THE SONG OF THE INNUIT
O, we are the Innuit people,
Who scatter about the floe
And watch for the puff of the breathing seal
While the whistling breezes blow.
By a silent stroke the ice is broke
And the struggling prey below
With the crimson flood of its spouting blood
Reddens the level snow.
O, we are the Innuit people,
Who flock to the broken rim
Of the Arctic pack where the walrus lie
In the polar twilight dim.
Far from the shore their surly roar
Rises above the whirl
Of the eager wave, as the Innuit brave
Their flying lances hurl.
O, we are the Innuit people
Who lie in the topek warm;
While the northern blast flies strong and fast
And fiercely roars the storm;
Recounting the ancient legends
Of fighting, hunting and play,
When our ancestors came from the southland tame
To the glorious Arctic day.
There is one sits by in silence
With terror in her eyes,
For she hears in dreams the piteous screams
Of a cast-out babe that dies—
Dies in the snow as the keen winds blow
And the shrieking northers come,—
On that dreadful day when the starving lay
Alone in her empty home.
O, we are the Innuit people,
And we lie secure and warm
Where the ghostly folk of the Nunatak
Can never do us harm.
Under the stretching walrus hide
Where at the evening meal
The well-filled bowl cheers every soul
Heaped high with steaming seal.
The Awful Folk of the Nunatak
Come down in the hail and the snow,
And slash the skin of the kayak thin
To work the hunter woe.
They steal the fish from the next day's dish
And rot the walrus lines—
But they fade away with the dawning day
As the light of summer shines.
O, we are the Innuit people
Of the long, bright Arctic day,
When the whalers come and the poppies bloom
And the ice-floe shrinks away;
Afar in the buoyant umiak
We feather our paddle blades
And laugh in the light of the sunshine bright,
Where the white man's schooner trades.
O, we are the Innuit people
Rosy and brown and gay;
And we shout as we sing of the wrestling ring
Or toss the ball at play.
In frolic chase we oft embrace
The waist of a giggling maid
As she runs on the sand of the Arctic strand
Where the ice-bears bones are laid.
O, we are the Innuit people,
Content in our northern home;
Where the kayak's prow cuts the curling brow
Of the breakers snowy foam.
The merry Innuit people,
Of the cold, gray Arctic sea,
Where the breathing whale, the Aurora pale
And the snow-white foxes be.
There is a diversity of opinion as to the ultimate fate of the native races of the earth. To my mind there is but one answer. Search the wide world over to-day and where will you find a wilderness? There are none which the aggressive white man has not penetrated. And wherever the white man enters the native man begins to disappear. It has always been so, and it always will be so. If only the white man would let them alone! Is it not better to have the vast Arctic spaces people by a native race than to have it unpeopled by anybody? The Eskimos live where no one else on earth can or will live. They are a picturesque and harmless people. In their struggle for existence they have fought valiantly. Surely they have earned the right to exist unmolested, earned it bravely.
[CHAPTER XVI
SOCIAL LIFE IN ALASKA]
I HAVE more than once been forced to endure the suppressed sympathy of friends who live in the Interior because of my enforced residence on St. Michael. It is a sympathy wholly wasted. St. Michael is a bright, clean little place. There are few mosquitoes,—a fact which in itself is a recommendation. Although the temperature is sometimes very low, and although the Arctic winter sends down some terrific blizzards at times, as a rule the short winter days are bright, still and pleasant. If one wishes sport it is right at hand on the mainland,—wild geese, duck, ptarmigan and caribou. There is also salmon fishing.
As a brilliantly-colored thread is sometimes woven into a piece of embroidery I find one vivid memory running through the years I have lived on St. Michael. To me the most wonderful thing in connection with those years is the transformation which takes place each year on the day that the first ship anchors in the Bay. Like the Sleeping Beauty of the fairy tale St. Michael suddenly wakens from her long winter's sleep. No words can describe that awakening. It must be seen to be appreciated.
