USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 36
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The flesh of young sea-lions is still better than that of the fur- seal, while the natives say that the meat of the hair-seal (Phoca vitulina) is superior to both, being more juicy. Fur-seal meat is exceedingly dry ; hence the necessity of putting bacon into the frying-pan or stew-pot with it. Sea-lion flesh is an improvement in this respect, and also that its fat, strange to say, is wholly clear, white, and inodorous, while the blubber of the " holluschickie " is sickening to the smell, and will, nine times out of ten, cause any civilized stomach to throw it up as quickly as it is swallowed. The natives, however, eat a great deal of it, simply because they are too lazy to clean their fur-seal cuts and not because they really relish it.
In this connection it may be well to add that the liver of both Callorhinus and Eumetopias is sweet and wholesome ; or, in other words, it is as good as liver usually is in Fulton Market. The tongues are small, white, and fat. They are regularly cut out to some extent and salted in ordinary water-buckets for exportation to curious friends. They have but slight claim to gastronomic
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favor. The natives are, however, very partial to the liver ; but though they like the tongues, yet they are too lazy to prepare them. A few of them, in obedience to pressing and prayerful appeals from relatives at Oonalashka, do exert themselves enough every season to undergo the extra labor of putting up several barrels of fresh salted seal-meat, which, being carried down to Illoolook by the company's vessels, affords a delightful variation to the steady and monotonous codfish diet of those Aleutian Islanders.
The final acts of curing and shipping pelts of fur-seals from the warehouses of the villages, rapidly follow work upon the killing- grounds. The skins are taken from the field to the salt-house,
Interior of Salt House, Village of St. Paul.
[Showing the method of receiving, selecting, kenching and salting " green " fur-seal skins.]
where they are laid out, after being again carefully examined, one upon another, "hair to fat," like so many sheets of paper, with salt profusely spread upon the fleshy sides as they are piled up in the "kenches," or bins. The salt-house is a large barn-like frame structure, so built as to afford one-third of its width in the centre, from end to end, clear and open as a passage-way : while on each side are rows of stanchions, with sliding planks, which are taken down and put up in the form of deep bins or boxes-"kenches," the sealers call them. As the pile of skins is laid up from the bot- tom of an empty "kench " and salt thrown in on the outer edges, these planks are also put in place, so that the salt may be kept in- tact until that bin is filled as high up as a man can toss the skins. After lying two or three weeks in this style they become "pickled,"
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and they are suited then at any time to be taken up and rolled into bundles of two skins to the package, with the hairy side out, tightly corded, ready for shipment from the islands.
The average weight of a two-year-old skin is five and one-half. pounds ; of a three-year-old skin, seven pounds, and of a four-year- old skin, twelve pounds, so that, as the major portion of the catch is two or three year olds, these bundles of two skins each have a general weight of from twelve to fifteen pounds. In this form they go into the hold of the company's steamer at St. Paul, and are counted out from it in San Francisco. Then they are either at once shipped to London by the Isthmus of Panama in the same shape, only packed up in large hogsheads of from twenty to forty bundles to the package, or expressed by railroad, via New York, to a similar destination.
The work of bundling the skins is not usually commenced by the natives until the close of the last week's sealing ; or, in other words, those skins which they first took, three weeks ago, are now so pickled by the salt in which they have been lying ever since, as to render them eligible for this operation and immediate shipment. The moisture of the air dissolves and destroys a very large quantity of that saline preservative which the company brings up annually in the form of rock-salt, principally obtained at Carmen Island, Lower California.
The Alaska Commercial Company, by the provisions of law under which they enjoy their franchise, are permitted to take one hundred thousand male seals annually, and no more, from the Pribylov Islands. This they do in June and July of every year. After that season the skins rapidly grow worthless, as the animals enter into shedding, and, if taken, would not pay for transportation and the tax.
