On the Trail of the Gold-seeker.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XII, 16 September 1899, Page 498

On the Trail of the Gold-seeker.

A RECORD OF TRAVEL IN PROSE AND VERSE. *•

In this article we place before our readers a tale, as set forth in Mr Hamlin Garland’s record of travel in prose and verse, entitled "The Trail of the Goldseekers” (Macmillan), which for pathos, poetic sympathy, and grim realism, has not l»een excelled since General Butler gave us "The Great Lone Land.” It is the story of the rush to Klondike, and no romantic reality equal to this has the world known since the days of the early fifties, when gold was picked “up on the surface" in Victoria and other parts of South Australia. THE FIRST DISCOVERY. Let Mr Garland tell, in his own way, of the reception of the news. “A little over a year ago a small steamer swung to at a Seattle wharf, and emptied a flood of eager passengers upon the deck. It was an obscure craft, making infrequent trips round the Aleutian Islands (which form the farthest western point of the United States) to the mouth of a practically unknown river called the Yukon, which empties into the ocean near the post of St. Michaels, on the northwestern coast of Alaska.

"The passengers on this boat were not distinguished citizens, nor fair to look upon. They were roughtly dressed, and some of them were pale and worn as if with long sickness or exhausting toil. Yet this ship and these passengers startled the whole English-speaking worjd. Swift as electricity could fly. the magical word GOLD went forth like a brazen eagle across the continent to turn the faces of millions of earth’s toilers toward a region which, up to that time, had been unknown or of ill report. For this ship contained a million dollars in gold: these seedy passengers carried great bags of nuggets and bottles of shining dust which they had burned, at risk of their lives, out of the perpetually frozen ground, so far in the north that the winter had no sun and the summer midnight had no dusk. “The world was instantly filled with the stories of these men and of their tons of bullion. There was a moment of arrested attention—then the listeners smiled and nodded knowingly to each other and went about their daily affairs.

“But other ships similarly laden crept laggardly through the gates of Puget Sound, bringing other miners with bags and bottles, and then the world believed. Thereafter the jour-

nals of all Christendom had to do with the ’Klondike’ and ‘The Golden River.’ Men could not hear enough or read enough of the mysterious Northwest.

“In less than ten days after the landing of the second ship, all trains westward-bound across America were heavily laden with fiery-hearted adventurers, who set their faces to the new Eldorado with exultant confidence, resolute to do and dare. THE RUSH. Then comes the description of the “rush.” Miners and cowboys from Montana mingled with civil engineers and tailors from New York, and adventurous merchants from Chicago rubbed shoulder with shoemakers from Lynn. All kinds and conditions of prospectors swarmed upon the boats to Seattle. Vancouver, - and other coast cities. Some entered upon new routes to the goldfields, which were now known to be far in the Yukon valley, while others took the well-known route by way of St. Michaels, and “thenee up the sinuous and sinister stream, whose waters began on the eastern slope of the glacial peaks just inland from Juneau, and swept to the north and west for more than two thousand miles." It was known that this way was long and hard and cold, yet thousands eagerly embarked on keels of all designs, and of all conditions of unseaworthiness. By far the greater number assaulted the mountain passes of Skagway. This gold district came to be called

"THE KLONDIKE,” because of the Extreme richness of a small river of that name which entered the Y’ukon well on towards the Arctic Circle. Various routes were opened up, and the advantages of each were advertised. For a time the attention of the Dakota cowboys and adventurers was diverted by the war in the South, and for a time the gold of the North was forgotten by many, but still a vast army pushed on to the north. This the writer joined on the 20th April, leaving his home in Wisconsin bound for the overland trail, and "bearing a (joyous heart.” He wished to take part in this last great march of the goldseekers, to be one of them, and to record their deeds. THE STARTING POINT. Starting from Dakota the traveller passes over the Selkirks, “where no life was”:

