iiiiiiiHii
 
 LIBRARY ^ 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 5AN oieso
 
 3 1822 01166 8464 
 
 Social Sciences & Humanities Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 Please Note: This item is subject to recall. 
 
 Date Due 
 
 AUG 8 ZOOZ 
 
 CI 39 (5/97) 
 
 UCSD Lib.
 
 ALASKA 
 
 THE GREAT COUNTRY
 
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 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON ■ BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 
 
 ,^»/,..^- A"^'-'"'-"i-> 'i'i "j'Jj-' 
 
 
 
 Phdti) hy E. W. Merrill, Sitka 
 
 CciiiitcNy of <i. Kostromctinoff 
 
 Alexander Bakanoi i-
 
 ALASKA 
 
 THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLA HIGGINSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF " MARIELLA, OF OUT-WEST," " WHEN THE 
 
 BIRDS GO NORTH AGAIN," " FROM THE LAND 
 
 OF THE SNOW-PEARLS," ETC. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1908 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 Copyright, 1908, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1908. 
 
 JCnrfaooli }^rtzs 
 
 J. S. Gushing Co. —Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 Co 
 
 MR. AND MRS. HENRY ELLIOTT HOLMES
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 When the Russians first came to the island of Un- 
 alaska, they were tokl that a vast country lay to the 
 eastward and that its name was Al-ay-ek-sa. Their own 
 island the Aleuts called Nagun-Alayeksa, meaning " the 
 land lying near Alayeksa." 
 
 The Russians in time came to call the country itself 
 Alashka ; the peninsula, Aliaska ; and the island, Un- 
 alashka. Alaska is an English corruption of the original 
 name. 
 
 A great Russian moved under inspiration when he sent 
 Vitus Behring out to discover and explore the continent 
 lying to the eastward ; two great Americans — Seward 
 and Sumner — wer.e inspired when, nearly a century and 
 a half later, they saved for us, in the face of the bitterest 
 opposition, scorn, and ridicule, the country that Behring 
 discovered and which is now coming to be recognized as 
 the most glorious possession of any people ; but, first of 
 all, were the gentle, dark-eyed Aleuts inspired when they 
 bestowed upon this same country — with the simplicity 
 and dignified repression for which their character is noted 
 — the beautiful and poetic name which means " the great 
 country."
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Alexander Baranoff Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Alaska (^colored map) 1 
 
 Copper Smelter in Southeastern Alaska .... 2 
 
 Kasa-an 9 
 
 HOWKAN 16 
 
 Distant View of Davidson Glacier 21 
 
 Davidson Glacier 36 
 
 A Phantom Ship 41 
 
 Road through Cut-off Canyon 48 
 
 Scene on the White Pass 53 
 
 Steel Cantilever Bridge, near Summit of White Pass 68 
 
 Old Russian Building, Sitka 73 
 
 Greek-Russian Church at Sitka 80 
 
 Eskimo in Walrus-skin Kamelayka 101 
 
 Eskimo in Bidarka 116 
 
 Railroad Construction, Eyak Lake 121 
 
 Eyak Lake, near Cordova 128 
 
 Indian Houses, CoRDf)VA 133 
 
 Valdez 148 
 
 An Alaskan Road House 153 
 
 Kow-Ear-Nuk and his Drying Salmon 160 
 
 Steamer " Resolute " 165 
 
 "Obleuk," an Eskimo Girl in Parka 180 
 
 A Northern IMadonna 185 
 
 Eskimo Lad in Parka and Mukluks 192 
 
 Scales and Summit of Chilkoot Pass in 1898 . . . 197 
 
 ix
 
 X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Summit of Ciiilkoot Pass in 1898 212 
 
 Pine Falls, Atlin 229 
 
 Lake Bennett in 1898 244 
 
 White Horse, Yukon Territory 249 
 
 Grand Canyon of the Yukon 256 
 
 White Horse Rapids 261 
 
 White Horse Rapids in Winter 276 
 
 Steamer "White Horse" in Five-Finger Rapids . . 293 
 
 A Yukon Snow Scene near White Horse .... 308 
 
 A Home in the Yukon 32.5 
 
 One and a Half Millions of Klondike Gold . . . 340 
 
 A Famous Team of Huskies 357 
 
 Cloud Effect on the Yukon 372 
 
 "Wolf" 389 
 
 Dog-team Express, Nome 404 
 
 Four Beauties of Cape Prince of Wales with Sled 
 
 Reindeer of the American Missionary Herd . . 421 
 Council City and Solomon River Railroad — A Char- 
 acteristic Landscape of Seward Peninsula . . 436 
 
 Teller 4.53 
 
 Family of King's Island Eskimos living under Skin 
 
 Boat, Nome . 468 
 
 Wreck of "Jessie," Nome Beach 485 
 
 Sunrise on Behring Sea 500 
 
 Surf at Nome 505 
 
 Moonlight on Behring Sea 512
 
 ALASKA 
 THE GREAT COUNTRY
 
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 UNIMAN ly/ i^*^" "vJ* SMUMOGIN l8 
 
 „,T.,. . ■ni^J '-'.•SSNNAKMI IS. 
 
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 X 
 
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 ALASKA: THE GEEAT COUNTRY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Every year, from June to September, thousands of 
 people "go to Alaska." This means that they take pas- 
 sage at Seattle on the most luxurious steamers that run up 
 the famed " inside passage " to Juneau, Sitka, Wrangell, 
 and Skaguay. Formerly this voyage included a visit to 
 Muir Glacier; but because of the ruin wrought by a re- 
 cent earthquake, this once beautiful and marvellous thing 
 is no longer included in the tourist trip. 
 
 This ten-day voyage is unquestionably a delightful one; 
 every imaginable comfort is provided, and the excursion 
 rate is reasonable. However, the person who contents 
 himself with this will know as little about Alaska as a 
 foreigner who landed in New York, went straight to 
 Niagara Falls and returned at once to his own country, 
 would know about America. 
 
 Enchanting though this brief cruise may be when the 
 weather is favorable, the real splendor, the marvellous 
 beauty, the poetic and haunting charm of Alaska, lie west 
 of Sitka. " To Westward " is called this dream-voyage 
 past a thousand miles of snow-mountains rising straight 
 from the purple sea and wrapped in coloring that makes 
 it seem as though all the roses, lilies, and violets of heaven 
 had been pounded to a fine dust and sifted over them ; 
 past green islands and safe harbors; past the Malaspina 
 and the Columbia glaciers; past Yakutat, Kyak, Cordova, 
 Valdez, Seward, and Cook Inlet; and then, still on "to 
 Westward " — past Kodiak Island, where the Russians
 
 2 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 made their first permanent settlement in America in 1784 
 and whose sylvan and idyllic charm won the heart of the 
 great naturalist, John Burroughs ; past the Aliaska Penin- 
 sula, with its smoking Mount Pavloff ; past Unimak Island, 
 one of whose active volcanoes, Shishaldin, is the most per- 
 fect and symmetrical cone on the Pacific Coast, not even 
 excepting Hood — and on and in among the divinely pale 
 green Aleutian Islands to Unalaska, where enchantment 
 broods in a mist of rose and lavender and where one may 
 scarcely step without crushing violets and bluebells. 
 
 The spell of Alaska falls upon every lover of beauty 
 ■who has voyaged along those far northern snow-pearled 
 shores with the violet waves of the North Pacific Ocean 
 breaking splendidly upon them; or who has drifted down 
 the mighty rivers of the interior which flow, bell-toned 
 and lonely, to the sea. 
 
 I know not how the spell is wrought; nor have I ever 
 met one who could put the miracle of its working into 
 words. No writer has ever described Alaska; no one 
 writer ever will; but each must do his share, according 
 to the spell that the country casts upon him. 
 
 Some parts of Alaska lull the senses drowsily by their 
 languorous charm; under their influence one sinks to a 
 passive delight and drifts unresistingly on through a 
 maze of tender loveliness. Nothing irritates. All is soft, 
 velvety, soothing. Wordless lullabies are played by dif- 
 ferent shades of blue, rose, amber, and green; by the curl 
 of the satin waves and the musical kiss of their cool and 
 faltering lips; by the mists, light as thistle-down and 
 delicately tinted as wild-rose petals, into which the 
 steamer pushes leisurely ; by the dreamy poise of seabirds 
 on white or lavender wings high in the golden atmosphere; 
 by the undulating flight of purple Shadow, tiptoe, through 
 the dim fiords; by the lap of waves on shingle, the song 
 of birds along the wooded shore, the pressure of soft winds
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 3 
 
 on the temples and hair, the sparkle of the sea weighing 
 the eyelids down. The magic of it all gets into the blood. 
 
 The steamer slides through green and echoing reaches; 
 past groups of totems standing like ghosts of the past 
 among the dark spruce or cedar trees; through stone- 
 walled canyons where the waters move dark and still; 
 into open, sunlit seas. 
 
 But it is not until one sails on " to Westward " that the 
 spell of Alaska falls upon one; sails out into the wild and 
 splendid North Pacific Ocean. Here are the majesty, the 
 sublimity, that enthrall; here are the noble spaces, the 
 Titanic forces, the untrodden heights, that thrill and 
 inspire. 
 
 The marvels here are not the marvels of men. They 
 are wrought of fire and stone and snow by the tireless 
 hand that has worked through centuries unnumbered and 
 unknown. 
 
 He that would fall under the spell of Alaska, will sail 
 on "to Westward," on to Unalaska; or he will go Nortli- 
 ward and drift down the Yukon — that splendid, lonely 
 river that has its birth within a few miles of the sea, yet 
 flows twenty-three hundred miles to find it. 
 
 Alaskan steamers usually sail between eight o'clock in 
 the evening and midnight, and throngs of people congre- 
 gate upon the piers of Seattle to watch their departure. 
 The rosy purples and violets of sunset mix with the mists 
 and settle upon the city, climbing white over its hills; as 
 hours go by, its lights sparkle brilliantly through them, 
 yet still the crowds sway upon the piers and wait for the 
 first still motion of the ship as it slides into the night and 
 heads for the far, enchanted land — the land whose sweet, 
 insistent calling never ceases for the one who has once 
 heard it. 
 
 Passengers who stay on deck late will be rewarded by 
 the witchery of night on Puget Sound — the soft fragrance
 
 4 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 of the air, the scarlet, blue, and green lights wavering 
 across the water, the glistening wake of the ship, the city 
 glimmering faintly as it is left behind, the dim shores of 
 islands, and the dark shadows of bays. 
 
 One by one the lighthouses at West Point on the star- 
 board side, and at Point-No-Point, Marrowstone, and Point 
 Wilson, on the port, flash their golden messages through 
 the dusk. One by one rise, linger, and fade the dark out- 
 lines of Magnolia Bluff, Skagit Head, Double Bluff, and 
 Liplip Point. If the sailing be early in the evening, mid- 
 night is saluted by the lights of Port Townsend, than 
 which no city on the Pacific Coast has a bolder or more 
 beautiful situation. 
 
 The splendid water avenue — the burning "Opal- Way" 
 — that leads the ocean into these inland seas was named 
 in 1788 by John Meares, a retired lieutenant of the British 
 navy, for Juan de Fuca (whose real name was Apostolos 
 Valerianos), a Greek pilot who, in 1592, was sent out in a 
 small " caravela " by the Viceroy of Mexico in search of 
 the fabled "Strait of Anian," or "Northwest Passage" — 
 supposed to lead from the Pacific to the Atlantic nortli of 
 forty degrees of latitude. 
 
 As early as the year 1500 this strait was supposed to 
 have been discovered by a Portuguese navigator named 
 Cortereal, and to have been named by him for one of his 
 brothers who accompanied him. 
 
 The names of certain other early navigators are men- 
 tioned in connection with the " Strait of Anian." Cabot is 
 reported vaguely as having located it " neere the 318 merid- 
 ian, between 61 and 64 degrees in the eleuation, continuing 
 the same bredth about 10 degrees West, where it openeth 
 Southerly more and more, until it come under the tropicke 
 of Cancer, and so runneth into Mar del Zur, at least 18 
 degrees more in bredth there than where it began ; " Fro- 
 bisher ; Urdaneta, " a Fryer of Mexico, who came out of
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 5 
 
 Mar del Zur this way into Germanie ;" and several others 
 whose stories of having sailed the dream-strait that was 
 then supposed to lead from ocean to ocean are not now 
 considered seriously until we come to Juan de Fuca, who 
 claimed that in his "caravela " he followed the coast "vntill 
 hee came to the latitude of fortie seuen degrees, and that 
 there finding that the land trended North and North-east, 
 with a broad Inlet of Sea between 47 and 48 degrees of 
 Latitude, hee entered thereinto, sayling therein more than 
 twenty days, and found that land trending still sometime 
 Northwest and North-east and North, and also East and 
 Southeastward, and very much broader sea then was at 
 said entrance, and that hee passed by diuers Hands in that 
 sayling. And that at the entrance of this said Strait, 
 there is on the North-west coast thereof, a great Hedland 
 or Hand, with an exceeding high pinacle or spired Rocke, 
 like a pillar, thereupon." 
 
 He landed and saw people clothed in the skins of beasts; 
 and he reported the land fruitful, and rich in gold, silver, 
 and pearl. 
 
 Bancroft and some other historians consider the story of 
 Juan de Fuca's entrance to Puget Sound the purest fiction, 
 claiming that his descriptions are inaccurate and that no 
 pinnacled or spired rock is to be found in the vicinity 
 mentioned. 
 
 Meares, however, and many people of intelligence gave 
 it credence ; and when we consider the differences in the 
 descriptions of other places by early navigators, it is not 
 difficult to believe that Juan de Fuca really sailed into 
 the strait that now bears his name. Schwatka speaks of 
 him as, "An explorer — if such he may be called — who 
 never entered this beautiful sheet of water, and wlio owes 
 his immortality to an audacious guess, which came so near 
 the truth as to deceive the scientific world for many a 
 century."
 
 6 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The Strait of Juan de Fuca is more than eighty miles 
 long and from ten to twelve wide, with a depth of about 
 six hundred feet. At the eastern end it widens into an 
 open sea or sound where beauty blooms like a rose, and 
 from which forest-bordered water-ways wind slenderly in 
 every direction. 
 
 From this vicinity, on clear days, may be seen the Ol3'm- 
 pic Mountains floating in the west; Mount Rainier, in the 
 south ; the lower peaks of the Crown Mountains in the 
 north ; and Mount Baker — or Kulshan, as the Indians 
 named it — in the east. 
 
 The Island of San Juan, lying east of the southern end 
 of Vancouver Island, is perhaps the most famous, and cer- 
 tainly the most historic, on the Pacific Coast. It is the 
 island that barely escaped causing a declaration of war 
 between Great Britain and the United States, over the 
 international boundary, in the late fifties. For so small 
 an island, — it is not more than fifteen miles long, by 
 from six to eight wide, — it has figured importantly in 
 large affairs. 
 
 The earliest trouble over the boundary between Van- 
 couver Island and Washington arose in 1854. Both coun- 
 tries claimed ownership of San Juan and other islands 
 near by, the Oregon Treaty of 1846 having failed to 
 make it clear whether the boundary was through the 
 Canal de Ilaro or the Strait of Rosario. 
 
 I. N. Ebey, American Collector of Customs, learning 
 that several thousand head of sheep, cattle, and hogs had 
 been shipped to San Juan without compliance with customs 
 regulations, visited the island and was promptly insulted 
 by a British justice of the peace. The Otter made her 
 appearance in the harbor, bearing James Douglas, gov- 
 ernor of Vancouver Island and vice-admiral of the British 
 navy; but nothing daunted, Mr. Ebey stationed In- 
 spector Webber upon the island, declaring that he would
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 7 
 
 continue to discharge his official duties. The final 
 trouble arose, however, in 1859, when an American resi- 
 dent shot a British pig ; and serious trouble was precipi- 
 tated as swiftly as when a United States warship was 
 blown up in Havana Harbor. General Harney hastily 
 established military quarters on one end of the island, 
 known as the American Camp, Captain Pickett trans- 
 ferring his company from Fort Bellingham for this pur- 
 pose. English Camp was established on the northern 
 end. Warships kept guard in the harbors. Joint occu- 
 pation was agreed upon, and until 1871 the two camps 
 were maintained, the friendliest social relations existing 
 between them. In that year the Emperor of Germany 
 was chosen as arbitrator, and decided in favor of the 
 United States, the British withdrawing the following year. 
 Until 1895 the British captain's house still stood upon 
 its beautiful bluff, a thousand feet above the winding blue 
 bay, the shore descending in steep, splendid terraces to 
 the water, stairwayed in stone, and grown with old and 
 noble trees. Macadam roads led several miles across the 
 island ; the old block-house of pioneer days remained at 
 the water's edge ; and clustered around the old parade 
 ground — now, alas ! a meadow of hay — were the quar- 
 ters of the officers, overgrown with English ivy. The 
 captain's house, which has now been destroyed by fire, 
 was a low, eight-roomed house with an immense fireplace 
 in each room ; the old claret- and ivory-striped wall-paper 
 
 — which had been brought "around the Horn" at immense 
 cost — was still on the walls. Gay were the scenes and 
 royal the hospitalities of this house in the good days of 
 the sixties. Its site, commanding the straits, is one of 
 the most effective on the Pacific Coast ; and at the present 
 writing it is extremely probable that a captain's house 
 may again rise among the old trees on the terraced bluff 
 
 — but not for the occupancy of a British captain.
 
 8 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Every land may occasionally have a beautiful sunset, 
 and many lands have gorgeous and brilliant ones ; but 
 nowhere have they such softly burning, milky-rose, 
 opaline effects as on this inland sea. 
 
 Their enchanting beauty is doubtless due to the many 
 wooded islands which lift dark green forestated hills 
 around open sweeps of water, whereon settle delicate mists. 
 When the fires of sunrise or of sunset sink through these 
 mists, the splendor of coloring is marvellous and not 
 equalled anywhere. It is as though the whole sound were 
 one great opal, which had broken apart and flung its 
 escaping fires of rose, amethyst, amber, and green up 
 through the maze of trembling pearl above it. The un- 
 usual beauty of its sunsets long ago gave Puget Sound 
 the poetic name of Opal-Sea or Sea of Opal.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 After passing the lighthouse on the eastern end of 
 Vancouver Island, Alaskan steamers continue on a north- 
 erly course and enter the Gulf of Georgia through Active 
 Pass, between Mayne and Galiana islands. This pass is 
 guarded by a light on Mayne Island, to the steamer's star- 
 board, going north. 
 
 The Gulf of Georgia is a bold and sweeping body of 
 water. It is usually of a deep violet or a warm purplish 
 gray in tone. At its widest, it is fully sixty miles — al- 
 though its average width is from twenty to thirty miles 
 — and it rolls between the mainland and Vancouver 
 Island for more than one hundred miles. 
 
 The real sea lover will find an indescribable charm in 
 this gulf, and will not miss an hour of it. It has the 
 boldness and the sweep of the ocean, but the setting, the 
 coloring, and the fragrance of the forest-bordered, snow- 
 peaked sea. A few miles above the boundary, the Fraser 
 River pours its turbulent waters into the gulf, upon whose 
 dark surface they wind and float for many miles, at sun- 
 rise and at sunset resembling broad ribbons of palest old 
 rose crinkled over waves of silvery amber silk. At times 
 these narrow streaks widen into still pools of color that 
 seem to float suspended over the heavier waters of the 
 gulf. Other times they draw lines of different color 
 everywhere, or drift solid banks of smoky pink out to 
 meet others of clear blue, with only the faintest thread of 
 pearl to separate them. These islands of color constitute 
 
 9
 
 10 ALASKA: THE CHEAT COUNTRY 
 
 one of the cliarras of this part of the voyage to Alaska ; 
 along with the velvety pressure of the winds ; the pic- 
 turesque shores, high and wooded in places, and in others 
 sloping down into the cool shadowy bays where the 
 shingle is splashed by spent waves ; and the snow-peaks 
 linked above the clouds on either side of the steamer. 
 
 Splendid phosphorescent disjjlays are sometimes wit- 
 nessed in the gulf, but are more likely to occur farther 
 north, in Grenville, or one of the other narrow channels, 
 where their brilliancy is remarkable. 
 
 Tourists to whom a whale is a novelty will be gratified, 
 without fail, in this vicinity. They are always seen 
 sporting about the ships, — sometimes in deadly conflict 
 with one another, — and now and then uncomfortably near. 
 
 In December, 1907, an exciting battle between a whale 
 and a large buck was witnessed by the passengers and 
 crew of the steamer Cassiar, in one of the bays north of 
 Vancouver, on the vessel's regular run from that city to 
 northern ports. 
 
 When the Cassiar appeared upon the scene, the whale 
 was making furious and frequent attacks upon the buck. 
 Racing through the water, which was lashed into foam on 
 all sides by its efforts, it would approach close to its 
 steadily swimming prey and then disappear, only to come 
 to the surface almost under the deer. This was repeated 
 a number of times, strangely enough without apparent 
 injury to the deer. Again, the whale would make its 
 appearance at the side of the deer and repeatedly endeavor 
 to strike it with its enormous tail ; but the deer was suf- 
 ficiently wise to keep so close to the whale that this could 
 not be accomplished, notwithstanding the crushing blows 
 dealt by the monster. 
 
 The humane passengers entreated the ca]3tain to go to 
 the rescue of the exhausted buck and save it from inevi- 
 table death. The captain ordered full speed ahead, and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 11 
 
 at the approach of the steamer the whale carved np out 
 of the water and dived gracefully into the sea, as though 
 making a farewell, apologetic bow on its final dis- 
 appearance. 
 
 Whereupon the humane passengers shot the helpless 
 and worn-out buck at the side of the steamer, and he was 
 hauled aboard. 
 
 It may not be out of place to devote a few pages to 
 the average tourist. To the one who loves Alaska and 
 the divinely blue, wooded, and snow-pearled ways that 
 lead to its final and sublime beauty, it is an enduring 
 mystery why certain persons — usually women — should 
 make this voyage. Their minds and their desires never 
 rise above a whale or an Indian basket ; and unless the 
 one is to be seen and the other to be priced, they spend 
 their time in the cabin, reading, playing cards, or telling 
 one another what they have at home. 
 
 " Do you know," said one of these women, yawning into 
 the full glory of a sunset, " we have sailed this whole day 
 past Vancouver Island. Not a thing to be seen but it 
 and this water you call the Gulf of Georgia ! I even 
 missed the whales, because I went to sleep, and Fd rather 
 have seen them than anything. If they don't hurry up 
 some towns and totem-poles, I'll be wishing I'd stayed at 
 home. Do you play five hundred ? " 
 
 The full length of the Jefferson was not enough to put 
 between this woman and tlie woman who had enjoyed 
 every one of those purple water-miles ; every pearly 
 cloud that had drifted across the pale blue sky ; every 
 bay and fiord indenting the shore of the largest island on 
 the Pacific Coast ; every humming-bird that had throbbed 
 about us, seeking a rose at sea ; every thrilling scent that 
 had blown down the northern water-ways, bearing the 
 far, sweet call of Alaska to senses awake and trembling 
 to receive it ; who had felt her pulses beating full to the
 
 12 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 throb of the steamer tliat was bearing her on to the land 
 of her dreams — to the land of Far Delight. 
 
 If only the players of bridge and the drinkers of pink 
 tea would stay at home, and leave this enchanted voyage 
 for those who understand ! There be enough of the elect 
 in the world who possess the usual five senses, as well as 
 that sixth sense which is of the soul, to fill every steamer 
 that sails for Alaska. 
 
 Or, the steamship companies might divide their excur- 
 sions into classes — some for those who love beauty, and 
 some for those who love bridge. 
 
 For the sea lover, it is enough only to stand in the bow 
 of a steamer headed for Alaska and hear the kiss and the 
 rippling murmur of the waves as they break apart when 
 the sliarp cut-water pierces them, and then their long, 
 musical rush along the steamer's sides, ere they reunite in 
 one broad wake of bowing silver that leads across the 
 purple toward home. 
 
 The mere vibration of a ship in these still inland seas is 
 a physical pleasure by day and a sensuous lullaby at night; 
 while, in summer, the winds are so soft that their touches 
 seem like caresses. 
 
 The inlets and fiords extending for many miles into the 
 mainland in this vicinity are of great beauty and grandeur, 
 many winding for forty or fifty miles through walls of 
 forestation and snow that rise sheer to a height of eight 
 or ten thousand feet. These inlets are very narrow, 
 sometimes mere clefts, through which the waters slip, 
 clear, still, and of deepest green. They are of unknown 
 depth ; the mountains are covered with forests, over 
 which rise peaks of snow. Cascades are numerous, and 
 their musical fall is increased in these narrow fastnesses 
 to a roar that may be heard for miles. 
 
 Passing Burrard Inlet, on which the city of Vancouver 
 is situated, the more important inlets are Howe, Jervis,
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 13 
 
 from which Sechelt Arm leads southward and is distin- 
 guished by the wild thunder of its rapids ; Homery 
 Channel, Price Channel, which, with Lewis Channel on 
 the west, forms Redonda Island ; Bute Inlet, which is the 
 most beautiful and the most important ; Knight, Seymour, 
 Kingcome, and Belize inlets. 
 
 The wild and picturesque beauty of these inlets has 
 been praised by tourists for many years. The Marquis of 
 Lome was charmed hj the scenery along Bute Inlet, 
 which he extolled. It is about fifty miles in length and 
 narrows in places to a width of a half-mile. The shores rise 
 in sheer mountain walls, heavily forestated, to a height of 
 seven and eight thousand feet, their snowy crests over- 
 hanging the clear, green-black waters of the narrow fiord. 
 Many glaciers stream down from these peaks. 
 
 The Gulf of Georgia continues for a distance of one 
 hundred miles in a northwesterly direction between the 
 mainland and Vancouver Island. Texada, Redonda, and 
 Valdes are the more important islands in the gulf. 
 Texada appears on the starboard, opposite Comox ; the 
 narrow strait separating it from the mainland is named 
 Malaspina, for the Italian explorer. The largest glacier 
 in the world, streaming into the sea from Mount St. Elias, 
 more than a thousand miles to the northwestward from 
 this strait, bears the same name. 
 
 Texada Island is twenty-eight miles long, with an 
 average width of three miles. It is wooded and moun- 
 tainous, the leading peak — Mount Shepard — rising to 
 » height of three thousand feet. The lighthouse on its 
 shore is known as "Three Sisters Light." 
 
 Along the shores of Vancouver Island and the mainland 
 are many ranches owned and occupied by "remittance 
 men." In these beautiful, lonely solitudes they dwell with 
 all the comforts of " old England," forming new ties, but 
 holding fast to old memories.
 
 14 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 It is said that tlie woman who should have one day 
 been the Queen of England, lived near the city of Van- 
 couver a few years ago. Before the death of his elder 
 brother, the present Prince of Wales passionately loved 
 the young and beautiful daughter of Admiral Seymour. 
 His infatuation was returned, and so desperately did the 
 young couple plead with the present King and the Admiral, 
 that at last the prince was permitted to contract a mor- 
 ganatic marriage. 
 
 The understanding and agreement were that, should the 
 prince ever become the heir to the throne of England, 
 neither he nor his wife would oppose the annulment of the 
 marriage. 
 
 There was only one brief year of happiness, when the 
 elder brother of the prince died, and the hitter's marriage 
 to the Princess May was demanded. 
 
 No murmur of complaint was ever heard from the un- 
 happy morganatic wife, nor from the royal husband ; and 
 when the latter's marriage was solemnized, it was boldly 
 announced that no bar to the union existed. 
 
 Here, in the western solitude, lived for several years — 
 the veriest remittance woman — the girl who should now, 
 by the right of love and honor, be the Princess of Wales ; 
 and whose infant daughter should have been the heir to 
 the throne. 
 
 To Vancouver, a few years ago, came, with his princess, 
 the Prince of Wales. Tlie city was gay with flags and 
 flowers, throbbing with music, and filled with joyous 
 and welcoming people. Somewhere, hidden among thos^ 
 swaying throngs, did a pale young woman holding a child 
 by the hand, gaze for the last time upon the man she loved 
 and upon the woman who had taken her place ? And did 
 her long-tortured heart in that hour finally break? It is 
 said that she died within a twelvemonth. 
 
 Passing Cape Mudge lighthouse. Discovery Passage,
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 15 
 
 sometimes called Vakles Narrows, is entered. It is a nar- 
 row pass, twenty-four miles long, between Vancouver and 
 Valdes islands. Halfway through it is Seymour Narrows, 
 one of the most famous features of the " inside route," or 
 passage, to Alaska. Passengers are awakened, if they 
 desire, that they may be on deck while passing through 
 these difficult narrows. 
 
 The Indian name of this pass is Yaculta. 
 
 " Yaculta is a wicked spirit," said the pilot, pacing the 
 bridge at four o'clock of a primrose dawn. " She lives 
 down in the clear depths of these waters and is supposed 
 to entice guileless sailors to their doom. Yaculta sleeps 
 only at slack-tide, and then boats, or ships, may slip 
 through in safety, provided they do not make sufficient 
 noise to awaken her. If they try to go through at any 
 other stage of the tide, Yaculta stirs the whole pass into 
 action, trying to get hold of them, Many's the time I've 
 had to back out and wait for Yaculta to quiet down." 
 
 If the steamer attempts the pass at an unfavorable hour, 
 fearful seas are found racing through at a fourteen-knot 
 speed ; the steamer is flung from side to side of the rocky 
 pass or sucked down into the boiling whirlpools by Yaculta. 
 The brown, shining strands of kelp floating upon Ripple 
 Reef, which carries a sharp edge down the centre of the 
 pass, are the wild locks of Yaculta's luxuriant hair. 
 
 Pilots flgure, upon leaving Seattle, to reach the narrows 
 during the quarter-hour before or after slack-tide, when 
 the water is found as still and smooth as satin stretched 
 from shore to shore, and not even Yaculta's breathing dis- 
 turbs her liquid coverlet. 
 
 Many vessels were wrecked here before the dangers of 
 the narrows had become fully known: the steamer Saranac, 
 in 1875, without loss of life; the Wachusett, in 1875; the 
 Grrappler, in 1888, which burned in the narrows with a 
 very large loss of life, including that of the captain ; and
 
 16 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 several less appalling disasters have occurred in these 
 deceptive waters. 
 
 Three miles below Cape Mudge the tides from Juan de 
 Fuca meet those from Queen Charlotte Sound, and force a 
 fourteen-knot current through the narrows. The most 
 powerful steamers are frequently overcome and carried 
 back by this current. 
 
 Discovery Passage merges at Chatham Point into John- 
 stone Strait, Here the first Indian village, Alert Bay, 
 is seen to starboard on the southern side of Cormorant 
 Island. These are the Kwakiutl Indians, who did not at 
 first respond to the advances of civilization so readily as 
 most northern tribes. They came from their original vil- 
 lage at the mouth of the Nimpkish River, to work in the 
 canneries on the bay, but did not take kindly to the ways 
 of the white man. A white child, said to have been stolen 
 from Vancouver, was taken from these Indians a few years 
 ago. 
 
 Some fine totem-poles have been erected here, and the 
 graveyard has houses built over the graves. From the 
 steamer the little village presents an attractive api^earance, 
 situated on a curving beach, with wooded slopes rising 
 behind it. 
 
 Gorgeous potlatches are held here ; and until the spring 
 of 1908 these orgies were rendered more repulsive by the 
 sale of young girls. 
 
 Dr. Franz Boas, in his " Kwakiutl Texts," describes a 
 game formerly played with stone disks by the Kwakiutls. 
 They also had a myth that a game was played with these 
 disks between the birds of the upper world and the myth- 
 people, that is, "all the animals and all the birds." The 
 four disks were called the "mist-covered gambling stone," 
 the " rainbow gambling stone," the " cloud-covered gam- 
 bling stone," and the "carrier of the world." The wood- 
 pecker and the other myth-birds played on one side ; the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 17 
 
 Thunder-bird and the birds of the upper air on the other. 
 The contestants were ranged in two rows; the gambling 
 stones were thrown along the middle between them, and 
 they speared them with their beaks. The Thunder-bird 
 and the birds of the upper air were beaten. This myth is 
 given as an explanation of the reason for playing the game 
 with the gambling stones, which are called kelse. 
 
 The Kwakiutls still play many of their ancient and 
 picturesque gambling games at their potlatches. 
 
 Johnstone Strait is fifty-five miles long, and is continued 
 by Broughton Strait, fifteen miles long, which enters 
 Queen Charlotte Sound. 
 
 Here is a second, and smaller, Galiana Island, and on 
 its western end is a spired rock which, some historians 
 assert, may be " the great headland or island with an ex- 
 ceeding high pinnacle or spired rock thereon," which Juan 
 de Fuca claimed to discover, and which won for him the 
 charge of being an " audacious guesser " and an " unscru- 
 pulous liar." His believers, however, affirm that, having 
 sailed for twenty days in the inland sea, he discovered 
 this pinnacle at the entrance to what he supposed to be 
 the Atlantic Ocean; and so sailed back the course he had 
 come, believing himself to have been successful in discov- 
 ering the famed strait of Anian. Why Vancouver's mis- 
 takes, failures, and faults should all be condoned, and 
 Juan de Fuca's most uncompromisingly condemned, is 
 difficult to understand. 
 
 Fort Rupert, on the northern end of Vancouver Island, 
 beyond Broughton Strait, is an old Hudson's Bay post, 
 situated on Beaver Harbor. The fort was built in 1849, 
 and was strongly defended, troubles frequently arising 
 from the attacks of Kwakiutl and Haidah Indians. Great 
 potlatches were held there, and the chief's lodge was as 
 notable as was the " Old-Man House " of Chief Seattle. 
 It was one hundred feet long and eighty feet wide, and
 
 18 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 rested on carved corner posts. There was an immense 
 wooden potiatch dish that held food for one hundred 
 people. 
 
 Queen Charlotte Sound is a splendid sweep of purple 
 water; but tourists do not, usuall}^, spend much time en- 
 joying its beauty. Their berths possess charms that 
 endure until shelter of the islands is once more assured, 
 after the forty miles of open exposure to the swell of the 
 ocean which is not always mild, notwithstanding its name. 
 Those who miss it, miss one of the most beautiful features 
 of the inland voyage. The warm breath of the Kuro 
 Siwo, penetrating all these inland seas and passages, is 
 converted by the great white peaks of the horizon into 
 pearl-like mist that drifts in clouds and fragments upon 
 the blue waters. Nowhere are these mists more frequent, 
 nor more elusive, than in Queen Charlotte Sound. They 
 roll upon the sparkling surface like thistle-down along a 
 country lane — here one instant, vanished the next. At 
 sunrise they take on the delicate tones of the primrose or 
 the pinkish star-flower ; at sunset, all the royal rose 
 and purple blendings ; all the warm fluslies of amber, 
 orange, and gold. Through a maze of pale yellow, whose 
 fine cool needles sting one's face and set one's hair with 
 seed-pearls, one passes into a little open water-world 
 where a blue sky sparkles above a bluer sea, and the air 
 is like clear, washed gold. But a mile ahead a solid wall 
 of amethyst closes in this brilliant sea; and presently the 
 steamer glides into it, shattering it into particles that set 
 the hair with amethysts, instead of pearls. Sometimes 
 these clear spaces resemble rooms walled in different 
 colors, but ceiled and floored in blue. Other times, the 
 whole sound is clear, blue, shining; while exquisite gossa- 
 mers of changeful tints wrap and cling about the islands, 
 wind scarfs around the green hills, or set upon the brows 
 of majestic snow-monarchs crowns as jewelled and as
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 19 
 
 evanescent as those worn by the real kings of the earth. 
 Now and then a lofty fir or cedar may be seen draped with 
 slender mist-veils as a maiden might wind a scarf of cob- 
 webby lace about her form and head and arms — so lightly 
 and so gracefully, and with such art, do the delicate folds 
 trail in and out among the emerald-green branches of the 
 tree. 
 
 It is this warm and excessive moisture — this daily 
 mist-shower — that bequeaths to British Columbia and 
 Alaska their marvellous and luxuriant growth of vegeta- 
 tion, their spiced sweetness of atmosphere, their fairness 
 and freshness of complexion — blending and constituting 
 that indescribable charm which inspires one, standing on 
 the deck of a steamer at early dawn, to give thanks to God 
 that he is alive and sailing the blue water-ways of this 
 sublime country. 
 
 " I don't know what it is that keeps pulling me back to 
 this country," said a man in the garb of a laborer, one day. 
 He stood down in the bow of the steamer, his hands were 
 in his pockets, his throat was bared to the wind ; his 
 blue eyes — sunken, but burning with that fire which 
 never dies in the eyes of one who loves nature — were 
 gazing up the pale-green narrow avenue named Grenville 
 Channel. " It's something that you can't exactly put into 
 words. You don't know that it's got hold of you while 
 you're up here, but before you've been ' outside ' a month, 
 all at once you find it pulling at you — and after it begins, 
 it never lets up. You try to think what it is up here that 
 you want so ; what it is keeps begging at you to come 
 back. Maybe there ain't a darn soul up here you care 
 particular about ! Maybe you ain't got an interest in a 
 claim worth hens' teeth ! Maybe you're broke and know 
 you'll have to work like a go-devil when you get here ! 
 It don't make any difference. It's just Alaska. It calls 
 you and calls you and calls you. Maybe j^ou can't come.
 
 20 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 SO you keep pretending you don't hear — but Lord, you 
 do hear ! Maybe somebody shakes hands as if he liked 
 you — and there's Alaska up and calling right through 
 you, till you feel your heart shake ! Maybe a phonograph 
 sets up a tune they used to deal out at Magnuson's road- 
 house on the trail — and you hear that blame lonesome 
 waterfall up in Keystone Canyon calling you as plain as 
 you hear the phonograph ! Maybe you smell something 
 like the sun shining on snow, all mixed up with tundra and 
 salt air — and there's double quick action on your eyes 
 and a lump in your throat that won't be swallowed down ! 
 Maybe you see a white mountain, or a green valley, or a 
 big river, or a blue strait, or a waterfall — and like a flash 
 your heart opens, and shuts in an ache for Alaska that 
 stays ! . . . No, I don't know tohat it is, but I do know 
 how it is ; and so does every other poor devil that ever 
 heard that something calling him that's just Alaska. It 
 wakes you up in the middle of the night, just as plain as 
 if somebody had said your name out loud, and you just lay 
 there the rest of the night aching to go. I tell you what, 
 if ever a country had a spirit, it's Alaska ; and when it 
 once gets hold of you and gets to calling you to come, 
 you might just as well get up and start, for it calls you 
 and follows you, and haunts you till you do." 
 
 It is the pleading of the mountains and the pleading of 
 the sea woven into one call and sent floating down laden 
 with the sweetness of the splendid spaces. No moun- 
 taineer can say why he goes back to the mountains ; no 
 sailor why he cannot leave the sea. No one has yet seen 
 the spirit that dwells in the waterfall, but all have heard 
 it calling and have known its spell. 
 
 "If you love the sea, you've got to follow it," said a 
 sea-rover, " and that's all there is to it. A man can get 
 along without the woman he loves best on earth if he has 
 to, but he can't get along without the sea if he once gets
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 21 
 
 to loving it. It gets so it seems like a thing alive to him, 
 and it makes np for everything else that he don't have. 
 And it's just like that with Alaska. When a man has 
 made two-three trips to Alaska, you can't get him off on 
 a southern run again, as long as he can help himself." 
 
 It is an unimaginative person who can wind through 
 these intricate and diflicult sounds, channels, and passes 
 without a strange, quickened feeling, as of the presence of 
 those dauntless navigators who discovered and charted 
 these waters centuries ago. From Juan de Fuca north- 
 ward they seem to be sailing with us, those grim, brave 
 spectres of the past — Perez, Meares, Cuadra, Valdes, 
 Malaspina, Duncan, Vancouver, Whidbey — and all the 
 others who came and went through these beautiful ways, 
 leaving their names, or the names of their monarchs, 
 friends, or sweethearts, to endure in blue stretches of 
 water or glistening domes of snow. 
 
 We sail in safety, ease, luxury, over courses along which 
 they felt their perilous way, never knowing whether Life 
 or Death waited at the turn of the prow. Nearly a cen- 
 tury and a quarter ago Vancouver, working his way cau- 
 tiously into Queen Charlotte Sound, soon came to disaster, 
 both the Discovery and her consort, the Chatham, striking 
 upon the rocks that border the entrance. Fortunately 
 the return of the tide in a few hours released them from 
 their perilous positions, before they had sustained any 
 serious damage. 
 
 But what days of mingled indecision, hope, and despair 
 — what nights of anxious watching and waiting — must 
 have been spent in these places through which we glide 
 so easily now ; and the silent spirits of the grim-peopled 
 past take hold of our heedless hands and lead us on. 
 Does a pilot sail these seas who has never on wild nights 
 felt beside him on the bridge the presence of those early 
 ones who, staring ever ahead under stern brows, drove
 
 22 ALASKA: THE Gil EAT COUNTRY 
 
 their vessels on, not knowing what perils lay beyond ? 
 Who, asked, " What shall we do when hope be gone ? " 
 made answer, " Why, sail on, and on, and on." 
 
 From Queen Charlotte Sound the steamer passes into 
 Fitzhugh Sound around Cape Calvert, on Calvert Island. 
 Off the southern point of this island are two dangerous 
 clusters of rocks, to which, in 1776, by Mr. James Hanna, 
 were given the interesting names of "Virgin " and " Pearl." 
 In this poetic vicinage, and nearer the island than either, is 
 another cluster of rocks, upon which some bold and sacri- 
 legious navigator has bestowed the name of " Devil." 
 
 " It don't sound so pretty and ladylike," said the pilot 
 who pointed them out, " but it's a whole lot more appro- 
 priate. Rocks are devils — and that's no joke; and what 
 anybody should go and name them ' virgins ' and ' pearls ' 
 for, is more than a man can see, when he's standing at a 
 wheel, hell-bent on putting as many leagues between him 
 and them as he can. It does seem as if some men didn't 
 have any sense at all about naming things. Now, if I 
 were going to name anything ' virgin ' " — his blue eyes 
 narrowed as they stared into the distance ahead — " it 
 would be a mountain that's always white ; or a bay that 
 gets the first sunshine in the morning ; or one of those 
 little islands down in Puget Sound that's just covered with 
 flowers." 
 
 Just inside Fitzhugh Sound, on the island, is Safety 
 Cove, or Oatsoalis, which was named by Mr. Duncan in 
 1788, and which has ever since been known as a safe 
 anchorage and refuge for ships in storm. Vancouver, 
 anchoring there in 1792, found the shores to be bold and 
 steep, the water from twenty-three to thirty fathoms, 
 with a soft, muddy bottom. Their ships were steadied 
 with hawsers to the trees. They found a small beach, 
 near which was a stream of excellent water and an abun-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 23 
 
 dance of wood. Vessels lie here at anchor when storms 
 or fogs render the passage across Queen Charlotte Sound 
 too perilous to be undertaken. 
 
 Fitzhugh Sound is but a slender, serene water-way run- 
 ning directly northward thirty miles. On its west, lying 
 parallel with the mainland, are the islands of Calvert, 
 Hecate, Nalau, and Hunter, separated by the passages of 
 Kwakshua, Hakai, and Nalau, which connect Fitzhugh 
 with the wide sweep of Hecate Strait. 
 
 Burke Channel, the second link in the exquisite water 
 chain that winds and loops in a northwesterly course be- 
 tween the islands of the Columbian and the Alexander 
 archipelagoes and the mainland of British Columbia and 
 Alaska, is scarcely entered by the Alaskan steamer ere it 
 turns again into Fisher Channel, and from this, westward, 
 into the short, very narrow, but most beautiful Lama Pass. 
 
 From Burke Channel several ribbonlike passages form 
 King Island. 
 
 Lama Pass is more luxuriantly wooded than many of the 
 others, and is so still and narrow that the reflections of the 
 trees, growing to the water's edge, are especially attractive. 
 Very effective is the graveyard of the Bella Bella Indians, 
 in its dark forest setting, many totems and curious archi- 
 tectures of the dead showing plainly from the steamer 
 when an obliging captain passes under slow bell. Near 
 by, on Campbell Island, is the village of the Bella Bellas, 
 who, with the Tsimpsians and the Alert Bay Indians, were 
 formerly regarded as the most treacherous and murderous 
 Indians of the Northwest Coast. Now, however, they are 
 gathered into a model village, whose houses, church, 
 school, and stores shine white and peaceful against a dark 
 background. 
 
 Lama Pass is one of the most poetic of Alaskan water- 
 ways. 
 
 Seaforth Channel is the dansrerous reach leadinor into
 
 24 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Millbank Sound. It is broken by rocks and reefs, on one 
 of which, Rejetta Reef, the Willapa was stranded ten 
 years ago. Running off Seaforth and Millbank are some 
 of the finest fiords of the inland passage — Spiller, John- 
 ston, Dean, EUerslie, and Portlock channels, Cousins and 
 Cascades inlets, and many others. Dean and Cascades 
 channels are noted for many waterfalls of wonderful 
 beauty. The former is ten miles long and half a mile 
 wide. Cascades Inlet extends for the same distance in a 
 northeasterly direction, opening into Dean. Innumer- 
 able cataracts fall sheer and foaming down their great 
 precipices ; the narrow canyons are filled with their 
 musical, liquid thunder, and the prevailing color seems 
 to be palest green, reflected from the color of the water 
 underneath the beaded foam. Vancouver visited these 
 canals and named them in 1793, and although, seemingly, 
 but seldom moved by beauty, was deeply impressed by it 
 here. He considered the cascades " extremely grand, and 
 by much the largest and most tremendous we had ever 
 beheld, their imj)etuosity sending currents of air across 
 the canal." 
 
 These fiords are walled to a great height, and are of 
 magnificent beauty. Some are so narrow and so deep 
 that the sunlight penetrates only for a few hours each 
 day, and eternal mist and twilight fill the spaces. In 
 others, not disturbed by cascades, the waters are as clear 
 and smooth as glass, and the stillness is so profound that 
 one can hear a cone fall upon the water at a distance of 
 many yards. Covered with constant moisture, the vegeta- 
 tion is of almost tropic luxuriance. In the shade, the 
 huge leaves of the devil's-club seem to float, suspended, 
 upon the air, drooping slightly at the edges when touched 
 by the sun. Raspberries and salmon-berries grow to 
 enormous size, but are so fragile and evanescent that they 
 are gone at a breath, and the most delicate care must be
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 25 
 
 exercised in securing them. They tremble for an instant 
 between the tongue and the palate, and are gone, leaving 
 a sensation as of dewdrops flavored with wine ; a memory 
 as haunting and elusive as an exquisite desire known once 
 and never known again. 
 
 In Dean Canal, Vancouver found the water almost 
 fresh at low tide, on account of the streams and cascades 
 pouring into it. 
 
 There he found, also, a remarkable Indian habitation ; 
 a square, large platform built in a clearing, thirty feet 
 above the ground. It was supported by several uprights 
 and had no covering, but a fii'e was burning upon one end 
 of it. 
 
 In Cascade Canal he visited an Indian village, and 
 found the construction of the houses there very curious. 
 They apparently backed straight into a high, perpendicu- 
 lar rock cliff, which supported their rears ; while the 
 fronts and sides were sustained by slender poles about 
 eighteen feet in height. 
 
 Vancouver leaves the method of reaching the entrances 
 to these houses to the reader's imagination. 
 
 It was in this vicinity that Vancouver first encountered 
 " split-lipped " ladies. Although he had grown accustomed 
 to distortions and mutilations among the various tribes 
 he had visited, he was quite unprepared for the repulsive 
 style which now confronted him. 
 
 A horizontal incision was made about three-tenths of 
 an inch below the upper part of the lower lip, extending 
 from one corner of the mouth to the other, entirely 
 through the flesh ; this oritice was then by degrees 
 stretched sufficiently to admit an ornament made of wood, 
 which was confined close to the gums of the lower jaws, 
 and whose external surface projected horizontally. 
 
 These wooden ornaments were oval, and resembled a 
 small platter, or dish, made concave on both sides ; they
 
 26 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 were of various lengths, tlie smallest about two inches and 
 a half ; the largest more than three inches long, and an 
 inch and a half broad. 
 
 They were about one-fifth of an inch thick, and had a 
 groove along the middle of the outside edge to receive 
 the lip. 
 
 These hideous things were made of fir, and were highly- 
 polished. Ladies of the greatest distinction wore the 
 largest labrets. The size also increased with age. They 
 have been described by Vancouver, Cook, Lisiansky, La 
 Perouse, Dall, Schwatka, Emmans, and too many others 
 to name here ; but no description can quite picture them 
 to the liveliest imagination. When the '' wooden trough " 
 was removed, the incision gave the appearance of two 
 mouths. 
 
 All chroniclers unite as to the hideousness and repulsive- 
 ness of the practice. 
 
 Of the Indians in the vicinity of Fisher Channel, Van- 
 couver remarks, without a glimmer of humor himself, 
 that the vivacity of their countenance indicated a lively 
 genius ; and that, from their frequent bursts of laughter, 
 it would appear that they were great humorists, for their 
 mirth was not confined to their own people, but was fre- 
 quently at the expense of his party. They seemed a 
 happy, cheerful people. This is an inimitable English 
 touch ; a thing that no American would have written, 
 save with a laugh at himself. 
 
 Poison Cove in Mussel Canal, or Portlock Canal, was 
 so named by Vancouver, whose men ate roasted mussels 
 there. Several were soon seized with numbness of the 
 faces and extremities. In spite of all that was done to 
 relieve their sufferings, one — John Carter — died and 
 was buried in a quiet bay which was named for him. 
 
 Millbank Sound, named by Mr. Duncan before Van- 
 couver's arrival, is open to the ocean, but there is only
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 27 
 
 an hour's run before the shelter of the islands is regained ; 
 so that, even when the weather is rough, but slight dis- 
 comfort is experienced by the most susceptible passengers. 
 The finest scenery on the regular steamer route, until the 
 great snow fields and glaciers are reached, is considered 
 by many well acquainted with the route, to lie from Mill- 
 bank on to Dixon Entrance. The days are not long 
 enough now for all the beauty that weighs upon the senses 
 like caresses. At evening, the sunset, blooming like a 
 rose upon these splendid reaches, seems to drop perfumed 
 petals of color, until the still air is pink with them, and 
 the steamer pushes them aside as it glides through with 
 faint throbbings that one feels rather than hears. 
 
 Through Finlayson Channel, Heikish Narrows, Graham, 
 Eraser, and McKay reaches, Grenville Channel, — through 
 all these enchanting water avenues one drifts for two 
 hundred miles, passing from one reach to another without 
 suspecting the change, unless familiar with the route, and 
 so close to the wooded shores that one is tormented with 
 the desire to reach out one's hand and strip the cool green 
 spruce and cedar needles from the drooping branches. 
 
 Each water-way has its own distinctive features. In 
 Finlayson Channel the forestation is a solid mountain of 
 green on each side, growing down to the water and ex- 
 tending over it in feathery, flat sprays. Here the reflec- 
 tions are so brilliant and so true on clear days, that the 
 dividing line is not perceptible to the vision. The moun- 
 tains rise sheer from the water to a great height, with 
 snow upon their crests and occasional cataracts foaming 
 musically down their fissures. Helmet Mountain stands 
 on the port side of the channel, at the entrance. 
 
 There's something about " Sarah " Island ! I don't 
 know what it is, and none of the mariners with whom I 
 discussed this famous island seems to know; but the fact 
 remains that they are all attached to "Sarah."
 
 28 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Down in Lama Pass, or possibly in Fitzlmgh Sound, one 
 hears casual mention of " Sarah " in the pilot-house or 
 chart-room. Questioned, they do not seem to be able to 
 name any particular feature that sets her apart from the 
 other islands of this run. 
 
 "Well, there she is!" exclaimed the captain, at last. 
 "Now, you'll see for yourself what there is about Sarah." 
 
 It is a long, narrow island, lying in the northern end of 
 Finlayson Channel. Tolmie Channel lies between it and 
 Princess Royal Island; Heikish Narrows — a quarter of a 
 mile wide — between it and Roderick Island. Through 
 Heikish the steamer passes into the increasing beauty of 
 Graham Reach. 
 
 "Now, there! " said the captain. "If 3^ou can tell me 
 what there is about that island, you can do more than any 
 skipper /know can do; but just the same, there isn't one 
 of us that doesn't look forward to passing Sarah, that 
 doesn't give her particular attention while we are passing, 
 and look back at her after we're in Graham Reach. She 
 isn't so little . . . nor so big. . . . The Lord knows she 
 isn't so pretty ! " He was silent for a moment. Then he 
 burst out suddenly: "I'm blamed if Z know what it is! 
 But it's just so with some women. There's something 
 about a woman, now and then, and a man can't tell, to save 
 his soul, what it is; only, he doesn't forget her. You see, 
 a captain meets hundreds of women; and he has to be 
 nice to every one. If he is smart, he can make every 
 woman think she is just running the ship — but Lord! he 
 wouldn't know one of them if he met her next week on 
 the street . . . only now and then ... in years and 
 years . . . one! And that one he can't forget. He 
 doesn't know what there is about her, any more than he 
 knows what there is about 'Sarah.' Maybe he doesn't 
 know the color of her eyes nor the color of her hair. 
 Maybe she's married, and maybe she's single — for that
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 29 
 
 isn't it. He isn't in love with her — at least I guess he 
 isn't. It's just that she has a way of coming back to him. 
 Say he sees the Northern Lights along about midnight — 
 and that woman comes like a flash and stands there with 
 him. After a while it gets to be a habit with him when 
 he gets into a port, to kind of look over the crowds for 
 some one. For a minute or two he feels almost as if he 
 expected some one to meet him ; then he knows he's dis- 
 appointed about somebody not being there. He asks 
 himself right out who it is. And all at once he remem- 
 bers. Then he calls himself an ass. If she was the kind 
 of woman that runs to docks to see boats come in, he'd 
 laugh and gas with her — but he wouldn't be thinking of 
 her till she pushed herself on him again." 
 
 The captain sighed unconsciously, and taking down a 
 chart from the ceiling, spread it out upon a shelf and bent 
 over it. I looked at Sarah, with her two lacy cascades 
 falling like veils from her crown of snow. Already she 
 was fading in the distance — yet how distinguished was 
 she! How set apart from all others! 
 
 Then I fell to thinking of the women. What kind are 
 they — the ones that stay! The one that comes at mid- 
 night and stands silent beside a man when he sees the 
 Northern Lights, even though he is not in love with her 
 — what kind of woman is she ? 
 
 " Captain," I said, a little later, "• I want to add some- 
 thing to Sarah's name." 
 
 " What is it? " said he, scowling over the chart. 
 
 " I want to name her ' Sarah, the Remembered.'' " 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 "All right," said he, promptly. "I'll write that on the 
 chart." 
 
 And what an epitaph that would be for a woman — 
 "The Remembered! " If one only knew upon whose bit 
 of marble to grave it.
 
 30 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Fraser and McKay reaches follow Graham, and then is 
 entered Wright Sound, a body of water of great, and 
 practically unknown, depth. This small sound feeds six 
 channels leading in different directions, one of which — 
 Verney Pass — leads through Boxer Reach into the famed 
 magnificence and splendor of Gardner Canal, whose waters 
 push for fifty miles through dark and towering walls. 
 An immense, glaciered mountain extends across the end 
 of the canal. 
 
 Gardner Canal — named by Vancouver for Admiral Sir 
 Alan Gardner, to whose friendship and recommendation 
 he was indebted for the command of the expedition to 
 Nootka and the Northwest Coast — is doubtless the grand- 
 est of British Columbian inlets or fiords. At last, the 
 favorite two adjectives of the Vancouver expedition — 
 "tremendous" and "stupendous" — seem to have been 
 most appropriately applied. Lieutenant Whidbey, explor- 
 ing it in the summer of 1793, found that it " presented to 
 the eye one rude mass of almost naked rocks, rising into 
 rugged mountains, more lofty than he had before seen, 
 whose towering summits, seeming to overhang their bases, 
 gave them a tremendous appearance. The wliole was cov- 
 ered with perpetual ice and snow that reached, in the 
 gullies formed between the mountains, close down to the 
 high-water mark ; and many waterfalls of various dimen- 
 sions were seen to descend in every direction." 
 
 This description is quoted in full because it is an excel- 
 lent example of the descriptions given out by Vancouver 
 and his associates, who, if they ever felt a quickening of 
 the pulses in contemplation of these majestic scenes, were 
 certainly successful in concealing such human emotions 
 from the world. True, they did occasionally chronicle a 
 "pleasant" breeze, a "pleasing" landscape which "re- 
 minded them of England ; " and even, in the vicinity of 
 Port Townsend, they were moved to enthusiasm over a
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 31 
 
 "landscape almost as enchaiitingly beautiful as the most 
 elegantly finished pleasure-grounds in Europe," which 
 called to their remembrance "certain delightful and be- 
 loved situations in Old England." 
 
 But apparently, having been familiar only with i^leasing 
 pastoral scenes, they were not able to rise to an apprecia- 
 tion of the sublime in nature. " Elegant " is the mincing 
 and amusing adjective applied frequently to snow moun- 
 tains by Vancouver; he mentions, also, "spacious mead- 
 ows, elegantly adorned witli trees ; " but when they arrive 
 at the noble beauty which arouses in most beholders a 
 feeling of exaltation and an aj^preciation of the marvellous 
 handiwork of God, Vancouver and his associates, having 
 never seen anything of the kind in England, find it only 
 "tremendous," or " stupendous," or a " rude mass." They 
 would have probably described the chaste, exquisite cone 
 of Shishaldin on Unjmak Island — as peerless and apart in 
 its delicate beauty among mountains as Venice is among 
 cities — as "a mountain covered with snow to the very sea 
 and having a most elegant point." 
 
 There are many mountains more than twice the height 
 of Shishaldin, but there is nowhere one so beautiful. 
 
 Great though our veneration must be for those brave 
 mariners of early years, their apparent lack of appreciation 
 of the scenery of Alaska is to be deplored. It has fastened 
 upon the land an undeserved reputation for being "rugged" 
 and " gloomy " — two more of their adjectives ; of being 
 " ice-locked, ice-bound, and ice-bounded." We may par- 
 don them much, but scarcely the adjective " grotesque," 
 as applied to snow mountains. 
 
 Grenville Channel is a narrow, lovely reach, extending 
 in a northwestward direction from Wright Sound for 
 forty-five miles, when it merges into Arthur Passage. In 
 its slender course it curves neither to the right nor to the 
 left.
 
 32 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 In this reach, at one o'clock one June day, the thrilling 
 cry of " man overboard" ran over the decks of the Santa 
 Ana. There were more than two hundred passengers 
 aboard, and instantly an excited and dangerous stampede 
 to starboard and stern occurred ; but the captain, cool 
 and stern on the bridge, was equal to the perilous situa- 
 tion. A life-boat was ordered lowered, and the steerage 
 passengers were quietly forced to their quarters forward. 
 Life-buoys, life-preservers, chairs, ropes, and other articles 
 were flung overboard, until the water resembled a junk- 
 shop. Through them all, the man's dark, closely shaven 
 head could be seen, his face turned from the steamer, as 
 he swam fiercely toward the shore against a strong cur- 
 rent. The channel was too narrow for the steamer to 
 turn, but a boat was soon in hot pursuit of the man wlio 
 was struggling fearfully for the shore, and who was sup- 
 posed to be too bewildered to realize that he was headed 
 in the wrong direction. What was our amazement, when 
 the boat finally reached him, to discover, by the aid of 
 glasses, that he was resisting his rescuers. There was a 
 long struggle in the water before he was overcome and 
 dragged into the boat. 
 
 He was a pitiable sight when the boat came level with 
 the hurricane deck ; wild-eyed, gray-faced, shuddering 
 like a dog; his shirt torn open at the throat and exposing 
 its tragic emaciation; his glance flashing wildly from one 
 face to another, as though in search of one to be trusted — 
 he was an object to command the pity of the coldest heart. 
 In his hand was still gripped his soft hat which he had 
 taken from his head before jumping overboard. 
 
 " What is it, my man ? " asked the captain, kindly, ap- 
 proaching him. 
 
 The man's wild gaze steadied upon the captain and 
 seemed to recognize him as one in authority. 
 
 "They've been trying to kill me, sir, all the way up."
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 33 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 The poor fellow shuddered hard. 
 
 "They," he said. "They're on the boat. I had to 
 watch them night and day. I didn't dast go to sleep. It 
 got too much; I couldn't stand it. I had to get ashore. 
 I'd been waiting for this channel because it was so nar- 
 row. I thought the current 'u'd help me get away. I'm 
 a good swimmer." 
 
 "A better one never breasted a wave! Take him below. 
 Give him dry clothes and some whiskey, and set a watch 
 over him." 
 
 The poor wretch was led away; the crowd drifted after 
 him. Pale and quiet, the captain went back to the chart- 
 room and resumed his slow pacing forth and back. 
 
 " I wish tragedies of body and soul would not occur in 
 such beautiful lengths of water," he said at last. " I can 
 never sail through Grenville Channel again without see- 
 ing that poor fellow's haggard face and wild, appealing 
 eyes. And after Gardner Canal, there is not another on 
 the route more beautiful than this! " 
 
 Two inlets open into Grenville Channel on the starboard 
 going north, Lowe and Klewnuggit, — both affording safe 
 anchorage to vessels in trouble. Pitt Island forms almost 
 the entire western shore — a beautifully wooded one — 
 of the channel. There is a salmon cannery in Lowe Inlet, 
 beside a clear stream which leaps down from a lake in the 
 mountains. The waters and shores of Grenville have a 
 clear, washed green, which is springlike. In many of 
 the other narrow ways the waters are blue, or purple, or a 
 pale blue-gray; but here they suddenly lead you along 
 the palest of green, shimmering avenues, while mountains 
 of many-shaded green rise steeply on both sides, glimmer- 
 ing away into drifts of snow, which drop threads of silver 
 down the sheer heights. 
 
 This shaded green of the mountains is a feature of Alas-
 
 34 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 kan landscapes. Great landslides and windfalls cleave 
 their wa}' from summit to sea, mowing down the forests 
 in their path. In time the new growth springs up and 
 streaks the mountain side with lighter green. 
 
 Probably one-half of the trees in southeastern Alaska 
 are the Menzies spruce, or Sitka pine. Their needles are 
 sharp and of a bluish green. 
 
 The Menzies spruce was named for the Scotch botanist 
 who accompanied Vancouver. 
 
 The Alaska cedar is yellowish and lacy in appearance, 
 with a graceful droop to the branches. It grows to an 
 average height of one hundred and fifty feet. Its wood 
 is very valuable. 
 
 Arbor-vitse grows about the glaciers and in cool, dim 
 fiords. Birch, alder, maple, cottonwood, broom, and 
 hemlock-spruce are plentiful, but are of small value, save 
 in the cause of beauty. 
 
 The Menzies spruce attains its largest growth in the 
 Alexander Archipelago, but ranges as far south as Cali- 
 fornia. The Douglas fir is not so abundant as it is farther 
 south, nor does it grow to such great size. 
 
 The Alaska cedar is the most prized of all the cedars. 
 It is in great demand for ship-building, interior finishing, 
 cabinet-making, and other fine work, because of its close 
 texture, durable quality, and aromatic odor, which some- 
 what resembles that of sandalwood. In early years it 
 was shipped to Japan, where it was made into fancy boxes 
 and fans, which were sold under guise of that scented 
 Oriental wood. Its lasting qualities are remarkable — 
 sills having been found in perfect preservation after sixty 
 years' use in a wet climate. Its pleasant odor is as endur- 
 ing as the wood. The long, slender, pendulous fruits 
 which hang from the branches in season, give the tree a 
 peculiarly graceful and appealing appearance. 
 
 Tlie western white pine is used for interior work. It
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 35 
 
 is a magnificent tree, as seen in the forest, having bluish 
 green fronds and cones a foot long. 
 
 The giant arbor-vitoe attains its greatest size close to 
 the coast. The wood splits easily and makes durable 
 shingles. It takes a brilliant polish and is popular for 
 interior finishing. Its beauty of growth is well known. 
 
 Wherever there is sufficient rainfall, the fine-fronded 
 hemlock may be found tracing its lacelike outlines upon 
 the atmosphere. There is no evergreen so delicately 
 lovely as the hemlock. It stands apart, with a little air 
 of its own, as a fastidious small maid might draw her 
 skirts about her when common ones pass by. 
 
 The spruces, firs, and cedars grow so closely together 
 that at a distance they appear as a solid wall of shaded 
 green, varying from the lightest beryl tints, on through 
 bluish grays to the most vivid and dazzling emerald tones. 
 At a distance canyons and vast gulches are filled so softly 
 and so solidly that they can scarcely be detected, the trees 
 on the crests of the nearer hills blending into those above, 
 and concealing the deep spaces that sink between. 
 
 These forests have no tap-roots. Their roots spread 
 widely upon a thin layer of soil covering solid stone in 
 many cases, and more likely than not this soil is created 
 in the first place by the accumulation of parent needles. 
 Trees spring up in crevices of stone where a bit of sand 
 has sifted, grow, fruit, and shed their needles, and thrive 
 upon them. The undergrowth is so solid that one must 
 cut one's way through it, and the progress of surveyors or 
 prospectors is necessarily slow and difficult. 
 
 These forests are constantly drenched in the warm 
 mists precipitated by the Kuro Siwo striking upon the 
 snow, and in this quickening moisture they reach a bril- 
 liancy of coloring that is remarkable. At sunset, thread- 
 ing these narrow channels, one may see mountain upon 
 mountain climbing up to crests of snow, their lower
 
 36 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 wooded slopes covered with mists in palest blue and old 
 rose tones, through which the tips of the trees, crowded 
 close together, shine out in brilliant, many-shaded greens. 
 After Arthur Passage is that of Malacca, which is dotted 
 b}-- several islands. " Lawyer's," to starboard, bears a red 
 light ; " Lucy," to port, farther north, a fixed white light. 
 Directly opposite " Lucy " — who does not rival " Sarah," 
 or who in the pilot's words " has nothing about her " — is 
 old Metlakahtla.
 
 -' Vf
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 The famous ukase of 1821 was issued by the Russian 
 Emperor on the expiration of the twenty-year charter of 
 the Russian-American Company. It prohibited " to all 
 foreign vessels not only to land on the coasts and islands 
 belonging to Russia, as stated above" (including the 
 whole of the northwest coast of America, beginning from 
 Behring Strait to the fifty-first degree of northern lati- 
 tude, also from the Aleutian Islands to the eastern coast of 
 Siberia, as well as along the Kurile Islands from Behring 
 Strait to the south cape of the Island of Urup) " but also to 
 approach them within less than one hundred miles." 
 
 After the Nootka Convention in 1790, the Northwest 
 Coast was open to free settlement and trade by the people 
 of any country. It was claimed by the Russians to the 
 Columbia, afterward to the northern end of Vancouver 
 Island ; by the British, from the Columbia to the fifty- 
 fifth degree; and by the United States, from the Rocky 
 Mountains to the Pacific, between Forty-two and Fifty- 
 four, Forty. By the treaty of 1819, by which Florida 
 was ceded to us by Spain, the United States acquired all 
 of Spanish rights and claims on the coast north of the 
 forty-second degree. By its trading posts and regular trad- 
 ing vessels, the United States was actually in possession. 
 
 By treaty with the United States in 1824, and with 
 Great Britain in 1825, Russia, realizing her mistake in 
 issuing the ukase of 1821, agreed to Fifty-four, Forty as 
 the limit of her possessions to southward. Of the interior 
 
 37
 
 38 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 regions, Russia claimed the Yukon region ; England, that 
 of the Mackenzie and the country between Hudson Bay 
 and the Rocky Mountains ; the United States, all west of 
 the Rockies, north of Forty-two. 
 
 The year previous to the one in which the United 
 States acquired Florida and all Spanish rights on the 
 Pacific Coast north of Forty-two, the United States and 
 England had agreed to a joint occupation of the region. 
 In 1828 this was indefinitely extended, but with the 
 emigration to Oregon in the early forties, this country 
 demanded a settlement of the boundary question. 
 
 President Tyler, in his message to Congress in 1843, 
 declared that "the United States rights appertain to all 
 between forty-two degrees and fifty-four degrees and 
 forty minutes." 
 
 The leading Democrats of the South were at that time 
 advocating the annexation of Texas. Mr. Calhoun was 
 an ardent champion of the cause, and was endeavoring to 
 effect a settlement with the British minister, offering the 
 forty-ninth parallel as a compromise on the boundary 
 dispute, in his eagerness to acquire Texas without danger 
 of interference. 
 
 The compromise was declined by the British minister. 
 
 In 1844 slave interests defeated Mr. Van Buren in his 
 aspirations to the presidency. Mr. Clay was nominated 
 instead. The latter opposed the annexation of Texas and 
 advised caution and compromise in the Oregon question ; 
 but the Democrats nominated Polk and under the war-cry 
 of "Fifty -four, Forty, or Fight," bore him on to victory. 
 The convention which nominated him advocated the 
 reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon ; 
 the two significant words being used to make it clear that 
 Texas had belonged to us before, through the Louisiana 
 purchase ; and Oregon, before the treaty of joint occupa- 
 tion with Great Britain.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 39 
 
 President Polk, in his message, declared that, " beyond 
 all question, the protection of our laws and our jurisdic- 
 tion, civil and criminal, ought to be immediately extended 
 over our citizens in Oregon." 
 
 He quoted from the convention which had nominated 
 him that " our title to the country of Oregon as far as 
 Fifty-four, Forty, is clear and unquestionable ; " and he 
 boldly declared "for all of Oregon or none." 
 
 John Qiiincy Adams eloquently supported our title to 
 the country to the line of Fifty-four, Forty in a powerful 
 speech in the House of Representatives. 
 
 Yet it soon became apparent that both the Texas policy 
 and the Oregon question could not be successfully carried 
 out during the administration. " Fifty-four, Forty, or 
 Fight " as a watchword in a presidential campaign was 
 one thing, but as a challenge to fight flung in the face 
 of Great Britain, it was quite another. 
 
 In February, 1846, the House declared in favor of giv- 
 ing notice to Great Britain that the joint occupancy of 
 the Oregon country must cease. The Senate, realizing 
 that this resolution was practically a declaration of war, 
 declined to adopt it, after a very bitter and fiery con- 
 troversy. 
 
 Those who retreated from their first position on the 
 question were hotly denounced by Senator Hannegan, the 
 Democratic senator from Indiana. He boldly attacked 
 the motives which led to their retreat, and angrily ex- 
 claimed : — 
 
 "• If Oregon were good for the production of sugar and 
 cotton, it would not have encountered this opposition." 
 
 The resolution was almost unanimously opposed by the 
 Whig senators. Mr. Webster, while avoiding tlie point 
 of our actual rights in the matter, urged that a settle- 
 ment on the line of the forty-ninth parallel be recom- 
 mended, as permitting both countries to compromise with
 
 40 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 dignity and honor. The resolution that was finally passed 
 by the Senate and afterward by the House, authorized 
 the president to give notice at his discretion to Great 
 Britain that the treaty should be terminated, " in order 
 that the attention of the governments of both countries 
 may be the more earnestly directed to the adoption of 
 all proper measures for a speedy and amicable adjustment 
 of the differences and disputes in regard to said territory."' 
 
 Forever to their honor be it remembered that a few of 
 the Southern Democrats refused to retreat from their first 
 position — among them, Stephen A. Douglas. Senator 
 Hannegan reproached his party for breaking the pledges 
 on which it had marched to victory. 
 
 The passage of the milk-and-water resolution restored 
 to the timid of the country a feeling of relief and security ; 
 but to the others, and to the generations to come after 
 them, helpless anger and undying shame. 
 
 The country yielded was ours. We gave it up solely 
 because to retain it we must fight, and we were not in a 
 position at that time to fight Great Britain. 
 
 When the Oregon Treaty, as it was called, was con- 
 cluded by Secretary Buchanan and Minister Pakenham, 
 we lost the splendid country now known as British 
 Columbia, which, after our purchase of Alaska from Rus- 
 sia, would have given us an unbroken frontage on the 
 Pacific Ocean from Southern California to Behring Strait, 
 and almost to the mouth of the Mackenzie River on the 
 Fi'ozen Ocean. 
 
 Many reasons have been assigned by historians for the 
 retreat of the Southern Democrats from their former bold 
 and flaunting position ; but in the end the simple truth 
 will be admitted — that they might brag, but were not in 
 a position to fight. They were like Lieutenant Whidbey, 
 whom Vancouver sent out to explore Lynn Canal in a 
 small boat. Mr. Whidbey was ever ready and eager, when
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 41 
 
 he deemed it necessary, to fire iipuu a small party of 
 Indians ; but when they met him, full front, in formidable 
 numbers and with couched spears, he instantly fell into 
 a panic and deemed it more " humane " to avoid a conflict 
 with those poor, ignorant people. 
 
 The Southern Democrats who betrayed their country 
 in 1846 were the Whidbeys of the United States. For 
 no better reason than that of " humanity," they gave 
 nearly four hundred thousand square miles of magnificent 
 country to Great Britain. 
 
 Another problem in this famous boundary settlement 
 question has interested American historians for sixty 
 years : Why England yielded so much valuable territory to 
 the United States, after protecting what she claimed as her 
 rights so boldly and so unflinchingly for so many years. 
 
 Professor Schafer, the head, of the Department of 
 American History at the University of Oregon, claims to 
 have recently found indisputable proof in the records of 
 the British Foreign Office and those of the old Hudson's 
 Bay Company, in London, that the abandonment of the 
 British claim was influenced by the presence of American 
 pioiieers who had pushed across the continent and settled 
 in the disputed territory, bringing their families and 
 founding homes in the wilderness. 
 
 England knew, in her heart, that the whole disputed 
 territory was ours ; and as our claims were strengthened 
 by settlement, she was sufficiently far-sighted to be glad 
 to compromise at that time. If the Oregon Treaty had 
 been delayed for a few years, British Columbia would 
 now be ours. Proofs which strengthen our claim were 
 found in the winter of 1907-1908 in the archives of Sitka. 
 
 There would be more justice in our laying claim to 
 British Columbia now, than there was in the claims of 
 Great Britain in the famous lisiere matter which was 
 settled in 1903.
 
 42 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 By the treaties of 1824, between Russia and tlie 
 United States, and of 1825, between Russia and Great 
 Britain, the limits of Russian possessions are thus defined, 
 and upon our purchase of Alaska from Russia, were 
 repeated in the Treaty of Washington in 18G7: — 
 
 "Commencing from the southernmost point of the 
 island called Prince of Wales Island, which point lies in 
 the parallel of fifty-four degrees and forty minutes north 
 latitude, and between the one hundred and thirty-first and 
 the one hundred and thirty-third degree of west longi- 
 tude (meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend 
 to the North along the channel called Portland Channel, 
 as far as the point of the continent where it strikes the 
 fifty-sixth degree of north latitude ; from this last men- 
 tioned point, the line of demarcation shall follow the 
 summit of the mountains situated parallel to the coast as 
 far as the point of intersection of the one hundred and 
 forty-first degree of west longitude (of the same merid- 
 ian) ; and finally, from the said point of intersection, 
 the said meridian line of the one hundred and forty-first 
 degree, in its prolongation as far as the Frozen Ocean, 
 shall form the limit between the Russian and British pos- 
 sessions on the Continent of America to the northwest. 
 
 " With reference to the line of demarcation laid down 
 in tlie preceding article, it is understood : — 
 
 " First, That the island called Prince of Wales Island 
 shall belong wholly to Russia. 
 
 " Second, That wlienever the summit of the mountains 
 which extend parallel to the coast from the fifty-sixth 
 degree of north latitude to the point of intersection of 
 the one hundred and forty-first degree of west longitude 
 shall prove to be at the distance of more than ten marine 
 leagues from the ocean, the limit between the British 
 possessions and the line of coast which is to belong to 
 Russia as above mentioned shall be formed by a line
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 43 
 
 parallel to the windings of the coast, and which shall 
 never exceed the distance of ten marine leagues there- 
 from. 
 
 "The western limit within which the territories and 
 dominion conveyed are coiitained, passes through a point 
 in Behring Strait on the parallel of sixty-five degrees, 
 thirty minutes, north latitude, at its intersection by the 
 meridian which passes midway between the islands of 
 Krusenstern, or Ignalook, and the island of Ratmanoff, 
 or Noonarbook, and proceeds due north, without limita- 
 tion, into the same Frozen Ocean. The same western 
 limit, beginning at the same initial point, proceeds thence 
 in a course nearly southwest, through Behring Strait 
 and Behring Sea, so as to pass midway between the 
 northwest point of the island of St. Lawrence and the 
 southeast point of Cape Choukotski, to the meridian of 
 one hundred and seventy-two west longitude ; thence, 
 from the intersection of that meridian in a southwesterly 
 direction, so as to pass midway between the island of 
 Attou and the Copper Island of the Kormandorski coup- 
 let or group in the North Pacific Ocean, to the meridian 
 of one hundred and ninety-three degrees west longitude, 
 so as to include in the territory conveyed the whole of the 
 Aleutian Islands east of that meridian." 
 
 In the cession was included the right of property in all 
 public lots and squares, vacant lands, and all public build- 
 ings, fortifications, barracks, and other edifices, which were 
 not private individual property. It was, however, under- 
 stood and agreed that the churches which had been built 
 in the ceded territory by the Russian government should 
 remain the property of such members of the Greek Orien- 
 tal Church resident in the territory as might choose to 
 worship therein. All government archives, papers, and 
 documents relative to the territory and dominion afore- 
 said which were existinsr there at the time of transfer
 
 44 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 were left in possession of the agent of the United States ; 
 with the understanding that the Russian government or 
 any Russian subject may at any time secure an authenti- 
 cated copy tliereof. 
 
 The inhabitants of the territory were given their choice 
 of returning to Russia within three years, or remaining 
 in the territory and being admitted to the enjoyment of 
 all rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the 
 United States, protected in the free enjoyment of their 
 liberty, property, and religion. 
 
 It must be confessed with chagrin that very few Rus- 
 sians availed themselves of this opportunity to free them- 
 selves from the supposed oppression of their government, 
 to unite with the vaunted glories of ours. 
 
 Before 1825, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and the 
 United States had no rights of occupation and assertion 
 on the Northwest Coast. Different nations had "planted 
 bottles " and " taken possession " wherever their explorers 
 had chanced to land, frequently ignoring the same cere- 
 mony on the part of previous explorers ; but these for- 
 malities did not weigh against the rights of discovery and 
 actual occupation by Russia — else Spain's rights would 
 have been prior to Great Britain's. 
 
 Between the years of 1542 and 1774 Spanish explorers 
 had examined and traced the western coast of America as 
 far north as fifty-four degrees and forty minutes, Perez 
 having reached that latitude in 1774, discovering Queen 
 Charlotte Islands on the 16th of June, and Nootka Sound 
 on the 9th of August. 
 
 Although he did not land, he had friendly relations 
 with the natives, who surrounded his ship, singing and 
 scattering white feathers as a beautiful token of peace. 
 They traded dried fish, furs, and ornaments of their own 
 making for knives and old iron ; and two, at least, 
 boarded the ship.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY -15 
 
 Perez named the northernmost point of Queen Charlotte 
 Islands Point Santa Margarita. 
 
 Proceeding south, he made a landfall and anchored in 
 a roadstead in forty-nine degrees and thirty minutes, 
 which he called San Lorenzo — afterward the famous 
 Nootka of Vancouver Island. He also discovered the 
 beautiful white mountain which dignifies the entrance to 
 Puget Sound, and named it Santa Rosalia. It was 
 renamed Mount Olympus fourteen years later by John 
 Meares. 
 
 This was the first discovery of the Northwest Coast, 
 and when Cook and Vancouver came, it was to find that 
 the Spanish had preceded them. 
 
 Not content with occupying the splendid possessions 
 of the United States through the not famous, but 
 infamous, Oregon Treaty, Canada, upon the discovery of 
 gold in the Cassiar district of British Columbia, brought 
 up the question of the lisiere, or tliirty-mile strip. This 
 was the strip of land, "not exceeding ten marine leagues 
 in width," which bordered the coast from the southern 
 limit of Russian territory at Portland Canal (now the 
 southern boundary of Alaska) to the vicinity of Mount 
 St. Elias. The purpose of this strip was stated by the 
 Russian negotiations to be " the establishment of a barrier 
 at which would be stopped, once for all, to the North as to 
 the West of the coast allotted to our American Company, 
 the encroachments of the English agents of the Amalga- 
 mated Hudson Bay and Northwest English Company." 
 
