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Klondyke Nuggets - A Brief Description of the Great Gold Regions in the Northwest by Joseph Ladue
page 13 of 97 (13%)
purposes which according to the mining regulations are subject to the
payment of certain prescribed dues and charges. The Alaska Commercial
Company, for many years subsequent to the retirement of the Hudson's Bay
Company, had a practical monopoly of the trade of the Yukon, carrying
into the country and delivering at various points along the river,
without regard to the international boundary line or the customs laws
and regulations of Canada, such articles of commerce as were required
for the prosecution of the fur trade and latterly of placer mining,
these being the only two existing industries. With the discovery of
gold, however, came the organization of a competing company known as the
North American Transportation and Trading Company, having its
headquarters in Chicago and its chief trading and distributing post at
Cudahy. This company has been engaged in this trade for over three
years, and during the past season despatched two ocean steamers from San
Francisco to St. Michael, at the mouth of the Yukon, the merchandise
from which was, at the last mentioned point, transhipped into river
steamers and carried to points inland, but chiefly to the company's
distributing centre within Canadian territory. Importations of
considerable value, consisting of the immediately requisite supplies of
the miners, and their tools, also reach the Canadian portion of the
Yukon District from Juneau, in the United States, by way of the Taiya
Inlet, the mountain passes, and the chain of waterways leading therefrom
to Cudahy. Upon none of these importations had any duty been collected,
except a sum of $3,248.80 paid to Inspector Constantine in 1894, by the
North American Transportation and Trading Company and others, and it is
safe to conclude, especially when it is remembered that the country
produces none of the articles consumed within it except fresh meat, that
a large revenue was being lost to the public exchequer under the then
existing conditions.

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