DAWSON.
By this time we had passed the Hootalingua, Big Salmon, Little Salmon
and Lewes rivers, and were nearing the mouth of Pelley River, all
flowing into one stream from the east and uniting to form the Upper
Yukon. Many smaller rivers and creeks from the west as well as the east
empty into this river which gathers momentum and volume constantly until
it reaches a swiftness of five miles an hour between Five Finger Rapids
and Fort Selkirk.
This latter fort is an old Canadian Post where mounted police and other
officers and soldiers are stationed. Never shall I forget my first
experience at Fort Selkirk. We arrived about one o'clock in the
afternoon and were told that our steamer would remain there an hour,
giving us all a chance to run about on shore for a change. Taking my
sunshade, and attracted by the wide green fields dotted with pretty wild
flowers of various colors, I rambled around alone for an hour, all the
time keeping our steamer in plain sight not many hundred yards away.
Curious to learn the meaning of a group of peculiar stakes driven into
the ground, some of which were surrounded by rude little fences, I made
my way in a narrow path through the deep grass to the place, and soon
discovered an Indian burial ground. There were, perhaps, twenty little
mounds or graves, a few much sunken below the level as if made long
years before, but all were marked in some manner by rude head boards.
These were notched, and had at one time been fancifully stained or
colored by the Ayan Indians, the stains and funny little inscriptions
being, for the most part, obliterated by the elements. Dainty wild roses
here nodded gracefully to each other, their pretty blooms being weighted
down at times by some venturesome, big honey bee or insolent fly; both
insects with many others, some of them unknown to me, buzzing
contentedly in the sunshine overhead.
Daisies and buttercups grew wild. Flowering beans and peas trailed their
sprays upon the ground. Blue bells, paint brush, and other posies fairly
bewildered me, so surprised was I to find them here in this far
Northland. Without this happiness and cheer given me by my sweet little
floral friends I might not have been so well prepared to endure the
rudeness that was awaiting me.
Upon my return to the steamer I found all in confusion. I could see no
signs of departure and no one of whom I cared to make inquiries. Men and
women were coming and going, but none appeared sober, while many with
flushed faces were loudly laughing and joking. A few Canadian police in
red coats scattered here and there were fully as rollicking as any,
and the steamer's captain and purser, arm in arm with a big, burly
Canadian official, were as drunk as bad liquor could well make them.
[Illustration: FIVE FINGER RAPIDS.]
Going to my stateroom I sat down to read, and, if possible, hide my
anxiety. As there was no window or other ventilator, and it was a warm
day, I could not close the door. While sitting thus the doorway was
darkened, and looking up I saw before me the drunken Canadian official,
leering at me with a horrible grin, and just about to speak.
At that instant there stepped to his side the tall form of the only
really sober man on board--the Seattle lawyer, who, in his most
dignified manner motioned the officer on, and he went; the gentlemanly
lawyer, tossing his half-consumed cigar overboard in an emphatic way as
if giving vent to his inward perturbation, marched moodily on. Catching
a glimpse of his face as he passed, I concluded that the situation was
fully as bad or worse than I had at first feared. Already we had been
several hours at Fort Selkirk and should have been miles on toward
Dawson.
The captain and crew were too drunk to know what they were doing, and
they were hourly growing more so. Many were gambling and drinking in the
salon or dining room and others came from the liquor store on shore a
few rods away. The voices of the women were keyed to the highest pitch
as they shouted with laughter at the rough jokes or losing games of the
men, while red-faced, perspiring waiters hurried back and forth with
trays laden with bottles and glasses. Now and then the crash of a fallen
pitcher or plate, followed by the shrieks of the women would reach me,
and looking through the great cracks in the board partition which was
the only thing separating me from the drunken crowd, I could see most of
the carousal, for such it now was.
My anxiety increased. I feared the danger of a night on board in a tiny
stateroom, without lock or weapon, and entirely alone.
"Mr. H----," said I quietly, a little later, to the man from Seattle, as
I stepped up to him while he smoked near the deck rail. "When do you
think the steamer will leave this place?"
"Tomorrow, most likely," in a tone of deep disgust.
"Do you not think that the captain will push on tonight?" I asked in
great anxiety.
"I doubt if there is a man on board with enough sense left to run the
engine, and the captain--look there!" pointing to a maudlin and
dishevelled Canadian wearing a captain's cap, and just then trying to
preserve his equilibrium on a wooden settle near the railing. "It would
be a blessing if the brute tumbled overboard, and we were well rid of
him," said the gentleman savagely in a low tone. Then, seeing my
consternation, he added: "I'll see what can be done, however," and I
returned to my room.
What should I do! I knew of no place of safety on shore for me during
the night if the steamer remained, and I dared not stay in my stateroom.
I had no revolver, no key to my door. I might be murdered before
morning, and my friends would never know what had become of me. There
was no one on board to whom I could appeal but the lawyer, and he might
be powerless to protect me in such a drunken rabble. With a prayer in my
heart I made my nerves as tense as possible and shut my teeth tightly
together. It was best to appear unconcerned. I did it. Suggesting away
all fright from my face I watched proceedings in the dining room through
the cracks in the wall. It was a sight such as I had never before seen.
