Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1915-12-15

frequent, for many refugees are hit be
to me on the train, IF they will have
done this vitality necessary work by
this time next year,"
A few gangs of track laborers were
going through the motions hstlessly'
Nor did the numerous gangs of con-
victs seem to be losing any sleep over
their construction efforts.
For four and twenty hours we jo!ted
up the narrow groove, cleared through
primeval forest and swamp. Already
there was ice in the peaty streams
meandering across our path and q
powdering of snow on the murmuring
cedars.
Then we emerged into district of
stubble field and meadows And sud
denly into the thick of a great en-
trepot of freight.
Pasture Becomes Great Quay.
This was Bakareetsa, the main
White sea railroad depot from which
Russia's stores are coming. Along the
pasture a few months ago, now is a
great quay. Ten or twelve steamers
were alongside unloading. Tens OF
thousands of tons of coal lowered in
hills and massive ridges. Rows on
rows of turf-roofed leanto barracks
housed the laborers. A score of sid
ings and acres of mud were stacked
with packing cases and sacks and
bales. Freighters with the cOlored
painting of the bursting bomb betok-
ened shells and dynamite within
regiments of freighters with every
thing aboard from aeroplanes to ~
Ionite; rows of freight cars piled with
great crates consigned from Cleve-
land, in Ohio, to Tifiis, in Asia Minor,
via the environs of Spitzbergen and
the watery wilderness of the Arctic
ocean.
A few miles farther on the train
stopped, still in a desolate region of
muddy fields, for the Archangel ter
minus is not Archangel. We all crowd
ed on to a steamer and navigated two
miles downstream to the town, which
lies on the other side of the Dyina es-
tuary, here a couple of miles across.
An odd little town is Archangel,
with a pervasive atmosphere of re-
moteness and aloofness from the
world. In summer there is no night,
and the thawed swamps cut off all
overland journeyings but those of
mosquitoes and birds. In winter there
is next to no day and the quarter mile
of Troitskaja street lined with shops
is all a-jingle with the bells of rein
deer. Sinuous dog-sled caravans,
laden with polar bear and wolf pelts.
snake their way into the thronged ba-
zaar, to barter for the summers bread.
Busy Times in ArchangeI.
ArchangeI is busy now. Archangel
has never known such goings on. Sol
diers and sailors and millions of tons
of freight have come from the ends of
the earth.
II is a town transformed into a
freight yard-freight piled mountain
high on the quays, waves of freight
passing inland up the slope behind the
custom house. All over the square
there and overlooking into the main
street itself lie acres and acres Of
bales and rails and crates and tubs
and boxes, and tens of thousands of
a mysterious breed of reddish sack.
Archangel has original ideas about
sidewalks that would not commend
themselves to American motorists.
Streets have these raised wooden side
walks running up the center. Every
now and then along these sidewalks
passed British naval officers and sea-
men, intermingling with transplanted
men of the Russian Baltic squadron.
Past the shabby town duma, one en-
tiers what has hitherto been known as
the German quarter, a long avenue
due north toward the suburb of Solom-
bola
Motor jitney boats. ferries. dinghies.
tugs, liners, sailing skiffs. barges,
ocean tramps and long log RATS from
the forest of Viatka busy themselves
out in the Dvina, we'll displayed
against the low bank ard fiat horizon
leagues to the westward, where dainty
distant silhouettes of monasteries and
churches fieck the rim of the earth.
passed a great red brick brewery
on the Dvina bank, converted into a
Red Cross hospital Convalescent SOL
diers were standing in the ward win
dows, gazing glumly upon about five
acres of boxes of emrties piled as
high as a house Not so bad for a lit
tie town of 10000.
At a marine departmental Office on
the Troitskaja was a fine automobile.