Yukon Territory, Canada
By A. M. Dart
DAWSON.—Leaving White Horse, Yukon Territory, about the middle of June, 1903, in company with my wife and daughter, I sailed in a rowboat about one hundred and twenty-five miles down the swift, treacherous waters of the Yukon River. We then decided that the dangers of this way of travel were greater than it was wise to risk, so we exchanged our boat for one of the river steamers, which, during the short summer season, are very busy carrying freight into the interior of Alaska and Yukon Territory. We soon arrived at Dawson. A search for a place to hold meetings seemed to indicate that we would have to pay at least four dollars a night for a place at all suitable. At last, however, the Lord influenced a man to give us a good building in a good location for forty dollars a month. We did not succeed in getting the people to come out. The baseball players were more successful. Their gate receipts were from two to three hundred dollars a night. We left the city, and went up the creek to Bonanza, about thirteen miles from Dawson. Here we had an interesting series of meetings which lasted four weeks, and were well attended. A good interest was awakened. We feel confident that seeds of truth were sown in honest hearts, which will bear fruit in the kingdom. One evening we did up some packages of five tracts each, and offered them for sale at twenty-five cents a package. We sold four dollars' worth. We sold about twenty dollars' worth of books, mostly “Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation.” The approach of winter forced us to make arrangements for this long, cold season. I might say that Bonanza is the place where gold was first discovered in 1897, known as the great Klondyke gold discovery. Our place of meeting was just under Gold Hill, where millions of dollars have been taken out since then. Our hall at Bonanza cost fifteen dollars a week. Donations for the four weeks amounted to fifty-eight dollars. Leaving this place, we returned to Dawson, secured a building with half for meetings, and living-rooms above, for sixty-five dollars a month. We fitted up a missionary room in the front part of the hall. The room has a table, chairs, lounge, nice mottoes on the wall, and is well supplied with books, tracts, and papers on present truth. An appropriate sign outside invites people in to read, rest, or write. The place is called Mission Home Hall. We hold services every night in the week except one. One man who began reading “Daniel and the Revelation” when we first opened the place, soon began to attend the meetings, and is now thoroughly converted to the message, and is ably assisting others to see the light which seems to be filling his soul. Another turned over a new leaf for 1904, with these words: “I am through with the Babylon church. We have been knocking at the doors of the Catholic Church,” He, too, is thoroughly converted, and is helping others to see the light. Others are deeply interested, and are constant attendants at the meetings. The missionary room is an excellent arrangement. It not only affords an opportunity for people to get acquainted and become interested in our work, but provides an excellent opportunity for those interested to study the message. Almost every evening the missionary room is quite well filled with people reading and studying for an hour or more before meeting time. Then, too, all day people come and go. Strangers frequently spend hours in that room, reading the message of God for our time. The other day five or six friends of Mission Home Hall came with their saws and sawhorses, and in a few hours five cords of sixteen-foot wood was sawed and piled by my door. I had been doing this myself, to save expense, and I assure you it is not a small task to saw wood for Dawson weather. In a recent cold spell some of the thermometers registered as low as sixty-eight and seventy degrees below zero. Horses that drew the stages, and drivers that drove the horses, bled at the nose because of the intense cold. Two weeks ago last Sunday I walked two miles up the creek to fill a weekly appointment when the thermometer was sixty degrees below zero. My audience was there, and we had a good meeting. Brethren, let us praise God for a Master who fits his servants for the work he puts before them. It was the Master who said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Our lack of consecration and full surrender has left the glorious truth of the statement unproved in our lives. I have never seen money scarcer than it is this winter in this land of gold. Many attending our meetings would be glad to give, but are without means. Hence donations are small, and the work is being carried on at large expense. Flour costs four dollars a sack; potatoes, six pounds for a dollar; sugar, six pounds for a dollar. Purchasing these supplies in the autumn and taking advantage of a special sale, we secured somewhat better rates, but living is high indeed. Wood costs from nine dollars to eleven dollars a cord, in sixteen-foot lengths, twelve dollars to fifteen dollars sawed. We can scarcely pay our wood bill for the winter with two hundred dollars. There are many weary, disappointed souls here, and Mission Home Hall is doing a good work in affording an opportunity for them to see the certainty of success in the race for true riches, the end of which is eternal life and the privilege of entering gates of pearl and walking streets of gold. We are pressed for means to carry on this good work which has been signally blessed of God from the start. Do not some who are enjoying a comfortable home, a pleasant fireside, feel inclined to part, even at a sacrifice, with some of the blessings God has bestowed upon them, for the purpose of assisting the work in this far-off field? Such contributions would cheer our hearts, and I know would receive the blessing of God. Contributions may be sent to the writer, at Dawson, Yukon Territory, Canada, Box 779.