48^ 
, " - - 
Skagway, 
- JiS^>eciaI coi-reapondence of Porest and Stream.] 
The other day I met a man that I had known as the 
proprietor of a successful hotel in Skagway. I asked 
him about conditions in Skagway at the present time, and 
he told me that for the time being at least the boom 
was over, and that the City of Seattle, which I had seen 
in. February loaded down to the guuAvales with 650 pas- 
sengers, had only carried six on her last trip. 
"As the best way of getting clear of my interests 
there," he said, "I have put my hotel up for a raflie— $5 a 
throw. I made my money out of it two or three times 
over, and now I shall be glad to get anything for it I 
can." 
He estimated that upward of 50,000 men had crossed 
White and Chilcoot passes since last fall, and that but 
for the war the number would have been two or three 
times as large. 
Skagway has seen its best days, but undoubtedly there 
will be another minor rush in July, wdien the first steamer 
from St. Michael's brings out her quota of the vast 
amount of gold which has accumulated in the Klondike 
since navigation closed in the Yukon last fall. 
-In February Skagway was by all odds the most im- 
portant city in Alaska, and one of the busiest places on 
the Pacific Coast. It was the center of a population of 
30,000 souls, and as a result of its superior docking 
facilities it transacted most of the shipping business for 
its sister city of Dyea, and thus controlled tlie tmde of 
both White and Chilcoot passes. 
It was a boom town, and city lots that a few months 
before had never felt a white man's foot commanded 
fabulous prices. Opportunities for speculation were 
manifold. _ A commercial traveler named Drake, who 
was only in town twenty-four hours oyer steamers, met 
an acquaintance who had some lots to sell for $450 
apiece. Shortly after a second acquaintance who had 
come up on the same steamer told Drake that he had 
bought lots in the neighborhood mentioned for $700. 
'"Pshaw!" said Drake, "you're paying too much. I 
can get you lots every bit as good for $600." The man 
asked to see them, and Drake hunted up the owner of 
the property and inquired if he had any of '"those $600 
lots" left. There was. still one to be had, and a bargain 
was concluded on the spot. Later, over a bottle of wine, 
the former owner handed to Drake the hundred and fifty 
that he had so easily earned. 
The height of the boom, however, was already in 
sight, and it was predicted, that Skagway would soon be 
like many other mining and coast towns where "a few 
years ago land cost $1,000 a foot, and now 3^ou can buy 
the town for $1,000." 
In February, when the great rush of 1898 was just be- 
ginning,, Skagway had four long ocean piers at which 
steamers of any draft can unload, and probably 200 
hotels, saloons, gambling houses and similar places of 
entertainment or resort. The gambHng business had been 
very much overdone, and the competition was so great 
that there was no money in it. Gamblers were leaving 
by every steamer, only to be replaced by others coming 
in. Only one building in town, the Burkhardt Hotel, 
was painted. This hotel accominodates 175 guests, yet it 
has no private rooms. The guests sleep in bunks around 
the walls, one over the other, like the berths in steamers 
or sleeping cars. 
It has one ear mark of civilization, however, in that 
guests are not required to furnish their cuvn bedding, as 
they are in Dawson and in fact at all intermediate points. 
In February hold-ups in the streets were frequent, and 
"Denver Soapy" Smith, direct from Spokane, where he 
had been run out by Joe Warren, chief of police, was 
conducting his "sure thing" games, aided by an army of 
cappers and confidence men. 
Thimble rigging is one of the sure thing games. How- 
ard P. Curtis, a young New Yorker fresh from Wall 
Street, opened the eyes of one of Soapy' s lieutenants at 
this game, The man was pla3dng for his cappers and 
trying to interest the crowd when Curtis, who is tall of 
body and long limbed as well, sauntered up to the 
group. He made sure that the fellow was not palming 
the pea, and watching his opporttmity when the man 
made a clumsy play for the benefit of one of his accom- 
plices, Curtis reached over the heads of the inner circle 
with his long ai^m and lifted the thimble from the pea, at 
the same time laying down a $20 gold piece. The shell 
man paid the bet, and Curtis pocketed the money and 
walked away. 
"Here, young man, hold on," shouted the gambler. 
"Come back and try your luck some more." 
"No, thank you," drawled Curtis, "I've business up 
the trail." 
