The White Pass and Yukon Company is a transportation company which has operated for several years on the Yukon with headquarters at Dawson, Yukon Territory. This company believed that the best method of shipping supplies to Alaska would be to bring them in by way of Skagway, then over the White Pass and Yukon Railroad to Dawson, transferring them there to the White Pass boats and barges and floating them thence _down_ the river to points in the interior. The Northern Navigation Company brought its freight to St. Michael by way of the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. It was then loaded on boats and barges and pushed _up_ the river. What was a disadvantage to the White Pass people was a distinct advantage to the Northern Navigation Company. This was the fact that the lower part of the Yukon River below Lake Lebarge was free from ice from a month to six weeks earlier than that part of the river which lay between Lake Lebarge and Dawson. The method of the White Pass and Yukon Company held an unquestionable advantage in the saving of fuel. But as the greater number of the principal mining towns and supply points for the different mining districts lay _below_ Lake Lebarge it was but natural that large shipments of freight for early summer delivery were consigned to the Northern Navigation Company, at St. Michael. A great rivalry sprang up between these two companies. Keen competition followed. But it was soon realized that each was working under difficulties which ought to be and could be remedied. The White Pass and Yukon Company was dependent upon the river transportation for existence. So a merger of the two seemed vital to the interests of both. In June, 1914, the White Pass and Yukon Company bought out the Northern Navigation Company, thus securing a monopoly of the Yukon from source to mouth. The result has been that the greater portion of the freight now shipped into the interior of Alaska is taken over the White Pass road and then floated down the river. This has seriously affected St. Michael, of course, as it has deprived this once busy little city of the greater part of her revenue.