A new route to the Klondyke will be opened next spring. It is overland from Juneau to Fort Selkirk, on the Yukon, and is entirely by land. Captain Goodall, of the Pacific Coast Steamship Company, inspected it this Summer, and reported it practicable. It is about 700 miles long, and it crosses the divide over Chilkat Pass, which is lower and more easily crossed than the Chilkoot Pass. No lakes or rivers are on the route, but the trail runs over a high level prairie. Old Pioneer Dalton, after whom the trail is named, is now driving a band of sheep on the trail to Dawson City, where he expects to arrive in August, with fresh meat for the miners. This Dalton trail is well adapted for driving stock, but for men the tramp is too long.
"Dawson is not like most of the mining camps. It is not a 'tough' town. Murders are almost unknown.
"The miners are a quiet and peaceable kind of men, who have gone there to work, and are willing that everybody else shall have an equal chance with themselves. A great deal of gambling is done in the town, but serious quarrels are an exception. As a gambling town I think it is equal to any that I have ever seen; and this, by the way, is always the test of a mining camp's prosperity. Stud poker is the usual game. They play $100 and oftentimes $200 or $500 on the third card."
L. B. Roads said: "I am located on claim 21, above the discovery on Bonanza Creek. I did exceedingly well up there. I was among the fortunate ones, as I cleared about $40,000, but brought only $5,000 with me. I was the first man to get to bed rock gravel and to discover that it was lined with gold dust and nuggets. The rock was seamed and cut in V-shaped streaks, caused, it is supposed by glacial action. In those seams I found a clay that was exceedingly rich. In fact, there was a stratum of pay gravel four feet thick upon the rock, which was lined with gold, particularly in these channels or streaks. The rock was about sixteen feet from the surface. The discovery made the camp. It was made on October 23, 1896, and as soon as the news spread everybody rushed to the diggings from Circle City, Forty-Mile, and from every other camp in the district.
"Some of the saloons here take in $300 per day in dust and nuggets. Beer is fifty cents per drink. I have quit drinking. Logs are worth $30 per 1,000, and lumber $150 per 1,000. Most people live in tents, but cabins are being put up rapidly.
"We have the most orderly mining community in the world. There is no thief, no claim jumping, no cheating or swindling in the many gambling houses. The greenhorn gets an honest game and every man's hand is above-board. If any funny work is attempted we run the offender out."
FEARS OF STARVATION.
If twenty or thirty thousand go to the mining camp, as now seems probable, starvation will result, as it will be absolutely impossible to feed more than ten thousand people with the supplies that are now on the way. In another season boats can be built and arrangements made for laying down an unlimited supply of food, but now the Alaska Commercial Company has only three vessels, while the other two lines only run to Juneau. Yukon river steamers are sent up in small sections and put together on the river. They draw only three or four feet of water, but with even this light draught they often become stranded on the sand bars in the upper waters of the Yukon. By the Juneau waters it is impossible to carry in any large quantity of provisions, as every pound of supplies must be carried on Indian's backs over Chilkoot Pass and by frequent portages that separate the lakes and streams on this overland route. After Sept. 15 this Juneau route is impassible to all except Indians, because of fierce storms which only Indians and experienced travellers can face.