Through the subarctic forest a record of a canoe journey from Fort Wrangel to the Pelley lakes and down to the Yukon River to the Behring Sea

Preface

In the summer of 1887 an expedition was under¬ taken and successfully carried out by the Geological Survey Department of Canada, with a view to gathering some accurate knowledge of the littleknown tracts of country adjacent to the northern waterways of the Dominion.

The expedition was conducted speedily and quietly, attracting little attention at the time, as the inhabitants of the well-settled portions of Canada hardly realised what an enormous amount of work was accomplished, and what long distances were covered in a comparatively short space of time by methods of travel which seem primeval to the creature of modern civilisation.

The result of all this work has been the correct mapping of several of the main routes through viii

the vast territory over which the Hudson’s Bay Company have always held sway, so that in many cases the traveller or hunter whose tastes drive him to the northern solitudes knows exactly what lies before him, knows when to look out for the rapids, and knows the distance between points of importance, instead of having to depend on the vague information afforded by Indians, who take little account of time or distance.

The first part of the journey which I have attempted to describe in the following pages, with the exception of the country lying to the north¬ east of a line drawn from the north end of Frances Lake to the site of the Old Pelly Banks trading post, which I believe to be absolutely new ground, lies chiefly along the route followed by the Explora¬ tory Survey party under the leadership of Dr. G. M. Dawson, and in his Report will be found an interesting and accurate account of the country travelled through.

The only geographical discovery of any import¬ ance that I made was rather of a negative character, namely, that the river draining the Pelly Lakes,

PREFACE and marked as the Pelly on the maps prepared from Indian reports, is not really entitled to be considered the main stream of the Pelly, but is only a small tributary of a large river heading towards the north-east, and probably having its source on the western slope of the main range of the Rocky Mountains. I have made some attempt to map this hitherto unexplored tract of country, but the sketch must be regarded as only roughly approximate till a competent surveyor goes over the ground to correct the numerous errors.

To the sportsman and man of the woods, this book is offered as a rough description of what happened on a long journey through a good game country, without any attempt to make a big bag or killing animals that were not wanted to keep up the food supply. I have purposely dwelt more at length on the Pelly and Liard district, though lying nearer at hand, which is but really less known than the often-described country of the Yukon and the Behring Sea.

Rough geological and botanical collections were made in the course of the journey, and a description of them will be found in an appendix to this volume. They are not nearly so perfect as I could have wished, but allowance must be made for the fact that I was my own steersman and hunter, and my attention was often drawn from more scientific pursuits by the perils of navigation or the emptiness of the larder.

W. P.

Chapter I Page

Coast line of British Columbia — Fort Wrangel and its history — Miners of ’49 — Laws of Alaska — The canoe and her requirements — Stikine River, difficulties of navigation — Iskoot tributary 1

Chapter II

The Stikine glacier — Overtaken by coast Indians — Canoe drill at Little Canon — Difference in climate on opposite sides of coast range — Salmon catching — Habits of bears — Klootchman Canon — The Chinook jargon — Telegraph Creek — Freight charges . . 22

Chapter VI

Ice set fast in the rivers — Cassiar sleigh dogs — Disease among the Liard Indians — Ideal day for a hunt — Difficulties of hauling supplies — Dangers of a really cold day — A process of freezing out . 97

Chapter VII

Return to Sylvester’s Landing for summer supplies — Rabbits and grouse — Murder by Casca Indians — Expedition to Hyland River — Quartz ledges — Chesi Hill, the home of the big-horn — Jealousy between Cassiar Indians and Red River half-breeds . . . .110

CHAPTER VIII Start for the Pelly River

La Montagne’s arrival on 18th April. The Liard chief’s theory of the Unknown — Journey up Frances River — Frances Lake — The legend of the flying cariboo — Pelly Indians — Yus-ez-uh River — More stories of cannibals across the divide .....