It was six o'clock and dinner was being served by the flushed and
flustered waiters. Probably a hundred persons sat at the tables in all
stages of intoxication. Hilarity ran high. Most of them were wildly
jolly and gushingly full of good will; but all seemed hungry, and the
odors from the kitchen were appetizing.
I now hoped that the dinner, and especially the hot tea and coffee would
restore some of these people to their senses in order that they might
get up steam in the engines and pull out of this terrible place before
they were too far gone. Dinner was well over in the dining room and I
had not yet eaten. A waiter passed my door. He stopped.
"Have you eaten dinner?"
"No, I have not."
"Don't you want some?"
"Well, yes. I think I could eat something."
"I'll bring you some." And he was gone.
A few minutes later he entered my stateroom with a big tray, and putting
it upon the edge of the upper berth he left me. I ate my dinner from the
tray while standing, and felt better.
An hour afterward the drunken officials had been coaxed into going
ashore; the furnace in the engine room was crammed with wood; the
partially sobered pilot resumed his place at the wheel; the captain had
pulled himself together as best he could under the threats of the lawyer
from Seattle, and the steamer moved away from the bank, going with the
current swiftly towards Dawson. Nothing of further importance occurred
until next morning when our steamer pulled up alongside the dock at
Dawson. It was Monday morning, the thirtieth of July, 1899, and the
weather was beautifully clear. I had been fourteen days coming from
Seattle. Hundreds of people waited upon the dock to see us land, and to
get a glimpse of a new lot of "Chechakos," as all newcomers are called.
Soon after landing I met upon the street an old Seattle friend of my
parents, who knew me instantly and directed me to my father. This man's
kind offer to look up my baggage was accepted, and I trudged down
through the town towards the Klondyke River, where my father and brother
lived. I had no difficulty in finding father, and after the first
surprise and our luncheon were over we proceeded to find my brother at
his work. His astonishment was as great as my father's, and I cannot
truthfully state that either of them were overcome with joy at seeing me
in Dawson. At any other time or place they undoubtedly would have been
delighted, but they were too well acquainted with conditions to wish
another member of their family there in what was probably then the
largest and roughest mining camp in the world. The situation that
presented itself was this. Instead of finding my relatives comfortably
settled in a large and commodious log cabin of their own on the banks of
the Klondyke River, as they had written they were, I found them in the
act of moving all their belongings into a big covered scow or barge
drawn close to the river bank and securely fastened. Cooking utensils,
boxes, bags of provisions consisting of flour, beans and meal, as well
as canned goods of every description, along with firewood and numerous
other things, were dumped in one big heap upon the banks of the Klondyke
River near the barge.
The small sheet iron box with door and lid, called a Yukon stove, had
been set up close in one corner of the living room, which in size was
about eight by ten feet. Two bunks, one above the other in the opposite
corner, had been lately constructed by father, who at the moment of my
arrival was busy screwing a small drop leaf to the wall to be used as a
dining table when supported by a couple of rather uncertain adjustable
legs underneath.
The meaning of all this commotion was not long to find. Father and
brother had, along with many more as peaceable and law-abiding citizens,
been ordered out of their log cabins, built at a great out-lay of time,
money and strength, so that their homes should be pulled down in
accordance with an order given by the Governor. This land, as the city
had grown, had increased in value and was coveted by those high in
authority. No redress was made the settlers, no money was paid them,
nothing for them but insulting commands and black looks from the
Canadian police enforcing the order of the governor.
"Never again," said my father repeatedly, "will I build or own a home in
the Klondyke. This scow will shelter me until I make what money I want,
and then good-bye to such a country and its oppressive officials."
Other men cursed and swore, and mutterings of a serious nature were
heard; but there was nothing to be done, and the row of comfortable,
completed log cabins was torn down, and we settled ourselves elsewhere
by degrees. A bunk with calico curtains hung around it was made for me,
and I was constituted cook of the camp. Then such a scouring of tins,
kettles and pails as I had! Shelves were nailed in place for all such
utensils, and a spot was found for almost everything, after which the
struggle was begun to keep these things in their places. Then I baked
and boiled and stewed and patched and mended, between times writing in
my note book, sending letters to friends or taking kodak pictures.
I was now living in a new world! Nothing like the town of Dawson had I
ever seen. Crooked, rough and dirty streets; rude, narrow board walks or
none at all; dog-teams hauling all manner of loads on small carts, and
donkeys or "burros" bowing beneath great loads of supplies starting out
on the trail for the gold mines.
"Don't do that!" shouted a man to me one day, as I attempted to
"snap-shot" his pack train of twenty horses and mules as they passed us.
Two of the animals had grown tired and attempted to lie down, thus
causing the flour sacks with which they were loaded to burst open and
the flour to fly in clouds around them. "Don't do that," he entreated,
"for we are having too much trouble!"