“These mountains I had long wished to see, and they were in no sense a disappointment. Desolate. deathhaunted, they pushed their white domes into the blue sky in savage grandeur. The little snow covered towns seemed to cower at their feet like timid animals lost in the immensity of the forest. All day we rode among these heights, and at night we went to sleep feeling the ehill of their desolate presence. “We reached Ashcroft (which was the beginning of the long trail) at sunrise. The town lay low on the sand, a spatter of little frame buildings, mainly saloons and lodging houses, and resembled an ordinary cowtown in the Western States. “Rivers of dust were flowing in the streets as we debarked from the train. The land seemed dry as ashes, and the hills which rose near resembled those of Montana or Colorado. The little hotel swarmed with the rudest ano crudest types of men; not dangerous men, only thoughtless and profane teamsters and cowboys, who drank . thirstily and ate like wolves. They ’spat on the flood while at table, leaning on their elbows gracelessly. In the bar-room they drank and chewed tobacco, and talked in loud voices upon nothing at all.” The traveller was well prepared as to outfit, but it was necessary to carry every crumb of food in one case three hundred and sixty miles, and the other case four hundred miles. “We planned a start with four horses, taking on others as we needed them.” The choosing of the horses is related very charmingly. The critical voyageur is at last well satisfied with a fine mount, and here, as ar each stage in his journey, he breaks into verse: — > Hurrah, my faithful soon you shal plunge Your burning nostril to the bit in snow. Soon you shall rest where foam-wmte waters lunge From cliff to cliff, and you shall know No more of hunger or the flame of sand Or windless desert’s heat! The narrative of the journey towards the beginning of the “long trail.” leaving the banks of the Fraser River, is a long one, and contains some amusing incidents as to troubles with bucking horses and other difficulties incidental to the undertaking: — “My feeling of respect deepened into awe as we began to climb the great wooded divide which lies between the Fraser and the Blackwater. The wild forest settled around us. grim, stern, and forbidding. We were DONE WITH CIVILISATION. Everything that was required for a home in the cold and in the heat was bound upon our five horses. We must carry bed. board, roof, food, and medical stores over three hundred and

sixty miles of trail, through all that might intervene of flood and forest.” The writer and his sole companion cross the Blackwater, a swift stream that had been newly bridged by those ahead of them, and so on through the Bulkley Valley into the great Stikeen. Here they meet with some discouragement:—

“At about eight o’clock the next morning, as we were about to line up for our journey, two men came romping down the trail, carrying packs on their backs and taking long strides. They were ‘hitting the high places in the scenery,’ and seemed to lie entirely absorbed in the work. I hailed them and they turned out to lie two young men from Duluth, Minnesota. They were without hats, very brown, very hairy, and very much disgusted with the country. “For an hour we discussed the situation. They were the first white men we had met on the entire journey, almost the only returning footsteps, and were able to give us a little information of the trail, but only for a distance of about forty miles; beyond this they had not ventured.”

“We left, our I outfits back here on a little lake —maybe you saiw our Indian guide—and struck out ahead to see if we could find those splendid prairies they were telling us about, where the caribou and the moose were so thick you couldn’t miss ’em. We’ve been forty miles up the trail. It’s all a elimb and the very worst yet. You'll come finally to a high snowy divide with nothing but mountains on every side. There is no prairie; it's all a lie. and we're going back to Hazleton to go around by way of Skagway. Have you any idea where we are?” ■ “Why. certainly; we’re in British Columbia.” “But where? On what stream?” “Oh. that is a detail.” I replied. “I consider the little camp on which we are camped one of the head-waters of the Nasse: but. we're not on the Telegraph Trail at all. We’re more nearly in line with the old Dease Lake Trail.” “Why is it. do you suppose, that the road-gang ahead of us haven't left a single sign, not even a word as to where we are?” “Maybe they can’t write." said my partner. “Perhaps they don't know where they are at themselves,” said I. “Well, that’s exactly the way it looks to me.” “Are there any outfits ahead of us?” “Yes, old Bob Borlan’s about two days up the slope with his train of mules, working like a slave to get ■through. They’re all getting short of grub and losing a good many horses. You’ll have to work your way through with great care, or you'll lose a horse or two in getting from here to the divide.”

“Well, this won't do. So-long, boys.” said one of the young fellows, and they started off with immense vig-

our. followed by their handsome dogs, and we lined up once more with stern faces, knowing now that a terrible trail for at least one hundred miles was before us.”

