ON THE LONG SNOW TRAIL
Immediately upon returning to the cabin on Myrtle, Lou Gordon began to
put the finishing touches on the training of two handsome young huskies
which she intended to add to her team for the big race. Great strong
dogs they were, half brothers to Skookum, and they threw themselves
into the work with a will. Each day found the girl upon the trail with
her dogs, now urging them through loose snow, now on the hard-packed
surface of the creek, lying flat on the sled fairly “burning the snow”
as she timed off the passing miles, and again, accustoming them to eat
rice balls and handfuls of meal in the harness, with only a few minutes
of rest.
The day of departure arrived. She had a race team of twelve dogs now,
and her father expressed surprise as she proceeded to harness six of
these dogs, with six others of only ordinary ability.
“What ye doin’ wi’ them dogs?” he asked. “Ye surely ain’t figurin’ on
racin’ them!”
“No, but I’m taking them with me just the same,” answered the girl.
“It’s their business to work every day till we hit Nome, and that will
let the race dogs have every other day off. I’ll only use half the race
dogs each day and let the other half run free.”
“Losh, lass! Wi’ a twelve dog outfit, an’ forty days fer six hundred
miles, you wouldn’t be wearin’ out ye’re dogs none. An’ how about
feedin’ eighteen dogs on the trail? Ye can’t load grub an’ outfit,
besides feed fer eighteen days fer six hundred miles on any sled.”
“I don’t have to, there won’t be any trouble getting dog feed on the
trail. There are Eskimos all along the Alatna and the Kobuk, and some
white men.”
“Too many dogs, far too many dogs, lass. Ye better leave them trail
dogs here wi’ the Siwash boy that’s goin’ to look after the bitches an’
puppies. An’ ye better let me do most of the drivin’ an’ the handlin’
of ’em on the trail, so they’ll be more used to me. I’ll take holt of
Skookum an’ learn him that a crack of the whip don’t mean the signal to
fight. Because when I drive that big race I don’t want any foolishness
about it. The stakes are too high.”
“I think, dad, that I’ll drive this race myself,” answered the girl, as
they made fast the lashings of the sled.
“Tush, tush!” exclaimed the man, “What are ye sayin’? Why, if I
wouldn’t let yer drive a fifty mile race, how come ye to be thinkin’
I’d let ye drive a four hundred mile race, that takes several days of
the hardest kind of trailin’. If a fifty mile race is a man’s job, a
four hundred mile race is a man’s job--an’ a gude man! Think no more
about it, lass. I won the other race--an’ a mighty close one it was, as
ye’ll admit. An’ I’ll win this one.”
It was upon the girl’s tongue to retort that had she been driving the
race would not have been close, but she answered nothing. Nevertheless,
she had no intention of allowing the old man to drive. She knew that
by no possibility could he be argued out of his determination. But
she, herself, would drive that race, and she had nearly two months in
which to lay her plans. In Lou Gordon’s philosophy there was no use in
crossing a bridge till you got to it, and two months is a long time in
which to plan. So she smiled when the old man repeated his offer to
handle the dogs.
“Oh, I love to drive them,” she said, “They’re used to you, now. It
was only at first--before the other race that there was any danger of
their not working for you. Come on, let’s go!” And, with a few words
of parting instruction to the Indian boy, she swung the team down the
creek, and with the old man at the handle bars, they struck out on the
long snow-trail.
The first leg of the journey down the Koyukuk was uneventful enough
with stops at the roadhouse, at Bettles, and at Alakaket Mission. Upon
the Alatna the trail of the returning Kobuks was not deeply snowed
under and afforded a good footing.
They were in the Eskimo country now, for the Koyukuk River forms the
dividing line between Indian and Eskimo hunting grounds. The Alatna and
Upper Kobuk Eskimos, while as typically Eskimos as their brothers of
the sea coast, have many of them never seen salt water. Nevertheless,
they are as truly maritime in their habits as though they dwelt upon
the treeless tundras of the coast. Living in a country that is replete
with caribou, ptarmigan, and rabbits, they rarely eat game, contenting
themselves with fish which they take in vast quantities from the rivers
and inland lakes, and with seal oil that is carried up river and traded
by the coastal Eskimos. It is the same with their housing. Living as
they do where timber for cabins is plentiful, they build no cabins,
but live in igloos built half underground and their clothing consists
of sealskin, also an article of trade, instead of caribou skin which
abounds within their own territory.
