1900 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
ill 
A Woman’s Trip to Alaska. 
TRAVEL AND HOUSEKEEPING UP IN THE 
ARCTIC CIRCLE. 
Part 11. 
“How did we women stanc it? Why, 
we dressed warm. Mrs. Clair and my¬ 
self had on about all our clothes, 
and two pairs each of thick woolen 
stockings, soft leather shoes, and buck¬ 
skin moccasins over them. We had a 
big sheet-iron stove, had lots of spruce 
wood, and kept the fires going. Still, in 
the log house it was cold at best. There 
was never a day all Winter, the best we 
could do, when water would not freeze 
in our living room, and in baking bread, 
it was a scheme to keep the “sponge” 
from freezing. Still I never was so 
healthy in my life, and it is all in get¬ 
ting used to living in a cold room. We 
saw it 50 to GO degrees below zero, but 
the air is so still, so little wind blowing, 
that one does not fully realize that it is 
so cold. 
“It was strange housekeeping, to cook 
all kiln-dried foods. Everything Lad to 
be soaked, and that was no little matter 
where all the water had to be brought 
from the river, and dipped up through 
ice five feet in thickness. Most of our 
dried fruits and vegetables came from 
Germany, though last year the Ameri¬ 
cans sent very good dried foods. We 
could get fresh fish. It did not seem 
much like Ohio brook fish, to get a 
salmon weighing 40 to 60 pounds, and 
have real fish steak.” 
“What about the nights?” 
“The slowly-increasing length of the 
nights was the strangest thing to get ac¬ 
customed to. Each day grew shorter 
until December 18, when the sun did not 
show, and kept hidden about a week. 
We tried to be regular in our eating and 
sleeping, but to go to bed, get up eight 
hours later, find it still dark, eat and 
work by lamplight for 16 hours, and 
have it still dark and go to bed again, 
was something I could not get used to. 
The long unending day of June was still 
worse; go to bed with the sun overhead, 
wake up with it still shining, and keep 
at it for three months, was a strange 
experience. Oh! but the northern lights; 
no tongue, pen, or picture can depict 
their grandeur. A genuine Arctic north¬ 
ern light is worth a journey of 1,000 
miles to see. One of our neighbors had 
a few chickens, and it was amusing to 
see them in midsummer; they would go 
to roost, conclude something was wrong, 
get down and go to scratching, then get 
up on their perch again, and seemed to 
be perfectly bewildered. 
“To be sure Dawson had its good as 
well as bad people. We had three 
churches in Dawson, well attended; good 
Sunday schools, and some of the people 
were as nice and exemplary as any I 
ever met. The order in the city was 
about perfect; the Canadian police were 
gentlemen, and made the rough element 
keep quiet. A woman could go any¬ 
where in the city with perfect safety. 
We had society meetings, and celebra¬ 
tions, and our Decoration services on 
Decoration Day as fine as we have in the 
States. Twelve old United States sol¬ 
diers are buried in Dawson, and the old 
soldiers and citizens observed the day 
with a procession and addresses, strew¬ 
ing the graves with flowers. The Fourth 
of July was a great day. Four out of 
every five in Dawson are United States 
people, and the day was made a great 
one, the English commander doing 
everything he could to help it along. 
“The snow began to go early in May, 
and with its disappearance sprang up 
the flowers and mosquitoes. The mos¬ 
quitoes come in clouds, and it does seem 
as though they would eat one up alive. 
The flowers of Alaska are without num¬ 
ber, tens of thousands of acres of the 
most brilliant-hued flowers and flower¬ 
ing mosses, from double roses to the 
prettiest of pansies. About 100 varieties 
I pressed and brought home, and I did 
not get a third of them. Yes, birds are 
there in plenty. I saw about all of my 
little bird friends I used to know in 
Ohio, but they only stay for a few weeks, 
then go south. I wa3 surprised by the 
wild fruits. I used to go upon the hills 
and get all sorts of berries, almost all 
sorts of raspberries, Blackberries and 
bush cranberries. They were edible, 
nice, large, and fine flavored. We had 
quite a variety of vegetables in the gar¬ 
den: peas, radishes, onions and the like, 
and they were a great relish to go with 
our dried food. Strange, but with all of 
the intense heat of the short Summer, 
the frost is hardly affected. I never saw 
a place that the frost was out of the 
ground more than 18 inches. How deep 
is it frozen? Some of the miners are 
down 200 feet, and it is solid frost yet. 
I cannot see how the timber of Alaska 
has grown so large, with the ground so 
solidly frozen, and for so many months 
of the year. 
