Oct. i 6, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
615 
Autumn in Alaska.* 
There is a story current of a white man’s 
adventure with some bears in that country. His 
camp was on one side of the river and on the 
opposite shore was an Indian camp. Being with¬ 
out provisions he desired very much to cross 
the river, but as the Indian camp was back 
some distance from the water, and hidden among 
the trees, he could not signal to them his wants. 
He waited for two days, hoping that an Indian 
would come in sight, so that he could make 
him understand that he wanted a canoe brought 
over for him. 
In the afternoon two bears deliberately walked 
into his camp, and as they approached from be¬ 
hind, they were very near 
to him before he saw them. 
Immediately he plunged off 
the bank into the river, 
and apparently never look¬ 
ed back, but swam, then 
waded, then swam some 
more and finally reached 
the opposite shore. The 
Indians received and fed 
him from the best that they 
possessed. Presently an¬ 
other white man came 
along and after the half- 
drowned one had related 
his experience, the new¬ 
comer replied with aston¬ 
ishment : 
“Why, man, you might 
have been drowned!” 
The Indian here inserted : 
“Drowned! Ha-low! He 
no drown! He see too 
many bear. He no drown !” 
Old Chief Stickman told 
me how he had offered a 
bear skin, two marten 
skins and a dog for a red¬ 
headed white woman whom 
he had seen there the pre¬ 
vious summer. Her hus- 
1 band had agreed to the 
trade, but when the chief 
brought out the articles the white man looked 
at his wife for some time and then backed 
down. Poor Stickman! He said if he had 
only had another bear skin he could have pro¬ 
cured the red-headed white woman he had 
coveted. He had two wives already, but that 
Indian was ambitious. He wanted a variety 
in color as well as in numbers. 
Our trip through the Copper River was made 
up of crossing numerous rivers, swimming 
horses, climbing table bluffs and wallowing 
through swamps. The September weather was 
delightful. The mosquitoes had gone, the sun 
shone brightly through the clear atmosphere and 
we were in the center of the most beautiful 
landscape imaginable. During the short Indian 
summer there appear pretty golden-hued patches 
imong the green. The sere brown leaves dip 
md flit to the music of the soft autumn zephyrs. 
Down they came, fluttering from the birch, the 
cottonwood and the quakinasp. 
It is then that the magpie caws a laughing 
• * F f or ?, advance proofs of “Trailing- and Camping in 
Cewnfa p b m- £■ ^ Powell; copyright, 1909, by the 
sewold Publishing Company. 
farewell to the northern summer and the red¬ 
winged blackbird gathers his wife and children 
from the swamps. They sing praises of their 
summer home and grow eloquent upon the pros¬ 
pect of a southern journey. The pheasant cock, 
with ruffled neck and spreading tail, struts 
across the trail and disappears in the under¬ 
growth. The spruce hen flutters as if going 
to fly, then hesitates and looks the traveler out 
of countenance. The little red squirrel barks 
rather defiantly when you approach too near 
his granary of winter supplies. Above the tim¬ 
ber on the mountainside the ptarmigan fly in 
great flocks. It is then that we enjoy a clear 
azure sky, cool nights and warm sunny days. 
We left the Copper River near the mouth of 
ONE OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE FORTHCOMING BOOK, 
CAMPING IN ALASKA.” 
the Sanford—as it was advisable to travel over 
unexplored ground to gather information for 
the Copper River Exploration Expedition—and 
struck across the country for the headwaters 
of the Chistochina River. 
We followed the signs that had been left there 
by the Indian, Gokona Charley and his family, 
as they had migrated that way to the moun¬ 
tains on their fall hunt. We traveled past 
muskrat-populated lakes, and near one of those 
lakes I killed a coot which was flying overhead. 
My companion expressed surprise at that re¬ 
volver shot, and I was just as much astonished 
myself, but it was discretion to say less about 
it. A coot duck is a large black fellow that 
can be eaten if the coot is first boiled out of 
him, but there would be very little duck left 
after that was done. 
The Alaskan Range is Alaska’s backbone, and 
includes the highest mountain in North America 
—Mount McKinley—and it ends with the verte¬ 
bra of the Wrangell group, including the moun¬ 
tains St. Elias and Logan, each about 20,000 feet 
high, and many others that are more than 16,000 
feet above sea level. Mountain climbers may 
be assured, if they really enjoy scaling such 
heights, they will find in that region the monu¬ 
mental culmination of their desires; but the 
ordinary mortal can hardly contemplate such 
immense surroundings without experiencing a 
sense of weariness. 
We arrived at the foothills of the range, and, 
after scaring a moose from a pasture of high 
grass, our horses took possession for their 
night’s feed. The salubrious climate that we 
had enjoyed left us at Chisna Creek and we 
were in wintry weather. The bushy-headed In¬ 
dian, known as Gokona Charley, came into our 
camp and said that his family was then camped 
on the Slahna River. He declared that he could 
pan gravel with as good results as any experi¬ 
enced miner. We fed and 
sheltered him over night 
and gave him ten pounds 
of flour because he had 
told us that his little boy 
was very sick. We learned 
the next year that when 
Charley returned to his 
camp he had found his 
wife wailing over the dead 
body of their child. 
Before leaving he had 
insisted that I should locate 
a claim on a small gulch, 
about eight miles from the 
point where we were 
camped. He said I should 
have to go through a pass, 
that there was “hiyu” gold 
there, and that others 
would surely find it the 
next year. The poor fel¬ 
low was trying to repay 
me for my hospitality. Be¬ 
lieving that the pass he 
mentioned might be of ad¬ 
vantage to the military ex¬ 
pedition in running a trail 
through the Alaskan Range, 
and also that the Captain 
West discoveries were in 
that locality, I attempted 
to find the gulch he de- 
The winter had set in with a vengeance 
in those high mountains, and I had no shoes, 
my feet being wrapped in sacks. The outlook 
was very gloomy to us, as our chances of get¬ 
ting through the valley and across the three 
divides of the Coast Range, where there was 
no trail, were not very pleasant to consider, to¬ 
gether with the fact that we were almost out 
of supplies. 
Just before the autumn day had closed I stood 
in the pass, after a weary day’s march, and 
looked across to a white mountainside and prob¬ 
ably toward the long sought locality. It would 
be impossible to go down into the deep canon 
and climb out of it, for the snow was too deep 
to admit of such an undertaking, and besides 
one would have necessarily to tramp all night 
to keep warm. The water was frozen, so no 
gravel could be washed. While I stood there, 
with the snowflakes whipping my face, they 
seemed to say: “Your life is at stake for the 
greed of gold! Is it worth while?” 
Somewhere over yonder, a mile or two away, 
and now covered from the sight of man, was 
the sought for treasure of the wild, but the 
“trailing and 
scribed. 
