The Athena press. [volume] (Athena, Umatilla County, Or.) 18??-1942, 1893-12-22
INTERIOR OF ALASKA.
A Place Where 1t Is So still and Cold
That One Could Hear himself breathe
Wonders OF tho Aurora
Boreaaiss

A remarkable story is told by Rev.
e. C. Wallis, missionary of the Epis-
copal church, who arrived here recent
II from the Porcupine river, in the
British possessions, just over the line Of
Alaska, on the edge of the Rocky
mountains. It is mafnly about the in
tense cold, the immense herds Of
reindeer, and the sublime magnifcense
of the aurora borealis. DIR. Wallis,
says the San Francisco Examiner, has
been seven years in the wilds of the
porcupine river, and for the last
eighteen months his wife has been
with him assisting in teaching the In
dams.
1t does not appear to begeneraIiy
known that there are vast herds of
reindeer in that part Of the country
DR.. Sheldon Jackson, superintendent
of education for Alaska, and Capt.
Healy OF the Bear have for a couple of
years been importing reindeer from
Siberia and this is the reason for the
supposed scarcity throughout that
region; butthe scarcity appears to be
towards the southern, southwestern
and northern coasts. In the far in
terror there are myriads of them.
'sThey are remarkably numerous
everywhere about my mission near the
mouth of the Porcupine river" said
the reverend gentleman. Back to-
wards the mountains from my house i
have seen great bands of them, and al
most everywhere looked ! could see
them. This summer when the ice
broke up on the river ! remember see
ing six or seven of them on q cake Of ice
floating down, and saw many others
floating on the ice.
s'Iror much of the time have lived
at the mission. have subsisted almost
exclusively on reindeer meat. It is
very good, and may say it is about
the only kind Of meat you don't get
tired of. / think it is better. all things.
( considered, than beef, and you neat
it longer without its palling on you.
The Indians eat it almost exclusively
and they are very big and strong,
Some of them are six feet in height,
and the average is about five feet ten
inches. They are genuine North Amer
lean Indians, and not the Aleuts, Es-
quimaux, or mixture Of the two.
II keep an Indian hunter, and he
supplies me with all the reindeer meat
I want He also brings in grouse,
ducks, bear and other game as / need
it. / have learned to shoot pretty we'll
myself, as allwhite men do in that re-
gion. The ducks and grouse, like the
reindeer, are remarkably good eating.
SIT is fearfully cold there. Last win
ter the thermometer was for a week at
time down 20 sixty degfees, and
have seen it go even considerably low
er. At no time in the winter, nor dur
ing other winters that I have been
there. was 1t higher than forty degrees.
This cold is excruciating We lived in
a solid log house, a good warm one, but
many a time I have awakened in the
night and found the blankets, which
were kept up well under the nose,
frozen into cake of ice. Sometimes
the intense cold cakes the blankets for
along distance down.
''Meats and everything froze, and
you would throw them anywhere with
out thinking. The worst experience
was trying to make bread The yeast
would freeze in spite Of you, often
times even when the greatest care was
exercised. If you stepped out, every
thing was SO still and 80 intensely cold
you could hear yourself breathe. Ithad
arustling sound.
II discovered queer thing about
the cold, and it was this: Below forty
degrees you didn't notice it any more
than forty degrees. It might 60 to
sixty degrees, or even more, but it
made SO little difference that youdidn't
notice 1t. It was all practically the
same to you.
The wonders of the aurora borealis
in that region cannet be told The
heavens all winter long are lit up with
a agolden glow. Indeed, may say the
colors-the sparkles and flashes are
so many, constant and varied that no
one can describe them. There is prac-
tically no day during the year. For
two or three months, up to December
l5, from nine to twelve o'clock, there
is sort Of dawn, but the rest Of the
time it is night. 1t is so clear that you
can go out and read newspaper any
where.
The four or five hundred Indians at
my mission are bright, and good prog
ress has been made in instructing
them. Nearly all Of them can read in
their own language. / have translated
various religious and other books,
which have been printed in England,
for their use. They have an entirely
different language from any other In
dians. There are FIVE different Ian
guages, for instance, from there down
to the mouth Of the Yukon, and no one
tribe can understand the other. The
languages are ealIasdifferenta as French