On the Road to the Klondyke Groldfields.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 60, 8 September 1897, Page 2

On the Road to the Klondyke Groldfields.

Thf>re is every reason to fear that disaster will overtake tlie thotisaudg of daring yoldseekors who have set out for the frozen El I.)ora<lo of Kloudyke, owing to the difficulties aDd dangers of tbo route, added to the fact that tho northern winter will Aery soon set in with full severity of those high latitudes. Less than fifty of the voyagers have so far been able to cross the White Pass. The ordinary routs to the goldfield starts at Jumau, a oiiuiug town on the Pacific Coast. The most exciting part of the journey is the passage of Miles Canon. The Yukon River, which is above the canon is s.bout 300 ft wide, suddenly contracts to about atenth of that width and. increasing in velocity to about 20 milrK an hour, rushes with terrific force through a cauon with absolutely per pendicular walls 100 ft high. It is only three-quarters of a ruile long, and the river then spreads itsrlf out into a series of rapids called the White Horse Rapid* The difficulty c.iv be. nurmounttd iv two wayn— cither by carryiug everything over the hill ou tiio <.a-t bank, or by boldly runuiug through. The former method takes lour days, the latter two tninutea. The following description is given by a miucr who successfully rushed the canon :— " Wo all took our places kneeling and facing the bow. The oars were taken on board, and each of us nsed an ordinary canqe paddle. I must confess that I nuver felt sicker in my life than as we shoved away Iroin shore and strertd for the entrance. It was all over so quickly that we hardly knew what had happened. Bately missing the big rock at the mouth of the canon, the boat started on its wild ride. The walls seemed fairly to fly by us. By frantic paddling we kept in the middle and off the cauon vails. The seusation was that akiu to riding a bulking broncho. There was not a dryspot on one of us when we got through and the boat bad taken in so much water that she nearly foundered before we could bail her out."--Lyttelton Times. ______