Williams news., 1904-06-04
Going to Alaska
BY NELLIE J. DODGE

Nearly all the horses shared the fate of the dogs, only worse, for when no hay was to be had they either starved or had to be shot. The men would work them as long as the animals could stand up and then end their existence.
 The vessels that came into port after this first trip of the Valencia nearly all brought horses, mules and burros, but even though they encountered no storms, that part of the ocean was so rough that the animals were in such poor condi- ton when they arrived that many breathed their last soon after land ing.
 The work of moving on the trail was very tedious, as we were hin- dered in various ways. At times the snow was soft and the sleds sank so deep it took about a third of the time keeping them on top or from turning over and dumping the load over About the time the trail would freeze up good and hard and we thought surely we would get in a good eighteen hours work that day, an innocent looking little cloud might be seen floating across the sky, and before you could have made one trip the sky was com pletely overcast and then our trail was covered up with six or seven feet of fresh snow. To all who con- template visiting Alaska I would say, beware of those fringy looking little clouds, for they are not as in nocent as they look Long before our outfits were all moved the first six miles, there were many ready to give up the task. The hard work seemed to do the men no harm, for they all kept we'll and strong.
 To demonstrate what "roughing it" and fresh air will do for an in- valid, we will go back to San Fran cisco. Just before leaving that port lady was carried on board, ac- companied by her husband and sister. When the steward with his gong passed through the ship call ing, "All visitors ashore" every one expected the sick lady would be taken off, but not so; instead the sister bade her farewell and passed down the gang plank alone. The invalid was put to bed, where she remained until we reached Alaska.
 The women were the last to leave the ship. Five of them had been safely landed from the lighter onto the ice when the tide began going out so fast that it was impossible to keep the boat near enough to put the other two women off. These two women were the invalid and the writer. As it was fast getting dark, haste had to be made, so they lowered us into life boat; but be fore seaman could follow us into the boat, a sudden ]urch of the lighter threatened to crush our lit tie boat, and to avoid this it was cut adrift and we found ourselves floating out into the dark alone not a very cheerful reception to those foreign shores, surely.
 Nothing daunted, began to look about for some oars and row locks, at the same time cheering up the other woman, who was ready to collapse. I knew with both our husbands on the shore and several hundreds of other men we would never be left to drift away, if they could get our boat before it became too dark. To my surprise and hor- TOT, 1 found the locks but no oars not even board that 1 could use as paddle; so all we could do was to sit in that boat and hope for the best. We kept calling, so that they could locate us in the dark. Short ly we felt a rope drop into the boat which I quickly made fast and we were soon pulled up to the shore ol ice. Several of the men knowing our danger had hastily jumped into