Oct. 7, 1899,] 
AND STREAM. 
Tr— - — — «- — 
but merely tempers them. In winter the intricate 
icery of twigs IS revealed, and is of itself a beautiful 
:hr . The massive shaft bursts into a s.*V;af of springing 
ughs, which again break into a shower of branches, with 
spray of twigs. The tree suggests a fountain in its 
anner of growth, particularly when swathed and drip- 
-ig with snow or ice, and the aspect of one of these aisles 
a glittering, frosty morning is of fantastic loveliness. 
■Who is there of New England birth to whom the elm- 
ided way is not a vivid memory? As the wanderer 
turus to his home the first sight of the village street, 
ith its leafy canopy, thrills him with its familiar charm, 
owever snnple the dwellings that border it. the sight of 
at accustomed way is beautiful, and dear the roof-tree 
- which he has longed during his pilgrimage, and to it 
returns with a deep and satisfied sense of unchanged 
lauty. Experience and travel dwarf many things to the 
atufe eye, so that a home-coming, after a'far journey, is 
)t without its shadow of disappointment ; but, wherever 
le may roam, whatever visions may have satiated his 
e, the sight of the elm-shaded paths of New England 
n never disappomt one of. her returning children." 
r 
Forest Fire Destruction, 
at or or est and Stream: 
Your publication, in a recent number, of the " Camp- 
ire Rules," as lixed by New York Commissioners, leads 
e to infer that the prevention of fires is the principal 
ecaution taken in that State to obviate destruction by 
rest fires. It may be, however, that other measures 
e also practiced by the authorities. 
California has laws prohibiting the setting out of fires, 
rd I think some arrests have been made for the offenses 
lacted against by the lawmakers, but this has not pre- 
nted, and does not prevent, the destruction of a vast 
nount of timber in the mountains each year by forest - 
Conditions oil the Pacific Coast doubtless differ ma- 
rially from those of the Atlantic, but a Stole as old in 
perience as New York must have learned that mere 
gislation against either intentional or careless setting 
it of fires apes not protect forests from fires. On the 
intrary, if the preservation of timber or property is 
e fundamental object in view, the prevention of the 
dicious firing of forest undergrowth, at proper seasons, 
ill not protect, but will most certainly hazard both 
rests and settlements in them. To permit the accuraula- 
m of trash in the forests year by j'ear is not a rational 
ly to protect them. 
In so far as applies to the region of northern California, 
e subject is one with which all observant mountaineers 
e familiar ; but, as far as any practical effort is made, it 
ould seem that legislators never conceive of any method 
forest protection other than the enactment of laws pro- 
biting alaout the only protection to California forests that 
possible. As a matter of unmistakable fact, the only 
actical protection for mountain forests is to keep down 
e accumulation of debris and undergrowth. The longer 
•e is prevented the more complete is the destruction 
entually. Fire is the only preventive of wholesale coii- 
igration in extensive scopes of forest. It is the natural 
gulator of the wilderness, and the more necessary where 
|W mills and settlements have changed natural conditions. 
It is about as reasonable to permit the accumulation 
: jungle, trash and tinder in the forest districts as it is 
• would be to pile the alleyways of a city with similar 
od for flames. Destruction might be guarded against 
ir a time, but the longer the trash is permitted to in- 
case the more complete the destruction that continually 
reatens and eventually results. 
It has been particularly noticeable in the California 
■^rras that undergrowth and shrubbery of various kinds 
Bve invariably and rapidly thickened about settlements, 
many localities where the country was open and covered 
ith tall grass, before pioneer settlement, it is now, 
herever uncultivated, covere* by dense thickets of brush 
id vines. Where before settlement there was only large 
3iber, or scattering trees, the thickets of chaparral, 
anzanita and dead underbrush are often impenetrable 
ir long distznces. This is accounted for by the pasturing 
browsing herds that denuded the land of grass after 
ttlement, and by the prevention of fires that the Indians 
■e said to have formerly set out to facilitate the taking 
game. 
In mountain timber, in addition to the accumulation 
om other causes, the process of cutting timber and 
mbering supplies large areas with inflammable trash, in- 
cases and protects the undergrowth, affording here 
id there in almost every forest region a guarantee that a 
rge area of forest will be destroyed whenever a spark 
applied. Probably as much, or more, timber has been 
lUs burned by lumbermen than has been utilized. 
In the Sierras of California, after four, or perhaps six 
Onths, when not a drop of rain has fallen, there are 
mdreds of chances for fires to start, and no amount of 
gilance or legislation can prevent them ultimately. I 
ive recently seen about a thousand acres of heavy 
nber in an isolated mountain locality that was burned a 
mple of years ago. In this instance there had been no 
mbering, and the result was from the accumulation .of 
ash and undergrowth ftred by a hunter or camper in the 
yest season of the year. There were thousands of the 
lest of pines, firs and cedars piled in half-burned heaps, 
- left standing, charred beyond recovery. Scarcely a tree 
tile acre remained alive, A conservative estimate would 
; that 30.ooo,pooft. of first-class timber was destroyed 
•f this one fire, and it was only a small blaze for a 
klifornia forest fire. No summer passes but such, and 
rger, fires occur, often obscuring the landscape and 
jverjng half the State with smoke for many weeks. The 
ily pre\rentive to this wholesale and continued destruc- 
on has been the enactment of laws that there are not", 
etectives enough on the coast to enforce. - ' = ' 
The only rational system of forest protection for the 
acific Coast that would be practicable and efficient is 
> prevent conflagrations by a systematic and judicious 
ring of thickets and trash accumulations at the , right 
mes and seasons. To supervise this would require the 
ivision of the forests into districts to which efficient 
'ardens or commissioners should be appointed. The 
alue destroyed by a single forest fire would employ a 
mall army of patrolmen for many years. As the case 
stands, the State has property of almost inesfiraable 
value, for the protcdion of which it does not expend as 
much as a small town would for a couple of fire engines 
and their crews, or a dozen pohcemen to guard its shops 
containing insignificant values. 
Charles L. Patge. 
CalH?ornia, September, 1899, 
Yukon Notes. 
{Cfiniiitited Xtam page 242.) 
According to Dawson, the distance from Rink Rapids 
to the Little Salmon, while only twenty-seven and one- 
half miles as the crow flies, is fifty-three miles by the 
river. By the ice trail the distance was considerably 
greater than the last mentioned figures, and it required 
four days of hard work to cover it. We reached the Little 
Salmon four hours after nightfall on Jan. ii, and were 
much impressed after our lonely trip by the sight of two 
log buildings with light streaming from the v^indows, and 
a flagstafl', from which trailed a blood-red Union Jack. 
Leaving our sleds on the ice, wo. hurried forward and 
entered the largest of the cabins. Seated around a table 
in the center, strewed with books, cards and papers, and 
illuminated by lamps burning kerosene, were several clean- 
cut, well matured and well groomed men of a distinctly 
official type. 
They rose to greet us, and we were made acquainted 
with Inspector C. Starnes, of the Northwest Mounted 
Police ; Hon. Mr. Justice McGuire, and Mr. F. C. Wade, 
Crown Prosecutor. Later we met Messrs. Bowles and 
Weinburg, of Seattle, who were traveling in company with 
the police at the time their partner, Freeman^ was 
drowned. Besides these, a Mr. and Mrs. Jory were 
wintering at the Little Salmon, and there were three other 
men in the police party, making a total of eleven persons 
at this point. The river closed here Nov. 27, ten days 
later than at Fort Selkirk. 
After a short conversation, we were giveti the freedom 
of the cook house and a good stove, and prepared our- 
selves a bountiful supper from our supplies. That night 
we slept in a heated apartment for the first time during 
the winter, rolling our blankets on the floor of the living 
room. We did not enjoy the experience. For a long 
lime we were too hot to sleep, and rolled around like polar 
bears in a city zoo in summer. At length, however, tired 
nature got the upper hand, and we passed into a state of 
troubled dreams, and all too soon the post was astir, and it 
was time to get up. How unsatisfactory such nights are ! 
Just when one really begins to rest, he finds that he must 
get about the day's business again, , and he does not feel as 
if he had slept at all. One cause of our discomfort was due 
to the fact that our blankets thawed out and became 
saturated with water from the melted ice. 
We breakfasted with the police party by Inspector 
Starnes' invitation, and a fine set of men we found them 
to be. Mr. Wade was an old Toronto University man 
(not very old either; his age was thirty-five), and he and 
Mac were soon deep in a discussion of memories of their 
Alma Mater. The Crown Prosecutor had been editor of 
the Winnipeg Press. 