CONTENTS xiii

Chapter IX Page

The thaw — Geese and beaver — Macpherson Lake — The divide — Pelly Lake — Wild -fowl — A good place for winter quarters — Running the canoe down Ptarmigan Creek . . . . .141

CHAPTER X Expedition towards Source of Pelly River

Disease among the rabbits — Swallows’ nests — Drying fish — Upper Pelly Lake — Gull Lake — Ptarmigans nesting and signs of summer — Accident to rifle — A bad miss — Dogs go astray ; their instinct . 1 58

Chapter XI

Salmon a long distance from the sea — Claims of Pelly River to be con¬ sidered main branch of Yukon — Scarcity of provisions — A cow moose — Slate Rapid — Hoole River— A grizzly bear and the result of a broken rifle . • • • • • .178

CHAPTER XII Down the Pelly and Yukon Rivers

Portage at Hoole Canon— Varieties of mountain sheep— Ross River— Macmillan and Stewart Rivers — Difficulties of prospecting Granite Canon— Fort Selkirk— The Lewes River— First run of Salmon— Government officials and gamblers . • J97

XIV

Appendix

F — A List of Geological Specimens collected by Mr. Warburton Pike near the head-waters of the Pelly River

IF — A List of Plants collected by Mr. Warburton Pike in Alaska and the North-West Territory of Canada ....

PAGE

2 37

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

A Monarch of the Forest .... Frontispiece

PAGE

Fort Wrangel ....... 5

The Glenora Rapid ...... 43

Dinner Camp en route ...... 53

An Ideal Stream for Canoeing ..... 73

A Winter Camp ....... 87

Cow Moose Feeding' ...... 93

Burnt Timber in Winter ...... ioi

Break-up of Ice on the Frances River . . . 129

Swallow Bluff ....... 161

Pelly River at the Junction with Hoole River . . 191

He had given me enough chances .... 193

The Head of Hoole Canon . • . . .199

Shooting a Rapid ....... 205

Wild-fowl on the Yukon Flats. .... 233

Map of the Pelly Lakes and Surrounding Districts To face page 138 Map of Alaska showing the Author’s Route . . At end

Chapter I

Coast line of British Columbia — Fort Wrangel and its history — Miners of ’49 — Laws of Alaska — The canoe and her requirements — Stikine River, difficulties of navigation — Iskoot tributary.

On a bright Sunday morning early in July 1892, we steamed out of the harbour of Victoria, Van¬ couver’s Island, and before nightfall had left Vancouver — the thriving mainland town at the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway — far behind us. It is curious that this confusing name of Vancouver should have continued in use after it had once served its purpose in roughly locating the geographical position of the new city, and attracting the attention of land speculators ; more especially as there is yet another Vancouver a couple of hundred miles farther south, on the banks of the Columbia River. It is too late now, I suppose, to alter the name ; but it seems a pity that

B the memory of the old sea captain should be asso¬ ciated with the bricks and mortar of a new railway town, instead of with the rugged mountains and dense pine forests which rise in lonely grandeur from the waters of the Pacific.

After a four days’ voyage through the rainsmeared islands that guard the gloomy coast-lines of British Columbia, with several calls at small settle¬ ments of little interest to any one but their inhabit¬ ants, we reached Fort Wrangel, a port of entry for the U.S. Territory of Alaska, situated on the west side of a thickly wooded island bearing the same name, about six miles from the mouth of the Stikine River.

Fort Wrangel’s existence dates back as far as the year 1834, when it was established under the name of Fort Dionysius as a military station during the Russian occupancy of Alaska, to watch the proceedings of the Hudson’s Bay Company, then trading on the Coast. Gold was discovered on the Stikine River in 1862 ; but Fort Wrangel’s palmy days began with the rush of miners to the Cassiar District, on the Arctic Slope, which followed in 1874. But these good times are gone by, and the little town now presents a most desolate appearance, lacking all natural beauty to atone for the absence of prosperity, while the almost perpetual rainfall makes it an undesirable place of abode. The small white population is, however, made up of the right kind of people ; and they treated us with all the hospitality that is so sure to be found among men who have spent much of their time in western mining camps.

