Alaska was purchased by the United States from Russia in 1867. It was supposed to be a barren region of ice and snow, and many people thought that the price of $7,200,000 was an amount far in excess of the value of the land.

For many years no attempt was made to form a territorial government in Alaska, and the country remained in charge of the military forces of the United States. In 1883, Lieutenant Schwatka determined to conduct an exploring expedition into the interior, for the purpose of gaining such information of the country and its wild inhabitants as would be of assistance to the soldiers stationed there. This expedition did not have the support of Congress and was kept as secret as possible. Lieutenant Schwatka feared that, if attention were attracted to the expedition, Congress would forbid its departure.

All Schwatka’s plans worked well. With six companions he left Portland, Oregon, at midnight, May 22, and sailed northward, taking the inland route to Alaska. The inland route consists of a channel which lies between the coast of Washington and British Columbia and southeastern Alaska and the line of islands which lie off that coast.

Sitka, then the capital of Alaska, was reached in a little more than a week, and two days later the ship dropped anchor in a pretty port called Pyramid harbor, near the mouth of the Chilkat river. The villages of the Chilkat Indians, consisting of from fifteen to fifty houses each, are built along this river. At these villages Lieutenant Schwatka secured the services of about sixty Indians to go with him on his journey.

The party started over a good trail and soon reached Haines’s mission on Chilkoot inlet. Here more Indians were added to the number already employed, and the tramp began over the mountains to the head waters of the Yukon. At first the party traveled through a riverlike channel between high, steep mountains, which were covered nearly to the top with pine, cedar, and spruce trees. The summits were covered with snow and ice, which melted and formed cascades and torrents, and rushed down the slopes, dashing over precipices and flinging spray in all directions.

This journey brought them to the mouth of a river called the Dayay, where they camped. Schwatka now explained his plan to his Indian guides. He told them that when he should reach the Yukon, he intended to build a raft and float down the great river to its mouth. The Indians were astonished at this bold project. They ridiculed the idea, saying that no raft could make such a journey. There were lakes to pass through, they said, and miles of raging rapids, which would twist and tear any raft to pieces. But Schwatka paid no attention to their opinions. He kept steadily on his way, and the journey continued pleasant and easy through the Dayay river.

On June 10, the course lay over the spurs of the mountains, and travel became difficult. The trail was up and down hill, over huge trunks of fallen trees, and through boggy swamps. Each man carried one hundred pounds of luggage on his back, and when he sank into a bog up to his knees, it was far from easy to get out.

The snow line reached, the ascent of the pass over the Coast range was begun. Behind one another, in single file, the men scrambled up precipices and through valleys. Sometimes they crawled along on their hands and knees, often using their teeth to grasp a dwarf bush. In many places a single misstep would have resulted in death, but they persevered and at length succeeded in crossing the mountains without accident.

Most of the Indians left Schwatka at this place and returned to their homes. Those who were to accompany him down the Yukon river to the coast camped with the white men, late in the evening, by a small lake called by Schwatka, Crater lake. It is the source of the great Yukon river.

At Lake Lindeman the raft was built, and the stores and provisions were placed upon it. Then began the longest raft journey ever made for purposes of exploration.

Lieutenant Schwatka and his companions propelled the raft, by means of rowing and sculling, through Lake Lindeman into another lake called Bennett lake. On the mountains around Bennett lake were beautiful blue glaciers, and among them shone peaks and ridges of a reddish color. Schwatka concluded that the red color was due to the presence of iron in the soil, and he accordingly named the range the Iron-capped mountains.

The explorers now traveled through a chain of lakes connected by streams of water. The last lake led them into the Yukon river, which flowed rapidly, so that for a while the raft made good time. On July 1, the party came in sight of the upper end of the Grand Cañon of the Yukon, where the river, which had been about three hundred yards in width, grew narrower, until it was about thirty yards wide.

The walls of the cañon are nearly a mile in length and are perpendicular columns of rock. The center of this cañon expands into a large basin full of whirlpools and eddies. The waters, white with foam, tear through this narrow passage of rock at the rate of six or seven miles an hour, with a roaring that can be heard at a great distance.

At the northern end of the cañon the rushing river widens again, but for four miles it seethes, foams, and falls in cascades. The luggage was sent round by portage, and Schwatka prepared to shoot his raft through the rapids. Once started, the men could not control or guide the raft at all, but left it to work its own way. This it did very successfully, though many times they thought it would surely be dashed in pieces.

After the rapids were passed, the men drew the sturdy raft ashore, and found that it needed but few repairs. While some of the men were engaged in mending the raft, the others fished. Schwatka found this the best fishing ground on the entire river; in a short time between four and five hundred fine grayling were caught with rod and fly.

The raft was ready for use again by July 5, and on that day Schwatka and his party started once more down the Yukon, and soon passed through the last lake they were to encounter. After this the river became wider and was dotted with islands; then the site of old Fort Selkirk came into view.

Fort Selkirk was built in 1850 by the Hudson Bay Trading Company for a trading post with the Indians. But the Chilkats wanted the furs from the interior for themselves; so they gathered a war party together, descended the Yukon river to Fort Selkirk, burned the building, and carried off the goods. Now all that remains of Fort Selkirk is a group of three old chimneys.

Schwatka camped at this spot several days. Near the river bank he came upon a burial ground of the Ayan Indians, who inhabit this part of the country. A fence of rough boards, bound together by willows, is built around each grave. Above the grave there stands a long, light pole about twenty feet high, with a piece of colored cloth hanging from the top. Near the grave, but outside the inclosure, stands another pole of about the same height. To the top of this second pole is fastened a rude carving of a fish, duck, goose, bear, or some other animal or bird.

These poles are called totems. They represent the most clever workmanship of these Indians, and are collected and sold as curiosities. Some of the carvings are very old and display remarkable skill. No one knows exactly what these totem poles mean, as the Indians are unwilling to talk about them, but they are supposed to indicate in some way the history of the buried person or of his tribe. The Indians do not make totem poles any more, but they carefully preserve those which they already have.

At Fort Selkirk the Yukon begins to cut through the northern spurs of the Rocky mountains. This part of the river is known as the Upper Ramparts, and the scenery along the banks for one hundred miles is wondrously beautiful. Schwatka and his party left Selkirk July 15, and traveled through this beautiful country. As they rounded one of the islands, they saw about two hundred Ayan Indians gathered on the beach opposite, waiting to receive them.

The Ayans had heard of the approach of the curious raft with its white owners, and were anxious to show them some attention. Many of the Indians ran up and down the bank, shouting, screaming, and waving their arms wildly. Others in birch-bark canoes surrounded the raft, and escorted it to shore. When the raft came near the shore, men, women, and children waded out to their waists in the ice-cold water and helped to drag it in. Schwatka feared at first that the Indians might do the party some harm, and ordered his companions to keep their guns near. But the Indians were very friendly. They began singing and dancing, while their medicine-man went through the most unheard-of performances.

The Ayan huts are made of spruce brush. Over the top is thrown a piece of dirty canvas or a moose or caribou skin, and the huts are built so low that a man can scarcely stand erect inside. Quantities of salmon hang from the roof, partly dried, but still undergoing a smoking process from the dense clouds of smoke that arise from the fire. The dogs sleep in the house, lying around on the floor. In the winter the Ayans cover their tents thickly with skins and then bank them about with snow.

As the party followed the river from this Indian village, they found the mountains becoming higher and grander, while—by way of contrast—the mosquitoes grew more annoying. The whole region swarmed with them, and the newcomers longed for veils. They were obliged to use small bushes to brush away the mosquitoes.

The water of the Yukon became very muddy, so that it was impossible to fish with a rod and fly. At the Yukon flat lands, reached by our travelers after three weeks of traveling through this flat region, the river widened and was filled with low, sandy islands. The fort is situated on a curve of the river which happens to be almost directly upon the Arctic circle, and is called the Great Arctic bend.

Fort Yukon is about one thousand miles from the mouth of the river, which at this point is seven miles wide. The river steamer, named the Yukon, was moored at the fort, and her cannon greeted the raftsmen. The settlement consists of a few old houses and the old fort built by the Hudson Bay Company. The Fort Yukon tribe of Indians live in the vicinity, but the hunting and fishing are poor, and the tribe is small and nomadic.

After the river men had traded with the Indians the steamer proceeded upstream, while Schwatka and his party started downstream again on the raft. In a little while the country began to grow hilly once more, greatly to the delight of the travelers, for the low region had been unendurably dreary. The hilly region is known as the Lower Ramparts, and its scenery is much like that of the Upper Ramparts.

Another trading station was soon reached, where Schwatka saw the northernmost garden in the United States. This garden, within two days’ journey of the polar regions, belonged to the white man who was in charge of the station at that point. In it were growing turnips and other hardy vegetables, which tasted delicious to the men, who had been living so long upon canned foods.

The raft was laid away at this place, after its journey of thirteen hundred and three miles, and the party embarked on a schooner, hoping to make better time. But they were forced to work their way down the river inch by inch, for heavy winds sprang up and more than once threatened to wreck the schooner. The Yukon at last overtook them, on her return to the mouth of the river, as Schwatka had expected.

The great delta of the Yukon soon came into view. It consists of many islands and channels which have never been entirely explored. From the most northern mouth of the delta to the most southern is a distance of ninety miles. After the Alphoon, the northernmost mouth, was reached, a weary time began. The vessel slowly threaded her way through shallow channels of water and between mud banks, until she crept into the harbor of the little village of St. Michael on the coast. From this place Schwatka and his party embarked for San Francisco on the Leo, which had stopped at St. Michael on its way from Point Barrow.

By this raft journey of Lieutenant Schwatka, the Yukon was navigated from its source to its mouth, a distance of two thousand and forty-four miles.

This river is the fifth in length in the United States, and sends forth such a volume of water that it freshens Bering sea to a distance of ten miles.