Back To Cheechako
Travelogue
"The old boat was given a daub of paint here
and there, a deck-house was built amidships for fifty of the men and extra
bunks were put in the forecastle. Two men were to sleep in each bunk and
they were built three high, with barely room enough to crawl into. The galley
or cook-house was aft and just large enough for two or three to move about
in. She was towed to a dock in Seattle and it was very noticeable that she
lay very low in the water. . .
. . .When that old rotten hulk, loaded down with almost all our worldly
possessions, was towed out to Dungeoness Point on the twenty-fourth day
of February, 1897, we had but a single thought-Alaska. All worked with the
strength of a Hercules to get the cargo aboard; we had lost sleep and had
not taken time to eat in order to get away; we were tired, wretched , hungry,
but we did not know it . Above, beyond, far out upon that green expanse
of water was our goal-Alaska.
- from Mad Rush for Gold in Frozen North, by Arthur Dietz,
1914