A YUKON MINING CAMP.
The supper provided by the hospitable miners was a good one, and
heartily did our travellers enjoy it; but while they are appeasing the
extraordinary appetites that they acquired somewhere in the Alaskan
wilderness, let us take a look at this most northern of American mining
camps.
To begin with, although it is at the junction of Forty Mile Creek and
the Yukon River, it is not in Alaska, but about twenty miles east of the
boundary in Northwest Territory, which is one of the sub-divisions of
Canada. The most recent name of this camp is "Mitchell," but all old
Yukon miners know it as Camp Forty Mile. At the time of Phil Ryder's
visit it contained nearly two hundred log cabins, two stores, including
the one that he established in the name of his friend, Gerald Hamer, two
saloons, both of which were closed for the season, and a small cigar
factory. Although the winter population was only about three hundred, in
summer-time it is much larger, as many of the miners come out in the
fall and return before the 15th of June, at which date, according to
Yukon mining law, every man owning a claim must be on the ground or it
may be "jumped."
Forty Mile is what is known as a placer camp, which means that its gold
is found in minute particles or "dust" in soft earth, from which it can
be washed in sluices or rockers. Into one of these a stream of water is
turned that sweeps away all the dirt and gravel, allowing the heavier
gold to sink to the bottom, where it is caught and held by cross-bars or
"riffles."
Although gold has been discovered at many points along the Yukon and its
branches, the deposit at Forty Mile is the richest yet worked, and has
paid as high as $300 to a man for a single day's labor; $12,000 worth of
gold was cleared by one miner in a three months' season, and a $500
nugget has been found; but most of the miners are content if they can
make "ounce wages," or sixteen dollars per day, while the average for
the camp is not over $8 per day during the short season of that arctic
region.
Sluices can only be worked during three or four months of summer-time;
then come the terrible eight or nine months of winter when the mercury
thinks nothing of dropping to 60 deg. or 70 deg. below zero, and the whole
world seems made of ice. Strange as it may appear, the summer weather of
this region is very hot, 85 deg. in the shade, and 112 deg. in the sun
being frequently reached by the mercury. During the summer months, too,
the entire Yukon Valley is as terribly infested with mosquitoes as is any
mangrove swamp of the tropics. Thus the hardy miner who penetrates it in
his search for gold is made to suffer from one cause or another during
every month of the year.
In spite of the summer heat the ground never thaws to a depth of more
than five or six feet, below which it is solidly frozen beyond any point
yet reached by digging. Under the dense covering of moss, six to
eighteen inches thick, by which the greater part of Alaska is
overspread, it does not thaw more than a few inches. Consequently the
most important item of a Yukon miner's winter work is the stripping of
this moss from his claim in order that next summer's sun may have a
chance to thaw it to working depth.
There were no women nor children at Forty Mile, and there were few
amusements, but there was plenty of hard work in both summer when the
sun hardly sets at all, and in the winter when he barely shows his face
above the southern horizon. Besides the laborious task of
moss-stripping, the miner must saw out by hand all lumber for sluices
and rockers. He must build his own cabin and fashion its rude furniture,
besides doing all of his own house-work and cooking. He also expects to
do a certain amount of hunting and trapping during the winter months, so
that his time, unless he be very lazy, is fully occupied. But lazy men
are not apt to reach Forty Mile, for the journey from Juneau, in
southern Alaska, which is the largest city in the Territory, as well as
the nearest outfitting point for the diggings, is so filled with peril
and the roughest kind of hard work as to deter any but men of the most
determined energy.
At Juneau, Yukon travellers provide themselves with an outfit of
snow-shoes, sledges, tents, fur clothing, provisions, and whatever else
seems to them necessary. Starting in the early spring they proceed by
boat to the Chilkat country, seventy miles distant, and to the head of
Chilkoot Inlet. From there they set forth on a terrible mountain climb
over snow many feet in depth, where they are in constant danger from
avalanches, and cross the coast range by a pass that rises 3000 feet
above timber line. On the opposite side they strike the head-waters of
the Yukon, which they follow through a series of six lakes, sledging
over their still ice-bound waters, and rafting down their connecting
links, in which are seething rapids, dark gorges, and roaring canyons,
around which all goods must be carried on men's backs. After some 200
miles of these difficulties have been passed, trees must be felled,
lumber sawed, cut, and boats constructed for the remaining 500 miles of
the weary journey.
As it would not pay to transport freight by this route, all provisions
and other supplies for the diggings are shipped from San Francisco by
sea to St. Michaels, where they are transferred to small river steamers
like the _Chimo_, and so after being many months on the way, finally
reach their destination. By this time their value has become so enhanced
or "enchanted," as the miners say, that Phil Ryder found flour selling
for $30 per barrel, bacon at 35 cents per pound, beans at 25 cents per
pound, canned fruit at 60 cents per pound, coarse flannel shirts at $8
each, rubber boots at $18 per pair, and all other goods at proportionate
rates. Even sledge dogs such as he had purchased at Anvik for $5 or $6
each were here valued at $25 apiece.
