USA > Alaska > Trailing and camping in Alaska > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
" I confess that I have not," I answered.
"Well, sir, I am nearly eighty years old, and I have spent most of my days in mining countries. I have been in Alaska for more than twenty years. Old man Church has been there thirty years. But that is not what I started in to say. You probably know that the United States was a pauper in '46 and '47. Farmers were trading work and they didn't know what money looked like. The discovery of
110
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
gold in California brought good times, and people pricked up their ears and acted as if there was some- thing in life worth living for. Young men who had returned from the West, bought land, married and settled down, and put their gold into circulation. Well, the discovery of gold in Australia did the same thing for the world, and so did that of Africa; and now Klondike steps into the ring just as the precious metal was being cornered and hard times were com- ing on. Why, my dear fellow, it would surprise us if we could follow only one thousand dollars of that gold which goes down to the States and pays debts. It would be seen that it paid a million dollars of debts in no time. And it is put in circulation where it is most needed.
" Of course, it is not always properly started. I have known rattle-brains up there who have never realized that such good luck only happens once in a lifetime, and they are there, now, just throwing away the money with both hands. One hand is not fast enough for them, and they keep waiters busy uncorking champagne at ten dollars per bottle. They won't last long. I knew one fellow to cry because some sharpers got him drunk, took eight hundred dollars of his Forty-mile dust and instead placed a deed to a claim which they had located up a creek in his pocket. Then they lit out on a down-river boat and there he was broke and blubbering about not knowing what to do with a mining claim.
111
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
"Well, old John Healey says, 'Ye blubberin' idiot, come in to my store and git what ye want of grub, and go up there and see what ye have. Sink a hole and find out about it, fer ye might have some- thing good; and I'd rather have ye owin' me fer the grub, than to see ye feelin' bad and busted.'
" Well, he did load up with grub, and went up there and struck it rich, and now he is one of those fellers who can't spend money fast enough. Why, he says he thinks he used good judgment in buying that claim ! "
Then my informer clapped his thighs and laughed, and presently he continued :
"There's another 'Sweet-William' sort of a fel- low, who is now engaged to marry a whole family of chorus girls. Just as rapidly as possible he marries one, and she gets a divorce and divides his money with him, and then he marries another. He says he'll marry their mother, after he gets through with the girls, if his money holds out. I'll gamble that he won't have any money after the old woman divides with him. She may give him back his empty purse, but I doubt it !
"But-say! That's not what I started in to tell. I just figured out that it would require a pack-train of four hundred animals to bring out one year's pro- duction of gold from the Klondike. Now, if you allow each animal his usual thirty-three feet on the trail, you will have a train two and a half miles long !
112
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
That's what a pencil and that old boot can do with a little assistance from me and the Klondike!"
" I suppose you are leaving the country for good, are you not ? " I asked.
" Yes, I reckon I am," he answered. "I have not been back home since I first came to Alaska. You see, directly after I came up here, my wife died, and my little girl was well taken care of by relatives. I paid for her care and education, and now I hear she has married and is doing well. I have sent for her and her husband to meet me here, and I intend to go back home with them. I have dust enough to keep them and me, and I don't want to bother with it. I expect them on the next boat. I have been here for nearly a month, now."
Then a large huskie dog came into the room and laid his head on the old man's lap and inquiringly looked up. The old man stroked the dog and said:
" Yes, old Mose. I know you want to ask some- thing. It is too bad for you that you can't talk, but it probably is a good thing for me; for you would be pesterin' me to death, askin' questions. I suppose you want to know when the old man is going to hit the trail back to Dawson. Well, old boy, we never will see that trail again, for we are going to where there's no sour dough, but the luxury and ease we both deserve."
"Your dog?" I asked.
" Yes, always has been mine, ever since he was a
113
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
ยท pup. He once saved my life. You should have heard an Englishman apologize to this dog! I loaned Mose to him to teach his dogs to work. He had Mose on the lead, and continued to say 'gee ' until Mose had his sled nearly off the trail and ready to roll down the canyon. Then the Englishman yelled, 'whoa!' Mose stopped and the English- man said :
"' Ah, beg your pawden! I meant haw, dont- cher know ! '
" Mose just crossed over to the other side of the trail and looked back at that Englishman with a genuine dog-laugh, and the driver seemed never to get through apologizing."
