Fairbanks, Alaska

“ Important "strikes" are made constantly in the Tanana country, in the Sushitna, and in the Koyukuk, where pay is found surpassing the best of the Klondike.
The trail from Valdez to Fairbanks may yet be as thickly strewn with eager-eyed stampeders as were the Dyea and Skagway trails a decade ago. Never again, [Pg 243] however, in any part of Alaska, can the awful conditions of that time prevail. Steamer, rail, and stage transportation have made travelling in the North luxurious, compared to the horrors endured in the old days. ”

“ The women of Alaska did their share in all kinds of war work, for conservation, bond drives, Red Cross and kindred activities. On account of the vast distances and small means of transportation any general cooperation is impossible. There are two daily papers in Fairbanks with a wide circulation over the entire district, which is larger than Texas. ”

“ There is a good wharf and a safe harbor; the bay extends inland eighteen miles, is completely land-locked, and is kept free of ice the entire year, as is the Bay of Valdez and Cook Inlet, by the Japan current.
It is estimated that the Alaska Central Railway will cost, when completed to Fairbanks, at least twenty-five millions of dollars. Several branches will be extended into different and important mining regions.
The road has a general maximum grade of one per cent. The Coast Range is crossed ten miles from Seward, at an elevation of only seven hundred feet. ”

“ It is the headquarters of the Third Judicial District of Alaska, which was formerly at Rampart; it has electric light and water systems, a fire department, excellent and modern hotels, schools, churches, hospitals, daily newspapers, a telegraph line to the outside [Pg 499] world which is operated by the government, and a telephone system which serves not only the city, but all the creeks as well.
The Tanana Mines Railway, or Tanana Valley Railway, as it is now called, was built in 1905 to connect Fairbanks with Chena and the richest mining claims of the district ”

“ The third district, presided over by Judge Reid, whose residence is at Fairbanks, is five hundred miles wide by nine hundred miles long. It extends from the North Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean, and from the international boundary on the east to the Koyukuk. The chief means of transportation within this district are steamers along the coast and on the Yukon, and over trails by dog teams.
It is small wonder that a man hesitates long before suing for his rights in Alaska. The expense and hardship of even reaching the nearest seat of justice are unimaginable. ”

“ One might suppose that the tribes possessing the fair and fertile valleys of California would be the most advanced in civilization, but such was not the case. Many of them were among the most degraded upon the continent. They seemed unable to adapt themselves to the white man and his ways, and in the older settled districts they have now nearly disappeared. In the newer portions of the Northwest and along the coast toward Alaska the Indians have not yet come into so direct contact with the white men, and remain more nearly in their primitive condition. ”

“ The term “rural Alaska” shall mean those lands sited within the external boundaries of the Alaska Native regions specified in sections 7 (a) (1) – (4) and (7) – (12) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as amended ( 43 U.S.C. 1606 ) , and those lands within the Alaska Native regions specified in sections 7 (a) (5) and 7 (a) (6) of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, as amended ( 43 U.S.C. 1606 ) , which are not within the boundaries of the Municipality of Anchorage, the Fairbanks North Star Borough, the Kenai Peninsula Borough or the Matanuska Susitna Borough. ”

“ Prosecutions are made entirely by missionaries. One Episcopal missionary post is conducted by two young women, one of whom was formerly a society woman of Los Angeles. The post is more than a thousand miles from Fairbanks, the nearest city, and one hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest white settler. It is owing to the reports and the prosecutions of missionaries in all parts of Alaska that the outrages formerly practised upon Eskimo women by licentious white traders are on the decrease.
Federal Commissioner of Education Brown advocates a compulsory school law for Alaska. ”

“ There is an abundance of poplar, spruce, hemlock, and birch; an unlimited water supply; a municipal steam-heating plant; two good hospitals; two daily newspapers; graded schools,—the four-year course of the high school admitting the student to the Washington State University and to high educational institutions of other states; a Chamber of Commerce and a Business Men's Association; twelve hotels, five of which are first class; while every industry is represented several times over.
This is Fairbanks, the six-year-old mining-camp of the Tanana Valley. ”

“ In 1906 the output of gold was more than nine millions of dollars, and had it not been for the labor troubles in 1907, this output would have been doubled. In the earlier days of the camp the crudest methods of mining were employed; but with the improved transportation facilities, modern machinery was brought in and the difficulties of the development were greatly lessened.
Upon a first trip to Fairbanks, the visitor is amazed at the size and the metropolitan style and tone of this six-year-old camp in the wilderness. ”

“ From 1893 to 1895 the United States expended $55,000 to support the natives of the Fur Seal Islands. This policy threatens to become a continued necessity throughout much of Alaska. There is a small government Indian reservation on Afognak Island, near Kodiak. The white population is extremely mobile, and few towns have an assured or definite future. The prosperity of the mining towns of the interior is dependent on the fickle fortune of the gold-fields, for which they are the distributing points. ”

“ For some minutes the mad queen busied herself with the [57] fire, when all at once she turned, and, grasping Fairfax’s arm hurried him into the inner apartment.
“Let the young pale-face recline upon the wild skins,” said Alaska, pointing to a couch, deep with finely tanned skins, and as soft as down. “Let him rest his limbs until Alaska brings him the meat of the deer, and puts good herbs on his wounds.” ”

“ We traversed the Yukon River as far as Fort Gibbon, and from there proceeded up the Tanana River to the mining camp of Fairbanks, which is situated about four hundred miles up-stream from Fort Gibbon.
I arrived in Fairbanks on July 1st, having travelled nearly four thousand miles since leaving San Francisco, and found myself about twenty-five dollars better off than when I started. I stayed in the Fairbanks district until the end of November. The physical features of this country are best described as “eight months iceberg and four months swamp.” ”

“ In this region, when a few years ago there was a partial failure of the salmon, there was distress amongst the Indians. But the country on the whole is almost as good an Indian country as ever it was, and there are few signs that it tends otherwise, though things happen so quickly and changes come with so little warning in Alaska that one does not like to be too confident.
The Indian is the only settled inhabitant of interior Alaska to-day; for the prospectors and miners, who constitute the bulk of the white population, are not often very long in one place. ”

“ It is a quiet town, where law and order prevail. It is built chiefly on level ground, with a few very long streets—running out into the alders, balms, spruces, and cottonwoods, growing thickly over the river's flats.
In all towns in Alaska the stores are open for business on Sunday when a steamer is in. If the door of a curio-store, which has tempting baskets or Chilkaht blankets displayed in the window, be found locked, a dozen small boys shout as one, "Just wait a minute, lady. ”

“ And there, in the northwest, rising so high above the intervening hills that all its pinnacles, all its gorges, and its deep ravines of moving ice were visible, was Fairweather, loftiest, whitest, most delicately moulded peak of all the snowy crests in this north land. From a central spur, topping all its fellows, lesser heights helped form a range which stretched for miles across the country, and on whose massive shoulders lay a mantle of such pure whiteness that the sky above was bluer still by contrast, and the forests grew doubly dark and drear. ”

“ As we emerge from those dreary, low and watery wastes of the delta at Chatinak, the bluffs there, though desolate enough themselves, with their rusty barren slopes, yet they give us cheerful assurance of the fact that all Alaska is not under water, and that the borders of its big river are at last defined on both sides. High rolling hills come down boldly on the left bank as we ascend ”

“ Alaska had a little boy once. But see! dark shadows flit apast Alaska’s door.” Thus suddenly interrupting herself, she drew aside the curtain of skins that served for a door, and beheld a gang of women and children hurrying toward the northern confines of the village.
“Whither go the squaws and young warriors of the Shawnees?” she asked, turning suddenly upon Newaska. “Do they seek the stakes?”
“No,” answered the Shawnee, “they go to the wood to cut boughs for their fires. Did Alaska not notice that each squaw, and even the young Shawnees, bore a knife?” ”

“ Alaska has had no voice. It is true each congressman has been so burdened with the wants of his own State that session after session has closed before the Alaska bills were reached. We have been accustomed to look on Alaska as a bleak and forbidding country, with a floating population of adventurers and lawless men, who go there with the intention to stay only long enough to reap a mineral harvest. If she had other great resources and such citizens as you, why were you not in Washington to exploit her?"
Lucky Banks shook his head. ”

“ The steamer slides through green and echoing reaches; past groups of totems standing like ghosts of the past among the dark spruce or cedar trees; through stone-walled canyons where the waters move dark and still; into open, sunlit seas.
But it is not until one sails on "to Westward" that the spell of Alaska falls upon one; sails out into the wild and splendid North Pacific Ocean. Here are the majesty, the sublimity, that enthrall; here are the noble spaces, the Titanic forces, the untrodden heights, that thrill and inspire.
The marvels here are not the marvels of men. ”

“ Fully one-third of the salmon fisheries of the world are in the Panhandle! One of the largest gold mines in the world (the Treadwell, on Douglas Island) is located here. Great forests of timber (to cut [214] which has been forbidden by the government) cover a large part of the area in question. Here, also, are Juneau, the capital of Alaska; Sitka, the ancient Russian capital; Ketchikan, Wrangell, and many other fishing and trading towns containing more than half the permanent population of the whole of Alaska! ”

“ The urging came from many, and Banks added in his high, tense key; "I guess we can stand it. Most of us saw the iron side of Alaska before we saw the golden."
"Well, then," Tisdale began reluctantly, "I must take you back a year. I was completing trail reconnaissance from the new Alaska Midway surveys in the Susitna Valley, through Rainy Pass, to connect with the mail route from the interior to Nome, and, to avoid returning another season, kept my party late in the field. It was the close of September when we struck Seward Peninsula and miserably cold, with gales sweeping in from Bering Sea. ”

“ No man who has lived in the country and travelled in the country will countenance such notion. The white men in Alaska are miners and prospectors, trappers and traders, wood-choppers and steamboat men. Around a mining camp will be found a few truck-farmers; alongside road-houses and wood camps will often be found flourishing vegetable gardens, but outside of such agriculture there are, speaking broadly, no farmers at all in the interior of Alaska. ”

“ The white population for many years after the departure of the Russians consisted only of fur-traders and similar wanderers. In 1880 only 430 white persons and 1756 half-breeds were to be counted in all Alaska. The subsequent discovery of gold caused an influx of population, and the census of 1900 reported a white population of 30,507, only one-tenth of which was female. The increase was mainly in the valley of the Yukon and on the Norton Sound Coast, and later accessions to the Nome district probably added 25,000 to this during 1901 and 1902. ”

“ It has been estimated by competent judges that, with its islands, it has a coast line equal to the circumference of the 137globe. Very few of our people, even among the educated class, have an adequate idea of the immensity of this northwestern Territory, two thirds of which abounds in available resources, only awaiting development. Were Alaska situated on our Atlantic coast it would extend from Maine to Florida. ”

“ Full well Baranov, fur trader and autocrat, understood and feared the coming of the sturdy, indomitable gold hunters of Anglo- Saxon stock. And thus he suppressed the news, as did the governors that followed him, so that when the United States bought Alaska in 1867, she bought it for its furs and fisheries, without a thought of its treasures underground.
No sooner, however, had Alaska become American soil than thousands of our adventurers were afoot and afloat for the north. They were the men of "the days of gold," the men of California, Fraser, Cassiar, and Cariboo. ”