Douglas Island news., 1907-06-05
Russians Worked Northern
 Mines Century Ago.


 after forty centuries how such vast riches as the gold and diamond mines of Solomon and Hiram, King of Tyre, could become lost to the world, 1t for gets that in the great gold fields of Al aska, there is similar instance, con fined entirely within the bounds of the nineteenth century.
 There is ample evidence that the Klondike gold fields were discovered by Russians in the early thirties, last century, and worked by political slaves to considerable extent, before being abandoned and forgotten. And 1t Is now recalled apropos of the new branch of tho Alaska Central railway up the Yentna--recently described by pr. F. A. Cook, the first mountaineer to ascend Mount Mckinley, who took that route to the mountain-that in 1882 the Russians explored that district thoroughly, and mined thousands of dollars worth of gold on the Anauk river in the Seward peninsula. In fact the instruments which they used and the chains with which the convlcts were hobbled while they worked will be a portion of the Russian occupation eX- hibit of Alaska at the great Alaska Yukon. Pacific Exposition which will be held at Seattle in 1909. Besides the in dustrial, agricultural and mineral ex- hibits at the exposition, much space will be devoted to displays dealing with the early history of Alaska and the Yukon.
 The discovery in the Kloudike was made in dramatic way. A short dis tance above discovery claim on Hunter creek-chief tributary of the Klondike "a number of miners were working lay. That is, the ground belonged to some one else and they worked 1t, agreeing to pay all expenses and to turn over a certain percentage of the gross output of the mine, usually tif- teen percent, to the owner of the ground. When the ground was opened a couple of feet, the miners came across traces of an old tunnel. At first they paid little attention, as in the early days of the country in 1897 to 1899, all kinds of tunnels were dug and then abandoned by a certain class of inex- perieuced newcomers who expected to find gold in millions for few days la Dor. But as the miners went deeper, they saw that this tunnel could not be the work of miners digging at so recent a period. The timbers that shored the walls were old and routed; the tunnel looked as if it had not been worked for a century.
 At the end there were evidences of a tragedy. The bones of a couple of men were found past a cave in which had evidently imprisoned them beyoad all rescue, and on their legs there still clang the heavy manacles with which Russia in the old days hobbled her po- litical prisoners. The men had died miserably because of the cayein, and for some reason never to be known, were not rescued. The irons on their legs had apparently hindered their movements, for the situation would not have been desperate to modern miner, possessing full freedom of movement. Beside them, were their century old picks, heavy, blunted and inefficient instruments. The remains were res pectably buried and the instruments and leg irons were saved, and will be portion of the Russian exhibit in the Alaska building of the Alaska-Yukon- Pacific Exposition.
 In 1882 Russian dog mail on it's way from the interior to Sitka discovered traces of gold on the Anauk. An old trading post on the Kuskokwim, the ruins of which are still to be seen, was the headquarters of Russian trade in that district. The Anauk river was known then as the Yellow river and so eppears today on the Russian maps. For years this discovery was worked, but the Russians, never good prospect ors at best, abandoned gold mining as soon as the deposits in the immediate vicinity of the original discovery were worked out. Why the rich Hunker was abandoned will forever remain mys- tery. It has been claimed that all along the Russian government had records of the vast gold deposits in the neighbor- hood of the Klondike, and had that