Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1899-07-27

e arm last s w, dles and get their sleds.
Dir. q. Sfkers and loaded tent,
1 Warnerrech g and provisions for a
\ weel. Of ~ and started up river for
4 Jane HARP the creek, some slNin,les
fwbeels rs ever showed here. Some
sing. SINGS ffhes fell and we had hard
w Mr. 'ughing through it: 1T was
w o and at times you could not see
t,haaS,G feet. We tramped from day
light till dark every day, but saw
morning. The Thermometer dropped
to ,}22, below part OF the time. We
10Th started cooking for our camp.
| guess J had better touch lightly on
that part of my career. The boys
must all have had their lives insured.
and they surely could masticate and
digest anything that an ostrich could.
Anyway. experimental n,them, and.
they said nothing but eat everything
that was set before them. Christmas
dinner consisted of mashed potatoes,
with brown gravy and fried bacon,
cracked wheat mush with milk and
sugar. boiled rice with butter. sugar
and nutmeg. boiled pun pudding
with sweet sauce. white and graham
bread. doughnuts. apple pie, fruit cake
tone year old). butter. sugar, coffee,
etc. There We're no swelled heads the
!, next morning.
Thermometer Dropped SO Below.
On the a7th we viewed the eclipse
of the moon. Dining the next two
! weeks an otter was shot. Most Of
the San Francisco crowd skinned their
bacon and sewed the rinds on the bot
, tom of them nloccasins, and two OF
the boys; made each of them sled.
On Sllnda, January s. it was 30 be-
,low. on the 9th 40. 10th AZ, 18th 50,
18th "a, 18th so and 14th %. On the
, 18th the three men we had left up the
river on Thanksgiving day arrived in
camp. They reported the left fork
no good and said they had eaten the
last morsel they had that morning,
They killed three offers while ascend
ing the left fork and ate the four
quarters and threw away the trunk
! pieces. When they came back they
/, hunted around in the snow and found
them and ate them. The three offers
furnished ten full meals. They also
at midday, Dec. 26th. from an eleva.
ton, saw at the same time the full
| moon and the sun. The moon did not
set. King froze the end Of his heel a
few days before coming home. On
! Jan. "a, Buck, Abers and Burnett and
six of the San Francisco crowd started
with sixty days provisions, for Clear
Creek. We got water out of the river
until the goth, when it froze up solid
and we have melted ice since. Main
4 Ia 4.,1> d.. .
On Feb. z, King, johnson, McGregor
and Stokes started to explore the
| head waters. of the right branch, with
ninty days provisions. Kings heel was
not entirely we'll. The Sth and 9th
were very windy and walked up riv-
err about six miles and found them all
| in camp waiting for the wind to go
down, so they could make sled trail
with their snow shoes. From the 11th
to the 21st. inclusive, the thermometer
ranged at about 8 a. m. minus AZ de-
grees. On the 11th, 18th, 18th, 10Th and
goth. respectively, it was minus 81, GA,
| 60 and 62 degrees. Thompson and Ted
Hanson We're sick.
May l, 1899 Same old place. From
the Goth to March s, inclusive, the Their
mometer registered :, an average OF
j
lof the San Francisco crowd came in
from Clear Creek, and reported that
the rest of the boys were camped
from eight to twelve miles below; that
ithey could not get a hole at Clear
Creek on account of the warm springs
breaking i'm; that Dawson had burned
down; that two men had died at Clear
4 Creek of scurvy, and that one had &C.
cidentally shot himself; that Bridg.
man ana Parks had the scuryy, bur
they mad gotten them to drinking
spruce tea and they We're up and on
once more; that the mail carrier OF
| the Yukon finding that he was freez
ing, DUMPED his mail off the sled ant
dashed himself on ana whipped up hi!
dogs, and that they did not know
whether they would be. able to say.
him at Minook. Three more of TIL,
San Francisco crowd came to CAM
without their loads, and the first two
left with food. They had come up tt
break trail with snow shoes and carr,
back food.
Il he thermometer up to 80 de
grees today, the first time since Oct
8. and we shoveled two feet of snow
off our cabin roof.
/ The next day Buck and Mcmahon
came to camp on snow shoes, to breal
trail, and went back after dinner
| They reported that the transportation
lcompanies We're now engaged in boom
| ing the Koyakuk; that one had Sc
cretly shipped a chest of gold up t,
Tramway Bar and transferred it t,
another boat and openly brought i
i down river and showed it and spols
| Of it as actually dug on the Koyu
knk.
4 All the Boys Get Letters.
On the 18th all of the boys came /
camp. They all had, received letter
except myself. You should have see
them eat for the next week or tel
days. On the 10th some of the boy
cut hole through the ice to see
they could not get some fish. Al
feet six inches they broke through
within inches of gravel. No ifs
and wafer very yellow N the after