Hunting in Alaska.
The Indian boys of Alaska could tell you many stories about the wild animals they hunt with their fathers. There are martens, with their soft brown fur, black and silver foxes, beavers, muskrats, mountain-goats, moose, deer, otter and many others which roam in great numbers over the hills and through the valleys. The Yukon River, one of the largest in the world, is the most important one in Alaska, and through the country on either side of it the wild animals are found in great numbers. The hunters get many of them in traps. There, on the banks of that great river, hundreds of canvas-back ducks lay their eggs on the platforms of grass and twigs which they build on the low marshes, and the Indian children go in parties to hunt for their eggs and the baby ducklings.
An Alaskan Village Showing Indian Totem Poles.
The older boys trap many a fox and musk-rat, whose skins they proudly give to their fathers who will sell them to the white traders, and get sugar, tea, and blankets in exchange. They spend hours in hunting along the banks of the stream for beaver villages, and taking these little creatures unawares.
The Gold Mines.
Not many years ago it was found that not only furs and salmon could be obtained in Alaska, but in some places the rocks were rich with precious gold. The Treadmill gold-mine is one of the most valuable in the world. The men who work there do not have to leave the sunlight and dig far down under the earth, for the mine, or rather quarry, is above ground, and there the workers are kept busy, breaking away the masses of rock which are afterwards crushed in heavy stamps, to separate the gold from the quartz. When darkness falls, electric lights make everything as bright as day. There are more than two hundred of these stamps at the Treadmill mine, so you can imagine that when all are at work crushing the great masses of rock, the noise is enough to deafen one’s ears.