ALASKA THE PLACE
FOR A YOUNG MAN.
FINE CLIMATE, HIGH WAGES
AND CHEAP LIVING.
That's the Way This Man From
Ketchikan Sees It -- Salmon
Fishers Make $500 a
Month.
"If I were a young man looking for a place to settle down and make money, I'd immediately go to Southern Alaska," said J. W. Daily, a mining promoter of Ketchikan, Alaska, at the Coates house last night. "I'd go to either Ketchikan, Skagway or Juneau. It doesn't take much money to get there, the passage from Seattle to Ketchikan is only $22.
The town in which Mr. Daily lives is the first on the other side of the boundary line and is about 700 miles north of Seattle.
"The salaries there are high -- clerks are paid from $100 to $150 a month," he said, "and it doesn't cost any more to live there than it does in Kansas City.
"Of course when you go farther north the cost of transportation makes prices high, but the salaries are higher accordingly. Many bright young men go to Alaska from the United States, but most of them don't stay with their work. They either save a few hundred dollars and go back to their friends in the United States, or they get the gold fever and start out and begin prospecting. I have seen times there when a company would pay almost any amount of money for an expert bookkeeper.
"The climate of the region in which I live is comparatively warm. Zero weather is rare. We are warmed by the China and Japan current and by the Southeastern winds."
Mr. Daily believes that Alaska is destined to become a great country, but that the only industries there will be fishing and mining.
"The natives are not gold miners," he said. "They know nothing about gold. I have seen them pick up and save pieces of the sulphide commonly known as 'fool's gold.' The are great fishers, though. In the two and one-half months which constitute the salmon fishing season a native will make $1,000. During the rest of the year he will trap or cut timber.
"However, the natives do not save their money. They live in huts, but spend their money on good clothes and food. As soon as they are paid off they go to the nearest hotel and eat the costliest things on the bill of fare. After they recover they go back and repeat the meal. They keep this up until all of their money is gone. On Sundays you will see Indians dressed as well as the wealthiest white people of the town.
"Alaska is full of gold. The Klondike is no longer a placer country. All the surface gold has been washed out and only dredges can get at it now.
"In Southern Alaska the gold is in the quartz and must be dug out with huge dredges. In the property our company owns, we get about 50 cents workth of fine gold to a cubic yard of gravel. The sulphides run $12 or $14 to the ton. This is the average of all mines in Southern Alaska. There is gold everywhere, but it takes large investments to get it out. There are no railroads, and the machinery must be transported by wagon, piece by piece, over especially built roads, and the ore has to be brought out in the same way and shipped to the United States to be refined."
