THE RUSH TO ATLIN LAKE
It took me longer to get under way, for I had determined to take at
least thirty days' provisions for myself and a newspaper man who
joined me here. Our supplies, together with tent, tools, and
clothing, made a considerable outfit. However, in a few days we were
ready to move, and when I again took my place at the head of a little
pack train it seemed quite in the natural order of things.
We left late in the day with intent to camp at the little village of
White Pass, which was the end of the wagon road and some twelve miles
away. We moved out of town along a road lined with refuse,
camp-bottoms, ruined cabins, tin cans, and broken bottles,--all the
unsightly debris of the rush of May and June. A part of the way had
been corduroyed, for which I was exceedingly grateful, for the
Skagway River roared savagely under our feet, while on either side of
the roadway at other points I could see abysses of mud which, in the
growing darkness, were sufficiently menacing.
Our course was a northerly one. We were ascending the ever narrowing
canyon of the river at a gentle grade, with snowy mountains in vista.
We arrived at White Pass at about ten o'clock at night. A little
town is springing up there, confident of being an important station
on the railroad which was already built to that point.
Thus far the journey had been easy and simple, but immediately after
leaving White Pass we entered upon an exceedingly stony road, filled
with sharp rock which had been blasted from the railway above us.
Upon reaching the end of the wagon road, and entering upon the trail,
we came upon the Way of Death. The waters reeked with carrion. The
breeze was the breath of carrion, and all nature was made indecent
and disgusting by the presence of carcasses. Within the distance of
fifteen miles we passed more than two thousand dead horses. It was a
cruel land, a land filled with the record of men's merciless greed.
Nature herself was cold, majestic, and grand. The trail rough, hard,
and rocky. The horses labored hard under their heavy burdens, though
the floor they trod was always firm.
Just at the summit in the gray mist, where a bulbous granite ridge
cut blackly and lonesomely against the sky, we overtook a flock of
turkeys being driven by a one-armed man with a singularly appropriate
Scotch cap on his head. The birds sat on the bleak gray rocks in the
gathering dusk with the suggestion of being utterly at the end of the
world. Their feathers were blown awry by the merciless wind and they
looked weary, disconsolate, and bewildered. Their faint, sad gobbling
was like the talk of sick people lost in a desert. They were on their
way to Dawson City to their death and they seemed to know it.
We camped at the Halfway House, a big tent surrounded by the most
diabolical landscape of high peaks lost in mist, with near-by slopes
of gray rocks scantily covered with yellow-green grass. All was bare,
wild, desolate, and drear. The wind continued to whirl down over the
divide, carrying torn gray masses of vapor which cast a gloomy half
light across the gruesome little meadow covered with rotting
carcasses and crates of bones which filled the air with odor of
disease and death.
Within the tent, which flopped and creaked in the wind, we huddled
about the cook-stove in the light of a lantern, listening to the loud
talk of a couple of packers who were discussing their business with
enormous enthusiasm. Happily they grew sleepy at last and peace
settled upon us. I unrolled my sleeping bag and slept dreamlessly
until the "Russian nobleman," who did the cooking, waked me.
Morning broke bleak and desolate. Mysterious clouds which hid the
peaks were still streaming wildly down the canyon. We got away at
last, leaving behind us that sad little meadow and its gruesome
lakes, and began the slow and toilsome descent over slippery ledges
of rock, among endless rows of rotting carcasses, over poisonous
streams and through desolate, fire-marked, and ghastly forests of
small pines. Everywhere were the traces of the furious flood of
humankind that had broken over this height in the early spring.
Wreckage of sleighs, abandoned tackle, heaps of camp refuse,
clothing, and most eloquent of all the pathway itself, worn into the
pitiless iron ledges, made it possible for me to realize something of
the scene.
Down there in the gully, on the sullen drift of snow, the winter
trail could still be seen like an unclean ribbon and here, where the
shrivelled hides of horses lay thick, wound the summer pathway. Up
yonder summit, lock-stepped like a file of convicts, with tongues
protruding and breath roaring from their distended throats, thousands
of men had climbed with killing burdens on their backs, mad to reach
the great inland river and the gold belt. Like the men of the Long
Trail, they, too, had no time to find the gold under their feet.
