Misery at Dyea

Hal Hoffman writing from Juneau under date of August 3rd, said of Dyea and Skagway, the ports oat the head of Lynn Canal, these graphic and awful words:

"These are the last salt water ports and the points of debarkation for the mountain trails and passes. The number of Indians and whites and packers and horses is totally inadequate to move the vast quantities of freight over the mountains, and a blockade that is daily summing more formidable proportions has resulted.
Tons of supplies are piled high on the beach, and they will likely remain there for an indefinite length of time. Every incoming steamer dumps scores of excited gold seekers and tons of freight on the beach. The confusion is indescribable. Much of the freight is dumped on a long sand spit at Dyea at low tide, as there are no wharfs at that place. Before the supplies can be sorted , claimed and removed, the tide has risen and ruined or carried entirely away large quantities of supplies.
-from Alaska and the Klondike Gold Fields, by A.C. Harris, 1897

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