The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1913-03-28

which still def1es the hardest
traveller; a land where huge
mountains rise sheer out from the wa
ters edge on an ice-bound, storm
swept coast; the home Of vast gla-
ciers. unknown lakes and rivers, 81
lent valleys and unpeopled wastes.
Ponder a moment on these lines from
the able pen of one who has lived the
life and tramped the trails across the
great unknown:
No! There's the land. Have you seen
IT'D
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made
it;
Some say it's find land to shun;
Maybe: but there's some as would trade
For no land on earth-and I'm one.
So, indeed, does the wanderer feel,
once he has fought Nature in her
sternest moods, or reveled in the
short but glorious summers of Alaska.
The rapid changes of climatic condi-
tons in the Arctic are constant
sources of wonderment to the man
who has never previously experienced
them. Today he may roam over count
less miles of desolate, barren wastes,
where snow and frost still hold the
earth beneath their iron grip. If per-
chance he passes there again within
few weeks time, when once the
suns warm rays have played their
part, the face of Nature seems to
have entirely changed.
Marvellous Changes.
Here, in this valley, where a short
time since nothing but snow lay deep,
far as the eye could reach, what sight
Is 1T that meets the gaze? Luxuriant
grasses waving in the wind and count
less flowers all bursting into bloom.
The tender green of spring shows
forth on every bush, while birds, and
even butterflies, besport themselves
where formerly no living thing was
seen. Down through the smiling val
ley runs babbling stream. and in
It's crystal waters numerous trout are
busy feeding. What marvel, too, has
brought to life myriads of mosquitoes
and other insect life from beneath
those great stretches of snow and ice
which lay for months upon the
ground? No man can tell nor any
pen describe these manifold mystic
ries of the frozen north. Here, in
these brief, sweet summer months,
the nomad may linger, gazing by day
or night on never-setting sun,
breathing an air the purest and most
inNgorating that ever was waited on
the breeze, coming from snow-tipped
peaks and down their slopes which
are densely clad with hardy mountain
pines. But let the wanderer in quest
OF sunshine beware lest he overstays
his welcome, since once that great
magician, King Frost, asserts his
sway, this is no land for the weak
nngs:
Send me the best of your breeding, lend
me your chosen ones
Them will / take to my bosom, them will
I call my sons.
| For this is the stern law of Alaska,
and woe betide him who SCOTS at it,
Even among the chosen ones and
hardy pioneers of today terrible In
deed are the signs written on many of
their bodies. Scared and rugged vet
Grams show, with smiling face.
places where once fingers or toes
adorned their hands or feet, but which
have now gone for ever, token Of
mans struggle against Natures
| cruelty. Let those who sit in COM
Portable chair by the Preside at home,
in twenty degrees of frost, think what
life Is like in tent with the Their
mometer reading so degrees or so de-