62 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 28, 1899. 
Yukon Notes. 
Story of the Colorado Miners. 
A STRANGE chain of circumstances starting at the head- 
waters of tlie Klondike River the preceding summer led 
to_ the recovery of the missing boats. A party of Colorado 
miners had made their way up this beautiful rapid stream to 
its source, 150 miles from Dawson. Only one other 
party had penetrated so far, and these men had turned 
back without prospecting and fled ignominiously, driven 
out of the country by wolves. The Colorado miners were 
good hunters and well armed, and though the great Alaska 
wolves, which are the largest in the world, came close to 
their camps at night, they were not alarmed, and indus- 
triously prospected the main stream, as well as the various 
pups and gulches they passed. They found no gold worth 
mentioning, but they killed three moose and enjoyed them- 
selves while the pleasant weather lasted. 
And so the short summer passed and the time . 
came for them to return to Dawson to lay in their winter 
supply of provisions. They anticipated no trouble in se- 
curing the needed outfit, for they had heard nothing of 
the inrush of 4,500 men from the outside world, who had 
settled down on Dawson like a swarm of hungry locusts 
and already devoured everything in sight. 
How tirelessly minute and incomprehensibly compli- 
cated are the workings of Providence! If these miners 
had not been cut off from information and so lost their 
chance of securing a grub stake, tliere is little probability 
we should ever have recovered our lost boats. As it was. 
they found it impossible to winter in Dawson, and nothing 
remained but to start for the coast without delay. The 
ice had temporarily jammed in the Yukon, and thinkiag 
the river had closed for good and all, they started Oct. 
22, with five Aveeks' supplies lashed to hand sleds. 
The first daj^ out the river opened again, and the miners 
secured a boat and struggled desperately to make progress 
by tracking. In this they were unsuccessful, and they 
were obliged to resort again to their sleds, dragging them 
where feasible along a narrow rim of shore ice, and at 
other times taking to the land and .scaling the precipitous 
banks of the pent in river. 
Sometimes they followed for miles the base of bastion- 
like cliffs only to come to places where their narrow ice 
path ended, sheared close off by the sweep of the throttled 
river. Long detours were necessary to get around such 
places, and these involved climbing that was difficult and 
dangerous to an extreme. 
Once one of the party who had gone ahead to look out 
a route slipped and barely caiight himself at the edge 
of a vertical drop of 200ft. Below was the dizxily hurry- 
ing ice current, and he did not dare look down. Above 
was a rounded edge of crusted snow and icy rock that af- 
forded no foothold, or roughened projections which he 
couM grasp Avith his hands. He was in a trap, from which 
he could not unaided rescue himself. An -hour later his 
companions found him half- frozen. hangin,g on with 
stiffened muscles and closed eyes. This man had easily 
been the most daring of the party, but after that liis nerve 
was gone, and he was content to Iceep in- tke rear and let 
others take the risks. 
Their progress was necessarily very slow. Once, owing 
to a detour, they found that after a day's work they had 
actually lost ground. Sometimes they were unable to draw 
their loaded sleds up the places it was necessary for them 
to climb, and they had to unpack and take the loads' over a 
little at a time on their backs. 
Five days' travel above the Stewart River they sighted a 
raft grounded on a bar in mid-channel. The shore was 
a maze of wolf trails, and a number of ravens had alighted 
on the cargo, which proved to be sheep carcasses intended 
for the Dawson market. 
The miners spent a day attempting to reach the raft, 
but in the end Avere imsuccessful. Their supplies were 
getting low, and the fresh mutton would have been a god- 
send. 
Further up the river they had a smiilar experience Avitn 
a beef raft. It Avas tantalizing to see so much good food 
going to waste when they were already contemplating the 
likeliliood of starvation. 
Thirty miles below Selkirk their supplies were almost 
gone, and the miners were still the best p3.rt of 500 miles 
from the coast. The river is about half a mile wide at 
this point. Across on a flat Avhich marks the mouth of 
Sehvyn Creek they saAV a boat draAvn up out of reach of 
the ice. The river had jammed again, and Iavo of the 
miners, whom I will call Lingard and Dartois. though 
these are not their names, started across on the ice to 
beg supplies. When tliey were in mid-stream the jam 
began breaking up, and the two men saw death staring 
them in the face. They looked first at the north bank 
where their companions Avere, and 'then at the other shore, 
and saw that the latter Avas nearest. In anotlicr moment 
they were racing desperately toAvard it, leaping at times 
across great fissures, where the black Avater yawned for 
them, and at times floating doAvn on detached unstable 
masses. , . , , 
Eventuallv, more by luck than anything else, they 
reached the' south bank of the river. They made their 
way to the tent of the men whose boat they had sighted, 
and told their story. The strangers said they were sorry 
for them, but that they Avere short of food themselves. 
