SURVEYING THE 141st MERIDIAN 



By Thomas Riggs, Jr. 



Engine;er to the; Alaska Boundary Commission 



FAR to the north, in latitude 60° 20', 

 towering high above other moun- 

 tain giants, stands Mount Saint 

 Ehas. From a ridge of Saint Ehas, and 

 running north straighter than the crow 

 flies, is the 141st meridian of west longi- 

 tude, which is the dividing inland line 

 between the possessions of Great Brit- 

 ain and that of our own much-abused 

 Alaska. 



From its starting point, near Mount 

 Saint Elias, the boundary shoots for 60 

 miles over the great ranges and glaciers 

 of the Saint Elias Alps to the broad val- 

 ley of the White River, where the pros- 

 pector patiently drives his tunnels on 

 lodes of copper and gold and prays 

 nightly that the Copper River and North- 

 western Railroad, now built up the Chi- 

 tana River to Kennecott, may be pushed 

 over the high Scolai Pass, thereby mak- 

 ing his wares marketable. What is it to 

 the pioneer if the railroad should charge 

 as much as $75 per ton, for is not the 

 present rate 35 cents to $1 a pound from 

 Whitehorse to Canyon City, on the White 

 River (see map, page 693). 



Just south of the White River, from 

 the summit of Mount Natazhat the eter- 

 nal snows cast their last defiance at the 

 boundary. From here even to the Arc- 

 tic Ocean there exists a season of the 

 year free from ice and cold. 



The many channels and quicksands of 

 the White River being passed, the coun- 

 try changes to the lower rolling hills so 

 beloved of the white sheep, and to the 

 low, lake-dotted muskeg marshes inhab- 

 ited by the wide-antlered moose — a veri- 

 table hunter's paradise, where sheep, 

 moose, caribou, and bear may be had at 

 almost any time ; where greyling are not 

 caught on hook and line, but are kicked 

 out of the water, and where the Western 

 packer calls to the cook: "You blank 

 stomach-robber, ain't you never no more 

 going to cook no beans?" 



Across Ladue River, where the stream 

 flows twelve miles to go three in a straight 

 line; past the head of the Sixty Mile 



River, the scene of the latest gold rush ; 

 through Alaska's pioneer diggings of the 

 Forty Mile; into the Yukon Valley and 

 up the abrupt north bank ; across the 

 hills of the Tatonduk, the home of the 

 Fannin sheep ; across the Nation River, 

 and across the barren hills and ridges of 

 the Kandik ; over the bottomless marshes 

 of the Big Black River, nightly made 

 hideous by the long-drawn howl of the 

 packed timber wolf ; on, on, always 

 north ; over the Porcupine, skirting by 

 Rampart House, one of Canada's most 

 northerly trading-posts ; through the lake 

 country of the Old Crow ; over Ammer- 

 man Mountain, the Davidson Range, the 

 British Mountains ; then down to the 

 terminal monument, to be placed on the 

 bleak shore of the Arctic Ocean — so runs 

 the 141st meridian of west longitude; in 

 all, roughly speaking, a distance of about 

 600 miles. 



Working under the direction of a joint 

 American and Canadian commission, for 

 five years we have struggled with this, 

 the straightest of the world's surveyed 

 lines, and this year it was given to some, 

 from the high summits of the British 

 Mountains, like Moses from Pisgah, to 

 gaze upon our goal, and to see the deep 

 blue of the Arctic, dotted with the daz- 

 zling white of wind-driven ice-floes. 



The actual visible results of the work 

 consist of a vista 20 feet wide cut through 

 all timber, monuments set at intervisible 

 points not more than four miles apart, 

 and a detailed map of a strip of country 

 extending for two miles on each side of 

 the boundary. At prominent river cross- 

 ings and at the main points of travel, the 

 monuments are 5-foot aluminum-bronze 

 sectional shafts, each weighing about 300 

 pounds and set in a ton of concrete. 

 At less important points are the 3-foot 

 aluminum-bronze cones set in about 1,500 

 pounds of concrete. All monuments are 

 geodetically determined and will be the 

 bases for future s-urveys of Alaska. 



The maps, when published, will be 

 among the finest of their kind in the 



68s 



