska
concentrated there, where a "camp" of tents and shanties soon sprang up
at the mouth of the Klondike called Dawson City. A correspondent of the
New York Sun describes it as beautifully situated, and a very quiet,
orderly town, due to the strict supervision of the Canadian mounted
police, who allowed no pistols to be carried, but a great place for
gambling with high stakes. It bids fair to become the mining metropolis
of the northwest, and had about 3,000 inhabitants before the
advance-guard of the present "rush" reached there.
[Illustration: FIVE FINGER RAPIDS, YUKON RIVER.]
Hundreds of claims were staked out and worked in all the little gulches
opening along Bonanza, Eldorado, Hunker, Bear and other tributaries of
the Klondike, and of Indian River, a stream thirty miles south of it,
and a greater number seem to be of equal richness with those first
worked. All this is within a radius south and east of 20 miles from
Dawson City, and most of it far nearer. The country is rough, wooded
hills, and the same trouble as to water is met there as elsewhere, yet
riches were obtained by many men in a few weeks without exhausting their
claims.
So remote and shut in has this region been in the winter that no word of
this leaked out until the river opened and a party of successful miners
came down to the coast and took passage on the steamer Excelsior for
San Francisco. They arrived on July 14, and no one suspected that there
was anything extraordinary in the passenger list or cargo, until a
procession of weather beaten men began a march to the Selby Smelting
works, and there began to open sacks of dust and nuggets, until the heap
made something not seen in San Francisco since the days of '49. The news
flashed over the world, and aroused a fire of interest; and when three
days later the Portland came into Seattle, bringing other miners and
over $1,000,000 in gold, there was a rush to go north which bids fair to
continue for months to come, for one of the articles of faith in the
creed of the Yukon miner is that many other gulches will be found as
rich as these. One elderly man, who went in late last fall and with
partners took four claims on Eldorado Creek, told a reporter that his
pickings had amounted to $112,000, and that he was confident that the
ground left was worth $2,000,000 more. "I want to say," he exclaims,
"that I believe there is gold in every creek in Alaska. Certain on the
Klondike the claims are not spotted. One seems to be as good as another.
It's gold, gold, gold, all over. It's yards wide and deep. All you have
to do is to run a hole down."
One might go on quoting such rhapsodies, arising from success, to end
of the book, but it is needless, for every newspaper has been full of
them for a month.
One man and his wife got $135,000; another, formerly a steamboat
deck-hand, $150,000; another, $115,000; a score or more over $50,000,
and so on. These sums were savings after having the heavy expenses of
the winter, and most of them had dug out only a small part of their
ground.
It is curious in view of this success to read the only descriptive note
the present writer can discover in early writings as to this gold river.
It occurs in Ogilvie's report of his explorations of 1887, and is as
follows: "Six and a half miles above Reliance the Tou-Dac River of the
Indians (Deer River of Schwatka) enter from the east. It is a small
river about 40 yards wide at the mouth and shallow; the water is clear
and transparent and of a beautiful blue color. The Indians catch great
numbers of salmon here. A miner had prospected up this river for an
estimated distance of 40 miles in the season of 1887. I did not see
him."
THE METHODS OF PLACER MINING
in the Klondike region and elsewhere along the Yukon are different from
those pursued elsewhere, owing to the fact that from a point about three
feet below the surface the ground is permanently frozen. The early men
tried to strip off the gravel down to the gold lying in its lower levels
or beneath it, upon the bed rock, and found it exceedingly slow and
laborious work; moreover, it was only during the short summer that any
work could be done. Now, by the aid of fires they sink shafts and then
tunnel along the bed rock where the gold lies. A returned miner
described the process as follows, pointing out the great advantage of
being able to work under ground during the winter:
[Illustration: PLACER MINE, CLAIM No. 3, ON MILLER CREEK.]
"The miners build fires over the area where they wish to work and keep
these lighted over that territory for the space of twenty-four hours.
Then the gravel will be melted and softened to a depth of perhaps six
inches. This is then taken off and other fires are built until the gold
bearing layer is reached. When the shaft is down that far other fires
are built at the bottom, against the sides of the layer and tunnels made
in the same manner. Blasting will do no good, the charge not cracking
off but blowing out of the hole. The matter taken out, and containing
the gold is piled up until spring, when the torrents come down, and is
panned and cradled by these. It is certainly very hard labor."
Another quotation may be given as a practical example of this process:
"The gold so far as has been taken from Bonanza and Eldorado, both well
named, for the richness of the placers are truly marvelous. Eldorado,
thirty miles long, is staked the whole length and as far as worked has
paid.
"One of our passengers, who is taking home $100,000 with him, has worked
one hundred feet of his ground and refused $200,000 for the remainder,
and confidently expects to clean up $400,000 and more. He has in a
bottle $212 from one pan of dirt. His pay dirt while being washed
averaged $250 an hour to each man shoveling in. Two others of our miners
who worked their own claim cleaned up $6,000 from one day's washing.
"There is about fifteen feet of dirt above bed rock, the pay streak
averaging from four to six feet, which is tunnelled out while the ground
is frozen. Of course, the ground taken out is thawed by building fires,
and when the thaw comes and water rushes in they set their sluices and
wash the dirt. Two of our fellows thought a small bird in the hand
worth a large one in the bush, and sold their claims for $45,000,
getting $4,500 down, and the remainder to be paid in monthly
installments of $10,000 each. The purchasers had no more than $5,000
paid. They were twenty days thawing and getting out dirt. Then there was
no water to sluice with, but one fellow made a rocker, and in ten days
took out the $10,000 for the first installment. So, tunnelling and
rocking, they took out $40,000 before there was water to sluice with."
LEGAL ASPECT OF ALASKA.
Commissioner Hermann, of the General Land Office, has announced that the
following laws of the United States extend over Alaska, where the
general land laws do not apply:
First--The mineral land laws of the United States.
Second--Town-site laws, which provide for the incorporation of
town-sites and acquirement of title thereto from the United States
Government by the town-site trustees.
Third--The laws providing for trade and manufactures, giving each
qualified person 160 acres of land in a square and compact form.
The coal land regulations are distinct from the mineral regulations or
laws, and as in the case of the general land laws Alaska is expressly
exempt from this jurisdiction.
On the part of Canada, however, the provisions of the Real Property act
of the Northwest Territories will be extended to the Yukon country by an
order in council, a register will be appointed, and a land title office
will be established.
The act approved May 17, 1884, providing a civil government for Alaska,
has this language as to mines and mining privileges: