Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle A Famous Team of HuskiesCopyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, SeattleA Famous Team of Huskies
"'Do you hear them sea-gulls?' she cries out. 'All they can scream isKar-luk!Kar-luk!Kar-luk! You can hear'm say it just as plain.Kar-luk! I'll hear 'em when I lay in my grave! Oh, my Lord, what a joke!'"
Our progress up Karluk River in the barge was so leisurely that we seemed to be "drifting upward with the flood" between the low green shores that sloped, covered with flowers, to the water. The clouds were a soft gray, edged with violet, and the air was very sweet.
The hatchery is picturesquely situated.
A tiny rivulet, called Shasta Creek, comes tumbling noisily down from the hills, and its waters are utilized in the various "ponds."
The first and highest pond they enter is called the "settling" pond, which receives, also, in one corner, the clear, bubbling waters of a spring, whose upflow, never ceasing, prevents this corner of the pond from freezing. This pond is deeper than the others, and receives the waters of the creek so lightly that the sediment is not disturbed in the bottom, its function being to permit the sediment carried down from the creek to settle before the waters pass on into the wooden flume, which carries part of the overflow into the hatching-house, or on into the lower ponds, which are used for "ripening" the salmon.
There are about a dozen of these ponds, and they are terraced down the hill with a fall of from four to six feet between them.
They are rectangular in shape and walled with large stones and cement. The walls are overgrown with grasses and mosses; and the waters pouring musically down over them from large wooden troughs suspendedhorizontally above them, and whose bottoms are pierced by numerous augur-holes, produce the effect of a series of gentle and lovely waterfalls.
It is essential that the fall of the water should be as light and as soft as possible, that the fish may not be disturbed and excited—ripening more quickly and perfectly when kept quiet.
These ponds were filled with salmon. Many of them moved slowly and placidly through the clear waters; others struggled and fought to leap their barriers in a seemingly passionate and supreme desire to reach the highest spawning-ground. There is to me something divine in the desperate struggle of a salmon to reach the natural place for the propagation of its kind—the shallow, running upper waters of the stream it chooses to ascend. It cannot be will-power—it can be only a God-given instinct—that enables it to leap cascades eight feet in height to accomplish its uncontrollable desire. Notwithstanding all commercial reasoning and all human needs, it seems to me to be inhumanly cruel to corral so many millions of salmon every year, to confine them during the ripening period, and to spawn them by hand.
In the natural method of spawning, the female salmon seeks the upper waters of the stream, and works out a trough in the gravelly bed by vigorous movements of her body as she lies on one side. In this trough her eggs are deposited and are then fertilized by the male.
The eggs are then covered with gravel to a depth of several feet, such gravel heaps being known as "redds."
To one who has studied the marvellously beautiful instincts of this most human of fishes, their desperate struggles in the ripening ponds are pathetic in the extreme; and I was glad to observe that even the gentlemen of our party frequently turned away with faces full of the pity of it.
A salmon will struggle until it is but a purple, shapeless mass; it will fling itself upon the rocks; the over-pouring waters will bear it back for many yards; then it will gradually recover itself and come plunging and fighting back to fling itself once more upon the same rocks. Each time that it is washed away it is weaker, more bruised and discolored. Battered, bleeding, with fins broken off and eyes beaten out, it still returns again and again, leaping and flinging itself frenziedly upon the stone walls.
Its very rush through the water is pathetic, as one remembers it; it is accompanied by a loud swish and the waters fly out in foam; but its movements are so swift that only a line of silver—or, alas! frequently one of purple—is visible through the beaded foam.
Some discoloration takes place naturally when the fish has been in fresh water for some time; but much of it is due to bruising. A salmon newly arrived from the sea is called a "clean" salmon, because of its bright and sparkling appearance and excellent condition.
There is a tramway two or three hundred yards in length, along which one may walk and view the various ponds. It is used chiefly to convey stock-fish from the corrals to the upper ripening-ponds.
When ripe fish are to be taken from a pond, the water is lowered to a depth of about a foot and a half; a kind of slatting is then put into the water at one end and slidden gently under the fish, which are examined—the "ripe" ones being placed in a floating car and the "green" ones freed in the pond. A stripping platform attends every pond, and upon this the spawning takes place.
The young fish, from one to two years old, before it has gone to sea, is called by a dozen different names, chief of which are parr and salmon-fry. At the end of ten weeks after hatching, the fry are fed tinned salmon flesh,—"do-overs"furnished by the canneries,—which is thoroughly desiccated and put through a sausage-machine.
When the fry are three or four months old, they are "planted." After being freed they work their way gradually down to salt-water, which pushes up into the lagoon, and finally out into the bay. They return frequently to fresh water and for at least a year work in and out with the tides.
The majority of fry cling to the fresh-water vicinity for two years after hatching, at which time they are about eight inches long. The second spring after hatching they sprout out suddenly in bright and glistening scales, which conceal the dark markings along their sides which are known as parr-marks. They are then called "smolt," and are as adult salmon in all respects save size.
In all rivers smolts pass down to the sea between March and June, weighing only a few ounces. The same fall they return as "grilse," weighing from three to five pounds.
After their first spawning, they return during the winter to the sea; and in the following year reascend the river as adult salmon. Males mature sexually earlier than females.
The time of year when salmon ascend from the sea varies greatly in different rivers, and salmon rivers are denominated as "early" or "late."
