The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 10, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JULY 10, 1898. WL AN iyt W\ ‘\\ U\w-\\\\\\~ \ \\ \...\\\\\\ AP WNN ths &t AN C\ YN \‘N AR route to the of Glenora and t fulfilling the of its projectors in af- HE “All Ca Yukon by a direct and expeditious highway to the gold The engi- neer employed by th dian con- ractors, & & Co., to w gauge raily slin Lake, have three months of likely that the will he heard region by any of the present ;t wayfarers. s outdoor work in ive in that ation wener Bent on a ¥ Columbia ‘and Ala: under orders T pushed e of & McKern 3 cering corps to a p in the interior about gixty miles north of Glenora. I camped for nine weeks along the trafl, and the struggle of the adventurers Klondike- ward by way of Teslin Lake was wit- nessed by all its phases. This movem: S with it episodes that are really tragic. From the time large parties of men began to ascend the frozen Stikeen last February, the difficulties of the route have multiplied up to the present hour. The history of a large majority of the three thousand Klondikers now camped in Glenora, or strung along the Teslin trall for fifty miles, properly began with an experience on the river early last spring. A few men went up the river in February with light dog teams, and reaching Telegraph Creek, took the | and passed on to the lake. 1| movement, however, of men s and rge outfits did not begin till some w later. March 10 found 1500 men stalled at Cottonwood Island, and the first fifteen miles of the Stikeen. Our expedition, backed by ources of the big Canadian con- pushed on through this fif- teen miles of heavy slush, leaving in the rear many parties, which three months later we met in Glenora, they having been delayed for that time in their efforts to get up the river. After passing the Alaskan boundary the party was detained a week at a point fifty-five miles up the river, bridging open water on the Stilzeen. In other places progress was barred by great dunes or drifts of snow extending from bank to bank. The horses were completely useless in this heavy snow, and the big sleds loaded with oats and two months’ provisions for twenty men were tugged for miles over the big drifts by hand. Oc ally a horse would lose heart after floundering through the snow for half a day and no longer to the efforts of the tea It would then be necessar; load a sleigh. Upon thi: the horse would be securely bound and in this way drawn out to a place of safety. Two of our horses following behind with pro- vender disappeared through the ice and were seen no more. A big whisky outfit also disappeared in similar fashion within two miles of Telegraph Creek. Two months later a barrel of whisky was re- covered fifteen miles below by Mr. Garden of Clar urvey corps. In the next six v s eight Klon- dikers lost their lives in as many different accidents on the river. On reaching Telegraph Creek, March 29, the southern exposures of the moun- tain slopes were almost devoid of snow. m Klondikers arriving with dogs and sleds a few days later were nonplused to find the t impassable for sleds over the first few m ascent from the Stikeen. The Indians began at once a lively business packing to the first summit of 2700 feet over a distance of nine miles at the rate of 4 cents per pound, or $80 a ton. With an abundance of horse feed, s of the steep with every facility, and by laboring as much eighteen hours out of the twenty-four, our party made the river trip from Wrangel to Telegraph Creek in three weeks. The party was one of the first of the big outfits with horses to arrive at Telegraph. In the mext week men with horse teams continued to pull in. The demand for horse prov- ender became sharp. by the bale at the rate of $400 per ton. Attention was drawn to a New Zea- Jander who was keeping his cayoose on a regime of oatmeal porridge and dog biscuits. This fortunate gramini- vorous beast had a fashion of thrust- ing its body far within the tent flaps to secure a ration of bread stuffs and would eagerly swallow the bolus at a single gulp. J. C. Calbreath, an old settler and ad- vance agent of clvilization at Tele- graph Creek is said to have caught the hay market advantageously, having saved a large crop of hay from his ranch on the Tahltan. Some cayooses wintered by Mr. Calbreath fetched thoroughbred prices before the arrival of the boats; the same thrifty pioneer had regular pack trains running into Dense Lake as early as May 1 at rates of 15 cents per pound, and on the Tes- lin Lake trail by the middle of May at 40 cents per pound. These light Indian ponies, with proper handling, were packing about three hundred pounds apiece over the mountains. @@@‘@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ ® g % and engineers recently s Z survey the route for a ra @ ® posed road was to @ @ Z here fully set forth. & ® don its plans, & past. The gold-hunters, @ ing it as fast as they can get