Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled | Page 5

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 breed 389
"Muk," a pure malamute 389

Map of the interior of Alaska showing journeys described in this book
At end of volume

TEN THOUSAND MILES WITH A DOG SLED

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Three fundamental facts are to be borne constantly in mind by those
who would form any intelligent conception of the Territory of Alaska.
(1) Its area of approximately 590,000 square miles makes it two and a
half times as large as the State of Texas.
(2) But it is not, like Texas, one homogeneous body of land; it is not, in
any geographical sense, one country at all. "Sweeping in a great arc
over sixteen degrees of latitude and fifty-eight degrees of longitude," it
is no less than four, and some might say five, different countries,
differing from one another in almost every way that one country can
differ from another: in climate, in population, in resources, in
requirements; and--
(3) These different countries are not merely different from one another,
they are separated from one another by formidable natural barriers.

TEN THOUSAND MILES WITH A DOG SLED
CHAPTER I
FAIRBANKS TO THE CHANDALAR THROUGH CIRCLE CITY
AND FORT YUKON
THE plan for the winter journey of 1905-6 (my second winter on the
trail) was an ambitious one, for it contemplated a visit to Point Hope,
on the shore of the Arctic Ocean between Kotzebue Sound and Point

Barrow, and a return to Fairbanks. In the summer such a journey would
be practicable only by water: down the Tanana to the Yukon, down the
Yukon to its mouth, and then through the straits of Bering and along
the Arctic coast; in the winter it is possible to make the journey across
country. A desire to visit our most northerly and most inaccessible
mission in Alaska and a desire to become acquainted with general
conditions in the wide country north of the Yukon were equal factors in
the planning of a journey which would carry me through three and a
half degrees of latitude and no less than eighteen degrees of longitude.
The course of winter travel in Alaska follows the frozen waterways so
far as they lead in the general direction desired, leaves them to cross
mountain ranges and divides at the most favourable points, and drops
down into the streams again so soon as streams are available. The
country is notably well watered and the waterways are the natural
highways. The more frequented routes gradually cut out the serpentine
bends of the rivers by land trails, but in the wilder parts of the country
travel sticks to the ice.
Our course, therefore, lay up the Chatanika River and one of its
tributaries until the Tanana-Yukon watershed was reached; then
through the mountains, crossing two steep summits to the Yukon slope,
and down that slope by convenient streams to the Yukon River at
Circle City.
[Sidenote: THE GOLD TRAIN]
We set out on the 27th of November with six dogs and a "basket" sled
and about five hundred pounds' weight of load, including tent and stove,
bedding, clothes for the winter, grub box and its equipment, and dog
feed. The dogs were those that I had used the previous winter, with one
exception. The leader had come home lame from the fish camp where
he had been boarded during the summer, and, despite all attentions, the
lameness had persisted; so he must be left behind, and there was much
difficulty in securing another leader. A recent stampede to a new
mining district had advanced the price of dogs and gathered up all the
good ones, so it was necessary to hunt all over Fairbanks and pay a
hundred dollars for a dog that proved very indifferent, after all.

"Jimmy" was a handsome beast, the handsomest I ever owned and the
costliest, but, as I learned later from one who knew his history, had
"travelled on his looks all his life." He earned the name of "Jimmy the
Fake."
Midway to Cleary "City," on the chief gold-producing creek of the
district, our first day's run, we encountered the gold train. For some