connection with the Yukon River boats. The last steamer for this season left Seattle for St. Michael's Island early in August, and, if there is no unforeseen delay, its passengers will be landed in Dawson City, the tented metropolis of the gold fields, about September ist.

A number of schemes for penetrating the territory traversed by the Upper Yukon by railroads have been under way for some time, and the recent heavy travel in that direction has caused work on them to be pushed in earnest. What is generally considered the most feasible of these routes calls for a mixed rail-and-water route from Sault Ste. Marie, on Lake Superior, to the Yukon River. In an air line the distance from the "Soo" to Dawson City is about 2,100 miles, but an air line is out of the question, owing to the rugged country lying between. The projected route, which is proposed in sober earnest by men of prominence and means, who have been figuring upon the matter for the last year, calls for the building of about 625 miles of railway and the utilizing of practically all of the great navigable streams of the western half of British Columbia, as well as of Hudson's Bay.

The first and longest stretch of railway would be between Sault Ste. Marie and Hudson's Bay, touching at the mouth of the Moose River, a distance of about 400 miles. By building the first section from Missanabie, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, Hudson's Bay would be reached by 250 miles of rail. But the intention is to build the line to the Sault ultimately, independent of the

Canadian Pacific, although that road may be utilized at first from Missanabie to Lake Superior. From the end of the first rail line, at the mouth of the Moose River, there is a stretch of 1,300 miles of salt water, on the bay and on Chesterfield Inlet, to the head of navigable water. The season of navigation on Hudson's Bay probably would be nearly as long as on Lake Superior, the salt water counterbalancing the more severe

climate.

From Chesterfield Inlet, 175 miles will reach Great Slave Lake, an enormous fresh-water sea, second only to the great lakes of this country in size. The outlet of Great Slave Lake is the Mackenzie River, one of the largest streams on the continent, and freely navigable without rapids or falls to the Arctic Ocean, a distance of 1,400 miles. The delta of the Mackenzie is only fifty miles from the Porcupine River, one of the principal affluents of the Yukon, which is navigable by steamers of large draft from the point where it is proposed to reach it with the fifty-mile strip of rail from the Mackenzie. The distance from the point where the rails would connect the Mackenzie and Porcupine Rivers to the mouth of the Porcupine at its junction with the Yukon is about 400 miles, the Porcupine emptying into the Yukon a short distance from Circle City. Dawson City, the main settlement of the Klondike region, is about 300 miles up the Yukon.

The total distance of the proposed route from Sault Ste. Marie, the outlet of Lake Superior, to Dawson City would be about 4,025 miles, of which there would be ap

DISTANCE COMPARED.

77

proximately 625 miles of rail and 3,400 miles of water transportation. This distance compares most favorably with the shortest route at present known from the great lakes, which is overland to Seattle or Vancouver, thence by water to Juneau, over the mountains to Lake Bennett and thence down the Yukon River on a raft or boat.

The three different sections of railroad would not be especially difficult to build, with the exception of the drawbacks suffered from short seasons. It would require very much less to the mile to build than the Canadian Pacific has cost, partly because of the cheaper methods of construction, but mainly because the topography of the country through which the rails are to be laid presents fewer difficulties to the road-builder. The 250-mile section from Missanabie to St. James Bay, the lower part of Hudson's Bay, would lie along the valley of the Moose River for the entire distance of 250 miles, and having rail connection at its southern end, it could be built as cheaply as any other of the roads of northern Ontario. The hills on the route of the 175-mile section, between Chesterfield Inlet and Great Slave Lake are of only moderate elevation. The fiftymile strip to connect the Mackenzie and Porcupine Rivers would pass through an almost level country, the extreme northern spurs of the Rocky Mountains fading away 100 miles to the southward.

The intense cold of Alaska and of Arctic and subarctic British North America would not prove the bar to the building of railways and permanent occupation and development of the country which might be thought by

residents of more favored climes. The temperature at Fort William, the principal Lake Superior port of the Canadian Pacific, and at the northern angle of the lake, often exceeds 50 degrees below zero, and it has reached 60, while eighteen months ago, in Minnesota, a short distance west of Duluth, the temperature dropped to 67 below zero. The coldest weather reported from Alaska or the Northwest Territory is but 72.

It is also proposed to run a railroad from Telegraph Creek at the head of the Stickine River, on the coast of British Columbia, to Lake Teslin. It is claimed that the building of this road would be comparatively easy, and much the shortest rail route to the navigable inland waters. It runs through a mineral country which promises great future development of quartz mining. The Treadwell mine on Douglass Island is near its western end, and in the east it taps the western slope of the Cassiars. Like conditions will doubtless be found to prevail through almost its entire length, and the development of quartz ledges along its route will give it regular and continuous traffic in addition to supplying the through trade on the Yukon, all of whose goldbearing tributaries are in easy reach.

To the Yukon Mining, Trading & Transportation Company, proposing this road, the Parliament of British Columbia at its last session gave full power to build its line and a land grant of 750,000 acres, which grants were confirmed by the Dominion Parliament at Ottawa last May, with additional privileges and concessions,

CHAPTER IV.

THE OUTFIT OF AN ARGONAUT.

The qualifications of a successful miner-One temptation of the gold-digger-Provisions for the journey to Dawson City—Camping outfit and cooking utensils— The tool chest of a Lake Lindeman boat-builder-What to wear in low temperatures-Supplies for a year's stay-Turnips by the pound-The Dawson City storekeeper's scale of prices-Reasons for lower prices-The custom houses at Dyea and Lake Bennett-A few pointers for prospective Alaskans.

T

O be well prepared is half the battle won. This is the substance of an old adage which is peculiarly adapted to the case of one starting out to the Alaskan gold fields in the search of wealth, or even of a simple livelihood. The conditions of life in any newly-discovered mining country are such as to place a man on his mettle, to bring out everything that is in him, to make him resourceful and self-reliant. But these things being equal, it is the one who has just the right equipment who will have the advantage when the going is hard and to all appearances pretty even.

To be sober, strong, and healthy is the first requisite for any one who wants to battle successfully for a year or two in the frozen lands of the far North. A physique hardy enough to withstand the most rigorous climate is an absolute necessity. With a temperature varying from almost one hundred degrees above zero in midsummer to fifty, sixty, and even seventy below that point in winter, with weeks of foggy, damp, thawing weather,