Fairbanks County AK Archives News.....George Howard  May 8, 1911
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Sherri Bradley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000051 April 17, 2010, 12:41 am

The Alaska Citizen May 8, 1911
(In memory of George Howard, an old Yukon pioneer, who froze to death on the 
trail near Diskaket, on  December 16, 1910)

Will you let an Alaskan Pioneer
Who is just in from the hill
Say a few words in memory
Of one who lies cold and still
I spent a winter with this Yukon pioneer,
Who told me tales of hardship
And never shed a tear.

He was always generous-hearted
And would never let you pass
Without saying to you, "Stranger,
Come on in and break our fast."
One spring he came to Fairbanks,
But he never was fond of town;\
But he never was fond of town;
So he loaded up his poling boat
Then hepoled up the Kantishna
Where he heard they'd made a strike.
But soon found pencil miners
Had staked everything in sight.

So he drifted down the Yukon.
Poled up the Iditarod;
That winter old George Howard
Was very poorly shod.
Then he floated in to Dikeman
On the first of last July,
And he told me hard luck stories
That would almost make you cry,
How he'd wintered without bacon
In the drifting hills of snow.
Discouraged, weary, undecided-
Didn't know just where to go

But he hiked into the Ditna,
Where he'd heard they'd found some gold;
But again was disappointed.
And the mush was long and cold.
So he sat him down the trail
So weary with the quest,
And they found him there next morning-
You old timers know the rest
He has gone upon his last stampede.
Where they have no gold or snow.
And we know that he's in heaven.
Where all old pioneers go.

Dedicated to Igloo No. 4, Pioneers of Alaska Fairbanks by
S.T. KINCAID
Iditarod, March 28, 1911.


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