Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled. Hudson Stuck

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256 An Alaskan chief and his henchman 257 The Tanana crossing 270 Good going on the Yukon 271 "A portage that comes so finely down to the Yukon that there is pleasure in anticipating the view it affords" 290 Fort Yukon 291 The rough breaking in of Doctor Loomis, camped on the mail trail at 50° below zero, unable to reach a road-house for the deep snow 296 Esquimaux of the upper Kuskokwim 297 "The 'summit' is high above timber-line and the trail pursues a hogback ridge for a mile and a half at the summit level" 324 A street in Iditarod City 325 The end of the portage trail 334 Rough ice on the Yukon 335 A docile folk, eager for instruction 350 The mission type 351 Wild and shy 351 The native communicant 360 Raw material 360 An Esquimau youth 361 A half-breed Indian 361 An aged couple 366 Football at the Allakaket, exposure 1–1000 second, April, after a new light snowfall 367 The sun dogs 388 "Tan," of mixed breed 389 "Muk," a pure malamute 389 Map of the interior of Alaska showing journeys described in this book At end of volume

TEN THOUSAND MILES WITH

       A DOG SLED

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

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      Three fundamental facts are to be borne constantly in mind by those who would form any intelligent conception of the Territory of Alaska.

      (1) Its area of approximately 590,000 square miles makes it two and a half times as large as the State of Texas.

      (2) But it is not, like Texas, one homogeneous body of land; it is not, in any geographical sense, one country at all. "Sweeping in a great arc over sixteen degrees of latitude and fifty-eight degrees of longitude," it is no less than four, and some might say five, different countries, differing from one another in almost every way that one country can differ from another: in climate, in population, in resources, in requirements; and—

      (3) These different countries are not merely different from one another, they are separated from one another by formidable natural barriers.

TEN THOUSAND MILES WITH

       A DOG SLED

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CHAPTER I

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FAIRBANKS TO THE CHANDALAR THROUGH CIRCLE CITY AND FORT YUKON

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      The plan for the winter journey of 1905–6 (my second winter on the trail) was an ambitious one, for it contemplated a visit to Point Hope, on the shore of the Arctic Ocean between Kotzebue Sound and Point Barrow, and a return to Fairbanks. In the summer such a journey would be practicable only by water: down the Tanana to the Yukon, down the Yukon to its mouth, and then through the straits of Bering and along the Arctic coast; in the winter it is possible to make the journey across country. A desire to visit our most northerly and most inaccessible mission in Alaska and a desire to become acquainted with general conditions in the wide country north of the Yukon were equal factors in the planning of a journey which would carry me through three and a half degrees of latitude and no less than eighteen degrees of longitude.

      The course of winter travel in Alaska follows the frozen waterways so far as they lead in the general direction desired, leaves them to cross mountain ranges and divides at the most favourable points, and drops down into the streams again so soon as streams are available. The country is notably well watered and the waterways are the natural highways. The more frequented routes gradually cut out the serpentine bends of the rivers by land trails, but in the wilder parts of the country travel sticks to the ice.

      Our course, therefore, lay up the Chatanika River and one of its tributaries until the Tanana-Yukon watershed

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