Cape Nome, July 20.--After an eleven days' voyage from Kotzebue
Sound we anchored off Anvil City on the morning of the 20th. Those
eleven days make a nightmare. A succession of head gales with
dense fogs. We were almost within sight of our destination when
a southeaster began to hum through the rigging and a thick fog
set in. The "Penelope" hove to and for two days we experienced a
most disagreeable combination of rolling and pitching, with their
inevitable conditions. When the clouds finally lifted we were back in
Bering Straits. The northward current is remarkably strong at this
season and it is almost impossible to stem it unless there is a fair
wind, which in our case did finally favor us. We found our Cape Nome
representatives all here save Cox, who was left with some claims
toward Fish River. All are well, but from their account they must
have had some sorry experiences. Dr. Gleaves, Gale and party were
lost in the overland trip and ran out of provisions, resorting to
their seventeen dogs for food in the last pinch. They finally reached
supplies with barely enough meat for two days longer. Close shave.
The body of Dr. De France of the "Iowa" party, was found frozen in
the trail in the mountains.
On the 22d the "Penelope" sailed up the coast to our claims, which
are located on the beach seven miles west of Anvil City. Here we have
unloaded supplies and will proceed to work the claims far enough to
see what they are good for. I have not visited "town" yet, but there
must be two thousand inhabitants living mostly in tents or driftwood
shacks. Several warehouses have been built and two substantial frame
buildings are going up. They say there are ten thousand men in this
district, mostly scattered out among the hills. Five thousand claims
are recorded, but of these only about a dozen are known to be of
value. Four are so far being worked, but these I know to be extremely
rich, for anyone can look on and see the "shining" as it is separated
from the gravel in the sluice boxes. Shafer and Stevenson were at
these workings a day or two ago and saw two shovelfuls taken up
indiscriminately pan out one $6 and the other $8. Those rich claims
are in little cañons or ravines seven miles back from the coast in
the hills. This is really a gold bearing region, for one can find
colors almost anywhere. We can get from twenty-five to two hundred
colors to a pan on our claims here, but they are very line, and I
doubt their being saved in sluice boxes. The beach claims contain
plenty of gold, but it will require improved machinery to make them
pay.
I have left my bird skins and everything except a single change of
clothing on the "Penelope," as we all have done. But I am afraid
my collection is liable to damage from rats or mould. There is no
place on shore to put the stuff and no through vessels that I know
of to ship it by. The "Penelope" left night before last to take a
prospecting party thirty miles down the coast to examine some country
there and then to visit the claims where Cox was left. Nine of us are
left here, with Harry Reynolds as foreman. We are at present digging
holes in various places to see if we can find the "pay streak." No
success yet. The gold on the beach is not "wash" gold, but no doubt
comes from the bluff which borders the beach about one hundred feet
back from the surf. From this bluff the smooth tundra extends back
some five miles to the hills. Anvil City is at the mouth of Snake
River, which extends back through the hills and heads in the high
mountain ranges which we can just see through the gap. Anvil Creek,
Snow Gulch and Glacier Creek, the rich spots, are tributaries of
Snake River. To the westward is Penny River, but this whole country,
including thirty miles along the water front, is all staked out. The
district is under military control, and twenty soldiers are stationed
at Anvil City. Without them there might be trouble. It seems that
the first men to this region, the so-called "discoverers," staked
out as many as one hundred claims each under power of attorney.
They then formed a mining district and passed a law that powers of
attorney cannot hold, thus handicapping those who have come in since,
so one man can take up but one claim. The other night a miners'
meeting was called in town to consider the matter. A resolution he
brought up which, if carried, would throw the whole district open
to be restaked. The lieutenant was there and he knew that if this
passed there would be serious trouble. He informed the meeting that
if this resolution was brought up he would clear the house. After
some deliberation the resolution was couched in a different form,
disguising its intent, but the officer kept his word and ordered the
house cleared. There was some hesitation and several toughs even
looked resistance, but the order was given to fix bayonets. The
meeting was thus broken up and nothing more has been done.
[Illustration: Main Street, Anvil City.]
The original staking was doubtless unfair, but if the district were
now reopened it would be worse. There is little lawlessness in Anvil
City, on account of the militia. A good many claims have been jumped
and some of them two or three times. This will give work to the
lawyers. Several of our own claims have been jumped, but we are on
them now and possession is nine points of the law.
July 30.--This is Sunday and a day of rest for us. We have worked
pretty hard the past week. In fact this is the first mining the L. B.