 In 1824, upon the proposal of Sir Charles Bagot to 
 assign to Russia a strip with the uniform width of ten 
 marine leagues from the shore, limited on the south by a 
 line between thirty and forty miles north from the north- 
 ern end of the Portland Canal, the Russian Plenipoten- 
 tiaries replied : — 
 
 " The motive which caused the adoption of the principle
 
 46 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 of mutual expediency to be proposed, and the most impor- 
 tant advantage of this principle, is to prevent tlie respec- 
 tive establishments on the Northwest Coast from injuring 
 each other and entering into collision. 
 
 " The English establishments of the Hudson Bay and 
 Northwest companies have a tendency to advance west- 
 ward along the fifty-third and fifty-fourth degrees of 
 north latitude. 
 
 "• The Russian establishments of the American Com- 
 pany have a tendency to descend southward toward the 
 tifty-fifth parallel and beyond; for it should be noted that, 
 if the American Company has not yet made permanent 
 establishments on the mathematical line of the fifty-fifth 
 degree, it is nevertheless true that by virtue of its privi- 
 lege of 1799, against which privilege no power has ever 
 protested, it is exploiting the hunting and the fishing in 
 these regions, and that it regularly occupies the islands 
 and the neighboring coasts during the season, which 
 allows it to send its hunters and fishermen there. 
 
 " It was, then, to the mutual advantage of the two 
 Empires to assign just limits to tliis advance on both 
 sides, which, in time, could not fail to cause most unfor- 
 tunate complications. 
 
 " It was also to their mutual advantage to fix their 
 limits according to natural partitions, which always con- 
 stitute the most distinct and certain frontiers. 
 
 "■ For these reasons the Plenipotentiaries of Russia have 
 proposed as limits upon the coast of the continent, to the 
 South, Portland Channel, the head of which lies about 
 Cpar) the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, and to the 
 East, the chain of mountains which follows at a very short 
 distance the sinuosities of the coast." 
 
 Sir Charles Bagot urged the line proposed by himself 
 and offered, on the part of Great Britain, to include the 
 Prince of Wales Island within the Russian line.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 47 
 
 Russia, however, insisted upon having her lisiere run 
 to the Portland Canal, declaring that the possession of 
 Wales Island, without a slice (portion) of territory upon 
 the coast situated in front of that island, could be of 
 no utility whatever to Russia ; that any establishment 
 formed upon said island, or upon the surrounding islands, 
 would find itself, as it were, flanked by the English 
 establishments on the mainland, and completely at the 
 mercy of these latter. 
 
 England finally yielded to the Russian demand that the 
 lisiere should extend to the Portland Canal. 
 
 The claim that the Canadian government put forth, 
 after the discovery of gold had made it important that 
 Canada should secure a short line of traffic between the 
 northern interior and the ocean, was that the wording of 
 certain parts of the treaty of 1825 had been wrongly in- 
 terpreted. The Canadians insisted that it was not the 
 meaning nor the intention of the Convention of 1825 that 
 there should remain in the exclusive possession of Russia 
 a continuous fringe, or strip — the lisiere — of coast, sep- 
 arating the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, 
 havens, and waters of the ocean. 
 
 Or, if it should be decided that this was the meaning 
 of the treaty, they maintained that the width of the lisiere 
 was to be measured from the line of the general direction 
 of the mainland coast, and not from the heads of the many 
 inlets. 
 
 They claimed, also, that the broad and beautiful " Port- 
 land's Canal " of Vancouver and the " Portland Channel " 
 of the Convention of 1825, were the Pearse Channel or 
 Inlet of more recent times. This contention, if sustained, 
 would give them our Wales and Pearse islands. 
 
 It was early suspected, however, that this claim was 
 only made that they might have something to yield when, 
 as they hoped, their later claim to Pyramid Harbor and
 
 48 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 the valley of the Chilkaht River should be made and 
 upheld. This would give them a clear route iuto the 
 Klondike territory. 
 
 In 1898 a Joint High Commission was appointed for 
 the consideration of Pelagic Fur Sealing, Commercial 
 Reciprocity, and the Alaska Boundary.' The Commission 
 met in Quebec. The discussion upon the boundary con- 
 tinued for several months, the members being unable to 
 agree upon the meaning of the wording of the treaty of 
 1825. 
 
 The British and Canadian members, thereupon, un- 
 blushingly proposed that the United States should cede to 
 Canada Pyramid Harbor and a strip of land through the 
 entire width of the lisiere. 
 
 To Americans who know that part of our country, this 
 proposal came as a shock. Pyramid Harbor is the best 
 harbor in that vicinity; and its cession, accompanied by a 
 highwa}'^ through the lisiere to British possessions, would 
 have given Canada the most desirable route at that time 
 to the Yukon and the Klondike — the rivers upon which 
 the eyes of all nations were at that time set. Many 
 routes into that rich and picturesque region had been 
 tested, but no other had proved so satisfactory. 
 
 It has since developed that the Skaguay route is the 
 real prize. Had Canada foreseen this, she would not have 
 hesitated to demand it. 
 
 From the disagreement of the Joint High Commission 
 of 1898 arose the modus vivendi of the following year. 
 There has been a very general opinion that the temporary 
 boundary points around the heads of the inlets at the 
 northern end of Lynn Canal, laid down in that year, were 
 fixed for all time — although it seems impossible that this 
 opinion could be held by any one knowing the definition of 
 the term "modus vivendi." 
 
 By the modus vivendi Canada was given temporary
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 49 
 
 possession of valuable Chilkalit territory, and her new 
 maps were made accordingly. 
 
 In 1903 a tribunal composed of three American mem- 
 bers and three representing Great Britain, two of whom 
 were Canadians, met in Great Britain, to settle certain 
 questions relating to the Usiere. 
 
 The seven large volumes covering the arguments and 
 decisions of this tribunal, as published by the United 
 States government, make intensely interesting and valua- 
 ble reading to one who cares for Alaska. 
 
 The majority of the tribunal, that is to say, Lord 
 Alverstone and the three members from the United States, 
 decided that the Canadians have no rights to the waters of 
 any of the inlets, and that it was the meaning of the Con- 
 vention of 1825 that the Usiere should for all time separate 
 the British possessions from the bays, ports, inlets, and 
 waters of the ocean north of British Columbia ; and that, 
 furthermore, the width of the Usiere was not to be meas- 
 ured from the line of the general direction of the mainland 
 coast, leaping the bays and inlets, but from a line running 
 around the heads of such indentations. 
 
 The tribunal, however, awarded Pearse and Wales 
 islands, which belonged to us, to Canada ; it also nar- 
 rowed the Usiere in several important points, notably on 
 the Stikine and Taku rivers. 
 
 The fifth question, however, was the vital one ; and it 
 was answered in our favor, the two Canadian members dis- 
 senting. The boundary lines have now been changed on 
 both United States and Canadian maps, in conformity with 
 the decisions of the tribunal. 
 
 Blaine, Bancroft, and Davidson have made the clearest 
 statements of the boundary troubles.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The first landing made by United States boats after 
 leaving Seattle is at Ketchikan. This is a comparatively 
 new town. It is seven hundred miles from Seattle, and is 
 reached early on the third morning out. It is the first 
 town in Alaska, and glistens white and new on its gentle 
 hills soon after crossing the boundary line in Dixon 
 Entrance — which is always saluted by the lifting of hats 
 and the waving of handkerchiefs on the part of patriotic 
 Americans. 
 
 Ketchikan has a population of fifteen hundred people. 
 It is the distributing point for the mines and fisheries of 
 this section of southeastern Alaska. It is the present port 
 of entry, and the Customs Office adds to the dignity of the 
 town. There is a good court-house, a saw-mill with a 
 capacity of twenty-five thousand feet daily, a shingle mill, 
 salmon canneries, machine shops, a good water system, a 
 cold storage plant, two excellent hotels, good schools and 
 churches, a progressive newspaper, several large wharves, 
 modern and well-stocked stores and shops, and a sufficient 
 number of saloons. The town is lighted by electricity 
 and many of the buildings are heated by steam. A cred- 
 itable chamber of commerce is maintained. 
 
 There are seven salmon canneries in operation which 
 are tributary to Ketchikan. The most important one 
 " mild-cures " fish for the German market. 
 
 Among the " shipping " mines, which are within a radius 
 of fifty miles, and which receive mails and supplies from 
 
 50
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 51 
 
 Ketcliikan, are the Mount Andrews, the Stevenston, the 
 Mamies, tlie Russian Brown, the Hydah, the Niblack, and 
 the Sulzer. From fifteen to twenty prospects are under 
 development. 
 
 There are smelters in operation at Hadley and Copper 
 Mountain, on Prince of Wales Island. From Ketchikan 
 to all points in the mining and fishing districts safe and 
 commodious steamers are regularly operated. The chief 
 mining industries are silver, copper, and gold. 
 
 The residences are for the most part small, but, climb- 
 ing by green terraces over the hill and surrounded by 
 flowers and neat lawns, they impart an air of picturesque- 
 ness to the town. There are several totem-poles ; the 
 handsomest was erected to the memory of Chief " Captain 
 John," by his nephew, at the entrance to the house now 
 occupied by the latter. The nephew asserts that he paid 
 $2060 for the carving and making of the totem. Owing to 
 its freshly painted and gaudy appearance, it is as lacking in 
 interest as the one which stands in Pioneer Square, Seattle, 
 and which was raped from a northern Indian village. 
 
 Four times had I landed at Ketchikan on my way to far 
 beautiful places ; with many people had I talked concern- 
 ing the place ; folders of steamship companies and pam- 
 phlets of boards of trade had I read ; yet never from any 
 person nor from any printed page had I received the faint- 
 est glimmer that this busy, commercially described north- 
 western town held, almost in its heart, one of the enduring 
 and priceless jewels of Alaska. To the beauty-loving, 
 Norwegian captain of the steamship Jefferson was I at last 
 indebted for one of the real delights of my life. 
 
 It was near the middle of a July night, and raining 
 heavily, when the captain said to us : — 
 
 " Be ready on the stroke of seven in the morning, and 
 I'll show you one of the beautiful things of Alaska."
 
 52 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 "But — at Ketchikan, captain ! " 
 
 "Yes, at Ketchikan." 
 
 I tliought of all the vaunted attractions of Ketchikan 
 which had ever been brought to my observation ; and I 
 felt that at seven o'clock in the morning, in a pouring 
 rain, I could live without every one of them. Then — the 
 charm of a warm berth in a gray hour, the cup of hot 
 coffee, the last dream to the drowsy throb of the steamer — 
 
 " It will be raining, captain," one said, feebly. 
 
 The look of disgust that went across his expressive face ! 
 
 " What if it is ! You won't know it's raining as soon as 
 you get your eyes filled with what I want to show you. 
 But if you're one of that kind — " 
 
 He made a gesture of dismissal with his hands, palms 
 outward, and turned away. 
 
 " Captain, I shall be ready at seven. I'm not one of 
 that kind," we all cried together. 
 
 " All right ; but I won't wait five minutes. There'll be 
 two hundred passengers waiting to go." 
 
 "You know that letter that Thomas Bailey Aldrich 
 wrote to Professor Morse," spoke up a lady from Boston, 
 who had overheard. " You know Professor INIorse wrote 
 a hand that couldn't be deciphered, and among other things, 
 Mr. Aldrich wrote : ' There's a singular and perpetual 
 charm in a letter of yours ; it never grows old; it never 
 loses its novelty. One can say to one's self every day : 
 " There's that letter of Morse's. I have not read it yet. 
 I think I shall take another shy at it." Other letters are 
 read and thrown away and forgotten ; but yours are kept for- 
 ever — unread ! ' Now, that letter, somehow, in the vaguest 
 kind of way, suggests itself when one considers this getting 
 up anywhere from three to six in the morning to see things 
 in Alaska. There's always something to be seen during 
 these unearthly hours. Every night we are convinced 
 that we will be on deck early, to see something, and we
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 53 
 
 leave an order to be wakened ; but when the dreaded 
 knocking comes upon the door, and a hoarse voice an- 
 nounces ' Wrangell Narrows,' or ' Lama Pass,' our berths 
 suddenly take on curves and attractions they possess at no 
 other time. The side-rails into which we have been 
 bumping seem to be cushioned with down, the space 
 between berths to grow wider, the air in the room sweeter 
 and more drowsily delicious. We say, ' Oh, we'll get up 
 to-morrow morning and see something,' and we pull the 
 berth-curtain down past our faces and go to sleep. After 
 a while, it grows to be one of the perpetual charms of a 
 trip to Alaska — this always going to get up in the morn- 
 ing and this never getting up. It never grows old ; it 
 never loses its novelty. One can say to one's self every 
 morning: ' There's that little matter to decide now about 
 getting up. Shall I, or shall I not ? ' I have been to 
 Alaska three times, but I've never seen Ketchikan. Other 
 places are seen and admired and forgotten ; but it remains 
 forever — unseen. . . . Now, I'll go and give an order to 
 be called at half-past six, to see this wonderful thing at 
 Ketchikan ! " 
 
 I looked around for her as I went down the slushy deck 
 the next morning on the stroke of seven ; but she was not 
 in sight. It was raining heavily and steadily — a cold, 
 thick rain ; the wind was so strong and so changeful that 
 an umbrella could scarcely be held. 
 
 Alas for the captain ! Out of his boasted two hundred 
 passengers, there came forth, dripping and suspicious- 
 eyed, openly scenting a joke, only four women and one 
 man. But the captain was undaunted. He would listen 
 to no remonstrances. 
 
 " Come on, now," he cried, cheerfully, leading the way. 
 " You told me you came to Alaska to see things, and as 
 long as you travel with me, you are going to see all that 
 is worth seeing. Let the others sleep. Anybody can
 
 54 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 sleep. You can sleep at home ; but you can't see what I 
 am going to show you now anywhere but in Alaska. Do 
 you suppose I would get up at this hour and waste my 
 time on you, if I didn't know you'd thank me for it all the 
 rest of your life ? " 
 
 So on and on we went ; up one street and down another ; 
 around sharp corners ; past totem-poles, saloons, stylish 
 shops, windows piled with Indian baskets and carvings ; 
 up steps and down terraces ; along gravelled roads ; and 
 at last, across a little bridge, around a wooded curve, — and 
 then — 
 
 Something met us face to face. I shall always believe 
 that it was the very spirit of the woods that went past us, 
 laughing and saluting, suddenly startled from her morning 
 bath in the clear, amber-brown stream that came foaming 
 musically down over smooth stones from the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 It was so sudden, so unexpected. One moment, we 
 were in the little northern fishing- and mining-town, which 
 sits by the sea, trumpeting its commercial glories to the 
 world ; the next, we were in the forest, and under the 
 spell of this wild, sweet thing that fled past us, returned, 
 and lured us on. 
 
 For three miles we followed the mocking call of the 
 
 spirit of the brown stream. Her breath was as sweet as 
 
 the breath of wild roses covered with dew. Never in the 
 
 woods have I been so impressed, so startled, with the feel- 
 
 ' ing that a living thing was calling me. 
 
 We could find no words to express our delight as we 
 climbed the path beside the brown stream, whose waters 
 came laughingly down through a deep, dim gorge. They 
 fell sheer in sparkling cataracts ; they widened into thin, 
 singing shallows of palest amber, clinking against the 
 stones ; narrow and foaming, they wound in and out 
 among the trees ; they disappeared completely under wide
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 55 
 
 sprays of ferns and the flat, spreading branches of trees, 
 only to " make a sudden sally " farther down. 
 
 At first we were level with them, walked beside them, 
 and paused to watch the golden gleams in their clear 
 depths ; but gradually we climbed, until we were hundreds 
 of feet above them. 
 
 Down in those purple shadows they went romping on to 
 tlie sea ; sometimes only a flash told us where they curved ; 
 other times, they pushed out into open spaces, and made 
 pause in deep pools, where they whirled and eddied for a 
 moment before drawing together and hurrying on. But 
 alwa3-s and everywhere the music of their wild, sweet, 
 childish laughter floated up to us. 
 
 In the dim light of early morning the fine mist of the 
 rain sinking through the gorge took on tones of lavender 
 and purple. The tall trees climbing through it seemed 
 even more beautiful than they really were, by the touch 
 of mj^stery lent by the rain. 
 
 I wish that Max Nonnenbruch, who painted the adorable, 
 compelling " Bride of the Wind," might paint the elfish 
 sprite that dwells in the gorge at Ketchikan. He, and he 
 alone, could paint her so that one could hear her impish 
 laughter, and her mocking, fluting call. 
 
 The name of the stream I shall never tell. Only an 
 unimaginative modern Vancouver or Cook could have 
 bestowed upon it the name that burdens it to-day. Let 
 it be the " brown stream " at Ketchikan. 
 
 If the people of the town be wise, they will gather this 
 gorge to themselves while they may ; treasure it, cherish 
 it, and keep it "unspotted from the world " — yet for the 
 world. 
 
 Metlakahtla means "the channel open at both ends." 
 It was here that Mr. William Duncan came in 1857, from 
 England, as a lay worker for the Church Mission Society.
 
 56 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 It had been represented that existing conditions among 
 the natives sorely demanded high-minded missionary work. 
 The savages at Fort Simpson were considered the worst 
 on the coast at that time, and he was urged not to locate 
 there. Undaunted, however, Mr. Duncan, who was then 
 a ver}^ young man, filled with the fire and zeal of one who 
 has not known failure, chose this very spot in which to 
 begin his work — among Indians so low in the scale of 
 human intelligence that they had even been accused of 
 cannibalism. 
 
 Port Simpson was then an important trading-post of the 
 Hudson Bay Company. It had been established in the 
 early thirties about forty miles up Nass River, but a few 
 years later was removed to a point on the Tsimpsian Penin- 
 sula. In 1841 Sir George Simpson found about fourteen 
 thousand Indians, of various tribes, living there. He 
 found them "peculiarly comely, strong, and well-grown 
 . . . remarkably clever and ingenious." 
 
 The}'' carved neatly in stone, wood, and ivory. Sir 
 George Simpson relates with horror that the savages fre- 
 quently ate the dead bodies of their relatives, some of 
 whom had died of smallpox, even after they had become 
 putrid. They were horribly diseased in other ways ; and 
 many had lost their eyes through the ravages of smallpox 
 or other disease. They fought fiercely and turbulently 
 with other tribes. 
 
 Such were the Indians among whom Mr. Duncan chose 
 to work. He was peculiarly fitted for this work, being 
 possessed of certain unusual qualities and attributes of 
 character which make for success. 
 
 The unselfishness and integrity of his nature made 
 themselves visible in his handsome face, and particularly 
 in the direct gaze of his large and intensely earnest blue 
 eyes ; his manners were simple, and his air was one of 
 quiet command ; he had unfailing cheerfulness, faith, and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 57 
 
 that quality which struggles on under the heaviest dis- 
 couragement with no thought of giving up. 
 
 • His word was as good as his bond ; his energy and 
 enthusiasm were untiring, and he never attempted to 
 work his Indians harder than he himself worked. The 
 entire absence of that trait which seeks self-praise or self- 
 glory, — in fact, his absolute self-effacement, his devotion 
 of self and self-interest to others, and to hard and humble 
 work for others, — all these high and noble parts of an 
 unusual and lovable character, added to a most winning 
 and attractive personality, gradually won for young Will- 
 iam Duncan the almost Utopian success which many others 
 in various parts of the world have so far worked for in 
 vain. 
 
 The Indians grew to trust his word, to believe in his 
 sincerity and single-heartedness, to accept his teachings, 
 to love him, and finally, and most reluctantly of all, to 
 work for him. 
 
 At first only fifty of the Tsimsheans, or Tsimpsians, 
 accompanied him to the site of his first community settle- 
 ment. Here the land was cleared and cultivated ; neat 
 two-story cottages, a church, a schoolhouse, stores on the 
 cooperative plan, a saw-mill, and a cannery, were erected 
 by Mr. Duncan and the Indians. At first a corps of able 
 assistants worked with Mr. Duncan, instructing the 
 Indians in various industries and arts, until the young 
 men were themselves able to carry along the different 
 branches of work, — such as carpentry, shoemaking, 
 cabinet building, tanning, rope-making, and boat building. 
 The village band was instructed by a German, until one 
 among them was qualified to become their band-master. 
 The women were taught to cook, to sew, to keep house, to 
 weave, and to care for the sick. 
 
 Here was a model village, an Utopian community, an 
 ideal life, — founded and carried on by the genius of one
 
 68 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTS Y 
 
 3'oung, simple-hearted, high-minded, earnest, and self- 
 devoted English gentleman. 
 
 But William Duncan's way, although strewn with the 
 full sweet roses of success, was not without its bitter, 
 stinging thorns. Mr. Duncan was not an ordained min- 
 ister, and in 1881 it was decided by the Church of Eng- 
 land authorities who had sent Mr. Duncan out, that his 
 field should be formed into a separate diocese, and as this 
 decision necessitated the residence of a bishop. Bishop 
 Ridley was sent to the field — a man whose name will 
 ever stand as a dark blot upon the otlierwise clean page 
 whereon is written the story which all men honor and all 
 men praise — the story of the exalted life-work of William 
 Duncan. 
 
 Mr. Duncan, being a layman, had conducted services of 
 the simplest nature, and had not considered it advisable 
 to hold communion services which would be embarrassing 
 of explanation to people so recently won from the customs 
 of cannibalism. Bigoted and opinionated, and failing 
 utterly to understand the Indians, to win their confidence, 
 or to exercise patience with them, Bishop Ridley declined 
 to be under the direction of a man who was not ordained, 
 and criticised the form of service held by Mr. Duncan. 
 The latter, having been in sole charge of his work for 
 more than thirty years, and being conscious of its full and 
 unusual results, chafed under the Bishop's supervision and 
 superintendence. 
 
 In the meantime, seven other missions had been estab- 
 lished at various stations in southeastern Alaska. The 
 Bishop undertook to inaugurate communion services. 
 This was strongly opposed by Mr. Duncan, and he was 
 supported by the Indians, who were sincerely attached to 
 him, the Society in England sympathizing with the Bishop. 
 Friction between the two was ceaseless and bitter, and 
 continued until 1887. This has been civen out as the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 59 
 
 cause of the withdrawal of Mr. Duncan to New Met- 
 lakahtla ; but his own people — graduates of Eastern 
 universities — claim that it is not the true reason. He 
 and his Indians had for some time desired to be under 
 the laws of the United States, and in 1887 Mr. Duncan 
 went to Washington City to negotiate with the United 
 States for Annette Island. The Bishop established him- 
 self in residence, but failed ignominiously to win the 
 respect of the Indians. He quarrelled with them in the 
 commonest way, struck them, went among them armed, 
 and finally appealed to a man-of-war for protection from 
 people whom he considered bloodthirsty savages. 
 
 Mr. Duncan, having been successful in his mission to 
 Washington, his faithful followers, during his absence, 
 removed to Annette Island, and here he found on his 
 return all but one hundred out of the original eight hun- 
 dred which had composed his village on the Bishop's 
 arrival — the few having been persuaded to remain with 
 the latter at Old Metlakahtla. Those who went to the 
 new location on Annette were allowed by the Canadian 
 government to take nothing but their personal property ; 
 all their houses, public buildings, and community interests 
 being sacrificed to their devotion to William Duncan — 
 and this is, perhaps, the highest, even though a wordless, 
 tribute that this great man will, living or dead, ever 
 receive. 
 
 This story, brief and incomplete, of which we gather up 
 the threads as best we may — for William Duncan dwells 
 in this world to work, and not to talk about his work — 
 is one of the most pathetic in history. When one con- 
 siders the low degree of savagery from which they had 
 struggled up in thirty years of hardest, and at times most 
 discouraging, labor, to a degree of civilization which, in 
 one respect, at least, is reached by few white people in 
 centuries, if ever; when one considers how they had
 
 60 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 grown to a new faith and to a new form of religious 
 services, to confidence in the possession of homes and 
 other community property, and to believe their title to 
 them to be enduring ; when one considers the tenacity of 
 an Indian's attachment to his home and belongings, and 
 his sorrowful and heart-breaking reluctance to part with 
 them — this shadowy, silent migration through northern 
 waters to a new home on an uncleared island, taking 
 almost nothing with them but their religion and their 
 love for Mr. Duncan, becomes one of the sublime tragedies 
 of the century. 
 
 On Annette Island, then, twenty years ago, ]\Ir. Dun- 
 can's work was taken up anew. Homes were built ; a saw- 
 mill, schools, wharf, cannery, store, town hall, a neat 
 cottage for Mr. Duncan, and finally, in 1895, the large 
 and handsome church, rose in rapid succession out of the 
 wilderness. Roads were built, and sidewalks. A trad- 
 ing schooner soon plied the near-by waters. All was the 
 work of the Indians under the direct supervision of Mr. 
 Duncan, who, in 1870, had journeyed to England for the 
 purpose of learning several simple trades which he might, 
 in turn, teach to the Indians whom he fondly calls his 
 "people." Thus personally equipped, and with such 
 implements and machinery as were required, he had 
 returned to his work. 
 
 To-day, at the end of twenty years, the voyager ap- 
 proaching Annette Island, beholds rising before his rever- 
 ent eyes the new Metlakahtla — the old having sunken to 
 ruin, where it lies, a vanishing stain on the fair fame of 
 the Church of England of the past ; for the church of to- 
 day is too broad and too enlightened to approve of the 
 action of its Mission Society in regard to its most earnest, 
 and successful worker, William Duncan. 
 
 The new town shines white against a dark hill. The 
 steamer lands at a good wharf, which is largel}'^ occupied
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 61 
 
 by salmon canneries. Sidewalks and neat gravelled paths 
 lead to all parts of the village. The buildings are attrac- 
 tive in their originality, for Mr. Duncan has his own ideas 
 of architecture. The church, adorned with two large 
 square towers, has a commanding situation, and is a 
 modern, steam-heated building, large enough to seat a 
 thousand people, or the entire village. It is of handsome 
 interior finish in natural woods. Above the altar are the 
 following passages : The angel said unto them : Fear noUfor 
 behold^ I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall he to 
 all people. . . . Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall 
 save his people from their sins. 
 
 The cottages are one and two stories in height, and are 
 surrounded by vegetable and flower gardens, of which the 
 women seem to be specially proud. They and the smil- 
 ing children stand at their gates and on corners and offer 
 for sale baskets and other articles of their own making. 
 These baskets are, without exception, crudely and inar- 
 tistically made ; yet they have a value to collectors by 
 having been woven at Metlakahtla by Mr. Duncan's 
 Indian women, and no tourist fails to purchase at least 
 one, while many return to the steamer laden with 
 them. 
 
 There is a girls' school and a boys' school ; a hotel, a 
 town hall, several stores, a saw-mill, a system of water- 
 works, a cannery capable of packing twenty thousand 
 cases of salmon in a season, a wharf, and good warehouses 
 and steam-vessels. 
 
 The community is governed by a council of thirty 
 members, having a president. There is a police force of 
 twenty members. Taxes are levied for public improve- 
 ments, and for the maintenance of public institutions. 
 The land belongs to the community, from which it may 
 be obtained by individuals for the purpose of building 
 homes. The cannery and the saw-mill, which is operated
 
 62 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 by water, belong to companies in which stock is held by 
 Indians who receive dividends. The emploj-ees receive 
 regular wages. 
 
 The people seem happy and contented. They are 
 deeply attached to Mr. Duncan, and very proud of their 
 model town. They have an excellent band of twenty-one 
 pieces, at the mere mention of which their dark faces take 
 on an expression of pride and pleasure, and their black 
 eyes shine into their questioner's eyes with intense inter- 
 est ; in fact, if one desires to steady the gaze and hold the 
 attention of a Metlakahtla Indian, he can most readily 
 accomplish his purpose by introducing the subject of the 
 village band. 
 
 It is a surprise that these Indians do not, generally, 
 speak English more fluently ; but this is coming with the 
 younger generations. Some of these young men and 
 young women have been graduated from Eastern colleges, 
 and have returned to take up missionary work in various 
 parts of Alaska. Meeting one of these young men on a 
 steamer, I asked him if he knew Mr. Duncan. The smile 
 of affection and pride that went across his face! "Jam 
 one of his hoys^'''' he replied, simply. This was the Rev- 
 erend Edward Marsden, who, returning from an Eastern 
 college in 1898, began missionary work at Saxman, near 
 Juneau, where he has been very successful. 
 
 Mr. Duncan is exceedingly modest and unassuming in 
 manner and bearing, seeming to shrink from personal at- 
 tention, and to desire that his work shall speak for itself. 
 He is frequently called " Father," which is exceedingly 
 distasteful to him. Visitors seeking information are wel- 
 come to spend a week or two at the guest-house and learn 
 by observation and by conversation with the people what 
 has been accomplished in this ideal community ; but, save 
 on rare occasions, he cannot be persuaded to dwell upon 
 his own work, and after he has given his reasons for this
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 63 
 
 attitude, only a person lost to all sense of decency and 
 delicacy would urge him to break his rule of silence. 
 
 " I am here to work, and not to talk or write about my 
 work," he says, kindly and cordially. " If 1 took the 
 time to answer one-tenth of the questions I am asked, 
 verbally and by letter, I would have no time left for my 
 work, and my time for work is growing short. I am an 
 old man," — his beautiful, intensely blue eyes smiled as 
 he said this, and he at once shook his white-crowned head, 
 — " that is what they are saying of me, but it is not 
 true. I am young, I feel young, and have many more 
 years of work ahead of me. Still, I must confess that I 
 do not work so easily, and my cares are multiplying. 
 Some to whom I make this explanation will not respect 
 my wishes or understand my silence. They press me by 
 letter, or personally, to answer only this question or only 
 that. They are inconsiderate and hamper me in my 
 work." 
 
 Possibly this is the key-note to Mr. Duncan's success. 
 "Here is my work; let it speak for itself." He has de- 
 voted his whole life to his work, with no thought for the 
 fame it may bring him. For the latter, he cares nothing. 
 
 This is the reason that pilgrims voyage to Metlakahtla 
 as reverently as to a shrine. It is the noble and unselfish 
 life-work of a man who has not only accomplished a great 
 purpose, but who is great in himself. When he passes on, 
 let him be buried simply among the Indians he has loved 
 and to whom he has giyen his whole life, and write upon 
 his headstone: "Let his work speak." 
 
 The settlement on Annette Island was provided for in 
 the act of Congress, 1891, as follows : — 
 
 " That, until otherwise provided for by law, the body 
 of lands known as Annette Islands, situated in Alexander 
 Archipelago in southeastern Alaska, on the north side of 
 Dixon Entrance, be, and the same is hereby, set apart as
 
 64 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 a reservation for the jNIetlakabtla Indians, and those people 
 known as Metlakahtlans, who have recently emigrated 
 from British Columbia to Alaska, and such other Alaskan 
 natives as may join them, to be held and used b}' them in 
 common, under such rules and regulations, and subject to 
 such restrictions, as may be prescribed from time to time 
 by the Secretary of the Interior." 
 
 The Indians of the Community are required to sign, and 
 to fulfil the terms of, the following Declaration : — 
 
 " We, the people of Metlakahtla, Alaska, in order to se- 
 cure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of a Chris- 
 tian home, do severally subscribe to the following rules 
 for the regulation of our conduct and town affairs: — 
 
 " To reverence the Sabbath and to refrain from all un- 
 necessary secular work on that day ; to attend divine 
 worship; to take the Bible for our rule of faith ; to regard 
 all true Christians as our brethren ; and to be truthful, 
 honest, and industrious. 
 
 " To be faithful and loyal to the Government and laws 
 of the United States. 
 
 " To render our votes when called upon for the election 
 of the Town Council, and to promptly obey the by-laws 
 and orders imposed by the said Council. 
 
 " To attend to the education of our children and keep 
 them at school as regularly as possible. 
 
 " To totally abstain from all intoxicants and gambling, 
 and never attend heathen festivities or countenance hea- 
 thenish customs in surrounding villages. 
 
 " To strictly carry out all sanitary regulations necessary 
 for the health of the town. 
 
 " To identify ourselves with the progress of the settle- 
 ment, and to utilize the land we hold. 
 
 " Never to alienate, give away, or sell our land, or any 
 portion thereof, to any person or persons who have not 
 subscribed to these rules."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Dixon Entrance belongs to British Columbia, but the 
 boundary crosses its northern waters about three miles 
 above Whitby Point on Dundas Island, and the steamer 
 approaches Revilla-Gigedo Island. It is twenty-five by 
 fifty miles, and was named by Vancouver in honor of the 
 Viceroy of New Spain, who sent out several of the most 
 successful expeditions. It is pooled by many bits of tur- 
 quoise water which can scarcely be dignified by the name 
 of lakes, 
 
 Carroll Inlet cleaves it half in twain. The exquisite 
 gorges and mountains of this island are coming to their 
 own very slowly, as compared with its attractions from a 
 commercial point of view. 
 
 The island is in the centre of a rich salmon district, and 
 during the " running " season the clear blue waters flash 
 underneath with the glistening silver of the struggling 
 fish. In some of the fresh- water streams where the hump- 
 backed salmon spawn, the fortunate tourist may literally 
 make true the frei^uent Western assertion that at certain 
 times " one can walk across on the solid silver bridge 
 made by the salmon" — so tightly are they wedged to- 
 gether in their desperate and pathetic struggles to reach 
 the spawning-ground. 
 
 Vancouver found these "hunch-backs," as he called 
 them, not to his liking, — probably on account of finding 
 them at the spawning season. 
 F 05
 
 66 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Leaving Ketchikan, Revilla and Point Higgins are 
 passed to starboard — Higgins being another of Vancou- 
 ver's choice naraings for the president of Chile. 
 
 " Did you ever see such a cluttering up of a landscape 
 vs^ith odds and ends of names?" said the pilot one day. 
 " And all the ugliest by Vancouver. Give me an Indian 
 name every time. It always means something. Take 
 this Revilly-Gig Island; the Indians called it 'Na-a,' 
 meaning ' the far lakes,' for all the little lakes scattered 
 around. I don't know as we're doing much better in our 
 own day, though," he added, staring ahead with a twinkle 
 in his eyes. "They've just named a couple of mountains 
 Mount Thomas Whitten and Mount Slioup ! Now those 
 names are all right for men — even congressmen — but 
 they're not worth shucks for mountains. Why, the Rus- 
 sians could do better! Take Mount St. Elias — named 
 by Behring because he discovered it on St. Elias' day. I 
 actually tremble every time I pass that mountain, for fear 
 I'll look up and see a sign tacked on it, stating that the 
 name has been changed to Baker or Bacon or Mudge, so 
 that Vancouver's bones will rest more easily in the grave. 
 Now look at that point I It's pretty enough in itself; 
 but — Higgins ! " 
 
 The next feature of interest, however, proved to be 
 blessed with a name sweet enough to take away the bit- 
 terness of many others — Clover Pass. It was not named 
 for this most fragrant and dear of all flowers, but for 
 Lieutenant, now Rear-Admiral, Clover, of the United 
 States Navy. 
 
 Beyond Clover Pass, at the entrance to Naha Bay, is 
 Loring, a large and important cannery settlement of the 
 Alaska Packers' Association. There is only one salmon- 
 canning establishment in Alaska, or even on the North- 
 west Coast, more picturesquely situated than this, and it is 
 nearly two thousand miles " to Westward," at the mouth
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 67 
 
 of the famed Karluk River, where the same company 
 maintains hirge canneries and successful hatcheries. It 
 will be described in another chapter. 
 
 A trail leads from Loring through the woods to Dorr 
 Waterfall, in a lovely glen. In Naha Bay thousands of 
 fish are taken at every dip of the seine in the narrowest 
 cove, which is connected with a chain of small lakes linked 
 by the tiniest of streams. In summer these waters seem 
 to be of living silver, so thickly are they swarmed with 
 darting and curving salmon. 
 
 Not far from Naha Bay is Traitor's Cove, where Van- 
 couver and his men were attacked in boats by savages in 
 the masks of animals, headed by an old hag who com- 
 manded and urged them to bloodthirsty deeds. 
 
 This vixen seemed to be a personage of prestige and 
 influence, judging both by the immense size of her lip 
 ornament and her air of command. She seized the lead 
 line from Vancouver's boat and made it fast to her own 
 canoe, while another stole a musket. 
 
 Vancouver, advancing to parley with the cliief, made 
 the mistake of carrying his musket ; whereupon about 
 fifty savages leaped at him, armed with spears and dag- 
 gers. 
 
 The chief gave him to understand by signs that they 
 would lay down their arms if he would set the example ; 
 but the terrible old woman, scenting peace and scorning 
 it, violently and turbulently harangued the tribe and 
 urged it to attack. 
 
 The brandishing of spears and the flourishing of daggers 
 became so uncomfortably close and insistent, that Van- 
 couver finally overcame his "humanity," and fired into 
 the canoes. 
 
 The effect was electrical. The Indians in the small 
 canoes instantly leaped into the water and swam for the 
 shore; those in the larger ones tipped the canoes to one
 
 68 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 side, so that the higher side shiekled them while they 
 made the best of their way to the shore. 
 
 There they ascended the rocky cliffs and stoned the 
 boats. Several of Vancouver's men were severely 
 wounded, one having been speared completely through 
 the thigh. 
 
 The point at the northern entrance to Naha Bay, 
 where they landed to dress wounds and take account of 
 stock not stolen, was named Escape Point ; a name which 
 it still retains. 
 
 Kasa-an Bay is an inlet pushing fifteen miles into the 
 eastern coast of Prince of Wales Island, which is two 
 hundred miles in length and averages forty in width. 
 Cholmondeley Sound penetrates almost as far, and Moira 
 Sound, Niblack Anchorage on North Arm, Twelve Mile 
 Arm, and Skowl Arm, are all storied and lovely inlets. 
 Skowl was an old chief of the Eagle Clan, whose sway 
 was questioned by none. He was the greatest chief of 
 his time, and ruled his people as autocratically as the lordly, 
 but blustering, Baranoff ruled his at Sitka. Skowl re- 
 pulsed the advances of missionaries and scorned all at- 
 tempts at Christianizing himself and his tribe. His was a 
 powerful personality which is still mentioned with a re- 
 spect not unmixed with awe. To say that a chief is as 
 fearless as Skowl is a fine compliment, indeed, and one 
 not often bestowed. 
 
 Although not on the regular run of steamers, Howkan, 
 now a Presbyterian missionary village on Cordova Bay, 
 on the southwestern part of Prince of Wales Island, must 
 not be entirely neglected. In early days the village was 
 a forest of totems, and the graves were almost as in- 
 teresting as the totems. Both are rapidly vanishing 
 and losing their most picturesque features before the 
 march of civilization and Christianity; but Howkan is 
 still one of the show-places of Alaska. The tourist who
 
 
 
 
 ik^-i>''' %.;*■.■ v' 
 
 -'/
 
 ALASKA: TRE GREAT COUNTRY 69 
 
 is able to make this side trip on one of the small steamers 
 that run past there, is the envy of the unfortunate ones 
 wlio are compelled to forego that pleasure. 
 
 Totemism is the poetry of the Indian — or would be if 
 it possessed any religious significance. 
 
 I once asked an educated Tsimpsian Indian what the 
 Metlakahtla people believed, — meaning the belief that 
 Mr. Duncan had taught them. He put the tips of his 
 fingers together, and with an expression of great earnest- 
 ness, replied : — 
 
 "They believed in a great Spirit, to whom they prayed 
 and whom they worshipped everywhere, believing that 
 this beautiful Spirit was everywhere and could hear. 
 They worshipped it in the forest, in the trees, in the 
 flowers, in the sun and wind, in the blades of grass, — alone 
 and far from every one, — in the running water and the 
 still lakes." 
 
 " Oh, how beautiful ! " I said, in all sincerity. " It 
 must be the same as my own belief ; only I never heard 
 it put into words before. And that is what Mr. Duncan 
 has taught them?" 
 
 He turned and looked at me squarely and steadily. It 
 was a look of weariness, of disgust. 
 
 "Oh, no," he replied, coldly; "that was what they be- 
 lieved before they knew better ; before they were taught 
 the truth ; before Christianity was explained to them. 
 That is what they believed ivhile they were savages ! " 
 
 We were in the library of the Jefferson. The room is 
 always warm, and at that moment it was warmer than I 
 had ever known it to be. Under the steady gaze of those 
 shining dark eyes it presently became too warm to be 
 endured. With ray curiosity quite satisfied, I withdrew 
 to the hurricane deck, where there is always air. 
 
 Of the Indians in the territory of Alaska there are two 
 stocks — the Thlinkits, or Coast Indians, and the Tinneh,
 
 70 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 or those inhabiting the vast regions of the interior. The 
 Thlinkits comprise the Tsimpsians, or Cliiiusyans, the 
 Kygtini, or Haidahs, the true Tlilinlcits, or Ivoloshes, and 
 the Yakutats. 
 
 The Kygani, or Haidah, Indians inhabit the Queen 
 Charlotte Archipelago, which, although belonging to 
 British Columbia, must be taken into consideration in 
 any description of the Indians of Alaska. They were 
 formerly a warlike, powerful, and treacherous race, mak- 
 ing frequent attacks upon neighboring tribes, even as far 
 south as Puget Sound. They are noted, not only for 
 these savage qualities, but also for the grace and beauty 
 of their canoes and for their delicate and artistic carvings. 
 Their small totems, pipes, and other articles carved out of 
 a dark gray, highly polished slate stone obtained on their 
 own islands, sometimes inlaid with particles of shell, are 
 well known and command fancy prices. Haidah basketry 
 and hats are of unusual beauty and workmanship. The 
 peculiar ornamentation is painted upon the hats and not 
 woven in. The designs which are most frequently seen 
 are the head, wings, tail, and feet of a duck, — certain 
 details somewhat resembling a large oyster-shell, or a 
 human ear, - — painted in black and rich reds. The hats 
 are usually in the plain twined weaving, and of such fine, 
 even workmanship that they are entirely waterproof. 
 The Haidahs formerly wore the nose- and ear-rings, or 
 other ornaments, and the labret in the lower lip. 
 
 The Thlinkits, — or Koloshians, as the Russians and 
 Aleuts called them, from their habit of wearing the labret, 
 — are divided into two tribes, the Stikines and the Sit- 
 kans ; the former inhabiting the mainland in the vicinity 
 of the Stikine River, straggling north and south for some 
 distance along the coast. 
 
 The Sitkans dwell in the neighborhood of Sitka and on 
 the near-by islands. They are among the tribes of Indians
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 71 
 
 who gave Baranoff much trouble. They formerly painted 
 with vermilion or lamp-black mixed with oil, traced on 
 their faces in startling patterns. At the present time 
 they dress almost like white people, except for the ever- 
 lasting blanket on the older ones. Some of the younger 
 women are very handsome — clean, light-brown of skin, 
 red-cheeked, of good figure, and having large, dark eyes, 
 at once soft and bright. They also have good, white 
 teeth, and are decidedly attractive in their coquettish and 
 saucy airs and graces. The young Indian women at Sitka, 
 Yakutat, and Dundas are the prettiest and the most at- 
 tractive in Alaska ; nor have I seen any in the Klondike, 
 or along the Yukon, to equal them in appearance. Also, 
 one can barter with them for their fascinating wares with- 
 out praying to heaven to be deprived of the sense of smell 
 for a sufficient number of hours. 
 
 Among the Thlinkits, as well as among many of the 
 Innuit, or Eskimo tribes, the strange and cruel custom 
 prevails of isolating young girls approaching puberty in 
 a liut set aside for this purpose. The period of isolation 
 varies from a month to a year, during which they are con- 
 sidered unclean and are allowed only liquid food, which 
 soon reduces them to a state of painful emaciation. No 
 one is permitted to minister to their needs but a mother 
 or a female slave, and they cannot hold conversation with 
 any one. 
 
 When a maiden finally emerges from her confinement 
 there is great rejoicing, if she be of good family, and 
 feasting. A charm of peculiar design is hung around 
 her neck, called a " Virgin Charm," or " Virtue Charm," 
 which silently announces that she is " clean " and of mar- 
 riageable age. Formerly, according to Dall and other 
 authorities, the lower lip was pierced and a silver pin 
 shaped like a nail inserted. This made the same an- 
 nouncement.
 
 72 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The chief diet of the Thlinkit is fish, fresh or smoked. 
 Unlike tlie Aleutians, they do not eat whale blubber, as 
 the whale figures in their totems, but are fond of the por- 
 poise and seal. The women are fond of dress, and a 
 voyager who will take a gay last year's useless hat along 
 in her steamer trunk, will be sure to " swap " it for a 
 handsome Indian basket. In many places they still em- 
 ploy their early methods of fishing — raking herring and 
 salmon out of the streams, during a run, with long poles 
 into which nails are driven, like a rake. 
 
 They are fond of game of all kinds. They weave 
 blankets out of the wool of the mountain sheep. Large 
 spoons, whose handles are carved in the form and designs 
 of totems, are made out of the horns of sheep and goats. 
 
 The Thlinkits are divided into four totems — the whale, 
 the eagle, the raven, and the wolf. The raven, which by 
 the Tinnehs is considered an evil bird, is held in the high- 
 est respect by the Thlinkits, who believe it to be a good 
 spirit. 
 
 Totemism is defined as the system of dividing a tribe 
 into clans according to their totems. It comprises a class 
 of objects which the savage holds in superstitious awe and 
 respect, believing that it holds some relation to, and pro- 
 tection over, himself. There is the clan totem, common 
 to a whole clan; the sex totem, common to the males or 
 females of a clan ; and the individual totem, belonging 
 solely to one person and not descending to any member 
 of the next generation. It is generally believed that the 
 totem has some special religious significance ; but this is 
 not true, if we are to believe that the younger and edu- 
 cated Indians of to-day know what totemism means. 
 Some totems are veritable family trees. The clan totem 
 is reverenced by a whole clan, the members of which are 
 known by the name of their totem, and believe themselves 
 to be descended from a common animal ancestor, and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 73 
 
 jound together by ties closer and more sacred than those 
 of Wood. 
 
 The system of totemism is old ; but the word itself, 
 according to J. G. Frazer, first appeared in literature in 
 the nineteenth century, being introduced from an Ojibway 
 word by J. Long, an interpreter. The same authority 
 claims that it had a religious aspect ; but this is denied, 
 so far, at least, as the Thlinkits are concerned. 
 
 The Eagle clan believe themselves to be descended from 
 an eagle, which they, accordingly, reverence and protect 
 from harm or death, believing that it is a beneficent 
 spirit that watches over them. 
 
 Persons of the same totem may neither marry nor have 
 sexual intercourse with each other. In Australia the 
 usual penalty for the breaking of this law was death. 
 With the Thlinkits, a man might marry a woman of any 
 save his own totem clan. The raven represented woman, 
 and the wolf, man. A young man selected his individual 
 totem from the animal which appeared most frequently 
 and significantly in his dreams during his lonely fast and 
 vigil in the heart of the forest for some time before reach- 
 ing the state of puberty. The animals representing a 
 man's different totems — clan, family, sex, and individual 
 — were carved and painted on his tall totem-pole, his 
 house, his paddles, and other objects ; they were also 
 woven into hats, basketry, and blankets, and embroidered 
 upon moccasins with beads. Some of the Haidah canoes 
 have most beautifully carven and painted prows, with the 
 totem design appearing. These canoes are far superior to 
 those of Puget Sound. The very sweep of the prow, 
 strong and graceful, as it cleaves the golden air above the 
 water, proclaims its northern home. Their well-known 
 outlines, the erect, rigid figures of the warriors kneeling 
 in them, and the strong, swift, sure dip of the paddles, 
 sent dread to the hearts of the Pueet Sound Indians and
 
 74 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 the few white settlers in the early part of the last century. 
 The cry of "Northern Indians!" never failed to create a 
 panic. They made many marauding expeditions to the 
 south in their large and splendid canoes. The inferior 
 tribes of the sound held them in the greatest fear and 
 awe. 
 
 A child usually adopts the mother's totem, and at birth 
 receives a name significant of her family. Later on he 
 receives one from his father's family, and this event is 
 always attended with much solemnity and ceremony. 
 
 A man takes wives in proportion to his wealth. If he 
 be the possessor of many blankets, he takes trouble unto 
 himself by the dozen. There are no spring bonnets, 
 however, to buy. They do not indulge themselves with 
 so many wives as formerly ; nor do they place such im- 
 plicit faith in the totem, now that they are becoming 
 " Christianized." 
 
 Dall gives the following interesting description of a 
 Thlinkit wedding ceremony thirty years ago : A lover 
 sends to his mistress's relations, asking for her as a wife. 
 If he receives a favorable reply, he sends as many presents 
 as he can get together to her father. On the appointed 
 day he goes to the house where she lives, and sits down 
 with his back to the door. 
 
 The father has invited all the relations, who now raise 
 a song, to allure the coy bride out of the corner where she 
 has been sitting. When the song is done, furs or pieces 
 of new calico are laid on the floor, and she walks over 
 them and sits down by the side of the groom. All this 
 time she must keep her head bowed down. Then all the 
 guests dance and sing, diversifying the entertainment, 
 when tired, by eating. The pair do not join in any of the 
 ceremonies. That their future life may be happy, they 
 fast for two days more. Four weeks afterward they come 
 together, and are then recognized as husband and wife.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 75 
 
 The bridegroom is free to live with his father-in-law, or 
 return to his own home. If he chooses the latter the 
 bride receives a trousseau equal in value to the gifts 
 received by her parents from her husband. If the hus- 
 band becomes dissatisfied with his wife, he can send her 
 back with her dowry, but loses his own gifts. If a wife 
 is unfaithful he may send her back with nothing, and 
 demand his own again. They may separate by mutual 
 consent without returning any property. When the 
 marriage festival is over, the silver pin is removed from 
 the lower lip of the bride and replaced by a plug, shaped 
 like a spool, but not over three-quarters of an inch long, 
 and this plug is afterward replaced by a larger one of 
 wood, bone, or stone, so that an old woman may have an 
 ornament of this kind two inches in diameter. These 
 large ones are of an oval shape, but scooped out above, 
 below, and around the edge, like a pulley-wheel. When 
 very large, a mere strip of flesh goes around the haMshka, 
 or " little trough." From the name which the Aleuts gave 
 the appendage when they first visited Sitka, the nick- 
 name " Kolosh " has arisen, and has been applied to this 
 and allied tribes. 
 
 Many years ago, when a man died, his brother or his 
 sister's son was compelled to marry the widow. 
 
 That seems worth while. Naturally, the man would not 
 desire the woman, and the woman would not desire the 
 man ; therefore, the result of the forced union might 
 prove full of delightful surprises. If such a law could 
 have been passed in England, there would have been no 
 occasion for the prolonged agitation over the "Deceased 
 wife's sister " bill, which dragged its weary way through 
 the courts and the papers. Nobody would desire to marry 
 his deceased wife's sister ; or, if he did, she would decline 
 the honor. 
 
 An ancient Thlinkit superstition is, that once a man —
 
 76 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 a Thlinkit, of course — had a young wife whom he so 
 idolized that he would not permit her to work. This is 
 certainly the most convincing proof that an Indian could 
 give of his devotion. From morning to night she dwelt 
 in sweet idleness, guarded by eight little redbirds, that 
 flew about her when she walked, or hovered over her when 
 she reclined upon her furs or preciously woven blankets. 
 
 These little birds were good spirits, of course, but alas ! 
 they resembled somewhat women who are so good that 
 out of their very goodness evil is wrought. In the town 
 in which I dwell there is a good woman, a member of a 
 church, devout, and scorning sin, who keeps "roomers." 
 On two or three occasions this good woman has found let- 
 ters which belonged to her roomers, and she has done what 
 an honorable woman would not do. She has read letters 
 that she had no right to read, and she has found therein 
 secrets that would wreck families and bow down heads in 
 sorrow to their graves ; and yet, out of her goodness, she 
 has felt it to be her duty " to tell," and she has told. 
 
 Since knowing the story of the eight little Thlinkit red- 
 birds, I have never seen this woman without a red mist 
 seeming to float round her ; her mouth becomes a twitter- 
 ing beak, her feet are claws that carry her noiselessly into 
 secret places, her eyes are little black beads that flash from 
 side to side in search of other people's sins, and her shoul- 
 ders are folded wings. For what did the little good red- 
 birds do but go and tell the Thlinkit man that his young 
 and pretty and idolized wife had spoken to another man. 
 He took her out into the forest and shut her up in a box. 
 Then he killed all his sister's children because they knew 
 his secret. His sister went in lamentations to the beach, 
 where she was seen by her totem whale, who, when her 
 cause of grief was made known to him, bade her be of 
 good cheer. • 
 
 " Swallow a small stone," said the whale, '•* which you
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 77 
 
 must pick up from the beach, drinking some sea-water at 
 the same time." 
 
 The woman did as the whale directed. In a few months 
 she gave birtli to a son, whom she was compelled to hide 
 from her brother. This child was Yehl (the raven), the 
 beneficent spirit of the Thlinkits, maker of forests, moun- 
 tains, rivers, and seas ; the one who guides the sun, moon, 
 and stars, and controls the winds and floods. His abiding- 
 place is at the head waters of the Nass River, whence the 
 Thlinkits came to their present home. Wlien he grew up 
 he became so expert in the use of the bow and arrow 
 that it is told of his mother that she went clad in the rose, 
 green, and lavender glory of the breasts of humming-birds 
 which he had killed in such numbers that she was able to 
 fashion her entire raiment of their most exquisite parts, — 
 as befitted the mother of the good spirit of men. 
 
 Yehl performed many noble and miraculous deeds, the 
 most dazzling of which was the giving of light to the 
 world. He had heard that a rich old chief kept the sun, 
 moon, and stars in boxes, carefully locked and guarded. 
 This chief had an only daughter whom he worshipped. 
 He would allow no one to make love to her, so Yehl, per- 
 ceiving that only a descendant of the old man could secure 
 access to the boxes, and knowing that the chief examined 
 all his daughter's food before she ate it, and that it would 
 therefore avail him nothing to turn himself into ordinary 
 food, conceived the idea of converting himself into a 
 fragrant grass and by springing up persistently in the 
 maiden's path, he was one day eaten and swallowed. A 
 grandson was then born to the old chief, who wrought 
 upon his affections — as grandsons have a way of doing — 
 to such an extent that he could deny him nothing. 
 
 One day the young Yehl, who seems to have been 
 appropriately named, set up a lamentation for the boxes he 
 desired and continued it until one was in his possession.
 
 78 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 He took it out-doors and opened it. Millions of little 
 milk-white, opaline birds instantly flew up and settled in 
 the sky. They were followed by a large, silvery bird, 
 which was so heavy and uncertain in her flight to the sky 
 that, although she finally reached it, she never appeared 
 twice the same thereafter, and on some nights could not 
 be seen at all. The old chief was very angry, and it was 
 not until Yehl had wept and fasted himself to death's very 
 door that he obtained the sun ; whereupon, he changed 
 himself back into a raven, and flying away from the reach 
 of his stunned and temporary grandfather, who had com- 
 manded him not to open the box, he straightway lifted 
 the lid — and the world was flooded with light. 
 
 One of the most interesting of the Thliukit myths is 
 the one of the spirits that guard and obey the shamans. 
 The most important are those dwelling in the North. 
 They were warriors ; hence, an unusual display of the 
 northern lights was considered an omen of approaching 
 war. The other spirits are of people who died a common- 
 place death ; and the greatest care must be exercised by 
 relatives in mourning for these, or they will have difficulty 
 in reaching their new abode. Too many tears are as bad 
 as none at all ; the former mistake mires and gutters the 
 path, the latter leaves it too deep in dust. A decent 
 and comfortable quantity makes it hard and even and 
 pleasant. 
 
 Their deluge myth is startling in its resemblance to 
 ours. When their flood came upon them, a few were saved 
 in a orreat canoe which was made of cedar. This wood 
 splits rather easily, parallel to its grain, under stress of 
 storm, and the one in which the people embarked split 
 after much buffeting. The Thlinkits clung to one part, 
 and all other peoples to the other part, creating a difference 
 in language. Chet'l, the eagle, was separated from his 
 sister, to whom he said, " You may never see me again,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 79 
 
 but you shall hear ray voice forever." He changed him- 
 self into a bird of tremendous size and flew away south- 
 ward. The sister climbed Mount Edgecumbe, which 
 opened and swallowed her, leaving a hole that has remained 
 ever since. Earthquakes are caused by her struggles with 
 bad spirits which seek to drive her away, and by her in- 
 variable triumph over them she sustains the poise of the 
 world. 
 
 Chet'l returned to Mount Edgecumbe, where he still 
 lives. When he comes forth, which is but seldom, the 
 flapping of his great wings produces the sound which is 
 called thunder. He is, therefore, known everywhere as 
 the Thunder-bird. The glance of his brilliant eyes is the 
 lightning. 
 
 Concerning the totem-pole which was taken from an 
 Indian village on Tongas Island, near Ketchikan, by mem- 
 bers of the Post-Litelligevicer business men's excursion to 
 Alaska in 1899 — and for which the city of Seattle was 
 legally compelled to pay handsomely afterward — the fol- 
 lowing letter from a member of the family originally 
 owning the totem is of quaint interest : — 
 
 " I have received your letter, and I am going to tell you 
 the story of the totem-pole. Now, the top one is a crow 
 himself, and the next one from the pole top is a man. 
 That crow have told him a story. Crow have told him a 
 good-looking woman want to married some man. So he 
 did marry her. She was a frog. And the fourth one is a 
 mink. One time, the story says, that one time it was a 
 high tide for some time, and so crow got marry to mink, 
 so crow he eats any kind of fishes from the water. After 
 some time crow got tired of mink, and he leave her, and 
 he get married to that whale-killer, and then crow he have 
 all he want to eat. That last one on the totem-pole is the 
 father of the crow. The story says that one time it got
 
 80 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 dark for a long wliile. The darkness was all over the 
 
 world, and only crow's father was the only one can give 
 
 light to the world. He simply got a key. He keeps the 
 
 sun and moon in a chest, that one time crow have ask his 
 
 father if he play with the sun and moon in the house but, 
 
 was not allowed, so he start crying for many days until he 
 
 was sick. So his father let him play with it and he have 
 
 it for many days. And one day he let the moon in the 
 
 sky by mistake, but he keep tlie sun, and he which take 
 
 time before he could get his chances to go outside of the 
 
 house. As soon as he was out he let sun back to the sky 
 
 again, and it was light all over the world again. (End of 
 
 storv.) __ „ „ 
 
 " Yours respectfully, 
 
 "David E. Kinninnook. 
 
 " P. S. The Indians have a long story, and one of the chiefs 
 of a village or of a tribe only a chief can put up so many 
 carvings on our totem-pole, and he have to fully know the 
 story of what totem he is made. I may give you the whole 
 story of it sometimes. Crow on top have a quart moon 
 in his mouth, because he have ask his father for a light. 
 
 "D. E. K. 
 
 " If you can put this story on the Post -Intelligencer, of 
 Seattle, Wash., and I think the people will be glad to 
 know some of it." 
 
 The Thlinkits burned their dead, with the exception of 
 the shamans, but carefully preserved the ashes and all 
 charred bones from the funeral pyre. These were carefully 
 folded in new blankets and buried in the backs of totems. 
 One totem, when taken down to send to the Lewis and 
 Clark Exposition, was found to contain the remains of a 
 child in the butt-end of the pole which was in the ground ; 
 the portion containing the child being sawed off and 
 reinterred.
 
 ALA SEA : THE GE EA T COUNTRY 81 
 
 A totem-pole donated to the exposition by Yannate, a 
 very old Thlinkit, was made by his own hands in honor of 
 his mother. His mother belonged to the Raven Clan, 
 and a large raven is at the crest of tlie pole ; under it is 
 the brown bear — the totem of the Kokwonton Tribe, to 
 which the woman's husband belonged ; underneath the 
 bear is an Indian with a cane, representing the woman's 
 brother, who was a noted shaman or sorcerer many years 
 ago ; at the bottom are two faces, or masks, representing 
 the shaman's favorite slaves. 
 
 The Haidahs did not burn their dead, but buried them, 
 usually in the butts of great cedars. Frequently, however, 
 they were buried at the base of totem-poles, and when in 
 recent years poles have been removed, remains have been 
 found and reinterred. 
 
 On the backs of some of the old totem-poles at Wrangell 
 and other places, may be seen the openings that were made 
 to receive the ashes of the dead, the portion that had been 
 sawed out being afterward replaced. 
 
 The wealth of a Thlinkit is estimated according to his 
 number of blankets ; his honor and importance by the 
 number of potlatches he has given. Every member of his 
 totem is called upon to contribute to the potlatch of the 
 chief, working to that end, and " skimping " himself in 
 his own indulgences for that object, for many years, if 
 necessary. The potlatch is given at the full of the moon ; 
 the chief's clan and totem decline all gifts ; it is not in 
 good form for any member thereof to accept the slightest 
 gift. Guests are seated and treated according to their 
 rights, and the resentment of a slight is not postponed 
 until the banquet is over and the blood has cooled. An 
 immediate fight to the bitter end is the result ; so that the 
 greatest care is exercised in this nice matter — which has 
 proven a pitfall to many a white hostess in the most civil- 
 ized lands ; so seldom does a guest have the right and tlie
 
 82 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 honor to feel that where he sits is the head of the table. 
 At these potlatches a " frenzied " hospitality prevails ; 
 everything is bestowed with a lavish and reckless hand 
 upon the visitors, from food and drink to the host's most 
 precious possession, blankets. His wives are given freely, 
 and without the pang which must go with every blanket. 
 Visitors come and remain for days, or until the host is 
 absolutely beggared and has nothing more to give. 
 
 But since every one accepting his potlatch is not only 
 expected, but actually bound by tribal laws as fixed as 
 the stars, to return it, the beggared chief gradually " stocks 
 up " again ; and in a few years is able to launch forth 
 brilliantly once more. This is the same system of give 
 and take that prevails in polite society in the matter of 
 party-giving. With neither, may the custom be con- 
 sidered as real hospitality, but simply a giving with the 
 expectation of a sure return. Chiefs have frequently, 
 however, given away fortunes of many thousands of 
 dollars within a few days. These were chiefs who aspired 
 to rise high above their contemporaries in glory; and, 
 therefore, would be disaj)pointed to have their generosity 
 equally returned. 
 
 A shaman is a medicine-man who is popularly supposed 
 to be possessed of supernatural powers. A certain 
 mystery, or mysticism, is connected with him. He spends 
 much time in the solitudes of the mountains, working 
 himself into a highly emotional mental state. The shaman 
 has his special masks, carved ivory diagnosis-sticks, and 
 other paraphernalia. The hair of the shaman was never 
 cut ; at his death, his body was not burned, but was in- 
 variably placed in a box on four high posts. It first 
 reposed for one whole night in each of the four corners 
 of the house in which he died. On the fifth day it was 
 laid to rest by the sea-shore ; and every time a Thlinkit 
 passed it, he tossed a small offering into the water, to
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 83 
 
 secure the favor of the dead shaman, who, even in death, 
 was believed to exercise an influence over the living, for 
 good or ill. 
 
 Slavery was common, as — until the coming of the 
 Russians — was cannibalism. The slaves were captives 
 from other tribes. They were forced to perform the most 
 disagreeable duties, and were subjected to cruel treatment, 
 punished for trivial faults, and frequently tortured, or 
 offered in sacrifice. A few very old slaves are said to be 
 in existence at the present time ; but they are now treated 
 kindly, and have almost forgotten that their condition is 
 inferior to that of the remainder of the tribe. 
 
 The most famous slaves on the Northwest Coast were 
 John Jewitt and John Thompson, sole survivors of the 
 crew of the Boston, which was captured in 1802 by the 
 Indians of Nootka Sound, on the western coast of Van- 
 couver Island. The officers and all the other men were 
 most foully murdered, and the ship was burned. 
 
 Jewitt and Thompson were spared because one was an 
 armorer and the other a sailmaker. They were held 
 as slaves for nearly three years, when they made their 
 escape. 
 
 Jewitt published a book, in which he simply and effec- 
 tively described many of the curious, cruel, and amusing 
 customs of the people. The two men finally made their 
 escape upon a boat which had appeared unexpectedly in 
 the harbor. 
 
 The Yakutats belong to the Thlinkit stock, but have 
 never worn the " little trough," the distinguishing mark 
 of the true Thlinkit. They inhabit the country between 
 Mount Fairweather and Mount St. Elias, and were the 
 cause of much trouble and disaster to Baranoff, Lisiansky, 
 and other early Russians. They have never adopted the 
 totem ; and may, therefore, eat the flesh and blubber of
 
 84 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUyTRY 
 
 the whale, which the Thlinkits respect, because it figures 
 on their totems. The graveyards of the Yakutats are 
 very picturesque and interesting. 
 
 The tribes of the Tinneh, or interior Indians, will be 
 considered in another chapter. 
 
 Behm Canal is narrow, abruptly shored, and offers 
 many charming vistas that unfold unexpectedly before 
 the tourist's eyes. Alaskan steamers do not enter it and, 
 therefore. New Eddystone Rock is missed by many. This 
 is a rocky pillar that rises straight from the water, with 
 a circumference of about one hundred feet at the base 
 and a height of from two to three hundred feet. It is 
 draped gracefully with mosses, ferns, and vines. Van- 
 couver breakfasted here, and named it for the famous 
 Eddystone Light of England. Unuk River empties its 
 foaming, glacial waters into Behm Canal.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Leaving Ketcliikan, Clarence Strait is entered. This 
 was named by Vancouver for the Duke of Clarence, 
 and extends in a northwesterly direction for a hundred 
 miles. The celebrated Stikine River empties into it. 
 On Wrangell Island, near the mouth of the Stikine, is 
 Fort Wrangell, where the steamer makes a stop of several 
 hours. 
 
 Fort Wrangell was the first settlement made in south- 
 eastern Alaska, after Sitka. It was established in 1834, 
 by Lieutenant Zarembo, who acted under the orders of 
 Baron Wrangell, Governor of the Colonies at that time. 
 
 A grave situation had arisen over a dispute between the 
 Russian American Company and the equally powerful 
 Hudson Bay Company, the latter having pressed its 
 operations over the Northwest and seriously undermined 
 the trade of the former. In 1825, the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pany had taken advantage of the clause in the Anglo- 
 Russian treaty of that year, — which provided for the free 
 navigation of streams crossing Russian territory in their 
 course from the British possessions to the sea, — and had 
 pushed its trading operations to the upper waters of the 
 Stikine, and in 1833 had outfitted the brig Dryad with 
 colonists, cattle, and arms for the establishing of trading 
 posts on the Stikine. 
 
 Lieutenant Zarembo, Avith two armed vessels, the Chi- 
 ehagoff and the Chilkaht, established a fort on a small 
 peninsula, on the site of an Indian village, and named it 
 
 85
 
 86 ALASKA : THE GEEAT COUNTRY 
 
 Redoubt St. Dionysius. All unaware of these significant 
 movements, the JJrt/ad, approaching the mouth of the 
 Stikine, was received by shots from the shore, as well as 
 from a vessel in the harbor. She at once put back until 
 out of range, and anchored. Lieutenant Zarembo went 
 out in a boat, and, in the name of the Governor and the 
 Emperor, forbade the entrance of a British vessel into the 
 river. Representations from the agents of the Hudson 
 Bay Company were unavailing ; they were warned to at 
 once remove themselves and their vessel from the vicinity 
 — which they accordingly did. 
 
 This affair was the cause of serious trouble between the 
 two nations, which was not settled until 1839, when a 
 commission met in London and solved the difficulties by 
 deciding that Russia should pay an indemnity of twenty 
 thousand pounds, and lease to the Hudson Bay Company 
 the now celebrated lisiere, or thirty-mile strip from Dixon 
 Entrance to Yakutat. 
 
 In 1840 the Hudson Bay Company raised the British 
 flag and changed the name from Redoubt St. Dionysius 
 to Fort Stikine. Sir George Simpson's men are said to 
 have passed several years of most exciting and adventu- 
 rous life there, owing to the attacks and besiegements of 
 the neighboring Indians. An attempt to scale the stock- 
 ade resulted in failure and defeat. The following year 
 the fort's supply of water was cut off and the fort was 
 besieged ; but the Britishers saved themselves by luckily 
 seizing a chief as hostage. 
 
 A year later occurred another attack, in which the fort 
 would have fallen had it not been for the happy arrival of 
 two armed vessels in charge of Sir George Simpson, who 
 tells the story in this brief and simple fashion : — 
 
 " By daybreak on Monday, the 25th of April (1842), we 
 were in Wrangell's Straits, and toward evening, as we ap- 
 proached Stikine, my apprehensions were awakened by
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 87 
 
 observing the two national flags, the Russian and the 
 English, hoisted half-mast high, while, on landing about 
 seven, my worst fears were realized by hearing of the 
 tragical end of Mr. John McLoughlin, Jr., the gentleman 
 recently in charge. On the night of the twentietli a dis- 
 pute had arisen in the fort, while some of the men, as I 
 was grieved to hear, were in a state of intoxication ; and 
 several shots were fired, by one of which Mr. McLoughlin 
 fell. My arrival at this critical juncture was most oppor- 
 tune, for otherwise the fort might have fallen a sacrifice 
 to the savages, who were assembled round to the number 
 of two thousand, justly thinking that the place could 
 make but a feeble resistance, deprived as it was of its 
 head, and garrisoned by men in a state of complete insub- 
 ordination." 
 
 In 1867 a United States military post was established 
 on a new site. A large stockade was erected and gar- 
 risoned by two companies of the Twenty-first Infantry. 
 This post was abandoned in 1870, the buildings being sold 
 for six hundred dollars. 
 
 In the early eighties Lieutenant Schwatka found Wran- 
 gell " the most tumble-down-hjoking company of cabins I 
 ever saw." He found its "Chinatown" housed in an old 
 Stikine River steamboat on the beach, which had descended 
 to its low estate as gradually and almost as imperceptibly 
 as Becky Sharpe descended to the " soiled white petticoat " 
 condition of life. As Queen of the Stikine, the old steamer 
 had earned several fortunes for her owners in that river's 
 heyday times ; then she was beached and used as a store ; 
 then, as a hotel ; and, last of all, as a Chinese mess- and 
 lodging-house. 
 
 In 1838 another attempt had been made by the Hudson 
 Bay Company to establish a trading post at Dease Lake, 
 about sixty miles from Stikine River and a hundred and 
 fifty from the sea. This attempt also was a failure. The
 
 88 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tortures of fear and starvation were vividly described by 
 Mr, Robert Campbell, who had charge of the party mak- 
 ing the attempt, which consisted of four men. 
 
 "• We passed a winter of constant dread from the savage 
 Russian Indians, and of much suffering from starvation. 
 We were dependent for subsistence on what animals we 
 could catch, and, failing that, on tripe de roche (moss). 
 We were at one time reduced to such dire straits that we 
 were obliged to eat our parchment windows, and our last 
 meal before abandoning Dease Lake, on the eighth of May, 
 1839, consisted of the lacings of our snow-shoes." 
 
 Had it not been for the kindness and the hospitality of 
 the female chiei of the Nahany tribe of Indians, who in- 
 habited the region, the party would have perished. 
 
 The Indians of the coast in early days made long trad- 
 ing excursions into the interior, to obtain furs. 
 
 The discovery of the Cassiar mines, at the head of the 
 Stikine, was responsible for the revival of excitement and 
 lawlessness in Fort Wrangell, as it had been named at the 
 time of its first military occupation, and a company of the 
 Fourth Artillery was placed in charge until 1877, the date 
 of the removal of troops from all posts in Alaska. 
 
 The first post and the ground upon which it stood were 
 sold to W. K. Lear. The next company occupied it at a 
 very small rental, contrary to the wishes of the owner. 
 In 1884 the Treasury Department took possession, claim- 
 ing that the first sale was illegal. A deputy collector was 
 placed in charge. The case was taken into the courts, 
 l3ut it was not until 1890 that a decision was rendered in 
 the Sitka court that, as the first sale was unconstitutional, 
 Mr. Lear was entitled to his six hundred dollars with 
 interest compounding for twenty years. 
 
 Wrangell gradually fell into a storied and picturesque 
 decay. The burnished halo of early romance has always 
 clung to her. At the time of the gold excitement and
 
 ALASKA: THE GBEAT COUNTRY 89 
 
 the rush to the Klondike, the town revived suddenly with 
 the reopening of navigation on the Stikine. This was, at 
 first, a favorite route to the Klondike. At White Horse 
 may to-day be seen steamers which were built on the 
 Stikine in 1898, floated by piecemeal up that river and 
 across Lake Teslin, and down the Hootalinqua River to 
 the Yukon, having been packed by horses the many inter- 
 vening miles between rivers and lakes, at fifty cents a 
 pound. Reaching their destination at White Horse, they 
 were put together, and started on the Dawson run. 
 
 Looking at these historic steamers, now lying idle at 
 White Horse, the passenger and freight rates do not seem 
 so exorbitant as they do before one comes to understand 
 the tremendous difficulties of securing any transportation 
 at all in these unknown and largely unexplored regions 
 in so short a time. Even a person who owns no stock in 
 steamship or railway corporations, if he be sensible and 
 reasonable, must be able to see the point of view of the 
 men who dauntlessly face such hardships and perils to 
 furnish transportation in these wild and inaccessible 
 places. They take such desperate chances neither for 
 their health nor for sweet charity's sake. 
 
 Three years ago Wrangell was largely destroyed by 
 fire. It is partially rebuilt, but the visitor to-day is 
 doomed to disappointment at first sight of the modern 
 frontier buildings. Ruins of the old fort, however, re- 
 main, and several ancient totems are in the direction of 
 the old burial ground. One, standing in front of a 
 modern cottage which has been erected on the site of 
 the old lodge, is all sprouted out in green. Mosses, 
 grasses, and ferns spring in April freshness out of the 
 eyes of children, the beaks of eagles, and the open mouths 
 of frogs ; while the very crest of the totem is crowned a 
 foot or more high with a green growth. The effect is at 
 once ludicrous and pathetic, — marking, as it does, the
 
 90 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 vanishing of a picturesque and interesting race, its cus- 
 toms and its superstitions. 
 
 The famous chief of the Stikine region was Shakes, a 
 fierce, fighting, bloodtliirsty old autocrat, dreaded by all 
 other tribes, and insulted with impunity by none. He 
 was at the height of his power in the forties, but lived for 
 many years afterward, resisting the advances of mis- 
 sionaries and scorning their religion to the day of his 
 death. In many respects he was like the equally famous 
 Skowl of Kasa-an, who went to the trouble and the ex- 
 pense of erecting a totem-pole for the sole purpose of per- 
 petuating his scorn and derision of Christian advances to 
 his people. The totem is said to have been covered with 
 the images of priests, angels, and books. 
 
 Shakes was given one of the most brilliant funerals 
 ever held in Alaska ; but whether as an expression of 
 irreconcilable grief or of uncontrollable joy in the escape 
 of his people from his tyrannic and overbearing sway, is 
 not known. He belonged to the bear totem, and a stuffed 
 bear figured in the pageant and was left to guard his 
 grave. 
 
 The climate of Wrangell is charming, owing to the high 
 mountains on the islands to the westward which shelter 
 the town from the severity of the ocean storms. The 
 growing of vegetables and berries is a profitable invest- 
 ment, both reaching enormous size, the latter being of 
 specially delicate flavor. Flowers bloom luxuriantly. 
 
 The Wrangell shops at present contain some very fine 
 specimens of basketry, and the prices were very reason- 
 able, although most of the tourists from our steamer were 
 speechless when they heard them. Some real Attu and 
 Atka baskets were found here at prices ranging from one 
 hundred dollars up. At Wrangell, therefore, the tourist 
 begins to part with his money, and does not cease until 
 he has reached Skaguay to the northward, or Sitka and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 91 
 
 Yakutat to the westward ; and if he should journey out 
 into the Aleutian Isles, he may borrow money to get 
 home. The weave displaj^ed is mostly twined, but some 
 fine specimens of coiled and coiled imbricated were offered 
 us in the dull, fascinating colors used by the Thompson 
 River Indians of British Columbia, having probably been 
 obtained in trade. These latter are treasures, and always 
 worth buying, especially as Indian baskets are increasing 
 in value with every year that passes. Baskets that I pur- 
 chased easily for three dollars or three and a half in 1905 
 were held stubbornly at seven and a half or eight in 1907 ; 
 while the difference in prices of the more expensive ones 
 was even greater. 
 
 Squaws sit picturesquely about the streets, clad in gay 
 colors, with their wares spread out on the sidewalk in 
 front of them. They invariablj^ sit with their backs 
 against buildings or fences, seeming to have an aversion 
 to permitting any one to stand or pass behind them. 
 They have grown very clever at bargaining ; and the 
 little trick, which has been practised by tourists for years, 
 of waiting until the gangway is being hauled in and then 
 making an offer for a coveted basket, has apparently been 
 worn threadbare, and is received with jeers and derision, 
 — which is rather discomfiting to the person making the 
 offer if he chances to be upon a crowded steamer. The 
 squaws point their fingers at him, to shame him, and 
 chuckle and tee-hee among themselves, with many gut- 
 tural duckings and side-glances so good-naturedly con- 
 temptuous and derisive as to be embarrassing beyond 
 words, — particularly as some greatly desired basket dis- 
 appears into a filthy bag and is borne proudly away on a 
 scornful dark shoulder. 
 
 Baskets are growing scarcer and more valuable, and 
 the tourist who sees one that he desires, will be wise to 
 pay the price demanded for it, as the conditions of trad-
 
 92 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ing with the Alaskan Indians are rapidly changing. The 
 younger Indians frequently speak and understand Eng- 
 lish perfectly ; while the older ones are adepts in reading 
 a human face ; making a combination not easily imposed 
 upon. Even the officers of the ship, who, being ac- 
 quainted with " Mollie " or " Sallie," " Mrs. Sam " or 
 " Pete's Wife," volunteer to buy a basket at a reduction 
 for some enthusiastic but thin-pursed passenger, do not 
 at present meet with any exhilarating success. 
 
 " S'pose she pay my price," " Mrs. Sam " replies, with 
 smiling but stubborn indifference, as she sets the basket 
 away.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Indian basketry is poetry, music, art, and life itself 
 woven exquisitely together out of dreams, and sent out 
 into a thoughtless world in appealing messages which 
 will one day be farewells, when the poor lonely dark 
 women who wove them are no more. 
 
 At its best, the basketry of the islands of Atka and 
 Attn in the Aleutian chain is the most beautiful in the 
 world. Most of the basketry now sold as Attn is woven 
 by the women of Atka, we were told at Unalaska, which 
 is the nearest market for these baskets. Only one old 
 woman remains on Attn who understands this delicate 
 and priceless work ; and she is so poorly paid that she 
 was recently reported to be in a starving condition, al- 
 though the velvety creations of her old hands and brain 
 bring fabulous prices to some one. The saying that an 
 Attn basket increases a dollar for every mile as it travels 
 toward civilization, is not such an exaggeration as it 
 seems. I saw a trader from the little steamer Dora — the 
 only one regularly plying those far waters — buy a small 
 basket, no larger than a pint bowl, for live dollars in 
 Unalaska ; and a month later, on another steamer, between 
 Valdez and Seattle, an enthusiastic young man from New 
 York brought the same basket out of his stateroom and 
 proudly displayed it. 
 
 " I got this one at a great bargain," he bragged, with 
 shining eyes. "I bought it in Valdez for twenty-five 
 dollars, just what it cost at Unalaska. The man needed 
 
 93
 
 94 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 the money worse than the basket. I don't know how it 
 is, but I'm always stumbling on bargains like that!" he 
 concluded, beginning to strut. 
 
 Then I was heartless enough to laugh, and to keep on 
 laughing. I had greatly desired that basket myself ! 
 
