THE BEGINNING OF YUKON
No more wonderful system of navigation probably exists on the globe than
that of the inland passage between Puget Sound and the Lynn Canal, at
the head of which are the towns of Skagway and Dyea, the respective
ports of the White and the Chilkoot Passes. For ten hundred miles the
steamers plying along this route run behind the great barrier of
islands, beginning with that of Vancouver and ending at Point Deception.
In summer the trip is grand beyond compare; in winter it is full of
gloom and awe.
As the ship travels northward the mountains grow greater, the narrow
passages narrower, till they develop as canyons, cut only by other
canyon-like passages to the sea, or by glacier-ridden valleys from the
mainland, whose mighty burdens shimmer in the sunlight as they yield in
torrents tributes to the parent ocean. In summer continuous light
reigns in the latitude of Skagway, and the traveller entering this weird
zone is moved by its uncanny beauty.
Winter was still on the land as the _Aleutian_ ploughed her way
northward, and the passengers saw the great walls of rock uplifting to
the clammy mantle of low-lying clouds. Here and there Indian villages
were passed and Indian graveyards, with flags flying from the stagings,
raised six or eight feet from the ground, on which reposed the deceased.
The ship called at Wrangle and unloaded freight and passengers. "This
town had a boom during the excitement of the Cassiar twenty years back,"
remarked Hugh Spencer to Berwick and Bruce, as the three stood on the
deck and watched the bustle between the steamer and the wharf.
"Let's stretch our legs up the quay," said George. They went ashore.
Squaws were sitting with baskets of their handiwork before them, doing a
lively trade with the disembarked passengers. The sales made were mostly
of moccasins in beads, and bark canoes adorned with porcupine quills of
brightest colours. Hugh stopped before an old squaw and picked up a pair
of large mittens with gauntlet attachments. They were made of canvas and
lined with red flannel.
"How much?" he inquired.
"Dollar two bits."
"Give you six bits."
"All right."
"Better take a couple of pair each, fellows; there's nothing like them
for the trail: look how big the thumbs are." So Hugh and his two
companions bought the whole of the squaw's store.
"There's nobody knows how to make mitts for real cold weather like the
Siwash. They make the thumbs good and big, so as not to stop
circulation; and we'll have some cold weather yet before we get over the
summit. But you have to beat the beggars down, as they always ask twice
as much as they expect to get. Here we paid only seventy-five cents a
pair for these mitts, and the squaw said she wanted a dollar and a
quarter for them."
"Are these Siwash[1] Indians?" inquired John.
[1] Corruption of the French _sauvage_.
"Well, we call them Siwashes; but they don't like it. The real Siwash
lives farther south, and the name, I believe, is one of contempt."
"They are different Indians from any I have seen on the plains," said
John.
"Oh, yes, very different. I guess their only resemblance is that they
are both good only when they are dead."
"You're pretty hard on them," was the remark of the good-natured John.
"Perhaps I am. You see, a tough outfit has been trading up here for
years from down the coast; and before that the Russians were here--and
they didn't put in most of their time building churches. They found a
dollar's worth of hootch would get more from the savages than a dollar's
worth of anything else; so they used whisky. The savage, when you find
him without the cussedness taught by the white man, makes a pretty good
citizen. He may be lazy, but he is honest; and perhaps his laziness is
only due to the fact that he has always had a klootch[2] to do chores
around, and has never been trained to the white man's ways of working;
but let any fellow try following an Indian on snow-shoes for a couple of
days, and his ideas soon change. He is not much good with a pick and
shovel for sure; but he is A1 on the trail. Another thing about the
Indian is that when one has grub they all have grub. This is the way of
the Stick Indians inside, and you can cache your grub in their country
or leave the things lying around, and they won't touch them."
[2] Squaw.
During the rest of the day John and his mates were in the company of
Hugh Spencer, listening to his tales of Yukon life: the glories of the
summer there, and the great cold of the winter, with the resources of
the miners to keep from despair. He told them the traditions of the
camps, and how the discoveries of '49 in California had been followed by
others in Oregon, British Columbia, the Fort Steele district (Wild Horse
Creek), Kettle River, Caribou, and, finally, in the Yukon.
"It wasn't a miner who was the first finder of gold in the Yukon; it was
a missionary. But the missionary did not follow up this discovery, which
makes a difference. However, I'll tell you the story, and it will let
you see a little of Siwash nature in the telling of it.
