1955 Yukon Nuggets

The Diary of Otto Steiner

There were many remarkable stories to come out of the Klondike gold rush. Some of the most interesting were first-hand accounts kept as diaries.

Otto Steiner set sail from Seattle, bound for the Klondike, in April of 1898, along with four partners. He eventually made it to Dawson City late that summer, but as with so many other gold-seekers, he found that all the good ground was staked. Along the way he kept a diary. His simple, straight-forward account of the journey remains fascinating to this day. For example he writes:

The Noyo sailed for Skagway on April 3rd, 1898. She proved to be a small boat and no upper deck for passengers. Instead, cattle, hogs, chickens, goats and horses were penned on the upper deck.

Below deck there were bunks for 200 men. The bunks filled the lower deck. They were about two feet wide by six feet long and were stacked four high. After you were in your bunk you had about six inches between you and the fellow above.

Breakfast was called by the ringing of a bell. Pandemonium reigned as all tried to be first. Such a jam, kicking, cursing, punching - the mad crowd was a sight to remember. Fights and fisticuffs were frequent.

After the second or third day out, the floor of the lower deck was such a sight you could hardly imagine. Most of these passengers were sea sick much of the time. There was no way to clean up because there was no room. Some poor devil was in every square inch of space. Happily I was sea sick most of the time and wanted nothing to eat.

When the rickety tub of a boat landed in Skagway, Otto Steiner quickly discovered that if life could be worse on land than on that boat, it would. He wrote:

In Skagway there must have been 10 thousand people and not hotel rooms for half of them. What hotels there were, were crowded to the rail. The so called bedrooms consisted of rooms about 20 feet square. In this would be placed 15 to 20 bunks, just a frame of two by fours with canvas stretched over it. In the morning when I started to dress, I found my pants which contained what money I had - about one hundred dollars - 15 feet away from the bed. I had been robbed.

Later Steiner discovered that he had left his money in his shirt pocket. The thief had missed the money. The party then began preparations to head for the trail.

We finally got our gear to the foot of the Chilkoot Pass. It took some task to pack the nine or ten tons to the summit. Horses, mules, goats, sheep, dogs, men, women, all were packing or pulling sleds. There were fights, cursing, and swearing - it was each man for himself going and coming without hardly room to pass on the trail. Back sore, weary and unsociable, finally we got our stuff to the summit.

There were other aspects of the Klondike trail which were an eye openener for Otto Steiner. He wrote:

Some say that Negroes are a lazy and indolent lot. There were three on this trail who had the stuff in them out of which men were made. They pulled their own sled, loaded heavily, one man to a sled, some 400 pounds to the trip. Each of us had 250 pounds to the trip and thought we were above average. These Negroes camped near us many times. They were always jolly and had two banjos with them and most evenings would play and sing with always a crowd at their tent.

When Steiner's party finally packed their tons of gear over the Chilkoot Pass and down the other side to the first of many lakes on the route, he wrote about a sight which appalled him:

At Lake Lindeman a little water spaniel was pulling a two hundred pound man on a sled. Here the trail was cut up and the dog was stuck. The man had a buggy whip and commenced to use it on the dog. At this stage of the game, a man stepped out of the passing line of men and says Partner Stop Licking That Dog. Of course this meant fight and both men were strong and well muscled. The fight lasted three or four rounds and the man with the buggy whip finally got the worst of it. Blood spouting from this mouth and nose he lay quietly in the snow and gave up. The crowd cheered. The victor gave his parting warning "if I see you licking that dog again, I'll kill you". I saw the same man and the dog on the trail a number of times, but he was never riding on the sled.

The party reached Lake Bennett before the ice went out and began the tedious task of building not one, but three boats by whipsawing lumber cut from local trees. Here, Steiner proved he was a very detailed writer of the incredible scene which was unfolding. He wrote:

At Lake Bennett we had been advised not to fly the American flag unless the Union Jack was place above it. Many fellows would not buy a Union Jack and disregarded the advice, with the result they were fined. Some of the men got even with the Yellow Legs, an epithet for the Mounted Police. They would place a US Flag on their mast and above it a British flag about the size of a postage stamp. From a distance of 50 yards the Yellow Legs could not see the small flag so would hale the fellow to shore only to find out the law had been complied with.

When the ice finally went out on Lake Bennett, the hoards of men in their quickly crafted boats - perhaps then a thousand in total - began the journey down the waterways to the Klondike. He wrote:

At this camp at Lake Marsh, we got our first introduction to mosquitoes. It is impossible to describe how thick they were. There were clouds of them. You could grab handfuls. Sleep - none of us slept. We had mosquito nets but they were quite useless. These nets kept the swarms away, but hundreds got through. Yet after we left this camp we were not bothered much for a long time.

The only real obstacle on the rest of the voyage came at Miles Canyon and, just below the Canyon, the infamous Whitehorse rapids.

At the foot of the canyon, the water plunged 20 or 30 feet in height. This is called the White Horse Rapids. Two days before we arrived, a scow had capsized in the canyon. Aboard her were three men. Two of these men were lost and only one body found. While cooking our evening meal, someone spied what looked like a man's coat floating on the water. A boat was sent and sure enough it was the missing man. Quite a few met this fate.

From the rapids and onto Lake Laberge, journey was uneventful. Again, Steiner showed his eyes for detail. He wrote:

We entered Lake Laberge. Here again strung out at intervals of 50 to 100 yards were crafts of all dimensions. On some of these scows were fellows of a musical turn and while waiting for the wind to come up were playing on their favourite instruments. Across the water came the strains of violin, guitar, mandolin and banjo. Also there were human voices, solos, quartets etc. It sounded most beautiful and helped bring cheer, good will, nerve and grit.

Once across Lake Laberge, the journey again became exciting. With high water levels in spring, that part of the river then known as the Forty Mile, could be very challenging. Steiner wrote:

 

 

We continued down the famous 40 mile, a swift, turbulent stream, many rapids, jagged rocks sticking up some six inches to three feet above the surface. It kept us constantly on the alert. By skillfully dodging around the rocks and then shooting our boat across the stream here and there, we managed to miss these obstructions. Many were the ones who failed to do so and the shores for the whole distance was lined with outfits drying out their wrecked craft, upside down on the beach, being repaired and others being dragged to shore while others were still on the rocks.

 

 

Steiner and his party reached the mouth of the Stewart River where a large camp of men living in tents had been set up. Many were prospecting the creeks which ran into the Stewart. The Steiner party decided to do the same and spent three months in the region before heading on to Dawson in September. He wrote:

We finally got our boats loaded and started for Dawson. Arriving there without mishap, we immediately met men with whom we had become acquainted on the trail. Bjork met one of his old Levanworth friends and said come on boys, let's have a drink. We followed him into a saloon. Every second door was a saloon. We all took a beer, a tiny glass which held about three or four swallows. Donahue paid the bill. $2.50 or 50 cents per drink. There were six bartenders. All busy.

Otto Steiner found out quickly that there was no ground worth staking in the creeks around Dawson. So he went to work that winter on a claim owned by two young men whose rich parents in San Francisco were backing them with money. But he soon found out that the money was an illusion.

The claim was a good one. The gold taken out was paid to the packers for supplies. All of us, 20 men, knew the money was being spent as fast as it was coming out. But these boys, having millionaire fathers, having good credit at the stores, we all thought our pay was sure. The bubble broke early in the fall. The old men of Frisco called a halt and we were left holding the bag. None of us had one cent for our summer's work. I had fully intended on going home in the fall, but now was without a cent. Three of us sued and got judgement against the boys. The judgement was for 45 hundred dollars being granted in my name. I had the judgement entered in the Frisco court. The earthquake and the fire destroyed the record and my claim went up in smoke.

Otto Steiner stayed in the Klondike until June of 1900, working odd jobs on the creeks, cutting wood 'til he finally accumulated nearly two thousand dollars. Then he caught a steamer heading down the Yukon river, bound for the gold fields at Nome, Alaska. He spent 40 years in Alaska as a miner and retired to the southern states in 1940. He died in 1955 at the age of 89.

 

A CKRW Yukon Nugget by Les McLaughlin.