FRED LOCKLEY RARE WESTERN BOOKS 1243 East Stark St. PORTLAND. ORE. MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH TO MY THREE SONS HOWARD, CLIFFORD AND ARTHUR A., Jb. WHO WERE GREATLY INTERESTED IN MY STORY WHILE BEING WRITTEN, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED MR. ARTHUR A. DIETZ Upper, taken just before he started for Alaska. Center, on his return after his hair and whiskers were trimmed. Lower, as he appears today. Mad Rush for Gold IN Frozen North BY ARTHUR ARNOLD DIETZ ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY W. A. SHARP LOS ANGELES: TIMES-MIRROR PRINTING AND BINDING HOUSE 1914 ID -5 Copyrighted By Arthur Arnold Dietz November, 1914 PREFACE A thrilling adventure of a party of eighteen gold seekers who left New York City in the winter of 1897, headed by Arthur A. Dietz, who has been physical director of the Young Men's Christian Associations at New York City, Lockport, N. Y., Torrington, Conn, and Coates- ville, Pa., and at present in the Playground Department of Los Angeles, Cal. Of the eighteen men who started out, only four of the party ever reached civilization alive, and of the four, two are totally blind, while the other two were left with very poor sight, due to the glaring effect of the sun on the snow and ice. The party traveled many miles into the very heart of Alaska, crossing immense glaciers, which had never been crossed by white man before. This wonderful true adventure is far more absorbing than any of the fiction that has been written about Alaska and has a decided educa- tional value. During the time he was away Mr. Dietz kept a diary in which he recorded his adventures up until the time when he lost all record of time in the great Arctic night, but he kept a record of every incident for the two years and two months that he was away. . 851110 The city of Seattle, during the gold rush is vividly pictured with all its vices. A heart- breaking trip by boat to Yakutat, Alaska. Meeting the natives and the missionary and their mode of living. The start over the great Malaspina Glacier, where some of the party met their death by falling into snow-covered crevices. After untold sufferings they reached the interior and were engulfed in the arctic night, which held them frostbound for seven months. Their miraculous escape to the out- side world through the assistance of a tribe of interior natives and their final rescue by the U. S. revenue cutter Wolcott, then patrolling the Alaska coast protecting the seal industry. For a month before the rescue, the remaining party were compelled to eat their faithful dogs and dead fish found on the beach, and after spending two weeks in a hospital at Sitka, Alaska, where they were taken by the Wolcott, they again reached Seattle, only to hear that they were reported lost two years before. Author. THE SPIRIT OF THE NORTH Spirit of the frozen North, Where the wave is chained and still, And the savage bear looks forth Nightly from his caverned hill ! Down from the eternal throne, From thy land of clouds and storm Where the meeting icebergs groan, Sweepeth on thy wrathful form. Spirit of the frozen wing ! Dweller of a voiceless clime, Where no coming on of spring Gilds the weary course of time ! Monarch of a realm untrod By the restless feet of men, Where alone the hand of God 'Mid his mighty works hath been ! Throned amid the ancient hills, Piled with undecaying snow, Flashing with the path of rills, Frozen in their first glad flow; Thou hast seen the gloomy north, Gleaming with unearthly light, Spreading its pale banners forth, Checkered with the stars of night. Lord of sunless depths and cold ! Chainer of the northern sea ! At whose feet the storm is rolled, Who hath power to humble thee? Spirit of the stormy north ! Bow thee to thy Maker's nod; Bend to Him who sent thee forth, Servant of the living God. MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH A Picture of the Days when Young and Old Men and even Women Rushed away to the Gold Fields of Alaska. Party of Eighteen Start from New York City. Seattle more Wicked than Sodom. New York Party Charter an Old Brig which had been Condemned by the U. S. Govern- ment Two Years Previous. , . Hundreds of Lives Lost in- 1897-1898. CHAPTER I. URING the two years following the Dn discovery of gold in Alaska, no few- er than 1800 men who went to that vast continent of snow and ice, buoyant with hopes and dreams of untold treasures that were to be theirs for the taking, met death in- stead. These figures are from the government report. But I do not believe that the true story of the great harvest of death in that land at that time has ever been told, or ever will be known. My own impression is, and I write it down confidently, that the number of brave fellows 11 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH who started for the Klondyke region and never returned was between twenty and twenty-five hundred, nearly the total fatalities from all causes on both sides in the Spanish-American war. Behold, the power of gold! Imagine that great army of misguided humanity — the very flower of America's best physical manhood — going down to death for mere gold, which after all is a minor consideration in the affairs of men. When after untold hardships I made my way into the heart of Alaska, and it came to be a question of lite or death, I left behind the gold I took along without great regret as I would leave behind a worthless burden. I have learned the value of gold as compared with life. But in 1896 I did not realize that or this story would never have been written — or experienced. I remember distinctly how each morning the papers announced in flaring headlines that great quantities of gold were being picked up in the interior of Alaska. Men grew rich over night; the treasure was so great that there were not enough people to lay claim to it. The country went gold-mad. People ran away from their homes determined to go to the Klondyke. Others, who were tied to their homes by ties so strong that they could not be broken, wished in their hearts that they could go. 12 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Wives, sweethearts, aged parents, children, happy homes, friends, incomes, employments — everything that the world holds dear — were left behind in that mad scramble for gold. Without a thought as to the perils they were encountering, old men, young boys and even women, who were physically unable to endure the rigors of the climate and the hardships, rushed away. It was a case of the survival of the fittest. Thousands never reached their goal, and other thousands who were more successful were unprepared for the hardships to be endured. It is no wonder that so many died, but I have always felt that some measure should have been taken by the government to prevent that great loss of life. It was useless; it served no purpose, and somebody was responsible. As time goes by and I reflect, I am beginning to feel that some inhuman brute organized that mad gold-rush for selfish gain; my reasons for thinking thus will appear as this record unfolds. When the first reports of the gold strike reached the States I was living in upper New York City. The continued exploitation in the papers of gold finds caused almost every man to think of venturing into the frozen north. Almost 13 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH every man I met talked of it and would say, "If I had money enough I would go." I had always been from childhood of a roving and adventurous disposition and these stories of untold treasures in Alaska took possession of me and I was soon afflicted with the craze. I imparted my desires to my father-in-law and was pleased to learn his opinion that if anyone could endure the trip that that person was I. That clinched the matter. I decided finally to go to the Klondyke. At that time parties were forming everywhere. The gold craze seemed to be sweeping everything before it. Men left for that unexplored country with insufficient equipment — men who had never seen a snow-shoe or a dog sled, who had always slept on soft mattresses and were accus- tomed to three meals a day, for no one could start unless he had at least $500 and many had more than $5000. All of them were sadly inexperiened as to what conditions they might be expected to meet in a land where the mercury drops to from forty to seventy degrees below zero and the nights are seven months long. In August, 1896, I advertised in the New York Herald for a partner or two to form a mining company. The next morning the post- 14 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH man brought me no fewer than forty letters, and more during the day. They came from men in every station of life — clerks, policemen, firemen, and in three instances women wanted to join our party and claimed to have sufficient funds. One letter came from a friend of mine who was one of the superintendents of a large cartridge factory at Bridgeport, Conn. Besides this, my brother-in-law, a physician living in Brooklyn, and having a lucrative practice, wanted to go. Although at first he was one of the strong advisers against my going. In two weeks we had a party of eighteen men organized and we decided to start on February 1st, 1897. Unlike many of the parties that had rushed away on the spur of the moment, our party had a faint idea of the difficulties it was to encounter, and we attempted to take every preparatory precaution possible and to make the venture a success. We met every Sunday at my home to arrange for the trip, and in order to familiarize ourselves with arctic conditions, we read books by Perry, Scott and Dr. Kane on North Pole expeditions and various other works. We decided to buy our outfit on the coast, feeling sure that we could get there just what we needed. We did, however, buy four large 15 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH St. Bernard dogs and two Newfoundland dogs, which we started to train in upper New York City as soon as we could get harness made for them and snow was on the ground. We would hitch them to an old bob sled loaded with lumber to make it heavy and drive them for several miles each night, and one day, while we were thus engaged, a policeman placed several of us under arrest. He at first thought that we were crazy and our minds had become unbalanced by the gold craze stories in the papers. When he finally learned his mistake, to save himself, he turned us over to the humane society who brought charges of cruelty to animals against us — that is, driving dogs in harness. Much was being printed in the papers about our party about this time, as the reporters were after us for interviews and we had little trouble in identifying ourselves when brought before the judge and he promptly discharged us, wishing our party success. At last the date for starting came, and the New York and Bridgeport Mining Company, as our party came to be known, was ready. The company consisted of one mineralogist, two civil engineers, two New York policemen, one 16 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH physician, three toolmakers, one tinsmith, one mail clerk, five clerks, myself and my friend, the factory superintendent, every one in good, healthy condition. Fourteen of the eighteen men were married. We were all dressed alike and wore big heavy special made sweaters, corduroy trousers, large sombreros and heavy leather boots; each carried a 30-30 Winchester rifle. The newspapers had printed so much about our party that on the day set for leaving, an immense crowd surrounded the Y. M. C. A. Building, where we gathered to make the start. You can imagine the parting as we bade farewell to wives and children, sweethearts, friends and parents. No one had any idea of the hardships he was to encounter; everyone was buoyant with enthusiasm; yet as I look back upon that scene I can again feel that tremor of uncertainty that passed through us as we thought of encountering the unknown. However much those brave women feared for the safety of their beloved ones, yet little did they think when they gave their last parting kiss and spoke their last word to many of them that it was to be forever. When we left upper New York several hundred persons accompanied us on the elevated 17 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH train and to the Lehigh R. R. Station where we took the Black Diamond Express for Buffalo, and from there were soon on our way to Chicago. All along the route we were sought for interviews by newspaper men who questioned us as to our intentions and prospects. We must have looked like a husky bunch, all dressed alike in sweaters and boots. Between Chicago and St. Paul we had all kinds of trouble with our dogs, which had to be fed and watered, and when the train stopped for a few minutes we had to take turns at running them a little. They whined and howled and the baggagemen were generally very much pleased when we changed cars. At. St. Paul a party of thirty or more men bound for the same destination as we, came aboard and soon a strong friendship grew up between the two parties which continued during the rest of the trip to Seattle. At Fargo, N. D., we were held up two days while a wrecking train was clearing the tracks of wreckage caused by a rear-end collision the day before, when seven people were killed and many were injured. It took us nine days to reach Seattle, but in spite of the delays and the trouble with the dogs, everyone seemed to 18 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH be in good spirits when we got there and we were enthusiastic to go on. It had been said that the gold rush made Seattle, and I truly believe it. But I shudder to think of the cost in human life and misery. Dur- ing the gold rush that western city was more wicked than Sodom; the devil reigned supreme. It was a gigantic chaos of crime and the city government as an institution protected evil. Every kind of illicit business flourished. License trod all law under foot in its grasping and never- satisfied greed. Every possible form of decep- tion was practiced with the full consent of the city government, apparently. Thousands of gold seekers spent their money for worthless fakes and they never knew they had been deceived until too late; soon their frozen corpses told the story of man's inhumanity to man and its awful price. Our first impression when we alighted from our train in Seattle was that the city was over- crowded, and we soon learned that there was no chance of getting hotel accommodations. We searched for lodgings until we were tired and about to give up in despair, when someone directed us to a stable that was being converted into a lodging place. Cots so small that one 19 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH could not lay comfortably upon them were placed six in a room, and besides the cot each man was given a tin basin and stool; for this service he was charged $1.00 per night. The only place to get water was at a hydrant which had been used for washing wagons. It was a hard life already, but no one complained and everyone seemed to be willing to do his part. With no better accommodations in prospect we settled down to make the best of it and prepare for our expedition to Alaska. One man was selected each day to watch our rooms and dogs which were tied just outside in the hall. The place was worse than a barn, but everyone was willing and did his part and thus our troubles were minimized. A committee of four were selected to do all the purchasing and to secure transportation and as one of the committee I shall never forget the experience. Previous to that time I thought that nothing could surprise a New Yorker. But I was sadly deluded and to my sorrow. While our experience in New York did us great service in preventing our being swindled and spending all our money for stuff that was of no value, still we were relieved of hundreds of dollars through schemes that looked to be 20 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH perfectly good until we got to Alaska and found that we had been defrauded in every way. At that time the city of Seattle was a mael- strom of raving humanity driven half insane by the desire for gold. Between 1800 and 2000 people from all over the world were there clamoring for transportation to Alaska when there was none. Money was plentiful and fabu- lous prices were asked for everything. Every scheme, legal and illegal, mostly illegal, ever devised by mortal to separate a man from his money was run "wide open." Unspeakable dives, houses of ill-fame existed on every block in the business section and women under the protection of the police solicited business every- where. Gambling houses, saloons and disorderly houses were run in notorious defiance of the law and under the same roof. Many pick- pockets, professional gamblers and gunmen collected about these places like flies about a cider jug, and would not stop at murder — to say nothing of lesser crimes. Everything imaginable for use in gold mining and arctic expeditions was offered for sale- Fakers filled the streets and hawked their wares which consisted of compasses, mercury, worthless contraptions for locating and testing 21 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH gold and a thousand and one things which were found to be absolutely worthless. Agents solicited business everywhere. They sold anything from a portable house to a con- densed form of vegetable. Evaporated foods seemed to be a favorite with the confidence men; evaporated potatoes, beans, fruits and even evaporated eggs — I remember distinctly how we were deceived into buying 100 pounds of the eggs. The agent poured some of the yellow powder out and cooked it. It tasted like scrambled eggs which indeed it was, but it was all a sleight-of-hand trick for the stuff we paid for was yellow corn meal. Although we were very careful, many of the supplies we bought were worthless. A United States Government store was opened in Seattle at that time, where old army equip- ment, consisting of tents, blankets, knap-sacks, etc., were sold. Much of this stuff was worn out and useless but it was eagerly bought by the gold-blinded crowds. The men who came from the east were not so easily deceived, but many parties spent all their money for worthless trash and some never got further than Seattle. One party from Texas, which later took passage for Alaska with us had been so badly fleeced MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH by the confidence men, and had bought so much worthless stuff that much of it had to be left behind. I think sometimes that almost as much money was left in Seattle by the gold seekers as was ever recovered those two years. The real gold mine was in Seattle. While we were engaged in purchasing our outfit, we were also attempting to secure passage to Alaska. We soon found that every available craft had been engaged weeks ahead and it looked as if we were doomed to remain several weeks in Seattle. Everyone in our party was anxious to push on, as was that great army of 2000 men, impatient and blinded by the prospect of riches. Dan Collins, the former New York policeman of our party, in talking with one of the United States Custom Inspectors, was told of an old brig tied up at Tacoma, across the inlet from Seattle that could be chartered for a good sum. We looked the old hull over and learned that it had been condemned by the Government two years before. She was a square-rigged brig- antine, 140 feet long with a twenty foot beam, and was owned by the Oceanic Packing Company of Seattle, Wash. We were blinded, no doubt, by our desire to MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH get to Alaska and did not see any defects. We were informed that it could be put into condi- tion, manned by a crew and taken to Alaska for $5000.00. This sounded good to us, as we had planned to get together several parties and thereby divide the expense. Ship carpenters were set to work at once, while we scurried about getting a party from Manchester, Conn., the St. Paul party and later a party from Dennison, Texas, one hundred men in all, who were as anxious as we. 24 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Provisions Secured. Start Is Made in Boafy Life Aboard the Rotten Brig Blakely Proves To Be a Miserable Experience. One Sailor Lost and Gold Seeker Dies. Dories and Dog Crates Are Washed Away and Give Rise to the Story That the Entire Crew Perished. CHAPTER II. HE old boat was given a daub of paint here and there, a deck-house was built amidship for fifty of the men and extra bunks were put in the forecastle. Two men were to sleep in each bunk and they were built three high, with barely room enough to crawl into. The galley or cook-house was aft and just large enough for two or three to move about in. She was towed to a dock in Seattle and it was very noticeable that she lay very low in the water. Eight days after we had engaged her, she was pronounced ready for the voyage and was to be manned by Captain McAfee, Mate Jung and three sailors who I am sure did little deep sea sailing. There was also a cook and a colored 25 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH assistant. While the repairs were being made, large crowds were always on the wharf willing to take passage with us at any price. In the meantime we had secured all our pro- visions, tools, and other goods from the Seattle Trading Company. Each man was allowed 1000 pounds, baggage included. A portion of our outfit consisted of beans, pork, bacon, flour and many evaporated articles, such as potatoes, apples, beef tea, tea and coffee. We had special tents and sleds made, all sorts of mining tools and ropes, snow-shoes and sleeping bags and other needed articles. The dogs, now thirty in number, which had been fattened up during our stay in Seattle, were placed on the deck-house in crates with the owner's name on each crate. All hands helped to get the goods aboard. When we had loaded everything on board for the whole party, the boat was down in the water nearly to her scupper holes or nearly to the main deck, as she lay in the calm waters of Puget Sound. Guarded from the old gray Pacific Ocean by mountainous promontories and caressed by gentle breezes, Puget Sound is a body of water of rare beauty. To the person whose mind is at peace with the world and who looks upon it 26 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH with an eye receptive to beauty, it imparts a charm all its own — a charm that cannot well be expressed in words, for it exists nowhere else. The sunshine seems to enter into a conspiracy with it, and the cloud shadows play hide-and- seek upon its surface and even when it rains the drops of water dance upon the tilting wavelets in a joyous fashion. It is indeed a gigantic playground of nature enclosed in a marvelous setting of wooded hills and far-away mountains. But we saw none of this. With nothing but the desire for gold in his heart man degenerates into a beast. He sees nothing, appreciates nothing, thinks nothing but gold. It is the guiding star of his existence, the spur of his ambition; it takes possession of his soul, engenders selfishness, deadens his moral sense and projects him into a state of insane madness, which is akin to being under a hypnotic influence. When that old rotten hulk, loaded down with almost all our worldly possessions, was towed out to Dungeoness Point on the twenty-fourth day of February, 1897, we had but a single thought — Alaska. All worked with the strength of a Hercules to get the cargo aboard; we had lost sleep and had not taken time to eat in order to 27 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH get away; we were tired, wretched, hungry, but we did not know it. Above, beyond, far out upon that green expanse of water was our goal — Alaska. Although impatient to proceed, we lowered anchor for the night and as I stop a moment in retrospection and think how that wretched company of men forgot everything in a sort of wild frenzy — everything but the dictation of a blind faith that they had given up every other consideration to follow — it all seems a vain, weird, jumbled memory. The things that seemed so commonplace and important then as we lay there in the peaceful water of the Sound as the boat tugged at its anchor and swayed and tilted with the motion of the sea, have faded into insignificance now. That wild impatience that caused us to walk the deck when we should have been at rest, that longing to reach our goal kept our jaded nerves on edge and filled our minds so full of thoughts we could not sleep; that alluring prospect made us forget all we left behind — wives, parents, homes, friends, civilization. We could see but one thing — gold. All this is but an incident now, but it was very real then. It is no wonder, that before the sun arose above the eastern mountain next morning, we 28 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH set sail and rejoiced in a weird way as the Blakely moved slowly out over the water. We sailed that day to Port Angules, and before we had been on our journey an hour, some of those aboard who had never been to sea before were beginning to lose their impatient frenzy in the delirium of. seasickness. The party from Texas suffered most, and after the first afternoon on board I do not think they appeared on deck for a meal. Although the sea was not rough the first day out and the boat was extremely heavily laden, it rolled and dipped and rode the waves in a bewildering manner, and there were very few men aboard except the sailors and myself who were not affected. The captain who had been on a glorious drunk, and had brought several bottles of whiskey aboard with him, kept to his cabin and did not appear until he had consumed all the booze. During the first day of our journey the dogs must have become seasick too, for they howled and whined piteously; their imploring cries rose above the creaking and clattering of the boat and the swish of the waters as we bowled along. It produced a pandemonium that was most distressing. 29 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Although our meals consisted of nothing but beans and coffee, the cooks had much trouble in preparing them. Three times a day those of us who had our sea legs — and the number began to diminish immediately — would line up on one side of the boat with a tin plate in one hand and a tin cup in the other. As we passed on the outside of the galley or cook-house, the cook reached out of a window and slapped a spoonful of mushy beans on each man's plate. The line passed on around to the other side of the cook- house, where from another window each man was served with coffee, which was poured from a big kettle into his tin cup. After leaving Seattle our boat was followed by many sea-gulls which perched on the yard- arms and watched for something to be thrown into the water. With much flapping of wings they would swoop down and recover anything in the way of food that was thrown in the sea, and their presence soon came to be somewhat uncanny. We sailed along before a stiff breeze for the next three days and they gradually disappeared; by the time we reached Cape Flattery, on February 29th, there was not a gull to be seen. It was also about this time that some of the real hardships of the expedition began to make 30 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH themselves apparent, and even the bravest among us feared that we would never reach Alaska. An increasing number of our party who had been suffering from seasickness, grew worse and failed to come up for their meals. Those of us who were still able to navigate, carried water and food to the rest who could not leave their bunks. No one but he who has experienced it can imagine what real seasickness is. The first two or three days the victim is so sick that he fears he is going to die; then a change comes over him and he resigns himself to the inevitable. He loses all hope, all ambition, all fear, all self- respect, all interest, even in himself, and his most earnest wish if he has any, is that he were dead. At first the men stuck to their work while the delirium which was raging within them made life almost unbearable. Wild-eyed and sullen, they would stagger to the edge of the boat and hang- ing there, would offer a prolonged gastronomic sacrifice to the sea. But when they reached the second stage of their sickness, they remained in their bunks and the result was revolting beyond belief. The stench that arose from the fore- castle, where the men lay huddled together, 31 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH permeated every part of the boat and was unbearable. I have often wondered since how those men managed to live at all. During all this time the sea had been running higher and higher and the waves were beginning to wash over the decks. The Blakely was leaking badly when we left Seattle and the syphon pumps had been working steadily all the time. Now, in order to keep our boat from going down, everyone who could stand up was compelled to assist in operating the hand pumps. The supply of whiskey that the captain had brought aboard became exhausted about this time and he appeared on deck for the first time. The captain was a capable officer when not drinking, and I feel now that his taking charge at this time prevented us from being lost. It was on account of his intemperance that he was not commander of a larger vessel at sea and that he could be obtained to captain the vessel when we left Seattle. Conditions continued to grow worse and on March 3rd a number of the dogs belonging to the Texas party died and were cast overboard. The rest of the canines which had been howling and whining day and night for more than a week, grew quiescent from sheer exhaustion. To 32 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH make matters worse a member of the party from Texas fell seriously ill and my brother-in- law, Dr. Bolton, announced that there was little chance for his recovery. He had eaten nothing for eight days and with the old boat rolling and swaying with the high sea he suffered untold agony. Still we continued our journey not without hope. The winds began to blow a hurricane, the sea arose like a great mountain of devouring green and rushed upon us. Great waves dashed over the boat and completely covered it with spray. One minute the Blakely rode on the white crest of a great hill of water, and the next it was lost in a valley of the same element. The old hull creaked and groaned and rolled about aimlessly and I was sure it was only a matter of minutes before it would fall to pieces. During the latter part of February and the most of March a terrific storm, known as the equinoxial, passes over the Pacific. It consists of wind, rain, hail and sleet and every sailor who has once experienced it never cares to encounter the storm again. Instead of blowing steadily from one direction, the wind shifts continually and passes over the surface of the water with a whirling motion like a series of miniature tornadoes. MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH It was this storm that the Blakely encountered on March 6th and was blown about like an egg-shell in a hurricane for four whole days. How we ever managed to keep that old hull afloat, has always been a mystery to me. The normal surface of the sea was on a level with the main deck and every wave that came along broke over us twenty feet or more, drenching us to the skin, throwing a great volume of water into the hold and forecastle and leaving a blind- ing salt spray behind that would not clear before another big wave broke over us. On March 7th the storm reached its height and ever since my return from the Klondyke, my family and myself have observed that day as a holiday in commemoration of my deliverance. Those of us who had our sea legs had had very little rest for several days, being continually at the pumps which had to be operated constantly in order to prevent the boat from sinking. Our clothes were water soaked, and we were cold, tired, hungry and wretched. Those below were even in a worse plight; we could keep warm through exercise, but they had to lay in water soaked bunks and shiver with the cold. To make matters worse, the water put out the cook's fire soon after the storm began 34 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH and for several days we could get little or nothing to eat. I have often wondered since how we ever managed to live through it without contracting pneumonia but I think the dry atmosphere which we reached soon after the storm abated, saved us. While the storm raged with relentless fury, the menacing clouds hung low and we held on to that rotten hull like grim death — expecting every moment to be hurled to our doom in that wilderness of angry waters — one of our best sailors, Joe Creeg, was ordered aloft to clear away a broken spar which was dangling over the deck-house. Suddenly he disappeared; he had fallen from the yard-arm into the ocean. It was impossible to turn about as we were completely at the mercy of the sea. The storm had blown away the top-mast and jib-sail, the rotten ropes parting like cotton threads, and we were sailing under bare poles about eight knots an hour. I got one glimpse of the poor fellow, with arms and legs outstretched, as he started to fall, and almost instantly his form was screened by the spray. If he made any out-cry it was drowned in the roar of the storm. The loss of the brave fellow distressed us but a moment. 37 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH We looked imploringly at the rolling sea, hoping to get one last glimpse of him and wondered that there was not one possible chance of rescu- ing the poor fellow. Then suddenly the utter futility of the thing dawned upon us and the reality of our danger broke the spell that had held us and we continued pumping. The storm caused three of our dories to break away from the davits aft, and washed ten crates of the dogs overboard, including two of my own canines. Besides this, the rolling of the ship caused our cargo to list to one side, and I was sure we were going to capsize. In our hurry to get away from Seattle we packed our goods and provisions in the hold ourselves, and not being experienced stevedores* it is no wonder we had trouble. We tried to remedy it as best we could, however, and under the direction of the captain, moved a portion of the goods back to the other side of the boat and in that manner partially restored its equilibrium and gave us a fighting chance. By this time we were in a pitiable state and the condition of the poor fellows in the cabin and forecastle was even more distressing. Having lain in their bunks for more than a week, not 38 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH caring whether the boat sank or not, their condition was so revolting that I will not attempt to describe it. Our dories and dog crates and other wreckage floated out upon the sea and some time later were noticed by sailors on a passing vessel, who, reading the name of the Blakely on the dories which they picked up, concluded that our boat had sunk and we were all lost. They reported their story upon reaching Seattle and it was printed in the newspapers all over the country. My wife and relatives, as well as the relatives and friends of all the rest of the party, read the story and after waiting for a time and getting no word from any of us and learning that the boat on which we sailed was not seaworthy, having been a condemned boat, accepted it as the truth. Had we suspected this as we fought the elements in our desperation it would no doubt have made the outlook more gloomy than it really was. On March 9th, the storm abated and the calm gave us a faint hope of reaching our destination. The cooks managed to build a fire and we got the first meal of coffee and beans that we had had in five days, and it cheered us considerably. The member of the Texas party, 39 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH whose condition became grave before the storm, died as the storm waned the night before, and that day I witnessed my first burial at sea. The sailors sewed the body up in a piece of old sail cloth, weighted it with a piece of chain. After a prayer by Fred Weigan, of our party, the captain gave the order and it was dropped into the sea. As I think of that solemn incident in retrospect, its sadness, that I could not recognize then, dawns upon me. The pathos of horror of that simple funeral which seemed so commonplace did not appeal to me then and it was long afterwards that I began to appreciate the human misery and suffering that I had seen. 40 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH A School of Whales Sighted. Seasick Men Recover Somewhat Wonderful Sight Greets Passengers of Blakely as Mountains of Alaska Become Visible. Huge Icebergs Loom Up. NativesComeOuttoMeetUs. CHAPTER III. SPENT a few days following the storm, helping the mate and the two sailors to mend the sails which had been torn almost to shreds by the storm. For more than a week we sailed steadily northward and the men who had been so badly seasick began to recover somewhat as the sea remained calm. They began to realize their condition and as they staggered or were helped up from the forecastle and cabin they were indeed pitiable sights. Some of them had not eaten anything for nearly two weeks. Their clothes were mouldy and foul smelling and the greater part of their apparel had to be thrown away. Some of the men were nearly frozen. An at- tempt was made to build a fire in the forecastle in a small stove that had been there, but the rolling of the vessel and the water coming from above prevented it. 41 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH The sea was fairly calm and we were gradually nearing our goal. Soon we were to be richly repaid for all our troubles! The mate told us we were in Alaskan waters and this had a wonder- fully encouraging effect. On March 17th, while running through great fields of small ice, we sighted our first school of whales; a long black object rising here and there above the surface of the water like a boat upside down. It was indeed a strange sight to watch that big black hulk far off near the horizon throw a stream of spray high into the air and then gradually sink into the sea. There were also schools of porpoise that always seemed to keep abreast of the bow of the boat. They ranged from four to eight feet and jumped and turned about in the water in such a manner as to pro- duce a beautiful kaleidoscopic picture that we used to watch for hours. On March 19th, a heavy snow storm began. The snow was wet and stuck to the rigging until a large mass had been collected, and then would fall to the deck and cause all kinds of trouble, and we could not see three feet in front of us. In spite of this, those of us who were on our feet attempted to make life a little more endurable for those that were sick. Both of the physicians 42 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH on board were as sick as the rest, so that they were only able to give directions and we followed them as best we could. Despite all our efforts, the condition in the cabin and forecastle re- mained as revolting as ever. We had now been on the water for twenty-four days and had not yet sighted land. Yakutat, our destination, was only seventy-five miles away, however. According to the captain, we expected to sight land at any time. The snow storm, which began the day before, continued and sometimes the snowfall was so dense it was impossible to see but a few feet ahead. Later the weather cleared somewhat and we sighted numerous icebergs and floes of small ice. Some of these icebergs were immense. They looked to me like white islands of ice with ranges of ghostly mountains rising up out of the sea. The scene was rarely beautiful, but withal cold, desolate and uncompromising. As we drew near, the immensity of the bergs almost overwhelmed our senses. There before us, or along side of us, was a great wall of ice, thirty to seventy feet high, and for every foot that is above water, there is seven below. Many sea-gulls were again following the ship, floating overhead without a movement of their 45 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH wings like a fleet of aeroplanes. Some of the men were again getting their sea-legs. We grew tired of having the gulls always flying over the ship and wanted to shoot them, but the captain forbade it, saying such action would mean an ill omen. The weather grew colder and the men who were compelled to keep continually at the pumps with wet clothing suffered greatly. The Blakely, which for two years had been sitting high and dry on the beach at Tacoma, was beginning to get water-logged and sank lower in the water, and again we began to fear that we would not get her into port. Few of us had slept for several days, in our anxiety to get a glimpse of land, which the captain assured us was very near. At last he announced that he had sighted Mt. St. Elias, the highest peak in Alaska, and we took turns with the telescope. Gradually the great white mountain took shape in the hazy blue far above the horizon. It was shaped like the top of a pyramid and standing there immovable in the sky. The sight was indeed awe-inspiring. The sea reached out from us to meet the sky as before; there was no land in sight and the base of the mountain 46 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH was lost in haze; but there, hanging above and beyond us like a pillow of cloud was that awful white mystery which, as we looked, seemed to change imperceptibly to a delicate shade of pink. We watched this immovable mass for hours, and then gradually the white outline of a range of mountains came into view. As yet no land broke the horizon. Above the sea was the sky on which it seemed was painted the outline of those mountains and far above them the great peak of Mt. St. Elias. The whole thing seemed so unreal that for a time we thought we were looking into another world, and that Alaska was as far away as ever. But we were fascinated by the overpowering grandeur of the scene and for a time we forgot the hardships through which we had passed. We even lost our mad desire for gold, as we stood there and gazed at that incomparable picture in speechless wonder. Then gradually the horizon began to give way to an irregular beach. The outline of the mountains seemed to lose its enchantment and before we knew it we were looking upon the bleak, desolate coast of Alaska. Alaska! Our goal! There before us lay the dirty blue and white mainland with here and there a black speck. 47 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH In the middle distance were some forests and in the background those mountains, which had assumed a commonplace aspect. But far up in the sky above and beyond them all, towered that great white peak which seemed to have no base. The whole picture looked to us like heaven! Men who had not moved for two weeks got up and shouted for joy. Never in my life have I looked upon so pleasant a picture as that bleak, uninviting coast of Alaska. Everybody seemed imbued with new life and with an almost irresis- tible desire to set foot on land once more. While we watched, there came through the sharp sea air a long deafening roar like distant thunder which resolved itself into a series of booms like the distant firing of cannon. For a time we were startled, but the captain soon informed us that the noise was caused by ice- bergs breaking away from the Malaspina glacier. The roar of an avalanche is unlike any other sound in the world. A long peal of rolling thunder, punctured by the quick, irregular firing of a distant cannon, is probably the nearest approach to that roar. Yet it had a vibrant crashing note peculiarly its own, which thrill, terrifies and impresses the listener with the 48 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH mighty magnitude of those great masses of ice. The rest of that day, we looked and listened and wondered and almost forgot the object of our quest. The next day, March 23rd, the captain looked for the entrance to the harbor of Yakutat. He was formally a skipper on a whaler and had been at Yakutat before for the purpose of trading with the natives, and he knew the place. A high sea was rolling and he had some fears of entering the harbor, but we were all so anxious to get ashore that we insisted that he take a chance. The sea spray and snow had frozen fast to every part of the ship, covering it with ice several inches thick. Granting our wish, the captain tacked the vessel back and forth and finally entered the harbor and sailed to within a hundred feet of the shore and dropped anchor. The two remaining dories were lowered and fourteen of us pulled for the shore. We had not gone far before we saw at least ten canoes headed for us. They contained the fur-clad natives of Yakutat. They paddled about our dories with great skill and ease, going entirely around us, but not speaking a word. Their canoes were small, frail and awkwardly built, but the natives managed 49 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH their craft with the greatest ease. When a wave would dash a quantity of water into then- canoe, its occupant would just give it a peculiar shake or twist and every drop of water would be thrown out. One of the smaller canoes drew up along the side of our dory and we were surprised to hear its occupant address us in English. He informed us that he was a Swedish Missionary from Chicago, who had been there several years and had not seen a white face for thirteen months. He inquired our mission and when we told him we were gold seekers, he shook his head, saying that he had not seen any gold all the time he had been there. We informed him that we were going into the interior about a thousand miles toward the McKenzie River. As we neared the shore we could hear the awful howling of about three hundred wolf dogs and for a time I was actually afraid they would not allow us to set foot on shore. Over a small hill beyond the beach we could see a row of huts and several log cabins covered with snow with large totem poles in front. When we first set foot upon land, we were dazed. I experienced a sensation that I don't think I ever felt either before or since. After 50 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH spending more than three weeks on that rolling vessel we expected everything we stepped on to slip out from under us, and when the beach did not do this, we reeled about as if we were drunk. In a short time we got our bearings, however, and then to our surprise found that the dogs, which we expected would eat us up, had dis- appeared over the hill and had stopped howling. 53 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH On Land Once More. The Missionary Invites Us to Bring Sick Men to His Chapel. The Men and Dogs Feasted on Plenty of Fish Furnished by Natives. A Realistic Prayer Service. Wonderful Totem Poles. CHAPTER IV. HE missionary whose name was Mr. Johnson, who was of a short stocky- stature, led us to his home and chapel a short distance from where we landed; his home was a crude frame shack, substantially built of logs, but rather primitive. He ex- plained our mission to the many natives who had clustered around our party, and they in turn would inform those that were continually coming. The Esquimo who appeared to be the chief gave instructions to several men near him. Then they repaired to their canoes, which are also known as kyacks or dug-outs, each one taking with him a pole about ten feet long and an inch and a half thick. About a dozen spikes were driven through one end of the pole, two inches 55 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH apart and the spikes on each side of the pole sharpened to a fine point. We asked Mr. Johnson where they were going and he replied that they were going to a lagoon for some fish, and for the time being we forgot all about the poles. In the meantime some of our men and the sailors had been rowing back and forth from the boat bringing ashore all the men who could be possibly moved. The Texas party were in very bad shape in their filthy bunks. Many of them were barely able, even with assistance, to walk to the chapel, where a roaring fire had been built by the missionary in a crudely constructed open fireplace. All the natives with their children of the village gathered around and seemed pleased to see us, but very few of them seemed to talk any English. In talking their own language they would make characteristic guttural sounds, which seemed to require much effort and we sometimes thought they were choking. When the missionary talked to them, he made the same deep sounds which appeared to me to be a sort of Chinese puzzle in acoustics. The natives at Yakutat are known as the Thlinket tribe and there were in the village at 56 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH this time about two hundred and fifty, including the children. It was impossible when in their fur garments to distinguish sex, as they looked alike and talked alike. One seemed to be as dirty as another, and they all had an ill smell of fish about them. Their children seemed to be full of life and would roll in the snow and wrestle each other and never seem to get tired; their games were very simple, but while playing them they seemed to expand in joy as a flower as it expands when it proceeds from the bud. Mrs. Johnson, the missionary's wife, proved to be a kind, hard-working, middle-aged Swedish woman, who set about immediately to make us comfortable. Their cabin adjoined the chapel, which made it very convenient for her to cook food on her stove and bring it into the chapel for the famished men to eat. We brought a quan- tity of coffee from the Blakely, as well as all the coffee boilers and frying pans we had, in readi- ness for the return of the men who had gone after fish. We had a short time to wait as they soon came with their canoes just filled with herring and smelt, and I wondered then how they got them so quickly. But we were all too hungry to waste any time in speculation, and we lost no 57 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH time in cleaning the fish, and getting them into the pans. Some of the men had had little or nothing to eat for two or three weeks and the way they helped themselves to those fried fish was a sight I shall never forget. We ate until we could eat no more, and then we prepared to sleep in the chapel as everyone dreaded going back to the ill-smelling hold of the Blakely where we had spent the most horrible three weeks of our lives. It is wonderful how the novelty of a new life or a new expectation — that thin veneer of human existence that causes one to look upon things he does not understand — soon wears off. When we first left Seattle we were filled with great expectation of the wealth that was soon to be ours. Then when the hardships of the sea began to make themselves felt, we virtually lived on hope. When we first started out we always thought that the next day conditions would change for the better, and when they grew worse instead, we set up our hopes on Alaska. When we got there, we thought all our troubles would end, and then — the great reward. We would be abundantly repaid for all our suffering. 58 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH If we had not these thoughts to cheer us, I really think that few if any of us would have reached Alaska alive. During the last few days of our voyage, however, we forgot the gold craze; we even lost all thought of wealth; our single ambition then was to get to shore alive. In a case of life or death, gold or great wealth is never considered. This lesson was to be taught us several times later by the same hard, uncompromising teacher — experience; but this first lesson has since struck me with greater force than any of the others. This experience caused us to be in no great hurry to start off in the third stage of our journey across the desolate country. It was several days after landing that thoughts of gold- mining began to enter our minds. For the time being we were content to save what provisions we could from the Blakely, and amuse ourselves in seeing how the natives lived. While the majority of the men slept after that good meal of fish, which to me tasted better than any meal I had ever eaten before or since, some of the men and the sailors were kept busy until after midnight, bringing all the poor dogs that 59 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH were still alive and a number of other much needed articles ashore. The dogs were given all the fish they could eat and clean water to drink and were placed in an empty shack. My fine big St. Bernard dog was as thin as a rail, with blood-shot eyes, and seemed just alive. It was the first time since we left Seattle that any of us had a real chance to rest, and although our improvised bunks in that old chapel were very hard, the men enjoyed them as much as if they had been spring mattresses, and all slept at least sixteen hours, getting up bright and cheerful. Mr. Johnson after we had another good feed, insisted upon holding a prayer service, and everyone of those men, many of whom had never seen inside of a church, joined in and offered grateful thanks to GOD that their lives had been spared. I shall never forget that service for I do not honestly believe that some of those men had ever prayed before. We sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee," and another hymn that I have never since been able to remember. The missionary was a poor singer and but few knew the words of any hymn, but all joined in the chorus. 60 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH The singing must have been wretchedly poor, but I thought the noise we produced was the most exquisitely sweet music that I ever heard. I have certainly never since heard anything sung that contained such genuine realism and feeling. After the service we came out of the chapel by the side door, and there, standing over by the huts of the natives, were three large and one small brightly colored totem poles, representative of the Eskimo religion. It was indeed a contrast. The poles were about twenty feet high and all kinds of horribly ugly features were carved upon them. The figures, to them, represented different spirits. Some of those figures — human or beast — I don't think represented anything that ever existed on land or sea. I was interested to know how the natives managed to color them so brightly and was informed that some of the coloring came from berries, some from sea-grass and from other sources, and the methods employed by the natives in preparing it were most ingenious. Unfortunately I did not inquire much into their religion, but I learned that they still worship these poles. They seemed to consider everything that happened a good or bad omen and regulated their actions accordingly. 63 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Gold Seekers Inspect Living Conditions of Natives at Yakutat. Fish so Plentiful in Lagoon That a Man Shod with Snow-Shoes Could Walk Across on Their Backs. Their Queer Fishing Poles. How Ice Igloos Are Made. Totem Poles and Their Meaning. CHAPTER V. HE morning after that memorable night spent in the chapel, which was on March 24th, the entire party- set out for a visit to the homes of the natives, led by Mr. Johnson and their chief, whom they called Okla. As the long night was over and the daylight was nearly continuous for the greater part of the twenty-four hours, the absence of night appealed to us as being very peculiar. The sun seemed to travel around us and never got very high above the horizon or very far below it. The light was mostly dim, like the beginning of twilight or just before, and when the sun was not screened with haze, as it usually was, it looked like a great red ball of very hot metal. 65 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH We found the natives were house-cleaning and preparing for the hunting season when all the male members of the tribe go out to get food for the long winter months. They hunt in bands and kill bear, reindeer, beaver, mink, otter and caribou. Others go sealing and fishing for fur and hair seal which are very abundant. The women remain at home making new winter fur garments and doing bead and basket work; they also do all the salting and smoking of fish and meats for winter. Some of the basket and beadwork they do is wonderful, when the conditions under which they have to work is taken into consideration. The baskets which they make from sea grass and reeds, interested me especially and I often wished I had brought some of them home. They color the baskets similar to the manner they color the totem poles. I was not partial to many of their articles of diet, some of which appeared to me to be about as wholesome as a piece of old leather, but a piece of dried salmon a year old that Mr. Johnson gave me I thought was the best piece of fish I had ever tasted. The natives have two sets of houses; several old shacks built of wood in which they live in 66 OKLA, CHIEF OF YAKUTAT NATIVES MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH the summer-time and their ice huts or igloos, which they use in the winter time and which melt away when the summer returns. These ice huts are built somewhat as a bricklayer would lay his brick, and the cakes of ice incline toward the center, making a perfect dome about ten feet high. It was like solving a Chinese puzzle to get into one of them without a guide. The entrance is about three feet high and we had to get on our hands and knees to crawl in, and when I did get inside, I was not at all charmed with the place. There were plenty of fine furs on the bunks they used for their sleeping quarters, but the air was stifling and the fishy odor that permeated it was repulsive in the extreme. The walls were dirty, evidently from the accumulation of smoke and grease, and it was very dark. The igloos are built usually in three sections. The first is the smaller one used as a storm break and where the dogs usually gather to keep away from the sharp, biting wind. The Eskimo dogs, however, will sleep right out on the hard, frozen snow banks, if they have plenty to eat, and never seem to mind it. The middle hut is somewhat larger and on entering the men leave their outer garments here 69 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH before entering the larger or sleeping room. At the top of the dome of the sleeping room is a small hole which is used for ventilation. The cooking is done by means of a lamp, and during the cold winter it is always so cold that the side walls of the igloo do not show any signs of melting The passageways are so arranged that the draught keeps the fire burning and causes the smoke to go out of the hole in the roof or ceiling. The sleeping room is lighted by peculiar lamps that burn oil taken from the seals. They are simply iron or copper receptacles or even tin cans which are secured from the traders, in which is a float containing a wick made of seal gut that has been chewed until it resembles a common cotton rope. This receptacle is kept filled with oil and the lamp burns continuously for months. In these igloos are always large piles of dried skins that the natives have ready for the traders when they come along. They also have dried red berries hanging up about the rooms which are used when mixed with tallow for food and other purposes. When we arrived at Yakutat the natives were just moving out of their igloos which were beginning to melt, and taking up their residence in the log huts. These were built much the 70 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH same as the middle compartment of the igloos and had a hole in the center of the roof at the top so that a fire of pine logs could be built in the center of the hut. The space between the logs was filled in with some moss which grows very abundantly all over Alaska and is much used for food by all kinds of animal life living in that climate. It also produces a red berry which is used for food by the natives and with which they make a coloring matter for the purpose of coloring baskets. The huts which are located along the beach, present a very dreary and desolate appearance. Another thing that interested me greatly was their canoes, which they also call kyacks or dug- outs, and which were very crudely constructed. In building one, they first felled a large tree with their axes and then they decided what portion of the trunk was to be used for the boat. Then they would set to work and carve out the inside of the boat first. When this was finished, they would begin cutting the boat out of the trunk. With their crude instruments they would often knock several holes in its side before it was finished, but they would cover these holes with pieces of skin and when a new boat was completed, it was a very crude affair. 