THE KLONDYKE GOLDFIELDS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9813, 24 August 1897, Page 5

THE KLONDYKE GOLDFIELDS.

FORTUNES AKD FAMINE.

SOME LCCKY MINBRS.

Recent American papers contain long and graphic accounts of tho unparalleled richness of the Klondyke goldfields. Tho Call, under date Seattle, Washington, July 17th, publishes the followins. account :—

When the North Americau Trading and

Transportation Company's gold-laden ship Portland, from St. Michael's, Alaska, steamed into the harbour of Seattle this morning at 7 o'clock, it had, besides sixtyeight souls in the nature of human freight, a yellow metal cargo conservatively estimated at £160,000. AU save five or six of the passengers were miners who had taken from £1000 to £30,000 each. They had taken these snug sums from the famous

Klondyke,

Tho dust and nuggets were scraped together and dug out since last August, iv which month tho widely heralded district . was discovered. It is safe, therefore, to say ; thnt no one of the number worked to nine months in the actual acquirement of _usf>' golden possessions. In truth most of th© wealth was taken out during the three or four winter months. Scarcely any of it was dug from the ground later than May Ist. It was taken in the main from claims known aa the deep diggings. They are prospects that can be worked to the best advantage during the winter. What the 3000 men who went into tho Yukon with tho early spring have accomplished or will do is merely problematical.

Some of the larger amounts tnkeu frem the Kloudyke wero .*—Clarence Berry, Fresno, Cal., £27,000; William Stanley, Seattle, £18,oOO; Henry Auderson,'-a resident of this State, £13,000; Frank Kellott, £10,000; J. J. Clement, Los Angeles, £10.000; T. J. Kelly, California, £.000; William Sloane, formerly of Nanaimo, 8.C., a dry goods merchant, £6000; John Wilkinson, ot Nanaimo, -35000.

The valley of the lvlos_dyke lias within two days become the golden wonder of the age. Two days ago a little steamboat a-rived from a jumping otf place of this cold world with £000,000 or thereabouts, in grains **f virgin gold, and yesterday the second steamer to come from the new El Dorado brought over a ton of gold, worth about £160,000.

It is not only a wonderful field of gold, surpassing all that man has found, that has been uncovered, for the human interest of it all is tho biggest thing to the vast majority of people, who will only read about the gold of the Yukon, aud with the finding comes a romantic phase of human effort. The Yukon promises to rival the days of '49 in the picturesqueness and romance of human life, when it is connected with'the thing that can most deeply stir the springs of the human heart.

From the early reports that are at hand the Klondyke placers appear to be the richest that Nature has ever revealed. In the early , 50's the California placers yielded as high as £17,000,000 a year. Besid. these figures the Alaska productionpales into insignificance, but the California placerwere spread over an immensely greater ter- : ritory. The comparative point is t_*t ! while the early Californian placers displayed rich bars and pockets here aad there, yielding fortunes to individual claims, t-here never was found in this State a narrow valley as long aa fourteen miles in which the main watercourse and its little tributaries proved as uniformly rich as has the . little valley of the Klondyke. For five or six years the auriferous valleys of other tributaries of the Upper Yukon havo been worked by hundreds of adventurous miners with just fair success, the fairly rich gravel which is found in plenty yielding hut Utile more than expenses ahd grub stakes in that expensive country. Most of this placer mining in the Yukon country has heretofore been done near the Yukon, just after it crosses the unofficially accepted boundary line between the North-west Territory and Alaska. The little metropolis of v tjie growing placermining "p6pula_ion hW~'been Circle City,, located very olose to the junction of the boundary line, the Yukon river and the Arctic circle. A SUCCESSFUL MINER'S STORY. One of the most interesting of the many Klondyke stories is- a tale told by William Stanley to a representative of the San Francisco Coil. He is a man fifty years old, and has a family of seven children. : When he left Seattle for the Yukon a year ago last March he was very poor. One of the sons cared : for the family, while another and the father sought fortune in the Alaskan placers. They were successful beyond their boldest and most fanciful dreams. Stanley made the statement to-day that he would nob take £200,000 for his possession, in the Klondyke. In less than, three months he and his partners took out £23.000 from claims 25 aud 26 on the El Dorado Creek. This A great sum of money, incredible as it may '* seem, simply represent- the yield of prospect holes and shafta sunk hero and there in order to find bedrock, and ascertain something as to the actnal value of the claim. They have actually in sight on these two properties over £200,000. They are 500 ft claims, and every prospect hole, gives up dirt running over £200 to the lineal foot. Stanley and his partners, the Warden brothers, also own claims on El Dorado Creek, known to contain equally ac highpaying dirt.

