re worked. On board were two prospectors who
had passed several months in the Hootalinqua district, and who predicted
that its mineral wealth would one day surpass that of Bonanza and El
Dorado. But this I am inclined to doubt, as the river was apparently
little frequented, and my friends, although so sanguine of its bright
future, were leaving the country for British Columbia. So far as I
could ascertain, throughout the journey up the Yukon, the immediate
neighbourhood of Dawson City is about the only district in the
North-west Province where a prospector may hope to meet with anything
like success. When this country is opened up, things will, no doubt, be
very different, and new fields of wealth will await the gold-seeker, but
the cold fact remains that at present there is no indication whatever
that such fields exist, outside of Nome and the Klondike, with one
exception. I know Alaska far too well to advise any one to go there who
can possibly find any other outlet for his energy and capital, but if
any man is bent on staking his all, or part of it, in this country, then
let him try the Copper River district, which up till now is practically
unknown to the outside world. Mr. J. E. Bennett, of Newcastle, Colo., a
passenger on the _White Horse_, showed me a nugget worth fifty pounds
which he had picked out of a stream there the previous year. He is now
in the district in question prospecting, and from his last advices had
struck indications of very rich ground. Many have been scared away from
this part of Alaska by reports of dangerous natives, but although the
Indians here were formerly ugly customers, there is now little to fear
on that score. There are very few people there as yet, and it is a poor
man's country with boundless possibilities, one great advantage being
that its chief sea-port is open to navigation all the year round. At the
newly built town of Valdes on the coast, stores of all kinds can be
purchased at reasonable prices, the place being easy of access. I should
add that the Copper River and its affluents are in American territory,
and that it is therefore exempt from the now vexatious mining laws of
Canada.[82]

[Footnote 82: Ocean steamers landing at Orca station, in Prince William
Sound, give miners the chance of reaching Copper River, by a 30-mile
trail over Valdes Pass, at a point above the Miles Glacier and the other
dangerous stretches near the mouth of that stream. Rich placer-regions
have bee