71 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH In front of the chief's hut, near the totem poles was a large war canoe, which had not been in service for a long time. It was large enough to carry about three tons burden and was handled by from ten to twenty oarsmen. After our tour of inspection of the native village, some of the men were again going for fish and I asked to go along in one of the canoes. I was given a "ramagua," a sort of water-proof coat, made of seal, and then I climbed into a canoe with a native, who took one of the long poles with spikes through one end, which I had seen when I first landed the day before. After paddling for about fifteen minutes, we came to the opening of a large lagoon about a quarter of a mile directly back of Yakutat. When we had gone into the lagoon about two hundred feet, the native motioned to me to stop paddling, and picking up the pole, he made a quick sweeping movement through the water with it. When he brought the pole to the sur- face, to my utter amazement there was at least twenty fat herring and smelts on the spikes which he threw into the canoe with a quick twist of the wrist so that a number struck me as they wriggled about. I watched him repeat this performance several times, hardly believing my own eyes, and then I 72 CHIEF'S SHACK AND TOTEM POLE MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH motioned to him to give me a trial. I cannot describe my feelings when I attempted to put that pole down into the water and found that the fish were actually so thick that it would not go down easily. The natives motioned to me to push it into the water sideways and when I did so, that moving, squirming mass, startled me. It was like pushing the pole through soft mud. When I brought it up I had wounded scores of fish, but I had a number of them on the spikes, too. This fish story may seem unbelievable, but it is nevertheless true. I have often heard the story of a man walking across a stream on the backs of the fish and thought it was a joke, but I honestly believe that if a man wore snow-shoes he could have walked about the lagoon on the backs of those fish. After our meal of fish that night, that wrig- gling, squirming, mass of living things got into my dreams and I could not get them out. I rolled about in a delirium of fish all night. Up until this time we had been so much interested in our expedition that we had taken little notice of our own condition ;but after being on land about two or three days we began to realize what a rough, uncouth party we were. 75 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH The day I decided to go on the gold-mining expedition I began to allow my hair and beard to grow, being informed that it would be a great protection from the arctic cold. Others did the same and by the time we left New York we were already a grizzled bunch. Some of the men still tried to shave after we had gone aboard the Blakely, but they soon abandoned it, and by the time we reached Yakutat we looked like a tribe of wild men and if our friends could have seen us they never would have recognized us. Our clothing was already beginning to wear out, and we were all pretty dirty. Then, too, it was not until two or three days after we landed that we began to comprehend some of the things we saw. While the immediate scenery around Yakutat is very commonplace and dreary the views in the distance are most magnificent. Far to the north of us the great white peak of Mt. St. Elias loomed up and its top was lost in the clouds. To the northwest, Mount Logan reared its white form far into the skies and all around that bay was a high range of snow-covered mountains, which protected the little harbor from the severe winds that sweep down from the north. At the base of Mt. St. Elias, lies the great Malaspina Glacier, which seemed to smother 76 WS-** ij5 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH everything out of existence except the mountain itself. The foot of the glacier reached right down into the sea, and occasionally a great iceberg would break off with a thunderous roar as of contending armies and float away to become a menace to navigation. By walking some distance down the beach we got a good view of the foot of this immense glacier. The sight, as one looked up at that great mass of ice, was overwhelming. On account of the ice breaking off the end of the glacier, the edge or "break-off " was very abrupt. Approaching it from the ocean it looked like a great flat wall of marble of various colors rising perpendicularly up out of the water to a height of five hundred feet or more. This end was in reality a cross-section of the glacier and it looked as if the ice had been laid down into strata. Each layer was clearly defined, and the top layers were white tinted with shades of blue- green. Down near the water line, however, the wall of ice was of a bright purple color. All around, the sea was a dead green, and when the sun shone on the end of that wall of ice, it produced a dazzling effect that almost caused one to feel that the thing was not real. It was also at Yakutat that we got our first glimpse of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern 79 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Lights, but it was not until we had started for the interior that we saw anything of its real brilliance. About 9 or 10 o'clock at night the northern heavens seemed to light up with a dim illumination as if the real light was hidden behind a cloud and we saw only the reflection. This light would come and go each night, but it did not grow bright enough to dispel the darkness to any extent. It is hardly likely that we would have noticed it had we not read so much about the brilliance of the northern heavens. On account of the fact that the tide rises and falls from twenty-five to forty feet at Yakutat, the beach is very extensive, except where the mountains drop down abruptly into the sea. The beach is composed of a fine gray sand, and during the spring season, is covered with hun- dreds of cakes of ice of all sizes and shapes, some as large as ten feet square, which have been brought up and left there by the tides. Hundreds of spotted hair seals, or dog seals, as they are also known, could be seen bobbing up and down among these cakes of ice and barking like a pack of wild dogs. This was one of the most peculiar sights that could be seen about Yakutat, and I remember 80 MAT) RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH how we all experienced an uncertain fear when we first came ashore and heard the barking of those seals a short distance from our boat. While most of the men were busily engaged in sight-seeing, the captain came ashore and made arrangements to unload our cargo. On March 23rd, the work began and continued for three days. The sailors came ashore with a hawser which was tied to a tree some distance inland, and when the tide had reached its greatest height, a number of men caught hold of the rope to pull the vessel ashore. I well remember how we pulled and tugged at that rope for several minutes before that old ship gave any intimation that it was going to move. It began very gradually to move and then as our steady tugging overcame its momen- tum it could be seen coming in shore. I think now that one man could have moved that boat if he would only pull long enough. We pulled the Blakely in shore until she struck the beach and anchored her to a tree with a hawser. When the tide flowed out a peculiar sight greeted us. There, high and dry on the gray beach, lay our boat, listing to one side at an angle of about forty-five degrees. From the shore we could see the water running out of the 81 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH seams in her sides and forming a small creek as it coursed its way down to the water's edge. The ice that had covered the rigging and deck began to melt and fall away, but the hull of the vessel, covered to a depth of three inches or more with barnacles, presented a deplorable sight. The crusted ship, with its sickly steel gray color as it rested there in the sand, reminded us so forcibly of our terrible experience that we did not care to go near it to get our supplies which were still packed in her hold. When the wind blew in from the vessel it brought with it a revolting odor, still so strong and nauseating that we were compelled to avoid it. 82 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Much of Our Goods Were Spoiled on the Blakely. Preparations Are Made for the Wild Dash into the Unknown Interior. Men Take Up Collection and Give It to Missionary. Men Erect Tents, and Try Out the Dogs In Harness. CHAPTER VI. HE sailors set to work immediately caulking up the holes in the side of the hull from which the water gushed, in order to prevent water from running in these same holes when the Blakely put to sea again. In order to reach the seams the sailors were compelled to chop the barnacles away with an axe. The caulking was done with oakum, a sort of fibre, which was packed in the seams with instruments known as caulking irons. As soon as this was done the sailors made ready to unload the cargo, and a scaffold was built to better facilitate the work. We found much of our goods spoiled. All of our tools and machinery were rusted almost beyond recognition, and we were compelled to 85 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH spend a considerable amount of time scraping the rust off and greasing the tools in order to preserve them. We used seal blubber and fish oil for this purpose, which we bought from the natives. With the exception of our flour and meats and the foodstuffs we had in air-tight cans, all our provisions were partly spoiled by the water, even the tin cans were badly rusted so that we had to scrape the rust off and grease them. The flour preserved itself in a way that surprised us. The water only penetrated to a depth of about one-half of an inch, and caused a hard crust to be formed just inside the bag, which protected all the flour within. I have since learned that a bag of flour can be thrown into the water and left there and the dampness will not penetrate more than a quarter of an inch. For three whole days we toiled away, unload- ing the ship, carrying the cargo to shore and piling it up in three big piles, each containing the goods and equipment of a separate party. All this was done in a systematic manner and the operation moved along like clockwork. After the cargo had been unloaded the sailors tore away the deck-house and put the lumber in the hold of the boat, to be used partly as ballast. 86 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH With all our provisions and equipment on land and everyone beginning to feel fine, we began to consider the next stage of our journey. Within two days after we landed, all our dogs, which had survived the voyage, but which looked as if they had but a faint spark of life left, had completely recovered and were ready for work. They were getting fat and sleek on plenty of fish, which were left over from our meals. Fish were so plentiful that no one stopped to pick bones, but just took one bite and threw the rest to the dogs. After our dogs got acquainted with the place they were continually fighting with the Yakutat "huskies/' which did not seem to have any sense of "dog honor" whatever and were always sneaking about attempting to steal something. The Alaskan dogs look just like wolves except that they are not so large and have bushy tails that curl up over their backs. They were always snarling and fighting among themselves and laid about everywhere in the huts or outside, as they pleased. Each family had from twenty to thirty of these dogs. Our first concern was to try out our equipment that we had purchased in Seattle, and it was not long before we had come to the conclusion that 87 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH while the sleds, snow-shoes and other imple- ments used by the natives were all very crude, they were far superior in point of service to any of the implements we had brought with us. While the Seattle equipment did the work required of it and was a wonderful help to us, we found that the equipment made by the natives was much better adapted to arctic conditions. Their sleds were all built entirely of wood, bound tightly together with straps of sinews. When they were about to be used the sleds were stood on end and water which had been melted from ice, poured down the runners. The weather was usually so cold that it froze instantly and made a sliding surface that was much more serviceable than steel. Not being rigid the sleds were very hard to upset and seemed to conform their shape to the surface of the ice in such a way that their equilibrium was seldom disturbed. They were guided by uprights attached to the rear of the sleds. The sleds we bought in Seattle were made of steel and wood and their rigidity made them very easily upset, and they were intended to be guided by a stick run through two rings on the side and protruding out in front, which we found 88 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH to be impractical. There was also something about the native-made snow-shoes that made them superior to the snow-shoes we had brought along, which cannot well be described. They seemed to conform to the feet better, and were more elastic and were not so tiresome. We made arrangements with the natives to purchase a large amount of additional equip- ment, and the native women immediately set to work making "mucklocks," fur coats and dog harness for us. The "mucklocks" are a sort of a moccasin made of skins which cover the feet and legs up to nearly the knee and they are a necessity for traveling in the arctic regions. We had figured when purchasing our equip- ment in Seattle that one sled would do for two men, but we soon found that we would have to have a sled for each man, and before we left Yakutat we bought almost everything in the place that could be used in the journey, including some forty dogs, which we started to run in harness along the shore for the purpose of getting them broken into their work, and running the rust off the sled runners. We also erected our heavy army tents and our Yukon wood stoves so that we could do our own cooking and get an idea of camp life before 89 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH starting out for the interior. The stoves were fitted with collapsible pipe which would telescope together and could be placed in the oven of the stove when it was being moved. The tents also soon proved their usefulness. They were equipped with what is known as mud- flaps, which are nothing more than a double wall which reaches down to the ground so that mud can be banked against them on all sides of the tent. This prevents the wind from getting in, and when a man pulled his sled into his tent, fastened the flaps down, curled up in his sleeping bag and used his sled for a bed, he could rest comfortably in the coldest weather. I never knew until then, how warm a tent could be made. The men spent their spare time learning to walk on snow-shoes. Some of the men were so awkward that they fell down completely, but after several days of trying managed to learn how to use them. The trouble experienced by the men was because they thought a certain style of walking was to be learned in order to use the snow-shoes, when in reality the shoes compel a person to walk naturally, and as soon as they learned to walk with a natural stride, the snow-shoes gave them no trouble. 90 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Just before making our final arrangements to start into the interior, we took up a collection among the men, which amounted to $300, which we had planned to give to the missionary, Mr. Johnson, for his good advice and kind ser- vices. We were astounded when he at first refused to accept the money, and it was only after much pleading on our part that he could be induced to take it. I have often thought that even if the amount was double what it was it would not have repaid him for his service in our behalf. He had endeared himself to us as no other man could, for he made every single one of us feel that he had a personal interest in us, and it was indeed a joy to him to be able to render us any service that lay in his power. Saturated as we were with a desire to find gold and assured in some inconceivable manner that we were soon to have our ambitions realized, it was hard for us to see how a man of such attain- ments could be content to throw his life away among the half -civilized natives of the far north. But both he and his wife labored for their welfare as if they were their own children, and although the Esquimo is always skeptical and hard to convince, he had accomplished wonders, 91 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH not only in instructing them in the true religion, but also in bettering their material welfare. Before he made his home with this tribe, traders had been in the habit of coming to Yaku- tat occasionally and purchasing almost priceless furs for a few gaudy articles which were usually of little or no value. He taught the natives the value of their product and compelled the trader to give, in compensation, something that approx- imated the furs and skins in value. Aside from this, he instructed them in the use of machinery and in practical carpentering in an effort to show the people how to build better homes. He had a small saw mill shipped to him by the church in Chicago which was supporting him, and by damming a stream, managed to construct a crude water-wheel with which to run it. In the short summer months the natives were taught to cut down trees, saw them into boards and build homes. Yet the natives were such a shiftless people that I often wondered that the missionary did not lose patience and give up in despair. In addition to this, Mrs. Johnson conducted a sewing class where she taught the Indian girls how to sew with a steel needle and cotton thread MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH and with a sewing machine which she had. The girls persisted in sewing the way their ancestors had sewed for generations before them, however, and I could not see that she was making much progress. The missionaries were also attempting to teach the natives English, but were not succeed- ing very well, because both Mr. Johnson and his wife spoke with a decided Swedish accent and the natives, of course, talked in much the same way. 95 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Party Starts on Toilsome Journey Packing Goods to Glacier. Men Work Eighteen Hours Each Day. Heavy Motor a Great Draw- back. Life on a Glacier of Moving Ice. Hard Time Getting Up On the Glacier Proper. CHAPTER VII. EFORE making the start of what proved to be a very toilsome journey into the interior, we took account of stock and found that every man had between 900 to 1000 pounds of goods, provisions and tools to be taken with him. In an effort to show what a stu- pendous task we were undertaking, I have com- piled a list of everything we purchased in Seattle. Some of this stuff was spoiled on the Blakely, but what was later bought from the natives about made up for this loss in weight. The list was as follows: Thirty-six hundred pounds of flour, 1800 pounds beans, 1000 pounds salt, 300 pounds dried beef, 50 pounds spices, 50 pounds black powder, 100 pounds candles, 400 pounds sugar, 97 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH 600 pounds dried fruit, 1500 pounds evaporated vegetables, beef tea, matches soap, tea and coffee, 10 pounds citric acid, 100 pounds pilot bread, 50 pounds split peas, 90 pounds condensed milk, 15 pounds magic yeast, 100 pounds rolled oats, 110 pounds of other articles, including malted milk and medicines. Other equipment — motor 800 pounds, two stoves 50 pounds, quick silver or mercury 100 pounds; eighteen shovels and twenty picks, 250 pounds; six axes and six hatchets, 50 pounds; whip saw, brace and bits, 25 pounds; rope and wire, 1000 pounds; gold pans and steel bar, 65 pounds; tarpaulins, tents, sleds and harness, 600 pounds; sleeping bags, utensils, blocks and pulleys with our rifles and the ammunition, 2000 pounds. This made an average of 835 pounds per man. This did not include the men's clothing or shoes and boots, however. We consulted the natives as to the best route to take and were directed over a range of mountains that would bring us to Disenchant- ment Bay, where we could take any of four glaciers, which were arms of the Malaspina Glacier. We decided on a northerly course between Mount Logan and Mount Hubbard 98 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH north of Mount St. Elias. This led over vast glaciers, which had never been crossed by any- human being before. The natives were fearful of crossing moving ice, but we paid no attention to their warning, feeling that we could easily cross the glacier. Our plan was to proceed north to the Yukon River and then up the river to our goal a distance of about eight hundred miles. The Manchester party decided to go with us across the glacier at least, but the St. Paul and Texas parties, desiring to reach the Mackenzie River, started out in a northwesterly direction. After arranging with a couple of natives who could speak a little English to go with us as guides, our preparations for the trip were complete. At this point it may be said that the territory of Alaska was ceded by Russia to the United States in 1867 for a consideration of $7,000,000, and according to the government report, has an area of 577,390 square miles. Texas is said to be twice as large as any other state in the Union, and Alaska is twice as large as Texas. When it is taken into consideration that but one-tenth of this territory was inhabited in 99 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH 1896, an idea of how vast the wild unexplored territory that was left can be gained. At the present time there are railroads, telegraph and telephone lines in many parts of the territory, and the mode of living there has been vastly changed since the days of the gold rush. On April 12th we carried our first load of seventy-five pounds each with pack-straps five miles and it was a long toilsome journey. We were unable to use the sleds, as the trail was very rough and steep leading through forest and ravines, although we had sent scouts ahead to lay out the best route and blaze a trail through the woods. We established a camp five miles from Yakutat where some of the men remained all the time and guarded the supplies. Each man made two trips a day and it was several days before we brought the last load and bid farewell to Yakutat. Before leaving, however, we wrote about 100 letters to our relatives and friends; these were left with the missionary with orders not to put them aboard the Blakely, which we feared would never reach port, but rather to put them on a trading vessel or home-bound whaler. 100 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Although our journey had not yet begun, we got a taste of the ceaseless toil and bitter hard- ships that were to be ours later in moving our goods and equipment those first Jive miles. The pack-straps, although unusually: v/'de, chafed and cut our shoulders until they had imbedded themselves in our flesh. My own shoulders still bear the pack-strap marks. . Finally we were forced to abandon the straps altogether and carry the goods on our heads and shoulders. But not a man flinched. We worked for eighteen or twenty hours at a stretch and then completely exhausted, crawled into our sleeping bags and rested for twelve hours more. These sleeping bags were about seven feet long and three feet wide, were covered on the outside with heavy water-proof canvas, with a heavy wool blanket and a bear or goat skin bag inside. The bag was so arranged that you could get in and fasten the outer flap from the inside and always feel warm and cozy, even in the coldest of weather. The hardest part of our work was moving our motor, which was in reality a dynamo weighing about 800 pounds and which we attempted to move intact. The engineer in our party had planned to dam up a stream, construct a water 101 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH wheel and manufacture power for mining pur- poses. We had all the tools and equipment with us to do this and we were assured such a plan was practical. It was not so much the weight of the machine which bothered us, but its awkward bulk. We lashed it with ropes to two poles and attempted to carry it on the plan of a Soudan chair. After a great amount of toil we managed to get it moved the first stage of our journey, but this one piece of equipment seemed to be our greatest drawback toward making rapid progress. It required more than a week for us to get all our goods and equipment up near the glacier proper, where our real journey started. The journey up over the edge of that great field of ice was much more toilsome than the journey up to it. Finally, however, on April 20th, we carried our last load and made arrangements to start on our journey northward over the ice. The days continued to grow much longer and warmer and everyone was in good health and spirits. Each man put about five hundred pounds on his sled, which included his equipment of a tarpaulin, a sleeping-bag and a small army tent. Each sled was drawn by four dogs. They seemed to understand what was expected of 102 TRAVELING OVER MUMMOCK ICE MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH them although at times they would start to fight, and we would have a Chinese puzzle to solve in getting the tangle out of the harness. With everything in readiness we started forward. The ice at that point was covered with soft snow and four of our party were required to go ahead and break a trail with snow-shoes so that the remaining party might follow and keep in. a straight line. The sleds followed at a distance of fifty to one hundred feet apart, so that our entire party covered a trail of nearly a half a mile and it looked like a broken black streak in a vast sea of whiteness that was almost blinding. The sled train could move no faster than the men ahead who broke the trail, who used a pole to test the places in the ice that looked weak. By traveling a whole day we were able to cover no more than ten to fifteen miles, and when we finally stopped to rest we were so completely exhausted that we could have gone no further if we had tried. Life on a great glacier of moving ice is so different from life under any other conditions that it is almost impossible to convey an ade- quate idea of this portion of our journey. 105 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Imagine, if you can, a rolling sea of ice which stretches away to meet the horizon on all sides. There is nothing above but the light blue sky, nothing below but the snow-covered ice, modeled into hills and hollows, much the same as a treeless stretch of rolling landscape. The sur- face of the glacier is always windswept, so that here and there where the ice is bare, the dazzling whiteness of the snow is augmented by the blinding brilliancy of the reflected light from these ice mirrors. At first this brilliant scene seemed to fascinate us, but as we toiled heroically on, the glinting flashes of reflected light gradually revealed to us the desolation that surrounded us and threatened to devour us. Although we all wore blue or smoked glasses made like automobile goggles, some of the men began to feel the effects of snow-blindness within a short time after we reached the glacier. At first we began to lose control of our feet. Unable to see ahead on account of the piercing glare of reflected light, we tried to walk on blindly and found it impossible. Whenever we managed to open our eyes the surface of the ice seemed only to be a few inches away and we were completely bewildered. 106 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH We tried to reinforce the glasses by covering our faces with red handkerchiefs in which two small holes were cut for eyes. This plan gave little relief and we were unable to refrain from rubbing our eye-lids, which caused them to become very much inflamed and sore. At times the pain became almost unbearable. My eyes felt just as if someone was rubbing sand into them, and my head became giddy. I have been told that men often go insane with the pain, and had our party not come prepared with a large assortment of glasses of different colors, I am sure some of us would have met this fate. Even the natives who live in the arctic regions are not immune from the attacks of snow blind- ness, and not being able to secure smoked glasses often suffer more than white men. The only life that is seen anywhere on the glacier is the ptarmigan or fool-hen as they are known, a sort of morbid species of chicken. Its eyes are protected by being surrounded by a black disk fringed with red. In attempting to prevent snow blindness, the natives use nature's plan and paint a portion of their faces around their eyes with black soot and 107 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH stain the edge red with the juice of berries. Some of the men of our party tried this plan, but did not find it as good as the smoked glasses. When the natives painted their faces in this way they presented an extremely horrid appearance and looked like demons as they trudged along. In the middle of the day when the sun was highest, the air became comparatively warm, but the temperature near the ground was very cold. At times we tugged at the sleds with the dogs and perspired freely with no clothing except a thin shirt about the upper portion of our bodies, but our legs would always have to be covered with heavy "mucklocks" or moccasions. During the first two or three days we were on the glacier, we could hear the water gurgling under the surface, but not a drop could be seen anywhere. In places these subterranean streams would cut deep crevasses in the ice under the surface and we had to be very careful to test the ice with sticks before venturing ahead in order to prevent breaking through. From the very first we had many narrow escapes, because we did not take the necessary precautions. 