A famous engineering feat was the building of the White Pass and Yukon
Railway from Skaguay to White Horse. Work was commenced on this road in
May, 1898, and finished in January, 1900.
Its completion opened the interior of Alaska and the Klondike to the
world, and brought enduring fame to Mr. M. J. Heney, the builder, and
Mr. E. C. Hawkins, the engineer.
In 1897 Mr. Heney went North to look for a pass through the Coast Range.
Up to that time travel to the Klondike had been about equally divided
between the Dyea, Skaguay, and Jack Dalton trails; the route by way of
the Stikine and Hootalinqua rivers; and the one to St. Michael's by
ocean steamers and thence up the Yukon by small and, at that time,
inferior steamers.
Mr. Heney and his engineers at once grasped the possibilities of the
"Skaguay Trail." This pass was first explored and surveyed by Captain
Moore, of Mr. Ogilvie's survey of June, 1887, who named it White Pass,
for Honorable Thomas White, Canadian Minister of the Interior. It could
not have been more appropriately named, even though named for a man, as
there is never a day in the warmest weather that snow-peaks are not in
view to the traveller over this pass; while from September to June the
trains wind through sparkling and unbroken whiteness.
Mr. Heney, coming out to finance the road, faced serious difficulties
and discouragements in America. Owing to the enormous cost of this short
piece of road, as planned, as well as the daring nature of its
conception, the boldest financiers of this country, upon investigation,
declined to entertain the proposition.
Mr. Heney was a young man who, up to that time, although possessed of
great ability, had made no marked success--his opportunity not having as
yet presented itself.
Recovering from his first disappointment, he undauntedly voyaged to
England, where some of the most conservative capitalists, moved and
convinced by his enthusiasm and his clear descriptions of the northern
country and its future, freely financed the railroad whose successful
building was to become one of the most brilliant achievements of the
century.
They were entirely unacquainted with Mr. Heney, and after this proof of
confidence in him and his project, the word "fail" dropped out of the
English language, so far as the intrepid young builder was concerned.
"After that," he said, "I _could not_ fail."
He returned and work was at once begun. A man big of body, mind, and
heart, he was specially fitted for the perilous and daring work. Calm,
low-voiced, compelling in repressed power and unswerving courage and
will, he was a harder worker than any of his men.
Associated with him was a man equally large and equally gifted. Mr.
Hawkins is one of the most famous engineers of this country, if not of
any country.
The difficult miles that these two men tramped; the long, long hours of
each day that they worked; the hardships that they endured, unflinching;
the appalling obstacles that they overcame--are a part of Alaskan
history.
The first twenty miles of this road from Skaguay cost two millions of
dollars; the average cost to the summit was a hundred thousand dollars a
mile, and now and then a single mile cost a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars.
The road is built on mountainsides so precipitous that men were
suspended from the heights above by ropes, to prevent disaster while
cutting grades. At one point a cliff a hundred and twenty feet high,
eighty feet deep, and twenty feet in width was blasted entirely away for
the road-bed.
Thirty-five hundred men in all were employed in constructing the road,
but thirty of whom died, of accident and disease, during the
construction. Taking into consideration the perilous nature of the work,
the rigors of the winter climate, and the fact that work did not cease
during the worst weather, this is a remarkably small proportion.
A force of finer men never built a railroad. Many were prospectors,
eager to work their way into the land of gold; others were graduates of
eastern colleges; all were self-respecting, energetic men.
Skaguay is a thousand miles from Seattle; and from the latter city and
Vancouver, men, supplies, and all materials were shipped. This was not
one of the least of the hindrances to a rapid completion of the road.
Rich strikes were common occurrences at that time. In one day, after the
report of a new discovery in the Atlin country had reached headquarters,
fifteen hundred men drew their pay and stampeded for the new gold
fields.
But all obstacles to the building of the road were surmounted. Within
eighteen months from the date of beginning work it was completed to
White Horse, a distance of one hundred and eleven miles, and trains were
running regularly.
* * * * *
A legend tells us that an old Indian chief saw the canoe of his son
upset in the waves lashed by the terrific winds that blow down between
the mountains. The lad was drowned before the helpless father's eyes,
and in his sorrow the old chief named the place Shkag-ua, or "Home of
the North Wind." It has been abbreviated to Skaguay; and has been even
further disfigured by a _w_, in place of the _u_.
