The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1897-11-09
WHOLE NO. al.

worth uOllar or so. Nearly every
man carries pair of scales.
Gambling is tn, great passion of the
miner everywhere Easy come, easy
go, says the philosophical miner who
loses Mt the table the dust he got by
aching toll with the pick or ut the
sluice.
There are children in Kloudike now.
and a school il TO be ready for next
season. There has been n school nj
Circle City and another at Forty Mile
With all its faults, with all the dirt
and privation and the sordid strife for
gold. there is something simple and
fine about this mining society. There
are no snobs in it, no liveries except
the livery of toll; no very rich men
and few extremely poor; no thieves
except those who practice the permit
ted theft of the gaming table. One
man is in literal truth as good as mn
other; there il chivalrous regard for
women, kindness for misfortune and
ready courage for emergencies. 1t is
primitive society with its faults and its
virtues, which are not the faults and
virtues of the fostering towns. There
are genuine human women, with the
charm that comes of open mir living
and plenty of exercise.
The curse of the country-as of any
gold region--is its instability. There
Is no use making pleasant homes in n
mining camp. If it succeeds. the resi-
dents all expect to make their pile"
and "mosey for the States" If il
fails, every one will be of for fresh
diggings and leave the shacks pathet-
ically deserted. At one time the finest
house in all Alaska was in Circle CITY.
1t cost $4,000 to build, but its owner
was probably as ready as any one else
to desert the place when the news of
Klondike came.
There can he almost no books or
pictures in the Klondike. or the Yukon
fields generally. Freight charges are
high on the st. Michael's route, and
weight Is eliminated rs far as possible
from mans pack when he tackles the
dread Chllkoot pass. The dreary land
scape, the almost perpetual sunshine
of winter, which compels the resident
to use snow glasses, if he would not
he blinded, makes life weary and lack
ing In variety. There is some relief
when the magic summer brings out the
scanty vegetation at bound, further
up the Yukon, but in its middle
stretches the forms of flower and tree
are monotonous, indeed, almost be
ginning and ending with moss and
scrubby little trees. Natures poor
attempts at landscape painting are, at
the best, soon marred by man. There
is no occupation that spoils country
faster than mining. The great heaps
of ''slickens" or tOilings disfgure
every stream, and the face of nature
is all cut and gashed and hacked with
prospect holes.
Mosquitoes are the plague of lifj
throughout Alaska and the Northwest
Territory. Schwatka says they stin.
the bears so as to drive them crazy.
When the poor animals are driven by
hunger down to the river in MOSQUITO
time they are so bitten about the eyeA
as to become blinded, when they dis
of starvation.
The late T.. j. Glave wrote of the
pests: "A liberal daubing Of bacon fat
and pitch around the eyes and ears OF
our animals kept those sensitive parts
free from the pests, and when my own
head grew so bumpy 1 could not get
my hat on / applied the remedy to my
own anatomy with n good deal of sue
cess. When not feeding, our horses
would leave the sheltered places and
seek the open stone TO avail themselves
of whatever breeze was blowing; they
would then stand in couples, so thai
each would have the benefit of the
others tail as a switch. "
Cattle are so maGdened by the mos
quitoes that they will gallop half n
mile at top speed against the wind in
an endeavor to shake them off. and
then Craze until the mosquitoes force
them TO make another dash for life
As the miners camps are necessarily
always in lowlands along the creek bot
toms the suffering from these pests is
considerable
Slavery and human sacrifice were
common among the Chilkoot Indians
generation ago. These people remain
a savage, brutal race, and the average
miner has more direct dealings with
them going in or out over the pass than
he is apt 10 have afterwards with the
Yukon tribes.
These coast Indians are the fellows
that pack miners outfits over the Chi
koot Pass Mt twenty cents n pound.
They are tricky and dishonest, AMI
make use Of all sorts of devices to
cheat the traveller, and they lord it
numerically over the Indians just be
yond the divide
The Indians of the middle Yukon
are n more friendly and humane, if not
more intelligent 10. Of people The
miners see much Of them They will
sometimes hire out 20 do day labor i'm
the placers, but prefer fishing. and
stolidly keep on in their old ways. in
spite Of the rush and furry Of the gold
fever. They are very superstitious
and believe that in parts Of the coun-
try distant from them dwell superhu
man monsters who eat people and are
very fierce aud cruel. These Indians
are now generally fairly well-behaved
and contented under the Canadian
Government.
a perennial charm Of Yokou society
is the fresh and youthful yigor Of the
men found there. Probably the aver
age age is less than thirty-fve. can