Richard Morenus - Alaska Sourdough: The Story of Slim Williams

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Text originally published in 1956 under the same title.

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Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

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ALASKA SOURDOUGH

THE STORY OF SLIM WILLIAMS

BY

RICHARD MORENUS

Contents

When I finished writing Alaska Sourdough, I asked Slim Williams about a dedication for the book. He cocked his head sort of sideways, squinted at the match flame as he lighted a brown-paper cigarette he had just rolled, took a puff, and said:

I wouldnt know much about a dedication, Dick, less it might be to the partners I had in Alaska, fellows Ill never forget. Slim puffed, tossed the cigarette away, and began rolling a new one. But I guess Gladys would be first in a dedication. Gladys an me been married a long time, an I wouldnt change it. He lighted the cigarette. Then, I guess about the best friend me an Gladys ever had is Carl Backman. Carls managed me ever since I started lecturin in 1934. Theres only one Carl. Slim thought a moment. Then I guess a book about me ought to be dedicated to the Indians and Eskimos who were kind to me in the thirty-two years I roamed Alaska. Good friends, them fellows. And above all...a dedication to my dogs...the best in the world.

There is Slim Williams dedication, and mine is added, to Nora, my wife.

If only youll let me spin my yarn .

and seeing as how its you,

Ill tell you the tale of a Northern trail,

and so help me God, its true.

Slim Williams was hungry and tired. He had eaten almost nothing for the past two days; he had hardly slept at all for almost two weeks; besides, in spite of the fact that for fifteen days he and some three hundred other humans, all male, and a weird assortment of animals had been crowded onto a ship whose passenger capacity was one hundred, he had spoken to no one. All this was very serious to a normal, friendly six-foot-three-inch, 160-pound, eighteen-year-old boy.

This morning was raw and cold. Slim leaned on the bow rail, staring gloomily ahead into the cold, clammy predawn mist, and tried hard to recapture the enthusiasm that had caused him to spend $31.00, practically every cent he had in the world, for passage to Alaska. In Seattle it hadnt bothered him in the least that he didnt know where Alaska was, nor that all he did know about it was waterfront talk. The talk had been of gold, newly discovered there, and that to Slim meant a bright promise of adventure. Right at the moment, however, sixteen hundred miles later, his future seemed as dull and dismal as the fog around him.

The ships whistle blasted, then in a moment it blasted again. This had been going on regularly for some time, an hour or more. Slim listened to twin echoes, one from the right and one from the left. The sound was obviously bouncing back from invisible cliffs along the shore. The ship moved forward with bare steerageway. Slim reasoned that the pilot was hearing his way through a channel, and the ship was safely in the middle as long as the echoing sounds reached it simultaneously. Now the echoes took longer and longer to return, and as they grew fainter, Slim guessed that they had reached the open water of a bay. He was right. A moment later the ship slithered onto bottom sludge left almost bare by low tide. Bells clanged and men shouted. The propeller beat a futile reverse, but the ship dug into the mud, listed slightly, and settled. There she would stay until the rising tide would lift her free.

As if this were a signal, men poured from cabins and the innards of the ship until the deck was jammed. Hell literally broke loose. Poker games, drinking parties, and fights had stopped for the first time during the trip. Most of the passengers were getting their first breath of fresh air and sight of daylight in many days.

The mist had begun to thin, and the dim outline of shore became visible about a half-mile ahead. There was no physical danger, but the men ran about in near panic. Lifeboats were cut free and lowered, rope ladders went overside, and in the hurry more men fell off into the water than reached it by climbing down. The freight doors along the ships sides opened and horses, dogs, burros, even goats, were shoved overboard into the bay, with their owners holding the lead ropes and splashlanding with them. Soon the ship was empty except for the officers and crew.

Slim grabbed his packsack, which held his only possessions, and went overside with the others. The ship became a dim shadowy hulk as he waded shoreward through knee-deep gummy ooze and icy water. When he stopped to rest, men appeared as dark cursing specters, looming out of the haze and sloshing past him. They carried bags, boxes, some even had trunks on their backs; others were tugging or towing their resentful animals. Ahead Slim saw the yellow flicker of fires along the shore. At least these promised warmth, and, he hoped, food. He hunched his packsack to a more comfortable spot and slogged on after the others.

When he reached the shore, Slim stood and looked about dazedly. There was neither form nor arrangement in the temporary encampment. The ground along the shore was a morass of freezing mud that had been tracked out of the bay, and beyond that lay snow. The town, if it could be called that, was Valdez. Located on a glacial mud flat, it was ringed in, to the waters edge, by mountains. Through these, glacier passes afforded entrance to the land beyond. Gold had been discovered near Fairbanks, Alaska, and Valdez and her glacier passes were to Alaska what Skagway and the Chilkoot were to the Dawson Creeks in Canadas Yukon Territory. Valdez Harbor, because of the Japan Current, was ice free the year round, but the town, the passes, and the mountains received no such protection. Winters were long, snow was measured by the foot, and the blizzard winds and searing cold of the passes were known by the lives they took.

Hundreds of men, in groups or singly, milled around. They hugged fires, drying out; others looked after their outfits; some were putting up tents or caring for their animals. These men were far too occupied with their own misery to bother over the troubles of a lone, wet, hungry kid. Each group Slim tried to join either shoved him aside or ignored him.

Being alone was nothing new to Slim. He had been on his own ever since he could remember, from the time when, barely big enough to sit a saddle, he had ridden herd on his fathers small cattle setup in South California. Afterward, through the years, he had roamed the Southwest and West, sometimes living with the Indians, but more often by himself. Slim had always been self-sufficient and had never learned to be lonesome. He had never known what it was to feel sorry for himself. Even now it wasnt the fact that these men paid no attention to him that bothered him. His need was not for companionship, it was for food.