Between salt water and the foot of White Pass Trail, two miles up the
canyon, in the winter of 1897-1898, ten thousand men were camped. Some
were trying to get their outfits packed over the trail; others were
impatiently waiting for the completion of the wagon road which George A.
Brackett was building. This road was completed almost to the summit when
the railroad overtook it and bought its right of way. It is not ten
years old; yet it is always called "the _old_ Brackett road."
At half-past nine of a July morning our train left Skaguay for White
Horse. We traversed the entire length of the town before entering the
canyon. There are low, brown flats at the mouth of the river, which
spreads over them in shallow streams fringed with alders and
cottonwoods.
Above, on both sides, rose the gray, stony cliffs. Here and there were
wooded slopes; others were rosy with fireweed that moved softly, like
clouds.
We soon passed the ruined bridge of the Brackett road, the water
brawling noisily, gray-white, over the stones.
Our train was a long one drawn by four engines. There were a
baggage-car, two passenger-cars, and twenty flat and freight cars loaded
with boilers, machinery, cattle, chickens, merchandise, and food-stuffs
of all kinds.
After crossing Skaguay River the train turns back, climbing rapidly, and
Skaguay and Lynn Canal are seen shining in the distance.... We turn
again. The river foams between mountains of stone, hundreds of feet
below--so far below that the trees growing sparsely along its banks
seem as the tiniest shrubs.
The Brackett road winds along the bed of the river, while the old White
Pass, or Heartbreak, Trail climbs and falls along the stone and
crumbling shale of the opposite mountain--in many places rising to an
altitude of several hundred feet, in others sinking to a level with the
river.
The Brackett road ends at White Pass City, where, ten years ago, was the
largest tent-city in the world; and where now are only the crumbling
ruins of a couple of log cabins, silence, and loneliness.
At White Pass City that was, the old Trail of Heartbreak leads up the
canyon of the north fork of the Skaguay, directly away from the
railroad. The latter makes a loop of many miles and returns to the
canyon hundreds of feet above its bed. The scenery is of constantly
increasing grandeur. Cascades, snow-peaks, glaciers, and overhanging
cliffs of stone make the way one of austere beauty. In two hours and a
half we climb leisurely, with frequent stops, from the level of the sea
to the summit of the pass; and although skirting peaks from five to
eight thousand feet in height, we pass through only one short tunnel.
It is a thrilling experience. The rocking train clings to the leaning
wall of solid stone. A gulf of purple ether sinks sheer on the other
side--so sheer, so deep, that one dare not look too long or too intently
into its depth. Hundreds of feet below, the river roars through its
narrow banks, and in many places the train overhangs it. In others,
solid rock cliffs jut out boldly over the train.
After passing through the tunnel, the train creeps across the steel
cantilever bridge which seems to have been flung, as a spider flings his
glistening threads, from cliff to cliff, two hundred and fifteen feet
above the river, foaming white over the immense boulders that here
barricade its headlong race to the sea.
Beautiful and impressive though this trip is in the green time and the
bloom time of the year, it remains for the winter to make it sublime.
The mountains are covered deeply with snow, which drifts to a tremendous
depth in canyons and cuts. Through these drifts the powerful rotary
snow-plough cleaves a white and glistening tunnel, along which the train
slowly makes its way. The fascinating element of momentary peril--of
snow-slides burying the train--enters into the winter trip.
Near Clifton one looks down upon an immense block of stone, the size of
a house but perfectly flat, beneath which three men were buried by a
blast during the building of the road. The stone is covered with grass
and flowers and is marked with a white cross.
At the summit, twenty miles from Skaguay, is a red station named White
Pass. A monument marks the boundary between the United States and Yukon
Territory. The American flag floats on one side, the Canadian on the
other. A cone of rocks on the crest of the hill leading away from the
sea marks the direction the boundary takes.
The White Pass Railway has an average grade of three per cent, and it
ascends with gradual, splendid sweeps around mountainsides and
projecting cliffs.
The old trail is frequently called "Dead Horse Trail." Thousands of
horses and mules were employed by the stampeders. The poor beasts were
overloaded, overworked, and, in many instances, treated with unspeakable
cruelty. It was one of the shames of the century, and no humane person
can ever remember it without horror.