The bundled skins are carried from the salt-houses to the beach, when an order for shipment is given, pitched into a bidarrah, one by one, and rapidly stowed ; seven hundred to twelve hundred bundles make an average single load ; then, when alongside the steamer, they are again tossed up from the lighter and onto her deck, whence they are stowed in the hold .*
* The shallow depths of Bering Sea give rise to a very bad surf, and though none of the natives can swim, as far as I could learn, yet they are quite creditable surfmen, and work the heavy " baidar " in and out from the land- ing adroitly and circumspectly. They put a sentinel upon the bluffs over Nah
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The method of air-drying which the old settlers employed is well portrayed by the practice of the natives now, who treat a few hundred sea-lion skins to that process every fall, preparing them thus for shipment to Oonalashka, where they are used by brother Aleutes in covering their bidarkies or kayaks.
The natives, in speaking to me of this matter, said that when- ever the weather was rough and the wind blowing hard, these air- dried seal-skins, as they were tossed from the bidarrah to the ship's deck, numbers of them, would frequently turn in the wind and fly clean over the vessel into the water beyond, where they were lost.
Under the old order of affairs, prior to the present manage- ment, the skins were packed up and carried on the backs of the boys and girls, women and old men, to the salt-houses, or drying- frames. When I first arrived, season of 1872, a slight variation was made in this respect by breaking a small Siberian bull into harness and hitching it to a cart, in which the pelts were hanled. Before the cart was adjusted, however, and the " buik " taught to pull, it was led out to the killing-grounds by a ring in its nose, and literally covered with the green seal-hides, which where thus packed to the kenches. The natives were delighted with even this partial assistance ; but now they have no further concern about it at all, for several mules and carts render prompt and ample service.
The common or popular notion in regard to seal-skins is, that they are worn by those animals just as they appear when offered for sale ; that the fur-seal swims about, exposing the same soft coat with which our ladies of fashion so delight to cover their tender
Speel, and go and come between the rollers as he signals. They are not grace- ful oarsmen under any circumstances, but can pull heartily and coolly together when in a pinch. The apparent ease and unconcern with which they handled their bidarrah here in the "baroon " during the fall of 1869 so emboldened three or four sailors of the United States Revenue Marine cutter Lincoln that they lost their lives in such surf through sheer carelessness. The "gig" in which they were coming ashore " broached to" in the breakers just out- side the cove, and their lifeless forms were soon after thrown up by merciless waves on the Lagoon rookery. Three graves of these men are plainly marked on a western slope of the Black Bluffs.
There is a false air of listlessness and gentleness about an open sea, or road- stead roller, that is very apt to deceive even watermen of good understanding. The crushing, overwhelming power with which an ordinary breaker will hurl a large ship's boat on rocks awash, must be personally experienced ere it is half appreciated.
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forms during inclement winter. This is a very great mistake ; few skins are less attractive than a seal-skin is when it is taken from the creature. The fur is not visible ; it is concealed entirely by a coat of stiff over-hair, dull, gray-brown, and grizzled. It takes three of them to make a lady's sack and boa; and in order that a reason for their costliness may be apparent, I take great pleasure in submitting a description of the tedious and skilful labor ne- cessary to their dressing by the furriers ere they are fit for use : a leading manufacturer, writing to me, says :--
" When the skins are received by us in the salt, we wash off the salt, placing them upon a beam somewhat like a tanner's beam, re- moving the fat from the flesh side with a beaming-knife, care being required that no cuts or uneven places are made in the pelt. The skins are next washed in water and placed upon the beam with the fur up, and the grease and water removed by the knife. The skins are then dried by moderate heat, being tacked out on frames to keep them smooth. After being fully dried, they are soaked in water and thoroughly cleansed with soap and water. In some cases they can be unhaired without this drying process, and cleansed before drying. After the cleansing process they pass to the picker, who dries the fur by stove-heat, the pelt being kept moist. When the fur is dry he places the skin on a beam, and while it is warm he removes the main coat of hair with a dull shoe- knife, grasping the hair with his thumb and knife, the thumb being protected by a rubber cob. The hair must be pulled out, not broken. After a portion is removed the skin must be again warmed at the stove, the pelt being kept moist. When the outer hairs have been mostly removed, he uses a beaming-knife to work out the fine hairs (which are shorter), and the remaining coarser hairs. It will be seen that great care must be used, as the skin is in that soft state that too much pressure of the knife would take the fur also ; indeed, bare spots are made. Carelessly cured skins are some- times worthless on this account. The skins are next dried, after- ward dampened on the pelt side, and shaved to a fine, even surface. They are then stretched, worked, and dried, afterward softened in a fulling-mill, or by treading them with the bare feet in a hogshead, one head being removed and the cask placed nearly upright, into which the workman gets with a few skins and some fine, hardwood sawdust, to absorb the grease while he dances upon them to break them into leather. If the skins have been shaved thin,
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as required when finished, any defective spots or holes must now be mended, the skin smoothed and pasted with paper on the pelt side, or two pasted together to protect the pelt in dyeing. The usual process in the United States is to leave the pelt sufficiently thick to protect them without pasting.