When the last boat leaves the island in October almost every one who has been employed there during the summer season returns to the States as there is nothing for them to do here during the long, dark months. When the first boat comes in June, however, laden with tourists, prospectors and business men, they all come back, and the scene which follows their arrival is one that I have never seen equalled elsewhere. I have in mind at this writing two good friends, the men who during the years that I served as United States Commissioner at St. Michael, were responsible for this transformation. When one remembers that fifty thousand people passed through the port of St. Michael during the rush to Nome, it is apparent that theirs was no small task. One of these men was Mr. A. F. Zipf, Traffic Manager of the Northern Navigation Company. The other was S. J. Sanguineti, a splendid son of sunny California. Everything connected with transportation in and out of Alaska was in the hands of Mr. Zipf, while Mr. Sanguineti had charge of the provisioning of hotels and boats, the providing of eating and sleeping accommodations for the many who flocked each summer to the country.
The efficiency displayed by these two men was a thing to create admiration and enthusiasm. Because of Mr. Zipf's capability in managing details, within thirty minutes after the landing every one employed in St. Michael was in his place. The clerk was behind his counter, or back of his desk in an office. The cook was in the kitchen and the laundryman in the laundry. They did not even go first to the rooms which had been engaged for them. Their baggage was placed therein for them and within the hour St. Michael fairly teemed with activity. The men who had just gone to work looked as though they had been there always. In the same deft manner did Mr. Zipf handle the transfer of passengers, baggage and freight (enormous in volume) which passed through the port of St. Michael and went on up the Yukon. Every detail had been carefully worked out before the landing.
In these stirring days of our national life I have thought many times of these two men and wondered that the United States Government has not sought them out for positions of responsibility. Both would be master hands in helping to untangle the complicated mass of detail which now taxes the strength and the ability of our country. Uncle Sam never had greater need for her men of proved efficiency.
Social life is not wanting in St. Michael, or in any other community in Alaska. We have reached a period in our career where we thoroughly resent being pictured as a collection of wild and lawless mining camps where faro banks, drinking joints and vigilance committees abound. The resident of the Outside, unless forewarned, would open his eyes wide if asked to attend a garden party, or a four o'clock tea, in one of the larger Alaskan towns. Evening dress after six o'clock is not at all unusual for both men and women. The women's clubs are very much alive and engaged in the same activities as those of the States. In fact, one finds in the various sections of Alaska most of the normal manifestations of cultured civilization,—the elements which contribute to the upbuilding of an intelligent, law-abiding commonwealth.
The subject of intemperance in Alaska has been much dwelt upon, and rightly, for it became such a menace to the future development of the country that the Alaskans themselves voluntarily did away with it. It was not forced upon them by any legislation. Formerly liquor played a great part in the life of the country and in this connection, no matter what one's convictions may be, it must be acknowledged that there were extenuating circumstances. The same is true of the men now in the service in the European War. The soldier who, wounded, has lain on the battlefield eight or ten hours in a driving rain, or all during a chill, frosty night, often has to have a stinging hot stimulant if his life is to be saved. It is not a matter of principle. It is a thing of necessity. 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 was not always possible to have fire. So his flask was often his salvation. But liquor came to be the curse of Alaska and now the country, of its own volition, has gone "bone-dry." The only business which has now no chance of succeeding in Alaska is the saloon.
Not a great while ago an Alaskan Carrie Nation broke forth from the ranks of patient and long-suffering women and did some effective work. She lived at Mile Twenty-three and a Half, the other name of which village is Roosevelt. It is a station between Seward and Anchorage on the new government railroad. Her real name is Mrs. Dabney and she does not in the least enjoy being regarded as the prototype of her belligerent sister from Kansas, U. S. A. In fact, her method is different from the original Carrie. She does not harangue on the subject, neither does she go forth with an ax and smash saloons. Her way is just to remark quietly that "she won't stand for it!"
Anchorage was a tiny village until they began building the railroad. Then before anyone knew it it became a bustling town of eight thousand. The government made it a prohibition town, announcing that drinking among the employees would not be tolerated and that liquor should not be sold at the road houses. Now, having had some experience in this line, I am convinced that nowhere else in the world (with the possible exception of the Foreign Legion) can so many different types of men be found as in a railroad construction gang or a lumber camp! And there were all kinds at Mile Twenty-three and a Half!
Mrs. Dabney was a fine housekeeper and cook. She saw no reason why she should not make the best of her ability in this line so she established herself in a square log house and often fed from seventy-five to a hundred men a day and gave sleeping quarters to as many as the house would accommodate. As has been said, she let it be known that there would be no drinking because "she just wouldn't stand for it!"