Fort Wrangel seems to have become a restingplace for the type of pioneer who is now all too scarce on the Pacific coast — the man who has passed his life on the frontier, moving from California to Cariboo, Omeneca, Couer d’Alene, and Cassiar, as each new field was discovered. Possessed of a happy, careless nature, he has borne good and bad fortune with the same equanimity ; he will tell you many a story of good claims sold for large sums of money, which always disappeared in one good spree in the nearest town, shared with his fellows as readily as ever was the last kettleful of beans in the mountains. Doubtless his conduct on these occasions was none too orderly, and his sins were committed with great rapidity while the spree lasted ; but even so his record might show a much better average than that of many of the respectable hypocrites who are so easily shocked at the miner’s excesses in times of prosperity. There is not a better-hearted fellow or a truer friend in time of need than a good specimen of the old class of genuine hard-working miners. But, alas ! the days of ’49 are gone, and our worthy friend has reached the time of life when the hardships of his youth begin to tell upon him, and his overworked knees will no longer do their duty. Too often he is encumbered with an Indian woman and a tribe of half-breed children — a state of affairs which has dragged many a good man down to a lower social level than he was intended to fill ; and every year makes it harder for him to leave the semi-civilisa¬ tion of the coast and plunge into the wilderness in search of the one more stake that is all he has to depend upon for the comfort of his declining years. But the younger part of the mining popu¬ lation has been drawn away to the new town of Juneau, a little farther up the coast, and close to the celebrated treadmill mine on Douglas Island — the only really paying mine in Alaska, whose reputation has been freely used to bolster up several rotten enterprises started on claims in close prox¬ imity to the Bonanza. So Wrangel is now almost

FORT WRANGEL.

entirely supported by the Indian trade, which is still of some importance. A sawmill has been built to supply the local market ; but the export of lumber, which might under favourable legislation develop into a larger industry, is forbidden.

The laws in force throughout Alaska are of the most unsatisfactory kind, and apparently no means are taken to improve them. So far no land titles of any sort have been granted, and a man who builds himself a house does so without the least guarantee that the land on which he builds it will ever belong to him by purchase, pre-emption, or squatter’s claim. The territory is supposed to be in some measure governed by the statutes of the State of Oregon, but for every existing law there seems to be another one equally powerful to nullify its effects. For instance, the whole territory is declared to be a prohibition country, and the importation of liquor illegal ; if a smuggler is caught red-handed unloading a cargo of whisky he is fined or imprisoned and his cargo confiscated. At the same time there is no law to prevent the sale of liquor within the territory ; and when once the cargo is safely run, drinks are sold openly over the bar just as they would be in San Francisco.

The Edmond’s Act again sets forth that no white man may live with an Indian woman unless he is married to her, and yet most of the clergy of Alaska refuse to legalise such alliances by the reading of the marriage service.

These two subjects occupy the greater portion of the time devoted to the carrying out of the laws by officials drawing good salaries from the United States government, as long as their own party is in power, but no definite conclusion has ever yet been reached.

Our party consisted of Reed, an English friend, who was going to Cassiar for the big game shooting ; Gladman, a Canadian, who had already made two trips to the north in the service of government surveyors, and myself. We had brought with us from Victoria about 1500 lbs. of provisions and ammunition, besides a canoe built of light spruce — in the absence of basswood — on the Peterboro’ model, as the most suitable craft for the long journey ahead. Her dimensions were — 18 feet length, 3 feet 6 inches beam, and 20 inches depth, with a total weight of 130 lbs. She was subjected to some criticism in Wrangel ; and being an inno¬ vation on the long-established methods of travel, was at first universally condemned. The fact that she was painted a light blue colour started a sug¬ gestion that she was made of zinc, and this opinion took such a firm hold that I found it saved trouble to agree with it and admit that she was made of zinc ; but as Reed and Gladman continued to deny the statement, we were looked upon with some mistrust till the dispute was satisfactorily settled.

