William Edwards - In to the Yukon

To-day H – , Sutton and I have driven for hours along the valley of Spruce Creek, visiting another industrious gold-washing section. We picnicked for lunch in an abandoned miner’s camp, and H – saw her first real washing for gold. We took the picture of one old man, a Mr. Alfred Sutton, in whose cabin we had sought shelter from a passing rain squall. He had hoped to return to England for the winter – he left there many years ago – but the gold had not come in as rich as he had hoped, so he must delay his going for one more year. Poor old fellow, his beard was long and white, so, too, his uncombed hair. He had not yet made his yellow pile, but was as hopeful as a boy of twenty. I promised to send him a copy of the photograph and he thanked me joyfully, saying, “And I shall send it to my family at home” – in England.

We are here two days longer, when we move on to Dawson and I mail these lines to you.

This is our last day in Atlin. The morning was cold like late November in Virginia, the air keen and frosty. Ice has formed in the pools, though the aspen and scrub willow and a sort of stunted alder are only turned yellow in spots and patches. The mountain-tops are now all whitened with the delicate early snows, extending like blankets of hoar-frost out beyond the margins of the snow fields that never melt.

We dine sumptuously, and all through the gold fields it is the same. The one thing men will and must have is food, good food and no stint. The most expensive canned goods, the costliest preserves, the most high-priced fresh fruits, oranges, bananas, pears and grapes, the finest beef steaks and meats, the most ample variety of vegetables. Such an average as New York gives only in her best hotels, is what the gold digger demands, will have, and freely spends his nuggets to obtain. We are astonished at such lavish eating. At the diggings where men work for wages, $4.50 and $5.00 per day, board is always included and demanded, and only this high-priced, costly food is accepted. The cooks are connoisseurs. Their wages run from $125.00 to $150.00 per month and free board. At the camp high amidst the desolate moorlands of Otter Creek, the men eat beef steaks, thick, juicy, rare, California fresh fruit and lemon meringue pie; with lemons $1.00 per dozen and eggs ten cents apiece! Dundee marmalade is eaten by the ton; the costliest canned cream is swallowed by the gallon – the one permitted, recognized and established extravagance of the gold fields is the sumptuous eating of every man who finds the gold.

This afternoon Sutton and ourselves with a few friends are going down to see the great glacier at the south end of Lake Atlin.

We have just come in on the steamboat from Atlin, and are waiting for the train which will take us to White Horse this afternoon, where we will take a river boat to Dawson.

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Caribou Crossing now called Carcross.