entering Canadian territory must have eleven hundred pounds, or a
year’s supply of food. Flour was the cheapest thing to bring an outfit
that lacked two or three hundred pounds up to the requirements. Almost
without exception the pilgrims had failed to realize the importance
of luxuries in contributing a healthful and sustaining diet in the
North. Flour sold on July 1st, after the commercial companies began
to receive supplies, for $6 a sack, but white sugar sold for fifty
cents a pound. Everybody had enough of staples, but many had eaten all
their sugar--the larger part of their dried fruits, soup preparations,
and canned delicacies and smoked or chewed all of their tobacco. It
was easy to promise themselves on the trail that if they indulged
themselves in “something good” after a hard day’s work they could buy
more of the same article in Dawson. For they were certain that a great
many of their comrades intended to sell their outfits and leave the
country at once--so many of their comrades did. But they, too, had
eaten all their butter and evaporated eggs and kept any tobacco they
had lest they should run out of it on the way home.
Pilgrims who had goods to sell hastened to find a niche for a booth on
the busy main street, where you could buy peanuts and pink lemonade, or
the substantials of eating; patent leather shoes, yellow-backed novels,
and cheap jewelry, or the substantials of wearing apparel. The six
restaurants formed a trust and kept the price of a meal up to $2.50.
In furnishing them with meat, the men who had used oxen for drawing
their outfits up to the Scales and again to draw them over the lakes,
now had reason to laugh back at the friends who had scoffed at them for
thinking that any animal except a dog or a mule was useful in Alaska.
An ox sold for $700 or $800 and was butchered at once before it had a
chance to eat any more hay--which was worth $100 a ton--while the rich
men stood by to see that they got the tenderloin. Besides beefsteak,
we had moose-steak. One moose, who had possibly come back to his old
pastures out of curiosity, was shot with a revolver only a mile out of
town. His slayer, who met him ambling along the white man’s trail as if
he were on a stampede to some new creek, sold his carcass for $500.
Carpenters got employment at $15 a day on some one of the new dance
halls, saloons, and stores which were being built as fast as green
lumber for their construction could be obtained. Pilgrims without
any trade, if they were wise, immediately secured logs and built a
cabin, which served them at once as a temporary home, a storehouse
for their supplies, and assured them warmth and shelter when winter
should come. But the grasshoppers were far more numerous than the
ants. The debilitating climate of summer, joined with the indecision
of whether to leave the country or to remain, of whether to go down
the river to the American side or up the river to Stewart if they
did remain, supplied the majority with a good excuse for idleness.
Some did not even put up tents on the shore, but kept house in their
boats which they had moored to the bank. They sat on logs discussing
their experiences in shooting the rapids, and they kept watch of the
new arrivals for the purpose of guying anyone who had started before
themselves but had arrived later.
There was something pitiful as well as ridiculous in the disappointment
of the pilgrim who had believed everything that he read in the
press-agents’ pamphlets, to find that a rich claim was not to be had
for working it. When he put his new gold-pan and a pack on his back
and went up the trail to the creeks, where possibly he found a few
colors in a rivulet, the old-timers laughed at him and asked him if
he liked prospecting well enough to pan ground that was staked two
years ago. If he carried a revolver they begged him, please not to
shoot them. Wearily, and with all his visions dispelled, he returned
to Dawson. His tent was no protection from the sun of midday. At night
the light made it difficult for him to sleep. As he fried his fat bacon
he could not help thinking that it was just strawberry time on the
“outside.”
Few pilgrims had any money and those who had were inclined to spend
it on the luxuries which their palates craved. They walked up and
down the main street like the crowd at a country fair; looked on at
the drinking and gambling of the successful miners and marvelled at
the amount of dust that passed over the saloon-keeper’s scales; and
slouched in and out of the stores of the two commercial companies to
see the bulletin board, which had the list of names of men for whom
letters had been received. If they might not visit the new variety
theatre, with gambling hall and bar attached, where actresses from
’Frisco and Seattle sang the songs of a local poet containing spirited
references to the rich claim-owners--who, in return for the compliment,
opened champagne at $30 a bottle between the “turns,”--they could at
least enjoy the sights of the river bank. In the absence of so great
an event as the arrival of a scow with mules or the latest papers
on board, some “pardners” were either quarrelling or dividing their
outfits preparatory to selling them. With the first steamer from down
the river came the news from Circle City, which meant a great deal to
the old-timers. The Cheechawkos could not understand it, but, as became
a crowd which gets only a glimpse into the inside world, they made the
most of the peeps and simulated intense interest.
