Sledding up the Chilkat Valley
GOLD-SEEKING
ON THE DALTON TRAIL
BEING THE ADVENTURES OF TWO
NEW ENGLAND BOYS IN ALASKA
AND THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY
BY
ARTHUR R. THOMPSON
Illustrated
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1900
Copyright, 1900,
By Little, Brown, and Company
All rights reserved
UNIVERSITY PRESS · JOHN WILSON
AND SON · CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
TO
My Comrade of Many Camp-Fires
DEXTER WADLEIGH LEWIS
PREFACE
Among my first passions was that for exploration.The Unknown—that region of mysteries lyingupon the outskirts of commonplace environment—drewme with a mighty attraction. My earliest recollectionsare of wanderings into the domains of the neighbors,and of excursions—not infrequently in direct contraventionto parental warnings—over fences, stone-walls, androofs, and into cobwebbed attics, fragrant hay-lofts, andswaying tree-tops. Of my favorite tree, a sugar maple, Iremember that, so thoroughly did I come to know everyone of its branches, I could climb up or down unhesitatinglywith eyes shut. At that advanced stage of acquaintance,however, it followed naturally that the mysteriousness, andhence the subtle attractiveness, of my friend the maple wasconsiderably lessened.
By degrees the boundary line of the unknown waspushed back into surrounding fields. Wonderful caveswere hollowed in sandy banks. Small pools, to the imaginativeeyes of the six-year-old, became lakes aboundingwith delightful adventures. The wintry alternations offreezing and thawing were processes to be observed withclosest attention and never-failing interest. Nature displayedsome new charm with every mood.
There came a day when I looked beyond the fields, wheneven the river, sluggish and muddy in summer, a broad,clear torrent in spring, was known from end to end. Thenit was that the range of low mountains—to me sublimein loftiness—at the western horizon held my fascinatedgaze. To journey thither on foot became ambition's endand aim. This feat, at first regarded as undoubtedly beyondthe powers of man unaided by horse and carry-all(the thing had once been done in that manner on theoccasion of a picnic), was at length proved possible.
What next? Like Alexander, I sought new worlds.Nothing less than real camping out could satisfy thathitherto unappeasable longing. This dream was realizedin due season among the mountains of New Hampshire;but the craving, far from losing its keenness, was whetted.Of late it has been fed, but never satiated, by wider rovingson land and sea. Perhaps it is in the blood and cannever be eliminated.
Beli