Klondyke Nuggets: a Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest

CHAPTER I.. Klondyke.

KLONDYKE.

Klondyke! The word and place that has startled the civilized world is to-day a series of thriving mining camps on the Yukon River and its tributaries in the Canadian Northwest Territories.

Prior to August 24, 1896, this section of the country had never been heard of. It was on this day that a man named Henderson discovered the first gold.

On the first day of the following month the writer commenced erecting the first house in this region and called the place Dawson City, now the central point of the mining camps.

Dawson City is now the most important point in the new mining regions. Its population in June, 1897; exceeded 4,000; by June next it cannot be less than 25,000. It has a saw-mill, stores, churches, of the Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist and Roman Catholic denominations. It is the headquarters of the Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, and perfect law and order is maintained.

It is at Dawson City that the prospector files his claims with the Government Gold Commissioner, in the recording offices.

Dawson City faces on one of the banks of the Yukon River, and now occupies about a mile of the bank. It is at the junction of the Klondyke River with the Yukon River. It is here where the most valuable mining claims are being operated on a scale of profit that the world has hitherto never known. The entire country surrounding is teeming with mineral wealth.

Copper, silver and coal can be found in large quantities, but little or no attention is now being paid to these valuable minerals, as every one is engaged in gold-hunting and working the extraordinary placer mining claims already located.

The entire section is given up to placer mining. Very few claims had been filed for quartz mining. The fields of gold will not be exhausted in the near future. No man can tell what the end will be. From January to April, 1897, about $4,000,000 were taken out of the few placer claims then being worked. This was done in a territory not exceeding forty square miles. All these claims are located on Klondyke River and the little tributaries emptying into it, and the districts are known as Big Bonanza, Gold Bottom and Honker.

I have asked old and experienced miners at Dawson City who mined through California in Bonanza days, and some who mined in Australia, what they thought of the Klondyke region, and their reply has invariably been, "The world never saw so vast and rich a find of gold as we are working now."

Dawson City is destined to be the greatest mining camp in the history of mining operations.

CHAPTER II.. Klondyke Facts.

KLONDYKE FACTS.

There is a great popular error in reference to the climate of the gold regions. Many reports have appeared in the newspapers which are misleading. It has been even stated that the cold is excessive almost throughout the year. This is entirely a mis-statement.

I have found I have suffered more from winter cold in Northern New York than I ever did in Alaska or the Canadian Northwest.

I have chopped wood in my shirt-sleeves in front of my door at Dawson City when the thermometer was 70 degrees below zero, and I suffered no inconvenience. We account for this from the fact that the air is very dry. It is a fact that you do not feel this low temperature as much as you would 15 below zero in the East.

We usually have about three feet of snow in winter and it is as dry as sawdust.

As we have no winter thaws no crust forms on the snow, therefore we travel from the various points that may be necessary with snowshoes. These may be purchased from the Indians in the vicinity of Dawson City at from $5.00 to $10.00 per pair according to the quality.

The winter days are very short. In this region there are only two hours from sunrise to sunset. The sun rises and sets away in the south but there is no pitch darkness.

The twilight lasts all night and the Northern Lights are very common. Then in summer it is exactly the other way. The day there in July is about twenty hours long. The sun rising and setting in the north. A great deal has been said about the short seasons, but as a matter of fact a miner can work 12 months in the year when in that region.

Spring opens about May 1st and the ice commences to break up about that time. The Yukon River is generally clear of ice about May 15. The best part of the miner's work commences then and lasts till about October 1st.

The winter commences in October but the miner keeps on working through the winter. The rainy season commences in the latter part of August and lasts two or three weeks.

A fall of two feet of snow is considered heavy.

There is a wide difference in the quantity of snow that accumulates on the coast and the ranges in the interior where the principal mining claims are located.

While the fall of snow on the coast is heavy the depth of snow as far down as the Yukon, Stewart and Klondyke rivers is inconsiderable.

In my new work on this territory entitled "Klondyke Facts" I deal more largely on the climate of this region.

There are still good diggings at Circle City in Alaska, but nearly all the miners have left for Klondyke, not being satisfied with the pay dirt which they were working. I know at least 20 good claims in Circle City.

Fort Cudahy, or as it is sometimes called Forty Mile Creek, is now practically exhausted as a mining camp, and the miners have left for other diggings.

There will undoubtedly be new and valuable diggings discovered very quickly along this region as it is certain that this enormous territory is rich in gold-bearing districts.

The entire country is teeming with mineral wealth.

When mining operations commence on coal it will be specially valuable for steamers on the various rivers and greatly assist transportation facilities.

In the next few years there will certainly be recorded the most marvellous discoveries in this territory, usually thought to be only a land of snow and ice and fit only to be classed with the Arctic regions.

It is marvellous to state that for some years past we have been finding gold in occasional places in this territory, but from the poverty of the people no effort was made to prospect among the places reported.

It is my belief that the greatest finds of gold will be made in this territory. It is safe to say that not 2 per cent. of all the gold discovered so far has been on United States soil.

The great mass of the work has been done on the Northwest territory, which is under the Canadian Government.

It is possible however that further discoveries will be made on American soil, but it is my opinion that the most valuable discoveries will be further east and south of the present claims, and would advise prospectors to work east and south of Klondyke.

THE YUKON RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

"What the Amazon is to South America, the Mississippi to the central portion of the United States, the Yukon is to Alaska. It is a great inland highway, which will make it possible for the explorer to penetrate the mysterious fastnesses of that still unknown region. The Yukon has its source in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and the Coast Range Mountains in southeastern Alaska, about 125 miles from the city of Juneau, which is the present metropolis of Alaska. But it is only known as the Yukon River at the point where the Pelly River, the branch that heads in British Columbia, meets with the Lewes River, which heads in southeastern Alaska. This point of confluence is at Fort Selkirk, in the Northwest Territory, about 125 miles south-east of the Klondyke. The Yukon proper is 2,044 miles in length. From Fort Selkirk it flows north-west 400 miles, just touching the Arctic circle; thence southward for a distance of 1,600 miles, where it empties into Behring Sea. It drains more than 600,000 square miles of territory, and discharges one-third more water into Behring Sea than does the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico. At its mouth it is sixty miles wide. About 1,500 miles inland it widens out from one to ten miles. A thousand islands send the channel in as many different directions. Only natives who are thoroughly familiar with the river are entrusted with the piloting of boats up the stream during the season of low water. Even at the season of high water it is still so shallow as not to be navigable anywhere by seagoing vessels, but only by flat-bottomed boats with a carrying capacity of four to five hundred tons. The draft of steamers on the Yukon should not exceed three and a half feet.

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