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[Illustration: AT THE FOOT OF THE CHILKOOT PASS]

                                 ALONG
                         ALASKA'S GREAT RIVER

             A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE TRAVELS OF AN ALASKA
                 EXPLORING EXPEDITION ALONG THE GREAT
                  YUKON RIVER, FROM ITS SOURCE TO ITS
                   MOUTH, IN THE BRITISH NORTH-WEST
                           TERRITORY, AND IN
                           THE TERRITORY OF
                                ALASKA.


                                  BY

                          FREDERICK SCHWATKA,

    LAURENTE OF THE PARIS GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AND OF THE IMPERIAL
            GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF RUSSIA; HONORARY MEMBER
          BREMEN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, ETC., ETC., COMMANDER
                          OF THE EXPEDITION.

              TOGETHER WITH THE LATEST INFORMATION ON THE
                           KLONDIKE COUNTRY.

                         _FULLY ILLUSTRATED._

                           CHICAGO NEW YORK
                        GEORGE M. HILL COMPANY
                                MDCCCC

                           COPYRIGHT, 1898,
                           GEO. M. HILL CO.




PREFACE.


These pages narrate the travels, in a popular sense, of an Alaskan
exploring expedition. The expedition was organized with seven members
at Vancouver Barracks, Washington, and left Portland, Oregon, ascending
through the inland passage to Alaska, as far as the Chilkat country. At
that point the party employed over three score of the Chilkat Indians,
the hardy inhabitants of that ice-bound country, to pack its effects
across the glacier-clad pass of the Alaskan coast range of mountains to
the headwaters of the Yukon. Here a large raft was constructed, and on
this primitive craft, sailing through nearly a hundred and fifty miles
of lakes, and shooting a number of rapids, the party floated along the
great stream for over thirteen hundred miles; the longest raft journey
ever made on behalf of geographical science. The entire river, over two
thousand miles, was traversed, the party returning home by Bering Sea,
and touching the Aleutian Islands.

The opening up of the great gold fields in the region of the upper
Yukon, has added especial interest to everything pertaining to the
great North-west. The Klondike region is the cynosure of the eyes
of all, whether they be in the clutches of the gold fever or not.
The geography, the climate, the scenery, the birds, beasts, and even
flowers of the country make fascinating subjects. In view of the new
discoveries in that part of the world, a new chapter, Chapter XIII, is
given up to a detailed description of the Klondike region. The numerous
routes by which it may be reached are described, and all the details as
to the possibilities and resources of the country are authoritatively
stated.

  CHICAGO, March, 1898.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER.                                                         PAGE.

     I.  INTRODUCTORY                                                  9

    II.  THE INLAND PASSAGE TO ALASKA                                 12

   III.  IN THE CHILKAT COUNTRY                                       36

    IV.  OVER THE MOUNTAIN PASS                                       53

     V.  ALONG THE LAKES                                              90

    VI.  A CHAPTER ABOUT RAFTING                                     131

   VII.  THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE YUKON                                154

  VIII.  DOWN THE RIVER TO SELKIRK                                   175

    IX.  THROUGH THE UPPER RAMPARTS                                  207

     X.  THROUGH THE YUKON FLAT-LANDS                                264

    XI.  THROUGH THE LOWER RAMPARTS AND END OF RAFT JOURNEY          289

   XII.  DOWN THE RIVER AND HOME                                     313

  XIII.  THE KLONDIKE REGIONS                                        346

   XIV.  DISCOVERY AND HISTORY                                       368

    XV.  The People and Their Industries                             386

   XVI.  GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES                                       413




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                                    PAGE

