The Cordova daily times., 1922-11-25

the railroad track is laid, and thru
 Wood Canyon into Chitina- Space restraints the temptation to Thapso- dize over this most wonderful of
 rail journeys. From Chftina over the highway to
 Willow Creek one gets first view Of the majestic Wrangell Range of
 mountains, with it's four great peaks from r4.O01 to 2O,0eO feet high the
 taErest, Mount WrsngelI, an active
 volcano. These four, Mts Blackburn,
 Drum, Sanford and Wrangell. form q mountain group which must be
 seen to be appreciated if one de- seribing it would not be charged with
 a bad case of too vivid imagination Suffice 1t to say. that while Alaska has no eathedrafs made by man tol attract the traveller and the tourist. the in,mensity and grandeur of the
 handiwsrk of God can nowhere be seen so plainly as In the Copper
 River Valley.
 From Chftins along the highway,
 through esufkana, where the old Eagle 1 Trail branehed off, into Neier's, and
 beyond to Paxson's, a distance of 136
 miles. the Wrangell Mountains dom- mate the landscape, One cannot es-
 cape feeling akin to that which led
 ancient peoples to deify certain
 mountains.
 | This feeling is helped, perhaps, by + the glimpses obtained along this
 stretch of the road of the native in habitants of the country. At Copper Centre the government maintains a | school for the Indian children Of
 whom there are about fifty. Another
 colony is resident at Gulkana, where I they hunt and fish along the Gulkana and Gokona Rivers. and where the
 chief, Frank Evan, asked the writer | last summer, if he was the "chief 3 boss man" of the road. On being 7 informed that he was not, but was - simply taking a vacation, Chief Frank |. looked blank for moment, and then s said: "Oh, yes, you make trip for t exercise"
 l. Stray Indians were. seen after leav' 0 ing Gulkana, but no large group, ex ii cept one family at Sourdough Road. '- house, where young native boy t showed obvious fright at the writers n appearance from the automobile t wearing horn-rimmed glasses. Along S the road one sees occasional eyi J. dence of wild life. Plenty of rabbits . in their brown, summer coats; go s phers running in and out Of holes e loping fox. freqeunt coveys o
 grouse and pharmigan, and on rare and catch the eye. One grows t6 be f lieve that they look upon the automo. n bile as assured fact of life, and have i accepted it as a matter of course e The timid traveller need not fear, foi S even a bear yields the right-of way V when it hears the ''honk, honk" Ot T the auto horn. Il Q As the highway wends it's way g nearer the interior it is noticed that r the groups of flying ptarmigan are ' continuously more or less in evidence l From this point, too, the road begins
 tn annroaph thn San0nA it , where it crosses the great Alaska : Range. It winds for miles along Gull ) kama Lake after leaving Meier's and = not far beyond encircles the beauti- ful glacier debouchng from the ad- |, iacent mountain side.
 , Continuing from Summit Lake the road crosses most interesting } stretch of country, running along the Delta River, over an occasional rag ing glacier stream which is likely to
 cause much trouble, after forcing the
 Alaska Road Commission to put up an expensive bridge, by changing Its course. For instance, the stream
 from the glacier near Summit Lake usually flows into the lake and reaches the sea by way of the Cop l, per River At times, however, it swirls around and runs northward
 into the waters of the Boring Sea
 through the mighty Yukon. Striking } away from the Delta the highway , next crosses the most peculiar geo. logical formation seen on the trip, a vast rounded bulge on the face of : nature, called the Dome. From the
 Dome into Fairbanks the road tra-
 verses old, worked-out placer mining
 camps, reminiscent of the hectic days
 when gold was plentiful. At Richard
 son, at TenderfooJ, and at other
 places along the highway, the dumps c{;I ha fpr a