Klondyke Nuggets - Joseph Ladue
KLONDYKE NUGGETS
A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest
Territories and Alaska
BY
JOSEPH LADUE
Founder of Dawson City, N.W.T.
Explorer, Miner and Prospector
September, 1897
PREFACE.
The extraordinary excitement arising from the reports of the discovery
of Gold in the Klondyke region in the great Canadian Northwest is not
surprising to one who, through personal residence and practical
experience, is thoroughly conversant with the locality.
Having recently returned for a temporary stay, after a somewhat
successful experience, I have received applications for information in
numbers so great that it far exceeds my ability and the time at my
disposal to make direct replies.
I have therefore arranged with the American Technical Book Co., 45 Vesey
Street, New York City, for the issue of this brief description,
preparatory to the publication of my larger book, "Klondyke Facts," a
book of 224 pages, with illustrations and maps, in which will be found a
vast fund of practical information, statistics, and all particulars
sought for by those who intend emigrating to this wonderful country.
It is well-nigh impossible to tell the truth of these recent discoveries
of gold, but while I can only briefly describe the territory in this
small work, it shall be my endeavor to give the intending prospector,
in the large work above mentioned, as many facts as possible, and these
may thoroughly be relied upon, as from one who has lived continuously in
those regions since 1882.
JOSEPH LADUE.
* * * * *
KLONDYKE NUGGETS
CHAPTER I.
KLONDYKE.
Klondyke! The word and place that has startled the civilized world is
to-day a series of thriving mining camps on the Yukon River and its
tributaries in the Canadian Northwest Territories.
Prior to August 24, 1896, this section of the country had never been
heard of. It was on this day that a man named Henderson discovered the
first gold.
On the first day of the following month the writer commenced erecting
the first house in this region and called the place Dawson City, now the
central point of the mining camps.
Dawson City is now the most important point in the new mining regions.
Its population in June, 1897; exceeded 4,000; by June next it cannot be
less than 25,000. It has a saw-mill, stores, churches, of the
Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Roman Catholic denominations. It is
the headquarters of the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, _and perfect
law and order is maintained_.
It is at Dawson City that the prospector files his claims with the
Government Gold Commissioner, in the recording offices.
Dawson City faces on one of the banks of the Yukon River, and now
occupies about a mile of the bank. It is at the junction of the Klondyke
River with the Yukon River. It is here where the most valuable mining
claims are being operated on a scale of profit that the world has
hitherto never known. The entire country surrounding is teeming with
mineral wealth.
Copper, silver and coal can be found in large quantities, but little or
no attention is now being paid to these valuable minerals, as every one
is engaged in gold-hunting and working the extraordinary placer mining
claims already located.
The entire section is given up to placer mining. Very few claims had
been filed for quartz mining. The fields of gold will not be exhausted
in the near future. No man can tell what the end will be. From January
to April, 1897, about $4,000,000 were taken out of the few placer claims
then being worked. This was done in a territory not exceeding forty
square miles. All these claims are located on Klondyke River and the
little tributaries emptying into it, and the districts are known as Big
Bonanza, Gold Bottom and Honker.
I have asked old and experienced miners at Dawson City who mined
through California in Bonanza days, and some who mined in Australia,
what they thought of the Klondyke region, and their reply has
invariably been, "The world never saw so vast and rich a find of gold as
we are working now."
Dawson City is destined to be the greatest mining camp in the history of
mining operations.
CHAPTER II.
KLONDYKE FACTS.
There is a great popular error in reference to the climate of the gold
regions. Many reports have appeared in the newspapers which are
misleading. It has been even stated that the cold is excessive almost
throughout the year. This is entirely a mis-statement.
I have found I have suffered more from winter cold in Northern New York
than I ever did in Alaska or the Canadian Northwest.
I have chopped wood in my shirt-sleeves in front of my door at Dawson
City when the thermometer was 70 degrees below zero, and I suffered no
inconvenience. We account for this from the fact that the air is very
dry. It is a fact that you do not feel this low temperature as much as
you would 15 below zero in the East.
We usually have about three feet of snow in winter and it is as dry as
sawdust.
