Alaska Part 35

STEAMER "WHITE HORSE" IN FIVE-FINGER RAPIDS]

After a few days' aimless wandering, they reached a point on the east side of Kennicott Glacier, about twenty miles west of the Nicolai Mine.

Here they camped at noon, near a small stream that came running down from a great height.

Their camp was about halfway up a mountain which was six thousand feet high. After a miner's lunch of bacon and beans, they were packing up to resume their wanderings, when Warner, chancing to glance upward, discovered a green streak near the top of the mountain. It looked like gra.s.s, and at first he gave it no thought; but presently it occurred to him that, as they were camped above timber-line, gra.s.s would not be growing at such a height.

They at once decided to investigate the peculiar and mysterious coloring. The mountain was steep, and it was after a slow and painful climb that they reached the top. Jack Smith stooped and picked up a piece of s.h.i.+ning metal.

"My G.o.d, Clarence," he said fervently, "it's copper."

It was copper; the richest copper, in the greatest quant.i.ties, ever found upon the earth. There were hundreds of thousands of tons of it.

There was a whole mountain of it. It was so bright and s.h.i.+ning that they, at first, thought it was Galena ore; but they soon discovered that it was copper glance,--a copper ore bearing about seventy-five per cent of pure copper.

The Havemeyers, Guggenheims, and other eastern capitalists became interested. Then, when the marvellous richness of the discovery of Jack Smith and Clarence Warner became known, a lawsuit was begun--hinging upon the grub-stake--which was so full of dramatic incidents, attempted bribery, charges of corruption reaching to the United States Senate and the President himself, that the facts would make a long story, vivid with life, action, and fantastic setting--the scene reaching from Alaska to New York, and from New York to Manila.

The lawsuit was at last settled in favor of the discoverers.

On January 14, 1908, Mr. Smith disposed of his interest in a mine which he had located across McCarthy Creek from the Bonanza, for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It will be "stocked" and named "The Bonanza Mine Extension." It is said to be as rich as the great Bonanza itself.

CHAPTER XXVII

In the district which comprises the entire coast from the southern boundary of Oregon to the northernmost point of Alaska there are but forty-five lighthouses. Included in this district are the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Was.h.i.+ngton Sound, the Gulf of Georgia, and all the tidal waters tributary to the sea straits and sounds of this coast. There are also twenty-eight fog signals, operated by steam, hot air, or oil engines; six fog signals operated by clockwork; two gas-lighted buoys in position; nine whistling-buoys and five bell-buoys in position; three hundred and twenty-two other buoys in position; and four tenders, to visit lighthouses and care for buoys.

The above list does not include post lights, the Umatilla Reef Light vessel, and unlighted day beacons.

It is the far, lonely Alaskan coast that is neglected. The wild, stormy, and immense stretch of coast reaching from Chichagoff Island to Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean has two light and fog signal stations on Unimak Island and two fixed lights on Cape Stephens. A light and fog signal station is to be built at Cape Hinchingbroke, and a light is to be established at Point Romanoff.

No navigator should be censured for disaster on this dark and dangerous coast. The little _Dora_, running regularly from Seward and Valdez to Unalaska, does not pa.s.s a light. Her way is wild and stormy in winter, and the coasts she pa.s.ses are largely uninhabited; yet there is not a flash of light, unless it be from some volcano, to guide her into difficult ports and around the perilous reefs with which the coast abounds.

A prayer for a lighthouse at the entrance to Resurrection Bay was refused by the department, with the advice that the needs of commerce do not require a light at this point, particularly as there are several other points more in need of such aid. The department further advised that it would require a hundred thousand dollars to establish a light and fog signal station at the place designated, instead of the twenty-five thousand dollars asked.

Meanwhile, s.h.i.+ps are wrecked and lives and valuable cargoes are lost,--and will be while the Alaskan coast remains unlighted.

Along the intricate, winding, and exceedingly dangerous channels, straits, and narrows of the "inside pa.s.sage" of southeastern Alaska, there are only seven light and fog signals, and ten lights; but where the sea-coast belongs to Canada there is sufficient light and ample buoyage protection, as all mariners admit.

Is our government's rigid, and in some instances stubborn, economy in this matter a wise one? Is it a humane one? The nervous strain of this voyage on a conscientious and sensitive master of a s.h.i.+p heavily laden with human beings is tremendous. The anxious faces and unrelaxing vigilance of the officers on the bridge when a s.h.i.+p is pa.s.sing through Taku Open, Wrangell Narrows, or Peril Straits speak plainly and unmistakably of the ceaseless burden of responsibility and anxiety which they bear. The charting of these waters is incomplete as yet, notwithstanding the faithful service which the Geodetic Survey has performed for many years. Many a rock has never been discovered until a s.h.i.+p went down upon it.

Political influence has been known to establish lights, at immense cost, at points where they are practically luxuries, rather than needs; therefore the government should not be censured for cautiousness in this matter.

But it should be, and it is, censured for not investigating carefully the needs of the Alaskan Coast--the "Great Unlighted Way."

Seward is situated almost as beautifully as Valdez. It is only five years old. It is the sea terminal of the Alaska Central Railway, which is building to the Tanana, through a rich country that is now almost unknown. It will pa.s.s within ten miles of Mount McKinley, which rises from a level plain to an alt.i.tude of nearly twenty-one thousand feet.

This mountain has been known to white men for nearly a century; yet until very recently it did not appear upon any map, and had no official name. More than fifty years ago the Russian fur traders knew it and called it "Bulshaia,"--signifying "high mountain" or "great mountain."

The natives called it "Trolika," a name having the same meaning.

