12/22/03

Herds of caribou. Crossing the Nebesna. Floundering in the torrent. I break my leg. The return journey much complicated.

We began our return journey with the horses recuperated, Jim’s wound healed, and a satisfied feeling of having made a successful trip. All the horses wore cowbells, which we found a great advantage in holding the train together. Our route lay along the side of a grassy ridge, and we were making good time, as the ground was firm and very few obstacles were in our path. Suddenly we espied in the distance in the valley below a large herd of caribou, coming toward us on the run. They had herd the bells, and were coming to hear the music and see what kind of animals we were, as I do not suppose they had ever seen anything in the shape of a horse or human being. I stopped the train, got out my camera, and went down to within forty yards of them. There seemed to be several hundred in the herd, and they spread out in a line across the valley. As I edged down closer I unfolded my tripod. Two old bulls that were in front of the line reared up on their hind legs and pawed the air as if in defiance and daring me to come any further. It was a wonderful picture, but later I lost it in the Nebesna. I then returned to the pack train for the rifle, but by the time I was ready to shoot, they were out of range. Then two brown bears calmly walked along the mountainside, but we would have none of them.

Next morning I went to the top of a high hill to look over the country west of Scolai, and as I turned to descend I found that I was in the midst of a countless herd of caribou. They were everywhere – and I was without a gun! Working my way back to camp without stampeding the herd, I started Jim out with the Savage to get one. He returned with the choicest part of a three-year-old, and we sat around the fire broiling the meat on sticks, eating it as it cooked – a meal that was fit for the gods.

We stayed at this camp for several days, making excursions into the surrounding mountains, panning the streams, and hunting. The days were hot the nights cool. The spring rains were over and the rivers rising fast. An eighteen-miles trek brought us back to our old stopping place at the Chisana cabins, where we found the mosquitoes so numerous that it was impossible to keep them out of the tent, and sleep was out of the question. The trip had been a hard one. The Chisana River was up and divided into about twenty branches, which we managed to cross after getting the horses down in the quicksand, from which they were rescued with great difficulty. One horse, in climbing the back, fell back with his pack into the water, and the excitement, combined with our frantic efforts to save his life, tired us all out, but we manage to pull him out. At our camp that night we managed to get some rest from the mosquitoes by making smudges to drive them away.

The morning set in with a sizzling drizzle, but as there is no way to judge the duration of such rains, it was useless to wait for clear weather. As we left camp, it was pouring steadily and the river was bank full. The passage over the divide was a nightmare. Descending to the Nebesna, we found the canyon still clogged with ice and the creek rushing madly down like a cataract. We were stopped by a narrow gorge, which we crossed next morning on the subsiding of the flood.

The Nebesna River was covering much of its mile-wide bed, and in crossing the first small branches of it the mare I was riding was forced to swim. In order not to drag her down, I scrambled off her back by grasping the root of a tree that was near the bank, while the mare made the crossing safely. We did not attempt to move the next day, as the storm was not over and the main channel of the river was very high, so we made our camp and rested for the ordeal of crossing the main body of water. The Nebesna is a large stream, similar to the Tanana. Some of the channels are fifty to one hundred yards across, and its crossing is a perilous undertaking. About ten miles below the spot where we found ourselves, the river gathers together all its branches and passes between two mountains in one torrent. Anderson rode up the valley several miles to see if a fording could be more easily effected in that direction, but returned to report that there the river was running in one channel also, and there was no way to get around by land. I prospected the channel at which we were camped and decided that it could be crossed, but the matter was deferred until morning, after putting out marks to show the rise and fall.

During the night the river fell two inches below the level at the previous noon, so Jim and I saddled our horses and began to cross. At the second channel my horse swam for a few yards, but we reached the bank safely. After this, we met with no very deep water, although the channels were quite wide in places, and the greatest care had to be used in gauging the depth and swiftness of the stream.

