July 23. Penelope Ship Yards.--The "Helen" is at last ready. Three of
the boys have cut up several cords of wood into proper lengths for
the boiler.
I cannot help mentioning the flowers again. New kinds appear every
day without so much as sending up a leaf in advance. There are
dandelions, and purple asters, and cream cups, and bluebells, and
big daisies, and buttercups, and tall, blue flowers like our garden
hyacinths. There are acres of blue-grass as smooth and green as if
newly mown, birds and bumblebees are abundant. I should like to
collect more of these, but still have a hungry mob to feed. The
boys are working hard at shifting the cargo, and chopping wood and
doing other things, and of course are hungry as bears. My work gives
me some half-hours which I spend collecting. We have good stores.
For supper to-night my menu is baked navy beans--Boston baked
beans away up here at Kotzebue Sound!--corn bread, apple sauce,
fricasseed salmon eggs, fried salmon, duck stew, tea, etc. It will be
appreciated to the last crumb by the Arctic circle.
[Illustration: Miners' Launch.]
The days are growing shorter. The sun now sets before eleven at
night, leaving only a short semi-twilight. The doctor has just come
in from a visit to the mission. He reports ships still arriving, and
prospectors having all sorts of luck. Flour is three dollars for
fifty pounds. Liquor is being sold to the natives without stint. It
is against the law, but what is law without a force to back it? Dr.
Sheldon Jackson is expected soon, and he is the man who will not be
afraid to hunt out the rascals who are spoiling the natives. I am so
nearly related to the American Indians myself that I naturally take
sides with these natives. You know I was born on the Kiowa, Comanche
and Wichita reservation, when those Indians were savages or nearly
so, and I learned to love them before I could speak. Here and now it
is the old familiar story of the white man's abuse of the redskins.
It makes me indignant. We found these people confiding, generous,
helpful, simple-hearted, without a shadow of treachery except as they
have learned it from the whites, who are invading their homes and
killing them as they will, with little or no excuse. Many of these
gold-hunters that I hear of have already done more harm in a few days
than the missionaries can make up for in years. I could write the
history in detail, but desist. It will never all be written or told.
The natives are worked up to the last point of endurance and will
surely kill the whites. Whisky is doing its share of havoc, although
a few of the faithful mission Indians are trying to keep the others
quiet.
[Illustration: The "Helen."]
Sunday. July 24.--We are now waiting for the tide to take the "Helen"
out of the creek. Steam will soon be up.
July 29, Dining Tent.--We are still here and the rains have begun.
The "Helen" made her trial trip and works well. We have discovered
that she cannot transport all our goods up the river, so have delayed
in order to build a barge. It is two feet deep, ten feet wide and
eighteen feet long, with a capacity of ten tons.
August 1.--The storm washed the sand up and locked the "Helen" into
Penelope inlet. The only thing to be done was to dig a channel and
float her out. From ten in the morning until ten in the evening we
worked. We had to pry her out as the tide kept failing. We could not
have succeeded had it not been for some kind Indians who helped us.
They are always ready to help when they see us in trouble. Of course
we treated them to a good supper and they were happy.
After steaming out to the "Penelope," we started north around the
peninsula to the inlet, arriving about two in the morning, after
the hardest day's work we have had yet. Here at Mission Inlet Dr.
Coffin. Fancher and myself are left with the camp outfit and a load
of provisions. After three hours' sleep and a hot breakfast the
rest went back to the schooner with the "Helen" for another load,
and to bring the barge, which by this time should be finished. Soon
after they left, yesterday, a stiff breeze sprang up and we were
very anxious. The "Helen" is little better than a flat-bottomed scow
and cannot stand much of a sea. An inlet near us is, we think, deep
enough to float the "Penelope," if we could get her in, and here she
would be safe all winter. The missionaries tell us that no boat like
her can stand the crushing ice in the open sea during the winter, and
that this inlet is the only protected place for miles around.
The mission and village are two miles west of us. There are four
frame houses and a hundred tents. A Mr. Haines of San Francisco, took
supper with us last night and gave us the shipping news. Men are left
with nothing save the clothes on their backs; others are drowned;
many are homesick. Rumor reaches us that gold has been found on the
Kowak. But rumor is not to be relied upon when it is gold that sets
it afloat.
If there is gold on the Kowak we shall find it. Our present care
is to get our supplies up there in safety, but we are going at a
slow pace. Six of our party are already up the river, six are on
the "Helen" en route to the "Penelope" headquarters, two are at the
ship-yards, and four are on the schooner. Dr. Coffin. Fancher and
myself are here at Mission Inlet. This accounts for all of us as at
present divided. We expect the return of the "Helen" to-night.
We three have been living high since the others left. For supper,
with the help of our San Francisco visitor, we got away with three
ptarmigan, two curlew, twelve flapjacks with syrup, stewed prunes,
etc. After supper we went to sleep and did not awake until nine this
morning, when we had ptarmigan broth, fried mush, ham and flapjacks.
The other day we picked three quarts of salmon berries. They are very
fine eating, something like a blackberry in size and shape, but are
red like a raspberry and grow flat on the ground like a strawberry
vine. They seem a combination of the three.
