Alaska (77 page)

But when he tried to purchase the needed fuel, he was informed that most of the piles had been preempted for riverboats belonging to the Alaska Commercial Company of Seattle, while the rest had been spoken for by boats of Ross & Raglan of the same city.

'Can't I get even one cord? To carry us to the next depot?'

'All bespoken.'

'Can I hire someone to cut wood for us?'

'All engaged.'

When it became obvious that the only way the passengers aboard the Jos. Parker were going to reach Dawson before the river froze would be for them to cut their own wood, parties were arranged and men fanned out across the barren countryside to find what trees they could, and after a four day delay, the boat continued upstream, but at the next depot it was the same story, and this time when Klope left the boat with his ax he grumbled: 'I didn't think I'd have to chop my way to the Klondike.'

But chop he did as the projected quick trip to the gold fields was agonizingly prolonged.

As September waned, the man called California raised the question: 'At this rate, can

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we possibly reach Dawson before the river freezes?' But when he and a man known as Montana broached the subject with Captain Grimm, the latter gave his reassuring smile and said: 'That's my job.'

The attention of the worried passengers was distracted by the fact that they were about to enter the notorious Yukon Flats, a desolate and almost frightening area one hundred and eighty miles long in which the Yukon became hopelessly braided, as if some headstrong girl had purposely tangled her hair. Since the area was seventy miles wide, reaching out from both banks, it covered more than twelve thousand six hundred square miles and was about six times the area of Connecticut.

On first acquaintance it had not one redeeming feature: few trees, no surrounding mountains, no swift-moving streams, no villages clinging to the banks, merely an endless expanse of swampland, the overpowering Yukon Flats. John Klope, as a farmer who knew good land when he saw it, was appalled. But those familiar with the Flats developed an affection for them; here birds thrived in numbers unimaginable, and hunters from North Dakota to Mexico City were indebted to the summer breeding grounds thus provided for game birds which could have flourished nowhere else. Geese and ducks abounded. Wild animals of the most valuable kind proliferated: martin and mink and ermine and lynx and fox and muskrat and others whose names Klope would not have recognized. Larger game lived here, too: moose with enormous horns, caribou in winter, bears along the edges, savage mosquitoes by the billion.

But the pride of the Flats was the innumerable lakes, some little larger than a table, others as big as normal counties. At one spot the Yukon itself broadened into a lake of tremendous size, and occasionally fifty or sixty lakes would be linked together by minute streams, forming a chain of jewels resplendent in the cold sunlight.

How many lakes were there in the Flats? An explorer who had traveled the two major rivers which joined the Yukon here Chandalar to the west, Porcupine coming in after a very long ramble through Canada estimated that the area as a whole must contain at least thirty thousand independent clearly defined lakes: 'What amazed me most, as I reflect upon it, was the excessive number of oxbows, those almost circular streams cut off from any main body of water, no entry, no exit, proof that in times past a meander had been eliminated when a flood altered the course of some little stream.'

Riverboat captains had a less enthusiastic opinion of the 469

Flats, for as Captain Grimm explained: 'If you choose wrong at one of the braids, you can travel for a day before you find yourself at a dead end. Then you waste another retracing your way back to the main channel, supposing you can find it.'

On 1 October 1897, Captain Grimm apparently lost his way in one of these landlocked braids, for after stumbling about during most of a long, cold morning, he confessed to his passengers: 'We seem to be lost,' and they knew that they were still fifty miles short of Fort Yukon, which they had to reach in order to obtain the next load of wood. Some men grumbled, and when Grimm decided to stay where he was and spend the night against the shore rather than retrace his course, two men came close to threatening him, but others provided sager counsel and no threats were voiced. During the argument Klope took neither side, for although he desperately wanted to reach the gold fields, he suspected that Captain Grimm knew what he was doing.

It was extremely cold that night, and in the morning the passengers were wakened by Montana, who was shouting about what was happening in their cul-de-sac: 'Look at those fingers of ice!' And when Klope reached the railing, he could see delicate probes reaching out from shore as the colder water there began to freeze.

