The Klondike
most of these articles can be found on various pages on this
site.
This is our attempt to group them together.
June 16th, 1897: Mr. JM Jarvis, our expert cranberry setter, has secured a job to set ten acres for Capt H. H. Norwood, of Berwick.
August 25th, 1897: To the Klondike: Capt. H. H. Norwood, of Berwick, has been appointed an Inspector of Mines in the Klondike region. The captain's experience in the Arctic regions will be of great value to him in his new field of labor. He will start in a few days.
September 15th, 1897: Capt Norwood left on Monday enroute to the Klondike.
January 5th, 1898: A letter to the Toronto Globe, dated Nov. 22nd, from a member of Mayor Walsh's expedition on the way to the Yukon says: - "Capt. Norwood with six men is moving back to the various posts we established and which are all more than supplied."
October 26th 1898: Capt. H. H. Norwood arrived from the Klondyke on Friday evening last.
There is more information on Capt. Norwood (on site) at hhnrp.htm
September 8th 1897
Personals - Mr. Arthur M. Sommerville, of Truro, formerly of Somerset, left on Monday of last week for Moose Jaw, with intent to start for the Klondike region in the early spring.
January 12th, 1898
Waterville - On Saturday evening, despite the driving rain, Bowles' hall was filled. The Grafton Jubilee Singers redeemed their promise of 120 laughs in 120 minutes. Yielding to numerous and urgent requests, this company have promised to put on a new play, "Back from Klondike," and a new bachelor opera. The date will probably be Feb. 12th.
February 2nd 1898
Sheffield Mills - Mr. Will Borden, who returned from British Columbia last Autumn, intends going to the Klondike next week. He will make one of a party of five who will start from Halifax.
To the KLONDYKE - A party of five, one of whom is Ralph Crichton, of Woodville, purpose leaving Halifax to-day for Edmonton, en route to the Yukon district. The trip will be made by C.P.R. to Edmonton, thence by horses and sleighs, five hundred miles, and thence mainly by water with short stages by land to the head of the Yukon River, where they intend to remain till some new find is announced, when they hope to be among the first on the ground.
February 9th 1898
The Gold Monopoly
An item going the rounds of the papers states that the Rothschilds are interested in the Klondike gold fields and that their agents have purchased supplies to the value of $350,000. There need be no doubt regarding the main statement. Every gold field in the world that pays any more than working expenses in controlled by the Rothschilds. It is their object to keep up the price of gold. Were it not for their monopoly that metal would probably be of little more value in the market than silver.
February 23rd 1898
It is so cold in the Klondike now that suffering miners are longing for summer and the warmth of the mosquitos.
Hantsport - The western fever has struck our town. One of our boys left last Monday for the Klondike. Another gentleman expects to go in a week's time, and three of our captains talk of going to Victoria to take up service on the Puget Sound steamers.
E. Churchill and Sons have sold the steamer Havana to a company in Halifax and she is to be sent to the Klondike
March 2nd 1898
Gaspereau - On Monday Mr. Mariner Davidson started for the Klondike. It is hoped that he will be successful.
March 9th 1898
The Monticello - All sorts of rumors are afloat as to the future route of the steamer City of Monticello recently sold to Geo F. Baird, of St John, for $20,000. One St John paper says she has been inspected for parties who want to run to New England ports, and another paper says a Mr. Moran has been inspecting the boat and, if purchased, she will go into the Klondike trade business, running from Seattle to Dyea.
Burlington: - Mr. and Mrs. Martin Ney Ogilvie are making a short visit to their parents at this place. Mr. Ogilvie goes to the Klondike in a few weeks. We all join in wishing him success.
Canning - Dr. G. L. Foster left last Friday for Ottawa, where he expects to join a party for the Klondike.
March 16th 1898
Passengers by the steamer Islander, just arrived at Victoria, B. C., on Saturday, from Alaska report that several days ago a detachment of northern mounted police came into Skagway with two sleds on which were strapped two dead men. The attention of the mounted police at Taglish was attracted by the howl of dogs. After a short search they found the bodies of two men frozen to death. They were Canadians returning from Klondike, and had in their possession $160,000 in gold dust. Their names are unknown.
March 23rd 1898
A Military Force – Orders have been issued from Ottawa for the selection of a number of men from various permanent corps to form a military detachment for the Klondike. Dr G.L. Foster, late of Canning, is medical officer for the expedition. The term of service is for two years and only the best men, in every military sense, will be allowed to join the force.
April 6th 1898
Canning - Dr. G. L. Foster, who has lately been to Ottawa and will soon start for the Klondike is spending a few days in Canning.
Canning will have quite a showing in the western country before long. There will be quite a number start from here next week among whom will be Capt. Edwin Holmes and Mr. Dan Bigelow. These are not going to the Klondike but Canning will not be without representatives there. Mr. Wallace Parker expects to leave soon for the "Golden" North. Probably others will go later.
