THE ARCTIC AND THE ANTARCTIC 55 



when it arrived hundreds soon died of cold and starva- 

 tion. A meeting of the inhabitants was called, and 

 finally it was decided to attempt to reach Dyea, a city 

 some seven hundred miles away. The leadership fell 

 to, Mr. Alexander Macdonald, and the account of the 

 crossing of the Chilcoot Pass, taken from his volume 

 of reminiscences, will give an idea of the terrible 

 character of the journey T : ' The snow was falling 

 in thick and blinding sheets when we reached Lake 

 Linderman, and struggled up the first precipitous climb 

 leading to the dreaded Chilcoot. 



A deathlike stillness lingered in the valley ; the 

 towering mountain peaks enclosing the chain of lakes 

 had formed ample protection from the elements ; but 

 soon we ascended into a different atmosphere, where 

 the wind burst upon us with dire force and dashed the 

 snow in clouds against our faces. In vain we laboured 

 on ; my comrades sank at times to their necks in 

 the snow ; even the sleigh was half buried in the 

 seething masses and rolled over continuously. I alone 

 had snow-shoes, and for the first time in the seven 

 hundred miles' trail we had traversed I strapped 

 the long Indian ' runners ' to my moccasins, and 

 endeavoured to pad a track for the following train, 

 but the attempt proved futile. Two hours after leaving 

 the lake we had barely progressed a mile, and the air 

 was becoming dark and heavy with the increasing fury 

 of the gale, which tossed the white clouds aloft and 

 showered them over our sorely tried caravan. Never 

 had we dreamed of encountering such weather. We 

 had come from the silent Klondike valley, where the 

 tempests were hushed by the Frost King, who reigned 



with iron hand. 



1 See Bibliography, 8. 