 He had the satisfaction of knowing, however, that his 
 little twined bowl, with the coloring of a Behring Sea 
 sunset woven into it, would be worth fifty dollars by the 
 time he reached Seattle, and at least a hundred in New 
 York; and it was so soft and flexible that he could fokl 
 it up meantime and carry it in his pocket, if he chose, — to 
 say nothing of the fact that Elizabeth Propokoffono, the 
 young and famed dark-eyed weaver of Atka, may have 
 woven it herself. Like the renowned " Sally-bags," made 
 by Sally, a Wasco squaw, the baskets woven by Elizabeth 
 have a special and sentimental value. If she would weave 
 her initials into them, she might ask, and receive, any price 
 she fancied. Sally, of the Wascos, on the other hand, is 
 very old ; no one weaves her special bag, and they are be- 
 coming rare and valuable. They are of plain, twined 
 weaving, and are very coarse. A small one in the writer's 
 possession is adorned with twelve fishes, six eagles, three 
 dogs, and two and a half men. Sally is apparently a 
 woman-suffragist of the old school, and did not consider 
 that men counted for much in the scheme of Indian 
 baskets ; yet, being a philosopher, as well as a suffragist, 
 concluded that half a man was better than none at all. 
 
 At Yakutat "Mrs. Pete" is the best-known basket 
 weaver. Young, handsome, dark-eyed, and clean, with a 
 chubby baby in her arms, she willingly, and with great 
 gravity, posed against the pilot-house of the old Santa 
 Ana for her picture. Asked for an address to which I 
 might send one of the pictures, she proudly replied, " Just 
 Mrs. Pete, Yakutat." Her courtesy was in marked con- 
 trast to the exceeding rudeness with which the Sitkan
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 95 
 
 women treat even the most considerate and deferential 
 photographers; glaring at them, turning their backs, 
 covering their heads, hissing, and even spitting at them. 
 
 However, the Yakutats do not often see tourists, who, 
 heaven knows, are not one of the novelties of the Sitkans' 
 lives. 
 
 According to Lieutenant G. T. Emmons, who is the 
 highest authority on Thlinkit Indians, not only so far as 
 their basketry is concerned, but their history, habits, and 
 customs, as well, nine-tenths of all their basketwork is of 
 the open, cylindrical type which throws the chief wear 
 and strain upon the borders. These are, therefore, of 
 greater variety than those of any other Indians, except 
 possibly the Haidahs. 
 
 As I have elsewhere stated, nearly all Thlinkit baskets 
 are of the twined weave, which is clearly described by 
 Otis Tufton Mason in liis precious and exquisite work, 
 " Aboriginal American Basketrj^ " ; a work which every 
 student of basketry should own. If anything could be as 
 fascinating as the basketry itself, it would be this charm- 
 ingly written and charmingly illustrated book. 
 
 Basketry is either hand-woven or sewed. Hand-woven 
 work is divided into checker work, twilled work, wicker 
 work, wrapped work, and twined work. Sewed work is 
 called coiled basketry. 
 
 Twined work is found on the Pacific Coast from Attu 
 to Chile, and is the most delicate and difficult of all woven 
 work. It has a set of warp rods, and the weft elements 
 are worked in by two-strand or three-strand methods. 
 Passing from warp to warp, these weft elements are 
 twisted in half-turns on each other, so as to form a two- 
 strand or three-strand twine or braid, and usually with a 
 deftness that keeps the glossy side of the weft outward. 
 
 "The Thlinkit, weaving," says Lieutenant Emmons, 
 " sits with knees updrawn to the chin, feet close to the
 
 96 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 body, bent-shouldered, with the arms around the knees, 
 the work held in front. Sometimes the knees fall slightly 
 apart, the work held between them, the weft frequently 
 held in the mouth, the feet easily crossed. The basket is 
 held bottom down. In all kinds of weave, the strands 
 are constantly dampened by dipping the fingers in water." 
 The finest work of Attn and Atka is woven entirely under 
 water. A rude awl, a bear's claw or tooth, are the only 
 implements used. The Attn weaver has her basket in- 
 verted and suspended by a string, working from the bot- 
 tom down toward the top. 
 
 Almost every part of plants is used — roots, stems, 
 bark, leaves, fruit, and seeds. The following are the 
 plants chiefly used by the Thlinkits : The black shining 
 stems of the maidenhair fern, which are easily distin- 
 guished and which add a rich touch ; the split stems of 
 the brome-grass as an overlaying material for the white 
 patterns of spruce-root baskets ; for the same purpose, the 
 split stem of bluejoint; the stem of wood reed-grass; the 
 stem of tufted hair-grass ; the stem of beech-rye ; the root 
 of horsetail, which works in a rich purple ; wolf moss, 
 boiled for canary-yellow dye ; manna-grass ; root of the 
 Sitka spruce tree ; juice of the blueberry for a purple dye. 
 
 The Attu weaver uses the stems and leaves of grass, 
 having no trees and few plants. When she wants the 
 grass white, it is cut in November and hung, points down, 
 out-doors to dry ; if yellow be desired, as it usually is, it is 
 cut in July and the two youngest full-grown blades are 
 cut out and split into three pieces, the middle one being 
 rejected and the others hung up to dry out-doors ; if green 
 is wanted, the grass is prepared as for yellow, except that 
 the first two weeks of curing is carried on in the heavy 
 shade of thick grasses, then it is taken into the house 
 and dried. Curing requires about a month, during which 
 time the sun is never permitted to touch the grass.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 97 
 
 Ornamentation by means of color is wrought by the 
 use of materials which are naturally of a different color ; 
 by the use of dyed materials ; by overlaying the weft and 
 warp with strips of attractive material before weaving ; 
 by embroidering on the texture during the process of 
 manufacture, this being termed " false " embroidery ; by 
 covering the texture with plaiting, called imbrication ; by 
 the addition of feathers, beads, shells, and objects of like 
 nature. 
 
 Some otherwise fine specimens of Atkan basketry are 
 rendered valueless, in my judgment, by the present custom 
 of introducing flecks of gaily dyed wool, the matcliless 
 beauty of these baskets lying in their delicate, even weav- 
 ing, and in their exquisite natural coloring — the faintest 
 old rose, lavender, green, 3^ellow and purple being woven 
 together in one ravishing mist of elusive splendor. So 
 enchanting to the real lover of basketry are the creations 
 of those far lonely women's hands and brains, that they 
 seem fairly to breathe out their loveliness upon the air, as 
 a rose. 
 
 This basketry was first introduced to the world in 1874, 
 by William H. Dall, to whom Alaska and those who love 
 Alaska owe so much. Warp and weft are both of beach 
 grass or wild rye. One who has never seen a fine speci- 
 men of these baskets has missed one of the joys of this 
 world. 
 
 The Aleuts perpetuate no story or myth in their orna- 
 mentation. With them it is art for art's sake ; and this 
 is, doubtless, one reason why their work draws the be- 
 holder spellbound. 
 
 The symbolism of the Thlinkit is charming. It is found 
 not alone in their basketry, but in their carvings in stone, 
 horn, and wood, and in Chilkaht blankets. The favorite 
 designs are : shadow of a tree, water drops, salmon berry 
 cut in half, the Arctic tern's tail, flaking of the flesh of
 
 98 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 a fish, shark's tooth, leaves of the fireweed, an eye, 
 raven's tail, and tlie crossing. It must be confessed that 
 only a wild imagination could find the faintest resem- 
 blance of the symbols woven into the baskets to the objects 
 they represent. The symbol called " shadow of a tree " 
 really resembles sunlight in moving water. 
 
 With the Haidah hats and Chilkaht blankets, it is very 
 different. The head, feet, wings, and tail of the raven, for 
 instance, are easily traced. In more recent basketry the 
 swastika is a familiar design. Many Thlinkit baskets 
 have " rattly " covers. Seeds found in the crops of quail 
 are woven into these covers. They are " good spirits " 
 which can never escape ; and will insure good fortune to 
 the owner. Woe be to him, however, should he permit 
 his curiosity to tempt him to investigate ; they will then 
 escape and work him evil instead of good, all the days of 
 his life. 
 
 In Central Alaska, the basketry is usually of the coiled 
 variety, coarsely and very indifferently executed. Both 
 spruce and willow are used. From Dawson to St. 
 Michael, in the summer of 1907, stopping at every trading 
 post and Indian village, I did not see a single piece of 
 basketry that I would carry home. Coarse, unclean, and 
 of slovenly workmanship, one could but turn away in pity 
 and disgust for the wasted effort. 
 
 Thelnnuitin the Behring Sea vicinity make both coiled 
 and twined basketry from dried grasses ; but it is even 
 worse than the Yukon basketry, being carelessly done, — 
 the Innuit infinitely preferring the carving and decorating 
 of walrus ivory to basket weaving. It is delicious to find 
 an Innuit who never saw a glacier decorating a paper- 
 knife with something that looks like a pond lily, and 
 labelling it Taku Glacier, which is three thousand miles 
 to the southeastward. I saw no attempt on the Yukon, 
 nor on Behring Sea, at what Mr. Mason calls imbrication,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 99 
 
 — the beautiful ornamentation whicli the Indians of 
 Columbia, Frazer, and Thompson rivers and of many 
 Salish tribes of Northwestern Washington use to distin- 
 guish their coiled work. It resembles knife-plaiting 
 before it is pressed flat. This imbrication is frequently 
 of an exquisite, dull, reddish brown over an old soft yel- 
 low. Baskets adorned with it often have handles and flat 
 covers ; but papoose baskets and covered long baskets, 
 almost as large as trunks, are common. 
 
 There was once a tide in my affairs which, not being 
 taken at the flood, led on to everlasting regret. 
 
 One August evening several years ago I landed on an 
 island in Puget Sound wliere some Indians were camped 
 for the fishing season. It was Sunday; the men were 
 playing the fascinating gambling game of slahal, the 
 children were shouting at play, the women were gathered 
 in front of their tents, gossiping. 
 
 In one of the tents I found a coiled, imbricated Thomp- 
 son River basket in old red-browns and yellows. It was 
 three and a half feet long, two and a half feet high, and 
 two and a half wide, with a thick, close-fitting cover. 
 It was offered to me for ten dollars, and — that I should 
 live to chronicle it ! — not knowing the worth of such a 
 basket, I closed my eyes to its appealing and unforget- 
 table beauty, and passed it by. 
 
 But it had, it has, and it always will have its silent 
 revenge. It is as bright in my memory to-day as it was 
 in my vision that August Sunday ten years ago, and more 
 enchanting. My longing to see it again, to possess it, 
 increases as the years go by. Never have I seen its equal, 
 never shall I. Yet am I ever looking for that basket, in 
 every Indian tent or hovel I may stumble upon — in 
 villages, in camps, in out-of-the-way places. Sure am I that 
 I should know it from all other baskets, at but a glance. 
 
 I knew nothing of the value of baskets, and I fancied
 
 100 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNritY 
 
 the woman was taking advantage of my ignorance. 
 While I hesitated, the steamer whistled. It was all over 
 in a moment ; my chance was gone. I did not even 
 dream how greatly I desired that basket until I stood in 
 the bow of the steamer and saw the little white camp fade 
 from view across the sunset sea. 
 
 The original chaste designs and symbols of Thlinkit, 
 Haidah, and Aleutian basketry are gradually yielding, 
 before the coarse taste of traders and tourists, to the 
 more modern and conventional designs. 1 have lived to 
 see a cannery etched upon an exquisitely carved paper- 
 knife ; while the things produced at infinite labor and 
 care and called cribbage-boards are in such bad taste that 
 tourists bu3dng them become curios themselves. 
 
 The serpent has no place in Alaskan basketry for the 
 very good reason that there is not a snake in all Alaska, 
 and the Indians and Innuit probably never saw one. A 
 woman may wade through the swampiest place or the 
 tallest grass without one shivery glance at her pathway 
 for that little sinuous ripple which sends terror to most 
 women's hearts in warmer climes. Indeed, it is claimed 
 that no poisonous thing exists in Alaska. 
 
 The tourist must not expect to buy baskets farther north 
 than Skaguay, where fine ones may be obtained at very 
 reasonable prices. Having visited several times every 
 place where basketry is sold, I would name first Dundasi 
 then Yakutat, and then Sitka as the most desirable places 
 for "shopping," so far as southeastern Alaska is concerned; 
 out "to Westward," first Unalaska and Dutch Harbor, 
 then Kodiak and Seldovia. 
 
 But the tourists who make the far, beautiful voyage out 
 among the Aleutians to Unalaska might almost be counted 
 annually upon one's fingers — so unexploited are the 
 attractions of that region ; therefore, I will add that fine 
 specimens of the Attn and Atka work may be found at
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 101 
 
 Wrangell, Juneau, Skaguay, and Sitka, without much 
 choice, either in workmanship or price. But fortunate 
 may the tourist consider himself who travels this route 
 on a steamer that gathers the salmon catch in August 
 or September, and is taken through Icy Strait to the 
 Dundas cannery. There, while a cargo of canned salmon 
 is being taken aboard, the passengers have time to barter 
 with the good-looking and intelligent Indians for the 
 superb baskets laid out in the immense warehouse. No- 
 where in Alaska have I seen baskets of such beautiful 
 workmanship, design, shape, and coloring as at Dundas — 
 excepting always, of course, the Attu and Atka ; nowhere 
 have I seen them in such numbers, variety, and at such 
 low prices. 
 
 My own visit to Dundas was almost pathetic. It was 
 on my return from a summer's voyage along the coast of 
 Alaska, as far westward as Unalaska. I had touched at 
 every port between Dixon's Entrance and Unalaska, and 
 at many places that were not ports ; had been lightered 
 ashore, rope-laddered and doried ashore, had waded ashore, 
 and been carried ashore on sailors' backs ; and then, with 
 my top berth filled to the ceiling with baskets and things, 
 with all my money spent and all my clothes worn out, 
 I stood in the warehouse at Dundas and saw those dozens 
 of beautiful baskets, and had them offered to me at but 
 half the prices I had paid for inferior baskets. It was 
 here that the summer hats and the red kimonos and the 
 pretty collars were brought out, and were eagerly seized 
 by the dark and really handsome Indian girls. A ten- 
 dollar hat — at the end of the season ! — went for a fif- 
 teen-dollar basket ; a long, red woollen kimono, — whose 
 warmth had not been required on this ideal ti'ip, anyhow, 
 — secured another of the same price ; and may heaven 
 forgive me, but I swapped one twenty -two-inch gold- 
 embroidered belt for a three-dollar basket, even while I
 
 102 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 knew in my sinful heart that there was not a waist in 
 that warehouse that measured less than thirty-five inches ; 
 and from that to tifty! 
 
 However, in sheer human kindness, I taught the girl to 
 whom I swapped it how it might be worn as a garter, 
 and her delight was so great and so unexpected that it 
 caused me some apprehension as to the results. My very 
 proper Scotch friend and travelling companion was so 
 aghast at my suggestion that she took the girl aside and 
 advised her to wear the belt for collars, cut in half, or as 
 a gay decoration up the front plait of her shirt-waist, or 
 as armlets ; so that, with it all, I was at last able to 
 retire to my stateroom and enjoy my bargains with a 
 clear conscience, feeling that after some fashion the girl 
 would get her basket's worth out of the belt.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Leaving Wrangell, the steamer soon passes, on the 
 port side and at the entrance to Sumner Strait, Zarembo 
 Island, named for that Lieutenant Zarembo who so suc- 
 cessfully prevented the Britishers from entering Stikine 
 River. Baron Wrangell bestowed the name, desiring in 
 his gratitude and appreciation to perpetuate the name 
 and fame of the intrepid young officer. 
 
 From Sumner Strait the famed and perilously beautiful 
 Wrangell Narrows is entered. This ribbon-like water-way 
 is less than twenty miles long, and in many places so 
 narrow that a stone may be tossed from shore to shore. 
 It winds between Mitkoff and Kupreanoff islands, and 
 may be navigated only at certain stages of the tide. 
 Deep-draught vessels do not attempt Wrangell Narrows, 
 but turn around Cape Decision and proceed by way of 
 Chatham Strait and Frederick Sound — a course which 
 adds at least eighty miles to the voyage. 
 
 The interested voyager will not miss one moment of 
 the run through the narrows, either for sleep or hunger. 
 Better a sleepless night or a dinnerless day than one min- 
 ute lost of this matchless scenic attraction. 
 
 The steamer pushes, under slow bell, along a channel 
 which, in places, is not wider than the steamer itself. Its 
 sides are frequently touched by the long strands of kelp 
 that cover the sharp and dangerous reefs, which may be 
 plainly seen in the clear water. 
 
 The timid passenger, sailing these narrows, holds his 
 
 103
 
 104 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 breath a good part of the time, and casts anxious glances 
 at the bridge, whereon the captain and his pilots stand 
 silent, stern, with steady, level gaze set upon the course. 
 One moment's carelessness, ten seconds of inattention, 
 might mean the loss of a vessel in this dangerous strait. 
 
 Intense silence prevails, broken only by the heavy, slow 
 throb of the steamer and the swirl of the brown water in 
 whirlpools over the rocks ; and these sounds echo far. 
 
 The channel is marked by many buoys and other sig- 
 nals. The island shores on both sides are heavily wooded 
 to the water, the branches spraying out over the water in 
 bright, lacy green. The tree trunks are covered with 
 pale green moss, and long moss-fringes hang from the 
 branches, from the tips of the trees to the water's edge. 
 The effect is the same as that of festal decoration. 
 
 Eagles may always be seen perched motionless upon 
 the tall tree-tops or upon buoys. 
 
 The steamship Colorado went upon the rocks between 
 Spruce and Anchor points in 1900, where her storm- 
 beaten hull still lies as a silent, but eloquent, warning of 
 the perils of this narrow channel. 
 
 The tides roaring in from the ocean through Frederick 
 Sound on the north and Sumner vStrait on the south meet 
 near Finger Point in the narrows. 
 
 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 min- 
 gled 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, fad- 
 ing, and withdrawing 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.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 105 
 
 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 other 
 circumstances, has bird song seemed so nearly divine, so 
 golden with magic and message, as when thrilled through 
 the fragrant, green stillness of Wrangell Narrows at such 
 an hour. 
 
 I was once a passenger on a steamer that lay at anchor 
 all night in Sumner Strait, not daring to attempt the Nar- 
 rows on account of storm and tide. A stormy sunset 
 burned about our ship. The sea was like a great, scarlet 
 poppy, whose every wave petal circled upward at the 
 edges to hold a fleck of gold. Island upon island stood 
 out through that riot of color in vivid, living green, and 
 splendid j)eaks shone burnished against the sky. 
 
 There was no sleep that night. Music and the dance 
 held sway in the cabins for those who cared for them, 
 and for the others there was the beauty of the night. In 
 our chairs, sheltered by the great smoke-stacks of the 
 hurricane-deck, we watched the hours go by — each hour 
 a different color from the others — until the burned-out 
 red of night had paled into the new sweet primrose of 
 dawn. The wind died, leaving the full tide "that, mov- 
 ing, seems asleep"; and no night was ever warmer and 
 sweeter in any tropic sea than that. 
 
 Wrangell Narrows leads into Frederick Sound — so 
 named by Whidbey and Johnstone, who met tliere, in 
 1794, on the birthday of Frederick, Duke of York. 
 
 Vancouver's expedition actually ended here, and the 
 search for the " Strait of Anian " was finally aban- 
 doned. 
 
 Several glaciers are in this vicinity: Small, Patterson, 
 Summit, and Le Conte. The Devil's Thumb, a sjjire- 
 shaped peak on the mainland, rises more than two thou- 
 sand feet above the level of the sea, and stands guard
 
 106 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 over Wrangell Narrows and the islands and glaciers of 
 the vicinity. 
 
 On Soukhoi Island fox ranches were established about 
 five years ago; they are said to be successful. 
 
 The Thunder Bay Glacier is the first on the coast that 
 discharges bergs. The thunder-like roars with which the 
 vast bulks of beautiful blue-white ice broke from the 
 glacier's front caused the Indians to believe this bay to 
 be the home of the thunder-bird, who always produces 
 thunder by the flapping of his mighty wings. 
 
 Baird Glacier is in Thomas Bay, noted for its scenic 
 charms, — glaciers, forestation, waterfalls, and sheer 
 heights combining to give it a deservedly wide reputation 
 among tourists. Elephant's Head, Portage Bay, Farragut 
 Bay, and Cape Fanshaw are important features of the 
 vicinity. The latter is a noted landmark and storm- 
 point. It fronts the southwest, and the full fury of the 
 fiercest storms beats mercilessly upon it. Light craft fre- 
 quently tr}'^ for days to make this point, when a wild 
 gale is blowing from the Pacific. 
 
 Of the scenery to the south of Cape Fanshaw, Whidbey 
 reported to Vancouver, on his final trip of exploration in 
 August, 1794, that "the mountains rose abruptly to a pro- 
 digious height ... to the South, a part of them pre- 
 sented an uncommonly awful appearance, rising with an 
 inclination towards the water to a vast height, loaded 
 with an immense quantity of ice and snow, and overhang- 
 ing their base, which seemed to be insufficient to bear the 
 ponderous fabric it sustained, and rendered the view of 
 the passage beneath it horribly magnificent." 
 
 At the Cape he encountered such severe gales that a 
 whole day and night were consumed in making a distance 
 of sixteen miles. 
 
 There are more fox ranches on " The Brothers " Islands, 
 and soon after passing them Frederick Sound narrows into
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 107 
 
 Stephens' Passage. Here, to starboard, on the mainland, 
 is Mount Windham, twenty-five hundred feet in height, in 
 Windham Bay. 
 
 Gold was discovered in this region in the early seven- 
 ties, and mines were worked for a number of years before 
 the Juneau and Treadwell excitement. The mountains 
 abound in game. 
 
 Sumdum is a mining town in Sumdum, or Holkham, 
 Bay. The fine, live glacier in this arm is more perfectly 
 named than any other in Alaska — Sum-dum, as the 
 Indians pronounce it, more clearly describing the deep 
 roar of breaking and falling ice, with echo, than any other 
 syllables. 
 
 Large steamers do not enter this bay ; but small craft, 
 at slack-tide, may make their way among the rocks and 
 icebergs. It is well worth the extra expense and trouble 
 of a visit. 
 
 To the southwest of Cape Fanshaw, in Frederick Sound, 
 is Turnabout Island, whose suggestive name is as forlorn 
 as Turnagain Arm, in Cook Inlet, where Cook was forced 
 to " turn again " on what proved to be his last voyage. 
 
 Stephens' Passage is between tlie mainland and Admi- 
 ralty Island. This island barely escapes becoming three 
 or four islands. Seymour Canal, in the eastern part, 
 almost cuts off a large portion, which is called Glass 
 Peninsula, the connecting strip of land being merely a 
 portage ; Kootznahoo Inlet cuts more than halfway across 
 from west to east, a little south of the centre of the island ; 
 and at the northern end had Hawk Inlet pierced but a 
 little farther, another island would have been formed. 
 The scenery along these inlets, particularly Kootznahoo, 
 where the lower wooded hills rise from sparkling blue 
 waters to glistening snow peaks, is magnificent. Whid- 
 bey reported that although this island appeared to be 
 composed of a rocky substance covered with but little
 
 108 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 soil, and that chiefly consisting of vegetables in an imper- 
 fect state of dissolution, yet it pi'oduced timber wliich lie 
 considered superior to any he had before observed on the 
 western coast of America. 
 
 It is a pity that some steamship company does not run at 
 least one or two excursions during the summer to the little- 
 known and unexploited inlets of southeastern Alaska — to 
 the abandoned Indian villages, graveyards, and totems ; 
 the glaciers, cascades, and virgin spruce glades ; the roar- 
 ing narrows and dim, sweet fiords, where the regular pas- 
 senger and "tourist" steamers do not touch. A month 
 might easily be spent on such a trip, and enough nature- 
 loving, interested, and interesting people could be found 
 to take every berth — without the bugaboo, the increasing 
 nightmare of the typical tourist, to rob one of his pleasure. 
 
 At present an excursion steamer sails from Seattle, and 
 from the hour of its sailing the steamer throbs through the 
 most beautiful archipelago in the world, the least known, 
 and the one most richly repaying study, making only five 
 or six landings, and visiting two glaciers at most. It is 
 quite true that every moment of this " tourist " trip of ten 
 days is, nevertheless, a delight, if the weather be favor- 
 able ; that the steamer rate is remarkably cheap, and that 
 no one can possibly regret having made this trip if he can- 
 not afford a longer one in Alaska. But this does not alter 
 the fact that there are hundreds of people who would 
 gladly make the longer voyage each summer, if transpor- 
 tation were afforded. Local transportation in Alaska is 
 so expensive that few can afford to go from place to place, 
 waiting for steamers, and paying for boats and guides for 
 every side trip they desire to make. 
 
 Admiralty Island is rich in gold, silver, and other min- 
 erals. There are whaling grounds in the vicinity, and a 
 whaling station was recently established on the southwest- 
 ern end of the Island, near Surprise Harbor and Murder
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 109 
 
 Cove. Directly across Chatham Strait from this station, 
 on Baranoff Ishmd, only twenty-five miles from Sitka, are 
 the famous Sulphur Hot Springs. 
 
 There are fine marble districts on the western shores of 
 Admiralty Island. 
 
 On the southern end are Woewodski Harbor and Pybas 
 Bay. 
 
 Halfway through Stephens' Passage are the Midway 
 Islands, and but a short distance farther, on the mainland, 
 is Port Snettisham, a mining settlement on an arm whose 
 northern end is formed by Cascades Glacier, and from 
 whose southern arm musically and exquisitely leaps a cas- 
 cade which is the only rival of Sarah Island in the affec- 
 tions of mariners — Sweetheart Falls. 
 
 Who so tenderly named this cascade, and for whom, I 
 have not been able to learn ; but those pale green, foam- 
 crested waters shall yet give up their secret. Never 
 would Vancouver be suspected of such naming. Had he 
 so prettily and sentimentally named it, the very waters 
 would have turned to stone in their fall, petrified by 
 sheer amazement. 
 
 The scenery of Snettisham Inlet is the finest in this 
 vicinity of fine scenic effects, with the single exception of 
 Taku Glacier. 
 
 In Taku Harbor is an Indian village, called Taku, where 
 ma}^ be found safe anchorage, which is frequently required 
 in winter, on account of what are called "Taku winds." 
 Passing Grand Island, which rises to a wooded peak, the 
 steamer crosses the entrance to Taku Inlet and enters 
 Gastineau Channel. 
 
 There are many fine peaks in this vicinity, from two to 
 ten thousand feet in height. 
 
 The stretch of water where Stephens' Passage, Taku 
 Inlet, Gastineau Channel, antl the southeastern arm of 
 Lynn Canal meet is in winter dreaded by pilots. A
 
 110 ALASKA: THE GliEAT COUNTRY 
 
 squall is liable to come tearing down Taku Inlet at any 
 moment and meet one from some other direction, to the 
 peril of navigation. 
 
 At times a kind of fine frozen mist is driven across by 
 the violent gales, making it difficult to see a ship's length 
 ahead. At such times the expressive faces on the bridge 
 of a steamer are psychological studies. 
 
 In summer, however, no open stretch of water could 
 be more inviting. Clear, faintly rippled, deep sapphire, 
 flecked with the first glistening bergs floating out of the 
 inlet, it leads the way to the glorious presence that lies 
 beyond. 
 
 I had meant to take the reader first up lovely Gastineau 
 Channel to Juneau ; but now that I have unintentionally 
 drifted into Taku Inlet, the glacier lures me on. It is 
 only an hour's run, and the way is one of ever increasing 
 beauty, until the steamer has pushed its prow through the 
 hundreds of sparkling icebergs, under slow bell, and at 
 last lies motionless. One feels as though in the presence 
 of some living, majestic being, clouded in mystery. The 
 splendid front drops down sheer to the water, from a 
 height of probably three hundred feet. A sapphire mist 
 drifts over it, without obscuring the exquisite tintings of 
 rose, azure, purple, and green that flash out from the 
 glistening spires and columns. The crumpled mass push- 
 ing down from the mountains strains against the front, 
 and sends towered bulks plunging headlong into the sea, 
 with a roar that echoes from peak to peak in a kind of 
 " linked sweetness long drawn out " and ever diminishing. 
 
 There is no air so indescribably, thrillingly sweet as the 
 air of a glacier on a fair day. It seems to palpitate with 
 a fragrance that ravishes the senses. I saw a great, re- 
 cently captured bear, chained on the hurricane deck of a 
 steamer, stand with his nose stretched out toward the 
 glacier, his nostrils quivering and a look of almost human
 
 ALASKA: THE GliEAT COUNTRY 111 
 
 longing and rebellion in his small eyes. The feeling of 
 pain and pity with wliich a humane person always be- 
 holds a chained wild animal is accented in these wide and 
 noble spaces swimming from snow mountain to snow 
 mountain, where the very watchword of the silence seems 
 to be " Freedom." The chained bear recognized the scent 
 of the glacier and remembered that he had once been free. 
 
 In front of the glacier stretched miles of sapphire, sun- 
 lit sea, set with sparkling, opaline-tinted icebergs. Now 
 and then one broke and fell apart before our eyes, sending 
 up a funnel-shaped spray of color, — rose, pale green, or 
 azure. 
 
 At every blast of the steamer's whistle great masses of 
 ice came thundering headlong into the sea — to emerge 
 presently, icebergs. Canoeists approach glaciers closely 
 at their peril, never knowing when an iceberg may shoot 
 to the surface and wreck their boat. Even larger craft 
 are by no means safe, and tourists desiring a close ap- 
 proach should voyage with intre^Did captains who sail 
 safely through everything. 
 
 The wide, ceaseless sweep of a live glacier down the 
 side of a great mountain and out into the sea holds a more 
 compelling suggestion of power than any other action of 
 nature. I have never felt the appeal of a mountain gla- 
 cier — of a stream of ice and snow that, so far as the eye 
 can discover, never reaches anywhere, although it keeps 
 going forever. The feeling of forlornness with which, 
 after years of anticipation, I finally beheld the renowned 
 glacier of the Selkirks, will never be forgotten. It was 
 the forlornness of a child who has been robbed of her 
 Santa Claus, or who has found that her doll is stuffed with 
 sawdust. 
 
 But to behold the splendid, perpendicular front of a 
 live glacier rising out of a sea which breaks everlastingly 
 upon it ; to see it under the rose and lavender of sunset
 
 112 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 or the dull gold of noon; to see and hear tower, minaret, 
 dome, go thundering down into the clear depths and pound 
 them into foam — this alone is worth the price of a trip 
 to Alaska. 
 
 We were told that the opaline coloring of the glacier 
 was unusual, and that its prevailing color is an intense 
 blue, more beautiful and constant tlian that of other gla- 
 ciers ; and that even the bergs floating out from it were 
 of a more pronounced blue than other bergs. 
 
 But I do not believe it. I have seen the blue of the 
 Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound ; and I have 
 sailed for a whole afternoon among the intensely blue ice 
 shallops that go drifting in an endless fleet from Glacier 
 Bay out through Icy Straits to the ocean. If there be a 
 more exquisite blue this side of heaven than I have seen 
 in Icy Straits and in the palisades of the Columbia Gla- 
 cier, I must see it to believe it. 
 
 There are three glaciers in Taku Inlet: two — Wind- 
 ham and Twin — which are at present "dead " ; and Taku, 
 the Beautiful, which is very much alive. The latter was 
 named Foster, for the former Secretary of the Treasury ; 
 but the Indian name has clung to it, which is one more 
 cause for thanksgiving. 
 
 The Inlet is eighteen miles long and about seven hun- 
 dred feet wide. Taku River flows into it from the north- 
 east, spreading out in blue ribbons over the brown flats ; 
 at high tide it may be navigated, with caution, by small 
 row-boats and canoes. It was explored in early days by 
 the Hudson Bay Company, also by surveyors of the West- 
 ern Union Telegraph Company. 
 
 Whidbey, entering the Inlet in 1794, sustained his repu- 
 tation for absolute blindness to beauty. He found "a 
 compact body of ice extending some distance nearly all 
 around." He found " frozen mountains," " rock sides," 
 "dwarf pine trees," and "undissolving frost and snow."
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 113 
 
 He lamented the lack of a suitable landing-place for boats; 
 and reported the aspect in general to be " as dreary and 
 inhospitable as the imagination can possibly suggest." 
 
 Alas for the poor chilly Englishman ! He, doubtless, 
 expected silvery-gowned ice maidens to come sliding out 
 from under the glacier in pearly boats, singing and kissing 
 their hands, to bear him back into their deep blue grottos 
 and dells of ice, and refresh him with Russian tea from 
 old brass samovars ; he expected these maidens to be 
 girdled and crowned with carnations and poppies, and to 
 pluck winy grapes — with dust clinging to their bloomy 
 roundness — from living vines for him to eat ; and most 
 of all, he expected to find in some remote corner of the 
 clear and sparkling cavern a big fireplace, " which would 
 remind him pleasantly of England ; " and a brilliant fire 
 on a well-swept hearth, with the smoke and sparks going 
 up through a melted hole in the glacier. 
 
 About fifteen miles up Taku River, Wright Glacier 
 streams down from the southeast and fronts upon the low 
 and marshy lands for a distance of nearly three miles. 
 
 The mountains surrounding Taku Inlet rise to a height 
 of four thousand feet, jutting out abruptly, in places, over 
 the water.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 Gastineatj Channel is more than a mile wide at the 
 entrance, and eight miles long ; it narrows gradually as 
 it separates Douglas Island from the mainland, and, still 
 narrowing, goes glimmering on past Juneau, like a silver- 
 blue ribbon. Down this channel at sunset burns the most 
 beautiful coloring, which slides over the milky waters, pro- 
 ducing an opaline effect. At such an hour this scene 
 — with Treadwell glittering on one side, and Juneau on 
 the other, with Mount Juneau rising in one swelling sweep 
 directly behind the town — is one of the fairest in this 
 country of fair scenes. 
 
 The unique situation of Juneau appeals powerfully to 
 the lover of beauty. There is an unforgettable charm in 
 its narrow, crooked streets and winding, mossed stairways; 
 its picturesque shops, — some with gorgeous totem-poles 
 for signs, — where a small fortune may be spent on a single 
 Attn or Atka basket; the glitter and the music of its 
 streets and its " places," the latter open all night; its 
 people standing in doorways and upon corners, eager to 
 talk to strangers and bid them welcome ; and its gayly 
 clad squaws, surrounded by fine baskets and other work 
 of their brown hands. 
 
 The streets are terraced down to the water, and many 
 of the pretty, vine-draped cottages seem to be literally 
 hung upon the side of the mountain. *One must have 
 good, strong legs to climb daily the flights of stairs that 
 steeply lead to some of them. 
 
 114
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 115 
 
 In the heart of the town is an old Presbyterian Mission 
 church, built of logs, with an artistic square tower, also 
 of logs, at one corner. This church is now used as a 
 brewery and soda-bottling establishment! 
 
 The lawns are well cared for, and the homes are fur- 
 nished with refined taste, giving evidences of genuine 
 comfort, as well as luxury. 
 
 My first sight of Juneau was at three o'clock of a dark 
 and rainy autumn night in 1905. We had drifted slowly 
 past the mile or more of brilliant electric lights which is 
 Treadwell and Douglas ; and turning our eyes to the north, 
 discovered, across the narrow channel, the lights of Juneau 
 climbing out of the darkness up the mountain from the 
 water's edge. Houses and buildings we could not see ; only 
 those radiant lights, leading us on, like will-o'-the-wisps. 
 
 When we landed it seemed as though half the people of 
 the town, if not the entire population, must be upon the 
 wharf. It was then that we learned that it is always 
 daytime in Alaskan towns when a steamer lands — even 
 though it be three o'clock of a black night. 
 
 The business streets were brilliant. Everything was 
 open for business, except the banks ; a blare of music 
 burst through the open door of every saloon and dance- 
 hall ; blond-haired " ladies " went up and down the 
 streets in the rain and mud, bare-headed, clad in gauze 
 and other airy materials, in silk stockings and satin 
 slippers. They laughed and talked with men on the 
 streets in groups ; they were heard singing ; they were 
 seen dancing and inviting the young waiters and cabin- 
 boys of our steamer into their dance halls. 
 
 " How'd you like Juneau?" asked my cabin-boy the 
 next day, teetering in the doorway with a plate of oranges 
 in his hand, and a towel over his arm. 
 
 " It seemed very lively," I replied, "for three o'clock in 
 the morninef."
 
 116 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 "Oh, hours don't cut any ice in Alaska," said he. 
 " People in Alaska keep their clo's hung up at the head of 
 tlieir beds, like the harness over a fire horse. When the 
 boat whistles, it loosens the clo's from the hook ; the people 
 spring out of bed right under 'em ; the clo's fall onto 'em 
 — an' there they are on the wharf, all dressed, by the 
 time the boat docks. They're all right here, but say ! 
 they can't hold a candle to the people of Valdez for gettin' 
 to the dock. They just cork you at Valdez." 
 
 At Juneau I went through the most brilliant business 
 transaction of my life. I was in the post-office when I 
 discovered that I had left my pocket-book on the steamer. 
 I desired a curling-iron ; so I borrowed a big silver dollar 
 of a friend, and hastened away to the largest dry-goods 
 shop. 
 
 A sleepy clerk waited upon me. The curling-iron was 
 thirty cents. I gave him the dollar, and he placed the 
 change in my open hand. Without counting it, I went 
 back to the post-office, purchased twenty-five cents' worth 
 of stamps, and gave the balance to the friend from whom 
 I had borrowed the dollar, 
 
 "•Count it," said I, "and see how much I owe you." 
 
 She counted it. 
 
 " How much did you spend ? " she asked presently. 
 
 "Fifty-five cents." 
 
 She began to laugh wildly. 
 
 " You have a thirty-cent curling-iron, twenty-five cents' 
 worth of stamps, and you've given me back a dollar and 
 sixty-five cents — all out of one silver dollar ! " 
 
 I counted the money. It was too true. 
 
 With a burning face I took the change and went back 
 to the store. My friend insisted upon going with me, 
 although I would have preferj-ed to see her lost on the 
 Taku Glacier. I cannot endure people who laugh like 
 children at everything.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 117 
 
 The captain and several passengers were in the store. 
 They heard my exphination ; and they all gathered around 
 to assist the polite but sleepy clerk. 
 
 One would say that it would be tlie simplest thing in 
 the world to straighten out that change ; but the postage 
 stamps added complications. Everybody figured, ex- 
 plained, suggested, criticised, and objected. Several times 
 we were quite sure we had it. Then, some one would 
 titter — and the whole thing would go glimmering out of 
 sight. 
 
 However, at the end of twenty minutes it was arranged 
 to the clerk's and my own satisfaction. Several hours 
 later, when we were well on our way up Lynn Canal, a 
 calmer figuring up proved that I had not paid one cent 
 for my curling-iron. 
 
 From the harbor Mount Juneau has the appearance of 
 rising directly out of the town — so sheer and bold is its 
 upward sweep to a height of three thousand feet. Down 
 its many pale green mossy fissures falls the liquid silver 
 of cascades. 
 
 It is heavily wooded in some places ; in others, the 
 bare stone shines through its mossy covering, giving 
 a soft rose-colored effect, most pleasing to the e^^e. 
 
 Society in Juneau, as in every Alaskan town, is gay. 
 Its watcliword is hospitality. In summer, there are many 
 excursions to glaciers and the famed inlets Avhich lie 
 almost at their door, and to see which other people travel 
 thousands of miles. In winter, there is a brilliant whirl 
 of dances, card parties, and receptions. " Smokers " to 
 which ladies are invited are common — although they are 
 somewhat like the pioneer dish of "potatoes-and-point." 
 
 Wljen the pioneers were too poor to buy sufficient bacon 
 for the family dinner, they hung a small piece on the wall ; 
 the family ate their solitary dish of potatoes and pointed 
 at the piece of bacon.
 
 118 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 So, at these smokers, the hidies must be content to see 
 the men smoke, but they might, at least, be allowed to 
 point. 
 
 Most of the people are wealthy. Money is plentiful, 
 and misers are unknown. The expenditure of money for 
 the purchase of pleasure is considered the best investment 
 that an Alaskan can make. 
 
 Fabulous prices are paid for luxuries in food and 
 dress. 
 
 " I liave lived in Dawson since 1897," said a lady last 
 summer, " and liave never been ill for a day. I attribute 
 my good health to the fact that I have never flinched at 
 the price of anything my appetite craved. Many a time 
 I have paid a dollar for a small cucumber ; but I have 
 never paid a dollar for a drug. I have always had fruit, 
 regardless of the price, and fresh vegetables. No amount 
 of time or money is considered wasted on flowers. Women 
 of Alaska invariably dress well and present a smart 
 appearance. Many wear imported gowns and hats — and 
 I do not mean imported from 'the states,' either — and 
 costly jewels and furs are more common than in any other 
 section of America. We entertain lavishly, and our 
 hospitality is genuine." 
 
 Every traveller in Alaska will testify to the truth of 
 these assertions. If a man looks twice at a dollar before 
 spending it, he is soon " jolted " out of the pernicious 
 habit. 
 
 The worst feature of Alaskan social life is the " coming 
 out " of many of the women in winter, leaving their hus- 
 bands to spend the long, dreary winter months as they 
 may. To this selfishness on the part of the women is 
 due much of the intoxication and immorality of Alaska — 
 few men being of sufficiently strong character to with- 
 stand the distilled temptations of the country. 
 
 That so many women go " out " in winter, is largely
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 119 
 
 due to the proverbial kindness and indulgence of American 
 husbands, who are loath to have their wives subjected to 
 the rigors and the hardships of an Alaskan winter. 
 
 However, the winter exodus may scarcely be considered 
 a feature of the society of Juneau, or other towns of 
 southeastern Alaska. The climate resembles that of 
 Puget Sound ; there is a frequent and excellent steamship 
 service to and from Seattle ; and the reasons for the 
 exodus that exist in cold and shut-in regions have no 
 apparent existence here. 
 
 Every business — and almost every industry — is repre- 
 sented in Juneau. The town has excellent schools and 
 churches, a library, women's clubs, hospitals, a cham- 
 ber of commerce, two influential newspapers, a militia 
 company, a brass band — and a good brass band is a 
 feature of real importance in this land of little music — an 
 opera-house, and, of course, electric lights and a good 
 water system. 
 
 Juneau has for several years been the capital of Alaska ; 
 but not until the appointment of Governor Wilford B. 
 Hoggatt, in 1906, to succeed Governor J. G. Brady, were 
 the Executive Office and Governor's residence established 
 here. So confident have the people of Juneau always 
 been that it would eventually become the capital of Alaska, 
 that an eminence between the town and the Auk village 
 has for twenty years been called Capitol Hill. During all 
 these years there has been a fierce and bitter rivalry 
 between Juneau and Sitka. 
 
 Juneau was named for Joseph Juneau, a miner who 
 came, " grubstaked," to this region in 1880. It was the 
 fifth name bestowed upon the place, which grew from a 
 single camp to the modern and independent town it is 
 to-day — and the capital of one of the greatest countries 
 in the world. 
 
 In its early days Juneau passed through many exciting
 
 120 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and charming vicissitudes. Anything but monotony is 
 welcomed by a town in Alaska ; and existence in Juneau 
 in the eighties was certainly not monotonous. 
 
 The town started with a grand stampede and rush, 
 which rivalled that of the Klondike seventeen years later ; 
 the Treadwell discovery and attendant excitement came 
 during the second year of its existence, and a guard of 
 marines was necessary to preserve order, until, upon its 
 withdrawal, a vigilance committee took matters into its 
 own hands, with immediate beneficial results. 
 
 The population of Juneau is about two thousand, which 
 — like that of all other northern towns — is largely in- 
 creased each fall by the miners who come in from the hills 
 and inlets to "winter." 
 
 In the middle eighties there were Chinese riots. The 
 little yellow men were all driven out of town, and their 
 quarters were demolished by a mob. 
 
 A recent attempt to introduce Hindu labor in the 
 Treadwell mines resulted as disastrously.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Treadwell! Could any mine employing stamps have 
 a more inspiring name, unless it be Stampvvell ? It fairly 
 forces confidence and success. 
 
 Douglas Island, lying across the narrow channel from 
 Juneau, is twenty-five miles long and from four to nine 
 miles wide. On this island are the four famous Tread- 
 well mines, owned by four separate companies, but having 
 the same general managership. 
 
 Gold was first discovered on this island in 1881. Sorely 
 against his will, John Treadwell was forced to take some 
 of the original claims, having loaned a small amount upon 
 them, which the borrower was unable to repay. 
 
 Having become possessed of these claims, a gambler's 
 " hunch " impelled him to buy an adjoining claim from 
 " French Pete " for four hundred dollars. On this claim 
 is now located the famed " Glory Hole." 
 
 This is so deep that to one looking down into it the 
 men working at the bottom and along the sides appear 
 scarcely larger than flies. Steep stairways lead, winding, 
 to the bottom of this huge quartz bowl ; but visitors to 
 the dizzy regions below are not encouraged, on account of 
 frequent blasting and danger of accidents. 
 
 It is claimed that Treadwell is the largest quartz mine 
 in the world, and that it employs the largest number of 
 stamps — nine hundred. The ore is low grade, not yield- 
 ing an average of more than two dollars to the ton ; but 
 it is so easily mined and so economically handled that the 
 
 121
 
 122 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 mines rank with the Calumet and Hecla, of Michigan ; 
 the Comstock Lode mines, of Nevada ; the Homestake, of 
 South Dakota ; and the Porthind, of Colorado. 
 
 The Tread well is the pride of Alaska. Its poetic situ- 
 ation, romantic history, and admirable methods shouhl 
 make it the pride of America. 
 
 Its management has always been just and liberal. It 
 has had fewer labor troubles than any other mine in 
 America. 
 
 There are two towns on the island — Tread well and 
 Douglas. The latter is the commercial and residential 
 portion of the community — for the towns meet and min- 
 gle together. 
 
 The entire population, exclusive of natives, is three 
 thousand people — a population that is constantly increas- 
 ing, as is the demand for laborers, at prices ranging from 
 two dollars and sixty cents per day up to five dollars for 
 skilled labor. 
 
 The island is so brilliantly lighted by electricity that 
 to one approaching on a dark night it presents the appear- 
 ance of a city six times its size. 
 
 The nine hundred stamps drop ceaselessly, day and 
 night, with only two holidays in a year — Christmas 
 and the Fourth of July. The noise is ferocious. In the 
 stamp-mill one could not distinguish the boom of a can- 
 non, if it were fired within a distance of twenty feet, from 
 the deep and continuous thunder of the machinery. 
 
 In 1881 the first mill, containing five stamps, was built 
 and commenced crushing ore that came from a streak 
 twenty feet wide. This ore milled from eight to ten dol- 
 lars a ton, proving to be of a grade suflficiently high to pay 
 for developing and milling, and leave a good surplus. 
 
 It was soon recognized that the great bulk of the ore 
 was extremely low grade, and that, consequently, a large 
 milling capacity would be required to make the enterprise
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTBT 123 
 
 a success. A one-hundred-and-twenty-stamp-mill was 
 erected and began crushing ore in June, 1885. At the 
 end of three years the stamps were doubled. In another 
 year three hundred additional stamps were dropping. 
 Gradually the three other mines were opened up and the 
 stamps were increased until nine hundred were dropping. 
 
 The shafts are from seven to nine hundred feet below 
 sea level, and one is beneath the channel ; yet very little 
 water is encountered in sinking them. Most of the water 
 in the mines comes from the surface and is caught up and 
 pumped out, from the first level. 
 
 The net profits of these mines to their owners are said 
 to be six thousand dollars a day ; and mountains of ore 
 are still in sight. 
 
 Our captain obtained permission to take us down into 
 the mine. Tliis was not so difficult as it was to elude the 
 other passengers. At last, however, we found ourselves 
 shut into a small room, lined with jumpers, slickers, and 
 caps. 
 
 Shades of the things we put on to go under Niagara 
 Falls ! 
 
 " Get into this ! " commanded the captain, holding a 
 sticky and unclean slicker for me. "And make haste! 
 There's no time to waste for you to examine it. Finicky 
 ladies don't get two invitations into the Treadwell. Put 
 in your arm." 
 
 My arm went in. When an Alaskan sea captain speaks, 
 it is to obey. Who last wore that slicker, far be it from 
 me to discover. Chinaman, leper, Jap, or Auk — it mat- 
 tered not. I was in it, then, and curiosity was sternly 
 stifled. 
 
 "Now put on this cap." Then beheld mine eyes a cap 
 that would make a Koloshian ill. 
 
 "Must I put that on?" 
 
 I whispered it, so the manager would not hear.
 
 124 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 "You must put this on. Take off your hat/' 
 
 My hat came off, and the cap went on. It was pushed 
 down well over my hair ; down to my eyebrows in the 
 front and down to the nape of my neck in the back. 
 
 "There! " said the captain, cheerfully. "You needn't 
 be afraid of anytliing down in the mine now." 
 
 Alas! there was nothing in any mine, in any world, 
 that I dreaded as I did what might be in that cap. 
 
 There were four of us, with the manager, and there 
 was barely room on the rather dirty " lift " for us. 
 
 We stood very close together. It was as dark as a 
 dungeon. 
 
 " Now — look out ! " said the manager. 
 
 As we started, I clutched somebody — it did not matter 
 whom. I also drew one wild and amazed breath; before 
 I could possibly let go of that one — to say nothing of 
 drawing another — there was a bump, and we were in a 
 level one thousand and eighty feet below the surface of 
 the earth. 
 
 We stepped out into a brilliantly lighted station, with 
 a high, glittering quartz ceiling. The swift descent had 
 so affected my hearing that I could not understand a word 
 that was spoken for fully five minutes. None of my com- 
 panions, however, complained of the same trouble. 
 
 It has been the custom to open a level at every hundred 
 and ten feet; but hereafter tlie distance between levels in 
 the Tread well mine will be one hundred and fifty feet. 
 
 At each level a station, or chamber, is cut out, as wide 
 as the shaft, from forty to sixty feet in length, and having 
 an average height of eight feet. A drift is run from the 
 shaft for a distance of twenty -five feet, varying in height 
 from fifteen feet in front to seven at the back. The main 
 crosscut is then started at right angles to the station drift. 
 
 From east and west the " drifts " run into this cross- 
 cut, like little creeks into a larger stream.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 125 
 
 No one has ever accused me of being shy in the matter 
 of asking questions. It was the tirst time I had been 
 down in one of the famous gold mines of the world, and I 
 asked as many questions as a woman trying to rent a 
 forty-dollar house for twenty dollars. Between shafts, 
 stations, ore bins, crosscuts, stopes, drifts, levels, and 
 winzes, it was less than fifteen minutes before I felt the 
 cold moisture of despair breaking out upon my brow. 
 Winzes proved to be the last straw. I could get a glim- 
 mering of what the other things were; but winzes! 
 
 The manager had been polite in a forced, friend-of-the- 
 captain kind of way. He was evidently willing to answer 
 every question once, but whenever I forgot and asked the 
 same question twice, he balked instantly. Exerting 
 every particle of intelligence I possessed, I could not 
 make out the difference between a stope and a station, 
 except that a stope had the higher ceiling. 
 
 " I have told you the difference three times already," 
 cried the manager, irritably. 
 
 The captain, back in the shadow, grinned sympa- 
 thetically. 
 
 " Nor'-nor'-west, nor'-by-west, a-quarter-nor','' said he, 
 sighing. " She'll learn your gold mine sooner than she'll 
 learn my compass." 
 
 Then they both laughed. They laughed quite a while, 
 and my disagreeable friend laughed with them. For my- 
 self, I could not see anything funny anywhere. 
 
 I finally learned, however, that a station is a place cut 
 out for a stable or for the passage of cars, or other things 
 requiring space; while a stope is a room carried to the 
 level of the top of the main crosscut. It is called a stope 
 because the ore is " stoped " out of it. 
 
 But winzes ! What winzes are is still a secret of the 
 ten-hundred-and-eighty-foot level of the Treadwell mine. 
 
 Tram-cars filled with ore, each drawn by a single horse,
 
 126 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 passed us in every drift — or was it in crosscuts and levels ? 
 One horse had been in the mine seven years without 
 once seeing sunlight or fields of green grass; without 
 once sipping cool water from a mountain creek with quiv- 
 ering, sensitive lips ; without once stretching his aching 
 limbs upon the soft sod of a meadow, or racing with his 
 fellows upon a hard road. 
 
 But every man passing one of these horses gave him an 
 affectionate pat, which was returned by a low, pathetic 
 whinny of recognition and pleasure. 
 
 " One old fellow is a regular fool about these horses," 
 said the manager, observing our interest. "He's always 
 carrying them down ai-mfuls of green grass, apples, sugar, 
 and everything a horse will eat. You'd ought to hear 
 them nicker at sight of him. If they pass him in a drift, 
 when he hasn't got a thing for them, they'll nicker and 
 nicker, and keep turning their heads to look after him. 
 Sometimes it makes me feel queer in my throat." 
 
 No one can by any chance know wliat noise is until he 
 has stood at the head of a drift and heard three Ingersoll- 
 Sergeant drills beating with lightning-like rapidity into 
 the walls of solid quartz for the purpose of blasting. 
 
 Standing between these drills and within three feet of 
 them, one suddenly is possessed of the feeling that his 
 sense of hearing has broken loose and is floating around 
 in his head in waves. This feeling is followed by one of 
 suffocation. Shock succeeds shock until one's very mind 
 seems to go vibrating away. 
 
 At a sign from the manager the silence is so sudden 
 and so intense that it hurts almost as much as the 
 noise. 
 
 There is a fascination in walking through these high- 
 ceiled, brilliantly lighted stopes, and these low-ceiled, 
 shadowy drifts. Walls and ceilings are gray quartz, glit- 
 tering with gold. One is constantly compelled to turn
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 127 
 
 aside for cars of ore on their way to the dumping-places, 
 where their burdens go thundering to the levels be- 
 low. 
 
 At last the manager paused. 
 
 "I suppose," said he, sighing, "you wouldn't care to 
 see the — " 
 
 I did not catch the last word, and had no notion what 
 it was, but I instantly assured him that I would rather see 
 it than anything in the whole mine. 
 
 His face fell. 
 
 " Really — " he began. 
 
 "Of course we'll see it," said the captain; "we want 
 to see everything." 
 
 The manager's face fell lower. 
 
 "All right," said he, briefly, "come on! " 
 
 We had gone about twenty steps when I, who was 
 close behind him, suddenly missed him. He was gone. 
 
 Had he fallen into a dump hole ? Had he gone to 
 atoms in a blast? I blinked into the shadows, standing 
 motionless, but could see no sign of him. 
 
 Then his voice shouted from above me — " Come on ! " 
 
 I looked up. In front of me a narrow iron ladder led 
 upward as straight as any flag-pole, and almost as high. 
 Where it went, and why it went, mattered not. The only 
 thing that impressed me was that the manager, halfway 
 up this ladder, had commanded me to "come on." 
 
 If to "come on! " up that perpendicular ladder whose 
 upper end was not in sight! 
 
 But whatever might be at the top of that ladder, I had 
 assured him that I would rather see it than anything in 
 the whole mine. It was not for me to quail. I took firm 
 hold of the cold and unclean rungs, and started. 
 
 When we had slowly and painfully climbed to the top, 
 we worked our way through a small, square hole and 
 emerged into another stope, or level, and in a verj^ dark
 
 128 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 part of it. Each man worked by the light of a single 
 candle. They were stoping out ore and making it ready 
 to be dumped into lower levels — from which it would 
 finally be hoisted out of the mine in skips. 
 
 The ceiling was so low that we could walk only in a 
 stooping position. The laborers worked in the same posi- 
 tion ; and wliat with this discomfort and the insufficient 
 light, it would seem tliat their condition was unenviable. 
 Yet their countenances denoted neither dissatisfaction 
 nor ill-humor. 
 
 "• Well," said the manager, presently, "■ you can have it 
 to say that you have been under the bay, anyhow." 
 
 " Under the — " 
 
 " Yes ; under Gastineau Channel. Tiiat's straight. It 
 is directly over us." 
 
 We immediately decided that we had seen enough of 
 the great mine, and cheerfully agreed to the captain's 
 suggestion that we return to the ship. We were com- 
 pelled to descend by the perpendicular ladder ; and the 
 descent was far worse than the ascent had been. 
 
 On our way to the " lift " by which we had made our 
 advent into the mine, we met another small party. It 
 was headed by a tall and handsome man, whose air of 
 delicate breeding would attract attention in any gather- 
 ing in the world. His distinction and military bearing 
 shone through his greasy slicker and greasier cap — which 
 he instinctively fumbled, in a futile attempt to lift it, as 
 we passed. 
 
 It was that brave and gallant explorer, Brigadier-Gen- 
 eral Greely, on his way to the Yukon. He was on liis 
 last tour of inspection before retirement. It was his fare- 
 well to the Northern country which he has served so faith- 
 fully and so well. 
 
 One stumbles at almost every turn in Alaska upon some 
 world-famous person who has auswered Beauty's far.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 129 
 
 insistent call. The modest, low-voiced gentleman at one's 
 side at the captain's table is more likely than not a cele- 
 brated explorer or geologist, writer or artist ; or, at the 
 very least, an earl. 
 
 " After we've seen our passengers eat their first meal," 
 said the chief steward, "we know how to seat them. You 
 can pick out a lady or a gentleman at the table without 
 fail. A boor can fool you every place except at the 
 table. We never assign seats until after the first meal ; 
 and often er than you would suppose we seat them accord- 
 ing to their manners at the first meal." 
 
 I smiled and smiled, then, remembering the first meal 
 on our steamer. It was breakfast. We had been down 
 to the dining room for something and, returning, found 
 ourselves in a mob at the head of the stairs. 
 
 There were one hundred and sixty-five passengers on 
 the boat, and fully one hundred and sixty of them were 
 squeezed like compressed hops around that stairway. In 
 two seconds I was a cluster of hops myself, simply that 
 and nothing more. I do not know how the compressing 
 of hops is usually accomplished ; but in my particular 
 case it was done between two immensely big and dis- 
 agreeable men. They ignored me as calmly as though I 
 were a little boy, and talked cheerfully over my head, 
 although it soon developed that they were not in the 
 least acquainted. 
 
 A little black-ringleted, middle-aged woman who 
 seemed to be mounted on wires, suddenly squeezed her 
 head in under their arms, simpering. 
 
 " Oh, Doctor ! " twittered she, coquettishly. " You are 
 talking to wy husband.''' 
 
 " The deuce ! " ejaculated the Doctor, but whether with 
 evil intent or not, I could not determine from his face. 
 
 " Yes, truly. Doctor Metcalf, let me introduce my 
 husband, Mr. Wildey."
 
 130 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 They shook hands on my shoulder — but I didn't mind 
 a little thing like that. 
 
 "On your honeymoon, eh ? " chuckled the Doctor, ami- 
 ably. The other big man grew red to his hair, and the 
 lady's black ringlets danced up and down. 
 
 " Now, now, Doctor," chided she, shaking a finger at 
 him, — she was at least fifty, — " no teasing. No steamer 
 serenades, you know. I was on an Alaskan steamer once, 
 and they pinned red satin hearts all over a bride's state- 
 room door. Just fancy getting up some morning and 
 finding my stateroom door covered with red satin hearts ! " 
 
 " I can smell mackerel," said a shrill tenor behind me ; 
 and alas ! so could I. If there be anything that I like 
 the smell of less than a mackerel, it is an Esquimau hut 
 only. 
 
 Somebody sniffed delightedly. 
 
 " Fried, too," said a happy voice. " Can't you squeeze 
 down closer to the stairway ? " 
 
 Almost at once the big man behind me was tipped for- 
 ward into the big man in front of me — and, as a mere 
 incident in passing, of course, into me as well. We all 
 went tipping and bobbing and clutching toward the stair- 
 way. 
 
 Life does not hold many half-hours so rich and so full 
 as the one that followed. As a revelation of the baser 
 side of human nature, it was precious. 
 
 My friend was tall ; and once, far down the saloon, I 
 caught a glimpse of her handsome, well-carried head as 
 the mob parted for an instant. The expression on her 
 face was like that on the face of the Princess de Lamballe 
 when Lorado Taft has finished with her. 
 
 Suddenly I began to move forward. Rather, I was 
 borne forward without effort on my part. A great wave 
 seemed to pick me up and carry me to the head of the 
 stairway. I fairly floated down into the dining room.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 131 
 
 I fell into the first chair at the first table I came to; but 
 the mob flowed by, looking for something better. Every 
 woman was on a mad hunt for the captain's table. My 
 table remained unpeopled until my friend came in and 
 found me. Gradually and reluctantly the chairs were 
 filled and we devoted ourselves to the mackerel. 
 
 In a far corner at the other end of the room, there was 
 a table with flowers on it. With a sigh of relief I saw 
 black ringlets dancing thereat. 
 
 "Thank heaven!"' I said. "The bride is at the cap- 
 tain's table." 
 
 " Ho, no, ma'am," said the gentle voice of the waiter in 
 my ear. "• You're hat hit yourself, ma'am. You're hin 
 the captain's hown seat, ma'am. 'E don't come down to 
 the first meal, though, ma'am," he added hastily, seeing 
 my look of horror. For the first, last, and, I trust, only, 
 time in my life I had innocently seated myself at a 
 captain's table, without an invitation. 
 
 After breakfast we hastened on deck and went through 
 deep-breathing exercises for an hour, trying to work our- 
 selves back to our usual proportions. 
 
 I should like to see a chief steward seat that mob. 
 
 I was greatly amused, by the way, at a young waiter's 
 description of an earl. 
 
 " We have lots of earls goin' up," said he, easily. " Oh, 
 yes; they go up to Cook Inlet and Kodiak to hunt big 
 game. I always know an earl the first meal. . He makes 
 me pull his corks, and he gives me a quarter or a half for 
 every cork I pull. Sometimes I make six bits or a dollar 
 at a meal, just pulling one earl's corks. I'd rather wait 
 on earls than anybody — except ladies, of course," he 
 added, with a positive jerk of remembrance; whereupon 
 we both smiled.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Gastineau Channel northwest of Juneau is not 
 navigable for craft drawing more than three feet of 
 water, at high tide. 
 
 Coming out of the channel the steamer turns around 
 the southern end of Douglas Island and heads north into 
 Lynn Canal, with Admiralty Island on the port side and 
 Douglas on the starboard. 
 
 Directly north of the latter island is Mendenhall Glacier, 
 formerly known as the Auk. The Indians of this vicinity 
 bear the same name, and have a village north of Juneau. 
 They were a warlike offshoot of the Hoonahs, and bore a 
 bad reputation for treachery and unreliability. Only a 
 few now remain. 
 
 In the neighborhood of this glacier — at which the 
 steamer does not call but which may be plainly seen 
 streaming down — are several snow mountains, from five 
 tliousand to seven thousand feet in height. They seem 
 hardly worthy of the name of mountain in Alaska; but 
 they float so whitelj^ and so beautifully above the deep 
 blue waters of Lynn Canal that the voyager cannot mis- 
 take their mission. 
 
 Shelter Island, west of Mendenhall Glacier, forms two 
 channels — Saginaw and Favorite. The latter, as indi- 
 cated by its name, is the one followed by steamers going 
 to Skaguay. Saginaw is taken by steamers going down 
 Chatham Straits, or Icy Straits, to Sitka. 
 
 Sailing up Favorite Channel, Eagle Glacier is passed 
 
 132
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 133 
 
 on the starboard side. It is topped by a great crag which 
 so closely resembles in outline our national emblem that 
 it was so named by Admiral Beardslee, in 1879. The 
 glacier itself is not of great importance. 
 
 On Benjamin Island, a fair anchorage may be secured 
 for vessels bound north which have unfortunately been 
 caught in a strong northwest gale. 
 
 After the dangerous Vanderbilt Reef is passed, Point 
 Bridget and Point St. Mary's are seen at the entrance to 
 Berner's Bay, where is situated the rich gold mine belong- 
 ing to Governor Hoggatt. 
 
 A light was established in 1905 on Point Sherman; 
 also, on Eldred Rock, where the Clara Nevada went down, 
 in 1898, with the loss of every soul on board. For ten 
 years repeated attempts to locate this wreck have been 
 made, on account of the rich treasure which the ship was 
 supposed to carry; but not until 1908 was it discovered 
 — when, upon the occurrence of a phenomenally low tide, 
 it was seen gleaming in clear green depths for a few 
 hours by the keeper of the lighthouse. There was a 
 large loss of life. 
 
 There is a mining and mill settlement at Seward, in 
 this vicinity. 
 
 William Henry Bay, lying across the canal from Berner's, 
 is celebrated as a sportsman's resort, although this recom- 
 mendation has come to bear little distinction in a country 
 where it is so common. Enormous crabs, rivalling those 
 to the far " Westward," are found here. Their meat is 
 not coarse, as would naturally be supposed, because of 
 their great size, but of a fine flavor. 
 
 Seduction Point, on the island bearing the same name, 
 lies between Chilkaht Inlet on the west and Chilkoot 
 Inlet on the east. For once, Vancouver rose to the oc- 
 casion and bestowed a striking name, because at this point 
 the treacherous Indians tried to lure Whidbey and his
 
 134 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 men up the inlet to their village. Upon his refusal to go, 
 they presented a warlike front, and the sincerity of their 
 first advances was doubted. 
 
 At the entrance to Chilkaht Inlet, Davidson Glacier is 
 seen sweeping down magnificently from near the summit 
 of the White Mountains. Although this glacier does not 
 discliarge bergs, nor rise in splendid tinted palisades 
 straight from the water, as do Taku and Columbia, it is, 
 nevertheless, very imposing — especially if seen from the 
 entrance of the inlet at sunset of a clear day. 
 
 The setting of the glaciers of Lynn Canal is superb. 
 The canal itself, named by Vancouver for his home in 
 England, is the most majestic slender water-way in Alaska. 
 From Puget Sound, fiord after fiord leads one on in ever 
 increasing, ever changing splendor, until the grand climax 
 is reached in Lynn Canal. 
 
 For fifty-five miles the sparkling blue waters of the 
 canal push almost northward. Its shores are practically 
 unbroken by inlets, and rise in noble sweeps or stately 
 palisades, to domes and peaks of snow. Glaciers may be 
 seen at every turn of the steamer. Not an hour — not 
 one mile of this last fifty -five — should be missed. 
 
 In winter the snow descends to the water's edge and 
 this stretch is exalted to sublimity. The waters of the 
 canal take on deep tones of purple at sunset; fires of 
 purest old rose play upon the mountains and glaciers ; 
 and the clear, washed-out atmospliere brings the peaks 
 forward until they seem to overhang the steamer throb- 
 bing up between them. 
 
 Lynn Canal is really but a narrowing continuation of 
 Chatham Strait. Together they form one grand fiord, 
 two hundred miles in length, with scarcely a bend, ex- 
 tending directly north and south. From an average width 
 of four or five miles, they narrow, in places, to less than 
 half a mile.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 135 
 
 In July, 1794, Vancouver, lying at Port Althorp, in 
 Cross Sound, sent Mr. Whidbey to explore the continen- 
 tal shore to the eastward. Mr. Whidbey sailed through 
 Icy Strait, seeing the glacier now known as the Brady 
 Glacier, and rounding Point Couverden, sailed up Lynn 
 Canal. 
 
 Here, as usual, he was simply stunned by the grandeur 
 and magnificence of the scenery, and resorted to his pet 
 adjectives. 
 
 " Both sides of this arm were bounded by loftt/, stupen- 
 dous mountains, covered with perpetual ice and snow, whilst 
 the shores in this neighborhood appeared to be composed 
 of cliffs of very fine slate, interspersed with beaches of 
 very fine paving stone. . . . Up this channel the boats 
 passed, and found the continental shore now take a direc- 
 tion N. 22 W., to a point where the arm narrowed to two 
 miles across ; from whence it extended ten miles further in 
 a direction N. 30 W., where its navigable extent termi- 
 nated in latitude 59° 12', longitude 224° 33'. This sta- 
 tion was reached in the morning of the 16th, after passing 
 some islands and some rocks nearly in mid-channel." (It 
 was probably on one of these that the Clara Nevada was 
 wrecked a hundred years later.) " Above the northern- 
 most of these (which lies four miles below the shoal that 
 extends across the upper part of the arm, there about a 
 mile in width) the water was found to be perfectly fresh. 
 Along the edge of this shoal, the boats passed from side 
 to side, in six feet water, and beyond it, the head of the 
 arm extended about half a league, where a small opening 
 in the land was seen, about the fourth of a mile wide, lead- 
 ing to the northwestward, from whence a rapid stream of 
 fresh water rushed over the shoal " (this was Chilkaht 
 River). " But this, to all appearance, was bounded at no 
 great distance by a continuation of the same lofty ridge 
 of snowy mountains so repeatedly mentioned, as stretch-
 
 136 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ing east warclly from Mount Fairweather, and which, in 
 every point of view they had hitherto been seen, appeared 
 to be a firm and close-connected range of stupendous 
 mountains, forever doomed to support a burthen of undissolv- 
 ing ice and snow.'' 
 
 Here, it will be observed, Whidbey was so unconsciously 
 wrought upon by the sublimity of the country that he was 
 moved to fairly poetic utterance. He seemed, however, 
 to be himself doomed to support forever a burthen of 
 gloom and undissolving weariness as heavy as that borne 
 by the mountains. 
 
 Up this river, or, as Whidbey called it, brook, the 
 Indians informed him, eight chiefs of great consequence 
 resided in a number of villages. He was urged to visit 
 them. Their behavior was peaceable, civil, and friendly ; 
 but Mr. Whidbey declined the invitation, and returning, 
 rounded, and named. Point Seduction, and passing into 
 Chilkoot Inlet, discovered more " high, stupendous moun- 
 tains, loaded with perpetual ice and snow." 
 
 After exploring Chilkoot Inlet, they returned down 
 the canal, soon falling in with a party of friendly Indians, 
 who made overtures of peace. Mr. Whidbey describes 
 their chief as a tall, thin, elderly man. He was dressed 
 superbly, and supported a degree of state, consequence, 
 and personal dignity which had been foUnd among no 
 other Indians. His external robe was a very fine large 
 garment that reached from his neck down to his heels, 
 made of wool from the mountain goat — the famous 
 Chilkaht blanket here described, for the first time, by the 
 unappreciative Whidbey. It was neatly variegated with 
 several colors, and edged and otherwise decorated with 
 little tufts of woollen yarn, dyed of various colors. His 
 head-dress was made of wood, resembling a crown, and 
 adorned with bright copper and brass plates, whence hung 
 a number of tails, or streamers, composed of wool and fur
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 137 
 
 worked together, dyed of various colors, and each termi- 
 nating in a whole ermine skin. 
 
 His whole appearance, both as to dress and manner, was 
 magnificent. 
 
 Mr. Whidbey was suspicious of the good intentions of 
 these new acquaintances, and was therefore well prepared 
 for the trouble that followed. 
 
 Headed by the splendid chief, the Indians attacked 
 Whidbey's part}^ in boats, and, being repulsed, followed 
 for two days. 
 
 As the second night came on boisterously, Mr. Whidbey 
 was compelled to seek shelter. The Indians, understand- 
 ing his design, hastened to shore in advance, got possession 
 of the only safe beach, drew up in battle array, and 
 stood with spears couched, ready to receive the explor- 
 ing party. (This was on the northern part of Admiralty 
 Island.) 
 
 Here appears the most delicious piece of unintentional 
 humor in all Vancouver's narrative. 
 
 " There was now no alternative but either to force a 
 landing by firing upon them, or to remain at their oars all 
 night. The latter Mr. Whidbey considered to be not 
 only the most humane, but the most prudent to adopt, 
 concluding that their habitations were not far distant, 
 and believing them, from the number of smokes that 
 had been seen during the day, to be a very numerous 
 tribe." 
 
 They probably appeared more " stupendous " than any 
 snow-covered mountain in poor Mr. Whidbey's startled 
 eyes. 
 
 To avoid a " dispute " with these " troublesome people," 
 Mr. Whidbey withdrew to the main canal and stopped 
 " to take some rest " at a point which received the 
 felicitous name of Point Retreat, on the northern part of 
 Admiralty Island — a name which it still retains.
 
 138 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 In the following month Mr. Whidbey was compelled to 
 rest again upon his extremely humane spirit, to the south- 
 ward in Frederick Sound, 
 
 " The day being fair and pleasant," chronicles Van- 
 couver, " Mr. Whidbey wished to embrace this opportunity 
 of drying their wet clothes, putting their arms in order. 
 . . . P'or this purpose the party landed on a commodious 
 beach ; but before they had finished their business a large 
 canoe arrived, containing some women and children, and 
 sixteen stout Indian men, well appointed with the arms of 
 the country. . . . Their conduct afterward put on a 
 very suspicious appearance ; the children withdrew into the 
 woods, and the rest fixed their daggers round their wrists, 
 and exhibited other indications not of the most friendly 
 nature. To avoid the chance of anything unpleasant 
 taking place, Mr. Whidbey considered it most humane and 
 prudent to withdraw " — which he did, with all possible 
 despatch. 
 
 They were pursued by the Indians ; this conduct 
 "greatly attracting the observation of the party." 
 
 Mr. Whidbey did not scruple to fire into a fleeing canoe; 
 nor did he express any sorrow when " most hideous and 
 extraordinary noises " indicated tliat he had fired to good 
 effect ; but the instant the Indians lined up in considerable 
 numbers with " couched spears " and warlike attitude, the 
 situation immediately became " stupendous " and Whid- 
 bey's ever ready " humaneness " came to his relief.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Davidson Glacier was named for Professor George 
 Davidson, who was one of its earliest explorers. A heavy 
 forest growth covers its terminal moraine, and detracts 
 from its lower beauty. 
 
 Pyramid Harbor, at the head of Chilkaht Inlet, has an 
 Alaska Packers' cannery at the base of a mountain which 
 rises as straight as an arrow from the water to a height 
 of eighteen hundred feet. This mountain was named 
 Lahouchere, for the Hudson Bay Company's steamer 
 which, in 1862, was almost captured by the Hoonah Ind- 
 ians at Port Frederick in Icy Strait. 
 
 Pyramid Harbor was named for a small pyramid-shaped 
 island which now bears the same name, but of which the 
 Indian name is Schlayhotch. The island is but little 
 more than a tiny cone, rising directly from the water. 
 Indians camp here, in large numbers in the summer-time, 
 to work in the canneries. The women sell berries, baskets, 
 Chilkaht blankets of deserved fame, and other curios. 
 
 It was this harbor which the Canadians in the Joint 
 High Commission of 1898 unblushingly asked the United 
 States to cede to them, together with Chilkaht Inlet and 
 River, and a strip of land through the lisiere owned by us. 
 
 The Chilkaht River flows into this inlet from the north- 
 west. At its mouth it widens into low tide flats, over 
 which, at low tide, the water flows in ribbonish loops. 
 Here, during a " run," the salmon are taken in countless 
 thousands. 
 
 139
 
 140 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The Chilkahts and Chilkoots are the great Indians of 
 Alaska. They comprise the real aristocracy. They are 
 a brave, bold, courageous race ; saucy and independent, 
 constantly carrying a "chip on the shoulder," or a "feather 
 pointing forward " in the head-gear. They are looked up 
 to and feared by the Thlinkits of inferior tribes. 
 
 Their villages are located up the Chilkaht and Chilkoot 
 rivers ; and their frequent mountain journeyings have de- 
 veloped their legs, giving them a well-proportioned, athletic 
 physique, in marked contrast to the bowed- and scrawny- 
 legged canoe dwellers to the southward and westward. 
 
 They are skilful in various kinds of work ; but their 
 fame will eventually endure in the exquisite dance- 
 blankets, known as the Chilkaht blanket. These blankets 
 are woven of the wool of the mountain goat, whose 
 winter coat is strong and coarse. At shedding time in 
 the spring, as the goat leaps from place to place, the wool 
 clings to trees, rocks, and bushes in thick festoons. 
 These the indolent Indians gather for the weaving of 
 their blankets, rather than take the trouble of killing 
 the goats. 
 
 This delicate and beautiful work is, like the Thlinkit 
 and Chilkaht basket, in simple twined weaving. The 
 warp hangs loose from the rude loom, and the wool is 
 woven upward, as in Attu and Haidah basketry. 
 
 The owner of one of the old Chilkaht blankets pos- 
 sesses a treasure beyond price. The demand has cheap- 
 ened the quality of those of the present day ; but those 
 of Baranoff's time were marvels of skill and coloring, 
 considering that Indian women's dark hands were the 
 only shuttles. 
 
 Black, white, yellow, and a peculiar blue are the colors 
 most frequently observed in these blankets ; and a 
 deep, rich red is becoming more common than formerly. 
 A wide black, or dark, band usually surrounds them,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 141 
 
 border-wise, and a fringe as wide as the blanket falls 
 magnificently from the bottom ; a narrower one from 
 the sides. 
 
 The old and rare ones were from a yard and a half 
 to two yards long. The modern ones are much smaller, 
 and may be obtained as low as seventy-five dollars. The 
 designs greatly resemble those of the Haidah hats and 
 basketry. 
 
 The full face, with flaring nostrils, small eyes, and 
 ferocious display of teeth, is the bear ; the eye which 
 appears in all places and in all sizes is that of the thunder- 
 bird, or, with the Haidahs, the sacred raven. 
 
 There is an Indian mission, named Klukwan, at the 
 head of the inlet. 
 
 The Chilkahts were governed by chiefs and sub-chiefs. 
 At the time of the transfer "Kohklux" was the great 
 chief of the region. He was a man of powerful will and 
 determined character. He wielded a strong influence 
 over his tribes, who believed that he bore a charmed life. 
 He was friendly to Americans and did everything in his 
 power to assist Professor George Davidson, who went to 
 the head of Lynn Canal in 1869 to observe the solar total 
 eclipse. 
 
 The Indians apparently placed no faith in Professor 
 Davidson's announcement of approaching darkness in 
 the middle of the day, however, and when the eclipse 
 really occurred, they fled from him, as from a devil, and 
 sought the safety of their mountain fastnesses. 
 
 The passes through these mountains they had held 
 from time immemorial against all comers. The Indians 
 of the vast interior regions and those of the coast could 
 trade only through the Chilkahts — the scornful aristo- 
 crats and powerful autocrats of the country.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Coming out of Chilkaht Inlet and passing around 
 Seduction Point into Chilkoot Inlet, Katscliin River 
 is seen flowing in from the northeast. The mouth of 
 this river, like that of the Chilkaht, spreads into exten- 
 sive flats, making the channel very narrow at this point. 
 
 Across the canal lies Haines Mission, where, in 1883, 
 Lieutenant Schwatka left his wife to the care of Doctor 
 and Mrs. Willard, while he was absent on his exploring 
 expedition down the Yukon. 
 
 The Willards were in charge of this mission, which 
 was maintained by the Presbyterian Board of Missions, 
 until some trouble arose with the Indians over the death 
 of a child, to whom the Willards had administered 
 medicines. 
 
 " Crossing the Mission trail," writes Lieutenant 
 Schwatka, " we often traversed lanes in the grass, which 
 here was fully five feet high, while, in whatever direc- 
 tion the eye might look, wild flowers were growing in 
 the greatest profusion. Dandelions as big as asters, 
 buttercups twice the usual size, and violets rivalling the 
 products of cultivation in lower latitudes were visible 
 around. It produced a singular and striking contrast 
 to raise the eyes from this almost tropical luxuriance, 
 and allow them to rest on Alpine hills, covered halfway 
 down their shaggy sides with the snow and glacier ice, 
 and with cold mist condensed on their crowns. . . . 
 Berries and berry blossoms grew in a profusion and 
 
 142
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 143 
 
 variety which I have never seen equalled within the same 
 limits in lower latitudes." 
 
 This was early in June. Here the lieutenant first 
 made the acquaintance of the Alaska mosquito and gnat, 
 neither of which is to be ignored, and may be propitiated 
 by good red blood only ; also, the giant devil's-club, 
 which he calls devil's-sticks. He was informed that this 
 nettle was formerly used by the shamans, or medicine- 
 men, as a prophylactic against witchcraft, applied ex- 
 ternally. 
 
 The point of this story will be appreciated by all who 
 have come in personal contact with this plant, so tropical 
 in appearance when its immense green leaves are spread 
 out flat and motionless in the dusk of the forest. 
 
 From Chilkoot Inlet the steamer glides into Taiya In- 
 let, which leads to Skaguay. Off this inlet are many 
 glaciers, the finest of which is Ferebee. 
 
 Chilkoot Inlet continues to the northwestward. Chil- 
 koot River flows from a lake of the same name into the 
 inlet. There are an Indian village and large canneries on 
 the inlet. 
 