"In dyeing, the liquid dye is put on with a brush, carefully cover- ing the points of the standing fur. After lying folded, with the points touching each other, for some time, the skins are hung up and dried. The dry dye is then removed, another coat applied, dried, and removed, and so on, until the required shade is obtained. One or two of these coats of dye are put on much heavier and pressed down to the roots of the fur, making what is called the ground. From eight to twelve coats are required to produce a good color. The skins are then washed clean, the fur dried, the pelt moist. They are shaved down to the required thickness, dried, working them some while drying, then softened in a hogshead, and some- times run in a revolving cylinder with fine sawdust to clean them. The English process does not have the washing after dyeing."
On account of the fact that all labor in this country, especially skilled labor, commands so much more per diem in the return of wages than it does in London or Belgium, it is not practicable for the Alaska Commercial Company, or any other company here, to attempt to dress and put upon the market its catch of Bering Sea, which is in fact the entire catch of the whole world. Our people understand the theory of dressing these skins perfectly; but they cannot compete with the cheaper labor of the Old World. There- fore, nine-tenths, nearly, of the fur-seal skins taken every year are annually purchased and dressed in London, and from thence distributed all over the civilized world where furs are worn and prized.
The great variation in the value of seal-skin sacks, ranging from seventy-five dollars up to three hundred and fifty dollars, and even five hundred dollars, is not often due to a variance in the quality of the fur originally ; but it is due to that quality of the work whereby the fur was treated and prepared for wear. For instance, cheap sacks are so defectively dyed that a little moisture causes them to soil the collars and cuffs of their owners, and a little ex- posure makes them speedily fade and look ragged. A properly dyed skin, one that has been conscientiously and laboriously fin- ished (for it is a labor requiring great patience and great skill), will
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not rub off or " crock " the whitest linen when moistened ; and it will wear the weather, as I have myself seen it on the form of a sea- captain's wife, for six and seven successive seasons, without show- ing the least bit of dimness or raggedness. I speak of dyeing alone ; I might say the earlier steps of unhairing, in which the over- hair is deftly combed out and off from the skin, heated to such a point that the roots of the fur are not loosened, while those to the coarser hirsute growth are. If this is not done with perfect uni- formity, the fur will never lie smooth, no matter how skilfully dyed; it will always have a rumpled, ruffled look. Therefore the hastily- dyed sacks are cheap ; and are enhanced in order of value just as the labor of dyeing is expended upon them.
Another singular and striking characteristic of the Island of St. Paul, is the fact that this immense slaughtering-field, upon which seventy-five thousand to ninety thousand fresh carcasses lie every season, sloughing away into the sand beneath, does not cause any sickness among the people who live right over them, so to speak. A cool, raw temperature, and strong winds, peculiar to the place, seem to prevent any unhealthy effect from that fermentation of de- cay. An Elymus and other grasses once more take heart and grow with magical vigor over the unsightly spot, to which the seal- ing-gang again return, repeating their work upon this place which we have marked before, three years ago. In that way this strip of ground, seen on my map between the village, the east landing, and the lagoon, contains the bones and the oil-drippings and other frag- ments thereof, of more than three million seals slain since 1786 thereon, while the slaughter-fields at Novashtoshnah record the end of a million more !
