Black Beaver, the Trapper

by James Campbell Lewis; George Edward Lewis

We left Gnome in early autumn and went straight to our old camps. after our usual luck we started in a circuitous route for Gnome. We came to the Buckland River and started up intending to strike the mouth of the Koyukuk but missed our mark striking forty miles above the mouth we had hard times crossing the snow-capped mountains and climbing over Glaciers breaking trails for our dogs, fixing broken sleighs and mending worn out harnesses. tieing up stranded Snow-shoes and facing death in many forms. Here for the first time in my life I realized I was indeed a very reckless man. Often the boys would get cold and sleepy and I would have to make them march at the point of old glory—my Gun—they would swear and blame every bit of hard luck to me. I held my nerve and had good controll over my men and after a waery march reached the Mouth of the Koyukuk and sold our furs at Rampart, Here Black Dave quit us saying he was going back to Arizonia. Three months later we took a boat and floated down to the mouth of the Yukon followed on to the Lake and after about fifteen days we reached Pay Creek. here we placer mined the whole summer. and agin fell in With Jack Freeman and all planned a trip beyond the haunts of men. We beat down the river that early autumn traded our gold-dust for food, went back to the mouth of the Mullen River, then began our march up mullen river. Always before in my life I had been stepping in the footsteps of some predecessor; but now I was to make tracks where man had never been.

Before begining the Arctic Expedition I called all the men up and explained what it might mean—death hardships were all discussed but they willingly agreed to go, in fact urged the expedition. then I said if you loose your life your blood will be upon your own judgement and not upon my head. If we go we shall brave all-together the severe hardships, if we loose like many others, our funerels will be tearless, and inexpensive, If we win then each shall share a like in the spoils. We had an elegent supply of foods.

Of Flour, Salt, sugar, rice, corn-starch, block-matches, candles, We had forty pounds of chewing tobacco, and eighty pounds of smoking, we had six bottles of Paroxide—six bottles of Lemon-extract, Blue ointment, Castor oil, ten Irish potatoes, and other medicines in our chest, But I wish the reader to notice that on no trip did I ever allow one drop of liquor in any form to be packed in my load. The worst thing for any man who is fighting cold to do; is to bowl up on red-eye. he is only the worse for it. I was bragging one day on this when a fellow said "I have heard this but how do you get allong when your whole crew are dam drunkards except the Kidd. Well I said I cannot keep them from it in town; but Black Beaver can keep it off the sleigh and when men are where it cannot be secured they do not drink.

And further I argued that I never tasted intoxicants. That The Kidd Tom Bardine and Old Ed Scott were also tetotalers—so the only chance he had for argument was that Black Dave, And a few other lads from Alaska were the only drinkers I ever had.

In addition to our rations we had a great deal of dried fish for our dogs, we had severel candle fish for lights, and a large quantity of dried fish for fuel.

Early in September We started out for Point Barrow through the interior overland where to my present knowledge man has never traveled. After we reached the head of Mullen river we started up the Arctic divide; and on fifteenth day of October we gained the top of the divide. This was many miles north of the Arctic Circle.

Now I had looked upon many charming scenes in my wild and wandering life; but while standing on the ridge of this great divide which seems to separate the green world and the land of sunshine and birds and flowers from the land of almost intolerable cold crisp snow, giant Iceburgs glaciers and snow-slides—I saw the fairest sight I had ever looked upon. Far westward the dying sun was painting the lofty snow-capped mountains, Northward the borrowed beams were shimering on the polar ice-bergs, in the Arctic Sea, Eastward were the last broken prongs of the defiant mountains known to the world as the rockies; and southward in all its modest beauty lay the mammoth valley of earths greatest river the Yukon. I bid farwell to the known world and sang the old old song—"In far away Alaska, where the Yukon river flows"

And then started down the great Arctic slope into the black bosom of the north. As we waved our hands in parting at southern civilization we hailed with a new delight the mystic and unruly regions of the north. The first day of our descent the weather lost controll of its furious temper, and how things did hum, Cyclones in Iowa and Colorado, Blizzards in Newbraska and the Dakotas, all which have raged for a thousand years melted into one could not furnish the momentum nor terror of this storm for a second.

We camped under the shelter of a great glacier on top of the south side and there let the weather howl, When the weather abated we took up the march in earnest with all our vigor and after several days we came to a branch of a river—which we have since found out was called by the indians coa-ville river. you could tell that at certain seasons water ran down here, it was by no means a river in the sense of rivers such as they appear in other countries even in the dead of winter. We followed in this water trail about forty miles till we came to a pair of great glaciers which met in the center of the river then we were forced to go back and circle around them which took us two days. When we were again back on the bed of the river and had got along safely for about ten miles suddenly our back sled broke through the ice, and was caught by a mighty current and hurled under the ice—quicker than you could say Jack Rabbit. On this sled was most of our flour—this was ill luck we then named the Stream Lost flour river. Still we continued to go toward the north, the days grew short about three hours of daylight every twentyfour hours. So we had to use what is known as The "Arctic Bug" A tin can with a candle stuck in one side and lighted. Night after night we were surrounded by Siberian Wolves they hungred for our flesh. It was so cold that We had to sleep in our Reindeer sleeping bags through the night—so occasionally we would have to unlace our bags and smoke up the wolves and then depend upon a little rest till they got too fresh again.

Our dogs stood the trip well we fed them once a day gave them a single fish each evening after the days work was done, it is always best to feed in the evening the Husky or Malimouth is a very ferocious dog and if you do not keep them hungry they get lazy and will not mind but will defy you. many a dog-teamseer has accidently fallen down near his team while breaking trail and been eaten up. if you fall down they will jump on you like a lion. It is spectacular to see us feed them we remove the muzzle and harness take our gun in one hand unlock the fish box and call the dogs by name one by one at the same time throwing a fish at the one we mention, they will catch their fish like old Cy Young would a league ball even if it goes much higher than you intended they will climb the sky for fish. The Work dog is a great asset to the travelers in that region. a good team will travel over a broken trail seventy five miles a day. it is a very pretty sight to see a well trained team travel. These dogs can pull a load weighing from one hundred to two hundred pounds according to the road and hills. Examine our big team two of which we had with us on this famous journey. Each day brought its new dangers and difficulties, each night had its terrors the inevitable howl of the wolves, the sneaking glacier bears, the extreme cold, the brilliant glow of the Aurora Borealis Which hissed high over our heads and shot like lightling in varigated rays, in sound resembling a turkey gobbler unfolding his wings. I cannot go into all the details of this trip into the unknown it was up and down glaciers, following often in the path where just recently a great snowslide traveled, carrying hundreds of tons of snow and ice and breaking and crashing like a ruined world. The snow slide is the greatest of all dangers in this region, I have seen as many as five all at one time, some are known as annuals or old faithfulls, others are known as untimely, and treacherous. many an Alaskan lies burried in valleys hundreds of feet below the surface in mountains of snow. I have always escaped the snow slide, I always test the snow as I go. If I get on a slope where Snowslides are frequent I prod deep into the snow to ascertain its actual depth, where the snow is thick it is most apt to slide. The cry is keep close to the rocks and you are safe. After many days of severe suffering and fighting cold we came to a perpendicular ridge of ice which we discovered was a long ridge, there seemed to be no way around so we prepared to let over each other. It was about one hundred feet down to the ice. I was the first to test the ropes, then one by one the dogs, sleighs, guns and all was over except the last man. we had provided for him, the rope was fastened under a huge piece of ice; and after he slid down we all pulled on the rope it brought cake and all over.