e Skirving, went up the Chilcoot
from Dyea where they had come on a craft which was covered from stem to
stern with six inches of ice, says, "As we proceeded up the pass we
faced a wind so cutting that we had often to make a rush for the shelter
of a tree or walk in a crouching position behind the tailboard of a
sleigh for a few minutes' respite. We overtook some on the trail next
day out of a notorious tent town known as Sheep Camp. Many of them were
staggering blindly along, with heavy loads on their backs, some of them
off the trail and groping for it with their feet. These we assisted or
they would have fallen by the way."

The same writer goes sympathetically into the following vivid
description: "It would be difficult to describe the hardships gone
through by the Mounted Police stationed at the passes. The camp at the
Chilcoot under Inspector Belcher was pitched on the summit, where it is
bounded by high mountains. A wooden cabin was erected in a couple of
days. The place where it was in the pass was only about 100 yards wide.
Below the summit, on the Canadian side, was Crater Lake, named after an
extinct volcano. On its icy surface the men were forced to camp when
they arrived. In the night of February 18 the water rose to the depth of
six inches. Blankets and bedding were wet, the temperature being below
zero with a blizzard. The tents could not be moved and the sleds had to
be taken into them to enable the men to keep above the water at night.
The storm blew for days with great violence, but on the 21st abated
sufficiently to admit of the tents being moved to the top of the hill,
where, although the cold was intense, it was better than in the
water-covered ice of Crater Lake."

"The nearest firewood was seven miles away and the men who went after it
often returned badly frost-bitten.

"Belcher, collecting customs, performing military as well as police duty
on the summit, lived in the shack, which had all the discomforts of a
shower-bath. Snow fell so thickly and so constantly that everything was
damp and paper became mildewed. For some weeks the weather was very cold
without storm, but on the 3rd of March there was a terrific day when the
snow buried the cabin and the tents on the summit, the snowfall for the
day being six feet on the level." The occupants had to shovel constantly
to keep from being suffocated.

On the White Pass Inspector Strickland and his men had to pitch tents on
the ice at first, no ti