The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-03-03
Life In Dawson City.

| On the morning of August Il, at about
| four o'clock, broad daylight, we came up
| TO that collection of forty large log cab
! ms and five hundred tents. sprawled at
the foot OF Moose-skin Mountin, named
| Dawson City. Helter-slElter, in a
march. lies this collection of odds and
ends of houses and habitations, the ware
| houses of the two companies cheek by
| jowl with cabins and tents; row OF bar
rooms called Front Street; the side streets
deep in mud; the river-bank a mass of
| miners boats, Indian canoes, and logs;
the screening of the sawmiIl; the dismal,
tuneless scraping of the violin OF the dance
halls, still wide open; the dogs every
| where, fighting and snarling; the men Ell
Their ''whooping it up or working with the
greatest rapidity TO unload the precious
| freight we had broUght-all Of this rust
| ling and hustling made the scene more
like the outside of a circus-tent including
| the smell of the sawdust, than anything
else in the world.
This, then, is the real Ell Dorado. One
wonders where they all live. One Won
ders, in Amusement, where they are all
going TO live through the awful winter
that is approaching. 1t is not CUES
ton of food; it is a question of shelter.
There are no logs fit to make a cabin 70
=
OF Dawson City. To wait for winter
means that it will be too late TO build a
cabin, because the moss which is used
to fill the chinks between the logs by that
time will be frozen solid, and be useless
unless thawed out over a fire, very wea-
risome job. The oId-timers have got used
to 20 degrees below zero in tents; and
even if the robe over them freezes solid,
a match is smuggled from under the bed
clothes, the fire somehow lighted in the
sheet-iron stove, and there they lie until
the stove is red-hot before they dare
emerge from under the skin rugs. But how
are the newcomers 70 survive the cruel
exposure-the lawyers, clerks, doctors
and mechanics?
Dawson City seems like a joke. Eigh-
teen hundred and forty miles from ST.
Michael Island-this is where they have
gold, millions of gold, and nothing better
than a muddy swamp to live in; gold-dust
and nuggets in prOfusion, and yet the ne
groes in the cabins of a southern planta-
ton live better than the richest man in
the country. Our arrival at Dawson was
at very critical time. We had brought
wit US nearly four hundred tons of pro-
visions, and this fact served to allay the
anxious fears of many who were becom-
ing panic-stricken at the idea that there
would be a scarcity of food during the
winter. No news had come to us by way
of the ocean of later date than June 10,
but newspapers had been received over
the summit at Dawson of date as late as
July 26: and so the report that crowds
were swarming into the gold-felds had
reached them, but was news to us. The
town was thoroughly scared, and was
overrun with men who had come down
from the diggings, often twenty and
twenty-five miles, to make sure of their
outfits for the winter, and so determined
were they to procure them that they sat
themselves down calmly in line, like men
waiting to buy seats at a first-night per-
Torrance, determined to wait until the
goods were put up and set aside in their
names.
An outfit for a miner means everything
that he uses during the winter, and this
being reduced to its lowest terms, means
bacon and beans. There are other things
of course, in tins and in gunny-sacks,-
flour, sugar, salt. pickles. dried fruits,
deSiccated potatoes-to suit the taste; but
the work is done, and the gold is found
and cleaned up, and miles and miles Of
the wilderness conquered, and cold wealth
er and wintry winds withstood. on bacon
and beans. 1t is the easiest food to pack,
the quickest to prepare, and the most
lasting and sustaining. The miner usu-
ally reckons on getting his outfit in No
vember, because he can carry on a sledge,
after the snow has set in. four times as
much as he can pick on his back. and if
he is fortunate enough to have dogs he
can draw much more.-(John Sidney
Webb in the Century.