The Washington times., 1911-01-15
CAPITAL MAN HEARS
ALASKA CALL AGAIN
Thomas Riggs, Jr., Going
Back in May With Party
of Adventures.

Adventure more exciting than that
depicted between the yellow covers OF
| Dare Devil Dan" is still to be found in
| northern Alaska. No need for remorse
| because the aIkali plains of the West
with their buffalo and bloodthirsty In.
| dians have been transformed into irri-
gated farms. inhabited by law abiding
! people. Adventurous people still have a
| haven in Alaska.
At least that is the opinion of Thomas
| Riggs, jr., 2l11 S street northwest, and
MIR. Riggs has heen making expeditions
| into Alaska since the big gold rush i'm
| lSt: Just now he is in Washington pre-
| pairing typographical maps of Yukon,
and incidentally laying plans for an
other expedition into the land of snow
and ice.
Starts Anew In May.
He will start early in MAY. and will
have party of fifty men and 10 horses.
The expedition. like the last one of
which he had charge. will be in the ma
t"fe OF & surveying party, under the
auspices Of the Coast and Geodetic Sur
VeY of the United States
One oi the features Ot Mr. Riggs next
eNPedltl0n will be 750-mile sledge ride
pen o@hiha dogs & IN weather that may be as
cold as y degrees below zero. This
overland trip. which will be from the
Arctic ocean south to Dawson, he ex-
poets to make in three Weeks time m
.b guess I got the Alaska fever in
that rush of SO, said Mr.. Riggs this
morning. 81 like that country, and if it
We're not for the mosquitoes I'd like to
live there. They breed right in the
SNOW, ana at times make life almost un-
AS for adventure" and Mr.. Riggs
eyes sparkled enthusiastically. WY.
northern Alaska is one continuous ad-
venture"
What was your most interesting
one?' he was asked
"Trip Under the Ice"
My most interesting one was one 1
never had. 1t was trip of half a
mile under the ice. The first I knew of
1t was when my friends began writing
me that. they had read in the ne,,;-
papers or my miraculous experience and
COhSIdluldted me upon my ability To go
INTO the water through one hole in the
ice ana come up through another. NV
t'ellngs and experiences were so vividIy
told In the newspaper account that /
"@s sure l must have made the trip
But now about your rush for gold >"
Mr.. Riggs was asked. How did Won
sucCeed?' U'u 'ou
4 didn't"
Then you haven't the gold fever any
Well, the last time | was there | saw
some mighty likely looking gravel beds.
and / would have stopped to prospect
IL J. d had time. ! did work up minia-
ture portrayal of the days of 90. anv-
way, laughingly admitted the engineer.
IT was one of our camp experiences.
You see. a gold filling in one of my
teeth came out one day, so | kept it, and
after we had cleaned up the evening
grub and had washed out the frying
pan, ! Scooped up some gravel and
cropped the Milling in il. Say, you
should have seen those men when |
pointed to that glistening piece of gold
Starts Another Gold Rush.
There was another gold rush started
right then, and for four hours one of
the fellows ignored mosquitoes and
hunted gold in hopeless gravel. He re-
ported that all he found was color.
, AS for real excitement In an Alaskan |
trip. the bears and wolves furnish the |
most of that. The wolves are especially |
vicious because they do not know the |
power of man. I think in the older set-
tied countries they learn to fear him |
more. The bears are unlike any we see
here. The Alaskan brown bear is the |
largest in the world. On MANY occa-
Sions they kept members of our party
up trees for half hour al a time. On |
one occasion a topographer saw a rod |
man signaling to him frantically, and. /
swinging around, he faced a bear not |
ten feet away. He killed it with his |
shooter"
The work that Mr.. Riggs has been
on during his late expeditions, and on |
which he will work during his trip this |
year, is that of establishing a definite |
boundary line between the Canadian |
possessions of Yukon and the United |
States possessions of Canada 1t con- |
sists of a line from Mt Natazhat, in tho |
Mt. st. Elias Alps, 600 miles north to |
the Arctic ocean. Bronze markers, |
weighing fifty pounds each, are set |
along the route. Through the woods a |
strip twenty feet wide is cleared, and |
an accurate map prepared of the coun-
try two miles on either side.