USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 15
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" I dreamed that I was back home, and that it was very dark when I opened the yard gate and stepped on the paved walk, so that it was necessary to step short and stamp my feet to follow it. As I neared the door I heard mother say, as plainly as I ever heard her in my life:
"' Father, are you asleep ?'
"' No, what is it? ' he answered.
"' I hear a cow walking on the lawn; better go out and drive her off.'
" He came to the door and opened it and ex- claimed :
"'Why, mother ! It is no cow! It is poor Bob, who has come home after walking on the glacier until he is all stiffened up !'
"I threw my arms about father and awoke to find myself yet on that old glacier, thousands of miles from home, and to realize that both my par- ents had been dead many years."
It may be that our superstitious faculties have more sway and work more freely at the times when we are most weak-minded. I remember that once I was successfully beaten by a palmist. I had given her a dollar to tell me something that I didn't know;
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and at that time of my life I did not realize how easy that was to do. She filled her part of the agree- ment faithfully, by telling me that I was a married man and had two children. Now, if I had been mar- ried, it must have been when I was not in my right mind; although possibly most men are not in their right minds at the time they are married. I did not then, and do not now, regret paying that dol- lar, but I had not walked a block, trying to recall the circumstances of having done such a thing, when I paused, turned right about and foolishly returned and paid her another dollar to tell me where was my family. That apparently proves that one fool- ish action leads to the commission of another. The act of paying that last dollar is what I regret; not because I failed to find them, for I might have re- gretted it if I had, but because it illustrated the fact that when one starts down a weak-minded grade it is so difficult to stop suddenly.
CHAPTER XXI
The redbreasted robin is flittin' and bobbin'
Because he is near ready to fly To the land that he knows is made green by the snows That are melting 'neath a clear blue sky.
WE, the passengers of the steamer Santa Ana, enjoyed a ride on Prince William Sound, during the balmy days of the spring of 1902. Alaska's spring does not come " creeping," as described in our old school books, but with soft-footed fleetness, it laugh- ingly bursts upon and overwhelmingly envelops you. " This is when daylight absorbs the night, and transforms it into balmy loveliness, and with arms affectionately entwined, wields a magic wand, while all Nature laughs in gleeful responsiveness."
The balm of Gilead buds its leaves, the devil club opens a beautiful sombrero above its base deceptions ; the skeleton-looking alder on the hillside changes its color to that of a deep tangled wildwood, where broad leaves tremble in wild fandango to the soft music of the breeze. Blooming flowers among the green, chase the receding snow up the mountain sides to where the silvery fountains murmur applause, as they coquettishly glance down at you, far below.
On that summer's trip into the interior I fell into
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company with several men, among whom were the Miles brothers, who were going in to photograph scenery, Indians and immense copper properties for Mr. Millard and others. The first day out, I attempted to knock off a horse's shoe with my jaw, and the effort put me to sleep for two hours, and fractured that part of my personal property. I subsisted on soup, while many incidents of the trail passed by as dim dreams.
We crossed the Copper River and spent several weeks camping at the base of Mt. Wrangell, puffing from its top great clouds of smoke and steam,- mostly steam. Once, with a powerful binocular I saw a considerable area that was bare of snow, on the west side of the mountain; and among the broken rock masses there spouted steam jets, or gey- sers. The Indians claim that this mountain was once much higher than at present and this is cor- roborated by its flat, level summit, and also by the fact that its height is to-day about 2000 feet lower than when first officially reported. The crater is a flattened area, about five or six miles across, and for months there is but a small barren area where the geysers spout.
I have seen great puffs of black smoke arise from it, indicating the falling-in of the sides to some great depth. It is reasonable to suppose that the moun- tain side would settle, as its interior was consumed.
We bartered with the Indians and photographed
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them while they grunted and made faces at us; and camped on the bank of the Kuskalina River, where the colossal monument of Mount Blackburn was plainly visible. Here an anticline afforded so much interest to the prospector, with its lime and copper deposits, that I remained to prospect, and bade good- bye to the others, who proceeded on their way.
After prospecting a week I mounted my sad- dle-horse, and with the pack-horse following, started for the Nizina country. At the source of the Laka- naw River hundreds of mountain sheep were to be seen, like white specks clinging to dizzy heights. At Fourth-of-July Pass I ascended a mountain for the purpose of photographing a bear. After I had returned to camp, and had knocked a black gnat off of my eyebrow, I realized that I had failed be- cause of her eagerness to place herself between me and her cubs, and because in doing so her actions had indicated that she intended to examine my kodak. With a snort of defiance, she came on with a rush, and I, accepting the challenge for a foot-race, left that vicinity in great haste. I had been three hours climbing up that mountain, and now descended it in three minutes. As I was hungry, and desired to re- turn to camp anyway, it is probable that I broke the record in rapid mountain-descent. For a week I camped at the Big Springs, near the Kenekott glacier -a prong of the Wrangell system of glaciers, ex- tending far back among the mountains. It was five
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miles wide and continued that far below my camp. It would repay any admirer of sublimity capable of roughing it, to travel thousands of miles to see it, and when the railroad is built into the Bonanza cop- per mine, near by, it will be one of the greatest at- tractions for all northern tourists. It is a canyon filled with clear blue ice, and possesses yawning cre- vasses and frowning precipices.
With all this coldness so near, the weather was warm, the birds sang in the near-by trees, flowers bloomed and the horses fed on luxuriant bunch-grass. A few scattering spruce trees grew on the adjoining foot-hills, and high pinnacled mountains formed the background to the northwest, where variegated min- eral ledges and dykes always will tantalize all pros- pectors who chance to camp in this picturesque lo- cality. I prospected there, dug holes and returned to camp tired, but mentally interested and keen for the experiences of the morrow.
Just across that glacier was where Clarence War- ner and " Arizona Jack" Smith discovered the greatest copper deposit ever naturally disclosed to the eyes of man. Seeing a green area high on the mountain, they climbed until nearly exhausted to reach it, and at last stood speechless when they found that patch of verdancy to be copper chalcocite and bornite-any prospector would have been speech- less at such a discovery. They felt as if their minds had wandered to some mineralized fairy-land. Jack
The "Bonanza" Copper Deposit.
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climbed to a pinnacle of copper and sat down upon it, to overlook the scene while recovering his speech. When it came to him he soliloquized :
" By all the mineral gods of these eternal hills, as this is the mother of all copper I christen her ' Bonanza' ! And by the permission of the mineral god of the north, she shall ever reign supreme!"
When returning to camp Jack again regained his speech enough to say:
" Clarence, it's no use to look for more copper- ยท WE'VE FOUND IT ALL!"
The photograph here submitted shows the man on the pinnacle and the Kenekott glacier five miles wide and 4000 feet below. The white shown on the ice at the right is snow that will, in that low alti- tude, melt off before the close of the summer.
Valuable property always is coveted by others, and more than $100,000 was subsequently spent in defending the title to that discovery. I am credit- ably informed that the lowest expert report placed on ore in sight at that place was $25,000,000 in value. This is but one of a hundred valuable copper deposits in that Chitina country. While these moun- tains are not so diversely mineralized as the Alaskan Range, yet it is a most wonderful copper country.
When the Indians gave that tributary of the Ahtna, known as Copper River, the name of Chitina, (Cop- per River in their language) they gave to Ameri- can posterity a name that always will be familiar. I
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believe if the copper deposits of this Chitina coun- try were opened to the world's markets, and all other copper mines closed down, the demand for copper could be supplied by that part of Alaska alone. Ow- ing to the exceedingly high value of the ore, which is mostly chalcocite, bornite and native copper, Chitina could furnish the metal at a figure that would allow of the plating of every ship bottom, and the roofing of every mansion with this valuable metal.
If it be not bottled up by a railroad company that is only interested in the development of its own prop- erties, that country is destined to produce the bulk of the copper used. Its copper zone extends east- ward through Wrangell mountains to White River and the White Horse countries; and westward to the coast and the islands of Prince William Sound, and along the Kenai and Alaska Peninsulas as far as Chignik Bay. While the ores of the coast are of a lower grade, generally being chalcopyrite, their ac- cessibility admits of their rapid development.
