The New Eldorado. A Summer Journey to Alaska

Now and again we look ahead inquiringly as we thread the labyrinth of islands and wonder how egress is possible from the many mountainous cliffs rising, sullen and frowning, directly in the steamer’s course. The exit from this maze is quite invisible; but presently there is a swift turn of the wheel, the rudder promptly responds, and we gracefully round a projecting point into another lonely, far-reaching channel framed by granite peaks a thousand feet in height.

At night, when all but the watch were sleeping, how gaunt and weird stood forth those tall, black sentinel rocks, past which we were gliding so silently, while overhead was spread the broad firmanent of space, dimly lighted by heaven’s distant lamps! How suggestive the dark, mysterious shadows! how active the imagination! Was the atmosphere indeed peopled with the invisible spirits of bygone ages? Did the air-waves vibrate with the history of the long, long past, the unknown story of these silent fjords and deep water gorges? Is it only thousands, or tens of thousands, of years since the first human beings appeared and disappeared among these now wild, untrodden shores?

The inlets which are found at the head of the Gulf of Georgia, northeast of Vancouver Island, are miniature Norwegian fjords, deeper and darker than the sombre Saguenay; a hundred and eighty fathoms of line will not reach the bottom. They are from forty to sixty miles in length, with an average width of nearly two miles, being walled by abrupt mountains from four to seven thousand feet in height. A grand elevation, whose name has escaped us, stands eight thousand feet above the sea at the head of Butte Inlet, while Mount Alfred, at the head of Jarvis Inlet, is still higher. A remarkable feature of these elongated arms of the sea is their great depth, some of them measuring over three hundred fathoms. It is a popular idea that the phosphorescence of the sea is exhibited in its strongest effect in the tropics; but we have seen in the Gulf of Georgia, after sunset, so brilliant an illumination from this cause that it was only comparable to liquid fire, quite equal in intensity to anything the author has witnessed in the Indian Ocean or the Caribbean Sea. It is impossible to convey by the pen an idea of the novel splendor of the scene. A drop of this flame-like water, dipped from the sea in equatorial or Arctic waters and placed under the microscope is found to be teeming with the most curious living and active organisms. These myriads of tiny creatures are so minute that, were it not for the revelations of the microscope, we should not even know of their existence. Nor are these infinitesimal objects the smallest representatives of animal life; glasses of greater power will show still more diminutive creatures.

Persons who are accustomed to make sea-voyages do not forget to supply themselves with a good but inexpensive microscope, for use on shipboard. The abundant specimens of minute animal and vegetable life which the sea affords, form a source of instructive amusement by which many otherwise monotonous hours are pleasantly beguiled. A little familiarity with the instrument enables one to profitably entertain a whole ship’s company with its powers.

In the region between Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Island we cross an open reach of the sea, and while the Pacific swell tosses us about after the usual erratic fashion of its unpacific waters, we observe a few ocean sights which serve pleasantly to vary the experience of the trip. A school of humpback whales put in an appearance, full of sport and frolic, in such extraordinary numbers that three or four are seen in the act of spouting all the while. In spots the sea is yellow, where its surface is covered for acres together with that animated food for other piscatory creatures, the jelly-fish. The shining, furry head of a sea-lion comes up to the surface now and again, gazing curiously at us with big, glassy eyes, and turning its face nimbly from side to side. A school of porpoises play about the hull of the steamer, leaping high out of the water and falling back again in graceful curves. The only shark we chanced to meet with on the entire voyage was observed in our wake just before entering Smith’s Sound, south of Calvert Island. In this region the huge gona-bird was seen sailing slowly on the wing, recalling the albatross of the low latitudes in its long, lazy sweeps, as well as by its size and gracefulness. These bird-monarchs of the north measure eight feet from tip to tip, and glide with or against the wind on their broad, outspread pinions without the least visible muscular exertion, a mystery of motive power which is sure to challenge the observer’s curiosity.

In the narrow passages the tall peaks, arched by the soft gray of the clouds and the clear blue of the sky, cast deep shadows where the water looked like pools of ink, whose blackness intensified the fact of their great but unknown depth.

The American whalers have never been accustomed to seek their big game in these immediate waters, preferring to attack the leviathans in lesser depths, such as the waters of Behring Sea, or farther north in the vicinity of the strait, between the frozen ocean and the North Pacific. There, if a whale dove after being struck by the harpoon, he was sure very soon to fetch up in the muddy bottom; but here, among the channels of the islands, he might dive, and dive again, to almost any depth, and unless great care was taken he was liable in his lightning-like velocity to carry down with him a whole boat’s crew and all their belongings. Were it not that the whaling industry has gradually declined here, as it has done in all other sections of the globe, the possession of Alaska, with its great number of safe harbors, would be an invaluable boon to those of our countrymen engaged in that branch of commercial enterprise.

Inland sea travel is the perfection of steamboating, but the rapidly-changing landscape of these wild Alaskan shores, rimmed with sharp volcanic peaks, at last wearies the senses, and one is forced to seek a brief intermission by finding rest in sleep, only, however, to again renew the charm with greater zest on the morrow.

CHAPTER VIII

Steamship Corona and her Passengers. – The New Eldorado. – The Greed for Gold. – Alaska the Synonym of Glacier Fields. – Vegetation of the Islands. – Aleutian Islands. – Attoo our most Westerly Possession. – Native Whalers. – Life on the Island of Attoo. – Unalaska. – Kodiak, former Capital of Russian America. – The Greek Church. – Whence the Natives originally came.

Our journey through that portion of Alaska known as the Inland Sea was made in the steamship Corona, Captain Carroll, a commander who has had long experience in these waters. His pleasure seemed to lie in the degree of enjoyment which he could afford his passengers, and the amount of information which he was enabled to impart to them. There were on board the Corona the members of a large excursion party conducted by Raymond & Whitcomb of Boston, numbering some eighty persons. We have rarely seen together a large party of ladies and gentlemen embracing so many cultured and agreeable persons. They had already occupied some weeks in a tour of Mexico and southern California. It was exceedingly pleasant to see the courtesy and consideration exercised among them towards each other, – amenities which go so far to lighten the inevitable inconveniences of travel, and to enhance its enjoyments. Oftentimes friendships are formed under such circumstances which continue through every exigency to the very end of life.

Having reached latitude 54° 40′ (the fifty-four forty or fight of 1862), we come to the boundary line between British Columbia and the United States, Dixon Entrance being on the left and Fort Tongas on the right. Here the far-reaching Portland Canal, or more properly channel, penetrates the mainland for a great distance, precisely like the Norwegian fjords, presenting, with its various arms, stupendous watery cañons, whence arise mountain precipices thousands of feet high on either side of the deep narrow course, their heads shrouded in perpetual snow. This channel, or fjord, runs nearly due north, and forms a boundary line to its head between the English and United States possessions.

Opposite and just south of Fort Tongas lies Fort Simpson, on British soil, and close at hand is Metla-katla, where that self-sacrificing missionary, Mr. Duncan, gathered and established a village of a thousand Christian residents from the various savage tribes of the vicinity. By his individual effort, with almost miraculous success, he raised from the lowest depths of barbarous life a law-abiding, religious, industrious, and self-supporting community, who justly considered him their moral and physical savior. Official persecution drove Mr. Duncan from Metla-katla to the nearest available American island, namely, Annetta, lying some sixty miles northward. Eight hundred of these aborigines whom he had reclaimed from savage life and its terrible practices have followed him with their families, freely abandoning all their property and improvements at Metla-katla, and are now struggling to create for themselves a new and permanent home under the United States.

The Senate committee, whose members lately visited Alaska, made a call at Annetta, and “found,” as one of its members writes to the press, “the Indians living in an apparent condition of contentment, and engaged in almost all the pursuits of the whites. Their execution of artistic designs upon silver wrought by themselves into bracelets, rings, and all kinds of jewelry is marvelous. Baskets made in brilliant colors from stripped reeds constitute a beautiful and artistic employment of most of the women of the tribe. Their particular ambition is their anxiety to possess lands in severalty, or to have certain parcels set aside for them, that they may cultivate and hold in individual right. They ask that the whole of Gravine Island be given to their tribe. They found the state of the morals of the Indian women at Annetta, or, as they call it, New Metla-katla, far above the average of Indian women of this Territory. At Sitka the committee visited the habitations of the Indians, and learned much from personal intercourse as to their habits and needs. It was found that the companionship and virtue of the women is a matter of simply dollars and cents, and not difficult to negotiate for.”

“The committee were surprised to observe such an apparent freedom from rowdyism, quarrels, and disturbances of any character in any portion of the Territory, and remarked the entire absence of six-shooters about the person of a single individual, a feature always so prominent in the mining camps of the West.”

