No meteorological observations were taken thus far on the river, the party not being furnished with a complete set of instruments, and our rapid passage through a vast tract of territory making the usefulness to science highly problematical. The nearest point to the Upper Yukon at which regular observations of this character are recorded is the Chilkat salmon-cannery of the North-west Trading Company, on Chilkat Inlet. The two regions are separated by the Kotusk Mountains, a circumstance which makes meteorological inferences very unreliable. Climatology is better represented, however, in regard to the subject of botany. Quite a number of botanical specimens were collected on the Upper Yukon, and have since been placed in the able hands of Professor Watson, curator of the Harvard herbarium, for analysis. While only a partial and crude collection made by an amateur, it has thrown some little light on the general character of the flora, as limited to the river bed, which we seldom quitted in the discharge of our more important duties connected with the main object of the expedition. Professor Watson's report on this small collection will be found in the Appendix.
The extent of the Alaskan expedition of 1883 was so great that I deemed it best to divide the map of its route into convenient sections; and the three subdivisions, the second of which this chapter commences, were made wholly with reference to my own travels. It is therefore not intended in any other way as a geographical division of this great river, although it might not be altogether unavailable or inappropriate for such a purpose. The Middle Yukon, as we called it on our expedition, extends from the site of old Fort Selkirk to old Fort Yukon, at the great Arctic bend of the Yukon, as it is sometimes and very appropriately termed—a part of the stream which we know approximately from the rough maps of the Hudson Bay Company's traders, who formerly trafficked along these waters, and from information derived from pioneers of the Western Union Telegraph Company and others. This part of the river, nearly five hundred miles in length, had, therefore, already been explored; and to my expedition fell the lot of being the first to give it a survey, which though far from perfection, is the first worthy of the name, and is, I believe, like that of the Upper Yukon, sufficient to answer all purposes until such time as commerce may be established on the river subservient to the industries, either of mining or of fishing, that may hereafter spring up along its course.
I have just spoken of the comparative sizes of the Pelly and Lewis Rivers, as showing the latter to be undoubtedly the Yukon proper; and the view on page 209, taken looking into the mouth of the Pelly from an island at the junction of the two streams, as well as that on page [213], looking back up the Yukon (old Lewis River), from the site of old Selkirk, shows the evident preponderance of the latter, although in the case of the Pelly but one of its mouths, the lower and larger of the two that encircle the island, can be seen distinctly.
The bars at the mouth of the Pelly are a little richer in placer gold "color" than any for a considerable distance on either side along the Yukon, creating the reasonable inference that the mineral has been carried down the former stream, an inference which is strengthened by the reports that gold in paying quantities has been discovered on the Pelly, and is now being worked successfully, although upon a somewhat limited scale. Even the high, flat plateau on which old Fort Selkirk was built is a bed of fine gravel that glistens with grains of gold in the miner's pan, and might possibly "pay" in more favorable climes, where the ground is not frozen the greater part of the year. Little did the old traders of the Hudson's Bay Company imagine that their house was built on such an auriferous soil, and possibly little did they care, as in this rich fur district they possessed an enterprise more valuable than a gold mine, if an American can imagine such a thing.
VIEW LOOKING UP THE YUKON FROM THE SITE OF FORT SELKIRK.
The perpendicular bluff of eruptive rock, distinctly columnar in many places, and with its talus reaching from half to two-thirds the way to the top, as shown in the view looking into the mouth of the Pelly, on page 209, and the view on page [205] also, extends up that stream on the north or right bank as far as it was visited, some two or three miles, and so continues down the Yukon along the same (north) bank for twelve or thirteen miles, when the encroaching high mountains, forming the upper gates of the ramparts, obliterate it as a later formation. In but one place that I saw along this extended front of rocky parapet was there a gap sufficient to permit of one's climbing from the bottom, over the rough débris, to the level grassy plateau that extended backward from its crest; although in many places this plateau could be gained by alpine climbing for short distances, up the crevices in the body of the steep rock. This level plateau does not extend far back before the foot of the high rolling hills is gained.
In the illustration on page [209] the constant barricades of tangled driftwood encountered everywhere on the up-stream ends and promontories of the many islands of these rivers are shown, although the quantity shown in the view falls greatly below the average, the heads of the islands being often piled up with stacks ten or twenty feet high, which are useful in one way, as forming a dam that serves during freshets and high water, to protect them more or less from the eroding power of the rapid river.