USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 22
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It is comparatively easy for hunters to cross by the chain of lakes and water-ways from Bristol Bay to Cook Inlet - which is known to sportsmen of all countries, both shores offering everything in the way of game. The big brown bear of the inlet is the same as the famous Kadiak ; and hunters come from all parts of the world when they can secure permits to kill them. Moose, cari- bou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, deer, and all kinds of smaller game are also found. There are many trout and salmon streams on the eastern shore of the inlet, and the lagoons and marshes are the haunts of water-fowl.
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The voyage up Cook Inlet is one of the most fascinat- ing that may be taken, as a side trip, in Alaska.
Large steamers touch only at Homer and Seldovia, just inside the entrance. There is a good wharf at Homer, but at Seldovia there is another rope-ladder descent and dory landing. There are a post-office, several stores and houses, and a little Greek-Russian church. Scattered over a low bluff at one side of the settlement are the native huts, half hidden in tall reeds and grasses, and a native graveyard.
Seldovia is not the place to buy baskets, as the only ones to be obtained are of very inferior coloring and workmanship.
My Scotch friend was so fearful that some one else might secure a treasure that she seized the first basket in sight at Seldovia, paying five dollars for it. It was not large, and as for its appearance - !
But with one evil mind we all pretended to envy her and to regret that we had not seen it first; so that, for some time, she stepped out over the tundra with quite a proud and high step, swinging her " buy " proudly at her right side, where all might see and admire.
Presently, however, we came to a hut wherein we stumbled upon all kinds of real treasures - old bows and arrows, kamelinkas, bidarkas, virgin charms, and ivory spears. We all gathered these things unto ourselves - all but my Scotch friend. She stood by, watching us, silent, ruminative.
She had spent all that she cared to spend on curios in one day on the single treasure which she carried in her hand. We observed that presently she carried it less proudly and that her carriage had less of haughtiness in it, as we went across the beach to the dory.
She took the basket down to the engine-room to have it steamed. I do not know what the engineer said to her
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about her purchase, but when she came back, her face was somewhat flushed. The Scotch are not a demonstra- tive race, and when she ever after referred to the chief engineer simply as "that engineer down there," I felt that it meant something. She never again mentioned that basket to me; but I have seen it in six different curio stores trying to get itself sold.
At Seldovia connection is made with small steamers running up the inlet to the head of the arm. Hope and Sunrise are the inspiring names of the chief settlements of the arm.
The tides of Cook Inlet are tremendous. There are fearful tide-rips at the entrance and again about halfway up the inlet, where they appeared " frightful " to Cook and his men. The tide enters Turnagain Arm, at the head of the inlet, in a huge bore, which expert canoemen are said to be able to ride successfully, and to thus be carried with great speed and delightful danger on their way.
Cook thought that the inlet was a river, of which the arm was an eastern branch. Therefore, at the entrance of the latter, he exclaimed in disappointment and chagrin, " Turn again !"-and afterward bestowed this name upon the slender water-way.
He modestly left only a blank for the name of the great inlet itself; and after his cruel death at the hands of natives in the Sandwich Islands, Lord Sandwich directed that it be named Cook's River.
The voyage of two hundred miles to the head of the arm by steamer is slow and sufficiently romantic to satisfy the most sentimental. The steamer is compelled to tie up frequently to await the favorable stage of the tide, affording ample opportunity and time for the full enjoyment of the varied attractions of the trip. The nu- merous waterfalls are among the finest of Alaska.
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Even to-day the trip is attended by the gravest dangers and is only attempted by experienced navigators who are familiar with its unique perils. The very entrance is the dread of mariners. The tide-rips that boil and roar around the naked Barren Islands subject ships to graver danger than the fiercest storms on this wild and stormy coast.
The tides of Turnagain Arm rival those of the Bay of Fundy, entering in tremendous bores that advance faster than a horse can run and bearing everything with resist- less force before them. After the first roar of the enter- ing tide is heard, there is but a moment in which to make for safety. There is a tide fall in the arm of from twenty to twenty-seven feet.
The first Russian settlement of the inlet was by the establishment of a fort by Shelikoff, near the entrance, named Alexandrovsk. It was followed in 1786 by the establishment of the Lebedef-Lastuchkin Company on the Kussilof River in a settlement and fort named St. George.
