USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 6
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Our little colony consisted of about one hundred men and nine women, all endeavoring to keep warm in tents and a few log cabins, in the midst of a northern winter. Among them were artists, en- gravers, and, fortunately, two physicians. The en- graver devoted hours to cutting names in gunstocks,
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the artists penciled distorted resemblances of others, and a few played with cards. Others passed the time reading everything except the sky.
It was interesting to hear the long-haired six- footers tell of their experiences. One man said :
"The reason I came to Alaska was that I had nothing to lose; and, I'll be hanged, gentlemen, if I didn't lose that ! "
Assistant Quartermaster Brown was left in charge of the commissary and, as he was the only official there, he laughingly referred to himself as "the King."
Duncan McCabe, a Californian, and myself sat by a large cookstove, with our feet in the oven, and talked of southern climes while the snow drifted and whipped against the house.
" The oranges," said I, " are most delicious down in old California about this time of year."
" Yes, and the geraniums are in bloom. They bloom all Winter down there," he answered.
Then a glacial blast acted as if it would unroof the house, and we nudged up closer to the stove and held our hands over it.
" I have seen volunteer barley and wild oats headed out there, at this time of year," I re- marked.
"So have I. The almond trees are in bloom now, too," he added.
On this topic we talked for a long time,-of
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watermelon vines, new potatoes that would insist on volunteering in the orchards where they were not wanted,-and also of strawberry short-cake. The wind continued to whistle, and the weather ap- peared to me to be getting rapidly colder, but we hugged closer to the stove and continued the in- teresting conversation.
Our pleasant dreams were suddenly stopped by Charley Brown coming into the room. His head was all muffled up, and after shaking the snow from himself and stamping his feet, he deliberately walked up and placed his bare hand on our stove. Springing back he exclaimed :
" Jehosephat! If you Californians aren't keep- ing yourselves warm by talking about your southern climate, with your feet in the oven of a stove that has had no fire in it for three hours!" He then walked out.
I glanced down at the stove that I knew was red hot when we began to talk, and saw white frost on it; then I examined a bucket of water that had been placed near the pipe to keep it warm and found it to be a bucket of ice. I brought in some wood from the adjoining wood-house, while Duncan cut shav- ings preparatory to starting a fire. Presently Dun- can stopped and said :
" Blamed if he wasn't right! Just talking about that country warmed us up. If I only had a bottle of that climate here now, I could pull the cork and
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make any of them believe that their house was on fire ! "
We had no law except a leaning tree and a rope, and needed no other. It was the most orderly com- munity imaginable. Every individual felt that he was a juror in all cases and accountable to the com- munity for his own conduct. This little colony represented a very small percentage of the four thousand people who had invaded that part of the then unknown. The task of overcoming the appar- ently insurmountable difficulties of exploring that great wonderland was left to them, with their in- domitable will, energy and perseverance. Two com- panions and myself were fortunate in the possession of a barrel of salmon bellies, and consequently we ate salmon bellies twenty-one times per week.
These pioneers would come out on the clear, crisp cold nights, and cluster in groups to witness the beautiful scenes that were enacted on the northern stage, where the sky-curtain trembled in dim aurora. We were embayed in calm seclusion in another world, and had received no word or line from loved ones at home during the preceding fourth of the year, as no boat had rippled the bay for three long months.
They stood hand to hand, heart to heart and soul to soul; hand to hand to explore these unknown wilds; heart to heart to assist their sick and needy companions; and soul to soul to commit to graves
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dug in icy soil the frozen bodies of their number who had perished in glacier blizzards.
Three to five thousand feet above and surround- ing us were rock-ribbed and impenetrable walls of pinnacled mountains, weird, cold and desolate, statuesque and awe-inspiring. There were cavern- ous recesses and precipitous walls defiled with gorges of gleaming ice. The high winds sheeted the snow from the pinnacled crests, and the moon, hidden from our view by the mountain, sent its scin- tillating rays to be reflected down through those particles as if making the whole mountain to appear as though it were burning vividly with a golden flame. The spectacular extravaganza of the north- land !
