USA > Alaska > Our northern domain: Alaska, picturesque, historic and commercial > Part 7
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Duncan settled among them, learned their language, inspired them with perfect confidence, and gradually induced them to adopt his ways of life. He established a community settlement about twenty miles south of Fort Simpson; and, with the assistance of the Indians, cleared a tract of land; built two-story cottages, a church, a school-house - octagon shaped, suitable for town meetings - a co-operative store, soap factory, blacksmith shop, saw-mill, and a salmon-cannery. He engaged assistants, and taught the young Indians carpentry, shoe- making, tanning, blanket-weaving, rope-making, and boat-building. A German music-master instructed them in singing and the practice of various instruments, and formed a band. A few years later, the Eng- lish Church sent out a Bishop to superintend the missions. This Bishop Ridley entirely misunderstood the Indian character; he was narrow- minded and bigoted. Mr. Duncan realized that the Communion service, where the communicants are taught that they are eating the Body and drinking the Blood of God, was a dangerous ceremony for a people just emerged from cannibalism, and protested against it, but the Bishop was obstinate and opinionated. The friction between him and the lay- missionary grew more and more galling, and finally, in 1887, Mr. Dun- can went to Washington and obtained permission to transfer his people to Annette Island. His mission proved successful, and the island was, in 1891, set apart as a reservation for the Metlakatlans. Seven hundred of the Indians, taking with them only their personal belongings, and leaving their houses and all their other property, emigrated to this new wilderness, and there the old experiment was continued under somewhat new conditions.
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LOOKING UP WHITE PASS SUMMIT.
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THE VASTNESS OF ALASKA.
There they built a new saw-mill, a wharf, a well-appointed co-opera- tive store, town-hall, a large church - attractive architecturally and steam-heated - and comfortable quarters for the tribe and their be- loved missionary. Schools for the boys and girls are well attended. There is an excellent system of water-works, and a large cannery, the salmon for which is provided by the inhabitants. The community, or, one might call it, the Commune, own all these adjuncts to civilization, as well as several vessels. Natives, by the laws of the United States, are forbidden to do any mining. If this unreasonable law was abro- gated, at least under certain conditions, undoubtedly Father Dun- can's Indians would exploit the mines that have been discovered on his island. The natives themselves, in a big council meeting held in 1895, declared themselves in favor of a community title, the town coun- cil to grant allotments of land, for legitimate purposes, to individuals ; but they did not favor a Government grant of individual titles to lots of one hundred and sixty acres each, as that was supposed to be preju- dicial to the community interests. They also very sensibly demanded that all salmon streams should be declared Indian reservations, so that only proper persons, under proper conditions, should be allowed to operate them; the amount of salmon taken from each stream being limited, and all barricades forbidden by law.
The New Metlakatla community is governed by a council of thrifty members, under the direction of a president. There is a police force of twenty men. The system of taxes is adapted to maintain all the public institutions; the cannery and saw-mill belong to stock- companies controlled by the Indians. There are fine, wide sidewalks; and a band of twenty instruments plays on days when the steamer arrives.
All the members of the community are required to sign a declara- tion, in accordance with which they agree to reverence the Sabbath, to attend Divine worship, to take the Bible as their rule of faith, to regard all Christians as their brethren, to be truthful, honest and in- dustrious, to be faithful and loyal to the Government and laws of the
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OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN.
United States, to vote when required, to obey the regulations of their Council, to educate their children, to abstain from all intoxicants and gambling, to refrain from heathen festivities, to carry out all necessary sanitary regulations, to identify themselves with the interests of the commune, and never to give away or dispose of their land to any per- sons who have not subscribed to the rules.
Mr. Duncan's experiment, in a communistic commonwealth for the natives, is justly regarded as an object lesson in the treatment of the Indians. In almost all other places, the story of the dealings of the whites with the aborigines is stained with horror. Mr. Henry S. Well- come, in his " Story of Metlakatla," says: -
" This people, only thirty years since, consisted of the most ferocious Indian tribes, given up to constant warfare, notorious for treachery, cannibalism, and other hideous practices. Mr. William Duncan, with rare fortitude and genius, began single-handed a mission. He educated them and taught them Christianity in the simplest manner; at the same time introducing peaceful industries; and by these means he wrought, in a single generation, a marvellous transformation. Where blood had flowed continually, he founded the self-supporting village of Metlakatla, that will compare favorably with almost any village of its size in England or America for intelligence, morality and thrift."
