HUNTING ON THE UPPER KLUTLAN 
INTO THE ROCK FASTNESS ALONG THE ALASKA-YUKON BOUNDARY WHERE SHEEP RANGE 
AMONG THE GLACIERS AND CARIBOU BROWSE IN A LAND OF PRIMITIVE GRANDEUR 
By LEE MIGHELL 
1 
F ar up near the source of the Klutlan 
on the Alaska- Yukon boundary, in 
a little one-roomed log cabin lived 
Erickson, the prospector, and his wife. 
Erickson was a lean, awkward, hard- 
working man, simple, honest and inaccu- 
I rate. His allegations of facts lacked as 
much of verificaton as did his dreams of 
great mineral wealth fail of realization. 
, Yet, knowing Erickson, no one could 
I question his varacity. His wife, an au- 
' burn-haired, portly young woman, wore a 
' masculine garb several sizes too small for 
j her. Erickson did not quarrel with his 
neighbors, nor did Mrs. Erickson, al- 
though red-headed, hurl brickbats and 
' Irish epithets over the back yard fence. 
They did not perform any of those neigh- 
borly acts which we of the city can hear 
rehearsed each 
morning in the po- 
lice court, for a 
visit to their near- 
est neighbor would 
have caused Mr. 
and Mrs. Erickson 
a little journey of 
one hundred and 
fifty miles. 
But in Central 
Alaska one hun- 
dred and fifty 
miles is not far and 
it was on just such 
a journey that 
Erickson had al- 
ready started when 
I on a frosty Sep- 
! tember morning, 
i while acting as the 
< advance scout for 
our hunting expe- 
dition, I met him, 
I his old sorrel horse, 
and four mala- 
mutes coming down 
the river bar some 
three or four miles 
from his cabin. 
He did not ex- 
I press joy at seeing 
another human being, but his actions be- 
trayed true hospitality for he immediate- 
ly abandoned his plans, turned his horse 
about and expressed a desire to spend a 
day in company with me, his stranger 
friend and I was much gratified. 
As we travelled back toward his cabin 
he inquired as to the location of our 
camp, the members of our party, what 
game we had, and our plans for the 
future. At this time I had killed none 
of the five rams which my Alaska-Yukon 
license permitted and which I later se- 
cured and when I explained to him that 
I had not yet had a shot at a ram his 
sympathy was at once aroused and point- 
ing to a flock of six or eight sheep which 
we could see on a mountain side across 
the river bar from his cabin he said, 
“Those are rams. In three hours you 
will have the best head in the bunch. I 
have been after sheep many times and 
never came back empty-handed.” One 
of the sheep had taken its station above 
and apart from the others and I was 
convinced that it at least was a ram and 
was acting as a sentinel for the others. 
The distance however, was too great to 
distinguish the horns even with the aid 
of my powerful glasses. Erickson was 
very insistent that the entire band were 
rams and his positive assertions gave me 
much enthusiasm to begin the stalk. 
On reaching the cabin Mrs. Erickson, 
whose hospitality was hardly surpassed 
by that of her husband, hastily prepared 
a light lunch and a cup of tea. All the 
dogs, which included the four I met on 
the bar and four 
more left as pro- 
tection for Mrs. 
Erickson, were se- 
curely tied to 
stages about the 
cabin, but the old 
red horse was re- 
leased to forage for 
himself and no 
sooner had we 
seated ourselves 
about the little 
table in the center 
of the room when 
our sorrel friend 
bolted through the 
open door. In an- 
swer to his whin- 
nying request his 
humane and affec- 
tionate owner im- 
mediately arose 
from the table, 
stepped to the car- 
cass of a caribou 
hanging on the 
side wall, cut off a 
pound or two of 
raw meat and 
passed it up to the 
old pack horse. It 
Lee Mighell and the Lord of the caribou herd which he shot on the Klutlan 
Copyright, 1919, by Forest an 1 Stream Publishing Company. 