A party of us stood admiring the display on the night of November 18, and a lady asked her hus- band what were the weather indications of those flames.
" Well, my dear, those flames have the appearance of smoke in daytime. You have seen these moun- tains smoke, haven't you?" he answered.
" Yes, this very afternoon."
" That means, because those crests are on the same altitude as the glacier, that a high wind is blowing on the summit; and the flames and smoke plainly say, 'Keep off the glacier!' These northeasters last several days and to-morrow the 'woollies ' will hurl great volumes of snow along here and out into
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the bay. These naked trees will then whistle the same tune that they always play on such occasions. God help the boys who attempt to cross the glacier to-morrow."
With her head resting on his shoulder, her heart- felt reply was :
" I do hope none will make the attempt."
The next day the blizzard came as predicted. We were content to remain indoors, and scrape the frost off the windows and watch the snow leave the moun- tain-tops and, driven back into moisture, go float- ing off over the Pacific in the form of clouds. This nebulous mass of vapor was not merely a ghostly apparition, or evil omen, but the genuine evil itself, on a mission of death to every living thing it might encounter.
That night the only social hall was crowded with men in great overcoats. The surrounded card tables were echoing the clinking of coin, and the fireman shoved large chunks of spruce into the stove, while the wind shook the building with a warning of its terrible power. The gambling suddenly ceased, and with greetings of astonishment, the crowd parted as six men walked into their midst with ice clinging to their beards and hair.
They had crossed the glacier !
Six out of nine had succeeded in the attempt. The last man to drop out of line was Mike Smith, of Chicago.
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" Boys, I can go no further," he had said, and had tumbled over in the snow, while a gust of wind had carried the others far down the glacier.
Of those who had succeeded, Spotts, William Grogg and Robert Furgusen were unhurt; but Syl- vester Grogg, of St. Joe, Missouri, and Mr. Polo- witch and Mr. Cohn of New York, were in a sor- rowful condition. They were hurried into a cold room, and bathed in ice water until their footwear and mits could be removed.
One night, seven days after this occurrence, Cohn lay suffering with a fever caused by the exposure. He was resting on a cot in a cabin loft, and when the " woollies " snow-whipped the roof he would start up in wild excitement. Once he arose in bed, and with a look of frenzy gazed towards the stair- way, while the lone attendant vainly tried to pacify him. Presently his look changed to a calm expres- sion of happiness and he exclaimed :
" Good Lord! And you have come to me! How good of you!" Then he dropped back on his pil- low and mumbled :
"Don't cry, dear; it was for your sake that I came and crossed the glacier, gla-gla-cier." For a few minutes he was in a deep sleep, then he awoke and with a perfectly sane expression said :
"'My wife came to see me. She stood right there and looked just as natural as ever. Wasn't that kind of her? Poor girl! She has gone for
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something to eat and will be back soon. Say, please tell her not to cry."
He shut his eyes and a tear rolled down his cheek and the lone strange attendant stood by the bed a few minutes, felt his pulse, then turned away and wiped the tears from his eyes, while the north wind moaned a lonely requiem to the dead. On Novem- ber 28 a procession followed a sled on which were the remains of Henry Cohn, and so there were only five left of the nine who had attempted to cross the glacier in November, 1898.
CHAPTER VII
The writer has tried and feels justified in recommending the old infallible preventive of seasickness : It is, STAY ON LAND.
WE suffered the ennui of solitude and seemed to drift as did the snow from December into January. We watched the year of 1898 go out and 1899 come in, as a mile-post along our adventurous life- trail. The sun winked and blinked at us for a few minutes, and then would hide behind rugged moun- tains for nearly 24 hours. The luminary began to be a little bolder in January, and laughingly played " peek-a-boo " with us as it flitted from peak to peak. We often spent our Sundays at the little Christian Endeavor meetings conducted by Mr. and Mrs. Goss, Melvin Dempsey and others. They were the good-hearted kind that the gambler probably would describe as " standing pat " on heaven and “sluff- ing " on hell.
