“That’s what Uncle Dick told us and what we have found out,” said Rob. “We couldn’t get any idea of that country at all, and had to find it out for ourselves.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, sir,” said John. “When I get back home and into Uncle Dick’s engineering office I’ll make you a tracing of my map, and you can have it for your very own. I shall be very glad to do that.”
“And if you will I shall be very much in your debt, my young friend,” said the archdeacon. “That will be fine, and I shall value it. I fancy that many a Klondiker who was cast away in the winter-time in that wild country would have been glad to have had such assistance as this. But not even Harper or McQueston or any of the other early explorers on the Peace and the Liard and the Mackenzie and the Peel and the Rat and all these rivers running into the Yukon which have been so famous for their gold—not one of these men, I will say, could ever make an exact map of the country he had crossed. As for the traders—well, you know that yourself. They don’t want new-comers, and they don’t help them any too much.” He sighed, spreading out his hands with but partial resignation.
“It is a hard fight which the Church wages with the fur trade in the North. We are antagonistic, although we live side by side, both Anglican and Catholic missions, almost in the dooryard of the Hudson’s Bay Company and Revillons and all the smaller fry of independents which are pushing in now. But we do our best.
“Now, then, young sir,” he resumed, turning to Rob, “I have no doubt that your notes are as good as this young man’s map. I hope you will keep up your diary just as I have done in much of my exploration work in Alaska and the Northwest Territory. These things are invaluable in later life.”
Rob thanked his host very much, and promised to do as he advised. Therefore, what he found of interest at this, the first considerable American settlement they met on the Yukon, should prove worth setting down in his own words.