Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-08-05
PASS is NOT so BAD
Dangers Of the Chilkoot Have Been
Greatly Exaggerated.
TESTIMONY OF JOAQUIN MILLER
Fine Vegetables and Fat Cattle
Raised in Alaska.
BACK BY YUKON ROUTE

Under date of Fort Wrangel, Alaska.
York Journal:
An old returning miner to the Mecca of
our present pilgrimage. who has spent
many winters in Alaska. told me that at
Metlakahtla the climate in the Indian town
exactly like that at Klondike.
What. and you raise potatoes, cabbage
and so on III the upper region?
why, certainly. and the best hay l ever
saw. / have seen grass as high as my
head there in June. and cattle driven in
from Juneau to Dawson are in better con-
diton when they arrive than when they
are started from the trail
Now, what do you think of that, my
readers. thousands of miles away? l have
followed up. this cattle story and find it
true. / learned today that two bands of
cattle were driven into the Klondike last
summer. and that three bands have al
ready been driven in this year. l find that
a band of 1000 sheep passed up these wa
tiers in a steamer a few days back, but /
do not know certainly that they are now
being driven into the Klondike, but they
could not well be meant for any other
place.
That Road Not So Terrible.
And now to the road, that fearful and
perilous. steep and stupendous mountain of
ice that had to be climbed with ice staff in
one hand and rope in the other. Truly, l
lind that not a single person has yet per-
ished on the line in all these past four
years that the trail has been in use. Fur
Their than that, l find that whole families.
women and children, old men and old wo-
men, have gone in by the river recently,
and nobody has been the worse for it.
And now for news. the newest news
al IN hinh
cordinS to all received accounts was to be
undertaken only at the peril of life and
limo. Well. men all along here at the In
dian villages and post offices where we
ind men to talk to, tell me that the true
rews was not one-quarter as bad as pub
lished; that last winter two mails were
brought this way by English mail carriers
and three by American mail carriers max
ing the monthly mail trips over the sky
scraping glaciers and impossible pass as
regularly then in the midwinter as they
make it now i'll the midsummer.
More than this, Mr.. White went almost
month ago to cut trail below and
around the so-called death trap and now
IL Is comfortable. 1t is three or four miles
longer but 1t is of easy grade and a good,
sale pack trail four feet wide.
Five Miles of Wagon Road.
The first five miles is already wagon road,
so. you see. as l prophesied on leaving
Seattle there was whole lot of big stories
told Tor the benefit of the far-of poor man
who was trying to get to the mines.
The nearer we approach the less formid-
able are all the obstacles before u.s. The
walls of Jericho are already down and We
have not once trumpeted.
Why. if this keeps on, in thirty DAYS
more We will enter the Klondike country
AT Dawson in palace cars.
AS for the richness and area of the mines
remember. | am not sent to this country
to tell what / hear, but what l see and
can say nothing at all about the gold fields
till on the ground. L can only report that
the giaring accounts silence as we go for
ward But bear in mind we see next to
none directly from there.
The Yukon the Road Back
Look at the map and you will see that
the way out is not back this way, meeting
Us. but on down the Yukon where you step