The Union County journal. [volume] (Marysville, Ohio) 1875-1951, 1950-09-05

OWACu Ny VAC 81 Cus <AAucho AAAAG1-
trialist, Capt. Lathrup, VINO was
killed in one or ms coal mines
while we were there.
'Dick and his wife showed us
Alaska in a way many of the
tourists never saw. We travelled
by car 100 miles south on the AL
can highway and turned off onto
the Richardson highway 100 miles
to Paxon Lake where we stayed
all night, got a motor boat and
took a ride over the 80 mile lake
where we could see hundreds of
large salmon darting in all di-
rections. We had no fishing gear
but man from Pennsylvania
was having fun. He said it wasn't
fishing, it was just pulling them
in On our trip back we stopped
at Harding lake where many
Fairbanks people have summer
homes. Lots of people were swim
ming. We took another trip of 200
miles north of town to Circle Hot
Springs where we all went swim
ming in the hot mineral water
that was noted for its help to
people suffering from arthritis.
The highlight of this trip was the
dinner we had at the hotel there.
The hotel had a garden that pro-
duced vegetables nicer than can
be grown here in the Willamette
valley. They had pipes running
full of this warm water 2 feet un-
der the ground and with the long
days of sunlight grew the largest
and incest vegetables we ever
saw. While here we picked wild
raSpberrieS but the mosquitoes
were too much for us. That is
one crop that Alaska is really
noted for.
"On this trip we drove to the
Yukon river at Circle City, wide
slowly moving river. A large
black bear pumped out of the
brush in front of our car but soon
took to the brush again. On the
road back to town many caribou
could be seen grazing on the
mountain sides. There were lots
of moose in the country but we
didn't get to see any.
Zone of the incest trips we had
was 1400 mile plane trip to
Kotzebue and Nome. Kotzebue
is about 100 miles north of the
Artic Circle on the Artic Ocean
and is the largest Eskimo village
in Alaska, having about 500 Es-
kimos and so white people. This
is where we saw Alaska in the
rough. Eskimos, dogs, dried fish
and plenty of smells. 1t was a.
very interesting and while the. I
they brought in 20 reindeer they
had killed, threw them on the
beach where the men skinned
them and the women cut them up
and got them ready to cook. Some
were sold Also the day we were
there a large boat load of ivory
carvers came in from Little Dio-
mede Island and set up camp for
couple of weeks, where they
hoped to sell some of their hand
work to the tourists. Initiation
, has reached the very outposts of
civilization, however. The prices
are SO high for this carved ivory
that people are buying very little
of it.
In coming to Kozebue we flew
over the Yukon river for miles.
The country is very flat and COW
cred with thousands of small
lakes from a few feet across to
half mile wide. The reason for
this is the ground has been froz-
en- for millions of years and the
water can't get down into it. On
leaving Kotzebue next day we
flew out over the Bering Sea and
down to Nome, town of 10000
people during the gold rush of
'98, but now town $500 people.
A large army base and flying
field is here. Our nearest city to
Russia, which is only few miles
away. Our pilot was going to take
us out so we could see Russia but
there was only 800 foot ceiling
and he said they had to have 1000
feet. Here the International date
line is also close, where today
runs into tomorrow by crossing
a line.
when we crossed the Arctic
Circle, by the way, the pilot ini-
tiated all the passengers by let
ting the plane drop about 100 feet
and bringing it up again just as
quickly. 1t created quite a lot of
excitement among the 90 passen-
gers on our plane. We arrived
back in Fairbanks after 80 hours
of sightseeing and wonderful ex-
periences.
1--WE saw great many gold