One day a midget of a steamer, the first to shoot White Horse
Rapids--her parts had been packed over the Pass and put together on
Bennett--ran in between two scows and tied up so quietly that not more
than three or four hundred men saw it. Their pride was no greater than
the disappointment of the multitude, who refused to forgive the captain
until they learned that his whistle was out of gear.
Next to knowing them personally, the Cheechawkos enjoyed having the
leading citizens and the foremost gamblers pointed out to them. They
knew the story of how the Eldorado kings had made their fortunes, and
how Jack Smith had once bet $7,000 on the turn of a card. Now and then
they caught a glimpse of the tall, raw-boned Scotchman who was the
richest man in the country. Two years before he had been a day laborer
at Circle City. When the value of Eldorado claims was an uncertain
quantity he bought one of the best for $800. He spent all the first
year’s output in buying undeveloped properties, and then bought still
others upon his promise to pay, which the miners accepted without any
written word. The clean-up had vindicated his judgment. Now the fact
that he had stopped on a trail to look at a claim was supposed to
increase its speculative value.
And speculation still continued in both mining property and real
estate. A French-Canadian who had paid $5 for a front lot just after
the town-site was staked still held out persistently for $20,000, with
slight prospect of getting it. The “bottom” was out of the “boom,”
as every man who supported himself by gambling or speculation well
knew. No new strikes were made except on a few benches. None could be
made on the creeks at a season of the year when the seepage from the
thawing earth would fill a prospect-hole as fast as it was dug. Autumn
and winter have ever been the time for prospecting in the Klondyke,
and summer the time for cabin building or for taking provisions to
the heads of some of the tributaries in poling-boats preparatory to
prospecting.
Roughly but surely the lesson was forced home to the pilgrim that a
fortune cannot be made in the Klondyke in a hurry. If he would have a
claim he must find it. Even after he has found it, he must spend two
or three years, unless he sells it, taking out its treasure. If it
were not for the humiliation of facing their friends from whom they
had parted with merry good-bys, nine out of every ten of the pilgrims
would have returned home at once. Thirty per cent. of them did, as it
was. Two-thirds would have gone if many had not loitered on in their
tents until it was too late to go except over the ice. The tenth man
developed those characteristics of patience and nonchalance in dealing
with obstacles which the veteran prospector possesses by experience and
by nature. For such as lacked this spirit and remained in the country
there was the prospect of loitering in their cabins until their
supplies were eaten, in the hope of getting a good claim on a stampede,
or of going to work for wages.
[Illustration: A Yukon Steamer.]
In all, the pilgrims must have spent $30,000,000, or $40,000,000, on
outfits and transportation. (The output of gold in the Klondyke for the
year was $11,000,000.) But they have paved the way with their failures
for the development of a vast expanse of country whose abounding wealth
is unquestioned. The hardships of a journey to Dawson are of the past.
An aërial tramway, without groans or perspiration, does the work of
the packers at one-fifth of the expense on Chilcoot, and a railroad
carries passengers as well as freight over the whole Pass. Steamers ply
on both the upper and lower branches of the river connecting at White
Horse Rapids with others plying on the lakes. Hereafter, the mines of
the Klondyke will be an established institution, like the mines of
California, and the prospectors who go there, better fitted for their
tasks.
XI
GOVERNMENT
THE CANADIAN POLICY IN THE YUKON PROVINCE--TAXES AND FEES--THE GOLD
COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE--CONFLICTS BETWEEN TERRITORIAL AND DOMINION
GOVERNMENTS--TIMBER GRANTS--THE VALUE OF THE MOUNTED POLICE--THE NEWLY
RICH AT DAWSON--THE ORDER OF THE YUKON PIONEERS--MRS. CONSTANTINE.
In its policy the Dominion Government, which took matters out of
the hands of the Territorial Government after the Klondyke “boom”
began, has apparently been largely influenced by the predominance
of aliens in the Klondyke. At least three-fourths of the 2,000 men
in and around Dawson in the winter of 1897-98 and of the 35,000
pilgrims of the spring of 1898, were citizens of the United States.
Naturally, the members of the Canadian Parliament regarded with dismay
the prospect that the new-found wealth of a portion of their domain
hitherto considered valueless was going to American mints, and that
their constituents would be paying the expenses of administration,
which, owing to the isolation of the region to be governed, must be
comparatively expensive, for the benefit of another country.
Accordingly, the placer regions of the Yukon Valley lying in British
territory were created a special province called the Yukon District,
under the jurisdiction of the Dominion Parliament. A Commissioner,
with the powers of a dictator, was appointed for the District, the
Judge of the district alone being responsible to Ottawa and not subject
to the Commissioner’s orders. The other civil officials were a Gold
Commissioner, who had charge of the recording of claims, a Crown
Attorney, and two Mining Inspectors for collecting the royalties.
The opportunities of the officials for their own aggrandizement were
exceptional by reason of the system of taxation devised. On the output
of all claims a royalty of ten per cent. was collected. Every pilgrim
had to take out a mining license at a cost of $10. For having a claim
recorded a fee of $15 was charged. Every alternate claim on all new
discoveries was reserved to the Crown, thus depriving the community of
half the reward of enterprise. These restrictions drove a great many
experienced American prospectors to the other side of the boundary
line and at the same time served the inexperienced as an excuse for
returning home.
Major J. M. Walsh, who was chosen Commissioner, did not go to Dawson
in the autumn of 1897. His corps of civil officials preceded him while
he remained behind in camp on the Lewes Lakes, with a considerable
force of police, in order to escort to Dawson the United States Relief
Expedition.
Among the foremost charges of maladministration made against the civil
officials was the one in connection with the water front, data of which
were given to me by several leading men. The Canadian law provides
that the main street of a new town shall be at all points a certain
distance from the bank of the river. In order not to have a crooked
main street, the men who staked the town-site of Dawson agreed to
follow this measurement, from the greatest indentation of the bank, in
a straight line. Those who bought lots on the main street supposed that
they were securing river frontage, which is invaluable. The spring of
1898 however, saw a long row of buildings whose back-doors were toward
the river and which faced the original row. The officials had let
the water-front to an individual for a nominal sum in the name of the
Government. The sub-lessees said, with a shrug of their shoulders, that
they did not care to say to whom they paid their heavy rents, and that
they were satisfied as long as they were left undisturbed.
Captain Constantine, who had been transferred from the charge of
the police at Forty Mile to the same position at Dawson, was an old
fashioned executive. His departure in the summer of 1898 was agreeable
to him as well as to the other officials, because he was alone among
uncongenial company. He understood the miners; and they knew that,
though gruff, he was honest and incorruptible. Even the lawless ones
admitted this much; for in no community is simple integrity enforced
by a strong will better appreciated than in a mining-camp. Had he
been retained as administrator of the whole district, with the power
to choose his own assistants, Dawson would have been a phenomenally
well-governed settlement from the start, and the development of the
great wealth of the region would have been less retarded. Instead
of men who had spent their lives among pioneers, the Dominion
Government sent, as the reward for party service, men whose experience
was limited to local politics at home. With hundreds of experts to
choose from in British Columbia, an ex-captain of a whaler and an
ex-livery-stable-keeper were made inspectors to collect the royalty of
10 per cent. on an output of eleven millions of gold.
