Hunting in the upper Yukon

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I How It All Came About .... i

II Up the Pacific Coast 30

Chapter I

"The way is long and cold and lone — But I go — It leads where pines forever moan Their weight of snow — Yet I go.

There are voices in the wind that call, There are hands that beckon to the plain; I must journey where the trees grow tall, And the lonely heron clamers in the rain."

— Hamlin Garland.

IT has been my custom in recent years to invite in the fall many of the big game hunters living in Philadelphia to an evening's mutual "Experience Meeting" at my home.

There each one is expected to narrate briefly the most exciting or the most novel incidents of his latest hunting trip.

When the hunting season of 1909 was over and the participants in the hunting field had returned to the city, there were gathered one night around the fire of the open grate a score of hunters, some of them fresh from New Brunswick, others from Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Northern British Columbia, Northern Ontario, the Province of Quebec, the Yukon Territory, and Labrador.

One by one they told the tales of their adventures. Some of them were out of the ordinary, yet not at all startling, until the last man arose. As "an honest tale speeds best being plainly told," he narrated in a modest but graphic manner the history of a journey to the Upper Yukon and back which he had finished but a few days before. The description given of the section of country hunted in, its wealth of wild animal life, its towering mountains capped with snow or Ice, its wide river beds, its invigorating climate, together with the fact that it was practically an unknown territory, held us spell-bound until he finished. Then came the eager questions of the guests as to the distance, the privations to be endured, the expense of such a trip, and the length of time needed to make it.

When it was all over and the men had left the house, I went to bed, but I could sleep but little that night. The story excited my imagination to such an extent that all of the homely remedies for insomnia failed me until near morning, and then the tired brain was heavy and I fell asleep.

From that time on I was determined that sooner or later I would make the journey to this "Land of Promise" — this paradise for big game, this country where the days would be long and the nights would be short. Two hunting seasons to New Brunswick, Canada, and to my own camp in the Maine wilderness, had come and gone before opportunity and time favored the desire to journey to the North. Much planning was needed as to the outfit to start with; the supplies to be taken; the guides to be selected ; the number of horses which would be necessary; the rifles to be used. All of these details needed close consideration.

With the kindly help and advice of Mr. Wilson Potter — the modest young man and splendid hunter whose story and experience in this country had so entranced me — all the difficulties were cleared away, and on the evening of August I, 1912, accompanied by Dr. Morris J. Lewis, an eminent physician of Philadelphia, we left the steaming city upon our long journey. We were routed via Toronto, Canada, and through the Great Lakes to Winnipeg, and from there by the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Vancouver.

It seems that no matter when I leave the big city upon my annual hunting trip, let the month be August, September or October, it is my fate to leave on an extremely hot day. In the season of 1912, the day of departure from the heated city was no exception. It was hot on the street, and hot in the sleeping car. Our first stop was Buffalo, then Hamilton, Toronto, Port McNichol on the Georgian Bay, the "Soo" Canal, Port Arthur, Vancouver, Skagway and lastly White Horse, where we would outfit for the hunting territory, and when we left that famous little town we would be in "the land of adventure."

When we pulled out from Broad Street Station, a woman, sitting in the seat across the aisle from us, had to change to the seat in front of us while her berth was being made. Her sole concern was how she could best take care of a great panama hat which was loaded with a pinnacle of artificial flowers. The porter brought her the largest sized paper bag that was made, but alack-a-day, it wouldn't cover it, and therefore she fretted and worried as to how it might look in the morning.

She tried to hang it up inside of the berth — it was too big. She feared to trust it in the upper berth, which was empty. The paper bag was stiff, and as she shifted it from one position to another, it was easy to imagine her heart-felt concern for her treasure. At last she got to bed and how she managed her precious headpiece could only be guessed at by the cracking of the paper bag from time to time during the hot, humid hours of the night.

In the early morning the weather turned cold as we were crossing the mountains; with the cold a dense fog set in, and you know that wouldn't be good for the "precious hat," or at any rate for the portion that wasn't covered. When the night had at last dwindled into morning and the morning into day, the woman appeared returning from the dressing-room, fully dressed, long before any other woman was up. As her fateful hat had prevented me from having a restful sleep, I, too, had gotten up, and we were thus the only two passengers "up and around" in the whole car.

Quoth she to me: "You're from Philadelphia, are you not?"

