An immense amount of snow falls on these coast ranges; luckily we had none during our crossing—neither did it rain, which was wonderful.
Now, as to this White Pass ever being made the highway to the Yukon, I must say a few words. The trail as it then existed was absolutely impracticable for horses—it was all that men could do to clamber up it, and we realised that with much traffic, even of human beings, it would quickly become impassable, and yet Meade and I felt confident that with comparatively little work and some engineering skill a road, and some day even a railroad, could be made across it. Most of the runs of water could be bridged easily, in the rough way which is the custom in the wilds. Many of the morasses, we could see, could be drained by a few gutters cut with a spade. There being such a slope it was easy to run water off, and where that was impossible log causeways—corduroys—could be built with no great trouble, for logs were plentiful for the cutting. It was possible to wind round most of the rocks, and a few pounds of dynamite or giant powder would quickly clear the impassable masses. Certainly when we crossed it was terrible enough; but yet we plainly saw that a good road, fairly easy to traverse by horses, even with loaded waggons, was certain ere long to exist there.
If it should be proved that gold was plentiful in the Yukon country,—"Undoubtedly," we said, "before two years are past there will be a fine road here," and as to the gold—well, we had reason to be very sure about that.
From this camp the trail led up a narrow and precipitous defile until the actual summit was reached. We were then at least fifteen miles from Skagway, and near three thousand feet above tide-water.
From here there was a sheer descent of many feet to a lake—Summit Lake. It was frozen solid. The Indians assured us it was always frozen—that the snow never left its margin. At one point the ice overlapped the edge, forming a small glacier. A few yards below it was thawing. At some far distant day a great glacier had been there, for a cañon had been formed, and down it, beside the rushing stream of white water, our course lay. Mountains rose high around us, covered with ever-lasting snow.
Gradually the snow on our course disappeared and the sleds became useless, and Jim assured us that for the rest of the journey to Windy Arm packing must be resorted to. Therefore next morning the sleds were cached, and we started on our weary tramp.
Everything was frozen solid still, for it was not yet May. The travelling was exceedingly arduous,—not that there were any mountains to traverse or swamps to push through; it was simply a rough rock-strewn country, sparsely covered with scraggy trees, mostly pines and spruces, with bushes which we thought were willows, and long coarse grass.
We had five days of this, and then we reached the Windy Arm, and the Indians' contract was completed. We had come about sixty-five miles from Skagway.
It was still winter here: there was no open water, the woods were full of snow, which had been long since driven by strong winds from the open; it was a bleak and dreary outlook. Around the lake most of the timber had been fired, gaunt grey sticks alone were standing, and the ground was covered with half-burned logs and branches. Of fuel there was no lack. We made camp in the only close clump of living trees about. We put our tent up securely, made ourselves comfortable, for we knew we must stay on there and by some means build a boat or raft, and wait for the ice to break up. Thus our object was gained in reaching that spot, and we were ready to avail ourselves instantly of the open water, and to pursue our journey.
The Indians had behaved so exceedingly well that I proposed, and Meade agreed, to give them each a dollar.