Fort Alexandrovsk formed a square with two bastions, and the imperial arms shone over the entrance, which was protected by two guns. The situation, however, was not so advantageous for trading as that of the other company.
In 1791 the Lebedef Company established another fort, the Redoubt St. Nicholas, still farther up the inlet, just below that narrowing known as the "Forelands," at the Kaknu, or Kenai, River. At this place the shores jut out into three steep, cliffy points which were named by Van- couver West, North, and East Forelands.
Here Vancouver found the flood-tide running with such a violent velocity that the best bower cable proved unable to resist it, and broke. The buoy sank by the strength of the current, and both the anchor and the cable were irrecoverably lost.
Cook did not enter Turnagain Arm, but Vancouver learned from the Russians that neither the arm nor the
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inlet was a river ; that the arm terminated some thirty miles from its mouth; and that from its head the Russians walked about fifteen versts over a mountain and entered an inlet of Prince William Sound, - thereby keeping them- selves in communication with their fellow-countrymen at Port Etches and Kaye Island.
Vancouver sent Lieutenant Whidbey and some men to explore the arm; but having entered with the bore and finding no place where he might escape its ebb, he was compelled to return with it, without making as complete an examination as was desired.
The country bordering upon the bays along Turnagain Arm is low, richly wooded, and pleasant, rising with a gradual slope, until the inner point of entrance is reached. Here the shores suddenly rise to bold and towering emi- nences, perpendicular cliffs, and mountains which to poor Whidbey, as usual, appeared "stupendous " - cleft by "awfully grand " chasms and gullies, down which rushed immense torrents of water.
The tide rises thirty feet with a roaring rush that is really terrifying to hear and see.
At a Russian settlement Whidbey found one large house, fifty by twenty-four feet, occupied by nineteen Russians. One door afforded the only ventilation, and it was usually closed.
Whidbey and his men were hospitably received and were offered a repast of dried fish and native cranberries; but because of the offensive odor of the house, owing to the lack of ventilation and other unmentionable horrors, they were unable to eat. Perceiving this, their host ordered the cranberries taken away and beaten up with train-oil, when they were again placed before the visitors. This last effort of hospitality proved too much for the politeness of the Englishmen, and they rushed out into tlie cool air for relief.
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Indeed, the Russians appeared to live quite as filthily and disgustingly as the natives, and to have fallen into all their cooking, living, and other customs, save those of painting their faces and wearing ornaments in lips, noses, and ears.
The name "inlet," instead of "river," was first applied to this torrential water-way in 1794 by Vancouver, who also bestowed upon Turnagain the designation of "arm."
Vancouver, upon the invitation of the commanding officer who came out to his ships for that purpose, paid the Redoubt St. Nicholas, near the Forelands, a visit. He was saluted by two guns from a kind of balcony, above which the Russian flag floated on top of a house situated upon a cliff.
Captain Dixon, the most pious navigator I have found, with the exception of the Russians, extolled the Supreme Being for having so bountifully provided in Cook Inlet for the needs of the wretched natives who inhabited the region. The fresh fish and game of all kinds, so easily procured, the rich skins with which to clothe their bodies, -inspired him to praise and thanksgiving.
For the magnificent water-way pushing northward, glaciered, cascaded, blue-bayed, and emerald-valed, with unbroken chains of snow peaks and volcanoes on both sides, - up which the voyager sails charmed and fascinated to-day, - he spoke no enthusiastic word of praise. On the contrary, he found the aspect dreary and uncomfort- able. Even Whidbey, the Chilly, could not have given way to deeper shudders than did Dixon in Cook Inlet.
The low land and green valleys close to the shore, grown with trees, shrubbery, and tall grasses, he found " not altogether disagreeable," but it was with shock upon shock to his delicate and outraged feelings that he sailed between the mountains covered with eternal snow. Their " prodigious extent and stupendous precipices . . . chilled
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the blood of the beholder." They were "awfully dread- ful."
Dixon, as well as Cook, mentions the wearing of the labret by men, but I still cling to the opinion that they could not distinguish a man from a woman, owing to the attire.
