MEMORIAL TO MULES

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 138, 7 December 1929, Page 31

MEMORIAL TO MULES

OLD KLONDIKE: DAYS

X M Patient> toiling <pack --animals' that lost their lives in the' great Klondike gold rush some thirty years aeo have finally got a memorial, isays the ■New York "Times." Overlooking the grimly named "Deadhorse Gulch," at Inspiration Point on the White Pass railro-ad, Alaska,, there was dedicated recently a. bronze tablet," honouring the :3000'animals that figured in the Klondike stampede. Paid:for by" old "sourdoughs," -the- tablet- portrays a packhorse, and mule on the trail.

It": llas-;beon..estimated that the aver age-life of a l(orse of mule used in gold rush packing was five weeks The odds were against a longer span The cold weather, one of the greatest haz ards to all concerned, lias piobably a new experience for the animals, just as it was,, for-the. majority, of miners Great-demands were niade upon -the animals and little care and food could Kf n ■ in'*eitl»n-: : Often, just as in the Eldorado rush, trails were marked :byj sketetonß-:of.±he.. unfortunate, am mals.

has;;been completo without horses and mules. The civilly alono acepunts-for'the lior^fiSj while cannon, food, and'the indispensable water were .part of .the mule's job. ; In tho War and' Kavt Building in Washington is another bronze tablet, dedicated this to^-the -miile's- and- hi>rses—numbering nearly : 250,000—which served witE.the.A.E.l\:in the-World War. -'