  FRONTISPIECE (DRAWN BY WM. SCHMEDTGEN)
  THE INLAND PASSAGE                                                  12
  SCENES IN THE INLAND PASSAGE                                        19
  SITKA, ALASKA                                                       29
  CHILKAT BRACELET                                                    36
  PYRAMID HARBOR, CHILKAT INLET                                       43
  CHILKAT INDIAN PACKER                                               53
  METHODS OF TRACKING A CANOE UP A RAPID                              64
  CANOEING UP THE DAYAY                                               65
  DAYAY VALLEY, NOURSE RIVER                                          73
  SALMON SPEARS                                                       76
  DAYAY VALLEY, FROM CAMP 4                                           77
  WALKING A LOG                                                       80
  CHASING A MOUNTAIN GOAT                                             82
  ASCENDING THE PERRIER PASS                                          85
  SNOW SHOES                                                          87
  IN A STORM ON THE LAKES                                             90
  LAKE LINDEMAN                                                       93
  LAKE BENNETT                                                       101
  PINS FOR FASTENING MARMOT SNARES                                   112
  LAKE BOVE                                                          116
  LAKE MARSH                                                         121
  "STICK" INDIANS                                                    127
  "SNUBBING" THE RAFT                                                131
  AMONG THE "SWEEPERS"                                               134
  BANKS OF THE YUKON                                                 135
  SCRAPING ALONG A BANK                                              140
  PRYING THE RAFT OFF A BAR                                          145
  COURSE OF RAFT AND AXIS OF STREAM                                  152
  WHIRLPOOL AT LOWER END OF ISLAND                                   153
  GRAYLING                                                           154
  GRAND CAÑON                                                        163
  THE CASCADES                                                       169
  ALASKA BROWN BEAR FIGHTING MOSQUITOS                               174
  IN THE RINK RAPIDS                                                 175
  CLAY BLUFFS ON THE YUKON                                           176
  OUTLET OF LAKE KLUK-TAS-SI                                         184
  THE RINK RAPIDS                                                    191
  LORING BLUFF                                                       193
  KITL-AH-GON INDIAN VILLAGE                                         197
  INGERSOLL ISLANDS                                                  201
  THE RUINS OF SELKIRK                                               205
  IN THE UPPER RAMPARTS                                              207
  MOUTH OF PELLY RIVER                                               209
  LOOKING UP YUKON FROM SELKIRK                                      213
  AYAN GRAVE AT SELKIRK                                              217
  AYAN INDIANS IN CANOES                                             221
  AYAN AND CHILKAT GAMBLING TOOLS                                    227
  PLAN OF AYAN SUMMER HOUSE                                          229
  KON-IT'L AYAN CHIEF                                                230
  AYAN MOOSE ARROW                                                   231
  AYAN WINTER TENT                                                   233
  A GRAVEL BANK                                                      236
  MOOSE-SKIN MOUNTAIN                                                243
  ROQUETTE ROCK                                                      250
  KLAT-OL-KLIN VILLAGE                                               253
  FISHING NETS                                                       258
  SALMON KILLING CLUB                                                259
  BOUNDARY BUTTE                                                     261
  A MOOSE HEAD                                                       264
  MOSS ON YUKON RIVER                                                267
  STEAMER "YUKON"                                                    276
  INDIAN "CACHE"                                                     289
  LOWER RAMPARTS RAPIDS                                              295
  MOUTH OF TANANA                                                    303
  NUKLAKAYET                                                         307
  THE RAFT, AT END OF ITS JOURNEY                                    312
  INDIAN OUT-DOOR GUN COVERING                                       313
  FALLING BANKS OF YUKON                                             319
  ANVIK                                                              330
  OONALASKA                                                          344
  THE KLONDIKE GOLD DISCOVERIES                                      348
  AT THE FOOT OF CHILKOOT PASS                                       350
  THE DESCENT OF CHILKOOT PASS                                       354
  A MID-DAY MEAL                                                     358
  AT THE HEAD OF LAKE LA BARGE                                       360
  INDIAN PACKERS FORDING A RIVER                                     364
  THE WHITE HORSE RAPIDS                                             366

ALONG ALASKA'S GREAT RIVER.




CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.


