ALASKA'S NEW RAILWAY 



IN AN orderly, carefully planned, 

 economical manner, the Alaskan 

 Railroad is being built on schedule 

 time. Sixteen days after the President 

 had selected the Susitna route for the 

 government line to connect Seward and 

 Fairbanks, engineers and workmen were 

 on the ground at Ship Creek, Alaska, 

 laying out and preparing the first con- 

 struction camp (see Map of Alaska, 15*4 

 x 20 inches, in four colors, National 

 Geographic Magazine, February, 1914). 



In six months or less, 70 miles of pur- 

 chased railroad, previously constructed 

 by private enterprise, have been partially 

 rebuilt and put into condition for light 

 traffic, more than 30 miles of new road- 

 bed have been cleared and graded, bridges 

 and trestles constructed, and the line 

 made ready for track-laying. 



Xext year will see the Matanuska coal 

 fields opened for use by a railroad con- 

 necting them with tidewater at Seward, 

 and a long arm of the northward line 

 from Matanuska Junction flung toward 

 the interior of Alaska. 



From that point, the question of how 

 soon the first locomotive whistle blows in 

 Fairbanks will depend very largely upon 

 how fast Congress makes available the 

 money necessary for construction work. 



As a result of the work to date, it may 

 safely be said that the government's first 

 great venture in railroad building will be 

 completed well within the estimated cost, 

 over a route which promises to show sur- 

 prisingly quick returns in the develop- 

 ment of mineral, agricultural and other 

 natural resources, and to demonstrate 

 within a very few years that this great 

 Territory is indeed a veritable El Dorado 

 (see page 585). 



ALASKAN DIRT "tfLYING" 



Without sensational feature or inci- 

 dent, a force of nearly 1,500 men were at 

 work during the past summer "making- 

 dirt fly" along the shores of Knik Arm 

 of Cook Inlet. Engineers and survey- 

 ing parties waded and swam the icy 

 waters of glacial streams, hung sus- 

 pended by ropes over high precipices, 

 and fought mosquitoes in the marsh and 



tundra of the lowlands, locating the line, 

 planning cuts, embankments, and tunnels, 

 and determining sites for bridges along 

 the rivers of the interior (see page 577). 



The line to the Matanuska coal fields 

 along the shifting and treacherous bot- 

 toms, and following the precipitous banks 

 of the river of that name, has been com- 

 pletely located and staked, ready for the 

 axemen, dynamite, and pick-and-shovel 

 gangs. Northward from Matanuska 

 Junction along the Susitna, through 

 Broad Pass, past Alt. McKinley, and 

 through the gorges and canyons of the 

 Xenana River, the engineers have com- 

 pleted their work of location to the Tan- 

 ana, from which point to Fairbanks one 

 of three carefully investigated routes has 

 been chosen. 



So entirely without theatrical effect 

 has been the beginning of this actual con- 

 struction of the railroad which is to mark 

 the opening of the settlement of Alaska 

 that men in the interior, to whom for 

 years the near vicinity of vast deposits 

 of precious and baser metals, unutilized, 

 and unutilizable without transportation, 

 has been a Barmacidean feast, still re- 

 fuse to credit the statement that the rail- 

 road is coming. 



Although destined to be the means of 

 bringing to the coast the Matanuska coal 

 to smelt the copper, tin, gold, and other 

 metals now either unmined or shipped 

 perforce to the United States for smelt- 

 ing, no great caravan of treasure-hunters 

 mingles with the laborers who dig on the 

 road-bed for the steel highway. 



GRIZZLY BEARS ROAM OVER SITES OF 

 FUTURE CITIES 



The great, brown grizzlv f the north, 

 the ptarmigan, and the shy mountain 

 sheep of these wilds still inhabit the 

 mountains and grassy plains destined 

 within a decade to be the sites of busy 

 industrial cities. The little army of work- 

 men on Uncle Sam's newest big job eat 

 Chicago beef or occasional game of their 

 own shooting, within sight of meadow 

 lands and hillsides where future herds of 

 sheep and cattle will graze, and busy 

 farmers will plow and plant and reap to 



567 



