FIRST CHAPTER 

 ENROUTE TO THE HUNTING GROUNDS 



T HOPE to be pardoned for entertaining no 

 ambition, in this work, to produce an ex- 

 haustive treatise on the hunting possibilities 

 of either Alaska or Yukon Territory; for to 

 emerge from a two-months' trip into the wilds of 

 that country and be able to write a history of it 

 would be about as impossible as to return from a 

 month's visit to Timbuctoo and pen an accurate 

 chronicle of the whole African race. First, the 

 coast and interior of Alaska are about as dissimi- 

 lar as the two sides of the Cascade Mountains 

 of Washington — the coast being warm, wet and 

 woodsy, while the interior is dry and sunny — 

 and in winter fiercely cold, sometimes reaching 

 down to the very chilly level of 75 degrees below 

 zero. For 200 miles inland this rain belt reaches, 

 and thru its width one encounters ferns, vines 

 and underbrush to an almost impenetrable de- 

 gree — where bears, berries and the usual aquatic 

 plants and fowls are numerous. Here on the 

 coast bears and ducks furnish the sport for the 

 hunter — and no "milk-and-water" Nimrod is he 

 who braves the elements and the hard traveling 



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