ELEVEN YEARS IN THE YUKON.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 18, 7 March 1913, Page 2

ELEVEN YEARS IN THE YUKON.

DANCING IN DAWSON. From 1898 to 1909—eleven years—the Hon. Stratford Tollemache, as ho tells us in his ‘‘Reminiscences of tho Yukon,’’ was employed in mining and trapping in the Yukon. He was in the midst of the great gold rush, and he gives many interesting pictures of the Klondyke craze, its humours and its tragedies. He was in Dawson City in the summer of 1898, with its thirty thousand inhabitants, mostly under canvas. There is no one so free with his money as the gold-miner, and sometimes a man would squander in the course of a single evening the proceeds of months of hard and dangerous labour, amounting to thousands of dollars. The cost of a very simple evening’s amusement in Dawson was considerable. Tho main street was lined with shops and restaurants, and saloons abounded —all temptations td the men with gold-dust or nuggets.

There were several datfc e-hall a in the place, all of which were well patronised, each dance-hall possessing! a primitive sort of band, and from ten to twenty girls. Dancing commenced about 8 p.m., a nd continued till about six o’clock in the morning. Waltzes, interspersed with, “kitchen lancers,” were usually played, while , one dollar (or 45.) was the recognised price for each dance, the owner of the hall taking care that the dances were extremely short, sol that as many dollars as possible might be collected. A drinking-bar was attached to the place, and after each dance the man was expected to escort his partner to the bar and buy a drink for her and for himself, which cost one dollar more. The girls were paid 50 dollars, or £lO a week, by the owner of the dance-hall, while many of them received valuable presents in the shape of gold nuggets from different admirers. Introductions were unnecessary, as everyone was entitled to ask a girl for a dance who was not engaged, and she was not allowed by the management to refuse.

In those days the slightest rumour of a gold find would cause streams of men to stampede out of Dawson, and wily steamboat owners or the proprietors of wayside road-houses (primitive inns) were not above circulating such rumours and benefiting immensely from. the increased business that resulted. Occasionally some wary and experienced old miner would steal out of the city at night with dog-sledges containing his provisions and equipment ; but he was sure to be seen by someone, a nd in the morning be would find behind him a trail of prospectors who. assuming from the secrecy of his departure that he had “struck it rich,” .had followed.— “Outlook.”