"Yes, madam, I am."

"I'm from New York — have always been in New York either in the city or the state.

I've often thought of stopping ofif at Philadelphia because I've been told it's a nice, pretty little place, and I do love towns that have lots of flowers; and then I believe you have manufacturers there, and they're so interesting — and the work-people are so interesting, there being so many foreigners among them. It makes the town sort of cosmopolitan, as it were, and that's always interesting, so really I must some time stop off and see your little town. I see you and your companion have rifles, and I suppose you're going hunting. Oh, how I should like to gp along with you, as I delight in adventure," etc., etc.

So she rattled on, and, like the babbling brook, there was no damming her up. She was particularly savage against those of her sex who would monopolize the dressing-room of a sleeping-car for an hour at a time; she called such women "simple."

I asked her if her hat had given her much trouble during the night, and she admitted that it had, that she had worried about it all night. I told her that if she went with us she'd have to ride horseback, and astride at that, and with her great hat on her head, with rifle, and a pair of riding breeches, she'd surely be an "interesting" sight to the wild game, whose favorite haunts are on the icy tops of the high mountains.

As we were nearing the station at Buffalo in the morning, the passengers generally were astonished to see a young woman standing between the rails on a railway track without a hat, but with her head crowned with an enormous coiffure of red hair, while she was dressed in a very tight, black satin hobble gown — just that and nothing more. There she stood, feeling apparently as proud as a queen when the train slowly passed her, for she surely did attract attention, and what pleases some women more than that?

A short distance further and a large sign on a building which we passed excited curiosity, as it informed the public that here was "The Philadelphia House Wrecking Company." What an occupation and what a name for a business firm to use — "House Wreckers"!

The porter now came with his whisk to brush us off. The brakeman called out "Buffalo," the woman with the hat disappeared in the crowd, and the first stage of our journey was over. Here we changed cars, and when the new train had run but a few miles we crossed into Canada. The train stopped g THE UPPER YUKON

to permit the examination of the baggage. A dining-car porter came through the cars asking for the owner of a locked satchel. He went through the dining-car and the parlorcars without finding the owner, so the satchel was left at Bridgeport, the little town where customs are collected.

The train sped on its way to Hamilton. A down-pour of rain visited the thirsty land, and as we were nearing Hamilton — the most beautifully located city in Canada — the owner of the satchel appeared. He had been in a smoking-car at the extreme front of the train and never gave a thought to the customs officials. His error would make him lose perhaps a day before he regained his property.

At Hamilton we were met by some of my relatives, and after a brief wait, we sped on to Toronto — the metropolis of the Province of Ontario.

Toronto is situated upon a noble bay sheltered from the winds of Lake Ontario by an island some two and a half miles from the esplanade front. The city has a gradual slope from the water of the lake up to the heights of a suburb formerly known as Yorkville, and spreads out east and west along the lake front, where the railroads and the lake vessels discharge and take on their cargoes of merchandise and of humanity. Toronto, at the present time, is a wonder among cities. The population is growing at the rate of thirty-five thousand a year. Six thousand houses had been erected within the previous year, and yet in a ride in an auto in the afternoon of one day, and the forenoon of another day, but three houses were discovered in that whole distance, with a sign "To Let" upon them. There is such an insistent and seemingly never-ending demand for houses to be rented that the builders cannot catch up with it.

A Government House is now being erected which is to be the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of the province, where the great social functions and others will be held. Here the state balls, receptions, conferences settlements, concerts, addresses, and other affairs of state will make the Government House the center of social attraction in the Province of Ontario.

Another notable building — I should say, palace — is undergoing erection, which when completed will be one of the sights of the town, one of the wonders of modern architecture and of lavish expenditure of money. It is for the housing and entertainment of one — man, with but one son to enjoy all of its grandeur and conveniences upon the death of its founder. Dame Rumor says it will cost over a million dollars.

So much can be said of Toronto, of its rapid and startling growth, of the prosperity of the rank and file of its citizens, of its great university with its seven thousand students, of its technical colleges, its religious schools, its hockey, golf and baseball grounds, its social clubs, churches, cathedrals, manufactures, and princely business establishments, that they cannot all be chronicled here, as I must hasten on.

We left Toronto at 12.45 ?• M. on Saturday, August third. The train was crowded with people, as indeed every other train was upon this particular day, because the following Monday was to be a civic holiday; hence the rush to get away from the city for a holiday from Saturday until the following Tuesday morning.

There was to be a regatta for canoemen, but where we couldn't find out. Canoes seemed to be everywhere, on baggage trucks, in trains, on the sidewalks, and on wagons. To tell where they came from would be a puzzle, and

HOW IT ALL CAME ABOUT ii

it's to be hoped that they were all found by their rightful owners.

Our train landed us at a new port — not Newport — but a brand new port called Port McNichol, all owned and built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad. This great transcontinental railroad it seems ^'doeth all things well." I have traveled over its rails from ocean to ocean; I have hunted in many sections within the radius of its ramifications, and I have always found its employees to be courteous to, and considerate of, its passengers, its steamships clean and well appointed, its dining-cars well served, and its hotels a credit to the Dominion of Canada.

As illustrating its solicitude for the comfort and convenience of its patrons, let me relate a single incident that happened twenty years ago. Two cars had been provided for myself and sixteen other hunters, one to eat and sleep in, and the other to house our hunting dogs, ammunition, decoys, trunks, tents and hunting paraphernalia generally. We came to a station called Maple-Creek, where a tribe of Cree Indians were then scattered about for miles in their tepees on the prairie. We did not know that the settlement was in the Alkali region, and that all of the water was almost undrinkable to those unused to it. Here some of the men were to leave for a trip to a range of mountains thirty miles away, to hunt caribou, while four or five of the men were to stay near the village to hunt wild geese, ducks and prairie chickens.

My younger son and the writer were to be among the "stay-at-homes." After the caribou hunters had mounted their horses and faded away in the distance, we were surprised to find that the C. P. R. had detached a freight engine from a train at Crane Lake, twenty miles away, filled the tank of the engine with fresh water, and sent it to us. Half of its precious load of delicious water was given to us and the other half was needed to furnish steam to take the engine back to its train. This courtesy was repeated twice during our stay, and so far as I know this expensive kindness was done entirely without solicitation on our part, and it only goes to show what a paternal care — if we may use the word — the company takes of its patrons.

Port McNichol is planned upon such a scale as to provide room and conveniences for many years to come for the greatest possible increase in the traffic passing through the Great Lakes.

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We left our train an hour late, and with a head wind and a cold night we were glad to take the steamboat and be in the shelter of a warm stateroom. Many of the passengers were going to the far West from the "Old Countries" of Europe — quite a number being from England. Their comments upon the sights and upon the fleet of passing vessels as our good ship, the Assiniboia, plowed her way through the inland sea, were good to hear. "Hope, eternal hope," and wonder were expressed upon their faces in an unmistakable manner. When we came to the famous "Soo" Canal and our boat entered it, the crowds on the wharf who had come to meet friends on our steamer, or from idle curiosity, were of prime interest to the newcomers.

Behind us were two tugs, one pushing and the other towing a big barge loaded with small poplar logs. This barge had to be deftly handled so as to get it in as close to the northern side of the canal as possible, and also it had to be brought near to the stern of our steamer so that both vessels could be locked through at one time. This situation retarded us considerably, so two of the newcomers with a little boy left the steamer and walked across the top of the front locks. They soon were wandering afield and time with them flew happily on.

But now the vessel was moving — the locks were open, and we were fast leaving the entrance to the canal when the men and boycame hurrying and running back, gesticulating for the ship to stop. "Stop! — Stop! — Dinna leave us," shouted one of them, with a strong Scottish accent. The captain rang the bell for the engines to stop. Men were sent to fasten a hawser to an iron post on the side of the canal where the men had strayed away. The vessel was warped slowly up to the concrete walls, and the truants were gathered in. There was much diversity of opinion both among the crew and among the passengers as to what the captain should have done, the majority declaring he should have left them on shore. One lady was asked by a man what sort of people these men were who had delayed us. She naively answered, "I would much rather that you should say it, and I will agree with you." And so he said it for her,

and "it" sounded very much like "d

fools." The captain could not have been blamed if he had left them, but such an act would hardly have been in harmony with the way in which the C. P. R. Company treats its patrons. This company is always most courteous and considerate, as those who have traveled over its lines can vouch.

No one who has not made the journey through these inland seas — the Great Lakes — can have the faintest idea of the number and the size of the passing vessels, every one of which seems to be loaded to its limit. It must be remembered that most of the craft navigating these northern waters are built especially for a particular class of trade, and to conform to the dimensions of the locks of these famous canals, one on the Canadian side, and the other on the American side.

