The Unalaklik River is followed upward to Ulukuk, where begins a sledging portage over the marshes to the Ulukuk Hills, where there is a native village known as Vesolia Sopka, or Cheerful Peak, at an altitude of eight hundred feet above the surrounding plain. This is a well-known trapping ground, the fox and marten being very plentiful. From Sopka Vesolia (Cheerful Peak) it is about one day's journey to Beaver Lake, which is only a marshy tundra in winter, but is flooded in the spring and summer months. From the high hills beyond the lake one may catch a first glimpse of the great Yukon sweeping between its splendid banks.
The natives call Nulato emphatically a "hungry" place, and it was once the scene of an atrocious massacre. Capt. Dall, from whose book much of the information regarding this part of Alaska is derived, describes the Indians here as a very great nuisance. "They had," he explains, "a great habit of coming in and sitting down, doing and saying nothing, but watching everything. At meal times they seemed to count and weigh every morsel we ate, and were never backward in assisting to dispose of the remains of the meal. Occasionally we would get desperate and clean them all out, but they would drop in again and we could do nothing but resign ourselves."
The soil on the banks of the Yukon and that of the islands probably never thaws far below the surface. It is certain that no living roots are found at a greater depth than three feet. The soil, in layers that seems to mark annual inundations, consists of a stratum of sand overlaid by mud and covered with vegetable matter, the layers being from a half inch to three inches in thickness. In many places where the bank has been undermined these layers may be counted by the hundred. Low bluffs of blue sandstone, with here and there a high gravel bank, characterize the shores as far as Point Sakataloutan, and some distance above this point begin the quartzose rocks.
The next station on the river is the village of Nowikakat, on the left bank. Here may be obtained stores of dried meat and fat from the Indians. The village is situated upon a beautiful bay or Nowikakat Harbor, which is connected by a narrow entrance with the Yukon. "Through this a beautiful view is obtained across the river, through the numerous islands of the opposite shore, and of the Yukon Mountains in the distance. The feathery willows and light poplars bend over and are reflected in the dark water, unmixed as yet with Yukon mud; every island and hillside is clothed in the delicate green of spring, and luxuriates in a density of foliage remarkable in such a latitude."
Nowikakat is specially noted for the excellence of its canoes, of which the harbor is so full that a boat makes its landing with difficulty among them. It is the only safe place on the lower Yukon for wintering a steamer, as it is sheltered from the freshets which bring down great crushes of ice in the spring.
At Nuklukahyet there is a mission of the Episcopal church and a trading store, but there may or may not be supplies of civilized goods, not to speak of moose meat and fat. This is the neutral ground where all the tribes meet in the spring to trade. The Tananah, which flows into the Yukon at this point, is much broader here than the Yukon, and it is here that Captain Dall exclaims in his diary: "And yet into this noble river no white man has dipped his paddle." Recently, however, the Tananah has been more or less explored by prospectors with favorable results towards the head of the river, which is more easily reached overland from Circle City and the Birch Creek camps.
Leaving Nuklukahyet, the "Ramparts" are soon sighted, and the Yukon rapids sweep between bluffs and hills which rise about fifteen hundred feet above the river, which is not more than half a mile wide and seems almost as much underground as a river bed in a canyon. The rocks are metaphoric quartzites, and the river-bed is crossed by a belt of granite. The rapid current has worn the granite away at either side, making two good channels, but in the center lies an island of granite over which the water plunges at high water, the fall being about twelve feet in half a mile.
Beyond the mouth of the Tananah the Yukon begins to widen, and it is filled with small islands. The mountains disappear, and just beyond them the Totokakat, or Dall River of Ketchum, enters the Yukon from the north. Beyond this point the river, ever broadening, passes the "Small Houses," deserted along the bank at the time, years ago, when the scarlet fever, brought by a trading vessel to the mouth of the Chilkat, spread to the Upper Yukon and depopulated the station. This place is noted for the abundance of its game and fish.
The banks of the river above this point become very low and flat, the plain stretching almost unbroken to the Arctic Ocean.