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First class passage, Seattle to Dyea: $35
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Freight: 10 cents per pound; $10 per ton
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Seattle rooming house: $3 per week
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Meals in Seattle restaurants: 25 cents
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Dogs: $5-$7
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At Dyea: Freight carried to Sheep's Camp, 1 3/4 cents per pound.
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Freight to the summit: about 5 cents per pound.
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Bunk: 50 cents.
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Good meal: 25 cents.
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Hay: $50 per ton.
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Flour: $2.75 for 50 pounds.
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Eggs: 35 cents a dozen.
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Whiskey: 25 cents a drink.
At the Chilkoot Pass:
One man's Costs: Packing $20; Tax on border, $7.73.
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Lake Bennett: Boats, $175 to $200
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Bennett City Hotel: 50 cents (sleep on floor)
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Meals: $4.00 each
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Shave: 50 cents
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Tools: plane, 50 cents; square, $3; file, 50 cents
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Miner's License: $10
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Sugar: 27 cents a pound.
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Beans: 18 cents a pound.
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Butter: 50 cents a pound.
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Dawson City
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Oranges: $6 a dozen
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Eggs: $3 a dozen
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Flour: $6-$8 per sack.
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Drinks: $1.
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Bananas: $1 each.
—from McMichael Letters, March-June 1898.
Alfred (Mac) McMichael left Detroit in March 1898 for Seattle, and then went north by the Dyea Trail, ending up at Fourth of July Creek in Alaska. He wrote regular letters home to close friends and their children.