By the burning of the steamer Whitelaw, on March 5th, at Skagway, 110 Klondikers lost their outfits. Skagway's entire gang of thugs and freebooters surrounded the vessel while the passengers were escaping over her side and carried off much of her cargo. The passengers, crazed by their misfortune, turned and fought with the looters for their property. Knives and guns were used freely and many persons were badly wounded. The weaker passengers lost everything, while the stronger ones saved partial outfits.
April 20th 1898
BOUND TO THE KLONDIKE. - The steamer Fastnet sailed from Halifax last week for Vancouver. Her commander, Capt. Butler, hopes to make Montevideo before stopping for coal. The members of the crew all went well equipped to withstand the cold weather at Cape Horn.
THE CHILKOOT HORROR - The loss of life through the avalanches on the Chilkoot trail will be much greater than was at first anticipated. One hundred is thought to be a conservative estimate of the victims of the first slide near Squaw Hill. Since then another disastrous slide of snow is reported from Crater Lake, although the report lacks confirmation. If the report is well founded the fatalities must have been appalling, as hundreds were encamped upon the margin of the lake. The slides have completely blocked the Pass, and it will be months before the summer sun can sufficiently melt the mountains of snow and ice to enable a full return of the dead to be made; indeed it is feared that many bodies will never be recovered. The thousand tons of supplies are entombed.
April 27th, 1898
DYING OUT. - A despatch from Vancouver B. C. says that it looks as if the Klondyke fever is dying out. The outfitting trade has dropped off to a shadow of itself. The steamers catering for northern trade increased in numbers until there are but a few passengers to each steamer, and unless the boom revives many of the big steamers will have to lay up. When the rush first subsided the steamship companies tumbled over each other in competing for trade, and as a consequence it is said the passage to Alaska can be had for $10 and $15, and freight rates have been cut in half.
May 4th, 1898
A Burlington Boy at Klondike.
The following letter from a Kings County boy to his sister in Harborville, has been handed to the Register for publication, and will be read with interest by friends of the writer as well as by others:
Orca, Alaska, Mar 28th, 1898.
DEAR SISTER: -
I am now in the cold region. We arrived here yesterday; will leave for Valdie's Pass tomorrow. That is the place where we leave the boat and start over the glacier, which is twenty seven miles to the top. Will take about two weeks to go over it. That is where we have to do without fire, not a stick of wood on it of any kind. We will have to eat cold food all the way over. We have to haul our outfit on sleds over the glacier, then build a boat to go up the river. From Valdie's Pass to the gold fields is about one hundred miles. There are two hundred men on this boat, and not more than twenty five will go over the pass. There were seven in our party and I think only three will go over. I have fared well so far. But I cannot describe to you the hardships some have to endure. There were one hundred second class passengers came on board the boat. They were put in the hold with the freight, and ate and slept like hogs. Most of them will go back as they have spent all their money and have not provision to go through. One man needs about eight months provisions, costing two hundred dollars, and that is a very small item in the outfit. A man wants about fifteen hundred dollars to go out.
Word has just come in from the gold fields. They are digging from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars a day. This is the first word since 1st September. I am well; have not missed a meal. Five of us started yesterday to climb one of the mountains, over three thousand feet high. I was the only one who got to the top. Three dogs accompanied us and were tired out. The snow in some places is forty feet deep. It is all mountainous region here.
If you see any person that talks about coming up here tell them that they must expect to go through something indescribable. It is no use to ask one about it as one cannot find out the truth until he goes through himself.
Martin Ney Ogilvie
June 8th, 1898:
A Burlington Boy at Klondike.
LETTERS FROM A KINGS COUNTY BOY TO HIS SISTER IN HARBORVILLE.
NO. II.
VALDES, April 5th, 1898.
DEAR SISTER: -
When I wrote you last we had just arrived at Valdes. The bay was covered with ice, so we had to go ashore in a small boat. I picked some mussels on the beach and saw plenty of them. We had to sleep on the steam boat for eight nights until we got our stuff on shore and our tents fixed. We had a prayer meeting on board one night and splendid singing. About fifty voices joined. We have a minister in the crowd.
We looked through the glass and saw people going up the pass. It is about seven miles from the shore to the foot of the pass. The air is very clear here, and you can see a long way with the naked eye. It has only been a little below freezing since we came here, but it is thirty degrees colder on the mountains. It is daylight about four o'clock now and dark at seven. It is very fine and the sun is very hot in the middle of the day. We want to hurry and get over, as it is almost impossible to do so after the fifteenth of this month.
We are going to move our tents about six miles, then haul our outfit and then move again, and so on until there. At first we can haul two hundred pounds and as it gets steeper only fifty on our sleds and some places we will have to use a tackle to raise it, for it is so steep. Some have dogs to haul their stuff. I would give one hundred dollars if I had my two dogs here. Some use horses. A horse that would sell down home for ten dollars would bring from three to six hundred dollars here. I like the ……; they are very kind and neighborly. You can leave anything away from your tent for months and no one meddles with it. A boat came here yesterday with one hundred passengers and one to day with a hundred more. We got some mattresses out of her so now we do not have to lie on the snow. You know there is not even any brush to put under the blankets.
