In to the Yukon

William Edwards

William Seymour Edwards

In to the Yukon

PREFACE

These letters were not written for publication originally. They were written for the home circle and the few friends who might care to read them. They are the brief narrative of daily journeyings and experiences during a very delightful two months of travel into the far north and along the Pacific slope of our continent. Some of the letters were afterwards published in the daily press. They are now put into this little book and a few of the Kodak snapshots taken are given in half-tone prints.

We were greeted with much friendliness along the way and were the recipients of many courtesies. None showed us greater attention than the able and considerate officials of the Pacific Coast S. S. Co., the Alaska S. S. Co. and the White Pass and Yukon Railway Co., including Mr. Kekewich, managing Director of the London Board, and Mr. Newell, Vice-President of the Company.

At Atlin and Dawson we met and made many friends, and we would here reiterate to them, one and all, our warm appreciation of their hospitalities.

В В В В William Seymour Edwards.

В В В В Charleston-Kanawha, West Virginia,

В В В В August, 1904.

FIRST LETTER

THE GREAT LAKES, CLEVELAND TO DETROIT

В В В В Steamer Northwest, on Lake Superior,

В В В В August 11, 1903.

We reached Cleveland just in time to catch the big liner, which cast off her cables almost as soon as we were aboard. A vessel of 5,000 tons, a regular sea ship. The boat was packed with well-dressed people, out for a vacation trip, most of them. By and by we began to pass islands, and about 2 P. M. turned into a broad channel between sedgy banks – the Detroit River. Many craft we passed and more overtook, for we were the fastest thing on the lakes as well as the biggest.

Toward 3 P. M., the tall chimneys of the huge salt works and the church spires of the city of Detroit began to come into view. A superb water front, several miles long, and great warehouses and substantial buildings of brick and stone, fit for a vast commerce.

The sail up the Detroit River, through Lake St. Clair, and then up the St. Clair River to Lake Huron, was as lovely a water trip as any I have made. The superb park “Belle Isle,” the pride of Detroit; the many, very many, villas and cottages all along the water-side, hundreds of them; everywhere boats, skiffs, launches, naphtha and steam, all filled with Sunday pleasure excursionists, the many great pleasure excursion steamers loaded down with passengers, gave a life and liveliness to the water views that astonished and pleased us.

The Lake St. Clair is about twenty miles across, apparently broader than it is, for the reason that its sedgy margins are so wide that the trees and higher land further back seem the real border of the lake. What is called the “St. Clair Flats” are the wide, low-lying lands on each side of the long reaches of the St. Clair River. Twenty miles of cottages, hotels, club-houses, are strung along the water-side, each with its little pier and its boats.

Towards dark – eight o’clock – we came to Sarnia and Port Huron, and pointed out into the great lake, second in depth to Superior – larger than any but Superior – a bit of geography I had quite forgotten.

At dawn on Monday, we were skirting the high-wooded southern shore, and by 11 A. M. sighted the fir-clad heights of Mackinac where Lake Michigan comes in. Here is a beautiful protected bay, where is a big hotel, and the good people of Chicago come to forget the summer heats. After half an hour, we turned again and toward the north, in a half circle, and by 4 P. M. were amidst islands and in a narrow channel, the St. Mary’s River.

Huron is a deep blue like Superior, and unlike the green of shallow Erie. The channel toward the Soo is very tortuous – many windings and sharp turns, marked by buoys and multitudinous beacon lights. All along we had passed great numbers of steamships and barges – ore carriers, but nowhere saw a large sailing craft, only a sail boat here and there. This entire