The times., 1898-09-11
KLONDIKE TRAGEDIES
The Winters Dead Uncovered
by the Summers Sun.
SKELETONS IN THE SNOW
Poor and Over-snnguine Fortune
Seekers Overcome by the Cold and
stnrvation-The Shocking Stories
OF Suffering Told by Men of Pitts
burg.

The stories of enormous finds in the
Klondike are not confirmed by letters re-
ceived from persons Who are now there.
The full extent of the death and desola-
tion in the frozen northwest will never be
fully known, says the Pittsburg Dispatch.
but the sun of June in this almost Arctic
region brought to light many grinning
skulls and lifeless bodies of miners who.
starved and blinded in storms, wandered
to their deaths. ~
William Stoney, of the Southside, now
In the Klondike, has written letter
home detailing the awful discoveries
made by exploring parties this summer
in the gold country. Some time ago the
Dispatch printed q letter from Stoney
in which he outlined the strike of miners
against the Canadian government Along
this line he speaks of the likelihood of
the miners starting out to look for new
claims, and leayinge their old claims lie
idle until the Canadians come to their
senses. Many of these exploring parties
of which MIR. Stoney then made mention
have since returned and of them he
now writes. He says in part:
Never until we started out this sum
mer did we have any idea of the extent
of the suffering which existed last winter.
Many people had been reported missing
from different parts of the region, but
all of us hoped that they had got out
of the place, or that they had happily
been overlooked in the counting, but
this was not the case. The warm sun
(you can't call it hot up here melted
away in parts, at least, the snow and
ice in spots, and awful was the revela-
ton. Grinning skulls were found in
great abundance, showing that some poor
fellows had found life in the Klondike
too hard to carry. Perhaps the flesh had
been eaten off the bones; perhaps they
had lain in the snow drifts by winter.
and been partly uncovered in summer
for many years. to make them as bare
and white as they appeared TO us. but
there they were. 1t was simply awful.
have heard of piles of skeletons found on
the deserts. but l never realized the full
horror of such thing, until we found
these awful things this summer.
MANY little tents anG camps were
found by the rivers. the unhappy occu-
pants bones lying near. / figure from
what ] have seen that death by starya
ton was more frequently the cause than
from cold and storm. In fact. any man
who had food would not wander away
from the crowd, but these poor fellows
who came in without anything, hoping TO
get money for food, found out their mis-
take too late last winter, and their whit
ened bones by the river side tell how
they died.
1--WE have but little guidance In finding
who they were, so xhere VIII be many
homes back in the States where loved
ones will wait and watch for one who
will never come. It has been indeed. a
sad summer.
Another winter Is closing in. and I
tremble to think Of the horrors 1t will
| bring. The suffering of last year was
great. bsn this win be worse. 1t seems
| that people will never learn. Last year
| hundreds of miners came in here with
nothing in the way of provisions, and
most of them did not live to see the
| SPRING Yet in the face of this there are
| many now coming inr jus: in the same
| condition. and their trouble will be, in
| deed. bitter. This is one place where
money is worth nothing. Last fall was
! offered $50 for one small sack of -four.
but 1 couldn't sell 1T. I could have spar
| ed it, but my partner, Il thought, had not
! 100 much food for the, winter. and 1 kept
| it to share with him. We needed IT. too.
/ before the winter was over. Seventy
| five dollars looks like an awful lot OF
| money even up there. l know what IL
means to be worth its weight in gold
| Mr.. Stoney says his Pittsburg friends
need not worry about him this winter
| for he has laid in a bountiful store of
provisions and blankets to last him
| through the win-er. He says he will be
I well fixed and able TO withstand the cold
spell, even should it last a whole year
.'Valdes is an all-water point. That is.
| you can go the entire distance there by
water. We Immediately prepared to
strike back into the country. The Valdes
| glacier is the first serious obstacle 1t is
| thirty-seven miles wide, and the first
| twenty-seven miles of that is up hill
All our supplies we took up on sleds.
which we pulled by hand. II was hard
work, and we had to carry with us a sup
| ply of firewood. There is plenty of timber
| in that country, and there is no difficulty
| in getting all Of it you want. but it is a
serious matter to get enough to run you
| going over that thirty-seyen miles of ice
| I'VE prospected all along the river and
| number OF its tributaries about fifty
| miles from Valdes- Not once did we see
! even sign of color. Nor did anyone
| else. One man succeeded in getting a
| shaft down forty-five feet and struck an
| other glacier. That satisfied him and he
| quit. There is no gold in that country
| that II Will pay to mine. There may be
| plenty of it there, but it will never be
| gotten in our day. The Copper River val
| ley has an average depth of four miles
| The bed rock lies probably a thousand
| feet below the surface. To get the gold
one would have to go to bed rock. q d
that can never be done. for there is too
| much water there. 1t could never be
| kept out of the shaft. While we were
there somebody tried to create a boom
| for a canon in the vicinity
| "Thev claimed to have discovered
quartz rock and there was a rush of
claimants to the spot. There was not a
| sign of gold there, but lots of fellows
tramped there and carried sawed lumber
| on their backs to make sluiee boxes for
fully twenty miles.
Where we were was about eco miles
| from the Klondike country. We saw lots
| OF men coming home from there and
| they all report it on a par with Copper
| River. They say there are only six good
| claims in the district Labor is down to
! s3 day and that will scarcely provide a
man enough to eat in that country.
eve were only there during the warm
weather. In the winter 1t is awful there.
| We saw some weather 20 degrees above
| zero. 1t is all right in that respect in the
! summer, but terrible, we were told, in the
! winter. Our party split up after getting
| there, and Smith. Latterner, and McGiv-
ern started off with man from Louisville.
KY. Smaller parties can get along better
| UP there. Huff, who started with us, gave
| out at Valdes, and the doctor ordered him
| back to the States. He never left the
| boat, but came right 9on back. He was