VANCOUVER AND THE KLONDYKE.

Otago Witness, Volume 25, Issue 2321, 25 August 1898, Page 61

VANCOUVER AND THE KLONDYKE.

By YV. M'Hutciiesox, Author of " Camp Lifo iv "Fioidland, New

Zealand," &c.

No. IIT.

Routes to tho Klondyke — Si. Michael's Route aod the Mighty Yukon — First Claim on Bonanza Creek — £25 of Gold to the Pan —Richest Goldfield in tho World—Opinions of Scientific Experts — Hardships of the Klondyke — A Noble Dead — Law and Order in the Klondyke — Lynch Law — A Cowboy Hanged for Murder.

The New Zcalander aceustoiaed to the comparatively short di&iances of travel in his island home is somewhat staggered on landing at Vancouver to find that the Klondyke goldfield, fcituatcd in the same province of British Columbia, lies still distant some 1500 miles as the crow flies. The three main ioutos to the Klondyke are first the "allwater " route by St. Michael's and tho Yukon River; second, the Sfcikine or Skagtvay routes, from the nearest point on tho coast ; and third, the overland routes, as they are called,^ via the Peace or Mackenzie Rivers, from Edmonton, a railway terminus lying west of the liocky Mountains, 80^ miles from Vancouver.

St. Michael's route involves a sea voyage rip the l^aciflc co"a.&t and across Behring fcJea of 2800 miles, or 15 days, and another 15 to 18 dayy steaming up the mighty Yukon to Circle City, Forty Slile, or Dawson City, &ay 4450 mile.! from Vancouver. This, of cour»c, is the easiest method of reaching the goldfields, ar.d notwithstanding the time consumed and fares of 200 to 300 dollars, the Yukon steamers are well patronised. All the diggers who have "struck it rich" return b3' this route. When a mrm has the matter of half a hundredweight of gold dust in his s'.vag, he generally prefers to take the easiest way home. Until recontly, one heard "very llt^e of the STulcon River, now the name is 011 every tongue. As is the Amazon to South America and the Mississippi to tho Central Stales, so is the Yukon to Alaska and the North — nature's great inland highway. The Yukon is 60 miles wide at the mouth, aud 1500 miles inland runs from one lo ten miles broad, but full of islands and shallows, necesj seating flat-bo tlomed steamers of light j draught. It is open for about four months i in the year, and is said to discharge a greater j volume than the boasted Mississippi. Into j tho Upnor Yukon alone, six or eight large j river-d discharge their snow-laden waters. These tributaries drain an immense area and as nearly all have been proved auriferous a vast region of 500 ny 600 squnre miles waits exploitation by Ihe miner. Mining has boon carried on in the Upper Yukon for many yeari with fair &ueces^, but the country is so vast, tho distances &o great, and the means of communication so irregular that tho field attracted but little public attention until tha iabnlous Klondyke yields electrified the world. The Klondyke proper is a small tributary which joins the Yukon at Dawson City, but the whole of the neighbouring goldfields are now included in the name. The discovery was in tho first instance quite accidental. La-sl year one John Carmach, who had a small lumber contract, wandered up the Klondyke looking for timber, and being an old miner took a "prospecL" from time, to time as he wont along. Among others he happened to go up Bonanza Creek, a tribu- ' tary of the Klondyke, and, where an uprooted tree had exposed the wash, he panned out a dish that made his hair almost stand on end. Washing out another prospect to mako sure, Carmach covered lip his tracks and went home to conplete his contract and raise the wind to purchase provisions and a modest mining outfit. ll ©turning with his Indian wifo and her