SMOKE FROM OUR CAMP FIRE. 



G. O. S. 



It was Alaska night at the Camp Fire 

 Club. The guests of honor were Captain 

 W. R. Abercrombie, of the Army, and 

 Lieutenant E. B. Bertholf of the Revenue 

 Cutter Service, both of whom had been 

 doing long and arduous service in Alaska. 

 Lieutenant P. G. Lowe, who was with 

 Abercrombie in his explorations, had also 

 been invited and had accepted, but was at- 

 tacked with the grip, a few days before the 

 dinner, and was unable to come. 



Captain Abercrombie told a most re- 

 markable story. He was sent to Alaska in 

 command of a detachment of infantry, with 

 530 reindeer that had been imported from 

 Lapland, to carry provisions to the Klon- 

 dike and the Cooper river regions. 



The vessel carrying the outfit landed at 

 Port Valdez, Cook's Inlet, in the early 

 spring of '98. A number of the reindeer 

 died en route and others were left on the 

 coast. Then Abercrombie made up an out- 

 fit consisting of about 20 head of horses and 

 mules and started across the mountains 

 with a large quantity of supplies. The ob- 

 ject of this expedition was to locate a route 

 into the Cooper river and the upper Yu- 

 kon districts, on American soil. The route 

 chosen for this trip was one that had never 

 before been traversed by horses and sel- 

 dom by men. Several old prospectors who 

 had been in Alaska for years, told Aber- 

 crombie it would be impossible to get over 

 the glaciers with such an outfit. Aber- 

 crombie is, however, a man of remarkable 

 determination — not to say stubbornness — 

 and no amount of adverse criticism could 

 deter him from his undertaking. He had 

 been ordered to do a certain thing and 

 would do it if possible for man to do. 



The start into the interior was made 

 about the first of August and one of the first 

 great obstacles incurred was the great Val- 

 dez Glacier. This is more than 20 miles 

 wide, 70 miles long and anywhere from 100 

 to 3,000 feet deep. It is broken at frequent 

 intervals by vast crevasses, anywhere from 

 one foot to 12 feet wide. One may look 

 down into these and see nothing but endless 

 walls of clear blue ice. You may throw a 

 rock into one of these crevasses and in 

 some cases it will be several seconds before 

 any report comes back, 



The only way of crossing them is by 

 means of snow arches which form over 

 them, in certain places. The wind on these 

 mountain tops frequently blows with a 

 velocity of 100 miles an hour, while the 

 temperature may be 50 to 60 degrees be- 

 low zero. In such times the air is filled 

 with fine snow which is driven across the 

 mountains and, coming to the edge of a 



crevasse begins to build out over the wall 

 of ice, in a narrow strip. It will keep grow- 

 ing out and hanging over, just as you have 

 seen it do on the edge of the roof of a 

 house; and in that intense cold it freezes 

 as it forms. This building out process con- 

 tinues until the strip of snow reaches the op- 

 posite wall of ice. Then the snow arch 

 gradually widens and freezes harder and 

 harder. Many of these arches encountered 

 by Captain Abercrombie and his men, had 

 not yet reached the icy form and were 

 simply snow bridges. 



Think of the awful hazard of a party of 

 men taking an outfit of horses and mules 

 across one of these frail structures! Yet 

 this was the every day business of these 

 men, for weeks at a time. One man — usu- 

 ally the commanding officer himself — would 

 go across the bridge first, in order to ascer- 

 tain whether it would bear a man up. If 

 any of them had failed to do this then we 

 would not have heard the thrilling story 

 Captain Abercrombie told us. But fortu- 

 nately most of the bridges were found safe 

 and the outfit passed over. Only one man 

 was allowed to cross at a time. Long ropes 

 were attached to the horses and each man 

 led his horse over after he had crossed. 



In ascending these great glaciers it was 

 frequently necessary to cut steps in the ice 

 for 100 yards at a time, not only for the men 

 but for the horses as well. These were 

 Indian ponies that had been broken and 

 handled almost exclusively by Indians and 

 that had been trained to mountain work; 

 but not one of them had ever before been 

 on a glacier. However, they soon got the 

 pace and were just as careful in placing 

 their feet in the holes cut for them as the 

 men were. In many cases the expedition 

 had to tack up the side of a mountain of ice 

 which was too steep to be ascended direct. 

 In all such cases only one horse was taken 

 up at a time. A long rope was passed 

 around his body and 8 or 10 men taking 

 hold of it would work on the upper side of 

 the temporary trail, cutting foot holes for 

 themselves as they went. In case the horse 

 lost his footing these men were required to 

 hold him by the rope and prevent him from 

 going down the side of the glacier into 

 some great crevasse. Several horses 

 slipped and fell, but all were saved from de- 

 struction. " The reason we did not allow 

 any of the men below the horses," Captain 

 Abercrombie said, " was that if one should 

 fall he would take them with him into the 

 abyss." 



We reached a point near the summit of 

 the glacier about dark. Men and animals 

 were so completely exhausted that they 



