| The beautiful Alaskan summer | [Frontispiece] |
| PAGE | |
| The author dressed for the trails at Kotlick, mouth of the Yukon | [40] |
| An island on which is located one of the finest fox farms in Alaska | [40] |
| Nearly twenty thousand furs ready for shipment | [40] |
| "Simrock Mary's" herd of reindeer coming over the hill | [56] |
| Sledders off for provisions for the reindeer herders | [56] |
| Pribilof Islands where Uncle Sam protects the fur seal | [56] |
| Countless thousands of "Murrs" have made this island their own | [56] |
| A typical Touriana valley garden | [88] |
| The trail near Wrangell in summer. Note the beauty of the woods | [88] |
| Lover's Lane, near Sitka, guarded by Totem Poles | [88] |
| Sluicing the winter dump at Fairbanks | [120] |
| The third beach at Nome from which was taken millions of dollars worth of gold in dust and nuggets | [120] |
| One night's catch. Nearly five thousand salmon weighing approximately 75,000 pounds | [120] |
| A fishwheel | [120] |
| Sitka, the old Russian capital of Alaska | [152] |
| Juneau, the capital | [152] |
| Eskimos of St. Michael | [152] |
| "Scotty" Allen and Baldy | [200] |
| Gene Doyle, one of the oldest mail carriers on Seward Peninsula. A hero ofthe trail! | [200] |
| Coming in to St. Michael with our thirty-three dog team after going out to meet the mail carrier | [200] |
| Dutch Harbor | [200] |
| Reverend Hudson Stuck, Archdeacon of the Yukon, preaching with Indian and Eskimo interpreters | [224] |
| Interior of Greek Catholic Church in St. Michael, built in 1837 | [224] |
| Fine old National House with Totem Poles near Wrangell | [224] |
[xvii]THE LAND OF TOMORROW
[CHAPTER I
NORTHWARD HO!]
MEMORY, with unerring exactitude, carries me back to a never-to-be-forgotten day,—the twenty-ninth of May, 1909,—the day on which I sailed from Seattle on the S. S. St. Croix to take charge of the plant of the Pacific Cold Storage Company at St. Michael, Alaska. In my early manhood I had studied law, but the years immediately preceding this date I had spent among the great forests of British Columbia in charge of the interests of the British Columbia Tie and Timber Company. It was a life which appealed to me,—one which I loved and had planned to follow during my working years. But man proposes! And that inexplainable thing for which we have no definite name,—call it fate, fortune, destiny, or what you will—often disposes! Some sudden and utterly unforeseen event, almost in the twinkling of an eye, will change the whole current and meaning of a man's life. Such an experience was mine. So, like Columbus of old, I set forth once more upon the uncharted sea of life in search of a new world.
The last decade has brought about marvelous improvement in travel northward. Most ocean voyages are eventful and mine was particularly so. Therefore it may not be amiss to begin with it. At that time sailing to Alaska was unlike voyaging to any other part of the world. Man knew not whither he was going or whether he would return. The air of mystery which broods ever over all the northland seems to cast a spell upon the traveler from the moment of starting. Once there, the Land of Silence wraps her arms about him and holds him close, sometimes absorbing him!
There are two routes by which one may make his way northward. One is by what is known as the Inside Channel, by far the more beautiful and diverting and carrying him into the heart of the Yukon territory. The other is the Outside Passage and bears him directly across to the Alaskan Peninsula and thence around the coast to Nome. It was the latter route which I took on my first voyage to Alaska.
No man can see the lights of Victoria or Vancouver fade behind him without a feeling that he is standing in the dawn of a new life. Behind him lies the known; ahead, the unknown! From Vancouver to Skagway, up the Inside Channel, is a wonderful journey of a thousand miles, and as the boats pull away from shore one sees lying to right of him the mainland of British Columbia and to the left the island which bears the name of that intrepid explorer who navigated the then unknown waters of the North Pacific and charted them. Those who now journey northward will never realize their debt to Captain Vancouver. To the land-lubber the journey up the Channel seems fraught with a thousand dangers. But not so. Not a sunken rock but this old sea-dog has charted it, and the vessels thread their way with the utmost safety through a perfect maze of islands. To realize the miracle of this thousand miles of tangled maze one has but to stand in the bow of the boat and attempt to pick out the channel through which it will pass. He will guess wrong every time. One can not distinguish the isles from the shore. The mountains crash skyward, seemingly from the very deck of the vessel itself. But the inexperienced can not tell whether they crown an island or are on the mainland. The tourist gazes with admiration, not unmixed with awe, at the countless little bays and straits through which the boats twist, turn, creep forward and ofttimes turn backward! And so it is until the thousand miles of water, with its fairy islands and its gigantic icebergs lie far behind him,—a part of that past upon which he has turned his back.