As we have no winter thaws no crust forms on the snow, therefore we
travel from the various points that may be necessary with snowshoes.
These may be purchased from the Indians in the vicinity of Dawson City
at from $5.00 to $10.00 per pair according to the quality.
The winter days are very short. In this region there are only two hours
from sunrise to sunset. The sun rises and sets away in the south but
there is no pitch darkness.
The twilight lasts all night and the Northern Lights are very common.
Then in summer it is exactly the other way. The day there in July is
about twenty hours long. The sun rising and setting in the north. A
great deal has been said about the short seasons, but as a matter of
fact a miner can work 12 months in the year when in that region.
Spring opens about May 1st and the ice commences to break up about that
time. The Yukon River is generally clear of ice about May 15. The best
part of the miner's work commences then and lasts till about October
1st.
The winter commences in October but the miner keeps on working through
the winter. The rainy season commences in the latter part of August and
lasts two or three weeks.
A fall of two feet of snow is considered heavy.
There is a wide difference in the quantity of snow that accumulates on
the coast and the ranges in the interior where the principal mining
claims are located.
While the fall of snow on the coast is heavy the depth of snow as far
down as the Yukon, Stewart and Klondyke rivers is inconsiderable.
In my new work on this territory entitled "Klondyke Facts" I deal more
largely on the climate of this region.
There are still good diggings at Circle City in Alaska, but nearly all
the miners have left for Klondyke, not being satisfied with the pay dirt
which they were working. I know at least 20 good claims in Circle City.
Fort Cudahy, or as it is sometimes called Forty Mile Creek, is now
practically exhausted as a mining camp, and the miners have left for
other diggings.
There will undoubtedly be new and valuable diggings discovered very
quickly along this region as it is certain that this enormous territory
is rich in gold-bearing districts.
The entire country is teeming with mineral wealth.
When mining operations commence on coal it will be specially valuable
for steamers on the various rivers and greatly assist transportation
facilities.
In the next few years there will certainly be recorded the most
marvellous discoveries in this territory, usually thought to be only a
land of snow and ice and fit only to be classed with the Arctic regions.
It is marvellous to state that for some years past we have been finding
gold in occasional places in this territory, but from the poverty of the
people no effort was made to prospect among the places reported.
It is my belief that the greatest finds of gold will be made in this
territory. It is safe to say that not 2 per cent. of all the gold
discovered so far has been on United States soil.
The great mass of the work has been done on the Northwest territory,
which is under the Canadian Government.
It is possible however that further discoveries will be made on American
soil, but it is my opinion that the most valuable discoveries will be
further east and south of the present claims, and would advise
prospectors to work east and south of Klondyke.
THE YUKON RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
"What the Amazon is to South America, the Mississippi to the central
portion of the United States, the Yukon is to Alaska. It is a great
inland highway, which will make it possible for the explorer to
penetrate the mysterious fastnesses of that still unknown region. The
Yukon has its source in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and the
Coast Range Mountains in southeastern Alaska, about 125 miles from the
city of Juneau, which is the present metropolis of Alaska. But it is
only known as the Yukon River at the point where the Pelly River, the
branch that heads in British Columbia, meets with the Lewes River, which
heads in southeastern Alaska. This point of confluence is at Fort
Selkirk, in the Northwest Territory, about 125 miles south-east of the
Klondyke. The Yukon proper is 2,044 miles in length. From Fort Selkirk
it flows north-west 400 miles, just touching the Arctic circle; thence
southward for a distance of 1,600 miles, where it empties into Behring
Sea. It drains more than 600,000 square miles of territory, and
discharges one-third more water into Behring Sea than does the
Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. At its mouth it is sixty miles
wide. About 1,500 miles inland it widens out from one to ten miles. A
thousand islands send the channel in as many different directions. Only
natives who are thoroughly familiar with the river are entrusted with
the piloting of boats up the stream during the season of low water. Even
at the season of high water it is still so shallow as not to be
navigable anywhere by seagoing vessels, but only by flat-bottomed boats
with a carrying capacity of four to five hundred tons. The draft of
steamers on the Yukon should not exceed three and a half feet.
