Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1897 — THE SKAGUAY PASS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE SKAGUAY PASS.

*>-. It Is a Trail of Horror and Death Leading to the Klonkike. The Skaguay Pass, en route to the Klondike region, is thus described by an American miner who has just returned: The Skaguay Pass is a rank fake, advertised by a lot of Shylocks and mountebanks at the town of Skaguay for the purpose of making money out of the deluded people who are persuaded to go that route. What is called the “Skaguay Pass” is .no pass at all —it is simply fortyeight miles of mire. I never saw such human suffering in my life as I witnessed

among the 1,200» people who are now camped in Skaguay Pass. Not five per cent of them will get over and the others are coming back. I found men only twenty miles away from the town, and it had taken them forty daysrto get that far. Horses get down in the snow and mire and hundreds of animals have their legs broken and must be shot. The bottoms of the canyons are covered with the carcasses of dead animals that have been rolled over the cliffs. There will be much suffering and starving this winter among the people camping in Skaguay Pass. I saw one poor man, who had mortgaged his home in Seattle for SSOO, gave his wife and children $l5O to keep them this winter, and spent S3OO for his outfit. He could not get across the fake pass and returned to the town of Skaguay to sell his outfit. -The eight or ten outfitters of that town all stand together, and he could get no more than S4O for his outfit. The

poor man saw that he had lost his home, and he was broken hearted. I felt sorry for him and gave him SIOO, and his eloquent thanks were the tears that streamed down his cheeks. This is only one of a hundred like cases, and, for humanity’* sake, the Ukaguay Pass should be de» nouneed as a fake of unscrupulous swindlers. The town of Skaguay is full of dissolute characters.

THE SUMMIT OF WHITE PASS.

MAIN STREET OF SKAGUAY.