Early Days on the Yukon: The Story of Its Gold Finds (1913)
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Early Days on the Yukon: The Story of Its Gold Finds (1913)
William Ogilvie (1846 – 1912) was a Canadian Dominion land surveyor, explorer and Commissioner of the Yukon Territory. No man was better fitted to write of this wild and rich, rugged and bleak, yet beautiful region than was its explorer and path-finder, its pioneer writer, the creator of its institutions and moulder of its early government, the late William Ogilvie. The book has stirring interest; it is history in the making and the basis of future historical writing as to this vast lone land of the Arctic. It but touches the fringe of the time when men reached out for what was to be a hundred millions worth of gold; when that wonderful Camp was constituted in which good and evil developed side by side, and the strongest and meanest of mankind were tested in the sternest of the world ’s wars between humanity and nature. The book leads up to this period, shows the country in plain but effective narrative, and provides a valuable record of pioneer conditions and events.
Over 100 years ago Yukon was an uninhabited, uncharted, unknown, and even unnamed land, by 1910 it sheltere a vigorous population, in numerous, prosperous towns and under a well-organized stable government. No such region has ever sprung into existence more suddenly or developed so rapidly with as little waste of wealth, energy, and human life. And this was due primarily to the mental strength, sound judgment, and fine moral fiber of William Ogilvie.
Of Scotch Irish stock, born and educated in Ottawa, he took up his work of Dominion surveyor in the new lands of the Northwest Territory. His surveys on the Mackenzie and Yukon rivers, extending in a single trip alone nearly three thousand miles, yielded the first accurate information of a country never before traversed by the foot of a white man. He made the first preliminary survey of the international boundary between Alaska and Canada and so accurately that the latest survey found the line at the Yukon only a few score yards from where it ought to be.
Ogilvie was made the first commissioner of Yukon Territory in 1896. He had to select his aids and advisers, to create a system of laws, and to administer them. He established schools as well as courts, organized a postal service, adjusted public grievances, created public sentiment, and made a strong and orderly state out of a wilderness and a mob of men seeking gold.
It is the story of these days that he tells in this work with a directness and unaffected simplicity that conceals from the casual reader the great part he played himself. As a tale of the days when men fought with the wilderness for wealth the book is full of interest, overflowing with anecdote in which humor and death run side by side. It is invaluable as the record of an accurate observer, a keen judge of men, a retentive memory, and above all a strong leader in stormy times. For the history of the Northwest he has done a great service in recording what would otherwise have been irrevocably lost. Mr. Ogilvie's book must always be an indispensable document in any study of the social or political history of the Klondike.
CONTENTS I. COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF GEOGRAPHICAL AND POLITICAL DISTINCTIONS OF AMERICAN TERRITORY OF ALASKA AND THE YUKON TERRITORY OF CANADA II. BOUNDARY MATTERS III. STORY OF ATTEMPTED CRIME AND THE SWIFT JUSTICE WHICH FOLLOWED IT IV. REMARKS ON MR. OGILVIE'S SURVEY V. TRADING AND TRADING POSTS ON THE RIVER VI. GOLD DISCOVERIES AND MINING VII. FIRST GOLD SENT OUT VIII. DISCOVERY OF THE KLONDIKE IX. MR. OGILVIE'S VISIT TO THE COUNTRY IN 1887-8 AND OBSERVATIONS MADE THEN X. WINTER WORK IN 1895-6 XI. WORK DONE ON THE CREEKS BY MR. OGILVIE XII. LOCAL EXCITEMENT AS WEALTH OF KLONDIKE WAS REVEALED XIII. EXPERIENCES IN CAMP AND ON RIVER XIV. METHODS OF MINING XV. ADMINISTRATION OF LAW IN EARLY CAMPS XVI. REFLECTIONS XVII. SOCIAL CUSTOMS XVIII. HOME
Originally published 1913; reformatted for Kindle; may contain occa