Dixon also reported that the natives have a keen sense of smell, which they quicken by the use of snakeroot. One would naturally have supposed that they would have hunted the forests through and through for some herb, or some dark charm of witchcraft, that would have deprived them utterly and forever of this sense, which is so undesirable a possession to the person living or travel- ling in Alaska.
The climate of Cook Inlet is more agreeable than that of any other part of Alaska. In the low valleys near the shore the soil is well adapted to the growing of fruits, vegetables, and grain, and to the raising of stock and chickens. Good butter and cheese are made, which, with eggs, bring excellent prices. Roses and all but the ten- derest flowers thrive, and berries grow large and of deli- cious flavor, bearing abundantly.
" Awfully dreadful " scenes are not to be found. It is a pleasure to confess, however, that many features, by their beauty, splendor, and sublimity, fill the appreciative beholder with awe and reverence.
The coal deposits of the region surrounding the inlet are now known to be numerous and important. Coal is found in Kachemak Bay, and Port Graham, at Tyonook, and on Matanuska River, about fifty miles inland from the head of the inlet. It is lignitic and bituminous, but semi-anthracite has been found in the Matanuska Valley.
Lignitic coals have a very wide distribution, but have been, as yet, mined only on Admiralty Island, at Homer
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and Coal Bay in Cook Inlet, at Chignik and Unga, at several points on the Yukon, and on Seward Peninsula.
The new railroad now building from Cordova will open up not only vast copper districts, but the richest and most extensive oil and coal fields in Alaska, as well.
Semi-anthracite coal exists in commercial quantities, so far as yet discovered, only at Comptroller Bay. A fine quality of bituminous coal also exists there, extend- ing inland for twenty-five miles on the northern tribu- taries of Behring River and about thirty-five miles east of Copper River, covering an area of about one hundred and twenty square miles.
Southwestern Alaska includes the Cook Inlet region, Kodiak and adjacent islands, Aliaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. Coal, mostly of a lignitic character, is widely distributed in all these districts. It has also been discovered in different localities in the Sushitna Basin.
All coal used by the United States government's naval vessels on the Pacific is purchased and transported there from the East at enormous expense. Alaska has vast coal deposits of an exceedingly fine quality lying undeveloped in the Aliaskan Peninsula, two hundred miles farther west than Honolulu, and directly on the route of steamers plying from this country to the Orient. (It is not generallyknown that the smoke of steamers on their way from Puget Sound to Japan may be plainly seen on clear days at Unalaska.)
This coal is in the neighborhood of Portage Bay, where there is a good harbor and a coaling station. It is reported by geological survey experts to be as fine as Pocahontas coal, and even higher in carbon.
Possibly, in time, the United States government may awaken to a realization of the vast fortunes lying hidden in the undeveloped, neglected, and even scorned resources of Alaska, - not to mention the tremendous advantages of being able to coal its war vessels with Pacific Coast coal.
K.
Copyright by J. Doody, Dawson
A YUKON SNOW SCENE NEAR WHITE HORSE
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During the spring of 1908 the Alaska-coal land situa- tion was discouraging. A great area of rich coal-bearing land had been withdrawn from entry, because of the amazing presumption of the interior department that the removal of prohibitive restrictions upon entrymen would encourage the formation of monopolies in the mining and marketing of coal.
Secretary Garfield at first inclined strongly to the opinion that the Alaska coal lands should be held by the government for leasing purposes, and that there should be a separate reservation for the navy ; and he has not entirely abandoned this opinion.
The withdrawal of the coal lands from entry caused the Copper River and Northwestern Railway Company to discontinue all work on the Katalla branch of the road ; nor will it resume until the question of title to the coal lands is settled and the lands themselves admitted to entry.
The fear of monopolies, which is making the interior department uneasy, is said to have arisen from the fact that it has been absolutely necessary for several entrymen in a coal region to associate themselves together and com- bine their claims, on account of the enormous expense of opening and operating mines in that country. The sur- veys alone, which, in accordance with an act passed in 1904, must be borne by the entryman, although this burden is not imposed upon entrymen in the states, are so ex- pensive, particularly in the Behring coal-fields near Katalla, that an entryman cannot bear it alone ; while the expense of getting provisions and tools from salt-water into the interior is simply prohibitive to most locators, unless they can combine and divide the expense.