108 "Ac ONE OF THE NUMEROUS CREVASSES OF THE MALASPINA GLACIER MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Great Crevasses Make Journey Dangerous. Native Guides Never Give Any Advice. Sick and Weary Party Toils on Hopelessly Over Desert of Ice. Terrible Blizzard Over- takes Them. Fuel Nearly Exhausted and the Middle of Glacier Not Yet Reached. CHAPTER VIII. ] FTER we had traveled over the very- rough and hummocky ice for at least fifteen miles, we left these gurgling streams behind, but the crevasses in the ice were ever present. Some of them were no more than a few inches or a foot wide and we could step across them with ease. In other places the crevasses and cracks were much wider and were packed full of snow, form- ing a bridge and we were able to cross them in safety. The snow never completely filled the crevasses, but was plugged tight in the mouth for several feet. Sometimes we could push a stick down through the snow, but it was packed together tightly enough that we could walk over it safely with snow-shoes. 111 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Of course this was a very dangerous piece of business, but we were both ignorant and fearless and up until that time did not take risks into consideration. Whenever we saw a streak of snow across the ice we knew it filled the mouth of a crevasse. At times when our entire party would cross a snow-plugged crevasse at the same point, the snow in the center would sag down several feet and although we realized that it would only be a question of time before someone would go through, we plodded on doggedly without giving such a possibility so much as a passing thought. The attitude of our Indian guides, whose names were Koomanah and Koodleuk, toward us in our ignorance and foolhardy risks, gave us a good insight into their character. They could not understand why we did not know as much as they did regarding the ice and snow, and were loath in giving us information. Although they were very cautious themselves, they paid no attention to us whatever, and if we attempted something in our ignorance of con- ditions, that was extremely hazardous, they never warned us or paid any attention to us whatever. Then when we would ask them a question and they could not answer it, they 112 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH would not say they did not know, but would stand mute. Until we learned to understand their peculiarities, we were often very much provoked at their strange actions. After a time we learned to watch how they did things and then attempt to imitate them. Another condition that made the first stages of our journey very laborious was the fact that we were continually traveling up grade. Where the grade was real heavy, the dogs were unable to draw all our goods at one time and we were compelled to leave a portion of them cached behind and then go back after them. This doubled the amount of work to be done and greatly hindered our progress. At times the surface was very rough and we were compelled to choose our path carefully in order to avoid the continual overturning of the sleds. It is almost impossible to set down in cold type the hardships we endured at this time. We were all so intent upon getting gold that nothing else seemed to enter into the scheme of our lives. Each man lived for himself alone. During the first week or more on the glacier we toiled on and it was seldom that one man spoke to another. We would travel along for six or eight hours without a word being spoken 113 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH except to the dogs, which would usually be "All right, dogs/' or "Go ahead, dogs." For right or left I would only call to Kodiak, "Ge a little, Kodiak." or "Kodiak, go haw." Then when we stopped for rest everyone seemed too weary to talk or enjoy any social intercourse with the others of the party. At that time we very much resembled a party of deaf mutes. After we had been on the glacier a week or more, our habits began to assume a definite plan and a sort of daily program was carried out. Once a day we stopped and put up a tarpaulin to act as a shield against the cold winds that were constantly blowing over the surface of the ice. Fire was started in our cooking lamps and the day's cooking done, which consisted in heating some beans and making flapjacks. After the meal we usually were ready to retire, and when we did not take time to pitch our tents, we would crawl into our sleeping bags and sleep on the loaded sleds out in the open. Every few days and sometimes every other day, we would pitch our tents and cook some evaporated potatoes and beans and make coffee. I have no doubt now that our rations were very 114 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH poor, but after a hard day's work, everything that was fit to eat always tasted good and we thoroughly enjoyed our meals. From the first I avoided eating bacon or pork to any extent, having heard of sailors being terribly afflicted by scurvy in this way. Our cooking while on the glacier was done with oil lamps, which we secured from the natives, and which seemed to produce more smoke than heat. After a pot had been hanging over a blaze long enough to cook some food, there would be an accumulation of half an inch of soot on the bottom. Every time we moved our tent this soot was scraped off and was left on the top of the snow. The relief that this one black spot in the land- scape gave to our eyes can hardly be imagined. For myself, I got more satisfaction out of seeing those dirty black spots of soot, than anything else on the glacier. Besides these soot spots there was nothing to break the monotony of whiteness, except some- times when we came near a mountain. We could usually see a faint outline which was the snowline around its edge, and down its sides would be several thread-like black streaks. These, we later learned, were caused by great 115 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH avalanches of snow and ice that broke away near the top and came sliding down, tearing great furrows out of the side of the mountain, bringing great quantities of rock and earth down on the surface of the glacier through which the moun- tains protruded like ice-covered islands in the sea. At different times as we traveled on we came upon huge piles of different sizes of stones lying on top of the ice. These piles of stones were usually conical in shape and from ten to twenty feet high and their presence for a time com- pletely mystified us. We finally came to the conclusion that they had been brought down from the mountains by avalanches which had subsequently melted and left the stones there. Being a moving glacier, some of these piles of stones were from three to eight miles from the base of any mountain. The glacier had evidently moved that far since the avalanche had torn down the mountainside years before. It was during our journey across the glacier that we saw the first brilliant displays of the Aurora Borealis. The light in the northern sky was much more defined and brilliant than what we saw at Yakutat. It seemed to be cut into streaks and formed a perfect semi-circle, the 116 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH center of which was due north and the ends seemed to spread out as they approached the horizon. No blaze could be seen, and the light seemed to be a reflection. As the nights were very short and the daylight only faded for a short time, the Northern Lights were not visible for any great length of time. On account of our thoughts being centered on so many, other things, we paid little attenton to these displays, which were beautiful and made night almost as light as day. We had been on the glacier two weeks when we encountered the worst blizzard that I had ever experienced. As spring was beginning to open, the snow was wet and very heavy and the flakes which were very large pelted us like snowballs. The blizzard of 1888 was nothing more than a gentle April snow flurry compared with that storm. Before it had reached the height of its fury, we were compelled to stop and attempt to build some kind of shelter. The falling snow beat the brims of our sombreros down over our faces and made it impossible for us to proceed, even if we could have seen a few feet ahead. Finding that it was impossible for us to even attempt to pitch a tent, we piled our goods and 117 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH sleds one on top of another to act as a sort of windbreak, and laid down behind them in our sleeping bags. The next morning we found ourselves and our goods buried under two feet of snow and at least six feet of snow on the other side of our break. The blizzard had abated, however, and we were able to proceed after considerable trouble in recovering our goods. This storm gave us an idea of what a terrific blizzard in Alaska in the dead of winter really is. On account of spring being so near at hand there was not the possibil- ity of the storm continuing, but if it had raged unabated for several days, as it often does in winter, our entire party would have perished. Already we began to find our supply of oil for cooking purposes getting low, and we had not yet reached the summit or back-bone of the glacier, which was somewhere near the center. Because of this fact and our desire to make as few stops as possible, many of our men started to eat our evaporated articles uncooked. This caused them to get very thirsty and as they walked along they got in the habit of eating snow. Almost every member of the party developed bad attacks of sore throat, which at that time 118 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH could be partly relieved by my brother-in-law, the physician of the party, who had brought a large quantity of medicines along. Snow blindness also caused us much trouble at this time, which, unlike the sore throat, could not be relieved. Some of the men howled with pain, and I feared they would go insane. When the sunlight began to fade, we would be relieved somewhat, but the semi-darkness was very short. During this time the Aurora Borealis was so brilliant that it was almost as bright as day and it was difficult to sleep at any time. 119 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Physician of the Party with Sled Load of Medicines Lost in Crevasse. Futile Attempt to Rescue Him. Men Live in Burrowed Holes in the Snow. Even Dogs Get Snow-Blind. Two Others of Party Missing When Camp on Summit Is Made. CHAPTER IX. ^r~l|N April 25th an accident happened Gthat awakened us from the indiffer- Wi ent stupor into which the gold craze had plunged us, and for the first time since we started we found time for reflection. The snow had cov- ered the ice completely, making it very hard for us to pick our way. We had been plodding on doggedly with no thought of danger with the heaviest loads ahead of us so that in case of a breakdown the lighter loaded sleds could come up and help out. My brother-in-law, the physician, who had a light load consisting of the medicines and the more valuable parts of our equipment was two sleds ahead of me and six sleds were ahead of him. The sleds were about a hundred feet apart and no one paid any attention to those ahead or 121 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH behind and no noise broke the silence except the creaking of the loaded sleds and the occasional shout of a man to his dogs, which, on account of the stillness could be heard for a great distance. About noon as we were going up a fairly steep incline, suddenly in front of me I heard the howl of dogs and then a man shout. I looked up just in time to see my brother-in-law's sled disappear from view. It just seemed to drop out of the landscape in a flash. I realized immediately what had happened — my sister's husband lost! His four dogs and sled containing all our valuables gone! The awfulness of the tragedy seemed to settle upon us in an instant; then when I recovered and tried to make haste to the spot it seemed to retard me. Cheered on by one last forelorn hope that we might be able to rescue him, I rushed forward and within a moment came to the hole in the snow that covered the mouth of that treacherous crevasse. The opening was about ten or twelve feet in diameter, and as we looked frantically down into that terrible abyss, all our hopes sank within us. My first glimpse made me feel sick at heart. I was firmly convinced that nothing could be done, yet I could not help looking down into that 122 'if , * MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH cavern with a glimmer of hope that was worse than torture. I will not attempt to say just how deep that crevasse was; we could see down probably two hundred and fifty feet. Below this there was nothing but a hopeless blackness, which as our vision arose, faded into dark green, which grew lighter as you look up and near the top was a beautiful shade of emerald. But the beauty of the thing was a hollow mockery! As we looked we thought we could hear faint distant sounds, which, as we listened, raised and lowered the last glimmer of our hopeless hope. There before us was that cold lifeless thing, immovable and as commonplace as if nothing had happened. We decided to let down a rope and after much trouble and delay, due to our unnerved condition mostly, we got the work started. Before we had let down a hundred feet of the rope into the hole it began to get very heavy and it required several men to hold it. We let all of our five hundred feet of rope down, and that yawning gulf still said "more, more." Who could have said how much more? It was no use. We had to give up. Our oil was getting short and we had to be moving or we would all be 125 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH lost on the glacier, which was beginning to crack badly with the snow melting. We had trouble in tearing ourselves away from the scene of the tragedy and leaving my brother-in-law behind to his fate. What a fate! Burdened with sorrow and completely unnerved, we continued our journey and attempted to prevent another similar accident by running a rope from one sled to another, which everyone held as he plodded on. It is almost impossible to describe the utter despair that followed us during the next two or three days. We were completely broken in spirit and we lost interest in our expedition. Previous to this time we had thought little of home. As the lost man was a near relative of mine the sorrow connected with his death fell most heavily upon me. Thoughts of home and friends and my folks, especially his wife, my sister, settled down in my mind and made my life miserable. I well remember how my faithful St. Bernard dog, "Kodiak," seemed to understand my loss and grief and offer me his poor appealing sympathy. The day after the accident, as I sat with my head in my hands grieving for my lost relative, Kodiak came up and tenderly licked my gloved hand; then placing his fore paws on 126 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH my knees, he uttered a low whine and tried to touch my face with one of his paws. He seemed almost human in his solicitude, and I felt that he was imploring me not to worry. It did me good. As I sat thinking I tried to solve some theory as to just how the accident happened. After turning the incident over in my mind, I was convinced that my brother-in-law was walking at the rear of his sled as he usually did, instead of at the side. The six sleds ahead of him which were more heavily laden than his, had passed over this snow-plugged crevasse in safety, and I was inclined to think that his dogs and probably his sled had done the same. Then, just as he came upon the crevasse the snow under him gave way and he caught hold of the rear of the sled to save himself. His weight, however, was too much for the dogs, which were pulled backwards with the sled, and the whole team was dragged down into that bottomless gulf to destruction. His dog team was one of the best in the outfit; he had the black New- foundland I bought in New York for a leader, and he sure understood what was required of him. Fred Weiden, who had been a Christian Endeavor worker in New York City, and a good 127 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Christian man, got our party and some of the Manchester party together and held a religious meeting — the first service since we had left Yakutat. Up until this time Weiden had been the spirit of the party and his cheerful disposi- tion had helped us wonderfully. Although we were beginning to get hardened and less responsive than ever to any social intercourse among ourselves, we joined in the meeting as heartily as we could and I think it did us good. From that time on I forgot, in a measure, my grief over the loss of my brother- in-law, which soon appeared like a faraway incident. We somehow got an impression that we must be nearing the summit of the glacier, and the thought seemed to cheer us to some extent, although our condition was beginning to be most pitiable. As we traveled on, the noises and echoes of the avalanche, which sounded like distant cannon- ading at irregular intervals, grew fainter and fainter. We also stopped pitching our tents for the night, and instead burrowed holes in the snow, just large enough to contain our sleeping bags. This proved to be better than the tents, as the snow did not melt and it protected us from the severe winds that continually blew down over the ice. 128 'it- : f VI* C k^§ w if MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH On account of the fact that all our medicines were lost, snow blindness and sore throat grew worse, because we had nothing to relieve the trouble. Before our medicines were lost we could soothe our eyelids with cold cream and borax water. Now, however, we were almost driven to desperation by the itching and some of the men, including myself, rubbed their eyelashes com- pletely off their lids. Several of the men put bacon fat on their eyes in an effort to obtain relief, but the salt in the bacon irritated their eyes more and the pain they were compelled to endure was terrible. Even the dogs were afflicted with snow blindness, for whenever a halt was made the dogs would rub their eyes with their paws and whine. Our guides, the natives who had gone ahead, returned on April 28th and informed us that it would take several days to reach the summit on account of the rough character of the ice over which we had to travel. We found as we traveled on, that the rough ice was at the end of a range of mountains which cut the glacier in two. We had been traveling almost parallel to this range of mountains on one of the forks of the glacier and the rough and hummock formation was 131 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH probably caused by the mountain dividing the glacier as it moved toward the sea. After crossing this rough portion of the glacier we camped on what we thought was the summit on May 4th. The surface of the ice was much like the surface of rolling land and the only way we could tell that the highest point had been reached was by our sleds, which now seemed to be running down hill almost continuously. I was among the first to reach the summit and with the others pitched our tent for the first time in several days and waited for the others to come up, when it was noticed that Weiden was not in line with his team of dogs. For several days past he had been acting strangely and had gone evidently insane with the pain from snow blindness and lack of proper nourishment. Up until this time he had been the optimist of the party, but he suddenly became very ill-tempered and morose and refused to take our life-line. He declared that we were trying to lose him on the glacier and insisted on going ahead. He had a team of poor driving dogs and after greatly delaying the progress of the party he finally consented to fall back to the rear of the 132 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH line. We paid little attention to him all this day, as he was coming silently along, and we had not missed him up until this time. 133 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Another Member of Party Loses Life by Falling Into a Treacherous Crevasse. Summit of Glacier Reached at Last Daring Coasting for Miles Down from Summit Men Who Used Tobacco Were Unable to Hold Up Their End in Work. Oil Entirely Exhausted. CHAPTER X. HINKING that Mr. Weiden, who was the last man, was simply lag- ging behind, we did not pay any attention to his absence at this time. But when he did not come up $4 JM to camp after several hours, how- ever, Eagen of our party and two of the Manchester party, decided to go back and look him up. This meant a sac- rifice, considering the condition of the men. After walking about two miles, they came to a great crevasse in the glacier, which had not been noticed there as we passed earlier in the day, and the marks on the snow at the edge of the yawning cavern told the wholestory — Weiden, his team of dogs and load of provis- ions lost. When the three men returned to camp and 135 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH reported the terrible accident, it had little effect on us. Since the accident of several days before, when my brother-in-law lost his life, a great change had come over the men. The first laws of nature, "self preservation/' began to assert itself. We were so weary in body and mind that we were not responsible for our actions; we had very little feeling left. The humanity that was in us was ebbing away and nothing was left but the animal. Each man was a world in himself and a very narrow world at that. Realizing that our oil was getting very low and that unless we gained the timberland on the other side of the glacier and got off the ice within a very short time we would be lost. We remained, however, two days on the summit taking a much needed rest, and getting ever- thing in readiness for a quick dash across the ice. We partly cooked enough beans to last the whole party for several days and as fast as they were cooked we would throw them into a gunny sack, while they were still hot. At night they would freeze into a solid mass and pieces had to be cut off with a knife. We also dried out our equipment. We dried our sleeping bags by turning them inside out and hung some of our clothing, which had become 136 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH wet, on the poles of our sleds. We packed about 800 pounds on each sled and took extra care in strapping it down tight, as we expected to coast a good portion of our downward journey. Our poor dogs had been nearly reduced to skeletons and we expected to give them a rest. As soon as we were ready to start we sent two men ahead to see that there were no crevasses ahead of us; we noticed a difference in climatic conditions. The wind that blew toward us from the interior was not so bitter as those on the other side of the glacier, but were dry and invigorating. We coasted down the long inclines recklessly, but our Esquimo guides were very cautious and although they saw us go down safely, they would not attempt it, but broke a new trail for themselves instead. Yet they did not warn us of any danger or offer any suggestions. Our dogs, released from their sleds, had become so harness-hardened that they would try to run in their old positions in front of the sleds as we coasted. In this way, several of the dogs were badly injured and we had to tie them on our sleds also. Then, when the sleds stopped, they would all take their regular places in front of them. 137 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Although the Alaskan huskies were very faithful in this respect, they were very treacher- ous and whenever our backs were turned for a second they would attack our bacon sacks. Kodiak, my big St. Bernard, was always on the alert and although he was always as hungry as any of them, he would allow no thieving and the other dogs respected his great bulk and low growl, which they had learned to fear. Kodiak would often pounce upon them and with his superior strength and weight soon taught them who was master. We coasted down grade more or less for three days, sometimes going from four to seven miles at a stretch without a stop. Then we came to more rough ice and were compelled to pack our goods, fifty pounds at a time, over a very rough trail. This required many relays back and forth over very dangerous crevasses. And held us up for more than a week. We made our first attempt to lighten our motor, which had been our greatest burden up until this time, by taking off a wheel and some other pieces which could be removed with a monkey wrench. The additional labor and delay greatly disappointed us, and our despair was increased by our illness. We suffered 138 MY DOG KODIAK, MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH terribly with sore eyes and sore throats and we simply had to endure the pain with no hope of relief. We did what we could, but it seemed to get worse all the time. It was at this point of our journey over the glacier when every man of us was on the verge of prostration from overwork, illness and improper nourishment and any special weak- ness, physical or mental, if we had any, showed itself. During these last days on the glacier all of our reserved strength was used up, and if the journey had been much longer we would have perished. One thing that was very noticeable to me at this time, as well as through- out the rest of our adventure, was that those in the party who were addicted to the use of liquor or tobacco or both, were always the first to lose heart, the first to shirk their work and the last to want to do anything. The men who used tobacco were always more anxious to carry their tobacco than anything else. At this time I believe that if any one of those men had been given their choice of bread and tobacco they would have left the bread behind and taken the tobacco with them. In their last stages of prostration and physical collapse, tobacco to them seemed to be more 141 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH needful than bread. But when at last their tobacco was exhausted and they had no more, they thought at first they could not live without it. But gradually they ceased talking of it entirely and seemed better able to hold up their end, and were more cheerful and had much more endurance. Our fare since leaving Yakutat, almost six weeks before, had been bacon, beans and coffee, or coffee, beans and bacon, the only change being in what we started to eat first. By May 24th the snow had all melted away from the surface of the glacier, exposing crevasses everywhere from a few inches to many feet in diameter. The ice was very clear and beautiful, being of a dark blue color, and it was also very slippery, which made it treacherous and danger- ous near the opening of the crevasses. As we neared the break-off, the crevasses became more numerous and seemed to run in every direction, and at times we had to walk several miles out of the way in order to get across some of the wide ones. Sometimes we were able to stretch a rope across the mouth of the crevasses and swing our goods over in this way, but in either case we lost much time. We traveled on for several days more as fast as we could, not daring to pitch our tent on 142 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH account of the slippery condition of the surface of the ice. The only sight that broke the monot- ony of the ice, was large piles of stones which we encountered again some ten miles from the nearest mountain which must have been depos- ited there thousands of years before by an avalanche. As we proceeded the ice became rougher and with the increasing crevasses greatly delayed our progress. It seemed that the glacier was being focused to a point between two great ranges of mountains and the ice was crushed together in such a manner as to form great hummocks of ice between which were zig-zag crevasses. With all our oil used, our plight at this time was even more sad than ever before. Our last ounce of strength was almost gone, as we did not dare to sleep for more than an hour at a time, owing to the place we were hemmed in at. We had to keep continually moving and with no cooked food and no means in sight to cook any, many of the men were ready to give up and die. It was in our hour of darkest despair, as we toiled on without purpose, it seemed, when a ray of hope came to us from the gurgling waters which seemed to be everywhere flowing away 143 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH from the glacier, but could not be seen. Every- where, below us, around us and it seemed above us, the rushing, gurgling waters could be heard. For a time we were non-plussed; then the situation seemed to be uncanny and we expected any moment to break through the ice and be swallowed up in a great caldron of roaring waters. Gradually our fear left us as our senses became accustomed to the unfamiliar sounds, and then of a sudden, looking up, we could see a deep, dark timber-covered ravine ahead, clear of snow. The effect of this sight upon the men was electrical. That scene looked like the dawning of a new day. Our eyes which for fifty days had looked upon nothing but snow and ice were so rested by that speck of color in the landscape, that the men immediately began to recover. From that time on, we toiled incessantly, going without sleep for several days, in order to get our goods over the rough ice and crevasses. Until this time we had not mentioned gold while on the glacier. Indeed, we had almost forgotten where we were going and what we expected to find. Now, however, we talked of nothing else. 144 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH THE ARCTIC LOVER Gone is the long, long winter night; Look, my beloved one! How glorious, through his depths of light, Rolls the majestic sun! The willows, waked from winter's death, Give out a fragrance like thy breath — The summer is begun! Ay, 'tis the long bright summer day: Hark to that mighty crash! The loosened ice-ridge breaks away — The smitten waters flash; Seaward the glittering mountain rides, While, down its green translucent sides, The foamy torrents dash. See, love, my boat is moored for thee By ocean's weedy floor — The petrel does not skim the sea More swiftly than my oar. We'll go where, on the rocky isles, Her eggs the screaming sea-fowl piles Beside the pebbly shore. 