Considering the expense of recording a claim, the owners of claims
and the prospectors had at least the right to expect from the Gold
Commissioner’s Office reasonable attention to duty. To have posted in
a public place a detailed map of the district, with all claims and the
names of their owners recorded, would have required little labor and
no expense; but it would have ruined the business of the clerks in
furnishing information. Considering the number of policemen with idle
hands, mail received in the summer might have been sorted with dispatch
and distributed at different windows under different heads. But a delay
of two or three days, and the prospect of waiting in line for several
hours before one could even ask if there was a letter for him, were
strong incentives, to miners who wished to hurry back to their claims,
to put a few dollars into an itching palm, and in return to receive
immediate attention at the side-door of the Post-Office.
Unfortunately the arrival of Major Walsh in Dawson in the spring was
not productive of the reforms which an oppressed population had hoped
for. The acts of the officials, except that of a representative of the
Northwest Territory in placing a tax of $2,000 each on saloons and
gambling-halls, seemed to meet with the favor of the Commissioner.
He maintained that the Territorial Government was infringing on the
special powers granted to him by the Dominion Government; and he issued
an order that anyone who chose might sell liquor without any form of
license.
The buildings on the water-front stood in the way of even a primitive
system of sewerage. Simple sanitary rules were not promulgated, much
less enforced. Absolutely no precautions were taken against the
epidemic of fever, which was responsible for so many deaths. Private
beneficence built the two hospitals, and it now maintains them and
carries on all charitable undertakings. Whatever has been done in the
way of improvements has been paid for by public subscriptions. The full
measure of the Government’s public spirit was the construction of the
barracks and stockade for the Police on the Government Reserve. Had
some of the money collected from the claim-owners and the prospectors
been expended on constructing trails and on a system of sanitation,
there would have been less ground for complaint. Doing nothing itself,
the Government often took the position of the dog in the manger. The
exorbitant price demanded for a charter forced capitalists to give up
the plan of building a railroad from Dawson to the mines, which would
have been invaluable in cheapening the cost of mining. After paying
for timber privileges in their licenses, the pilgrims found, to their
dismay, that the Government, or the officials, had given enormous
timber grants in the neighborhood of Dawson to individuals, thus
putting an artificial value on logs for firewood and building purposes.
Very properly the loudest complaints arose from Englishmen,
Australians, and South Africans. If the new laws were directed against
Americans, they injured Canadians and other British subjects equally
as much, if not more. From the first, London regarded the Klondyke as
a great field for exploration, and most of the capital represented
there last spring was British. The royalty of 10 per cent. and the
failure to use the money so collected in constructing trails have been,
however, more injurious to capitalistic enterprise, which is largely
British, than to individual enterprise, which is largely American. A
poor man who takes from $5,000 to $50,000 out of a bench-claim with his
own hands will not be deterred from his labors by the royalty. But 10
per cent. on the gross output makes a majority of company propositions
impracticable. Often it will wipe out a goodly profit, and put a
balance on the wrong side of the ledger. As soon as it was known that
the Dominion Government would not heed the appeals for the abolition of
the royalty, the reaction from the “boom” was complete. The appointment
of Mr. Ogilvie, the new Commissioner, who has a reputation for probity,
was as welcome to the aliens as to the other residents. He at once set
about the work of making reforms.
Too much cannot be said in praise of the personnel of the Northwest
Mounted Police--mounted only in name, for they have not a single horse
in the Klondyke--which is largely drawn from the ranks of the young
Englishmen who enjoy “roughing it.” In preserving order they are
good-natured but severe. Malefactors are punished with the commendable
promptness of British justice; and no murderer in Dawson can snap his
fingers in the face of the law as one did at Skaguay. At Skaguay there
was no order; at Dawson too much civil government.
For the first winter, being populated entirely by men from the old
camps, Dawson was, of course, largely a sociological counterpart
of Forty Mile and Circle City, except that the excitement and the
feverish optimism, which increased as the new discoveries continued
to surpass expectations, had hitherto been unknown in the valley.
The contamination of the old customs began with the arrival of the
fifteen hundred madly hastening pilgrims who succeeded in reaching
Dawson before navigation was closed in the autumn of 1897. It was
complete with the arrival of the great pilgrimage with its element
of toughs, gamblers, and other parasites. The time had passed when
every man nodded to whomsoever he met. Dawson had become a settlement
not of neighbors, but, like Mecca, of strangers. The old-timers were
developing those human weaknesses which are brought out in sharp relief
by the sometimes doubtful blessing of great and unexpected success.
