10S THE NORTHWEST PASSES TO THE YUKON 



Prof. George C. Davidson, who had visited the Chilkat coun- 

 try in 1867, when making a scientific reconnaissance of Russian 

 America for Secretary Seward, returned in 1869 to observe the 

 eclipse of the sun, August 7, establishing his station and observa- 

 tory at the upper Chilkat village, where he was the guest of the 

 great chief Chartrich, Kloh-Kutz. or Hole-in-the-Cheek, as that 

 head of the Cinnamon Bear clan was various]}' known. Secre- 

 tary Seward and his party were escorted up the Chilkat river in 

 Kloh-Kutz's war canoe on eclipse day, and, joining Prof. David- 

 son for another day, carried away the. astronomer and his in- 

 struments before there was time for him to make an intended 

 trip toward the pass. During his stay Prof. Davidson had in- 

 duced Kloh-Kutz and his wife to draw a very intelligible map 

 of the route up the river to the Chilkat pass and across to Fort 

 Selkirk, a route Kloh-Kutz had traversed since childhood, and 

 which his father had traversed as one of the war part}' which 

 burned Fort Selkirk. Lying face downward, the old chief and 

 his wife discussed and laboriously drew on the back of an old 

 chart the lines of all the water-courses and lakes, with the pro- 

 file of the mountains as they appear on either hand from the trail. 

 The great glacier is indicated by snow-shoe tracks to show the 

 mode of progress, and the limit of each of the fourteen days' 

 journey across to Fort Selkirk is marked by cross-lines on this orig- 

 inal Chilkat map, which is still in the possession of Prof. David- 

 son, at San Francisco. There is a copy (Topographical Sheet 

 No. 2268) at the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey office at Wash- 

 ington, and this Kloh-Kutz map was the basis of the first charts. 

 George Holt, a miner, claimed to have crossed the eastern, the 

 Chilkoot, or Shaseki pass in 1872, and descending as far as Lake 

 Marsh, returned by way of the Teslin to the headwaters of the 

 Stikine, following in reverse a part of the route of Michael Byrnes, 

 of the W. U. T. Co. surve}', who came up from the Stikine region 

 to the Teslin and Tagish lake in 1867. Holt crossed the pass 

 again in 1874, and descended the Yukon to the portage connect- 

 ing with the Kuskokwim. 



In 1877 Lieut. C. E. S. Wood, U. S. A., undertook independent 

 explorations in Alaska. Mutiny of his canoemen prevented his 

 reaching Mt St Elias, which he wished to climb, but he visited 

 Taylor and Glacier bays on Cross sound, camped and hunted 

 mountain goats around Geikie and Muir inlets, and crossed from 

 the Muir glacier to Lynn canal. He spent some time with the 

 Chilkats and Chilkoots, but neither Kloh-Kutz nor Doniwak, 