This Alaskan exploring expedition was composed of the following
members: Lieut. Schwatka, U.S.A., commanding; Dr. George F. Wilson,
U.S.A., Surgeon; Topographical Assistant Charles A. Homan, U.S.
Engineers, Topographer and Photographer; Sergeant Charles A. Gloster,
U.S.A., Artist; Corporal Shircliff, U.S.A., in charge of stores;
Private Roth, assistant, and Citizen J. B. McIntosh, a miner, who had
lived in Alaska and was well acquainted with its methods of travel.
Indians and others were added and discharged from time to time as
hereafter noted.

The main object of the expedition was to acquire such information of
the country traversed and its wild inhabitants as would be valuable to
the military authorities in the future, and as a map would be needful
to illustrate such information well, the party's efforts were rewarded
with making the expedition successful in a geographical sense. I
had hoped to be able, through qualified subordinates, to extend our
scientific knowledge of the country explored, especially in regard
to its botany, geology, natural history, etc.; and, although these
subjects would not in any event have been adequately discussed in a
popular treatise like the present, it must be admitted that little was
accomplished in these branches. The explanation of this is as follows:
When authority was asked from Congress for a sum of money to make such
explorations under military supervision and the request was disapproved
by the General of the Army and Secretary of War. This disapproval,
combined with the active opposition of government departments which
were assigned to work of the same general character and coupled with
the reluctance of Congress to make any appropriations whatever that
year, was sufficient to kill such an undertaking. When the military
were withdrawn from Alaska by the President, about the year 1878, a
paragraph appeared at the end of the President's order stating that
no further control would be exercised by the army in Alaska; and this
proviso was variously interpreted by the friends of the army and its
enemies, as a humiliation either to the army or to the President,
according to the private belief of the commentator. It was therefore
seriously debated whether any military expedition or party sent into
that country for any purpose whatever would not be a direct violation
of the President's proscriptive order, and when it was decided to
waive that consideration, and send in a party, it was considered too
much of a responsibility to add any specialists in science, with
the disapproval of the General and the Secretary hardly dry on the
paper. The expedition was therefore, to avoid being recalled, kept as
secret as possible, and when, on May 22d, it departed from Portland,
Oregon, upon the _Victoria_, a vessel which had been specially put on
the Alaska route, only a two or three line notice had gotten into
the Oregon papers announcing the fact; a notice that in spreading
was referred to in print by one government official as "a junketing
party," by another as a "prospecting" party, while another bitterly
acknowledged that had he received another day's intimation he could
have had the party recalled by the authorities at Washington. Thus the
little expedition which gave the first complete survey to the third[1]
river of our country stole away like a thief in the night and with far
less money in its hands to conduct it through its long journey than was
afterward appropriated by Congress to publish its report.

[1] The largest river on the North American continent so far as this
mighty stream flows within our boundaries.... The people of the United
States will not be quick to take to the idea that the volume of water
in an Alaskan river is greater than that discharged by the mighty
Mississippi; but it is entirely within the bounds of honest statement
to say that the Yukon river... discharges every hour one-third more
water than the "Father of Waters."--Petroff's Government Report on
Alaska.

Leaving Portland at midnight on the 22d, the _Victoria_ arrived at
Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia the forenoon of the 23d, the
remaining hours of daylight being employed in loading with supplies for
a number of salmon canneries in Alaska, the large amount of freight for
which had necessitated this extra steamer. That night we crossed the
Columbia River bar and next morning entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca,
the southern entrance from the Pacific Ocean which leads to the inland
passage to Alaska.




CHAPTER II.

THE INLAND PASSAGE TO ALASKA.


[Illustration]

"The Inland Passage" to Alaska is the fjörd-like channel, resembling a
great river, which extends from the north-western part of Washington
Territory, through British Columbia, into south-eastern Alaska.
Along this coast line for about a thousand miles, stretches a vast
archipelago closely hugging the mainland of the Territories named
above, the southernmost important island being Vancouver, almost a
diminutive continent in itself, while to the north Tchichagoff Island
limits it on the seaboard.

