Gold Hunting in Alaska

May 6, Saturday, 8 p. m.--This is the strangest May weather I have ever experienced. The wind has blown a gale from the north without a moment's cessation for four days. It is t...

We are a company of twenty men bound for Kotzebue Sound, Alaska. It is needless to say we are gold-hunters. In this year of our Lord 1898, men are flying northward like geese in...

March 7, 1899.--I have succeeded at last in trading for two pairs of snowshoes, from some Eskimos who have just come up the river. The dickering engaged the entire afternoon, an...

Dec. 20.--A man has just come up from the Orphans' Home with bad news. Poor Uncle S. is lost and probably frozen to death. He left the Orphans' Home to walk to the Mission a mon...

Jan. 23, 2 p. m.--I went out to look at the thermometer, when I heard the cackling of ptarmigan the other side of the river. Harry Reynolds and I armed ourselves and started out...

Our midwinter trip for the mail was a chapter in our icy history never to be forgotten. We made the next fifteen miles to the Indian Igloo in good time. Cox and I slept in the i...

Cape Nome, Alaska, Aug. 6, 1899.--It is Sunday evening again and I am reclining against my roll of blankets in the warm tent. Foote is playing the banjo, beautiful music, too! I...

June 1.--Yesterday the fog cleared and disclosed to us the snowy peaks of the Siberian coast far to the northwest, and in front to the north of us the long coast line of St. Law...

Dec. 8.--The beautiful snow has come at last and to-day it is six inches deep on the level. The trees are loaded and the river and meadows are painfully white. We must get out o...

Cape Nome, July 20.--After an eleven days' voyage from Kotzebue Sound we anchored off Anvil City on the morning of the 20th. Those eleven days make a nightmare. A succession of...

Feb. 8.--Mr. and Mrs. Samms left for the Mission yesterday. Harry Reynolds goes with them, and will either stay there or go down to the "Penelope." That lessens our number, but...

April 2. Sunday.--Evidently our Kowak church is dwindling. Only fifteen in attendance to-day. In C. C.'s absence Dr. Coffin and Uncle Jimmy conducted services. Van Dyke also too...

Penelope Camp, Kowak River, Aug. 28.--Here we are, one hundred and seventy miles from the mouth of the Kowak River and hard at work on our winter cabin. The "Helen" is almost a...

Oct. 30.--Returned last night from a six days' trip up Hunt River. Clyde and I started together with the expectation of getting far into the mountain ranges. As has been my cust...

Nov. 12, 7 o'clock a. m.--Great excitement prevails. The "Flying Dutchman" returned down the Kowak last night. He is the German who passed on about twelve days ago to learn all...

Nov. 25.--To-day we are resting and slowly recovering from yesterday's "spree." It was the most gratifying Thanksgiving, as far as the gastronomic and social celebrations are co...

Camp Penelope, Jan. 10, 1899.--Yesterday morning Uncle S. and Samms started on up the river with their dog sleds and mail. C. C. and Cox went with them. They hope to reach the U...

June 12.--We are steaming down one of the numerous channels of the Kowak delta, and I am sitting on the upper deck of the "Helen." The channel is narrow but deep and very tortuo...

Feb. 24. Friday. 9 p. m.--I went hunting for the first time on snowshoes. I got along famously until I struck a soft snowdrift, and the shoes turned on edge and I fell headlong....

Nov. 15. 1898.--The boys returned last night very weary. They gave us the news much as the "Flying Dutchman" had. Six of our Upper Penelope boys have started for the Koyukuk wit...

Mission Inlet, Cape Blossom, July 1, 1898.--We came across Holtham Inlet in good order Tuesday. That was the only day so far that any steamers have come through. The weather was...

I cannot help mentioning the flowers again. New kinds appear every day without so much as sending up a leaf in advance. There are dandelions, and purple asters, and cream cups,...

Buster Creek, Cape Nome, Sept. 16, 1899.--A week ago Casey went to Anvil City, across country twelve miles, and brought a batch of mail, containing our first letters from home s...

Oct. 15. 1898.--In looking over my diary I find that I have recorded no "bad weather." This comes of my having inherited a tendency to look on the bright side of things. I hear...

Cape Blossom, July 13, 1898.--The voyage is behind us. What is floating ice to a ship's crew safe on shore! We can laugh at whales, and unfriendly breezes that whisper tales of...