USA > Alaska > Alaska, the great country > Part 25
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" And how," asked I, " about the wicked saloon-keeper ?"
A dull flush mounted to her very glasses. For a full min- ute there was silence. Then said she, slowly and stiffly : -
" How about what wicked saloon-keeper ? "
" Why, the one you told us about last year ; who had a poor abused wife and seven children, and who scared the life out of every missionary who came here."
There was another silence.
"Oh," said she then, coldly. " Well, he was rather hard to get along with at first, but his -er -hum - wife died about three months ago, and he has - er - hum" (the words seemed to stick in her throat) " asked me - he - asked me, you know, to " (she giggled suddenly) " marry him, you know."
" I don't know as I will, though," she added, hastily, turning very red, as we stood staring at her, absolutely speechless.
The village of Afognak is located at the southwestern end of Litnik Bay. It is divided into two distinct settle- ments, the most southerly of which has a population of about one hundred and fifty white and half-breed people. A high, grassy bluff, named Graveyard Point, separates this part of the village from that to the northward, which is entirely a native settlement of probably fifty persons.
The population of the Island of Afognak is composed of Kadiaks, Eskimos, Russian half-breeds, and a few white hunters and fishermen. The social conditions are similar to those existing on the eastern shores of Cook Inlet.
When Alaska was under the control of the Russian- American Company, many men grew old and compara- tively useless in its service. These employees were too helpless to be thrown upon their own resources, and their condition was reported to the Russian government.
In 1835 an order was issued directing that such Rus-
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sian employees as had married native women should be located as permanent settlers when they were no longer able to serve the company. The company was compelled to select suitable land, build comfortable dwellings for them, supply agricultural implements, seed, cattle, chickens, and a year's provisions.
These settlers were exempt from taxation and military duty, and the Russians were known as colonial citizens, tlie half-breeds as colonial settlers. The eastern shores of Cook Inlet, Afognak Island, and Spruce Island were selected for them. The half-breeds now occupying these localities are largely their descendants. They have always lived on a higher plane of civilization than the natives, and among them may be found many skilled craftsmen.
There is no need for the inhabitants of any of these is- lands to suffer, for here are all natural resources for native existence. All the hardier vegetables thrive and may be stored for winter use; hay may be provided for cattle; the waters are alive with salmon and cod; bear, fox, mink, and sea-otter are still found.
In summer the men may easily earn two hundred dollars working in the adjacent canneries; while the women, assisted by the old men and children, dry the fish, which is then known as ukala. There is a large demand in the North for ukala, for dog food. There are two large stores in Afognak, representing large trading companies, where two cents a pound is paid for all the ukala that can be obtained.
The white men of Afognak are nearly all Scandinavians, married to, or living with, native women. The school- teacher I have already mentioned was the only white woman, and she told us that we were the first white women who had landed on the island during the year she had spent there. Only once had she talked with white women, and that was during a visit to Kodiak.
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The town has a sheltered and attractive site on a level green. There is a large Greek-Russian church, not far from the noisy saloon which is presided over by the saloon-keeper who was once bad, but who has now yielded to the missionary's spell.
Karluk River, on the eastern side of Kadiak Island, is the greatest salmon stream in the world. It is sixteen miles long, less than six feet deep, and so narrow at its mouth that a child could toss a pebble from shore to shore. It seems absurd to enter a canoe to cross this stream, so like a little creek is it, across which one might easily leap.
Yet up this tiny water-way millions of salmon struggle every season to the spawning-grounds in Karluk Lake. Before the coming of canners with traps and gill-nets in 1884, it is said that a solid mass of fish might be seen filling this stream from bank to bank, and from its mouth to the lake in the hills.
In 1890 the largest cannery in the world was located in Karluk Bay, but now that distinction belongs to Bristol Bay, north of the Aliaska Peninsula. (Another “largest in the world " is on Puget Sound !)
