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At the Foot of the Chilkoot Pass

ALONG
Alaska's Great River
A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE TRAVELS OF AN ALASKA EXPLORING EXPEDITION ALONG THE GREAT YUKON RIVER, FROM ITS SOURCE TO ITS MOUTH, IN THE BRITISH NORTH-WEST TERRITORY, AND IN THE TERRITORY OF ALASKA.

BY

FREDERICK SCHWATKA,

LAUREATE OF THE PARIS GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AND OF THE IMPERIAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF RUSSIA; HONORARY MEMBER BREMEN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, ETC., ETC., COMMANDER OF THE EXPEDITION.

Together with the Latest Information on the Klondike Country.

FULLY ILLUSTRATED.

CHICAGO NEW YORK
George M. Hill Company
MDCCCC

Copyright, 1898,
Geo. M. Hill Co.

[PREFACE.]

These pages narrate the travels, in a popular sense, of an Alaskan exploring expedition. The expedition was organized with seven members at Vancouver Barracks, Washington, and left Portland, Oregon, ascending through the inland passage to Alaska, as far as the Chilkat country. At that point the party employed over three score of the Chilkat Indians, the hardy inhabitants of that ice-bound country, to pack its effects across the glacier-clad pass of the Alaskan coast range of mountains to the headwaters of the Yukon. Here a large raft was constructed, and on this primitive craft, sailing through nearly a hundred and fifty miles of lakes, and shooting a number of rapids, the party floated along the great stream for over thirteen hundred miles; the longest raft journey ever made on behalf of geographical science. The entire river, over two thousand miles, was traversed, the party returning home by Bering Sea, and touching the Aleutian Islands.

The opening up of the great gold fields in the region of the upper Yukon, has added especial interest to everything pertaining to the great North-west. The Klondike region is the cynosure of the eyes of all, whether they be in the clutches of the gold fever or not. The geography, the climate, the scenery, the birds, beasts, and even flowers of the country make fascinating subjects. In view of the new discoveries in that part of the world, a new chapter, Chapter XIII, is given up to a detailed description of the Klondike region. The numerous routes by which it may be reached are described, and all the details as to the possibilities and resources of the country are authoritatively stated.

Chicago, March, 1898.

[CONTENTS.]

[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.]

ALONG ALASKA'S GREAT RIVER.

[CHAPTER I.]
INTRODUCTORY.

This Alaskan exploring expedition was composed of the following members: Lieut. Schwatka, U.S.A., commanding; Dr. George F. Wilson, U.S.A., Surgeon; Topographical Assistant Charles A. Homan, U.S. Engineers, Topographer and Photographer; Sergeant Charles A. Gloster, U.S.A., Artist; Corporal Shircliff, U.S.A., in charge of stores; Private Roth, assistant, and Citizen J. B. McIntosh, a miner, who had lived in Alaska and was well acquainted with its methods of travel. Indians and others were added and discharged from time to time as hereafter noted.

The main object of the expedition was to acquire such information of the country traversed and its wild inhabitants as would be valuable to the military authorities in the future, and as a map would be needful to illustrate such information well, the party's efforts were rewarded with making the expedition successful in a geographical sense. I had hoped to be able, through qualified subordinates, to extend our scientific knowledge of the country explored, especially in regard to its botany, geology, natural history, etc.; and, although these subjects would not in any event have been adequately discussed in a popular treatise like the present, it must be admitted that little was accomplished in these branches. The explanation of this is as follows: When authority was asked from Congress for a sum of money to make such explorations under military supervision and the request was disapproved by the General of the Army and Secretary of War. This disapproval, combined with the active opposition of government departments which were assigned to work of the same general character and coupled with the reluctance of Congress to make any appropriations whatever that year, was sufficient to kill such an undertaking. When the military were withdrawn from Alaska by the President, about the year 1878, a paragraph appeared at the end of the President's order stating that no further control would be exercised by the army in Alaska; and this proviso was variously interpreted by the friends of the army and its enemies, as a humiliation either to the army or to the President, according to the private belief of the commentator. It was therefore seriously debated whether any military expedition or party sent into that country for any purpose whatever would not be a direct violation of the President's proscriptive order, and when it was decided to waive that consideration, and send in a party, it was considered too much of a responsibility to add any specialists in science, with the disapproval of the General and the Secretary hardly dry on the paper. The expedition was therefore, to avoid being recalled, kept as secret as possible, and when, on May 22d, it departed from Portland, Oregon, upon the Victoria, a vessel which had been specially put on the Alaska route, only a two or three line notice had gotten into the Oregon papers announcing the fact; a notice that in spreading was referred to in print by one government official as "a junketing party," by another as a "prospecting" party, while another bitterly acknowledged that had he received another day's intimation he could have had the party recalled by the authorities at Washington. Thus the little expedition which gave the first complete survey to the third[1] river of our country stole away like a thief in the night and with far less money in its hands to conduct it through its long journey than was afterward appropriated by Congress to publish its report.

[1] The largest river on the North American continent so far as this mighty stream flows within our boundaries.... The people of the United States will not be quick to take to the idea that the volume of water in an Alaskan river is greater than that discharged by the mighty Mississippi; but it is entirely within the bounds of honest statement to say that the Yukon river ... discharges every hour one-third more water than the "Father of Waters."—Petroff's Government Report on Alaska.

Leaving Portland at midnight on the 22d, the Victoria arrived at Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia the forenoon of the 23d, the remaining hours of daylight being employed in loading with supplies for a number of salmon canneries in Alaska, the large amount of freight for which had necessitated this extra steamer. That night we crossed the Columbia River bar and next morning entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the southern entrance from the Pacific Ocean which leads to the inland passage to Alaska.

[CHAPTER II.]
THE INLAND PASSAGE TO ALASKA.

The Inland Passage" to Alaska is the fjörd-like channel, resembling a great river, which extends from the north-western part of Washington Territory, through British Columbia, into south-eastern Alaska. Along this coast line for about a thousand miles, stretches a vast archipelago closely hugging the mainland of the Territories named above, the southernmost important island being Vancouver, almost a diminutive continent in itself, while to the north Tchichagoff Island limits it on the seaboard.

From the little town of Olympia at the head of Puget Sound, in Washington Territory, to Chilkat, Alaska, at the head of Lynn Channel, or Canal, one sails as if on a grand river, and it is really hard to comprehend that it is a portion of the ocean unless one can imagine some deep fjörd in Norway or Greenland, so deep that he can sail on its waters for a fortnight, for the fjörd-like character is very prominent in these channels to which the name of "Inland Passage" is usually given.

These channels between the islands and mainland are strikingly uniform in width, and therefore river-like in appearance as one steams or sails through, them. At occasional points they connect with the Pacific Ocean, and if there be a storm on the latter, a few rolling swells may enter at these places and disturb the equilibrium of sensitive stomachs for a brief hour, but at all other places the channel is as quiet as any broad river, whatever the weather. On the south we have the Strait of Juan de Fuca and to the north Cross Sound as the limiting channels, while between the two are found Dixon Entrance, which separates Alaska from British Columbia, Queen Charlotte Sound, and other less important outlets.

On the morning of the 24th of May we entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, named after an explorer—if such he may be called—who never entered this beautiful sheet of water, and who owes his immortality to an audacious guess, which came so near the truth as to deceive the scientific world for many a century. To the left, as we enter, i.e., northward, is the beautiful British island of Vancouver, the name of which commemorates one of the world's most famous explorers. Its high rolling hills are covered with shaggy firs, broken near the beach into little prairies of brighter green, which are dotted here and there with pretty little white cottages, the humblest abodes we see among the industrious, British or American, who live in the far west.

The American side, to the southward, gives us the same picture backed by the high range of the Olympian Mountains, whose tops are covered with perpetual snow, and upon whose cold sides drifting clouds are condensed.

Through British Columbia the sides of this passage are covered with firs and spruce to the very tops of the steep mountains forming them, but as Northing is gained and Alaska is reached the summits are covered with snow and ice at all months of the year, and by the time we cast anchor in Chilkat Inlet, which is about the northernmost point of this great inland salt-water river, we find in many places these crowns of ice debouching in the shape of glaciers to the very water's level, and the tourist beholds, on a regular line of steamboat travel, glaciers and icebergs, and many of the wonders of arctic regions, although upon a reduced scale. Alongside the very banks and edges of these colossal rivers of ice one can gather the most beautiful of Alpine flowers and wade up to his waist in grasses that equal in luxuriance the famed fields of the pampas; while the singing of the birds from the woods and glens and the fragrance of the foliage make one easily imagine that the Arctic circle and equator have been linked together at this point.

Entering Juan de Fuca Strait a few hours were spent in the pretty little anchorage of Neah Bay, the first shelter for ships after rounding Cape Flattery, and here some merchandise was unloaded in the huge Indian canoes that came alongside, each one holding at least a ton.

Victoria, the metropolis of British Columbia, was reached the same day, and as it was the Queen's birthday we saw the town in all its bravery of beer, bunting and banners. Our vessel tooted itself hoarse outside the harbor to get a pilot over the bar, but none was to be had till late in the day, when a pilot came out to us showing plainly by his condition that he knew every bar in and about Victoria. With the bar pilot on the bridge,
as to save insurance should an accident occur,
we entered the picturesque little harbor in safety, despite the discoveries of our guide that since his last visit all the buoys had been woefully misplaced, and even the granite channel had changed its course. But Victoria has many embellishments more durable than bunting and banners, and most conspicuous among them are her well arranged and well constructed roads, in which she has no equal on the Pacific coast of North America, and but few rivals in any other part of the world.

On the 26th we crossed over to Port Townsend, the port of entry for Puget sound, and on the 27th we headed for Alaska by way of the Inland Passage.

For purposes of description this course should have been designated the "inland passages," in the plural, for its branches are almost innumerable, running in all directions like the streets of an irregular city, although now and then they are reduced to a single channel or fjörd which the steamer is obliged to take or put out to sea. At one point in Discovery Passage leading from the Gulf of Georgia toward Queen Charlotte Sound, the inland passage is so narrow that our long vessel had to steam under a slow bell to avoid accidents, and at this place, called Seymour Narrows, there was much talk of bridging the narrow way in the grand scheme of a Canadian Pacific Railway, which should have its western terminus at Victoria. Through this contracted way the water fairly boils when at its greatest velocity, equaling ten miles an hour in spring tides, and at such times the passage is hazardous even to steamers, while all other craft avoid it until slack water. Jutting rocks increase the danger, and on one of these the United States man-of-war Saranac was lost just eight years before we passed through. At the northern end of this picturesque Discovery Passage you see the inland passage trending away to the eastward, with quite a bay on the left around Chatham Point, and while you are wondering in that half soliloquizing way of a traveler in new lands what you will see after you have turned to the right, the great ship swings suddenly to the left, and you find that what you took for a bay is after all the inland passage itself, which stretches once more before you like the Hudson looking upward from West Point, or the Delaware at the Water Gap. For all such little surprises must the tourist be prepared on this singular voyage.

The new bend now becomes Johnstone Strait and so continues to Queen Charlotte Sound, with which it connects by one strait, two passages and a channel, all alike, except in name, and none much over ten miles long. At nearly every point where a new channel diverges both arms take on a new name, and they change as rapidly as the names of a Lisbon street, which seldom holds the same over a few blocks. The south side of Johnstone Strait is particularly high, rising abruptly from the water fully 5,000 feet, and in grandeur not unlike the Yellowstone Cañon. These summits were still covered with snow and probably on northern slopes snow remains the summer through. One noticeable valley was on the Vancouver Island side, with a conspicuous conical hill in its bosom that may have been over a thousand feet in height. These cone-like hills are so common in flat valleys in north-western America that I thought it worth while to mention the fact in this place. I shall have occasion to do so again at a later point in my narrative. Occasionally windrows occur through the dense coniferous forests of the inland passage, where the trees have been swept or leveled in a remarkable manner. Such as were cut vertically had been caused by an avalanche, and in these instances the work of clearing had been done as faithfully as if by the hands of man. Sometimes the bright green moss or grass had grown up in these narrow ways, and when there was more than one of about the same age there was quite a picturesque effect of stripings of two shades of green, executed on a most colossal plan. These windrows of fallen trees sometimes stretched along horizontally in varying widths, an effect undoubtedly produced by heavy gales rushing through the contracted "passage."

One's notice is attracted by a species of natural beacon which materially assists the navigator. Over almost all the shoals and submerged rocks hang fields of kelp, a growth with which the whole "passage" abounds, thus affording a timely warning badly needed where the channel has been imperfectly charted. As one might surmise the water is very bold, and these submerged and ragged rocks are in general most to be feared. Leaving Johnstone Strait we enter Queen Charlotte Sound, a channel which was named, lacking only three years, a century ago. It widens into capacious waters at once and we again felt the "throbbing of old Neptune's pulse," and those with sensitive stomachs perceived a sort of flickering of their own.

One who is acquainted merely in a general way with the history and geography of this confusing country finds many more Spanish names than he anticipates, and to his surprise, a conscientious investigation shows that even as it is the vigorous old Castilian explorers have not received all the credit to which they are entitled, for many of their discoveries in changing hands changed names as well: the Queen Charlotte Islands, a good day's run to the north-westward of us, were named in 1787 by an Englishman, who gave the group the name of his vessel, an appellation which they still retain, although as Florida Blanca they had known the banner of Castile and Leon thirteen years before. Mount Edgecumbe, so prominent in the beautiful harbor of Sitka, was once Monte San Jacinto, and a list of the same tenor might be given that would prove more voluminous than interesting. American changes in the great north-west have not been so radical. Boca de Quadra Inlet has somehow become Bouquet Inlet to those knowing it best. La Creole has degenerated into Rickreall, and so on: the foreign names have been mangled but not annihilated. We sail across Queen Charlotte Sound as if we were going to bump right into the high land ahead of us, but a little indentation over the bow becomes a valley, then a bay, and in ample time to prevent accidents widens into another salt-water river, about two miles wide and twenty times as long, called Fitzhugh Sound. Near the head of the sound we turn abruptly westward into the Lama Passage, and on its western shores we see nearly the first sign of civilization in the inland passage, the Indian village of Bella Bella, holding probably a dozen native houses and a fair looking church, while a few cattle grazing near the place had a still more civilized air.

SCENES IN THE INLAND PASSAGE.

As we steamed through Seaforth Channel, a most tortuous affair, Indians were seen paddling in their huge canoes from one island to another or along the high, rocky shores, a cheering sign of habitation not previously noticed.

The great fault of the inland passage as a resort for tourists is in the constant dread of fogs that may at any time during certain months of the year completely obscure the grand scenery that tempted the travelers thither. The waters of the Pacific Ocean on the seaboard of Alaska are but a deflected continuation of the warm equatorial current called the Kuro Siwo of the Japanese; from these waters the air is laden with moisture, which being thrown by the variable winds against the snow-clad and glacier-covered summits of the higher mountains, is precipitated as fog and light rain, and oftentimes every thing is wrapped for weeks in these most annoying mists. July, with June and August, are by far the most favorable months for the traveler. The winter months are execrable, with storms of rain, snow and sleet constantly occurring, the former along the Pacific frontage, and the latter near the channels of the mainland.

Milbank Sound gave us another taste of the ocean swells which spoiled the flavor of our food completely, for although we were only exposed for less than an hour that hour happened to come just about dinner time; after which we entered Finlayson Passage, some twenty-five miles long. This is a particularly picturesque and bold channel of water, its shores covered with shaggy conifers as high as the eye can reach, and the mountains, with their crowns of snow and ice, furnishing supplies of spray for innumerable beautiful waterfalls. At many places in the inland passage from here on, come down the steep timbered mountains the most beautiful waterfalls fed from the glaciers hidden in the fog. At every few miles we pass the mouths of inlets and channels, leading away into the mountainous country no one knows whither. There are no charts which show more than the mouths of these inlets. Out of or into these an occasional canoe speeds its silent way perchance in quest of salmon that here abound, but the secrets of their hidden paths are locked in the savage mind. How tempting they must be for exploration, and how strange that, although so easy of access, they still remain unknown. After twisting around through a few "reaches," channels and passages, we enter the straightest of them all, Grenville Channel, so straight that it almost seems to have been mapped by an Indian. As you steam through its forty or fifty miles of mathematically rectilinear exactness you think the sleepy pilot might tie his wheel, put his heels up in the spokes, draw his hat over his eyes and take a quiet nap. In one place it seems to be not over two or three hundred yards wide, but probably is double that, the high towering banks giving a deceptive impression. The windrows through the timber of former avalanches of snow or landslides, now become thicker and their effects occasionally picturesque in the very devastation created. Beyond Grenville Channel the next important stretch of salt water is Chatham Sound, which is less like a river than any yet named. Its connection with Grenville Channel is by the usual number of three or four irregular water-ways dodging around fair sized islands, which had at one time, however, a certain importance because it was thought that the Canadian Pacific Railway might make Skeena Inlet off to our right its western terminus.

On the 29th of May, very early in the morning, we crossed Dixon Entrance, and were once more on American soil, that is, in a commercial sense, the United States having drawn a check for its value of $7,200,000, and the check having been honored; but in regard to government the country may be called no man's land, none existing in the territory. Dixon Entrance bore once a Spanish name in honor of its discoverer, a name which is heard no more, although a few still call the channel by its Indian name, Kaiganee. Broad Dixon Entrance contracts into the narrow Portland Inlet, which, putting back into the mainland for some seventy-five miles, forms the water boundary between Alaska and British Columbia. From here it becomes a thirty mile wide strip drawn "parallel to tide-water," which continues with a few modifications to about Mount St. Elias.

The forenoon of the same day we entered Boca de Quadra Inlet, where a pioneer company had established a salmon cannery, for which we had some freight. The cannery was about half completed and the stores were landed on a raft made of only two logs, which impressed me with the size of the Sitka cedar. The largest log was probably seventy-five feet long and fully eight feet at the butt. It is said to be impervious to the teredo, which makes such sad havoc with all other kinds of wood sunk in salt water. Owing to its fine grain and peculiar odor, handsome chests can be made of it in which that universal pest, the moth, will not live. It is purely an Alaskan tree, and even north of Quadra Inlet it is found in its densest growth. As around all white habitations in frontier lands, we found the usual number of natives, although in this case they were here for the commendable object of seeking employment in catching salmon whenever the run should commence. Their canoes are constructed of the great cedar tree, by the usual Indian method of hollowing them out to a thin shell and then boiling water in them by throwing in red hot stones in the water they hold, producing pliability of the wood by the steaming process, when, by means of braces and ties they are fashioned into nautical "lines." The peaks of the prows are often fantastically carved into various insignia, usually spoken of as "totems," and painted in wild barbaric designs (see page [43],) the body of the boat being covered with deep black made from soot and seal oil. Crawling along under the somber shadows of the dense overhanging trees in the deep dark passages, these canoes can hardly be seen until very near, and when a flash of the water from the paddle reveals their presence, they look more like smugglers or pirates avoiding notice than any thing else. The genial superintendent, Mr. Ward, spoke of his rambles up the picturesque shores of the inlet and his adventures since he had started his new enterprise. A trip of a few days before up one of the diminutive valleys drained by a little Alpine brook, had rewarded him with the sight of no less than eight bears scurrying around through the woods. He had an Indian companion who was armed with a flintlock, smooth bore Hudson Bay Company musket, while the superintendent had a shot gun for any small game that might happen along, and even with these arms they succeeded in bagging a bear apiece, both being of the black—or small—variety. Hunting the little black bear is not far removed from a good old-fashioned "coon" hunt, and not much more dangerous. The dogs, mostly the sharp-eared, sharp-nosed and sharp-barking Indian variety, once after a bear, force him up a tree to save his hamstrings being nipped uncomfortably, and then he is shot out of it, at the hunter's leisure, and if wounded is so small and easily handled by the pack of dogs that he can hardly be called dangerous. Not so, however, with the great brown bear, or barren-ground bear of Alaska, so often spoken of in these parts as the "grizzly" from his similarity in size and savageness to "the California King of the Chaparral." Everywhere in his dismal dominions he is religiously avoided by the native Nimrod, who declares that his meat is not fit to be eaten, that his robe is almost worthless, and that he constantly keeps the wrong end presented to his pursuers. Although he is never hunted encounters with him are not altogether unknown, as he is savage enough to become the hunter himself at times, and over some routes the Indians will never travel unless armed so as to be fairly protected from this big Bruin. This Indian fear of the great brown bear I found to be co-extensive with all my travels in Alaska and the British North-west Territory. Mr. Ward told me that wherever the big bear was found, the little black variety made his presence scarce, as the two in no way affiliate, and the latter occupies such country as the abundance of his big brother will allow. These districts may be intermixed as much as the black and white squares on a chess-board, but they are as sharply, though not as mathematically, defined, each one remaining faithfully on his own color, so to speak. A new repeating rifle was on our vessel consigned to the sportsman superintendent, and he expected to decrease the bear census during the summer, so far as his duties would allow.

About noon, after much backing and putting of lines ashore, and working on them from the donkey engines fore and aft, we succeeded in turning our long steamer in the narrow channel, the pilot remarking in reply to the captain's inquiries as to shoals, that he wished he could exchange the depth for the width and he would have no trouble in turning around.

Through this part of the inland passage sea-otters are said to be found, and it was thought that one or two were seen by some of the people on board, but no one could vouch for the discovery.

The everlasting mountain scenery now commences to pall and offers nothing in the way of the picturesque except the same old high mountains, the same dense growth of timber on their steep sides, and the same salt-water canals cutting through them. A valley putting off any where would have been a relief, and breaks in the uniformly high mountains that looked as if they might be ravines, so persistently became other arms and canals of the great networks of passage, that we were any thing but sorry when a fog bank settled down about two hundred feet above our eyes and cut the fjörd as sharply at that height as if it had been the crest line of a fortification extending off into miles of bastions and covered ways.

Early morning on the 30th found us at the little port of Wrangell, named after one of Russia's many famous explorers in northern regions. It was the most tumble-down looking company of cabins I ever saw, the "Chinese quarter" (every place on the Pacific coast has its "Chinese quarter" if it is only a single house) being a wrecked river vessel high and dry on the pebbly beach, which, however, was not much inferior to the rest of the town. Not far from here comes in the Stickeen river, the largest stream that cuts through the south-eastern or "tide-water strip" of Alaska. About its headwaters are the Cassiar mines of British Columbia, and as the Stickeen river is the nearest available way to reach them, although the traveler's course is against the stream of a mountain torrent, the circumstance has made something of a port of Wrangell, which nearly ten years ago was at the height of its glory of gold-dust and excitement. Even at this distance the dark green water of the deep channel is tinged with a white chalky color ground from the flanks of the calcareous hills by the eroding glaciers, then swept into the swift river and by it carried far out into the tortuous passages. Every stream, however small, in this part of the world, with glaciers along its course or upon its tributaries, carries this milk-like water in its current.

With all its rickety appearance there was no small amount of business doing in Wrangell, no less than four or five fair sized backwoods stores being there, all apparently in thrifty circumstances. Indian curiosities of all kinds were to be had, from carved spoons of the mountain goat at "two bits" (twenty-five cents) apiece to the most elaborate idols or totemic carvings. A fair market is found for these articles among the few visitors who travel in this out-of-the-way corner of the earth, and when the supply is exhausted in any line the natives will immediately set to work to satisfy the demand. One huge carved horn spoon was evidently of very ancient make and very fine workmanship, an old pioneer of these regions who had owned it for many years having refused sixty dollars for it from some curiosity collectors only the year before.

From Wrangell we debouched westward by Sumner Strait, the wide salt-water river that continues the narrow fresh-water river of Stickeen to the Pacific Ocean.

Between five and six in the afternoon we are rounding Cape Ommaney, where our pilot tells us it storms eight days in the week. It certainly gave us double rations of wind that day, and many retired early. Even the old Spanish navigators who first laid eyes upon it must have borne it a grudge to have called it Punta Oeste de la Entrada del Principe; all its geographical characteristics and relations being shouldered on it for a name.

Early next morning we were in the harbor of Sitka, or New Archangel, as the Russians called it when they had it for their capital of this province. The strong, bold bluffs of the interior passages now give way to gentler elevations along the Pacific seaboard, but the country gradually rises from the coast until but a few miles back the same old cloud-capped, snow-covered peaks recur, and as we stand well out to sea they look as abrupt as ever.

Sitka is a picturesque place when viewed from any point except from within the town limits. From the south-west, looking north-east, Mount Edgecumbe (of Cook) affords a beautiful background against the western sky, and when that is full of low white clouds the abrupt manner in which the point of the mountain is cut off gives it the appearance of being buried in the clouds, thus seeming several times higher than it really is.

SITKA, ALASKA.

The harbor of Sitka is so full of small islands that looking at it from a height it seems as if it could only be mapped with a pepper-box, and one wonders how any vessel can get to her wharf. Once alongside, the water seems as clear as the atmosphere above, and the smallest objects can be easily identified at the bottom, though there must have been fully thirty or forty feet of water where we made our observations.

On one of the large islands in Sitka harbor, called Japanese Island, an old Niphon junk was cast, early in the present century, and her small crew of Japanese were rescued by the Russians. Sitka has been so often described that it is unnecessary to do more than refer the reader to other accounts of the place.

Ten o'clock in the forenoon of the 31st saw us under way steaming northward, still keeping to the inland passage, and en route to deliver wrecking machinery at a point in Peril Straits where the Eureka, a small steamer of the same line to which our ship belonged, had formerly run on a submerged rock in the channel, which did not appear upon the charts. The unfortunate boat had just time to reach the shore and beach herself before she filled with water. The Eureka's wreck was reached by two in the afternoon, and as our boat might be detained for some time in assisting the disabled vessel, many of us embraced the opportunity to go ashore in the wilds of the Alexander Archipelago. The walking along the beach between high and low tide was tolerable, and even agreeable for whole stretches, especially after our long confinement on the ship, where the facilities for promenading were poor. To turn inland from the shore was at once to commence the ascent of a slope that might vary from forty to eighty degrees, the climbing of which almost beggars description. The compact mass of evergreen timber had looked dense enough from the ship, but at its feet grew a denser mass of tangled undergrowth of bushes and vines, and at their roots again was a solid carpeting of moss, lichens, and ferns that often ran up the trees and underbrush for heights greater than a man's reach, and all of it moist as a sponge, the whole being absolutely tropical in luxuriance. This thick carpet of moss extends from the shore line to the edges of the glaciers on the mountain summits, and the constant melting of the ice through the warm summer supplies it with water which it absorbs like a sponge. The air is saturated with moisture from the warm ocean current, and every thing you see and touch is like Mr. Mantalini's proposed body, "dem'd moist and unpleasant." It is almost impossible to conceive how heavily laden with tropical moisture the atmosphere is in this supposed sub-Arctic colony of ours. It oozes up around your feet as you walk, and drips from overhead like an April mist, and nothing is exempt from it. Even the Indians' tall, dead "totem-poles" of hemlock or spruce, which would make fine kindling wood any where else, bear huge clumps of dripping moss and foliage on their tops, at heights varying from ten to thirty feet above the ground. An occasional stray seed of a Sitka spruce may get caught in this elevated tangle, and make its home there just as well as if it were on the ground. It sprouts, and as its branches run up in the air, the roots crawl down the "totem-pole" until the ground is reached, when they bury themselves in it, and send up fresh sustenance to the trunk and limbs, which until then have been living a parasitic sort of life off the decayed moss. This is shown in illustration on page [19], being a view at Kaigan Village. Imagine a city boy tossing a walnut from a fourth story window, and its lodging on top of a telegraph pole, there sprouting next spring, and in the course of a couple of years extending its roots down the pole, insinuating themselves in the crevices and splitting it open, then piercing the pavement; the tree continuing to grow for years until the boy, as a man, can reach out from his window and pick walnuts every fall, and the idea seems incredible; and yet the equivalent occurs quite often in the south-eastern portions of our distant colony. Nor is all this marshy softness confined to the levels or to almost level slopes, as one would imagine from one's experience at home, but it extends up the steepest places, where the climbing would be hard enough without this added obstacle. In precipitous slopes where the foot tears out a great swath of moist moss, it may reveal underneath a slippery shingle or shale where nothing but a bird could find a footing in its present condition. There is wonderful preservative power in all these conditions, for nothing seems to rot in the ground, and the accumulated timber of ages, standing and fallen, stumps, limbs, and trunks, "criss-cross and tumble-tangled," as the children say, forms a bewildering mass which, covered and intertwined as it is with a compact entanglement of underbrush and moss, makes the ascent of the steep hillsides a formidable undertaking. A fallen trunk of a tree is only indicated by a ridge of moss, and should the traveler on this narrow path deviate a little too far to the right or left, he may sink up to his arm-pits in a soft mossy trap from which he can scramble as best he may, according to his activity in the craft of "backwoodsman-ship." Having once reached the tops of the lower hills—the higher ones are covered with snow and glacier ice the year round—a few small openings may be seen, which, if any thing, are more boggy and treacherous to the feet than the hillsides themselves, lagoon-like morasses, covered with pond lilies and aquatic plant life, being connected by a network of sluggish canals with three or four inches of amber colored water and as many feet of soft black oozy mud, with here and there a clump of willow brake or "pussy-tails" springing above the waste of sedge and flags. In these bayou openings a hunter may now and then run across a stray deer, bear, or mountain goat, but, in general, inland hunting in south-eastern Alaska is a complete failure, owing to the scarcity of game and the labor of hunting.

The worst part of Peril Strait being ahead of us, we backed out with our long unwieldy vessel and turned westward, passing out late in the evening through Salisbury Strait to the Pacific Ocean, ours being, according to the pilot, the first steam vessel to essay the passage. A last night on the Pacific's rolling water, and early next morning we rounded Cape Ommaney, and entered the inland passage of Chatham Strait, our prow once more pointed northward, the sheet of water lying as quiet as a mill pond. About 4 P.M. we reached Killisnoo, a pretty little port in the Strait. Cod-fish abounding here in unusual numbers, a regular fishery has been established by a company for the purpose of catching and preserving the cod for the markets of the Pacific coast. Here I saw many of the Kootznahoo Indians of the place, who do the principal fishing for the white men. Their already ugly faces were plastered over with black, for which, according to the superintendent, there were two causes. A few of the Indians were clad in mourning, to which this artificial blackness is an adjunct, while the remainder followed the custom in order to protect their faces and especially their eyes from the intense glare of the sun on the water while fishing. Chatham Strait at its northern end subdivides into Icy Straits and Lynn Canal, the latter being taken as our course. At its northern end it again branches into the Chilkat and Chilkoot Inlets, the former being taken; and at its head, the highest northing we can reach in this great inland salt-water river, our voyage on the Victoria terminated. Icy Straits lead off to the westward and unite with the Pacific, by way of Cross Sound, the most northern of these connecting passages, which marks the point where the archipelago, and with it the inland passage, ceases, for from here northward to St. Elias and beyond a bold bad coast faces the stormy Pacific, and along its frowning cliffs of rock and ice even the amphibious Indian seldom ventures.

[CHAPTER III.]
IN THE CHILKAT COUNTRY.

CHILEAT BRACELET MADE FROM SILVER COIN.

The Chilkat country was reached on the morning of the 2d of June and we dropped anchor in a most picturesque little port called Pyramid Harbor, its name being derived from a conspicuous conical island that the Chilkats call Schlay-hotch, and the few whites, Pyramid Island, shown on page [43]. There were two salmon canneries just completed, one on each side of the inlet, awaiting the "run" or coming of salmon, which occurred about two weeks later. Each cannery was manned by about a half dozen white men as directors and workmen in the trades departments, the Chilkats doing the rougher work, as well as furnishing the fish. They differed in no material respect from the salmon canneries of the great Columbia River, so often described. Just above them comes in the Chilkat river, with a broad shallow mouth, which, at low water (sixteen feet below high water) looks like a large sand flat forming part of the shores of the harbor. On these bars the Indians spear the salmon when the water is just deep enough to allow them to wade around readily.

Up this Chilkat river are the different villages of the Chilkat Indians, one of fifteen or twenty houses being in sight, on the east bank, the largest, however, which contains four or five times as many houses, called Klukwan, being quite a distance up the river. These Chilkats are subdivided into a number of smaller clans, named after the various animals, birds and fishes. At about the time of my arrival the chief of the Crow clan had died, and as he was a very important person, a most sumptuous funeral was expected to last about a week or ten days. These funerals are nothing but a series of feasts, protracted according to the importance of the deceased, and as they are furnished at the expense of the administrators or executors of the dead man's estate, every Indian from far and wide, full of veneration for the dead and a desire for victuals, congregates at the pleasant ceremonies, and gorges to his utmost, being worthless for work for another week afterward. As I urgently needed some three or four score of these Indians to carry my effects on their backs across the Alaskan coast range of mountains to the head waters of the Yukon river, this prolonged funeral threatened seriously to prevent my getting away in good time. Ranking me as a chief, I was invited to the obsequies and promised a very conspicuous position therein, especially on the last day when the body was to be burned on a huge funeral pyre of dry resinous woods. Cremation is the usual method of disposing of the dead among these people, the priests or medicine men being the only ones exempt. The latter claim a sort of infallibility and all of their predictions, acts, and influences capable of survival, live after them so long as their bodies exist, but should these be lost by drowning, devouring, or cremation, this infallibility ceases. Therefore these defunct doctors of savage witch-craft inhabit the greatest portion of the few graveyards that one sees scattered here and there over the shores of the channels and inlets that penetrate the country. Cremation is not always resorted to, however, with the laity, for whenever convenience dictates otherwise, they too may be buried in boxes, and this practice, I understand, is becoming more common. Cremation is a savage honor, nevertheless, and slaves were not entitled to the rite. All the Indians were extremely anxious that I should attend the obsequies of their dear departed friend, for if I did they saw that they might also be present and yet feel sure of employment on my expedition over the mountains. I declined the invitation, however, and by being a little bit determined managed to persuade enough strong sturdy fellows away to do my proposed packing in two trips over the pass, which had the effect of inducing the others to come forward in sufficient numbers to accomplish the work in a single journey, and preparations were commenced accordingly. These preparations consisted mostly in assorting our effects with reference to every thing that we could possibly leave behind, taking as little as we could make our way through with, and putting that little into convenient bags, boxes, and bundles of about one hundred pounds each, that being the maximum load the Indians could well carry over such Alpine trails. Some boys, eight or ten, even came forward to solicit a share in the arduous labor, and one little urchin of not over fourteen, a son of the Chilkat chief, Shot-rich, manfully assumed the responsibility of a sixty-eight pound box, the distance he had to carry it being about thirty miles, but thirty miles equal to any one hundred and thirty on the good roads of a civilized country. There were a few slaves among my numerous Indian packers, slavery having once flourished extensively among the Chilkats, but having diminished both in vigor and extent, in direct ratio to their contact with the whites. Formerly, slaves were treated in the many barbarous ways common to savage countries, sacrificed at festivals and religious ceremonies, and kept at the severest tasks. They were often tied in huge leathern sacks stretched at full length on the hard stony ground and trodden to death. The murderers, great muscular men, would jump up and down on their bodies, singing a wild death chant, with their fists clinched across their breasts, every cracking of a rib or bone being followed by loud shouts of derisive laughter. Sometimes the slave was bound to huge bowlders at the water's edge at low tide, and as the returning waves came rolling in and slowly drowned the wretch, his cries were deafened by the hideous shouts from the spectators on the land. Of course, as with all slave-holders, an eye was kept open toward mercenary views, and the sacrifices were nearly always of the aged, infirm, or decrepit; those who had ceased to be useful as interpreted by their own savage ideas of usefulness. Entering a Chilkat house nowadays, one can hardly distinguish a slave from the master, unless one is acquainted with the insignificant variations in dress which characterize them, and while the slaves are supposed to do all the work the enforcement of the rule appears to be very lax. Still it is interesting to know that the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution is not held inviolable in all parts of that vast country. As among nearly all savages, the women are brutalized, but they appear to have one prerogative of the most singular character, that is well worth relating. Nearly every thing descends on the mother's side, yet a chattel may be owned, or at least controlled, by the men, although a traveler will notice many bargains wherein the woman's consent is first obtained. The royal succession is most oddly managed with reference to women's rights. The heir-apparent to the throne is not the oldest or any other child of the king and queen, but is the queen's nearest blood relative of the male persuasion, although the relationship may be no closer, perhaps, than that of cousin. As this curiously chosen king may marry any woman of the tribe, it is easy to see that any one may in this indirect way become the sovereign of the savages, and with the help of luck alone, may acquire royal honors. One rich Indian woman of Sitka who took a fancy to a slave, purchased him for the purpose of converting him into a husband, at a cost of nearly a thousand dollars in goods and chattels, and if he was not very expensive thereafter he may have been cheaper than the usual run of such bargains. When a couple of Chilkats tie the nuptial knot, they at once, if possible, adopt a boy and a girl, although these can hardly be said to stand in the place of adopted children, when it is understood that they are really a conjugal reserve corps for the bride and bridegroom in case of death. Should the man die the boy becomes the widow's husband without further ceremony, and vice versa. Of course such conjugal mixtures present the most incongruous aspects in the matter of age, but happily these examples are infrequent.

This Chilkat country is most thoroughly Alpine in character, and in the quiet, still evenings, far up on the steep hillsides, where the dense spruce timber is broken up by natural clearings, one could often see a brown or black bear come out and nose around to get at some of the many roots and berries that there abound, and more than once I was a spectator of a bear hunt, for as soon as Bruin put in an appearance there was always some Indian hunter ambitious enough to toil up the steep mountain sides after him. I have spoken of their extreme fear of the great brown or cinnamon bear, which they seldom attack. So great indeed is the Chilkats' respect for him that the most aristocratic clan is called the Cinnamon Bears. Another high class clan is the Crows, the plebeian divisions being the Wolves and Whales, and the division line is so strong that it leads to feuds between the clans that, in respect of slaughter, are almost entitled to the name of wars, while between the high and low caste intermarriage is almost unknown. As the Brown Bears, or Cinnamon Bears as they are generally called, are the highest clan, so copper is their most highly prized metal. With copper the Chilkats have always been familiar, gold and silver coming with the whites; and therefore a brown bear's head carved in copper is their most venerated charm. In regard to engraving and sculpture it is not too much to say that the Chilkats stand well in the front rank of savage artists. When civilization first came in contact with these people they were in the Paleolithic stone age of that material, and their carvings were marvels of design and execution, although subserving the simplest wants of a simple people. Of metals they possessed only copper, and that in such small quantities as to be practically out of the account. With the whites came gold and silver, and the latter from its comparative cheapness became their favorite metal. Coins were hammered out into long slender bars, bent into bracelets, and then beautifully engraved, some of their designs having been borrowed from civilization and copied faithfully in detail, although the old savage ideas of workmanship are for obvious reasons preferred by most purchasers. Some of their women wear a dozen or more bracelets on each arm, covering them up to the elbows and beyond, but this seems to be only a means of preserving them until the arrival of white customers, when they are sold at from one to five or six dollars a pair according to their width. The initial piece of this chapter is sketched from one in the possession of the author and made by one of his hired Indians. Ear-rings, finger-rings, beads and ornamental combs for the hair are made of silver and gold, mostly of silver; and the Chilkats seem to be as imitative in respect to ideas and designs as the Mongolians, whose talents are so much better known. It is in wood and horn, however, that their best examples of this art have been displayed, and so unique and intricate are they that language is inadequate to describe them. Of wood carvings their "totem" poles show the cleverest workmanship and variety of design. The exact significance of these totem poles remains still undetermined, and the natives themselves seem averse to throwing much light on the subject. This fact alone would appear to indicate a superstitious origin. Some say the totem poles represent family genealogies, life histories, and tribal accounts, all of which conjectures may be well founded. They are simply logs of wood standing on end in front of the houses, and facing the water. This face is covered from top to bottom, for a height of from five to thirty feet, with the most curious carvings, as shown to a limited extent on page [19]. The "totem" or tribal symbol, which may be a wolf, a bear, a raven, or a fish, often predominates, while representations of crouching human figures are favorite designs. The making of totem poles has ceased among the Indians, although they carefully preserve those that still exist. Still many of them fall into the clutches of white men in compensation for a few dollars, and hardly a museum of note in the country but displays a Tlinkit totem pole or two, while some possess extensive collections. The best carving is shown in the isolated poles standing in front of the houses, but frequently the houses themselves are fantastically carved in conspicuous places to suit the owner's fancy.

PYRAMID HARBOR, CHILKAT INLET. (Chilkat Indian Canoe in the foreground.)

Some of these houses are quite respectable for savage house-making, the great thick puncheon planks of the floor being often quite well polished, or at any rate neatly covered with white sand. Attempts at civilization are made in the larger and more aristocratic abodes by partitioning the huge hovel into rooms by means of draperies of cloth or canvas. In some the door is made as high as it can be cut in the wall and is reached by steps from the outside, while a similar flight inside gives access to the floor. The fire occupies the center of the room, enough of the floor being removed to allow it to be kindled directly on the ground, the smoke escaping by a huge hole in the roof. The vast majority of the houses are squalid beyond measure, and the dense resinous smoke of the spruce and pine blackens the walls with a funereal tinge, and fills the house with an odor which, when mingled with that of decayed salmon, makes one feel like leaving his card at the door and passing on. It takes no stretch of the imagination to conceive that such architecture provides the maximum of ventilation when least needed, and it is a fact that the winter hours of the Chilkats are cold and cheerless in the extreme. They sit crouched around the fire with their blankets closely folded about them and even drawn over their heads, the house serving indeed as a protection from the fierce wind and deep snow drifts, but no more. They look on all this foolishness, however, with a sort of Spartan fortitude as necessary to toughen them and inure them to the rough climate, and at times, impelled by this belief, they will deliberately expose themselves with that object in view. When the rivers and lakes are frozen over the men and boys break great holes in the ice and plunge in for a limited swim, then come out, and if a bank of soft snow is convenient roll around in it like so many polar bears; and when they get so cold that they can't tell the truth they wander leisurely back to the houses and remark that they have had a nice time, and believe they have done something toward making themselves robust Chilkat citizens able to endure every thing. There is no wonder that such people adopt cremation; and in fact one interpretation of its religious significance is based on the idea of future personal warmth in the happy hunting grounds, which they regard as a large island, whose shores are unattainable except by those whose bodies have been duly consumed by fire. Unless the rite of cremation has been performed the unhappy shade shivers perpetually in outer frost. It is the impossibility of cremation which makes death by drowning so terrible to a Chilkat.

The reason that the shamans, or medicine men (whose bodies are not cremated) have no such dread, is that their souls do not pass to the celestial island, but are translated into the bodies of infants, and in this way the crop of medicine men never diminishes, whatever may be the status of the rest of the population. Dreams and divinations, or various marks of the child's hair or face, are relied upon to determine into which infant the supreme and mysterious power of the defunct doctor of Tlinkit divinity has entered. To enumerate all of these signs would consume more of my space than the subject is worth. When a Chilkat dies the body is burned at sunrise, having first been dressed for the ceremony in a costume more elaborate than any which it ever wore in life. The corpse must not be carried out at the door, which is deemed sacred, a superstition very common among savage races. A few boards may be taken from the rear or side of the hovel, or the body may be hoisted through the capacious chimney in the roof; but when the Chilkat in his last illness sought his house to lie down and die in it he passed over its threshold for the last time. Demons and dark spirits hover around like vultures, and are only kept out of doors by the dreaded incantations of the medicine men, and these may seize the corpse as it passes out. So fiendishly eager are they to secure and stab their prey that all that is needed is to lead out a dog from the house, which has been brought into it at night, when the witches fall upon it and exhaust their strength in attacking it before they discover their mistake. The cremation is seldom perfect, and the charred bones and remnants are collected and put into a small box standing on four posts in the nearest graveyard. In the burial of medicine men, or before cremation with others, the bodies are bent into half their length, the knees drawn up to the breast and secured by thongs and lashings.

A walk into the woods around Chilkat shows the traveling to be somewhat better than in equally mountainous country near the coast, and where paths had been cut through the dense timber to the charcoal pits formed and maintained by the canneries, the walking was exceedingly agreeable and pleasant, especially by way of contrast. As one recedes from the coast and gets beyond the influence of the warm Japanese current with its ceaseless fogs, rains and precipitation generally, the woods and marshes become more and more susceptible of travel, and by the time the Alaska coast range of mountains is crossed and the interior reached, one finds it but little worse than the tangle-woods and swamps of lower latitudes. The waters swarm with life, which is warmed by this heat-bearing current, and I think I do not exaggerate in saying that Alaska and its numerous outlying islands will alone, in the course of a short time, repay us annually more than the original cost of the great territory. By means of these industries the wedge has begun to enter, and we may hope it will be driven home by means of a wise administration of government, a boon which has been denied to Alaska since the Russians left the territory.

The principal fisheries will always be those of salmon and cod, since these fish are most readily prepared for export, while halibut, Arctic smelt or candle-fish, brook trout, flounders and other species will give ample variety for local use. The salmon has long been the staple fish food of the Chilkats, but this is slowly giving way to the products of civilization which they acquire in return for services at the canneries and for loading and unloading the vessels which visit the port. The salmon season is ushered in with considerable ceremony by the Chilkats, numerous festivals mark its success and its close is celebrated by other feasts. A Chilkat village during the salmon fishing season is a busy place. Near the water, loaded with the fish, their pink sides cut open ready for drying, are the scaffoldings, which are built just high enough, to prevent the dogs from investigating too closely; while out in the shallow water of the shoals or rapids, which often determine the site of a village, may be seen fish-weirs looking like stranded baskets that had served their purpose elsewhere and been thrown away up the stream, and which had lodged here as they floated down. Many of the salmon are converted into fish-oil, which is used by the Chilkats as food, and resembles a cross between our butter and the blubber of the Eskimo. Taking a canoe that is worn out, yet not so badly damaged as not to be completely water-tight, it is filled some six to eight inches deep with salmon, over which water is poured until the fish are well covered. This being done on the beach there are always plenty of stones around, and a number of these are heated to as high a temperature as possible in an open fire alongside of the canoe, and are then rapidly thrown into the water, bringing it to a boiling heat, and cooking the mass. As the oil of the fat fish rises to the surface it is skimmed off with spoons, and after all has been procured that it is possible to obtain by this means, the gelatinous mass is pressed so as to get whatever remains, and all is preserved for winter food. The salmon to be dried are split open along the back until they are as flat as possible, and then the flesh is split to the skin in horizontal and vertical slices about an inch to an inch and a half apart, which facilitates the drying process. Each little square contracts in drying and makes a convenient mouthful for them as they scrape it from the skin with their upper canine teeth like a beaver peeling the bark from a cottonwood tree. In packing over the Alaska coast range of mountains, a task which keeps the Indians absent from three to five days, a single salmon and a quart of flour are considered a sufficient ration per man for even that severe trip. If they are working for white men the employers are supposed to furnish the flour and the Indians the fish. While these Tlinkits of south-eastern Alaska, of which the Chilkats and Chilkoots are the most dreaded and war-like band, are a most jolly, mirth-making, and oftentimes even hilarious crowd of people, yet any thing like a practical joke played upon one of them is seldom appreciated by the recipient with the sheepish satisfaction so common to civilization. An army officer, Lieut. C. E. S. Wood, who spent some time among them sketching and drawing something besides his pay, relates in the Century Magazine the story of an Indian who laboriously crawled up on a band of decoy ducks that somebody had allowed to remain anchored out near the water's edge, and wasted several rounds of ammunition on them before he discovered his mistake. Instead of sneaking back into the brush, dodging through out-of-the-way by-paths to his home, and maintaining a conspicuous silence thereafter, as we of a more civilized country would have done under like circumstances, he sought out the owner of the decoys and demanded direct and indirect damages for the injuries he had suffered and the ammunition he had wasted, and was met by laughter, which only increased his persistency until his demands were satisfied to get rid of him.

At one of the two salmon canneries of which I have spoken as being in Chilkat Inlet, there was also kept a trading store, and here the Indians would bring their furs and peltries and barter for the articles that were so temptingly displayed before their eyes; and if the skins were numerous and valuable this haggling would often continue for hours, as the Indian never counts time as worth any thing in his bargains. While we were there an Indian brought in a few black fox skins to barter for trading material, a prime skin of this kind being worth about forty dollars in goods from the store, and grading from that down to nearly one-fourth of the amount. At the time when the Chilkats learned the great value of the black fox skins, not many years back, they also learned, in some unaccountable way, the method of making them to order by staining the common red fox or cross fox skin by the application of some native form of blacking, probably made from soot or charcoal. Many such were disposed of before the counterfeit was detected, and even after the cheat was well known the utmost vigilance was needed to prevent natives playing the trick in times of great business activity. The method of detection was simply to place the skin on any hard flat surface like the counter of a trader's store, and rub the clean hand vigorously and with considerable pressure backward and forward over the fur side of the skin, when, if the skin were dyed, the fact would be shown by the blackened hand. This fact had been explained to us by the trader, and the Doctor entering just as the conversation as to the price became animated, and perceiving that the palmar surface of his hand was well soiled and blackened, owing to his having been engaged assorting packs for our Indians, he playfully stepped up to the counter, ran his hand jauntily through the skin once or twice and displayed to the two traders his blackened palm, to the surprise of the white man and absolute consternation of the Indian. The former rapidly but unavailingly tried to verify the Doctor's experiment, when the latter broke out into a hearty laugh, in which the trader joined. Not so with the Indian; when he recovered his senses he was furious at the imputation on his character; and the best light he could view it in, after all the explanations, was that it had been a conspiracy between the two white men to get the skin at low rates, and the plot having failed, according to their own confession, and he himself having received his own price to quiet him, ought to be satisfied. The Doctor remarked as he finished the story, that he did not believe there was the remotest sense of humor among the whole band of Chilkat or Chilkoot Indians. The constant life of the Tlinkits in their canoes when procuring food or at other occupations on the water has produced, in conformity with the doctrine of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, a most conspicuous preponderating development of the chest and upper limbs over the lower, and their gait on land, resembling that of aquatic birds, is scarcely the poetry of motion as we understand it. The Chilkats, however, are not so confined to a seafaring life, and their long arduous trading journeys inland have assisted to make this physical characteristic much less conspicuous among them than among other tribes of Tlinkits, although even the Chilkats can not be called a race of large men. While they may not compare with the Sioux or Cheyennes, or a few others that might be mentioned, yet there are scores of Indian tribes in the United States proper which are greatly inferior to the Chilkats both in mental, physical, and moral qualities. In warfare they are as brave as the average Indians of the United States, and have managed to conduct their own affairs with considerable order, in spite of governmental interference at times. I quote from a correspondent writing from there as late as August, 1884, to the New York Times of November 23d: "The Indians have a great respect for a man-of-war, with its strict discipline and busy steam launches that can follow their canoes to the remote creeks and hiding places in the islands, and naval rule has been most praiseworthy. The army did no good for the country or the natives, and its record is not a creditable one. The Tlinkits sneered openly at the land forces, and snapped their fingers at challenging and forbidding sentries, and paddled away at their pleasure."

[CHAPTER IV.]
OVER THE MOUNTAIN PASS.

CHILKAT INDIAN PACKER.

By the 6th of June all of our many arrangements for departure were fully completed, and the next day the party got under way shortly before 10 o'clock in the forenoon. Mr. Carl Spuhn, the Manager of the North-west Trading Company, which owned the western cannery in the Chilkat Inlet, where my party had been disembarked, who had been indefatigable in his efforts to assist me in procuring Indian packers, and in many other ways aiding the expedition, now placed at my disposal the little steam launch of the company, and behind it, tied one to the other by their towing ropes, was a long string of from twelve to twenty canoes, each containing from two to four Chilkat Indians, our prospective packers. Some of the Indians who had selected their packs carried them in the canoes, but the bulk of the material was on the decks of the steam-launch "Louise." They disappeared out of sight in a little while, steaming southward down the Chilkat Inlet, while with a small party in a row-boat I crossed this channel and then by a good trail walked over to the Haines Mission, in Chilkoot Inlet, presided over by Mr. Eugene S. Willard and his wife, with a young lady assistant, Miss Mathews, and maintained by the Presbyterian Board of Missions as a station among the Chilkat and Chilkoot Indians. Crossing the "mission trail," as it was called, we often traversed lanes in the grass, which here was fully five feet high, while, in whatever direction the eye might look, wild flowers were growing in the greatest profusion. Dandelions as big as asters, buttercups twice the usual size, and violets rivaling the products of cultivation in lower latitudes were visible around. It produced a singular and striking contrast to raise the eyes from this almost tropical luxuriance and allow them to rest on the Alpine hills, covered, half way down their shaggy sides, with snow and glacier ice, and with cold mist condensed on their crowns. Mosquitoes were too plentiful not to be called a prominent discomfort, and small gnats did much to mar the otherwise pleasant stroll. Berries and berry blossoms grew in a profusion and variety which I have never seen equaled within the same limits in lower latitudes. A gigantic nettle was met with in uncomfortable profusion when one attempted to wander from the beaten trail. This nettle has received the appropriate name of "devil-sticks;" and Mr. Spuhn of the party told me it was formerly used by the Indian medicine-men as a prophylactic against witch-craft, applied externally, and with a vigor that would have done credit to the days of old Salem, a custom which is still kept up among these Indians. Gardens have been cultivated upon this narrow peninsula, the only comparatively level track of considerable size in all south-eastern Alaska, with a success which speaks well for this part of the territory as far as climate and soil are concerned, although the terribly rough mountainous character of nearly all of this part of the country will never admit of any broad experiments in agriculture. By strolling leisurely along and stopping long enough to lunch under the great cedar trees, while the mosquitoes lunched off us, we arrived at the mission on Chilkoot Inlet just in time to see the little launch in the distance followed by its long procession of canoes, heading for us and puffing away as if it were towing the Great Eastern. It had gone down the Chilkat Inlet ten or twelve miles to the southward, turned around the sharp cape of the peninsula, Point Seduction, and traveled back northward, parallel to its old course, some twelve to fifteen miles to where we were waiting for it, having steamed about twenty-five miles, while we had come one-fifth the distance to the same point. Here quite a number of Chilkoot natives and canoes were added to the already large throng; Mrs. Schwatka, who had accompanied me thus far, was left in the kind care of the missionary family of Mr. Willard; adieus were waved and we once more took our northward course up the Chilkoot Inlet.

Part I.
Map of the Alaska Exploring Expedition of 1883.
Compiled and drawn by Mr. C. A. Homan, Topographical Assistant.

After four or five miles the main inlet bears off to the westward, but a much narrower one still points constantly to the north star, and up the latter we continued to steam. It is called the Dayay Inlet and gives us about ten miles of "straight-away course" before coming to the mouth of the river of the same name. This Dayay Inlet is of the same general character as the inland passages in this part of Alaska, of which I have already spoken; a river-like channel between high steep hills, which are covered with pine, cedar and spruce from the water's line nearly to the top, and there capped with bare granite crowns that in gulches and on the summits are covered with snow and glacier ice, which in melting furnish water for innumerable beautiful cascades and mountain torrents, many of them dashing from such dizzy precipitous heights that they are reduced to masses of iridescent spray by the time they reach the deep green waters of the inlet.

With a score of canoes towing behind, the ropes near the launch kept parting so often that we were considerably delayed, and as the Indians were seldom in any great hurry about repairing the damages, and treated it in a most hilarious manner as something of a joke on the launch, the master of that craft, when the rope had parted near the central canoe for about the twentieth time, finally bore on without them, leaving the delinquents to get along as best they could, there being about five miles more to make. Fortunately just then a fair southern breeze sprang up, so that most of the tardy canoes soon displayed canvas, and those that could not, hastily improvised a blanket, a pea-jacket, or even a a broad-shouldered pair of pantaloons, to aid their progress, for the Indian in all sections of the country is much more ingenious than one is apt to suppose, especially if his object be to save manual labor. The mouth of the Dayay river being reached about six in the afternoon, it was found to consist of a series of low swampy mud flats and a very miry delta. Here it is necessary to ascend the swift river at least a mile to find a site that is even half suitable for a camp. During the time when the greatest sediment is brought down by the swift muddy stream, i.e., during the spring freshets and summer high water, the winds are usually from the south, and blow with considerable force, which fact accounts for the presence of soft oozy deposits of great extent so near the mouth of the stream. Through this shallow water the canoes carried our effects. The river once reached the canoes proceeded up the stream to camp, the launch whistled us adieu, and as she faded from sight, the last link that bound us to civilization was snapped, and our explorations commenced. The distance from the Haines' Mission to the mouth of the Dayay where we disembarked was sixteen miles.

At this camp No. 2, we found a small camp of wandering Tahk-heesh Indians, or as they are locally called by the few whites of the country, the Sticks, a peaceful tribe whose home is over the Alaskan coast range of mountains and along the headwaters of the great Yukon, the very part of the very stream we desired to explore. It has only been within the last few years that these Tahk-heesh Indians have been allowed to cross over the mountains into the Chilkat country for purposes of trade, the Chilkats and Chilkoots united having from time immemorial completely monopolized the profitable commerce of the interior fur trade, forbidding ingress to the whites and denying egress to the Indians of the interior. From the former they bought their trading goods and trinkets, and making them into convenient bundles or parcels of about one hundred pounds each, they carried them on their backs across the snow and glacier crowned mountains, exchanging them for furs with the tribes of the interior for many hundreds of miles around. These furs were again lashed in packs and carried back over the same perilous paths to the coffers of the white traders, and although they realized but a small fractional portion of their value, yet prices were large in comparison with the trifling cost to the venders. When the trade was at its best many years ago, these trips were often made twice a year during the spring and summer, and so great was the commerce in those days, that no less than from eight to ten tons of trading material found its way into the interior by way of these Alpine passes, and was exchanged for its equivalent in furs. As a consequence, the Chilkat nation is the richest tribe of Indians in the great North-west. Their chief, Shot-rich, alone is worth about ten or twelve thousand dollars in blankets, their standard of wealth, and others in proportion, according to their energy in the trade. Shot-rich has three large native houses at Klukwan, the main Chilkat town, two of which are filled with blankets worth from two to four dollars apiece. The trail on which we were now plodding along is known among the Indians as the Chilkoot trail to the interior, and takes from two to four days, packing their goods on their backs, until the headwaters of the Yukon are reached. It was monopolized solely by the Chilkoots, who had even gone so far as to forbid the Chilkats, almost brothers in blood, from using it, so that the latter were forced to take a longer and far more laborious route. This route of the Chilkats led them up the Chilkat River to near its head, where a long mountain trail that gave them a journey of a week or ten days, packing on their backs, brought them to a tributary of the Yukon, by means of which the interior was gained. Once on this tributary no serious rapids or other impediments were in their line of travel, while the Yukon, with its shorter trail, had many such obstacles. The great Hudson Bay Company with its well-known indomitable courage, attempted as early as 1850 to tap this rich trading district monopolized by the Chilkat Indians, and Fort Selkirk was established at the junction of the Yukon and Pelly, but so far away from their main base of supplies on Hudson's Bay, that it is said it took them a couple of years to reach it with trading effects. The Indians knew of but one method of competition in business. They went into no intricate inventories for reducing prices of stock, nor did they put bigger advertisements or superior inducements before their customers. They simply organized a war party, rapidly descended the main Yukon for about five hundred miles, burned the buildings and appropriated the goods.

As the Tahk-heesh or Sticks were allowed to come abroad so the white men were allowed and, in fact, induced to enter, for the coast Indians found ample compensation in carrying the white men's goods over the trail of about thirty miles at a rate which brought them from ten to twelve dollars per pack of a hundred pounds in weight; and it was my intention to take advantage of this opportunity to reach the head of the river, and then fight my way down it, rather than against its well known rapid current, of which I had heard so much from the accounts of explorers on its lower waters. When it was known, however, that I expected to do my explorations on a raft, the idea was laughed at by the few white men of the country, as evincing the extreme of ignorance, and the Indians seemed to be but little behind them in ridicule of the plan. The latter emphatically affirmed that a hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of lakes stretched before us, and what, they argued, can be more helpless than a raft on a still lake? Eight or ten miles of boiling rapids occurred at various points in the course of the stream, and these would tear any raft into a shapeless wreck, while it would be hard to find Indians to portage my numerous effects around them. The unwieldiness of a great raft—no small one would serve for us and our stores—in a swift current was constantly pointed out, and I must confess I felt a little discouraged myself when I summed up all these reasons. Why this or the Chilkat route was not attempted long ago by some explorer, who might thereby have traversed the entire river in a single summer, instead of combating its swift current from its mouth, seems singular in the light of the above facts, and I imagine the only explanation is that men who would place sufficient reliance in Indian reports to insert in their maps the gross inaccuracies that we afterward detected, would rely also upon the Indian reports that from time immemorial have pronounced this part of the river to be unnavigable even for canoes, except for short stretches, and as filled with rapids, cañons, whirlpools and cascades.

After camping that night on the Dayay, bundles were all assorted and assigned. The packs varied from thirty-six to a hundred and thirty-seven pounds in weight, the men generally carrying a hundred pounds and the boys according to their age and strength. The "Sticks" or Tahk-heesh Indians camped near us were hunting black bear, which were said to be abundant in this locality, an assertion which seemed to be verified by the large number of tracks we saw in the valley. From this band of Indians we completed our number of packers, a circumstance which irritated the others greatly, for the Chilkats seem to regard the Sticks almost in the light of slaves. Here I also secured a stout, sturdy fellow, at half rates, merely to go along in case of sickness among my numerous retinue, in which event he would be put on full wages. His onerous duties consisted in carrying the guidon, or expedition flag, weighing four or five pounds, and he improvised himself into a ferry for the white men at the numerous fords which the tortuous Dayay River presented as we ascended. As every one gave him a nickel or dime at each ford, and the guidon staff was simply a most convenient alpenstock, he was the envy of all the others as he slowly but surely amassed his gains; not so slowly either, for the river made so many windings from one side of its high walled valley to the other, that his receipts rivaled a western railroad in the matter of mileage, but the locomotion was scarcely as comfortable as railroad travel.

METHODS OF TRACKING A CANOE UP A RAPID.

During the still, quiet evening we could hear many grouse hooting in the spruce woods of the hillsides, this time of day seeming to be their favorite hour for concerts. The weather on this, the first day of our trip, was splendid, with a light southern wind that went down with the sun and gave us a few mist-like sprinkles of rain, serving to cool the air and make slumber after our fatigue doubly agreeable. The head of canoe navigation on the Dayay river, where it terminates abruptly in a huge boiling cascade, is ten miles from the mouth of the stream, although fully fifteen are traveled by the canoemen in ascending its tortuous course, which is accomplished by the usual Indian method of "tracking," with ropes and poles from the bank of the river. I observed that they "tracked" their canoes against the current in two ways, each method requiring two men to one canoe. The diagrams given will show these methods; in No. 1, an Indian pulls the canoe with a rope, while a companion just in his rear and following in his steps keeps the head of the canoe in the stream, with a long pole, at just such distance as he may desire according to the obstacles that are presented. If the water from the bank for some distance out, say twelve or fifteen feet, is clear of all obstacles, his companion will fall to the rear as far as his pole will allow and assist the ropeman by pushing up stream, but in shallow, swift places he has all he can do to regulate the canoe's course through the projecting stones, and the burden of the draft falls on the ropeman. In the other mode both the men use poles and all the motive power is furnished by pushing. The advantage over the first is that in "boiling" water full of stones, the bowman may steer his end clear of all of these, only to have the seething waters throw the stern against a sharp corner of a rock and tear a hole in that part, an accident which can only be avoided by placing a pole-man at the stern. It is readily apparent, however, that there is much more power expended in this method of making headway against the current than in the other. Some few of the Indians judiciously vary the two methods to suit the circumstances. On long stretches of only moderately swift water the tired trackers would take turns in resting in the canoe, using a paddle to hold the bow out from the shore. The current of the Dayay is very swift, and two days' "tracking" is often required to traverse the navigable part of the stream. Every few hundred yards or so the river needs to be crossed, wherever the timber on the banks is dense, or where the circuitous river cuts deep into the high hillsides that form the boundaries of its narrow valley. In these crossings from fifty to a hundred yards would often be lost. The Indians seemed to make no effort whatever to stem the swift current in crossing, but pointed the canoe straight across for the other bank and paddled away as if dear life depended on the result.

CANOEING UP THE DAYAY.

The march of the 8th to Camp 3, brought us within a half mile or a mile of the head of canoe navigation on the river, and here the Indians desired to camp, as at that particular spot there is no dry wood with which to cook their meals; although all they had to cook was the little flour that I had issued, the salmon being dried and eaten without further preparation. The Dayay Valley is well wooded in its bottom with poplar and several varieties of willow, and where these small forests did not exist were endless ridges of sand, gravel and even huge bowlders cutting across each other at all angles, evidently the work of water, assisted at times by the more powerful agency of moving or stranded ice. All day we had been crossing bear tracks of different ages, and after camping some of the white men paddled across the river (here thirty-five or forty yards wide) to take a stroll up the valley; and while returning a large black bear was seen perched on a conspicuous granite ridge of the western mountain wall, probably four hundred yards away and at an angle of twenty degrees above our position in the river bottom. A member of the party got two shots at him, but he disappeared in the dense underbrush, evidently afraid that the sportsman might aim at something else and so hit him. Dr. Wilson and Mr. Homan fished with bait and flies for a long distance up and down the different channels of the river, but could not get a single "rise" or "bite," although the Indians catch mountain trout in their peculiar fish-weirs, having offered us that very day a number thus captured. Like all streams rising in glacier bearing lands of calcareous structure, its waters are very white and chalky, which may account for the apparent reluctance of the fish to rise to a fly. The pretty waterfalls on the sides of the mountains still continued and the glaciers of the summits became more numerous and strongly marked, and descended nearer to the bed of the stream.

I could not but observe the peculiar manifestations of surprise characteristic of the Chilkats. Whenever one uttered a shout over some trifle, such as a comrade's slipping on a slimy stone into the water, or tumbling over the root of a log, or any mishap, comical or otherwise, every one within hearing, from two to two hundred, would immediately chime in, and such a cry would ensue as to strike us with astonishment. This may be repeated several times in a minute, and the abruptness with which it would begin and end, so that not a single distinct voice can be heard at either beginning or ending, reminds one somewhat of a gang of coyotes howling around a frontier camp or the bayings of Indian dogs on moonlight serenades, from which one would be strongly tempted to believe they had borrowed it. Withal they are a most happy, merry-hearted and jovial race, laughing hilariously at every thing with the least shadow of comicality about it, and "guying" every trifling mishap of a companion in which the sufferer is expected to join, just as the man who chases his hat in a muddy street on a windy day must laugh with the crowd. Such characteristics of good nature are generally supposed to be accompanied by a generous disposition, especially as toward men of the same blood, but I was compelled to notice an almost cruel piece of selfishness which they exhibited in one point, and which told strongly against any such theory as applied to Indians, or at least this particular band of them. When we got to the mouth of the Dayay river, many of the packers had no canoes in which to track their bundles or packs to the head of canoe navigation, and their companions who owned such craft flatly and decisively refused to take their packs, although, as far as I could see, it would have caused them no inconvenience whatever. In many cases this selfishness was the effect of caste, to which I have already alluded and which with them is carried to an extreme hardly equaled in the social distinctions of any other savage people. Nor was this the only conspicuous instance of selfishness displayed. As I have already said, the Dayay is very tortuous, wide and swift, and therefore has very few fords, and these at inconvenient intervals for travelers carrying a hundred pounds apiece on their backs, yet the slight service of ferrying the packers and their packs across the stream was refused by the canoemen as rigidly as the other favor, and where the river cut deep into some high projecting bank of the mountain flanks, these unfortunate packers would be forced to carry burdens up over some precipitous mountain spur, or at least to make a long detour in search of available fords. My readers can rest assured that I congratulated myself on having taken along a spare packer in the event of sickness among my numerous throng, for even in such a case I found them as disobliging and unaccommodating as before, utterly refusing to touch a sick man's load until he had promised them the lion's share of his wages and I had ratified the contract.

Every afternoon or evening after getting into camp, no matter how fatiguing the march had been, as soon as their simple meal was cooked and consumed, they would gather here and there in little parties for the purpose of gambling, and oftentimes their orgies would run far into the small hours of the night. The gambling game which they called la-hell was the favorite during the trip over the Chilkoot trail, although I understand that they have others not so complicated. This game requires an even number of players, generally from four to twelve, divided into two parties which face each other. These "teams" continue sitting about two or three feet apart, with their legs drawn up under them, à la Turque, the place selected being usually in sandy ground under the shade of a grove of poplar or willow trees. Each man lays a wager with the person directly opposite him, with whom alone he gambles as far as the gain or loss of his stake is concerned, although such loss or gain is determined by the success of the team as a whole. In other words, when a game terminates one team of course is the winner, but each player wins only the stake put up by his vis-à-vis. A handful of willow sticks, three or four inches long, and from a dozen to a score in number, are thrust in the sand or soft earth, between the two rows of squatting gamblers, and by means of these a sort of running record or tally of the game is kept. The implements actually employed in gambling are merely a couple of small bone-bobbins, as shown on page [227], of about the size of a lady's pen-knife, one of which has one or more bands of black cut around it near its center and is called the king, the other being pure white. At the commencement of the game, one of the players picks up the bone-bobbins, changes them rapidly from one hand to the other, sometimes behind his back, then again under an apron or hat resting on his lap, during all of which time the whole assembly are singing in a low measured melody the words, "Oh! oh! oh! Oh, ker-shoo, ker-shoo!—" which is kept up with their elbows flapping against their sides and their heads swaying to the tune, until some player of the opposite row, thinking he is inspired, and singing with unusual vehemence, suddenly points out the hand of the juggler that, in his belief, contains "the king." If his guess is correct, his team picks up one of the willow sticks and places it on their side, or, if the juggler's team has gained, any one of their sticks must be replaced in the reserve at the center. If he is wrong then, the other side tallies one in the same way. The bone "king and queen" are then handed to an Indian in the other row, and the same performance repeated, although it may be twice as long, or half as short, as no native attempts to discern the whereabouts of the "king" until he feels he has a revelation to that effect, produced by the incantation. A game will last any where from half an hour to three hours. Whenever the game is nearly concluded and one party has gained almost all the willow sticks, or at any other exciting point of the game, they have methods of "doubling up" on the wagers, by not exchanging the bobbins but holding both in one hand or leaving one or both on the ground under a hat or apron, and the guesses are about both and count double, treble or quadruple, for loss or gain. They wager the caps off their heads, their shirts off their backs, and with many of them no doubt, their prospective pay for the trip was all gone before it was half earned. Men and boys alike entered the contest, and from half a dozen places at once, in the woods near by, could be heard the everlasting refrain, the never-ceasing chant of "Oh! oh! oh! Oh! ker-shoo, ker-shoo!" They used also to improvise hats of birch bark (wherever that tree grew near the evening camp) with pictures upon them that would prohibit their passing through the mails. These habits do not indicate any great moral improvement thus far produced by contact with civilization.

DAYAY VALLEY, LOOKING UP THE NOURSE RIVER VALLEY.

A glimpse of Baird Glacier covered with fog is given. The mountains holding the glacier being twice as high as the one shown on the left, their crests, if they had been visible, would not have been shown in the photograph from which this illustration is made, being above the line where it is cut off. It is only at night that the fog-banks lift, when it is too late to take photographs.

Two miles and a half beyond the head of canoe navigation, the Kut-lah-cook-ah River of the Chilkats comes in from the west. This is really larger in volume and width than the Dayay, the two averaging respectively fifty and forty yards in width by estimation. I shortened its name, and called it after Professor Nourse of the United States Naval Observatory. Large glaciers feed its sources by numerous waterfalls, and its cañon-like bed is very picturesque. Like all such streams its waters were conspicuously white and milk-like, and the most diligent fisherman was unrewarded. At the head of the Nourse River the Indians say there is a very large lake. The mountains that bound its course on the west are capped by an immense glacier, which might be traced along their summits for probably ten or twelve miles, and was then lost in the lowering clouds of their icy crests. These light fogs are frequent on warm days, when the difference of temperature at the upper and lower levels is more marked, but they disappear at night as the temperatures approach each other. This glacier, a glimpse of which is given on page [73], was named after Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. The march of the 9th of June took us three miles and a half up the Dayay River, and while resting, about noon, I was astonished to hear the Indians declare this was their expected camp for the night, for we had really accomplished so little. I was much inclined to anticipate that the rest of the journey was not much worse, and would give a forcible example of the maxim that "dangers disappear as they are approached." The rough manner in which my illusions were dispelled will appear further on. Another inducement to stop at this particular point was found in a small grove of spruce saplings just across the river, which was so dense that each tree trunk tapered as regularly as if it had been turned from a lathe. These they desired for salmon-spears, cutting them on their way over the trail, and collecting them as they returned, so as to give the poles a few days to season, thus rendering them lighter for the dextrous work required. These peculiar kinds of fish-spears are so common over all the districts of Arctic and sub-Arctic America that I think them worthy of description. The pole is from eight to twelve feet in length, extending from P to P, as shown in the figure on this page. Two arms A A are made of elastic wood, and at their ends they carry incurved spikes of iron or steel, S S, which act as barbs on a fish-hook. Another sharpened spike projects from the tip of the pole P, and the three together make the prongs of the spear or gig. When the fish is speared the arms A A bend out as the spikes "ride" over its back, and these insert themselves in its sides, the pole spike penetrating its back. In the figure there is represented the cross-section of a fish (its dorsal-fin D) just before the spear strikes. Among the Eskimo of King William's Land I found the spear-handles made of driftwood thrown on the beach, the arms A A made of very elastic musk-ox horn, and the spikes of copper taken from the abandoned ships of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated expedition. Again at this camp (No. 4), the fishing-tackle of various kinds was employed vigilantly, but although the water seemed much clearer there were no results, the doctor advancing the theory that trout will not rise to a fly in streams where salmon are spawning, as they then live on the salmon roe to the exclusion of every thing else.

A VIEW IN THE DAYAY VALLEY. (FROM
CAMP 4.)
A finger of the Saussure Glacier is seen peeping round the mountain, the rest being covered with fog.

At this camp I saw the Chilkat boy packers wrestling in a very singular manner, different from any thing in that branch of athletics with which I am acquainted. The two wrestlers lie flat on their backs upon the ground or sand and against each other, but head to foot, or in opposite directions. Their inner legs, i.e., those touching their opponents, are raised high in the air, carried past each other, and then locked together at the knee. They then rise to a sitting posture, or as nearly as possible, and with their nearest arms locked into a firm hold at the elbows, the contest commences. It evidently requires no mean amount of strength to get on top of an equal adversary, and the game seems to demand considerable agility, although the efforts of the contestants, as they rolled around like two angle worms tied together, appeared more awkward than graceful.

POSITION OF THE FEET IN WALKING A LOG, AS PRACTICED BY THE CHILKAT INDIANS.

Northward from this camp (No. 4), lying between the Nourse and Dayay Rivers, was the southern terminal spur of a large glacier, whose upper end was lost in the cold drifting fog that clung to it, and which can be seen on page [77]. I called it the Saussure Glacier, after Professor Henri de Saussure, of Geneva, Switzerland. The travels in the Dayay Inlet and up the valley of the river had been reasonably pleasant, but on the 10th of June our course lay over the rough mountain spurs of the east side for ten or twelve miles, upon a trail fully equal to forty or fifty miles over a good road for a day's walking. Short as the march was in actual measurement, it consumed from 7:30 in the morning until 7:15 in the evening; nearly half the time, however, being occupied in resting from the extreme fatigue of the journey. In fact, in many places it was a terrible scramble up and down hill, over huge trunks and bristling limbs of fallen timber too far apart to leap from one to the other, while between was a boggy swamp that did not increase the pleasure of carrying a hundred pounds on one's back. Sometimes we would sink in almost to our knees, while every now and then this agony was supplemented by the recurrences of long high ridges of rough bowlders of trachyte with a splintery fracture. The latter felt like hot iron under the wet moccasins after walking on them and jumping from one to the other for awhile. Some of these great ridges of bowlders on the steep hillsides must have been of quite recent origin, and from the size of the big rocks, often ten or twelve feet in diameter, I infer that the force employed must have been enormous, and I could only account for it on the theory that ice had been an important agent in the result. So recent were some of the ridges that trees thirty and forty feet high were embedded in the débris, and where they were not cut off and crushed by the action of the rocks they were growing as if nothing had happened, although half the length of their trunks in some cases was below the tops of the ridges. I hardly thought that any of the trees could be over forty or fifty years old. Where these ridges of great bowlders were very wide one would be obliged to follow close behind some Indian packer acquainted with the trail, which might easily be lost before re-entering the brush.

That day I noticed that all my Indians, in crossing logs over a stream, always turned the toes of both feet in the same direction (to the right), although they kept the body square to the front, or nearly so, and each foot passed the other at every step, as in ordinary walking. The advantage to be gained was not obvious to the author; as the novice, in attempting it, feels much more unsafe than in walking over the log as usual. Nearing Camp 5, we passed over two or three hundred yards of snow from three to fifteen feet deep. This day's march of the 10th of June brought us to the head of the Dayay river at a place the Indians call the "stone-houses." These stone-houses, however, are only a loose mass of huge bowlders piled over each other, projecting high above the deep snow, and into the cave-like crevices the natives crawl for protection whenever the snow has buried all other tracts, or the cold wind from the glaciers is too severe to permit of sleep in the open. All around us was snow or the clear blue ice of the glacier fronts, while directly northward, and seemingly impassable, there loomed up for nearly four thousand feet the precipitous pass through the mountains, a blank mass of steep white, which we were to essay on the morrow.

CHASING A MOUNTAIN GOAT IN THE PERRIER PASS.

Shortly after camping I was told that the Indians had seen a mountain goat nearly on the summit of the western mountain wall, and I was able to make out his presence with the aid of field-glasses. The Indians had detected him with their unaided eyes, in spite of his white coat being against a background of snow. Had the goat been on the summit of a mountain in the moon I should not have regarded him as any safer than where he was, if the Indians were even half as fatigued as I felt, and they had carried a hundred pounds over the trail and I had not. But the identity of the goat was not fully established before an Indian, the only one who carried a gun, an old flintlock, smooth bore, Hudson Bay musket, made preparations for the chase. He ran across the valley and soon commenced the ascent of the mountains, in a little while almost disappearing on the white sides, looking like a fly crawling over the front of a house. The Indian, a "Stick," finally could be seen above the mountain goat and would have secured him, but that a little black cur dog which had started to follow him when he was almost at the summit, made its appearance on the scene just in time to frighten the animal and started him running down the mountain side toward the pass, the "Stick" closely following in pursuit, assisted by the dog. Just as every one expected to see the goat disappear through the pass, he wheeled directly around and started straight for the camp, producing great excitement. Every one grabbed the first gun he could get his hands on and waited for the animal's approach. A shot from camp sent him flying up the eastern mountains, which were higher than those of the west, closely followed almost to the summit by the indefatigable "Stick," who finally lost him. I thought it showed excellent endurance for the mountain goat, but the Indian's pluck was beyond all praise, and as he returned with a jovial shake of the head, as if he met such disappointments every day, I felt sure that I would not have undertaken his hunt for all the goat meat in the country, even with starvation at hand.

On the morning of the next day about five o'clock, we commenced the toilsome ascent of this coast range pass, called by the Indians Kotusk Mountains, and by seven o'clock all my long pack train was strung up the precipitous pass, making one of the prettiest Alpine sights that I have ever witnessed, and as seen from a distance strangely resembling a row of bowlders projecting from the snow. Up banks almost perpendicular they scrambled on their hands and knees, helping themselves by every projecting rock and clump of juniper and dwarf spruce, not even refusing to use their teeth on them at the worst places. Along the steep snow banks and the icy fronts of glaciers steps were cut with knives, while rough alpenstocks from the valley helped them to maintain their footing. In some such places the incline was so steep that those having boxes on their backs cut scratches in the icy crust with the corners as they passed along, and oftentimes it was possible to steady one's self by the open palm of the hand resting against the snow. In some of these places a single mis-step, or the caving in of a foot-hold would have sent the unfortunate traveler many hundred feet headlong to certain destruction. Yet not the slightest accident happened, and about ten o'clock, almost exhausted, we stood on the top of the pass, enveloped in a cold drifting fog, 4,240 feet above the level of the sea (a small portion of the party having found a lower crossing at 4,100 feet above sea-level). How these small Indians, not apparently averaging over one hundred and forty pounds in weight, could carry one hundred pounds up such a precipitous mountain of ice and snow, seems marvelous beyond measure. One man carried one hundred and thirty-seven pounds, while boys from twelve to fourteen carried from fifty to seventy pounds. I called this the Perrier Pass after Colonel J. Perrier of the French Geographical Society.

ASCENDING THE PERRIER PASS.

CHILKAT HUNTING AND PACKING SNOW-SHOES.

The usual thongs are used to fasten them to the feet, but are not shown in the illustration.

Once on top of the Pass the trail leads northward and the descent is very rapid for a few hundred yards to a lake of about a hundred acres in extent, which was yet frozen over and the ice covered with snow, although drainage from the slopes had made the snow very slushy. Over the level tracks of snow many of the Indians wore their snow-shoes, which in the ascent and steep descent had been lashed to their packs. These Indians have two kinds of snow-shoes, a very broad pair used while packing, as with my party, and a narrower and neater kind employed while hunting. The two kinds are figured below. This small lake, abruptly walled in, greatly resembled an extinct crater, and such it may well have been. From this resemblance it received its name of Crater Lake, a view of which figures as the frontispiece. Here there was no timber, not even brush, to be seen; while the gullies of the granite hills, and the valleys deeply covered with snow, gave the whole scene a decidedly Arctic appearance. I noticed that my Indian packers, in following a trail on snow, whether it was up hill, on a level, or even a slight descent, always stepped in each other's tracks, and hence our large party made a trail that at first glance looked as if only five or six had passed over; but when going down a steep descent, especially on soft snow, each one made his own trail, and they scattered out over many yards in width. I could not but be impressed with the idea that this was worth considering should it ever be necessary to estimate their numbers. From the little crater-like lake at the very head of the Yukon, the trail leads through a valley that converges to a gorge; and while crossing the snow in this ravine we could hear the running water gurgling under the snow bridge on which we were walking. Further down the little valley, as it opened at a point where these snow-arches were too wide to support their weight, they had tumbled into the stream, showing in many places abutments of deep perpendicular snow-banks often twenty to twenty-five feet in height. Where the river banks were of stone and perpendicular the packers were forced to pass over the projecting abutments of snow, undermined by the swift stream. It was hazardous for many to attempt the passage over the frail structure at the same time. Passing by a few small picturesque lakes on our left, some still containing floating cakes of ice, we caught sight of the main lake in the afternoon, and in a few hours were upon its banks at a point where a beautiful mountain stream came tumbling in, with enough swift water to necessitate crossing on a log. Near the Crater Lake a curlew and a swallow were seen, and a small black bear cub was the only other living thing visible, although mountain goats were abundant a short distance back in the high hills. We had gotten into camp quite late in the evening and here the contracts with our Indian packers expired.

Imagine my surprise, after a fatiguing march of thirteen miles that had required fourteen hours to accomplish, and was fully equal to forty or fifty on any good road, at having the majority of my packers, men and boys, demand payment at once with the view of an immediate return. Some of them assured me they would make the mouth of the Dayay before stopping, and would then only stay for a short rest. It should be remembered that we were so far north and the sun so near his northern solstice that it was light enough even at midnight, for traveling purposes, especially on the white snow of the worst portion of the journey, Perrier Pass. I had no reason to doubt their assurances, and afterward learned that one of them went through to the mission without stopping, in spite of a furious gale which was raging on the Dayay and Chilkoot Inlets.

[CHAPTER V.]
ALONG THE LAKES.

IN A STORM ON THE LAKES.

