56 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



journey entails innumerable hardships, and especially 

 in 1922 the late thaw and continued cold made it difficult 

 to get into the hills. There are no trails, and one must 

 go on foot or with team across unbroken, swampy coun- 

 try. We left Nome about the twenty-third of June to go 

 to Teller on the Sea Wolf, but ice floes filled Port Clar- 

 ence Bay and a storm made us anchor for protection be- 

 hind a big iceberg ; and in three days we had to return to 

 Nome. After a month 's delay there we set out again for 

 Teller on the Sea Wolf. Truly, Alaska is the land of 

 waiting, for there are no schedules for anything and the 

 weather rules supreme. This delay in Nome and another 

 in Teller when the storms racked the house over our 

 heads made us almost despair of finishing our journey 

 to the Kougarok. In Teller is the farthest north news- 

 paper in the world, published every week or so (whenever 

 there is any news!) by a boy of twelve years, who also 

 builds his boats, fishes for the winter supply of dog feed, 

 and helps his father with the reindeer herd. 



We left Teller in the twilight of midnight and lull of 

 the storm to cross the bay with the team which carried 

 all our provisions for the distance of fifty miles. We our- 

 selves walked, for the reason that horse feed is scarce in 

 this country, and the horses were ill-fitted even for the 

 load of necessities which they hauled. On our journey 

 we made three stops, one when we were halted by a flood 

 and camped on a gravel bar in the Agiapuk River, one 

 at a tent of a miner, and one at a shack of an English 

 prospector who was making his fire in a pan and letting 

 the smoke out by a hole in his window ! In fifty miles 

 we saw one man, and there are many places on Seward 

 Peninsula where one might travel and see none. It was 

 the same story on our outward journey, too, — a claim 

 with one miner, or a dredging camp with five or six 

 men. An empty house, or an empty town were the signs 

 of habitation that we passed. My aunt and I felt our- 

 selves to be objects of curiosity when we came to camps 

 because there are no women in this part of the hill coun- 

 try. One man we passed had not seen a woman for two 

 years, and later I met a Scotchman who said he had lived 

 for seventeen years without seeing a woman ! Hospital- 



