Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled | Page 4

to other parts.
The matter of the preservation of the native peoples still presses, and is nearer to the author's heart than any other matter whatever. The United States Congress, which voted thirty-five millions of dollars for the government railroad, strikes out year by year the modest additional score or two of thousands that year by year the Bureau of Education asks for the establishment of hospital work amongst the Indians of the interior, and the preventable mortality continues to be very great.
In the last two years, largely as the result of the untiring efforts of Bishop Rowe on behalf of the natives, two modern, well-equipped hospitals have been built, with money that he and his clergy have gathered, on the Yukon River, one at Fort Yukon and one at Tanana; and these are the only places of any kind, on nearly a thousand miles of the river, where sick or injured Indians may be received and cared for.
Amongst men of thought and feeling there is noticeable revulsion from the supercilious attitude that used not to be uncommon toward the little peoples of the world. It begins to be recognised that it is quite possible that even the smallest of the little peoples may have some contribution to make to the welfare and progress of the human race. What is the Boy Scout movement that is sweeping the country, to the enormous benefit of the rising generation, but the incorporating into the nurture of our youth of the things that were the nurture of the Indian youth; that are a large part of the nurture of the Alaskan Indian youth to-day? And the camp-fire clubs and woodcraft associations and the whole trend to the life of the open recognise that the Indian had developed a technique of wilderness life deserving of preservation for its value to the white man. While as for the Esquimaux, the author never sees the extraordinary prevalence amongst them of the art of graphic delineation displayed in bold etchings of incidents of the chase upon their implements and weapons (though not upon the articles made by the dozen for the curio-venders at Nome and Saint Michael) without dreaming that some day an artist will come from out that singular and most interesting people who shall teach the world something new about art.
Whatever the future may hold for the interior of Alaska, the author is convinced that its population will derive very largely from the present native stocks, and this alone would justify any efforts to prevent further inroads upon their health and vitality.
April, 1916.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE vii
I. FAIRBANKS TO THE CHANDALAR THROUGH CIRCLE CITY AND FORT YUKON 3
II. CHANDALAR VILLAGE TO BETTLES, COLDFOOT, AND THE KOYUKUK 34
III. BETTLES TO THE PACIFIC--THE ALATNA, KOBUK PORTAGE, KOBUK VILLAGE, KOTZEBUE SOUND 63
IV. THE SEWARD PENINSULA--CANDLE CREEK, COUNCIL, AND NOME 102
V. NOME TO FAIRBANKS--NORTON SOUND--THE KALTAG PORTAGE--NULATO--UP THE YUKON TO TANANA 125
VI. THE "FIRST ICE"--AN AUTUMN ADVENTURE ON THE KOYUKUK 157
VII. THE KOYUKUK TO THE YUKON AND TO TANANA--CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS AT SAINT JOHN'S-IN-THE-WILDERNESS 188
VIII. UP THE YUKON TO RAMPART AND ACROSS COUNTRY TO THE TANANA--ALASKAN AGRICULTURE--THE GOOD DOG NANOOK--MISS FARTHING'S BOYS AT NENANA--CHENA AND FAIRBANKS 219
IX. TANANA CROSSING TO FORTYMILE AND DOWN THE YUKON--A PATRIARCHAL CHIEF--SWARMING CARIBOU--EAGLE AND FORT EGBERT--CIRCLE CITY AND FORT YUKON 251
X. FROM THE TANANA RIVER TO THE KUSKOKWIM--THENCE TO THE IDITAROD MINING CAMP--THENCE TO THE YUKON, AND UP THAT RIVER TO FORT YUKON 294
XI. THE NATIVES OF ALASKA 348
XII. PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE ARCTIC 371
XIII. THE NORTHERN LIGHTS 380
XIV. THE ALASKAN DOGS 392
INDEX 413

ILLUSTRATIONS
Hudson Stuck (photogravure) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Sunrise on the Chandalar-Koyukuk portage 36
Coldfoot on the Koyukuk 37
The upper Koyukuk 50
The barren shores of Kotzebue Sound 51
Gold-mining at Nome 122
Pulling the Pelican out with a "Spanish windlass" 123
The start over the "first ice" 164
"Rough going" 165
Arthur and Doctor Burke 178
Saint John's-in-the-Wilderness, Allakaket, Koyukuk River 179
The double interpretation at the Allakaket 186
The wind-swept Yukon within the ramparts 187
A pleasant woodland trail 256
An Alaskan chief and his henchman 257
The Tanana crossing 270
Good going on the Yukon 271
"A portage that comes so finely down to the Yukon that there is pleasure in anticipating the view it affords" 290
Fort Yukon 291
The rough breaking in of Doctor Loomis, camped on the mail trail at 50�� below zero, unable to reach a road-house for the deep snow 296
Esquimaux of the upper Kuskokwim 297
"The 'summit' is high above timber-line and the trail pursues a hogback ridge for a mile and a half at the summit level" 324
A street in Iditarod City 325
The end of the portage trail 334
Rough ice on the Yukon 335
A docile folk, eager for instruction 350
The mission type 351
Wild and shy 351
The native communicant 360
Raw material 360
An Esquimau youth 361
A half-breed Indian 361
An aged couple 366
Football at the Allakaket, exposure 1-1000 second, April, after a new light snowfall 367
The sun dogs 388
"Tan," of mixed