I remember well those unmitigated sensations of disgust which possessed me when I first landed, April 28, 1872, on the Pribylov Islands, and passed up from the beach, at Lukannon, to the village over the killing-grounds ; though there was a heavy coat of snow on the fields, yet each and every one of seventy-five thousand decaying carcasses was there, and bare, having burned, as it were, their way out to the open air, polluting the same to a sad degree. I was laughed at by the residents who noticed my facial contortions, and assured that this state of smell was nothing to what I should soon experience when the frost and snow had fairly melted. They were correct ; the odor along by the end of May was terrific punishment to my olfactories, and continued so for several weeks until my sense
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of smell became blunted and callous to such stench by long familiar- ity. Like the other old residents I then became quite unconscious of the prevalence of this rich " funk," and ceased to notice it.
Those who land here, as I did, for the first time, nervously and invariably declare that such an atmosphere must breed a plague or a fever of some kind in the village, and hardly credit the assurance of those who have resided in it for the whole period of their lives, that such a thing was never known to St. Paul, and that the island is remarkably healthy. It is entirely true, however, and, after a few weeks' contact, or a couple of months' experience, at the long- est, the most sensitive nose becomes used to that aroma, wafted as it is hourly, day in and out, from decaying seal-flesh, viscera, and blubber ; and, also, it ceases to be an object of attention. The cool, sunless climate during the warmer months has undoubtedly much to do with checking too rapid decomposition and consequent trouble therefrom, which would otherwise arise from those killing- gronnds.
The freshly-skinned seal bodies of this season do not seem to rot substantially until the following year ; then they rapidly slough away into the sand upon which they rest ; the envelope of blubber left upon each body seems to act as an air-tight receiver, holding most of the putrid gases that evolved from the decaying viscera until their volatile tension causes it to give way ; fortunately the line of least resistance to that merciful retort is usually right where it is adjacent to the soil, so both putrescent fluids and much of the stench within is deordorized and absorbed before it can contami- nate the atmosphere to any great extent. The truth of my observa- tion will be promptly verified, if the sceptic chooses to tear open any one of the thousands of gas-distended carcasses in the fall, that were skinned in the killing-season ; if he does so, he will be smitten by the worst smell that human sense can measure ; and should he chance to be accompanied by a native, that callous individual, even, will pinch his grimy nose and exclaim, it is a "keeshla pahknoot !"
At the close of the third season after skinning, a seal's body 'will have so rotted and sloughed down, as to be marked only by the bones and a few of the tendinous ligaments ; in other words, it requires from thirty to thirty-six months' time for such a carcass to rot entirely away, so that nothing but whitened bones remain above ground. The natives govern their driving of the seals and laying out of the fresh bodies according to this fact-they can,
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and do, spread this year a whole season's killing out over the same spot of the field previously covered with such fresh carcasses three summers ago ; by alternating with the seasons thus, the natives are enabled to annually slaughter all of the " holluschickie " on a rela- tively small area, close by the salt-houses and the village, as I have indicated on my map of St. Paul.
The St. Paul village site is located wholly on the northern slope of the village hill, where it drops from its greatest elevation, at the flagstaff of one hundred and twenty-five feet, gently down to those sandy killing-flats below and between it and the main body of the island. The houses are all placed facing north at regular inter- vals along the terraced streets, which run southeast and northwest. There are seventy-four or eighty native houses, ten large and smaller buildings of the company, a Treasury agent's residence, a church, cemetery crosses, and a school building which are all standing here in coats of pure white paint. No offal or decaying refuse of any kind is allowed to rest around the dwellings or lie in the streets. It required much determined effort on the part of the whites to effect this sanitary reform ; but now most of the na- tives take equal pride in keeping their surroundings clean and un- polluted. The killing-ground of St. Paul is a bottomless sand-flat only a few feet above high water, and which unites the village hill and the reef with the island itself. It is not a stone's throw from the heart of the settlement ; in fact, it is right in town, not even suburban.
