ASSOCIATED PRESS AIR
EDITOR DESCRIBED HIS
FIRST VIEW OF ALASKA
BY DEVON FRANCIS
Aviation Editor, Associated Press
k The worst part is the eternal
daylight.
The sun comes up and stays up
and you walk down the main
street of Fairbanks at midnight
in broad daylight, knowing that
you ought to be in bed and with
no notion whatever of turning in.
Things are going on and you
don’t want to miss them.
In the hotel room I pulled a
coin from my pocket and said to
Joe Engerton, my roommate, “If
it comes down heads you get your
choice of the beds.”
One faced the window, one
away from it.
It was tails.
“Are there any heads on that
coin? asked Joe.
I took the bed facing away
from the window but it didn’t do
any good. The daylight came in
through the sides of the blind,
and it was useless to try to go to
sleep. It was 7 o’clock in the
morning New York time, anyway
and my sleeping hours had been
loco for days.
It was a funny thing about Al
aska. To “outsiders” as Alaskans
call them, this has been a place
of-gold and cold weather and hot
weather and wilderness. Now,
with money being poured into
the territory for the establish
ment of army and navy air bas
es it was a place of primary inter
est as a part of our national
defense scheme. The “outsider”
come up witha lot of ideas and
leaves talking to himself.
It is discomforting to come up
here, imbued with the pioneer
ing spirit and have a microphone |
shoved into your face as you
step out of a transport plane.
“Tell the members of our ra- j
dio audience,” says the man with
the microphone, “your impres
sions of Alaska.”
This could just as well be
Times Square.
Of course, there are wilder
j nesses. They are interminable.
I As far as you can see the land is
flat or gently undulating and in
all the 590,000 square miles of
Alaska there are only 65,000 resi
dents.
Coming up from Juneau, the
I capital, we glimpsed only two
Written by a prominent, well known Alaska mining engin
eer May 31st, 1940, quote "During the period of 1934 to 1940
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engines gasoline engines and bearing lubrications. In all this
time there has been no stuck piston rings, no deposits of
hard carbon around valves or exhaust ports and no evidence
of gumming or sludging." Can you afford to delay investigat
ing this wonderful oil? See —
SAM TAGGART
also sold at the STAR MOTOR CO. and NOME MOTOR CO.
4.4.4.4.*****++***********++**‘M~t
I MINERS & MERCHANTS BANK OF ALASKA J
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j; An Alaskan Bank Which Has Served This 4
3! Community Continuously Since 1904 4
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a |
| “Better Light—Better Sight”
j; ■ I
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SCHEDULES
Seattle to Juneau, Monday and Thursday
Juneau to Seattle, Tuesday and Friday
Juneau to Fairbanks, Tuesday and Friday
Fairbanks to Juneau, Monday, Thursday and Saturday, 9 a.m.
Fairbanks to Nome, Sunday and Wednesday, roundtrip, 8 a m.
Fairbanks to Bethel, Wednesday’ 8 a.m.
— Continuous Two-way Radio Communications —
We Maintain and Operate 14 Radio Stations in Alaska
Department of Commerce Weather Bureau
FORECAST, NOME AND VICINITY
Continued cloudy with occasion al light rain, and not much
change in temperature tonight and Tuesday.
Data For 24 Hours Ending 1:90 pm Today
Highest temp — 49 Lowest te mp — 46 Precipitation — 0.14
Total precip this month 0.48 Total since Jan. 1, 1940 3.04
Temp. Humidity Wind Weather
12 Midnight..— -.. 48 87 S-13 Rain
8am ..... . . .. 49 93 E-5 Rain
1£:30 p m .... . 50 85 SE-11 Rain
One Year Ago Today
Highest temp — 49 Lowest te mp — 45 Precipitation — 0.76
Tomorrow: Sunrise 1:39 a. m. Sunset 10:32 p. m.
communities and an army base
in all the 670 miles.
The rest was mountains top
ped with snow, splaying out this
side of Whitehorse, Yukon Terri
tory, into broad, seemingly limit
less valleys. Here and there was
a ridge which looked like a gla
cial moraine. Nobody lived there
or hardly anybody. There were
great expanses of green. That
was kneehigh moss growing in I
water created by the thawing
out of the ground's crust.
That was tundra, of a sort. ]
Technically, the Alaskan tundra
occurs within the Arctic Circle j
which begins 100 miles north of ;
here.
Dig three to five feet into the
ground in the interior of Alaska
in the middle of the summer and
you encounter frozen soil.
The fertility of the soil is amaz
ing. Crops particularly root crops
grow twice as fast in the eternal j
daylight as they do in the States.
Alaska’s prize cabbage head was J
grown in the vicinity of Fair- j
banks ast year. It weighed 42
pounds.
The Territorial government es- j
timates there are 100,000 sqcare
miles avaiable for agriculture,
either as tillable land or for hay
and pasture — a .region as great
as the combined areas of Pennsyl
vania, Maryland, Delaware, New
Jersey, . Connecticut, Massachu
setts, Vermont and New Hamp
shire.
Wheat gives an average yield
of 20 to 25 bushels to the acre.
Potatoes are the chief cash crop.