The Fourth of July came along, however, and about twenty-five of the men decided that they would celebrate the event. They proceeded to collect the ingredients for said celebration, a part of which consisted of a demijohn and several bottles of whisky. While they were in the midst of their hilarity,—enter Mrs. Dabney! She ordered the "boss" (who, by the way, was her employer!) to his room. In fact she escorted him thither and locked him in after telling him to go to bed. Then she went back down stairs, gathered up the bottles and the demijohn and threw them into Lake Kenai. When she returned she said quietly that she had no intention of cleaning up after a lot of drunken men, that the government had forbidden drinking and that not one of them could ever come to her table again. The men departed without argument. The next day, however, headed by the "boss," they returned. They stated in the outset that they had not come to ask her to take them back but merely to express their regret,—that she was quite right in refusing to be bothered with a crowd of men who would not obey the law.
This act is characteristic of Alaskan men. I know no corner of the earth where a good woman is held in higher esteem. The men themselves are often unconscious of this characteristic, but it crops out in their little mannerisms. For instance, there are two ways of addressing a woman in Alaska. As one writer has already expressed it, "We call one kind of woman by her first name and don't know that she has any other. But the other kind of woman,—we call her Mrs.! And we don't know whether she has a first name or not!"
It was so with this woman. Neither miner, traveler, trader, workman nor wayfarer ever thinks of calling her other than Mrs. Dabney. But my experience is that there is no straighter way to a woman's heart than a manly and sincere apology! So, in this case, when she said quietly to the men that she had tried to give them good, clean food to eat and a comfortable place to sleep, that all she asked of them was that they obey the rules and not make her work more difficult or more disagreeable than was necessary, she made friends of those men forever. They respected her because they realized that she herself respected the law and stood for its enforcement. Finally she permitted them to return, but she ended the interview by saying:
"You needn't think you can fool me, either. Any time one of you brings whisky into this house I can find it. More than that," she finished, "B—— says to-morrow is his birthday and he's going to celebrate. But he ain't,—even if he is the Mayor of Roosevelt!"
The men of Alaska, while they admit that the free use of liquor was once almost a necessity in the country, see no reason why it should be so now. Civilization has brought with it other and better means of keeping warm and in good spirits. Like many another thing of this twentieth century it has outlived its usefulness. There are comfortable homes in all the populated sections of Alaska now,—homes where one sees just what he would find anywhere else in the world. Social intercourse and family life are the same here as elsewhere. There is tennis. There is golf. There are music and dancing, and a "chummy" feeling seems to possess all the occupants of the land. There is a general impression that life in a thinly-populated country is not conducive to sociability. I have never found it so. There is a bon camaraderie in Alaska that I have found nowhere else in the world. Perhaps it is of a brand not to be found except in the far spaces of the universe!
There is one Great Day in Alaska,—the day when the ice goes out of the Bay in the spring! There is something about the sight and sound of flowing water which moves one strangely after nine long months of the "still" cold. One relaxes unconsciously from a tenseness which until that moment he has not realized has possessed him and in this connection I would relate a bit of personal experience.
Life here, as elsewhere, seems to take on new meaning in the springtime. Merry boating or sailing parties are one of the favorite amusements of the Alaskan summer. One evening,—it was the day that the ice went out of the Bay,—I made one of a jolly party which went sailing. The presence of an Army Post always adds to the social life of any community, large or small, and stationed at St. Michael at this time was an officer whose heroism and self-control saved the lives of all but two of our party of eight. Captain Peter Lind was in charge of the boat. We had known him long as an able seaman and therefore put ourselves and our ladies into his keeping without the least thought of possible disaster. From the Fort were two officers, Lieutenants Wood and Pickering. The other members of the party were Dr. and Mrs. McMillan, Mr. and Mrs. Bromfield and myself. When we were well out from shore the boat suddenly capsized. Before we realized that anything was happening we were in the water. The water was very cold, but the men were good swimmers, and we managed to get a hold on the capsized boat. We were all clinging to it when without the slightest warning over it went again. The hour that followed was one which no member of that little party will ever forget. Captain Lind disappeared. But the magnificent cool-headedness of Lieutenant Wood caused the rest of us to put up a stiff fight and resolve to die game if we had to. Finally after a battle which reduced the strongest of us to utter exhaustion we had the satisfaction of seeing six of our little party safely ashore. Mrs. Bromfield and Captain Lind were lost. And the getting to land was by no means the least thrilling part of the experience. The Eskimos on the shore heard our calls, and although their little boats had not been used all winter and were in need of repairs, they launched them quickly and came to our aid. The boat in which I came in took water badly. But one sturdy little Eskimo baled industriously while the other rowed.