Some of the drivers were lashing the mules to make them rise, and this
spread a panic through most of the train, so that one horse, evidently
new to the business and not of a serious turn of mind, ran swiftly away,
kicking up his heels in the dust behind him. There were also hams and
sides of bacon dangling in greasy yellow covers over the backs of the
pack animals, along with "grub" boxes and bags of canned goods of every
description. Pick axes, shovels, gold pans and Yukon stoves with bundles
of stove pipe tied together with ropes, rolls of blankets, bedding,
rubber boots, canvas tents, ad infinitum.
There was one method used by "packers," as the drivers of these pack
trains were called, which worked well in some instances. If the animals
of his train were all sober and given to honestly doing their work, then
the halter or rope around the neck of a mule could be tied to the tail
of the one preceding him, and so on again until they were all really
hitched together tandem. But woe unto the poor brute who was followed by
a balky fellow or a shirk! The consequences were, at times, under
certain circumstances, almost too serious to be recounted in this story,
at least this can be said of the emphatic language used by the packers
in such predicament.
One warm, bright day soon after my arrival in Dawson, and when order had
been brought out of chaos in the scow--our home--I went to call upon an
old friend, formerly of Seattle. Carrie N. was three or four years
younger than myself, had been a nurse for a time after the death of her
husband, but grew tired of that work, and decided in the winter of 1897
and 1898 to go into the Klondyke. A party of forty men and women going
to Dawson was made up in Seattle, and she joined them. For weeks they
were busily engaged in making their preparations. Living near me, as she
did at the time, I was often with Carrie N. and was much interested in
her movements and accompanied her to the Alaska steamer the day she
sailed. It was the little ship "Alki" upon which she went away, and it
was crowded with passengers and loaded heavily with freight for the trip
to Dyea, as Skagway and the dreaded White Pass had been voted out of the
plans of the Seattle party of forty.
[Illustration: GOING TO DAWSON IN WINTER.]
Now in Dawson I called upon Carrie N. eighteen months later, and heard
her tell the story of her trip to the Klondyke. They had landed, she
said, at Dyea from the "Alki" with their many tons of provisions and
supplies, all of which had to be dumped upon the beach where no dock or
wharf had ever been constructed. Here with dog-teams and sleds, a few
horses and men "packers," their supplies were hauled up the mountain as
far as "Sheep Camp," some ten miles up the mountain side. It was early
springtime and the snow lay deep upon the mountains and in the gorges,
which, in the vicinity of Chilkoot Pass at the summit of the mountain
are frightfully high and precipitous.
The weather was not cold, and the moving of this large party of forty
persons with their entire outfit was progressing as favorably as could
be expected. A camp had been made at Dyea as the base of operations;
another was made at Sheep Camp. At each place the women of the party did
the cooking in tents while men gathered wood, built fires, and brought
water. Other men worked steadily at the hauling, and most of their
supplies had already been transported to the upper camp; when there
occurred a tragedy so frightful as to make itself a part of
never-to-be-forgotten Alaskan history.
It was on Sunday, and a snow storm was raging, but the weather was warm.
Hundreds of people thronged the trails both going up and coming down the
mountain in their effort to quickly transport their outfits over to the
other side, and thus make the best possible time in reaching the gold
fields. Here a difference of opinion arose among the people of our
Seattle party, for some, more daring than the others, wished to push on
over the summit regardless of the storm; while the more cautious ones
demurred and held back, thinking it the part of discretion to wait for
better weather. A few venturesome ones kept to their purpose and started
on ahead, promising to meet the laggards at Lake Bennett with boats of
their own making in which to journey down the river and lakes to Dawson.
Their promises were never fulfilled.
While they, in company with hundreds of others as venturesome, trudged
heavily up the narrow trail, a roar as of an earthquake suddenly sounded
their death-knell. Swiftly down the mountain side above them tore the
terrible avalanche, a monster formation of ice, snow and rock, the
latter loosened and ground off the face of old Chilkoot by the rushing
force of the moving snowslide urged on by a mighty wind. In an instant's
time a hundred men and women were brushed, like flies from a ceiling,
off the face of the mountain into their death below, leaving a space
cleared of all to the bare earth where only a few seconds before had
stood the patient toilers on the trail.
Only one thing remained for the living to do, and that was to drop all
else and rescue, if possible, the dying and engulfed ones. This they
did. When the wind had died away the snow in the air cleared, and
hundreds of men threw themselves into the rescue work. Many were injured
but lived. Some were buried in snow but found their way to light again.
One man was entirely covered except one arm which he used energetically
to inform those above him of his whereabouts. He was taken out unharmed,
and lived to welcome the writer of this to Dawson, where he carted and
delivered her trunk faithfully.
But Carrie N. had remained at Sheep Camp and was safe. Then her
experience in nursing stood her in good stead; and while men brought the
dead to camp, she, with others, for hours performed the services which
made the bodies ready for burial. It was a heart-rending undertaking and
required a cool head and steady hand, both of which Carrie N. possessed.
Two men of her party thus lost their lives, and it was not until days
afterward that the last of the poor unfortunates were found. Nearly one
hundred lives were lost in this terrible disaster, but there were
undoubtedly those whose bodies were never found, and whose death still
remains a mystery.