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They wintered at the present site of Council, and in the following spring staked out what seemed to them the best mining ground in the surrounding country, the richer claims being on Ophir Creek, a tributary to the Neukluk, several miles above Council City. This, therefore, is the pioneer mining camp in northwestern Alaska, but known to comparatively a few only, on account of its inaccessibility.
At two o'clock we arrived at Craft's Road-House, near the mouth of the Neukluk River, where a halt was made for dinner. This was a good-sized log cabin, with scrupulously neat interior, kept by Mr. and Mrs. Craft, but the Mrs. was the presiding genius. Photographs of their restaurants at Chicago and Dawson, and of family and friends, stiffly yet fondly grouped, adorned the walls.
On the steamer they had shown me with pride a skiff-shaped boat which they had had built in San Francisco especially for the Fish and Neukluk rivers; and I didn't then have the heart to tell them that they could not have obtained a boat more ill adapted to their purposes. They arrived at Council worn out, disgusted, and with only half the load with which they had started.
The Commissioner called today and told us of a new strike at the headwaters of Fish River; a man and woman coming down to record a bunch of twenty claims having given the information. The woman runs a roadhouse on the Neukluk River, and wants to take an Eskimo boy to raise, and teach to work probably it is mostly the latter, though she seemed a kindly person.
It was very dismal comfort those days. The Neukluk had become a young Mississippi, and the bar of the stream was now entirely covered. The wind blew furiously up the stream; and it was almost an unbelievable sight to behold one day a freighter sailing slowly and surely, impelled alone by the favoring wind, up the stream and over that riffle which hitherto had been the heartbreaker.
And it did become more difficult soon after turning into the Neukluk River; and, furthermore, it began to storm, so that when our tent had been finally erected, it was a question whether the wind would not tear out the pegs, which had been driven into the loose gravel of the dry river-bed, and land us somewhere down-stream. But all that is now an interesting reminiscence.
Craft, as the name implies, knows her business and enjoys the reputation of being a "fine talker." Louis gamely enough responded, and soon the expedition, in rain-and-wet-proof armor of slickers and hip rubber boots, set out to gain that night Johnson's Camp, a couple of vacant cabins on the Neukluk, free to all transients.
Many were simply passing through on their way up Fish River to the mines, and praise of the land of the "Ophir" gold was sung on all sides. A few remained for the summer. Here men built boats, and rowed away to Keechawik and Neukluk, carrying supplies for hunting or prospecting. The captain's vegetable garden in the sand was growing rapidly, and was watched with eager eyes by everyone.
The Neukluk in places was broad and shallow, or broken up into a number of streams by alternate gravel bars, or occasionally the stream broke, forming an island, and it was a question which branch to follow. Rain for a day added to the complications, but it was not sufficient to raise the stream.
Fish River is the principal one in this section, and has innumerable small tributaries running into it, most of which are also rich in gold. Casa de Paga is a tributary of the Neukluk River, and very rich. On Ophir Creek, claim No. four, above Discovery, $48,000 was taken out in nineteen days by the Dusty Diamond Company working seventeen men.
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