The Alaska citizen., 1917-07-23
HELP Till. kONUkUk.

Ii there ie any part oi the United States which l. ill need ot all kinds oi government assistance, 1t i, Alaska. It k a country which i, now coming to the front and which has great future before it. For years 1t has been producing millions i'll gold and millions oi dollar, worth of fur, fish and other conner cial commodities. as well a>-p1 ecious metals, having many times over paid for itself ill practically every one oI its products.
 Those who are acquainted with the c0un- ty and its prospects have no doubt as to Its future. the main question with them being how near or how far distant that future may be It is all d matter of tmc to be sure, ahen the people themselves will build up their oWu institutions and until private enterprises WiII supply all oi the needs of the inhabitants oI the territory. but at the present time the entirc population is dependent on the gov crnment for practically everything, particular v we of the interior, who, while on the main trayeIed route and in one of the garden spots, arc in the most inaccessible place of aII
 We are not at this time finding fault with anything that the government has done or i, doing for Us. We have a fairly good
 rai from Fairbanks to the Alaska coast on (which more money is being expended each ycar in an effort to make it still better. One ol the greatest projects that the government has ever undertaken, the construction o1 the Alaska government railroad, is now under way And we are enjoying a number ol other benefits afforded Us by the government con sequently We have no kick coming, unless It be regarding our mail service, which will be constant source of discontent until the time E, ,hen trains on the railroad are bringing ouj | letters from the coast as last as steam car carry them
 But ii we are discontented regarding our mails, how much more so must be the people |Of the outlying districts, most O1 them IylnS ito the north of the Yukon river. At the Ipresent time most of those districts are III the wilderness and are but sparsely settled, |ConsequcntIy the government could not con. lsider the expenditure o1 any considerable: amount oi money in helping them out, but there Is one district which should have been given material assistance long ago, and that is the hard working, long suffering koyu- pkuk country.
 The koyukuk is one of the oldest gold producing districts of Interior Alaska. It .was discovered early in the gold seeking game 1ll IAIdSkd, ana Sl1lCt lIldI lllllC Ids DCClI quiet, steady producer. It has never, how .cver, been a big producer, most of it's fame lying not in the quantity of gold it produced but in the size of its nuggets For some of ! he largest chunks of gold in the world, eN- elusive of the few which were so large that they were given world historical significance, ! have been found in the Koyuluk
 Big nuggets, however, are not the req Bon why the government should do something to assist the Koyukuk country, although they hre part of 1t, The main reason is that ] there is population of between three hun
 lred and five hundred people in the koyukt1k
 listrict, some of whom are located i'll the Various little towns and others widely scat lered But there is not nor has ever been Id time of year when the people ot the Eoyukuk country could get their mail more ] lhan once per month, and there are men in 1he Koyukuk who have grown from youth lo manhood with scarcely the memory ot what telegraph office might look like