USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 21
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Crossing the Copper River, when it is high and swift, is dangerous, - especially for a " chechaco " of either sex. (A chechaco is one who has not been in Alaska a year. ) Packers are often compelled to unpack their horses, put- ting all their effects into large whipsawed boats. The halters are taken off the horses and the latter are driven into the roaring torrent, followed by the packers in the boats.
The horses apparently make no effort to reach the op- posite shore, but use their strength desperately to hold their own in the swift current, fighting against it, with their heads turned pitifully up-stream. Their bodies be- ing turned at a slight angle, the current, pushing violently against them, forces them slowly, but surely, from sand bar to sand bar, and, finally, to the shore.
It frequently requires two hours to get men, horses, and outfit from shore to shore, where they usually arrive dripping wet. Women who make this trip, it is needless to say, suffer still more from the hardship of the crossing than do men.
In riding horses across such streams, they should be started diagonally up-stream toward the first sand bar above. They lean far forward, bracing themselves at every step against the current and choosing their footing carefully. The horses of the trail know all the dangers, and scent them afar - holes, boulders, irresistible cur- rents, and quicksand ; they detect them before the most experienced " trailer " even suspects them.
I will not venture even to guess what the other two
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women in my party did when they crossed dangerous streams; but for myself, I wasted no strength in trying to turn my horse's head up-stream, or down-stream, or in any other direction. When we went down into the foam- ing water, I gave him his head, clung to his mane, leaned forward in the saddle, - and prayed like anything. I do not believe in childishly asking the Lord to help one so long as one can help one's self ; but when one is on the back of a half-swimming, half-floundering horse in the middle of a swollen, treacherous flood, with holes and quicksand on all sides, one is as helpless as he was the day he was born; and it is a good time to pray.
According to the report of Major Abercrombie, who probably knows this part of Alaska more thoroughly than any one else, there are hundreds of thousands of acres in the Copper River Valley alone where almost all kinds of vegetables, as well as barley and rye, will grow in abun- dance and mature. Considering the travel to the many and fabulously rich mines already discovered in this valley and adjacent ones, and the cost of bringing in grain and supplies, it may be easily seen what splendid opportunities await the small farmer who will select his homestead judiciously, with a view to the accommodation of man and beast, and the cultivation of food for both. The opportunities awaiting such a man are so much more enticing than the inducements of the bleak Dakota prai- ries or the wind-swept valleys of the Yellowstone as to be beyond comparison.
Major Abercrombie believes that the valleys of the sub- drainage of the Copper River Valley will in future years supply the demands for cereals and vegetables, if not for meats, of the thousands of miners that will be required to extract the vast deposits of metals from the Tonsina, Chitina, Kotsina, Nizina, Chesna, Tanana, and other fa- mous districts.
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The vast importance to the whole territory of Alaska, and to the United States, as well, of the building of the Guggenheim railroad from Cordova into this splendid in- land empire may be realized after reading Major Aber- crombie's report.
We have been accustomed to mineralized zones of from ten to twelve miles in length; in the Wrangell group alone we have a circle eighty miles in diameter, the min- eralization of which is simply marvellous; yet, valuable though these concentrates are, they are as valueless com- mercially as so much sandstone, without the aid of a rail- road and reduction works.
If the group of mines at Butte could deflect a great transcontinental trunk-line like the Great Northern, what will this mighty zone, which contains a dozen properties already discovered, - to say nothing of the unfound, un- dreamed-of ones, -of far greater value as copper propo- sitions than the richest of Montana, do to advance the commercial interests of the Pacific Coast ?
The first discovery of gold in the Nizina district was made by Daniel Kain and Clarence Warner. These two prospectors were urged by a crippled Indian to accom- pany him to inspect a vein of copper on the head waters of a creek that is now known as Dan Creek.
Not being impressed by the copper outlook, the two prospectors returned. They noticed, however, that the gravel of Dan Creek had a look of placer gold.
They were out of provisions, and were in haste to reach their supplies, fifty miles away ; but Kain was reluctant to leave the creek unexamined. He went to a small lake and caught sufficient fish for a few days' subsistence; then, with a shovel for his only tool, he took out five ounces of coarse gold in two days.