The hatchery at Karluk is a model one, and is highly commended by government experts. It was established in the spring of 1896, and stripping was done in August of the same year. The cost of the present plant has been about forty thousand dollars, and its annual expenditure for maintenance, labor, and improvements, from ten to twenty thousand. There is a superintendent and a permanent force of six or eight men, including a cook, with additional help from the canneries when it is required.
There are many buildings connected with the hatchery, and all are kept in perfect order. The first season, it is estimated that two millions of salmon-fry were liberated, with a gradual increase until the present time, when forty millions are turned out in a single season.
The superintendent was taken completely by surprise by our visit, but received us very hospitably and conducted us through all departments with courteous explanations. The shining, white cleanliness and order everywhere manifest would make a German housewife green of envy.
At this point Karluk River widens into a lagoon, in which the corrals are wired and netted off somewhat after the fashion of fish-traps, covering an area of about three acres.
Fish for the hatcheries are called "stock-fish." They are secured by seiners in the lagoon opposite the hatcheries, and are then transferred to the corrals. As soon as a salmon has the appearance of ripening, it is removed by the use of seines to the ripening-ponds.
In the hatching-house are more than sixty troughs, fourteen feet in length, sixteen inches in width, and seven inches in depth. The wood of which they are composed is surfaced redwood. The joints are coated with asphaltum tar, with cotton wadding used as calking material. When the trough is completed, it is given one coat of refined tar and two of asphaltum varnish.
In the Karluk hatchery the troughs never leak, owing to this superior construction; and it is said that the importance of this advantage cannot be overestimated.
Leaks make it impossible for the employees to estimate the amount of water in the troughs; repairs startle the young fry and damage the eggs; and the damp floors cause illness among the employees. The Karluk hatchery is noted for its dryness and cleanliness.
The setting of the hatchery is charming. The hills,treeless, pale green, and velvety, slope gently to the river and the lagoon. Now and then a slight ravine is filled with a shrubby growth of a lighter green. Flowers flame everywhere, and tiny rivulets come singing down to the larger stream.
The greenness of the hills continues around the bay, broken off abruptly on Karluk Head, where the soft, veined gray of the stone cliff blends with the green.
The bay opens out into the wide, bold, purple sweep of Shelikoff Strait.
Every body of water has its character—some feature that is peculiarly its own, which impresses itself upon the beholder. The chief characteristic of Shelikoff Strait is its boldness. There is something dauntless, daring, and impassioned in its wide and splendid sweep to the chaste line of snow peaks of the Aleutian Range on the Aliaska Peninsula. It seems to hold a challenge.
I should like to live alone, or almost alone, high on storm-swept Karluk Head, fronting that magnificent scene that can never be twice quite the same. What work one might do there—away from little irritating cares! No neighbors to "drop in" with bits of delicious gossip; no theatres in which to waste the splendid nights; no bridge-luncheons to tempt,—nothing but sunlight glittering down on the pale green hills; the golden atmosphere above the little bay filled with tremulous, winged snow; and miles and miles and miles of purple sea.
"What kind of place is Uyak?" I asked a deck-hand who was a native of Sweden, as we stood out in the bow of theDoraone day.
He turned and looked at me and grinned.
"It ees a hal of a blace," he replied, promptly and frankly. "It ees yoost dat t'ing. You vill see."
And I did see. I should, in fact, like to take this frank-spoken gentleman along with me wherever I go, solely to answer people who ask me what kind of place Uyak is—his opinion so perfectly coincides with my own.
There were canneries at Uyak, and mosquitoes, and things to be smelled; but if there be anything there worth seeing, they must first kill the mosquitoes, else it will never be seen.
The air was black with these pests, and the instant we stepped upon the wharf we were black with them, too. Every passenger resembled a windmill in action, as he raced down the wharf toward the cannery, hoping to find relief there; and as he went his nostrils were assailed by an odor that is surpassed in only one place on earth—Belkoffski!—and it comes later.
The hope of relief in the canneries proved to be a vain one. The unfortunate Chinamen and natives were covered with mosquitoes as they worked; their faces and arms were swollen; their eyes were fierce with suffering. They did not laugh at our frantic attempts to rid ourselves of the winged pests—as we laughed at one another. There was nothing funny in the situation to those poor wretches.It was a tragedy. They stared at us with desperate eyes which asked:—
"Why don't you go away if you are suffering? You are free to leave. What have you to complain of?Wemust stay."
We went out and tried to walk a little way along the hill; but the mosquitoes mounted in clouds from the wild-rose thickets. At the end of fifteen minutes we fled back to the steamer and locked ourselves in our staterooms. There we sat down and nursed our grievances with camphor and alcohol.
We sailed up Uyak Bay to the mine of the Kodiak Gold Mining Company. This is a free milling mine and had been a developing property for four years. It was then installing a ten-stamp mill, and had twenty thousand tons of ore blocked out, the ore averaging from fifteen to twenty dollars a ton.
This mine is located on the northern side of Kadiak Island, and has good water power and excellent shipping facilities. Fifty thousand dollars were taken out of the beaches in the vicinity in 1904 by placer mining.
Here, in this lovely, lonely bay, one of the most charming women I ever met spends her summers. She is the wife of one of the owners of the mine, and her home is in San Francisco. She finds the summers ideal, and longs for the novelty of a winter at the mine. She has a canoe and spends most of her time on the water. There are no mosquitoes at the mine; the summers are never uncomfortably hot, and it is seldom, indeed, that the mercury falls to zero in the winter.
