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Title: The Land of Tomorrow
Author: Jr., Stephenson, William B
Language: English
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at the end of the book.
[Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL ALASKAN SUMMER]
THE LAND OF
TOMORROW
BY
WILLIAM B. STEPHENSON, JR.
FORMERLY UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER IN ALASKA
ILLUSTRATED
[Signet]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO MY MOTHER
ALICE HERSHEY STEPHENSON
WITH GREATEST DEVOTION
FOREWORD
That the Voice of the North calls insistently to him who once has dwelt
amidst its snows is neither myth nor legend. It is history. Like the
Song of the Lorelei, having heard it once it rings in his ears forever.
True, it is a strenuous game which Man plays against Nature in Alaska.
There, as nowhere else on earth, he pays the price for what he gets.
Yet if you ask one who has loved and left her, one who has lived among
her mountains, experiencing alike the bitter winter and the wondrous
Alaskan summer, every day of which is perfect beyond the power of words
to describe, even though he may deny the call it is not difficult to
detect the hidden longing underlying his reply. For it is a fact not to
be gainsaid that after such an experience, no matter how much a man may
have looked forward to a life of ease after his return, he seldom finds
it satisfying. Usually when he goes back home it is to find his old
friends scattered or dead. The old pleasures turn to gall and wormwood
in his mouth. In time the jar and turbulence of cities get on his
nerves. He begins to hear the Voice! The old residents of Alaska, they
who have lived there so long that they seem a part of the land itself,
always smile grimly when they hear a man begin to curse the land where
he has made his wealth and swear that he never wants to see it again.
To them it is an old story. They have seen many return to the regions
whence they came. And they have seen most of them come back! They alone
know the truth of the line from the old Norse legend:
"_Dark and true and tender is the North!_"
Following the opening up of the gold fields much was written of Alaska,
but it was confined largely to the territory of the Yukon and the
unsettled, chaotic conditions of the hour. The fortunate few who,
through the medium of poem, song or story, have revealed the glories
and the tragedies of this part of the country have done their work
well. The record of that now-historic stampede to the Klondike gold
fields has journeyed to the uttermost parts of the earth. But all this
was twenty years ago. The Alaska of to-day is not what it was then, and
there are sections of this marvelous country which no artist has yet
painted and of which no poet has yet sung. Were this not true the
present scribe would have no task,--no reason for adding to the list.
Sixty miles north of the mouth of the Yukon lies the little island of
St. Michael on which the writer spent five years (first as manager of
the Pacific Cold Storage Plant and afterward as United States
Commissioner), journeying later from this island to almost every spot
in the country which the white man has yet penetrated. Moved by the
astonishing discovery during a recent visit to the States that there is
practically nothing to be had in any library in regard to this island,
so important a connecting link between the Yukon and the outer world,
he is inflicting this little volume upon a patient and long-suffering
public. He has been moved to do this, not from a desire to pose as a
creator of literature, but because of a belief which can not be shaken
that Alaska is _The Land of Tomorrow_! It is the only bit of Uncle
Sam's territory where it is still possible for a man to get in on the
ground floor. Now that the great World War is at an end thousands of
soldiers are coming home again--to begin life over! They will be
seeking a new environment. Travel, especially by water, even though (as
is the case with those lately in the service) it be under difficulties
and not always of one's own choosing, never fails to breed _wanderlust_
in man. It awakens something within him which urges him to go
adventuring, to seek the far spaces of the world, no matter how much
his heart may cry out to him to stay at home. In Alaska there is room
for all who know how to fight! Untold opportunity for him who is
willing to fight! With a physique made strong by the life in the
trenches, with muscles hardened by military training, the returned
soldier will be fitted as he never has been before and perhaps never
will be again to cope with the somewhat rigorous life demanded of him
who dwells "north of fifty-three."
Alaska is calling for men,--men to cultivate her farms, to develop her
mines, to build her railroads, to man her fisheries and her lumber
camps. She will soon be asking for business men to manage her stores,
for lawyers, doctors and dentists, for teachers, ministers and priests,
for actors and motion picture operators. In another year Uncle Sam's
great railroad will be running Pullman cars across this
sparsely-settled country. This means progress. Alaska will begin to
live. She will prove a good although at certain seasons of the year a
frigid mother to thousands yet unborn. The homely old proverb in regard
to the early bird is peculiarly applicable to Alaska. The worm is only
waiting to be caught.
To know Alaska is to love her. As one old North-Pacific sea captain
once put it,--"A man can get along without the woman he loves if he
has to. But he can't get along without Alaska after he has fallen in
love with her!"
It is Robert Service, however, who in _The Spell of the Yukon_ has
breathed the real spirit of the land:
"Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a good land to shun;
May be. But there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth--and I'm one!"
W. B. S.
St. Michael, Alaska.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. NORTHWARD HO! 19
II. THE LAND OF TOMORROW 30
III. ST. MICHAEL 38
IV. NORTHERN LIGHTS 46
V. GREAT OPPORTUNITIES 52
VI. POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 63
VII. THE PARALLEL STEEL BARS 72
VIII. FLOWERS AND BIRDS OF THE NORTHLAND 83
IX. MT. MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK 91
X. THE ALL-ALASKA SWEEPSTAKES 100
XI. BURIED WEALTH 115
XII. THE HAUNT OF THE SALMON 126
XIII. THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD 137
XIV. THE CITIES OF THE FAR NORTH 151
XV. THE NATIVE RACES 161
XVI. SOCIAL LIFE IN ALASKA 197
XVII. THE PRIZE OF THE PACIFIC 210
XVIII. ALASKA AND THE WAR 216
XIX. ALASKAN WRITERS 222
CONCLUSION 236
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE BEAUTIFUL ALASKAN SUMMER _Frontispiece_
PAGE
THE AUTHOR DRESSED FOR THE TRAILS AT
KOTLICK, MOUTH OF THE YUKON 40
AN ISLAND ON WHICH IS LOCATED ONE OF THE
FINEST FOX FARMS IN ALASKA 40
NEARLY TWENTY THOUSAND FURS READY FOR
SHIPMENT 40
"SIMROCK MARY'S" HERD OF REINDEER COMING
OVER THE HILL 56
SLEDDERS OFF FOR PROVISIONS FOR THE REINDEER
HERDERS 56
PRIBILOF ISLANDS WHERE UNCLE SAM PROTECTS
THE FUR SEAL 56
COUNTLESS THOUSANDS OF "MURRS" HAVE
MADE THIS ISLAND THEIR OWN 56
A TYPICAL TOURIANA VALLEY GARDEN 88
THE TRAIL NEAR WRANGELL IN SUMMER. NOTE
THE BEAUTY OF THE WOODS 88
LOVER'S LANE, NEAR SITKA, GUARDED BY
TOTEM POLES 88
SLUICING THE WINTER DUMP AT FAIRBANKS 120
THE THIRD BEACH AT NOME FROM WHICH WAS
TAKEN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF GOLD
IN DUST AND NUGGETS 120
ONE NIGHT'S CATCH. NEARLY FIVE THOUSAND
SALMON WEIGHING APPROXIMATELY 75,000
POUNDS 120
A FISHWHEEL 120
SITKA, THE OLD RUSSIAN CAPITAL OF ALASKA 152
JUNEAU, THE CAPITAL 152
ESKIMOS OF ST. MICHAEL 152
"SCOTTY" ALLEN AND BALDY 200
GENE DOYLE, ONE OF THE OLDEST MAIL CARRIERS
ON SEWARD PENINSULA. A HERO OF
THE TRAIL! 200
COMING IN TO ST. MICHAEL WITH OUR THIRTY-THREE
DOG TEAM AFTER GOING OUT TO MEET
THE MAIL CARRIER 200
DUTCH HARBOR 200
REVEREND HUDSON STUCK, ARCHDEACON OF
THE YUKON, PREACHING WITH INDIAN AND
ESKIMO INTERPRETERS 224
INTERIOR OF GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ST.
MICHAEL, BUILT IN 1837 224
FINE OLD NATIONAL HOUSE WITH TOTEM
POLES NEAR WRANGELL 224
THE LAND OF TOMORROW
THE LAND OF TOMORROW
CHAPTER I
NORTHWARD HO!
Memory, with unerring exactitude, carries me back to a
never-to-be-forgotten day,--the twenty-ninth of May, 1909,--the day on
which I sailed from Seattle on the S. S. _St. Croix_ to take charge of
the plant of the Pacific Cold Storage Company at St. Michael, Alaska.
In my early manhood I had studied law, but the years immediately
preceding this date I had spent among the great forests of British
Columbia in charge of the interests of the British Columbia Tie and
Timber Company. It was a life which appealed to me,--one which I loved
and had planned to follow during my working years. But man proposes!
And that inexplainable thing for which we have no definite name,--call
it fate, fortune, destiny, or what you will--often disposes! Some
sudden and utterly unforeseen event, almost in the twinkling of an
eye, will change the whole current and meaning of a man's life. Such an
experience was mine. So, like Columbus of old, I set forth once more
upon the uncharted sea of life in search of a new world.
The last decade has brought about marvelous improvement in travel
northward. Most ocean voyages are eventful and mine was particularly
so. Therefore it may not be amiss to begin with it. At that time
sailing to Alaska was unlike voyaging to any other part of the world.
Man knew not whither he was going or whether he would return. The air
of mystery which broods ever over all the northland seems to cast a
spell upon the traveler from the moment of starting. Once there, the
Land of Silence wraps her arms about him and holds him close, sometimes
absorbing him!
There are two routes by which one may make his way northward. One is by
what is known as the Inside Channel, by far the more beautiful and
diverting and carrying him into the heart of the Yukon territory. The
other is the Outside Passage and bears him directly across to the
Alaskan Peninsula and thence around the coast to Nome. It was the
latter route which I took on my first voyage to Alaska.
No man can see the lights of Victoria or Vancouver fade behind him
without a feeling that he is standing in the dawn of a new life. Behind
him lies the known; ahead, the unknown! From Vancouver to Skagway, up
the Inside Channel, is a wonderful journey of a thousand miles, and as
the boats pull away from shore one sees lying to right of him the
mainland of British Columbia and to the left the island which bears the
name of that intrepid explorer who navigated the then unknown waters of
the North Pacific and charted them. Those who now journey northward
will never realize their debt to Captain Vancouver. To the land-lubber
the journey up the Channel seems fraught with a thousand dangers. But
not so. Not a sunken rock but this old sea-dog has charted it, and the
vessels thread their way with the utmost safety through a perfect maze
of islands. To realize the miracle of this thousand miles of tangled
maze one has but to stand in the bow of the boat and attempt to pick
out the channel through which it will pass. He will guess wrong every
time. One can not distinguish the isles from the shore. The mountains
crash skyward, seemingly from the very deck of the vessel itself. But
the inexperienced can not tell whether they crown an island or are on
the mainland. The tourist gazes with admiration, not unmixed with awe,
at the countless little bays and straits through which the boats
twist, turn, creep forward and ofttimes turn backward! And so it is
until the thousand miles of water, with its fairy islands and its
gigantic icebergs lie far behind him,--a part of that past upon which
he has turned his back.
The journey of the _St. Croix_ (making the _outside_ trip) was
uneventful until we reached Cape Flattery. Here we encountered a
terrific storm from the northwest. For a couple of days we had had a
feeling that the glorious Pacific was in one of her sullen moods. It
began with a gray sea and a few flying clouds. Followed a head wind
which knocked fifty miles off the day's run and then,--a real storm, a
miniature hurricane. It continued with unabated violence until we were
within a day's run of Unimak Pass, at the foot of the Alaskan
Peninsula. For six days we had sailed straight across the ocean to
northwest, seeing nothing but sky and water,--huge, mountain-like waves
which rose and fell with monotonous regularity. When we reached this
point, however, we had a little diversion. Great numbers of walrus were
splashing about in the water and lying on the ice. Here, also, I saw
the first whales I had ever seen.
One of the sights of this ocean voyage is Mt. Shishaldin, an active
volcano nearly nine thousand feet high and located about thirty miles
east of Unimak Pass. In symmetry and in the beauty of its curves it
rivals Fujiyama, the sacred mountain of Japan. No geographer has ever
visited Mt. Shishaldin. No man has yet ascended it. Unimak, the island
on which it stands, is a continuation of the Alaskan Peninsula, being
separated from it only by a narrow strait. Like the rest of the
Aleutian chain, it lies between Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
It was about three o'clock in the morning of June ninth that we sighted
the volcano. Scarcely any one on board had retired, as none wished to
miss the view of the mountain. It is safe to say that none regretted
the loss of sleep. It was a sight long to be remembered. Directly over
the smoking cone the early-morning sun, dark red of hue, was slowly
rising. The effect was most spectacular and--symbolic! No work of the
Master's hand so symbolizes life as do the mountains. No matter how
dark the vales and cañons, on the heights there is always light!
It was shortly after we entered the Pass that our journey began to
afford us excitement. Here we encountered the first large ice floes and
caught between them were many vessels,--the _Ohio_, _Senator_,
_Victoria_, _Olympia_ and _Mackinac_ being plainly visible. Each was
trying to find a passage through the ice and it was most amusing to
see the grim smile which came over the face of our own Captain W----
when he saw their predicament. It is considered quite an honor to bring
the first boat through the ice in the spring. No wonder, then, that the
Captain was pleased. All these boats had sailed from one to three days
ahead of us. Now the _St. Croix_ had an equal chance with the rest.
At about half speed we started to plow through the ice. We made about
fifty miles. Then the ice became much thicker and more difficult to
penetrate. Many times we came to a standstill. Then we would back up
some eight or nine hundred feet and at full speed would go ahead again,
ramming the ice with all possible force. It was necessary to hold on to
the rail in order to keep one's feet.
Now, this sort of thing may be interesting for a certain length of
time, but when it becomes continuous one's interest flags! Operations
were suspended for thirty minutes three times a day while meals were
served, but except for these intervals, it went on night and day. I say
night and day, but it was principally day. At this time of year there
was only about one hour of the twenty-four when one could not see to
read in his state-room without the electric light.
On the morning of June eleventh I was awakened by a terrific crash. I
heard the swift scampering of feet along the deck toward the bow. I
dressed as quickly as possible and hurried forward. We had bumped
squarely into a young iceberg at full speed and had smashed our bow
stem. This meant that we were caught in the ice floe with no means of
getting out! We could no longer ram the ice with the ends of the
planking exposed. It further developed that the owners had neglected to
equip the boat with material necessary for repairs. But the Captain
realized the necessity of doing _something_, so, in his dilemma, he
ordered some of the steerage bunks torn up in order to get two by four
lumber with which to patch the bow. It was wasted effort. The material
was too light to be serviceable. It did not last as long as it took to
put it on. One bump finished it.
There was among the passengers a ship-builder named Trahey. Being a
practical individual, he suggested chaining the anchor across the bow
and ramming the ice with it. This seemed to be all right, and we were
beginning to think that our troubles were over, but all of a sudden we
struck an ice floe about thirty feet thick. The anchor slid up the side
and tore out the planking. The Captain (and the rest of us as well) saw
that he was up against it. The boat began to take water. We all
realized that the situation had become serious.
Presently the click-click of the wireless was heard. Calls for help
were sent immediately. The first response was from the S. S. _Thedias_.
She replied that she was stuck in the ice off Nome and could render
assistance to no one. The second response was from the _Corwin_. She
lay off St. Michael. She refused to come to our aid for less than six
thousand dollars, which terms Captain W----, evidently valuing our
lives at nothing, refused to accept. We carried no freight. Already the
meals on the boat were getting poor, but at the moment no one was
troubled with a large appetite! The Captain would give out no
information as to his intentions, but it chanced that one of the
passengers, an old friend of mine, a former Passenger Agent for the
Santa Fe railroad, had been a telegraph operator and he kept me
informed as the wireless messages broke over the antenna.
In our helpless condition we began to drift toward the Arctic Ocean at
the rate of four miles an hour and we could not keep our minds from
reverting to the tragic experience of the _Portland_ which only a few
years previously had floated about the Polar Sea all summer. It is
needless to say that there was little sleep on the _St. Croix_ that
night. I retired at eleven-thirty but was up again at four and
entertained myself by watching the seals and walruses playing near the
boat.
We spent the next day, June twelfth, wondering what was to become of
us, but as is usually the case in such crises, after the first shock is
over one becomes philosophical about most things,--even the imminence
of death. No man in his right mind really fears death. But the sudden
realization that all one's plans have come to naught, that one shall
never realize his cherished dreams, the thoughts of loved ones far
away,--it is these and kindred things which make of it the staggering
proposition that it is. So the men on board realized the necessity of
keeping a stiff upper lip. We tried to make the others believe that we
were cheerful, and although none of us could stifle his vague
uneasiness we managed to keep it out of sight. In the afternoon a party
of us got out on the ice, chose sides and had a snow-ball battle. It
helped us to forget the seriousness of our plight and to amuse those
who watched from the boat. By nightfall we had drifted as far north as
latitude sixty-four, a few miles south of Nome. But--we danced on deck
until two in the morning, the thirteenth day of June.
I have always scouted the prevailing notion that there is any bad luck
connected with the number thirteen! I had no more than fallen asleep
when I was awakened by the jar of the machinery. My first thought was
that the Captain had decided to make a final attempt to buck the ice
and I was confident that this could have but one result,--the wrecking
of the boat. I dressed immediately and went on deck, only to come face
to face with another of those mysterious twists of fortune which
ofttimes in an instant turn danger to safety and just as frequently
make of apparent surety a disaster. Right ahead of us, as far as the
eye could see, was an open channel, straight as a die and just a little
wider than the boat!
All was activity now. It seemed only a moment until we were under way.
Once started we forged ahead with all possible speed in order that we
might get out of the ice pack before the channel should close again.
Luck favored us. A few hours later we landed at Nome. There was no coal
to be had here and as we had only enough for twelve hours, after
unloading the passengers the _St. Croix_ headed immediately for St.
Michael. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the _thirteenth_ day of
June, I reached my destination.
No steamers can land at the island. Both passengers and freight have to
be lightered ashore. The inner bay was filled with ice. We anchored
five miles out. I went ashore with a friend in his gasoline launch
which had been sent out for him. We left the _St. Croix_ at two-thirty,
and we had to get out several times and pull the boat along the ice
until we could launch her again in open water. At seven o'clock we
reached the beach. I stepped ashore and took a look at what was to be
my abiding-place for the next five years. Home was never like this! I
was informed that the largest building in sight was the Steamboat
Hotel. I took my way thither and was the sole occupant of this
now-historic hostlery for more than a week.
CHAPTER II
THE LAND OF TOMORROW
The writer lays no claim to being an historian, but a word in regard to
Alaska's early history and how the country came to be a part of our
national possessions may not be amiss.
When the Russians first came to the island of Unalaska they learned
from the natives there of a vast country lying to eastward, the name of
which was _Alayeksa_. Their own island, one of the Aleutian group, they
called _Nagun-Alayeksa_, which means "the land next to Alayeksa." As is
usually the case, especially in primitive languages, the word was
gradually modified and in time it assumed three different forms. The
Russians called the country itself _Alashka_. The peninsula became
_Aliaska_, the island _Unalaska_. In English the word changed once more
to the present name, _Alaska_, which means "The Great Country." It is a
fitting name. All honor to those two good Americans, Seward and Sumner,
who in the teeth of the most withering scorn, ridicule, and even
opprobrium, saved for our country her most glorious and valuable
possession,--the land discovered and partly explored by Vitus Bering in
1741.
The old saying that "Westward the star of empire takes its way" is not
applicable to Alaska. She enjoys a reputation wholly unique in the
history of nations. She is the only country acquired by any European
power in America because of expansion _eastward_. The territory which
lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River was our
inheritance from the mother country. The two Floridas, Texas, New
Mexico, and California we acquired, either directly or indirectly, from
Spain. From France we purchased Louisiana. But about the middle of the
sixteenth century there began in Russia a movement eastward similar to
that which followed (westward) the American Revolution in our own
country.
It was shortly after the overthrow of the Tartars and the establishment
of a national monarchy. But there was as much difference between the
motives underlying the westward movement in our country and the
eastward movement in Russia as there was in the character of the
pioneers who made them and the results which followed. The American
pioneer was either a fur trader, a prospector, a hunter, a missionary,
a soldier, or a farmer seeking land on which to settle. The Russian
pioneer was usually either a fugitive from justice or a proved criminal
who had been punished by exile to the vast wilderness which lay beyond
the confines of the empire.
Commercial and military motives exist in all countries, however, and in
this case both operated. The exigencies of commerce carry men to the
far corners of the earth. The trade in furs had long been a leading
industry in Russia. So as soon as it became known that the countries
east of the Russian empire were rich in fur-bearing animals,
particularly the highly-prized sable, the merchants at once sat up and
took notice! They hastened to extend their trade eastward as rapidly as
the country could be made Russian territory. So the Cossacks, pressing
ever onward, at last reached the Straits. Eastward through Siberia,
into Alaska they came for this purpose. Here they found not only furs
but huge quantities of ivory which was embedded in the drift along the
seacoast and the rivers.
It was during the reign of Peter the Great,--a reign which was
significant for many reasons. He it was who was responsible for the
promulgation of comprehensive exploring plans which resulted in the
discovery of Alaska. He fitted out an exploring party under command of
Vitus Bering, a Dane, who was accompanied by a Russian navigator named
Chirikof. The story of Bering's exploration is now too well known to
need elaboration here. On the morning of July sixteenth, 1741, Bering
records that he "came in sight of a rugged coast, presenting a vast
chain of mountains and a noble peak wrapped in eternal snows." This was
Mt. St. Elias.
For some reason which seems unaccountable and has never been explained,
Bering did not stop at this time for further exploration. Instead, he
set sail for home to report his discovery. He never reached Russia,
however. His boat, the _St. Peter_, was wrecked off a small island not
far from Kamchatka, where, on December eighth, 1741, the commander
died. He had discovered, explored, and named many of the small islands,
but his crew had suffered miserably from scurvy. Many had died. The
rest remained for nine months upon the little island which now bears
the commander's name,--Bering Island. The other boat, commanded by
Chirikof, had also a tragic experience. This navigator discovered the
coast of Alaska not far from Sitka. In an attempt to land ten of his
men were lost. A rescuing party sent in search of them met the same
fate. Both were victims of the cannibalistic residents of the coast.
They were sacrificed by the Kolosh Indians. A second rescuing party
went after the others but just as they neared the shore a party of
natives, looking as innocent as the cat who has eaten the canary,
suddenly appeared upon the bank. The little boat load of rescuers stood
not upon the order of their going. Regarding discretion as the better
part of valor, they turned and fled. A few months later, haggard and
famished, the remnant of the crew landed at Kamchatka.
Followed the long years of controversy in regard to trading privileges,
but in time these were, in a manner, adjusted. A hundred and
sixty-eight years later the United States added one more chapter in the
history and growth of our national interests on the Pacific. She
acquired Alaska. Beginning in Oregon, extending next to California,
where they received their most powerful impetus, these interests have
gradually increased to gigantic proportions. The markets of the Orient
became alluring. The Pacific railways were constructed. Not to have
profited by Russia's willingness to dispose of Alaska would have been
madness.
Perhaps the story (vouched for by Charles Sumner) of how the purchase
came about may also be of interest. It was during the administration
of President Buchanan, in 1859. An unofficial representative of the
President sounded the Russian minister as to the willingness of his
government to sell Alaska. Being asked quickly what the United States
would pay, the unofficial representative (who had not given the subject
serious consideration and who, if he had done so, would have had no
authority to answer such a question) was a bit nonplussed for the
moment. But he sent out a feeler by saying suggestively, "Oh,--about
five million dollars."
He saw at once that he had made an impression. He hastened to the
assistant Secretary of State and reported the affair to him. The latter
then approached the Russian minister, with the result that the matter
was brought definitely before the government. But----. The Civil War
broke out. And for the next six years there was no talk of buying
anything! During these years, however, the people of what is now the
State of Washington, along Puget Sound, had become deeply interested in
the fisheries. In 1866, through their legislature, they petitioned the
President of the United States to obtain for them from the Russian
government permission to fish in Alaskan waters, asking also for a more
complete exploration of the Pacific coast fisheries from "Cortez Bank
to Bering Sea." It was this petition which revived the discussion in
regard to the purchase of Alaska.
Fortune favored the project. As was the case with Napoleon, when he
agreed to the sale of the Louisiana territory, Russia, bled by one war
and already preparing for another, in danger of losing those of her
possessions which had been threatened by the British navy during the
Crimean war, the Russian-American Fur Company not disposed to accept
such modifications of its charter as the government saw fit to grant,
empowered the Archduke Constantine, brother of the Czar, to instruct
the Russian minister at Washington to cede the territory of Alaska to
the United States. Within a month all arrangements were complete. The
treaty was signed March thirtieth, 1867. The price at first agreed upon
was seven million dollars, but William H. Seward, Secretary of State,
offered to increase this amount by two hundred and fifty thousand
dollars on condition that Russia cede the territory "unencumbered by
any reservations, privileges, franchises, grants or possessions by
associated companies ... Russia or any other...."
It seemed for a while that there would be a hitch in the negotiations
due to the protest made by the Hudson Bay Company against this latter
demand. But Seward stood firm. He insisted, wisely, upon this
condition and secured it. Upon the entrance of the United States into
the game the Hudson Bay Company retired permanently from the scene.
CHAPTER III
ST. MICHAEL
It is only when one ventures forth upon so large a subject that he
realizes how inadequate, how incomplete the result must be even after
he has done his best. He may just as well acknowledge his shortcomings
in the outset and crave his readers' indulgence. It is the truth that
there is no man living who can or has the right to attempt to speak of
Alaska as a whole. A man might travel continuously for a whole year,
using every means of expedition at his command, not wasting a day
anywhere, journeying by land or sea, in winter and summer, taking
advantage of the "last ice" and the "first water," and yet he could not
begin to cover the country. In the far-distant corners, hidden away
from the eyes of man, one will come upon the scattered missions of the
various churches to reach which one must journey thousands of miles!
So, whenever a man from Nome speaks of Alaska he means that part of it
which he himself knows,--the Seward Peninsula. The man from Cordova,
or Valdez, talks of the Prince William Sound country and calls it
Alaska! The man from Juneau speaks of Alaska, but all that he means is
the southeastern coast. This is why so much that is written of the
country is contradictory. In fact, Alaska is not one but many
countries! And the various parts differ radically from each other.
Nature has separated them each from the other by obstacles almost
insuperable. They have different interests, different problems. Their
climate is not the same, nor their resources, nor their population.
Thus what is true of one part of Alaska may be (and often is) absurdly
untrue of another part.
Because much of my own experience here has centered about St. Michael
and because the little island is so large a part of the country's
fragmentary history I am indulging myself in the pleasure of telling
her story. When the Russian-American company was under the
administration of that able and high-minded official, Baron von
Wrangell, Michael Trebenkoff was sent out to establish a trading-post
on Norton Sound. In 1833 he built Redoubt St. Michael, putting it under
the protection of his patron Archangel. It was the second Russian port
on Bering Sea, Nushayak, in Bristol Bay, having been founded in 1818.
It is a quaint, historic little island, about twenty-two miles long and
six miles wide. It has one mountain, an extinct volcano, in the center
and is separated from the mainland by a narrow channel. The latter was
utterly useless for shipping, and a few years ago the government spent
quite an amount of money widening and improving it in order that, by
its use, the worst part of the sea voyage from St. Michael to the Yukon
river might be avoided. But it was misdirected effort. The boats do not
use it because of its narrowness. The canal, at the mouth of which is a
beacon, leads by a wandering course into St. Michael's Bay. I one day
asked Captain Polte, an old officer of one of the vessels, why the
canal was not used. "Well," he replied laconically, "we can't use it
when it's windy and when there's no wind we don't need it!" Reason
enough.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR DRESSED FOR THE TRAILS AT KOTLICK, MOUTH OF
THE YUKON]
[Illustration: AN ISLAND ON WHICH IS LOCATED ONE OF THE FINEST FOX
FARMS IN ALASKA]
[Illustration: NEARLY TWENTY THOUSAND FURS READY FOR SHIPMENT]
Some of the old log buildings on St. Michael still stand, mute
reminders of the day when the little island belonged to Russia. On a
point of rock one may still see the small octagonal block house inside
of which the diminutive but still-defiant rusty cannon arouse the
interest of all visitors. In the stormy pioneer days, so we are told,
these little six-pounders more than once proved effective when the post
was in danger. They were considered sufficiently historic to be
exhibited at the Seattle Exposition in 1909.
This is neither the time nor the place to record the story of the
Klondike stampede, but that part of it which affected the island may be
here related. When almost in the twinkling of an eye the desolate coast
of Bering Sea became a veritable highway of nations, when all the
available shipping facilities of the Pacific coast were soon exhausted,
when ships from the Atlantic began coming around the Horn, when every
part of the Pacific began to hum with Alaskan business,--the tide of
traffic found it necessary to separate. One part of it sailed through
the Inside Passage to Skagway. The other took the Outside Passage and
entered through St. Michael. It is not a very convenient port, it is
true, but it is the best there is. To St. Michael came all the heavy
merchandise, the immense stocks of goods for trading and for individual
use. This port thus became the gateway to the fabulously rich gold
fields of the Yukon. St. Michael is, therefore, a large part of the
history of the Klondike stampede.
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.
As is the case in all new countries many of the companies organized
during this busy period in Alaska's history have now passed out of
existence, due, no doubt, to too great haste in the beginning. The
Alaska Commercial Company was not slow in realizing the good fortune
which had come to her. All the business so suddenly born of the lure of
the gold fields was tossed into her lap. She had to build extensive
shipyards, install machine shops and build river craft. Stores,
warehouses, dwellings and an hotel were built at St. Michael. Rival
companies were organized,--the Alaska Exploration Company, the Alaska
Development Company, and many others. Only two of these survived for
any length of time, however. One was a Chicago concern--the North
American Trading and Transportation Company. The other was the Northern
Navigation Company. For a while these flourished. The establishment of
the former was across the Bay of St. Michael and was a little town in
itself. The latter was on the island. To-day, these, too, have passed.
The enterprises were not a success in recent years, and the plants are
deserted.
St. Michael lies about a hundred and twenty-five miles south of Nome.
It is hugged by the sea and therefore gets a certain amount of "damp"
cold in winter instead of the "strong" or the "still" cold of the
interior. Also, during the winter it is sometimes tragically
stormy--terrific high winds with no forests to break them. In summer,
however, it is delightful and most picturesque. It is covered by the
tundra--Russian moss--always fresh and beautiful, lying over the island
like a robe of soft green velvet. Plank sidewalks line the streets,
extending to the Army Post, and where the sidewalks end the walking
ends also in summer. To step off is to sink ankle deep in the soft
green moss.
Under the chapter devoted to the native races the subject of the
natives on St. Michael will be more fully dealt with. In other sections
of Alaska the natives are largely Indians. Here only the Eskimo is to
be seen. The visitor will encounter him everywhere in summer--in the
streets, loafing in the stores, beaching or launching his boat on the
water front, clad in the native costume, the _parka_, made of drill in
summer and of fur, beautiful in design, in winter, shod in _mukluks_.
At every turn one will find their handiwork for sale--carved ivories
from walrus tusks, baskets, fur boots. Should one wish an ivory
cribbage board there is no other place, with the possible exception of
Nome, where he will find so large a variety from which to choose. As
for the Eskimo woman,--well, in the far places of the world where there
is little civilization and no pretense whatever on the part of humanity
to be other than wholly natural one soon becomes accustomed to the
unusual! There is no commoner sight in St. Michael than that of the
native mother sitting in the street unconcernedly feeding her baby
(sometimes two of them) after Nature's most primitive and wholesome
method!
CHAPTER IV
NORTHERN LIGHTS
Alaska is a land of such wild beauty, so full of interest and charm,
that it seems a pity that so mistaken an idea persists in regard to her
climate. Yet that it does persist is scarcely to be wondered at. It is
the knowledge we acquire in childhood which usually abides with us
longest. So the preconceived idea which we absorbed in our youth from
both our histories and our geographies is hard to eradicate. "Our
country purchased this cold and barren land from Russia," we were
taught, and "Alaska is noted for her ice-covered seas and her
glaciers." Furthermore, when that far-sighted statesman, W. H. Seward,
negotiated, in 1867, for the purchase of this great territory from
Russia, the majority of Americans had so visualized Alaska as a country
of perpetual snows and glaciers that even the most important newspapers
and journals facetiously referred to the purchase as _Seward's
ice-box_.
Severe climatic conditions, while they do exist in the extreme Arctic
regions, are by no means typical of the country as a whole. The greater
part of Alaska lies in the North Temperate Zone. Southeastern Alaska is
comparatively mild. The Alaskan Peninsula, while rather frigid in
winter, is most enjoyable in summer. There is no fact, seemingly, which
is so hard to impress upon those who have never visited Alaska as that
in regard to the "strong" cold of the interior. Yet it _is_ a fact that
if one is prepared for it he does not find it uncomfortable. True, for
six months of the year the average temperature is below zero, and zero
in this country, instead of being at the bottom of the thermometer, is
half way up the scale! Fifty below is often recorded. Eighty below is
not unusual. And occasionally the mercury freezes and the thermometer
refuses to register! But----. It is the absolute and unvarnished truth
that the climate of the interior of Alaska is fully as comfortable in
winter as that of the northern part of the United States,--much more
comfortable than in those states and cities where one is subjected to
fogs and dampness in addition to low temperature. I have been colder
and far more uncomfortable in both Boston and Chicago than I ever was
in Alaska. In the interior there is practically no wind, no dampness.
The still, dry air is wonderfully invigorating, and heavily charged
with electricity. One frequently gets a shock from shaking hands,
while a kiss for one's best girl is a matter for prayerful
consideration!
One may wear in the Alaskan cities clothing of the same quality and
weight as that worn in the States. The addition of a fur coat will make
him thoroughly comfortable, even in the most extreme weather. This is
not true of the trails, however. One must resort to the _parka_, the
native costume with the long fur boots, if he wishes to be able to
resist the cold.
Spirit thermometers are expensive and so other means of taking the
temperature have been devised. Pain-killer is known to freeze at
forty-five and alcohol at seventy-five below zero. When the still cold
comes on the pain-killer is put out. When it freezes, the alcohol
replaces it. When the latter freezes we give it up with a feeling that
it really does not matter how much colder than seventy-five below it
is!
We are familiar with the old legend to the effect that the abode of the
Hyperboreans was in some distant region far beyond the North Wind! That
it was a Paradise, the Elysian Fields, a land of perpetual sunshine and
marvelous fertility, inaccessible by land or by sea! I have often had
occasion to ponder upon this legend during my various journeyings in
Alaska. Did you ever take a _daylight_ photograph by the _Midnight_
Sun? I have. Did you ever sun yourself, at midnight, at a picnic? Or
try to sleep in a land where there is no such thing as night? Where
there are twenty-four hours of sunshine, necessitating the curtaining
of the windows in order to be able to keep one's eyes closed and to
obtain for both eyes and nerves that real rest which comes only with
the darkness? I have, many times.
Nowhere else in all the world are there such wondrous tints as in
Alaska. To appreciate the beauty of the land, however, one needs must
be an early riser. To have seen the marvelous change which comes over
the pure whiteness of the snow-crowned crests between the darkness and
the dawn! The tender violet becomes topaz, the topaz deepens into gold.
The gold merges into burnished copper, the copper into rose, the rose
into crimson, and then--the day is born! No man can see the dawn break
over the mountain tops, especially if it be in a lonely,
sparsely-peopled land, without feeling as did the poet when he wrote:
"For I know of a sun and a wind.
And some plains and a mountain behind,
Where there's neither a road nor a tree--
Only my Maker and me!"
In Alaska, as elsewhere, we have a land of contrasts, it is true. In
December there are but two and a half hours of daylight. At noon the
sun throws long horizontal rays and on cloudy days the colors of the
sunrise merge into those of the sunset! And there is ever the long
twilight--no matter what time of the year it may be. On the shortest
day there are slight traces of daylight from about nine until three
o'clock.
He who has never seen the winter night in Alaska has missed one of the
most beautiful sights in the whole world. In many other corners of this
earth I have watched the coming of the night but nowhere else has it
ever moved me so deeply. Here, as nowhere else, "the heavens declare
the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork!" How many
times have I sat in my door-way and watched the ending of the day. If
there have been a few flying clouds during the afternoon they seldom
fail to clear at evening. One by one the stars come out. From some
remote darkness long meteors slip silently and shoot across the
heavens, leaving phosphorescent trails, their scattered star dust,
behind them. The features of the distant mountains, so lovable by day,
become grim, hard, forbidding, when at nightfall they gather their gray
hoods about their heads and go to sleep, standing! Ah, the wild, weird
beauty of an unpeopled land!
The old Italian adage "See Naples and die!" never fails to spring to my
mind whenever I look out upon the dark, crisp, bespangled night sky in
Alaska. Over all its other brilliancy the vivid tones of the Aurora,
flashes of green and red, shoot riotously. The Northern Lights! Only in
Alaska does one see them in all their gorgeous glory! If sentiment be a
part of man's make-up (and where is he who can deny it?), the lover of
the _Land of Tomorrow_ will not even attempt to stifle in his heart a
wish that is almost a prayer. It is that when the hour shall come for
him to venture forth into that undiscovered country whence no traveler
returns, the Northern Lights may light him on his way!
CHAPTER V
GREAT OPPORTUNITIES
If the idea that Alaska is the "land of ice and snow" is gradually
disappearing another idea just as erroneous seems likely to take its
place. This is that Alaska is the "land of gold." While it is true that
along her streams and in the heart of her mountains lie minerals of the
value of which no man can speak truly, the gold mines of Alaska are by
no means her greatest asset. Her farms and fisheries, her enormous coal
fields, the thousand and one opportunities to make money which do not
exist in older localities are here to be had with small effort and
little or no capital. I could cite many instances of those who have
acquired wealth in this country from almost infinitesimal beginnings.
A wealthy man of my acquaintance who now owns a four story building
covering a whole block in Seattle went to Nome when the great rush was
on. Unlike the others he neither sought for gold nor located mines. All
he possessed was a boat. He established a ferry on Snake River, which
is only about fifty or sixty feet wide. He charged twenty-five cents a
trip. As soon as he got together a little sum he bought a steamboat
which had been wrecked on the river and converted it into a lodging
house. Two years later he was president of a bank!
This is only one instance of hundreds which are a matter of personal
knowledge. I know of four sisters who came to this country after a hard
struggle in the States. They bought a few wash tubs and opened a
laundry. Two of them mended for the miners. The other two washed and
ironed. They netted a hundred dollars a day! Two of them married. The
other two opened a millinery and dry goods store. They made a fortune.
They live in the west now and could live in affluence if they so
desired. They have invested in government bonds and other safe
securities and are the best exemplification of the possibilities of the
Great North that I know.
One thing which I should like to make plain and which is an item of
value to the prospective resident is this: Alaska is a country where
unfair dealing or trickery is not tolerated. In the early days when
food was worth its weight in gold, when one was forced to pay fifteen
dollars for an oyster stew and one dollar for a cup of coffee, this
fact was made plain and nobody has tried it since to my knowledge. A
fellow who had set up an eating house was caught one day putting sperm
candles in the soup to give it a rich flavor. The miners made short
work of that man. They put him in a boat, took away the oars and set
him adrift down the Yukon! In my first years in this country the
appearance of the first boat which got through the ice in the spring
was a great event. We knew it would bring us fresh vegetables and eggs.
This was before the days when we raised crops of any kind. Cheerfully
we paid the fabulous prices for tomatoes, grape fruit, eggs and such
things. And not infrequently we ate all that we purchased at one
sitting!
In listing the business opportunities in Alaska perhaps one may as well
begin with that most important asset of any country,--the land itself.
Any of the valleys on Cook Inlet contain many acres of good
agricultural land, some of which is timbered. The coast line from
Wrangell to the Aleutian Peninsula, split by many streams, has also
many acres. The better place to locate, however, is near the large
towns. The Susitna and Matanuska valleys hold the coal fields and near
them are thousands of acres where the wild hay for cattle grows in
great abundance. There is much less loss of stock in Alaska in winter
than in Montana and the Dakotas. The coldest day on the Alaskan coast
last winter south of the Aleutian Islands was above zero. For fifteen
years (and this is as long as the records have been kept) there has
never been a week when the average temperature has been as cold as that
of New York, Washington or Philadelphia. Alaska's climate gives the lie
to her latitude.
It is, of course, the Japan current which transforms this part of
Alaska. What magic it works,--this warm, life-giving stream! It clothes
the northern isles in green vegetation, makes the silk-worm flourish
far north of its rightful locality and brings warmth and joy to the
dwellers of the Far North.
The government has committed itself to a new policy of development in
Alaska. The vast riches of this country are not to be exploited at
haphazard or at the whim or the will of private corporations or
individuals. The national shoulders have been squared to the task of
developing the country and her resources in a manner conservative,
sane, and in keeping with the magnitude of the interests at stake.
Practically all the land and natural resources of the country are still
the property of the United States.
There is a plan on foot for the creation of a Development Board, to be
appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It includes
the voting of an appropriation sufficient to obtain men of ability who
will devote themselves to the task and _who will live in Alaska_! This
is as it should be. Alaska's interests, now batted back and forth
between the General Land Office, the Forest Service, the Road
Commission, the Bureau of Mines, the Bureau of Education and the
Secretary of the Interior, would all be handled by one body whose
_raison d'être_ would be the welfare of Alaska. All her activities are
closely related. All are a part of one huge problem and all should be
directed by one governing board.
[Illustration: "SIMROCK MARY'S" HERD OF REINDEER COMING OVER THE HILL]
[Illustration: SLEDDERS OFF FOR PROVISIONS FOR THE REINDEER HERDERS]
[Illustration: PRIBILOF ISLANDS WHERE UNCLE SAM PROTECTS THE FUR SEAL]
[Illustration: COUNTLESS THOUSANDS OF "MURRS" HAVE MADE THIS ISLAND
THEIR OWN]
There are sixty-four million acres of agricultural land in Alaska which
can be made valuable for tilling and grazing. Some of this is already
under cultivation but there is not yet an output more than sufficient
to supply the home markets. The farming area, according to the surveys
which have been made, is as large as the combined area of the States of
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire, and in the opinion of the
Department of Agriculture this area ought to be capable of supporting a
population nearly equal to that supported by the farm products of these
states.
Almost every kind of a crop can be raised in Alaska, although corn
will not grow at all and the soil is not particularly good for wheat.
But barley, oats, rye, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, tomatoes, and
nearly all the common garden vegetables have been grown successfully.
The potatoes are of the best quality and run several hundred bushels to
the acre.
Wild fruits grow abundantly. Nearly every kind of berry (except the
cranberry) can be raised here. Only two years after the terrible
eruption of Mt. Katmai, on the Alaskan Peninsula just opposite Kodiak
Island, the ash-laden hillsides were again covered with verdure. The
rich green grass grew as high as a man's head and it really seemed that
the eruption was the best thing that had ever happened for Kodiak. The
grass not only grew high. It grew much earlier than it ever had before
and the berries were much larger and more luscious than they had been
before the ash covered the land. The berry crop was enormous. Kodiak,
like Ireland, is now an "Emerald Isle." The eastern part of it is
covered with a magnificent forest of spruce beyond which lies luxuriant
grass land, the abundance and quality of which for hay and forage is
not approached by any grazing land in the United States. It is equaled
only by the "guinea grass" of the tropics. At present this part of the
country is almost entirely neglected. But one of these days the stock
raisers of the world will wake up. They will find no finer spot on
earth for the promulgation of their industry than the Island of Kodiak.
Of the berries which grow in Alaska the most important is the "Molina"
berry. In shape and appearance it is much like our blackberry, or a
cross between the blackberry and raspberry. When picked it comes loose
from the receptacle like the raspberry. These berries grew in Kodiak
before the eruption, it is true, but they were much smaller and less
palatable and the vines were much less hardy and vigorous. In one
respect they resemble the persimmon. They have an astringent taste
which disappears only when the berry is dead ripe. But they are
extremely delicate of flavor,--distinctive in that they resemble in
taste nothing else that I know and when served with sugar and cream
they are excellent.
There are two varieties of blueberries. One is known as the high-bush
blueberry and the other is known as the low-bush berry. I have always
thought it a little strange that the cranberry does not grow here.
Conditions seem good for it. But it does not.
When the railroad is completed (which will be soon), when the farmer
has an outlet for his produce and can enter the markets of the
"Outside," the future of Alaska will be secured. The government is now
selling the land at most reasonable rates. For four hundred dollars one
can buy a three hundred and twenty acre farm. Pioneers are rapidly
taking advantage of this to become independent land owners.
Time was in the United States when, beyond the Mississippi, Wilderness
was King! But this did not prevent the settler from breaking his way
through. So it is in Alaska. The trees are being hewn down for
clearings and in those clearings homes are springing up. More men each
year are locating homesteads and bringing their families with them,
secure in the knowledge that their children can be educated in Alaskan
schools, fed with Alaskan meat and vegetables, their bills paid in
Alaskan gold. There is a market for everything that can be grown and
this market will be much enlarged by the increased population which the
railroad will bring. Alaska will soon be a populous and prosperous
country and will one day ask admission to the Union. When she comes in,
bringing her six hundred thousand square miles, she will be the largest
State. Texas, so long the giant, will be a dwarf in comparison.
To sum up, then, the opportunities which offer themselves in
Alaska,--there are (1) cattle ranges of enormous size; (2) immense
salmon shoals; (3) huge tracts of farming land; (4) large forests (in
certain sections) of fine timber; (5) an almost unlimited supply of
fur. The United States has no tin mines except in Alaska. There is
enough coal buried under the soil to keep the whole world warm for five
thousand years! The coal, tin and gold must be mined. Here is a chance
for large numbers of workmen. The fish must be caught and canned. The
canneries employ large numbers of men. But the crying need of the
country is for homesteaders, because the agricultural development is of
prime importance to Alaska and to the world. The first binder operated
in Fairbanks in 1911 and the first threshing machine in 1912. In time
implement houses will be needed. Manufacturing enterprises offer a rich
field. At present (1918) there is not a single grain mill in the
country. This may be due, however, to the fact that there is not yet a
large enough amount of grain raised to justify the building of mills.
But in time there will be. There is unlimited water power for their
operation.
Mr. Michael O'Kee, a Yukon Territory gardener, is regarded as the
Luther Burbank of Alaska. He has specialized in berries and has proved
that they may be grown just as well around the Arctic Circle as in
sun-kissed California. Also, he has grown cabbages weighing eighteen
pounds with heads hard and sound.
Reindeer breeding is fast becoming an important factor, and here again
one must revert to the land. Reindeer need space, for they are the beef
of Alaska and must have pasturage. This pasturage is always to be had.
Reindeer steaks are and have been for a long time regularly quoted on
the Seattle markets. That they will one day figure conspicuously in our
meat supply cannot be questioned. Already the big packing concerns have
sent their representatives to look over the ground. There is one
drawback to this industry, however, which will have to be adjusted and
regulated before it can become profitable. The cost of shipping is now
prohibitive. Alaska has now a hundred thousand reindeer. Within the
next ten years she will have three million.
A well-known mining engineer of Los Angeles who has recently studied
the resources of Alaska has thus summed up his belief:
(1) The reindeer ranches of the Far North are destined to solve
the meat question for the United States.
(2) The fisheries of the north coast waters will be able to
furnish practically all the sea food for the entire country within
the next century.
(3) The gold, copper and other valuable mines of Alaska have
scarcely been scratched, and the next few years will see an
Alaskan boom not now dreamed of by the most optimistic business
men of the United States.
CHAPTER VI
POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Until recent years one administration after another completely ignored
the real worth of Alaska. It was organized as a "non-contiguous
territory" in 1886. Not until seventeen years later was it supplied
with a form of government of any kind, and even then the laws of Oregon
were extended to it. In 1899, however, gold was discovered in the sand
on the beach at Nome! The attention of Congress was promptly directed
to this "non-contiguous territory" and the next year (1900) actual
civil government was granted. In 1906 the first representative was sent
to Congress. In 1912 a territorial assembly, with limited powers, was
authorized.
To say that Alaska has suffered and been hindered in her development by
this legislative apathy on the part of Congress would be putting it
mildly. First of all, one of the greatest needs of any new country was
wholly lacking. The absence of any kind of a criminal code was a bit
appalling. It is a matter of record that once the settlers, in dire
need, were forced to seek the protection of the English navy! There was
also a lack of proper legal, medical and educational facilities, and as
Alaska's importance increased she became a helpless victim of political
conditions some of the results of which were serious. One of these
results was an unnecessary Forest Service. Another was the belated
opening of the coal fields. A third was a long period of very meagre
transportation facilities.
The discussion of all these important matters by government officials
was lengthy and profound. But, as usual, wherever and whenever new
policies are projected there is always the pessimist who stubbornly
blockades progress. Alaska was no exception. So advance in her affairs
was negligible.
One hears much, especially in these restless days, of the red tape
which results from the lack of coördination in our government. But,
with the possible exception of the Secretary of the Interior, only one
who has dwelt in Alaska can appreciate to what lengths it extends. In
an article published not long ago in the _Outlook_, Mr. Franklin K.
Lane, Secretary of the Interior, expressed himself forcibly upon this
subject as it concerned Alaska, making use of the following
illustration:
"A citizen who wished to lease an Alaskan island for fox farming
carried on a correspondence with three different departments of the
Federal Government for several months in an effort to find out which
had jurisdiction and authority to make the lease. It was finally
decided that none of them did!"
Further investigation brought forth the following astonishing facts:
The control of Alaskan lands is in one department, the control of
forests in another. The control of roads is in a third, of fisheries in
a fourth, of railroads in a fifth! The black bear is entrusted to one
department and the brown bear to another! Cables and telegraphs comes
under another department, reindeer and the native races under still
another. Entry for homestead or mineral land, if it lie _outside_ the
national forest, is made through one department, if _within_ the
national forest through another. Timber in the national forest is sold
at auction under the _Department of Agriculture_. Timber outside the
national forest is sold (under wholly different rules and regulations)
under the _Department of the Interior_. One may export the pulp made
from timber in the public lands, but the timber itself may not be
exported.
A child could readily understand how all this, or much of it, might be
avoided by the creation of governmental offices in Alaska with
sufficient officers to get over the large territory which must be
covered. As a further illustration of what all this red tape means to
those desiring to live in the north I cite a case (also referred to by
Secretary Lane) which came to my personal knowledge. On October ninth,
1906, Mrs. Mary A. Dabney, of Seattle, filed a claim, recording the
location on this day. The survey was made September twenty-fourth,
1908. It was approved by the Surveyor General January twenty-first,
1909. Application for patent was made March twenty-fourth, 1909. There
was no protest against the validity of Mrs. Dabney's claim, and no
conflicting claims. But the mineral entry was not patented until
October seventeenth, 1913--_seven years after the claim was filed_! Had
there been an officer on the ground, with power to act, with authority
to investigate and prepare the case for the General Land Office all
this long wait would have been avoided.
This lack of coördination affects almost every phase of Alaskan life
and industry. Certain islands are set apart as bird reserves under
protection (?) of the Biological Survey which sends a keeper _in
summer_ to guard one or two of the islands! At other times they are
unprotected. Game animals are supposedly under the protection of
wardens hired by and under the direction of the Governor of Alaska.
These wardens enforce the rules of the Department of Agriculture and
are paid out of the appropriation of the Department of the Interior!
Fur-bearing animals are under the protection of wardens appointed by
the Secretary of Commerce and working under the regulations of the
Department of the Interior. The Department of Agriculture has sole
authority over the animals which are shipped as specimens for
scientific and propagating purposes, except reindeer, which are
controlled by the Department of the Interior.
Not long ago it was discovered by the Bureau of Education that the
walruses were being slaughtered by the wholesale. As this is a menace
to the food supply of both the natives and their dogs the Bureau at
once reported it to Washington. The report was turned over to the
Department of Agriculture and this Department promptly decided that the
killing was illegal. When it came to putting into motion the machinery
to stop it, however, the usual thing occurred. There was no machinery
available to prevent it.
The prize story along this line, however, is the evidence in the case
of the black bear _versus_ the brown bear. Some years ago a law was
passed making the brown bear a game animal. The law was intended to
protect the Kodiak bear, the "great brown bear" as it is called. So the
brown bear passed under the control of the Department of Agriculture.
The black bear, recognized as a fur-bearing animal, remained under the
jurisdiction of the Department of Commerce. And then the fun began!
Scarcely a litter of black bear cubs but contains one or more brown
ones! To which Department of our National Government shall the little
brown brothers and sisters be awarded? One protests against the
separation of families in this manner! The question we are asking
ourselves and which yet remains to be solved is: Is _a_ brown bear of
Alaska _the_ brown bear?
The Forest Service as it was inaugurated also proved a detriment. Rules
and regulations which worked well in the States could not be
intelligently applied to Alaska. As an illustration,--there was a
territorial law in force at the time the Service took charge which
forbade the shipment of timber into the United States. Under the new
Service, timber might be exported provided stumpage were paid to cover
the Service's expenses. In case of the reserve forest on the Alexander
Archipelago, however, an exception was made. This forest was withdrawn
(it was said) in order that the timber kings could not rifle it for
export purposes. Yet----. The old territorial law would have furnished
ample protection and would have been a better measure of conservation
than the one introduced by the Forest Service.
Any system which imposes irritating restrictions (as this one
undoubtedly did) upon the pioneers of a sparsely-peopled country is a
mistake for many reasons. Such a system never fails to operate against
itself. And this system proved a boomerang. Under it the railroads,
wishing to buy Alaskan lumber for construction purposes, had to pay for
it at the stumpage rates of the Forest Reserve! Meanwhile Alaska was
suffering for lack of transportation facilities and it is difficult for
even the most optimistic conservative enthusiast to see _improvement_
in such measures.
The belated opening of the coal fields was but one more instance of the
legislative indifference which hindered Alaska's development. Eastern
coal operators were shipping coal in large quantities to the Pacific
coast. In Alaska the belief was general that when the Panama Canal was
once in operation these operators would intrench themselves strongly on
the coast, confident that they would be able to compete with operators
from Alaska as soon as the latter's coal fields were released.
Naturally, the first man on the ground would have the advantage and the
Alaskans grew almost desperate as time went by and the troublesome
situation was not relieved. In 1914, however, a bill was passed in
Congress which authorized the leasing of the coal fields and permitted
the lessee to rent two thousand five hundred and sixty acres at a
yearly rental of one dollar an acre, this to be applicable on the
royalty demanded, which was two cents a ton.
In the matter of highways Alaska was also handicapped. Wheeled traffic
here was out of the question until roads were built. Railroads which
can not touch the interior are limited as to their usefulness. The
highways are of paramount importance to the development of any country.
But a Board of Commissions for Alaska was organized a few years ago and
since then the building of roads has increased.
Even in the face of all these handicaps and difficulties, however, we
are not pessimistic. In time they will, they _must_, adjust themselves.
