CHAPTER XII. CHARACTERISTICS OF OUR NORTH- BY JOHN F. PRATT. To those who are familiar with the story of the northwestern country the rich discoveries of gold in the Yukon Valley are no surprise. They form a chapter in the gold findings of that region which has been writing for many years. Just before the war there was widespread excitement over the discovery of gold in the Caribou district of British Columbia, and the diggings there for a time were very rich. The craze resulted in much hardship and many deaths. Later, subsequent to the purchase of Alaska, gold was found in considerable quantities in the Cassiar district, farther to the northwest in British America. The Cassiar Mountains are situated between the 60th and 65th degrees of north latitude, at the headwaters of the Pelly River. They are reached by way of the Stikine River, the outlet of which is near Fort Wrangell. These diggings 185 are still carried on, and they have yielded much gold. There are several quartz lodes in the Cassiar district which are rich, but hardly rich enough to mine profitably with the present inadequate facilities for reaching them and for transporting machinery. During high water steamboats can run well up the river, leaving a distance of forty miles between Telegraph Creek and Moose Lake to be traveled by pack trains. The Cassiar diggings are far less accessible than the new gold fields. Now, in this same trend or general direction, as if in continuation of the line running northwest from Caribou through the Cassiar range, come the diggings near the place where the Yukon River crosses the boundary between Alaska and British North America, and we are bound to suppose that the lode runs still farther along toward the northwest into the country which is not yet prospected at all. Although the Klondike is on the Canadian side of the boundary, there is reason to believe that the great bulk of the gold territory is west of the boundary on the American side. This is to be deduced from the peculiar locations of the streams from along which gold has thus far been taken. Sixty Mile Creek and Forty Mile Creek lie largely in United States territory. Both flow into the Yukon toward the east. Birch Creek flows into the Yukon toward the north and the Tenanah River toward the northwest. The Sushitna flows toward the south into Cook's Inlet, on the southern coast, where gold has been found. The headwaters of all these gold-bearing streams flowing in different directions are thus seen to be in the same country, about 100 miles west of the boundary and south of the Yukon. This seems to indicate that the great mother lode is probably within the United States and that the more permanent diggings will be found in United States territory centering about a spot not 100 miles west of the boundary. The diggings around Klondike, therefore, are not in the middle of the richest gold territory, but are rather on the northeast edge. Gold has been found as far west as Cook's Inlet on the southern coast, between the 150th and 152d degrees west longitude, and it has been found as far east as the 128th degree. There is a gold-bearing area of between forty thousand and fifty thousand square miles, and the best part of it is on the United States side of the boundary. Of course, our actual information is exceedingly limited. Perhaps we know less about the Alaskan Territory than about any other territory of equal size on the continent. The Yukon River has been explored from its mouth to the region of the gold diggings, and the trail of the miners from Chilkoot Pass to the diggings has given us a knowledge of that region; we know the mouths of the streams as they flow into the Yukon; but aside from these we have learned very little. Travelers and prospectors have found out more or less by interviewing the Indians, who have a general idea of direction and distance, but this knowledge is not exact. Even our most elaborate maps of Alaska depend upon miners' plottings and not upon official surveys for the location of the creeks and rivers in the gold region. What other information we have of the interior has been acquired largely from prospectors and on the British side of the boundary from Canadian explorers. We know something about the streams and the outlets, but we have not discovered their sources. The hill country is practically unknown, and there may be large streams concerning which we have no information. There is an immense stretch of territory of perhaps 250, ooo square miles of which we are practically ignorant. We are about as badly off with regard to the coast line. The southern coast we know fairly well in a general way, but there has never been an official survey beyond Sitka. Even the maps of the Aleutian Islands are inherited from Russia, and there has never been anything like a survey of the mouth of the Yukon River. It would be of great value, now, if we knew whether there was a channel through which the Yukon could be reached from Bering Sea by deep water ships. We are aware now that shoals extend out for twenty-five miles, apparently stretching all the way across the mouth of the Yukon, but there has never been any survey to discover whether there might not be a passage through. All ships now, owing to lack of knowledge concerning these shoals, are compelled to avoid them altogether by going to St. Michael, thirty miles north of the mouth of the river, there to meet the river boats which are obliged, on that account, to make the dangerous trip outside on the ocean. If seagoing ships could be brought into the mouth of the Yukon they might proceed up the river at least to as great a distance as that between New |