St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-10-08
MAKES A FORTUNE AS PILOT.
Through the Dangerous White
Horse Rapids.

A pilot who receives 5000 for 40 min
utes' work is not seen every day, but
sucn a one arrived in Seattle the other
lay. He came in on the Utopia. hay-
ng just made the trip from White
Horse rapids, where he has been steer
ing boats through that dangerous
passage. His name is w. L. Foster.
Foster received 5000 from the Cana
dian national bank of Victoria for TAX
ing the steamer Bellirgham through
the extremely dangerous channel OF
water. Foster did the work al only
10 minutes, and exhibited a check
which he received from the bank ofii-
cials for his work.
After navigation opened up Foster
Immediately went to work as :. pilot.
and mp to the time he left he had pi-
loted over 200 boats through. For this
work he received nearly $4,000, and
he thinks that he succeeded in earning
as much money in the same length of
time as any man in Alaska. Foster
ran a street car at Astoria before he
went to Alaska, and he is now thinking
of buying a few shares of stock in the
company Of which he was once hum
Bile employe. In an interview Foster
said:
I Il left Seattle for Alaska last August
and finally reached Dawson. l pros
pected some in the KlonGike. but my
provisions commenced to run short
and thought it would be advisable for
me to leave, as / was not one OF the
Klondike miners and did not locate q
claim worth thousands OF dollars.
accordingly left Dawson on Feb
ruary 2S, and for the past two
months l have been at the White
Horse rapids and Tagish post.
As l previously stated. ! engaged in
the business of plotting boats through
the White Horse rapids, and up to the
time ! left. .Ion June II. acted as pilot
for 217. including few steamers. !
was well paid for my work. the aver
age price ranging from $25 IN $12s.
In one instance I received 5000 from
the Canadian Commercial bank of Vic
toria for taking the steamer Beliing-
ham through the rapids. The Beiling-
ham was the first steamer to go
through, and she carried only the
crew and the representatives of the
banking company. Aboard the boa;
were safes, and IN fact everything else
necessary to establish bank. The
bank is to be located at Dawson, while
the steamer is to ply on the Stewart
river. 1 commenced to act as pilot
on May q. just four days after the ice
broke, and up to the time I left, on
June l2. 5000 boats had passed. 300 OF
which were swamped while shooting
the rapids and going through the can
yon. The number of lives lost up to
date as a result of failure in attempt.
ing to shoot the rapids is about ten,
and that was largely due to incompe-
tency on the part of men who made
pretensions of being first-class pilots
Sergt. Richards, of the mounted po-
lice, finally gave strict orders pro-
hibiting men who we're not at the
White Horse rapids during the season
of low water from acting as pilots. a;
they were not acquainted with the
deadly passages and were not able te
locate the extremely dangerous points
Since this edict not life was lost.
The mounted police estimate that
nearly 1900 boats have yet to pass
through the rapids. and most of them
are now at Lake Bennett or Lake
Lindeman. This estimate may seen
high. but I assure you that there ar:
Llore people in Alaska than are gen
orally believed. The number of people
| carried in each boat varies. I have
seen boats with only two passengers
while again others have carried a.
high as 20. SO it is almost impossible te
estimate the number OF people who
have already gone down the river ol
the number who expect to go down.
Post-1ntell.gencer.