Then my entertainer clapped his thigh and laughed heartily.
" I suppose you place a high value on him?" I ventured to ask.
Immediately his countenance sobered, and while he affectionately stroked the dog, he replied :
" Mister, don't ask me to place a value on my partner. I couldn't think of it! Why, if I should lose my poke of dust, rather than to part with Mose, we would hit the trail back and try for another raise."
Evidently, this was another of those frontier noble- men, whose characters stand out in such strong con- trast with the spendthrifts he had mentioned, both of whom have since descended the ladder to the bot-
114
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
tom rung. When the latter was asked what he had . done with the fortune he had made on the Klondike, he held up three fingers and exclaimed :
" Three blondes !"
A meeting had been held down at the wharf, a year before, to rid the town of " Soapy " Smith and his gambling and robbing clique. "Soapy " heard of the meeting and went down there, armed with a rifle, to break it up. Frank Reid was left on guard, and he gave up his life for the honor of Skagway. As "Soapy " approached they both fired with fatal results, and their two graves are up yonder beside the trail. "Soapy " Smith's real name was Jefferson R. Smith, of whom the "Tramp Poet," William De- Vere, wrote the verses entitled " Jeff and Joe," de- scribing an incident that happened at Creede, Colo- rado.
Skagway, the town of sudden and unexpected birth, is not without its history of startling and pathetic incidents. An account of the following tragedy was related to me in detail by an Indian interpreter, and corresponds with the records in Skagway's court:
Bert Horton and his wife, from Oregon, were spending the first year of their married life in Alaska, and had left Skagway in a small rowboat for a summer's outing. The day of their departure was one of the long summer sort whose sunshine and shade are conducive to day-dreaming.
They directed their boat down along the shore of that long slender arm of the sea, known as Lynn
115
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
Canal, searching for a quiet camping place among the trees, where moss covered the ground and wild roses breathed a welcome. Through an opening in the forest they noted an inviting locality, and landing their boat on the beach, climbed to it. There they erected their tent, put up a Yukon stove, and soon were partaking of the first meal in their summer home. Happy? Why not? They belonged to the class that commands respect, and they enjoyed the affection of their many friends. They possessed even more, and that was their mutual contentment in each other's love. They had come from the humdrum of civilization to enjoy recreation, and now, after their noonday meal, they sat on a moss-covered log, hand in hand, and admiringly gazed on the placid water, talking of their hopes and pros- pects.
Lynn Canal is not always calm, but often its sur- face is disturbed by sudden squalls; and running tides make it dangerous to those in small canoes at such times. As the evening's twilight stealthily absorbed the day, little birds twittered in the trees, and occa- sionally a lone raven flew past, or alighted for a mo- ment on a near-by hemlock, and there mockingly re- peated his doleful message. Who knows but that the raven's lone, sepulchral "caw" grated with ominous sound on the nerves of that delicately re- fined woman ?
There was being prepared an Indian marriage feast, " potlach" and carnival, only a few miles away,
116
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
where wild-eyed, coarse-haired and uncouth savages expected to indulge in fantastic orgies and hilarious revelry. They were to be stimulated by potations of " hooch," a liquor obtained by the crude fermenta- tion of molasses, farinacious substances and fruit. Three Indians had been dispatched to the Mission to procure presents for the bride's parents and the " potlatch " had been delayed until their return.
During the night a storm arose and the returning Indians were drowned evidently near the point where the white caps lashed the beach by the summer camp of the Hortons. The squall calmed down when the sun arose the next morning, and the day promised to be another happy one for the campers. Save for the lonely call of that dark-plumed messenger, the raven, there was no indication that the sun's rays would witness a bloody tragedy-a horrible murder committed by fiends incarnate.
When the three Indians failed to return from the Mission, there was great uneasiness among the tribe, and one Indian with a murderous heart swore by the Great Spirit that he would go in search of his rela- tives, who had been sent out the night before. If accident had befallen them, dire vengeance would be meted out by his own hands.
