CHAPTER XLV

When the _D. R. Campbell_ drew away from the Dawson wharf at nine o'clock of an August morning, another of my dreams was "come true." I was on my way down the weird and mysterious river that calls as powerfully in its way as the North Pacific Ocean. For years the mere sound of the word "Yukon" had affected me like the clash of a wild and musical bell. The sweep of great waters was in it--the ring of breaking ice and its thunderous fall; the roar of forest fires, of undermined plunging cliffs, of falling trees, of pitiless winds; the sobs of dark women, deserted upon its shores, with white children on their breasts; the mournful howls of dogs and of their wild brothers, wolves; the slide of avalanches and the long rattle of thunder--for years the word "Yukon" had set these sounds ringing in my ears, and had swung before my eyes the shifting pictures of canyon, rampart, and plain; of waters rushing through rock walls and again loitering over vast lowlands to the sea; of forestated mountains, rose thickets, bare hills, pale cliffs of clay, and ranges of sublime snow-mountains. Yet, with all that I had read, and all that I had heard, and all that I had imagined, I was unprepared for the spell of the Yukon; for the spaces, the solitude, the silence. At last I was to learn how well the name fits the river and the country, and how feeble and how ineffectual are both description and imagination to picture this country so that it may be understood.

Six miles below Dawson the site of old Fort Reliance is passed, and forty-six miles farther Forty-Mile River pours its broad flood into the Yukon. About eight miles up this river, at the lower end of a canyon, a strong current has swept many small boats upon dangerous rocks and the occupants have been drowned. The head of the Forty-Mile is but a short distance from the great Tanana.

The settlement of Forty-Mile is the pioneer mining-camp of the Yukon. The Alaska Commercial Company established a station here soon after the gold excitement of 1887; and, as the international boundary line crosses Forty-Mile River twenty-three miles from its mouth and many of the most important mining interests depending upon the town for supplies are on the American side, a bonded warehouse is maintained, from which American goods can be drawn without the payment of duties. As late as 1895 quite a lively town was at the mouth of the river, boasting even an opera house; but the town was depopulated upon the discovery of gold on the Klondike. Six years ago the settlement was flooded by water banked up in Forty-Mile River by ice, and the residents were taken from upstairs windows in boats. The former name of this river was Che-ton-deg, or "Green Leaf," River.

Now there are a couple of dozen log cabins, a dozen or more red-roofed houses, and store buildings. The steamer pushed up sidewise to the rocky beach, a gang-plank was floated ashore, and a customs inspector came aboard. On the beach were a couple of ladies, some members of the mounted police in scarlet coats, and fifty malamute dogs, snapping, snarling, and fighting like wolves over the food flung from the steamer.

The dog is to Alaska what the horse is to more civilized countries--the intelligent, patient, faithful beast of burden. He is of the Eskimo or "malamute" breed, having been bred with the wolf for endurance; or he is a "husky" from the Mackenzie River.

Eskimo dogs are driven with harness, hitched to sleds, and teams of five or seven with a good leader can haul several hundred pounds, if blessed with a kind driver. In summer they have nothing to do but sleep, and find their food as best they may. Along the Yukon they haunt steamer-landings and are always fed by the stewards--who can thus muster a dog fight for the pleasure of heartless passengers at a moment's notice.

With the coming of winter a kind of electric strength seems to enter into these dogs. They long for the harness and the journeys over snow and ice; and for a time they leap and frisk like puppies and will not be restrained. They are about the size of a St. Bernard dog, but of very different shape; the leader is always an intelligent and superior animal and his eyes frequently hold an almost human appeal. He is fairly dynamic in force, and when not in harness will fling himself upon food with a swiftness and a strength that suggest a missile hurled from a catapult. Nothing can check his course; and he has been known to strike his master to the earth in his headlong rush of greeting--although it has been cruelly said of him that he has no affection for any save the one that feeds him, and not for him after his hunger is satisfied.

The Eskimo dog seldom barks, but he has a mournful, wolflike howl. His coat is thick and somewhat like wool, and his feet are hard; he travels for great distances without becoming footsore, and at night he digs a deep hole in the snow, crawls into it, curls up in his own wool, and sleeps as sweetly as a pet Spitz on a cushion of down. His chief food is fish. If the Alaska dog is not affectionate, it is because for generations he has had no cause for affection. No dog with such eyes--so asking and so human-like in their expression--could fail to be affectionate and devoted to a master possessing the qualities which inspire affection and devotion.

In winter all the mails are carried by dogs, covering hundreds of miles.

Half a mile below Forty-Mile the town of Cudahy was founded in 1892 by the North American Trading and Transportation Company, as a rival settlement.

Fifty miles below Forty-Mile, at the confluence of Mission Creek with the Yukon, is Eagle, having a population of three or four hundred people. It has the most northerly customs office and military post, Fort Egbert, belonging to the United States, and is the terminus of the Valdez-Eagle mail route and telegraph line. It is also of importance as being but a few miles from the boundary.

