NOTE.--Acknowledgment is here made to Mr. E. A. Hegg for the use of
most of the photographs accompanying this article.
Two years ago the difficulties of reaching the Klondike were thought to
be of such a nature as to preclude the probability or even possibility
of Dawson ever becoming a place of permanent habitation. The trials
of the Chilkoot and White Passes were exploited in magazine and
journal from one end of the continent almost to the other, and the
wrecks of humanity, and particularly of the thousands of beasts that
lay scattered along the trail--the tribute to the Sahara turned to
shame--were appealed to as grim testimony of the almost insuperable
barrier which separated man from the object of his search. To-day,
and since July 6th of the past year (1899), a steam railway traverses
the full forty-two miles of the White Pass trail, and the traveler
enjoys the beauties of the subarctic landscape in much the way that
he enjoys the trip through the Alleghany Mountains in the East, or of
the prairies in the West. Deposited at Bennett, on Lake Bennett, at
virtually the head of navigation of the mighty Yukon River (otherwise
known as the Lewes), he engages passage on one of several commodious
steamers heading down stream or northward, and with one change--at
the Miles Cañon and White Horse Rapids, where there is a five-mile
portage--reaches Dawson after a voyage, delightful in its change of
scene and novelty of experience, of from four to six days. It is a
fact, therefore, that with a strict timing of departures the traveler
from New York may make the journey to Dawson in summer time in twelve
days, and exceptionally even in less; and the journey has indeed been
made in eleven days and a half. Such is the change which the effort of
less than two years has accomplished.
[Illustration: BARTLETT BROTHERS’ PACK TRAIN, DAWSON.]
The Dawson of 1899 is no longer the Dawson of 1898, and much less that
of the year previous. The thousands of bateaux that were formerly lined
up against the river front, in rows six deep and more, and comprising
all manner of craft from the small canoe to sliced sections of scows,
have mostly disappeared, and in their place we now find the graceful
and ungraceful forms of varying types of steamboat. It is no uncommon
thing to find five or more of these larger craft tied up at one time to
the river front, and the amplitude and majesty of the Mississippi boats
gain but little in a comparison with some of the larger craft of the
Yukon River. Overhung signs call attention to the flying queens of the
river, the Bonanza King, Canadian, and Sibyl, and thousands are offered
upon the result of the race to the White Horse Rapids. So here, as in
the olden days of the Mississippi, the struggle for supremacy has led
to the opening of the throttle and to the scraping of the fire box.
Upward of a hundred arrivals from down the river were registered at
Dawson during the season of open water of 1899.
Dawson has been further put into comparatively close touch with
the outer world by the entry of the telegraph, and since the early
days of October messages have been freely going to the seaboard at
Skaguay. It is true that a cableless stretch of hundreds of miles
still separates this town from the nearest port of importance on the
continent, but doubtless before very long even this blank in the line
of communication will have been supplied. It may be first by means
of wireless telegraphy, as it is mooted that the Canadian Government
looks with favor upon experimentation with the Marconi system; or, what
is more likely, the desired end will be brought about by the laying
of a continuous wire. The extraordinary rapidity with which the five
hundred to six hundred miles of land wire were laid--five and seven
miles per day--speaks well for the _morale_ of the Canadian sapper and
engineering service.
In its commercial and residential aspects the city has made vast
progress. The days of ingulfing mires are virtually over, and from one
end of the town almost to the other, one may safely tread the streets
on secure board sidewalks. Not alone the main street is furnished in
this way, but also several of the streets running parallel with it, and
parts of streets that run across at right angles. A wise enactment,
not perhaps absolutely just in its details, has swept off the shacks
and booths from the river side of the front street, and one now enjoys
an almost uninterrupted view of the opposing bank of the stream,
already marred by giant advertising letters announcing bargain sales in
merchandise, and directing to particular shops in the metropolis of the
North.
[Illustration: DAWSON’S GREAT FIRE, APRIL 26, 1899.]
