When the _D. R. Campbell_ drew away from the Dawson wharf at nine
o'clock of an August morning, another of my dreams was "come true." I
was on my way down the weird and mysterious river that calls as
powerfully in its way as the North Pacific Ocean. For years the mere
sound of the word "Yukon" had affected me like the clash of a wild and
musical bell. The sweep of great waters was in it--the ring of breaking
ice and its thunderous fall; the roar of forest fires, of undermined
plunging cliffs, of falling trees, of pitiless winds; the sobs of dark
women, deserted upon its shores, with white children on their breasts;
the mournful howls of dogs and of their wild brothers, wolves; the slide
of avalanches and the long rattle of thunder--for years the word "Yukon"
had set these sounds ringing in my ears, and had swung before my eyes
the shifting pictures of canyon, rampart, and plain; of waters rushing
through rock walls and again loitering over vast lowlands to the sea; of
forestated mountains, rose thickets, bare hills, pale cliffs of clay,
and ranges of sublime snow-mountains. Yet, with all that I had read, and
all that I had heard, and all that I had imagined, I was unprepared for
the spell of the Yukon; for the spaces, the solitude, the silence. At
last I was to learn how well the name fits the river and the country,
and how feeble and how ineffectual are both description and imagination
to picture this country so that it may be understood.
Six miles below Dawson the site of old Fort Reliance is passed, and
forty-six miles farther Forty-Mile River pours its broad flood into the
Yukon. About eight miles up this river, at the lower end of a canyon, a
strong current has swept many small boats upon dangerous rocks and the
occupants have been drowned. The head of the Forty-Mile is but a short
distance from the great Tanana.
The settlement of Forty-Mile is the pioneer mining-camp of the Yukon.
The Alaska Commercial Company established a station here soon after the
gold excitement of 1887; and, as the international boundary line crosses
Forty-Mile River twenty-three miles from its mouth and many of the most
important mining interests depending upon the town for supplies are on
the American side, a bonded warehouse is maintained, from which American
goods can be drawn without the payment of duties. As late as 1895 quite
a lively town was at the mouth of the river, boasting even an opera
house; but the town was depopulated upon the discovery of gold on the
Klondike. Six years ago the settlement was flooded by water banked up in
Forty-Mile River by ice, and the residents were taken from upstairs
windows in boats. The former name of this river was Che-ton-deg, or
"Green Leaf," River.
Now there are a couple of dozen log cabins, a dozen or more red-roofed
houses, and store buildings. The steamer pushed up sidewise to the rocky
beach, a gang-plank was floated ashore, and a customs inspector came
aboard. On the beach were a couple of ladies, some members of the
mounted police in scarlet coats, and fifty malamute dogs, snapping,
snarling, and fighting like wolves over the food flung from the steamer.
The dog is to Alaska what the horse is to more civilized countries--the
intelligent, patient, faithful beast of burden. He is of the Eskimo or
"malamute" breed, having been bred with the wolf for endurance; or he
is a "husky" from the Mackenzie River.
Eskimo dogs are driven with harness, hitched to sleds, and teams of five
or seven with a good leader can haul several hundred pounds, if blessed
with a kind driver. In summer they have nothing to do but sleep, and
find their food as best they may. Along the Yukon they haunt
steamer-landings and are always fed by the stewards--who can thus muster
a dog fight for the pleasure of heartless passengers at a moment's
notice.
With the coming of winter a kind of electric strength seems to enter
into these dogs. They long for the harness and the journeys over snow
and ice; and for a time they leap and frisk like puppies and will not be
restrained. They are about the size of a St. Bernard dog, but of very
different shape; the leader is always an intelligent and superior animal
and his eyes frequently hold an almost human appeal. He is fairly
dynamic in force, and when not in harness will fling himself upon food
with a swiftness and a strength that suggest a missile hurled from a
catapult. Nothing can check his course; and he has been known to strike
his master to the earth in his headlong rush of greeting--although it
has been cruelly said of him that he has no affection for any save the
one that feeds him, and not for him after his hunger is satisfied.
The Eskimo dog seldom barks, but he has a mournful, wolflike howl. His
coat is thick and somewhat like wool, and his feet are hard; he travels
for great distances without becoming footsore, and at night he digs a
deep hole in the snow, crawls into it, curls up in his own wool, and
sleeps as sweetly as a pet Spitz on a cushion of down. His chief food is
fish. If the Alaska dog is not affectionate, it is because for
generations he has had no cause for affection. No dog with such eyes--so
asking and so human-like in their expression--could fail to be
affectionate and devoted to a master possessing the qualities which
inspire affection and devotion.
In winter all the mails are carried by dogs, covering hundreds of miles.
Half a mile below Forty-Mile the town of Cudahy was founded in 1892 by
the North American Trading and Transportation Company, as a rival
settlement.
Fifty miles below Forty-Mile, at the confluence of Mission Creek with
the Yukon, is Eagle, having a population of three or four hundred
people. It has the most northerly customs office and military post, Fort
Egbert, belonging to the United States, and is the terminus of the
Valdez-Eagle mail route and telegraph line. It is also of importance as
being but a few miles from the boundary.
