378 LIFE ON A YUKON TRAIL 



pla} 7 ed by American capitalists in pushing the enterprise of a 

 road to Lake Bennett via the White pass. . Scarcely too much 

 could be said for the All-Canadian route as a potentiality, but as 

 an actualit} 7 , in the undeveloped graces of early infancy, it justly 

 earned the reputation of being the most arduous and difficult 

 of all the so-called practicable trails to the Yukon goldfields. 



Compelled by ill-health to suspend for two years all work re- 

 quiring mental stress, the writer became tolerably familiar in the 

 mountains of southern British Columbia with the actual require- 

 ments of various rough manual employments and the actual 

 characters of various rough folk of the mines and logging camps. 

 It was a desire to add to these experiences with rough jobs and 

 rough people that led him to apply for a subordinate position 

 on the exploration and survey party dispatched in the winter of 

 1898 to the northern wilderness in the interests of the All-Cana- 

 dian route to the Yukon. 



Our party of 13 men took steerage passage in February from 

 Vancouver, B. C, to Fort Wrangell, Alaska, in a battered old 

 Chinese freighter, the Amur. From this point we crossed on 

 open water to Cottonwood island, at the mouth of the Stikine 

 river. It was the purpose of the party to move up the river for 

 150 miles over the ice to Telegraph creek. From this point we 

 were to strike northward into the interior, for the purpose of run- 

 ning preliminary surveys 140 miles to Teslin lake, one of the 

 principal sources and the head of navigation of the Yukon. 



Camped on the ice and dirty snow at the mouth of the Stikine 

 was a motley crowd of not less than 1,000 men who had been 

 diverted from- the accustomed routes to the Klondike by false 

 reports about the opening of this new route. They had been 

 informed that a serviceable trail connected Telegraph creek with 

 Teslin lake. Many, too, had visions of town sites along the pro- 

 posed railway, and hoped to " get in on the ground floor." They 

 were sadly misled. The information was false, and the major 

 portion of the wayfarers, after months of struggle, were utterly 

 baffled in the attempt to thread their way through a remorseless 

 wilderness of mountain and swamp to Teslin lake. 



We were better equipped for making an expeditious journey 

 up the river and soon the bulk of these fortune-seekers were left 

 far in our rear. Our outfit consisted of a four-months 1 supply 

 of bacon, beans, flour, baking powder, provender for the horses, 

 and the usual camp impedimenta of tents and blankets. The 

 entire outfit weighed about four tons. We camped on four feet 