The shops of Dawson have risen to the dignity of establishments having
corrugated-iron covers, plate-glass fronts, and redwood shelves and
counters. Following closely upon the pioneer constructions--department
stores, they might be classed--of the Alaska Commercial Company are the
depots of the North American Trading and Transportation Company, the
Alaska Exploration Company, Ames Mercantile Company, and the Yukoner
Company, several with retaining warehouses placed beyond the reach of a
city fire and with dimensions that would lend dignity to locations of
much larger size than the emporium of the North. Many of the smaller
shops also carry a varied line of goods, but others are restricted to
a specialty, and their wares are now offered at rates which are in the
main only reasonably in advance of the “high” rates of the Western
coast towns. There are exceptions to this rule, however, especially
where skilled local labor is called into requisition in a manufacture.
Thus fourteen dollars for a pair of trousers made to order strikes the
imagination rather forcibly, when a first-grade quality of boot or shoe
can be obtained for five dollars and six dollars. Really good meals
may be procured almost everywhere for from a dollar to a dollar and
a half, and the best hotels supply twenty-one meals for twenty-five
dollars, and these do not absolutely reject delicacies of one kind
or another. Cow’s milk can now be had as a regular adjunct to coffee,
since the milcher is no longer a stranger to the country. The price of
rooms in the hotels still remains high--from four to six dollars per
night, without meals--but the character of these rooms has materially
improved, even though they would be considered with us decidedly third
rate. In a few establishments of a more private character, lodging for
a certain amount of permanency may be had for fifteen dollars the week,
or, where the condition of the surroundings is not closely scanned,
for even less. A new and capacious hotel, the Hotel Metropole, reared
from the wealth of the “King of the Klondike”--Alexander MacDonald--has
recently been added to those of less pretentious design which served
the community last year. A heavy cut in rates is promised.
The conflagration of April 26th, through which perhaps one quarter
of the business portion of Dawson was burned to the ground, has
given opportunity for the introduction of improvements, and the
most important of these is that which has resulted in the removal
of houses and resorts of evil repute from the heart of the city and
consigned them and their inmates to a localized area or “tenderloin”
district. Women of refinement may now parade the streets without
having their finer sensibilities offended through the public intrusion
of the immorals of the lower world. The tone of the public places of
amusement, the theaters and dance houses, has also been in a measure
elevated, even if far from sufficiently so, and some real talent
occasionally sparkles behind the footlights. A new “opera house,” with
a seating capacity of perhaps seven hundred or eight hundred, but
advertised for two thousand, was thrown open to the public last August,
after a construction, it is claimed, of only two weeks. Its season’s
_répertoire_ included, among other plays, Michael Strogoff and Camille,
both of which, even in their crudest type of presentation, felt well of
the public pulse.
School education plays as yet little part in the morals of the
Dawsonites. The greed of fortune has left scant time for the
consideration of educational matters, and what little of school
training is imparted to the youth of tender years comes largely in
the shape of a beneficence from private hands. If the issuance of
newspapers be properly classed as belonging to education, then Dawson
has made material advances during the past year, for, in addition to
the three weeklies which more than supplied all the information that
was needed to the inhabitants of 1898, it has now a daily (the Dawson
Daily News) and a Sunday paper (The Gleaner), while the pioneer Nugget
has been converted into a semi-weekly. Some of these journals, which
in typographical detail stand fully equal to many of the foremost
journals of the United States, are devoted largely to a vilification
of the Yukon government, and secondarily to the nonpartisan interests
of the community. But little space is given over to murders and daring
deeds of robbery, since occurrences of this kind, thanks to the
continued vigilance and efficiency of the Northwest Mounted Police, are
all but unknown, and the safety of possessions is as well established
as that of the person. The shooting of an actress by her lover,
followed by the suicide of the murderer, furnished the sensation for
the year; but previous suicides, also in the ranks of the theatrical
profession, had already paved a way to this form of excitement.