From Kadiak Island we crossed Shelikoff Straits to Cold Bay, on the Aliaska Peninsula, which we reached at midnight, and which is the only port that could not tempt us ashore. When our dear, dark-eyed Japanese, "Charlie," played a gentle air upon our cabin door withhis fingers and murmured apologetically, "Cold Bay," we heard the rain pouring down our windows in sheets, and we ungratefully replied, "Go away, Charlie, and leave us alone."
No rope-ladders and dory landings for us on such a night, at a place with such a name.
The following day was clear, however, and we sailed all day along the peninsula. To the south of us lay the Tugidak, Trinity, Chirikoff, and Semidi islands.
At six in the evening we landed at Chignik, another uninteresting cannery place. From Chignik on "to Westward" the resemblance of the natives to the Japanese became more remarkable. As they stood side by side on the wharves, it was almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. The slight figures, brown skin, softly bright, dark eyes, narrowing at the corners, and amiable expression made the resemblance almost startling.
At Chignik we had an amusing illustration, however, of the ease with which even a white man may grow to resemble a native.
The mail agent on theDorawas a great admirer of his knowledge of natives and native customs and language.Cham-miis a favorite salutation with them. Approaching a man who was sitting on a barrel, and who certainly resembled a native in color and dress, the agent pleasantly exclaimed, "Cham-mi."
There was no response; the man did not lift his head; a slouch hat partially concealed his face.
"Cham-mi!" repeated the agent, advancing a step nearer.
There was still no response, no movement of recognition.
The mail agent grew red.
"He must be deaf as a post," said he. He slapped the man on the shoulder and, stooping, fairly shouted in his ear, "Cham-mi, old man!"
Then the man lifted his head and brought to view the unmistakable features of a Norwegian.
"T'hal with you," said he, briefly. "I'm no tamn Eskimo."
The mail agent looked as though the wharf had gone out from under his feet; and never again did we hear him give the native salutation to any one. The Norwegian had been living for a year among the natives; and by the twinkle in his eye as he again lowered his head it was apparent that he appreciated the joke.
At the entrance to Chignik Bay stands Castle Cape, or Tuliiumnit Point. From the southeastern side it really resembles a castle, with turrets, towers, and domes. It is an immense, stony pile jutting boldly out into the sea, whose sparkling blue waves, pearled with foam, break loudly upon its base. In color it is soft gray, richly and evenly streaked with rose. Sea birds circled, screaming, over it and around it. Castle Cape might be the twin sister of "Calico Bluff" on the Yukon.
Popoff and Unga are the principal islands of the Shumagin group, on one of which Behring landed and buried a sailor named Shumagin. They are the centre of famous cod-fishing grounds which extend westward and northward to the Arctic Ocean, eastward to Cook Inlet, and southeastward to the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
There are several settlements on the Island of Unga—Coal Harbor, Sandy Point, Apollo, and Unga. The latter is a pretty village situated on a curving agate beach. It is of some importance as a trading post.
Finding no one to admit us to the Russo-Greek church, we admitted ourselves easily with our stateroom key; but the tawdry cheapness of the interior scarcely repaid us for the visit. The graveyard surrounding the church was more interesting.
There is no wharf at Unga, but there is one at Apollo, about three miles farther up the bay. We were taken up to Apollo in a sail-boat, and it proved to be an excitingsail. It is not sailing unless the rail is awash; but it seemed as though the entire boat were awash that June afternoon in the Bay of Unga. Scarcely had we left the ship when we were struck by a succession of squalls which lasted until our boat reeled, hissing, up to the wharf at Apollo.
Water poured over us in sheets, drenching us. We could not stay on the seats, as the bottom of the boat stood up in the air almost perpendicularly. We therefore stood up with it, our feet on the lower rail with the sea flowing over them, and our shoulders pressed against the gunwale. Had it not been for the broad shoulders of two Englishmen, our boat would surely have gone over.
It all came upon us so suddenly that we had no time to be frightened, and, with all the danger, it was glorious. No whale—no "right" whale, even—could be prouder than we were of the wild splashing and spouting that attended our tipsy race up Unga Bay.
The wharf floated dizzily above us, and we were compelled to climb a high perpendicular ladder to reach it. No woman who minds climbing should go to Alaska. She is called upon at a moment's notice to climb everything, from rope-ladders and perpendicular ladders to volcanoes. A mile's walk up a tramway brought us to the Apollo.
This is a well-known mine, which has been what is called a "paying proposition" for many years. At the time of our visit it was worked out in its main lode, and the owners had been seeking desperately for a new one. It was discovered the following year, and the Apollo is once more a rich producer.
In a large and commodious house two of the owners of the mine lived, their wives being with them for the summer. They were gay and charming women, fond of society, and pining for the fleshpots of San Francisco. The white women living between Kodiak and Dutch Harbor are sofew that they may be counted on one hand, and the luxurious furnishings of their homes in these out-of-the-way places are almost startling in their unexpectedness. We spent the afternoon at the mine, and the ladies returned to theDorawith us for dinner. The squalls had taken themselves off, and we had a prosaic return in the mine's launch.
"What do we do?" said one of the ladies, in reply to my question. "Oh, we read, walk, write letters, go out on the water, play cards, sew, and do so much fancy work that when we get back to San Francisco we have nothing to do but enjoy ourselves and brag about the good time we have in Alaska. We are all packed now to go camping—"
"Camping!" I repeated, too astonished to be polite.
