2,000 MILES DOWN THE YUKON 27 



fed their loads into a great steel cylinder perforated with 

 holes. Larger stones clanged down this tilted cylinder 

 and were carried directly out to the dump in the rear 

 over a long elevated tail board; smaller dirt sifted 

 through the holes and the heavy gold was caught at once 

 in riffles. They said that the machine recovered five 

 thousand dollars a day. 



By name the Yukon began where the Pelly flowed 

 into the Lewis, halfway between "White Horse and 

 Dawson. Below that, two great tributaries, the Stewart 

 and the White, added a large volume to its main stream. 

 We were now on a considerable river, which moved no 

 longer hurriedly over steep rifts, but majestically, if still 

 rapidly, boiling on the surface as its muddy water surged 

 from the depths of its uneven bed. 



The steep mountain heights, which pressed the upper 

 stream into a narrow bottom, softened in outline at 

 Circle City and drew back from a wider valley, which 

 became eighty miles wide at Fort Yukon. The river 

 broadened and was choked with low islands. A few houses 

 on the bank formed a town, with a name printed boldly 

 on the map. Such were Eagle, on the boundary, and 

 Circle City. Other names on the map were mere 

 epitaphs of a forgotten cabin: as Star and Nation. 



We crossed the Arctic Circle for the first time at Fort 

 Yukon, a naturally desirable site for a settlement, near 

 the mouth of the large Porcupine River. One of the 

 earliest trading posts in Alaska, of the Hudson Bay 

 Company, Fort Yukon remained an important fur deal- 

 ing center. To it the trappers brought each spring their 

 winter catches of fox, marten, mink, weasel, bear and 

 lynx, from the Porcupine and Black Rivers countries. 

 Through the valley of the Porcupine was also a prac- 