The boundary between the Dominion and Alaska crosses the upper end of Dixon Entrance, so named after Vancouver's Captain Dixon, but also called Granitza Sound and Kygan Strait. It was originally named Perez Inlet, in 1775, by the discoverer, Bodegay Quadra. How unfortunate that the Indian names should not have been more fre- quently retained, instead of attaching to noble mountains and lordly waters the often ugly names of insignificant sailors! Then would Rainer have been Tacoma or Takoba, meaning Snowy Mountain; and Seymour Narrows would have borne the name of the Yakulta, the Lorelei of that wild pass; and many a beautiful island and river would have commemorated the vanishing peoples of those shores.
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THE VASTNESS OF ALASKA.
The controversy regarding the boundary, at some stages, grew acute. Fortunate it was that good councils prevailed, however; and the coun- cils interested in the boundary question accepted the mediation of the German Emperor in determining the limitation of their respective possessions.
CHAPTER X.
THE NORTHWARD PASSAGE.
T HE steamboat, as it makes its way toward the north, pushes through a perfect labyrinth of islands. One of the largest and most interesting is called Revillagigedo, after the viceroy of España Nueva. The natives called it " Naa " or " Na-ha," meaning " the distant (or fair?) lakes." It has been partially explored and geologically plotted, although it covers an area of more than a thousand square miles, approximating the size of Rhode Island. It is through- out mountainous, and remarkable for its beautiful scenery. The so- called Behm Canal almost encircles it, separating it from the mainland. It is cleft in two by Carroll Inlet, and its streams are famous for their profusion of salmon. In days not so remote, it was true that there was no room for the water, so thick were the fish, struggling to reach their spawning grounds! These are reached by a narrow stream, connecting with a chain of beautiful fresh water ponds or lakes. One of them is called Lake Adorable: it is four miles long and two miles wide, surrounded by magnificent forests. Tourists never tire of watch- ing the salmon hurrying across it to reach the stream that connects it with the lakes beyond. Sometimes several bears, two varieties of which are found on the island, have been seen on the edge of the lake engaged in catching salmon. Formerly, there was a multitude of small red deer in the uplands, but the huntsmen, who, in a single year, de- stroyed twenty-five thousand for their hides, have almost exterminated them. The lakes also are breeding grounds for countless flocks of ducks and other wild feathered game.
Threading Tongass Narrows and Clover Pass - named after Rear- Admiral Clover of the United States Navy - one reaches the canning-
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town of Loring, where this great industry may be seen in its perfection. The five principal varieties of Pacific salmon seem to follow a regular sequence in their run. First, in the early spring, come the tyee, the quinnat (Chinook) or king salmon, often attaining a weight of a hun- dred pounds. Stories are told of their growing to such a size that a cask will hold but four! Although abundant in the Alaskan rivers, they travel in pairs and not in schools. The flesh of this variety is pale and excellent. In June, appear the red salmon, or sockeye; av- eraging from six to ten pounds, tough and requiring long cooking; and actually blackening the waters in their abundance. They swim up the Yukon for eighteen hundred miles. Seven thousand have been taken in a single cast of the net. Then come the " kisutch " or silver salmon - most agile of fish - leaping high falls, and turning the rapids into cascades of life. The " gorbusha " or hump-back salmon, which Van- couver called hunch-back, and found unpalatable, appear in August. Besides these, there is the silvery dog-salmon (or calico), unsuitable for canning, but good fresh or salted. These fish are trailed by the malma, or Dolly Varden, and other varieties of trout eager for salmon- eggs.
Mrs. Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore gives a vivid description of the proc- ess of canning the fish. She says: - " The seining and outdoor work are done by white men, a few Indians being sometimes employed under them. While industrious to a degree, the Thlinkit can not be depended upon; and the native is too apt to strike, to start upon a prolonged potlatch, or go berrying or fishing on his own account, in the height of the salmon run. In the skilful manipulation of the cans and ma- chines within doors, neither he nor the white man can approach the automatic exactness and dexterity of the Chinese, who, being paid by the piece, take no account of a day's working hours, and keep the machinery going as long as there are fish in the cannery.