In view of these facts it is no wonder that the news of another steamer
on the river bringing a saw-mill to supply them with lumber, machinery
with which to work the frozen but gold-laden earth of their claims, and
a large stock of goods to be sold at about one-half the prevailing
prices, created a very pleasant excitement among the miners of that
wide-awake camp.
On the day following his arrival, and after a careful survey of the
situation, Phil rented the largest building in the place, paying one
month's rent in advance, and giving its owner an order on Gerald Hamer
for the balance until the time of the _Chimo_'s arrival. This building
had been used as a saloon, and was conveniently located close by the
steamboat landing facing the river. Into it the sledge party moved all
their belongings, including the seventeen wolf-skins, which now formed
rugs for their floor as well as coverings for several split-log benches.
Serge and the two Indians at once started up the river with the sledges
for a supply of firewood, which was a precious article in Forty Mile at
that time, leaving Phil and Jalap Coombs to clean the new quarters and
render them habitable; while the latter, with a sailor's neat deftness,
attended to this work, Phil busied himself with a pot of black paint and
a long breadth of cotton cloth. At this he labored with such diligence
that in an hour's time a huge sign appeared above the entrance to the
building and stretched across its entire front. On it, in letters so
large that they could be plainly read from the river, was painted the
legend, "Yukon Trading Company, Gerald Hamer, Agent."
This promise of increased business facilities was greeted by a round of
hearty cheers from a group of miners who had assembled to witness the
raising of the new sign, and when Jalap Coombs finished tacking up his
end one of these stepped up to him with a keen scrutiny. Finally he
said. "Stranger, may I be so bold as to ask who was the best friend you
ever had?"
"Sartain you may," replied the sailorman, "seeing as I'm allers proud to
mention the name of old Kite Roberson, and likewise claim him for a
friend."
[Illustration: "WHY, MATEY, DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE OLD BRIG 'BETSY?"]
"I thought so!" cried the delighted miner, thrusting out a great hairy
paw. "I thought I couldn't be mistook in that figger-head, and I knowed
if you was the same old Jalap I took ye to be that Kite Roberson
wouldn't be fur off. Why, matey, don't you remember the old brig
_Betsy_? Have you clean forgot Skiff Bettens?"
"Him that went into the hold and found the fire and put it out, and was
drug up so nigh dead from smoke that he didn't breathe nateral agin fur
a week? Not much I hain't forgot him, and I'm nigh about as glad to see
him as if he were old Kite hisself!" exclaimed Jalap Coombs, in joyous
tones. Then he introduced Mr. Skiff Betten, ex-sailor and now Yukon
miner, to Phil, and pulled him into the house, and there was no more
work to be got out of Jalap Coombs that day.
Phil had also been recognized. That is, Mr. Platt Riley had asked him if
he were the son of his father, and when Phil admitted the relationship,
told him that he had a father to be proud of every minute of his life.
Didn't he know? for hadn't he, Platt Riley, worked side by side with Mr.
John Ryder prospecting in South Africa, where every ounce of grit that a
white man had in him was bound to show itself? "To be certain he had,
and now he was proud to shake the hand of John Ryder's son, and if there
was anything John Ryder's son wanted in that camp why he, Platt Riley,
was the man to get it for him."
So our sledge travellers found that even in that remote mining camp,
buried from the world beneath the snows of an arctic winter, they were
among friends. This, coupled with all that they had undergone in
reaching it, made it seem to them a very pleasant and comfortable place
in which to rest awhile.
And it was necessary that they should stay there for a time. They must
cultivate friendly business relations with the miners on Gerald Hamer's
account, and find out what class of goods were most in demand; for never
until now had Phil realized the responsibility with which he had been
entrusted. He must prepare a full report to send back by Kurilla and
Chitsah, who could not be tempted to venture any further away from their
homes. The dogs must be well rested before they would be fitted for the
second and most difficult half of the long journey. Above all, Phil felt
that, as representative of the Yukon Trading Company, he must be on hand
to meet the agents of its old-established rival, and defend his far-away
friend from the false reports they were certain to spread concerning
him.
He wondered why Goldollar and Strengel did not appear, and dreaded to
meet them; but at the same time longed to have the disagreeable
encounter over with as quickly as possible. So many times each day did
he gaze long and fixedly across the broad white plain of the Yukon. At
length, on the eighth day after their arrival at Forty-Mile, his eye was
caught by some moving black dots that he felt certain must be the
expected sledges.