434 



CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



When we were out of the canon the weather became better, 

 the wind having freer scope, but still it blew hard. Road- 

 houses and tents were passed, unfinished railroads and houses, 

 another forest ; then, after crossing the river, the last bend of 



the trail, and there in front 

 of us lay, large and dark, the 

 ocean. 



The long trip from Flax- 

 man Island to Valdez was 

 finished. It had taken me 

 almost six months, from the 

 i6th of October till the I3th 

 of March, but I had covered 

 about three thousand miles, 

 had travelled along the 

 Alaskan coast, had crossed 

 overland through rugged and 

 mountainous stretches, 

 followed the highway of 

 Alaska the Yukon, travelled 

 with my own teams, practi- 

 cally begging my way along 

 the shore, where I was kindly 

 received by the natives, 

 travelled with other men's 

 teams, used the stage, and 

 now, after a long and weary trip, I was at the goal. I 

 could have stood up in the stage and shouted with delight to 

 see that it was all but reached, and my joy increased when we 

 came nearer and I saw a steamer at the wharf. The last few 

 hundred yards lay through the town, and we stopped at the 

 stage office, where I found out that I had to wait six days before 

 the steamer left. I stayed in the town, where, as usual, people 

 were kind to me, but still I was glad when the day of departure 

 came. 



Our expedition, as far as I was concerned, was finished, and 

 even if the results were not what we had expected when we went 

 north, I still felt confident that we had done some good work 

 which entitled us to some self-satisfaction. I was now going 

 home to start again for " terra incognita"; but there, far away 



ENTRANCE TO KEYSTONE CANON. 



