Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska

Hudson Stuck

Description

THIS volume deals with a series of journeys taken with a dog team over the winter trails in the interior of Alaska. The title might have claimed fourteen or fifteen thousand miles instead of ten, for the book was projected and the title adopted some years ago, and the journeys have continued. But ten thousand is a good round titular number, and is none the worse for being well within the mark.

Sujets

• Polar region

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819902706
• Langue: English

Extrait

PREFACE
T HIS volume dealswith a series of journeys taken with a dog team over the wintertrails in the interior of Alaska. The title might have claimedfourteen or fifteen thousand miles instead of ten, for the book wasprojected and the title adopted some years ago, and the journeyshave continued. But ten thousand is a good round titular number,and is none the worse for being well within the mark.
So far as mere distance is concerned, anyway, thereis nothing noteworthy in this record. There are many men in Alaskawho have done much more. A mail-carrier on one of the longer dogroutes will cover four thousand miles in a winter, while thewriter's average is less than two thousand. But his sled has gonefar off the beaten track, across the arctic wilderness, into manyremote corners; wherever, indeed, white men or natives were to befound in all the great interior.
These journeys were connected primarily with theadministration of the extensive work of the Episcopal Church in theinterior of Alaska, under the bishop of the diocese; but thatfeature of them has been fully set forth from time to time in thechurch publications, and finds only incidental reference here.
It is a great, wild country, little known save alongaccustomed routes of travel; a country with a beauty and afascination all its own; mere arctic wilderness, indeed, and ninetenths of it probably destined always to remain such, yet full ofinterest and charm.
Common opinion "outside" about Alaska seems to beveering from the view that it is a land of perpetual snow and iceto the other extreme of holding it to be a "world's treasure-house"of mineral wealth and agricultural possibility. The world'streasure is deposited in many houses, and Alaska has its share; itsmineral wealth is very great, and "hidden doors of opulence" mayopen at any time, but its agricultural possibilities, in theordinary sense in which the phrase is used, are confined to verysmall areas in proportion to the enormous whole, and in verylimited degree.
It is no new thing for those who would buildrailways to write in high-flown style about the regions they wouldpenetrate, and, indeed, to speak of "millions of acres waiting forthe plough" is not necessarily a misrepresentation; they arewaiting. Nor is it altogether unnatural that professionalagricultural experimenters at the stations established by thegovernment should make the most of their experiments. When DeanStanley spoke disdainfully of dogma, Lord Beaconsfield replied;"Ah! but you must always remember, no dogmas, no deans."
Besides the physical attractions of this country, ithas a gentle aboriginal population that arouses in many ways therespect and the sympathy of all kindly people; and it has some ofthe hardiest and most adventurous white men in the world. Thereader will come into contact with both in these pages.
So much for the book's scope; a word of itslimitations. It is confined to the interior of Alaska; confined inthe main to the great valley of the Yukon and its tributaries;being a record of sled journeys, it is confined to the winter.
There is no man living who knows the whole of Alaskaor who has any right to speak about the whole of Alaska. BishopRowe knows more about Alaska, in all probability, than any otherliving man, and there are large areas of the country in which hehas never set foot. There is probably no man living, save BishopRowe, who has visited even the localities of all the missions ofthe Episcopal Church in Alaska. If one were to travel continuouslyfor a whole year, using the most expeditious means at his command,and not wasting a day anywhere, it is doubtful whether, summer andwinter, by sea and land, squeezing the last mile out of theseasons, travelling on the "last ice" and the "first water," hecould even touch at all the mission stations. So, when a man fromNome speaks of Alaska he means his part of Alaska, the SewardPeninsula. When a man from Valdez or Cordova speaks of Alaska hemeans the Prince William Sound country. When a man from Juneauspeaks of Alaska he means the southeastern coast. Alaska is not onecountry but many, with different climates, different resources,different problems, different populations, different interests; andwhat is true of one part of it is often grotesquely untrue of otherparts. This is the reason why so many contradictory things havebeen written about the country. Not only do these various parts ofAlaska differ radically from one another, but they are separatedfrom one another by almost insuperable natural obstacles, so thatthey are in reality different countries.
