Not many people from the United States lived in Alaska when William Seward talked Congress into purchasing the huge area of land and ice from Russia. The original purchase price, in eighteen sixty seven, was $1,400,000. Seward made a secret deal with the ruler of Russia, and we actually ended up paying $7,200,000, still a tiny sum to pay for such a rich vast property. Only two congressmen voted against buying it, but the newspapers made a big fuss and called the venture Seward's Folly. The reporters referred to Alaska as "a dreary waste of glaciers, icebergs, white bears, and walruses." Congress bucked the newspaper writers and editors, went against public opinion, and voted to buy Alaska.
Alaska is twice as big as Texas. The warmer lower half of Alaska has over twenty thousand Native Americans (slang = Indians, klootchers). The northern half of Alaska is sparsely populated by more than thirty thousand Eskimos who live in remote places. They have little opportunity to earn money. The usual attitude of whites who venture to live near Eskimos or Innuits has been to ignore them or to treat them as inferiors. However, there have been many exceptions where teachers and others went to Alaska and helped educate the native inhabitants.
The gold rush at Bonanza Creek in 1896 was near Dawson City, Canada. The gold drew more than thirty thousand people to the wilderness area, near the eastern border of Alaska. The first people to arrive were called "Sourdoughs", because they carried uncooked sourdough to mix with flour and water to make bread on the hard trail leading to Dawson. The Sourdoughs later began to call all newcomers to Alaska "Cheechakos", a name perhaps taken from Indian tribes living there.
Dawson City is in the Yukon territory near the Yucon and Klondike rivers. It is located in the Northwest Territory of Canada. Most of the gold rush people came from the United States, but many of the gold seekers were recent immigrants from everywhere in the world. They spoke foreign languages and brought new cultures from their homes. The town has a colorful history. When gold became scarce, Dawson's population dwindled from 30,000 to a few hundred people. I walked in the deserted streets of Dawson in 1986. Abandoned run down shacks tilted on foundations ruined by the frozen topsoil called permafrost. It took only a few hours to walk past all the buildings in Dawson. The town is now a special place for tourists. Tourists are not held in high regard by people who earn a living in Alaska. Some of the people I met have little regard for people who visit them in a bus. We went to a restaurant and were forced to wait while locals were served first.
ELAINE DALY
Newly wed, Mrs. Elaine Daly moved from the lower forty eight states to Anchorage, Alaska in nineteen forty. The United States was getting ready for war. Russell Daly, Elaine's husband, was a Staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Corps. He was stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska. Elaine had always been curious to go to Alaska because her Great Uncle was Governor Swineford, the second governor of Alaska.
Elaine went to work in 1940 for an Anchorage attorney named Thomas Donohoe. Tom was born in Alaska, had his own airplane, and was a bush pilot. He claimed he owned an island not far from Anchorage. One day Elaine asked her boss about the island.
"I have always wondered what it would be like to see a place where hardly anyone else had been. Will you show it to me sometime?" Her boss decided to fly her to the island and let her have a look.
After landing the plane at the island on the snow, Tom helped his secretary out of the plane. The pretty young lady asked to be excused. She walked behind some trees and hid behind the bushes. Soon she heard Tom calling her to hurry back to the airplane. She ran back fast and climbed in the cockpit. As Tom raced the engine, he pointed down at the snow. She saw the largest bear tracks she would ever see. [Here she gestured indicating two feet long]. Tom had seen bears and heard plenty of bear stories. Bears are strong, and they are able to tear up cars and cabins when they search for food. The lawyer did not trust a bear to be close to his airplane. If the bear had ruined the plane, Elaine and her boss might have lost their lives on the cold deserted island. The plane took off and they made it home safely.
Not long after they encountered the bear, the attorney decided his secretary was ready to graduate from Cheechako [newcomer] to Sourdough. Two tasks had to be performed. The first was to eat a fish eye, and the other was to spit in the Yukon River.
Elaine was taken to a restaurant where people sat at a counter. It was friendly and easy to visit with everybody at a table counter. The waitress brought her a plate with a well cooked whole fish with head, body, and tail. Elaine was asked to pluck out a fish eye and eat it. You can imagine what it was like for her to take the fish eye out of the fish's head, put it in her mouth and swallow it. Being a good sport, Elaine showed a brave spirit, smiled, and told everyone it was delicious. The lawyer and his friends giggled with glee. Of course, she did not chew up the fish eye. She swallowed it whole as if it were a medicine pill.