As soon as sufficient roads are built to enable settlement it will be
only a question of time (and a short time at that) until Alaska will
become self-supporting. Her vast resources can not be dealt with
singly. They must be dealt with as a whole. When once the United States
grasps Alaska's needs and conditions, when her receipts and
disbursements pass through a single, responsible Board which shall each
year report to Congress the revenues and expenses, the government will
undoubtedly form an Alaskan budget which will render legislation in her
behalf much simpler and more intelligent.
CHAPTER VII
THE PARALLEL STEEL BARS
As is the case in all new countries the most serious problem that has
yet confronted Alaska has been the lack of railroads. All men recognize
that in the parallel steel bars lie the means of unlocking the
treasures of an empire. In them rest the future successful or
unsuccessful attempts to develop the resources of any new land.
When the importance of building railroads in Alaska became apparent the
old, old serpent, the cobra of civilization, raised its head and spread
its hood. Should those roads already built in the country be left to
private interests, such as the Morgan-Guggenheim Syndicate, at the risk
of a possibly unfair monopoly in the future? Or should the United
States own and control them? The question was long and strongly argued.
But the matter was definitely decided on March twelfth, 1914, when
Congress voted in favor of government ownership.
The President was directed to "locate, build, or purchase and operate"
a system of railroads at a cost not to exceed thirty-five million
dollars. William C. Eads was made Chairman of the Railroad Commission.
Construction was commenced in 1915, with Anchorage, on Cook Inlet, for
a base. The Alaska and Northern Railway was purchased and became a part
of the new system. The road, beginning at Seward, was to run along the
southern coast through the Susitna Valley and Broad Pass to the Tanana
River, with a terminal at Fairbanks. Its length, including a short
branch to the Matanuska coal fields, was to be five hundred and four
miles.
In eight months' time a right of way was cleared for forty miles and
thirteen miles of track laid. Then came a halt. The inevitable labor
troubles broke forth. These were finally adjusted, however, and the
construction resumed, and it was hoped by the fall of 1917 to reach the
Menana coal fields, about a hundred miles south of Fairbanks.
We are prone to believe that when the money to build a railroad has
been appropriated the most important and difficult part of the job is
accomplished. This is a huge mistake. For the Congress of the United
States to vote thirty-five million dollars to build a railroad in
Alaska was easy. To build that road was an herculean undertaking.
Fairbanks is the geological center of the country. To reach it from the
coast the engineer must break through a wilderness of forest and
mountains, swamps and glaciers. They must haul a great quantity of
material by sledges in winter so that the construction of many special
roads may not be necessary. The experience gained in Panama, and the
recent opening of the coal mine near the road already completed, helped
considerably, but the perils involved in engineering in Alaska, coupled
with the rigorous winter weather, are those of all similar projects
multiplied by ten!
To illustrate by but one instance (and it will give some idea of the
labor involved) in the first forty miles of the line there are
sixty-seven bridges! Many of them span deep and almost inaccessible
cañons. During the winter months the snow, sometimes twenty-five to
thirty feet deep, had to be removed before the work could be carried
on, and during the time of building the temperature varied little. It
was twenty to forty below zero all the time! Nevertheless the men
worked courageously on and spring found them far on the way.
One of the most brilliant feats of engineering that has yet been
achieved was accomplished during the building of the Copper River
railroad in Alaska. To me it seemed little short of phenomenal. It was
necessary to span Miles Glacier. The bridge is fifteen hundred feet
long. There is a double turn in the river here, and it flows between
the two faces of the Miles and Childs glaciers, both "living," a sheer
three hundred feet. The engineers were well aware that when the spring
"break-up" should come, thousands of icebergs would come battering down
the defile. Would it be possible to erect a bridge with four spans, the
abutments of which could be made sufficiently strong to withstand the
onslaught of these icebergs, propelled as they were by the twelve mile
current of the river? Everybody (except the engineers) declared it
impossible.
When I remember how intensely interested I myself became in watching
the progress of this wonderful building I often wonder what the
feelings must have been of those to whom success or failure meant so
much,--the builders themselves. Never shall I forget the tenseness of
the closing days of that undertaking,--the grim, silent determination
written in the faces of those men! In spite of the Doubting Thomases
(of whom, I confess, I was one) the thing was triumphantly, gloriously
accomplished.
It was at the cost of two years of the stiffest fighting that Man has
ever put up against Nature. The great concrete piers, begun through the
winter ice, were driven forty to fifty feet through the river bottom
and there anchored. The solid concrete was reinforced with steel. A row
of eighty pound rails, set a foot apart all around, the whole structure
bound together with concrete, were placed next. Then above the piers,
ice-breakers, similarly constructed, were planted.
It was conceded in the beginning that no false work would stand against
the battering ice. Therefore the work of connecting the piers with the
steel road-way must be done in winter. It was a cruel and trying task.
The weather did its worst. It was bitter cold. Snow storms were
practically continuous. The piercing wind blew sixty to ninety miles an
hour and the fine particles of snow hurled by the gale cut and stung
one's face like shot.
When the last span was almost in place there came a most appalling
moment. The "false work," as the supports are technically called and
which in this case consisted of two thousand piles driven forty feet
into the bottom of the river, suddenly moved fifteen inches! The ice, a
solid sheet, was borne on a twelve knot current. Into it the piles had
been frozen as solidly as a rock. The spring break-up had begun in the
river. The ice-cap, lifted twenty feet above its winter bed, began to
move!
The false work with its mass of unfinished steel was fifteen inches out
of plumb. Not to get it back meant that communication with the other
side could not be established that winter. The engineers recognized
that at any moment the whole span, supports and all, might be carried
away. The magnitude of the fight they would have to put up in order to
prevent this was realized by all of them. But they determined not to
lose heart.
I shall never forget the scene which followed. It was like a huge
motion picture and I have always regretted that a camera man was not at
hand to preserve it. Steam from every available engine was turned into
every available feed pipe. Every man in camp was put to work chopping
the seven-foot ice away from the piles. At last this was done. That
which followed was the climax of the picture. It was a scene which
could never fade from the memory of him who saw it. During that
stinging Arctic day and the night which followed it, _during which the
river rose twenty-one feet_, the piles were kept free from ice while
hundreds of cross-pieces were unbolted! Then the shifting into place
began,--at first but one inch a day, then two, three, then four inches
a day. The melting and the chopping went on unceasingly, no one daring
to relax his vigilance for one moment unless there was a man at his
elbow to take his place. Anchorages were quickly made in the ice above
the bridge. Feverishly every man, from the chief engineer to the last
laborer, worked while that whole four hundred and fifty feet of
intricate bridge work was coaxed, inch by inch, back into its place.
Finally, at midnight, after an eighteen hour day of one shift, the
anxious and weary men had the happiness and the satisfaction of seeing
the great span settle down on its concrete bed. The last bolt was
driven in. One hour later,--the river broke loose! In less time than it
takes to record it the whole four hundred and fifty feet of false work
was a pile of chaotic wreckage. But the river had been vanquished. It
had lost the fight by a single hour! The people of Alaska and the
United States Government can never sufficiently reward such men as
these. Mere money can not pay for such achievement.
In contrast to the strenuous experience just related the builders of
the White Pass and Yukon road had a most amusing episode to record. The
bears in the vicinity got altogether too friendly. At first the
blasting frightened them. But they soon learned to follow the example
of the men and scuttle to shelter until it was over. They became so
crafty that nothing which could possibly be eaten was safe unless some
one watched it night and day. The bears actually learned to recognize
the warning shouts of the foreman and to secrete themselves so
cunningly that in the temporary absence of the men they could sneak out
of their hiding place and steal the contents of the workmen's dinner
pails! It might have been funny had it not been that the men were often
far from a base of supplies and facing the possibility of starvation.
Now, in Alaska we have a method of dealing with thieves which is
usually effective, but in this case it did not work. The bears could
not read! Every dweller in Alaska has heard the story of William
Yanert. He came into the country from God-knows-where and built himself
a cabin in the Yukon Flats. He calls his abode "Purgatory." Nobody
knows why he lives there or what particular sin he is accepting
punishment for, as the name of his cabin would indicate. We do not
often ask questions on such subjects in Alaska. And Yanert seems
absolutely contented with his lot! When the Mounted Police began
driving undesirable characters out of Dawson, however, Yanert returned
several times from hunting trips to find that his cabin had been robbed
of supplies which he had laid in for the winter. He resolved that the
next time he left home he would leave warning, and while he was
pondering upon the most effective method of doing so he heard a noise
at the back of his house and went to investigate. He peeped out and saw
a Canada jay (known commonly in Alaska as a "whisky-jack" or a
"camp-robber") picking away at his bacon. He shot the bird. Then with
the grimmest sort of humor he buried it in a full-sized grave, shaping
it just as though a man were lying there. He fashioned a headboard on
which he painted in letters so heavy that none could fail to read:
HE
ROBBED MY CAMP AND I
SHOT HIM.
Yanert had no further trouble with looters.
The importance and the significance of the construction of the
government railroad are things which can be rightly appreciated only by
those who live, or have lived, in Alaska. In another year (1919) unless
delayed by the war, Pullman cars for the comfort and convenience of
passengers will be running from Fairbanks to the sea. Freight cars will
carry the great resources of the country from "Interior" to "Outside."
But while these things mean much to Alaska there is one thing which
means much more. This is the construction of a _government railroad
leading into the United States_! This is a thing I have not even heard
discussed and the possibility of such an enterprise, so far as I know,
has not yet been sounded. Only two-fifths of Alaska is mapped! But one
has but to stop and think a moment in order to realize that such a road
would be of untold value. And this value is not alone commercial, by
any means. Is not Alaska a country worth having? I think so. America
thinks so. _Japan thinks so!_ It is by no means outside the possibility
of conception that, coveting her, she may one day attempt to possess
her. In the event of such a contingency, unless conditions are altered
(and that without delay), Alaska may one day be lost to us. She is now
reached only by the sea. Soldiers and sailors must enter the country by
that route. How about a transport or a battleship? In time of war would
they be able to reach Alaskan ports?
These are questions on which the thoughtful will not fail to ponder.
Alaska's one defense in time of need would be the army, and that army,
in order to reach her, would have to run the gauntlet of a naval
enemy's fleet. The gravity of such a situation would be much lessened
by the ability to transport military forces (whether the times be those
of peace or war) to Alaska via a Canadian-American railroad!
CHAPTER VIII
FLOWERS AND BIRDS OF THE NORTHLAND
Whenever I look back over the pleasurable experiences which belong to
the years I have spent in the Northland I find my thoughts dwelling
upon my first summer in St. Michael. Here the summer comes almost in a
day, and following upon the heels of a rigorous winter so closely, the
contrast is little short of startling. Knowing naught of this sudden
transformation, I was not prepared for it. But I well recall a day in
June when I looked out from my door-way and wondered whether there
could be another spot on earth so beautiful. Gone instantly was every
memory of the dark, bleak months that had just passed. The snow still
lingered on the distant mountain tops, it is true. Great masses of pure
white clouds rolled upon the intensely blue sky. The vegetation was in
all its vivid freshness, the tundra carpeted with flowers. Even the
reeking Arctic moss itself had burst into myriad brilliant flowers. It
was the season of perpetual day,--twenty-four long hours of continuous
sunshine. Nature seemed to be rejoicing in her own beauty and all the
green things of the earth praised God!
I can not resist the temptation to devote a small space to the flowers
and birds of Alaska. Even I who lived a good many years in our own
golden west, where flowers are by no means a scarcity, or a rarity,
always feel a tendency to enthuse and become expansive when I think of
the beauteous wild flowers of the Northland. They lift their dainty
heads out of the tundra and seem to smile radiantly at you as you pass.
I confess that when I saw the tundra first it did not make any
particular hit with me! And this feeling is shared by many when first
they come. I recall one of our Alaskan poets who must have shared it,
for I find among his effusions a couplet to this effect:
"Sometimes it's as soggy as sawdust!
Sometimes it's as soft as a sponge!"
Like many others I had gone to Alaska with a mental picture of a great,
snow-covered expanse which stretched away for illimitable miles in
loneliness and silence. But one day as I walked along I suddenly saw--a
little yellow flower. I began to wonder whether wild flowers grew here.
A little investigation brought astonishing results.
I found yellow poppies as much at home as in my own California!
Daisies, both white and yellow! There is a little blossom resembling in
form and grace the sweet pea, but it is a rich, deep indigo blue. I do
not know its name, or whether it has a name. The tiny blue
forget-me-nots, the beautiful gold-and-purple iris, dainty anemones,
and many others which I know not how to name. There is a starry white
flower like a cherry blossom, a yellow bloom resembling a cowslip.
There is the blue corn-flower, the wild heliotrope, immortelles, purple
asters, violets and, most interesting of all, a purple bleeding-heart!
Why purple, I wonder? In addition to these there are beautiful wild
grasses, exquisite mosses with wondrous weeping tendrils and star-like
blossoms. And there is a little crimson vine which grows like patches
of red velvet and clings very close to the green moss.
I grew to love the tundra, whatever the time or the season. From the
first warm days of the spring until the snow came swishing down and
wrapped it in its soft white blanket, I enjoyed its every mood. In
summer it is as beautiful as the seemingly more favored spots of the
earth. In winter----. There is always the great, white, silent expanse
which one grows to love also. For I find the feeling to be general
among those who live in the Northland that it is not in her milder
moods that Alaska calls to us loudest. One is most deeply conscious of
hidden and gigantic forces,--untrodden heights, to which one can never
attain, even in spirit! There may be those who hold that the tundra is
desolate, dreary. Not I!
The most striking of all the wild flowers that I have ever seen in
Alaska is a species of white _claytonia_. It grows in rings as large as
a dinner plate. These floral rings are dropped here and there upon the
green moss and in the center of the ring is a rosette of pointed green
leaves pressed close to the ground. Around this rosette grows the ring
of flowers made up of forty or fifty individual blossoms, all springing
from the same root, their faces turned _outward_ from the green
rosette. In certain places these circles grow so close together that
one can scarcely walk without stepping upon them.
In addition to the wild flowers there are many cultivated ones. In
Skagway, Fairbanks, and the other large towns, the garden flowers grow
profusely. Their only enemy is the southerly trade winds which, on
summer afternoons, frequently rise suddenly and keep everybody busy
devising some means of protection for the tall growing plants. For the
plants grow very tall. Think of sweet peas nine feet high which have
had no special cultivation! Pansies three inches across! Asters seven
and dahlias ten inches in diameter! I have in mind one garden I saw
which contained nineteen different kinds of flowers blooming at once,
among them some gorgeous roses, and they were in bloom from June first
to October first. No. We are not shut away from the beautiful because
we live within sight of the Arctic Circle! Garden parties here rival
those I have attended in the States, and I find that human nature is
the same the world over! There is no nook or corner of God's earth
where one, if he seeks, will not find exquisite beauty lavished
impartially and unstintedly by Mother Nature, and warm and kindly
hearts as well!
The birds of Alaska are many and beautiful. In fact, in one section or
another of the country most of the birds common to the north temperate
zone are to be found. Of the larger ones the ptarmigan, grouse, gulls
and carrier pigeons are most common. A few years ago the owners of
carriers discovered to their astonishment and dismay that the latter
were mating with the gulls to the ruination of both birds and it became
necessary to separate them. Alaska is also the home of the raven and
the crow. And the former is quite the most talkative creature in the
country! When he has no other birds to chatter with he talks to
himself, and like the buzzard of the southern countries, he acts as
scavenger. The ravens are much more numerous than the crows.
There is a long, low, wooded stretch of land twenty miles below Muir
Glacier in which ornithologists have observed and collected specimens
of more than forty species of birds. Of song birds, we have the
golden-crowned sparrow, the Alaska hermit and russet-back thrush. The
plaintive song of the hermit thrush is so appealing. It consists of but
three notes. But its song is full of beauty, of mystery, of pathos.
There are also the grossbeak, the gray-cheeked thrush, the Oregon
robin, the western robin, kinglet, warbler, redstart, Oregon junco, and
a species of sparrow not to be found elsewhere.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL TANNANA VALLEY GARDEN]
[Illustration: THE TRAIL NEAR WRANGELL IN SUMMER. NOTE THE BEAUTY OF
THE WOODS]
[Illustration: LOVER'S LANE, NEAR SITKA, GUARDED BY TOTEM POLES]
In speaking of the birds of the Northland one must not omit to mention
the albatross. I shall always remember one that I observed following
the boat on which I was crossing Prince William Sound. I could well
imagine the feelings of the Ancient Mariner as I watched it,--first on
one side of the boat and then on the other, dipping, curving, slanting,
but always on straight, unbending wing! Like an experienced swimmer its
motion was in long, graceful strokes. It flew apparently without
effort, as though it gave no thought to where its next flight would
take it. I could quite understand how the superstitious might look upon
it as some spirit from the deep which sought to cast a spell over him
and lure him on to shipwreck and to death. The gulls fly gracefully, as
do also the Arctic terns. But the flight of the albatross is unlike
that of any other bird I have ever seen.
Of water fowl there are also the _pomarine_ and the long-tailed jaeger
and the king eider duck. The pomarine jaeger is most peculiar of shape,
especially while flying, and has a cruel-looking beak. The plumage of
the male king eider is very brilliant and beautiful during the breeding
season.
The finest singing bird in the country is the Lapland longspur. In
color, flight, and its bubbling, liquid music, it suggests the
bobolink. In fact, it is often referred to as "the bobolink of the
North," and what bird lover does not know the lines of our beloved John
Burroughs who after lying on his back under a tree for two hours
patiently waiting until it should please his majesty, the northern
bobolink, to sing for him, wrote:
"On Unalaska's emerald lea,
On lonely isles in Bering Sea,
On far Siberia's barren shore,
On north Alaska's tundra floor,
At morn, at noon, in pallid night,
We heard thy song and saw thy flight,
While I, sighing, could but think
Of my boyhood's bobolink!"
CHAPTER IX
MT. MCKINLEY NATIONAL PARK
In 1916 a bill was presented in Congress to establish in Alaska the Mt.
McKinley National Park. All lovers of the country hoped that the
legislation necessary to create this park would not be long in coming.
The Alaskan Range (sometimes called the Alaskan Alps), of which Mt.
McKinley is the culminating peak, has no rival in scenic grandeur. The
snow line is about seven thousand feet. But Mt. McKinley rises twenty
thousand three hundred feet, and for the upper thirteen thousand the
mountain is clad in glaciers and perpetual snows.
The region of the proposed park offered a last chance for the United
States Government to preserve untouched by civilization a great
primeval section in its natural beauty. Many parts of Alaska are famous
for big game. But for mountain sheep, caribou and moose ranging over
wide areas this section is unsurpassed. I have often seen three hundred
sheep in a ten mile journey! And more caribou than I ever dreamed of
existing! At one time a party of us estimated with the naked eye more
than a thousand within half a mile of us and many more straggling off
in the distance.
I have made no mention of the mosquitos which abound in Alaska, but so
many writers have that perhaps it is not necessary to elaborate upon
the subject. It is sufficient to say that here one gives them
respectful attention! Many a wanderer has met his death in the early
days because he was unprepared to fight them off as he plunged through
the swamps and the wilderness. This "respectful attention" is shared by
the animals, especially the caribou, which migrate from place to place,
avoiding the plains where the mosquitos abound. Sometimes they remain
high up in the rugged mountain ridges. Sometimes they even climb the
glaciers. One often sees them in huge droves. They do not stay long in
any one locality except in the Taklat basin and in the vicinity of
Muldrow Glacier. Here they remain during the summer and rear their
young.
On February twenty-sixth, 1917, the bill became a law and the Mt.
McKinley National Park was created. The long dimension of the park
follows the general course of the Alaskan Range from Mt. Russell to
Muldrow Glacier, the Park including all the main range from its
northwest face to and beyond the summit. East of the glacier the range
widens to the north and consists of a number of parallel mountain
ridges separated by broad, open basins.
Moose are plentiful in certain parts of the new park but are not so
commonly seen as sheep and caribou. They cling to the timbered areas
for two reasons. First, because they feed upon the willow and birch
twigs and leaves and the roots of water plants. Second, by nature the
moose is a cautious, wary animal. He is less likely to permit
familiarity than the caribou and remains where he is inconspicuous. The
best hunting grounds for moose are not _within_ the park but in the
lowlands just north of the Alaskan Range.
Bears,--black, brown and grizzly--are here, as they are in many other
parts of Alaska also. Foxes are plentiful. Lynx abound, as do the mink,
marten and ermine, to a limited extent. The marshy lowlands, in
addition to being the abode of the moose, are likewise the paradise of
the beaver. Many a night have I lain in my tent and heard the
whack-whack of their tails on the surface of the water and the splash
when they went in to swim.
There is no point on which Alaska is more in need of wise and careful
legislation than in regard to the game. Game will not last long unless
protected. Already the market hunter is in the field. True, there _are_
game laws in Alaska, but I have been reminded more than once of the
mother who said of her naughty little daughter, "She _has_ manners--but
they're bad!"
The game laws are not strictly enforced and many a sled load of wild
meat finds its way into the towns in winter. Fairbanks is the
destination of most of it. It is a matter of personal knowledge that
from fifteen hundred to two thousand sheep have been taken into this
town each winter for the last three years. And if this is being done
now, what will be the result when the new government railroad is
completed to within fifteen miles of the park? There is but one answer.
The game will disappear rapidly. Forebodings on this point have been
quieted to a certain extent, however, so far as the game in the park
itself is concerned. The law, while it grants miners and prospectors
permission to kill what they need for food, stipulates expressly that
"in no case shall animals or birds be killed in said park for sale, or
removal, or wantonly."
It is the easiest thing in the world to reach Mt. McKinley Park. One
may leave Seattle and within a week be in Anchorage, or Seward. From
here it is but a day's ride to the Park Station. A couple of days in
the saddle and one will find himself in the midst of the herds.
Furthermore, this time will be shortened. It is inevitable that a road
will be built. Then, half a day in a motor and the horseback journey
will be eliminated.
Regarded as a purely business proposition, the creation of this Park
was quite worth while. Other and much less attractive lands advertise
their natural beauties so alluringly that tourists flock to them,
spending millions of dollars for diversion far less pleasurable than
that which may be had right here in our own country. A good road, a
good hotel or two, and this National Park in Alaska will call to her a
much larger percentage of tourists than our government now imagines.
Almost every animal in Alaska has its own particular locality. The
small black bear is the exception. It may be found everywhere. In
southeastern Alaska the shy, black-tail deer is to be seen. It is a
pretty, graceful creature, with a glossy coat, an impudent little black
tail and slender, curving horns. If it were tame one could easily carry
it in his arms. It seldom weighs more than a hundred pounds. Hunters
have made it afraid, however, and unless forced out by starvation, it
seldoms ventures near a human habitation.
At Mt. St. Elias the foxes abound,--blue and silver and sometimes a
black one, rarest and most valuable of all. Four hundred dollars is not
an unusual price for a black fox skin. Sea otters are getting scarce.
The skins of these are valued at seven hundred dollars.
To find the really "Big Game,"--the largest the country affords, the
moose, the huge and dangerous Kodiak bear, the caribou and the mountain
sheep, one should go to the rugged, mountainous peninsula between
Prince William Sound and Cook Inlet. The moose shed their antlers
periodically and I quite agree with a fellow hunter who one day
remarked that he knew of nothing quite so pathetic-looking, so subdued
and sympathy-seeking, so meek and lowly of spirit as a bull moose
without its horns! Neither do I.
The Kodiak bear is dark brown of color. And an exceedingly ugly and
vicious brute as to temper! He is a born fighter. If he suspects that
it is your purpose to interfere with him he will attack you
ferociously. If, however, he does not happen to be hungry and you fail
to bother him his lack of interest in you is often humiliating! He is,
seemingly, impervious to the cold and sleeps in his cave all winter.
The Alaskan miners are great on story-telling and one of them one day
related in my presence an amusing episode which he claimed was a
personal experience. He said that he found himself suddenly in the
immediate presence of a Kodiak bear. It was a position wholly unsought
on his part and, as he remarked, unduly familiar! But he added that it
was a moment when familiarity bred, not contempt, but fear. He had
always heard that a sudden and unusual noise would frighten a bear away
provided he hadn't seen you first! So he began hammering his gold pan
with his pick, making all the din possible with the means at his
command. It failed to work. He spent the night in a tall tree, meekly
descending from the same when the bear, tired of waiting, went next
morning to seek a breakfast elsewhere. Nor was that all. His gold pan
was full of holes from being hammered with his pick!
A cunning and most amusing pet is a black bear cub, and as pets these
are quite common in St. Michael and other parts of Alaska. They dance
and gambol on hind feet, wrestle like human beings, and not
infrequently drink from a bottle as do babies--and men!
The caribou is unquestionably the prettiest animal in Alaska. Its body
is sleek and graceful as that of the antelope. Its back is brown, its
flanks and legs pure white. It has enormous, out-spreading, re-curving
and sharp-pronged antlers, a distinguishing feature of which is that
the first branch of one of them curves directly in front of the
forehead and then spreads straight out to the front into a broad
edge-wise fan which is called a "plow." The caribou roam (in herds) and
feed almost entirely on grass. It is most interesting to watch them
feed in winter. With the "plow" they break through the crust of the
snow. Then they use the horn as a rake, scraping away the snow so that
they may get at the grass underneath.
The seal, the walrus, the reindeer and the polar bear,--all are here.
They are the oldest residents of the north country. But there is one
thing which does _not_ abide with us. This is the serpent. Evidently
Ireland is not the only country from which the good St. Patrick
banished the snakes. The Eskimos and Indians of Alaska probably never
saw one. In fact, it is claimed that no poisonous thing exists here.
But to this I make one exception. The mosquito is still with us in
certain sections of the country. There are none in St. Michael,
however. And no snakes! As a corroboration of this statement I submit
the information that the serpent has no place in either the heraldry or
the basketry of the natives of Alaska. The absence of the snake in the
Northland, however, may be due, not to the influence of St. Patrick,
but to the frigidity of the climate. Anyway, we rejoice that it is so.
The most timid of women may wade barefooted in the marshes without a
shiver! Besides, Alaskans are proverbially kind-hearted and what one of
us would willingly put himself in the position of "Old Man Snyder" of
whom the mid-western poet who wrote under the name of _Ironquill_ once
said:
"Old man Snyder found a snake
Frozen stiffer than a stake
And he tucked it in his vest.
When the saurian became thawed
Mr. Snyder became chawed!
And in one unbroken stream
He proceeded to blaspheme
And eradicate the plug
From a little old brown jug!
Year by year, both day and night,
Snyder tried to cure that bite,
But he didn't have the heft!
So one day he while tug-
Ging at the plug
Caught the jim-jams and got left!
=Moral.=
Frozen saurians are safer!
And it's bitterer than borax
To be gnawed about the thorax
One's humanity to pay for!"
CHAPTER X
THE ALL-ALASKA SWEEPSTAKES
No story of Alaska would be complete unless it included reference to
that most vital element of all the Northland, the Alaskan dog. I once
heard a story of an old Southern planter who said:
"Whenevah Ah meet up with a man who says he don' like a niggah, Ah
always set it down that he nevah _owned_ one!"
I can truthfully say the same about a dog. Ever since the days when
Ulysses roamed the seas man has loved his dog. Dearest (and most
valuable) to the heart of an Alaskan is his "Malamut" or "Husky," as
the Alaskan dog is usually designated. So intelligent that he is almost
human, strong as a young ox, oblivious (apparently) to the cold,--he is
a part of the land itself! His importance to the life of the North can
not be over-estimated. He carries the mail into far regions which but
for him would be closed to the outside world for many months of the
year.
