They, in turn, did not know where the Yukon had its source,
and it was not till later that Russ and Saxon learned that it was the
same mighty stream they were occupying. And a little over ten years
later, Frederick Whymper voyaged up the Great Bend to Fort Yukon
under the Arctic Circle.
From fort to fort, from York Factory on Hudson's Bay to Fort Yukon in
Alaska, the English traders transported their goods--a round trip
requiring from a year to a year and a half. It was one of their
deserters, in 1867, escaping down the Yukon to Bering Sea, who was
the first white man to make the North-west Passage by land from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. It was at this time that the first accurate
description of a fair portion of the Yukon was given by Dr. W. H.
Ball, of the Smithsonian Institution. But even he had never seen its
source, and it was not given him to appreciate the marvel of that
great natural highway.
No more remarkable river in this one particular is there in the
world; taking its rise in Crater Lake, thirty miles from the ocean,
the Yukon flows for twenty-five hundred miles, through the heart of
the continent, ere it empties into the sea.
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