So a telegram was dispatched to the White House, with a reply arriving in Seattle that afternoon:
PROCEED WITH REINDEER AND MAY GOD SPEED YOUR EFFORTS STOP NATION IS WATCHING
It took Lieutenant Loeffler till the middle of January to reach the southern shore of Norton Sound, and when his dogs pulled into the primitive settlement of Stebbins he faced an open crossing of some ninety miles to the north shore, from which Teller Reindeer Station could be approached by land. The prospect of venturing to the other side on ice which might or might not be solidly frozen frightened him so much that he considered making a complete circuit of the eastern end of the sound so as to remain on land. But an old-time Eskimo who ran dogs assured him: 'All frozen. No trouble,' and when Loeffler still held back, the man said: 'I go with you,' and in days when the sun barely shone at noon, the two set .out, traveling indifferently day or night.
When they reached the northern shore, the old man accepted the payment Loeffler offered him and started his long hike back across the ice, while the young officer speeded his dogs the remaining hundred and twenty miles west to Teller. As he approached where he judged the reindeer station ought to be, for he had previously come to it only from the sea, a sharp-eyed Eskimo outlook spotted him coming and sounded the alarm, so that when his dogs raced joyously into the station, four resolute men, whom he already knew, were waiting to greet him.
The Laplander Mikkel Sana was first to greet him with a vigorous handshake, then the dour Siberian Arkikov, then the dark young Eskimo Ootenai, and finally the tall, thin unbelieving Norwegian, Lars Skjellerup. 'How did you come with that dog team?' the latter asked, and Loeffler felt that he ought to deliver the news, as he said, 'plain and prompt': 'Washington wants you to drive a herd of three to four hundred reindeer to Point Barrow. A score of whalers stranded there. Three hundred sailors starving.'
The news was so dramatic that none among the four Teller men knew how to respond, so after a moment of silence, Loeffler said: 'Orders. From the President himself.
How soon can we leave?'
Once the reality of the situation struck them, the four herders were eager to accept the challenge, for they knew well the scandals that had been circulated throughout Alaska and the United States regarding their deportment and that of other Laplanders and Siberians associated with the reindeer. Skjellerup, as the man in local command, was especially eager in order to demonstrate the capabilities of his reindeer: 'How many miles do you guess?'
'Six hundred, maybe,' Loeffler said. 'Can you do it in sixty days?'
'I think maybe fifty. If we go, we go fast.' He consulted with his men, and Arkikov said: 'Faster. Lead reindeer Siberian, not your kind.' He was referring to the softer Lapland reindeer that Skjellerup had imported by ship from Norway. The Norwegian ignored this implied slur, for he had become accustomed to Arkikov's conviction that only reindeer or herders from his Siberia were of much account.
Loeffler was delighted with Arkikov's estimate that the food and medicine could be delivered in less than fifty days, but his enthusiasm was dashed when Skjellerup said: 'We'll depart three days from now.'
'Wait a minute! I packed my gear in half an hour for my trip up here. Surely you men...'
Quietly Skjellerup reasoned: 'You ever try to round up over four hundred reindeer from their comfortable winter quarters... which they don't want to leave?' And in the next two days Loeffler learned how much shouting and shoving this entailed, but on Wednesday morning, 19 January 1898, the herd was gathered, the two sleighs were loaded with medicines and food for the trip, and the team was ready for its awesome dash north. Loeffler, watching them depart, called out the message from Washington: 'The President says: "God speed your efforts. The nation is watching."' And within the half-hour the reindeer, the four leading men, three Eskimo helpers and the sleds were indistinct on the eastern horizon. They would travel almost two hundred miles in that direction before they could turn north for the real drive into Barrow where the starving sailors waited.
IT WAS A HEROIC RUN, FOR THE NIGHTS WERE BITTER cold, the winds blew more than usual, and on several frightening occasions the deer could find no lichen or moss when they scratched or pawed the snow with their sharp hoofs. Sana warned: 'We must find moss. Maybe over there ... maybe over here? Stop one day,' and when this was done the animals did find lichen and the trip could resume.
