Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1899-12-29
KLONDIKE DOG EXPRESS.
ScAMPERS ALONG WITH THE SLED
AT FIVE MILES AN HOUR.

| The Way Mail Ia Carried Between Lake
Bennett and Dawson - stations Are
Thirty Miles Apart - Principal Dog
Diet Is Rice and Dried Salmon.
The Dominion Government has Just
closed contract with the Canadian
Development Company for carrying
the mail between Lake Bennett, the
present terminus of the White Pass
Railroad. and Dawson. The service,
which is to be weekly both ways, will
be as picturesque and unique as was
the old Pony Express across the
plains. But instead of the brown
desert for pathway, this new route
will lie along the icy bosom of the
Yukon. The "malimute" dog will
take the place of the cayuse. Captain
Richie, General Superintendent of
the company that is undertaking the
work, came out by the same steamer
that brought the writer up from Daw-
son the other day, stopping off at
every police station to arrange for the
feeding and sheltering of the men and
dogs until such time as the company
may be able to build stations of their
own, writes Cy Warman in the New
York Independent.
The stations of the Northwest
mounted police are thirty miles apart.
1t will take 100 dogs and forty men
twenty drivers and twenty helpers and
hostlers. Seventy tons of dog fodder
and 200 tons supplies for the men will
be coached along the line before the
river closes. There will be no delay
no stops-save for the changing of
teams. The dogs will be changed ct
each station, but the men will make
two stations without stopping A man
is expected to cover his run one way,
sixty miles, inside of twenty -four
hours, Here he will have from two
to two and half days rest and then
double back, making 100 miles in
week. 1t is expected that this con-
slant use of the trail will keep it open
and in good shape. Each man and
team will travel the same section of
the trail constantly, and SO become
familiar with it aud be able to take
every advantage to avoid delay. A
mill-run of the statements made by
the various prevaricators with whom
| l. dlSIuooCu thO luhbtCl SAOME tAdb luC
average depth OF snow between White
Horse Rapids and Dawson, $50 miles,
is two feet. There is absolutely no
wind-no drifts-so that when once
the trail is beaten down it becomes a
firm, smooth pathway, over which
good team of "Inside dogs" can scam
per with mail sled at five miles
an hour. A man went out over
the ice last winter on q BIZ
cycle in eight days, breaking the
record. To be sure the dogs drawing
the mails will be the swiftest and
hardest that money can secure. They
will be carefully handled and fed, for
each team and sled will represent
cost to the company of something like
| $500. A single team once sold for
81, 500 at Dawson. The principal dog
diet will be boiled rice and dried sal
mon.
In case of illness or disability of the
regular men there will always be
man available from the mounted police
to take his place; so that it would
seem al easy matter to give the conn
try locally known as 1.-THE Inside" as
good service in winter as it has in
summer, when the company has three
steamers q week each way. Last year,
when those who had undertaken the
work failed, the police took the mails
and carried them through in good
shape, saved the Dominion Govern
ment some $50, 900, and all without
the faintest hope of reward, save the
meager salary allowed them. 1t would
be handsome thing for the Canadian
Parliament to vote a few thousand for
the benefit of those patient, faithful,
silent guardians OF the Klondike trail.
The telegraph, which as L write is
at Fort Selkirk, will be into Dawson
by the end of October, so that Mr..
Burdette, the mail superintendent, can
handle the mail by wire, just as a
tram dispatcher handles the trains on
n railway. 1t will be possible to know
just where the mails are at any mo-
ment. The driver will register at each
police station, and from these records
the time of the men will be made up.
When the river has become safely
and securely locked horses are to be
tried on the trail, but not many men
in the Klondike believe in horses.
They are harder to house and handle
and feed. They must eat two or three
times n day and have a warm place to
sleep. Not so with native dog. Give
him one square" a day and cozy
drift for downy couch and he is
happy. Besides horses are expensive.
Al A 4
five hundred dollars in Dawson. I
asked man for the hire of horse
to ride up to Milrooney's Forks, six
teen miles, and he wanted $50. 1
explained that only wanted the ami