Chapter VI
The Cassiar Trail
I made a second trip up the Stickeen in August and from the head of
navigation pushed inland for general views over dry grassy hills and
plains on the Cassiar trail.
Soon after leaving Telegraph Creek I met a merry trader who
encouragingly assured me that I was going into the most wonderful
region in the world, that “the scenery up the river was full of the
very wildest freaks of nature, surpassing all other sceneries either
natural or artificial, on paper or in nature. And give yourself no
bothering care about provisions, for wild food grows in prodigious
abundance everywhere. A man was lost four days up there, but he feasted
on vegetables and berries and got back to camp in good condition. A
mess of wild parsnips and pepper, for example, will actually do you
good. And here’s my advice—go slow and take the pleasures and sceneries
as you go.”
At the confluence of the first North Fork of the Stickeen I found a
band of Toltan or Stick Indians catching their winter supply of salmon
in willow traps, set where the fish are struggling in swift rapids on
their way to the spawning-grounds. A large supply had already been
secured, and of course the Indians were well fed and merry. They were
camping in large booths made of poles set on end in the ground, with
many binding cross-pieces on which tons of salmon were being dried. The
heads were strung on separate poles and the roes packed in willow
baskets, all being well smoked from fires in the middle of the floor.
The largest of the booths near the bank of the river was about forty
feet square. Beds made of spruce and pine boughs were spread all around
the walls, on which some of the Indians lay asleep; some were braiding
ropes, others sitting and lounging, gossiping and courting, while a
little baby was swinging in a hammock. All seemed to be light-hearted
and jolly, with work enough and wit enough to maintain health and
comfort. In the winter they are said to dwell in substantial huts in
the woods, where game, especially caribou, is abundant. They are pale
copper-colored, have small feet and hands, are not at all negroish in
lips or cheeks like some of the coast tribes, nor so thickset,
short-necked, or heavy-featured in general.
One of the most striking of the geological features of this region are
immense gravel deposits displayed in sections on the walls of the river
gorges. About two miles above the North Fork confluence there is a
bluff of basalt three hundred and fifty feet high, and above this a bed
of gravel four hundred feet thick, while beneath the basalt there is
another bed at least fifty feet thick.
From “Ward’s,” seventeen miles beyond Telegraph, and about fourteen
hundred feet above sea-level, the trail ascends a gravel ridge to a
pine-and-fir-covered plateau twenty-one hundred feet above the sea.
Thence for three miles the trail leads through a forest of short,
closely planted trees to the second North Fork of the Stickeen, where a
still greater deposit of stratified gravel is displayed, a section at
least six hundred feet thick resting on a red jaspery formation.
Nine hundred feet above the river there is a slightly dimpled plateau
diversified with aspen and willow groves and mossy meadows. At
“Wilson’s,” one and a half miles from the river, the ground is carpeted
with dwarf manzanita and the blessed _Linnæa borealis_, and forested
with small pines, spruces, and aspens, the tallest fifty to sixty feet
high.
From Wilson’s to “Caribou,” fourteen miles, no water was visible,
though the nearly level, mossy ground is swampy-looking. At “Caribou
Camp,” two miles from the river, I saw two fine dogs, a Newfoundland
and a spaniel. Their owner told me that he paid only twenty dollars for
the team and was offered one hundred dollars for one of them a short
time afterwards. The Newfoundland, he said, caught salmon on the
ripples, and could be sent back for miles to fetch horses. The fine
jet-black curly spaniel helped to carry the dishes from the table to
the kitchen, went for water when ordered, took the pail and set it down
at the stream-side, but could not be taught to dip it full. But their
principal work was hauling camp-supplies on sleds up the river in
winter. These two were said to be able to haul a load of a thousand
pounds when the ice was in fairly good condition. They were fed on
dried fish and oatmeal boiled together.
The timber hereabouts is mostly willow or poplar on the low ground,
with here and there pine, birch, and spruce about fifty feet high. None
seen much exceeded a foot in diameter. Thousand-acre patches have been
destroyed by fire. Some of the green trees had been burned off at the
root, the raised roots, packed in dry moss, being readily attacked from
beneath. A range of mountains about five thousand to six thousand feet
high trending nearly north and south for sixty miles is forested to the
summit. Only a few cliff-faces and one of the highest points patched
with snow are treeless. No part of this range as far as I could see is
deeply sculptured, though the general denudation of the country must
have been enormous as the gravel-beds show.
At the top of a smooth, flowery pass about four thousand feet above the
sea, beautiful Dease Lake comes suddenly in sight, shining like a broad
tranquil river between densely forested hills and mountains. It is
about twenty-seven miles long, one to two miles wide, and its waters,
tributary to the Mackenzie, flow into the Arctic Ocean by a very long,
roundabout, romantic way, the exploration of which in 1789 from Great
Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean must have been a glorious task for the
heroic Scotchman, Alexander Mackenzie, whose name it bears.
