ERNEST SAWYER WRITES OF
INTERN ATONAL HIGHWAY;
NEW GATEWAY TO ALASKA
(Continued from Page 1.)
longer than ours. . In midsummer
Alaska basks in 20 daily- hours of
warm sunlight, and plants and flow
ers flourish accordingly. So it is
nothing unusual to see big crops of
surprisingly large and robust-looking
fruits and vegetables come out of
Alaska farms..
Ride through, the streets of any
Alaska city, and you will see ordered
avenues lined with attractive bunga
lows that look as if they had just
been moved up from Southern Cali
fornia. The gardens that surround
these homes grow strawberries, to
matoes and a profusion of other,
fruits,, vegetables and flowers. Dur
ing the long, winter nights the plants
are kept in hothouses, but once the
summer, begins they are brought out
into the open air and given the full
benetit of those 20-hour days.
Wheat, oats, barley, lettuce, celery,,
beets, peas and all sorts of warm
weather, crops are being grown on a
commercial scale in Alaska.. The
crops are of excellent quality, and j
production is increasing year by
year, so that nowadays home-grown
products are taking care of a large
part of the Alaskan demand.
And Alaska has developed her own
original, sort of cattle industry, too,
although we are not used to thinking
of .Alaska as a,cattle country. Rein
deer. meat, is no wselling in many of
our markets at prices comparable to
beef figures, and the reindeer busi
ness is growing, by leaps and bounls.
The animals were first brought into
Alaska to furnish subsistence for the
native population, whic hhad former
ly subsisted jnainly on fish. The meat
became popular, the flocks grew. to.
the present .size of over 1,000,000
head, and an.American demand, grew
up. Land in some of the little-known
interior .values that had been consid
ered valueless has been., found, to be
fine grazing ground, and reindeer- J
raising is now. one of the Terrtory’s j
most prosperous industries. |
Of course, Alaska’s, mines are still
an. important source: of prosperity to
the country. Mining, has now out
grown the .'placer-mining stage of
gpld rush...days that, demand high
grade ore,, and has. graduated to the
status of .a stable low-grade-ore in
dustry! hat yields millions of dollars
to miners who work, with dredges and
motor trucks instead of picks and
frying pans.. There are also vast for
ests awaiting development, andj
Alaska’s salmon industry brings in
*3,000,000 a year. .
Hand in. hand with the Territory’s
progress in agricultureand industry
has come the development of her air- j
ways and highways. Alaska has al
ready 71 airports, and more coining.
The Territory .is also looking forward
to the development of air lines from
America to Asia, which wilL doubtless
pass through^ Fairbanks.
Alaska’s chief motor route is the
Richardson Highway, which runs
from Fairbanks south, to Ghitina and
to Valdez qn the coast, and measures
some four hundred miles in length.
The Richardson highway passes thru
some of the. most magnilcent country
in existence, and is. served by a motor
coach company which operates mod
ern equipment, on regular schedule
along Its length.
There is also the Steese Highway,
running north from Fairbanks to
Circle, up op.the Yukon river, a dis
tance of 162 ..miles. Alaska’s high
ways have aaaed the citizens $2,000,
000 a year m transport costs, besides
encouraging, increased production by
thi» economy. Gone are the old days
when transports could operate only
along flowing water courses in sum
mer and fro**11 ones in winter, and
then only by pack hetrse or. afoot.
The government system of roads and
trails is nowadays in use except for
about three weeks during the spring
aad fall seasons.
Alaskans have been modest but un
tiring in telling the world about their
country’s development and about how
wrong the world has been in its ideas
of its climate. Their efforts are be
ginning to bear fruit, and travel into
Alaska has increased by leaps and
bounds even in competitio nagainst
the floods of advertising that other
parts of the country pour on the va
cationing public every summer. In
late summers Alaska has had almost
as many visitors as she could enter
tain, and a hotel-building movement
has started in an effort to provide
more and better accommodations for
tourists.
Alaska is ripe and ready for high
way commuication with the United
States through Canada. As a matter
of fact, more than half the Interna
tional Highway is now lnished. Of
the 2,000 miles from Seattle to Fair
banks, 1260 are completed and work
ing. The problem that confronts
Alaskans and Canadians is to link
those fragments into one continuous
road.
From Seattle for 1,000 miles to>
Hazelton, in northern British Colum
bia, the International Highway fol
lows the route of the Cariboo High
way, which is .already completed and
in good condition, drawing more tour
ists over it every day. The highway
follows the magnificent Fraser river
to Lytton, then turns through Marble
Canyon and continues northward
through quaint Quesnel to Prince
George, principal town of Northern
British Columbia.
Prince George is not a large city as
population goes—it numbers some
3,000 inhabitants—but it is an im
portant place. It is the distributing
center for an immense territory, and
it is a great touring center, for roads
leading to various lake and river re
sots radiate from Prince George.
Summit Lake, 32 miles north, marks
the continental divide—not the one
we are used to that divides the
waters between the Pacific and At
lantic, but the dividing point for
waters that flow south to the Pacific
or north into the Arctic Ocean.
Hazelton, 70 miles west of Prince
George and 1,000 miles from Seattle,
stands oh the sit eof an old Indian
village, and the tribe’s totem pole
still remains as one of the chief
sights of the place. Hazelton is act
ually farther north than the southern
boundary of Alaska, for Alaska
stretches a long thin panhandle along
the coast for some 500 miles south of
the bulking shoulders of the Terri
tory, where it sticks out of the north
western corner of Canada. However,
the International Highway does not
yet enter Alaska, but continues in
land, for the terrain there is compar
atively smooth and much easier to.
thaverse than the high, steep moun
tains of the coastal range.
At Hazelton today’s motor tourist j
reaches the end <|f his trail and. the
road-builder reaches the beginning of
his, for from Hazelton northward
there is no road. Only a. dim trail,
continues as far as Telegraph', creek, I
U00 miles from Hazelton, marking the J
course which the International High
way will probably folio wnorthward.
This dim trail' also marks the
cojurse of the old Telegraph Trail,
which possesses a unique and Toman- j
tic history. In the late ’60s a daring
band of pioneers started, out on the
bold project of building a telegraph
line to Siberia and Europe, traversing
the wilderness and. Alaska, which in
those days was a.desert of ice. The1
successful laying of. the trans-Atlan
tic cable made their project useless,
3ut had the cable failed the telegraph
line might have succeeded and Alaska]
would today be the crossroads for
:ommunication between the old world
ind the new.
At the present time practically the
sntire stretch of the International
Highway ronte between Telegraph
>ee kand Fairbanks ts?mhLand.un
nhabited country. However, 150
niles north of Telegraph Oteefc the
mate strikes Atlin, on Lake Atlin, a,
>eautful vacation resort, which is
low accessible by steamer. At Atlin
there is a highway "island”—an iso
lated stretch of road 25 miles—and
this road will be linked in the new
highway.
Some threescore miles farther
north is Whitehorse, where the new
highway first strikes the Yukon river
and where the cruelly swift rapids
took away the outfits and the lives of
many a luckless prospector in the
Yukon rush days. At Whitehorse the
International Highway will again
pick up an existing road, this time a
considerable stretch that runs 100
miles to Kluane ljake and brings the
highway within 160 .miles of the
Alaskan border. Fro mWhitehorse,
too, a railroad operates south to
Skagway, on the Pacific coast, a pop
ular summer resort among Ameri
cans.
Having left Kluane Lake, the road
builders will traverse virgin country
until they have crossed the Alaska
Canada border and reach Tanana
Crossing, only 200 miles from Fair
banks. A branch road, leaving the
highway just on the Canadian side of
the line will lead up to Dawson, Yu
kon Territory, the center of the gold
stampede of '98. In perfect comfort
tourists will be able to see and cross
the river that brought fortune and
misfortune to so many brave souls in
the mad days of the Yukon rush.
From the Dawson junction it will
be a mere 200-mile jump across the
Ataskan border, over Tanana Cross
ing, down the Tanana valley and on
to the Richardson Highway, which
the International Highway will join
at a point only 70 miles from Fair
banks. In two hours more the trav
eler will be at his journey’s end in
the heart of Alaska.
Fairbanks is a town that holds the
sightseer with a fascination all its
Jfvn. for it is a modern, busy city;
much like our own American towns,
but set i na country that partakes of
all the strangeness of the Far North.
All around Fairbanks are the hills
whose disintegration has given the
area its rich placer deposits, and
Fairbanks’ highways are marked with
the tracks of heavy motor trucks and
caterpillar tractors hauling mining
machinery in an dout.
The telephone poles near Fairbanks
are not set in the ground, but. set up
on tripods, which cannot be upset by
frost or snow, nor knocked down by
stray caribou running against them.
And speaking of caribou, the resi
dents of caribou are allowed five of
the mevery year, and the animals
can be shot right on the highway,
as they drive into Fairbanks by thou!
sands.
A day's railway trip will take you
from Fairbanks into the Mount Mc
Kinley National Park, surrounding
Mt. McKinley, which is the highest
peak on the North American conti
nent. A highway will be built soon
into the park. In Fairbanks, too, is
the world’s northernmost college.
And from the city, airlines radiate to
every inhabited part of Alaska, for
the Territory is one of the most air
minded regions in the world.
Now when we speak of the Inter
national Highway that will connect j
remoote, unknown Alaska with the
familiar United States by traversing
750 miles of virgin wilderness, we do
not speak of a visionary project, a
fond dream of some far-seeing pro
gressivist. In the first place, more
than half of the highway is finished,
as the reader knows. Of the unfin
ished portion, 200 miles lies in Alas
ka, 200 miles in the Yukon Territory
(Canadian),, and 350 in British Co
lumbia.
British. Columbia is said to have
guaranteed 91,000,000 a year toward
the project. As for the American
end, Secretary of the Interior Wilbur
has a stanu favorable to the
project ana is co-operating with Can
adian autnorities in compiling data
relating >.o it. Bills have been intri
duceu n Congress by Delegate Suth
arland of Alaska and Senator Me
Nary of Oregon for preliminary
studies in co-operation with Canada
and Alaska. At th e present time,
! about 11,000,000 a year is going into
Alaskan highways.
Doubtless the new highway wil
I prorve a benefit to Alaskans. Doubt
' less, too, it will open up territory in
British Columbia and in the Yukon
that will bring greater prosperity to
Canada. But perhaps its greatest
alue will be to ourselves, to the rank
ana :..e of mo|o rtourists. For we
wiil have a new travel route opening
~p scenic beauties such as no part of
the worid but Alaska possesses. We
will be able to see in comfort those
scenes of which we have l tiearij e
often, the *ukon country of And
we w li so n learn to think of Alaska
not as a frigid gateway to taa Arctic
Circle, out as a real sister State, a
live, prosperous and important mem
ber of me American commonwealth.
Los Angeles and vicinity consume
some 60,000 carloads of fruits, nuts
and vegetables yearly.
Florida consumed 65,498 tons of
commercial fertilizer in February.
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All Kinds of Nice Fresh Groceries and Fruits
Canned Goods of All Kinds Beds and Beddiaf
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Best of Meals and Rooms
Where Everything Is Homelike and
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GOOD DOG HOUSES BATHS
Ivar Chilstrom - Prop.
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