The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-02-25
THE CHILKOOT PASS.
..os keLssY's RIDE ACROSS IN THE
AERIAL TRAMwAY.

MIA, Woman 60 Make tho Trip-she
W.. Fastened Into Small box and
-. tho Journey I'm Ninety Minutes
Her Graphic Description.
rransportation to the Klondike is
..rolutiouized. The dreaded Chilkoot
nass Is spanned bSAn aerial tramway.
7 Yankee woman has crossed In an
sorr and a half the mountain defiie
uh;cb has hitherto tried mems souls
and bodies in a struggle of days and
weeks. Never before was such pioneer
o,terprise displayed in establishing
means of transportation over almost i'm
nassable heights.
The Chilkoot aerial tramway was
completed only few weeks ago. Tow
srs are stationed at a distance from each
ether of several hundred feet. From
ono m the other of these are strung Ca
HES from which hang the cars, operated
no a separate set of cables. The tram
nav will be operated in two sections
one four miles long and the other OF
nearly the same length. The first sec
tion begins eight miles from the new
wharf at Dyea, where passengers and
GOODS are landed from the steamers.
From the wharf to the mouth Of the
mountain canyon, where the first Sec
tion begins, goods are to be conveyed by
a narrow gauge railway. The rate
charged is 10 cents pound. or $500
ton, from Skagguay to Lake Lindeman,
distance of ~ miles.
Following is an extract from a letter
written by Mrs. Martha A. Kelsey of
Dorchester, Mass, to Mrs. Elizabeth III.
Brown of Portland, Me-, postmarked
Dyea, Feb. i;
LAKE LINpEMAN, Alaska, Jan. 81.
MY DEAR ELIZA-Here / am on the border
of the land of hope, but, oh, what an expert
ence have passed through in coming over
Chilkoot pass. / was swung in midair from
nont TO point over rocky chasms and almost
tossed from peak to peak.
For you see, was the first woman to be
carried over the new aerial tramway. At
first thought it would be so nice when the
kind hearted managers Of the line proposed to
carry me over the pass instead of my having
10 walk over IL with my husband and the other
men of the party. 1t would only take an hour
or two in this way, instead Of one or two days
Of the hardest kind Of climbing. So they
tucked me into a little box, only feet wide
and feet long and about feet deep. 1t was
made only for carrying freight. they said, so
they tied and strapped and bound me in as
they would a load of groceries, and wondered
why they were so careful about IT, for told
them would not jump out But they just
laughed and told me to hang on and not be
afraid. Then they hoisted me up on to some
Mo-
bles attached to the box was in started with
creaking, grinding sound. Straight up the
mountain side and into the dark canyon !
went as IL were bird. Higher and higher
up from the ground the cables carried me, and
Twas afraid to look down, so kept my eyes
fixed on the heights above and beyond.
All at once, directly in front Of me, doomed
al great, black cliff, and ] was dashed straight
at it. ! closed my eyes and shrieked as never
did before in my life, when, 10, the cliff was
gone had been whrled just around its edge,
and then / felt the awfulest sensation, for
was suspended over great chasm, hundreds
Of feet above glacial torrent, and it appeared
to be mile from one side Of the canyon to
another, where the spiderlixe cable lines were
suspended from towers. 1t seemed to me
hung for hours over that yawning chasm, but
they told me afterward 1t could not have been
more than minute and a half, for the span,
as they call 1t, at that point is only 1900 feet.
bue haNhcAutiCs uOn cOuut III SUCH ~
ton. You just have horrible, sickening fear
of such terrible heights and distances in mid
air
The rest of the way was straight up the
rocky pass, covered with snow and never melt
ing glacial ice. The air was bitterly cold as il
came in perfect gale down between the
mountain walls, and IL seemed as il the north
pole must be right ahead of me.
Then came the intense relief as the summit
OF the pass was reached. The threatening
walls of rock flattened out into a hilly plain,
and the car slowed up. 1t was the end of the
line, and group of rough but kind hearted
men cheered me as the car was lowered to the
ground and was unstrapped and taken out.
Ihey told me how brave was to take the first
trip OF any woman. In fact, they said that NO
man had before this been over the whole line
al one time. had crossed the dreadful Chill
koot pass in an hour and half, while the poor
miners struggle for days and weeks along its
awful course. tremble to think of Frank,
my dear husband, and his companions, who
are at this moment somewhere In that maze
OF frowning rock walls and snow gorges but
pray heaven they may arrive here at the
summit safely. The miners here are making
me as comfortable as possible in log house
near the sawmill ON Lake Lindeman till my
husband and his party arrive.
am sending this letter back in the way
came In package over the tramway, and they
say IL VIII be one of the quickest letters ever
sent out Of this faroff, lonesome country.
MARTHA.
st. LOuis ReDuhlic