A recent find at the Quesnel Friends of the Museum used book sale was Gold At Fortymile Creek…Early Days In The Yukon by Michael Gates. The author is a long-time resident of the Yukon and at the time of publication in 1994 he was Curator of Collections for Klondike National Historic Sites in Dawson, Yukon.
This book is one of the few that focuses on that part of the Yukon and Alaska that was to become known as the Klondike, immediately before the great Klondike gold discovery of 1896. This book talks about the North that mushers Hudson Stuck, Tappen Adney and Arthur Walden also describe in their books. This book also contains an excellent bibliography which should prove very useful for future research.
It turns out that there were miners actively looking for (and finding) gold in the Forty Mile and Circle City areas for at least 20 years before the 1896 Klondike discovery. Remember that it all started in California in the 1840’s, and rather quickly the gold seekers made their way north through the Fraser River, the Cariboo, the Stikine, then into the Yukon, throughout central Alaska and finally to the beaches of Nome, all before 1900.
It was during the 1860’s in the Yukon that the major communities of Forty Mile and Circle City were established, flourished and then with the discovery of gold in Dawson City, withered and died. In addition there were the lesser communities of Fort Cudahy (site of a North American Transportation and Trading Company -- NAT&T Co. trading post located across the Forty Mile river from the main townsite of Forty Mile), Fort Constantine (site of the North-West Mounted Police Barracks located adjacent to Fort Cudahy), Fort Reliance (a trading post located on the Yukon River just six miles below the site of Dawson City which was established at the junction of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers), Ogilvy (the site of a trading post and sawmill located at the spot where the Ogilvie river flows into the Yukon river), Fort Nelson (which was an early name for the site of Stewart City, located on Stewart Island at the spot where the Stewart River flows into the Yukon River).
During this period the very rough infrastructure upon which the Klondike Gold Rush flourished was established. There were sternwheelers travelling the lower Yukon River against the current from the Bering Sea at St. Michael as far south as Fort Selkirk. The large trading companies became established in this area, building warehouses but more importantly determining just how to move large amounts of valuable goods into this country. The North-West Mounted Police became established at Fort Constantine. The Canadian government was really anxious about the large number of Americans who were actively searching for gold in what was Canadian territory. They wanted to establish sovereignty and also collect a few customs duties and taxes while they were at it. Having established Fort Constantine, making a move south to Dawson City was a relatively easy task for them once it became evident just where the major population would be centred in the Klondike. The church had been established for several years with the Church Missionary Society of the Anglican (Episcopal) church having established a mission in Fort Yukon which is located at a point where the Porcupine River flows into the Yukon River, in the 1860’s. This group also established the Buxton Mission in 1887 consisting of a school and residence for Native children, located on an island in the Yukon River about ½ mile above the confluence with the Forty Mile River. The Roman Catholic Church made a foray into the region in the 1860’s, but for a number of reasons did not become firmly established until the quite incredible Father William Judge, a frail Jesuit priest, established both the church and the hospital in Dawson City. In addition, several people who were to become major players during the Klondike Gold Rush first entered this country in the period after the 1860’s, among them Joe Laudue -- land speculator, trader and sawmill operator, Inspector Charles Constantine -- North-West Mounted Police and Jack McQuesten -- trader.
But what about sled dogs? It would almost seem that these early prospectors either walked or floated wherever they were travelling however Gates does devote some of the book to the topic of freighting goods and supplies in the gold fields. I believe that by referencing the above-mentioned works of Stuck, Adney and Walden, in conjunction with the text in this book, it is possible to develop a picture of just how dogs (and horses) were used in this country. To quote from chapter 9 of this book….
“With the increasing gold production and the expanding number of miners in the Yukon a new industry developed to service them -- freighting……The first (horses) to be brought down to Forty Mile arrived in the spring of 1893 with Pete MacDonald. These animals were used to haul logs out of the river as well as for packing. They were either herded in over the Dalton Trail to the mouth of the Nordenskiold River, or they were taken farther downstream to Fort Selkirk to be put onto rafts and floated down to Forty Mile…..
Horses were also brought in over the Chilkoot Pass, which was difficult compared to the trip over the Dalton Trail. They had to be hoisted up the steepest part of the Chilkoot Pass in rope slings and on their sides; then they had to slide down the other side to Crater Lake on their backs. They were then herded aboard rafts and floated downstream from the headwaters of the Yukon River to their destination…..Though in demand, horses never fared well. They were plagued by swarms of mosquitoes and suffered from the cold. Feed was always a problem. They relied largely upon feed supplied by the trading companies. Arthur Harper, who had horses at Fort Selkirk, fed them on local fodder, but hey never came through the winter in suitable working condition.
