THE 



National Geographic Magazine 



Vol. X OCTOBER, 1899 No. 10 



LIFE ON A YUKON TRAIL 

 By Alfred Pearce Dennis, Ph. D. 



The Stikine river is the chief feature of the hydrography of 

 northern British Columbia. The waters of this stream mingle 

 with the Pacific near Fort Wrangell, Alaska. About 2,000 miles 

 further around the big Alaskan peninsula the waters of the ma- 

 jestic Yukon pour into Bering sea. These rivers, 2,000 miles 

 apart at their mouths, are less than 200 miles apart at the nearest 

 point of their headwaters. 



As the Stikine is open to free navigation by treaty with the 

 United States, it was proposed by the Canadian authorities when 

 the Klondike excitement was at its height to build a narrow- 

 gauge railway from Glenora, the head of navigation on the 

 Stikine, to Teslin lake, one of the principal sources and feeders 

 of the Yukon. It was claimed that with the completion of the 

 railway a passenger could go through from Vancouver to Dawson 

 in fifteen days, with no greater' inconvenience than the labor in- 

 volved in stepping from the river steamer to the train. It was 

 hopefully predicted that with the opening of the route the bulk 

 of Klondike travel would be diverted from the American ports 

 of Dyea, Skagway,and St Michael, and the volume of outfitting 

 trade transferred from Seattle to Vancouver and Victoria. After 

 four months of preliminary survey work for the proposed rail- 

 way the project was in June, 1898, abandoned. A number of 

 causes contributed to the collapse of the enterprise: First, the 

 waning of the Klondike excitement ; second, the failure of the 

 Dominion senate to ratify a heavy subsidy granted the road by 

 the Canadian assembly ; and, third, the energy in execution dis- 



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