The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-01-22
THE GOLD FIELDS ROUTE
SOME or CIPT1TN w. E. PENDLE-
TONS EXPERIENCES BY S.


London Telegraph of tho Trials and
Hardships in Alaska on the Way to the |
Gold Fields.
Dyea, Alaska, Dec. 10, 1S97-Sir:-l
Thinking something more about Dyea
from personal experience, might inter-
est some of my friends and acquaint-
ances in New London, / take the liberty !
to address you, not so much to boom
your paper Gloom is an Alaskan phase
you lSnow) as to take up my time;
time here at present is the only thing l
have seen to kill.
Well, Dyea is booming at present,
while the prospective Yukoners are sit
ting in their canvas and log houses
counting up their thousands and mill
lions that are just waiting for them to
come up in short time now and shovel
up; the tradesmen, spectators, land
grabbers, doctors, lawyers, railroad,
tranlway and wharf companies, and
last, but most conspicuous for their
numbers saloons and gambling houses,
are all getting ready for the harvest
which is coming next spring.
live, you know, in the suburbs of
Dyea. Got here too late to locate on
one Of the one thousand dollar lots, so
I had to go up in the timber above the
town, where they don't quarrel yet
about lots, but about timber, and if
you don't look out some one will drop
one Of those little spruce trees, about
two feet in diameter, down on top of
your house and forget to tell you about
1t beforehand. Well two or three
times a week I wander down to the city
to worry the meek postmaster (niD
about a letter, and every time l go
down don't know the place at all.
Grocery stores and every other kind
just come UP like mushrooms, and
what they are all going to do don't
know. Every man that comes up from
down Sound, Seattle and other places.
brings great big bag of clothing and
grub enough to make hump on his
back like a camel before even he gets
it over Chilkoot Pass. But these same
grocerymen are SO enthusiastic they
bring up twenty or thirty tons with
them, buy a lot, build store out of
rough lumber mostly or tent, get an
other order all ready for the next
steamer up, very likely fifty tons in the
next lot, and are ready to make hispile.
Some of them have sold quite a little,
as there were quite a good many of
Skaguay busted pilgrims come over
when the town started and staked a
lot or got steady work for some of the
companies. AS they were first, they of
course have to buy a new outfit.
When they get done the clothingman
and the grocerman will not be in it I'M
less they sell cheaper than the miners
can buy and freight goods up from Sc
attic.
The real estate agent is also in evil
dence, and how sweetly he talks and
what lots of enthusiasm he has, too; he
has lot to sell you-some one that has
got to go back to Seattle, or some 9TH
s*er place; wants to buy an outfit for the
Yukon; the agent kindly offers to give
you this lot for a couple of hundred
d04fars or so. Oh, this lot is sure to
bring one thousand or more next
spring. ] wonder what those two
words were ever invented for. / have
heard them SO much that my sleep is
disturbed very much; hear them all
night, dream about them; it's like a
nightmare.
And the companies. Word has al
ready gone forth to the world, which
means Seattle, Washington, that the
railroad is built and the tramway and
the big wharf four miles long? It's
enough to shake the bones of all the
dead prophets, these Internal lies The
f7 {, +1,oG = nr:.n
ing company are the farthest along.
and they have as yet got nothing COM
pleted; mostly preliminary work to
hold right Of way and so on They
are only working small gang of men,
but still they have got it well in hand
50 that If they were to put on a big lot
of men could finish very quickly
What they are waiting and hanging off
for nobody knows. They have not told
me. Certainly they did put on quite a
gang for three days to lay the road
roughly to get through Dyea with as
little trouble as possible.
They one day ran up against lot of
Winchesters on land claimed by Healey
and Wilson, who have kept trading
post here for several years, but the rea-
son of that was simply that they were
in the packing business. All packers
and teamsters are down on the compa-
NY, for they are afraid they can't bleed
the poor tenderfeet next spring out of
fifty cents pound on his outfit. it be-
ing said that the company is going to
pack for twelve cents pound The
company pay their bills and could at
the present time get all the men they
would need at small wages for this
country.
worked for them myself three days
spoke of. They were about as disa-
greeable days as ever I worked in my
life. Had lots of good company, too
professional men, students, gentlemen
and anybody who had pick and SHOW
eI could work One day it was quite
some below zero. I did not know il
then. If / had I should have Shout.
dered my pick and started for home
out of sheer fright for fear I would be
frozen. / did not know it, so of course
it was all right, and just worked and
sweated digging through 10 feet of frost
to get some posts for bridge. They
had such a sweet way of telling you te
come around at half-past seven in the
morning. We would get up and gel
our breakfast of slapjacks and bacon
with coffee to wash it down, start out
IL ion III