Identifier: inalaskanwildern00gord (find matches)
Title: In the Alaskan wilderness
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Gordon, G. B. (George Byron), 1870-1927
Subjects: Eskimo languages Alaska -- Description and travel
Publisher: Philadelphia : The John C. Winston Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ts source, is a small stream of clearwater with high and steep banks. On the seventh of August we carried the canoeover the last four miles of the portage, returnedand packed the tent and sleeping outfit andcooking outfit and made camp beside the Kus-kokwim. On each trip during these two dayswe passed and repassed the two prospectorslaboriously hauling their heavy boat on rollersover the rough ground. On several points theyshowed a great deal of interest: they were curiousand rather incredulous about the canoe; for, afterlifting it some half dozen times, they estimatedthat it weighed well over two hundred pounds,perhaps as much as two hundred and fifty; theywondered that anyone should have undertakenthe trip at all in a canoe, for the poling boatwas accepted as the one thing fit for the condi-tions of travel presented by Alaskan rivers. Theyseemed all at once, and for the first time, to doubtthe truth and wisdom of that idea and paid usthe compliment of saying as we left them behind92
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on the trail that we had taught them somethingnew. The portage between Lake Minchumina andthe head of the Kuskokwim is about ten and ahalf miles according to our careful calculation,for we had no means of measuring distance. Wewere altogether seven days on this portage fromAugust first to August seventh, inclusive. Wemade our outfit into seven packs averaging ninety-five pounds each. As to the weight of the canoe,I am inclined to think that the men were rightand that at the time its weight was scarcely lessthan 200 pounds. I say this because whenweighed it was perfectly dry, whereas at theportage its woodwork had been absorbing watersince we started, and in its saturated conditionmust have been much heavier than its dry weightof 180 pounds. In carrying the canoe we set itdown and rested about every quarter of a mile.In picking it up we turned it on its edge, crouchedon our knees with our shoulders to the thwarts,let it tip towards us as far as possible until ata signal we were able to

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