Two or more lines of telephone unite Dawson with the nearer mining
region, and a partial city service has also been established. The
city remains as yet without an electric-light plant, but it is by no
means unlikely that before the present season has passed the darkness
of the winter night will be lifted by the arc light, and much of
the oppressiveness of the closed season thereby removed. After two
winters of experience, the Dawsonites continue to think lightly of
the “terrors” of the cold, and to but few apparently is the extreme
of temperature a deterrent to exercise. Sleighing continues to be a
pastime, with the temperature marking 40° to 50° below zero, but only
with this season does it enter into the category of a fashionable
recreation. Hitherto dog-sled teams performed the full service of
winter travel, and divided with skating and “ski”-ing the winter
exercise; but this year the snow causeways will be lively with the
jingling of cutter bells and the rapid pacing of the horse.
One can not help remarking the vast improvement in the general tone of
Dawson society, if by that term we may include all that constitutes
the population of the city. More particularly is this marked in the
case of women, among whom it is no longer a rarity to meet with
strict refinement and culture. Musical _soirées_ register among the
events of the week, and literary recitals are not exceptional. The
male portion of the population has also undergone a refining process
through the departure of hundreds or even thousands of “bums,” who
only too late for their comfort discovered that their presence was
neither a necessity to Dawson nor a mainspring to the extraction of
gold from the soil. By their departure the city has probably suffered
a decrease in its population of some three thousand to four thousand,
but has more than received compensation in that stability of purpose
which such elimination always insures. As a city of about thirteen
thousand inhabitants, it enters upon its history in the year 1900 with
principles cast largely upon a pure business basis, and with a future
that is bound in with the product of the soil.
[Illustration: MIDNIGHT VIEW OF DAWSON, JUNE 21, 1899.]
The gold resource of the Klondike region seems fully to sustain the
anticipations which had been put forth touching the product of 1899.
The better-known creeks, such as the Bonanza, Eldorado, and Hunker,
have kept well up with their record of the previous year, and give
indications of continuing as important factors in the calculation of
output for some time to come in the future. The introduction of a
certain amount of mining machinery, such as steam drills, thawers,
and powerful pumps--applied more particularly to the deposits of
the benches and hillsides--coupled with a more definite method of
conducting extensive operations on a comparatively economic basis,
has given fresh impetus to the work of mine holders, and made largely
remunerative that which had promised to be little profitable. A more
just administration of the mining laws has helped to a considerate
feeling among the miners, and reduced very materially the grievances
which formerly fell with thick force upon the offices of the Recorder
and Gold Commissioner. Access is now easily had to the records of
claims, and individual “cases” receive an early and proper hearing.
Electric plants have been introduced on some of the claims, so that
there need be no interruption in work for the full twenty-four hours of
the day.
Apart from the discovery of rich pay-dirt on creeks and gulches,
such as Last Chance (tributary to Hunker), Gold Bottom (tributary to
Sulphur), and American, Magnet, and Adams (tributary to the Bonanza),
concerning which much skepticism was expressed last year, the filling
in of assumed barren gaps in the general line of creeks has done much
to inspire the feeling that more of the broad area is gold-bearing
than the first surveys and explorations “indicated”--a feeling to
which particular confidence has been given by the surprising wealth
which has been washed out from the hillsides. For a nearly continuous
four miles of the “left limit” of the Bonanza, extending northward
from Gold Hill at the confluence of the Eldorado to the “forties below
discovery,” the crests of the hills at an elevation of some one hundred
and eighty to two hundred feet above the creek are laid bare with the
work of the shovel, pick, and drill, and the same or a corresponding
stratigraphical height is pierced elsewhere along the stream. Gold
Hill (and French Hill, on the Eldorado side), Skookum, Adams, Magnet,
and American Hills, and Monte Cristo, all have their summits capped by
what is now familiarly known as the “white layer”--a feature in the
landscape as interesting to the casual tourist as the construction is
important to the more fortunate claim holders who are located here.
