William B. Stephenson

“ The winter had been very severe and I have frequently wondered whether the sight of the Bay which for so long had been solid ice and had then so quickly melted into beautiful, sparkling, moving water,—just as a lovely woman sometimes gives way suddenly to tears,—had not been the strongest element in his sudden mental undoing.
Civilization follows the flag wherever it goes. Army men are splendid the world over, a fact formerly realized by the few but which is now being driven home to the many by the great war. ”

“ I am one of those who hope that with the end of the great World War a new spirit of tolerance may spread its white wings over all the world and that sooner or later some of the time-worn social rules and regulations, archaic because designed for a civilization two thousand years ago, may be abrogated or at least amended and modified. May the day come when life shall be individual, when creed and dogma shall be buried in a grave so deep that there shall be no possibility of a Resurrection! ”

“ There is always the great, white, silent expanse which one grows to love also. For I find the feeling to be general among those who [86] live in the Northland that it is not in her milder moods that Alaska calls to us loudest. One is most deeply conscious of hidden and gigantic forces,—untrodden heights, to which one can never attain, even in spirit! There may be those who hold that the tundra is desolate, dreary. ”

“ NORTHERN LIGHTS ALASKA is a land of such wild beauty, so full of interest and charm, that it seems a pity that so mistaken an idea persists in regard to her climate. Yet that it does persist is scarcely to be wondered at. It is the knowledge we acquire in childhood which usually abides with us longest. So the preconceived idea which we absorbed in our youth from both our histories and our geographies is hard to eradicate. "Our country purchased this cold and barren land from Russia," we were taught, and "Alaska is noted for her ice-covered seas and her glaciers." ”

“ Nowhere else in all the world are there such wondrous tints as in Alaska. To appreciate the beauty of the land, however, one needs must be an early riser. To have seen the marvelous change which comes over the pure whiteness of the snow-crowned crests between the darkness and the dawn! ”

“ But I hereby testify that of all the hideously unattractive and ugly creatures known to the human race the full-blooded, middle-aged Eskimo woman carries off the palm. As it was in the beginning, before God said "Let there be light"—she is without form and void! She ages rapidly. She dresses as do the men, in the parka, a long, loose garment reaching to the knee, made of muskrat and reindeer skin in winter and of drill in summer, fur-seal boots and breeches. As the men are nearly always smooth-faced it is often difficult to tell them apart. ”

“ What man is courageous enough to take upon himself the responsibility of saying that it shall not be given him? He may never have tasted it before in his life. It was just so with these Alaskan pioneers,—were they not soldiers, too, the advance guard, as it were, of a new civilization? They entered into a bleak and practically unknown land where Nature frowned savagely upon them on every hand. The half-starved, half-frozen, not-sufficiently-clad follower of the trail had to keep life in him some way while he made those first long, hard journeys through a practically unpeopled land. ”

“ It is this part of Alaska that is Nature's gigantic workshop with a job in it for any man who asks! Here new cities are yet to be born, new business enterprises to be established, new farms to be tilled. Here any man who chooses may have that most prized of all possessions,—a home of his own! ”

“ While you may not buy coal land in Alaska you may lease it—for not more than fifty years. For each ton mined you pay a royalty to the government. You may then ship your coal in a government coal-car! One can see how easy it will be for a lessee to make money in coal in Alaska. All he has to do is to dig! No speculating in coal lands! No shifting and juggling of stocks and bonds of coal-carrying railroads! So far as the coal fields and mining in Alaska are concerned neither money, politics nor influence will avail to change the situation one jot or one tittle! ”

“ It is the last great fertile and temperate land on which western civilization may take a fresh start. The democracy which now exists in Alaska is of the very best brand. It is that of a country which, critical of her own mistakes, is capable of showing the world what she has learned from experience. The distilled experience of America and of the whole world is hers to draw upon. There is no excuse for a repetition of any of the blunders the motherland may have made during the days of her youth and her inexperience.
That the government realizes all this is evident. ”

“ Not to the dogs alone, however, much as we love them, is due the credit for the success of the Alaskan Derby. Too much can not be said for the trainers and drivers. All of them were men deeply versed in dog lore. They had made a study of many years' duration and were imbued with theories as to the training and conditioning of dogs,—theories as varied as were the breeds of the dogs themselves. These men were knights of the trail, inured to hardship, fleet and sure of foot, gifted both with physical endurance and courage to which no words can do justice. ”

“ Who that has seen these diminutive people venture forth into a treacherous and perilous sea with naught between them and death but this tiny home-made boat to do battle with the huge monsters of the ice-encumbered deep—the whale, the walrus and the seal—can question their courage? Not I! The Eskimo has made no effort to conquer his environment. ”

“ We are not shut away from the beautiful because we live within sight of the Arctic Circle! Garden parties here rival those I have attended in the States, and I find that human nature is the same the world over! There is no nook or corner of God's earth where one, if he seeks, will not find exquisite beauty lavished impartially and unstintedly by Mother Nature, and warm and kindly hearts as well!
The birds of Alaska are many and beautiful. In fact, in one section or another of the country most of the birds common to the north temperate zone are to be found. ”

“ From time immemorial among some of the tribes of the North the unchaste Eskimo woman has been forced to wear a sign of her degradation,—a green band in her hair. However, unlike Hester Prynne, she is given another chance, albeit an unfair one. If she gives birth to an able-bodied boy she becomes an object of unusual and sincere respect and her green band becomes, as it were, a crown.
Humanity itself, in the Far North, sometimes becomes quite as cold and frozen as the land itself. But there is one thing which never fails to thaw it,—children. ”

“ From Vancouver to Skagway, up the Inside Channel, is a wonderful journey of a thousand miles, and as the boats pull away from shore one sees lying to right of him the mainland of British Columbia and to the left the island which bears the name of that intrepid explorer who navigated the then unknown waters of the North Pacific and charted them. Those who now journey northward will never realize their debt to Captain Vancouver. To the land-lubber the journey up the Channel seems fraught with a thousand dangers. ”

“ Over the frozen wastes they cheerfully pull both driver and load for thousands of miles and come up smiling when the end of the long journey is reached. Into their masters' deepest affections they unconsciously walk and "stay put." They become his most sympathetic companions, comrades and friends. And the news which from time to time reaches us from "over there" where our canine heroes are doing their "bit" in a manner little short of miraculous goes straight to our hearts. Yes. The dog has come into his own. And all Alaska rejoices that it is so. ”

“ Nothing in the history of all Nature is more wonderful (or more tragic) than the story of the salmon. So wonderful is it that it is almost beyond the power of the human brain to comprehend it. Until the advent of the motion picture—one of the greatest educators of our day and generation—few knew that the salmon returns to the very spot where it was spawned to die. ”

“ In the far-distant corners, hidden away from the eyes of man, one will come upon the scattered missions of the various churches to reach which one must journey thousands of miles! So, whenever a man from Nome speaks of Alaska he means that part of it which he himself knows,—the Seward Peninsula. The man from Cordova, [39] or Valdez, talks of the Prince William Sound country and calls it Alaska! The man from Juneau speaks of Alaska, but all that he means is the southeastern coast. This is why so much that is written of the country is contradictory. In fact, Alaska is not one but many countries! ”

“ Out of our hands Dutch Harbor would be just as effective a barrier against us as Gibraltar now is against Spain! In time of war a naval enemy would have a good chance of beating us to Dutch Harbor and accomplishing what we, with a lack of foresight have failed to do,—bar the way to Alaska to us forever after.
Why the seriousness of this has not been realized by the government is inexplainable. Alaska is our most valuable possession. It is not mere womanish fear which forces us to recognize that we are in danger of losing her. ”

“ At that time sailing to Alaska was unlike voyaging to any other part of the world. Man knew not whither he was going or whether he would return. The air of mystery which broods ever over all the northland seems to cast a spell upon the traveler from the moment of starting. ”

“ Now that the great World War is at an end thousands of soldiers are coming home again—to begin life over! They will be seeking a new environment. Travel, especially by water, even though (as is the case with those lately in the service) it be under difficulties and not always of one's own choosing, never fails to breed wanderlust in man. It awakens something within him which urges him to go adventuring, to seek [x] the far spaces of the world, no matter how much his heart may cry out to him to stay at home. In Alaska there is room for all who know how to fight! ”

“ GREAT OPPORTUNITIES IF the idea that Alaska is the "land of ice and snow" is gradually disappearing another idea just as erroneous seems likely to take its place. This is that Alaska is the "land of gold." While it is true that along her streams and in the heart of her mountains lie minerals of the value of which no man can speak truly, the gold mines of Alaska are by no means her greatest asset. ”

“ It is the absolute and unvarnished truth that the climate of the interior of Alaska is fully as comfortable in winter as that of the northern part of the United States,—much more comfortable than in those states and cities where one is subjected to fogs and dampness in addition to low temperature. I have been colder and far more uncomfortable in both Boston and Chicago than I ever was in Alaska. In the interior there is practically no wind, no dampness. ”

“ But laying aside all sentiment in regard to his dogs, a man would indeed be helpless in the north country without them. Into far and almost inaccessible regions which no other beast could penetrate and where neither man nor vehicle could enter unaided, the dogs run nimbly, pulling a sled behind them. Many and dramatic (and true!) are the stories of the arrival of a dog team in the nick of time with food and supplies for a distant, snowed-in camp the members of which would have starved but for their coming. ”

“ Only once has it been in it before,—the time when as a fingerling of two or three inches it made its first swift journey out to sea! What man, even if he had all manner of landmarks to guide him, would undertake to return to the spot he left in childhood if in order to do so he had to leave the broad ocean and follow twenty-five hundred miles of water which is first river, then tributary, then creek, then brook and finally a lake? It is not worth while to try to reduce the thing to intelligible terms. ”

“ To Wrangell the traders still bring the trophies of the chase, making their journey down the rapidly-flowing Stikine river from the wonderful Cassiar hunting grounds, famed for their big game. To these grounds every year flock hunters from all parts of the world to shoot the mountain sheep, the moose, the bear and the caribou. In Wrangell, also, one may see the best of what remains of the magnificent totem poles of Alaska. ”

“ Yet if you ask one who has loved and left her, one who has lived among her mountains, experiencing alike the bitter winter and the wondrous Alaskan summer, every day of which is perfect beyond the power of words to describe, even though he may deny the call it is not difficult to detect the hidden longing underlying his reply. For it is a fact not to be gainsaid that after such an experience, no matter how much a man may have looked forward to a life of ease after his return, he seldom finds it satisfying. ”

“ When almost in the twinkling of an eye the desolate coast of Bering Sea became a veritable highway of nations, when all the available shipping facilities of the Pacific coast were soon exhausted, when ships from the Atlantic began coming around the Horn, when every part of the Pacific began to hum with Alaskan business,—the tide of traffic found it necessary to separate. One part of it sailed through the Inside Passage to Skagway. The other took the Outside Passage and entered through St. Michael. It is not a very convenient port, it is true, but it is the best there is. ”