For two days the trail held to the river. Each night they pitched
their tent close beside an igloo, Lou after one glance into the
reeking interior of the first of these huts, declining as gracefully
as possible, the urgent invitations of the occupants to share their
hospitality. On the high plateau of the Alatna-Kobuk portage they
experienced the first difficulty in following the trail. Rim Rock’s map
showed that it held straight west for nearly fifty miles, but a new
fall of snow had obliterated every vestige of trail. The timber on the
plateau was exceeding sparse and consisted of straggling patches of
stunted spruce widely separated by level stretches of snow. One not
versed in Arctic winter trailing would think that the exact location of
the trail under such circumstances would be a matter of small moment,
but the sourdough who does the winter traveling knows differently. Once
off the trail, he must fight the deep snows of all the winter which
means intolerably slow travel with no footing for the dogs. No matter
how deeply buried under new snow, where the old trail is there will be
found a hard bottom which furnishes the footing that is necessary for
the dogs to exert any traction. And no amount of trail breaking without
the old trail underneath will afford anything like a bottom.
The first few miles of the long portage were reasonably easy, for
the trail was blazed on the trunks of a straggling stand of spruce.
When the spruce gave place to open country the girl cut a slender
sapling, sharpened it, and walking ahead of the dogs, prodded the point
down through the foot and a half of new snow, locating the trail by
the increased resistance of the packed snow. They took turns trail
breaking, which of itself is no light job in loose snow. The broad
snowshoe is useless for this work so one must resort to the narrow
trail shoe that packs down the snow rather than overrides it. The trail
breaker must walk ahead locating the trail as he goes, then return to
the team, and walk ahead, again, thus traversing every foot of the
distance three times, while his companion follows at the handle bars.
Ten to fifteen miles of this is a big day’s work, and it took the two
four days to make the fifty miles, including one-half day spent resting
on the head waters of Hog River.
The evening of the fourth day found them at the cabin on Lake Noyutak
that Rim Rock had marked on his map. All Alaska even to the remotest
outland, is dotted with these decaying cabins, mute monuments to dashed
hopes. Some lone prospector forces his way far beyond the outposts,
builds his cabin, works like a slave in the muck for a year--two years,
swallows his disappointment and moves on to build another cabin until
at last the North claims him--drains him dry of everything but his
vision of gold--starves him, freezes him, and when at last he falls a
mottled, marbled thing into the snow, she feeds her wolves with his
bones. Years later some traveler of the wastes, fighting the strong
cold and the shrieking wind, stumbles upon the cabin, and in the
blessed life-giving warmth of its shelter, gives fulsome thanks to its
builder--but the builder never knows.
Another day’s trail breaking took them well onto the Kobuk, and early
the following morning a small party of Eskimos mushing up river gave
them the benefit of a trail. The trail shoes were returned to the sled,
and that day they made thirty miles. The third night on the Kobuk
brought them to another cabin which they shared with two Eskimo boys
who were journeying up river with sealskins to trade. The sun, so
long in seclusion, shone every day, and travel on the good trail of
the river ice became a pleasure rather than a hardship. At Shungnak
they replenished their supplies and a week later rested for two days at
Squirrel River native village.
They were now well into the coastal country, and the trail ceased
to be a matter of supreme importance for the reason that the hard,
wind-packed snow was crusted to a degree that gave good footing
anywhere upon its surface.
At the delta of the Kobuk they bore southward, crossed Hotham Inlet,
and following the Choris Peninsula to its southmost extremity, crossed
the wind-swept ice of Eschscholtz Bay and camped that night at Kiwalik.
The next day they made Candle, and it was there that Old Man Gordon
found the vindication of his much scoffed theory. At Candle, they were
thawing with steam! “I told ’em! I told ’em it would come!” cried the
old man excitedly, as he fairly dragged the girl to the Candle Creek
workings. “I told ’em in Dawson before the big rush, an’ I be’n tellin’
’em on the Koyukuk ever since! An’ they wouldn’t believe me! An’ now ye
can see fer yerself!”
