USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38
The contract for the immediate building of the road had been secured by Mr. Heney, who had returned to his original surveys. The terminus at once travelled back to Cordova ; and the itinerant bank may yet thank its guid- ing star which prevented it from getting itself landed at Katalla.
Important " strikes " are made constantly in the Tanana country, in the Sushitna, and in the Koyukuk, where pay is found surpassing the best of the Klondike.
The trail from Valdez to Fairbanks may yet be as thickly strewn with eager-eyed stampeders as were the Dyea and Skagway trails a decade ago. Never again,
1
243
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
however, in any part of Alaska, can the awful conditions of that time prevail. Steamer, rail, and stage transpor- tation have made travelling in the North luxurious, com- pared to the horrors endured in the old days.
The Guggenheims have been compelled to carry on a fantastic fight for right of way for the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. In the summer of 1907, they attempted to lay track at Katalla over the disputed Bruner right of way. The Bruner Company had con- structed an immense "go-devil " of railway rails, which, operated by powerful machinery, could be swung back and forth over the disputed point. It was operated by armed men behind fortifications.
The Bruner concern was known as the Alaska-Pacific Transportation and Terminal Company, financed by Pitts- burg capital, and proposed building a road to the coal regions, thence to the Copper River. They sought right of way by condemnation proceedings,
The town site of Katalla is owned by the Alaska Petroleum and Coal Company, which had deeded a right of way to the Guggenheims; also, a large tract of land for smelter purposes. At one point it was necessary for the latter to cross the right of way of the Bruner road.
The trouble began in May, when the Bruner workmen dynamited a pile-driver and trestle belonging to the Guggenheims, who had then approached within one hun- dred feet of the Bruner right of way.
On July 3 a party of Guggenheim laborers, under the protection of a fire from detachments of armed men, suc- ceeded in laying track over the disputed right of way.
Tony de Pascal daringly led the construction party and received the reward of a thousand dollars offered by the Guggenheims to the man who would successfully lead the attacking forces. Soon afterward, he was shot dead by one of his own men who mistook him for a member
244
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
of the opposing force. Ten other men were seriously injured by bullets from the Bruner block-houses.
In the autumn of the same year a party of men sur- veying for the Reynolds Home Railway, from Valdez to the Yukon, met armed resistance in Keystone Canyon from a force of men holding right of way for the Gug- genheims. A battle occurred in which one man was killed and three seriously wounded.
The wildest excitement prevailed in fiery Valdez, and probably only the proximity of a United States military post prevented the lynching of the men who did the killing.
Ever since the advent of the Russians, Copper River has been considered one of the bonanzas of Alaska. It was discovered in 1783 by Nagaief, a member of Potap Zaïkoff's party. He ascended it for a short distance and traded with the natives, who called the river Atnah. Rufus Serrebrennikof and his men attempted an explora- tion, but were killed. General Miles, under Abercrombie, attempted to ascend the river in 1884, with the in- tention of coming out by the Chilkaht country; but the expedition was a failure. In the following year Lieu- tenant H. T. Allen successfully ascended the river, crossed the divide to the Tanana, sailed down that stream to the Yukon, explored the Koyukuk, and then proceeded down the Yukon to St. Michael and returned to San Francisco by ocean.
His description of Miles Glacier was the first to be printed. This glacier fronts for a distance of six miles in splendid palisades on Copper River. This and Childs Glacier afford the chief obstacles to navigation on this river, and Mr. A. H. Brooks reports their rapid recession.
The river is regarded as exceedingly dangerous for steamers, but may, with caution, be navigated with small boats. Between the mouth of the Chitina and the head of the broad delta of the Copper River, is the
--
Copyright by E. A. Ilegg, Juneau
LAKE BENNETT IN 1898
Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle
١
245
ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY
only canyon. It is the famous Wood Canyon, several miles in length and in many places only forty yards wide, with the water roaring through perpendicular stone walls. The Tiekel, Tasnuna, and other streams tributary to this part of the Copper also flow through narrow valleys with precipitous slopes.
The Copper River has its source in the mountains east of its great plateau, whose eastern margin it traverses, and then, passing through the Chugach Mountains, de- bouches across a wide delta into the North Pacific Ocean between Katalla and Cordova. It rises close to Mount Wrangell, flows northward for forty miles, south and southwest for fifty more, when the Chitina joins it from the east and swells its flood for the remaining one hun- dred and fifty miles to the coast.
The Copper is a silt-laden, turbulent stream from its source to the sea. Its average fall is about twelve feet to the mile. From the Chitina to its mouth, it is steep- sided and rock-bound; for its entire length, it is weird and impressive.
By land, the distance from Katalla to Cordova is in- significant. It is a distance, however, that cannot as yet be traversed, on account of the delta and other im- passable topographic features, which only a railroad can overcome. The distance by water is about one hundred and fifty miles.
In the entrance to Cordova Bay is Hawkins Island, and to the southwest of this island lies Hinchingbroke Island, whose southern extremity, at the entrance to Prince William Sound, was named Cape Hinchingbroke by Cook in 1778. At a point named Snug Corner Bay Cook keeled and mended his ships.
This peerless sound itself - brilliantly blue, greenly islanded, and set round with snow peaks and glaciers, including among the latter the most beautiful one of
246
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
Alaska, if not the most beautiful of the world, the Columbia - was known as Chugach Gulf - a name to which I hope it may some day return, - until Cook renamed it.
A boat sent out by Cook was pursued by natives in canoes. They seemed afraid to approach the ship; but at a distance sang, stood up in the canoes, extending their arms and holding out white garments of peace. One man stood up, entirely nude, with his arms stretched out like a cross, motionless, for a quarter of an hour.
The following night a few natives came out in the skin-boats of the Eskimos. These boats are still used from this point westward and northward to Nome and up the Yukon as far as the Eskimos have settlements. They are of three kinds. One is a large, open, flat- bottomed boat. It is made of a wooden frame, covered with walrus skin or sealskin, held in place by thongs of the former. This is called an oomiak by the Innuits or Eskimos, and a bidarra by the Russians. It is used by women, or by large parties of men.
A boat for one man is made in the same fashion, but covered completely over, with the exception of one hole in which the occupant sits, and around which is an up- right rim. When at sea he wears a walrus-gut coat, completely waterproof, which he ties around the outside of the rim. The coat is securely tied around the wrists, and the hood is drawn tightly around the face; so that no water can possibly enter the boat in the most severe storm. This boat is called a bidarka.
The third, called a kayak, differs from the bidarka only in being longer and having two or three holes.
The walrus-gut coats are called kamelinkas or kame- laykas. They may be purchased in curio stores, and at Seldovia and other places on Cook Inlet. They are now gayly decorated with bits of colored wool and range in
247
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
price from ten to twenty dollars, according to the amount of work upon them.
There is a difference of opinion regarding the names of the boats. Dall claims that the one-holed boat was called a kayak by the natives, and by the Russians a bidarka; and that the others were simply known as two or three holed bidarkas. The other opinion, which I have given, is that of people living in the vicinity at present.
Each of the men who came out in the bidarkas to visit Cook had a stick about three feet long, the end of which was decorated with large tufts of feathers. Behring's men were received in precisely the same manner at the Shumagin Islands, far to westward, in 1741; their sticks, according to Müller, being decorated with hawks' wings.
These natives were found to be thievish and treacher- ous, attempting to capture a boat under the ship's very guns and in the face of a hundred men.
Cook then sailed southward and discovered the largest island in the sound, the Sukluk of the natives, which he named Montagu.
Nutchek, or Port Etches, as it was named by Portlock, is just inside the entrance to the sound on the western shore of the island that is now known as Hinchingbroke, but which was formerly called Nutchek.
Here Baranoff, several years later, built the ships that bore his first expedition to Sitka. The Russian trading post was called the Redoubt Constantine and Elena. It was a strong, stockaded fort with two bastions.
There is a salmon cannery at Nutchek, and the furs of the Copper River country were brought here for many years for barter.
Orca is situated about three miles north of Cordova, in Cordova Bay. There is a large salmon cannery at Orca ; and the number of sea-birds to be seen in this small bay,
248
ALASKA: THIE GREAT COUNTRY
filling the air in snowy clouds and covering the pre- cipitous cliffs facing the wharf, is surpassed in only one place on the Alaskan coast - Karluk Bay.
For several years before the founding of Valdez, Orca was used as a port by the argonauts who crossed by way of Valdez Pass to the Copper River mining regions, and by way of the Tanana River to the Yukon.
