Tim
Connolly, a nephew of Joe McAlister, of Louisiana, Mo., writes to
his parents as follows from Dawson City:
Dawson
City, April 4,--My dear mother and father: At last I write a few
lines to let you know where I am in the land of the midnight son. I
left Juneau last winter and was one hundred days coming to this
place with five dogs and 1000 pounds of grub. This is the best
country in the world. Wages are $15 a day. I have a few thousand and
would send them to you but there is no way of doing so. The man that
takes this letter will take it 1000 miles to Juneau, Alaska, in his
pocket. He starts tonight for the outer world.
Mother,
gold in this place is no good. Grub is the thing. Bacon sells at $3
per pound and flour $60 per sack. I will come home in two years with
enough money to keep us the rest of our lives, if I have health.
There w????? In our party ???? but one of them died. We brought him
700 miles on a sled.
We
work dogs here as you do horses. This is a wonderful country. Winter
is cold, from 60 to 80 below zero and the short three months to work
is, from June to last part of September. There is no night. Those
three months winter, daylight is three hours, about Christmas. I
have bought a claim for $9,000. I paid $2,000 down and $7,000 on bed
rock. There are winter diggings; the ground is frozen 40 feet deep.
We drift as we did in coal mines. We put a fire in at the face and
let it thaw out. and in the summer time was it out with sluice
boxes. This creek is the richest in the world. Two men shoveled in
$18,000 in two hours. The place was struck last August by an Indian.
The worst of this place is there is nothing to eat only bacon and
flour. We use pine boughs for the scurvy. One third of the men are
afflicted with it. To live here a year it would cost $1,000. There
is a steamboat that comes up the river once every year but it hasn't
come up for the last two years, and if it don't come up this will go
out on the ice. There are about 700 men in this place, the Yukon
country, and they will lots of them go out with a stake if the boat
comes up. I gave the $200 for taking this to Juneau and he
will post it there. It will be this time next year before I know
what I will have to come home on. Three years is enough for a man to
stay in this place. It will make a young man old to live on the grub
that gold can't buy. I would like to hear from all the folks at home
and when I come out you will think Count of Monte Cristo has struck
town. There are no nights at this time of the year. The sun shines
eight days straight. It is well named the Land of the Midnight Sun.
You would laugh to see me now. My hair is as long as Wild Bill's.
This
is the only place in the world where a man can make money, but it
takes a strong man to stand it. I think I could eat a bushel of
fruit. A man came here with eggs and sold them for $76 for one egg.
So if mother was here she could make money by the bushel with her
hens.
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