The site of the St. George settlement is more exposed and bleak than is the one we have just referred to on St. Paul. It is planted directly on a rounded summit of one of the first low hills that rise from the sea on the north shore. Indeed, it is the only hill that does slope directly aml gently to the salt water on the island. Here are twenty-four to thirty native cottages, laid with their doors facing the opposite sides of a short street between, running also east and west, as at St. Paul. There, however, each house looks down upon the rear of its' neighbor in front and below-here the houses face each other on the top of the hill. The Treasury agent's quarters, the company's six or seven buildings, the school-house, and the church, are all neatly painted : therefore this settlement, by its prominent position, shows from the sea to a much better advantage than the larger one of St. Paul does. The same municipal sanitary regulations are enforced here. Those who may visit the St. George
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and St. Paul of to-day will find their streets dry and hard as floors for they have been covered with a thick layer of volcanic cinders on both islands.
On St. George the "holluschickie " are regularly driven to that northeast slope of the village hill which drops down gently to the sea, where they are slaughtered, close by and under the houses, as at St. Paul. Those droves which are brought in from the North rookery to the west, and also Starry Arteel, are frequently driven right through the village itself. This killing-field of St. George is hard tufa and rocky, but it slopes away to the ocean rapidly enough to drain itself well; hence the constant rain and humid fogs of summer carry off that which would soon clog and deprive the natives from using the ground year after year in rotation, as they do. Several seasons have occurred, however, when this nat- ural cleansing of the place, above mentioned, has not been as thor- ough as must be, so as to be used again immediately : then the seals were skinned back of the village hill and in that ravine to the west- ward on the same slope from its summit.
This village site of St. George to-day, and the killing-grounds adjoining, used to be, during early Russian occupation, in Priby- lov's time, a large sea-lion rookery, the finest one known to either island, St. Paul or St. George. Natives are living now, who told me that their fathers had been employed in shooting and driving these sea-lions, so as to deliberately break up a breeding-ground, and thus rid the island of what they considered a superabundant supply of the Eumetopias, and thereby to aid and encourage a fresh and increased accession of fur-seals from the vast majority pe- culiar to St. Paul, which could mot ensue while big sea-lions held the land.
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ICAGO DAILY NEWS &LIBRARY. &
CHAPTER XI.
THE ALASKAN SEA-LION.
A Pelagic Monarch .- Marked Difference between the Sea-lion and the Fur- seal .- The Imposing Presence and Sonorous Voice of the "Sea-king."- Terrible Combats between old Sea-lion Bulls .- Cowardly in the Presence of Man, however .- Sea-lions Sporting in the Fury of Ocean Surf .- It has no Fur on its Huge Hide .- Valuable only to the Natives, who Cover their " Bidarrah " with its Skin .- Its Sweet Flesh and Inodorons Fat .- Not such Extensive Travellers as the Fur-seals. -- The Difficulty of Capturing Sea-lions .- How the Natives Corral them .- The Sea-lion "Pen " at North- east Point .- The Drive of Sea-lions .- Curious Behavior of the Animals. -Arrival of the Drove at the Village. - A Thirteen-mile Jaunt with the Clumsy Drove .- Shooting the old Males .- The Bloody "Death-whirl."- The Extensive Economic Use made of the Carcass by the Natives. - Chinese Opium Pipes Picked with Sea-lion Mustache bristles.
THE sea-lion is also a characteristic pinniped of the Pribylov Islands, but ranks much below the fur-seal in perfected physical organiza- tion and intelligence. It can, as well as its more sagacious and valuable relative, the Callorhinus, be seen, perhaps, to better advan- tage on these islands than elsewhere in the whole world that I know of. The marked difference between a sea-lion and the fur-seal up here is striking, the former being twice the size of its cousin.
The size and strength of a northern sea-lion, Eumetopias stel- leri, its perfect adaptation to its physical surroundings, unite with a singular climatic elasticity of organization. It seems to be equally well satisfied with the ice-floes of the Kamchatka Sea to the north- ward, or with the polished boulders and the hot sands of the coast of California. It is an animal as it appears upon its accustomed breeding grounds at Northeast Point, where I first saw. it, that com- manded my involuntary admiration by its imposing presence and sonorous voice, as it reared itself before me, with head, neck, and chest upon its powerful forearms, over six feet in height, while its heavy bass voice drowned the booming of the surf that thundered on the rocks beneath its flanks.
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