I once heard an old Frenchman singing a song about the wind in the springtime. It ran like this:
"Le vent que traverse la montagne
M'a rendu fou!"
(The wind which crosses the mountain
Has driven me mad!)
Each member of our little party realized that Captain Lind could not have been himself at the moment of our disaster. 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. And the Army women——. They are such "good fellows!" They, too, go with the flag to make a home for their soldier husbands. And they care not a whit whether they follow them into the sands of the desert or over the Arctic snows!
I can not leave the story of St. Michael without reference to Gene Doyle, the oldest mail carrier in our part of the country. Have you ever thought what it means to be a mail carrier in Alaska? These men are the real heroes of the trails. Over in the Canadian Yukon they tolerate no such inhumane treatment of men. There no man may take out a horse or a dog if the mercury registers lower than forty-five below zero unless it is a case of life or death and even then one must get permission from the Northwest Mounted Police. But the American mail man must go,—or lose his job! Many a time has Doyle set forth with the temperature at sixty below, and you may rest assured that if he did not show up on schedule time we made ready our sleds and went out to meet him! There is no resident of Alaska who is not in sympathy with the Rev. Hudson Stuck who has more than once expressed an ardent longing to serve as Postmaster General for just one week!
[CHAPTER XVII
THE PRIZE OF THE PACIFIC]
ASIDE from our interests which are now bound up in the great war there is no problem confronting the United States which is so vital as that of Alaska and the Pacific Coast. Separated as she is from the motherland by a foreign country, the shipping to and from Alaska is the most important thing to be considered. True, two of her river systems furnish five thousand miles of navigable water, but in winter they are choked with ice and the country is as yet painfully short on railroads! The Pacific Ocean is the great problem of the American people to-day and Alaska is the prize beyond compute of the Pacific Coast.
It is high time that the American people and the United States Government as well rubbed their eyes and awakened to a fact long known to the few of us who have been on guard. The cards were shuffled some time ago and are just lying, waiting to be dealt in the greatest game that has ever been played! Before the war we used to hear much talk about the "control of the seas." How many of us realized what that expression meant? The war has opened our eyes. Who is it that has the shuffled cards lying ready? Who is it that wants the Pacific? The answer is ready and instant. Japan!
Every school boy knows that the United States owns the Aleutian Islands. He knows also that they stretch all the way across to Asia and separate Bering Sea from the Pacific. In this group of Islands is one which has an ice-free front. It is called Dutch Harbor. It would prove an excellent base, if properly fortified, in the control of the Pacific Ocean. 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. There can be no question that in the event of a struggle for the possession of the Pacific the fate of Alaska will be exactly that which befell Korea in the Manchurian war of a decade or two ago. Nor is this all. Who can sit still at this very moment and see the Japs pushing eastward through Siberia without apprehension?
A hostile fleet in Dutch Harbor and Alaska will fall of her own weight! The distance to Dutch Harbor is just the same from Yokohama as it is from San Francisco! Dutch Harbor is to us what Gibraltar was to Spain in the days of the Armada. Shall we, like Spain, fail to realize her value until too late? If so, our experience can not be other than that which befell her. The tremendous significance of our failure to make Dutch Harbor impregnable and impassable will one day stun us. But the great war has forced us into doing what long ago we should have done without being forced. We are feverishly building ships. If we get our great fleet in order, and if we do it first, then it may be that the shuffled cards may never be dealt. There may be no game. There are those who never play unless they see the way open to win!
We have another strategic point also. This is Rugged Island, lying in Resurrection Bay. This Bay was so named by the Russians who discovered it on the anniversary of Our Lord's Resurrection. Rugged Island is an easy point of attack and the government has recently appropriated seven hundred thousand dollars to fortify it.
No comedy of Æschylus ever equaled a proposition put forth in Congress not long ago by the Hon. Frank O. Smith of Maryland. Under the astounding and absurd title of Eugenic Peace he proposed that in the interest of world peace the United States should cede to Canada the southern part of Alaska, known as the Panhandle! This section shuts off a large region of Canada from the sea.
