Identifier: alaskaklondikego00harr (find matches)
Title: Alaska and the Klondike gold fields : containing a full account of the discovery of gold; enormous deposits of the precious metal; routes traversed by miners; ...
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Harris, A. C
Subjects:
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Monroe Book Company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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intelligent, learning readilyto obey a command to turn in any direction or to stop. Theyhave to be watched closely, as they will attack and devour storesleft in their way, especially bacon, which must be hung up outof their reach. At night, when camp is pitched the moment ablanket is thrown upon the ground they will run into it andcurl up, neither cuffs nor kicks sufficing to budge them. Theylie as close up to the men who own them as possible, and theminer cannot wrap himself up so close that they wont get underhis blanket with him. They are almost human, too, in theirdisinclinations to get out in the morning. Where sleds cannot be used the dogs will carry fifty poundsapiece in saddlebags slung across their backs pannier fashion.Nature has fitted these dogs for their work, and so mastiffs andSt. Bernards are not as serviceable. The two latter breeds can-not stand the intense cold so well, and, though at first they willdraw the sleds cheerfull), their feet cannot resist the strain and
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167 168 HOW TO GET THERE. begin to bleed so freely that the dogs are useless. The padsunder the feet of the Eskimo dogs are of tougher skin. Reindeer are to be entered as rivals of the Esquimo dogs.Twenty sturdy bucks have been selected from the United StatesGovernments reindeer herd at Tellers Station and will be takento Circle City. The design is to materially decrease the cost ofoverland transportation in winter, for the benefit of the miner. Much care has been exercised in the selection of the herd,and not one of its members is less than four and one-half feetin height and seven feet in length. The minimum weight ofthese bucks is 250 pounds, but some of them are twenty-five tofifty pounds heavier than the lightest. All are vigorous, healthyand in good working condition. Their antlers, which curvegracefully backward, are about two and one-half feet in length.Their general color is a soft seal brown, shading into black onthe legs, which are covered with short, glossy hair, to which

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