At one time in 1897 more than five thousand dead horses were counted on
the trail. Some had lost their footing and were dashed to death on the
rocks below; others had sunken under their cruel burdens in utter
exhaustion; others had been shot; and still others had been brutally
abandoned and had slowly starved to death.
"What became of the horses," I asked an old stampeder, "when you reached
Lake Bennett? Did you sell them?"
"Lord, no, ma'am," returned he, politely; "there wa'n't nothing left of
'em to sell. You see, they was dead."
"But I mean the ones that did not die."
"There wa'n't any of that kind, ma'am."
"Do you mean," I asked, in dismay, "that they all died?--that none
survived that awful experience?"
"That's about it, ma'am. When we got to Lake Bennett there wa'n't any
more use for horses. Nobody was goin' the other way--and if they had
been, the horses that reached Lake Bennett wa'n't fit to stand alone,
let alone pack. The ones that wa'n't shot, died of starvation. Yes,
ma'am, it made a man's soul sick."
* * * * *
Boundary lines are interesting in all parts of the world; but the one at
the summit of the White Pass is of unusual historic interest. Side by
side float the flags of America and Canada. They are about twenty yards
from the little station, and every passenger left the train and walked
to them, solely to experience a big patriotic American, or Canadian,
thrill; to strut, glow, and walk back to the train again. Myself, I gave
thanks to God, silently and alone, that those two flags were floating
side by side there on that mountain, beside the little sapphire lake,
instead of at the head of Chilkoot Inlet.
There are Canadian and United States inspectors of customs at the
summit; also a railway agent. Their families live there with them, and
there is no one else and nothing else, save the little sapphire lake
lying in the bare hills.
Its blue waves lipped the porch whereon sat the young, sweet-faced wife
of the Canadian inspector, with her baby in its carriage at her side.
This bit of liquid sapphire, scarcely larger than an artificial pond in
a park, is really one of the chief sources of the Yukon--which, had
these clear waters turned toward Lynn Canal, instead of away from it,
might have never been. It seems so marvellous. The merest breath, in the
beginning, might have toppled their liquid bulk over into the canyon
through which we had so slowly and so enchantingly mounted, and in an
hour or two they might have forced their foaming, furious way to the
ocean. But some power turned the blue waters to the north and set them
singing down through the beautiful chain of lakes--Lindeman, Bennett,
Tagish, Marsh, Labarge--winding, widening, past ramparts and mountains,
through canyons and plains, to Behring Sea, twenty-three hundred miles
from this lonely spot.
This beginning of the Yukon is called the Lewes River. Far away, in the
Pelly Mountains, the Pelly River rises and flows down to its confluence
with the Lewes at old Fort Selkirk, and the Yukon is born of their
union.
The Lewes has many tributaries, the most important of which is the
Hootalinqua--or, as the Indians named it, Teslin--having its source in
Teslin Lake, near the source of the Stikine River.
After leaving the summit the railway follows the shores of the river and
the lakes, and the way is one of loveliness rather than grandeur. The
saltish atmosphere is left behind, and the air tings with the sweetness
of mountain and lake.
We had eaten an early breakfast, and we did not reach an eating station
until we arrived at the head of Lake Bennett at half after one o'clock;
and then we were given fifteen minutes in which to eat our lunch and get
back to the train.
I do not think I have ever been so hungry in my life--and _fifteen
minutes_! The dining room was clean and attractive; two long, narrow
tables, or counters, extended the entire length of the room. They were
decorated with great bouquets of wild flowers; the sweet air from the
lake blew in through open windows and shook the white curtains out into
the room.
The tables were provided with good food, all ready to be eaten. There
were ham sandwiches made of lean ham. It was not edged with fat and
embittered with mustard; it must have been baked, too, because no boiled
ham could be so sweet. There were big brown lima beans, also baked, not
boiled, and dill-pickles--no insipid pin-moneys, but good, sour,
delicious dills! There were salads, home-made bread, "salt-rising" bread
and butter, cakes and cookies and fruit--and huckleberry pie.
Blueberries, they are called in Alaska, but they are our own mountain
huckleberries.
