The Alaska citizen., 1917-01-29
TOURIST GIVES HIS IMPRESSIONS OF TRIP THROUGH ALASKA TELLS OF PEOPLE AND TRANSPORTATION CONDITIONS HERE

] Doc" title which. as I was as. | sured by the old settlers rightly or wrongly a term of respect. But a venerable and distinguished phy. | sician from Indianapolis. who also received from his waiter the same appellation, told me plaintively that in his city the term was given to horse doctors only.
 The walters sat with us in the smoking room, joined in the con. versations. and, l was told, circulated scandals about the women who were travelling without protectors. These walters also had their own nick names. And the most efficient re- l joiced in the title of The Popcorn Kid" He played at night on the guitar, melodies which were reputed to excite jealousy in the heart of the lkipper Monograph Jack. These stew ards were mostly working in the sum- mer to earn enough for a grubstake. so that in the winter they might search for gold. The company's deck hands included princes of royal blood, grandchildren of the king of the Moose tribe.
 Tickling the Fishes Senses.
 The passengers were a motley crew. Indians, squawmen, trappers, jailbirds. prospectors about to leave such little civilization as the river ! afforded for two years in the wilder ness where they hoped to find the precious metal, and pioneers of the Yukon who had abandoned all hope of success in such search and settled down to humdrum work for a stipend much less than they would have earned had they stayed at home. There were a few men who
 
 little left of what they had brought, few travellers for pleasure who grumbled at the food and accommo- dations, and a Seattle detective who had assumed the disguise of a short story writer, living in Denver. Such tales as were told in the smoking 1 room could not elsewhere be heard The trapper described the habits of the lynx and other fur bearers which he caught. He trapped them in the way in which Izaak Walton put the worm on the hook, "as though he loved them" His methods were not unlike those recommended by Sten- dahl, in a treatise upon the tender passion. He lured them, not by a bait of food, but by exciting their curiosity and love of beauty. The lynx has a passion for the color red So the man would hang piece of scarlet above the trap, and the ami nal must try to take 1t and then fall into the steel jaws. This taught me why a salmon who will not eat will snap at an artificial fly. Others of the beasts are lured by pungent smell from some chemical placed in a little house. They cannot resist the temptation to enter and find what Is the cause.
 The squawman told of the habits ture is still the rule in Alaska. The girls are taught by their mothers that their honor requires physical resistance even to an honorable lover When a sQuaw runs, at the sight of a man, she intends to invite him to pursue her. (We were reminded of the timeworn "fugit ad salices." He did not apparently agree with the trappers whom, in a canoe near Lake Winnipeg, I once heard discuss the respective merits of wives of diff ferent races. They agreed that a white wife was too lazy, and the squaw uninteresting because too stu pid to be jealous; but that a half breed wife was their ideal)
 The pioneer described his struggle in crossing the pass before the rail road came, carrying his supplies of provisions over the snow in relays by short sleighs to the summit; then building a boat in which to sail across the lake, shoot the rapids be- low, and descend the Yukon. When the ice broke, the l2ke was crowded with small craft; they used for sails, blankets, coats. sheets. towels and everything imaginable to aid their oars, while from one boat single bugle blew the notes of Home. Sweet Home" which seemed the best music they had ever heard.
 Paddy Mcknloht and Caribou Jack