The Klondike Stampede 1897-1899

[SwampDonkey]

The hard life led by the miner in winter often brings on a disease known as "scurvy." The symptoms consist of a hardening of the tendons, especially those under the knee, a darkening of the skin, and an apparent lifelessness of the tissue, so that when a finger is pressed against the skin a dent remains for some time afterwards. It is rarely fatal, though it may incapacitate the victim for work for a whole season. It yields readily to a treatment of spruce-leaf tea, taken internally. Various specific causes are given, but physicians say that the real cause is yet unknown.

From the establishment of the hospital in the fall of 1897 up to April 1st, 1898, the number of death was twenty-four, of which seven or eight were from typhoid fever. The hospital was a godsend, and many a man came out from under the tender care there with a better personal understanding of what it meant to devote one's life to doing good for his fellow men.

Now and then we witnessed the sad sight of a funeral - some poor fellow borne to his last resting place far from his own people, but never without friends. In order to make a grave, it was necessary to burn the frosty ground exactly as if for mining. A sight witnessed perhaps no place else in the world was a hearse drawn by dogs. The rude coffin of spruce was placed on a Yukon sled, to which was hitched a team of 4 gray Malamut dogs.

[Vit. C was first isolated in 1928]

[SwampDonkey]

The aurora borealis, or northern lights, of which we expected to see so much, failed to show the brilliant conventional arc of lights represented in pictures of the Arctic regions. A clear yellow glow on the horizon, like that from the rising of the sun, lay in the north, and from this at times streams of light shot upward, often to the zenith, and took the form of waving bands or curtains of light, pink and green, swiftly, silently moving and shifting. Sometimes the light seemed very near, and then it seemed that we could hear a rustling, but whether it was the rustling of the light or the rushing of the river beneath the ice we could never tell, it was so subtle and illusive; and again it seemed as if its rays caught the pale-green light of the moon, which shone as bright as day in the cloudless sky.

At Dawson the valley of the river lay north and south, and the sun was visible in the south for several hours at the edge of the distant hilltop; but in all the deep valleys which lay in the other direction the sun was not visible from November until February. Fortunately the extreme cold was accompanied with little or no wind, but the slightest movement of air cut like a knife. In the woods there was absolutely no air stirring.

[dogone]

    Interesting that you mention bathing in the Yukon. I spent a winter there in the Porcupine mts back in 71. Over 70 men in the camp, eight to a bunkhouse. One shower and one toilet with a shortage of water.I went 31 days only washing my hands. 
    I grew up only having a bath on Saturday so was sort of prepared for it. The city boys used to a shower every day didn't do so well. Went on to camps for ten more years all over the world but none near as bad as that.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, my dad turned one bedroom upstairs into the first bathroom we ever had, that was around 1973. That meant no more need for the outhouse to. That would have been a long cold walk out on the northwestern corner of the woodshed. Them days we had a big woodshed for the kitchen stove with 12 cords of split wood. No insulation in them old farm houses, not even news paper on the boards in this one, some houses did, but that was all. Plastered walls/ceilings used horse hair here. ;D

[thecfarm]

A hard way to make a living.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I rented apartments and houses for our team in Kristiansand Norway and one of the first places I looked at had a shower in the kitchen. I mentioned it to Ruth, our Noggie daughter- our former exchange student, and she said "Oh, that is old technology. When people here first started putting indoor plumbing in the homes they started with the kitchen to the sinks and then when they got a little extra money laid by they'd add a shower. They'd put it in the kitchen because that was where the water and drain lines had already been run and was much faster and cheaper than putting them in a separate bathroom as is currently done."

  I did not look behind the pantry to see if they had a toilet sitting there. :

[SwampDonkey]

She's exactly right, that is the way it was around here. But, no, the 'toilet' then was the out house. :D The bath water or wash water for the clothes was drawn up from a cistern here. But in my time it was well water, because dad got that plumbed in from the well head that had always been hand pumped out in the yard. Every old farm house in these parts had a cistern. But north of here, at mom's father's place, there weren't any cisterns at all. I remember that water line from the well. It never got covered for weeks. At around 5 years old, I got my first bee sting from that trench. The bees had a hole in the dirt, but had another exit. I plugged one end, bad mistake. You don't ever forget a bumble bee sting. :D

[SwampDonkey]

The moment the spring sun gained a place in the sky the snow on the southern hillsides dwindled away like magic, turning the creek trails into streams of water which grew in volume with each succeeding day. The forests seemed  to burst into life and the air was laden with the song and twitter of birds. By the middle of April the snow was gone from the flat at Dawson, and the sun, although not so high in the heavens, was shining for as many hours as in the middle United States on the longest day of the year.

The last teams in from the outside brought confirming news of the magnitude of the Klondike stampede. The crowd pouring over the passes was such as the world had never seen before. At Skagway the woods were cleared off, buildings were going up "faster than they could get the lumber," and the town contained seven thousand people, and was growing fast. A toll road, known as "Brackett's Road," had been constructed over white Pass for wagons and horse-sleds, and freighting was reduced to 15 cents a pound from Skagway to Bennett. Where three thousand horses lay dead, a stream of men, dogs, and horses were moving easily. Dyea, which in December consisted of three white men's houses, was a mile and a half long and contained from five to six thousand souls. A stream of human beings dragged their hand-sleds up the now smooth trail, and over the summit all day long marched a thin black line of men with packs, locking step, so close together that they could touch. First a whim, or endless cable, was put, for drawing loaded sleds to the top, and later an "aerial tramway," a steel cable elevated on posts, with swinging buckets, was operating between Sheep Camp and Crater Lake, goods being carried from Dyea to Lindeman for 8 cents a pound. The Canadian government had made good its claim to the passes as the international boundary by establishing customs offices at both summits and there taking duties on American goods. The mounted police, in fear of famine, had been allowing no person without credentials to cross the summit without a thousand pounds of provisions. Along the lakes the new-comers were putting boats together, ready to start for Dawson with the opening of the river in May.

[SwampDonkey]

For upward of 8 years the US government, through Dr. Sheldon Jackson, General Agent of Education for Alaska, had endeavored to effect the introduction into western Alaska of the domesticated deer, which they secured annually from the Siberian herdsmen, until, along with their natural increase, the herd numbered upward of fifteen hundred deer, stationed at Teller Reindeer Station, Port Clarence, and at Golovin Bay, Behring Sea. The main purpose of the movers in this enterprise was to furnish food and clothing to the starving Inuit, and, eventually, means of transportation in winter to and from our far northern stations, a service which deer should perform as well in Alaska as in Lapland.

Eight whaling-vessels were imprisoned in the ice at Point Barrow. Lieutenant Jarvis, from Port Townsend, was instructed to take all the available deer, and he ultimately reached Point Barrow, having successfully driven 382 deer a distance of over 800 miles. Consequently, there being no government deer available, Congress on the 18th of December, passed "An act authorizing the Secretary of War, in his discretion, to purchase subsistence stores, supplies, and materials for the relief of people who are in the Yukon River country, to provide means for their transportation and distribution," and made an appropriation therefor. Dr. Jackson was dispatched to Norway to purchase deer, and on the 28th of February reached New York with 539 deer, also sleds and harnesses complete, and 114 Lapps and Finns to drive the deer. The deer reached Seattle on March 7th, having lost but one of their number; but here, while waiting nine days for transportation, they were fed on grass, through the desire of the officer having them in charge to save the reindeer-moss that came with them, and several died. Finally, the herd reached Haine's Mission, Pyramid Harbor, from which point they should have been at once driven to the moss-fields, a few miles distant; but instructions regarding them sent to the officer in command of the US soldiers at Dyea, though mailed at Skagway, did not reach him, 4 miles distant, until a week later, so that when the order came to move it was too late; they were so weakened by unaccustomed food that they began to die rapidly, and by the time they reached abundant pasturage in the Chilkat pass, only 50 miles distant, but 183 deer remained alive, and the expedition was abandoned. The survivors were subsequently driven to Circle City.

Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska

[SwampDonkey]

At Dawson building lots were held at extravagant prices. As high as $20,000 was paid for a desirable corner lot for a saloon, while a 2-story log building in the centre of town was worth with the lot anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000.  The government surveyed what public land had not been previously granted to town-site claimants into 40x60 foot lots for cabins, and assessed locators from $200 to $500 each, prices which they justified as being only half the "market value." Three sawmills, running night and day, were unable to supply the demand for lumber, which was worth at the mill $150 to $200 per thousand feet. Men stood with teams waiting, taking the boards as they fell from the saw.  Nails were so scarce that a keg of 100 lbs brought $500; a single pound cost $6, and $3.50 per pound was paid for burned nails from the ruins of the "Opera-house." So that a building of the size of some of those that went up cost $500 to probably $10,000 for the shell alone. A woodworking establishment supplied most of the fittings of saloons and stores.