Another day, she was taken to the Yukon River where one of the men stood on a rock and lifted her over the water. Although the wind was in her face, Elaine was able to spit far enough to have her spittle land in the water. They drove back to town and had a celebration to honor her, and to welcome her as a bona fide Sourdough. Elaine served as a legal secretary for Thomas Donohoe [the flying lawyer] for more than a year.
Judge Dimond was a famous Federal Court judge in Alaska for many years. He took the advice of his friend Tom Donahoe. He appointed Elaine Daly to the Federal Court as the Court Reporter. She served on the Federal Court in Alaska in 1942 soon after the war started with Japan, Germany, and Italy. She served until the war ended in 1945. During those years, she was a charter member in a political action group called Statehood For Alaska. She was the secretary. The group used the Federal Courthouse in Anchorage as their headquarters. She helped Alaska to become a state.
A major part of Elaine's federal duties was traveling to places where Federal Court was held in the Alaskan district. Frequently the housing was poor. She was forced to share the bathroom or outhouse with the traveling judge. This is part of what she told me. "Judge Dimond was a wonderful man. He was very well known in Alaska and in Washington, D.C. He was a popular and honest man. One of the other judges I did not like as much. He seemed old and crotchety to me. He liked to act like a rugged man."
"One time we stayed in a little inn that had only one bathroom. The judge was in there shaving with the door open on a cold morning. I had to go potty, so I told him so. He stood there and gestured toward the toilet, and told me to go ahead. Well, I wasn't about to go in front of that man. I waited until he got out of there so I could have some privacy!"
"In those days, the main street in Anchorage was paved for four blocks. The rest of the streets were dirt, or made of wooden planks. Housing costs were relatively high, as they are today. In 1944, I went on a secret trip to a place near Adak Island, near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The United States Seabees built a secret base on a Russian Island with a big, beautiful harbor called Cold Bay. Uncle Sam built a very good airfield and nice housing for the people who lived there. The U.S. Government secretly supported this base used by the Russians. I was shocked at the high quality of the food flown there to feed the Russians. They had plenty of meat and fresh fruit like grapefruit, oranges and peaches we couldn't buy in Alaska. I flew there with the Federal Judge to do government business. I was very popular because there were only five women at the base and thousands of men. Some of the servicemen were Americans. I met Jimmy Doolittle, the war hero. He asked me to take a ride with him in his airplane. I declined his offer after I looked at his airplane cockpit. I would have had to crowd in behind him, sort of draped over him. It was too cozy an arrangement to suit me. After all, I still considered myself a newlywed woman."
"We were able to listen to the radio only one hour each night, and that was all the news we got. We stayed on the base for ten days after being sworn to secrecy. It was summertime, and the weather was nice. Due to the shortage of women, I was overwhelmed with affectionate attention. They gave a big dinner dance party for us, and the food was excellent. I was polite to the Russians I met, but I didn't trust them. While on the island, we naturalized people to make them U. S. citizens as part of our government duties. I will always remember my adventures and also remember Alaska as a place for opportunity."
THE BUSH PILOT
I met a man in Fallbrook, California who had lived in Alaska during the early days of aviation. He had been a pilot in the first world war, just at the end, so he didn't see gun play. He went to Alaska in his early twenties to seek adventure as a bush pilot. He was one of the few men in Alaska formally trained to be a pilot.
He said, "Most of the pilots in Alaska had built their own planes, or had purchased a plane and learned to fly it by trial and error. Some of the most popular and successful bush pilots could not pass a written flying test. They were dare-devils and thrill seekers. Some were seriously injured or killed in crashes. Some of the worst pilots were the most trusted by their passengers, and they had the best reputations. That is why the government selected me to try to do something about air safety in Alaska. Since there were no good roads, flying was the only way to cover the huge distances between towns."