A. M. & T. Co. has done. Prospect holes have been dug in different
parts of the claims. Uncle Jimmy and I were set to digging hole
back on the tundra, and if anyone doubts the work is hard let him
try it for himself. We worked three days and got to a depth of ten
feet with no favorable results. The tundra is thawed barely through
its covering of moss, seldom more than six inches. The rest of the
way the frozen ground was as hard as rock and had to be chipped off
bit by bit. The hole was about four by five feet, just room enough
to wield a heavy pick. We broke the points off the pick every day. A
strata of pure ice a foot thick was encountered, but most of the way
we worked through a sort of frozen muck or packed mass of unrotted
vegetation which, when it thaws, looks and smells like barnyard filth.
After the first day the walls began to melt and cave in little by
little, so that each morning and noon we would have to bale out a
foot or more of mud and water. It was about as dirty work as one
can imagine. The fresh clods, as we picked them out of the bottom,
were so cold that for a time frost formed on the outside just like
a cold piece of iron brought into a warm room in winter. Although
as cold as a refrigerator down in the pit, the perspiration poured
off from us from the stifling air. Only one of us at a time could
work in the hole, so we had half hour shifts. Uncle Jimmy and I.
The man on the outside had to haul up the bucketfuls of dirt and
water, but he otherwise rested. After our long yachting trip this
work was especially hard. But such labor gives one a tremendous
appetite. Jesse Farrar is cook now. Shafer has deserted the company.
He has obtained a position in a restaurant uptown at $1.50 per month
and expenses, with prospects of $200 next mouth. C. C. Reynolds,
Dr. Coffin, Clyde, Baldwin and Colclough have left on the steamer
"Albion" for home. Yes, for home! All have made satisfactory
arrangements with the company. As to the rest of us who "stay by the
ship," there are none but could better his condition by leaving the
company. But we who have a good deal of money invested, hate to leave
everything when affairs are looking better than ever before.
We are in a gold country here and none can tell what may turn up. I
never saw a single color in the Kowak region, but here the sand is
sprinkled with them, though not in paying quantities everywhere. I
must admit that even I, who do not know what homesickness is, would
like very well to be at home for a while. I am losing time now. No
matter if I were shoveling gravel and digging holes, that isn't
improving myself any, is it?
I am still intent upon Dutch Harbor as soon as the company leaves
Alaska. I do not suppose I will ever return to Alaska again, and I
think a few months among the Aleutians would be time well put in, in
the natural history line.
By the way, "Uncle S.," the Quaker gold-hunter whom we had given
up for lost last winter, came aboard the "Penelope" when we first
anchored at Anvil City. He has bought a small steam launch and makes
money ferrying people and their goods up and down the coast. The
Snake River is not navigable except after heavy rains. I have also
seen the "Flying Dutchman" here. He is gray. He had black hair and
beard last fall. His forced journeyings over the frozen Arctic have
left a witness to his hardships. The "Bear" came in last night from
Kotzebue Sound, bringing eighty victims of scurvy. The sickness up
there has been awful this spring and the death rate as high as ten
per cent.
We hear of a great many disasters. There are but few who would spend
another winter on the Kowak for a mint of gold, unless it be myself.
To crown it all, we have news of a strike on the Kowak! "Nuggets as
big as hickory nuts!" This story, when we are scarcely four hundred
miles away from there! Somebody is starting another boom. This may
start some more "fools" up there. But it will take something new to
get any of us back. We have bit at "the hickory nut" once, and I do
not think we shall again. We hear that the transportation companies
are booming this country. It is overrun now and there is sure to be
crowding. Wages are five to eight dollars a day back at the mines,
but only a limited number of men can get employment at that. Expenses
are high, and a man had better stick to $1.50 per day back in
civilization than to come here and sleep on the damp ground in a tent
without a fire and live on salt-horse and beans.
The hot weather is upon us at last and the last four days have been
"sweaters." It is like an oven in the tent where I am writing. Dr.
Coffin got us each a box of lemons and oranges on the "Alaska," just
in, before he left. Jesse just brought in a big stew kettle full of
ice-cold lemonade. Two bowls full just serve to make one want more.
It tastes so good. We have had one mess of fresh potatoes and onions.
We ate the latter raw with vinegar. It does a fellow good to be
without such things a while, if not too long. He knows better how to
appreciate them.
