Dangers, Triumphs and Privations
In Constructing Copper River Road
President S. W. ^ccles, known ev
en among progressive, daring,
dauntless American 'railroad men as
an “advanced railroader,” has writ
ten for the New York Herald a mag
nificent story of the conquest of
Alaska wilds, by the new railroad
from Cordova, the Copper River and
Northwestern. Of this great work
he says:
To the average man in the United
States Alaska is merely a near-polar
region of ice and snow, where there
is plenty of gold to be found if the
hunter can keep from freezing to
diatli. The truth is that it is large
ly a fair and wonderful land, in
parts of which nature has locked up
treasures of untold value and set
the mightiest of mountains, the most!
powerful of streams, the cruelist of
winds and the most crafty, stubborn
and treacherous of all her aids as
guards, whose vigilance is eternal.
They comprise an appalling de
fensive and at times aggressive force
and, quite as much as Napoleon's
troops who marched on Moscow, Ed
wad Ill’s outnumbered knights and
bowmen who triumphed at Crecy
and the marvelous roreign legion
which Africa engulfs in part each
year, our men on the Copper river
constitute an army, and the build
ing of the Copper River &' North
western railroad is one of the fiercest
and most spectacular battles ever
fought. The enemy is Nature—Na
ture, who, when conquered, as she
will be, will prove a good friend and
ally.
Before passing to the narrative of
the crisis of this battle of the Cop
per river in the North, permit me to
detail some of the smaller heroisms
of the long campaign, for surely the
man who under fire digs a rifle pit
with his bayonet or bears a wound
ed comrade through a leaden hail is
no greater here than the man who
swings a pick where the next instant
he may be swept to death in a rush
of ice and earth and water or in the
) bitter, bitter cold strives to thrust
forward a mattress or brush for a
footing where one misstep means
that he will be whirled away in an
icy torrent at the speed of an ex
press train beyond all possible hope
of rescue.
Northward from the port of Cor
r
dova, on the center of the south
eastern coast, at a distance such as a
good automobile can cover in a tam
ed Eastern state between breakfast
and dinner, lies the Kotsina-Chitina
copper district one of the world’s
richest, if not the richest of all, de
posits. Just beyond is the region
of gold and part of the way from
the coast are fields of coal the wealth
of which even at the lowest estimate
makes a mind strain for comprehen
sion. The American spirit would not
permit that this wealth should re
main undeveloped for lack of trans
portation, and when the government
evaded the task of preparing to get
it out a private corporation set out to
build a railroad that would haul that
wealth to tide water. The men who
are building it are the adventurers
of this narrative.
Beginning with the first few miles
after the road sweeps from Cordova
around lake Eyak the first 350 men
who Invaded the region encountered
the first fight. M. J. Heney, dubbed
the “Prince of Alaska,” led the move
ment as the contractor, seconded by
E. C, Hawkins as chief engineer.
The Copper river is spread into a
delta covered with silt, as is the delta
of the Mississippi, This it was nec
essary to cross in the hard season be
fore the summer floods should turn
It into a shallow lake with a muddy
bottom of great depth.
It was on November 15, 1907, that
the heroes of my story began, and al
ready the terrible winter was on.
The snow was eight feet deep and
there were only six hours’ of day
light. The flats were 20 miles wide
and hare to the blast, with many
glaelal and tidal streams, in addition
to the three mighty channels of the
Copper river-itself. They set to work
In storms In which the wind, blow
ing from 60 to 90 miles an hour,
hurled the particles of fine ice and
snow through the air like fine shot.
Utilizing the winter’s hardened
stretches, they must construct before
the softening spring came a highway ]
over not only them but the reaches
of loose ice, churning slush and
speeding water so that the heavy
material for construction inland
could be transported thither.
Using brush and poles packed in
to a mattress, placed by men and
horses where many times if they
missed footing all wet floundering
down into varying depths of loose
ice, snow and water that froze like
armor on them when they were drag
ged out—that was the way they
built the track. All winter they
worked preparing the way and get
ting the men equipment, tools, don
key engines, materials and food sup
plies across.
The spring brought added terrors
in the way of labor under difficul
ties and sufferings that increased.
Each thaw meant the sinking of a
portion of the work or the under
mining or sweeping away of anoth
er, and as the weather grew warm
er the turning of the whole into a
mush from six to 20 feet deep, over
which men must work in snowshoes.
How doggedly they had striven can
be imagined when it is said that one
month after reinforcements had land
ed in April track had been laid across
the first section of those terrible
flats reaching to Alaska, crossing a
distance of 22 1-2 miles. To put
down the ties and rails and drive the
spikes the snow must be shoveled
away as it fell. Once the path was
ready the piledrivers could begin
their work of replacing the brush
and pole mattress witli regular trest
ling.
Now, just beyond are two channels
of the river itself, averaging 18 feet
in depth; torrents of icy water filled
with floes crashing and grinding
down on the sea. One channel is
3,500 feet wide, the other 1,100 feet.
Imagine handling piles and timbers
under such conditions, with men in
boats held by long ropes and men
standing on the structural work, nev
er taking their eyes from the work
men, ready to pick up or throw a
line to any man who succumbed to
the labor and exposure or lost his
foothold. Nevertheless the twenty
first of June found track laid across
both channels and on to the twenty
ninth mile.
Another time when a gang was ad
vancing horses in individual barges,
as was often done, an odd thing hap
pened. The barges were craft that
would hold one horse only. The ani
mal would be forced into it, made
fast, and then the gang would take
hold, sometimes to the number of
thirty on a hawser, and haul the
beast not only against ten-mile cur
rents, but through shallows choked
with ice and slush, through dense
mud and over stretches of sand with
very little water over it.
