The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-26
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 SHOES OF INTEGRITY

and with greater frequency, between the larger settlements.
 Of the 85-mile route from Kotzebue to Point Barrow, reindeer are supposed to be used. It is frequently spoken of as the only reindeer route In the world"
 Ten years ago there wasn't any Alas kan mail service. It wasn't needed. Dur ing the season of 19O7-OS. and for several seasons before that there were two mails a week out of Seattle for Alaska. This last winter there were three. Last year there were two mails delivered at Point Barrow, something like 7000 miles from the big cities of the Atlantic Coast, and well within the arctic circle. Next year there may be three. For the department is considering a petition bearing IA sig natures for one more delivery a year up there. And scattered throughout the great frozen peninsula are town settle- ments, mere mining camps, to which the malls come at intervals varying from the twice-aweek to the twice-a-year.
 Alaskan mall fro mall over the United States goes to Seattle, and from Seattle to Valdez by steamer three times a week, and from Valdez to Fairbanks, 300 miles away. To Valdez there Is practically no limit to the weight that will be carried 1; but the mail to Farbanks-horses being the motive power-is limited to 800 pounds to Fairbanks, that is and beyond; to Fairbanks and all that E Fairbanks feeds. From Fairbanks 1t Is distributed at lengthening intervals, in widening cir cles, and by ever-narrowing trails, on which dogs replace horses, and finally runners replace dogs.
 In winter northwestern Alaska, Nome and the other settlements of the Seward Peninsula, cannot be reached by way of the coast. Navigation Is out of the ques- ton. The mails are carried inland and then by devious trails. many of them fol- lowing the Youkon and it's tributaries, out to the coast again.
 In the summer they still go to Skagway and across Canadian territory as far IS Dawson, where river packets and native canoes largely replace the horses and dogs of the winters and waterways the land trails for all the settlements (and & club which may be translated saloon with half dozen cabins or tents within a radius of as many miles make up set- tlement here) of the interior.
 Northwestern coast towns are then reached by steamer. The Corwin, which goes up early in May, stays up there un- til October, when 1t returns to Seattle for the winter. It plies along the Seward Peninsula, delivering coastwise mail which the weekly steamers from Seattle bring up. But the Corwin's trips are not always on schedule. There is enough ice
 
 make her arrival with the precious mall bags something of gamble, and the con- tractors do not hesitate to send the mail along by anything that can navigate swearing in as mail carriers the officers of revenue cutter, whaler. native canoe anything at all that can and will help them deliver their goods.
 Since then, also, under another singu- larly energetic and efficient postmaster general the Alaskan mail service has been improved even more rapidly than 'the unusual conditions prevailing have permitted, but 1t Is to be doubted if it is any cheaper-to Uncle Sam. It is hard to figure out just what it costs to de- liver these Alaskan mails for which Un- cle Sam charges us S2 cents a pound just as he does to deliver mail at your home or mine from our neighbors bloSk or two away.
 And the postoffice department can only figure out what it costs in dollars and cents to deliver the Alaskan mails What it costs in exposure and suffering, in heartbreaking endeavor, in dangers faced and difficulties overcome, no man, not even the man who does it, can realize.