Evening capital news., April 16, 1916, Image 24

About Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927

Image provided by: Idaho State Historical Society

                
THE KENAI PENINSULA
 Country as Big as Vermont, With a MUd Cli
mate and Good Fanning Land—Across the Penin
sula on Horseback—Its Beautiful Lakes and For
est-clad Valleys—Big Game—Moose, Bear and
Deer to Be Had for the Shooting—Grass as High
as One's Head and a Dense Vegetation.
i
Frank G. Carpenter Describes the First Section to Be Thrown Open by the New Railway
"WSi] been traveling over the
Ini ( Kenai peninsula. It is the
[tyi first patch of our big terri
Jjfc) tory to be opened by the
new railway, and it is des
lined to be one of the thick
ly settled slates of the Alaska of the future,
I say states. The time will come when Alas
ka will be divided. It will have its own
states and territories. Each district will
have its local industries, its own interests
and itf> own population. I have already
show how southern Alaska, a country as big
as South Carolina, is already discussing the
possibility of breaking away and managing
its allairs as an independent political entity.
It wants a governor, a legislature and offi
ciais of its own who shall have nothing to
do with the rest of Alaska. '1 he same will 1
eventually >c true of tl,j Tanana valley, of
the Yu!.on vallev and of th • Nnskokwdm re
(Copyright IMS, by Frank Q. Carpantar)
SUNRISE, Kenai Peninsula.
OR the past week I have
SB
'le
Seward peninsula will some time be a
gion.
territorv. and so will the Aleutian islands
and the Alaskan peninsula.' Another great
territory of the future will be the arctic pro
vince north of the Rocky mountains. This
contains 150,000 square miles, ' having an
area of more than three times that of the
state of New York. Rut all this is for the
far future. The Kenai peninsula is a land
of the living present. N
Suppose you had a country one-fifth
again as large as Massachusetts and as wild
and as virgin as Massachusetts was when
the Pilgrims first landed. Suppose it had as
much good land as Massachusetts, that it
had warmer winters and cooler summers
and that the rainfall was sufficient to raise
hardy crops. Suppose the country was one
of surpassing beauty; that it had rivers and
lakes and beautiful valleys, with mountains
equal to the Alps in their grandeur and with
glaciers surpassing any known to thc con
tinent of Europe. L,et the country be one
of big game, of moose, bear and deer, of wild
fowl of all kinds and of fish without number.
Suppose that this country was to be cut bv
a government railroad running through it
from one end to thc other, and was to be
connected by fast steamers with some of the
busiest United States ports. Wouldn't you
want to know more about it ?
Much of my journey
not seen a
W ell, I can tell you something, but not a
great deal. I have crossed the peninsula
from Resurrection hay to Turnagain Arm
within thc past seven days. I started at Se
ward and went as far as Mile 29 on the Alas
ka Northern railway. 1 there took horses
and crossed the mountains over the Moose
pass, and am now at the little mining camp
of Sunrise, not far from the eastern end of
the Turnagain Arm.
has been on foot, and I have
dozen people while on the way. The penin
sula is almost uninhabited. The country has
hardly been prospected, and there arc parts
of the interior that have never been trodden
by the foot of white man. My trip was over
some of the best-worn trails and the infor
mation 1 have concerning the rest of the
peninsula comes from the recent explora
tions of our government scientists, from the
wipers and prospectors 1 have'met and from
the engineers, geologists and agriculturists
who have been gathering information in
connection with the opening up of thc
peninsula by the new railroad.
If you will take your map of Alaska you
will see where the place lies. The Kenai
peninsula is in the heart of the south-central
coast, a great body of land that hangs down,
as it were, from the coast range into the Pa
cific ocean. It is bounded on the east by
Prince William sound, and on the west by
Cook injet, from which, at the north, Turn
again Arm extends far into the land. It is
only about 10 miles or so from the end of
Turnagain Arm across t he country to one ■
of the inlets of 1 rince \\ illiam sound, and
thc end of that arm is almost directly north
of Resurrection bay, on which Seward is
situated. The Alaska Northern railroad,
which the government has bought, connects
these two points. The total length of the
peninsula from northeast to southwest is
about 150 njilcs. and its width in places is.
from 50 to 75 miles. It is 71 miles along the
line of the railroad from Seward to Turn
•gain Arm. The peninsula has altogether
an area of 9,500 miles, being of just about
the size of Vermont.
This region on the east is one of high
mountains and broad valleys ; on the west is
a great lowland~pfain that slopes down to
Cook inlet. At Seward you are in the heart
of the Kenai mountains. This range is
about as high as the Alleghenies, with some
peaks that pierce the clouds above the alti
tude of Mount Washington. Many of them
are snow-tapped and some havje magnificent
glaciers in sight of the harbor of Seward,
and one sees many others on his way north
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Roadhou«» at Sum-ite—Mr. C»rp«nfr «t th« Right— Quid» at Left
by railroad.
The peninsula is well watered. The rivers
rise in the mountains, and most of them flow
to the west into Cook inlet. The Kenai and
the Kasilof, two of the largest, pass through
lakes of considerable size and flow thence
n an easy course down to the sea. They go
over what is known as the Kenai lowland.
This is a plateau from 50 to 200 feet high
which runs from Cook inlet eastward to the
mountains.
I wish I could take you over the railroad
from Seward north to Kenai lake. It is one
of the wonder rides of the world. You go
up the valley which ends in Resurrection bay
amid the most magnificent of mountains.
The mountains begin right at the sea. It is
as though Switzerland came down to the
ocean, and you could ride under its glaciers
and snows through valleys and hillsides of
the greenest of green. There are rushing
streams and winding lakes. There are great
canyons and forest-clad cliffs. There are
open parks made by nature and in them ferns
and wild flowers and grass as high as your
waist. The trees on the hillsides are largely
spruce and the ozonic air of Alaska carries
the sweet smell of the pines into your lungs.
The first body of water on the way is
Bear Lake. This is about a mile and a half
It is filled with fish,
and it is said the government intends to
establish there a fish hatchery and experi
mental farm. The location is ideal. It is
long and a mile wide,
only six miles from Seward and is in the
midst of a natural park surrounded by
snow-capped mountains, on the sides of
which hang glaciers of sapphire amid forests
of emerald. The place is now in the wilds.
In the future it will have an automobile
road into Seward, and one can then go back
and forth in a quarter of an hour. That re
gion is now known as Woodrow Park. It
has been named after the president. There
is a road house on the edge of the park, and
near'it a clear rushing trout stream. The
place is a picnic resort. Some of the Seward
people have built bungalows there. It makes
one think of a Chautauqua or a camp-meet
ing grounds.
Going on to the northw'ard, you pass little
homesteads wdiich have been cut out of the
w'oods. They are few and far between, and
the patches of cultivation are kitchen gard
ens in size. At Mile 12 I saw an abandoned
log cabin and was told that it bad been oc
cupied last summer bv some city chaps w ho
had come there to hunt. They had expected
to stay a week or 10 days, but they remained
more than two months. Nevertheless, their
actual cash outlay for food during that time
was less than $10. They spent $5 for flour,
potatoes and coffee, and the rest of their
food was the fish, game and berries they
found in the woods.
W® stopped for a time at Kenai lake and
then rode along its shores for four or five
miles. The lake begins at Mile 19 and it
winds about through the mountains for a
length of 27 miles. It is a mile or so wide,
and no one knows how deep. Soundings
have been made to 1350 feet below the sur
face and the bottom not reached. The seen
ery there reminds one of Switzerland. The
mountains are snow-capped, and high up on
the sides of the green, below the snow line,
you can see the trails made by the mountain
sheep. The lake is as clear as crystal, and
it mirrors its sürroundings.
A little farther on is Trail lake, which I
should say is eight or 10 miles in length and
which, like Kenai lake, is full of salmon
trout, bass and grayling. The salmon trout
of Kenai are caught by the thousand and
dried for dog feed. They sell for eight cents
a pound'.