"Those were the days when pontoons and skis on airplanes were first being invented and used. This was also in the days when airlines first started operating in the United States. I was in charge of licensing and controlling aircraft in the Territory of Alaska during the nineteen twenties and thirties. When an airplane crashed, I traveled to the scene, made an investigation and the reporters asked me questions. They quoted me in the newspapers. When Wiley Post, the famous one eyed pilot, and Will Rogers, the movie star died in a crash, I flew north to investigate. They crashed in 1935 twelve miles southwest of Burrows. The town is located on top of the continent close to the Arctic Ocean. Newspaper stories and movie newsreels about the tragedy were heard and seen all over the world. I traveled the country for many years. Most of my journeys were to investigate and report airplane crashes."
The pilot showed me a large, white bear skin rug on the floor of his den and said, "My work in Alaska was important. It kept me very busy, but in my spare time, I made solo flights as a bush pilot exploring Alaska. During freezing weather, we drained and stored the gas and oil from the airplanes after each flight. We put tarps over the engines that hung to the ground forming a tent. Cole oil lamps were used to warm the tent, keeping the motor pistons and gears from freezing, and to thaw already frozen motors. Prior to our next flight, we warmed the drained oil in a cooking pot over a stove before refilling the plane with engine oil. The cold gas that was drained out the night before was strained through a chamois to remove moisture before it was poured back into the empty gas tank. To prevent high winds from blowing a plane over or into the sky, heavy weights, like full oil drums, were strapped under the wings. The plane was also tied down if there was anything handy to tie to.
"During the months of May, June, and July a perpetual daylight persists in the far north. The native Americans who had lived there for many centuries adjusted well to the perpetual light. When a person felt sleepy, a nap was taken. People often worked or played after midnight the same as they did at mid day.
"One day I decided to fly a small plane to a remote Eskimo village in northern Alaska. I had skis on the bottom of the plane, and I landed close to the village on the snow. High winds cause bumps to form on the snow called hummocks. This time there were no hummocks, and I made a smooth landing. I suspected these Eskimos were seeing a white man and an airplane for the first time in their lives. We used sign language during our conversations, and I understood them. As we communicated, I noticed a fresh white pelt of a polar bear. It was the largest polar bear pelt I had ever seen. The man who owned the pelt looked about forty, and he was a short man, with teeth missing and a flat face. Since his teeth were ugly he smiled with his eyes. It made his face wrinkle. 'How and where did you get such a fine skin?' I asked the Eskimo."
Following is the story told by the Eskimo, "I am the only hunter here who has a gun. My gun is only a small twenty two caliber rifle. I use it to hunt seal on the ice. One day I hunted for a seal a long way out on the jagged ice and had no luck finding a seal. Off in the distance, a grandfather white bear saw me and came toward me. I knew my rifle was too little to fight the big grandfather, so I ran away. The ice was not flat. There were many bumps, caves and cracks on the surface. Some of the bumps of ice were twenty or thirty feet high, and the snow kept me from traveling fast."
"I had no sled, and no dogs to protect me. The Grandfather bear came closer. He smelled me. Sometimes he stopped, lifted his head, and sniffed the air."
"I found a place to hide under an ice cliff that had an overhang. I squatted, trying to push my back into the hard ice. I had a fear I had never felt before. I am a hunter. I have always been a hunter. I have felt brave many times. But this time it was different. My legs shook. I could see them moving. I could not hold them still. Many thoughts came to my mind. I said to myself. 'Why am I so foolish? Why did I not take a dog this time? Why must I die all alone?' In my mind I could see the sharp claws and teeth. Soon the grandfather bear stood over me and looked down. I could see his breath in the cold air. He was panting like a dog from running. I took a chance and fired the twenty two rifle. The bullet knew where to go. And now, I have this great white pelt to sell. The head is still attached as you can see. Will you give me sixteen dollars?" The Eskimo held out his open hand for money.
The pilot continued his story. "I had only a twenty dollar gold piece. The Eskimo friends of the hunter were happy to sell me bone and ivory carvings to use up the last four dollars of the twenty dollar coin. I paid sixteen dollars for the polar bear pelt, and several nice ivory trinkets were also given me in exchange for the gold coin. I knew I had a bargain. I heard the Eskimos begin an argument. How were they were going to divide the twenty dollar gold piece among themselves? I could smell trouble brewing. I climbed in the plane, waved good-by, and got the hell out of there." Before I left his house, the Alaskan bush pilot allowed me to walk with bare feet on the great white bear skin rug.
This is one thing I have noticed about people who moved from Alaska. When they got older and wiser, they moved to the lower more southern states to retire. This Pilot chose Fallbrook, California.