Los Angeles herald., 1906-11-25
ROMANTIC YUKON
is COMMONPLAC
GLAMOUR GONE FROM THE FAR
NORTH GOLD FIELD
Individual Miners and "candle Lit
cIeft' Have Given Place to Ma
chinery--cold Extracted
Now by Power

SEATTLE Wash. Nov 24-To the
discoveries made by the adventurous
spirits that inhabited in 1896 and sue
ceeding years that part of the Yukon
valley lying in British territory must
be given the everlasting credit of bring
ing Alaska to the front as a mining
district of immense richness at a time
when the worlds marts needed a new
supply of gold. George Carmack, ma
tive OF America with Indian Jim, ="
found the first important deposit of
gold dust beneath the grass roots on
the banks of Bonanza creek, near its
confluence with the Klondike river. in
1896.
What followed thereafter made Daw-
son the greatest and most spectacular
placer mining camp i'm the world The
tremendous influx of men and money
that followed pouring like mad through
Seattle's gates. led to the real recogn-
tion later of the immense mineral and
other resources of the northern dis
trilt.
SO that, in any true account of the
progress and development Of Alaska,
and in any summary of the gigantic
strides in mineral improvement in the
north, 1t should never be forgotten
that the gold hunters who first ex-
plotted the mines of the Yukon terri
tory were Alaska's greatest benefactors,
for they were the instruments to
awaken the long slumbering territory
and to direct the worlds attention to
its gold-seamed valleys and it's quartz
ribbed hills.
While the Yukon territory has pro-
duced approximately $3.50, 900, 900 in
gold, of which by far the greater part
has come from the Klondike mines. the
placer richness of the district is not vet
exhausted. 1t is true ,hat the day of
the ''candle-llt sleft," with it's shining
streak of pure gold next n the bed
rocks, has abolh gone, and with it the
miner who, working on his oNr claim,
would come out with 100000 b pure
gold to show for a winters work.
Yet 1t is undeniably true that the real
work of extracting the hidden wealth
of the region has but begun. This is
the sluicing down of the hills with
powerful hydraulic giants. Reinforcing
these enterprises are the steam dredges
which are working out results that are
truly astonishing.
Reliable mining authorities say that
within the next three years the output
of gold from the Yukon territory will
be more than doubled and that with
in a comparatively short time it will
reach the high water mark of 1900
when the Klondike production was
$22, 900 in pure gold.
Dawson is not the frontier mining
camp of the worldwide fame that 1t
was in 1897, and the three or four years
following, when it had population of
more than 10000 people; when miners
wages were SIS per day and a simple
meal cost $3.50 and up
1t is true, also, that business is con-
Quoted along entirely different lines,
btlt the men who are really back of the
city and the country are confident of
The future and believe that when the
modern methods of mining are fully
ipaugurated the camp and the whole of
The British Yukon will become again
not only one of the great factors in the
worlds. gold production, but as pros
Porous for the merchant and the pro-
feSSional man as before,