Practical communism was easier for a man when he and his comrade were
equally poor than after chance had made him the owner of a plot of
creek bed worth from $500,000 to $1,000,000, while his comrade, who had
been too late in the stampede to stake a claim on Eldorado, was among
his employees.
[Illustration: The Main Street of Dawson.]
There sprang up as a consequence an aristocratic social circle called
the Eldorado Kings, suffering, in a measure, from the affliction of
the _nouveaux riches_ of old communities who live miserably under the
suspicion that whoever approaches them has an axe to grind. Yet they
did not forget their duties to their less fortunate fellows. They
gave bountifully to the churches, to the hospitals, and for the care
of those poor Cheechawkos who lay ill in their tents. Upon a special
occasion, the Order of the Yukon Pioneers--perhaps the death of a
comrade or perhaps a church sociable, where you bought ice-cream made
from condensed milk for $2.50 a plate--appeared together wearing broad
blue ribands. Foremost among them was Jack McQuestion. He was keeping a
trading post when the first prospectors entered the Yukon Valley. The
old miners came to him to settle disputes, and the poorest of them
asked him for the loan of an ounce of dust.
On the day before the departure of our steamer for the outside, attired
in their best clothes and wearing their ribands, the old-timers
presented to Captain Constantine an address of appreciation and a
peck of nuggets. Then Jack McQuestion went over to the barracks and
asked that Mrs. Constantine should share with her husband the central
position in a photographic group of all the pioneers. She consented.
The Captain’s wife had been her husband’s companion during his service
on the Yukon. When she was quite ill one winter and had to remain
in her cabin from one short day’s end to another--with long, dark,
monotonous nights between them--the kindnesses shown to her were not
limited to the devotion of her stalwart husband or the attention of
ruddy-faced privates, whose Cockney accent told how far they were
from the motherland of commonplaces and restraints. The miners who
came to the door to inquire how she was getting on, devised means
of entertaining her over their pipes and cabin fires, and then were
sometimes too bashful to put them into execution. For one thing they
learned by heart the contents of some old humorous journals in camp.
Though she had been the first person to receive the journals when they
had been brought down the river the preceding summer, she did not say
so, and listened with gentle patience to their jokes being retold again
and again.
“Mrs. Constantine,” said one old-timer, as he bade her good-by, “we
ain’t much on manners, but we do know a lady when we see one.”
XII
DOWN THE YUKON AND HOME.
GOOD-BY TO DAWSON--THE EXTINCTION OF THE UNFIT--STEAMBOATING TO
ST. MICHAELS--MOSQUITOES AND SANDBARS--PILGRIMS BY THE ALL-WATER
ROUTE--BEHRING SEA--CIVILIZATION ONCE MORE.
Despite the diet, the isolation, and the inhospitable nature of the
country, many of the old-timers who had now realized the material
ambition which had brought them to Alaska and were going home, saw
the great crowd which gathered on the river bank to bid our steamer a
pleasant voyage, disappear in the distance with a feeling of regret
amounting to more than a momentary pang. From two to ten years had
passed since many of them had seen a paved street.
“You’ll wish you’re back,” and, “You won’t feel natcheral,” their
departing friends called out to them.
Out of deference to civilization everyone had bought certain of its
habiliments. New red ties stood out on the background of black
sweaters, and crumpled overalls drooped over patent leather shoes. Some
had taken whatever they could find to fit them, regardless of cost
and incongruity. Others had halted half way in making out a wardrobe
because they feared that they might not be getting the right styles
or because they got indignant at the prices charged by the Dawson
speculators compared with those on the outside.
The dying woman who was the mother of the first white baby born in
Dawson, the sallow men who had limped down from the hospital just
before the steamer sailed, and the Cheechawkos who had sold their
outfits for just enough to pay for passage to Seattle, where they
would have to telegraph home for railway fare--these had no regrets.
We buried the woman half way down the river, two of the men before
we reached St. Michaels, and a third at sea when only two days from
Seattle.