Explorers, traders, and prospectors have seen it and commented upon its magnificent height, yet without realizing its importance, until Mr. W.

A. d.i.c.key saw it in 1896 and proposed for it the name of McKinley. In 1902 Mr. Alfred Hulse Brooks, of the United States Geological Survey, with two a.s.sociates and four camp men, made an expedition to the mountain. Mr. Brooks' report of this expedition is exceedingly interesting. He spent the summer of 1906, also, upon the mountain.

The town site of Seward was purchased from the Lowells, a pioneer family, by Major J. E. Ballaine, for four thousand dollars. It has grown very rapidly. Stumps still stand upon the business streets, and silver-barked log-cabins nestle modestly and picturesquely beside imposing buildings. The bank and the railway company have erected handsome homes. Every business and profession is represented. There are good schools and churches, an electric-light plant, two newspapers, a library and hospital, progressive clubs, and all the modern luxuries of western towns.

When Mr. Seward was asked what he considered the most important measure of his political career, he replied, "The purchase of Alaska; but it will take the people a generation to find it out."

Since the loftiest and n.o.blest peak of North America was doomed to be named for a man, it should have borne the name of this dauntless, loyal, and far-seeing friend of Alaska and of all America. Since this was not to be, it was very fitting that a young and ambitious town on the historic Voskressenski Harbor should bear this honored and forever-to-be-remembered name. If Seward and Valdez would but work together, the region extending from Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet would soon become the best known and the most influential of Alaska, as it is, with the addition of the St. Elias Alps, the most sublimely and entrancingly beautiful.

Voskressenski Harbor, or Resurrection Bay, pushes out in purple waves in front of Seward, and snow peaks circle around it, the lower hills being heavily wooded. There is a good wharf and a safe harbor; the bay extends inland eighteen miles, is completely land-locked, and is kept free of ice the entire year, as is the Bay of Valdez and Cook Inlet, by the j.a.pan current.

It is estimated that the Alaska Central Railway will cost, when completed to Fairbanks, at least twenty-five millions of dollars.

Several branches will be extended into different and important mining regions.

The road has a general maximum grade of one per cent. The Coast Range is crossed ten miles from Seward, at an elevation of only seven hundred feet. The road follows the sh.o.r.e of Lake Kenai, Turnagain Arm, and Knik Arm on Cook Inlet; then, reaching the Sus.h.i.+tna River, it follows the sloping plains of that valley for a hundred miles, when, crossing the Alaskan Range, it descends into the vast valley at the head of navigation on the Tanana River, in the vicinity of Chena and Fairbanks.

All of the country which this road is expected to traverse when completed is rich in coal, copper, and quartz and placer gold.

There is a large amount of timber suitable for domestic use throughout this part of the country, spruce trees of three and four feet in diameter being common near the coast; inland, the timber is smaller, but of fair quality.

There is much good agricultural land along the line of the road; the soil is rich and the climatic conditions quite as favorable as those of many producing regions of the northern United States and Europe. Gra.s.s, known as "red-top," grows in abundance in the valleys and provides food for horses and cattle. It is expected that, so soon as the different railroads connect the great interior valleys with the sea, the government's offer of three hundred and twenty acres to the homesteader will induce many people to settle there. The Alaska Central Railroad is completed for a distance of fifty-three miles,--more than half the distance to the coal-fields north of Cook Inlet.

Arrangements have been made for the building of a large smelter at Seward, to cost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in 1908.

Cook Inlet enjoys well-deserved renown for its scenery. Between it and the Chugach Gulf is the great Kenai Peninsula, whose sh.o.r.es are indented by many deep inlets and bays. The most important of these is Resurrection Bay.

Wood is plentiful along the coast of the peninsula. Cataracts, glaciers, snow peaks, green valleys, and lovely lakes abound.

The peninsula is shaped somewhat like a great pear. Turnagain Arm and an inlet of Prince William Sound almost meet at the north; but the portage mentioned on another page prevents it from being an island. It is crowned by the lofty and rugged Kenai Mountains.

Off its southern coast are several cl.u.s.ters of islands--Pye and Chugatz islands, Seal and Chiswell rocks.

In the entrance to Cook Inlet lie Barren Islands, Amatuli Island, and Ushugat Island.

On a small island off the southern point of the peninsula is a lofty promontory, which Cook named Cape Elizabeth because it was sighted on the Princess Elizabeth's birthday. The lofty, two-peaked promontory on the opposite side of the entrance he named Douglas, in honor of his friend, the Canon of Windsor.

Between the capes, the entrance is sixty-five miles wide; but it steadily diminishes until it reaches a width of but a few miles. There is a pa.s.sage on each side of Barren Islands.

The Inlet receives the waters of several rivers: the Sus.h.i.+tna, Mata.n.u.ska, Knik, Yentna,--which flows into the Sus.h.i.+tna near its mouth,--Kaknu, and Ka.s.sitof.

Lying near the western sh.o.r.e of the inlet, and just inside the entrance, is an island which rises in graceful sweeps on all sides, directly from the water to a smooth, broken-pointed, and beautiful cone. This cone forms the entire island, and there is not the faintest break in its symmetry until the very crest is reached. It is the volcano of St.

Augustine.

A chain of active volcanoes extends along the western sh.o.r.e. Of these, Iliamna, the greatest, is twelve thousand sixty-six feet in height, and was named "Miranda, the Admirable" by Spanish navigators, who may usually be relied upon for poetically significant, or soft-sounding, names. It is clad in eternal snow, but smoke-turbans are wound almost constantly about its brow. It was in eruption in 1854, and running lava has been found near the lower crater. There are many hot and sulphurous springs on its sides.