 Taiya Inlet leads to Skaguay and Dyea. It is a nar- 
 row water-way between high mountains which are covered 
 nearly to their crests with a heavy growth of cedar and 
 spruce. They are crowned, even in summer, with snow, 
 which flows down their fissures and canyons in small but 
 beautiful ghaciers, while countless cascades foam, spar- 
 kling, down to the sea, or drop sheer from such great 
 heights that the beholder is bewildered by their slow, 
 never ceasing fall. 
 
 Here, — at the mouth of the Skaguay River, with moun- 
 tains rising on all sides and the green waters of the inlet 
 pushing restlessly in front ; with its pretty cottages 
 climbing over the foot-hills, and with well-worn, flower- 
 strewn paths enticing to the heights ; with the Skaguay's
 
 144 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 waters winding over the grassy flats like blue ribbons ; 
 with flower gardens beyond description and boxes in every 
 window scarlet with bloom ; with cascades making liquid 
 and most sweet music by day and irresistible lullabies by 
 night, and with snow peaks seeming to float directly over 
 the town in the upper pearl-pink atmosphere — is Skag- 
 uay, the romantic, the marvellous, the town which grew 
 from a dozen tents to a city of fifteen thousand people 
 almost in a night, in the golden year of ninety-eight. 
 
 I could not sleep in Skaguay for the very sweetness of 
 the July night, A cool lavender twilight lingered until 
 eleven o'clock, and then the large moon came over the 
 mountains, first outlining their dark crests with fire ; then 
 throbbing slowly on from peak to peak — bringing irre- 
 sistibly to mind the lines : — 
 
 " Like a great dove with silver wings 
 Stretched, quivering o'er the sea, 
 The moon her glistening plumage brings 
 And hovers silently." 
 
 The air was sweet to enchantment with flowers ; and 
 all night long through my wide-open window came the 
 far, dreamy, continuous music of the water-falls. 
 
 On all the Pacific Coast there is not a more interesting, 
 or a more profitable, place in which to make one's head- 
 quarters for the summer, than Skaguay. More side trips 
 may be made, with less expenditure of time and money, 
 from this point than from any other. Launches may be 
 hired for expeditions down Lynn Canal and up the inlets, 
 — whose unexploited splendors may only be seen in this 
 way ; to the Meudenhall, Davidson, Denver, Bertha, and 
 countless smaller glaciers ; to Haines, Fort Seward, Pyra- 
 mid Harbor, and Seduction Point ; while by canoe, horse, 
 or his own good legs, one may get to the top of Mount
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 145 
 
 Dewey and. to Dewey Lake ; up Face Mountain ; to 
 Dyea ; and many hunting grounds where mountain sheep, 
 bear, goat, ptarmigan, and grouse are plentiful. 
 
 The famous White Pass railway — which was built in 
 eighteen months by the " Three H's," Heney, Hawkins, 
 and Hislop, and which is one of the most wonderful en- 
 gineering feats of the world — may be taken for a trip 
 which is, in itself, worth going a thousand miles to enjoy. 
 Every mile of the way is historic ground — not only to 
 those who toiled over it in 'ninety-seven and 'ninety-eight, 
 bent almost to the ground beneath their burdens, but to 
 the whole world, as well. The old Brackett wagon road ; 
 White Pass City; the "summit"; Bennett Lake; Lake 
 Lindeman ; White Horse Rapids ; Grand Canyon ; Por- 
 cupine Ridge — to whom do these names not stand for 
 tragedy and horror and broken hearts? 
 
 The town of Skaguay itself is more historic than any 
 other point. Here the steamers lightered or floated 
 ashore men, horses, and freight. " You pay your money 
 and you take your chance," the paraphrase went in those 
 days. Many a man saw every dollar he had in provisions ' 
 — and often it was a grubstake, at that — sink to the 
 bottom of the canal before his eyes. Others saw their 
 outfits soaked to ruin with salt water. For those who 
 landed safely, there were horrors yet to come. 
 
 And here, between these mountains, in this wind-racked 
 canyon, the town of Skaguay grew ; from one tent to 
 hundreds in a day, from hundreds to thousands in a 
 week ; from tents to shacks, from shacks to stores and 
 saloons. Here " Soapy " Smith and his gang of outlaws 
 and murderers operated along the trail ; here he was 
 killed ; here is his dishonored grave, between the moun- 
 tains which will not endure longer than the tale of his 
 desperate crimes, and his desperate expiation. 
 
 Not the handsome style of man that one would expect 
 
 L
 
 146 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 of such a bold and daring robber was "Soapy." No 
 flashing black eyes, heavy black hair, and long black mus- 
 tache made him " a living flame among women," as Rex 
 Beach would put it. Small, spare, insignificant in ap- 
 pearance, it has been said that he looked more like an ill- 
 paid frontier minister than the head of a lawless and 
 desperate gang of thieves. 
 
 His " spotters " were scattered along the trail all the 
 way to Dawson. They knew what men were " going in," 
 what ones " coming out," "heeled." Such men were al- 
 ways robbed ; if not on the road, then after reaching 
 Skaguay ; when they could not safely, or easily, be robbed 
 alive, they were robbed dead. It made no difference to 
 "Soapy" or his gang of men and women. It was a reign 
 of terror in that new, unknown, and lawless land. 
 
 There is nothing in Skaguay to-day — unless it be the 
 sinking grave of " Soapy " Smith, which is not found by 
 every one — to suggest the days of the gold rush, to the 
 transient visitor. It is a quiet town, where law and order 
 prevail. It is built chiefly on level ground, with a few 
 very long streets — running out into the alders, balms, 
 spruces, and cottonwoods, growing thickly over the river's 
 flats. 
 
 In all towns in Alaska the stores are open for business 
 on Sunday when a steamer is in. If the door of a curio- 
 store, which has tempting baskets or Chilkaht blankets 
 displayed in the window, be found locked, a dozen small 
 boys shout as one, " Just wait a minute, lady. Propri'- 
 tor's on the way now. He just stepped out for breakfast. 
 Wait a minute, lady." 
 
 We arrived at Skaguay early on a Sunday morning, and 
 were directed to the "'bus " of the leading hotel. We rode 
 at least a mile before reachin"; it. We found it to be a 
 wooden structure, four or five stories in height; the large 
 office was used as a kind of general living-room as well.
 
 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNTRY 147 
 
 The rooms were comfortable and the table excellent. The 
 proprietress grows her own vegetables and flowers, and 
 keeps cows, chickens, and sheep, to enrich her table. 
 
 About ten o'clock in the forenoon we went to the sta- 
 tion to have our trunks checked to Dawson. The doors 
 stood open. We entered and passed from room to room. 
 There was no one in sight. The square ticket window 
 was closed. 
 
 We hammered upon it and upon every closed door. 
 There was no response. We looked up the stairway, but 
 it had a personal air. There are stairways which seem to 
 draw their steps around them, as a duchess does her furs, 
 and to give one a look which says, " Do not take liber- 
 ties with me ! " — while others seem to be crying, 
 " Come up; come up ! " to every passer-by. I have never 
 seen a stairway that had the duchess air to the degree that 
 the one in the station at Skaguay has it. If any one 
 doubts, let him saunter around that station until he finds 
 the stairway and then take a good look at it. 
 
 We went outside, and I, being the questioner of the 
 party, asked a man if the ticket office would be open that 
 day. 
 
 He squared around, put his hands in his pockets, bent 
 his wizened body backward, and gave a laugh that echoed 
 down the street. 
 
 " God bless your soul, lady," said he, " on Sunday ! 
 Only an extry goes out on Sundays, to take round-trip 
 tourists to the summit and back while the steamer waits. 
 To-day's extry has gone." 
 
 " Yes," said I, mildly but firmly, " but we are going to 
 Dawson to-morrow. Our train leaves at nine o'clock, and 
 there will be so many to get tickets signed and baggage 
 checked — " 
 
 He gave another laugh. 
 
 " Don't you worry, lady. Take life easy, the way we
 
 148 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 do here. If we miss one train, we take the next — unless 
 we iniss it, too! " He laughed again. 
 
 At that moment, bowing and smiling in the window of 
 the ticket office, appeared a man — the nicest man I 
 
 " Will you see him bow ! " gasped my friend. " Is he 
 bowing at us 9 Why — are you hoivivg hack?''' 
 
 " Of course I am." 
 
 " What on earth does he want ? " 
 
 " He wants to be nice to us," I replied; and she followed 
 me inside. 
 
 The nice face was smiling through the little square 
 window. 
 
 " I was upstairs," he said — ah, he had descended by 
 way of the " Duchess," " and I heard you rapping on 
 windows and doors " — the smile deepened, " so I came 
 down to see if I could serve you." 
 
 We related our woes ; we got our tickets signed and 
 our baggage checked ; had all our questions answered — 
 and they were not few — and the following morning ate 
 our breakfast at our leisure and were greatly edified by 
 our fellow-travellers' wild scramble to get their bills paid 
 and to reach the station in time to have their baggage 
 checked.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 Sailing down Lynn Canal, Chatham Strait, and the nar- 
 row, winding Peril Strait, the sapphire-watered and 
 exquisitely islanded Bay of Sitka is entered from the 
 north. Six miles above the Sitka of to-day a large wooden 
 cross marks the site of the first settlement, the scene of 
 the great massacre. 
 
 On one side are the heavily and richly wooded slopes 
 of Baranoff Island, crested by many snow-covered peaks 
 which float in the higher primrose mist around the bay; 
 on the other, water avenues — growing to paler, silvery 
 blue in the distance — wind in and out among the green 
 islands to the far sea, glimpses of which may be had; 
 while over all, and from all points for many miles, the 
 round, deeply cratered dome of Edgecumbe shines white 
 and glistening in the sunlight. It is the superb feature 
 of the landscape; the crowning glory of a scene that 
 would charm even without it. 
 
 Mount Edgecumbe is the home of Indian myth and 
 legend — as is Nass River to the southeastward. In 
 appearance, it is like no other mountain. It is only eight 
 thousand feet in height, but it is so round and symmetri- 
 cal, it is so white and sparkling, seen either from the 
 ocean or from the inner channels, and its crest is sunken 
 so evenly into an unforgettable crater, that it instantly 
 impresses upon the beholder a kind of personality among 
 mountains. 
 
 In beauty, in majesty, in sublimity, it neither approaches 
 
 149
 
 150 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 nor compares with twenty other Alaskan mountains which 
 I have seen ; but, like the peerless Shishaldin, to the far 
 westward, it stands alone, distinguished by its unique 
 features from all its sister peaks. 
 
 Not all the streams of lava that have flowed down its 
 sides for hundreds of years have dulled its brilliance or 
 marred its graceful outlines. 
 
 I have searched Vancouver's chronicles, expecting to 
 fined Edgecumbe described as " a mountain having a very 
 elegant hole in the top," — to match his " elegant fork " 
 on jNIount Olympus of Puget Sound. 
 
 Peril Strait is a dangerous reach leading in sweeping 
 curves from Chatham Strait to Salisbury Sound. It is 
 the watery dividing line between Chichagoff and Baranoff 
 islands. It has two narrows, where the rapids at certain 
 stages of the tides are most dangerous. 
 
 Upon entering the strait from the east, it is found to 
 be wide and peaceful. It narrows gradually until it 
 finally reaches, in its forty-mile windings, a width of less 
 than a hundred yards. 
 
 There are several islands in Peril Strait : Fairway and 
 Trader's at the entrance ; Broad and Otstoi on the star- 
 board ; Pouverstqi, Elovoi,Rose, and Kane. Between Otstoi 
 and Pouverstoi islands is Deadman's Reach. Here are Peril 
 Point and Poison Cove, where Baranoff lost a hundred 
 Aleuts by their eating of poisonous mussels in 1799. For 
 this reason the Russians gave it the name, Pogibshi, which, 
 interpreted, means " Destruction," instead of the " Perni- 
 cious " or " Peril " of the present time. 
 
 Deadman's Reach is as perilous for its reefs as for its 
 mussels. Hoggatt Reef, Dolph Rock, Ford Rock, Elovoi 
 Island, and Krugloi Reef are all dangerous obstacles to 
 navigation, making this reach as interestingly exciting as 
 it is beautiful. 
 
 Fierce tides race through Sergius Narrows, and steamers
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 151 
 
 going to and from Sitka are guided by the careful calcu- 
 lation of their masters, that they may arrive at the narrows 
 at the favorable stage of the tides. Bores, racing several 
 feet high, terrific whirlpools, and boiling geysers make it 
 impossible for vessels to approach when the tides are at 
 their worst. This is one of the most dangerous reaches 
 in Alaska. 
 
 Either Rose or Adams Channel may be used going to 
 Sitka, but the latter is the favorite. 
 
 Kakul Narrows leads into Salisbury Sound ; but the 
 Sitkan steamers barely enter this sound ere they turn to 
 the southeastward into Neva Strait. It was named by 
 Portlock for the Marquis of Salisbury. 
 
 Entrance Island rises between Neva Strait and St. John 
 the Baptist Bay. There are both coal and marble in the 
 latter bay. 
 
 Halleck Island is completely surrounded by Nakwasina 
 Passage and Olga Strait, joining into one grand canal of 
 uniform widtli. 
 
 All these narrow, tortuous, and perilous water-ways wind 
 around the small islands that lie between Baranoff Island 
 on the east and Kruzoff Island on the west. Baranoff is 
 one hundred and thirty miles long and as wide as thirty 
 miles in places. Kruzoff Island is small, but its southern 
 extremity, lying directly west of Sitka, shelters that 
 favored place from the storms of the Pacific. 
 
 Whitestone Narrows in the southern end of Neva Strait 
 is extremely narrow and dangerous, owing to sunken 
 rocks. Deep-draught vessels cannot enter at low tide, 
 but must await the favorable half-hour. 
 
 Sitka Sound is fourteen miles long and from five to 
 eight wide. It is more exquisitely islanded than any 
 other bay in the world ; and after passing the site of Bara- 
 noff's first settlement and Old Sitka Rocks, the steamer's 
 course leads through a misty emerald maze. Sweeping
 
 152 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 slowly around the green shore of one island, a dozen others 
 dawn upon the beholder's enraptured vision, frequently 
 appearing like a solid wall of green, which presently parts 
 to let the steamer slide through, — when, at once, another 
 dazzling vista opens to the view. 
 
 Before entering Sitka Sound, Halleck, Partoffs-Chigoff, 
 and Krestoff are the more important islands ; in Sitka 
 Sound, Crow, Apple, and Japonski. The latter island is 
 world-famous. It is opposite, and very near, the town ; 
 it is about a mile long, and half as wide ; its name, " Japan," 
 was bestowed because, in 1805, a Japanese junk was 
 wrecked near this island, and the crew was forced to dwell 
 upon it for weeks. It is greenly and gracefully draped 
 with cedar and spruce trees, and is an object of much 
 interest to tourists. 
 
 Around Japonski cluster more than a hundred small 
 islands of the Harbor group ; in the whole sound there 
 are probably a thousand, but some are mere green or 
 rocky dots floating upon the pale blue water. 
 
 A magnetic and meteorological observatory was estab- 
 lished on Japonski by the Russians and was maintained 
 until 1867.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 The Northwest Coast of America extended from Juan 
 de Fuca's Strait to the sixtieth parallel of north latitude. 
 Under the direction of the powerful mind of Peter the 
 Great explorations in the North Pacific were planned. 
 He wrote the following instructions with his own hand, 
 and ordered the Chief Admiral, Count Fedor Apraxin, to 
 see that they were carried into execution : — 
 
 First. — One or two boats, with decks, to be built at 
 Kamchatka, or at any other convenient place, with which 
 
 Second. — Inquiry should be made in relation to the 
 northerly coasts, to see whether they were not contiguous 
 with America, since their end was not known. And this 
 done, they should 
 
 Third. — See whether they could not somewhere find 
 an harbor belonging to Europeans, or an European ship. 
 They should likewise set apart some men who were to 
 inquire after the name and situation of the coasts dis- 
 covered. Of all this an exact journal should be kept, 
 with which they should return to St. Petersburg. 
 
 Before these instructions could be carried out, Peter 
 the Great died. 
 
 His Empress, Catherine, however, faithfully carried out 
 his plans. 
 
 The first expedition set out in 1725, under the com- 
 mand of Vitus Behring, a Danish captain in the Russian 
 service, with Lieutenants Spanberg and Chirikoff as 
 assistants. They carried several officers of inferior rank ; 
 
 163
 
 154 ALASKA: TUB GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 also seamen and ship-builders. Boats were to be built at 
 Kamchatka, and they started overland through Siberia on 
 February the fifth of that year. Owing to many trials 
 and hardships, it was not until 1728 that Behring sailed 
 along the eastern shore of the peninsula, passing and 
 naming St. Lawrence Island, and on through Behring 
 Strait. There, finding that the coast turned westward, 
 his natural conclusion was that Asia and America were 
 not united, and he returned to Kamchatka. In 1734, 
 under the patronage of the Empress Elizabeth, Peter the 
 Great's daughter, a second expedition made ready ; but 
 owing to insurmountable difficulties, it was not until Sep- 
 tember, 1740, that Behring and Chirikoff set sail in the 
 packet-boats St. Peter and St. Paul — Behring command- 
 ing the former — from Kamchatka. They wintered at 
 Avatcha on the Kamchatkan Peninsula, where a few 
 buildings, including a church, were hastily erected, and 
 to which the name of Petropavlovsk was given. 
 
 On June 4, 1741, the two ships finally set sail on their 
 eventful voyage — how eventful to us of the United 
 States we are only, even now, beginning to realize. 
 They were accompanied by Lewis de Lisle de Croyere, 
 professor of astronomy, and Georg Wilhelm Steller, natu- 
 ralist. 
 
 Miiller, the historian, and Gmelin, professor of chem- 
 istry and natural history, also volunteered in 1733 to 
 accompany the expedition ; but owing to the long delay, 
 and ill-health arising from arduous labors in Kamchatka, 
 they were compelled to permit the final expedition to de- 
 part without them. 
 
 On the morning of June 20, the two ships became 
 separated in a gale and never again sighted one an- 
 other. Chirikoff took an easterly course, and to him, 
 on the fifteenth of July, fell, by chance, the honor of the 
 first discovery of land on the American continent, oppo-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 155 
 
 site Kamchatka, in 55° 21'. Here he lost two boatloads of 
 seamen whom he sent ashore for investigation, and whose 
 tragic fate may only be guessed from the appearance of 
 savages later, upon the shore. 
 
 That the first Russians landing upon the American 
 continent should have met with so horrible a fate as theirs 
 is supposed to have been, has been considered by the 
 superstitious as an evil omen. The first boat sent ashore 
 contained ten armed sailors and was commanded by the 
 mate, Abraham Mikhailovich Dementief. The latter is 
 described as a capable young man, of distinguished family, 
 of fine personal appearance, and of kind heart, who, having 
 suffered from an unfortunate love affair, had offered him- 
 self to serve his country in this most hazardous expedi- 
 tion. They were furnished with provisions and arms, 
 including a small brass cannon, and given a code of sig- 
 nals by Chirikoff, by which they might communicate with 
 the ship. The boat reached the shore and passed behind 
 a point of land. For several days signals which were 
 supposed to indicate that the party was alive and well, 
 were observed rising at intervals. At last, however, 
 great anxiety was experienced by those on board lest the 
 boat should have sustained damage in some way, making 
 it impossible for the party to return. On the fifth day 
 another boat was sent ashore with six men, including a 
 carpenter and a calker. They effected a landing at the 
 same place, and shortly afterward a great smoke was ob- 
 served, pushing its dark curls upward above the point of 
 land behind which the boats had disappeared. 
 
 The following morning two boats were discovered put- 
 ting off from the shore. There was great rejoicing on 
 the ship, for the night had been passed in deepest anxiety, 
 and without further attention to the boats, preparations 
 were hastily made for immediate sailing. Soon, however, 
 to the dread and horror of all, it was discovered that the
 
 156 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 boats were caiioes filled with savages, who, at sight of the 
 ship, gave unmistakable signs of astonishment, and shout- 
 ing "Agai! Agai ! " turned hastily back to the shore. 
 
 Silence and consternation fell upon all. Chirikoif, hu- 
 mane and kind-hearted, bitterly bewailed the fate of his 
 men. A wind soon arising, he was forced to make for 
 the open sea. He remained in the vicinity, and as soon 
 as it was possible, returned to his anchorage ; but no 
 signs of the unfortunate sailors were ever discovered. 
 
 Without boats, and without sufficient men, no attempt 
 at a rescue could be made ; nor was further exploration 
 possible ; and heavy-hearted and discouraged, notwith- 
 standing his brilliant success, Chirikoff again weighed 
 anchor and turned his ship homeward. 
 
 He and his crew were attacked by scurvy ; provisions 
 and water became almost exhausted ; Chirikoff was con- 
 fined to his berth, and many died ; some islands of the 
 chain now known as the Aleutians were discovered ; and 
 finally, on the 8th of October, 17-11, after enduring in- 
 expressible hardships, great physical and mental suffering, 
 and the loss of twenty-one men, they arrived on the coast 
 of Kamchatka near the point of their departure. 
 
 In the meantime, on the day following Chirikoff 's dis- 
 covery of land. Commander Behring, far to the north- 
 westward, saw, rising before his enraptured eyes, the 
 splendid presence of Mount St, Elias, and the countless, 
 and scarcely less splendid, peaks which surround it, and 
 which, stretching along the coast for hundreds of miles, 
 whitely and silently people this region with majestic beauty. 
 Steller, in his diary, claims to have discovered land on the 
 fifteenth, but was ridiculed by his associates, although it 
 was clearly visible to all in the same place on the follow- 
 ing day. 
 
 They effected a landing on an island, which they named 
 St. Elias, in honor of the day upon which it was dis-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 157 
 
 covered. It is now known as Kayak Island, but the 
 mountain retains the original name. Having accom- 
 plished the purpose of his expedition, Behring hastily 
 turned the St. Peter homeward. 
 
 For this haste Behring has been most severely criticised. 
 But when we take into consideration the fact that prep- 
 arations for this second expedition had begun in 1733 ; 
 that during all those years of difficult travelling through 
 Siberia, of boat building and the establishment of posts 
 and magazines for the storing of provisions, he had been 
 hampered and harassed almost beyond endurance by the 
 quarrelling, immorality, and dishonesty of his subordi- 
 nates ; that for all dishonesty and blunders he was made 
 responsible to the government; and that so many com- 
 plaints of him had been forwarded to St. Petersburg by 
 officers whom he had reprimanded or otherwise punished 
 that at last, in 1739, officers had been sent to Ohkotsk to 
 investigate his management of the preparations ; that he 
 had now discovered that portion of the American conti- 
 nent which he had set out to discover, had lost Chirikoff, 
 upon whose youth and hopefulness he had been, perhaps 
 unconsciously, relying; and — most human of all — that 
 he had a young and lovely wife and two sons in Russia 
 whom he had not seen for years (and whom he was des- 
 tined never to see again) ; when we take all these things 
 into consideration, there seems to be but little justice in 
 these harsh criticisms. 
 
 To-day, there is no portion of the Alaskan coast more 
 unreliable, nor more to be dreaded by mariners, than that 
 in the vicinity of Behring's discovery. Even in summer 
 violent winds and heavy seas are usually encountered. 
 Steamers cannot land at Kayak, and passengers and 
 freight are lightered ashore ; and when this is accom- 
 plished without disaster or great difficulty, the trip is 
 spoken of as an exceptional one. Yet Behring remained
 
 158 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 in this dangerous anchorage five days. Several landings 
 were made on the two Kayak Islands, and on various smaller 
 ones. Some Indian huts, without occupants, were found 
 and entered. They were built of logs and rough bark 
 and roofed with tough dried grasses. There were, also, 
 some sod cellars, in which dried salmon was found. In 
 one of the cabins were copper implements, a whetstone, 
 some arrows, ropes, and cords made of sea-weed, and rude 
 household utensils ; also herbs which had been prepared 
 according to Kamchatkan methods. 
 
 Returning, Behring discovered and named many of the 
 Aleutian Islands and exchanged presents with the friendly 
 natives. They were, however, overtaken by storms and 
 violent illness ; they suffered of hunger and thirst ; so 
 many died that barely enough remained to manage the 
 ship. Finally on November 5, in attempting to land, 
 the St. Peter was wrecked on a small island, where, on 
 the 8th of December, in a wretched hut, half covered 
 with sand which sifted incessantly through the rude 
 boards that were his only roof, and after suffering unim- 
 aginable agonies, the illustrious Dane, Vitus Behring, 
 died the most miserable of deaths. The island was 
 named for him, and still retains the name, being the 
 larger of the Commander Islands. 
 
 The survivors of the wreck remaining on Behring 
 Island dragged out a wretched existence until spring, in 
 holes dug in the sand and roofed with sails. Water they 
 had ; but their food consisted chiefly of the flesh of sea- 
 otters and seals. In May, weak, emaciated, and hopeless 
 thougli they were, and with their brave leader gone, they 
 began building a boat from the remnants of the St. Peter. 
 It was not completed until August ; when, with many 
 fervent prayers, they embarked, and, after nine da5"s of 
 mingled dread and anxiety in a frail and leaking craft, 
 they arrived safely on the Kamchatkan shore.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 159 
 
 All hope of their safety had long been abandoned, and 
 there was great rejoicing upon their return. Out of their 
 own deep gratitude a memorial was placed in the church 
 at Petropavlovsk, which is doubtless still in existence, 
 as it was in a good state of preservation a few years ago. 
 
 Russian historians at first seemed disposed to depre- 
 ciate Behring's achievement, and to over-exalt the Rus- 
 sian, Chirikoff. They made the claim that the latter 
 was a man of high intellectual attainments, courageous, 
 hopeful, and straightforward ; kind-hearted, and giving 
 thought to and for others. He was instructor of the 
 marines of the guard, but after having been recom- 
 mended to Peter the Great as a young man highly quali- 
 fied to accompany the expedition under Behring, he was 
 promoted to a lieutenancy and accompanied the latter on 
 his first expedition in 1725 ; and on the second, in 1741, 
 he was made commander of the St. Pevril^ or St. Paul, 
 " not by seniority but on account of superior knowledge 
 and worth." Despite the fact that Behring was placed 
 by the emperor in supreme command of both expeditions, 
 the Russians looked upon Chirikoff as the real hero. He 
 was a favorite with all, and in the accounts of quarrels 
 and dissensions among the heads of the various detach- 
 ments of scientists and naval officers of the expedition, 
 the name of Chirikoff does not appear. His wife and 
 daughter accompanied him to Siberia. 
 
 Captain Vitus Behring — or Ivan Ivanovich, as the 
 Russians called him — is described as a man of intelli- 
 gence, honesty, and irreproachable conduct, but rather 
 inclined in his later years to vacillation of purpose and 
 indecision of character, yielding easily to an irritable and 
 capricious temper. Whether these facts were due to age 
 or disease is not known ; but that they seriously affected 
 his fitness for the command of an exploration is not 
 denied, even by his admirers. Even so sane and consci-
 
 160 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 entious an historian as Dall calls him timid, hesitating, 
 and indolent, and refers to his "characteristic imbecility," 
 "utter incapacity," and "total incompetency." It is in- 
 credible, however, that a man of such gross faults should 
 have been given the command of this brilliant expedition 
 by so wise and great a monarch as Peter. Behring died, 
 — old, discouraged, in indescribable anguish; suspicious 
 of every one, doubting even Steller, the naturalist Mdio 
 accompanied the expedition and who was his faithful 
 friend. Chirikoff returned, young, flushed with success, 
 popular and in favor with all, from the Empress down to 
 his subordinates. Favored at the outset by youth and 
 a cheerful spirit, his bright particular star guided him to 
 the discovery of land a few hours in advance of Behring. 
 This was his good luck and his good luck only. Vitus 
 Behring, the Dane in the Russian service, was in supreme 
 command of the expedition ; and to him belongs the glory. 
 One cannot to-day sail that magnificent sweep of purple 
 water between Alaska and Eastern Siberia without a 
 thrill of thankfulness that the fame and the name of the 
 illustrious Dane are thus splendidly perpetuated. 
 
 To-day, his name is heard in Alaska a thousand times 
 where Chirikoff's is heard once. The glory of the latter 
 is fading, and Behring is coming to his own — Russians 
 speaking of him with a pride that approaches veneration. 
 
 Captain Martin Petrovich Spanberg, the third in com- 
 mand of the expedition, was also a Dane. He is every- 
 where described as an illiterate, coarse, cruel man; 
 grasping, selfish, and unscrupulous in attaining ends 
 that made for his own advancement. In his study of 
 the character of Spanberg, Bancroft — who has furnished 
 the most complete and painstaking description of these 
 expeditions — makes comment which is, perhaps uninten- 
 tionally, humorous. After describing Spanberg as exceed- 
 ingly avaricious and cruel, and stating that his bad
 
 Copyright b> h\ 11. .\c,«,-l], S 
 
 Kow-Ear-Jsuk and his Duying Salmc
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 161 
 
 reputation extended over all Siberia, and that his name 
 appears in hundreds of complaints and petitions from 
 victims of his licentiousness, cruelty, and avarice, Bancroft 
 naively adds, "He was just the man to become rich." 
 Wealthy people may take such comfort as they can out 
 of the comment.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 iNSPrRED by the important discoveries of this expedition 
 and by the hope of a profitable fur trade with Cliina, 
 various Russian traders and adventurers, known as 
 " promyshleniki," made voyages into the newly discovered 
 regions, pressing eastward island by island, and year by 
 year ; beginning that long tale of cruelty and bloodshed 
 in the Aleutian Islands which has not yet reached an end. 
 Men as harmless as the pleading, soft-eyed seals were 
 butchered as heartlessly and as shamelessly, that their 
 stocks of furs might be appropriated and their women 
 ravished. In 1745 Alexei Beliaief and ten men inveigled 
 fifteen Aleutians into a quarrel with the sole object of 
 killing them and carrying off their women. In 1762, the 
 crew of the G-avril persuaded twenty-five young Aleutian 
 girls to accompany them "• to pick berries and gather roots 
 for the ship's company." On the Kamchatkan coast 
 several of the crew and sixteen of these girls were landed 
 to pick berries. Two of the girls made their escape into 
 the hills; one was killed by a sailor; and the others cast 
 themselves into the sea and were drowned. Gavril 
 Pushkaref, who was in command of the vessel, ordered 
 that all the remaining natives, with the exception of one 
 boy and an interpreter, should be thrown overboard and 
 drowned. 
 
 These are only two instances of the atrocious outrages 
 perpetrated upon these innocent and childlike people by 
 the brutal and licentious traders who have frequented 
 
 162
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 163 
 
 these far beautiful islands from 1745 to the present time. 
 From year to year now dark and horrible stories float down 
 to us from the far northwestward, or vex our ears when we 
 sail into those pale blue water-ways. Nor do they con- 
 cern " promyshleniki " alone. Charges of the gravest 
 nature have been made against men of high position who 
 spend much time in the Aleutian Islands. That these 
 gentle people have suffered deeply, silently, and shamefully, 
 at the hands of white men of various nationalities, has 
 never been denied, nor questioned. It is well known to 
 be the simple truth. From 1760 to about 1766 the natives 
 rebelled at their treatment and active hostilities were 
 carried on. Many Russians were killed, some were 
 tortured. Solovief, upon arriving at Unalaska and learn- 
 ing the fate of some of his countrymen, resolved to avenge 
 them. His designs were carried out with unrelenting 
 cruelty. By some writers, notably Berg, his crimes have 
 been palliated, under the plea that nothing less than ex- 
 treme brutality could have so soon reduced the natives to 
 the state of fear and humility in which they have ever 
 since remained — failing to take into consideration the 
 atrocities perpetrated upon the natives for years before 
 their open revolt. 
 
 In 1776 we find the first mention of Grigor Ivanovich 
 Shelikoff; but it was not until 1781 that he succeeded in 
 making the first permanent Russian settlement in America, 
 on Kodiak Island, — forty-three dark and strenuous years 
 after Vitus Behring saw Mount St. Elias rising out of the 
 sea. Shelikoff was second only to Baranoff in the early 
 history of Russian America, and is known as "the founder 
 and father of Russian colonies in America." His wife, 
 Natalie, accompanied him upon all his voyages. She was 
 a woman of very unusual character, energetic and am- 
 bitious, and possessed of great business and executive 
 ability. After her husband's death, her management for
 
 164 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 many years of not only her own affairs, but those of the 
 Shelikoff Company as well, reflected great credit upon 
 herself. 
 
 It was the far-sighted Shelikoff who suggested and carried 
 out the idea of a monopoly of the fur trade in Russian 
 America under imperial charter. As a result of his 
 forceful presentation of this scheme and the able — and 
 doubtless selfish — assistance of General Jacobi, the gov- 
 ernor-general of Eastern Siberia, the Empress became 
 interested. In 1788 an imperial ukase was issued, grant- 
 ing to the Shelikoff Company exclusive control of the 
 territory already occupied by them. Assistance from the 
 public coffers was at that time withheld; but the Empress 
 graciously granted to Shelikoff and his partner, Golikof, 
 swords and medals containing her portrait. The medals 
 were to be worn around their necks, and bore inscriptions 
 explaining that they " had been conferred for services 
 rendered to humanity by noble and bold deeds." 
 
 Although Shelikoff greatly preferred the pecuniary 
 assistance from the government, he nevertheless accepted 
 with a good grace the honor bestowed, and bided his time 
 patiently. 
 
 In accordance with commands issued by the commander 
 at Ohkotsk and by the Empress herself, Shelikoff adopted 
 a policy of humanity in his relations with the natives, 
 although it is suspected that this was on account of his 
 desire to please the Empress and work out his own designs, 
 rather than the result of his own kindness of heart. 
 
 With the clearness of vision whicli distinguished his 
 whole career, Shelikoff selected Alexander Baranoff as his 
 agent in the territory lying to the eastward of Kodiak. 
 In Voskresseuski, or Sunday, Harbor — now Resurrection 
 Bay, on which the town of Seward is situated — Baranoff" 
 built in 1794 the first vessel to glide into the waters of 
 Northwestern America — the Phcenix. At the request of
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 165 
 
 Shelikoff a colony of two hundred convicts, accompanied 
 by twenty priests, were sent out by imperial ukase, and 
 established at Yakutat Bay, under Baranoff. During the 
 years that followed many complaints were entered by the 
 clergy against Baranoff for cruelty, licentiousness, and 
 mismanagement of the company's affairs. But, whatever 
 his faults may have been, it is certain that no man could 
 have done so much for the promotion of the company's 
 interests at that time as Baranoff; nor could any other so 
 efticiently have conducted its affairs. 
 
 It was during his governorship that the rose of success 
 bloomed brilliantl}^ for the Russian-American Company 
 in the colonies. He was a shrewd, tireless, practical 
 business man. His successors were men distinguished in 
 army and navy circles, haughty and patrician, but abso- 
 lutely lacking in business ability, and ignorant of the 
 unique conditions and needs of the country. 
 
 After -Baranoff's resignation and death, the revenues of 
 the company rapidly declined, and its vast operations were 
 conducted at a loss. 
 
 It was in 1791 that Baranoff assumed command of all the 
 establishments on the island of the Shelikoff Company which, 
 under imperial patronage, liad already secured a partial mo- 
 nopoly of the American fur trade. Owing to competition by 
 independent traders, the large company, after the death of 
 Shelikoff, united with its most influential rival, under the 
 name of the Shelikoff United Company. The following 
 year this company secured an imperial ukase which granted 
 to it, under the name of the Russian-American Company, 
 " full privileges, for a period of twenty years, on the coast 
 of North-western America, beginning from latitude fifty- 
 five degrees North, and including the chain of islands ex- 
 tending from Kamchatka northward to America and 
 southward to Japan ; the exclusive right to all enterprises, 
 whetlier hunting, trading, or building, and to new discov-
 
 166 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 eries, with strict prohibition from profiting by any of these 
 pursuits, not only to all parties who might engage in them 
 on their own responsibility, but also to those who formerly 
 had ships and establishments there, except those who have 
 united with the new company." 
 
 In the same year a fort was established by Baranoff, on 
 what is now Sitka Sound. This was destroyed by natives ; 
 and in 1804 another fort was erected by Baranoff, near the 
 site of the former one, which he named Fort Archangel 
 Michael. This fort is the present Sitka. Its establish- 
 ment enabled the Russian-American Company to extend 
 its operations to the islands lying southward and along the 
 continental shore. 
 
 We now come to the most fascinating portion of the his- 
 tory of Alaska. Not even the wild and romantic days of 
 gold excitement in the Klondike can equal Baranoff 's reign 
 at Sitka for picturesqueness and mysterious charm. The 
 strength and personality of the man were such that to-day 
 one who is familiar with his life and story, entering Sitka, 
 will unconsciously feel his presence ; and will turn, with 
 a sigh, to gaze upon the commanding height where once 
 his castle stood. 
 
 There were many dark and hopeless days for Baranoff 
 during his first years with the company, and it was while 
 in a state of deep discouragement and hopelessness that he 
 received the news of his appointment as chief manager of 
 the newly organized Russian-American Company. Most 
 of his plans and undertakings had failed ; many Russians 
 and natives had been lost on hunting voyages ; English 
 and American traders had superseded him at every point 
 to the eastward of Kodiak ; many of his iVleutian hunters 
 had been killed in conflict with the savage Thlinkits ; he 
 had lost a sloop which had been constructed at Voskressen- 
 ski Bay ; and finally, he had returned to Kodiak enduring 
 the agonies of inflammatory rheumatism, only to be re-
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 167 
 
 proaclied by the subordinates, who were suffering of actual 
 hunger — so long had they been without relief from supply 
 ships. 
 
 In this dark hour the ship arrived which carried not only 
 good tidings, but plentiful supplies as well. Baranoff's star 
 now shone brightly, leading him on to hope and renewed 
 effort. 
 
 In the spring of the following year, 1799, Baranoff, with 
 two vessels manned by twenty-two Russians, and three hun- 
 dred and fifty canoes, set sail for the eastward. Many of 
 the natives were lost by foundering of the canoes, and 
 many more by slaughter at the hands of the Kolosh, but 
 finally they arrived at a point now known as Old Sitka, 
 six miles north of the present Sitka, and bartered with the 
 chief of the natives for a site for a settlement. Captain 
 Cleveland, whose ship Caroline, of Boston, was then lying 
 in the harbor, describes the Indians of the vicinity as fol- 
 lows : " A more hideous set of beings in the form of men 
 and women, I had never before seen. The fantastic man- 
 ner in which many of the faces were painted was probably 
 intended to give them a more ferocious appearance ; and 
 some groups looked really as if they had escaped from the 
 dominions of Satan himself. One had a perpendicular line 
 dividing the two sides of the face, one side of which 
 was painted red, the other black, with the hair daubed 
 with grease and red ochre, and filled with the down of 
 birds. Another had the face divided with a horizontal 
 line in the middle, and painted black and white. The 
 visage of a third was painted in checkers, etc. Most of 
 them had little mirrors, before the acquisition of which 
 they must have been dependent on each other for those 
 correct touches of the pencil which are so much in vogue, 
 and which daily require more time than the toilet of a 
 Parisian belle." 
 
 These savages were known to be treacherous and dan-
 
 168 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 gerous, but they pretended to be friendly, and fears were 
 gradually allayed by continued peace. The story of the 
 great massacre and destruction of the fort is of poignant 
 interest, as simply and pathetically told by one of the 
 survivors, a hunter : " In this present year 1802, about 
 the twenty-fourth of June — I do not remember the exact 
 date, but it was a holiday — about two o'clock in the after- 
 noon, I went to the river to look for our calves, as I had 
 been detailed by the commander of the fort, Vassili Med- 
 vednikof, to take care of the cattle. On returning soon 
 after, I noticed at the fort a great multitude of Kolosh 
 people, who had not only surrounded the barracks below, 
 but were already climbing over the balcony and to the 
 roof with guns and cannon ; and standing upon a little 
 knoll in front of the out-houses, was the Sitka toyon^ or 
 chief, Mikhail, giving orders to those who were around the 
 barracks, and shouting to some people in canoes not far 
 away, to make haste and assist in the fight. In answer 
 to his shouts sixty-two canoes emerged from behind the 
 points of rocks." (One is inclined to be sceptical con- 
 cerning the exact number of canoes ; the frightened hunter 
 would scarcely pause to count the war canoes as they 
 rounded the point.) " Even if I had reached the barracks, 
 they were already closed and barricaded, and there was no 
 safety outside ; therefore, I rushed away to the cattle yard, 
 where I had a gun. I only waited to tell a girl who was 
 employed in the yard to take her little child and fly to the 
 woods, when, seizing my gun, I closed up the shed. Very 
 soon after this four Kolosh came to the door and knocked 
 three times. As soon as I ran out of the shed, they seized 
 me by the coat and took my gun from me. I was com- 
 pelled to leave both in their hands, and jumping through 
 a window, ran past the fort and hid in the thick underbrush 
 of the forest, though two Kolosh ran after me, but could 
 not find me in the woods. Soon after, I emerged from
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 169 
 
 the underbrush, and approached the barracks to see if the 
 attack had been repulsed, but I saw that not only the 
 barracks, but the ship recently built, the warehouse and 
 the sheds, the cattle sheds, bath house and other small 
 buildings, had been set on fire and were already in full 
 blaze. The sea-otter skins and other property of the 
 company, as well as the private property of Medvednikof 
 and the hunters, the savages were throwing from the bal- 
 cony to the ground on the water side, while others seized 
 them and carried them to the canoes, which were close to 
 the fort. . . . All at once I saw two Kolosli running toward 
 me armed with guns and lances, and I was compelled to 
 hide again in the woods. I threw myself down among 
 the underbrush on the edge of the forest, covering myself 
 with pieces of bark. From there I saw Nakvassin drop 
 from the upper balcony and run toward the woods ; but 
 when nearly across the open space he fell to the ground, 
 and four warriors rushed up and carried him back to the 
 barracks on the points of their lances and cut off his head. 
 Kabanof was dragged from the barracks into the street, 
 where the Kolosh pierced him with their lances ; but how 
 the other Russians who were there came to their end, I do 
 not know. The slaughter and incendiarism were continued 
 by the savages until the evening, but finally I stole out 
 among the ruins and ashes, and in my wanderings came 
 across some of our cows, and saw that even the poor dumb 
 animals had not escaped the bloodthirsty fiends, having 
 spears stuck in their sides. Exercising all my strength, 
 I was barely able to pull out some of the spears, when I 
 was observed by two Kolosh, and compelled to leave the 
 cows to their fate and hide again in the woods. 
 
 " I passed the night not far from the ruins of the fort. 
 In the morning I heard the report of a cannon and 
 looked out of the brush, but could see nobody, and not 
 wishing to expose myself again to further danger, went
 
 170 ALASKA: THE GliEAT COUNTRY 
 
 higher up in the mountaiu through the forest. While 
 advancing cautiously through the woods, I met two other 
 persons who were in the same condition as myself, — a 
 girl from the Chiniatz village, Kodiak, with an infant on 
 her breast, and a man from the Kiliuda village, who liad 
 been left behind by the hunting party on account of 
 sickness. I took them both with me to the mountain, 
 but each night I went with my companions to the ruins 
 of tlie fort and bewailed the fate of the slain. In this 
 miserable condition we remained for eight days, with 
 nothing to eat and nothing but water to drink. About 
 noon of the last day we heard from the mountain two 
 cannon-shots, which raised some hopes in me, and I told 
 my companions to follow me at a little distance, and then 
 went down toward the river through the woods to hide 
 myself near the shore and see whether there was a ship 
 in the bay." 
 
 He discovered, to his unspeakable joy, an English ship 
 in the bay. Shouting to attract the attention of those 
 on board, he was heard by six Kolosh, who made their 
 way toward him and had almost captured him ere he 
 saw them and made his escape in the woods. They 
 forced him to the shore at a point near the cape, where 
 he was able to make himself heard by those on the vessel. 
 A boat put off at once, and he was barely able to leap 
 into it when the Kolosh, in hot pursuit, came in sight 
 again. When they saw the boat, they turned and fled. 
 
 When the hunter had given an account of the massacre 
 to the commander of the vessel, an armed boat was sent 
 ashore to rescue the man and girl who were in hiding. 
 They were easily located and, with another Russian who 
 was found in the vicinity, were taken aboard and sup- 
 plied with food and clothing. 
 
 The commander himself then accompanied them, with 
 armed men, to the site of the destroyed fort, Avhere they
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 171 
 
 examined and buried the dead. They found that all 
 but Kabanof had been beheaded. 
 
 Three days later the chief, Mikhail, went out to the 
 ship, was persuaded to go aboard, and with his nephew 
 was held until all persons captured during the massacre 
 and still living had been surrendered. The prisoners 
 were given up reluctantly, one by one; and when it was 
 believed that all had been recovered, the chief and his 
 nephew were permitted to leave the ship. 
 
 The survivors were taken to Kodiak, where the humane 
 captain of the ship demanded of Baranoff a compensation 
 of fifty thousand roubles in cash. Baranoff, learning that 
 the captain's sole expense had been in feeding and clothing 
 the prisoners, refused to pay this exorbitant sum ; and after 
 long wrangling it was settled for furs worth ten thousand 
 roubles. 
 
 Accounts of the massacre by survivors and writers of 
 that time vary somewhat, some claiming that the massacre 
 was occasioned by the broken faith and extreme cruelty 
 of the Russians in their treatment of the savages; others, 
 that the Sitkans had been well treated and that Chief 
 Mikhail had falsely pretended to be the warm and faith- 
 ful friend of Baranoff, who had placed the fullest con- 
 fidence in him. 
 
 Baranoff was well-nigh broken-hearted by his new and 
 terrible misfortune. The massacre had been so timed 
 that the most of the men of the fort were away on 
 a hunting expedition; and Baranoff himself was on 
 Afognak Island, which is only a few hours' sail from 
 Kodiak. Several Kolosh women lived at the fort with 
 Russian men; and these women kept their tribesmen 
 outside informed as to the daily conditions within the 
 garrison. On the weakest day of the fort, a holiday, the 
 Kolosh had, therefore, suddenly surrounded it, armed 
 with guns, spears, and daggers, their faces covered with 
 masks representing animals.
 
 172 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 About this time Krusensteni and Lisiansky sailed 
 from Kronstudt, in the hope — which was fulfilled — of 
 being the first to carry the Russian flag around the 
 world. Lisiansky arrived at Kodiak, after many hard- 
 ships, only to receive a written request from Baranoff to 
 proceed at once to Sitka and assist him in subduing the 
 savages and avenging the ofhcers and men lost in the fear- 
 ful massacre. On the 15th of August, 1804, he there- 
 fore sailed to eastward, and on the twentieth of the 
 same month entered Sitka Sound. The day must have 
 been gloomy and Lisiansky's mood in keeping with the 
 day, for he thus describes a bay which is, under favorable 
 conditions, one of the most idyllically beautiful imagin- 
 able: " On our entrance into Sitka Sound to the place 
 where we now were, there was not to be seen on the shore 
 the least vestige of habitation. Nothing presented itself 
 to our view but impenetrable woods reaching from the 
 water-side to the very tops of the mountains. I never 
 saw a country so wild and gloomy; it apj)eared more 
 adapted for the residence of wild beasts than of men." 
 
 Shortly afterward Baranoff arrived in the harbor with 
 several hundred Aleutians and many Russians, after a 
 tempestuous and dangerous voyage from Yakutat, the 
 site of the convict settlement. He learned that the 
 savages had taken up their position on a bluff a few 
 miles distant, where they had fortified themselves. This 
 bluff was the noble height upon which Baranoff's castle 
 was afterward erected, and which commands the entire 
 bay upon which the Sitka of to-day is located. Lisiansky, 
 in his " Voyage around the World," describes the Indians' 
 fort as " an irregular polygon, its longest side facing the 
 sea. It was protected by a breastwork two logs in thick- 
 ness, and about six feet high. Around and above it 
 tangled brushwood was piled. Grape-shot did little 
 damage, even at the distance of a cable's length. There
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 173 
 
 were two embrasures for cannon in the side facing the 
 sea, and two gates facing the forest. Within were four- 
 teen large huts, or, as they were called then, and are 
 called at the present time by the natives, barabaras. 
 Judging from the quantity of provisions and domestic 
 implements found there, it must have contained at least 
 eight hundred warriors." 
 
 An envoy from the Kolosh fort came out with friendly 
 overtures, but was informed that peace conditions could 
 only be established through the chiefs. He departed, 
 but soon returned and delivered a hostage. 
 
 Baranoff made plain his conditions ; agreement with the 
 chiefs in person, the delivery of two more hostages, and 
 permanent possession of the fortified bluff. 
 
 The chiefs did not appear, and the conditions were not 
 accepted. Then, on October 1, after repeated warnings, 
 Baranoff gave the order to fire upon the fort. Im- 
 mediately afterward, Baranoff, Lieutenant Arlusof, and a 
 party of Russians and Aleutians landed with the intention 
 of storming the fort. They were repulsed, the panic- 
 stricken Aleutians stampeded, and Baranoff was left al- 
 most without support. In this condition, he could do 
 nothing but retreat to the boats, — - which they were barely 
 able to reach before the Kolosh were upon them. They 
 saved their field-pieces, but lost ten men. Twenty-six 
 were wounded, including Baranoff himself. Had not their 
 retreat at this point been covered by the guns of the ship, 
 the loss of life would have been fearful. 
 
 The following day Lisiansky was placed in command. 
 He opened a rapid fire upon the fort, with such effect 
 that soon after noon a peace envoy arrived, with promise 
 of hostages. His overtures were favorably received, and 
 during the following three days several hostages were re- 
 turned to the Russians. The evacuation of the fort was 
 demanded ; but, although the chief consented, no move-
 
 174 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ments in that direction could be discovered from the ships. 
 Lisiansky moved his vessel farther in toward the fort and 
 sent an interpreter to ascertain how soon the occupants 
 would be ready to abandon their fortified and command- 
 ing position. The reply not being satisfactory, Lisiansky 
 again fired repeatedly upon the stronghold of the Kolosh. 
 Ou the 3d of October a white flag was hoisted, and the 
 firing was discontinued. Then arose from the rocky height 
 and drifted across the water until far into the night the 
 sound of a mournful, wailing chant. 
 
 When dawn came the sound had ceased. Absolute 
 silence reigned ; jior was there any living object to be 
 seen on the shore, save clouds of carrion birds, whose dark 
 wings beat the still air above the fort. The Kolosh had 
 fled ; the fort was deserted by all save the dead. The 
 bodies of thirty Kolosh warriors were found ; also those 
 of many children and dogs, which had been killed lest 
 any cry from them should betray the direction of their 
 flight. 
 
 The fort was destroyed by fire, and the construction of 
 magazines, barracks, and a residence for Baranoff was at 
 once begun. A stockade surrounded these buildings, 
 each corner fortified with a block-house. The garrison 
 received the name of Novo Arkangelsk, or New Archangel. 
 The tribal name of the Indians in that locality was Sitkah 
 — pronounced Seetkah — and this short and striking name 
 soon attached itself permanently to the place. 
 
 Immense houses were built solidly and with every con- 
 sideration for comfort and safety, and many families lived 
 in each. They ranged in size from one hundred to one 
 hundred and fifty feet in length, and about eighty in 
 width, and were from one to three stories high with im- 
 mense attics. They were well finished and richly pa- 
 ltered. The polished floors were covered with costly rugs 
 and carpets, and the houses were furnished with heavy
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 175 
 
 and splendid furniture, which had been brought from St. 
 Petersburg. The steaming brass samovar was everywhere 
 a distinctive feature of the hospitality and good cheer which 
 made Sitka famous. 
 
 To the gay and luxurious life, the almost prodigal en- 
 tertainment of guests by Sitkans from this time on to 1867, 
 ever}^ traveller, from writers and naval officers down to 
 traders, has enthusiastically testified. At the first signal 
 from a ship feeling its way into the dark harbor, a bright 
 light flashed a welcome across the water from the high 
 cupola on Baranoff's castle, and fires flamed up on Signal 
 Island to beacon the way. 
 
 The officers were received as friends, and entertained 
 in a style of almost princely magnificence during their en- 
 tire stay — the only thing asked in return being the capac- 
 ity to eat like gluttons, revel like roisterers, and drink 
 until they rolled helplessly under the table ; and, in Bara- 
 noff's estimation, these were small returns, indeed, to ask 
 of a guest for his ungrudging and regal hospitality. 
 
 Visions of those high revels and glittering banquets of 
 a hundred years ago come glimmering down to us of to- 
 day. Beautiful, gracious, and fascinating were the Rus- 
 sian ladies who lived there, — if we are to believe the stories 
 of voyagers to the Sitka of Baranoff's and Wrangell's 
 times. Baranoff's furniture was of specially fine work- 
 manship and exceeding value ; his library was remarkable, 
 containing works in nearly all European languages, and a 
 collection of rare paintings — the latter having been pre- 
 sented to the company at the time of its organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 Baranoff had left a wife and family in Russia. He 
 never saw them again, although he sent allowances to 
 them regularly. He was not bereft of woman's com- 
 panionship, however, and we have tales of revelry by 
 night when Baranoff alternately sang and toasted every-
 
 176 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 body, from the Emperor down to the woman upon his 
 knee with whom he shured every sparkling glass. He had 
 a beautiful daughter by a native woman, and of her he 
 was exceedingly careful. A governess whom he surprised 
 in the act of drinking a glass of liquor was struck in sud- 
 den blind passion and turned out of the house. The fol- 
 lowing day he sent for her, apologized, and reinstalled 
 her with an increased salary, warning her, however, that 
 his daughter must never see her drink a drop of liquor. 
 When in his most gloomy and hopeless moods, this daugh- 
 ter could instantly soothe and cheer him by playing upon 
 the piano and singing to him songs very different from 
 those sung at his drunken all-night orgies. 
 
 That there was a very human and tender side to Bara- 
 noff's nature cannot be doubted by those making a careful 
 study of his tempestuous life. He was deeply hurt and 
 humiliated by the insolent and supercilious treatment of 
 naval officers who considered him of inferior position, not- 
 withstanding the fact that he was in supreme command 
 of all the Russian territory in America. From time to 
 time the Emperor conferred honors upon him, and he was 
 always deeply appreciative ; and it is chronicled that when 
 a messenger arrived with the intelligence that he had been 
 appointed by the Emperor to the rank of Collegiate Coun- 
 cillor, Baranoff, broken by the troubles, hardships, and 
 humiliations of his stormy life, was suddenly and com- 
 pletely overcome by joy. He burst into tears and gave 
 thanks to God. 
 
 " I am a nobleman ! " he exclaimed. " I am the equal in 
 position and the superior in ability of these insolent naval 
 officers." 
 
 In 1812 Mr. Wilson P. Hunt, of the Pacific Fur Com- 
 pany, sailed from Astoria for Sitka on the Beaver with 
 supplies for the Russians. By that time Bai^anoff had 
 risen to the title and pomp of governor, and was living
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 177 
 
 in splendid style befitting his position and his triumph 
 over the petty officers, whose names are now insignifi- 
 cant in Russian history. 
 
 Mr. Hunt found this hyperborean veteran ensconced in 
 a fort which crested the whole of a high, rocky promon- 
 tory. It mounted one hundred guns, large and small, and 
 was impregnable to Indian attack unaided by artillery. 
 Here the old governor lorded it over sixty Russians, who 
 formed the corps of the trading establishment, besides an 
 indefinite number of Indian hunters of the Kodiak tribe, 
 who were continually coming and going, or lounging and 
 loitering about the fort like so many hounds round a sports- 
 man's hunting quarters. Though a loose liver among liis 
 guests, the governor was a strict disciplinarian among his 
 men, keeping them in perfect subjection and having 
 seven guards on duty night and day. 
 
 Besides those immediate serfs and dependents just men- 
 tioned, the old Russian potentate exerted a considerable 
 sway over a numerous and irregular class of maritime 
 traders, who looked to him for aid and munitions, and 
 through whom he may be said to have, in some degree, 
 extended his power along the whole Northwest Coast. 
 These were American captains of vessels engaged in a 
 particular department of trade. One of the captains 
 would come, in a manner, empty-handed, to New Arch- 
 angel. Here his ship would be furnished with about fifty 
 canoes and a hundred Kodiak hunters, and fitted out with 
 provisions and everything necessary for hunting the sea- 
 otter on the coast of California, where the Russians had 
 another establishment. The ship would ply along the 
 California coast, from place to place, dropping parties 
 of otter hunters in their canoes, furnishing them only 
 with water, and leaving them to depend upon their own 
 dexterity for a maintenance. When a sufficient cargo 
 was collected, she would gather up her canoes and hunters
 
 178 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and return with them to Archangel, where the captain 
 would render in the returns of his voyage and receive 
 one-half of the skins as his share. 
 
 Over these coasting captains the old governor exerted 
 some sort of sway, but it was of a peculiar and character- 
 istic kind ; it was the tyranny of the table. They were 
 obliged to join in his " prosnics " or carousals and his 
 heaviest drinking-bouts. His carousals were of the wild- 
 est and coarsest, his tempers violent, his language strong. 
 " He is continually," said Mr. Hunt, " giving entertainment 
 by way of parade ; and if you do not drink raw rum, 
 and boiling punch as strong as sulphur, he will insult you 
 as soon as he gets drunk, which is very shortly after sit- 
 ting down at table." 
 
 A " temperance captain " who stood fast to his faith and 
 kept his sobriety inviolate might go elsewhere for a market; 
 he was not a man after the governor's heart. Rarel}^, how- 
 ever, did any captain made of such unusual stuff darken 
 the doors of Baranoff's high-set castle. The coasting 
 captains knew too well his humor and their own interests. 
 They joined with either real or well-affected pleasure in 
 his roistering banquets ; they ate much and drank more ; 
 they sang themselves hoarse and drank themselves under 
 the table ; and it is chronicled that never was Baranoff 
 satisfied until the last-named condition had come to pass. 
 The more the guests that lay sprawling under the table, 
 upon and over one another, the more easily were trading 
 arrangements effected with Baranoff later on. 
 
 Mr. Hunt relates the memorable warning to all " flinch- 
 ers" which occurred shortly after his arrival. A young 
 Russian naval officer had recently been sent out by the 
 Emperor to take command of one of the company's vessels. 
 The governor invited him to one of his " prosnics " and 
 plied him with fiery potations. The young officer stoutly 
 maintained his right to resist — which called out all the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 179 
 
 fury of the old ruffian's temper, and he proceeded to make 
 the youth drink, whether he would or not. As the guest 
 began to feel the effect of the burning liquors, his own 
 temper rose to the occasion. He quarrelled violently with 
 his almost royal host, and expressed his young opinion of 
 him in the plainest language — if Russian language ever 
 can be plain. For this abuse of what Baranoff considered 
 his magnificent hospitality, he was given seventy- nine 
 lashes when he was quite sober enough to appreciate 
 them. 
 
 With all his drinking and prodigal hospitality, Baranoff 
 always managed to get his own head clear enough for busi- 
 ness before sobriety returned to any of his guests, who were 
 not so accustomed to these wild and constant revels of 
 their host's ; so that he was never caught napping when 
 it came to bargaining or trading. His own interests were 
 ever uppermost in his mind, which at such times gave not 
 the faintest indication of any befuddlement by drink or 
 by licentiousness of other kinds. 
 
 For more than twenty years Baranoff maintained a 
 princely and despotic sway over the Russian colonies. 
 His own commands were the only ones to receive con- 
 sideration, and but scant attention was given by him to 
 orders from the Directory itself. Complaints of his rul- 
 ings and practices seldom reached Russia. Tyrannical, 
 coarse, shrewd, powerful, domineering, and of absolutely 
 iron will, all were forced to bow to his desires, even men 
 who considered themselves his superiors in all save sheer 
 brute force of will and character. Captain Krusenstern, 
 a contemporary, in his account of Baranoff, says : " None 
 but vagabonds and adventurers ever entered the com- 
 pany's services as Promishleniks ; " — uneducated Russian 
 traders, whose inferior vessels were constructed usually of 
 planks lashed to timbers and calked with moss; they sailed 
 by dead reckoning, and were men controlled only by
 
 180 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 animal instincts and passions ; — "it was their invariable 
 destiny to pass a life of wretchedness in America." 
 " Few," adds Krusenstern, " ever had the good fortune to 
 toucli Russian soil again." 
 
 In the light of present American opinion of the advan- 
 tages and joys of life in Russia, this naive remark has an 
 almost grotesque humor. Like many of the brilliantly 
 successful, but unscrupulous, men of the world, Baranoff 
 seemed to have been born under a lucky star which ever 
 led him on. Through all his desperate battles with 
 Indians, his perilous voyages by sea, and the plottings of 
 subordinates who hated him with a helpless hate, he came 
 unharmed. 
 
 During his later years at Sitka, Baranoff, weighed 
 down by age, disease, and the indescribable troubles of his 
 long and faithful service, asked frequently to be relieved. 
 These requests were ignored, greatly to his disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 When, finally, in 1817, Hagemeister was sent out with 
 instructions to assume command in Baranoff's place, if he 
 deemed it necessary, the orders were placed before the old 
 governor so suddenly and so unexpectedly that he was com- 
 pletely prosti'ated. He was now failing in mind, as well as 
 body; and in this connection Bancroft adds another touch 
 of ironical humor, whether intentional or accidental it is 
 impossible to determine. " One of his symptoms of ap- 
 proaching imbecility," writes Bancroft, " being in his 
 sudden attachment to the church. He kept constantly 
 about him the priest who had established the first church 
 at Sitka, and, urged by his spiritual adviser, made large 
 donations for religious purposes." 
 
 The effect of the unexpected announcement is supposed 
 to have shortened Baranoff's days. Lieutenant Yanovsky, 
 of the vessel which had brought Hagemeister, was placed 
 in charge by the latter as his representative. Yanovsky
 
 Copyrig)it by F. II. X„will, Scattli- 
 
 "Ui'.LEUK," AN Eskimo Girl in Parka
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 181 
 
 fell in love with Baranoff's daughter and married her. 
 It was, therefore, to his own son-in-law that the old 
 governor at last gave up the sceptre. 
 
 By strength of his unbreakable will alone, he arose 
 from a bed of illness and painfully and sorrowfully ar- 
 ranged all tlie affairs of his office, to the smallest and 
 most insignificant detail, preparatory to the transfer to his 
 successor. 
 
 It was in January, 1818, that Hagemeister had made 
 known his appointment to the office of governor; it was 
 not until September that Baranoff had accomplished his 
 difficult task and turned over the office. 
 
 There was then, and there is to-day, halfway between 
 the site of the castle and Indian River, a gray stone about 
 three feet high and having a fiat, table-like surface. It 
 stands on the shore beside the hard, white road. The 
 lovely bay, set with a thousand isles, stretches sparkling 
 before it; the blue waves break musically along the curv- 
 ing shingle; the wooded hills rise behind it; the winds 
 murmur among the tall trees. 
 
 The name of this stone is the " blarney " stone. It was 
 a favorite retreat of Baranoff's and there, when he was 
 sunken in one of his lonely or despondent moods, he would 
 sit for hours, staring out over the water. What his 
 thoughts were at such times, only God and he knew, — for 
 not even his beloved daughter dared to approach him 
 when one of his lone moods was upon him. 
 
 In the first hour that he was no longer governor of the 
 country he had ruled so long and so royally, he walked 
 with bowed head along the beach until he reached his 
 favorite retreat. There he sat himself down and for 
 hours remained in silent communion with his own soul. 
 He had longed for relief from his arduous duties, but it 
 had come in a way that had broken his heart. His 
 government had at last listened to complaints against him,
 
 182 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and, ungrateful for his long and faithful service, had finally 
 relieved hira with but scant consideration; with an abrupt- 
 ness and a lack of courtesy that had sorely wounded him. 
 
 Nearly thirty of his best years he had devoted to the 
 company. He had conquered the savages and placed the 
 fur trade upon a highly profitable basis; he had built 
 many vessels and had established trading relations with 
 foreign countries; forts, settlements, and towns had risen 
 at his indomitable will. Sitka, especially, was his own; 
 her storied splendoi', whose fame has endured through all 
 the years, she owed entirely to him; she was the city of 
 his heart. He was her creator; his life-blood, his very 
 heart beats, were in her; and now that the time had really 
 come to give her up forever, he found the hour of farewell 
 the hardest of his hard life. No man, of whatsoever 
 material he may be made, nor howsoever insensible to the 
 influence of beauty he may deem himself to be, could 
 dwell for twenty years in Sitka without finding, when it 
 came to leaving her, that the tendrils of her loveliness had 
 twined themselves so closely about his heart that their 
 breaking could only be accomplished by the breaking of 
 the heart itself. 
 
 Of his kin, only a brother remained. The offspring of 
 his connection with a Koloshian woman was now married 
 and settled comfortably. A son by the same mistress had 
 died. He had first thought of going to his brother, who 
 lived in Kamchatka; but Golovnin was urging him to re- 
 turn to Russia, which he had left forty years before. 
 This he had finally decided to do, it having been made 
 clear to him that he could still be of service to his country 
 and his beloved colonies by his experience and advice. 
 Remain in the to^n he had created and ruled so tyranni- 
 cally, and which he still loved so devotedly, he could not. 
 The mere thought of that was unendurable. 
 
 All was now in readiness for his departure, but the old
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 183 
 
 man — he was now seventy-two — had not anticipated 
 that the going would be so hard. The blue waves came 
 sparkling in from the outer sea and broke on the curving 
 shingle at his feet ; the white and lavender wings of sea- 
 birds floated, widespread, upon the golden September air; 
 vessels of the fleet he had built under the most distressino: 
 difficulties and disadvantages lay at anchor under the 
 castle wherein he had banqueted every visitor of any 
 distinction or position for so many years, and the light 
 from whose proud tower had guided so many worn 
 voyagers to safety at last ; the yellow, red-roofed build- 
 ings, the great ones built of logs, the chapel, the sig- 
 nificant block-houses — all arose out of the wilderness 
 before his sorrowful eyes, taking on lines of beauty he 
 had never discovered before. 
 
 From this hour Baranoff failed rapidly from day to 
 day. His time was spent in bidding farewell to the 
 Russians and natives — to many of whom he was sin- 
 cerely attached — and to places which had become en- 
 deared to him by long association. He was frequently 
 found in tears. Those who have seen fair Sitka rising 
 out of the blue and islanded sea before their raptured 
 eyes may be able to appreciate and sympathize with 
 the old governor's emotion as, on the 27th of No- 
 vember, 1818, he stood in the stern of the Kutusof and 
 watched the beloved city of his creation fade lingeringly 
 from his view. He was weeping, silentl}^ and hopelessly, 
 as the old weep, when, at last, he turned away. 
 
 Baranoff never again saw Sitka. In March the Kutusof 
 landed at Batavia, where it remained more than a month. 
 There he was very ill ; and soon after the vessel had 
 again put to sea, he died, like Behring, a sad and lonely 
 death, far from friends and home. On the 16th of 
 April, 1819, the waters of the Indian Ocean received the 
 body of Alexander Baranoff.
 
 184 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Notwithstanding his many and serious faults, or, pos- 
 sibly because of their existence in so powerful a charac- 
 ter — combined as they were with such brilliant talent 
 and with so many admirable and conscientious qualities — 
 Baranoff remains through all the years the most fasci- 
 nating figure in the history of the Pacific Coast. None 
 is so well worth study and close investigation ; none is so 
 rich in surprises and delights ; none has the charm of so 
 lone and beautiful a setting. There was no littleness, no 
 niggardliness, in his nature. " He never knew what ava- 
 rice was," wrote Khlebnikof, " and never hoarded riches. 
 He did not wait until his death to make provision for the 
 living, but gave freely to all who had any claim U2)on 
 him." 
 
 He spent money like a prince. He received ten shares 
 of stock in the company from Shelikoff and was later 
 granted twenty more ; but he gave many of these to his 
 associates who were not so well remunerated for their 
 faithful services. Pie provided generously during his life 
 for his family; and for the families in Russia of many 
 who lost their lives in the colonies, or who were unable 
 through other misfortunes to perform their duties in 
 this respect. 
 
 Born of humble parentage in Kargopal, Eastern Russia, 
 in 1747, he had, at an early age, drifted to Moscow, where 
 he was engaged as a clerk in retail stores until 1771, 
 when he established himself in business. 
 
 Not meeting with success, he four years later emigrated 
 to Siberia and undertook the management of a glass fac- 
 tory at Irkutsk. He also interested himself in other 
 industries ; and on account of several valuable communi- 
 cations to tlie Civil Economical Society on the subject of 
 manufacture he was in 1789 elected a member of the 
 society. 
 
 His life here was a humdrum existence, of which his
 
 Cojivriffht tiy iJubhs, .\,,iik- 
 
 A NoKTHEKX MaDONXA
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 185 
 
 restless spirit soon wearied. Acquainting himself with 
 the needs, resources, and possibilities of Kamchatka, he 
 set out to the eastward with an assortment of goods 
 and liquors, which he sold to the savages of that and 
 adjoining countries. 
 
 At first his operations were attended by success ; but 
 when, in 1789, two of his caravans were captured by 
 Chuckchi, he found himself bankrupt, and soon yielded 
 to Shelikoff's urgent entreaties to try his fortunes in 
 America. 
 
 Such is the simple early history of this remarkable man. 
 Not one known descendant of his is living to-day. But 
 men like Baranoff do not need descendants to perpetuate 
 their names. 
 
 Bancroft is the highest authority on the events of this 
 period, his assistant being Ivan Petroff, a Russian, who 
 was well-informed on the history of the colonies. 
 
 Many secret reasons have been suspected for the sale 
 of the magnificent country of Alaska to the United States 
 for so paltry a sum. 
 
 The only revenue, however, that Russia derived from 
 the colonies was through the rich fur trade ; and ^vhen, 
 after Baranoff's death, this trade declined and its future 
 seemed hopeless, the country's vast mineral wealth being 
 unsuspected, Russia found herself in humor to consider 
 any offer that might be of immediate profit to herself. 
 For seven millions and two hundred thousands of dollars 
 Russia cheerfully, because unsuspectingly, yielded one of 
 the most marvellously rich and beautiful countries of the 
 world — its valleys yellow with gold, its mountains green 
 with copper and thickly veined with coal, its waters alive 
 with fish and fur-bearing animals, its scenery sublime — 
 to the scornful and unappreciative United States. 
 
 As early as the fifties it became rumored that Russia,
 
 186 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 foreseeing the entire decline of the fur trade, considered 
 Alaska a white elephant vipon its hands, and that an offer 
 for its purchase would not meet with disfavor. The 
 matter was discussed in Washington at various times, 
 but it was not until 1866 that it was seriously considered. 
 The people of the present state of Washington were 
 among those most desirous of its purchase ; and there 
 was rumor of tlie organization of a trading company of 
 the Pacific Coast for the purpose of purchasing the rights 
 of the Russian-American Company and acquiring the 
 lease of the lisiere which was to expire in 1868. The 
 Russian- American Company was then, however, awaiting 
 the reply of the Hudson Bay Company concerning a 
 renewal of the lease ; and the matter drifted on until, in 
 the spring of 1867, the Russian minister opened negotia- 
 tions for the purchase of the country with Mr. Seward. 
 There was some difficulty at first over the price, but the 
 matter was one presenting so many mutual advantages 
 that this was soon satisfactorily arranged. 
 
 On Friday evening, March 25, 1867, Mr. Seward 
 was playing whist with members of his family when 
 the Russian minister was announced. Baron Stoeckl 
 stated that he had received a despatch from his govern- 
 ment by cable, conveying the consent of the Emperor to 
 the cession. 
 
 " To-morrow," he added, " I will come to the depart- 
 ment, and we can enter upon the treaty." 
 
 With a smile of satisfaction, Seward replied: — 
 
 "Why wait till to-morrow? Let us make the treaty 
 to-night." 
 
 " But your department is closed. You have no clerks, 
 and my secretaries are scattered about the town." 
 
 " Never mind that," said Seward ; " if you can muster 
 your legation together before midnight, you will find me 
 awaiting you at the department."
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 187 
 
 By four o'clock on the following morning the treaty was 
 engrossed, sealed, and ready for transmission by the Presi- 
 dent to the Senate. The end of the session was approach- 
 ing, and there was need of haste in order to secure action 
 upon it. 
 
 Leutze painted this historic scene. Mr. Seward is seen 
 sitting at his table, pen in hand, listening to the Russian 
 minister. The gaslight, streaming down on the table, 
 illuminates the outline of "the great country." 
 
 When, immediately afterward, the treaty was presented 
 for consideration in the Senate, Charles Sumner delivered 
 his famous and splendid oration which stands as one of 
 the masterpieces of history, and which revealed an en- 
 lightened knowledge and understanding of Alaska that 
 were remarkable at that time — and which probably sur- 
 passed those of Seward. Among other clear and beauti- 
 ful things he said : — 
 
 " The present treaty is a visible step in the occupation 
 of the whole North American Continent. As such it will 
 be recognized by the world and accepted by the American 
 people. But the treaty involves something more. By it 
 we dismiss one more monarch from this continent. One 
 by one they have retired ; first France, then Spain, then 
 France again, and now Russia — all giving way to that 
 absorbing unity which is declared in the national motto : 
 JS pluribus unum.'' 
 
 There is yet one more monarch to be retired, in 
 all kindness and good-will, from our continent ; and that 
 event will take place when our brother-Canadians unite 
 with us in deed as they already have in spirit. 
 
 For years the purchase was unpopular, and was ridi- 
 culed by the press and in conversation. Alaska was de- 
 clared to be a " barren, worthless, God-forsaken region," 
 whose only products were " icebergs and polar bears " ; 
 vegetation was " confined to mosses " ; and " Walrussia "
 
 188 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 was wittily suggested as an appropriate name for our new 
 possession — as well as " Icebergia " ; but in the face of 
 all the opposition and ridicule, those two great Ameri- 
 cans, Seward and Sumner, stood firmly for the acquisition 
 of this splendid country. They looked through the mist 
 of their own day and saw the day that is ours.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Since Sitka first dawned upon my sight on a June day, 
 in her setting of vivid green and glistening white, she 
 has been one of my dearest memories. Four times in all 
 have the green islands drifted apart to let her rise from 
 the blue sea before my enchanted eyes ; and with each 
 visit she has grown more dear, and her memory more 
 tormenting. 
 
 Something gives Sitka a different look and atmosphere 
 from any other town. It may be her whiteness, glisten- 
 ing against the rich green background of forest and hill, 
 with the whiteness of tlie mountains shining^ in the hiafher 
 lights ; or it may be the severely white and plain Greek 
 church, rising in the centre of the main street, not more 
 than a block from the water, that gives Sitka her chaste 
 and immaculate appearance. 
 
 No buildings obstruct the view of the church from the 
 water. There it is, in the form of a Greek cross, with its 
 green roof, steeple, and bulbous dome. 
 
 This church is generally supposed to be the one that 
 Baranoff built at the beginning of the century ; but this 
 is not true. Baranoff did build a small chapel, but it was 
 in 1848 that the foundation of the present church was 
 laid — almost thirty years after the death of Baranoff. 
 It was under the special protection of the Czar, who, with 
 other members of the imperial family, sent many costly 
 furnishings and ornaments. 
 
 Veniaminoff — who was later made Archpriest, and still 
 
 189
 
 190 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 later the Archbishop of Kamchatka, and during the last 
 years of his noble life, the Metropolitan of Moscow — 
 sent many of the rich vestments, paintings, and furnish- 
 ings. The chime of silvery bells was also sent from 
 Moscow. 
 
 Upon landing at Sitka, one is confronted by the old 
 log storehouse of the Russians. This is an immense 
 building, barricading the wharf from the town. A nar- 
 row, dark, gloomy passage-way, or alley, leads through 
 the centre of this building. It seems as long as an ordi- 
 nary city square to the bewildered stranger groping 
 through its shadows. 
 
 In front of this building, and inside both ends of the 
 passage as far as the light reaches, squat squaws, young 
 and old, pretty and hideous, starry-eyed and no-eyed, 
 saucy and kind, arrogant and humble, taciturn and 
 voluble, vivacious and weary-faced. Surely no known 
 variety of squaw may be asked for and not found in this 
 long line that reaches from the wharf to the green-roofed 
 church. 
 
 There is no night so wild and tempestuous, and no 
 hour of any night so late, or of any morning so early, that 
 the passenger hastening ashore is not greeted by this 
 long line of dark-faced women. They sit like so many 
 patient, noiseless statues, with their tempting wares cl-us- 
 tered around the flat, "toed-in" feet of each. 
 
 Not only is this true of Sitka, but of every landing- 
 place on the whole coast where dwells an Indian or an 
 Aleut that has something to sell. Long before the boat 
 lands, their gay shawls by day, or their dusky outlines by 
 night, are discovered from the deck of the steamer. 
 
 How they manage it, no ship's officer can tell ; for the 
 whistle is frequently not blown until the boat is within a 
 few yards of the shore. Yet there they are, waiting ! 
 
 Sometimes, at night, they appear simultaneously, flut-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 191 
 
 tering down into their places, swiftly and noiselessly, like 
 a flock of birds settling down to rest for a moment in 
 their flight. 
 
 Some of these women are dressed in skirts and waists, 
 but the majority are wrapped in the everlasting gay 
 blankets. No lip or nose ornaments are seen, even in 
 the most aged. Two or three men are scattered down 
 the line, to guard the women from being cheated. 
 
 These tall and lordly creatures strut noiselessly and 
 superciliously about, clucking out guttural advice to the 
 squaws, as well as, to all appearances, the frankest criti- 
 cism of the persons examining their wares with a view to 
 purchasing. 
 
 The women are very droll, and apparently have a keen 
 sense of humor ; and one is sure to have considerable 
 fun poked at one, going down the line. 
 
 Mild-tempered people do not take umbrage at this ridi- 
 cule ; in fact, they rather enjoy it. Being one of them, I 
 lost my temper only once. A young squaw offered me a 
 wooden dish, explaining in broken English that it was an 
 old eating dish. 
 
 It had a flat handle with a hole in it; and as cooking 
 and eating utensils are never washed, it had the horrors 
 of ages encrusted within it to the depth of an inch or 
 more. 
 
 This, of course, only added to its value. I paid her a 
 dollar for it, and had just taken it up gingerly and shud- 
 deringly with the tips of my fingers, when, to my amaze- 
 ment and confusion, the girl who had sold it to me, two 
 older women who were squatting near, and a tall man 
 leaning against the wall, all burst simultaneously into 
 jeering and uncontrollable laughter. 
 
 As I gazed at them suspiciously and with reddening 
 face, the young woman pointed a brown and unclean 
 finger at me ; while, as for the chorus of chuckles and
 
 192 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 duckings that assailed my ears — I hope I may never 
 hear their like again. 
 
 To add to my embarrassment, some passengers at that 
 moment approached. 
 
 " Hello, Sally," said one ; " what's the matter ? " 
 
 Laughing too heartily to reply, she pointed at the 
 wooden dish, which I was vainly trying to hide. They 
 all looked, saw, and laughed with the Indians. 
 
 For a week afterward they smiled every time they 
 looked at me; and I do believe that every man, woman, and 
 child on the steamer came, smiling, to my cabin to see my 
 " buy." But the ridicule of my kind was as nothing com- 
 pared to that of the Indians themselves. To be " taken 
 in " by the descendant of a Koloshian, and then jeered at 
 to one's very face! 
 
 The only possession of an Alaskan Indian that may not 
 be purchased is a rosary. An attempt to buy one is met 
 with glances of aversion. 
 
 "It has been blessed!'''' one woman said, almost in a 
 whisper. 
 
 But they have most beautiful long strings of big, 
 evenly cut, sapphire-blue beads. They call them Russian 
 beads, and point out certain ones which were once used 
 as money among the Indians. 
 
 Their wares consist chiefly of baskets; but there are 
 also immense spoons carved artistically out of the horns 
 of mountain sheep; richly beaded moccasins of many 
 different materials; carved and gay ly painted canoes and 
 paddles of the fragrant Alaska cedar or Sitka pine; 
 totem-poles carved out of dark gray slate stone ; lamps, 
 carved out of wood and inlaid with a fine pearl-like shell. 
 These are formed like animals, with the backs hollowed to 
 hold oil. There are silver spoons, rings, bracelets, and 
 chains, all delicately traced with totemic designs; knives, 
 virgin charms, Chilkaht blankets, and now and then a
 
 jht by D<:ibbs, Nome 
 
 Eskimo Lau in Parka and Mukluks
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 193 
 
 genuine old spear, or bow and arrow, that proves the 
 dearest treasure of all. 
 
