Evening star., 1940-08-04

OF the men who braVed 1t as We
roared up and over the top at 160
miles an hour. Where we passed
in minutes they struggled for weeks,
many falling and many dying
At 2:35 we topped the hump"
and were in British Columbia amid
stunning scene of hundreds of
towering. wild peaks, buried under
mighty SHOWS and glaciers. Down
through these peaks the gold rush.
ers stumbled on to the Yukon and
the Klondike We soon reached
the dazzling blue waters of Lake
Bennett, where they built RATS and
boats to ferry down the Lewes into
the Yukon At the foot of the lake
is Carcross. supply town for the
present gold mines in the rich Atlin
area. We roared along smoothly
over the rapids in which many Of
the gold rushers lost their lives
Miles Canyon and Whitehorse Rap
ids. Below we could see Lake La
berge-the Lake Lebarge" where.
according to the poem of Robert w
Service, occurred the cremation OF
Sam MCGEE
On Way to Fairbanks.
We made a half-hour luncheon
strange tales of these parts, and
were off again on an airline for
Fairbanks. passing the wild-horse
country of the Kluane Lake Valley,
! beyond which are mountains in
which is found the finest big-game
hunting in the New World-the en-
pire of the grizzly. the mountain
sheep, caribou and moose. For
hours we drilled along over utter
wilderness. marked only by the 40
year-old trails of the gold-rush
hordes-in from Chilkoot and White
Pass. out by Chilcat-- still distant
after the passage of four decades.
The brown of barren mountains
gave way to increasing green OF
forested ridges and valleys. with
occasional patches of the tundra
which is the whole landscape OF
Northern Alaska, and myriads OF
! lakes and tortuous streams. The
size of this wilderness is almost
appalling-for full hour after leav-
ing the last of the gold trails we
saw no sign of man or his works;
at least $4,000 square miles of un-
touched wilderness passed before
our eyes.
Then across the wilds stretched
the international boundary between
British Yukon and Alaska. The
surveyors cleared a 50-foot swath
| along the border as they went,
many years ago. 1t can be seen
from the air for miles. stretching
from the Gulf of Alaska to the
Arctic Ocean, directly north and
south.
Our plane circled over the new
$4,000 900 Ladd Field. Army Air
Corps cold weather" base now un-
der construction just outside Fair
banks. Piles of structural material
lay around, great runways were
cleared, and drag line" had been
laid to wash gravel out of the Chena
River for concrete runway paving.
We landed at Fairbanks at 7:06 pm.
Seattle time, 5 hours and 43 minutes
out of Juneau. Here our watches
went back to sos pm, Alaska time
"a change of five hours since leav-
ing Washington three days before.
We had supper in Fairbanks little
later on Tuesday evening, giving
thought to the fact that it already
was Wednesday back home
But a still stranger fact engrossed
us. 1t refused to get dark Hours
passed. We were entertained by
Charley Burnett. Civil Aeronautics
Authority administrator for 10000
square miles of Alaska, who used to
be in Washington. He showed us an
amazing collection of Eskimo ivory
carving, furs, weapons and artifacts.
Still it refused to get dark. We
were in the land of the midnight
sun and there is no dark in Fair
banks during the summer. But for
the hills beyond the Chena, the sun
would not set at all here: it Just
gets below the mountains along to-
ward midnight.
Coupled with a five-hour time dis
location in three days and a sun
which refused to quit working, we
were In state of some confusion.
Our feelings told us it was time to
go to bed, our eyes told us it was
nothing OF the sort. The old sub
conscious, ticking along in normal
gear and refusing to pay heed to the
strange antics of time and distance,
woke us up at 2 o'clock-day or
night? A glance out the window
showed daylight and it took some
sleep-befuddled thinking to realize
that, while it was the usual 7 am.
rising time back home, here it was
still the middle of a very bright
night and no time to be waking up
at all. -.
Thirty hours from Washington
the land of the midnight sun, the
outpost of the Arctic, Eskimo and
Indian halfbreeds on the streets,
South of the Border, down Canada
Way it's not to be wondered at
if the air traveller to Alaska these
days finds himself somewhat con-
fused.