USA > Alaska > Our Arctic province, Alaska and the Seal islands > Part 5
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This view from " Yahponskie " gives an exceedingly good idea of the ultra-mountainous character of Baranov Island, much better than any power of verbal description can. It also illustrates the futility of land travel in the Sitkan archipelago, and affords ample reason for the utter absence of all roads, even footpaths, in that en- tire region ; it also preserves the somewhat imposing front which the extensive warehouses and official quarters of the Russian Ameri- can Company presented in 1866, before their transfer to us, and the ravages of fire and that decay which has since well-nigh de- stroyed them ; it recalls the shipyards and the brass and iron foun- dries and machine-shops that have not even a vestige of their ex- istence on that ground to-day, and it outlines a larger Indian village than the one we find there now.
For the objects of self-protection and comfort the Russians built large apartment-houses or flats, and lived in them at Sitka. Several of these dwellings were 150 feet in length by 50 to 80 feet in depth, three stories high, with huge roof-attics. They were constructed of big spruce logs, smoothly trimmed down to 12'x12' timbers. These were snugly dovetailed at the corners, and the expansive roof covered with sheet-iron. The exteriors were painted a faint lemon-yellow, while the iron roof everywhere glistened with red-ochre. The windows were uniformly small, but fitted very neatly in tasteful casemates, and usually with double sashes. Within, the floors were laid of whipsawed planks, tongued and grooved by hand and highly polished. The inner walls were " ceiled " up on all sides and overhead by light boards, and usually papered showily. The heavy, unique Russian furniture was moved in upon rugs of fur and tapestry, and then these people bade defi- ance to the elements, no matter how unruly, and led therein the most enjoyable of physical lives. The united testimony of all trav- ellers, who were many, and who shared the hospitality of the Rus- sians at Sitka, is one invariable tribute to the excellence and the comfort of their indoor living at New Archangel.
The shipyard of Sitka was as complete as any similar establish- ment in the Russian Empire. It was actively employed in boat and sail-vessel building, being provided with all sorts of workshops and
A GLIMPSE OF SITKA
View in Sitka Sound, looking up towards the town : Mt. Verstova, in the middle distance, and the rugged granitic peaks of Indian River on the horizon. Sitkan Indians running down to Borka Islet for halibut. June, 1874
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FEATURES OF THE SITKAN REGION.
materials. Experiments were also instituted and prosecuted, to some extent, in making bricks, so much prized in the construction of the big conventional Russian "stoves," the turning of wooden- ware, the manufacture of woollen stuffs from the crude material brought up from California ; but the great cost of importing skilled labor from far-distant Russia, and the relative expense of maintain- ing it here, caused the financial failure of all these undertakings. Much money was also wasted in attempting to make iron out of the different grades of ore found in many sections of the country. The only real advantage that the company ever reaped from the work- shops at Sitka was that which accrued to it from the manufacture of agricultural implements, which it sold to the indolent rancheros of California and Mexico. Thousands of the primitive ploughshares and rude hoes and rakes used in those countries then were made here ; also axes, hatchets, and knives were turned out by industri- ous Muscovites for Alaskan post-trading. The foundry was engaged most of the time in making the large iron and brazen bells which every church and mission from Bering's Straits to Mexico called for. Most of these bells are still in use or existence, and give am- ple evidence of skilful workmanship, and of this early development of a unique industry on our northern coast.
Naturally enough the contrast of what the Russian Sitka was, with what the American Sitka is to-day, is a striking one : then a force of six or eight hundred white men, with wives and families, busily engaged as above sketched, directed by a retinue of fifty or sixty subalterns of the governor, lived right under the windows of his castle and within the stockade ; then the Greek-Catholic Bishop of all Alaska also resided there, with a staff of fifteen ordained priests and scores of deacons all around him, maintained regardless of expense, at this time, by the Imperial Government in that eccle- siastical pomp so peculiar to this Oriental Church-then a fleet of twelve to fifteen sailing-vessels, from ships in size to mere sloops, with two ocean-going steamers, made the waters of the bay their regular rendezvous, their hardy crews assisting to give life and stir to the town, shore, and streets-all this ordered by the concentra- tion of the entire trade and commerce of Alaska at New Archangel.
