Day 57 - April 8, 1908 Valdez, AK Tenacious Competitors!
Crossing the United States in the dead of winter had been an ordeal by any measure. The 42 days it took us not only weighed heavily on the Flyer, but on ourselves as well. With less than 1/5 of the distance we would ultimately travel now behind us, we knew that what lay ahead would be an enormous challenge. This would include Artic regions, the vast tundra of Siberia and Manchuria all far tougher than what we had already faced in the US.
The plan looked relatively simple on paper. We would ship from San Francisco to Valdez, Alaska then drive to Fairbanks a distance of 378 miles, then drive on the frozen Yukon River for 600 miles to St. Michael. From there it would be on to Nome about another 300 miles. If we got that far, crossing the frozen Bering Strait and the vast regions of Siberia should be no great problem. At least this was the assumption of the New York Times race planner, whose mission had been to detail the race course. He had reported earlier that the snow up to 10 feet deep would freeze so solidly at night that it would support the weight of a car on its surface. How we were to get from St. Michael to Nome was not very clear, but by the time a car would get there, the experience a driver would have gained by then would help them continue. We took some stock in his assumptions, which later proved absurd.
Our voyage from San Francisco to Seattle on the City of Pueblo was relatively uneventful, and I was so tired that I slept most of the two day voyage. We arrived at noon on Sunday March 29. At the wharf I met a slender gray-eyed young man named George MacAdam. He was sent by the Times to replace T. Walter Williams our earlier reporter who had quit the Race in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. MacAdam was younger and appeared to be a more durable chap. We now had three “Georges” on the Flyer, George MacAdam, George Miller, and myself. I often would answer to “Schus” to minimize the confusion.
When I arrived at the Butler Hotel, I found a letter from my wife Rose simply addressed to “George Schuster, driver of the Thomas Flyer, Somewhere around the world.” The U.S. Post office had certainly done its job! My wife also sent me a Winchester 30-30 rifle and a shotgun. Each man carried a large caliber holstered pistol, which would serve as our last line of defense.
It was in Seattle I met Dr. Shaw who made me a present of what today you might call a first aid kit. We had not previously fully considered what we would do with serious injury or infection. My remedy for dysentery (which we would often suffer) was to take a shot of brandy or whiskey and run behind the Flyer as it was moving forward. I would build up a sweat which would break the fever, and offer a cure. Now we had 24 vials of the wonder drugs of the day, including boric acid, nitroglycerine, and morphine. Dr. Shaw also provided a small, hand lettered book of instructions with various ailments and the corresponding numbered vile including dosage for the remedy.
We made additional repairs and modifications to the Flyer. We relocated the 35 gallon fuel tank higher for better gravity feed and behind the driver’s seat which gave us a total of 55 gallons on board. E.L. “Eddie” Thomas, son of the head of the company was there to wish me good luck and gave me a letter of credit for 1,000 pounds sterling (then about $4,800) with a letter from his father giving me authority over the car and its crew. Prior to boarding the Santa Clara on April 1, we also loaded a crate of homing pigeons. MacAdam would use the birds to fly his dispatches from the ship back to Seattle, where the messages would then be telegraphed to New York for the next edition of the New York Times. Later, seagulls following the ship would foil that plan.
I had a copy of Luigi Barizini’s recently published book “Peking to Paris in a Motor Car” which described his experiences during that race in 1907. It was the Peking race which inspired the New York to Paris event we were now engaged in. My plan was to read that book on the voyage north to Valdez, but the weather was so rough everyone got seasick. I was only able to read a little.
We landed in Valdez on April 8, and it was quite a sight. The Flyer was the first automobile ever seen in Alaska, and the entire population of Valdez was there on the pier to greet us. The local band even serenaded us, thought they had not played since the prior 4th of July. They were in need of considerable practice.
In the crowd was a man by the name of Dan Kennedy who operated the Valdez-Fairbanks mail stage line. The Captain of the Santa Clara pointed him out saying he was the man I should talk to. Kennedy did not know the capabilities of an auto as he had never seen one, but he did know a lot about Alaska. He offered to take us by horse drawn sleigh north of town to see for ourselves what lay ahead.
The snow ranged about 6 feet deep, and the trail only wide enough for a single horse or dog sled. Ahead was the snow-belt with snow six to ten feet and drifts higher than a house. Beyond that a range of mountains and Thompson’s Pass with a notch too narrow for the Flyer to pass. Then a forest about 40 miles wide with a trail again only wide enough for a horse or dog sled. Well, I reasoned we could dynamite the Pass wide enough for the Thomas, and hire Eskimos to cut a wider trail through the forest for the Flyer. However, beyond that the Yukon River froze in the wide slower moving sections, but often even the weigh of a horse would break through quickly drowning both the horse and rider. The Flyer weighed over 5,000 pounds, posing a much greater risk. Then there was the Bering Strait which froze, but not smooth like a pond rather in huge chunks of pak ice.
