A Woman who went to Alaska

by May Kellogg Sullivan

This is the last day of nineteen hundred, and a memorable year it has been. How many new scenes and how great the changes through which we have passed! What will the New Year bring? Where will we be next year at this time? It is probably better that we do not know the future.

New Year's Day, nineteen hundred and one. This has been a good day all around, after our midnight watch meeting, when seven of the eight persons present took a part, and we sang many songs with the organ. At half-past twelve I retired, but the others remained up until two o'clock.

This evening the storekeeper and two others from White Mountain called to see if we did not care to go out coasting on the hill behind the Mission, and five or six of us went. When we got to the top of the hill the wind was so strong that I could hardly stand, and after a few trips down the Hill we gave it up, part of our number going out to walk upon the ice, and the rest of us going indoors. The men were invited into the Mission, and stayed for an hour, chatting pleasantly, as there is no place for them to go except to the saloons. It is a great pity that there is no reading room with papers and books for the miners, with the long winter before them, and nothing to do. There is a crying need for something in this line, and if they do not employ their time pleasantly and profitably, they will spend it unprofitably in some saloon or gambling place. I wish I had a thousand good magazines to scatter, but I have none.

I gave Jennie her lesson, and amused both children for a time this afternoon. Yesterday the snow drifted badly, and I fear the people who went to Council will not have a good trail on the way home.

January second: It is pleasant to have a corner by myself in which to write and be sometimes alone. The little northeast corner room where I sleep has a tile pipe coming up from the kitchen, making the room warm enough except in the coldest weather. It has a north window with no double one outside, and when the wind comes from the north I expect it will be extremely cold. From this window I can see (when the glass is free from frost) out upon the trail to Nome and White Mountain. Today there is water on the ice, and it has been raining and blowing. Three of the boys returned from a four days' prospecting trip to the west, and as two of them had been sick the whole time since they left here, they came in wet, tired and hungry, without having much good luck to relate. I told them it was something to get back at all again, and they agreed heartily, while eating a hot supper. An hour later and Mr. H. with the visiting preacher came in from the reindeer station, and their staking trip, in the same condition as the three boys had been; so a supper for them was also prepared.

Our kitchen looks like a junk shop these days, and a wet one at that, for the numbers of muckluks, fur parkies, mittens, and other garments hung around the stove to dry are almost past counting, and the odor is stifling; but the clothing must be dried somewhere, and there is no other place. An engine room would be the very best spot I know for drying so many wet furs, and I wish we had one here.

In speaking to one of the men today about prospecting my claim, I told him I would furnish the grub, but he said very kindly, "I wouldn't take any grub from you. I've got enough, and shall be at work there any way, so it won't take long to sink some holes in your claim," which I thought was very good of him. I hope they will "strike it" rich.

January third: A wet, sloppy, snowy day, our "January thaw," Mr. H. says. I took the two children out on the sled upon the ice and pushed at the handle-bars until I was reeking with perspiration, afterwards giving Jennie her lesson at her auntie's.

There are twelve of us under the Mission roof tonight, including Miss E. and the native.

January fourth: These are great days. We have a houseful of men, nine in all, and some are getting ready to leave tomorrow to do some staking of claims up near the station. M. said if the musician were only here, and they could get a dog-team, he would like to get him to go with him on a staking trip not far away. This man returned soon afterward, and M. wanted me to ask him if he would go. I did so, and he replied that he would go, and furnish dogs if possible; but the ones he tried to get were engaged, and that plan fell through, much to his discouragement. Learning this, I determined to go to the captain at the hotel, and see if I could procure dogs from him for the trip. He said yes, I could have his best dogs, and that a mail carrier is here resting who will lend us his dogs, so that was all arranged.