Karluk Bay is very small; but several canneries are on its shores, and when they are all in operation, the em- ployees are sufficient in number to make one of the largest towns in Alaska. In 1890 three millions of salmon were packed in the several canneries operating in the bay ; in 1900 more than two millions in the two canneries then operating ; but, on account of the use of traps and gill- nets, the pack has greatly decreased since then, and during some seasons has proved a total failure.
Fifteen years ago two-thirds of the entire Alaskan salmon pack were furnished by the ten canneries of Kadiak Island, and these secured almost their entire supply from Karluk River. Furthermore, at that time, the canners
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enjoyed their vast monopoly without tax, license, or any government interference.
Immense fortunes have been made - and lost-in the fish industry during the last twenty years.
The superintendents of these canneries always live luxu- riously, and entertain like princes - or Baranoff. Their comfortable houses are furnished with all modern luxuries, -elegant furniture, pianos, hot and cold water, electric baths. Perfectly trained, noiseless Chinamen glide around the table, where dinners of ten or twelve delicate courses are served, with a different wine for each course.
Champagne is a part of the hospitality of Alaska. The cheapest is seven dollars and a half a bottle, and Alaskans seldom buy the cheapest of anything.
It was on a soft gray afternoon that the Dora entered Karluk Bay between the two picturesque promontories that plunge boldly out into Shelikoff Straits. It seemed as though all the sea-birds of the world must be gathered there. Our entrance set them afloat from their perches on the rocky cliffs. They filled the air, from shore to shore, like a snow-storm. Their poetic flight and shrill, mournful plaining haunt every memory of Karluk Bay.
Now and then they settled for an instant. A cliff would shine out suddenly - a clear, tremulous white; then, as suddenly, there would be nothing but a sheer height of dark stone veined with green before our bewildered gaze. It was as if a silvery, winged cloud drifted up and down the face of the cliffs and then floated out across the bay.
Several old sailing vessels, or " wind-jammers," lay at anchor. They are used for conveying stores and employees from San Francisco. The many buildings of the can- neries give Karluk the appearance of a town - in fact, during the summer, it is a town ; while in the winter
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only a few caretakers of the buildings and property remain.
Men of almost every nationality under the sun may be found here, working side by side.
Ceaseless complaints are made of the lawless conditions existing "to Westward." Besides the thousands of men employed in the canneries of the Kadiak and the Aleu- tian islands, at least ten thousand men work in the can- neries of Bristol Bay. They come from China, Japan, the Sandwich Islands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Porto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and almost every country that may be named.
"The prevailing color of Alaska may be 'rosy laven- der,' " said a gentleman who knows, " but let me tell you that out there you will find conditions that are neither rosy nor lavender."
There is a United States Commissioner and a Deputy United States Marshal in the district, but they are unable to control these men, many of whom are desperate charac- ters. The superintendents of the canneries are there for the purpose of putting up the season's pack as speedily as possible; and, although they are invariably men who de- plore crime, they have been known to condone it, to avoid the taking of themselves or their crews hundreds of miles to await the action of some future term of court.
For many years the District of Alaska has been di- vided for judicial purposes into three divisions: the first comprising the southeastern Alaska district; the second, Nome and the Seward Peninsula ; the third, the vast coun- try lying between these two.
In each is organized a full United States district court. The three judges who preside over these courts receive the salary of five thousand dollars a year, - which, con- sidering the high character of the services required, and the cost of living in Alaska, is niggardly. So much
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power is placed in the hands of these judges that they are freely called czars by the people of Alaska.
The people of the third district complained bitterly that their court facilities were entirely inadequate. Several murders were committed, and the accused awaited trial for many months. Witnesses were detained from their homes and lawful pursuits. Delays were so vexations that many crimes remained unpunished, important wit- nesses rebelling against being held in custody for a whole year before they had an opportunity to testify -the judge of the third district being kept busy along the Yukon and at Fairbanks.
As a partial remedy for some of these abuses of govern- ment, Governor Brady, in his report for the year 1904, suggested the creation of a fourth judicial district, to be furnished with a sea-going vessel, which should be under the custody of the marshal and at the command of the court. It was recommended that this vessel be equipped with small arms, a Gatling gun, and ammunition. All the islands which lie along the thousands of miles of shore-line of Kenai and Aliaska peninsulas, Cook Inlet, the Kadiak, Shumagin, and Aleutian chains, and Bristol Bay might be visited in season, and a wholesome respect for law and order be enforced.
The burning question in Alaska has been for many years the one of home government. As early as 1869 an impassioned plea was made in Sitka that Alaska should be given territorial rights. Yet even the bill for one delegate to Congress was defeated as late as the winter of 1905- whereupon fiery Valdez instantly sent its fa- mous message of secession.
Governor Brady criticised the appointment of United States commissioners by the judges, claiming that there is really no appeal from a commissioner's court to a dis- trict court, for the reason that the judge usually appoints
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some particular protégé and feels bound to sustain his decisions. The governor stated plainly in his report that the most remunerative offices are filled by persons who are peculiarly related, socially or politically, to the judges ; that the attorneys and their clients understood this and considered an appeal useless. Governor Brady also de- clared the fee system, as praetised in these commissioners' courts, to be an abomination. Unless there is trouble, the offieer cannot live ; and the inference is that he, there- fore, welcomes trouble.
Whatever of truth there may have been in these pun- gent criticisms, President Roosevelt endorsed many of the governor's recommendations in his message to Congress ; and several have been adopted. During the past two years Alaska has made rapid strides toward self-govern- ment, and important reforms have been instituted.
The territory now has a delegate to Congress. Upon the subject of home government the people are widely and bitterly divided. Those having large interests in Alaska are, as a rule, opposed to home government, elaim- ing that it is the politicians and those owning nothing upon which taxes could be levied, who are agitating the subject. These claim that the few who have ventured heavily to develop Alaska would be compelled to bear the entire burden of a heavy taxation, for the benefit of the profes- sional politieian, the earpet-bagger, and the impecunious loafer who is "just waiting for something to turn up."
On the other hand, those favoring territorial govern- ment claim that it is opposed only by the large eorpora- tions which " have been bleeding Alaska for years."
The jurisdiction of the United States commissioners in Alaska is far greater than is that of other court commis- sioners. They ean sit as committing magistrates ; as jus- tiees of the peace, ean try eivil eases where the amount involved is one thousand dollars or less; ean try erimi-
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nal cases and sentence to one year's imprisonment ; they are clothed with full authority as probate judges; they may act as coroners, notaries, and recorders of precincts.
The third district, presided over by Judge Reid, whose residence is at Fairbanks, is five hundred miles wide by nine hundred miles long. It extends from the North Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean, and from the interna- tional boundary on the east to the Koyukuk. The chief means of transportation within this district are steamers along the coast and on the Yukon, and over trails by dog teams.
It is small wonder that a man hesitates long before suing for his rights in Alaska. The expense and hardship of even reaching the nearest seat of justice are unimagi- nable. One man travelled nine hundred miles to reach Rampart to attend court. The federal court issues all licenses, franchises, and charters, and collects all occupa- tion taxes. Every village or mining settlement of two or three hundred men has a commissioner, whose sway in his small sphere is as absolute as that of Baranoff was.
CHAPTER XXXII
WE found only one white woman at Karluk, the wife of the manager of the cannery, a refined and accomplished lady.
Her home was in San Francisco, but she spent the sum- mer months with her husband at Karluk.
We were taken ashore in a boat and were most hospi- tably received in her comfortable home.
About two o'clock in the afternoon we boarded a barge and were towed by a very small, but exceedingly noisy, launch up the Karluk River to the hatcheries, which are maintained by the Alaska Packers Association.