I asked Kennedy how much a dog sled could carry. He said a good sled could carry about 600 pounds. My only solution would be to disassemble the car into 600 pound pieces, and freight it in parts to some point in Siberia where we could reassemble the Flyer and continue our drive on to Paris. Such a task was estimated to cost $10,000 for each competitor just to reach Fairbanks, and beyond that was uncertain. I telegraphed New York with the difficulties found in Alaska. I received a reply cable “Return to Seattle, route changed Seattle to Vladivostok.”
The other competitors were having their share of problems while still back in the United States. Lt. Koeppen and his new driver Snyder had suffered greatly both physically and mentally from the ordeal crossing the United States. After leaving Ogden, Utah the Protos had two front connecting rods fail. With the nearest spare parts in Seattle and the only shop to make the repairs in Ogden the Protos was dragged back to Ogden with horses. Koeppen then boarded a train for Seattle and the much needed parts. With the delays they had encountered due to mechanical problems, they were far behind us as we were already returning from Alaska with the new route change crossing the Pacific by steamer. Koeppen telegraphed the New York Times asking if he could “ship the Protos by railway to Seattle?” The reply was short and to the point “Use of railway will disqualify Protos”. It was about this time that St. Chaffrey of the French DeDion also arrived in Seattle. The aristocratic Frenchman who thought of himself as the “Napoleon of the Automobile” and self appointed “Grand Commissioner” told Koeppen to ignore the Times telegram, something the Lt. would later come to regret.
The Protos was loaded on a rail car and arrived in Seattle the night of April 18. He cabled Berlin asking for two chauffeurs as Snyder was physically unable to continue, and the burden was far too great for one driver. We arrived on April 16 aboard the S.S. Bertha at Seattle, and there I met Koeppen who told me of his problems. He was determined to continue, even at the risk of being disqualified for freighting the Protos by rail from Ogden, saying he would publish a book if that was to happen. I admired his courage. Koeppen and the German Protos sailed directly for Vladivostok aboard the S.S. Glen Logan on April 19.
For the Italians and Scarfoglio crossing the US was equally grim. At one point their car failed in Wyoming and they set out on foot for Medicine Bow. Scarfoglio writes of their trek “We have lost all notion of time. We know nothing and see nothing. All our brain is fixed on the rhythmic motion of our legs! Our eyes are blinded by the sand, and we shiver with the cold. We appear to be walking in a nightmare, with our feet nailed to the ground and a peril behind us which we can not escape.” At another point, the Zust is finally hauled out of a tenacious swamp. Able to once again resume, Haaga the Zust mechanic kisses the motor before re-boarding their auto!
The Zust finally arrives in San Francisco on April 5, with Scarfoglio reporting he remembers nothing of their entry into the city. He recalls sitting in a silent room, trying in vein to “seize the fragments of tattered recollections which pass through his brain”. On April 13 the Italians arrive in Seattle aboard the City of Pueblo only to find the course has been changed avoiding the frozen trek across Alaska and Bering Strait. Scarfoglio laments the change. “We had set out to perpetrate an act of splendid folly, not to open up a new way for men. We wished to be madmen, not pioneers…” I suppose considering their youth that seemed logical for them. The Italians depart Seattle on April 14 bound for Yokohama, Japan along with the French DeDion aboard the Aku Maru.
As we had no Russian visa and Seattle did not have a Russian consul, we decided to also sail for Japan and obtain the necessary documents there. We sailed aboard the S.S. Shawmut on April 21, bound for Yokohama, Kobe and Manilla.
While we were at sea, the Race committee made several rulings. The Protos would not be disqualified, but would be given a 15 day penalty for shipping by rail from Idaho to Seattle. In addition, the Thomas would be given a 15 day advantage over all of the other teams for going to Alaska. The Protos, having shipped directly to Vladivostok, was ordered to wait for the other cars to arrive from their crossing of Japan. The DeDion, Zust and Thomas were all to cross that island nation, and the Race would again resume on the Asian continent when all reached Vladivostok.
Aboard the S.S. Shawmut, there was no May 2, 1908 for us, as we crossed the 180-degree meridian going directly from May 1 to May 3. The crossing also gave an opportunity for rest, as we had become more seasoned sailors and not as prone to the motions of the ship. We would need all the rest we could muster, for the terrific ordeal that lay ahead!
*About the author: The above is written in the first person as Jeff Mahl heard the recollections from his Great Grandfather, George N. Schuster, winner of the 1908 New York to Paris Race. Jeff is seated to the left of “Great Gramp” holding the 45 star US flag which flew from the Flyer, with his brother Matt and sister Jenny. For additional information visit: TheGreatAutoRace.com
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