The "Pack Train," "Nugget" and other gambling 
saloons ran every known game of chance, and were 
crowded nightly. Many a poor fellow will never see 
the Klondike as a direct result of running afoul these 
places. Dance halls were common, and about one saloon 
in three had out the sign, "Dance to-night." Many of 
the gamblers and confidence men'proposed going down 
to Dawson when the river opened. There are gold pieces 
for them there where there are cents in Skagway. The 
Canadian Mounted Police were counting on a great rush 
of this class when traveling opened, and they were quiet- 
ly at work taking snap-shot photographs on the streets 
of the gentlemen with records, so that they will know 
them again when they see them in their especial baili- 
wick. 
The attractions of Juneau are set forth in a trade cir- 
cular, which among other things says: 
"Juneau has two breweries and Methodist, Graeco- 
Russian and Presbyterian churches." 
The combination of beer and religion did not strike 
the promulgators of the circular as incongruous, and 
no more did the fact that they were advertising an 
illegal industry. Liquor is not allowed in the territory 
of Alaska, but the law is so at variance with popular 
sentiment that no very serious ef¥ort is made to stoo the 
traffic. Skagway also has two breweries. The Smith & 
Matlock Brewery, it is said, turns out more Avhisky than 
beer. It is sold at $6 per gallon, and guaranteed to con- 
tain snakes. 
The government of Skagway is chiefly in the hands of 
l^OR&St AND STREAM. 
John U. Smith, the Federal commissioner, whose resi- 
dence is at Dyea. He is land officer, judge in all minor 
civil or criminal proceedings, and mayor and board of 
aldermen combined. Besides Smith there is a United 
States deputy marshal, appointed by Marshal Schoup, of 
Sitka, and revenue and custom officers. 
The climate of Skagway is very similar to that of 
New York city, except that it is very much more windy. 
It is March there the year round, 15 to 25 above zero is 
the ordinary winter cold. The lowest point touched by 
the thermometer up to Febrtiary was 10 above zero. At 
that time there was very little snow on the streets. This 
comparatively mild temperature is due to the proximity 
of the warm Japan current — a current which gives Sitka 
the same mean annual temperature as Washington, D, C. 
A few miles inland the thermometer takes a tremendous 
drop, and after the height of land is crossed at a distance 
of fifteen miles from salt water Arctic weather prevails. 
Last August, when Skagway had a population of three 
or four thousand men, and when ocean steamships were 
arriving and departing daily, involving a shipping busi- 
ness equal to that of a place half a dozen times its size, 
and transportation and other business enterprises of con- 
siderable magnitude were developing on all sides, the 
infant city was unprovided with a post office or any 
official means for mailing or receiving letters. Instead 
the service was carried on by saloons as an accommoda- 
tion, or by private parties for what they could make out 
of it. Post boxes were cominon bearing such signs as 
this: 
"Leave a nickel with each and I will mail them. 
E. Ward." 
"Drop a nickel in the slot, and we'll do the rest. 
Benham and Jones, etc." 
The natural, result of this condition of affairs was 
that a great many letters were lost or went astray; and 
there were men on the trail who had not received a single 
letter up to the time of embarking for Dawson, thoitgh 
their friends had written repeatedly. 
The post-office at Skagway at the present time is a 
rather primitive aft'air, but business is conducted with a 
fair amount of expedition and accuracy. It is safe to say 
that there is not a post-office building in the United 
States of twice the size where an equal volume of busi- 
ness was transacted last winter. The postmaster found 
it a difficult matter to keep on hand a sufficient supply 
of stamps to meet the demand, and after the arrival of 
the mail steamer it required a good many hours to de- 
liver the letters to the long line of expectant recipients, 
each one of whom had reqitests to make for friends, 
sometimes to the number of a hundred or more. 
The Dawson mail goes in by way of Skagway. It is in 
the hands of the Canadian Government exclusively, the 
United States paying $250 a trip for matter bearing our 
postap'e stamps. 
Last winter it was carried across White Pass as far as 
Lake Bennett on the backs of horses, or drawn on sleds. 
After that it was turned over to half-breed Indians in 
charge of dog teams for its 600 mile journey down the 
frozen surface of the river. A corporal or other officer 
of the Canadian Mounted Police accompanied these 
teams. 
