i86 THE WILDERNESS OF THE UPPER YUKON 



tered on the Dease River, and in the spring of 1893 crossed 

 Frances Lake on the ice, and travelled overland by a 

 route farther to the south than that followed by Dr. Daw- 

 son. He discovered the Pelly Lakes and observed the 

 main tributary of the Pelly, one hundred and forty miles 

 above the mouth of the Ross, but did not ascend it. 

 Descending the Yukon to Ikogmut, he crossed to the 

 Kuskokwim and reaching its delta, canoed around the 

 coast to Nushagak, where he embarked on a schooner 

 bound for Unalaska. His delightful book, Through the 

 Subarctic Forest, in which he narrates his remarkable 

 journey, mentioning too lightly the dangers, difficulties, 

 and hardships, will forever remain one of the classics of 

 north-western travel. 



After the rush into the Klondike in 1897, numerous 

 prospectors and trappers ascended the Pelly and its 

 tributaries, but all except a few trappers, and now and 

 then a stray prospector, had abandoned it long before I 

 made my trip. 



The mountain regions bordering it, except here and 

 there on the outside ranges, had not been penetrated, and 

 the game animals, particularly the sheep, had practically 

 not been disturbed. 



Of all rivers navigable by canoe in Alaska or the 

 Yukon Territory, the Pelly is quite the most enchanting. 

 Its current is swifter than that of the MacMillan. Above 

 its confluence with the latter, it flows in a meandering 

 course back and forth in a wide valley, lined on one side 

 or the other by long, smooth, hard gravel bars, or lofty 

 escarped banks often castellated into turrets and pillars 



