The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-10-05
How the First Attempt to Garry
Mail Into the Yukon in
Winter Failed.
Narrowing Tale Of Starvation, Of Insanity From
Want and Of Possible Murder and
Cannbalisrn.
BY HAL HOFFMAN.
Special Correspondence of The CAN.

JUNEAU. Alaska. Sept. 25.-The dis
covery last week near Lake Atlin, the
central location of the new placer dig
gings. of parts of two human skeletons
picked clean of flesh by wild beasts,
has brought TO light a peculiar story
of insanity and death from starvation
in that rugged region, the creeks of
which were recently found speckled
with gold. Near the first was a jumper
and a pair OF overalls Totted on the
ground; at the other, only bones.
In 1895 the first attempt was made TO
take mail into the Yukon in winter.
The previous summer John J. Healey,
manager for the Northwestern Trad
ing and Transportation Company, sent
out request to c. S. Johnson, a Ju-
neau attorney, to contract with some
body TO bring the mail in over the ice.
The headquarters of the company was
then at Cudahy, a post about a mile
and a half below Forty Mile. John
son has since been appointed United
States District Attorney for Alaska by
President Mckinley. He was con-
firmed by the Senate last summer
about a year later fight having been
made on him. In 1895 Forty Mile and
note on the Upper Yukon, for it was
not It'll the summer of 1896 that In
dian George" Cormac stumbled upon
the gold of the Klondike and Dawson
began to be builded. The pay being
good, Johnson had no difficulty in find
ing men to undertake the job. Old
timers strongly advised against the at
tempt as a reckless risk of life. Some
actually opposed it.
Two ambitious parties were made up.
In one were a printer named Hodges.
Neil, a young Scotchman; Jimmy
Jackson, an Indian and the leader, and
three other Indians. Hodges took
along about 100 pounds of newspapers
and magazines. on which he expected
TO make a neat cleanup Being q
printer. he knew everything. He
thought he was as well posted on what
TO wear and what TO do as the Oldest
Yukoner. Nobody could pass a gal
ley to him on Yukon information, for
there were no errors under his slug"
he said
Poor Hodges! He was even thinly
clad as he sat in the canoe on the sack
containing part of the mail.
Jackson had four dogs and a heavy
sled. The dogs weighed no more than
twenty-five or thirty pounds each. Yu-
koners wintering in Juneau went down
to the float to see them off. They told
the boys they did not have enough
grub. and put in last, but unheeded,
protest It was between December IS
and 20 that they set out in rough
water and a raw wind. Judge John
son kindly sent along a dozen cans
of fresh oysters for Healey and other
friends.
The other party was joined by Tom
Healey. a son OF John ]. Healey, who
was then in juneau. He persuaded
Dan Stewart, an aged prospector who
had spent many a season on the other
side of the divide, to so along The
old man had some money deposited for
security in a hotel safe In care of Col
oneI John Odds. He demanded the
money. Odds begged him to stay at
home. urged that he would never get
TO Forty Mile and finally refused to
deliver over the money Healey got
together a lot of cigars and fancy gro
ceries in addition to the necessary sup
plies. That was all he knew about a
Yukon winter then; he knows more
now. Away they, too. went over the
water, heading for Dyea Inlet and the
CnllkOOt Pass.
Few men in Alaska, or anywhere
else, ever went through the awful ex-
perience of Jimmy" Jackson and his
companions. The following February
some Yukoners, camped for the win
ter, found Jackson and one of the other
Indians wandering aimlessly around
near Taku arm, close to Lake Atlin.
half dead from starvation and cold
They had devoured the four dogs. ex-
cept half Of one animal, which Jack
son carried in the mall sack Judge
Johnson's oysters had disappeared from
the commissary. Nobody has ever
been able TO learn just what the party
went through owing to the inability of
the two natives to express themselves
fuently in English, and also, very
probably, for graver reasons. The off
aculties of their undertaking were in
creased by the fact that they adven-
turously set out to reach the Lewis
and then the Yukon River over a new
and little known country lying north of
the head of the Taku River, expecting
to come out on Lake Atlin. High
winds and heavy. drifting snowstornls
we're met with almost from the start
After leaving the canoe it. was neces-
sary to relay their supplies from one
cache to another. The snow fell so
swiftly and was so whirled by the
aowling storms that the trail was lost
and the caches buried out OF sight. In
a few days all the provisions left were
The few pounds of bacon and -four each
nan packed on his back 1t was inn