" The fish are thrown from the arriving scows to a latticed floor, or loaded directly into the trucks and rolled into the cannery. The cleaner seizes a fish, and in two seconds trims and cleans it - behead-
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ing, detailing, and rending it with so many strokes of his long thin knife. It is washed, scraped, cut in sections the length of a can, packed, soldered, steamed, tested, vented, steamed again, resoldered, lacquered, labelled, and boxed. The tin is taken up in sheets, and an ingenious machine punch rolls and fits the covers to the cans. These roll down an inclined gutter of melted solder, which closes the edges. The experts can tell, by a tap of the finger, if each can is air-tight. If not her- metically closed, the contents rapidly change, burst the cans in transit ' below,' or explode unpleasantly in distant markets."
Recently, a wonderful machine has been devised, which trims the fish far more quickly and economically than can be done by human hands.
In spite of the endeavors of the United States Fish-Commission, wasteful and ultimately ruinous methods of catching the salmon have not been suppressed. The products have steadily increased, until from an output of a little more than forty thousand dollars in 1878, it aggre- gated, in 1908, about ten millions -nearly one hundred and thirty million pounds - employing more than thirteen thousand persons. The Federal law of 1906 " levies license taxes on business and output; makes suitable exemptions for salmon-fry liberated; forbids obstruc- tions against ascent of fish to spawning grounds; limits seine and other similar appliances ; fixes methods and times of fishing in United States waters; authorizes preserves for spawning grounds; forbids canning or salting of fish more than two days dead; makes unlawful the wanton destruction of fish; proscribes misbranding; requires sworn annual reports from corporations; and authorizes the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to formulate regulations for the enforcement of the act."
When the enormous waste of the offal from the canneries - amount- ing to thirty-five million pounds in a single season, and equivalent to seven million pounds of excellent fertilizer and three or four hundred thousand gallons of oil - is saved, the profits of the canneries will be still greater.
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THE NORTHWARD PASSAGE.
The deep, narrow channel which runs nearly around Revillagigedo Island was called Behm Canal after Major Behm, who commanded the Russian port in Kamchatka at the time when Cook's ships wintered there. Vancouver was a midshipman on this voyage.
Occasionally a steamship makes the circuit of the island, the shores of which are extremely steep, the mountains in the interior rising to a height of several thousand feet. The view northward from Point Sykes at the entrance of the canal has been pronounced to be the finest in Southern Alaska. One of the features is the so-called New Eddy- stone Rock, which rises like a tower two hundred and fifty feet from the water with a circumference of less than one hundred and fifty feet.
There is an interesting engraving of it in the third volume of Van- couver's narration.
Opposite Revillagigedo lies the great Prince of Wales Island which is more than two hundred miles long and as large as the State of Dela- ware. It is very mountainous, the peaks rising to a height of three thousand feet, and its surface is broken by numerous bays and indenta- tions, while channels and bays separate it from a host of larger and smaller islands toward the west. The mild climate, the thermometer rarely reaching zero, and the moist atmosphere have been favorable to vegetation and the splendid Alaska cedar here attains its highest perfection. Some of the large trees measure eight feet in diameter and attain a height of one hundred and fifty feet. The Chinese used to buy this wood of the Russians and after making it into boxes and chests or ornamental carvings palm it off as camphor or sandal-wood.
It is pleasant to note that during the administration of President Roosevelt the so-called Tongass Forest Reservation, an area of more than one thousand square miles, including the cedar groves of the great islands, was brought under national control. No timber may be exported from Alaska; and in spite of the apparently enormous supply which the tourist sees, covering the mountains often to a height of five thousand feet, the forest's are largely confined to a narrow belt along the coast, and the larger part of the timber used in Alaska is imported.
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OUR NORTHERN DOMAIN.
Copper and gold have been found in the Alexander Archipelago and hundreds of claims have been entered. Some of them have been suc- cessfully worked.
The largest native village on the island was long famous for its display of totem-poles, guarding houses and the ruins of houses.