 Old wooden, or bone, gambling- sticks, finely carved, 
 polished to a satin finish, and sometimes inlaid with frag- 
 ments of shell, or burnt with totemic designs, are also 
 greatly to be desired. 
 
 The main features of interest in Sitka are the Greek- 
 Russian church and the walk along the beach to Indian 
 River Park. 
 
 A small admission fee is charged at the church door. 
 This goes to the poor-fund of the parish. It is the only 
 church in Alaska that charges a regular fee, but in all 
 the others there are contribution boxes. When one has, 
 with burning cheeks, seen his fellow-Americans drop 
 dimes and nickels into the boxes of these churches, which 
 have been specially opened at much inconvenience for 
 their accommodation, he is glad to see the fifty-cent fee 
 at the door charged. 
 
 There are no seats in the church. The congregation 
 stands or kneels during the entire service. There are 
 three sanctuaries and as many altars. The chief sanctuary 
 is the one in the middle, and it is dedicated to the Archi- 
 Strategos Michael. 
 
 The sanctuary is separated from the body of the church 
 by a screen — which has a " shaky " look, by the way — 
 adorned with twelve ikons, or images, in costly silver 
 and gold casings, artistically chased. 
 
 The middle door leading into the sanctuary is called 
 the Royal Gates, because through it the Holy Sacrament, 
 or Eucharist, is carried out to the faithful. It is most 
 beautifully carved and decorated. Above it is a magnifi- 
 cent ikon, representing the Last Supper. The heavy 
 silver casing is of great value. The casings alone of the 
 twelve ikons on the screen cost many thousands of dollars. 
 
 An interesting story is attached to the one of the patron
 
 194 ALASKA: THE GEEAT COUNTRY 
 
 saint of the church, the Archangel Michael. The ship 
 Neva, on her way to Sitka, was wrecked at the base of 
 Mount Edgecumbe. A large and valuable cargo was 
 lost, but the ikon was miraculously cast upon the beach, 
 uninjured. 
 
 Mau}^ of the ikons and other adornments of the church 
 were presented by the survivors of wrecked vessels ; others 
 by illustrious friends in Russia. One that had paled and 
 grown dim was restored by Mrs. Emmons, the wife of 
 Lieutenant Emmons, whose work in Alaska was of great 
 value. 
 
 When the Roj^al Gates are opened the entire sanctuary 
 — or Holy of Holies, in which no woman is permitted to 
 set foot, lest it be defiled — may be seen. 
 
 To one who does not understand the significance of the 
 various objects, the sanctuary proves a disappointment 
 until the splendid old vestments of cloth of gold and 
 silver are brought out. These were the personal gifts 
 of the great Baranoff. They are exceedingly rich and 
 sumptuous, as is the bisliop's stole, made of cloth woven of 
 heavy silver threads. 
 
 The left-hand chapel is consecrated to " Our Lady of 
 Kazan." It is adorned with several ikons, one of which, 
 " The Mother of God, " is at once the most beautiful 
 and the most valuable object in the church. An offer of 
 fifteen thousand dollars was refused for it. The large 
 dark eyes of the madonna are so filled with sorrowful 
 tenderness and passion that they cannot be forgotten. 
 They follow one about the chapel; and after he has gone 
 out into the fresh air and the sunlight he still feels 
 them upon him. Those mournful eyes hold a message 
 that haunts the one who has once tried to read it. The 
 appeal which the unknown Russian artist has painted into 
 them produces an effect that is enduring. 
 
 But most precious of all to me were those objects, of
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 195 
 
 whatsoever value, which were presented by Innocentius, 
 the Metropolitan of Moscow, the Noble and the Devoted. 
 If ever a man went forth in search of the Holy Grail, it 
 was he; and if ever a man came near finding the Holy 
 Grail, it was, likewise, he. 
 
 From Sitka to Unalaska, and up the Yukon so far as 
 the Russian influence goes, his name is still murmured with 
 a veneration that is almost adoration. 
 
 Historians know him and praise him, without a dissent- 
 ing voice, as Father Veniaminoff ; for it was under this 
 simple and unassuming title that the pure, earnest, and 
 devout young Russian came to the colonies in 1823, carry- 
 ing the high, white light of his faith to the wretched 
 natives, among whom his life work was to be, from that 
 time on, almost to the end. 
 
 No man has ever done as much for the natives of Alaska 
 as he, not even Mr. Duncan. His heart being all love 
 and his nature all tenderness, he grew to love the gentle 
 Aleutians and Sitkans, and so won their love and trust 
 in return. 
 
 In the Sitka church is a very costly and splendid 
 vessel, used for the Eucharist, which was once stolen, but 
 afterward returned. There are censers of pure silver 
 and chaste design, which tinkle musically as they swing. 
 
 A visit to the building of the Russian Orthodox 
 Mission is als6 interesting. There will be found some 
 of the personal belongings of Father Veniaminoff — his 
 clock, a writing-desk which was made by his own hands, 
 of massive and enduring workmanship, and several 
 articles of furniture ; also the ikon which once adorned 
 his cell — a gift of Princess Potemkin. 
 
 Sir George Simpson describes an Easter festival at 
 Sitka in 1842. He found all the people decked in festal 
 attire upon his arrival at nine o'clock in the morning. 
 They were also, men and women, quite "tipsy."
 
 196 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Upon arriving at Governor Etholin's residence, he was 
 ushered into the great banqueting room, where a large 
 party was rising from breakfast. This party was com- 
 posed of the bishop and priests, the Lutheran clergyman, 
 the naval officers, the secretaries, business men, and 
 masters and mates of vessels, — numbering in all about 
 seventy, — all arrayed in uniforms or, at the least, in ele- 
 gant dress. 
 
 From morning till night Sir George was compelled 
 to " run a gantlet of kisses." When two persons met, 
 one said, " Christ is risen " — and this was a signal for 
 prolonged kissing. "Some of them," adds Sir George, 
 naively, " were certainly pleasant enough ; but many, 
 even when the performers were of the fair sex, were 
 perhaps too highly flavored for perfect comfort." 
 
 He was likewise compelled to accept many hard-boiled, 
 gilded eggs, as souvenirs. 
 
 During the whole week every bell in the chimes of the 
 church rang incessantly — from morning to night, from 
 night to morning; and poor Sir George found the jan- 
 sflingf of "these confounded bells" harder to endure than 
 the eggs or the kisses. 
 
 Sir George extolled the virtues of the bishop — Veni- 
 aminoff. His appearance impressed the Governor-in-Chief 
 with awe ; his talents and attainments seemed worthy 
 of his already exalted station ; while the gentleness 
 which characterized his every word and deed insensibly 
 moulded reverence into love. 
 
 Whymper visited Sitka in 1865, and found Russian 
 hospitality under the administration of Matsukoff almost 
 as lavish as during Baranoff's famous reign. 
 
 " Russian hospitality is proverbial," remarks Whymper, 
 " and we all somewhat suffered therefrom. The first 
 phrase of their language acquired by us was ' petnatchit 
 copla' — fifteen drops." This innocently sounding phrase
 
 t -.-=.', .<i|=3'. 

 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 197 
 
 really meant a good half-tumbler of some undiluted 
 liquor, ranging from cognac to raw vodhka, which was 
 pressed upon the visitors upon every available occasion. 
 A refusal to drink meant an insult to their host ; and 
 they were often sorely put to it to carry gracefully the 
 burden of entertainment which they dared not decline. 
 
 The big brass samovar was in every household, and 
 they were compelled to drink strong Russian tea, served 
 by the tumblerful. Balls, banquets, and fetes in the 
 gardens of the social clubs were given in their honor ; 
 while their fleet of four vessels in the harbor was daily 
 visited by large numbers of Russian ladies and gentlemen 
 from the town. 
 
 At all seasons of the year the tables of the higher 
 classes were supplied with game, chickens, pork, vege- 
 tables, berries, and every luxury obtainable ; while the 
 food of the common laborers was, in summer, fresh fish, and 
 in winter, salt fish. 
 
 Sir George Simpson attended a Koloshian funeral at 
 Sitka, or New Archangel, in 1842. The body of the 
 deceased, arrayed in the gayest of apparel, lay in state 
 for two or three days, during which time the relatives 
 fasted and bewailed their loss. At the end of this 
 period, the body was placed on a funeral pyre, round 
 which the relatives gathered, their faces painted black 
 and their hair covered with eagles' down. The pipe was 
 passed around several times ; and then, in obedience to 
 a secret sign, the fire was kindled in several places at 
 once. Wailings and loud lamentations, accompanied by 
 ceaseless drumming, continued until the pyre was entirely 
 consumed. The ashes were, at last, collected into an 
 ornamental box, which was elevated on a scaffold. 
 Many of these monuments were seen on the side of a 
 neighboring hill. 
 
 A wedding witnessed at about the same time was quite
 
 198 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 as interesting as the funeral, presenting several unique 
 features. A good-looking Creole girl, named Archi- 
 manditoffra, married the mate of a vessel lying in port. 
 
 Attended by their friends and the more important 
 residents of Sitka, the couple proceeded at six o'clock 
 in the evening to the church, where a tiresome service, 
 lasting an hour and a half, was solemnized by a priest. 
 
 The bridegroom then led his bride to the ballroom. 
 The most startling feature of this wedding was of Russian, 
 rather than savage, origin. The person compelled to bear 
 all the expense of the wedding was chosen to give the bride 
 away; and no man upon whom this honor was conferred 
 ever declined it. 
 
 This custom might be followed with beneficial results to- 
 day, a bachelor being always honored, until, in sheer self- 
 defence, many a young man would prefer to pay for his own 
 wedding to constantly paying for the wedding of some 
 other man. It is more polite than the proposed tax on 
 bachelors. 
 
 At this wedding the beauty and fashion of Sitka were 
 assembled. The ladies were showily attired in muslin 
 dresses, white satin shoes, silk stockings, and kid gloves ; 
 they wore flowers and carried white fans. 
 
 The ball was opened by the bride and the highest 
 officer present; and quadrille followed waltz in rapid 
 succession until daylight. 
 
 The music was excellent ; and the unfortunate host 
 and paymaster of the ceremonies carried out his part like 
 a prince. Tea, coffee, chocolate, and champagne were 
 served generously, varied with delicate foods, " petnatchit 
 coplas " of strong liquors, and expensive cigars. 
 
 According to the law of the church, the bridesmaids 
 and bridesmen were prohibited from marrying each other ; 
 but, owing to the limitations in Sitka, a special dis- 
 pensation had been granted, permitting such marriages.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 199 
 
 From the old Russian cemetery on the hill, a panoramic 
 view is obtained of the town, the harbor, the blue water- 
 ways winding among the green islands to the ocean, and 
 the snow mountains floating above the pearly clouds on 
 all sides. In a quiet corner of the cemetery rests the 
 first Princess Matsukoif, an Englishwoman, who graced 
 the " Castle on the Rock " ere she died, in the middle 
 sixties. Her successor was young, beautiful, and gay ; 
 and her reign was as brilliant as it was brief. She it was 
 who, through bitter and passionate tears, dimly beheld the 
 Russian flag lowered from its proud place on the castle's 
 lofty flagstaff and the flag of the United States sweeping 
 up in its stead. But the first proud Princess Matsukoff 
 slept on in her quiet resting-place beside the blue and 
 alien sea, and grieved not. 
 
 From all parts of the harbor and the town is seen the 
 kekoor, the " rocky promontory," from which Baranoff 
 and Lisiansky drove the Koloshians after the massacre, 
 and upon which Baranoff's castle later stood. 
 
 It rises abruptly to a height of about eighty feet, and 
 is ascended by a long flight of wooden steps. 
 
 The first castle was burned ; another was erected, and 
 was destroyed by earthquake ; was rebuilt, and was 
 again destroyed — the second time by fire. The emi- 
 nence is now occupied by the home of Professor George- 
 son, who conducts the government agricultural experi- 
 mental work in Alaska. 
 
 The old log trading house which is on the right side of 
 the street leading to the church is wearing out at last. 
 On some of the old buildings patches of modern weather- 
 boarding mingle with the massive and ancient logs, pro- 
 ducing an effect that is almost grotesque. 
 
 In the old hotel Lady Franklin once rested with an 
 uneasy heart, during the famous search for her husband. 
 
 The barracks and custom-house front on a vivid green
 
 200 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 parade ground that slopes to the water. Slender gravelled 
 roads lead across this well-kept green to the quarters and 
 to the building formerly occupied by Governor Brady 
 as the Executive Offices. His residence is farther on, 
 around the baj^ in the direction of the Indian village. 
 
 There are fine fur and curio stores on the main street. 
 
 The homes of Sitka are neat and attractive. The 
 window boxes and carefully tended gardens are brilliant 
 with bloom in summer. 
 
 Passing through the town, one soon reaches the hard, 
 white road that leads along the curving shingle to Indian 
 River. The road curves with the beach and goes glim- 
 mering on ahead, until it disappears in the green mist of 
 the forest. 
 
 Surely no place on this fair earth could less deserve the 
 offensive name of " park "' than the strip of land border- 
 ing Indian River, — five hundred feet wide on one bank, and 
 two hundred and fifty feet on the other, between the falls 
 and the low plain where it pours into the sea, — which in 
 1890 was set aside for this purpose. 
 
 It has been kept undefiled. There is not a sign, nor a 
 painted seat, nor a little stiff flower bed in it. There is 
 not a striped paper bag, nor a peanut shell, nor the peel 
 of an orange anywhere. 
 
 It must be that only those people who live on beauty, 
 instead of food, haunt this beautiful spot. 
 
 The spruce, the cedar, and the pine grow gracefully and 
 luxuriantly, their lacy branches spreading out flat and 
 motionless upon the still air, tapering from the ground 
 to a fine point. The hard road, velvet-napped with the 
 spicy needles of centuries, winds through them and under 
 them, the branches often touching the wayfarer's bared 
 head. 
 
 The devil's-club grows tall and large ; there are thickets 
 of salmon-berry and thimbleberry ; there are banks of
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 201 
 
 velvety green, and others blue with violets ; there are 
 hedges of wild roses, the bloom looking in the distance 
 like an amethyst cloud floating upon the green. 
 
 The Alaskan thimbleberry is the most delicious berry 
 that grows. Large, scarlet, velvety, yet evanescent, it 
 scarcely touclies the tongue ere its ravishing flavor has be- 
 come a memory. 
 
 The vegetation is all of tropical luxuriance, and, owing 
 to its constant dew and mist baths, it is of an intense 
 and vivid green that is fairly dazzling where the sun 
 touches it. One of the chief charms of the wooded reserve 
 is its stillness — broken only by the musical rush of waters 
 and the lyrical notes of birds. A kind of lavender twi- 
 light abides beneath the trees, and, with the narrow, 
 spruce-aisled vistas that oj^en at every turn, gives one a 
 sensation as of being in some dim and scented cathedral. 
 
 Enticing paths lead away from the main road to the 
 river, where the voices of rapids and cataracts call; but 
 at last one comes to an open space, so closely walled round 
 on all sides by the forest that it may easily be passed 
 without being seen — and to which one makes his way 
 with difficulty, pushing aside branches of trees and tall 
 ferns as he proceeds. 
 
 Here, producing an effect that is positively uncanny, 
 are several great totems, shining out brilliantly from their 
 dark green setting. 
 
 One experiences that solemn feeling which every one 
 has known, as of standing among the dead ; the shades 
 of Baranoff, Behring, Lisiansky, Veniaminoff, Chirikoff, 
 — all the unknown murdered ones, too, — go drifting 
 noiselessly, with reproachful faces, through the dim 
 wood. 
 
 It was on the beach near this grove of totems that 
 Lisiansky's men were murdered by Koloshians in 1804, 
 while obtaining water for the ship.
 
 202 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The Sitka Industrial Training School was founded 
 nearly thirty years ago by ex-Governor Brady, who was 
 then a missionary to the Indians of Alaska. 
 
 It was first attended by about one hundred natives, 
 ranging from the very young to the very old. This school 
 was continued, with varied success, by different people — 
 including Captain Glass, of the Jamestown — until Dr. 
 Sheldon Jackson became interested, and, with Mr. Brady 
 and Mr. Austin, sought and obtained aid from the Board 
 of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 A building was erected for a Boys' Home, and this was 
 followed, a year later, by a Girls' Home. 
 
 The girls were taught to speak the English language, 
 cook, wash, iron, sew, mend, and to become cleanly, 
 cheerful, honest, honorable women. 
 
 The boys were taught to speak the English language ; 
 the trades of shoemaking, coopering, boat-building, car- 
 pentry, engineering, rope-making, and all kinds of agricul- 
 tural work. The rudiments of bricklaying, painting, and 
 paper-hanging are also taught. 
 
 During the year 1907 a Bible Training Department 
 was added for those among the older boys and girls who 
 desired to obtain knowledge along such lines, or who as- 
 pired to take up missionary work among their people. 
 
 Twelve pupils took up the work, and six continued it 
 throughout the year. The work in this department is, of 
 course, voluntary on the part of the student. 
 
 The Sitka Training School is not, at present, a govern- 
 ment school. During the early nineties it received aid 
 from the government, under the government's method of 
 subsidizing denominational schools, where they were al- 
 ready established, instead of incurring the extra expense 
 of establishing new government schools in the same locali- 
 ties. 
 
 When the government ceased granting such subsidies.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 203 
 
 the Sitka School — as well as many other denominational 
 schools — lost this assistance. 
 
 The property of the school has always belonged to the 
 Presbyterian Board of Home Missions. 
 
 For many years it was customary to keep pupils at the 
 schools from their entrance until their education was 
 finished. 
 
 In the summer of 1905 the experiment was tried of per- 
 mitting a few pupils to go to their homes during vacation. 
 All returned in September cheerfully and willingly; and 
 now, each summer, more than seventy boys and girls re- 
 turn to their homes to spend the time of vacation with 
 their families. 
 
 In former years, it would have been too injurious to the 
 child to be subjected to the influence of its parents, who 
 were but slightly removed from savagery. To-day, al- 
 though many of the old lieathenish rites and customs still 
 exist, they have not so deep a hold upon the natives; and 
 it is hoped, and expected, that the influence of the students 
 for good upon their people will far exceed that of their 
 people for ill upon them. 
 
 During the past year ninety boys and seventy-four girls 
 were enrolled — or as many as can be accommodated at 
 the schools. They represent the three peoples into which 
 the Indians of southeastern Alaska are now roughly 
 divided — the Thlinkits, the Haidahs, and the Tsimpsians. 
 They come from Katalla, Yakutat, Skagway, Klukwan, 
 Haines, Douglas, Juneau, Kasaan, Hovvkan, Metlakahtla, 
 Hoonah — and, indeed, from almost every point in south- 
 eastern Alaska where a handful of Indians are gathered 
 together.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 The many people wlio innocently believe that there are 
 no birds in Alaska may be surprised to learn that there 
 are, at least, fifty different species in the southeastern part 
 of that country. 
 
 Among these are the song sparrow, the rufous humming- 
 bird, the western robin, of unfailing cheeriness, the russet- 
 backed thrush, the barn swallow, the golden-crowned 
 kinglet, the Oregon Junco, the winter wren, and the 
 bird that, in liquid clearness and poignant sweetness of 
 note, is second only to the western meadow-lark — the 
 poetic hermit thrush. 
 
 He that has heard the impassioned notes of this shy 
 bird rising from the woods of Sitka will smile at the 
 assertion that there are no birds in Alaska. 
 
 On the way to Indian River is the museum, whose in- 
 teresting and valuable contents were gathered chiefly by 
 Sheldon Jackson, and which still bears his name. 
 
 Dr. Jackson has been the general Agent of Education 
 in Alaska since 1885, and the Superintendent of Presby- 
 terian Missions since 1877. His work in Alaska in early 
 years was, undoubtedly, of great value. 
 
 The museum stands in an evergreen grove, not far from 
 the road. Here may be found curios and relics of great 
 value. It is to be regretted, however, that many of the 
 articles are labelled with the names of collectors instead of 
 those of the real donors — at least, this is the information 
 voluntarily given me by some of the donors. 
 
 204
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 205 
 
 In the collection is an interesting war bonnet, which 
 was donated by Chief Kath-le-an, who planned and carried 
 out the siege of 1878. 
 
 It was owned by one of Kath-le-an's ancestors. It is 
 made of wood, carved into a raven's head. It has been 
 worked and polished until the shell is more like velvet 
 than wood, and is dyed black. 
 
 It was many years ago a polite custom of the Thlinkits 
 to paint and oil the face of a visitor, as a matter of hospi- 
 tality and an indication of friendly feeling and respect. 
 
 A visitor from another tribe to Sitka fell ill and died, 
 shortly after having been so oiled and honored, and his 
 people claimed that the oil was rancid, — or that some 
 evil spell had been oiled into him, — and a war arose. 
 
 The Sitka tribe began the preparation of the raven war 
 bonnet and worked upon it all summer, while actual 
 hostilities were delayed. 
 
 As winter came on, Kath-le-an's ancestor one day 
 addressed his young men, telling them that the new war 
 bonnet on his head would serve as a talisman to carry 
 them to a glorious victory over their enemies. 
 
 Through the battle that followed, the war bonnet was 
 everywhere to be seen in the centre of the most furious 
 fighting. Only once did it go down, and then only for a 
 moment, when the chief struggled to his feet; and as his 
 young men saw the symbol of victory rising from the dust, 
 the thrill of renewed hope that went through them im- 
 pelled them forward in one splendid, simultaneous move- 
 ment that won the day. 
 
 In 1804 Kath-le-an himself wore the hat when his people 
 were besieged for many days by the Russians. 
 
 On this occasion the spell of the war bonnet was broken ; 
 and upon his utter defeat, Kath-le-an, feeling that it had 
 lost its charm for good luck, buried the unfortunate symbol 
 in the woods.
 
 206 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Many years afterward Kath-le-an exhumed the hat and 
 presented it to the museum. 
 
 " We will hereafter dwell in peace with the white 
 people," he said; "so my young men will never again 
 need the war bonnet." 
 
 Kath-le-an has to this day kept his word. He is still 
 alive, but is nearly ninety years old. 
 
 Interesting stories and myths are connected with a 
 large number of the relics in the museum — to which the 
 small admission fee of fifty cents is asked. 
 
 One of the early picturesque block-houses built by the 
 Russians still stands in a good state of preservation on a 
 slight eminence above the town, on the way to the old 
 cemetery. 
 
 The story of the lowering of the Russian flag, and the 
 hoisting of the American colors at Sitka, is fraught with 
 significance to the superstitious. 
 
 The steamship John L. Stevens^ carrying United States 
 troops from San Francisco, arrived in Sitka Harbor 
 on the morning of October 9, 1867. The gunboats 
 Jamestown and Hesaca had already arrived and were lying 
 at anchor. The Ossipee did not enter the harbor until 
 the morning of the eighteenth. 
 
 At three o'clock of the same day the command of Gen- 
 eral Jefferson C. Davis, about two hundred and fifty 
 strong, in full uniform, armed and handsomely equipped, 
 were landed, and marched to the heights where the famous 
 Governor's Castle stood. Here they were met by a com- 
 pany of Russian soldiers who took their place upon the 
 left of the flagstaff. 
 
 The command of General Davis formed on the right. 
 The United States flag, which was to float for the first 
 time in possession of Sitka, was in the care of a color 
 guard — a lieutenant, a sergeant, and ten men. 
 
 Besides the officers and troops, there were present the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 207 
 
 Prince and Princess Matsukoff, many Russian and Ameri- 
 can residents, and some interested Indians. 
 
 It was arranged by Captain Pestchouroff and General 
 Lovell N. Rosseau, Commissioner for the United States, 
 that the United States should lead in firing the first 
 salute, but that there should be alternate guns from the 
 American and Russian batteries — thus giving the flag 
 of each nation a double national salute. 
 
 The ceremony was begun by the lowering of the Russian 
 flag — which caused the princess to burst into passionate 
 weeping, while all the Russians gazed upon their colors 
 with the deepest sorrow and regret marked upon their faces. 
 
 As the battery of the Ossipee led off in the salute and 
 the deep peals crashed upon Mount Verstovi and rever- 
 berated across the bay, an accident occurred which has 
 ever been considered an omen of misfortune. 
 
 The Russian flag became entangled about the ropes, 
 owing to a high wind, and refused to be lowered. 
 
 The staff was a native pine, about ninety feet in height. 
 Russian soldiers, who were sailors as well, at once set out 
 to climb the pole. It was so far to the flag, however, that 
 their strength failed ere they reached it. 
 
 A " boatswain's chair " was hastily rigged of rope, and 
 another Russian soldier was hoisted to the flag. On 
 reaching it, he untangled it and then made the mistake 
 of dropping it to the ground, not understanding Captain 
 Pestchouroff's energetic commands to the contrary. 
 
 It fell upon the bayonets of the Russian soldiers — 
 which was considered an ill omen for Russia. 
 
 The United States flag was then slowly hoisted by 
 George Lovell Rosseau, and the salutes were fired as be- 
 fore, the Russian water battery leading this time. 
 
 The hoisting of the flag was so timed that at the exact 
 instant of its reaching its place, the report of the last big 
 gun of the Ossipee roared out its final salute.
 
 208 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Upon the completion of the salutes, Captain Pestchou- 
 roff approached the commissioner and said : — 
 
 " General Rosseau, by authorit}" of his Majesty, the 
 Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United States the 
 Territory of Alaska." 
 
 The transfer was simply accepted, and the ceremony 
 was at an end. 
 
 No one understanding the American spirit can seriously 
 condemn the Americans present for the three cheers which 
 burst spontaneously forth ; yet there are occasions upon 
 which an exhibition of good taste, repression, and con- 
 sideration for the people of other nationalities present is 
 more admirable and commendable than a spread-eagle burst 
 of patriotism. 
 
 The last trouble caused by the Sitkan Indians was in 
 1878. The sealing schooner San Diego carried among 
 its crew seven men of the Kake-sat-tee clan. The schooner 
 was wrecked and six of the Kake-sat-tees were drowned. 
 Chief Kath-le-an demanded of Colonel M. D. Ball, collector 
 of customs and, at that time, the only representative of 
 the government in Sitka, one thousand blankets for the 
 life of each man drowned. 
 
 Colonel Ball, appreciating the gravity of the situation, 
 and desiring time to prepare for the attack which he knew 
 would be made u^^on the town, promised to write to the 
 company in San Francisco and to the government in 
 Washington. 
 
 After a long delay a reply to his letter arrived from the 
 company, which refused, as he had expected, to allow the 
 claim, and stated that no wages, even, were due the men 
 who were drowned. 
 
 The government — which at that time had a vague idea 
 that Alaska was a great iceberg floating between America 
 and Siberia — paid no attention to the plea for assistance.
 
 ALASKA: THE GBEAT COUNTRY 209 
 
 When Chief Kath-le-an learned that payment in blankets 
 would not be made, he demanded the lives of six white 
 men. This, also, being refused, he withdrew to prepare 
 for battle. 
 
 Then hasty preparations were made in the settlement 
 to meet the hourly expected attack. All the firearms were 
 made readj^ for action, and a guard kept watch day and 
 night. The Russian women and children were quartered 
 in the home of Father Nicolai Metropolsky ; the Americans 
 in the custom-house. 
 
 The Indians held their war feast many miles from 
 Sitka. On their way to attack the village they passed 
 the White Sulphur Hot Springs, on the eastern shore of 
 Baranoff Island, and murdered the man in charge. 
 
 They then demanded the lives of five white men, and 
 when their demand was again refused, they marched 
 stealthily upon the settlement. 
 
 However, Sitka possessed a warm and faithful friend 
 in the person of Anna-Hoots, Chief of the Kak-wan-tans. 
 He and his men met the hostile party and, while attempt- 
 ing to turn them aside from their murderous purpose, a 
 general fight among the two clans was precipitated. 
 
 Before the Kake-sat-tees could again advance, a mail- 
 boat arrived, and the war passion simmered. 
 
 When the boat sailed, a petition was sent to the British 
 authorities at Esquimault, asking, for humanity's sake, that 
 assistance be sent to Sitka. 
 
 Kath-le-an had retreated for reenforcement ; and on the 
 eve of his return to make a second attack, H.M.S. Osprey 
 arrived in the harbor. 
 
 The appeal to another nation for aid, and the bitter 
 newspaper criticism of its own indifference, had at last 
 aroused the United States government to a realization of 
 its responsibilities. The revenue cutter Wolcott dropped 
 anchor in the Sitka Harbor a few days after the Osprey ;
 
 210 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and from that time on Sitka was not left without 
 protection. 
 
 Along the curving road to Indian River stands the soft 
 gray Episcopal Church, St. Peter's-by-the-Sea. Built of 
 rough gray stone and shingles, it is an immediate pleasure 
 and rest to the eye. 
 
 " Its doors stand open to the sea, 
 The wind goes thro' at will, 
 And bears the scent of brine and blue 
 To the far emerald hill." 
 
 Any stranger may enter alone, and passing into any 
 pew, may kneel in silent communion with the God who 
 has created few things on this earth more beautiful than 
 Sitka. 
 
 No admission is asked. The church is free to the 
 prince and the pauper, the sinner and the saint; to those 
 of every creed, and to those of no creed at all. 
 
 The church has no rector, but is presided over by P. T, 
 Rowe, the Bishop of All Alaska and the Beloved of All 
 Men ; him who carries over laud and sea, over ice and 
 everlasting snow, over far tundra wastes and down the 
 lone and mighty Yukon in his solitary canoe or bidarka, 
 by dog team and on foot, to white people and dark, and 
 to whomsoever needs — the simple, sweet, and blessed 
 message of Love. 
 
 It was in 1895 that Reverend P. T. Rowe, Rector of 
 St. James' Church, Sault Sainte Marie, was confirmed as 
 Bishop of Alaska. He went at once to that far and un- 
 known land ; and of him and his work there no words 
 are ever heard save those of love and praise. He is bishop, 
 rector, and travelling missionary; he is doctor, apothecary, 
 and nurse ; he is the hope and the comfort of the dying 
 and the pall-bearer of the dead. He travels many hun- 
 dreds of miles every year, by lone and perilous ways, over
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 211 
 
 the ice and snow, with only an Indian guide and a team 
 of huskies, to carry the word of God into dark places. 
 He is equally at ease in the barabara and in the palace- 
 like homes of the rich when he visits the large cities of the 
 world. 
 
 Bishop Rowe is an exceptionally handsome man, of 
 courtly bearing and polished manners. The moment he 
 enters a church his personality impresses itself upon the 
 people assembled to hear him speak. 
 
 On a gray August Sunday in Nome — three thousand 
 miles from Sitka — I was surprised to see so many peo- 
 ple on their way to midday service, Alaska not being 
 famed for its church-going qualities. 
 
 " Oh, it is the Bishop," said the hotel clerk, smiling. 
 " Bishop Rowe," he added, apparently as an after-thought. 
 "Everybody goes to church when he comes to town." 
 
 I had never seen Bishop Rowe, and I had planned to 
 spend the day alone on the beach, for the surf was rolling 
 high and its musical thunder filled the town. Its lonely, 
 melancholy spell was upon me, and its call was loud and 
 insistent ; and my heart told me to go. 
 
 But I had heard so much of Bishop Rowe and his self- 
 devoted work in Alaska that I finally turned my back 
 upon temptation and joined the narrow stream of human- 
 ity wending its way to the little church. 
 
 When Bishop Rowe came bending his dark head 
 through the low door leading from the vestry, clad in his 
 rich scarlet and purple and gold-embroidered robes, I 
 thought I had never seen so handsome a man. 
 
 But his appearance was forgotten the moment he began 
 to speak. He talked to us ; but he did not preach. And 
 we, gathered there from so many distant lands — each 
 with his own hopes and sins and passions, his own desires 
 and selfishness — grew closer together and leaned upon 
 the words that were spoken there to us. They were so
 
 212 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 simple, and so earnest, and so sweet ; they were so seri- 
 ously and so kindly uttered. 
 
 And the text — it went with us, out into the sea-sweet, 
 surf-beaten streets of Nome ; and this was it, " Love me ; 
 and tell me so." Like the illustrious Veniaminoff, Bishop 
 Rowe, of a diiferent church and creed, and working in a 
 later, more commercial age, has yet won his hold upon 
 northern hearts by the sane and simple way of Love. 
 The text of his sermon that gray day in the surf-beaten, 
 tundra-sweet city of Nome is the text that he is patiently 
 and cheerfully working out in his noble life-work. 
 
 Mr. Duncan, at Metlakahtla, has given his life to the 
 Indians who have gathered about him ; but Bishop Rowe, 
 of All Alaska, has given his life to dark men and white, 
 wherever they might be. Year after year he has gone out 
 by perilous ways to find them, and to scatter among them 
 his words of love — as softly and as gently as the Indians 
 used to scatter the white down from the breasts of sea- 
 birds, as a message of peace to all men. 
 
 The White Sulphur Hot Springs, now frequently called 
 the Sitka Hot Springs, are situated on Hot Springs Bay 
 on the eastern shore of Baranoff Island, almost directly 
 east of Sitka. 
 
 The bay is sheltered by many small green islands, with 
 lofty mountains rising behind the sloping shores. It is 
 an ideally beautiful and desirable place to visit, even aside 
 from the curative qualities of the clear waters which bubble 
 from pools and crevices among the rocks. These springs 
 have been famous since their discovery by Lisiansky in 
 1805. Sir George Simpson visited them in 1842 ; and 
 with every year that has passed their praises have been 
 more enthusiastically sung by the fortunate ones who 
 have voyaged to that dazzlingly green and jewelled 
 region. 
 
 The main spring has a temperature of one hundred and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 213 
 
 fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit, its waters cooking eggs in 
 eight minutes. From this spring the baths are fed, their 
 waters, flowing down to the sea, being soon reduced in 
 temperature to one hundred and tliirty degrees. 
 
 Fihny vapors float over the vicinity of the springs and 
 rise in funnel-shaped columns which may be seen at a 
 considerable distance, and which impart an atmosphere of 
 mystery and unreality to the place. 
 
 Vegetation is of unusual luxuriance, even for this land 
 of tropical growth ; and in recent years experiments with 
 melons and vegetables which usually mature in tropic 
 climes only, have been entirely successful in this steamy 
 and balmy region. 
 
 There are four springs, in whose waters the Indians, 
 from the time of their discovery, have sought to wash away 
 the ills to which flesh is heir. They came hundreds of 
 miles and lay for hours at a time in the healing baths with 
 only their heads visible. The bay was neutral ground 
 where all might come, but where none might make set- 
 tlement or establish claims. 
 
 The waters near abound in fish and water-fowl, and the 
 forests with deer, bears, and other large game. 
 
 The place is coming but slowly to the recognition of the 
 present generation. When the tropic beauty of its loca- 
 tion and the curative powers of its waters are more gener- 
 ally known, it will be a Mecca for pilgrims. 
 
 The main station of Government Agricultural Experi- 
 mental work in Alaska is located at Sitka. Professor C. 
 C. Georgeson is the special agent in charge of the work, 
 which has been very successful. It has accomplished more 
 than anything else in the way of dispelling the erroneous 
 impressions which people have received of Alaska by read- 
 ing the descriptions of early explorers who fancied that 
 every drift of snow was a living glacier and every feather 
 the war bonnet of a savaore.
 
 214 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 In 1906, at Coldfoot, sixty miles north of the Arctic 
 Circle, were grown cucumbers eight inches long, nineteen- 
 inch rhubarb, potatoes four inches long, cabbages whose 
 matured heads weighed eight pounds, and turnips weigh- 
 ing sixteen pounds — all of excellent quality. 
 
 At Bear Lake, near Seward and Cook Inlet, were grown 
 good potatoes, radishes, lettuce, carrots, beets, rhubarb, 
 strawberries, raspberries, Logan berries, blackberries ; also, 
 roses, lilacs, and English ivy. In this locality cows and 
 chickens thrive and are profitable investments for those 
 who are not too indolent to take care of them. 
 
 Alaskan lettuce must be eaten to be appreciated. Dur- 
 ing the hot daj's and the long, light hours of the nights it 
 grows so rapidly that its crispness and delicacy of flavor 
 cannot be imagined. 
 
 Everything in Alaska is eitlier the largest, the best, or 
 most beautiful, in the world, the people who live there 
 maintain ; and this soon grows to be a joke to the traveller. 
 But when the assertion that lettuce grown in Alaska is 
 the most delicious in the world is made, not a dissenting 
 voice is heard. 
 
 Along the coast, seaweed and fish guano are used as 
 fertilizers ; and soil at the mouth of a stream where 
 there is silt is most desirable for vegetables. 
 
 In southeastern Alaska and along the coast to Kodiak, 
 at Fairbanks and Copper Centre, at White Horse, Daw- 
 son, Rampart, Xanana, Council City, Eagle, and other 
 places on the Yukon, almost all kinds of vegetables, 
 berries, and flowers grow luxuriantly and bloom and bear 
 in abundance. One turnip, of fine flavor, has been found 
 sufficient for several people. 
 
 In the vicinity of the various hot springs, even corn, 
 tomatoes, and muskmelons were successful to the highest 
 degree. 
 
 On the Yukon cabbages form fine white, solid heads;
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 215 
 
 cauliflower is unusually fine and white ; beets grow to a 
 good size, are tender, sweet, and of a bright red ; peas are 
 excellent ; rhubarb, parsley, and celery were in many 
 places successful. Onions seem to prove a failure in 
 nearly all sections of the country ; and potatoes, turnips, 
 and lettuce are the prize vegetables. 
 
 Grain growing is no longer attempted. The experiment 
 made by the government, in the coast region, proved en- 
 tirely unsatisfactory. It will usually mature, but August, 
 September, and October are so rainy that it is not possible 
 to save the crop. It is, however, grown as a forage crop, 
 for which purpose it serves excellently. 
 
 The numerous small valleys, coves, and pockets afford 
 desirable locations for gardens, berries, and some varieties 
 of fruit trees. 
 
 In the interior encouraging success has been obtained 
 with grain. The experiments at Copper Centre have not 
 been so satisfactory as at Rampart, three and a half degrees 
 farther north, on the Yukon. 
 
 At Copper Centre heavy frosts occur as early as August 
 14 ; while at Rampart no " killing " frosts have been known 
 before the grain had ripened, in the latter part of August. 
 
 Rampart is the loveliest settlement on the Yukon, with 
 the exception of Tanana. Across the river from Rampart, 
 the green fields of the Experimental Station slope down 
 to the water. The experiments carried on here by Super- 
 intendent Rader, under the general supervision of Pro- 
 fessor Georgeson — who visits the stations yearly — have 
 been very satisfactory. 
 
 Experimental work was begun at Rampart in 1900, and 
 grain has matured there every year, while at Copper 
 Centre only one crop of four has matured. In 1906, 
 owing to dry weather, the growth was slow until the mid- 
 dle of July ; from that date on to the latter part of 
 August there were frequent rains, causing a later growth
 
 216 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTS Y 
 
 of grain thau usual. The result of these conditions was 
 that when the first " killing " frost occurred, the grain 
 was still growing, and all plats, save those seeded earliest, 
 were spoiled for the finer purposes. The frosted grain 
 was, however, immediately cut for hay, twenty tons of 
 w^hich easily sold for four thousand, one hundred and 
 fifty-two dollars. 
 
 These results prove that even where grain cannot be 
 grown to the best advantage, it may be profitably grown 
 for hay. For the latter purpose larger growing varieties 
 would be sown, which would produce a much heavier yield 
 and bring larger profits. At present all the feed consumed 
 in the interior by the horses of pack trains and of travel- 
 lers is hauled in from tide-water, — a hundred miles, at 
 least, and frequently two or three times as far, — and 
 two hundred dollars a ton for hay is a low price. The 
 actual cost of hauling a ton of hay from Valdez to Cop- 
 per Centre, one hundred miles, is more than two hundred 
 dollars. 
 
 Road-house keepers advertise " specially low " rates on 
 hay at twenty cents a pound, the ordinary retail price at 
 that distance from tide-water being five hundred dollars 
 a ton. 
 
 The most serious drawback to the advancement of agri- 
 culture in Alaska is the lack of interest on the part of the 
 inhabitants. Probably not fifty people could be found in 
 the territory who went there for the purpose of making 
 homes. Now and then a lone dreamer of dreams may be 
 found who lives there — or who would gladly live there, 
 if he might — only for the beauty of it, which can be found 
 nowhere else ; and which will soon vanish before the 
 brutal tread of civilization. 
 
 The others go for gold. If they do not expect to dig 
 it out of the earth themselves, they plan and scheme to 
 get it out of those who have so acquired it. There is
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 217 
 
 no scheme that has not been worked upon Alaska and the 
 real workers of Alaska. 
 
 The schemers go there to get gold ; honestly, if possible, 
 but to get gold ; to live " from hand to mouth," while 
 they are there, and to get away as quickly as possible and 
 spend their gold far from the country which yielded it. 
 They have neither the time nor the desire to do anything 
 toward the development of the country itself. 
 
 Ex-Governor John G. Brady is one of the few who 
 have devoted their lives to the interest and the up-build- 
 ing of Alaska. 
 
 Thirty years ago he went to Alaska and established his 
 home at Sitka. There he has lived all these years with 
 his large and interesting family ; there he still lives. 
 
 He has a comfortable home, gardens and orchards that 
 leave little to be desired, and has demonstrated beyond 
 all doubt that the man who wishes to establish a modern, 
 comfortable — even luxurious — home in Alaska, can ac- 
 complish his purpose without serious hardship to his 
 family, however delicate the members thereof may be. 
 
 The Bradys are enthusiasts and authorities on all mat- 
 ters pertaining to Alaska. 
 
 Governor Brady has been called the " Rose Governor " 
 of Alaska, because of his genuine admiration for this 
 flower. He can scarcely talk five minutes on Alaska 
 without introducing the subject of roses ; and no enthusi- 
 ast has ever talked more simply and charmingly of the 
 roses of any land than he talks of the roses of Alaska, — 
 the cherished ones of the garden, and the big pink ones 
 of Unalaska and the Yukon. 
 
 As missionary and governor, Mr. Brady has devoted 
 many years to this splendid country ; and the distressful 
 troubles into which he has fallen of late, through no fault 
 of his own, can never make a grateful people forget his 
 unselfish work for the upbuilding and the civilization of 
 Alaska.
 
 218 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 To-day, Sitka is idyllic. Her cIkuiu is too poetic and 
 too elusive to be described in prose. A greater contrast 
 than she presents to such hustling, commercial towns as 
 Juneau, Valdez, Cordova, and Katalla, could scarcely be 
 conceived. To drift into the harbor of Sitka is like 
 entering another world. 
 
 The Russian influence is still there, after all these years 
 — as it is in Kodiak and Unalaska.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 In rough weather, steamers bound for Sitka from the 
 westward frequently enter Cross Sound and proceed by 
 way of Icy Straits and Chatham to PeriL 
 
 Icy Straits are filled, in the warmest months, with ice- 
 bergs floating down from the many glaciers to the north. 
 Of these Muir has been the finest, and is a world-famous 
 glacier, owing to the charming descriptions written of it 
 by Mr. John Muir. For several years it was the chief 
 object of interest on the "tourist" trip ; but early in 1900 
 an earthquake shattered its beautiful front and so choked 
 the bay with immense bergs that the steamer Spokane 
 could not approach closer than Marble Island, thirteen 
 miles from the front. The bergs were compact and filled 
 the whole bay. Since that time excursion steamers have 
 not attempted to enter Glacier Bay. 
 
 In the summer of 1907, however, a steamer entered the 
 bay and, finding it free of ice, approached close to the 
 famed glacier — only to find it resembling a great castle 
 whose towers and turrets have fallen to ruin with the pass- 
 ing of years. Where once shone its opaline palisades is 
 now but a field of crumpled ice. 
 
 There are no less than seven glaciers discharging into 
 Glacier Bay and sending out beautiful bergs to drift up 
 and down Icy Straits with the tides and winds. Rendu, 
 Carroll, Grand Pacific, Johns Hopkins, Hugh Miller, and 
 Geikie front on the bay or its narrow inlets. 
 
 219
 
 220 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Brady Glacier has a three-mile frontage on Wimbledon, 
 or Taylor, Bay, which opens into Icy Straits. 
 
 When, on her mid-June voyage from Seattle in 1905, 
 the Santa Ana drew out and away from Sitka, and turning 
 with a wide sweep, went drifting slowly through the maze 
 of green islands and set her prow " to Westward," one of 
 the dreams of my life was " come true." 
 
 I was on my way to the far, lonely, and lovely Aleutian 
 Isles, — the green, green isles crested with fire and snow 
 that are washed on the north by the waves of Behring 
 Sea. 
 
 It was a violet day. There were no warm purpk tones 
 anywhere ; but the cool, sparkling violet ones that mean 
 the nearness of mountains of snow. One could almost 
 feel the crisp ting of ice in the air, and smell the sunlight 
 that opalizes, without melting, the ice. 
 
 Round and white, with the sunken nest of the thunder- 
 bird on its crest, Mount Edgecumbe rose before us ; the 
 pale green islands leaned apart to let us through ; the sea- 
 birds, white and lavender and rose-touched, floated with 
 us ; the throb of the steamer was like a pulse beating in 
 one's own blood ; there were words in the violet light that 
 lured us on, and a wild sweet song in the waves that 
 broke at our prow. 
 
 " There can be nothing more beautiful on earth," I said ; 
 but I did not know. An hour came soon when I stood 
 with bared head and could not speak for the beauty about 
 me ; when the speech of others jarred upon me like an 
 insult, and the throb of the steamer, which had been a 
 sensuous pleasure, pierced my exaltation like a blow. 
 
 The long violet day of delight wore away at last, and 
 night came on. A wild wind blew from the southwest, 
 and the mood of the North Pacific Ocean changed. The 
 ship rolled heavily ; the waves broke over our decks. We
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 221 
 
 could see them coming — black, bowing, rimmed with 
 white. Then came the shock — followed by the awful 
 shudder and struggle of the boat. The wind was terrific. 
 It beat the breath back into the breast. 
 
 It was terrible and it was glorious. Those were big 
 moments on the texas of the /Santa Ana ; they were worth 
 living, they were worth while. But on account of the 
 storm, darkness fell at midnight ; and as the spray was 
 now breaking in sheets over the bridge and texas, I was 
 assisted to my cabin — drenched, shivering, hajDpy. 
 
 " Shut your door," said the captain, " or you will be 
 washed out of your bertli; and wait till to-morrow." 
 
 I wondered what he meant, but before I could ask him, 
 before he could close my cabin door, a great sea towered 
 and i3oised for an instant behind him, then bowed over him 
 and carried him into the room. It drenched the whole 
 room and everything and everybody in it ; then swept 
 out again as the ship rolled to starboard. 
 
 My travelling companion in the middle berth uttered 
 such sounds as I had never heard before in my life, and 
 will probably never hear again unless it be in the North 
 Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of Yakutat or Katalla. She 
 made one attempt to descend to the floor ; but at sight of 
 the captain who was struggling to take a polite departure 
 after his anything but polite entrance, she uttered the 
 most dreadful sound of all and fell back into her berth. 
 
 I have never seen any intoxicated man teeter and lurch 
 as he did, trying to get out of our cabin. I sat upon the 
 stool where I had been washed and dashed by the sea, and 
 laughed. 
 
 He made it at last. He uttered no apologies and no 
 adieux; and never have I seen a man so openly relieved 
 to escape from the presence of ladies. 
 
 I closed the window. Disrobing was out of the ques- 
 tion. I could neither stand nor sit without holding
 
 222 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tightly to something with both hands for support ; and 
 when I had kiin down, I found that I must hold to both 
 sides of the berth to keep myself in. 
 
 " Serves you right," complained the occupant of the 
 middle berth, " for staying up on the texas until such an 
 unearthly hour. I'm glad you can't undress. Maybe 
 you'll come in at a decent hour after this! " 
 
 It is small wonder that Behring and Chirikoff disagreed 
 and drifted apart in the North Pacific Ocean. It is my 
 belief that two angels would quarrel if shut up in a state- 
 room in a " Yakutat blow " — than which only a " Yakataga 
 blow " is worse ; and it comes later. 
 
 I am convinced, after three summers spent in voyaging 
 along the Alaskan coast to Nome and down the Yukon, 
 that quarrelling with one's room-mate on a long voyage 
 aids digestion. My room-mate and I have never agreed 
 upon any other subject ; but upon this, we are as one. 
 
 Neither effort nor exertion is required to begin a 
 quarrel. It is only necessary to ask with some querulous- 
 ness, "Are you going to stand before that mirror all 
 dayV and hey, presto! we are instantly at it with ham- 
 mer and tongs. 
 
 Toward daylight the storm grew too terrible for further 
 quarrelling; too big for all little petty human passions. 
 A coward would have become a man in the face of such a 
 conflict. I have never understood how one can com- 
 mit a cowardly act during a storm at sea. One may dance 
 a hornpipe of terror on a public street when a man thrusts 
 a revolver into one's face and demands one's money. 
 That is a little thing, and inspires to little sensations and 
 little actions. But when a ship goes down into a black hol- 
 low of the sea, down, down, so low that it seems as though 
 she must go on to the lowest, deepest depth of all — and 
 then lies still, shudders, and begins to mount, higher, 
 higher, higher, to the very crest of a mountainous wave; if
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 223 
 
 God put anything at all of courage and of bravery into 
 the soul of the human being that experiences this, it comes 
 to the front now, if ever. 
 
 In that most needlessly cruel of all the ocean disasters 
 of the Pacific Coast, the wreck of the Valencia on Seabird 
 Reef of the rock-ribbed coast of Vancouver Island, more 
 than a hundred people clung to the decks and rigging in 
 a freezing storm for thirty-six hours. There was a young 
 girl on the ship who was travelling alone. A young man, 
 an athlete, of Victoria, who had never met her before, 
 assisted her into the rigging when the decks were all 
 awash, and protected her there. On the last day before 
 the ship went to pieces, two life-rafts were successfully 
 launched. Only a few could go, and strong men were 
 desired to manage the rafts. The young man in the 
 rigging might have been saved, for the ones who did go 
 on the raft were the only ones rescued. But when sum- 
 moned, he made simple answer : — 
 
 "No; I have some one here to care for, I will stay." 
 
 Better to be that brave man's wave-battered and fish- 
 eaten corpse, than any living coward who sailed away and 
 left those desperate, struggling wretches to their awful 
 fate. 
 
 The storm died slowly with the night; and at last we 
 could sleep. 
 
 It was noon when we once more got ourselves up on 
 deck. The sun shone like gold upon the sea, which 
 stretched, dimpling, away for hundreds upon hundreds 
 of miles, to the south and west. I stood looking across 
 it for some time, lost in thought, but at last something 
 led me to the other side of the ship. 
 
 All unprepared, I lifted my eyes — and beheld before 
 me the glory and the marvel of God. In all the splendor 
 of the drenched sunlight, straight out of the violet, 
 sparkling sea, rose the magnificent peaks of the Fair-
 
 224 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 weather Range and towered against the sky. No great 
 snow mountains rising from the land have ever affected 
 me as did that long and noble chain glistening out of the 
 sea. They seemed fairly to thunder their beauty to the 
 sky. 
 
 From INIount Edgecumbe there is no significant break 
 in the mountain range for more than a thousand miles ; 
 it is a stretch of sublime beauty that has no parallel. 
 The Fairweather Range merges into the St. Elias Alps ; 
 the Alps are followed successively by the Chugach Alps, 
 the Kenai and Alaskan ranges, — the latter of which 
 holds tlie loftiest of them all, the superb Mount McKinley, 
 — and the Aleutian Range, which extends to the end of 
 the Aliaska Peninsula. The volcanoes on the Aleutian 
 and Kurile islands complete the ring of snow and fire 
 that circles around the Pacific Ocean.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Our sliip having been delayed by the storm, it was 
 mid-afternoon when we reached Yakutat. A vast pla- 
 teau borders the ocean from Cross Sound, north of Bara- 
 noff and Chicagoff islands, to Yakutat ; and out of this 
 plateau rise four great snow peaks — Mount La Perouse, 
 Mount Crillon, Mount Lituya, and Mount Fairweather — 
 ranging in height from ten thousand to fifteen thousand 
 nine hundred feet. 
 
 In all this stretch there are but two bays of any size, 
 Lituya and Dry, and they have only historical impor- 
 tance. 
 
 Lituya Bay was described minutely by La Perouse, 
 who spent some time there in 1786 in his two vessels, the 
 Astrolabe and Boussole. 
 
 The entrance to this bay is exceedingly dangerous ; the 
 tide enters in a bore, which can only be run at slack tide. 
 La Perouse lost two boatloads of men in this bore, on 
 the eve of his departure, — a loss which he describes at 
 length and with much feeling. 
 
 Before finally departing, he caused to be erected a monu- 
 ment to the memory of the lost officers and crew on a 
 small island which he named Cenotaphe, or Monument, 
 Isle. A bottle containing a full account of the disaster 
 and the names of the twenty-one men was buried at the 
 foot of the monument. 
 
 La Perouse named this bay Port des Frangais. 
 
 The chronicles of this modest French navigator seem, 
 Q 225
 
 226 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 somehow, to stand apart from those of the other early 
 voyagers. Tliere is an appearance of truth and of fine 
 feeling in them that does not appear in all. 
 
 He at first attempted to enter Yakutat Bay, which he 
 called the Bay of Monti, in honor of the commandant 
 of an exploring expedition which he sent out in advance ; 
 but the sea was breaking with such violence upon the 
 beach that he abandoned the attempt. 
 
 He described the savages of Lituya Bay as treacherous 
 and thievish. They surrounded the ships in canoes, offer- 
 ing to exchange fresh fish and otter skins for iron, which 
 seemed to be the only article desired, although glass beads 
 found some small favor in the eyes of the women. 
 
 La Perouse supposed himself to be the first discoverer 
 of this bay. The Russians, however, had been there years 
 before. 
 
 The savages appeared to be worshippers of the sun. 
 La Perouse pronounced the bay itself to be the most ex- 
 traordinary spot on the whole earth. It is a great basin, 
 the middle of which is unfathomable, surrounded by snow 
 peaks of great height. During all the time that he was 
 there, he never saw a puff of wind ruffle the surface of 
 the water, nor was it ever disturbed, save by the fall of 
 masses of ice which were discharged from five different 
 glaciers with a thunderous noise which reechoed from the 
 farthest recesses of the surrounding mountains. The air 
 was so tranquil and the silence so undisturbed that the 
 human voice and the cries of sea-birds lying among the 
 rocks were heard at the distance of half a league. 
 
 The climate was found to be '■'• infinitely milder " than 
 that of Hudson Bay of the same latitude. Vegetation 
 was extremely vigorous, pines measuring six feet in di- 
 ameter and rising to a height of one hundred and forty 
 feet. 
 
 Celery, sorrel, lupines, wild peas, yarrow, chicory,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 227 
 
 angelica, violets, and many varieties of grass were found 
 in abundance, and were used in soups and salads, as 
 remedies for scurvy. 
 
 Strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, the elder, the 
 willow, and the broom were found then as they are to- 
 day. Trout and salmon were taken in the streams, and 
 in the bay, halibut. 
 
 It is to be feared that La Perouse was not strong- 
 on birds ; for in the copses he heard singing " linnets, 
 nightingales^ blackbirds, and water quails," whose songs 
 were very agreeable. It was July, which he called the 
 "pairing-time." He found one very fine blue jay; and 
 it is surprising that he did not hear it sing. 
 
 For the savages — especially the women — the fas- 
 tidious Frenchman entertained feelings of disgust and 
 horror. He could discover no virtues or traits in them 
 to praise, conscientiously though he tried. 
 
 They lived in the same kind of habitations that all the 
 early explorers found along the coast of Alaska: large 
 buildings consisting of one room, twenty-five by twenty 
 feet, or larger. Fire was kindled in the middle of these 
 rooms on the earth floor. Over it was suspended fish 
 of several kinds to be smoked. There was always a large 
 hole in the roof — when there was a roof at all — to 
 receive the smoke. 
 
 About twenty persons of both sexes dwelt in each of 
 these houses. Their habits, customs, and relations were 
 indescribably disgusting and indecent. 
 
 Their houses were more loathsome and vile of odor 
 than the den of any beast. Even at the present time in 
 some of the native villages — notably Belkoffski on the 
 Aliaskan Peninsula — all the most horrible odors ever 
 experienced in civilization, distilled into one, could not 
 equal the stench with which the natives and their habi- 
 tations reek. As their customs are somewhat cleanlier
 
 228 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 now than tliey were a hundred and thirty years ago, and 
 as upon this one point all the early navigators forcibly 
 agree, we may well conclude that they did not exaggerate. 
 
 The one room was used for eating, sleeping, cooking, 
 smoking fish, washing their clothes — in their cooking 
 and eating wooden utensils, by the way, which are never 
 cleansed — and for the habitation of their dogs. 
 
 The men pierced the cartilage of the nose and ears for 
 the wearing of ornaments of shell, iron, or other material. 
 They filed their teeth down even with the gums with a 
 piece of rough stone. The men painted their faces and 
 other parts of their bodies in a " frightful manner " with 
 ochre, lamp-black, and black lead, mixed with the oil of 
 the "sea-wolf." Their hair was frequently greased and 
 dressed with the down of sea-birds ; the women's, also. 
 A. plain skin covered the shoulders of the men, while the 
 rest of the body was left entirely naked. 
 
 The women filled the Frenchman with a lively horror. 
 The labret in the lower lip, or ladle, as he termed it, wore 
 unbearably upon his fine nerves. He considered that the 
 whole world would not afford another custom equally 
 revolting and disgusting. When the ornament was re- 
 moved, the lower lip fell down upon the chin, and this 
 second picture was more hideous than the first. 
 
 The gallant Captain Dixon, on his voyage a year later, 
 was more favorably impressed with the women. He 
 must have worn rose-colored glasses. He describes their 
 habits and habitations almost as La Perouse did, but uses 
 no expression of disgust or horror. He describes the 
 women as being of medium size, having straight, well- 
 shaped limbs. They painted their faces ; but he pre- 
 vailed upon one woman by persuasion and presents to 
 wash her face and hands. Whereupon " her countenance 
 had all the cheerful glow of an English milkmaid's ; and 
 the healthy red which suffused her cheeks was even beau-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 229 
 
 tifiiUy contrasted with the white of her neck ; her eyes 
 were bhick and sparkling ; her eyebrows of the same 
 color and most beautifully arched; her forehead so re- 
 markably clear that the translucent veins were seen 
 meandering even in their minutest branches — in short, 
 she would be considered handsome even in England." 
 The worst adjectives he applied to the labret were 
 "singular" and "curious." 
 
 Don Maurello and other navigators found now and then 
 a woman who might compete with the beauties of Spain 
 and other lands ; but none shared the transports of Dixon, 
 who idealized their virtues and condoned their faults. 
 
 Tebenkof located two immense glaciers in the bay of 
 Lituya, one in each arm, describing them briefly : — 
 
 " The icebergs fall from the mountains and float over 
 the waters of the bay throughout the year. Nothing 
 disturbs the deep silence of this terribly grand gorge of 
 the mountains but the thunder of the falling icebergs." 
 
 La Perouse found enormous masses of ice detaching 
 themselves from five different glaciers. The water was 
 covered with icebergs, and nearness to the shore was 
 exceedingly dangerous. His small boat was upset half a 
 mile from shore by a mass of ice falling from a glacier. 
 
 Mr. Muir describes La Perouse Glacier as presenting 
 grand ice bluffs to the open ocean, into which it occa- 
 sionally discharged bergs. 
 
 All agree that the appearance and surroundings of the 
 bay are extraordinary. 
 
 Yakutat Bay is two hundred and fifteen miles from 
 Sitka. It was called Behring Bay by Cook and Van- 
 couver, who supposed it to be the bay in which the Dane 
 anchored in 1741. It was named Admiralty Bay by 
 Dixon, and the Bay of JNIonti by La Perouse. The In- 
 dian name is the only one which has been preserved.
 
 230 ALASKA: THE GliEAT COUNTRY 
 
 It is so peculiarly situated that although several islands 
 lie in front of it, the full force of the North Pacific Ocean 
 sweeps into it. At most seasons of the year it is full of 
 floating ice which drifts down from the glaciers of Dis- 
 enchantment Bay. 
 
 At the point on the southern side of the bay which 
 Dixon named Mulgrave, and where there is a fine harbor, 
 Barauoff established a colony of Siberian convicts about 
 1796. His instructions from Shelikoff for the laying-out 
 of a city in such a wilderness make interesting reading. 
 
 " And now it only remains for us to hope that, having 
 selected on the mainland a suitable place, you will lay out 
 the settlement with some taste and with due regard for 
 beauty of construction, in order that when visits are 
 made by foreign ships, as cannot fail to happen, it may 
 appear more like a town than a village, and that the 
 Russians in America may live in a neat and orderly way, 
 and not, as in Ohkotsk, in squalor and misery, caused by 
 the absence of nearly everything necessary to civilization. 
 Use taste as well as practical judgment in locating the 
 settlement. Look to beauty, as well as to convenience of 
 material and supplies. On the plans, as well as in reality, 
 leave room for spacious squares for public assemblies. 
 Make the streets not too long, but wide, and let them 
 radiate from the squares. If the site is wooded, let trees 
 enough stand to line the streets and to fill the gardens, 
 in order to beautify the place and preserve a healthy atmos- 
 phere. Build the houses along the streets, but at some dis- 
 tance from each other, in order to increase the extent of the 
 town. The roofs should be of equal height, and the archi- 
 tecture as uniform as possible. The gardens should be 
 of equal size and provided with good fences along the 
 streets. Thanks be to God that you will at least have 
 no lack of timber." 
 
 In the same letter poor Baranoff was reproached for
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 231 
 
 exchanging visits with captains of foreign vessels, and 
 warned that he might be carried off to California or some 
 other " desolate " place. 
 
 The colony of convicts had been intended as an " agri- 
 cultural " settlement ; but the bleak location at the foot 
 of Mount St. Elias made a farce of the undertakinsf. 
 The site had been chosen by a mistake. A post and for- 
 tifications were erected, but it is not chronicled that 
 Shelikoff's instructions were carried out. There was 
 great mortality among the colonists and their families, 
 and constant danger of attack by the Kolosh. Finally, 
 in 1805, the fort and settlement were entirely destroyed 
 by their cruel and revengeful enemies. 
 
 The new town of Yakutat is three or four miles from 
 the old settlement. There is a good wharf at the foot of 
 a commanding plateau, which is a good site for a city. 
 On the wharf are a saw-mill and cannery. A stiff climb 
 along a forest road brings one to a store, several other 
 business houses, and a few residences. 
 
 There are good coal veins in the vicinity. The Yakutat 
 and Southern Railway leads several miles into the interior, 
 and handles a great deal of timber. 
 
 In 1794 Puget sailed the Chatham through the narrow 
 channel between the mainland and the islands, leading to 
 Port Mulgrave — where Portoff was established in a tent 
 with nine of his countrymen and several hundred Kadiak 
 natives. He found the channel narrow and dangerous ; 
 his vessel grounded, but was successfully floated at re- 
 turning tide. Passage to Mulgrave was found easy, 
 however, by a channel farther to the westward and 
 southward. 
 
 In this bay, as in nearly all other localities on the 
 Northwest Coast, the Indians coming out to visit them 
 paddled around the ship two or three times singing a 
 ceremonious song, before offering to come aboard. They
 
 232 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 gladly exchanged bows, arrows, darts, spears, fish-gigs — 
 whatever they may be — kamelaykas, or walrus-gut coats, 
 and needlework for white shirts, collars, cravats, and 
 other wearing apparel. 
 
 An Indian chief stole Mr, Puget's gold watch chain 
 and seals from his cabin; but it was discovered by Portoff 
 and returned. 
 
 The cape extending into the ocean south of the town 
 was the Cape Phipps of the Russians. It has long been 
 known, however, as Ocean Cape. Cape Manby is on the 
 opposite side of the bay. 
 
 Sailing up Yakutat Bay, the Bay of Disenchantment is 
 entered and continues for sixty miles, when it merges into 
 Russell Fiord, which bends sharply to the south and al- 
 most reaches the ocean. 
 
 Enchantment Bay would be a more appropriate name. 
 The scenery is of varied, magnificent, and ever increasing 
 beauty. The climax is reached in Russell Fiord — named 
 for Professor Russell, who explored it in a canoe in 1891. 
 
 From Yakutat Bay to the very head of Russell Fiord 
 supreme splendor of scenery is encountered, surpassing the 
 most vaunted of the Old World. Within a few miles, one 
 passes from luxuriant forestation to lovely lakes, lacy 
 cascades, bits of green valley; and then, of a sudden, all 
 unprepared, into the most sublime snow-mountain fast- 
 nesses imaginable, surrounded by glaciers and many of 
 the most majestic mountain peaks of the world. 
 
 Cascades spring, foaming, down from misty heights, 
 and flowers bloom, large and brilliant, from the water to 
 the line of snow. 
 
 Malaspina, an Italian in the service of Spain, named 
 Disenchantment Bay. Turner Glacier and the vast Hub- 
 bard Glacier discharge into this bay; and from the re- 
 ports of the Italian, Tabenkoff, and Vancouver, it has 
 been considered possible that the two glaciers may have
 
 ALAiSKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 233 
 
 reached, more than a hundred years ago, across the nar- 
 rowest bend at the head of Yakutat Bay. 
 
 The fiord is so narrow that the tops of the high snow 
 mountains have the appearance of overhanging their 
 bases ; and to the canoeist floating down the slender, 
 translucent water-way, this effect adds to the austerity of 
 the scene. 
 
 Captains of regular steamers are frequently offered 
 good prices to make a side trip up Yakutat Bay to the 
 beginning of Disenchantment; but owing to the dangers 
 of its comparatively uncharted waters, they usually de- 
 cline with vigor. 
 
 One who would penetrate into this exquisitely beauti- 
 ful, lone, and enchanted region must trust himself to a 
 long canoe voyage and complete isolation from his kind. 
 But what recompense — what life-rememberable joy! 
 
 Each country has its spell; but none is so great as the 
 spell of this lone and splendid land. It is too sacred for 
 any light word of pen or lip. The spell of Alaska is the 
 spell of God; and it holds all save the basest, whether 
 they acknowledge it or deny. Here are sphinxes and 
 pyramids built of century upon century's snow ; the 
 pale green thunder of the cataract ; the roar of the ava- 
 lanche and the glacier's compelling march; the flow of 
 mighty rivers ; the unbroken silences that swim from 
 snow mountain to snow mountain; and the rose of sunset 
 whose petals float and fade upon mountain and sea. 
 
 As one sails past these mountains days upon days, they 
 seem to lean apart and withdraw in pearly aloofness, 
 that others more beautiful and more remote may dawn 
 upon the enraptured beholder's sight. For hundreds of 
 miles up and down the coast, and for hundreds into the 
 interior, they rise in full view from the ocean which 
 breaks upon the nearer ones. At sunrise and at sunset 
 each is wrapped in a different color from the others,
 
 234 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 each in its own liglit, its own glory — caused by its own 
 peculiar shape and its position among the others. 
 
 While the steamer lies at Yakutat passengers may, if 
 they desire, walk through the forest to the old village, 
 where there is an ancient Thlinkit settlement. There 
 is a new one at the new town. The tents and cabins 
 climb picturesquely among the trees and ferns from the 
 water up a steep hill. 
 
 In 1880 there was a great gold excitement at Yakutat. 
 Gold was discovered in the black-sand beaches. A 
 number of mining camps were there until the late 
 'eighties, and by the use of rotary hand amalgamators, 
 men were able to clean up forty dollars a day. 
 
 The bay was flooded by a tidal wave which left the 
 beach covered with fish. The oil dej)osited by their 
 decay prevented the action of the mercury, and the camp 
 was abandoned. 
 
 The sea is now restoring the black sand, and a second 
 Nome may one day spring up on these hills in a single 
 night. 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, the Yakutat women are 
 among the finest basket weavers of the coast. A finely 
 twined Yakutat basket, however small it may be, is a 
 prize; but the bottom should be woven as finely and 
 as carefully as the body of the basket. Some of the 
 younger weavers make haste by weaving the bottom 
 coarsely, which detracts from both its artistic and com- 
 mercial value. 
 
 The instant the end of the gangway touches the wharf 
 at Yakutat, the gayly-clad, dark-eyed squaws swarm 
 aboard. They settle themselves noiselessly along the 
 promenade decks, disposing their baskets, bracelets, 
 carved horn spoons, totem-poles, inlaid lamps, and beaded 
 moccasins about them.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 235 
 
 If, during the hours of animated barter that follow, 
 one or two of the women should disappear, the wise 
 woman-passenger will saunter around the ship and take 
 a look into her stateroom, to make sure that all is well; 
 else, when she does return to it, she may miss silver- 
 backed mirrors, bottles of lavender water, bits of jewellery 
 that may have been carelessly left in sight, pretty collars 
 — and even waists and hats — to say nothing of the 
 things which she may later on find. 
 
 These poor dark people were born thieves ; and neither 
 the little education they have received, nor the treatment 
 accorded them by the majority of white people with 
 whom they have been brought into contact, has served 
 to wean them entirely from the habits and the instincts 
 of centuries. 
 
 At Yakutat, no matter how much good sound sense 
 he may possess, the traveller i^arts with many large 
 silver dollars. He thinks of Christmas, and counts his 
 friends on one hand, then on the other; then over again, 
 on both. 
 
 When the steamer has whistled for the sixth time to 
 call in the wandering passengers, and the captain is on the 
 bridge; when the last squaw has pigeon-toed herself up 
 the gangway, flirting her gay shawl around her and 
 chuckling and clucking over the gullibility of the inno- 
 cent white people; when the last strain from the phono- 
 graph in the big store on the hill has died across the 
 violet water widening between the shore and the with- 
 drawing ship — the spendthrift passenger retires to his 
 cabin and finds the berths overflowing and smelling to 
 heaven with Indian things. Then — too late — he sits 
 down, anywhere, and reflects. 
 
 The western shore of Yakutat Bay is bounded by the 
 largest glacier in the world — the Malaspina. It has a 
 sea-frontage of more than sixty miles extending from the
 
 236 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 bay " to Westward'"; and the length of its splendid sweep 
 from its head to the sea at the foot of Mount St. Elias 
 is ninety miles. 
 
 For one whole day the majestic mountain and its 
 beautiful companion peaks were in sight of the steamer, 
 before the next range came into view. The sea breaks 
 sheer upon the ice-palisades of the glacier. Icebergs, 
 pale green, j)ale blue, and rose-colored, march out to 
 meet and, bowing, pass the ship. 
 
 One cannot say that he knows what beauty is until he 
 has cruised leisurely past this glacier, with the mountains 
 rising behind it, on a clear day, followed by a moonlit 
 night. 
 
 On one side are miles on miles of violet ocean sweeping 
 away into limitless space, a fleck of sunlight flashing like 
 a fire-fly in every hollowed wave; on the other, miles on 
 miles of glistening ice, crowned by peaks of softest snow. 
 
 At sunset warm purple mists drift in and settle over 
 the glacier; above these float banks of deepest rose; 
 through both, and above them, glimmer the mountains 
 pearlily, in a remote loveliness that seems not of earth. 
 
 But by moonlight to see the glacier streaming down 
 from the mountains and out into the ocean, into the mid- 
 night — silent, opaline, majestic — is worth ten years of 
 dull, ordinary living. 
 
 It is as if the very face of God shone through the 
 silence and the sublimity of the night.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 There is an open roadstead at Yaktag, or Yakataga. 
 The ship anchors several miles from shore — when the 
 fierce storms which prevail in this vicinity will permit it 
 to anchor at all — and passengers and freight are light- 
 ered ashore. 
 
 I have seen horses hoisted from the deck in their 
 wooden cages and dropped into the sea, where they were 
 liberated. After their first frightened, furious plunges, 
 they headed for the shore, and started out bravely on their 
 long swim. The surf was running high, and for a time it 
 seemed that they could not escape being dashed upon the 
 rocks; but with unerring instinct, they struggled away 
 from one rocky place after another until they reached a 
 strip of smooth sand up which they were borne by the 
 breaking sea, and where they fell for a few moments, ex- 
 hausted. Then they arose, staggered, threw up their heads 
 and ran as I have never seen horses run — with such wild- 
 ness, such gladness, such utterance of the joy of freedom 
 in the fling of their legs, in the streaming of mane and tail. 
 
 They had been penned in a narrow stall under the for- 
 ward deck for twelve days; they had been battered by 
 the storms and unable to lie down and rest; they had been 
 plunged from this condition unexpectedly into the ocean 
 and compelled to strike out on a long swim for their lives. 
 
 The sudden knowledge of freedom; the smell of sun 
 and air; the very sweet of life itself — all combined to 
 make them almost frantic in the animal expression of their 
 
 joy. 
 
 237
 
 238 ALASKA: THE GBEAT COUNTRT 
 
 We put down the powerful glasses with which we had 
 painfully watched every yard of their progress toward the 
 land. 
 
 I looked at the pilot. There was a moisture in his eyes, 
 which was not entirely a reflection of that in my own. 
 
 It is one hundred and seventy miles from Yakutat to 
 Kayak. Off this stretch of coast, between Lituya and 
 Cape Suckling, the soundings are moderate and by whalers 
 have long been known as " Fairweather Grounds." 
 
 Just before reaching Kayak, Cape Suckling is 
 passed. 
 
 The point of this cape is low. It runs up into a con- 
 siderable hill, which, in turn, sinking to very low land has 
 the appearance of an island. It was named by Cook. 
 
 Around this cape lies Comptroller Bay — the bay which 
 should have been named Behring's Bay. It was on the 
 two islands at its entrance that Behring landed in 1741. 
 He named one St. Elias; and to this island Cook, in 1778, 
 gave the name of Kaye, for the excellent reason that the 
 " Reverend Doctor Kaye " gave him two silver two-penny 
 pieces of the date of 1772, which he buried in a bottle on 
 the island, together with the names of his ships and the 
 date of discovery. 
 
 Unhap]Hly this immortal island retains the name which 
 Cook lightly bestowed upon it, instead of the name given 
 it by the illustrious Dane. It is now, however, more fre- 
 quently known as Wingham Island, The settlement of 
 Kayak is upon it. The southern extremity of the larger 
 island retains the name St. Elias for the splendid headland 
 that plunges boldly and challengingly out into the sea. It 
 is a magnificent sight in a storm, when sea-birds are shriek- 
 ing over it and a powerful surf is breaking upon its base. 
 At all times it is a striking landmark. 
 
 I have been to Kayak four times. Landings have always 
 been made by passengers in dories or in tiny launches
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 289 
 
 which come out from the settlement, and which bob up 
 and down like corks. 
 
 It requires a cool head to descend a rope-ladder twenty 
 or thirty feet from the deck to a dory that rolls away 
 from the ship with every wave and which may only be 
 entered as it rolls back. There is art in the little kick 
 which one must give each rung against the side of the 
 ship to steady the ladder. At the last comes an awful 
 moment when a woman must hang alone on the last sway- 
 ing rung and await the return of the dory. If the sea is 
 rough, the ship will probably roll away from the boat. 
 When the sailors, therefore, sing out, ''Now! Jump!" 
 she must close her eyes, put her trust in heaven and fore- 
 ordination, and jump. 
 
 If she chances to jump just at the right moment ; if one 
 sailor catches her just right and another catches him just 
 right, she will know by the cheer that arises from hurricane 
 and texas that all is well and she may open her eyes. Under 
 other conditions, other situations arise; but let no woman 
 be deterred by the possibility of the latter from descend- 
 ing a rope-ladder when she has an opportunity. The hair- 
 crinkling moments in an ordinary life are few enough, 
 heaven knows. 
 
 There are several business houses and dwellings at 
 Kayak; and an Indian village. The Indian graveyard is 
 very interesting. Tiny houses are built over the graves 
 and surrounded by picket fences. Both are painted white. 
 Through the windows may be seen some of the belongings 
 of the dead. In dishes are different kinds of food and 
 drink, that the deceased may not suffer of hunger or 
 thirst in the bourne to which he may have journe^^ed. 
 There are implements and weapons for the men; unfinished 
 baskets for the women, with the long strands of warp and 
 woof left ready for the idle hand ; for the children, beads 
 and rattles made of bear claws and shells. The houses 
 are on posts a few feet above the graves.
 
 240 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 For a number of years Kayak was the base of opera- 
 tion for oil companies. In 1898 the Ahiska Development 
 Company staked the country, but later leased their lands 
 to the Alaska Oil and Coal Company — commonly known 
 as the " English " company — for a long term of years, 
 with the privilege of taking up the lease in 1906. This 
 company spent millions of dollars and drilled several 
 wells. 
 
 The Alaska Petroleum and Coal Company — known as 
 the Lippy Company — put down two holes, one seventeen 
 hundred feet deep. The cost of drilling is about five 
 thousand dollars a hole of two thousand feet ; the rig, 
 laid down, six thousand five hundred dollars. 
 
 These wells are situated at Katalla, sixteen miles from 
 Kayak, at the mouth of the Copper River. The oil lands 
 extend from the coast to the Malaspina and Behring 
 glaciers. 
 
 Since the recent upspringing of a new town at Katalla, 
 the centre of trade has been transferred from Kayak to 
 this point. Katalla was founded in 1904 by the Alaska 
 Petroleum and Coal Company ; but not until the actual 
 commencement of work on the Bruner Railway Com- 
 pany's road, in 1907, from Katalla into the heart of the 
 coal and oil fields, did the place rise to the importance of 
 a northern town. 
 
 It has attained a wide fame within a few months on 
 account of the remarkable discoveries of high-grade 
 petroleum and coal in the vicinity. 
 
 For many years these two products of Alaska were con- 
 sidered of inferior quality ; but it has recently been dis- 
 covered that they rival the finest of Pennsylvania. 
 
 The town has grown as only a new Alaskan, or Puget 
 Sound, town can grow. At night, perhaps, there will be 
 a dozen shacks and as many tents on a town site ; the next 
 morning a steamer will anchor in the bay bearing govern-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 241 
 
 ment offices, stores, hotels, saloons, dance-halls, banks, 
 offices for several large companies, electric light plants, 
 gas works, telephones — and before another day dawns, 
 business is in full swing. 
 
 For fifteen miles along the Comptroller Bay water front 
 oil wells may be seen, some of the largest oil seepages 
 existing close to the shore. The coal and oil lands of 
 this vicinity, however, are about a hundred miles in 
 length and from twenty to thirty in width. 
 
 During the fall and early winter of 1907, Katalla suf- 
 fered a serious menace to its prosperity, owing to its total 
 lack of a harbor. 
 
 The bay is but a mere indentation, and an open road- 
 stead sends its surf to curl upon the unprotected beach. 
 The storms in winter are ceaseless and terrific. Steamers 
 cannot land and anchors will not hold. 
 
 As Nome, similarly situated, is cut off from the world 
 for several months by ice, so is Katalla cut off by storms. 
 
 Steamer after steamer sails into the roadstead, rolls and 
 tosses in the trough of the sea, lingers regretfully, and 
 sails away, without landing even a passenger, or mail. 
 
 In October, 1907, one whole banking outfit, including 
 everything necessary for the opening of a bank, save the 
 cashier, — who was already there, — and the building, — 
 which was waiting, — was taken up on a steamer. Not 
 being able to lighter it ashore, the steamer carried the 
 bank to Cook Inlet. 
 
 Upon its return, conditions again made it impossible to 
 enter the bay, and the bank was carried back to Seattle. 
 When the steamer again went north, the bank went, too ; 
 when the steamer returned, the bank returned. 
 
 In the meantime, other events were shaping themselves 
 in such wise as to render the situation extremely 
 interesting. 
 
 A few miles northwest of Katalla, the town of Cordova
 
 242 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 was established three years ago, with the terminus of the 
 Copper River Railway located there. Mr. M. J. Heiiey, 
 who had built the White Pass and Yukon Railway, 
 received the contract for the work. The building of 
 wharves in the excellent harbor and the laying out of a 
 town site capable of accommodating twenty thousand 
 people — and one that might have pleased even the fas- 
 tidious Shelikoff — was energetically begun. 
 
 Early in 1907 the Copper River Railway sold its in- 
 terests to the Northwestern and Copper River Valley 
 Railway, promoted by John Rosene, and financed by the 
 Guggenheiras. It was semi-officially announced that the 
 new company would tear up the Cordova tracks and that 
 Katalla would be the terminus of the consolidated line. 
 The announcement precipitated the "boom" at Katalla. 
 