It was terrible to see how on every slippery ledge the ranks of
horses had broken like waves to fall in heaps like rows of seaweed,
tumbled, contorted, and grinning. Their dried skins had taken on the
color of the soil, so that I sometimes set foot upon them without
realizing what they were. Many of them had saddles on and nearly all
had lead-ropes. Some of them had even been tied to trees and left to
starve.
In all this could be read the merciless greed and impracticability of
these goldseekers. Men who had never driven a horse in their lives,
and had no idea what an animal could do, or what he required to eat,
loaded their outfits upon some poor patient beast and drove him
without feed until, weakened and insecure of foot, he slipped and
fell on some one of these cruel ledges of flinty rock.
The business of packing, however, had at last fallen into less cruel
or at least more judicial hands, and though the trail was filled
with long pack trains going and coming, they were for the most part
well taken care of. We met many long trains of packhorses returning
empty from Bennett Lake. They were followed by shouting drivers who
clattered along on packhorses wherever the trail would permit.
One train carried four immense trunks--just behind the trunks,
mounted astride of one of the best horses, rode a bold-faced,
handsome white woman followed by a huge negress. The white woman had
made her pile by dancing a shameless dance in the dissolute dens of
Dawson City, and was on her way to Paris or New York for a "good
time." The reports of the hotel keepers made her out to be
unspeakably vile. The negress was quite decent by contrast.
At Log Cabin we came in sight of the British flag which marks the
boundary line of United States territory, where a camp of mounted
police and the British customs officer are located. It was a drear
season even in midsummer, a land of naked ledges and cold white
peaks. A few small pine trees furnished logs for the cabins and wood
for their fires. The government offices were located in tents.
I found the officers most courteous, and the customs fair. The
treatment given me at Log Cabin was in marked contrast with the
exactions of my own government at Wrangell. All goods were unloaded
before the inspector's tent and quickly examined. The miner suffered
very little delay.
A number of badly maimed packhorses were running about on the
American side. I was told that the police had stopped them by reason
of their sore backs. If a man came to the line with horses overloaded
or suffering, he was made to strip the saddles from their backs.
"You can't cross this line with animals like that," was the stern
sentence in many cases. This humanity, as unexpected as it was
pleasing, deserves the best word of praise of which I am capable.
At last we left behind us all these wrecks of horseflesh, these
poisonous streams, and came down upon Lake Bennett, where the water
was considered safe to drink, and where the eye could see something
besides death-spotted ledges of savage rocks.
The town was a double row of tents, and log huts set close to the
beach whereon boats were building and saws and hammers were uttering
a cheerful chorus. Long trains of packhorses filled the streets. The
wharfs swarmed with men loading chickens, pigs, vegetables,
furniture, boxes of dry-goods, stoves, and every other conceivable
domestic utensil into big square barges, which were rigged with tall
strong masts bearing most primitive sails. It was a busy scene, but
of course very quiet as compared with the activity of May, June, and
July.
These barges appealed to me very strongly. They were in some cases
floating homes, a combination of mover's wagon and river boat. Many
of them contained women and children, with accompanying cats and
canary birds. In every face was a look of exultant faith in the
venture. They were bound for Dawson City. The men for Atlin were
setting forth in rowboats, or were waiting for the little steamers
which had begun to ply between Bennett City and the new gold fields.
I set my little tent, which was about as big as a dog kennel, and
crawled into it early, in order to be shielded from the winds, which
grew keen as sword blades as the sun sank behind the western
mountains. The sky was like November, and I wondered where Burton was
encamped. I would have given a great deal to have had him with me on
this trip.
THE COAST RANGE OF ALASKA
The wind roars up from the angry sea
With a message of warning and haste to me.
It bids me go where the asters blow,
And the sun-flower waves in the sunset glow.
From the granite mountains the glaciers crawl,
In snow-white spray the waters fall.
The bay is white with the crested waves,
And ever the sea wind ramps and raves.
I hate this cold, bleak northern land,
I fear its snow-flecked harborless strand--
I fly to the south as a homing dove,
Back to the land of corn I love.
And never again shall I set my feet
Where the snow and the sea and the mountains meet.