From the little town of Olympia at the head of Puget Sound, in
Washington Territory, to Chilkat, Alaska, at the head of Lynn Channel,
or Canal, one sails as if on a grand river, and it is really hard to
comprehend that it is a portion of the ocean unless one can imagine
some deep fjörd in Norway or Greenland, so deep that he can sail on its
waters for a fortnight, for the fjörd-like character is very prominent
in these channels to which the name of "Inland Passage" is usually
given.

These channels between the islands and mainland are strikingly uniform
in width, and therefore river-like in appearance as one steams or
sails through, them. At occasional points they connect with the Pacific
Ocean, and if there be a storm on the latter, a few rolling swells may
enter at these places and disturb the equilibrium of sensitive stomachs
for a brief hour, but at all other places the channel is as quiet as
any broad river, whatever the weather. On the south we have the Strait
of Juan de Fuca and to the north Cross Sound as the limiting channels,
while between the two are found Dixon Entrance, which separates Alaska
from British Columbia, Queen Charlotte Sound, and other less important
outlets.

On the morning of the 24th of May we entered the Strait of Juan de
Fuca, named after an explorer--if such he may be called--who never
entered this beautiful sheet of water, and who owes his immortality
to an audacious guess, which came so near the truth as to deceive the
scientific world for many a century. To the left, as we enter, i.e.,
northward, is the beautiful British island of Vancouver, the name of
which commemorates one of the world's most famous explorers. Its high
rolling hills are covered with shaggy firs, broken near the beach into
little prairies of brighter green, which are dotted here and there with
pretty little white cottages, the humblest abodes we see among the
industrious, British or American, who live in the far west.

The American side, to the southward, gives us the same picture backed
by the high range of the Olympian Mountains, whose tops are covered
with perpetual snow, and upon whose cold sides drifting clouds are
condensed.

Through British Columbia the sides of this passage are covered with
firs and spruce to the very tops of the steep mountains forming them,
but as Northing is gained and Alaska is reached the summits are covered
with snow and ice at all months of the year, and by the time we cast
anchor in Chilkat Inlet, which is about the northernmost point of this
great inland salt-water river, we find in many places these crowns of
ice debouching in the shape of glaciers to the very water's level, and
the tourist beholds, on a regular line of steamboat travel, glaciers
and icebergs, and many of the wonders of arctic regions, although upon
a reduced scale. Alongside the very banks and edges of these colossal
rivers of ice one can gather the most beautiful of Alpine flowers and
wade up to his waist in grasses that equal in luxuriance the famed
fields of the pampas; while the singing of the birds from the woods and
glens and the fragrance of the foliage make one easily imagine that the
Arctic circle and equator have been linked together at this point.

Entering Juan de Fuca Strait a few hours were spent in the pretty
little anchorage of Neah Bay, the first shelter for ships after
rounding Cape Flattery, and here some merchandise was unloaded in the
huge Indian canoes that came alongside, each one holding at least a ton.

Victoria, the metropolis of British Columbia, was reached the same
day, and as it was the Queen's birthday we saw the town in all its
bravery of beer, bunting and banners. Our vessel tooted itself hoarse
outside the harbor to get a pilot over the bar, but none was to be
had till late in the day, when a pilot came out to us showing plainly
by his condition that he knew every bar in and about Victoria. With
the bar pilot on the bridge, as to save insurance should an accident
occur, we entered the picturesque little harbor in safety, despite the
discoveries of our guide that since his last visit all the buoys had
been woefully misplaced, and even the granite channel had changed its
course. But Victoria has many embellishments more durable than bunting
and banners, and most conspicuous among them are her well arranged and
well constructed roads, in which she has no equal on the Pacific coast
of North America, and but few rivals in any other part of the world.

On the 26th we crossed over to Port Townsend, the port of entry for
Puget sound, and on the 27th we headed for Alaska by way of the Inland
Passage.

For purposes of description this course should have been designated
the "inland passages," in the plural, for its branches are almost
innumerable, running in all directions like the streets of an irregular
city, although now and then they are reduced to a single channel or
fjörd which the steamer is obliged to take or put out to sea. At one
point in Discovery Passage leading from the Gulf of Georgia toward
Queen Charlotte Sound, the inland passage is so narrow that our long
vessel had to steam under a slow bell to avoid accidents, and at this
place, called Seymour Narrows, there was much talk of bridging the
narrow way in the grand scheme of a Canadian Pacific Railway, which
should have its western terminus at Victoria. Through this contracted
way the water fairly boils when at its greatest velocity, equaling
ten miles an hour in spring tides, and at such times the passage is
hazardous even to steamers, while all other craft avoid it until slack
water. Jutting rocks increase the danger, and on one of these the
United States man-of-war _Saranac_ was lost just eight years before
we passed through. At the northern end of this picturesque Discovery
Passage you see the inland passage trending away to the eastward,
with quite a bay on the left around Chatham Point, and while you are
wondering in that half soliloquizing way of a traveler in new lands
what you will see after you have turned to the right, the great ship
swings suddenly to the left, and you find that what you took for a
bay is after all the inland passage itself, which stretches once more
before you like the Hudson looking upward from West Point, or the
Delaware at the Water Gap. For all such little surprises must the
tourist be prepared on this singular voyage.

The new bend now becomes Johnstone Strait and so continues to Queen
Charlotte Sound, with which it connects by one strait, two passages
and a channel, all alike, except in name, and none much over ten miles
long. At nearly every point where a new channel diverges both arms take
on a new name, and they change as rapidly as the names of a Lisbon
street, which seldom holds the same over a few blocks. The south side
of Johnstone Strait is particularly high, rising abruptly from the
water fully 5,000 feet, and in grandeur not unlike the Yellowstone
Cañon. These summits were still covered with snow and probably on
northern <DW72>s snow remains the summer through. One noticeable valley
was on the Vancouver Island side, with a conspicuous conical hill in
its bosom that may have been over a thousand feet in height. These
cone-like hills are so common in flat valleys in north-western America
that I thought it worth while to mention the fact in this place. I
shall have occasion to do so again at a later point in my narrative.
Occasionally windrows occur through the dense coniferous forests of
the inland passage, where the trees have been swept or leveled in a
remarkable manner. Such as were cut vertically had been caused by an
avalanche, and in these instances the work of clearing had been done as
faithfully as if by the hands of man. Sometimes the bright green moss
or grass had grown up in these narrow ways, and when there was more
than one of about the same age there was quite a picturesque effect of
stripings of two shades of green, executed on a most colossal plan.
These windrows of fallen trees sometimes stretched along horizontally
in varying widths, an effect undoubtedly produced by heavy gales
rushing through the contracted "passage."

One's notice is attracted by a species of natural beacon which
materially assists the navigator. Over almost all the shoals and
submerged rocks hang fields of kelp, a growth with which the whole
"passage" abounds, thus affording a timely warning badly needed where
the channel has been imperfectly charted. As one might surmise the
water is very bold, and these submerged and ragged rocks are in general
most to be feared. Leaving Johnstone Strait we enter Queen Charlotte
Sound, a channel which was named, lacking only three years, a century
ago. It widens into capacious waters at once and we again felt the
"throbbing of old Neptune's pulse," and those with sensitive stomachs
perceived a sort of flickering of their own.

One who is acquainted merely in a general way with the history and
geography of this confusing country finds many more Spanish names than
he anticipates, and to his surprise, a conscientious investigation
shows that even as it is the vigorous old Castilian explorers have
not received all the credit to which they are entitled, for many of
their discoveries in changing hands changed names as well: the Queen
Charlotte Islands, a good day's run to the north-westward of us, were
named in 1787 by an Englishman, who gave the group the name of his
vessel, an appellation which they still retain, although as Florida
Blanca they had known the banner of Castile and Leon thirteen years
before. Mount Edgecumbe, so prominent in the beautiful harbor of Sitka,
was once Monte San Jacinto, and a list of the same tenor might be given
that would prove more voluminous than interesting. American changes in
the great north-west have not been so radical. Boca de Quadra Inlet
has somehow become Bouquet Inlet to those knowing it best. La Creole
has degenerated into Rickreall, and so on: the foreign names have been
mangled but not annihilated. We sail across Queen Charlotte Sound as
if we were going to bump right into the high land ahead of us, but a
little indentation over the bow becomes a valley, then a bay, and in
ample time to prevent accidents widens into another salt-water river,
about two miles wide and twenty times as long, called Fitzhugh Sound.
Near the head of the sound we turn abruptly westward into the Lama
Passage, and on its western shores we see nearly the first sign of
civilization in the inland passage, the Indian village of Bella Bella,
holding probably a dozen native houses and a fair looking church, while
a few cattle grazing near the place had a still more civilized air.

