Turner County herald. (Hurley, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1911-10-05
WILD R.DeloN IN
ALASKA OPENED
Great Chitina Basin Soon
to Have Daily Trains
OF COPPER CAMPS

now Is Practically an lnacces-
sibie Wilderness assd WITHIN a
Year Will Have q Permanent
Population OF Thousands.
The mysterious regions of the earth left
blank or marked unexplored on the maps
nave become so few that the opening of
one OF them is to-day an event of pic
turesque if not Industrial Importance.
Up in Alaska next summer one of the
widest and most forbidding areas in the
world will be made comfortably avail
able to the most ry-loving tourist.
This region is not quite blank on the
maps, because it is filled with mountain
peaks visible for hundred miles and
because among the comparatively few
white men who have entered it are gov
ernment geologists and surveyors
The region is the great Chitina basin,
which extends eastward from the Copper
river, about 100 miles from the ocean.
This part of Alaska is exceedingly noun
famous and filled with glaciers. The
rivers that come from it are navigable
only in sections, and the few trails try
even the patience of the Oldest sourdough.
10 the average city man they would seem
no more passable than the side of a
house. AT any rate, they and the in
Vulnerable glacier streams are difficult
enough to have kept out all but few
prospectors and engineers. There are
some remarkably intrepid woman trav-
elers in Alaska, but none, SO far as is gen
orally known, has ever been in the Chitina
country, and no man would think of going
IN there for anything but big stake
Under present conditions it is no pleasure
trip.
The mouth of the Chitina river is about
l25 miles up the Copper river This l25
miles had hardly been Travelled by white
man until three or four years ago, and
beyond there, up the Chitina and its
numerous tributaries, an added fifty or
more miles, was an even harder journey,
even IN winter, when, of course, it can
be made over the snow if one is willing to
camp out in below-zero weather.
About 1902 white men first heard from
the Indians that there were copper de-
posts IN the region, and these deposits
OF copper, now known to be among the
richest In the world, have been the cause
OF almost all the travel there has ever
been INTO the region. 1t is to reach the
copper properties that railroad is now
beng built from the seacoast, at the
new town of Cordova. up the Copper
and Chltlna rivers. When track laying
ebded tor the winter a few weeks ago
the rails had reached the mouth of the
llekel river, l02 miles inland. The mouth
OF the Chitina, thirty-six miles farther
will be reached, it was announced the
other day, by July of this year, and
lew months later the mines will be
reached.
By the time the road has crossed the
sWlrling Copper river at the mouth of the
Chltlna, town, where now there is moth
ing, "1lg have sprung into being, and new
roads and trails will have made the region
readily accessible to the man willing to
walk. Soon thereafter comfortable daily
trans Will be taking travellers into the
very heart OF one of the widest glacial
regions IN the world and bringing out
.ralla ioads OF the richest copper ore ever
found
The suddenness of this Transformation
makes 1T of peculiar interest. 1t is
typical of modern methods that this
strange, wild part OF the earth, which
now can be visited only with hardships
OF real severity, will almost in a day be-
come the pleasant, familiar route of tour
list travel
but even more remarkable will un-
doubtedly be the industrial change. 1t is
safe to predict that in all the thousands
OF square miles of the Chitina basin.
Where now there are not a hundred hu.
man beings, another year will see a popu-
latlon of thousands and several perma-
nent towns, electric lighted, policed with
telephones, banks, hotels, churches and
clubs. The outcome is as certain as that
the wealth is there waiting for railroad
to haul it out.
There is at present in the district
only one property which mining men
would call mine, but this is of suffi-
GENTLY proved richness to warrant the
building of the slo,CoOooo Copper River
and Northwestern railroad The great
Bonanza mine, large amounts of ore of
winch is 70 per cent. pure copper. is by
many recognized as the richest copper
1nlne in the world. Its exposed face of
purple and blue ore can be seen cleaning
likc an opal iii the sun for thirty miles
1T Is almost needless to say that such
properties as these are not for sale.
But the interesting thing is that the
l'onanza IS only one spot on a Contact,
OF rock formations that has already been
traced for l2o miles through the district.
lhls contact is geoogically favorable
to the existence of stores of mineral. and
already there are thirty-fve groups of
CLAIMS on it, several of which have been
slightly developed. notwithstanding this
the belt has really hardly been prospected.
and miners for years to come will have
plenty of room to look for new Bonanzas.
while many of the existing prospects will
undoubtedly be developed into great
mines, too, when the railroad make, It
possible to open them at a reasonable
cost. Still further in the future the
glaciers that now cut through the belt
Will have receded far enough to expose
still further stores of great wealth now
covered with impenetrable ice.
The size OF this copper region has been
matter of astonishment to ano;nears