Just below the Big Springs, I met " Arizona Jack," the discoverer of the Bonanza mine, and I requested him to point out its location.
" Thar she are," he replied, " just across the gla- cier thar ! and by the eternal Pokie Moses, she hasn't moved an inch since I first found her ! "
The trail descended alongside of the glacier, and then led up over morainic hills, above where the Kenekott River boils from beneath the glacier like
Copper Nugget on Nugget Creek.
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an artesian well. Two more high summits were crossed; two more lonely camps were made; the Nizina River was forded and I was standing beside the rich sluice boxes of the Chititu ( Copper water) . This is a very good gold-placer camp.
From the source of the Nizina River, Rohn and McNear started, in 1899, on the reckless undertak- ing of crossing the Wrangell icefield-the most ex- tensive in the north-over to the Tanana. For fifteen days they traveled and slept on ice, ate frozen food, suffered with snow blindness, and wandered among crevasses, accomplishing in the end one of the most daring feats ever undertaken.
The report of that journey was printed in the public document entitled, "The Copper River Ex- ploring Expedition of 1899."
Sharp mountain peaks stick out of that icefield and on them can be found mountain sheep and ptar- migan. Its sixteen lobes of ice extend down to the valleys and form the sources of as many rivers.
For days I traveled alone, ate ptarmigan, and was often rain-chilled. On my return I again fell into company with the photographing party, and on Nug- get Creek we were photographed beside a large nug- get of pure copper metal that evidently weighed many tons.
CHAPTER XXII
My horses will be grazing in the twilight of the sun, And by the campfire's blazing, where the glacier rivers run, My tent ropes will be swinging, for I'll there unroll the pack,
And listen to the singing of the white bird's call, " Come back!"
ON my return, I separated from my companions again in order to travel and prospect alone. A cold, dismal and rainy night came on, and to avoid camp- ing near some very repulsive-looking Indians, I made a forced march to another locality. I crawled on my hands and knees in the dark, feeling for the trail, as it was leading along a bluff, 1000 feet above the canyon, and by it I was to descend.
Unfortunately, one of the horses caved off an embankment and tumbled and rolled down about a hundred feet into a side-gulch. I turned one horse loose and spent some time descending to the other, which was found lying on his back in the bottom of the ravine. I rolled him further down, took off his pack and found that he had not even been scratched. It is remarkable how far a mustang will roll and tumble, with a pack beneath him for pro- tection.
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Spreading a "tarp " (canvas) over the packs, I unrolled my sleeping-bag and soon was ensconced comfortably therein, while it rained and the horses looked for feed. The next morning I discovered that I had slept on a ledge of copper ore. This has since been developed and sold to some New York pur- chasers.
A few days later, I left my camp, traveled over moss-covered ground, beneath shady forest trees, ascended above timber line, and at noon was on the summit of a high rocky ridge. From that place the horses, feeding near camp, looked like small specks, far below. Summer was kissing the northland its lingering farewell. While looking on the beautifully mottled picture of the valleys my attention was at- tracted to a near-by scene, across a defile, not a hun- dred yards away. There stood a big-horn sheep, but he quickly ascended a steep incline and passed over the ridge. Then a smaller one appeared in view, from around a sharp point, and attempted to follow; but a bullet from my automatic pistol broke his back and he rolled down on a shelf of rock. There was a fragrant odor arising from my camp, after that, and it was neither from spruce hen nor ptarmigan.
How cruel is man! I well remember killing my last antelope, an event which happened in California. It looked up, and its pleading eyes and its bleat for mercy at the finale caused me, then and there, to
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resolve never to kill another antelope. This reso- lution has been sacredly observed.
Right here, let me make a statement about wild animals with a view to correcting a few false opin- ions that have been formed by books of fiction. The danger of man's being attacked by wild animals is not nearly so great as is generally believed. The ridiculous statements in regard to their furious dis- position are as false generally as a recent fiction about a dog killing a bear. No dog that ever walked on legs could kill a full-grown wolverine, much less a bear.