Now, how different ! As you step ashore you scarcely pause to notice the handful of whites who have assembled on the wharf, but at once the impression of general decay is made upon your mind ; the houses, mostly the original Russian buildings, are settling here,
3
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
there, and everywhere, rotting on their foundations, and scarcely more than half of them even occupied, while the combined popula- tion of some three hundred souls in number peers at you from every corner. The great majority of these people are the half-breeds, or "Creoles," or the descendants of Indians and Russians ; some of them are tall and well-formed, and a few of them good-looking, but they are nearly all short-statured, abject, and apathetic. Yet in one respect Sitka has vastly improved under American supremacy -she has become clean ; for although the Russian officers kept the immediate surroundings of their residences in good order, still they never looked after the conduct of the rest of the town. There were, in their time, no defined streets or sidewalks, and mud and filth were knee-deep and most noisome. Our military authorities, however, who first took charge immediately after the transfer, and who are proverbial for cleanliness and neatness in garrison life, inade the sanitary reformation of Sitka an instant and imperative duty ; the slimy walks were soon planked, the muddy streets were gravelled and curbed, the main street especially widened, the oldest houses were repainted, and where dilapidated, repaired, and things put into shape most thoroughly ; they also graded and sauntered over the first wagon-road ever opened in Alaska, which they con- structed, from the steamers' landing under the castle, back border- ing the bay to Indian River, over a mile in lengthi.
But the pomp and circumstance of the old castle-still the most striking artificial feature now in all Alaska-will never wake to the echoes of that proud and lavish hospitality which once reigned within its walls, and when the flashing light in its lofty cupola carried joy out over the dark waters of the sound to the hearts of inbound mariners, who came safely into anchor by its gleaming-the elegant breakfasts and farewell dinners given to favored guests, where the glass, the plate, viands, wines and ap- pointments were fit for regal entertainment itself-all these have vanished, and naught but the uneven, slowly settling floors, warped doors, and general mouldiness of the present hour greets the in- quiring eye. So heavy are its timbers, and so faithfully were they keyed together, that in spite of neglect, the ravages of decay and frequent vandalism, yet, in all likelihood, an age will elapse ere the structure is removed by these destroying agencies now so actively at work upon it. Moved by the desire to preserve the salient features of this historical structure, the author made, during one
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FEATURES OF THE SITKAN REGION.
clear June day, a pre-Raphaelitic drawing of it,* as his vessel swung at anchor under its shadows ; in it the reader will observe that the rocky eminence which it crowns is covered to the very foundations and to the promenade cribbing that surrounds them, with a thick growth of alders, stunted spruces, and other indigenous vegeta- tion. That walk around the castle, which was artificially reared thereon, gives a most commanding view of everything, over all objects in the town and Indian village, and sweeps the landscape and the sound. Another picture from the promenade walk under the flagstaff is also given, in order that a faint effect may be con- veyed to the reader of the exceeding beauty of the island-studded Bay of Sitka. Descending and standing immediately under the castle on the beach, to the right you have a perfect Alpine scene as you look east along the pebbly shore to the living green flanks of Mount Verstova, which carry your gaze up quickly over rolling purplish curtains of fog to the snowy crest of it, and other lofty crests ad infinitum, over far beyond. The little trading stores on the left in this view hide the track so well known in Sitka as the " Governor's Walk," for this is the only direction out to the saw- mill in the middle distance, in which the earth lies smooth and dry enough in all this archipelago for a clean mile-jaunt. These still blue and green waters are alive with food-fishes, while the dense coverts on the mountains harbor grouse and venison in lavish supply ; the oyster and the lobster you have not, but the clam and the crab are here in overwhelming abundance and excel- lence. "Ah!" you exclaim, " if it were not for this eternal rain, this everlasting damp precipitation, how delightful this place would be to live in !"
* This building, as it stands upon its foundations, is 140 feet in length by 70 feet in width-two stories with lofts, capped with the light-house cupola ; these foundations rest upon the summit of the rock, 60 feet above tide-water.
CHAPTER III.
ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
The White Man and the Indian Trading .- The Shrewdness and Avarice of the Savage .- Small Value of the entire Land Fur Trade of Alaska. - The Futile Effort of the Greek Catholic Church to Influence the Sitkan In- dians .- The Reason why Missionary Work in Alaska has been and is Impotent .- The Difference between the Fish-eating Indian of Alaska and the Meat-eating Savage of the Plains .- Simply One of Physique .- The Haidahs the Best Indians of Alaska .- Deep Chests and Bandy Legs from Canoe-travel .- Living in Fixed Settlements because Obliged To .- Large "Rancheries" or Houses Built by the Haidahs. - Communistic Families. -Great Gamblers. - Indian "House-Raising Bees."-Grotesque Totem Posts .- Indian Doctors "Kill or Cure."-Dismal Interior of an Indian " Rancherie."-The Toilet and Dress of Alaskan Siwashes .- The Unwrit- ten Law of the Indian Village .--- What Constitutes a Chief .-- The Tribal Boundaries and their Scrupulous Regard .- Fish the Main Support of Sitkan Indians .- The Running of the Salmon .- Indians Eat Everything. -Their Salads and Sauces .-- Their Wooden Dishes and Cups, and Spoons of Horn .- The Family Chests .- The Indian Woman a Household Drudge. -She has no Washing to Do, However .- Sitkan Indians not Great Hunters .- They are Unrivalled Canoe-builders. - Small-pox and Measles have Reduced the Indians of the Sitkan Archipelago to a Scanty Number. -- Abandoned Settlements of these Savages Common .- The Debauchery of Rum among these People .- The White Man to Blame for This.
" Think you that yon church steeple Will e'er work a change in these wild people ?"
OUR people living now in the Sitkan district are engaged either in general trading with the Indians, in prospecting for "mineral," or actively mining ; and, also, in a small fashion, in canning salmon and rendering dog-fish and herring oil. Perhaps we can give a fair idea of the traders by introducing the reader to one of them and his establishment just as we find him at Sitka. In a small frame one-story house, not usually touched by paint, the trader shelters a general assortment of notions and groceries, but princi-
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ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
pally tobacco, molasses, blankets of all sizes and colors, cotton prints and cheap rings, beads, looking-glasses, etc .; he stands behind a rude counter, with these wares displayed to best advan- tage on the rough shelves at his back ; a wood-burning stove diffuses a genial glow, but no chairs or benches are convenient. A "Siwash " * and his squaw deliberately and gravely enter. The Indian slowly looks up and down the room, and then proceeds to price every object within his vision, no matter whether he has the least idea of purchasing or not ; this is the prelude and invariable habit of a Sitkan Indian, and it arouses an immense amount of suppressed profanity on the part of the outwardly courteous trader. But our savage has come in this time bent upon buying, and selling also ; his female partner has a bundle carefully done up under her blanket, and which she wholly concealed when she squatted down on her haunches the moment after entering the door; she also has a number of small silver coins in her mouth, for, funny as it may seem, this worthy pair have carefully agreed upon what they shall spend in the store before coming in ; so the woman has taken out from the leathern purse which hangs on her breast and under her chemise, the exact amount, and, returning the pouch to the privacy of her bosom, she places the available coin in her mouth for safe keeping ad interim.
Finally the Indian, in the course of half an hour, or perhaps a whole half-day in preliminary skirmishing, boldly reaches down for his bundle in the squaw's charge ; then having, by so doing, given the trader to fully understand that he has something to sell, as well as desiring to buy, he reaches out for the groceries, the cloth, the tobacco, or whatever he may have fully decided to purchase ; a long argument at once ensues as to the bottom cash price, and in every case of doubt the squaw decides ; all the articles are done up in brown paper and neatly tied with attractive parti-colored twine. Then the dusky woman arises, with an indescribably vacant stare, bends over the counter and lets the jingling silver drop upon it, pausing just a moment until the tired but triumphant trader counts and sweeps it, still moist, into his till.
Now the Siwash, having bought, proceeds to sell, and he does it in his own peculiar way. He unrolls his package of furs ; he
* All savages are called by this name up here-the sex being indicated by "buck " and " squaw." Children are called " pappooses."
