THE KLONDIKE VENTURE.
After the failure of the hop business, I undertook a venture to the
mines of the north. This resulted in a real live adventure of exciting
experience.
I had lived in the old Oregon country forty-four years and had never
seen a mine. Mining had no attraction for me, any more than corner
lots in new, embryo cities. I did not understand the value of either,
and left both severely alone. But when my accumulations had all been
swallowed up, the land I had previously owned gone into other hands,
and, in fact, my occupation gone, I concluded to take a chance in a
mining country; matters could not well be much worse, and probably
could be made better, and so in the spring of 1898 I made my first
trip over the Chilcoot Pass, and then down the Yukon River to Dawson
in a flatboat, and ran the famous White Horse Rapids with my load of
vegetables for the Klondike miners.
One may read of the Chilcoot Pass the most graphic descriptions
written, and yet when he is up against the experience of crossing, he
will find the difficulties more formidable than his wildest fancy or
expectation had pictured. I started in with fifteen tons of freight,
and got through with nine. On one stretch of 2,000 feet I paid forty
dollars a ton freight, and I knew of others paying more. The trip for
a part of the way reminded me of the scenes on the Plains in 1852—such
crowds that they jostled each other on the several parallel trails
where there was room for more than one track. At the pass, most of the
travel came upon one track, and so steep that the ascent could only be
made by cutting steps in the ice and snow—1,500 in all.
Frequently every step would be full, while crowds jostled each other at
the foot of the ascent to get into the single file, each man carrying
from one hundred (it was said) to two hundred pounds pack on his back.
Nevertheless, after all sorts of experiences, I arrived in Dawson, with
nine tons of my outfit, sold my fresh potatoes at $36.00 a bushel and
other things in like proportionate prices and in two weeks started up
the river, homeward bound, with two hundred ounces of Klondike gold
in my belt. But four round trips in two years satisfied me that I did
not want any more of like experience. Then was when my mind would
run on this last venture, the monument expedition, while writing the
Reminiscences,[21] a part of which are elsewhere to be found in this
volume. Had it not been for the loss of my business, it is doubtful if
I ever would have settled down to this work, and so, maybe, the loss
was a blessing in disguise. Anyway, no happier years of my life were
passed than while engaged in writing it.
As I have said, the trips to the Klondike became real adventures.
Fortunately detained for a couple of days, I escaped the avalanche
that buried fifty-two people in the snow, and passed by the morgue the
second day after the catastrophe on my way to the summit, and doubtless
over the bodies of many unknown dead, imbedded so deeply in the snow
that it was utterly impossible to recover them.
[Illustration: The Klondike Team.]
I received a good ducking in my first passage through the White Horse
Rapids, and vowed I would not go through there again, but I did, the
very next trip that same year, and came out of it dry; then when going
down the thirty-mile river, it did seem as though we could not escape
being dashed upon the rocks, but somehow or another got through safely
while the bank of that river was strewed with wrecks, and the waters
had swallowed up many victims. When the Yukon proper was reached, the
current was not so swift but the shoals were numerous, and more than
once we were "hung up" on the bar, and always with an uncertainty as
to how we would get off. In all of this experience of the two trips
by the scows no damage resulted, except once when a hole was jammed
into the scow, and we thought we were "goners" certain, but effected a
landing so quickly as to unload our cargo dry. I now blame myself for
taking such risks, but curiously enough I must admit that I enjoyed
it, sustained, no doubt, with the high hopes of coming out with "my
pile." But fate or something else was against me, for the after mining
experience swept all the accumulation away "slick as a mitten," as
the old saying goes, and I came out over the rotten ice of the Yukon
in April of 1901 to stay, and to vow I never wanted to see another
mine, or visit another mining country. Small wonder, you may say, when
I write, that in two weeks' time after arriving home I was able to,
and did celebrate our golden wedding with the wife of fifty years and
enjoyed the joys of a welcome home even if I did not have my pockets
filled with gold. I had then passed the seventy-year mark, and thought
my "pet project," as some people call it, of marking the old Oregon
Trail, was hung up indefinitely, but the sequel is shown in what
followed and is the answer to my foreboding. I am now at this writing
past the eighty-fifth year mark, and cannot see but I am as strong as
when I floated down the Yukon in a flatboat, or packed my goods over
the Chilcoot Pass, or drove my ox team over the summit of the Rocky
Mountains on my recent trip to mark the historic Oregon Trail.
THE DREAM OF THE STAR.
[A song of the Oregon Trail. Dedicated to Ezra Meeker, Pioneer.]
I
A song for the men who blazed the way!
With hearts that would not quail;
They made brave quest of the wild Northwest,
They cut the Oregon trail.
Back of them beckoned their kith and kin
And all that they held their own;
Front of them spread the wilderness dread,
And ever the vast unknown.
But ever they kept their forward course!
And never they thought to lag,
For over them flew the Red, White and Blue
And the dream of a star for the flag!
II
A cheer for the men who cut the trail!
With souls as firm as steel
And fiery as wrath they hewed the path
For the coming Commonweal.
And close on the heels of the pioneers
The eager throng closed in
And followed the road to a far abode.
An Empire new to win.
And so they wrought at the end of the trail,
As ever must brave men do,
Till out of the dark there gleamed a spark,
And the dream of the star came true.
III
A toast to the men who made the road!
And a health to the men who dwell
In the great new land by the heroes planned,
Who have builded it wide and well!
The temple stands where the pine tree stood,
And dim is the ancient trail,
But many and wide are the roads that guide
And staunch are the ships that sail!
For the land is a grand and goodly land,
And its fruitful fields are tilled
By the sons who see on the flag of the free
The dream of the star fulfilled!
ROBERTUS LOVE.
FOOTNOTE:
[21] "Pioneer Reminiscences of Puget Sound," 600 pages, $3.00. Address
Ezra Meeker, 1201 38th Ave. N., Seattle, Wash.
The Oregon Trail Monument Expedition.