Until Alaska – The New Eldorado – came into our possession, it was from the persistent and adventurous fur-traders that our knowledge of the country was almost solely obtained. To most of the public it was (and is still to many) scarcely more than a geographical expression, occupying an insignificant space on the extreme northwest portion of the maps of North America, without any regard being paid to the scale on which the other States and Territories of the country are delineated. The fact nevertheless stares us in the face, that Alaska is nearly as large as the whole of the United States lying east of the Mississippi River, or three times as large as France. Within the last twenty years greater intelligence has been shown, in part through missionaries, – self-sacrificing and devout men, – who have sought by their teachings to abolish the wild superstitions of the natives, together with their cruel rites of Shamanism. Organized companies of explorers, as well as enterprising miners and prospectors, have also liberally furnished us with general information relating to this great outlying province, which has been found to be so full of mineral wealth and future promise. But so vast is the Territory, so varied the climate, and so undeveloped are the means of access to its several parts, that our information as regards detail is still very meagre. There are not ten miles of roadway in all of Alaska outside of the island of Kodiak; or rather, we should say, the island just opposite Kodiak, namely, Wood Island, which has a road constructed completely round it, covering a dozen miles or thereabouts. The only road at Sitka is not over a mile and a half in length, and these two are the only ones in this vast Territory. Two objects of commercial gain, the profitable fur-trade and seeking for gold, have been the great agents of progress and development thus far in Alaska. In a like manner it was the greed for gold that first sent the Spaniards to Mexico and Peru; in pursuit of the lucrative fur-traffic the French and Britons opened the way for civilization in Canada. Here in Alaska it will not be philanthropy, – some of whose noblest exponents are upon the ground, – but self-interest; not government enterprise, but the seeking for precious metals, which will gradually unfold the great wealth and resources of this extensive province, whose area is greater than the thirteen original States of this Union. The hope of commercial gain has doubtless done nearly as much for the cause of truth and progress as the love of truth itself. The course of multitudes, guided by the natural instinct of selfishness, will be overruled by a higher power for the general good.

The very name of Alaska has to the popular ear a ring of glacier fields and snow-clad peaks, conveying a frigid impression of the climate quite contrary to fact. The most habitable portions of the country lie between 55° and 60° north, about the same latitude as that of Scotland and southern Scandinavia, but the area of this portion of Alaska is greater than that of both these countries combined. The name is derived from Al-ay-ck-sa, which was given to the mainland by the aborigines, and which signifies “great country.” On the old maps it is very properly designated as Russian America, and so it really was until its transfer from the possession of that government to our own. It was at the request of Charles Sumner, whose able, eloquent, and consistent advocacy did so much towards its acquirement, that the aboriginal title of Alaska was adopted. The portion of the country which is at present visited by excursionists is the southeastern coast line and the archipelago of the Sitkan Islands or Alexander group. If one desires to reach the vast country and islands lying to the west and northwest, the proper way to do so is to sail direct from San Francisco for Unalaska and Kodiak. The last named island lies south of Cook’s Inlet, one of the most remarkable volcanic regions in the Territory. Sitka is five hundred and fifty miles to the eastward of Kodiak. Cook’s Inlet is well named, as the great discoverer sailed to its very head in 1778, being the first white man who ever did so, and, indeed, few have done it since. This was while he was prosecuting his vain search for a northwest passage around the continent of America. The finest and largest salmon which were ever known are taken in Cook’s Inlet, reaching the weight of one hundred pounds in some instances, and measuring six feet in length. The island of Kodiak is also famous for its excellent and abundant salmon fisheries.

In 1874 a committee from the Icelandic residents of Wisconsin, aided by our government, made an excursion to Alaska to determine whether it would be advisable to recommend their people in Iceland to seek homes in and about Kodiak. The report of this committee, which consisted of three experienced and intelligent men, was published from the government printing-office in Washington, and from it we quote as follows: —

“Potatoes grow and do well, although the natives have not the slightest idea of how they should be cultivated, which goes to show they would thrive excellently if properly cared for. Cabbages, turnips, and the various garden vegetables have great success, and to judge from the soil and climate there is no reason why everything that succeeds in Scotland should not succeed at Kodiak. Pasture land is so excellent on the island, and the hay harvest so abundant, that our countrymen would here, just as in Iceland, make sheep breeding and cattle-raising their chief method of livelihood. The quality of the grass is such that the milk, the beef, and mutton must be excellent; and we had also an opportunity to try these at Kodiak.”

The purpose of colonizing portions of Alaska with people from Iceland is being revived, and active measures to this end are now progressing. The people of that country are eager to avail themselves of such an opportunity. They are being gradually crowded out of their native land by the increased flow of volcanic matter over their plains and valleys. Alaska, while it affords them in certain portions, say the valley of the Yukon, a climate similar to their own, offers them also many advantages over the place of their nativity. It is authoritatively stated that over fifty thousand souls will gladly avail themselves of this chance to emigrate to Alaska, provided our government will aid them in the matter of transportation. At this writing, in the village of Afognak, on the island of Kodiak, with a population of three hundred natives, over one hundred acres of rich land is planted in potatoes and turnips, and has yielded annually a large crop of excellent vegetables for three or four consecutive years. If it were necessary we could point to several other successful agricultural developments in islands even less favorably situated than is the Kodiak group. Nevertheless, there are plenty of writers who assert that domestic vegetables will not grow in Alaska. One has no patience with such perversion of facts.

Miss Kate Field says in a late published article relative to Alaska: “In agriculture Alaska is not promising, but the country is by no means as impossible in this respect as it has been represented. ‘There is not an acre of grain in the whole territory,’ wrote Whymper. Because there was no grain grown, it by no means follows that grain cannot be grown in certain localities. Hundreds of acres of land near Wrangel can be drained and cultivated. The Indians on the neighboring islands raise tons of potatoes and turnips for their own consumption. Butter made for me by the Scotch housekeeper of Wrangel mission was a sweet boon, and proved that cows were a success in that region, and that dairies were a mere question of time.”

The island of the Aleutian group situated the farthest seaward is named Attoo, and forms the most westerly point of the possessions of the United States. This island is situated about seven thousand five hundred miles in a straight line from the eastern coast of Maine, and is a little over three thousand miles west of San Francisco, making that city about the central point between the extreme east and west of this Union. It would be nearer, if one desired to reach England from Attoo, to continue his journey westward, rather than to travel east and cross the Atlantic. A few moments’ examination of the globe or a good map of the world is especially desirable in this connection, and unless one is already familiar with this region will prove interesting and instructive. The Aleutian group, besides innumerable islets and rocks, contains over fifty islands exceeding three miles in length, seven of them being over forty miles long. Unimak, which is the largest, is over seventy miles long, with an average width of twenty.

It seems almost impossible to conceive of these islands having ever been densely populated, where human life is so sparsely represented to-day, and yet scientific investigation gives ample proof that in the far past every cove and bay echoed to the cry of the successful otter hunter, and the beaches now lined with numberless bidarkas or native canoes. The mummies which W. H. Dall brought hence may have been ten centuries old. This able investigator tells us of ruined villages and deserted hearths, to be found in almost any sheltered cove or favorably situated upland. A few strokes of the pick and the spade is sure to unearth arrow-heads, stone axes, and chipped implements of flint, or perhaps even the singularly proportioned bones of a now extinct human race. Bones have been exhumed on these islands which have puzzled scientists to account for.

When these islands were discovered by the Russians the inhabitants of Attoo were numerous, warlike, and brave, being well supplied with otter skins, and altogether were a self-reliant and thrifty tribe. Now the place contains but one small village, numbering about a hundred and twenty souls, situated on the south side of the island in a sheltered cove.

There are residents living upon Attoo to-day who have in their time witnessed two wrecks of Japanese vessels upon their shores; and who can say that Attoo was not originally peopled in this manner by Asiatics thousands of years ago? It was so late as 1861 that the last Japanese junk was stranded upon the island; three of the Japanese sailors surviving were ultimately sent home by way of Siberia overland.

The sea-otter has been driven from this immediate neighborhood by too vigorous and indiscriminate pursuit, but the sea-lion, various water-fowls, and plenty of cod, halibut, and salmon still abound among these lonely islands of the North Pacific. Occasionally a dead whale is stranded on the shore, which is considered a cause for great rejoicing, every part of the animal being utilized by the natives. No matter how putrid the flesh may be, it is eagerly eaten by these people, both raw and cooked. When a school of whales appears in sight of these shores, the natives go out in their frail boats, and with lances so prepared as to work into the vitals of the big creatures, they pierce them in the most vulnerable places, leaving the animal to die where it will, and trusting to the currents to carry the body where they can reach it. To their lances there are securely attached inflated sealskin buoys, which render diving a very laborious exertion to the whales, and which aid finally in securing the carcass. In this way, it is said, the natives get one whale out of fifteen or twenty which they succeed in harpooning. Whales, singular to say, are more esteemed as food by all the Alaskan shore tribes than any other product of the sea, or, in fact, any other sort of food. The securing of one is an event celebrated with limitless feasting and rejoicing. A New England whale-ship captain told the writer that he had seen these natives cut long strips of blubber from the body of a stranded whale, which had been so long dead that it was with difficulty he could breathe the atmosphere to leeward of the carcass, and chew upon the same with the greatest relish until it had entirely disappeared down their throats, the oil dripping all the while in small streams from the corners of their mouths. This is not a practice confined to the Aleuts, but extends throughout the several groups of islands, and is also a marked habit of the Eskimos proper, living both north and south of Behring Strait, and on the coast of the Polar Sea.

“The natives would rather have a dead whale drift ashore,” says Mr. George Wardman, United States Treasury agent in Alaska, “than to own the best crop of the biggest farm in the United States. Dead whale is a great blessing in the Aleutian part of our Alaska possessions, and agricultural products are but little sought after or valued. The dead whale may be so putrid that the effluvia arising from it will blacken the white paint of a vessel lying one hundred yards distant, but, all the same, the whale is a blessing.”

There is a variety store kept on Attoo by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, where the natives exchange their furs for tea, sugar, and hard biscuit, besides tobacco and a few fancy articles.