No twelve-course luncheon, with a different wine for each course, could
impress itself upon my memory as did that lunch-counter meal. We ate as
children eat; with their pure, animal enjoyment and satisfaction. For
fifteen minutes we had not a desire in the world save to gratify our
appetites with plain, wholesome food. There was no crowding, no
selfishness and rudeness,--as there had been in that wild scene on the
excursion-boat, where the struggle had been for place rather than for
food,--but a polite consideration for one another. And outside the sun
shone, the blue waves sparkled and rippled along the shore, and their
music came in through the open windows.
Here, in 1897, was a city of tents. Several thousand men and women
camped here, waiting for the completion of boats and rafts to convey
themselves and their outfits down the lakes and the river to the golden
land of their dreams.
Standing between cars, clinging to a rattling brake, I made the
acquaintance of Cyanide Bill, and he told me about it.
"Tents!" said he. "Did you say tents? Hunh! Why, lady, tents was as
thick here in '97 and '98 as seeds on a strawberry. They was so thick it
took a man an hour to find his own. Hunh! You tripped up every other
step on a tent-peg. I guess nobody knows anything about tents unless he
was mushin' around Lake Bennett in the summer of '97. From five to ten
thousand men and women was camped here off an' on. Fresh ones by the
hundred come strugglin', sweatin', dyin', in over the trail every day,
and every day hundreds got their rafts finished, bundled their things
and theirselves on to 'em, and went tearin' and yellin' down the lake,
gloatin' over the poor tired-out wretches that just got in. Often as not
they come sneakin' back afoot without any raft and without any outfit
and worked their way back to the states to get another. Them that went
slow, went sure, and got in ahead of the rushers.
"I wisht you could of seen the tent town!--young fellows right out of
college flauntin' around as if they knew somethin'; old men, stooped and
gray-headed; gamblers, tin horns, cut-throats, and thieves; honest
women, workin' their way in with their husbands or sons, their noses
bent to the earth, with heavy packs on their backs, like men; and gay,
painted dance-hall girls, sailin' past 'em on horseback and dressed to
kill and livin' on the fat of the land. I bet more good women went to
the bad on this here layout than you could shake a stick at. It seemed
to get on to their nerves to struggle along, week after week, packin'
like animals, sufferin' like dogs, et up by mosquitoes and gnats, pushed
and crowded out by men--and then to see them gay girls go singin' by,
livin' on luxuries, men fallin' all over theirselves to wait on 'em,
champagne to drink--it sure did get on to their nerves!
[Illustration: Copyright by F. H. Nowell, Seattle
COUNCIL CITY AND SOLOMON RIVER RAILROAD--A CHARACTERISTIC LANDSCAPE OF
SEWARD PENINSULA]
"You see, somehow, up here, in them days, things didn't seem the way
they do down below. Nature kind of gets in her work ahead of custom up
here. Wrong don't look so terrible different from right to a woman a
thousand miles from civilization. When she sees women all around her
walkin' on flowers, and her own feet blistered and bleedin' on stones
and thorns, she's pretty apt to ask herself whether bein' good and
workin' like a horse pays. And up here on the trail in '97 the minute a
woman begun to ask herself that question, it was all up with her. The
end was in plain sight, like the nose on a man's face. The dance hall on
in Dawson answered the question practical.
"Of course, lots of 'em went in straight and stayed straight; and
they're the ones that made Dawson and saved Dawson. You get a handful of
good women located in a minin'-camp and you can build up a town, and you
can't do it before, mounted police or no mounted police."
I had heard these hard truths of the Trail of Heartbreak before; but
having been worded more vaguely, they had not impressed me as they did
now, spoken with the plain, honest directness of the old trail days.
"If you want straight facts about '97," the collector had said to me,
"I'll introduce you to Cyanide Bill, out there. He was all through here
time and again. He will tell you everything you want to know. But be
careful what you ask him; he'll answer anything--and he doesn't talk
parlor."
"The hardships such women went through," continued Cyanide Bill, "the
insults and humiliations they faced and lived down, ought to of set 'em
on a pe-_des_-tal when all was said and done and decency had the upper
hand. The time come when the other'ns got their come-upin's; when they
found out whether it paid to live straight.
"The world'll never see such a rush for gold again," went on Cyanide
Bill, after a pause. "I tell you it takes a lot to make any impress on
me, I've been toughenin' up in this country so many years; but when I
arrives and sees the orgy goin' on along this trail, my heart up and
stood still a spell. The strong ones was all a-trompin' the weak ones
down. The weak ones went down and out, and the strong ones never looked
behind. Men just went crazy. Men that had always been kind-hearted went
plumb locoed and 'u'd trample down their best friend, to get ahead of
him. They got just like brutes and didn't know their own selves. It's no
wonder the best women give up. Did you ever hear the story of Lady
Belle?"
I remembered Lady Belle, probably because of the name, but I had never
heard the details of her tragic story, and I frankly confessed that I
would like to hear them--"parlor" language or "trail," it mattered not.
"Well,"--he half closed his eyes and stared down the blue lake,--"she
come along this trail the first of July, the prettiest woman you ever
laid eyes on. Her husband was with her. He seemed to be kind to her at
first, but the horrors of the trail worked on him, and he went kind of
locoed. He took to abusin' her and blamin' her for everything. She
worked like a dog and he treated her about like one; but she never lost
her beauty nor her sweetness. She had the sweetest smile I ever saw on
any human bein's face; and she was the only one that thought about
others.
"'Don't crowd!' she used to cry, with that smile of her'n. 'We're all
havin' a hard time together.'
"Well, they lost their outfit in White Horse Rapids; her husband cursed
her and said it wouldn't of happened if she hadn't been hell-bent to
come along; he took to drinkin' and up and left her there at the rapids.
He went back to the states, sayin' he didn't ever want to see her again.
"She was left there without an ounce of grub or a cent of money.
Yakataga Pete had been workin' along the trail with a big outfit, and
had gone on in ahead. He'd fell in love with her before he knew she was
married. He went on up into the cricks, and when he come down to Dawson
six months later, she was in a dance hall. Dawson was wild about her.
They called her Lady Belle because she was always such a lady.
"Yakataga went straight to her and asked her to marry him. She burst out
into the most terrible cryin' you ever hear. 'As if I could ever marry
anybody!' she cries out; and that's all the answer he ever got. We found
out she had a little blind sister down in the states. She had to send
money to keep her in a blind school. She danced and acted cheerful; but
her face was as white as chalk, and her big dark eyes looked like a
fawn's eyes when you've shot it and not quite killed it, so's it can't
get away from you, nor die, nor anything; but she was always just as
sweet as ever.
"Two months after that she--she--killed herself. Yakataga was up in the
cricks. He come down and buried her."
It was told, the simple and tragic tale of Lady Belle, and presently
Cyanide Bill went away and left me.
The breeze grew cooler; it crested the waves with silver. Pearly clouds
floated slowly overhead and were reflected in the depths below.
The mountains surrounding Lake Bennett are of an unusual color. It is a
soft old-rose in the distance. The color is not caused by light and
shade; nor by the sun; nor by flowers. It is the color of the mountains
themselves. They are said to be almost solid mountains of iron, which
gives them their name of "Iron-Crowned," I believe; but to me they will
always be the Rose-colored Mountains. They soften and enrich the
sparkling, almost dazzling, blue atmosphere, and give the horizon a
look of sunset even at midday. The color reminded me of the dull
old-rose of Columbia Glacier.
Lake Bennett dashes its foam-crested blue waves along the pebbly beaches
and stone terraces for a distance of twenty-seven miles. At its widest
it is not more than two miles, and it narrows in places to less than
half a mile. It winds and curves like a river.
The railway runs along the eastern shore of the lake, and mountains
slope abruptly from the opposite shore to a height of five thousand
feet. The scenery is never monotonous. It charms constantly, and the air
keeps the traveller as fresh and sparkling in spirit as champagne.
For many miles a solid road-bed, four or five feet above the water, is
hewn out of the base of the mountains; the terrace from the railway to
the water is a solid blaze of bloom; white sails, blown full, drift up
and down the blue water avenue; cloud-fragments move silently over the
nearer rose-colored mountains; while in the distance, in every direction
that the eye may turn, the enchanted traveller is saluted by some lonely
and beautiful peak of snow. It is an exquisitely lovely lake.
We had passed Lake Lindeman--named by Lieutenant Schwatka for Dr.
Lindeman of the Breman Geographical Society--before reaching Bennett.
Lake Lindeman is a clear and lovely lake seven miles long, half a mile
wide, and of a good depth for any navigation required here. A mountain
stream pours tumultuously into it, adding to its picturesque beauty.
Sea birds haunt these lakes, drift on to the Yukon, and follow the
voyager until they meet their silvery fellows coming up from Behring
Sea.
Between Lakes Lindeman and Bennett the river connecting link is only
three quarters of a mile long, about thirty yards wide, and only two or
three feet deep. It is filled with shoals, rapids, cascades, boulders,
and bars; and navigation is rendered so difficult and so dangerous that
in the old "raft" days outfits were usually portaged to Lake Bennett.
During the rush to the Klondike a saw-mill was established at the head
of Lake Bennett, and lumber for boat building was sold for one hundred
dollars a thousand feet.
The air in these lake valleys on a warm day is indescribably soft and
balmy. It is scented with pine, balm, cottonwood, and flowers. The lower
slopes are covered with fireweed, larkspur, dandelions, monk's-hood,
purple asters, marguerites, wild roses, dwarf goldenrod, and many other
varieties of wild flowers. The fireweed is of special beauty. Its blooms
are larger and of a richer red than along the coast. Blooms covering
acres of hillside seem to float like a rosy mist suspended in the
atmosphere. The grasses are also very beautiful, some having the rich,
changeable tints of a humming-bird.
The short stream a couple of hundred yards in width connecting Lake
Bennett with the next lake--a very small, but pretty one which Schwatka
named Nares--was called by the natives "the place where the caribou
cross," and now bears the name of Caribou Crossing. At certain seasons
the caribou were supposed to cross this part of the river in vast herds
on their way to different feeding-grounds, the current being very
shallow at this point.
There is a small settlement here now, and boats were waiting to carry
passengers to the Atlin mining district. The caribou have now found less
populous territories in which to range. In the winter of 1907-1908 they
ranged in droves of many thousands--some reports said hundreds of
thousands--through the hills and valleys of the Stewart, Klondike, and
Sixty-Mile rivers, in the Upper Yukon country.
Miners killed them by the hundreds, dressed them, and stored them in the
shafts and tunnels of their mines, down in the eternally frozen caverns
of the earth--thus supplying themselves with the most delicious meat for
a year. The trek of caribou from the Tanana River valley to the head of
White River consumed more than ninety days in passing the head of the
Forty-Mile valley--at least a thousand a day passing during that period.
They covered from one to five miles in width, and trod the snow down as
solidly as it is trodden in a city street. A great wolf-pack clung to
the flank of the herd. The wolves easily cut out the weak or tired-out
caribou and devoured them.
* * * * *
Caribou Crossing is a lonely and desolate cluster of tents and cabins
huddling in the sand on the water's edge. Considerable business is
transacted here, and many passengers transfer here in summer to Atlin.
In winter they leave the train at Log-Cabin, which we passed during the
forenoon, and make the journey overland in sleighs.
The voyage from Caribou Crossing to Atlin is by way of a chain of blue
lakes, pearled by snow mountains. It is a popular round-trip tourist
trip, which may be taken with but little extra expense from Skaguay.
Tagish Lake, as it was named by Dr. Dawson,--the distinguished British
explorer and chief director of the natural history and geological survey
of the Dominion of Canada,--was also known as Bove Lake. Ten miles from
its head it is joined by Taku Arm--Tahk-o Lake, it was called by
Schwatka.
The shores of Tagish Lake are terraced beautifully to the water, the
terraces rising evenly one above another. They were probably formed by
the regular movement of ice in other ages, when the waters in these
valleys were deeper and wider. There are some striking points of
limestone in this vicinity, their pearl-white shoulders gleaming
brilliantly in the sunshine, with sparkling blue waves dashing against
them.
Marsh Lake, and another with a name so distasteful that I will not write
it, are further links in the brilliant sapphire water chain by which the
courageous voyagers of the Heartbreak days used to drift hopefully, yet
fearfully, down to the Klondike. The bed of a lake which was
unintentionally drained completely dry by the builders of the railroad
is passed just before reaching Grand Canyon.
The train pauses at the canyon and again at White Horse Rapids, to give
passengers a glimpse of these famed and dreaded places of navigation of
a decade ago.
At six o'clock in the evening of the day we left Skaguay we reached
White Horse.