brother, Carmach proceeded to open out tho first claim on Bonanza Creek. [ Had it been in New Zealand he would I simply have brought in his water, opened up a " paddock," put in his boxes, and sluiced away, but the Klondyke is no such mining paradise. Nature there yields her treasures only at the point of the bayonet. The alluvial ! ''wash" along the Bonanza runs 15ft to 20ft, and as with us most of the gold lies along ; what New Zealanders call the- '* Maori bottom." In the Klondyke the whole land k a solid, frozen rock all the year round, even in mid-summer the thaw never pene- , trale's beyond a foot or so from the surface, i Sinking a shaft, therefore, is at all times a , difficult and tedious business, every foot having to be thawed out by fire. A good fire is built over night on the ground, and in the , morning perhaps a foot or so can be excavated, • w hen another fire is built, and so the tedious ( process goes on. The Klondyke miner pre- , fers to sink his shaft in winter, the wash- J dirt being stacked alongside where it ' freezes solid, to wait the advent of the | summer thaw. He is thus enabled to take ( full' advantage of the all too short summer ( to cradle off while the thaw holds. Carmach i had the thaw in his favour, but his appliances were very crude. Alter getting out his wtisk dirt in spoonfuls, it had to be carried in boxes 30 or 40 yards to a primitive cradle. Yet notwithstanding all this, so rich was the claim that in a week the trio took out 5250 worth of gold. When this gold reached ohe nearest settlement the usual rush iollo^vd, and just here a very curious thing occurred. There were plenty of experienced miners in the country, but one of them had already tried the Klondyke, and pronounced it a 'duffer— that is to say, only a pound or two a day could be made at it, while the standard wage everywhere is £3. So at the first of the rush all the knowing ones gave the Klondyke and its creeks a wide berth, but as the now chums — the " tenderfeets "—" — cavne along, the Klondyke and Bonanza Creek were as good to them as any, so it came to pass thai nearly all the richest claims of the famous Bonanza and adjoining El Dorado were iv the first instance taken up by ignorant " tenderfeet," who took out gold by the pound weight, while the old experienced hands had to content themselves with paltry ounces. The El Dorado is a small creek running into Bonanza, and within three months every foot of both were taken up, and the claims pegged will take five years to work. River claims in the Yukon vary in size; the custom being for the first miners on the ground to hold % meeting and determine the frontage according to the nature and richness of the ground. That the Klondyke in general, and J3onanza and El Dorado in particular, constitute the richest goldfield yet discovered admits of hardly a doubt. Wash dirt yielding lOdol to 50dol to the pan is by no means uncommon, while yields of lOOdol and 200dol, and even more, have repeatedly been chronicled. Now the " pan " is equal to two shovelgful, or 251b weight, of gravel, and 200dol to tho pan means that a single shovelful of gravel contained £25 worth of gold i Of pourge this is only among tho " pockets," but in some of the El Dorado claims tho $vtraoe yield was over sdol or j £1 gieding to tlie jpjn, and claims employ-

ing 20 to 30 men have paid wages of 6s an hour by washing up a few p*\ns a( the end of each day's work. Tho names of a score or more of individual miners who cleared

from 25,000d0l to 75,000d0l for last season's work were published in all the American papers, a " tenderfoot " named Berry heading the list with 330,000d01, while another, a more lad of 21. took out 100,000dol in

