USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 11
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1,000,000 pounds of fresh salmon ; this, figured down, shows that a single Indian uses, during the winter solstice-five months-the enormous amount of 1,430 pounds of this rich-meated article of diet, or about ten pounds every day, in addition to the bear-meat, deer, and sheep-meat, seal and beluga oil, berries and roots which he is constantly consuming, at the same time, in the greatest free- dom, and which are always in abundant supply. The full thought of my presentation will be better understood when it is remembered that a pound of fresh salmon has more nourishing and sustaining quality than the same amount dried. The salt-dried codfish with which we are so familiar is very different in its texture, and weighs many times more than it would if it were cured by the air and smoke-exposure to which the natives of Alaska are driven in pre- serving their fish.
An exceedingly happy illustration of the singular force of habit which the salmon have in returning every recurring season to the exact localities of their birth was afforded near the Creole settle- ment of Neelshik on the Kenai Inlet coast. A small stream runs down to the gulf from the mountains and moors of the interior. Its mouth had been closed by a barrier of surf-raised sand and gravel during storms in the winter of 1879-80, and through which the sluggishi stream filtered in its course without overflowing. When the salmon, which had descended the year previously from the upper waters of the stream in the course of their reproductive circuit, again returned to renew such labors in the following season, this unexpected wall barred their ingress. They did not turn away, but actually leaped out upon this sandy spit, and many of them suc- ceeded, by spasmodic springs and wriggling, while on the dry gravel, in getting across and into the river-water beyond ! the Creoles, in the meantime, having nothing to do except to walk down from their houses and gather up the self-stranded salmon as they fancied their size and condition. Inasmuch as these "old colonial settlers " are very pious, as well as very indolent, they were profuse in giving thanks to their patron saints for this unexpected bounty.
The color of gold everywhere found by washing the sands of Cook's Inlet on the Kenai shore early aroused the cupidity of the Russians. They made systematic examinations here under the lead of experienced men, between 1848 and 1855, and the Russian Ameri- can Company spent a great deal of money in the same time by sus- taining a large force of forty miners, directed by Lieutenant Doro-
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COOK'S INLET AND ITS PEOPLE.
shin, in active operations at the head of the inlet on the Kaknoo River, and in the Kenai Mountains and Prince William or Choogatch Alps. Gold was found, but in such small quantities, compared with the labor of getting it, that the ardor of the Russians soon cooled, and nothing as yet has resulted from the prospecting of our own miners in this district, who have been all over these Slavonian trails since the transfer.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK.
Kadiak the Geographical and Commercial Centre of Alaska. - Site of the First Grand Depot of the Old Russian Company .- Shellikov and his Remark- able History, 1784 .- His Subjection of the Kaniags .- Bloody Struggle .- He Founds the First Church and School in Alaska at Three Saints Bay, 1786, One Hundred Years ago. - Kadiak, a Large and Rugged Island .- The Timber Line drawn upon it .- Luxuriant Growth of Annual and Biennial Flowering Plants .- Reason why Kadiak was Abandoned for Sitka .- The Depot of the Mysterious San Francisco Ice Company on Wood Island .- Only Road and Horses in Alaska there .- Creole Ship and Boat Yard .- Tough Siberian Cattle. Pretty Greek Chapel at Yealovnie .- Afognak, the Larg- est Village of "Old Colonial Citizens."-Picturesque and Substantial Vil- lage .- Largest Crops of Potatoes raised here .- No Ploughing done ; Earth Prepared with Spades .- Domestic Fowls .- Failure of Our People to Raise Sheep at Kolma .- What a "Creole " is .- The Kaniags or Natives of Ka- diak ; their Salient Characteristics .- Great Diminution of their Num- bers .- Neglect of Laws of Health by Natives .- Apathy and Indifference to Death .- Consumption and Scrofula the Scourge of Natives in Alaska ; Measles equally deadly .- Kaniags are Sea-otter Hunters .- The Penal Station of Ookamok, the Botany Bay of Alaska .- The Wild Coast of the Peninsula .- Water-terraces on the Mountains .- Belcovsky, the Rich and Profligate Settlement .- Kvass Orgies .- Oonga, Cod-fishing Rendezvous .- The Burial of Shoomagin here, 1741 .- The Coal Mines here Worthless.