Two big brothers from Seattle,
longshoremen they had been, were
in this gang, and when the horse
they were hauling partly broke loose
the elder of the two made his way
out to the barge to readjust the fast
enings as it touched the tip of a
sandy spot. The horse in his strug
gles dealt the man a kick with his
foreleg that stretched him uncon
scious in a precariously balanced po
sition across the bow of the barge.
Now the barge swung out where
at any moment the horse might dis
lodge the man and drop him to his
death. Shouting to the other men to
haul for all they were worth, the
younger brother plunged in, clinging
to the line, with its coating of flesh
cutting ice, and made his way, at
times up to his neck in water or up
to his hips in quicasand, to the barge.
It was a superhuman muscular effort,
but when he reached the barge he
still had strength enough to deal
the horse a blow that took all the
fight and struggle out of it and then,
raising his brother to safety, he stuck
to the barge until it was drawn
through to safety.
Nowhere in the world has anything
ever been heard of like the construc
ton of tne section of line across the
front of Childs Glacier. The bridge
ton of the section of line across the
the Miles Canyon bridge, is what is
called “glacierproof ” and there is no
such another one in the world, so far
as that is concerned.
As the great ever-moving river of
solid ice, three miles wide and tower,
ing 3u0 feet sheer from the water,
flows slowly down, great bergs of ice
burst from the face day in and day
out and fall into the river with an
alarming noise and a great upheaval
of water. The "ripple” a berg will
raise ranges from a wave ten feet
high to a wall of water twenty feet
high.
One can never tell when these
things are coming and when one of
these walls of water hurls itself
across the 1,200-foot channel, bear
ing hundreds of thousands of tons
of ice on its front, the shock is some
thing terrific. The industrial sol
diers of the Copper River valley had
to get boats through with material,
build sufficiently strong piers in this
icy water and do all their work be
tween the onslaughts of these waves.
At the first cry of the watchers, who
would go almost blind from scanning
the glistening, changeable ice face,
the men w'ould drop their work and
run for their lives. As the wave
subsided they would return to their
work if it had not been sw'ept away.
The water is so cold that it would
freeze if it were not for the 15-mile
current. Construction to the camp
opposite the glacier was not extreme
ly difficult. Just above, on the main
bank, however, was the great Miles
glacier and this made it necessary
to cross to the other shore between
the two glaciers.
It was quite the usual thing for
boats to arrive with one-third of the
cargo with which they started. The
men were saving the lives of one an
other all the time. When a man fell
into the river the deadly chill of it
seemed to make him almost power
less and quick action was necessary
unless he was an able swimmer.
Just as an illustration of the force
of attack this bridge must stand all
the time every day in the open sea
son of the year, this is one thing that
happened to us. At last a very de
termined and ingenious foreman had
contrived to get nine huge piles,
chained aeeply into the bed of the
river and felt that he had made a
substantial beginning in that spot.
The next wave buried the ice against
those nine huge sticks of wood bound
together as one and broke them off
like pipe stems. Barges towed by
launches, a double cable worked by
donkey engines, both failed as a
means of getting material across the
river, till at last an overhead cable
was rigged and every pound of
heavy material, including engines
cars and rails, was got across by Oc
tober 30.
In conclusion there should be cit
ed that part of the battle which M.
J. Heney led in person in the Allen
Canyon. The contract required com
pletion to mile 54 by October 30,
1908. The stream down this canyon
is really liquid ice moving at a rate
of 20 miles an hour. Up this must
go the material and supplies.
Does man need to have the strug
gle described to picture it? In Sep
tember there were 24 days of storms
and blizzards, one destroying the con
struction camp at mile 52. Some men
did desert, but Heney leaped into
the work himself and out of pure grit
and loyalty the men stayed with him,
working in that awful weather from
14 to 16 hours a day, staggering to
their bunks for a few hours’ sleep
and back again, half the time in the
dark, driving these last five miles on
to completion, and they did it.
No army in the field, not even
Washington’s men at Valley Forge
ever was called upon for greater for
titude or courage,
HAVE YOU ANY FURS?
If you have good furs and want
to realize 100 cents on the dollar for
them, see Perry Jacobs. He will give
you a square ‘deal. 12-17-tf
NOTICE.
To whom it may concern: My
wife, Mrs. Ethel Dyer, of her own
free will, left my bed and board since
December 12, 1910. I will no long
er be responsible for any debts or
bills contracted by her since the
above date. 12-17-3t
Signed E DYER.
The ChtiinaTownsite Co.ex
tends to you its heartiest wishes
for a happy and most prosper
ous New Year.
Chitina Townsite Co.
Copper River & Northwestern Railway
44444444444444444444
Good Passenger and Freight
Service to Interior Alaska
♦ 444444444444 4
44444444444444444444
For Rates and Other Information Apply at
DEPOT OFFICE
The MacCormac Hotel
gBBgBB—1".
CORDOVA’S LEADING, POPULAR PRICED HOTEL—8. O. BREEDMA N, Prop.
Has all modern conveniences. Bar and restaurant in connection. Steam Heat.
RATES:
Single rooms $1 per
day and up.
Two persons, $1.50
per day up.
Room with bath, $2
per day up.
Two iiersons, $2.50
per day up.
Electric Lights.
Hot and Cold water.
Suites or single
Rooms
♦+++♦♦♦♦♦■♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦'