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Show Lees Ferry to Meskin bar , poling 98 and working along , and later continued up the river to Moquie bar and the bars along ( Hall's Halls ) Creek . We had no serious difficulties coming upstream except the work of towing and poling the boat . In the winter of 1898 , 1 went from Hanson Creek to the Klondike bar , located below the San Juan River , with two big boats , each about 14 feet wide and 18 or 20 feet long ; one of these boats was box shape and I put a nose on the other and fastened them together , tandem fashion . I loaded into the boats five ( four-horse fourhorse ) loads of supplies and horse feed ; also our scrapers and machinery at Moquie bar ; thus loaded the boats drew about a foot of water . This trip was taken in January , 1898 ; an ice jam had formed so that at one point it had backed the river up for a mile and a half , and in going over Little Giant Rapid the rear boat , which was loaded the heaviest , must have had a hole broken in it for it sank . We saved part of the cargo and loaded it into other boats ; we lost our scrapers and other machinery but replaced them with other scrapers and machinery and went on down to the Klondike bar , having trouble with sand bars on the journey . ( R . 3287-95 , Vol . 17 . ) In 1899 , we worked at the Stanton dredge . They had a barge which they used to handle their drill machinery up and down the river and also to move freight for about a mile and a half up the river . I never operated this barge myself with a sail but have seen it ( sail -sail sail ) upstream . Between 1899 and 1908 , ( I 1 ) placer mined in that section , moving my outfit upstream or downstream to the points desired , but , because of the hard work , took only what I had to have on my ( up- up ) stream trips . On the upstream trips we would have trouble at low water with bars . As a rule , the river would be at a low stage during the freezing period and generally in the latter part of February there would be mush ice running in the river , which condition would begin to end during that month , and the river would commence to rise in March . . After the river raised a foot or so the effect of the bars ( didn't didnt ) bother you and there was always room to get through if you knew where to find the places ; after the spring rise commenced there was always a channel . It has been my experience on the river that after the spring rise , , about the latter ( part pait ) of March , you could figure on going down the river if you found the right place to go and there was no place where you ( couldn't couldnt ) find the channel . . Every rise or fall of the water would bring about a rearrangement of the |