Dease Creek, a fine rushing stream about forty miles long and forty or
fifty feet wide, enters the lake from the west, drawing its sources
from grassy mountain-ridges. Thibert Creek, about the same size, and
McDames and Defot Creeks, with their many branches, head together in
the same general range of mountains or on moor-like tablelands on the
divide between the Mackenzie and Yukon and Stickeen. All these
Mackenzie streams had proved rich in gold. The wing-dams, flumes, and
sluice-boxes on the lower five or ten miles of their courses showed
wonderful industry, and the quantity of glacial and perhaps pre-glacial
gravel displayed was enormous. Some of the beds were not unlike those
of the so-called Dead Rivers of California. Several ancient
drift-filled channels on Thibert Creek, blue at bed rock, were exposed
and had been worked. A considerable portion of the gold, though mostly
coarse, had no doubt come from considerable distances, as boulders
included in some of the deposits show. The deepest beds, though known
to be rich, had not yet been worked to any great depth on account of
expense. Diggings that yield less than five dollars a day to the man
were considered worthless. Only three of the claims on Defot Creek,
eighteen miles from the mouth of Thibert Creek, were then said to pay.
One of the nuggets from this creek weighed forty pounds.
While wandering about the banks of these gold-besprinkled streams,
looking at the plants and mines and miners, I was so fortunate as to
meet an interesting French Canadian, an old _coureur de bois_, who
after a few minutes’ conversation invited me to accompany him to his
gold-mine on the head of Defot Creek, near the summit of a smooth,
grassy mountain-ridge which he assured me commanded extensive views of
the region at the heads of Stickeen, Taku, Yukon, and Mackenzie
tributaries. Though heavy-laden with flour and bacon, he strode lightly
along the rough trails as if his load was only a natural balanced part
of his body. Our way at first lay along Thibert Creek, now on gravel
benches, now on bed rock, now close down on the bouldery edge of the
stream. Above the mines the stream is clear and flows with a rapid
current. Its banks are embossed with moss and grass and sedge well
mixed with flowers—daisies, larkspurs, solidagos, parnassia,
potentilla, strawberry, etc. Small strips of meadow occur here and
there, and belts of slender arrowy fir and spruce with moss-clad roots
grow close to the water’s edge. The creek is about forty-five miles
long, and the richest of its gold-bearing beds so far discovered were
on the lower four miles of the creek; the higher
four-or-five-dollars-a-day diggings were considered very poor on
account of the high price of provisions and shortness of the season.
After crossing many smaller streams with their strips of trees and
meadows, bogs and bright wild gardens, we arrived at the Le Claire
cabin about the middle of the afternoon. Before entering it he threw
down his burden and made haste to show me his favorite flower, a blue
forget-me-not, a specimen of which he found within a few rods of the
cabin, and proudly handed it to me with the finest respect, and telling
its many charms and lifelong associations, showed in every endearing
look and touch and gesture that the tender little plant of the mountain
wilderness was truly his best-loved darling.
After luncheon we set out for the highest point on the dividing ridge
about a mile above the cabin, and sauntered and gazed until sundown,
admiring the vast expanse of open rolling prairie-like highlands dotted
with groves and lakes, the fountain-heads of countless cool, glad
streams.
Le Claire’s simple, childlike love of nature, preserved undimmed
through a hard wilderness life, was delightful to see. The grand
landscapes with their lakes and streams, plants and animals, all were
dear to him. In particular he was fond of the birds that nested near
his cabin, watched the young, and in stormy weather helped their
parents to feed and shelter them. Some species were so confiding they
learned to perch on his shoulders and take crumbs from his hand.
A little before sunset snow began to fly, driven by a cold wind, and by
the time we reached the cabin, though we had not far to go, everything
looked wintry. At half-past nine we ate supper, while a good fire
crackled cheerily in the ingle and a wintry wind blew hard. The little
log cabin was only ten feet long, eight wide, and just high enough
under the roof peak to allow one to stand upright. The bedstead was not
wide enough for two, so Le Claire spread the blankets on the floor, and
we gladly lay down after our long, happy walk, our heads under the
bedstead, our feet against the opposite wall, and though comfortably
tired, it was long ere we fell asleep, for Le Claire, finding me a good
listener, told many stories of his adventurous life with Indians, bears
and wolves, snow and hunger, and of his many camps in the Canadian
woods, hidden like the nests and dens of wild animals; stories that
have a singular interest to everybody, for they awaken inherited
memories of the lang, lang syne when we were all wild. He had nine
children, he told me, the youngest eight years of age, and several of
his daughters were married. His home was in Victoria.
