Gold Hunting in Alaska

by Joseph Grinnell

After Whitefish.

Is it monotonous, does one think who has not spent months in a cabin with the same faces and the same voices and the same routine of endless twilight? I marvel how some who have not inward resources can endure it.

I let "Cingato" have my shot-gun yesterday, and he brought me four ptarmigan, two of which were the rock ptarmigan, which I have not before taken. I wanted to skin them to-day, but Uncle Jimmy wouldn't let me. If I insisted Casey said I might, from Uncle Jimmy's threatening look, "precipitate a rough house." I put the birds away to freeze until to-morrow, so there is no further danger of a "rough house."

Last night we had the most beautiful aurora of the winter. The more brilliant display was south of the zenith, although there was scarcely a part of the sky which was not illuminated at some time. Broad curtains of pale blue light seemed suspended in the heavens. They were constantly changing in form and intensity, and waves slowly swept across them as if they were disturbed by a breeze. The lower edge was the brighter, and alternate light and shadow chased each other endlessly from west to east. The effect was like that of a stage with the curtain drawn, with a succession of persons passing in front of the footlights. And then there were ribbons of light sweeping slowly across the sky. These bands were often abruptly broken and continued at right angles with the other section. Little patches of light, like a fleecy cloud in a sunny sky, appeared for a few minutes, to gradually fade out again. There was no moon, and yet the landscape was illuminated as if by the brightest moonlight, but there were no shadows.

On a Journey.

Feb. 17.—Alec, Miller and Casey started back up the river and Brownie went with them. The four "Agnes Boyd" boys who came down with C. C. also went up, and two of the Hanson boys with them. Yesterday Casey. Clyde and three of the Iowa people also left, and will catch up with the first party at Ambler City. Alec, Miller, Clyde and Brown will return in a month. The party had two sleds and four dogs. The cabin seems almost empty. We have had from eleven to eighteen sleeping and eating here for the past month or more, and now we are only six. The comparative quiet is a relief and I shall be able to do more studying. I want to read some more books as well. I expect we shall be few in numbers from now on. When Alec and Miller get back from the upper camp they, with C. C. and Rivers, are planning to go down to the vessel at Escholtz Bay. Casey, our engineer, will stick by the "Helen" until the river opens. I am going to stay here until the "Helen" picks me up on her way to the Sound. I can do more work in the spring collecting, with a warm cabin to dry specimens in, than chasing over the country prospecting, with a will-o'-the-wisp in view. The weather is very gloomy. The air is heavy with mist and full of a fine frost which falls constantly. The sun, although it shines for seven hours a day, doesn't get far enough above the horizon to get in its genial work. It was forty-five degrees below zero this morning and we stay in the cabin. Last week Rivers and I were relieved from culinary duties and Cox took our place. Coxie proves himself to be the best cook the Long Beach and Alaska Mining and Trading Company has produced. We feel our loss in not having discovered his talents in this line before. He has been too modest. His art shall no longer be in obscurity.

A Child in the Cabin.

He sits straddle of the stove all day long concocting original dishes and improving upon old ones. He gives us a quarter of a pie apiece three times a day, and as much as we want between meals. His bread is perfect. We had the finest kind of fried eggs for breakfast—fish eggs. The only impediment to his cooking, to my mind, is his inability to make mush. It is too thin. We have made a fortunate deal with the Hanson Company, who have fifty tons of provisions in their storehouse here, to get all the extra grub we need until summer. Their steamer, the "Agnes Boyd," is nearly buried in a "glacier creek," and it will probably fall to the "Helen" to ship their possessions down next summer. I was down to the San Jose cabin for dinner. We were served to an individual can apiece of sauerkraut and sausages steaming hot. I had been hunting across the tundra for several miles through the snow, and my appetite was as keen as C. C.'s razor after he has stropped it on a section of the belt which was made at home and fastened around his waist with the charge that on no account was it to be taken off unless he was found dead in the snow. It has his name on it for identification. Guy Solsbury has just come up with Dr. Coffin to stay with us for a few days' visit. We have plenty of room now, and are ready to receive in decent style.