The mountains which surround the settlement are two or three thousand feet in height, “rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,” and are white with snow for a considerable portion of the year. These Aleutian Islands, bounded by wave-battered rocks, stretching far out in the Pacific towards Asia, have no trees, the soil not having sufficient depth to support them, but they are thickly covered with a low-growing, luxuriant vegetation in great variety. Between the mountains and the sea are many natural prairies, with a rich soil of vegetable mould suitable for domestic gardening. The wood consumed by the inhabitants as fuel is the product of drift-logs or trees reclaimed from the sea. On the breaking up of winter in the large islands at the northeast and on the mainland, the unsealing of the ice-bound rivers sends down from the great forests through which they flow thousands of fallen trees, many of which are very large. This is especially the case with the Yukon River, which empties its immense accumulation of debris into Norton Sound, and the Kuskoquin, emptying into a bay of the same name one hundred and fifty miles farther south. When these tree trunks find their way to the open sea, the prevailing currents bear them southward to the Aleutian Islands, where a large number become stranded at Attoo, and are promptly secured and stored for use as fuel. It would seem to be rather a precarious source of supply to depend upon for this purpose, but we were told that, as a rule, it was ample to meet the demand. There is also a stocky vine growing in great abundance upon the islands, which the native women gather and dry, and this makes a quick, strong fire. At certain seasons the women may be seen in long lines coming from the hills, each one bearing upon her back a monster bundle of this product, which they store for use when the other source of fuel fails them or proves insufficient. The people of Attoo have tamed the wild goose, of which they rear considerable flocks for domestic use, similar to our New England custom with the tame bird, and it is said they are the only tribe in Alaska who do so. Long since the blue fox was by some means introduced upon the island, and being at first properly protected, the place has become fairly stocked with them, a certain number only being killed annually by the natives, and from their valuable fur these Aleuts realize quite a large sum. Were it necessary, lumber could be brought in small quantities from the island of Kodiak, or even from the mainland far away; but there is very little use for it in Attoo, the houses being built of drift-logs and not of boards. Besides the low, thrifty species of shrubbery growing on these islands, there are also wild berries in great abundance, the original seeds having probably been brought by the birds from the mainland. Grasses grow luxuriantly, being cut and cured to feed a few small Siberian cattle through the winter months, though it is hardly necessary to house them at all. They are kept on only one or two of the larger islands of the group. Domestic animals might do well here with a little care, but the attention of the natives is given almost exclusively to the products of the sea, whose very bounty demoralizes them. At Unalaska, of this same group, the natural grass grows to six feet in height, and with such body that one must part it by exerting considerable force in order to get through. The natives braid it into useful and ornamental articles, hats, baskets, mats, and the like. This prolific growth is represented to be remarkably nutritious, and cattle are very fond of it. W. H. Dall predicted that this Aleutian district will yet furnish California with its best butter and cheese; while Dr. Kellogg, botanist of the United States Exploring Expedition, wrote: “Unalaska abounds in grasses, with a climate better adapted for haying than the coast of Oregon. The cattle are remarkably fat, and the milk abundant.” This is the refitting station for all vessels passing between the Pacific Ocean and Behring Strait, and here also is the principal trading post of the Alaska Commercial Company.

Mr. George Wardman, United States Treasury Agent, that stated on his late visit to this island he saw in one warehouse sea-otter skins ready for shipment which were worth quarter of a million dollars in the London market. This will represent, perhaps, two thirds of all this class of pelts furnished to the world annually, as comparatively few go from any other quarter. Other land furs are brought here for shipment to San Francisco, two fur companies having headquarters at Unalaska. The place has some sixty native houses, and perhaps five hundred inhabitants. Unalaska is known to be rich in both gold and silver mines, one of which is owned by a San Francisco company, and which it is proposed to fully develop and work during the coming year, careful tests having proven its prospective value.

The same fertility seen at Unalaska exists also at Kodiak and Atagnak, where the small breed of cattle that live upon the grass are as fat as seals, and require no shelter all the year round. There is a small ship-yard near the first named island, where vessels of twenty-five and thirty tons are built for fishing in the neighboring sea. These two islands, situated just off the eastern shore of the Alaska Peninsula, are called the garden spots of this region, enjoying more sunshine and fair weather than any other part of the Territory. They contain rich pastures, beautiful woodlands, and broad open fields, which during the summer are carpeted with constant verdure and wild flowers. Kodiak was for a long time the capital of the Russian American possessions, but the government headquarters were removed for some reason to Sitka. On Wood Island, opposite Kodiak, is the clear and spacious lake which so long furnished ice to the dwellers on the Pacific coast, but particularly to the people of San Francisco. The whole range of Aleutian Islands from Attoo to Kodiak contains between four and five thousand inhabitants, nearly all of whom are called Christians, being members of the Greek Church. They are very generally half-breeds, that is, born of intermarriage between emigrant Russians and native women. Professor Davidson was struck by the strong resemblance of the aboriginal tribes inhabiting these islands to the Chinese and Japanese, and was satisfied that they came originally from Asia. There are many very intelligent persons among them. “They are docile, honest, industrious, and very ingenious,” says Professor Davidson. The women of Unalaska have always been noted for the beauty and variety of their woven grass mats and various other ornamental work, particularly in the combinations of colors and unique designs.

This cunning of the hand and artistic ingenuity is not confined to the women; the men are also skillful carvers and engravers. Whenever they have been afforded a fair degree of instruction, and the opportunity to exercise their ability, they have proved themselves to be adepts especially in this last mentioned branch of skilled labor. We have seen artistic work produced by a native Unalaskan which it was difficult to believe was not the performance of some experienced and thoroughly educated European.

The thirty-eight charts in the Hydrographic Atlas of Tebenkoff were all drawn and engraved on copper by a native Aleut.

On the island of Unga, one of the Shumagin group, situated half way between Unalaska and Kodiak, is a small settlement of a score of white men and about a hundred and fifty natives. By a regulation of our Treasury Department, only natives are allowed to hunt the sea-otter, and therefore these white men have married native wives, thereby becoming natives in the eyes of the law. The revenue derived from the sea-otter trade on this island is said to average from six to seven hundred dollars a year to every family. Off the southern shore of the Shumagin group is the best cod fishing bank that is known. It is estimated that a million good-sized cod were taken here last season and shipped to San Francisco. This metropolis of California once depended upon the product of our Newfoundland fisheries for its salted cod, but has drawn its supply for the last few years almost entirely from the coast of Alaska, and the consumption has increased every year.

CHAPTER IX

Cook’s Inlet. – Manufacture of Quass. – Native Piety. – Mummies. – The North Coast. – Geographical Position. – Shallowness of Behring Sea. – Alaskan Peninsula. – Size of Alaska. – A “Terra Incognita.” – Reasons why Russia sold it to our Government. – The Price Comparatively Nothing. – Rental of the Seal Islands. – Mr. Seward’s Purchase turns out to be a Bonanza.

Cook’s Inlet, which lies to the north of the island of Kodiak, was esteemed by the Russians to be the pleasantest portion of Alaska in the summer season, with its bright skies and well wooded shores. It stretches far inland in a northeasterly direction, and is quite out of the region of the fogs which prevail on the coast. Gold has been profitably mined for some years on the Kakny River, which empties into the eastern side of this extensive inlet, and good coal abounds in the neighborhood.

When the Russians first came to this region they taught the natives to make what they called quass, a cooling and comparatively harmless acid drink. To produce this article rye meal is mixed with water, in certain proportions, and allowed to remain in a cask until fermentation takes place and it is sour and lively enough to draw. Latterly the natives have learned to add sugar, and thus to produce a fermented liquor of an intoxicating nature. Progress in this direction has been made until now they mix a certain portion each of sugar, flour, dried apples, and a few hops, when they can be obtained, putting the whole into a close barrel or cask. When fermentation has taken place and the mixture has worked itself clear, it forms a strong intoxicant. This article proves the cause of a thousand ills among the aborigines. In each of the scattered villages among the islands there is sure to be seen a few broken-down victims of this active poison, who have impoverished their families and wrecked their own constitutions.

In each of these Aleutian islands there is found a Russian-Greek chapel and a regularly appointed priest, this religion being preferred by the natives to that of all other sects, captivating their simple minds by its gorgeous show and its mystery. Their honest devotion, however, to a religion which they cannot comprehend may be reasonably questioned. There can be no doubt that their idolatrous customs and original pantheism have been almost entirely abandoned, – ceremonies which were elaborately described by the early voyagers, and which involved strange incantations and even human sacrifices. Intercourse with the whites has at least had the effect of abolishing the most objectionable features of their early superstitions. The bishop of the organization is a Russian and resides in San Francisco, whence he controls these parishes, which he occasionally visits, being amply supplied with pecuniary means by the home government at St. Petersburg. The piety of these Aleuts is very pronounced, so far as all outward observances go, and we were told that they never sit down to their meals without briefly asking a blessing upon their rude repast. Golovin, a Russian who lived many years among the Aleuts, says: “Their attention during religious services is unflinching, though they do not understand a word of the whole rite.” The same author goes on to say, “During my ten years’ stay in Unalaska not a single case of murder happened among the Aleutians. Not an attempt to kill, nor fight, nor even a considerable dispute, although I often saw them drunk.” Hunting is the principal source of their support, and to get the sea-otter they often make long, exposed trips in their undecked boats, and experience many trying hardships. When they return to their homes at the close of the season, having been nearly always reasonably successful, the quass barrel is brought into requisition, and its contents partaken of to excess, drunken orgies following with all their attendant evils.

The Aleuts are a very honest people, quite unlike the Eskimos of the north, who are natural pilferers. They are also possessed of a certain stoicism which compels admiration. When they are sick or suffering great pain they utter no complaint, and outwardly are always content, no matter what the future may send as their lot. An Aleut is never known to sigh, groan, or shed a tear. If he feels it, he never evinces immoderate joy, but is always quiet, moderate, and grave. They are in a great degree fatalists, and believe that which is decreed by the power in the sky will come to pass, whatever they may do to prevent it. It is Kismet.

It is an interesting fact that before these islands were discovered by the Russians, the natives were in the practice of preserving their dead in the form of mummies, and this had probably been their habit for centuries. Satisfactory evidence is afforded by what is found upon the islands to show that they have been the residence of populous tribes for over two thousand years. Mr. Dall, in his indefatigable researches, was able to secure several examples of the mummified dead on these outlying islands, eleven of which came from one cave on the south end of Unalaska, but none were ever found or known to have existed upon the mainland. This fact is looked upon by ethnologists as an important addition to our knowledge of the prehistoric condition of these peculiar people of the far Northwest, now part and parcel of our widespread population. The mummies of Peru and those of Alaska are now arranged side by side in the cases of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, and what is very singular is that they seem, in their general appearance, to be almost identical.

The interior of Alaska and its more Arctic regions north of the valley of the Yukon remain still only partially explored. No more is actually known of it than of Central Africa. It would be anything but a pleasure excursion, at present, to penetrate the extreme northern harbors of the extended coast line, which are mostly uninhabited, and which are tempest-swept for a large portion of the year. Northwestern Alaska shares with northeastern Siberia the possession of the coldest winter climate in the world, but we must remember it is not always winter, and thousands of Eskimos here find life quite tolerable. Beyond 70° of north latitude no trees are to be found; even shrubs have disappeared, giving place to a scanty growth of lichens and creeping wood-plants. Even here, however, Nature asserts her prerogative and brings forth a few bright flowers and blooming grasses in the brief midsummer days. Point Barrow is what might be termed, in common parlance, “the jumping-off place;” the beginning of that mysterious ocean where the compass needle, which lies horizontal at the equator, attracted by an unexplained influence dips and points straight downward. There is no lack of animal life in this frozen region, the sea is as full as in the tropics; the whale here finds its birthplace, and herring issue forth in countless columns to seek more southern seas, while the air is darkened by innumerable flocks of sea-fowl. The wolves, the polar bear, and other fur-bearing animals afford meat and clothing to the Eskimo to an extent far exceeding his requirements. Only thoroughly organized expeditions and a few adventurous whalers attempt to pass Point Barrow, a long reach of low barren land, and the most northerly portion of the Territory, which projects itself into the great Arctic Ocean very much after the fashion of the North Cape of Norway, in the eastern hemisphere, at latitude 71° 10′.

There is a village at Point Barrow containing about a hundred and fifty people, living in houses partly under ground as a protection against the cold. The roofs are supported by rafters of whale jaws and ribs. This people we call the Eskimo proper. They have a severe climate to contend with, but are abundantly supplied with food and oil from the sea. They have a strange aversion to salt, and any food thus cooked or preserved they will not eat unless driven to it by dire necessity. Our government is just about to erect a comfortable structure here as a sort of refuge to shipwrecked navigators of the Polar Sea, this being the verge of those unknown waters which guard the secret of the Pole.

A peninsula makes out from near the centre of the western coast of Alaska, the terminus of which is the nearest point between this continent and Asia, the two being separated by Behring Strait, where the East and the West confront each other, and where the extreme western boundary of our country is the line which separates Asia from America. This is called. Cape Prince of Wales, a rocky point rising in its highest peak to twenty-five hundred feet above the sea. Here is a village of Eskimos numbering between three and four hundred souls, who do not bear a good reputation. They are skilled as fishermen on the sea and hunters on the land, to which it may be added that they are professional smugglers. Here it is quite possible in clear weather to see the Asiatic coast – Eastern Siberia – from United States soil, the distance across the strait being about forty miles. There are two islands in the strait, known as the Diomedes, almost in a direct line between Cape Prince of Wales on one side and East Cape on the other; stepping-stones, as it were, between the two continents. Occasional intercourse between the natives of the two opposite shores is maintained to-day by means of sailing craft, and doubtless has been going on for hundreds, if not for thousands, of years. So moderate are the seas, and so calm the weather hereabouts at some portions of the year, that the passage is made in open or undecked boats.

