Even in the face of all these handicaps and difficulties, however, we are not pessimistic. In time they will, they _must_, adjust themselves.
As soon as sufficient roads are built to enable settlement it will be only a question of time (and a short time at that) until Alaska will become self-supporting. Her vast resources can not be dealt with singly. They must be dealt with as a whole. When once the United States grasps Alaska"s needs and conditions, when her receipts and disburs.e.m.e.nts pa.s.s through a single, responsible Board which shall each year report to Congress the revenues and expenses, the government will undoubtedly form an Alaskan budget which will render legislation in her behalf much simpler and more intelligent.
CHAPTER VII
THE PARALLEL STEEL BARS
As is the case in all new countries the most serious problem that has yet confronted Alaska has been the lack of railroads. All men recognize that in the parallel steel bars lie the means of unlocking the treasures of an empire. In them rest the future successful or unsuccessful attempts to develop the resources of any new land.
When the importance of building railroads in Alaska became apparent the old, old serpent, the cobra of civilization, raised its head and spread its hood. Should those roads already built in the country be left to private interests, such as the Morgan-Guggenheim Syndicate, at the risk of a possibly unfair monopoly in the future? Or should the United States own and control them? The question was long and strongly argued.
But the matter was definitely decided on March twelfth, 1914, when Congress voted in favor of government ownership.
The President was directed to "locate, build, or purchase and operate"
a system of railroads at a cost not to exceed thirty-five million dollars. William C. Eads was made Chairman of the Railroad Commission.
Construction was commenced in 1915, with Anchorage, on Cook Inlet, for a base. The Alaska and Northern Railway was purchased and became a part of the new system. The road, beginning at Seward, was to run along the southern coast through the Susitna Valley and Broad Pa.s.s to the Tanana River, with a terminal at Fairbanks. Its length, including a short branch to the Mata.n.u.ska coal fields, was to be five hundred and four miles.
In eight months" time a right of way was cleared for forty miles and thirteen miles of track laid. Then came a halt. The inevitable labor troubles broke forth. These were finally adjusted, however, and the construction resumed, and it was hoped by the fall of 1917 to reach the Menana coal fields, about a hundred miles south of Fairbanks.
We are p.r.o.ne to believe that when the money to build a railroad has been appropriated the most important and difficult part of the job is accomplished. This is a huge mistake. For the Congress of the United States to vote thirty-five million dollars to build a railroad in Alaska was easy. To build that road was an herculean undertaking.
Fairbanks is the geological center of the country. To reach it from the coast the engineer must break through a wilderness of forest and mountains, swamps and glaciers. They must haul a great quant.i.ty of material by sledges in winter so that the construction of many special roads may not be necessary. The experience gained in Panama, and the recent opening of the coal mine near the road already completed, helped considerably, but the perils involved in engineering in Alaska, coupled with the rigorous winter weather, are those of all similar projects multiplied by ten!
To ill.u.s.trate by but one instance (and it will give some idea of the labor involved) in the first forty miles of the line there are sixty-seven bridges! Many of them span deep and almost inaccessible canons. During the winter months the snow, sometimes twenty-five to thirty feet deep, had to be removed before the work could be carried on, and during the time of building the temperature varied little. It was twenty to forty below zero all the time! Nevertheless the men worked courageously on and spring found them far on the way.
One of the most brilliant feats of engineering that has yet been achieved was accomplished during the building of the Copper River railroad in Alaska. To me it seemed little short of phenomenal. It was necessary to span Miles Glacier. The bridge is fifteen hundred feet long. There is a double turn in the river here, and it flows between the two faces of the Miles and Childs glaciers, both "living," a sheer three hundred feet. The engineers were well aware that when the spring "break-up" should come, thousands of icebergs would come battering down the defile. Would it be possible to erect a bridge with four spans, the abutments of which could be made sufficiently strong to withstand the onslaught of these icebergs, propelled as they were by the twelve mile current of the river? Everybody (except the engineers) declared it impossible.
When I remember how intensely interested I myself became in watching the progress of this wonderful building I often wonder what the feelings must have been of those to whom success or failure meant so much,--the builders themselves. Never shall I forget the tenseness of the closing days of that undertaking,--the grim, silent determination written in the faces of those men! In spite of the Doubting Thomases (of whom, I confess, I was one) the thing was triumphantly, gloriously accomplished.
It was at the cost of two years of the stiffest fighting that Man has ever put up against Nature. The great concrete piers, begun through the winter ice, were driven forty to fifty feet through the river bottom and there anch.o.r.ed. The solid concrete was reinforced with steel. A row of eighty pound rails, set a foot apart all around, the whole structure bound together with concrete, were placed next. Then above the piers, ice-breakers, similarly constructed, were planted.
It was conceded in the beginning that no false work would stand against the battering ice. Therefore the work of connecting the piers with the steel road-way must be done in winter. It was a cruel and trying task.
The weather did its worst. It was bitter cold. Snow storms were practically continuous. The piercing wind blew sixty to ninety miles an hour and the fine particles of snow hurled by the gale cut and stung one"s face like shot.
When the last span was almost in place there came a most appalling moment. The "false work," as the supports are technically called and which in this case consisted of two thousand piles driven forty feet into the bottom of the river, suddenly moved fifteen inches! The ice, a solid sheet, was borne on a twelve knot current. Into it the piles had been frozen as solidly as a rock. The spring break-up had begun in the river. The ice-cap, lifted twenty feet above its winter bed, began to move!
The false work with its ma.s.s of unfinished steel was fifteen inches out of plumb. Not to get it back meant that communication with the other side could not be established that winter. The engineers recognized that at any moment the whole span, supports and all, might be carried away. The magnitude of the fight they would have to put up in order to prevent this was realized by all of them. But they determined not to lose heart.
I shall never forget the scene which followed. It was like a huge motion picture and I have always regretted that a camera man was not at hand to preserve it. Steam from every available engine was turned into every available feed pipe. Every man in camp was put to work chopping the seven-foot ice away from the piles. At last this was done. That which followed was the climax of the picture. It was a scene which could never fade from the memory of him who saw it. During that stinging Arctic day and the night which followed it, _during which the river rose twenty-one feet_, the piles were kept free from ice while hundreds of cross-pieces were unbolted! Then the shifting into place began,--at first but one inch a day, then two, three, then four inches a day. The melting and the chopping went on unceasingly, no one daring to relax his vigilance for one moment unless there was a man at his elbow to take his place. Anchorages were quickly made in the ice above the bridge. Feverishly every man, from the chief engineer to the last laborer, worked while that whole four hundred and fifty feet of intricate bridge work was coaxed, inch by inch, back into its place.
Finally, at midnight, after an eighteen hour day of one shift, the anxious and weary men had the happiness and the satisfaction of seeing the great span settle down on its concrete bed. The last bolt was driven in. One hour later,--the river broke loose! In less time than it takes to record it the whole four hundred and fifty feet of false work was a pile of chaotic wreckage. But the river had been vanquished. It had lost the fight by a single hour! The people of Alaska and the United States Government can never sufficiently reward such men as these. Mere money can not pay for such achievement.
In contrast to the strenuous experience just related the builders of the White Pa.s.s and Yukon road had a most amusing episode to record. The bears in the vicinity got altogether too friendly. At first the blasting frightened them. But they soon learned to follow the example of the men and scuttle to shelter until it was over. They became so crafty that nothing which could possibly be eaten was safe unless some one watched it night and day. The bears actually learned to recognize the warning shouts of the foreman and to secrete themselves so cunningly that in the temporary absence of the men they could sneak out of their hiding place and steal the contents of the workmen"s dinner pails! It might have been funny had it not been that the men were often far from a base of supplies and facing the possibility of starvation.