“But, they burn coal here, dad,” objected the girl.
“Aye, they burn coal because they ain’t got the wood! An’ if it’s
coal ye need, which it ain’t, there’s plenty coal on the Koyukuk, an’
better coal than this ice-clogged stuff they’re shovelin’ under their
b’ilers, here.” For two whole days the girl was forced to remain in
Candle while the old man haunted the workings, asking innumerable
questions, and boasting to anyone who would listen that he, himself,
was the father of “b’iler thawin’.”
When at last Lou succeeded in persuading him to resume the journey, it
was to find that the dog race had been entirely supplanted in his mind
by the astounding fact that he had actually seen frozen gravel thawed
with steam. “An’ they tell me they’re usin’ b’ilers at Nome, an’ pilin’
up dumps as big as mountains!” he burst forth as he paused on top of
a great mountainous ridge, that overlooked Candle, “I’ll find out all
about it, an’ when we go back I’ll fill the valley of Myrtle from rim
to rim, an’ I’ll reckon’ my gold by the pound!”
Lou answered nothing as the outfit fairly flew over the hard trail but
as she ran beside the dogs, she smiled. Here, possibly was the solution
of her difficulty. She would encourage the old man to devote all his
time to the study of boilers on the chance that he would entirely
forget the dog race. Foolish hope, as she was soon to realize. Because,
for weeks before the great event Nome talks nothing but dogs, and the
Alaska Sweepstakes.
The going on the wind-packed snow of the Seward Peninsula was the
fastest of the entire trip. The fastest, and by far the most trying and
disagreeable, for the wind never for a moment ceased to harness and to
buffet them. Nowhere in the known world does the wind persist with
such malevolent, devilish force as upon the treeless waste of ridges
and flats that lie between Nome and Candle. Forty, sixty, eighty, a
hundred miles an hour it roars down upon the struggling traveler,
seemingly endowed with intelligence and a certain devilish ingenuity
for the annihilation of his outfit. To pitch a tent, or indeed to erect
a shelter of any kind is an absolute impossibility. And there are
times when the whole outfit is pushed, skidding and sliding off the
trail to bring up with a crash against the first natural obstruction.
Luckily, during the three days’ traverse of the one hundred and thirty
miles to Council, the Gordons had the wind at their backs, so that on
numerous stretches both father and daughter rode the sled with the dogs
tearing along at full speed to keep from being run down. At Council Lou
again had hard work to persuade her father to push on, for here, as
at Candle, they were thawing with steam. After one day’s rest, which
was no rest at all for Old Man Gordon, who visited every steam boiler
within five miles of town, they pulled out early in the morning on the
last lap of their long journey. “Only ninety miles to Nome!” cried
the girl, as they flew over the crusted snow. “Soloman tonight, and
tomorrow night--Nome!”
“Aye,” answered the old man, “But ’twill be too late to see the big
dumps. They tell me they’re several miles out. I’ll have to wait till
next day to go out there.”
At Topkok the two got their first view of the vast Pacific, its deep
blue waves tossing their white manes high in the everlasting wind. The
dogs were halted, and for a long time both stared in awed silence upon
the mighty vastness of the scene. The dazzling whiteness of the snow
in the bright sunshine, the cold green glitter of the great ice crags
that reared their heads along the coast, and the warm blue of the ocean
beyond held them in rapt admiration until the stinging wind tugging at
parka hoods, and forcing its cold breath beneath their clothing, caused
them to push on.
The wind was at their side now, and the difficulties of the trail were
innumerable, the heavily loaded sled turning over every few miles, or
crashing sidewise into the telephone poles that lined the trail.
The following day the wind blew even harder and it was not until long
after dark that the weary travelers pulled into Nome, where too tired
to even attempt the exploration of her brilliantly lighted wonder
city, Lou Gordon gave her dogs into charge of the hotel dog keeper,
and retired to her room where a few moments later she crept between
the first white sheets she had ever seen, and sank into a deep and
dreamless sleep.