THE boldest and the most striking cape in this wilderness of bluffy headlands and jutting promontories is that point which marks the dividing line between the Kadiak region and Cook's Inlet-Cape Douglas. It is a lofty alpine ridge or spur, abruptly thrust out at a right angle to the coast, and into and over the sea for a distance of three miles, where it drops suddenly with a sheer precipitous fall of over one thousand feet into the waves that thunder on its everlasting foundations. Baffling winds here, and turbulent tide- rips distress that navigator who, coming down from the inlet, seeks the harbor of St. Paul's village. He hardly regards this seared and rugged headland with that admiration which the geologist and
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THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK.
the artist always will. The "woollies," which blow fiercely off from it, worry him and challenge all his nautical skill.
Kadiak Island is the centre, geographical and commercial, of a most interesting and wide-extended district, perhaps the most so, of the Alaskan Territory, and Kadiak village, or Saint Paul Harbor is, in turn, the central and all-important settlement of this district .* It was the site of the first grand depot of the old Russian American Company, and also the location of the first missionary establish- ment and day-school ever founded on the northwest coast of the continent. From the quiet moorings of this beautiful Kadiak bay hundreds of sliallops and vessels bearing courageous monks and priests have set out in every direction over all Alaska, carrying scores of them to preach the gospel among its savage inhabitants, who then were savage indeed to all intents and purposes.
The first visit ever made by white men to the great Island of Kadiak was the landing here in the autumn of 1763, at Alikitak Bay, of Stepan Glottov, a Russian sea-otter trader, who went into winter- quarters at the southeastern extremity of the island, on a spot now called Kahgooak settlement. The natives were ugly, hostile, re- fused all intercourse, and kept the Russians in a chronic state of fear. Scurvy broke out in their camp and nearly destroyed the in- vaders, leaving less than one-third of them alive in the spring. They managed then, with the greatest effort, to launch their vessel and get away, the savages meanwhile constantly attempting to fin- ish that destruction which bodily disease had so well-nigh effected.
The beginning of the eighth decade of the eighteenth century is a true date of the real epoch of Russian domination in Alaska. All history of white exploration in this country prior to that is sim- ply the cruel legend of an eager, heartless band of outraging Mus- covites, doing everything just for the gain of the present moment, sowing so badly that they dared not remain and reap. One of those big-brained, cool, and indomitable Russians, who gave then as they give now, the stamp of high character to the race, was for several years prior to 1780 prominently engaged in the American fur trade. Grigor Ivan Shellikov was this man. He was a citizen of the Sibe- rian town of Roolsk. He resolved to survey in person those scenes
* With the exception of Prince of Wales Island in the Sitkan archipelago, Kadiak is the largest Alaskan island. There is not much difference between these two islands in landed area ; the former, however, is the bigger.
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of rapid demoralization and ruin to the profitable prosecution of his Alaskan business, and, if possible, to attempt a change for the bet- ter. An evident decrease in furs, together with the hostile atti- tude of the natives, provoked altogether by their inhuman treatment at the hands of the "promishlyniks," called for reform in the most emphatic manner. After a carefully deliberated plan of action had been determined upon between himself and his partners, the broth- ers Gollikov, he at once proceeded to the Okotsk Sea and fitted out three small vessels for his expedition .* He did not reach Kadiak until 1784, two years after. starting out, when two of his vessels came to anchor in the harbor. now known, as it was then christened by him, Three Saints Bay. Shellikov was a ready and willing cor- respondent. His numerous letters to his Siberian partners and his own published "Journeys" give us a clear idea of the hardihood of his enterprise, and they have a rare ethnographic value. From them we learn of the great liking which Shellikov's party took to the Island of Kadiak, and how they resolved, soon after making a short reconnoissance, to establish themselves permanently if they could gain the confidence of its savage inhabitants.