 Mr. Heney retired from the new company and spent 
 the summer voyaging down the Yukon. 
 
 Immediately upon his return to Seattle in September, 
 he journeyed to New York. In a few days, newspapers 
 devoted columns to the sale of the Rosene interests in 
 the railway, also a large fleet of first-class steamers, and 
 wharves, to the Copper River and Northwestern Railway 
 Company. 
 
 The contract for the immediate building of the road 
 had been secured by Mr. Heney, who had returned to his 
 original survej^s. The terminus at once travelled back to 
 Cordova ; and the itinerant bank may yet thank its guid- 
 ing star which prevented it from getting itself landed at 
 Katalla. 
 
 Important " strikes " are made constantly in the Tanana 
 country, in the Sushitna, and in the Koyukuk, where pay 
 is found surpassing the best of the Klondike. 
 
 The trail from Valdez to Fairbanks may yet be as 
 thickly strewn with eager-eyed stampeders as were the 
 Dyea and Skagway trails a decade ago. Never again.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 243 
 
 however, in any part of Alaska, can the awful conditions 
 of that time prevail. Steamer, rail, and stage transpor- 
 tation have made travelling in the North luxurious, com- 
 pared to the horrors endured in the old days. 
 
 The Guggenheims have been compelled to carry on a 
 fantastic fight for right of way for the Copper River and 
 Northwestern Railroad. In the summer of 1907, they 
 attempted to lay track at Katalla over the disputed 
 Bruner right of way. The Bruner Company had con- 
 structed an immense "go-devil" of railway rails, which, 
 operated by powerful machinery, could be swung back 
 and forth over the disputed point. It was operated by 
 armed men behind fortifications. 
 
 The Bruner concern was known as the Alaska-Pacific 
 Transportation and Terminal Company, financed by Pitts- 
 burg capital, and proposed building a road to the coal 
 regions, thence to the Copper River. They sought right 
 of way by condemnation proceedings. 
 
 The town site of Katalla is owned by the Alaska 
 Petroleum and Coal Company, which had deeded a right 
 of way to the Guggenheims; also, a large tract of land 
 for smelter purposes. At one point it was necessary for 
 the latter to cross the right of way of the Bruner road. 
 
 The trouble began in INI ay, when the Bruner workmen 
 dynamited a pile-driver and trestle belonging to the 
 Guggenheims, who had then approached within one hun- 
 dred feet of the Bruner right of \vay. 
 
 On July 3 a party of Guggenheim laborers, under the 
 protection of a fire from detachments of armed men, suc- 
 ceeded in laying track over the disputed right of way. 
 
 Tony de Pascal daringly led the construction party 
 and received the reward of a thousand dollars offered by 
 the Guggenheims to the man who would successfully lead 
 the attacking forces. Soon afterward, he was shot dead 
 by one of his own men wlio mistook him for a member
 
 244 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 of the opposing force. Ten other men were seriously 
 injured by bullets from the Bruner block-houses. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year a party of men sur- 
 veying for the Reynolds Home Kailway, from Valdez to 
 the Yukon, met armed resistance in Keystone Canyon 
 from a force of men holding right of way for the Gug- 
 genheims. A battle occurred in which one man was 
 killed and three seriously wounded. 
 
 The wildest excitement prevailed in fiery Valdez, and 
 probably only the proximity of a United States military 
 post prevented the lynching of the men who did the 
 killing. 
 
 Ever since the advent of the Russians, Copper River 
 has been considered one of the bonanzas of Alaska. It 
 was discovered in 1783 by Nagaief, a member of Potap 
 Zaikoff's party. He ascended it for a short distance and 
 traded with the natives, who called the river Atnah. 
 Rufus Serrebrennikof and his men attempted an explora- 
 tion, but were killed. General Miles, under Abercrombie, 
 attempted to ascend the river in 1884, with the in- 
 tention of coming out by the Chilkaht country; but the 
 expedition was a failure. In the following year Lieu- 
 tenant H. T. Allen successfully ascended the river, 
 crossed the divide to the Tanana, sailed down that 
 stream to the Yukon, explored the Koyukuk, and then 
 proceeded down the Yukon to St. Michael and returned 
 to San Francisco by ocean. 
 
 His description of Miles Glacier was the first to be 
 printed. This glacier fronts for a distance of six miles 
 in splendid palisades on Copper River. This and Childs 
 Glacier afford the chief obstacles to navigation on this 
 river, and Mr. A. H. Brooks reports their rapid recession. 
 
 The river is regarded as exceedingly dangerous for 
 steamers, but may, with caution, be navigated with 
 small boats. Between the mouth of the Chitina and 
 the head of the broad delta of the Copper River, is the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 245 
 
 only canyon. It is the famous Wood Canyon, several 
 miles in length and in many places only forty yards 
 wide, with the water roaring through perpendicular 
 stone walls. The Tiekel, Tasnuna, and other streams 
 tributary to this part of the Copper also flow through 
 narrow valleys with precipitous slopes. 
 
 The Copper River has its source in the mountains east 
 of its great plateau, whose eastern margin it traverses, 
 and then, passing through the Chugach Mountains, de- 
 bouches across a wide delta into the North Pacific Ocean 
 between Katalla and Cordova. It rises close to Mount 
 Wrangell, flows northward for forty miles, south and 
 southwest for fifty more, when the Chitina joins it from 
 the east and swells its flood for the remaining one hun- 
 dred and fifty miles to the coast. 
 
 The Copper is a silt-laden, turbulent stream from its 
 source to the sea. Its average fall is about twelve feet 
 to the mile. From the Chitina to its mouth, it is steep- 
 sided and rock-bound; for its entire length, it is weird 
 and impressive. 
 
 By land, the distance from Katalla to Cordova is in- 
 significant. It is a distance, however, that cannot as 
 yet be traversed, on account of the delta and other im- 
 passable topographic features, which only a railroad can 
 overcome. The distance by water is about one hundred 
 and fifty miles. 
 
 In the entrance to Cordova Bay is Hawkins Island, 
 and to the southwest of this island lies Hinchingbroke 
 Island, whose southern extremity, at the entrance to 
 Prince William Sound, was named Cape Hinchingbroke 
 by Cook in 1778. At a point named Snug Corner Bay 
 Cook keeled and mended his ships. 
 
 This peerless sound itself — brilliantly blue, greenly 
 islanded, and set round with snow peaks and glaciers, 
 including among the latter the most beautiful one of
 
 246 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Alaska, if not the most beautiful of the world, the 
 Columbia — was known as Chugach Gulf — a name to 
 which I hope it may some day return, — until Cook 
 renamed it. 
 
 A boat sent out by Cook was pursued by natives in 
 canoes. They seemed afraid to approach the ship; but 
 at a distance sang, stood up in the canoes, extending their 
 arms and holding out white garments of peace. One man 
 stood up, entirely nude, with his arms stretched out like 
 a cross, motionless, for a quarter of an hour. 
 
 The following night a few natives came out in the 
 skin-boats of the Eskimos. These boats are still used 
 from this point westward and northward to Nome and 
 up the Yukon as far as the Eskimos have settlements. 
 They are of three kinds. One is a large, open, flat- 
 bottomed boat. It is made of a wooden frame, covered 
 with walrus skin or sealskin, held in place by thongs of 
 the former. This is called an oomiak by the Innuits or 
 Eskimos, and a bidarra by the Russians. It is used by 
 women, or by large parties of men. 
 
 A boat for one man is made in the same fashion, but 
 covered completely over, with the exception of one hole 
 in which the occupant sits, and around which is an up- 
 right rim. When at sea he wears a walrus-gut coat, 
 completely waterproof, which he ties around the outside 
 of the rim. The coat is securely tied around the wrists, 
 and the hood is drawn tightly around the face ; so that 
 no water can possibly enter the boat in the most severe 
 storm. This boat is called a bidarka. 
 
 The third, called a kayak, differs from the bidarka 
 only in being longer and having two or three holes. 
 
 The walrus-gut coats are called kamelinkas or kame- 
 laykas. They may be purchased in curio stores, and at 
 Seldovia and other places on Cook Inlet. They are now 
 gayly decorated with bits of colored wool and range in
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 247 
 
 price from ten to twenty dollars, according to the amount 
 of work upon them. 
 
 There is a difference of opinion regarding the names 
 of the boats. Dall claims that the one-holed boat was 
 called a kaj^ak by the natives, and by the Russians a 
 bidarka; and that the others were simply known as two 
 or three holed bidarkas. The other opinion, which I 
 have given, is that of people living in the vicinity at 
 present. 
 
 Each of the men who came out in the bidarkas to visit 
 Cook had a stick about three feet long, the end of which 
 was decorated with large tufts of feathers. Behring's 
 men were received in precisely the same manner at the 
 Shumagin Islands, far to westward, in 1741; their sticks, 
 according to ^liiller, being decorated with hawks' wings. 
 
 These natives were found to be thievish and treacher- 
 ous, attempting to capture a boat under the ship's very 
 guns and in the face of a hundred men. 
 
 Cook then sailed southward and discovered the largest 
 island in the sound, the Sukluk of the natives, which he 
 named Montagu. 
 
 Nutchek, or Port Etches, as it was named by Portlock, 
 is just inside the entrance to the sound on the western 
 shore of the island that is now known as Hinchingbroke, 
 but which was formerly called Nutchek. 
 
 Here Baranoff, several years later, built the ships that 
 bore his first expedition to Sitka. The Russian trading 
 post was called the Redoubt Constantine and Elena. It 
 was a strong, stockaded fort with two bastions. 
 
 There is a salmon cannery at Nutchek, and the furs of 
 the Copper River country were brought here for many 
 years for barter. 
 
 Orca is situated about three miles north of Cordova, in 
 Cordova Bay. There is a large salmon canner}^ at Orca ; 
 and the number of sea-birds to be seen in this small bay,
 
 248 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 filling the air in snowy clouds and covering the pre- 
 cipitous clil'fs facing the wharf, is surpassed in only one 
 place on the Alaskan coast — Karluk Bay. 
 
 For several years before the founding of Valdez, Orca 
 was used as a port by the argonauts who crossed by way 
 of Valdez Pass to tlie Copper River mining regions, and 
 by way of the Tanana River to the Yukon. 
 
 Prince William Sound is one of the most nobly beau- 
 tiful bodies of water in Alaska. Its wide blue water- 
 sweeps, its many mountainous, wooded, and snow-peaked 
 islands, the magnificent glaciers which palisade its ice- 
 inlets, and the chain of lofty, snowy mountains that 
 float mistily, like linked pearls, around it through the 
 amethystine clouds, give it a poetic and austere beauty 
 of its own. Every slow turn of the prow brings forth 
 some new delight to the eye. Never does one beautiful 
 snow-dome fade lingeringly from the horizon, ere another 
 pushes into the exquisitely colored atmosphere, in a chaste 
 beauty that fairly thrills the heart of the beholder. 
 
 The sound, or gulf, extends winding blue arms in every 
 direction, — into the mainland and into the many islands. 
 It covers an extent of more than twenty-five hundred 
 square miles. The entrance is about fifty miles wide, but is 
 slieltered by countless islands. The largest and richest are 
 Montagu, Hinchingbroke, La Touche, Knight's, and Haw- 
 kins. There are many excellent harbors on the shores of 
 the gulf and on the islands, and the Russians built several 
 ships here. In Chalmers Bay Vancouver discovered a 
 remarkable point, which bore stumps of trees cut with an 
 axe, but far below low-water mark at the time of his dis- 
 covery. He named it Sinking Point. 
 
 There is a portage from the head of the gulf to Cook Inlet, 
 which, the earliest Russians learned, had long been used by 
 the natives, who are of the Innuit, or Eskimo, tribe, simi- 
 lar to those of the Inlet, and are called Chugaches. The
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 249 
 
 northern shore of Kenai and the western coast of the 
 Inlet are occupied by Indians of the Athabascan stock. 
 
 Cook found the natives of the gulf of medium size, 
 with square chests and large heads. The complexion of 
 the children and some of the younger women was white ; 
 many of the latter having agreeable features and pleasing 
 appearance. They were vivacious, good-natured, and of 
 engaging frankness. 
 
 These people, of all ages and both sexes, wore a close 
 robe reaching to the ankles — sometimes only to the 
 knees — made of the skins of sea-otter, seal, gray fox, rac- 
 coon, and pine-marten. These garments were worn with 
 the fur outside. Now and then one was seen made of the 
 down of sea-birds, which had been glued to some other 
 substance. The seams were ornamented with thongs, or 
 tassels, of the same skins. 
 
 In rain they wore kamelinkas over the fur robes. 
 Cook's description of a kamelinka as resembling a " gold- 
 beater's leaf " is a very good one. 
 
 His understanding of the custom of wearing the labret, 
 however, differs from that of other early navigators. The 
 incision in the lip, he states, was made even in the chil- 
 dren at the breast; while La Perouse and others were 
 of the impression that it was not made until a girl had 
 arrived at a marriageable age. 
 
 It appears that the incision in time assumes the shape 
 of real lips, through which the tongue may be thrust. 
 
 One of Cook's seamen, seeing for the first time a 
 woman having the incision from which the labret had 
 been removed, fell into a panic of horror and ran to his 
 companions, crying that he "had seen a man with two 
 mouths," — evidently mistaking the woman for a man. 
 Cook reported that both sexes wore the labret ; but this 
 was doubtless an error. When they are clad in the fur
 
 250 ALASKA: THE GREAT t'OL'NTRV 
 
 garments, which are called parkas, it is difficult to distin- 
 guish one sex from the other among the younger people. 
 
 I had a rather amusing experience myself at the small 
 native settlement of Anvik on the Yukon. It was mid- 
 night, but broad daylight, as we were in the Arctic Circle. 
 The natives were all clad in parkas. Two sitting side by 
 side resembled each other closely. After buying some of 
 their curios, I asked one, indicating the other, " Is she 
 your sister ? " 
 
 To my confusion, my question was received with a 
 loud burst of laughter, in which a dozen natives, sitting 
 around them, hoarsely and hilariously joined. 
 
 They poked the unfortunate object of my curiosity in 
 the ribs, pointed at him derisively, and kept crying — 
 "She! She!" until at last the poor young fellow, not 
 more embarrassed than myself, sprang to his feet and ran 
 away, with laughter and cries of "She! She!" following 
 him. 
 
 I have frequently recalled the scene, and feared that 
 the innocent dark-eyed and sweet-smiling youth may have 
 retained the name which was so mirthfully bestowed upon 
 him that summer night. 
 
 But since the mistake in sex may be so easily made, I 
 am inclined to the belief that Cook and his men were mis- 
 led in this particular. 
 
 A most remarkable difference of opinion existed be- 
 tween Cook and other early explorers as to the cleanliness 
 of the natives. He found their method of eating decent 
 and cleanly, their persons neat, without grease or dirt, 
 and their wooden dishes in excellent order. 
 
 The white-headed eagle was found here, as well as the 
 shag, the great kingfisher of brilliant coloring, the hum- 
 ming-bird, water-fowl, grouse, snipe, and plover. Many 
 other species of water and land fowl have been added to 
 these.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 251 
 
 The flora of the islands is brilliant, varied, and luxuriant. 
 
 lu 1786 John Meares — who is dear to my heart be- 
 cause of his confidence in Juan de Fuca — came to disas- 
 ter in the Chugach Gulf. Overtaken by winter, he first 
 tried the ancliorage at Snug Corner Cove, in his ship, the 
 Nootka, but later moved to a more sheltered nook closer 
 to the mainland, in the vicinity of the present native vil- 
 lage of Tatitlik. 
 
 The ill-provisioned vessel was covered for the winter ; 
 spruce beer was brewed, but the men preferred the liq- 
 uors, which were freely served, and, fresh fish being 
 scarce, scurvy became epidemic. The surgeon was the 
 first to die ; but he was followed by many others. 
 
 At first, graves were dug under the snow ; but soon 
 the survivors were too few and too exhausted for this 
 last service to their mates. The dead Avere then dropped 
 in fissures of the ice which surrounded their ship. 
 
 At last, when the lowest depth of despair had been 
 reached. Captains Portlock and Dixon arrived and fur- 
 nished relief and assistance. 
 
 In 1787-1788 the Chugach Gulf presented a strange 
 appearance to the natives, not yet familiar with the pres- 
 ence of ships. Englishmen under different flags, Rus- 
 sians and Spaniards, were sailing to all parts of the gulf, 
 taking possession in the names of different nations of all 
 the harbors and islands. 
 
 In Voskressenski Harbor — now known as Resurrec- 
 tion Bay, where the new railroad town of Seward is situ- 
 ated — the first ship ever built in Alaska was launched by 
 Baranoff, in 1791. It was christened the Phoenix, and 
 was followed by many others. 
 
 Preparations for ship-building were begun in the win- 
 ter of 1791. Suitable buildings, storehouses, and quarters 
 for the men were erected. There were no large saws, 
 and planks were hewn out of whole logs. The iron re-
 
 252 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 quired was collected from wrecks in all parts of the col- 
 onies ; steel for axes was procured in the same way. 
 Having no tar, Baranoff used a mixture of spruce gum 
 and oil. 
 
 Provisions were scarce, and no time was allowed for 
 hunting or fishing. So severe were the hardships endured 
 that no one but Baranoff could have kept up his courage 
 and that of his suffering men, and cheered them on to 
 final success. 
 
 The Phoenix — which was probably named for an Eng- 
 lish ship which had visited the Chugach Gulf in 1792 — 
 was built of spruce timber, and was seventy-three feet 
 long. It was provided with two decks and three masts. 
 The calking above the water-line was of moss. The sails 
 were composed of fragments of canvas gathered from all 
 parts of the colonies. 
 
 On her first voyage to Kadiak, the Phoenix encountered 
 a storm which brought disaster to her frail rigging ; and 
 instead of sailing proudly into harbor, as Baranoff had 
 hoped, she was ignominiously towed in. 
 
 But she was the first vessel built in the colonies to 
 enter that harbor in any fashion, and the Russian joy was 
 great. The event was celebrated by solemn Mass, fol- 
 lowed by high eating and higher drinking. 
 
 The Phoenix was refitted and rerigged and sent out on 
 her triumphal voyage to Okhotsk. There she arrived 
 safely and proudly. She was received with volleys of 
 artillery, the ringing of bells, the celebration of Mass, and 
 great and joyous feasting. 
 
 A cabin and deck houses were added, the vessel was 
 painted, and from that time until her loss in the Alaskan 
 Gulf, the Phoenix regularly plied the waters of Behring 
 Sea and the North Pacific Ocean between Okhotsk and 
 the Russian colonies in America.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 Ellamar is a small town on Virgin Bay, Prince Will- 
 iam Sound, at the entrance to Puerto de Valdes, or Val- 
 dez Narrows. It is very prettily situated on a gently 
 rising hill. 
 
 It has a population of five or six hundred, and is the 
 home of the Ellamar Mining Company. Here are the 
 headquarters of a group of copper properties known as 
 the Gladdaugh mines. 
 
 One of the mines extends under the sea, whose waves 
 wash the buildings. It has been a large and regular 
 shipper for several years. In 1903 forty thousand tons 
 of ore were shipped to the Tacoma smelter, and shipments 
 have steadily increased with every year since. 
 
 The mine is practically a solid mass of iron and copper 
 pyrites. It has a width of more than one hundred and 
 twenty-five feet where exposed, and extends along the strike 
 for a known distance of more than three hundred feet. 
 
 The vast quantities of gold found in Alaska have, up to 
 the present time, kept the other rich mineral products of 
 the country in the background. Copper is, at last, com- 
 ing into her own. The year of 1907 brouglit forth tre- 
 mendous developments in copper properties. The Gug- 
 genheim-Morgan-Rockefeller syndicate has kept experts 
 in every known, or suspected, copper district of the North 
 during the last two years. Cordova, the sea terminus of 
 the new railroad, is in the very heart of one of the richest 
 copper districts. The holdings of this syndicate are al- 
 
 253
 
 254 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ready immense and cover every district. The railroad 
 will run to the Yukon, with branches extending into 
 every rich region. 
 
 Other heavily financed companies are preparing to rival 
 the Guggenheims, and individual miners will work their 
 claims this year. Experts predict that within a decade 
 Alaska will become one of the greatest copper-producing 
 countries of the world. In the Copper River country 
 alone, north of Valdez, there is more copper, according 
 to expert reports, than Montana or Michigan ever has 
 produced, or ever will produce. 
 
 The Ketchikan district is also remarkably rich. At 
 Niblack Anchorage, on Prince of Wales Island, the ore 
 carries five per cent of copper, and the mines are most 
 favorably located on tide-water. 
 
 Native copper, associated with gold, has been found on 
 Turnagain Arm, in the country tributary to the Alaska 
 Central Railway. 
 
 A half interest in the Bonanza, a copper mine on the 
 western side of La Touche Island, Prince William Sound, 
 was sold last year for more than a million dollars. This 
 mine is not fully developed, but is considered one of the 
 best in Alaska. It has an elevation of two liundred feet. 
 Several tunnels have been driven, and the ore taken out 
 runs high in copper, gold, and silver. One shipment of 
 one thousand two hundred and thirty-five pounds gave 
 net returns of fifty dollars to the ton, after deducting 
 freight to Tacoma, smelting, refining, and an allowance 
 of ninety-five per cent for the silver valuation. A sample 
 taken along one tunnel for sixty feet gave an assay of 
 over nine per cent copper, with one and a quarter ounces 
 of silver. 
 
 The Bonanza was purchased in 1900 by Messrs. Beat- 
 son and Robertson for seventy-two thousand dollars. 
 There is a good wharf and a tramway line to the mine.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 255 
 
 Adjoining the Bonanza on the north is a group of 
 eleven claims owned by Messrs. Esterly, Meenach, and 
 Keyes, which are in course of development. There are 
 many other rich claims on this island, on Knight's, and 
 on others in the sound. Timber is abundant, the water 
 power is excellent, and ore is easily shipped. 
 
 There is an Indian village two or three miles from 
 EUamar. It is the village of Tatitlik, the only one now 
 remaining on the sound, so rapidly are the natives vanish- 
 ing under the evil influence of civilization. Ten years ago 
 there were nine hundred natives in the various villages on 
 the shores of the sound ; while now there are not more 
 than two hundred, at the most generous calculation. 
 
 White men prospecting and fishing in the vicinity of 
 the village supply them with liquor. When a sufficient 
 quantity can be purchased, the entire village, men and 
 women, indulges in a prolonged and horrible debauch 
 which frequently lasts for several weeks. 
 
 The death rate at Tatitlik is very heavy, — more than 
 a hundred natives having died during 1907. 
 
 Passengers have time to visit this village while the 
 steamer loads ore at Ellamar. 
 
 The loading of ore, by the way, is a new experience. 
 A steamer on which I was travelling once landed at Ella- 
 mar during the night. 
 
 We were rudely awakened from our dreams by a sound 
 which Lieutenant Whidbey would have called "-most stu- 
 pendously dreadful." We thought that the whole bottom 
 of the ship must have been knocked off by striking a reef, 
 and we reached the floor simultaneously. 
 
 I have no notion how my own eyes looked, but my 
 friend's eyes were as large and expressive as bread-and- 
 butter plates. 
 
 " We are going down ! " she exclaimed, with tragic 
 brevity.
 
 256 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 At that instant the dreadful sound was repeated. We 
 were convinced that the ship was being pounded to pieces 
 under us upon rocks. Without speech we began dressing 
 with that haste that makes fingers become thumbs. 
 
 But suddenly a tap came upon our door, and the watch- 
 man's voice spoke outside. 
 
 " Ladies, we are at Ellamar." 
 
 "At Ellamar!" 
 
 " Yes. You asked to be called if it wasn't midnight 
 when we landed." 
 
 " But what is that awful noise, watchman ? " 
 
 " Oh, we're loading ore," he answered cheerfully, and 
 walked away. 
 
 All that night and part of the next day tons upon tons 
 of ore thundered into the hold. We could not sleep, we 
 could not talk ; we could only think ; and the things we 
 thought shall never be told, nor shall wild horses drag 
 them from us. 
 
 We dressed, in desperation, and went up to "the 
 store " ; sat upon high stools, ate stale peppermint candy, 
 and listened to " Uncle Josh " telling his parrot story 
 through the phonograph. 
 
 Somehow, between the ship and the store, we got our- 
 selves through the night and the early morning hours. 
 After breakfast we found the green and flowery slopes 
 back of the town charming ; and a walk of three miles 
 along the shore to the Indian village made us forget the 
 ore for a few hours. But to this day, when I read that 
 an Alaskan ship has brought down hundreds of tons of 
 ore to the Tacoma smelter, my heart goes out silently to 
 the passengers who were on that ship when the ore was 
 loaded.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 When seen under favorable conditions, the Columbia 
 Glacier is the most beautiful thing in Alaska. I have 
 visited it twice ; once at sunset, and again on an all-day 
 excursion from Valdez. 
 
 The point on the western side of the entrance to 
 Puerto de Valdes, as it was named by Fidalgo, was named 
 Point Fremantle by Vancouver. Just west of this point 
 and three miles north of the Conde, or Glacier, Island is 
 the nearly square bay upon which the glacier fronts. 
 
 Entering this bay from the Puerto de Valdes, one is 
 instantly conscious of the presence of something wonder- 
 ful and mysterious. Long before it can be seen, this pres- 
 ence is felt, like that of a living thing. Quick, vibrant, 
 thrilling, and inexpressibly sweet, its breath sweeps out to 
 salute the voyager and lure him on ; and with every sense 
 alert, he follows, but with no conception of what he is to 
 behold. 
 
 One may have seen glaciers upon glaciers, yet not be 
 prepared for the splendor and the magnificence of the one 
 that palisades the northern end of this bay. 
 
 The Fremantle Glacier was first seen by Lieutenant 
 Whidbey, to whose cold and unappreciative eyes so many 
 of the most precious things of Alaska were first revealed. 
 He simply described it as " a solid body of compact, ele- 
 vated ice . . . bounded at no great distance by a con- 
 tinuation of the high ridge of snowy mountains." 
 
 He heard "thunder-like" noises, and found that they 
 s 257
 
 258 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 had been produced by the breaking off and headlong 
 plunging into the sea of great bodies of ice. 
 
 In such wise was one of the most marvellous things of 
 the world first seen and described. 
 
 The glacier has a frontage of about four miles, and its 
 glittering j)alisades tower upward to a height of from 
 three to four hundred feet. There is a small island, named 
 Heather, in the bay. Poor Whidbey felt the earth shake 
 at a distance of three miles from the falling ice. 
 
 In ordinary light, the front of the glacier is beautifully 
 blue. It is a blue that is never seen in anything save a gla- 
 cier or a floating iceberg — a pale, pale blue that seems to 
 flash out fire with every movement. At sunset, its beauty 
 holds one spellbound. It sweeps down magnificently 
 from the snow peaks which form its fit setting and pushes 
 out into the sea in a solid wall of spired and pinnacled 
 opal which, ever and anon breaking off, flings over it 
 clouds of color which dazzle the eyes. At times there is 
 a display of prismatic colors. Across the front grow, 
 fade and grow again, the most beautiful rainbow shadings. 
 They come and go swiftly and noiselessly, affecting one 
 somewhat like Northern Lights — so still, so brilliant, so 
 mysterious. 
 
 There was silence upon our ship as it throbbed in, slowly 
 and cautiously, among the floating icebergs — some of 
 which were of palest green, others of that pale blue I have 
 mentioned, and still others of an enchanting rose color. 
 Even the woman who had, during the whole voj^age, taken 
 the finest edge off our enjoyment of every mountain by 
 drawling out, "Oh — how — pretty! George, will you 
 just come here and look at this pretty mountain ? It 
 looks good enough to eat " — even this woman was speech- 
 less now, for which blessing we gave thanks to God, of 
 which we were not even conscious at the time. 
 
 It was still fired as brilliantly upon our departure as
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 259 
 
 upon our entrance into its presence. The June sunset in 
 Alaska draws itself out to midnight ; and ever since, I 
 have been tormented with the longing to lie before that 
 glacier one whole June night ; to hear its falling columns 
 thunder off the hours, and to watch the changing colors 
 play upon its brilliant front. 
 
 Even in the middle of the day a peculiarly soft and 
 rich rose color flashes from it and over it. One who has 
 seen the first snow sifting upon a late rose of the garden 
 may guess what a delicate, enchanting rose color it is. 
 
 There are many fine glaciers barricading the inlets and 
 bays in this vicinity; in Port Nell Juan, Applegate Arm, 
 Port Wells, Passage Canal — which leads to the portage 
 to Cook Inlet — and Unakwik Bay; but they are scarcely 
 to be mentioned in the same breath with the Fremantle. 
 The latter has been known as the Columbia since the Har- 
 riman expedition in 1899. It has had no rival since the 
 destruction of the Muir. 
 
 Either the disagreeable features of the Alaskan climate 
 have been grossly exaggerated, or I have been exceedingly 
 fortunate in the three voyages I have made along the 
 coast to Unalaska, and down the Yukon to Nome. On 
 one voyage I travelled continuously for a month by water, 
 experiencing only three rainy days and three cloudy ones. 
 All the other days were clear and golden, with a blue sky, 
 a sparkling sea, and air that was sweet with sunshine, 
 flowers, and snow. I have never been in Alaska in winter, 
 but I have for three years carefully compared the weather 
 reports of different sections of that country with those of 
 other cold countries ; and no intelligent, thoughtful per- 
 son can do this without arriving at conclusions decidedly 
 favorable to Alaska. 
 
 Were Alaska possessed of the same degree of civiliza- 
 tion that is enjoyed by St. Petersburg, Chicago, St. Paul,
 
 260 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Minneapolis, and New York, we would hear no more of 
 the rigors of the Alaskan climate than we hear of those 
 of tlie cities mentioned. It is more agreeable than the 
 climate of Montana, Nebraska, or the Dakotas. 
 
 With large cities, rich and gay cities ; prosperous inhabit- 
 ants clad in costly furs ; luxurious homes, well warmed 
 and brilliantly lighted ; railway trains, sleighs, and auto- 
 mobiles for transportation ; splendid theatres, libraries, 
 art galleries, — with these and the hundreds of advantages 
 enjoyed by the people of other cold countries, Alaska's 
 winters would hold no terrors. 
 
 It is the present loneliness of the winter that appalls. 
 The awful spaces and silences ; the limitless snow plains ; 
 the endless chains of snow mountains ; the silent, frozen 
 rivers ; the ice-stayed cataracts ; the bitter, moaning 
 sea ; the hastily built homes, lacking luxuries, sometimes 
 even comforts ; the poverty of congenial companionship ; 
 the dearth of intelligent amusements — these be the con- 
 ditions that make all but the stoutest hearts pause. 
 
 But the stout heart, the heart that loves Alaska! Pity 
 him not, though he spend all the winters of his life in its 
 snow-bound fastnesses. He is not for pity. Joys are his 
 of which those that pity him know not. 
 
 According to a report prepared by Lieutenant- Colonel 
 Glassford, of the United States Signal Corps Service, on 
 February 5, 1906, the temperature was twenty -six degrees 
 above zero in Grand Junction, Colorado, and in Salchia, 
 Alaska ; twenty-two degrees in Flagstaff, Arizona, Mem- 
 phis, Salt Lake, Spokane, and Summit, Alaska ; fourteen 
 degrees in Cairo, Illinois, Cincinnati, Little Rock, Pitts- 
 burgh, and Delia, Alaska ; twelve degrees in Santa Fe 
 and in Fort Egbert and Eagle, on the Yukon ; ten de- 
 grees in Helena, Buffalo, and Workman's, Alaska; zero 
 in Denver, Dodge, Kansas, and Fairbanks and Chena, 
 Alaska; five degrees below in Dubuque, Omaha, and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 261 
 
 Copper Centre and Matanuska, Alaska ; ten degrees be- 
 low in Huron, Michigan, and in Gokona, Alaska ; fifteen 
 degrees below in Bismarck, St. Paul, and in Tanana 
 Crossing, Alaska ; twenty degrees below in Fort Brady, 
 Michigan, and in Ketchumstock, Alaska. 
 
 Statistics giving the absolute mean minimum tempera- 
 ture in the capital cities of the United States prove that 
 out of the forty-seven cities, thirty-one were as cold or 
 colder than Sitka, and four were colder than Valdez. 
 
 On the southern coast of Alaska there are few points 
 where zero is recorded, the average winter weather at Ju- 
 neau, Sitka, Valdez, and Seward being milder than in Wash- 
 ington, D.C. In the interior, the weather is much colder, 
 but it is the dry, light cold. At Fairbanks, it is true 
 that the thermometer has registered sixty degrees below 
 zero ; but it has done the same in the Dakotas and other 
 states, and is unusual. Severely cold weather occurs in 
 Alaska as rarely as in other cold countries, and remains 
 but a few days. 
 
 Alaska has unfortunately had the reputation of having 
 an unendurable climate thrust upon her, first by such 
 chill-blooded navigators as Whidbey and Vancouver ; and 
 later, by the gold seekers who rushed, frenziedly, into 
 the unsettled wastes, with no preparation for the intense 
 cold which at times prevails. 
 
 Almost every winter in Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, 
 and the Dakotas, children of the prairies and their teachers 
 freeze to death going to or from school, and it is accepted as 
 a matter of course. In Alaska, where hundreds of men 
 traverse hundreds of miles by dog sleds and snow-shoes, 
 with none of the comforts of more civilized countries and 
 with road houses few and far, if two or three in a winter 
 freeze to death, the tragedy is wired to all parts of the 
 world as another mute testimony to the " tremendously 
 horrible " climate of Alaska.
 
 262 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The intense heat, of which dozens of people perish 
 every summer in New York and otlier eastern states is 
 unknown in Alaska. Cyclones and cloud-bursts are un- 
 chronicled. Fatal epidemics of disease among white 
 people have never yet occurred. 
 
 As for the summer climate of Alaska, both along the 
 coast and in the interior, it is possessed of a charm and 
 fascination which cannot be described in words. 
 
 " You can just taste the Alaska climate," said an old 
 Klondiker, on a White Pass and Yukon train. We were 
 standing between cars, clinging to the brakes — sooty- 
 eyed, worn-out with joy as we neared White Horse, but 
 standing and looking still, unwilling to lose one moment 
 of that beautiful trip. 
 
 "It tastes different every hundred miles," he went on, 
 with that beam in his eye which means love of Alaska in 
 the heart. " You begun to taste it in Grenville Channel. 
 It tasted different in Skagway, and there's a big change 
 when you get to White Horse. I golly! at White Horse, 
 you'll think you never tasted anything like it ; but it 
 don't hold a candle there to the way it. tastes going down 
 the Yukon. If you happen to get into the Ar'tic Circle, 
 say, about two in the morning, you dress yourself and 
 hike out on deck, an' I darn! you can taste more'n cli- 
 mate. You can taste the Ar'tic Circle itself ! Say, can 
 you guess what it tastes like ? " 
 
 I could not guess what the Arctic Circle tasted like, 
 and frankly confessed it. 
 
 "Well, say, weepin' Sinew! It tastes like icicles made 
 out of them durn little blue flowers you call voylets. I 
 picked some out from under the snow once, an' eat 'em. 
 There was moisture froze all over 'em — so I know how 
 they taste; and that's the way the Ar'tic Circle tastes, 
 with — well, maybe a little rum mixed in, the way they 
 fix things up at the Butler down in Seattle. I darn! . . .
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 263 
 
 Just you remember, when you get to the Circle, an' say, 
 straight goods, if Cyanide Bill ain't right." 
 
 " Talkin' about climate," he resumed, as the train hesi- 
 tated in passing the Grand Canyon, "there's a well at 
 White Horse that's got the climate of the hull Yukon 
 country in it. It's about two blocks toward the rapids 
 from White Pass Hotel. It stands on a vacant lot about 
 fifty steps from the sidewalk, on your right hand goin' 
 toward the Rapids. Well, I darn ! I've traipsed over 
 every country on this earth, an' I never tasted such water. 
 Not anywheres ! You see, it's dug right down into solid 
 ice an' the sun just melts out a little water at a time, an' 
 everything nice in Alaska tastes in that water — ice an' 
 snow, an' flowers an' sun — " 
 
 " Do you write poetry ? " I asked, smiling. 
 
 His face lightened. 
 
 " No; but say — there's a young fellow in White Horse 
 that does. He's wrote a whole book of it. His name's 
 Robert Service. Say, I'd shoot up anybody that said his 
 poetry wasn't the real thing." 
 
 " I'm sure it is," said I, hastily. 
 
 " You bet it is. You can hear the Yukon roar, an' the 
 ice break up an' go down the river, standin' up on end in 
 chunks twenty feet high, an' carr3an' everything with it ; 
 you can wade through miles an' miles of flowers an' gether 
 your hands full of 'em an' think there's a woman some- 
 where waitin' for you to take 'em to her ; you can tromp 
 through tundra an' over rocks till your feet bleed ; you can 
 go blind lookin' for gold ; you can get kissed by the pretti- 
 est girl in a Dawson dance hall, an' then get jilted for some 
 younger fellow ; you can hear glaciers grindin' up, an' 
 avylanches tearin' down the mountains ; you can starve to 
 death an' freeze to death ; you can strike a gold mine an' 
 go home to your fambly a millionnaire an' have 'em like you 
 again ; you can drink champagne an' eat sour-dough ; you
 
 264 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 can feel the heart break up inside of you — an' yes, I God ! 
 you can go down on your knees an' say your prayers again 
 like your mother showed you how ! You can do every 
 one of them damn fool things when you're readin' that 
 Service fellow's poetry. So that's why I'm ready to shoot 
 up anybody that says, or intimates, that his poetry ain't 
 the genuine article."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 Port Valdez — or the Puerto de Valdes, as it was 
 named by Vancouver after Whidbey's exploration — is a 
 fiord twelve miles long and of a beauty that is simply en- 
 chanting. 
 
 On a clear day it winds like a pale blue ribbon between 
 colossal mountains of snow, with glaciers streaming down 
 to the water at every turn. The peaks rise, one after an- 
 other, sheer from the water, pearl-white from summit to 
 base. 
 
 It has been my happiness and my good fortune always 
 to sail this fiord on a clear day. The water has been as 
 smooth as satin, with a faint silvery tinge, as of frost, 
 shimmering over its blue. 
 
 At the end. Port Valdez widens into a bay, and upon 
 the bay, in the shadow of her mountains, and shaded by 
 her trees, is Valdez. 
 
 Valdez! The mere mention of the name is sufficient to 
 send visions of loveliness glimmering through the memory. 
 Through a soft blur of rose-lavender mist shine houses, 
 glacier, log-cabins, and the tossing green of trees ; the 
 wild, white glacial torrents pouring down around the 
 town ; and the pearly peaks linked upon the sky. 
 
 Valdez was founded in 1898. During the early rush 
 to the Klondike, one of the routes taken was directly 
 over the glacier. In 1898 about three thousand people 
 landed at the upper end of Port Valdez, followed the 
 glacier, crossed over the summit of the Chugach Moun- 
 
 265
 
 266 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tains, and thence down a fork of the Copper River. The 
 route was dangerous, and attended by many hardships 
 and real suffering. 
 
 At first hundreds of tents whitened the level plain at 
 the foot of the glacier ; then, one by one, cabins were 
 built, stocks were brought in for trading purposes, 
 saloons and dance halls sprang up in a night, — and 
 Valdez was. 
 
 In this year Captain Abercrombie, of the United States 
 Army, crossed the glacier with his entire party of men 
 and horses and reached the Xanana. In the following 
 year, surveys were made under his direction for a military 
 wagon trail over the Chugach Mountains from Valdez to 
 the Xanana, and during the following three years this 
 trail was constructed. 
 
 It has proved to be of the greatest possible benefit, not 
 only to the vast country tributary to Valdez, but to the 
 various Yukon districts, and to Nome. After many ex- 
 periments, it has been chosen by the government as the 
 winter route for the distribution of mail to the interior of 
 Alaska and to Nome. Steamers make connection with a 
 regular line of stages and sleighs. Xhere are frequent 
 and comfortable road houses, and the danger of accident 
 is not nearly so great as it is in travelling by railway in 
 the eastern states. 
 
 Xhe Valdez military trail follows Lowe River and Key- 
 stone Canyon. Xhrough the canyon the trail is only wide 
 enough for pack trains, and travel is by the frozen river. 
 
 Xhe Signal Corps of the Army has constructed many 
 hundreds of miles of telegraph lines since the beginning 
 of the present decade. Nome, the Yukon, Xanana, and 
 Copper River valleys are all connected with Valdez and 
 with Dawson by telegraph. Nome has outside connec- 
 tion by wireless, and all the coast towns are in communi- 
 cation with Seattle by cable.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 267 
 
 The climate of Valdez is delifyhtful in summer. In 
 winter it is ten degrees colder than at Sitka, with good 
 sleighing. The annual precipitation is fifty per cent less 
 than along the southeastern coast. Snow falls from No- 
 vember to April. 
 
 The long winter nights are not disagreeable. The 
 moon and the stars are larger and more brilliant in 
 Alaska than can be imagined by one who has not seen 
 them, and, with the changeful colors of the Aurora playing 
 upon the snow, turn the northern world into Fairyland. 
 
 Valdez has a population of about twenty-five hundred 
 people. It is four hundred and fifty miles north of 
 Sitka, and eighteen hundred miles from Seattle. It is 
 said to be the most northern port in the world that is 
 open to navigation the entire year. 
 
 There are two good piers to deep water, besides one at 
 the new town site, an electric light plant and telephone 
 system, two newspapers, a hospital, creditable churches 
 of five or six denominations, a graded school, private 
 club-rooms, a library, a brewery, several hotels and res- 
 taurants, public halls, a court-house, several merchandise 
 stores carrying stocks of from fifty to one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, a tin and sheet metal factory, saw-mills, — 
 and almost every business, industry, and profession is 
 well represented. There are saloons without end, and 
 dance halls ; a saloon in Alaska that excludes women is not 
 known, but good order prevails and disturbances are rare. 
 
 The homes are, for the most part, small, — building 
 being excessively high, — but pretty, comfortable, and 
 frequently artistic. There are flower-gardens everywhere. 
 There is no log-cabin so humble that its bit of garden- 
 spot is not a blaze of vivid color. Every window has its 
 box of bloom. La France roses were in bloom in July in 
 the garden of ex- Governor Leedy, of Kansas, whose home 
 is now in Valdez.
 
 268 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The civilization of the town is of the highest. The 
 whole world might go to Alaska and learn a lesson in gen- 
 uine, simple, refined hospitality — for its key-note is kind- 
 ness of heart. 
 
 The visitor soon learns that he must be chary of his ad- 
 miration of one of the curios on his host's wall, lest he be 
 begged to accept it. 
 
 The Tillicum Club is known in all parts of Alaska. It 
 has a very comfortable club-house, where all visitors of 
 note to the town are entertained. The club occasionally 
 has what its own self calls a " dry night," when ladies are 
 entertained with cards and music. (The adjective does 
 not apply to the entertainment.) 
 
 The dogs of Valdez are interesting. They are large, 
 and of every color known to dogdom, the malamutes pre- 
 dominating. They are all "heroes of the trail," and are 
 respected and treated as "good fellows." They lie by 
 twos and threes clear across the narrow board sidewalks ; 
 and unless one understands the language of the trail, it is 
 easier to walk around them or to jump over them than it 
 is to persuade them to move. A string of oaths, followed 
 by '■'■Mush!''' all delivered like the crack of a whip, brings 
 quick results. The dogs hasten to the pier, on a long, 
 wolflike lope, when the whistle of a steamer is heard, and 
 offer the hospitality of the town to the stranger, with 
 waving tails and saluting tongues. 
 
 It is a heavy expense to feed these dogs in Alaska, yet 
 few men are known to be so mean as to grudge this ex- 
 pense to dogs who have faithfully served them, frequently 
 saving their lives, on tlie trail. 
 
 The situation of Valdez is absolutely unique. The 
 dauntlessness of a city that would boldly found itself 
 upon a glacier has proved too much for even the glacier, 
 and it is rapidly withdrawing, as if to make room for its 
 intrepid rival in interest. Yet it still is so close that,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 269 
 
 from the water, it appears as though one might reach out 
 and touch it. The wide blue bay sparkles in front, and 
 snow peaks surround it. 
 
 Beautiful, oh, most beautiful, are those peaks at dawn, 
 at sunset, at midnight, at noon. The summer nights in 
 Valdez are never dark ; and I have often stood at mid- 
 night and watched the amethyst lights on the mountains 
 darken to violet, purple, black, — while the peaks them- 
 selves stood white and still, softly outlined against the sky. 
 
 But in winter, when mountains, glacier, city, trees, lie 
 white and sparkling beneath the large and brilliant stars, 
 and the sea alone is dark — to stand then and see the great 
 golden moon rising slowly, vibrating, pushing, oh, so 
 silently, so beautifully, above the clear line of snow into 
 the dark blue sky — that is worth ten years of living. 
 
 " Why do you not go out to ' the states,' as so many 
 other ladies do in winter ? " I asked a grave-eyed young 
 wife on my first visit, not knowing that she belonged to 
 the great Alaskan order of " Stout Hearts and Strong 
 Hearts" — the only order in Alaska that is for women 
 and men. 
 
 She looked at me and smiled. Her eyes went to the 
 mountains, and they grew almost as wistful and sweet 
 as the eyes of a young mother watching her sleeping child. 
 Then they came back to me, grave and kind. 
 
 " Oh," said she, "how can I tell you why ? You have 
 never seen the moon come over those mountains in winter, 
 nor the winter stars shining above the sea." 
 
 That was all. She could not put it into words more 
 clearly than that ; but he that runs may read. 
 
 The site of Valdez is as level as a parade ground to the 
 bases of the near mountains, which rise in sheer, bold 
 sweeps. A line of alders, willows, cotton woods, and balms 
 follows the glacial stream that flows down to the sea on 
 each side of the town.
 
 270 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The glacier behind the town — now called a " dead " 
 glacier — once discharged bergs directly into the sea. 
 The soil upon which the town is built is all glacial de- 
 posit. Flowers spring up and bloom in a day. Vegeta- 
 bles thrive and are crisp and delicious — particularly 
 lettuce. 
 
 Society is gay in Valdez, as in most Alaskan towns. 
 Fort Liscum is situated across the bay, so near that the 
 distance between is travelled in fifteen minutes by launch. 
 Dances, receptions, card-parties, and dinners, at Valdez 
 and at the fort, occur several times each week, and the 
 social line is drawn as rigidly here as in larger communi- 
 ties. 
 
 There is always a dance in Valdez on " steamer night." 
 The officers and their wives come over from the fort ; the 
 officers of the ship are invited, as are any passengers who 
 may bear letters of introduction or who may be introduced 
 by the captain of the ship. A large and brightly lighted 
 ballroom, beautiful women, handsomely and fashionably 
 gowned, good music, and a genuine spirit of hospitality 
 make these functions brilliant. 
 
 The women of Alaska dress more expensively than in 
 "the states." Paris gowns, the most costly furs, and 
 dazzling jewels are everywhere seen in the larger towns. 
 
 All travellers in Alaska unite in enthusiastic praise of 
 its unique and generous hospitality. From the time of 
 Baranoff's lavish, and frequently embarrassing, banquets to 
 the refined entertainments of to-day, northern hospitality 
 has been a proverb. 
 
 " Petnatchit copla " is still the open sesame.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 The trip over "the trail" from Valdez to the Tanana 
 country is one of the most fascinating in Alaska. 
 
 At seven o'clock of a July morning five horses stood at 
 our hotel door. Two gentlemen of Valdez had volunteered 
 to act as escort to the tliree ladies in our party for a trip 
 over the trail. 
 
 I examined with suspicion the red-bay horse that had 
 been assigned to me. 
 
 " Is he gentle ? " 1 asked of one of the gentlemen. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. You can't take any one's word 
 about a horse in Alaska. They call regular buckers 
 'gentle' up here. The only way to find out is to try 
 them." 
 
 This was encouraging. 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me," said one of the other ladies, 
 "that you don't know whether these horses have ever 
 been ridden by women ? " 
 
 "No, I do not know." 
 
 She sat down on the steps. 
 
 " Then there's no trail for me. I don't know how to 
 ride nor to manage a horse." 
 
 After many moments of persuasion, we got her upon a 
 mild-eyed horse, saddled with a cross-saddle. The other 
 lady and myself had chosen side-saddles, despite the as- 
 surance of almost every man in Valdez that we could not 
 get over the trail sitting a horse sidewise, without ac- 
 cident. 
 
 271
 
 272 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 " Your skirt'll catch in the bi*ush and pull you off," said 
 one, cheerfully. 
 
 " Your feet'll hit against the rocks in the canyon," said 
 another. 
 
 " You can't balance as even on a horse's back, sideways, 
 and if you don't balance even along the precipice in the 
 canyon, your horse'll go over," said a third. 
 
 " Your horse is sure to roll over once or twice in the 
 glacier streams, and you can save yourself if you're riding 
 astride," said a fourth. 
 
 " You're certain to get into quicksand somewhere on 
 the trip, and if all your weight is on one side of your 
 horse, you'll pull him down and he'll fall on top of you," 
 said a fifth. 
 
 In the face of all these cheerful horrors, our escort said: — 
 
 " Ride any way you please. If a woman can keep her 
 head, she will pull through everything in Alaska. Be- 
 sides, we are not going along for nothing ! " 
 
 So we chose side-saddles, that having been our manner 
 of riding since childhood. 
 
 We had waited three weeks for the glacial flood at the 
 eastern side of tlie town to subside, and could wait no 
 longer. It was roaring within ten steps of the back door 
 of our hotel ; and in two minutes after mounting, before 
 our feet were fairly settled in the stirrups, we had ridden 
 down the sloping bank into the boiling, white waters. 
 
 One of the gentlemen rode ahead as guide. I watched 
 his big horse go down in the flood — down, down ; the 
 water rose to its knees, to its rider's feet, to his knees — 
 
 He turned his head and called cheerfully, " Come on ! " 
 and we went on — one at a time, as still as the dead, save 
 for the splashing and snorting of our horses. I felt the 
 water, icy cold, rising high, higher ; it almost washed my 
 foot from the red-slippered stirrup ; then I felt it mount- 
 ing higher, my skirts floated out on the flood, and then fell,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 273 
 
 limp, about me. My glance kept flying from my horse's 
 head to our guide, and back again. He was tall, and his 
 horse was tall. 
 
 " When it reaches his waist," was my agonized thought, 
 " it will be over 7n^ head! " 
 
 The other gentleman rode to my side. 
 
 " Keep a firm hold of your bridle," said he, gravely, 
 " and watch your horse. If he falls — " 
 
 "Falls! Inhere!'' 
 
 " They do sometimes ; one must be prepared. If he 
 falls — of course you can swim ? " 
 
 "I never swam a stroke in my life ; I never even tried! " 
 
 " Is it possible ? " said he, in astonishment. " Wh3% we 
 would not have advised you to come at this time if we had 
 known that. We took it for granted that you wouldn't 
 think of going unless you could swim." 
 
 " Oh," said I, sarcastically, " do all the women in Valdez 
 swim ? " 
 
 "No," he answered, gravely, "but then, they don't go 
 over the trail. Well, we can only hope that he will not 
 fall. When he breaks into a swim — " 
 
 " Swim I Will he do that ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, he is liable to swim any minute now." 
 
 "What will I do then ? " I asked, quite humbly ; I could 
 hear tears in my own voice. He must have heard them, 
 too, his voice was so kind as he answered. 
 
 " Sit as quietly and as evenly as possible, and lean 
 slightly forward in the saddle ; then trust to heaven and 
 give him his head." 
 
 " Does he give you any warning? " 
 
 "Not the faintest — ah-h! " 
 
 Well might he say " ah-h ! " for my horse was swim- 
 ming. Well might we all say " ah-h ! " for one wild 
 glance ahead revealed to my glimmering vision that all 
 our horses were swimming.
 
 274 ALA SKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 I never knew before that horses swam so low down in 
 the water. I wished when I could see nothing but my 
 horse's ears that I had not been so stubborn about the 
 saddle. 
 
 The water itself was different from any water I had 
 ever seen. It did not flow like a river ; it boiled, seethed, 
 rushed, whirled ; it pushed up into an angry bulk that 
 came down over us like a deluge. I had let go of my 
 reins and, leaning forward in the saddle, was clinging to 
 my horse's mane. The rapidly flowing water gave me 
 the impression that we were being swept down the stream. 
 
 The roaring grew louder in my ears ; I was so dizzy 
 that I could no longer distinguish any object ; there was 
 just a blur of brown and white water, rising, falling, about 
 me ; the sole thought that remained was that I was being 
 swept out to sea with my struggling horse. 
 
 Suddenly there was a shock which, to my tortured 
 nerves, seemed like a ship striking on a rock. It was 
 some time before I realized that it had been caused by 
 my horse striking bottom. He was walking — staggering. 
 rather, and plunging ; his whole neck appeared, then his 
 shoulders ; I released his mane mechanically, as I had 
 acted in all things since mounting, and gathered up the 
 reins. 
 
 " That was a nasty one, wasn't it ? " said my escort, 
 joining me. " I stayed behind to be of service if you re- 
 quired it. We're getting out now, but there are, at least, 
 ten or fifteen as bad on the trail — if not worse." 
 
 As if anything could be worse! 
 
 I chanced to lift my eyes then, and I got a clear view 
 of the ladies ahead of me. Their appearance was of such 
 a nature that I at once looked myself over — and saw my- 
 self as others saw me ! It was the first and only time 
 that I have ever wished myself at home when I have been 
 travelling in Alaska.
 
 ALASKA: TEE GREAT COUNTRY 275 
 
 " Cheer up ! " called our guide, over his broad shoulder. 
 "The worst is yet to come." 
 
 He spoke more truthfully than even he knew. ' There 
 was one stream after another — and each seemed really 
 worse than the one that went before. From Valdez Gla- 
 cier the ice, melted by the hot July sun, was pouring out 
 in a dozen streams that spread over the immense flats be- 
 tween the town and the mouth of Lowe River. There 
 were miles and miles of it. Scarcely would we struggle 
 out of one place that had been washed out deep — and 
 how deep, we never knew until we were into it — when 
 we would be compelled to plunge into another. 
 
 At last, wet and chilled, after several narrow escapes 
 from whirlpools and quicksand, we reached a level road 
 leading through a cool wood for several miles. From 
 this, of a sudden, we began to climb. So steep was the 
 ascent and so narrow the path — no wider than the horse's 
 feet — that my horse seemed to have a series of movable 
 humps on him, like a camel ; and riding sidewise, I could 
 only lie forward and cling desperately to his mane, to 
 avoid a shameful descent over his tail. 
 
 Actually, there were steps cut in the hard soil for the 
 horses to climb upon! They pulled themselves up with 
 powerful plunges. On both sides of this narrow path the 
 grass or " feed, " as it is called, grew so tall that we 
 could not see one another's heads above it, as we rode ; 
 yet it had been growing only six weeks. 
 
 Mingling with young alders, fireweed, devil's-club and 
 elder-berry — the latter sprayed out in scarlet — it formed 
 a network across our path, through which we could only 
 force our way with closed eyes, blind as Love. 
 
 Bad as the ascent was, the sudden descent was worse. 
 The horse's humps all turned the other way, and we turned 
 with them. It was only by constant watchfulness that 
 we kept ourselves from sliding over their heads.
 
 276 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 After another ascent, we emerged into the open upon 
 the brow of a cliff. Below us stretched the valley of the 
 Lowe River. Thousands of feet below wound and looped 
 the blue reaches of the river, set here and there with 
 islands of glistening sand or rosy fireweed ; while over all 
 trailed the silver mists of morning. One elderberry is- 
 land was so set with scarlet sprays of berries that from 
 our height no foliage could be seen. 
 
 After this came a scented, primeval forest, through 
 which we rode in silence. Its charm was too elusive for 
 speech. Our horses' feet sank into the moss without 
 sound. There was no underbrush ; only dim aisles and 
 arcades fashioned from the gray trunks of trees. The 
 pale green foliage floating above us completely shut out 
 the sun. Soft gray, mottled moss dripped from the 
 limbs and branches of the spruce trees in delicate, lacy 
 festoons. 
 
 Soon after emerging from this dreamlike wood we 
 reached Camp Comfort, where we paused for lunch. 
 
 This is one of the most comfortable road houses in 
 Alaska. It is situated in a low, green valley ; the river 
 winds in front, and snow mountains float around it. The 
 air is very sweet. 
 
 It is only ten miles from Valdez ; but those ten miles 
 are equal to fifty in taxing the endurance. 
 
 We found an excellent vegetable garden at Camp Com- 
 fort. Pansies and other flowers were as large and fra- 
 grant as I have ever seen, the coloring of the pansies 
 being unusually rich. They told us that only two other 
 women had passed over the trail during the summer. 
 
 While our lunch was being prepared, we stood about 
 the immense stove in the immense living room and tried 
 to dry our clothing. 
 
 This room was at least thirty feet square. It had a 
 high ceiling and a rough board floor. In one corner was
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 277 
 
 a piano, in another a phonograph. The ceiling was hung 
 with all kinds of trail apparel used by men, including 
 long boots and heavy stockings, guns and otlier weapons, 
 and other articles that added a picturesque, and even 
 startling, touch to the big room. 
 
 In one end was a bench, buckets of water, tin cups 
 hanging on nails, washbowls, and a little wavy mirror 
 swaying on the wall. The gentlemen of our party played 
 the phonograph while we removed the dust and mud which 
 we had gathered ou our journey ; afterward, we played 
 the phonograph. 
 
 Then we all stood happily about the stove to "dry 
 out," and listened to our host's stories of the miners who 
 came out from the Tanana country, laden with gold. 
 As many as seventy men, each bearing a fortune, have 
 slept at Camp Comfort on a single night. We slept there 
 ourselves, on our return journey, but our riches were in 
 other things than gold, and there was no need to guard 
 them. Any man or woman may go to Alaska and enrich 
 himself or herself forever, as we did, if he or she have the 
 desire. Not only is there no need to guard our riches, 
 but, on the contrary, we are glad to give freely to whom- 
 soever would have. 
 
 Each man, we were told, had his own way of caring for 
 his gold. One leaned a gunnysack full of it outside the 
 house, where it stood all night unguarded, supposed to 
 be a sack of old clothing, from the carelessness with which 
 it was left there. The owner slept calmly in the attic, 
 surrounded by men whose gold made their hard pillows. 
 
 They told us, too, of the men who came back, dull-eyed 
 and empty-handed, discouraged and footsore. They slept 
 long and heavily ; there was nothing for them to guard. 
 
 Every road house has its " talking-machine," with many 
 of the most expensive records. No one can appreciate one 
 of these machines until he goes to Alaska. Its influence
 
 278 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 is not to be estimated in those far, lonely places, where 
 other music is not. 
 
 In a big store " to Westward " we witnessed a scene 
 that would touch any heart. The room was filled with 
 people. There were passengers and officers from the 
 ship, miners, Russian half-breeds, and full-blooded Aleuts. 
 After several records had filled the room with melody, 
 Calve, herself, sang "The Old Folks At Home." As that 
 voice of golden velvet rose and fell, the unconscious work- 
 ings of the faces about me spelled out their life tragedies. 
 At last, one big fellow in a blue flannel shirt started for 
 the door. As he reached it, another man caught his 
 sleeve and whispered huskily : — 
 
 " Where you goin'. Bill ? " 
 
 " Oh, anywheres," he made answer, roughly, to cover 
 his emotion ; " anywheres, so's I can't hear that damn 
 piece," — and it was not one of the least of Calve's 
 compliments. 
 
 Music in Alaska brings the thought of home ; and it is 
 the thought of home that plays upon the heart-strings 
 of the North. The hunger is always there, — hidden, 
 repressed, but waiting, — and at the first touch of music 
 it leaps forth and casts its shadow upon the face. Who 
 knows but that it is this very heart-hunger that puts the 
 universal human look into Alaskan eyes ? 
 
 After a good lunch at Camp Comfort, we resumed our 
 journey. There was another bit of enchanting forest ; 
 then, of a sudden, we were in the famed Keystone Canyon. 
 
 Here, the scenery is enthralling. Solid walls of shaded 
 gray stone rise straight from the river to a height of from 
 twelve to fifteen hundred feet. Along one cliff winds 
 the trail, in many places no wider than the horses' feet. 
 One feels that he must only breatlie with the land side 
 of him, lest the mere weight of his breath on the other 
 side should topple him over the sheer, dizzy precipice.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 279 
 
 It was amusing to see every woman lean toward the 
 rock cliff. Not for all the gold of the Klondike would I 
 have willingly given one look down into the gulf, sinking 
 away, almost under my horse's feet. Somewhere in those 
 purple depths I knew that the river was roaring, white 
 and swollen, between its narrow stone walls. 
 
 Now and then, as we turned a sharp, narrow corner, I 
 could not help catching a glimpse of it ; for a moment, 
 horse and rider, as we turned, Avould seem to hang sus- 
 pended above it with no strip of earth between. There 
 were times, when we were approaching a curve, that there 
 seemed to be nothing ahead of us but a chasm that went 
 sinking dizzily away ; no solid place whereon the horse 
 might set his feet. It was like a nightmare in which one 
 hangs half over a precipice, struggling so hard to recover 
 himself that his heart almost bursts with the effort. 
 
 Then, while I held my breath and blindly trusted to 
 heaven, the curve would be turned and the path would 
 glimmer once more before my eyes. 
 
 But one false step of the horse, one tiniest rock-slide 
 striking his feet, one unexpected sound to startle him — 
 the mere thought of these possibilities made my heart 
 stop beating. 
 
 We finally reached a place where the descent was 
 almost perpendicular and the trail painfully narrow. The 
 horses sank to their haunches and slid down, taking gravel 
 and stones down with them. I had been imploring to be 
 permitted to walk ; but now, being far in advance of all 
 but one, I did not ask permission. I simply slipped off 
 my horse and left him for the others to bring with them. 
 The gentleman with me was forced to do the same. 
 
 We paused for a time to rest and to enjoy the most 
 beautiful waterfall I saw in Alaska — Bridal Veil. It is 
 on the opposite side of the canyon, and has a slow, musi- 
 cal fall of six hundred feet.
 
 280 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 When we went on, the other members of our partj^ had 
 not 3et come up witli us, nor had our horses appeared. 
 In the narrowest of all narrow phices I was walking ahead, 
 when, turning a sharp corner, we met a government pack 
 train, face to face. 
 
 The bell-horse stood still and looked at me with big 
 eyes, evidently as scared at the sight of a woman as an 
 old prospector who has not seen one for years. 
 
 I looked at him with eyes as big as his own. There 
 was only one thing to do. Behind us was a narrow, V- 
 shaped cave in the stone wall, not more than four feet 
 high and three deep. Into this we backed, Grecian-bend 
 wise, and waited. 
 
 We waited a very long time. The horse stood still, 
 blowing his breath loudly from steaming nostrils, and con- 
 templated us. I never knew before that a horse could 
 express his opinion of a person so plainly. Around the 
 curve we could hear whips cracking and men swearing ; 
 but the horse stood there and kept his suspicious eyes on me. 
 
 " I'll stay here till dark," his eyes said, " but you don't 
 get me past a thing like that ! "' 
 
 I didn't mind his looking, but his snorting seemed like 
 an insult. 
 
 At last a man pushed past the horse. When he saw us 
 backed gracefully up into the V-shaped cave, he stood as 
 still as the horse. Finding that neither he nor my escort 
 could think of anything to say to relieve the mental and 
 i^hysical strain, I called out graciously : — 
 
 " How do you do, sir ? Would you like to get by ? " 
 
 " I'd like it damn well, lady," he replied, with what I 
 felt to be his very politest manner. 
 
 " Perhaps," I suggested sweetly, '' if I came out and let 
 the horse get a good look at me — " 
 
 " Don't you do it, lady. That 'u'd scare him plumb to 
 death ! "
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 281 
 
 I have always been convinced that he did not mean it 
 exactly as it sounded, but I caught the flicker of a smile 
 on my escort's face. It was gone in an instant. 
 
 Suddenly the other horses came crowding upon the 
 bell-horse. There was nothing for him to do but to go 
 past me or to go over the precipice. He chose me as the 
 least of the two evils. 
 
 " Nice pony, nice boy," I wheedled, as he went sliding 
 and snorting past. 
 
 Then we waited for the next horse to come by ; but he 
 did not come. Turning my head, I found him fixed in 
 the same place and the same attitude as the first had been ; 
 his eyes were as big and they were set as steadily on me. 
 
 Well — there were fifty horses in that government pack 
 train. Every one of the fifty balked at sight of a woman. 
 There were horses of every color — gra}^ white, black, bay, 
 chestnut, sorrel, and pinto. The sorrel were the stub- 
 bornest of all. To this day, I detest the sight of a sorrel 
 horse. 
 
 We stood there in that position for a time that seemed 
 like hours ; we coaxed each horse as he balked ; and at 
 the last were reduced to such misery that we gave thanks 
 to God that there were only fifty of them and that they 
 couldn't kick sidewise as they passed. 
 
 I forgot about the men. There were seven men ; and 
 as each man turned the bend in the trail, he stood as still 
 as the stillest horse, and for quite as long a time ; and 
 naturally I hesitated to say, " Nice boy, nice fellow," to 
 help him by. 
 
 There were more glacier streams to cross. These were 
 floored with huge boulders instead of sand and quicksand. 
 The horses stumbled and plunged powerfully. One mis- 
 step here would have meant death ; the rapids immedi- 
 ately below the crossing would have beaten us to pieces 
 upon the rocks.
 
 282 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Then came more perpendicular climbing ; but at last, 
 at five o 'clock, with our bodies aching with fatigue, and 
 our senses finally dulled, through sheer surfeit, to the 
 beauty of the journey, we reached " Wortman's " road house. 
 
 This is twenty miles from Valdez ; and when we were 
 lifted from our horses we could not stand alone, to say 
 nothing of attempting to walk. 
 
 But " Wortman's " is the paradise of road houses. In 
 it, and floating over it, is an atmosphere of warmth, com- 
 fort and good cheer that is a rest for body and heart. 
 The beds are comfortable and the meals excellent. 
 
 But it was the welcome that cheered, the spirit of 
 genuine kind-heartedness. 
 
 The road house stands in a large clearing, with barns 
 and other buildings surrounding it. I never saw so many 
 dogs as greeted us, except in Valdez or on the Yukon. 
 They crowded about us, barking and shrieking a welcome. 
 They were all big raalamutes. 
 
 After a good dinner we went to bed at eight o'clock. 
 The sun was shining brightly, but we darkened our rooms 
 as much as possible, and instantly fell into the sleep of 
 utter exhaustion. 
 
 At one o'clock in the morning we were eating break- 
 fast, and half an hour later Ave were in our saddles and 
 off for the summit of Thompson Pass to see the sun rise. 
 This brought out the humps in the horses' backs again. 
 We went up into the air almost as straight as a telegraph 
 pole. Over heather, ice, flowers, and snow our horses 
 plunged, unspurred. 
 
 It was seven miles to the summit. There were no trees 
 nor shrubs, — only grass and moss that gave a velvety look 
 to peaks and slopes that seemed to be floating around us 
 through the silvery mists that were wound over them like 
 turbans. Here and there a hollow was banked with 
 frozen snow.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 283 
 
 When we dismounted on the very summit we could 
 hardly step without crushing bluebells and geraniums. 
 
 We set the flag of our country on the highest point 
 beside the trail, that every loyal-hearted traveller might 
 salute it and take hope again, if he chanced to be discour- 
 aged. Then we sat under its folds and watched the mists 
 change from silver to pearl-gi-ay ; from pearl-gray to 
 pink, amethyst, violet, purple, — and back to rose, gold, 
 and flame color. 
 
 One peak after another shone out for a moment, only 
 to withdraw. Suddenly, as if with one leap, the sun came 
 over the mountain line ; vibrated brilliantly, dazzlingly, 
 flashing long rays like signals to every quickened peak. 
 Then, while we gazed, entranced, other peaks whose pres- 
 ence we had not suspected were brought to life by those 
 searching rays ; valleys appeared, filled with purple, 
 brooding shadows ; whole slopes blue with bluebells ; and, 
 white and hard, the narrow trail that led on to the pitiless 
 land of gold. 
 
 We were above the mountain peaks, above the clouds, 
 level with the sun. 
 
 Absolute stillness was about us ; there was not one 
 faintest sound of nature ; no plash of water, nor sough of 
 wind, nor call of a bird. It was so still that it seenjed 
 like the beginning of a new world, with the birth of 
 mountains taking place before our reverent eyes, as one 
 after another dawned suddenly and goldenly upon our 
 vision. 
 
 Every time we had stopped on the trail we had heard 
 harrowing stories of saddle-horses or pack-horses having 
 missed their footing and gone over the precipice. The 
 horses are so carefully packed, and the packs so securely 
 fastened on — the last cinch being thrown into the " dia- 
 mond hitch " — that the poor beasts can roll over and 
 over to the bottom of a canyon without disarranging a
 
 284 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 pack weighing two hundred pounds — a feat which they 
 very frequently perform. 
 
 The military trail is, of necessity, poor enough ; but it 
 is infinitely superior to all other trails in Alaska, and is a 
 boon to the prosj^ector. It is a well-defined and well- 
 travelled highway. The trees and bushes are cut in 
 places for a width of thirty feet, original bridges span the 
 creeks when it is possible to bridge them at all, and some 
 corduroy has been laid ; but in many places the trail is a 
 mere path, not more than two feet wide, shovelled or 
 blasted from the hillside. 
 
 In Alaska there were practically no roads at all until 
 the appointment in 1905 of a road commission consisting 
 of ^lajor W. P. Richardson, Captain G. B. Pillsbury, and 
 Lieutenant L. C. Orchard. Since that year eight hun- 
 dred miles of trails, wagon and sled roads, numerous 
 ferries, and hundreds of bridges have been constructed. 
 The wagon road-beds are all sixteen feet wide, with free 
 side strips of a hundred feet ; the sled roads are twelve 
 feet wide ; the trails, eight ; and the bridges, fourteen. 
 In the interior, laborers on the roads are paid five dollars 
 a day, with board and lodging; they are given better food 
 than any laborers in Alaska, with the possible exception 
 of those employed at the Treadwell mines and on the 
 Cordova Railroad. The average cost of road work in 
 Alaska is about two thousand dollars a niile ; two hun- 
 dred and fifty for sled road, and one hundred for trails. 
 These roads have reduced freight rates one-half and have 
 helped to develop rich regions that had been inaccessible. 
 Their importance in the development of the country is 
 second to that of railroads only. 
 
 The scenery from Ptarmigan Drop down the Tsina 
 River to Beaver Dam is magnificent. Huge mountains, 
 saw-toothed and covered with snow, jut diagonally out 
 across the valley, one after another ; streams fall, riffling,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 285 
 
 down the sides of the mountains ; and the cloud-effects 
 are especially beautiful. 
 
 Tsina River is a narrow, foaming torrent, confined, for 
 the most part, between sheer hills, — although, in places, 
 it spreads out over low, gravelly fiats. Beaver Dam 
 huddles into a gloomy gulch at the foot of a vast, over- 
 hanging mountain. Its situation is what Whidbey would 
 have called "gloomily magnificent." In 1905 Beaver 
 Dam was a road house which many chose to avoid, if pos- 
 sible. 
 
 The Tiekel road house on the Kanata River is pleas- 
 antly situated, and is a comfortable place at which to eat 
 and rest. 
 
 For its entire length, the military trail climbs and falls 
 and winds through scenery of inspiring beauty. The 
 trail leading off to the east at Tonsina, through the 
 Copper River, Nizina, and Chitina valleys, is even more 
 beautiful. 
 
 Vast plains and hillsides of bloom are passed. Some 
 mountainsides are blue with lupine, others rosy with fire- 
 weed ; acres upon acres are covered with violets, bluebells, 
 wild geranium, anemones, spotted moccasin and other 
 orchids, buttercups, and dozens of others — all large and 
 vivid of color. It has often been said that the flowers of 
 ■Alaska are not fragrant, but this is not true. 
 
 The mountains of the vicinity are glorious. Mount 
 Drum is twelve thousand feet high. Sweeping up splen- 
 didly from a level plain, it is more imposing than Mount 
 Wrangell, which is fourteen thousand feet high, and 
 Mount Blackburn, which is sixteen thousand feet. 
 
 The view from the summit of Sour-Dough Hill is un- 
 surpassed in the interior of Alaska. Glacial creeks and 
 roaring rivers ; wild and fantastic canyons ; moving 
 glaciers ; gorges of royal purple gloom ; green valleys 
 and flowery slopes ; the domed and towered Castle
 
 286 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Mountains ; the lone and majestic peaks pushing up above 
 all others, above the clouds, cascades spraying down sheer 
 precipices ; and far to the south the linked peaks of the 
 Coast Range piled magnificently upon the sky, dim and 
 faintly blue in the great distance, — all blend into one 
 grand panorama of unrivalled inland grandeur. 
 
 Crossing the Copper River, when it is high and swift, 
 is dangerous, — especially for a " chechaeo " of either sex. 
 (A chechaeo is one who has not been in Alaska a year.) 
 Packers are often compelled to unpack their horses, put- 
 ting all their effects into large whipsawed boats. The 
 halters are taken off the horses and the latter are driven 
 into the roaring torrent, followed by the packers in the 
 boats. 
 
 The horses apparently make no effort to reach the op- 
 posite shore, but use their strength desperately to hold 
 their own in the swift current, fighting against it, with 
 their heads turned pitifully up-stream. Their bodies be- 
 ing turned at a slight angle, the current, pushing violently 
 against them, forces them slowly, but surely, from sand 
 bar to sand bar, and, finally, to the shore. 
 
 It frequently requires two hours to get men, horses, 
 and outfit from shore to shore, where they usually arrive 
 dripping wet. Women who make this trip, it is needless 
 to say, suffer still more from the hardship of the crossing 
 than do men. 
 
 In riding horses across such streams, they should be 
 started diagonally up-stream toward the first sand bar 
 above. They lean far forward, bracing themselves at 
 every step against the current and choosing their footing 
 carefully. The horses of the trail know all the dangers, 
 and scent them afar — holes, boulders, irresistible cur- 
 rents, and quicksand ; they detect them before the most 
 experienced " trailer " even suspects them. 
 
 I will not venture even to sfuess what the other two
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 287 
 
 women in ray party did when they crossed dangerous 
 streams ; but for myself, I wasted no strength in trying 
 to turn my horse's head up-stream, or down-stream, or in 
 any other direction. When we went down into the foam- 
 ing water, I gave him his head, clung to his mane, leaned 
 forward in the saddle, — and prayed like anything. I do 
 not believe in childishly asking the Lord to help one so 
 long as one can help one's self ; but when one is on the back 
 of a half-swimming, half-floundering horse in the middle of 
 a swollen, treacherous flood, with holes and quicksand on 
 all sides, one is as helpless as he was the day he was born; 
 and it is a good time to pray. 
 
 According to the report of Major Abercrombie, who 
 probably knows this part of Alaska more thoroughly than 
 any one else, there are hundreds of thousands of acres in 
 the Copper River Valley alone where almost all kinds of 
 vegetables, as well as barley and rye, will grow in abun- 
 dance and mature. Considering the travel to the many 
 and fabulously rich mines already discovered in this 
 valley and adjacent ones, and the cost of bringing in 
 grain and supplies, it may be easily seen what splendid 
 opportunities await the small farmer who will select his 
 homestead judiciously, with a view to the accommodation 
 of man and beast, and the cultivation of food for both. 
 The opportunities awaiting such a man are so much more 
 enticing than the inducements of the bleak Dakota prai- 
 ries or the wind-swept valleys of the Yellowstone as to be 
 beyond comparison. 
 
 Major Abercrombie believes that the valleys of the sub- 
 drainage of the Copper River Valley will in future years 
 supply the demands for cereals and vegetables, if not for 
 meats, of the thousands of miners that will be required to 
 extract the vast deposits of metals from the Tonsina, 
 Chitina, Kotsina, Nizina, Chesna, Tanana, and other fa- 
 mous districts.
 
 288 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The vast importance to the whole territory of Ahiska, 
 and to the United States, as well, of the building of the 
 Guggenheim railroad from Cordova into this splendid in- 
 land empire may be realized after reading Major Aber- 
 crombie's report. 
 
 We have been accustomed to mineralized zones of from 
 ten to twelve miles in length; in the Wrangell group 
 alone we have a circle eighty miles in diameter, the min- 
 eralization of which is simply marvellous ; yet, valuable 
 though these concentrates are, they are as valueless com- 
 mercially as so much sandstone, without the aid of a rail- 
 road and reduction works. 
 
 If the group of mines at Butte could deflect a great 
 transcontinental trunk-line like the Great Northern, what 
 will this mighty zone, which contains a dozen properties 
 already discovered, — ■ to say nothing of the unfound, un- 
 dreamed-of ones, — of far greater value as copper propo- 
 sitions than the richest of Montana, do to advance the 
 commercial interests of the Pacific Coast ? 
 
 The first discovery of gold in the Nizina district was 
 made by Daniel Kain and Clarence Warner. These two 
 prospectors were urged by a crippled Indian to accom- 
 pany him to inspect a vein of copper on the head waters 
 of a creek that is now known as Dan Creek. 
 
 Not being impressed by the coj)per outlook, the two 
 prospectors returned. They noticed, however, that the 
 gravel of Dan Creek had a look of placer gold. 
 
 They were out of provisions, and were in haste to reach 
 their supplies, fifty miles away ; but Kain was reluctant 
 to leave the creek unexamined. He went to a small lake 
 and caught sufficient fish for a few days' subsistence; 
 then, with a shovel for his only tool, he took out five 
 ounces of coarse gold in two days. 
 
 In this wise was the rich Nizina district discovered. 
 The Nizina River is only one hundred and sixty miles
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 289 
 
 from Valdez. In Rex Gulch as much as eight ounces 
 of gold have been taken out by one man in a single day. 
 The gold is of the finest quality, assaying over eighteen 
 dollars an ounce. 
 
 There is an abundance of timber suitable for building 
 houses and for firewood on all the creeks. There is 
 water at all seasons for sluicing, and, if desired, for 
 hydraulic work.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 The famous Bonanza Copper Mine is on the moun- 
 tainside high above the Kennicott Valley, and near the 
 Kennicott Glacier — the largest glacier of the Alaskan 
 interior. This glacier does not entirely fill the valley, 
 and one travels close to its precipitous wall of ice, which 
 dwindles from a height of one hundred feet to a low, 
 gravel-darkened moraine. From the summit of Sour- 
 Dough Hill it may be seen for its whole forty-mile length 
 sweeping down from Mounts Wrangell and Regal. 
 
 The Bonanza Mine has an elevation of six thousand 
 feet, and was discovered by the merest chance. 
 
 The history of this mine from the day of its discovery 
 is one of the most fascinating of Alaska. In the autumn 
 of 1899 a prospecting party was formed at Valdez, known 
 as the "McClellan" party. The ten individuals com- 
 posing the party were experienced miners and they 
 contributed money, horses, and " caches," as well as 
 experience. The principal cache was known as the 
 " McCarthy Cabin " cache, and was about fifteen miles 
 east of Copper River on the trail to the Nicolai Mine. 
 
 The Nicolai had been discovered early in the summer 
 by R. F. McClellan, who was one of the men compos- 
 ing the " McClellan " party, and others. Another im- 
 portant cache of three thousand pounds of provisions 
 was the " Amy " cache, thirty-five miles from Valdez, 
 just over the summit of Thompson Pass. 
 
 The agreement was that the McClellan party was to 
 
 290
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 291 
 
 prospect in the interior in 1900 and 1901, all property 
 located to be for their joint benefit. 
 
 The members of the party scattered soon after the 
 organization was completed. Clarence Warner, John 
 Sweeney, and Jack Smith remained in Valdez for the 
 winter, all the others going " out to the states." 
 
 In March of 1900 Warner and Smith set out for the 
 interior over the snow. There was no government trail 
 then, and the hardships to be endured were as terrific as 
 were those of the old Chilkoot Pass, on the way to the Klon- 
 dike. The snow was from six to ten feet deep, and their 
 progress was slow and painful. One went ahead on snow- 
 shoes, the other following ; when the trail thus made was 
 sufficiently hard, the hand sleds, loaded with provisions 
 and bedding, were drawn over it by ropes around the 
 men's shoulders. From two to three hundred pounds was 
 a heavy burden for each man to drag through the soft snow. 
 