When long downhill vistas opened, the men urged the reindeer to run free, but always Sana and Arkikov, two of the best herders in the world, watched for shallow crevasses, and when the gallop ended, men and animals started the breath strangling climb to the crest of the next hill. When they finally made the big turn from their east heading to north-by northeast, they felt they were at last on the main part of their journey, the long run to Barrow, perched on the edge of the world. Men alone could not have made this punishing run, nor could dogs have traveled as relentlessly as the reindeer, and certainly the dogs could not have fed themselves. Only reindeer could have carried this burden of food over such terrain and across such distances.
When they were approaching the seventieth latitude, far above the Arctic Circle, they were confronted by a spell of weather so cold and blustery that the thermometer dropped to minus-sixty-two. Now came a real test of what the reindeer could do, for when they were turned loose at the end of a twenty-nine-mile run they pawed the frozen snow until food was uncovered, grazed for half an hour, their backs into the wind, then burrowed in the snow until protecting drifts piled up around them.
'We'd better dig in too!' Skjellerup cried as the gale raged, and both Sana and Arkikov drew their sleds into a bulwark position. With the wind howling over them, but deflected by the sleds, the seven men hunkered down, allowing the snow to build drifts over them.
They stayed there for two long days, their bodies warm and dry in the almost perfect gear they wore; even their feet remained comfortable inside their heavy caribou boots, while the porcupine fur around their heads and the mysterious wolverine tips about their faces kept out the cold and ice. Not many could have withstood that assault, but these men had been drilled since childhood in arctic survival, and it was a curious fact, which both the Lapp and the Siberian noticed, that the white man Skjellerup was as gifted in arctic lore as they who had been bred to it. He was an impressive man, and the others treated him not with reverence, for they were his equal, but with respect for his mastery.
When the storm abated they became lighthearted as children, for now Barrow lay only a hundred miles ahead, and with clear weather and adequate food for the deer, it seemed almost as if they could cover that easy distance in a day. It required several, of course, but on 7 March at about ten in the morning they participated in a moment of such beauty that no one who shared it would ever forget. From the north, out of Barrow, came three dog teams drawing empty sleds and traveling at high speed. From the south came hundreds of reindeer, moving at their own steady speed, and for more than half an hour each party could see the other and calculate its mode of travel and its speed.
Skjellerup cried to his men: 'They must have become desperate. They were going to try to break through!' and the men in the dog teams cried to one another: 'Thank God! Look at those reindeer.'
Closer and closer the two running teams moved, until the bearded men could discern each other's faces. Soon there was cheering and embracing and men weeping, and all the while the wonderful, powerful dogs lay panting in the snow and the reindeer pawed through the drifts for lichen.
THIS TWELVE-HUNDRED-MILE ROUND TRIP OF RESCUE became significant in Alaska history not because of heroism or reindeer or the fact that the leaders came from four such divergent backgrounds, but rather because of a chance conversation which occurred on the return trip. Skjellerup and the Eskimo boy Ootenai were driving one of the empty sleds while Arkikov and Sana rode in the other, the one drawn by the Siberian deer, and it was Arkikov, of this we can be certain because years later each man would so testify who first broached the subject.
'Rememb
er last spring? Me make trip east ... take deer to miners' Council City ... meet many men.'
'What were they doing?'
'Looking gold.'
'Where?'
'To east.'
'Did they find any?'
'Not yet. Soon maybe.'
'How would they find gold?'
'Along rivers ... little streams. You dip. You wash. You find.'
That was the opening conversation, and on succeeding days as they drifted always southerly south-by-southwest, then due west, these two managed it so they rode together, and repeatedly Arkikov wanted to talk about the gold seekers, those ghost-driven men who prowled creeks, until Sana began to suspect that maybe ordinary men like Arkikov and himself had a chance of finding gold, but suspicious Lapp that he was, he dismissed the idea.
And yet: 'What creek do they dig sand from?'
'Any creek. Me hear men say Klondike ... all creek.'
'Do you mean river? Like Yukon, big river?'
