INTRODUCTION OF DOMESTIC REINDEER INTO ALASKA. 57 



interior on the banks of the Yukon, ])ut thc}' can not l)e reached until 

 the ice moves out of that river late in June or early in July. 



The Upper Yukon rising near southeast Alaska opens, perhaps, two 

 or even three months earlier. Its waters swell with melted snows, lift 

 the ice and break it up, piling it in great masses over the still solid 

 ice down the river farther to the north. By the last of May the ice 

 runs out of the upper river as far north as the great bend at Fort 

 Yukon, on the Arctic Circle, where the river turns to the west. The 

 ice at the mouth is the last to give way, and hence the river is not 

 available for bringing freight from the States to the mining regions of 

 the Upper Yukon until July. If there were a waterway through the 

 Stikine River in southeast Alaska, or still better, through the Taku 

 River to the upper waters of the Yukon (Lewes Branch and the Teslin 

 River and Lake) there could be water communications through to the 

 Klondike region for six or seven months of the year, and to the Fort 

 Yukon for five months. But of course nearly all this part of the river 

 is in Canada. The fact is that each nationality is at present in the way 

 of the other's best approach to its possessions. 



Inasmuch as the time of open-sea navigation in the Bering Sea has 

 been (until 1897) too short to admit of two trips a 3^ear from Seattle, 

 all business there is carried on from information received through 

 agents who returned the previous fall, and brought out with them an 

 account of the situation. In October it is known what needs existed 

 at the ports north and south of Bering Strait and on the Lower Yukon, 

 but nothing can be done until the next summer. Meanwhile the situa- 

 tion may have entirely changed. What is sent to the northwest ina.j 

 be useless when it arrives. 



It is obvious that the first necessity is communication at all times of 

 the year. For this purpose railroads and even telegraphs are impossi- 

 ble on account of the enormous distances to be overcome. From Sitka, 

 by sea, it is 1,200 miles westward to Unalaska, the gatewa}^ to Bering 

 Sea ; thence northward to Bering Strait is 800 miles, in all 2,000 miles. 

 Any practicable route through central Alaska, by the Yukon or other- 

 wise, would measure more than 2,000 miles from southeastern Alaska 

 to St. Michael, the port at the mouth of the Yukon. Even short 

 stretches of railroad are almost impossible in Alaska on account of the 

 enormous expense of building where the ground is frozen the year 

 round, except a shallow layer at the surface in the sunmier, and where 

 for three-fourths of the year the work must be conducted in the Arctic 

 night. In some places in the Rocky Mountain region the railroads cost 

 $200,000 a mile to build. In Alaska the expense would amount to a 

 million of dollars a mile through the deep cuts of the river and over 

 the watersheds at the head waters. Telegraphic communication will 

 doubtless come to exist when there are permanent gold mines discov- 

 ered and the requisite works erected ; but for mere placer mining this 