"The Rev. Robert Macdonald, Doctor of Divinity and Archdeacon of
MacKenzie River, was the first white man to find gold in the Yukon. Say!
I ain't got much use for missionaries as a general proposition, but
Archdeacon Macdonald is as white a man as ever lived, though he is east
of the Rocky Mountains now. I guess the reason I don't like missionaries
is that you can never do anything with the Siwashes, once a missionary
gets hold of them.
"Well, the Archdeacon--he wasn't Archdeacon then though--drifted down
the Porcupine, and took up his residence with the Hudson Bay Company
people at Fort Yukon in the year 1862, which was a few years before I
was born. You see the Hudson Bay people established themselves at Fort
Yukon in 1847. In 1842 Mr. J. Bell, in charge of the Hudson Bay Post on
the Peel River, which runs into the MacKenzie, from beyond the divide
from the head waters of the Porcupine, crossed over and went down the
Porcupine a way. In 1846 he followed it to its mouth, and saw the Yukon.
In the following year Mr. A. H. Murray built Fort Yukon, and set up
business. Well, it was here that the Archdeacon started to tell the
savages of the Great Spirit--and they were mighty interested.
"The savages had some sort of a tradition that a certain canyon, which
opened into the Yukon a short distance up stream from the Fort, was the
home of bad spirits; they could hear them groaning, and they asked the
missionary to 'put them wise.'[3] So when a bunch[4] arrived, one day in
July 1863, he trotted the whole outfit off to the canyon.
[3] Inform them.
[4] Bunch--Party.
"Of course the missionary found the noises were caused by the wind or
nothing, but, as the Siwashes said there were noises up the Creek, he
said it was the wind.
"Walking along the shore, the Archdeacon saw a bit of something shining
in the gravel and picked it up. It was a flake of gold sticking to a
piece of mica, of which there's lots in the Klondike country--mica
schist the scientists call it. So this was the first find of gold by a
white man; but the Company was not looking for gold-hunters in their
country, so the discovery was never followed up.
"The Siwash is A1 at asking questions--just about as bad as a
six-year-old kid; and if a medicine man comes among them it is
surprising what sort of conundrums they will bring him."
In this way John Berwick and his old-time mining-mate pleasantly passed
the hours listening to the conversation of Spencer, by whom they were
attracted.
On the third evening, at dinner--the three being seated together--they
noticed some movement beginning amongst those of the company who were
seated near the companion-way. Several were seen to rise and hurry away.
Quickly the excitement spread, the saloon was soon empty of most of its
feasters.
"Keep your seats, fellows; it's only some chechacho got the toothache,"
said Hugh. Shouts were heard, with a trampling and rush of feet on the
upper deck. "The only thing that could happen--outside of fire--would be
to run ashore or hit an iceberg. We are hardly far enough north for the
icebergs yet--besides, if we had hit one, or run ashore, we should know
it. If we caught fire, it would not be far to the shore anywhere along
this route; and it is always well not to get stampeded in any case."
After dinner the friends entered the main saloon, and found groups of
men talking excitedly, with others returning from the upper deck where
the life-boats were stored. To the upper deck they went, and there they
found Mr. Muggsley.
"I tell you, gentlemen, no officer or anybody else is going to keep me
from the life-boats when a ship is sinking. I don't care for anybody!
You stand by and let the officers and sailors run things--and they will
fill the boats with women and their own friends--and look out for
themselves. But I look out for John Muggsley! Big John Muggsley the boys
call me! And it's a case like this that makes me glad I'm big and
strong."
An excitable coal-heaver had found a stream of water entering by a
sea-cock, which had been left open through carelessness; and, running up
through the saloon to the boats, had started the excitement. Such
trivial circumstances often cause most disastrous panics; and likewise
tell tales of how certain men are made!
The ship eventually--after blinding snowstorms--entered Gastineau
Channel. To the left was the great line of stamp mills pounding out the
wealth of the mighty Treadwell quartz deposits on Douglas Island; to
the right was the pioneer town of Juneau, with its gambling-halls and
saloons enjoying the licence of the Alaska mining-camp.
The next stop for the ship was Skagway, where the sea journey would end
on the morrow. The passengers were alert and astir. From then on it was
to be a struggle.