Fort Egbert is a two-company post, and usually, as at the time of our visit, two companies are stationed there. The winter of 1904-1905 was the gayest in the social history of the fort. Several ladies, the wives and the sisters of officers, were there, and these, with the wife of the company's agent and other residents of the town, formed a brilliant and refined social club.

From November the 27th to January the 16th the sun does not appear above the hills to the south. The two "great" days at Eagle are the 16th of January,--"when the sun comes back,"--and the day "when the ice breaks in the river," usually the 12th of May. On the former occasion the people assemble, like a band of sun-worshippers, and celebrate its return.

The vegetable and flower gardens of Eagle were a revelation of what may be expected in the agricultural and floral line in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle. Potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, lettuce, turnips, radishes, and other vegetables were in a state of spendthrift luxuriance that cannot be imagined by one who has not travelled in a country where vegetables grow day and night.

In winter Eagle is a lonely place. The only mail it receives is the monthly mail passing through from Dawson to Nome by dog sleds; and no magazines, papers, or parcels are carried.

It was from Eagle that the first news was sent out to the world concerning Captain Amundsen's wonderful discovery of the Northwest Passage; here he arrived in midwinter after a long, hard journey by dog team from the Arctic Ocean and sent out the news which so many brave navigators of early days would have given their lives to be able to announce.

Within five years a railroad will probably connect Eagle with the coast at Valdez; meantime, there is a good government trail, poled by a government telegraph line.

Eagle came into existence in 1898, and the fort was established in 1899.

"Woodings-up" are picturesque features of Yukon travel. When the steamer does not land at a wood yard, mail is tied around a stick and thrown ashore. Fancy standing, a forlorn and homesick creature, on the bank of this great river and watching a letter from home caught by the rushing current and borne away! Yet this frequently happens, for heart affairs are small matters in the Arctic Circle and receive but scant consideration.

On the Upper Yukon wood is five dollars a cord; on the Lower, seven dollars; and a cord an hour is thrust into the immense and roaring furnaces.

During "wooding-up" times passengers go ashore and enjoy the forest. There are red and black currants, crab-apples, two varieties of salmon-berries, five of huckleberries, and strawberries. The high-bush cranberries are very pretty, with their red berries and delicate foliage.

Nation is a settlement of a dozen log cabins roofed with dirt and flowers, the roofs projecting prettily over the front porches. The wife of the storekeeper has lived here twenty-five years, and has been "outside" only once in twelve years. Passengers usually go ashore especially to meet her, and are always cordially welcomed, but are never permitted to condole with her on her isolated life. The spell of the Yukon has her in thrall, and content shines upon her brow as a star. Those who go ashore to pity, return with the dull ache of envy in their worldly hearts; for there be things on the Yukon that no worldly heart can understand.

We left Eagle in the forenoon and at midnight landed at Circle City, which received this name because it was first supposed to be located within the Arctic Circle. We found natives building houses at that hour, and this is my most vivid remembrance of Circle. Gold was discovered on Birch Creek, within eight miles of the settlement, as early as 1892; and until the Klondike excitement this was the most populous camp on the Yukon, more than a thousand miners being quartered in the vicinity. Like other camps, it was then depopulated; but many miners have now returned and a brilliant discovery in this vicinity may yet startle the world. The output of gold for 1906 was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. About three hundred miners are operating on tributaries up Birch Creek. The great commercial companies are established at all these settlements on the Yukon, where they have large stores and warehouses.

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Early on the following morning we were on deck to cross the Arctic Circle. One has a feeling that a line with icicles dangling from it must be strung overhead, under which one passes into the enchanted realm of the real North.

"Feel that?" asked the man from Iowa of a big, unsmiling Englishman.

"Feel--er--what?" said the Englishman.

"That shock. It felt like stepping on the third rail of an electric railway."

But the Iowa humor was scorned, and the Englishman walked away.

We soon landed at Fort Yukon, the only landing in the Arctic Circle and the most northerly point on the Yukon. This post was established at the mouth of the Porcupine in 1847 by A. H. McMurray, of the Hudson Bay Company, and was moved in 1864 a mile lower on the Yukon, on account of the undermining of the bank by the wash of the river. During the early days of this post goods were brought from York Factory on Hudson Bay, four thousand miles distant, and were two years in transit. The whole Hudson Bay system, according to Dall, was one of exacting tyranny that almost equalled that of the Russian Company. The white men were urged to marry Indian, or native, women, to attach them to the country. The provisions sent in were few and these were consumed by the commanders of the trading posts or given to chiefs, to induce them to bring in furs. The white men received three pounds of tea and six of sugar annually, and no flour. This scanty supply was uncertain and often failed. Two suits of clothes were granted to the men, but nothing else until the furs were all purchased. If anything remained after the Indians were satisfied, the men were permitted to purchase; but Indians are rarely satisfied.

Fort Yukon has never been of importance as a mining centre, but has long been a great fur trading post for the Indians up the Porcupine. This trade has waned, however, and little remains but an Indian village and the old buildings of the post. We walked a mile into the woods to an old graveyard in a still, dim grove, probably the only one in the Arctic Circle.