The Nome nugget., 1902-06-11
iLittle Work Being Done in
 That Section.
-1HE GOLD IS THERE
But It Requires Capital to Extract It From the Ground-Men Simply Doing the Assessment Work and .RuStling Grub Stake.

Cecu up On the olnOOk flVef' and It's
 tributaries, sizing up the situation, y said Bill Jones yesterday, ''and figuring on its future possibilities. The Shook is a strong stream, navigable for flat
 bOttomed &oats for about ty miles {: ia tow line is, necessary, as in places there are rifles and swift water, and it fis pretty laborious work getting up rthere. Imushed up this trip. leaving @the Shook roadhouse. (presided over by R. Feltham, CT Dick" as he is con- monly called), at 10 p. m., stopped into . the cozy .quarters of C. T. Albrecht, or
 "'Old Tom, as he is known, q pioneer
 of the bnrg,.a borrowed Il shotgun in hopes of getting some game on the way.
 ''lt was pretty foggy, so I.lolowed along the tundra, on the banks of the sriyer, and reached an abandoned igloc, at the mouth of Camp creek
 This place was for years the winter ..home of the reindeer herders, but since
 Mary. 'the Reindeer Queen," mox ed to .Unalaklik, it has been abandoned. Considerable work was done on this . creek last year, with very poor results, |. little gold but not enough to pay. In fact this has been the history. of Boul- < der and Independence. the next creeks. . crossed over and it was no picnic, as
 the water had cut q channel through rthc ice too wide to step over, and at least five feet down to the level. of the water, a ease of get wet. We'll. I suc- rceeded, and reached the camp of Wiley
 and Held, on Coal creek, at s a. m, wet. ! hungry and fcotsore. I had game: two geese, four ptarmigan and three ducks. TThe boys treated me royalty, and after .-dlryiug up rolled in and had good
 tleep.
 'This creek, called "Coal,,'' named
 after the hoat coal that is found on It, .mer, and l saw several ounces of coarse gold taken out Of it, but the season was , late. The ground was frozen and bed. [ rock was never reached.
 1.-The people owning interests here 2 are poor, and no real work that would tend to show the merits of the property has been done. When spring opens up : the prospectors. who depend upon their own resources are broke, and have to 'ruslle q job1or winter grub stake. A . little work, to hold the ground, is done
 for ncSaSCmopt nurpnSos and vo if uooc from year to year. This certainly is no poor mans country. A bed rock drain with two cross cuts at right angles from side to side through the bench tundra, , Is all that is required, but this takes ', money and labor.
 "It will come, sooner or later. The { benches will be prospected. and pay streaks located. Five years will make great change. Fuel and labor will be cheaper, capital will be looking up
 chance investments, and the country , will be prospecled
 ''The float coal on this creek can be E traced to point, above wh!ch no more -can be found. There is q heavy tundra
 slide, and it may have covered up the ,outcrOp of the ledge. In our work. here : last summer we found nothing but .. float, and Wiley and Held have been here nearly the whole winter, with the : same results. I recommended dia- mOnd drill to the parties l represented, but got nothing. not even my wages ' four months of experience, and a hard 7 winter to face. That's about the deal y the average rnstler gets in. this coun- try. The bare necessities of life and the glad hand if he strikes it and en-
 riches someone who has advanced him = a little stuff, and his ill-will if luck has e gone against him. It takes the few dollars you make in the summer to
 keep you in the winter. and. as far as winter prospecting is concerned in this vicinity, without fuel and steam .thswer it is all nonsense, as have ,sbeen up against this good and strong.
 ".eturping to Shook, I found Tom
 Albrecht fitting up.a boat fort Gabe
 Anderson, in which he is going to the
 Arctic, Dick and Billy Heinz. playing .crb, the Curtis boysaand MuldOon beach-rocking, and the usual quota of .. canines playing around. One thing twas lacking in the old burg, the smil- ling face of Mary, and the Eskimo sbairns that were usually around there.
 They had all vanished;- gone up and down the coast sealing, or had sought @new pastures, near a larger settlement.
 ''Yes, the good old days of '99, when
 Mary played the accoroeon, the mush- - CTS tripping the light faslastic with .:4hc native beauties, while some