In Alaska there are grizzly bears of various colors. The white tip ends of their long hair along the neck, shoulders and back gives them a silvery-tinged color, and consequently they are referred to as the " sil- vertip grizzlies." One writer has said that we have no grizzlies in Alaska, but that they are brown or cinnamon bears. Another says we have cinnamon, black, silvertips and grizzlies. To the experienced hunter that statement is positively ridiculous. The cinnamon brown and the blue and even the silvertip are the color distinctions applied to the grizzly bears. The glacier bear is not always blue, but frequently is of a creamy yellowish color. I never have seen the real brown species in Alaska, but believe it to be there, and am told by reliable hunters that it is to be found on the Southeastern Islands. All brown bears that I have killed were brown silvertipped
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grizzlies. The grizzly bear has a hump on his shoul- ders,-at least it appears as such, but that is only the long hair and the height of his shoulder-blades. He has longer claws even when a little cub, than has the full-grown black bear. The American black bear will readily climb a tree, but a grizzly does not.
When the Pacific Coast grizzly is annoyed by mosquitoes he will fight a windmill, or even the great American, Mr. Roosevelt. A man who would take a cub from its live silvertipped grizzly mother would require a headboard inscription to tell his friends about it. I have seen a bear with one brown and one black cub, and both were grizzlies. There are many American black bears along Alaska's coast, and they are harmless.
To the long-clawed, blunt-nosed, humpbacked, sil- vertipped grizzly I take off my hat, or jump from under it. He is a king among beasts. He may run away to-day, and fight to-morrow, as he is governed by moods. Like all semi-carnivorous animals, even man, he is more disagreeable when eating meat than at other times. One should not rush too sud- denly upon a bear that is eating fish, nor should one ever go between a grizzly bear and her cubs.
A bear will not lie in wait in a cowardly manner, but squarely meets an opponent and, unless first badly enraged by having been hurt, he never touches an enemy after knocking him senseless. Of course, a very few exceptions may be admitted, as we are in-
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clined to generalize too much instead of individual- izing when describing wild animals.
The bear is the most honorable fighter among wild . animals, and experienced hunters entertain respect for him because of these principles. It is reasonable to suppose that the disposition of wild animals would change when in captivity. The practice of telling children that bears will eat them is as ridiculous as it is false, for they do not eat human beings. I have awakened in the morning and found near my bed their tracks that had been made during the night, but as not one in one thousand would disturb a man when asleep I thought nothing of it. The Pacific Coast grizzly, that has roamed from Mexico to Alaska, often measures more than twelve feet long, and is much larger and more dangerous than the little Rocky Mountain grizzly.
Mr. Grant Chase, who now lives in Seattle, has killed a great many of both kinds of bears, and his list includes an Alaska grizzly that measured nearly 14 feet from tip of nose to tip of tail. That bear was as large probably as two full-grown Rocky Mountain grizzlies. I have heard of bears that measured more than 14 feet in length. The picture here represents a photograph of a skin from one that was 12 feet long and weighed 1200 pounds without the blood. This was taken in the camp of L. L. Bales, on Alaska Peninsula, and affadavits as to the weight of that bear can be obtained. Mr. Bales
Skin of Alaskan Griss!y.
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claims that the condition of the bear could have easily been improved to the weight of 1600 pounds, as he was not fat when weighed.
There appear to be two distinct kinds of grizzlies ; one with a long and straight head and the other with a shorter but wider head, and with a depression below the eyes. Owing to the fact that these latter root or dig with their noses after chauce root, they have the nose very blunt sometimes, and therefore the hunters refer to them as the " Hog-nosed " griz- zlies.
That kind of a grizzly, when met with, ignorant of the consequences of an encounter with a white man and his improved guns, is very dangerous. It is probable that no less than 100 men have been killed by the Pacific Coast grizzly during the last fifty years.
Writers of fiction have given out a false education and have caused many pitiable cowards. I have known men, old enough to know better, remain awake all night because of the howling of wolves near by. Wolves are afraid of man. Once I found the body of a man who had been dead for weeks, where wolves had beaten a trail around the body, and although the shredded clothing indicated that they had snapped that close, yet the body was un- harmed.
I have shot a wolf from my bed upon awakening in the morning. With revolver in hand, I have ap-
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proached, by the light of the moon, near to where their howling sounded as if there were a baker's dozen of them. Although I ran short distances, and acted as if I were afraid of them, I could not per- suade one of them to come nearer to me than twenty steps, and those were Alaska gray wolves, too.