[snowstorm]

i was up in that country 3 yrs ago. we got on the boat in Vancouver bc then up to Alaska. Juneau and Skagway are kinda cool but they are a tourist trap. from there it was the white pass and Yukon railroad at the top you get on a bus for the next 2 days. next stop Whitehorse. the girl driving the bus knew her history and told a lot of it. like how to tell the air temp with different types of whisky some would slush at -50 others at -60. there is a big river boat in Whitehorse. next stop Dawson city. there was a red ford raptor parked in front of the store banged up a bit . i told everyone it was parkers from goldrush

[SwampDonkey]

like how to tell the air temp with different types of whisky some would slush at -50 others at -60.

Adney tells of this in this book, so I can bet that is where she got it from. The book is considered an historical document.

He mentioned about tossing the thermometer he had and using the whisky to gauge the temperature. :D

"Standard Spirit Thermometer" ;D
mercury freezes at -40
coal oil (kerosene) freezes -35 to -55, according to grade
"pain killer" freezes at -72
"St Jacob's Oil" freezes at -75
best Hudson's Bay rum freezes at -80

[WV Sawmiller]

   I assume the domestic deer they mentioned are Reindeer.

[SwampDonkey]

Yep, from Europe and Asia, not the native caribou.

[mudfarmer]

Thanks for posting this!

Recently read "Skagway in days primeval" by J Bernard Moore, a similar diary that has more details about the route the Stampeders took in, and the boats and steamships than it has details on mining. A great compliment to what you are sharing here and I look forward to the next installment.

[SwampDonkey]

@mudfarmer I'm just giving an abridged version, there is a lot more details in there. ;)  You may have missed the first few posts of the hard trail in there. She was pretty tough. I have not read on ahead yet, but there may be more on the steamships in the next 130 pages. ;D

It's a great look at a long past snapshot of time. Adney was actually writing for 'Harper's Weekly.' Glad to share it.

[thecfarm]

The prices for housing were steep!!!
Money to be made.

[SwampDonkey]

On May 1st muddy water in Bonanza Creek showed that sluicing had begun. On the 3d it came over the low bank, flooding the woods and raising three inches on the floor of the cabin. It is not exactly enjoyable having to wade about the house in rubber boots, fighting mosquitoes, trying to cook flapjacks or make a cup of tea over the stove, and climbing in and out of a high bunk with boots on.  At the end of just 2 days I struck for town. The Klondike was still frozen fast to the bottom, but the river was running bank-full, to all appearances open. Two bridges over the Klondike had just been finished: one on seven stout piers at the mill, and the other at the moth of the Klondike, a suspension foot-bridge in two spans, built of boards and scantling suspended from on inch-wire cable over large spruce spars. The ground-ice, loosening from the bottom, now began to heave, and was jamming dangerously on the shoals. The ice was already level with the floor of the bridge when some dynamite loosened the jam and the ice moved out. Just then a cry was raised, "The upper bridge is gone!" and, looking, we saw some sticks of sawed timber float by.

What had taken place shows the power of ice. Only two piers remained, and icebergs as large as small cabins were setting about in the river bed and among the stumps and cabins on the flat. Several men, who were wringing out clothes and drying portions of outfits in the sun, said they saw the ice jam above the piers and begin to pile up, with the water behind it. Suddenly it broke over the brink and started across the flat, making for the cabins. The same moment a gigantic floe in the middle of the jam - and that was all that saved 75 to 100 cabins and twice that many lives - started, picked the bridge up as it it had been a bunch of matches, and the rest followed crashing, bearing 5 spans befote it; and, thus relieved, the water fell as quickly as it rose, leaving the flat strewn with ice, logs, and lumber. The ice crowded again below into a slough at the mouth of Bonanza Creek, and the cabins of the settlement were flooded to the eaves for several days, their occupants, some of whom were sick, escaping to the roofs, where they remained until boats came to their rescue.

On the 6th of May the Yukon began to rise rapidly, lifting the ice, where it remained fast in front of the town. Hundreds of anxious men kept to the streets that night, believing that if it jammed as the Klondike had it would sweep the town away. The water stood within 2 feet of the top of the bank. When a big floe, 40 feet across, struck the front of the barrier, it half rose out of the water, then dived under, or turned on edge, crunched into the front with a dull roar, and remained there.  At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 8th the cry was raised, "The ice is going out!" and everybody rushed out in time to see the bridge of ice crack, groan, then slowly push together and stop; then slowly, slowly the whole mass began to move, and in a few minutes there was nothing but a swift river, with cakes of ice as big as cabins strewn along the banks. A few days later a "June rise", caused by the melting snows and glaciers in the mountains, we found Klondike City under water, the mouth of the Klondike like a mill pond, the suspension bridge gone, and numbers of people, many of whom we recognized as new-comers, going about in boats where we had lately walked in fancied security.

[SwampDonkey]

Probably 200 boats of various kinds. from Lake Superior birch-canoes to scows with horse on them, were tied up at Klondike City and the Dawson bank of the Klondike, and the hillside was white with tents of newcomers and others who had been driven out of the cabins on the low ground. The central part of Dawson was under from one to 5 feet of water. The barracks were cut off, and people were going for their mail in boats and canoes, while the gold commissioner and his staff were driven to a tent on higher ground. Enterprising boatmen were carrying passengers along the main street, charging 50 cents a head.

It was now at midnight as bright as day. The sun rose behind Moosehide Mountain, swung around halfway to the zenith, and disappeared behind the mountain again after 24 hours continuous shining. From the hilltops the sun was clearly visible during the 24 hours. In the tents it was uncomfortably hot, and the glare was trying to the eyes and nerves. Not only could one easily see to read inside a tent at midnight, but it was light enough outdoors for a "snapshot" with a good photographic lens. During mid-day the temperature rose to 70 degrees in the shade. The very sparrows and snowbirds in the brush on the hillside lay still by day and sang and hunted at night. No one ever felt like going to bed. It was a considerable bother, without watch or compass, to tell the time of day.

[SwampDonkey]

A few persons lived on the tops of their cabins, with a tent and stove, and a boat tied at the corner of the roof to get ashore with. From my own tent, on a steep bluff overlooking the whole scene, I would see a man at say, 11 pm, push off from shore, pole over to a cabin, clamber out onto the roof, take off his shoes, walk over to a pile of blankets, unroll them, then take off his coat, place it for pillow, and turn in for a night's sleep - all in broad daylight.

The river subsided rapidly, and the newcomers continued to pour in. Each one said that the crowd was behind them. Their tents whitened the hillsides, and whole acres were covered so thickly that from a little distance they appeared as masses of white. At Klondike City, along the Klondike for a mile, and down the bank of the Yukon to the far end of tent, among boulders and rocks, where ever there was a space of ground large and dry enough, there were tents. From the point of hill above my tent I counted 2800 tents, including those on scows, in each of which were 3 to 5 or more persons were then living.

The boats, from the graceful Peterborough canoe to freight-scows forty feet long, carrying 20 tons, were tied up side by side along one and three-quarter miles of waterfront, a solid phalanx from one to six feet deep!

It is a motley throng - every degree of person gathered from every corner of the earth, from every State of the Union, and from every city - weather beaten, sunburned, with snow glasses over their hats, just as they came from the passes.

It was a sight just to walk along the waterfront and see the people, how they lived. Some slept in tents on their scows, one stumbled over others on the ground under robes or blankets.

[SwampDonkey]

Outfits of all descriptions were placarded "for sale," and these were surrounded by representatives of eating places buying provisions, or old timers buying underwear and tobacco. Tinned goods, butter, milk, fresh potatoes were eagerly asked for. The first to get in with provisions made small fortunes, for by good luck they brought the very things that would sell best. The fist case of thirty dozen eggs brought $300, in two weeks fell to $3 a dozen; milk $1 a can; tinned mutton, $2.50 a pound; oranges, apples, and lemons, $1 each; potatoes 50 cents a pound; a watermelon, $25. Regular market stands were opened for the sale of vegetables of all kinds, and the water front looked like a row of booths at a fair.

Every conceivable thing was displayed for sale - clothing, furs, moccasins, hats and shoes, groceries, meat, jewelry. There were hardware and thoroughly equipped drug and dry goods stores. In a brief space of a few days there seemed to be nothing that could not be purchased in Dawson.

When meals dropped in price to $2.50, no longer obliged to live on "home made" flapjacks, beans, and bacon, until, as one man expressed it, he was "ashamed to look a hog in the face." What a feast, the fresh vegetables and the curried mutton! Two popular ladies were set up in the ice cream business. A large stock of condensed cream and $100 worth of ice were provided (ice was cut and handled at $1/hr). The ladies were asked how business was getting on. "Oh," they replied, "we're doing just splendid, we have sold $45 worth of ice cream, but we'll have to have a little more ice." ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Thousands of men came into Dawson expecting to find work at wages. In this they met with disappointment. There was plenty to do for the man of resource, who could make his own job. The camp was, as it will be for some time to come, largely a prospector's camp.

Many, after a few days or a few weeks, condemned the country off-hand, where we knew that six months or a year was required to fully comprehend the "genius" of Klondike.

As an instance of what many were expecting - I was working on a large map in the mining exchange and an old man of about 60 began to ask me if I knew of any "bars" in the neighborhood where he could work out enough gold to get out of the country. He wanted to go over to Indian River, of which he had apparently read something; but he did not know that he was not physically strong enough to carry more provisions than would take him there and back, much less stop and work. He had not a cent of money, and only twenty pounds of grub, but, as he said he had a shovel, I advised him, as he was one of the first of the new-comers, to proceed at once to Eldorado and get a job shovelling-in at $1.50 an hour. Then, when he had a little money, he might think of prospecting. That man, or any man fixed as he was, might stake the richest claim in Klondike and not be able to get the gold out, who certainly went away cursing the country, cursing those who persisted against evidence in calling it a "poor man's country"!

I was sitting in the tent of a Seattle mining broker; the day was hot and sweltering. There was a tall figure among the throng who wore a pair of deer-skin pants fringed on the outer seam, a loose blue-flannel shirt, belted in, and a wide brimmed gray hat, from beneath which locks as soft as a girl's straggled to his shoulders. His whole air suggested a romantic type of "cowboy". He strolled along the street as we had seen him for the past few days, approached the open door, and, leaning in the welcome shade against the door-post, began talking to Mr. Hannon. The conversation proceeded for a while, touching matters of general interest. At length, and there was a tone of sadness in his voice, he looked squarely in Mr. Hannon's eyes as he said, "You don't remember me?" "No, I can't say I do," replied Mr. Hannon. "Why, don't you know me? I'm the barber, across from your place in Seattle." And two friends, who had parted 8 months before in Seattle, wrung hands in silence while a tear trickled down the cheek of each.

[petefrom bearswamp]

Thanks again for doing this.
Very interesting read.

[SwampDonkey]

Where last year two ocean vessels met at St Michael the five steamers that supplied Dawson, more than twenty ocean steamers were headed for St Michael, and 47 river steamers, some of twice the tonnage of the largest previously on the river, and equalling in equipment and passenger accommodations the best Ohio and Mississippi river packets, were either on the stocks at Seattle or in sections on the deck of steamers for putting together at Dutch Harbor and St. Michael, or were already at St. Michael and within the Yukon, awaiting the breaking-up of the river. Never before was such activity seen on the West Coast. At one ship-yard in Seattle there were, at one time, 14 river steamers ordered by new companies. Every ocean going steam-vessel not already in the Skagway service, even from the "bone yards" of Seattle and San Francisco, was bought or chartered by companies of every degree of reliability.  Six large steamers came around the Horn, 5 being Red Star and American transatlantic liners. The two old companies advertised that they had more than doubled their previous equipment of river and ocean vessels.

[SwampDonkey]

The Canadian Minister of the Interior, the Hon. Clifford Sifton, granted to a firm of contractors, Messrs. Mackenzie & Mann, provisional right to construct a railroad from Stikeen River to Teslin Lake, in return for immense grants of gold-bearing land in the Klondike. Surveys were made and material delivered at the terminus of the proposed road, and tickets were sold in the principle cities of Europe and the United States for through passage to Dawson! In all, some thousands of unfortunate dupes ascended the Stikeen River, to find no railroad in existence, and 150 miles of horse trail on which there was insufficient forage for horses. On this, the most practicable of the "all Canadian" routes into the Yukon, a fleet of steamers were to ply on the Stikeen River, and a small steamer, the Anglian, was already built on Lake Teslin to ply between the lake and Dawson. Before the agreement with Mackenzie & Mann was ratified by parliament, however, a committee of miners, sent out from Dawson in the fall of 1897 to protest against the royalty tax, discovered and pointed out to Parliament the true inwardness of the proposed franchise, the profits on which had already been figured out as $34M , and as a result of the flood of light they let in upon Parliament concerning the Yukon, the bill was killed.**

**3,750,000 acres of mineral land in Klondike were to be granted  to the contractors, whereas the whole area about Dawson that had been prospected contained only 864,000 acres. They were to be allowed to run their lines along 960 miles of creeks, whereas Bonanza and Eldorado are only 31 miles long; the land was to be held in fee simple, instead of by annual lease; and royalties on gold were to be only 1%, instead of 10%, which were required of all others. In return for which they were to build a narrow gauge railroad, from a terminus only 26 miles nearer Dawson than Skagway - 150 miles of tracks, useless for 7 months of the year - with right to charge exorbitant tolls, and with monopoly of railway ingress to the Yukon for 5 years. It was a grab of nearly everything worth having in the Yukon district.