Few travelers had ever had an opportunity to watch a great river actually freeze, and although the braid in which the Parker was trapped was not part of the main current, the process was the same. While the middle of the river remained free, with no indication that it was about to freeze, thin ice did form at a few spots where the water touched land, but for the moment these isolated incidents indicated little, for they were not extensive nor did they reach far enough into the river to constitute any menace. No man could have walked upon the fragile ice thus formed.

But as Klope watched, a miracle occurred, for without warning of any kind, no cracking or popping, an entire stretch along the shore suddenly congealed, and it would remain so until June.

Now the watchers grew apprehensive, and at a spot well ahead of the Parker, that is, up near the closed end of the braid, they saw a second miracle, this one of greater import, for as the icy fingers coming out from land grew more sturdy, they suddenly leaped outward from each shore, joining in the middle of the braid as if forming a congratulatory handclasp, and in that instant, that part of the Yukon was frozen. The process was mysterious, quick and beautiful.

By afternoon, with the temperature far below zero, ice 470

began to move out from the waterline of the Parker, and Klope stood with California as its fingers groped for those reaching out from shore, but night fell before they could witness completion of the jointure.

By next morning, 3 October, most of the Flats were frozen shut and even the mighty river was sending out preliminary fingers. By nightfall this section of the Yukon would be closed to navigation.

'That's why I ran in here,' Grimm explained. 'I didn't tell you at the time, because you wouldn't have believed the river could freeze so swiftly. If we'd tried to finish the run to Fort Yukon, we'd have been locked in the big ice and most likely been crushed when it moved.'

'How long will we be trapped here?' California asked, and Grimm said: 'Till June.'

'Oh my God!' Montana cried, and Grimm said: 'We're only one of many. Take heart.

I've chosen one of the safest spots on this river. Less wind. No fear of creeping ice.'

In a good winter the Parker might have provided a comfortable eight-month refuge for perhaps thirty men; any hope of keeping sixty-three content was impossible, and before that day was out some men were demanding refunds of their money. With his beard jutting out, his feet firmly placed, his eyes atwinkle, Olaf Grimm lined out the simple truth: 'I undertook to get you to Dawson. I didn't promise when. Now, all men will scour the area to find what trees there are and bring us some wood, because if you don't we'll freeze to death, and I'll do my share of the chopping.'

He explained where the privies would be built, 'and any man not using them will be shot.' He asked for volunteers to hunt for moose and caribou, 'and you must go out right now to catch what you can before the heavy snows.'

As this resolute man spoke he conveyed the impression that he had faced such situations before and intended to see that his passengers survived this one. He was conciliatory; he sympathized with men who were sorely disappointed; but he allowed no excuses, gave no exemptions from the work that he knew had to be done. When California complained, with reason: 'If you knew we were going to freeze in, why did you leave St. Michael?'

he said truthfully: 'Because you people wanted to come. And we'd have made it on schedule if we'd been able to buy our wood on the way.'

THAT WINTER ELEVEN RIVER CRAFT WERE IMPRISONED IN ice. None handled the situation better than the Jos. Parker,

and when one of the passengers returned to the boat with 471

news that he had killed a moose, he accepted the praise due him, then asked: 'Ever since I've been aboard this damned ship I've wondered why it was called the Jos.

Parker.

Comin' back just now, I understood. The name-board ain't big enough for a full first name.'

'That's right,' Grimm said, thankful for any diversion. 'Named after the father of the man who built it. Josiah Parker. Nice trim name, I always thought.'

On 4 October, John Klope, still burning to get to the gold fields, spoke with Captain Grimm: 'Living like this has got to get worse and worse,' and Grimm said: 'Yes.'

'Could I walk to Fort Yukon?'

'Fifty miles. Rough sledding. Take you maybe three, four days.'

'But it is just ahead, on the river?'

'Sure is.' The veteran hesitated, for he would not want it said later that he had encouraged men who had started up the river under his care to leave their boat at the beginning of an arctic winter. At other ships other captains were facing the same moral problem; from one ship a lone man with dogs would set out for a journey of twelve hundred and fifty miles and make it. From another, a man who liked to paint watercolors would go three hundred yards and freeze to death.

Captain Grimm said, very carefully: 'You and I, Klope, could make it. I've watched you. You're disciplined. But I wouldn't want to try it with some of those others.

And don't you. Stay here and live.' It was a masterful statement, a warning not to leave the safety of the

Parker

but at the same time a challenge, and Klope, ignoring the former, embraced the latter.

When it was learned that he was going to trek overland to Fort Yukon, eleven other men volunteered, and in some cases demanded, to go along, and suddenly he found himself the leader of an expedition. The idea terrified him, because although he had no fear about succeeding on his own, he doubted that he could hold a disparate group of men together if they ran into trouble, nor did he want to. Cleverly, he handed the management of the expedition over to loud spoken California, who enjoyed giving directions, and justifying Klope's decision, California proved to be resourceful and a good leader, although to Klope's taste, a trifle domineering.

Well bundled, the twelve who wanted to get to Fort Yukon bade farewell to the ice-locked Jos. Parker

early on the morning of 5 October, expecting to cover no less than thirteen miles a day, which would put them safely in Fort Yukon on the late afternoon of the eighth, and since darkness did not come till about five-thirty, they assumed they would have 472

ample light. What they did not anticipate was the extreme roughness of the route they had chosen.

The Yukon did not freeze flat and smooth like the lakes some of them had known in the States; because it froze in arbitrary ways at sharply varying times, its surface was uneven, crumbled at times, and broken by irregular upthrust blocks. California, distraught by the impediments thrown up by the Yukon, shouted: 'What in hell happened to this river?' and Montana explained what was obvious to an outdoorsman: 'It freezes here but not there. Free water floods in, covers the frozen ice and freezes. Then more free water comes in below, everything buckles.' He assured California that a level route could be found through the ice chunks, but the latter had had enough.

Kicking at the blocks, he growled: 'Let's get away from this damned river.'

But when he led his team away, he soon faced the myriad lakes and the frozen swamps between. This tundra was dotted with large, round tufts of matted grass called by everyone in Alaska niggerheads. To cross such country, one had to lift one's legs high to step from low ground to high, and then take longer strides than usual to reach the next niggerhead. It was painful going.

By alternating between the jagged ice of the river and the uneven surface of the frozen swamp, the informal expedition moved at a painful pace that would cover not thirteen miles a day as planned, but no more than eight. The trip would thus require not four days but six, and since the men had geared themselves to an easy four-day dash over the kind of snowy roads they had known in states like the Dakotas and Montana, they were disheartened.

Fortunately, the cold was not yet excessive, and no wind blew, so that even the weakest of the men did not suffer, and when night came they were not so exhausted that they were unable to care for themselves, but they were thoroughly tired.

It had been planned that they would sleep with snow piled about them like a blanket, for this would deflect the wind and allow each man to hoard his body heat. They ate sparingly, for they had brought along only enough food for the projected four days, but as California said: 'Short rations won't hurt anyone. And we'll soon be there.'

The first night's rest was brief, for the men found it difficult to sleep in their snow beds, and while no one suffered from a lack of clothing, no one was properly clothed, either, for such exposure. As soon as dawn began to show, about six thirty, the men were eager to resume their march, and with a day's practice behind them, they handled the difficult terrains more adeptly. But if California led them onto the river,

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they wanted to wander among the lakes, and if he acceded to that suggestion, they rather quickly asked for the river. At dawn some had predicted: 'Yesterday was learning.

Today we'll do fifteen miles,' but they covered barely half that distance.

Klope slept soundly that second night. He had seen that when neither he nor Montana set the pace, the file would lag, so he stayed in front most of the time, yielding only when Montana saw that he was tiring. The two men never spoke of what they were doing or of their growing suspicion that some of them were not going to make it to Fort Yukon.