Since then many men have sailed into the northern waters and come back with cargoes of whale oil, or seal skins or canned salmon, but no one paid any particular attention to them. A party of scientific men explored the Yukon river which is as long and as wide as the Mississippi and made the ascent of Mount St. Elias, one of the loftiest peaks in North America, but nobody was interested in Alaska except as a place where the sun shines for six months and then leaves the whole country in partial darkness for another six months.
Imagine the sun apparently traveling around in a little circle all the time. There are no sunrises and no sunsets, and no need of lights at night. Then when it goes down, lamps or candles must be burned all the time. When the extreme cold comes the aurora borealis sends out splendid rays of many colored lights to burnish up the vault of heaven and make a grand electrical display.
The Eskimos are a dwarfed race of men and women with flat noses, and eyes wide apart, and they dress themselves in heavy furs with the hair turned next to the body. They live on fish and whale blubber, and are experts in throwing a spear or managing a skin canoe. In front of their homes they have curious totem poles to show what tribes they belong to, and they are quite ingenious in weaving fish-nets, baskets, and in the carving of silver and ivory.
For many years no news came from Alaska, except by ship, and on a warm, sunny day in autumn not long ago, some sailors set up the cry:
"Gold has been found in Alaska! It is the new El Dorado! It is richer than California!"
At first people did not believe them, but when the experts passed upon the findings everybody said:
"Let us go to the Klondike! We can get rich in a few months."
The excitement was so great that it did no good to point out the hardships and dangers of such an undertaking.
"We will take the chances of freezing," they said, carelessly. "We can walk over the mountain passes and we do not care about the discomforts."
"But only a few can find the gold. It was the same in California. Not one in a thousand can possibly bring away as much gold as he takes with him to live on, for food will be very scarce and high priced," urged the prudent ones.