Gold Hunting in Alaska

by Joseph Grinnell

It didn't take the two boys long to decide, and yesterday they spent in remodeling an old sled and making up as light an outfit as possible. They left at four o'clock this morning with a one hundred and fifty pound sled load, and, if the weather continues cold enough to keep the present crust on the snow, they ought to make the trip in twelve days. That leaves only Uncle Jimmy, Dr. Coffin and myself to take care of the stuff at this camp. If anything should happen to the "Helen" above, we should have some experience in raft building and getting down the river as best we could. It is lonesome, only three out of the original twenty, and after having had so many neighbors, too, who are mostly gone. The latest word from further up was that our boys are at work on the "Helen" digging her out of the ice, and she is so far all right. The "Agnes E. Boyd," which was buried in a glacier creek during the winter, stands little chance of being saved. So also with the "Hero." The firm of "Miller & Grinnell" have disassociated on account of Miller's "summons," but if the Cape Nome prospect fails, as I think very likely, we will join again as soon as we meet and prepare to spend the winter at Dutch Harbor. Miller will collect birds down in the Sound this spring. With Miller and Rivers at work there, and myself here, I ought to get a good collection by spring. Dr. Coffin does a good deal of shooting. Out of every five birds he brings in good condition. I skin one for him. That rate is favorable for us both. He already has a box full and by spring will have quite a collection. I am getting a good deal of freight on my hands. It is bulky. I keep the neighborhood gleaned of empty boxes of all sorts. I am very short of cotton, either for wrapping or stuffing. I use dry hay and moss for even the smaller birds now.

Last week the doctor and I took a long tramp, staying out all night. When we started we had no idea of being away twenty-four hours and only had a light lunch, consisting of a little corned beef, four half slices of bread and butter, a dozen walnuts, a handful of raisins, and some malted milk tablets. And this was all we had for four meals. The doctor says it is good for a person's health for him to fast occasionally, and I am certain that this opportunity ought to fully demonstrate the assertion. But I do not think my health demands any further treatment of the same nature. We kept going farther from home, hunting for likely places for ptarmigan and other birds, until we got pretty tired; so we thought it a good time to try the experiment of sleeping out on the snow with no protection whatever. I do not say we were lost. Gold-hunters are never lost.

We lived through the experiment. We did not sleep more than half an hour all the time put together. We had to keep "flopping" over to keep one side from freezing and the other from roasting. We built a fire against a spruce in a dense patch of woods. The snow was beaten down in front of it, and a mass of spruce boughs gathered and formed into a real comfortable-looking nest. This kept us from contact with the snow, but allowed of a too free circulation of fresh air. A number of decayed trees in the vicinity afforded fuel for the fire with little trouble on our part, our hunting knives being the only tool we had carried with us. Once during the night I had dozed off very reluctantly when the doctor happened to notice the smell of burning wool. A spark of fire had snapped out and lighted on the front of my jumper, where, in less time than it takes to write it, it had eaten through my clothes, including my sateen shirt and undershirt, and was progressing towards my vitals when the doctor rang up the fire department. I was awakened by a sudden application of cold on my diaphragm and the loud tones of my companion, who declared he did not come to the Arctics to be burnt to death. In spite of the sleepless night we enjoyed everything. We started again at three o'clock in the morning, after a breakfast consisting of two walnuts apiece, a dozen milk tablets and a few raisins. The doctor wanted to roast some of the birds we had shot the day before, but I would sooner starve than spoil such rare things as Alaskan three-toed wood-peckers, hawk owls, Alaskan jays, and white-winged crossbills. I should think anyone would. On a hillside where the snow had been nearly all blown off and the sun had thawed the rest, we found a large bare place. The mosses and lichens looked just as fresh and green as if it were midsummer, and, growing close on the ground, were lots of last year's berries, all the more sweet and juicy for their eight months' cold storage. The ptarmigan were on hand, too, and I shot two old roosters. The male ptarmigan are changing now, and specimens shot show some beautiful mixtures of the bright brown summer plumage and the snow-white winter plumage. The willow ptarmigan are all in pairs, and, though mostly shy, may be located by the loud cackling of the males. A very good crust on the snow makes snowshoeing a delight for a few hours, but, like any walking, it grows tiresome. One's feet get worn and blistered where the foot-straps work. If the snow is damp it balls on the center lacing and a blister is raised before one knows it.

CHAPTER XX.

M

MAY 6. Saturday, 8 p. m.—This is the strangest May weather I have ever experienced. The wind has blown a gale from the north without a moment's cessation for four days. It is twenty-five degrees below the freezing point. I was in the vicinity of the Hanson Camp yesterday, but got no birds. I saw only one pair of chickadees and one redpoll. They were never so scarce all winter as now. The natives assure me that a change is due shortly, and then there will be "emik apazh," and the "ting emeruk" will come.

The Hanson boys came near getting me into serious trouble yesterday. It was one of Joe Jury's jokes. When I left his cabin I started back into the woods. Nolan, of the Sunnyside, called in. Joe told him that I had reported seeing two caribou across the river on the way down. Joe garnished the tale with a few extra details, and Nolan left for Sunnyside pretty well excited. He got nearly everyone in camp out before noon. I happened along on their trail about four o'clock, and the first fellow I met was Nolan, just returning from a long tramp. He informed me that he had seen the caribou tracks (?) and wanted to know where I had last seen the animals. I was taken by surprise and told him that I hadn't seen a caribou in Alaska. It then dawned on Nolan that he had been the victim of a joke, and he was somewhat "beside himself." I tried to explain matters by telling him that I had said to Joe Jury something about having seen "ptarmigan." which no doubt he had taken for "caribou." The rest of the fellows took the joke all right, but said they would "get even" with Joe some way. One man fired his rifle at a target and split the barrel over two-thirds its length, owing to snow in the end, I suppose. The gun was ruined and so the joke was a costly one.

There is a string telephone between two cabins at Sunnyside which is a real novelty. The box resonators in each cabin are fixed up with features like a human face with a tin mouth. It was exceedingly funny to see the expression on the faces of the natives when they first heard that box "talk." Greenberg was talking in at the other end, and they recognized his voice. One old woman fled in terror. She thought it was a "doonak" (evil spirit). It is no wonder these things frighten the Eskimos so. Doubtless our own ancestors would have been burned at the stake by their townspeople for witchcraft in the early days of New England had they dared to make a tin box "talk."

I bought eighteen pounds of No. 8 shot for $1.20 at the Hanson Camp. It took me nearly three hours to bring it three miles against the wind. I had no snowshoes, as I had let Brownie have mine when he started for the schooner. The extra weight was just enough to make me break through the crust every five steps, and down I went to my knees. That eighteen pounds grew to one hundred pounds before I reached home.

John Miller, the cripple, has moved over to one of the Iowa cabins, so we are alone for the first time in many weeks. Only three of us. We cannot use all the game we shoot now, and I am rather glad to have the opportunity of giving it to the hungry natives. I do not waste a bird body. I give some of them to Charley for his mickaninies, and he loans me his snowshoes whenever I want them for hunting. At first the boys dubbed me "the bird fiend," but they have quit that now. Too many scurvy victims have blessed me for the ptarmigan which, in some cases, have been all the fresh meat obtainable, not to mention our own possible suffering had it not been for the birds I shot. And now I do not object at all to the wordless thanks of these poor natives, who devour every scrap of a bird of any sort, excepting the skin, which only I claim. I save souls, bird skins being the only visible or invisible soul of which the creatures are possessed.