out. @ road ti & much time and several fortunes. @ PRRCRCRCROR From the middle of April to May 20 it was impossible to get a loaded horse over the first summit. When the sur- Vey party was running try lines at that hoint April 11, Charles Collins, rodman, reported a mean depth of seven feet two inches of snow on about two miles of the trail. A false step from the narrow, hard packed trafl would land a horse above his withers in porous granulated snow. While camped here J. C. Claus of Nanaimo, B. C., the al- leged murderer of his partners, Burns and Hendrickson, passed us. He was overtaken two days later by the police and haled back, to Telegraph Creek. The topography of the county from this first summit to the Little Tahltan River indicates a fall of 2600 feet in an easy gradient of eleven miles. On ap- proaching the river the grade declines sharply, forcing the railroad location a circult of three miles up stream on a 3 per cent grade. At this point on the trail numerous Klondikers have come to grief. TUp to June 1, on this north slope, the ice remained intact un- der a heavy covering of moss, and this, in conjunction with a sharp falling off of the mountain, made the last 500 feet of the descent difficult and dangerous. A squad of Canadian mounted police were recently put to work removing this moss and, under the exposure' of an eighteen hours’ sun, this portion of the trall will soon become more toler- able. A substantial bridge 125 feet in length was thrown across the river at this point under the direction of Cap- tain Bullock-Webster, S. M., of the Provineial Government. The trail from this point winds in sharp undulations for five miles over the mountains to the Big Tahitan. In reaching the valley, freight is lowered 150 feet down a precipitous descent by means of block and tackle. Ducks were plentiful on a small lake neav 4 The author of this article was one of a party of surveyors ent west by the Canadian Government to ilroad by what is known as the Stikine eslin Lake, into the Xlondike. T ‘;:danflrt of they“All Canadian” route into the @ new goldfields. The mishaps that attended the party, the extraor- dinary obstacles they encountered, the perils awaiting the thou- sands of gold-hunters and adventurers met along the way are The surveying party was obliged to give up its work, aban- and the Stikine rcute is said to be a thing of the according to the writer’s story, are leav- o the Klondike is marked “Closed” after the expenditure of |READY TO TURN PRI T HtN 2\ FORT v ik, R RCRORORCR R R AR R R A8 The pro- So another much advertised OB RORCRRORCRORC R R AR A 6660000000000 000000000006000600606060 by and, though of a fishy flavor, were eagerly devoured by the bacon and beans contingent of wayfarers. The trail following the windings of the Big Tahltan is in fairly serviceable condi- tion as far as the second summit or the First Coketsie Lake. The altitude here is about three thousand feet, but LAST OF THE GRU SR 3 R the ascent for the fifteen miles Is so gradual that it may be reckoned the easiest stretch of the route. A few miles farther on lies the Second Coketsie Lake—one of the sources of the Taku Riyer—the waters of which mingle with the ocean at Juneau, Alaska. The Shesley, a stream of importance, Is next encountered. Crossing by means of a substantial bridge the traveler finds himself at the Hudson Bay post (abandoned) with half the distance to Teslin Lakeé accomplished. But from here on troubles multiply. Instead of a rugged trall over the mountains the pathway descends into willow swamps and muskeag bogs. Vast clouds of mosquitoes rise from the damp moss to torment poor humanity, while the pack horses sink into the mire to their knees at every plunge. Along one of these mossy stretches the writer observed two lusty men in tears. The mosquitoes had plagued them to a point beyond patient or profane en- durance. Many outfits passed us dur- ing the nine weeks our party was camped along the line of travel. Galbreath and Highland of Telegraph Creek and the Hudson Bay Company of Glenora had contracts for all they can take in to the lake during the summer at $800 per ton. It is notable that not one of these pack trains had returned up to June 10. Silas Taylor of Berlin, Md., and his partner are the only men I discovered who succeeded in reaching the lake after the condition of the trail caused the abandonment of dog sleds. These two men went in to the lake in April carrying fifty pound packs and accompanied by pack dogs. They re- turned a month later for a fresh supply of provisions and reported gr-at scar- city of food at the lake and the ina- bility of the men there to secure em- ployment unless agreeing to board themselves. The Edwards party of Montreal succeeded in getting a part of their outfit as far as Long Lake or within twelve miles of Teslin, some of 78\ I NN wn o r men were returning to the _th(le "I!’:le;ll(fln for their cache at that point. Dr. Edwards said that he rad aban- doned all hope of getting to his d( i- nation, the Stewart River, this year. Many permane t camps are to be ‘A’b' served along ti.e trail, where men W hvn came up the river through the snows of last winter are now s_xtung calmly down under their mosquito net cano- ples waiting the return of annlhe'r wintcr before renewing their journey. One sees strange varletics of “go- devils,” or one-wheel 1 contrivances for propuision over the narrow trail. These wheels, made in the wilderness with poor tools, are ingeniously concel\"ed but rudely r—ecuted. Loads of 500 pounds are stored upon them and taken at the rate of four or five miles a day . W They as far as the Hudson Bay post. are all built with a low center of gravity. Here then is the situation as 'viewed by a Klondiker in Glenora. Upward of 3000 people are camped there, where three months ago only a few m 1erat_:-le Indians were cabined. Fully two- thirds of these men have practically put their entir> capital into provisions for a year or more. Agents ot‘ a re- sponsible company offered in Glenora 1 A HARD ONLY ONE. DOgG LEFT AND 20 MILES FROM NOWHERE. to transport freight in via Wrangel, Dyea, the Chilkoot Pass and Lake Ben- nett for 15 cents a pound and they did a thriving business booking Klondikers down the ri—er, but no proposition how- ever liberal can affect the men who have already expended their last $100 in getting to Glenora. As to paying $800 for the chance of getting a year’s provisions packed to Teslin, well, it is simply out of the question and so they sit helplessly by to become mayhap ob- jects for Government intervention. Fourteen powerful steamers are do- ing business on the Stikine, and as many as four a day arrive at Glenora. Passengers disembark with wagons and horses and their goods are piled thirty feet high along the river front. As the philosophic Tahltan Indian loiters about this strange scene of activity and attentively regards the new arrivals and thelr prodigious quantity of imped- imenta his mind may revert In its heavy bovine fashion to 140 miles of narrow Indian trail over mountains and through swamps and he may wonder in his simple childlike way what his | THROVGH THE wooD<& 23 autrer SN P I 5 g v Weeo & 0 W7y o0 - ST oW = A 25 s = O g e 7t =3 ’T > (I 2/ TUG enterprising white brethren intend to do about it. In speaking his own convictions the writer is confident that grit and desper- ate energy will carry many through to the lake late in the summer when the swamps are dried out. It is also equally certain that many more must find the means to avail themselves of another route or else to return whence they came. As to the condition of the man who, in the face of an unprejudiced warning, stakes his all in an attempt to pass to the gold fields over the “All-Canadian’ route in its present status the opinion can be expressed in all sympathy, but Wwith much conviction that the last state of that man shall be worse than his first. ALFRED P. DENNIS. HOW JANTS MAKE SLAVES OF THEIR FELLOWS. The warrior ant is a slave-making specles, says Grant Allen. Tt is a large red kind, and it makes raids against nests of the small yellow turf ant, a mild and docile race, large numbers of which it carries off to act as servants. But it does not steal fully grown turf ants; their habits are formed and they would be useless for such a pur- pose. What the warrior ant wants is raw material, which can te turned into thoroughly well trained servants. So it merely kills the adult ants which strive to oppose its aggression, and contents itself with trundling home to its own nest the larvae and pupae of the turf ants which it has put to flight and van- quished. In time these grubs and cocoons pro- duce full grown yellow workers, which | can be taught by the warrior ants to | act as nurses and housemaids. I once saw in a garden in Algiers a great pitched battle going on betweéen slave- makers and the family of the future | slaves, in which the grcund was strewn with the corpses of thz vanquished. Not till the nest of the smaller ants was al- most exterminated did they retire from the unequal contest and allow the proud invader to carry off their broth- ers and sisters in their cocoons, asleep and unconscious. Occasionally, by dint of mere numbers, they beat off the in- vader with heavy loss; but much more often the large and strong jawed war- riors win the day, and destroy to a worker the opposing forces. They crush their adversaries’ heads with thefr viselike mandibles. Meanwhile, within the nest, the other half of the workers—the division told off as spe- cial nurses—are otherwise employed in defending and protecting the rising generation. At the first alarm, at the first watchword passed with waving antenae through the rest; ““A warrior host is attacking us!” they hurry to the chambers where the cocoons are stored and bear them off in their mouths into the recesses of the nest, the lowest and most inaccessible of all the chambers.