They gave Lingard and Dartois their dinner and a fcAv 
pounds of oatmeal, and told them they had nothing more 
to spare. .... 
Lingard and Dartois could not rejom their companions 
and they had no axe or blankets. At night they kept from 
freezing by building two fires and huddling betAveen 
them. They could not sleep for the cold, and much of 
l^eir time Avas taken up breaking loose Avith their hands 
and dragging to their fire portions of dead trees for fuel. 
For four days and nights Lingard and Dartois suffered 
the Esquimaux's hell, which is slow death by freezing. 
The fifth day Lingard, who was leading, under the 
guidance of what appeared a strange perversity of judg- 
ment, left the shore line of the river, where the travehng 
Avas good, and the river bordered by the only piece of flat 
land for ten miles, and crossed over to an island. When 
thev reached the bead of thjs island the tAvo men found 
themseh'es cut off from the main land by open water. It 
looked as if they would have to retrace their steps, and 
Dartois Avas not slow to upbraid his companion for tak- 
ing them out of their Way, 
Lingard was put on his mettle, and seeing a narrow 
strip of ice reaching to the next island above, which, as it 
happened, was still further out in the river, he determined 
to gain that instead of retreating. It was a risky enter- 
prise, for a strong current set full against the rim of 
ice and it might be carried away any moment by the 
drifting masses, Avhich Avere continually carried against 
and under the obstruction. In their desperate condition, 
hoAvever, the men had lost the true perspective of dan- 
ger, and Avere Avilling to take any risks. 
When three-quarters of the Avay over, Dartois, Avho Avas 
following, uttered an exclamation and called his compan- 
ion's attention to something under a piled-up ice mass 
he had just crossed. Lingard looked and saw a piece of 
white canvas, and near by a broken end of rope. The 
things Avere suggestiA^e, and the two men set to Avorjs. re-v 
moving the ice as best they could with their hands. 
Beneath the canvas they soon recognized the rounded 
form of provision sacks, and at one side some implement 
Avith a liandle. As soon as they were able to do so, they 
ripped the canvas open, and the contents of one of our 
freight boats were revealed. The handled implement 
proved to be an axe, and with its aid they made progress 
rapidly. 
A second boat was uncovered, and in this the tv.'o cast- 
aways found a tent. They were half-starved and could 
wait for no further discoveries. Lingard shouldered th(! 
tenJ:, and axe in hand led the way to the island. Dartois 
followed with a partly used sack of flour in one hand and 
in the other a galvanized iron horse pail half full of 
frozen sugar syrup, and the other half filled Avith dried 
peaches, Avhich he had gotten from one of the sacks. The 
syrup was a memento of our shipwreck in Lake Lebarge. 
^Ve laad placed the wet sugar sack in the horse pail in 
order to save Avhat leached away. 
They built a fire and had a meal of flapjacks and stCAved 
peaches. What the repa,st lacked in variety was fully com- 
pensated for by its abundance, and the poor felloAvs spent 
the best part of an afternoon eating their doughcakes and 
sickly sweet peaches. 
They pitched the tent back in the Avoods on the isl- 
and, Avhere it Avas out of sight from the riA^er and main- 
land as well, and the day folloAving they removed the 
cargoes of the boats and carried the things to their camp. 
There is reason to believe that Lingard and Dartois, 
though they had stumbled on the boats by the merest ac- 
cident, knew of our loss, and kncAV that we were at Fort 
Selkirk, only six miles aAvay. One of the men seen at 
the time of their separation from their party kncAv the de- 
tails of our missing boats, and as the information cost him 
nothing to impart, he Avas probably ready enough to gfive 
it aAvay to the men Avho asked for food. 
Lingard and Dartois did not want to run the risk of a 
refusal of supplies from the owners of the boats, and no 
doubt they determined to Avait Avhere they were till the 
river closed, and then rejoin their party, Avith Avhom they 
had managed to keep in communication by signalling 
across the river. The united party could then lake Avhat 
provisions they needed and pass by Fort Selkirk on the 
opposite side of the river Avlthout our knowing anything 
Avhatever of the occurrence. 
Fortunately for us, however. Providence had a dift'erent 
plan, and twenty-four hours after the boats Avere dis- 
covered Lingard froze his feet. There was no stove with 
the boats, and an unheated tent Avas no place for a man in 
that condition. There was but one thing to be done, and 
Lingard set out at once for Fort Selkirk. 