On King’s Island, fifty miles south of Cape Prince of Wales, there is a tribe of veritable cave-dwellers. The island is a great mass of rock, with almost perpendicular sides rising seven hundred feet above the sea. On one side, where the angle is nearly forty-five degrees, the Eskimos have excavated homes in the rock, about half a hundred of which are two hundred feet above the sea. These people openly defy the revenue laws, and are the known distributers of contraband articles, especially of intoxicants.

Behring Sea, where it washes the shores of Alaska, from Norton Sound to Bristol Bay, is slowly growing more shallow, having but fifteen fathoms depth, in some places, forty miles off the west shore of the mainland, and growing shallower as it approaches the continent. This has caused a speculative writer to suggest the possible joining of Asia and America, at some future period, by the gradual filling up of Behring Sea. The reason of this is obvious. The Yukon River brings down from its course of two thousand miles and more many hundred tons of soil daily which it deposits along the coast, while the Kuskoquin River, second only to the Yukon in volume, is engaged in the same work about a hundred and fifty miles south of where the greater river empties into Norton Sound. These large water-ways carry, like the Mississippi, immense deposits to the sea, and the process has been going on night and day for no human being knows how long.

One hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of this Kuskoquin River the Moravians of Bethlehem, Pa., support a missionary establishment. The station is named Bethel, one of the most isolated points in Alaska, receiving a mail but once a year! Truly, nothing save fulfilling a conscientious sense of duty could compensate intelligent people for thus separating themselves from home and friends.

We have spoken of a peninsula making out at the north towards Asia, but this comparatively insignificant projection from the mainland should not be permitted to confuse the reader’s mind as regards the Alaska Peninsula, properly so called, which extends from the southern part of the Territory, ending in the islands which form the Aleutian group. This peninsula is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the world, being fifty miles broad and three hundred long, literally piled with mountains, some of which are but partially extinct volcanoes, emitting at the present time more or less smoke and ashes, sometimes accompanied by blazing gases discernible at night far away over land and sea, appearing to the midnight watch on board ship like a raging conflagration in the heavens. The principal islands of the group of which we have been speaking, and which stretch far away from the southwestern corner of the Alaska Peninsula towards Kamschatka, as though extending a cordial hand from the Occident to the Orient, are as follows: Unimak, with a volcanic peak nine thousand feet high; Unalaska, whose peak is five thousand seven hundred feet high; Atka, with a height of four thousand eight hundred feet; Kyska, which is crowned by an elevation of three thousand seven hundred feet; and Attoo, whose tallest peak is over three thousand feet. This island is just about four hundred miles from the Asiatic coast. Unimak has a large lake of sulphur within its borders, and all of these islands have more or less hot springs. From those in Unalaska loud reports issue at intervals, like the boom of cannon, recalling our late similar experience in the Yellowstone Park.

Alaska constitutes the northwestern portion of the American continent, and has a coast line exceeding eleven thousand miles. The extreme length of the Territory, north and south, is eleven hundred miles, and its breadth is eight hundred. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by British Columbia, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, and on the west by Behring Strait and the North Pacific. Our geographies and encyclopædias help us to little more than the boundaries of this great Territory, which contains nearly six hundred thousand square miles. The latest published estimates give the aggregate number of square miles as nineteen thousand less than the amount we have named, but Governor Swineford and other residents of the Territory believe it to be an underestimate. As there is no actual survey extant, the figures given can only be a reasonable approximation to the true number. The boundary dividing Alaska and British Columbia was settled by treaty between England and Russia in 1825, and the same line is recognized to-day as separating our possessions in this quarter from those of Great Britain. Alaska is as large as all of the New England and Middle States, with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee combined. So far as size is concerned, the Territory is, therefore, an empire in itself, being equal in area to seventy-one States like Massachusetts, and containing as many square miles as England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, and Belgium united. It has been estimated by competent judges that, with its islands, it has a coast line equal to the circumference of the globe. Very few of our people, even among the educated class, have an adequate idea of the immensity of this northwestern Territory, two thirds of which abounds in available resources, only awaiting development. Were Alaska situated on our Atlantic coast it would extend from Maine to Florida.

Miss Kate Field, in a comprehensive article already quoted from, published in the “North American Review,” justly censuring Congress for its supineness and ignorance in relation to Alaska, says: “American citizens, living comfortably on the Atlantic seaboard, knowing their own wants and dictating terms to their submissive representatives, take little heed of those new additions to the United States which are destined to be the crowning glory of the Republic. When a nation is so big as to render portions of it a terra incognita to those who make the laws, there’s something rotten this side of Denmark!.. The march of empire goes on in spite of human fallibility, and now the land of the midnight sun knocks at the door of Congress. She is twenty-three years old, and asks to be treated as though she were of age. The big-wigs at Washington rub their eyes, put on their spectacles, and wonder what this Hyperborean hubbub means?”