"An I should live a thousand years," as Shakespeare puts it, I could
never forget a leader I once had. I called him "Paddie." During one
long, cold winter we went to Andreafsky, distant a hundred and twenty
miles from St. Michael, to take the mail. I can see him yet, at the
head of the thirty-three dog team, pulling us swiftly over the hard,
white snow. At night when I would wrap myself in my sleeping-bag and
lie down to sleep, Paddie never failed to come and lie beside me,
snuggling as closely as possible to keep me warm. I _could_ not forget,
if I tried, his faithfulness and affection, and I do not wish to. I
think of him many times, often have dreamed of him and sometimes have
talked to him in my sleep.
But laying aside all sentiment in regard to his dogs, a man would
indeed be helpless in the north country without them. Into far and
almost inaccessible regions which no other beast could penetrate and
where neither man nor vehicle could enter unaided, the dogs run nimbly,
pulling a sled behind them. Many and dramatic (and true!) are the
stories of the arrival of a dog team in the nick of time with food and
supplies for a distant, snowed-in camp the members of which would have
starved but for their coming.
Reference will be made in another chapter to the wonderful part our
dogs are now playing in the great World War. Alaskans have never
failed to appreciate what they owe them, but it is only within
comparatively recent years that they have realized their real value.
Nothing in the history of the country has been of more value to Alaska
than the Dog Derby, the "All-Alaska Sweepstakes," as the dog races are
called.
Albert Fink, an attorney at Nome, one day overheard a bet between two
men as to the speed of their respective dog teams. As he owned some
fine dogs himself, he conceived the idea of having a real Derby,
matching the teams for the love of the sport itself. Calling together
all the dog lovers and dog owners of the community, he put the
suggestion before them. The result was the organization of the Nome
Kennel Club, a society the purpose of which was to foster the races.
The latter were to be known as the "All-Alaska Sweepstakes," and as
such the races have been known ever since. The club was organized and
conducted just as jockey clubs are. Rules and regulations were drawn
up, officers elected, and a purse of fifteen thousand dollars collected
for the first race.
Some one has ventured the opinion that nothing on earth could ever have
made the city of Nome except the very thing that did make it,--the
discovery of gold in the sand on the beach! Be that as it may, it is
safe to say that since that discovery nothing has ever equaled the
interest it created until the first dog race was held in 1908.
Men talked of nothing else. On the day of the race the stores, banks
and offices were deserted and it is a fact that the District Court was
forced to adjourn. Witnesses, jurors and attorneys failed to appear.
All went to the races. Thousands of dollars were wagered on the dogs,
thousands more on the men who drove them. It was a day of great
excitement and enthusiasm.
The course was from Nome, on Bering Sea, across Seward Peninsula to
Candle and back,--a distance of four hundred and ten miles. The first
race was a great event. One of the conditions was that the whole team
must return to the starting-point. The weather was most severe and some
of the dogs froze to death. It is no uncommon sight in Alaska to see an
intrepid driver, in harness himself, helping to bring back in the sled
the disabled dogs which have become incapacitated by accident or
sickness. The man who loses a dog is out of the race, no matter what
the cause of the loss may be. The rules provide, however, that after
being certified at Candle, the turning-point, the dog does not
necessarily have to be _driven_ back. But the whole team must return.
The winning team of the first race were Malamuts owned by Albert Fink,
driven by John Hegness. They made the distance in a hundred and
nineteen hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. The winning
team was closely followed by one driven by the now-famous "Scotty"
Allen and which made the course in a hundred and twenty hours, seven
minutes and fifty-two seconds. Three hours elapsed before the third
team came in.
The small margin of time between the first and second teams made the
race, which took days to finish, of unusual interest. There was great
uncertainty almost up to the last moment. But the race was regarded as
a success and the event became a fixture. Heretofore, while there had
been much discussion as to the breeding of racing dogs, it had been
largely theoretical. Now men who owned dogs began to put their minds on
it seriously.
The purse of fifteen thousand dollars collected for the first race was
awarded in three prizes. Ten thousand went to the winner, three
thousand to the second and two thousand to the third team. It was
supposed when the amount was collected that it would be amply
sufficient to tempt dog owners to become fanciers and to induce the
importation and breeding of faster and better dogs. But the sum was
found to be inadequate. The total purse fell far short of the amount
necessary to assemble, feed, train and condition a team.
The following year there were numerous entries for the second race. And
they were not confined to wealthy dog owners, by any means. Miners, fur
traders, mail carriers, to say nothing of the first delegate to
Congress, entered the contest. This time "Scotty" Allen came in for his
own. He drove his team himself and lowered the time to eighty-two
hours, two minutes and forty-two seconds,--thirty-seven hours less than
the time the first race had consumed.
Perhaps the most interesting personage in connection with the early dog
racing in Alaska is Fox Ramsey. He is an Englishman, the brother of
Lord Dalhousie. He was what is commonly known as a Cheechaco,--in other
words, a tenderfoot. He was unused to the ways of the trail, and what
he did _not_ know about handling dogs would fill a book. But he was a
good sport. So he entered his team of Malamuts in the second race and
drove them himself. He took any amount of chaff from the local drivers
and the amusement of the latter was certainly justified. _Several
weeks_ after the race was over Ramsey drove up to the finishing post
and with the utmost good humor notified the judges that his team had
arrived!
The old saying, however, that "he who laughs last laughs best" is
peculiarly applicable to Fox Ramsey. He chartered a schooner bound for
Siberia. When he returned, as some one has already recorded, "Siberian
huskies howled from every port hole." The crowd which had found so much
merriment in his racing team of the previous year laughed louder than
ever. They took not the slightest interest in the training of his dogs.
Ramsey kept his own counsel. When the time came he entered the race.
Then came Ramsey's turn to laugh. He took both first and second money!
Not only that, he broke the record. The new one was astonishing. He
covered the course in seventy-four hours, fourteen minutes and
twenty-two seconds.
The good Alaskans, as always, showed the right spirit. Their amusement
changed to admiration. All existing theories as to the best breeds for
racing had been completely upset. Ramsey is now at the front "somewhere
in France" fighting for his country--and ours! Here's to him!
It is the hope, of course, of every fancier to perfect a breed which
will lower the record still more, and many hope to prove that the
descendants of the wolf are best adapted to the needs of the country.
There is a new breed which is now being watched with interest,--the
stag-and fox-hound. It has proved excellent for speed in short races
but has not yet been able to hold out over the long course
of the Sweepstakes. Another experiment is with the Russian
wolf-hound,--beautiful dogs these are, but with courage as yet
untested.
There is great difference of opinion as to the relative merits of the
various breeds, and since the third race the Derby has settled down to
a contest between those who believe in the superiority of the
fox-hound, bird dog and Malamut cross as pitted against the
pure-blooded Siberians.
Those who have never trained or watched over the training and
conditioning of a team of racing dogs would find it a most interesting
experience. The food of the dogs, like that of a child, is carefully
watched over. It consists at first of dog-salmon, corn and cornmeal
mush, rice and bacon. Later this is changed to a more strengthening
diet. They are fed chopped beef, mutton and eggs. Also, one who has
never visited Alaska would open his eyes wide if he could see the
kennels where the dogs are kept. In fact, one sometimes wonders whether
the human inhabitants are as comfortable. To get a team in condition
requires the combined efforts of a large retinue of trainers, drivers
and helpers. The driver who is to pilot the first team of a kennel
devotes his time and attention to the choice few of some twenty or
thirty dogs. The helpers and second string drivers keep the remainder
in fit condition so as to develop and gait those which must be ready to
substitute in case any one of the first lot proves unequal to the
qualifications for entry,--speed, soundness, courage.
It has often happened that dogs the fame of which has spread not only
over Alaska but over all the world have developed from the second
string. One such was Baldy of Nome, the hero of a book written by his
owner, Mrs. C. E. Darling, commonly known as "The Darling of the Dogs."
Baldy is old now,--a pensioner. He lives in ease and luxury at the
California estate of his mistress. His story is interesting. He was
rejected at first as being not of sufficient caliber for the first
team. Whether the rejection spurred him to renewed effort I do not
know. But he proceeded to prove his worth. He won his way from wheel of
the second team to leader of the first team. Baldy occupies a warm spot
in every Alaskan heart. He worked up from the ranks,--a "self-made"
dog, so to speak, and proved his courage, his sagacity, his strength,
and his endurance. One of the most interesting things about him is that
he now possesses the largest service flag of any one of my
acquaintance. Twenty-eight of his sons and grandsons went to the Vosges
to "do their bit," and Baldy now wears the _Croix de Guerre_ bestowed
upon them by the French government!
Of the now-famous dogs of the Derby mention must be made of Dubby. He
was the first "loose" leader ever developed in Alaska and the best. He
was almost human in intelligence. He ran free from the tow line. He
would take his place proudly at the head of his team, with no restraint
of tow or leash, observing the spoken commands with instant obedience.
From his position of authority at the head of the team, by incessant
yelping and playful antics, he would encourage the others, and woe to
any one of them that proved the laggard! Dubby promptly punished him.
He would run back, bark and then nip him until the offender was only
too glad to return to duty and resume gait. Other dogs which have won
fame in the Derby are (1) Jack McMillan, a leader belonging to Albert
Fink; (2) Rex, a pacer; (3) The Blatchford Blues, two thoroughbred
Llewellyn setters, wonderful both as to speed and intelligence; (4)
Kalma, a beautiful, white-eyed, black-coated Siberian who has proved
the most lasting campaigner of them all.
Not to the dogs alone, however, much as we love them, is due the credit
for the success of the Alaskan Derby. Too much can not be said for the
trainers and drivers. All of them were men deeply versed in dog lore.
They had made a study of many years' duration and were imbued with
theories as to the training and conditioning of dogs,--theories as
varied as were the breeds of the dogs themselves. These men were
knights of the trail, inured to hardship, fleet and sure of foot,
gifted both with physical endurance and courage to which no words can
do justice. Mention has already been made of "Scotty" Allen. He is
known to every man, woman and child on Seward Peninsula. He has been in
every race except the last one, either with a team of his own or one
owned jointly by himself and Mrs. Darling. He developed and owns the
two famous leaders, Dubby and Buddy, and their reputation is
world-wide.
To "Scotty" Allen the French Government entrusted the responsibility of
choosing and transporting to France more than a hundred of the
Sweepstake dogs. Further reference will be made to their noble work on
the war-swept fields of Europe where, with a courage and daring
equaled only by their human brothers, they carry ammunition and
supplies far into the mountains,--often to remote and seemingly
inaccessible spots where the soldiery could not penetrate without them.
It was because of this mission that Allen was unable to enter the last
race and as he has recently been elected to the Alaskan Legislature he
will also be deprived of the privilege of entering this year. The
session is held at the same time as the Derby. In any other country the
latter might be postponed. Here it is not possible. It is a matter of
much regret that the Derby can not be made a territorial affair. This
was the original intention, as the name, All-Alaska Sweepstakes,
indicates. But it proved impossible. The race could not be held after
the spring break-up. It must have the hard spring trail and the cold
weather, and the trainers must have the whole of the winter for the
training and conditioning of the dogs. Therefore, April must be the
month and, regrettable as the fact is, this prevents teams from
Fairbanks, Iditarod and other Alaskan towns from entering. The men from
these sections could not well take chances on the disappearance of the
trail by an early thaw before they could return home again for the
spring clean-ups. But almost every Alaskan town now has its own Kennel
Club, small or large as the case may be, and all are actively alive to
the sport. Moreover, the "Outside" is by no means indifferent. Many
contributions to the purse come each year to the Nome Kennel Club.
Trophies for the different races, usually cups, are, almost without
exception, the gifts of men in the United States who are devotees of
the sport. Unable to participate themselves, they like to aid and
encourage the event. The latest trophy, and the one which
unquestionably will be most sought after this year, is the cup
presented by John Borden, Chicago sportsman and millionaire, who joined
the Club last summer while in Nome. This cup is for a new
contest,--extreme speed being the object. The course is to cover
twenty-six miles, three hundred yards. It must be run under perfect
conditions, it being the object and the desire of both donor and Club
to learn how fast a dog team can actually travel without obstacles. The
winner each year will be given a small cup, and the big trophy must be
won three times in succession before it becomes the property of the
winner.
In addition to Allen and Ramsey, other drivers have made substantial
but less spectacular winnings. Two of these are the Johnson brothers
and another is Leonard Sepalla. Their dogs were Siberians, driven in a
long string, fifteen to twenty-six to a team. These men have marvelous
records for endurance, as has also Peter Berg, a mail carrier. The
latter did a hundred and thirty miles without a stop for food or rest.
The last thirty miles was made in harness, and in snow shoes, with what
was left of his badly used-up team. Then, after hauling a large part of
his frost-bitten and exhausted dogs to the finishing post he found that
he had been beaten to second money by a man who had ridden four hundred
miles behind his untiring and seemingly inexhaustible Siberians.
If the Alaskan Derby had had but one result,--that of developing a
superior race of dogs--it would have been invaluable to Alaska. But it
has done one other thing in which every dog lover rejoices. It has not
only benefited the racing dog. It has materially benefited the
condition of the working dog. The old rule of feeding an exhausted and
over-worked team "buckskin soup" no longer goes in Alaska. Very few
drivers now have the temerity to abuse a dog. It has been proved beyond
doubt that better results come from kindness and care than can possibly
be obtained by neglect or brutal treatment.
So, after many years' sojourn in the country, I paraphrase the saying
of the old Southern planter. I affirm that he who does not love a dog
never owned one! Here's to them,--dumb heroes of the trackless
wilderness and the gigantic snow fields! Over the frozen wastes they
cheerfully pull both driver and load for thousands of miles and come up
smiling when the end of the long journey is reached. Into their
masters' deepest affections they unconsciously walk and "stay put."
They become his most sympathetic companions, comrades and friends. And
the news which from time to time reaches us from "over there" where our
canine heroes are doing their "bit" in a manner little short of
miraculous goes straight to our hearts. Yes. The dog has come into his
own. And all Alaska rejoices that it is so. Over a kingdom of devoted
subjects he reigns supreme!
CHAPTER XI
BURIED WEALTH
It is not the purpose of such a book as this to go into detail in
regard to the gold and the other minerals which lie hidden in the heart
of Alaska. There are many volumes dealing with the gold fields and with
mines and mining which contain such definite information along those
lines as the student may seek. But to those who knew Alaska both before
and after the great stampede of 1898 the change of scene in the
locality offers food for thought. In the great Interior, where once man
alone, with only his pick and shovel, coaxed from Mother Earth in small
quantities the precious yellow metal, huge monsters with an endless
chain of buckets now swoop down, dig up sand and gravel by the ton and
search every ounce of it for gold. One may now take a motor car and
ride out to the spots where in the early days bewildering fortunes were
made in a short space of time,--fortunes which in many cases were spent
as fast as they were made. A well-known missionary of the Episcopal
Church relates that one day during his travels he met a man freighting
with dogs along the Koyakuk River. He learned while stopping at the
camp that night that in the palmy days of the gold rush this man had
offered a dance-hall girl her weight in gold dust if she would marry
him. She refused. But she told him she would get his dust anyway. And
she did!
Twenty years have gone by since the madness at Dawson, Nome, and the
other gold centers was at its height. The true story of the stampede to
Klondike has never been written. Perhaps it never will be. It was
unique,--not so much in the number who flocked to the gold fields. Of
those who went between 1897 and 1900 thirty thousand is an elastic
estimate. Far greater was the multitude which flooded California during
the wild rush of '49. Eighty thousand in one year! Five thousand ships,
deserted by both owners and crews, tossed idly in San Francisco Bay.
Three years later there was a much larger migration to Australia. A
hundred thousand gold seekers entered the port of Melbourne in 1852!
But the Klondike stampede is without a parallel in history because of
the conditions to be confronted. Never before had a gold region been so
inaccessible, so remote. Never before had such masses of men flung
themselves against an Arctic wilderness, determined to do or die! The
result was only what was to be expected. The physically unfit perished.
Only the hardy survived. Hundreds of men, fresh from offices and shops,
came, bringing their city-bred habits and customs. They found them of
no value in this land where Nature, in her fiercest and most savage
mood, awaited them. They died,--died in almost every conceivable
manner. They perished of exhaustion, of starvation, of disease. They
were the victims of their own ignorance and lack of experience. They
were drowned. They were smothered in snow-slides. Only the fittest held
out. These, making long journeys up and down the frozen rivers, through
dense forests and over rough mountains, ofttimes pulling their own
sleds,--these have left no record of those tragic days for the world to
read!
The Matanuska coal fields are the richest in the world, not excepting
the rich mines of Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. They lie in
ninety square miles of territory. The vein is fourteen feet and bears
the highest grade of coking coal,--the only coal except that to be
found in Virginia which is fit for the use of the Navy. It is estimated
that this coal can be mined and shipped to San Francisco at a cost of
four dollars a ton, that if it should be sold at retail at six dollars
a ton, the price would be nine dollars cheaper than the present price
of coal in Los Angeles! In my judgment this solves the coal question,
both as to its use for domestic purposes and in time of war as well.
The new government railroad leads directly into the Matanuska coal
fields.
As far as the mineral deposits,--the gold, copper, tin, etc.,--are
concerned one may truthfully say that they have not yet been touched,
although the yearly output is more than thirty-two million dollars. The
richest mines are not the gold mines. They are the copper mines. Last
year (1917) the Kennicott copper mines produced the largest per cent of
the thirty-two million. And the copper production doubles in value the
entire production of gold. Since the purchase of Alaska the country has
produced in excess of five hundred million dollars,--a country which
was bought for seven million two hundred and fifty thousand! Alaska was
Uncle Sam's best bargain.
Harry Olsen, a member of Stefanson's latest expedition, asserts that
fabulous deposits of native copper were seen by them on Bank's Island,
about six hundred miles north of Great Bear Lake. The Eskimos use
copper for everything for which any kind of metal is used and because
it is so plentiful and so easy to obtain they think it of no value.
In 1913 I was going from Nome to Siberia on the S. S. _Victoria_. Among
the passengers were Dr. and Mrs. Anderson and several members of
Stefanson's party. We put them off into their own boats in the
Roadstead, outside of Nome. The expedition was wrecked just after
leaving Diomede Islands and the party lost for a year. Amundsen, when
he returned through the Northwest Passage, reported having seen a tribe
of blond Eskimos. Stefanson was on his way to verify that report. Later
a second expedition was fitted out and the report substantiated.
There are many famous placer gold mines,--at Nome, at Dawson, and at
the other localities in the Yukon. Two of the largest quartz mines in
the world are at Juneau,--the Alaska Juneau and the Alaska Gastineau.
Each plant handles from eight to ten thousand tons of ore a day. The
Juneau mines had produced sixty-two millions of dollars' worth of ore
when the ocean broke through and flooded the works. Two-thirds of the
property was ruined. But the remaining third, now enclosed by a huge
concrete dam, is still producing. The famous Treadwell mines are on
Douglas Island and have recently had a similar experience. About a
year ago they also were flooded and sustained a serious loss.
[Illustration: SLUICING THE WINTER DUMP AT FAIRBANKS]
[Illustration: THE THIRD BEACH AT NOME FROM WHICH WAS TAKEN MILLIONS OF
DOLLARS WORTH OF GOLD IN DUST AND NUGGETS]
[Illustration: ONE NIGHT'S CATCH. NEARLY FIVE THOUSAND SALMON WEIGHING
APPROXIMATELY 75,000 POUNDS]
[Illustration: A FISHWHEEL]
I have already said that it is not my purpose to go into detail in
regard to the mines and the other industries of the North. I wish only
to reveal the opportunities which lie waiting for him who is alert for
business chances. When the new railroad is completed any able-bodied
man who has energy, initiative and ambition can get into the interior
of this rich country at little expense. And if it were generally known
how many hundred prospectors are laying their plans to be there during
this present year (1918) the laggard would bestir himself! It can not
be long until _all_ the industries of Alaska will be opened up upon a
large scale. The climate, while severe at times, need not deter any
well man or woman from going. People here dress for the weather. Real
suffering from cold is seldom known. Nobody has "bad colds" in Alaska.
The cold is dry and invigorating. Nowhere on earth will one find men
and women of such perfect health. Nowhere will one see sturdier,
healthier, more rosy-cheeked children. Moreover, novelists and
playwrights to the contrary, the living and working conditions here are
governed by the very same principles and laws as those of other lands.
Any man or woman can get on in Alaska just as long as he or she is "on
the square." Otherwise either of them, in my judgment, will, in time,
come to grief anywhere.
As was the case with the railroads, the government was up against the
proposition of government ownership or private monopoly in regard to
the rich coal fields of Alaska. When their value was discovered,
capitalists and entry men with speculative tendencies swooped down upon
the coal treasures of the country, horse, foot and dragoon. For a time
it seemed that the entire potential wealth of the land was to have the
usual fate,--that of being brought under monopolistic control.
The United States Government has ill repaid Theodore Roosevelt for much
that he has done. But Alaskans will not forget and the United States
will one day realize what he did for them in this particular instance.
When he saw what was about to happen, with his characteristic method of
doing things first and asking permission afterward, he withdrew every
acre of coal-bearing land in Alaska from entry! This was nearly fifteen
years ago. Alaska sat helpless and gnashed her teeth while legislation
fought with politics and speculation wrestled with finance.
Being able to see the absurdity which never fails to appear in such
crises and to laugh at it has saved many a man from losing his chances
of going to Heaven! One day in 1913 I chanced to be at Dutch Harbor
where the battleship _Maryland_ was coaling. Had the _Maryland_ carried
a gun such as the German one which fired on Paris on Good Friday of the
present year she might have fired a volley which could have landed
squarely in the Matanuska coal fields! There was nothing funny in the
situation to an Alaskan, of course, but I was moved to unseemly mirth
when I saw that _Pocahontas_ coal _from Virginia_ going into her
bunkers! We in Alaska (_miserere_!) were importing coal for our own use
from Washington, California and--Australia!
Now, however, Alaska has her reward. The Secretary of the Interior has
re-opened the coal fields for entry. But permission is given only to
_lease_ the coal tracts. Before this book appears the first Alaskan
coal will be helping to fill the bunkers, not only of Alaska herself
but of the Pacific coast as well.
There is one noticeable thing about the conditions imposed upon the
lessees of the coal fields by Secretary Lane and it is a point upon
which both the prospective lessee and employee should be informed.
These conditions provide for the safeguarding of the lives and welfare
of the miners. No operator may mine coal at minimum cost without
regard for the safety of his men. The rules are explicit. The lease
requires him to "leave ample support for the roof of the drifts and
stopes, to provide adequate ventilation, special exits, to guard
against explosion, flooding, 'squeezes' and fire." The protection of
the workman goes even further than this. No firm, or individual,
operating in government land, may work the miners longer than eight
hours a day. They must agree to pay them twice a month in cash. The
forced buying at stores owned by the company is strictly prohibited.
The operators, at the request of a majority of the miners, must grant
one of their number, chosen by vote, permission to check and weigh the
coal in cases where the miners' pay is based upon their output.
Wise provisions these! The stormy and bloody history of the Colorado
fields is to have no repetition here if the foresight and the good
judgment of the Department of the Interior can prevent it. All these
things lend to the desirability of employment in Alaska. There are only
two spots in the country where the coal lands are in possession of
individuals or of private companies. Every other inch of it belongs to
the government. And it will keep on belonging to it! The Secretary of
the Interior, Mr. Franklin K. Lane, is the largest operating landlord
in the world. While you may not buy coal land in Alaska you may lease
it--for not more than fifty years. For each ton mined you pay a royalty
to the government. You may then ship your coal in a government
coal-car! One can see how easy it will be for a lessee to make money in
coal in Alaska. All he has to do is to dig! No speculating in coal
lands! No shifting and juggling of stocks and bonds of coal-carrying
railroads! So far as the coal fields and mining in Alaska are concerned
neither money, politics nor influence will avail to change the
situation one jot or one tittle! Amen! Hallelujah!! Waltz me around
again, Willie!!!
With farm and mineral lands, however, it is different. These may pass
into the hands of private companies or individuals just as soon as the
latter can qualify to meet the conditions. We who know the country can
realize as outsiders can not what the railroad will mean to Alaska. One
may take a boat at the mouth of the Yukon, traveling westward to
southward, thence up the Tanana until he reaches Fairbanks which is
within a hundred miles of the Arctic Circle. Here the new railroad will
have its northern terminus. One may then take the train back to Seward,
riding through the great gold country--a section the wealth of which is
uncomputed--then on through the enormous coal fields, past farms laden
with crops, finding himself, when the end of the journey is reached, at
Seward, the terminus on the Peninsula, after a journey (not including
the water voyage) of four hundred and fifty miles.
In proportion as commerce and industry grow opportunities for labor
will increase. The omnipresent automobile will bring with it the
necessity for the garage, the repair shop, the chauffeur, the
mechanician. The railroad terminals mean new towns and new towns mean
business houses. Wherever there is a road in process of construction
there is always a chance for women. The workmen must be fed and
provided with sleeping quarters. Boarding houses, laundries, etc., are
indispensable. But----. I should not be honest either with myself or
with my readers if I did not here utter one word of warning. No woman
need be afraid to go to Alaska, but both men and women should go wisely
and in full understanding of conditions there. Both _must_ be equipped
to meet those conditions. The first is the promise, oral or written, of
a job before going! The other is the means to return home at any time.
No one should go to Alaska without having first provided for one or
both of these conditions.
CHAPTER XII
THE HAUNT OF THE SALMON
The greatest industry in Alaska is unquestionably the salmon fishing.
More than two hundred and fifty kinds of edible fish abound in Alaskan
waters and this does not include trout and grayling in the streams
where only the latter are to be found. Most of the halibut eaten in the
United States comes from Alaska. These fish often weigh as high as two
hundred pounds. Large numbers of whales are caught and prepared for
market annually. The fish products of the country have already netted
more than two hundred million dollars.
Nothing in the history of all Nature is more wonderful (or more tragic)
than the story of the salmon. So wonderful is it that it is almost
beyond the power of the human brain to comprehend it. Until the advent
of the motion picture--one of the greatest educators of our day and
generation--few knew that the salmon returns to the very spot where it
was spawned to die. After thirty months at sea, during which time
nothing is known of them, they are drawn by some mysterious instinct
back to the very spot of their birth. Sometimes the return necessitates
a journey of fifteen hundred miles and during that journey nothing is
eaten. Fishermen, both white and native, have told me repeatedly that
they have never yet found anything in the stomach of a salmon. They
leave the ocean and enter the rivers early in the spring. As soon as
they enter fresh water they cease eating. Their stomachs shrink as
their appetites fail and they have therefore no desire to return to the
salt-water feeding-grounds. When they reach their destination they
reproduce, which is the object of the long journey. Shortly afterward
they die. Life, seemingly, is complete for them when they have reached
the waters which gave them birth and have transmitted life to others.
This done, they drop down the river with the current and are seen no
more. From three to four hundred eggs to each pound of the parent fish
is the average spawn. And yet----. The artificial propagation of the
salmon goes on ceaselessly. It is compared to the sowing of seed by the
farmer. The culture of the eggs in a hatchery and the distribution of
fingerlings lay the foundation for an increased harvest year by year.
