Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 April 1893 — FROM THE LAND OF ICE [ARTICLE]

FROM THE LAND OF ICE

THE EXHIBIT OF ALASKA AT THE WORLD’S FAIR. Displays of Furs, Minerals and Native Woods—War Canoes and Other Things. Anthropologists as well as people who do not care much for pottery, fetiches and such things will find many objects in Alaska’s exhibit (in charge of Lieutenant Emmons, of Uncle Sam’s Navy) to interest them. The fish display alone will embrace seventy or more specimens. Those have been stuffed and mounted by F. E. Frobese, taxidermist to the Alaska Ethnological society. There will be seen in the collection halibut weighing 150 pounds each and tiny korishky scarcely two inches in length. Then there will be needle fish, many spccimans of trout found in the waters of Alaska and salmon weighing sevonty pounds each. The display of furs will be one of the richest exhibited by any country. It has been loaned to the government by Messrs. Koehler and James, of Juneau, Alaska, and includes sea otters, silver fox, seal, bear, wolf, mink, lynx and wolverine. A single pelt of a soa otter in the exhibit is worth $500. The fur of the blue or glacial bear will also be a feature of the display. A box scarcely larger than a tomato crate holds $2,000 worth of these valuable furs. It stands In the lieutenant’s office with its covering of boards held together by a hundred nails and the eyes of a guard glaring down upon it when strangers in that portion of the building are numerous.

The exhibit of the nntivo woods of Alaska will surely be of interest to lumbermen in all parts of the world. There has been a vaguo idea in the minds of many people that the faraway territory of America is scarcely more than u oountry locked in ice and snow, with bears grinning down from glacial heights. Lieutenant Emmons’ exhibit will servo to dispel this popular but ignorant belief. There will be seen in the display all the woods of Southeastern Alaska, which include alder, hemlock, rod and yellow cedar and spruce. Sections of these trees, with the bark still clinging on thorn, will be exhibited in the forestry department of the collection. There will also be displayed specimens of yellow cedar, which will be remarkable for their polish. This wood, Lieutenant Emmons says, is excellently adapted to the most intricate designs in carving and cabinet work, and is popularly called the sandalwood of tho North. Unfortunately, however, the woods of Alaska are not permitted to leave tho country, and thus the giant forests remain in all thoir primeval beauty and vastnoss. Were it not for this restriction the spruco would find a ready sale in California, where it is greatly needed for fruit boxes and crates. The mineral collection is contributed by tho mining districts of Harris, Berners Bay, Sumdrin and Sitka, and consists of 1,700 panels. The southeastern section of the territory and the valley of the Yukon are rioli in gold and silver, but owing to the mountainous country and the almost tropical growth of underbrush, induced by the humidity of *the climate, tho minerals are difficult of access. Gold is to be found in almost every mountain stream and there are rich ledges in the Juneau and Sitka districts. Along the coast there is little or no placer mining. Quartz crops out of the hillside, but notwithstanding these inducements to the ever-plodding prospector Lieutenant Emmons says that a poor man stands but little show of bettering his condition there. It is capital that is needed, he says, and until this is brought into the country the development of the mineral resources will be slow and unsatisfactory.

Besides the display of gold and silver there will be a line exhibit of coal, asbestos and copper. The Alaska Treadwell Gold and Mining Company, which operates 240 stamps, will display several bricks of lead, heavily plated with gold. The ethnological exhibit is the personal property of Lieutenant Emmons, and was gathered during his long term of service as a naval officer stationed in Alaska, It is probably one of the most complete of its character to be found at the fair. It will illustrate the life, manners, habits, traditions and practices of the native tribes from Dixon’s entrance on the south to and through the arctic, and will consist of building and Ashing implements, stone, ivory, bone and copper utensils, ceremonial and feast dresses, basketry and mat work ond the articles used by tne medicine men or doctors in effecting cures. Still another feature of this collection will be war canoes, sea otter canoes from the Mount Elias district, birch bark canoes from the Yukon, and a skin canoe from Bering Sea. The war canoe, which will attract much attention, is 80 feet long with a A foot beam, and is capable of seating fifty warriors. It is of ancient and barbaric pattern, mode from one log, and belonged years and years ago to Shakes, the hereditary chief of theStiokheenan tribe. When old Shakes went to war in this boat it was with a ferocious display of bear heads at the bow and stern. These were carved in wood, but the teeth were those of the beast himself. The carvings are in the possession of Lieutenant Emmons, and will be attached to their proper places when the exhibit is finally installed in the government building.—[Chicago Herald.