145 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Or, bide thou where the poppy blows, With wind-flowers frail and fair, While I, upon his isle of snow Seek and defy the bear. Fierce though he be, and huge of frame, This arm his savage strength shall tame, And drag him from his lair. When crimson sky and flamy cloud Bespeak the summer o'er, And the dead valleys wear a shroud Of snows that melt no more, I'll build of ice thy winter home, With glistening walls and glassy dome, And spread with skins the floor. The white fox by thy couch shall play; And, from the frozen skies, The meteors of a mimic day Shall flash upon thine eyes. And I — for such thy vow — meanwhile Shall hear thy voice and see thy smile, Till that long midnight flies. 146 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Just as Relief Is Near Another Member of Party Accidentally Falls in Crevasse and Is Lost. After Land Is reached Men Start to Recover. Journey to Far Interior Begins in Earnest. Manchester Party Leaves and Takes Both Guides. Several Sustain Serious Injuries. CHAPTER XL FTER several days of continuous toil, Mr. Boyden, who had been a close companion of mine for several years before I left New York, and who only went with our party for experience more than he did for gold, was now in bad shape, barely able to stand up. While trying to f J Al! 1 mm cross a three-foot crevasse, he was pushing his loaded sled when, in some manner he accident- ally slipped and fell, sled and all, out of sight. He uttered a faint yell, and some of the men near him tried to reach for him, but he disap- peared so quickly it was impossible to do any- thing for him. The men realized the futility of losing any time and continued on. On being informed of what had happened I was again 147 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH thrown into deep grief for my poor friend and companion. We finally managed to get to the end of the glacier, and there we found an unexpected problem confronting us. From the top of the ice to the ground below was many feet, and it was almost impossible to find a safe trail down through the ice canyons formed by great bulks of ice. Then along the edge of the break-off flowed a rushing, roaring river of whitish water caused by the melting ice, which grew less in volume at night when the ice froze, but greatly increased during the day. The gaps seemed to widen every hour. We saw immediately the pressing importance of getting off the glacier as soon as we possibly could, and traveled along the edge to a hill where there was nothing between us and dry land but the roaring torrent. Taking a heavy load on his back so that the rushing water would not sweep him down stream, one of our men waded through the river with a rope which he tied to a small tree on the other side, and after a great amount of painstaking labor we were able to swing Our goods and equipment to terra firma with pulleys. The break-off of the glacier at this end was much different from the break-off at the sea. 148 CREVASSE WHERE ONE OF PARTY WAS LOST MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH It was much less abrupt, and the big icebergs, instead of breaking away and floating out to sea, remained where they were and melted down. Rounded boulders, large and small, which had evidently been rolled along under the ice for centuries, covered the land for several hundred yards around the glacier where the ice had melted and left them. Then at the edge of these stones where the ice had formerly been, the timber line began. One of the most peculiar things we saw here was a "pot hole" under a cliff about twenty feet high, which consisted of a round hole about eight feet in diameter and probably six feet deep, cut in the solid rock. At first we thought it could have been drilled in no other manner except with a steam drill, but we later found that it had been formed by water dropping from the cliff, which started some large stone to revolve, and it took probably centuries to grind out this hole. Some of the stones that were still there were as symmetrical and round as marbles, due to the revolving motion of the stones as the water poured upon them. June 2nd we finally managed to get the last of our goods on land and our first concern was to build a fire with alderwood on a nearby hill for 151 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH the purpose of cooking some evaporated potatoes and apples and drying out our clothes. We also built fires in our Yukon stoves and made some biscuits; this was our first meal in several days and after pitching our tents, we lay down for our first good sleep in seven weeks. We were in our sleeping bags continuously for twenty hours and when we did get up we felt better than we had at any time since leaving Yakutat. Our beards had all grown quite long, and all of us had lost much weight. For myself, I think I must have lost at least twenty-five pounds. Although we had intended to go much farther north, the men already began their search for gold. We got out our gold pans only to find them sadly rusted. We at once began to scrape the rust off in order to have them ready for use, and we immediately began to ask each other if anyone "had seen any color?" The men picked up all kinds of colored stones, dug dirt out of the sides of the hills and washed it in their gold pans in their efforts to find gold. The gold pans, we found, were not so easy to handle properly. But we soon learned the knack of washing the water and sand so that we would not cover ourselves with water, but would have it run out in front at every twist or turn. 152 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH We remained in our camp at the end of the glacier for two days, resting and getting ready for the next stage of our journey, which we found would be very laborious on account of having to pack our goods all the way. We sent a number of men out to lay out a trail and get an idea of the nature of the country. They found the land to consist of a series of ranges of hills running across our route north, which were generally covered thickly by alders and larger timber. There was still much snow between the trees, but the ground was so rough and the underbrush so thick in places that we were compelled to carry the sleds. Between each range of hills was usually a stream and some- times a lake, still covered with ice which was fast melting. We packed our goods up over the first range of hills and established a camp nicely located along the banks of these lakes, which were fed by small streams. The morning after we arrived at this new camp, one of the men went to the lake to get a bucket of water and he thought he saw a fish. He ran back to camp and within a short time about ten of the men got out the fishing tackle we had brought along, and were casting their lines with nothing but a piece of salt pork on their hooks for bait. Their lines 153 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH had hardly struck the water before the fish began to take the bait and within a very few minutes, a fine mess of speckled salmon trout, each weighing from half a pound to a pound and a half, were landed. Their meat was of pink color and I don't know whether it was because I was so ravenously hungry or not, but I thought at the time that they were the most delicious fish I had ever tasted. After a few days more of rest during which time we made final preparations for our journey, we established another camp about five miles farther on and started to pack our goods over the hills to the new camp. Our plan was to establish a camp from five to ten miles ahead and then pack our goods to it from the old camp, working in relays as we did in approaching the glacier. As soon as we had all our goods cached at one point, we established another camp from five to ten miles farther north. Although the work was very laborious, our plan worked out very well and we soon got used to it and did not mind it. The weather got much warmer, the snow dis- appeared from the lowlands and, although the nights were always cold, the middle of the day was sometimes very warm. 154 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH On June 12th the Manchester party, which had traveled with us over the glacier and who also had the misfortune to lose two men on the glacier, decided to branch off in a somewhat different direction. Their idea was to travel north-east and try to strike Dawson City while at that time we were heading due north for the Tanana River district. According to an old survey which we had, we reckoned it was about 250 miles to Dawson, although it must have been much farther. We had originally intended to strike for the lower Mackenzie River, which was north of Dawson; but after learning that there was a wonderful supply of gold along the Tanana River, we changed our minds. As far as I have been able to learn, the men who came to Alaska on the Blakely were the only ones who attempted to enter the gold fields by the route we took. The Manchester party made better offers to our two guides, natives of Yakutat, than we felt they were worth and we decided to let them go, as they proved to be a disappointment to us so far. It was very evident that they had never been over the ground before, and we found our compasses far more reliable than their uncertain ideas. We were sorry to part with the Man- chester party as they were a fine lot of fellows. 155 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH An advance party, which had been sent out, came back and reported a river six or seven miles ahead. After separating their goods, the Manchester party set out for the river, intend- ing, if its current ran northeast, to build boats and try to reach Fort Selkirk by water the first of August. They had a much better equipment than ours and the men were now much elated over the prospects. After the Manchester party had left us, we saw quite a few wood-chuck and ptarmigan or "fool-hen/' as we called them, and we cleaned up our fire arms and opened up our ammunition. The ptarmigan were so stupid that they were very easily killed and although I fear they are about as edible as a turkey buzzard, when caught out of season, we ate them and enjoyed the change in diet. Now, with plenty of fish and ptarmigan, our men started to get stronger and became them- selves again. All our trouble with snow blind- ness had now mostly disappeared. The dogs even got strong and fat as they had very little work to do. Again came that insatiable desire for gold, which caused us to wash out samples of earth all along our trail and although we found nothing, the possibility of making a strike was our main topic of conversation. 156 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH With our party now reduced to fifteen men, we packed steadily onward day after day over some rough hills, through ravines and across streams, which at times caused us much trouble. The streams were not so deep but were very swift and several of our dogs nearly drowned on more than one occasion in swimming across. On June 17th, while wading across one of the streams with a sailor's large clothesbag on his shoulders, Tom Eagen, the New York police- man, stumbled and fell headlong and for a moment was stunned. His bag was carried down stream for fully a mile, and he had to run this distance along the bank in his heavy wet clothes in order to again recover it. When he finally got his water-soaked bag to camp, he was completely exhausted, and was confined to his sleeping bag for several days. 157 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH One Member Breaks Wrist. Member of Party Shoots a Bear Which Results in a Change of Menu. Prospectors Find Much "Fool's Gold" Motor, Which Has Proved Ser- ious Drawback Is At Last Abandoned In the Woods and Party Rushes On. CHAPTER XII. T was about this time that I received an injury, the effect of which will follow me to my grave. I was carrying a fifty pound sack of beans down a steep hill when I stumbled and lost my footing and fell, or rather rolled, down about fifty feet. When I got up I found that my right wrist was broken in two places. There was no one with me at the time, and I had to carry those beans two miles to camp with a painful broken wrist. When I got back, the other men set my wrist as best they could, using bark for splints, tearing up some underwear for bandages and using moss instead of cotton. From that time on, for several weeks, I was compelled to use my left hand for everything and I became left-handed. Although 159 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH my wrist is now well and in a normal condition, I have never entirely got into the way of doing things with my right hand again. But our misfortunes did not cause any of us to waver. After each accident we felt sure it was the last and we would soon reach our goal. It is hard to describe the condition we were in at this time. Hardships came to be a matter of course and nothing that happened surprised us in the least. Nothing interested us but gold, and although we had not seen a sign of the precious metal, yet our supply of optimism seemed to be inexhaustible. It was a selfish optimism, however, and it seemed to be fathered by the dream that we would all go back to New York with vast fortunes. The entire surface of Alaska, as far as we have seen, is mountainous. The country is wild, rugged and for the most part, impassable. In spite of the extremely cold weather, hardy vegetation flourishes luxuriantly in the ravines and lowlands from which the snow usually melts in June. The mountains are covered with perpetual snow, however, and vegetation dis- appears as the altitude of the land increases. The mountains are very rocky and the cliffs precipitous, so that we seldom attempted to 160 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH cross any of the ranges, but rather followed the water courses. This was also made necessary by the thick growth of alders and other kinds of bushes in the valleys, which made any kind of travel most laborious. When we did leave a stream, it was always necessary to blaze a trail through the woods. In places in the lowlands, the brambles were so thick that it was impossible to get through. In other places there was so much decayed vegetable matter on the ground that walking through it was much like walking through deep snow. Yet there is an immense amount of the finest timber in the valleys, consisting, for the most part, of spruce, fir and pine trees. Some of the spruce trees were the most magnificent I have ever seen. They ranged in height from 100 to 150 feet and from four to six feet in diameter and were very straight and symmetrical. They were very thick on the ground, and for that reason had no lower branches which would have made them most valuable as timber if there had been any way to get it to civilization. It was while camping in a typical Alaskan forest, a few days after I had the misfortune to break my arm, that Arthur Wilson who had been acting as cook that week — we took turns in this 161 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH capacity — saw tracks of a huge bear about one hundred feet from our tents. He followed the trail for a distance of about two miles and came to a sort of cave in the side of the mountain. He fired into the hole and failing to drive the bear out, burned his handkerchief in the opening of the cave, causing the smoke to go into the cave. Hearing a noise above he looked up, and there, fifty feet above him, he saw a large cinnamon bear scampering up the side of the mountain. He fired at the fleeing animal twice with his Winchester 25-30 steel jacket and the bear turned facing him and got up on his haunches and then tumbled forward down the hill about a hundred feet. Wilson became so excited over his success that he ran back to camp without giving the bear a second look and told his story to us. In another hour five other men went with Wilson to the spot where the bear had rolled, but it was not there. A trail of blood on the ground brought them to the opening of the cave, where the bear was found dead. The men at once skinned him and cut him up as best they could. Each one gathered up all the meat he could carry and brought it back to camp, leaving the rest for the dogs to eat. We thought we would have a good feast on the bear but were dis- 162 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH appointed. It had a repulsive, fishy taste and was very tough, which I thought was on account of its having been killed out of season. We made a fairly good soup, however, by boiling down large quantities of it with some evaporated potatoes and onions. We cleaned the skin and stretched it out on sticks to dry. As we continued traveling northward, our desire to find gold increased in intensity and more time was spent in prospecting. Hundreds of samples of dirt were dug out of the ground and sides of the mountains and brought to camp, and our hopes were always high until Professor Merrill, the mineralogist of the party, examined them and found that they were either pyrites of iron, sulphur or copper or some other quartz, which is commonly known as "fool's gold/' Sometimes we were so sure that it was gold that we had found, that we had even staked out our claims before we had the samples analyzed. The prospecting entailed a vast amount of hard work with pick and shovel. Big fires had to be built over the spots where the earth was taken out, except along the streams. Each successive find caused great excitement in camp among us, as it was always different from any previous find, and we never had any idea that there were so many kinds of "fool's gold." 165 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH During all of this time the chief drawback to our making much progress was our 800 pound motor, which had cost us so much money in Seattle. We had tried many different plans of dragging it along since getting off the glacier and from time to time had taken piece after piece off in order to make our load somewhat less heavy. The only practical way of getting it along was to carry it, and we were all so weary of it that we threatened many times to leave it behind if we did not soon make a gold strike. At last one of the party hit upon a plan of build- ing a cart to haul it. We cut down a large tree, sawed out two wheels and using our crowbar for an axle, lashed two poles to it so that they would drag on the ground behind; then we placed the motor on this improvised vehicle. After hitching sixteen dogs to the wagon we started to move it along at a slow rate. We soon found, however, that the ground was so rough that our cart was use- less and we had lost much valuable time in constructing it. We made one last effort to carry the motor and finding it impossible we finally on July 29th, decided to leave it behind. The spot was marked and Harry Davis of Brooklyn, our engineer, took bearings so that 166 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH we might come back and get it some future time. I have his drawings yet, but I hardly think that anyone could take them and travel over our route from Yakutat and locate that motor. I should judge that we left it between fifty and seventy-five miles from the glacier. Our prog- ress, after leaving the motor behind, was much faster than before and we took renewed hope. By this time I could use my wrist again, which had been broken five weeks before, and I was now able to do my share of the work. The nights were starting to get colder and we knew that we would soon be confronted with the long frigid winter. Our clothing was about worn out, but we consoled ourselves by the fact that we had another supply with us. At this time we certainly must have been a hard looking bunch of men with our long hair and beards, but among ourselves we paid no attention to our uncouth appearance. Very seldom did we brush or comb our hair or try to get the kinks out of our beards. The uppermost thought in our minds was gold and we talked and thought of nothing else. And living under the conditions we were, we actually continued to get stout and rugged from hard work. I have since thought, our almost 167 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH continuous diet of beans made us fat. Before going on this expedition I never liked the taste of beans and did not eat them, and even after we started out I ate very sparingly for quite some time because our diet was mostly beans. After we got on the glacier, however, our food did not come to be a question of beans so much as something to eat. Sheer hunger soon compelled me to eat the food I had heretofore detested. Since coming home for some fifteen years I have never been able to eat beans, no matter how hungry I was or how hard I tried; for a time the sight of beans made me sick. However, for the past year I have taken a fancy to them and don't understand how I could have ever disliked them. 168 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH TO A MOSQUITO Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out, And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing, Dost murmur, as thou slowly saiFst about, In pitiless ears full many a plaintive thing, And tell how little our large veins would bleed, Would we but yield them to thy bitter need. Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse, Full -angrily men hearken to thy plaint; Thou gettest many a brush, and many a curse, For saying thou art gaunt, and starved, and faint; Even the old beggar, while he asks for food, Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could. I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween, Has not the honor of so proud a birth, — Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green, The offspring of the gods, though born on earth For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she, The ocean-nymph that nursed thy infancy. Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung, And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong, Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung, Rose in the sky and bore thee soft along; The south wind breathed to waft thee on the way, And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay. 169 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Scourge of Alaskan Mosquitoes Attack Camp and Make Life Miserable. Large Beaver Dam Causes Surprise. Another Man Succumbs to Unknown Disease. Party Loses Track of Date and Weather Gets Severe. Locate and Build Cabin for Winter Quarters. CHAPTER XIII. URING about three weeks of our r\ \ f journey through Alaska, our lives m 3 were made miserable by the mosqui- toes, which were so numerous that they hindered our progress in a hundred ways. They were much larger than the mosquitoes that are seen here, and they just swarmed into everything we ate, and they swarmed around our tents and nearly drove our dogs crazy. They got into the tents at night and kept us awake. We attempted to smoke them out, but we found that we were more liable to suffocate ourselves than the troublesome insects. We finally got used to them in a way and accepted them as a matter of course. It is impossible to convey in mere words an adequate idea of the number of mosquitoes that 171 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH were always about our camp. When we baked flapjacks, we placed a tin plate over the top of each cake to prevent the mosquitoes from getting on them, but in spite of all our precautions, from a hundred to two hundred of the insects would be caught on them when we turned them over. In making bread or biscuits we would knead the dough in a cloth bag, using one hand in the bag and the other to hold the mouth of the bag shut so that the insects could not get in, but in spite of this, the dough would be almost black with bugs when it was taken out of the bag. Every cup of coffee we drank contained many dead insects, which collected in the bottom of the cup with the grounds. We used netting tied on our hats and gathered around our necks to keep them away from our eyes. At first we were fearful of eating the insects and attempted to pick them out of our food, but within a very short time we abandoned this plan. Everything we ate was flavored with mosquitoes. When we went in or out of our tents we crawled between the tent flaps, holding them down tight around our bodies in order to try and prevent the mosquitoes from getting in. The mosquitoes collected on the mouths and 172 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH eyes of the poor dogs, and after trying to rub them off they would run down to some stream and jump into the icy water for relief. About the time we were getting accustomed to the pests, they suddenly disappeared, and we were not sorry. It was soon after we recovered from the scourge of mosquitoes that I neglected writing in my diary for several days and I lost track of the date. By considerable figuring we came to the conclusion that it must be about August 15th, and that we were about 300 miles from the glacier. Already, there had been a change in the temperature and the nights were beginning to get very cold and a considerable amount of snow started to fall. Very little snow melted during the day and the volume of water in the streams grew much less. Still we toiled on, hoping to reach the gold fields before the cold weather caused us to go into winter quarters. As we traveled along, John Henshaw, of Yonkers, N. Y., saw the tracks of some bears in the snow. Following them up, he came upon an old cinnamon bear and two cubs. He succeeded in killing the cubs but the old bear got away, not, however, before she had put up a fierce fight for her young and had been wounded 173 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH twice. The meat of the cubs was fine and was the best meat we got during the entire time we were away. The dogs, too, were made happy by the killing as they had had very little really good food for some time. We dried the skins of the cubs, which were very soft and of fine texture, and packed them away for the purpose of making garments with them later. A few days later we came upon a beaver dam, which was built so perfectly that we thought at first it could have been constructed by none other than human hands. We expected to find human beings about somewhere. When the fact that it was a beaver dam and had been built by beaver, dawned upon us, we thought it almost unbelievable. The breastworks were constructed of sticks crossed and recrossed; the filling was of small stones and moss closely packed together. It was about three feet wide at the top, thirty-five feet long and in places six feet high, closing the end of the valley, making a lake from two to three hundred feet wide, which looked very much like a natural body of water. The breast was just as straight and symmetrical as if it had been constructed of concrete by an engineer. We remained at the dam for two whole days hoping that the industrious animals would 174 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH appear and we would get a shot at them. We did not understand their characteristics and could not understand why we were unable to see any of them. Later, when we learned that the only way to catch beavers is to break a place in their dam and then set traps near the break, we felt like novices. We had a large number of traps with us, and would no doubt have captured some of the beavers if we had set them and then gone away. Up until this time every member of our party had been in robust health ever since leaving the glacier. Having lost all our medicines, and there being no one along who had any direct medical knowledge, we felt that we must keep well and this determination on our part, I think, helped us. The climate, too, I think had an effect. Almost every day we got our feet wet and they remained wet until our shoes dried out, but not one of the party ever got a cold. On August 26th Andrew Maddis, of Bridge- port, Conn., who, up until this time, had been a very willing hard working fellow, took sick. He remained in his sleeping bag and we soon found that he was suffering from a high fever. In that barren region there was little we could do for him. We put snow on his forehead and heated 175 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH stones and placed them against his stomach, but our efforts to counteract the fever had little or no effect. How we did miss the medicines, but we could only let the poor fellow lay there and suffer, always trusting and hoping he would get well. Besides this he became very sore from lying on the hard sleds, so we put the three bear skins we had on his sled. He continued to grow worse. Becoming delirious attempted to get up and go back home. By this time, however, he was so weak that he could hardly move, and on August 28th, he died. We dug a grave where he died and buried him as best we could. His death cast a gloom over us that seemed to follow us for days. Being in much better physical condition than we were on the glacier, we felt the loss of Maddis much more keenly than the death of our other comrades, whose bodies were held in the awful grip of the glacier. It was not until this time that we began to realize our awful predicament. We wondered what had been the cause of poor Maddis* death, and thought it might have been typhoid fever contracted as the result of eating so many mosquitoes. If this were so, we feared that we would all get the disease as we all ate the same food and drank the same water. 