Not all were happy. Despite the promises of sunny skies, the spring and early summer of 1935 proved to be unseasonably wet. Dreary overcast and rain, rain, and more rain left the collection of tents a soggy mess. Scarcely had the settlers arrived when about forty disgruntled colonists protested the conditions in telegrams to President Roosevelt and Alaska territorial governor John Troy. Homes were not built, wells not dug, there were no schools, and there was the perennial complaint about high prices at the government commissary—higher even, it was alleged, than those at the private stores in
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