SUN DOGS.
WINTER LANDSCAPE.
The air is dry in all this great interior basin of the continent, and, consequently, the great cold is not so keenly felt as in the damper airs nearer to the sea. The dogs can travel in all weathers which man can stand, and even when it becomes so cold that men dare not move. The lowest Government record of the thermometer yet obtained at Dawson City is eighty-three degrees below zero. These great falls of temperature only occasionally occur, but when the thermometer comes down to minus sixty degrees, then men stay fast indoors, and only venture out as the necessity demands; then the usually clear atmosphere becomes filled with a misty fog, often so thick that it is difficult to see a hundred yards away.
When traveling with a dog team, or, indeed, when “mushing” upon snow-shoes across streams and forests, men go rather lightly clad, discarding furs, and ordinarily wearing only thick clothes, with the long canvas parquet as protection against the wind rather than against the temperature; then motion becomes a necessity, and to tarry means to freeze. The danger of the traveler going by himself is that the frost may affect his eyesight, freezing the eyelids together, perhaps dazing his sight, unless snow-glasses are worn. And the ice forms in the nostrils so rapidly, as well as about the mouth, and upon the mustache and beard, that it is a constant effort to keep the face free from accumulating ice. In small parties, however, men travel long distances, watching each other as well as themselves to insure escape from the ravages of the frost. When the journey is long and the toil has become severe, the Arctic drowsiness is another of the enemies which must be prevented from overcoming the traveler, and the methods are often cruel which friends must exercise in order to prevent their companions from falling asleep.
During this long period of Arctic winter and Arctic night, there seems to be no great cessation in the struggle for gold; the diggings in the Klondike and remoter regions retain their companies of men toiling to find the gold. The frozen gravels are blasted out and piled up to be thawed the next summer by the heat of the sun and washed with the flowing waters.