Fort Wrangel news., 1898-06-29
The Lake TesIln Trail.


 of Salem, Mass, has been up to Gleno- ra and returned to Seattle recently. He was interviewed by the Post Intel ligencer of that city. Mr. Payne was not feeling very well when the reporter saw him-he was no doubt suffering with pain, and his interview, which was very lengthy, contains the following "painful' statement
 '"rhree thousand disgusted men, vic tms of the greed of the Canadian Pa citic railroad company, were at Gleno- ra and Telegraph creek on June II, curSing the fate that led them to try the Stikeen route"
 At the time Mr. Payne was at Gleno- ra there were probably 2 thousand men there bound for the klondike, and that they were delayed on account of the extreme high water that for week or ten days made the Tcslin lake end of the trail impossible k also true, but those who remained, which includes tul ly seven -tenths, are ..0W going across the trail, which is i'll frs t-cla9s condition.
 It should be remembered that great many of those startng for the klon- dike fall by the waysiie,n and it mat ters not what trail they select to go by, and evidently Mir. Payne k one of the number. When the grand rush took place from Seattle last summer. hund- reds went as far as Dyea and Skagnay. and others as lar as the lake, and then sold their outfits and returned to Seat tie and relieved themselves by cursing the route to the Yukon and advising their friends to 20 some other way.
 Mr. Payne has some other grievances besides the fact that he didn't have the nerve to go across to the lake from Glenora. According to his statements, he attempted to goup the StiKecn river in a small boat rather than pay a reas- enable fare for gong up in one of the river steamers. In speaking of l.is trip up, he says:
 The steamer rates were so high that we could not afford to go that way. AS soon as the ice began to come out We started up the river. It was the hard est work l ever did and very danger ous. At Hot Springs rapids, fifteen miles across the line, our boat was dumped oyer and We lost 4Oo pounds of outtitS.n
 Well. the steamer rates from Fort Wrangel to Glenora were s;2O.Oo. We don't think any man will say it k too much after reading Mir. Paync's eSper- fence. But compare the charges on the other route, where il costs G2uO.0o to be piloted through the rapids that takes about thirty minutes, with the charge of 5000 to be carried up the river l5J miles and then draw your own conclu- sions. Why, Mr. Payne even complains of the hard work-"the hardest ever did," he says. Yes. he is evidently q "teudcr-foot" and made an awful miS- t,1,. b,, I, ! I.,l ;,, Salem to become d gold hunter. But Alr. Payne says others besides himself are cursing the fate that led them to try the Stikeen river route. No doubt of it. When man goes to Dawson hy one route for the first time, he always wishes he had gone the other. The hundreds of graves along the Dyea and Skaguay routes are witnesses to the fact that going to the kiondike k a hard and dangerou, work The gold hunter must expect to endure hard ships and danger Gold is not general ly found ill easily accessible places and Mr. Payne has evidently mistaken his calling.
 The trail from Telegraph creek. four miles above G!cnera, Is in gooi rondi- ton. From Gleno.a ta the junction il has recently heea put in fine cpndi- ton and any statement to the contrary k not true. The route is not failure and when the truth k known 1t will be shown that the Lake Teslin route l. tho easiest and best route to the Yukon That the trail aero-s has been ia b9d shape we do not deny, but the bf,yil- cial government has put d force of men at work on it, and while il k nov in successful Use for pack trains and foot men, it will soon be widened to that of q wagon road and Lake Tesiin steam CTS will carry the gold hunters by a continuous passage to Dawson. Il k less expensive, safer in every respect, and less dangerous than that of any oth- CT route that has as yet been discover ed
 Mir Payne don't pretend to know anything about any other route except up the Stikeen. If he will try the Dyea trail he will no doubt shortly thereaf ter be found in Seattle cursing that al so. We trust he will not make q sec ond venture. The proper place for him is in Salem.