Two other kinds, inferior to the salmon berries, also grow on
the ground. We want to eat everything in sight. If there were
rattlesnakes I believe that I should cook them. I have broiled a good
fat rattlesnake when hunting in the Sierras, and found it a dish for
an epicure--that is, if the epicure happened not to see it until
served. I put up nine bird-skins this morning. They are two redpolls,
one Siberian yellow wagtail, three ptarmigan, one tree-sparrow and
two curlew. I have put up seventy-five skins so far. I have also
saved quite a number of insects, but these are scarce since the rains
set in. Last night I heard the beautiful song of the fox-sparrow from
a hill on the opposite side of the inlet. A raven, the first I have
seen, flew high overhead with ominous croaks. "Evil omen," say the
natives.
Mission Inlet, Aug. 5, 1898.--The "Helen" has returned after a
perilous trip. She had the barge in tow and both were heavily loaded.
It took ten hours to cover twelve miles, so rough was the sea. She
ran aground twice, and the boys were indeed "tired" on their arrival,
but were wonderfully refreshed in a short time by flapjacks and
bacon, which I served to them piping hot, after which they slept for
eight hours. It has taken a good deal of hard work to get ready to
make our start, and a good storm is in order. "Indian Tom" is guide,
and he knows everything about the river and country. He says, "Wind
too much; bimeby all right," and we take his advice. The "Helen" and
the barge in tow are to carry two-thirds of the year's supplies up
the river, and the "Helen" will alone return for the rest. We cannot
get the "Penelope" into Mission Inlet, as we hoped, hence it has been
decided to leave the captain and two men with her all winter. The
provisions not needed this winter are stored on the schooner, and she
will be anchored down in Escholtz Bay, in as sheltered a place as can
be found, where she will freeze in. It looks dangerous, but it is
our only alternative. It would not take much ice pressure to crush
her, and then good-by to our provisions! They will try lifting her
by windlass and other means, and the captain shows his pluck in the
emergency. Pluck is what is needed in these Arctic regions, besides
plenty of flapjacks. Jett and Fancher remain with the captain on
the "Penelope." They hope to shoot polar bear and have other winter
sport, but I guess they will have a monotonous time. Perhaps some of
us will take a sledge journey down to them in winter.
Dr. Coffin, Wyse, Rivers and myself are to stay here until the
"Helen" returns for us and the remainder of the stuff. I always
volunteer to stay at camp when a person is wanted, for in this way
I get in some collecting. The rest don't see so much fun in staying
at camp. It may be two weeks before the boat gets back and, outside
of my camp duties, I shall have considerable leisure for my favorite
pastime. Doctor and I went out and got thirteen ducks, which made
a good meal for the crowd before they started. We also had a large
mess of stewed salmon berries which, though very tart, proved a most
acceptable change from our dried fruit.
[Illustration: "Helen" and Crew Start up the Kowak River.]
Mission Inlet. Aug. 9.--The "Helen" left for the Kowak yesterday
and the weather has been perfect, so we hope she has safely crossed
Holtham Inlet. Until she returns we four are to keep camp and finish
up some work for the winter. We are becoming acquainted with the
natives. Like those I knew in Dakota and the Indian Territory, they
are very superstitious. They make us pass in front of a tent in which
is a sick person, and if we are towing a boat past along the beach,
we must get into the water and row around the camp so as not to walk
past. Many of them are ill, and they lay It to the gold hunters:
but it is really from exposure in following the whites around. The
doctor has treated several, and if they recover he is "all right;"
but if they die, it is his fault. Not so very unlike other folks! The
doctor makes the natives pay for medicine, as this, he says, "is the
better policy." He charged a salmon for some pills last night, and in
another case where more extended services were required, he charged
a nickel and two salmon. He does not intend to infringe upon any
existing fee bills in the States, but if any "medicos" thereabouts
pine for a more profitable field, there is plenty of room at Kotzebue
Sound.
Some of the prospectors who went up the river earlier are now
returning broken-hearted, and are going home.
Mission Inlet. Aug. 11.--The "Helen" came in last night with all safe
aboard. They got about one hundred miles up the river, and concluded
it better to get us all up that far before going on. We expect to
start to-night. Our folks met two of our first prospecting party,
who reported going as far as Fort Cosmos, three hundred miles up the
Kowak, and who announced that place to be our best winter harbor.
They had found some "colors," but nothing definite as to gold.
This will prove my last entry on the Kotzebue, but the winter's
record will not be dull. I am thinking, by the time we thaw out in
the spring of 1899. C. C. and the doctor, whose proclivities are well
known to be of a semi-religious type, have a whole library of good
books, such as "Helpful Thoughts." "The Greatest Thing in the World."
Bible commentaries, and so on, with which we may enliven the winter
evening that knows no cock-crowing. However, we shall have games and
lighter reading.
I have now more than one hundred bird-skins, some of them rare, such
as Sabines' gull. Point Barrow gull, etc. I believe I am the only
one of the party who could get the smallest satisfaction out of a
possible disappointment as to gold.
[Illustration]