The Malamute

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 complete,

If the dim distant trails of the sky land

  Are not pattered by malamutes' feet.

Cause I know it would never seem home-like

  No matter how golden the strand,

If I lose out that pal-loving feeling

  Of a malamute's nose in my hand.

And it's that way with lots of Alaskans

  These men of our own last frontier,

Who tear into nature unaided

  And who scarce know the meaning of fear.

Who live on lone creeks all alone here

  Where the living and dying are hard,

And where oft times their only companion

  Is a malamute pup for a pard.

He's a real chum with things coming easy,

  He's a pal with things breaking tough,

He's a hell-roaring fighting companion

  When somebody starts something rough.

He's a true friend in sorrow and sickness

  And he doesn't mind hunger or cold,

And he's really the only one pardner

  You can trust when you uncover gold.

He's a guard you can trust at the sluice box,

  And he'll watch by your cache thru the night,

And if some cheechako tries to molest it

  That cheechako's in for a fight.

As a pardner he's silent, but cheerful

  With never a kick 'bout the trails

And if it wasn't for him in the winter

  There never would be any mails.

He pulls on our sleds in the winter

  He's first in the rushing stampede

He goes where a horse couldn't travel

  And besides that he rustles his feed.

He takes a pack saddle in summer

  And follows us off thru the hills

And when we go short on the grub pile

  He shares up whatever he kills.

'Twas a malamute first scaled the Chilkoot

  At the time of the great Klondike charge;

'Twas a malamute first saw Lake Bennett

  And left his footprints at La Barge;

They hauled the first mail into Dawson,

  That Land of the Old Timer's dream,

And when Wada first drove in from Fairbanks

  He was driving a malamute team.

They broke the first trail into Bettles

  With no guide save the lone Northern Star;

They freighted next year to Kantishna

  And from there to the famed Chandelar.

They know the long trail to Innoko,

  Tacotna and Iditarod too,

For there's never a Camp in the Northland

  But what these same malamutes knew.

They brought the first sport to the Nome Beach

  Where they showed up in action and deed

That the North dog is game as they make them

  And besides that has plenty of speed.

He came home with the bacon from Candle

  Like a bat out of Hell, thru the snow,

And the plunger that cashed in his "out tab"

  Was his pardner, the Old Sourdough.

So it seems to me kind of unfair now

  As we drift toward that permanent Camp

Where the angels are running a dance hall

  And a millionaire grades with a tramp;

Where the trails are located on pay dirt

  And a grub stake can never expire--

Well, if they shut out my dog, they can keep it

  And I'll "siwash" it, down by Hell's Fire.

They herald the growth of the Northland

  And progress is marked by their trail;

A railroad now goes where they brought out

  The Seward-Iditarod mail.

He's first in the growth of Alaska

  And without him this land would be lost,

For there's never a stream in this country

  That the malamutes' trail has not crossed.

But you can't tell me God would have Heaven

  So a man couldn't mix with his friends;

That we're doomed to meet disappointment

  When we come to the place the trail ends.

That would be a low-grade sort of Heaven

  And I'd never regret a damned sin

If I mush up to the gates, white and pearly,

  And they don't let my malamute in.