Now, in Alaska we have a method of dealing with thieves which is usually effective, but in this case it did not work. The bears could not read! Every dweller in Alaska has heard the story of William Yanert. He came into the country from G.o.d-knows-where and built himself a cabin in the Yukon Flats. He calls his abode "Purgatory." n.o.body knows why he lives there or what particular sin he is accepting punishment for, as the name of his cabin would indicate. We do not often ask questions on such subjects in Alaska. And Yanert seems absolutely contented with his lot! When the Mounted Police began driving undesirable characters out of Dawson, however, Yanert returned several times from hunting trips to find that his cabin had been robbed of supplies which he had laid in for the winter. He resolved that the next time he left home he would leave warning, and while he was pondering upon the most effective method of doing so he heard a noise at the back of his house and went to investigate. He peeped out and saw a Canada jay (known commonly in Alaska as a "whisky-jack" or a "camp-robber") picking away at his bacon. He shot the bird. Then with the grimmest sort of humor he buried it in a full-sized grave, shaping it just as though a man were lying there. He fashioned a headboard on which he painted in letters so heavy that none could fail to read:
HE ROBBED MY CAMP AND I SHOT HIM.
Yanert had no further trouble with looters.
The importance and the significance of the construction of the government railroad are things which can be rightly appreciated only by those who live, or have lived, in Alaska. In another year (1919) unless delayed by the war, Pullman cars for the comfort and convenience of pa.s.sengers will be running from Fairbanks to the sea. Freight cars will carry the great resources of the country from "Interior" to "Outside."
But while these things mean much to Alaska there is one thing which means much more. This is the construction of a _government railroad leading into the United States_! This is a thing I have not even heard discussed and the possibility of such an enterprise, so far as I know, has not yet been sounded. Only two-fifths of Alaska is mapped! But one has but to stop and think a moment in order to realize that such a road would be of untold value. And this value is not alone commercial, by any means. Is not Alaska a country worth having? I think so. America thinks so. _j.a.pan thinks so!_ It is by no means outside the possibility of conception that, coveting her, she may one day attempt to possess her. In the event of such a contingency, unless conditions are altered (and that without delay), Alaska may one day be lost to us. She is now reached only by the sea. Soldiers and sailors must enter the country by that route. How about a transport or a battleship? In time of war would they be able to reach Alaskan ports?
These are questions on which the thoughtful will not fail to ponder.
Alaska"s one defense in time of need would be the army, and that army, in order to reach her, would have to run the gauntlet of a naval enemy"s fleet. The gravity of such a situation would be much lessened by the ability to transport military forces (whether the times be those of peace or war) to Alaska via a Canadian-American railroad!
CHAPTER VIII
FLOWERS AND BIRDS OF THE NORTHLAND
Whenever I look back over the pleasurable experiences which belong to the years I have spent in the Northland I find my thoughts dwelling upon my first summer in St. Michael. Here the summer comes almost in a day, and following upon the heels of a rigorous winter so closely, the contrast is little short of startling. Knowing naught of this sudden transformation, I was not prepared for it. But I well recall a day in June when I looked out from my door-way and wondered whether there could be another spot on earth so beautiful. Gone instantly was every memory of the dark, bleak months that had just pa.s.sed. The snow still lingered on the distant mountain tops, it is true. Great ma.s.ses of pure white clouds rolled upon the intensely blue sky. The vegetation was in all its vivid freshness, the tundra carpeted with flowers. Even the reeking Arctic moss itself had burst into myriad brilliant flowers. It was the season of perpetual day,--twenty-four long hours of continuous sunshine. Nature seemed to be rejoicing in her own beauty and all the green things of the earth praised G.o.d!
I can not resist the temptation to devote a small s.p.a.ce to the flowers and birds of Alaska. Even I who lived a good many years in our own golden west, where flowers are by no means a scarcity, or a rarity, always feel a tendency to enthuse and become expansive when I think of the beauteous wild flowers of the Northland. They lift their dainty heads out of the tundra and seem to smile radiantly at you as you pa.s.s.
I confess that when I saw the tundra first it did not make any particular hit with me! And this feeling is shared by many when first they come. I recall one of our Alaskan poets who must have shared it, for I find among his effusions a couplet to this effect:
"Sometimes it"s as soggy as sawdust!
Sometimes it"s as soft as a sponge!"
Like many others I had gone to Alaska with a mental picture of a great, snow-covered expanse which stretched away for illimitable miles in loneliness and silence. But one day as I walked along I suddenly saw--a little yellow flower. I began to wonder whether wild flowers grew here.
A little investigation brought astonishing results.
