Vo!. LXXXVIII 
MAY. 1918 
No. 5 
AMONG THE WHITE SHEEP OF THE NORTH 
THE JOY OF THE CHASE, BORN LONG AGO IN THE HEART OF PRIMEVAL 
MAN, IMPELS THE HUNTER TO THE WHITE SHEEP RANGE OF KENAI 
By JOHN P. HOLMAN 
F OR many years I had been fascinated 
with the idea of a big game hunt in 
Alaska. Talking from time to time 
with those who had hunted there had not 
lessened the desire and much reading on 
the subject had increased my appetite. 
When the opportunity at last presented it¬ 
self through the good offices of my friend, 
Malcolm S. Mackav, I was a ready par¬ 
ticipator. He was planning a trip of in¬ 
spection to some mining property and, be¬ 
ing a big-game hunter of the keenest sort, 
had not forgotten to figure on a side trip 
for game. And so it came to pass that 
one hot summer day, about the first of 
August, we found ourselves on the Limited, 
pulling slowly out of New York, bound 
for the mystic land of the North. 
A long trail, but of great interest it 
proved to be on land and water. We 
viewed the Canadian Rockies from a 
:ar window and the wonders of the 
inside passage to Alaska from the 
deck of the steamship Alameda, ar- 
'iving at Seward on Saturday morn- 
ng, August eighteenth, fourteen 
lays after leaving New York. 
Ben met us on the dock and we 
ater met Andy, both registered 
guides for the Kenai, and in the quiet 
>f Ben’s cabin on the hill behind the 
own we made our plans. Andy 
vrote out a long list of provisions, 
upervised by Ben and ourselves. 
Ve carried the list to the general 
tore and started mining operations 
n a large scale, gathering packages 
rom the shelves and counters until 
ight hundred and forty pounds were 
iled into one corner of the store. 
V’e made arrangements to ship it out 
) Roosevelt on Kenai Lake by a 
"ain scheduled to leave on its week- 
' run over Uncle Sam’s new rail¬ 
ed the next morning at seven 
’clock. The rest of the day was 
tent in the happy anticipation and 
ccitement that always precedes a 
ip into the open after big game. 
The patter of rain on the roof 
; wakened us a little before six 
intents Copyright, 19 8, by Forest and 1 Stream 
o’clock the next morning, but the fever of 
the hunt was so high that we walked dry 
shod to the station where we met Ben and 
Andy and Tom, one of our packers. The 
train progressed slowly—not exceeding the 
speed limit at any time—and reached Mile 
Twenty about three hours later, where 
Andy left the train to get his outfit. 
He had a cabin on the lake at this point 
and said he would meet us a little later at 
Roosevelt. It had been raining steadily all 
morning and the thick mist hung heavily 
on the mountains, shutting out the splendid 
scenery along the line, but we caught oc¬ 
casional glimpses of far off snow capped 
peaks. During a particularly heavy down¬ 
pour of rain we arrived at Roosevelt, Mile 
Twenty-three and a half, but soon had all 
our duffle safely stored away in the cabin 
of Fred Bunce’s Launch, which we had 
engaged to take us to the other end of the 
lake—twenty-four miles away. 
Andy came down the lake in his canoe 
propelled by an outboard motor and we 
took his outfit aboard, towed his canoe 
along the shore a mile or so and cached it 
on the bank near Bunce’s Cabin and we 
were off as Ben would say “in a cloud of 
dust.’’ Three hours later, as we drew near 
the end of the lake, we picked up Walter, 
our other packer, who had been waiting 
there for us and had put in his time fish¬ 
ing with great success. There lay in the 
bottom of his boat a dozen large Rainbow 
and Dolly Varden Trout. We soon 
reached Cooper Creek Landing and stopped 
for lunch in Victor’s cabin—eating trout 
and warming ourselves by the fire. A little 
later we transferred our outfit from-, 
the launch to Ben’s river boat, in 
which we were to shoo* the rapids of 
the Kenai River, eighteen miles to 
Shilak Lake. At three-thirty we 
pushed off and started down the 
river, the motor propelling us along 
through the slow current of the up¬ 
per river and Ben, king- ©f all river- 
men, in the stern guiding; our des¬ 
tiny. Soon we began to- feel 1 the cur¬ 
rent and in a few moments entered 
the rapids. Excitement ran high for 
awhile as we bobbed along in the 
huge breakers—shipping seas and 
swinging through whirlpools—but we 
swung safely into Jimmie-Kyle’s place 
on Cooper Creek. Kyle was waiting 
there for us and Ben packed up some 
stuff he had brought out from town 
for him to his cabin a few hundred 
yards up the creek on the site of an 
old mining camp. Kyle dug from, 
the land enough gold to suffice his 
needs and enjoyed the companion¬ 
ship of two fine dogs and an occa¬ 
sional moose and bear in winter. 
Mackay discovered that he fiad met 
Kyle’s brother in Montana and they 
exchanged reminiscences until Ben 
came back and we ventured forth on 
our journey again. At six o’clock 
A magnificent specimen shot by Mr. Holman 
Publishing Company. 
