10 THE PORCUPINE PLACER DISTRICT, ALASKA. [bull. 236. 
ITINERARY. 
Leaving Seattle on June 23, 1903, Haines Mission, Alaska, was reached 
four days later. This mission, established in 1881, is pleasantly situ- 
ated 17 miles below Skagway, on the protected bay of Portage Cove, and 
is immediately surrounded by gentty sloping land. Besides the native 
village of about 80 huts, there are several trading stores, a drug store, 
a comfortable hotel — the "Northern" — and large mission buildings. 
The War Department is establishing an army post 1 mile south of the 
town. A square mile or more of ground had already been cleared 
and barracks were being built at the time of the writer's visit. 
From here the Porcupine gold field may be reached either by the 
Dalton trail, which starts at Pyramid Harbor, on the west shore of 
Chilkat Inlet, or by way of Chilkat River to the Indian village Klu- 
kwan, and thence up Klehini River, a west branch of the Chilkat, to 
Porcupine. 
The latter route was chosen, and two natives with a boat were 
engaged to ascend the Chilkat. It was necessary, however, to wait for 
a favorable south wind, the rapid current rendering it impossible even 
to pole upstream without the help of a sail. This delay gave time for 
an investigation of Chilkat Peninsula, a strip of land extending 6 
miles south of Haines Mission (see PI. I), and in times past staked by 
prospectors for gold, copper, and iron, though nothing worthy of 
development has ever been found. The country rock is a much- 
contorted slate, with intrusive masses of nearly black pyroxenite 
and hornblendite carrying an abundance of magnetic iron ore. 
The portage of 1 mile to Pyramid Point, on the Chilkat, was made 
on the morning of June 29. Head winds encountered there made it 
necessary to pole the canoe along the shore for several miles to a point 
above the Chilkat village, Yendestaka, at the head of tidewater. This 
slow mode of progression permitted a study of the outcrops along the 
east bank, which were composed of dark intrusive rock similar to that 
exposed farther south on Chilkat Peninsula. The valley of Chilkat 
River between Yendestaka and Pyramid Point broadens to form 
McClellan Flats, a tide- water area of numerous channels and .sand bars, 
approximately 2 miles wide. Above Kicking Horse and Takhin riv- 
ers, tributaries from the west, the valley decreases in width and the 
river is divided by many wooded islands. There is a marked con- 
trast between the rounded, barren mountains to the east and the 
rugged, broken peaks, mostly covered with snow and glaciers, to the 
west, although on both sides of the river the mountains rise to an 
elevation of 1,000 to 6,000 feet. 
Fifteen miles above Yendestaka is the small Indian village of Kat- 
kwaltu (place of the gulls), on the east bank of the river. Six miles 
above Katkwaltu is Klukwan (the old town), at the mouth of Salmon 
