In a letter to his younger brother, Henry, back home in Great Barrington, Pope gives this description of the conditions when heading for the Stikeen river, a point about 700 miles north of New Westminster, BC:
" ....we set out on our journey into the unknown wilderness, with no guide but the compass, and the certainty that the river Stikeen lay at an unknown distance to the northwest. Our greatest difficulty was caused by the depth, and more especially the lightness of the snow, in which the dogs would sometimes struggle for an entire day, with merely their heads above the surface, we drawing the load ourselves, and sometimes even carrying the dogs on our backs, when they were too much exhausted to move."
All drawings and sketches by Frank L. Pope.
They are from his sketch book that he carried during the
Russian-American Telegraph Expedition.
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