XV The Yukon and North-West Territories
North of British Columbia lies the Yukon territory, which about sixteen years ago suddenly became interesting to the world on account of the discoveries of gold on two streams flowing into the Klondyke. This is itself a tributary of the Yukon river, which is navigable for over sixteen hundred miles in its course from White Horse, through the territory bearing its own name and through Alaska, to the Behring Sea. There is no need to write of the stampede to the Klondyke in the late nineties. The production of gold in the Yukon gradually declined after 1901, but mining is still its chief industry, and the introduction of more elaborate methods of mining are now again increasing the output. The territory is rich also in copper and coal, both of which are being mined with success. There is a good local market for coal at Dawson, which, founded in 1896, had at one time a population of twenty thousand. This had fallen by 1911 to four thousand, however.
The climate is very severe in winter, especially during January and February, and in the northern part of the district the ground never thaws for more than a foot in depth; but the surface thaws, and only a few miles south of the Arctic Circle the summer climate is said to be pleasant, and hardy vegetables such as turnips and cabbages can be grown.
Just beyond the borders of the Yukon district, on the banks of the Mackenzie river, stands the most northerly of the Hudson Bay Company’s posts—Fort McPherson. It has been described as “truly an Arctic village. The sun never sets for about six weeks in summer, and is constantly below the horizon for the same time in winter.” It is visited by the Eskimos of the shores of the Arctic Ocean and by the whalers, chiefly from San Francisco.
Several years ago the whole whaling fleet was entrapped by the ice, and its crews obliged to go into winter quarters at Herschel Island. Here there is a detachment of the Mounted Police, who have to face all kinds of difficulty and danger in keeping order and doing their duty—often of a humanitarian character—in the northern wildernesses. Usually they carry through their undertakings with marked success, but occasionally they are the victims, or the heroes of a tragedy.
In winter a small body of the police make a regular patrol from Dawson to Fort McPherson and back; but in 1911 the patrol did not return, when expected, and its four members, having “failed to make the pass over the mountains,” were found dead in the snow, but one day’s march from safety.
Amongst the resources of this wild north land, besides its mineral wealth, of which no doubt a very small proportion is yet discovered, is its excellent fish—white fish, Arctic trout, the “inconnu” (peculiar to the Mackenzie river, and so named by Mackenzie’s party), and salmon of numerous varieties. It is also likely to remain for generations to come the hunting ground of the fur trader, for wild animals, large and small, abound; and if the land proves of value for little else, its fur-bearing animals—especially if some measures should be taken to preserve and protect them—will be an increasing source of wealth to the Dominion.
As for the inhabitants of the land, there are several tribes of Indians and Eskimos speaking different tongues, whilst the white race—apart from the miners and business men of the Yukon—is represented chiefly by traders and missionaries. For several generations the Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries have been doing brave work in the frozen north, and a large proportion of the Indians have embraced Christianity in one form or the other.
But we must pass on, for this portion of Canada cannot be said to offer large opportunity as a field for British immigration, though it has been a field where Britons, as explorers or heralds of the Cross, have again and again proved their kinship to the Norse heroes of older days.