Produced by Janet Kegg, Sandra Eder and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber notes: Italics is represented with underscore _, bold with the equal sign = and small caps with ALL CAPS. A list of corrections made can be found at the end of the book. [Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL ALASKAN SUMMER] THE LAND OF TOMORROW BY WILLIAM B. STEPHENSON, JR. FORMERLY UNITED STATES COMMISSIONER IN ALASKA ILLUSTRATED [Signet] NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO MY MOTHER ALICE HERSHEY STEPHENSON WITH GREATEST DEVOTION FOREWORD That the Voice of the North calls insistently to him who once has dwelt amidst its snows is neither myth nor legend. It is history. Like the Song of the Lorelei, having heard it once it rings in his ears forever. True, it is a strenuous game which Man plays against Nature in Alaska. There, as nowhere else on earth, he pays the price for what he gets. Yet if you ask one who has loved and left her, one who has lived among her mountains, experiencing alike the bitter winter and the wondrous Alaskan summer, every day of which is perfect beyond the power of words to describe, even though he may deny the call it is not difficult to detect the hidden longing underlying his reply. For it is a fact not to be gainsaid that after such an experience, no matter how much a man may have looked forward to a life of ease after his return, he seldom finds it satisfying. Usually when he goes back home it is to find his old friends scattered or dead. The old pleasures turn to gall and wormwood in his mouth. In time the jar and turbulence of cities get on his nerves. He begins to hear the Voice! The old residents of Alaska, they who have lived there so long that they seem a part of the land itself, always smile grimly when they hear a man begin to curse the land where he has made his wealth and swear that he never wants to see it again. To them it is an old story. They have seen many return to the regions whence they came. And they have seen most of them come back! They alone know the truth of the line from the old Norse legend: "_Dark and true and tender is the North!_"