e crossed and the
waters reached new troubles arose. Boats had to be built for
the long reach of navigation down the chain of lakes and the
Yukon--many having brought the necessary boat timbers with
them. Six hundred miles of waterways were to be traversed.
On some of the short streams connecting the lakes there were
dangerous rapids to be run, in which many lost their goods
and some their lives. The early winter added ice to the
difficulties of the way and the Yukon section of the trip
was made by the later comers through miles of drift ice,
grinding and ploughing its way to the peril of the boats, or
water travel was checked by the final closing of the stream
for the winter, leaving no resource but a long sledging
journey over the snow.

Those who took the long voyage to the mouth of the Yukon and
journeyed by steamer up that stream had their difficulties
with ice and current, and it was not uncommon for them to be
frozen in, leaving them the sole expedient of the dog sled,
if they elected to proceed to the diggings without their
supplies.

Dawson once reached, the trouble and hardship were by no
means at an end. Having penetrated a total wilderness in an
arctic climate, borne on by dreams of sudden fortune, the
enthusiastic treasure-seekers found new difficulties
awaiting them. There was no easy task of digging and
panning, as in more favored climes. Winter had locked the
golden treasures with its strongest fetters. The ground was
everywhere frozen into the firmness of rock. In midsummer it
thawed no more than three feet down, and eternal frost
reigned below.

To reach the gold-bearing gravels the miners had to build
fires on the frozen surface and keep these going for
twenty-four hours. This would soften the soil to the depth
of some six inches. This thrown out, new fires had to be
kindled, and thus laboriously the miners burned their way
down to the gold-bearing gravel, usually at a depth of
fifteen feet. Then other fires were built at the bottom and
tunnels made through the five feet or more of "pay-dirt,"
which was dug out and piled up to await the coming of
flowing water in the spring, when the gold might be washed
out in the rockers and sluices employed.

As may be seen, the buried treasures of these gravel beds
were to be won in these pioneer years only by dint of
exhausting labor and frightful hardship. They would never
have been found at all had not the bars and shores of the
streams yielded gold