 Climbing the summit, and at other steep places, they 
 were compelled to " relay," by leaving the greater portion 
 of their load beside the trail, pulling only a few pounds 
 for a short distance and returning for more. By the 
 most constant and exhaustive labor they were able to 
 make only five or six miles a day. 
 
 They replenished their stores at the " Amy " cache, 
 near the summit, and in May reached the " McCarthy 
 Cabin " cache. Here they found that the Indians had 
 broken in and stolen nearly all the supplies. 
 
 When tliey left Valdez, it was with the expectation 
 that McClellan, or some other member of the party, 
 would bring in their horses to the McCarthy cabin, that 
 their supplies might be packed from that point on horse- 
 back, — the snow melting in May making it impossible to 
 use sleds, and no man being able to carry more than a few 
 pounds on his back for so long a journey as they expected 
 to make.
 
 292 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 However, McClellan had, during the winter, entered 
 into a contract with the Chitina Exploration Company 
 at San Francisco to do a large amount of development 
 work on the Nicolai Mine during the summer of 1900. 
 He returned to Valdez after Warner and Smith had left, 
 bringing twenty horses, a large outfit of tools and sup- 
 plies, and fifteen men — among them some of the McClel- 
 lan prospecting party, who had agreed to work for the 
 season for the Chitina Company. 
 
 When this party reached the McCarthy cabin, they 
 found Warner and Smith there. An endless dispute 
 tliereupon began as to the amount of provisions the two 
 men had when the Chitina party arrived, — Warner and 
 Smith claiming that they had five hundred pounds, and 
 the Chitina Company claiming that they were entirely 
 " out of grub," to use miner's language. 
 
 Warner and Smith demanded that McClellan should 
 give them two horses belonging to the McClellan pros- 
 pecting party, which he had brought. This matter was 
 finally settled by McClellan's packing in what remained 
 of Smith and Warner's provisions to the Nicolai Mine, a 
 distance of nearly a hundred miles. 
 
 McClellan, as superintendent of the Chitina Company, 
 used, with that company's horses, four of the McClellan 
 party's horses during the entire season, sending them 
 to and from Valdez, packing supplies. 
 
 In the meantime, upon reaching the Nicolai Mine, on 
 the 1st of July, Warner and Smith, packing supplies on 
 their backs, set out to prospect. The Chitina Company, 
 in the famous and bitterly contested lawsuit which fol- 
 lowed, claimed that they were supplied with the Chitina 
 Company's " grub " ; while Smith and Warner claimed 
 that their provisions belonged to the McClellan party. 
 
 After a few days' aimless wandering, they reached a 
 point on the east side of Kennicott Glacier, about twenty
 
 Cojiy right by J. Doody, Dawson 
 
 Steamek " White House " ix Five-Finger Rapids
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 293 
 
 miles west of the Nicoliii Mine. Here they camped at 
 noon, near a small stream that came running down from 
 a great height. 
 
 Tlieir camp was about halfway up a mountain which 
 was six thousand feet high. After a miner's lunch of 
 bacon and beans, they were packing up to resume their 
 wanderings, when Warner, chancing to glance upward, 
 discovered a green streak near the top of the mountain. 
 It looked like grass, and at first he gave it no thought ; 
 but presently it occurred to him that, as they were 
 camped above timber-line, grass would not be growing 
 at such a height. 
 
 They at once decided to investigate the peculiar and 
 mysterious coloring. The mountain was steep, and it was 
 after a slow and painful climb that they reached the top. 
 Jack Smith stooped and picked up a piece of shining 
 metal. 
 
 "My God, Clarence," he said fervently, "it's copper." 
 
 It was copper ; the richest copper, in the greatest quan- 
 tities, ever found upon the earth. There were hundreds 
 of thousands of tons of it. There was a whole mountain 
 of it. It was so bright and shining that they, at first, 
 thought it was Galena ore; but they soon discovered 
 that it was copper glance, — a copjDcr ore bearing about 
 seventy-five per cent of pure copper. 
 
 The Havemeyers, Guggenheims, and other eastern capi- 
 talists became interested. Then, when the marvellous 
 richness of the discovery of Jack Smith and Clarence 
 Warner became known, a lawsuit was begun — hinging 
 upon the grub-stake — which was so full of dramatic 
 incidents, attempted bribery, charges of corruption reach- 
 ing to the United States Senate and the President him- 
 self, that the facts would make a long story, vivid with 
 life, action, and fantastic setting — the scene reaching 
 from Alaska to New York, and from New York to Manila.
 
 294 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The lawsuit was at last settled in favor of tlie dis- 
 coverers. 
 
 On January 14, 1908, Mr. Smith disposed of his in- 
 terest in a mine which he had located across McCarthy 
 Creek from the Bonanza, for a hundred and fifty thousand 
 dollars. It will be "stocked" and named "The Bonanza 
 Mine Extension." It is said to be as rich as the great 
 Bonanza itself.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 In the district which comprises the entire coast from 
 the southern boundary of Oregon to the northernmost 
 point of Ahaska there are but forty-five lighthouses. 
 Included in this district are the Strait of Juan de Fuca, 
 Washington Sound, the Gulf of Georgia, and all the tidal 
 waters tributary to the sea straits and sounds of this 
 coast. There are also twenty-eight fog signals, operated 
 by steam, hot air, or oil engines ; six fog signals operated 
 by clockwork ; two gas-lighted buoys in position ; nine 
 whistling-buoys and five bell-buoys in position; three 
 hundred and twenty-two other buoys in position; and 
 four tenders, to visit lighthouses and care for buoys. 
 
 The above list does not include post lights, the Uma- 
 tilla Reef Light vessel, and unlighted day beacons. 
 
 It is the far, lonely Alaskan coast that is neglected. 
 The wild, stormy, and immense stretch of coast reaching 
 from Chichagoff Island to Point Barrow in the Arctic 
 Ocean has two light and fog signal stations on Unimak 
 Island and two fixed lights on Cape Stephens. A light 
 and fog signal station is to be built at Cape Hinching- 
 broke, and a light is to be established at Point Romanoff. 
 
 No navigator should be censured for disaster on this 
 dark and dangerous coast. The little Dora^ running 
 regularly from Seward and Valdez to Unalaska, does not 
 pass a light. Her w^ay is wild and stormy in winter, and 
 the coasts she passes are largely uninhabited ; yet there 
 is not a flash of light, unless it be from some volcano, 
 
 295
 
 296 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 to guide her into diilficult ports and around the perilous 
 reefs with which the coast abounds. 
 
 A prayer for a lighthouse at the entrance to Resurrec- 
 tion Bay was refused by the department, with the advice 
 that the needs of commerce do not require a light at this 
 point, particularly as there are several other points more 
 in need of such aid. The department further advised 
 that it would require a hundred thousand dollars to es- 
 tablish a light and fog signal station at the place desig- 
 nated, instead of the twenty-live thousand dollars asked. 
 
 Meanwhile, ships are wrecked and lives and valuable 
 cargoes are lost, — and will be while the Alaskan coast 
 remains unlighted. 
 
 Along the intricate, winding, and exceedingly danger- 
 ous channels, straits, and narrows of the " inside passage " 
 of southeastern Alaska, there are only seven light and 
 fog signals, and ten lights ; but where the sea-coast be- 
 longs to Canada there is sufficient light and ample buoy- 
 age protection, as all mariners admit. 
 
 Is our government's rigid, and in some instances stub- 
 born, economy in this matter a wise one ? Is it a humane 
 one? The nervous strain of this voyage on a conscien- 
 tious and sensitive master of a ship heavily laden with 
 human beings is tremendous. The anxious faces and un- 
 relaxing vigilance of the officers on the bridge when a 
 ship is passing through Taku Open, Wrangell Narrows, 
 or Peril Straits speak plainly and unmistakably of the 
 ceaseless burden of responsibility and anxiety which they 
 bear. The charting of these waters is incomplete as yet, 
 notwithstanding the faithful service which the Geodetic 
 Survey has performed for many years. Many a rock has 
 never been discovered until a ship went down upon it. 
 
 Political influence has been known to establish lights, 
 at immense cost, at points where they are practically 
 luxuries, rather than needs ; therefore the government 
 should not be censured for cautiousness in this matter.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 297 
 
 But it should be, and it is, censured for not investigat- 
 ing carefully the needs of the Alaskan Coast — the 
 " Great Unlighted Way." 
 
 Seward is situated almost as beautifully as Valdez. 
 It is only five years old. It is the sea terminal of the 
 Alaska Central Railway, which is building to the Xanana, 
 through a rich country that is now almost unknown. 
 It will pass within ten miles of Mount McKinley, which 
 rises from a level plain to an altitude of nearly twenty- 
 one thousand feet. 
 
 This mountain has been known to white men for nearly 
 a century ; yet until very recently it did not appear upon 
 any map, and had no official name. More than fifty years 
 ago the Russian fur traders knew it and called it " Bulshaia," 
 — signifying " high mountain " or " great mountain. " The 
 natives called it " Trolika," a name having the same 
 meaning. 
 
 Explorers, traders, and prospectors have seen it and com- 
 mented upon its magnificent height, yet without realizing 
 its importance, until Mr. W. A. Dickey saw it in 1896 
 and proposed for it the name of McKinley. In 1902 Mr. 
 Alfred Hulse Brooks, of the United States Geological 
 Survey, with two associates and four camp men, made an 
 expedition to the mountain. Mr. Brooks' report of this 
 expedition is exceedingly interesting. He spent the sum- 
 mer of 1906, also, upon the mountain. 
 
 The town site of Seward was purchased from the Lowells, 
 a pioneer family, by Major J. E. Ballaine, for four thousand 
 dollars. It has grown very rapidly. Stumps still stand 
 upon the business streets, and silver-barked log-cabins 
 nestle modestly and picturesquely beside imposing build- 
 ings. The bank and the railway company have erected 
 handsome homes. Every business and profession is repre- 
 sented. There are good schools and churches, an electric-
 
 298 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 light plant, two newspapers, a library and hospital, pro- 
 gressive clubs, and all the modern luxuries of western 
 towns. 
 
 When Mr. Seward was asked what he considered the 
 most important measure of his political career, he replied, 
 " The purchase of Alaska; but it will take the people a 
 generation to find it out." 
 
 Since the loftiest and noblest peak of North America 
 was doomed to be named for a man, it should have borne 
 the name of this dauntless, loyal, and far-seeing friend of 
 Alaska and of all America. Since this was not to be, it 
 was very fitting that a young and ambitious town on the 
 historic Voskressenski Harbor should bear this honored 
 and forever-to-be-remembered name. If Seward and 
 Valdez would but work together, the region extending 
 from Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet would soon be- 
 come the best known and the most influential of Alaska, 
 as it is, with the addition of the St. Elias Alps, the most 
 sublimely and entrancingly beautiful. 
 
 Voskressenski Harbor, or Resurrection Bay, pushes out 
 in purple waves in front of Seward, and snow peaks circle 
 around it, the lower hills being heavily wooded. There 
 is a good wharf and a safe harbor ; the bay extends inland 
 eighteen miles, is completely land-locked, and is kept free 
 of ice the entire year, as is the Bay of Valdez and Cook 
 Inlet, by the Japan current. 
 
 It is estimated that the Alaska Central Railway will 
 cost, when completed to Fairbanks, at least twenty-five 
 millions of dollars. Several branches will be extended 
 into different and important mining regions. 
 
 The road has a general maximum grade of one per cent. 
 The Coast Range is crossed ten miles from Seward, at an 
 elevation of only seven hundred feet. The road follows 
 the shore of Lake Kenai, Turnagain Arm, and Knik Arm 
 on Cook Inlet; then, reaching the Sushitna River, it
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 299 
 
 follows the sloping" plains of that valley for a hundred 
 miles, when, crossing the Alaskan Range, it descends into 
 the vast valley at the head of navigation on the Xanana 
 River, in the vicinit}^ of Chena and F'airbanks. 
 
 All of the country which this road is expected to 
 traverse when completed is rich in coal, copper, and quartz 
 and placer gold. 
 
 There is a large amount of timber suitable for domestic 
 use throughout this part of the country, spruce trees of 
 three and four feet in diameter being common near the 
 coast ; inland, the timber is smaller, but of fair quality. 
 
 There is much good agricultural land along the line of 
 the road; the soil is rich and the climatic conditions quite 
 as favorable as those of many producing regions of the 
 northern United States and Europe. Grass, known as 
 " red-top," grows in abundance in the valleys and provides 
 food for horses and cattle. It is expected that, so soon as 
 the different railroads connect the great interior valleys 
 with the sea, the government's offer of three hundred and 
 twenty acres to the homesteader will induce many people 
 to settle there. The Alaska Central Railroad is completed 
 for a distance of fifty-three miles, — more than half the 
 distance to the coal-fields north of Cook Inlet. 
 
 Arrangements have been made for the building of a 
 large smelter at Seward, to cost three hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars, in 1908. 
 
 Cook Inlet enjoys well-deserved renown for its scenery. 
 Between it and the Chugach Gulf is the great Kenai Pen- 
 insula, whose sliores are indented by many deep inlets and 
 bays. The most important of these is Resurrection Bay. 
 
 Wood is plentiful along the coast of the peninsula. 
 Cataracts, glaciers, snow peaks, green valleys, and lovely 
 lakes abound. 
 
 The peninsula is shaped somewhat like a great pear.
 
 300 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Turnagain Arm and an inlet of Prince William Sound 
 almost meet at the north; but the portage mentioned on 
 another page prevents it from being an island. It is 
 crowned by the lofty and rugged Kenai Mountains. 
 
 Off its southern coast are several clusters of islands — 
 Pye and Chugatz islands, Seal and Chiswell rocks. 
 
 In the entrance to Cook Inlet lie Barren Islands, 
 Amatuli Island, and Ushugat Island. 
 
 On a small island off the southern point of the peninsula 
 is a lofty promontory, which Cook named Cape Elizabeth 
 because it was sighted on the Princess Elizabeth's birth- 
 day. The lofty, two-peaked promontory on the opposite 
 side of the entrance he named Douglas, in honor of his 
 friend, the Canon of Windsor. 
 
 Between the capes, the entrance is sixty-five miles wide; 
 but it steadily diminishes until it reaches a width of but 
 a few miles. There is a passage on each side of Barren 
 Islands. 
 
 The Inlet receives the waters of several rivers : the 
 Sushitna, Matanuska, Knik, Yentna, — which flows into 
 the Sushitna near its mouth, — Kaknu, and Kassitof. 
 
 Lying near the western shore of the inlet, and just in- 
 side the entrance, is an island which rises in graceful' 
 sweeps on all sides, directly from the water to a smooth, 
 broken-pointed, and beautiful cone. This cone forms the 
 entire island, and there is not the faintest break in its 
 symmetry until the very crest is reached. It is the vol- 
 cano of St. Augustine. 
 
 A chain of active volcanoes extends along the western 
 shore. Of these, Iliamna, the greatest, is twelve thousand 
 sixty-six feet in height, and was named " Miranda, the 
 Admirable " by Spanish navigators, who may usually be 
 relied upon for j)oetically significant, or soft-sounding, 
 names. It is clad in eternal snow, but smoke-turbans are 
 wound almost constantly about its brow. It was in erup-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 301 
 
 tion in 1854, and running lava has been found near the 
 lower crater. There are many hot and sulphurous springs 
 on its sides. 
 
 North of Iliamna is Goryalya, or " The Redoubt," which 
 is a lesser " smoker," eleven thousand two hundred and 
 seventy feet high. It was in eruption in 1867, and ashes 
 fell on islands more than a hundred and fifty miles away. 
 
 Iliamna Lake is one of the two largest lakes in Alaska. 
 It is from fifty to eighty miles long and from fifteen to 
 twenty-five wide. A pass at a height of about eight hun- 
 dred feet affords an easy route of communication between 
 the upper end of the lake and a bay of the same name on 
 Cook Inlet, near the volcano, and has long been in use by 
 white, as well as native, hunters and prospectors. The 
 country surrounding the lake is said to abound in large 
 and small game. Lake Clark, to the north, is connected 
 with Lake Iliamna by the Nogheling River. It is longer 
 than Iliamna, but very much narrower. It lies directly 
 west of the Redoubt Volcano. 
 
 Iliamna Lake is connected with Behring Sea by Kvichak 
 River, which flows into Bristol Bay. The lake is a 
 natural hatchery of king salmon, and immense canneries 
 are located on Bristol Bay, which lies directly north of 
 the Aliaska Peninsula. 
 
 It is comparatively easy for hunters to cross by the 
 chain of lakes and water-ways from Bristol Bay to Cook 
 Inlet — which is known to sportsmen of all countries, 
 both shores offering everything in the way of game. 
 The big brown bear of the inlet is the same as the famous 
 Kadiak ; and hunters come from all parts of the world 
 when they can secure permits to kill them. Moose, cari- 
 bou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, deer, and all kinds 
 of smaller game are also found. There are many trout 
 and salmon streams on the eastern shore of the inlet, 
 and the lagoons and marshes are the haunts of water-fowl.
 
 302 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The voyage up Cook Inlet is one of the most fascinat- 
 ing that may be taken, as a side trip, in Alaska. 
 
 Large steamers touch only at Homer and Seldovia, just 
 inside the entrance. There is a good wharf at Homer, 
 but at Seldovia there is another rope-ladder descent and 
 dory landing. There are a post-office, several stores and 
 houses, and a little Greek-Russian church. Scattered 
 over a low bluff at one side of the settlement are the 
 native huts, half hidden in tall reeds and grasses, and a 
 native graveyard. 
 
 Seldovia is not the place to buy baskets, as the only 
 ones to be obtained are of very inferior coloring and 
 workmanship. 
 
 My Scotch friend was so fearful that some one else 
 might secure a treasure that she seized the first basket in 
 sight at Seldovia, paying five dollars for it. It was not 
 large, and as for its appearance — ! 
 
 But with one evil mind we all pretended to envy her 
 and to regret that we had not seen it first ; so that, for 
 some time, she stepped out over the tundra with quite a 
 proud and high step, swinging her " buy " proudly at her 
 right side, where all might see and admire. 
 
 Presently, however, we came to a hut wherein we 
 stumbled upon all kinds of real treasures — old bows and 
 arrows, kamelinkas, bidarkas, virgin charms, and ivory 
 spears. We all gathered these things unto ourselves — 
 all but my Scotch friend. She stood by, watching us, 
 silent, ruminative. 
 
 She had spent all that she cared to spend on curios in 
 one day on the single treasure which slie carried in her 
 hand. We observed that presently slie carried it less 
 proudly and that her carriage had less of haughtiness in 
 it, as we went across the beach to the dory. 
 
 She took the basket down to the engine-room to have 
 it steamed. I do not know what the engineer said to her
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 303 
 
 about her purchase, but when she came back, her face 
 was somewhat flushed. The Scotch are not a demonstra- 
 tive race, and when she ever after referred to the chief 
 engineer simply as " that engineer down there," I felt 
 that it meant something. She never again mentioned 
 that basket to me ; but I have seen it in six different 
 curio stores trying to get itself sold. 
 
 At Seldovia connection is made with small steamers 
 running up the inlet to the head of the arm. Hope and 
 Sunrise are the inspiring names of the chief settlements 
 of the arm. 
 
 The tides of Cook Inlet are tremendous. There are 
 fearful tide-rips at the entrance and again about halfway 
 up the inlet, where they appeared " frightful " to Cook 
 and his men. The tide enters Turnagain Arm, at the 
 head of the inlet, in a huge bore, which expert canoemen 
 are said to be able to ride successfully, and to thus be 
 carried with great speed and delightful danger on their 
 way. 
 
 Cook thought that the inlet Fas a river, of which the 
 arm was an eastern branch. Therefore, at the entrance 
 of the latter, he exclaimed in disappointment and chagrin, 
 " Turn again ! " — and afterward bestowed this name 
 upon the slender water-way. 
 
 He modestly left only a blank for the name of the great 
 inlet itself ; and after his cruel death at the hands of 
 natives in the Sandwich Islands, Lord Sandwich directed 
 that it be named Cook's River. 
 
 The voyage of two hundred miles to the head of the 
 arm by steamer is slow and sufficiently romantic to 
 satisfy the most sentimental. The steamer is compelled 
 to tie up frequently to await the favorable stage of the 
 tide, affording ample opportunity and time for the full 
 enjoyment of the varied attractions of the trip. The nu- 
 merous waterfalls are among^ the finest of Alaska.
 
 304 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Even to-day the trip is attended by the gravest dangers 
 and is only attempted by experienced navigators who are 
 familiar with its uni(|ue perils. The very entrance is the 
 dread of mariners. The tide-rips that boil and roar aronnd 
 the naked Barren Islands subject ships to graver danger 
 than the fiercest storms on this wild and stormy coast. 
 
 The tides of Turnagain Arm rival those of the Bay of 
 Fundy, entering in tremendous bores that advance faster 
 tlian a horse can run and bearing everything with resist- 
 less force before them. After the first roar of the enter- 
 ing tide is heard, there is but a moment in which to make 
 for safety. There is a tide fall in the arm of from twenty 
 to twenty-seven feet. 
 
 The first Russian settlement of the inlet was by the 
 establishment of a fort by Shelikoff, near the entrance, 
 named Alexandrovsk. It was followed in 1786 by the 
 establishment of the Lebedef-Lastuchkin Company on the 
 Kussilof River in a settlement and fort named St. George. 
 
 Fort Alexandrovsk formed a square with two bastions, 
 and the imperial arms shone over the entrance, which was 
 protected by two guns. The situation, however, was not 
 so advantageous for trading as that of the other company. 
 
 In 1791 the Lebedef Company established another fort, 
 the Redoubt St. Nicholas, still farther up the inlet, just 
 below that narrowing known as the " Forelands," at the 
 Kaknu, or Kenai, River. At this place the shores jut out 
 into three steep, cliffy points which were named by Van- 
 couver West, North, and East Forelands. 
 
 Here Vancouver found the flood-tide running with such 
 a violent velocity that the best bower cable proved unable 
 to resist it, and broke. The buoy sank by the strength 
 of the current, and both the anchor and the cable were 
 irrecoverably lost. 
 
 Cook did not enter Turnagain Arm, but Vancouver 
 learned from the Russians that neither the arm nor the
 
 ALASKA: THE GEEAT COUNTRY 305 
 
 inlet was a river ; that the arm terminated some thirty 
 miles from its mouth; and that from its head the Russians 
 walked about fifteen versts over a mountain and entered 
 an inlet of Prince William Sound, — thereby keeping them- 
 selves in communication with their fellow-countrymen at 
 Port Etches and Kaye Island. 
 
 Vancouver sent Lieutenant Whidbey and some men to 
 explore the arm; but having entered with the bore and 
 finding no place where he might escape its ebb, lie was 
 compelled to return with it, without making as complete 
 an examination as was desired. 
 
 The country bordering upon the bays along Turnagain 
 Arm is low, richly wooded, and pleasant, rising with a 
 gradual slope, until the inner point of entrance is reached. 
 Here the shores suddenly rise to bold and towering emi- 
 nences, perpendicular cliffs, and mountains which to 
 poor Whidbey, as usual, appeared "stupendous" — cleft 
 by " awfully grand " chasms and gullies, down which 
 rushed immense torrents of water. 
 
 The tide rises thirty feet with a roaring rush that is 
 really terrifying to hear and see. 
 
 At a Russian settlement Whidbey found one large house, 
 fifty by twenty-four feet, occupied by nineteen Russians. 
 One door afforded the only ventilation, and it was usually 
 closed. 
 
 Whidbey and his men were hospitably received and 
 were offered a repast of dried fish and native cranberries; 
 but because of the offensive odor of the house, owing to 
 the lack of ventilation and other unmentionable horrors, 
 they were unable to eat. Perceiving this, their host 
 ordered the cranberries taken away and beaten up with 
 train-oil, when they were again placed before the visitors. 
 This last effort of hospitality proved too much for the 
 politeness of the Englishmen, and they rushed out into the 
 cool air for relief.
 
 306 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Indeed, the Russians appeared to live quite as filthily 
 and disgustingly as the natives, and to have fallen into 
 all their cooking, living, and other customs, save those of 
 painting their faces and wearing ornaments in lips, noses, 
 and ears. 
 
 The name "inlet," instead of "river," was first applied to 
 this torrential water-way in 1794 by Vancouver, who also 
 bestowed upon Turnagain the designation of "arm." 
 
 Vancouver, upon the invitation of the commanding 
 officer who came out to his ships for that purpose, paid 
 the Redoubt St. Nicholas, near the P'orelands, a visit. 
 He was saluted by two guns from a kind of balcony, above 
 which the Russian flag floated on top of a house situated 
 upon a cliff. 
 
 Captain Dixon, the most pious navigator I have found, 
 with the exception of the Russians, extolled the Supreme 
 Being for having so bountifully provided in Cook Inlet 
 for the needs of the wretched natives who inhabited the 
 region. The fresh fish and game of all kinds, so easily 
 procured, the rich skins with which to clothe their bodies, 
 — inspired him to praise and thanksgiving. 
 
 For the magnificent water-way pushing northward, 
 glaciered, cascaded, blue-bayed, and emerald-valed, with 
 unbroken chains of snow peaks and volcanoes on both 
 sides, — up which the voyager sails charmed and fascinated 
 to-day, — he spoke no enthusiastic word of praise. On 
 the contrary, he found the aspect dreary and uncomfort- 
 able. Even Whidbey, the Chilly, could not have given 
 way to deeper shudders than did Dixon in Cook Inlet. 
 
 The low land and green valleys close to the shore, 
 grown with trees, shrubbery, and tall grasses, he found 
 " not altogether disagreeable," but it was with shock upon 
 shock to his delicate and outraged feelings that he sailed 
 between the mountains covered with eternal snow. Their 
 " prodigious extent and stupendous precipices . . . chilled
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 307 
 
 the blood of the beholder." They were "awfully dread- 
 ful." 
 
 Dixon, as well as Cook, mentions the wearing of the 
 labret by men, but I still cling to the opinion that they 
 could not distinguish a man from a woman, owing to the 
 attire. 
 
 Dixon also reported that the natives have a keen sense 
 of smell, which they quicken by the use of snakeroot. 
 One would naturally have supposed that they would have 
 hunted the forests through and through for some herb, 
 or some dark charm of witchcraft, that would have 
 dej^rived them utterly and forever of this sense, which is 
 so undesirable a possession to the person living or travel- 
 ling in Alaska. 
 
 The climate of Cook Inlet is more agreeable than that 
 of any other part of Alaska. In the low valleys near the 
 shore the soil is well adapted to the growing of fruits, 
 vegetables, and grain, and to the raising of stock and 
 chickens. Good butter and cheese are made, which, with 
 eggs, bring excellent prices. Roses and all but the ten- 
 derest flowers thrive, and berries grow large and of deli- 
 cious flavor, bearing abundantly. 
 
 " Awfully dreadful " scenes are not to be found. It is 
 a pleasure to confess, however, that many features, by 
 their beauty, splendor, and sublimity, fill the appreciative 
 beholder with awe and reverence. 
 
 The coal deposits of the region surrounding the inlet 
 are now known to be numerous and important. Coal is 
 found in Kachemak Bay, and Port Graham, at Tyonook, 
 and on Matanuska River, about fifty miles inland from 
 the head of the inlet. It is lignitic and bituminous, but 
 semi-anthracite has been found in the Matanuska Valley. 
 
 Lignitic coals have a very wide distribution, but have 
 been, as yet, mined only on Admiralty Island, at Homer
 
 308 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and Coal Ray in Cook Inlet, at Chignik and Unga, at 
 several points on the Yukon, and on Seward Peninsula. 
 
 The new railroad now building- from Cordova will open 
 up not only vast copper districts, but the richest and most 
 extensive oil and coal fields in Alaska, as well. 
 
 Semi-anthracite coal exists in commercial quantities, 
 so far as yet discovered, only at Comptroller Bay. A 
 tine quality of bituminous coal also exists there, extend- 
 ing inland for twenty-five miles on the northern tribu- 
 taries of Behring River and about thirty-five miles east 
 of Copper River, covering an area of about one hundred 
 and twenty square miles. 
 
 Southwestern Alaska includes the Cook Inlet region, 
 Kodiak and adjacent islands, Aliaska Peninsula, and the 
 Aleutian Islands. Coal, mostly of a lignitic character, 
 is widely distributed in all these districts. It has also 
 been discovered in different localities in the Sushitna Basin. 
 
 All coal used by the United States government's naval 
 vessels on the Pacific is purchased and transported there 
 from the East at enormous expense. Alaska has vast coal 
 deposits of an exceedingly fine quality lying undeveloped 
 in the Aliaskan Peninsula, two hundred miles farther west 
 than Honolulu, and directly on the route of steamers plying 
 from this country to the Orient. (It is not generallyknown 
 that the smoke of steamers on their way from Puget Sound 
 to Japan may be plainly seen on clear days at U nalaska.) 
 
 This coal is in the neighborhood of Portage Bay, where 
 there is a good harbor and a coaling station. It is reported 
 by geological survey experts to be as fine as Pocahontas 
 coal, and even higher in carbon. 
 
 Possibly, in time, the United States government may 
 awaken to a realization of the vast fortunes lying hidden 
 in the undeveloped, neglected, and even scorned resources 
 of Alaska, — not to mention the tremendous advantages of 
 being able to coal its war vessels with Pacific Coast coal.
 
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 f <*''*-'• , 
 
 
 
 r' 
 
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 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 309 
 
 During the spring of 1908 tlie Aluska-coal land situa- 
 tion was discouraging. A great area of rich coal-bearing 
 land had been withdrawn from entry, because of the 
 amazing presumption of the interior department that the 
 removal of prohibitive restrictions upon entrymen would 
 encourage the formation of monopolies in the mining and 
 marketing of coal. 
 
 Secretary Garfield at jfirst inclined strongly to the 
 opinion that the Alaska coal lands should be held by the 
 government for leasing purposes, and that there should 
 be a separate reservation for the navy ; and he has not 
 entirely abandoned this opinion. 
 
 The withdrawal of the coal lands from entry caused the 
 Copper River and Northwestern Railway Company to 
 discontinue all work on the Katalla branch of the road ; 
 nor will it resume until the question of title to the coal 
 lands is settled and the lands themselves admitted to 
 entry. 
 
 The fear of monopolies, which is making the interior 
 department uneasy, is said to have arisen from the fact 
 that it has been absolutely necessary for several entrymen 
 in a coal region to associate themselves together and com- 
 bine their claims, on account of the enormous expense of 
 opening and operating mines in that country. The sur- 
 veys alone, which, in accordance with an act passed in 
 1904, must be borne by the entryman, although this burden 
 is not imposed upon entrymen in the states, are so ex- 
 pensive, particularly in the Behring coal-fields near Katalla, 
 that an entryman cannot bear it alone ; while the expense 
 of getting provisions and tools from salt-water into the 
 interior is simply prohibitive to most locators, unless they 
 can combine and divide the expense. 
 
 These early discoverers and locators acted in good 
 faith. The lands were entered as coal lands ; there was 
 no fraud and no attempt at fraud ; not one person sought
 
 310 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 to take up coal land as homestead, nor with scrip, nor in 
 any fraudulent manner. 
 
 There was some carelessness in the observance of new 
 rules and regulations, but there was excuse for this in the 
 fact that Alaska is far from Congress and news travels 
 slowly ; also, it has been the belief of Alaskans that when 
 a man, after the infinite labor and deprivation necessary to 
 successful prospecting in Alaska, has found anything of 
 value on the public domain, he could aj)propriate it with 
 the surety that his right thereto would be recognized and 
 respected; and that any slight mistakes that might be 
 made technically would be condoned, provided that they 
 were honest ones and not made with the intent to defraud 
 the government. 
 
 The oldest coal mine in Alaska is located just within 
 the entrance to Cook Inlet, on tlie western shore, at Coal 
 Harbor. There, in the early fifties, the Russians began 
 extensive operations, importing experienced German min- 
 ers to direct a large force of Muscovite laborers sent from 
 Sitka, and running their machinery by steam. 
 
 Shafts were sunk, and a drift run into the vein for a 
 distance of one thousand seven hundred feet. During a 
 period of three years two thousand* seven hundred tons 
 of coal were mined, but the result was a loss to the enter- 
 prising Russians. 
 
 Its extent was practically unlimited, but the quality 
 was found to be too poor for the use of steamers. 
 
 It is only within the past three years that the fine qual- 
 ity of much of the coal found in Alaska has been made 
 known by government experts. 
 
 It was inconceivable that Congress should hesitate to 
 enact such laws as would help to develop Alaska ; yet it 
 was not until late in the spring that bills were passed which 
 greatly relieved the situation and insured the building of 
 the road upon which the future of this district depends.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Cook Inlet is so sheltered and is favored by a climate 
 so agreeable that it was called " Summer-land " by the 
 Russians. 
 
 Across Kachemak Bay from Seldovia is Homer — 
 another town of the inlet blessed with a poetic name. 
 When I landed at its wharf, in 1905, it was the saddest, 
 sweetest place in Alaska. It was but the touching phan- 
 tom of a town. 
 
 We reached it at sunset of a June day. 
 
 A low, green, narrow spit runs for several miles out 
 into the waters of the inlet, bordered by a gravelly beach. 
 Here is a railroad running eight miles to the Cook Inlet 
 coal-fields, a telephone line, roundhouses, machine-shops, 
 engines and cars, a. good wharf, some of the best store 
 buildings and residences in Alaska, — all painted white with 
 soft red roofs, and all deserted ! 
 
 On this low and lovely spit, fronting the divinely blue 
 sea and the full glory of the sunset, there was onl}^ one 
 human being, the postmaster. When the little Dora 
 swung lightly into the wharf, this poor lonely soul sliowed 
 a pitiable and patlietic joy at this fleeting touch of com- 
 panionship. We all went ashore and shook hands with 
 him and talked to him. Then we returned to our cabins 
 and carried him a share of all our daintiest luxuries. 
 
 When, after fifteen or twenty minutes, the Dora with- 
 drew slowly into the great Safrano rose of the sunset, 
 leaving him, a lonely, gray figure, on the wharf, the look 
 
 311
 
 312 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 on his face made us turn away, so that we could not see 
 one another's eyes. 
 
 It was like the look of a dog who stands helpless, lonely, 
 and cannot follow. 
 
 I have never been able to forget that man. He was so 
 gentle, so simple, so genuinely pleased and grateful — and 
 so lonely ! 
 
 As I write, Homer is once more a town, instead of a 
 phantom. 1 no longer picture him alone in those empty, 
 echoing, red-roofed buildings ; but one of my most vivid 
 and tormenting memories of Alaska is of a gray figure, 
 with a little pathetic stoop, going up the path from the 
 wharf, in the splendor of that June sunset, with his dog at 
 his side. 
 
 The Act of 1902, commonly known as the Alaska Game 
 Law, defines game, fixes open seasons, restricts the num- 
 ber which may be killed, declares certain methods of 
 hunting unlawful, prohibits the sale of hides, skins, or 
 heads at any time, and prohibts exjDort of game animals, or 
 birds — except for scientific purposes, for propagation, 
 or for trophies — under restrictions prescribed by the 
 Department of Agriculture. The law also authorizes the 
 Secretary of Agriculture, when such action shall be neces- 
 sary, to place further restrictions on killing in certain 
 regions. The importance of this provision is already ap- 
 parent. Owing to the fact that nearly all persons who 
 go to Alaska to kill big game visit a few easily accessible 
 localities — notably Kadiak Island, the Kenai Peninsula, 
 and the vicinity of Cook Inlet — it has become necessary 
 to protect the game of these localities by special regula- 
 tions, in order to prevent its speedy destruction. 
 
 The object of the act is to protect the game of the terri- 
 tory so far as possible from the mere " killer." but without 
 causing unnecessary hardship. Therefore, Indians, Eskimos,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 313 
 
 miners, or explorers actually in need of food, are per- 
 mitted to kill game for their immediate use. The excep- 
 tion in favor of natives, miners, and explorers must be 
 construed strictly. It must not be used merely as a pre- 
 text to kill game out of season, for sport or for market, or 
 to supply canneries or settlements ; and, under no circum- 
 stances, can the hides or heads of animals thus killed be 
 lawfully offered for sale. 
 
 Every person who has travelled in Alaska knows that 
 these laws are violated daily. An amusing incident oc- 
 curred on the Dora, on the first morning "to Westward" 
 from Seward. Far be it from me to eat anything that is 
 forbidden ; but I had seen fried moose steak in Seward. 
 It resembles slices of pure beef tenderloin, fried. 
 
 It chanced that at our first breakfast on the Dora I 
 found fried beef tenderloin on the bill of fare, and or- 
 dered it. Scarcely had I been served when in came the 
 gentleman from Boston, who, through his alert and insati- 
 able curiosity concerning all things Alaskan and his keen 
 desire to experience every possible Alaskan sensation, — 
 all with the greatest naivete and good humor, — had 
 endeared himself to us all on our long journey together. 
 
 " What's that ? " asked he, briskly, scenting a new 
 experience on my plate. 
 
 " Moose," said I, sweetly. 
 
 " Moose — moose ! " cried he, excitedly, seizing his bill 
 of fare. " I'll have some. Where is it ? I don't see it ! " 
 
 "■ Hush-h-h," said I, sternly. " It is not on the bill of 
 fare. It is out of season." 
 
 " Then how shall I get it ? " he cried, anxiously. " I 
 must have some." 
 
 " Tell the waiter to bring you the same that he brought 
 me." 
 
 When the dear, gentle Japanese, " Cliarlie," came to 
 serve him, he shamelessly pointed at my plate.
 
 314 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 " I'll have some of that," said he, mysteriously. 
 
 Charlie bowed, smiled like a seraph, and withdrew, to 
 return presently with a piece of beef tenderloin. 
 
 The gentleman from Boston fairly pounced upon it. 
 We all watched him expectantly. His expression changed 
 from anticipation to satisfaction, delight, rapture. 
 
 " That's the most delicious thing I ever ate," he burst 
 forth, presently. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said I. " Really, I was disap- 
 pointed. It tastes very much like beefsteak to me." 
 
 " Beefsteak ! " said he, scornfully. " It tastes no more 
 like beefsteak than pie tastes like cabbage ! What a pity 
 to waste it on one who cannot appreciate its delicate wild 
 flavor!" 
 
 Months afterward he sent me a marked copy of a Boston 
 newspaper, in which he had written enthusiastically of 
 the " rare, wild flavor, haunting as a poet's dream," of 
 the moose which he had eaten on the Dora. 
 
 In addition to the animals commonly regarded as game, 
 walrus and brown bear are protected; but existing laws 
 relating to the fur-seal, sea-otter, or other fur-bearing 
 animals are not affected. The act creates no close sea- 
 son for black bear, and contains no prohibition against 
 the sale or shipment of their skins or heads ; but those 
 of brown bear may be shipped only in accordance with 
 regulations. 
 
 The Act of 1908 amends the former act as follows : — 
 
 It is unlawful for any person in Alaska to kill any wild 
 game, animals, or birds, except during the following sea- 
 sons : north of latitude sixty-two degrees, brown bear 
 may be killed at any time ; moose, caribou, sheep, wal- 
 rus and sea-lions, from August 1 to December 10, inclu- 
 sive ; south of latitude sixty -two degrees, moose, caribou, 
 and mountain sheep, from August 20 to December 31, in- 
 clusive ; brown bear, from October 1 to July 1, inclusive ;
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 315 
 
 deer and mountain goats, from August 1 to February 1, 
 inclusive ; grouse, ptarmigan, shore birds, and water fowl, 
 from September 1 to March 1, inclusive. 
 
 The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized, whenever 
 he may deem it necessary for the preservation of game 
 animals or birds, to make and publish rules and regula- 
 tions which shall modify the close seasons established, or 
 to provide different close seasons for different parts of 
 Alaska, or to place further limitations and restrictions 
 on the killing of such animals or birds in any given lo- 
 cality, or to prohibit killing entirely for a period not 
 exceeding two years in such locality. 
 
 It is unlawful for any person at any time to kill any 
 females or yearlings of moose, or for any one person to 
 kill in one year more than the number specified of each 
 of the following game animals : Two moose, one walrus 
 or sea-lion, three caribou, sheep, or large brown bear ; 
 or to kill or have in his possession in any one day more 
 than twenty-five grouse or ptarmigan, or twenty-five shore 
 birds or water fowl. 
 
 The killing of caribou on the Kenai Peninsula is pro- 
 hibited until August 20, 1912. 
 
 It is unlawful for any non-resident of Alaska to hunt 
 any of the protected game animals, except deer and goats, 
 without first obtaining a hunting license; or to hunt on 
 the Kenai Peninsula without a registered guide, such 
 license not being transferable and valid only during the 
 year of issue. The fee for this license is fifty dollars to 
 citizens of the United States, and one hundred dollars to 
 foreigners; it is accompanied by coupons authorizing the 
 shipment of two moose, — if killed north of sixty-two 
 degrees, — four deer, three caribou, sheep, goats, brown 
 bear, or. any part of said animals, A resident of Alaska 
 may ship heads or trophies by obtaining a shipping license 
 for this purpose. A fee of forty dollars permits the ship-
 
 316 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ment of heads or trophies as follows: one moose, if killed 
 north of sixty-two degrees ; four deer, two caribou, two 
 sheep, goats, or brown bear. A fee of ten dollars permits 
 the shipment of a single head or trophy of caribou or 
 sheep; and one of five, that of goat, deer, or brown bear. 
 It costs just one hundred and fifty dollars to ship any part 
 of a moose killed south of sixty-two degrees. Further- 
 more, before any trophy may be shipped from Alaska, the 
 person desiring to make such shipment shall first make 
 and file with the customs office of the port where the ship- 
 ment is to be made, an affidavit to the effect that he has 
 not violated any of the provisions of this act ; that the 
 trophy has been neither bought nor sold, and is not to be 
 shipped for sale, and that he is the owner thereof. 
 
 The Governor of Alaska, in issuing a license, requires 
 the applicant to state whether the trophies are to be 
 shipped through the ports of entry of Seattle, Portland, or 
 San Francisco, and he notifies the collector at the given 
 port as to the name of the license holder, and name and 
 address of the consignee. 
 
 After reading these rigid laws, I cannot help wondering 
 whether the Secretary of Agriculture ever saw an Alaskan 
 mountain sheep. If he has seen one and should unex- 
 pectedly come across some poor wretch smuggling the 
 head of one out of Alaska, he would — unless his heart is 
 as hard as " stun-cancer," as an old lady once said — just 
 turn his eyes in another direction and refuse to see what 
 was not meant for his vision. 
 
 The Alaskan sheep does not resemble those of Montana 
 and other sheep countries. It is more delicate and far 
 more beautiful. There is a deerlike grace in the j)oise of 
 its head, a fine and sensitive outline to nostril and mouth, a 
 tenderness in the great dark eyes, that is at once startled 
 and appealing; while the wide, graceful sweep of the horns 
 is unrivalled.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 317 
 
 The head of the moose, as well as of tlie caribou, is impos- 
 ing, but coarse and ugly. TJie antlers of the delicate- 
 headed deer are pretty, but lack the power of the horns of 
 the Alaskan slieep. The Montana sheep's head is almost 
 as coarse as that of the moose. The dainty ears and 
 soft-colored hair of the Alaskan sheep are fawnlike. 
 From the Alaska Central trains near Lake Kenai, the 
 sheep may be seen feeding on the mountain that has been 
 named for them. 
 
 Cape Douglas, at the entrance to Cook Inlet, is the ad- 
 miration of all save the careful navigator who usually at 
 this point meets such distressing winds and tides that he 
 has no time to devote to the contemplation of scenery. 
 
 This noble promontory thrusts itself boldly out into the 
 sea for a distance of about three miles, where it sinks sheer 
 for a thousand feet to the pale green surf that breaks ever- 
 lastingly upon it. It is far more striking and imposing 
 than the more famous Cape Elizabeth on the eastern side 
 of the entrance to the inlet.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 The heavy forestation of the Northwest Coast ceases 
 finally at the Kenai Peninsula. Kadiak Island is sparsely 
 wooded in sylvan groves, with green slopes and valleys 
 between; but the islands lying beyond are bare of trees. 
 Sometimes a low, shrubby willow growth is seen; but for 
 the most part the thousands of islands are covered in 
 summer with grasses and mosses, which, drenched by fi'e- 
 quent mists and rain, are of a brilliant and dazzling green. 
 
 The Aleutian Islands drift out, one after another, 
 toward the coast of Asia, like an emerald rosary on the 
 blue breast of Behring Sea. The only tree in the Aleutian 
 Islands is a stunted evergreen growing at the gate of a 
 residence in Unalaska, on the island of the same name. 
 
 The prevailing atmospheric color of Alaska is a kind of 
 misty, rosy lavender, enchantingly blended from different 
 shades of violet, rose, silver, azure, gold, and green. The 
 water coloring changes hourly. One passes from a narrow 
 channel whose waters are of the most delicate green into a 
 wider reach of the palest blue; and from this into a gulf 
 of sun-flecked purple. 
 
 The summer voyage out among the Aleutian Islands is 
 lovely beyond all description. It is a sweet, dreamlike 
 drifting through a water world of rose and lavender, along 
 the pale green velvety hills of the islands. There are no 
 adjectives that will clearly describe this greenness to one 
 who has not seen it. It is at once so soft and so vivid; 
 it flames out like the dazzling green fire of an emerald, and 
 pales to the lighter green of the chr}' sophrase. 
 
 PA8
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 319 
 
 Marvellous sunset effects are frequently seen on these 
 waters. There was one which we saw in broad gulfs, 
 which gathered in a point on the purple water about 
 nine o'clock. Every color and shade of color burned 
 in this point, like a superb fire opal ; and from it were 
 flung rays of different coloring — so far, so close, so 
 mistily brilliant, and so tremulously ethereal, that in 
 shape and 'fabric it resembled a vast thistle-down blow- 
 ing before us on the water. Often we sailed directly 
 into it and its fragile color needles were shattered and 
 fell about us ; but immediately another formed farther 
 ahead, and trembled and throbbed until it, too, was 
 overtaken and shattered before our eyes. 
 
 At other times the sunset sank over us, about us, 
 and upon us, like a cloud of gold and scarlet dust that 
 is scented with coming rain ; but of all the different 
 sunset effects that are but memories now, the most un- 
 usual was a great mist of brilliant, vivid green just 
 touched with fire, that went marching down the wide 
 straits of Shelikoff late one night in June. 
 
 Early on the morning after leaving Cook Inlet, the 
 " early-decker " will find the Dora steaming lightly 
 past Afognak Island through the narrow channel sepa- 
 rating it from Marmot Island. This was the most sil- 
 very, divinely blue stretch of water I saw in Alaska, 
 with the exception of Behring Sea. The morning that 
 we sailed into Marmot Bay was an exceptionally suave 
 one in June ; and the color of the water may have 
 been due to the softness of the day. 
 
 We had passed Sea Lion Rocks, where hundreds of 
 these animals lie upon the rocky shelves, with lifted, 
 narrow heads, moving nervously from side to side in 
 serpent fashion, and whom a boat's whistle sends plung- 
 ing headlong into the sea. 
 
 The southern point of Marmot Island is the Cape St.
 
 320 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Hermogenes of Beliring, a name that has been perpetu- 
 ated to this day. The steamer passes between it and 
 PiUar Point, and at one o'clock of the same day through 
 the winding, ishmded harbor of Kadiak. 
 
 This settlement is on tlie island that won the heart 
 of John Burroughs wlien he visited it with the famous 
 Harriman Expedition — the Island of Kadiak. 
 
 I voyaged with a pilot who had accompanied the ex- 
 pedition. 
 
 "Those scientists, now," he said, musingly, one day 
 as he paced the bridge, with his hands behind him. 
 " They were a real study for a fellow like me. The 
 genuine big-bugs in that party were the finest gentle- 
 men you ever saw; but the little-hugs — sa}^ they put 
 on more dog than a bogus prince I They were always 
 demanding something they couldn't get and acting as 
 if they was afraid somebody might think they didn't 
 amount to anything. An officer on a ship can always 
 tell a gentleman in two minutes — his wants are so few 
 and his tastes so simple. John Burroughs? Oh, say, 
 every man on the ship liked Mr. Burroughs. I don't 
 know as you'd ought to call him a gentleman. You 
 see, gentlemen live on earth, and he was way up 
 above the earth — in the clouds, you know. He'd look 
 right through yon with the sweetest eyes, and never 
 see you. But flowers — well, Jeff Davis! Mr. Bur- 
 roughs could see a flower half a mile away ! You could 
 talk to him all day, and he wouldn't hear a word you 
 said to him, any more than if he was deef as a post. 
 I thought he was, the longest while. But Jeff Davis ! 
 just let a bird sing on shore when we were sailing 
 along close. His deefness wasn't particularly noticeable 
 then ! . . . He'd go ashore and dawdle 'way off from 
 everybody else, and come back with his arms full of 
 flowers."
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 321 
 
 Mr. Burroughs was charmed with the sylvan beauty 
 of Kadiak Island ; its pale blue, cloud-dappled skies and 
 deep blue, islanded seas ; its narrow, winding water- 
 ways ; its dimpled hills, silvery streams, and wooded 
 dells ; its acres upon acres of flowers of every variety, 
 hue and size ; its vivid green, grassy, and mossy slopes, 
 crests, and meadows ; its delightful air and singing birds. 
 
 He was equally charmed with Wood Island, which is 
 only fifteen minutes' row from Kadiak, and spent much 
 time in its melodious dells, turning his back upon both 
 islands with reluctance, and afterward writing of them 
 appreciative words which their people treasure in their 
 hearts and proudly quote to the stranger who reaches 
 those lovely shores. 
 
 The name Kadiak was originally Kaniag, the natives 
 calling themselves Kaniagists or Kaniagmuts. The is- 
 land was discovered in 1763, by Stephen Glottoff. 
 
 His reception by the natives was not of a nature to 
 warm the cockles of his heart. They approached in 
 their skin-boats, but his godson, Ivan Glottoff, a young 
 Aleut interpreter, could not make them understand him, 
 and they fled in apparent fear. 
 
 Some days later they returned with an Aleutian boy 
 whom they had captured in a conflict with the natives 
 of the Island of Sannakh, and he served as interpreter. 
 
 The natives of Kadiak differ greatly from those of 
 the Aleutian Islands, notwithstanding the fact that the 
 islands drift into one another. 
 
 The Kadiaks were more intelligent and ambitious, and 
 of much finer appearance, than the Aleutians. 
 
 They were of a fiercer and more warlike nature, and 
 refused to meet the friendly advances of Glottoff. The 
 latter, therefore, kept at some distance from the shore, 
 and a watch was set night and day.
 
 322 ALASKA : THE GBEAT COUNTRY 
 
 Nevertheless, the Kadiaks made an early-morning at- 
 tack, firing upon the watches with arrows and attempt- 
 ing to set fire to the ship. They fled in the wildest 
 disorder upon the discharge of firearms, scattering in 
 their flight ludicrous ladders, dried moss, and other ma- 
 terials with which they had expected to destroy the ship. 
 
 AVithin four days they made another attack, provided 
 with wooden shields to wai^d off the musket-balls. 
 
 They were again driven to the shore. At the end of 
 three weeks they made a third and last attack, protected 
 by immense breastworks, over which they cast spears and 
 arrows upon the decks. 
 
 As these shields appeared to be bullet-proof and the 
 natives continued to advance, Glottoff landed a body of 
 men and made a fierce attack, which had the desired 
 effect. The savages dropped their shields and fled from 
 the neighborhood. 
 
 When Von H. J. Holmberg was on the island, he per- 
 suaded an old native to dictate a narrative to an in- 
 terpreter, concerning the arrival of the first ship — which 
 was undoubtedly Glottoff's. This narrative is of poignant 
 interest, presenting, as it does, so simply and so eloquently, 
 the "other" point of view — that of the first inhabitant of 
 the country, which we so seldom hear. For this reason, 
 and for the charm of its style, I reproduce it in part: — 
 
 " I was a boy of nine or ten years, for I was already set 
 to paddle a bidarka, when the first Russian ship, with two 
 masts, appeared near Cape Aleulik. Before that time we 
 had never seen a ship. We had intercourse with the Ag- 
 legnutes, of the Aliaska Peninsula, with the Tnaianas of 
 the Kenai Peninsula, and with the Koloshes, of south- 
 eastern Alaska. Some wise men even knew something of 
 the Californias ; but of white men and their ships we knew 
 nothing. 
 
 " The ship looked like a great whale at a distance. We
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 323 
 
 went out to sea in our bidarkas, but we soon found that it 
 was no whale, but another unknown monster of which we 
 were afraid, and the smell of which made us sick." 
 
 (In all literature and history and real life, I know of 
 no single touch of unintentional humor so entirely deli- 
 cious as this: that any odor could make an Alaskan na- 
 tive, of any locality or tribe, sick ; and of all things, an 
 odor connected with a white person ! It appears that in 
 more ways than one this old native's story is of value.) 
 
 " The people on the ship had buttons on their clothes, 
 and at first we thought they must be cuttle-fish.'" (More 
 unintentional, and almost as delicious, humor !) " But 
 when we saw them put fire into their mouths and blow 
 out smoke we knew that they must be devils.''' 
 
 (Did any early navigator ever make a neater criticism 
 of the natives than these innocent ones of the first white 
 visitors to their shores ?^ 
 
 " The ship sailed by . . . into Kaniat, or Alitak, Bay, 
 where it anchored. We followed, full of fear, and at the 
 same time curious to see what would become of the strange 
 apparition, but we did not dare to approach the ship. 
 
 " Among our people was a brave warrior named Ishinik, 
 who was so bold tliat he feared nothing in the world ; lie 
 undertook to visit the ship, and came back with presents 
 in his hand, — a red shirt, an Aleut hood, and some glass 
 beads." (Glottoff describes this visit, and the gifts 
 bestowed.) 
 
 "He said there was nothing to fear; that they only 
 wished to buy sea-otter skins, and to give us glass beads 
 and other riches for them. We did not fully believe this 
 statement. The old and wise people held a council. 
 Some thought the strangers might bring us sickness. 
 
 " Our people formerly were at war with the Fox Island 
 people. My father once made a raid on Unalaska and 
 brought back, among other booty, a little girl left by her
 
 324 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 fleeing people. As a prisoner taken in war, she was our 
 slave, but my father treated her like a daughter, and 
 brought her up with his own children. We called her 
 Plioo, which means ashes, because she was taken from 
 the ashes of her home. On the Russian ship which came 
 from Unalaska were many Aleuts, and among them the 
 father of our slave. He came to my father's house, and 
 when he found that his daughter was not kept like a slave, 
 but was well cared for, he told him confidentially, out of 
 gratitude, that the Russians would take the sea-otter 
 skins without payment, if they could. 
 
 "This warning saved my father. The Russians came 
 ashore with the Aleuts, and the latter persuaded our peo- 
 ple to trade, saying, ' Why are you afraid of the Russians ? 
 Look at us. We live with them, and they do us no harm.' 
 
 " Our people, dazzled by the sight of such quantities of 
 goods, left their weapons in the bidarkas and went to the 
 Russians with the sea-otter skins. While they were busy 
 trading, the Aleuts, who carried arms concealed about 
 them, at a signal from the Russians, fell upon our people, 
 killing about thirty and taking away their sea-otter skins. 
 A few men had cautiously watched the result of the first 
 intercourse from a distance — among them my father." 
 (The poor fellow told this proudly, not understanding 
 that he thus confessed a shameful and cowardly act on 
 his father's part.) 
 
 " These attempted to escape in their bidarkas, but they 
 were overtaken by the Aleuts and killed. My father 
 alone was saved by the father of his slave, who gave him 
 his bidarka when my father's own had been pierced by 
 arrows and was sinking. 
 
 " In this he fled to Akhiok. My father's name was 
 Penashigak. The time of the arrival of this ship was 
 August, as the whales were coming into the bays, and 
 the berries were ripe.
 
 Photo by J. Dr.o.lv, I):nvson 
 
 A Home ix the Yikon
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 325 
 
 " The Russians remained for the winter, but could not 
 find sufficient food in Kaniat Bay. They were compelled 
 to leave the ship in charge of a few watchmen and moved 
 into a bay opposite Aiakhtalik Island. Here was a lake 
 full of herrings and a kind of smelt. They lived in tents 
 through the winter. The brave Ishinik, who first dared 
 to visit the ship, was liked by the Russians, and acted as 
 mediator. When the fish decreased in the lake during 
 the winter, the Russians moved about from place to place. 
 Whenever we saw a boat coming, at a distance, we fled to 
 the hills, and when we returned, no dried fish could be 
 found in the houses. 
 
 "In the lake near the Russian camp there was a poison- 
 ous kind of starfish. We knew it very well, but said 
 nothing about it to the Russians. We never ate them, 
 and even the gulls would not touch them. Many Rus- 
 sians died from eating them. We injured them, also, 
 in other ways. They put up fox-traps, and we removed 
 them for the sake of obtaining the iron material. The 
 Russians left during the following year." 
 
 This native's name was Arsenti Aminak. There are 
 several slight discrepancies between his narrative and 
 Glottoff's account, especially as to time. He does not 
 mention the hostile attacks of his people upon the Rus- 
 sians ; and these differences puzzle Bancroft and make 
 him sceptical concerning the veracity of the native's 
 account. 
 
 It is barely possible, however, that Glottoff imagined 
 these attacks, as an excuse for his own merciless slaughter 
 of the Kadiaks. 
 
 As to the discrepancy in time, it must be remembered 
 that Arsenti Aminak was an old man when he related the 
 events which had occurred when he was a young lad of 
 nine or ten. White lads of that age are not possessed of 
 vivid memories ; and possibly the little brown lad, just
 
 326 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 "set to paddle a bidarka," was not more brilliant than his 
 white brothers. 
 
 It is wiser to trust the word of the early native than 
 that of the early navigator — witli a few illustrious excep- 
 tions. 
 
 Kadiak is the second in size of Alaskan islands, — 
 Prince of Wales Island in southeastern Alaska being 
 slightly larger, — and no island, unless it be Baranoff, is 
 of more historic interest and charm. It was from this 
 island that Gregory Shelikoff and his capable wife directed 
 the vast and profitable enterprises of the Shelikoff Com- 
 pany, having finally succeeded, in 1784, in making the 
 lirst permanent Russian settlement in America at Three 
 Saints Bay, on tlie southeastern coast of this island. 
 Barracks, offices, counting-houses, storehouses, and shops 
 of various kinds were built, and the settlement was 
 guarded against native attack by two armed vessels. 
 
 It was here that the first missionary establishment and 
 school of the Northwest Coast of America were located ; 
 and here was built the iirst great warehouse of logs. 
 
 Shelikoff 's welcome from the fierce Kadiaks, in 1784, 
 was not more cordial than Glottoff's had been. His ships 
 were repeatedly attacked, and it was not until he had fired 
 upon them, causing great loss of life and general conster- 
 nation among them, that he obtained possession of the 
 harbor. 
 
 Shelikoff lost no time in preparing for permanent occu- 
 pancy of the island. Dwellings and fortifications were 
 erected. His own residence was furnished with all the 
 comforts and luxuries of civilization, which he collected 
 from his ships, for the purpose of inspiring the natives 
 with respect for a superior mode of living. They watched 
 the construction of buildings with great curiosity, and at 
 last volunteered their own services in the work.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTBY 327 
 
 Shelikoff personally conducted a school, endeavoring to 
 teach both children and adults the Russian language and 
 arithmetic, as well as religion. 
 
 In 1796 Father Juvenal, a young Russian priest who 
 had been sent to the colonies as a missionary, wrote as 
 follows concerning his work : — 
 
 " With the help of God, a school was opened to-day at 
 this place, the first since the attempt of the late Mr. Sheli- 
 koff to instruct the natives of this neighborhood. Eleven 
 boys and several grown men were in attendance. When 
 I read prayers they seemed very attentive, and were 
 evidently deeply impressed, although they did not under- 
 stand the language. . . . When school was closed, I 
 went to the river with my boys, and u'ith the help of God " 
 (the italics are mine) " we caught one hundred and 
 three salmon of large size." 
 
 The school prospered and was giving entire satisfaction 
 when Baranoff transferred Father Juvenal to Iliamna, on 
 Cook Inlet. 
 
 We now come to what has long appealed to me as the 
 most tragic and heart-breaking stor}^ of all Alaska — the 
 story of Father Juvenal's betrayal and death at Iliamna. 
 
 Of his last Sabbath's work at Three Saints, Father Ju- 
 venal wrote : — 
 
 " We had a very solemn and impressive service this 
 morning. Mr. Baranoff and officers and sailors from the 
 ship attended, and also a large number of natives. We 
 had fine singing, and a congregation with great outward 
 appearance of devotion. I could not help but marvel at 
 Alexander Alexandreievitch (Baranoff), who stood there 
 and listened, crossing himself and giving the responses at 
 the proper time, and joined in the singing with the same 
 hoarse voice with which he was shouting obscene songs 
 the night before, when I saw him in the midst of a 
 drunken carousal with a woman seated on his lap. I dis-
 
 328 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 pensed with services in the afternoon, l)e(.'ause the traders 
 were drunk again, and might have disturbed us and dis- 
 gusted the natives." 
 
 Father Juvenal's pupils were removed to Pavlovsk and 
 placed under the care of Father German, who had recently 
 opened a school there. 
 
 The priestly missionaries were treated with scant cour- 
 tesy by Baranoff, and ceaseless and bitter were the com- 
 plaints they made against him. On tlie voyage to Iliamna, 
 Father Juvenal complains that he was compelled to sleep 
 in the hold of the brigantine Catherine, between bales of 
 goods and piles of dried fish, because the cabin was occupied 
 by Baranoff and his party. 
 
 In his foul quarters, by the light of a dismal lantern, 
 he wrote a portion of his famous journal, which has be- 
 come a most precious human document, unable to sleep 
 on account of the ribald songs and drunken revelry of 
 the cabin. 
 
 He claims to have been constantly insulted and humili- 
 ated by Baranoff during the brief voyage ; and finally, at 
 Pavlovsk, he was told that he must depend upon bidarkas 
 for the remainder of the voyage to the Gulf of Kenai ; 
 and after that to the robbers and murderers of the Lebe- 
 def Company. 
 
 The vicissitudes, insults, and actual suffering of the voy- 
 age are vividly set forth in his journal. It was the 16th 
 of July when he left Kadiak and the 3d of September 
 when he finally reached Iliamna — having journeyed by 
 barkentine to Pavlovsk, by bidarka from island to island 
 and to Cook Inlet, and over the mountains on foot. 
 
 He was hospitably received by Shakmut, tlie chief, who 
 took him into his own house and promised to build one 
 especially for him. A boy named Nikita, who had been 
 a hostage with the Russians, acted as interpreter, and was 
 later presented to Father Juvenal.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 329 
 
 This young missionary seems to liave been more zealous 
 than diplomatic. Immediately upon discovering that the 
 boy had never been baptized, he performed that ceremony, 
 to the astonishment of the natives, who considered it some 
 dark practice of witchcraft. 
 
 Juvenal relates with great naivete that a pretty young 
 woman asked to have the same ceremony performed upon 
 her, that she, too, might live in the same house with the 
 young priest. 
 
 The most powerful shock that he received, however, 
 before the one that led to his death, he relates in the fol- 
 lowing simple language, under date of September 5, two 
 days after his arrival : — 
 
 " It will be a relief to get away from the crowded house 
 of the chief, where persons of all ages and sexes mingle 
 without any regard to decency or morals. To my utter 
 astonishment, Shakmut asked me last night to share the 
 couch of one of his wives. He has three or four. I sup- 
 pose such abomination is the custom of the country, and 
 he intended no insult. God gave me grace to over- 
 come my indignation, and to decline the offer in a friendly 
 and dignified manner. My first duty, when I have some- 
 what mastered the language, shall be to preacli against 
 such wicked practices, but I could not touch upon such 
 subjects through a boy interpreter." 
 
 The severe young priest carried out his intentions so 
 zealously that the cliief and his friends were offended. 
 He commanded them to put awa}^ all their wives but 
 one. 
 
 They had marvelled at his celibacy ; but they felt, with 
 the rigid justice of the savage, that, if absolutely sincere, 
 he was entitled to their respect. 
 
 However, they doubted his sincerity, and plotted to 
 satisfy their curiosity upon this point. A young Iliamna 
 girl was bribed to conceal herself in his room. Awaking
 
 330 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 in the middle of the night and finding himself in her arms, 
 the young priest was unable to overcome temptation. 
 
 In the morning he was overwlielmed with remorse and 
 a sense of his disgrace. He remembered how haughtily 
 he had spurned Shakmut's offer of peculiar hospitality, 
 and how mercilessly he had criticised Baranoff for his 
 immoral carousals. Remembering these things, as well 
 as the ease with which his own downfall had been ac- 
 complished, he was overcome with shame. 
 
 " What a terrible blow this is to all my recent hopes ! " 
 he wrote, in his pathetic account of the affair in his 
 journal. " As soon as I regained my senses, I drove the 
 woman out, but I felt too guilty to be very harsh with 
 her. How can I hold up my head among the people, who, 
 of course, will hear of this affair? . . . God is my witness 
 that I have set down the truth here in the face of any- 
 thing that may be said about it hereafter. I have kept 
 myself secluded to-day from everybody. I have not ^-et 
 the strength to face the world." 
 
 When Juvenal did face the small world of Iliamna, it 
 was to be openly ridiculed and insulted by all. Young 
 girls tittered when he went by ; his own boys, whom he 
 had taught and baptized, mocked him ; a girl put her 
 head into his room when he was engaged in fastening a 
 heavy bar upon his door, and laughed in his face. Shak- 
 mut came and insisted that Juvenal should baptize his 
 several wives the following Sunday. This he had been 
 steadily refusing to do, so long as they lived in daily sin ; 
 but now, disgraced, broken in spirit, and no longer able 
 to say, " I am holier than thou,''' he wearily consented. 
 
 "I shall not shrink from my duty to make him relin- 
 quisli all but one wife, however," he wrote, with a last 
 flash of his old spirit, "when the proper time arrives. If 
 I wink at poh'gamy now, I shall be forever unable to 
 combat it. Perhaps it is only my imagination, but I
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 331 
 
 think I can discover a lack of respect in Nikita's behavior 
 toward me since 3'esterday. . . . My disgrace has become 
 public already, and I am laughed at wherever I go, espe- 
 cially by the women. Of course, they do not understand 
 the sin, but rather look upon it as a good joke. It will 
 require great firmness on my part to regain the respect I 
 have lost for myself, as well as on behalf of the Church. 
 I have vowed to burn no fuel in ray bedroom during the 
 entire winter, in order to chastise ray body — a mild pun- 
 ishment, indeed, compared to the blackness of my sin." 
 
 The following day was the Sabbath. It was with a 
 heavy heart that he baptized Katlewah, the brother of the 
 chief, and his family, the three wives of the chief, seven 
 children, and one aged couple. 
 
 The same evening he called on the chief and surprised 
 him in a wild carousal with his wives, in which he was 
 jeeringly invited to join. 
 
 Forgetting his disgrace and his loss of the right to con- 
 demn for sins not so black as his own, the enraged young 
 priest vigorously denounced them, and told the chief that 
 he raust marry one of the women according to the rites of 
 the Church and put away the others, or be forever damned. 
 The chief, equally enraged, ordered him out of the house. 
 On his way home he met Katlewah, who reproached him 
 because his religious teachings had not benefited Shakraut, 
 who was as immoral as ever. 
 
 The end was now rapidly approaching. On September 
 29, less than a month after his arrival, he wrote : " The 
 chief and his brother have both been here this raoi'ning 
 and abused me sharaefully. Their language I could not 
 understand, but they spat in my face and, what was 
 worse, upon the sacred images on the walls. Katlewah 
 seized my vestments and carried them off, and I was left 
 bleeding from a blow struck by an ivory club. Nikita 
 has washed and bandaged ray wounds ; but from his anx-
 
 332 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ious manner I can see that I am still in danger. The other 
 boys have run away. My wound pains me so that I can 
 scarcely — " 
 
 The rest is silence. Nikita, who escaped with Juvenal's 
 journal and papers and delivered them to the revered and 
 beloved Veniaminoff, relates that the young priest was 
 here fallen upon and stabbed to death by his enemies. 
 
 Many different versions of this pathetic tragedy are given. 
 I have chosen Bancroft's because he seems to have gone 
 more deeply and painstakingly into the small details that 
 add the touch of human interest than any other historian. 
 
 The vital interest of the story, however, lies in what no 
 one has told, and what, therefore, no one but the romancer 
 can ever tell. 
 
 It lies between the written lines ; it lies in the imagina- 
 tion of this austere young priest's remorseful suffering for 
 his sin. There is no sign that he realized — too late, as 
 usual — his first sin of intolerant criticism and condemna- 
 tion of the sins of others. But neither did he spare him- 
 self, nor shrink from the terrible results of his downfall, so 
 unexpected in his lofty and almost flaunting virtue. He 
 was ready, and eager, to chastise his flesh to atone for his 
 sin; and probably only one who has spent a winter in 
 Alaska could comprehend fully the hourly suffering that 
 would result from a total renouncement of fuel for the 
 long, dark period of winter. 
 
 Veniaminoff was of the opinion that the assassination 
 was caused not so much by his preaching against polygamy 
 as by the fact that the chiefs, having given him their chil- 
 dren to educate at Kadiak, repented of their action, and 
 being unable to recover them, turned against him and slew 
 him as a deceiver, in their ignorance. During the fatal 
 attack upon him, it is said, Juvenal never thought of flight or 
 self-defence, but surrendered himself into their hands with- 
 out resistance, asking only for mercy for his companions.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 In 1792 Baranoff having risen to the command of 
 the Shelikoff-Golikoff Company, decided to transfer the 
 settlement of Three Saints to the northern end of the 
 ishmd, as a more central location for the distribution of 
 supplies. To-day only a few crumbling ruins remain to 
 mark the site of the first Russian settlement in America 
 — an event of such vital historic interest to the United 
 States that a monument should be erected there by this 
 country. 
 
 The new settlement was named St. Paul, and was 
 situated on Pavlovsk Bay, the present site of Kadiak. 
 The great warehouse, built of logs, and other ancient 
 buildings still remain. 
 
 It was during the year of Father Juvenal's death — 
 1796 — that the first Russo-Greek church was erected 
 at St. Paul. It was about this time that the conversion 
 of twelve thousand natives in the colonies was reported 
 by Father Jossaph. This amazing statement could only 
 have been made after one of Baranoff's banquets — to 
 which the astute governor, desiring that a favorable 
 report should be sent to St. Petersburg, doubtless bade 
 the half-starved priest. 
 
 For the Russian-American Company the Kadiaks and 
 Aleuts were obliged to hunt and work, at the will of the 
 officers, and to sell all their furs to the company, at 
 prices established by the latter. 
 
 333
 
 334 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Baranoff, for a time after beconuiig Chief Director, 
 resided in Kodiak. All persons and affairs in the colonies 
 were under his control ; his authority was absolute, his 
 decision linal, unless appeal was made to tlie Directory 
 at Irkutsk; and it was almost impossible for an appeal 
 to reach Irkutsk. 
 
 To-day in Kodiak, as in Sitka, the old and the new 
 mingle. Some of the old sod-houses remain, and many 
 that were built of logs; but the majority of the dwellings 
 are modern frame structures, painted white and present- 
 ing a neat appearance, in striking contrast to many of 
 the settlements of Alaska where natives reside. 
 
 The Greek-Russian church shines white and attractive 
 against the green background of the hill. It is sur- 
 rounded by a white fence and is shaded by trees. 
 
 I called at the priest's residence and was hospitably 
 received by his wife, an intelligent, dark-eyed native 
 woman. The interior of the church is interesting, but 
 lacks the charm and rich furnishings of the one at Sitka. 
 There is a chime of bells in the steeple ; and both steeple 
 and dome are surmounted by the peculiar Greek-Russian 
 cross which is everywhere seen in Alaska. It has two 
 short transverse bars, crossing the vertical shaft, one above 
 and one below the main transverse bar, the lower always 
 slanting. 
 
 The natives of Kodiak are more highly civilized than 
 in other parts of Alaska. The offsj^ring of Russian 
 fathers and native mothers have frequently married into 
 white or half-breed families, and the strain of dark blood 
 in the offspring uf these later marriages is difficult to 
 discern. 
 
 I travelled on the Dora with a woman whose father 
 had been a Russian priest, married J^o a native woman 
 at Belkoffski. She had been sent to California for a 
 number of years, and returning, a graduate of a normal
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 335 
 
 school, had married a Russian. She had a comfortable, 
 well-furnished home, and her husband appeared extremely 
 fond and proud of her. Her children were as white as 
 any Russian I have ever seen. 
 
 A Russian priest must marry once ; but if his wife 
 dies, he cannot marry again. 
 
 This law fills my soul with an unholy delight. It 
 persuades a man to appreciate his wife's virtues and to 
 condone her faults. Whatever may be her sins in sight 
 of him and heaven, she is the only one, so far as he is 
 concerned. It must be she, or nobody, to the end of his 
 days. She may fill his soul with rage, but he may not 
 even relieve his feelings by killing her. 
 
 The result of this unique religious law is that Russian 
 priests are uncommonly kind and indulgent to their wives. 
 
 "■ Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," said one who was on the 
 Dora, in answer to a question, " I have a wife. She 
 lives in Paris, where my daughter is receiving her educa- 
 tion, lam going this year to visit them. Yes, yes, yes." 
 
 However, with all the petting and indulgence which 
 the Russian priest lavishes upon his wife, if what I heard 
 be true, — that he is permitted neither to cut nor to 
 wash his hair and beard, — God wot she is welcome to 
 him. 
 
 The old graveyard on the hill above Kodiak tempts 
 the visitor, and one may loiter among the old, neglected 
 graves with no fear of snakes in the tall, thick grasses. 
 
 At first, a woman receives the statement that there are 
 no snakes in Alaska with open suspicion. It has the 
 sound of an Alaskan joke. 
 
 When I first heard it, I was unimpressed. We were 
 nearing a fine field of red-top, already waist-high, and 
 I waited for the gentleman from Boston, who believed 
 everything he heard, and imagined far more, to go 
 prancing innocently through the field.
 
 336 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 He went — unhesitatingly, joyously; giving praise to 
 God for his blessings — as, he vowed, he loved to ramble 
 through deep grass, yet would rather meet a hippopota- 
 mus alone in a mire than a garter-snake five inches long. 
 The field was the snakiest-looking place imaginable, and 
 when he had passed safely through, I began to have faith 
 in the Alaskan snake story. 
 
 The climate of Kadiak Island is delightful. The island 
 is so situated that it is fully exposed to the equalizing 
 influences of the Pacific. The mean annual temperature 
 is four degrees lower than at Sitka, and there is twenty 
 per cent less rainfall. 
 
 The coast of Alaska is noted for its rainfall and cloady 
 weather. Its precipitation is to be compared only to that 
 of the coast of British Columbia, Washington, and Ore- 
 gon ; and it will surprise many people to learn that it is 
 exceeded in the latter district. 
 
 The heaviest annual rainfall occurs at Nutchek, with a 
 decided drop to Fort Tongass ; then, Orca, Juneau, Sitka, 
 and Fort Liscum. Fort Wrangell, Killisnoo, and Kodiak 
 stand next ; while Tyonok, Skaguay, and Kenai record 
 only from fifteen to twenty-five inches. 
 
 Kadiak Island is a hundred miles long by about forty 
 in width. Its relief is comparatively low — from three to 
 five thousand feet — and it has many broad, open valleys, 
 gently rounded slopes, and wooded dells. 
 
 Lisiansky was told that the Kadiak group of islands 
 was once separated from the Aliaska Peninsula by the 
 tiniest ribbon of water. An immense otter, in attempt- 
 ing to swim through this pass, was caught fast and could 
 not extricate itself. Its desperate struggles for freedom 
 widened the pass into the broad sweep of water now 
 known as the Straits of Shelikoff, and pushed the islands 
 out to their present position. This legend strengthens 
 the general belief that the islands were once a part of the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 337 
 
 peninsula, having been separated therefrom by one of the 
 mighty upheavals, with its attendant depression, which 
 are constantly taking place. 
 
 A native myth is that the original inhabitants were 
 descended from a dog. Another legend is to the effect 
 that the daughter of a great chief north of the peninsula 
 married a dog and was banished with her dog-husband and 
 whelps. The dog tried to swim back, but was drowned, 
 his pups then falling upon the old chief and, having torn 
 him to pieces, reigning in his stead. 
 
 In 1791 Shelikoff reported the population of Kadiak 
 Island to be fifty thousand, the exaggeration being for 
 the purpose of enhancing the value of his operations. In 
 1795 the first actual census of Kadiak showed eighteen 
 hundred adult native males, and about the same number 
 of females. To-day there are probably not five hundred. 
 
 I have visited Kadiak Island in June and in July. On 
 both occasions the weather was perfect. Clouds that 
 were like broken columns of pearl pushed languorously 
 up through the misty gold of the atmosphere ; the long 
 slopes of the hillside were vividly green in the higher 
 lights, but sank to the soft dark of dells and hollows ; 
 here and there shone out acres of brilliant bloom. 
 
 To one climbing the hill behind the village, island be- 
 yond island drifted into view, with blue water-ways wind- 
 ing through velvety labyrinths of green ; and, beyond all, 
 the strong, limitless sweep of the ocean. The winds 
 were but the softest zephyrs, touching the face and hair 
 like rose petals, or other delicate, visible things ; and, the 
 air was fragrant with things that grow day and night and 
 that fling their splendor forth in one riotous rush of 
 bloom. Shaken through and through their perfume was 
 that thrilling, indescriljable sweetness which abides in 
 vast spaces where snow mountains glimmer and the opal- 
 ine palisades of glaciers shine.
 
 338 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 It is a view to quicken the blood, and to inspire an 
 American to give silent thanks to God that this rich and 
 peerlessly beautiful country is ours. 
 
 After the transfer, the village of Kodiak was the head- 
 quarters of the Alaska Commercial Company and the 
 Western Fur and Trading Company. The former com- 
 pany still maintains stores and warehouses at this point. 
 The house in which the manager resides occupies a com- 
 manding site above the bay. It is historic and commodi- 
 ous, and large house-parties are entertained with lavish 
 hospitality by Mr. and Mrs. Goss, visitors gathering there 
 from adjacent islands and settlements. 
 
 There are dances, " when the boats are in," in which 
 the civilized native girls join with a kind of repressed joy 
 that reminds one of New England. They dress well and 
 dance gracefully. Their soft, dark glances over their 
 partners' shoulders haunt even a woman dreamily. A 
 century's silently and gently borne wrongs smoulder now 
 and then in the deep eyes of some beautiful, dark-skinned 
 
 Kodiak is clean. One can stand on the hills and 
 breathe. 
 
 For several years after the transfer a garrison of United 
 States troops was stationed there. Bridges were built 
 across the streams tliat flow down through the town, and 
 culverts to drain the marshes. Many of these improve- 
 ments have been carelessly destroyed with the passing of 
 the years, but their early influence remains. 
 
 So charming and so idyllic did this island seem to the 
 Russians that it was with extreme reluctance they moved 
 their capital to Sitka when the change was considered 
 necessary. 
 
 We were rowed by native boys across the satiny chan- 
 nel to Wood Island, where Reverend C. P. Coe conducts 
 a successful Baptist Orphanage for native children. Mr.
 
 ALASKA: TUB GREAT COUNTRY 339 
 
 Coe was not at home, but we were cordially received by 
 Mrs. Coe and three or four assistants. Wood Island, or 
 Woody, as it was once called, is as lovely as Kadiak ; the 
 site for the buildings of the Orphanage being particularly 
 attractive, surrounded as it is by groves and dells. 
 
 There was a pale green, springlike freshness folded 
 over the gently rolling hills and hollows that was as en- 
 trancing as the first green mist that floats around the 
 leafing alders on Puget Sound in March. 
 
 The Orphanage was established in 1893 by the Woman's 
 American Baptist Home Mission Society of Boston, and 
 the first child was entered in that year. Mr. Coe assumed 
 charge of the Orphanage in 1895, and about one hundred 
 and thirty children have been educated and cared for un- 
 der his administration. They have come from the east 
 as far as Kayak, and from the west as far as Unga. At 
 present there is but one other Baptist Mission lield in 
 Alaska — at Copper Centre. 
 
