The Alaska daily empire., 1917-02-26
Mans Long Search for Yellow Metal Ends in Fortune Made in
 Potatoes.
TELLS STORY IN EAST
John Johnson Gives Out Northern Career in the Newspapers in
 Minneapolis.

maiN Back in lS97 hundreds oi Mluucapolitans had Alaska gold ie yer.
 Among them was John C. John soil. He packed his belongings in a gunnysack and joined the endless streams oC tender foo; 'mushers headed for the land of promise.
 He returned last week after twen. ty years of "necking it" through the wilderness of the far north, pros pecting in the mountains and val leys. and enduring all the hardshiDs the life entails. He was young man when he left. Today his face is scanned with the lines that spell exposure and hard work. His hair is gray,
 Finds Fortune at Last
 He has put at his back twenty wears of experience that sayor of a Jack London story. He has found gold. He has tramped out of the Ihiute-lands with a fortune iu dust on his back. He has lost those fortunes in vain attempts to repea, his success. He has run the gamut ! os good rortyne and bad, always with face set on the golden rain bow just ahead
 He found fortune at last, But it was not wrestcd from the yellow slrcaked rock. It was from the land of the Matanuska Valley in Alaska Gold? Oh, no Potatoes ! He made his money raising pota- { toes.
 ! It makes him laugh when he thinks about it
 For nearly two decades he pros pectcd from Dawson 10 Fairbanks from Copper River to Valdez and Cook Inlet. finding gold and losing ft. And then he took up a %2O'acre homestead of government land near the new railroad end discovered that 8 cents a pound profit on potatoes on land that will raise twelve tons of them an acre, was the way to a permanent bank account.
 "I mushod into tho gold country with my pack on my back said Johnson. 'I worked in the Dawson mines learning 10 know gold whcT T saw it. and to know where to find |t. With m. partner l worked 9 claim on Hunker Creek.
 Strikes Gold-Soon Broke
 That one claim paid up Si6,OOO in a few months. We took that money and went into the Dominion Creek region in the Yukon. Bed rock was deep there. We sunk eN. 7ensive machinery and went into it big. The next Spring found us broke. down and out.
 "I went to Fairbanks and got a ,toke furnishing wood for the olo mines. And then back on the trail wav I'D to the Slate Creek district and into the head of the Copper River. to Valdez and Seward. J worked every creek and range or he way out, always 'mushing' it or foot
 Tries Homesteading "For Fun"
 "Finally I found myself in tho Cook Inlet and took up a govern men, land claim for the fun Of 1t I discovered that a few acres of DO .a,oes paid more in the end tna' 7nv claim I ever connected up with Funny. isn't it?" + was suggested that while rals inc the succulent tJber might afford more substantial honorarium thar chasing the golden will-o,the'wiSN f. was a decided "comedown' aS far as adventure and romance were concerned.
 Throuah With Romance" of 1t
 The prospector-farmer snoffed.
 .T can get along right well with mighty little of this romance stutL hp exclaimed. "If you call workInP , drift with the thermometer around iO degrees below zero. all the while hoping that the spring run will chow you hit something during the vinter-if you call that romance gomebodv else is welcome to 1t If living on sour dough and tr2z on beans is adventure, you car have my share"
 Thrill of Finding Gold
 "W-hv did you stick it out SC long then?" he was asked MT. Johnson looked rather sheep ish as he answered. "You never found gold, guess he said. "There isn't any sensation like it in the world. You got t' work like seven niggers to get t' it. and then maybe it isn't there And maybe it is. Always that Maybe it is. And when you see i there in your pan and you figur' out all you got to do to make SlOl is to shovel a little, well, there isn't any feeling know about lik it. There it is, yellow and pretty And 1t will buy you anything il town-anything you want. That Il what keeps you there"
 See Rosy Future for the North The suggestion was natural tha perhaps he would some day deser the potato farm and hit the trail