PARLIAMENT HOUSE, VICTORIA.
LUMBERING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA.
XV
THE YUKON AND NORTH-WEST TERRITORIES
NORTH of British Columbia lies the Yukon territory, which about sixteen years ago suddenly became interesting to the world on account of the discoveries of gold on two streams flowing into the Klondyke. This is itself a tributary of the Yukon river, which is navigable for over sixteen hundred miles in its course from White Horse, through the territory bearing its own name and through Alaska, to the Behring Sea. There is no need to write of the stampede to the Klondyke in the late nineties. The production of gold in the Yukon gradually declined after 1901, but mining is still its chief industry, and the introduction of more elaborate methods of mining are now again increasing the output. The territory is rich also in copper and coal, both of which are being mined with success. There is a good local market for coal at Dawson, which, founded in 1896, had at one time a population of twenty thousand. This had fallen by 1911 to four thousand, however.
The climate is very severe in winter, especially during January and February, and in the northern part of the district the ground never thaws for more than a foot in depth; but the surface thaws, and only a few miles south of the Arctic Circle the summer climate is said to be pleasant, and hardy vegetables such as turnips and cabbages can be grown.
Just beyond the borders of the Yukon district, on the banks of the Mackenzie river, stands the most northerly of the Hudson Bay Company’s posts—Fort McPherson. It has been described as “truly an Arctic village. The sun never sets for about six weeks in summer, and is constantly below the horizon for the same time in winter.” It is visited by the Eskimos of the shores of the Arctic Ocean and by the whalers, chiefly from San Francisco.
Several years ago the whole whaling fleet was entrapped by the ice, and its crews obliged to go into winter quarters at Herschel Island. Here there is a detachment of the Mounted Police, who have to face all kinds of difficulty and danger in keeping order and doing their duty—often of a humanitarian character—in the northern wildernesses. Usually they carry through their undertakings with marked success, but occasionally they are the victims, or the heroes of a tragedy.