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ALASKA
AND THE KLONDIKE
SIMCLAIN
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of Toronto
http://www.archive.org/details/alaskaklondik00mcla
HUS MIG142
ALASKA
AND THE KLONDIKE BY
JOHN SCUDDER MCLAIN
MCC P
Co
SIMPLEX
MVNDITIİŞ
NY
ME .
Illustrated from Photographs
NEW YORK MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. MCMV
07491 9/1/06
Copyright, 1905, by MCCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. Published, March, 1905
To My First Assistant My Wife
.
CONTENTS
I. THE " INSIDE PASSAGE " . 3 .
II. SKAGWAY TO DAWSON .
. 22
III. A " CHEE-CHA-KO " IN THE KLONDIKE . 41
IV. CROSSING THE ARCTIC CIRCLE . · 68
V. THROUGH THE HEART OF ALASKA . 98
VI. PHASES OF LIFE ON BERING SEA · I26
VII. NOME AND THE GOLD FIELDS OF THE SEWARD PENINSULA · 150
VIII. THE SEAL ISLANDS · . 175
IX. THE ALASKAN FISHERIES . 194 X. TRANSPORTATION-THE KEY TO ALASKA'S LOCKED-UP WEALTH . 213
XI. POLITICAL CONDITIONS . 237
XII. AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES OF ALASKA . 258
XIII. INDIANS OF ALASKA . 276
XIV. THE FAIRBANKS DISTRICT . 303
XV. THE REINDEER INDUSTRY
. 315
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Sailing the " Inside Passage " to Skagway
7
Totem at Wrangell I 5
Hydraulic Mining, Silver Bow Basin I7 .
Juneau in Winter ·
. 19
" Mushing " over White Pass in 1898
20 .
White Horse Rapids
25
Bishop Bompas
.
28
Typical Upper Yukon Craft in 1898
.
33
Travelling on the Yukon 35 .
" Wooding up " on the Yukon
37
.
Five Finger Rapids on the Upper Yukon . 40
The Governor's Residence in Dawson
· 43
Looking Northwest down the Yukon Northwest Mounted Police .
· 47
.
Street Scene in Grand Forks .
57
George A. Brackett Washing out a Pan
.
59
" Chee-cha-ko " Hill in the Klondike
.
63
" Skipper " Norwood . . 65
Washing out Gold with the Rocker
73
River Front at Eagle
75
The Senator from Minnesota Ready for the Trail at Eagle . · 77
A Dog Team in Alaska
.
· 79
.
52
xii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Officers Composing Overland Expedition-Captain Jarvis on the Right
83
Ben Downing
87
Miner and Dogs Rigged for Packing
· 91
Old Hudson Bay Trading Post, Fort Yukon
. 95
Bargain Day at Rampart
. IOI
Dog Power at Rampart
· 103
While Crossing the Arctic Circle . . IO5
Drying Salmon on the Yukon
. 107
Indian " Cache " at Rampart
. . 109
Horns of Primeval Ox . 0
. III
Lodge of Arctic Brotherhood, Rampart . . 113 .
Indian Graves at Anvik
. . II5
A " Prominent Citizen " of Anvik ·
· . 118
An Afternoon Tea at Anvik .
. . I2I
Holy Cross Mission Chapel
. 123
Indian School at Holy Cross Mission
. 125
Old Russian Blockhouse at St. Michael . 127
Belles of St. Michael . 129
Interior of the Kazhim, St. Michael · . 133
The McCulloch at Sea .
. 135
Captain Coulson .
. 137
A Section of Nome
. 14I
A Bit of Nome Surf
. 143
Landing at Nome
I45
Arriving at Nome a Little Early
. 147
The Senate " Goes in the Air " . . 148
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
xiii
Page Main Street in Nome . 151 Nome in 1899 . 153
The Senatorial Banquet at Nome . 155
Jafet Linderberg and Party . . 161
A Clean-up on " No. 8 Above," on Anvil Creek . 163
Sluice Boxes on Anvil Creek . 165
Washing out Gold with a " Long Tom " near Nome 167 Curio Peddlers at Nome . 170
Killing Seal on St. Paul Island . 18I
Taking Seal Pelts on the Killing Grounds . 183
A Section of a Seal Rookery on St. Paul Island . . 185
Unalaska . 195
Pacific Squadron in Dutch Harbour
. 197
Kodiak, or St. Paul, on Kadiak Island . 201
Drawing in the Net at Karluk . 205
South Alaska Indian in Kiak . . 209
Columbia Glacier, Prince William Sound . 215
Valdez . 219
It Snows in Valdez
. 223
Solomon Rapids, near Valdez . 227
Islands in Sitka Harbour
. 239
Sitka Totems
. 24I
Sitka in Winter
. 243
The Shore Walk Leading to Indian River Park . 247 The Greek Church at Sitka . 249
Madonna in Greek Church, Sitka
. 251
.
Interior of Greek Church, Sitka · . 253
xiv
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Grown in Alaska . 263
Potatoes from Kadiak .
. 266
Varieties of Oats Grown at Sitka
. 268
Eskimo Woman Cooking Her Supper on the Sandspit at Nome . 277
Fourth of July at Metlakahtla
. 28 1
Berry Pickers ·
. . 283
Eskimo Woman and Child
. 287
Metlakahtla . 289
Father Duncan . 291
Residence and Totem of Chief Tlah-Go-Glass . . 293
Eskimo Boy and Young Malamute . 297
Getting Busy in Fairbanks .
· 305
Fresh Arrivals at Fairbanks . · 309
Midday Rest of Reindeer Herd
. 317
Laps and Reindeer
. 319
Group of Laplanders in Alaska
. 321
Mary Andrewuk, Reindeer Rancher and Richest Na- tive Woman in Alaska . 323
A FOREWORD
When the special subcommittee of the Senate Com- mittee on Territories visited Alaska in the summer of 1903 for the purpose of gathering information which would enable them to legislate wisely and helpfully with regard to that great district, I was fortunate enough to obtain permission to accompany the senatorial party in an unofficial capacity. The trip occupied, approximately, ten weeks, and carried us not only through the interior, along the whole course of the Yukon River, but to many places on the coast and among the islands not readily accessible by the regular means of travel. As will be readily under- stood, I enjoyed peculiarly favourable opportunities to study the resources and the possibilities of the country, and the following pages on Alaska, in their original form, were written for my paper after my return home, and published in it exclusively. There appears to be a demand for reliable and up-to-date information about that coun- try-that, and the urgent request of men who have read what I have written, and who know Alaska, that it be given permanent and convenient form, are the excuses for this volume.
For this purpose the original story of Alaska has been carefully revised and the statistical information brought down to include the commercial and industrial operations of the year 1904.
J. S. M.
MINNEAPOLIS, 1904.
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
I
THE " INSIDE PASSAGE "
W ELL, what do you think about it, anyway? Is Alaska any good? "
I have met that question in substantially that form a great many times since I returned from a somewhat extended journey through Alaska. Perhaps I cannot add much that is new to the romance of that land of adventure, but I am ready to furnish an answer to the above question.
In a nutshell, then-and prefatory first to the story of my trip and then to some discussion of the various impor- tant interests and questions pertaining to Alaska-my observation and enquiry have fully persuaded me that Alaska is a wonderfully rich country.
Rich in minerals-
Rich in timber-
Rich in agricultural possibilities-
Rich in fisheries.
When Secretary Seward purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7,200,000 the anti-expansionists of that period ridiculed the transaction as a piece of supreme folly. and the public generally agreed that he had bought nothing in particular except a few fur seals and a vast expanse of icebergs and glaciers.
The commerce of Alaska for the year ending June 30,
4
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
1903, amounted to over $21,000,000, not including the gold output, which would add nearly $7,000,000 more. It is officially stated that since Alaska became American territory it has exported furs, fish and gold in about equal values to the amount of $150,000,000, while investments of American capital in Alaska have reached $25,000,000. To this should be added considerable sums employed in furnishing transportation to Alaska. The same official authority estimates the aggregate shipments of merchan- dise to Alaska from the United States during the same period at $100,000,000. It takes something more than a few seals and icebergs to develop a commerce of such dimensions. That this is only the small beginning of what is to follow in the not far distant future is my firm belief.
I hope I shall be correctly understood, for while I am much impressed with the great natural wealth of Alaska and the opportunities which it offers to men of courage and even moderate resources, it does not seem to me to offer at the present time to the man equipped with only a pair of strong hands the inducements which should attract him in large numbers. Labour is in moderate demand and comparatively well paid, but there are no " diggings " now like the beach sands at Nome, where at one time, with only a shovel and a pan, a man could wash out a moderate fortune in a few days. Such remarkably rich deposits of gold capable of being worked in the same inex- pensive way may be found again, but there are no such attractive chances for the poor man in sight now.
During the winter of 1902 and 1903 when matters of
5
THE " INSIDE PASSAGE "
legislation affecting Alaska were under consideration by the Senate committee on territories the members of that committee felt considerably embarrassed by their lack of accurate and reliable information as to the real needs of that district. No member of the committee had ever seen Alaska. Advice was proffered on various subjects from various sources, not all of which, the committee felt, could be relied upon as valuable or disinterested. The conclu- sion could not be evaded that the proper thing for the com- mittee to do was to send a delegation of its own members to Alaska during the summer vacation to study the district politically and commercially and from every other stand- point. Senator Beveridge, chairman of the committee, selected as such subcommittee Senator W. P. Dillingham, of Vermont, chairman of the subcommittee; Senator H. E. Burnham, of New Hampshire; Senator Knute Nelson, of Minnesota ; and Senator Thomas M. Patterson, of Colo- rado. I was fortunate enough to secure, through the kind- ness of Senator Beveridge, permission to accompany this senatorial subcommittee on their tour of investigation. The party was in the charge of Colonel D. M. Ransdell, sergeant-at-arms of the United States Senate. Other mem- bers of the party were Secretaries A. C. Johnson, of Den- ver, and J. F. Hayes, of Indianapolis. I was extremely fortunate, too, in having for my travelling companion as far as Dawson, Mr. George A. Brackett, of Minneapolis, who was returning to look after important mining interests of his own in Atlin, on the Canadian side. His long and eventful life in the Northwest, his extensive acquaintance
6
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
and his active and important participation in the con- structive work between the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains in earlier days, and more recently in Alaska itself, made him an invaluable source of information and means of introduction.
The committee assembled at Seattle June 25, 1903. The business men of Seattle, whose prosperity has been built largely out of the Alaskan trade, were not slow to appreciate the importance of this official visit, and gladly availed themselves of an invitation to come before the committee and give information concerning Alaska and make suggestions as to what Congress could do to promote its welfare. Representatives of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce brought up for consideration at that meeting pretty nearly every question of importance that arose in the subsequent weeks of thorough enquiry-amendments to the mining laws and particularly the abolition of the power of attorney in locating mining claims; the question of a delegate in Congress and of a territorial form of government; the preservation of the fisheries; better mail facilities, and the great need of wagon roads-these and other matters affecting the development of the district were discussed by men compelled by their business connections and interests to be familiar with the situation in Alaska.
It was nearly 9 o'clock in the evening of June 28, when Captain Hunter gave the order to "cast loose " and the Dolphin drifted slowly out from the slip at Seattle and turned her prow toward Skagway. After the last " good- byes " had been shouted from ship to shore and from shore
--
DOLPHIN.
Sailing the " Inside Passage " to Skagway
8
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
to ship and the handkerchiefs had ceased to wave fare- well, my interest centred upon the ship's company. Night was falling and there was little opportunity then to see and enjoy further the scenic beauties of that great inland waterway, which is already beginning to attract the larger part of the commerce of our Pacific coast. The mar- vellous growth of the shipping with our own coast, with Alaska and with the Orient, which is centring in Puget Sound ports is an interesting theme of itself, but it is not a part of this story. We are bound for Alaska and find a shipload going the same way. It is an interesting com- pany. The first question you will have to answer with respect to yourself when you start to Alaska, is whether you have ever been "inside." You will presently dis- cover that "inside " and "outside " are the common designations of one's movements to or from Alaska. Those who are going to the interior of Alaska are " going inside " and those who leave the country are going " out- side." And the term is not inapt. Here in the States we think of Alaska as a long way off, and the use of the words " inside " and " outside " with respect to it is unconscious testimony on the part of the residents of Alaska to the remoteness and present difficulties of access to the greater part of that country.
A turn on deck and through the cabin of this speedy and comfortable boat suggests the title of one of Mr. Besant's books-there are " All Sorts and Conditions of Men " there-and women, too. Indeed, women seem to pre- dominate and an explanation is found in the fact that it
9
THE " INSIDE PASSAGE "
is a custom for men in Alaska and the Klondike whose business requires that they stay "inside " in winter to send their wives "outside" during that season. The women are now returning to their husbands. The rush had already gone in, on the earlier boats, but there are among the company some who have " struck it rich," and, mining being largely at a standstill in Alaska in winter, they choose to spend their winters in southern California or New York where there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy the thousands which their sluice boxes yield in sum- mer. There are some engaged in legitimate branches of business in Alaska and some not so engaged. We are many miles from Alaska's most southerly cape, but it is not too soon to scent the Alaskan atmosphere, and the oppor- tunities afforded on board an Alaska-bound steamer to get in on the ground floor of a mining deal are not to be despised on account of their infrequency or for lack of the brilliant prospects that are offered.
Of course we take the inside passage, and the next morn- ing finds us in British waters between the mainland and Vancouver Island, a piece of land about one-third as big as England herself, broken off the west coast of British America and rich in timber, minerals and fruitful valleys, with a climate not unlike that of the mother country, which held on to this island as well as the adjacent main- land as a crown colony long after the organisation of the Dominion of Canada.
It is just about an even thousand miles from Seattle to Skagway, and all the way practically the route lies among
IO
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
the islands which guard the western coast like pickets of the line, their lofty mountain peaks often obscured by the clouds or glistening white as the sunlight falls upon their snowy summits. The channels are deep, the waters green and dark and wonderfully phosphorescent at night, but quiet as an inland lake ; and one may give himself over to full enjoyment of the ever-changing and ever-charming panorama of sea and mountain, of crags and peaks and softly wooded slopes, of vegetation at the water's edge, dense and tropical in its luxuriance, suddenly cut off for a space where a rigid stream of ice and snow, heading up among the mountain tops, fills the passes between and comes down almost to the water's edge-such contrasts does Nature delight in that she plants her fairest flowers at the feet of her dead glaciers. Sometimes the water passes widen to several miles, and again they contract to a few hundred feet of narrow gorge where the deep green waters of the sea boil and foam and dash along the nearby rocky shores as the tide rushes in or out.
At such times the skill of the navigator is put to the test, especially under the hitherto deplorable and almost criminal neglect of this coast by the lighthouse service of both the United States and the Dominion Governments; for, while the Dominion Government has certainly acted more liberally, as well as more wisely, than our own Gov- ernment in this respect, there is a pressing need of great improvement all along these now much-travelled water- ways.
The inside passage is said to resemble very much the
II
THE " INSIDE PASSAGE "
waters along the west coast of Norway, whose fjords have begun to attract tourists from our own country by their wild and rugged grandeur, and it seems to me that when their attractions become known for what they are the ocean stretches of the archipelago between Puget Sound and the Lynn Canal are destined to constitute one of the most frequented summer playgrounds of the world, as they certainly are one of the most charming. What a delightful place for a holiday cruise in yacht or launch, where quiet coves or landlocked harbours may be found for every night's anchorage; where game abounds on the islands and the waters teem with life of every kind, from the trout of the mountain streams to the sociable porpoise and the spouting whale. And not only is there the charm of scenery, such as our continent nowhere else affords, and the opportunity for rare sport with rod and gun, but the hospitable and friendly native Indians, in their pictur- esque villages, are a source of unfailing interest. This archipelago is the land of the totem pole, whose grotesque and often hideous carvings argue strongly for the Asiatic origin of a people who are rapidly disappearing before the march of western civilisation. If their Asiatic origin may not be safely asserted, it must at least be conceded that in their handicrafts of weaving and carving their arts appear to have been much influenced by contact with the Japanese somewhere and at some time.
Captain C. E. Peabody, president of the Alaska Steam- ship Company, fully appreciating the importance to Alaska of affording the senatorial committee every facility for
12
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
prosecuting their work, gave instructions that the Dol- phin should run on this trip to suit the convenience of the senators. This made it possible for us, after touch- ing in the night at Ketchikan, the first port of entry in Alaska, to return-somewhat out of our course-early on the morning of the third day out, to Metlakahtla, the most remarkable and interesting Indian community in America. The story of this community has been told in part in newspapers and magazines, and naturally our interest was lively as we came in sight of its imposing church towers, its extensive fish cannery, its sawmills, its school and hospital buildings, its stores and comfortable- looking dwellings, and recalled the fact that this was the work of one man working alone, and beginning with a tribe of Indians who were once so low in the human scale that they have been accused of cannibalism when in their savage state. Father Duncan, as he is called, can hardly be spoken of as a type-there are no others like him.
As the ship touched the dock in the early morning, a few native men, who had been attracted by the boat's whistle, came forward bowing, and trying to make them- selves understood in broken English-and when an Alaska Indian breaks up the English language his habit of gut- turals and aspirates knocks it into little bits. One of them was sent forward to notify Father Duncan of our arrival, while we followed after, and met this remarkable little man as he came bustling out of his house, apologising for the apparently inhospitable reception, on the score of no anticipation of a senatorial visit. A short, stocky man,
13
THE " INSIDE PASSAGE "
round-faced and ruddy ; merry-eyed and having under his round, black hat a fringe of thin, white hair; beard full and snowy; nervous and quick in movement, modest in every reference to his work, but pleased to have others interest themselves in it-these are some of the recollec- tions I have of William Duncan as he led us to the school- house, to the church, to the girls' school, the hospital, the salmon cannery, the sawmill, and repeatedly assured us that the Indians had built it all. Metlakahtla is on Annette Island, at the lower end of the American part of the west-coast archipelago.
If this is Indian life in Alaska, surely, it was suggested, the natives have little to complain of. But a view of what has been accomplished at Metlakahtla served later to heighten the contrast between what our Government has done, or rather, has not done, for the natives of Alaska, and what it ought to have done and might have done profitably, viewing the matter purely from the commercial standpoint.
But Father Duncan and his Indians furnish the material for a good story by themselves, the telling of which must be left for another chapter-for we have only just entered Alaskan waters, and Skagway, our ship's destination, is 300 miles away. Practically two-thirds of this beautiful archipelago, it should be understood, belongs to Canada. If we had known in 1845 what we know now about its resources of minerals and timber alone, perhaps we would have stood by our bluff of " fifty-four, forty or fight," and the whole coast from Puget Sound to Portland Canal,
14
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
where the Russian boundary of Alaska had been fixed in 1824, would have been under the Stars and Stripes.
Leaving Metlakahtla after a two hours' visit, we returned to Ketchikan, the first white man's town reached in Alaskan territory. It is a new and thriving little city of 1,000 people incorporated and commencing to take on the airs of municipal life in the form of public water- works and a municipal electric-light plant. Built largely on piles along the water's edge it looks like a town on stilts, the buildings on the water front, and those further up the mountainside, having difficulty to find a level place big enough for the four corners of a small foundation and compelled, while resting one side on the ground, to support the other in air, perched above the steep decline on long, upright timbers. Ketchikan exists because of important mining operations and prospects in that region and be- cause of salmon canneries in that vicinity. It boasts, also, a busy lumber mill, at whose back door stands an immense forest of spruce, cedar, fir and hemlock. It is on these islands of the " inside passage " that nature has stored the principal timber resources of Alaska. They are not in large demand now, but the time will come when their extent and quality will constitute one of Alaska's impor- tant assets. Ketchikan, like Atlantic City, has a board walk, but here it penetrates the forest along the banks of a rushing mountain stream, and leads to the falls which are to furnish light and power. It sticks in my recollec- tion because it afforded the first opportunity to see what the forests of these islands are, back from the shore line,
15
THE " INSIDE PASSAGE "
how gigantic the timber and how dense the growth, while the undergrowth in its rank and tangled luxuriance sug- gests nothing so much as the semi-tropical jungle of the Florida swamps, and this on mountain slopes whose summits are capped with perpetual snow. But the climate is out of keep- ing with the latitude.
On the same meridian with Fort York, where the Nelson River flows into Hudson Bay, and with north central Labrador, the thermometer rarely reaches zero at Ketchikan and the mean temperature --- is about that of Washing- ton, D. C. The Japan cur- rent, which sweeps along the south side of the Aleu- tian chain, the south shore of the mainland and im- pinges on this archipelago, keeps all the harbours on its course open in winter Totem at Wrangell as well as in summer and produces in this part of Alaska a climate which led ex-Governor Swineford, who is a resi-
16
ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE
dent of Ketchikan, to say that if he were a resident of any state east of the mountains he would come here to spend his winters in preference to Florida.
The same evening, July I, we touched at Wrangell, at the mouth of the Stikine River. Once a Russian post, then leased to Great Britain for the benefit of the Hudson Bay Company, which lease cut a figure in the Alaskan boundary arbitration; afterwards a lively camp when the Cassiar mines were discovered and active still later when efforts were made to reach the Klondike by the Stikine route, Wrangell occupies a picturesque location, and tour- ists will always remember it for its curious totem poles. Here was established the first military post when Alaska became a possession of the United States in 1867.
The next morning, July 2, brought us to Juneau, the principal city of southeastern Alaska, and the centre of an important mining region. It is on the mainland, and back of it is the celebrated Silver Bow Basin, while across the channel on Douglas Island is the great Treadwell mine which, taken together with the Mexican and the Ready Bullion properties, operated in connection with it, is, with probably not more than one exception, the largest gold-quartz mining plant in the world. Nearly 1,200 men are employed here, working in two shifts a day, and the adjacent mountainsides echo the ceaseless roar of 880 stamps, crushing ore that ranges from $2 to $7 a ton. The total product of this property since it began to be operated is variously estimated at from $12,000,000 to $20,000,000-twice as much, it is safe to say, as would
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