Position and Prospects of the Yukon

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Empire Club--Permit me to congratulate you on the formation of this Club and to wish you every success in the objects and purposes you have in view. I esteem it to be a great honour to be asked to be your guest today, and I regret exceedingly that press of professional work has not given me the opportunity to reduce to a more accurate form the remarks I propose to offer to you on this occasion. Some time ago--in fact, I believe, it was some months ago-Mr. Hopkins called me up and asked me if I would speak to you on the subject of my trip to the Yukon, and at that time it would have seemed a desirable subject to talk to you about; but when I looked at your card of announcement I was extremely grateful that you didn't announce my subject because it is one that has been spoken upon a great deal.

I assume that you will take my word for it, and I am sure you will all agree with me, that every Canadian who has not already done so should, if possible, take this trip at an early date, and I want to add this, gentlemen, that I consider the journey from Vancouver to Dawson, in the northern portion of the Yukon, and to the borders of the Arctic Circle, to be the more instructive and more educative part of the journey than even the trip from here to Vancouver. I cannot urge upon you too strongly, especially those in public life, if you are in a position to do so, to make such a trip at the earliest possible moment. It is an easy one to make, as you get to Vancouver in four days, and next year I understand the C. P. R. will take you through in three. You go from Vancouver to Skagway in three days. There are three lines of steamers running there and they are excellent boats, well equipped, and they take you to Skagway from Vancouver for the sum of $50, giving you a stateroom to use and giving you the best food to eat you could possibly get anywhere, and I fancy you won't find in any place in the world such comfort and such delightful scenery as you see on that trip for any such money.

From Skagway you go to White Horse via the well-known White Pass and Yukon Railway, a distance of 110 miles. It takes you from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon and then you take a river boat from White Horse to Dawson, a distance of some four hundred and fifty miles, and a total time, if you want to go straight through, of about ten days. But while I passed over the trip from here to the Rockies, I must say to you that there is nothing that makes you feel prouder of your country, or nothing that makes you appreciate its vastness or its greatness, more than the day and a half you are going through the Rocky Mountains, and if you have the good fortune to make such a trip I am sure you will be well repaid, as you will find there the most wonderful scenery in the world, with a comparatively small amount of inconvenience. When you leave Vancouver on one of the Skagway boats--if you are troubled with seasickness, you will have very little of that, because for only two hours of the time are you subject to the swell of the Pacific Ocean, just around Queen Charlotte Island, and the whole journey is no worse than on one of our Toronto boats-you will see lofty mountains on each side, some of them of extraordinary shape and snow-peaked, and all clad for the whole distance of that thousand miles with the most wonderful timber that the world possesses today. The boat that you go on will stop at a few curious and interesting Indian villages, and the whole journey will impress you with the vastness of the country that is still untilled. When I tell you that the population of the Province of British Columbia today is probably not more than that of the City of Toronto, you can get some idea of the situation.

When I tell you that the Granby Copper Mines, which are owned by Mr. J. J. Hill, produce over $100,000 a month, net, you will commence to see that there are some very good mining propositions there which evidently didn't come to the City of Toronto. And you will notice another thing, that of the great development in the Yukon Territory and British Columbia, four-fifths of it is by our neighbours to the south, and that they are putting in their money and their energy, and are sending good citizens in there, and are taking the good Canadian products and reaping the benefit of them.

From Skagway to White Horse, over the White Pass Railway, is one of the most picturesque trips in the world, the White Pass having been rendered famous to the world by the struggles of the men who went through that pass to the Yukon in '96. When you know the Yukon River itself is navigable for twenty-two hundred miles, you can get some slight idea of the greatness and vastness of that country, and when I tell you that the steamers that run from Dawson to the mouth of the Yukon, a distance of some 1,750 miles, are larger than those that run on the Hudson River from Albany to New York, and are just as well equipped and feed you just as well, you will get some idea of the travelling there, and will disabuse your minds of the idea that you will suffer from any discomforts. In July and August you would wear the same clothing there as you wear in the summer months here when you cross from Toronto to Niagara-on-the-Lake; in fact the temperature, if anything, is rather in favour of the Pacific coast as compared with the trip across the Lake in the summer. The same thing applies to Dawson. I had an idea, and possibly there are others who have the same impression, that you have got to take your winter clothing up there in July and August, but let me assure you the climate of Dawson is one of the most invigorating and delightful climates during those months that you could conceive of, in fact from the month of May till the middle of September. I asked a man up in Dawson: "Why don't you tell the people of the outside world what a magnificent climate you have; I feel that there is nothing in the world I couldn't do, the exhilaration of the Rockies is nothing compared with the climate of Dawson itself." He replied: " Well, if I was to say anything of that kind outside you know what they would call me." And generally that is true-I mean what they would call him.

But the fact is as I have said, that if you are feeling depressed the trip I am suggesting to you is, in my humble judgment, the most delightful one you could take even from the view of physical comfort. You know there is an idea that there is no vegetation in the Yukon, nothing but Polar bears and ice and Esquimaux, but I want to tell you that the wild flowers of the Yukon are larger and brighter and quite as numerous as the wild flowers you find in our own part of the country, or any you will find in Ontario. And the wild fruits, such as raspberries, and currants, and huckleberries, and similar fruits, grows one-half size larger, at least, than you find them here today. I want to tell you you will see oats ripen there, and that they grow more wonderful vegetables, cauliflower and celery, than any place else in the world. It is nothing but a great forcing house, for the sun is working about twenty hours a day, and the ground underneath has been frozen for ages, and when the sun strikes the surface everything grows on a tropical scale and with tropical rapidity. During the summer months the verdure and the scenery of the Yukon country is quite as varied and quite as delightful in its character as anything you will find in this Dominion.

And, speaking of the size of those various fruits and so on, which was quite truthful, I am reminded of a story of an Englishman who arrived in New York, and saw a woman pushing a cart along in front of her full of very large water-melons. He said to her: "Are those the largest apples you can grow in America."

She looked at him disdainfully and said: "Say, Mister, it is easy to see you come from England; them is huckleberries." Now, as far as the people of the Yukon are concerned I want to say that a more hospitable, better-hearted and nicer lot of people are not to $10,000 a day in gold; so that although the poor man has got to go further away from the creeks that were worked a short time ago, the day of capital has come and the day will be soon when that great country will be filled with large dredges. I needn't say what that means to the people of the East who are the persons to send in the dredges and supplies and so on. I needn't enlarge upon that. The other question that is agitating them in the Yukon is whether you can handle these mines by hydraulic methods, the question of water. I believe there is to be brought before the consideration of Parliament some scheme whereby water may be applied to a very large section of this Territory, and if that arrangement is carried out either by Parliament_ or by private enterprise there seems to be no question that hundred of millions of gold will yet be taken out of the Yukon.

It is not merely in the placer properties that the future of the Yukon exists or is to be found, for during the past two years the most wonderful deposits, or what are believed to be the most wonderful deposits of silver and gold and copper that have been discovered in America, have been found in the southern portion of the Yukon in the neighbourhood of White Horse -a town called Cardcross. If the reports which have been made by many engineers of repute are correct it would seem as if this district had the most wonderful possibilities in the way of the production of gold and silver and copper that any country in the world has ever known; and it is not, as in the case of South Africa, a matter of a worked-out proposition in a few years, but these deposits of ore are found in great mountains three or four thousand feet high and running down through the mountains. It means that for centuries that portion of the world will be producing the precious metals which go to make the wealth of any country.

DR. ORR.-Speaking of dredging we generally understand it as something that runs in water. You spoke of something that operates in the land as well? MR. BRISTOL-These dredges can operate in any creek bottom if they are built there. For instance, where the dredging takes place is not merely in the rivers-that is one place. For instance, in Bear Creek the dredge is built right near the side of the creek and digs out a hole for itself, and the water sweeps in from the side and forms a pool around it, and then it can be handled from the dredge in any way that is required. DR. ORR.--Still, it uses the water to float it, too? Mr. BRISTOL--Yes, but that water flows around it after it has dug out a hole for itself.

So far as the government of the Yukon is concerned it strikes me they have reached the period of time when it would be far better to give them representative government. At present half of their Legislative Council is appointed by the Government at Ottawa and the other half is elected by the people; but in a country such as that, where you find no poor people, where you find that the men who have gone there have taken their commercial lives, so to speak, in their hands, you see the finest type of manhood that you find anywhere and I believe it would be greatly in the interests of that country and its development if today they were given by us responsible government.

As to the trade of that country let me point out to you that it is most important. While I was there I went into the matter as thoroughly as I could, and I found that at Skagway, instead of having what we have at Niagara Falls and other points along the border--merely a commercial customs--what the United States was treating us to was a preventive customs and the endeavour, apparently, was to use every kind of red tape in order to compel Canadian shippers shipping by the C. P. R. to give bonds to get their goods through the ten miles of territory which extends between Skagwav, British Columbia and the Yukon. You can readily understand the effect that this action on the part of the Custom House has on Canadian shippers. A number of these matters have been placed before the authorities, and I am glad to say that this state of affairs will soon be changed and the Canadian shippers will get the full benefit of that trade which they should get.

But, gentlemen, the most important matter, so far as the Yukon is concerned and its future development, is the question of transportation. While they have this White Pass and Yukon Railway running a distance of 112 miles, let me tell you that while freights to Skagway, in view of the railway and ocean competition, are as cheap as any place in the world, the freight from Skagway to White Horse or Dawson costs some $60 a ton for shipping hay and things like that. Now the reason that the Yukon cannot proceed and go on with its development at a greater rate is because living there is so high on account of the enormous cost of the transportation which is charged by this particular Railway. The Railway Commission has been unable to have them checked because some ten or twelve miles are in the United States, and they said that if any one in Canada took action they would charge the $6o for the first ten miles. If the United States were willing to take this thing up something might be done, but there is one thing certain, if you want to have further development and further discoveries and the discoverer is to go further from his base of supplies we must make it cheaper for him to get to the place he wants to go. There are some discoveries of camps which it is believed ought to be as good as Dawson was, but which cannot be reached until there is cheaper transportation.

The final impressions that such a journey as this leave on your mind are of a somewhat varied character. On the one hand, it is that of a land of wonders which cannot be surpassed, of days that are glorious and nights that are brilliant, and of a period of time when the cares of life are forced to one side by the sheer grandeur of your surroundings. In that great North-West the Creator has made a country on a stupendous scale. In Alberta and Saskatchewan we have the limitless prairies capable of feeding the whole British Empire. In British Columbia we have the great mountains, the marvellous timbers and the wonderful fisheries made on the same colossal scale, and in the Yukon the same bountiful Providence has created a vast store of wealth, of gold, of silver and of copper, capable of enriching for many centuries and, to a reasonable extent. not only this country but the great Empire to which we belong. Under those circumstances where does the world hold out any brighter or better destiny than to be a citizen of such an Empire and such a Dominion. It brings home to us the duty that devolves upon us all to do the best we can for our country, to see that she leads in civilization and commercial prosperity and advancement, and to take care to hand down to those who come after us a country whose past has been great and glorious and whose fame shall be pure and unsullied.