This large lake near the head of the Yukon I named in honor of Dr. Lindeman, of the Bremen Geographical Society. The country thus far, including the lake, had already received a most thorough exploration at the hands of Dr. Aurel Krause and Dr. Arthur Krause, two German scientists, heretofore sent out by the above named society, but I was not aware of the fact at that time. Looking out upon Lake Lindeman a most beautiful Alpine-like sheet of water was presented to our view. The scene was made more picturesque by the mountain creek, of which I have spoken, and over which a green willow tree was supposed to do duty as a foot-log. My first attempt to pass over this tree caused it to sink down into the rushing waters and was much more interesting to the spectators than to me. Lake Lindeman is about ten miles long, and from one to one and a-half wide, and in appearance is not unlike a portion of one of the broad inland passages of south-eastern Alaska already described. Fish were absent from these glacier-fed streams and lakes, or at least they were not to be enticed by any of the standard allurements of the fishermen's wiles, but we managed to kill a few dusky grouse and green-winged teal ducks to vary the usual government ration; though all were tough beyond measure, it being so near their breeding season.

Over the lake, on quiet days, were seen many gulls, and the graceful little Arctic tern, which I recognized as an old companion on the Atlantic side. A ramble among the woods next day to search for raft timber revealed a number of bear, caribou and other game tracks, but nothing could be seen of their authors. A small flock of pretty harlequin ducks gave us a long but unsuccessful shot. The lakes of the interior, of which there were many, bordered by swampy tracts, supplied Roth, our cook, with a couple of green-winged teal, duck and drake, as the reward of a late evening stroll, for, as I have said, it was light enough at midnight to allow us to shoot, at any rate with a shot-gun.

While the lakes were in many places bordered with swampy tracts, the land away from them was quite passable for walking, the great obstacle being the large amount of fallen timber that covered the ground in all directions. The area of bog, ubiquitous beyond the Kotusk range, was now confined to the shores of the lakes and to streams emerging from or emptying into them, and while these were numerous enough to a person desiring to hold a straight course for a considerable distance, the walking was bearable compared with previous experience.

Two of the Tahk-heesh or "Stick" Indians, who had come with us as packers, had stored away in this vicinity under the willows of the lake's beach, a couple of the most dilapidated looking craft that ever were seen. To call them canoes, indeed, was a strain upon our consciences. The only theory to account for their keeping afloat at all was that of the Irishman in the story, "that for every hole where the water could come in there were a half a dozen where it could run out." These canoes are made of a species of poplar, and are generally called "cottonwood canoes;" and as the trees from which they are made are not very large, the material "runs out" so to speak, along the waist or middle of the canoe, where a greater quantity is required to reach around, and this deficiency is made up by substituting batten-like strips of thin wood tacked or sewed on as gunwales, and calking the crevices well with gum. At bow and stern some rude attempt is made to warp them into canoe lines, and in doing this many cracks are developed, all of which are smeared with spruce gum. The thin bottom is a perfect gridiron of slits, all closed with gum, and the proportion of gum increases with the canoe's age. These were the fragile craft that were brought to me with a tender to transport my effects (nearly three tons besides the personnel of the expedition) almost the whole length of the lake, fully seven or eight miles, and the owners had the assurance to offer to do it in two days. I had no idea how far it was to the northern end or outlet of Lake Lindeman, as I had spent too many years of my life among Indians to attempt to deduce even an approximate estimate from the assurances of the two "Sticks" that "it was just around the point of land" to which they pointed and which may have been four or five miles distant. I gave them, however, a couple of loads of material that could be lost without serious damage, weighing three hundred to four hundred pounds, and as I did not know the length of the lake I thought I would await their return before attempting further progress. Even if they could accomplish the bargain in double the time they proposed I was quite willing to let them proceed, as I understood the outlet of the lake was a narrow river full of cascades and rocks through which, according to Indian reports, no raft of more than a few logs could possibly float. I did not feel disposed to build a couple of such cumbersome craft to traverse so short a distance. A southern gale setting in shortly after their departure, with waves running on the lake a foot or two high, was too terrible a storm for the rickety little boats, and we did not see any thing of them or their owners until three days later, when the men came creeping back overland—the gale still raging—to explain matters which required no explanation.

LAKE LINDEMAN. CAPE KOLDEWEY ON THE RIGHT.

The view is taken from the upper (southern) end of Payer Portage, looking (south) toward Kotusk Mountains. Perrier Pass is on the extreme left wrapped in fog. Named after Captain Koldewey of the German Navy.

In the meantime, having surmised the failure of our Indian contractors, the best logs available, which were rather small ones of stunted spruce and contorted pine, had been floated down the little stream and had been tracked up and down along the shores of the lake, and a raft made of the somewhat formidable dimensions of fifteen by thirty feet, with an elevated deck amidships. The rope lashings used on the loads of the Indian packers were put to duty in binding the logs together, but the greatest reliance was placed in stout wooden pins which united them by auger holes bored through both, the logs being cut or "saddled out" where they joined, as is done at the corners of log cabins. A deck was made on the corduroy plan of light seasoned pine poles, and high enough to prevent ordinary sized waves from wetting the effects, while a pole was rigged by mortising it into one of the central logs at the bottom and supporting it by four guy ropes from the top, and from this was suspended a wall tent as a sail, the ridge pole being the yard arm, with tackling arranged to raise and lower it. A large bow and stern oar with which to do the steering completed the rude craft. On the evening of the 14th of June the raft was finished, when we found that, as a number of us had surmised, it was not of sufficient buoyancy to hold all our effects as well as the whole party of whites and natives.

The next day only three white men, Mr. Homan, Mr. McIntosh and Corporal Shircliff, were placed in charge. About half the stores were put on the deck, the raft swung by ropes into the swift current of the stream so as to float it well out into the lake, and as the rude sail was spread to the increasing wind, the primitive craft commenced a journey that was destined to measure over thirteen hundred miles before the rough ribs of knots and bark were laid to rest on the great river, nearly half a thousand miles of whose secrets were given up to geographical science through the medium of her staunch and trusty bones. As she slowly obeyed her motive power, the wind began blowing harder and harder, until the craft was pitching like a vessel laboring in an ocean storm; but despite this the middle of the afternoon saw her rough journey across the angry lake safely completed, and this without any damage to her load worth noticing. The three men had had an extremely hard time of it, and had been compelled to take down their wall tent sail, for when this was lashed down over the stores on the deck to protect them from the deluge of flying spray breaking up over the stern there was ample surface presented to the furious gale to drive them along at a good round pace, especially when near the bold rocky shores, where all their vigilance and muscle were needed to keep them from being dashed to pieces in the rolling breakers. They had started with a half dozen or so good stout poles, but in using them over the rocks on the bottom one would occasionally cramp between a couple of submerged stones and be wrested violently from their hands as the raft swept swiftly by before it could be extricated. The remainder of the personnel, white and native, scrambled over the rough precipitous mountain spurs on the eastern side of the lake, wading through bog and tangled underbrush, then up steep slippery granite rocks on to the ridge tops bristling with fallen burned timber, or occasionally steadying themselves on some slight log that crossed a deep cañon, whose bed held a rushing stream where nothing less than a trout could live for a minute, the one common suffering every where being from the mosquitoes. The rest of the stores not taken on the raft found their way along slowly by means of the two dilapidated canoes, previously described, in the hands of our own Indians.

As we neared Camp 7, at the outlet of Lake Lindeman, on the overland trail we occasionally met with little openings that might be described by an imaginative person as prairies, and for long stretches, that is, two and three hundred yards, the walking would really be pleasant.

An inspection of the locality showed that the lake we had just passed was drained by a small river averaging from fifty to seventy-five feet in width and a little over a mile long. It was for nearly the whole length a repetition of shallow rapids, shoals, cascades, ugly-looking bowlders, bars and network of drift-timber. At about the middle of its course the worst cascade was split by a huge projecting bowlder, just at a sudden bend of the stream, and either channel was barely large enough to allow the raft to pass if it came end on, and remained so while going through, otherwise it would be sure to jam. Through this narrow chute of water the raft was "shot" the next day—June 16th—and although our predictions were verified at this cascade, a few minutes' energetic work sufficed to clear it, with the loss of a side-log or two, and all were glad to see it towed and anchored alongside the gravelly beach on the new lake, with so little damage received. Here we at once commenced enlarging its dimensions on a scale commensurate with the carrying of our entire load, both personnel and materiel. Around this unnavigable and short river the Indian packers and traders portage their goods when making their way into the interior, there being a good trail on the eastern side of the stream, which, barring a few sandy stretches, connects the two lakes. I called these rapids and the portage Payer Portage, after Lieutenant Payer, of the Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872-74.

By the 17th of June, at midnight, it was light enough to read print, of the size of that before my readers, and so continued throughout the month, except on very cloudy nights. Many bands of pretty harlequin ducks were noticed in the Payer Rapids, which seemed to be their favorite resort, the birds rarely appearing in the lakes, and always near the point at which some swift stream entered the smoother water. Black and brown bears and caribou tracks were seen in the valley of a small stream that here came in from the west. This valley was a most picturesque one as viewed from the Payer Portage looking westward, and was quite typical of the little Alpine valleys of this locality. I named it after Mr. Homan, the topographer of the expedition. We were quite fortunate in finding a number of fallen logs, sound and seasoned, which were much larger than any in our raft, the only trouble being that they were not long enough. All of the large trees tapered rapidly, and at the height of twenty or twenty-five feet a tree was reduced to the size of the largest of its numerous limbs, so that it did not offer surface enough at the small end to use with safety as the side-log or bottom-log of a well-constructed craft. We soon had a goodly number of them sawed in proper lengths, or, at any rate, as long as we could get them, their numerous limbs hacked off, and then, with much labor, we made log-ways through the brush and network of trunks, by means of which we plunged them into the swift river when they were floated down to the raft's position. One of the delights of this raft-making was our having to stand a greater part of the day in ice-water just off the mountain tops, and in strange contrast with this annoyance, the mosquitoes would come buzzing around and making work almost impossible by their attacks upon our heads, while at the same time our feet would be freezing. When the larger logs were secured, they were built into the raft on a plan of fifteen by forty feet; but, taking into account the projections outside of the corner pins, the actual dimensions were sixteen by forty-two. These were never afterward changed.

Two elevated decks were now constructed, separated by a lower central space, where two cumbersome oars might be rigged, that made it possible to row the ponderous craft at the rate of nearly a mile an hour, and these side-oars were afterward used quite often to reach some camping place on the beach of a lake when the wind had failed us or set in ahead. The bow and stern steering-oars were still retained, and we thus had surplus oars for either service, in case of accident, for the two services were never employed at once under any circumstances. There was only one fault with the new construction, and that was that none of the logs extended the whole length of the raft, and the affair rather resembled a pair of rafts, slightly dove-tailed at the point of union, than a single raft of substantial build.

The new lake on which we found ourselves was named Lake Bennett, after Mr. James Gordon Bennett, a well-known patron of American geographical research. While we were here a couple of canoes of the same dilapidated kind as those we saw on Lake Lindeman came down Lake Bennett, holding twice as many Tahk-heesh Indians who begged for work, and whom we put to use in various ways. I noticed that one of them stammered considerably, the first Indian I ever met with an impediment in his speech.

Among my Chilkat packers I also noticed one that was deaf and dumb, and several who were afflicted with cataract in the eye, but none were affected with the latter disease to the extent I had observed among the Eskimo, with whom I believe it is caused by repeated attacks of snow-blindness.

LAKE BENNETT FROM PAYER PORTAGE.

Iron-capped mountains on the right, covered with fog.

On the summits of high mountains to the right, or eastward of Lake Bennett, were the familiar blue-ice glaciers, but in charming relief to these were the red rocks and ridges that protruded amid them. Specimens of rocks very similar in color were found on the lake beach and in the terminal moraines of the little glaciers that came down the gulches, and these having shown iron as their coloring matter, I gave to this bold range the name of the Iron-capped Mountains.

On the morning of the 19th of June the constructors reported that their work was done, and the raft was immediately hauled in closer to shore, the load put on and carefully adjusted with reference to an equitable weight, the bow and stern lines cast loose, and after rowing through a winding channel to get past the shallow mudflats deposited by the two streams which emptied themselves near here, the old wall tent was again spread from its ridge-pole, lashed to the top of the rude mast, and our journey was resumed.

The scenery along this part of Lake Bennett is very much like the inland passages of Alaska, except that there is much less timber on the hills.

I had started with four Chilkat Indians, who were to go over the whole length of the Yukon with me. One of them was always complaining of severe illness, with such a wonderful adaptation to the amount of labor on hand that I discharged him at Lake Bennett as the only method of breaking up the coincidence. The best workman among them discharged himself by disappearing with a hatchet and an ax, and I was left with but two, neither of whom, properly speaking, could be called a Chilkat Indian; in fact one was a half-breed Tlinkit interpreter, "Billy" Dickinson by name, whose mother had been a Tsimpsean Indian woman and whose father kept the store of the North-west Trading Company in Chilkat Inlet. "Billy," as we always called him, was a rather good-looking young fellow of about twenty-five years, who understood the Tlinkit language thoroughly, but had the fault of nearly all interpreters of mixed blood, that when called on for duty he considered himself as one of the high contracting parties to the bargain to be made; a sort of agent instead of an interpreter, and being a wonderfully poor agent he became still worse as an interpreter. He was as strong as two or three ordinary men of his build and in any sort of an emergency with a sprinkle of dangerous excitement about it he put all his strength to use and proved invaluable, but in the hum-drum, monotonous work of the trip, such as the steering of the raft or other continuous labor, his Indian nature came to the front, and he did every thing in the world on the outskirts of the work required, but would not be brought down to the main issue until compelled to do so by the application of strong language. Our other native companion was named Indianne, a Chilkat Tahk-heesh Indian, whose familiarity with the latter language, through his mother, a Tahk-heesh squaw, made him invaluable to us as an interpreter while in the country of this tribe, which stretches to the site of old Fort Selkirk at the mouth of the Pelly River. Physically, Indianne was not all that might be required in an Indian, for they are generally supposed to do twice as much out-of-door work as a white man, but he was well past fifty years and such activity was hardly to be expected of him. Besides being a Tahk-heesh, or Stick interpreter, he was fairly familiar with the ground as a guide, having traveled over parts of it much oftener than most Indians, owing to the demand for his services as an interpreter among the Sticks. Through the medium of our two interpreters, and the knowledge found in each tribe of the language of their neighbors, we managed to get along on the river until English and Russian were again encountered, although we occasionally had to use four or five interpreters at once.

There was a fair wind in our favor as we started, but it was accompanied with a disagreeable rain which made things very unpleasant, as we had no sign of a cover on our open boat, nor could we raise one in a strong wind. Under this wind we made about a mile and a half an hour, and as it kept slowly increasing we dashed along at the noble rate of two or two and a half miles an hour. This increasing wind, however, also had its disadvantages, for on long, unprotected stretches of the lake the water was swelling into waves that gave us no small apprehension for our vessel. Not that we feared she might strike a rock, or spring a leak, but that in her peculiar explorations she might spread herself over the lake, and her crew and cargo over its bottom. By three in the afternoon the waves were dashing high over the stern, and the raft having no logs running its entire length, was working in the center like an accordion, and with as much distraction to us. Still it was important to take advantage of every possible breath of wind in the right direction while on the lakes; and we held the raft rigidly to the north for about two hours longer, at which time a perfect hurricane was howling, the high waves sweeping the rowing space so that no one could stand on his feet in that part, much less sit down to the oars, and as a few of the faithful pins commenced snapping, we headed the vessel for the eastern shore at as sharp an angle as it was possible to make running before the wind, and which I do not think was over two points of the compass, equal to an angle of about twenty degrees.

This course brought us in time to a rough, rocky beach strewn with big bowlders along the water's edge, over which the waves were dashing in a boiling sheet of water that looked threatening enough; but a line was gotten ashore through the surf with the aid of a canoe, and while a number of the crew kept the raft off the rocks with poles, the remainder of the party tracked it back about a half a mile along the slippery stones of the beach, to a crescent-shaped cove sheltered from the waves and wind, where it was anchored near the beach. We at once began looking around for a sufficient number of long logs to run the whole length of the raft, a search in which we were conspicuously successful, for the timber skirting the little cove was the largest and best adapted for raft repairing of any we saw for many hundred miles along the lakes. Four quite large trees were found, and all the next day, the 20th, was occupied in cutting them down, clearing a way for them through the timber to the shore of the lake, and prying, pulling, and pushing them there, and then incorporating them into the raft. Two were used for the side logs and two for the center, and when we had finished our task it was evident that a much needed improvement had been made. It was just made in time, too, for many of our tools were rapidly going to pieces; the last auger had slipped the nut that held it in the handle, so that it could not be withdrawn from the logs to clear it of the shavings, but a small hand-vise was firmly screwed on as a substitute, and this too lost its hold and fell overboard on the outer edge of the raft in eight or ten feet of water, and ice-water at that. A magnet of fair size was lashed on the end of a long pole, and we fished for the invisible implement, but without avail. "Billy" Dickinson, our half-breed Chilkat interpreter, of his own free will and accord, then stripped himself and dived down into the ice-cold water and discovered that near the spot where it had sunk was a precipitous bank of an unknown depth, down which it had probably rolled, otherwise the magnet would have secured it. Other means were employed and we got along without it.

The day we spent in repairing the raft a good, strong, steady wind from the south kept us all day in a state of perfect irritation at the loss of so much good motive power, but we consoled ourselves by observing that it did us one service at least—no mean one, however—in keeping the mosquitoes quiet during our labors.

Across Lake Bennett to the north-westward was a very prominent cape, brought out in bold relief by the valley of a picturesque stream, which emptied itself just beyond. I called it Prejevalsky Point after the well-known Russian explorer, while the stream was called Wheaton River after Brevet Major-General Frank Wheaton, U. S. Army, at the time commanding the Military Department (of the Columbia) in which Alaska is comprised, and to whose efforts and generosity the ample outfit of the expedition was due.

On the 21st we again started early, with a good breeze behind us that on the long stretches gave us quite heavy seas, which tested the raft very thoroughly, and with a result much to our satisfaction. It no longer conformed to the surface of the long swelling waves, but remained rigidly intact, the helmsman at the steering oar getting considerably splashed as a consequence. The red rocks and ridges of the ice-covered mountain tops that I have mentioned finally culminated in one bold, beetling pinnacle, well isolated from the rest, and quite noticeable for many miles along the lake from either direction. This I named Richards' Rock, after Vice-Admiral Richards, of the Royal Navy. The country was becoming a little more open as we neared the northern end of Lake Bennett, and, indeed, more picturesque in its relief to the monotonous grandeur of the mountain scenery. Lake Bennett is thirty miles long. At its north-western extremity a couple of streams disembogue, forming a wide, flat and conspicuous valley that, as we approached it, we all anticipated would prove our outlet. Several well marked conical buttes spring from this valley, and these with the distant mountains give it a very picturesque appearance, its largest river being sixty to seventy-five yards wide, but quite shallow. It received the name of Watson Valley, for Professor Sereno Watson, of Harvard University.

About five o'clock the northern end or outlet of the lake was reached. As the sail was lowered, and we entered a river from one hundred to two hundred yards wide, and started forward at a speed of three or four miles an hour—a pace which seemed ten times as fast as our progress upon the lake, since, from our proximity to the shore, our relative motion was more clearly indicated, our spirits ascended, and the prospects of our future journey when we should be rid of the lakes were joyfully discussed, and the subject was not exhausted when we grounded and ran upon a mud flat that took us two hours of hard work to get clear of. This short stretch of the draining river of Lake Bennett, nearly two miles long, is called by the natives of the country "the place where the caribou cross," and appears on the map as Caribou Crossing.

At certain seasons of the year, so the Tahk-heesh Indians say, these caribou—the woodland reindeer—pass over this part of the river in large numbers in their migrations to the different feeding grounds, supplied and withdrawn in turn by the changing seasons, and ford its wide shallow current, passing backward and forward through Watson Valley. Unfortunately for our party neither of these crossings occurred at this time of the year, although a dejected camp of two Tahk-heesh families not far away from ours (No. 10) had a very ancient reindeer ham hanging in front of their brush tent, which, however, we did not care to buy. The numerous tracks of the animals, some apparently as large as oxen, confirmed the Indian stories, and as I looked at our skeleton game score and our provisions of Government bacon, I wished sincerely that June was one of the months of the reindeers' migration, and the 21st or 22d about the period of its culmination.

The very few Indians living in this part of the country—the "Sticks"—subsist mostly on these animals and on mountain goats, with now and then a wandering moose, and more frequently a black bear. One would expect to find such followers of the chase the very hardiest of all Indians, in compliance with the rule that prevails in most countries, by which the hunter excels the fisherman, but this does not seem to be the case along this great river. Here, indeed, it appears that the further down the stream the Indian lives, and the more he subsists on fish, the hardier, the more robust, the more self-asserting and impudent he becomes.

After prying our raft off the soft mud flat we again spread our sail for the beach of the little lake and went into camp, after having been on the water (or in it) for over thirteen hours.

