Part 1

Transcriber's Note

There are numerous photographs included in this text. Each is indicated using captions as [Illustration: Description.]. Italic text is shown using underscore delimiters as _italic_. There is a single instance of the 'oe' ligature, which is here given as 'oe'.

Spelling is generally retained, with several exceptions which appear to be printer's errors. Details may be found in an End Note following this text. Hyphenation can be variable and is retained as found. Where the sole instance of a hyphenated word occurs on a line break, modern usage is followed.

There is a single footnote, a gloss on the title of the Fifth Letter, which has been left near the beginning of that Letter.

IN TO THE YUKON

BY

WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS

SECOND EDITION

CINCINNATI THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 1905

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1904 REPRINTED JUNE 1905

PRESS OF THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY CINCINNATI, U. S. A.

DEDICATION.

TO THE COMRADE WHOSE CHARMING COMPANIONSHIP ADDED SO GREATLY TO THE DELIGHTS OF MY TWO MONTHS' OUTING, THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

These letters were not written for publication originally. They were written for the home circle and the few friends who might care to read them. They are the brief narrative of daily journeyings and experiences during a very delightful two months of travel into the far north and along the Pacific slope of our continent. Some of the letters were afterwards published in the daily press. They are now put into this little book and a few of the Kodak snapshots taken are given in half-tone prints.

We were greeted with much friendliness along the way and were the recipients of many courtesies. None showed us greater attention than the able and considerate officials of the Pacific Coast S. S. Co., the Alaska S. S. Co. and the White Pass and Yukon Railway Co., including Mr. Kekewich, managing Director of the London Board, and Mr. Newell, Vice-President of the Company.

At Atlin and Dawson we met and made many friends, and we would here reiterate to them, one and all, our warm appreciation of their hospitalities.

WILLIAM SEYMOUR EDWARDS.

CHARLESTON-KANAWHA, WEST VIRGINIA, August, 1904.

CONTENTS

PAGE.

I. THE GREAT LAKES. CLEVELAND TO DETROIT 13

II. ST. PAUL, WINNIPEG AND BANFF; THE WHEAT LANDS OF THE FAR NORTHWEST 20

III. BANFF TO VANCOUVER ACROSS THE ROCKIES AND SELKIRKS 38

IV. VANCOUVER AND SKAGWAY; FJORDS AND FORESTS 52

V. SKAGWAY, CARIBOU CROSSING AND ATLIN 75

VI. THE GREAT LLEWELLYN OR TAKU GLACIER 109

VII. VOYAGING DOWN THE MIGHTY YUKON 112

VIII. DAWSON AND THE GOLDEN KLONDIKE 132

IX. MEN OF THE KLONDIKE 170

X. DOG LORE OF THE NORTH 180

XI. HOW THE GOVERNMENT SEARCHES FOR GOLD 195

XII. SEATTLE, THE FUTURE MISTRESS OF THE TRADE AND COMMERCE OF THE NORTH 206

XIII. THE VALLEY OF THE WILLAMETTE 224

XIV. SAN FRANCISCO 230

XV. LOS ANGELES 249

XVI. SAN FRANCISCO AND SALT LAKE CITY 260

XVII. A BRONCHO-BUSTING MATCH 282

XVIII. COLORADO AND DENVER 300

XIX. ACROSS NEBRASKA 307

XX. ALONG IOWA AND INTO MISSOURI TO ST. LOUIS 314

INDEX 333

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE.

The Author and His Wife Upon the Trail _Frontispiece_.