In this wise was the rich Nizina district discovered. The Nizina River is only one hundred and sixty miles
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from Valdez. In Rex Gulch as much as eight ounces of gold have been taken out by one man in a single day. The gold is of the finest quality, assaying over eighteen dollars an ounce.
There is an abundance of timber suitable for building houses and for firewood on all the creeks. There is water at all seasons for sluicing, and, if desired, for hydraulic work.
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CHAPTER XXVI
THE famous Bonanza Copper Mine is on the moun- tainside high above the Kennicott Valley, and near the Kennicott Glacier - the largest glacier of the Alaskan interior. This glacier does not entirely fill the valley, and one travels close to its precipitous wall of ice, which dwindles from a height of one hundred feet to a low, gravel-darkened moraine. From the summit of Sour- Dough Hill it may be seen for its whole forty-mile length sweeping down from Mounts Wrangell and Regal.
The Bonanza Mine has an elevation of six thousand feet, and was discovered by the merest chance.
The history of this mine from the day of its discovery is one of the most fascinating of Alaska. In the autumn of 1899 a prospecting party was formed at Valdez, known as the "McClellan" party. The ten individuals com- posing the party were experienced miners and they contributed money, horses, and "caches," as well as experience. The principal cache was known as the " McCarthy Cabin" cache, and was about fifteen miles east of Copper River on the trail to the Nicolai Mine.
The Nicolai had been discovered early in the summer by R. F. McClellan, who was one of the men compos- ing the "Mcclellan " party, and others. Another im- portant cache of three thousand pounds of provisions was the " Amy" cache, thirty-five miles from Valdez, just over the summit of Thompson Pass.
The agreement was that the McClellan party was to
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prospect in the interior in 1900 and 1901, all property located to be for their joint benefit.
The members of the party scattered soon after the organization was completed. Clarence Warner, John Sweeney, and Jack Smith remained in Valdez for the winter, all the others going "out to the states."
In March of 1900 Warner and Smith set out for the interior over the snow. There was no government trail then, and the hardships to be endured were as terrific as were those of the old Chilkoot Pass, on the way to the Klon- dike. The snow was from six to ten feet deep, and their progress was slow and painful. One went ahead on snow- shoes, the other following ; when the trail thus made was sufficiently hard, the hand sleds, loaded with provisions and bedding, were drawn over it by ropes around the men's shoulders. From two to three hundred pounds was a heavy burden for each man to drag through the soft snow.
Climbing the summit, and at other steep places, they were compelled to "relay," by leaving the greater portion of their load beside the trail, pulling only a few pounds for a short distance and returning for more. By the most constant and exhaustive labor they were able to make only five or six miles a day.
They replenished their stores at the " Amy " cache, near the summit, and in May reached the " McCarthy Cabin " cache. Here they found that the Indians had broken in and stolen nearly all the supplies.
When they left Valdez, it was with the expectation that McClellan, or some other member of the party, would bring in their horses to the McCarthy cabin, that their supplies might be packed from that point on horse- back, -the snow melting in May making it impossible to use sleds, and no man being able to carry more than a few pounds on his back for so long a journey as they expected to make.
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However, McClellan had, during the winter, entered into a contract with the Chitina Exploration Company at San Francisco to do a large amount of development work on the Nicolai Mine during the summer of 1900. He returned to Valdez after Warner and Smith had left, bringing twenty horses, a large outfit of tools and sup- plies, and fifteen men - among them some of the McClel- lan prospecting party, who had agreed to work for the season for the Chitina Company.
When this party reached the McCarthy cabin, they found Warner and Smith there. An endless dispute . thereupon began as to the amount of provisions the two men had when the Chitina party arrived, - Warner and Smith claiming that they had five hundred pounds, and the Chitina Company claiming that they were entirely "out of grub," to use miner's language.
Warner and Smith demanded that Mcclellan should give them two horses belonging to the McClellan pros- pecting party, which he had brought. This matter was finally settled by Mcclellan's packing in what remained of Smith and Warner's provisions to the Nicolai Mine, a distance of nearly a hundred miles.
McClellan, as superintendent of the Chitina Company, used, with that company's horses, four of the Mcclellan party's horses during the entire season, sending them to and from Valdez, packing supplies.