Coming on the shores of a lake "where the bells of several outfits were tinkling merrily”: “We took time to explore some old fishing-huts filled with curious things —skins, toboggans, dog-collars, cedar ropes, etc. Most curious of all. we found some flint-lock muskets, made exactly on the models of one hundred years ago. but dated 1884. ft seemed impossible that guns of such ancient, models should lie mamufactirred up to the present date, bur there they were, all carefully marked ’London. 1883.’ ” Here there is another sample of the writer’s serious mood: — THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE. A land of mountains based in hills of Hr, Empty. lone. and cold. A land of streams Whose roaring voices drown the w.urr Of aspen leaves, and fill the heart with dreams Of dearth and death. The peaks are stern and white. The skies above are grim and gray. And the rivers cleave their sounding way Through endless forests dark as night. Toward the ocean’s far-off line of spray. "RAI INI I WITH THE WOLF.” Still in the valley of the inexorable Skeena. the travellers begin to reckon how long their food will hold out. and they come across others in a worse plight than themselves: — “At noon, the rain slacking a little, we determined to pack up, and with such cheer as we could called our, ‘Line up. boys—line up!’ starting on our way down the trail. “After making ailxnit eight miles we came upon a number of outfits camped on the bank of the river. As I rode along on my gray horse, for the trail there allowed me to ride, f trussed a. man seated gloomily at the mouth of his tent. To him I called with an assumption of jocularity I did not feel, “ ’Stranger, where are you bound for?’ ” “He replied, ‘The North Pole.’ “ ‘Do you expect to get there’.” “ ‘Sure,’ he replied. “Riding on 1 met others beside the trail, and all wore a, similar look of almost sullen gravity. They were not disposed to joke with me, ami perceiving something to be wrong. 1 passed on without further remark. “When we came down to the bank of the stream, behold it ran to the right. And I could have sat me down and blasphemed with the rest. I now understand the gloom of the others. We were still in the valley of the inexorable Skeena. It could' be nothing else; this tremendous stream running to our right could be no other than the head-waters of that ferocious flood which no surveyor has locaed. It is immensely larger and longer than any map shows. “he crossed the branch without much trouble and found some beautiful bl tie joint-grass on the opposite bank, into which we joyfully turned

our horses. When they had filled their stomachs, we packed up and pushed on about two miles, overtaking the Manchester boys on tin* side-hill in a tract of dead, burned-out timber, a cheerless spot. “In speaking about the surly answer I had received from the man on the banks of the river. I said: ‘I wonder why those men are camped there? They must have been there for several days.” "Partner replied: “They are all out of grub, and are waiting for some one to come by to whaek-up with en One of the fellows came out ami talked with me and said he had nothing left but beans, ami tried to buy some flour of me.” "This opened up an entirely new line of thought. I understood now that what I had taken for sullenness ’was the dejection of despair. The way was growing gloomy and dark to them. They, too, were racing with th<' wolf." The poet traveller is impressed with the beauties of the long trail, and has a poem of much charm and feeling, from which we quote: — We crossed the great divide and saw The sun-lit valleys far below us win-1; Before us opened cloudless sky; the raw. Grey rain swept close behind. We saw great glaciers grind Item elves to foam; We trod the moose's lofty home. And heard high on tin- vellow bins. The wildcat clamour of his Pls. THE END OF THE TRAIL. The travellers arrive at length at the gold-seekers’ camp at Glenora: “Glenora, like Telegraph Creek, was a village of tents and shacks. Previous to the opening of the year it had been an old Hudson Bay tradingpost at the head of navigation on the Stikeen River, but during April and May it, had been turned into a swarming camp of gold-seekers on their way to Teslin Lake by way of the much advertised “Stikeen Route" to the Yukon. "A couple of months before our arrival nearly five thousand people had been encamped on the river flat; but one disappointment bad followed another, the government road laid been abandoned, the pack trail had proved a menace, and as a result the camp had thinned away, and when we of the Long Trail began to drop into town Glenora contained less than five hundred people, including tradesmen and mechanics. “The journey of those who accompanied me on the Long Trail was by no means ended. It was indeed only half done. There remained more than one hundred and seventy miles of pack trail before the head of navigation on the Yukon could be reached. I turned aside. My partner went on. "Amongst the first of those who met us on our arrival was a German, who was watching some horses and some supplies in a big- tent close by the river bank. While pitching my tent on that first day he came over to see me, and after a few words of greeting said quietly, but with feeling'. “I am glad you've come, it was so lonesome here.’ We were very busy, but I think we were rea-

Mttiabh kind to him in the days that followed. Hr often came over of an « wning and >tood alout the tire, and although I did not seek to entertain him. I am glad to say I answered him civilly; Burton was even social.

