(Continued fr#m Page 1 )
makes a complete circuit of the southern coast-line, exerts a great in
fluence upon the 50 to 100 inches of annual rain fall characteristic of
that region. In fact, the only portion of that coast-line that is ice
bound during the winter is that which touches the northern part of
the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. All other ports except Nome
are open to shipping all winter long.
The Department of Agriculture at Washington has demonstrated
that 100,000 square miles are suitable for farming and can produce
all the hardy vegetables, grains, forage plants and berries. The long
summer days anft sub-irrigation are conducive to the rapid growth
of the same variety of garden truck that is grown in the SCates. The
average wheat yield at Fairbanks, the northern terminus of the Alas
ka Railroad, 470 miles inland, is 19y2 bushels to the acre—and they
grow strawberries nearly as big as golf balls pretty much all along
the line of that amazing railway which cost your Uncle Samuel the
modest sum of $60,000,000. Like unto most National Government en
terprises, there was more or less politics in the inception of that sup
erbly built line, which was started in 1915 and completed in 1924.
But—like the purchase of the Territory from Russia, 62 years ago, it
has already justified itself and will ultimately prove the commercial
salvation of what, in my humble opinion, is destined to be a magnifi
cent commonwealth. It is eminently worthy of note, also, that for the
first time since its completion the railroad has at its helm the first
real, practical, honest-to-god experienced railroad man and adminis
trator ever sent to Alaska from Washington,—a son of the soil, so to
speak, of splendid capacity and sympathetic understanding of Alas
ka’s needs—in the person of Col. Otto F. Ohlson, until recently Sup
erintendent of the Northern Pacific Railway and who served with
distinction in the World \Var. Indicative of the fundamental charac
ter of his training, it may also be stated that Colonel Ohlson served
his time as a track-walker, an engine-wiper and a fireman and rose
to his present eminence in his chosen field through sheer ability and
guts—I love that word. And it is this particular phase of character
that has already endeared him to the Alaskan who is accustomed to
“Wring his food from the desert rude
His pittance from the sand.
mere are mose among our ooions at wasmngton wnu suu ic
gard Alaska as “Seward’s Folly,” who would be obliged to consult the
encyclopedia in the first place to learn who Seward was and next to
find that it was he that engineered the deal that bought Alaska from
Russia at the ridiculous figure of $7,200,000 (a matter of two cents
per acre) thereby blocking its possible purchase by Great Britain, and
adding to the United States a Territory the total exports from which,
since its purchase 62 years ago, amount to nearly a billion and a half
dollars. These are the breed of so-called statesmen whose specialty
lies 1700 miles from them from our coast-line, having no conception
They will discuss solemnly on the backwardness of a Territory that
lies 1700 miles from mthe from our coast-line, having no compitition
of the fact that the National Government itself is responsible for
whatever quality of backwardness remains in that wonderful land.
In 1906, in the belief that our old political friend, Predatory Interests,
was girding up his loins, Washington abruptly withdrew from public
entry all the coal, oil and timber lands of the Territory, since which
time the best any Alaskan outfit can do is to lease his lands from
Uncle Sam when it comes to specialize in those products. I don’t
need to emphasize to an audience like this the effect of such a pro
cedure upon capital, that would otherwise be open for investment.
Capital, that timid jade would sprout wings over night and fly to the
uttermost parts of the earth in the face of such an embargo as that.
And that’s the only thing that is the matter with Alaska today - and
being only a Territory, it sole representative in Congress is a del
egate, without a vote, who may be likened to a beggar with a saucer
in his hand soliciting alms from an aggregation of men himself. In
deed you may take it from me that the more intelligent and far
seeing Alaskans, without reference to their political preferences, are
looking with renewed hope to a future of at least eight years, with that
peerless Californian, President Hoover in the White House, and that
others estimate son of the Golden State, Ray Lymm ’T“ hn-* Secre
tary of the Interior, in immediate charge of Alaska’s destinies. They
are counting upon California’s close proximity to Washington for that
sympathetic appreciation of Alaska’s needs, apparently so hopelessly
beyond the ken or the interest of those stateman from the East or
the Middle West. They like to think of a President in the White
House who has had his hands anointed with the products of old
Mother Earth, who know what ore feels like, smells like, who has his
feet planted upon those fundamentals verities upon which the glo
rious superstructure of the Pacific Coast has been raised.
Of course, it goes without saying that the Territory of Alaska
has considerable to bewail in the way of Federal Government by
Bureaus and the inevitable red tape resulting therefrom. Take the
Kenai peninsula, for instance, that part parallelling the Alaska rail
road is under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior.
From the railroad to the Russian river, in another direction, is under
the Department of Agriculture. All of that portion of the peninsula
from the Russion river to Cook Inlet is under the War Department.
All the rivers, lakes and streams are under the Department of Com
merce. The Department of Justice administers all questions of Ter
ritorial law. The radio station at Cordova is under the Navy depart
ment, and various other government radio stations and the Alaska
Road Commission—one of the most important in the whole Terri
tory—is under the War department. In addition to this rather in
volved situation, there is, in the Territorial Legislature, what might
be termed the Native bloc—or a small and well organized political
cheque who have the native vote effectively lined up for obvious pur
poses—much the same way as Tammany Hall controls the vast for
eign vote which inhabits New York’s famous East side. And when
all’s said and done, your real Alaskan would rather put up with the
Bureaucratic method because it is clean and decent than to face
the possibility of having the Territory under the control of those un
scrupulous local politicians who dominate the Native bloc and would
~.e t frr their own ends if not restricted by Federal control. In
th- words, it’s a complete statemate with the net result that the
capital so vitally necessary to a thorough development of the country
s kent away. Their one hope lies in the National Government’s abro
"tion of the Leasing law already touched upon, the necessity for
which, it is alleged, is wholly past. Certain it is that such a move
j would do more for the advancement of the Territory than anything
else—and your Alaskan lives in hopes.
One of the most rapidly developed and interesting enterprises in
the whole Territory is aviation, which is a direct outcome of the flight
^f American army aviators from New York to Nome, in 1920, now
rated as one of the greatest aviation feats in history. It is not gen
erally known that Ben Elelson, the dauntless pilot who flew Sir George
Hubert Wilkins across the Arctic ice from Point Barrow to Spitzbergen
a year ago, and for which he has just been awarded the Harmon
Trophy, was an army aviator during the World war, after which he
took a job in the Fairbanks High School as an instructor in Science.
It was here the forward-looking Alaskan business men found him
when they had decided to establish an airport at Fairbanks. An
other celebrated flyer is Noel Wein, who recently completed the first
commercial round trip by airplane between Alaska and Siberia. It
was on this trip that Wein picked up $100,000 of furs at a Siberian
trading post on the Arctic coast and carried them back to Fairbanks.
The Fairbanks airport has two runways, each over 2000 feet long and
over 400 feet wide, and is equipped with a night beacon and flood
lights. In addition there are 57 graded airports throughout the Ter
ritory for summer work. The National government has recognized
I
this local enterprise by establishing an aerological weather station at
Fairbanks, the outcome of which will unquestionably result in the
substitution of airplanes for dog teams in carrying the mail into the
interior of the Territory.
With a population of 55,000, approximately one-third of which is
native or Indian, Alaska is pre-eminently a white man’s country. It
has four National and thirteen Territorial banks; six daily and 12
weekly newspapers; 18 Chambers of Commerce and Commercial clubs.
Also—it has two lines of steamships with a weekly service through
out the year between Seattle .and Seward and intervening ports: the
Alaska Steamship Co and the Admiral Line. To these may be added
the Canadian Pacific and the Canadian National Steamship lines,
both of which maintain a summer service from Vancouver. And its
worthy of note that all these boats are filled to capacity during the
j summer season. Perhaps this may account for the fact that bobbed
I hair, short skirts and silk underwear have invaded the Arctic Circle.
In the village of Norvik, in the vicinity of Kotzebue Sound, with a
population of 400 Eskimos, may be found many of the luxuries of civ
lization. They make their own electric light with gas engines and
generators; yes—and there is a phonograph to every family. The
younger element wear silk stockings and high-heeled shoes and the
family clothes-line will pass muster in any city of the States. At the
■?ame time the elder squaws of the town find their choicest titbit in
| extracting the roe out of a salmon with their bare hands and stow
bng it away in their mouths on the spot.