'No! Little river ... maybe jump across.' From his conversations with prospectors the Siberian had acquired an accurate sense of what gold seeking consisted of, and he was obviously mesmerized by the possibility of finding gold in some creek along the way home: 'When sun higher ... no snow ... little streams run water ... you, me find gold.'
'How could we ... no papers ... just Lapp, Siberian?'
These were practical matters, and to a methodical Lapp like Sana they were powerful enough to disqualify the whole endeavor, but to a Siberian they were meaningless, a temporary irritation to be sidestepped.
'You, me ... money ... we go ... we find gold ... sure.'
Arkikov gestured so wildly as he talked that in time Skjellerup, riding in the other sled, could not escape noticing it, so when they stopped to eat he asked: 'What's going on? You fighting?' Arkikov looked at Sana as if to ask: 'Shall I tell him?' and when the Lapp nodded the fateful words were spoken.
'Council City ... all men look gold ... little streams ... maybe we look too?'
When the big Norwegian stared at his companions as if they were mad, Arkikov added seductively: 'We three ... find gold ... buy many reindeer.'
He said this so confidently, his round face smiling in sunlight as if the gold were already in his hands, that Skjellerup had to be impressed with the possibility of what was being proposed, and found himself saying: 'Well, we do have money enough for a year, even two years. We need no immigration papers.' Then his shrewd practicality asserted itself: 'We were all invited here by the U.S. government. And we have contracts which allow us to stay.'
Before the hasty meal was over he was planning how he and the other two could leave the station and strike out on a prospecting tour, and he became so excited by the prospect of huge riches that he told the others: 'Ootenai, you ride with Arkikov.
I want to talk with Sana,' and when the switch was made, he asked: 'Mikkel, you have no wife, nor me. Would you be willing to leave the station, the reindeer ... and go exploring?'
'Yes!' delivered emphatically.
'You're not worried about leaving Lapland?'
'You worried about Norway?'
'Not at all.' He considered this for a moment, then added firmly: 'I like Alaska.
I liked this run. Maybe you ... me ... him ...' As he said this he looked toward the other sled, and what he saw outraged him.
'Stop! Stop!' and when the sleigh was halted he rushed over, bellowing: 'What have you done with those traces?' and Arkikov pointed to his harness, now geared Siberian-style with the traces coming straight down between the front legs.
'I told you the other way!' His voice rose: 'The right way!'
'But these Siberian deer ... like my way. Stronger now than when we start.' And since there was truth to what he said, Skjellerup relaxed: 'All right. For the rest of the run.' But his mind was still on gold, and once he placed himself in the Siberian's hands, all was lost.
'Mr. Skjellerup! You ... me ... him ... powerful team. We look all streams.
We dig all sand.' It was obvious that Arkikov had queried prospectors when he delivered the reindeer to Council City, and most desperately he wanted to be with them searching for something more rewarding than the few dollars he earned tending reindeer.
So on the impulse of the moment, the Norwegian called a halt for the day, to the amazement of Ootenai, who had just that morning been urged to forge ahead so that the journey could be completed within two days. Now Skjellerup was eager only to talk, so while Ootenai tended the deer, he conducted a serious discussion with Sana and Arkikov.
'You say men were looking for gold?'
'Plenty men ... seven maybe eighteen.'
'But were they finding any gold?'
'Not there. But Koyukuk River, yes. Yukon, yes.'
'How do they get the right to look?' Sana asked.
Now the Siberian became an expert: 'Me ask men ... "Me got to ask this man, that man ... come on his land?"'
'What did they say?'
'They laugh. All free ... every land free. You find, you keep.'
'Could that be true?' It was so alien to what Skjellerup had known in Norway, where land was a jealously protected commodity, that he found it difficult to believe.
But in reply, Arkikov ran to a tiny streamlet coming out of rocks and dipped his hand in, washing his palms back and forth as if they contained gravel. 'Every stream free ... to you, to him.'
Now Sana spoke in Norwegian: 'I heard a Canadian say the same about his country.
