The gunslinger Wyatt Earp, a legend after his gunfight at the O.K. Corral, moved up to Nome and became co-owner of Dexter's Saloon, the first two-story building in town. Dexter's had a bar downstairs and more than twelve rooms for rent upstairs. The western writer Rex Beach lived here and filled his notebooks with tales of Nome. His book The Spoilers, based on the story of a corrupt federal judge involved in a conspiracy to steal claims, became a best-seller. Tex Rickard started his career staging boxing matches for Nome's miners, then moved on to New York and built Madison Square Garden, becoming one of the first great sports impresarios.
The town sat just 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle, and the sun stayed up for twenty hours and the drinking and brawling went on forever in the sixty-odd bars that sprang up. Player pianos were kept oiled, the dancehall girls charged a dollar a twirl to shuffle across rough-hewn boards, and there was enough money and time to go around forever—or so it seemed.
Coal sold for $100 a ton, eggs were $4 a dozen, and miners doled out pokes of gold dust without a second thought. Gold dust was used as money because there was not enough currency in circulation. Bars, hotels, and stores had weights and scales to measure out the gold, sometimes honestly and sometimes not. One weigher claimed he would use syrup as hair tonic so that when he weighed out the gold with slightly damp fingers and ran his fingers through his hair, he had a sizable stash at the end of each day. Within weeks, many of the miners had gone bust and ended up destitute on the beach. Crime was up: on the creeks, miners armed with guns and knives jumped claims; down on the beach, thieves would creep up to the tents and lower chloroform-drenched rags through the flaps and onto the mouths of sleeping miners. Then they would grab the gold and vanish. "The greed of man went farther here than in any other place I have ever known," one hardened miner recalled.
Governor Brady's federal soldiers managed to establish some semblance of peace, but they found themselves overwhelmed by the sheer numbers in Nome or by the lure of gold. Half of them deserted and fled up the creeks with panning trays. One enlisted man was so concerned by what he had seen that he returned to the states to warn others. "To those who contemplate going to Alaska, to battle with the climate, to cross almost impassable country, to ford streams nearly as cold in the summer as they are during the long Arctic winters, I would say 'don't,' " said Lieutenant H. French.
Nome was well on the road to perdition when, on the afternoon of September 12, 1900, a strong gale blew in from the south with 70-mile-an-hour winds and lifted up the sea. Massive waves fell on shore and battered the town for twenty-four hours. Prospectors who had stayed behind in their tents were said to have been swept out to sea, and as the ocean rose, the waves crashed all the way up to Front Street and beyond. The storm splintered buildings and hurled lighters and boats onto the street, smashing whatever was in the way. Shards of glass, wood, and metal sailed through the air, mining contraptions tumbled over, and a number of ships were sunk.
As the storm died down, a crowd of townspeople lined up along the beach in silence and watched as a phantom ship drifted toward shore in full sail. It was the triple-masted schooner Sequoia, believed to have been lost at sea years earlier. The ship had been another victim of the Bering Sea, the graveyard of the Pacific, and it brought with it an ominous message: Nome would be no easy ride.
As the waves receded and debris piled up on the shore, thousands of prospectors who had survived months of lawlessness, drunkenness, and poverty decided they'd had enough. They stood quietly in long lines on the beach and waited for the next ship out. They were called the "cold feets," and they all had one thing in common: they could no longer bear the thought of another day in Nome.
By late October, most of the twenty thousand men and women who had arrived a few months earlier had shipped out. Someone would later comment that "even God leaves on the last boat" out of Nome. This would bear repeating every fall.
The storm marked the end of the rush to Nome. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, the town had up and vanished from the headlines and no longer existed.
But as the last boat left in October 1900, roughly five thousand miners chose to stay and build up from the ruins. Some had fallen in love with the north, others had taken a shine to the unpretentious ways of Alaskan society. Others simply had nowhere else to go.