When we had passed through the canal we were then sailing on the cold waters of Lake Superior, which contains the greatest volume of fresh water of any lake in the world. The temperature changed to a lower reading of the thermometer and the passengers ransacked their trunks for woolen underwear, heavier clothing, sweaters and overcoats. When supper time arrived the weather glass was down to 49 degrees — a big contrast to the temperature of but a day and a half before in Toronto, which was close to 90 degrees in the shade. Not many out of our large number of passengers had the courage and hardihood to walk the upper deck, and so the cabins below were crowded with those who were compelled to embrace the shelter of roof and heat. This immense inland sea with its cold waters must have a far-reaching effect on the atmospheric conditions of the surrounding country. The following morning was colder still, and as the glass had registered 40 degrees during the night, almost every one was anxious for a little more heat.

The passengers were much pained to hear that a baby had died at about three in the morning and that the mother was so poor that the only covering she could give to the little corpse was a newspaper. Sympathetic women soon remedied this impoverished condition of things, and their kind ministrations made the good woman realize that to her the cruel world was not so bleak after all. It was a comfort to know that a kindly physician had been found among the passengers, and that the best help that medical skill could give had been tried without avail.

The lake journey ended at Port Arthur, where we left the steamer with much regret and entered a waiting train which would be our traveling home until we arrived at the terminus of the line, the city of Vancouver.

Port Arthur and Fort William are less than a mile apart, each town being the terminus of a railway connection, hence there is much rivalry between them. As each borough has its own set of officials, it must be amusing — if not too dramatic — to the citizens to keep in touch with the official doings and methods of the two municipal rivals.

As our steamer had been fighting a head wind from the "Soo" Canal all the way to Port Arthur, we were more than an hour late, so that when our first important city — Winnipeg — was reached we were too late to inspect any of its wonders. Twenty years before, in making this same journey across the Continent, a stop of three hours was made at Winnipeg. The growing city then boasted a population of over thirty thousand inhabitants. The citizens were then enthusiastic in their predictions of a future great and growing city, but they never dreamed of such a transformation as has taken place in the period covered by these two visits of twenty years apart. I remember then standing in the main street, which I think is one hundred and thirty feet wide, and watching long lines of horses pulling heavy wagons loaded with wheat from the Red River territory of the North. A man, who proved to be a banker of Winnipeg, was standing near by, and entered into conversation with me. I confessed to a feeling of enraptured wonder at the enormous quantity of wheat that was being transported to the elevators, there to be loaded into the waiting railroad trains for transportation either to the Atlantic or to the Pacific, or to local points.

^'Where do you live?" said the banker. .

"In Philadelphia."

"Well, you are now about a thousand miles north from Philadelphia. A thousand miles still farther north of us is more wheat, and better wheat, than that which you see passing to the elevators. In perhaps ten years from now this country north of us will be opened up by railroads and other forms of transportation. People will pour into it from the northern sections of your country, immigrants will arrive from Europe, Asia, and even Australia to till this fertile and easily farmed land, and then in a few years more a new empire to the north of us will be pouring its rich freightage of the products of these northern prairies into the lap of the then great city of Winnipeg."

At that time his talk made but a fleeting impression upon my mind, but can you not see how prophetic it was? Do you realize that, in the twenty years since then, the population of Winnipeg has grown to nearly three hundred thousand people? Do you know that another great transcontinental railway, having a terminus on the Pacific Coast five hundred miles north of the terminus of the C. P. R., is nearly completed and that it even now passes through Winnipeg? Do you realize that some day in the near future — say, in another score of years — Winnipeg may boast of a population of a million? The present growth of this wonderful city has meant the erection of large manufacturing plants, of great distributing wholesale houses, the accumulation of rich iDanks and other depositories for the capital needed to finance the movement of the crops, the building of subsidiary lines to the trunk lines of rails, the erection of schools, colleges, churches, theaters, skating rinks, public halls, new sewage disposal plants, public buildings, etc., etc. What the needs of the next twenty years will be, no living man may predict. It is a timely thing to dwell for a little upon the fairy-like story of Winnipeg's growth in a single score of years, because it is an illustration of what several other Canadian towns and cities have experienced in the same period. Calgary, Maple Creek, Moosejaw, Saskatoon, Regina, Revelstoke, Edmonton on the Saskatchewan, Westminster, and particularly Vancouver, all have been blessed with a prosperity beyond the wildest dreams of the average citizen of twenty years ago. The question may well be asked, how has it come about that this unprecedented growth and expansion of a new empire to the north of the United States has proceeded along a constant and well-developed line?