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
eloquently discourses as he strokes each pelt out on the counter, in turn praising its size and its quality ; the trader in the meanwhile sharply keeps one eye on the savage and one eye on the furs, and, after the story of their capture and quality has been told over the third or fourth time, he asks, "How much ?" The crafty hunter promptly demands more than they would retail at in London ; the trader answers with great emphasis and a most disgusted head- shake, "no ;" he then offers just half or one-third the sum named, whereupon the Indians, affecting great contempt, both shout out " klaik !" which sounds like Poe's "Raven "-roll up their furs and hustle out in a huff, still repeating, in sonorous unison, " klaik, klaik "-(no, no). Then they go to the rival trader's establishment, and to all of them in turn, even if there are half a dozen, not leaving one of them unvisited ; they finally finish the rounds in the course of a week or two, and then quietly march back to that trader who offered the most, and laying their peltries down in perfect silence on his counter, hold out a grimy hand for the exact sum he had previously proffered.
In this shrewd and aggravating manner does the simple untu- tored savage of the northwest coast deal with white traders-are they swindled, do you think? From the beginning to the end of any transaction you may have with an Alaskan Indian you will be met with the keenest understanding on his part of the full value in dollars and cents of whatsoever he may do for you or sell. When, however, the Hudson Bay or the Russian Company held an ex- clusive franchise in this district, then the Indian had no alterna- tive but the single post-trader's terms ; and then the white man's profits were enormous. But now, with the keen rivalry of com- peting stores, the trader barely makes a living anywhere in Alaska to-day, while the Indian gets the best of every bargain-vastly better compared with his former experience.
The fur trade, however, in the whole Sitkan district is now of small commercial importance ; thirty or forty thousand dollars an- nually will more than express its gross value. This great shrinkage is due to the practical extermination of the sea-otter in these waters, while the brown and black bears, the mink and marten, the beaver and the land-otter skins secured in this archipelago and its mainland coast are not highly valued by furriers, inasmuch as the climate here is never cold enough to give them that depth and gloss of fur desired and so characteristic of those animals which
·
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ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
are taken, away back in the interior, where the temperature ranges from 20° to 40° below zero for months at a time. In early days, the Sitkan savages acted as middlemen, receiving these choice pelt- ries from the back-country Indians, who were never permitted by the coast tribes to come down to the sea-and then trading the
The Sitkan Chimes.
stock anew in their own right over to the Russian and English posts, they reaped a large advance. Now, however, the indepen- dent white trader penetrates to the interior himself, and the Alas- kan Siwashes mourn the loss of those rich commissions which once accrued to their emolument and consequence. The irruption, also, of the restless, tireless, wandering miners throughout Alaska and
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
British Columbia, who, prospecting in every ravine and canon, never let an opportunity pass to trade and trap for good furs, has also con- tributed to this total stagnation of the business in the Sitkan region.
The finest structure in Sitka to-day is the Greek church, which alone did not pass from the custody of its original owners at the time of the transfer. This building has been kept in repair, so that its trim and unique architecture never fails to arrest the visitor's attention and challenge inspection, especially of the interior. We find the service of the church rich and profuse in silverware, can- delabra, ornately framed pictures-oil-paintings of the saints-and rich vestments ; two priests officiate, a reader chants rapid au- tomatism, and a choir of small boys respond in shrill but pleasing orisons ; instrumental music is banished from the services of the Greek Church, and so are pews, chairs, and hassocks ; the Creole congregation, men, women, and children, stand and kneel and cross themselves, erect and bowed, for hours and hours at a time during certain festivals, never moving a step from their positions. The men stand on the right side of the vestibule, facing the altar, while the women all stand by themselves, on the left, the children at option as they enter. No one looks to the one side or the other, but every face is riveted upon the priest, who says little, and is busily engaged in symbolic worship.
The Indians do not enter here, nor did they ever ; for them the Russians erected a small chapel, which still stands on the site of its first location ; it is built against the inner side of the stockade, and, like the old Lutheran church lower down in the town, it is fast going to ruin ; the door is secured by one of those remarkable Muscovitic padlocks-it is eight or ten inches long, five or six wide, and three deep ; these singular locks must be seen to be appreciated in all of their clumsy strength. This little faded place of savage worship was the scene in 1855 of the second and last stand ever made by the Sitkan Indians in revolt against the Russians. Those savages, brooding over some petty indignities received from the whites, became suddenly inflamed with passion, and a swarm of armed warriors from the adjacent rancheries rushed, one dusky evening, upon the fortified palisade surrounding the village, and began to cut and tear it down. The Russians opened their brass batteries of grape and round-shot upon the infuriated, yelling natives from the several block-houses which commanded the stock- ade, but the Siwashes returned the fire fearlessly with their smooth-
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ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THE SITKANS.
bore muskets, and succeeded in getting possession of this chapel, behind the stout logs of which they were sheltered and able to do deadly execution with their rifles in picking off the Russian officers and men, as they hurried to and from the bastions and through the streets of the town. When, however, one of the company's vessels hauled off the beach opposite the Indian village, and trained her guns upon it and its people, the savages humbly sued for mercy, and have remained in abasement ever since.
