The St. Johns herald., 1894-08-30
INFERIOR OF ALASKA.
Wonderful Tales Related by Re-
 turned Missionary.
A Place Where It Is So Still and Cold That One Could Hear Hlmself Isreathe-
 Wonders of the Aurora Boreai:s.

A remarkable story is told by Rev. E. c. Wallis, missionary of the Epis- copal church, who arrived here recent ly from the Porcupine river, in the British possessions, just over the line of Alaska, on the edge of the Rocky mountains. It is mainly about the in- tense cold, the immense herds of reindeer, and the sublime magnifcense of the aurora borealis. Dr. 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 dians.
 It does not appear to be generally 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 couple of years been importing reindeer from Siberia, and this is the reason for the supposed scarcity throughout that region; but the scarcity appears to be towards the southern, southwestern and northern coasts. In the far in terior there are myriads of them.
 "They 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 1 looked could see them. This summer when the ice broke up on the river I remember see ing six or seven of them on cake of ice floating down, and l saw many others floating on the ice.
 "For much of the time have lived at the mission. I have subsisted almost exclusively on reindeer meat. It is very good, and l 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 can eat 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 ican Indians, and not the Aleuts, Es- quimaux, or a mixture of the two.
 'T 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 I need it. I have learned to shoot pretty well myself, as all white men do in that re- zion. The ducks and grouse, like the reindeer, are remarkably good eating.
 ''It is fearfully cold there. Last win ter the thermometer was for week at a time down to sixty degrees, and have seen it go even considerably low or. At no time in the winter, nor dur ing other winters that 1 have been there, was it higher than forty degrees. This cold IS excruciating. We lived in a solid log house, good warm one, but many a time have awakened in the night and found the blankets, which were kept up we'll under the nose, frozen into a cake of ice. Sometimes the intense cold cakes the blankets for a long 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 so intensely cold you could hear yourself breathe. Ithad a rustling sound.
 ''I discovered a queer thing about the cold, and it was this: Below forty degrees you didn't notice it any more than forty degrees. It might go to sixty degrees, or even more, but it made so little difference that you didn't notice it. It was all practically the same to you.
 "The wonders of the aurora borealis in that region cannot be told. The heavens all winter long are lit up with a golden 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 15, 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.
 1.-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 lan- guages, for instance, from there down to the mouth of the Yukon, and no one tribe can understand the other. The languages are all as different as French i is from German"