"Yes, camping," replied she, coloring, and speaking somewhat coldly. "We go in the launch to the most beautiful beach about ten miles from Unga. We stay a month. It is a sheltered beach of white sand. The waves lap on it all day long, blue, sparkling, and warm, and we almost live in them. The hills above the beach are simply covered with the big blueberries that grow only in Alaska. They are somewhat like the black mountain huckleberry, only more delicious. We can them, preserve them, and dry them, and take them back to San Francisco with us. They are the best things I ever ate—with thick cream on them. I had some in the house; I wish I had thought to offer you some."
She wished she had thought to offer me some!
On theDorawe were rapidly getting down to bacon and fish,—being about two thousand miles from Seattle, with no ice aboard in this land of ice,—and I am not enthusiastic about either.
And she wished that she had thought to offer me some Alaskan blueberries that are more delicious than mountain huckleberries, and thick cream!
I have heard of steamers that have been built and sent out by missionary or church societies to do good in far and lonely places.
The littleDorais not one of these, nor is religion her cargo; her hold is filled with other things. Yet blessings be on her for the good she does! Her mission is to carry mail, food, freight, and good cheer to the people of these green islands that go drifting out to Siberia, one by one. She is the one link that connects them with the great world outside; through her they obtain their sole touch of society, of which their appreciation is pitiful.
Our captain was a big, violet-eyed Norwegian, about forty years old. He showed a kindness, a courtesy, and a patience to those lonely people that endeared him to us.
He knew them all by name and greeted them cordially as they stood, smiling and eager, on the wharves. All kinds of commissions had been intrusted to him on his last monthly trip. To one he brought a hat; to another a phonograph; to another a box of fruit; dogs, cats, chairs, flowers, books—there seemed to be nothing that he had not personally selected for the people at the various ports. Even a little seven-year-old half-breed girl had travelled in his care from Valdez to join her father on one of the islands.
Wherever there was a woman, native or half-breed, he took us ashore to make her acquaintance.
"Come along now," he would say, in a tone of command,"and be nice. They don't get a chance to talk to many women. Haven't you got some little womanly thing along with you that you can give them? It'll make them happy for months."
We were eager enough to talk to them, heaven knows, and to give them what we could; but the "little womanly things" that we could spare on a two months' voyage in Alaska were distressingly few. When we had nothing more that we could give, the stern disapproval in the captain's eyes went to our hearts. Box after box of bonbons, figs, salted almonds, preserved ginger, oranges, apples, ribbons, belts, pretty bags—one after one they went, until, like Olive Schreiner's woman, I felt that I had given up everything save the one green leaf in my bosom; and that the time would come when the captain would command me to give that up, too.
There seems to be something in those great lonely spaces that moves the people to kindness, to patience and consideration—to tenderness, even. I never before came close to suchhumanness. It shone out of people in whom one would least expect to find it.
Several times while we were at dinner the chief steward, a gay and handsome youth not more than twenty-one years old, rushed through the dining room, crying:—
"Give me your old magazines—quick! There's a whaler's boat alongside."
A stampede to our cabins would follow, and a hasty upgathering of such literature as we could lay our hands upon.
The whaling and cod-fishing schooners cruise these waters for months without a word from the outside until they come close enough to a steamer to send out a boat. The crew of the steamer, discovering the approach of this boat, gather up everything they can throw into it as it flashes for a moment alongside. Frequentlythe occupants of the boat throw fresh cod aboard, and then there are smiling faces at dinner. It is my opinion, however, that any one who would smile at cod would smile at anything.
The most marvellous voyage ever made in the beautiful and not always peaceful Pacific Ocean was the one upon which theDorastarted at an instant's notice, and by no will of her master's, on the first day of January, 1906. Blown from the coast down into the Pacific in a freezing storm, she became disabled and drifted helplessly for more than two months.
During that time the weather was the worst ever known by seafaring men on the coast. The steamshipSanta Anaand the United States steamshipRushwere sent in search of theDora, and when both had returned without tidings, hope for her safety was abandoned.
Eighty-one days from the time she had sailed from Valdez, she crawled into the harbor of Seattle, two thousand miles off her course. She carried a crew of seven men and three or four passengers, one of whom was a young Aleutian lad of Unalaska. As theDorawas on her outward trip when blown to sea, she was well stocked with provisions which she was carrying to the islanders; but there was no fuel and but a scant supply of water aboard.
The physical and mental sufferings of all were ferocious; and it was but a feeble cheer that arose from the little shipwrecked band when theDoraat last crept up beside the Seattle pier. For two months they had expected each day to be their last, and their joy was now too deep for expression.
The welcome they received when they returned to their regular run among the Aleutian Islands is still described by the settlers.
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle Cloud Effect on the YukonCopyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, SeattleCloud Effect on the Yukon
TheDorareached Kodiak late on a boisterous night; but her whistle was heard, and the whole town was on the wharf when she docked, to welcome the crew and to congratulate them on their safety. Some greeted their old friends hilariously, and others simply pressed their hands in emotion too deep for expression.
So completely are the people of the smaller places on the route cut off from the world, save for the monthly visits of theDora, that they had not heard of her safety. When, after supposing her to be lost for two months, they beheld her steaming into their harbors, the superstitious believed her to be a spectre-ship.
The greatest demonstration was at Unalaska. A schooner had brought the news of her safety to Dutch Harbor; from there a messenger was despatched to Unalaska, two miles away, to carry the glad tidings to the father of the little lad aboard theDora.
The news flashed wildly through the town. People in bed, or sitting by their firesides, were startled by the flinging open of their door and the shouting of a voice from the darkness outside:—
"TheDora'ssafe!"—but before they could reach the door, messenger and voice would be gone—fleeing on through the town.
At last he reached the Jessie Lee Missionary Home, at the end of the street, where a prayer-meeting was in progress. Undaunted, he flung wide the door, burst into the room, shouting, "TheDora'ssafe!"—and was gone. Instantly the meeting broke up, people sprang to their feet, and prayer gave place to a glad thanksgiving service.
When theDorafinally reached Unalaska once more, the whole town was in holiday garb. Flags were flying, and every one that could walk was on the wharf. Children, native and white, carried flags which they joyfully waved. Their welcome was enthusiastic and sincere, and the men on the boat were deeply affected.
TheDorais not a fine steamship, but she is stanch, seaworthy, and comfortable; and the islanders are as attached to her as though she were a thing of flesh and blood.
No steamer could have a twelve-hundred-mile route more fascinating than the one from Valdez to Unalaska. It is intensely lovely. Behind the gray cliffs of the peninsula float the snow-peaks of the Aleutian Range. Here and there a volcano winds its own dark, fleecy turban round its crest, or flings out a scarlet scarf of flame. There are glaciers sweeping everything before them; bold headlands plunging out into the sea, where they pause with a sheer drop of thousands of feet; and flowery vales and dells. There are countless islands—some of them mere bits of green floating upon the blue.
At times a kind of divine blueness seems to swim over everything. Wherever one turns, the eye is rested and charmed with blue. Sea, shore, islands, atmosphere, and sky—all are blue. A mist of it rests upon the snow mountains and goes drifting down the straits. It is a warm, delicate, luscious blue. It is like the blue of frost-touched grapes when the prisoned wine shines through.
Sand Point, a trading post on Unga Island, is a wild and picturesque place. It impressed me chiefly, however, by the enormous size of its crabs and starfishes, which I saw in great numbers under the wharf. Rocks, timbers, and boards were incrusted with rosy-purple starfishes, some measuring three feet from the tip of one ray to the tip of the ray nearly opposite. Smaller ones were wedged in between the rays of the larger ones, so that frequently a piling from the wharf to the sandy bottom of the bay, which we could plainly see, would seem to be solid starfish.
As for the crabs—they were so large that they were positively startling. They were three and four feet fromtip to tip; yet their movements, as they floated in the clear green water, were exceedingly graceful.
Sand Point has a wild, weird, and lonely look. It is just the place for the desperate murder that was committed in the house that stands alone across the bay,—a dull and neglected house with open windows and banging doors.
"Does no one live there?" I asked the storekeeper's wife.
"Live there!" she repeated with a quick shudder. "No one could be hired at any price to live there."
The murdered man had purchased a young Aleutian girl, twelve years old, for ten dollars and some tobacco. When she grew older, he lived with her and called her his wife. He abused her shamefully. A Russian half-breed named Gerassenoff—the name fits the story—fell in love with the girl, loved her to desperation, and tried to persuade her to run away with him.
She dared not, for fear of the brutal white wretch who owned her, body and soul. Gerassenoff, seeing the cruelties and abuse to which she was daily subjected, brooded upon his troubles until he became partially insane. He entered the house when the man was asleep and murdered him—foully, horribly, cold-bloodedly.
Gerassenoff is now serving a life-sentence in the government penitentiary on McNeil's Island; the man he murdered lies in an unmarked grave; the girl—for the story has its touch of awful humor!—the girl married another man within a twelvemonth.
There is a persistent invitation at Sand Point to the swimmer. The temptation to sink down, down, through those translucent depths, and then to rise and float lazily with the jelly-fishes, is almost irresistible. There is a seductive, languorous charm in the slow curve of the waves, as though they reached soft arms and wet lips to caress. There are more beautiful waters along the Alaskan coast, but none in which the very spirit of the swimmer seems so surely to dwell.
Belkoffski! There was something in the name that attracted my attention the first time I heard it; and my interest increased with each mile that brought it nearer. It is situated on the green and sloping shores of Pavloff Bay, which rise gradually to hills of considerable height. Behind it smokes the active volcano, Mount Pavloff, with whose ashes the hills are in places gray, and whose fires frequently light the night with scarlet beauty.
TheDoraanchored more than a mile from shore, and when the boat was lowered we joyfully made ready to descend. We were surprised that no one would go ashore with us. Important duties claimed the attention of officers and passengers; yet they seemed interested in our preparations.
"Won't you come ashore with us?" we asked.
"No, I thank you," they all replied, as one.
"Have you ever been ashore here?"
"Oh, yes, thank you."
"Isn't it interesting, then?"
"Oh, very interesting, indeed."
"There is something in their manner that I do not like," I whispered to my companion. "What do you suppose is the matter with Belkoffski."
"Smallpox, perhaps," she whispered back.
"I don't care; I'm going."
"So am I."
"What kind of place is Belkoffski?" I asked one of the sailors who rowed us ashore.
He grinned until it seemed that he would never again be able to get his mouth shut.
"Jou vill see vot kind oof a blace it ees," he replied luminously.
"Is it not a nice place, then?"
"Jou vill see."
We did see.
The tide was so low and the shore so rocky that we could not get within a hundred yards of any land. A sailor named "Nelse" volunteered to carry us on his back; and as nothing better presented itself for our consideration, we promptly and joyfully went pick-a-back.
This was my most painful experience in Alaska. My father used to make stirrups of his hands; but as Nelse did not offer, diffidence kept me from requesting this added gallantry of him. It was well that I went first; for after viewing my friend's progress shoreward, had I not already been upon the beach, I should never have landed at Belkoffski.
For many years Belkoffski was the centre of the sea-otter trade. This small animal, which has the most valuable fur in the world, was found only along the rock shores of the Aliaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. The Shumagins and Sannak islands were the richest grounds. Sea-otter, furnishing the court fur of both Russia and China, were in such demand that they have been almost entirely exterminated—as the fur-bearing seal will soon be.
The fur of the sea-otter is extremely beautiful. It is thick and velvety, its rich brown under-fur being remarkable. The general color is a frosted, or silvery, purplish brown.
The sea-otter frequented the stormiest and most dangerous shores, where they were found lying on the rocks, or sometimes floating, asleep, upon fronds of an immensekelp which was called "sea-otter's cabbage." The hunters would patiently lie in hiding for days, awaiting a favorable opportunity to surround their game.
They were killed at first by ivory spears, which were deftly cast by natives. In later years they were captured in nets, clubbed brutally, or shot. They were excessively shy, and the difficulty and danger of securing them increased as their slaughter became more pitiless. Only natives were allowed to kill otter until 1878, when white men married to native women were permitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to consider themselves, and to be considered, natives, so far as hunting privileges were concerned.
The rarest and most valuable of otter are the deep-sea otter, which never go ashore, as do the "rock-hobbers," unless driven there by unusual storms. "Silver-tips"—deep-sea otter having a silvery tinge on the tips of the fur—bring the most fabulous prices.
The hunting of these scarce and precious animals calls for greater bravery, hardship, perilous hazard, and actual suffering than does the chase of any other fur-bearing animal. Pitiful, shameful, and loathsome though the slaughter of seals be, it is not attended by the exposure and the hourly peril which the otter hunter unflinchingly faces.
Sea-otter swim and sleep upon their backs, with their paws held over their eyes, like sleepy puppies, their bodies barely visible and their hind flippers sticking up out of the water.
The young are born sometimes at sea, but usually on kelp-beds; and the mother swims, sleeps, and even suckles her young stretched at full length in the water upon her back. She carries her offspring upon her breast, held in her forearms, and has many humanly maternal ways with it,—fondling it, tossing it into the air and catchingit, and even lulling it to sleep with a kind of purring lullaby.
Both the male and female are fond of their young, caring for it with every appearance of tenderness. In making difficult landings, the male "hauls out" first and catches the young, which the mother tosses to him. Sometimes, when a baby is left alone for a few minutes, it is attacked by some water enemy and killed or turned over, when it invariably drowns. The mother, returning and finding it floating, dead, takes it in her arms and makes every attempt possible to bring it to life. Failing, she utters a wild cry of almost human grief and slides down into the sea, leaving it.
The otter hunters used to go out to sea in their bidarkas, with bows, arrows, and harpoons; several would go together, keeping two or three hundred yards apart and proceeding noiselessly. When one discovered an otter, he would hold his paddle straight up in the air, uttering a loud shout. Then all would paddle cautiously about, keeping a close watch for the otter, which cannot remain under water longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. When it came up, the native nearest its breathing place yelled and held up his paddle, startling it under the water again so suddenly that it could not draw a fair breath. In this manner they forced the poor thing to dive again and again, until it was exhausted and floated helplessly upon the water, when it was easily killed. Frequently two or three hours were required to tire an otter.
This picturesque method of hunting has given place to shooting and clubbing the otter to death as he lies asleep on the rocks. As they come ashore during the fiercest weather, the hunter must brave the most violent storms and perilous surfs to reach the otter's retreat in his frail, but beautiful, bidarka. With his gut kamelinka—thin and yellow as the "gold-beater's leaf"—tied tightlyaround his face, wrists, and the "man-hole" in which he sits or kneels, his bidarka may turn over and over in the sea without drowning him or shipping a drop of water—on his lucky days. But the unlucky day comes; an accident occurs; and a dark-eyed woman watches and waits on the green slopes of Belkoffski for the bidarka that does not come.
There were only women and children in the village of Belkoffski that June day. The men—with the exception of two or three old ones, who are always left, probably as male chaperons, at the village—were away, hunting.
The beach was alive, and very noisy, with little brown lads, half-bare, bright-eyed, and with faces that revealed much intelligence, kindness, and humor.
They clung to us, begging for pennies, which, to our very real regret, we had not thought to take with us. Candy did not go far, and dimes, even if we had been provided with them, would have too rapidly run into dollars.
Long-stemmed violets and dozens of other varieties of wild flowers covered the slopes. One little creek flowed down to the sea between banks that were of the solid blue of violets.
But the village itself! With one of the prettiest natural locations in Alaska; with singing rills and flowery slopes and a volcano burning splendidly behind it; with little clean-looking brown lads playing upon its sands, a Greek-Russian church in its centre, and a resident priest who ought to know that cleanliness is next to godliness—with all these blessings, if blessings they all be, Belkoffski is surely the most unclean place on this fair earth.
The filth, ignorance, and apparent degradation of these villagers were revolting in the extreme. Nauseous odors assailed us. They came out of the doors and windows; they swam out of barns and empty sheds; they oozed upout of the earth; they seemed, even, to sink upon us out of the blue sky. The sweetness and the freshness of green grass and blowing flowers, of dews and mists, of mountain and sea scented winds, are not sufficient to cleanse Belkoffski—the Caliban among towns.
An educated half-breed Aleutian woman, married to a white man, accompanied us ashore. She was on her way to Unalaska, and had been eager to land at Belkoffski, where she was born.
Her father had been a priest of the Greek-Russian church and her mother a native woman. She had told us much of the kind-heartedness and generosity of the villagers. Her heart was full of love and gratitude to them for their tenderness to her when her father, of blessed memory, had died.
"I have never had such friends since," she said. "They would do anything on earth for those in trouble, and give their own daily food, if necessary. I have never seen anything like it since. Education doesn't putthatinto our hearts. Such sympathy, such tenderness, such understanding of grief and trouble!—and the kind of help that helps most."
If this be the real nature of these people, only the right influence is needed to lift them from their degradation. The larger children—the brown-limbed, joyous children down on the beach—looked clean, probably from spending much time in the healing sea.
The people of the islands do not travel much, and our fellow-voyager had not been to Belkoffski since she was a little girl. For many years she had been living among white people, with all the comforts and cleanliness of a white woman. I watched her narrowly as we went from house to house, looking for baskets.
We had told her we desired baskets, and she had offered to find some for us. After we saw the houses and thewomen, we would have touched a leper as readily as we would have touched one of the baskets that were brought out for our inspection; but politeness kept us from admitting to her our feeling.
As for her own courtesy and restraint, I have never seen them surpassed by any one. Shock upon shock must have been hers as we passed through that village of her childhood and affection. She went into those noisome hovels without the faintest hesitation; she breathed their atmosphere without complaint; she embraced the women without shrinking.
She knew perfectly why we did not buy the baskets; but she received our excuses with every appearance of believing them to be sincere, and she offered us others with utmost dignity and with the manner of serving us, strangers, in a strange land.
If her delicacy was outraged by the scenes she witnessed, there was not the faintest trace of it visible in her manner. She made no excuses for the people, nor for their manner of living, nor for the village. Belkoffski had been her childhood's home, her father's field; its people had befriended her and had given her love and tenderness when she was in need; therefore, both were sacred and beyond criticism.
When we returned to the ship, she could not have failed to hear the jests and frank opinions of Belkoffski which were freely expressed among the passengers; but her grave, dark face gave no sign that she disapproved, or even that she heard.
A government cutter should be sent to Belkoffski with orders to clean it up, and to burn such portions as are past cleansing. So far as the Russian priest and the people in his charge are concerned, they would be benefited by less religion and more cleanliness.
Dr. Hutton, an army surgeon stationed at Fort Sewardon Lynn Canal, and Judge Gunnison, of Juneau, have recently made an appeal to President Roosevelt for relief for diseased and suffering Indians of Alaska.
Tuberculosis and trachoma prevail among the many tribes and are increasing at an alarming rate, owing to the utter lack of sanitation in the villages. Alaskans travelling in the territory are thrown in constant contact with the Indians. They are encountered on steamers and trains, in stores and hotels. Owing to the pure air and the general healthfulness of the northern climate, Alaskans feel no real alarm over the conditions prevailing as yet; but all feel that the time has arrived when the Indians should be cared for.
Everything purchased of an Indian should be at once fumigated—especially furs, blankets, baskets, and every article that has been handled by him or housed in one of his vile shacks.
The United States Grand Jury recently recommended that medical men be sent by the government to attend the disease-stricken creatures, and that a system of inspection and education along sanitary lines—with special stress laid upon domestic sanitation—should be established.
This system should be extended to the last island of the Aleutian Chain, and in the interior down the Yukon to Nome. The fur trade and the canneries depend largely upon the labor of Indians. The former industry could scarcely be made successful without them. The Indians are rapidly becoming a "vanishing race" in the North, as elsewhere. For the vices that are to-day responsible for their unfortunate condition they are indebted to the white men who have kept them supplied with cheap whiskey ever since the advent of the first American traders who taught them, soon after the purchase of Alaska by the United States, to make "hootchenoo" of molasses, flour, dried apples, or rice, and hops. This highly intoxicatingand degrading liquor was known also as molasses-rum. During the latter part of the seventies, six thousand five hundred and twenty-four gallons of molasses were delivered at Sitka and Wrangell.
The loss of their help, however, is not so serious—being merely a commercial loss—as the danger to civilized people by coming in contact with these dreaded diseases. An Indian in Alaska whose eyes are not diseased is an exception, while the ravages of consumption are very frequently visible to the most careless observer. Both diseases are aggravated by such conditions as those existing at Belkoffski. A physician should be stationed there for a few years at least, to teach these poor, kind-hearted people what the Russian priest has not taught them—the science of sanitation.
Bishop Rowe reports that if there were no missionaries to protect the Eskimo and Indians from unscrupulous white whiskey-traders, they would survive but a short time. When they can obtain cheap liquors they go on prolonged and licentious debauches, and are unable to provide for their actual physical needs for the long, hard winter. Their condition then becomes pitiable, and many die of hunger and privation. Prosecutions are made entirely by missionaries. One Episcopal missionary post is conducted by two young women, one of whom was formerly a society woman of Los Angeles. The post is more than a thousand miles from Fairbanks, the nearest city, and one hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest white settler. It is owing to the reports and the prosecutions of missionaries in all parts of Alaska that the outrages formerly practised upon Eskimo women by licentious white traders are on the decrease.
Federal Commissioner of Education Brown advocates a compulsory school law for Alaska. He favors instruction in modern methods of fishing and of curing fish; inthe care of all parts of walrus that are merchantable; in the handling of wooden boats, the tanning and preparing of skins, in coal mining and the elements of agriculture.
