It is divided into four great districts, each of which has its own characteristic features. The valley extending from White Horse to some distance below Dawson is called the "upper Yukon," or "upper Ramparts," the river having a width of half a mile and a current of four or five miles an hour, and the valley in this district being from one to three miles in width.
Following this are the great "Flats"—of which one hears from his first hour on the Yukon; then, the "Ramparts"; and last, the "lower Yukon" or "lower river."
The Flats are vast lowlands stretching for two hundred miles along the river, with a width in places of a hundred miles. Their very monotony is picturesque and fascinates by its immensity. Countless islands are constantly forming, appearing and disappearing in the whimsical changes of the currents. Indian, white, and half-breed pilots patrol these reaches, guiding one steamer down and another up, and by constant travel keeping themselves fairly familiar with the changing currents. Yet even these pilots frequently fail in their calculations.
At Eagle a couple of gentlemen joined our party down the river on the Campbell, expecting to meet the same day and return on the famous Sarah—as famous as a steamer as is the island of the same name on the inland passage; but they went on and on and the Sarah came not. One day, two days, three days, went by and they were still with us. One was in the customs service and his time was precious. Whenever we approached a bend in the river, they stood in the bow of the boat, eagerly staring ahead; but not until the fourth day did the cry of "Sarah" ring through our steamer. Hastening on deck, we beheld her, white and shining, on a sand-bar, where she had been lying for several days, notwithstanding the fact that she had an experienced pilot aboard.
Throughout the Flats lies a vast network of islands, estimated as high as ten thousand in number, threaded by countless channels, many of which have strong currents, while others are but still, sluggish sloughs. Mountains line the far horizon lines, but so far away that they frequently appear as clouds of bluish pearl piled along the sky; at other times snow-peaks are distinctly visible. Cottonwoods, birches, and spruce trees cover the islands so heavily that, from the lower deck of a steamer, one would believe that he was drifting down the single channel of a narrow river, instead of down one channel of a river twenty miles wide.
It is within the Arctic Circle that the Yukon makes its sweeping bend from its northwest course to the southwest, and here it is entered by the Porcupine; twenty miles farther, by the Chandelar; and just above the Ramparts, by the Dall. These are the three important rivers of this stretch of the Yukon.
Many complain of the monotony of the Flats; but for me, there was not one dull or uninteresting hour on the Yukon. In my quiet home on summer evenings I can still see the men taking soundings from the square bow of our steamer and hear their hoarse cries:—
"Six feet starboard! Five feet port! Seven feet starboard! Five feet port! Five feet starboard! Four feet port!" At the latter cry the silent watchers of the pilot-house came to attention, and we proceeded under slow bell until a greater depth was reached.
On the shores, as we swept past, we caught glimpses of dark figures and Indian villages, or, farther down the river, primitive Eskimo settlements; and the stillness, the pure and sparkling air, the untouched wilderness, the blue smoke of a wood-chopper's lonely fire, the wide spaces swimming over us and on all sides of us, charmed our senses as only the elemental forces of nature can charm. One longs to stay awake always on this river; to pace the wide decks and be one with the solitude and the stillness that are not of the earth, as we know it, but of God, as we have dreamed of him.
The blue hills of the Ramparts are seen long before entering them. The valley contracts into a kind of canyon, from which the rampart-like walls of solid stone rise abruptly from the water. The hills are not so high as those of the Upper Ramparts, which bear marked resemblance to the lower; and although many consider the latter more picturesque, I must confess that I found no beauty below Dawson so majestic as that above. Many of the hills here have a rose-colored tinge, like the hills of Lake Bennett.