Judge McGuire was a man who was for some reason or 
other connected with decisions at the time of the Kiel 
Rebellion, decidedly unpopular with the Indian and half- 
breed scouts accompanying the police. He had the reputa- 
tion of being a stern and unyielding judge, but socially iie 
was an extremely pleasant man. 
Judge McGuire had been actuated by a fine sense of 
duty when he accepted the position of first judge of the. 
Provincial District of the Yukon. Though well past 
middle age, he was the j'oungest available judge for the 
new district. A man was wanted at a time when, for 
parliamentary reasons, none could be appointed from 
outside the existing bench, and accordingly Judge Mc- 
Guire left his comfortable home in Prince Albert, and 
his systematized routine of work, and faced the hard- 
ships of a new country at a time when the arctic winter 
was just settling down. 
There was no possible recompense to him for the 
sacrifice he had made, yet he made it cheerfully, and was 
entering on his new duties with an interest that indi- 
cated how thoroughly the work would be performed. 
After breakfast, when we left on our way up river. 
Judge McGuire accompanied us for a distance of several 
miles, and at hard places on the ice trail he boosted on the 
sleds with no uncertain hand. He was taking his morn- 
ing constitutional. The Judge was a great walker, and on 
several occasions had traveled ten or twelve miles on these 
after breakfast spins. 
The Day it Blew. 
We were three days in making the distance from the 
Little Salmon to the Big Salmon. The distance, accord- 
ing to the map, is thirty-four miles. 
The second day out we encountered a terrific wind 
which blew the trail full of snow and completely obliter- 
ated it. No traveling parties had passed for a week, and 
with a track to break, we missed them more than ever. 
Mac and I took half-hour turns at leading, and when 
the time was up we would fall back to the rear position 
pretty well exhausted. 
An hour before sunset we saw on the opposite bank of 
the river a wooden door in the side of a mound of earth 
that looked like some of the vaults in Greenwood Cem- 
etery. The place had a familiar appearance, and Mac and I 
called to mind how from our boats the previous fall we had 
looked at this same dugout and watched its solitary occu- 
pant standing in the doorway. The man, whoever he was, 
had been a taciturn individual with little to say in answer 
to our questions. Now we could see that he had gone and 
the place was deserted. A fresh wolf's track crossing to 
the very door was the only sign that life other than ours 
existed. Mac suggested taking up our quarters in the 
place for the night, but I had a prejudice against dug- 
outs, and very foolishly refused, arguing that we had not 
made our full quota of miles for the day. 
The hills were beautifully wooded jus^L,^ere, but further 
along they gave place to a bleak, qpemcguntry, with only 
occasional strips of scanty timber, .-and' at, sundown we 
found ourselves bucking against a piercing gale, with no 
suitable camping place in sight. 
Though we did not consult our thermometer, the 
temperature must suddenly have taken a considerable 
drop, for now the wind seemed to stop the flow of the 
blood and to harden and stiffen the muscles ,at the very 
time when we were exerting ourselves to the utmost. The 
sensation was terrifying, for it plainly indicated that a 
further increase in the cold or a lessening of our vital 
powers would result in death by freezing. We each felt 
the danger equally, and slipping from our sled harness, we 
set off in search of a spot where we might find fuel and a 
shelter from the wind. At first we were unsuccessful, and 
after twenty minutes' search we returned to the sleds, 
colder, if anything, than before, though we had been run- 
ning all the time. On ahead the cut bank at the river's 
edge attained a height of 30 to 50ft., with no suitable break 
for getting up the sleds. Near at hand, however, there 
was a sag in the bank, and though the place appeared to 
be unprotected from the wind and barren of firewood, we 
determined to investigate it more closely. Behind, and 
only a short distance away, was a steep, stone-fronted 
mountain, and the prospect certainly was not encouraging. 
As good luck would have it, however, there was a swamp 
hole between the river and the base of the mountain, and 
in the center of this, among the deciduous brush, we found 
a fairly thick growth of stunted evergreens. The snow 
was niore than waist deep, but it felt warm compared with 
the air, as we made our way through it, occasionally trip- 
ping and falling. We broke a trail to the spot and hauled 
our sleds there, and then, a hundred yards further to the 
right, we found some dead trees, and cut them down for 
our fire, " 
By the time we got this wood to our camping spot we 
were pretty well used Up with the cold and tire, and for 
the first and only time reduced to crawling as a means 
of making our way from place to place. 
Soon, however, we had the fire going, and by the time 
its blaze illuminated the black, wildly swaying tops of the 
.spruces we were ourselves again. The great volumes of 
wind passed over our heads, and in our hole in the snow, 
protected by our bough windbreak, we felt snug and com- 
fortable once more. 
Captain Ambrose. 
The next day we lunched with Captain Ambrose. The 
fact that we had only eaten our own lunch an hour be- 
fore did not prevent our doing full credit to the feast of 
bacon and biscuit which was set before us. We paid $13 
for the meal and a few pounds of dog biscuit which our 
host graciously permitted us to purchase, and afterward 
we felt so strengthened and refreshed that we resolved to 
make the Big Salmon that night, a distance of twelve 
Alaskan miles. 
Captain Ambrose was living with one companion in a 
nice little log cabin at the place where four of the police 
boats went to smash in an ice jam. A part of the cargoes 
had been rescued, and he was stationed here in charge of 
the goods. He was a very gentlemanly and affable man, 
and later we were surprised to learn that he was an un- 
educated half-breed Indian, who couldn't write his name 
or tell a single one of the letters of the alphabet. 
Captain Ambrose, so they said, had discovered a gold 
mine at Rat Portage and sold out for a handsome figure 
in cold cash. With a fat bank account to his credit, he 
determined to gratify the great ambition of his life and 
become a steamboat captain. He accordingly bought a 
steamboat and installed himself as her first officer, and 
cruised around at random for a while, enjoying his new 
title. If he had been content with the steamboat, he might 
have been a de facto captain still, but he aspired to more, 
and became a high roller, with the result that he woke 
up one fine day to find himself just where he had been 
before he discovered the gold mine. That was about the 
time the Klondike began to be talked of. Ambrose had 
a superstition that, he was a lucky man to find gold, and 
he thought if he could get to the Klondike he would soon 
have his steamboat and all the rest back again, so he 
applied to Major Walsh for a position with the police 
force that was being sent to Dawson. The Major heard 
that he was a captain, arid engaged him in the capacity of 
boatman. When they came to embark on the lakes, Am- 
brose was put in charge of one of the boats, but a gale soon 
knocked out of his head any conceit that might have re- 
mained, and he Avent to his commanding officer and begged 
to be made a cook, or dish washer, or anything else than 
, boatman, solemnly affirming that he knew nothing what- 
ever of navigation, and was not and never had been a 
"water captain." 
From Fifteen to Forty Below, 
We had another uncomfortable experience with the 
cold before reaching the Big Salmon. Night overtook us 
before we had covered one-third the distance, and, again 
the_ thermometer proved unstable. 
Sunset came about 3 P. M., according to our time, and 
the night was very dark by 4 o'clock. The trail was 
fresh broken ahead of us, however, and we had little 
difficulty in following it. 
The day had been very mild and still, but along about 
9 in the evening there was a sighing sound in the neigh- 
boring treetops, and a tinkling of the brash ice on the 
river as the wind caught up the loose snow and swept it 
along, and simultaneously we felt the cold. 
_ W e were so sure we Avere near the temporary police post 
that we did not at first stop to put on our coats and 
sweaters, which were tied to the sleds, and then it was 
too late. The buckskin part of my gauntlets was worn 
thin at- the ends of the fingers, and I could feel the frost 
nip through, and the right hand, which held the gee 
pole, becoming numb. Mac's hands were in the same con- 
dition. To get on our coats and sweaters necessitated 
taking off the bulky gauntlets, and it seemed certain our 
hands would freeze in the operation. Then too we did not 
feel like standing still long enough to change, nor were we 
sure that it could be accomplished with numbed hands, so 
we buckled down to work and made the best time possible 
for the post. 
Some time before 10, six hours after nightfall, we 
sighted a boat turned bottom upward on the bank,' and 
behind it several mounds of snow-covered dirt. Sliisping 
out of our harness, we ran up on the bank and threaded 
our way among the caches of food and unlighted dugouts 
whose occupants were either asleep or away, till at the' 
very end of the gopher settlement we spied a light over the 
door of a dug-out, whose diimney was spurting a young 
volcano of sparks into the night air. 
