Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin Part 8

"I don't want to forget any of it," said Ted. "It's all bully."

CHAPTER X

IN THE GOLD COUNTRY

A low sandy beach, without a tree to break its level, rows of plain frame-houses, some tents and wooden shanties scattered about, the surf breaking over the sh.o.r.e in splendid foam,--this was Teddy's first impression of Nome. They had sailed over from St. Michael's to see the great gold-fields, and both the boys were full of eagerness to be on land. It seemed, however, as if their desires were not to be realized, for landing at Nome is a difficult matter.

Nome is on the south sh.o.r.e of that part of Alaska known as Seward Peninsula, and it has no harbour. It is on the open seacoast and catches all the fierce storms that sweep northward over Bering Sea. Generally seacoast towns are built in certain spots because there is a harbour, but Nome was not really built, it "jes' growed," for, when gold was found there, the miners sat down to gather the harvest, caring nothing about a harbour.

s.h.i.+ps cannot go within a mile of land, and pa.s.sengers have to go ash.o.r.e in small lighters. Sometimes when they arrive they cannot go ash.o.r.e at all, but have to wait several days, taking refuge behind a small island ten miles away, lest they drag their anchors and be dashed to pieces on the sh.o.r.e.

There had been a tremendous storm at Nome the day before Ted arrived, and landing was more difficult than usual, but, impatient as the boys were, at last it seemed safe to venture, and the party left the steamer to be put on a rough barge, flat-bottomed and stout, which was hauled by cable to sh.o.r.e until it grounded on the sands. They were then put in a sort of wooden cage, let down by chains from a huge wooden beam, and swung round in the air like the unloading cranes of a great city, over the surf to a high platform on the land.

"Well, this is a new way to land," cried Ted, who had been rather quiet during the performance, and his father thought a trifle frightened. "It's a sort of a balloon ascension, isn't it?"

"It must be rather hard for the miners, who have been waiting weeks for their mail, when the boat can't land her bags at all," said Mr. Strong.

"That sometimes happens. From November to May, Nome is cut off from the world by snow and ice. The only news they receive is by the monthly mail when it comes.

"Over at Kronstadt the Russians have ice-breaking boats which keep the Baltic clear enough of ice for navigation, and plow their way through ice fourteen feet thick for two hundred miles. The Nome miners are very anxious for the government to try this ice-boat service at Nome."

"Why did people settle here in such a forlorn place?" asked Ted, as they made their way to the town, which they found anything but civilized. "I like the Indian houses on the island better than this."

"Your island is more picturesque," said Mr. Strong, "but people came here for what they could get.

"In 1898 gold was discovered on Anvil Creek, which runs into Snake River, and this turned people's eyes in the direction of Nome. Miners rushed here and set to work in the gulches inland, but it was not till the summer of 1899 that gold was found on the beach. A soldier from the barracks--you know this is part of a United States Military Reservation--found gold while digging a well near the beach, and an old miner took out $1,200 worth in twenty days. Then a perfect frenzy seized the people. They flocked to Nome from far and near; they camped on the beach in hundreds and staked their claims. Between one and two thousand men were at work on the beach at one time, yet so good-natured were they that no quarrels seem to have occurred. Doctors, lawyers, barkeepers, and all dropped their business and went to-rocking, as they call beach-mining."

"Oh, dad, let's hurry and go and see it," cried Ted, as they hurried through their dinner at the hotel. "I thought gold came out of deep mines like copper, and had to be melted out or something, but this seems to be different. Do they just walk along the beach and pick it up? I wish I could."

"Well, it's not quite so simple as that," said Mr. Strong, laughing.

"We'll go and see, and then you'll understand," and they went down the crooked streets to the sandy beach.

Men were standing about talking and laughing, others working hard. All manner of men were there scattered over the _tundra,_[14] and Ted became interested in two who were working together in silence.

[Footnote 14: The name given to the boggy soil of the beach.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'LET'S WATCH THOSE TWO MEN. THEY HAVE EVIDENTLY STAKED A CLAIM TOGETHER.'"]

"What are they doing?" he asked his father. "I can't see how they expect to get anything worth having out of this mess."

"Beach-mining is quite different from any other," said his father. "Let's watch those two men. They have evidently staked a claim together, which means that n.o.body but these two can work on the ground they have staked out, and that they must share all the gold they find. They came here to prospect, and evidently found a block of ground which suited them. They then dug a prospect hole down two to five feet until they struck 'bedrock,' which happens to be clay around here. They pa.s.sed through several layers of sand and gravel before reaching this, and these were carefully examined to see how much gold they contained. Upon reaching a layer which seemed to be a good one, the gravel on top was stripped off and thrown aside and the 'pay streak' worked with the rocker."