We had tested out the crossing of the river successfully, so now we returned, prepared to take the outfit across the next day. At seven o’clock on the morning of July 16 (that fateful date is engraved on my memory), we began our perilous undertaking of crossing the Nebesna with a loaded pack train. The horses were tailed into three sections of four horses each, I leading the first bunch on my saddle horse. We negotiated the first three leads without a mishap, but the forth and largest branch resulted in disaster. When nearing the shore my horse suddenly sank in the quicksand, and he immediately floundered. In his efforts to dislodge me, we both were swept into the swiftly rushing current. I was crushed under the horse, and as he torn away I struggled madly to rise to the surface and struck out for the bank with all my remaining strength. The weight of my clothes, binoculars, camera, and long rubber boots bore me down and rendered my frantic efforts futile, and as I was rolled over and over on the bottom of the stream I clawed at the gravel of the river bed, digging my fingers into the bottom as I tried to work myself toward the bank. By some extraordinary effort, I rose to the surface and got a few mouthfuls of air; then down again to the bottom to be rolled over like a log b the force of the raging torrent. At last, when almost exhausted, I felt a bar beneath me, and I again clutched at the rocks as I was rushed by. Finally, I was able to drag myself up the bank on my hands and knees high enough to raise my head out of the water and gather strength to hold against the sweep of the river.

Looking around, I saw Jim in the water and reaching the bank, while three horses and their packs were being carried off down the river. My saddled horse appeared to be drowned as the water was flowing over him, but he soon recovered and reached the opposite shore, and the rest finally came across. Anderson with the third section, got over without much trouble. I was still holding my head above water without the strength to move when Jim came running down the bank and pulled me ashore.

On the bank I changed my clothes, and as soon as my blood began to circulate again, for I was numb with cold, we gathered our train together and prepared to cross the remaining channel. Here once more I was doomed to trouble. In the middle of the stream my horse went down in the quicksand, and we were again fighting for our lives in the muddy waters, but I swam to the bank, and with the help of the other men rescued the horse.

This ended our tribulation for the day, and after finding a suitable place, we pitched our camp to dry out, figure up our losses (among which was the loss of my last set of pictures, including those of the herd of caribou taken at close range), and congratulated ourselves on escaping with our lives.

The following day we resumed our homeward march and covered twenty miles. It had required four days to make the same distance coming in, but our packs were now light and we knew the way. We ferried across the Slana on the raft which we had constructed on our journey north, and entertained our friends the Indians at Batzulnetas at dinner. We lost no time getting back on the government trail, forded the Chestachina, and stopped at the mail station, where we packed our enough supplies to take us to Valdez, and sold the rest to the agent for a dollar a pound.

Only about a hundred and twenty-five miles more to go! We had passed through many dangers and had escaped with no real injuries. It seemed that no evil had the power to touch me, and we continued our journey without apprehension.

We had arrived within seven miles of the Tazlena River when the pack train, which was a hundred yards ahead, walked over a hornet’s nest in the trail. By the time I arrived at the spot the hornets were on the warpath and ready for business. I was riding with my leg thrown over the horn of the saddle and the other foot in the stirrup. When the hornets began to sting the horse gave a leap and sprang from under me. My foot was caught in the stirrup and I kept hold of the lines as he dragged me along the trail. As the hornets continued to sting the maddened horse gave me a vicious kick; my leg crumpled and slipped free of the stirrup, and I dropped on the trail like a bag of sand. As I let go of the lines I knew that my leg was broken, and I called to the men in front, who ran to my assistance.

After a hasty examination it was found to be a compound fracture, a part of the bone protruding through the skin. Anderson ran to the pack train and tied the horses, returning with a rope. With this they tied me to a stump; then, with both men pulling on my leg, I pushed in the bone. Anderson, who seemed to have handled such cases before, said: “now pull hard! We must get the big toe in line with the knee-cap and hip, and it will be all right.” This they did, and with the aid of some willows for splints, with dry moss for padding and a flour sack torn in strips for a bandage, we soon had it fixed.

The boys then made camp ready for a long stay, as it was apparent that I would not be able to travel for some time. My rubber mattress was inflated, and with the bearskin I had obtained on the Nebesna and plenty of blankets, I was made as comfortable as possible, but I passed the night in great pain owing to a miner fracture above the ankle and the tightness of the bandage. In the morning I loosened the wrapping and gained considerable relief. Meantime, Anderson rode to the Tazlena River for assistance, and returned with a Mr. Hammond, who was on his way to the coast with gold dust from Slate Creek. They brought news that the ferry on the Tazlena had been swept away, drowning four people. That night I had another painful time of it, and the following noon an ex-Red Cross man arrived, bringing an emergency kit. Romage soon showed that he was at home in the sick room, and in an hour had my wound comfortably dressed. He also gave me the comforting news that the bone would not begin to knit until nine days had passed, and would take two months to thoroughly heal. The fracture was a clean break, and the bone had been set in place.

Romage stayed with us and helped to prepare a litter on which to carry me back to the Tazlena River in the morning. The boys made the litter, and swung me, bed and all, between two horses, with a man at each bridle. Romage with an ax led the way, and chopped out the timber to widen the trail, so that I made the seven miles without discomfort.

At the River we found a number of others waiting to cross the turbulent stream, which was overflowing its banks and wildly tearing away everything in its path. The Indians call it the mad River, as it acts in a crazy way every seven years. The source of the trouble is the large glacier at the head and a hot sun. Tazlena Billy, a Siwash Indian who operated the ferry, and who had escaped drowning a few days before by clinging to a branch from the bank as he was swept down the river, declared that the spirits of the white men who had been lost in the crevasses of the glacier were angry, and that they turned the waters loose every so often to remind the living of their fate. He said that there had been many who had lost their lives during the gold rush of 1898 through their folly in taking the Valdez Glacier route as a short-cut to Copper Center. One party of fourteen in that year followed the glacier, and four of them in crossing a snow bridge over one of the crevasses in the ice, dropped through. They were caught in a narrow part of the crevasse sixty feet down, with nothing but sheer walls of ice above them. Their companions on top could do nothing to help them, and dispatched one of their number to Valdez for a rope. While waiting they conversed with the doomed men below for hours, as one by one froze to death before help arrived.

On the bank of the river my men put up the tent we prepared again for a long stay. A week later they tried to swim the horses across but failed. The government pack train came in, bringing a dozen more weary travelers. On the eleventh day after my accident, I could lift my leg without assistance, showing that the knitting of the bone was progressing, and I could sit out in front of the tent. The boys caught some salmon, which we had for dinner, and we entertained some prospectors who had also been in the Nebesna section.

At last came the time when we could cross the river in a boat, and on the other side I mounted the mare Kate, but on reaching the Copper River clay banks the men had to carry me on a litter for half a mile. The trail was torn away, and the horses had to swim from one point to another. The eight miles I spent in the saddle were almost unbearable, but I stuck it out until we arrived at copper Center, where I was carried into a cabin in a fainting condition.

This was the first time we had slept under a roof in three months. We had a stove, table, a big supply of wood, and clear water, and all were comfortable. I was now convalescent, and my leg was painful only when I attempted to use the crutches the boys had made for me.

Copper center, the old camping place of the ‘98ers, is at the confluence of the Copper and Atna Rivers, one hundred and two miles northeast of Valdez. At one time the place had a population of 1500, with stores, saloons, and all the concomitants of a wild and hilarious western mining camp. It was Dawson on a small scale, and there was neither mayor nor Marshall. The only law enforced was that presided over by Judge Lynch, and the first man to be convicted was William Norton, who had stolen the camp outfit of his partners, had sold it, and was hiking back to Valdez. A posse was formed which captured the thief, brought him to Copper Center, and he was hung to a branch of a big cottonwood on the bank of the river. Here the gold seekers gathered, some coming up the Copper from Orca, more in the Thompson pass from Prince William Sound points, and others over the deadly Valdez Glacier and down the Tonsena. At Copper Center the pilgrims would separate, one group heading for Nizina, which is the Kennicott district, and the others following up the Copper, some by the route we had traversed to the Tanana, to the Yukon and Koyukuk.

It will be remembered that this is where we had built the wagon on the way north. Our stay at Copper center was more extended on the return trip on account of my disability. After a few days of rest, we started out for the lap of our journey, and camped at Teikel Point, almost in sight of the pass over the coast range. I had the stirrup strap around my leg below my knee, but the long ride in the saddle was a constant torture. Next day we made twenty-two miles to Wortman’s on the coast side of the range, and the following morning reached Valdez. At the hotel I examined my leg to see how it stood the trip. I found that the pressure of the strap had worked the bone back, but I gave it a smart kick from behind and knocked it back into place. The next day I was out on crutches and have never had any further trouble with it.