No one owns the land, millions of acres, so you can mine where you wish. The land doesn't become yours, but the gold does. If Arkikov finds gold tomorrow, it's his.
You, me, we can dig anywhere, if what they told me was true.'
When he translated this for Arkikov, the three men fell silent, for they were being called upon to make decisions of the gravest import. But there could hardly be three men more eligible to do so. Lars Skjellerup had run his deer to the very top of the world. Mikkel Sana had traveled across Lapland through some of the loneliest terrain on earth. And Arkikov had left his secure homeland in Siberia to trust his luck in Alaska, and had proved his fortitude on this impressive mercy run to Barrow. These were men of resolution, courage and good sense. They were also men jealous of their rights, as the Siberian had just proved in returning to a system of harnessing which he preferred. If one had searched a far territory, he could not have found three men more capable and appropriate than these to go on a prospecting tour. They knew nothing about mining but they knew themselves.
They were unmarried. Skjellerup was the oldest at thirty-four, Sana next at thirty-two, with Arkikov the baby at twenty-eight. In raw intelligence say in the ability to herd forty reindeer for eight months and wind up with fifty-seven, or to find true north when little was visible these men were superior. And of great importance, each man had all his teeth and the constitution of a bull. Mining in Alaska was invented for the benefit of such men.
'I think we should make a try,' said Skjellerup, and Arkikov, hearing these reassuring words, shouted: 'We go many rivers ... find much gold!' And after that joyous but carefully pondered moment of decision, the three never looked back.
In fact, when the delayed trip to the station resumed, Skjellerup looked dispassionately at the flying feet of his marvelous steeds who had performed so well, and thought:
Who would believe it? I'm tired of reindeer.
THEIR SUCCESSFUL RESCUE TRIP TO BARROW OCCASIONED so much favorable publicity that both the Alaska government, such as it was, and the national were prepared to look into further uses of the reindeer, but Skjellerup could express no interest: 'It's time I moved on. Young Eskimos like Ootenai are more than capable.' When his superiors asked: 'What will you do?' he replied: 'I'll find something,' for he was not ready at this point to reveal that he was about to go prospecting.
Everyone who knew this capable man wanted to employ him, the most unusual proposal being that he become the Presbyterian missionary at Barrow. When he explained 'I'm
a Lutheran,' they said: 'Doesn't matter. You're obviously a man of God.'
And he was, in his own way. He loved animals, he could work with anyone, and he revered the earth, which seemed to him a special gift from God. But he was also now at the age when he wanted to work at something which produced money: 'I've served Norway, Lapland, Siberia and Alaska. Now, by damn, I serve Lars Skjellerup.'
In this time of wild movement in Alaska, which had commenced explosively with the discovery of gold along the Yukon, passports and such impedimenta were not in much demand. Of course, both Skjellerup and Sana had documents but they were grossly out of date, and as for Arkikov, he had only his grin. He had been brought to America under unique circumstances and almost any week he could catch a boat back to Siberia, for travel between the two lands was still frequent, convenient and untrammeled.
So on a bright day in late July 1898 the three partners left the station and headed east, taking with them a sled and three Siberian reindeer. Since there was no snow, they allowed one of the deer to pull the empty sled, while their packs were slung across the backs of the other two. They made an interesting study as they set forth on their great adventure, with tall, angular Skjellerup in the rear, tough, lean Sana in the middle and stout, happy Arkikov in front, setting the pace and almost running to get to the first stream.
They were dressed differently too, the Norwegian having adopted the standard dark, heavy clothing of the American prospector, the Lapp retaining his colorful garb, and the Siberian choosing a mixture of the fur clothing used by all the northern peoples.
Their gear was modest but extremely practical and almost entirely handmade. Even the hammers had been given their handles by Arkikov and the sieves had been made by Mikkel Sana.
They started their prospecting by moving east, and at one small stream Arkikov panned enthusiastically, failed to notice the minute colors, and shouted to his companions:
'No gold this one,' so the men moved »n. In this casual way they dismissed one of the richest streams in world history, but they should not be ridiculed for having bypassed a fortune, because during this restive summer many others would do the same.