We have a post office here at Valdes. It costs each man fifty cents for the season to have his mail taken care of and one dollar a month for it after we get over the pass. That is, a man goes once a month, and brings all the mail, and charges each one a dollar for one letter or five. If you get no letters, no pay. There are two women on the last boat. It is a terrible place for them. They do not realize the hardships they will have to go through. There are splendid accounts of plenty of gold. There is gold in almost all of the stones you pick up but not enough to pay. We heard to-day that some that have gone over and got to the diggings have staked out claims and are digging seventy-five dollars to the pan.
A pan is about four quarts of sand and they dig from ten to twenty a day. Well, by the time you get this letter, I will know all about it.
MARTIN NEY OGILVIE
August 3rd, 1898
Woodlawn - Mr. Martin N. Ogilvie has returned home from the Klondike, after an absence of five months.
November 2nd, 1898
From the Klondyke
Mr. Geo. A. Roland, son of Albert E. Roland, of Morristown, now in Dawson City, writing to his mother under the date of Sept. 12th, says: -
Dear Mother: -
We have been in Dawson three weeks tomorrow. Had a bad trip from Vancouver, the trip to St. Michael's was all right - made it ten days. Got there the 4th of July in the morning, but we had to wait a week for a boat in which to come up the river, and it took us 43 days to reach Dawson. We were stuck two days at the mouth of the river, on a sand bar, and when we got about half way up we were stuck again twelve days. Then the cylinder head of the engine blew out and we were laid up for four days. Besides these there were several small breakdowns. I did all right though, for I worked all the way up at $75 a month.
We meant to go up on the Stewart river this winter. We are living two miles up back of Dawson on the hill. Have a log cabin almost finished. Things don't look too bad in here, although lots of people are getting discouraged and going out. But you ought to see the people that are coming in. people that were never out of a city in their lives. There were a lot from England with us that didn't know what an axe was - lawyers and bank clerks.
Every that is working around here is getting a dollar an hour. A team of horses hire for ten dollars an hour. Work is hard to find, but those who really want it can find it all right, I guess.
One of my mates is going up on Dominion Creek to-morrow, to see about a claim; we get half interest for representing it. Three month's work for one man. If he doesn't get that I am going to look for a job. We will have the cabin all ready for winter by the time he gets back. We have had fine weather since we left Vancouver, and I haven't seen any hardships so far.
Capt Norwood is posted about fifteen miles above here. If we go out to Dominion I will have a chance to see him. I think Parker is up at the lakes.
Write to "Dawson, Yukon Territory," and I will get your letter all right.
Yours with love,
Geo. A. Roland.
December 8th, 1898
A Klondyke Nugget
Offered To Premier Laurier By A Wide Awake Country Editor:
The Bobcaygon Independent is published in one of the most northerly townships in Ontario, but its talented editor (who styles himself Smiff) has made for himself a reputation beyond the borders of our own country. We quote below an editorial letter from last week's Independent, that contains more solid sense than is found usually in the best editorial matter in our most popular city dailies. The Independent says:
"The following letter addressed to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, from Mr. Smiff, the gentleman who writes our leading articles, may be interesting to some of our readers:
To Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
Premier of Canada
Sir - I beg most respectfully to call you attention to three facts.
- That the gold in the Klondyke region is Crown property, that is, it is the property of the people of Canada.
- That the Klondyke gold is being appropriated by individuals, who thus appropriate to themselves that which belongs to the people of Canada, and many of those individuals are foreigners.
- That the jails and penitentiaries of Canada are crowded with convicts who are a heavy expense to the community.
In view of the three foregoing facts I venture to make to the Government of which you are the talented and popular leader the following proposals: Provided you will confer on me the authority of Governor of the Yukon territory, and place at my disposal a body of 500 mounted police, I will undertake - to pay into the public treasury of Canada at least five million dollars' worth of gold annually; to relieve the jails of one thousand convicts and to pay all expenses connected with the Government of the Klondyke Region.
The course I should pursue may be briefly summarized as follows: I should take up my residence at Dawson; would expel all strangers from the vicinity of the people's gold mines; would work those mines with the labor of convicts sent to me from the various jails in Canada; and after defraying all expenses would transmit the gold obtained from the mines to the public treasury in Ottawa.
Let me respectfully call your attention to the fact, which will be regarded by future historians as a remarkably strange characteristic of the present system, that not only are the gold mines which are the property of the Canadian People be appropriated by individuals, but the people are actually incurring a heavy annual expense in protecting and maintaining order among the identical individuals who are confiscating to themselves the property of the people.
Give me 500 Mounted Police and a thousand convicts, and I will undertake to work all the paying gold mines in the Klondyke region and to remit the proceeds, less expenses, to Ottawa.
The above proposal will, I am sure, appeal so strongly to the commonsense of your esteemed colleagues on the Cabinet, that they will not hesitate to confer on me the necessary authority, therefore, I shall at once make preparations for my departure. All correspondence you will please address to me directed - Back Parlor, Rockland Hotel, Bobcaygeon.
I have the honor to be sir,
Your obedient servant,
ADOLPHE SMIFF