USA > Alaska > Alaska and the Klondike > Part 12
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* At the second session of the Fifty-eighth Congress, Senator Nelson, of Minnesota, secured the incorporation in the army appropriation bill of a provision for the survey of a wagon road from Valdez to Fort Egbert at Eagle on the Yukon River, the survey to be made under the direction of the Secretary of War. This survey was made during the summer of 1904. The report is not public at this writing, but it is a foregone conclusion that no serious engineering difficulties were encountered.
Senator Nelson also secured at the same session the passage of a bill by the Senate pro- viding that all receipts from liquor, occupation or trade licenses outside of incorporated towns, and all fines, fees, etc., outside of incorporated towns, except in case of direct vio- lation of customs laws, and all fees collected by the clerks of the courts, after paying the expenses of the courts, shall be deposited with the treasury department to be known as the " Alaska fund." One-fourth of the fund, or so much as may be necessary, is to be set apart for schools, five per cent. of the fund is to be devoted to the care of the insane and all the remainder is to be devoted to the construction of wagon roads, bridges and trails in Alaska. The work is to be done under the supervision of a special commission of army officers detailed for the service. This bill has since passed the House.
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mail service and in other ways for the benefit of trade and commerce justifies the use of a few hundreds of thou- sands where the benefits to be conferred are prospectively so great. If recent precedent is needed, we have the action of the Government in building roads in the Philippines. They were constructed originally as a military necessity, but their value to the commerce of the country has led to their use and maintenance for that purpose and to the con- struction of additional lines for the public good. What we can afford to do for the Philippines we can afford to do for Alaska.
And all this applies not only to the Valdez-Eagle road, but to the situation in the Seward Peninsula, on the Tanana, in the Circle City district, the Rampart district, and wherever the development of the country halts for that stimulus which only adequate means of transporta- tion can give.
Notice should be taken in this connection of another projected railroad now under construction from a new town called Seward, on the east side of the Kenai penin- sula and at the head of Resurrection Bay, almost due north to the Tanana River. Twenty-five miles are said to have been graded and ironed and the projectors claim to have plenty of money to carry out their plans. It would afford a direct route to Fairbanks and the great Tanana gold field.
When we arrived at Valdez we had been thirty days out of reach of the rest of the world by wire and were even willing to pay 45 cents a word for nothing less than ten-
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THE KEY TO ALASKA'S WEALTH
word messages to hear from the "land of the living." Valdez received and banqueted the senatorial party and talked transportation facilities for two days. Unquestion- ably transportation is the key to Alaska's great mineral wealth. Without it little progress can be made; with it supplies will be cheapened, machinery may be taken in and the cost of production so reduced that tens of thousands of acres of gravel, not now workable at a profit, will begin to pour a golden stream into the channels of trade and commerce. It is a business proposition, but it is a big one and one in which the Government, from the nature of the case, must at least make a beginning.
The climate of Valdez is mild and the harbour is open all winter. As to the climate of Alaska, there may be said to be two. A mild, moist climate is found along the ocean front south of the coast range and the Alaska peninsula, and on the Aleutian Islands. In this part of Alaska, washed by the Japan current, the temperature rarely falls below zero. When the moist currents of air strike the coast range there is heavy precipitation, the snowfall for the winter at Valdez sometimes measuring from 50 to 60 feet calculated as it falls, and settling down to a depth of six or eight feet. Across the coast range in the interior and front- ing Bering Sea the conditions are very different. The atmosphere is dry, the snowfall rarely exceeds two feet and the temperature has a range during the year from 60 or 70 below to 90 degrees above zero.
