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IN SEARCH OF A SIBERIAN
KLONDIKE

CHAPTER I

OUTFIT AND SUPPLIES

Rumor of gold in northeastern Asia—Plan to prospect through Kamchatka and north to Bering Strait—Steamer Cosmopolite—Russian law in the matter of liquor traffic—I make up my party and buy supplies—Korean habits of dress—Linguistic difficulties.

When the rich deposits of gold were found on the Yukon River, and later in the beach sands of Cape Nome, the question naturally arose as to how far these deposits extended. Sensational reports in the papers, and the stories of valuable nuggets being picked up along the adjacent coast of Asia, fired the imagination of the Russians, who hoped, and perhaps not without reason, to repeat the marvelous successes which had been met with on the American side. The existence of valuable gold deposits in other parts of Siberia lent color to the belief that the gold-bearing belt extended across from America to Siberia, and that consequently the Asiatic shores of Bering Sea ought to be well worth prospecting.

No people were ever more alive to the value of mineral deposits than the Russians, and none of them have been keener in the search for gold. As evidence of this we have but to point to the vast, inhospitable wilderness of northern Siberia, where gold has been exploited in widely separated districts and under conditions far more trying than those which have surrounded any similar undertaking, with the exception of the Klondike.

I had left Chittabalbie, the headquarters of the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company,—an American firm that is successfully exploiting the gold deposits of northern Korea,—and being enamoured of a wandering life, I found myself one morning entering the magnificent harbor of Vladivostok, the eastern terminus of the Siberian Railway and the principal Russian distributing center on the Pacific coast.

I believed that as the northeastern extremity of Asia was as yet virgin ground to the prospector, there would be no better opportunity for the practice of my profession than could be found in the town of Vladivostok. The surmise proved correct, and I was almost immediately engaged by a Russian firm to make an extended prospecting tour in Kamchatka, through the territory north of the Okhotsk Sea and along the shores of Bering Sea. This arrangement was made with the full cognizance and approval of the Russian authorities. I carried a United States passport. The Russians gave me another at Vladivostok, and through the Governor-general at that place I secured an open letter to all Russian magistrates in eastern Siberia, instructing them to give me whatever help I might need in the procuring of food, sledge-dogs, reindeer, guides, or anything else that I might require. Not only were no obstacles put in my way, but I was treated with the utmost courtesy by these officials, who seemed to realize the possible value of the undertaking.

Map showing the territory covered by Mr. Vanderlip in his search for a Siberian Klondike.

My instructions were to go first to the town of Petropaulovsk, on the southern point of the peninsula of Kamchatka, and explore the surrounding country for copper. The natives had brought in samples of copper ore, and it was also to be found in the beach sands near Petropaulovsk, as well as in a neighboring island, called Copper Island, where the Russians had opened up a mine some seventy years before, but without success. I was next to go north to Baron Koff Bay, on the eastern coast of the peninsula, near its neck, and examine some sulphur deposits which were supposed to exist in that vicinity and which the government was very desirous of working. From that point I was to cross the neck of the peninsula by reindeer sledge to the head of the eastern branch of the Okhotsk Sea, my objective point being Cape Memaitch, where I was to prospect for gold. It had been reported that on two successive years an American schooner had touched at this point and carried away full cargoes of gold ore to San Francisco. I was then to pass around the head of the Okhotsk Sea to the important trading town of Ghijiga. This was the headquarters, some thirty years ago, of the Russo-American Telegraph Company, with which Mr. George Kennan was connected and where he spent one winter.

Making this my headquarters, I was to work out in various directions in search of the yellow metal, and finally I was to use my own judgment as to whether I should strike northeast to Bering Strait, following the Stenova range of mountains, or southward to Ola, where a steamship could stop and take me off the following summer. As we shall see, the main points of this plan were carried out, though not in the order here given.

As to the means for reaching Kamchatka I had no choice. There is no royal mail steamship route to these boreal regions. A "tramp" steamship is annually chartered by the great firm of Kunst and Albers in Vladivostok, and rechartered by them to the Russian government, to take the Governor-general on his annual visit to Saghalien and the trading posts in Kamchatka, and even as far northward as Anadyr, situated inland from Bering Sea on the Anadyr River. At each of these trading posts is a Russian magistrate, or nitcheilnik, and a guard of about twenty Cossacks. The annual steamer carries the supplies for these officials and for the traders, as well as the goods which are used in trade. On her return, the steamer brings back the furs of the Russian Chartered Company, who hold all the furring rights of northeastern Siberia.

In the summer of 1898 the steamer Cosmopolite was scheduled to make the annual voyage. She was a German tramp steamer of one thousand tons. Besides the captain there was but one other foreign officer. The crew was Chinese. In addition to the annual mails she carried a full cargo of tea, flour, sugar, tobacco, and the thousand and one articles that make the stock in trade of the agents of the Chartered Company. She was allowed to carry no wines or liquors, with the exception of sixty bottles of vodka for each trader, and that for his private use only. He is strictly forbidden to sell a drop to the natives. For a first offense he is heavily fined, and for a second he serves a term of penal servitude on the island of Saghalien. This law is in brilliant contrast to the methods of other governments in respect to liquors. Africa and the Pacific Islands bear witness to the fact that, from the standpoint both of humanity and mere commercial caution, the Russian government is immeasurably ahead of other powers in this respect. The sale of intoxicants demoralizes the natives and "kills the goose that lays the golden egg." Of course there is an occasional evasion of the law. The natives of Siberia are passionately fond of spirits of any kind, and, having tasted a single glass, will sell anything they have—even their wives and daughters—for another. When they are in liquor a single wineglass of vodka will induce them to part with furs which in the London market would bring ten pounds. Besides this annual steamship, two Russian men-of-war cruise north along the coast, looking for American whalers who bring alcoholic liquors to exchange for skins.

I decided to take with me two Koreans from Vladivostok. They were gold-miners from southern Siberia. Being expert horse-packers and woodsmen and speaking a little Russian, they were sure