This is only one instance of hundreds which are a matter of personal knowledge. I know of four sisters who came to this country after a hard struggle in the States. They bought a few wash tubs and opened a laundry. Two of them mended for the miners. The other two washed and ironed. They netted a hundred dollars a day! Two of them married. The other two opened a millinery and dry goods store. They made a fortune. They live in the west now and could live in affluence if they so desired. They have invested in government bonds and other safe securities and are the best exemplification of the possibilities of the Great North that I know. One thing which I should like to make plain and which is an item of value to the prospective resident is this: Alaska is a country where unfair dealing or trickery is not tolerated. In the early days when food was worth its weight in gold, when one was forced to pay fifteen dollars for an oyster stew and one dollar for a cup of coffee, this fact was made plain and nobody has tried it since to my knowledge. A fellow who had set up an eating house was caught one day putting sperm candles in the soup to give it a rich flavor. The miners made short work of that man. They put him in a boat, took away the oars and set him adrift down the Yukon! In my first years in this country the appearance of the first boat which got through the ice in the spring was a great event. We knew it would bring us fresh vegetables and eggs. This was before the days when we raised crops of any kind. Cheerfully we paid the fabulous prices for tomatoes, grape fruit, eggs and such things. And not infrequently we ate all that we purchased at one sitting! In listing the business opportunities in Alaska perhaps one may as well begin with that most important asset of any country,--the land itself. Any of the valleys on Cook Inlet contain many acres of good agricultural land, some of which is timbered. The coast line from Wrangell to the Aleutian Peninsula, split by many streams, has also many acres. The better place to locate, however, is near the large towns. The Susitna and Matanuska valleys hold the coal fields and near them are thousands of acres where the wild hay for cattle grows in great abundance. There is much less loss of stock in Alaska in winter than in Montana and the Dakotas. The coldest day on the Alaskan coast last winter south of the Aleutian Islands was above zero. For fifteen years (and this is as long as the records have been kept) there has never been a week when the average temperature has been as cold as that of New York, Washington or Philadelphia. Alaska's climate gives the lie to her latitude. It is, of course, the Japan current which transforms this part of Alaska. What magic it works,--this warm, life-giving stream! It clothes the northern isles in green vegetation, makes the silk-worm flourish far north of its rightful locality and brings warmth and joy to the dwellers of the Far North.