To me the return of the salmon to the spawning grounds is the most
marvelous thing in the world. From its source in the snow-capped
mountains of the interior to the spot where it flows, bell-toned and
majestic, into the sea, the Yukon with its various tributaries is more
than twenty-five hundred miles long! And the water is muddy. The fish
wheels, useless in clear water, are in constant motion. How, then, does
the salmon determine the exact spot at which to leave the river and
enter the particular tributary from which, originally, it came? Only
once has it been in it before,--the time when as a fingerling of two or
three inches it made its first swift journey out to sea! What man, even
if he had all manner of landmarks to guide him, would undertake to
return to the spot he left in childhood if in order to do so he had to
leave the broad ocean and follow twenty-five hundred miles of water
which is first river, then tributary, then creek, then brook and
finally a lake? It is not worth while to try to reduce the thing to
intelligible terms. It is incomprehensible. No human intelligence can
explain the spawning migration of the salmon. Yet long-continued and
careful investigation and observation in every stream of the Pacific
coast have established these facts beyond question.
He who has never seen a "run" of salmon has something yet to live for!
I know of no other event which equals it. The heaviest runs are in May,
June, and July, the catch being largest in the latter month. The
largest fish are caught in May. The "royal family" of salmon is the
King. These are best in June. Often they weigh from fifty to eighty
pounds. The king salmon never rises to the fly. The canneries take them
by the wheel.
I shall never forget my first view of a fish wheel and a cannery. I
thought the wheel the nearest approach to an infernal machine that I
had ever seen--until I got into the cannery! The wheels are fashioned
of wire-gauze compartments and are built in places near high-water mark
where salmon are known to run in greatest numbers, usually at the head
of natural or artificial channels in the river bed. "Like a cradle
endless rocking" the wheel revolves, scooping up the unsuspecting and
beautiful creatures literally by thousands. It is the blackest and
bloodiest of murder. Nothing else! But----. In the "Outside" they
insist on eating salmon and the canneries can not supply the demand
without the wheel.
Kipling, in his _American Notes_, says that he saw a ton of salmon
taken on the Columbia River as one night's catch from the revolving
cups of a giant wheel. My own first sight of a fish wheel in operation
beats the story of this renowned writer all to pieces. The proprietor
announced that the catch of this night was _five tons_, an amount which
taxes the credulity of any man in his right mind. With a fascination
which no words can describe I watched those fish being unloaded. Huge
fifty-pounders, hardly dead, scores weighing from twenty to thirty
pounds and myriads of smaller ones! The warehouse, built on piles in
the bend of the river, was not far away, and as I was there for the
purpose of seeing the process from first to last, I went aboard the
barge onto which the salmon had been tossed. Presently we drew up
alongside the warehouse and unloaded the fish. Like a man hypnotized I
followed my guide up the scale-strewn, fishy incline which led into the
cannery.
None but natives worked in this particular cannery. The building shook
and shivered with every chug of the machinery. I watched them cross and
re-cross the slippery floor and I could think of nothing but the Devil
and a blood-bespattered Devil at that!
My experience up to this moment, however, was not a circumstance to
what happened next! When the boxes containing the fish were thrown down
under a jet of water they broke of their own accord and the salmon
burst into a stream of silver. A native jerked one up, a
twenty-pounder, deftly beheaded and detailed it in two swift strokes of
a knife. With equal deftness he relieved it of its internal
arrangements by a third stroke. Then he tossed it into a bloody-dyed
tank. The headless, tailless, _inside_less fish fairly leaped from his
hands--just as though it were once more taking the rapids. But not so.
The next man caught him up short. What the first man had left undone
the second one polished off to a fine degree. He proceeded to commit
additional murder of the most damnable sort. He thrust the fish under a
machine resembling a chaff-cutter which hewed and hacked it into
unseemly red pieces ready for the can and the poor mutilated remains
were ready for the third man.
With long, bony, crooked fingers he jammed the pieces into cans which,
sliding down a marvelous machine, forthwith proceeded to solder their
own tops as they passed! The fourth man tested the can for flaws and
then it was sunk (with hundreds of others) into a vat of boiling water
to be cooked for a few minutes. The cans bulged slightly after this
operation and were slidden along on trolleys to the fifth man who with
a needle and soldering iron vented them and then soldered the little
aperture. The process was finished--all except the label. This
attached, the "finest salmon on the market" was ready for shipment.
In Alaska we get used to almost everything in time, but I confess that
it took me some time to pull myself together after this experience.
Never had I been so conscious of the grim contrasts of life as when I
stepped outside that cannery! In that rude factory, the floor of which
was but forty by ninety feet, I had seen the most civilized and the
most murderous machinery! Outside, only a few feet away, before my eyes
lay the most beautiful of God's country,--the immense solitude of the
hills! I fairly fled down to the launch by which I was to journey back
down the river, trying to get as far away as possible from the
slippery, scale-spangled, oily floors and the blood-bespattered
Eskimos. But it was like a doctor's first surgical operation. I got
over it, and after several years' residence in the country became so
accustomed to the sights of a cannery that they now make little or no
impression. The canneries are Alaska's greatest asset.
To state how many cans of salmon go out yearly would be an impossible
task. All we know is that the value of the Alaskan salmon fisheries
can not be computed. It is true that Alaska derives much of her wealth
from the copper, gold and silver mines and her practically untouched
coal deposits. But her fisheries are the most important of her
industries. Mines have a way of giving out suddenly, for no apparent
reason. But the fish reproduce themselves each year. The fisheries of
Alaska can not fail.
Next to the fisheries the fur business is perhaps the most important
industry. Here again is a business opening for him who seeks it. As
very warm clothing is necessary, tanners ought to find the land full of
opportunities. The fur business is perhaps the _easiest_ way to
affluence which presents itself in Alaska. Native hunters and trappers
follow the old rule and hunt their prey from Nature's supply. But many
have already gone into the raising of fur-bearing animals as a
business, just as the farmer raises sheep for the wool.
Fox farming is the most popular and a great industry is being
developed. Many who began this business in Alaska have since
transported it to the States. In the west are some twelve or fifteen
such institutions and the eastern States also contain a few. The value
of the fox fur is known to all and, as has been said, from four to
seven hundred dollars is not an unusual price for the black and silver
fox skins.
Judge Martin F. Moran, of the Kobuk district, is experimenting in
angora goat-raising in which he thinks there is a great future. Judge
Moran lives twenty miles north of the Arctic Circle. Since the breaking
out of the war angora ranchers in the west have netted large fortunes
by supplying mohair, and conditions for raising the goats are less
favorable there than in Alaska. Judge Moran is planning (and has
perhaps already carried out his plan) to import a herd of angoras which
shall graze upon the rich reindeer moss which grows so abundantly in
the tundra of western and northern Alaska.
The sea-otter, the most valuable fur-bearing animal, may not now be
hunted, according to a law enacted by Congress, until November first,
1920. These were formerly numerous, but they are now threatened with
extinction and are to be found only on some of the Aleutian Islands. It
has been estimated that during the Russian occupation two hundred and
sixty thousand sea-otter skins were taken, valued at twenty-six million
dollars. Since the United States took over the country in 1867 about
ninety thousand have been marketed. Now, however, the output is only
about twenty skins a year. A good otter skin is very valuable, ranging
in price from eight hundred to eighteen hundred dollars.
The seal-fur industry, although developed by the Russians, reached its
height after the territory was acquired by the United States. From 1867
to 1902 seal skins to the value of thirty-five million dollars were
exported. The fur seal, although widely distributed throughout the
country, has but one breeding place,--the Pribilof Islands. Here most
of the skins are taken. The seals were slaughtered in the most ruthless
fashion and the government at last awoke to the knowledge that the seal
was in a fair way to follow the sea-otter unless protected. In 1870 the
capture of seals on these islands was prohibited by law. The United
States took charge of the islands and the fisheries. Natives may kill
annually only enough seals to provide themselves with food and
clothing. The destruction of the herds was thus halted by the
government and in 1912 the census revealed two hundred and fifteen
thousand, nine hundred and forty seals.
From the sale of fox furs and seal skins the government has derived
during the last twenty-five years a direct revenue almost covering the
total purchase price of Alaska. There are approximately twenty thousand
white people in the territory. In China there are four hundred
million. Yet in 1915 the United States trade with Alaska was five
million dollars in excess of the total United States trade with China!
CHAPTER XIII
THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
Alaska is a land of scenic splendor. She has scenery as beautiful as
that of Switzerland or New Zealand. From my own cottage doorway I have
seen sunsets which equaled those of Mont Blanc, famed in song and
story, and I have traveled through valleys which in summer rivaled the
celebrated Vale of Chamounix. Whoever it was who selected the Seven
Wonders of the World of which we learned in our school days would have
had to add to the list if he had ever dwelt for any length of time
"north of fifty-three."
The country boasts some of the greatest wonders of Nature. The Calico
Bluffs on the Yukon are as high as the Washington monument and their
strata look much like agate formations. She has five thousand glaciers
which are giants in comparison with those of the Alps. The Childs
Glacier is as tall as the dome of the capital at Washington. Of the
hundreds of others there are many that are known as "first class"
glaciers. By this is meant that they discharge their contents into the
sea direct. Among them are the LeConte, Dawes, Brown, Sawyer and Taku.
It is the latter which furnishes the bergs that surround the ships
which carry travelers northward through the "Inside" route. From the
deck of the vessel, near Taku Inlet, forty-five glaciers may be
counted. Of these, as you face Taku, Norris glacier stands to the left.
It is unique in that it sends out two seemingly full-grown rivers, one
flowing to north and one to south. Flowers may be seen growing in the
forest glades nearby, and remnants of tree stumps two feet in diameter
reveal that the glacier must once have withdrawn long enough at least
to permit them to grow. Then a change of climate or other natural
action must have pushed the ice forward again to cut them off and grind
them into fragments,--making them a part of the glacial débris.
Mendenhall Glacier is near Juneau. It is easily reached by automobile
and a delightful experience it is to ride along the highway leading to
it. The road is fringed with masses of wild flowers. Imagine, if you
can, sitting in the shade of a gigantic cottonwood, or spruce, and
eating ice cream made from the milk of cows which now pasture upon the
grass where once the ice stood a thousand feet deep! Mendenhall,
according to the best authorities, is at least twenty-five miles
long,--almost twice the length of the largest glacier the Alps affords.
The highest mountain peak in Alaska was known to the Russians as
_Bulshaia_ and to the natives of Cook Inlet as _Traleyka_. Both words
signify the "great" or the "high" mountain. The natives of the interior
called it _Denali_, but in 1895 it was named Mt. McKinley. It is twenty
thousand three hundred feet high, exceeded in height only by Aconcogua
of South America and Mt. Everest in Indo-China. It was named by W. A.
Dickey, who saw it from the Susitna River. Later its position and
altitude were determined. Many have attempted to ascend it. In 1912
Prof. Herschel Parker of Columbia University and Mr. Belmore Browne of
Tacoma, Washington, got within three hundred feet of the summit, and in
1913, Rev. Hudson Stuck, Archdeacon of the Yukon and author of _Ten
Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled_ and _Voyages on the Yukon_, together
with three companions, reached the top.
Above the recently-created National Park Mt. McKinley towers in
majestic sublimity, the everlasting sentinel, the guardian, as it were,
of the last and loveliest spot on earth which remains as Nature
fashioned it, still untouched by human hands.
Mt. St. Elias is better known and has been much written about. Its
height is eighteen thousand and twenty-four feet. Mt. Logan is nineteen
thousand five hundred and forty feet. Of the two now-celebrated passes
in the mountains of the Yukon, the Chilkoot and White Pass, the former
is at a height of three thousand one hundred feet and the latter at a
height of twenty-eight hundred feet. It was over these passes that the
gold-seekers of 1898 stampeded into Klondike.
But the mountains of Alaska, glorious, majestic and awe-inspiring as
they are, are the losers when compared with the greatest of Alaskan
wonders, the volcanoes. Of these, Mt. Katmai, opposite the Island of
Kodiak, the terrific eruption of which in June, 1912, is well
remembered, is most celebrated. At that time a mass of ash and pummice,
the volume of which is estimated at _five cubic miles_, was thrown into
the air. It buried an area about the size of the State of Connecticut
to a depth varying from ten inches to ten feet and smaller amounts of
the ash fell as far as nine hundred miles away. Unquestionably, the
notoriously cold, wet summer which followed the eruption was due to the
fine dust which was thrown into the higher regions of the atmosphere
to such an extent as to have a profound effect upon the weather. At the
time of the eruption I was at sea, on my way from St. Michael to the
States. It was not long until the ash began falling over us, filling
the air and seemingly trying to cover the face of the waters. It got
into our lungs and made them ache. It was not until some time later
that I heard that it was Mt. Katmai which had exploded and that the
eruption was one which would go down in history. There was not, of
course, the enormous loss of life which followed the eruptions of
Vesuvius, Stromboli and Mt. Pélee. But in other respects the explosion
of Mt. Katmai was unique. Kodiak, the town which was buried, was a
hundred miles away. Ash fell as far away as Juneau, Ketchikan and the
Yukon valley, distant respectively six hundred, seven hundred and fifty
and nine hundred miles.
In the report of the leader of the National Geographic Society's Mt.
Katmai Expedition of 1915-'16, Robert F. Griggs, of the Ohio State
University, is the following paragraph which gives concisely a good
idea of the magnitude of the explosion:
"Such an eruption of Vesuvius would bury Naples under fifteen feet of
ash. Rome would be covered a foot deep. The sound would be heard at
Paris. Dust from the crater would fall in Brussels and Berlin and the
fumes would be noticeable far beyond Christiana, Norway."
Yet it was only a little over a year after this eruption that I myself
saw those ash-laden hills covered again with green verdure! The native
blue-top hay was growing right through the ash which had been washed
off the hills and was then covering the land a foot and a half deep. I
was deeply interested in the native method of harvesting this hay. In
the pursuit of agriculture as I understood it I had never encountered
this practice elsewhere. The hay was cut high up on the mountain. It
was done into bundles in fish nets and was then sent tumbling down the
mountain-side to the bottom. There it was picked up and carried off
homeward or else loaded on boats to be shipped elsewhere.
At the time of the eruption the natives, fortunately for them, were all
away fishing. They were never permitted to return to their mountain.
The government built them a new town and conveyed them thither in a
body, thus establishing them in it. The village was not near the
crater. It was about twenty-five miles away. This is five times as far
distant from the volcano as Pompeii was from Vesuvius or St. Pièrre
from Mt. Pélee.
As has been said, the verdure has returned. Around Kodiak it is
vividly, beautifully green. But the Katmai Valley, once fertile and now
a barren waste, contains what the writer firmly believes to be the most
wonderful and awe-inspiring sight in the whole world. On the second
visit of the Expedition of the National Geographic Society, the
following year, Prof. Griggs explored and named it. He called it "The
Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes"--than which there could be no better
name!
There are no words in the language capable of giving any definite
impression of the scene. Stretching away as far as the eye can see,
until the valley is lost in the far-distant mountains, lie literally
thousands of small volcanos, replicas in miniature of Katmai, the
Great! From almost every one of them shoots a slender column of steam
which rises steadily and gracefully, sometimes to a height of a
thousand feet before it breaks or even wavers! Words become futile. One
could not exaggerate it if he tried. There would not be an adjective
left in the language when he finished!
My own view of the valley was hasty, superficial and from a respectful
distance! I can well appreciate, however, what the Expedition endured
in order to give to the world knowledge of this wondrous spot. I
heartily commend to the readers of this volume the report of Prof.
Griggs in the National Geographic Magazine for May, 1917, in which he
relates the experience of himself and his party as they made their way
back and forth, plunging through suffocating vapors, trapping gases for
chemical analysis, making soundings, mapping the course of the valley
and studying the geology of what he calls "the most amazing example of
her processes which Nature has yet revealed to twentieth century
man,--one of Vulcan's melting pots from which the earth was created."
In a tent less than two miles from one of the huge clouds of steam he
slept at night and on one of the large flat stones outside, so hot that
it was a natural stove, the members of the Expedition cooked their
food.
One gets the best idea of the magnitude of the valley by comparing it
with our Yellowstone Park. The Katmai valley is thirty-two miles long,
about two miles wide and seventy square miles in area. In the
Yellowstone are four thousand hot springs and a hundred geysers
scattered over three thousand square miles. The geysers occur in
isolated basins the total area of which is hardly twenty miles. The
largest one, and it plays but seldom, shoots up a column about three
hundred feet high. Old Faithful, which is the only one the tourist can
ever be sure of seeing in action, is only a hundred feet high. In the
Alaskan valley, however, observe the contrast. _There are thousands of
vents in constant action._ Some of these ascend more than five thousand
feet into the air when conditions are good and when the valley is
wind-swept they creep along the ground for two or three miles! These
vents are not geysers. They are hot springs. Geysers can exist only
when the rock through which they break is sufficiently cool to permit
water to form. It is unlikely therefore that there will ever be geysers
here,--at least not for many centuries. The valley may gradually cool
so as to permit their formation. But it will be ages hence.
Prof. Griggs is emphatic in his belief that there is nothing known to
mankind with which "The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes" can be compared.
I agree with him. Would that it were more accessible to the traveler
and that no tourist would return from a sojourn in Alaska without
seeing it! I shall never cease to be grateful that a fortunate
circumstance permitted me to obtain even so small a peep at it. Surely
nothing approaching it has been seen by man upon this earth. The
Expedition report states, among other interesting things, that the
water is so hot that the thermometer would not register it and that the
heat from the stones would char a piece of wood instantly!
Kilauea, in Hawaii, has always borne the reputation of being king of
volcanoes. It is now dethroned. Mention has already been made of Mt.
Shishaldin, on Unimak Island. As no geographer has ever visited it,
little is known about it. Katmai, however, is unquestionably the
monarch. Not so much in diameter, circumference or area does it exceed
Kilauea. It is in depth. Kilauea's greatest depth is five hundred feet.
Katmai's is thirty-seven hundred feet!
In an attempt to give some idea of the magnitude of Katmai, I quote
once more from Prof. Griggs' report:
"If every single structure in New York, Brooklyn, the Bronx and the
other boroughs of Greater New York were gathered together and deposited
in the crater of Mt. Katmai," he says, "the hole that remained would
still be _more than twice as large as that of Kilauea_." The king is
dead. Long live the king--of volcanoes!
From the glaciers and the mountains of Alaska to the rivers is but a
natural turn. One of the most important factors in the life and
commercial development of a country is, of course, her river
navigation. Alaska has two great gateways to Bering Strait,--the Yukon
and Kuskokwim rivers. Until recently only the Yukon was available for
commercial purposes, but the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey
has announced that at last a channel has been charted through the delta
of the Kuskokwim. This means much. It means that a River of Doubt has
become a River of Promise!
Because of the latitude at which they enter Bering Sea the Yukon is
navigable for three and a half and the Kuskokwim for four months only.
The entrance of the Yukon is shallow, that of the Kuskokwim tortuous
and not well known. But once inside, an ordinary river boat can
navigate the Yukon to White Horse, in Canada, a distance of twenty-two
hundred miles. In spite of the short seasons the possibilities of using
the river in the development of the valley are apparent and will
suffice for some time to come. Navigation is also fairly good on the
lower Copper River, the Kobuk, and smaller streams. When it comes to
the most winding and tortuous watercourse I have ever encountered,
however,--respectfully I salute the Iditarod! One's supply of
adjectives, however ample under ordinary circumstances, fails him
completely when he attempts to do justice to the crookedness of this
river. It writhes and twists and turns like some huge serpent, and
when it can think of nothing else to do it doubles back on its own
track! To try to follow it would give a man delirium tremens, and like
Tennyson's brook it "goes on forever!"
The Pacific coast line, including the Aleutian Islands, has many
excellent harbors. With the exception of Cook Inlet, these are open to
navigation from November until June, but the ice pack does not extend
far south of St. Lawrence Island. This part of the coast is almost
without harbors. The Arctic Ocean is open from July to September,
permitting navigation to Alaskan ports.
There is cable communication between Seattle and certain parts of
southeastern Alaska,--Cordova, Valdez and Seward. Telegraph lines run
from Valdez to Fairbanks and down the Yukon to St. Michael from which
point there is wireless communication with Nome. These are all military
lines. The Navy Department maintains wireless stations at Kodiak and
Unalaska. The War Department has wireless stations at Sitka, Cordova,
Fairbanks, Circle, Eagle and Nulato. There are also private wireless
stations at Iditarod and on Bristol Bay and many of the mining
districts are now provided with telephone lines.
The United States Government is thoroughly awake to the necessity of
making safe the now-dangerous waters of southern Alaska. They are now
being charted and soon the old title "The Graveyard of the Pacific"
will no longer apply to them. Within the past sixty years three hundred
ships have gone down upon the rocks. Valuable cargoes amounting to
eight million dollars and lives to the number of five hundred have here
been lost. Both to southeast and southwest of Alaska lie many
mountainous islands, and ofttimes the lower half of the mountain will
be lost in the water. Like the submerged lower half of the iceberg
which wrecked the _Titanic_, they lie in wait, seemingly, for the
ignorant or the unwary and rip open the hulls of the ships that venture
too near.
The light-house service of Alaska leaves much to be desired. The first
buoy was floated in 1884. The first light was put up ten years later.
There are three hundred and twenty-nine aids to navigation now on the
whole Alaskan coast line. These include a hundred and forty lights of
which twenty-eight were placed in 1915. On the much-traveled route from
Icy Strait to Nome, a distance equal to that between New York and
London, there are but three lighthouses!
There are indications of improvement along this line, however. A first
class light is to be placed on Cape St. Elias. New vessels are being
built for light-house work and for the Coast Survey, but like all great
enterprises, things progress slowly. About one-half of the main
channels of southeastern Alaska have been explored by a wire drag and
as rapidly as the appropriations by Congress will permit the work will
be pushed forward.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CITIES OF THE FAR NORTH
Of the cities of Alaska the most interesting historically is Sitka. No
one will regret the time spent in visiting this, the former seat of the
Russian territorial government and the stronghold of the Greek Catholic
Church. After the passing of the Russians it became the first capital
of Alaska. It is situate on Baranof Island, facing Sitka Sound. The
climate is mild and out-door life delightful.
Sitka is beautifully picturesque. The island-laden ocean sweeps to west
of it while on the east the frothing Indian River surges down from its
birthplace in the group of snow-capped mountains known as the Seven
Sisters. In 1799 the Russians established a trading post here and
occupied it until 1804. The old Greek church dating from 1816 still
stands, alongside of a new one called St. Peter's-by-the-Sea, erected
in 1899. The city contains much that is of interest,--a Museum named in
honor of Sheldon Jackson of the Presbyterian Mission. To the influence
of this man Alaska is indebted for her now-thriving reindeer industry.
During the rush to the gold fields in 1898 word was borne to Washington
that the gold-seekers were dying by thousands for lack of food and
proper clothing to protect them from the bitter climate into which, in
their inexperience, they had entered inadequately equipped. In the
effort to aid them the government attempted to send supplies to the
starving camps by reindeer. The plan was not a success and the
government was left with the reindeer on its hands. Dr. Jackson used
his influence with the result that the reindeer were secured for the
Eskimos.
Sitka has United States Public Schools. It has also a Presbyterian
Industrial Training School for natives. It is the headquarters of the
Agricultural Experiment stations, the Coast Survey Magnetic Base
Station, and is the residence of both the Russian and Episcopal Bishops
of Alaska.
[Illustration: SITKA, THE OLD RUSSIAN CAPITAL OF ALASKA]
[Illustration: JUNEAU, THE CAPITAL]
[Illustration: ESKIMOS OF ST. MICHAEL]
Juneau, the present capital, is also most picturesquely located. From
the water it seems to be lying on a shelf,--the cliffs of Mt. Juneau to
the rear and the sea in front of it. It is about a hundred miles north
by east of Sitka, on Gastineau Channel, opposite Douglas Island on
which are situate the celebrated Treadwell mines. Juneau is thoroughly
modern as to churches, schools, newspapers, hospitals. It has drainage,
police and fire protection, telephone and telegraph service and
electric light. A small town of sixteen hundred inhabitants in 1910, it
has increased to a thriving city. The ever-increasing population is
fast dotting the lower heights with beautiful and comfortable homes and
down below them the ever-advancing tunnels of the gold-seekers keep
honey-combing the rock-ribbed earth. As one journeys northward he can
see the stamp house of the Treadwell mines, built right into the side
of the precipitous face of the mountain down which a railroad track has
been laid to carry the ore from the tunnels that bore into the heart of
the cliff.
Ketchikan is a city of commercial importance because of the fishing
industry. It is typical of the settlements along the coast and of the
fishing settlements in particular. It also is located on an island
which gives it many advantages. On one side it has deep water. On the
other side it has mountain, river and lake. Ketchikan is one of the
best places for the visitor to see a "run" during which the salmon
crowd up the river in a struggle so fierce that many of them are killed
in the effort to reach the spawning-grounds.
The most attractive city of this part of the country is Wrangell,
named for the Russian explorer and naval officer, Baron Ferdinand
Wrangell, wise administrator of affairs connected with the Alaskan
colonies of Russia between 1831 and 1836. During his administration an
observatory was established at Sitka. He it was who exposed the
shameful abuses of the Russian-American Company and prevented the
extension of their charter in 1862. He was an astute and far-sighted
statesman, and realizing the value of Alaska, he bitterly opposed the
sale of the territory to the United States.
Wrangell, the city named after him, lies on an island of the same name
a hundred and fifty miles southeast of Juneau. The seeker after the
unusual in his travels will find here much to interest and divert him.
To Wrangell the traders still bring the trophies of the chase, making
their journey down the rapidly-flowing Stikine river from the wonderful
Cassiar hunting grounds, famed for their big game. To these grounds
every year flock hunters from all parts of the world to shoot the
mountain sheep, the moose, the bear and the caribou. In Wrangell, also,
one may see the best of what remains of the magnificent totem poles of
Alaska.
No lover of history, and particularly the history of the native peoples
of the world, can help cherishing a feeling of deep regret when he
sees the approaching decay of these expressions of their inner lives.
As is the case in our own great west, the steam roller of civilization
is passing over what is left of the primitive people, crushing out the
spirit of all that once was and in some cases still is revered by them,
flattening out that which is picturesque and distinctive in them. Who
can look upon the massive-timbered communal houses of the natives of
Alaska, before which were placed the totem poles, bold with their
blazonry of animals, grotesquely carved and gaudily painted,--eagle and
whale, bear, wolf and beaver--without a sigh that soon they, too, will
sail into the past with the caravels of Columbus or ride out of the
plains with the buffalo to return no more?
Through the long ages the American Indian has worshiped--not the sun,
but the great, _creative spirit_ behind the sun! And he has expressed
that worship in the celebrated Sun Dance, a truly _religious_ ceremony
in which he is now forbidden to indulge by the United States
government! In like manner the natives of the Far North expressed
themselves in totems. To a certain extent they are ancestor worshipers,
as are the Chinese. The totem poles are their expression of their
primitive heraldry. They erected them in front of their rude
dwellings, with a pageantry uncouth, it is true, but in a spirit of
sincerity.
I am not one of those who would decry the influence and the splendid
service of the missionary. But it is an influence which often works
both ways. Many of the latter can see in these expressions of pride of
ancestry nothing but the most arrant heathenism, so the totem poles of
Alaska are rotting away. And no more are being built. The young natives
are being "educated" out of any respect which hitherto they may justly
have entertained for their forefathers. There is no scorn known to the
human race which is quite so withering as that which the man who does
not know who his grandfather was entertains for the man who does!
It can not be long until the totem pole will be a thing of the past.
Therefore he who would see them in all their glory must not linger. All
will soon be gone. Here at Wrangell are still some splendid specimens,
perhaps the best the north country now has to offer.
Skagway may be called the city of romance. Time was when it held the
key which unlocked the gateway of the Promised Land,--that golden
kingdom of the North. It is now a thriving commercial center. The White
Pass railroad begins here, forming a sort of portage by means of which
the two extremes of the country may shake hands with each other. The
railroad itself is short. But it touches the headwaters of the Yukon
with its twenty-five hundred miles of navigation, bearing on its broad
bosom the commerce and the traffic of Klondike, Dawson, and Fairbanks,
to the outlet in Bering Sea.
