12/22/03

Appointed manager of the Alaska Consolidated Copper Company. Raising money in the East. A visit to J. P. Morgan. Shipping bornite from Nugget Creek. A four-and-a-half ton nugget of copper. Bear hunting on Admiralty Island.

Many changes had taken place in Valdez during my absence. The prospect of Valdez becoming the terminus of a railroad had naturally started a building boom, so that every lot owner was putting up some kind of shack in order to protect his title, and little attention was given to the railroad activities at the new town site. Alaska at that time was in high favor all through the east, and a railroad up the Copper River also was being talked of. The Government was laying a cable from Seattle, mines were being discovered in the hills surrounding the town, and one had already begun to pay dividends.

A letter was waiting for me in the post office, appointing me manager of the Alaska Consolidated Copper Company on Nugget Creek, 175 miles in the interior. I had been on Nugget Creek prior to this, and had seen a nugget of copper weighing about four and a half tons on the property, with outcroppings of bornite on the mountainside. This appointment caused me to hurry back to the States to assist in financing operations. We raised $200,000 in the next six months, the largest subscription being gathered at such places as Lancaster, reading, York, Baltimore, and Washington. At Baltimore we entered a hotel at ten o’clock in the forenoon. At ten-forty-five we had a check for $10,000, and the next day secured $40,000 from a bank near Havre de Grace.

The long trip into the interior was accomplished, packing in supplies. Commencing work on the property, we found a large block of solid are at the entrance of the tunnel, which was probably the bottom of some rich lense that had been eroded away in prehistoric times, as underneath the ground the ore gradually tapered into small pockets, and finally disseminated among the calcite (lime). I sank the shaft and ran drifts on the vein in search of more of the rich lenses found on the surface, as that was the only ore that would stand shipment. In this way months passed, during which the railroad up the Copper River was built, and we then began hauling the sacked ore to Strelna, the railroad station nearest to us, a distance of twenty-three miles. I had also opened other deposits near by, and Steve birch made us a visit, remarking as he left that we had a fine property, and that all it needed was work. The proposition was so encouraging that I made a trip to New York to promote the extension of the railroad from Strelna to the mine. Mr. Stewart and I called on J. P. Morgan, who lent us considerable encouragement by assuring us that whenever the engineers reported a sufficient tonnage of ore in sight the road would be built.

All was not well, however, in the councils of the company. A change was desired in the directory, and my principal was offered a handsome sum to step out. He did not take it, but had to resign anyway. The new president was Samuel Warriner, president of the Lehigh Valley Coal & Navigation Company, who selected George Dubois, mining engineer to be manager in my stead.

Dubios was supplied with a large sum of money, ample to build a mill of large capacity. After a year of his administration the new manager made a statement that he had developed $5,000,000 worth of ore and wanted a mill. Mr. Warriner went to Alaska to corroborate the report, and on his return from the mine it was whispered that Dubois’ figures had somewhat exaggerated the tonnage. The net day the body of Dubois was found in the Philadelphia River with a rock tied to his neck. Since then the Nugget Creek Mine has been idle. The big copper nugget is still there.

The World War had started. My power plant at Valdez was completed and supplying the town, the government fort, and one of the local mines with light and power. The railroad had laid five miles of track and was in status quo. The Guggenheims had built the Copper River & Northwestern to the Kennicott mines. I was summoned to Juneau in my capacity as consulting engineer for the Alaska Treasure Company on Douglas Island, to make an examination of a property, plan a system of development, install a power plant and build a twenty-stamp mill to be used to sample the ore, all of which occupied several months.

On the completion of this project, I was invited to participate in a bear hunt on Admiralty Island, together with Fred Stone, the president of the Company, Louis Potter, a New York sculptor, and Baron von Olegar of London. Our boat was a powerful steam launch, in charge of Captain Rufus graham, with a camp cook and roustabout.

Our course lay up a channel of the Glass peninsula, then turning into an estuary called “Windfall Harbor.” We had scarcely made the turn when we saw a bear prowling around some huts on shore. Mr. Potter took a shot at him, but bruin scampered off into the timber. Just ahead were five deer swimming across the inlet, but no sportsman would shoot a deer in the water, we passed on to a good landing place, where we tied up and spread out into the forest with our guns. We saw but one bear, and that was when I was making my way through a clump of bushes. A big black bear was in the middle of the brush, standing upright, with one forearm around a bush loaded with salmon berries on which he was feeding. The surprise of our sudden meeting was so great that I do not know who was the most scared. I was within five feet of his paws, and he could easily have reached out and ripped me from head to tow. Instead, he turned on his hind legs, and as I ran away I turned my head and saw him loping madly through the timber! I did not even get a shot at him.

The other two hunters brought in a young buck, and that evening we changed from city provender to juicy venison steaks, with salmon berries for dessert. The night was made hideous by the coyotes, that kept up a serenade of howls and blood-curdling screams which seemed to come from a band of fifty. It is amazing what a racket a few of these wolves can make when they are following a trail. At the Ariadne mine I had had some eerie bights when a big porcupine would start his scratching on the mine building, sounding like a sawmill wrestling with a knotty log, and three or four coyotes would come racing up the basin, snarling, screaming, and yelping, as if they were close to their quarry. That night on the boat, nobody got any sleep, and to vary the monotony of the serenade, one after the other of us would crawl out of his bunk, reach for his rifle, and take a shot out of the cabin window. As a matter of fact, however, we had not expected the comforts of home while on this trip, and we certainly were not disappointed. A sportsman will sleep out in the woods in wet clothes, eat with his fingers, and under go any hardship for the thrill of bringing down his game, whether it be bear or buzzard.

The next morning the launch was cast off and we moved to the head of the inlet, where a large creek emptied into the salt water. We landed on an expansive flat through which the creek wound, in a series of bends. The flat itself was trampled about with hundreds of bear track, which made it resemble a corral. The stream was loading with fish, humpbacks and dog salmon, as they are called. There must have been millions and millions of them. In crossing the creek we had to push the fish aside in order to get through. Our roustabout was an Indian, and he made us hide behind trees.

Presently a large she bear emerged from the timber driving her two cubs ahead. As soon as the young ones saw the salmon in the creek they scrambled in and played exactly like a couple of boys. They then began to pick up the fish with their sharp claws and throw them at one another, but this the old mother would not stand for. She trundled down the bank, reached for the cubs with both forearms, much in the same manner as the Captain catches the Katzenjhammer Kids, and slammed them together as if to say, “Didn’t I tell you to leave those salmon alone?” Then she tossed them on to the bank, where they scampered away, with Ma after them.