Walden of the North

Memories of a Dog-Puncher on the Yukon

De: Arthur T. Walden

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

The incredible true adventures of an enduring team of man and dogs against the wild frontiers of Alaska.

At twenty-four Walden struck out for Alaska. Arriving in the Yukon Territory in the early part of 1896, he was soon hauling freight across the white wilderness by dog-team.

A year later came the Big Rush, sweeping in like a flood, bringing with it every manner of man and woman under the sun, all crazed with dreams of gold, schoolteacher and sportsman, dry-goods clerk and lumberjack, minister and thug, young bride and woman of the streets. Dawson, a single log cabin, became a city of forty thousand. Walden, making trips with freight and mail and passengers behind his dogs, saw it in all its detail.

Prospectors, digging in the beach sands of Behring Sea, across Norton Sound from the mouth of the Yukon, found much gold; and the notorious Nome rose to its zenith. Walden went down the river, crossed to the beach diggings, and spent a winter there fraught with adventure and hardship.

When a few hardy sourdoughs pushed out across the limitless wastes of the Arctic tundra, Walden with them built a cabin and occupied it through the long Arctic winter, their food supplies dried salmon and a small stock of flour that was eked out by mixing with it a third of reindeer moss, thoroughly testing the limits of comradeship and endurance.

Walden has set down his narrative here, from beginning to end, directly and simply, as he would tell it to you before the fireplace, with the dogs about, and the haze of smoke, and the cigarette burning down to a flaking ash. It is history, authentic and firsthand. But it is more than that, A Dog-Puncher on the Yukon is a story of high adventure, keenly sought and splendidly found.

A great collection of stories from the authors time in the klondike and throughout alaska

Highly recommend this book! Walden takes us on adventures throughout the wilds of frontier alaska. Very humorous at times and tragic at others. Laughed out loud many times. Great stories!