When Alaska is spoken of in this book the interioris meant, in which the writer has travelled almost continuously forthe past eight years. The Seward Peninsula is the only other partof the country that the book touches. And as regards summer traveland the summer aspect of the country, there is material for anotherbook should the reception of this one warrant its preparation. * ** * *
The problems of the civil government of the countrywill be found touched upon somewhat freely as they rise from timeto time in the course of these journeys, and some faint hope isentertained that drawing attention to evils may hasten aremedy.
Alaska is not now, and never has been, a lawlesscountry in the old, Wild Western sense of unpunished homicides andcrimes of violence. It has been, on the whole, singularly free frombloodshed – a record due in no small part to the fact that it isnot the custom of the country to carry pistols, for which againthere is climatic and geographic reason; due also in part to thevery peaceable and even timid character of its native people.
But as regards the stringent laws enacted byCongress for the protection of these native people, and especiallyin the essential particular of protecting them from the fataleffects of intoxicating liquor, the country is not law-abiding, forthese laws are virtually a dead letter.
Justices of the peace who must live wholly upon feesin regions where fees will not furnish a living, and United Statesdeputy marshals appointed for political reasons, constitute a veryfeeble staff against law-breakers. When it is remembered that onthe whole fifteen hundred miles of the American Yukon there are butsix of these deputy marshals, and that these six men, with anotherfive or six on the tributary rivers, form all the police of thecountry, it will be seen that Congress must do something more thanpass stringent laws if those laws are to be of any effect.
A body of stipendiary magistrates, a police forcewholly removed from politics and modelled somewhat upon theCanadian Northwest Mounted Police – these are two of the greatneeds of the country if the liquor laws are to be enforced and thenative people are to survive.
That the danger of the extermination of the nativesis a real one all vital statistics kept at Yukon River points inthe last five years show, and that there are powerful influences inthe country opposed to the execution of the liquor laws some recenttrials at Fairbanks would leave no room for doubt if there had beenany room before. Indeed, at this writing, when the pages of thisbook are closed and there remains no place save the preface wherethe matter can be referred to, an impudent attempt is on foot, withlarge commercial backing, to secure the removal of a zealous andfearless United States district attorney, who has been too activein prosecuting liquor-peddlers to suit the wholesale dealers inliquor.
There are, of course, those who view with perfectequanimity the destruction of the natives that is now going on, andlook forward with complacency to the time when the Alaskan Indianshall have ceased to exist. But to men of thought and feeling suchcynicism is abhorrent, and the duty of the government towards itssimple and kindly wards is clear.
A measure of real protection must be given thenative communities against the low-down whites who seek to intrudeinto them and build habitations for convenient resort uponoccasions of drunkenness and debauchery, and some adequatemachinery set up for suppressing the contemptible traffic inadulterated spirits they subsist largely upon. The licensedliquor-dealers do not themselves sell to Indians, but theynotoriously sell to men who notoriously peddle to Indians, and thesuppression of this illicit commerce would materially reduce thetotal sales of liquor.
Some measure of protection, one thinks, must also beafforded against a predatory class of Indian traders, the backrooms of whose stores are often barrooms, gambling-dens, and housesof assignation, and headquarters and harbourage for the whitedegenerates – even if the government go the length of setting upco-operative Indian stores in the interior, as has been done insome places on the coast. This last is a matter in which themissions are helpless, for there is no wise combination of religionand trade.
So this book goes forth with a plea in the front ofit, which will find incidental support and expression throughoutit, for the natives of interior Alaska, that they be not wantonlydestroyed off the face of the earth. HUDSON STUCK. NEW YORK, March, 1914.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
I T is gratifyingto know that a second edition of this book has been called for andit is interesting to write another preface; it even provedinteresting to do what was set about most reluctantly – the readingof the book over again after entire avoidance of it for two years.It was necessary to do it, though one shrank from it, and it isinteresting to know that after this comparatively long and completedetachment I find little to add and less to correct. Upon acomplete rereading I am content to let the book stand, with two orthree footnotes thrown in, and the correction of the one printer'serror it contained from cover to cover – an error that a score ofkind correspondents pointed out, for it was conspicuous in thetitle of a picture.
The tendency to which attention is drawn in theoriginal