Alaska Nellie

Nellie Neal Lawing

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781789123203
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

NOT A GHOST WRITTEN ROMANCE…but the true story of an Alaskan pioneer who went North as a young girl during the exciting days of the development of the Alaskan Railroad. Offers of publishers to edit her copy and rewrite the book were repeatedly rejected in order that the story might be told accurately and the true sentiment of the writer in these later years be conveyed to the reader.
Leaving gunfire and bloodshed in the rowdy mining camps of Cripple Creek, Colorado, Alaska Nellie—without friends or even acquaintances to turn to for advice or help—travelled along to the strange land that was then truly a frontier.
The hardships she endured, the cold and hunger, miles of travel on foot, pulling a sled without the aid of dogs, the dangers she encountered and kind assistance she gave to those in need have made her name one that is known and loved throughout the entire territory.
Everyone will enjoy this thrilling story of one of the few woman pioneers who lived to "carry on."

 

CHAPTER ONE—A TRIBUTE

ALASKA

To those who fought the elements on a stormy Alaskan trail;

To those who mushed on, knowing it meant certain death to fail;

To those watching the stars, when it registered forty below;

To those who went through, fighting the blinding, whirling snow.

It’s they who really know how the Alaskan winter can cheat

The ones who fight her blizzards to haul in what they eat.

 

To Alaska, with its valleys and mountains high and steep,

Where the moose, bear, caribou and white mountain sheep

Browse and graze in great numberless herds;

If’s the honeymoon home of most immigrant birds...

Yet in the vast acres of this great Northland

There’s not a single animal that carries a brand.

GLANCING out through an open window of a large log home on the shores of Kenai Lake at Lawing, Alaska, the rippling waves had become glittering jewels in the full moonlight of a summer’s night. Mountains covered with evergreen trees and crowned with snow were reflected in the mirror-like water of Kenai Lake. Was I dreaming, or was the curtain of the past rolling up, so that I might glance back over twenty-four years spent in the great Northland and say, “No regrets”?

After terrific encounters with huge beasts that tried to do me to death, I was always ready to apply the old remedy of courage and fearlessness and go on to the next encounter undaunted.

There were many shocking experiences with terrific swirling death-dealing rock-and snow slides that left my body covered with scars and bruises. There were fierce storms on a snow trail, behind a dog team, hauling in the necessities of life, and many opportunities to rescue those who were about to become victims of the elements. There was the time I ran a trap line in a nameless valley and did not hear from or see anyone in months, and no one knew what had become of me. These are a few of the hair-raising experiences that befell me.

When I first went to this attractive country, the magic spell of the great northland Alaska lured me on and on, and in the vastness of its forests I hoped to build my home, but as years of trials, hardships, privations and almost insurmountable difficulties made their appearance, I hoped that it would be worth the effort. There were times when I could not see anything very encouraging ahead, but there were also great blessings and many surprises in store.

The following chapters will reveal to you how the “call of the wild” flaunted its challenge to me, in later life as in the very early years of my girlhood. The early days of my youth, on my father’s timber-bordered farm, climbing trees after raccoons, had a very marked influence on my adventuring into the “land of the midnight sun,” where the northern lights flare their wondrous colored streamers of gorgeous lights over the star-spangled roof of the world.

You who have witnessed this great spectacle of wondrous light, eagerly await its next appearance. The partly unsolved mystery, that creates this heavenly display of marvelous lights, holds one in awesome curiosity.

There lingers in my heart the romance of the stupendous creations of the earth in which there was always a receptive echo for me. Nowhere else is there such an immensity of grandeur in such picturesque settings as these snow-clad mountains, turquoise and amethyst lakes, crystal-clear streams and waterfalls, amid age-old glaciers, extinct and live volcanoes, limitless flower-covered valleys and miles of fascinating ocean waterways, forming bays and inlets and sandy beaches.

Rising from the water’s edge, protected by forest-clad mountains, these trails, covered by snows of a thousand yesteryears, are untrodden by man. Dazzling summits of magnificent mountains soar to tremendous heights, into the azure blue sky—so clear, so intense in coloring, as to seem almost unreal. Rivers of ice water have their sources in these scenes, slowly going their irresistible ways to the sea, or to some mountain torrent, there to discharge with a mighty roar, as deafening as the thunders of the world, their million tons of liquid burden.

One might broaden his own vision and knowledge of human nature by mingling with men and women who came to Alaska when much of it was unknown; then there were no trails through forests, or bridges over streams. Transportation was then over the unblazed trail. Many old-timers drifted into this frontier country, blazed a trail, then built their modest homes which, from within, reflected the greatness of their souls and characters. They gave of their hospitality, unequaled under nature’s laws. They lived here in peace, and knew the secrets of the country, where only the fittest survive.

Many may come and many may go...

If he’s here to stay, he’s a Sourdough.

The pioneers are and ever will be the very foundation of this great frontier country. They have the courage, boundless hospitality and faith that have always marked the true pioneer. Men and women alike, whose courage led them here, where hardships and privations taught them generosity, friendliness and patience, were not backward or uncouth, but refined people with pleasing personalities. They possessed the sterling qualities required in frontier life.

Alaska, America’s last frontier and jewel box (as Alaska is a gem still in the rough), is teeming with romance and adventure. It is America’s farthest Northwest possession—this land of the midnight sun.