The country was now decidedly more open, and it was evident that we were getting out of the mountains. Many level spots appeared, the hills were less steep and the snow was melting from their tops. Pretty wild rose-blossoms were found along the banks of the beach, with many wild onions with which we stuffed the wrought-iron grouse that we killed, and altogether there was a general change of verdure for the better. There were even a number of rheumatic grasshoppers which feebly jumped along in the cold Alpine air, as if to tempt us to go fishing, in remembrance of the methods of our boyhood's days, and in fact every thing that we needed for that recreation was to be had except the fish. Although this lake (Lake Nares, after Sir George Nares) was but three or four miles long, its eastern trend delayed us three days before we got a favorable wind, the banks not being good for tracking the raft. Our old friend, the steady summer south wind, still continued, but was really a hindrance to our progress on an eastern course. Although small, Lake Nares was one of the prettiest in the lacustrine chain, owing to the greater openness of country on its banks. Grand terraces stretching in beautiful symmetry along each side of the lake plainly showed its ancient levels, these terraces reaching nearly to the tops of the hills, and looking as if some huge giant had used them as stairways over the mountains. Similar but less conspicuous terraces had been noticed on the northern shores of Lake Bennett.

Although we could catch no fish while fishing with bait or flies, yet a number of trout lines put out over night in Lake Nares rewarded us with a large salmon trout, the first fish we had caught on the trip. I have spoken of the delay on this little lake on account of its eastward trend, and the next lake kept up the unfavorable course, and we did not get off this short eastern stretch of ten or fifteen miles for five or six days, so baffling was the wind. Of course, these protracted delays gave us many chances for rambles around the country, some of which we improved.

Everywhere we came in contact with the grouse of these regions, all of them with broods of varying numbers, and while the little chicks went scurrying through the grass and brush in search of a hiding place, the old ones walked along in front of the intruder, often but a few feet away, seemingly less devoid of fear than the common barn fowls, although probably they had never heard a shot fired.

The Doctor and I sat down to rest on a large rock with a perturbed mother grouse on another not over three yards away, and we could inspect her plumage and study her actions as well as if she had been in a cage. The temptation to kill them was very great after having been so long without fresh meat, a subsistence the appetite loudly demands in the rough out-of-door life of an explorer. A mess of them ruthlessly destroyed by our Indian hunters, who had no fears of the game law, no sportsman's qualms of conscience, nor in fact compassion of any sort, lowered our desire to zero, for they were tougher than leather, and as tasteless as shavings; and after that first mess we were perfectly willing to allow them all the rights guaranteed by the game laws of lower latitudes.

CARVED PINS FOR FASTENING MARMOT SNARES.

Quite a number of marmots were seen by our Indians, and the hillsides were dotted with their holes. The Indians catch them for fur and food (in fact, every thing living is used by the Indians for the latter purpose) by means of running nooses put over their holes, which choke the little animal to death as he tries to quit his underground home. A finely split raven quill, running the whole length of the rib of the feather, is used for the noose proper and the instant this is sprung it closes by its own flexibility. The rest is a sinew string tied to a bush near the hole if one be convenient, otherwise to a peg driven in the ground. Sometimes they employ a little of the large amount of leisure time they have on their hands in cutting these pegs into fanciful and totemic designs, although in this respect the Sticks, as in every thing else pertaining to the savage arts, are usually much inferior to the Chilkats in these displays, and the illustrations give on page [112] are characteristic rather of the latter tribe than of the former. Nearly all the blankets of this Tahk-heesh tribe of Indians are made from these marmot skins, and they are exceedingly light considering their warmth. Much of the warmth, however, is lost by the ventilated condition in which the wearers maintain them, as it costs labor to mend them, but none to sit around and shiver.

The few Tahk-heesh who had been camped near us at Caribou Crossing suddenly disappeared the night after we camped on the little lake, and as our "gum canoe" that we towed along behind the raft and used for emergencies, faded from view at the same eclipse, we were forced to associate the events together and set these fellows down as subject to kleptomania. Nor should I be too severe either, for the canoe had been picked up by us on Lake Lindeman as a vagrant, and it certainly looked the character in every respect, therefore we could not show the clearest title in the world to the dilapidated craft. It was a very fortunate circumstance that we were not worried for the use of a canoe afterward until we could purchase a substitute, although we hardly thought such a thing possible at the time, so much had we used the one that ran away with our friends.

The 23d of June we got across the little lake (Nares), the wind dying down as we went through its short draining river, having made only three miles.

The next day, the 24th, the wind seemed to keep swinging around in a circle, and although we made five miles, I think we made as many landings, so often did the wind fail us or set in ahead.

This new lake I called after Lieutenant Bove of the Italian navy. Here too, the mountainous shores were carved into a series of terraces rising one above the other, which probably indicated the ancient beaches of the lake when its outlet was closed at a much higher level than at present, and when great bodies of ice on their surface plowed up the beach into these terraces. This new lake was nine miles long. The next day again we had the same fight with a battling wind from half past six in the morning until after nine at night, nearly seventeen hours, but we managed to make twelve miles, and better than all, regain our old course pointing northward. During one of these temporary landings on the shores of Lake Bove our Indians amused themselves in wasting government matches, articles which they had never seen in such profusion before, and in a little while they succeeded in getting some dead and fallen spruce trees on fire, and these communicating to the living ones above them, soon sent up great billows of dense resinous smoke that must have been visible for miles, and which lasted for a number of minutes after we had left. Before camping that evening we could see a very distant smoke, apparently six or seven miles ahead, but really ten or twenty, which our Indians told us was an answering smoke to them, the Tahk-heesh, who kindled the second fire, evidently thinking that they were Chilkat traders in their country, this being a frequent signal among them as a means of announcing their approach, when engaged in trading. It was worthy of note as marking the existence of this primitive method of signaling, so common among some of the Indian tribes of the plains, among these far-off savages, but I was unable to ascertain whether they carried it to such a degree of intricacy with respect to the different meanings of compound smokes either as to number or relative intervals of time or space. It is very doubtful if they do, as the necessity for such complex signals can hardly arise.

This new lake on which we had taken up our northward course, and which is about eighteen miles long, is called by the Indians of the country Tahk-o (each lake and connecting length of river has a different name with them), and, I understand, receives a river coming in from the south, which, followed up to one of its sources, gives a mountain pass to another river emptying into the inland estuaries of the Pacific Ocean. It is said by the Indians to be smaller than the one we had just come over, and therefore we might consider that we were on the Yukon proper thus far.

Lake Tahk-o and Lake Bove are almost a single sheet, separated only by a narrow strait formed by a point of remarkable length (Point Perthes, after Justus Perthes of Gotha), which juts nearly across to the opposite shore. It is almost covered with limestones, some of them almost true marble in their whiteness, a circumstance which gives a decided hue to the cape even when seen at a distance.

LOOKING ACROSS LAKE BOVE FROM PERTHES POINT.

Field Peak in the far distance. (Named for Hon. David Dudley Field.)

Leaving the raft alongside the beach of Lake Tahk-o at our only camping place on it (Camp No. 13), a short stroll along its shores revealed a great number of long, well-trimmed logs that strongly resembled telegraph poles, and would have sold for those necessary nuisances in a civilized country. They were finally made out to be the logs used by the Indians in rafting down the stream, and well-trimmed by constant attrition on the rough rocky beaches while held there by the storms. Most of these were observed on the northern shores of the lakes, to which the current through them, slight as it was, coupled with the prevailing south wind, naturally drifts them. I afterward ascertained that rafting was quite a usual thing along the head waters of the Yukon, and that we were not pioneers in this rude art by any means, although we had thought so from the direful prognostications they were continually making as to our probable success with our own. The "cottonwood" canoes already referred to are very scarce, there probably not existing over ten or twelve along the whole length of the upper river as far as old Fort Selkirk. Many of their journeys up the swift stream are performed by the natives on foot, carrying their limited necessities on their backs. Upon their return a small raft of from two to six or eight logs is made, and they float down with the current in the streams, and pole and sail across the lakes. By comparing these logs with telegraph poles one has a good idea of the usual size of the timber of these districts. The scarcity of good wooden canoes is also partially explained by this smallness of the logs; while birch bark canoes are unknown on the Yukon until the neighborhood of old Fort Selkirk is reached.

This same Lake Tahk-o, or probably some lake very near it, had been reached by an intrepid miner, a Mr. Byrnes, then in the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Many of my readers are probably not acquainted with the fact that this corporation, at about the close of our civil war, conceived the grand idea of uniting civilization in the eastern and western continents by a telegraph line running by way of Bering's Straits, and that a great deal of the preliminary surveys and even a vast amount of the actual work had been completed when the success of the Atlantic cable put a stop to the project. The Yukon River had been carefully examined from its mouth as far as old Fort Yukon (then a flourishing Hudson Bay Company post), some one thousand miles from the mouth, and even roughly beyond, in their interest, although it had previously been more or less known to the Russian-American and Hudson Bay trading companies. Mr. Byrnes, a practical miner from the Caribou mines of British Columbia, crossed the Tahk-o Pass, already cited, got on one of the sources of the Yukon, and as near as can be made out, descended it to the vicinity of the lake of which I am writing. Here it appears he was recalled by a courier sent on his trail and dispatched by the telegraph company, who were now mournfully assisting in the jubilee of the Atlantic cable's success, and he retraced his steps over the river and lakes, and returned to his former occupation of mining.

Whether he ever furnished a map and a description of his journey, so that it could be called an exploration, I do not know, but from the books which purport to give a description of the country as deduced from his travels, I should say not, considering their great inaccuracy. One book, noticing his travels, and purporting to be a faithful record of the telegraph explorers on the American side, said that had Mr. Byrnes continued his trip only a day and a half further in the light birch-bark canoes of the country, he would have reached old Fort Selkirk, and thus completed the exploration of the Yukon. Had he reached the site of old Fort Selkirk, he certainly would have had the credit, had he recorded it, however rough his notes may have been, but he would never have done so in the light birch-bark canoes of the country, for the conclusive reason that they do not exist, as already stated; and as to doing it in a day and a half, our measurements from Lake Tahk-o to Fort Selkirk show nearly four hundred and fifty miles, and observations proved that the Indians seldom exceed a journey of six hours in their cramped wooden craft, so that his progress would necessarily have demanded a speed of nearly fifty miles an hour. At this rate of canoeing along the whole river, across Bering Sea and up the Amoor River, the telegraph company need not have completed their line along this part, but might simply have turned their dispatch over to these rapid couriers, and they would have only been a few hours behind the telegraph dispatch if it had been worked as slowly as it is now in the interest of the public.

We passed out of Lake Tahk-o a little after two o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th of June, and entered the first considerable stretch of river that we had yet met with on the trip, about nine miles long. We quitted the river at five o'clock, which was quite an improvement on our lake traveling even at its best. The first part of this short river stretch is full of dangerous rocks and bowlders, as is also the lower portion of Tahk-o Lake.

On the right bank of the river, about four miles from the entrance, we saw a tolerably well-built "Stick" Indian house. Near it in the water was a swamped Indian canoe which one of our natives bailed out in a manner as novel as it was effectual. Grasping it on one side, and about the center, a rocking motion, fore and aft, was kept up, the bailer waiting until the recurrent wave was just striking the depressed end of the boat, and as this was repeated the canoe was slowly lifted until it stood at his waist with not enough water in it to sink an oyster can. This occupied a space of time not much greater than it has taken to relate it. This house was deserted, but evidently only for a while, as a great deal of its owner's material of the chase and the fishery was still to be seen hanging inside on the rafters. Among these were a great number of dried salmon, one of the staple articles of food that now begin to appear on this part of the great river, nearly two thousand miles from its mouth. This salmon, when dried before putrefaction sets in, is tolerable, ranking somewhere between Limburger cheese and walrus hide. Collecting some of it occasionally from Indian fishermen as we floated by, we would use it as a lunch in homeopathic quantities until some of us got so far as to imagine that we really liked it. If smoked, this salmon is quite good, but by far the larger amount is dried in the open air, and, Indian like, the best is first served and soon disappears.

Floating down the river, and coming near any of the low marshy points, we were at once visited by myriads of small black gnats which formed a very unsolicited addition to the millions of mosquitoes, the number of which did not diminish in the least as we descended the river. The only protection from them was in being well out from land, with a good wind blowing, or when forced to camp on shore a heavy resinous smoke would often disperse a large part of them.

When we camped that evening on the new lake the signal smoke of the Tahk-heesh Indians—if it was one—was still burning, at least some six or seven miles ahead of us, which showed how much we had been mistaken in estimating its distance the day before. A tree has something definite in its size, and even a butte or mountain peak has something tangible on which a person can base a calculation for distance, but when one comes down to a distant smoke I think the greatest indefiniteness has been reached, especially when one wants to estimate its distance. I had often observed this before, when on the plains, where it is still worse than in a hilly country, where one can at least perceive that the smoke is beyond the hill, back of which it rises, but when often looking down an open river valley no such indications are to be had. I remember when traveling through the sand hills of western Nebraska that a smoke which was variously estimated to be from eight to twelve or possibly fifteen miles away took us two days' long traveling in an army ambulance, making thirty-five or forty miles a day, as the winding road ran, to reach its site.

LOOKING SOUTHWARD FROM CAMP 14 ON LAKE MARSH

On the left is the Tahk-o Pass, on the right the Yukon Pass in the mountains, directly over the point of land. Between this point and the Yukon Pass can be seen the Yukon River coming into the lake.

The shores of the new lake—which I named Lake Marsh, after Professor O. C. Marsh, a well-known scientist of our country—was composed of all sizes of clay stones jumbled together in confusion, and where the water had reached and beat upon them it had reduced them to a sticky clay of the consistency of thick mortar, not at all easy to walk through. This mire, accompanied by a vast quantity of mud brought down by the streams that emanated from grinding glaciers, and which could be distinguished by the whiter color and impalpable character of its ingredients, nearly filled the new lake, at least for wide strips along the shores where it had been driven by the storms. Although drawing a little less than two feet of water, the raft struck several times at distances from the shore of from fifty to a hundred yards, and the only alternative was to wade ashore in our rubber boots (the soft mud being deeper than the water itself) and tie the raft by a long line whenever we wanted to camp.

One night, while on this lake, a strong inshore breeze coming up, our raft, while unloaded, was gradually lifted by the incoming high waves, and brought a few inches further at a time, until a number of yards had been made. The next morning when loaded and sunk deep into the mud, the work we had to pry it off is more easily imagined than described, but it taught us a lesson that we took to heart, and thereafter a friendly prod or two with a bar was generally given at the ends of the cumbersome craft to pry it gradually into deeper water as the load slowly weighed it down. When the wind was blowing vigorously from some quarter—and it was only when it was blowing that we could set sail and make any progress—these shallow mud banks would tinge the water over them with a dirty white color that was in strong contrast with the clear blue water over the deeper portion, and by closely watching this well-defined line of demarcation when under sail, we could make out the most favorable points at which to reach the bank, or approach it as nearly as possible. This clear-cut outline between the whitened water within its exterior edges and the deep blue water beyond, showed in many places an extension of the deposits of from four hundred to five hundred yards from the beach. It is probable that the areas of water may vary in Lake Marsh at different seasons sufficiently to lay bare these mud banks, or cover them so as to be navigable for small boats; but at the time of our visit there seemed to be a most wonderful uniformity in the depth of the water over them in every part of the lake, it being about eighteen inches.

Camping on the lakes was generally quite an easy affair. There was always plenty of wood, and, of course, water everywhere, the clear, cold mountain springs occurring every few hundred yards if the lake water was too muddy; so that about all that we needed was a dry place large enough to pitch a couple of tents for the white people and a tent fly for the Indians, but simple as the latter seemed, it was very often quite difficult to obtain. It was seldom that we found places where tent pins could be driven in the ground, and when rocks large enough to do duty as pins, or fallen timber or brush for the same purpose could not be had, we generally put the tent under us, spread our blankets upon it, crawled in and went to sleep. The greatest comfort in pitching our tent was in keeping out the mosquitoes, for then we could spread our mosquito bars with some show of success, although the constantly recurring light rains made us often regret that we had made a bivouac, not particularly on account of the slight wettings we got, but because of our constant fear that the rain was going to be much worse in reality than it ever proved to be. I defy any one to sleep in the open air with only a blanket or two over him and have a great black cloud sprinkle a dozen drops of rain or so in his face and not imagine the deluge was coming next. I have tried it off and on for nearly twenty years, and have not got over the feeling yet. If, after camping, a storm threatened, a couple of stout skids were placed fore and aft under the logs of the raft nearest the shore to prevent their breaking off as they bumped on the beach in the waves of the surf, a monotonous music that lulled us to sleep on many a stormy night. The baggage on the raft, like that in an army wagon or upon a pack train of mules, in a few days so assorted itself that the part necessary for the night's camping was always the handiest, and but a few minutes were required after landing until the evening meal was ready.

So important was it to make the entire length of the river (over 2000 miles) within the short interval between the date of our starting and the probable date of departure of the last vessel from St. Michaels, near the mouth of the river, that but little time was left for rambles through the country, and much as I desired to take a hunt inland, and still more to make an examination of the country at various points along the great river, I constantly feared that by so doing I might be compromising our chances of getting out of the country before winter should effectually forbid it. Therefore, from the very start it was one constant fight against time to avoid such an unwished for contingency, and thus we could avail ourselves of but few opportunities for exploring the interior.

On the 28th of June a fair breeze on Lake Marsh continuing past sunset (an unusual occurrence), we kept on our way until well after midnight before the wind died out. At midnight it was light enough to read common print and I spent some time about then in working out certain astronomical observations. Venus was the only star that was dimly visible in the unclouded sky. Lake Marsh was the first water that we could trust in which to take a bath, and even there—and for that matter it was the same along the entire river—bathing was only possible on still, warm, sunny days.

Below old Fort Selkirk on the Yukon, at the mouth of the White River (so-called on account of its white muddy water), bathing is almost undesirable on account of the large amount of sediment contained in the water; its swift current allowing it to hold much more than any river of the western slope known to me, while its muddy banks furnish a ready base of supplies. Its temperature also seldom reaches the point that will allow one to plunge in all over with any degree of comfort. One annoyance in bathing in Lake Marsh during the warmer hours of the day was the presence of a large fly, somewhat resembling the "horse-fly," but much larger and inflicting a bite that was proportionately more severe. These flies made it necessary to keep constantly swinging a towel in the air, and a momentary cessation of this exertion might be punished by having a piece bitten out of one that a few days later would look like an incipient boil. One of the party so bitten was completely disabled for a week, and at the moment of infliction it was hard to believe that one was not disabled for life. With these "horse" flies, gnats and mosquitoes in such dense profusion, the Yukon Valley is not held up as a paradise to future tourists.

The southern winds which had been blowing almost continuously since we first spread our sail on Lake Lindeman, and which had been our salvation while on the lakes, must prevail chiefly in this region, as witness the manner in which the spruce and pine trees invariably lean to the northward, especially where their isolated condition and exposure on flat level tracts give the winds full play, to influence their position. Near Lake Lindeman a dwarfed, contorted pine was noticed, the fibers of which were not only twisted around its heart two or three times, in a height of fifteen or twenty feet, but the heart itself was twisted in a spiral like a corkscrew that made two or three turns in its length, after which, as if to add confusion to disorder, it was bent in a graceful sweep to the north to conform to the general leaning of all the trees similarly exposed to the action of the winds. There was a general brash condition of all the wood which was very apparent when we started to make pins for binding the raft, while it was seldom that a log was found large enough for cutting timber. The little cove into which we put on the 19th of June, when chased by a gale, by a singular freak of good fortune had just the logs we needed, both as to length and size, to repair our raft, and I do not think we saw a good chance again on the upper waters of the Yukon. Further down, every island—and the Yukon has probably as many islands as any half-dozen rivers of the same size in the world put together—has its upper end covered with enough timber to build all the rafts a lively party could construct in a summer.

Lake Marsh also had a few terraces visible on the eastern hillsides, but they were nearer together and not so well marked as those we observed on some of the lakes further back. Along these, however, were pretty open prairies, covered with the dried, yellow grass of last year, this summer's growth having evidently not yet forced its way through the dense mass. More than one of us compared these prairies, irregular as they seemed, with the stubble fields of wheat or oats in more civilized climes. I have no doubt that they furnish good grazing to mountain goats, caribou and moose, and would be sufficient for cattle if they could keep on friendly terms with the mosquitoes. According to the general terms of the survival of the fittest and the growth of muscles the most used to the detriment of others, a band of cattle inhabiting this district in the far future would be all tail and no body unless the mosquitoes should experience a change of numbers.

TYPICAL TAHK-HEESH OR "STICK" INDIANS.

From sketches by Sergeant Gloster.

At Marsh a few miserable "Stick" Indians put in an appearance, but not a single thing could be obtained from them by our curiosity hunters. A rough-looking pair of shell ear-rings in a small boy's possession he instantly refused to exchange for the great consideration of a jack-knife offered by a member of the party, who supposed the ornaments to be purely local in character and of savage manufacture. Another trinket was added to the jack-knife and still refused, and additions were made to the original offer, until just to see if there was any limit to the acquisitiveness of these people, a final offer was made, I believe, of a double-barreled shot-gun with a thousand rounds of ammunition, a gold watch, two sacks of flour and a camp stove, and in refusing this the boy generously added the information that its value to him was based on the fact that it had been received from the Chilkats, who, in turn, had obtained it from the white traders.

A few scraggy half-starved dogs accompanied the party. An unconquerable pugnacity was the principal characteristic of these animals, two of them fighting until they were so exhausted that they had to lean up against each other to rest. A dirty group of children of assorted sizes completed the picture of one of the most dejected races of people on the face of the earth. They visited their fish lines at the mouth of the incoming river at the head of Lake Marsh, and caught enough fish to keep body and soul together after a fashion. This method of fishing is quite common in this part of the country, and at the mouth of a number of streams, or where the main stream debouches into a lake, long willow poles driven far enough into the mud to prevent their washing away are often seen projecting upward and swayed back and forth by the force of the current. On closer examination they reveal a sinew string tied to them at about the water-line or a little above. They occasionally did us good service as buoys, indicating the mud flats, which we could thereby avoid, but the number of fish we ever saw taken off them was not alarming. The majority of those caught are secured by means of the double-pronged fish-spears, which were described on page [76]. I never observed any nets in the possession of the Tahk-heesh or "Sticks," but my investigations in this respect were so slight that I might easily have overlooked them. Among my trading material to be used for hiring native help, fish-hooks were eagerly sought by all of the Indians, until after White River was passed, at which point the Yukon becomes too muddy for any kind of fishing with hook and line. Lines they were not so eager to obtain, the common ones of sinew sufficiently serving the purpose. No good bows or arrows were seen among them, their only weapons being the stereotyped Hudson Bay Company flintlock smooth-bore musket, the only kind of gun, I believe, throwing a ball that this great trading company has ever issued since its foundation. They also sell a cheap variety of double-barreled percussion-capped shot-gun, which the natives buy, and loading them with ball—being about No. 12 or 14 gauge—find them superior to the muskets. Singular as it may appear, these Indians, like the Eskimo I found around the northern part of Hudson's Bay, prefer the flintlock to the percussion-cap gun, probably for the reason that the latter depends on three articles of trade—caps, powder and lead—while the former depends on but two of these, and the chances of running short of ammunition when perhaps at a distance of many weeks' journey from these supplies, are thereby lessened. These old muskets are tolerably good at sixty to seventy yards, and even reasonably dangerous at twice that distance. In all their huntings these Indians contrive by that tact peculiar to savages to get within this distance of moose, black bear and caribou, and thus to earn a pretty fair subsistence the year round, having for summer a diet of salmon with a few berries and roots.

The 28th we had on Lake Marsh a brisk rain and thunder shower, lasting from 12.45 P.M. to 2.15 P.M., directly overhead, which was, I believe, the first thunderstorm recorded on the Yukon, thunder being unknown on the lower river, according to all accounts. Our Camp 15 was on a soft, boggy shore covered with reeds, where a tent could not be pitched and blankets could not be spread. The raft lay far out in the lake, a hundred yards from the shore, across soft white mud, through which one might sink in the water to one's middle. When to this predicament the inevitable mosquitoes and a few rain showers are added, I judge that our plight was about as disagreeable as could well be imagined. Such features of the explorer's life, however, are seldom dwelt upon. The northern shores of the lake are unusually flat and boggy. Our primitive mode of navigation suffered also from the large banks of "glacier mud" as we approached the lake's outlet. Most of this mud was probably deposited by a large river, the McClintock (in honor of Vice-Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, R. N.), that here comes in from the north-east—a river so large that we were in some doubt as to its being the outlet, until its current settled the matter by carrying us into the proper channel. A very conspicuous hill, bearing north-east from Lake Marsh, was named Michie Mountain after Professor Michie of West Point.

[CHAPTER VI.]
A CHAPTER ABOUT RAFTING.

"SNUBBING" THE RAFT.

Lake Marsh gave us four days of variable sailing on its waters, when, on the 29th of June, we emerged from it and once more felt the exhilaration of a rapid course on a swift river, an exhilaration that was not allowed to die rapidly away, by reason of the great amount of exercise we had to go through in managing the raft in its many eccentric phases of navigation. On the lakes, whether in storm or still weather, one man stationed at the stern oar of the raft had been sufficient, as long as he kept awake, nor was any great harm done if he fell asleep in a quiet breeze, but once on the river an additional oarsman at the bow sweep was imperatively needed, for at short turns or sudden bends, or when hearing half-sunken bowlders or tangled masses of driftwood, or bars of sand, mud or gravel, or while steering clear of eddies and slack water, it was often necessary to do some very lively work at both ends of the raft in swinging the ponderous contrivance around to avoid these obstacles, and in the worst cases two or three other men assisted the oarsmen in their difficult task. Just how much strength a couple of strong men could put on a steering sweep was a delicate matter to gauge, and too often in the most trying places our experiments in testing the questions were failures, and with a sharp snap the oar would part, a man or two would sit down violently without stopping to pick out the most luxurious places, and the craft like a wild animal unshackled would go plowing through the fallen timber that lined the banks, or bring up on the bar or bowlder we had been working hard to avoid. We slowly became practical oar makers, however, and toward the latter part of the journey had some crude but effective implements that defied annihilation.

As we leisurely and lazily crept along the lakes somebody would be driving away ennui by dressing down pins with a hatchet, boring holes with an auger and driving pins with an ax, until by the time the lakes were all passed I believe that no two logs crossed each other in the raft that were not securely pinned at the point of juncture with at least one pin, and if the logs were large ones with two or three. In this manner our vessel was as solid as it was possible to make such a craft, and would bring up against a bowlder with a shock and swing dizzily around in a six or seven mile current with no more concern than if it were a slab in a mill race.

I believe I have made the remark in a previous chapter that managing a raft—at least our method of managing a raft—on a lake was a tolerably simple affair, especially with a favorable wind, and to tell the truth, one can not manage it at all except with a favorable wind. It was certainly the height of simplicity when compared with its navigation upon a river, although at first sight one might perhaps think the reverse; at least I had thought so, and from the conversation of the whites and Indians of south-eastern Alaska, I knew that their opinions coincided with mine; but I was at length compelled to hold differently from them in this matter, as in many others. Especially was this navigation difficult on a swift river like the Yukon, and I know of none that can maintain a flow of more even rapidity from source to mouth than this great stream. It is not very hard to keep a raft or any floating object in the center of the current of a stream, even if left alone at times, but the number of things which present themselves from time to time to drag it out of this channel seems marvelous.

Old watermen and rafting lumbermen know that while a river is rising it is hard to keep the channel, even the driftwood created by the rise clinging to the shores of the stream. Accordingly they are anxious for the moment when this driftwood begins to float along the main current and out in the middle of the stream, for then they know the water is subsiding, and from that point it requires very little effort to keep in the swiftest current. Should this drift matter be equally distributed over the running water it is inferred that the river is at "a standstill," as they say. An adept can closely judge of the variations and stage of water by this means.

In a river with soft or earthy banks (and in going the whole length of the Yukon, over two thousand miles, we saw several varieties of shores), the swift current, in which one desires to keep when the current is the motive power, nears the shores only at points or curves, where it digs out the ground into steep perpendicular banks, which if at all high make it impossible to find a camping place for the night, and out of this swift current the raft had to be rowed to secure a camp at evening, while breaking camp next morning we had to work it back into the current again. Nothing could be more aggravating than after leaving this swift current to find a camp, as evening fell, to see no possible chance for such a place on the side we had chosen and to go crawling along in slack water while trees and brushes swept rapidly past borne on the swift waters we had quitted.

AMONG THE SWEEPERS.

If the banks of a river are wooded—and no stream can show much denser growth on its shores than the Yukon—the trees that are constantly tumbling in from these places that are being undermined, and yet hanging on by their roots, form a series of chevaux de frise or abatis, to which is given the backwoods cognomen of "sweepers," and a man on the upper side of a raft plunging through them in a swift current almost wishes himself a beaver or a muskrat so that he can dive out and escape.

FIG. 1.

FIG. 2.

FIG. 3.

Not only is the Yukon equally wooded on its banks with the average rivers of the world, but this fringe of fallen timber is much greater in quantity and more formidable in aspect than any found in the temperate zones. I think I can explain this fact to the satisfaction of my readers. Taking fig. 1 on this page as representing a cross-section perpendicular to the trend of a bank of a river in our own climate, the stumps ss representing trees which if undermined by the water as far as c will generally fall in along the line cd, and carry away a few trees, two or three at most, then, as the roots of no more than one such tree are capable of holding it so as to form an abatis along the bank, trees so held will lean obliquely down stream and any floating object will merely brush along on their tips without receiving serious damage. Figure 2, above, represents a similar sketch of a cross-section on the banks of the Yukon, especially along its numerous islands, these banks, as we saw them, being generally from six to eight feet above the level of the water. This is also about the depth to which the moist marshy ground freezes solid during the intense cold of the Alaskan winter in the interior districts, and the banks therefore have the tenacity of ice to support them; and it is not until the water has excavated as far as c (five or six times as far as in Figure 1), that the overhanging mass csd becomes heavy enough to break off the projecting bank along cd. This as a solid frozen body falls downward around the axis c, being too heavy for the water to sweep away, it remains until thawed out by the river water already but little above freezing, by reason of the constant influx of glacier streams and from running between frozen banks. I have roughly attempted to show this process in Fig. 3. I think any one will acknowledge that the raft R, carried by a swift current sweeping toward c is not in a very desirable position. Such a position is bad enough on any river which has but a single line of trees along its scarp and trending down stream, but on the Yukon it is unfortunately worse, with every branch and twig ferociously standing at "charge bayonets," to resist any thing that floats that way. In Fig. 3, the maximum is depicted just as the bank falls or shortly after; and it requires but a few days, possibly a week or a fortnight, for all the outer and most dangerous looking trees to be more or less thoroughly swept away by the swift current, and a less bristling aspect presented, the great half frozen mass acting somewhat as a breakwater to further undermining of the bank for a long while. In many places along the river, these excavations had gone so far that the bank seemed full of deep gloomy caves; and as we drifted close by, we could see, and, on quiet days hear, the dripping from the thawing surface, c s (fig. 2). In other places the half polished surface of the ice in the frozen ground could be seen in recent fractures as late as July, or even August.

Often when camped in some desolate spot or floating lazily along, having seen no inhabitants for days, we would be startled by the sound of a distant gun-shot on the banks, which would excite our curiosity to see the savage sportsman; but we soon came to trace these reports to the right cause, that of falling banks, although not until after we had several times been deceived. Once or twice we actually saw these tremendous cavings in of the banks quite near us, and more frequently than we wanted we floated almost underneath some that were not far from the crisis of their fate, a fate which we thought might be precipitated by some accidental collision of our making. By far the most critical moment was when both the current and a strong wind set in against one of these banks. On such occasions we were often compelled to tie up to the bank and wait for better times, or if the danger was confined to a short stretch we would fight it out until either the whole party was exhausted or our object was attained.

Whenever an island was made out ahead and it appeared to be near the course of our drifting, the conflicting guesses we indulged in as to which shore of the island we should skirt would indicate the difficulty of making a correct estimate. It takes a peculiarly well practiced eye to follow with certainty the line of the current of the stream from the bow of the raft beyond any obstruction in sight a fair distance ahead, and on more than one occasion our hardest work with the oars and poles was rewarded by finding ourselves on the very bar or flat we had been striving to avoid. The position of the sun, both vertical and horizontal, its brightness and the character of the clouds, the clearness and swiftness of the water, the nature and strength of the wind, however lightly it might be blowing, and a dozen other circumstances had to be taken into account in order to solve this apparently simple problem. If we could determine at what point in the upper end of the island the current was parted upon either side (and at any great distance this was often quite as difficult a problem as the other), one could often make a correct guess by projecting a tree directly beyond and over this point against the distant hills. If the tree crept along these hills to the right, the raft might pass to the left of the island, and vice versa; this would certainly happen if the current was not deflected by some bar or shoal between the raft and the island. And such shoals and bars of gravel, sand and mud are very frequent obstructions in front of an island—at least it was so on the Yukon—indeed the coincidence was too frequent to be without significance. These bars and shoals were not merely prolongations from the upper point of the island, but submerged islands, so to speak, just in front of them, and between the two a steamboat could probably pass. Using tall trees as guides to indicate on which side of the island the raft might pass was, as I have said, not so easy as appears at first sight, for unless the tree could be made out directly over the dividing point of the current, all surmises were of little value. The tall spruce trees on the right and left flanks of the island in sight were always the most conspicuous, being fewer in number, and more prominent in their isolation, than the dense growth of the center of the island, as it was seen "end on" from above. People were very prone to use these convenient reference marks in making their calculations, and one can readily perceive when the trees were near and the island fairly wide, both of the outer trees would appear to diverge in approaching, and according as one selected the right or the left of the two trees, one would infer that our course was to the left or right of the island. As one stood on the bow—as we always called the down-stream end of the raft, although it was shaped no differently from the stern—and looked forward on the water flowing along, the imagination easily conceives that one can follow up from that position to almost any thing ahead and see the direction of the current leading straight for it. Eddies and slack currents, into which a raft is very liable to swing as it rounds a point with an abrupt turn in the axis of the current, are all great nuisances, for though one may not get into the very heart of any of them, yet the sum total of delay in a day's drift is often considerable, and by a little careful management in steering the raft these troubles may nearly always be avoided. Of course, one is often called upon to choose between these and other impediments, more or less aggravating, so that one's attention is constantly active as the raft drifts along.

In a canal-like stream of uniform width, which gives little chance for eddies or slack water—and the upper Yukon has many long stretches that answer to this description—every thing goes along smoothly enough until along toward evening, when the party wishes to go into camp while the river is tearing along at four or five miles an hour. I defy any one who has never been similarly situated, to have any adequate conception of the way in which a ponderous vessel like our raft, constructed of large logs and loaded with four or five tons of cargo and crew, will bring up against any obstacle while going at this rate. If there are no eddies into which it can be rowed or steered and its progress thereby stopped or at least slackened, it is very hard work indeed to go into camp, for should the raft strike end on, a side log or two may be torn out and the vessel transformed by the shock into a lozenge-shaped affair. Usually, under these circumstances, we would bring the raft close in shore, and with the bow oar hold its head well out into the stream, while with the steering oar the stern end would be thrown against the bank and there held, scraping along as firmly as two or three men could do it (see diagram above), and this frictional brake would be kept up steadily until we slowed down a little, when one or two, or even half-a-dozen persons would jump ashore at a favorable spot, and with a rope complete the slackening until it would warrant our twisting the rope around a tree on the bank and a cross log on the raft, when from both places the long rope would be slowly allowed to pay out under strong and increasing friction, or "snubbing" as logmen call it, and this would bring the craft to a standstill in water so swift as to boil up over the stern logs, whereupon it would receive a series of snug lashings. If the position was not favorable for camping we would slowly "drop" the craft down stream by means of the rope to some better site, never allowing her to proceed at a rate of speed that we could not readily control. If, however, we were unsuccessful in making our chosen camping ground and had drifted below it, there was not sufficient power in our party, nor even in the strongest rope we had, ever to get the craft up stream in the average current, whether by tracking or any other means, to the intended spot.

Good camping places were not to be had in every stretch of the river, and worse than all, they had to be selected a long way ahead in order to be able to make them, with our slow means of navigation, from the middle of the broad river where we usually were.

Oftentimes a most acceptable place would be seen just abreast of it, having until then been concealed by some heavily wooded spur or point, and then of course it would be too late to reach it with our slow craft, while to saunter along near shore, so as to take immediate advantage of such a possible spot, was to sacrifice a good deal of our rapid progress. To run from swift into slacker water could readily be accomplished by simply pointing the craft in the direction one wanted to go, but the reverse process was not so easy, at least by the same method. I suppose the proper way to manage so clumsy a concern as a raft, would be by means of side oars and rowing it end on (and this we did on the lakes in making a camp or in gaining the shore when a head wind set in), but as our two oars at bow and stern were the most convenient for the greater part of the work, we used them entirely, always rowing our bundle of logs broadside on to the point desired, provided that no bars or other obstacles interfered. We generally kept the bow end inclined to the shore that we were trying to reach, a plan that was of service, as I have shown, in passing from swift to slack water, and in a three mile current by using our oars rowing broadside on we could keep at an angle of about thirty degrees from the axis of the stream as we made shoreward in this position. The knowledge of this fact enabled us to make a rough calculation as to the point at which we should touch the bank. The greater or less swiftness of the current would of course vary this angle and our calculations accordingly.

Our bundles of effects on the two corduroy decks made quite high piles fore and aft, and when a good strong wind was blowing—and Alaska in the summer is the land of wind—we had by way of sail power a spread of broadside area that was incapable of being lowered. More frequently than was pleasant the breeze carried us along under "sweepers" or dragged us over bars or drove us down unwelcome channels of slack water. In violent gales we were often actually held against the bank, all movement in advance being effectually checked. A mild wind was always welcome, for in the absence of a breeze when approaching the shore the mosquitoes made existence burdensome.

During hot days on the wide open river—singular as it may seem so near the Arctic Circle—the sun would strike down from overhead with a blistering effect and a bronzing effect from its reflection in the dancing waters that made one feel as though he were floating on the Nile, Congo or Amazon, or any where except in the very shadow of the Arctic Circle. Roughly improvised tent flies and flaps helped us to screen ourselves to a limited extent from the tropical torment, but if hung top high, the stern oarsman, who had charge of the "ship," could see nothing ahead on his course, and the curtain would have to come down. No annoyance could seem more singular in the Arctic and sub-Arctic zones than a blistering sun or a swarm of mosquitoes, and yet I believe my greatest discomforts in those regions came from these same causes, certainly from the latter. Several times our thermometer registered but little below 100° Fahrenheit in the shade, and the weather seemed much warmer even than that, owing to the bright reflections that gleamed from the water upon our faces.

"Cut offs" through channels that led straight across were often most deceptive affairs, the swifter currents nearly always swinging around the great bends of the river. Especially bad was a peculiarly seductive "cut-off" with a tempting by swift current as you entered it, caused by its flowing over a shallow bar, whereupon the current would rapidly and almost immediately deepen and would consequently slow down to a rate that was provoking beyond measure, especially as one saw one's self overtaken by piece after piece of drift-timber that by keeping to the main channel had "taken the longest way around as the shortest way home," and beaten us by long odds in the race. And worse than all it was not always possible to avoid getting in these side "sloughs of despond," even when we had learned their tempting little tricks of offering us a swifter current at the entrance, for this very swiftness produced a sort of suction on the surface water that drew in every thing that passed within a distance of the width of its entrance.

Of submerged obstructions, snags were of little account, for the great ponderous craft would go plowing through and casting aside some of the most formidable of them. I doubt very much if snags did us as much harm as benefit, for as they always indicated shoal water, and were easily visible, especially with glasses, they often served us as beacons. I saw very few of the huge snags which have received the appellation of "sawyers" on the Mississippi and Missouri, and are so much dreaded by the navigators of those waters.

Sand, mud and gravel bars were by far the worst obstruction we had to contend with, and I think I have given them in the order of their general perversity in raft navigation, sand being certainly the worst and gravel the slightest.

PRYING THE RAFT OFF A BAR.

Sand bars and spits were particularly aggravating, and when the great gridiron of logs ran up on one of them in a swift current there was "fun ahead," to use a western expression of negation. Sometimes the mere jumping overboard of all the crew would lighten the craft so that she would float forward a few yards, and in lucky instances might clear the obstruction; but this was not often the case, and those who made preparations for hard work were seldom disappointed. In a swift current the running water would sweep out the sand around the logs of the raft until its buoyancy would prevent its sinking any deeper, and out of this rut the great bulky thing would have to be lifted before it would budge an inch in a lateral direction, and when this was accomplished, and, completely fagged out, we would stop to take a breath or two, we would often be gratified by seeing our noble craft sink down again, necessitating a repetition of the process. The simplest way to get off a sand bar was to find (by sounding with a stick or simply wading around), the point nearest to a deep navigable channel and then to swing the raft, end for end, up stream, even against the swiftest current that might come boiling over the upper logs, until that channel was reached. There was no more happy moment in a day's history than when, after an hour or so had been spent in prying the vessel inch by inch against the current, we could finally see the current catch it on the same side upon which we were working and perform the last half of our task in a few seconds, where perhaps we had spent as many hours upon our portion of the work. At one bad place, on the upper end of an island, we had to swing our forty-two foot corvette around four times. Our longest detention by a sand bar was three hours and fifty minutes.

Mud bars were not nearly so bad, unless the material was of a clayey consistency, when a little adhesiveness would be added to the other impediments, and again, as we always endeavored to keep in the swift water we seldom encountered a mud bar. But when one occurred near to a camping place, it materially interfered with our wading ashore with our heavy camping effects on our backs, and would reduce our rubber boots to a deplorable looking condition. Elsewhere, it was possible to pry the raft right through a mud bank, by dint of muscle and patience, and then we could sit down on the outer logs of the deck and wash our boots in the water at leisure as we floated along. Our raft drew from twenty to twenty-two inches of water, and of course it could not ground in any thing deeper, so that good rubber boots coming up over the thighs kept our feet comparatively dry when overboard; but there were times when we were compelled to get in almost to our middle; and when the water was so swift that it boiled up over their tops and filled them they were about as useless an article as can be imagined, so that we went into all such places barefooted.

The best of all the bars were those of gravel, and the larger and coarser the pebbles the better. When the pebbles were well cemented into a firm bed by a binding of clay almost as solid and unyielding as rock, we could ask nothing better, and in such cases we always went to work with cheerful prospects of a speedy release. By simply lifting the raft with pries the swift current throws it forward, and since it does not settle as in sand, every exertion tells. By turning the raft broadside to the current and prying or "biting" at each end of the "boat" alternately, with our whole force of pries, leaving the swift water to throw her forward, we passed over gravel bars on which I do not think the water was over ten or eleven inches deep, although the raft drew twice as much. One of the gravel bars over which we passed in this manner was fully thirty or forty yards in length.

In aggravated cases of whatever nature the load would have to be taken off, carried on our backs through the water and placed on the shore, and when the raft was cleared or freed from the obstruction it would be brought alongside the bank at the very first favorable spot for reloading. Such cases occurred fully a score of times during our voyage. When the raft stranded on a bar with the water on each side so deep that we could not wade ashore, the canoe was used for "lightering the load," an extremely slow process which, fortunately, we were obliged to employ only once on the whole raft journey, although several times in wading the water came up to our waists before we could get to shore. In fact, with a heavy load on one's back or shoulders, it is evidently much easier to wade through water of that depth and proportional current than through very swift water over shallow bars.

Looking back, it seems almost miraculous that a raft could make a voyage of over thirteen hundred miles, the most difficult part of which was unknown, starting at the very head where the stream was so narrow that the raft would have been brought at a standstill if it swung out of a straight course end on (as it did in the Payer Rapids), and covering nearly two months of daily encounters with snags and bowlders, sticking on bars and shooting rapids, and yet get through almost unscathed. When I started to build this one on Lake Lindeman I had anticipated constructing two or three of these primitive craft before I could exchange to good and sufficient native or civilized transportation.

The raft is undoubtedly the oldest form of navigation extant, and undoubtedly the worst; it is interesting to know just how useful the raft can be as an auxiliary to geographical exploration, and certainly my raft journey was long enough to test it in this respect.

The raft, of course, can move in one direction only, viz.: with the current, and therefore its use must be restricted to streams whose upper waters can be reached by the explorer. The traveler must be able to escape by the mouth of the stream or by some divergent trail lower down, unless his explorations prove the river to be navigable for such craft as he finds on its lower waters, when he may use these for returning. The building of a raft requires the presence of good, fair-sized timber along the stream. The river too, must offer no falls of any great size. My journey, however, has demonstrated that a well constructed raft can go any where, subject to the above restrictions, that a boat can, at least such a boat as is usually employed by explorers.

I know of nothing that can give an explorer a better opportunity to delineate the topography of the surrounding country with such instruments as are commonly used in assisting dead reckoning, than is afforded by floating down a river. I believe the steady movement with the current makes "dead reckoning" much more exact than with a boat, where the rate of progress is variable, where one hour is spent in drifting as a raft, another in rowing, and a third in sailing with a changeable wind, and where each mode of progress is so abruptly exchanged for another. Any steady pace, such as the walking of a man or a horse, or the floating of a raft carefully kept in the axis of the current, makes dead reckoning so exact, if long practiced, as often to astonish the surveyor himself, but every thing depends upon this steadiness of motion. The errors in dead reckoning of Mr. Homan, my topographer, in running from Pyramid Harbor in Chilkat Inlet to Fort Yukon, both carefully determined by astronomical observations and over a thousand miles apart, was less than one per cent., a fact which proves that rafting as a means of surveying may be ranked with any method that requires walking or riding, and far exceeds any method in use by explorers ascending a stream, as witness any map of the Yukon River that attempts to show the position of Fort Yukon, before it was astronomically determined by Captain Raymond. Meridian observations of the sun for latitude are hard to obtain, for the reader already knows what a task it is to get a raft into camp. This difficulty of course will vary with the size of the raft, for one as large as ours would not always be needed and a small one can be more readily handled in exploration. While rafting, field photography, now so much used by explorers, is very difficult, as it can only be achieved at camping places unless the apparatus is carried ashore in a canoe, if the raftsmen have one; and the ease with which separated persons can lose each other along a river full of islands makes this kind of work a little uncertain, and the services of a good artist more valuable.

This summary covers nearly all the main points that are strictly connected with geographical exploration, in the meaning ordinarily accepted; but on expeditions where this exploration is the main object there are often other matters of a scientific nature to be taken into account, such as the geology, botany, and zoölogy of the districts traversed, to which the question of geographical distribution is important, and for all these objects researches by means of a raft are at considerable disadvantage.

Also in rafting there is a slight tendency to over-estimate the length of the stream, although the map may be perfectly accurate. In the figure on page [152], the axis AA' is undoubtedly the accepted line on which to estimate and measure the length of the stream between those two points, and it is equally evident to one familiar with the currents of a river that some such line as RR' would represent the course of a floating raft, and the excess of RR' over AA', both being developed, would be the error mentioned. In this figure the relative curves are exaggerated to show the principle more clearly. Again, every island and shoal would materially affect this somewhat mathematical plan, but I think even these would tend to produce an over-estimate.

Drifting close along the shores of an island, and nearing its lower termination, we occasionally were delayed in a singular manner, unless prompt to avoid it. A long, narrow island, with tapering ends, and lying directly in the course of the current, gave us no trouble; but oftentimes these lower ends were very blunt, and the currents at the two sides came at all angles with respect to the island and each other, and this was especially true of large groupings of islands situated in abrupt bends of the river. To take about the worst case of this nature that we met, imagine a blunted island with the current at either side coming in at an angle of about forty-five degrees to the shore line, or at right angles to each other, as I have tried to show in figure on this page, the arrows showing the current. At some point below the island the recurving and ex-curving waters neutralize each other in a huge whirlpool (W). Between W and the island the waters, if swift, would pour back in strong, dancing waves like tide-rips, and in some places with such force as to cut a channel (C) into the island. It is evident that with the raft at R, it is necessary to row to starboard as far as R' before W is reached, as otherwise it would be carried back against the island. We got caught in one violent whirlpool that turned the huge raft around so rapidly that I believe the tender stomachs of those prone to sea-sickness would soon have weakened if we had not escaped by vigorous efforts. At great angles of the swift water and broad-based islands I have seen the whirlpool when nearly half a mile from the island, and they were usually visible for three or four hundred yards if worth noticing. So many conditions were required for the creation of these obstacles that they were not common.

[CHAPTER VII.]
THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE YUKON.

GRAYLING.

As we slowly floated out of Lake Marsh it was known to us by Indian reports that somewhere not far ahead on the course of the river would be found the longest and most formidable rapid on the entire length of the great stream. At these rapids the Indians confidently expected that our raft would go to pieces, and we were therefore extremely anxious to inspect them. By some form of improper interpretation, or in some other way, we got the idea into our heads that these rapids, "rushing," as the natives described them, "through a dark cañon," would be reached very soon, that is, within two or three miles, or four or five at the furthest. Accordingly I had the raft beached at the river's entrance, and undertook, with the doctor, the task of walking on ahead along the river bank to inspect them before making any further forward movement, after which one or both of us might return. After a short distance I continued the journey alone, the doctor returning to start the raft. I hoped to be at the upper end of the rapids by the time she came in sight so as to signal her in ample time for her to reach the bank from the swiftest current in the center, as the river was now five or six hundred yards wide in places. It turned out afterward that the great rapids were more than fifty miles further on.

I now observed that this new stretch of river much more closely resembled some of the streams in temperate climes than any we had yet encountered. Its flanking hillsides of rolling ground were covered with spruce and pine, here and there breaking into pleasant-looking grassy prairies, while its own picturesque valley was densely wooded with poplar and willows of several varieties. These latter, in fact, encroached so closely upon the water's edge, and in such impenetrable confusion, that camping places were hard to find, unless a friendly spur from the hills, covered with evergreens, under which a little elbow room might be had, wedged its way down to the river, so as to break the continuity of these willowy barriers to a night's good camping place. The raft's corduroy deck of pine poles often served for a rough night's lodging to some of the party.

Muskrats were plentiful in this part of the river, and I could hear them "plumping" into the water from the banks, every minute or two, as I walked along them; and afterward, in the quiet evenings, these animals might at once be traced by the wedge-shaped ripples they made on the surface of the water as they swam around us.

I had not walked more than two or three miles, fighting great swarms of mosquitoes all the way, when I came to a peculiar kind of creek distinctive of this portion of the river, and worth describing. It was not very wide, but altogether too wide to jump, with slopes of slippery clay, and so deep that I could not see bottom nor touch it with any pole that I could find. These singular streams have a current seemingly as slow as that of a glacier, and the one that stopped me—and I suppose all the rest—had the same unvarying canal-like width for over half a mile from its mouth. Beyond this distance I dared not prolong my rambles to find a crossing place for fear the raft might pass me on the river, so I returned to its mouth and waited, fighting mosquitoes, for the raft to come along, when the canoe would pick me up. In my walks along the creek I found many moose and caribou tracks, some of them looking large enough to belong to prize cattle, but all of them were old. Probably they had been made before the mosquitoes became so numerous.

The first traveler along the river was one of our old Tahk-heesh friends, who came down the stream paddling his "cottonwood" canoe with his family, a squaw and three children, wedged in the bottom. He partially comprehended my situation, and I tried hard to make him understand by signs that I wanted simply to cross the canal-like creek in his canoe, while he, evidently remembering a number of trifles he had received from members of the party at a few camps back, thought it incumbent upon him to take me a short way down the river, by way of a quid pro quo, to which I did not object, especially after seeing several more of those wide slack-water tributaries, and as I still supposed that the rapids were but a short distance ahead, and that my Indian guide expected to camp near them. The rain was falling in a persistent drizzle, which, coupled with my cramped position in the rickety canoe, made me feel any thing but comfortable. My Indian patron, a good natured looking old fellow of about fifty, was evidently feeling worried and harassed at not meeting other Indians of his tribe—for he had previously promised me that he would have a number of them at the rapids to portage my effects around it if my raft went to pieces in shooting them, as they were all confident it would, or if I determined to build another forthwith at a point below the dangerous portion of the rapids—and he ceased the not unmusical strokes of his paddle every minute or two in order to scan with a keen eye the river banks or the hillsides beyond, or to listen for signals in reply to the prolonged shouts he occasionally emitted from his vigorous lungs. After a voyage of three or four miles, he became discouraged, and diving down into a mass of dirty rags and strong-scented Indian bric-a brac of all sorts in the bottom of the canoe, he fished out an old brass-mounted Hudson Bay Company flintlock horse-pistol, an object occasionally found in the possession of a well-to-do Yukon River savage. He took out the bullet, which he did not desire to lose, and held it in his teeth, and pointing the unstable weapon most uncomfortably close to my head, pulled the trigger, although from all I have seen of these weapons of destruction (to powder) I imagine the butt end of the pistol was the most dangerous. The report resounded through the hills and valleys with a thundering vibration, as if the weapon had been a small cannon, but awakened no reply of any kind, and as it was getting well along into the evening my "Stick" friend pointed his canoe for an old camping place on the east bank of the river (although the boat was so warped and its nose so broken that one might almost have testified to its pointing in any other direction), and with a few strokes of his paddle he was soon on shore. Thereupon I went into the simplest camp I had ever occupied, for all that was done was to pull an old piece of riddled canvas over a leaning pole and crawl under it and imagine that it kept out the rain, which it did about as effectually as if it had been a huge crochet tidy. My companions, however, did not seem to mind the rain very much, their only apparent objection to it being that it prevented their kindling a fire with their usual apparatus of steel and damp tinder; and when I gave them a couple of matches they were so profuse in their thanks and their gratitude seemed so genuine, that I gave them all I had with me, probably a couple of dozen, when they overwhelmed me with their grateful appreciation, until I was glad to change the subject to a passing muskrat and a few ducks that were swimming by. I could not help contrasting their behavior with that of the more arrogant Chilkats. They seemed much more like Eskimo in their rude hospitality and docility of nature, although I doubt if they equal them in personal bravery.

There is certainly one good thing about a rain-storm in Alaska, however, and that is the repulsion that exists between a moving drop of rain and a comparatively stationary mosquito when the two come in contact, and which beats down the latter with a most comforting degree of pertinacity. Mosquitoes evidently know how to protect themselves from the pelting rain under the broad deciduous leaves, or under the lee of trees and branches, for the instant it ceases they are all out, apparently more voracious than ever. All along this bank near the Indians' camp, the dense willow brake crawled up and leaned over the water, and I feared there was no camping place to be found for my approaching party, until after walking back about half a mile I espied a place where a little spur of spruce-clad hillocks infringed on the shore. Here I halted the raft and we made an uncomfortable camp. Fish of some kind kept jumping in the river, but the most seductive "flies" were unrewarded with a single bite, although the weather was not of the kind to tempt one either to hunt or fish.

The next day, the 30th of June, was but little better as far as the weather was concerned, and we got away late from our camp, having overslept ourselves. Our Tahk-heesh friend, with his family, now preceded us in his canoe for the purpose of indicating the rapids in good season; but of course he disappeared ahead of us around every bend and island, so as to keep us feeling more anxious about it. At one time, about eight o'clock in the evening—our Tahk-heesh guide out of sight for the last half hour—we plainly heard a dull roaring ahead of us as we swung around a high broken clay bluff, and were clearly conscious of the fact that we were shooting forward at a more rapid pace. Thinking that discretion was the better part of valor, the raft was rapidly swung inshore with a bump that almost upset the whole crew, and a prospecting party were sent down stream to walk along the bank until they found out the cause of the sound, a plan which very soon revealed that there were noisy, shallow rapids extending a short distance out into the bend of the river, but they were not serious enough to have stopped us; at least they would have been of no consequence if we had not landed in the first place, but, as matters stood, they were directly in front of our position on the shore, and so swift was the current that we could not get out fast enough into the stream with our two oars to avoid sticking on the rough bar of gravel and bowlders. Shortly after the crew had jumped off, and just as they were preparing to pry the raft around into the deeper water of the stream, the most violent splashing and floundering was heard on the outer side of the craft, and it was soon found that a goodly-sized and beautifully-spotted grayling had hooked himself to a fish-line that some one had allowed to trail over the outer logs in the excitement of attending to the more important duties connected with the supposed rapids. He was rapidly taken from the hook, and when the line was again thrown over into the ripples another immediately repeated the operation, and it soon became evident that we were getting into the very best of fishing waters, the first we had discovered of that character on the river. After the raft was swung clear of the outer bowlders of the reef and had started once more on its way down stream, several lines, poles and flies were gotten out, and it was quite entertaining to see the long casts that were attempted as we rushed by distant ripples near the curve of the banks. More than one of these casts, however, proved successful in landing a fine grayling. A jump and a splash and a miss, and there was no more chance at that ripple for the same fish, for by the time a recover and a cast could be made the raft was nearly alongside of another tempting place, so swift was the river and so numerous the clean gravel bars jutting into it at every bend. Many a pretty grayling would come sailing through the air like a flying squirrel and unhooking himself en route, with a quick splash would disappear through the logs of the raft, with no other injury than a good bump of his nose against the rough bark, and no doubt ready to thank his stars that his captors were not on land. Passing over shallow bottoms covered with white pebbles, especially those shoaling down stream from the little bars of which I have spoken, a quick eye could often detect great numbers of fish, evidently grayling, with their heads up stream and propelling their tails just enough to remain over the same spot on the bottom, in the swift current. That evening we camped very late—about 10 P.M.—having hopes to the last that we might reach the upper end of the Grand Cañon. Our Stick guide had told us that when we saw the mouth of a small stream coming in from the west and spreading out in a mass of foam over the rocks at the point of confluence, we could be sure of finding the great cañon within half a mile. An accurate census of small creeks answering exactly to that description having been taken, gave a total of about two dozen, with another still in view ahead of us as we camped. Knowing the penchant of our fishy friends for half-submerged gravel bars, our camp was picked with reference to them, and near it there were two of such bars running out into the stream. Some fifty or sixty grayling were harvested by the three lines that were kept going until about eleven o'clock, by which time it was too dark to fish with any comfort, for the heavy banked clouds in the sky brought on darkness much earlier than usual. Red and white mixed flies were eagerly snapped by the voracious and active creatures, and as the evening shadows deepened, a resort to more white in the mixture kept up the exhilarating sport until it was too dark for the fisherman to see his fly on the water. The grayling caught that evening seemed to be of two very distinct sizes, without any great number of intermediate sizes, the larger averaging about a pound in weight, the smaller about one-fourth as much. So numerous and voracious were they that two or three flies were kept on one line, and two at a cast were several times caught, and triplets once.

On the morning of July 1st, we approached the great rapids of the Grand Cañon of the Yukon. Just as I had expected, our Tahk-heesh guide in his cottonwood canoe was non est, until we were within sight of the upper end of the cañon and its boiling waters, and tearing along at six or seven miles an hour, when we caught sight of him frantically gesticulating to us that the rapids were in sight, which was plainly evident, even to us. He probably thought that our ponderous raft was as manageable in the seething current as his own light craft, or he never would have allowed us to get so near. In the twinkling of an eye we got ashore the first line that came to hand, and there was barely time to make both ends fast, one on the raft and the other to a convenient tree on the bank, before the spinning raft came suddenly to the end of her tether with a snappish twang that made the little rope sing like a musical string. Why that little quarter-inch manilla did not part seems a mystery, even yet,—it was a mere government flagstaff lanyard that we had brought along for packing purposes, etc.—but it held on as if it knew the importance of its task, and with the swift water pouring in a sheet of foam over the stern of the shackled raft, she slowly swung into an eddy under the lee of a gravel bar where she was soon securely fastened, whereupon we prepared to make an inspection of our chief impediment. A laborious survey of three or four hours' duration, exposed to heat and mosquitoes, revealed that the rapids were about five miles long and in appearance formidable enough to repel any one who might contemplate making the passage even in a good boat, while such an attempt seemed out of the question with an unmanageable raft like ours.

VIEW IN GRAND CAÑON FROM ITS SOUTHERN ENTRANCE.

The only cañon on the Yukon, 1870 miles from Aphoon mouth.

The Yukon River, which had previously been about three hundred or three hundred and fifty yards in width, gradually contracts as it nears the upper gate of the cañon and at the point where the stream enters it in a high white-capped wave of rolling water, I do not believe its width exceeds one-tenth of that distance. The walls of the cañon are perpendicular columns of basalt, not unlike a diminutive Fingal's cave in appearance, and nearly a mile in length, the center of this mile stretch being broken into a huge basin of about twice the usual width of the stream in the cañon, and which is full of seething whirlpools and eddies where nothing but a fish could live for a minute. On the western rim of this basin it seems as though one might descend to the water's edge with a little Alpine work. Through this narrow chute of corrugated rock the wild waters of the great river rush in a perfect mass of milk-like foam, with a reverberation that is audible for a considerable distance, the roar being intensified by the rocky walls which act like so many sounding boards. Huge spruce trees in somber files overshadow the dark cañon, and it resembles a deep black thoroughfare paved with the whitest of marble. At the northern outlet of the cañon, the rushing river spreads rapidly into its former width, but abates not a jot of its swiftness, and flows in a white and shallow sheet over reefs of bowlders and bars thickly studded with intertwining drifts of huge timber, ten times more dangerous for a boat or raft than the narrow cañon itself, although perhaps not so in appearance. This state of things continues for about four miles further, offering every possible variety of obstacle in turn, when the river again contracts, hemmed in by low basaltic banks, and becomes even narrower than before. So swift is it, so great the volume of water, and so contracted the channel, that half its water ascends the sloping banks, runs over them for nearly a score of yards, and then falls into the narrow chute below, making a veritable horseshoe funnel of boiling cascades, not much wider than the length of our raft, and as high at the end as her mast. Through this funnel of foam the waves ran three or four feet high, and this fact, added to the boiling that often forced up columns of water like small geysers quite a considerable distance into the air, made matters very uninviting for navigation in any sort of craft.

Every thing being in readiness, our inspection made, and our resolution formed, in the forenoon of the second of July, we prepared to "shoot" the raft though the rapids of the grand cañon, and at 11:25 the bow and stern lines were cast loose and after a few minutes' hard work at shoving the craft out of the little eddy where she lay, the poor vessel resisting as if she knew all that was ahead of her and was loth to go, she finally swung clear of the point and like a racer at the start made almost a leap forward and the die was cast. A moment's hesitation at the cañon's brink, and quick as a flash the whirling craft plunged into the foam, and before twenty yards were made had collided with the western wall of columnar rock with a shock as loud as a blast, tearing off the inner side log and throwing the outer one far into the stream. The raft swung around this as upon a hinge, just as if it had been a straw in a gale of wind, and again resumed its rapid career. In the whirlpool basin of the cañon the craft, for a brief second or two, seemed actually buried out of sight in the foam. Had there been a dozen giants on board they could have had no more influence in directing her course than as many spiders. It was a very simple matter to trust the rude vessel entirely to fate, and work out its own salvation. I was most afraid of the four miles of shallow rapids below after the cañon, but she only received a dozen or a score of smart bumps that started a log here and there, but tore none from the structure, and nothing remained ahead of her but the cascades. These reached, in a few minutes the craft was caught at the bow by the first high wave in the funnel-like chute and lifted into the air until it stood almost at an angle of thirty degrees, when it went through the cascades like a charge of fixed bayonets, and almost as swiftly as a flash of light, burying its nose in the foam beyond as it subsided. Those on board of the raft now got hold of a line from their friends on shore, and after breaking it several times they finally brought the craft alongside the bank and commenced repairing the damage with a light heart, for our greatest obstacle was now at our backs.