"The Yukon district, which is within the jurisdiction of the Canadian
Government and in which the bulk of the gold has been found, has a total
area, approximately, of 192,000 square miles, of which 150,768 square
miles are included in the watershed of the Yukon. Illustrating this, so
that it may appeal with definiteness to the reader, it may be said that
this territory is greater by 71,100 square miles than the area of Great
Britain, and is nearly three times that of all the New England States
combined.
"A further fact must be borne in mind. The Yukon River is absolutely
closed to navigation during the winter months. In the winter the
frost-king asserts his dominion and locks up all approaches with
impenetrable ice, and the summer is of the briefest. It endures only for
twelve to fourteen weeks, from about the first of June to the middle of
September. Then an unending panorama of extraordinary picturesqueness is
unfolded to the voyager. The banks are fringed with flowers, carpeted
with the all-pervading moss or tundra. Birds countless in numbers and of
infinite variety in plumage, sing out a welcome from every treetop.
Pitch your tent where you will in midsummer, a bed of roses, a clump of
poppies and a bunch of bluebells will adorn your camping. But high above
this paradise of almost tropical exuberance giant glaciers sleep in the
summit of the mountain wall, which rises up from a bed of roses. By
September everything is changed. The bed of roses has disappeared before
the icy breath of the winter king, which sends the thermometer down
sometimes to seventy degrees below freezing point. The birds fly to the
southland and the bear to his sleeping chamber in the mountains. Every
stream becomes a sheet of ice, mountain and valley alike are covered
with snow till the following May.
"That part of the basin of the Yukon in which gold in greater or less
quantities has actually been found lies partly in Alaska and partly in
British territory. It covers an area of some 50,000 square miles. But so
far the infinitely richest spot lies some one hundred miles east of the
American boundary, in the region drained by the Klondyke and its
tributaries. This is some three hundred miles by river from Circle City.
"We have described some of the beauties of the Yukon basin in the summer
season, but this radiant picture has its obverse side.
"Horseflies, gnats and mosquitoes add to the joys of living throughout
the entire length of the Yukon valley. The horsefly is larger and more
poignantly assertive than the insect which we know by that name. In
dressing or undressing, it has a pleasant habit of detecting any bare
spot in the body and biting out a piece of flesh, leaving a wound which
a few days later looks like an incipient boil. Schwatka reports that one
of his party, so bitten was completely disabled for a week. 'At the
moment of infliction.' he adds, 'it was hard to believe that one was not
disabled for life.'
"The mosquitoes according to the same authority are equally distressing.
They are especially fond of cattle, but without any reciprocity of
affection. 'According to the general terms of the survival of the
fittest and the growth of muscles most used to the detriment of others,'
says the lieutenant in an unusual burst of humor, 'a band of cattle
inhabiting this district, in the far future, would be all tail and no
body, unless the mosquitoes should experience a change of numbers.'"
I am indebted to Wm. Ogilvie, Esq., for the following valuable
information relative to The Yukon District.
"The Yukon District comprises, speaking generally, that part of the
Northwest Territories lying west of the water shed of the Mackenzie
River; most of it is drained by the Yukon River and its tributaries. It
covers a distance of about 650 miles along the river from the coast
range of mountains.
"In 1848 Campbell established Fort Selkirk at the confluence of the
Pelly and Lewes Rivers; it was plundered and destroyed in 1852 by the
Coast Indians, and only the ruins now exist of what was at one time the
most important post of the Hudson's Bay Company to the west of the Rocky
Mountains in the far north. In 1869 the Hudson's Bay Company's officer
was expelled from Fort Yukon by the United States Government, they
haying ascertained by astronomical observations that the post was not
located in British territory. The officer thereupon ascended the
Porcupine to a point which was supposed to be within British
jurisdiction, where he established Rampart House; but in 1890 Mr. J.H.
Turner of the United States Coast Survey found it to be 20 miles within
the lines of the United States. Consequently in 1891 the post was moved
20 miles further up the river to be within British territory.
"The next people to enter the country for trading purposes were Messrs.
