Adventures in Alaska

My year's outfit of "grub and duds," as the miners would put it, was aboard. I grasped the hand of Dr. Koonce, with whom I had just floated in an open boat down the Yukon twelv

Rampart, build a church there and learn

yons cut through the high hills-where respectable and orthodox gold ought to be; but gold on the wind-swept, stormy, treeless, exposed coast of Seward Peninsula-the tongue that impudent young Alaska sticks out at old Asia. Gold, like yellow corn-meal, in the beach-sands of Bering

es in the "armstrong sawmill," sailed their clumsy boats through the lakes, shot the rapids of the Upper Yukon, spent the summer of '98 and the winter that followed surging here and there on "wildcat" stampedes or putting down "dry" holes on unprofitable lays, and were now eager

placard of the company owning the boat menaced us in the office: "All rese

f of whom had packed up to go on the boat. I hurried to the purser

of the bystanders. "The boat's past her limit now, and we're li

nner office of the store. "Get your goods aboard," he direct

he various stores, taking their own outfits aboard, ignoring the shipping clerk and dumping their goods wherever they found a p

heir packs on their backs filed down the plank. The first mate tried to stop them. He even made a move to draw his pistol; but the foremost man-a big six-footer-threw his arms around him and carried him back against the stairway and held him until

the swift current caught the boat, the wheel backed, and we s

l the decks, stepping on each other's feet, perching on stairways, boxes, pole-bunks-anywhere

rest; and it was, "Hello, Shorty!" "Ah, there, Dutch!" "Where you goin', Jim?" between them and the newcomers. A rollicking, happy-go-lucky crowd, all joyful at being on the way to the new diggings. E

rthwestern wilderness. This was my parish, my home; and these were my comrades, my chums, my brothers. I was just as sunburned

Interior Alaska (which, at that time, was twice the original cost of the shirt), and twenty-five cents to do up a collar, the cost price of which "outside" was three for a quarter. I could wash my flannel shirts myself. Second, for comfort's sake. The soft wool of these garments was so much warmer and more pliable than a "Prince Albert" suit; and a starched collar would sear one's neck like fire, when it wa

own of Tanana. When the boat tied up, the whistle gave three sharp hoots, showing that the stay would be very short. As soon as the pla

boat who wore a Prince Albert coat and white shirt and collar, and drawled: "Wa

n to the anxious man from the village, followed him ashore and

t, besides being compelled to fairly fight for their meals or to get their food from their own kits. But the majority of these men had been camping and roughing it for two years. Many of them had packed heavy loads over the Chilcoot Pass in the great Klondike Stampede, had made their o

id for newspapers and magazines at the camps of the Northwest. He bought three or four hundred copies of the Seattle P. I. (Post Intelligencer) and Times. He paid two and a half and three cents apiece for them, the selling price at Seattle being five cents. Then he got five o

At Juneau and Skagway he sold about one-fourth of his papers and magazines-the papers for twenty-five cents each and the ten-cent magazines

the Chilcoot Pass and down the Yukon to Dawson. At the great Klondike camp he quickly sold

d running a general news stand, in which he sold the reading matter he had sold before but

rser's room, and we became great chums. The boy was so bright and quick, and at the same time so polite and accommodating, that he made friends everywhere. He was a Sunday-school bo

ow much money have you made du

down here, and with what I am making on this trip and what I hope to make at Nome, I

y for a small boy to have," I warn

could double my money. But my partner [the old miner] said he'd lick me half to death if I ever

ou going to

sister. I'm going to school as soon as I get home. Mother works in

or five years later, he was making his way through the University of Washington, and still managing newspaper routes in Seattle. His is a case of exceptional

rough weary hours for tide and wind to be just right before venturing out on Bering Sea. Hurrying at last under full steam through the choppy sea, with the waves washing the

adventures before I could reach my goal-the great new ca

, but I only lost two or three of my boxes. I piled my goods in a corner of the big warehouse of the North American Trading and Transportation Co., and set up my tent on the beach, for I was nea

ale boats, Eskimo oomiaks, and small sloops and schooners; but these craft were too small and uncertain for me to risk pa

ent of Education for Alaska, the noted pioneer missionary. He was just returning from a tour of the native schools and rei

seled me. "You were never n

rf. On the beach I found an abandoned old rowboat with open seams. I procured pieces of boards, some oakum and pitch, and set to work to repair the old boat. The steamboat was to sail for Nome the next forenoon. I worked all night. I made a pair of clumsy oars out of boards.

ired when, after two and a half days of seasickness, bobbing up and down in the choppy seas like a man on a bucking broncho, I

torm coming up and I've got to hurry to the lee of Sledge Island, twenty miles away. You

riving it towards the sandy beach. Boats have to anchor from one to two miles offshore at Nome. When we reached the beach, a big wave lifted the dory and swung it sideways. Th

w straggling board-shacks were stuck here and there on the swampy tundra. Two or three large, low store buildings represented the various pioneer trading companies. The one street, which ran parallel to the beach, was full of mud. The buildings most in

ska, Summ

ents, twent

might be worse. I had not at that time seen Edmund Vance C

the trouble th

lute heart

face from the

ven heart

a ton or a tro

e is what y

fact that you're

how did yo

ed the rough building and found a cheery Irish woman named M'Grath. There was no f

he night there. "Ye'll spread yer robe an' blankets on the flure, an'

home on the first of May. It was now the first of September, and no more money was due me until the next spring. My food and tent were on the stea

ee days. I slept soundly that night on the floor, without a care or anxiety. The next morning I paid another dollar and a half for breakfast, and could not resist the te

ered the Alaska Exploration Company's store. A beard

bout something," he said.

rich joke on me," and I t

shaking me heartily by the hand. "Why, I'

ore and warehouses of one of the big companies. He had held the first religi

refused to take it. "No," I said,

hile we were talking a young man e

at you are a min

ed. "What can

me to the best

ked, with a triumph

me on the last b

he ceremony to take

"You can't tie the knot

near-by cabin, received a wedding-fee of twenty dollars, and returned to my newly-found

great gold camp of the Northwest-the