Opening of the Alaskan Territory 



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Copyright, 1898, E. A. Hegg Courtesy of The Engineering Magazine 



Winter Freighting on the Ice, Lake Linderman 



copper deposits, which during the last 

 season have been visited by many ex- 

 perts. Some of the ores run 85 per 

 cent copper, and there are many thou- 

 sand tons in sight assaying 16 per cent. 

 A great mountain slide has occurred in 

 this region, revealing, it is claimed, as 

 much as 40,000,000 tons of high-grade 

 copper ores. Valdes Bay and the lower 

 pass north of it are the American gate- 

 ways to the Yukon Valley, and already 

 a railroad has been surveyed and par- 

 tially graded to the interior, for the 

 copper, which, though it can be quarried 

 like the iron ores of Lake Superior, 

 without a railroad will remain worth- 

 less. The railroad itself is assured an 

 unlimited tonnage. It is the short- 

 est line to Dawson and the Yukon 

 Valley, and, what is of more importance, 

 it can carry supplies delivered at Valdes 

 from sailing vessels or deep-draft ocean 

 steamers in all the months of the year, 

 with only one break of bulk at Valdes, 

 and also reach the deep navigable Yukon 

 and the Koyukuk a month earlier than 



by the Yukon mouth, which is closed by 

 Bering Sea ice until July 1. As shown 

 in the history of the White Pass Rail- 

 road, the ingoing traffic would be in 

 itself sufficient to warrant a railroad, but 

 from Dawson the only export is gold, 

 about 70 tons a year, while this road 

 will not only carry all the United States 

 Government troops and supplies, for 

 which many hundred thousand dollars 

 are spent, but it will have the unlimited 

 outbound tonnage of high-grade copper 

 ores, which, with a freight rate of $2 a 

 ton from Valdes to the smelters of Puget 

 Sound, will scarcely be treated in the 

 interior. 



It is not too much to expect that im- 

 provement in transportation facilities 

 alone will convert central Alaska into 

 as densely a populated and prosperous a 

 region as Colorado, as the Black Hills of 

 South Dakota, as the rich mining region 

 of British Columbia. 



There is another part of Alaska wait- 

 ing for transportation facilities. It is 

 not so dazzling as the Klondike nor as 



