The Cordova daily times. [volume] (Cordova, Alaska) 1914-1947, 1919-09-20
TREACHEROUS GLACIER TRAILS
AS DESCRIBED BY A CHEECHAKO

Cordovans will remember J. A.
Mcclure, who with a party of Eastern
hunters were here year ago on their
way out from the Interior, after sew
eral weeks spent in the White River
country. Mr.. Mcclure has been
writing some interesting articles for
Outdoor Life relative to that trip, and
in recent issue he describes the dan
gers of the glacier trails. in a most
graphic manner. The following ex-
cerpts are taken from the article:
MANY brave men lose their lives in
this wild country every year from a
variety of causes. Most of them
become SO hardened to the weather
and privations that they can endure
almost unbelievable trials on the trail.
We were told of one man and his dog
team who, few years ago, subsisted
for ten days on rabbits alone, while
camped in a tent on Nizina glacier.
Freighters, prospectors and others
frequently get caught on the glaciers
in mid-winter in a blizzard and are
compelled to camp until it is over,
as in that intense winter climate, with
a twenty-five or thirty-mile wind blow
ing, there is no human that could
withstand the cold, piercing wind
while travelling.
Dozens of graves in sequestered
spots dot the banks of these streams,
mute testimony to the severity of the
Alaska winters. Seldom more than
a very few people know where these
meR are buried, as, when found,
whether dead or dying, there are u.s.
ually but few in the discovering party
(more often but one1 and very likely
it is necessary to make haste with the
obsequies in order to save their own
lives; so the body is laid to rest usu-
ally in a fern-clad or pine-decorated
spot, with a blaze on a nearby tree
on which pencil or pen marks (soon,
of course, Deliberately are placed,
telling the mans name, if known, and
the date of the burial AS most Of
these graves are off the trail (Which
changes almost yearly in most cases.
it may easily be understood how few
of them are known to the average
passerby. Shorty showed us one
such grave, that of Captain Taylor,
who was frozen to death while neck
ing a hand sled across Nizina glacier
in February, 1914.
cap related the tragic death of
musher three years ago: "Two-Much'
Johnson and Fred Youngs were
freighting between Mccarthy and
Shushanna, the gold camp. Return
ing to Mccarthy with their big Yukon
sled pulled by sixteen dogs, they came
to the Shushanna glacier. This ice
field was a very dangerous one to
cross in the spring owing to its great
number of crevasses. When covered
with snow foot or two deep man
has to be very careful The snow
bridges over the crevasses and makes
some of the narrow ones hard to see.
The men had stopped their sled to go
ahead and "sound" out the snow
covered crevasses with alpenstOcks,
when the dogs began fighting. A dog
fight out of the harness is a very
much mixed up affair, but when these
fighting wolves Of the North tangle
up in tooth battle with the harness
on, the miX-up is about as hard to
straighten out as a string puzzle.
Finally after they got cleared, they
were started; but, wrought up by
their late fighting, the dogs were very
nervous and cratic, and at one point
jumped over a crevasse before their
masters were ready for them. These
cTevasses in many places had to be
Fridged over by the men chopping off
the ice of the sides with picks until
the crack filled, thereby baking safe
trail over the opening. However, in
this case, the dogs broke away and
ian headlong into the crevasse. Only
the first eight Of the sixteen fell in,
but their weight on the harness was
too much and it broke, letting them
down. 'Too-Much' Johnson, in trying
to get the dogs Strengthened out fell
in also. Some of these cracks are
hundreds of feet deep and Youngs