The Indians are of the Haidah or Hyda tribe who migrated from the Queen Charlotte group farther south. They were a warlike and treacherous people, and often made predatory incursions even as far south as Puget Sound. They are supposed to be of Japanese origin, as their own name Kaigan is Japanese, meaning seashore, and they have features resembling the Japanese. Their artistic talents, also, would seem to point to the same derivation.
The island is wonderfully diversified with bays and inlets. Besides the mines of copper and gold that have been recently exploited, there are deposits of excellent marble and granite. The forests are included in the United States Reservation.
Vancouver's " very remarkable barren, peaked mountain " at the north end of the island has been reported as a volcano.
Kasaan Bay penetrates into the interior for seventeen miles. It is named after the village of the redoubtable old chief Skowl, who was the Kamehameha of the Eagle Clan and ruled his people with an iron hand. No missionaries for him! On his totem-pole were carved the image of a priest, an angel and a book in derisive reference to the efforts to make " a good Indian " of him. Ilis daughter was married to a Russian promýshlenik who was one of the first pelagic seal-fishers and he probably engaged also in smuggling. At his fishery on Karta Bay at the end of the Kasaan Bay United States customs officers found in 1885 forty thousand dollars' worth of prepared opium packed in barrels and ready to be imported in the guise of salted salmon. Skowl's name is preserved on or in a long-stretching inlet or arm.
A few miles farther south the island is almost cut in two by Cholmondeley Sound which reaches by a portage within less than four miles of Hetta Inlet and the safe landlocked reaches of Tlevak Strait.
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THE NORTHWARD PASSAGE.
Cholmondeley Sound is rendered interesting and beautiful by Eudora Mountain, which rises to a height of thirty-five hundred feet. This mountain is also reached by Moira Sound, which is famed for its beauty.
CHAPTER XI.
WRANGEL AND THE GLACIERS.
T HE steamship ploughs through the Duke of Clarence Strait which runs for more than a hundred miles between the two great islands. Its first stop is at Wrangel, or Vrangel, the second oldest town in Southeastern Alaska. It was built on the island of the same name by Lieutenant Dionisi Feodorovitch Zarembo, whose mission was to prevent the Hudson Bay Company from erecting tra- ding-posts on the Stikine River. His action was contrary to treaty and the Russians had to pay a heavy indemnity, and lease to the Hudson Bay Company the thirty mile strip or lisière from Dixon Entrance to Yakutat. The English settlement was called Fort Stikine, but the name did not stick. The discovery of gold on the reaches of that river caused the fur trade to sink into insignificance. In 1867 the United States military forces established a garrison there, including a hospital, resi- dence for officers and men, bakery, storehouses, stables and other build- ings. All this property, when the post was abandoned three years later, was sold to a local trader and sutler for six hundred dollars, - an excellent illustration of the general carelessness with which affairs in Alaska were managed. Twenty years later, after a considerable period of litigation, the property was restored to the Government, the original sale having been declared illegal. The purchaser received back his six hundred dollars with compound interest.
Since then Wrangel has had its ups and downs. Houses were in de- mand and trade was good during the temporary excitement of the gold quest in the Cassiar district; then when the mines up the Stikine were abandoned, it again relapsed into stagnation. Even the forest of totem-
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poles that designated the native village was stripped; as late as 1893 only half a dozen remained. The town itself has been almost destroyed by fire in recent years and there are comparatively few remains of the ancient days.
The curious visitor is taken to see the grave of the historic old chief, Shakes, who was for nearly half a century the terror of the coast. He opposed the missionaries, and furnished the natives with the intoxicat- ing huchinu, or native rum, distilled from molasses and flour. When he died there were great ceremonies. His body was exposed in all his trappings. His treasures of carven chests, of blankets and of furs were piled high. An enormous stuffed grizzly - the emblem of his glorious line - with copper claws and waggling jaws was made to take part in a theatrical representation depicting the ancient days when Shakes's ancestors, at the time of the flood, took a bear into their canoe and saved him from drowning and were rewarded by the reciprocal generosity of the bear, who, when the canoe grounded, brought his rescuers food. Over Shakes's grave, when at last he was laid to rest, a bear was put on guard.
