The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-08-07
No cold d On COPPER RIVER
SUCH AT LEAST Is THE STATE
MENT OF I0WANS

MENT OF IOWANS
dad" sohsdle and NJ. 9. Smith, Of
volsa. Are Back, After Several
Months OF Fruitless Search for
the Yellow Metal-rhey Did Not
Find Enough to Pay for Their
Outfits.
"You cannot impress too strongly
upon the minds Of prospective gold
| hunters the utter folly Of going to the
Copper river country"
The speaker was dad" Schadle, who
Is on his way back to his home at Vol
| ga. To-, after several months of fruit
| less search and terrible hardships in
hunting gold In Alaska. He and his
partner are at the Commercial hotel.
Ills partner, M. @. Smith, also Of Volga,
nodded assent to Dads affirmation.
adding that war Is hell. but that the
copper river country has war beaten
eight ways from the jack. Dad" is
| sixty years old and has undergone the
| hardships of Forty-niner in Califor-
! MIA, has mined silver in Colorado and
| worked In lead mines, but says he
| never knew what hardship really was
until he landed in Alaska. He is hardy
ana strong, consequently stood the trip
well. as did Mr.. Smith, but both thank
tnelr stars that they are again back
IN civilization, even If they did not
bring back enough gold to make band
ring.
Dad" and Smith started to Alaska
in party Of nine persons last Feb
ruary ssSTheir troubles began soon after
they waved. The weather was severe
and twice the boat ran on rocks ard
once ran ashore. The party landed at
Valdes bay and started for the sup
losed Eldorado, the Copper river coun-
try.
The first real hardship was met in
crossing the Valdes glacier, a great ice
| field, thirty-six miles long. This trip
occupied thirty-seven days. The glacier
is formed in series of plateaus, and to
each succeeding tableland the 10000
pound outfit of the party had to be
holsted by ropes and tackle, after be-
Ing dragged the intervening distances
on sleds. The plan in crossing the
glacier was to establish camp ten
| miles in advance Of the baggage and
to pack the outfit as far as possible
each day, until the camp was finally
reached. when another camp would be
established ten miles further on. The
wood burned on the trip had to be sled
ed a distance Of twenty-siX miles. Ere
quently the party had no fuel and the
members were obliged to sleep on the
glacier with nothing between the ice
and their bodies, except rubber blank
cts. The cold was not SO severe, how
ever, until after the glacier was passed,
as in the vicinity Of Valdes bay the
thermometer seldom registered more
than Is degrees below Zero Inland it
goes down to GO and 20 degrees below.
| One of the party became discouraged
| by the time the last plateau on the
| glacier was reached and returned home.
| After passing the glaciers the gold
| hunters dragged their heavily loaded
sleds over the frozen Casino river for
twenty-five miles, and then waded
| through ten miles of slush and snow
| waist deep over Lake Marguerite
Then they journeyed inland toward
! Copper river. This part of the trip was
exasperat1ngly slow. as the trail was
| almost new and huge tree trunks and
boulders blocked the way every few
| yards. But two or three miles a day
could be made over the road, and the
100 miles thus travelled will never be
forgotten by any Of the party. Sleep
ing in crevices at night and dragging
the sleds all day, the men were nearly
exhausted when they finally reached
a tributary Of the Copper river. Here
they constructed rude boats Of timber
and sledded fifteen miles. All the way
down the tributary the party encoun-
tered danger. One man was obliged to
follow the shore with a line attached
to each boat. as the current frequent
| ly capsiZed the rude craft overturning
the men and outfit into the river.
About the middle of April the party
reached the Copper river at a point
240 miles from it's mouth. This was
supposed to be the most promising
part Of the region and their hopes ran
high. The prospecting began. Day
after day the gold hunters drudged
many weary miles with pick and SHOW
ell and washing pan, hoping to strike it
rich, but nowhere did they find more
than trace Of the precious gold. They
sunk shafts, built sluices and shoveled
away tons of gravel, but still found no
gold. In this way they prospected over
100 miles up and down the river. In
ascending the stream two men waded
in the water and .towed the boats. It
was much more exhaustive work than
the sledging, and each day recorded
less than a miles progress. Then there
was the danger from landslides. Ahead
and behind the party, there often
crashed into the river mountains of
stone and earth, loosened from the
these slides that they change the
course Of the river, forcing the cur
rent now to one side of the valley,
again to the other. dad" and Mr..
Smith were caught in such slide dur
ing the trip. but escaped with their
lives by taking shelter under a huge
boulder, which split the avalanche
away from them on either side. Three
months of such hardships and danger
GUS experiences without reward broke
up the party and sent it's members
homeward.
dad" says there is undoubtedly gold
in plenty somewhere in Alaska, but
that it Is not in the Copper river coun-
try. He says that 5000 people landed
/ at Valdes bay, but that not more than
| 1900 of them started for the interior.
Gold hunters are still going there, but
dad" says they are on fruitless mis-
sion. When he and Mr.. Smith were on
the steamer coming home they passed
a boat crowded with fortune seekers
bound for the country they had just
left dad" brings back a little Of the
| yellow metal he picked UP before
reaching the Copper river country. but
| neither he nor his partner found
enough gold to half way pay for their
outfits