Dogs constituted the preferred means of transporting freight. Canines were used In the summer (when they carried packs) and in the winter (when they drew sleds). Sleds werere the most economical means of hauling freight, the cost of winter hauling being one-third that of summer hauling. Professional freighters started to operate around 1892, and the service increased thereafter until the gold rush.
With respect to dogs, one observer commented, ‘if their values are great, their vices are many’. Fights were constant, and if one should start to howl, the entire dog community would join in. Despite being prized for their economic value, they were not always treated well. In the summer, when they were not working, they were poorly fed; as a consequence, they were constantly foraging for food. Some men actually bragged that their dogs were experts of stealing from others”.
It strikes me that during this period, sled dogs were not tethered when not working and were left to roam and scavange, thus creating many problems in the communities. I am not sure why this was the case but it really does seem that the notion of securing the dogs when not working was a foreign concept. This is further illustrated by the quote below.
“Tending a dog team was hard and unpleasant. The work, of course, was performed outdoors and most commonly occurred when the temperatures wee lowest. Dog mushers put in long hours preparing their teams, breaking up fights, freeing tangled lines, and feeding their dogs. All of these matters had to be taken care of before the musher could even think of himself. There was often a battle between the musher and his dogs to keep them away from the food until it was time for them to have it. At one place on the Birch Creek Trail, there was a stopover which had a dog-corral made from logs, and into which the sleds were pushed to keep them and their contents away from the hungry howlers.
A musher’s day would start at 5:00 or 6:00 A.M. First, the dogs had to be caught and harnessed. Then the provisions, bedding, mess-box, and other gear were lashed onto the sled and the team would be off for their next stop, twenty miles away. When the musher did retire for the day, it was usually after 11:00 p.m. If a snowstorm swept down onto the musher and his team, they would have to stop on the trail, often in less than ideal locations. The dogs could curl up in a compact ball in almost any conditions and have a pleasant sleep; the best the man could hope for was to build a campfire and stay up all night guarding the sled.
The dog team usually consisted of six or seven large, heavy dogs harnessed single file to a seven-foot sled which ran on runners only sixteen inches apart (this was so it could easily navigate narrow, wooded trails). The to of the sled extended about two inches on each side of the runners, and two long lash-ropes were attached to its front end. The freight was wrapped in a large canvas on the sled, and the two lash-ropes were then woven back and forth between side-ropes to secure the load. A little water sprayed on the knots kept everything from coming undone on the trail.
The normal freight train consisted of three of these sleds, single file, and connected by cross-chains (so each would follow directly in the trail of the one in front). Extending upwards at an angle from one side of the front sled was a gee-pole, about six feet long and three inches in diameter. The musher walked in front of the first sled with the gee-pole in one hand. This pole made it easy to steer the sled, aided him in keeping it upright, and enabled him to steady it on side hills and around corners. The gee-pole was also used to beak the sled free when it became frozen to the ground. On steep hills, the dogs were unhooked and the musher, holding on to the pole and his feet braced forward into the snow, would ease the load down the hill. If the load went out of control disaster would ensure -- several mushers were crushed to death by their loads. In one instance, the gee-pole snapped off and the musher was killed, impaled on the sharp lance-like fragment that remained.
There were several advantages to using the triple sled system: 1. They manoeuvred easily over rough terrain; 2. They steered well along narrow forest trails; 3. They spread the load over a large bearing surface so that the sled did not easily sink into the snow; 4. They were easy to right if they overturned on the trail; 5. They could easily be taken up one at a time when hauled up a steep hill; and 6. On a return trip, now empty, they could be loaded on top of each other, making travel faster and more efficient”.
There were sled dogs already present in this area….and good ones too. These dogs were the famous Mackenzie River Huskies, a mix of the Eskimo Dog, the Malamute and the “Indian Dog” described in the writings of Samuel Hearne. The dog mushers (or dog punchers as Walden would say) brought along some of their own ideas about mushing dogs as well as some of their own equipment and possibly some of their own dogs as well.
These dog mushers were clearly interested in freighting in as much goods as possible. They were interested in dogs with strength and power, not speed. I believe that they were strongly influenced by their experiences and work freighting with horses, I suspect that many of these men had ranching backgrounds and this might account for Walden’s use of the term “dog puncher”, for cowboys of the day were known as “cow punchers”. It is important to remember that this era was pre-automobile, the horse and wagon and sleigh were the main means of transportation.
As described above, these men developed a sled for freighting goods behind a dog team. This sled is really just a simple platform, not unlike a stoneboat used to transport heavy items over bare ground using horses. I refer to these sleds as a Yukon Sled, I believe that they are unique to this era and this area. They were mass produced, probably in the “lower 48”, they were made of softwood and were designed so that they could be pulled by horses, dogs, oxen and humans. They were brought into the Klondike by the thousands, and photos of the Klondike Gold Rush are full of them.