four months. Borry employed 30 men, and paid each man £3 in gold dust at tho end of tho day in the manner indicated. One swallow, however, does not make a sumj mcr, and individual case-* such as these would be no proof of the general wealth Sof the country were it not for the I fact that they are backed up by tho 1 highest reliable scientific testimony as 1 well as the actual output for the whole 1 field, which lapfc season totalled one million and a-quarter, and already this season (say two months) has amounted lo o\ev a million sterling. Tho fust Klondyke authority in America at the present time is Mr W. Ogilvie, of the Canadian Survey department, who was fent out a few years ago lo fix the international boundary question of Alaska, and whose official report was just being published a-t the time of my visit to Canada. Mr Ogilvie spent three years in Alaska and the Upper Yukon, and, speaking of the country as a whole, hi says : Thus we may have a zone of upward of five hundred miles in length which will yet be the scene of nuineious mining enterprises, both placer and quartz, tho latter practically inexhaustible. This country under more favourable climatic conditions v.'cmld be the richest and most extensive mining area in the world. . . . Tho character of the gold and the giavel in which it is found indicate to mo that tLey aie not the result o£ glacial action, lrat rather ot* natural erosion, and I would say that the mother lode is not far away fiom tho placer mines in the neighbouring mountains. The mother lode may not lealise the expectations which iho placers h&vo raised, but I would not offer that as my opinion, for it is not my opinion. I believe wo have a remarka,bJy rich country there, i have seen quails assayed from GOOdol to lOOOdol a ton. Tho big find at El Dorado is working out two altogether opposite effects. It has caused the miner who has been putting up with tho hardships of Alaska, as all that country is erroneously called, aud who for years has bee /1 satisfied with giavel that paid 10 cents to the pan, to quit work and curse his luck be- ■ •> h& Cdu't pick up 200dol aud SOOdol to the

Dp.vsoii, 'F.R.G.S., and director general of iho (ieologicol .Survey of Canada, a r«co£ftii&ed authority on mineralogy, after whom Dawom City is named, says : Tho trend oi the discoveries has been nontiwest in a belt thft runs practically from the British Columbia boundary to the fukon. In all these districts placer mining ha»4>cen followed in a greater or lesser tlegreo by the discovery of quart?, almost i:i exact proportion to the facility of acces^ and that these have not been worked extensively is due to the difficulty of getting machinery into the country, and not to any lack of ore. ... I consider the Yukon destined to be the greatst raining country ihs world ever saw. Having dwelt so much upon the fabulous wealth of tho Klondyke, it remains to be said that except for the very hardiest and strongest men all the wealth of the Klor-dyke is dearly puirhastd. Life in that desolate arctic region is a constant struggle with nature in her sternest mood, and only the most unremitting care and attention will preserve health or even life itself. , With the thermometer 50 or 60 degrees belowzero, the matter of dressing in tho morning is a much more seriou& operation than it is usually regarded by New Zealand miners. When the Klondyker turns out in hw sleepins bag he first of all draws on as many paii-d of°socks aa are handy, then he takes a strip of flannel and proceeds to wrap up his feet and ankles until he has them -protected with about two inches of covering, then, but rot till then, does he put on his boots. The ever present danger is, of course, frostbite, and should the feet gel wet a fire must imme diately be built to save them. The remainder of his dressing operations are carried out after the same cra-eful fashion, and for the morning tub the Klondyker substitutes a dr?' towel. On rare occasions ho may indulge in the luxury of a "wash" with a damp towel, but it must be cautiously applied in a suitable atmosphere. .Rigorous as is the winter, however, and hard the conditions of life then, old residents prefer it to the short hot summer, when myriads of insects and legions of flies combino to render existence a •martyrdom. Of the dangers experienced and privations endured on the road to the Klondyke nothing need be said. Constant traffic j will no doubt gradually eliminate the worst features of the road, but such places as tbo Chilcoot Pass will never be thoroughly subdued, its sudden storms ond icy " blizzards " will ever remain to be reckoned with, and the recent tragedy by which 100 miners lost their lives on the Chilcoot is proof of this. In this connection the story told me in Canada of a heroic deed and tragic death on the Chilcoofc deserves to be put on record. A mail carrier accompanied by an Indian lad of 20 were proceeding to the Klondyke when they met a blizzard on the Chilcoot, and were forced to take refuge in a snow hut. Here without fire and with very little food the men were held prisoners for 10 days, while snowstorms raged furiously without. Wjien the storm abated the white man was so weak he could not travel, and at length told his companion to go on alone and leavo him to his fate. This the heroic young redskin absolutely refused to do, and finding the white man unable to walk essayed the almost superhuman task of carrying his mate on his back over a desolate snowladen mountain pass 13 miles to the nearest help. With many a halt and frequent stumble between the heroic feat was at length accomplished, but when the gallant young Indian " brave " staggered exhausted into the settlement his load, alas ! was found to be a corpse. But it was a noble deed nobly done.

