Y = Yukon, Canada
I wrote this up many years ago after buying it on eBay described as "Swiss 96a on cover", and no description! I sold it a few years later at auction in Switzerland for $350.
Posted - Lausanne, 29 January 1902
Transit - New York Registery, 11 February (It would have gone ttrans-America by train to Seattle, then by ship to Skagway.)
Transit - Skagway, Alaska, 24 February
Received - Dawson, Yukon Territory, 4 March 1902
Forwarded to Hootalinqua.
It travelled by train from Skagway to Whitehorse, then by dog sled to Dawson along the frozen Yukon River. This route is about 460 miles [in eight days]. It was then forwarded back about 387 miles up the Yukon River to its destination at Hootalinqua, no date. This would also have been via dog team.
Hootalinqua was an outfitting camp at the junction of a major tributary of the Yukon, and the location where many of the river boats were brought ashore for the winter. The following year a trail was built over the summer for wagons, and used in winter for sleighs, which was much easier travelling than in summer. Passengers on top of the sleighs had charcoal braziers under their huge skin blankets. Horses were used and made good time. Travel never started in the mornings if the temperature was -40° or less. It was too difficult for the horse to pull the sleighs. This cover transited the Yukon River during the few months of dog sled use. No short cuts!
January 24, 1902, from Dawson newspaper.
"Many lives have been lost [on the unsafe ice]. Two mail carriers were drowned and mail lost. . . . I have sent out about 17 letters this winter had replies from none, that is the worst feature of the country. It is not right and I do not think necessary. American mail comes as far as White Horse I am told and many times it is left there until the boats come in." The boats may not have travelled until May after the ice breakup.