176 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH As we trudged on, fearing every minute that some other member of the party would be the next victim, the gloom that at first seemed to pervade everything gradually lifted and the hard work distracted our thoughts. We came finally to a fairly level stretch of territory and began to follow a stream that flowed in the direction we were going. We established our camps ten miles apart now and made much better progress, as we had become hardened to packing from 50 to 100 pounds on our backs. We saw tracks of all kinds of animals in the snow, but did not attempt to hunt any of them, as we did not wish to lose any time. Every day it continued to get perceptibly colder and we were anxious to stake a claim, and settle down for the long winter that was soon to be upon us. The stream we had been following continued to get wider and wider until it became quite a river. We decided, after consulting our maps, that we must have reached the Tanana River. We had again lost all track of days and dates as the great arctic night was coming on. There was just a little illumination every twenty-four hours from the sun. It must have been some time in September when we pitched camp and 179 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH divided into two parties; one took provisions for a week and went on a prospecting expedition into the nearby mountains; the others looked about for a good site to build a cabin for protection during the long, cold winter which was very near. I remained at the camp and helped to con- struct the cabin. We at first selected a site near the foot of a mountain, but when we thought of the avalanches we had seen sliding down the mountain sides, the spring before, we changed our plans and started to build it on a hill over- looking the river. None of us were skilled in building and our cabin proved to be a very crude affair. It was ten by twenty, built for the most part of poplar wood which was the easiest to cut. It was a typical log cabin with the logs crossed and grooved at the ends to act as a mortise. We were fortunate in finding a kind of mud down by the river bank with which we plastered up the cracks on the outside which dried out as a brick. We planned to build a stone fireplace with the chimney on the outside, cut a door about three feet high and two and a half feet wide through one side as well as two small windows; these details presented the greatest difficulties. The first chimney we built was of rough stones but before it was finished we found that we would ISO MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH have to rebuild it. We pushed it over and for days we did the hardest kind of work searching the river banks, a mile away, for large flat stones which we carried back to the cabin for the chimney. After it was completed, we banked dirt up around the outside and we congratu- lated ourselves on our good job. In constructing the door and windows we had to have boards which we made by digging a pit and placing the end of a log over the mouth of the hole, then laboriously whip-sawing them lengthwise. When the door was finally com- pleted, it was the crudest part of the house or cabin, rather. For glass for our windows, we had nothing but the greased paper in which our hams and bacon had been wrapped. Although there were several thicknesses the paper was very frail and it served the purpose much better than we had expected, yet it had to be renewed very frequently. After completing the cabin we gathered great quantities of moss which we put in our bunks for bedding; we also pushed this into the cracks between the logs of the cabin. By the time we had finished furnishing our house it was a toler- ably comfortable place. A roaring fire could be built in the big fireplace, and as the weather had 181 MAD RUSH FOE GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH not yet begun to get severe we could keep the cabin good and warm. But this suggested a new problem — fuel. We set to work at once and started to cut green wood and pile it about the cabin until we had about eight cord; we thought it enough to last for all winter. We killed many wood-chucks and as fish was very plentiful we again had some variety to our food. The dogs soon became lazy and fat and slept around the fireplace all day. While we had been on the alert for gold ever since leaving the glacier and had examined hun- dreds of samples of dirt, we washed out and also staked out several claims; we had not begun pros- pecting in earnest until the prospecting party, which left the camp several days before came back. The men returned while we were still building the cabin with a large number of copper nuggets, the size of a pea and many garnets imbedded in a sort of sandstone, as well as a number of samples of dirt, which we washed through the rockers for "color." None was found and after talking the matter over we decided that a good copper mine would pay. We had our engineer, Mr. Davis, lay out a homestead claim where they had found the copper and place large stakes at each corner with our company's name cut in the wood. Whenever the men had any 182 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH spare time on their hands they would occasion- ally play cards, or have a dog running race or jumping contest. 183 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Much Wood Was Cut for Coming Winter. Three Members of Party Want to Break Camp and Follow Onward Trail. Breach Grows and Men Finally Part. Halderman, Eagen andBohnGo Ahead in Terrible Winter and Are Never Heard From Again by Former Companions. CHAPTER XIV. T was too late in the season to begin any active mining operations. We were compelled to settle down and face the long cold dreary winter. It was not until now that we had time to reflect on our condition. We began to think of the seven long, weary months that we would have to wait before we could again venture out in the open. We began to feel most keenly the friendships and comforts we had left behind. We reflected bitterly that we were nine long months travel away from New York. Up until this time our thoughts of going home had never entered our minds, but now we began to fear the great unknown darkness ahead of us. Until this time, it seemed our thoughts were 185 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH occupied with pushing on, but now when we were compelled to sit down and wait with no notion of what to expect, the situation became as terrible as it was unexplainable. If we had known for a certainty that we could not have survived the winter and that at a certain time all would succumb, it would have been a relief to our mental anguish during the first few weeks of the winter. Rough and irreligious as almost all of the men were at this time, we placed our trust in Almighty God. There was nothing else for us to do. It is wonderful how, when a man is reduced to his last extremity, when life has been stripped of all its artificialities and a man's soul is laid bare, he will turn almost instinctively to his Creator. Whether or not a man professes any religion, there is inherent in him a feeling of reliance upon some Higher Power which is, in some mysterious way, responsible for him. If this feeling had not taken possession of us and came out as promi- nent as any material thing around us, from that awful background of our mental anguish, we would all have been raving maniacs before a month had passed. A peculiar fact in connection with our wan- derings after our first few days on the glacier 186 mWm MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH was that each one of us thought that all the rest were crazy, and he alone was in a rational frame of mind. As a result no one put any confidence in what another had said, and we could gain no comfort from each other's advice or opinions. I have thought since that our unnatural existence had affected all our minds and at times everyone of us was partially insane. We did not have the same feeling toward one another that we would have had under ordinary circumstances. We acted like a pack of animals and had it not been for that feeling of a reliance upon our Creator, that came to us through no effort of our own, there would have been nothing in us, but animal left. In the early part of the winter we continued to cut wood and pile it up near the cabin; to go out hunting for mink, otter and wood-chuck for food in order to save our beans and flour, as it will be understood that we only intended to stay, at the most, one year and had only an eight months' supply with us. We were soon prevented from hunting to any extent by the snow storms which exceeded anything in fury that I have ever seen here. The greater part of the snowfall in Alaska comes in the early winter and spring, and the 189 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH blizzards come so suddenly that there is no way to forecast their approach. The winds blow hurricanes and it is almost impossible to exist for any length of time exposed to the fury of the elements. We knew it would be impossible to follow any trail or to locate our cabin were we to be caught out in these storms, so we kept to our cabins. The snow would sift in a dozen places until it was banked up on the outside to above the roof. , After finishing our cabin and settling down to the routine of a life of waiting for the long winter to pass, Halderman, one of our men from New York, became alarmed at our condition and wanted to push on down the river. We had little to do at this time, but discuss our troubles and conditions. At first no one thought Halder- man meant what he said, but after discussing our conditions and prospects for days, he gradually drew Tom Eagen, the New York policeman, and Henry Bohn, of Providence, who was clerking in New York when he joined our party, to his side and we would sit and argue and speculate for hours every day. Although none of us knew anything about the surrounding country nor where the river went, Halderman contended that there must be a min- 190 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH ing camp or a native village not far away, and wanted our party to set out immediately, follow the river until we came to some human habita- tion. There he contended we could get our bearings and make our way to Dawson. While he had no reason, whatever, from which to draw such a conclusion, he repeated his plan so often that both Eagen and Bohn felt that there was no doubt but that he was right, although they did not know why. The majority of the party argued that Halderman's plan could not but result in death for all of us, but the more we discussed it, the wider became the breach between us. By this time it was snowing continuously and we were again compelled to use our snow-shoes when we went out in the open, as the fall was very soft. The river also had begun to freeze over; every day it seemed that the great arctic winter was tightening its grip. Instead of causing Halderman and his two friends to accept their fate and remain with us, the severe weather only caused them to get more anxious and restless. They talked and planned among themselves and worked themselves into such a condition of mind that we found we could not keep them 191 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH from leaving us. Under the terms of agreement which we had all signed before leaving New York, all the tools, equipment and foodstuff belonged to the party as long as the majority of the party held together and we threatened to allow them nothing if they left us, but our threats had little effect. Finally we decided to divide our food, pro rata, but not our equipment. We gave each of the three men an axe, a shovel, a Winchester rifle and two dogs. Two days after the division, they started on their aimless mission, feeling confident they would reach some human habita- tion, where they could either spend the long winter in comfort or find their way to Dawson City. As we bade them good-bye and watched their dark forms disappear down the river in the gathering gloom of that long arctic night, we looked upon them for the last time. No tidings of them ever reached civilization, and they must have perished within a few miles of our camp, as travel at this season of the year was impossible. Reduced now to eleven men, we faced a terrible winter of loneliness, idleness, privation and suffering from cold. As I look back upon that gloomy time, I feel that the only thing 192 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH that kept us alive was our trust in God. The transformation that had come over us was astounding. From an irreligious party of adven- turers, we had been converted to a firm belief in God. We had no church, no creed, no reason for the change in our attitude toward our Creator, except our condition. We were at a loss to explain the change in our ways ourselves, but it all seemed to be so natural under the circumstances that we thought little about it. We had but one Bible in the party; this was read in turn by every man by the light of the wood fire, and so assiduously did we continue our reading that in time our eyes were afflicted as badly as if by snow-blindness. As our troubles continued to accumulate, nothing could shake our firm belief that we would yet make a rich strike. We talked it over and over so many times that we came to believe that near where we found the copper nuggets and the ledge of garnets, there was gold. Even Mr. Merrill, our mineralogist, who knew by reason of his scientific knowledge that there could be no gold there, came to agree with us for no other reason than that we asserted it so often, that he actually believed it and longed for the winter to break so that we could begin work. Our picks 193 N :>- MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH and shovels, which had begun to rust were brought out from under the bunks and cleaned up. The men never seemed to get tired of greasing and polishing them. Yet the winter had by this time only fairly begun. During the early part of the cold weather before the snow became so deep as to make travel difficult, a party of four men would go out hunting with all the dogs. Although they usually returned without a thing, the trips gave our lives a little variety and helped to keep the men in good spirits. Later when the snow became very deep and the mercury dropped to from thirty to sixty degrees below zero, we kept to our cabin and the men became very inactive. There was nothing to do but wait — we had no idea how long. Outside the great arctic night had settled down. The frozen, innate landscape never changed. The weird desolation, the stark grewsomeness of the trees that here and there protruded, through a whiteness that had no end, caused a hopelessness to settle on us that made the men sullen and morose. Yet, withal there is something awe-inspiring about Alaska in the dead of winter that I cannot refrain from setting down, although we did not appreciate it then. The long silences were 194 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH broken now by the weird sighing of the fierce winds that seemed to sweep over the world with a frigid intensity that was appalling. The reverberating roar of a giant avalanche as it thundered and crashed down the side of a moun- tain, combined to remind us of the sublimity of creation. All the little things in life — the details — seemed to have been banished and nothing but the grandest and most profound demonstrations of nature were left. The snow snuffed out everything but the towering mountains, which seemed to become our friends; they grew commonplace in that land of gigantic settings. With the exception of those terrible sounds that disturbed us with their awfulness and continued so that they too became monotonous, there was little change in any of the manifesta- tions of nature. The air was so clear and crisp that it seemed ordinary sounds were much louder there than elsewhere. When any of the men would yell at the door of our cabin it could be heard echoing and re-echoing back and forth between the mountains four or five times before it finally died away. It was always cold. At times we turned the dogs out for a frolic in the snow; when they 195 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH insisted upon coming right back, we knew that it was colder than usual. With these conditions surrounding us, we waited and grew impatient with waiting. My faithful St. Bernard dog, which had become the pet of all the remaining party, would silently sit before the fire. The moment any one of the husky dogs, which we bought at Yakutat, would go near where we had our provisions stored behind some logs at the foot of our bunks, he would utter a low growl which sent them back to their places cowering; they had great respect and fear for Kodiak. It was impossible to make friends of the huskies, for while they were natural workers in harness, they could not be trusted for a second; many a beating they received from the men in an endeavor to train them for a house dog. At times when all was quiet they would start to yell and nothing on earth could stop them, even Kodiak would take up the yell. 196 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Party Suffers Terriby During Long Winter. All Record of Time Is Lost. Continuous Wood Fire Causes Painful Disease to Attack the Men's Eyes. Systematic Exercise Keeps One of Party in Good Condition. Men Compelled to Cut More Wood for Fuel. CHAPTER XV. JURING that long, cold, desolate winter we lived like animals. The fact that we managed to exist at all appeals to me now as being a miracle. There was nothing for us to do but to keep ourselves alive, and it was not until now that we began to realize how all the com- forts and activities of civilization make life worth living. Life without hope, without friends, without ambition and with nothing but the bare necessities of living, is punishment that will sooner or later drive a person insane. I firmly believe that our sufferings and hardships during that terrible winter helped us to live through it and kept our minds occupied to an extent that prevented our becoming entirely demented. There was little or no ventilation in our cabin, as the two small windows we had, we were 197 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH compelled to cover. We also filled every crack we could find with moss; the large fireplace, however, acted as a vent where all the foul air was drawn. During most of the winter, it was so cold that ice formed within two feet of the fire, which was never allowed to go out. We seldom changed our clothes and probably four-fifths of the time was spent in our sleeping bags. We kept a pot of water over the fire all the time, and cooked our food but once at intervals of twenty-four hours. Although we still had plenty of provisions, we ate very sparingly and lived upon about one-third the quantity of food required when we were working hard. Still we all became quite stout from idleness, but we soon found that the flesh we were accumulating was not a healthy gain. Although we had long lost the record of time before the continual cold of winter had settled down, we could tell each day as it passed along as the sun was visible; but now we lost even a record of the days for there was no day. Time was simply one vast span of eternity — no days, no nights, no weeks, no months. There was nothing by which to measure the passing of time, except perhaps the growth of our beards. All we could do was to guess and 198 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH speculate. Some of the men who had watches kept them running and every twenty-four hours would cut a nick in a stick. This plan would continue maybe for weeks and then sometimes the watches would run down and we would lose count. All that we knew of that long winter was several portions of time calculated in this way and cut in sticks, but this only furnished more subject matter for discussion as the great darkness dragged on. The hardest part of our confinement was our lack of amusement. Even the devil himself seemed to be powerless to find something for our idle hands to do. We talked of everything we ever knew. Each man heard the genealogy of every other man in the party until we could repeat it all from memory. Every poem, or song, or hymn that any of the members of the party knew was repeated or sung so often that all of us knew it. Everyone of us made confessions of his past life, simply for something to say that could not have been wrung from him by the most severe third degree methods under ordinary conditions. Every man in the party knew every other man better than it is possible for human beings to know each other under any other conditions. 199 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Every thought that any of us had was expressed, not as a confidence, but simply as a subject for speech. When we would get tired from singing or talking we would write in our diary or whittle on the logs in the cabin with our knives. During that winter the interior of our cabin was written over several times and the amount of wood that was cut up in chips and carved into grotesque shapes was astounding. In the back of our memorandum books, was a set of rules for first aid to the injured, tables of weights and measures, and before the winter was very far advanced everyone of us could repeat what was in that book from memory, but so thoroughly did we learn these rules and tables that I remember them yet, although we made no effort to commit them at the time. After spending an indeterminate amount of time amusing ourselves in this way we finally invented a checker-board by marking squares on a flour sack with a pencil and cutting round and square checkers out of wood. Previous to this time few of the members of the party, including myself, knew anything about the game, but within a short time we all became very good players. We laid the checker-board down on the 200 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH flat top of a large spruce log that we had sawed in two and stood on end for a table and spent days and days figuring new combinations and moves. I became so expert at the game at this time that I have beaten many good players since my return. Our physical suffering, of course, resulted for the most part from the intense cold. In the middle of .the winter when it became very cold the air was usually very still and there were few storms. Then it seemed the cold was the most subtle and it was almost impossible to keep warm no matter how big a fire we had. At this time two of us would get into one sleeping bag and lay as close as possible for comfort. My St. Bernard dog I used as a pillow when he lay at the head of my bunk and as a foot warmer when he lay at the foot. The snow outside had fallen to a depth of six to eight feet and a big drift had collected on the north side of our cabin, but wind kept the roof clear of snow. From our door we had to go to the surface of the snow, which was almost on a level with the eaves of the roof. We also suffered much from diseases incident to close confinement and improper food. During the early and middle part of the winter the men 201 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH were very inactive. Personally, I was thankful for the desire I have always had for strenuous exercise; many times I would try to get the rest of the fellows to get up and go through a set of exercises with me. Sometimes they were so lazy that they would not move and upon another occasion as many as five would get up and take an active part. In spite of my efforts our condition became terrible. Some of the men became sore and rheumatism was starting among them as a result of lying down so much, yet they could not be induced to move. Rather than take the trouble to cook their food they often ate their meat raw. During the winter our supply of salt became exhausted and for a time we did not think we would be able to live without it. Some of the men who thought they could not live without it nearly starved themselves. But gradually, how- ever, as the pangs of hunger increased, we began to eat our food without salt, and it was not long until we did not miss it at all. We soon began to have serious trouble with our teeth, however, and some of the men were driven desperate with pain. Several times the men would pull an aching tooth with a piece of string or wire, as this was the only way to obtain 202 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH relief. Just what the effect the lack of salt had upon us at that time I do not know, but since returning I have always had an almost insatiable craving for salt. In spite of all our hardships and our utter disregard for one another, we still felt an interest in the three members of our party who left our camp early in the winter. We often talked about them and speculated upon their possible fate. I do not think that this was the result of any brotherly feeling for them, but simply because it was a subject for earnest conversation. Before leaving for Alaska I had read quite a little about snow-blindness, but neither before or since have I ever heard the name of a disease similar in its results, that attacked us during the latter part of that terrible winter, which we had begun to think would never end. Our eyes got sore and pained us greatly from looking at the flickering flames in the fire-place which was kept burning continuously for seven months. At times our eyes gave us as much pain as they did when we were on the glacier, and it was impos- sible for us to judge distances correctly. Many times we burned our hands putting wood on the fire because our eyes caused us to see the fire farther away than it really was. 203 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH I have always been inclined to believe that it was the uncertainty rather than the brightness of the firelight which gave us trouble. While it seemed to be one continuous night outside, there were times when it was lighter than others, and although the snow made it possible to see at all times, the fire was the brightest light we had. As we began to become accustomed to the great Alaskan night, we found that except when there was a storm raging, it was often possible to trace the passing of a day in a general way by means of the changes in the light and the climatic conditions. It seemed that usually every twenty- four hours there was a dead cold darkness which we supposed was midnight. Then the atmos- phere would grow perceptibly brighter and for a time it would be fairly light. This condition became more pronounced as spring advanced, but at no time were the days well enough defined for us to have marked them off on a calender had we had any. When we were cutting wood in the fall for our winter supply we thought we had sufficient to last us for two years, but burning it as we did continusously day and night, soon depleted the supply and some time after the middle of the 204 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH winter we found ourselves without fuel. There was no alternative but to go out into that frigid darkness and cut it. This proved to be a terrible hardship. Most of the men were just now physically unable for the work. Having done nothing but lay around for about four months; their muscles were soft and some of them seemed to be almost helpless. The woods were so thick that many dead trees still stood up and by .untold drudgery and suffering from the cold we cut them off above the snow and sledded them back to the cabin with the dogs. At this point I cannot refrain from saying something about the dogs which were as much averse to working as were the men. During the winter one of our diversions had been teaching the dogs tricks. My big St. Bernard was the only one of them that seemed to learn or under- stand, and he was so intelligent that at times it seemed to me he knew and understood our inmost feelings and desires. The wolf dogs or huskies seemed to be able to learn nothing but to be continually on their guard and to steal when the opportunity offered. They watched us continually; when our supply of wood became exhausted and we started to get out the sleds they would sneak away and try to hide the minute the first man reached up to take down 205 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH the harness. Still, when they were hitched up, they pulled in the harness with a will and did not seem to have been as much affected by the long idleness as were the men. 206 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Streak of Light in North at Last Heralds the Coming of Springtime. Men Start to Dig Shaft for Gold Mine. Another Man Becomes III and Hopeless Efforts Are Made to Save Him. Abundance of Fish Now Being Caught Changes Diet. CHAPTER XVI. r IE labored and suffered what seemed an endless age. We had been looking eagerly for the coming of spring long before our wood pile was exhausted, and after we had been cutting our fuel from the stump for a long time. There was yet no sign of spring. We descended into the lowest depths of de- spair. Months before we thought we had noticed conditions that presaged the immediate breaking up of the winter and had made ourselves believe that we had almost seen the sun again. We discussed the possibility of the earth coming to a standstill or the sun burning out. We began to lose faith in nature and we almost resigned ourselves to the fate of freezing to death in that dreadful, limitless and never-ending darkness. 