“We arrived here at the south end of the lake last night by boat.  We have had an awful time of it.  The Taiya Pass is not a pass at all, but a climb right over the mountains.  We left Juneau on Thursday, the twentieth, on a little boat smaller than the ferry at Ottawa.  There were over sixty aboard, all in one room about ten by fourteen.  There was baggage piled up in one end so that the floor-space was only about eight by eight.  We went aboard about three o’clock in the afternoon and went ashore at Dyea at seven o’clock Friday night.  We got the Indians to pack all our stuff up to the summit, but about fifty pounds each; I had forty-eight pounds and my gun.

“We left Dyea, an Indian village, Sunday, but only got up the river one mile.  We towed all the stuff up the river seven miles, and then packed it to Sheep Camp.  We reached Sheep Camp about seven o’clock at night, on the Queen’s Birthday.  A beautiful time we had, I can tell you, climbing hills with fifty pounds on our backs.  It would not be so bad if we could strap it on rightly.

“We left Sheep Camp next morning at four o’clock, and reached the summit at half-past seven.  It was an awful climb—­an angle of about fifty-five degrees.  We could keep our hands touching the trail all the way up.  It was blowing and snowing up there.  We paid off the Indians, and got some sleighs and sleighed the stuff down the hill.  This hill goes down pretty swift, and then drops at an angle of fifty-five degrees for about forty feet, and we had to rough-lock our sleighs and let them go.  There was an awful fog, and we could not see where we were going.  Some fellows helped us down with the first load, or there would have been nothing left of us.  When we let a sleigh go from the top it jumps about fifty feet clear, and comes down in pieces.  We loaded up the sleighs with some of our stuff, about two hundred and twenty-five pounds each, and started across the lakes.  The trail was awful, and we waded through water and slush two and three feet deep.  We got to the mouth of the canyon at about eight o’clock at night, done out.  We left there that night, and pushed on again until morning.  We got to the bottom of an awful hill, and packed all our stuff from there to the hill above the lake.  We had about two and a half miles over hills, in snow and slush.  I carried about five hundred pounds over that part of the trail.  We had to get dogs to bring the stuff down from the summit to the head of the canyon.

“We worked two days bringing the stuff over from the canyon to the hill above the lake.  Saturday we worked all day packing down the hill to the lake, and came here on a scow.  We were out yesterday morning cutting down trees to build a boat.  The timber is small, and I don’t think we can get more than four-inch stuff.  It rained all afternoon, and we couldn’t do anything.  There are about fifty boats of all sorts on Lake Bennet, which is about half a mile from here.  I have long rubber boots up to the hips, and I did not have them on coming from the summit down, but I have worn them ever since.