J. Kellar, who pronounced it the richest gold country in the world, said:
"It was 68 degrees below zero last winter, and the ground was frozen to the depth of forty feet. The snow doesn't fall to any great depth, three feet being the greatest, and that was light and fleecy frost. All the gold is taken out of gravel by thawing in the summer. There are nine months of winter. We left Dawson City on a river steamer on June 19, and were eight days reaching St. Michael's, 1,800 miles. The weather in Klondyke was warm and sultry, much warmer than it seemed, and mosquitos were in myriads. They are in the water one drinks. They give a man no rest day or night. I am satisfied to stay away from Klondyke, although I did well.
"It is a horrible country to live in, but it is extremely healthy. Every man is on his good behavior, and, for a mining country, has as good, orderly, law-abiding citizens as I ever saw. At present there is no prospecting going on, all men in the country being employed at $12 or $15 a day, or are working on their own claims. There is a big country open to prospectors."
Tom Cochrane, a grocery clerk, staked one of the Klondyke miners with $300 worth of supplies eighteen months ago. His dividend received on the Portland was $41,000.
Victor Lord, a western Washington logger, spent four years in the Yukon. He made $10,000 last winter in six weeks on the Klondyke, working a claim on shares. He will return after spending the summer here. Alexander Menzie, of Arizona, was a miner before he went into the Klondyke this spring. He located two claims on Indian Creek, and after three weeks' work brought out $7,000. "I have mined for thirty years in California, Arizona and Nevada," he said to-night. "The Klondyke country is richer than any placer district in the world. I own two claims on Indian Creek and will return in the spring in time to sled over the mountains into Klondyke from Dyea."
Harry Olson received $60,000 for his interest in a claim on Eldorado. His wealth is in sacks, like that of the others. He is a California farmer, and left for his old home, from which he departed three years ago.
The miners left Dawson City June 19 and were seven days on the trip by steamer down the Yukon to St. Michael's. After another week's rest they sailed on July 3 on the steamship Portland.
Inspector Strickland says that complete order is maintained in the camp by the Canadian mounted police. Little disorder prevails, but this may have changed since the departure of the Portland party, as the Alaska Commercial Company sent 10,000 gallons of whiskey into the camp on June 1.
There is a great scarcity of lumber and the single sawmill is kept busy day and night supplying the camp with lumber. The camp is a typical specimen of the frontier mining village, without regular streets. It straggles up the Klondyke for three miles, and then the houses are found at intervals of a quarter of a mile.