Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

186 HISTORY OF THE BANKline from Lake Bennett to Dawson. The work had beencommenced at Lake Bennett on April 15, 1899, and consideringthe extremely difficult country through which the line had to bebuilt, it was generally conceded to have been done in recordtime. Like transportation, telegraph communication provedto be essential to the advancement and growth of the district.From the midsummer of 1898 on, it had been apparentthat, outside of the large dealings in gold dust and exchange,the volume of mercantile business offered would increasesteadily. At first the lack of fire insurance facilities, and ofindependent warehouses outside the fire zone, placed oncertain classes of loans definite limitations, which were soonrealized and removed. One of the fears which haunted themanagement of the bank was that of running out of suppliesof bank-notes, and as the bank was under-staffed, it wasarranged that during the next winter two more officers shouldcome in over the ice by dog team, and bring an additionalsupply of notes with them. They left Toronto on December 9,1898, and reached Dawson on February 18, 1899. This madethe total amount of bank-notes supplied to the Dawson branch$970,000, and in the summer of 1899 this was augmented byanother shipment of $960,000, which arrived not a momenttoo soon. Accompanying this last-mentioned shipment werefour more officers and another large safe. During the intervaland even before the close of navigation in 1898 the Dawsonbranch had endeavoured to conserve the supply of the bank'snotes by paying out those of other banks, a large amount ofwhich had accumulated in the country. Of course a largeamount of the notes issued by the bank in the Yukon had beencarried out of the district, but considering that there wasanother bank in Dawson with a large note circulation of itsown, and that the amount of trade dust in circulation, althoughdifficult to estimate accurately, was probably about two milliondollars, the foregoing figures offer some indication of thesubstantial character and rapid growth of business in thecommunity.