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.