Pat O'Cotter

I've tramped across her endless miles of tundra,
I've rafted all her rapid flowing streams,
    She's kept me on the hummer,
    I've fought mosquits in summer
And "siwashed" neath Aurora's wintry beams,
    And still, I like Alaska.

I went a winter once on pay streak bacon,
I've gone a year on nothing much but beans,
    I've squandered all my time checks,
    The kind they give us roughnecks,
And haven't got a dollar in my jeans,
    And still, I like Alaska.

I got a stake one time and wandered Outside,
And I'm telling you I surely put on "dog,"
    But they got in between me and my poke
    They sure did clean me
And I hit for Dixon's Entrance, on the "hog,"
    And still, I like Alaska.

I don't suppose a man will live to beat it...

This Land is the orphan kiddie
    Of the group with their stars in the Flag,
And it's looked on Outside as an alien,
    Where its treatment makes honest men gag.
It's treated the same as the harlot
    Who barters her body for pelf
And carries it home to her master
    And is told to look after herself.

Of course we're an orphan, adopted
    When cast off by the great Russian Bear
And our lot's been the lot of an orphan
    And we've had a "stage orphan's" care.
Our coal land was grabbed by our Uncle,
    Our copper and fur by the Jews,
While another gang took all our salmon
    And corrupted our natives with booze.

Sam gave us an Army Commission
    And told it to build us a Trail,
But all that Sam gave was permission--
    He did...

The home of the tin can and dog,
A waste of snow, ice, and moss.
The graveyard of ambitions,
The by-word for hell,
The home of the famed double cross.
Men come here for gold,
Ambitious for wealth
They stick--for they can't get away,
They dig, drink, and die,
And then go to hell,
To pay for their last sucker play--

ALASKA

The China Coast's a dumping ground
    And the South Sea gets its share
Of the kind of men that don't make good
The kind of man that never could
    The men that never care.

A worthless, careless drinking lot
    Combed out from between the Poles.
It's gin, and cards, a woman's breath,
Laughter and love and sudden death
    And the Devil gets their souls.

It's a throwback to a weaker strain
    That's washed by the Tropic tide.
And a mixture of Dago and Japanese
Latin and Jew and Portugese
    Crops out thru a sun-tanned hide.

But the Northland gets a sterner breed
    To fuse in its harder mould.
It's the breed of men that don't know fail;
That's the breed of men that hit the trail
    For the fabled land of gold.

T...

As long as lure o' placer gold
    Brings North the best ye breed,
As long as tales of camps and trails
    Are planted with your seed,
As long as red blood courses thru
    And warms adventure's sons,
They'll sally forth, bound for the North,
    Misfortune's chosen ones.

As long as snow slides claim their toll
    And glaciers split and rend,
And sweepers turn the flimsy craft
    And trails come to an end;
As long as flashing Northern Lights
    Flame in the Arctic sky,
Your boldest ones, your bravest sons
    Come North to win or die.

As long as lust of wealth obtains
    And gold will buy all things,
And bank accounts but mark the line
    'Twixt shovel stiffs and kings;
As long as fancy rides free reined
    And dista...

(A Steal from Kipling)

If you can hit the trail in zero weather
    And laugh at frozen hand, or foot or face;
If you can eat your dogs, and still keep moving
    And beat the rest, and hold the stampede's pace;
If you can stake and dig alone, unaided
    And hold your ground, if needs be with a gun
And find the gold and have some lawyer steal it,
    And lose, and start again, and call it fun.

If you can go a year on mouldy bacon
    And fight the scurvy off with bayo beans;
If you can jump your socks and do your washing
    And smile the while you patch your threadbare jeans;
If you can laugh when sordid hunger mocks you
    And smile while passing strangers eat your grub;
If you can boost when everybody knocks you
    And know him wrong w...

Looking for placer pangar,
    Loafing about in the hills,
Getting your grub with a rifle,
    Taking your drink from rills.
Getting your bed from the spruce tree,
    Taking your course by your dreams,
Just camping alone in the mountains,
    Siwashing along the streams.

