Stumps
And Logs, Like Precious Monuments, Adorned Its Two Streets, Each
Stump And Log, On Account Of The Moist Climate, Moss-Grown And Tufted
With Grass And Bushes, But Muddy On The Sides Below The Limit Of
The Bog-Line.
The ground in general was an oozy, mossy bog on a
foundation of jagged rocks, full of concealed pit-holes.
These
picturesque rock, bog, and stump obstructions, however, were not so
very much in the way, for there were no wagons or carriages there.
There was not a horse on the island. The domestic animals were
represented by chickens, a lonely cow, a few sheep, and hogs of a
breed well calculated to deepen and complicate the mud of the streets.
Most of the permanent residents of Wrangell were engaged in trade.
Some little trade was carried on in fish and furs, but most of the
quickening business of the place was derived from the Cassiar
gold-mines, some two hundred and fifty or three hundred miles inland,
by way of the Stickeen River and Dease Lake. Two stern-wheel steamers
plied on the river between Wrangell and Telegraph Creek at the head
of navigation, a hundred and fifty miles from Wrangell, carrying
freight and passengers and connecting with pack-trains for the mines.
These placer mines, on tributaries of the Mackenzie River, were
discovered in the year 1874. About eighteen hundred miners and
prospectors were said to have passed through Wrangell that season of
1879, about half of them being Chinamen.
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