Strangely enough, the proposition secured the support of a number of eminent men (not one of whom, however, had ever been to Alaska) but to one who lives here it is the limit and pinnacle of absurdity. First of all, the business affairs of the people living here are conducted almost wholly with Seattle and San Francisco. Would they consent to such a change? Never! Their business would be paralyzed if turned over to Canada, thereby necessitating the payment of a tariff on their exports. Just think what such a proposition would entail. 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 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! Why not present Canada with the northern peninsula of Michigan, or the tip of the State of Washington?
There is no doubt that Canada would be glad to arrange things so that her traffic with the Yukon might be carried on without the payment of tariff duties. Well, there is a remedy, but it does not lie in the transfer of territory. It lies in reciprocity of trade,—if not reciprocity, then free trade to and from the Yukon and Skagway, its natural seaport. But the idea of ceding the whole country in order to accommodate the residents in the much less important part of the Yukon is a proposition about which it is difficult to be serious! What a joke the United States would be playing upon herself!
For a long time after the historic days of "Fifty-four forty or fight" there was much argument over the boundary of Alaska. It culminated in 1898, however, in the decision of the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Alverstane, that the contention of the American members of the Commission (Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge and Ex-Senator Turner) was correct and should be sustained. This decision gave to the United States complete control of the seacoast and all the bays and channels opening into it. And it is a control it behooves us to keep! But the greatest need of Alaska to-day is a railroad running into the country by means of which troops could be sent from the United States. This road would have to run through Canada, and here again is a problem for the statesmen of our country to ponder over and solve!
[CHAPTER XVIII
ALASKA AND THE WAR]
A WIRELESS message flashed the news to Alaska that our country had entered the war. The effect was the usual one,—the one to which we in Alaska have become accustomed. It aroused a patriotism which was both ideal and practical. It is said that the man who went farthest to serve his colors was a man from Iditarod. A man with his dog team drove by his dwelling and told him the news. Like Israel Putnam of Revolutionary fame who left his team standing in the field where he was ploughing and went to join the Minute Men, so this man laid aside his work and journeyed a thousand miles on a dog sled to enlist!
Every line of industrial, engineering, mining, agricultural and fishing activity immediately was speeded to the top notch of energy and production. The coal output increased from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand tons. Fish food products jumped from twenty to forty-two million dollars. There was an increase of twenty-two million pounds of canned salmon shipped to the United States over the output of 1917.
The people of Alaska are hardy. They are patriotic. They are energetic and practical. They understand fully what war means. They know that although far removed from the scene of activity they are called upon to help win the war just as much as if they were fighting in the trenches. They know that the greatest good they can do their country is to feed her fighting men. So they went about it in a business-like manner. The result is that theirs is a practical, organized patriotic coöperation. Many of the pioneer gold seekers are now transformed into farmers. The potato crop for this year is two thousand tons,—only one item, but a significant one.
The Alaskan women, as always, came straight to the front. With that practical knowledge born of residence in such a country as Alaska they eliminated the sentimental and went to work at those things which America asks and expects of her women. Mrs. Thomas J. Donahoe, of Valdez, who is also President of the Federation of Women's Clubs, was appointed Chairman of the Woman's Committee of the Council of National Defense, and the Red Cross is represented and practically managed in almost every locality in the territory. When the first Liberty Loan was floated the response of Alaska was instant and generous and the same is true of the succeeding loans.
In connection with the part Alaska is playing in the great struggle I revert once more to the subject of the dogs. Our hearts were touched when we learned that they, too, had been awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French Government, the Cross having been sent to Mrs. Esther Birdsall Darling who owned and sold many of them to France. "Scotty" Allen took them over and left them there to do their "bit."
It was a French Reserve Officer, a mining engineer, Lieutenant René Haas, who first called the attention of the French Government to the services which could be rendered by the dogs. Mrs. Darling, good patriot that she is and ever ready to promote the cause of the Allies, promptly offered the best that the Darling-Allen kennels afforded. Lieutenant Haas was commissioned to select them. He chose twenty-five of the youngest, swiftest and best bred of these kennels. Then, supported enthusiastically by Captain Moufflet, who also knew the possibilities of the Alaskan dog service, the interest of their superior officers was aroused and Lieutenant Haas was ordered to go to Nome, there to select and purchase a hundred or more suitable for duty in the Vosges. "Scotty" Allen was persuaded to go to France with the dog contingent and the number was augmented by others from Canada and Labrador. When he and Lieutenant Haas sailed they had four hundred and fifty splendid dogs with them,—half a regiment! All were successfully delivered at the front where they have rendered distinguished and valuable service.
