To his sister in Panora, Iowa: “…Ernest and I have been gone nearly two years now… a big transport, the “Thompson”, has left Seattle for Valdez and should be here in a few days… the boys will be apt to leave on her, for they are anxious and will leave in the first good ship that comes along. Some will go to Seattle and some few talk of going by way of San Fran. I have made up my mind to stay another year so I don’t allow myself to entertain homesick feelings, perhaps when the time comes to go I will be as anxious to go as the other boys are now… the impression… that we were in hard shape and likely to suffer this winter… You folks must get over that idea, that just because enough wasn’t taken out to declare a dividend that we are going to suffer in the last for the necessities of life. Why there are more provisions in Valdez than you have in Panora…Inclosed find a little nugget, keep it and take care of it for me, it is not worth much, but the reason I want to keep it is because it came off of a particular claim. And with the exception of a little rust on the outside it is nearly pure gold…Had a telegram from Ernest late Sunday night, sent from No. 3 on the other side of the Summit…I expect another telegram from him when he reaches Copper Center, that is as far as the telegraph line is completed, so… I won’t hear anything more from him until Nov. mail comes out. The weather has taken quite a change the past two days, much colder and a strong wind blowing from off the Glacier. You never saw a wind in Iowa equal to it, no snow here on the beach as yet, but the air is full of sand and the sea is rough. Had a very high tide…covered Main Street pretty well up, enough so that I saw one party using a boat up and down the sidewalk, a small and modern Venice…Some of the boys have been trying sea fishing and with fair success for we have had several messes of fresh cod, also caught a small shark one morning…The wind has been blowing a perfect gale the past week but today has been fairly quiet, snowed… some little today…” Two months after writing this letter, with his older brother Ernest still “inside”, prospecting in the interior, 24 year-old Horace Young Tuffin undertook to carry the mail by dog sled from Valdez south to Cordova and then on a longer and more dangerous route northward. Against the advice of “old timers”, he went out in a blizzard and, not far from his destination, lost his way. With his matches wet and his axe broken, he let his dogs loose and apparently lay down to rest and ease his hunger pains. On December 29, 1901, an Indian guide found him frozen to death, his lead dog still loyally by his side.