The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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by some of the traders, both the old companies and the independents. I have read somewhere, ‘No right is or can be founded on injustice.’ So what rights have they got?
“The Spaniards were after gold, and these big companies are after fur. They have both relied on keeping the natives down. That’s why they are so jealous of outsiders getting any knowledge about their ways.
“I have heard that an Indian always pays his debts to the trader. On this trip I heard a man say that the big companies never forgive an Indian a debt in all his life. He would not dare to let his debt run if he could pay it, because if he did he would starve.
“I wonder if old Mr. Las Casas was any relation to the archdeacon here. They both preach a good deal alike, it seems to me. He says, ‘The system of oppression and cruelty in dealing with the natives makes them curse the name of God and our holy religion.... For should God decree the destruction of Spain it may be seen it is because of our destruction of the Indians, and that His justice may be made apparent.’
“Well, I guess that will be all I will write out of the book. I was just thinking that what the Spaniards did in getting gold was something like what the white men are doing to-day in getting fur in this northern country. It never did look good to me.
“But though the Indians don’t always remember everything they hear in church, I believe the Church is honester, whether it is the English Church or the Catholic, or any of them, because they haven’t anything to get out of it, so far as I can see, and the traders have. I don’t think I shall very much enjoy seeing fine furs worn by ladies in my own country after this — I know where they come from and what they cost. I wonder what Las Casas would say if he were here.
“A good many Scotchmen are through this northern country, and some Scandinavians. I read in a book by Mr. Stewart that you could tell the Scotchman even in a half-breed because he always says ‘boy’ and ‘whatever’ the way the Highlanders do — no matter how old you are a Highlander always calls you ‘boy.’ He says the Bishop of Saskatchewan had a half-breed boy working for him who always called him ‘Boy my Lord.’ That seems odd to me! And then about their saying ‘whatever’ — a Scotch half-breed said, ‘We use it because we could not express ourselves without it whatever.’ And then he said, ‘Is it not correct whatever?’ And after a while he said he could see no objection to that word whatever. A Highlander always says ‘whatever,’ and you can’t keep him from it. I noticed that in some of the posts we came through.
“A woman here was sixty years old, and she married a carpenter, and he took her money and started a sawmill. They haven’t got any sawmill now.
“A good many people here talk about other people. I have noticed that in almost any small place, but I think it is worse up here in the North. I suppose they get lonesome and have to talk.
“Another thing is, they drink so much up in this country whenever they get a chance. They don’t keep their gallon of Scotch whisky, which is supposed to last them a year, but sit down and drink it up in two days. So they get out of whisky and some people get crazy for it. In this same book by Mr. Stewart he tells about some men at one of the trading-posts of the Mackenzie who didn’t have any liquor, but the summer before there had been a party of scientists there who had left some insects, bugs, and snakes and things, done up in alcohol. Some other traders visited this agent, and he was sorry not to have anything to give them to drink. So he thought he would pour off this alcohol from the bugs and things. Still, he thought it might be poison, so he tried it on a half-breed dog-driver. It did not kill him, so he served it to his friends, and said nothing about it, and they all thought it was very good! I believe this is a true story, because so many things happen up in this country that we don’t hear about at home.
“Monday, August 11th. — This is on the steamship Schwatka, and we are bound up the Yukon! We said good-by early this morning to the good archdeacon. It was dark when he heard the dogs howling, and knew a boat was coming, so he called us and we hurried and got dressed, and just got on this boat in time. She isn’t towing any barge, so ought to make good time up to Dawson. We were sorry to leave the archdeacon, but we are glad to be on our way home.
“We get four meals a day on the Schwatka, and very good ones. John is happy! We think we will all put on a little flesh before we get home. Uncle Dick is writing and going over his notes. John is making his map. Jesse is reading. So I write.
“Tuesday, August 12th. — At 1.30 in the morning we made Circle City, which, as everybody knows, is right on the Arctic Circle, or was supposed to be. This was the first time Uncle Dick could get out any word. He sent out a message by wireless which will be relayed to Skagway and cabled to Valdez. He said in about ten days we would be at Skagway. Our folks will be mighty glad to hear from us — and how glad we’ll be to get home! We are still inside the limit of the time schedule which Uncle Dick set for us. Now we think we are safe to finish the journey inside our schedule. Pretty good, we all think.
“Wednesday, August 13th. — At 8.30 this morning got to Eagle, which is an old Alaska settlement and was once an army post. There is an Anglican mission here. The scenery around here is far beyond anything that was on the Mackenzie River. We all like the Yukon better than the Mackenzie. Some Church people going out on the boat from here.
“I don’t know how the Klondikers got up the Yukon after they had come over the Rat Portage; but Dawson is three days above Fort Yukon by steamboat. If they tracked or poled or rowed up I bet it took them a good deal more than three days.
“Uncle Dick has asked me to set down everything I see at Dawson, which is the big gold-camp that caused the Klondike stampede in 1897; so I think I will do that the best I can.”
XVI
DAWSON, THE GOLDEN CITY
Rob’s diary went on as he had promised, for during the time that they lay between boats at the once famous gold-camp there was abundant opportunity for them to get about and see pretty much everything there was worth seeing. Rob’s record runs day by day as previously:
“Thursday, August 14th. — Dawson at 4 a.m. Our boat does not go any farther. We reserved passage on the Norcom for White Pass. She will sail the evening of next Saturday. On British soil again.
“This place has had twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants in boom times, but there are only about twelve hundred people here now, I believe. A good many people are starting off for Chisana district, up the White River, where they say there is a gold strike. All this country has been crazy over gold strikes for a good deal more than twenty years.
“We went to a hotel here and got baths and got barbered up, which makes a change in our looks. We got a few things to wear which the archdeacon could not give us.
“Friday, August 15th. — Went up the famous Klondike River, which comes in here. Half of it is clean and the other half dirty. Saw no more pick-and-shovel work. Everything is run by the big dredges owned by companies, which do the work of hundreds of men. They thaw out the ground now with steam-pipes which they drive down in, and then turn in steam. Then they rip out the ground down twenty feet with the big scoops of the dredges. They just have water enough to float the dredges. Everything is worked and washed right on the dredge. It beats placer mining a whole lot. But a few men can work one of these dredges, and then a few men get all the money they turn out.
“Walked on up to Bonanza and some of the famous creeks above the dredges. They are using hydraulic mining up there, another wholesale way. Saw no individual mining.
“We boys ate supper with a lot of French people who are working ‘lays’ on some claims which are owned by other people on the hillsides up toward Bonanza. The bed-rock, where the rich gold is, is about the middle of the hill, and runs straight through, and they are following through right along the bed-rock three hundred feet below the surface. They have ‘drifted’ in here, and they are using hydraulic mining, too. They seemed a jolly lot.