A WINTER WEATHER RECORD FROyf KLOyiUk'E 327 



Tanana Indians last winter came down the Sushitna to trade. 

 They are a very warlike tribe and are accused b}' the Midnooskies 

 of being cannibals. 



The interior of the country has but little game. For many 

 days we saw not a living animal except l)irds, and but few fish, 

 though salmon run in August and candle-fish in June. We saw 

 more bear than any other large game, but did not kill any. 

 There are colors of fine gold everywhere, but we found no coarse 

 gold, and the signs of gold diminished upstream. 



A WINTER WEATHER RECORD FROM THE KLONDIKE 



REGION 



By E. W. Nelson, 



Biological Survey, U. S. Dfpartmcnl of Agrintlture 



During the years 1880 and 1881 the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany had a fur-trading station on the upper Yukon, in British 

 territory, at no great distance below the mouth of the Klondike, 

 where Dawson City is now located. This station was called Fort 

 Reliance, and was in charge of Mr L. N. :McQuesten. It was 

 afterward abandoned and is now in ruins. Mr McQuesten was 

 one of the original prospectors in this region, and his discoveries 

 led to the founding of Circle City and indirectly to the marvelous 

 development tliat is now taking place in that region. When ISIr 

 McQuesten came to St Michael in the spring of ISSO with his 

 winter's gathering of furs I gave him a Signal Service standard 

 minimum thermometer, and he undertook to make a series of 

 daily observations for me at Fort Reliance during his stay there 

 in tiie fall and winter of 1880-'S1. When he returned to St 

 Michael in the spring of 1881 he brought me the subjoined 

 record. It covers the period from the early fall to the oi)ening 

 of navigation on the upper Yukon in spring, and is of peculiar 

 interest at present as showing some of the meteorologic condi- 

 tions in the area which is now attracting world-wide attention on 

 account of the uni)recedented richness of its recently discovered 

 placer mines. It is in this district that some thousands of men 

 are wintering with a reported scarcity of provisions that may 

 result in api)alling suttering before navigation opens in spring. 



It will be noted in the record that the Yukon froze over during 

 the night of November 2. On the 14th of the following May tiie 



