THE AUTHOR, MR. W. E. PRIESTLY, IN HIS ALASKAN COSTUME.
From a Photograph.
From St. Michael’s I found a boat was leaving for the Tanana district, and again luck favoured me, for I got the chance to work my way up to that part of the country. We traversed the Yukon River as far as Fort Gibbon, and from there proceeded up the Tanana River to the mining camp of Fairbanks, which is situated about four hundred miles up-stream from Fort Gibbon.
I arrived in Fairbanks on July 1st, having travelled nearly four thousand miles since leaving San Francisco, and found myself about twenty-five dollars better off than when I started. I stayed in the Fairbanks district until the end of November. The physical features of this country are best described as “eight months iceberg and four months swamp.”
Towards the end of November rumour began to circulate reports that a new goldfield of incredible richness had been discovered. Tales of “eight dollars to the shovelful” were passed through the camp, and all kinds of stories, real and imaginary, were discussed with feverish excitement.
The new diggings were known as the Chandelar, and were situated at the head-waters of the Chandelar River, a tributary of the Yukon, having its source in the Arctic slope and entering the Yukon River about twenty miles below Fort Yukon.
I was anxious to try my luck in the newly-discovered country, but this was a matter that could not be lightly considered. The diggings were about four hundred miles due north of Fairbanks, and a good deal of preparation was necessary before a trip of this kind could be undertaken. I was a new-comer in the country (locally termed a “chechaco”); I was unused to the ways of the trail; there was no food in the new district, except, of course, wild game; and, finally, the temperature at that time was about forty degrees below zero, with every possibility that it would drop to sixty or seventy below zero by the end of December.
I made up my mind that the first thing I must do would be to get a travelling partner who could be depended on. I finally made arrangements with an old-timer in the country, named Bartlett, who was also going up to the Chandelar. He had been in the Klondike rush of ’98, and as he sat by a hot stove and related his marvellous exploits on the trail, his thrilling adventures and hair-breadth escapes, in a state of “chechaco” simplicity that was almost pitiable I congratulated myself on my choice of a partner.
Finding that I had not enough money to purchase everything necessary, I spoke to two friends of mine, and they agreed to put seventy-five dollars each into the trip; in return, they were to have a one-third interest between them of any mining property that I located in the Chandelar. This is a common occurrence in Alaska, and is generally known as a “grubstake proposition.”