He paddled his canoe along the shore until he ar- rived at the camp of the white people. There he found a paddle belonging to his relatives, which had floated up to the beach, and he demanded of the
117
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
white man an explanation of how it happened to be so near his tent. Receiving an evasive answer the Indian returned to his teepee swearing vengeance.
There he commanded others to accompany him to the camp of the white people, where he promised to show them that the " white dogs" had murdered his relatives. This brutal savage already glorified in the distinction of being a murderer, and had shown a disposition to add other blood stains to his record. His capriciousness and unreliability had pro- claimed him to be an individual feared even by his own tribe. Mandatorily he bade them row the boat, while he sat in the stern, and with a dark scowling countenance vainly cast his murderous eye over the water for some signs of the lost ones. There was no word spoken by the paddlers, as the saturnine pilot might construe anything said as a reflection on his purpose. When they approached the shore where the happy people were camped, this brute commenced to curse the whole white race.
The white man came out and sat on a log where he and his loving wife had sat the evening before, and watched the Indians make the landing, little realizing the condition of their deluded brains. The leader jumped ashore, and picking up the paddle, exclaimed :
" This is the paddle that belonged to my rela- tives! The whites have murdered them! . White dogs ! White devils !"
118
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
He then raised his gun and fired, and the white man fell dead beside the log. As his wife ran out of the tent to see what was the matter, she, too, re- ceived a deadly missile. She fell, but with that strange maternal instinct to cling to life, she at- tempted to rise. Then the murderer commanded a boy to run and cut her throat. The boy hesitated, but when the gun was pointed at him, he ran to that frail body, caught her hair, as she vainly struggled to arise, and as she screamed, "O Lord! O Lord!" he did as he was bidden. The moss and leaves were crimson with her life-blood.
The others approached and stood still, speechless with the horror of the crime, while the enormity of it all slowly penetrated the thick skull of the villain. The lonely raven flew overhead and, alighting on a hemlock, repeated, "O Lord! O Lord!"
The murderer looked in startled astonishment, then raised his gun to fire, but the dark-winged messenger repeated "O Lord! O Lord!" and flew away. One of the others intimated that the raven should be treated as a sacred bird, but the villain replied :
" He too much talk, talk, talk. Heap all-time talk ! "
The Indians returned to their village, and while the account of that terrible crime was whispered among them, great care was taken that it should not reach the ears of the whites. Almost every day the murderous Indian could be seen walking along the
119
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
beach and occasionally showing his antipathy towards the ravens by firing at some one of those dark-coated messengers.
He spent the evenings listening to the teachings of a few Salvationists who had invaded the Indian camp. They earnestly taught that Jesus would for- give and save, and it acted as a healing balm to his bleeding conscience.
" Does Jesus know all ? " he asked.
" Yes," was the reply, " confess and be forgiven; He will save you."
His bushy head shook with emotion as he walked forward and said :
" I will confess. He will save me! He will pro- tect me! I killed a white man and a woman, and their bodies now lie near the beach of the canal, be- neath a blanket! Yes, I killed them, and now I am saved ! "
The confession was a surprise to those who heard it. Officers were sent for, and soon the actors in that awful tragedy were on their way to the white man's justice. The prime mover of the crime was tried and sentenced. When asked why judgment should not be enacted, he stood motionless. A raven flew overhead, and his call startled him when he stepped forward and said :
" Yes, I made a mistake! My people were drowned and not killed by the white people, and I am willing to shed my blood because of what I did.
120
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
But, white man, you lie! You say Jesus save me ! You lie ! "
The great ocean steamers plow the waters of Lynn Canal, their passengers lounging on the rail- ings and gazing at the gravelly beach and the wooded shore, where once there was a happy summer camp, and where, the Indians assert, a lone, dark glistening raven often alights in the drooping boughs of a hemlock, and mournfully repeats, "O Lord! O Lord ! "
CHAPTER IX
Secretary Seward once was asked what he considered the most important act of his public career, and he replied: " The purchase of Alaska; but it will take the people a generation to find it out."
