The Chitina leader., 1910-12-31
Dangers, Iriumphs and PrNations
In Constructing Copper River Road

! AS the great ever-moving river of
solid ice, three miles wide and tower
ing 800 feet sheer from the water,
flows slowly down, great bergs of ice
burst from the face day in and day
out and fall into the river with an
alarming noise and great upheaval
of water. The ripple" berg win
raise ranges from wave ten feet
high to a wall of water twenty feet
high.
| One can never tell when these
things are coming and when one of
these walls of water hurls itself
across the 1,200-foot channel, bear
of ice on its front, the shock is some
thing terrific. The industrial SOL
diers of the Copper River valley had
to get boats through with material,
build sufficiently strong piers in this
icy water and do all their work be-
tween the onslaughts of these waves.
At the first cry of the watchers, who
would go almost blind from scanning
the glistening, changeable ice face,
the men would drop their work and
run for their lives. AS the wave
| hciI hoy 70 hot
work if it had not been swept away.
The water is so cold that it would
freeze if it were not for the 15-mile
| current. Construction to the camp
| opposite the glacier was not extreme
ly difficult. Just above, on the main
bank, however, was the great Miles
glacier and this made it necessary
to cross to the other shore between
the two glaciers.
1t was quite the usual thing for
boats to arrive with one-third of the
cargo with which they started. The
men were saving the lives of one an
! other all the time. When a man fell
into the river the deadly chill of it
seemed to make him almost power
less and quick action was necessary
unless he was an able swimmer.
Just as an illustration of the force
of attack this bridge must stand all
the time every day in the open sea-
son of the year, this is one thing that
happened to us. At last very de-
termined and ingenious foreman had
contrived to get nine huge piles
chained deeply into the bed of the
river and felt that he had made
substantial beginning in that spot
The next wave buried the ice against
those nine huge sticks of wood bound
together as one and broke them off
like pipe stems. Barges towed by
launches, double cable worked by
donkey engines, both failed as a
| means of getting material across the
river, till at last an overhead cable
was rugged and every pound of
heavy material, including engines
cars and rails, was got across by Oc-
tober 80.
In conclusion there should be cit
ed that part of the battle which M.
J. Heney led in person in the Allen
Canyon. The contract required COM
pletion to mile "a by October 80,
1908. The stream down this canyon
is really liquid ice moving at a rate
of 20 miles an hour. Up this must
go the material and supplies.
Does man need to have the strug
gle described to picture it? In Sep
TENDER there were "a days of storms
and billiards., one destroying the con-
struction camp at mile So. Some men
did desert, but Heney leaped into
the work himself and out of pure grit
and loyalty the men stayed with him,
! working in that awful weather from
IA to 16 hours a day, staggering to
their hunks for a few hours sleep
and back again, half the time in the
dark, driving these last five miles on
to completion, and they did it.
No army In the field, not even
Washington's men at Valley Forge
ever was called upon for greater for
| titude or courage.