East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1910-01-08
.PENDLETON MAN
MADE HARDY TRIP
j. II. DODSON TOOK WINTER
PASSAGE FROM ALASKA
Former Local Man Now In Business
at Circle City-TraVclled 1SO Miles
by Stage To Reach CIVILIZATION
Tells OF Alaska Conditions.

J. Il. Dodson, formerly of this city,
and who is well remembered by old
residents because of his connection
with the wooden mill and his relation
ship with the Fells, he being a brother
of Mrs. Theron Fell has just arrived
in Portland from a perllous trip out
OF Alaska. The following concerning
his trip and his business affairs in the
far north is from the Oregon Daily
Journal:
Travelling $50 miles over the ice ana
snow by stage and sled, using on the
trip 9S horses, and spending 10 days
on the journey is an eXhlliarating ex-
perience, but if people want to get out
OF interior Alaska at this time of the
year some such arrangement is neces-
sary. j. r. Dodson has just come
down from Alaska to renew acquaint-
ances. and, as business reasons made
! it impossible for him to come out In
the early fall, when the passage can
be made by boat he was forced to
take this trip from Circle City.
Mr.. Dodson has been in business in
Circle City since 1896. A good many
here remember Mr.. Dodson, formerly
of Portland and Pendleton. He owns
the general merchandise store of Cir
| Gle City which does between $4,000
and $4,000 worth of business year.
In addition he has just purchased the
North American Trade & Transporta-
| ton company, which has boats run
ming between Seattle along the Alaska
coast and up the river to st. Michaels
and over to Circle and Dawson, trip
which consumes from 25 to so days,
| and along another route from Seattle
to Skagway to Dawson, consuming
about 1S days
Dodson Well Informed.
Mr. Dodson is full of. information
about Alaska. His own town of Cir
Gle. where he has spent the past 13
years. is $50 miles inland from Val
dez. on the Yukon, in Central, Alaska,
and IS miles from the Arctic circle.
| About so people live in the town and
some 500 in the neighboring mines,
which are rich and are now being
bought up largely by big companies,
Some of the inhabitants of the small
town he says he has not seen for two
or three years, because they shut
themselves up in their cabins and
don't come out all winter never
take exercise or do anything but eat
and NOPE This, he said, is the rea-
son so many people go insane in the
iice-ceuntry.
The travel rates and accommodate
ons up there would astonish even the
Southern Pacific patrons. Stage fare
is 80 cents a mile meals at the road
houses are 50, even If you take no
more than cup of coffee, and
hunks" are 81. BY stage the hors-
es. usually working four at time,
are changed every 20 miles Provls-
ions are laid by in the summer when
freight rates by boat are only four
cents a pound from Seattle to Circle.
The unlucky man who finds himself
provisionless in the winter must pay
60 cents a pound transportation from
Valdez TO Fairbanks and must do his
} own hauling to Circle. A railroad Is
, being built from Cordova on the coast
, line to the copper mines little In
land which when completed sometime
next summer will be one of the finest
equipped roads in the world and vii
, open to Alaska the control of the cop
, per market of the world. Incident
ally, 1t is interesting to know that Cir
Gle City has the finest wireless sta
ton in the world.
Mr.. Dodson has nothing favorable
to say about missions in Alaska
opining that they merely cater tC
laziness. He said there is mission
l | at Circle, that the building cost abou
$4,000 and that there are two dirty lit
tie natives there as pupils with two
: salaried teachers to instruct them. A
' long as the natives are left alone the!
' hunt and fish and keep themselve
comfortable, but those that have once
been taken care of and have received
( provisions from the mission become
a lazy and think the mission will pro
s vide food for them.