From time to time paragraphs are appearing in the colonial press to the effect that law and order in the Klondyke are practically unknown quantities, and that the ordinary state of society throughout the Yukon goldfields is one complete lawlessness, life and property being held only at the point of the bowie knife or revolver. These statements are simply absurd and a libol on the Canadian North-west Mounted Police, a splendidly manned and equipped force, held everywhere in the highest esteem, and who have had tho Yukon goldfiekls under their special supervision since the rush first set in. At Fort Wrangol and Skagway, when thousands of men have been cooped up in enforced idleness waiting suitable woalher to travel, and at such centres as Dawson City. etc., no doubt the gambling and drinking saloons produce their usual crop of lawless results, and tho same thing would take place anywhere But among the mining camps and throughout the Yukon goldfiekls generally life and property are just as safo as in Now Zealand. Nor ia it reasonable to conclude otherwise. If the character of tho country and the climate be considered it will be recognised Jthat it is no_t

possible for tho lawbreaker lo long eluda justice. If lie escapes from his lellows ho goes to almost certain death among the snovficlds. In addition to a highly efficient poiiro force tho whole body of minors form a \i»ilanco committee from whom thoro id no ©'-scape. 01 course among 40,000 and 50.000 men there will always be a few lawless .spirits, but tLeir

raco is soon run

Here, for instance, is an

extract from one of tho morning papers J purchased on the train which shows how such spirits are dealt with in the absence of the police. It is headed " A Cowboy Hung foiDouble Murder " :

Seattle, Feb. 13.— " Boys, string mo up if you like, but rein ember you arp hanging the steadiest man with a six-shooter thr-t ever caire out of Montana. You say if-3 all right io ha/ig me, and 1 guess it is. I'm sorry I did not get the rest of tliem. That's all."

TVrtii tlisse woxfls Cowboy Uoo Xt-i^aer '>tcT his oxeculioneers at Valdez J?a&g . Trie expedition consisted of 40 men, and Tanacr had joined them in Seattle on their way north. He

was supplied with an outfit and taken iato membership, but he was quairelsome and so overbearing that 3iis companions decided that he must leave the party. On the evening of January 21 a, meetirg was held in Call's lent, and during the conference the statement was made :

"We must get rid of Tanner; let him take •his share of the outfit and shift for himself. We are up here for business, and we mean what we say."

There were four men at the meeting, and no sooner had the remark been made than ihe flag of the little tent was pulled aside. The cowboy stood there, six-shooter in hand.

'" Boys, I overheard your talk about me," he said deliberately. " I'm here for business."

Before his victims had realised what had happened, Tanner had shot twice an<J the bullets pierced Call and Lee through the chest Tanner fired again, but his preceding shot had extinguished the candlo, aud the bullet did not take effect. One of the remaining members crouched down behind some baggage, and the other, ciitting his way out of the tent, ga-ve the alarm. Tanner, supposing the three men to be dead, took a station in some brush and waited. It was not long before he was surrounded. " You'd better surrender your gun," was called out to him.

" If you sa.y so, boys, I'll do it," was his response, and then he handed over his weapon. The miners at once convened, and by an overwhelming majority decided that Tanner should be hanged. There was some 0i facussion of the question of sJiooting him, bni the majority decided on the rope. When notified of the decision, Taunor observed that lie hoped they would not tpntalise him by stringing him and letting him down again befoio he was dead. He was kd out of the snow durir.g the early morning. He fearlessly allowed the rope to be tied about his neck, and so met his doom. He was buried face downward.