The service as far as Tagish Post was very regular, 
but beyond that point it was a farce, and up to the first 
of March no mail whatever was deliA'ered in Dawson 
City, and it had had no communication with the outside 
world since the last boats went down the river in 
October. At the poHce posts at the Big and Little Sal- 
mon rivers in January there was an accumulation of 
i,6oolbs. of l^oz. letters — more than 50,000 letters — wait- 
ing to be sent through to Dawson. Paities coming out 
on the ice who expected important letters in this mail 
were refused them on the ground that it would "take a 
week to go through the mail" and find the letters. 
There has been no difficulty in sending letters out from 
Dawson at any time during the winter, for while there 
was no official service, scarcely a week has passed with- 
out one or more parties of miners coming out. In most 
cases these parties have carried letters free of charge, 
though after the first rush abated the old price of a 
dollar a letter was in some cases demanded and received. 
The Canadian Government was unable to carry out its 
contract owing to the great scarcity of food at the upper 
posts on the river, and the necessity of first replenishing 
the supply. Several large scows carrying provisions had 
iDcen lost in an ice jam above the Little Salmon, and for 
a time the Governor of the Provisional District of the 
Yukon and his party of mounted police and dog drivers 
had to rely for food upon the generosity of the little set- 
tlement of miners who had gone into winter quarters 
near by. Late in January, by indefatigable efforts, Gover- 
nor Walsh succeeded in putting the food question upon 
a satisfactory basis, having incidentally repaid the miners 
double for the supplies they had advanced, and he then 
at once took up the other matter, and got a part of the 
mail through to Dawson about March i. 
Adventarcs in the Yukon, 
The seven months which I spent in Alaska and British 
Northwest Territory were full of incident and excitement, 
and I look back upon this period now with pleasure, 
despite the fact that it was a time of unremitting labor 
and no little degree of hardship and danger. Our party 
of five landed at Skagway at the entrance to White Pass 
Aug. 20, 1897. Two months later two of us embarked 
from Lake Bennett for the descent of the Yukon. We 
had experiences with shipwreck, ice jams, rapids and rob- 
bers, and were obliged to hustle once in a while to 
escape being gathered to our forefathers by drowning, 
cold or starvation. . , • . 
It would be hard for the city man with his familiar 
round of comforts and cares to put himself in our place 
and realize the compensations which come to men in 
situations like ours— the freedom from responsibility and 
the perfect sense of being one's own master, the charm 
of days and nights close to old Mother Earth, basking 
in her sunshine or buoyant at breasting her storms, with 
the game of existence reduced to its simplest terms in 
the assurance that as long as we have food we hold 
trumps. It is so much better to have tired muscles than 
tired nerves. With sound sleep and an appetite and 
digestion capable of everything and satisfied with any- 
thino- it is keen pleasure just to live. One rises m the 
morning eager for work, and if there be a spice of 
danger in it so much the better. There is zest and vim 
[June 18, i89§- 
to the simplest occupation, and worry such as the city 
man feels is an unknown quantity. Much of the sym- 
pathy expressed for the heathen in his blindness, it seems 
to me, is wasted. The heathen can give the white man 
cards and spades in the matter of contentment and the 
philosophy of living. Give him a little bacon grease and 
floiu- and tea, and he is happy as a king; you can't 
make the Yukon article worry even if he is reduced to 
the extremity of filling his belly with the inner bark of 
pine trees. 
It is not my purpose to hold up the Indian as an ex- 
ample unreservedly, but only to point out the advantages 
of a temporary return to barbarism as an antidote to our 
overwrought twentieth century civilization. 
Explanatory, 
The sixteenth day of last September, Avhen after the 
hardest kind of work we had only succeeded in advanc- 
ing our supplies to a point between the second and third 
bridges over the Skagway River, or less than half the 
distance across the White Pass, our party held a council 
of Avar to decide the best course of action to pursue. 
It was perfectly evident that suflicient supplies for the 
entire party could not by any possibility be carried across 
th^ remaining distance to Lake Bennett in season for 
the trip down the Yukon, but as the latter part of the 
trail was much easier than that on the ocean side of 
the summit, including as it did twelve miles of water, 
Avhere our folding canvas boats could be used to save 
the horses and expedite the carriage of our goods, it 
was thought possible that supplies might be gotten over 
for three men. The remaining two members of the party 
were to give their assistance, and in return Avere promised 
a share in any claims Avhich might be located previous 
to the opening of navigation in the spring. Personally, I 
thought the chances of any one getting through to the 
mining country at that time very small, and I was well 
content to be one of the two who Avere to remain be- 
hind. 
