YUKON TERRITORY 



WOo 



YUKON TERRITORY 



fer their cargoes to stern- wheel steamers which 

 ascend the river. The rapidity of the current 

 and the mass of water at low water the dis- 

 charge is at least 500,000 cubic feet per second 

 are responsible for the great amount of silt 

 carried to the sea. W.F.Z. 



Related Subject*. The list following the arti- 

 cle YUKON TERRITORY is recommended. 



YUKON, u'kon, TERRITORY, familiarly 

 known as THE YUKON, the political division 

 which occupies the northwest corner of the 

 Dominion of Canada. On the south its bound- 

 ary is the sixtieth parallel, dividing it from 

 Hritish Columbia. 

 On the east and 

 north are natural 

 boundaries on 

 the east the sum- 

 mits of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and 

 on the north a 

 narrow strip of 

 the Arctic Ocean. LOCATION MAP 



The North Wot Territories of Canada adjoins 

 the Yukon on the east, and Alaska, belonging 

 to the United States, is on the west. The 

 boundary between Alaska and the Yukon is the 

 141st meridian of west longitude. 



Yukon Territory is roughly triangular in * 

 shape, its base being the British Columbia 

 boundary, and its apex at the Arctic Ocean. 

 Its area is 207,076 square miles, of which about 

 650 square miles are water surface. It is little 

 more than one-third the size of Alaska, and is 

 >linhtly less than the combined area of New 

 Mexico and Arizona. Until the discovery of 

 gold in 1896 this vast region was practically 

 unpopulated, but in 1901 the census showed a 

 total of 27,219 people. In 1911 the population 

 was 8,512, a decrease of nearly seventy per 

 cent. Dawson, the capital, and White Horse 

 are the principal settlements. 



Physical Characteristics. Practically tin 

 whole of tin- Yukon Territory fall- within tin- 

 Rocky Mount .mi-, or Cordilleran, belt, but be- 

 tween the various mountain ranges are fertile 

 plains and valleys. Only in tin >outh do the 

 :itains rise to great heights. There, almost 

 on the Alaska boundary, is Mount Logan (see 

 LOGAN, MOUNT), 19,539 feet high, the loftiest 

 peak in Canada. A number of peaks in the 

 vicinity it. from 15,000 to 18,000 feet hi 



Rocky Mountains, whose r.-m < -ham 



forms most of the eastern boundary, is the 



watershed between tin Yukon ami Mackenzie 



lut in cely more than a 



range of low hills. Considered as a whole, the 

 surface of the Yukon is a rolling, elevated 

 plain, from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the sea, 

 and broken by many river valleys and moun- 

 tain ranges. The principal physical feature is 

 the Yukon River, whose tributaries and 

 branches penetrate almost every corner of the 

 territory except the extreme southeast, which 

 is drained by the Liard River into the Macken- 

 zie River system. 



The Rush for Gold. The importance of Yu- 

 kon Territory may be summed up in a single 

 word: gold. There are other mineral deposits, 

 notably coal, iron and copper, but gold is by 

 far the most important. For nearly half a 

 century after 1840, when the first fur trader 

 explored and named the Pelly River, a tribu- 

 tary of the Yukon River, practically the only 

 people in the territory were traders and In- 

 dians. The first gold seeker crossed Chilkoot 

 Pass in 1873 and important discoveries were 

 made on Forty-Mile Creek in 1886, but the 

 discovery of the marvelously rich Klondike 

 fields in 1896 completely changed conditions. 

 Forty thousand prospectors poured into the 

 Klondike. Dawson was founded in the same 

 year, local government was organized, and in 

 1898 the Yukon Territory was set apart from 

 the North West. The Territory is governed by 

 a commissioner, who is appointed by the < 

 ernor-General in Council, and he is assisted by 

 a council, some of whose members are ap- 

 pointed and some elected. The territory has 

 one representative in the Dominion House of 

 Commons. 



Natural Resources and Future Possibilities. 

 At first all gold was taken by placer mining, 

 but since the exhaustion of the rich placer de- 

 posits, hydraulic and vein mining have been 

 the rule. The large 1 capital required for these 

 methods is chiefly responsible for the decline of 

 the territory's population. The gold output 

 reached its highest point in 1900. when the total 

 amounted to $22,275,000, but it now averages 

 about $5,000,000 a j 



Agriculture and manufacturing are also car- 

 ried on, but only for local purposes. The cli- 

 mate is subject to wide extremes of heat and 

 cold. The winter temperature is sometimes as 

 low as 60 or 70 below zero. The sumim 

 short, but the many hours of daylight, about 

 tw<nt\ every day at Dawson, make it possible 

 iltnate garden vegetables. Most of the 

 food required, however, is imported, and it is 

 unlikely that agriculture will ever become a 

 large industry. Formerly the imports were 



