The sea coast echo., 1910-10-01

9 T is over a dozen years since the
b news flashed round the globe that
81 gold in immense quantities had
A been found amid the snow and ice
of the Yukon territory, on the bOr-
der of far-away Alaska, and adven-
turous spirits hastened from every
quarter into the bleak and inhospita-
BILE land whose very name had been
till then unknown to the vast majority.
Gold, indeed. had been found there for
many years, but the phenomenal
wealth of Bonanza creek was only re-
yealed in 1896, and it was not till the
summer Of 1897, when steamer load
Of happy miners-every one of whom
had struck it rich" and bore with him
a fortune in dust and uggets-arriVed
at Seattle, that the world awoke to
the fact that another great goldfield,
rivaling those Of California and Aus
tTalia, had been discovered.
KlOndike, Yukon, Bonanza, Eldorado
these magic words were on all mems
tongues in the closing years of the
nineteenth century, and eXtravagant
though the reports were that trickled
over the long and perilous path lying
between the frozen Businesses of KIon-
dixie and civilization, the reality far
surpassed the widest estimates of the
first prospectors, and eventually 1t be-
came certain that the new gold-field
was the richest ever known in the his
tory of placer mining.
For this was not another Rand,
where without expensive machinery
and unlimited capital the earth could
not be made to yield an ounce of gold
This was the poor mans gold field,
and he needed but pick, a shovel,
and a pan to place him on the road to
fortune To get there was the only
difficulty, for one had either to make
the long and costly journey via the
mouth of the Yukon upstream to the
diggings, or land at Juneau or Dyea,
surmount the dangerous Chilcoot or
White passes, and then travel through
the line of lakes to the head waters
of the Yukon, and so downstream to
the newly-founded Dawson City-al-
ready a flOurishing town of 1000 in
habitants. Now Dyea is deserted.
Gold Output of the Yukon.
Wealth beyond the dreams Of ava
rice awaited those who won through
to the Klondike. In the first season
the few pioneers took S1,500,000 out of
Eldorado creek alone, and claims were
selling for S500,000. A single pan of
"dirt"-two shoyelfuIs of earth-was
known to yield $500, and $3.50 and 5000
pans were plentiful. Men could earn
SIS to $40 a day in wages, and at
that figure labor was scarce, and an
attempted reduction was speedily fol-
lowed by strike. By the last year
of the century the population of the
Yukon territory had grown to 10000,
and the annual gold yield to S20,000,-
900, though the recovery of the pre-
cious metal was carried on under pc
cuIiar difficulties. The ground being
frozen solid, it had 70 be thawed out
by huge fires before the dirt could be
excavated, and this was the work that
could be done during the long and Sc
we're winter. The actual extraction
Of the gold by washing was only possi-
BILE during the three summer months.
When the gold fields of California
were discovered and the stories of
their unlimited wealth heralded
throughout the world, there was wild
and woolly rush to the shores of the
Pacific. In those days it was almost
an impossibility to get the worst OF
venture to its coast Starvation was
almost out of the question, save in the
nprthern gand monh tainousaa districts.
Z ~ 4