recall these things with a certain degree of feeling, because not less than a week later this poor fellow was discovered by one of our company swinging from the crosstree of The* tent, a ghastly There was something inexplicable in the deed. No one could account for it. He seemed not to Im* a man of deep feeling. And one of the last things he uttered in my hearing was a coarse iest which 1 did not like and to which 1 made no reply. •’ln his jxM-ket the coroner found a letter wherein he had written. • Bury me right here where 1 failed, here on the bank of the river.’ It containtHl also a message to his wife and children in the States. There were tragic splashes of red on the trail, murder, and violent death by animals ami by swift waters. Nowhere at rhe end of the trail was a suicide. S«» this is the end of the trail to him— To >*wing at the tail of a rope an«l «iie: Making a chapter srrey and grim. Adding a ghost to the midnight s’-y? H- toiled for days on the icy way. He slept at night on the wind sw p- sno Now here he hangs in the mornings A grisiy shape by the riv r s t! --v. AT WORK. The rime came when Mr Garland must return to the South, and he then experienced a profound feeling of regret and of longing f< r rhe Aild ami emelv. But he parts from his companion and returns by boat, but reaches Atlin lake and camps: — •’We had a gold pan. a spade, and a pick. Therefore early the next morning we Hung a little pack of grub over our shoulders and set forth to test the claims which were situated upon Pine (reek, a stream which entered Lake \tlin near rhe camp. It was said to he eighteen miles long and Discovery claim was some eight miles up. “We traced our way up the creek as far a> Discovery ami back, panning dirt ar various places with resulting colours in some cases. The trail was full of men racking to and fro with heavy loads on their backs. They moved in little trains of four or five or six men. some going out of the country, others coming in—about an equal number each way. Everything along rhe creek was staked, and our rest work resulted in nothing more than gaining information with regard to what was going on. •'The camps on the hills at night swarmed with men in hot debate. I'he majority believed the camps to be a failure, and loud discussions resounded fr cm the trees as partner and I sat at supper. ••'1 he next day 1 spent w'th gold pan and camera, working my way up Spruce Greek, a branch of Pine. 1 f -uml men cheerily ar work getting out sluice boxes and digging ditches. 1 panned everywhere, but did nor get much in the way of colours, but the creek seemed to grow better as I went up. and promised very rich returns. I came bark rushing, making five miles just inside an hour, hungry and tired. ••"I'he crowded camp thinned out. The faint-hearted ones who had no ■ :uruge to sweat for gold sailed away. Others went our upon their claims to build cabins ami lay sluices. I found :hem whip-sawing lumber, building cabins, ami digging ditches. Each day thr news grew more encouraging, each 'lay brought the discovery of a new creek or a lake. Men came backin swarms, ami reporting finds on ’Lake Surprise.’ a newiy discovered • g body rf water, ami at last came rhe report of surprising discoveries in rhe ben -hes high above the creek. ••However. I was not a gold seek er. ami when 1 determined to give up any further pursuit of mining and to delegate it entirely to my partner. I -xj erienced a feeling of relief. I determined to ‘stick to my last.’ notwithstanding the fascination which I felt in the sight of placer gold. Quartz mining has never had the slightest attraction for me. but to see the gold washed out of the sand, to see it appear bright and shining in the black sand in the lx>ttom of the pan. is really worth while. It is first-hand contact with Nature’s stores of wealth.” DRIFTING TO THEIR KLIN He went up the Discovery for the last time w th his camera slung over

his shoulder, aiul his note-book in hand to take a final survey of the miners ami to hear for the last time their exultant talk. He found them exceedingly cheerful, even buoyant. “The men who had gone in with ten days' provisions, the tender-foot miners, the men ‘with a cigarette and a sandwich.' had gone out. Those who remained were men who knew their business ami were resolute and self-sustaining. ’’There was a crowd of such men around rhe la nd-office tents ami many filings were made. Nearly every man had his little phial of gold to show. No one was loud, but every one seemed to be quietly confident ami replied to my questions in a low voice. ’Well, you can safely say the country is all right.’ •’Here the long trail took a turn. I hail been among the miners and hunters for four months. I had been one of them. I had lived the essential of their lives, ami had been able to catch from them some hint of their outlook on life. They were a disappointment to me in some ways. They seemed like mechanisms. They moved as if drawn by some great magnet whose centre was Dawson City. They ap- | tea red to drift on and in toward that human maelstrom going irresolute! v to their ruin. They did nor seem to me strong men—on the contrary, they seemed weak men—or men strong with one insane purpose. They set their faces toward the golden north, and went on and on through every obstacle like men dreaming, like somnambulists—bending their backs to rhe most crushing burdens, their fac- s distorted with effort. *On to Dav son!’ ’To the Klondike!’ That wa< all they knew. ”1 overtook them in rhe Eraser River \ alley. I found them in Hazleton. They were setting sail at Bennett. rugging oars on rhe Hotalinqua. and hundreds of them were landing every day at Dawson, there to stand with lax jaws waiting for seiner hi ng to turn up —lost among thousands of their kind swarming in with the same insane purpose.” We may say. in conclusion, that it is seldom we find an explorer rilled with such sympathy for the horses which carry him and his food through dreadful solitudes. Lovers of animals will find passage after passage most affecting, which deal with rhe sufferings of the doomed beasts of burden. A volume to recd and to keep.