34 RECONNAISSANCE IN NORTHERN ALASKA IN 1901. 



The Koyukuk country is also visited by the Kowak natives from the northwest, 



a more hardy and industrious race than the Koyukuks. 



Whites. — After the exodus of the thousand or more inexperienced adventurers 

 who in the Klondike rush reached the upper Koyukuk in the fall of 1898, wintered 



there, and disappeared from the country almost with the ice when navigation opened 

 in the following- spring, about a hundred sturdy men, mostly prospectors and miners 

 who had arived with the influx the preceding fall, remained. Stimulated by the dis- 

 covery of placer gold, they continued to prospect and began to mine some during the 

 summer and engaged to some extent in development work during the following 

 winter. In the meantime, especially in the months of February and March, 1900, as 

 the reports of the presence of gold became authenticated, many people from various 

 camps along the Yukon were attracted thither. This materially increased the mining 

 activity of the district, which in a general way has continued to the present time; so 

 that in 1901-2 about 200 white people, mostly miners and prospectors, wintered 

 there, and at present" (1903-4) they number about 350, the most of whom are pros- 

 pecting or doing development work about the mines. Besides the people who winter 

 there, man}' others reside there during the summer only, while working their claims. 

 Since the discovery of gold the wage for the district has been §12 a da}\ Ground 

 that will not jaeld this amount or more is not worked. Board is %d> a day. 



Transportation and means of travel. — Since 1900 there have been two supply 

 posts 6 in the country, Bergman and Bettles, both operated by the Northern Com- 

 mercial Company, successor to the well-known Alaska Commercial Company. Of 

 these posts, the lower and usually the best stocked is Bergman, at the head of 

 steamboat navigation, near the Arctic Circle, and about 450 miles above the mouth 

 of Koyukuk River. At high water, however, in both spring and fall, steamboats 

 ascend with freight to Bettles, near the sixty-seventh parallel, about SO miles above 

 Bergman. From Bettles, which has become the leading distributing point for the 

 country, the supplies are conveyed to the various mining camps, about 75 miles 

 farther up the river, by i - owboat during the open season, or, preferably, b} r dog 

 sled in the winter. The country is also reached by pack train from the Yukon in 

 summer, by way of Chandlar River from Fort Yukon and by way of Dall River 

 from near Fort Hamlin, the distance in each case being about 150 miles. Pack 

 horses have been used to some extent during the last few summers, both for 

 packing and for working at the mines, but the heavy snowfall renders the horse unfit 

 for winter use. A shorter route than either of the above, leaving the Yukon at a 

 point about midway between the Dall and the Chandlar and about 100 miles from 

 Coldfoot direct, is uow being investigated. 



"Information on present (1903) conditions in the district has been contributed by Mr. L. M. Prindle, a member of the 

 Surrey, to whom it was recently furnished by miners en route from there to the States. 

 ''Besides these, the company keeps a branch post at Coldfoot. 