She proved a lucky boat from the beginning, and maintained her reputation throughout the voyage. As soon as she was finished she was moved from the building shed to more airy quarters to let the paint dry quickly, and the same night the shed, the moulds from which she was built, and a dozen boats and canoes were destroyed by fire. After a journey of 4000 miles of rapid and at times dangerous water ; after being carried over long rough portages on men’s shoulders, and hauled on dog-sleighs through 200 miles of forest ; she reached the salt water again at the end of fifteen months to battle with the storms and tides of the Behring Sea. But she came through it all safe and sound ; only once hammer and nails were called into play to patch up a hole made at a simple little

IO rapid on the Dease River, which we ran on the wrong side, through taking the advice of a local man who had just come up stream, and should have been able to give us more correct information about the state of the water.

In comparison with the other types of canoes in common use among the different tribes of natives through whose territory we travelled, and who by long experience have learnt to construct the class of canoe most suited to their home waters, our little ship was inferior in some respect to each of them ; but, as a combination of good points, which enabled her to make the whole journey, and come safely through the varied conditions of travel which tested her capabilities to the utmost, I doubt if it would be possible to build a more suitable craft.

The narrow dug-out of the Pacific coast rivers is easy to pole up a rapid current, but her weight forbids any attempt to make a long portage ; the birch bark of the Yukon and the northern lakes is light and easily repaired wherever birch trees grow, but she would be shaken to pieces by the rattling of a dog-sleigh through the forest, and would be too frail a vessel to land through the surf of the Behring Sea. The long skin bidarka of the Esquimaux, with her water-tight decks, is the perfection of a sea-going canoe ; but she has no room for the stowage of bulky cargo, is uncomfortable to sit in, and hard to navigate round the sharp corners of small streams ; while the walrus-skin which covers the light frame is easily torn by collision with a sharp stick which would only scratch a wooden canoe.

The difficulties which we were sure to meet with in the course of transport compelled us to limit our supplies to such things as are strictly indispensable on a long voyage, embracing the varied features of travel by canoe during the season of open water and dog-sleighs when winter set fast the rivers and lakes, through a country not at all well supplied with provisions except such as can be procured by the rifle and fish-nets. The small trading posts on the west side of the mountains are never well stocked with articles that are heavy and expensive to move ; the trader makes a much larger profit by importing ioo lbs. weight of blankets or bright -coloured shawls than he could from the same weight of flour or bacon, and the expense of transport is the same in each case. Experience has taught him that, however many boat -loads of provisions are shipped into the interior, they are all consumed without much profit to the importer, who prefers to take the chance of hard times during the winter and the certainty of a larger return for his furs in the spring.

We took with us flour and bacon enough to last for three or four months, tea and tobacco in large quantities, a good supply of ammunition for rifles and shot-guns, nets, hooks, and lines, dog harness, a large canvas lodge similar to the teepee of the Crees and Blackfeet, a Kodak camera, blankets, and a kitchen -box containing kettles, frying-pans, and all such simple necessaries for camp cookery.

There is a small steamer which makes irregular trips on the Stikine during the summer months, taking supplies for the Hudsons Bay Company and the few miners who are still working in Cassiar, as far as the head of navigation at Telegraph Creek ; but she had left before our arrival, and would not be sailing again for six weeks. The water in the river was said to be still very high, although the summer floods caused by the melting snow had already begun to subside ; and, as it would without doubt prove a difficult task to force our way up stream for 1 50 miles, we made an attempt to secure an Indian guide to show us the best routes and the shortest cuts, which a stranger may easily miss on such a big river. But the Wrangel Indians have the peculiarities of the race fully developed, and, thinking we could not do without them, were so exorbitant in their demands, and imposed so many conditions, that we soon decided to rely upon our own resources.