I found yellow poppies as much at home as in my own California!
Daisies, both white and yellow! There is a little blossom resembling in form and grace the sweet pea, but it is a rich, deep indigo blue. I do not know its name, or whether it has a name. The tiny blue forget-me-nots, the beautiful gold-and-purple iris, dainty anemones, and many others which I know not how to name. There is a starry white flower like a cherry blossom, a yellow bloom resembling a cowslip.
There is the blue corn-flower, the wild heliotrope, immortelles, purple asters, violets and, most interesting of all, a purple bleeding-heart!
Why purple, I wonder? In addition to these there are beautiful wild gra.s.ses, exquisite mosses with wondrous weeping tendrils and star-like blossoms. And there is a little crimson vine which grows like patches of red velvet and clings very close to the green moss.
I grew to love the tundra, whatever the time or the season. From the first warm days of the spring until the snow came swishing down and wrapped it in its soft white blanket, I enjoyed its every mood. In summer it is as beautiful as the seemingly more favored spots of the earth. In winter----. There is always the great, white, silent expanse which one grows to love also. For I find the feeling to be general among those who live in the Northland that it is not in her milder moods that Alaska calls to us loudest. One is most deeply conscious of hidden and gigantic forces,--untrodden heights, to which one can never attain, even in spirit! There may be those who hold that the tundra is desolate, dreary. Not I!
The most striking of all the wild flowers that I have ever seen in Alaska is a species of white _claytonia_. It grows in rings as large as a dinner plate. These floral rings are dropped here and there upon the green moss and in the center of the ring is a rosette of pointed green leaves pressed close to the ground. Around this rosette grows the ring of flowers made up of forty or fifty individual blossoms, all springing from the same root, their faces turned _outward_ from the green rosette. In certain places these circles grow so close together that one can scarcely walk without stepping upon them.
In addition to the wild flowers there are many cultivated ones. In Skagway, Fairbanks, and the other large towns, the garden flowers grow profusely. Their only enemy is the southerly trade winds which, on summer afternoons, frequently rise suddenly and keep everybody busy devising some means of protection for the tall growing plants. For the plants grow very tall. Think of sweet peas nine feet high which have had no special cultivation! Pansies three inches across! Asters seven and dahlias ten inches in diameter! I have in mind one garden I saw which contained nineteen different kinds of flowers blooming at once, among them some gorgeous roses, and they were in bloom from June first to October first. No. We are not shut away from the beautiful because we live within sight of the Arctic Circle! Garden parties here rival those I have attended in the States, and I find that human nature is the same the world over! There is no nook or corner of G.o.d"s earth where one, if he seeks, will not find exquisite beauty lavished impartially and unstintedly by Mother Nature, and warm and kindly hearts as well!
The birds of Alaska are many and beautiful. In fact, in one section or another of the country most of the birds common to the north temperate zone are to be found. Of the larger ones the ptarmigan, grouse, gulls and carrier pigeons are most common. A few years ago the owners of carriers discovered to their astonishment and dismay that the latter were mating with the gulls to the ruination of both birds and it became necessary to separate them. Alaska is also the home of the raven and the crow. And the former is quite the most talkative creature in the country! When he has no other birds to chatter with he talks to himself, and like the buzzard of the southern countries, he acts as scavenger. The ravens are much more numerous than the crows.
There is a long, low, wooded stretch of land twenty miles below Muir Glacier in which ornithologists have observed and collected specimens of more than forty species of birds. Of song birds, we have the golden-crowned sparrow, the Alaska hermit and russet-back thrush. The plaintive song of the hermit thrush is so appealing. It consists of but three notes. But its song is full of beauty, of mystery, of pathos.
There are also the grossbeak, the gray-cheeked thrush, the Oregon robin, the western robin, kinglet, warbler, redstart, Oregon junco, and a species of sparrow not to be found elsewhere.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A TYPICAL TANNANA VALLEY GARDEN]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TRAIL NEAR WRANGELL IN SUMMER. NOTE THE BEAUTY OF THE WOODS]
[Ill.u.s.tration: LOVER"S LANE, NEAR SITKA, GUARDED BY TOTEM POLES]