Tagish Lake, as it was named by Dr. Dawson,—the distinguished British explorer and chief director of the natural history and geological survey of the Dominion of Canada,—was also known as Bove Lake. Ten miles from its head it is joined by Taku Arm—Tahk-o Lake, it was called by Schwatka.
The shores of Tagish Lake are terraced beautifully to the water, the terraces rising evenly one above another. They were probably formed by the regular movement of ice in other ages, when the waters in these valleys were deeper and wider. There are some striking points of limestone in this vicinity, their pearl-white shoulders gleaming brilliantly in the sunshine, with sparkling blue waves dashing against them.
Marsh Lake, and another with a name so distasteful that I will not write it, are further links in the brilliant sapphire water chain by which the courageous voyagers of the Heartbreak days used to drift hopefully, yet fearfully, down to the Klondike. The bed of a lake which was unintentionally drained completely dry by the builders of the railroad is passed just before reaching Grand Canyon.
The train pauses at the canyon and again at White Horse Rapids, to give passengers a glimpse of these famed and dreaded places of navigation of a decade ago.
At six o'clock in the evening of the day we left Skaguay we reached White Horse.
CHAPTER XLII
This is a new, clean, wooden town, the first of any importance in Yukon Territory. It has about fifteen hundred inhabitants, is the terminus of the railroad, and is growing rapidly. The town is on the banks of Lewes River, or, as they call it here, the Yukon.
There is an air of tidiness, order, and thrift about this town which is never found in a frontier town in "the states." There are no old newspapers huddled into gutters, nor blowing up and down the street. Men do not stand on corners with their hands in their pockets, or whittling out toothpicks, and waiting for a railroad to be built or a mine to be discovered. They walk the streets with the manner of men who have work to do and who feel that life is worth while, even on the outposts of civilization.