Vancouver Province: Big game hunting in the wilds of the Yukon in usually considered to be a sport in which only exceptionally strong and hardy men may indulge with safety and success. Registered at the Castle hotel, however, is a quiet little middle-aged woman whose reputation in the northland as a fearless and tireless hunter will bear comparison with that of any male nimrod who ever bagged a grizzly. She is Mrs. W. W. Dickinson, whose hushand was formerly agent for the White Pass and Yukon route at Whitehorse, and who is now agent for the P. G. E. at Pemberton Meadows.
When Mrs. Dickinson went to the Yukon fourteen years ago she was already a practiced hand with the rifle, and had hunted grizzly, deer and mountain lions in the Cascades of Oregon, her native state. In the Yukon she found a wider and better field for the indulgence of her taste for outdoor life and she took full advantage of it, going into places where no white woman and few white men had ever visited. Few know the southern part of the Yukon as well as she, and in that district she is famed as an explorer as well as a great hunter.
Her adventures would make an interesting volume, but her most exciting experiences were encountered last autumn, when on a hunting expedition to Teslin lake. She had heard that that district was a paradise for big me, with grizzlies and moose of gigantic size, and she was very anxious to get a fine moose head.
She found the country as it had heen described, but owing to a variety of circumstances failed to get her moose. Then the cold weather begin to set in and Mrs. Dickinson had to make a hurried start for home to avoid being storm-bound and that in winter. She was unable to obtain Indian guides or a proper outfit, and had to set out with one white guide and a leaky 32-foot boat.
For nine days she and her companion battled with the turbulent waters of the Hootalinqua river, which is one of the wildest streams in the Yukon. Their boat was the most unseaworthy of craft. Frequently they had to paddle ashore and empty the water out of the boat. Once they just reached land in time to avoid sinking. They stopped the
leaks in their little vessel with pitch which they obtained from spruce trees along the way. To make matters worse they were in constant danger from slides, as the river runs through steeply-sloping mountains, which frequently launch hundreds of tons of earth and rock into the stream.
To illustrate how real this danger was, Mrs. Dickinson today related how a little steamer which operates on the Hootalinqua in the summer had been lifted over a sandbar by such a slide. The vessel had been firmly lodged on the bar and her crew, after
twelve hours work trying to release the vessel, had about given up the task when a large part of a mountain slipped and crashed into the water, the great wave caused by it lifting the steamer over the bar and carrying her a considerable distance from the scene of the disturbance.
Mrs. Dickinson was nine days on this river. A delay of a few days would have made the journey impossible. As it was they had to chop their boat free from the ice every morning, as the shoreward water was already freezing. Fortunately they had plenty of provisions. Severe as the hardships of the trip were, Mrs. Dickinson says she enjoyed every hour of it.
Speaking of the Teslin lake country she said that nowhere had she seen so many grizzlies and moose of such enormous size. While she was at the Hudson's Bay post on the lake a hunter from Chicago had arrived and had shot the biggest grizzly she had ever seen. It was not the size of the animal, however, so much as the manner in which the hunter got it that aroused her interest. He had been out with a guide when they came
across the partly eaten carcass of a big moose that had been killed only a short time before. About half an acre of ground around the carcass was torn up and showed evidence of a fierce fight. The guide declared that the moose's antagonist had been a grizzly and would return later to get another meal. They decided to wait. That evening the grizzly returned and was killed, not with one, but five shots. Not a person around the post had ever before heard of grizzly attacking a moose and all were sure that a bear of ordinary size would never have attempted it. The moose head, which was taken by the Chicago hunter had a spread of five feet.
The Yukon, Mrs. Dickinson thinks, is a wonderful country, but she says that she has never seen anything so impressive or charming as the scenery along the Pacific and Great Eastern railway.
