INTO THE WILDERNESS.
Skookum Joe, equipped with a dog tent and some provisions, had been left on the point of the junction of the Lewes River and Gold Creek, to await the arrival of the down-river steamer of the Yukon and White Pass Railroad Company to arrive that day, and he waved them a friendly farewell as the Indians slowly poled their boats out into the stream. The current of Gold Creek was by no means as swift as that of the Lewes, and, while Swiftwater Jim took command of one boat, Rand was made captain of the other. Both boats had been built with narrow walking boards along the sides after the manner of the celebrated pole boats that plied on the Mississippi and its tributaries in the upstream journies in Lincoln’s time. One of the boys was told off to work with the three Indians in each boat for short stretches at a time, thus placing two men on each side with poles about twelve feet long, while the commander of each boat with a long oar gave an occasional impulse to the direction in the way of steering, although little of this was necessary. Two of the pole men would start at the bow of the boat, placing their poles on the bottom of the creek and walk the full length of the “running board.” As they reached the stern, two others would start at the bow and walk down the boat while their predecessors returned to the bow.
The Indians seemed to be able to continue this performance without intermission, and feel no fatigue from it, but the Scout who was detailed to aid the Indians soon found himself suffering from a peculiar aching in the side and back, that Swiftwater described as the “Siwash Curve,” due entirely to the fact that the white man in poling up a river would exert himself in a way that the average Indian considered unprofessional, and would try to hold back, thus adding to the “white man’s burden.” He insisted that the white man usually got over this after the first day’s work, and tried to make it pleasant for the Siwash ever after. He limited the trick of each boy at the pole for the first day to one hour, and he himself and Rand took their own turns at the poles to relieve the aching and untried muscles of the younger Scouts. Soon after leaving the sandy banks and tundra of the lower stream, the creek began to wind its way through dense forests of spruce, poplar and oak with the ghostly bark of the birch lighting up the dim that marks the tangled wildwood of more southern climates, showing how little the sunlight of these northern climes penetrated the overshadowing canopy.
“Fine woods for huntin’,” remarked Swiftwater to Jack, as they poled slowly up stream, “also for travelin’ in winter. Bresh won’t grow very far in from the streams this far north. Great country for garden stuff howsomever.”
“Do you mean to say that vegetables will grow this far north?” inquired the interested reporter.
“Finest garden sass in the world in some sections. Why, there’s a valley between the Yukon and the Tanana, three hundred miles north of here, that can grow anything but bananas and cocoanuts. I’m told they grow bigger potatoes and cabbages, and carrots and other plain, ordinary cooking vegetables up there within a couple of hundred miles of the Arctic Circle than they do down in Oregon, where every man’s truck patch looks like the floral hall at the county fair when I was a boy.”
“How can anything ripen in the short summers up here?” asked Don.
“All vegetation has got to have light, and the more it has the harder it will grow. Sun up here is on the job all the time. Reminds me of the year that I started out to be star performer with old John Robinson’s circus back in Injianny. Got up at three a. m. to help feed the animals and hosses, and assist the chef in the cook tent; waited on table for the canvas men and other nobility from six to nine a. m., ‘doubled in brass’ as the sayin’ goes, with the band, by carryin’ the front end of the bass drum in the gra-a-nd street parade, wore a toga as a Roman senator in the great entree, handled jugglin’ and other apparatus durin’ two performances, and at midnight helped to take down the big top. The other three hours I had to myself. I don’t mean to say that the sun up here in the summer time performs all those gymnastics, but he works the same number of hours and everything up here that wants to live must keep right up with him. Ground is frozen twenty feet deep, and thaws out about eighteen inches in the summer time. That furnishes moisture. Consequently, grass and vegetable are on the jump all the time, working twenty hours a day, and they manage to mature. Oats and other grains that have to grow long stalks, I understand, however, never top out.”
The work of poling the boats up stream was varied at times by what Swiftwater described as “canal work.” At stretch where the banks of the stream were reasonably high and precipitous, and the water of considerable depth close to the shore, the three Indians in each boat fastened themselves tandem to a long cable stretched from the bow of the boat to the shore, and towed the craft for miles at a time, while one of the boys with the long steering oar kept the bow away from the shore and headed up stream. This method was considerable relief from the steady poling which told perceptibly upon the back and shoulders of the novice, and it formed a method of rest for the Indians. The progress was about three miles per hour, and the boys alternately spent considerable time ashore, walking along the banks and occasionally relieving one or two of the Indians in the harness. The miner on the occasion of these tows spent most of his time ashore, directing the Indians and making frequent excursions into the neighboring forest with one or the other of the young Scouts, examining the timber and pointing out the peculiarities of the different trees. He carried with him a repeating shotgun, and was constantly on the lookout for game, both birds and mammals.
“Might run across a caribou,” said he, “but I scarcely think so this time of year. Besides, up here he doesn’t take to heavy timber like this same as he does in Maine and the Kanuck provinces. He runs in droves of hundreds and thousands up this way, and seems to like the scrub timber.”