Mrs. Beatty occasionally went into a trance and claimed thereby to be able to see things that others could not. She said that on the afternoon of Janu- ary 18 she could see a boat steaming up the bay. As this was several days before that date, it was received with interest by many, as the truth of it could be verified on that day. It was unreasonable
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to expect a steamer there in the middle of winter, as we knew of none so scheduled.
When the 18th day of January arrived, very little attention was paid to the prophecy, unless it were to deride it. I, being of such an unbelieving nature about such things, was more surprised than others, when precisely as Mrs. Beatty had described, the steamer whistle was heard, and there we saw the little steamer Wolcott slowly approaching, on time to a minute. The truthfulness of that predic- tion was an agreeable surprise to all, and the steamer had no more than cast anchor when dozens of small boats surrounded it. We were all eager to receive news from home, and it was six months old when we got it.
The little steamer was quickly filled with passen- gers who felt they had served their term at Valdez, and now desired to finish the winter somewhere else. I was making a preliminary survey of the town site of Valdez when the boat arrived, and I, too, boarded for Sitka to record the boundary. Willingly we gave up the limited first-class accommodations to our in- valids, and on the night of the 20th, left Prince William Sound for the moving mountains and can- yons, peaks and gulches of a storm-maddened ocean.
Notwithstanding that the way below-deck was protected by a hood partly boarded up, barrels of water poured down the stairway. Three of us stood on the steps with our heads out from that
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aperture. One exclaimed "Europe ! " another "New York!" and I said " Amen!" I was pre- pared to change my position for one on deck, and by the assistance of the rolling sea, succeeded. I shot through that aperture lengthwise and rolled over on deck in about two feet of salt water. As the boat careened, I rolled back and tried to knock down the mainmast. Holding to it, I struggled to my feet while a barrel of salt water struck the mast above and deluged the back of my neck, while a similar consignment shot up the legs of my trousers from the deck. There was a commotion where the waters met, but it was the internal commotion which was the most troublesome. It took but a minute to be- come thoroughly drenched, but several minutes to get back into that hole. When everything was fa- vorable, I shot down, head first-in a business sort of a way, but once down below, I did not stand around waiting for someone to tell me what to do, but re-entered the gagging contest with renewed en- ergy.
The wind was a howling success. The boat would enter a wave with a slap and a bang; then it would groan, and so would everybody on board. The pro- peller was as often whirling and rattling above the water as beneath it, while the waves occasionally dashed over the entire vessel.
The anger of the storm had abated by the next morning, but that of the sea had not. We had
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drifted far to the westward, with no land in sight, and where the balmy breeze indicated that it was just from the " Flowery Kingdom." A man down below had the hiccoughs as well-regulated as a clock, and too well-regulated for my nerves, so I climbed to the deck and held on to a rope beside an- other man who had them regulated down to half seconds. For two days we bucked the heavy seas without eating, although Captain Crockett, said to be a grandson of Davy Crockett, claimed that he had the best of food on board. That little steamer was afterwards totally wrecked on the coast of Kayak Island.
When we landed at Juneau, the streets and houses appeared to rock to and fro, up and down, for the first twenty-four hours, while we, when walking, braced ourselves cautiously for ground swells. Others, who lived there, said they could notice no ground swells, but we did. We gave lifelike im- personations of a drunken, dissipated lot of rounders, recovering from the spree of their lives, and indeed we were. We felt just that way.
Juneau had been the dumping ground for hun- dreds of stranded Copper Riverites, who had been shipped out at the expense of the government and steamship companies. They had given the Copper River country a bad name, and I astonished an in- terrogator by answering that I intended to return in the spring. I met him on the beach at the time, and
-
Juncau.
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when the astonished fellow recovered his speech, he called to his companion, who was some distance away, and said:
"O John! Here is a fellow from Copper River!"
John replied that he had seen enough of those fellows, whereupon the first speaker answered:
" Yes, but this durn fool is going back !"
The first two mules brought to Alaska were landed at Sitka, and later, one was brought to Juneau, where, after looking around at the strange mountainland of rock and moss, he deliberately walked down to the beach and committed suicide by drowning. Human beings have been known to commit suicide at Juneau, but the place does not appear to suggest any particular inducements for it.
