Opening of the Alaskan Territory 



LO 1 



Under such conditions the pack horse 

 adds little to the solution of the problem. 

 He cannot both work and forage. Men 

 "packers" were at one time paid as 

 high as 60 cents a pound for packing 

 over the Chilcoot Pass, but the rate had 

 been 10 cents. Over the White Pass, 

 where horses could be used, the rates 

 were never lower than 10 cents, and 

 often 20 cents. Horse trains were main- 

 tained only by a constant fresh supply 

 of horses from the south, few animals 

 surviving more than two or three trips. 

 Of 3,800 horses taken north in 1897, 

 all but 30 died on the trail. To cheapen 

 transportation a wagon road was hastily 

 built in 1898 and a toll levied of 2 cents 

 a pound. In 1899 this was succeeded 

 by a railroad, and freight rates have 

 fallen from the original maximum of 60 

 cents a pound for 40 miles, from water 

 to water, to $3.75 to $5.50 per hundred 

 pounds for the 2,500 miles from San 

 Francisco or Puget Sound to Dawson. 

 It is 112 miles by rail from tide water 

 over the 2,800-foot pass to White Horse, 

 below the dangerous.rapids of the upper 

 river, and to Dawson by the river it is 

 451 miles further. The fare from Skag- 

 way is $70, and the fastest time made, 

 32 hours. 



In the year 1901 the White Pass Rail- 

 road carried 33,471 tons of freight and 

 16,472 passengers, receiving from pas- 

 senger traffic $252,932.71, and from 

 freight, express, mail, and telegrams, 

 $1,505,132.64, an average for freight of 

 $43 a ton for 112 miles. Operating ex- 

 penses, naturally heavy, were 42.42 per 

 cent of the receipts. The first cost of 

 this road, including many expensive 

 franchises and the buying up of possible 

 rivals, was $4,250,000, and in the first 

 season its gross receipts were officially 

 reported to exceed $4,000,000, with 

 operating expenses of about $1,000,000. 

 The actual facts as to this highway into 

 Alaska and the Yukon Valley are given 

 to show the great difficulties and ex- 

 pense of transportation in opening up a 



new country, where in spite of a rapid 

 fall in rates after the first season, a 

 successful transportation enterprise will 

 usually pay for itself with one year's 

 earnings. 



It causes regret to Americans that 

 this brilliant undertaking, conceived and 

 executed by American engineers, could 

 find no American backers — that Lon- 

 don, unhampered by the timidity which 

 afflicts New York in presence of a new 

 region, boldly and promptly investi- 

 gated, financed, and carried it through. 

 The headquarters of the road have been 

 moved from the United States to Van- 

 couver, and the great bulk of the freight 

 is no longer from the United States, 

 but almost wholly from Canada. 



Besides having enjoyed thus far the 

 monopoly of the shortest entrance to the 

 Yukon Valley, the White Pass will re- 

 main the only approach to the rich Atlin 

 country, a lake region just beyond the 

 coast range, which is slowly but surely 

 developing, producing this last season 

 nearly $1,000,000 in gold. Atlin and 

 the Upper Yukon country will always 

 be exclusively tributary to this road. 

 As there is no other pass through which 

 a road can be built, for an indefinite 

 period the revenues of the White Pass 

 route may be counted on to increase, but 

 of the rich Klondike region with Daw- 

 son as its center it is likely very soon to 

 be dispossessed. From the Stewart 

 River 72 miles above Dawson to Nulato 

 below the Koyukuk River, a distance of 

 just a thousand miles, there are nearer 

 and better seaports than Skagway. The 

 best of these is the bay of Valdes, 10 

 miles long and 3 wide, as protected and 

 beautiful as a Swiss lake, and nearest 

 of all' salt-water harbors to Dawson. 



In 1900 and 1901 Major Abercrombie 

 built a government trans-Alaskan mili- 

 tary trail from Valdes into the Copper 

 River Valley. Last winter over this road 

 the freight rate to Copper Center, 103 

 miles, was 48 cents by dog team ; dur- 

 ing the summer by pack horse it rose to 



