Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE YUKON ADVENTURE 185had to be made for the loss in melting and the heavy cost offreight and insurance.During the first year or two of the camp a large proportionof the output of gold dust was used as currency and thereforeremained in the Yukon. For the same reason the shipmentsmade by the bank during its earlier years by no means representedthe whole of its purchases. 1 Very few miners whoseoutput of gold was of low grade desired to sell on an assaybasis. It was therefore bought as trade dust, and traded in,that is to say, it was bought at a fixed arbitrary figure and soldat another fixed but slightly higher figure. To forestall possiblecriticism, it may be said that the public in the Yukon had fullknowledge of the margin of profit made by the banks and othersin handling trade dust, and that in most instances the prices ofarticles paid for in gold dust made full and ample allowancefor what might seem at first sight an injustice. As has alreadybeen mentioned, the bank, as one of the ultimate receivers oftrade dust, eventually wrote off a very large sum to do its partin remedying the situation. In justice, however, to thememory of the pioneers, be it said that, unlike the "morals'*and manners of the camp, trade dust deteriorated by constantmanipulation in the course of the moral uplift of the community,until at last it was "civilized" out of existence as aneconomic sore.When the river froze up on November 4, 1898, those whowere experiencing such things for the first time felt strangelyisolated from the world at large. This sensation, however,soon passed away, although it was difficult to get used to theshort periods of daylight during the long winter months or theeternal daylight of the summer. In those pioneer days themails were several months in transit, and it was not untilSeptember 28, 1899, that Mr. J. B. Charleson completed forthe Government the building of the 526 miles of telegraph*For statistics as to the yearly production of gold in the Yukon District, theamount of royalty collected, and the amount of gold shipped by The Canadian Bankof Commerce, see Appendix II (p. 478).