Prince William Sound is one of the most nobly beau- tiful bodies of water in Alaska. Its wide blue water- sweeps, its many mountainous, wooded, and snow-peaked islands, the magnificent glaciers which palisade its ice- inlets, and the chain of lofty, snowy mountains that float mistily, like linked pearls, around it through the amethystine clouds, give it a poetic and austere beauty of its own. Every slow turn of the prow brings forth some new delight to the eye. Never does one beautiful snow-dome fade lingeringly from the horizon, ere another pushes into the exquisitely colored atmosphere, in a chaste beauty that fairly thrills the heart of the beholder.
The sound, or gulf, extends winding blue arms in every direction, - into the mainland and into the many islands. It covers an extent of more than twenty-five hundred square miles. The entrance is about fifty miles wide, but is sheltered by countless islands. The largest and richest are Montagu, Hinchingbroke, La Touche, Knight's, and Haw- kins. There are many excellent harbors on the shores of the gulf and on the islands, and the Russians built several ships here. In Chalmers Bay Vancouver discovered a remarkable point, which bore stumps of trees cut with an axe, but far below low-water mark at the time of his dis- covery. He named it Sinking Point.
There is a portage from the head of the gulf to Cook Inlet, which, the earliest Russians learned, had long been used by the natives, who are of the Innuit, or Eskimo, tribe, simi- lar to those of the Inlet, and are called Chugaches. The
Photo by Case and Draper
WHITE HORSE, YUKON TERRITORY
249
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
northern shore of Kenai and the western coast of the Inlet are occupied by Indians of the Athabascan stock.
Cook found the natives of the gulf of medium size, with square chests and large heads. The complexion of the children and some of the younger women was white; many of the latter having agreeable features and pleasing appearance. They were vivacious, good-natured, and of engaging frankness.
These people, of all ages and both sexes, wore a close robe reaching to the ankles- sometimes only to the knees - made of the skins of sea-otter, seal, gray fox, rac- coon, and pine-marten. These garments were worn with the fur outside. Now and then one was seen made of the down of sea-birds, which had been glued to some other substance. The seams were ornamented with thongs, or tassels, of the same skins.
In rain they wore kamelinkas over the fur robes. Cook's description of a kamelinka as resembling a " gold- beater's leaf" is a very good one.
His understanding of the custom of wearing the labret, however, differs from that of other early navigators. The incision in the lip, he states, was made even in the cliil- dren at the breast; while La Perouse and others were of the impression that it was not made until a girl had arrived at a marriageable age.
It appears that the incision in time assumes the shape of real lips, through which the tongue may be thrust.
One of Cook's seamen, seeing for the first time a woman having the incision from which the labret had been removed, fell into a panic of horror and ran to his companions, crying that he "had seen a man with two mouths, " -evidently mistaking the woman for a man. Cook reported that both sexes wore the labret; but this was doubtless an error. When they are clad in the fur
250
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
garments, which are called parkas, it is difficult to distin- guish one sex from the other among the younger people.
I had a rather amusing experience myself at the small native settlement of Anvik on the Yukon. It was mid- night, but broad daylight, as we were in the Arctic Cirele. The natives were all clad in parkas. Two sitting side by side resembled each other closely. After buying some of their curios, I asked one, indicating the other, "Is she your sister ? "
To my confusion, my question was received with a loud burst of laughter, in which a dozen natives, sitting around them, hoarsely and hilariously joined.
They poked the unfortunate object of my curiosity in the ribs, pointed at him derisively, and kept crying - "She! She!" until at last the poor young fellow, not more embarrassed than myself, sprang to his feet and ran away, with laughter and eries of "She! She!" following him.
I have frequently recalled the scene, and feared that the innocent dark-eyed and sweet-smiling youth may have retained the name which was so mirthfully bestowed upon him that summer night.
But since the mistake in sex may be so easily made, I am inclined to the belief that Cook and his men were mis- led in this particular.
A most remarkable difference of opinion existed be- tween Cook and other early explorers as to the cleanliness of the natives. He found their method of eating decent and cleanly, their persons neat, without grease or dirt, and their wooden dishes in excellent order.
The white-headed eagle was found here, as well as the shag, the great kingfisher of brilliant coloring, the hum- ming-bird, water-fowl, grouse, snipe, and plover. Many other species of water and land fowl have been added to these.
251
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
The flora of the islands is brilliant, varied, and luxuriant.
In 1786 John Meares - who is dear to my heart be- cause of his confidence in Juan de Fuca - came to disas- ter in the Chugach Gulf. Overtaken by winter, he first tried the anchorage at Snug Corner Cove, in his ship, the Nootka, but later moved to a more sheltered nook closer to the mainland, in the vicinity of the present native vil- lage of Tatitlik.
The ill-provisioned vessel was covered for the winter ; spruce beer was brewed, but the men preferred the liq- uors, which were freely served, and, fresh fish being scarce, scurvy became epidemic. The surgeon was the first to die ; but he was followed by many others.
At first, graves were dug under the snow; but soon the survivors were too few and too exhausted for this last service to their mates. The dead were then dropped in fissures of the ice which surrounded their ship.
At last, when the lowest depth of despair had been reached, Captains Portlock and Dixon arrived and fur- nished relief and assistance.
In 1787-1788 the Chugach Gulf presented a strange appearance to the natives, not yet familiar with the pres- ence of ships. Englishmen under different flags, Rus- sians and Spaniards, were sailing to all parts of the gulf, taking possession in the names of different nations of all the harbors and islands.
In Voskressenski Harbor - now known as Resurrec- tion Bay, where the new railroad town of Seward is situ- ated - the first ship ever built in Alaska was launched by Baranoff, in 1794. It was christened the Phoenix, and was followed by many others.
Preparations for ship-building were begun in the win- ter of 1791. Suitable buildings, storehouses, and quarters for the men were erected. There were no large saws, and planks were hewn out of whole logs. The iron re-
252
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
quired was collected from wrecks in all parts of the col- onies; steel for axes was procured in the same way. Having no tar, Baranoff used a mixture of spruce gum and oil.
Provisions were scarce, and no time was allowed for hunting or fishing. So severe were the hardships endured that no one but Baranoff could have kept up his courage and that of his suffering men, and cheered them on to final success.
The Phoenix - which was probably named for an Eng- lish ship which had visited the Chugach Gulf in 1792- was built of spruce timber, and was seventy-three feet long. It was provided with two decks and three masts. The calking above the water-line was of moss. The sails were composed of fragments of canvas gathered from all parts of the colonies.
On her first voyage to Kadiak, the Phoenix encountered a storm which brought disaster to her frail rigging; and instead of sailing proudly into harbor, as Baranoff had hoped, she was ignominiously towed in.
But she was the first vessel built in the colonies to enter that harbor in any fashion, and the Russian joy was great. The event was celebrated by solemn Mass, fol- lowed by high eating and higher drinking.
The Phoenix was refitted and rerigged and sent out on her triumphal voyage to Okhotsk. There she arrived safely and proudly. She was received with volleys of artillery, the ringing of bells, the celebration of Mass, and great and joyous feasting.
A cabin and deck houses were added, the vessel was painted, and from that time until her loss in the Alaskan Gulf, the Phoenix regularly plied the waters of Behring Sea and the North Pacific Ocean between Okhotsk and the Russian colonies in America.
CHAPTER XXII
ELLAMAR is a small town on Virgin Bay, Prince Will- iam Sound, at the entrance to Puerto de Valdes, or Val- dez Narrows. It is very prettily situated on a gently rising hill.
It has a population of five or six hundred, and is the home of the Ellamar Mining Company. Here are the headquarters of a group of copper properties known as the Gladdaugh mines.
One of the mines extends under the sea, whose waves wash the buildings. It has been a large and regular shipper for several years. In 1903 forty thousand tons of ore were shipped to the Tacoma smelter, and shipments have steadily increased with every year since.
The mine is practically a solid mass of iron and copper pyrites. It has a width of more than one hundred and twenty-five feet where exposed, and extends along the strike for a known distance of more than three hundred feet.
The vast quantities of gold found in Alaska have, up to the present time, kept the other rich mineral products of the country in the background. Copper is, at last, com- ing into her own. The year of 1907 brought forth tre- mendous developments in copper properties. The Gug- genheim-Morgan-Rockefeller syndicate has kept experts in every known, or suspected, copper district of the North during the last two years. Cordova, the sea terminus of the new railroad, is in the very heart of one of the richest copper districts. The holdings of this syndicate are al-
253
254
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
ready immense and cover every district. The railroad will run to the Yukon, with branches extending into every rich region.
Other heavily financed companies are preparing to rival the Guggenheims, and individual miners will work their claims this year. Experts predict that within a decade Alaska will become one of the greatest copper-producing countries of the world. In the Copper River country alone, north of Valdez, there is more copper, according to expert reports, than Montana or Michigan ever has produced, or ever will produce.
The Ketchikan district is also remarkably rich. At Niblack Anchorage, on Prince of Wales Island, the ore carries five per cent of copper, and the mines are most favorably located on tide-water.
Native copper, associated with gold, has been found on Turnagain Arm, in the country tributary to the Alaska Central Railway.
A half interest in the Bonanza, a copper mine on the western side of La Touche Island, Prince William Sound, was sold last year for more than a million dollars. This mine is not fully developed, but is considered one of the best in Alaska. It has an elevation of two hundred feet. Several tunnels have been driven, and the ore taken out runs high in copper, gold, and silver. One shipment of one thousand two hundred and thirty-five pounds gave net returns of fifty dollars to the ton, after deducting freight to Tacoma, smelting, refining, and an allowance of ninety-five per cent for the silver valuation. A sample taken along one tunnel for sixty feet gave an assay of over nine per cent copper, with one and a quarter ounces of silver.
The Bonanza was purchased in 1900 by Messrs. Beat- son and Robertson for seventy-two thousand dollars. There is a good wharf and a tramway line to the mine.
255
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
Adjoining the Bonanza on the north is a group of eleven claims owned by Messrs. Esterly, Meenach, and Keyes, which are in course of development. There are many other rich claims on this island, on Knight's, and on others in the sound. Timber is abundant, the water power is excellent, and ore is easily shipped.
There is an Indian village two or three miles from Ellamar. It is the village of Tatitlik, the only one now remaining on the sound, so rapidly are the natives vanish- ing under the evil influence of civilization. Ten years ago there were nine hundred natives in the various villages on the shores of the sound; while now there are not more than two hundred, at the most generous calculation.
White men prospecting and fishing in the vicinity of the village supply them with liquor. When a sufficient quantity can be purchased, the entire village, men and women, indulges in a prolonged and horrible debauch which frequently lasts for several weeks.
The death rate at Tatitlik is very heavy, - more than a hundred natives having died during 1907.
Passengers have time to visit this village while the steamer loads ore at Ellamar.
The loading of ore, by the way, is a new experience. A steamer on which I was travelling once landed at Ella- mar during the night.
We were rudely awakened from our dreams by a sound which Lieutenant Whidbey would have called "most stu- pendously dreadful." We thought that the whole bottom of the ship must have been knocked off by striking a reef, and we reached the floor simultaneously.
I have no notion how my own eyes looked, but my friend's eyes were as large and expressive as bread-and- butter plates.
"We are going down !" she exclaimed, with tragic brevity.
256
ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY
At that instant the dreadful sound was repeated. We were convinced that the ship was being pounded to pieces under us upon rocks. Without speech we began dressing with that haste that makes fingers become thumbs.
But suddenly a tap came upon our door, and the watch- man's voice spoke outside.
" Ladies, we are at Ellamar."
" At Ellamar!"
" Yes. You asked to be called if it wasn't midnight when we landed."
" But what is that awful noise, watchman ?"
"Oh, we're loading ore," he answered cheerfully, and walked away.
All that night and part of the next day tons upon tons of ore thundered into the hold. We could not sleep, we could not talk ; we could only think ; and the things we thought shall never be told, nor shall wild horses drag them from us.
We dressed, in desperation, and went up to "the store "; sat upon high stools, ate stale peppermint candy, and listened to " Uncle Josh " telling his parrot story through the phonograph.
Somehow, between the ship and the store, we got our- selves through the night and the early morning hours. After breakfast we found the green and flowery slopes back of the town charming ; and a walk of three miles along the shore to the Indian village made us forget the ore for a few hours. But to this day, when I read that an Alaskan ship has brought down hundreds of tons of ore to the Tacoma smelter, my heart goes out silently to the passengers who were on that ship when the ore was loaded.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.