the dogs remain, and while two of the party wash dishes and clean up, the third feeds the dogs. Their pot of food has been cooling for an hour or more. They will not eat it until it is cold and a mess of rice will hold heat a long time even in the coldest weather. When it is nearly cold it is dished out with a paddle into the individual pans and the dogs make short work of it. There are some who feed straight fish, and, if the fish be king salmon of the best quality, the dogs do well enough on it. But on any long run it is decidedly economical to cook for the dogs—not so much from the standpoint of direct cost as from that of weight and ease of hauling. An hundred pounds of fish plus an hundred pounds of rice plus fifty pounds of tallow will go a great deal farther than two hundred and fifty pounds of fish alone. There is little doubt, too, that in the long run the dogs do better on cooked food. It is easier of digestion and easier to apportion in uniform rations. Rice and fish make excellent food. The Japs took Port Arthur on rice and fish. The tallow answers a demand of the climate and is increased as the weather grows colder. Man and dog alike require quantities of fat food in this climate; it is astonishing how much bacon and butter one can eat. When the dogs have eaten, and each one has made the rounds of all the other pans to be sure nothing is left, they retire to their respective nests of spruce bough and curl themselves up with many turnings round and much rearranging of the litter. Feet and nose are neatly tucked in, the tail is adjusted carefully over all, the hair on the body stands straight up, and the dogs have gone to bed and do not like to be disturbed again.
DOG-HARNESS
Therein lies the cruelty of depriving them of their tails, which used to be the general custom in this country. The old tandem harness almost required it, as the breath of the dog behind condensed upon the tail of the dog in front until he was carrying around permanently a mass of ice that was a burden to him and rendered his tail useless for warmth. But the rig with a long mid rope, to which the dogs are attached by single-trees in such manner that they may at will be hitched abreast or one ahead of the other as the trail is wide or narrow, is superseding the tandem rig, and one sees more bushy tails amongst the dogs. The thick, long-haired tail of the dog in this country is indeed his blanket, and in cold weather the tailless dog is at a great disadvantage.
It was said that all the dogs retired to the nests of spruce bough; it should have been all but one. It is Lingo's special charge to guard the sled and his special privilege to sleep on it. Turning around and curling up on the softest spot he can find of the unlashed and partly unloaded toboggan, he will not touch anything it contains nor permit any other dog to touch it.
The northern skies are clouded the next morning, the first day of the new year, and there is a ruddy dawn that is glorious to behold. The white earth gives back a soft rose tint, as an organ pipe gives back a faint tone to the strong vibration of another pipe in pitch with it. We shall not see the sun himself any more for many weeks, but we see his light upon the flanks of the mountains for an hour or so around noon. The bold, shapely peaks of the South Fork of the Koyukuk turn their snows to pink fire as his rays slowly descend their sides, and the whole scene is exquisitely beautiful. What a wonderful thing colour is! When the skies are overcast this is a dead black-and-white country in winter, for spruce, the prevailing wood, is black in the mass at a little distance. Gaze where one will, there is naught but black and white. The eye becomes tired of the monotony and longs for some warmer tone. That is surely the reason why all those who live in the country cherish some gay article of attire, why the natives love brilliant handkerchiefs, why the white man also will choose a crimson scarf. Trudging at the handle-bars, I have found pleasure in the red pompons of the dogs' harness, in the gay beading of mitten and hind-sack. And that is why a lavish feast of colour such as this dawn stirs one's spirit with such keen delight. It gives life to a dead world.
But the wind is still bitter and interferes sadly with one's enjoyment. All through the valley, up the creek by which we leave it, past the twin lakes on the low summit, the wind grows in force, and when we leave Slate Creek for the present and make a "portage" over a mountain shoulder to strike the creek again much lower down, the wind has risen to a gale that overturns the toboggans and makes the men fight for their footing. The actual physical labour of it is enormous, and there can be no rest; it is too bitterly cold in that blast to stop. For a mile or two we struggle and slave to beat our way around that mountain shoulder and then drop down to the creek again. The blessed relief it is to get out of the fury of that wind into the comparative shelter of the creek, to be done with the ceaseless toil of holding the heavy toboggans from hurtling down the hillside, to be able to keep one's feet without continually slipping and falling on the wind-hardened snow, no words can adequately convey. We are all frozen again a little; this man's nose is touched, that man's cheeks, and the other man's finger.
THE KOYUKUK GOLD CAMP
On the middle fork of the Koyukuk, at the mouth of Slate Creek, Coldfoot sits within a cirque of rugged mountain peaks, the most northerly postal town in the interior of Alaska, the most northerly gold-mining town in the world, as it claims. It sprang into existence in 1900 and flourished for a season or two with the usual accompaniments of such florification. In 1906 it was already much decayed, and is now dead. Ever since its start the Koyukuk camp has steadily produced gold and given occupation to miners numbering from one hundred and fifty to three hundred, but the scene of operations, and therefore the depot for supplies, has continually changed. In 1900 the chief producing creek was Myrtle, which is a tributary of Slate Creek, and the town at the mouth was in eligible situation, though much over-built from the first. Then the centre of interest shifted to Nolan Creek, fifteen miles farther up the river, which is a tributary of Wiseman Creek, and the town of Wiseman sprang up at the mouth of that creek. The post-office, the commissioner's office, and the saloon, the stores and road-houses, migrated to the new spot, and Coldfoot was abandoned. Now the chief producing creek is the Hammond River, still farther up the Koyukuk, and if its placer deposits prove as rich as they promise it is likely that a town will spring up at the mouth of the Hammond which will supersede Wiseman.
There has never been found a continuous pay-streak in the Koyukuk camp. It is what is known as a "pocket" camp. Now and again a "spot" is found which enriches its discoverers, while on the claims above and below that spot the ground may be too poor to work at a profit; for ground must be rich to be worked at all in the Koyukuk. It is the most expensive camp in Alaska, perhaps in the world. This is due to its remoteness and difficulty of access. Far north of the Arctic Circle, the diggings are about seventy-five miles above the head of light-draught steamboat navigation, and more than six hundred miles above the confluence of the Koyukuk with the Yukon. Transshipped at Nulato to the shoal-water steamboats that make three or four trips a season up the Koyukuk, transshipped again at Bettles, the head of any steamboat navigation, freight must be hauled on horse scows the remaining seventy-five miles of the journey; and all that handling and hauling means high rates. The cost of living, the cost of machinery, the general cost of all mining operations is much higher than on the Yukon or on the other tributaries of that river. The very smallness of the camp is a factor in the high prices, for there is not trade enough to induce brisk competition with the reduction of rates that competition brings.
MINERS' GENEROSITY
Yet the smallness and the isolation of the camp have their compensations. There is more community life, more esprit de corps amongst the Koyukuk miners than will be found in any other camp in Alaska. Thrown upon their own resources for amusement, social gatherings are more common and are made more of, and hospitality is universal. Like all sparsely settled and frontier lands, Alaska is a very hospitable place in general, but the Koyukuk has earned the name of the most hospitable camp in Alaska. Since the numbers are small, and each man is well known to all the others, any sickness or suffering makes an immediate appeal and brings a generous response. Again and again the unfortunate victim of accident or disease has been sent outside for treatment, the considerable money required being quickly raised by public subscription. There is probably no other gold camp in the world where it is a common thing for the owner of a good claim to tell a neighbour who is "broke" to take a pan and go down to the drift and help himself.
Until my visit of the previous year no
