Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1897-08-26
KYES WRITES AGAIN.
An interesting Account in the Tier
riii News.

the REPORTER q detailed story from a
company of Wood county travellers in
Alaska as they made the trip from Dyea
to Lake Linderman. In recent issue
a letter from Mr.. Kyes gave the account
Of their trip from Lake Linderman to
Lake Bennett. Their previous adven-
lures are chronicled in the following:
SHEEP CAMP, Alaska, June l, 1897.
We are now located miles from
Dyea, have made splendid time SO far,
haven't done any packing at all yet.
We rented two boats at Dyea. and hauled
our stuff up the river and it's hard work
too. Talk about fish, Mud river is full
of them, today we could have walked
on dead salmon for good mile, never
saw anything like it.
| fell in the river today, the water
closed over me, it is as cold as ice water.
! rushed to camp to get on some dry
clothes. Will be more careful in the
future as the water is little too cold for
a bath.
We have a good husky crowd, three
carpenters, one cook, one doctor, one
dentist one printer, one farmer, one mu
stefan and myself and besides machine
for prospecting, can sink it down u
feet and find what there is at that depth
in five minutes, SO we do nOtlOse much
time. We also have tools to build boats
with, in fact we can put up good boat
in two days. We are better rugged than
any crew that ever went in, the only
trouble we shall encounter is getting in
our provisions. We have so much that
we can't afford to have it packed in.
1t costs $1,000 for 100 pounds so you see
that for five ton, it would take little
fortune to hire it packed. We shall do
it ourselves and save that much. Our
crowd is composed of |. T.. Dunevan,
f. A. Dunevan, Fred JorgensoD, Milton
Miller, Frank Houston, Rube Lyon,
Walter Gardner and Henry Painter.
What concerns one concerns us all, as
We form company. By the way [ was
through the "Treadwelr' gold mine on
Douglas Island, it's grand sight, was
way down in the pit and saw them
blasting ore. We leave for the summit
tomorrow and will not be this way again
until | return home.
June 5.-We have been here 10 to 20
days now, and during that time we
could sleep out doors any night and the
days have been fine, couldn't wish for
better weather. We have got the best
information of the country and climate
on the other side of the mountains and
year and we expect to be settled by
the time winter sets In. In 3 weeks we
shall be down far enough to commence
work. There we shall dig out our
Grub Stake" that is, we shall make
enough to insure us our provisions for
one year, providing we think we have
not enough with us. So there won't be
any chance of us starving. Shall write
again when we get over the summit, to
let you know what we had to encounter.
There has been people going over the
pass for two months, about 2500 all told,
about 200 came since we arrived. The
country is not bad, lots of work, but
not q particle more danger than any
where else. When we think we have
done a days work we quit, SO we won't
tire ourselves too much. We all take
our turn at cooking, don't have much
of variety, but anything tastes awful
good here, and we get SO very hungry,
but all feel fine.
PLEASANT CAMP, June 13.-Today is
Sunday and consequently we are not
doing anything only resting. We have
been very busy, kept working from
morning till night and are making good
Roadway, about five days more and we
shall be over the summit, then we can
sled our goods very near to the lakes,
about 7 miles. We had pretty hard
tramp from the foot of the canyon to
Pleasant Camp, but made it all 0. X.
The trail was right up over the noun
talns and then down into the valley
again, a distance of 3 miles, after the
first day | didn't feel it much, although
| was very tired at night. We made
the tramp in days packing every piece
of our goods, remarkably, good time, so
every one here says, most of the people
that came on our boat we left way be-
hind.
RObt. DuneVau and | took walk very
near up the summit yesterday p. m. Just
to see what it was like and to see a man
named Burns. We are going to get him
to pack our stuff from here to the sum-
NIT, that will let us out of the hardest
part of the trip, and on the other side it
will be fine shedding. If we have no
bad luck, will be on Lake Linderman
IN less than week.
LONG LAKE, Alaska, June 20.-Since
week ago today we have made wonder
full time, ten an one-half miles, little
more than Il mile a day. are over the
worst places now and just three miles
from Lake Llnderman. One of the boys
was over to the lake to see about get
ting timber for the boats. He reports
everything all right. Linderman is a
nice little lake about two miles long, he
says there is quite village there, about
sixty tents, probably 200 people, every
one making boats. 1t appears to be a
regular ship yard.
We thought we were going to have
lots of trouble getting down on this
side of the summit, but made it Just in
time. Last Monday morning we started
to hustle our goods from Pleasant Camp
over to Sheep Camp, two an one half
miles. Parties coming from Lake Lind
erman told us that the snow was going
fast and we would have to hustle, if we
intended to use sleighs, which was
much easier than packing, so we worked
rs we hadn't worked before, took us
just a day and half 20 move to Sheep
Camp, getting everything there Tues
day noon. From there we hired the
pack-train to take our goods to the sum-
nit, four and onehalf miles.
Wednesday morning we started again.
each one taking a small pack, talk about
hard place to climb, that was the
worst we have experienced, all I'D hill
from the time we left Sheep Camp.
When we got to the foot of the summit
and looked up, it almost seemed i'm
possible to climb 1t, but nevertheless
we tackled it and arrived at the top at
just 80 p. m, Wednesday. We were
well pleased that we had hired our
goods packed to the top, for l don't
think we could have had it all up in two
weeks. Well, when we got to the top
Chas. Burr hustled US two sleds that he
had hid in the rocks and we loaded
about 1900 pounds on them and started
d., {l,~ 81 |, i