28 Oct Montreal to Dawson, by train, 1930

Today would be the 101st birthday of our friend Gus Reed’s late father, Robert Dunham Reed. To celebrate, Gus has created a marvelous digital exhibit of a 1930 train trip his father took from Montreal to Dawson City, Yukon, along with his cousin, Warren Goddard Reed, who kept a detailed diary of the journey.

Clicking on any of the map’s markers brings up the corresponding diary entry, creating a vivid record of the time and places the two young men passed through.

Diarist Warren Goddard Reed had a keen eye for detail. Here he describes the pair’s arrival in Dawson:

From the river this town, which once contained 40,000, looks like a large city, but the minute you alight you realize it is all sham. The buildings are in various stages of dilapidation, and on the main street, about 1/3 of them are occupied.

A few old prospectors and malenutes [sic] are sitting along on the board sidewalks. The town has no more than 500 people.

The Royale Alexandra Hotel, where we stayed, has a bar and pool room, and used to be the center of the town social life. The poole room used to be the old Flora Dora Dance Hall. They use no money In Dawson less than 25 cents and make no change for any less.

Bob and I went out before dinner, and walked around the town. It is certainly very interesting. It is like going out into the middle of the Sargasso Sea and seeing all the old wrecks that have gathered there.

You can purchase here mammoth tusks, of which there were some lying around rotting, pianos, old guns, etc. at low prices, because it is so difficult and expensive to get them out.

Next, an industrial-scale gold mining operation:

After dinner, which consisted of, beside other things, cold caribou and blue berries, we took an auto and went up the Klondike to where they are carrying on stupendous mining operations.

Branching off of the Klondike are various streams of fame, the Eldorado, Bonanza, Hunker and others. The whole valley which is about 1 mile wide is being dug up, for a distance of 9 m. Huge floating dredgers costing $500,000. and five stories high are working it.

First they drive down a six inch pipe about 45 or 50 feet to bed rock and by washing up the soil in it get the % yield of gold. Then they drive down an inside pipe (3 in.) to the bed rock and pump down water. These are 30 feet apart.

The ground is frozen all year round about 3 ft. down to the bed rock and gold usually settles to the bed rock. After 6 weeks of this they have thawed out the ground sufficiently to dig.

The dredge which floats digs itself a canal and flows down it as it were usuing water from the Klondike. It has a chain of shovels which go down 50 ft. in the water and a foot or two in the bed rock and dumps this sand, etc. in a mercury tub.

The dredge moves about 8 ft.-every 8 hrs. and it runs 24 hrs. per day and 263 days per year. They get $2000. – $3000. per day in gold.

These dredgers have thrown up huge ridges of gravel and rocks and are going to dig the whole valley this way. The gold is pretty evenly scattered along the bed rock.

Then we went to a hydraulic mine. They have washed away a whole hill 150 ft. deep at least and the sand and water runs down a corrugated chute and the gold settles. There is a large area in the valley covered with the mud which has been run out.

Then we saw the Bear Creek gold rooms where they melt the gold into 400 oz. bricks but didn’t go inside. On the-way back we saw Robt. Services cabin. I

At Teslin, Yukon:

We passed a few Indian encampments. They consist of two or three tents and a couple of flys under which the rows of the red salmon are hanging in rows.

We passed also one Indian family on a raft and still another in a big boat. This latter had to disembark as we passed, for fear that our waves would capsize them. There were four adults, three children and six dogs in the one boat. I don’t see how they return up stream.

In the afternoon the ship gave a whistle and went to shore for some reason which no one knew. It turned out they were going to telephone to the doctor at Whitehorse to come down to meet the ship, as the man who fell 40 ft. in the mine shaft, was growing worse.

They had a long telescopic pole, with a hook on it, and this they hooked over the single wire, which follows up the bank of the river, the whole way from Dawson to Whitehorse. Then they drove a stake into the ground, hooked up the phone and rang a bell. They connected up with an operator who said he would get the doctor.

After supper, while an old flighty-minded ex-minister professor from Oklahoma conducted a vesper service, I went up in the pilot house and watched the Captain navigate the river.

We were in the so-called Thirty Mile River, a very swift, tortuous and treacherous section of the Yukon. We went very slowly—scarce 2 1/2 m.p.h.

There is one particularly narrow rapid place where on the west is a high sand bluff coming right down to the edge of the water, and on the east a shallow bar. They can’t have a cable through here because the sand would slide and cover it, so they have a “dead man” above. This is merely a large stone or block to which they can tie a cable.

The men jump off when the boat has run up into the rapids as far as possible, and run up the treacherous river edge with a rope and pull up and make fast the cable. The ship is supposed to hold her own with full steam ahead.

I retired a little after10 and at 10:30 there was a stupendous thump. I jumped out of bed and out onto the deck to see what was the matter.

We were alongside the steep bank, which we had hit a sideways blow, and the four fellows were precariously on the side of the slide. If the sand should decide to let go and sweep them into the current they would surely be drowned, as it was almost dark, down under the bank, and the current was travelling at something over 12 m.p.h, and was ice-cold.

But before I had realized what it was all about, we started diagonally across the river and stuck fast on the gravel bar.

I learned afterward that the point to which the pilot was accustomed to touch shore and let the four men off, was covered with a sand slide and he had to go a little further up. This was evidently difficult, and probably the current caught the boat and swung it against the bank.

The pilot, fearing the stern wheel would strike the sand if the stern should get closer to the shore, ‘swung the helm the other way, and she stuck on the bar. Everyone was on deck in blankets and other negligee costumes, to see what was the matter.