Contemplating this Indian church at Sitka, which has stood here for nearly three quarters of a century, and then glancing over it and into the savage settlement that nestles in its shadow, it is im-
1
Old Indian Chapel at Sitka. [Greek Catholic Church, June 9, 1874.]
possible to refrain from expressing a few thoughts which arise to my mind over the subject of the Indian in regard to his conversion to the faith and practices of our higher civilization. Nearly a whole century has been expended, here, of unflagging endeavor to better and to change the inherent nature of these Indians-its full result is before our eyes. Go down with me through the smoky, reeking, filthy rancheries and note carefully the attitude and occu- pation of these savages, and contrast your observation with that so vividly recorded of them by Cook, Vancouver, Portlock, and Dixon, and many other early travellers, and tell me in what manner have they advanced one step higher than when first seen by white men full a hundred years ago. You cannot escape the conclusion with
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OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE.
this tangible evidence in your grasp, that in attempting to civilize the Alaskan Indian the result is much more like extermination, or lingering, deeper degradation to him than that which you so ear- nestly desire. The cause of this failure of the missionary and the priest is easy to analyze : it is due to the demoralizing precept and example of those depraved whites who always appear on the field of the Indian mission, sooner or later ; if they could be shut out, and the savage wholly uninfluenced by their vicious lives, then the story of Alaskan Indian salvage might be very different. Still, the thought will always come unbidden and promptly-these savages were created for the wild surrounding of their existence ; expressly for it, and they live happily in it : change this order of their life, and at once they disappear, as do the indigenous herbs and game before the cultivation of the soil and the domestication of animals.
The Indians of Alaska, however, will never call upon the Gov- ernment for food and reservations-there is a great abundance on the earth and in the waters thereof for them ; living as they do all down at tide-water, at the sole source of their subsistence, they are within the quick reach of a gunboat ; the overpowering significance of that they fully understand and fear. There is a huge wilderness here for them which the white man is not at all likely to occupy, even in part, for generations of his kind to come, yet unborn.
Sitka is the seat of that Alaskan civil government* which Con- gress, after much deliberation, ordered in 1884 ; but the governor lives here in much humbler circumstances than did his Slavonian predecessors. As it would require a small fortune to rehabilitate the "castle," the present chief-magistrate resides in one of those neatly built houses which the military authorities erected shortly after they took charge in 1867-68 ; it is not at all commanding, but has a pleasant vista from its windows over the parade ground, and the steamers' landing.
While the most impressive feature of the Sitkan archipelago is unquestionably that of the awe-inspiring solemnity and grand
" This Act wisely does not establish a full-fledged form of territorial gov- ernment in Alaska, because the lack of a suitable population to maintain it reputably was conclusively shown by the census returns of 1880 : it creates an executive and a judiciary ; it extends certain laws of the United States relating to crimes, customs, and mining, over Alaska, and provides for their enforcement. The land laws of the United States should also be made opera- tive in Alaska, they are expressly omitted in the present act.
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ABORIGINAL LIFE OF THIE SITKANS.
beauty of its strange wilderness, yet the most interesting single idea is the Indian and the life he leads therein ; with the single ex- ception of the substitution of a woollen blanket and a cotton shirt for his primitive skin garments, he is living here to-day just as he has lived away back to the time when his legends fail to recite, and centuries before the bold voyages of Cook and Vancouver, and the savage sea-otter fleet of Baranov, first discovered him and then made his existence known to the civilized world. True, some of the young fellows who have labored upon vessels and in the fish- canneries wear an every-day workingman's shirt and trousers, and speak a few words of English, understanding much more, yet the primeval simplicity of all Indian life in this district is substantially preserved.
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