Harper and McQuestion. They have been trading in the country since 1873
and have occupied numerous posts all along the river, the greater number
of which have been abandoned. Mr. Harper is now located as a trader at
Fort Selkirk, with Mr. Joseph Ladue under the firm name of Harper &
Ladue, and Mr. McQuestion is in the employ of the Alaska Commercial
Company at Circle City, which is the distributing point for the vast
regions surrounding Birch Creek, Alaska. In 1882 a number of miners
entered the Yukon country by the Taiya Pass; it is still the only route
used to any extent by the miners, and is shorter than the other passes
though not the lowest. In 1883 Lieutenant Schwatka crossed this same
pass and descended the Lewes and Yukon Rivers to the ocean.
"The explorers found that in proximity to the boundary line there
existed extensive and valuable placer gold mines, in which even then as
many as three hundred miners were at work. Mr. Ogilvie determined, by a
series of lunar observations, the point at which the Yukon River is
intersected by the 141st meridian, and marked the same on the ground. He
also determined and marked the point at which the western affluent of
the Yukon, known as Forty Mile Creek, is crossed by the same meridian
line, that point being situated at a distance of about twenty-three
miles from the mouth of the creek. This survey proved that the place
which had been selected as the most convenient, owing to the physical
conformation of the region, from which to distribute the supplies
imported for the various mining camps, and from which to conduct the
other business incident to the mining operations--a place situate at the
confluence of the Forty Mile Creek and the Yukon, and to which the name
of Fort Cudahy has been given--is well within Canadian territory. The
greater proportion of the mines then being worked Mr. Ogilvie found to
be on the Canadian side of the international boundary line, but he
reported the existence of some mining fields to the south, the exact
position of which with respect to the boundary he did not have the
opportunity to fix.
"The number of persons engaged in mining in the locality mentioned has
steadily increased year by year since the date of Mr. Ogilvie's survey,
and it is estimated that at the commencement of the past season not less
than one thousand men were so employed. Incident to this mineral
development there must follow a corresponding growth in the volume of
business of all descriptions, particularly the importation of dutiable
goods, and the occupation of tracts of the public lands for mining
purposes which according to the mining regulations are subject to the
payment of certain prescribed dues and charges. The Alaska Commercial
Company, for many years subsequent to the retirement of the Hudson's Bay
Company, had a practical monopoly of the trade of the Yukon, carrying
into the country and delivering at various points along the river,
without regard to the international boundary line or the customs laws
and regulations of Canada, such articles of commerce as were required
for the prosecution of the fur trade and latterly of placer mining,
these being the only two existing industries. With the discovery of
gold, however, came the organization of a competing company known as the
North American Transportation and Trading Company, having its
headquarters in Chicago and its chief trading and distributing post at
Cudahy. This company has been engaged in this trade for over three
years, and during the past season despatched two ocean steamers from San
Francisco to St. Michael, at the mouth of the Yukon, the merchandise
from which was, at the last mentioned point, transhipped into river
steamers and carried to points inland, but chiefly to the company's
distributing centre within Canadian territory. Importations of
considerable value, consisting of the immediately requisite supplies of
the miners, and their tools, also reach the Canadian portion of the
Yukon District from Juneau, in the United States, by way of the Taiya
Inlet, the mountain passes, and the chain of waterways leading therefrom
to Cudahy. Upon none of these importations had any duty been collected,
except a sum of $3,248.80 paid to Inspector Constantine in 1894, by the
North American Transportation and Trading Company and others, and it is
safe to conclude, especially when it is remembered that the country
produces none of the articles consumed within it except fresh meat, that
a large revenue was being lost to the public exchequer under the then
existing conditions.
"For the purpose of ascertaining officially and authoritatively the
condition of affairs to which the correspondence referred to in the
next preceding paragraph relates, the Honorable the President of the
Privy Council, during the spring of 1894, despatched Inspector Charles
Constantine, of the Northwest Mounted Police Force, accompanied by
Sergeant Brown, to Fort Cudahy and the mining camps in its vicinity. The
report made by Mr. Constantine on his return, established the
substantial accuracy of the representations already referred to. The
value of the total output of gold for the season of 1894 he estimated at
$300,000.