In the meantime, upon reaching the Nicolai Mine, on the 1st of July, Warner and Smith, packing supplies on their backs, set out to prospect. The Chitina Company, in the famous and bitterly contested lawsuit which fol- lowed, claimed that they were supplied with the Chitina Company's " grub" ; while Smith and Warner claimed that their provisions belonged to the McClellan party.
After a few days' aimless wandering, they reached a point on the east side of Kennicott Glacier, about twenty
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Copyright by J. Doody, Dawson
STEAMER " WHITE HORSE" IN FIVE-FINGER RAPIDS
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miles west of the Nicolai Mine. Here they camped at noon, near a small stream that came running down from a great height.
Their camp was about halfway up a mountain which was six thousand feet high. After a miner's lunch of bacon and beans, they were packing up to resume their wanderings, when Warner, chancing to glance upward, discovered a green streak near the top of the mountain. It looked like grass, and at first he gave it no thought ; but presently it occurred to him that, as they were camped above timber-line, grass would not be growing at such a height.
They at once decided to investigate the peculiar and mysterious coloring. The mountain was steep, and it was after a slow and painful climb that they reached the top. Jack Smith stooped and picked up a piece of shining metal.
"My God, Clarence," he said fervently, "it's copper."
It was copper; the richest copper, in the greatest quan- tities, ever found upon the earth. There were hundreds of thousands of tons of it. There was a whole mountain of it. It was so bright and shining that they, at first, thought it was Galena ore; but they soon discovered that it was copper glance, - a copper ore bearing about seventy-five per cent of pure copper.
The Havemeyers, Guggenheims, and other eastern capi- talists became interested. Then, when the marvellous richness of the discovery of Jack Smith and Clarence Warner became known, a lawsuit was begun - hinging upon the grub-stake- which was so full of dramatic incidents, attempted bribery, charges of corruption reach- ing to the United States Senate and the President him- self, that the facts would make a long story, vivid with life, action, and fantastic setting -the scene reaching from Alaska to New York, and from New York to Manila.
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The lawsuit was at last settled in favor of the dis- coverers.
On January 14, 1908, Mr. Smith disposed of his in- terest in a mine which he had located across McCarthy Creek from the Bonanza, for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It will be "stocked " and named " The Bonanza Mine Extension." It is said to be as rich as the great Bonanza itself.
CHAPTER XXVII
IN the district which comprises the entire coast from the southern boundary of Oregon to the northernmost point of Alaska there are but forty-five lighthouses. Included in this district are the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington Sound, the Gulf of Georgia, and all the tidal waters tributary to the sea straits and sounds of this coast. There are also twenty-eight fog signals, operated by steam, hot air, or oil engines ; six fog signals operated by clockwork; two gas-lighted buoys in position ; nine whistling-buoys and five bell-buoys in position; three hundred and twenty-two other buoys in position; and four tenders, to visit lighthouses and care for buoys.
The above list does not include post lights, the Uma- tilla Reef Light vessel, and unlighted day beacons.
It is the far, lonely Alaskan coast that is neglected. The wild, stormy, and immense stretch of coast reaching from Chichagoff Island to Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean has two light and fog signal stations on Unimak Island and two fixed lights on Cape Stephens. A light and fog signal station is to be built at Cape Hinching- broke, and a light is to be established at Point Romanoff.
No navigator should be censured for disaster on this dark and dangerous coast. The little Dora, running regularly from Seward and Valdez to Unalaska, does not pass a light. Her way is wild and stormy in winter, and the coasts she passes are largely uninhabited ; yet there is not a flash of light, unless it be from some volcano,
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to guide her into difficult ports and around the perilous reefs with which the coast abounds.
A prayer for a lighthouse at the entrance to Resurrec- tion Bay was refused by the department, with the advice that the needs of commerce do not require a light at this point, particularly as there are several other points more in need of such aid. The department further advised that it would require a hundred thousand dollars to es- tablish a light and fog signal station at the place desig- nated, instead of the twenty-five thousand dollars asked.
Meanwhile, ships are wrecked and lives and valuable cargoes are lost, -and will be while the Alaskan coast remains unlighted.