The Klondike and Nome stampedes transformed Alaska. With the near doubling of Alaska's population between 1890 and 1900, new trails were cleared and existing ones widened and improved. The federal government set up military posts in Nome and St. Michael as well as in the Interior, where new mining camps and towns had sprung up, and soldiers strung up telegraph wires so the forts and towns could communicate with each other and with the states. By 1903, Nome had become part of an impressive telegraph system operated by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and the territory's overwhelming isolation was significantly reduced. 3 In addition, the federal government established a mail delivery service, which in winter relied upon dog teams. One route ran all the way northeast to Nome.
3. Messages from Nome to the states went over three handlings: radio, telegraph, and submarine cable. The U.S. Signal Corps made several attempts to link Nome via a submarine cable across Norton Sound to St. Michael, but the constant shifting of the ice across the seabed floor repeatedly carried the cable out to sea. With no other option available, the Corps turned to the relatively new technology of "wireless telegraphy"; it built 200-foot towers at each end of Norton Sound, 133 miles apart, and successfully made Nome a part of the system. The radio link, however, was not without its own temporary problems. A blizzard in 1904 tore the roof off the station on the Nome side, filling the room up with snow and killing the fire in the potbelly stove that kept the operators warm. In a matter of seconds the temperature inside the station dropped to nearly 70 below and the water in the 6-horsepower gasoline engine that ran the generator froze, cracking the cylinder.
The arrival of the mail team was among the most exciting events to watch in Nome. It was not uncommon for the driver to have twenty-five dogs pulling two sleds with a i,50©-pound load, and when they arrived they were snubbed down securely to a telephone pole before a crowd in front of the post office. No other draft animal was more suited for travel in the north, and in Nome, as well as in much of Alaska, "if you didn't own a dog team, or if you didn't have a lot of money, you walked," as one Alaskan U.S. Deputy Marshal, Bert Hansen, put it. From the beginning, Nome depended on its dogs. Teams were drafted into service as mail trucks, ambulances, freight trains, and long-distance taxis. The demand for sled dogs was so high, particularly during the northern gold rushes, that the supply of dogs ran out and a black market for the animals sprang up in the states. Any dog that looked as if it could pull a sled or carry a saddlebag— whether or not it was suited to withstand the cold—was kidnapped and sold in the north. "It was said at the time that no dog larger than a spaniel was considered safe on the streets" of West Coast port towns, said one sled dog historian.
Drivers liked to work with large dogs because they often carried loads one and a half times heavier than their teams. Newfoundlands, St. Bernards, and hounds were popular imports, and they were crossbred with the indigenous dog population. In Nome, the imports were bred with malamutes, named after the Eskimo Mahlemuit people. Over the past several hundred years, the Eskimos had used and bred their dogs to freight heavy loads for relatively short distances. When miners crossbred the Native dogs with Newfoundlands and St. Bernards, the outcome was sometimes astonishing: mutts that weighed as much as 125 pounds. The malamute nearly disappeared, yet its name lived on; miners in Nome as well as in the Interior often called their mixed-bred dogs malamutes.
Alaska's most skillful drivers and trainers were well known throughout the territory. Nome resident Scotty Allan acquired a reputation early on for being able to subdue even the most reprobate of canines and transform them into hardworking, loyal sled dogs. With his soft Scottish accent and patient temperament, he could "gentle anything on four legs
."
Putting together a team took time and skill: dogs did not come in teams and each member was selected for its relative speed, strength, and gait so that it would match the other dogs in the string. The animals were taught directional commands and to move and think in unison. Each had its own personality, and it was not always easy to bring them in line.
Generally, the teams were set up in pairs on either side of the main line, or gang line, attached to the front of the sled. The dog in front (sometimes there were two) was called the leader and was the smartest of the team. Behind the leader were several pairs of "swing dogs" and closest to the sled were the "wheel dogs," the biggest and strongest of the team. Sleds were generally between 9 and 14 feet in length and made of hickory or birchwood. They were lashed together with rawhide for greater flexibility and had a curved piece in front called a brush bow that acted like a bumper and protected the sled against shrubs or trees. If the driver, who stood on runners extending out from the back, was carrying a particularly heavy load or driving uphill, he could help the dogs along by pedaling with one leg as if he were on a scooter or push from behind at a jog.