“What did it cost me to go up to Daw¬ 
son? About $700, but of course this in¬ 
cluded a year’s outfit, but it can be made 
much cheaper now, about $250, may be 
less. East August I concluded to re¬ 
turn home. The journey was altered, 
big steamers with staterooms, and good 
board, were running on the Yukon about 
Dawson, and we only had to disembark 
once, at the White Horse Rapids, but a 
tram road had been built four miles 
around them, and another steamer 
brought us on to Lake Bennett. A rail¬ 
road 30 miles long was finished, and cars 
running to Dyea, over the mountains, 
though the fare was 25 cents a mile. At 
Dyea the Seattle steamer was in wait¬ 
ing, and we were soon at Seattle, and in 
20 days from leaving Dawson, I was in 
Ohio. I would not have missed the trip 
for anything. I have a collection of 
Alaskan curiosities, clothing, photo¬ 
graphs and nuggets. They are not ex¬ 
tensive, but they bring to mind my 
greatest trip, in all, about 11,000 miles.” 
JOnN GOULD. 
More About Domestic Science. 
WHAT THE WOMEN SAY OF INSTITUTE 
WORK. 
I have had the pleasure of hearing 
Miss Anna Barrows lecture on domestic 
science at some of the farmers' insti¬ 
tutes. I am inclined to believe that Miss 
Barrows is one of the few women lec¬ 
turers on cookery and domestic science 
whose work is thoroughly practical. In¬ 
stead of spending her time showing how 
to make fancy dishes, which all women 
love to experiment with, she gives prac¬ 
tical suggestions along the lines which 
underlie successful cookery. I do not 
know that I can say her lectures would 
be of much value to the help in the 
kitchen, but they would certainly help 
the housewife, who is interested in her 
work. I believe that the number of wo¬ 
men who are helped by such lectures as 
Miss Barrows gives is fully as great as 
the number of men who are helped by 
the lectures on farm subjects. I do not 
know but that it is safe to say that the 
number of women is larger, because so 
much less has been done for them along 
this line than has been done for the 
men. One of the great difficulties I have 
noticed at all the meetings I have at¬ 
tended where lectures on domestic 
science have been given, is that the wo¬ 
men are not as free to discuss the sub¬ 
ject as could be wished, and then the 
time is too short. I am inclined to be¬ 
lieve that the greatest amount of good 
along this line can be done by letting 
the women hold separate meetings dur¬ 
ing the institute, where they will be 
more free to discuss the subject than 
they would before a mixed audience, 
where a question box can be furnished 
just as It is in the regular Institutes. 
MRS. F. E. DAWLEY. 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use “Mrs. Wins¬ 
low’s Soothling Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv. 
I consider Miss Barrows’s lectures on 
the domestic science very practical, and 
if her suggestions were only put in prac¬ 
tice by the average farm housekeeper, a 
greater variety of plain, palatable food 
could be placed before her family with 
the materials she has in her larder. I 
fear that the same criticism can be given 
to many of the women who listen to 
these lectures, as is given to many men 
who attend the farmers’ institutes. They 
listen, say, “Yes, that is all right, and 
would be a benefit to us,” but they go 
home from the meetings and keep on 
doing just as they always have done. 
The women will say, “I have all those 
things to do with, and no doubt it would 
be good, but I can’t fuss so in getting a 
meal,” when as far as time is con¬ 
cerned it does not take longer to cook 
the new dish than the old. I believe it 
was a move in the right direction when 
the director of the farmers' institutes 
inaugurated this new feature of lectures 
in domestic science at these farmers’ 
meetings. For years we have been hear¬ 
ing about balanced rations for our 
stock, but not a word about balanced 
rations for our families, and I was 
pleased with the simple and pleasing 
manner in which Miss Barrows present¬ 
ed these new features in cookery. 
MRS. G. H. HYDE. 
....It is a sad thing for one to endure 
sore affliction for a long series of years 
and derive no benefit therefrom. If this 
fire does not melt the heart, it produces 
hardness. Those who are not made bet¬ 
ter by their sufferings are usually made 
worse. Those who draw near to God in 
the fires will have reason to praise Him 
forever for sore trials.—The Christian 
Advance. 
Both Cold and Heat, 
in refrigerating rooms and ovens, are 
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M** b. 
Find 
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The International 
Correspondence Nr hoots, 
‘ Box 1280, Scranton, 
Fa. ^ 
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American Gardening. 
Ten Sample Copies, separate Issues, 10 cents 
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