Juneau is a hillside town, with electric lights, busi- ness houses and hotels. Dogteams did a thriving dray business, I remember, and little boys, with stomachs on hand-sleds, scooted down hill with a whoop of warning to pedestrians. There were dance halls, and gaming tables, with fools on one side and thieves on the other; and open-mouthed slot ma- chines gaping for nickels and half dollars. There was a good society, a church, a school and a library. The following bit of Juneau's history was obtained from Reuben Albertstone, a reliable pioneer of Alaska :
" In 1867 an Indian brought into Fort Wrangell a small quantity of rock which was rich with wire
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gold. Merchants were induced to outfit a party of prospectors to accompany him to the place of discov- ery. They pulled their canoes up the coast as far as Sum Dum, where they found gold and refused far- ther to follow the Indian.
" The disgusted Indian returned to Wrangell and subsequently died in the Victoria Hospital, at Van- couver, but when dying he gave the secret to another Indian, who returned to Wrangell. It was about thirteen years after the first Indian had attempted to show where he had found the auriferous rock, that Indian No. 2 started from Sitka with Richard Har- ris and Joe Juneau. They landed at what was then known as Big Auk village, now Juneau. It was with considerable persuasion that the Indian succeeded in getting his companions to ascend the steep mountain into Silver Bow Basin. After satisfying themselves of the value of the discovery, they proceeded to hold a miners' meeting and to organize a district which they called 'Harris.'
" Imagine Harris, sitting on a rock, as chairman; Juneau as secretary and the Indian as an interested audience. In this manner motions were made, sec- onded and carried, and the Indian was satisfied to receive one hundred dollars for his trouble and in- telligent assistance.
" When the little town was started, it went by the name of Harrisburg, until Joe Juneau concluded that
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his odd name should be handed down to posterity. He reasoned that it was enough for Dick Harris to have his name spread all over a mining district, without having it stuck on all letters received therein. Brooding over these facts, as he stumbled down the trail to Harrisburg, he determined to have a 'blow- out' and he did. He not only invited everybody there to drink to his health, but announced himself as the father of the place. The crowd rent the air with cheers and every man threw up his hat in his exultation at the prospect of another drink at the expense of the self-asserted 'dad.' Again and again they obeyed orders by stepping into line with mili- tary precision in front of the saloon bar, and 'looked at ' Joe.
" Dancut Peterson mounted an inverted whiskey barrel, and calling the meeting to order, he made the desired motion to change the name of Harrisburg to that of Juneau. It is needless to say that the motion was carried, and that the stream of good feeling con- tinued to flow down their throats. The crowd in- tended the christening as a joke, but the name stuck. Joe prided himself ever after as being the paternal ancestor of the town, while Dick Harris proclaimed Joe as his personal enemy."
Then my informer watched the curling smoke of his cigar, while he recovered his thoughts from the days when the natives claimed that it was dangerous
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to land on Douglass Island because of the many bears.
Most of the men who stopped at our hotel in Juneau, desired neither work nor riches, but simply argument and plenty of it. Their animated voices were incessantly heard in wordy battle. When one subject was exhausted by ridicule, abuse and false representation, some fertile brain would introduce another.
Our social hall was a large room in which was a bar, but it was seldom that any one took a drink. An intoxicated fellow entered and called for a drink, but the bartender refused him, and that was a signal for argument. One contentious old quartzite asked the question : .
" Does whiskey do more harm than good?"
He did that to get some one's opinion so that he could oppose him. The bartender said it did, and that he never drank a drop, while others contended that he might as well find fault with food because a few gluttons ate too much.
The subject was gradually turned upon the inspira- tion of the Bible, and the bartender defended it by producing one from behind the bar and reading from it. Imagine that man, behind a whiskey bar, with the Bible spread thereon, and a dozen prospectors standing in front, not to drink, but to hear that " barkeep " expound the Scriptures! Verily Alaska is a place of unusual incidents !