I Vancouver City is the creation of the Cana- | dian Pacific Railway. This railway is one of j the engineering triumphs of the world, and I the company one of the iaost powerful mono- •' polies in America, operating some 6000 miles !of iron roadway, fc'or many years the pierciug of the Rocky Mountains with a railway, I and opening up the enormous North-west territories with through communication from Atlantic to I'aciSc coasts, was one of Canada's greatest problems, and successive Governments took it in hand and failed. At length, in 1880. after building some 600 odd miles, the whole thing, together with 25 million dollars sterling and 25 million acres of land, was handed over to a syndicate upon condition that it built the remaining 1920 miles in 10 years. So well did the syndicate fulfil its mission that the line was completed and t'-ams running in less than five years— that i". to say, the average rate for the whole line I was over a mile a day, while occasionally five and even six miles of rails were laid in a i single day. It was a stupendous underlakj ing. Over the wide stretching prairies the work of construction was, of course, easy enough, but the last 500 or 690 miles through tho vast mountain ranges and down the seemingly impassable Frazer Canyons to the coast will ever remain as a monument of perseverance and engineering skill. Scores of miles of the track are hewn out of the solid rock, and the traveller's wonder aiKl admiration are divided between the majestic grandeur of tho rock chasms themselves and the enterprising skill which first led a railway down through them to the sea. The railway line through the mountains follows, perforce, the course of the rivers, and on leaving Vancouver we ascended the famous salmon rivers, the Frazer and Thompson, for some 250 miles, then striking tluough the "Rockies" and Selkirk Ranges followed mostly the Columbia and Bow Rivers to Calgary, out on the prairie 640 miles from Vancouver. It is a buperb mountain trip, and in smumer, when everything is green, and the great pine forests are alive with life and beauty ; when the deep, winding valleys are redolent of flowers, and the towering mountains stand dressed in living verdure, the scenery must be veritably en- , chanting. It was winter, however, with us, and the whole mountain country one vast field < of unbroken snow, but the scenery was hardly less wonderful on that account. All of it was grand, much of it supremely magnificent. I have been privileged to see "Pike's Peak" and some of the best mountain scenery in America, have travelled by the Union Pacific over the Sierra Neyadas and Californian Rockies, and by the Rio Grande railway down the celebrated " Royal George " and the fa- j mous " Black Canyon of the Gunnison," but nowhere have I seen anything to equal in extent and variety the scenic, wonders of tho Frazer Canyons and Selkirk Mountains. The Selkirk Range is most picturesque with towering summits and abysmal valleys, steep pineclad slopes and deep rocky canyons, through which the train and accompanying foaming river run a neck and neck race. Tho " Rockies " are grand and massive qtovvwhere, but bare and barren compared with the closely forested Selkirks.

But while the snow hid many of the ram- j mer glories of the route, we were indebted to its gracious presence for at least one oi the loveliest transformation scenes it is popsible to imagine. It was dark when we entered the gloomy recesses of the grcc^l Frazer Canyons, and we sat up late watching the weird effect of the rising moon on great rooky chasms full of mysterious shadows and impenetrable gloom, the sombre pictures relieved only here and there by moonlit pinnacles and shafts of silver athwart Ike raajestic cliffs above. Those dark aud combve pictures were still with us at 4- o'clock aext morning as we threw up the curtain of our " sleeper," but, lo ! what a transformation ! Instead of darkness and forbidding gloom there was dazzling light and athsreal beauty everywhere. It was now full brilliant moonlight, and, as wo slept, iho magician, with snowy wa-nd, had created for us such a- seen© of wondrous beauty thai it seemed like a glimpse into fairyland — and it tvas fairyland ! for wo traversed an open forest of bending maple and sturdy Douglas fir, but ws saw no troos, only exquisite playing fountains o£ light and stately monumanis of glsaming alabaster, set iv a silror sea, all festooned and garlanded -with sparkling gems and wreathed together with drooping bands of snowy •whiisu

