The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-08-26

me sun was shining brilliantly one
midnight early in September, 1901,
when there appeared from down the
coast TO the east OF Point Barrow a
weatherbeaten canoe which Was being
poled along the shore between the
land and the ice relds that threatened
to close in upon it by a stalwart figure
draped IN a vast array of flowing
beard Since Point Barrow is the nor
thernmost tip of the continent, 400
miles within the Arctic circle, and
since man before this time had known
nothing of what lay beyond it, the ma
tIves OF the Eskimo village stood Won
derlng. The man in the canoe pulled
il ashore, pitched. his tent, plunged for
a swim in among the icebergs, and
went to sleep for IL hours.
He was Frank c. Schrader, govern
ment geologist Five months earlier
he had climbed the Chilkoot Pass in
to. the headwaters of the Yukon. Be-
fore the breaking up OF the ice he had
travelled 200 miles by dog teams down
that river course and was at Allakakat
on the Arctic circle, in the very heart
of unknown Alaska. From this point
he struck north, where the foot of the
white man had never trod, polling and
dragging his canoe laden with sup
plies, into the wilderness. On the nor
thern rim of Alaska the Rockies run
east and west and the canoe was port
aged over a range 5000 feet high,
where the caribou is too unfamiliar
with man to be afraid of him, placed Ill
the waters that flow into the Arctic,
which were followed into the unknown.
SO was the land to the east of Point
Barrow first explored.
Along the Arctic Coast.
There were eight men in the party
who followed Geologist Schrader into
camp. They had expected to eaten
the revenue cutter Bear, which pushes
this far around Alaska once a year.
The Bear had been to Barrow, but the
closing in of the ice had
forced her to leave before the geolo-
gists arrived. This should have meant
that they remain in the north for a
year, but they refused to stay. Pur-
chasing a whaleboat the eight set out
down the coast, dragging it along the
shore. They succeeded in making
Cape Lisburne, 800 miles away, and
there found collier ready to put to
sea. 1t was perilous journey so late
in the season, but the geologic party
took their whaleboat aboard, expect
ing to set out in it again if the collier
stuck in the ice, which it fortunately
did not do.
This is but typical of the eight sea-
sons that F. C. Schrader has spent in
Alaskan explorations. Beginning with
a reconnaissance of the Yukon valley
as far back as 1896, he went into these
wilds every year. The work of this
geologist explorer and others of his
kind supplied the government with in
formation as to what it possessed
ahead of the coming of the miner. 1t
was such information that prevented
the nation from allowing it's unbeliev-
ably rich coal fields to get away from
1t. 1t is such exploration that has been
Of inestimable value in the develop
ment of Alaska
Finding Gold at Nome.
Take the case Of the gold find at
Nome, for instance. This same Schra-
der was in interior Alaska when that
strike was made. He came out past
Nome and made a geological study
and report upon the region. He said
that the waters had merely sifted the
light sands out from the beach and left
the heavy gold there, a theory with
which the miners disagreed He in
beaches further inland and that these
should likewise be rich in gold. As
developed he was right, and those who
worked on his tip went back from the
shore and found the old beaches, and
these yielded the great wealth that
came out of this waste and are still
yielding 1t.
One of these explorers found it ne
cessary some years ago to stop over at
s. D., between trains While
he got into conversation with
4 local representative Of a railroad