On the Alaskan trail, the sled dogs became partners in a game of survival. Drivers depended on their dogs so that they could make a living as freighters, mailmen, and trappers, and relied on the animals' skill and intelligence to get them safely across the rough, dangerous terrain. In return for their labor, the dogs required care and protection.
The majority of the residents in Nome owned their own team, and the dogs seemed to rule the streets. At one point dogs became such a hazard that the town passed a law requiring them to wear bells. There were more dogs than people and their howls, known as "the malamute chorus," could always be heard throughout the night. The dogs of Nome were almost as important as the citizens. Many roamed free when they were not working and some accompanied their masters into the saloons. An attorney named Albert Fink, who years later would defend Al Capone, would tip his hat whenever he passed a husky he particularly respected, and he once managed to persuade a jury that his sled dog Peg was acting in self-defense when he slaughtered twenty-eight sheep owned by the Pacific Cold Storage Company.
"Is Alaska a dog country or a sheep country?" he asked the jury. "Look at my star wheeler—look at Peg—look at that ear mangled by murderous mutton—look at his eyes, his noble head. Gentlemen— choose."
The jury found the dog's owner innocent and in their verdict explained that in Nome, sheep had to look out for themselves: "This aims to be a dog country."
Owners bragged endlessly about their teams and detailed the courage and skill of their lead dogs. They would fight anyone who dared to criticize their faithful companions, and they bet on who had the strongest, fastest, and smartest animal. In the saloons of this newly decorous town, it was not uncommon for fists to fly over such claims.
In the fall of 1907, around the wood-burning stove at the Board of Trade Saloon, Albert Fink, Scotty Allan, and a few friends established the Nome Kennel Club with the intention of organizing a dogsled race. Over the next several weeks, Fink and his colleagues devised a long-distance race like no other. The 408-mile, round-trip trek through every imaginable terrain would test the mettle, intelligence, and endurance of dog and driver. The route ran between the ice hummocks of the Bering Sea, up mountains, over the tundra, and through a blizzard-swept chute called Death Valley. It followed the telegraph lines linking the mining villages on the Seward Peninsula, and would thus allow gamblers and enthusiasts to track the race from the relative safety of the town's saloons. For the first fifty miles, the trail ran east along the blustery coast and up Topkok Mountain, a steep, 600-foot incline rising up over the sea. It turned inland and climbed steadily through willow and cottonwood bush, then across creeks and rivers to Council, a mining settlement eighty miles from Nome. The route snaked through valleys, tiptoed along ridge tops as narrow as a sled was wide, and sloped off in half-mile-long drops. Then, about 120 miles into the race, the trail entered Death Valley.
If the musher had survived this far, he climbed a glacier to cross over the Continental Divide—the boundary line separating the Pacific and Arctic Ocean watersheds. Thirty miles farther lay the turnaround mark, the village of Candle, which was situated near Kotzebue Sound on the north shore of the peninsula. An exhausted and sleep-deprived driver would have to turn around and face the same terrible 204 miles all over again.
Officials called it the All Alaska Sweepstakes. Others called it "reckless." The inhabitants of Nome, however, welcomed the race with enthusiasm. They were tired of the deadly dullness of the seven-month-long winter, and donated time and money to preparations for the first race. It took place in April 1908 and was such a success that it became an annual event until 1917, when World War I intervened, severely disrupting Alaska's economy.
The All Alaska Sweepstakes transformed the isolated town. By the start of each race every April, Nome became a frenzied festival. Miners from the Seward Peninsula came down and every dog team owner dreamed of winning the thousands of dollars in prize money. (The first year the prize was $10,000.) Year after year, news of the event was covered widely across Alaska and in the states, and Nome, now "Dog Capital of the World," was once again in the headlines. There was no other race like it at the time—as the official race pamphlet said, it "easily towers above all other contests of physical endurance, for both man and beast."