A solemn function was the launching of the canoe, and loading her with rather more cargo than she was properly qualified to carry ; in fact, we had to leave two or three hundred pounds’ weight to come on by a canoe that was expected to start in a few days. Plenty of advice was offered too, and gloomy prophecies of disasters that were likely to happen to such a small craft of a different and therefore presumably inferior model to the recognised type in use on the Stikine, and manned by strangers, who are universally supposed to be incompetent to navigate waters with which they are unfamiliar. A very widely-spread characteristic this of the men who go down to the sea in ships on a small scale. Blue water sailors take a more liberal view, and freely acknowledge a man who takes his vessel in safety across the ocean as their equal in matters nautical, even though he does hail from another port ; but the long-shoreman or fisher¬ man of any small harbour will seldom admit that there may be men, less lucky in the matter of their birthplace, who can handle a boat as well as a native of their own particular mud-hole.

I hope nobody counted the number of drinks of illicit whisky we finished on that sunny afternoon in Wrangel. Several times we were just starting when some hospitable miner would insist on our coming back for just one more farewell drink, and we trooped back along the little street to the grog¬ shop for another gulp. Luckily it was quite calm, and the heavy load at the bottom of the canoe kept us fairly steady till the labour of paddling against a strong tide gradually toned down our hilarity. For the first mile we hugged the rocky shore of Wrangel Island till we reached its northern end, and then stood away for the mainland to take advantage of any slack water there might be to work our way against the freshet that was pouring out of the river. There were several high bluffs to be rounded where we could use neither line nor poles ; the current ran with the force of a rapid,

*5 and two or three attempts were often necessary before we could struggle round with the paddles. It was ten o’clock, but still good daylight, when we passed Rothsay Point, and camped fairly within the mouth of the river. From this camp we had our last view of the salt water for many a long day ; a grand scene, with the after-glow of a northern sunset resting on snowfield and glacier, and the black points of the countless pine trees outlined sharply against the western sky. Mainland and islands were confused by the elaborate windings of the coast-line ; deep gloomy inlets ran far inland under the shadow of the high mountains, and the network of channels leading in every direction through the archipelago lay like streaks of oil undisturbed by the slightest ripple, and reflecting faithfully the wonders of the sky above. A great silence reigned over everything, broken only by the splash of a salmon or the cry of a loon or gull, and even on this bright summer evening one could feel the ever-present sense of gloom which the vast and inaccessible in nature always produce. Can these frowning peaks and dense pine forests which almost defy exploration, lying in a land of almost perpetual rain and snow, ever become of use for maintaining i6 a civilised portion of the human race ? The same question, with the exception of a rather better climate, was applicable fifty years ago to the coasts of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, yet these countries now support a small but fairly prosperous population, and there seems to be a good chance for Southern Alaska to occupy the same position as her resources are developed. The establishment of salmon canneries has already met with success ; the export of timber must shortly be legalised ; and surely some few valuable quartz ledges exist among those vast mountain ranges which guard their secrets so well, and afford so sure a sanctuary to the mountain goat, the bear, the marmot, and the ptarmigan.

The scarcity of dry firewood, owing to the heavy rainfall, is one of the greatest drawbacks to travel¬ ling on the lower Stikine. The valley back from the river is covered with an almost impenetrable growth of pine timber, rank underbrush, and steaming moss, while the “ Devil’s Club ” — a long cane-like stalk covered with thorns, bearing a crown of leaves furnished in the same manner — lies in ambush till the weight of a man’s foot causes it to start up and strike the intruder in the face. This

START TOR FORT WRANGEL

1 7 forest, favoured by the warmth and moisture of the ocean, runs far up the mountain sides, till it meets the snow that for ever covers the peaks of the coast range on either side of the river. The scenery much resembles that of the Fraser where it passes through the same range, except that on the Stikine River the mountains are higher and more rugged, and glaciers, sometimes coming right down into the river valley, are of frequent occurrence. The source of the Stikine has never been exactly defined, but its tributaries are known to head with those of the Peace and Liard, on the unexplored Pacific Arctic watershed lying between the 56th and 58th parallels of north latitude.