Along the intricate, winding, and exceedingly danger- ous channels, straits, and narrows of the "inside passage " of southeastern Alaska, there are only seven light and fog signals, and ten lights; but where the sea-coast be- longs to Canada there is sufficient light and ample buoy- age protection, as all mariners admit.
Is our government's rigid, and in some instances stub- born, economy in this matter a wise one ? Is it a humane one? The nervous strain of this voyage on a conscien- tious and sensitive master of a ship heavily laden with human beings is tremendous. The anxious faces and un- relaxing vigilance of the officers on the bridge when a ship is passing through Taku Open, Wrangell Narrows, or Peril Straits speak plainly and unmistakably of the ceaseless burden of responsibility and anxiety which they bear. The charting of these waters is incomplete as yet, notwithstanding the faithful service which the Geodetic Survey has performed for many years. Many a rock has never been discovered until a ship went down upon it.
Political influence has been known to establish lights, at immense cost, at points where they are practically luxuries, rather than needs; therefore the government should not be censured for cautiousness in this matter.
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But it should be, and it is, censured for not investigat- ing carefully the needs of the Alaskan Coast -the " Great Unlighted Way."
Seward is situated almost as beautifully as Valdez. It is only five years old. It is the sea terminal of the Alaska Central Railway, which is building to the Tanana, through a rich country that is now almost unknown. It will pass within ten miles of Mount Mckinley, which rises from a level plain to an altitude of nearly twenty- one thousand feet.
This mountain has been known to white men for nearly a century ; yet until very recently it did not appear upon any map, and had no official name. More than fifty years ago the Russian fur traders knew it and called it "Bulshaia," - signifying " high mountain " or " great mountain." The natives called it " Trolika," a name having the same meaning.
Explorers, traders, and prospectors have seen it and com- mented upon its magnificent height, yet without realizing its importance, until Mr. W. A. Dickey saw it in 1896 and proposed for it the name of Mckinley. In 1902 Mr. Alfred Hulse Brooks, of the United States Geological Survey, with two associates and four camp men, made an expedition to the mountain. Mr. Brooks' report of this expedition is exceedingly interesting. He spent the sum- mer of 1906, also, upon the mountain.
The town site of Seward was purchased from the Lowells, a pioneer family, by Major J. E. Ballaine, for four thousand dollars. It has grown very rapidly. Stumps still stand upon the business streets, and silver-barked log-cabins nestle modestly and picturesquely beside imposing build- ings. The bank and the railway company have erected handsome homes. Every business and profession is repre- sented. There are good schools and churches, an electric-
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light plant, two newspapers, a library and hospital, pro- gressive clubs, and all the modern luxuries of western towns.
When Mr. Seward was asked what he considered the most important measure of his political career, he replied, " The purchase of Alaska; but it will take the people a generation to find it out."
Since the loftiest and noblest peak of North America was doomed to be named for a man, it should have borne the name of this dauntless, loyal, and far-seeing friend of Alaska and of all America. Since this was not to be, it was very fitting that a young and ambitious town on the historic Voskressenski Harbor should bear this honored and forever-to-be-remembered name. If Seward and Valdez would but work together, the region extending from Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet would soon be- come the best known and the most influential of Alaska, as it is, with the addition of the St. Elias Alps, the most sublimely and entrancingly beautiful.
Voskressenski Harbor, or Resurrection Bay, pushes out in purple waves in front of Seward, and snow peaks circle around it, the lower hills being heavily wooded. There is a good wharf and a safe harbor; the bay extends inland eighteen miles, is completely land-locked, and is kept free of ice the entire year, as is the Bay of Valdez and Cook Inlet, by the Japan current.
It is estimated that the Alaska Central Railway will cost, when completed to Fairbanks, at least twenty-five millions of dollars. Several branches will be extended into different and important mining regions.
The road has a general maximum grade of one per cent. The Coast Range is crossed ten miles from Seward, at an elevation of only seven hundred feet. The road follows the shore of Lake Kenai, Turnagain Arm, and Knik Arm on Cook Inlet; then, reaching the Sushitna River, it
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follows the sloping plains of that valley for a hundred miles, when, crossing the Alaskan Range, it descends into the vast valley at the head of navigation on the Tanana River, in the vicinity of Chena and Fairbanks.