Shellikov sent out a scouting party and captured a Kaniag, brought him into camp, and loaded the bewildered native with pres- ents and kindness, then sent him back to his people; but the native, though won wholly over himself, t could not prevail upon his hostile countrymen, who soon gave the Russians ample evidence of their enmity. A party of the latter in two of the ships' boats were exploring and hunting, when they were disturbed by the ap- pearance of a "perfect cloud" of natives that were encamped on rough and precipitous uplands of Oogak Island, a short distance from the main island itself. Shellikov resolved to proceed himself to the spot and endeavor to win them over to amity and trade. He ex-
* These " galiots" where characteristically named by Shellikov's spiritual advisers, viz. : The Three Saints; The Archangel Michael und Simeon, the Friend of God ; and Anna the Prophetess. Bad weather and poor navigation caused the vessels to separate, so that Shellikov was compelled to winter on Bering Island ; but during the following year the little fleet was reorganized, and it reached Oonalashka, where repairs again were necessary.
+ Shellikov says that this man returned the following day and refused to leave the Russian camp ; that he not only accompanied and served him in all his voyages thereafter, but often warned the party of hostile ambuscades and hidden dangers by land and sea.
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hausted every art of pacification that his ready wit could suggest without making the slightest favorable impression upon these men, who treasured up in the liveliest recollection those outrages and in- dignities which they bad hitherto suffered from the arms and vices of Shellikov's Muscovite predecessors. The only answer that they made to the trader now was that he at once embark and leave the island, and a few arrows and binl-spears were discharged and thrown at him by way of eliching the argument. The Russians retired to their camp, and wisely erectedto er day a rude stockade- none too quick, for these Kaniags Approached the harbor in the middle of the night, unobserved, and threw themselves with fren- zied fury upon the slightly fortified Russians. The battle lasted until daylight. The necessity and instinct of self-preservation caused the whites to fight with desperate coolness and intrepidity. The slaughter was great among the natives, and, considering the vastly inferior numbers of the Russians, their loss, too, was heavy. In spite of the bravery of the whites in this terrible midnight strug- gle, they would have been overpowered and exterminated ere the dawning, had it not been for the consternation which the reports of their small iron two-pounders created in the assailing ranks of those dusky hosts.
Recognizing the fact that now the only hope of peace and com- inercial intercourse with these natives lay in their complete subju- gation, Shellikov, immediately after the sullen retreat of the hostiles, armed one of his vessels and followed them up to their rocky for- tresses in Oogak, where they had taken up a position that was well- nigh impregnable, and to which savage reinforcements were rapidly flocking from the main islands. Unable to reach the entrenched camp of those defiant natives with the small ship's-cannon, Shel- likov picked a party of sixty men out of his company, went ashore with them, and, with his little iron two-pounders, he stormed the enemy with such impetuosity that the rapid discharges of these guns and small fire-arms of the charging Russians utterly demoralized an immensely superior force of the savages, who became panic- stricken, and actually jumped by scores off the high bluffs of Oogak into the sea, hundreds of feet below ; the rest of them, more than a thousand souls, surrendered to the Russians, who took and located them on a rocky islet, several miles from the harbor of Three Saints, and temporarily provided them with provisions ; and then, with hunting-gear, they were set to work and liberally paid for
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
their peltries. Twenty or thirty of their leaders were kept as host- ages on the vessels, and the result was entire submission every- where afterward to the Russians in this region. Occasional at- tacks and massacres would now and then be made upon far-distant hunting parties of the Russians, it is true, but the moral effect of the Oogak victory and slaughter was such among the Kadiakers that no further combined organized resistance or opposition was ever given again.
Shellikov soon realized that he was in no further danger from savage attacks. He began a most extensive and thorough explora- tion of the great island, and organizations of trading-posts at every eligible point. He sent a large party around to the north side and located it at Karlook, where we now find quite a salmon-canning establishment. Here, during the winter of 1785-86 fifty-two Rus- sians and as many natives ranged all over the water of Shellikov Straits in eager search of the sea-otter ; in the meantime the whites under Shellikov's immediate command were actively examining the recesses and fiords which are so numerous and deep on the south side of Kadiak. So well and so thoroughly was this work carried out, that by the beginning of 1786 Shellikov had made him- self well acquainted with the whole region-had established his trading-posts at every point between Shooak, in the north, and Trinity Islands, at the extreme south; and had even mnade himself tolerably familiar with the coast of Cook's Inlet, having chastised the ugly Kenaitze in a most summary manner.
