The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1921-12-06
WINTER HITS THE
MIGHTY YUKON RIVER
GOLDEN STREAM OF NORTH
ONE OF THE WORLDS
GREATEST WATERWAYS.

The closing of the Yukon river to
navigation because of ice, noted in
press dispatch late in October, serves
the double purpose of bringing annual
ly to the attention of stay-at-home
Americans one of the greatest of their
rivers, which to the majority is prob
ably little more than a name, and of
warning of the southwark thrust OF
the icy fingers OF winter which will
soon grasp the shores and straits of
the Great Lakes, says a bulletin from
the National Geographic Society.
The Yukon, despite the general fail
ure to recognize it rs such, is one OF
the great rivers of the world, contin-
ues the bulletin. 1t is more than TWEEN
ty-three hundred miles long and is
both the longest and the largest river
flowing into Pacific waters in the
western hemisphere, surprising by
considerable margin its nearest COM
petitors, the Columbia and the Colora-
do. Among all the rivers of North
America the Yukon is surpassed in
length only by the Mississippi system
and the Mackenzie. 1t is longer than
the St. Lawrence as we'll as all the
other rivers except the Mississippi sys-
TEN, which flow into the Gulf of Mex
leo or the Atlantic.
Among Worlds Greatest Rivers.
Though the discharge of the Yukon
has not been accurately measured, it is
its tremendous volume of water rath-
er than its length that causes it to be
ranked as great river. 1t is, of course,
far outdistanced by the vast Amazon,
greatest of rivers, and the Congo,
which probably ranks second. But the
Yukon has been estimated to have
three-fourths of the volume of dis
charge of the Mississippi, and if this
estimate be accurate the stream which
IT pours into the sea is probably among
the half dozen greatest in the world.
To Alaska, heretofore having no
highway of steel into its interior, the
Yukon has been Indispensable Be-
cause of the shallow bars at its mouth
ocean steamers cannot enter the river;
but at the harbor of St Michael, lust
north of the mouth freight is trans
ferred to shallow draught, stern-whee1
river steamers which ascend thes tream
not only throughout the breadth of
Alaska, but for several hundred miles
into Canada.
Serve District by Boat.
The Yukon, flowing through Alas |
ka roughly from east to west, divides
the territory into northern and south |
ern halves. Large areas along the |
banks of the river and its tributaries
as we'll as at considerable distances
from the stream can thus be served |
by freight boats. The principle OBJ !
jectives of the river steamers how !
ever, are Dawson on the Yukon about !
sixty miles in Canada and more than
thirteen hundred miles from the mouth. |
and Fairbanks, the metropolis" of in |
terror Alaska, near the head of navi- |
cation on the Tanana, tributary of !
the Yukon
The Yukon is an international riv- |
er, rising nearly five hundred miles |
within Canadian territory, and sweep
ing in a great arc to the north and |
east. Although the river is more than |
two thousand miles long one of its |
sources small lake, is within TWEEN !
ty-fve miles of the salt water to which |
it makes such a roundabout journey. /
The existence of such large river
as the Yukon in the far north was
long unsupported A Russian lieuten-
ant Zagoskin, entered its mouth by
boat in 1912 and traversed it for sew !
eral hundred miles. The Hudson Bay |
Company had discovered its head
waters in Canada; but the two bits of .
information were not pieced together. !
The existence of the river as stream
of great magnitude and length first
became really known through the dar-
ing and romantic project of installing /
land telegraph wires between America
and Europe across Alaska, Behring
Strait and the wastes of Siberia. Rob-
ert Kennicott, in connection with this
enterprise, blazed the Yukon trail by
descending the river in 1865. The first
trading steamer assembled the stream
in 1869 The Yukon really came into
its own with the discovery of gold in
the Klondile in 1896.
The Yukon is not alone in being a
great river that remained in compare
tive obscurity because of its far north
ern situation. Just to the east the Mac
kenzie-a stream of hardly less mag
nitude-which is now also beginning
to feel the throttling grip OF frost,
flowed almost unnoticed through lit
tle-known wilderness until the discov
cry of oil along its banks brought il
into the lime light. And in the eastern
hemisphere three rivers, worthy to be
classed among the mightiest streams
Of the earth the Oh, the Yenisei and
the Lena-pour hundreds OF thousands
of gallons of water into the Arctic
each second in a mighty but losing
battle against the congealing power OF
cold.