These early discoverers and locators acted in good faith. The lands were entered as coal lands; there was no fraud and no attempt at fraud ; not one person sought
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to take up coal land as homestead, nor with scrip, nor in any fraudulent manner.
There was some carelessness in the observance of new rules and regulations, but there was excuse for this in the fact that Alaska is far from Congress and news travels slowly ; also, it has been the belief of Alaskans that when a man, after the infinite labor and deprivation necessary to successful prospecting in Alaska, has found anything of value on the public domain, he could appropriate it with the surety that his right thereto would be recognized and respected; and that any slight mistakes that might be made technically would be condoned, provided that they were honest ones and not made with the intent to defraud the government.
The oldest coal mine in Alaska is located just within the entrance to Cook Inlet, on the western shore, at Coal Harbor. There, in the early fifties, the Russians began extensive operations, importing experienced German min- ers to direct a large force of Muscovite laborers sent from Sitka, and running their machinery by steam.
Shafts were sunk, and a drift run into the vein for a distance of one thousand seven hundred feet. During a period of three years two thousand seven hundred tons of coal were mined, but the result was a loss to the enter- prising Russians.
Its extent was practically unlimited, but the quality was found to be too poor for the use of steamers.
It is only within the past three years that the fine qual- ity of much of the coal found in Alaska has been made known by government experts.
It was inconceivable that Congress should hesitate to enact such laws as would help to develop Alaska; yet it was not until late in the spring that bills were passed which greatly relieved the situation and insured the building of the road upon which the future of this district depends.
.
CHAPTER XXVIII
COOK INLET is so sheltered and is favored by a climate so agreeable that it was called "Summer-land " by the Russians.
Across Kachemak Bay from Seldovia is Homer - another town of the inlet blessed with a poetic name. When I landed at its wharf, in 1905, it was the saddest, sweetest place in Alaska. It was but the touching phan- tom of a town.
We reached it at sunset of a June day.
A low, green, narrow spit runs for several miles out into the waters of the inlet, bordered by a gravelly beach. Here is a railroad running eight miles to the Cook Inlet coal-fields, a telephone line, roundhouses, machine-shops, engines and cars, a good wharf, some of the best store buildings and residences in Alaska, -all painted white with soft red roofs, and all deserted !
On this low and lovely spit, fronting the divinely blue sea and the full glory of the sunset, there was only one human being, the postmaster. When the little Dora swung lightly into the wharf, this poor lonely soul showed a pitiable and pathetic joy at this fleeting touch of com- panionship. We all went ashore and shook hands with him and talked to him. Then we returned to our cabins and carried him a share of all our daintiest luxuries.
When, after fifteen or twenty minutes, the Dora with- drew slowly into the great Safrano rose of the sunset, leaving him, a lonely, gray figure, on the wharf, the look
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on his face made us turn away, so that we could not see one another's eyes.
It was like the look of a dog who stands helpless, lonely, and cannot follow.
I have never been able to forget that man. He was so gentle, so simple, so genuinely pleased and grateful -and so lonely !
As I write, Homer is once more a town, instead of a phantom. 1 no longer picture him alone in those empty, echoing, red-roofed buildings; but one of my most vivid and tormenting memories of Alaska is of a gray figure, with a little pathetic stoop, going up the path from the wharf, in the splendor of that June sunset, with his dog at his side.
The Act of 1902, commonly known as the Alaska Game Law, defines game, fixes open seasons, restricts the nun- ber which may be killed, declares certain methods of hunting unlawful, prohibits the sale of hides, skins, or heads at any time, and prohibts export of game animals, or birds - except for scientific purposes, for propagation, or for trophies - under restrictions prescribed by the Department of Agriculture. The law also authorizes the Secretary of Agriculture, when such action shall be neces- sary, to place further restrictions on killing in certain regions. The importance of this provision is already ap- parent. Owing to the fact that nearly all persons who go to Alaska to kill big game visit a few easily accessible localities - notably Kadiak Island, the Kenai Peninsula, and the vicinity of Cook Inlet - it has become necessary to protect the game of these localities by special regula- tions, in order to prevent its speedy destruction.
The object of the act is to protect the game of the terri- tory so far as possible from the mere " killer," but without causing unnecessary hardship. Therefore, Indians, Eskimos,
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miners, or explorers actually in need of food, are per- mitted to kill game for their immediate use. The excep- tion in favor of natives, miners, and explorers must be construed strictly. It must not be used merely as a pre- text to kill game out of season, for sport or for market, or to supply canneries or settlements ; and, under no circum- stances, can the hides or heads of animals thus killed be lawfully offered for sale.
Every person who has travelled in Alaska knows that these laws are violated daily. An amusing incident oc- curred on the Dora, on the first morning "to Westward" from Seward. Far be it from me to eat anything that is forbidden ; but I had seen fried moose steak in Seward. It resembles slices of pure beef tenderloin, fried.
It chanced that at our first breakfast on the Dora I found fried beef tenderloin on the bill of fare, and or- dered it. Scarcely had I been served when in came the gentleman from Boston, who, through his alert and insati- able curiosity concerning all things Alaskan and his keen desire to experience every possible Alaskan sensation,- all with the greatest naïveté and good humor,-had endeared himself to us all on our long journey together.
" What's that ?" asked he, briskly, scenting a new experience on my plate.
" Moose," said I, sweetly.
" Moose - moose !" cried he, excitedly, seizing his bill of fare. " I'll have some. Where is it ? I don't see it !"
" Hush-h-h," said I, sternly. " It is not on the bill of fare. It is out of season."
" Then how shall I get it?" he cried, anxiously. "I
must have some."
" Tell the waiter to bring you the same that he brought me."
When the dear, gentle Japanese, "Charlie," came to serve him, he shamelessly pointed at my plate.
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" I'll have some of that," said he, mysteriously.
Charlie bowed, smiled like a seraph, and withdrew, to return presently with a piece of beef tenderloin.
The gentleman from Boston fairly pounced upon it. We all watched him expectantly. His expression changed from anticipation to satisfaction, delight, rapture.
" That's the most delicious thing I ever ate," he burst forth, presently.
" Do you think so ?" said I. "Really, I was disap- pointed. It tastes very much like beefsteak to me."
" Beefsteak !" said he, scornfully. "It tastes no more like beefsteak than pie tastes like cabbage ! What a pity to waste it on one who cannot appreciate its delicate wild flavor! "
Months afterward he sent me a marked copy of a Boston newspaper, in which he had written enthusiastically of the "rare, wild flavor, haunting as a poet's dream," of the moose which he had eaten on the Dora.
In addition to the animals commonly regarded as game, walrus and brown bear are protected; but existing laws relating to the fur-seal, sea-otter, or other fur-bearing animals are not affected. The act creates no close sea- son for black bear, and contains no prohibition against the sale or shipment of their skins or heads ; but those of brown bear may be shipped only in accordance with regulations.
The Act of 1908 amends the former act as follows : -
It is unlawful for any person in Alaska to kill any wild game, animals, or birds, except during the following sea- sons: north of latitude sixty-two degrees, brown bear may be killed at any time; moose, caribou, sheep, wal- rus and sea-lions, from August 1 to December 10, inclu- sive ; south of latitude sixty-two degrees, moose, caribou, and mountain sheep, from August 20 to December 31, in- clusive ; brown bear, from October 1 to July 1, inclusive ;
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deer and mountain goats, from August 1 to February 1, inclusive ; grouse, ptarmigan, shore birds, and water fowl, from September 1 to March 1, inclusive.
The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized, whenever he may deem it necessary for the preservation of game animals or birds, to make and publish rules and regula- tions which shall modify the close seasons established, or to provide different close seasons for different parts of Alaska, or to place further limitations and restrictions on the killing of such animals or birds in any given lo- cality, or to prohibit killing entirely for a period not exceeding two years in such locality.
It is unlawful for any person at any time to kill any females or yearlings of moose, or for any one person to kill in one year more than the number specified of each of the following game animals : Two moose, one walrus or sea-lion, three caribou, sheep, or large brown bear ; or to kill or have in his possession in any one day more than twenty-five grouse or ptarmigan, or twenty-five shore birds or water fowl.
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