50 INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 



modern apparatus. The Avisdoin of providing thus hberall^' for 

 the schools can not be too higlily commended. 



During the season of open navigation the steamers of the White 

 Pass and Yukon Company ply on the rivers and lakes between 

 Dawson and White Horse, at the foot of White Horse Kapids, the 

 lunit of river travel and the northern terminus of the White Pass 

 and Yukon Railway, which connects the interior country with 

 Skagw^a}^ on the coast. In winter a 4-horse stage line is maintained 

 between Dawson and White Horse. Each sleigh is provided with 

 an ample suppl}^ of fur robes and has accommodations for 10 passen- 

 gers, 1,000 pounds of baggage, and 1,000 pounds of freight. Relay 

 stations are maintained ever}^ 20 or 25 miles, at W'hich fresh horses 

 are furnished. Passengers travel during the daytime only, stopping 

 overnight at well-appointed road houses along the route. Hereto- 

 fore the line of winter travel for a long distance followed the tortuous, 

 ice-bound surface of the river and was interrupted during several 

 weeks in the autumn w^hile the ice was forming and in the spring 

 during the breaking up of the ice. Recentl}" the Canadian government 

 has completed a direct overland road from White Horse to Dawson. 

 The distance between White Horse and Dawson by this route is 327 

 miles, and the average time between these places is from five to five 

 and one-half days. In summer the average time from White Horse 

 to Dawson by steamer is from thirty-two to forty hours, and the 

 average through time from Seattle to Dawson, from five to six days. 



I left Dawson for W^liite Horse on the White Pass and Yukon 

 steamer SelkirJc September 9. 



In its up])er courses the Yukon River is a very different stream from 

 the wide, drift-laden flood that sweeps down to the sea between the 

 low-lying, forest-clad banks of the delta. For the most part it is a 

 narrow, swift, winding stream hemmed in between bare walls of 

 granite or basalt. The hills are seldom at a great distance from 

 the river. Even the color of the w'ater had changed; the brown, 

 mud-laden flood had given place to waters of a grayish hue, thick 

 with the volcanic ashes which the White River, draining a volcanic 

 region, had poured into the main stream. For miles the steep, 

 sandy banks are honeycombed by thousands of nests of martins, 

 which breed in this north land during the short summer. These 

 upper stretches of the river mark the limit of the salmon's long 

 travels from the sea. Up the river, over shoals and battling their 

 way against rapids, these beautiful fish travel in pairs, until here, 

 thousands of miles from salt water, their strength sapped by the 

 long journey, the salmon deposit and fertilize the spawn. The 

 parent fish then die, having fulfilled their mission. Their carcasses 

 furnish the favorite food of the bears. During the autumn months, 

 through a field glass, the sluggish bears which have come down to the 