, With this understanding I returned to the chain of lakes 
in the summit of White Pass Avhere I had for two Aveeks 
carried on a freighting business for the benefit of my 
party, boating supplies across for persons who agreed 
in exchange to do a certain amount of packing for us, 
or making any bargain that I thought would hasten our 
progress. 
My first work after returning Avas at the most distant 
of the three lakes, and it Avas nearly a AA'eek before I 
came back to Summit Lake, the first of the chain, to 
which point our horses had been making daily trips. To 
my surprise the cache there included my personal outfit 
and that of one other man. I hurried in to camp five 
miles below in the timber, traveling a good part of the 
distance after dark. There I found that the plan, as I 
under.stood_ it. had been completely changed, and that 
two men, including myself, were to be sent down the 
river. I was very much averse to accepting the changed 
terms, but in the end I consented to go on condition 
that I be given the privilege of selecting my com- 
panion, and also with the distinct understanding that if 
the expedition failed to reach DaAvson I should not be 
expected to winter in the country. Under no circum- 
stances Avould I have assumed an obligation to remain 
in the interior under conditions that would have forced 
me to be inactive. And so it happened that Donald 
McKercher and I were selected for the dash through 
to Dawson at a time when the Yukon Avas already 
blocked by ice at its mouth and the shortest days of 
the year close at hand, the daylight lasting less than 
half as long as at the season Avhen trips are generally 
made, 
. The Skagway TraiL 
The trail across White Pass last fall was more of a 
theory than a condition. At the time of our arrival 
not half a dozen parties in all had succeeded in cross- 
ing to Lake Bennett, and one of these Avas lost seven 
days trying to find the lake. The first five miles of the 
trail Avas all that could be desired. After that it de- 
generated from bad to worse, till finally, as Nessmuk 
expresses it, it ran up a tree and ended in a knot hole. 
Miles of the trail Avas a river of mud. An old story 
given a local application is of a man Avho saAV a stranger 
up to his neck in the mud and asked if he was in need 
of assistance. "No, thank you," the man in the mud 
is said to haA^e replied, "I have a good horse under me." 
In August and September horses died by the Avhole- 
sale. It Avas said that when AAdnter came a man could 
Avalk the entire forty-five miles of the trail on the bodies 
of dead horses, and in places they lay eight or ten in 
one spot, looking as though they had been killed in bat- 
tle. Many of the mud holes on the trail Avere impas- 
sable till they had been corduroyed Avith the bodies^ of 
dead horses, and it did not take long for the living 
horses to leamthe tt'iclf of using the others for stepping 
stones. 
One party of twelve men Avho landed at the same 
time Ave did lost fifty horses and spent $15,000, and after 
all only succeeded in getting across the pass supplies 
for five months, and started so late in the season that 
they Avere frozen in before reaching DaAvson. No one 
crossed White Pass in season except at a sacrifice of 
some kind. 
Horses and men were alike overworked. It was 
a never-ceasing battle Avith implacable nature from day- 
light till dark, and long after, weekdays and Sundays. 
Most men Avorked far beyond their strength, and that 
they did not die on the trail like the horses is due to 
the purpose which animated them. You can't kill a 
man by work Avhile he has hope. 
Our boys more than held their own Avith the proces- 
sion. Our horses Avere kept in good condition largely 
OAving to Herrington's judgment, and with McKercher 
to lead and Sheriff" to "chase horses" behind, and 
Baskerville someAvhere in the middle to boss the job 
and do the cussing, our pack train soon Avon the reputa- 
tion of being one of the fastest and best on the trail. 
McKercher and Sheriff developed into good packers, 
and to see them throAV the diamond one Avould have 
thought thev had been at it all their lives. One of our 
chief^aims Avas to keep our horses' backs in good shape, 
and in this we succeeded admirably. Many parties were 
ignorant of the first rudiments of packing, and lost horses 
as a direct result of clumsy hitches, which permitted the 
load to sway and fub the animals' backs, 