"The facts recited clearly establish--first, that the time had arrived
when it became the duty of the Government of Canada to make more
efficient provision for the maintenance of order, the enforcement of the
laws, and the administration of justice in the Yukon country, especially
in that section of it in which placer mining for gold is being
prosecuted upon such an extensive scale, situated near to the boundary
separating the Northwest Territories from the possessions of the United
States in Alaska; and, second, that while such measures as were
necessary to that end were called for in the interests of humanity, and
particularly for the security and safety of the lives and property of
the Canadian subjects of Her Majesty resident in that country who are
engaged in legitimate business pursuits, it was evident that the revenue
justly due to the Government of Canada, under its customs, excise and
land laws, and which would go a long way to pay the expenses of
government, was being lost for the want of adequate machinery for its
collection.
"Accordingly in June last a detachment[1] of twenty members of the
Mounted Police Force including officers was detailed for service in
that portion of the Northwest Territories. The officer in command, in
addition to the magisterial and other duties he is required to perform
by virtue of his office and under instructions from the Department of
Mounted Police, was duly authorized to represent where necessary, and
until other arrangements can be made, all the departments of the
government having interests in that region. Particularly he is
authorized to perform the duties of Dominion lands agent, collector of
customs, and collector of inland revenue. At the same time instructions
were given Mr. William Ogilvie, the surveyor referred to as having, with
Dr. Dawson, been entrusted with the conduct of the first government
expedition to the Yukon, to proceed again to that district for the
purpose of continuing and extending the work of determining the 141st
meridian, of laying out building lots and mining claims, and generally
of performing such duties as may be entrusted to him from time to time.
Mr. Ogilvie's qualifications as a surveyor, and his previous experience
as explorer of this section of the Northwest, peculiarly fit him for the
task.
[Footnote 1: The detachment was made up as follows:--Inspector C.
Constantine, Officer Commanding Yukon Detachment N.W.M. Police;
Inspector, D.A.E. Strickland; Assistant Surgeon, A.E. Wills; 2 Staff
Sergeants; 2 Corporals; 13 Constables.]
"As it appears quite certain, from the report made by Mr. Ogilvie on his
return to Ottawa, in 1889, and from the report of Mr. Constantine, that
the operations of the miners are being conducted upon streams which have
their sources in the United States Territory of Alaska, and flow into
Canada on their way to join the Yukon, and as doubtless some of the
placer diggings under development are situated on the United States side
of the boundary it is highly desirable, both for the purpose of settling
definitely to which country any land occupied for mining or other
purposes actually belongs, and in order that the jurisdiction of the
courts and officers of the United States and Canada, for both civil and
criminal purposes, may be established, that the determination of the
141st meridian west of Greenwich from the point of its intersection
with the Yukon, as marked by Mr. Ogilvie in 1887-88, for a considerable
distance south of the river, and possibly also for some distance to the
north, should be proceeded with at once. Mr. Ogilvie's instructions
require him to go on with the survey with all convenient speed, but in
order that this work may be effective for the accomplishment of the
object in view the co-operation of the Government of the United States
is necessary. Correspondence is in progress through the proper
authorities with a view to obtaining this co-operation. It may be
mentioned that a United States surveyor has also determined the points
at which the Yukon River and Forty Mile Creek are intersected by the
141st meridian."
ROUTES, DISTANCES, AND TRANSPORTATION.
After considerable experience I have decided that the best route for a
man to take to the gold regions is from Seattle, Washington, to Juneau,
Alaska, and then to Dawson City, by the pass and waterways, and I will
therefore describe this route more in detail than any of the others.
I am devoting a special chapter to the outfit for travellers, and will
therefore deal in this chapter with the route only.
The traveller having paid his fare to Seattle should on arrival there
have not less than $500. This is the minimum sum necessary to pay his
fare from Seattle to Juneau, purchase his outfit and supplies for one
year and pay his necessary expenses in the gold region for that length
of time.
I think it deplorable that so many are starting at this time for the
gold-fields. I do not recommend starting before March 15. I will return
at that time to my claims on the Klondyke, if it were wise to go sooner,
I should certainly go.