He
charged me $16 a day for two horses and
guide, and told me that I could pick up the
guide on the way. I picked him up long
after dark, and we had a terrible time find
It was at Mile 29 that I left the railroad
and took horses to go across country to
Sunrise. At that place is Oscar Christian
sen's roadhouse. Oscar is a wily Swede
who has a half dozen horses, which he rents
out for all that the traffic will bear.
Before leaving I dined at the roadhouse,
The meal was moose meat or Alaska beef
ing the trails.
cooked over the coals by a six-foot pioneer.
His kitchen stove was a range made at Ham
ilton, Ohio, and in the living room adjoin
ing were chairs and tables and a rosewood
victrôla \yith several dozen records on top.
There were flowers in the windows. Around
the wall were spring beds. The stove of the
living room was a section of hydraulic pipe
as big around as a flour barrel, with legs of
gas pipe. It was long enough to take in a
whole stick of cord wood.
-.
Leaving the roadhouse. I started out
through the forest and spent the better part
of two days in getting to Sunrise. The
horses were fairly good, but the saddles
were excruciating. I am accustçmed to rid
ing. I cover about 1500 miles every winter
in the parks about Washington city, and
usually riçle 10 or 15 miles every day. I
have an English saddle and can be on a
horse for hours without tiring. It was dif
ferent in this ride across Kenai. Our
horses were broad-backed Percherons, and
the saddles'were a high-pommeled variety,
so made that they threw one far to the front.
It was like sitting on a sawbuck with ill-fit
ting stirrups. It brought an entirely new
set of muscles into play and gave me the
sensations and pains of the man who takes
a long ride for the first time. I found it
impossible to go off for a walk, and when
we came to a mining camp, after 15 hours
in the saddle, I was so stiff that I had to be
lifted from the horse. The next day I
walked part of thé wav and had to be lifted
off *nd on to the horse whenever 1 rode.
During thç journey we thought we were
lost. The guide failed to turn up, as ex
pected, and when he did so he took us along
the sides of cliffs, over a trail where forest
fires had made it exceedingly dangerous,
and where we had to jump the logs in the
darkness, with no telling what might be on
the opposite side. I slept the clock round
after reaching Sunrise, and am now trans
lati tte notes 1 made on horseb ack dur
,
mg 1 e n ^'
T , . , . . , ...
, ( es P air of making you see the wonderful
beauties of the peninsula. 1 he trip was
through one little valley after another, with
the grandest of mountain, everywhere in
sight. Th* valleys are from a half mile to
three miles in width and are like great xiat
ural parks. They are often covered with
woods, but the forest fires have cleared open
spaces, and it is easy to see that the whole
could be turned into iarms. In going
through the valley 1 ,round my way along
r- . , • , * Z -
rushing streams, in which great red salmon
were battling against the current, making
their way over the rocks and through the
debris of dead trees and floating brushwood.
These salmon were the color of beefsteak.
and they looked like streaks of raw meat
flying along through the water. The
streams were of the clearest crystal, and.
here and there, they made waterfalls as
they dashed down the hills.
T . , , ,
In other parts of the journey I skirted
beautiful lakes so clear that the mighty
mountains above them, with their wonder
ul vegetation and curious outlines, were re
fleeted as though m a looking glass. I wish
I could have photographed the colors. They
made me think of the pla.ntmgs of the latest
German art schools, where the pigment is
laid on in great patches with such striking
effects of light and shade.
• -
The valleys of the peninsula seem to be
wonderfully fertile. About 12 miles from
the railway I passed through a natural park
of spruce, cottonwood and birches, rising
out of grass which in the open places reach
ed to my shoulders. This grass was as green
as that of the Nile valley, and where the for
est fires had destroyed the trees it came
through beds of fireweed, making vast
sheets of green dusted with pink. Some of
the fireweed is from six to eight feet in
height. I have measured stalks here, at
Sunrise, that are nine feet from the ground
to the topmost flowers. I saw many berries
on the way across country. There were high
and low bush cranberries of bright red,
blueberries of a deep purple and salmonber
flowers of different varieties, and in places
ries of a pale lemon color. There were wild
the woods were carpeted with stunted tree
ferns, eight or ten inches high. In some
places the forests are green, in others they
are frosted silver and in others dead white.
The green trees are alive, and the silver and
white ones are dead or dying from forest
fires. The dead forests are as picturesque
as the live ones. The lacelike branches of
the spruce,then change to an ivory white
ness and they look like exquisite carvings,
And then the live things we saw on thc
journey. I already have spoken of .the sal
mon. We could see the trout in the
streams, and I am told that all are full of
grayling and other fine fish. I met one man
on the way who had stopped for an hour at
the head off Trail lake and caught 27 trout,
pulling them out as fast as he could throw
the line in. 1 could have easily caught sal
mon and trout with my hands in the smaller
streams,
ed up covies of grouse. Some of the birds
were as big as a chicken. They ran along in
front of my horse for hundreds of feet like
so many turkeys. They did not seem to be
much afraid, and it was as though I were
driving them. I saw also ptarmigan, and at
a cabin at Mile 14, where I stopped for din
ner, a miner cooked for me some ptarmigan
he had just killed.
Now and then during the journey I start
Lateç on I saw the tracks of brown hear
here and there on the trail, and once or twice
scared up porcupines which scuttled away
through the grass. My guide told me to be
careful not to ride over a porcupine, saying
that the animal is sure to lame the horse, if
stepped on. The porcupine shoots its
quills into the flesh at such times, and if not
pulled out at once the horse soon becomes
unfit for travel. The "porky" will shoot its
quills into a man if he stumbles upon it in
walking, and if the quills are not pulled out
they are liable to work their way through
the flesh, traveling about like a.needle that
finds its way unbeknown into one's body.
The Kenai peninsula has some of the
best moose pastures of Alaska. It has hun
dreds "toose and the moose are increasing
m number notwithstanding the hunters wh3
come here to shoot big game and
home the antlers as trophies. It is no trouble
to get deer or moose borns j n this part ot -
the wor j d i bave seen moose antlers that
measure / ixty . six inches betw een the tips of
the horns and have had lf hbto .
graphed with them to show what a mi hty
Nimrod i am . L will not s who killed Vc
moose
r , . . „ . _ .
» ".J .t Sm™. Um W
pl '" y °' , " sh , «f"" *° "*• W. hav. had
roast and broiled moose and caribou «teak
... ... , . .^ „7*"
with w.Id cranberries on the stde. .Wild
° Wl and th * re a < e excellent fish
I™" 1 S '* ^' ,e r ' ver and Turnagam Arm,
N ° W and the " bear meat 18 brou ? ht ra ' ani
? U ™ S Ca " gCt shee P- The
^'TWu P T u 'T hke
^ugh beef I he mountain sheep u;the most
debc '°^ of all the game found in Alaska.
. rhe . mOS ,^ ° f T the food u8ed , here / oomti
from the wilds. It can be had for the tak
ing and thjs makes thc cost of living com _
parat i ve l y cheap. On my way north over
the railway j rode with a miner who told
me that he and his partner had fed weU for
two w 'eeks on $1.80 worth of flour and
baco „ f in additi o„ to the fish and game thev
had caught . Durin g that time they covered
about 25 square m il es looking for gold, an.l
nowhere were they unable to get ptarmigau
and f resb mountain trout. I met them later
carry
on the trail. They had packs on their backs.
and were moving along at the rate of four
miles per hour. As I passed them they of
fered me a grouse for my supper, saying
they had already killed 14, and had taken 1
caught within three hours after leaving the
railway.
big trout from Trail lake.. This was enough
meat for the two for a week and it was all
FRANK G. CARPENTER.
POPULAR MODE FOR
THE SUMMER GIRL
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