I BOARDED the steamer Cottage City, leaving Skag- way, and landed in the historical town of Sitka on February 20, 1899. Our route was one of those aquatic dreams-smooth passageways bordered with rocky shores and forests, so characteristic of those in- land waters of America's wonderland. There was one exception to this, however, and that was the passage of Cross Sound, where the open sea rolls in, and where boats, Sitka bound, wallow in the troughs of the waves for a few minutes.
A young man who was on board remarked that he had come all the way from Seattle, and had not been seasick. In reality he had not been to sea, but had traveled on one of the longest stretches of calm salt water on the globe, and did not know it. He thought he had been on the ocean and was brag- ging about it.
The steward ordered the waiters to put nothing on the tables until after we had crossed the sound, as we were nearing it, and from its rough appearance
121
122
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
there must be a storm outside. This young man paid no attention to that, for why should he? Had he not been to sea? I moved over to a cushioned seat which was bolted to the mast, directly opposite my seafaring companion. This was no more than ac- complished when such things as plates, knives and forks, which were already on the table, went flying across the room and music sheets from off the piano followed in close pursuit. The loose chairs, includ- ing the one occupied by the self-assumed " sea-salt," went tumbling also. The young man performed an acrobatic feat in the air and dashing over towards me, stuck a finger familiarly in one of my eyes, be- coming inextricably mixed up with his chair on its return trip. With my one eye I saw him lying against the wall, looking up between the chair rungs and regarding me with an expression of wild wonder, as if I had been hypnotizing him to perform in such a ridiculous manner.
It appeared to dawn upon him gradually that there was something about this seafaring business, and also about his stomach, that he did not understand. He disengaged himself from the chair, and left it to con- tinue its gyrations, while he crawled on all fours to his stateroom. Fortunately it was near by, for he remarked afterwards that he arrived there just in the nick of time.
The insertion of a bit of history may make the visit to the old town of Sitka more interesting. From
123
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
the historians we learn that the country now known as Alaska was discovered on July 5, 1741, by one of Vitus Behring's ship captains named Chirikof. Ber- ing or Behring was a Dane in the employ of the Russians, and died December 8th, of the same year.
Of course, it is probable that these shores had been trodden by white men before that time, but not in an official capacity. Credit is not always given to the real discoverers for their work. The Kit Carsons and not the Fremonts are the real pathfinders. Re- cently we have had some explorers in Alaska who possibly may discover New York or Chicago one of these days.
Forty years after Bering discovered Alaska, a decree was issued by the Russian Government which gave a company the exclusive privilege to trade and hunt in its new possessions. It also advanced two hundred thousand rubles from the public treasury, to be paid in twenty annual installments, without in- terest. It is needless to say that the stockholders of the Company were closely connected with the Royal Household. This Company also bound itself to sup- port a Greek Catholic Church wherever an oppor- tunity to Christianize the natives might occur.
Baranoff was appointed manager of that Com- pany in 1790. He was noted for his drunkenness, lewdness and lying, although in his report of his fight with the natives at Nutchek, he said: " As for myself, the Lord has protected me." He was a
124
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
model of devotion, if carrying religion into business is holiness; for he caught his fur-bearing animals, fish and seals in the name of the Lord, then, very possibly, he would indulge in the worst profanity and go on a drunken debauch.
Baranoff landed on that island, about six miles north of the present town of Sitka, on May 25, 1799. He built a post and left for Kadiak during the autumn of 1800. That post was destroyed and its occupants massacred by an attacking party of about one thousand Indians, in June, 1802. Only three Russians escaped, and after making a hazard- ous journey along the several hundreds of miles of sea-coast, reported the disaster to Baranoff.
In 1804, Baranoff, with one hundred and twenty Russians, followed by eight hundred Aleuts in their bidarkies, or skin canoes, returned to make war on the Kolosh tribes, and to reassert their claim to Sitka. The Russians were repulsed in a pitched battle near the mouth of Indian Creek, with a loss of twenty-six men, and Baranoff was wounded, while the Lord apparently protected the Indians. They were com- pelled to do the right thing by holding a conference with the Indians, who courteously allowed them to stake off a limited area of land where afterwards they built up the town of New Archangel, or Sitka.
Here they forged iron, cast church bells, and built ships that sailed as far south as Mexico. They traded with the California Indians, and established there a
125
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
colony of farmers on a river that was afterwards named Russian River. Baranoff petitioned to be re- lieved, but his request was not granted until 1818. He started home, but died on the way at the age of seventy-two years. He had spent twenty-eight years as a tyrannical ruler among priests, Indians and convicts. During that time he had cleared six mil- lions of dollars for his Company, and meanwhile Napoleon had been attempting to overthrow the life of his government in another hemisphere.
Poor Sitka ! It has struggled for a hundred years simply to hold its own, and not a very sightly place for a town at that. It was attacked by Indians as late as 1856. After a hot battle for two hours the natives were repulsed; they left one hundred of their dead around those old block-houses, up there on the hill.
Sitka has a thrilling history of mingled romance, worship and feasts; crime, war and murder; and it has survived different forms of ownership, from the domination of whiskey to " hoochenoo."
Slowly we approached Sitka, where the Indian town adjoins it on our left. Numerous rocky islets were between us and the wide ocean. We landed at a wharf where a uniformed sentry paced back and forth, but he does that only on steamer days. We passed through a low shed of a warehouse, where about twenty squaws sat with their backs against a wall, having numerous articles of their handiwork,
126
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
such as moccasins and buckskin purses, spread out for sale in front of them.
We turned to the right and stood on a rocky prom- inence where once was Baranoff Castle. It was there that the formal transfer of Alaska from one foreign power to another was made on October 18, 1867, by the lowering of the Russian flag, and the hoisting of that of the United States.
An Indian who was present at the time remarked :
" We gave the Russians the privilege to live among us, but not the right to sell us and our whole country to another power."
Yes, there once stood the Baranoff Castle and it was there that the Russian ruler displayed his fits of good feeling by giving suppers-feasts they were- where the flow of wine and stronger drinks resulted in drunken orgies and the wildest revelry. It was there also that he issued edicts which sent from his presence official dignitaries retiring like menials.
After Baranoff's career had ended, the impression which the lonely mansion always gave to those who were familiar with its history was that its dark and dismal halls were frequented with visitations from the dead. Old women, who once had been the girl guests at the castle's receptions, declared they saw ghostly apparitions floating around the place, and that they believed it was visited frequently by the spirit of the one beloved daughter of Baranoff.
This harbor of ghosts, reminiscent of wild trage-
127
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
dies and of scarcely less savage scenes of dissipation, was doomed to disappear, for one dark night it passed away in a lurid glare of fiery destruction.
An era of military control followed the transfer, which was accompanied by drunken debauchery. The soldiers exerted a demoralizing influence over the natives of Sitka and even murdered some of them. The worst curse that can happen to a coun- try is that it be subjected to military rule. Human beings of all mixtures are more peaceable in the en- joyment of individual prosperity, even without the mandate of written law, than when placed under an arbitrary military autocrat who has the power to order his automata to murder, whether for right or wrong. Military rule is all right in war, but it is an enemy to peace and good citizenship. The major- ity of people are good and just, therefore let the majority rule, and you will have law, pure and simple.
I attended a church in Sitka where the minister prayed for his sect and all the public officials of the United States, and I felt slighted. On my return to the boarding-house, I witnessed a fight between a raven and three chickens over the possession of a bone. The raven whipped the chickens, then a pup butted in, but a hog-like monopolists the world over-finally took possession of the prize.
Ravens are the city's scavengers and are very tame. During my stay in Sitka some boys proved
128
Trailing and Camping in Alaska
that a raven could count up to seven. There was an old unoccupied house where the ravens were accus- tomed to alight and make remarks about people as they passed, but they would not alight on the roof if they knew a person was in the house. Five boys en- tered the house and came out, one at a time, the last one lingering for half an hour, but the ravens refused to return until he had come out; whereupon they im- mediately took possession of the roof and bragged about their cunning. Six boys tried the same experi- ment with like result, and so did seven, but when eight entered and seven came out, the ravens became mixed in the count. The boys could fool them, after that, if they could assemble a crowd of more than seven. I had often wondered how Poe's raven could say " nevermore," but I found that an Alaska raven can say words that are not even in the dictionary. He has the vocabulary of a common scold, and the inquisitiveness of a village gossip.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.