In the Klondyke #1000896

ORIGINALLY, I had intended to accompany our Government expedition for the relief of the miners of the Klondyke, which was in part mobilized at Dyea when I arrived there late in February. As it never went any farther, for the good reason that Dawson had been rescued from famine by the migration of a portion of its population, I was left to my own resources. Wholesome fatigue and clean camps on the snow were better than the hospitality of a mushroom town built of rough boards and tar-paper; a little adventure was better than watching for two months the thousands of pilgrims of fortune in the desperate and monotonous labor of putting their outfits over the passes; and I determined, rather than to wait with them for the opening of navigation, to undertake with dogs and sleds of my own the untried journey of six hundred miles over the ice-fields of the Lewes lakes and the ice-packs of the Yukon River which the Government expedition had contemplated.