£190 PER WEEK PER MAN. When the owners first began sinking prospecting: holes, SO general was the excitement and the rush to get claims that men could not be found who would woric for wages at any price. Eight nie_ were ; finally induced to work claim No. 25 for a while on shares. Thoy stayed with it for six weeks, and Stanley said theiic proportion for the labour performed averaged £1120 to the man. AN OFFICIAL OPINION. " ONLY ON THE THRESHOLD." "Nothing is occurring," sayfl the Call, of July 20th, «* which in the least detract* or discredits the Monte Cristo-like tale*, firat sent out from the district. Sabsequent reports not only verify, but tend to enlarge upon the first accounts. Hon. C. H. Macintosh, Governor of the Nc*rth-w__t Territory, comprising the districts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Assinniborn, and the unorganised districts of Yukon, Athabasca, and all the territory east to Labrador ahd Hudson Bay, arrived in Seattle to-day, being en routs to. Regina, the capital of the territory. He waa seen at the Rainier Club, of which he is a gueat, this, afternoon.. When asked for an expression of his views regarding the great Klondyke district, Governor Macintosh replied : "We are only on the threshold of the greatest discovery ever made. It would hardly be possible for one to exaggerate the richness, not only of thi. lilonayke, but other districts in the Canadian Yukon. A. the same time, the folly of thousands rushing in there without proper means of subsistence, and in Utter ignorance of ihe geographical conditions .of the country, should be kept ever in mind. There are fully 9000 miles of these golden waterways in thiß section of the Yukon. Bitera, creeks and streams of every size and description are all possessed of more or less gold. I derived this knowledge from many old Hudson Bay ej-plorere, who assured mc that they considered the gold-bearing district next to inexhaustible."

'«Many of what will no doubt prove to be as rich or richer streams than the Klondyke have not/ been explored or prospected. Among these I might mention Dominion Creek, Hootalinqua river, Btewart river, Liard river, and a score of other stream, comparatively unknown. It is my judgment and opinion that the 1897 yield of the Canadian Yukon will exceed £2,000,000 in gold. Of course, aa w&s the case of the ariboo and Cassiar districts years ago, it Will be impossible to accurately estimate the full amount taken out. There ia now far in excess of £200,000 remaining already mined • ou the Klondyke. It ia in valises and tin cans, and some of it ia lying loose in saloons, and just as sacredly guarded there, and apparently as safe as though it was in vaults. "Already this spring we have oracial ___\ knowledge of over £WO, 000 in grid h*viag mm been taken out of .the Klondvke cAttqw., tt ■ vwMas®* mk ** am **«*» <» ~» HB

learners Excelsior and Portland. Let mc lie a little incident or an instance showing he gold yield of some of the Klondyke slairns. A friend of mine went to a dump Mid was looking it over, and he told mc that it boro tho appearance of someone having taken and poured bucketfuls ol gold nuggets down over the dump. In truth, he paid, there appeared to be more gold than dust. Incidentally I may say to you that we have data of an official nature which leads us to believe that the gold output for the Rossland and Kootenay districts for 1897 will bo in excess of £1,400,000, including the silver yield I should have said, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that within the course of five years the gold yield of the three districts rained will exceed that of either Colorado, California, or South Africa."

THE CONTEMPLATED RAILWAY.

Governor Macintosh announced that the Government in seriously consi-serine the construction of a railroad into the Yukon district. In fact, he said, it has several corps of engineers now making surveys. "One route," the Governor said, "eon templates the operation of a line of steamers from Fort Wrangel up to Stickeem River, which is open to both countries, under the Washington treaty of some twenty-five years ago, to Telegraph Creek. From Telegraph Creek surveyors are now endeavouring to ascertain the feasibility of the construction of a railway line from 125 to 130 miles to Tcslin Lake. Boats will be operated along a series of lakes and rivers that connect with the Stewart and Pelly Rivera, emptying into the Yukon. It is claimed that no serious difficulties, that is difficulties such as cannot be reasonably overcome, are encountered anywhere along this route. This route would be more than 3000 miles shorter than the present route by way of St. Michaels and the Yukon, and every foot of it would be in British territory." The leader of a party of six miners told a newspaper man that they started in late in the spring, after nearly everyone had quitted work, and were laughed at by the minere for so doing. The day after starting work they struck bed-rock, and in the next thirty-three days took out over £8000. The same miner says he believes he took from this claim the biggest pan ever washed in the district. From a shovel half full of dirt he got £136. As illustrating the value of the claim and tlie richness of the dirt, he also says that his partner ancl himself in six hours' shovelling " cleaned up " three times, and in each " clean np " got £1600. The miners tell harrowing tales of their sufferings, and say that the sufferings which must be endured in order to exist cannot be exaggerated. Several members of a successful party have not yet recovered from the scurvy, and all appear to be physically demoralised. Their lust for gold, however, is not dimmed, and they are anxious to resume the search for hidden treasure. The greatest privation appears to be the want of fresh meat. Any kind of beef brings 2s a lb, and at times it is impossible to get it at any price. At an eatinghouse, two fried eggs generally cost £1, and a square meal would cost more than a day's wages.