g
will not commit the canine sacrilege of invading the sled. That is a
"Siwash" dog's trick. So there was fresh bedding to manufacture, as well
as supplies for two hundred miles to get together.

A mail once a month went at that time from Fort Yukon to the Koyukuk,
and there was little other travel. The course lay fifty or sixty miles
across country to the Chandalar River, about one hundred miles up that
stream, and then across a divide to the South Fork of the Koyukuk, and
across another to the Middle Fork, on which Coldfoot is situated. It is
not possible to procure any supplies, save sometimes a little fish for
dog food and that not certainly, between Fort Yukon and Coldfoot, so
that provision for the whole journey must be taken.

[Sidenote: THE CHANDALAR]

A new Indian guide had been engaged as far as Coldfoot, and we set
out--three men, two toboggans, and seven dogs; four on the larger
vehicle and three on the smaller, one of the dogs brought by our guide.
Three miles from Fort Yukon we crossed the Porcupine River and then
plunged into the wilderness of lake and swamp and forest that stretches
north of the Yukon. A portage trail, as such a track across country is
called to distinguish it from a river trail, has the advantage of such
protection from storm as its timbered stretches afford. For miles and
miles the route passes through scrub spruce that has been burned over,
with no prospect but a maze of charred poles against the snow, some
upright, others at every angle of inclination. Then comes a lake, with
difficulty in finding the trail on its wind-swept surface and sometimes
much casting about to discover where it leaves the lake again, and then
more small burned timber. Wherever the route is through woods, living or
dead, it is blazed; when it strikes the open, one is often at a loss.
After three or four days of such travel, sometimes reaching an old cabin
for the night, sometimes pitching the tent, one is rejoiced at the
sight of distant mountains and at the intimation they bring that the
inexpressible dreariness of the Yukon Flats is nearly past; and
presently the trail opens suddenly upon the broad Chandalar.

The Hudson Bay voyageurs are responsible for many names in this part of
Alaska, and Chandalar is a corruption of their "Gens de large." The
various native tribes received appellations indicating habitats. A tribe
that differed from most northern Indians, in having no permanent
villages and in livin