Adventures in Alaska

by Samuel Hall Young

But mine are all fine little dogs, not as large as the malamute, but with more courage, spirit and intelligence. The long hair protects them from the cold and they will cuddle down in the snow contentedly, curled up like little shrimps, and let it cover them.

We must take along enough feed for the dogs, to last them from salmon stream to salmon stream. The staple of their feed is dried salmon; it goes a long way for its weight. We start with a hundred pounds of it, and fifty pounds of rice and tallow. This, boiled into a savory mess and served once a day (when they stop for the night), keeps the dogs fat and hearty. We shall replenish the supply at intervals, for five dogs will eat an immense amount of food, and must have all that they can eat at their daily meal.

The sled is a basket-sleigh with handle-bars and brake at the back and a "gee-pole" in front, with an extra rope when we have to "neck it" to help the dogs. My wolf-robe is spread on the floor of the sleigh for my accommodation in the brief intervals of riding. For dog mushing in Alaska does not mean luxuriously riding in your sleigh wrapped up in your fur robe while the dogs haul you along the trail. When Dr. Egbert Koonce sledded twelve hundred miles from Rampart to Valdez in 1902 on his way to the General Assembly, I told the Assembly of the feat. A good friend from Philadelphia said: "It must after all be a really luxurious way of traveling, wrapped up in your furs and reclining in a comfortable sleigh behind your dogs." I turned to Koonce and asked him how much of that twelve hundred miles he rode. "About two miles," he replied.

I shall ride more than this on my way to Seward, but there will not be many places where I can ride half a mile at a stretch without getting out and running behind the dogs. The beauty of "dog mushing" is that you are compelled to work as hard as the dogs. You are not on a well-beaten boulevard; you are wending your way around trees and stumps, over hummocks, up and down hills, along the sides of the mountains, and must keep your hands on the handle-bars, lifting the sled on the trail when it runs off and often breaking the trail ahead with your snow-shoes. When the dogs are on fairly good roads they swing along uninterruptedly and you run your best behind. If there are two of you, one holds the handle-bars and the other sprints along, either in front or behind the sleigh. You will get pretty tired the first two or three days, but after your muscles become hardened and you get your second wind, you can run at your keenest gait two or three miles at a time.

But let us get started. All preparations are made, the supply of dog-feed loaded, our robes and blankets put aboard, heavy canvas corded around the load and our snow-shoes strapped on top. We shall not need a gun, for there will be plenty of game to be had at the roadhouses, and we shall not have time to bother with hunting. We have a long journey to make and everything must bend to getting over the ground. That "ribbon of the trail" must be unwound for five hundred and twenty miles. A company of warm and sympathetic friends foregather to bid us "good-bye," and off we go.

The trail is well beaten from Iditarod to Flat City, seven and a half miles, and I get aboard, with Breeze at the handle-bars. My huskies leap into the harness at the word of command and we make a flying start. They are just as keen to go as we are, and seem to enjoy it as well. I ride perhaps half a mile then jump off without stopping the team, and run ahead of the dogs up the long hill. I soon find my fur parka too heavy, and discard it for the lighter one made of drilling, in which I do the rest of my mushing to the end of the trail. Moccasins are on my feet, for the trail must be taken flat-footed if one is to have reasonable comfort.

After two or three miles we leave the broad road and strike the trail through the wilderness. Our sled is twenty-one inches wide, light and shod with steel, and the trail, henceforth, will be about twenty-four inches in width, sometimes sunken deep, where snow has not recently fallen and the trail has been well beaten, sometimes only a trace along the snow where the wind has blown it clean and where the trail is hard.

We soon begin to labor up the first divide. No more riding now. The trail is hard enough to dispense with snow-shoes, but heavy enough to make us both walk and labor. I strike the trail ahead, leaving Breeze to the handle-bars. I begin to feel the joy of it. The keen, light, dry air is like wine. The trail winds through the woods, along the edges of gorges, then up a steep mountain. Now the timber ceases and we have rounded, wind-swept summits. I leave the dogs far behind, for it is heavy pulling up the steep. Their bells tinkle faintly from below. I gain nearly a mile on them before they round the summit. I strike my lope down the farther side, but soon hear the bells as they charge down upon me and pass me, swinging on towards the roadhouse.

We only make twenty miles the first day, for it was nearly noon when we started, and we are glad to stop at "Bonanza Roadhouse" as dusk is coming on. How good the moose meat tastes! How sweet the beds of hard boards and blankets! The luxury of rest we enjoy to the full. The dogs are fed, our moccasins and socks hung up to dry, and we crawl in our bunks with sighs of relief. There is no floor in the roadhouse; all the lumber has been whipsawed by hand, the furniture manufactured out of boxes and stumps, the utensils of the rudest. But the luxury of splendid meat and good sour-dough bread and coffee makes us feel that we have all that goes to make life desirable.

An early morning start is necessary. We eat our breakfast by candle-light, fill up our thermos bottle with hot coffee, take a big hunk of roasted meat for lunch, and "hit the trail" by daylight. Twenty-six miles to-day—to "Moorecreek Roadhouse." Snow begins to fall, and soon the trail is obliterated by the fast-coming feathery flakes. Now the snow-shoes must be unstrapped and one of us break the trail ahead. We take turns and swing along at a three and a half mile gait. This is real work, and we reach the roadhouse in the middle of the afternoon, but not so tired as on the preceding day.