INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 51 



riverside from their homes in the moun tains frequently may be 

 seen feasting on the hundreds of dead salmon lying on the sandy 

 shore. 



This part of the river is famous in the annuls of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company, the powerful wedge with which British civilization 

 cleft its way from ocean to ocean. Fort Selkirk, near the junction of 

 the Lewes and Felly rivers, is a reminder of those early days. This 

 pioneer post planted in the northern wilderness was the scene of 

 frequent hostilities between British traders and barbarous natives. 

 In ISol the Chilkats. one of the coast tribes of southeast Alaska, 

 instigated perhaps b}' the jealous Russians, appeared before Fort 

 Selkirk in force. Resistance on the part of the factor of the Hud- 

 son's Bay Company and his two assistants was useless. The natives 

 entered the stockade, bound the white men, plundered the store- 

 houses, and wantonly destroyed hundreds of dollars' worth of valu- 

 able goods, which it had taken many months of incessant labor to 

 ])ring into that remotest outpost. Then they departed, after setting 

 fire to the fort. Two blackened chimneys are all that remain of old 

 Fort Selkirk. 



In later days Fort Selku'k has been the center from which Bishop 

 Bompas, of the Episcopal Church, has spread Cliristian civilization 

 among the natives of that region. 



At 5.30, September 13, the steamer Selkirk arrived at the town of 

 Wliite Horse, 2,200 miles from St. Michael, the head of river navig-a- 

 tion, a short distance below the Wliite Horse Rapids, which form 

 an impassable barrier to the further progress of the river steamers. 

 From Wliite Horse there is one passenger train a day to Skagway. 

 It had left before the Selkirk arrived and we spent the night in White 

 Horse. The large warehouses along the river front contained thou- 

 sands of tons of freight for the interior wliicli had accumulated at this 

 point, and it seemed doubtful if all of it could be carried to Dawson 

 by the steamers before the closing of the river by ice. 



The Wliite Pass and Yukon Railway, between Skagway and White 

 Horse, 112 miles in length, was the first railroad built in the Far North. 

 The work of construction was commenced in June, 1S9S, by a syn- 

 dicate of British capitalists to afford access to the gold fields of 

 the Klondike region. From its starting point at Skagway, the rail- 

 way follows the trail over the White Pass, the route taken by thou- 

 sands of miners in the days of the Klondike stampede. The success- 

 ful construction of this railway in that high latitude, thousands of 

 miles from its base of supply in the States, was a great feat of engi- 

 neering. 



Before the work commenced, the carcasses of more than two thou- 

 sand horses winch were scattered along the line of the miners' trail 

 were collected and burned with kerosene. For miles the roadbed had 