Of course in such a country, and with great fiiiow-ladon mountains all round, every thaw brin<2.i down immense "slides," and in adclitifu lo minor bpecimens, which iho ordinary pnow plough on n pilot engine cleared for us, we were favoured on our return journey with quito a lespccta'nle sample of the snow Elide. it camo down from the semi-perpendicular cliff 2000 ft high, overlooking the Columbia River, and buried the line 10ft to 15ft deep for a distance ot a quarter oi' a mile, broken, however, by se\eini snow sheds. To cope with this (he ordinary plough in of courso holple&f;, but powerful rotary ploughs, having a face of rapidly revolving knives, are brought into lcquisition. As the knives cut down the mow, it is carried by compressed air and blown out of long side tunnels 15ft to 20ft clear of the track. When, after ]2 hours' detention, we parsed through this slide, the Micrvv on (he lovrcf-t fide of the track was \\p level with the roof of our carriage. Yfe had, however, become well accustomed 1o snowby this time. At " C4lacier Ifoiue," in tho heart of Ihs mountains— so called because of the beautiful glacier visible from the verandah — the snow lay piled round the railway platform sft high, the tops of the picket fence round the tennis court wore just peeping through, while right round tho hotel, where the path was kept clear, rose a solid wall of frozen snow 10ft high. And at such points as Otlertail Creek and the Kicking Horse Canyon, with a score of others 3e?s classically named, we ran through drifts up level with the carriage window and past buried mining camps, where tha only ■usible sign of the miners' huts would be a, smoking chimney pot above the snow or a shovelled-out tunnel up to the front door. Once out on the pvaivio we v;eie fairly free of rpow, although it never entirely left us, and for 500 miles or so our route was almost due east, through (lie north-west territories of Canada, an immense cattle country, with lit 'le settlement, but with boundless potentialities.

At a railway junction near the borders of Manitoba rejoicing in the euphonious name of Moose Jaw, we left the C.P.K. line. and. ! striking south-easterly across the United : States boundary, travelled through Dakota and Minnesota States to Minneapolis and St. Paul, twin cities, on either bank of the great ! Mississippi, thonce on to Chicago, some 2350 . miles from our starting 1 point, Vancouver. ; The journey occupied less than four days, ' and although made in the dead of winter, was accomplished in perfect comfort, not to say absolute luxury. The appointments on all the trans-continental trains were firstclass, the cars being, if anything, overheated, &o that ono had occasionally at night the novel experience oi lying in his pyjamas, perspiring as in the tropics, while watching in the moonlight outside biting wintry " bliazards " piling up huge snow drifts at every fence. The curious thing was that the farther south we went the snow became deeper and the cold more intense, until we landed at Chic;? go with the thermometer 23deg; below zero, and a biting wind which made one's nose and ears tinglo, and rendered it necessary to stop and vigorously polish up those useful organs at every sheltered corner. Frost bites are by no means uncommon in Chicago, and we had no hankering after the experience. The sidewalks were of glass and the streets buried under a foot of frozen snow, while cabs and private vehicles weie shipped on winter runners in lieu of wheels. Everybody was buried in furs, and the cabbies in their ample hoods and their" shaggy bearskins might well have passed for the original "grizzlies" themselves. Chicago is the railway metropolis of America, mid, with its population of two millions, is now one of the first half dozon cities of the world — truly a marvellous city of marvellous growth and marvellous buildings, 16, 18, and 20 storeys high.

(To he contiiiued.)

— Loud Advice. — O'Hara : " She was a good wife to me, poor woman. Many's the woi'd of good advice she gave to me." Geogheean : " Thrue for yez, an' many's the time O'ive heard her advisin' yez when Oi lived in the house beyant — a mile up the road, bedad !"

— Fair Visitor (to convict) : " I suppose that the singing of the birds relieves the monotony of your dreary life?" Convicb (profoundly nonplussed) -. The singing of the birds, miss?" Fair Visitor: "Yes: the little gaolbirds, you know. They must be such a comfort to you,"