He reached our cabin just at dark, and we took him in 
and bathed his feet with kerosene and poulticed them 
Avith dessicated onions, warmed in the frying pan. After- 
Avard we gave him a good hot .supper, and promised him 
a place between us in the sleeping bag Ave had constructed 
by seAving the edges of 7olbs. of blankets together. 
When he had finished his supper, Lingard told his story 
up to the point of finding the boats. Then, after much 
beating around the bush, he tried to make a bargain Avith 
us for information regarding the Avhereabouts of the boats. 
Mac and I at once recognized the fact that he had found 
our lost outfit and that it must be somewhere near by, 
and told him as much. We refused to make a bargain, but 
told him that we AA'Ould not see anyone starve Avhile avc 
had food ourselves, and in the end he threw himself on 
our mercy. 
It Avas long after midnight when Ave finally got to bed, 
but all three of us were easier in rnmd, if I am not mis- 
taken, than for maiw a long day. 
We Avere up betimes in the morning. Tile stars w«fe 
still twinkling overhead Avhen Mac returned from the 
river, Avhere he had gone to get a pail of Avater. and an- 
nounced that the Yukon had closed. The information 
seemed to diistress Lingard, Avho probably had no grean 
faith in our verbal promises. The poor felloAv had learned 
by bitter experience that charity is a rare quality in the 
Yukon when it comes to giving aAvay food, and one could 
hardly blame him if he was thinking of the other course 
of action he might have taken, even with frozen feet, if he 
had known the river was going to close so soon. 
JNIac agreed to try and communicate Avith Lingard's 
party, and it was decided that I should set off down the 
river at once to the point where Dartois Avas camped Avith 
the lost provisions. Mac and I still had a hankering dread 
lest the other members of Lingard's party might decamp 
Avith the food, and it seemed best to have one of us on the 
spot as soon as possible. 
Some Indians who came in Avhile Ave Avere at breakfast 
told us that the riA'-er was .still Unsafe, and that it would 
not do to trust to it till the folloAving day. The water had- 
backed up 12 or 15ft. and every once in a while the ice, 
acted upon by the great pressure above, moved ahead a 
little. Patches of open water Avere visible here and there, 
and in places the ice was flooded to a depth Of several feet. 
The band of shore ice Avhich Lingard folloAved had, of 
course, disappeared. 
I determined to travel as inuch as possible of the dis- 
tance to the island by land, and soon after daylight 
fastened on my Alaska snowshocs, which are twice as 
long and only half as broad as the common American 
web shoes, and set off. 
The first three miles of the journey Avas easy enough, 
but then I came to the gate of the Ramparts, and my diffi- 
culties began. Here a Ioav but terribly precipitous moun- 
tain, Avith a perpendicular face to the river, opposed 
further progress. I made several unsuccessful attempts 
to scale it, and when at last I succeeded I found the 
way so blocked by slides and ledges, and the day so far 
gone, that it was plainly impossible to reach my destina- 
tion before night by that route. Only one course re- 
mained, and that was to take to the ice of the river. 
I retraced ray steps, struggling through the soft, fluffy 
snow up to my Avaist, for it was impossible to use snow- 
shoes on such a hillside, and eventually reached the river 
bank just above the mountain. I secured a pole to test 
the ice, and crossing 30ft. of open water next shore on a 
great cake of mush ice, gained a footing on the main floe 
in the channel. 
Darkness was fast settling doAvn, and before I had gone 
a .mile night was upon me, black and starless. The 
spectral outline of the nearest mountain was almost lost 
ih the gloom, and had it not been for the reflection of the 
ice and snow I should have been unable to travel. 
Owing to the backing up of the river and consequent 
flooding of the ice, a thin skin of brash ice covered the 
surface in many places, and sometimes this concealed 
dangerous pitfalls. At times I drove my pole through this 
flimsy covering into the black current beneath, that ran 
with the speed of a mill race and pulled at the pole as if 
struggling to drag it from my grasp. Once I came to a 
rapid that was still for the mo.st part open Avater. and had 
to cross this on a narrow bridge of ice that rocked with 
the recoil of the white-capped waves dashing b}^ 
It Avas tAvo hours after dark when I reached the island 
and found Dartois crouching over his fire. The poor fel- 
low Avas sick and half-frozen, and seemed almost to have 
forgotten how to talk, though his diFficulty with articula- 
tion Avas partly due to stiffened lips. His pleasure at see- 
ing a felloAV being Avas A'ery marked. He got me some- 
thing to eat, and then I proposed that Ave should go back 
together to Fort Selkirk for the night. Dartois shuddered 
at the thought, remarking that in the first place he did not 
think he could Avalk six miles in his present condition, 
and in the second, even if it were possible he could not risk 
the trip in the dark for all the gold in the Klondike. Not 
even the thought of a Avarm bed and food cooked over a 
stove could tempt him. 
