an and the dog
man in Alaska.

[Sidenote: ARMY POSTS AND NATIVES]

At last, after a night at "Old Station," we came in sight of Tanana,
where is Fort Gibbon, the one the name of the town and the post-office,
the other the name of the military post and the telegraph office. The
military authorities refuse to call their post "Fort Tanana" and the
postal authorities refuse to allow the town post-office to be called
"Fort Gibbon," so there they lie, cheek by jowl, two separate places
with a fence between them--a source of endless confusion. A letter
addressed to Fort Gibbon is likely to go astray and a telegram addressed
to Tanana to be refused. Stretching along a mile and a half of river
bank, and beginning to come into view ten miles before they are reached,
the military and commercial structures gradually separate themselves.
Here to the left are the ugly frame buildings--all painted
yellow--barracks, canteen, officers' quarters, hospital, commissariat,
and so on. Two clumsy water-towers give height without dignity--a
quality denied to military architecture in Alaska. To the right the town
begins, and an irregular row of one and two story buildings, stores,
warehouses, drinking shops, straggle along the water-front.

Unlike most towns in interior Alaska, Tanana does not depend upon an
adjacent mining camp. It owes its existence first to its geographical
position as the central point of interior Alaska, at the confluence of
the Tanana and Yukon Rivers. Most of the freight and passenger traffic
for Fairbanks and the upper river is transshipped at Tanana, and
extensive stocks of merchandise are maintained there. The army post is
the other important factor in the town's prosperity, and is especially
accountable for the number of saloons. Not only the soldiers, but many
civilian employees, are supported by the post, and when it is understood
that three thousand cords of wood are burned annually in the military
reservation, it will be seen that quite a number of men must find work
as choppers and haulers for the wood contractors. Setting aside the
maintenance of the telegraph service, which has already been referred
to, it may be said without unfairness that the salient activities of the
army in the interior of Alaska are the consumption of whisky and wood.
There is no opportunity for military training--for more than six months
in the year it is impossible to drill outdoors--and the officers
complain of the retrogression of