The daily Alaskan., 1913-11-05
ONE ROUTE FOR RAILWAY.

l DdlIy NGWS OL OSL. EftA SeIlS'
 The United States congress is con- sidering seriously the project to build a railway system in Alaska at the cost of forty million dollars. sev eral routes have been recommended, but none definitely chosen. The commission which sat on the matter found several routes available. One scheme was to have lines run to the interior from CordOva, Valdez and Seward or perhaps other nearby points, to tap the several big inland centers, such as the Panama val ley, the Kuskokwim valley, and the Nome region. If the several lines be built from the Gulf of Alaska, that is, from such points as CordoYa Seward and Valdez, they will be subject during the long winter to difficulties from immense fall of snow, just as is the road now eX- tending inland from CordoYa to Ken uecctt. That road was buried good part of last winter when not engine could budge. Other coast lines would find the same difficulty.
 The one feasible course for a sheltered line is east of the coast range, sometimes called the Alaskan Alps, or the Wrangel range. This route lies within the Yukon water shed, and the long chain of noun tains is the natural barrier to deep suows and heavy rainfall. By virtu of that range the Yukon is a dry, crisp region of comparatively no hu- midity, and with light precipitation the year around. To build a road | through this favored sheltered re- zion will necessitate making the Lynn canal the southern terminus. Such can be done without great difficulty. | The railway commission said it would require few millions more { build to Lynn canal from Fairbanks than to connect Fairbanks with the Copper River road at Kennecott Some would halt on the difference iu cost, and say Take the cheaper connection" Others look farther, and see that 6 blockaded road is poor bargain at any stage of the game, and that for a system 10 serve a region half as big as Eur ope for all time, the difference is not so great after all. It also must be remembered that the new system would traverse a rich country not now served and which never will be served unless there be a line run from the headwaters of the Panama to Lynn canal. Along that route ar the Chisana plaCers, the White RiY- CT copper, Kluane copper, the White horse copper and the Rainy Hollow copper fields. Coal, timber and az riculturaI lands are abundant on the route.
 If a line run from Lynn canal 1t could be either the White Pass, oy- CT the present course, through Whitehorse, then extending north ward via Kluane to the head Of the 1 White and Chisana, or it could be a new road from Haines northward.
 It is said the United States would object if it could not have it's l government owned system entirely on American soil. But Secretary Lane is much in favor of line to connect British Columbia and flask and extend southward to the States, as link to join the Yukon and AL aska with Canada and the States. Sir Richard Mcbride, of British Co., lumbia, and Congressman Johnson, of the state of Washington, favor the project. But if for any reason the joint scheme not be carried out, there is nothing to hinder building the road from Lynn canal by Uncle Sam himself. If he must have strip all American territory for the interior route, it will be little trouble for Canada and the States to adjust the boundary line. Can ada now extends so that it cuts off the Americans from building rail way northward from Haines. At the same time Alaska cuts Canada and the Canadian Yukon off from a port on Lynn Canal To make a saw-Off the boundaries could be altered a little so that Skagway could be made a Canadian port, with the territory back of it extending into the Cana dian Yukon valley, while Haines could be made the American port, with all northward from that point American territory to such an eX- tent full American route would be allowed on the sheltered side of the L.-H. FTFH-