[Illustration: SCENES IN THE INLAND PASSAGE.]

As we steamed through Seaforth Channel, a most tortuous affair, Indians
were seen paddling in their huge canoes from one island to another
or along the high, rocky shores, a cheering sign of habitation not
previously noticed.

The great fault of the inland passage as a resort for tourists is in
the constant dread of fogs that may at any time during certain months
of the year completely obscure the grand scenery that tempted the
travelers thither. The waters of the Pacific Ocean on the seaboard of
Alaska are but a deflected continuation of the warm equatorial current
called the Kuro Siwo of the Japanese; from these waters the air is
laden with moisture, which being thrown by the variable winds against
the snow-clad and glacier-covered summits of the higher mountains,
is precipitated as fog and light rain, and oftentimes every thing
is wrapped for weeks in these most annoying mists. July, with June
and August, are by far the most favorable months for the traveler.
The winter months are execrable, with storms of rain, snow and sleet
constantly occurring, the former along the Pacific frontage, and the
latter near the channels of the mainland.

Milbank Sound gave us another taste of the ocean swells which spoiled
the flavor of our food completely, for although we were only exposed
for less than an hour that hour happened to come just about dinner
time; after which we entered Finlayson Passage, some twenty-five miles
long. This is a particularly picturesque and bold channel of water, its
shores covered with shaggy conifers as high as the eye can reach, and
the mountains, with their crowns of snow and ice, furnishing supplies
of spray for innumerable beautiful waterfalls. At many places in the
inland passage from here on, come down the steep timbered mountains
the most beautiful waterfalls fed from the glaciers hidden in the fog.
At every few miles we pass the mouths of inlets and channels, leading
away into the mountainous country no one knows whither. There are no
charts which show more than the mouths of these inlets. Out of or into
these an occasional canoe speeds its silent way perchance in quest of
salmon that here abound, but the secrets of their hidden paths are
locked in the savage mind. How tempting they must be for exploration,
and how strange that, although so easy of access, they still remain
unknown. After twisting around through a few "reaches," channels and
passages, we enter the straightest of them all, Grenville Channel, so
straight that it almost seems to have been mapped by an Indian. As you
steam through its forty or fifty miles of mathematically rectilinear
exactness you think the sleepy pilot might tie his wheel, put his heels
up in the spokes, draw his hat over his eyes and take a quiet nap. In
one place it seems to be not over two or three hundred yards wide, but
probably is double that, the high towering banks giving a deceptive
impression. The windrows through the timber of former avalanches of
snow or landslides, now become thicker and their effects occasionally
picturesque in the very devastation created. Beyond Grenville Channel
the next important stretch of salt water is Chatham Sound, which is
less like a river than any yet named. Its connection with Grenville
Channel is by the usual number of three or four irregular water-ways
dodging around fair sized islands, which had at one time, however, a
certain importance because it was thought that the Canadian Pacific
Railway might make Skeena Inlet off to our right its western terminus.

On the 29th of May, very early in the morning, we crossed Dixon
Entrance, and were once more on American soil, that is, in a commercial
sense, the United States having drawn a check for its value of
$7,200,000, and the check having been honored; but in regard to
government the country may be called no man's land, none existing in
the territory. Dixon Entrance bore once a Spanish name in honor of
its discoverer, a name which is heard no more, although a few still
call the channel by its Indian name, Kaiganee. Broad Dixon Entrance
contracts into the narrow Portland Inlet, which, putting