Nov. 15. 1898.--The boys returned last night very weary. They gave us
the news much as the "Flying Dutchman" had. Six of our Upper Penelope
boys have started for the Koyukuk with four months' provisions. They
are Miller. Foote, Alec, Stevenson, Shafer and Casey. They carry
eighteen hundred pounds on two sleds, three men to each sled. Shaul
has gone to the Pick River, where "good indications" are reported.
That leaves Wilson, McCullough and Farrar at the Upper Camp. Dr.
Coffin has little faith in the news. He fears it is an unfounded
rumor like many another. Moreover our doctor thinks it foolhardy
and dangerous to start on such a trip, and he is anxious about the
boys who have gone. None of them have had any experience with cold
weather, being California boys. Casey, in fact, was never outside
of Los Angeles county, until this trip, and none of the crowd are
dressed for severe weather. They have but little fur clothing.
However, timber covers most of the country they will cross, and they
will, of course, put up a cabin if necessary. You couldn't entice
the doctor out on such a trip for all the gold in Alaska. It ranged
down to thirty-five degrees below zero while he and the boys were
out, and they camped several nights, although at all the camps on the
river hospitality reigned. The doctor had one finger frozen. He says
he did not suspect it was nipped until he warmed his hands over the
camp fire. It is very easy to be frozen without knowing it, even with
the thermometer only thirty-five degrees below. But what about sixty
below zero?
News has come to us that hundreds of other men are waiting to get to
Kotzebue at the earliest possible moment. The gold-hunters up the
river are mostly doing nothing, waiting for spring to open so they
can go home. A few are sinking shafts in favorable localities, but as
yet without success, though there are some "indications," whatever
these are. It is a great undertaking to dig a hole in frozen ground.
Fires are built and kept burning for some time and then removed,
and the thawed dirt and gravel taken out. This process is repeated
again and again, and the result is dreadfully slow. Frozen ground
is tougher than rock to dig in. McCullough. Wilson and Farrar are
starting such a hole at their camp.
Our enthusiasm about the new strike on the Koyukuk is subsiding. We
sing no more impromptu songs. But we have six men in that direction,
and if they are fortunate enough to get through they will send two
men back for provisions.
Meanwhile I am collecting chickadees and redpolls. A couple or three
of our leading men, who shall be nameless in this connection, are
homesick. Yes, blue. They will be seen in Southern California as soon
as they can crawl out of the Kowak country on their hands and knees.
Now, watch and see who they are.
Three of our neighbors started up the river yesterday with a load
of eleven hundred pounds on a sled. They started on the smooth ice
all right, but five miles north the sand has covered the ice clear
across the river. They were stuck there and, after struggling over
the sand for a few hours, gave it up and returned. The Iowa boys have
not started yet, but are spending more time in making good sleds
and fixing skates on their runners. If they start at all, which I
doubt, they will certainly have better success than others. Dr.
Coffin declares he is going to stay by and in our good, warm cabin
the rest of the winter. He is quite pessimistic to-night. He predicts
much suffering this winter. He found in his recent travels that open
fireplaces are a failure. Cabins heated by them are cold. There is
too much draft and the temperature cools off quickly when the fire
dies down. We have two stoves, and water never freezes over in the
cabin.
Nov. 18.--We just had a dreadful catastrophe. C. C. had set his keg
of yeast on the rafters above the stove to keep warm and do its
"work." Harry Reynolds had some poles near by across the rafters.
The latter gentleman is at work on his new sled and, repairing one
of the poles, reached for it rather hastily. As a result the yeast
keg turned over. The doctor was sitting beneath, calmly reading some
good book, when nearly the entire contents, a gallon of sour yeast,
poured on to his unprotected head and down his neck, and spread
itself out as if to shield him from any other danger. What a sight,
it is impossible for me to portray. Not content with deluging the
poor medico, the stuff slopped over everything in the vicinity of two
or three yards. Several of us had a dose, but none was so seriously
affected as the doctor, who is even now at work on his clothes with
warm water and a sponge. The smell of sour dough permeates the
atmosphere. Brown remarks that it reminds him of the extremely sour
odor which filled the cabin of the "Penelope" the first night out
from San Francisco.
For my part I think it convenient to have these little
interruptions--when they fall on another man's head. It livens things
up.
[Illustration: Scaffold Burial.]
One or two other events have served to liven us up. Last night one
of the natives at the Indian village died. It was what we expected,
for he has been very sick for a week with pneumonia. This morning at
daylight we noticed a smoke across the river and I walked over to
investigate the cause. I regretted finding the obsequities closed
and the four natives who had officiated just leaving. They had taken
the dead man and all his personal belongings over to the bank of the
river opposite the village, to a little knoll, where they built a
platform on some poles leaned against each other for support. The
body was wrapped in tent cloth and laid on this platform, which
was about five feet above the ground--as high as the men could
conveniently reach. After this the whole was firmly lashed together
with walrus thong, so the winds and the dogs cannot tear it down. By
the side of the scaffold the dead man's sled was laid upside down,
and hung on the willows around were all the personal belongings of
the deceased. He was "well-to-do," and these amounted to considerable
as the Eskimos valued them. There were two nice reindeer skins, his
clothes, mittens, muckluks, handkerchief, tin cup, etc. It seemed
too bad to see those two deerskins left to decay in the weather,
when the dead man's relatives are in sore need, but this is the
invariable custom of these people. No worse than what occurs among
Christians, when all available and unavailable funds are used to
defray the expenses of an ostentatious funeral, leaving the family in
destitution.