He would indeed be dead to emotion who could read the report which came with the Croix de Guerre and which was sent from headquarters on the French frontier to far-away Alaska. We all knew that the dogs would meet emergencies boldly, no matter what the circumstances, the conditions or the weather. One specific incident which will be a part of Alaska's written history when the war is over serves to emphasize and justify our faith in them.
From a lonely post out on the frontier in the French Alps came to headquarters a most urgent call for help. They were out of ammunition and the situation was most critical. True to their reputation for valor the French were holding the post, fighting against heavy odds, each man saying in his heart the little sentence which has become the slogan of the French army and the prayer of every man, woman and child in France,—"They shall not pass!" To hold the post longer, however, meant that ammunition must be forthcoming at once. A terrific blizzard was in progress. The trails were dangerous, almost obliterated in places. Trucks and horses were of no avail. But there were the dogs,—Alaska's heroes. To them France turned in her emergency. The sleds were quickly loaded. The Malamuts fell to harness instantly on command. Lieutenant Haas was ready for his perilous journey. A crack of the whip, an encouraging shout to the dogs and they were off. For four days and four nights they kept their steady gait. Up and down precipitous mountain-sides, over treacherous trails and across the snow-buried expanse, most of the time under shell fire from the enemy, they went quietly, steadily on. Lieutenant Haas acknowledged that the dogs seemed to realize quite as clearly as he did himself the necessity of haste and a cool head, that they had in their eyes the "do-or-die" look which he had so often seen in the eyes of his men. And every one who knows anything about them knows how much victory means to a Malamut.
On the morning of the fifth day, just at dawn, they reached the post,—one more instance of a dramatic arrival in the nick of time. The ammunition was now completely exhausted. One needs not a vivid imagination to hear in fancy the ringing cheers which greeted them. A pronounced trait of the Alaskan dog is glory in victory, mourning in defeat. This has been observed many times in the races,—the downcast, dejected air of the dogs that fail, the brisk and happy attitude of those that win. So in this instance, the cheers and the Cross were but episodes. The victory was the thing!
The French Government acknowledges that the dogs are quite as valuable as any other branch of the service and those that made this hard and perilous trip are to be painted and hung in the War Museum in Paris.
Mrs. Darling and "Scotty" are and have every reason to be proud of their dogs. In the din of battle and the precariousness of life on the frontier they doubtless miss their owners' kindness and attention. But the sympathies of the latter go with them wherever they go. Lieutenant Haas declares that these dogs have a "college education" and can be trusted to do their work intelligently and fearlessly. When the time comes for the history of the Great World War to be written, may the deeds of the dogs of Nome who played no less courageous and conspicuous a part than did her men be fittingly inscribed therein!
[CHAPTER XIX
ALASKAN WRITERS]
IN addition to her gold and copper, her furs and her fish, Alaska has produced a crop of writers of more or less importance. By far the truest exponent of the life of the country is Robert Service whose The Spell of the Yukon surely breathes the spirit of the land. Service is now an army surgeon in the European war and his latest volume Rhymes of a Red Cross Man has added to the reputation he justly enjoys because of the verse which went before it. This little volume is dedicated to the memory of his brother, Lieutenant Albert Service, killed in action, and the Foreword with which the collection opens is well worth quoting:
"I've tinkered at my bits of rhymes
In weary, woeful, waiting times;
In doleful hours of battle din
Ere yet they brought the wounded in!
Through vigils by the fateful night,
In lousy barns by candle light;
In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,
On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;
By ragged grove, by ruined road,
By hearths accurst where Love abode;
By broken altars, blackened shrines—
I've tinkered at my bits of rhymes!
"I've solaced me with scraps of song
The desolated ways along;
Through sickly fields all shrapnel-sown
And meadows reaped by death alone;
By blazing cross and splintered spire,
By headless Virgin in the mire;
By gardens gashed amid their bloom,
By gutted grave, by shattered tomb;
Beside the dying and the dead,
Where rockets green and rockets red
In trembling pools of poising light,
With flowers of flame festoon the night.
