Marshall County independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1897-1902, 1898-03-18
A LETTER FROM alaska.
FRANK THOMAS WRITES AN
INTERESTING LETTER
FROM SkAGUAY'
He Tells of the Great Rush TO the Gold Fields
and Gives his Version of the besf Route--
Dawson.

Dawson.
SKAGUAY, Alaska, Feb. 2S '9S.
Dear Father:
The rush for the Youcon country
has commenced in earnest. There are
today seven vessels at the dock unload
ing freight consisting mostly Of outfits
of people intending to 60 down the
YOucon. The streets are filed with
men Of all classes, and more are coming
every day. They say that at Seattle it
is necessary to buy a ticket ahead of
J time and wait your turn. The demand
for freight is such that they limit the
amount of an outfit to certain number
of pounds to each ticket.
The merchants find it difficult to get
freight shipped to them Every boat
that arrives is loaded to its fullest ca
pacity.
Sksguay has :he start and catches the
great majority of the people now. Of
course great many are going by the
way of Fl. Wrangle and Dyea, but from
all reports nothing to compare with the
number IN 1t comes here.
All people going to Dyea are unload
I'd here and their freight is taken TO
Dyea Oh scows.
The wagon road is advertised 10 be
open March lst.
can't understand why so many news
papers are running this place down and
praising other routes which are i'm
passable owing to their length or rough
ness. just read an article in the Chi
cagO Record which was intended to
boom the Dyea route
The article claimed that the Dyea
route was the only route, and that there
was no such thing as sled road over
the Skaguay trail. The writer of the
article also stated that he had just come
from Lake Bennett and that not load
ed sled had come over the Skaguay trail
this year. He also stated that the
freight rate over this trail is 30 cents a
pound
Now, to my Own knowledge, they
have been using the Skaguay river route
on the Ice ever since the first of the
year for sled trail and the rate for
moving goods to Bennett by contract is
now eight cents per pound, and the
sleders N AXE big money at that. One
horse can move 1000 pounds at one trip
from here to Bennett and make the
round trip in four days. The sleds are
loaded here and never unloaded until
they reach Bennett.
1t is now understood that the road
way just now about completed is in-
tended for railroad and that the road
will extend beyond the lakes and rivers
to the lit, rior. Surveyors are now
making cut the route The Dyea trail
was the best route last fall and we
would have been much better off, if we
had gone that way. But things have
changed.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars
have been spent on the Skaguay route
while the ChilcOOt route has had prac-
tically no improvements.
We had the coolest weather of the
season about a week ago, nine degrees
below zero. but today it is as warm as
spring and thawing very much.
L am going over to Bennett within a
few days to look after my outfit which
is at Log Cabin. They report pretty
rOld weather there, about 40 degrees
below zero, but it Is dry and scarcely
any wind. The trail up the river is
crowded with men, horses, dogs sleds
and outfits.
Horses are much better for use than
dogs. The dogs lay down and wont
pull. Besides one horse will pull as
much as twelve dogs, and be no more
bother than one dog. When l come
back from Bennett | intend to come
out over the ChilcoOt or Dyea pass if
can get over at that time. They say
that during the cold snap, there was a
period of three weeks that nobody could
cross owing to the blizzard at the sum
NIT. When get back will write you
something about that trail which will
be based upon my own observation.
Yours Obediently,
FRANK l.. THOMAS