on rounding one of the many curves
of the river, Council City, in the bright evening sunlight, burst upon
the view, the prettiest, best sight that we had seen in Alaska. The
peculiar light seemed to magnify it, to make it stand out very clear and
distinct. There is a sudden high plateau, terminating abrupt and sheer
at the stream in a rocky cliff some thirty or forty feet high, bare for
the most part, but covered here and there with a growth of moss and
shrubbery. This elevation tapers down to the level of the stream, where
the little camp of miners marks, at the east, the point where Melsing
Creek flows into the Neukluk, and also falls off at the west, where the
large camp or general reservation is found, free ground for all. Along
the plateau and beyond--a sprawling, scattered collection of log
cabins, saloons, and dance-halls, with here and there a sod house or
tent--is Council City. Back of it, to the north and west, along the foot
of a bleak mountain which seems to shelter the camp, is the narrow belt
of invaluable timber. The river-bed here is perhaps a hundred yards
wide, but at that time the greater part of it was visible, the stream
breaking above and coming down in two rapid, narrow forks touching each
side of the shore. Across the river and the bar, and following its
course, is a long stretch of tundra reaching out for several miles to
low and barren mountains in the south and west. In a straight line
southwest, over the tundra and mountains, it is said to be eighty or a
hundred miles to Nome.

In the late autumn of 1897, a number of prospectors, on being told by a
native that there was gold in this section, set out from Chenik. They
wintered at the present site of Council, and in the following spring
staked out what seemed to them the best mining ground in the surrounding
country, the richer claims being on Ophir Creek, a tributary to the
Neukluk, several miles above Council City. This, therefore, is the
pioneer mining camp in northwestern Alaska, but known to comparatively a
few only, on account of its inaccessibility.

We passed the camp at Melsing Creek, and, exchanging salutations with
the men there, who knew how we felt, proceeded slowly along the foot of
the cliff, over the last riffle. Then, making fast the _Mush-on_ among
the other boats, we pitched our tent near the stream on the
"reservation"--there at last. This experience from White Mountain to
Council was the hardest physical work which any one