207 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH How we ever managed to live during this period I cannot now explain. I feel that our despair had affected our minds, and we were just doing things after a mechanical fashion with no particular end in view. As we continued to make expeditions after wood, we became some- what hardened to the work, and we did not suffer so much. At times, however, we were so com- pletely exhausted after bringing a log to camp that we were compelled to leave it at the door and stagger in to our bags for rest. We burned everything about the cabin we could spare in order to diminish the labor of getting fuel, even to the bones of the bear we had killed, which made such an offensive odor that we could hardly endure it and which it seemed never subsided. To make matters worse our wood stove began to fall to pieces, being practically burned out, and this also was a cause of alarm on our part. George Evens, one of the party, was a tinsmith, but he had nothing with which to repair it. The stove was a sheet-iron affair with a collap- sible pipe and had been very serviceable. In the early winter we built an addition to our cabin in front of the door which was supposed to be a sort of storm-break or shed; we set up the stove 208 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH there and used it as a kitchen where we did all of our baking and cooking. Although we did not notice it ourselves, we must have been a most ragged, sorry, disheart- ened looking lot of men at this time. My hair and beard was at least a foot long and thickly matted, as was most of the other men of the party, and I suppose all men in Alaska were equally as grizzly. Most of us were convinced that the sun had died out, leaving the earth to its fate, and we were simply eking out a dreadful existence without hope. Again the first laws of nature, self preservation, asserted itself in some unknown manner, and kept us alive against our wills. We had lost all hope, yet we continued to suffer and exist for no reason that we could satisfac- torily explain. Again some Higher Power seemed to interfere and we followed blindly a sort of instinct that compelled us to worry on. We had long ago lost interest in looking up into the heavens for some sign of coming spring. Situated as we were down in the depths of a valley with towering mountains on all sides, we had not even seen the glories of the Aurora Borealis, which must have been very brilliant in the north. To us the heavens looked just 209 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH the same as they did ages before when the winter began. We were doomed and we knew it. There was no hope. We were simply awaiting a ter- rible end. The sun had gone out. The day of judgment was at hand and we had been aban- doned by the Almighty on a dead and latent planet that had been swallowed up in dark and frigid space. In the depths of our despair, when we had about resigned ourselves to our fate, a streak of light appeared above the range of hills. At first we could not believe our eyes. It disappeared before we could convince ourselves that we had seen anything, but after an anxious wait of twenty-four hours it reappeared again, and we were convinced that the long winter was about to break. The thought of the approach of warm weather put new life into us, and in one day we were transformed from a sorry, disheartened gang of adventurers who had given up to die, to an expectant, though motley, company of gold seekers. Although we were near physical wrecks from our long confinement, we could not restrain our joy and the days of waiting for the ice and snow to begin to melt were even worse than the long winter. 210 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH The temperature began to rise slowly and while the mercury dropped to from six to eight degrees below zero at night, it rose to twenty above in the brightest part of the day. We took a renewed interest in life, and every- day a hunting party was sent out. At first they had little or no luck, but within a few days the men began to bring back some ptarmigan, which gave our diet variety, although the meat was far from being palatable. The hunters saw many bear tracks and occasionally they located a bear, but it was too early in the season to kill them as their meat was liable to have a repulsive taste of fish. None of them were shot, as our ammunition was short and we wanted every shot to count for food. After waiting a long time during which the streak of light we had first seen in the north became a brilliant twilight, the sun appeared, only for a brief space of time at first, but as the days passed it continued to mount higher into the heavens and we were overjoyed. I was never before so glad to see Old Sol. It was like raising the shades of day. We forgot immediately our terrible sufferings during the winter and thought only of the glorious light. Our desire for gold came back 211 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH with our renewed life; although our ambitions had lain dormant all winter, we were out pros- pecting just as soon as the weather would permit. Indeed, so anxious were we to get to work that we could not wait until the grip of the long winter was unloosed by the returning summer, but attempted to dig down through the frozen snow. Although we had no reason whatever to suspect it, we were convinced that our claim contained a large amount of gold and we would all go home rich. As the weather became warmer it started great avalanches to slide down the sides of the moun- tains, producing thunderous roars. Although we had heard the roar of the avalanche almost every day after reaching Alaska, this was only a suggestion of what was to take place near our cabin that spring. The noise seemed continuous and was loudest in the evening when the largest number of snow-slides were in motion. The noise from these slides would echo and re-echo between the mountains with a series of rumblings that sounded like a battle of giants. At first this continuous noise disturbed us, but we finally became accustomed to it. After looking around, we finally selected a place at the side of the mountain to dig a shaft, 212 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH which was about one and a half miles from our cabin, and as soon as it became warm enough we pitched our tents nearby and all of the men started to work. We built a large fire over the spot we selected for the shaft. We kept it burning continually for two days, to thaw the frost out of the ground, which seemed to be down about fifteen feet. The spot cleared was about ten feet square, and the fire left a mass of mud which required a great amount of labor to remove. Six to eight men were kept busy at work in the shaft, which was dug out in shelves so that the hole became smaller the deeper we went. When it was so small that no more shelves could be built, we erected a crude windlass and drew the dirt up in buckets. The windlass, which was a ponderous affair, was made by cutting down two trees, that forked several feet above the ground. One of these was planted on each side of the shaft and a good sized log laid across the opening in the ground between the forks. This log could be turned by means of a handle, and a rope and two buckets were attached to it in such a manner that when a bucket full of dirt was being brought up an empty bucket was let down. 213 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH The operation of this windlass was most laborious, but the men were so sure that they would strike gold that they never complained, but worked on until they were completely exhausted and then crawled into their sleeping bags for rest. The ice continued to melt and by the time we had reached a depth of twenty feet the river was open and moving, but we were unable to catch any fish. Our supplies were beginning to get low, and we came to the con- clusion that we must replenish them from some source. As the sinking of the shaft progressed we frequently took samples of the dirt and washed it searching carefully for color. After we had tunneled in toward the mountain about thirty feet we finally came to the conclusion that we had struck pay dirt and we were surely overjoyed. We hastily arranged our crib and rocker and putting in some mercury which we kept in a three-inch iron pipe, plugged at both ends with caps, we started to wash for gold. We continued to work the rocker for four days; at the end of that time the last few pails of dirt from bed rock contained a very small percentage of pin gold, which was all the gold we got during our stay in Alaska. Copper was plentiful enough in small 214 WINDLASS MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH nuggets and we gathered together a considerable quantity of this metal. While we were digging our shaft, Merrill, our mineralogist, became very ill and fell away to a shadow. He had a high fever, and although we did not know what was the matter with him at the time, I have thought since that it must have been either typhoid or scurvy. His hair came out and then all of his teeth became loose and finally fell out. He insisted upon working as long as he could remain on his feet and after he got down we attended him as best we could. We placed snow on his forehead to counteract the fever and although he suffered greatly, he never com- plained. His illness somewhat dampened our gold-seeking ardor. Soon his presence seemed to exert a gloom over us all that we could not shake off. In our weakened condition we knew that if any of us became ill we would have no chance, and the terror of a lingering illness, that could have no ending but death in that wild region, oppressed us as we watched our poor comrade grow worse. After we had despaired of ever catching any more fish, as the men spent many hours trying for them each day without success, the river 217 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH suddenly became filled with them swimming up stream and we had no trouble in catching all we needed. For a time we ate nothing else. The change in our diet benefitted us considerably and for the first time in several weeks we ate all we wanted. We had completely lost all record of time and we had no idea what month of the year it was. We had come to judge time by seasons rather than by days and we knew that we were in the beginning of the Alaskan summer season. 218 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Three More Men Who Go Out Prospecting Are Lost. Dog Leads Rescue Party to Their Tent. Completely Disheartened, Remain- ing Men Suddenly Think of Home. Start Is Made for Home in Dead of the Great Alaskan Winter. Leave Equipment At Cabin. CHAPTER XVII. URING our long confinement in the cabin a great range of mountains just south of us that stood out stark and white against the sky seemed to be beckoning to us as we waited the long winter through. Somehow we came to believe that there was gold at the base of those mountains and long before the sun made its appearance, we had decided to accept the challenge. After starting work on our. shaft, we sent out an exploring party, consisting of Davis, our engineer, John Horman and Edward Norris, who took with them three weeks' provisions. I was urged to accompany them and at the last moment decided to remain at our permanent camp, as I had become very proficient as a cook 219 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH and the men thought my services were more needed at camp. Two weeks passed during which time we heard nothing from our friends and we began to become alarmed. We waited still another week; when they did not return, four of the strongest mem- bers of our party, myself included, started out with a one week's supply of food to look for them. We took my faithful dog, Kodiak, and six others and they seemed to realize that we were looking for our companions. My faithful dog would sniff the air and seemed to be continually anxious to pick a trail on the ground or in the snow. The mosquitoes again appeared in the ravine we were in, and not being prepared for them, we were greatly bothered, but we trudged on in the direction we knew the exploring party had taken. After traveling for two days over a rough country, covering about twenty-five miles, Kodiak started to whine and run ahead; we followed as best we could, thinking that perhaps he scented a bear or some other animal; he led us about two miles and suddenly we came upon our comrades' tent which did not look as if it had been occupied for several days. We felt that at last we had come upon them, and we decided to rest there for a while and await their return. f ^ MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH We slept in the tent that night and the next morning we began to feel that everything was not right and that probably something had happened to the party. We fired our guns and built a large fire and smothered it so that dense clouds of smoke rose high in the air. With the great white snow-capped mountains for a back- ground and the rare atmosphere, we thought that the smoke could be seen as far as our per- manent camp, but there was no sign of them anywhere. We would have been at a total loss to know what to do or how to proceed if it had not been for my dog Kodiak. He had become so familiar with the men during the long winter that he seemed to know who we were hunting for and several times he ran away in one direction so that at last we decided the best plan was to follow him. After following the dog for a mile along the side of the mountain we came to a great gulch that had been freshly torn out of the side of the mountain by an avalanche. It was at least one hundred feet wide and ended below in a great canyon through which roared a swift flowing river. The picture that greeted our gaze as we stood there on the edge of that great fissure was 223 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH indeed terrible; there and then we came to the conclusion that our comrades had been caught in that great avalanche and swept down to a horrible death. The trail of the avalanche showed that it came down the mountain side in a zig-zag track, carrying everything before it. Great rocks and trees were ground under it and dragged along underneath, tearing great fissures in the side of the mountain. We were even then in a danger- ous place as several small slides went down close by where we stood. Far below we could see where the entire slide tumbled over the edge of that gigantic canyon and disappeared. We were afraid to venture near the edge of the canyon whose walls of solid rock seemed to drop abruptly for hundreds of feet and which seemed to be at least a mile wide. Far up the canyon we could see the roaring river which the canyon walls cut off from our view as it approached. As we stood and looked at that overwhelming picture we felt instinctively that it was responsible for the death of our comrades, and if they had not been swept away in the avalanche they must have crossed its path before it swept down and then found themselves unable to get back. None of them ever returned to tell the story. 224 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH There was nothing left for us to do but to go back to camp, and we began to talk over our misfortunes, and as the death of our comrades cast its gloom over us, we gradually became to realize our plight. Until this time our desire for gold had almost continually been our ruling passion, but now fear began to take its place and thoughts of home and the uncompromising possibility that we might never get there, struck terror to our very- souls. The fact that we were in all probability hope- lessly lost, many miles from civilization, impressed itself upon us. For the first time since we left New York City we were thoroughly frightened. Life even with its terrible hardships had never seemed so sweet, and that we had been so foolish as to imperil it to seek gold now appeared to be unthinkable. GOLD! We detested it; we hated it and from that day on we did not spend a minute looking for it. Our ambition was demoralized. Our single and only thought was to save ourselves and try to get out of the country. I am firmly convinced that if we had acci- dentally struck the richest gold mine in the world we would have left it untouched. What was gold to us now? Gold was simply a yellow metal. 225 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH We could not eat it, we could not load our guns with it. It would not clothe us. It would not take us back to civilization. It would not keep us alive, and life was all we cared for now. With our food supply almost gone, our clothes completely worn t out and our ammunition exhausted, we descended into the lowest depths of despair and dismally discussed the possibility of getting back to Yakutat or to the coast some- where where we could get a boat for home. We wanted to start immediately, but we found that we would be unable to go until snow came again, so we could use our sleds and the condition of Mr. Merrill, who was still very ill, made it imper- ative that we remain and take care of him. The poor fellow lay there just rolling and tossing with a continual high fever just waiting for the end to come. As the frost began to come out of the ground, our shaft filled with water and made working it impossible, but we did not give it a second thought. We moved back to our cabin again and began to lay plans for a perilous dash to the coast as soon as there was plenty of snow in the valley and travel was possible. This we real- ized would not be more than six weeks or two months. Some of the men wanted to go back 226 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH the way we came into the interior over the glacier, while others declared they would rather die than take that route. All the records of our trip inbound were lost with Davis, our engineer, who had made a map of the glacier and our trip to the present camp. We decided to follow the river, as did the other three of our party last winter when it froze, not knowing where it would take us. In the mean- time there- was nothing for us to do but wait, and we employed our time catching plenty of fish and replenishing our food supply. Every man's rations were cut down to almost nothing, and we did not allow ourselves all the fish we wanted in order thereby to get together a good supply for our journey. We killed six of our dogs in order to save our food and by cooking them, fed them to the remaining dogs to fatten them; we also attempted to cure the fish we caught by smoking them. We secured a piece of wire by taking apart the old stove that had burned out the winter before, and smoked the fish by running the wire through their gills and suspending them over the fire. For several weeks we did nothing but catch and smoke fish. During all this time Merrill 229 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH had been very ill and we wondered what would become of him. We realized that he could not go with us and if we remained we would surely all perish. At last he grew worse and died without a murmur after a heroic struggle. We took his outer garments and moccasins and buried him as best we could about fifty feet from our cabin, putting the remains of the stove with some stones on his grave as a mark. There were now but eight of the original party of eighteen left, and we had begun to feel that none of us would ever survive to tell the story. When I thought how near I had come to going with the exploring party and what a narrow escape I had, the disaster seemed to weigh more heavily upon me than upon any of the other survivors. I brooded over it for weeks; at times I even wished that I had perished with them. I did not know then as I know now that the death of those three men was the sacrifice that was to save my life, or I might have been more miserable still, if that were possible. Had it not been for the clothing that was left us by Davis, Horman, Norris and Merrill, everyone of us would have perished with the cold before we had traveled many miles from the camp. By the end of that second summer all of our clothing was completely worn out. My heavy 230 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH woolen socks, which were prevented from falling away from my legs by the mucklocks, were worn until there was not a semblance of a stock- ing left. It was not even possible to recognize a weave in them. There was nothing left but a dirty mass of wool. Our moccasins were entirely gone and even before we started on our journey we suffered terribly from the cold. We divided the clothing that was left behind by dead" comrades. We wrapped up our feet in rags and in this manner prevented them from freezing and prepared for our journey. We figured that it must be near the month of November or December or about a year and ten months since we left New York City. We had hardly brought along clothing enough to last us for a year, as we had expected to be back in New York long before this. From the time I left for Alaska I had been accustomed to carry my money, which was in gold and paper, in a belt strapped around my waist; but on getting to our permanent camp after the cabin was built, the belt was so heavy and hard that it cut into my flesh and made a continual sore. In order to avoid carrying it around, I cut a hole in a log of the cabin just above my bunk and carefully placed it there. 231 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH There was about seven hundred dollars in the belt and as I had no use for it where we were, I forgot all about it in time. It was at this time that I had impressed upon me most vividly that money, in itself, was useless. In a civilized country money represents many things that are worth while in life, but in Alaska, where we were, it represented nothing. We could forget about it, because it was simply an incumbrance. At this time we forgot that for which we came. Had we succeeded in hoard- ing an untold amount of gold in our shack, it would have all been forgotten. Gold is of very little value when a man's life is at stake. At last the river had frozen to a depth of four or more feet and we made all preparations for our trip. By this time the sun had disappeared and there was only a little twilight each day. We delayed a little longer than we intended by attempting to get more food, by fishing through holes cut in the ice. We met with very little success, but we persisted, knowing that starva- tion was probably staring us in the face. By the time we finally started, the river was frozen solid. We left behind everything but our food, sleeping bags, one tent and a shovel or two, and with four dogs attached to each sled, 232 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH made our way slowly down the river. Probably to this day our entire equipment of guns, etc., is still there by the Tanana River just as we left it, a heart-breaking exhibit of blasted hopes and labor lost. 233 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Rough Traveling Down the River. Footprints Discovered in the Snow, Lead to Indian Village. Refugees Pitch Camp with Natives. A White Man With Natives Gives Directions to Reach Coast. One of Party Gets His Feet Frost Bitten. CHAPTER XVIII. E traveled down the river at the rate of ten miles a day with dusk continually hanging over us. The surface of the river was very rough in places which made progress slow, and in places great rocks protruded through the ice and snow. We suffered terribly with the cold; at times we were harassed by fierce blizzards, which swept down and made life in the open almost impossible. When further progress became impossible, we would pile up our sleds as a wind break, and throw our tent loosely over us, and the men and dogs would huddle together, in order to prevent being frozen to death, until the storm passed. We employed every precaution at our command to prevent freezing, and took turns rubbing and 237 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH hitting one another in order to keep the blood in circulation. Whenever one of us became lazy, the others would make him exercise in order to keep awake. Our physical condition at this time was prob- ably worse than at any time so far. There seemed to be nothing left but our animal natures. Although we were a long time on the river, I remember very little of the trip as we were just numb from the cold; and for the most part, it appears to be a blank space in my life. I remember, however, that we had to get off the river course and make a trail through a close canyon, where the going was very rough. The side walls arose very abruptly on either side for several hundred feet; at times they seemed to close at the top as we could see very little of the sky. On these occasions the natural darkness was greatly augmented and sometimes it was impos- sible to see very far ahead. The outlook was indeed awful and we felt that we were going forward to a terrible and unknown doom. We knew to turn back meant sure death; and we chose the unknown and worked our way slowly and gloomily on, into that terrible gulf. After traveling along for a few days we again came to the river. We had been on our way now 238 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH about three weeks and came to a point where the river spread out into a stream one-half mile wide. To our surprise we came upon the tracks of snow-shoes and dogs, and we immediately thought of our comrades, who had left our camp the winter before. We were beyond our- selves with joy. The chance finding of these tracks was another link in the chain of miraculous events that was to lead to our final rescue. Had we not come across these tracks, we would have all probably perished on account of our insufficient clothing and food supply. We would have continued our journey up the Tanana River to the Yukon, where, by only the merest possibility would we have been able to reach a mining settlement at that season of the year. We followed the tracks down the river for half a mile, when we left the water course going through a large canyon; after two hours' hard traveling, as the trail was rough and irregular and the sleds would often upset, we finally came to a crude Indian settlement. We expected to surely find our three comrades. As we approached, their dogs began growling and barking when suddenly from out of the igloos came several natives clothed in reindeer skin. 239 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH They seemed to be a very low order of human being. They had deserted their shacks and were living in their igloos or ice-constructed houses and were greatly surprised to see us. They crowded around us and stared, and one of their number who could speak English asked us who we were and where we came from. We could see immediately that they were far below the Yakutat natives in intelligence. We at once inquired about our friends but they shook their heads. Evidently if they had traveled this way they had missed this Indian settlement and had gone on up the Tanana River, toward the Yukon River, to perish in some unknown manner. We pitched our tents alongside the igloos and prepared to stay with the Indians for a few days. We soon learned that the man who spoke to us was not an Indian, but a Swede who had been living with the natives for the past ten years, and had a squaw for a wife with half- breed children. He was a man of few words like the natives with whom he lived, but we finally managed to learn that his name was Jenson and that he had once lived in New London, Conn. How he ever happened to get to be connected with that tribe of uncivilized natives, in the 240 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH almost inaccessible interior of Alaska, we did not know. He seemed to have great influence over the natives and if we had not met him it is not at all likely that we would have been treated as well as we were. The Alaskan native is a man who attends strictly to his own affairs and apparently he extends very little sympathy to an unfortunate brother. The Indians we met in the interior belonged to some "small tribe and in appearance were much like the Indians we had met on the coast. Men and women were dressed alike and as their bodies were completely covered, with the excep- tion of a small portion of their faces, it was impossible to tell them a part. Our dogs which were in a fairly good condition when we started from the cabin, were now foot-sore and com- pletely fagged out. We made moccasins for all of the dogs out of our worn out leather coats, which proved a great help; it saved us from stopping so often to pick the snow from between their toes. We noticed among other things that the Indians had a peculiar method of preventing snow-blindness that was different from the practice of the coast Indians. They used a piece of wood in which was a very small slit, not much 243 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH wider than a needle point, which was fastened in front of the eyes. This prevented very little light from getting through and while I do not think that this plan was as effective as our colored glasses it was much better than painting the eyes. Their sole occupation was hunting and fishing. When the river was open they packed up the Tanana one hundred miles to the Yukon, where they met traders who came up the river. Other than this, we learned very little about the natives, because our physical condition and the partially demented state of our minds caused us to take little or no interest in what was happening about us. During our trip down the river, George Evans, one of our party, had both feet frost-bitten and after we pitched our tent and built a fire they gave him terrible pain. As long as he remained outside where it was cold he did not suffer, but just as soon as we built a fire he raved. More than once we were compelled to prevent him from cutting off his toes with an axe. We rubbed snow and ice on this feet and did every- thing possible for him, but it did not relieve him. The natives came in our tent and looked at Evans; although they knew that his condition meant certain death, they offered no sympathy nor suggestions whatever. 244 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Our condition was indeed precarious, but we did not consider for a moment staying with the natives during the winter and setting out again in the spring. Mr. Jenson attempted to tell us of the perils we would encounter if we continued our journey, but the state of our minds was such that even if he had told us we would go to certain death, I do not doubt but that we would have set out on our journey. As our clothing was completely worn out, we attempted to buy some from the natives. After considerable dickering, they finally provided each of us with a pair of mucklocks and a hair seal coat, crudely sewed together with gut, and equipped with a hood for the head and large mitts, which reached to the elbows. They also gave us a quantity of oil to use for fuel and some smoked fish. They wanted flour in exchange, but we had so little left that we could not spare it. They finally agreed to take gold in payment, and then I suddenly discovered, for the first time, that I had left all of my money behind in the cabin with the rest of our equipment, probably one hundred and fifty miles away. Arthur Wilson and Pitman paid my share of the money, and I did not give my loss a second thought. 