Matansuka valley farms look like
those of New England. Two fac
tors have discouraged interior A1
' aska’s agricultural development,
i the long winters and the market
, ing problem. It is so far to the
“outside.”
It gives a man a strange feel
j ing to fly up over Chilkoot Pass
where hundreds died fighting
their way from the seacoast into
the interior during the Klondike
gold rush into the Yukon, The
trail is still there, after 40 years.
“Men smothered to death
there in snowslides,” says the pi
i lot pointing.
All around are towering moun
tains, row upon row as far as
you can see, covered with white
I even in the summer.
Just south of Whitehorse is
Miles Canyon on the Yukon riv
i er
“They come up over the pass,”
J says the pilot, “and those who
j survived constructed boats. Sec
the white down there in the can
yon? Those are rapids. A lot of
them died there. The boats turn
ed over.”
It took those fortune hunters
weeks, sometimes months, to
reach the Yukon from the coast.
We flew it in six hours. Beyond
Whitehorse, where many of them
froze to death, I got bored with
a magazine and went to sleep.
Modern Alaska has gone panty
waist, even the dogs.
“We use dogs sometimes in
the winter,” a resident told me.
“If you leave your car out in
the open when it is 50 below
zero, the tranmission oil freezes.
Dog teams are handier. They are
not like the old native dogs, the
Malemutes. If there is any fault
to be found with my own dogs,
they are just a little bit timid.”
| Canned Salmon Sales Spurt
After Post-Lenten Season Slump
Spurred by the attractive store
display banners and national ad
vertising for canned salmon, in
terest on the part of retail gro
cers is apparently reviving after
a slump of several months, a re
port from the advertising office
of the Canned Salmon Industry
says.
Basing this opinion on orders
received from grocery distribut
ors and retailers for the new col
orful salmon store banners offer
ed by the industry, the report
says that the start of warm wea
ther in most sections of the conn
try is now leading to increased
selling effort for cold dish in
gredients, among which canned
salmon is a favorite.
1 “Following the Lenten period,
retailers apparently lost interest
in pushing sales of Alaska’s can
ned salmon,” the report states.
“The prolonged cold weather
throughout the country undoubt
edly retarded consumption of
this food.
“The start of warm weather,
and the interest shown by retail
ers in the selling helps supplied
by the industry, together with
the influence of current colorful
salmon advertisements in leading
household magazines, are factors
that are brightening the outlook
for summer consumption of can
ned salmon.”
“From the orders now being rc
ceived, it is apparent that more
than 115,000 retail grocers in all
sections of the country are plan
ning special selling efforts on
canned salmon during the sum
mer months. One of the country's
largest organizations of independ
ent grocers is holding a summer
salmon sale this mohth, and is
planning another two week drive
late in August.
“This cooperation with the sal
mon fishermen, cannery workers
and packers in helping to move
canned salmon into consumption
is typical of the drives now be
ing lined up by the industry ad
vertising office,” the report con
tinues.
This return of grocer support
for canned salmon now develop
ing is seen as particularly import
ant because during recant
months the more economical pric
es on competing canned fish
foods such as mackerel and sar
dines have resulted in large num
bers of consumers switching
away from canned salmon to
these items.
The industry advertising pro
gram for this summer has been
designed to gain wider housewife
interest in cool salmon meals,
and to get retailers to feature
salmon for warm weather meals,
the report points out.
For this summer drive the in
dustry advertising office is sup
plying the country’s grocery
stores with several thousand dol
lars worth of colorful banners to
gain retailer’s support for can
ned salmon in preference to com
peting food items.
Are you taking advantage
of six months paid in ad
vance subscription ?
/^SURE, WE'RE HELPING^
EVERY ALASKA
YOUNGSTER GET
GOOD START IN LIFE! i
S/—^
ALASKA SPENDS OVER H MILLION
DOLLARS every year on her schools—to
keep them up to high educational stand
ards. And Alaska’s Canned Salmon In*
dustry does a lot to help foot this bill!
More than 70% of all taxes collected by
the Territorial Treasury.. .plus additional
Federal taxes, which help incorporated
towns support local schools—come from
the Canned Salmon Industry. More than
$1,000,000 in taxes is paid annually by the
Industry. This important revenue contri
buted by Alaska’s biggest taxpayer helps
Alaska give its children a fine education.
NOTICE TO CREDITORS
In the PHobate Court For the
Noatak-Kobuk Precinct, Second
Division, Territory of Alaska
In the matter of the estate of
THOMAS WOOD, Deceased.
Notice is hereby given that
Peter Wood has been appointed
by the Probate Court for the
Noatak-Kobuk Precinct, Terri
tory of Alaska, administrator of
the estate of Thomas Wrood, De
ceased and all persons having
claims against the said estate
are required to present the same
with proper vouchers within six
months from the date of this no
tice, to the undersigned admin
istrator at Kotzebue, Alaska.
Dated this the 1st day of June,
1940.
Peter Wood,
Administrator of the Estate
of Thomas Wood, Deceased
Publish June 17, 24, July 1, 8.
Lyons & Orton
Attorneys At Law
Rooms 918-921 Alaska Build In*
Seattle, Washington
Thos. R. Lyons Ira D. Orto*
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tives on the ‘Outside’, using Sour
ough Stationery. They’ll get a big
kick out of it
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