CANADIAN MAIL NEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 207, 6 September 1897, Page 8

CANADIAN MAIL NEWS.

(PER 3.UOWERA AT SYDNEY)

THE KLONDYKE RUSH,

The exodus of miners and others northwards from California, British Columbia, and the Pacific Coast generally for the Yukon gold district continued at the time the Miowera left Vancouver. The newspapers were full of references to the rush. Inspector Strickland, of the North-west .Mounted Police, has returned to Regina from the land of which all the world nist now is talking. Forty-mile Creek, when he reached there on July 24, 1895, was the centre of the mining district. George Cormick, alias Siwash George, found gold in enormous quantities in a creek running into the Thron-Druck, on August 12th, 1896. He made it known as soon as he could get to Forty -Mile. A stampede to the creek at once took place, and miners poured in from the Unites States side in such numbers that now not more than half a dozen claims are being worked in the Circle City district. These men had to drag their kite and belongings on sleds for 300 miles over rough ice. This stampede set in at the beginning of January and continued all winter. The first work of the men was to build their houses, and very heavy work it was. Mr Strickland does not believe the story of $200,000 having been already made there by anyone man, but says the most literal truths read like fairy tales. It is, however, very hard to say just what is being made. The miners are reticent about their earnings. He can say, however, that miners who have come out and staked claims this year, who number about a hundred, have taken or sent away already sums varying from 85,000 to 850,000 each, and have kept back considerable sums for developmentand otlierinvestnient. Miners from California, Australia, and South Africa say that nothing in the world has been struck so rich. Provisions are not so dear as might be expected. Flour is 812 c.vt, bacon 40 cents lb, canned meat 75 cents and $1, and caribou and moose flesh is sold by the Indians at 50 cents lb. Inspector Strickland strongly recommends that no person should go out to the Yukon district without taking with him a year's food, as well as some dollars, because paying claims are not always found immediately, and there is the long and hard work of building a home. He says that mining is not a picnic. There are no enjoyments. It is all hard work. "Wood is scarce, and requires a great dealof labour in cutting. The climate is healthy and there is very little sickness. The chief complaints are scurvy and kidney trouble and rheumatism. Though the winter is eight months long it is only three weeks that the sun is not seen. -Miners' wages are lodol a day, but this rate will fall soon if the present rusn continues from the Pacific Coast.

Chicago, August 3.—Many of the principal life and accident insurance companies have issued positive instructions to their general agents in the United States and Canada against assuming any risks upon the lives of persons contemplating a visit to the Klondyke. San Francisco, August 6.—Speaking of the Klondyke output of gold, the chief clerk of the mint said .* —"All the gold brought to this city from the Klondyke mines does not exceed 800,000d01., and all that has been taken out this year and sent to the other mints in the country does not exceed 2,000,000clol."

Mr R. P. Taylor, a financial broker in Seattle, has received a letter from some men whom he had sent to the Klondyke section last spring, which informs him that every claim within 150 miles of Dawson City has been taken up, and men are rushing all over the country looking for locations. It says that starvation and hardships stare many of them in the face.

Portland, Maine, August 6. —Captain Miles Stanclish, of Montreal, who has been spending the summer in Alaska, knows all about the Klondyke gold craze. His advice to intending prospectors is "don't." In a letter received here to-day he says that the situation in the Klondyke is not very dissimilar to other goldfields. The yellow metal is there, but it does not lie around on the ground in chunks awaiting to be scooped up. It can only be secured by patient and uncommonly laborious placer mining, interspersed with many weary miles of tramping around from pocket to pocket. He further says that the journey to the "diggings" from Juneau is an enterprise calculated to appal the stoutest heart. Beyond all this, starting now it will be winter soon in that region, and any one who starts must stop over at Juneau, or somewhere else, until next May. There is not food in Alaska to keep the people for a month.