Part 53 (1/2)

He returned and work was at once begun. A man big of body, mind, and heart, he was specially fitted for the perilous and daring work. Calm, low-voiced, compelling in repressed power and unswerving courage and will, he was a harder worker than any of his men.

a.s.sociated with him was a man equally large and equally gifted. Mr.

Hawkins is one of the most famous engineers of this country, if not of any country.

The difficult miles that these two men tramped; the long, long hours of each day that they worked; the hards.h.i.+ps that they endured, unflinching; the appalling obstacles that they overcame--are a part of Alaskan history.

The first twenty miles of this road from Skaguay cost two millions of dollars; the average cost to the summit was a hundred thousand dollars a mile, and now and then a single mile cost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The road is built on mountainsides so precipitous that men were suspended from the heights above by ropes, to prevent disaster while cutting grades. At one point a cliff a hundred and twenty feet high, eighty feet deep, and twenty feet in width was blasted entirely away for the road-bed.

Thirty-five hundred men in all were employed in constructing the road, but thirty of whom died, of accident and disease, during the construction. Taking into consideration the perilous nature of the work, the rigors of the winter climate, and the fact that work did not cease during the worst weather, this is a remarkably small proportion.

A force of finer men never built a railroad. Many were prospectors, eager to work their way into the land of gold; others were graduates of eastern colleges; all were self-respecting, energetic men.

Skaguay is a thousand miles from Seattle; and from the latter city and Vancouver, men, supplies, and all materials were s.h.i.+pped. This was not one of the least of the hindrances to a rapid completion of the road.

Rich strikes were common occurrences at that time. In one day, after the report of a new discovery in the Atlin country had reached headquarters, fifteen hundred men drew their pay and stampeded for the new gold fields.

But all obstacles to the building of the road were surmounted. Within eighteen months from the date of beginning work it was completed to White Horse, a distance of one hundred and eleven miles, and trains were running regularly.

A legend tells us that an old Indian chief saw the canoe of his son upset in the waves lashed by the terrific winds that blow down between the mountains. The lad was drowned before the helpless father's eyes, and in his sorrow the old chief named the place Shkag-ua, or ”Home of the North Wind.” It has been abbreviated to Skaguay; and has been even further disfigured by a _w_, in place of the _u_.

Between salt water and the foot of White Pa.s.s Trail, two miles up the canyon, in the winter of 1897-1898, ten thousand men were camped. Some were trying to get their outfits packed over the trail; others were impatiently waiting for the completion of the wagon road which George A.

Brackett was building. This road was completed almost to the summit when the railroad overtook it and bought its right of way. It is not ten years old; yet it is always called ”the _old_ Brackett road.”

At half-past nine of a July morning our train left Skaguay for White Horse. We traversed the entire length of the town before entering the canyon. There are low, brown flats at the mouth of the river, which spreads over them in shallow streams fringed with alders and cottonwoods.

Above, on both sides, rose the gray, stony cliffs. Here and there were wooded slopes; others were rosy with fireweed that moved softly, like clouds.

We soon pa.s.sed the ruined bridge of the Brackett road, the water brawling noisily, gray-white, over the stones.

Our train was a long one drawn by four engines. There were a baggage-car, two pa.s.senger-cars, and twenty flat and freight cars loaded with boilers, machinery, cattle, chickens, merchandise, and food-stuffs of all kinds.

After crossing Skaguay River the train turns back, climbing rapidly, and Skaguay and Lynn Ca.n.a.l are seen s.h.i.+ning in the distance.... We turn again. The river foams between mountains of stone, hundreds of feet below--so far below that the trees growing spa.r.s.ely along its banks seem as the tiniest shrubs.

The Brackett road winds along the bed of the river, while the old White Pa.s.s, or Heartbreak, Trail climbs and falls along the stone and crumbling shale of the opposite mountain--in many places rising to an alt.i.tude of several hundred feet, in others sinking to a level with the river.

The Brackett road ends at White Pa.s.s City, where, ten years ago, was the largest tent-city in the world; and where now are only the crumbling ruins of a couple of log cabins, silence, and loneliness.

At White Pa.s.s City that was, the old Trail of Heartbreak leads up the canyon of the north fork of the Skaguay, directly away from the railroad. The latter makes a loop of many miles and returns to the canyon hundreds of feet above its bed. The scenery is of constantly increasing grandeur. Cascades, snow-peaks, glaciers, and overhanging cliffs of stone make the way one of austere beauty. In two hours and a half we climb leisurely, with frequent stops, from the level of the sea to the summit of the pa.s.s; and although skirting peaks from five to eight thousand feet in height, we pa.s.s through only one short tunnel.

It is a thrilling experience. The rocking train clings to the leaning wall of solid stone. A gulf of purple ether sinks sheer on the other side--so sheer, so deep, that one dare not look too long or too intently into its depth. Hundreds of feet below, the river roars through its narrow banks, and in many places the train overhangs it. In others, solid rock cliffs jut out boldly over the train.

After pa.s.sing through the tunnel, the train creeps across the steel cantilever bridge which seems to have been flung, as a spider flings his glistening threads, from cliff to cliff, two hundred and fifteen feet above the river, foaming white over the immense boulders that here barricade its headlong race to the sea.

Beautiful and impressive though this trip is in the green time and the bloom time of the year, it remains for the winter to make it sublime.

The mountains are covered deeply with snow, which drifts to a tremendous depth in canyons and cuts. Through these drifts the powerful rotary snow-plough cleaves a white and glistening tunnel, along which the train slowly makes its way. The fascinating element of momentary peril--of snow-slides burying the train--enters into the winter trip.