The Wrangell sentinel., 1931-06-26
J. W. BAYNUM IN FROM
 LIZARD

J. w. Baynum of the Liard district arrived here on the Hazel B No. 2 Tuesday to have dental work done and to renew old aequaintanees.
 Baynums first trip to Wrangell was in 1898 when he was one of a party of 35 who started for the Klondike for the Douglas Lacey Go. of New York. The party divided at Wrangell one group going in by Whitehorse and the other taking the Cassiar route while Baynum re- turned to Seattle and took charge of a party of eleven men going to Mexico to prospect.
 He has prospected in all the min; ing camps of the west, southwest and Mexico He came north from California for the second time in 1925 and went into the CassiaF in company with Harry Swift and Al Sollinger at the time of the Gold Pan excitement. This is his first trip out of the country since going in.
 He left the Gold Pan and went into the Liard country where he hasl been prospecting ever since. He Is located 50 miles below Oscar Ander- sons post on the Liard. He does not get lonesome in that wilderness because he has had a close neighbor since M. Mcdonald five years ago moved in and established himself just 30 miles away. Before that D. Dalzeil 40 miles away was his closest neighbOr.
 No prospector ever came out of the Cassiar more enthusiastic about its mineral wealth than Baynum. He says there are just two things keeping the district from being one of the famed camps of the world; transportation and lack of men.
 He is interested in a group of claims close to Cole River, thirty or forty miles from Porcupine Bar on Liard river, and about the same dis tance from Bedrock Bar, famous old placer camp worked in ITS. He be- lieves he has found the channel and is trying to cut the formation in order to reach bedrock If he is right, and if the water holds out and if the ditch doesn't slide, in two years more he will reach bed rock.
 Baynum doubts if he will ever be able to accomplish there the things he would like in mining development but he has supreme faith that trans portation and men would bring in u far nTod11oiY1 fo, where he lives. In the meantime he likes the country and with fish in the creek, fur in the hills and meat and wood in abundance what more could man want, he asks.
 The fur in the hills did not ma terialize the past season and in Jan- uary he pulled his traps. Wolves are everywhere and bear and wolves are both preying on moose calves Ordinarily at this season of the year, every moose COW has one or two calves, but when making the trip out two weeks ago, only about one COW in twenty had a calf. He planes the bear as much as the wolves for the depredations that have evidently taken place.
 When Baynum has finished his visits to the dentist he will go up the Stthne to Telegraph Creek on one of the Harrington Transporta- tion boats. Then he will go byI truck 72 miles over mountain roads to the head of Dease Lake where he will build a flat bottom boat from rough lumber shipped in from Van couver by the Hudson's Bay Com pany. Even so the materials for the boat will cost only $50 and he can transport from 1000 to 1900 lbs. of supplies down the 2S miles of Dease Lake and 190 miles of Dease river to where it flows into the Liard and then home. Just little jaunt with no mention made of rapids or hazards of any sort. At the end of the journey the boat will be discarded as it cannot be used for a trip up the Dease.
 Just now, he says, the country is riot of flowers and birds. The soil is extremely fertile and it is his firm opinion that Canada developed the wrong section first, that develop ment should have started in the Cassiar.