Over the passes to the Klondike

There is no shady side to life at Skagway; everything goes on in broad daylight or candle-light. After supper every tent is lighted up, and the streets are crowded with muddy men in from the trail.

The eye catches movement. The mountain is alive. There is a continuous moving train; they are perceptible only by their movement, just as ants are. The moving train is zigzagging across the towering face of the precipice, up, up, into the sky, even at the very top. See! they are going against the sky! They are human beings, but never did men look so small.

We start with our packs up the side of the mountain. … In several places, however, the trail is very steep; one must climb on hands and knees from bowlder to bowlder—much, I fancy, as one would go up the pyramids.

“How far is it to Dawson?” we call out. “This is Dawson! If you don’t look out you will be carried past!” We dig our paddles into the ice, and in a short space of time our boat is safe behind a larger one. It is the 31st of October, one hundred and eight days since the Excelsior’s arrival at San Francisco, and ninety-two days since we joined the Klondike Stampede.

The town of Dawson, now just one year old, contains about three hundred cabins and other buildings. … Entire outfits were for sale at $1 per pound, and not waiting long for takers; but flour, the article of which there was the greatest shortage, sold on the street for from $75 to $120 per sack of 50 pounds.