Up to this time no quartz locations determined to be of positive value
have been located, although a goodly number of “quartz reefs,” “lodes,”
and kidney masses have been staked, restaked, and recorded. Some of
these have shown gold in small quantity, but in by far the greater
number of cases they have proved absolutely barren, and are without
promise of yielding anything. The anticipation of many, naturally
fostered by individual wish and hope, that an originating or “mother”
lode must be present and found somewhere rests without any geological
support so far as evidence has been accumulated up to the present
time, and there is nothing that looks like a promise to the geological
eye. At the same time, it would be premature to assert that such a reef
or series of reefs may not be discovered in the future. The hill crests
that have furnished so much of the white material of the high benches
of the Bonanza and the Eldorado may perhaps be searched with best
advantage in this direction, and thence extended to the water parting
which surrounds or incloses the upper waters of Gay Gulch.
[Illustration: THE COLUMBIAN AND THE ELDORADO STARTING FROM DAWSON,
JULY 4, 1899, ON A RACE TO WHITE HORSE RAPIDS.]
No estimate, naturally, can yet be put to the total gold supply of
the Klondike region, but to inquiry that is frequently put regarding
the future existence of Dawson as an energetic mining camp one can
unhesitatingly answer that this existence is assured for many years to
come, and there are indications that point to a permanence independent
of the simple supply of gold.
[Illustration: STREET SCENE, DAWSON, JULY, 1899.]
The earlier conceptions of the extreme severity of the climate of the
Yukon Valley forbade the hope of agricultural possibilities, but a more
intimate knowledge of the conditions prevailing in the summer time--a
season of four to five months’ duration, with daylight and day heat
protracted far into the normal hours of night--and a comparison of
these conditions with somewhat similar conditions prevailing elsewhere,
have given hope not alone of a possibility, but of a probability, and
there are few to-day who doubt that agriculture may not be practiced
with at least a legitimate amount of success in many parts of the Yukon
basin. This probability has, indeed, been already emphasized by Prof.
George Dawson, and the more recent examinations of Alaskan territory,
made by Colonels Ray and Abercrombie, confirm with a conviction the
reference to American soil. The feeble but more than promising efforts
in agriculture and gardening that were made in the region about Dawson
in 1898 have borne surprising fruit in 1899, and while the results may
not, for various reasons, have proved in all cases remunerative to
the “prospector,” they at least clearly demonstrate the possibilities
to which the future may lay claim. Cabbages, turnips, peas, radishes,
lettuce, and beans are now raised to perfection in favored spots along
the Yukon and Klondike, and on scattered hillsides of the Bonanza and
Eldorado, and a good promise is also held out for the potato. In the
charming spot known as the Acklin Garden, situated on the Klondike
about two miles from Dawson, oats and barley, sown on April 26th
and May 22d respectively (1899), were grown to beautiful heads, and
harvested in the middle of August. No wheat had ripened up to that
time, and I suspect that, owing to a light frost which took place
on the 19th of the same month, none of this grain came to maturity.
Radishes sown on April 24th were collected on May 20th, and string
beans, whose seed was scattered on May 26th, were collected on August
1st. Other successful crops were those of beets, onions, and spinach.
The exquisite beauty of the flower garden in this spot rivets the
attention of all passers-by, and few there are who do not for a moment
lay aside their packs to enjoy the feast of color that is presented
to them. Poppies of the size and brilliance of those which adorn the
fields about Naples, chrysanthemums, gorgeous dahlias, pansies, the
cornflower, mignonette, and centaurea are part of the outside bloom,
to which Nature “beyond the fence” has fittingly added the wild rose,
anemone, fireweed, and forget-me-not. Such is the aspect of the region
which to-day illumines the far North, and carries with itself a hopeful
promise to many and the certainty of disappointment to many more.