USA > Alaska > The new Eldorado: a summer journey to Alaska > Part 9
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NATIVE PIETY.
niary means by the home government at St. Pe- tersburg. The piety of these Aleuts is very pro- nounced, so far as all outward observances go, and we were told that they never sit down to their meals without briefly asking a blessing upon their rude repast. Golovin, a Russian who lived many years among the Aleuts, says : "Their attention during religious services is unflinching, though they do not understand a word of the whole rite." The same author goes on to say, " During my ten years' stay in Unalaska not a single case of mur- der happened among the Aleutians. Not an at- tempt to kill, nor fight, nor even a considerable dispute, although I often saw them drunk." Hunt- ing is the principal source of their support, and to get the sea-otter they often make long, exposed trips in their undecked boats, and experience many trying hardships. When they return to their homes at the close of the season, having been nearly always reasonably successful, the quass barrel is brought into requisition, and its contents partaken of to excess, drunken orgies following with all their attendant evils.
The Aleuts are a very honest people, quite un- like the Eskimos of the north, who are natural pilferers. They are also possessed of a certain stoicism which compels admiration. When - they are sick or suffering great pain they utter no com- plaint, and outwardly are always content, no mat- ter what the future may send as their lot. An Aleut is never known to sigh, groan, or shed a tear. If he feels it, he never evinces immoderate
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
joy, but is always quiet, moderate, and grave. They are in a great degree fatalists, and believe that which is decreed by the power in the sky will come to pass, whatever they may do to pre- vent it. It is Kismet.
It is an interesting fact that before these islands were discovered by the Russians, the natives were in the practice of preserving their dead in the form of mummies, and this had probably been their habit for centuries. Satisfactory evidence is afforded by what is found upon the islands to show that they have been the residence of popu- lous tribes for over two thousand years. Mr. Dall, in his indefatigable researches, was able to secure several examples of the mummified dead on these outlying islands, eleven of which came from one cave on the south end of Unalaska, but none were ever found or known to have existed upon the mainland. This fact is looked upon by ethnologists as an important addition to our knowledge of the prehistoric condition of these peculiar people of the far Northwest, now part and parcel of our widespread population. The mummies of Peru and those of Alaska are now arranged side by side in the cases of the Smith- sonian Institution at Washington, and what is very singular is that they seem, in their general appearance, to be almost identical.
The interior of Alaska and its more Arctic regions north of the valley of the Yukon remain still only partially explored. No more is actually known of it than of Central Africa. It would be
131
POINT BARROW.
anything but a pleasure excursion, at present, to penetrate the extreme northern harbors of the ex- tended coast line, which are mostly uninhabited, and which are tempest-swept for a large portion of the year. Northwestern Alaska shares with northeastern Siberia the possession of the coldest winter climate in the world, but we must remem- ber it is not always winter, and thousands of Es- kimos here find life quite tolerable. Beyond 70° of north latitude no trees are to be found ; even shrubs have disappeared, giving place to a scanty growth of lichens and creeping wood-plants. Even here, however, Nature asserts her prerogative and brings forth a few bright flowers and blooming grasses in the brief midsummer days. Point Barrow is what might be termed, in common par- lance, " the jumping-off place ; " the beginning of that mysterious ocean where the compass needle, which lies horizontal at the equator, attracted by an unexplained influence dips and points straight downward. There is no lack of animal life in this frozen region, the sea is as full as in the tropics ; the whale here finds its birthplace, and herring issue forth in countless columns to seek more southern seas, while the air is darkened by innumerable flocks of sea-fowl. The wolves, the polar bear, and other fur-bearing animals afford meat and clothing to the Eskimo to an extent far exceeding his requirements. Only thoroughly organized expeditions and a few adventurous whalers attempt to pass Point Barrow, a long reach of low barren land, and the most northerly
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
portion of the Territory, which projects itself into the great Arctic Ocean very much after the fash- ion of the North Cape of Norway, in the eastern hemisphere, at latitude 71° 10'.
There is a village at Point Barrow containing about a hundred and fifty people, living in houses partly under ground as a protection against the cold. The roofs are supported by rafters of whale jaws and ribs. This people we call the Eskimo proper. They have a severe climate to contend with, but are abundantly supplied with food and oil from the sea. They have a strange aversion to salt, and any food thus cooked or preserved they will not eat unless driven to it by dire neces- sity. Our government is just about to erect a comfortable structure here as a sort of refuge to shipwrecked navigators of the Polar Sea, this being the verge of those unknown waters which guard the secret of the Pole.
A peninsula makes out from near the centre of the western coast of Alaska, the terminus of which is the nearest point between this continent and Asia, the two being separated by Behring Strait, where the East and the West confront each other, and where the extreme western bound- ary of our country is the line which separates Asia from America. This is called Cape Prince of Wales, a rocky point rising in its highest peak to twenty-five hundred feet above the sea. Here is a village of Eskimos numbering between three and four hundred souls, who do not bear a good reputation. They are skilled as fishermen on the
133
CAVE-DWELLERS.
sea and hunters on the land, to which it may be added that they are professional smugglers. Here it is quite possible in clear weather to see the Asiatic coast - Eastern Siberia - from United States soil, the distance across the strait being about forty miles. There are two islands in the strait, known as the Diomedes, almost in a direct line between Cape Prince of Wales on one side and East Cape on the other ; stepping-stones, as it were, between the two continents. Occasional in- tercourse between the natives of the two opposite shores is maintained to-day by means of sailing craft, and doubtless has been going on for hun- dreds, if not for thousands, of years. So moderate are the seas, and so calm the weather hereabouts at some portions of the year, that the passage is made in open or undecked boats.
On King's Island, fifty miles south of Cape Prince of Wales, there is a tribe of veritable cave- dwellers. The island is a great mass of rock, with almost perpendicular sides rising seven hun- dred feet above the sea. On one side, where the angle is nearly forty-five degrees, the Eskimos have excavated homes in the rock, about half a hundred of which are two hundred feet above the sea. These people openly defy the revenue laws, and are the known distributers of contraband arti- cles, especially of intoxicants.
Behring Sea, where it washes the shores of Alaska, from Norton Sound to Bristol Bay, is slowly growing more shallow, having but fifteen fathoms depth, in some places, forty miles off the
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
west shore of the mainland, and growing shal- lower as it approaches the continent. This has caused a speculative writer to suggest the possible joining of Asia and America, at some future period, by the gradual filling up of Behring Sea. The reason of this is obvious. The Yukon River brings down from its course of two thousand miles and more many hundred tons of soil daily which it deposits along the coast, while the Kuskoquin River, second only to the Yukon in volume, is en- gaged in the same work about a hundred and fifty miles south of where the greater river empties into Norton Sound. These large water-ways carry, like the Mississippi, immense deposits to the sea, and the process has been going on night and day for no human being knows how long.
One hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of this Kuskoquin River the Moravians of Beth- lehem, Pa., support a missionary establishment. The station is named Bethel, one of the most iso- lated points in Alaska, receiving a mail but once a year! Truly, nothing save fulfilling a conscien- tious sense of duty could compensate intelligent people for thus separating themselves from home and friends.
We have spoken of a peninsula making out at the north towards Asia, but this comparatively insignificant projection from the mainland should not be permitted to confuse the reader's mind as regards the Alaska Peninsula, properly so called, which extends from the southern part of the Ter- ritory, ending in the islands which form the Aleu-
135
VOLCANOES.
tian group. This peninsula is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in the world, being fifty miles broad and three hundred long, literally piled with mountains, some of which are but partially extinct volcanoes, emitting at the present time more or less smoke and ashes, sometimes accom- panied by blazing gases discernible at night far 'away over land and sea, appearing to the mid- night watch on board ship like a raging confla- gration in the heavens. The principal islands of the group of which we have been speaking, and which stretch far away from the southwestern corner of the Alaska Peninsula towards Kam- schatka, as though extending a cordial hand from the Occident to the Orient, are as follows : Uni- mak, with a volcanic peak nine thousand feet high ; Unalaska, whose peak is five thousand seven hundred feet high ; Atka, with a height of four thousand eight hundred feet ; Kyska, which is crowned by an elevation of three thousand seven hundred feet; and Attoo, whose tallest peak is over three thousand feet. This island is just about four hundred miles from the Asiatic coast. Uni- mak has a large lake of sulphur within its borders, and all of these islands have more or less hot springs. From those in Unalaska loud reports issue at intervals, like the boom of cannon, recall- ing our late similar experience in the Yellowstone Park.
Alaska constitutes the northwestern portion of the American continent, and has a coast line ex- ceeding eleven thousand miles. The extreme
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
length of the Territory, north and south, is eleven hundred miles, and its breadth is eight hundred. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by British Columbia, on the south by the Pacific Ocean, and on the west by Behring Strait and the North Pacific. Our geographies and encyclopædias help us to little more than the boundaries of this great Territory, which contains nearly six hundred thousand square miles. The latest published estimates give the aggregate number of square miles as nineteen thousand less than the amount we have named, but Governor Swineford and other residents of the Territory believe it to be an underestimate. As there is · no actual survey extant, the figures given can only be a reasonable approximation to the true num- ber. The boundary dividing Alaska and British Columbia was settled by treaty between England and Russia in 1825, and the same line is recog- nized to-day as separating our possessions in this quarter from those of Great Britain. Alaska is as large as all of the New England and Middle States, with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee combined. So far as size is concerned, the Territory is, there- fore, an empire in itself, being equal in area to seventy-one States like Massachusetts, and con- taining as many square miles as England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzer- land, and Belgium united. It has been estimated by competent judges that, with its islands, it has a coast line equal to the circumference of the
137
A TERRA INCOGNITA.
globe. Very few of our people, even among the educated class, have an adequate idea of the im- mensity of this northwestern Territory, two thirds of which abounds in available resources, only awaiting development. Were Alaska situated on our Atlantic coast it would extend from Maine to Florida.
Miss Kate Field, in a comprehensive article already quoted from, published in the " North American Review," justly censuring Congress for its supineness and ignorance in relation to Alaska, says : " American citizens, living comfortably on the Atlantic seaboard, knowing their own wants and dictating terms to their submissive representa- tives, take little heed of those new additions to the United States which are destined to be the crowning glory of the Republic. When a nation is so big as to render portions of it a terra incog- nita to those who make the laws, there's some- thing rotten this side of Denmark! . . . The march of empire goes on in spite of human falli- bility, and now the land of the midnight sun knocks at the door of Congress. She is twenty- three years old, and asks to be treated as though she were of age. The big-wigs at Washington rub their eyes, put on their spectacles, and wonder what this Hyperborean hubbub means ? "
In examining the geographical characteristics of Alaska, we observe a peculiarity in its outlying islands which is also found in the construction of the continents. They all have east of their south- ern points series of islands. Thus, Alaska has
Sel
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
the Sitkan or Alexander group; Africa has Mada- gascar ; Asia has Ceylon ; Australia has the two large islands of New Zealand ; and America has the Falkland Islands. Alaska is the great island region of the United States.
It is not for us to enter into the brief history of the country, that is, brief as known to us, but it is well to fix in the mind the fact that Russia's title was derived from prior discovery. Behring first saw the continent in this region of North America, July 18, 1741, in latitude 58° 28', and two days later anchored in a bay near a point which he called St. Elias, a name which he also gave to the great mountain overshadowing the neighboring shore. It is sufficient for our pur- pose that we know this Territory was. purchased from Russia by our government in 1867, after that country had occupied it a little more than a century, paying therefor the sum of seven million two hundred thousand dollars. It has been truly said that it was practically giving away the coun- try on the part of Russia ; but doubtless diplomatic reasons influenced the Tzar, who would much rather have presented it outright to the United States than to have it, by conquest or otherwise, fall into the hands of England, who was known to crave its possession as connected with her Pacific coast interests. So when the first Napoleon sold us Louisana, he did so not alone in considera- tion of the money, which was doubtless much needed by his treasury, -amounting to sixty mil- lion francs, - but because he was not willing
139
A BONANZA.
to leave this distant territory a prey to Great Britain in the event of hostilities between France and England, which were then imminent. He was glad, as he remarked, " to establish forever the power of the United States, and give to Eng- land a maritime rival destined to humble her pride ;" adding, "It is for the interest of France that America should be great and strong."
Alaska was a white elephant to Russia, but in our hands it has already proved a bonanza.
Any one can now see that the sum named as an equivalent for this colossal territory was a trifling value to place upon it, when its great extent is realized, together with its vast mineral wealth and inexhaustible supply of fish, fur, and timber. It is in fact the only great game and fur preserve left in the Western world, inviting the trapper and hunter to reap a rich return for their industry. Nowhere else on this continent do wild animals more abound, or enjoy such immunity from harm, as is afforded them in the dense, half-impenetrable forests of Alaska, where Nature herself becomes our gamekeeper, preventing the too rapid extinc- tion of animal life.
From a lease in favor of the Alaska Commercial Company of San Francisco, giving them the ex- clusive right to take seals on the Prybiloff group of islands, our government has received four and one half per cent. interest, annually, during the last nineteen years, on the entire purchase-money paid to Russia. This same company, whose term is just about to expire, would gladly renew the
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
lease with our government at a considerable ad- vance upon the amount heretofore paid; but it is an open question whether the continuance of this great monopoly is for the best interest of Alaska, when considered in all its bearings.
Undoubtedly this contract is a real benefit in one way. The company, through its agents, will take good care to see that no outside interest in- terferes with their rights so as to permit any indis- criminate slaughter of the seals. Whereas, were the capture of these peltries not guarded, an end of the product would be brought about in a very short time. There is a manifest injustice in all monopolies, as we view them ; but of two evils, in this instance we should perhaps feel inclined to choose the least by selling the privilege to a re- sponsible company. It must be admitted that the high-handed course of the present company, their arbitrary assumptions, and their treatment of the natives generally, are represented in a very bad light by many residents of Alaska ; but little else, however, could be expected of so great a monop- oly. One thing is certain, and that is, the com- pany has realized a great fortune by its contract.
There were plenty of people who ridiculed the acquisition of this Territory at the time when it was brought about ; but there were also some far- seeing statesmen, influenced by no selfish motives, who felt very different about the matter, among whom was Mr. Seward, then Secretary of State, and to whom the credit is mostly due for con- summating the important purchase. That able
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SEWARD'S CROWNING GLORY
diplomat considered the transaction to have been the most important act of his official career, and put himself on record to that effect. He remarked, in discussing the matter at a public meeting, " It may take two generations before the purchase is properly appreciated." Mr. Seward was right. It was a crowning glory for him to have added a new empire to his country's domain, though in 1867 its great commercial importance was hardly known, even to himself. Its valuable gold depos- its were then thought possibly to exist ; but sub- sequent developments have already far outstripped anticipations in that direction, and the large yield of the precious metal is annually increasing.
" I thought when Alaska was purchased, in 1867," says that keen observer and clever writer, Captain John Codman, " that it might answer for a great skating park; but now I know, from merely coasting along its southeastern shores and landing at a few of its outposts, that the seven million two hundred thousand dollars paid for it is less than the interest of the sum that it is worth. A great part of it is yet unexplored, for its whole area is three times greater than the republic of France ; but what has been discovered is invalua- ble, and what has not been discovered may be valuable beyond calculation."
So little did we, as a people, appreciate the new acquisition that it was almost entirely neglected for seventeen years. Not until 1884 was it granted a territorial government, Hon. John H. Kinkead, ex-governor of Nevada, being the first
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
governor appointed for Alaska. "Twenty years ago," says Governor Swineford of Alaska, " I made political capital out of Seward's purchase. I called it the refrigerator of the United States. I heaped obloquy on William H. Seward. I shall spend the rest of my life in making reparation to what I have so foully wronged." Such has been the general testimony of all who speak from personal observation, and uninfluenced by sinister motives.
CHAPTER X.
Territorial Acquisitions. - Population of Alaska. - Steady Com- mercial Growth. - Primeval Forests. - The Country teems with Animal Life. - A Mighty Reserve of Codfish. - Native Food. - Fur-Bearing Animals. - Islands of St. George and St. Paul. - Interesting Habits of the Fur-Seal. - The Breed- ing Season. - Their Natural Food. - Mammoth Size of the Bull Seals.
THE subject of the addition of Alaska to the United States suggests the fact that our territo- rial acquisitions from time to time form certain decided and interesting landmarks in the history of the country. Thus, in 1803 we acquired Lou- isiana from France by the payment of fifteen mil- lion dollars. In 1845 Texas was annexed and her debt assumed, amounting to the sum of seven million five hundred thousand dollars. In 1848 California, New Mexico, and Utah were acquired from Mexico, partly through war, and by the payment of fifteen million dollars. In 1854 Ari- zona was purchased from Mexico for ten million dollars. And last, but by no means least, Alaska, as has been stated, was obtained from Russia in 1867 for seven million two hundred thousand dol- lars. " By this purchase," said Charles Summer in his able speech before Congress, "we dismiss one more monarch from this continent. One by one they have retired; first France; then Spain ; -
1 2 3
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
then France again ; and now Russia ; all give way to the absorbing Unity which is declared in the national motto, E Pluribus Unum."
At the time of the transfer of Alaska, the native population, Russians, half-breeds and all, did not probably exceed forty thousand; indeed, careful inquiry seems to indicate that this is an overesti- mate. Since that period the native population has steadily decreased, but the white population has increased, it is believed, sufficiently to make good the estimated aggregate of twenty-two years ago. In 1867 the commerce of Alaska was offi- cially reported as being two million five hundred thousand dollars for the current year. The pub- lished estimate for the last year made it a fraction less than seven million dollars, of which about a million five hundred thousand dollars was in gold bullion. Certainly this shows a very steady if not rapid commercial growth. Competent indi- viduals estimate that the commerce of the Terri- tory for the year 1889 will reach ten million dol- lars in amount. The increase in the number of fish-canning establishments alone will add two millions to last year's aggregate. The shipment of preserved salmon exported in tins and barrels is increasing annually.
The available timber now standing in the Ter- ritory might alone meet the ordinary demand of this continent for half a century. Though the extreme northern part of Alaska is treeless, its southern shores, both of the islands and mainland, are covered with a dense forest growth, the Aleu-
145
FORESTS.
tian group excepted. It is the visible wealth of the country, and a source of admiration to all ap- preciative visitors.
Fort Tongas is very near the southeast point of Alaska, and about ten miles north of Fort Simp- son ; the former American, the latter English territory. When the ground was cleared to estab- lish the American fort, " yellow cedar-trees," says W. H. Dall, "eight feet in diameter were cut down. The flanks of all the islands of this archi- pelago bear a magnificent growth of the finest timber, from the water's edge to fifteen hundred feet above the sea." It must be a cedar of mag- nificent proportions out of which the natives can hew and construct a canoe seventy feet long capa- ble of carrying one hundred men. This the Haidas do, producing models both swift and seaworthy, the prows extending in a peak not unlike the ancient galleys of Greece, decorated with totemic designs. These magnificent forests, having never felt the stroke of the axe, present a growth natu- rally very dense and peculiar, the branches of the tall trees being often draped with long black and white moss, dry and fine as hair, which it resem- bles. This characteristic recalled the same effect observed upon the thickly wooded shores of the St. John River in Florida, and the Lake Pontchar- train district of Louisiana. The fallen trees and stumps are cushioned by a growth of green, vel- vety moss, nearly ten inches in thickness, and are also decked with creeping vines in the most pic- turesque manner; among which is seen here and
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THE NEW ELDORADO.
there deep red clusters of the bunch-berry. The timber is pronounced by good judges to be as val- uable as that of Oregon and Washington, com- pared with which our forests in Maine are hardly more than tall undergrowth. A very large per- centage of the Alaska timber grows at the most convenient points for shipment, making it espe- cially available. The white spruce, called the Sitka pine, rises to a height of from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and eighty feet, and meas- ures from three to six feet in diameter. When this growth is cut into dimension lumber it very much resembles our southern pitch-pine. There is also found in these forests the usual variety of cedar, fir, ash, maple, and birch trees, mingled with the others of loftier growth. The yellow cedar of this region grows nowhere else of such size and quality. It is much prized, and best adapted for shipbuilding, having been found to be unequaled for durability, and also because it is impervious to the troublesome teredo, or boring worm, which destroys the ordinary piles under the wharves at Puget Sound, as well as at Sitka, so rapidly as to render it necessary to renew them every three or four years. Southern latitudes, in the neighbor- hood of the Gulf of Mexico, suffer equally from the depredations of this active marine pest. The Alaska cedar is also a choice cabinet wood, pos- sessing a very agreeable odor, considerable quanti- ties of it being shipped for select use in San Fran- cisco and elsewhere. The coast of the Alexan- der Archipelago comprises nearly eight thousand
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