But this is not the reason the history of Skagway is romantic. When the
gold rush began in 1896 the landing had to be made at Dyea at the other
end of the Lynn Canal. From here it was necessary to cross the
dangerous Chilkoot Pass, a most hazardous undertaking. One day the word
was passed along that another pass (now known as White Pass) had been
discovered. With a rush like a flock of frightened sheep the gold
seekers turned and went the other way. _In one day_ fifteen thousand
people left Dyea for Dawson and Skagway and in that same length of time
what had formerly been a swamp became a city!
Abler pens than mine have recorded in novel, poem and play the story of
those eventful days. All know now of the famous (or infamous) gambling
hells with which these places were infested. The spot in Skagway to-day
which most attracts the tourist is the cemetery where lies the body of
"Soapy" Smith. "Soapy" was half-outlaw, half-politician, the "Boss" of
the town, in fact. Skagway was without doubt the wildest and wickedest
place in the world during the reign of "Soapy" Smith. The decent and
sober citizens stood it as long as they could. When they felt, however,
that Skagway had suffered from her evil reputation long enough they
held a meeting and came to a decision! The Sylvester Wharf, now a
half-ruin, has been left standing to mark the spot where the fathers of
the town ran "Soapy" to cover and shot him.
Dawson, in the Canadian Yukon, had a somewhat similar experience. But
the Northwest Mounted Police came to her assistance and brought order
out of chaos. The fame of Dawson during the gold rush is world-wide.
Her affairs are now in the charge of the Canadian government. There is
also a United States Consulate there.
The most important and the largest city in Alaska is Fairbanks. It lies
on the Tanana River, practically at the head of navigation. It is the
site of the Fourth Judicial District and of government activities in
the interior of Alaska. Fairbanks is a city of which any country might
be proud, heated by a central steam plant, with schools, churches,
hospitals, newspapers, long-distance telephone and wireless stations.
The electric plant which lights the city also serves the adjacent
mining camps. Fairbanks may be reached all during the year by a stage
service three hundred and fifty-four miles from Valdez and during five
months in summer steamboat service westward to St. Michael, eastward to
Dawson and White Horse, Yukon Territory, is maintained. Reference has
already been made to the progress of this delightful city, its social
life and the kindly spirit of the people.
As one nears the western coast the cities become few and far between.
Anchorage, on Cook Inlet, Iditarod and Nome are the most important. The
interesting story of Nome is well known. Prospectors were working the
streams for gold when suddenly the yellow dust was found in huge
quantities in the sand along the beach! The first settlement was called
Anvil City and was the usual mushroom affair. Nowhere else in Alaska
was the struggle of the gold-seekers to be compared with those of Nome.
Its exposed position on Norton Sound made it subject to the violent
coast storms. The conditions were unsanitary, the food and fuel supply
a subject of great anxiety, the water supply scanty and the climate
cruel. In the face of all these discouragements, however, the hardy
pioneers fought and conquered. Nome is now a city of some three
thousand, the commercial, judicial and educational center of Seward
Peninsula. It is a fine, courageous little city, compactly built, with
modern improvements and prosperous business houses. A railroad
eighty-five miles long runs to Shelton, but Nome and the adjacent
regions are reached direct only between June and October, the open
season of Bering Sea.
I always learn with regret of any tourist who takes a trip up the
"Inside" passage and returns by the same route. What can he possibly
know of Alaska? The broad expanse of country which sweeps away to the
north and the west, guarded by the mountains, watered by one of the
mightiest rivers in the world,--of this he knows nothing, for it is a
country which can not be described. It must be seen to be appreciated.
It is this part of Alaska that is Nature's gigantic workshop with a job
in it for any man who asks! Here new cities are yet to be born, new
business enterprises to be established, new farms to be tilled. Here
any man who chooses may have that most prized of all possessions,--a
home of his own! There is room for all!
CHAPTER XV
THE NATIVE RACES
In speaking of the native races of Alaska it is not my purpose to enter
into the subject except in so far as it belongs to a book of this
character. As was said of the mines, the real student of such subjects
will find (in the journals devoted to ethnology) what definite
information he seeks. Strangely enough, however, a diligent search has
revealed that there is not to be found in any library a book or in any
magazine an article dealing with that most unusual custom which
prevails among the Eskimos,--the trial marriage. Whether this custom
exists among any other natives of the world I do not know. But I think
not.
The natives of Alaska are of four groups. First, the _Eskimos_, who
dwell in the northern part of the territory in the area near the Arctic
Ocean and Bering Sea. Second, the _Aleut_, a people closely related to
the Eskimos, who are to be found only in the Aleutian Islands and the
mainland adjacent thereto. Third, the _Thlinkits_, who are Indians and
confined to the southeastern section of the country known as the
Panhandle. Fourth, the _Athabaskans_, of the same stock as the American
Indian, who occupy the interior and touch the coast only at Cook Inlet.
The Thlinkits were once the most civilized and at the same time the
most warlike of the native tribes. When the Russians came they found
them living in well-built log houses and with an organized tribal
system. They are to-day of greater intelligence than any of the other
native tribes and are skilled craftsmen. The Athabaskans, on the other
hand, with the exception of some of the most isolated Eskimo tribes,
are the least civilized. Only those on the coast have any kind of
tribal organization and this is not countenanced by the United States
Government. Like the clansmen of Scotland, they seem to group
themselves in families. The Aleuts were once quite prosperous, expert
in the taking of the sea-otter, a very difficult animal to catch. The
ravages of the Russian fur-traders almost annihilated the native
population. They enslaved them and compelled them to capture the
sea-otters for them. But the latter are now almost extinct and the
Aleuts eke out a precarious existence by fishing and trapping foxes.
They call their habitations _barábaras_ and they resemble the igloos
of the Eskimos.
It is the latter people that I know best and of whom I would speak
most. There are no Indians in St. Michael. The native people here are
wholly Eskimos, and one has to live among them to realize the moral
descent of a once-fine native race. One must know them in order to
comprehend the height from which they have fallen! In winter they live
in their igloos. And an igloo is a place so unspeakably filthy that one
can scarcely entertain a thought (much less a sight) of it. In summer
they live in tents. Yet----. In spite of their uncleanliness, in spite
of every other argument which may be urged against them, one always
finds himself at the end of his ruminations admitting to himself that,
after all, they are a fine native race! It is a conclusion at which he
never fails to arrive even in the face of appalling evidence. The
conviction will not be downed.
I have often walked about their summer camps at St. Michael, Nome and
other localities. Always I have found the scene practically the same.
One cannot help being struck with the industry which the Eskimos
display. Every inmate of the tent will be at work! And each is at work
upon something _useful_! Not one of them will be caught idle. The
father usually will be seen carving a piece of ivory, or wood. The
Eskimos are skilled carvers. While President Taft was in office a
magnificent piece was sent him for his desk. It was carved from the
tusk of a walrus by a native. In the tent the mother will be making
_mukluks_, or fur boots, while the older daughter beats out and twists
the caribou sinew into that strong thread with which the furs and boots
are sewed. Let me add that they never come unsewed! The smaller
children will each be engaged in some light task, such as making
curios, or smoothing the first roughness off of the ivory from which
the father, later, will carve something. Every member of the family
will be engaged in producing _something of value_. Wherever one goes
among the Eskimos he will be struck by this admirable trait.
They are a light-hearted, good-natured people, easily amused. They have
a ready smile for you as you pass them by. Compared with the white man
they are undersized. From my own six-feet-two they seem rather
diminutive to me when I look down upon them, but they are by no means
the dwarfs that people imagine them. The average height of the man is
five-feet-four. Tall Eskimos are not unusual. They are well-built,
graceful in movement and possessed of small hands and feet. The nose
(in some of the tribes) is flat, but in others it is quite the
opposite, and the mouth, although somewhat large, is always filled with
beautiful teeth. Their smile is most attractive. I have seen many
handsome Eskimos,--that is, they would be handsome if they were clean!
The centaur of old was no more a part of his horse than the Eskimo is a
part of his boat. He is a born navigator,--as aquatic as a duck. He
fashions for himself a small boat of skin in which he practically
encloses himself. These boats are of two kinds and in their
construction the Eskimo reveals his ingenuity. They are cunningly
contrived and cleverly managed. With this primitive craft he performs
all sorts of unbelievable stunts. An expert and daring fisherman is he.
The smaller boat (called a _kayak_) is a sealskin canoe and is a rather
tiny affair. It has circular hatches for one man. The _bidarka_ (or
_bidocky_) will hold two men. But the _baidará_ is made of walrus hide
and will hold from twenty to thirty persons. It will live in a heavy
sea and is taken on long sea voyages. The stranger who travels even a
short distance in one, however, usually does so with his heart in his
mouth most of the time. The fabric belies its looks. It appears so
flimsy as to be dangerous and the water is plainly visible underneath.
But the natives walk boldly about in them. Every step depresses the
skin for two or three inches, but long experience has taught them that
the spot on which they stand will sustain the weight of a ton! I have
actually seen them turn a summersault in the water with one of these
home-made craft and come up smiling! Yet, strange to say, while they
are, apparently, more at home on the water than on the land, few of
them swim. Perhaps it is that the water is too cold.
Who that has seen these diminutive people venture forth into a
treacherous and perilous sea with naught between them and death but
this tiny home-made boat to do battle with the huge monsters of the
ice-encumbered deep--the whale, the walrus and the seal--can question
their courage? Not I! The Eskimo has made no effort to conquer his
environment. More wisely he has adapted himself to it and constrained
it to his needs. The land of his birth is inhospitable. His environment
is savage. He wrings his sustenance from the land only by powerful
effort, and human nature takes on a new dignity in the life of such
people. Only the sturdiest of creatures, set naked in an Arctic world,
could rise superior to such an environment.
As for the Eskimo woman,--in youth she is not unattractive, often
quite good-looking, in fact. But I hereby testify that of all the
hideously unattractive and ugly creatures known to the human race the
full-blooded, middle-aged Eskimo woman carries off the palm. As it was
in the beginning, before God said "Let there be light"--she is without
form and void! She ages rapidly. She dresses as do the men, in the
_parka_, a long, loose garment reaching to the knee, made of muskrat
and reindeer skin in winter and of drill in summer, fur-seal boots and
breeches. As the men are nearly always smooth-faced it is often
difficult to tell them apart. They both use tobacco. And they are
nothing if not economical! They chew it until every particle of flavor
has vanished. Then they dry and smoke it!
A friend of mine, a well-known woman writer who once served the
American Minister to China as personal secretary, one day confided to
me that since the day she left the celestial empire (some fifteen years
ago) she had never seen any dirt worth mentioning! Obviously, she has
never glimpsed the interior of an igloo! With an American Army Officer
of the Medical Corps I once visited one. We were told that it was one
of the cleanest Eskimo villages in Alaska. The saints preserve me from
a visit to the dirtiest one! An igloo is a windowless hut, shut tight
against the air. It is usually crowded with a large family, grossly
clad in skins which are poorly tanned, partly decayed. They are
unspeakably fed, greasy of skin. Refuse of every kind was piled about
the igloo and a recent thaw made the place a mass of liquid filth.
Of course, the reason for all this is apparent, and in a way
unavoidable. Fuel is scarce and hard to obtain. Therefore, ventilation,
with its waste of heat, would be fatally extravagant. Food is gathered
in summer and stored for winter. When it comes out of storage much of
it is decayed. Crowding is unavoidable and this means filth and
infection. Water is scanty, cleanliness impossible. All this leads to
the prevalence of disease and the disease most prevalent is
tuberculosis. Moreover, this village which we visited has no doctor.
The nearest one is seven miles away.
Conditions in Alaska, so far as medical relief for the natives is
concerned, are distressing and inexcusable. Year after year, with
persistent regularity, the Sundry Civil Appropriation Committee of the
House strikes out the modest sum of seventy-five thousand dollars
petitioned for by the Board of Education for medical relief work among
the natives of Alaska. In all southeastern Alaska there is but one
hospital for natives,--a Presbyterian institution at Haines. Dr.
Romig, a former Moravian Medical Missionary in the Bristol Bay district
in Bering Sea, gave as an estimate that forty per cent of the Eskimo
population of this district, numbering some seventeen hundred people,
were afflicted with transmissible diseases--chiefly tuberculosis,
syphilis and trachoma. The physical condition of these people is
pitiable in the extreme. Yet the government provides _one_ physician
and a small inadequate infirmary without proper equipment and
maintained in an abandoned schoolhouse!
Contrast this with what is being done for the Indians of the United
States. For the three hundred thousand there are now employed two
hundred doctors, eighty nurses, seven dentists, seventy field matrons,
and seventy-seven miscellaneous hospital attendants. Also, the
government maintains for the Indians forty-nine hospitals, four
tuberculosis sanitaria with a capacity for caring for a thousand four
hundred and ninety-nine patients! The reason for the striking contrast
between this and the shameful neglect of the Alaskan natives ought to
be found and removed. The present condition is a reproach to us as a
nation. Not only this, it is a menace to the health and safety of the
white people already there and an argument against the coming of
others.
Much has been said and written of the origin of the Eskimos. There is a
difference of opinion as to whence, originally, they came. My own
belief is that they are of Mongolian origin. A similarity of language
would tend to strengthen this belief. When it comes to a native tongue
I confess that the Eskimo has a peculiarity which is unique and
baffling, more so than I have ever encountered in any other language. I
once got up against this in a manner which took some time to untangle.
As United States Commissioner at St. Michael it was part of my duty to
try offenders against the law. The first time the offender chanced to
be an Eskimo I suddenly discovered that I had troubles of my own.
Apparently his _no_ meant _yes_, and vice versa. I could not understand
it at first, but at last it dawned upon me that although he spoke
brokenly in English he was _thinking_ in his own tongue. For instance,
I would say to him:
"You did so-and-so, didn't you?"
"Yes!" he would reply, when I knew very well that he meant to deny it.
I called in a priest, a man who spoke the native language, from whom I
learned that my surmise was correct. The Eskimo, when he says yes means
"Yes, I did _not_!" When he says no he means "No, I _did_!" There you
are! One has to be mentally cross-eyed in order to get him!
The Eskimos are very peaceable people except when (in violation of the
law) the white man sells them whisky. It must be acknowledged that the
latter has done little to encourage their uplift. In fact, he is
largely to blame for the demoralized condition of the Eskimo to-day.
One may no longer sell liquor in Alaska, but the mischief, so far as
the natives is concerned, is already done. For a long time there seemed
no way to prevent the furnishing of whisky to the Eskimos. A law might
cover it, it is true. But experience has taught me that if a man is
clever enough and unscrupulous enough he can drive a horse and wagon
through the best law that was ever made! Where there was no saloon the
liquor was furnished the natives in the guise of pay or bribe, and
every man who has lived in Alaska knows how little regard the white man
has had for the sanctity of the native home. Wives and daughters were
constantly dishonored. If the husband or father protested or put up a
fight he was overcome by threats or bribes and given liquor to drink
until what natural good qualities he once possessed disappeared
forever.
If one would see the native races at their best he must see them as far
as possible from the haunts of the white men. There he will find them
by no means an inferior people. I know of one cannery where every
employee except the superintendent and the bookkeeper is a native, and
one has but to observe their work to be convinced of their capability.
But it seems impossible for them to live near the white people without
both whites and natives starting down hill. From the acquaintance to
the debauchery of the native woman by a certain type of white man is
but a step. It has not been a great many years since the whalers used
to come up from San Francisco to winter in the Arctic and catch whales.
Their first act on arriving was to carry off the native women, take
them aboard the vessels and keep them all winter. In the spring when
they got ready to return they would throw them ashore unceremoniously.
This went on many years but has now been stopped by the government.
Sometimes the white men marry the native women and when they do they
quickly sink to their level. The native man, always imitative of the
white man, in time forsakes the hunting and fishing which once
furnished him an honest living and sooner or later he is to be seen
hanging around the villages, picking up odd jobs.
Some of the customs of the natives of Alaska (and elsewhere) are both
quaint and startling. When a native guest enters a house neither host
nor guest take notice of each other. The host goes on with his work and
the visitor either assists him or produces some of his own. When he
departs, however, the host says to him:
"Inûvdluaritse!" (Live well!)
But they greet the white visitor in smiling friendliness and when he
leaves the host usually says to him:
"Aporniakinatit!" (Do not hurt thy head!) Presumably this is a warning
against the upper part of the low doorway.
The Eskimo's idea of hospitality sometimes extends to lengths which are
somewhat appalling and occasionally it requires not a little diplomacy
to refuse them without giving offense. When one gets caught in an
Eskimo village and has to spend the night there it is the commonest of
occurrences for the man of the house to offer him not only the freedom
of his home but his wife as well! Among the natives the interchange of
wives is common.
And this brings us to that most discussed of all questions,--the
morality (or the lack of it) of the native peoples of the earth. No
matter to what far corner of the world one may journey he will find
this problem the same in all of them. The Eskimo is no exception.
Before the coming of the white man he was utterly godless. He had no
religion, no form of worship, no imagery, no idea of any "happy hunting
ground" hereafter. In many sections this is still true, although they
have been brought under the influence of the church in some localities.
In St. Michael the natives are not permitted to live in the village,
but their tents dot the hillsides around and during the summer months
the streets are alive with them. Often they come from great distances
with their furs, carved ivory, etc., which they have for sale. Their
winter dwelling, the igloo, is a pit in the ground, roofed over with
logs and sometimes, not always, a window made of fish skin or the
entrail of a walrus. The hut is entered by a kind of ante-chamber in
the top of which is a hole large enough to admit a man. If he chances
to be a large man he sometimes has difficulty in getting through! He
must descend a ladder to a narrow passage or tunnel which leads to the
principal room, often fifteen or twenty feet from the entrance. The
sole furniture of a native residence is a seal-oil lamp which is used
for both heating and cooking. It is lighted in the autumn and burns
incessantly until spring.
The igloo is usually from six to eight feet high and about thirty feet
in circumference. Often it houses from ten to twenty persons. During
the cold and stormy weather every aperture is closed. How they endure
the odor and the vitiated air is something no white man can understand.
The summer dwellings were formerly constructed above ground and
consisted of light poles roofed over with skins. Now, however, these
have given way to the ordinary tent which is not only cheaper but
preferable for many reasons.
In almost every village, or native settlement, the visitor will find
the council-house, a much larger hut than the others. It is called a
_kashga_, and is used also as a sort of club where the youths and the
unmarried men of the village congregate. Here matters of importance are
discussed and guests from a distance lodged. The hut is usually about
twenty feet square and ten feet high.
It was in one of these _kashgas_ that I had what was perhaps the most
interesting experience in connection with the native races that I have
had during the years that I have lived in Alaska. I have come in touch
with the ceremonies of the natives of many corners of the earth, but
this one was unique,--even more so than the celebrated Snake Dance of
the Hopi, of Arizona. I had once been able to befriend a young Eskimo.
In gratitude for the favor he invited me to attend a native festival to
which (he gave me to understand) no white man had ever been admitted.
Whether this meant that no white man had _ever_ been admitted or that
none had seen the ceremony as indulged in by this particular tribe I am
unable to say. Nevertheless I understood that he was attempting to
honor me. I confess that it was with some misgivings that I went, but I
have never been sorry.
This particular ceremony was known as The Ten Year Festival. Some tribe
from another locality is asked to visit the home tribe and the ceremony
is held during the visit. The visitors this year came from Unalakleet,
bringing large quantities of gifts and many of them going back
empty-handed at the end of the festival. "Potlatching," or trading, is
the favorite occupation of the Eskimos and many a time have I been a
victim. But I usually hastened to "potlatch" whatever I happened to
draw off onto some one else at the earliest possible opportunity!
In some respects the Ten Year Festival is not unlike the ceremonies of
the American Indians. In the _kashga_, heated to suffocation, the
natives and their visitors foregather. A square hole is cut in the
floor and a sort of shelf, or bench, runs around the sides of the room.
On this bench sit the principal personages of the tribe, their feet
dangling and not infrequently kicking those below them in the face. The
"orchestra" with their tom-toms begin their monotonous drumming. The
medicine man is heard below chanting a weird tribal song and presently
his head appears through the hole in the floor. He comes up, dancing
and singing, both song and chant increasing in intensity as he appears.
The other members of the tribe join the dance and the song. Their
motions become more and more violent. A perspiration which is largely
grease, due to the oil which exudes from their skin, rolls from their
naked bodies as they writhe and lash themselves into a perfect frenzy.
The women join the dance, cavorting about unclothed, just as the men
do.
The final episode of the ceremony occurs when the medicine man breaks
from the _kashga_ and runs outside in the bitter cold. Of course,
everything is frozen tight, but a hole is cut in the Bay and into the
ice-cold water he plunges, returning to the _kashga_ dripping wet. He
then tells them that he has been in consultation with the Great Spirit,
or whatever it is that they call their ruling power, and that he has
been instructed to tell them that the crops will be good, the furs
plentiful, that they will be successful in catching the walrus and the
seal.
I have already spoken of the unusual custom of the trial marriage which
exists among the natives of the Far North. So far as I know, it exists
nowhere else,--at least under supervision of the church. But when the
United States purchased Alaska there was a paragraph in the treaty
which read as follows:
"The inhabitants of the ceded territory, according to their choice,
reserving their natural allegiance, may return to Russia within three
years, but if they should prefer to remain in the ceded territory they,
with the exception of the uncivilized tribes, shall be admitted to the
enjoyments and all the rights, advantages and immunities of citizens of
the United States, and shall be maintained and protected in the full
enjoyment of their liberty, property and religion. The uncivilized
tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United
States may from time to time adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of
that country."
The supposition is that the "laws and regulations" were not immediately
forthcoming and that gradually the natives came under the influence of
the Greek Catholic Church. The trial marriage is a blending of the
customs of both of these.
I presume that there is no other place in the world where the natives
approach more nearly to living in a state of nature than here. This
applies as much to their family life as to their out-door existence. In
former times when the Eskimo man and woman decided that they would like
to wage the war of life together, to combine against their implacable
foes, the cold, the storm and the darkness, they just went ahead and
did it. This was and in many cases still is the beginning and the end
of the subject of marriage with them. The native custom in the olden
days was a somewhat strenuous experience for the bride. It is still
followed, but it has now become a mere ceremony, quaint and
picturesque. The young Eskimo seldom "falls in love." He selects a
wife, usually choosing her for her health and strength. In the olden
days, having picked her out, he would lie in wait for her, seize her by
the hair of her head and drag her off to his igloo, the whole family
following and (apparently) attempting to rescue her. Strangely enough,
his choice was not always the young girl. There was a lively
competition for widows, especially if they were the mothers of sons who
would be able to help bring in the whale and keep the wolf from the
door.
Of Eskimo morality and civilization there are many degrees. Some of the
tribes as yet untouched by the influence of the missionaries have
moral laws of extreme refinement. And they live up to them! Do you know
of another spot on earth where _both man and woman_ who have proved
guilty of unfaithfulness are meted out the same punishment? I do not.
But the reindeer Koriaks, one of the tribes not far from Nome, place
the greatest stress upon loyalty and chastity of both man and woman,
and the punishment for both, when they transgress the law, is instant
death!
As to many of the tribes, however, little can be said and that little
is not to their credit. They have no higher conception of life than
that which is wholly animalistic. Through all the long ages, with them
a physical act has been merely a physical act. It has had no moral
significance. And can the idea of untold ages be easily eradicated?
And, after all, are they worse than other people? Comparisons are
odious. But it must be remembered that these natives live out their
lives thus _thinking no evil_! What, then, of the white man, born with
the knowledge of the moral significance which is attached to the
personal relationship and who has permitted himself to become degraded
by the vices of civilization? The native man is _un_moral. The white
man is _im_moral. There is a difference! Moreover, the Scarlet Letter
is not alone for the Hester Prynnes of Old Plymouth. From time
immemorial among some of the tribes of the North the unchaste Eskimo
woman has been forced to wear a sign of her degradation,--a green band
in her hair. However, unlike Hester Prynne, she is given another
chance, albeit an unfair one. If she gives birth to an able-bodied boy
she becomes an object of unusual and sincere respect and her green band
becomes, as it were, a crown.
Humanity itself, in the Far North, sometimes becomes quite as cold and
frozen as the land itself. But there is one thing which never fails to
thaw it,--children. And any one who lives long in the north country can
not but realize that children are of vital necessity in any
sparsely-settled land. The Reverend Hudson Stuck, to whose admirable
volume, _Voyages on the Yukon_, reference has already been made,
relates a good story bearing on this point. Long residence in Alaska
has taught him much that has never yet been writ in books and has made
of him, although a man of the strictest religious convictions, kindly
tolerant of the frailties of humankind. Above all else, he is
impatient, as we all are, of the non-essentials in education which are
being crammed down the throats of the natives by teachers, often due to
youth and inexperience, while the essentials, the things of real value
to them as individuals and to the country as a whole, are neglected.
The Archdeacon relates that once he visited a Mission where the man in
charge, a youth, with misguided enthusiasm, boasted that there was
neither a half-breed nor an illegitimate child in the village! The
Archdeacon received the information in silence, but after a tour of
inspection he returned to the subject.
"I see no children at all," he remarked. "Aren't there any?"
The young man proudly admitted that there were none,--whereupon the
Archdeacon proceeded to shock him.
"I much prefer half-breed children or even illegitimate children to no
children at all!" he said. "By the grace of God, much may be done with
the half-breed or even the illegitimate child. But in the name of all
that is hopeless and preposterous," he finished, "what can ever be
accomplished in a country where there are _no children at all_?"
It has always been a matter of real regret to me that the Archdeacon
did not record the answer to his question!
Just when the custom of the trial marriage in its present form
originated I do not know. That it must have entered with or at least
followed closely in the wake of the Greek Catholic Church is
undeniable. As was the case with the native ceremonies of the American
Indians,--the Sun Dance, the Ghost Dance, the Flute Dance and the Snake
Dance--_religious_ ceremonies, every one of them, exaggerated and
highly-colored reports of which were carried to the government by
over-enthusiastic and sometimes fanatical missionaries and agents with
the result that the government took steps to suppress them, the trial
marriage of the natives of Alaska, while not yet suppressed, now rests
under official displeasure. A part of my duty was to investigate this
subject. I did so--with a result more astonishing to myself than it
could possibly have been to any one else. Like the man of old who went
to the temple to scoff and remained to pray, I issued forth from this
investigation with most of my preconceived theories on the subject
knocked galley-west. Some of my hitherto staunchest principles, if not
quite broken, were so badly bent that I have never yet been able to
hammer them out quite straight again!
I had it out one day with Father B----, a priest of the Greek Church, a
benevolent and kindly old man who in the early days of his mission
among the Eskimos had cherished a dream of them as a separate
people,--a race apart, who should work out their own salvation with the
_assistance_ (not the _insistence_) of a wisely directed form of
religion. That dream for a while promised to be realized, at least to a
certain extent. But with the coming of the first white men, most of
whom were utterly lawless, he saw his vision fade and finally vanish.
Nevertheless he worked on and the trial marriage is his solution of the
problem. It is a sort of welding of the customs of both the native and
the church.
There is one point in regard to the custom on which I wish to be
plainly understood. In Alaska it is against the law for an unmarried
man and woman to live together. To say that the custom exists with the
_consent_ of the Church is wholly unfair. Every one who has lived in
such a country as this knows very well that many of the customs as well
as the laws are born of necessity, and the custom of the trial marriage
is unquestionably one of these. It certainly exists with the
_knowledge_ of the Church and its origin undoubtedly lies in this fact:
The parishes over which one priest has jurisdiction lie far apart. A
visit to each of them is possible only about once a year. Without the
Church there would be _no_ marriage, even a belated one. Not
infrequently it happens that a young Eskimo who wishes a wife goes to
the priest and asks his assistance in finding one. The girl may (and
often does) live in one parish and the young man in another. He will
either go to her home or she will go to his. But they can not be
married until the next visit of the priest which is sometimes a whole
year later.
Before the priest will consent to assist the youth in finding a
suitable companion, however, he makes certain requirements which the
young man must meet. He must build an igloo, furnish it and stock it
with supplies. He must then construct his boat in order that he may
fish and thus make a living for them both. This done he may have his
girl. _Score one in favor of the trial marriage!_ He may _not_ have her
unless he is prepared to house and support her. When his igloo and boat
are complete the young people go to the new home and live together for
one year. At the end of the year, however, they must be married by the
ceremony of the Church. If they do not come to him to be married the
priest seeks them out and forbids them to live together any longer.
While the idea itself rather sticks in one's throat, the thoughtful man
can not deny that the trial marriage has much to recommend it. They who
have come most closely in touch with it, the missionaries and priests,
say that it is indeed seldom that the couple fail to return at the end
of the year to be married. When they do, it is asserted, there is
usually a reason, and when this reason exists, they claim, it is far
better for them to separate. The year of trial has proved that they are
not suited to each other. If a child has come to them, the mother takes
it and goes back to her people, and both the man and woman may select
another mate and enter into another compact if they desire. But this
seldom happens.
I argued the question to a finish with Father B----. He could not be
moved from his position and in the end I could but acquiesce in much
that he said. How much better this system is than that which prevails
under the stress of our present day civilization! In the rapid and
feverish life of the cities of the world to-day,--what happens? The
lover and his lass during the period of courtship put forth their whole
stock of attractiveness. Seeing each other periodically it is quite
simple to keep out of sight one's faults and weaknesses. No sooner are
they married than the hitherto concealed frailties begin to appear.
Then----. They realize that there exists a _bond_ between them and more
often than not, like a dog straining at his leash, they endeavor to
find out just how elastic the tie is,--just how far they can strain or
stretch it. First arguments, then differences, then quarrels. Before
they know it the cord snaps. Life is never the same again. Lovers'
quarrels may be made up. Family quarrels never! What then? Nine times
out of ten, for social or economic reasons, they go on living together,
ekeing out an unhappy and often tortured existence. What could be
worse? That which (for lack of a better term to apply to it) we call
the social evil is not confined to the scarlet woman of the streets. It
often exists in the best families of the land!
Among these people of the Northland, however, it is different. Both the
youth and the maiden know very well that at the end of the year there
is a possibility of either leaving the other. The result of this
knowledge is that from the very first they fall into the habit of
trying to please each other! And it is a habit they seldom outgrow. If
they find that they can _not_ please each other they are privileged to
separate,--in fact, are required to do so. They are not permitted to
remain together quarreling all their lives and ruining the family life
of the children who come to them. This, in my judgment, explains the
light-heartedness of the Eskimos. They are a happy people and the
parents never punish the children. Domesticity counts for much among
them. Home is sanctuary from the elements. They have little else,--but
they have each other! The manner in which they are forced to live for
so many months of the year, so closely confined, draws them very
closely together. I question whether what they lack, or what we imagine
they lack, does not matter less than we think. To me it seems that they
miss little of life's essential meaning. They do not have much, it is
true. They are often ill-fed. They are not intellectual. They are not
sentimental. They are just human! And although they may be for months
shut in by the icy blasts of winter they do not complain. Why? Because
no cold can penetrate the inner glow and warmth which is born of an
adequate comradeship!
The trial marriage permits the indulgence in one of their quaintest of
customs. No Eskimo maiden ever accepts a proposal of marriage.
Indifference to the attention of her admirer is the acme of good form!
I find that "keeping up appearances" is characteristic of humanity
whether the latter dwell on Greenland's icy mountain or India's coral
strand! And propinquity is and ever has been the most prolific parent
of love--at either the North Pole or the Equator. The "force" with
which the Eskimo youth of to-day seizes his bride by the hair to
"drag" her off to his igloo is altogether counterfeit, as is also the
attempt on the part of her family to "rescue" her. It is merely the
indulgence in one of their most ancient customs.
I have been much among the natives,--especially those who abide on my
island, and because of what I have seen of their family life I am
almost a convert to the system. As a rule the Eskimo makes a good
husband, willing to perform any labor, endure any hardship or suffer
any deprivation in order to procure food for his wife and children.
Many an Arctic man of my acquaintance has died for his family, and I am
often reminded when I think of them of the familiar lines:
"All love that hath not friendship for its base
Is like a mansion built upon the sand!
Love, to endure life's sorrow and earth's woe,
_Needs friendship's solid masonry below_!"
It is said that some one once asked Diogynes this question:
"At what age is it best for a man to marry?"
With the classical brevity of the Greeks he replied:
"In youth it is too soon,--in age too late!"
I disclaim any intention of offering a treatise on the subject of
marriage, but the investigation of this custom of the natives
unquestionably gave me a huge jolt! It turned my thoughts into a
channel which otherwise I might never have had occasion to explore.
Would that I could chart it! If only we could bring ourselves to regard
marriage as a profession and would set ourselves in a business-like way
to excelling in it! Could it in any way detract from its dignity? Or
its sacredness? Surely not. Medicine and surgery are professions. The
Law is a profession, and the Church. Diplomacy, legislation and arms
are professions. Marriage is the greatest of all professions,--and the
most difficult of any to master! One may master to a degree which
may be regarded as little short of perfection the other
professions,--music, art, oratory, etc. What man of to-day has the
conceit to regard himself as a well-nigh perfect husband?
That the rewards of marriage are incomparable is undeniable. Life's
journey, at best, is lonely. No man can deny that even though his daily
task may take him amidst the crowd he lives the greater part of his
life alone! A dear and close companionship is all that makes life
tolerable. Nothing else ever has, will or can. Fame is a delusion and a
snare. Ambition is a disease. Affectionate companionship and a home are
the only things worth having. Why not build a _home_ instead of a
house? Why not go about the process in a business-like way? Why not
make honor and loyalty fashionable and permit faithlessness to go out
of style?
One of America's foremost writers declares repeatedly throughout his
excellent novels that judgment has never yet entered into the selection
of a mate,--that sentiment and emotion alone decide the after life of
every couple who are wed. This is, unfortunately, true except in rare
cases. None would care to abolish wholly the electrical current which
flashes between the sexes. And yet----. Marriage entered into from a
sense of duty on both sides is not without its strong argument. He who
undertakes marriage because he regards it as both a duty and a
privilege, or solely from a sense of duty, who either actively or
passively selects a mate for no other reason, is very likely because of
that same sense of duty to fulfill his obligations faithfully and to
behave well. Nothing in all the earth is quite so fine as an active
conscience! For such a man life reserves some of her grandest hours.
The Golden Apples do not grow so far above the heads of any of us that
we can not reach out and gather them if we try! And he who follows the
path of duty will find his own apple quite as luscious and sweet at
the core as that of him who trod the flowery road of personal pleasure!
I am one of those who hope that with the end of the great World War a
new spirit of tolerance may spread its white wings over all the world
and that sooner or later some of the time-worn social rules and
regulations, archaic because designed for a civilization two thousand
years ago, may be abrogated or at least amended and modified. May the
day come when life shall be individual, when creed and dogma shall be
buried in a grave so deep that there shall be no possibility of a
Resurrection! When that nameless and indefinite thing known as Public
Opinion shall be forced to lower its threatening finger and lose its
power! When all men and all women shall enjoy the privilege of working
out, each for himself and herself, that most potent factor in the human
experience, namely, the personal relationship, and when we shall all
live saner, cleaner, healthier, happier and _more moral_ lives in
consequence!
Dr. William H. Dall, Paleontologist of the United States Geological
Survey and Honorary Curator of Mollusks at the National Museum at
Washington, D. C., has written the following charming verses about the
natives of Alaska. "Innuit" is the name by which the Eskimo calls
himself and his people from Greenland to Mt. St. Elias. The _topek_ is
the winter house of turf and walrus hide. In the igloo, or snow house,
there is no wood. All Innuit believe in evil spirits which are supposed
to dwell far inland, away from the shores. In times of starvation
Innuit ethics permit a mother to put her baby, when she can no longer
feed it, out in the snow to die. The child's mouth must be stuffed with
mud or grass. Otherwise its spirit will return and be heard crying
about the house at night.
THE SONG OF THE INNUIT
O, we are the Innuit people,
Who scatter about the floe
And watch for the puff of the breathing seal
While the whistling breezes blow.
By a silent stroke the ice is broke
And the struggling prey below
With the crimson flood of its spouting blood
Reddens the level snow.
O, we are the Innuit people,
Who flock to the broken rim
Of the Arctic pack where the walrus lie
In the polar twilight dim.
Far from the shore their surly roar
Rises above the whirl
Of the eager wave, as the Innuit brave
Their flying lances hurl.
O, we are the Innuit people
Who lie in the topek warm;
While the northern blast flies strong and fast
And fiercely roars the storm;
Recounting the ancient legends
Of fighting, hunting and play,
When our ancestors came from the southland tame
To the glorious Arctic day.
There is one sits by in silence
With terror in her eyes,
For she hears in dreams the piteous screams
Of a cast-out babe that dies--
Dies in the snow as the keen winds blow
And the shrieking northers come,--
On that dreadful day when the starving lay
Alone in her empty home.
O, we are the Innuit people,
And we lie secure and warm
Where the ghostly folk of the Nunatak
Can never do us harm.
Under the stretching walrus hide
Where at the evening meal
The well-filled bowl cheers every soul
Heaped high with steaming seal.
The Awful Folk of the Nunatak
Come down in the hail and the snow,
And slash the skin of the kayak thin
To work the hunter woe.
They steal the fish from the next day's dish
And rot the walrus lines--
But they fade away with the dawning day
As the light of summer shines.
O, we are the Innuit people
Of the long, bright Arctic day,
When the whalers come and the poppies bloom
And the ice-floe shrinks away;
Afar in the buoyant umiak
We feather our paddle blades
And laugh in the light of the sunshine bright,
Where the white man's schooner trades.
O, we are the Innuit people
Rosy and brown and gay;
And we shout as we sing of the wrestling ring
Or toss the ball at play.
In frolic chase we oft embrace
The waist of a giggling maid
As she runs on the sand of the Arctic strand
Where the ice-bears bones are laid.
O, we are the Innuit people,
Content in our northern home;
Where the kayak's prow cuts the curling brow
Of the breakers snowy foam.
The merry Innuit people,
Of the cold, gray Arctic sea,
Where the breathing whale, the Aurora pale
And the snow-white foxes be.
There is a diversity of opinion as to the ultimate fate of the native
races of the earth. To my mind there is but one answer. Search the wide
world over to-day and where will you find a wilderness? There are none
which the aggressive white man has not penetrated. And wherever the
white man enters the native man begins to disappear. It has always
been so, and it always will be so.
If only the white man would let them alone! Is it not better to have
the vast Arctic spaces people by a native race than to have it
unpeopled by anybody? The Eskimos live where no one else on earth can
or will live. They are a picturesque and harmless people. In their
struggle for existence they have fought valiantly. Surely they have
earned the right to exist unmolested, earned it bravely.
CHAPTER XVI
SOCIAL LIFE IN ALASKA
I have more than once been forced to endure the suppressed sympathy of
friends who live in the Interior because of my enforced residence on
St. Michael. It is a sympathy wholly wasted. St. Michael is a bright,
clean little place. There are few mosquitoes,--a fact which in itself
is a recommendation. Although the temperature is sometimes very low,
and although the Arctic winter sends down some terrific blizzards at
times, as a rule the short winter days are bright, still and pleasant.
If one wishes sport it is right at hand on the mainland,--wild geese,
duck, ptarmigan and caribou. There is also salmon fishing.
As a brilliantly-colored thread is sometimes woven into a piece of
embroidery I find one vivid memory running through the years I have
lived on St. Michael. To me the most wonderful thing in connection with
those years is the transformation which takes place each year on the
day that the first ship anchors in the Bay. Like the Sleeping Beauty of
the fairy tale St. Michael suddenly wakens from her long winter's
sleep. No words can describe that awakening. It must be seen to be
appreciated.
When the last boat leaves the island in October almost every one who
has been employed there during the summer season returns to the States
as there is nothing for them to do here during the long, dark months.
When the first boat comes in June, however, laden with tourists,
prospectors and business men, they all come back, and the scene which
follows their arrival is one that I have never seen equalled elsewhere.
I have in mind at this writing two good friends, the men who during the
years that I served as United States Commissioner at St. Michael, were
responsible for this transformation. When one remembers that fifty
thousand people passed through the port of St. Michael during the rush
to Nome, it is apparent that theirs was no small task. One of these men
was Mr. A. F. Zipf, Traffic Manager of the Northern Navigation Company.
The other was S. J. Sanguineti, a splendid son of sunny California.
Everything connected with transportation in and out of Alaska was in
the hands of Mr. Zipf, while Mr. Sanguineti had charge of the
provisioning of hotels and boats, the providing of eating and sleeping
accommodations for the many who flocked each summer to the country.
The efficiency displayed by these two men was a thing to create
admiration and enthusiasm. Because of Mr. Zipf's capability in managing
details, within thirty minutes after the landing every one employed in
St. Michael was in his place. The clerk was behind his counter, or back
of his desk in an office. The cook was in the kitchen and the
laundryman in the laundry. They did not even go first to the rooms
which had been engaged for them. Their baggage was placed therein for
them and within the hour St. Michael fairly teemed with activity. The
men who had just gone to work looked as though they had been there
always. In the same deft manner did Mr. Zipf handle the transfer of
passengers, baggage and freight (enormous in volume) which passed
through the port of St. Michael and went on up the Yukon. Every detail
had been carefully worked out before the landing.
In these stirring days of our national life I have thought many times
of these two men and wondered that the United States Government has not
sought them out for positions of responsibility. Both would be master
hands in helping to untangle the complicated mass of detail which now
taxes the strength and the ability of our country. Uncle Sam never had
greater need for her men of proved efficiency.
Social life is not wanting in St. Michael, or in any other community in
Alaska. We have reached a period in our career where we thoroughly
resent being pictured as a collection of wild and lawless mining camps
where faro banks, drinking joints and vigilance committees abound. The
resident of the Outside, unless forewarned, would open his eyes wide if
asked to attend a garden party, or a four o'clock tea, in one of the
larger Alaskan towns. Evening dress after six o'clock is not at all
unusual for both men and women. The women's clubs are very much alive
and engaged in the same activities as those of the States. In fact, one
finds in the various sections of Alaska most of the normal
manifestations of cultured civilization,--the elements which contribute
to the upbuilding of an intelligent, law-abiding commonwealth.
[Illustration: "SCOTTY" ALLEN AND BALDY]
[Illustration: GENE DOYLE, ONE OF THE OLDEST MAIL CARRIERS ON SEWARD
PENINSULA. A HERO OF THE TRAIL!]
[Illustration: COMING IN TO ST. MICHAEL WITH OUR THIRTY-THREE-DOG TEAM
AFTER GOING OUT TO MEET THE MAIL CARRIER]
[Illustration: DUTCH HARBOR]
The subject of intemperance in Alaska has been much dwelt upon, and
rightly, for it became such a menace to the future development of the
country that the Alaskans themselves voluntarily did away with it. It
was not forced upon them by any legislation. Formerly liquor played a
great part in the life of the country and in this connection, no matter
what one's convictions may be, it must be acknowledged that there were
extenuating circumstances. The same is true of the men now in the
service in the European War. The soldier who, wounded, has lain on the
battlefield eight or ten hours in a driving rain, or all during a
chill, frosty night, often has to have a stinging hot stimulant if his
life is to be saved. It is not a matter of principle. It is a thing of
necessity. What man is courageous enough to take upon himself the
responsibility of saying that it shall not be given him? He may never
have tasted it before in his life. It was just so with these Alaskan
pioneers,--were they not soldiers, too, the advance guard, as it were,
of a new civilization? They entered into a bleak and practically
unknown land where Nature frowned savagely upon them on every hand. The
half-starved, half-frozen, not-sufficiently-clad follower of the trail
had to keep life in him some way while he made those first long, hard
journeys through a practically unpeopled land. It was not always
possible to have fire. So his flask was often his salvation. But liquor
came to be the curse of Alaska and now the country, of its own
volition, has gone "bone-dry." The only business which has now no
chance of succeeding in Alaska is the saloon.
Not a great while ago an Alaskan Carrie Nation broke forth from the
ranks of patient and long-suffering women and did some effective work.
She lived at _Mile Twenty-three and a Half_, the other name of which
village is _Roosevelt_. It is a station between Seward and Anchorage on
the new government railroad. Her real name is Mrs. Dabney and she does
not in the least enjoy being regarded as the prototype of her
belligerent sister from Kansas, U. S. A. In fact, her method is
different from the original Carrie. She does not harangue on the
subject, neither does she go forth with an ax and smash saloons. Her
way is just to remark quietly that "she won't stand for it!"
Anchorage was a tiny village until they began building the railroad.
Then before anyone knew it it became a bustling town of eight thousand.
The government made it a prohibition town, announcing that drinking
among the employees would not be tolerated and that liquor should not
be sold at the road houses. Now, having had some experience in this
line, I am convinced that nowhere else in the world (with the possible
exception of the Foreign Legion) can so many different types of men be
found as in a railroad construction gang or a lumber camp! And there
were all kinds at _Mile Twenty-three and a Half_!
Mrs. Dabney was a fine housekeeper and cook. She saw no reason why she
should not make the best of her ability in this line so she established
herself in a square log house and often fed from seventy-five to a
hundred men a day and gave sleeping quarters to as many as the house
would accommodate. As has been said, she let it be known that there
would be no drinking because "she just wouldn't stand for it!"
The Fourth of July came along, however, and about twenty-five of the
men decided that they would celebrate the event. They proceeded to
collect the ingredients for said celebration, a part of which consisted
of a demijohn and several bottles of whisky. While they were in the
midst of their hilarity,--enter Mrs. Dabney! She ordered the "boss"
(who, by the way, was her employer!) to his room. In fact she escorted
him thither and locked him in after telling him to go to bed. Then she
went back down stairs, gathered up the bottles and the demijohn and
threw them into Lake Kenai. When she returned she said quietly that she
had no intention of cleaning up after a lot of drunken men, that the
government had forbidden drinking and that not one of them could ever
come to her table again. The men departed without argument. The next
day, however, headed by the "boss," they returned. They stated in the
outset that they had not come to ask her to take them back but merely
to express their regret,--that she was quite right in refusing to be
bothered with a crowd of men who would not obey the law.
This act is characteristic of Alaskan men. I know no corner of the
earth where a good woman is held in higher esteem. The men themselves
are often unconscious of this characteristic, but it crops out in their
little mannerisms. For instance, there are two ways of addressing a
woman in Alaska. As one writer has already expressed it, "We call one
kind of woman by her first name and don't know that she has any other.
But the other kind of woman,--we call her _Mrs._! And we don't know
whether she has a first name or not!"
It was so with this woman. Neither miner, traveler, trader, workman nor
wayfarer ever thinks of calling her other than Mrs. Dabney. But my
experience is that there is no straighter way to a woman's heart than a
manly and sincere apology! So, in this case, when she said quietly to
the men that she had tried to give them good, clean food to eat and a
comfortable place to sleep, that all she asked of them was that they
obey the rules and not make her work more difficult or more
disagreeable than was necessary, she made friends of those men forever.
They respected her because they realized that she herself respected
the law and stood for its enforcement. Finally she permitted them to
return, but she ended the interview by saying:
"You needn't think you can fool me, either. Any time one of you brings
whisky into this house I can find it. More than that," she finished,
"B---- says to-morrow is his birthday and he's going to celebrate. But
he ain't,--even if he _is_ the Mayor of Roosevelt!"
The men of Alaska, while they admit that the free use of liquor was
once almost a necessity in the country, see no reason why it should be
so now. Civilization has brought with it other and better means of
keeping warm and in good spirits. Like many another thing of this
twentieth century it has outlived its usefulness. There are comfortable
homes in all the populated sections of Alaska now,--homes where one
sees just what he would find anywhere else in the world. Social
intercourse and family life are the same here as elsewhere. There is
tennis. There is golf. There are music and dancing, and a "chummy"
feeling seems to possess all the occupants of the land. There is a
general impression that life in a thinly-populated country is not
conducive to sociability. I have never found it so. There is a _bon
camaraderie_ in Alaska that I have found nowhere else in the world.
Perhaps it is of a brand not to be found except in the far spaces of
the universe!
There is one Great Day in Alaska,--the day when the ice goes out of the
Bay in the spring! There is something about the sight and sound of
_flowing_ water which moves one strangely after nine long months of the
"still" cold. One relaxes unconsciously from a tenseness which until
that moment he has not realized has possessed him and in this
connection I would relate a bit of personal experience.
Life here, as elsewhere, seems to take on new meaning in the
springtime. Merry boating or sailing parties are one of the favorite
amusements of the Alaskan summer. One evening,--it was the day that the
ice went out of the Bay,--I made one of a jolly party which went
sailing. The presence of an Army Post always adds to the social life of
any community, large or small, and stationed at St. Michael at this
time was an officer whose heroism and self-control saved the lives of
all but two of our party of eight. Captain Peter Lind was in charge of
the boat. We had known him long as an able seaman and therefore put
ourselves and our ladies into his keeping without the least thought of
possible disaster. From the Fort were two officers, Lieutenants Wood
and Pickering. The other members of the party were Dr. and Mrs.
McMillan, Mr. and Mrs. Bromfield and myself. When we were well out from
shore the boat suddenly capsized. Before we realized that anything was
happening we were in the water. The water was very cold, but the men
were good swimmers, and we managed to get a hold on the capsized boat.
We were all clinging to it when without the slightest warning over it
went again. The hour that followed was one which no member of that
little party will ever forget. Captain Lind disappeared. But the
magnificent cool-headedness of Lieutenant Wood caused the rest of us to
put up a stiff fight and resolve to die game if we had to. Finally
after a battle which reduced the strongest of us to utter exhaustion we
had the satisfaction of seeing six of our little party safely ashore.
Mrs. Bromfield and Captain Lind were lost. And the getting to land was
by no means the least thrilling part of the experience. The Eskimos on
the shore heard our calls, and although their little boats had not been
used all winter and were in need of repairs, they launched them quickly
and came to our aid. The boat in which I came in took water badly. But
one sturdy little Eskimo baled industriously while the other rowed.
I once heard an old Frenchman singing a song about the wind in the
springtime. It ran like this:
"Le vent que traverse la montagne
M'a rendu fou!"
(The wind which crosses the mountain
Has driven me mad!)
Each member of our little party realized that Captain Lind could not
have been himself at the moment of our disaster. The winter had been
very severe and I have frequently wondered whether the sight of the Bay
which for so long had been solid ice and had then so quickly melted
into beautiful, sparkling, _moving_ water,--just as a lovely woman
sometimes gives way suddenly to tears,--had not been the strongest
element in his sudden mental undoing.
Civilization follows the flag wherever it goes. Army men are splendid
the world over, a fact formerly realized by the few but which is now
being driven home to the many by the great war. And the Army women----.
They are such "good fellows!" They, too, go with the flag to make a
home for their soldier husbands. And they care not a whit whether they
follow them into the sands of the desert or over the Arctic snows!
I can not leave the story of St. Michael without reference to Gene
Doyle, the oldest mail carrier in our part of the country. Have you
ever thought what it means to be a mail carrier in Alaska? These men
are the real heroes of the trails. Over in the Canadian Yukon they
tolerate no such inhumane treatment of men. There no man may take out a
horse or a dog if the mercury registers lower than forty-five below
zero unless it is a case of life or death and even then one must get
permission from the Northwest Mounted Police. But the American mail man
_must_ go,--or lose his job! Many a time has Doyle set forth with the
temperature at sixty below, and you may rest assured that if he did not
show up on schedule time we made ready our sleds and went out to meet
him! There is no resident of Alaska who is not in sympathy with the
Rev. Hudson Stuck who has more than once expressed an ardent longing to
serve as Postmaster General for just one week!
CHAPTER XVII
THE PRIZE OF THE PACIFIC
Aside from our interests which are now bound up in the great war there
is no problem confronting the United States which is so vital as that
of Alaska and the Pacific Coast. Separated as she is from the
motherland by a foreign country, the shipping to and from Alaska is the
most important thing to be considered. True, two of her river systems
furnish five thousand miles of navigable water, but in winter they are
choked with ice and the country is as yet painfully short on railroads!
The Pacific Ocean is the great problem of the American people to-day
and Alaska is the prize beyond compute of the Pacific Coast.
It is high time that the American people and the United States
Government as well rubbed their eyes and awakened to a fact long known
to the few of us who have been on guard. The cards were shuffled some
time ago and are just lying, waiting to be dealt in the greatest game
that has ever been played! Before the war we used to hear much talk
about the "control of the seas." How many of us realized what that
expression meant? The war has opened our eyes. Who is it that has the
shuffled cards lying ready? Who is it that _wants_ the Pacific? The
answer is ready and instant. _Japan!_
Every school boy knows that the United States owns the Aleutian
Islands. He knows also that they stretch all the way across to Asia and
separate Bering Sea from the Pacific. In this group of Islands is one
which has an ice-free front. It is called Dutch Harbor. It would prove
an excellent base, if properly fortified, in the control of the Pacific
Ocean. Out of our hands Dutch Harbor would be just as effective a
barrier _against_ us as Gibraltar now is against Spain! In time of war
a naval enemy would have a good chance of beating us to Dutch Harbor
and accomplishing what we, with a lack of foresight have failed to
do,--bar the way to Alaska to us forever after.
Why the seriousness of this has not been realized by the government is
inexplainable. Alaska is our most valuable possession. It is not mere
womanish fear which forces us to recognize that we are in danger of
losing her. There can be no question that in the event of a struggle
for the possession of the Pacific the fate of Alaska will be exactly
that which befell Korea in the Manchurian war of a decade or two ago.
Nor is this all. Who can sit still at this very moment and see the Japs
pushing eastward through Siberia without apprehension?
A hostile fleet in Dutch Harbor and Alaska will fall of her own weight!
The distance to Dutch Harbor is just the same from Yokohama as it is
from San Francisco! Dutch Harbor is to us what Gibraltar was to Spain
in the days of the Armada. Shall we, like Spain, fail to realize her
value until too late? If so, our experience can not be other than that
which befell her. The tremendous significance of our failure to make
Dutch Harbor impregnable and impassable will one day stun us. But the
great war has forced us into doing what long ago we should have done
without being forced. We are feverishly building ships. If we get our
great fleet in order, and if we do it _first_, then it may be that the
shuffled cards may never be dealt. There may be no game. There are
those who never play unless they see the way open to win!
We have another strategic point also. This is Rugged Island, lying in
Resurrection Bay. This Bay was so named by the Russians who discovered
it on the anniversary of Our Lord's Resurrection. Rugged Island is an
easy point of attack and the government has recently appropriated
seven hundred thousand dollars to fortify it.
No comedy of Æschylus ever equaled a proposition put forth in Congress
not long ago by the Hon. Frank O. Smith of Maryland. Under the
astounding and absurd title of _Eugenic Peace_ he proposed that in the
interest of world peace the United States should cede to Canada the
southern part of Alaska, known as the Panhandle! This section shuts off
a large region of Canada from the sea.