245 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Mr. Jenson gave us our compass bearings and directions to reach Orca on the coast; we were to go down a stream from their village, then cross a glacier until we came to Copper River, and continue down to the coast. Before we left the settlement he invited us to his igloo, where he served a feed in our honor. In the center of the igloo was a fire made with a large wick floating in a pot containing a thick dirty- mess of grease. I thought at the time that this pot had never been cleaned and the odor that arose from it was stifling. Our host passed around a board on which was some dried and frozen seal meat cut into strips about one inch square and six inches long. The meat was almost entirely fat with a streak of lean through it here and there. We did not know what was expected of us, but as the others each took a strip of meat, we did likewise. It was very evident to me that it would be impossible to eat it in its present con- dition, and again we allowed the natives who were sitting around in a circle to take the initiative. Holding one end of the strip in the pot of hot grease for a few minutes until it had been thawed out, they then bit a piece off and devoured it with great relish, making all kinds 246 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH of offensive and ill-bred noises with their lips as they ate. We attempted to do likewise but failed miserably. I held one end of my strip of fat in the grease for several minutes and then bit a chunk off. The taste was almost unbearable, but I was so nearly famished that I could easily have endured the taste if I had been able to chew it. It seemed that the longer I chewed, the larger the chunk of meat got and I had to give it up as my teeth hurt so. My comrades were equally unsuccessful in their efforts to partake of Mr. Jenson's hospitality. Mr. Jen- son's native wife gave us a mixture of small red berries, and a sort of lard and another kind of plant all mixed together and while we ate it I am sure not one of the men cared for more. 249 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Glacier Is Again Reached. One of Party Frozen to Death. Food and Fuel Exhausted. The Dogs Are Killed and Eaten. The Ocean At Last Looms Up Before Them. The Men Are Exhausted and Bewildered. CHAPTER XIX. FTER spending a week with the natives, we again packed our sleds and resumed our journey. Instead of following the Tanana River, which runs in a generally north- westerly direction, we turned about and took a course almost due south. My faithful dog Kodiak, who was much thinner than when we left the camp, was always in the lead. As we rushed along, the dogs would often get into a general fight, which always meant a half hour's work to untangle the harness; we had to beat the huskies in order to stop these fights, which always meant the crip- pling of one or more dogs. We proceeded over a rough country toward the glacier. I cannot help but refer again to my dog, who had been more to me than any of my comrades. He was always ready and willing, 251 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH and, although reduced almost to a shadow, he seemed to understand all my troubles and extend his sympathy. Often when I would look into his bottomless eyes, which betrayed unusual intelligence, I could see there an innocent appeal and a solicitude for my welfare that made my heart ache. He understood every word I spoke to him and when a cross word escaped my lips he would drop his head and allow his tail to droop until I spoke kindly to him again. After several days of rough traveling, we reached the glacier and found that a hazardous job of getting up on it confronted us. The end of that vast ocean of ice was a twisted and broken mass which at first made us despair of ever being able to climb over it. After consider- able work, however, we finally managed to break a rough trail and get up on the body of the glacier. We found that the surface of the ice was so rough that we could not use our sleds; we were compelled to pack our goods the first two miles, which was a cold and laborious job. Fortunately we had little with us except our provisions, which were running short, or we would have perished from sheer exhaustion and cold. When we were finally able to use our sleds again, the going was so hard that each man was compelled to lash a rope to his sled and put it 252 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH over his shoulder to assist his dogs. With never any sunshine and the Aurora Borealis hidden by the mountains, we toiled hopelessly on through the cold dreary night. Evans, one of the men whose feet had been frost-bitten just before we reached the Indian village, continued to grow worse and had his feet frosted again soon after we got on the glacier. He did not suffer so much now, but his feet swelled to twice their normal size and he was unable to walk. His condition was indeed pitiful and hopeless, but he did not complain. We placed him on his sled tucked in his sleeping bag and had his dogs pull him along. The temperature must have been from thirty to fifty degrees below zero and all that we could do for him was to rub his feet from the outside. In spite of all our efforts he grew worse; he seemed to have no feeling in his limbs at all and lost all interest in life at the same time. He just seemed to fall into a peaceful sleep and before we could realize it he was dead. We buried him in the snow and killed his dogs to save food, then proceeded without so much as the shedding of a tear. Our physical condition at this time was such that mourning for anyone was impossible and we even envied him his 253 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH peaceful sleep. Our trip out over the glacier was much worse than our trip inbound, almost two years before. The dogs we killed, belonging to Evans, we fed to the other dogs, which greatly relieved them, making them better able to pull our sleds. The ice was very rough as we entered some of the narrow canyons and great mountains loomed up all along the route. Although we had a small burden as compared with what we took into Alaska, we were almost famished and bordering on collapse. With fierce storms blowing and the temperature below zero, existence under any circumstances was almost impossible. It is impossible to set down in words an adequate idea of the hardships we endured during our trip across the ice and snow. When we left the Indian settlement we expected to reach Orca within three weeks, but a month passed and we toiled on with the long night hovering over the ice that seemed to be limitless. We were again afflicted with snow blindness, but not as bad as we were before, as our colored glasses afforded great relief. We had to use our snow-shoes continually and we set up our tent about every other day to do the little cooking which was necessary. The surface of the glacier 254 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH was broken here and there by great crevasses which compelled us to make wide detours; these, in connection with the rough ice we encountered, greatly impeded our progress. We also took greater precaution than before; we connected the sleds with ropes in order to guard against any of the remaining members of the party falling into a crevasse in the ice. Terrible blizzards also caused us great incon- venience and at times we felt that we must perish. The snow was usually frozen very hard and it cut like sharp sand. At times we were unable to see more than ten feet ahead, and we never knew whether the snow was falling or just being blown about. It was almost impossible to cook anything, although we had brought along a supply of wood for fuel as well as some oil tied up in skins, which we had procured from the natives. The wood would burn lustily when placed in the remains of one of our stoves which we had brought along, and a wick placed in the oil would blaze up when a match was applied to it, but two inches from the blaze, water would freeze because of the cold all around. With our compass always before us, we toiled on, hoping against hope to reach the Copper River every hour. We would push on until 257 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH completely exhausted or a fierce blizzard made further progress impossible; then, piling up our sleds as a wind-break, we would crawl into our sleeping bags, throw our tent loosely over us and lie down with our dogs from sheer exhaustion. Our dogs suffered terribly as it was very seldom that dogs were required to make a trip over a glacier, even during the summer time. At this season of the year, such a trip was even worse for the dogs than for the men. The moccasins we made for the dogs were entirely worn out, and the snow worked up between their toes and froze. Every few hours we were compelled to stop and dig the ice out of the dogs' feet with a knife. The ice often caused them great pain by spreading their toes, and unless it was removed it made travel impossible for them; the bright red spots on the snow told the tale of their condition and we would relieve them as best we could. We had been on the glacier probably six weeks when our flour supply became exhausted. The wood we had brought along for cooking was also consumed and all we had left was a few smoked fish and some beans. For the first time since I started out, I lost heart completely and every vestige of hope that I had entertained before, 258 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH slowly ebbed away. When I thought that we had expected to reach Orca within three weeks and we had been on our journey a month and a half, I became convinced that there was abso- lutely no hope for us, and I slowly became reconciled to my fate. This is a feeling that no one who has never experienced it, can appreciate. Man, it seems, has two distinct minds or sets of feelings. One a conscious sense that gives up when all hope is gone, and gains peace by recon- ciling itself to its fate; the other an unconscious sense, which never gives up. We had con- sciously given ourselves up as lost, yet uncon- sciously and hopelessly plodded on with no end whatever in view. Weak from hunger and with only four dogs left, which were equally as weak and hungry, we left everything behind, extra sleeping bags, our rusty stove, a shovel, and a number of other articles — and made our last desperate stand against fate and the elements. Our strength was so far gone from want of food that we found further progress was impossible without nour- ishment, and in our last extremity we killed one of the dogs. Repulsive as dog meat would be to me now, I can only remember that the tough sinews of 259 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH that famished animal tasted good and we ate the meat like savage animals, not being able to wait until it was properly cooked. The dog meat revived us to a considerable extent, but it was with great effort that we took our places alongside of the three remaining dogs and helped tug the sleds along. We gave the poor famished dogs the bones of their mate with a little of the cooked meat; we realized that to an extent we had to rely upon the dogs if we ever intended to reach anywhere. Soon we became aware of a change in con- ditions and we found that we were going down a long incline. We had at last reached the summit of the glacier; yet for some unaccountable reason this fact did not elate us — no ray of hope shone on our dreary way. We still plodded on hopelessly to our doom which we were sure awaited us. Our meat supply again became low and we were compelled to kill another dog, leaving my dog Kodiak and a large husky. By this time, spring was beginning to come slowly again and we could see the brightness of the returning sun in the sky. It would only appear for a short time and disappear, yet it gave us no hope. Time meant nothing to us now. We never expected to see the sun again 260 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH and its returning brightness only annoyed us. Our course now was always down grade, which made travel comparatively easy, and had not this condition favored us we should have perished. This was simply another of the chain of circumstances — that now seem almost provi- dential — that was to save us. As we toiled on in the dim twilight several days after, our last stand, we noticed far ahead of us a change in the color of the landscape near the horizon — a thin streak of blue. Our first thought was that it was the sea; but when we remembered that Mr. Jenson had told us that we would have to travel one hundred and fifty miles down the Copper River after crossing the glacier, we felt that this could not be so. As we traveled on, the streak of blue undoubtedly became an expanse of water and, although we were still undecided as to what it was, it engendered in us a spark of hope as water always will. Before many hours we came near enough to identify the water before us as the Pacific Ocean, and in spite of the fact that by this time we were almost in a delirious state of mind, we were somewhat bewildered. The next day after a sleepless night we continued toward our gleam of hope and now fully realized that before us was the Pacific Ocean! 261 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Men Eat Last Dog and Some Dead Fish Found On Beach and Lapse Into Unconsciousness. Four Found Alive by the U. S. Revenue Cutter. Taken to Sitka Hospital, Where They Recovered in Two Weeks and Return Home. False News- paper Reports of Success. CHAPTER XX. LTHOUGH we had provided our- selves with the best maps available before starting on our expedition, we always found them very unre- liable, and we were seldom able to identify any of the rivers or glaciers we crossed, except the Malaspina Glacier. After leaving the Indian settlement in the interior we had followed the instructions of Mr. Jenson to the best of our ability, but we must have gone out of our course. My impression is that we bore to the east and instead of crossing an arm of the glacier, as Mr. Jenson had directed, we crossed it lengthwise and followed its course all the way to the sea. This course was probably shorter than the one laid out for us by Jenson, but the hard- 263 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH ships of traveling over the ice were infinitely- greater than traveling down the river. Besides the shorter route over the ice led us nowhere, while the route down the Copper River would have taken us to Orca, an Indian settlement, where also were a number of miners. When we finally reached the break-off of the glacier we found that it ended abruptly in the sea; what little hope the sight of water had given us was again blasted. For at least six hours we toiled, pulling our sleds along the edge of the ice in a northwesterly direction, hoping to come to some place where we could get down to the beach. At last we saw a range of hills ahead which seemed to confine the glacier. After considerable work we managed to get off the glacier on to one of the small hills and make our way down its side to a small strip of the beach, which was partially covered with huge masses of ice, between which there was the open sand. It was only with a superhuman effort that we ever reached the sand, as the ice was so thickly massed near the beach that we could not find a passage and we had to pack very carefully over them. The tides rise very high at that point. From the edge of the solid ice on the shore, to the edge of the water at low tide, was two hundred feet or more in places. 264 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Our condition, both physical and mental at this time, cannot well be described. As I look back now, this portion of my life seems clouded in an almost impenetrable maze. I had no definite idea of the passing of time. The time we made our last desperate stand until we reached the sea was just as long as it required seven half starved men to eat two famished dogs. There is no doubt that at this time we were all completely demented. It was instinct, not reason, that kept us alive. After reaching the beach we made a fire of one of our sleds and killed another dog which was starved most to skin and bone, but very faithful to the last. In making our last stand at the summit of the glacier, we, in desperation, left behind everything we absolutely did not need; we now had no cooking utensils whatever, but managed to cook the dog meat by running a chunk through with one of the metal runners of a sled we burned, holding it over the fire. We also found some dead fish along the beach which we cooked and ate. The fish were frozen hard, but when we held them to the fire and they thawed out, we found that they were putrid and emitted a horrible odor. Still we ate them and thought that they were good. 265 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Gathering a large quantity of driftwood along the beach we made another large fire on a knoll overlooking the sea, which threw up great clouds of black smoke; we hoped it would attract some vessel at sea. For days we looked imploringly out over that cold, blue, ice-spotted sea and felt that to further resist the inevitable was useless. The sea had no sympathy; the thought that we lived through all our struggles and then to have reached the ocean only to die, caused our very souls to cry out. We searched for miles along the beach and found a few more rotten fish, which kept us alive a few days more, and then at last my faithful dog Kodiak had to be killed. Never have I experienced so terrible a moment as when the rest of the men led that companion of my sufferings and tribulations away to be killed. He gave me one last appealing glance, from those bottomless eyes, that struck me like a death- thrust. Even in my exhausted physical condition I could not bear to see the dog killed, and I went off alone along that cold and barren shore to comfort myself as best I could. The dog had been more to me than any of the men, and as he had seen the other dogs killed for food, I still 266 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH think that he knew his life was to be sacrificed to save us and he died willingly! At first I thought that I could not eat the meat of that faithful animal, but with the return of an intense hunger, animal instincts predom- inated and I ate the flesh of a true friend, who had given up his life that I might live a little longer. To us there seemed to be no hope, yet we held on as long as there was a spark of life left. We felt little or no physical sufferings now. We had nothing left but our sleeping bags, which were almost worn out and the spring snow storms covered us with soft down when we slept. I sank down on the beach and the rest is a blank to me, and as I look back I feel that I have indeed experienced a horrible death. My first impressions of a returning conscious- ness gave me a hazy idea that somebody or something was moving about. For a long time I was unable to figure out who I was or where I was or whether there ever had been such a person as I. Then gradually I became aware that I was in a white bed and a woman — a nurse — was moving about in the room. My poor jumbled mind was unable at the time to comprehend any more and I fell into a sleep. Awakening refreshed I recovered quickly and the nurse, a pretty 269 MAD EUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH English girl, explained to me where I was and how I came to be there. All this happened on April 18, 1899, in the Sitka Hospital, which had formerly been a part of the Greek Church. The details of our rescue areas follows: It appears that the United States revenue cutter, Wolcott, in command of Captain Adams, had been cruising along the coast for the protection of the seal industry and the sailors had been attracted by the smoke from our fires, on which we had placed every particle of driftwood we could find for miles along the shore, and even the skins of the dogs. Sending a boat ashore, they found only four of us alive; the other three men were lying dead in their sleeping bags. We were quickly taken aboard and given medical attention and the Wolcott immediately pro- ceeded to Sitka, where we were placed in the hospital. We had been in the hospital for a week before I regained consciousness. We recovered rapidly and within another week the four of us, who were found alive, Pitman, Wilson, Murtha and myself, were able to take a little walk around Sitka, which was, at that time the capital of Alaska. It was only a few days more when we took the steamer Discovery for Seattle. While at Sitka and later on the boat, 270 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH we heard much about a strange war that we did not understand. It was not until we reached Seattle that we learned that the Spanish- American war had been waged to a successful conclusion while we were in the wilds of Alaska. It all seemed so unreal that I have trouble yet in thinking of the Spanish-American War as a real contest. Our first action after arriving at Seattle was to telegraph to our wives and parents. My wife, who had mourned me as dead for two long years, thought that someone was playing a cruel hoax upon her when the telegram was delivered. Seattle seemed to be an entirely different city from what it was when we left it two years before. The place was a comparatively quite business-like town, lacking all the horrible scenes that made it hideous before. The traffic and the noises dimmed our ears and it seemed that we would never get used to it after the long silence in Alaska. Two days after our arrival I was surprised to pick up the Seattle Times and read an article to the effect that our party had arrived with $500,000 worth of gold dust and nuggets. Then the light began to dawn upon me and I began to realize why these wild stories were printed. To 271 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH boom business! Yes, to make business for Seattle and the transportation companies! Even so. But I cannot forget nor forgive. The heartlessness of it, the awful consequences in human wretchedness, suffering and misery! The officers of the Wolcott gave us the money that had been taken from the dead bodies of our unfortunate comrades, and we bought some cheap clothes and shoes and started for home over the Northern Pacific Railroad. Although we were anxious to get home, we felt a peculiar dread of meeting our folks. As I stepped from the ferry into New York City the noise again bewildered me and it was with difficulty that I made my way to my home. My hair and beard were still very long and as I walked along people stopped and laughed at me. Although my wife had received my telegram, she failed to recognize me. It was not until my little six year old son stretched out his arms and ran to me that my wife finally managed to realize who I was. To her my return at first seemed uncanny for she felt that I was returning from the dead. 272 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH Other Parties Who Started with Us Fared Badly. Letters Arrive from Alaska. Blakely Went to Pieces on Return Trip. Washington Scientists Claim to Have Discovered the Glacier We Crossed Two Years Before. The Two Native Guides Perish. CHAPTER XXL EFORE bringing this narrative to a B close, there are several incidents growing out of my experience that must be explained. When I arrived in New York City, I found that my wife had never received any of the letters which I left with the mis- sionary, Mr. Johnson, at Yakutat, to be mailed to her. However, four months after my return they arrived postmarked Yak- utat, Sitka, Fort Wrangell and Juneau, Alaska. They had evidently been given by the mission- ary to a trading vessel going north and had been carried up in the Arctic and left somewhere at a station. At least this is the only possible way that I can explain it. The Blakely, the old tub that we sailed to Alaska in from Seattle, after discharging her 275 MAD BUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH cargo at Yakutat, loaded her hold with many tons of sand for ballast for her return trip. She was wrecked at the mouth of Cross Sound and from what I later learned, all on board were lost except the first mate, Mr. Jung. As for the other parties who took passage with us on the Blakely, all fared equally as badly as our own party and none of them got any gold, as far as I know. After suffering untold hardships and losing eighteen men, the Dennison, Texas, party and the St. Paul party finally reached Dawson City, where two of the Texas party had to have their feet amputated, due to being frozen. The Manchester party, two of whom I had often corresponded with for years, suffered as much as we through scurvy, typhoid and starvation; they lost nine men, two of whom were drowned in the Yukon River when their boat upset. They came out of Alaska by way of the Yukon River to St. Michaels. Three of the men who were rescued with me are still alive, but they have always been broken in health. Mr. Pitman became blind as a direct result of his sufferings from snow blind- ness in Alaska and at present keeps a newstand on Fourteenth Street, New York City. Mr. Wilson, who like myself, was left near-sighted, 276 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH is in business in Long Island City. Mr. Murtha, who also became blind, is spending his remaining days in Southern California. He never recovered from his Alaskan experience and is, and in fact always has been, in poor health. As for myself, from the first three months after arriving home I have never felt better in my life, due in part, I think, to the systematic training I have always taken and the healthful work I have been engaged in ever since my return, as physical director of the Young Men's Christian Asso- ciations and playground director of a Los Angeles, Cal., playground. 277 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH SCIENTISTS FIND ALASKAN GLACIERS Many Discoveries and Good Sport Re- ported by Members of Mr. E. H. Harriman's Party. 1900 Tacoma, Wash., Thursday. — Two Washington State members of Mr. E. H. Harriman's party of scientists, now exploring Alaska's coast, have returned, having left the steamer Elder at Kodiak. They give accounts of the Elder's cruise, which indicate that Mr. Harriman and the scientists will return laden with many laurels. They seem to have developed a mania for glaciers, having visited and explored more than thirty, some of which were unknown except to natives. In one bay, not shown on the maps or charts, they discovered an immense glacier, not as large as the giant Muir, but much more grand and picturesque. This bay extends inland more than twenty miles, and at a point near the glacier a sounding line of forty fathoms did not touch bottom. This inlet they named Unknown Bay. It was here that the Elder, manoeuvring among the cakes of ice from the glacier, broke a propeller blade, making it necessary to return to Orca, where repairs were made. At the head of Disenchantment Bay they found four glaciers which had never been seen before by white men. In Icy Bay, twenty miles across, opposite Carroll's Glacier, the party discovered a new glacier with a front of three-fourths of a mile. This was named Harriman's Glacier. The above appeared in a New York City paper a year after our return. 278 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH One year after my return from Alaska, I was greatly surprised and provoked one morning to read in a New York newspaper that a party of scientists from Washington, members of the E. H. Harriman party, were reported to have discovered four large glaciers in Disenchantment Bay, which had not been seen before by white man, and then giving them names after members of their party and friends. The fact is that somewhere, in the third glacier over which the Manchester and our party had traveled, lie the bodies of several of our party and their dogs and loaded sleds which went down those treach- erous crevasses. The Texas and St. Paul parties made their way to Dawson after first crossing the fourth glacier where they also lost four men in crevasses under practically the same conditions that we did. I even doubt that we were the first white men to have seen them. As Duke Abbruzzi, when he attempted to scale Mount St. Elias in 1896, sailed in Disenchantment Bay must have seen them, so also did Lieut. Russel, U. S. A., who was on the same mission as Abbruzzi. But one thing is absolutely certain, we were the first white men to have ever crossed the Malaspina Glacier to the interior, according to the natives at Yakutat. 279 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH I do not mention the above to contradict the report of the Harriman party, or to lessen the value of their statement, as no doubt they were sincere in the statement they made, but if they had stopped at Yakutat with their steamer Elder, they would have learned the truth from the natives and missionary there. It will be remembered that two of the Yakutat natives named Koomanah and Koodleuk acted as our guides across the glacier and then went on with the Manchester party; they never returned, having perished as the party reached the Yukon, near Dawson. In conclusion, I wish to state that as I grew well from the effects of my experience, I felt that I owed to the world something, so I entered the work of physical director, where I could be instrumental in the building up of a better and stronger race of boys and young men, to better enable them to meet the demands of their future life. And the playgrounds have no better calling with that purpose in view. END 280 MAD RUSH FOR GOLD IN FROZEN NORTH THE PAST Thou unrelenting Past! Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain, And fetters, sure and fast, Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign. Far in thy realm withdrawn, Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom, And glorious ages gone Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb. Childhood, with all its mirth, Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground, And last, Man's Life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound. Thou hast my better years; Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind, Yielded to thee with tears — The venerable form, the exalted mind. My spirit yearns to bring The lost ones back — yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence. In vain; thy gates deny All passage save to those who hence depart; Nor to the streaming eye Thou giv'st them back — nor to the broken heart. 281 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. >vr 193 'MOV 2 4 1984 « JUL 24 1937 ieNov'59gF REC'D LD NOV 41959 ntf^* "C*D i-D I PNl RETURNED TO JAN S LOAM AHC LD 21-100m-7,'33 to circ MARi6^ DEC 6 1999 GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY BD007QL|3b7 s~ 851110 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY