132 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



About one hundred miles of the river are comprised within the Ram- 

 parts, which do not rise as rocky walls, but rather as steep sparsely 

 wooded slopes, formerly beloved of the mountain sheep. Above the 

 Ramparts the river spreads out upon a wide alluvial plain, dividing 

 itself amongst innumerable islands. 



Just below the lower end of the canon enters from the south the 

 Tanana, Eiver of the Mountain Men, a noble tributary. Here lay 

 Nuklukahyet the neutral trading ground for many years. 



On the border of Alaska, just above the Arctic Circle, enters the 

 Porcupine River from the northeast, the channel by which MacMurray 

 won his way into the Yukon valley in the early forties. Here the great 

 river bends to the southeast, enters British territory, and carries its 

 navigable waters further nearly five hundred miles. In this stretch 

 its hitherto pellucid waters receive the milky flow of the White River, 

 glacier-fed, which tinges their flood henceforward, to the sea. 



The Yukon is the highway of all this land. When the frosts of 

 October lock the streamlets and choke the outlets of the mountain 

 springs, the wide stream is quickly ice-bound. At some points where 

 the swifter current ripples, open water still remains, giving out feathery 

 streaks of mist to the crisp air. 



Migratory fishes hurry to the sea. Already the water fowl have 

 departed. The first snow lies feathery soft amongst the seedling willows 

 on the sandbars. The broad sheets of ice on either shore glisten in 

 the enfeebled sunlight, and as the river falls, they sink, creaking and 

 crashing until the early ice of the shallows lies unevenly on the gravelly 

 river-bed. The turbidity of summer lessens and the current flows 

 steely-dark along the open spaces. Sharper grows the cold; the heavy 

 sun relinquishes more and more of its meridian arc. The skies turn 

 gray, and presently comes the snow, steady, silent, soft, incessant, cloth- 

 ing the world. 



Deep under the fleecy blanket nestle the little green herbs. The 

 field mouse tunnels the drifts where he may roam unseen and nibble 

 the sweet bark of the young birches. Stately, silent, vigorous, the 

 ptarmigan cock treads pathways amongst the willows, in snow no 

 whiter than his plumage. Here the admiring flock may pluck the 

 spicy buds to their content, heedless of the fowler's snare, and hardly 

 disturbed when the lesser hare, like them snow white, avails himself of 

 their convenient runway. 



The red squirrel chirrups in the branches of the spruce, nipping 

 off the loaded cones. Around him chirp the winter redbirds, cheeriest 

 of residents, while in a neighboring poplar the raucous voice of the 

 whisky-jack declares that the world owes him a living. The yellow- 

 headed woodpecker hammers busily away on some decaying alder and 

 from the steep bluff among the rocks comes with solemn repetition the 

 hoarse cry of the raven. 



