Part 60 (1/2)

In winter all the mails are carried by dogs, covering hundreds of miles.

Half a mile below Forty-Mile the town of Cudahy was founded in 1892 by the North American Trading and Transportation Company, as a rival settlement.

Fifty miles below Forty-Mile, at the confluence of Mission Creek with the Yukon, is Eagle, having a population of three or four hundred people. It has the most northerly customs office and military post, Fort Egbert, belonging to the United States, and is the terminus of the Valdez-Eagle mail route and telegraph line. It is also of importance as being but a few miles from the boundary.

Fort Egbert is a two-company post, and usually, as at the time of our visit, two companies are stationed there. The winter of 1904-1905 was the gayest in the social history of the fort. Several ladies, the wives and the sisters of officers, were there, and these, with the wife of the company's agent and other residents of the town, formed a brilliant and refined social club.

From November the 27th to January the 16th the sun does not appear above the hills to the south. The two ”great” days at Eagle are the 16th of January,--”when the sun comes back,”--and the day ”when the ice breaks in the river,” usually the 12th of May. On the former occasion the people a.s.semble, like a band of sun-wors.h.i.+ppers, and celebrate its return.

The vegetable and flower gardens of Eagle were a revelation of what may be expected in the agricultural and floral line in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle. Potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, lettuce, turnips, radishes, and other vegetables were in a state of spendthrift luxuriance that cannot be imagined by one who has not travelled in a country where vegetables grow day and night.

In winter Eagle is a lonely place. The only mail it receives is the monthly mail pa.s.sing through from Dawson to Nome by dog sleds; and no magazines, papers, or parcels are carried.

It was from Eagle that the first news was sent out to the world concerning Captain Amundsen's wonderful discovery of the Northwest Pa.s.sage; here he arrived in midwinter after a long, hard journey by dog team from the Arctic Ocean and sent out the news which so many brave navigators of early days would have given their lives to be able to announce.

Within five years a railroad will probably connect Eagle with the coast at Valdez; meantime, there is a good government trail, poled by a government telegraph line.

Eagle came into existence in 1898, and the fort was established in 1899.

”Woodings-up” are picturesque features of Yukon travel. When the steamer does not land at a wood yard, mail is tied around a stick and thrown ash.o.r.e. Fancy standing, a forlorn and homesick creature, on the bank of this great river and watching a letter from home caught by the rus.h.i.+ng current and borne away! Yet this frequently happens, for heart affairs are small matters in the Arctic Circle and receive but scant consideration.

On the Upper Yukon wood is five dollars a cord; on the Lower, seven dollars; and a cord an hour is thrust into the immense and roaring furnaces.

During ”wooding-up” times pa.s.sengers go ash.o.r.e and enjoy the forest.

There are red and black currants, crab-apples, two varieties of salmon-berries, five of huckleberries, and strawberries. The high-bush cranberries are very pretty, with their red berries and delicate foliage.

Nation is a settlement of a dozen log cabins roofed with dirt and flowers, the roofs projecting prettily over the front porches. The wife of the storekeeper has lived here twenty-five years, and has been ”outside” only once in twelve years. Pa.s.sengers usually go ash.o.r.e especially to meet her, and are always cordially welcomed, but are never permitted to condole with her on her isolated life. The spell of the Yukon has her in thrall, and content s.h.i.+nes upon her brow as a star.

Those who go ash.o.r.e to pity, return with the dull ache of envy in their worldly hearts; for there be things on the Yukon that no worldly heart can understand.

We left Eagle in the forenoon and at midnight landed at Circle City, which received this name because it was first supposed to be located within the Arctic Circle. We found natives building houses at that hour, and this is my most vivid remembrance of Circle. Gold was discovered on Birch Creek, within eight miles of the settlement, as early as 1892; and until the Klondike excitement this was the most populous camp on the Yukon, more than a thousand miners being quartered in the vicinity. Like other camps, it was then depopulated; but many miners have now returned and a brilliant discovery in this vicinity may yet startle the world.

The output of gold for 1906 was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

About three hundred miners are operating on tributaries up Birch Creek.

The great commercial companies are established at all these settlements on the Yukon, where they have large stores and warehouses.

Early on the following morning we were on deck to cross the Arctic Circle. One has a feeling that a line with icicles dangling from it must be strung overhead, under which one pa.s.ses into the enchanted realm of the real North.

”Feel that?” asked the man from Iowa of a big, unsmiling Englishman.

”Feel--er--what?” said the Englishman.

”That shock. It felt like stepping on the third rail of an electric railway.”

But the Iowa humor was scorned, and the Englishman walked away.

We soon landed at Fort Yukon, the only landing in the Arctic Circle and the most northerly point on the Yukon. This post was established at the mouth of the Porcupine in 1847 by A. H. McMurray, of the Hudson Bay Company, and was moved in 1864 a mile lower on the Yukon, on account of the undermining of the bank by the wash of the river. During the early days of this post goods were brought from York Factory on Hudson Bay, four thousand miles distant, and were two years in transit. The whole Hudson Bay system, according to Dall, was one of exacting tyranny that almost equalled that of the Russian Company. The white men were urged to marry Indian, or native, women, to attach them to the country. The provisions sent in were few and these were consumed by the commanders of the trading posts or given to chiefs, to induce them to bring in furs.

The white men received three pounds of tea and six of sugar annually, and no flour. This scanty supply was uncertain and often failed. Two suits of clothes were granted to the men, but nothing else until the furs were all purchased. If anything remained after the Indians were satisfied, the men were permitted to purchase; but Indians are rarely satisfied.