Capt. Willam Moore, the veteran explorer and navigator, who has the contract from the Dominion Government for taking three mails into the Canadian Yukon country this season, returned on Tuesday from successfully accomplishing his first round trip. This first mail left Juneau on May 26th for Fort Cudahy and Forty-Mile, 780 miles distant. Capt. Moore had with him one assistant, and two men who were going into the mining country accompanied him. Four Indians were employed to carry the mail (which weighed 104 lbs.), provisions for the party, and lumber for making a boat at Lake
Linderman, whence the remainder of the trip was to be made by water via Louis river, one of the main tributaries of the Yukon. The trip was anything but a pleasant one, for the snow lay on the ground so deep that snowshoes had to be resorted to in places. Indeed, last winter was the most severe that had been known in the country for 30 years.
Lake Linderman, 120 miles from Juneau, was reached on May 3lst., the boat built, and preparations made to go on by water to the end of the trip. The lake was frozen solid at the lower end. On June 6th the ice was broken round the edges to get the boat through, and Lake Bennett was reached nent day. Five portages between White Horse, the Canyon and Five Fingers were made necessary by the ice which still cumbered the lakes, for the season was very backward. The Louis river when the thaw came rose very rapidly. Many men were found at the Canyon, over 40 boats lying there preparing to make a start for the mines. While Capt. Moore was there two boats were overturned and four men narrowly escaped drowning, they being rescued by help luckily close at hand.
Proceeding down the river Fort Silcock was passed on Monday, June 15th, and as rapid time as possible was made, the boat carrying the mails not tying up night or day after leaving Five Fingers till the arrival at Forty Mile on June 18th., when the mail was delivered. Captain Moore's boat was the first of the season of all that started after the opening of the lakes.
At Forty Mile, William Ogilvie, C.E,, whose extensive explorations in the
North particularly fitted him for the task, has been surveying for the Dominion Government to mark out the boundary line of Canada and Alaska between the Forty Mile country and Sixty Mile. The result of Mr. Ogilvie's work during the winter has been that he has found that there is more of the district in Canadian territory than has previously been thought. Mr. Ogilvie was waiting orders from the department at Ottawa, and it was expected that the American surveyors would soon meet him to verify his surveys.
The detachment of Northwest Mounted Police at Fort Cudahy, under Inspector Constantine, are in Captain Moore's opinion doing good work. Were it not for them much harm would be done to the Indians by whisky being supplied them. The mounted police, in all numbering 20, have got along admirably and harmoniously with the miners, and are making various improvements at their little frontier post. Inspector Constantine is liked and respected by the miners for the tact and justice with which he carries out his duties as a magistrate.
Captain Moore having made up the return mail, started for home on June 20th, and as he knew from tthe large amount of snow that the Louis river would be too high for a boat to make headway up stream until the middle of July, he decided to come out by the Yukon, so as to get the mails away as quickly as possible.
He left Circle City on June 30th in an open boat, traveling night and day. The trip was a most uncomfortable one for the Lower Yukon territory is infested with
mosquitoes "fifty to the square inch," as the Captain puts it, and against their attacks even buckskin gloves are not proof. The mosquitoes are indeed so bad on the Lower Yukon as to hinder the development of that region. On July 7th a seven hours storm raged on the river making it necessary to put a drag overboard to keep the boat from being swept up stream. On the 11th, the wind blew the boat into the bushes that skirt the river bank, and the mosquito attacks made the travelers' lives a misery.
At St. Michael's on July 15th the steamer Bertha was boarded, and it was hoped to catch the steamer Dora at Ounalaska so as to take passage to Sitka. Ounalaska was reached on July 27th, two and a-half days too late to connect with the Bertha. Here there were 35 or 40 sealers lying; they set sail on July 28th and 29th. Captain Moore wth the mails continued on the Bertha to San Francisco, arriving there last Saturday, August 8th and leaving for home the same evening; he landed at Victoria with his mails from the Yukon on Tuesday morning.
Nine hundred miners have gone into the Yukon this year and 104 came
down on the Bertha from the mines. A third of these are old hands, and all had money, having from $1,000 to $10,000 or $12,000. A Swiss named Muller, who has been in the Yukon for the past six years, had with him the enormous sum of $50,000 in gold dust, most of which he had taken out of the mines in the last couple of years. It took all two able-bodied men could do to carry aboard the Bertha at St. Michael's the iron-bound box in which Muller's treasure was stored.
Capt. Moore leaves Victoria on Saturday with the last mail for the Yukon. His son Benjamin is now delivering the second mail.