I believe in the hopes of the Alaskan people and I believe it was a great foresight on the part of the American people that sanctioned the purchase of Alaska from Russia; and which, with the right principle and plans, will survive through darkness, struggle, despair and illness. I believe in Alaska’s future with undaunted hope, and I shall hold fast to that faith through every discouragement or disaster, regardless of the cost and sacrifice, and this takes “red hot” courage.

Few people realize that Alaska, including the islands, has a 25,000 mile coastline—the distance around the earth. Those who do not know Alaska have no conception of its varied climatic conditions, dependent upon locality and section; or its diversified resources in the interior. The climate ranges from 86 above zero to 75 below.

Birches, a village on the Yukon River, is considered the coldest spot on earth. There, it is said, the mercury reaches 86 below zero. The summers are healthful, invigorating, and the days are twenty-two hours long, while in the winter the nights are the reverse.

In the life of nearly every old-timer there has been a time when he held tryst with death. It may have been caused by the overflow of streams, rock and snow slides, a blizzard, quicksand, or an encounter with a ferocious bear, wolf or a maddened moose. Most of these trying situations came when and where least expected. Men have gone from their cabins to a stream for a bucket of water and have been horribly mangled by a brown bear.

Like the early settlers Westward bound, who battled Indians while crossing the plains, I went into a frontier country, unknown and alone, and there battled fierce storms, ferocious animals, snow, ice and bitter cold.

If it is experience you are after, and you think you can make the grade under any condition, then answer the “call of the wild”—mush on over a stormy Alaskan trail. If you travel over a good trail, you will be able to make about twenty-five miles in a day, providing it is not storming; if you travel a storm-swept trail, it would take you one whole day to reach your cabin, though it be but ten miles away. However, the battle would have been so exhausting that, at the end of that day, you would be tempted to flop on the floor, before unpacking the provisions you had hauled in, if you weren’t just too tired to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO—ON A MISSOURI FARM

In the springtime of life, steeped in youth’s happy dreams,

On its mystic presence a holy light gleams;

‘Twas in this early day, when my dream of life

Was far from the troubles of worry or strife.

A NOVEMBER evening had cast its shadow over the farm and home of Robert and Jennie Trosper, near the town of Weston, in Platte County, Missouri. The comfortable five-room log home, with its cobblestone chimney, stood in the spacious yard, among lilac bushes and honey-locust trees that laid their leaves over the grass to serve as a blanket to protect it through the winter.

Within this log home was a large fireplace with its andirons and fire-tongs. A large tea-kettle, which at times, while heating, seemed to sing, challenged the crickets to creep from beneath the cobblestone hearth and chirrup an evening lullaby.

November, the front door to winter, found the harvest days over and food carefully stored for the winter. The granary was filled with food for the horses and cattle. Then, when the snow came, the winter’s wood was sledded in.

As the last rays of the setting sun disappeared, the evening twilight reigned supreme. The moon peeped from behind the ridge to the east of the home. The frost that had formed on the snow became glittering gems. The smoke gracefully curled from the chimney, its shadows floating over the snow, and the light from within the windows, reflecting on the scene, made a picture of restful beauty.

Before the crackling fire of burning logs in the fireplace, a family of twelve assembled each evening to discuss the events of the day, and to build air-castles for the future. As I sat and gazed into the burning embers, my thoughts were where the sunset turned the ocean’s blue to gold. Ever in my heart I harbored a thought that I might some day go to the land of the midnight sun—to Alaska, where large wild game roamed over the mountains and valleys.

During my school days, which were few, one of my most interesting studies was geography. A longing was in my heart for the great out-of-doors, where streams of clear water flowed through deep canyons, through forests and valleys and on to the ocean.

My father and mother asked me what vocation I would choose when the time came for me to make my own way through life. When I told them of my desire to go to Alaska, to live in a log cabin, hunt big game, run a trap line and catch beautiful furs, they thought that I, like most all young people with freakish dreams, would outgrow them. I thought if I kept ablaze the flame of hope, my cherished dreams of things that I had planned would some day become a reality. As I dreamed of the future and that far-off land, I did not realize the stirring events, the bitter disappointments and reverses I would encounter, before I came within sight of the castle of my dreams.

My fath...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• CHAPTER ONE-A TRIBUTE
• CHAPTER TWO-ON A MISSOURI FARM
• CHAPTER THREE-MOTHER
• CHAPTER FOUR-DRIFTING ALONE
• CHAPTER FIVE-CRIPPLE CREEK, COLORADO
• CHAPTER SEX-SEWARD, ALASKA
• CHAPTER SEVEN-INTO THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE
• CHAPTER EIGHT-MY FIRST CONTRACT
• CHAPTER NINE-THE MAIL GOES THROUGH
• CHAPTER TEN-ALASKA’S PART IN THE WORLD WAR
• CHAPTER ELEVEN-KERN CREEK
• CHAPTER TWELVE-HUNTING BIG GAME
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN-FREIGHTING BY DOG TEAM
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN-DOG ANGEL OF THE TRAIL
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN-IN A PRISON OF ICE
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN-MINING
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN-LIFE AT STAKE BEFORE A HUGE BROWN BEAR
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN-A SCHEME TO KILL ME!
• CHAPTER NINETEEN-IN THE SHADOW OF MOUNT McKINLEY
• CHAPTER TWENTY-DEAD HORSE HILL
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE-DOG TEAM RACES AT ANCHORAGE
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO-SOMEWHERE A VOICE IS CALLING
• CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE-MY DREAM COMES TRUE
• CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR-THE END OF THE TRAIL
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER