Alaska Part 53

He returned and work was at once begun. A man big of body, mind, and heart, he was specially fitted for the perilous and daring work. Calm, low-voiced, compelling in repressed power and unswerving courage and will, he was a harder worker than any of his men.

a.s.sociated with him was a man equally large and equally gifted. Mr.

Hawkins is one of the most famous engineers of this country, if not of any country.

The difficult miles that these two men tramped; the long, long hours of each day that they worked; the hards.h.i.+ps that they endured, unflinching; the appalling obstacles that they overcame--are a part of Alaskan history.

The first twenty miles of this road from Skaguay cost two millions of dollars; the average cost to the summit was a hundred thousand dollars a mile, and now and then a single mile cost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

The road is built on mountainsides so precipitous that men were suspended from the heights above by ropes, to prevent disaster while cutting grades. At one point a cliff a hundred and twenty feet high, eighty feet deep, and twenty feet in width was blasted entirely away for the road-bed.

Thirty-five hundred men in all were employed in constructing the road, but thirty of whom died, of accident and disease, during the construction. Taking into consideration the perilous nature of the work, the rigors of the winter climate, and the fact that work did not cease during the worst weather, this is a remarkably small proportion.

A force of finer men never built a railroad. Many were prospectors, eager to work their way into the land of gold; others were graduates of eastern colleges; all were self-respecting, energetic men.

Skaguay is a thousand miles from Seattle; and from the latter city and Vancouver, men, supplies, and all materials were s.h.i.+pped. This was not one of the least of the hindrances to a rapid completion of the road.

Rich strikes were common occurrences at that time. In one day, after the report of a new discovery in the Atlin country had reached headquarters, fifteen hundred men drew their pay and stampeded for the new gold fields.

But all obstacles to the building of the road were surmounted. Within eighteen months from the date of beginning work it was completed to White Horse, a distance of one hundred and eleven miles, and trains were running regularly.

A legend tells us that an old Indian chief saw the canoe of his son upset in the waves lashed by the terrific winds that blow down between the mountains. The lad was drowned before the helpless father's eyes, and in his sorrow the old chief named the place Shkag-ua, or "Home of the North Wind." It has been abbreviated to Skaguay; and has been even further disfigured by a _w_, in place of the _u_.

Between salt water and the foot of White Pa.s.s Trail, two miles up the canyon, in the winter of 1897-1898, ten thousand men were camped. Some were trying to get their outfits packed over the trail; others were impatiently waiting for the completion of the wagon road which George A.

Brackett was building. This road was completed almost to the summit when the railroad overtook it and bought its right of way. It is not ten years old; yet it is always called "the _old_ Brackett road."

At half-past nine of a July morning our train left Skaguay for White Horse. We traversed the entire length of the town before entering the canyon. There are low, brown flats at the mouth of the river, which spreads over them in shallow streams fringed with alders and cottonwoods.

Above, on both sides, rose the gray, stony cliffs. Here and there were wooded slopes; others were rosy with fireweed that moved softly, like clouds.

We soon pa.s.sed the ruined bridge of the Brackett road, the water brawling noisily, gray-white, over the stones.

Our train was a long one drawn by four engines. There were a baggage-car, two pa.s.senger-cars, and twenty flat and freight cars loaded with boilers, machinery, cattle, chickens, merchandise, and food-stuffs of all kinds.

After crossing Skaguay River the train turns back, climbing rapidly, and Skaguay and Lynn Ca.n.a.l are seen s.h.i.+ning in the distance.... We turn again. The river foams between mountains of stone, hundreds of feet below--so far below that the trees growing spa.r.s.ely along its banks seem as the tiniest shrubs.

The Brackett road winds along the bed of the river, while the old White Pa.s.s, or Heartbreak, Trail climbs and falls along the stone and crumbling shale of the opposite mountain--in many places rising to an alt.i.tude of several hundred feet, in others sinking to a level with the river.

The Brackett road ends at White Pa.s.s City, where, ten years ago, was the largest tent-city in the world; and where now are only the crumbling ruins of a couple of log cabins, silence, and loneliness.

At White Pa.s.s City that was, the old Trail of Heartbreak leads up the canyon of the north fork of the Skaguay, directly away from the railroad. The latter makes a loop of many miles and returns to the canyon hundreds of feet above its bed. The scenery is of constantly increasing grandeur. Cascades, snow-peaks, glaciers, and overhanging cliffs of stone make the way one of austere beauty. In two hours and a half we climb leisurely, with frequent stops, from the level of the sea to the summit of the pa.s.s; and although skirting peaks from five to eight thousand feet in height, we pa.s.s through only one short tunnel.

It is a thrilling experience. The rocking train clings to the leaning wall of solid stone. A gulf of purple ether sinks sheer on the other side--so sheer, so deep, that one dare not look too long or too intently into its depth. Hundreds of feet below, the river roars through its narrow banks, and in many places the train overhangs it. In others, solid rock cliffs jut out boldly over the train.

After pa.s.sing through the tunnel, the train creeps across the steel cantilever bridge which seems to have been flung, as a spider flings his glistening threads, from cliff to cliff, two hundred and fifteen feet above the river, foaming white over the immense boulders that here barricade its headlong race to the sea.

Beautiful and impressive though this trip is in the green time and the bloom time of the year, it remains for the winter to make it sublime.

The mountains are covered deeply with snow, which drifts to a tremendous depth in canyons and cuts. Through these drifts the powerful rotary snow-plough cleaves a white and glistening tunnel, along which the train slowly makes its way. The fascinating element of momentary peril--of snow-slides burying the train--enters into the winter trip.

Near Clifton one looks down upon an immense block of stone, the size of a house but perfectly flat, beneath which three men were buried by a blast during the building of the road. The stone is covered with gra.s.s and flowers and is marked with a white cross.

At the summit, twenty miles from Skaguay, is a red station named White Pa.s.s. A monument marks the boundary between the United States and Yukon Territory. The American flag floats on one side, the Canadian on the other. A cone of rocks on the crest of the hill leading away from the sea marks the direction the boundary takes.

The White Pa.s.s Railway has an average grade of three per cent, and it ascends with gradual, splendid sweeps around mountainsides and projecting cliffs.

The old trail is frequently called "Dead Horse Trail." Thousands of horses and mules were employed by the stampeders. The poor beasts were overloaded, overworked, and, in many instances, treated with unspeakable cruelty. It was one of the shames of the century, and no humane person can ever remember it without horror.

At one time in 1897 more than five thousand dead horses were counted on the trail. Some had lost their footing and were dashed to death on the rocks below; others had sunken under their cruel burdens in utter exhaustion; others had been shot; and still others had been brutally abandoned and had slowly starved to death.

"What became of the horses," I asked an old stampeder, "when you reached Lake Bennett? Did you sell them?"

"Lord, no, ma'am," returned he, politely; "there wa'n't nothing left of 'em to sell. You see, they was dead."

"But I mean the ones that did not die."

"There wa'n't any of that kind, ma'am."

"Do you mean," I asked, in dismay, "that they all died?--that none survived that awful experience?"

"That's about it, ma'am. When we got to Lake Bennett there wa'n't any more use for horses. n.o.body was goin' the other way--and if they had been, the horses that reached Lake Bennett wa'n't fit to stand alone, let alone pack. The ones that wa'n't shot, died of starvation. Yes, ma'am, it made a man's soul sick."

Boundary lines are interesting in all parts of the world; but the one at the summit of the White Pa.s.s is of unusual historic interest. Side by side float the flags of America and Canada. They are about twenty yards from the little station, and every pa.s.senger left the train and walked to them, solely to experience a big patriotic American, or Canadian, thrill; to strut, glow, and walk back to the train again. Myself, I gave thanks to G.o.d, silently and alone, that those two flags were floating side by side there on that mountain, beside the little sapphire lake, instead of at the head of Chilkoot Inlet.

There are Canadian and United States inspectors of customs at the summit; also a railway agent. Their families live there with them, and there is no one else and nothing else, save the little sapphire lake lying in the bare hills.

Its blue waves lipped the porch whereon sat the young, sweet-faced wife of the Canadian inspector, with her baby in its carriage at her side.

This bit of liquid sapphire, scarcely larger than an artificial pond in a park, is really one of the chief sources of the Yukon--which, had these clear waters turned toward Lynn Ca.n.a.l, instead of away from it, might have never been. It seems so marvellous. The merest breath, in the beginning, might have toppled their liquid bulk over into the canyon through which we had so slowly and so enchantingly mounted, and in an hour or two they might have forced their foaming, furious way to the ocean. But some power turned the blue waters to the north and set them singing down through the beautiful chain of lakes--Lindeman, Bennett, Tagish, Marsh, Labarge--winding, widening, past ramparts and mountains, through canyons and plains, to Behring Sea, twenty-three hundred miles from this lonely spot.

This beginning of the Yukon is called the Lewes River. Far away, in the Pelly Mountains, the Pelly River rises and flows down to its confluence with the Lewes at old Fort Selkirk, and the Yukon is born of their union.

The Lewes has many tributaries, the most important of which is the Hootalinqua--or, as the Indians named it, Teslin--having its source in Teslin Lake, near the source of the Stikine River.

After leaving the summit the railway follows the sh.o.r.es of the river and the lakes, and the way is one of loveliness rather than grandeur. The saltish atmosphere is left behind, and the air tings with the sweetness of mountain and lake.

We had eaten an early breakfast, and we did not reach an eating station until we arrived at the head of Lake Bennett at half after one o'clock; and then we were given fifteen minutes in which to eat our lunch and get back to the train.

I do not think I have ever been so hungry in my life--and _fifteen minutes_! The dining room was clean and attractive; two long, narrow tables, or counters, extended the entire length of the room. They were decorated with great bouquets of wild flowers; the sweet air from the lake blew in through open windows and shook the white curtains out into the room.

The tables were provided with good food, all ready to be eaten. There were ham sandwiches made of lean ham. It was not edged with fat and embittered with mustard; it must have been baked, too, because no boiled ham could be so sweet. There were big brown lima beans, also baked, not boiled, and dill-pickles--no insipid pin-moneys, but good, sour, delicious dills! There were salads, home-made bread, "salt-rising" bread and b.u.t.ter, cakes and cookies and fruit--and huckleberry pie.

Blueberries, they are called in Alaska, but they are our own mountain huckleberries.

No twelve-course luncheon, with a different wine for each course, could impress itself upon my memory as did that lunch-counter meal. We ate as children eat; with their pure, animal enjoyment and satisfaction. For fifteen minutes we had not a desire in the world save to gratify our appet.i.tes with plain, wholesome food. There was no crowding, no selfishness and rudeness,--as there had been in that wild scene on the excursion-boat, where the struggle had been for place rather than for food,--but a polite consideration for one another. And outside the sun shone, the blue waves sparkled and rippled along the sh.o.r.e, and their music came in through the open windows.

Here, in 1897, was a city of tents. Several thousand men and women camped here, waiting for the completion of boats and rafts to convey themselves and their outfits down the lakes and the river to the golden land of their dreams.