Last week an Indian brought in another bear, a larger one than the Hunt River bear, and we traded for a hind quarter, about forty pounds. The flesh is rather strong, but we eat it with relish. C. C. has the promise of the hide.
Yesterday there was great activity in sled building. Brown's sled is nearly done. Chenetto, a young Eskimo, worked for us most of the day lashing the pieces together. He is an expert. Luckily I traded for a large quantity of walrus-hide string at Cape Prince of Wales. It is about the only material strong enough to lash sleds together.
Last week we nearly all shaved our beards off, which greatly improves the looks of most of us. That was not the cause of their removal. The ice forms in one's moustache and beard in chunks, and is very disagreeable and inconvenient to carry about. C. C. had a specially fine beard and it became him. Mine was long on the chin with rather silky burnsides, and the boys then called me Si Pumpkins. I then shaved off my moustache and all but the long, straggling chin whiskers, and they called me Deacon Greentree. But now I am plain "Joe" again, and they tell me I shall never attempt another beard at risk of disgracing the camp. We have a pair of grocer's scales with our hundreds of other things, and weigh ourselves at times. My weight is 148 pounds as against 127 when I left home last April. This proves that a trip to the Arctics is favorable to health and avoirdupois.
The Leaning Tree that Marked our Camp.
By the way, I saw my first nuggets to-day. "Hard-luck Jim," one of the men from Ambler City, had three small gold nuggets, But they were not taken on the Kowak, alas! They came from Cook's Inlet.
The "Flying Dutchman" gave us a diagram of the Kowak River, with the camps and distances as he judged them when skating up the river. I will record them, beginning at Holtham Inlet. It may be years hence that some other prospecting parties will wend their way into these parts, and, seeing our deserted villages, pause in wonder at the lesson they teach. The first camp is forty miles from the mouth of the Kowak, the Buckeye Camp; then thirty-five miles and the Orphans' House; one-half mile and Sproud's Camp; nine miles. Riley Wreck; nine miles. Faulkenberg Camp; one mile. Lower Kotzebue Camp; twelve miles, Indian Camp; twenty miles, Jesse Lou Camp; twelve miles, Sunnyside; one-half mile. Lower Hanson Camp; three miles, Lower Penelope Camp (our own) and Lower Iowa Camp; four miles, Guardian Camp; thirty miles, Ambler City; three miles, Upper Hanson Camp; fifty miles, Mulkey's Landing; four miles, Camp Riley; four miles, Agnes Boyd Camp; ten miles, Upper Iowa Camp; two miles, Kogoluktuk River, on which, about six miles from the mouth, are the Upper Penelope Camp (our boys) and river boat "Helen"; ten miles, Stony Camp; one and one-half miles, Upper Kotzebue Camp and Kate Sudden gulch; three miles, Farnsworth Camp; three miles, Nugget Camp; eight miles, Upper Guardian Camp; five miles, Davenport Camp; five miles, Leslie D. Camp; eight miles, Ralston Camp; two miles, Par River, Captain Green's Camp. From this point there are camps on to the Reed River, seventy-five miles further up the Kowak, but the "Flying Dutchman" did not go farther than the Par River. He reports eight hundred men in winter quarters on the Kowak alone. Thus is this desolate Kowak country peopled with expectant gold seekers, where a year ago a white man's track in the snow was a thing unknown. And what will be the result? Time alone, with the assistance of my note-book, shall record it. And here come the boys, but the doctor's face is not jubilant.
Starting for the Koyukuk.