Ah me! By what dark ways of wrong
I've cheered my heart with scraps of song!
"So here's my sheaf of war-won verse,
And some is bad, and some is worse.
And if at times I curse a bit,
You needn't read that part of it!
For through it all, like horror, runs
The red resentment of the guns!
And you yourself would mutter when
You took the things that once were men
And sped them through that zone of hate
To where the dripping surgeons wait!
You'd wonder, too, if, in God's sight,
War ever, ever can be right!"
Service is essentially a poet. His novel, The Trail of Ninety-eight, well,—we have forgiven him! It is lurid melodrama and certainly adds nothing to his literary reputation. But none can read The Spell of the Yukon without breathing deeply!
"There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where!
There are lives that are erring and aimless
And deaths that just hang by a hair!
There are hardships that nobody reckons,
There are valleys unpeopled and still!
There's a land—oh, it beckons and beckons!
I want to go back—and I will!"
I have already said that the true story of the Klondike stampede has never been written and perhaps never will be. A great deal was put out under the guise of literature, but it was mere journalistic stuff. It will not endure and should not. Jack London was in Klondike. And he was a born story-teller. He should have written something quite worth while of those stirring days with all the wealth of material which lay about him. But the best he did was The Call of the Wild and in it he indulged his love for the romantic to such an extent that you find yourself wondering whether dogs are real dogs and his men real men until in the end you conclude that they are not! His white men are like characters on the stage. And if there are any Indians in Alaska such as he portrayed I have never encountered them. They are absurdly untrue to life. Furthermore, the brutal side of life seems to have had undue attraction for London. It is true that it did exist. But it was not the whole of life in Alaska, by any means, and one sickens of it after continuous reading about it. Rex Beach's stories, The Spoilers and The Silver Horde (by far his best, in my judgment), are good and typical of the life of the period. Yet one can not read them without a feeling that they, too, leave much to be desired.
The wit, the pathos, the comedies, the tragedies, the sordidness, the heroism of those days! Whose pen could delineate the characters of those who wrought them or adequately describe the country as it was,—and is! It would take the combined genius of a Poe, a Kipling and a Bret Harte to do justice to the subject. Richard Harding Davis was preparing to go to Klondike. Had he carried out his intention it might have been different. But one morning he picked up the morning paper and read therein that the Maine had been blown up in Havana harbor. He changed his mind!
I am convinced that the best tales of the land have never been put on paper. These are the stories related at the road-houses, or in the rooms of the Arctic Brotherhood or some similar gathering-place by those who took part in them. And they usually come out quite by accident. The participant thinks there is nothing wonderful about them. Some grizzled miner,—Service calls them "the silent men who do things,"—will suddenly begin talking, and sometimes the story he tells will beat any that has ever yet found its way into print. Why has no one ever written a steamboat story? Or a tale of the Arctic Brotherhood? There are material and local color galore for such.
Nearly all Alaskans are familiar with the writings of Samuel Clarke Dunham. He has occasionally burst into verse, and he has a dry humor which is exhilarating. I have already quoted from one of his best known effusions concerning the tundra. Tracking about in the wet Russian moss is often calculated to extract (not painlessly) about ninety per cent of one's enthusiasm! So one day Dunham broke forth in a poem which began thus:
"I've traversed the toe-twisting tundra
Where reindeer root round for their feed!" etc.
Would that there were some way of gathering together the fugitive stories and poems, replete with wit and humor, with pathos and tragedy, which are a part of Alaska's unwritten history! Many a time have I been guilty of hanging around a road-house, saloon or "joint" of some kind for no reason on earth except that I knew I should hear a good story or two from some wandering wayfarer who had just come in off the trail. And at such times I have often recalled the familiar song (peculiarly true to life in Alaska) the chorus of which runs:
"Sometimes you're glad,
Sometimes you're sad,
When you play in the game of life!"
I have heard in these miners' gatherings tales of tragedies almost unbelievable, comedies which would furnish excellent vehicles for the talents of Charlie Chaplin and not a few love stories worthy of a Dickens, a Hugo or a Tolstoi. But they were no sooner told than forgotten as no one was at hand to record them.
