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YOUR OPPORTUNITIES
W H E N the home country
gets crowded, and Big
Business seems to have
possession of all the big
chances, the man with
small means unconsciously thinks of
trying his luck in a new field. For the
American this field is Alaska.
Alaska is the last frontier American
land, and that is where every American
now has his one great chance to "get in
on the ground floor". When affairs begin
to hum in the far North, as they
will shortly, Alaska will want men for
her farms, her mines, her railroads, her
fisheries, her lumber camps; she will
need storekeepers, dentists, moving-picture
operators, hardware merchants,
school teachers. Whoever can qualify
will have his chance.
The gigantic opportunities open to
him may be guessed from a few simple
comparisons. Alaska is nearly as large
as Germany, France, and Spain combined.
Norway, Sweden, and Finland,
to which Alaska is more than favorably
comparable in climate, and the area of
which is only three-quarters that of
Alaska, sustain a permanent population
of eleven millions, while poor, overgrown
Alaska, weighted down with wealth, can
IN ALASKA
By M O N R O E W O O L L E Y
boast of less than one hundred thousand
inhabitants, native and white, and man)
of the latter are there only when the
seasons are salubrious!
This scarcity of population is the reason
why Alaska will be so good a prospect
for live men within the next few
years. A multitude of raw products
which we lack within the continental
limits of the United States will be supplied
to us from the overgrown territory
bought for a song by the sharp and sensible
Seward. We have no tin mines,
a material in demand every day all over
the world, but Alaska has loads of tin.
W r e can never go bankrupt for the want
of coal with which to keep the wheels of
industry churning, so long as we retain
the Alaskan fields; and with famine
strutting over the home country we can
never starve with Alaska flourishing
with cattle ranges, salmon shoals, and
farming fields. And then there is timber.
fur, gold, copper—wealth unbounded.
Alaska offers a rich harvest to those who
will go and reap.
As we have seen, Alaska can furnish
the world with agricultural and livestock
products; minerals of all sorts, including
gold, tin, copper, iron, coal, and probably
petroleum and petroleum products:
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