The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-01-19
RIVERS OF RICHES.
Northwestern Alaska Streams Flow
Over Beds of Treasure.

Northwestern Alaska Streams Flow
Over Beds of Treasure.
The Kobuck, Imnachucls, and Col
Vile are three rivers in northwestern
Alaska, and all ernptying into the
Artic, whicht will, with their almost
innumerable tributaries, produce as
much gold as either Nome or the
Klondike, according to Peter We'll, a
miner who returned on the Oregon
after three years in that section of
the Northland, says the Seattle Post
Intelligencer The Imnachuck and Ko-
buck empty into Kotzebue Sound, a
great arm of the Artic, while the Col
ville flowing almost due north, and in
a generally opposite direction from the
T<obuck, flows into the Artic proper.
The Kobuck is fully 700 miles long,
and the Colville has a greater length.
The upper reaches of neither have
ever been prospected. and there are
100-mile stretches along either on which
the fot of white man never trod. We'll
left Nome in 1900 for the Imnachuck,
and the winter of that year and 1901 he
passed on that river and the Kobuck.
But for the natives inhabiting the Ko-
buck he would have died of starvation.
To them he owes his life, and his chief
benefactor was the late Kougarok
Charley, father of the Indian boy and
girl whom Mr.. and Mrs Thomas Noyes
recently brought out of the north.
OF his interesting experience and his
opinions of that section of Alas
ka from a gold-bearing standpoint,
We'll said:
There are probably fifty people
wintering on the Kobuck and Imna-
chuck, and possibly a dozen on the
Colville. All three of these rivers are
rich in gold. Kobuck has been pros
pected about 100 miles from it's mouth,
and not a single tributary failed to
show gold. Fully 500 miles of the Ko-
buck have been prospected at all. This
river and the Colville take their source
in great dome, one flowing south and
west, and the other, the Colville, north
into the Attic, AS for the imnachuck
it is we'll known that creek is rich, and
with better transportation facilities
which would enable the miner and pro.
spector to get in implements and sup
plies, these rivers are going to aston
ish the country
81 passed the winter of 1901-02 on
the Kobuck with the Imnachuck Els
kinos. For six weeks I had not a
mouthful of the white mans food
only that of the native, oil, seal an6
tomcod. The first three days this diet
made me deathly sick, but after that
had an appetite equal to that of the
hardest buck. And the meat of the
seal, when properly cooked, cannot be
beaten. 1t tastes very much like veal
Seal liver and calf's liver are almost
| identical as to taste. During the winter
of 1902 Richard Miller and myself lived
| for forty days on white fish procured
from the natives.
t"The Imnachuck Indians treated mi
| with great kindness. If you drive VI
| to their ,igloo in the night they will
come out and take care of your dos
| team, unload your sled, give you foot
and place to sleep. All they ask il
fair treatment. If you have no money
| nothing to exchange, they will care
money or wares they expect you t.
compensate them.
"As for cleanliness, some of the Els
| kimos are as clean as the white men
while others, when they are dirty, ar
as filthy as one could well imagine
! They revel in their dirt and filth.
''Too many times the Exkimos, hav,
! been misused, cheated and abused b!