The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-22
THE KLONDIKE OUTLOOK
STORY OF PRESENT DISASTER LIKE
LY TO BE REPEATED IN 1898.
Sufficient Food Supplies Cannot BE
the Yukon or Over the Trails.
Tarcon Inlet (Alaska) Staff Correspondence
of the Pittsburg Dispatch.

/
| and a fair forecast can be made for the
year 1898. The claque and clamor have about
subsidized. 1t is beginning to grow into the
months since the coast press has been laden
with assurance that some hundreds of tons
of provisions are stored at st. Michael's
that there are thirty thousand sacks of flour
at Circle City, and nearly 100000 tons of
grub at the rising city near the Klondike.
All this has ceased. The crop of tender
feet has all been gathered in. and now the
same press is publishing ptiful appeals for
aid, and some town down in Oregon is even
willing TO give some sacks of subsistence if
some one can be found to pack 1t into the
interior for the starving ones.
Since coming to the coast 1 have several
times put myself on record, standing virtu-
ally alone, and have staked my reputation
on my judgment, and found myself sus-
tanned
l have committed myself to the PROPOSE
ton that next year will only intensity and
aggravate the conditions of this year.
understand all about the puny transporta-
ton schemes that are based on dog and rein
deer trains, and wire ropes over a part of
the Dyea trail, and a 100000 wagon road
from Skaguay to Lake Bennett. 1 know
what kind of an anomaly this is, in a trans
portation system that has trunk line rail-
roads, steamships and mighty oceanic ca
nails butting UP against snow-clad noun
talns, where this transportation terminal
must dwindle down to pack mules and mems
backs. 1 cannot conceive of anything more
incongruous.
have stated that the Yukon as water
way, is simply nondescrpt that geologic
ally it is a misfit commercially a false pre-
hot
consequence in the development of Alaska,
and 1 was careful to advance solid reasons.
I had conceded its season of navigation at
four months. The past season was only two
and one-half months
While think of it and am on the subject.
| want to explain the great Yukon flats.
This rambling river whose chief character
lStlc is a spreading pretentiouSneSS, has,
l nave previously mentioned, its tail end
TO the United States, It's general course
toward the Arctic ocean and its many and
shallow mouths to Boring sea. 1t has a
northward flow of over 1,5OO miles.
EFFECT OF THE ICE JAMS
At the approach of summer the heavy ice
of it's upper and more southern waters yields
first and starts SOUTH The moving ice flows
on and finally comes to ice that is still un-
broken and rests in the channel, and gener-
ally this ice is solid to the gravel and the
ground frozen solid somewhat down. Forth
with there is formed an immense dam, in
volving the inundation of a vast area of
country.
Finally this dam breaks, the ice cata-
clysm FORCES ahead and another dam, and
several others in succession, are formed,
each break making new channels and filing
former ones throughout the hundreds of
miles OF LheSe mats. 20 the pilot each season
presents practically new river, as the
mighty ice movement shoves the vast areas
o
tons, and the river as known the year be-
fore is a thing of the past.
No boat is sure of more than two trips
up this treacherous water, and how is any
pllot going to learn the river? This opera
ton has been going on for ages, and the
flats are the result Of these repeated Ice
dams, just the Newfoundland banks
are the result of debris of stranded icebergs.
No Improvement of the Yukon is possible.
Masses of ice ten feet thick and of the size
of town lots and 40-acre farms, all tumbling
in awful and grinding confusion, shifting
and showing, driving ana dlsplaclng millions
OF tons or gravel and boWlderS Will make
the maintaining of a permanent channel out
of the question.
THE ONLY FEASIBLE VESSELS.
Long and wide-bottomed boats are being
built for the Yukon river traffic, and they
will aid d little. These scows must be
pushed by something that has considerable
force, and an old-fashioned stern-wheeler
is the only thing available 0he propeller
will not do); and any draught over three
feet is unsafe. l think l understand the
geology of this river. and the merely ocular
sight of it is of no manner of consequence.
1 do not say that nothing can be gotten
over it. l do say that from it's own inherent
physical direction, fronting on Asia, and
misfit conditions, as factor in Alaskan de-
velopment this river will be of small conse
quence. A steamer runs into bar. Days
are spent in tindlng passage. An entire
season is not half long enough to chart
channel, and next year the channel is else
where Now, this is one of the routes that
will be doomed" the coming spring. and
thousands will take their chances. Cap
tains will crowd their vessels for all they
will hold, and this years plan of dumping
passengers somewhere along the line will
be operated You pay your money when
you get your ticket and take chances.
Only for the little incident that the Hum
boldt went from Seattle to Tacoma for coal
and returned without, instead of sending a
telegram to learn the coal situation, /
might have fallen a victim to one of these
schemes, having already secured my ticket
Anything that goes to Dawson City next
year via St MichaePS will not reach there
before some time in July
What is there in dog trains? Hardly
anything, so far extending relief is con-
cerned Such train may do in transport
ing a man or a small load from point to
point, but as for carrying more than a
matter and see where it must come out. If
the load of a man be not added he must
X. /
must at once return. The round trip will
be 1,200 miles, and there can be no dog train
on earth that can make that distance and
not consume itself. If a man walk Is miles
a day in untrodden snow and biting cold,
this will be high average. This would be
so days for a round trip of 1,2O0 miles 1t
will be found that 80 pounds per dog is a
load for a long distance.
LIMITS OF A DOG TRAIN
A team of eight dogs will then convey 24O
pounds of subsistence, and some blankets
and shelter must also be considered, Six
hundred miles at Is miles day means 40
days for the trip. Can eight dogs and one
man be fed on less than six pounds a day?
No; they would require this for one meal
and u light meal at that, and that would
mean IS pounds a day and require a load Of
72O pounds half of this would be $50
pounds
1t is simply childishness to calculate on
such a factor, and the reindeer prop
osition is but little better. On the Arc
tic plains the reindeer may be made
aVailable but over trails that cross
mountains in Arctic storms, in drifts
deeper than the reindeer is tall, does any
sane man suppose that an animal--that any
quadruped in such snow-can pull load at
all or that the reindeer,in greater cold than
Siberia in deeper snow and with poor
er quality of moss, can dig down into snow
pits and get feed enough to sustain animal
life? Try such snow, from four To six feet
Deep and what can be accomplished
with only feet and hands.
/ am familiar with several of these dog
team propositions, and they remind me of
the California German who recently under
through, in waist-deep snow, a flock of tur-
i EpV