396 
Forest and Stream 
THE GREAT TROUT OF THE ARCTIC 
ANGLING ON PILGRIM RIVER, NORTH OF NOME, ALASKA, 
PROVIDES SIX FISHERMEN WITH SOUE THRILLING SPORT 
I HAD not been long- in Nome, Alaska, 
before my passion for angling assert- 
ed itself by a mild inquiry of one of 
the old-timers as to whether or not 
there was any good trout fishing to be 
had in the locality. Perceiving that my 
question had aroused an interest, I fol- 
lowed it up by producing from my note- 
book a well-handled snapshot of a 234- 
lb. brook trout I had landed in one of 
the streams of the White Mountains of 
New Hampshire; I went on to explain 
just how I had landed this leviathan — 
how madly it had struggled, etc. — when 
I noticed my listener showing signs of 
weariness. 
“Pretty poor fishin’, ain’t it, back 
there?” he said; “big ones all fished 
out ?” 
“ — Two pounds and a half,” I splut- 
tered indignantly with native pride. 
“Don’t you call that some fish ?” 
“Oh, good size for fryin’, all right,” 
he assented, “but when it comes to 
sport, mister, we shake little ones like 
that off the hook here — or pin ’em 
through the back and use ’em for bait.” 
“Proof ! Proof !” I shrieked agitated- 
ly and insistently, but the upshot of it 
all was that a fishing trip was arranged 
then and there for the following week. 
'"PHE morning 
that our trip 
was to begin found 
me on hand at the 
meeting - place 
agreed upon, 
where I met five of 
what I declare to 
be the finest sports- 
men in the North 
— or anywhere 
else. I shall call 
them Dad, Ollie, 
Doc, Mac and 
Hen ; Hen, by the 
way, was my in- 
formant of the 
week before. 
Our destination 
was Pilgrim River 
about fifty miles 
from Nome, and 
our journey was to 
be by “dogmobile” 
over the narrow- 
gauge railway, 
which at one time had been profitably 
used in transporting mining supplies 
into the interior, but now was abandoned 
entirely to a few dog-driven vehicles of 
light weight. It was in a precarious 
state of repair — or lack of repair, and 
every few minutes we would all have to 
get out and assist in setting the wheels 
back onto the tracks from where they 
had gone astray. 
At first I had felt some trepidation 
about burdening the five dogs with the 
By FRANK DUFRESNE 
weight of six of us and our parapher- 
nalia in addition to the iron-wheeled car, 
but I soon learned that after this queer 
conveyance had attained a momentum it 
barely offered a resistance to the dogs 
ahead, the lines being slack half the 
time. It was a picture to see old 
“Togo,” the leader, pick his way over 
the ties; daintily stepping in and out of 
declivities, wading through pools, and 
leaping over obstructions with never a 
decrease or increase in the seven or 
eight-mile an hour speed maintained. 
“It’s all in a day’s work,” Togo seemed 
to say as he looked back at us occa- 
sionally. 
The once famous and riotous beach 
mining camp of Nome, but now the 
sedate little village, was soon shut off 
from view by the surrounding hills, and 
within an hour we had passed many 
pretty streams. I was tempted to wet 
a line, but my companions informed me 
that fish were both scarce and small, 
owing to the muddy water caused by 
numerous gold dredges and the great 
amount of hydraulic mining going on in 
that locality. 
About noonday we stopped for lunch 
at a point just topping a little rise, and 
the opportunity was improved upon to 
snap a picture of the queer traveling 
rig, as well as to show the general 
topography of the country. 
The background of willow - covered 
lowlands and ravines, and the round- 
topped hills given over to deep beds of 
gray reindeer moss and profuse blooms 
of pink, blue and yellow flowers formed 
an admirable setting for a picture. The 
beauty of the warm August day, though, 
could not be transmuted by any camera, 
nor awarded so fair a justice even by 
my weak pen. The great va.st calmness. 
broken only by the imperative “Come | 
back !” of the cock ptarmigan, the sud- 
den whistling curlew and golden plover, i 
and the occasional trumpeting challenge 
of the sandhill crane as he paused at his ’ 
feasting of blueberries on the hillsides to 
view these alien trespassers, must all 
be seen, heard — yes, and felt, to be fully , 
appreciated. 
Along in the middle of the afternoon 
a sudden little dip in the seldom-used 
track revealed to us the top of the tent 
frame over which we were to stretch i 
our new canvas, the original covering | 
having been whipped to shreds during 
four years of fierce Arctic winter winds 
through which it had stood. Flowing , 
close by and stretching for miles tow’ard j 
the north lay Pilgrim River like a twist- ; 
ed ribbon of cold, glistening silver; now ' 
wide enough for a fair toss of a stone; ' 
now narrow enough, as it deepened and 
flowed under steep banks, to leap across, j 
I resisted an impulse to joint my rod, ! 
and turned to with the others for the ! 
remainder of the day, getting everything 
ship-shape for the morrow. j 
jT ARLY in the morning we were all 
^ astir and lost no time in getting a 
meal and portioning the stream off to i 
each other for the day. 
Hen took a beau- 
tiful stretch of the 
river below the 
camp ; Doc was to 
cut across the hills 
and strike the 
river a mile or two 
upstream; Dad 
chose to fish the 
ripples close to 
camp, and Ollie 
conceded every- 
thing if they would 
only allow him to 
have the pool 
where he had lost 
the “big one” a 
year ago. 
“That fellow 
would go twenty 
pounds if he would 
go an ounce,” he 
asserted stoutly. I 
turned to express 
disapproval of 
such unmitigated 
exaggeration, but a corroborative nod 
met me everywhere I looked. “I saw 
him, too,” said Mac sadly. 
"Good Lord,” I muttered to myself, I 
“there’s either some whopping big fish 
here — or some whopping big liars !” 
Before passing on, and directly rela- 
tive to the above, I want to say right | 
here that a more truthful quintet of j 
fishermen never donned a boot — now, as | 
to the fish. i 
(Continued on page 427) 
Pool on the Pilgrim River and some of the trout 