The climate of Wrangel is eminently favorable for market garden- ing. Mrs. Scidmore is authority for the statement that cabbages and mangel-wurzel reach prodigious size; cauliflowers are produced meas- uring eighteen inches around; and peas, beans, lettuce, celery, rhubarb and radishes thrive. Wild timothy grows six feet high in old clearings, and clover heads are twice the size of eastern clover, each blossom widespread, as red and fragrant as a carnation pink.
Wrangel is situated near the mouth of the Stikine River, the third largest river of the Alaskan coast, which was reached but not discov- ered by Vancouver's men. It was first reported by two American ship captains in 1799. Its head waters were first discovered in 1838 by a Scotch employee of the Hudson Bay Company, who, in crossing the mountains, came upon a foaming torrent and followed it down until he fell in with a large camp of Indians engaged in catching salmon and trading with the famous chief Shakes. From them he learned that
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the name of the river was Stikine. It should properly be Sta Kina, which is said to mean great river. From Wrangel to Glenora, the head of navigation, the distance is about one hundred and fifty miles. Forty years later John Muir traversed its whole length and counted not less than a hundred glaciers that drained directly into the river. The grand cañon of the Stikine he declared to be a Yosemite a hundred miles long.
Forty miles above Wrangel and easily reached is the Great or Or- lebar Glacier, which descends through a narrow gorge and spreads ont in a semicircle measuring about three miles from edge to edge. Across the river, near the wonderful hot springs, is a smaller glacier, which, according to an Indian tradition, was once united with the Great Glacier, the river disappearing into an ice tunnel. They sent two of their old men into it in a canoe. Would they ever appear again? Yes, they returned and reported that there was a clear passage to the sea. In the little cañon the river narrows to less than a hundred feet, and the current, especially when there are floods, is almost invincible, as the early argonauts discovered to their sorrow. On the upper reaches of the river the great cañon extends for fifty miles through a rocky gorge traversible only in winter when there is a solid floor of snow and ice.
The yield of the placers of the Cassiar gold region at the head waters of the Stikine is estimated to have amounted to nearly five million dol- lars between 1874 and 1887, when its annual output fell from a million to a little more than sixty thousand dollars. The larger part of the river flows through the Dominion territory and the boundary for years gave rise to misunderstandings.
From Wrangel one can sail straight out into the Pacific by the Sum- ner Strait, which is about eighty miles long. Formerly ships proceed- ing north had to make this wide détour, passing through Chatham Strait and Frederick Sound, but skilful captains now pilot their course through Wrangel Narrows. This strait is nineteen miles long and in places not three hundred feet wide. Vancouver's explorers entered it, but thinking it merely an inlet turned back. It was first traversed
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by the United States Steamer Saginaw in 1869. Fifteen years later Captain J. B. Coghlan established the route and it has now been charted. It is regarded as one of the great show trips of Alaska. The shores of the islands between which it runs are densely wooded, the trees thickly hung with the pale green Northern moss. There are glimpses of lofty mountains. The intensely green water is alive with floating fronds of orange yellow kelp. Here is the haunt of number- less eagles. The tides, here confined by narrow channels, rise often to a height of more than twenty feet and those from the north and south meet in the narrows near what is called Finger Point, and the battle of the waters is most dangerous and exciting. All tourists are enthusiastic over the beauty of sunsets and sunrises in this enchanting region. Mrs. Scidmore says: " The sunset effects in the broad channels at either end are renowned, and the possessor of a Claude Lorraine glass is the most fortunate of tourists. He who has seen the sunrise lights in the narrows has seen the best of the marvellous atmospheric and color displays the matchless coast can offer."
Mrs. Ella Higginson testifies to the same: "Sunrise and sunset effects in this narrow channel are justly famed. I once saw a mist blown ahead of my steamer at sunset, that, in the vivid brilliancy of its mingled scarlets, greens and purples, rivalled the coloring of a humming bird. At dawn long rays of delicate pink, beryl and pearl play through this green avenue, deepening in color, fading and with- drawing like Northern Lights. When the scene is silvered and softened by moonlight one looks for elves and fairies in the shadows of the moss- dripping spruce trees. The silence is so intense and the channel so narrow that frequently at dawn wild birds on the shores are heard saluting the sun with song; and never, under any circumstances, has bird song seemed so nearly divine, so golden with magic and message, as when thrilled through the fragrant green stillness of Wrangel Nar- rows at such an hour."
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