"What is that?" asked Ted, who was all ears, while Kalitan was taking in everything with his sharp black eyes.

"That arrangement that looks like a square pan on a saw-buck is the rocker. The rockers usually have copper bottoms, and there is a great demand for sheet copper at Nome, but often there is not enough of it, and the miners have been known to cover them with silver coins. That man you are watching has silver dollars in his, about fifty, I should say. It seems extravagant, doesn't it, but he'll take out many times that amount if he has good luck."

The man, who had glanced up at them, smiled at that and said:

"And, if I don't have luck, I'm broke, anyhow, so fifty or sixty plunks won't make much difference. You going to be a miner, youngster?"

"Not this trip," said Ted, with a smile. "Say, I'd like to know how you get the gold out with that."

"At first we used to put a blanket in the rocker, and wash the pay dirt on that. Our prospect hole has water in it, and we can use it over and over. Some of the holes are dry, and there the men have to pack their pay dirt down to the sh.o.r.e and use surf water for was.h.i.+ng. Most of our gold is so fine that the blanket didn't stop it, so now we use 'quick.' I reckon you'd call it mercury, but we call it quick. You see, it saves time, and work-time up here is so short, on account of winter setting in so early, that we have to save up our spare minutes and not waste 'em on long words."

Ted grinned cheerfully and asked: "What do you do with the quick?"

"We paint it over the bottom of the rocker, and it acts like a charm and catches every speck of gold that comes its way as the dirt is washed over it. The quick and the gold make a sort of amalgam."

"But how do you get at the gold after it amalgams, or whatever you call it?" asked Ted.

"Sure we fry it in the frying-pan, and it's elegant pancakes it makes,"

said the man. "See here," and he pulled from his pocket several flat ma.s.ses that looked like pieces of yellow sponge. "This is pure gold. All the quick has gone off, and this is the real stuff, just as good as money. An ounce will buy sixteen dollars' worth of anything in Nome."

"It looks mighty pretty," said Ted. "Seems to me it's redder than any gold I ever saw."

"It is," said his father. "Nome beach gold is redder and brighter than any other Alaskan gold. I guess I'll have to get you each a piece for a souvenir," and both boys were made happy by the present of a quaintly shaped nugget, bought by Mr. Strong from the very miner who had mined it, which of course added to its value.

"You're gathering quite a lot of souvenirs, Ted," said his father. "It's a great relief that you have not asked me for anything alive yet. I have been expecting a modest request for a Maiamute or a Husky pup, or perhaps a pet reindeer to take home, but so far you have been quite moderate in your demands."

"Kalitan never asks for anything," said Ted. "I asked him once why it was, and he said Indian boys never got what they asked for; that sometimes they had things given to them that they hadn't asked for, but, if he asked the Tyee for anything, all he got was 'Good Indian get things for himself,' and he had to go to work to get the thing he wanted. I guess it's a pretty good plan, too, for I notice that I get just as much as I did when I used to tease you for things," Teddy added, sagely.

"Wise boy," said his father. "You're certainly more agreeable to live with. The next thing you are to have is a visit to an Esquimo village, and, if I can find some of the Esquimo carvings, you shall have something to take home to mother. Kalitan, what would you like to remember the Esquimos by?"

Kalitan smiled and replied, simply, "_Mukluks_."

"What are _mukluks_?" demanded Ted.

"Esquimo moccasins," said Mr. Strong. "Well, you shall both have a pair, and they are rather pretty things, too, as the Esquimos make them."

CHAPTER XI

AFTERNOON TEA IN AN EGLU

The Esquimo village was reached across the _tundra_, and Teddy and Kalitan were much interested in the queer houses. Built for the long winter of six or eight months, when it is impossible to do anything out-of-doors, the _eglu_[15] seems quite comfortable from the Esquimo point of view, but very strange to their American cousins.

[Footnote 15: The _eglu_ is the Esquimo house. Often they occupy tents during the summer, but return to the huts the first cool nights.]

"I thought the Esquimos lived in snow houses," said Ted, as they looked at the queer little huts, and Kalitan exclaimed:

"Huh! Innuit queer Indian!"

"No," said Mr. Strong; "his hut is built by digging a hole about six feet deep and standing logs up side by side around the hole. On the top of these are placed logs which rest even with the ground. Stringers are put across these, and other logs and moss and mud roofed over it, leaving an opening in the middle about two feet square. This is covered with a piece of walrus entrail so thin and transparent that light easily pa.s.ses through it, and it serves as a window, the only one they have. A smoke-hole is cut through the roof, but there is no door, for the hut is entered through another room built in the same way, fifteen or twenty feet distant, and connected by an underground pa.s.sage about two feet square with the main room. The entrance-room is entered through a hole in the roof, from which a ladder reaches the bottom of the pa.s.sage."