In Search of a Siberian Klondike

by Washington Baker Vanderlip; Homer B. Hulbert

The next morning, while partaking of a sort of French breakfast of bread, tea, and sugar, I noticed that my party were the only ones that made use of a comb and brush. When I stepped outside the door to clean my teeth, I was surrounded by twenty or more, who had come to witness this strange operation. They were brimming over with laughter. The tooth-brush was passed around from hand to hand, and I had to keep a sharp lookout, lest some of them tried it themselves.

Finally, I lined them all up to take their photograph. I placed my camera on the ground, and turned to direct them how to stand. I had no need to ask them to look pleasant, for they were all on a broad grin. I was at a loss to account for their mirth till I turned and saw that the village dogs were treating my camera in a characteristically canine fashion. Then it was I who needed to be told to look pleasant.

At last we were on the road again. For the first five miles our way led up the bed of the river, sometimes in the water, and sometimes on the bank in grass as high as the horses' shoulders. When, at last, we came out on to the tundra, to the north, a hundred and fifty miles away, I could see the tops of the mountains among which the Ghijiga River has its source. They are about ten thousand feet high. To the northeast, about sixty miles away, I could see the foothills of a range of mountains in which rises the Avecko River, which enters the Okhotsk Sea within a mile of the mouth of the Ghijiga. Reaching the summit of the water-shed between the two rivers, I discovered that between me and these foothills the land was low and abounded in tundra lakes. To avoid these, I bore to the left and kept on the summit of the water-shed. By noon we had covered only eight miles. We halted for dinner, unpacked the horses, and turned them out to feed upon the rich grass while we made our dinner of fish, bread, and other viands which we had brought ready prepared from the house. At eight that night we camped on a "tundra island," a slight rise in the general flatness on which grew a few tamarack trees. As the nights were now very cold, we built a roaring fire. My koklanka, or great fur coat, with its hood, now proved its utility. After supper, which consisted of several brace of fat ptarmigan, brought down that afternoon with my shotgun, each man took his deerskin and spread it on a pile of elastic tamarack boughs. With our feet shod in dry fur boots, with our koklankas about us and great pillows under our heads, we slept as soundly and as comfortably as one could desire.

Start from Ghijiga, Summer-time. Theodosia Chrisoffsky and Family—Fourteen Children.

In the morning we found ourselves covered with white frost. The start was very difficult, for an all-day tramp in the bog the day before had made our joints stiff. For the first half hour, walking was so painful that I found myself frequently counting the steps between objects along the way. But after a time the stiffness wore off, and I began to find the pace of the horses too slow. When at last we came to higher ground and better going, I examined the streams for gold. The pan showed several "small colors," for we were in a granite country, but as yet there were no signs of any gold-bearing float rock.

On the thirteenth day we arrived at our destination which was a certain creek indicated by a Russian engineer named Bugdanovitch. I liked the looks of the country very much. The creeks were filled with quartz float. So I determined to stop here two or three weeks and explore the adjacent hills and creeks for gold. At this point my guide's contract expired and I reluctantly let him go, as well as five of the six horses. I was thus left in the wilderness with Kim and Alek.

I pitched camp in a favorable place and went to work in good spirits. I thoroughly prospected the hills and ravines and made repeated trials of the creek beds, but though I found more or less show of gold, I was at last obliged to confess that there was nothing worth working.

This being the case, it behooved me to be on my way back to headquarters at Ghijiga. I thought there could be no difficulty about it, as the water all flowed in one direction. I did not want to go back by the way we had come. I suspected that there was a shorter way, and that the guide had purposely brought me a longer distance in order to secure more pay. So I decided to make a "bee line" for Ghijiga. Already we had had a slight flurry of snow, which had made me a trifle uneasy. We had only thirty days' provisions with us, and it would not do to be snowed in. As we had only one horse, we could not, of course, take back with us all our camp equipage, so I left Alek at the camp and started out for Ghijiga with Kim and our one horse, intending to send back dog-sledges for the things. A more timid man than Alek would have hesitated before consenting to be left behind in this fashion, but he bore up bravely and in good cheer sent us off.