HRDI.l' KA] 



THE VTKDX TEKRITORY 129 



its banks. The rash passed in turn, many of the miners and other- 

 departed, boats became idle and were beached or taken to the St. 

 Michael ship " bone yard,"' where, together with most of the build- 

 LngSj they are now (1926) being broken up; and the Yukon has 

 reverted in a large measure to its former primeval, dormant, lonely 

 stafc. 



Such, in brief, is the white man's history of the Yukon, with all of 

 which the river remains but half known, at best. It has never 

 been fully surveyed, which would be a vast and unending task. It 

 contains a large number of barely known little tributaries that are 

 lost in the jungle-covered Hats with their many pools and lakes. 

 It has innumerable islands and channels, in which the traveler is 

 easily lost, and it cuts and builds constantly during the open season. 

 Its valley is squally and rainy. The stream may one moment be 

 like a great, liquid, softly flowing mirror, to be in a few minutes 

 churned into an ugly and dangerous roughness from which every 

 smaller boat must seek shelter. Its shores are inhospitable, except 

 for the native fisherman and hunter, and torment man with swarms 

 of gnats and mosquitoes. 



But there is no malaria ; no snakes or other poisonous things. And 

 when the weather is decent the water, the wooded shores, and the 

 fresh, clean virginal parklike islands have a greatness and charm 

 that compensate for much. Besides which there is the still more 

 intensive allure of original exploration. Botany, zoology, and above 

 all paleontology, find here still a fruitful field, while for anthro- 

 pology, and especially archeology, the land is still largely a terra 

 incognita. 



The Yukon Natives 



Upon their arrival on the Kvikpak and Yukon, the Russians found 

 the banks of the stream peopled in its upper and middle courses by 

 Indians and lower down by the Eskimo. 19 The last Indian village 

 downstream was Aninulykhtykh-pak, since completely gone. Its 

 site is identifiable with cflie that used to exist in front of the present 

 mission of Holy Cross or just above. The first Eskimo village of 

 some note was Paimute. 



As to the Indians of the Yukon ami its tributaries, there is a con- 

 siderable confusion of names, almost every author using his own 

 spelling and subdivisions. It is evident that there were two sets of 

 names of the various Indian contingents, namely the names, some- 

 times contemptuous, given to them by outsiders, and the names in 



18 See Auszug aus dem Tagebuche des Schiffer-gebiilfen Andreas Glasunow. In Wrnngell. 

 Ferd. v., Statistische und ethnographische Nacbrichten ii. d. Russichen Besitzungen a. d. 

 NordwestkfiBte v. Amerika. Ed. by K. C. v. Baer, St. Petersburg. 1S3!>, 137-180. Zagoe 

 kin, A., PeSechodnaia opis rasti rusaklcb vladenti v. Amerike. 2 parts. St. Petersburg. 

 1847-1848, pp. 1-183, 1-120, and 1-43 ; with a map. 