I well recall an evening when I joined a group who sat smoking beside a stove in one of the road-houses. There was conversation, but one usually loquacious individual sat silently and smoked his pipe. Whenever he had appeared there before he had always been accompanied by an older man. They seemed inseparable companions. I had a feeling that something tragic had happened and that he would relate it before the evening was over. So I decided to "stick around." Presently some one asked him where his partner was. He did not reply immediately, but presently took his pipe from between his teeth and speaking in the vernacular of the country said:
"He won't be here no more."
"You mean——?"
"Yep."
We were all interested immediately but forebore to ask questions. Presently he went on.
"We were just comin' along the trail. His foot slipped an' down he went into the crevasse. I hollered down, an' I heerd him answer. So I climbed down as far as I could, an' I could see him, an' talk to him. His face was jammed right in the ice an' was already freezin'. We couldn't do nothin' but just look at each other. Then he says, 'You might as well go on!' An' I says, 'I'm damned ef I do!' I untied the packs an' got all the rope we had, but it wouldn't reach him. 'I'll go git some more rope,' I says to him, but I knowed it'd be too late. 'Go on!' he says. 'Don't let the dark git you out here. You can't do nothin' fer me!' I knowed he was right. But I hated like hell to leave him. I'd 'a stayed ef it'd done any good. But it wouldn't. To-day I got some more rope an' went back. But——. The ice down where he was had opened again an' I could see straight down fer two hundred feet. He wuzn't there!"
Nobody said anything. He took a few more puffs from his pipe. Then he got up and went out.
I have more than once mentioned the Reverend Hudson Stuck, Archdeacon of the Yukon, author, missionary and first white man to ascend Mt. McKinley. The Archdeacon is known and loved by all who know him, not only for his services but because of his personality and his adaptability to the needs and conditions of the land in which he lives. His books, The Ascent of Denali, Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled and Voyages on the Yukon, are excellent reading, good examples of Alaskan literature and history. The Archdeacon has a sense of humor which makes friends for him wherever he goes, and one evening Gene Doyle, the oldest mail-carrier in our part of Alaska, a hardened traveler of the trails, blew in with a good story. Gene was a sourdough of the most pronounced type. He had wintered many times in Alaska.
When two people meet on the trails each is warned of the other's approach by the actions of the dogs. First the leader and then the rest of the team will begin to bristle and cut antics of various kinds. The usual salutation in Alaska is not "How are you?" or "Hello!" as might be the case elsewhere. Instead we call out: "How are the trails ahead?" On this occasion Doyle knew by the actions of his dogs that he was about to meet another team. There was a storm in progress and neither man could see the driver of the other team. Doyle had had a particularly difficult day's trip and was a bit out of temper when the driver of the other team thus accosted him:
"Friend, how are the trails ahead?"
"They are the G—— d—— dest, blank, blank, blankety-blankedest I've ever seen in Alaska!" Doyle replied. "How are they your way?"
"The same!" was the somewhat emphatic response of the gentleman. It was the Archdeacon!
As I have already said, weather which in lower latitudes would promptly convert one into an icicle has little effect upon one who understands how to prepare for it. With hands and feet warmly protected, with winter underwear and wind-proof outer clothes one can comfortably and successfully "weather the weather!" It is no uncommon experience, however, to meet a man on the trail who sings out to you:
"I say, old fellow,—your nose is frozen!"
"Thanks!" you respond. "So is yours!"
Each will then blissfully apply a little snow to the disabled member and proceed on his way. But there is one other thing which should be rigorously guarded against as it is a painful and distressing experience. This is snow-blindness. The glare on the snow causes the film of the eye to become a water blister, which takes three or four days to heal. One of my most poignant recollections is a three days' siege of snow-blindness, during which I lay helpless in a hut while an old squaw put wet tea leaves on my eyes. Never again!
I have heard that from the fighting men of the allied armies now in Europe have come back some exquisite verse,—such verse as one could not reasonably expect from men of their youth and previous environment. The same may be said of much of the verse of Alaska. The poems of Service and Dunham are well known. But alas, the bulk of the others never saw the light of day in print!
As has been said, however, Alaska is a land of contrasts. Not every one gets the same impression of the same thing! To prove it I quote a poem written by one of the many who did not find in Alaska just what they came to seek. The writer of the verses below was the steward on the Susie,—one of the boats which plied the Yukon during the gold rush. Evidently his claim proved worthless, or something else went wrong. For he has thus expressed himself: