The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1898-07-07
NOTHING THERE.
Plenty of Hardship but Little
Gold I'm the Peace River
>saa afr@~y

L
ence in British Columbia Ben Simon
ton and party find the Peace river
country anything but what it was re-
| ported to be and he write as follows
while on his way back to the United
States:
EDMONTON, ALBERTA, June II, 1898.
Ny dear Mother,
Well here am in Edmonton again
and you will probably wonder what
brought me back at this season of the
j year. 1t was not because had a big
bag of gold but the scarcity of it in
Peace river. We were up as far as
ST. John and there was not more than
81 or So per day to be found on bars
which cannot be worked until low
wateri.e e. the last of August or lst OF
September. Flour is worth Sl2 a 100,
bacon 80 cents etc, SO a man would
not make his winters grub in that To-
cality. Our party made good time,
| got to Fl. St. John, May 10. Other
i parties were camped there who started
4 from Edmonton in January. Not
more than six parties had gone further
| when we arrived at ST. John
as there was no trail to Eft. Graham
on the Findlay river. We stayed at
i st. John little over a week and sold
our outfit, which seemed to be the best
move under the circumstances. First
| will tell you how we got from the
crossing to ST. John. Went fifteen
| miles on ice, waited till the river was
| navigable, sold our horses and bought
canoes, and started to track (called
towing in U. ST. up river. The iii,st
day we swanped near shore on a. rapid
and lost some stuff before getting tho
craft ashore, among other things my
satchel containing my medicine, sew
ing kit, razor, hot water bag, four
boxes cartridges, socks, moccaslns,
pocket book etc / believe I could
have saved my grip and started for it
when the rest of them came to pull on
the boat which might of sunk in deep
water had / not helped pull it ashore.
| think it was all for the best anyway
as the water was ice cold and might
have taken a cramp. The grub was
not damaged much and the next day
the Doc and / went down the river and
made arrangements with halt breed
trader to take our stuff up in q big
scow boat that he made trips to st.
John with twice every summer. We
started the next day with two canoes
with just our blankets and little
grub on board, about $40 lbs, count
ing the fodr who stayed aboard while
diaas to Dunvegan and were glad to
throw up the tracking job. You can't
aagine what it was like and | don't
known as I can describe it very vividly
except to say it was the worst job I
ever undertook. We were wet to the
waist lots of times in ice cold water,
walked through mud knee deep, walked
over rocks, logs ETC., and one day had
10 walk over 800 yards on a bank on
broken ice ten feet high in order to get
the line over. In lots of place there
was no place to walked on the bank
and then we had to pole against
swift current. Sometimes we could get
ong by pulling on the branches OF
over hanging trees. Moccasins are
the best for tracking and / wore out
three pair in four days we were going
TO Dunvegan, sixty miles. Strange to
say did not catch cold by getting wet
So often and six of us managed to eat
nearly fifty ID. foul and other grub in
four days, eating four meals day.
We reached DunVegan on Satur-
day, stayed there over sunday and
five of Us took the trail for ST. John
with our blankets and grub on our
back while the doctor and Grover the
dog went on the boat. The owner
wanted 80 piece for our pa ,sage but
we could not afford to paw it and 81
walked. We got TO ST. John in ten
days 180 miles, while it took the boat
four days tomake 120 miles on the river
with a crew of fourteen the last six
days of their trip SO you can guess the
river was bad. IL cost as S75 freight
but guess it was worth that much
Those Indians ate $50 10 bacon and
twenty bu., of potatoes in those four
teen days. Talk about eaters, why
they don't know when to quit when
they are eating some one else's grub.
We sold our outfit for $3.50 and three
of the party went down river while |
stayed over to take care of a sick man
who had the cardiac dropsy. The
doctor and Billy managed to scrape
e ,ough money together by selling their
personal belongings to buy five horses
and pulled out for Hudson's Hope.
The doctor bought the dog and took
him along.
4 week after the boys went down
river started down with the sick man
il a Hudson Bay boat. He was very
weak and had to be carried on q
stretcher. Another man by the name
o. Col. White, was going to Edmon-