io8 The National Geographic Magazine 



wall paper to a polished oak dining 

 table. He that imagines that luxury 

 does not exist in our far northern camps 

 would need settle but one small bill for 

 furnishing to become entirely convinced 

 of the luxury of all things, even a sack 

 of flour. 



Houses front the slough which would 

 do credit to our eastern shores. Steam 

 laundries vie with the force of muscle 

 in producing the spotless white shirt 

 bosom, and bootblacks at " two bits " a 

 shine, ever ready, await you, that the 

 mud of the trail may be cleaned from 

 your boots before entering your carpeted 

 cabin. 



Justice is rendered daily in the court- 

 house (used on Sundays as the church) , 

 and if a man's claim be " jumped " he 

 needs but bring suit, and then go seek 

 another claim — ' ' broke. ' ' 



If you would know the creeks, don't 

 go to them. Enter a saloon, and in five 

 minutes, mid the melodious tones of 

 "Mamie, come kiss you honey boy," 

 screeched from the latest phonograph, 

 and the jostling of the eager crowd 

 about the gaming tables, endeavoring 

 to lose in the shortest possible time their 

 hard-won gold, you will hear more of 

 the ' ' good pay ' ' and rich ' ' fractions ' ' 

 than you could learn in a month at the 

 bottom of a wet drift. "Sell it?" "No; 

 not for $50,000;" and he wouldn't, 

 either, though before the winter is over 

 he' 11 probably work ' ' day shift ' ' on the 

 end of a wooden windlass hoisting a 

 ten-pan bucket 60 feet at 40 0 below 

 zero. 



The continuous buzz of the sawmills, 

 turning out 50,000 feet of spruce lum- 

 ber a day, would suggest a western 

 logging camp. L,umber is as essential 

 in mining as is water, and with the 

 prices up to $200 a thousand the owner 

 of a mill needs no gold mine to make 

 his fortune. 



Enter a restaurant, and anything from 

 a cup of good coffee, well served, to a 

 four-course dinner is yours. Broiled 



caribou steak and mushrooms are in- 

 viting, served with lettuce and green 

 peas; but don't do it often, or you'll 

 probably work your way out in the fall 

 as a deck hand on a flat-bottom stern- 

 wheeled steamboat bound south. 



When you are able to drag yourself 

 from the allurements of the metropolis 

 and start for the creeks, take the ridge 

 trail. Some one may tell you to follow 

 the telephone line, as it is straight. It 

 is straight enough — one of the few 

 straight things in the country, in fact — 

 and the walking is good when you get 

 down to it, but it's a long ways down 

 and you must need make special efforts 

 to extract each separate foot. The ridge 

 road is high and dry, through a stretch 

 of spruce and birch timber, and, if you 

 have dragged yourself through the mud 

 and water of a creek trail, seems a boule- 

 vard. The freight of all the creeks 

 passes this route, and the lead horse of 

 a pack train steps aside to let pass the 

 two-ton four-mule freighter as it toils 

 along, jolting over the old roots and 

 stumps of the former wood. Ten miles 

 beyond, in the bottom land at the junc- 

 tion of Gilmore and Goldstream, this 

 same freighter will sink axle deep in the 

 mire, and probably leave half its load 

 by the wayside for a second trip. Lit- 

 tle wonder that freight rates are "two 

 bits" a pound, or $500 a ton, a mere 

 bagatelle when your claim carries fifty 

 cents to the "pan," but ruinous when 

 it averages only five. 



A newly opened gold placer in an 

 Alaskan camp is far from an inviting 

 sight. Heavy freighting, accompanied 

 with frequent rains, produces in the 

 freshly thawed ground of the creek bot- 

 toms a result not conducive to good 

 walking, to say the least, and in a short 

 while the foot trail has spread itself far 

 up on the hillsides in a vain endeavor 

 to find a dry and firm piece of moss 

 upon which to settle. But it is on the 

 creeks that the work begins. The 

 glamor and fascination of the infant 