Locating the hind sight on Nature,
    Traveling alone and far,
Thinking with no one to guide you,
    Digesting the things that are.
Back trailing the life that's past you,
    Peeping at what's in store,
Pondering over life's mistakes,
    Wondering, how many more.

Dreaming alone of childhood days,
    Regretting some things that are past,
Recalling lost opportunities,
    And chances too good to last.
Living your whole life over,
    Recalling the daily...

A man that's spent years knocking round "out in front"
    Has most usually had lots of pals--
He's mixed up with pardners at various times
    And he's had his affairs with the gals.
Now, a pardner's peculiar in lots of his ways
    And he'll ditch you for various reasons,
And a gal never knows straight up from twice
    And her mind seems to change with the seasons.

I've been in on good ground with pardners I've staked
    And I thought they were square, till I found
They were trying to cross me, the miserable pups,
    And whipsaw me out of my ground.
I've had a few pards that would stand the hard grind
    And they'd stick through hard luck night and day;
They were all you could ask while you rustled for grub,
    But they blew up when you uncovered the "...

For a thousand years the Devil crouched
    On the white hot flags of hell:
For a thousand years the Devil cursed
    The imps that had chained him well;
For a thousand years the Devil sulked
    And planned with his hell-trained brain
Of the things he'd do, when his term was thru,
    And freed from the blistering chain.

He'd even the score with the men of earth,
    And give them back pain for pain,
For all of the days he had felt the blaze
    And the sear of the galling chain.
And it came to pass when his time was up
    And hell's gates were opened wide
That all hell rang, and the clinkered imps sang
    When the Devil passed Outside.

"I have served my time," the Devil said
    As he halted by heaven's gate;
I have sweated in hell fo...

When the stars from the skies have fallen
    And the smoke of the world's cleared away;
When Saint Peter marks "30" in Life's Book
    And we meet there on Judgment Day;
When our trials and troubles are ended
    And we're wise to the best and the worst;
When the time has arrived that the wise ones
    Have told us the last shall be first;

When the men who've made good are rewarded
    And the losers are turned loose in Hell;
That's the time that a lot will be learning
    The true reason and cause that they fell.
And I wonder when Peter gets busy
    As he works out the tenement plan,
And when Heaven's thrown free for location
    Will he confine the locations to man?

If he does, my claim's open for jumping
    For I can't figure Heaven comp...

As one who lays aside a task, where one has ruled alone,
I lay aside the crown of hell, and give to you my throne;
As one who feels his race is run, whose day is of the past,
I recognize your genius, and abdicate at last.
I go and leave you master, and I feel it's just as well,
For Hades lacks its master, until you rule in hell.
The world wags on and changes, old methods now seem weak,
And the changes of a thousand years, of these I fain would speak.

I've raised and sponsored many names, that darken history's page,
I've made them rulers of the world in many a by-gone age.
They all have shown a human turn, from Nero down to you,
But now my life-long dream of a super fiend at last seems coming true.
I've watched you since the faintest spark blazed in your mother's womb,
...

Where the ragged, snow-capped saw tooth
    Cuts the azure of the sky
And watches o'er the lonely land
    As ages wander by;
Where the sentinel pines in grandeur
    Murmur to the glacier stream
As it, ice-gorged, gluts the canyon,
    Never brightened by the gleam
Of sun at brightest noon day,
    Nor moon of Arctic night,
And whose only link with Heaven
    Is the fitful Northern Light.
Where the Whistler shrills in triumph
    And the Big Horn dreams in peace,
Where the Brown Bear skulks to cover
    Up where silence holds the lease;
Where the land is as God left it
    Nor has known the tread of man,
There's a treasure ledge a-waiting--
    Go and find it if you can.

If your heart be steeled to triumph
    Nor beats less at ...

He was born far east of the Rockies
    Of a pet in society's van;
A wine-soaked daughter of pleasure
    Bred back and threw a man;
A man-child who grew up a stranger,
    Who never could learn the way
Of a people who gauge their pleasure
    On a line with the price they pay.

Just a shred of an education--
    A few years of college life,
A course in the card and wine room,
    A year with a chorus-girl wife,
Then disgust with a life unnatural
    Spurred on with the curse of the go,
He quitted that life forever
    For the land of the gold and snow.

The Lure of the Land had gripped him,
    The Land where you die if you fail;
The Land of the fabled fortunes,
    The Land of the endless trail.
The Land of the lonely silence,

My trade was old when the world was new,
    Ere the pyramids rose by the Nile
Men quitted their wives, and gave me their goods
    For the warmth of my kiss, and my smile.
For never was wife who could hold her man
    By the honeymoon's afterglow
Did I veil mine eyes and beckon to him,
    God's truth, and 'tis you who know.

My trade was old when the world was new,
    Long ere Caesar ruled in Rome,
To spend their gold in a harlot's cell
    Patricians quitted home.
And high born dames since the world began
    Have learned to sit and to sigh
And to patiently wait for their lords to leave
    The woman that you pass by.

I'm only a pawn in the game called life,
    Yet I take what you never could hold;
I garner the kisses you'd barter lif...

The dream of the white man ever goes out
    To the fight that can never be won,
And ever he plans to do the things
    That they say can never be done.
It's seldom he values the things that are
    What he craves he may never gain,
Yet ever he tries, till the day he dies
    And then feels he has lived in vain.

He climbs to the top of the highest hills
    To search out the vales afar;
He bedrocks a hole on the deepest creeks
    He hitches his cart to a star.
He's ever the first in the far stampede
    As he chases the rainbow's blend,
But it's not the need, and it's not the greed,
    It's the wanting to win in the end.

And whether he strives in the lofty range
    Or tries in the crowded mart,
The longing to do what has never been don...

Some sigh for the breath of the desert
    Where the stifling heat waves blow;
Some pant for the trackless tundra
    And the sting of the cold and snow;
Some long for the wash of a sultry sea
    As it breaks on a tropic shore;
Some pine for the breeze of the northern seas
    And the sound of the Arctic's roar.

The things that men love be countless
    But they're seldom the same with two,
For the things I care for most of all
    Might never appeal to you.
Some men run to wine and woman,
    Some long for a wife and a home,
And he drifts with the tide, unsatisfied,
    Who leaves these things to roam.

For he hates the sands of the desert
    And the slimy tropic south,
Or his dreams of a northern fortune
    Are as ashes in his mo...

While all Europe is a shambles
    And the whole world is at war,
And half the land the sun shines on
    Is drenched in human gore;
When every Nation counts the men
    It knows are tried and true
We send this message to you, Sam,
    "Alaska stands with you."
You never treated us quite right--
    You grabbed away our coal,
You reserved all our fire wood
    And what we've used, we've stole.
You soaked us on our cable tolls
    But we don't give a damn
Even at twenty-eight cents per word
    WE'RE WITH YOU, UNCLE SAM.

You've squandered untold millions
    On the filthy Philippines,
But you always made Alaskans
    Go and rustle for their beans.
And your black and tan possessions
    Tho they've cost you quite a few
Can nev...

Along in early spring time, as the sun starts swinging North
To linger with the land it loves, and violets peep forth,
When the water starts to running thru the riffle blocks at noon
And you figure that you'll clean up, about the first of June.
You've been thru a long hard winter, but you see the end in sight,
You don't worry 'bout the cleanup, cause you know the pay is right;
But you're feeling sort of restless, as your blood warms with the sun
And your heart will start to itching, when the water starts to run.

You may leave your Camp at evening and mush away to Town
To dally with the hootch a bit, but the feeling will not down.
You may mix up in a poker game, or try the dance hall's lure
But you're fighting off a feeling, that the old cures cannot cure.
You've got that lo...