Alaska, the Great Country - Ella Higginson

There are many fine glaciers barricading the inlets and bays in this vicinity; in Port Nell Juan, Applegate Arm, Port Wells, Passage Canal—which leads to the portage to Cook Inlet—and Unakwik Bay; but they are scarcely to be mentioned in the same breath with the Fremantle. The latter has been known as the Columbia since the Harriman expedition in 1899. It has had no rival since the destruction of the Muir.

Either the disagreeable features of the Alaskan climate have been grossly exaggerated, or I have been exceedingly fortunate in the three voyages I have made along the coast to Unalaska, and down the Yukon to Nome. On one voyage I travelled continuously for a month by water, experiencing only three rainy days and three cloudy ones. All the other days were clear and golden, with a blue sky, a sparkling sea, and air that was sweet with sunshine, flowers, and snow. I have never been in Alaska in winter, but I have for three years carefully compared the weather reports of different sections of that country with those of other cold countries; and no intelligent, thoughtful person can do this without arriving at conclusions decidedly favorable to Alaska.

Were Alaska possessed of the same degree of civilization that is enjoyed by St. Petersburg, Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and New York, we would hear no more of the rigors of the Alaskan climate than we hear of those of the cities mentioned. It is more agreeable than the climate of Montana, Nebraska, or the Dakotas.

With large cities, rich and gay cities; prosperous inhabitants clad in costly furs; luxurious homes, well warmed and brilliantly lighted; railway trains, sleighs, and automobiles for transportation; splendid theatres, libraries, art galleries,—with these and the hundreds of advantages enjoyed by the people of other cold countries, Alaska's winters would hold no terrors.

It is the present loneliness of the winter that appalls. The awful spaces and silences; the limitless snow plains; the endless chains of snow mountains; the silent, frozen rivers; the ice-stayed cataracts; the bitter, moaning sea; the hastily built homes, lacking luxuries, sometimes even comforts; the poverty of congenial companionship; the dearth of intelligent amusements—these be the conditions that make all but the stoutest hearts pause.

But the stout heart, the heart that loves Alaska! Pity him not, though he spend all the winters of his life in its snow-bound fastnesses. He is not for pity. Joys are his of which those that pity him know not.

According to a report prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Glassford, of the United States Signal Corps Service, on February 5, 1906, the temperature was twenty-six degrees above zero in Grand Junction, Colorado, and in Salchia, Alaska; twenty-two degrees in Flagstaff, Arizona, Memphis, Salt Lake, Spokane, and Summit, Alaska; fourteen degrees in Cairo, Illinois, Cincinnati, Little Rock, Pittsburgh, and Della, Alaska; twelve degrees in Santa Fé and in Fort Egbert and Eagle, on the Yukon; ten degrees in Helena, Buffalo, and Workman's, Alaska; zero in Denver, Dodge, Kansas, and Fairbanks and Chena, Alaska; five degrees below in Dubuque, Omaha, and Copper Centre and Matanuska, Alaska; ten degrees below in Huron, Michigan, and in Gokona, Alaska; fifteen degrees below in Bismarck, St. Paul, and in Tanana Crossing, Alaska; twenty degrees below in Fort Brady, Michigan, and in Ketchumstock, Alaska.