Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/237

Rh 1897; and the traveler is brought down to the banks of the Yukon just low enough to escape the terrible White Horse Eapids, where also so many lives were lost in those early days. The voyage hence to Dawson is a quick one, with a stream whose average current is five miles an hour.

Dawson City, which in 1898 was only a collection of huts on a frozen mud swamp situated at the point where the Klondike River enters the Yukon, is now a town of about 10,000 inhabitants, consisting, it is true, of wooden buildings and chiefly of log cabins, but possessing hotels, clubs, theaters, saw-mills, large stores, electric light, telephones, power works and all the resources of modern civilization. New government buildings were rising at the time of my visit, and the town wore an aspect of considerable and prosperous activity.

It is interesting to watch the life of this remarkable city, situated 1,500 miles from Vancouver and close upon the Arctic circle: upon the plank sidewalks are slouch-hatted, long-booted miners who throng dance-halls and saloons and pay from pouches of gold-dust; busy merchants, traders and storekeepers of all nationalities; well-dressed ladies and children; military men, surveyors, engineers and lawyers; while in the dusty roadway are to be seen men riding long-tailed horses with Mexican saddles, driving pack-mules laden with boxes, or urging yelping teams of dogs with the cry c mush, mush'

Popular accounts of this country generally represent it in its winter dress of snow, and relate tales of the rigorous severities of the Arctic frost. At the time when. I was there Dawson was enjoying the mild and equable climate which prevails in the summer months, when the temperature may even rise to 90° F.; no snow was visible save that which clothed the serrated peaks of the northern Rockies, and their majestic chain was only to be seen from the summit of Moosehide Mountain above Dawson, and at a distance of about 40 miles to the north. The inhabitants had begun to grow potatoes, cabbage, lettuce and other vegetables, and a considerable market garden was being laid out on the left bank of the Yukon. And yet there is one remarkable feature of the country which prevents the traveler from ever forgetting that he is close upon the Arctic circle; if a hole be dug only three feet deep at any spot in the boggy ground, it will be found permanently frozen at that shallow depth; even in Dawson itself the log cabins rest upon a foundation of ice which never thaws.

There is also a striking feature of life in Dawson which ever reminds the visitor that he is in a mining camp. He will have to pay Is. or 2s. for a bootblack or a barber, 2s. for a glass of cow's milk, 6s. for three boiled eggs or a mutton chop, 30s. for a bottle of claret, perhaps £20 a day for the hire of a rig and team of horses. The rent of a log cabin is about £120, and a sense of economic insecurity is