The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-08-22

and the air is soft and warm. The |
spring comes slowly up this way
but when It does come 1t comes
with sudden jubilant swoop and
summer comes topping at its heels. |
AT the end of April there may not be
a flower in bud nor a. blade of grass
above the ground, and the mountain
slopes may be snow-covered still, or a
bare desolate brown, but at the end of
May the weeds and grasses have shot
upt TWO feet in height and are grow
ing at their fastest The snow has
shrunk back to the gullies and the
peaks, and green rivers of vegetation
are streaming up the mountain sides.
We have had a beautiful spring
this year, with such a succession of
sunny days as is rarely seen on our
stormy coast, but all last night, and
all today the rain has fallen with
a steady unremfttent roar, and every
where now there is a gurgling and
splashing of water. How much rain
has fallen I do not know I have
known 4 1-2 in. to fall in one day,
and not to fall in any sudden cloud
burst or tropical thunderstorm, but
to keep on falling steadily and re-
lentlessly with the same long drawn
everlasting roar going on hour after
US to sleep with the same persistent
sound that reused us from our beds
in the morning. People dislike Alaska
when the weather. gets like this. An
hour or two, or even a day or two,
|, would not be so bad but when the
same thing keeps on for a week, or
when there Isl never rent in the
clouds nor glimmer or sunshine for
q mo2th-then even old timers begin
to gldmble at Alaska under their
breath. What makes people live here?
| they ask, and they begin to pack their
things to get ready to go. AS a.
rule they don't get very far. Home
sickness attacks them and the wealth
er clearns up. A flood Of astonishing
sunlight pour s over thes soaking
earth, and the whole landscape is
radiant and glitteringa The clouds
| lift. Tremulous slivery mists hang
about among the mountains. After
/ the long roar of the rain comes deep
silence, but through that silence falls
the new clear sound of water from
the heights, and far up among the
naked crags that for SO long have
been buried in cloud the great flooded
waterfalls come crashing down furi-
ously, leaping over the edges of precf-I
Epices and dropping, dropping, wave
I upon wave of yellow water, hundreds
and maybe thousands of feet at a
time. All the mountains are streaked
with them. Their distant clatter
seems to break in upon the stiffness
from everywhere, and Alaska is it
self again and there is no place like
It. Then the faces of the old timers
are lit with smiles and they was
their heads and are satisfied.
Last winter I wrote to Chicago
firm for some book, and shortly
afterwards received the reply that
owing to- navigation being closed the
cost of transp ortation would be too
great. but that the books would be
sent forward in, the spring as soon
as the ice- had melted Il felt in
| debted to the firm for its thoughtful
4 ness but T. had to write back and
! tell it that navigation never closed,
| here on the southern coast of Alaska
! that cur winters were very much
| rniIder than the winters in Chicago
| and that the average temperature for
the preceding week had been not far
/, off 40s degrees Fahrenheit. Then they
sent the boks and apologized. It
1 was a small incident but a good, ex-
| ample of the strange ideas that a
good many people have concerning
our climate. They would be. sur
prisedA to learn that there is an
| Island, Kodiak Island, quite near the
entrance of the Boring Sea, where
| the climate all the year is as mild
and Negotiating as the climate OF
Ireland.
1t is a quiet lonely island about
/ the size of Ulster, almost uninhab-
| tied, covered for the most part with
/ luxuriant vegetation, all running to
1 waste unheeded, and more noted for
1 its great bears than for its men, Lit
| tie mountain ranges, like the noun,
| tains, Of Kerry wander through it,
| and little blue lakes like the lakes
| of a new Killarney cluster about their
\ feet. Small clouds gather among
them and carry showers out over
virgin forests and untrodden hills,
while the cattle wax fat on the natu-
raj pastures, and the berries grow
4 enormous in the woods. It would be
/ an ideal place for some quixotie
| leader of men to found a new model
/ colony such as is hard to found nova
4 days in the crowded United States,
4 for Kodiak has the fertility and the
natural beauty that is wanted, and
/ the nearest large cities-Seatt1e. 1000
miles away on the one hand, and
vla,divostok, still more, distant on
! the other-are too far off to disturb
\ it's peace. Settlers, mostly Swedes,
are going in now and taking up
homesteads. Some day perhaps
Kodiak will have a great population,
hut unless the pioneers take an ideal
with them ). their settlements may
make but one more amudge on the
| face of a tormented earth.
| The same thing MAY be said to
! apply to almost, all the inhabitable
pares of Alaska. This is a huge terri
| tory, covering more than half a mil
| lion square miles, and while much of
| it is In the Arctic and is too cold and
! barren for permanent habitation, and
| while there is much more that is too
mountainous to be of any value, there
| still remain vast areas of empty fer
] tile land where summers are warm
and pleasant and the winters not too
severe vast minteral deposits that
| need nothing but improved transport
tation to- make them profitable, vast
fishing areas and vast areas of timber,
all waiting for exploitation. Nobody
can form an idea of immensely and
| the emptiness of this land without
travelling through it. Nobody can give
any estimate Of its hidden wealth.