Again, this remarkable man is distinguished by the successful and sensible effort which he made in substituting for the orgies of Kadiak demonology the practices of the Greek Church, which, he wisely foresaw, if effected, would bind the natives closer to the Russians than any other power. He was aided in this by the per- sonal labors and example of his wife, who accompanied him at the outset. She instructed the girls and women in needle-work, and acquired an influence over them that was very great. Feeling certain that he had established his trade on a secure foundation, Shellikov and his wife sailed for home on May 22, 1786, in the same vessel which brought them out, leaving an impress of endur- ing character upon Alaska of the greatest good and worth.
During the first years of the existence of the Shellikov Company, thus established here in Kadiak, it enjoyed the partial protection of the Crown and many exclusive privileges, by which advantages
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THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK.
nearly all the smaller trading companies had been fairly crowded out of the country. But it was not always the power conferred upon a great firm by its favor at Court and larger capital that gained supremacy in Alaska during those early days-it frequently occurred that the employés of one association resorted to physical force of arms in dispossessing those of another, and then, this order initiated, the strongest organization was sure to eventually dominate the coveted region. This commercial anarchy led to the autocratic monopoly of the Russian American Company in a very few years-it was the best thing that could then have transpired for Alaska and its people.
The approach to Kadiak from the ocean is striking, because it and the numerous islets and islands that join it closely are mountainous and hilly, with many lofty peaks that have plateaux and ravines full of eternal snow. It is not often seen clearly, how- ever, along its full extent of wild topography, on account of clouds, fog and boisterous weather, which terrifies the navigator, driving him from its vision. It is, however, an island that affords the greatest number of safe and snug harbors, and has no rival as the most enjoyable place for the traveller to visit. It so justifies us in our mind to-day, just as it warranted the Russians in expressing their preference for it a full hundred years ago.
Nature has drawn across Kadiak in a firm line, the ultimate limit of timber growth to the westward. It seems to be as arbi- trary and capricious as if traced there by the humor of a human ruler. Only one-third of the island itself, its northern extremity, is covered with spruce-forest; the invisible barrier to the west seems to be a perfectly straight line over from the heads of Orlova Bay on the south side to that of Ooganok on the north coast. Here the change from a vigorous growth of spruce-forest to bare hills and grassy tundra is most abrupt and astonishingly sharp in defini- tion ; you pass from the jungle of the woods, at a single step, into heather of the moor. This line, with a slight curve to the westward only, strikes the same definition over on the mainland of the peninsula opposite, and runs right up north to Bering's Straits' latitude, avoid- ing the coast everywhere except at Cape Denbigh, Norton's Sound.
There is scarcely any lowland, indeed none at all, on the large island itself ; it is everywhere mountainous and abruptly rolling, with spaces here and there in which the grasses flourish to a great extent. A legion of small streams rush down to the bays from
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
their mountain sources, but none of them are navigable-they are mere rapids and cascades in their entire length. A growth of the characteristic circumpolar annuals and biennials on the slopes of these hills of Kadiak is of exotic luxuriance, and of the most varied beauty of floral display in June, July, and August. Willows and alders fringe the borders of the streams in their range throughout the woodless area, while stunted birch and green grasses reach to the very summits of the hilly ridges of the interior.
Although Shellikov had established the headquarters of his Russian Company on Three Saints Bay with good reason at the time, yet when the entire Alaskan region went into the control of a single organization, it became necessary to have a grand central depot of supplies. Therefore Baranov promptly removed to the site of the present village of Kadiak. Upon that wooded island in the offing he procured the lumber and timbers necessary for the erection of those huge warehouses and numerous dwellings of many sizes required to house the merchandise, furs, and his employés. The harbor, too, is ample, and so situated that sailing-craft can come and go in all winds. Sadly, indeed, did the Russians, a few years later, abandon Kadiak for Sitka, as the numerous letters and protests still on file show ; but the menacing encroachments of for- eign traders in the far-distant Alexander archipelago were too grave in their portents of loss and usurpation of vested rights to allow of any other action.