Next morning was cloudy and windy, snowy and cold, dreary December
weather in August, and I gladly ran out to see what I might learn. A
gray ragged-edged cloud capped the top of the divide, its snowy fringes
drawn out by the wind. The flowers, though most of them were buried or
partly so, were to some extent recognizable, the bluebells bent over,
shining like eyes through the snow, and the gentians, too, with their
corollas twisted shut; cassiope I could recognize under any disguise;
and two species of dwarf willow with their seeds already ripe, one with
comparatively small leaves, were growing in mere cracks and crevices of
rock-ledges where the dry snow could not lie. Snowbirds and ptarmigan
were flying briskly in the cold wind, and on the edge of a grove I saw
a spruce from which a bear had stripped large sections of bark for
food.
About nine o’clock the clouds lifted and I enjoyed another wide view
from the summit of the ridge of the vast grassy fountain region with
smooth rolling features. A few patches of forest broke the monotony of
color, and the many lakes, one of them about five miles long, were
glowing like windows. Only the highest ridges were whitened with snow,
while rifts in the clouds showed beautiful bits of yellow-green sky.
The limit of tree growth is about five thousand feet.
Throughout all this region from Glenora to Cassiar the grasses grow
luxuriantly in openings in the woods and on dry hillsides where the
trees seem to have been destroyed by fire, and over all the broad
prairies above the timber-line. A kind of bunch-grass in particular is
often four or five feet high, and close enough to be mowed for hay. I
never anywhere saw finer or more bountiful wild pasture. Here the
caribou feed and grow fat, braving the intense winter cold, often forty
to sixty degrees below zero. Winter and summer seem to be the only
seasons here. What may fairly be called summer lasts only two or three
months, winter nine or ten, for of pure well-defined spring or autumn
there is scarcely a trace. Were it not for the long severe winters,
this would be a capital stock country, equaling Texas and the prairies
of the old West. From my outlook on the Defot ridge I saw thousands of
square miles of this prairie-like region drained by tributaries of the
Stickeen, Taku, Yukon, and Mackenzie Rivers.
Le Claire told me that the caribou, or reindeer, were very abundant on
this high ground. A flock of fifty or more was seen a short time before
at the head of Defot Creek,—fine, hardy, able animals like their near
relatives the reindeer of the Arctic tundras. The Indians hereabouts,
he said, hunted them with dogs, mostly in the fall and winter. On my
return trip I met several bands of these Indians on the march, going
north to hunt. Some of the men and women were carrying puppies on top
of their heavy loads of dried salmon, while the grown dogs had
saddle-bags filled with odds and ends strapped on their backs. Small
puppies, unable to carry more than five or six pounds, were thus made
useful. I overtook another band going south, heavy laden with furs and
skins to trade. An old woman, with short dress and leggings, was
carrying a big load of furs and skins, on top of which was perched a
little girl about three years old.
A brown, speckled marmot, one of Le Claire’s friends, was getting ready
for winter. The entrance to his burrow was a little to one side of the
cabin door. A well-worn trail led to it through the grass and another
to that of his companion, fifty feet away. He was a most amusing pet,
always on hand at meal times for bread-crumbs and bits of bacon-rind,
came when called, answering in a shrill whistle, moving like a squirrel
with quick, nervous impulses, jerking his short flat tail. His fur
clothing was neat and clean, fairly shining in the wintry light. The
snowy weather that morning must have called winter to mind; for as soon
as he got his breakfast, he ran to a tuft of dry grass, chewed it into
fuzzy mouthfuls, and carried it to his nest, coming and going with
admirable industry, forecast, and confidence. None watching him as we
did could fail to sympathize with him; and I fancy that in practical
weather wisdom no government forecaster with all his advantages
surpasses this little Alaska rodent, every hair and nerve a weather
instrument.
I greatly enjoyed this little inland side trip—the wide views; the
miners along the branches of the great river, busy as moles and
beavers; young men dreaming and hoping to strike it rich and rush home
to marry their girls faithfully waiting; others hoping to clear off
weary farm mortgages, and brighten the lives of the anxious home folk;
but most, I suppose, just struggling blindly for gold enough to make
them indefinitely rich to spend their lives in aimless affluence,
honor, and ease. I enjoyed getting acquainted with the trees,
especially the beautiful spruce and silver fir; the flower gardens and
great grassy caribou pastures; the cheery, able marmot mountaineer; and
above all the friendship and kindness of Mr. Le Claire, whom I shall
never forget. Bidding good bye, I sauntered back to the head of
navigation on the Stickeen, happy and rich without a particle of
obscuring gold-dust care.