Bunting and brightly colored pennants representing the colors of each team hung across the street, and the gold and yellow flags of the Kennel Club snapped in the breeze at the starting line at Barracks Square. Storekeepers hung signs reading Gone to the Dogs on their doorknobs, and the gamblers and spectators were out in force. At race time, they would crowd close to the line and invariably delay the start. Bartenders dressed in white waistcoats left their jobs to catch a glimpse, and those who could not squeeze through the crowds climbed up the telephone poles and onto rooftops for a better view.
As the race began, the crowds rushed to the saloons. The Board of Trade became race headquarters and was usually the most crowded. Here, the names of the drivers were listed on a large rectangular chalkboard across the room from the mahogany bar, next to paintings of nude drunken revelers.
As the drivers passed each telegraph station on the course, the "Information Kid" would record the changing positions and times and the gamblers would press up close to decipher his scrawl. The books stayed open nearly until the end of the four-day race, the odds shifting as quickly as the gamblers could buy drinks. It was chaos: one spectator said it was less like gambling and "more like dealing on the stock exchange."
In the first years of the sweepstakes, Scotty Allan won most of the races, and for years his team were considered Alaska's top dogs. Allan had a natural gift with animals and had trained horses and dogs since he was a twelve-year-old in Scotland. To prepare for the sweepstakes, he experimented with the dogs' diets and spent hours in the kennels examining the paws of each dog, trimming the claws so that they would not catch in the snow, and greasing between the pads. He made rabbit-fur covers for his team, which had shorter hair than most of the local dogs, and designed booties for their feet, which were more tender and prone to injury. He designed racing harnesses that were lighter and less cumbersome and made the traditional freight sled lighter and he replaced its handlebars with a crossbar that made it easier to push. His basic designs are still in use today.
By late 1915, word of Allan's reputation for handling sled dogs had reached the French army, which turned to him for help in the war against Germany. Supply lines to army units in eastern France had become hindered by deep snow and the French had heard that the sled dogs of Nome could succeed where horses and mules had failed. Allan needed more than four hundred sled dogs for this secret mission. To avoid skyrocketing prices, he went around Nome and its surrounding villages and quietly bought up 106 dogs, and harnesses and sleds, as well as 2 tons of dried salmon for food.
To transport the animals, he rigged up
a 300-foot towline and attached the dogs in pairs to the heavy rope. The end of the towline was hooked to two draft horses and a heavy carriage that held the dogs back in case they got too excited or tried to flee. A crowd watched as Allan drove the team up a bobbing gangplank to a barge and then out to a ship waiting offshore. They sailed to Canada, where they boarded a guarded train and traveled to Quebec; there Allan assembled over 300 more dogs from the Canadian Arctic, 60 sleds, and 350 harnesses. Then Allan and his "Ko Corps" sailed to France on the Pomeranian, an old cargo ship that had recently been brought out of retirement.
Once on shore, Allan divided the dogs into sixty teams and trained fifty cavalrymen to drive them. They hauled 90 tons of ammunition to a stranded unit in the Vosges Mountains, and helped soldiers lay down communication lines to a detachment that had been cut off by the Germans. In addition, they hauled in the wounded to field hospitals. "It was enough to make one forget all about the war, even when the shells were singing, to see a line half a mile long of dog teams tearing down the mountain to the base depot, every blue devil whooping and yelling and trying to pass the one ahead," Allan remembered.
The reputation of the sweepstakes also helped to turn Nome into a magnet for explorers and adventurers who needed dogs and guides for northern expeditions, and the town became a way station for crews en route to the Arctic's upper reaches. It was also the last chance for explorers to outfit their crews with sturdy equipment, men, dogs, and fur clothes. Most of the residents and visitors to Nome relied heavily upon the local Eskimo community. Apart from working menial jobs for the town's mining companies and other concerns, they manufactured the large majority of clothes, harnesses, and sleds. In 1905, a missionary had set up a cooperative behind St. Joseph's Church where the Eskimos could make fur parkas and sledding equipment with traditional tools. These were sold to the locals and to arctic explorers who passed through the town, including Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Roald Amundsen.
The Cruelest Miles: the Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic Page 3