Fort Egbert is a two-company post, and usually, as at the time of our
visit, two companies are stationed there. The winter of 1904-1905 was
the gayest in the social history of the fort. Several ladies, the wives
and the sisters of officers, were there, and these, with the wife of the
company's agent and other residents of the town, formed a brilliant and
refined social club.
From November the 27th to January the 16th the sun does not appear above
the hills to the south. The two "great" days at Eagle are the 16th of
January,--"when the sun comes back,"--and the day "when the ice breaks
in the river," usually the 12th of May. On the former occasion the
people assemble, like a band of sun-worshippers, and celebrate its
return.
The vegetable and flower gardens of Eagle were a revelation of what may
be expected in the agricultural and floral line in the vicinity of the
Arctic Circle. Potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, lettuce, turnips,
radishes, and other vegetables were in a state of spendthrift luxuriance
that cannot be imagined by one who has not travelled in a country where
vegetables grow day and night.
In winter Eagle is a lonely place. The only mail it receives is the
monthly mail passing through from Dawson to Nome by dog sleds; and no
magazines, papers, or parcels are carried.
It was from Eagle that the first news was sent out to the world
concerning Captain Amundsen's wonderful discovery of the Northwest
Passage; here he arrived in midwinter after a long, hard journey by dog
team from the Arctic Ocean and sent out the news which so many brave
navigators of early days would have given their lives to be able to
announce.
Within five years a railroad will probably connect Eagle with the coast
at Valdez; meantime, there is a good government trail, poled by a
government telegraph line.
Eagle came into existence in 1898, and the fort was established in 1899.
"Woodings-up" are picturesque features of Yukon travel. When the steamer
does not land at a wood yard, mail is tied around a stick and thrown
ashore. Fancy standing, a forlorn and homesick creature, on the bank of
this great river and watching a letter from home caught by the rushing
current and borne away! Yet this frequently happens, for heart affairs
are small matters in the Arctic Circle and receive but scant
consideration.
On the Upper Yukon wood is five dollars a cord; on the Lower, seven
dollars; and a cord an hour is thrust into the immense and roaring
furnaces.
During "wooding-up" times passengers go ashore and enjoy the forest.
There are red and black currants, crab-apples, two varieties of
salmon-berries, five of huckleberries, and strawberries. The high-bush
cranberries are very pretty, with their red berries and delicate
foliage.
Nation is a settlement of a dozen log cabins roofed with dirt and
flowers, the roofs projecting prettily over the front porches. The wife
of the storekeeper has lived here twenty-five years, and has been
"outside" only once in twelve years. Passengers usually go ashore
especially to meet her, and are always cordially welcomed, but are never
permitted to condole with her on her isolated life. The spell of the
Yukon has her in thrall, and content shines upon her brow as a star.
Those who go ashore to pity, return with the dull ache of envy in their
worldly hearts; for there be things on the Yukon that no worldly heart
can understand.
We left Eagle in the forenoon and at midnight landed at Circle City,
which received this name because it was first supposed to be located
within the Arctic Circle. We found natives building houses at that hour,
and this is my most vivid remembrance of Circle. Gold was discovered on
Birch Creek, within eight miles of the settlement, as early as 1892; and
until the Klondike excitement this was the most populous camp on the
Yukon, more than a thousand miners being quartered in the vicinity. Like
other camps, it was then depopulated; but many miners have now returned
and a brilliant discovery in this vicinity may yet startle the world.
The output of gold for 1906 was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
About three hundred miners are operating on tributaries up Birch Creek.
The great commercial companies are established at all these settlements
on the Yukon, where they have large stores and warehouses.
* * * * *
Early on the following morning we were on deck to cross the Arctic
Circle. One has a feeling that a line with icicles dangling from it must
be strung overhead, under which one passes into the enchanted realm of
the real North.
"Feel that?" asked the man from Iowa of a big, unsmiling Englishman.
"Feel--er--what?" said the Englishman.
"That shock. It felt like stepping on the third rail of an electric
railway."
But the Iowa humor was scorned, and the Englishman walked away.
We soon landed at Fort Yukon, the only landing in the Arctic Circle and
the most northerly point on the Yukon. This post was established at the
mouth of the Porcupine in 1847 by A. H. McMurray, of the Hudson Bay
Company, and was moved in 1864 a mile lower on the Yukon, on account of
the undermining of the bank by the wash of the river. During the early
days of this post goods were brought from York Factory on Hudson Bay,
four thousand miles distant, and were two years in transit. The whole
Hudson Bay system, according to Dall, was one of exacting tyranny that
almost equalled that of the Russian Company. The white men were urged to
marry Indian, or native, women, to attach them to the country. The
provisions sent in were few and these were consumed by the commanders of
the trading posts or given to chiefs, to induce them to bring in furs.
The white men received three pounds of tea and six of sugar annually,
and no flour. This scanty supply was uncertain and often failed. Two
suits of clothes were granted to the men, but nothing else until the
furs were all purchased. If anything remained after the Indians were
satisfied, the men were permitted to purchase; but Indians are rarely
satisfied.
Fort Yukon has never been of importance as a mining centre, but has long
been a great fur trading post for the Indians up the Porcupine. This
trade has waned, however, and little remains but an Indian village and
the old buildings of the post. We walked a mile into the woods to an old
graveyard in a still, dim grove, probably the only one in the Arctic
Circle.