Through the courtesy of Supt. Wheeler of the "Horse Marines," it was the editor's privilege to go over the first six miles of the railroad spur to the mines on Monday of this week, the members of the party being Governor Henderson, Mrs. Henderson, Miss Grace Henderson, Mrs. Alex. McDonald, Mr. Cook of London, Robert Lowe, Dr. Pare, Mr. Wheeler and the editor. Superintending Engineer J. B. Goudey being in charge of the party after the scenes of operations were reached.
McRae, the new town at the junction of the spur with the main line, was
reached by the regular train from this place to Skagway, from which place a coach carried the party to the end of the track, a distance of three miles. On this three miles there are no less than a dozen bridges, the largest being 535 feet in length and of crescent shape, the entire bridge constituting a half moon curve. At places it is forty feet high. It spans a dry but deep gully. Other bridges are from 60 to 200 feet in length, and all of them are built for strength and durability. In fact, that part of the new road over which trains now run is much more substantial than was the main line for fully two years after its construction.
Near the end of the track is a very large canyon which is being "subdued"
partly by filling and partly by bridging. It is the most difficult piece of work on the entire line and will be finished during the coming week. Near this point is the camp of the bridge gang of which James McDonald is foreman.
From the canyon mentioned on to the vicinity of the Arctic Chief and Grafter mines the roadbed is all graded and ready for the ties and rails as soon as they can be hauled by the construction trains. Over this grade the party was driven in rigs furoished by Mr. Wheeler after a substantial lunch had been eaten at camp McDonald.
At a point on the Best Chance mining claim and just below the shaft house
of the Grafter is another wide and deep canyon surmounted by towering rocks which a gang of forty rock men under Foreman Byron Olsen is blasting down into the canyon. Just north of this canyon Foreman Curley McIntosh has two seperate gangs of graders at work, plows, scrapers aad about forty horses being employed in the two gangs. Systematic work is being done and vast quantities of earth are being moved with the precision and regularity of clock work.
Olsen and McIntosh's gangs are camped together at the Grafter mine, men to the number of 110 being fed in the same mess house.
To the genius of Curly McIntosh is due the fact that the camp at the Grafter has what is probably the most unique as well as the most complete water system in the Yukon. From a spring on the mountainside back of the mine a pipe conducts the water, pure, cold aud sparkling, along by a string of bunk houses, through the mess house where it keeps a large barrel filled with fresh water and from the barrel overflow another pipe conducts it to a trough 30 feet in length and located just outside the big stable.
Steam shovels are used at various places along the line and all kinds of
modern and laborsaving machinery are being worked to advantage.
Engineer Goudey says the rails will be laid to a point near the Arctic Chief mine by the end of the present month and, as the last six miles of the road will run through a comparatively easy country, it is expected that the work will be completed and the road finished by the end of October.
About 200 are now employed in the work and of these all but probably two or three dozen are of a high class of laboring men. Only one Hindu was at work tbere Monday and less than a dozen Slavonians and other Southern Europeans.
The construction of the spur by the White Pass company is a guarantee of
the well founded faith its officials and stockholders have in the many mines which the new line skiris and in the amount of the hidden wealth they are believed to contain.
With the completion of the road and a substantial advance in the price of
copper the copper mining industry of Southern Yukon will become the most gigantic industry of the kind west of Butte.