The Waterside, Cleveland 15

Entrance St. Clair Canal 15

White Bear Lake, St. Paul 31

Down the Silver Bow--Banff 31

A Reach of the Fraser River 41

Big Douglas Fir--Vancouver Park 45

Victoria, B. C.--The Harbor 49

Leaving Vancouver 53

Awaiting Cargo--Vancouver, B. C. 57

Totem Poles at Ketchikan 61

Glaciers on Frederick Sound 63

Approaching Fort Wrangel 67

The Pier--Fort Wrangel 67

The Pier--Skagway 71

Lynn Canal from the Summit of White Pass 71

Looking Down White Pass 73

The Summit--White Pass 73

Railway Train--Skagway 77

The International Boundary 77

Early September Snow, Caribou Crossing 79

Caribou Crossing 79

A Vista on Lake Marsh 83

Woodland Along Lake Marsh 83

On the Trail at Caribou 85

View Near Caribou Crossing 85

The Taku River 89

Lake Atlin 91

Dogs, Atlin 91

Atlin Baggage Express 95

Atlin City Waterworks 95

Government Mail Crossing Lake Atlin 99

Miner's Cabin on Spruce Creek, Atlin Gold Diggings 99

Finding "Color," a Good Strike, Otter Creek, B. C. 103

Sluicing for Gold, Otter Creek, B. C. 103

An Atlin Gold Digger 105

Bishop and Mrs. Bompas 113

Great Llewellyn or Taku Glacier 113

Fishing for Grayling, White Horse Rapids 117

Moonlight on Lake Le Barge 119

Lake Bennett, from Our Car 119

A Yukon Sunset 123

The Upper Yukon 123

A Yukon Coal Mine 125

Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon 125

Coming Up the Yukon 129

The "Sarah" Arriving at Dawson, 1,600 Miles up from St. Michael's 133

The Levee, Dawson--Our Steamer 133

Dawson City, The Yukon--Looking Down 137

Dawson and Mouth of Klondike River, Looking Up 137

Second Avenue, Dawson 141

Dawson--View Down the Yukon 141

The Cecil--The First Hotel in Dawson 143

A Private Carriage, Dawson 143

Dog Corral--The Fastest Team in Dawson 147

A Potato Patch at Dawson 147

First Agricultural Fair Held at Dawson, September, 1903 151

Daily Stage on Bonanza 155

Discovery Claim on Bonanza of the Klondike 155

Looking Up the Klondike River 159

The Author at White Horse Rapids 159

"Mes Enfants," Malamute Pups 161

A Klondike Cabin 161

On the Yukon 175

Floating Down the Yukon 175

Approaching Seattle 181

With and Without 181

Malamute Team of Government Mail Carrier, Dawson 187

Breaking of the Yukon--May 17, 1903 187

Sun Dogs 189

Winter Landscape 189

Lake Bennett 197

The Height of Land, White Pass 197

Mt. Ranier or Tacoma 217

Along the Columbia River 221

A Big Redwood 235

Italian Fishing Craft at Santa Cruz 239

Approaching San Francisco 239

The Franciscan Garden--Santa Barbara 243

Our Franciscan Guide 243

The Sea--Santa Barbara (two views) 245

Marengo Avenue, Pasadena 251

Street View, Los Angeles 251

The Sagebrush and Alkali Desert 263

The Mormon Temple 267

The Mormon Tithing House 271

The Mormon "Lion House" 271

Great Salt Lake 277

Nuckolds Putting on the Hoodwink 285

Nuckolds, "The Broncho Busted" 285

Grimsby and the Judges 289

Bunn, Making Rope Bridle 289

Arizona Moore Up 293

Arizona Moore 293

The Crowd at the Broncho-Busting Match 298

The Dun-colored Devil 298

On the Great Kanawha 325

Our Kanawha Garden 327

Map of Route in the United States 329

Map of Upper Yukon Basin 331

IN TO THE YUKON

FIRST LETTER.

THE GREAT LAKES, CLEVELAND TO DETROIT.

STEAMER NORTHWEST, ON LAKE SUPERIOR, } August 11, 1903. }

We reached Cleveland just in time to catch the big liner, which cast off her cables almost as soon as we were aboard. A vessel of 5,000 tons, a regular sea ship. The boat was packed with well-dressed people, out for a vacation trip, most of them. By and by we began to pass islands, and about 2 P. M. turned into a broad channel between sedgy banks--the Detroit River. Many craft we passed and more overtook, for we were the fastest thing on the lakes as well as the biggest.

Toward 3 P. M., the tall chimneys of the huge salt works and the church spires of the city of Detroit began to come into view. A superb water front, several miles long, and great warehouses and substantial buildings of brick and stone, fit for a vast commerce.

The sail up the Detroit River, through Lake St. Clair, and then up the St. Clair River to Lake Huron, was as lovely a water trip as any I have made. The superb park "Belle Isle," the pride of Detroit; the many, very many, villas and cottages all along the water-side, hundreds of them; everywhere boats, skiffs, launches, naphtha and steam, all filled with Sunday pleasure excursionists, the many great pleasure excursion steamers loaded down with passengers, gave a life and liveliness to the water views that astonished and pleased us.

The Lake St. Clair is about twenty miles across, apparently broader than it is, for the reason that its sedgy margins are so wide that the trees and higher land further back seem the real border of the lake. What is called the "St. Clair Flats" are the wide, low-lying lands on each side of the long reaches of the St. Clair River. Twenty miles of cottages, hotels, club-houses, are strung along the water-side, each with its little pier and its boats.

Towards dark--eight o'clock--we came to Sarnia and Port Huron, and pointed out into the great lake, second in depth to Superior--larger than any but Superior--a bit of geography I had quite forgotten.

At dawn on Monday, we were skirting the high-wooded southern shore, and by 11 A. M. sighted the fir-clad heights of Mackinac where Lake Michigan comes in. Here is a beautiful protected bay, where is a big hotel, and the good people of Chicago come to forget the summer heats. After half an hour, we turned again and toward the north, in a half circle, and by 4 P. M. were amidst islands and in a narrow channel, the St. Mary's River.

Huron is a deep blue like Superior, and unlike the green of shallow Erie. The channel toward the Soo is very tortuous--many windings and sharp turns, marked by buoys and multitudinous beacon lights. All along we had passed great numbers of steamships and barges--ore carriers, but nowhere saw a large sailing craft, only a sail boat here and there. This entire extensive traffic is a steam traffic, and though we see many boats, they are black and sombre, and burdened with coal and ore.

It was late, nearly seven o'clock, when we steamed slowly into the lock basin at the Soo. High fir-clad hills on either hand; a multitude of channels among wooded islands. A new and vigorous manufacturing community growing up on either shore where the electric power is being harnessed. Many buildings, many new residences, some of them large and imposing, covering the sloping hillsides. The rapids are a mile or more in length and half a mile wide. The American canal with its locks is on the south side. One, the old lock, small; the other, large and deep for modern traffic. We were here delayed more than two hours by reason of the pack of boats ahead of us. It was dark when we came out of the lock--a lift of twenty-one feet. But meantime, the hills on either hand had burst out into hundreds of electric lights, betokening a much greater population than I had conceived. As we entered the American lock, a big black ship, almost as large as ours, crept in behind us to the Canadian lock on the river's further side--one of the Canadian Pacific line going to Fort William.

It was a full moon as we came out of the upper river and lost ourselves in the blackness of Lake Superior. A keen, crisp wind, a heavier swell than on the lakes below. We were continually passing innumerable craft with their dancing night lights. The tonnage that now goes through the Soo canals is greater than that of Suez. How little could the world have dreamed of this a few years ago!

To-day when I came on deck we were just entering the ship canal that makes the short cut by way of Houghton. A cold mist and rain, fir-trees and birches, small and stunted, a cold land. A country smacking strongly of Norway. No wonder the Scandinavians and Finns take to a land so like their own.

At Houghton we were in the center of the copper region. A vigorous town, many handsome residences. But it has been cold all day. Mercury 56 degrees this morning. A sharp wind from the north. The bulk of the passengers are summer tourists in thin gauze and light clothing, and all day they are shivering in the cabin under cover, while we stay warm out on deck.

The food is excellent, and the famous planked white fish is our stand-by.

This whole trip is a great surprise to me. The splendid great ship, the conveniences and luxury equalling any trans-Atlantic liner. The variety and beauty of the scenery, the differences in the lakes, their magnitude, the islands, the tributary rivers with their great flow of clear water, the vast traffic of multitudinous big boats. The life and vigor and stir of this north country! Many of the passengers are going to the Yellowstone. We will reach Duluth about 10 P. M., and leave by the 11:10 Great Northern train for St. Paul.

SECOND LETTER.

ST. PAUL, WINNIPEG AND BANFF; THE WHEAT LANDS OF THE FAR NORTHWEST.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota, August 13, 1903.

We have spent two delightful days in St. Paul, great city of the Northwest that it is. We came over from West Superior by the "Great Northern" route, very comfortably in a new and fresh-kept sleeper--a night's ride. I was early awake and sat for an hour watching the wide flat farming country of Minnesota. Not much timber, never a cornfield, much wheat and oats and hay land. A black, rich soil. Still a good deal of roll to the landscape, and, at the same time, a certain premonition of the greater, more boundless flatness of the land yet further west. And a land, as well, of many picturesque little lakes and pools. I now the more perfectly comprehend why the Indian word "Minne," water, comes in so often among the names and titles of Minne-sota.

The farm houses and farm buildings we pass are large and well built, and here and there I see a building which might be along the Baegna Valley or the Telemarken Fjords of Norway, it is so evidently Norse. There are, as yet, but few people at the way-stations. We are a through flyer, and the earlier commuters are not yet astir.

About the houses and barns, also, I notice a certain snugness, indicative of winters that are cold.

Now, we are nearing the city, there are more men at the way-stations. It is evident that the early morning local will follow us close behind.

We came into the big Union Depot on time. The air was crisp and dry. There was much bustle and ado. These people move with an alert vigor, their cheeks are rosy, their eyes are snappy, and I like the swing of their shoulders as they step briskly along the streets. Mankind migrates along earth's parallels of latitude, so 'tis said--and Minnesota and the great Northwest is but another New England and New York. Vermont and New Hampshire, Massachusetts and New York have sent her their ablest sons and daughters, while Ontario and Quebec and the Maritime Provinces have contributed to her population of their force and power. Upon and among this matrix of superior American and Canadian stock, has also been superimposed many thousands of the more energetic and vigorous men, women and children of Europe's ancient warlike breeds--the viking Northmen of Norway and Sweden and of Denmark, of all Scandinavia. A still great race in their fatherlands, a splendid reinforcement to the virtues of Puritan and Knickerbocker; while there have also come cross currents from Virginia and the South. The type you see upon the streets is American, but among it, and with it, is prominently evident the Norse blue eyes and yellow hair of Scandinavia.

St. Paul is surely a great city, great in her present, great in her future. St. Paul is builded on several hills, out along which are avenues and boulevards and rows of sumptuous private residences, while down in the valleys are gathered the more part of the big, modern business blocks and store houses and manufacturing establishments, where are centered the energies which direct her industries and commerce. St. Paul is a rich city, a solid city. The wild boom days of fifteen and twenty years ago are quite gone by, the bubble period has been safely weathered, she is now settled down to conservative although keen and active business and trade. She supplies all of that immense region lying west and north of her, even into the now unfolding Canadian Far Northwest. The continent is hers, even to the Pacific and the Arctic Seas. Minnesota and the Dakotas and Montana have already poured their wealth of grains and of ores, of wheat and of oats, of rye and of barley, of iron and of copper, of silver and of gold, into her capacious lap, and now Manitoba and Alberta and Assiniboia and Saskatchewan and Athabaska, and all the unfolding regions between the Hudson Bay and the Rocky Mountains, the fertile valleys of the Saskatchewan and Peace Rivers, are to contribute even yet more lavishly to her future commercial predominance as unrivalled mistress of the North. She and Minneapolis will have this trade. She and her twin sister city are entitled to it. And if I mistake not the spirit of the men I have talked with upon her streets, in her shops and banks and clubs, she and Minneapolis will secure of it their full and certain share.

Here in the splendid stores of St. Paul we have made the last few purchases of the things we shall need for our going into the distant Yukon. H. has bought a perfectly fitting sweater--a garment that we searched for and ransacked through the town of Antwerp, in Belgium, two years ago, and could not find, while I have laid in some woolen garments, so fit and warm that they make one hanker for an Arctic blizzard just for the joy of trying them on.

And we have been feted and wined and dined as only mortals may be, who have fallen among long-time and well-tried friends. A sumptuous lunch has been given us at the Merchants' Club, where old chums and classmates of my Cornell College days did make me almost believe that it was but yesterday that we went forth from our Alma Mater's Halls.

Later in the day we have taken one of the many suburban trains and journeyed down ten miles to the summer country home of another old-time friend, along the shores of White Bear Lake, and all the afternoon have enjoyed a sail in the crack yacht of the fleet that parades these waters. A new design of boat. Conceived and perfected in St. Paul, and which has this summer carried havoc and defeat to every competing yacht club of all the wide country of the western and northern lakes, and even caused perturbation among the proud salt-water skippers of the east. I send you a snap-shot of the prize yacht as she lies floating at her little pier.

And when we came back and landed from our voyage, we found assembled an even greater company than we had yet met, to again give us welcome without stint. We gathered in the commodious dining-hall of our host, a delightful company, these men who once with me were boys, and their cultivated wives! Long and late we sat, and old college songs we sang, until the eastern sky was already lightening with the approach of dawn. Many of us had not met for nigh twenty years, when we had parted to go forth to fight life's battles and to win or lose.