The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-03-21

To Los Angeles. California, corre-
spondent of the New York Sun Charles
e, Stillman, a well-known gold miner
who recently returned from the Klon-
dixie region, has been giving some in
tcresting information about the new
Alaskan gold fields. For example:
THE present winter in Dawson City
and that region has been somewhat
milder than in former years. There
have been a few hours this season
when the temperature at our diggings
on Hunker Creek has been down to SO
degrees below zero, and for four days
at New Years time the mercury new
or rose above A degrees below zero.
The wind blows there all winter long
The day I left Dawson City the mer-
curry was at about "a degrees below
zero, and the people regarded that as a
pretty mild sort Of day. The ice Is a
yard thick in the Yukon and on all
the creeks in the Klondike region. The
snow Is about two feet on the level,
and very deep in drifts caused by the
everlasting blowing from the north
cast. There havo been many ears and
faces frozen among the people in and
about Dawson City in the last few
months. I have heard,of about twenty
people who have lost their lives by
freezing, but there may be a lot more
unfortunates who have died of freezing
in their cabins and tents away off on
the banks of creeks miles from friends.
Joaquin Miller, who Is In Dawson City,
thought he was going to lose one of
his ears by freezing when l saw him a
few days before / set out for Cali
fornia. I believe there have been a
score of amputations of frozen legs and
feet on the Klondike this season.
GOLD FIELDS EXTENT.
How much of an area has been COW
cred by gold miners camps on the
klondike? oh, about 100 miles square
would cover it. The Canadian Regis
ter of Mines at Dawson City told me
six weeks ago that the mines furthest
from l awson were located about sixty
miles away. When I got to the Klon-
dixie last August the furthest were not
twenty miles from Dawson City. We
uld-time miners have long seen in the
west what man will do and the risks
he Will take to get gold at any hazard,
but the way hundreds of men have
gone tramping along the banks of
creeks and across trackless snowy
wastes miles from another human be-
ing, and in a way-below-zero weather,
to prospect amid snow and ice for gold
bearing gravel, beats any stories we
have ever told to illustrate mans in
satiate thirst for gold. Bonanza Hunk
er, Eldorado, Too Much Gold, and Sko-
KUN Creeks were completely occupied
by miners claims from source to
mouth, while all the tributary streams
for miles round were well claimed.
That there will be another city like
Dawson City in the Klondike is not
doubted by any one up there. If the
miners on the newly located claims and
the miners who will go into the Klon-
dixie this coming season strike any de-
\gree OF richness, a city that will out
VEr5I Dawson seems likely. Dawson
is. I'd far away sasa the newer claims
to ba base of supplies Tor the mining
eamAPs there. I know sSeral rich real
estatN men who are noV on their way
TO SkSgway, and they&are going to
speculate in lots in new town sites in
the mining region. If they are lucky
they will1make more money and do i,
quicker THAN the luckiest miners. Just
hink, in |September, 1896, you could
nave nave bought acres in Dawson City fol
T-VV or $500 each--perhaps less. Today
i ss there with thirty-foot frontage
SS.ing $4,000 and $4,000 each. Some lots
ASSSGg $4,000 ard $4,000 each.
EnANpLKB MORALS.
"The population. of Dawson City and
/thc camps that line the creeks that
twist away south, east, and southeast
from the Klondike and Yukon is as in
telligent as any 1 have ever known in
any mining camp in the West. In
deed, it is the most moral and ambit.
ious mining population l have ever
seen. A number of us professional
miners up there, who have seen the
Silded gambling palaces of Virginia
City and have lived in the hot days o1
Bodie, tombstone, Anaconda, and
'~reede, have remarked many times
that the miners of the Klondike are
another race of men from those we
used to know in the states. To be sure
there is gambling and liberal drinking
IF the hardest of hard whiskey in Daw.
son City and Circle City, but the scenes
are never comparable with what we
used to witness every night when the
ABonanzas were pouring out their gold
~ wealth and Tombstone was making
q dozen new millionaires.
'The Klondike miners are not the
ypical, picturesque miners the worlC
las been hearing about for half a cen
ury. 1t is my private opinion that tn,
wful hardships one endures to get ricl
pp there. the dangers that must b,
raved, and the pIjvations suffered il
ettng to the new isfod fields by any
ite making men there sober and pro
rnt. Where men have these char
fristics there's no chance taken il
bling. Then, too, the expense o
tNRe 10 * londike and the. necessary
benditure of several hundred dollar.
an outfit keep out of the Alaskan
hing region a horde Of hard-up, des
Yptv' v'ate characters similar TO those tina
haNe made all the Western mininl
camps so notoriously bad. ] doubt i
Dawson City ever will be a hard reck
less, wide-open town In the sense tina
Virginia City and Cripple Creek hav
been. 1t has had population of abou
1000 men and 120 women all winter
with about $500 more miners in tn
cabins along the creeks. and ther