a native crew together, the "Weare" pushed on down the river and spread broadcast through the mining camps the news which since has electrified the world.

Among the romances which will be forever associated with the history of the Yukon none savors so strongly of the rough and ready country through which it wends its way than does the story of the founding of the North American Transportation & Trading Company. In the winter of 1892 Porteus B. Weare, of Chicago, and Captain John J. Healy met in Chicago after a separation of years.

They had been companions in the fur trade with the Indians at old Fort Benton, on the Missouri River, in 1865. Mr. Weare had returned to civilization and taken up his residence in Chicago, but Captain Healy had penetrated to the head of Chilkoot inlet, established the trading post at Ty-a (now known as Dyea), which bears his name, and continued his traffic with the Indians until he became known as "Chief of the Blackfeet."

In the course of their reminiscent talk Healy drew from his pocket a buckskin bag and displayed to his old comrade of the camp and trading post the yellow contents of the crude purse. Then he told the tragic tale of how the gold had come into his possession. The substance of his narrative was this:

One fearfully cold day in the latter part of December, 1891, two or three Indians entered the post and offered for barter the bag containing several hundred dollars' worth of dust. Healy eagerly inquired where

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and how they secured the gold. Their answer was that it had been obtained from Tom Williams, a trapper, who had made the long pilgrimage from the interior, along the Yukon, but had died before reaching the post.

The Indians were able to give the trader a general description of the locality which the dying trapper had described to them as the spot where he discovered what he believed would prove to be a rich gold field.

As Mr. Weare knew his friend to be a practical miner, his faith in the sagacity and the judgment of the latter was strong. The story also awakened in him the latent longing to taste once more the pleasures of frontier adventure. The result was the organization of a company which sent steamers to the headwaters of the Yukon and opened up the country. Captain Healy has been in Alaska fifteen years, and is one of the best known men in the country.

The territory around the mouth of the Yukon is very low. In fact, the reason for the chief trading station for this section of Alaska being placed on an island sixty miles above the usual entrance to the river is that the delta for miles around is entirely covered in the late spring or early summer by freshets due to the ice melting in the river. Owing to the way in which the Yukon spreads out as it passes into Bering Sea the water is very shallow and eight feet is about the maximum depth reached in any of the numerous channels.

The two most interesting arms of the Yukon are the Lewes and Pelly Rivers, which unite to form it. The

former is all-important on account of the part it plays in the overland route from Juneau to the gold fields. Its chief tributary, the Hootalinqua, is the stream over which the Canadians expect to see carried the bulk of the inland travel. The Pelly River rises in Pelly Lakes, near the crest of the Rocky Mountains which there form the divide between the basins of the Yukon and MacKenzie Rivers. These lakes are precisely where the 129th meridian crosses the 62d parallel of latitude; and thence the river flows northwesterly over 500 miles before reaching Fort Selkirk. The country through which it passes is mountainous and wild, and has been explored but a very slight extent. The Yukon, after passing Fort Selkirk, varies from one-half to threequarters of a mile in width. On the northern side it is bounded by an almost continuous wall of rock of volcanic origin, and on the south the bank is low and sandy. After passing the White River the course is almost due north through a mountainous country. The scenery is wild and most picturesque. On both sides great granite cliffs rise hundreds of feet above the bed of the river, which, receiving the waters of the Stewart from the north, flows on toward Dawson City with great rapidity, sometimes as high as seven miles an hour. At just about the centre of the present mining district the Yukon changes its course to the northwest and continues in this direction for about 300 miles, or to a point near where the Porcupine River crosses the Arctic Circle, and empties into the parent stream. The width on the

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Alaskan side of the boundary line averages about one mile, but as it approaches the Circle it spreads out among islands at the mouth of the Porcupine, till it is several miles from shore to shore. A good deal of difficulty is experienced in navigating the Yukon at this point on account of the shallowness of the water and the sandy formation of the bed, which causes the channel to shift from month to month and season to season.

There is never a complete thaw of the soil which makes up the country through which the Yukon flows. In some places during the summer months the ground. is soft to a depth of three or four feet, but in less favored places eighteen inches is a maximum. This layer of frozen soil extends down six or eight feet, and below that ice is rarely encountered. Various explanations of this phenomena have been advanced, but it is generally believed to be due to poor drainage and to the dense layer of moss which covers the entire country, and which acts as a blanket, preventing the intense heat of the midsummer sun from penetrating far below the surface, and also keeping in the cold.

CHAPTER III.

ROUTES TO THE ALASKAN INTERIOR.

Dyea the ase of supply for overland travel-The Chilkoot Pass and Lake Lindeman trail-The Stick Indian packers-Boat-building on the lakes-Shooting Miles Cañon, White Horse and Five-Finger or Rink Rapids-Stacking supplies by the way-The White and Chilkat Passes-Taku Inlet and Fort Macpherson routes-All the way to the Klondike by water-Proposed railways to pierce the gold fields.

THE

HE miner or tourist who proposes penetrating the Alaskan country to the placer diggings of the upper Yukon Basin has, broadly speaking, the choice of two routes. The one which has been most generally used, up to within a very recent time, is all the way by water. Leaving Puget Sound, or San Francisco Bay, the steamer sails out to the northwest across the Pacific Ocean to the Aleutian Islands, between which a channel leads into Bering Sea. Safe in these latter waters the steamer is put on a direct northerly course to Fort Get There, on St. Michael Island, which lies on the far western coast of Alaska, about sixty-five miles above the mouth of the Yukon River. There a transfer is made to a light-draft river boat, and in this the rest of the voyage to Circle City, Fort Cudahy, or Dawson is made. It takes between four and five weeks to make the trip in this way, under the most favorable circumstances, and owing to the fact that the Yukon is frozen hard and fast during eight months of the year, this route is only open from about June 1st to the middle of September.