ENCOUNTERS WITH THE ICE AND SNOW IN THE PASSES TO THE UPPER YUKON.
A letter, written to the San Francisco Examiner by Edgar A. Mizner, gives a graphic picture of life in the Klondyke region and the hardships and perils that the miner may expect to meet and undergo. He is at present the agent of the Alaska Commercial Company there. He set out from Seattle for the Yukon in March last. He had had mining experience before, having been frozen in one Winter on the Pend d'Oreille. Mizner Mountain, over against the Kootenai country, is named for him, his prospecting pick being the first to find pay ore there.
From a camp on the ice of Lake Bennett he wrote on May 6:
"It is nearly two months since I left you, and if I have not forgotten you altogether it's not the fault of the trip, for surely it's the devil's own. The man who wants the Yukon gold should know what he is going to tackle before he starts. If there is an easy part of the trip I haven't struck it yet.
"Eight of us made the trip from Juneau to Dyea, 100 miles, on the little steam launch Alert. The steamer Mexico reached Dyea the same morning with 423 men. As she drew so much water she had to stay about three miles off shore and land her passengers and freight as best she might in more or less inaccessible places on the rocky shores.
"Then up came the twenty-two-foot tide and many poor fellows saw their entire outfits swept into the sea. The tide runs there like the Fundy race. At Dyea there were but two houses, a store and, of course, a saloon. So when we landed on the beach and got out on the snow and ice we had to "rustle" for ourselves. We have kept on "rustling" for ourselves from that on.
"We camped the first night at Dyea. It is a most enjoyable thing, this making camp in the snow. First you must shovel down from three to six feet to find a solid crust. Then you must go out in the snow up to your neck to find branches with which to make a bed, and then comes the hunt for a dead tree for firewood. Dinner is cooked on a small sheetiron stove.
"Always keep an eye on the 'grub,' especially the bacon, for the dogs are like so many ravenous wolves, and it is not considered just the proper thing to be left without anything to eat in this frostbitten land. At night it is necessary to tie up the sacks of bacon in the trees or build trestles for them. But to the trip.