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
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
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
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
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
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
If I mush up to the gates, white and pearly, And they don't let my malamute in.