It was one of those soft, cloudy afternoons when the coloring is all in pearl and violet tones, and the air was sweet with rain that did not fall. The little make-believe river is very narrow, and so shallow that we were con- stantly in danger of running aground. We tacked from one side of the stream to the other, as the great steamers do on the Yukon.
On this little pearly voyage, a man who accompanied us told a story which clings to the memory.
" Talk about your big world," said he. "You think it 'u'd be easy to hide yourself up in this God-forgotten place, don't you ? Just let me tell you a story. A man come up here a few years ago and went to work. He never did much talkin'. If you ast him a question about his- self or where he come from, he shut up like a steel trap with a rat in it. He was a nice-lookin' man, too, an' he
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had an education an' kind of nice elean ways with him. He built a little cabin, an' he didn't go 'out' in winter, like the rest of us. He stayed here at Karluk an' looked after things.
" Well, after one-two year a good-lookin' young woman come up here - an' jiminy-cricket ! He fell in love with her like greased lightnin' an' married her in no time. I God, but that man was happy. He acted like a plumb fool over that woman. After while they had a baby - an' then he acted like two plumb fools in one. I ain't got any wife an' babies myself an' I God! it ust to make me feel queer in my throat.
" Well, one summer the superintendent's wife brought up a woman to keep house for her. She was a white, sad-faced-lookin' woman, an' when she had a little time to rest she ust to climb up on the hill an' set there alone, watchin' the sea-gulls. I've seen her set there two hours of a Sunday without movin'. Maybe she'd be settin' there now if I hadn't gone and put my foot clean in it, as usual.
" I got kind of sorry for her, an' you may shoot me dead for a fool, but one day I ast her why she didn't walk around the bay an' set a spell with the other woman.
"' I don't care much for women,' she says, never changin' countenance, but just starin' out across the bay.
"' She's got a reel nice, kind husband,' says I, tryin' to work on her feelin's.
""" I don't like husbands,' says she, as short as lard pic- crust.
"'She's got an awful nice little baby,' says I, for if you keep on long enough, you can always get a woman.
" She turns then an' looks at me.
""" It's a girl,' says I, 'an' Lord, the way it nestles up into your neck an' loves you !'
" Her lips opened an' shut, but she didn't say a word ; 2 A
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but if you'd look 'way down into a well an' see a fire burnin' in the water, it 'u'd look like her eyes did then.
"'Its father acts like a plumb fool over it an' its mother,' says I. 'The sun raises over there, an' sets over here - but he thinks it raises an' sets in that woman an' baby.'
"' The woman must be pretty,' says she, suddenly, an' I never heard a woman speak so bitter.
"'She is,' says I; 'she's got -'
"""Don't tell me what she's got,' snaps she, gettin' up off the ground, kind o' stiff-like. 'I've made up my mind to go see her, an' maybe I'd back out if you told me what she's like. Maybe you'd tell me she had red wavy hair an' blue eyes an' a baby mouth an' smiled like an angel -an' then devils couldn't drag me to look at her.' " Say, I nearly fell dead, then, for that just described the woman ; but I'm no loon, so I just kept still.
"' What's their name ?' says she, as we walked along.
"' Davis,' says I; an' mercy to heaven ! I didn't know I was tellin' a lie.
" All of a sudden she laughed out loud -the awfullest laugh. It sounded as harrable mo'rnful as a sea-gull just before a storm.
"' Husband !' she flings out, jeerin'; ' I had a husband once. I worshipped the ground he trod on. I thought the sun raised an' set in him. He carried me on two chips for a while, but I didn't have any children, an' I took to worryin' over it, an' lost my looks an' my disposi- tion. It goes deep with some women, an' it went deep with me. Men don't seem to understand some things. Instid of sympathizin' with me, he took to complainin' an' findin' fault an' finally stayin' away from home.