Joe Jury and Jack Messing, two of the Hanson Camp boys, spent the day
with us and we had a big dinner. This "having company" disturbs the
monotony of so much "prospecting," as we are doing these days.
Nov. 20, Sunday, 6 p. m.--To-day has been a very enjoyable one at
this camp on the Kowak. In fact every day is. The Hanson boys were
all up for Sunday services. There were also two men from the Jesse
Lou Camp, fifteen miles below us, who are visiting the Hanson Camp.
The latter have invited our whole crowd down for Thanksgiving dinner
next Thursday. We look forward to a "big spread." for this camp is
abundantly supplied with luxuries in the food line, as I can testify,
having taken dinner with them twice already. They are well-to-do,
educated men, full of spontaneous hilarity, and a great boon to the
Penelope Camp. Solsbury is a correspondent of the San Jose "Mercury."
He is a lawyer and of course a good talker. He tells stories by the
hour.
This afternoon he got started from some cause--a predetermined one. I
presume--and talked for two hours. He resembles the newspaper cuts of
Mark Twain. It is very entertaining when he tells of his experience
in lumbering in the Sierras. His own boys say that he talks so
incessantly that they beg him to quit before they get tired of his
wit or confiscate it entirely. Everyone grows tiresome to his fellows
on a trip like this; it could not be otherwise. Constant association
for months brings out a man's faults and traits of character so
plainly that those which are of little note glare like tiger's eyes
in the dark, and his company becomes disagreeable, living as we do
in a little cabin, and looking in each other's faces if we take
a stroll, to keep watch for frost bites. It is better to be in a
large company than in a small crowd, so one can vary his personal
reflections.
Jack Messing is a man one likes to meet. He is a German by birth and
the most generous of men by nature. His great fault is generosity,
a vice seldom met with in my remembrance, and the boys make him
the butt of dozens of jokes. He would give away the last stitch of
clothing he owns should a man ask him. He gives the Eskimos all
sorts of things and feeds them whenever he can, which is all the
time, for these natives know a friend and are faithful to him. He
has previously worn a full beard, but to-day he stalked into church
with his face shaven clean excepting a long fringe of whiskers left
in a circle from ear to ear around under his chin. He wore a belt and
pistol, and had a big tin star on his left coat lapel and carried a
"she-la-ly." He looked exactly like an Irish policeman, only with
the usual recognized attributes of the latter highly accentuated. He
stated in Irish dialect that he was after the thief who had stolen a
pail of water from a certain camp down the river. As this allusion
was in reference to a well-known occurrence of a week ago, it was
very disastrous to the serious feeling which should prevail at a
religious meeting, and it was some time before the congregation could
settle down to the business in hand.
This afternoon we had a regular concert. The violin, autoharp and
banjo make fine harmony in this noiseless atmosphere, and we were
soon expressing our feelings in jumping and dancing. Two pairs of
bones rattled to such of the music as was appropriate, and it was no
dull time in the Penelope Camp. Clyde took the pictures of the crowd.
I say this afternoon, but I mean to-day: it is light for only about
six hours, and at high noon the sun scarcely peeps above the hills
to the southward. It appears to be sundown at noon, and the colors of
sky and landscape are beautiful.
We have had our first snow, only an inch, but enough to whiten the
landscape until the next wind, that is booked for a circus, whisks
it all into the hollows and then covers it up with sand, giving it a
sharp rap and bidding it "stay there."
This morning we saw a very beautiful mirage. The mountains and trees
down the river from us were reflected in the sky above, upside down.
Then for another fine display we have the aurora. Last night it
appeared in the form of a great bow reaching nearly to the zenith. It
consisted of many colored scintillating rays, which brightened and
then almost disappeared, only to reappear in different form as if
they had left the stage to change their costume. The aurora appears
in different form each night. And there is the beautiful moonlight.
The moon is above the horizon always now. It reverses the order of
the sun and shines all day in winter, scarcely appearing in summer.
How the time flies, to me at least! Before we know it. Spring will
tap at the door. The unbearable monotony of an Arctic winter, which
some travelers dwell upon so desolately, is unknown to us so far, and
I for one will never know it. During the past few weeks I have read.
So far have devoured "Last Days of Pompeii." "In His Steps," "Opening
of a Chestnut Burr," "The Honorable Peter Sterling," and "Etidorpha."
I spent two weeks upon the latter and think it is a wonderful
book, coming upon my thoughts here in the Arctics like a great
semi-scientific visitor. There are more books in the neighborhood
than I could read in two winters.
I have been given a new name--"Chickadee Joe." At the Hanson Camp
they call me "Little Joe," to distinguish me from "Big Joe." We are
very familiar with one another and change very suddenly from a highly
intellectual crowd to one of stirring juvenility. We had such an
unexpected romp the other day. There was about an inch of snow out
on the smooth ice, and it was snowing great flakes still. Three of
our boys were playing snowball with several of the Eskimo children,
and washing each other's faces and slipping down all over the ice.
Two Eskimo "belles" joined us, Kalhak and Aggi-chuck, and they did
not hesitate to give us a return snowball or a face full of the same.
They were strong, too, and several times I found myself sprawling on
the ice and covered with snow, to the great amusement of everyone.
After all that may be said of this strange people, they derive a
sort of very human satisfaction from their cold and narrow life, and
I shall always think of them as finding some happiness in the long
winter along with the aurora and the moonlight.
[Illustration: After the Ball.]
[Illustration]