No doubt hungry wolves have followed people for the food they were carrying, and those people have fully believed that they were after their per- sons. It is very probable that the peasants of Rus- sia, who had no other weapons but whips and fire- brands, did train many packs of wolves to follow them in that way, and, of course, any lone traveler would have been in danger from those particular packs. Naturally, the more wolves there are to- gether, the more courageous they become, and there is real danger from very large and hungry packs.
Wolves do worry the large animals, however, and they weaken moose by not allowing them to eat, until by the aid of starvation they are enabled to cut their hamstrings and let them down, when the killing of the moose is easily accomplished.
A mountain lion, or any of the panther species, will not prowl too near a man, even at night-time. They will come within thirty or forty steps of one, if there be fresh meat at that place, and I have heard them snarling when gnawing bones that near to camp. There is positively no danger to grown men from panther or lynx unless when they are defend-
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ing themselves or their kittens. Women or children may be attacked by them. A lynx sprang upon a woman who was in a milking corral near San Diego, Cal., in 1869. One of Mr. Balanger's daughters was in like manner attacked while milking a cow in San Luis, Obispo County, California, in 1884. Mrs. Julia Holloway, now living near Bakersfield, in that State, was attacked by a small lynx, or bob-cat, and managed to beat it to death with a rock, after being badly bitten and scratched. The lynx is much braver than the panther, although he is smaller.
It is probable that I have kicked one hundred lynx out of trees to be killed by dogs. Sometimes, if you are climbing up directly under one, he may jump on you, but only after giving you warning by growling. I have seen one large lynx whip six dogs to a standstill, but that was because the dogs knew not how to kill a lynx. After he had done that, my little black-and-tan hound, although much smaller than the lynx, bravely walked in and had the lynx kicking his last within a minute of time.
While I am describing wild animals, I will say a word about the fox. Eastern hunters will laugh at any one who says a fox will climb a tree. That is because the eastern fox does not climb trees.
The California fox climbs trees, and this fact can- not be denied. Even after I had killed many foxes, I thought that they only managed to ascend the trees by jumping from limb to limb, but afterwards I
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found that my hounds put them up trees that were straight, and that they climbed forty feet from the ground before they found a limb on which to rest.
The wolverine is the most peculiar animal of all. When he desires to be, he is just as sly and cunning as the panther, yet, when emboldened by eating meat, he appears oblivious to danger, and will stand by the side of a dead animal's carcass and growl, while a man walks within a few steps of him. He is re- markably vicious and puts up a very bad fight when cornered. He can whip a whole pack of wolves, and it has been said, and I believe it, that he can whip the little American black bear.
A peculiar incident happened here in my camp, and as it refers to a wolverine, I will here relate it. I had thrown the neck of the sheep on the ground, but a few paces from the foot of my bed, and re- tired to sleep with my head much higher than my feet, so as to command a good view of my surround- ings. Unfortunately, I was traveling without a dog, as I had sent little Pete down to California. This no one should do when frontiering alone, as a dog is a very useful companion.
When awakening the next morning, what should I see standing at the foot of my bed but a wolverine. He was showing his white teeth, looking at me, and with his long red tongue licking his chops in what I construed to be a menacing attitude. As his large vicious-looking yellow eyes gazed squarely into mine,
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instinctively I closed my hand upon my bedfellow friend, the pistol, and slowly raised it until the sights passed up between the nostrils, then followed up to the brain. Immediately there was a report and a dead wolverine in camp.
For some time I lay there trying mentally to solve the mystery, and finally succeeded. It was evident that he was not thrusting out his tongue and showing his white teeth as a hostile demonstration towards me because I had awakened, as first I was led to suppose, but because he had just been tearing the meat from the sheep-neck near by, and was then contemplating an attempt to secure some more meat, which was hanging to a limb near my head. It was the taste of meat and his eagerness for more that had caused his boldness. Whatever may have been his peaceable intentions, his attitude, his wicked yellow eyes, his white teeth and his long red tongue, had all contributed to emphasize one of the scenes that I shall never forget.
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