The answer is not a difficult one.

First, by the cultivation of the ground by the residents and the ever-incoming hordes of farmers — men of capacity in the tilling of the extended fertile wheat belts of land that were to be had for a price almost akin to nothing. Next, by the ease with which capital could be obtained from the Mother Country, "the tight little island" called England, to finance the various enterprises made necessary by the ever-increasing population, and third, by the opening up of new sections of virgin land to modern methods of scientific farming.

Another reason may be found in the fact that while Canada cannot boast of having nearly as many laws on her statute-book as her great neighboring Republic to the south of her, yet what laws she has are generally well enforced; so that, although the immigrants that have poured into her domain are made up of Russians, Poles, Serbs, Bulgars, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Laplanders, Scandinavians, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Germans, Turks and Arabs, besides a host from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England herself, they all bow to the laws of their adopted country.

Therefore, as law and order have been uniformly maintained in all of the provinces and territories of the Dominion of Canada, capital has been safe, as well as the lives and properties of the great public at large.

It is a remarkable tribute to the efficiency and the administration of the law by the Canadian Judiciary that the Dominion has been able to assimilate all of the discordant human factors that make up her population and weld them together into one harmonious and industrious whole.

There has been nothing in the world's past history that has ever approached this development of a new country-empire (may we so call it?) in such a short space of time, and that, too, without the use of military force, war, or even "rumors of war." It is true that migrations have often occurred in ancient times, but generally they were caused by the forceful ejection of tribes, or communities of people who were driven out from their homeland, either because of religious or racial contentions, or from some other compelling cause, which made a wholesale evacuation of a large population an absolute necessity for the protection of life, and the possible enjoyment of peace and happiness.

The migration into Canada has ever been a peaceful one, and such may it always remain in the future. It is not hard to predict that the close intermingling and the intermarriage of a conglomeration of many foreign races will result in the creation of a new type of manhood — a new cosmopolite race, having the industrious and economical ideals and methods of these various foreign races blended with the artistic, law-abiding, scholastic, optimistic, self-reliant, and courageous ideals of the descendants of the original English, Scotch, Irish and French settlers of Canada.

From the pen of the brilliant writer, Agnes Dean Cameron, comes this timely paragraph: "On the benches of one schoolroom in Edmonton I found children who had been born in Canada, the United States, England, Scotland, Russia, New Zealand, Poland, Switzerland, Australia and Austria-Hungary. They were all singing "The Maple Leaf Forever!" It is the lessons these children are to learn in that little red schoolhouse, which will determine the future of Canada, and not the yearly take of forty-bushel wheat. In the past, nations out of very fatness have decayed. Many signs here are full of hope."

At Winnipeg, berths were taken in sleeping-cars that were to be our traveling home until we arrived at Vancouver. The train was filled with just as many (if not more) different races and conditions of people as we had met on the steamer, the largest number of any one class being from Great Britain.

Isn't it curious how the average Englishman on his travels will find fault with everything that is new and strange? Being an Englishman myself, I have perhaps noticed this peculiarity more than a born American would. For to them there is nothing done anywhere "like it is done in England, you know."

A friend of mine — also an Englishman — had a friend who came to Philadelphia on a visit. This man was interested in the construction of bridges, so my friend, whose name was Knight, took the man out in a carriage and drove him all around the city and its environs and allowed him to inspect every one of the numerous bridges that cross the Schuylkill River. Each bridge was carefully examined, and at the end of each inspection the man would praise it faintly, and then start with his ''buts." It was not like this or that bridge in England, "you know." Finally the Girard Avenue bridge, built and opened about the time of the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, was reached. This bridge is generally considered to be a model of architectural beauty, and as Dr. Knight explained its cost, the time taken in its erection, and its dimensions, the man was so much impressed with it that he made a tour of the upper and lower decks, and also went down to the river's edge to look it over from water level. Then he commenced to praise it, but soon having exhausted all the compliments that he could find to say in its favor, he came to the inevitable "but."