A Woman who went to Alaska

by May Kellogg Sullivan

With her I felt perfectly safe. No harm could come to me when Mollie led the way, and my confidence in the native men was equally strong; for were they not as familiar with ice and water as with land? I soon saw that we were headed toward the island, though I did not know why, and by this time Mollie was far ahead, also that we were being followed by a dog-team from Chinik, which puzzled me, for I had not heard that others were going out hunting for seal, or starting for the Home, which was my destination.

When we reached the north end of the small island Mollie ran up the path like a deer, I following, as did the natives, leaving the dogs to rest upon the ice. From a hole in the rocks Koki now hauled his kyak or small skin boat, where he had left it from a former trip, and dragging it down upon the ice, he lashed it upon the small sled to be carried still farther.

The dog-team, which I had seen following in the distance, had now come up with us, and I heard one man say to the other: "There is Mrs. Sullivan," but I did not recognize the voice. When they came nearer, we found it to be two men from camp who were going out to the schooners to buy fruit and vegetables, and they wanted to get a dog belonging to them which Mollie had borrowed and had hitched into her team. A change of dogs was then made, and we started—Mollie and I on her big sled, the other two following.

We now skirted the rocky cliffs, and found the ice hummocky between great, deep cracks where the water was no longer white, but dark and forbidding. Sometimes Koki suddenly started the dogs to one side to avoid dark-looking holes in the ice, the dogs leaping over seams which quickly lay beneath us as the fore and hinder parts of our sled bridged the crevasse of ugly water.

Now the sled swayed from side to side as the dogs made sudden curves or dashes, then a big hummock of ice and snow had to be crossed, and one end of the sled went up while the other went down. I was holding to the side rails with both hands, and knowing that the sled was a good, strong one, I had no fear of its breaking, but my feet were cold in my rubber boots, and I had drawn some furs over me.

Mollie is not a great talker, she seldom explains anything, and one has only to wait and see the outcome of her movements, and this I did, when she suddenly with Ituk left the sleds and climbed the rocks of the island again on the south side. Then I saw them gathering sticks and small driftwood, and knew that they would make a fire upon the ice at midnight, while preparing to hunt for seals.

Coming to a rough place, with high-piled ice between great, ugly seams over which the sagacious dogs dragged the sleds always in a straight line, not slantwise, I climbed out, and Mollie and Ituk came with their driftwood, which they threw upon the sled; the two men making for the schooner forging ahead in the direction of Cape Darby.

Ituk and Muky now made ready to go with me to the Home, a half mile away to the east where they were also to get some bread, this important item having been forgotten in the hurry of departure from Chinik. In the meantime Mollie, not to lose a moment of time, as is her method, had gotten out her fishing tackle and was already fishing for tom-cod through a hole in the ice. Bidding her Beoqua (good-bye), we started for the Home, Ituk politely taking my little bag, and Muky leaping lightly over the rocks toward the mainland. Along the shore of the island I was fearful of cutting my boots on the jagged rocks and rubble thickly strewn over the sands, and had to proceed cautiously for a time, but Ituk, perceiving my difficulty, led to a smoother path, and we were soon on the mainland, and upon the soft tundra, when it was only a few minutes walk to the Home.

It was eleven o'clock in the evening, and we found the missionaries just returned from a trip to the schooner, where they had secured fresh potatoes and onions. The smell and taste of an onion was never so good to me before, and the potatoes were the first we had seen in six months.

I had been in the Home in the early spring for a day, and now, as then, met with a warm welcome from the missionaries. They now had double the number of native children they had in Chinik, and their house is large and commodious, though unfinished.