Part 61 (1/2)
CHAPTER XLVII
In the autumn of 1902 Felix Pedro, an experienced miner and prospector, crossed the divide between Birch and McMa.n.u.s creeks and entered the Tanana Valley.
Previous to that year many people had travelled through the valley, on their way to the Klondike, by the Valdez route; and a few miners from the Birch Creek and Forty-Mile diggings had wandered into the Tanana country, without being able to do any important prospecting because of the distance from supplies; but Pedro was the first man to discover that gold existed in economic quant.i.ties in this region, and his coming was an event of historical importance.
One of the best tests of the importance and value of geological survey work lies in the significant report of Mr. Alfred H. Brooks for the year of 1898--four years before the discoveries of Mr. Pedro:--
”We have seen that the little prospecting which has been done up to the present time has been too hurried and too superficial to be regarded as a fair test of the region. Our best information leads us to believe that the same horizons which carry gold in the Forty-Mile and Birch Creek districts are represented in the Tanana and White River basins.... I should advise prospectors to carefully investigate the small tributary streams of the lower White and of the Tanana from Mirror Creek to the mouth.”
Pedro's discovery was on the creek which bears his name, and before another year gold was discovered on several other creeks. In 1901 a trading post was established by Captain E. T. Barnette, on the present site of Fairbanks, and the development of the country progressed rapidly. The Fairbanks Mining District was organized and named for the present Vice-President of the United States. In the autumn of 1903 eight hundred people were in the district, and about thirty thousand dollars had been produced, the more important creeks at that time being Pedro, Goldstream, Twin Creek, Cleary, Wolf, Chatham, and Fairbanks. In the fall of 1904 nearly four thousand miners had come in, and the year's output was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fairbanks and Chena had grown to thriving camps, and a brilliant prosperity reigned in the entire district. Roads were built to the creeks, sloughs were bridged, and Fairbanks' ”boom” was in full swing. It was the old story of a camp growing from tents to shacks in a night, from shacks to three-story buildings in a month. The glory of the Klondike trembled and paled in the brilliance of that of Fairbanks. Every steamer for Valdez was crowded with men and women bound for the new camp by way of the Valdez trail; while thousands went by steamer, either to St. Michael and up the Yukon, or to Skaguay and down the Yukon, to the mouth of the Tanana.
Fairbanks is now a camp only in name. It has all the comforts and luxuries of a city, and is more prosperous and progressive than any other town in Alaska or the Yukon. It started with such a rush that it does not seem to be able to stop. It is the headquarters of the Third Judicial District of Alaska, which was formerly at Rampart; it has electric light and water systems, a fire department, excellent and modern hotels, schools, churches, hospitals, daily newspapers, a telegraph line to the outside world which is operated by the government, and a telephone system which serves not only the city, but all the creeks as well.
The Tanana Mines Railway, or Tanana Valley Railway, as it is now called, was built in 1905 to connect Fairbanks with Chena and the richest mining claims of the district; and two great railroads are in course of construction from Prince William Sound.
In 1906 the output of gold was more than nine millions of dollars, and had it not been for the labor troubles in 1907, this output would have been doubled. In the earlier days of the camp the crudest methods of mining were employed; but with the improved transportation facilities, modern machinery was brought in and the difficulties of the development were greatly lessened.
Upon a first trip to Fairbanks, the visitor is amazed at the size and the metropolitan style and tone of this six-year-old camp in the wilderness.
It is situated on the banks of the Chena River, about nine miles from its confluence with the Tanana. It has a level town site, which looks as though it might extend to the Arctic Circle. The main portion of the town is on the right bank of the river, the railway terminal yards, saw-mills, manufacturing plants, and industries of a similar nature being located on the opposite sh.o.r.e, on what is known as Garden Island, the two being connected by substantial bridges. The city is incorporated and, like other incorporated towns of Alaska, is governed by a council of seven members, who elect a presiding officer who is, by courtesy, known as mayor. The executive officers of the munic.i.p.al government consist of a clerk, treasurer, police magistrate, chief of police, chief of the fire department, street commissioner, and physician.
The munic.i.p.al finances are derived from a share in federal licenses, from the income derived from the local court, from poll taxes, and from local taxation of real and personal property. From all these sources the munic.i.p.al treasury was enriched during the year of 1906 by about ninety-five thousand dollars.
Each of the three banks operates an a.s.say office under the supervision of an expert. The population of the district is from fifteen to twenty thousand, of which five thousand belong permanently to the town. The climate is dry and sparkling; the summers are delightful, the winters still and not colder than those of Minnesota, Montana, and the Dakotas, but without the blizzards of those states. In 1906 the coldest month was January, the daily mean temperature being thirty-six degrees below zero, but dry and still. Travel over the trail by dog team is continued throughout the winter, skating and other outdoor sports being as common as in Canada.
Five saw-mills are in operation, with an aggregate daily capacity of a hundred and ten thousand feet, the entire product being used locally.
There is an abundance of poplar, spruce, hemlock, and birch; an unlimited water supply; a munic.i.p.al steam-heating plant; two good hospitals; two daily newspapers; graded schools,--the four-year course of the high school admitting the student to the Was.h.i.+ngton State University and to high educational inst.i.tutions of other states; a Chamber of Commerce and a Business Men's a.s.sociation; twelve hotels, five of which are first cla.s.s; while every industry is represented several times over.
This is Fairbanks, the six-year-old mining-camp of the Tanana Valley.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
SUNRISE ON BEHRING SEA]
CHAPTER XLVIII
At Tanana our party was enlarged by a party of four gentlemen, headed by Governor Wilford B. Hoggatt, of Juneau, who was on a tour of inspection of the country he serves.
Our steamer, too, underwent a change while we were ash.o.r.e. We now learned why its bow was square and wide. It was that it might push barges up and down the Yukon; and it now proceeded, under our astonished eyes, to push four, each of which was nearly as large as itself. All the days of my life, as Mr. Pepys would say, I have never beheld such an object floating upon the water. The barges were fastened in front of us and on both sides of us; two were flat and uncovered, one was covered, but open on the sides, while the fourth was a kind of boat and was crowned with a real pilot-house, in which was a real wheel.
We viewed them in open and hostile dismay, not yet recognizing them as blessings in disguise; we then laughed till we wept, over our amazing appearance as we went sweeping, bebarged, down to the sea. Four barges to one steamboat! One barge would have seemed like an insult, but four were perfectly ridiculous. The governor was told that they const.i.tuted his escort of honor, but he would not smile. He was in haste to get to Nome; and barges meant delay.
We swept down the Yukon like a huge bird with wide wings outspread; and those of us who did not care whether we went upon a sand-bar or not soon became infatuated with barges. Straight in front of our steamer we had, on one barge, a low, clean promenade a hundred feet long by fifty wide; on the others were shady, secluded nooks, where one might lie on rugs and cus.h.i.+ons, reading or dreaming, ever and anon catching glimpses of native settlements--tents and cabins; thousands of coral-red salmon drying on frames; groups of howling dogs; dozens of silent dark people sitting or standing motionless, staring at their whiter and more fortunate brothers sweeping past them on the rus.h.i.+ng river.
Poor, lonely, dark people! As lonely and as mysterious, as little known and as little understood, as the mighty river on whose sh.o.r.es their few and hard days are spent. Little we know of them, and less we care for them. The hopeless tragedy of their race is in their long, yearning gaze; but we read it not. We look at them in idle curiosity as we flash past them; and each year, as we return, we find them fewer, lonelier,--more like dark sphinxes on the river's banks. As the years pa.s.s and their numbers diminish, the mournfulness deepens in their gaze; it becomes more questioning, more haunting. The day will come when they will all be gone, when no longer dark figures will people those lonely sh.o.r.es; and then we will look at one another in useless remorse and cry:--
”Why did they not complain? Why did they not ask us to help them? Why did they sit and starve for everything, staring at us and making no sign?”