To-day many of the ancient Russian structures are still pointed out in the village here which commands the harbor of Saint Paul, and in which some three hundred Creoles are living in well-built log and frame houses. Everything is clean* and orderly, but very, very quiet, inasmuch as no commerce, no monthly steamer, no tramping miners invade the solitude of its location. It supports a large Greek church and the priest attendant. Its people, as a rule, are wholly engaged in the business of trading fur and hunting sea- otters. Small codfish schooners often rendezvous here, and the
* Cleanliness and comfort, however, were but little regarded by the Rns- sian fur-traders, who gave their surroundings of residence no sanitary atten- tion whatever. Even Baranov himself was supremely indifferent, and when the Imperial Commissioner, Resanov, called on him at Sitka in 1805, the chief manager of the Russian American Company was living in a mere hut, "in which the bed was often afloat," and a leak in the roof too small a matter to notice !
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THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK.
natives also cut considerable cord-wood, for the use of such fur- traders who ply to the treeless districts westward, and fuel for fishing canneries at Karlook and Kassilov. Several little mountain rivulets flow through the limits of this settlement, which is everywhere well drained, and therefore dry in the streets by rea- son of its position on the rising slopes of the lofty hills which make a bold background, when the picture is viewed from the ship's deck as you sail up to the anchorage. The presence here of some thirty white men, pure Russian Creoles, and several of our own people who have really settled in the country, many of them mar- ried, and who call the place home, makes Kadiak unique in this re- spect. Elsewhere, if we find a white man living at the trading- posts, or plying his vocation as a cod-salmon fisherman, or miner, he always draws himself up and emphatically denies any idea of permanent residence in Alaska.
Looking down the bay, we observe a thickly timbered and a somewhat more level island than usual-it is the famous Wood Island, where the largest spruce-trees in all this section grow ; upon it is a small village of one hundred and fifty-six souls, living in thirteen log houses, thickly clustered together ; they are all sea- otter hunters during the summer. This village is also the depot of that mysterious San Francisco corporation which has regularly cut up and stored tons of ice here every winter since 1856, and never has shipped a pound of it away ! and when the bright, hearty agent of this corporation asks you to come out with him to the stable and advises you to mount one of the three or four horses sheltered therein, so that you can gallop round the island with him, your astonishment is perfect.
Sure enough, there is a road, incredible as it first seemed ; for, in order that the horses might be exercised, a good track has been made upon the entire tide-level circuit of the island, about twelve miles in lengthi, over which the ice company's stock is trotted every summer at frequent intervals ; in the winter these unwonted animals are busy hauling ice. You may well improve this oppor- tunity, for it will not occur again as you travel in Alaska-you will not be able to ride elsewhere on a road worthy of the name.
A number of small trading-sloops and schooners have been built here in a boatyard, fashioned by the skill of some Creole ship- carpenters, who were trained in the yards at Sitka when Russian authority was dominant, and who have taken up their permanent
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abode in this "Leesnoi " settlement. A few small, tough Siberian cattle, such as we saw at Neelshik, Cook's Inlet, are roaming about here, cared for by the natives who prize milk ; also several of these same bovines are to be seen at Kadiak, where they are limited also to a few head, on account of the trouble of winter attendance and loss from bears in the summer pasturage.
An odd, weather-beaten faded little building is pointed out by the natives with pride and animation, as the house in which a " soul-like man "-a Russian monk made his abode for thirty con- secutive years, teaching the children of the village and those of the neighboring towns, who flocked here in great numbers to be instructed. He taught the Russian alphabet, so that the church service might be intelligible ; also rudimentary art-principles, gardening and divers useful habits for such youth. This unique shrine is in the heart of the next village closely adjoining, and which is located on Spruce Island, or "Yealovnie," as the seventy odd Russian Creoles who live there call it. It is a little hamlet of only fifteen small log houses, very neat and clean ; and the pret- tiest of flower-pots within the scant windows give you a far-away thought as you observe them. Here is also one of the tiniest of Greek chapels, in which the natives are regularly joined by the small number of those of Oozinkie village (a little way off) and just across the straits ; these people, who have no church, are also pure Creoles, and unite in perfect accord with those of Spruce town.
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