In their construction they consisted of two runners that could be of any length but the most common length was about 10 feet. The wood was steamed and bent and the runner didn’t look unlike an old wooden downhill ski. These runners were fastened 18 inches apart by crosspieces that were fastened with a mortise and tenon joint to uprights or stanchions that were 4 inches long. Nails were used to keep this joint in place, these sleds were mass produced. The cross pieces were placed two feet apart along the skis and were fastened to the skis with another mortise and tenon joint. Wooden slats or planking was fastened to these cross pieces the full length of the sled, with spaces between them to provide the bed for carrying the load. These slats overlapped the cross pieces by 1 inch on each side, therefore giving a full sled width of 20 inches.
This sled was pulled by the means of ropes if being man-hauled by an individual, shafts could be fastened to it if being pulled by a horse, with sled dogs the traces were fastened directly to the front of the sled but more commonly they were fastened with the use of a single tree, adapted directly from the technology used when freighting with horses. The runners did not extend beyond the back of the sled platform, the musher would walk or run beside or behind the sled. Most commonly a pole was fastened to the front right hand side of the sled, this was called a “gee pole” and the musher or freighter would walk with the pole in his hand, pulling up or back on the pole to slow the sled down when descending a hill and pulling back even harder to create a pivot point to facilitate a turn when there was a sharp turn in the trail. It is known that occasionally the musher or freighter would travel on short skis or the equivalent of a short modern-day snowboard that was hitched between the dogs and the sled.
Often (usually?) more than one sled would be hitched together so that the team was hauling two or even three sleds. The sleds were fastened together through the use of ropes or chains that ran from the mid-point of the leading sled to the front of the trailing sled. These ropes or chains were crossed to facilitate the tracking of the trailing sled.
Occasionally a different type of sled was used, this was essentially a scaled-down version of a bobsled or bobsleigh which was and is commonly used with horses. A bobsleigh is essentially two short sleds (or “bobs“) fastened together by means of crossed ropes or chains, so that each will follow or track over the trail independently. There are a couple of ways to configure a bobsleigh. One way is for each “bob” to be fitted with “bunks” or essentially a “U-shaped” cross member with upright poles at each end that is in turn designed to swivel on a “turntable”. A second configuration is to simply make a bed for the sleigh out of lumber and to have each bob swivelling on its turntable underneath this bed or platform. The use of a bobsleigh allowed the musher or freighter to pull loads that consisted of much longer items such as poles or logs. It would therefore not be uncommon for the trailing sled to be a bobsleigh. I know of only one musher who has actually used a bobsleigh with his dogs, Jack Schulte of Quesnel B.C. Jack has manufactured several of these bobsleighs, he said that he had no difficulty transporting long building logs on his trapline in northern British Columbia with his dogteam. Photos of the Klondike era will occasionally show a bobsleigh being pulled by a team of sled dogs.
The dogs were harnessed in single file (tandem) using the padded collar harnesses with leather traces running down the sides. Teams were usually no larger than five or six dogs. The speed of travel averaged about 4 m.p.h. It should be noted that there was no provision for the musher to ride on the back of the sled runners. Often the musher or freighter would fasten poles along the side of the sled both to the front of the sled and in the rear to some kind of backboard. This would give the appearance of handlebars on the sleds, perhaps something to hold on to while riding on the back of the runner. However this was not the case, these poles would simply serve to keep the load in place and would also allow the musher or freighter to steer the sled from the rear if he was trailing behind the sled instead of to the side. It would appear that standing on the runners and actually riding on the sled (or togoggan) did not evolve until somewhat later and was most-likely an innovation that took hold once racing sled dogs became popular, starting with the Alaska Sweepstakes in Nome. Prior to this however, mushers did sit on their sleds or toboggans, this was the only way that both the Siberian Chukchi and the Inuit would mush their dogs.
In addition to these Yukon Sleds, traditional native wooden toboggans were also used to transport goods during the Gold Rush. These toboggans were in regular use by First Nations mushers in the Yukon and the western N.W.T. Again, the musher would run along beside or behind the toboggan and would hold a rope in his hand connected to the toboggan. The load would be wrapped in a hide or later in canvas and fastened securely to the toboggan. The toboggans would provide an advantage if travelling in soft or unpacked snow.
Occasionally I have seen photos of beautifully made basket sleds that were also in use during the Gold Rush. These sleds were not used primarily for freighting but rather for travelling long distances for reasons such as transporting mail or passengers. These sleds were no-doubt made in Alaska, most likely by Eskimo sled builders who would use the same woodworking skills and techniques that allowed them to fabricate beautiful and delicate kayaks, umiaks and baidarkas. The whole notion for the basket sled was adapted from Russian built dog sleds that in turn were modelled on those sleds used behind reindeer and they allowed the musher/teamster to sit on the sled. In the Yukon, the basket sleds also were not built in a way that would allow the musher to ride on the runners, again, this is a development that came later as sled dog racing became more popular.
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