The difficulty of ascending this river in flood time will be at once understood when I say that we were unable to make headway with the paddles against the current, in mid-stream, at any point in the journey of 150 miles; so that we had always to creep along the bank that seemed most likely to offer slack water. The straight side of any reach is usually the best, as the current naturally sweeps into the curves with the greatest force. There was no beach along which a line might be used, as the river was up to the level of the forest i8 growth, and in many places the banks had caved in ; or a huge pine had dropped into the stream, and a detour into the strength of the current, or a crossing to the far shore, which entailed a loss of a couple of hundred yards, was necessary. Great caution had to be used in rounding these obstruc¬ tions, to make sure that we could hold our own with the current before edging back for the shelter of the bank — to be swept under a fallen tree meant a certain capsize, probably with disastrous results. No bottom could be reached with the poles, but we had often a chance to pull over a stretch of bad water by laying hold of overhanging bushes. When no other plan was practicable, a man would go ahead through the woods with a coil of line, and making one end fast to a log, throw it out clear of the bank. When the log came bobbing down to the canoe it was seized ; the other end of the line was made fast to a tree, and the canoe hauled up hand over hand. This manoeuvre gen¬ erally occupied a good deal of time, as the line often fouled a bush or sunken crag, and was sometimes very difficult to clear. In other places the river was split up by islands into several channels, and, having no pilot, we were obliged to use our own judgment in making a choice of routes. Sometimes we paddled up a long winding backwater — the slough of the American, the cJinai of the French - Canadian — only to find its head blocked by immense piles of drift timber, over which we had to make a difficult portage, or run back and try another channel. At the head of each island there was usually a submerged gravel bar and a swift current with a slight overfall ; and here it was necessary to get out and wade with the canoe up stream, to clear the bar before crossing to slacker water.

The general direction of the river is to the eastward for the first 20 miles, but from the “big bend” of the miners it turns directly to the north for 65 miles, afterwards bending to the north-east, and continuing on this course beyond Telegraph Creek. Of the many tributaries that enter the lower river, the most important is the Iskoot, coming in from the eastward about 30 miles from the mouth of the Stikine, and bending back nearly parallel to this stream. A party of four miners ascended the Iskoot in the spring and summer of 1891, leaving Wrangel with hand-sleighs, and building a boat on the breaking up of the ice. Although gold was found in many places, it was always in small quantities, and no paying bars were discovered. The river is full of obstructions to navigation, and consequently difficult to travel on ; but these miners succeeded in forcing their way to the north-east for a con¬ siderable distance, and eventually crossed overland to Telegraph Creek, in the autumn. They reported game to be abundant ; black and grizzly bear were numerous along the river, especially during the salmon run, and goats were sighted nearly every day. In fact, the mountain goat is very common throughout the whole length of the coast range, from the Fraser northwards. One of the most stupid of American animals, it owes its safety to the inaccessibility of its haunts, for it is no small undertaking to leave the river or salt water and climb 5000 feet of steep mountain side, clothed for three-quarters of the distance with a dense pine growth starting out of the accumulated forest debris of centuries, and only giving place at last to granite walls and drifts of everlasting snow. The results of one of these expeditions is usually pleasing enough — you can kill the goats without any further trouble ; you can watch the strange little marmots which have their homes in the rocks, and throw stones at the ptarmigan which will hardly move out of your way. If the day happens to be clear, you will have a view of mountain peaks and forests, unnamed and untraversed, that it is useless to attempt to depict ; and, when the sun goes down, you may build your fire in a sheltered gulch, eat roasted goat-flesh, and spend a night among the grandest works of nature. But it seems unpractical. The hardest labour of all is to carry a load of meat down to the camp ; and the wily Indian asks himself why he should go to so much trouble when he can load his canoe with salmon in a couple of hours, or perhaps kill a fat bear close to the river, and pass the rest of the day lying on his back in the enjoyment of his pipe and such easy thoughts as present them¬ selves to his untroubled mind. So the goats are not much molested, and many of them live out their pleasant existence without ever crossing the path of the hated human being.