Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1921-01-20

who had some wonderful spruce timber. He
framed up the wing for u.s. built ribs and spars
for the stabilizer and the aieron. OF course each
one of us had piece of linen for patching; we
pooled our supply and covered the wing. The
dope Lieutenant Kirkpatrick, the only chemist we
had in the party was able to concoct from celu
lose nitrate, unrefned banana OIL and several
quarts of amyl acetate proved not very eff
cacious the linen about flabby when it
dried as 1t had been before wetting. But we took
chance on the new wing anyhow. Still another
delay held us at Prince George, however, for al
most ten days in ALL and we got our first ac-
quaintance of a real frontier town. We got ac-
quainted with hard-boied miners of the old type
with lumberjacks-great tall ScOtchmen and little
French Canadians, who came in about twice
week for the fun Of spending their money.
"Our next stop was to be at Hazeton, at the
head of navigation on the Skna river, and at one
time the main point of distribution for the region
beyond Hazelton is right in the mountains and
these are covered with high timber Due to the
frost, even when the timber is removed and the
land plOWed level and cultivated during the sum-
mer, when it thaws out again next spring, it is
as rolling and rough as the waves of the sea-
knowing of these conditions, went on by train
to inspect the landing field before making the
jump in our planes. Finding its dimensions in
adequate Captain Street arranged to have the
grain cut from field adjoining to make room
for us to alight with safety.
"Our next jump was to land us in United States
territory again. but to reach Wrangell, we had to
jump the Coast Range mountains, at least
that is what thought we had to do from our
maps, which showed the trend Of a river or of
mountain system, and depicted everything else as
perfectly smooth level country In point of fact
the region has never been explored surveyed
Fortunately, we had clear day for our take-off
When we began to ascend for our hop over the
mountains we found that the mountains rose too,
and higher than we had. Instead of being 5000
and 1000 feet as shown on our map when we
reached q height of 1000, found we needed
5000 more to get the top, and when we tried
to skirt the range, found it wasn't really
range at all with valley the other side but
just close packed mountain peaks filled with snow
and ice between. These glaciers looked like level
seas Of dark green water. At Wrangell the only
landing field available was on a little island in
the Stickine river which, at high tide, wasn't an
island at ALL We landed In about six inches Of
water which had grown to foot before we took
off.
From .Wrangell went by way of Chilkoot
Pass and Skagway to WhitehOrse. This is the re-
gion made so famous in the early days of the
gold discovery. Formerly it took about three
months to make the trip In winter travel was
by dogsIeds; in summer, on foot by pack train.
The once famous mines of this region are now in
active. Their surface veins have been stripped,
and hgh-grade mining in this country Is too ex-
pensive because of inadequate transportation IA
cillties
From Whitehorse to Dawson we flew over the
route patrolled by the Canadian mounted police
The trail in almost an airline that shows up
practically all of the way, dotted with the neat
little road houses at intervals of 40 to 80 miles
apart The police, in full regalia-bright-red
Jackets and blue trousers-are snappy looking
fellows, well disciplined and giving wonderful
service to the country. They of tremendous
assistance to us wherever we encountered them.
We crossed Lake La Barge, so well known to read
ers of Services poems which breathe the very
soul and spirit of this far northern region. This
lake is at once the basin of the White river and
the source of the Yukon, unless, indeed it be
one and the same river with different names in
different localities.
"Crumrine had blown out tire at WhltehOrse,
but filling his casing with rope packed tightly, he
wrapped the outside with rope, taking off with
us to Dawson, and landing safely despite me hard
Jolt from his mended tire. We arrived at Daw-
son. by chance, August II, the gala day of the
country discovery Day. it is called, for just
% years before, the first Alaskan gold dis
covered on Bonanza creek The people made us