As he Avould not go back A\dth me, I resolved to staj 
Avith him, and asked what bedding there was in camp. 
Dartois said the only things they had rescued were a Ken- 
Avood sleeping bag and a red blanket. This latter was 
someAvhat the Avorse for Avear, as it had been used for a 
horse blanket on the SkagAvay trail. 
"Lingard and I got in the d'eeping bag together and put 
the blanket over us," he remarked, "but then Lingard is 
thinner than you are — lost it since we left Dawson." I 
recollected that Lingard Avas the build of a fence rail, an.l 
as Dartois said it Avas a tight fit, I had little hopes of get- 
ting into the bag. 
I had Avet my feet coming down the river, and spent_ the 
evening drying out socks and moccasins. The provisions 
Avere piled up at one end of the fire to form a wind 
break, and close by was the tent, pitched low and partly 
covered with .snow. It was a bitter cold night. Dartois 
looked once , at the spring thermometer, a very reliable 
instrument that had formed a part of my outfit, and an- 
nounced that it registered forty beloAV zero. Finally the 
last of the dry Avood Avas put on the fire, and Dartois said 
1 here Avas no more on the island, and that Ave must turn in. 
"We must make the best of it till morning," he remarked; 
"God knows if we shall ever see another day." 
He led the way into the tent, which was covered inside 
with ice from congealed breath, and AA^as about as inviting 
a place to sleep in as one of the A^anlts of a cold storage 
Avarehouse. He cautioned me to rub my nose to keep it 
from freezing, and crawled doAvn into the sleeping bag. 
I attempted to follow, but stuck fast when I got as far 
as my hips. The bag pinched so that I was afraid it would 
stop the circulation, Avhich Avould make freezing all the 
more certain, so I drcAV back, leaving only my feet in it. 
A few spruce boughs and a piece of canvas had been laid 
on the snow as a foundation for the bed. BeloAV that 
again was fifty or a hundred feet of perpetually frozen 
ground- I spread one thickness of the blanket on top of 
the canvas, and then drcAv it up around my body and over 
my head, and thus protected put in a night that, aside from 
the mental Avorry, Avas not nearly so uncomfortable as one 
Avould have expected. 
Of course sleeping was out of the question, and all 
through the long arctic night Dartois and I kept up a de- 
sultary conversation. Inside my heavy buckskin gauntlets 
my hands became numb and ached, and from time to time 
I could feel the cold take hold of sojne particular portion 
of my body Avith stealthy nipping fingers that made me 
writhe at the thought of Avhat might be the consequences 
of that leperous touch. We turned over frequently dur- 
ing the night to assure ourselves that circulation Avas not 
impaired, and never once did we get into that blissful 
- dreamy state that is said to come to persons Avhen freezing 
to death. 
Earlier in the evening, with a roaring camp-fire o.f 
.spruce logs to giA^e Avarmth, I had shivered and felt almost 
as uncomfortable as noAV. It could hardly be possible 
that a single thickness of threadbare blanket was in 
any way equivalent to the fire. The subject of the pOAver 
of the human body to resist cold is a puzzling one. Not 
only training but also Avill power seems to enter the prob- 
lem. I believe now that if I had been in a discouraged and 
hopeless frame of mind. I might easily hava frozen. 
Bodily nourishment had also a good deal to do with my 
ability to resist the cold, and the supper T had eaten, 
though scanty and poorly cooked, Avas a factor of the 
greatest importance. 
Equally mysterious is the effect of training. Why is it 
that Andrew Flett (mentioned earlier in these articles) 
did not freeze wearing the lightest of clothing in mid- 
winter? One can readily understand that he could accus- 
tom himself to be more comfortable scantily clothed than 
another man under the same conditions, but Avhen the 
man beside him freezes to deatli it is hard to understand 
hoAV Flett escapes the touch of the frost. Natural vitality 
and good circulation could hardly account for the differ- 
ence. 
When Dartois and I crawled out of the tent the follow- 
ing morning, Ave found the Aveather had moderated con- 
siderabl}'. We hustled round and got some wood, and 
had breakfast. AfterAvard we set out for Fort Selkirk, 
meeting on the Avay a relief party Avith a sled. 
Lingard, Dartois and tlie oth'er members of the party 
