The San Francisco call., 1898-01-25
Two Fortune Hunters Lose Their Lives on the City
 of Seattle.
RUSHING TO THE LAKES.
Conditions More Favorable for the Journey to Dawson Than They
 Were Last Year.
Special Dispatch to The Call.

JUNEAU. Alaska, Jan. 20 (via Se- attle, Wash. Jan. 24, by steamship City of Topeka)-The rush has opened and the battering of the gates of the Klondike has begun. The steamship City of Seattle on her last trip up car ried over 500 passengers, it Is said, though 1t was officially announced that she had but 554. This large ship had the first casualties of the season on the voyage north. She came into Juneau with one passenger missing and one corpse aboard. The name of the luck less passenger could not be learned, and he was not missed until a day after the time he must have dis appeared. He was a steerage pas senger and became very i'll from sea- sickness. The last seen of him was in the evening while he was leaning over the rail of the forward deck. It is thought that in a spasm of retching he lost his balance and tumbled into the sea. This was on the second day out from Seattle.
 After the ship left Fort Wrangel Jule Gagner, a French-Canadian of Montreal going to the Klondike with a companion, as previously related, was killed almost instantly. The heavy headlight on the foremast parted from it's lashings, fell and struck Gagner, who stood immediately under it, on the head. He fell to the deck as though struck by a catapult and never spoke again. The man lost overheard had no friends on the ship, but a friend of Gagner had the remains brought ashore and made arrangements for <heir burial.
 Slow but steady progress is being made over the Chilkoot and White passes from Dyea and Skaguay re- spectively. Parties are occasionally held a day and sometimes two days at Sheep Camp and The Scales by furious storms on the summit These mountain passes are the greatest barriers to the Klondike. When once conquered the remainder of the journey to Dawson is comparatively easy. In the spring, summer and fall it is then a float down 800 miles of lakes and rivers. There will be more accommodations of every description on the trails this season than last, and if the trails do not be- come blocked, obstruction to progress should be less than last year. The tramways at Dyea will not be prepared to handle through freight for some weeks yet at best. Many unforeseen obstacles have arisen.
 The steamships City of Topeka and Al-Ki brought up large crowds and heavy cargoes, dumping at least 1900 people into Dyea and Skaguay in four days. There will be from one to three ships a day in three or four weeks Most of the Klondikers are striving to get their outfits to Lakes Lindeman or Bennett and to remain there until the ice breaks up and then go down to Dawson with the water, if they find l. snow and ice through the bitter cold.
 Edwin GOodall of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company is passenger south on the City of Topeka, bound for San Francisco. He says the wagon road being constructed at Skaguay is a good one. He has been looking over the situation at the head of Lynn Canal from a transportation point of view He expects his company to handle about 1000 passengers a month from Seattle, Tacoma, Portland and San Francisco. The Canadian police will not permit any one to pass Tagish House on Lake Tagish, on the way to the Klondike, with less than 600 pounds of provisions
 B. M. Behrends and A. c. Vandoren of Juneau have started a relief expedi- tion of 100 tons of provisions to Daw- son. They do not expect to get all of it to Dawson much before June 1, but say with confidence that they will beat any other relief expedition, government or otherwise.
 Steamboat men of Alaska do not ex- pect that the Whaleback Columbia will ever get to the head of Lynn Canal They say the Whaleback is too long and requires too much sea room to be able to come through the narrow, winding channels of Alaska waters
 The City of Topeka carries down a small number of Klondikers, but they left Dawson at date earlier than the previous party which went south and report no change in the situation on the Yukon. HAL. HOFFMAN.