The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-03-21
Facts and Fakes
About KlOmdike.
Some Trustworthy Information of Com
siderable Interest from a Man Who Knows.

have been few more orderly and earn
est communities anywhere in the
Union The stories that 1 see published
in some newspapers about the orgies
and Immortality at Dawson City are
almost wholly the fiction of imagina
tive reporters. / never knew so many
well-educated, thoughtful and promis-
ing men in any camp as there are at
Dawson City today. Some are Har-
ward and Yale graduates. Two young
women. wives of ambitious young min
ers, are from Vassar college, and
physician, who lives there in log
cabin, plastered with mud, was edu-
Gated at Columbia college and at the
University of Paris. 1 think he is con-
tented. Anyhow, he ought to be for a
year or two. He gets half an ounce
of gold for each visit and for simple
surgical work his bill runs into ounces
Of gold very quickly. 1t seems to me
that he ought to clear UP two or three
pounds of gold every week in the year.
FALSE REPORTS.
THE stories of drinking and carous-
ing at Dawson City are ell bosh. In
the first place. 1t costs too much to
drink even in the Klondike region. A
drink of the vilest concoction of
! molasses and alcohol costs about ST.
In the second place, the wealth il
earned by such hard work and ex-
posure that one does not like to throw
his earnings over the bar with the reck-
lessness that characterized the miners
in the flash mining days of the west.
Moreover, one may readily see that a
| lq1 n 20 ttsha Ii
means twenty hours out of every twen-
ty-four, and where the mercury travels
between two degrees above zero and
forty below for five months in the year.
is not conducive to convivality and
hilarity as the warm, balmy climate of
Tombstone and Virginia City We're.
Another, and perhaps the most i'm
portant reason for the earnestness and
soberness of Dawson City this winter,
is that the danger of starvation in that
Arctic region has been looking the
Klondikers in the face. Very natural
ly, one who has any sense and the least
fear of starvation in so hideously lone
some place as the Klondike is not
going to throw money away carelessly
for whiskey and on games of chance.
POOR SANITATION.
1T will be wonderful if some mortal
| fever does not rage in Dawson next
summer. If there was ever a commun-
ity properly situated for the develop
ment of pestilence ii is Dawson City.
The town is located at the base of a
mountain, on the northeast side of the
mouth of the Klondike, on the Yukon
River. AT that point the Yukon is
nearly half mile wide. The mountain
curtails the expansion of the town. The
people now live almost as closely to-
gether as in a large city. Fancy what
it will be by next July, when 100000
people shall have set foot on that mar
/ row bench along the river. There is
no sewerage or drainage, no water sup
ply from an uncontaminated source
and no attention is paid to simple hy-
giene in that land of quick fortune
making. Around the base of the noun
tain to the west is an area of several
hundred acres of marsh land and one
can see the malaria-laden yapor rising
like steam from an engine in a mid
summer morning. Even in the warm
est weather one can dig down through
the heavy layer of moss and foot or
two in the spongy soil in Dawson City
and find ice a half foot thick. Last
summer the 1900 people at Dawson
City were more or less i'll with malaria
and there were few deaths from fever.
The mosquitoes rise during the months
of June, July and August in swarms
from the moss that abounds every
where in the Klondike region, and they
are so ferocious that mules and dogs
have run away and leaped madly over
embankments many times to escape
them.
Dawson City has been growing right
along all winter An occasional dip of
the mercury to As to so degrees below
zero has had no effect on the building
operations there. All winter long
Front street-practically the only one
in Dawson City-has resounded with
the sound of chopping and hammering
on new houses and stores. l think
that the building improvements of the
town six weeks ago, when left Daw-
son City, comprised about 115 log cab
ms three log churches-Catholic, Epis-
copal and Methodst-and 600 tents,
that had been boarded up about the
bottom to make them more agreeable
to the occupants. The business part of
the town consists of log and crude
pine board buildings arranged in a
straight line and close beside one an
other. In these structures are fifteen
saloons, two barber shops, several
butcher shops and half a dozen res
taurants, two real estate Offices and
one hardware store. 30. ....- ~ .
DAWSON PRICES. .. .
1.-The largest buildings in that region
are two substantial storehouses built
by the Alaska Commercial company
and the North American Transporta-
, ton company. Each is two stories
high, and covers about 5000 square
feet. To show how it costs to build
up there, | have only to say that one
Of these storehouses, with good con.
crete foundation, cost exactly $9S5O(
, last September The same structure
! could be built in the Middle States
for about $4,000, and on the Pacific
coast for $4,000, Log cabins 20x24 feet
cost from $4,000 to $4, 500. The logs
] are hewn on three sides and the chinks
are plugged with mud and moss The
, roofs are constructed of three layers
of pine boards, upon which moss and
earth are packed to the depth of foot
Earth is banked up about the walls OF
the cabin. That keeps out the cold
Some roofs have upon them earth ant
moss a yard thick. In summer tn,
mosquitoes rise out of these roofs in
swarms like the Egyptian locus
plague Let me recite some OF the cur,
rent prices in Dawson City. Pine logs
nA aal,s IL. r.