FROM THE DELAWARE TO ALASKA 



By WAVERLEY KEELING 



{Flint cr Bay, Alaska, January 11, 1906) 



HE date line sounds 

 funny, doesn't it ? 

 And the reader may 

 w o n d e r why one 

 should be "engaged 

 in" an Alaska jour- 

 ney in mid-winter. 



"Well, that is be- 

 cause you have not 

 had any friends do 

 it, and have not their 

 personal assurance 



that in many ways it is the best time 



to undertake such a trip. 



So imagine me at the above place if 



you can, dressed in the oldest clothes I 



have, seated in the kitchen 

 wooden building known 

 insr house of the 



of a large 

 the board- 

 and 



as 

 mining camp 

 imagine, also, that I am sitting at the 

 combined kitchen and dining table, 

 writing by the combined light of a large 

 swinging lamp, which is far away in 

 the centre of the town and a tallow 

 candle stuck in the neck of a beer bot- 

 tle which is near my elbow — and empty. 

 This is just the first stopping place 

 in Alaska, — away down in southeastern 

 Alaska, not very far from Sitka ; and 

 we are staying here in camp for a while 

 on a business visit before making the 

 real tramp over snow and ice to the in- 



CANOE DUG FROM A CEDAR LOG 

 103 



