Williams news. [microfilm reel] (Williams, Ariz.) 1891-19??, 1904-05-21

"Going to Alaska" There is
more in these three words than any
one can realize who has not had
the experience. 1t is one thing to
go into the country and another to
be in there, and only those who
have endured the hardships of the
trip, and those who have lost their
dear ones in the undertaking, can
can fully understand it.
In spite of the hardships con-
nected with the trip many venture
to make it for various reasons-not
all to seek gold.
The journey as it can be made
now is not SO difficult an under
taking as in years gone by, as the
boats are safer and navigation bet
ter understood in the waters of the
North Pacific and Gulf of Alaska.
The trails are better and supplies
can be had at some places in the
interior.
Formerly each one had to take
supplies, such as clothes and pro-
visions, and in many cases wood
had to carried or hauled from five
to seventeen miles. Wood cannot
be procured in any quantity except
in certain sections, and is particu
larly scarce in the glacier beds.
The trip of which we write was
not made over the ordinary route
which the people followed during
the first years of the gold excite
ment, but lay over the Valdes
Glacier, a harder and more tedious
trail, which was afterward selected
by the government as an all-Amer-
lean route to Dawson, it being much
shorter than either of the others
The difficulties of the trail were so
great. however, that of the five
thousand people who started over
it in the spring of 1898, very few
ever reached Dawson or the Yukon
river.
We embarked on the steamer
Valencia at San Francisco, where
only few passengers were taken
on. At Seattle our ship was crowded
with all the passengers the law al
lowed 1t to carry-six hundred and
thirty-f five beside the crew. There
were seven women among them,
two of whom were in the steerage,
and it is wonder they survived
the trip, but they came through it
better than most of the men.
The hunks in the steerage were
placed close together, six tiers high,
something like pantry shelves, only
not so lar apart and little wider
just space enough for a man to
crawl in.
After the boat had discharged its
passengers at its destination all the
mattresses used by the steerage
passengers were either burned or
thrown overheard. A mattress
coul1 be bought cheap at that time
if you could muster up courage to
use one of them. Quite a number
were thrown over to the Indians,
who came out by the hundreds in
their canoes to meet us when they
saw US approaching.
AS the men boarded the boat at
Seattle, happy and light hearted
and made their way up the gang
plank, little did they think of the
ordeal they were to pass through
before again setting foot on land.
The first thing to dampen the
spirits of many was the falling
overheard of one of the head stew
ards, who was drowned, leaving a
wife with small children in San
Francisco.
About daylight the next morning
we steamed away from Port Town
send with the ships clearance
making good time towards the
Straits of San Juan de Fuca at the
entrance of Puget Sound.
We had not gone far before en-
eountering Il heavy sea with black
and angry sky above.
Each day the storm grew fiercer
and thaCa u ha xraraa / linnl n q irs