And now I record a fact that ought to make every face blush that
turns an upward glance at Old Glory. The United States has passed "a
law," permitting; saloons in Cape Nome. The natives get all they want
and are killing each other when drunk. The native girl who mends some
of our shoes, came in drunk, and when sober she was asked where she
obtained the liquor. She gave the name of the man. Our foreman told
him that he would report him to the captain of our squad, and was
offered $50 by the criminal to "keep mum."
Aug. 5.--It is nothing now but "work" from 7 a. m. to 6 p. m. After
ten hours of it one is more ready to rest than to write. I do not
get a minute to so much as look at a bird except Sunday, which we
have voted to observe. And then there is plenty to till in every
minute when one comes along, including mending and washing. But I
can scarcely help seeing the birds that fly past along the beach
just as if to taunt me. Bands of Pacific kittiwakes pass up and down
the surf on the lookout for herrings, and an occasional glaucus, or
rather the Port Barrow gull, comes sailing along. A pair of Arctic
terns feeding their full-grown young, afford almost the only bird
notes of any kind. The young have a pleading, and yet harshly strong,
succession of calls, and hover along the beach ever ready for the
fish caught in the surf by the parent birds. The precision with which
the terns can drop on a tiny fish or crustacean in the boiling surf
is remarkable. And yet they seem so light on the wing and rise from
the water with so little apparent exertion. Long-tailed jagers are
common, coursing back and forth over the tundra or poising against
the wind with fluttering wings much like a sparrow-hawk. Their long,
pointed, streamer-like, central tail feathers distinguish them at
almost any distance from the other jagers. They feed on meadow mice
and caterpillars mostly, but their habit of forcing gulls to disgorge
is of frequent notice. As there are no mud flats or marshes here the
waders are scarce. I saw a godwit, probably the Pacific, flying back
toward the interior. Several golden plover, which I have no doubt are
rearing their young, are always on the back part of our claims. Their
melodious, warbling call reminds me strongly of the robin. These
plover show decided preference for the dryest tundra and uplands, and
at Cape Blossom I found them on the hillsides in the interior of the
peninsula. One day last week while I was at work in a prospect hole
back of the bluff, three turnstones lit in the mossy hummocks within
a few yards of me. They were very tame and remained an hour or more
near me, feeding on insects or their larvæ. I have never taken this
species (the common turnstone), although I saw it at Cape Prince of
Wales and Cape Blossom, and tried hard to get some specimens. I took
several of the black turnstones in Sitka in 1896, and also in San
Clemente Island last year. Black-throated loons are numerous and are
constantly seen and heard overhead as they fly back and forth from
the lakes on the tundra to their feeding grounds out at sea. This
is the only loon I have seen here, although I saw the red-throated
at Kotzebue. I have kept special watch for the yellow-billed loon
which is ascribed to this region, but have never identified it. The
Eskimos make clothing of loon skins, and I have particularly examined
such evidences, but have never found a scrap of yellow-billed loon
skin. This species cannot therefore be very numerous. Land birds
are very scarce here, probably on account of the awful barrenness
of the region. I flushed one snowy owl back of camp one day, and
the boys say they saw a hawk of some kind yesterday, I think from
their description a gyrfalcon. I saw two juvenile Lapland longspurs
yesterday feeding about the bluff, and also heard a yellow wagtail. I
have noted a pair of juvenile redpolls several times along the bluff.
This, I think, comprises our avifauna up to date, and it will be
seen that a collector would have rather "slim picking." They tell
me that back in the hills where the ravines are lined with willow
scrubs, birds are more numerous and that large flocks of juvenile
ptarmigan are appearing. I would like to go back and see if this is
true, but it is all "business" now. The financial prospects of our
party are brightening every day. Our beach claims may become a paying
proposition when properly developed. Eight or ten of us are working
on one of them in a very crude fashion, using "rockers." and are
taking out $50 to $60 per day. With improved machinery this would be
a rich thing, but of course considerable capital would be required
to start. I am "cleaner-up;" taking out the previous day's clean-up,
which consists of several pans of mixed black sand and gold dust (the
latter in smallest proportion), and panning it down so far as I can
without losing any colors or fine flakes of the yellow. Then I mix in
mercury thoroughly, which takes up all the dust, forming an amalgam,
which is finally separated and retorted, leaving the buttons of pure
gold. We are figuring on another proposition and may not continue
at this much longer. We have prospected these claims enough to know
their value, and this is enough for this year. There is a good deal
of trouble about the strip of beach between high and low tide, some
claiming it to be public reserve and open to be worked by anyone.
Several "squatters" are working on our claims who refuse to get off,
but the judge will settle this next week.
[Illustration]