Strangely enough, the proposition secured the support of a number of
eminent men (not one of whom, however, had ever been to Alaska) but to
one who lives here it is the limit and pinnacle of absurdity. First of
all, the business affairs of the people living here are conducted
almost wholly with Seattle and San Francisco. Would they consent to
such a change? Never! Their business would be paralyzed if turned over
to Canada, thereby necessitating the payment of a tariff on their
exports. Just think what such a proposition would entail. Fully
one-third of the salmon fisheries of the world are in the Panhandle!
One of the largest gold mines in the world (the Treadwell, on Douglas
Island) is located here. Great forests of timber (to cut which has
been forbidden by the government) cover a large part of the area in
question. Here, also, are Juneau, the capital of Alaska; Sitka, the
ancient Russian capital; Ketchikan, Wrangell, and many other fishing
and trading towns containing more than half the permanent population of
the whole of Alaska! Why not present Canada with the northern peninsula
of Michigan, or the tip of the State of Washington?
There is no doubt that Canada would be glad to arrange things so that
her traffic with the Yukon might be carried on without the payment of
tariff duties. Well, there is a remedy, but it does not lie in the
transfer of territory. It lies in reciprocity of trade,--if not
reciprocity, then _free_ trade to and from the Yukon and Skagway, its
natural seaport. But the idea of ceding the whole country in order to
accommodate the residents in the much less important part of the Yukon
is a proposition about which it is difficult to be serious! What a joke
the United States would be playing upon herself!
For a long time after the historic days of "Fifty-four forty or fight"
there was much argument over the boundary of Alaska. It culminated in
1898, however, in the decision of the Lord Chief Justice of England,
Lord Alverstane, that the contention of the American members of the
Commission (Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge and Ex-Senator Turner) was
correct and should be sustained. This decision gave to the United
States complete control of the seacoast and all the bays and channels
opening into it. And it is a control it behooves us to keep! But the
greatest need of Alaska to-day is a railroad running _into_ the country
by means of which troops could be sent from the United States. This
road would have to run through Canada, and here again is a problem for
the statesmen of our country to ponder over _and solve_!
CHAPTER XVIII
ALASKA AND THE WAR
A wireless message flashed the news to Alaska that our country had
entered the war. The effect was the usual one,--the one to which we in
Alaska have become accustomed. It aroused a patriotism which was both
ideal and practical. It is said that the man who went farthest to serve
his colors was a man from Iditarod. A man with his dog team drove by
his dwelling and told him the news. Like Israel Putnam of Revolutionary
fame who left his team standing in the field where he was ploughing and
went to join the Minute Men, so this man laid aside his work and
journeyed a thousand miles on a dog sled to enlist!
Every line of industrial, engineering, mining, agricultural and fishing
activity immediately was speeded to the top notch of energy and
production. The coal output increased from fifty thousand to a hundred
thousand tons. Fish food products jumped from twenty to forty-two
million dollars. There was an increase of twenty-two million pounds of
canned salmon shipped to the United States over the output of 1917.
The people of Alaska are hardy. They are patriotic. They are energetic
and practical. They understand fully what war means. They know that
although far removed from the scene of activity they are called upon to
help win the war just as much as if they were fighting in the trenches.
They know that the greatest good they can do their country is to feed
her fighting men. So they went about it in a business-like manner. The
result is that theirs is a practical, _organized_ patriotic
coöperation. Many of the pioneer gold seekers are now transformed into
farmers. The potato crop for this year is two thousand tons,--only one
item, but a significant one.
The Alaskan women, as always, came straight to the front. With that
practical knowledge born of residence in such a country as Alaska they
eliminated the sentimental and went to work at those things which
America asks and expects of her women. Mrs. Thomas J. Donahoe, of
Valdez, who is also President of the Federation of Women's Clubs, was
appointed Chairman of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National
Defense, and the Red Cross is represented and practically managed in
almost every locality in the territory. When the first Liberty Loan
was floated the response of Alaska was instant and generous and the
same is true of the succeeding loans.
In connection with the part Alaska is playing in the great struggle I
revert once more to the subject of the dogs. Our hearts were touched
when we learned that they, too, had been awarded the _Croix de Guerre_
by the French Government, the Cross having been sent to Mrs. Esther
Birdsall Darling who owned and sold many of them to France. "Scotty"
Allen took them over and left them there to do their "bit."
It was a French Reserve Officer, a mining engineer, Lieutenant René
Haas, who first called the attention of the French Government to the
services which could be rendered by the dogs. Mrs. Darling, good
patriot that she is and ever ready to promote the cause of the Allies,
promptly offered the best that the Darling-Allen kennels afforded.
Lieutenant Haas was commissioned to select them. He chose twenty-five
of the youngest, swiftest and best bred of these kennels. Then,
supported enthusiastically by Captain Moufflet, who also knew the
possibilities of the Alaskan dog service, the interest of their
superior officers was aroused and Lieutenant Haas was ordered to go to
Nome, there to select and purchase a hundred or more suitable for duty
in the Vosges. "Scotty" Allen was persuaded to go to France with the
dog contingent and the number was augmented by others from Canada and
Labrador. When he and Lieutenant Haas sailed they had four hundred and
fifty splendid dogs with them,--half a regiment! All were successfully
delivered at the front where they have rendered distinguished and
valuable service.
He would indeed be dead to emotion who could read the report which came
with the _Croix de Guerre_ and which was sent from headquarters on the
French frontier to far-away Alaska. We all knew that the dogs would
meet emergencies boldly, no matter what the circumstances, the
conditions or the weather. One specific incident which will be a part
of Alaska's written history when the war is over serves to emphasize
and justify our faith in them.
From a lonely post out on the frontier in the French Alps came to
headquarters a most urgent call for help. They were out of ammunition
and the situation was most critical. True to their reputation for valor
the French were holding the post, fighting against heavy odds, each man
saying in his heart the little sentence which has become the slogan of
the French army and the prayer of every man, woman and child in
France,--"_They shall not pass!_" To hold the post longer, however,
meant that ammunition _must_ be forthcoming at once. A terrific
blizzard was in progress. The trails were dangerous, almost obliterated
in places. Trucks and horses were of no avail. But there were the
dogs,--Alaska's heroes. To them France turned in her emergency. The
sleds were quickly loaded. The Malamuts fell to harness instantly on
command. Lieutenant Haas was ready for his perilous journey. A crack of
the whip, an encouraging shout to the dogs and they were off. For four
days and four nights they kept their steady gait. Up and down
precipitous mountain-sides, over treacherous trails and across the
snow-buried expanse, most of the time under shell fire from the enemy,
they went quietly, steadily on. Lieutenant Haas acknowledged that the
dogs seemed to realize quite as clearly as he did himself the necessity
of haste and a cool head, that they had in their eyes the "do-or-die"
look which he had so often seen in the eyes of his men. And every one
who knows anything about them knows how much victory means to a
Malamut.
On the morning of the fifth day, just at dawn, they reached the
post,--one more instance of a dramatic arrival in the nick of time. The
ammunition was now completely exhausted. One needs not a vivid
imagination to hear in fancy the ringing cheers which greeted them. A
pronounced trait of the Alaskan dog is glory in victory, mourning in
defeat. This has been observed many times in the races,--the downcast,
dejected air of the dogs that fail, the brisk and happy attitude of
those that win. So in this instance, the cheers and the Cross were but
episodes. The victory was the thing!
The French Government acknowledges that the dogs are quite as valuable
as any other branch of the service and those that made this hard and
perilous trip are to be painted and hung in the War Museum in Paris.
Mrs. Darling and "Scotty" are and have every reason to be proud of
their dogs. In the din of battle and the precariousness of life on the
frontier they doubtless miss their owners' kindness and attention. But
the sympathies of the latter go with them wherever they go. Lieutenant
Haas declares that these dogs have a "college education" and can be
trusted to do their work intelligently and fearlessly. When the time
comes for the history of the Great World War to be written, may the
deeds of the dogs of Nome who played no less courageous and conspicuous
a part than did her men be fittingly inscribed therein!
CHAPTER XIX
ALASKAN WRITERS
In addition to her gold and copper, her furs and her fish, Alaska has
produced a crop of writers of more or less importance. By far the
truest exponent of the life of the country is Robert Service whose _The
Spell of the Yukon_ surely breathes the spirit of the land. Service is
now an army surgeon in the European war and his latest volume _Rhymes
of a Red Cross Man_ has added to the reputation he justly enjoys
because of the verse which went before it. This little volume is
dedicated to the memory of his brother, Lieutenant Albert Service,
killed in action, and the _Foreword_ with which the collection opens is
well worth quoting:
"I've tinkered at my bits of rhymes
In weary, woeful, waiting times;
In doleful hours of battle din
Ere yet they brought the wounded in!
Through vigils by the fateful night,
In lousy barns by candle light;
In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,
On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;
By ragged grove, by ruined road,
By hearths accurst where Love abode;
By broken altars, blackened shrines--
I've tinkered at my bits of rhymes!
"I've solaced me with scraps of song
The desolated ways along;
Through sickly fields all shrapnel-sown
And meadows reaped by death alone;
By blazing cross and splintered spire,
By headless Virgin in the mire;
By gardens gashed amid their bloom,
By gutted grave, by shattered tomb;
Beside the dying and the dead,
Where rockets green and rockets red
In trembling pools of poising light,
With flowers of flame festoon the night.
Ah me! By what dark ways of wrong
I've cheered my heart with scraps of song!
"So here's my sheaf of war-won verse,
And some is bad, and some is worse.
And if at times I curse a bit,
You needn't read that part of it!
For through it all, like horror, runs
The red resentment of the guns!
And you yourself would mutter when
You took the things that once were men
And sped them through that zone of hate
To where the dripping surgeons wait!
You'd wonder, too, if, in God's sight,
War ever, _ever_ can be right!"
Service is essentially a poet. His novel, _The Trail of Ninety-eight_,
well,--we have forgiven him! It is lurid melodrama and certainly adds
nothing to his literary reputation. But none can read _The Spell of the
Yukon_ without breathing deeply!
"There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where!
There are lives that are erring and aimless
And deaths that just hang by a hair!
There are hardships that nobody reckons,
There are valleys unpeopled and still!
There's a land--oh, it beckons and beckons!
I want to go back--and I will!"
[Illustration: REV. HUDSON STUCK, ARCHDEACON OF THE YUKON, PREACHING
WITH INDIAN AND ESKIMO INTERPRETERS]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ST. MICHAEL BUILT
IN 1837]
[Illustration: FINE OLD NATIONAL HOUSE WITH TOTEM POLES NEAR WRANGELL]
I have already said that the true story of the Klondike stampede has
never been written and perhaps never will be. A great deal was put out
under the guise of literature, but it was mere journalistic stuff. It
will not endure and should not. Jack London was in Klondike. And he was
a born story-teller. He should have written something quite worth while
of those stirring days with all the wealth of material which lay about
him. But the best he did was _The Call of the Wild_ and in it he
indulged his love for the romantic to such an extent that you find
yourself wondering whether dogs are real dogs and his men real men
until in the end you conclude that they are not! His white men are like
characters on the stage. And if there are any Indians in Alaska such
as he portrayed I have never encountered them. They are absurdly untrue
to life. Furthermore, the brutal side of life seems to have had undue
attraction for London. It is true that it did exist. But it was not the
whole of life in Alaska, by any means, and one sickens of it after
continuous reading about it. Rex Beach's stories, _The Spoilers_ and
_The Silver Horde_ (by far his best, in my judgment), are good and
typical of the life of the period. Yet one can not read them without a
feeling that they, too, leave much to be desired.
The wit, the pathos, the comedies, the tragedies, the sordidness, the
heroism of those days! Whose pen could delineate the characters of
those who wrought them or adequately describe the country as it
was,--and is! It would take the combined genius of a Poe, a Kipling and
a Bret Harte to do justice to the subject. Richard Harding Davis was
preparing to go to Klondike. Had he carried out his intention it might
have been different. But one morning he picked up the morning paper and
read therein that the _Maine_ had been blown up in Havana harbor. He
changed his mind!
I am convinced that the best tales of the land have never been put on
paper. These are the stories related at the road-houses, or in the
rooms of the Arctic Brotherhood or some similar gathering-place by
those who took part in them. And they usually come out quite by
accident. The participant thinks there is nothing wonderful about them.
Some grizzled miner,--Service calls them "the silent men who _do_
things,"--will suddenly begin talking, and sometimes the story he tells
will beat any that has ever yet found its way into print. Why has no
one ever written a steamboat story? Or a tale of the Arctic
Brotherhood? There are material and local color galore for such.
Nearly all Alaskans are familiar with the writings of Samuel Clarke
Dunham. He has occasionally burst into verse, and he has a dry humor
which is exhilarating. I have already quoted from one of his best known
effusions concerning the tundra. Tracking about in the wet Russian moss
is often calculated to extract (not painlessly) about ninety per cent
of one's enthusiasm! So one day Dunham broke forth in a poem which
began thus:
"I've traversed the toe-twisting tundra
Where reindeer root round for their feed!" etc.
Would that there were some way of gathering together the fugitive
stories and poems, replete with wit and humor, with pathos and tragedy,
which are a part of Alaska's unwritten history! Many a time have I
been guilty of hanging around a road-house, saloon or "joint" of some
kind for no reason on earth except that I knew I should hear a good
story or two from some wandering wayfarer who had just come in off the
trail. And at such times I have often recalled the familiar song
(peculiarly true to life in Alaska) the chorus of which runs:
"Sometimes you're glad,
Sometimes you're sad,
When you play in the game of life!"
I have heard in these miners' gatherings tales of tragedies almost
unbelievable, comedies which would furnish excellent vehicles for the
talents of Charlie Chaplin and not a few love stories worthy of a
Dickens, a Hugo or a Tolstoi. But they were no sooner told than
forgotten as no one was at hand to record them.
I well recall an evening when I joined a group who sat smoking beside a
stove in one of the road-houses. There was conversation, but one
usually loquacious individual sat silently and smoked his pipe.
Whenever he had appeared there before he had always been accompanied by
an older man. They seemed inseparable companions. I had a feeling that
something tragic had happened and that he would relate it before the
evening was over. So I decided to "stick around." Presently some one
asked him where his partner was. He did not reply immediately, but
presently took his pipe from between his teeth and speaking in the
vernacular of the country said:
"He won't be here no more."
"You mean----?"
"Yep."
We were all interested immediately but forebore to ask questions.
Presently he went on.
"We were just comin' along the trail. His foot slipped an' down he went
into the crevasse. I hollered down, an' I heerd him answer. So I
climbed down as far as I could, an' I could see him, an' talk to him.
His face was jammed right in the ice an' was already freezin'. We
couldn't do nothin' but just look at each other. Then he says, 'You
might as well go on!' An' I says, 'I'm damned ef I do!' I untied the
packs an' got all the rope we had, but it wouldn't reach him. 'I'll go
git some more rope,' I says to him, but I knowed it'd be too late. 'Go
on!' he says. 'Don't let the dark git you out here. You can't do
nothin' fer me!' I knowed he was right. But I hated like hell to leave
him. I'd 'a stayed ef it'd done any good. But it wouldn't. To-day I got
some more rope an' went back. But----. The ice down where he was had
opened again an' I could see straight down fer two hundred feet. He
wuzn't there!"
Nobody said anything. He took a few more puffs from his pipe. Then he
got up and went out.
I have more than once mentioned the Reverend Hudson Stuck, Archdeacon
of the Yukon, author, missionary and first white man to ascend Mt.
McKinley. The Archdeacon is known and loved by all who know him, not
only for his services but because of his personality and his
adaptability to the needs and conditions of the land in which he lives.
His books, _The Ascent of Denali_, _Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled_
and _Voyages on the Yukon_, are excellent reading, good examples of
Alaskan literature and history. The Archdeacon has a sense of humor
which makes friends for him wherever he goes, and one evening Gene
Doyle, the oldest mail-carrier in our part of Alaska, a hardened
traveler of the trails, blew in with a good story. Gene was a sourdough
of the most pronounced type. He had wintered many times in Alaska.
When two people meet on the trails each is warned of the other's
approach by the actions of the dogs. First the leader and then the rest
of the team will begin to bristle and cut antics of various kinds. The
usual salutation in Alaska is not "How are you?" or "Hello!" as might
be the case elsewhere. Instead we call out: "How are the trails ahead?"
On this occasion Doyle knew by the actions of his dogs that he was
about to meet another team. There was a storm in progress and neither
man could see the driver of the other team. Doyle had had a
particularly difficult day's trip and was a bit out of temper when the
driver of the other team thus accosted him:
"Friend, how are the trails ahead?"
"They are the G---- d---- dest, blank, blank, blankety-blankedest I've
ever seen in Alaska!" Doyle replied. "How are they your way?"
"The same!" was the somewhat emphatic response of the gentleman. It was
the Archdeacon!
As I have already said, weather which in lower latitudes would promptly
convert one into an icicle has little effect upon one who understands
how to prepare for it. With hands and feet warmly protected, with
winter underwear and wind-proof outer clothes one can comfortably and
successfully "weather the weather!" It is no uncommon experience,
however, to meet a man on the trail who sings out to you:
"I say, old fellow,--your nose is frozen!"
"Thanks!" you respond. "So is yours!"
Each will then blissfully apply a little snow to the disabled member
and proceed on his way. But there is one other thing which should be
rigorously guarded against as it is a painful and distressing
experience. This is snow-blindness. The glare on the snow causes the
film of the eye to become a water blister, which takes three or four
days to heal. One of my most poignant recollections is a three days'
siege of snow-blindness, during which I lay helpless in a hut while an
old squaw put wet tea leaves on my eyes. Never again!
I have heard that from the fighting men of the allied armies now in
Europe have come back some exquisite verse,--such verse as one could
not reasonably expect from men of their youth and previous environment.
The same may be said of much of the verse of Alaska. The poems of
Service and Dunham are well known. But alas, the bulk of the others
never saw the light of day in print!
As has been said, however, Alaska is a land of contrasts. Not every one
gets the same impression of the same thing! To prove it I quote a poem
written by one of the many who did not find in Alaska just what they
came to seek. The writer of the verses below was the steward on the
_Susie_,--one of the boats which plied the Yukon during the gold rush.
Evidently his claim proved worthless, or something else went wrong. For
he has thus expressed himself:
AN IMPRESSION OF ALASKA
The Devil in hell, we are told, was chained.
Thousands of years he thus remained,
But he did not complain nor did he groan.
He decided to have a hell of his own
Where he could torment the souls of men
Without being chained in a sulphur pen!
So he asked the Lord if He had any land
In a clime cool enough for a Devil to stand.
The Lord said: "Yes--but it's not much use.
It's called Alaska. It's cold as the deuce.
In fact, old boy, the place is so bare
I fear you could not make a good hell there!"
But the Devil said he could not see why;
He knew his business. He'd like to try.
So the bargain was made, the deed was given,
And the Devil took his departure from heaven.
He next appeared in the far, far North,
Exploring Alaska to learn its worth;
And he said from McKinley as he looked at the truck,
"I got it for nothing,--but still I'm stuck!"
But, oh,--it was fine to be out in the cold!
The wind blew a gale, but the Devil grew bold,
And thus on the mountain height he planned:
"I'll make of Alaska the home of the damned!
A different place from the old-fashioned hell,
Where each soul burns in a brimstone cell.
I'll use every means a wise Devil need
To make a good hell. You bet I'll succeed!"
First he filled the air with millions of gnats.
Then he spread the Yukon all over the Flats,
Set a line of volcanos from Unimak Pass,
And covered the soil with tundra grass.
He made six months' night--when 'twas sixty below,
A howling wind and a pelting snow!
And six months' day--with a spell now and then
Too hot for the Devil and all of his men!
Brought hungry wolves and dogs by the pack
Whose yells send chills right down your back,
And as you "mush" o'er the bleak expanse
The North Wind blows holes in your pants!
But of all the pests the imp could devise
The Yukon mosquitoes bear off the prize.
They've a rattler's bite, a scorpion's sting,
And they measure six inches from wing to wing!
The Devil said when he fashioned these:
"One of 'em is worse than a thousand fleas!"
Then, over the mountain and rolling plain
Where the dew falls soft and there's plenty of rain
He grew flowers and berries. 'Twas just a bluff!
The Devil knows how to peddle his stuff!
And to prove how well he knew the game
He next proceeded to salt his claim.
He put gold nuggets in all the streams
To lure men on in dreams! In dreams!
He hid them deep in the glacial ice,
As a glittering city hides its vice!
Then he bade Dame Rumor spread the news
Throughout all the world to its motley crews
That there was gold in piles and piles,
Of every color and in all styles!
Then he grinned a grim, sardonic grin,
And said: "Now watch the fools rush in!
They'll fight for gold. They'll steal and slay!
But in the end _I'm_ the one they'll pay!"
'Tis a fine hell this that the Devil owns!
Its trails are marked with frozen bones;
The wild winds moan over bleak chaparral;
'Tis a hell of a place he chose for his hell!
And now you know, should anyone ask you,
What kind of a place is our Alaska!
I am convinced that the Alaskans, whether they realize it or not, are
poetic and imaginative. All over the country one finds the quaintest of
names that have been bestowed upon the various localities by some
follower of the trail, prospector, or other traveler. In one's
journeyings he will come upon settlements bearing such names as Sunset,
Paystreak, Anchorage and Fortymile. There are also the "Isles of God's
Mercy" where Henry Hudson found shelter on his last voyage, "Anxiety
Point" and "Return Reef" of Sir John Franklin, that Sir Galahad of
explorers whose Eskimo name means "the man who does not molest our
women." In Bank's Land is "Mercy Bay" and there is also the "Thank God"
harbor so named by poor Hall on the _Polaris_.
So, if one could but gather them together, the poems and songs and
pretty names of Alaska, each a part of her real history, it might make
a column about three miles long, but--it would be mighty interesting
reading!
One has but to glance at the map to see the similarity of the Alaskan
coast to that of Norway. Will not the day come when her fiords and
mountains, her Northern Lights and Midnight Sun will be as famed in
song and story as those of Norway? Surely it will!
CONCLUSION
In concluding this volume I am reminded of two stories, both of which
seem applicable to the subject. One of the quaintest and most
interesting characters I ever ran across was a French-Canadian, Captain
of one of the boats which plied the Yukon during the summer and in the
winter stayed at St. Michael. One day the river, or the boat, or both,
behaved badly. So he sang out:
"T'row over the anch'!"
"But, Capitaine," expostulated a sailor, "ze anch' she have no chain on
her!"
The Captain glared at him wrathfully.
"T'row her over any way!" he bawled. "She may help some!"
The second story concerns this same gentleman. When the mail service
was established at St. Michael he was told that all he had to do if he
wanted a letter was to go up to the window and ask for it. Never having
had a letter he thought he would like the experience. So he went and
demanded one. The postmaster asked his name.
"Pièrre LeGros," he said.
"How do you spell it?" asked the man inside.
This was a poser. Pièrre's knowledge did not extend to orthography. But
he was nothing if not adaptable. He eyed the man balefully for a moment
and the expression on his face was worth a fortune. It changed slowly
from interest to scorn. He straightened himself up as proudly as a king
and remarked without the slightest trace of temper:
"Vell,--eef you no can spell Pièrre LeGros zen I zink yo' better sell
your damn' post-of_fees_!"
The first of these stories is illustrative of my motive in writing this
book. So desirous am I that all men may know our _Land of Tomorrow_ as
she really is that I have tried to set forth her advantages and her
opportunities which lie on every hand only waiting to be grasped.
Therefore I hope _she may help some_! Also, I feel that wisdom and
thoughtfulness on the part of our government will be necessary in order
to protect Alaska. And she must be protected because she can not yet
protect herself. If we can not protect her, keep her safe from invasion
by a foreign enemy, then again I am one with Pièrre LeGros. We had
better sell her!
I am not so pessimistic as to think that such a thing will happen,
however. The United States seldom fails to do the right thing at the
right time. Alaska is the first country peopled by a race which has
back of it the spirit and the traditions of democracy! It is the last
great fertile and temperate land on which western civilization may take
a fresh start. The democracy which now exists in Alaska is of the very
best brand. It is that of a country which, critical of her own
mistakes, is capable of showing the world what she has learned from
experience. The distilled experience of America and of the whole world
is hers to draw upon. There is no excuse for a repetition of any of the
blunders the motherland may have made during the days of her youth and
her inexperience.
That the government realizes all this is evident. It was made plain
when after a long struggle she saved Alaska's resources from monopoly.
Now the problem is to _make sure_ that whatever is done in the way of
economical development, of building railroads, town sites, schools,
public buildings, establishing home government and promoting industrial
and agricultural possibilities, shall be done in the right
way,--sanely, harmoniously, permanently. Statesmen must be trained for
this work and it is a trust which any statesman ought to hold sacred.
To build a new civilization! How splendid a task at which to spend
one's working years! Alaska is America's opportunity.
So long as the United States owns Alaska (and may it be always!) she is
wealthy. She bought fabulous riches in 1867 for two cents an acre! With
a mere handful of adventurous spirits, with no railroads to speak of,
Alaska has already shown what she can do. With good transportation,
with thriving, teeming, hustling, heavily populated cities,--what will
the future reveal? _Read the answer in the history of the American
people!_
Time was when the Great West lured all men. Now it is the Great North!
The West, that once fabled land of the bad man, the gold mine, the gun
fighter and similar attractions, has vanished from our scheme. If there
is now a spot in the West which has not passed into the hands of
private management, rest assured that it is a spot where nothing but
sage brush and jack rabbits will thrive! But the Great North is
waiting! And calling! The last frontier! The only territory under the
Stars and Stripes where the man without capital has yet a reasonable
chance of reaping the reward of his labors. And the North is waiting
and calling for _you_!
As I write the closing pages of this book I find that I myself am once
more hearing--the Voice! Is it the same Voice which called me to the
Northland some ten years ago? I think so. And never before have I heard
it in tones so distinct, so insistent. I have been somewhat critical
(justly so, I feel) of the indifference of the government toward the
present and future needs of Alaska. But----. Only a few hours ago I
donned the most _comfortable_ suit of clothes I have ever worn, namely,
the uniform of the good old U. S. A. I am for peace,--just so long as
there is no legitimate reason for war. But Germany can not step on the
tail of my Uncle Sam's coat with impunity!
Would that I were able to put into words a fitting tribute to the
staunch friends among whom I have come and gone under almost every
conceivable circumstance and condition! To form friendships such as
these, cemented by events which can not occur elsewhere, is well worth
living for. Whenever my mind reverts to this subject I recall a little
stanza which expresses my thoughts far better than I can voice them
myself. So, to my friends, the Alaskans, I can only say:
"I have eaten your bread and your salt;
I have drunk of your water and wine;
The deaths you have died I have watched beside,
And the lives that you lived were mine!"
Transcriber notes:
Some words were broken up due to line endings. As they only occur once
in the book it's not absolutely clear if they should be hyphenated or
not. This concerns the following words:
snow-slides, playwright, omnipresent, half-politician, sourdough;
The following corrections have been made:
p. 129 "There is one noticable thing about the conditions" noticable
changed to noticeable
p. 169 "reached direct only betwen June and October" betwen changed to
between
p. 203 "several bottles of whiskey" whiskey changed to whisky
p. 208 "passengers, bagbage and freight" bagbage changed to
baggage
p. 215 "unconscious of this characteristice" characteristice
changed to characteristic
p. 228 "'Don't let the dark git you out
here. You can't do nothin' fer me!" added ' after me!
p. 228 "But----" added .
Illustrations moved to paragraph breaks. Everything else has been
retained as printed.
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