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THE KENAI PENINSULA Â 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 F v.;- :• vT •F I g§ .jm -P :< : \ ; V-. : V ; « m , 'V y * » ■P, B f.Vl p' ; I! if K MM £ - ' « _ zi ■ tv ■ . f * * m HX? if V-A : - Ï A > 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 % 'M m Æ < fl i I I M'uni A nuddv 1 » fraa aid aaay garb for an °n th# Hnka, th« tennia court or at •f rroen and whrto «OP ad mxfdy aod whit« rrndomaiid «now* or hampered ae toon and is eqmdaO? adaptable to