tipping that a man could get his effects taken aboard.
Besides all these, there were numerous scows loaded with provisions and
fuel, and barges conveying horses for packing purposes.

A frightful state of congestion followed as each successive steamer on
its arrival at the head of the Lynn Canal poured forth its crowds of
passengers and added to the enormous loads of freight already
accumulated. Matters became so serious that on August 10 the United
States Secretary of the Interior, having received information that 3,000
persons with 2,000 tons of baggage and freight were then waiting to
cross the mountains to Yukon, and that many more were preparing to join
them, issued a warning to the public (following that of the Dominion
Government of the previous week) in which he called attention to the
exposure, privation, suffering, and danger incident to the journey at
that advanced period of the season, and further referred to the gravity
of the possible consequences to people detained in the mountainous
wilderness during five or six months of Arctic winter, where no relief
could reach them.

To come now to the state of things at the head of the Lynn Canal, where
the steamers discharged their loads of passengers, horses, and freight.
This was done either at Dyea or Skagway, the former being the
landing-place for the Chilcoot Pass, and the latter for the White Pass,
the distance between the two places being about four miles by sea. There
were no towns at these places, nor any convenience for landing except a
small wharf at Skagway, which was not completed, the workmen having been
smitten with the gold fever. Every man had to bring with him, if he
wanted to get through and live, supplies for a year: sacks of flour,
slabs of bacon, beans, and so forth, his cooking utensils, his mining
outfit and building tools, his tent, and all the heavy clothing and
blankets suitable for the northern winter, one thousand pounds' weight
at least. Imagine the frightful mass of stuff disgorged as each
successive vessel arrived, with no adequate means of taking it inland!

Before the end of September people were preparing to winter on the
coast, and Skagway was growing into a substantial town. Where in the
beginning of August there were only a couple of shacks, there were in
the middle of October 700 wooden buildings and a population of about
1,500. Businesses of all kinds were carried on, saloons and low gaming
houses and haunts of all sorts ab