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The Taku winds, so called because of the draught down Taku Inlet, occasionally blow down off those mountains with considerable force. An Indian was asked if it often blew so hard there, and he replied: " Yep, he blow, he blow-and-by and by he blow some more ! "
We could plainly hear the blasting at the famous Treadwell mines, three miles away, and concluded to inspect them. A few minutes' ride on a little steamer and we were landed there. We found a pretty hill- side town composed of workmen and their families. Regular pay for steady employment is conducive to good citizenship, and impressive contentment, just as merry children and cosy homes are indicative of domestic happiness. This mine is not of a high- grade ore, but it gives a guarantee to both capital and labor. At this writing, 1909, a tunnel extends under the mountain twenty-five hundred feet, and Expert Roberts of San Francisco says: "They are uncovering enough workable ore to operate a thou- sand stamps for a thousand years."
According to the company's reports for the year of 1899, the total cost of milling and mining was $1.47 per ton, which left a clear profit of 96 cents. When you enter one of those buildings you know that you are in the worst racket of your life. Attempt to say something, and you realize that while your lips and jaws are working, you can't hear your own voice. This may be a laughable sensation, but you can't
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hear your own laugh, and for once you are deaf and dumb.
We looked at the broken rock in water, as it was fed beneath the stamps, and watched it come out as a milky-colored fluid. It is rocked over concentra- ting tables; and afterwards the water and light ma- terial is conducted to the sea, while the mineral is poured into troughs and sacked for other refining processes. We looked at the " glory hole," a huge hopper, several acres in extent at the top. Here rock was being blasted off from its sides to tumble to the bottom. It was wheeled to elevators to be carried up to the mills, there to be reduced to the desired size for the stamps and then fed down through them.
And this is the Treadwell-the largest gold quartz mine in the world! The greatest collection of stamps on the globe! Where four million dollars of gold has been taken out, and mostly for the en- richment of Europeans. Where there are thirty miles of tunnels, and where one can walk out under the harbor with the steamships floating twelve hundred feet above! What a shame that American capital- ists will cut each others' throats by gambling in the non-productive stock market, instead of developing our resources which now lie dormant, awaiting the magic wand of financial assistance !
Alaska possesses hundreds of natural opportunities
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for millions of wealth to be invested profitably in gold, copper and tin mines. The poor but honest miner can receive no assistance from his own coun- trymen, while it has been said that the miner is a liar with a hole in the ground, but I say, generally speaking, the promoter hasn't even a hole.
CHAPTER VIII
Skagway to many voyagers has been the gateway to the Yukon, to hardships and to death; to others to fortune and to happiness; while to a few it has been the gateway to the penitentiary.
I ARRIVED at Skagway after a 'day's ride on a steamer. Failing to secure a private room, I en- gaged a bed among about forty snoring room-mates. Sleep was impossible, because there was no system about their snoring. Although the performance was a medley, it was by no means a tuneful discord. The snorers were about evenly matched, nose and nose, when a new entry undertook to win the race by a sudden burst of energy, a regular sprint of a snore that put him far in the lead. He excited my curiosity and admiration. As he was from my end of the room I proceeded mentally to bet my last dol- lar on him, when he suddenly "flew the track," jumped the fence and collapsed. Evidently his pop- valve was out of order.
I paid four dollars for a room to be used the next night, with the hope of securing some rest; but that was another disappointment. A couple committed matrimony in the same house, and certainly I shall remember the incident, whether they do or not. About one hundred barbarians organized a discord-
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ant serenade with tinpans and cowbells, cornets and horns, and when that hideous turmoil of human hyenas ceased, the howling, barking canines con- tinued it for the rest of the night. There were dogs there for every individual, valued at prices ranging from five to five hundred dollars each.
All nationalities were represented at Skagway. There was the gasconading mountebank as well as the secretive gambler. There were others who showed refinement and whose speech betrayed deep thought and erudition. Others again were dressed in all sorts of costumes. 'A few wore red hoods with long tassels hanging down their backs, causing one to have visions of Turks or Arabs.
An aged man was sitting in the hotel lobby, busily engaged in figuring on his red-tanned boot with a pencil. Presently he said :
" Say, mister, did you ever figure on what Klon- dike is now doing for the world, and the gold standard? "
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