Alaska, the Great Country - Ella Higginson

CHAPTER XLV

When the D. R. Campbell drew away from the Dawson wharf at nine o'clock of an August morning, another of my dreams was "come true." I was on my way down the weird and mysterious river that calls as powerfully in its way as the North Pacific Ocean. For years the mere sound of the word "Yukon" had affected me like the clash of a wild and musical bell. The sweep of great waters was in it—the ring of breaking ice and its thunderous fall; the roar of forest fires, of undermined plunging cliffs, of falling trees, of pitiless winds; the sobs of dark women, deserted upon its shores, with white children on their breasts; the mournful howls of dogs and of their wild brothers, wolves; the slide of avalanches and the long rattle of thunder—for years the word "Yukon" had set these sounds ringing in my ears, and had swung before my eyes the shifting pictures of canyon, rampart, and plain; of waters rushing through rock walls and again loitering over vast lowlands to the sea; of forestated mountains, rose thickets, bare hills, pale cliffs of clay, and ranges of sublime snow-mountains. Yet, with all that I had read, and all that I had heard, and all that I had imagined, I was unprepared for the spell of the Yukon; for the spaces, the solitude, the silence. At last I was to learn how well the name fits the river and the country, and how feeble and how ineffectual are both description and imagination to picture this country so that it may be understood.

Six miles below Dawson the site of old Fort Reliance is passed, and forty-six miles farther Forty-Mile River pours its broad flood into the Yukon. About eight miles up this river, at the lower end of a canyon, a strong current has swept many small boats upon dangerous rocks and the occupants have been drowned. The head of the Forty-Mile is but a short distance from the great Tanana.

The settlement of Forty-Mile is the pioneer mining-camp of the Yukon. The Alaska Commercial Company established a station here soon after the gold excitement of 1887; and, as the international boundary line crosses Forty-Mile River twenty-three miles from its mouth and many of the most important mining interests depending upon the town for supplies are on the American side, a bonded warehouse is maintained, from which American goods can be drawn without the payment of duties. As late as 1895 quite a lively town was at the mouth of the river, boasting even an opera house; but the town was depopulated upon the discovery of gold on the Klondike. Six years ago the settlement was flooded by water banked up in Forty-Mile River by ice, and the residents were taken from upstairs windows in boats. The former name of this river was Che-ton-deg, or "Green Leaf," River.

Now there are a couple of dozen log cabins, a dozen or more red-roofed houses, and store buildings. The steamer pushed up sidewise to the rocky beach, a gang-plank was floated ashore, and a customs inspector came aboard. On the beach were a couple of ladies, some members of the mounted police in scarlet coats, and fifty malamute dogs, snapping, snarling, and fighting like wolves over the food flung from the steamer.

The dog is to Alaska what the horse is to more civilized countries—the intelligent, patient, faithful beast of burden. He is of the Eskimo or "malamute" breed, having been bred with the wolf for endurance; or he is a "husky" from the Mackenzie River.