84 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



August 21. The necessary canoes were loaded on 

 board, and shortly after noon, August 22, the little 

 steamer, Emma Knot, started and was propelled slowly 

 against the swift current, stopping at intervals to take 

 on wood, until it was tied up to the bank at 10 P. M. It 

 could not be navigated during the hours of darkness- 

 then between 9.30 p. M. and 3 A. M. Before going into 

 our canvas bunks, especially constructed one above the 

 other, under a shelter of canvas on the stern deck, we 

 witnessed a fine display of the Aurora. The weather was 

 clear and continued like Indian summer as long as we 

 remained on the steamer. 



August 22. For the next two days the boat steamed 

 against the current, tying up during the dark hours of 

 the night, until shortly after noon on August 24th we 

 reached Selkirk. There the other man whom I had en- 

 gaged Coghlan, by name met us. A few provisions 

 were purchased, our travelling clothes were left at the 

 Police Post in Selkirk, and late in the afternoon we were 

 all glad to leave the Yukon and enter the Pelly a river 

 rarely navigated by steamboats where the boat could 

 make better headway because of the slower current. The 

 current of the Yukon at that season runs four and five 

 miles an hour; that of the Pelly about three or less. We 

 stopped seven miles up the river at the Pelly Road House 

 a large inn owned by the White Pass and Yukon Rail- 

 way, at a division terminal on the winter stage route 

 and there took on two canoes kindly loaned us by A. B. 

 Newell, vice-president of the railway. 



Four miles farther up, the boat, striking the rocky 



