The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-07-22
.ALASKA'S Uses
FOR TIN Cans.
How the Standard Oil Com
pany Five-Gallon Can
Is Utilized.
FIRST TIN-CAN HOUSE.
Erected By Col. Charles
Sheaf, In Seward
Peninsula.
FIRST TIN-CAN HOUSE.

AlaSkaS 6UU,0UU square LllleS uSoiS leN-
ed on the map Tin City-because of its
location in the tin-producing district
there is scarcely a settlement that has
not more obvious claim to the name,
so tangible a part does tin play in the
warp and wool of the Northland. But
lit is not of the tin that goes to waste
on the surface of Americas most
lnortherly possession, nor the tin that
mining experts tell us lies in untold
quantities in the regions OF York ana
lCape Prince of Wales, I would sing,
but rather of the humblest guise this
most useful, prosaic of metals is wont
to assume in the aretics--the tin can.
Far more tin in the form Of recepta-
Giles for preserved foods, Illuminating.
lubricating and fuel oils has been
brought into Alaska than has vet been
taken out Of it's mines. Wherever In
Alaska the intrepid white man vent
ures the tin can keeps pace.
The United States uses annually one
third of the worlds output of tin, and
pays for it $255oO,OOO. How much of
this purchase finds it's way to Alaska
in the guise of tin cans, the wastage
on it's surface discloses. In tin-can
wastage alone Alaska has kings ram
SOM A country which produces al
most nothing for the sustenance of
human life naturally forces It's inhab-
Iitants to be dependent upon tin-canned
foods. Boring sea in winter is the
dumping ground for the discarded tin
cans of the camps bordering its coast.
When the ice breaks up after eight
months continuous freeze, Boring sea
carries out to the Pacific ocean Islands
of ice with veritable Elffel towers of
lempty tin cans, gay in the labels Of
the worlds canned stuffs! Every ice
lcake that inland creeks and rivers
lempties into Boring sea likewise glist-
lens with tin-can garbage. Besides this
Immense quantity carried out to sea,
leuual numbers of cans strew the tun-
dra and the inlying hills. Fortune
lawaits the man who learns to utilize
this wastage. The vain effort was made
at Nome in its second year to erect a
lsmelter to save the solder.
The vanguard of civilization in the
Northland, now as in the first rush to
the Klondfke, or our own Alaskan gold
fields, is the homely Standard oil five
gallon tin can. Well-filled, the can
assures light and heat to man and
beast, as we'll as fuel and fabrication
flor machinery brought into the coun-
TRY at tremendous labor and expense
Ito extract gold from Mother Earth s
frozen embrace. Empty, the can was
land continues Indispensable to the for
tune-seeker the "musher' on trail or
in camp
Necessity's inventive power is no.
where, perhaps, so variously or ingeni-
lously demonstrated, as in the uses to
(which "sourdough" Gone who has seen
the Ice come and go-so named from
the batch of sour dough the early min
err or prospector kept in his cabin to
make pancakes) and "chechaco"
derfoot) put the Standard oils
tin can in Alaska. To one arg0YiauI
who brought a stove into the country
there were hundreds unmindful of this
essential of Jack Frost's kingdom. Fol
love or money stove was not to be
had in Dawsons first days, and like.
wise it was beyond the dream of avar.
ice in Seward peninsula. 1t took moi
a little ready cash to ship mere man
across Boring seas treacherous waste
in those epoch-making summer day
of the Nome stampede while freight
age was often unpurchasabe. TIT
rank and file of fortune seekers ven,
tured into the arctics with scarcely
more baggage than their backs coull
Icarry. When on trail or in camp hea
became Imperative, and it was the dis
carded Standard oil can that came t,
the rescue, By knocking out the b&
tom Of one can and inserting it int,
the open top of a second can> AM
pounding the edges together, was Sc
cured hollow 10-gallon, ractangula
structure of tin, which admirabl,
served for the body of stove. Int
a hole bored at one end of the upps
: surface was fitted bottomless, head
less, one gallon can, which served a
V a chimney, Empty carnaton cream
or evaporated potato cans at eithe
y corner of the rectangular one CAV
height to the shining whole. WheI
can support was wanting, hillocks 0
earth or frost-bound scrub willow
p lifted the stove from the ground. OF
ten duplicates of the improvsed stow
F.. body We're placed under or over tn
fuel receptacle, serving for oven 0
Isnow-water boiler Frequently bot
oven and boiler were kept sizzling, tn
v fire between fed by whatever fuel tn
locality afforded. Many an arctic Dir
or frozen fish has been turned to sue
culent brown in a "Sourdough's' Stan
dard oil can oven, while the fiitches @
bacon and bushels of beans the stov
has brought to life-savlng, if not Who'll
v ly appetizing, state are past telling.
There are housewives on the Yuko
. and in Seward peninsula who will te
you that never in the sheet-iro
= ranges which rise of fortune or in
creased rapid transit now brings ther
have they baked bread to so whole
: some a brown as in the oven of tn
Standard oil tin-can stove. Lightnes
= of weight, ease with which they ma
n be taken apart and readjusted, max
q them still the joy, the indispensable
8 icompanion of the 'musher' who vent
ures remotely without hope of meetin
q a road-house, or of the prospector VIII
inever can count on how far he ma
y wander or when be forced to pitc
Y camp: Thrown over a dogs bacl