In 1907 fifty-two native schools were maintained in Alaska, with two thousand five hundred children enrolled. Ten new school buildings have recently been constructed.
The reindeer service has been one of Alaska's grave scandals, but it has greatly improved during the past year.
The Eskimo, or Innuit, inhabit a broad belt of the coast line bordering on Behring Sea and the Arctic Ocean, as well as along the coast "to Westward" from Yakutat; also the lower part of the Yukon.
Lieutenant Emmons, who is one of the highest authorities on the natives of Alaska and their customs, has frequently reported the deplorable condition of the Eskimo, and the prevalence of tuberculosis and other dread diseases among them.
In 1900 an epidemic of measles andla grippedevastated the Northwestern Coast. Out of a total population of three thousand natives about the mouth of the Kuskokwim, fully half died, without medical attendance or nursing, within a few months.
The hospitality and generous kindness of the Eskimo to those in need is proverbial. Ever since their subjection by the early Russians—to whom, also, they would doubtless have shown kindness had they not been afraid of them—no shipwrecked mariner has sought their huts in vain. Often the entire crew of an abandoned vessel has been succored, clothed, and kept from starvation during a whole winter—the season when provisions are scarce and the Eskimo themselves scarcely know how to find the means of existence.
Along the islands, the rivers, and lakes, nature has provided them with food and clothing, if they were but educated to make the most of these blessings.
But the vast country bordering the coast between the Kuskokwim and the Yukon, and extending inland a hundred and fifty miles, is low and swampy. This is the dreariest portion of Alaska. Tundra, swamps, and sluggish rivers abound. There is no game, and the natives live on fish and seal. The winters are severe, the climate is cold and excessively moist. Food has often failed, and the old or helpless are called upon to go alone out upon the storm-swept tundra and yield their hard lives—bitter and cheerless at the best—that the young and strong may live. As late as 1901 Lieutenant Emmons reports that this system of unselfish and heart-breaking suicide was practised; and it is probably still in vogue in isolated places when occasion demands.
This district is so poor and unprofitable that the prospector and the trader have so far passed it by; yet, by some means, the white man's worst diseases have been carried in to them.
These people are in dire need of schools, hospitals, medical treatment, and often simple food and clothing.
Farther north, on Seward Peninsula and along the lower Yukon, the natives who have mingled with the miners and traders could easily be taught to be not only self-supporting but of real value to the communities in which they live. They are intelligent, docile, easily directed, and eager to learn. Lieutenant Emmons found that everywhere they asked for schools, that their children, to whom they are most affectionately devoted, may learn to be "smart like the white man."
They are more humble, dependent, and trustful than the Indians, and could easily be influenced. But people do not go to Alaska to educate and care for diseased and loathsome natives, unless they are paid well for the mission. So long as the natives obey the laws of the country, no one has authority over them. No one is interested inthem, or has the time to spare in teaching them. The United States government should take care of these people. It should take measures to protect them from the death-dealing whiskey with which they are supplied; to provide them with schools, hospitals, medical care; it should supply them with reindeer and teach them to care for these animals.
Surely the government of the United States asks not to be informed more than once by such authorities as Lieutenant Emmons, Bishop Rowe, Judge Gunnison, Ex-Governor Brady, and Doctor Hutton that these most wretched beings on the outskirts of the world are begging for education, and that they are sorely in need of medical services.
The government schools in the territory of Alaska are supported by a portion of the license moneys levied on the various industries of the country. Alaska has an area of six hundred thousand square miles and an estimated native and half-breed population of twenty-five thousand; and for these people only fifty-two schools and as many poorly paid teachers!
When I have criticised the Russian Church because it has not taught these people cleanliness, I blush—remembering how my own government has failed them in needs as vital. And when I reflect upon the outrages perpetrated upon them by my own fellow-countrymen—who have deprived them largely of their means of livelihood, robbed them, debauched them, ravished their women, and lured away their young girls—when I reflect upon these things, my face burns with shame that I should ever criticise any other people or any other government than my own.
The recent rapid development of Alaska, and the appropriation of the native food-supplies by miners, traders, canners, and settlers, present a problem that must besolved at once. In regard to the Philippines, we were like a child with a new toy; we could not play with them and experiment with them enough; yet for forty years these dark, gentle, uncomplaining people of our most northern and most splendid possession—beautiful, glorious Alaska—have been patiently waiting for all that we should long ago have given them: protection, interest, and the education and training that would have converted them from diseased and wretched beings into decent and useful people.
According to Lieutenant Emmons, the condition of the Copper River Indians is exceptionally miserable; and of all the native people, either coastal or of the interior, they are most needy and in want of immediate assistance. Reduced in number to barely two hundred and fifty souls, scattered in small communities along the river valleys amidst the loftiest mountains of the continent and under the most rigid climatic conditions, their natural living has been taken from them by the white man, without the establishment of any labor market for their self-support in return.
Prior to 1888 they lived in a very primitive state, and were, even then, barely able to maintain themselves on the not over-abundant game life of the valley, together with the salmon coming up the river for spawning purposes. The mining excitement of that year brought several thousand men into the Copper River Valley, on their way to the Yukon and the Klondike.
They swept the country clean of game, burnt over vast districts, and frequently destroyed what they could not use. About the same time the salmon canneries in Prince William Sound, having exhausted the home streams, extended their operations to the Copper River delta, decreasing the Indians' salmon catch, which had always provided them with food for the bitter winters.