Douglas Island news., 1905-01-11
LIFE IN THE YUKON BASIN.

LIFE IN THE YUKON BASIN.
 The impression which most people have of Alaska is that of vast wilder ness, great mountains and desolate valleys, buried beneath mantle of eternal snow. In midwinter this idea is not far from correct, but in summer the snow disappears, excepting from the mountain tops, and the valleys are bathed in the warmSsunshiDe of the long Arctic days. The Forty Mile sec tion is tributary to the Yukon, which it joins in the Northwest Territory, about 30 miles above the international boun- dary. The drainage of Forty Mile lies wholly within what is known as the Yukon plateau. The Forty Mile is lined in it's upper portion by high, flat ter races, 400 feet above the bed of the river, giving to the scenery a pictur- esoue effect. The river flows through a narrow canyon the greater part of it's way, leaving it about 20 miles from its confluence with the Yukon, and from there to the latter river it flows through a broad, open valley. The name Forty Mile was given the stream and town in 1886 by the miners, from the fact that it was 40 miles below Hudson Bay Co.'S post, old Fort Reliance.
 The climatic conditions on the coast of Alaska and those of the interior are widely different. On the coast the rainfall and snowfall are abundant. At Sitka, for instance, the annual rainfall for a period of seven years, during which careful record was kept, was 1II.7, and at Juneau 94 inches.
 The temperature on the coast rarely falls much below zero, but this is due to the warm water of the Japanese current, which greatly modifes the temperature along the coast, and also induces the heavy rain and snowfall on the coast. In the interior, however, beyond the great range of mountains, conditions are very different, almost as different as those of the California coast as compared with the climate of the Great Basin beyond the Sierra Nevada mountains. The climate of the interior of Alaska is dry and the range of temperature is much greater than on the coast. but the intense cold of win tor is not SO great a drawback to a comfortable existence as may be sup posed, owing to the dryness of the air. In this respect it is not very unlike the winters of Montana, the Dakotas, Wyo- ming and Colorado.
 The miners of Forty Mile were among the first to introduce the thaw- ing methods practiced in recovering the gold from the frozen grayels of the basin. Owing to the intense cold of the long winter, the ground is frozen for seven or eight months of the year. To sink a shaft, the miner waits until winter has set ia and then sinks a shaft in the frozen gravel by alternat- ely thawiug and removing the ground. The shaft and drifts stand without timber. The pay dirt is raised to the surface during the winter months and washed in the spring, when water Is available, and the gravel is thawed out by the warmth of the sun. Sometimes these underground excavations are made of considerable size. One on Miller creek, in the Forty Mile district, measured 64 by g feet and was 19 feet in height; it was carried to within 8 feet of the surface. With the coming of spring this stope caved, but the gravel was all available for washing.
 As has been the case with other countries, those who first visited the Alaska region gave little attention to its mineral resources. Captain Ray mond, who first took charge of Fort Yukon, Alaska, for the United States, after the purchase of the Territory from Russia, said in bis official report, "No valuable minerals in'workable quanties have been found up to the present time" The repeated discoveries of payable gravel in widely seperated dis tricts has done more to make known and develop the resources of the country than anything else could have