While I am on the subject of the Indian, you may be interested
n knowing that certain tribes of Alaskan natives never nurse their
j children. When a baby is born, a neighbor t# kes it away and nurses
;it on a concoction made from the suet of the mountain sheep and a
i certain weed which reduces the whole mixture to something equiva
lent to mothers’ milk, thus permitting the mother to recovef from
«
l^r confinement quickly and get back to her work without the ne
cessity for nursing her own child. Contrariwise—down in the Aleu
| Mon Islands, where the mother does her own nursing—when the
mother dies, leaving a nursing child, the family substitutes a chunk
of beaver fat on which the youngster sucks. Unnecessary to say,
the child does not do as well as he might and survival is quite a
problem.
i xit; rurcupme ruver i^sKimos are cnnaren-worsnippers, as con
trasted with the ancestor worship of China and Japan for instance.
All the little folk are reverenced and treated with great care and
consideration. This tribe, also, instead of having a Shaman or Medi
cine man, appoints a local priestess or Medicine woman, frequently
i married woman, to whom they impute great powers and act ac
cordingly. Every night, before going to sleep, the various members
of the tribe parade to the igloo of this woman where each and all
receive a sort of blessing or benediction, after which they lie down
peacefully for the night. This is a daily occurrence because the bless
in is not supposed to last for more than 24 hours. A great food de
licacy of this tribe consists in taking the head of a caribou, after
skinning it, and pounding up the whole head, skull, teeth, jaws, mus
cles, eyes, tongue, nose, etc., into a pulpy mass which they boil and
■at with great gusto. Then they mix the hair of the animal in equal
! oarts with native tobacco and enjoy a real smoke.
Another contributing factor to Alaskan Romance is distance—a
factor that reacts as touch upon the Alaskan himself as it does upon
the visitor. Few of us realize that there is a 1700 mile stretch of
*alt water between the Pacific coast and Seward and that it takes
?s long to get there as it does to cross the Atlantic. This is the fea
ture that contributes materially to a certain provincialism in the Al
askan which makes him all the more interesting. Lacking many of
the advantages of the “Outside”, as the States are colloquially des
cribed, he still prefers his rugged independence and a modest busi
ness, in which his wife generally has a part, to the rush and hurly
hurly of our big cities. During a sojourn of five months in the Ter
ritory last year, I failed to meet either a man or a woman who was
n the least dissatisfied with their lot. They have the radio and
^.<eir “movies” are practically the same as ours, only a tnt "pasr due”
\s compared with our-up-to-dateness. “High-hatting” is unknown,
dass distinction likewise. You may meet a very charming and stylish
v dressed young woman at a bridge party today and have her for a
waitress in the best patronized restaurant in town tomorrow—and
"ou may find, in the bargain, that she is a graduate of the Agricul
tural College at Fairbanks, where she specialized in Home Economics
(Continued on Page Three’
1I1N FAILS IN
FlliST ATTEMPT
TO FLY SIBERIA
WILL MAKE ANOTHER EFFORT
TO FLY SIBERIA ON FRI
DAY, PILOT SAYS
NOME, April 26, (A3)—Parker'
Cramer returned to Nome reliev
ing the tension after preparations
had been made to start a rescue
| expedition.
He said he found the fog thick;
at Cape Prince of Wales and that
he was unable to get under or
over so landed at York where he
j spent the night in the cabin of
M. A. Domingo, tin miner and for
imerly of Azores Island.
He made two more attempts to
cross but on account of the den
sity of the fog over the open wat
;er decided to return to Nome and
make another effort Friday.
One ski was slightly damaged
Cramer said he regretted missing
| the reception last night as he
hated to disappoint the people.
-——
CHOIR PRACTICE
i The Episcopal church choir will
'meet for song practice, Friday at
7 p. m., in the Episcopal Rectory.
W. R. MACPHERSON.
General Tailoring ana Hats
j Blocked for Ladies and Gentlemen.
Phone Adams 91. Peyser’s Tailor
Shop.
THE GEM
i CIGAR STORE
Cigars, Candy
Soft Drinks
| ■ STATIONARY, MAGAZINES
ji TURLV"
! I v Proprietor,
COMMERCE
CIGAR
STORE
TOBACCO, CANDY, SOFT
DRINKS, CARDS, POOL
i Across the street from the
Arcade Building
John Anderson, Prop.
; i Phone Adams 54
CITY EXPRESS
Agents for
THE AMERICAN EXPRESS CO
i Sample Room in Connection
Baggage Stored
! Connection made with all
! steamers, trains and hotels
“We nceer sleep”
Phone Main 122
Harold Painter, Prop.
I Successor to Billy Paterson
i
HOTEL SEWARD’
Hot and Cold Water in
in All Rooms
Rooms With or Without
Baths
Oscar Dab*