From Rampart House to Fort Yukon : In Alaska : With Dan Cadzow’s
Party.
Having rested two days at Rampart House I hired a half breed with a
row boat and started down stream at noon on August 4 and immediately
crossed the 141st meridian and entered Alaska. We will now be under
the flag of the United States for several hundred miles. It was a
great relief to have a boat in which I could move about freely without
any danger of upsetting it. Taking a seat in the stern I steered, and
paddled also when I wished, while my man and a boy, whom he engaged,
did the rowing.
About 5 P.M., at a distance of some twenty-seven miles, we passed the
site of Old Rampart House, now abandoned, and at ten miles farther down
we saw a tent on the beach, which proved to belong to a party of United
States Geological Surveyors in charge of a Mr. Kindle of Washington,
D.C. We camped here for the night and greatly enjoyed the company of
our American cousins. We at once felt that, though still in this Arctic
wilderness we had left behind us the misery and want as well as the
dull monotony of semi-civilised life.
Starting the next morning at nine o’clock we soon left the Upper
Ramparts of the Porcupine, those walls of rock which had enclosed the
river for the last forty or fifty miles. The current was strong, and,
though we camped earlier than usual on account of rain, we must have
gone at least forty miles in eight hours’ time.
The next morning, August 6, we left camp at seven o’clock and soon
entered the Lower Ramparts, which extended for only five miles but
were very beautiful. After this the country becomes level, the banks
get lower, and the river widens considerably. The timber, principally
of spruce, improves, resembling in size that growing along the Peel at
McPherson.
This was a fine day and we made about sixty miles, camping at eleven
o’clock, after sixteen hours of almost constant rowing and paddling.
Notwithstanding this I felt much less fatigued than on any one
of those anxious days of the week before, when my part was to do
absolutely nothing.
On Tuesday, August 7, we started at 6 A.M. It proved a windy day,
which somewhat retarded our speed. All appearances seemed to indicate
that we were approaching a lake. The banks became low and the country
flat. Instead of the fringe of spruce there was grass growing, often
down to the water’s edge, and, looking on either side, the appearance
was different from anything we had seen for over 2000 miles. It
resembled very much the flat prairie of the Red River below Selkirk but
without the fertile soil. Instead of a lake, however, we were really
approaching the Yukon Flats, but at the same time I venture the opinion
that appearances were not very misleading, for in no very remote period
a lake evidently had covered a large area in the neighbourhood of the
junction of the Porcupine and Yukon.
There was during the forenoon a difference of opinion between my two
men regarding our distance from Fort Yukon. One said that we could not
reach there for two days, while the other, who had been twice over
the route, contended that we should be at the mouth of the river that
same night. My experience had taught me not to underrate distances, and
I had about made up my mind that we should do well if we saw the Fort
at any time the following day, but, to my surprise and satisfaction,
on rounding an elbow in the stream, some well-known landmark appeared,
and both men agreed that we were only a half day’s journey from our
objective point, so the oars were plied more vigorously than ever.
At about six o’clock in the evening, as we looked down the river and
across the level land bounding it, we observed a sail in the distance,
and an hour later we were taking a meal with Dan Cadzow’s party.
They had camped for the night on a point in the river only a mile from
its mouth, and had a very large boat laden with the supplies that had
been so long looked for at Rampart House. They had come from Dawson
City, nearly four hundred miles up the Yukon, but thus far they had
been going with the current, whereas from now on for most of the
remaining distance of over two hundred miles the towline would have to
be used. This necessitated Cadzow’s having with him a party of about
a dozen men. My men were greatly pleased. Each day since we started
they had expected to meet this party, and they certainly had luck with
them, for they at once engaged with Cadzow, who would make a start up
the river on the following morning. Instead of having to “track” their
own boat back they would hitch it behind the larger craft, and not
only earn wages on their home trip, but what they valued even more,
participate in the food with which this outfit was well supplied. It
is difficult for the inexperienced dweller in old settled parts to
understand the sense of satisfaction that these men felt when they
realised that instead of working their own boat back with a little
dried meat as the principal food, and with only a blanket apiece to
cover them during the nights that were now becoming cold, they would
not only be paid for their work, but also have an abundance of food
prepared by one whom they said was the best cook in the country.
Besides, they were supplied with large tents and an abundance of
blankets, and added to all was the company of their fellow men, which
these people enjoy equally with those in other conditions of life.
Their four days’ hard rowing had gained for them a good reward.
After a good dinner we started again, Cadzow having to return to
Fort Yukon for something he had forgotten there, accompanied us. It
only took a few minutes to reach the mouth of the river, but as Fort
Yukon lies on the Yukon River about two miles above the mouth of the
Porcupine we soon realised the difference in going up instead of down
stream.
It will have been noticed that in our whole course hitherto from
Athabaska Landing to this point we had never once, with the exception
of about thirty miles on the Peel river, had to contend with adverse
river currents, but immediately we entered the Yukon conditions were
entirely changed, and it took us fully an hour and a half of hard
pulling and some tracking to make these two miles.
[Illustration: YUKON RIVER AT FORT YUKON]
We reached Fort Yukon near midnight, just two weeks after leaving Fort
McPherson, and the reader can well imagine how pleased I was that I
had again arrived at a point where steam navigation, with a short rail
trip, would make the remaining journey less arduous.