Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled | Page 4

differ from one another in almost every respect that no general
statements about Alaska can be true. The present author's knowledge of
the territory is confined in the main to the interior--to the valley of the
Yukon and its tributary rivers, which make up one of the world's great
waterways--and nothing of his writing applies, with his authority, 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