The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-07-24

on the Future of the settlement.
CORwIN TRADING CAMP, Nome,
Alaska, June PA short man with a
billy-cock face and a very much unshaven
| chin stands by the dusty street side in
| front of the office of the Nome Geld Dig
! ger" and though he is short he almost
! obscures the building, for the Nome local
paper reminds one much Of Mark Twain S
| Mississippi steamboat with the twenty
| horsepower boiler and the forty horse
power whistle; every time the whistle
blew the engine stopped; so when the
! little man talks he fogs the Office from
view.
Here you have it, gents" he sing
songs; the only real live local paper on
| the golden sands of Nome. 1t gives you
| six pages of red-hot local items washed
right from the rocker of our golden in
telIect, and all for two bits. Come all you
'Chachocliers from way down cast IN MIN
nesota, here's the first nugget Of gold you
will get from the Nome beach and it's the
biggest you'll ever get. l produce the
wrapper. and l put on a stamp. Nov it
is all ready to send to your friends at
home and it will tell them all about the
golden sands of Nome. 1t chronicles your
safe arrival, and you get it, wrapper
stamp. and golden intellect, all for two
| bits. Yes" he says with a patronizing
smile to the youth from Boston. two bits
is twenty-five cents. You'll get used to
our ways if you stay with Us little while,
Thank you. sir"
There are two local papers in Nome, and
they retail for % cents each. They are
published weekly, each from little 10 by
u building, and, as might be expected.
the Geographic news is not line. But
that is at present Each promises 10
appear as a bi-weekly soon, and hints at
4 daily in the near future. Surely town
that can grow in population from five TO
fifteen thousand in a week, as Nome has
| done. can support two daily papers if the
| growth is permanent.
wreck of the Alaska.
| 1t was a wonder, that week of sudden
and unexampled growth In early June a
sim southwest gale blew for several days
and sent the stanch old whaling bark
| Alaska from her mOorings in the open
| roadstead on to the sandy bars OF inc
! shallow beach TO her doom. When 1t had
! done with her the beach was strewn with
] the fragments for miles. and her cargo OF
canned goods and miscellaneous supplies
came ashore to be fought over by the
beachcombers, to whom no doubt canned
goods were a luxury after their long WIN
ter Of privation.
Then followed three weeks Of ha'cyon
days. The winds were lglled and the sea
NfHnFNF
/ smiling as the face of the sun that danced
upon il. The wind had opened leads in
the arctic ice that had long guarded the
city. and through these plowed the fleet
of waiting inbound steamers, heavy with
freight and passengers. They came by
twos and threes by day and by, what should
be- night if there were any night in
Nome in the month of June, and they made
in two weeks feet of fifty or so that
anchored in the offing and blotted out the
horizon line
Nome has neither wharves nor docks.
and 10000 passengers and 81 coo, 600 worth
of goods OF every conceivable sort were
dumped into lighters and landed on the
golden sands of Nome beach in a tangle
that is not yet Strengthened out, and in
some ways never will be. The town was
not unprsp4red; it was looking for Trouble,
but II did not expect anything like this.
and it was in many ways helpless On the
night of the 14th the pleasant weather
was broken by a snowstorm and freezing
temperature.
UnsheItered on the Beach.
That night a thousand people, rushed
ashore without proper preparation by the
steamship. companies, were shelterless and
lay shiverfng among the piles Of freight on
the beach or walked up and down until
day brought fair skies and a rising tenn
perature. Nome was not TO blame for this.
1t sheltered all it could lat the going
price which was a dollar for a place to
lay down in. regardless OF age or previous
condition of seryitude). but it was made
quate, and there was much suffering. Many
a naiamute dog came to his coy corner
that night to find 1t already occupied by a
strange bedfellOw. Luckily the malamute
is good -natured and there is plenty of him.
The man who sells the Gold Digger
by the dusty roadside says OF him: Cen
tlemen, Nome is the city OF twenty thou
sand gold seekers, and" there he made
a rhetorical pause) forty thousand dogs"
The malamute dog is everywhere in and
about Nome. He is meek and he inherits
the earth. He sleeps on the sidewalk and
people continually walk around him. He
prowls in bands among the thousand tents
that surround the city. He gambols upon
the tundra and he lies dead in the creeks
and on the beach; and always unmoIested.
There was a half-hearted attempt TO re-
strain him. An edicI was issued that on
the 18th Of June all dogs must be tied UP
or be put in the pound. The twilight Of
the l5ths midnight was a twilight long
TO be remembered. Every one of the forty
thousand was aggrieyed and voiced his
grievance. The malamute dog does not
howl he cries like a child: not like
gsntle-voiced lady child, either, but with
the tones of a hfteen-year-o boy that is
being soundly caned. This combined
protest must have touched the heart of
the city government. for the next day the
dogs were as ioyfully prevalent as ever.
Few Buildings Yet.
In spite Of its long main street parallel
TO the beach where substantial wooden
buildings three and four stories high face
each other, in spite OF its less important
streets where other buildings rise RAPIDLY.
Nome Is today city Of tents, for from
this substantial nucleus the white walls
spread up and down the beach as far as
eye can see. Just outside the city they
cover the beach like great froth OF surf
81