At the time of our visit Valdez was connected by Gov- ernment telegraph, by way of Eagle, with Dawson, from
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which a Canadian line runs to Ashcroft on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. During the summer of 1904 a cable, by way of Sitka and Juneau, with a branch to Skagway, was laid between Seattle and Valdez, and is now in operation. This cable connects at Valdez with the overland lines to Eagle, Rampart, Fairbanks and St. Michael; from St. Michael there is wireless telegraphic service to Nome. A telephone line is in operation between Nome and Council City and across the peninsula northward to the camps on Kotzebue Sound. Prince William Sound penetrates into the mainland farther than any other inlet open all the year on the south shore, and, for that reason, is a favourable point from which to initiate any kind of transportation system into the interior. It is 665 miles from Skagway to Eagle by the White Pass route, and only 420 miles from Valdez to Eagle by the military trail, over which it is proposed to build a railroad.
XI POLITICAL CONDITIONS
O UR school geographies used to teach us that Mt. St. Elias, near the south shore of Alaska, was the highest mountain on the North American conti- nent. And so it was, so far as the geographers of that day knew. It is only recently that we have learned differently. But this is an age of expansion, and when the explorers found recently another mountain about 150 miles north of Mt. St. Elias which is over 2,000 feet higher, it was appropriate that they should give it the name of the great expansionist and call it Mt. Mckinley. Mt. St. Elias was the boast of Russian America, with its lofty altitude of 17,850 feet (Russian hydrographic chart). Our coast survey since the purchase has raised it to 19,500, of course. But Alaska, American Alaska, takes pride in the cold and stately grandeur of the yet unscaled summit of Mt. McKinley, which rises to a height of 20, 160 feet, or nearly four miles above the level of the sea. Two unsuccessful attempts have been made to climb to the top of Mt. McKinley, one by Judge Wickersham of the cen- tral judicial district of Alaska, and one by the Cook explor- ing expedition. Mt. Mckinley is far inland and behind the coast range, so that it cannot be seen at sea, but Mt. St. Elias is visible from ships one hundred miles away
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on a clear day. A clear day, however, is a rare thing on the summit of Mt. St. Elias. Its snow-clad peak is wrapped in almost continuous cloud and storms rage on its bleak and wind-swept heights except at rare and brief intervals. The moisture from the sea, swept inland by the air currents, falls in rain or snow and here are formed the largest ice fields in Alaska.
The McCulloch, having on board the senatorial party, weighed anchor Sunday morning, August 16, in Valdez harbour, bound for Sitka. The next morning, when we came on deck, the sea was full of ice and there was " a nip- ping and an eager air " which sent us all below for our heaviest wraps. While the ship poked her nose between the tiny icebergs which literally covered the surface of the sea, there was a crackling and tinkling as the crystal shal- lops struck one against another and, washed by the lapping waves, took on the most fantastic shapes. It was a dull imagination, indeed, which could not see birds, and bears, and antlered deer, dancing canoes and many other interesting shapes on the glistening field of ice.
A glance ahead explained our unusual surroundings. About five miles off our port bow-you see we had been on the sea for nearly three weeks and had come to think in the language of the foc'sle-was seen a solid wall of ice apparently perpendicular, to a height variously estimated from 500 to 1,000 feet. A prudent shipmaster took us no nearer than four miles, but near enough for us to discover with our field-glasses the jagged and massive front of this
Islands in Sitka Harbour
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white rampart, streaked with blue where the fissures opened for hundreds of feet straight down.
We were in front of the Malaspina glacier, the largest glacier in Alaska, and bearing the name of the one Italian explorer who reached these northern shores. Mt. St. Elias stands back fifty miles from the sea, the tallest of a group of mountains from whose summits flows down, through the valleys between the lower peaks, emerging like islands, a frozen mass of ice and snow seventy miles in width. The eastern half is what is known as a dead glacier, and is held back from the sea by a moraine, the deposit of ages, ground of the sides of the mountains by the sliding, slipping ice field. The western half, before which we have arrived, is " alive " and is continually dropping pieces of its crum- bling front into the sea. For thirty miles and for nearly four hours, we sail along this icy cliff, marvelling at its wonderful extent and at the still more wonderful expanse of the ice field behind it, which reaches back for forty miles or more up the slopes of the white coast range. We are eager to catch a glimpse of old St. Elias, but the clouds hang in heavy masses around his head and conceal it from our disappointed vision.
We have learned by this time that Alaska has so many valuable resources that we are not surprised at the claim that it will soon produce petroleum in merchantable quan- tity and quality. During the night, after leaving Valdez, we passed Kayak, opposite the mouth of the Copper River, where three flowing oil wells are said to have been sunk, while promising indications are found on the adjacent
Sitka Totems
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mainland. Analysis of the oil shows it to be of as good quality as the Pennsylvania product. The United States Geological Survey reports indications of oil at various places along the south shore, from Cape Yaktag, east of the mouth of Copper River, to the Alaska Peninsula, on the west side of Cook's Inlet.
Deposits of coal have been uncovered on the Alaska Peninsula and on Controller Bay near the mouth of Cop- per River. Alfred H. Brooks, chief of the division of Alas- kan mineral resources, says this Controller Bay coal is the best thus far found on the Pacific coast of North America. Developments of the past year seem to have established the existence on the west side of Prince of Wales Island of a practically inexhaustible supply of some 26 varieties of marble of splendid quality, adapted to monumental and decorative work.
There is one remarkable man, who figured prominently on our Pacific coast for nearly thirty years, of whom little is generally known. Alexander Baranof, cast for the part of one of our modern captains of industry, would have marshalled the forces of science and invention, of labour and capital, with surprising ability. Taking charge of the affairs of the Russian American company in 1790, he made Kadiak Island the centre of his operations for a time, but eventually established his headquarters at Sitka. Possibly he might have found a more picturesque spot on which to found the central station of the Russian fur trade, but I have not seen it. Sitka is on the west side of Baranof Island, on the outer edge of the archipelago, but sheltered
Sitka in Winter
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by capes and islands till its harbour affords a refuge to ships of every description. Baranof did not succeed in effect- ing a permanent settlement here without great difficulties ; and one sad chapter of the long story of struggle and hard- ship and suffering and prodigal waste of human life which marked the Russian occupation relates to the massacre of the first colony by the savage Koloshes. But defeat only inspired him to greater effort and the name of Baranof is to this day held in great esteem by the descendants in Sitka of the men of Baranof's time. The great blockhouse built on the rocky eminence at the head of the harbour after Baranof had long been dead was known before it burned as Baranof Castle, and a public-house which has survived several generations bears his name and testifies that the fame of Sitka's most distinguished citizen is still alive there.
We do not produce such men nowadays. Probably be- cause we do not need them. But Baranof had a work to do and did it. Rather slight of figure, by no means robust- looking, but hospitable to prodigality, measuring his hos- pitality in tankards of the vilest of liquors, he calculated the appreciation of himself among his guests by the lib- erality of their potations.
Not to drink with him was to give offence which called for satisfaction, and not to keep pace with him was to incur his contempt, or something worse. And yet this bullying roysterer, as he sometimes appeared, was loved by chil- dren, respected for his ability and his fairness by all his people and esteemed himself a chosen agent of Divine
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Providence to carry out its purposes. His official reports are full of pious references to the favour of the Almighty when his enterprises were successful and of acknowledg- ments of the justice of the Divine disfavour when he was overtaken by disaster. A strange mixture of strength and weakness, of cruelty and gentleness, of failure and success, he is the conspicuous figure of the Russian régime, which continued for one hundred and twenty-five years.
Attended by the puffins, the seagulls and the sooty alba- tross, and accompanied at times by the spouting whale or the sportive blackfin which abounds in these North Pacific waters, we arrived in sight of Baranof Island in the morn- ing of August 18, and crept past Mt. Edgecumbe and in among the little islands that dot the harbour of Sitka and give it that fairyland appearance which charms every visitor.
Of course we " do " Sitka, as other tourists have " done " it, for we are back at last on the beaten path. After 5,000 miles through the interior and among the islands of the Alaskan waters, we have come to that charming spot which every year attracts many travellers, who fancy, when they have gone home again, that they have seen Alaska. We visit Indian River Park, and the totem poles, the Jackson Museum, the Indian village, which, at a little distance, looks more like the residence quarter of a factory town, but quickly loses that resemblance on closer inspec- tion. We climb the hill to the old Russian cemetery for a view of the town and the harbour, but cannot stay long enough with a landscape which spreads itself before the
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eye but once in a lifetime; we trade with the curio-dealers, who supply their shelves from the Indian end of the town, where curio-making is the chief industry, and find it cheaper to deal with the middleman than with the manu- facturer; we bare our heads in the old Greek church, the cathedral of the Archangel Michael, and listen to a special service while our interest centres chiefly in the rich decora- tions of the sacred place. A Madonna and Child illustrates the peculiar treatment of many of the pictures in an effort to do special honour to the subjects of the paintings. Except the faces and hands, the entire surface of the paint- ing, the work of a Russian artist, is heavily overlaid with solid silver, finely wrought so as to produce a peculiar radiant effect.
The Sheldon Jackson Museum is a rich storehouse of the implements, weapons, articles of dress and all manner of handiwork, ancient and modern, of the Alaska Indians, as well as the repository of many valuable and interesting remains of the Russian occupation of the country.
But we are becoming surfeited with picturesque scenery and a little tired of commercially inclined Indians, and are more interested in rambling idly about the quiet streets of this quaint old town, where it is always 3 o'clock in the afternoon and nothing ever happens. Go to Sitka if you want to rest; that's all they do there. And who can blame them? No other occupation would be in keeping with the quiet seclusion of the place. You'll understand it all in a very few hours. There may be a big, busy, bustling world outside somewhere, of which you were once a part, but you
The Shore Walk Leading to Indian River Park
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will take little interest in the fact. The summer air is balmy, and if the clouds do come sometimes, the falling rain only deepens the sense of satisfaction you will feel in having got off the earth, the busy earth. Who would have expected to find up here on the Alaskan coast a veri- table lotus-land ?
Sitka was the capital, so to speak, of Russian America, and when that vast territory was transferred to the United States, our flag, our symbol of sovereignty, was run up first at Sitka. Until recently Sitka has remained the capital, but it retains now no evidence of its former dignity except the residences of the governor and the surveyor general. All the other district offices have been removed to the more accessible and commercially important city of Juneau, on the regular route of the steamers between Seattle and Skagway. But without any organised territorial form of government in Alaska, it doesn't make much difference where the capital is.
It may surprise some who have not given much thought to the matter to know that this great district, nearly as big as that part of the United States east of the Mississippi River, and containing a population of 60,000 people, is governed entirely from Washington, except in the matter of local affairs managed by the few municipal corporations they have been allowed to organise. Congress has not failed to give to Hawaii a home government, and even Porto Rico enjoys a larger measure of home rule than is accorded to the people of Alaska, who are, so far as the white population is concerned, as familiar with, and as
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thoroughly trained in the art of self-government as the people of Minnesota, for they are nearly all recent resi- dents of the States. The fact is that the United States Gov- ernment bought Alaska about thirty-five years ago and
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THE BREM
The Greek Church at Sitka
then laid it aside and almost forgot about it. It is true that an unsuccessful attempt was made to govern it through the military arm of authority for a time, but the presence of the military wrought vastly more harm than good, and the soldiers were withdrawn. A governor and finally a judge and a few other district officers were appointed, till now there are three judges and three judicial districts with their court officers ; a collector of customs and his deputies ;
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a surveyor-general, a register and receiver of the Land Office, a collector of internal revenue, two officers of the National Bureau of Education and four special agents of the Department of Agriculture, all of whom are ap- pointive, and are actually sent out from the States because they have a " pull." I do not mean by that anything derogatory to the federal officers in Alaska, for so far as I know, with a few notable exceptions, they have been honest and capable; the method of their selection is the point of interest. There has been some special legislation by Congress with respect to Alaska, a general civil code and a criminal code have been framed, and municipal corporations authorised, but it was hardly to be expected that this could be made entirely satisfactory by a body of men sitting 5,000 or 6,000 miles away, very few of whom had ever seen Alaska or had any adequate idea of the needs of the district.
No wonder, then, that there is a strong, though not unanimous, sentiment in Alaska in favour of a territorial form of government. The wonder is that it is not more insistent in its demand than it is. Two facts already stated explain, in part at least, why Alaska has not had home rule before this. One is the size of the district; the other the lack of means of transportation. Population statistics are necessarily unreliable, but of the 63,000 reported in 1900, probably one-half are Eskimos, Indians, and creoles. That leaves something over 30,000 whites, chiefly Ameri- cans, scattered over this immense district, with very inade- quate means of communication and transportation be-
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tween different sections. Of this American population approximately one-third is in southeastern Alaska, which may be described as all that part between Yakutat Bay and Portland Canal, where, according to the late boundary decision, Alaska begins. Another third, roughly estimated, is at Nome, on the Seward Pen- insula, and in all that region tributary from St. Michael مع مالجسد north to the Kotzebue
Sound country. The re- mainder are scattered along the Yukon, for 1,500 miles, along the Tanana, up on the headwaters of the Koyukuk in northern Alaska, down on the Kuskokwim in south- western Alaska, in the Val- dez and the Copper River valley, on the Kenai pen- insula, and the southwest Madonna in Greek Church, Sitka islands. These three arbi- trary - groups correspond very nearly with the divi- sion of Alaska into judicial districts.
Now the people of southeastern Alaska have about as much in common with the people of the Seward Penin-
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sula as the people of Maine have with the people of Texas, and the people along the central Yukon are more remote in point of transportation and communication from the Kenai peninsula than is Boston from San Francisco. The nominal capital is now at Juneau, which is as accessible from other parts of Alaska as any place that could be selected. But suppose a legislature and a delegate to Congress were to be elected and returns made and a session held. If the election were held in the early summer the returns might all reach Juneau in time to have the votes counted and the result announced before the sum- mer was over, but any officers whose presence was required in Juneau would be obliged to leave the Seward Peninsula before the freeze-up, about the 20th of October, and could not reach home again till the next summer.
Still greater difficulties would lie in the way of officers chosen from other sections. The telegraph line from Valdez to Eagle, and Rampart, and Ft. Gibbon, and St. Michael, and Nome is now completed, and will bring the remote parts of this vast expanse closer together, in the sense of communication, but the difficulties of travel re- main and will till railroads or wagon roads, the necessity of which has already been pointed out, are constructed.
These facts of the remoteness of the different groups of population from each other without adequate means of transportation are practical difficulties in the way of the satisfactory operation of a territorial form of government which many of the people of Alaska duly recognise and on account of which they are willing to stand up among their
Interior of Greek Church, Sitka
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clamorous friends who are eager for home rule, as they call it, and contend that the conditions are not ripe.
The expression of sentiment varied according to locality. From Ketchikan to Skagway the predominating sentiment was for territorial government; along the Yukon we heard almost nothing said about it, at Nome opinion was divided again and was no doubt fairly represented in the vote of the citizens' committee on the address presented to the senatorial committee. That address, among other things, asked for territorial government, but the vote of the com- mittee on that proposition was 12 for to II against it.
The Alaskans expect that country to become some part of the United States, that several states will be carved out of that great district which will be admitted to the Union, and they talk that way. The Nome memorial so expresses the hope of that community. They probably do not know it, but just that possibility is one thing which operates more or less effectively against their chances for territorial government. I want to say distinctly that, so far as I have been able to discover, no prejudice against terri- torial government on this account exists in the minds of the territorial committee, but it is a fact that there is a senti- ment against territorial organisation in Alaska among leaders of the Senate, who hold that territory outside of the United States as now constituted should never be admitted to full membership in the union of states, but that the Con- gress should retain full power of government over non- contiguous territory without promise of the privilege of future statehood. While there is obvious ground for oppo-
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