""' There's no use talkin' about what I suffered for a year; I never told anybody this much before -an' it wa'n't anything to what I've suffered ever since. But
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one day I stumbled on a letter he had wrote to a woman he called Ruth. He talked about her red wavy hair an' blue eyes an' baby mouth an' the way she smiled like an angel. They were goin' to run away together. He told her he'd heard of a place at the end of the earth where a man could make a lot of money, an' he'd go there an' get settled an' then send for her, if she was willin' to live away from everybody, just for him. He said they'd never see a human soul that knew them.'
" She stopped talkin' all at once, an' we walked along. I was scared plumb to death. I didn't know the woman's name, for he always called her 'dearie,' but the baby's name was Ruth.
"'You've got to feelin' bad now,' says I, 'an' maybe we'd best not go on.'
"'I'm goin' on,' says she.
" After a while she says, in a different voice, kind of hard, ' I put that letter back an' never said a word. I wouldn't turn my hand over to keep a man. I never saw the woman ; but I know how she looks. I've gone over it every night of my life since. I know the shape of every feature. I never let on, to him or anybody else. It's the only thing I've thanked God for, since I read that letter - helpin' me to keep up an' never let on. It's the only thing I've prayed for since that day. It wa'n't very long - about a month. He just up an' disappeared. People talked about me awful because I didn't cry, an' take on, an' hunt him.
"' I took what little money he left me an' went away. I got the notion that he'd gone to South America, so I set out to get as far in the other direction as possible. I got to San Francisco, an' then the chance fell to me to come up here. It sounded like the North Pole to me, so I come. I'm awful glad I come. Them sea-gulls is the only pleasure I've had - since ; an' it's been four year. That's all.'
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" Well, sir, when we got up close to the cabin, I got to shiverin' so's I couldn't brace up an' go in with her. It didn't seem possible it could be the same man, but then, such darn queer things do happen in Alaska! Anyhow, I'd got cold feet. I remembered that the cannery the man worked in was shut down, so's he'd likely be at home.
"' I'll go back now,' I mumbles, 'an' leave you women- folks to get acquainted.'
"I fooled along slow, an' when I'd got nearly to the settlement I heard her comin'. I turned an' waited - an' I God! she won't be any ash-whiter when she's in her coffin. She was steppin' in all directions, like a blind woman ; her arms hung down stiff at her sides; her fingers were locked around her thumbs as if they'd never loose ; an' some nights, even now, I can't sleep for thinkin' how her eyes looked. I guess if you'd gag a dog, so's he couldn't cry, an' then cut him up slow, inch by inch, his eyes 'u'd look like her'n did then. At sight of me her face worked, an' I thought she was goin' to cry ; but all at once she burst out into the awfullest laughin' you ever heard outside of a lunatic asylum.
"'Lord God Almighty !' she cries out -' where's his mercy at, the Bible talks about? You'd think he might have a little mercy on an ugly woman who never had any children, wouldn't you - especially when there's women in the world with wavy red hair an' blue eyes - women that smile like angels an' have little baby girls ! Oh, Lord, what a joke on me !'
" Well, she went on laughin' till my blood turned cold, but she never told me one word of what happened to her. She went back to California on the first boat that went, but it was two weeks. I saw her several times; an' at sight of me she'd burst out into that same laughin' an' cry out, ' My Lord, what a joke ! Did you ever see its
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مكب
Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle
A FAMOUS TEAM OF HUSKIES
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beat for a joke?' but she wouldn't answer a thing I ast her. The last time I ever see her, she was leanin' over the ship's side. She looked like a dead woman, but when she see me she waved her hand and burst out langhin'.
"'Do you hear them sea-gulls ?' she cries out. 'All they can scream is Kar-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 ! '"
CHAPTER XXXIII
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 suspended
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horizontally 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 dis- turbed 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 shal- low, 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 dur- ing the ripening period, and to spawn them by hand.
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