The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-08-12

know it as Camp Forty Mile At the
time of Phil Ryder visit it contained
nearly two hundred log cabins, two stores,
including the one that he established in
the name of his friend Gerald Hamer,
two saloons, both of which We're closed
for the season, and a small cigar factory.
Although the winter population was only
about three hundred. in summer time it
is much larger, as many of the miners
come out in the fall and return before the
the 18th of June, at which date, accord
ing to Yukon mining law, every man
owning a claim must be on the ground,
OF it may be jumped
'Forty Mile is what is known as a
placer camp, which means that its gold is
found in minute particles or dust in soft
earth, from which it can be washed in
sluices or rockers. Into one of these
stream of water is turned that sweeps
away all the dirt and gravel, allowing the
heavier gold to sink to the bottom, where
it is caught and held by cross bars or
RIFLES
"Although gold has been discovered at
many points along the Yukon and it's
branches, the deposit at Forty Mile is the
as three hundred dollars to man for a
lars worth of gold was cleared by one
miner in IA three months season, and
five hundred dollar nugget has been
found; but most of the miners are con-
tent if they can make ounce wages or
sixteen dollars per day, while the average
for the camp is not over eight dollars per
day during the short season of that Arctic
region.
''Sluices can only be worked during
three or four months of summer time;
then come the terrible eight or nine
months of winter when the mercury
thinks nothing of dropping to sixty or
seventy degrees below zero, and the whole
world seems made of ice. Strange as it
may appear, the summer weather of this
region is very hot eighty-tive degrees in
the shade and one hundred and twelve de-
grees in the sun being frequently reached
by the mercury. During the summer
mouths, too, the entire Yukon Valley is
as terribly infested with mosquitoes as is
any mangrove swamp of the tropics. Thus
the hardy miner who penetrates it in his
search for gold is made to suffer from one
cause Or another during every month of
the year.
Sin spite of the summer heat the ground
never thaws to depth OF more than five
or six feet, below which it is solidly frozen
beyond any point yet reached by digging.
Under the dense covering of moss, six to
eighteen inches thick, by which the
greater part of Alaska is overspread, it
does not thaw more than a few inches.
Consequently the most important item of
a ukon miner winter work is the strip
ping of this moss from his claim in order
that next summers sun may have
oh 70, fA,nv, = 49,
''There were no women or children at
Forty Mile, and there we're very few
amusements, but there is plenty of hard
work in both summer, when the sun hard
ly sets at all, End in the winter, when he
barely shows his face above the southern
horizon. Besides the laborious task of
moss stripping, the miner must saw out
by hand all lumber for sluices and rock
ers. He must build his own cabin and
fashion its rude furniture, besides doing
all OF his own house work and cooking.
He also expects to do certain amount of
hunting and trapping during the winter
months, SO that his time, unless he be
very lazy, is fully occupied. But lazy
men are not apt to reach Forty Mile, for
the journey from Juneau, in southern
Alaska, which is the largest city in the
Territory, as well as the nearest Quitting
point for the diggings, is so filled with
peril and the toughest kind of hard work
as to deter any but men of the most de-
termined energy.
cat Juneau, Yukon travellers provide
themselves with an outfit of snow shoes.
sledges, tents, fur clothing, provisions,
and whatever else seems to them neces-
sary. Starting in the early spring, they
proceed by boat to the Chilkat country,
seventy miles distant, and to the head of
Chilkoot Inlet. From there they set forth
on terrible mountain climb over snow
many feet in depth, where they are in
constant danger from avalanches, and
cross the coast range by pass that rises
three thousand feet above timber line
On the opposite side they strike the head
waters of the Yukon, which they follow
through a series of six lakes, sledging
over their still ice bound waters, and raft
ing down their connecting links, in which
are seething rapids, dark gorges, and
roaring canons, around which all goods
must be carried on mems backs After
some two hundred miles of these difficult
ties have been passed, trees must be fell
ed, lumber sawed out, and boats con-
structed for the remaining five hundred
miles of the weary Journey
Gas it would not pay to transport
freight by this route, all provisions and
other supplies for the diggings are ship
ped from San Francisco by sea to St.
Michaels, where they are transferred to