All of the country which this road is expected to traverse when completed is rich in coal, copper, and quartz and placer gold.
There is a large amount of timber suitable for domestic use throughout this part of the country, spruce trees of three and four feet in diameter being common near the coast ; inland, the timber is smaller, but of fair quality.
There is much good agricultural land along the line of the road; the soil is rich and the climatic conditions quite as favorable as those of many producing regions of the northern United States and Europe. Grass, known as "red-top," grows in abundance in the valleys and provides food for horses and cattle. It is expected that, so soon as the different railroads connect the great interior valleys with the sea, the government's offer of three hundred and twenty acres to the homesteader will induce many people to settle there. The Alaska Central Railroad is completed for a distance of fifty-three miles, - more than half the distance to the coal-fields north of Cook Inlet.
Arrangements have been made for the building of a large smelter at Seward, to cost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in 1908.
Cook Inlet enjoys well-deserved renown for its scenery. Between it and the Chugach Gulf is the great Kenai Pen- insula, whose shores are indented by many deep inlets and bays. The most important of these is Resurrection Bay.
Wood is plentiful along the coast of the peninsula. Cataracts, glaciers, snow peaks, green valleys, and lovely lakes abound.
The peninsula is shaped somewhat like a great pear.
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Turnagain Arm and an inlet of Prince William Sound almost meet at the north; but the portage mentioned on another page prevents it from being an island. It is crowned by the lofty and rugged Kenai Mountains.
Off its southern coast are several clusters of islands - Pye and Chugatz islands, Seal and Chiswell rocks.
In the entrance to Cook Inlet lie Barren Islands, Amatuli Island, and Ushugat Island.
On a small island off the southern point of the peninsula is a lofty promontory, which Cook named Cape Elizabeth because it was sighted on the Princess Elizabeth's birth- day. The lofty, two-peaked promontory on the opposite side of the entrance he named Douglas, in honor of his friend, the Canon of Windsor.
Between the capes, the entrance is sixty-five miles wide; but it steadily diminishes until it reaches a width of but a few miles. There is a passage on each side of Barren Islands.
The Inlet receives the waters of several rivers : the Sushitna, Matanuska, Knik, Yentna, - which flows into the Sushitna near its mouth, - Kaknu, and Kassitof.
Lying near the western shore of the inlet, and just in- side the entrance, is an island which rises in graceful sweeps on all sides, directly from the water to a smooth, broken-pointed, and beautiful cone. This cone forms the entire island, and there is not the faintest break in its symmetry until the very crest is reached. It is the vol- cano of St. Augustine.
A chain of active volcanoes extends along the western shore. Of these, Iliamna, the greatest, is twelve thousand sixty-six feet in height, and was named " Miranda, the Admirable " by Spanish navigators, who may usually be relied upon for poetically significant, or soft-sounding, names. It is clad in eternal snow, but smoke-turbans are wound almost constantly about its brow. It was in erup-
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tion in 1854, and running lava has been found near the lower crater. There are many hot and sulphurous springs on its sides.
North of Iliamna is Goryalya, or "The Redoubt," which is a lesser "smoker," eleven thousand two hundred and seventy feet high. It was in eruption in 1867, and ashes fell on islands more than a hundred and fifty miles away.
Iliamna Lake is one of the two largest lakes in Alaska. It is from fifty to eighty miles long and from fifteen to twenty-five wide. A pass at a height of about eight hun- dred feet affords an easy route of communication between the upper end of the lake and a bay of the same name on Cook Inlet, near the volcano, and has long been in use by white, as well as native, hunters and prospectors. The country surrounding the lake is said to abound in large and small game. Lake Clark, to the north, is connected with Lake Iliamna by the Nogheling River. It is longer than Iliamna, but very much narrower. It lies directly west of the Redoubt Volcano.
Iliamna Lake is connected with Behring Sea by Kvichak River, which flows into Bristol Bay. The lake is a natural hatchery of king salmon, and immense canneries are located on Bristol Bay, which lies directly north of the Aliaska Peninsula.
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