 The purpose of the work is to provide a Christian 
 home and training for the destitute and friendless ; to 
 collect children, that they may receive an education ; and 
 to give industrial training so far as possible. 
 
 There were forty-two children in the home at the time 
 of our visit, and there was a full complement of helpers 
 in the work, including a physician. 
 
 The regular industrial work consists of all kinds of 
 housework for the girls. Everything that a woman who 
 keeps house should know is taught to these girls. The 
 boys are taught to plough and sow, to cultivate and har- 
 vest the crops, to raise vegetables, to care for stock and 
 poultry. Twenty-five acres are under cultivation, and the 
 hardier (Trains and vegetables are grown with fair success. 
 
 Potatoes yield two hundred and fifty bushels to the 
 acre ; and barley, fort}^ bushels. Cattle and poultry 
 thrive and are of exceeding value, fresh milk and vege-
 
 340 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tables being better than medicines for the welfare of the 
 children. Angora goats require but little care and yield 
 excellent fleece each year. 
 
 The most valuable features of the work are the religious 
 training ; the furnishing of a comfortable home, warm 
 clothing, clean and wholesome food of sufficient quantity, 
 to children who have been rescued from vice and the 
 most repulsive squalor ; the atmosphere of industry, 
 cleanliness, kindness, and love ; and the medical care fur- 
 nished to those who may be suffering because of the vices 
 of their ancestors. 
 
 This excellent work is supported by offerings from the 
 Baptist Sunday Schools of New England, and by contribu- 
 tions from the society with the yard-long name by which 
 it was established. 
 
 We were offered most delicious ginger-cake with nuts 
 in it and big goblets of half milk and half cream ; and we 
 were not surprised that the shy, dark-skinned children 
 looked so happy and so well cared for. We saw their 
 schoolrooms, their play rooms, and their bedrooms, with 
 the little clean cots ranged along the walls. 
 
 The children were shy, but made friends with us read- 
 ily ; and holding our hands, led the way to the dells 
 where the violets grew. They listened to stories with 
 large-eyed interest, and were, in general, bright, well- 
 mannered, and attractive children. 
 
 It was on Wood Island that the famous and mysterious 
 ice-houses of the American-Russian Ice Company, whose 
 headquarters were in San Francisco, were located. Their 
 ruins still stand on the shore, as well as the deserted 
 buildings of the North American Commercial Company, 
 whose headquarters were here for many years — the furs 
 of the Copper River and Kenai regions having been 
 brought here to be shipped to San Francisco. 
 
 The operations of the ice company were shrouded in
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 341 
 
 mystery, many claiming that not a pound of ice was ever 
 shipped to the California seaport from Wood Island. 
 Other authorities, however, atfirm that at one time large 
 quantities of ice were shipped to the southern port, and 
 that the agent of the company lived on Wood Island in a 
 manner as autocratic and princely as that of Baranoff 
 himself. The Avhole island was his park and game pre- 
 serve ; and one of the first roads ever built in Alaska was 
 constructed here, comprising the circuit of the island, a 
 distance of about thirteen miles. 
 
 There is a Greek-Russian church and mission on the 
 island. 
 
 Not far from Wood Island is Spruce. 
 
 " Here," says Tikhmenef, " died the last member of the 
 first clerical mission, the monk Herman. During his life- 
 time Father Herman built near his dwelling a school for 
 the daughters of the natives, and also cultivated potatoes."' 
 
 Bancroft pokes fun at this obituary. The growing of 
 potatoes, however, at that time in Alaska must have been 
 of far greater value than any ordinary missionary work. 
 Better to cultivate potatoes than to teach a lot of wretched 
 beings to make the sign of the cross and dabble themselves 
 with holy water — and it is said that this is all the aver- 
 age priest taught a hundred years ago, the jDoor natives 
 not being able to understand the Russian language. 
 
 The Kadiak Archipelago consists of Kadiak, Afognak, 
 Tugidak, Sitkinak, Marmot, Wood, Spruce, Chirikoff 
 (named by Vancouver for the explorer who discovered it 
 upon his return journey to Kamchatka), and several 
 smaller ones. They are all similar in appearance, but 
 smaller and less fertile than Kadiak. A small group 
 northwest of Chirikoff is named the Semidi Islands. 
 
 There is a persistent legend of a " lost " island in the 
 Pacific, to the southward of Kadiak.
 
 3-1:2 ALASKA: THE GBEAT COUNTRY 
 
 When the Russian missionaries first came to the colo- 
 nies in America, they found the natives living "as the 
 seals and the otters lived." They were absolutely with- 
 out moral understanding, and simply followed their own 
 instincts and desires. 
 
 These missionaries were sent out in 1794, by command 
 of the Empress Catherine the Second; and by the time of 
 Sir George Simpson's visit in 1842, their influence had 
 begun to show beneficial results. An Aleutian and his 
 daughter who had committed an unnatural crime suddenly 
 found themelves, because of the drawing of new moral 
 lines, ostracized from the society in which they had been 
 accustomed to move unchallenged. They stole awa}^ by 
 night in a bidarka, and having paddled steadily to the 
 southward for four days and nights they sighted an island 
 which had never been discovered by white man or dark. 
 They landed and dwelt upon this island for a year. 
 
 Upon their return to Kadiak and their favorable report 
 of their lone, beautiful, and sea-surrounded retreat, a 
 vessel was despatched in search of it, but without success. 
 
 To this day it is " Lost " Island. Many have looked 
 for it, but in vain. It is the sailor's dream, and is sup- 
 posed to be rich in treasure. Its streams are yellow with 
 gold, its mountains green with copper glance; ambergris 
 floats on the waters surrounding it ; and all the seals and 
 sea-otters that have been frightened out of the north sun 
 themselves, unmolested, upon its rocks and its floating 
 strands of kelp. 
 
 One day it will rise out of the blue Pacific before the 
 wondering eyes of some fortunate wanderer — even as the 
 Northwest Passage, for whose sake men have sailed and 
 suffered and failed and died for four hundred years, at 
 last opened an icy avenue before the amazed and unbeliev- 
 ing eyes of the dauntless Amundsen.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 Leaving Kodiak, the steamer soon reaches Afognak, on 
 the island of the same name. There is no wharf at this 
 settlement, and we were rowed ashore. 
 
 We were greatly interested in this place. The previous 
 year we had made a brief voyage to Alaska. On our 
 steamer was an unmarried lady who was going to Afognak 
 as a missionary. She was to be the only white woman on 
 the island, and she had entertained us with stories which 
 she had heard of a very dreadful and wicked saloon- 
 keeper who had lived near her schoolhouse, and whose 
 evil influence had been too powerful for other missionaries 
 to combat. 
 
 " But he can't scare me off ! " she declared, her eyes 
 shining with religious ardor. "I'll conquer him before 
 he shall conquer me ! " 
 
 She was short and stout and looked anything but brave, 
 and as we approached the scene of conflict, we felt much 
 curiosity as to the outcome. 
 
 She was on the beach when we landed, stouter, shorter, 
 and more energetic than ever in her movements. She 
 remembered us and proudly led the way up the bank to 
 her schoolhouse. It was large, clean, and attractive. The 
 missionary lived in four adjoining rooms, which were com- 
 fortable and homelike. We were offered fresh bread and 
 delicious milk. 
 
 She talked rapidly and eagerly upon every subject save 
 the one in which we were so interested. At last, I could 
 endure the suspense no longer. 
 
 343
 
 344 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 " And how," asked I, " about the wicked saloon-keeper ? " 
 
 A dull flush mounted to her very glasses. For a full min- 
 ute there was silence. Then said she, slowly and stiffly : — 
 
 " How about what wicked saloon-keeper ? " 
 
 " Why, the one you told us about last year ; who had a 
 poor abused wife and seven children, and who scared the 
 life out of every missionary who came here." 
 
 There was another silence. 
 
 " Oil," said she then, coldly. " Well, he was rather 
 hard to get along with at first, but his — er — hum — 
 wife died about three months ago, and he has — er — 
 hum " (the words seemed to stick in her throat) 
 " asked me — he — asked me, you know, to " (she giggled 
 suddenly) '-'•marry him, you know." 
 
 " I don't know as I will, though," she added, hastily, 
 turning very red, as we stood staring at her, absolutely 
 speechless. 
 
 The village of Afognak is located at the southwestern 
 end of Litnik Bay. It is divided into two distinct settle- 
 ments, the most southerly of which has a population of 
 about one hundred and fifty white and half-breed people. 
 A high, grassy bluff, named Graveyard Point, separates 
 this part of the village from that to the northward, which 
 is entirely a native settlement of probably fifty persons. 
 
 The population of the Island of Afognak is composed of 
 Kadiaks, Eskimos, Russian half-breeds, and a few white 
 hunters and fishermen. The social conditions are similar 
 to those existing on the eastern shores of Cook Inlet. 
 
 When Alaska was under the control of the Russian- 
 American Company, many men grew old and compara- 
 tively useless in its service. These employees were too 
 helpless to be thrown upon their own resources, and their 
 condition was reported to the Russian government. 
 
 In 1835 an order was issued directing: that such Rus-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 345 
 
 siaii employees as had married native women should be 
 located as permanent settlers when they were no longer 
 able to serve the compan}-. The company was compelled 
 to select suitable land, build comfortable dwellings for 
 them, supply agricultural implements, seed, cattle, chickens, 
 and a year's provisions. 
 
 These settlers were exempt from taxation and military 
 duty, and the Russians were known as colonial citizens, the 
 half-breeds as colonial settlers. The eastern shores of 
 Cook Inlet, Afognak Island, and Spruce Island were 
 selected for them. The half-breeds now occupying these 
 localities are largely their descendants. They have always 
 lived on a higher plane of civilization than the natives, 
 and among them may be found many skilled craftsmen. 
 
 There is no need for the inhabitants of any of these is- 
 lands to suffer, for here are all natural resources for native 
 existence. All the hardier vegetables thrive and may be 
 stored for winter use; hay may be provided for cattle; the 
 waters are alive with salmon and cod; bear, fox, mink, and 
 sea-otter are still found. 
 
 In summer the men may easily earn two hundred dollars 
 working in the adjacent canneries; while the women, 
 assisted by the old men and children, dry the fish, which 
 is then known as ukala. There is a large demand in the 
 North for ukala, for dog food. There are two large stores 
 in Afognak, representing large trading companies, where 
 two cents a pound is paid for all the ukala that can be 
 obtained. 
 
 The white men of Afognak are nearly all Scandinavians, 
 married to, or living with, native women. The school- 
 teacher I have already mentioned was the only white 
 woman, and she told us that we were the first white 
 women who had landed on the island during the year she 
 had spent there. Only once had she talked with white 
 women, and that was during a visit to Kodiak.
 
 346 ALASKA: THE GREAT CO UN THY 
 
 The town has a sheltered and attractive site on a level 
 green. There is a large Greek-Russian church, not far 
 from the noisy saloon which is presided over by the 
 saloon-keeper who was once bad, but who has now yielded 
 to the missionary's spell. 
 
 Karluk River, on the eastern side of Kadiak Island, is 
 the greatest salmon stream in the world. It is sixteen miles 
 long, less than six feet deep, and so narrow at its mouth 
 that a child could toss a pebble from shore to shore. It 
 seems absurd to enter a canoe to cross this stream, so like 
 a little creek is it, across which one might easily leap. 
 
 Yet up this tiny w\ater-way millions of salmon struggle 
 every season to the spawning-grounds in Karluk Lake. 
 Before the coming of canners with traps and gill-nets in 
 188-4, it is said that a solid mass of fish might be seen 
 filling this stream from bank to bank, and from its mouth 
 to the lake in the hills. 
 
 In 1890 the largest cannery in the world was located 
 in Karluk Bay, but now that distinction belongs to Bristol 
 Bay, north of the Aliaska Peninsula. (Another "largest 
 in the world " is on Puget Sound !) 
 
 Karluk Bay is very small; but several canneries are on 
 its shores, and when they are all in operation, the em- 
 ployees are sufficient in number to make one of the largest 
 towns in Alaska. In 1890 three millions of salmon were 
 packed in the several canneries operating in the bay ; in 
 1900 more than two millions in the two canneries then 
 operating ; but, on account of the use of traps and gill- 
 nets, the pack has greatly decreased since then, and during 
 some seasons has proved a total failure. 
 
 Fifteen years ago two-thirds of the entire Alaskan 
 salmon pack were furnished by the ten canneries of Kadiak 
 Island, and these secured almost their entire supply from 
 Karluk River. Furthermore, at that time, the canners
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 347 
 
 enjoyed their vast monopoly without tax, license, or any 
 government interference. 
 
 Immense fortunes have been made — and lost — in the 
 fish industry during the last twenty years. 
 
 The superintendents of these canneries alwaj^'s live luxu- 
 riously, and entertain like princes — or Baranoff. Their 
 comfortable houses are furnished with all modern luxuries, 
 — elegant furniture, pianos, hot and cold water, electric 
 baths. Perfectly trained, noiseless Chinamen glide around 
 the table, where dinners of ten or twelve delicate courses 
 are served, with a different wine for each course. 
 
 Champagne is a part of the hospitality of Alaska. The 
 cheapest is seven dollars and a half a bottle, and Alaskans 
 seldom buy the cheapest of anything. 
 
 It was on a soft gray afternoon that the Dora entered 
 Karluk Bay between the two picturesque promontories 
 that plunge boldly out into Shelikoff Straits. It 
 seemed as though all the sea-birds of the world must be 
 gathered there. Our entrance set them afloat from their 
 perches on the rocky cliffs. They filled the air, from 
 shore to shore, like a snow-storm. Their poetic flight 
 and shrill, mournful plaining haunt every memory of 
 Karluk Bay. 
 
 Now and then they settled for an instant. A cliff 
 would shine out suddenly — a clear, tremulous white; then, 
 as suddenly, there would be nothing but a sheer height 
 of dark stone veined with green before our bewildered 
 gaze. It was as if a silvery, winged cloud drifted up and 
 down the face of the clift's and then floated out across 
 the bay. 
 
 Several old sailing vessels, or " wind-jammers," lay at 
 anchor. They are used for conveying stores and employees 
 from San Francisco. The many buildings of the can- 
 neries give Karluk the appearance of a town — in fact, 
 during the summer, it is a town ; while in the winter
 
 348 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 only a few caretakers of the buildings and property 
 remain. 
 
 Men of almost every nationality under the sun may 
 be found here, working side by side. 
 
 Ceaseless complaints are made of the lawless conditions 
 existing "to Westward." Besides the thousands of men 
 employed in the canneries of the Kadiak and the Aleu- 
 tian islands, at least ten thousand men work in the can- 
 neries of Bristol Bay. Tliey come from China, Japan, 
 the Sandwich Islands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Porto 
 Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and almost every country 
 that may be named. 
 
 "The prevailing color of Alaska may be 'rosy laven- 
 der,' " said a gentleman who knows, " but let me tell you 
 that out there you will find conditions that are neither 
 rosy nor lavender." 
 
 There is a United States Commissioner and a Deputy 
 United States Marshal in the district, but they are unable 
 to control these men, many of whom are desperate charac- 
 ters. The superintendents of the canneries are there for 
 the purpose of putting up the season's pack as speedily as 
 possible; and, although they are invariably men who de- 
 plore crime, they have been known to condone it, to avoid 
 the taking of themselves or their crews hundreds of miles 
 to await the action of some future term of court. 
 
 For many years the District of Alaska has been di- 
 vided for judicial purposes into three divisions: the first 
 comprising the southeastern Alaska district ; the second, 
 Nome and the Seward Peninsula ; the third, the vast coun- 
 try lying between these two. 
 
 In each is organized a full United States district court. 
 The three judges who preside over these courts receive 
 the salary of five thousand dollars a year, — which, con- 
 sidering the high character of the services required, 
 and the cost of living in Alaska, is niggardly. So much
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 349 
 
 power is placed in the hands of these judges that they 
 are freely called czars by the people of Alaska. 
 
 The people of the third district complained bitterly 
 that their court facilities were entirely inadequate. 
 Several murders were committed, and the accused awaited 
 trial for many months. Witnesses were detained from 
 their homes and lawful pursuits. Delays were so vexatious 
 that many crimes remained unpunished, important wit- 
 nesses rebelling against being held in custody for a whole 
 year before they had an opportunity to testify — the 
 judge of the third district being kept busy along the 
 Yukon and at Fairbanks. 
 
 As a partial remedy for some of these abuses of govern- 
 ment. Governor Brady, in his report for the year 1904, 
 suggested the creation of a fourth judicial district, to be 
 furnished with a sea-going vessel, which should be under 
 the custody of the marshal and at the command of the 
 court. It was recommended that this vessel be equipped 
 with small arms, a Gatling gun, and ammunition. All 
 the islands which lie along the thousands of miles of 
 shore-line of Kenai and Aliaska peninsulas. Cook Inlet, 
 the Kadiak, Shumagin, and Aleutian chains, and Bristol 
 Bay might be visited in season, and a wholesome respect 
 for law and order be enforced. 
 
 The burning question in Alaska has been for many 
 years the one of home government. As early as 1869 an 
 impassioned plea was made in Sitka that Alaska should 
 be given territorial rights. Yet even the bill for one 
 delegate to Congress was defeated as late as the winter 
 of 1905 — whereupon fiery Valdez instantly sent its fa- 
 mous message of secession. 
 
 Governor Brady criticised the appointment of United 
 States commissioners by the judges, claiming that there 
 is really no appeal from a commissioner's court to a dis- 
 trict court, for the reason tliat the judge usually appoints
 
 350 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 some particular protege and feels bound to sustain his 
 decisions. The governor stated plainly in liis report that 
 the most remunerative offices are filled by persons who 
 are peculiarly related, socially or politically, to the judges ; 
 that the attorneys and their clients understood this and 
 considered an appeal useless. Governor Brady also de- 
 clared the fee system, as practised in these commissioners' 
 courts, to be an abomination. Unless there is trouble, the 
 officer cannot live ; and the inference is that he, there- 
 fore, welcomes trouble. 
 
 Whatever of truth there may have been in these pun- 
 gent criticisms, President Roosevelt endorsed many of the 
 governor's recommendations in his message to Congress ; 
 and several have been adopted. During the past two 
 years Alaska has made rapid strides toward self-govern- 
 ment, and important reforms have been instituted. 
 
 The territory now has a delegate to Congress. Upon 
 the subject of home government the people are widely 
 and bitterly divided. Those having large interests in 
 Alaska are, as a rule, opposed to home government, claim- 
 ing that it is the politicians and those owning nothing upon 
 which taxes could be levied, who are agitating the subject. 
 These claim that the few who have ventured heavily to 
 develop Alaska would be compelled to bear the entire 
 burden of a heavy taxation, for the benefit of the profes- 
 sional politician, the carpet-bagger, and the impecunious 
 loafer who is "just waiting for something to turn up." 
 
 On the other hand, those favoring territorial govern- 
 ment claim that it is opposed only by the large corpora- 
 tions which "have been bleeding Alaska for years." 
 
 The jurisdiction of the United States commissioners in 
 Alaska is far greater than is that of other court commis- 
 sioners. They can sit as committing magistrates ; as jus- 
 tices of the peace, can try civil cases where the amount 
 involved is one thousand dollars or less; can try crimi-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 351 
 
 nal cases and sentence to one year's imprisonment ; they 
 are clothed with full authority as probate judges ; they 
 may act as coroners, notaries, and recorders of precincts. 
 
 The third district, presided over by Judge Reid, whose 
 residence is at Fairbanks, is five hundred miles wide by 
 nine hundred miles long. It extends from the North 
 Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean, and from the interna- 
 tional boundary on the east to the Koyukuk. The chief 
 means of transportation within this district are steamers 
 along the coast and on the Yukon, and over trails by dog 
 teams. 
 
 It is small wonder that a man hesitates long before 
 suing for his rights in Alaska. The expense and hardship 
 of even reaching the nearest seat of justice are unimagi- 
 nable. One man travelled nine hundred miles to reach 
 Rampart to attend court. The federal court issues all 
 licenses, franchises, and charters, and collects all occupa- 
 tion taxes. Every village or mining settlement of two or 
 three hundred men has a commissioner, whose sway in 
 his small sphere is as absolute as that of Earanoff was.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 We found only one white woman at Karluk, the wife of 
 the manager of the cannery, a retined and accomplished 
 lady. 
 
 Her home was in San Francisco, but she spent the sum- 
 mer months with her husband at Karluk. 
 
 We were taken ashore in a boat and were most hospi- 
 tably received in her comfortable home. 
 
 About two o 'clock in the afternoon we boarded a barge 
 and were towed by a very small, but exceedingly noisy, 
 launch up the Karluk River to the hatcheries, which are 
 maintained by the Alaska Packers Association. 
 
 It was one of those soft, cloudy afternoons when the 
 coloring is all in pearl and violet tones, and the air was 
 sweet with rain that did not fall. The little make-believe 
 river is very narrow, and so shallow that we were con- 
 stantly in danger of running aground. We tacked from 
 one side of the stream to the other, as the great steamers 
 do on the Yukon. 
 
 On this little pearly voyage, a man who accompanied 
 us told a story which clings to the memory. 
 
 " Talk about your big world," said he. " You think it 
 'u'd be easy to hide yourself up in this God-forgotten jDlace, 
 don't you ? Just let me tell you a story. A man come 
 up here a few years ago and went to work. He never 
 did much talkin'. If you ast him a question about his- 
 self or where he come from, he shut up like a steel trap 
 with a rat in it. He was a nice-lookin' man, too, an' he 
 
 352
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 353 
 
 had au education an' kind of nice clean ways with him. 
 He built a little cabin, an' he didn't go 'out' in winter, 
 like the rest of us. He stayed here at Karluk an' looked 
 after things. 
 
 " Well, after one-two year a good-lookin' young woman 
 come up here — an' jiminy-cricket ! He fell in love with 
 her like greased lightniu' an' married her in no time. I 
 God, but that man was happy. He acted like a plumb 
 fool over that woman. After while they had a baby — 
 an' then he acted like two plumb fools in one. I ain't 
 got any wife an' babies myself an' I God ! it ust to 
 make me feel queer in my throat. 
 
 " Well, one summer the superintendent's wife brought 
 up a woman to keep house for her. She was a white, 
 sad-faced-lookin' woman, an' when she had a little time 
 to rest she ust to climb up on the hill an' set there alone, 
 watchin' the sea-gulls. I've seen her set there two hours 
 of a Sunday without movin'. Maybe she'd be settin' 
 there now if I hadn't gone and put my foot clean in it, 
 as usual. 
 
 " I got kind of sorry for her, an' you may shoot me 
 dead for a fool, but one day I ast her why she didn't walk 
 around the bay an' set a spell with the other woman. 
 
 " ' I don't care much for women,' she says, never 
 changin' countenance, but just starin' out across the bay. 
 
 " ' She's got a reel nice, kind husband,' says I, tryin' to 
 work on her feelin's. 
 
 " ' I don't like husbands,' says she, as short as lard pie- 
 crust. 
 
 " ' She's got an awful nice little baby,' says I, for if 
 you keep on long enough, you can always get a woman. 
 
 " She turns then an' looks at me. 
 
 " ' It's a girl,' says I, ' an' Lord, the way it nestles up 
 into your neck an' loves you ! ' 
 
 " Her lips opened an' shut, but she didn't say a word ;
 
 354 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 but if you'd look 'way down into a well an' see a fire 
 burnin' in the water, it 'u'd look like her eyes did then. 
 
 " ' Its father acts like a plumb fool over it an' its 
 mother,' says I. ' The sun raises over there, an' sets over 
 here — but he thinks it raises an' sets in that woman an' 
 baby.' 
 
 " ' The woman must be pretty,' says she, suddenly, an' 
 I never heard a woman speak so bitter. 
 
 " ' She is,' says I; ' she's got — ' 
 
 " ' Don't tell me wliat she's got,' snaps she, gettin' up 
 off the ground, kind o' stiff-like. ' I've made up my 
 mind to go see her, an' maybe I'd back out if you told me 
 what she's like. Maybe you'd tell me she had red wavy 
 hair an' blue eyes an' a baby mouth an' smiled like an 
 angel — an' then devils couldn't drag me to look at her.' 
 
 " Say, I nearly fell dead, then, for that just described 
 the woman ; but I'm no loon, so I just kept still. 
 
 " ' What's their name ? ' says she, as we walked along. 
 
 " 'Davis,' says I; an' mercy to heaven ! I didn't know 
 I was tellin' a lie. 
 
 " All of a sudden she laughed out loud — the awf ullest 
 laugh. It sounded as harrable mo'rnf ul as a sea-gull just 
 before a storm. 
 
 " ' Sushand ! ' she flings out, jeerin'; ' / had a husband 
 once. I worshipped the ground he trod on. I thought 
 the sun raised an' set in him. He carried me on two 
 chips for a while, but I didn't have any children, an' I 
 took to worryin' over it, an' lost my looks an' my disposi- 
 tion. It goes deep with some women, an' it went deep 
 with me. Men don't seem to understand some things. 
 Instid of sympathizin' with me, he took to complainin' 
 an' findin' fault an' finally stayin' away from home. 
 
 " ' There's no use talkin' about what I suffered for a 
 year •, I never told anybody this much before — an' it 
 wa'n't anything to what I've suffered ever since. But
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 355 
 
 one day I stumbled on a letter he had wrote to a woman 
 he called Ruth. He talked about her red wavy hair an' 
 blue eyes an' baby mouth an' the way she smiled like an 
 angel. They were goin' to run away together. He told 
 her he'd heard of a place at the end of the earth where a 
 man could make a lot of money, an' he'd go there an' get 
 settled an' then send for her, if she was willin' to live 
 away from everybody, just for him. He said they'd 
 never see a human soul that knew them.' 
 
 " She stopped talkin' all at once, an' we walked along. 
 I was scared plumb to death. I didn't know the woman's 
 name, for he always called her ' dearie,' but the baby's 
 name was Ruth. 
 
 "'You've got to feelin' bad now,' says I, 'an' maybe 
 we'd best not go on.' 
 
 "'I'm goin' on,' says she. 
 
 " After a while she says, in a different voice, kind of 
 hard, ' I put that letter back an' never said a word. I 
 wouldn't turn my hand over to keep a man. I never saw 
 the woman; but I know how she looks. I've gone over 
 it every night of my life since. I know the shape of 
 every feature. I never let on, to him or anybody else. 
 It's the only thing I've thanked God for, since I read that 
 letter — helpin' me to keep up an' never let on. It's the 
 only thing I've prayed for since that day. It wa'n't very 
 long — about a month. He just up an' disappeared. 
 People talked about me awful because I didn't cry, an' 
 take on, an' hunt him. 
 
 " ' I took what little money he left me an' went away. 
 I got the notion that he'd gone to South America, so I 
 set out to get as far in the other direction as possible. I 
 got to San Francisco, an' then the chance fell tome to come 
 up here. It sounded like the North Pole to me, so I come. 
 I'm awful glad I come. Them sea-gulls is the only pleasure 
 I've had — since ; an' it's been four year. That's all.'
 
 356 ALASKA: THE GBEAT COUNTRY 
 
 " Well, sir, when we got up close to the cabin, I got to 
 shiverin' so's I couldn't brace up an' go in with her. It 
 didn't seem possible it could be the same man, but then, 
 such darn queer things do happen in Alaska ! Anyhow, 
 I'd got cold feet. I remembered that the cannery the 
 man worked in was shut down, so's he'd likely be at 
 home. 
 
 " ' I'll go back now,' I mumbles, ' an' leave you women- 
 folks to get acquainted.' 
 
 " I fooled along slow, an' when I'd got nearly to the 
 settlement I heard her comin'. I turned an' waited — 
 an' I God ! she won't be any ash-whiter when she's in 
 her coffin. She was steppin' in all directions, like a blind 
 woman ; her arms hung down stiff at her sides ; her 
 fingers were locked around her thumbs as if they'd never 
 loose ; an' some nights, even now, I can't sleep for thinkin' 
 how her eyes looked. I guess if you'd gag a dog, so's he 
 couldn't cry, an' then cut him up slow, inch by inch, his 
 eyes 'u'd look like her'n did then. At sight of me her 
 face worked, an' I thought she was goin' to cry ; but all 
 at once she burst out into the awfullest laughin' you ever 
 heard outside of a lunatic asylum. 
 
 " ' Lord God Almighty ! ' she cries out — ' where's his 
 mercy at, the Bible talks about ? You'd think he might 
 have a little mercy on an ugly woman who never had any 
 children, wouldn't you — esj^ecially when there's women 
 in the world with wavy red hair an' blue eyes — women 
 that smile like angels an' have little baby girls ! Oh, 
 Lord, what a joke on me ! ' 
 
 " Well, she went on laughin' till my blood turned cold, 
 but she never told me one word of what happened to her. 
 She went back to California on the first boat that went, 
 but it was two weeks. I saw her several times ; an' at 
 sight of me she'd burst out into that same laughin' an' 
 cry out, ' My Lord, what a joke ! Did you ever see its
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 357 
 
 beat for a joke ? ' but she wouldn't answer a thing I ast 
 her. The last time I ever see her, she was leanin' over 
 the ship's side. She looked like a dead woman, but when 
 she see me she waved her hand and burst out laughin'. 
 
 " ' Do you hear them sea-gulls ? ' she cries out. 'All 
 they can scream is Kar-luk ! Kar-lnk ! jKar-luk ! You 
 can hear'm say it just as plain, ^ar-luk ! I'll hear 'em 
 when I lay in my grave ! Oh, my Lord, what a joke ! ' "
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 Our progress up Karliik River in the barge was so 
 leisurely that we seemed to be " drifting upward with the 
 flood " between the low green shores that sloped, covered 
 with flowers, to the water. The clouds were a soft gray, 
 edged with violet, and the air was very sweet. 
 
 The hatchery is picturesquely situated, 
 
 A tiny rivulet, called Shasta Creek, comes tumbling 
 noisily down from the hills, and its waters are utilized in 
 the various "ponds." 
 
 The first and highest pond they enter is called the 
 " settling " pond, which receives, also, in one corner, the 
 clear, bubbling waters of a spring, whose upflow, never 
 ceasing, prevents this corner of the pond from freezing. 
 This pond is deeper than the others, and receives the 
 waters of the creek so lightly that the sediment is not 
 disturbed in the bottom, its function being to permit the 
 sediment carried down from the creek to settle before the 
 waters pass on into the wooden flume, which carries part 
 of the overflow into the hatching-house, or on into the 
 lower ponds, wliich are used for "ripening" the salmon. 
 
 There are about a dozen of these ponds, and they are 
 terraced down the hill with a fall of from four to six feet 
 between them. 
 
 They are rectangular in shape and walled with large 
 stones and cement. The walls are overgrown with 
 grasses and mosses; and the waters pouring musically 
 down over them from large wooden troughs suspended 
 
 358
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 359 
 
 horizontally above them, and whose bottoms are pierced 
 by numerous augur-holes, produce the effect of a series 
 of gentle and lovely waterfalls. 
 
 It is essential that the fall of the water should be as 
 light and as soft as possible, that the fish may not be dis- 
 turbed and excited — ripening more quickly and perfectly 
 when kept quiet. 
 
 These ponds were filled with salmon. Many of them 
 moved slowly and placidly through the clear waters ; 
 others struggled and fought to leap their barriers in a 
 seemingly passionate and supreme desire ' to reach the 
 highest spawning-ground. There is to me something 
 divine in the desperate struggle of a salmon to reach the 
 natural place for the propagation of its kind — the shal- 
 low, running upper waters of the stream it chooses to 
 ascend. It cannot be will-power — it can be only a God- 
 given instinct — that enables it to leap cascades eight 
 feet in height to accomplish its uncontrollable desire. 
 Notwithstanding all commercial reasoning and all human 
 needs, it seems to me to be inhumanly cruel to corral so 
 many millions of salmon every year, to confine them dur- 
 ing the ripening period, and to spawn them by hand. 
 
 In the natural method of spawning, the female salmon 
 seeks the upper waters of the stream, and works out a 
 trough in the gravelly bed by vigorous movements of her 
 body as she lies on one side. In this trough her eggs are 
 deposited and are then fertilized by the male. 
 
 The eggs are then covered with gravel to a depth of 
 several feet, such gravel heaps being known as ^ redds." 
 
 To one who has studied the marvellously beautiful 
 instincts of this most human of fishes, their desperate 
 struggles in the ripening ponds are pathetic in the ex- 
 treme ; and I was glad to observe that even the gentle- 
 men of our party frequently turned away with faces full 
 of the pity of it.
 
 360 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 A salmon will struggle until it is but a purple, shape- 
 less mass ; it will fling itself upon the rocks ; the over- 
 pouring waters will bear it back for many yards ; then it 
 will gradually recover itself and come plunging and fight- 
 ing back to fling itself once more upon tlie same rocks. 
 Each time that it is washed away it is weaker, more 
 bruised and discolored. Battered, bleeding, with fins 
 broken off and eyes beaten out, it still returns again and 
 again, leaping and flinging itself frenziedly upon the stone 
 walls. 
 
 Its very rush through the water is pathetic, as one re- 
 members it ; it is accompanied by a loud swish and the 
 waters fly out in foam ; but its movements are so swift 
 that only a line of silver — or, alas ! frequently one of 
 purple — is visible through the beaded foam. 
 
 Some discoloration takes place naturally when the fish 
 has been in fresh water for some time ; but much of it is 
 due to bruising. A salmon newly arrived from the sea 
 is called a " clean " salmon, because of its bright and 
 sparkling appearance and excellent condition. 
 
 There is a tramway two or three hundred yards in 
 length, along which one may walk and view the various 
 ponds. It is used chiefly to convey stock-fish from the 
 corrals to the upper ripening-ponds. 
 
 When ripe fish are to be taken from a pond, the water 
 is lowered to a depth of about a foot and a half ; a kind 
 of slatting is then put into the water at one end and slid- 
 den gently under the fish, which are examined — the 
 " ripe " ones being placed in a floating car and the " green " 
 ones freed in the pond. A stripping platform attends every 
 pond, and upon this the spawning takes place. 
 
 The young fish, from one to two years old, before it has 
 gone to sea, is called by a dozen different names, chief of 
 which are parr and salmon-fry. At the end of ten weeks 
 after hatching, the fr}- are fed tinned salmon flesh, —
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 361 
 
 "do-overs" furnished by tlie canneries, — whicli is thor- 
 oughly desiccated and put through a sausage-machine. 
 
 When the fry are three or four months old, they are 
 "planted." After being freed they work their way 
 gradually down to salt-water, which pushes up into the 
 lagoon, and finally out into the bay. They return fre- 
 quently to fresh water and for at least a year work in 
 and out with the tides. 
 
 The majority of fry cling to the fresh-water vicinity for 
 two years after hatching, at which time they are about 
 eight inches long. Tlie second spring after hatching they 
 sprout out suddenly in bright and glistening scales, which 
 conceal the dark markings along their sides which are 
 known as parr-marks. They are then called " smolt," and 
 are as adult salmon in all respects save size. 
 
 In all rivers smolts pass down to the sea between 
 March and June, weighing only a few ounces. The same 
 fall they return as " grilse," weighing from three to five 
 pounds. 
 
 After their first spawning, they return during the win- 
 ter to the sea ; and in the following year reascend the river 
 as adult salmon. Males mature sexually earlier than females. 
 
 The time of year when salmon ascend from the sea 
 varies greatly in different rivers, and salmon rivers are 
 denominated as "early " or " late." 
 
 The hatchery at Karluk is a model one, and is highly 
 commended by government experts. It was established 
 in the spring of 1896, and stripping was done in August 
 of the same year. The cost of the present plant has 
 been about forty thousand dollars, and its annual expen- 
 diture for maintenance, labor, and improvements, from 
 ten to twenty thousand. There is a superintendent and a 
 permanent force of six or eight men, including a cook, 
 with additional help from the canneries when it is re- 
 quired.
 
 362 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 There are many buildings connected with the hatchery, 
 and all are kept in perfect order. The first season, it is 
 estimated that two millions of salmon -fry were liberated, 
 with a gradual increase until the present time, when 
 forty millions are turned out in a single season. 
 
 The superintendent was taken completely by surprise by 
 our visit, but received us very hospitably and conducted 
 us through all departments with courteous explanations. 
 The shining, white cleanliness and order everywhere 
 manifest would make a German housewife green of envy. 
 
 At this point Karluk River widens into a lagoon, in 
 which the corrals are wired and netted off somewhat 
 after the fashion of lish-traps, covering an area of about 
 three acres. 
 
 Fish for the hatcheries are called "stock-fish." They 
 
 are secured by seiners in the lagoon opposite the hatcheries, 
 
 and are then transferred to the corrals. As soon as a sal- 
 
 , mon has the appearance of ripening, it is removed by the 
 
 use of seines to the ripening-ponds. 
 
 In the hatching-house are more than sixty troughs, four- 
 teen feet in length, sixteen inches in width, and seven 
 inches in depth. The wood of which they are composed 
 is surfaced redwood. The joints are coated with asphal- 
 tum tar, with cotton wadding used as calking material. 
 When the trough is completed, it is given one coat of 
 refined tar and two of asphaltum varnish. 
 
 In the Karluk hatchery the troughs never leak, owing 
 to this superior construction ; and it is said that the im- 
 portance of this advantage cannot be overestimated. 
 
 Leaks make it impossible for the employees to estimate 
 the amount of water in the troughs ; repairs startle the 
 young fry and damage the eggs ; and the damp floors 
 cause illness among the employees. The Karluk hatchery 
 is noted for its dryness and cleanliness. 
 
 The setting of the hatchery is charming. The hills.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 363 
 
 treeless, pale green, and velvety, slope gently to the river 
 and the lagoon. Now and then a slight ravine is filled 
 with a shrubby growth of a lighter green. Flowers flame 
 everywhere, and tiny rivulets come singing down to the 
 larger stream. 
 
 The greenness of the hills continues around the bay, 
 broken off abruptly on Karluk Head, where the soft, 
 veined gray of the stone cliff blends with the green. 
 
 The bay opens out into the wide, bold, purple sweep 
 of Shelikoff Strait. 
 
 Every body of water has its character — some feature 
 that is peculiarly its own, which impresses itself upon the 
 beholder. The chief characteristic of Shelikoff Strait is 
 its boldness. There is something dauntless, daring, and 
 impassioned in its wide and splendid sweep to the chaste 
 line of snow peaks of the Aleutian Range on the Aliaska 
 Peninsula. It seems to hold a challenge. 
 
 I should like to live alone, or almost alone, high on 
 storm-swept Karluk Head, fronting that magnificent 
 scene that can never be twice quite the same. "What 
 work one might do there — away from little irritating 
 cares ! No neighbors to " drop in " with bits of deli- 
 cious gossip ; no theatres in which to waste the splendid 
 nights ; no bridge-luncheons to tempt, — nothing but 
 sunlight glittering down on the pale green hills ; the 
 golden atmosphere above the little bay filled with tremu- 
 lous, winged snow ; and miles and miles and miles of 
 purple sea.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 " What kind of place is Uyak ? " I asked a deck-hand 
 who was a native of Sweden, as we stood out in the bow 
 of the Bora one day. 
 
 He turned and looked at me and grinned. 
 
 " It ees a hal of a blace,'' he replied, promptly and 
 frankly. " It ees 3'Oost dat t'ing. You vill see." 
 
 And I did see. I should, in fact, like to take this frank- 
 spoken gentleman along with me wherever I go, solely to 
 answer people who ask me what kind of place Uyak is — 
 his opinion so perfectly coincides with my own. 
 
 There were canneries at Uyak, and mosquitoes, and 
 things to be smelled ; but if there be anything there 
 worth seeing, they must first kill the mosquitoes, else it 
 will never be seen. 
 
 The air was black with these pests, and the instant we 
 stepped upon the wharf we were black with them, too. 
 Every passenger resembled a windmill in action, as he 
 raced down the wharf toward the cannery, hoping to find 
 relief there ; and as he went his nostrils were assailed by 
 an odor that is surpassed in only one place on earth — 
 Belkoffski! — and it comes later. 
 
 The hope of relief in the canneries proved to be a vain 
 one. The unfortunate Chinamen and natives were covered 
 with mosquitoes as they worked ; their faces and arms 
 were swollen ; their eyes were fierce with suffering. They 
 did not laugh at our frantic attempts to rid ourselves of 
 the winged pests — as we laughed at one another. There 
 was nothing funny in the situation to those poor wretches. 
 
 364
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 365 
 
 It was a tragedy. They stared at us with desperate eyes 
 which asked: — 
 
 " Why don't you go away if you are suffering ? You 
 are free to leave. What have you to complain of ? We 
 must stay." 
 
 We went out and tried to walk a little way along the 
 hill ; but the mosquitoes mounted in clouds from the 
 wild-rose thickets. At the end of fifteen minutes we fled 
 back to the steamer and locked ourselves in our state- 
 rooms. There we sat down and nursed our grievances 
 with camphor and alcohol. 
 
 We sailed up Uyak Bay to the mine of the Kodiak Gold 
 Mining Company. This is a free milling mine and had 
 been a developing property for four years. It was then 
 installing a ten-stamp mill, and had twenty thousand 
 tons of ore blocked out, the ore averaging from fifteen 
 to twenty dollars a ton. 
 
 This mine is located on the northern side of Kadiak 
 Island, and has good water power and excellent shipping 
 facilities. Fifty thousand dollars were taken out of the 
 beaches in the vicinity in 1904 by placer mining. 
 
 Here, in this lovely, lonely bay, one of the most charm- 
 ing women I ever met spends her summers. She is the 
 wife of one of the owners of the mine, and her home is in 
 San Francisco. She finds the summers ideal, and longs 
 for the novelty of a winter at the mine. She has a canoe 
 and spends most of her time on the water. There are no 
 mosquitoes at the mine ; the summers are never uncom- 
 fortably hot, and it is seldom, indeed, that the mercury 
 falls to zero in the winter. 
 
 From Kadiak Island we crossed Shelikoff Straits to 
 Cold Bay, on the Aliaska Peninsula, which we reached at 
 midnight, and which is tlie only port that could not 
 tempt us ashore. When our dear, dark-eyed Japanese, 
 "Charlie," played a gentle air upon our cabin door with
 
 366 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 his fingers and murmured apologetically, " Cold Bay," 
 we heard the rain pouring down our windows in sheets, 
 and we ungratefully replied, " Go away, Charlie, and 
 leave us alone." 
 
 No rope-ladders and dory landings for us on such a 
 night, at a place with such a name. 
 
 The following day was clear, however, and we sailed 
 all day along the peninsula. To the south of us lay the 
 Tugidak, Trinity, Chirikoff, and Semidi islands. 
 
 At six in the evening we landed at Chignik, another 
 uninteresting cannery place. From Chignik on " to West- 
 ward " the resemblance of the natives to the Japanese be- 
 came more remarkable. As they stood side by side on 
 the wharves, it was almost impossible to distinguish one 
 from the other. The slight figures, brown skin, softly 
 bright, dark eyes, narrowing at the corners, and amiable 
 expression made the resemblance almost startling. 
 
 At Chignik we had an amusing illustration, however, 
 of the ease with which even a white man may grow to 
 resemble a native. 
 
 The mail agent on the Dora was a great admirer of his 
 knowledge of natives and native customs and language. 
 Cham-mi is a favorite salutation with them. Approach- 
 ing a man who was sitting on a barrel, and who certainly 
 resembled a native in color and dress, the agent pleasantly 
 exclaimed, "CAam-mz." 
 
 There was no response ; the man did not lift his head ; 
 a slouch hat partially concealed his face. 
 
 '"■Cham-mi! " repeated the agent, advancing a step nearer. 
 
 There was still no response, no movement of recognition. 
 
 The mail agent grew red. 
 
 " He must be deaf as a post," said he. He slapped the 
 man on the shoulder and, stooping, fairly shouted in his 
 ear, " Cham-mi, old man ! " 
 
 Then the man lifted his head and brought to view the 
 unmistakable features of a Norwegian.
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 367 
 
 "T'hal with you," said he, briefly. "I'm no tainn 
 Eskimo." 
 
 The mail agent looked as though the wharf had gone 
 out from under his feet ; and never again did we hear 
 him give the native salutation to any one. The Norwe- 
 gian had been living for a year among the natives ; and 
 by the twinkle in his eye as he again lowered his head it 
 was apparent that he appreciated the joke. 
 
 At the entrance to Chignik Bay stands Castle Cape, or 
 Tuliiuranit Point. From the southeastern side it really 
 resembles a castle, with turrets, towers, and domes. It is 
 an immense, stony pile jutting boldly out into the sea, 
 whose sparkling blue waves, pearled with foam, break 
 loudly upon its base. In color it is soft gray, richly and 
 evenly streaked with rose. Sea birds circled, screaming, 
 over it and around it. Castle Cape might be the twin 
 sister of " Calico Bluff " on the Yukon. 
 
 Popoff and Unga are the principal islands of the 
 Shumagin group, on one of which Behring landed and 
 buried a sailor named Shumagin. They are the centre of 
 famous cod-fishing grounds which extend westward and 
 northward to the Arctic Ocean, eastward to Cook Inlet, 
 and southeastward to the Straits of Juan de Fuca. 
 
 There are several settlements on the Island of Unga — 
 Coal Harbor, Sandy Point, Apollo, and Unga. The latter 
 is a pretty village situated on a curving agate beach. It 
 is of some importance as a trading post. 
 
 Finding no one to admit us to the Russo-Greek church, 
 we admitted ourselves easily with our state-room key ; 
 but the tawdry cheapness of the interior scarcely repaid 
 us for the visit. The graveyard surrounding the church 
 was more interesting. 
 
 There is no wharf at Unga, but there is one at Apollo, 
 about three miles fartlier up the bay. We were taken up 
 to Apollo in a sail-boat, and it proved to be an exciting
 
 3G8 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 sail. It is not sailing unless the rail is awash; but it 
 seemed as though the entire boat were awash that June 
 afternoon in the Bay of Unga. Scarcely had we left the 
 ship when we -were struck by a succession of squalls which 
 lasted until our boat reeled, hissing, up to the wharf at 
 Apollo, 
 
 Water poured over us in sheets, drenching us. We 
 could not stay on the seats, as the bottom of the boat 
 stood up in the air almost perpendicularly. We there- 
 fore stood up with it, our feet on the lower rail with the 
 sea flowing over them, and our shoulders pressed against 
 the gunwale. Had it not been for the broad shoulders of 
 two Englishmen, our boat would surely have gone over. 
 
 It all came upon us so suddenly that we had no time to be 
 frightened, and, with all the danger, it was glorious. No 
 whale — no "right " whale, even — could be prouder than 
 we were of the wild splashing and spouting that attended 
 our tipsy race up Unga Bay. 
 
 The wharf floated dizzily above us, and we were com- 
 pelled to climb a high perpendicular ladder to reach it. 
 No woman who minds climbing should go to Alaska. She 
 is called upon at a moment's notice to climb everything, 
 from roiDC-ladders and perpendicular ladders to volcanoes. 
 A mile's walk up a tramway brought us to the Apollo. 
 
 This is a well-known mine, which has been what is called 
 a "paying proposition" for many years. At the time of 
 our visit it was worked out in its main lode, and the 
 owners had been seeking desperately for a new one. It 
 was discovered the following year, and the Apollo is once 
 more a rich producer. 
 
 In a large and commodious house two of the owners of 
 the mine lived, their wives being with them for the summer. 
 They were gay and charming women, fond of society, and 
 pining for the fleshpots of San Francisco. The white 
 women living between Kodiak and Dutcli Harbor are so
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 369 
 
 few that they may be counted on one hand, and the 
 luxurious furnishings of their homes in these out-of-the- 
 way places are almost startling in their unexpectedness. 
 We spent the afternoon at the mine, and the ladies re- 
 turned to the Dora with us for dinner. The squalls had 
 taken themselves off, and we had a prosaic return in the 
 mine's launch. 
 
 " What do we do ? " said one of the ladies, in reply to 
 my question. "Oh, we read, walk, write lettei's, go out on 
 the water, play cards, sew, and do so much fancy work that 
 when we get back to San Francisco we have nothing to do 
 but enjoy ourselves and brag about the good time we have 
 in Alaska. We are all packed now to go camping — " 
 
 '''■Camping/'" I repeated, too astonished to be polite. 
 
 " Yes, camping," replied she, coloring, and speaking 
 somewhat coldly. " We go in the launch to the most 
 beautiful beach about ten miles from Unga. We stay a 
 month. It is a sheltered beach of white sand. The waves 
 lap on it all day long, blue, sparkling, and warm, and we 
 almost live in them. The hills above the beach are 
 simply covered with the big blueberries that grow only 
 in Alaska. They are somewhat like the black mountain 
 huckleberry, only more delicious. We can them, pre- 
 serve them, and dry them, and take them back to San 
 Francisco with us. They are the best things I ever ate 
 — with thick cream on them. I had some in the house ; 
 I wish I had thought to offer you some." 
 
 She wished she had thought to offer me some ! 
 
 On the Dora we were rapidly getting down to bacon and 
 fish, — being about two thousand miles from Seattle, with 
 no ice aboard in this land of ice, — and I am not enthusiastic 
 about either. 
 
 And she wished that she had thought to offer me some 
 Alaskan blueberries that are more delicious than moun- 
 tain huckleberries, and thick cream !
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 I HAVE heard of steamers that have been built and 
 sent out by missionary or church societies to do good in 
 far and lonely places. 
 
 The little Dora is not one of these, nor is religion her 
 cargo; her hold is filled with other things. Yet blessings 
 be on her for the good she does ! Her mission is to carry 
 mail, food, freight, and good cheer to the people of these 
 green islands that go drifting out to Siberia, one by one. 
 She is the one link that connects them with the great world 
 outside; through her they obtain their sole touch of society, 
 of which their appreciation is pitiful. 
 
 Our captain was a big, violet-eyed Norwegian, about 
 forty years old. He showed a kindness, a courtesy, and a 
 patience to those lonely people that endeared him to us. 
 
 He knew them all by name and greeted them cordially 
 as they stood, smiling and eager, on the wharves. All 
 kinds of commissions had been intrusted to him on his 
 last monthly trip. To one he brought a hat ; to another 
 a phonograph ; to another a box of fruit; dogs, cats, chairs, 
 flowers, books — there seemed to be nothing that he had 
 not personally selected for the people at the various ports. 
 Even a little seven-year-old half-breed girl had travelled in 
 his care from Valdez to join her father on one of the 
 islands. 
 
 Wherever there was a woman, native or half-breed, he 
 took us ashore to make her acquaintance. 
 
 " Come along now," he would say, in a tone of command, 
 
 370
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 371 
 
 " and be nice. They don't get a chance to talk to many 
 women. Haven't you got some little womanly thing 
 along with you that you can give them ? It'll make them 
 happy for months." 
 
 We were eager enough to talk to them, heaven knows, 
 and to give them what we could ; but the " little womanly 
 things " that we could spare on a two months' voyage in 
 Alaska were distressingly few. When we had nothing 
 more that we could give, the stern disapproval in the cap- 
 tain's eyes went to our hearts. Box after box of bonbons, 
 figs, salted almonds, preserved ginger, oranges, apples, 
 ribbons, belts, pretty bags — one after one they went, 
 until, like Olive Schreiner's woman, I felt that I had given 
 up everything save the one green leaf in my bosom ; and 
 that the time would come when the captain would com- 
 mand me to give that up, too. 
 
 There seems to be something in those great lonely 
 spaces that moves the people to kindness, to patience and 
 consideration — to tenderness, even. I never before came 
 close to such humanness. It shone out of people in whom 
 one would least expect to find it. 
 
 Several times while we were at dinner the chief stew- 
 ard, a gay and handsome youth not more than twenty- 
 one years old, rushed through the dining room, crying: — 
 
 " Give me your old magazines — quick ! There's a 
 whaler's boat alongside." 
 
 A stampede to our cabins would follow, and a hasty 
 upgathering of such literature as we could lay our hands 
 upon. 
 
 The whaling and cod-fishing schooners cruise these 
 waters for months without a word from the outside until 
 they come close enough to a steamer to send out a boat. 
 The crew of the steamer, discovering the approach 
 of this boat, gather up everything they can throw into 
 it as it flashes for a moment alongside. Frequently
 
 372 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 the occupants of the boat tlirow fresh cod aboard, and 
 then there are smiling faces at dinner. It is my opinion, 
 however, that any one who woukl smile at cod would smile 
 at anything. 
 
 The most marvellous voyage ever made in the beautiful 
 and not always peaceful Pacific Ocean was the one upon 
 which the Dora started at an instant's notice, and by no 
 will of her master's, on the first day of January, 1906. 
 Blown from the coast down into the Pacific in a freezing 
 storm, she became disabled and drifted helplessly for more 
 than two months. 
 
 During that time the weather was the worst ever known 
 by seafaring men on the coast. Tlie steamship Santa 
 Ana and the United States steamship Hush were sent in 
 search of the Dora^ and when both had returned without 
 tidings, hope for her safety was abandoned. 
 
 Eiglity-one days from the time she had sailed from 
 Valdez, she crawled into the harbor of Seattle, two thou- 
 sand miles off her course. She carried a crew of seven 
 men and three or four passengers, one of whom was a 
 young Aleutian lad of Unalaska. As the Dora was on her 
 outward trip when blown to sea, she was well stocked 
 with provisions which she was carrying to the islanders ; 
 but there was no fuel and but a scant supply of water aboard. 
 
 The physical and mental sufferings of all were ferocious; 
 and it was but a feeble cheer that arose from the little ship- 
 wrecked band when the Dora at last crept up beside the 
 Seattle pier. For two months they had expected each 
 day to be their last, and their joy was now too deep for 
 expression. 
 
 The welcome they received when they returned to their 
 regular run among the Aleutian Islands is still described 
 by the settlers. 
 
 The Dora reached Kodiak late on a boisterous night; 
 but her whistle was heard, and the whole town was on the
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 373 
 
 wharf when she docked, to welcome the crew and to con- 
 gratulate them on their safety. Some greeted their old 
 friends hilariously, and others simply pressed their hands 
 in emotion too deep for expression. 
 
 So completely are the people of the smaller places on 
 the route cut off from the world, save for the monthly 
 visits of the Dora, that they had not heard of her safety. 
 When, after supposiug her to be lost for two months, 
 they beheld her steaming into their harbors, the super- 
 stitious believed her to be a spectre-ship. 
 
 The greatest demonstration was at Unalaska. A 
 schooner had brought the news of her safety to Dutch 
 Harbor ; from there a messenger was despatched to Un- 
 alaska, two miles away, to carry the glad tidings to the 
 father of the little lad aboard the Dora. 
 
 The news flashed wildly through the town. People in 
 bed, or sitting by their firesides, were startled by the fling- 
 ing open of their door and the shouting of a voice from 
 the darkness outside : — 
 
 " The Dora's safe! " — but before they could reach the 
 door, messenger and voice would be gone — fleeing on 
 through the town. 
 
 At last he reached the Jessie Lee Missionary Home, 
 at the end of the street, where a prayer-meeting was 
 in progress. Undaunted, he fluug wide the door, burst 
 into the room, shouting, "The Dora's safe!" — and was 
 gone. Instantly the meeting broke up, people sprang to 
 their feet, and prayer gave place to a glad thanksgiving 
 service. 
 
 When the Dora finally reached Unalaska once more, the 
 whole town was in holiday garb. Flags were flying, and 
 every one that could walk was on the wharf. Children, 
 native and white, carried flags which they joyfully waved. 
 Their welcome was enthusiastic and sincere, and the men 
 on the boat were deeply affected.
 
 374 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRV 
 
 The Dora is not a fine steamship, but she is stanch, 
 seaworthy, and comfortable ; and the islanders are as at- 
 tached to her as though she were a thing of flesh and blood. 
 
 No steamer could have a twelve-hundred-mile route 
 more fascinating than the one from Valdez to Unalaska. 
 It is intensely lovely. Behind the gray cliffs of the 
 peninsula float the snow-peaks of the Aleutian Range. 
 Here and there a volcano winds its own dark, fleecy tur- 
 ban round its crest, or flings out a scarlet scarf of flame. 
 There are glaciers sweeping everything before them ; bold 
 headlands plunging out into the sea, where they pause 
 with a sheer drop of thousands of feet; and flowery vales 
 and dells. There are countless islands — some of them 
 mere bits of green floating upon the blue. 
 
 At times a kind of divine blueness seems to swim over 
 everything. Wherever one turns, the eye is rested and 
 charmed with blue. Sea, shore, islands, atmosphere, and 
 sky — all are blue. A mist of it rests upon the snow 
 mountains and goes drifting down the straits. It is a warm, 
 delicate, luscious blue. It is like the blue of frost-touched 
 grapes when the prisoned wine shines through. 
 
 Sand Point, a trading post on Unga Island, is a wild 
 and picturesque place. It impressed me chiefly, however, 
 by the enormous size of its crabs and starfishes, which I 
 saw in great numbers under the wharf. Rocks, timbers, 
 and boards were incrusted with rosy-purple starfishes, 
 some measuring three feet from the tip of one ray to the 
 tip of the ray nearly opposite. Smaller ones were wedged 
 in between the rays of the larger ones, so that frequently 
 a piling from the wharf to the sandy bottom of the bay, 
 which we could plainly see, would seem to be solid 
 starfish. 
 
 As for the crabs — they were so large that they were 
 positively startling. They were three and four feet from
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 375 
 
 tip to tip ; yet their movements, as they floated in the 
 clear green water, were exceedingly graceful. 
 
 Sand Point has a wild, weird, and lonely look. It is just 
 the place for the desperate murder that was committed in 
 the house that stands alone across the bay, — a dull and 
 neglected house with open windows and banging doors. 
 
 " Does no one live there ? " I asked the storekeeper's wife. 
 
 " Live there ! " she repeated with a quick shudder. 
 " No one could be hired at any price to live there." 
 
 The murdered man had purchased a young Aleutian girl, 
 twelve years old, for ten dollars and some tobacco. When 
 she grew older, he lived with her and called her his wife. 
 He abused her shamefully. A Russian half-breed named 
 Gerassenoff — the name fits the story — fell in love with 
 the girl, loved her to desperation, and tried to persuade 
 her to run away with him. 
 
 She dared not, for fear of the brutal white wretch who 
 owned her, body and soul. Gerassenoff, seeing the cru- 
 elties and abuse to which she was daily subjected, brooded 
 upon his troubles until he became partially insane. He 
 entered the house when the man was asleep and murdered 
 him — foully, horribly, cold-bloodedly. 
 
 Gerassenoff is now serving a life-sentence in the govern- 
 ment penitentiary on McNeil's Island; the man he mur- 
 dered lies in an unmarked grave ; the girl — for the story 
 has its touch of awful humor ! — the girl married another 
 man within a twelvemonth. 
 
 There is a persistent invitation at Sand Point to the swim- 
 mer. The temptation to sink down, down, through those 
 translucent depths, and then to rise and float lazily with 
 the jelly-fishes, is almost irresistible. There is a seductive, 
 languorous charm in the slow curve of the waves, as though 
 they reached soft arms and wet lips to caress. There are 
 more beautiful waters along the Alaskan coast, but none in 
 whichthe very spirit of the swimmer seems so surely to dwell.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Belkoffski ! There was something in the name that 
 attracted my attention the first time I heard it ; and my 
 interest increased with each mile that brought it nearer. 
 It is situated on the green and sloping shores of Pavloff 
 Bay, which rise gradually to hills of considerable height. 
 Behind it smokes the active volcano, Mount Pavloff, with 
 whose ashes the hills are in places gray, and whose fires 
 frequently light the night with scarlet beauty. 
 
 The Dora anchored more than a mile from shore, and 
 when the boat was lowered we joyfully made ready to de- 
 scend. We were surprised that no one would go ashore 
 with us. Important duties claimed the attention of officers 
 and passengers ; yet they seemed interested in our prepa- 
 rations. 
 
 " Won't you come ashore with us ? " we asked. 
 
 " No, I thank you," they all replied, as one. 
 
 " Have you ever been ashore here ? " 
 
 "*0h, yes, thank you." 
 
 " Isn't it interesting, then ? " 
 
 "Oh, very interesting, indeed." 
 
 " There is something in their manner that I do not like," 
 I whispered to my companion. " What do you suppose is 
 the matter with Belkoffski." 
 
 " Smallpox, perhaps," she whispered back. 
 
 " I don't care; I'm going." 
 
 " So am I." 
 
 " What kind of place is Belkoffski ? " I asked one of the 
 sailors who rowed us ashore. 
 
 376
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 377 
 
 He grinned until it seemed that he would never again 
 be able to get his mouth shut. 
 
 "Jou vill see vot kind oof a blace it ees," he replied 
 luminously. 
 
 " Is it not a nice place, then ? " 
 
 " Jou vill see." 
 
 We did see. 
 
 The tide was so low and the shore so rocky that we 
 could not get within a hundred yards of any land. A 
 sailor named " Nelse " volunteered to carry us on his back ; 
 and as nothing better presented itself for our considera- 
 tion, we promptly and joyfully went pick-a-back. 
 
 This was my most painful experience in Alaska. My 
 father used to make stirrups of his hands ; but as Nelse 
 did not offer, diffidence kept me from requesting this 
 added gallantry of him. It was well that I went first ; 
 for after viewing my friend's progress shoreward, had I 
 not already been upon the beach, I should never have 
 landed at Belkoffski. 
 
 For many years Belkoffski was the centre of the sea- 
 otter trade. This small animal, which has the m^ost valu- 
 able fur in the world, was found only along the rock shores 
 of th6 Aliaska Peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. The 
 Shumagins and Sannak islands were the richest grounds. 
 Sea-otter, furnishing the court fur of both Russia and 
 China, were in such demand that they have been almost 
 entirely exterminated — as the fur-bearing seal will soon 
 be. 
 
 The fur of the sea-otter is extremely beautiful. It is 
 thick and velvety, its rich brown under-fur being remark- 
 able. The general color is a frosted, or silvery, purplish 
 brown. 
 
 The sea-otter frequented the stormiest and most danger- 
 ous shores, where they were found lying on the rocks, or 
 sometimes floating, asleep, upon fronds of an immense
 
 378 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 kelp which was called " sea-otter's cabbage." The hunters 
 would patiently lie in hiding for days, awaiting a favor- 
 able opportunity to surround their game. 
 
 They were killed at first by ivory spears, which were 
 deftly cast by natives. In later years they were captured 
 in nets, clubbed brutally, or shot. They were excessively 
 shy, and the difficulty and danger of securing them in- 
 creased as their slaughter became more pitiless. Only 
 natives were allowed to kill otter until 1878, when white 
 men married to native women were permitted by the Sec- 
 retary of the Treasury to consider themselves, and to be 
 considered, natives, so far as hunting privileges were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 The rarest and most valuable of otter are the deep-sea 
 otter, which never go ashore, as do the " rock -bobbers," 
 unless driven there by unusual storms. " Silver-tips " — 
 deep-sea otter having a silvery tinge on the tips of the 
 fur — bring the most fabulous prices. 
 
 The hunting of these scarce and precious animals calls 
 for greater bravery, hardship, perilous hazard, and actual 
 suffering than does the chase of any other fur-bearing 
 animal. Pitiful, shameful, and loathsome though the 
 slaughter of seals be, it is not attended by the exposure 
 and the hourly peril which the otter hunter unflinchingly 
 faces. 
 
 Sea-otter swim and sleep upon their backs, with their 
 paws held over their eyes, like sleepy puppies, their bodies 
 barely visible and their hind flippers sticking up out of 
 the water. 
 
 The young are born sometimes at sea, but usually on 
 kelp-beds ; and the mother swims, sleeps, and even suckles 
 her young stretched at full length in the water upon her 
 back. She carries her offspring upon her breast, held in 
 her forearms, and has many humanly maternal ways with 
 it, — fondling it, tossing it into the air and catching
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 379 
 
 it, and even lulling it to sleep with a kind of purring 
 lullaby. 
 
 Both the male and female are fond of their young, caring 
 for it with every appearance of tenderness. In making dif- 
 ficult landings, the male " hauls out " first and catches 
 the young, wdiich the mother tosses to him. Sometimes, 
 when a baby is left alone for a few minutes, it is attacked 
 by some water enemy and killed or turned over, when it 
 invariably drowns. The mother, returning and finding it 
 floating, dead, takes it in her arms and makes every at- 
 tempt possible to bring it to life. Failing, she utters a 
 wild cry of almost human grief and slides down into 
 the sea, leaving it. 
 
 The otter hunters used to go out to sea in their bi- 
 darkas, with bows, arrows, and harpoons ; several would go 
 together, keeping two or three hundred yards apart and 
 proceeding noiselessly. When one discovered an otter, 
 he would hold his paddle straight up in the air, uttering 
 a loud shout. Then all would paddle cautiously about, 
 keeping a close watch for the otter, which cannot remain 
 under water longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. When 
 it came up, the native nearest its breathing place yelled 
 and held up his paddle, startling it under the water again 
 so suddenly that it could not draw a fair breath. In 
 this manner they forced the poor thing to dive again 
 and again, until it was exhausted and floated helplessly 
 upon the water, when it was easily killed, . Frequently 
 two or three hours were required to tire an otter. 
 
 This picturesque method of hunting has given place to 
 shooting and clubbing the otter to death as he lies asleep 
 on the rocks. As they come ashore during the fiercest 
 weather, the hunter must brave the most violent storms 
 and perilous surfs to reach the otter's retreat in his frail, 
 but beautiful, bidarka. With his gut kamelinka — thin 
 and yellow as the "gold-beater's leaf" — tied tightly
 
 380 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 around his face, wrists, and the "man-hole" in which he 
 sits or kneels, his bidarka may turn over and over in the 
 sea without drowning him or shipping a drop of water — 
 on his lucky days. But the unlucky day comes ; an 
 accident occurs ; and a dark-eyed woman watches and 
 waits on the green slopes of Belkoffski for the bidarka 
 that does not come. 
 
 There were only women and children in the village of 
 Belkoffski that June day. The men — with the exception 
 of two or three old ones, who are always left, probably as 
 male chaperons, at the village — were away, hunting. 
 
 The beach was alive, and very noisy, with little brown 
 lads, half-bare, bright-eyed, and with faces that revealed 
 much intelligence, kindness, and humor. 
 
 They clung to us, begging for pennies, which, to our 
 very real regret, we had not thought to take with us. 
 Candy did not go far, and dimes, even if we had been 
 provided with them, would have too rapidly run into 
 dollars. 
 
 Long-stemmed violets and dozens of other varieties of 
 wild flowers covered the slopes. One little creek flowed 
 down to the sea between banks that were of the solid blue 
 of violets. 
 
 But the village itself ! With one of the prettiest natural 
 locations in Alaska ; with singing rills and flowery slopes 
 and a volcano burning splendidly behind it ; with little 
 clean-looking brown lads playing upon its Sands, a Greek- 
 Russian church in its centre, and a resident priest who 
 ought to know that cleanliness is next to godliness — with 
 all these blessings, if blessings they all be, Belkoffski is 
 surely the most unclean place on this fair earth. 
 
 The filth, ignorance, and apparent degradation of these 
 villagers were revolting in the extreme. Nauseous odors 
 assailed us. They came out of the doors and windows ; 
 they swam out of barns and emj^ty sheds ; they oozed up
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 381 
 
 out of the earth ; they seemed, even, to sink upon us out 
 of the blue sky. The sweetness and the freshness of 
 green grass and blowing flowers, of dews and mists, 
 of mountain and sea scented winds, are not sufficient to 
 cleanse Belkoffski — the Caliban among towns. 
 
 An educated half-breed Aleutian woman, married to a 
 white man, accompanied us ashore. She was on her way 
 to Unalaska, and had been eager to land at Belkoffski, 
 where she was born. 
 
 Her father had been a priest of the Greek-Russian 
 church and her mother a native woman. She had told 
 us much of the kind-heartedness and generosity of the 
 villagers. Her heart was full of love and gratitude to 
 them for their tenderness to her when her father, of 
 blessed memory, had died. 
 
 " I have never had such friends since," she said. " They 
 would do an3'thing on earth for those in trouble, and give 
 their own daily food, if necessary. I have never seen 
 anything like it since. Education doesn't put tJiat into 
 our hearts. Such sympathy, such tenderness, such un- 
 derstanding of grief and trouble ! — and the kind of help 
 that kelps most." 
 
 If this be the real nature of these people, only the right 
 influence is needed to lift them from their degradation. 
 The larger children — the brown-limbed, joyous children 
 down on the beach — looked clean, probably from spend- 
 ing much time in the healing sea. 
 
 The people of the islands do not travel much, and our 
 fellow-voyager had not been to Belkoffski since she was 
 a little girl. For many years she had been living among 
 white people, with all the comforts and cleanliness of a 
 white woman. I watched her narrowly as we went from 
 house to house, looking for baskets. 
 
 We had told her we desired baskets, and she had offered 
 to find some for us. After we saw the houses and the
 
 382 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 women, we would have touched a leper as readily as we 
 would have touched one of the baskets that were brought 
 out for our inspection ; but politeness kept us from ad- 
 mitting to her our feeling. 
 
 As for her own courtesy and restraint, I have never seen 
 them surpassed by any one. Shock upon shock must have 
 been hers as we passed through that village of her child- 
 hood and affection. She went into those noisome hovels 
 without the faintest hesitation ; she breathed their atmos- 
 phere without complaint ; she embraced the women with- 
 out shrinking. 
 
 She knew perfectly why we did not buy the baskets ; 
 but she received our excuses with every appearance of 
 believing them to be sincere, and she offered us others 
 with utmost dignity and with the manner of serving us, 
 strangers, in a strange land. 
 
 If her delicacy was outraged by the scenes she wit- 
 nessed, there was not the faintest trace of it visible in her 
 manner. She made no excuses for the people, nor for 
 their manner of living, nor for the village. Belkoffski 
 had been her childhood's home, her father's field ; its 
 people had befriended her and had given her love and 
 tenderness when she was in need ; therefore, both were 
 sacred and beyond criticism. 
 
 When we returned to the ship, she could not have 
 failed to hear the jests and frank opinions of Belkoffski 
 which were freely expressed among the passengers ; but 
 her grave, dark face gave no sign that she disapproved, 
 or even that she heard. 
 
 A government cutter should be sent to Belkoffski with 
 orders to clean it up, and to burn such portions as are past 
 cleansing. So far as the Russian priest and the people in 
 his charge are concerned, they would be benefited by less 
 religion and more cleanliness. 
 
 Dr. Hutton, an army surgeon stationed at Fort Seward
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 383 
 
 on Lynn Canal, and Judge Gunnison, of Juneau, have 
 recently made an appeal to President Roosevelt for relief 
 for diseased and suffering Indians of Alaska. 
 
 Tuberculosis and trachoma prevail among the many 
 tribes and are increasing at an alarming rate, owing to 
 the utter lack of sanitation in the villages. Alaskans trav- 
 elling in the territory are thrown in constant contact 
 with the Indians. They are encountered on steamers and 
 trains, in stores and hotels. Owing to the pure air and 
 the general healthf ulness of the northern climate, Alaskans 
 feel no real alarm over the conditions prevailing as yet ; 
 but all feel that the time has arrived when the Indians 
 should be cared for. 
 
 Everything purchased of an Indian should be at once 
 fumigated — especially furs, blankets, baskets, and every 
 article that has been handled by him or housed in one of 
 his vile shacks. 
 
 The United States Grand Jury recently recommended 
 that medical men be sent by the government to attend the 
 disease-stricken creatures, and that a system of inspection 
 and education along sanitary lines — with special stress 
 laid upon domestic sanitation — should be established. 
 
 This system should be extended to the last island of the 
 Aleutian Chain, and in the interior down the Yukon to 
 Nome. The fur trade and the canneries depend largely 
 upon the labor of Indians. The former industry could 
 scarcely be made successful without them. The Indians 
 are rapidly becoming a " vanishing race " in the North, as 
 elsewhere. For the vices that are to-day responsible for 
 their unfortunate condition they are indebted to the white 
 men who have kept them supplied with cheap whiskey 
 ever since the advent of the first American traders who 
 taught them, soon after the purchase of Alaska by the 
 United States, to make " hootchenoo " of molasses, flour, 
 dried apples, or rice, and hops. This highly intoxicating
 
 384 ALASKA: THE GliEAT COUNTRY 
 
 and degrading liqaor was known also as molasses-rura. 
 During the latter part of the seventies, six thousand five 
 ]iundred and twenty-four gallons of molasses were de- 
 livered at Sitka and Wrangell. 
 
 The loss of their help, however, is not so serious — 
 being merely a commercial loss — as the danger to civilized 
 people by coming in contact with these dreaded diseases. 
 An Indian in Alaska whose eyes are not diseased is an 
 exception, while the ravages of consumption are very 
 frequently visible to the most careless observer. Both 
 diseases are aggravated by such conditions as those exist- 
 ing at Belkoffski. A physician should be stationed there 
 for a few years at least, to teach these poor, kind-hearted 
 people what the Russian priest has not taught them — the 
 science of sanitation. 
 
 Bishop Rowe reports that if there were no missionaries 
 to protect the Eskimo and Indians from unscrupulous 
 white whiskey-traders, they would survive but a short 
 time. When they can obtain cheap liquors they go on 
 prolonged and licentious debauches, and are unable to 
 provide for their actual physical needs for the long, hard 
 winter. Their condition then becomes pitiable, and many 
 die of hunger and privation. Prosecutions are made en- 
 tirely by missionaries. One Episcopal missionary post is 
 conducted by two young women, one of whom was for- 
 merly a society woman of Los Angeles. The post is more 
 than a thousand miles from Fairbanks, the nearest city, 
 and one hundred and twenty-five miles from the nearest 
 white settler. It is owing to the reports and the prosecu- 
 tions of missionaries in all parts of Alaska that the out- 
 rages formerly practised upon Eskimo women by licentious 
 white traders are on the decrease. 
 
 Federal Commissioner of Education Brown advocates 
 a compulsory school law for Alaska. He favors instruc- 
 tion in modern methods of fishing and of curinsf fish ; in
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 385 
 
 the care of all parts of walrus that are merchantable ; in 
 the handling of wooden boats, the tanning and preparing 
 of skins, in coal mining and the elements of agriculture. 
 
 In 1907 fifty-two native schools were maintained in 
 Alaska, with two thousand five hundred children enrolled. 
 Ten new school buildings have recently been constructed. 
 
 The reindeer service has been one of Alaska's grave 
 scandals, but it has greatly improved during the past year. 
 
 The Eskimo, or Innuit, inhabit a broad belt of the coast 
 line bordering on Behring Sea and the Arctic Ocean, as 
 well as along the coast " to Westward " from Yakutat ; 
 also the lower part of the Yukon. 
 
 Lieutenant Emmons, who is one of the highest authori- 
 ties on the natives of Alaska and their customs, has fre- 
 quently reported the deplorable condition of the Eskimo, 
 and the prevalence of tuberculosis and other dread dis- 
 eases among them. 
 
 In 1900 an epidemic of measles and la grippe devastated 
 the Northwestern Coast. Out of a total population of three 
 thousand natives about the mouth of the Kuskokwim, 
 fully half died, without medical attendance or nursing, 
 within a few months. 
 
 The hospitality and generous kindness of the Eskimo to 
 those in need is proverbial. Ever since their subjection 
 by the early Russians — to whom, also, they would doubt- 
 less have shown kindness had they not been afraid of 
 them — no shipwrecked mariner has sought their huts in 
 vain. Often the entire crew of an abandoned vessel has 
 been succored, clothed, and kept from starvation during a 
 whole winter — the season when provisions are scarce and 
 the Eskimo themselves scarcely know how to find the 
 means of existence. 
 
 Along the islands, the rivers, and lakes, nature has 
 provided them with food and clothing, if they were but 
 educated to make the most of these blessings. 
 2c
 
 386 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 But the vast country bordering the coast between the 
 Kuskokwiin and the Yukon, and extending inland a hun- 
 dred and fifty miles, is low and swampy. This is the 
 dreariest portion of Alaska. Tundra, swamps, and slug- 
 gish rivers abound. There is no game, and the natives 
 live on fish and seal. The winters are severe, the climate 
 is cold and excessively moist. Food has often failed, and 
 the old or helpless are called upon to go alone out upon 
 the storm-swept tundra and yield their hard lives — bitter 
 and cheerless at the best — that the young and strong may 
 live. As late as 1901 Lieutenant Emmons reports that 
 this system of unselfish and heart-breaking suicide was 
 practised ; and it is probably still in vogue in isolated 
 places when occasion demands. 
 
 This district is so poor and unprofitable that the pros- 
 pector and the trader have so far passed it by ; yet, by 
 some means, the white man's worst diseases have been 
 carried in to them. 
 
 These people are in dire need of schools, hospitals, 
 medical treatment, and often simple food and clothing. 
 
 Farther north, on Seward Peninsula and along the 
 lower Yukon, the natives who have mingled with the 
 miners and traders could easily be taught to be not only 
 self-supporting but of real value to the communities in 
 which they live. They are intelligent, docile, easily di- 
 rected, and eager to learn. Lieutenant Emmons found 
 that everywhere they asked for schools, that their chil- 
 dren, to whom they are most affectionately devoted, may 
 learn to be " smart like the white man." 
 
 They are more humble, dependent, and trustful than the 
 Indians, and could easily be influenced. But people do 
 not go to Alaska to educate and care for diseased and 
 loathsome natives, unless they are paid well for the mis- 
 sion. So long as the natives obey the laws of the country, 
 no one has authority over them. No one is interested in
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 387 
 
 them, or has the time to spare in teaching them. The 
 United States government should take care of these peo- 
 ple. It should take measures to protect them from the 
 death-dealing whiskey with which they are supplied ; to 
 provide them with schools, hospitals, medical care ; it 
 should supply them with reindeer and teach them to care 
 for these animals. 
 
 Surely the government of the United States asks not to 
 be informed more than once by such authorities as Lieu- 
 tenant Emmons, Bishop Rowe, Judge Gunnison, Ex- 
 Governor Brady, and Doctor Hutton that these most 
 wretched beings on the outskirts of the world are begging 
 for education, and that they are sorely in need of medical 
 services. 
 
 The government schools in the territory of Alaska are 
 supported by a portion of the license moneys levied on the 
 various industries of the country. Alaska has an area of 
 six hundred thousand square miles and an estimated native 
 and |ialf-breed population of twenty-five thousand ; and 
 for these people only fifty-two schools and as many 
 poorly paid teachers ! 
 
 When I have criticised the Russian Church because it 
 has not taught these people cleanliness, I blush — remem- 
 bering how my own government has failed them in needs 
 as vital. And when I reflect upon the outrages perpe- 
 trated upon them by my own fellow-countrymen — who 
 have deprived them largely of their means of livelihood, 
 robbed them, debauched them, ravished their women, and 
 lured away their young girls — when I reflect upon these 
 things, my face burns with shame that I should ever 
 criticise any other people or any other government than 
 my own. 
 
 The recent rapid development of Alaska, and the ap- 
 propriation of the native food-supplies by miners, traders, 
 canners, and settlers, present a problem that must be
 
 388 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 solved at once. In regard to the Philippines, we were 
 like a child with a new to}' ; we could not play with them 
 and experiment with them enough; yet for forty years 
 these dark, gentle, uncomplaining people of our most 
 northern and most splendid possession — beautiful, glori- 
 ous Alaska — have been patiently waiting for all that we 
 should long ago have given them : protection, interest, 
 and the education and training that would have converted 
 them from diseased and wretched beings into decent and 
 useful people. 
 
 According to Lieutenant Emmons, the condition of the 
 Copper River Indians is exceptionally miserable ; and of 
 all the native people, either coastal or of the interior, they 
 are most needy and in want of immediate assistance. 
 Reduced in number to barely two hundred and fifty souls, 
 scattered in small communities along the river valleys 
 amidst the loftiest mountains of the continent and under 
 the most rigid climatic conditions, their natural living has 
 been taken from them by the white man, without the 
 establishment of any labor market for their self-support 
 in return. 
 
 Prior to 1888 they lived in a very primitive state, and 
 were, even then, barely able to maintain themselves on the 
 not over-abundant game life of the valley, together with 
 the salmon coming up the river for spawning purposes. 
 The mining excitement of that year brought several thou- 
 sand men into the Copper River Valley, on their way to 
 the Yukon and the Klondike. 
 
 They swept the country clean of game, burnt over vast 
 districts, and frequently destro^'ed what they could not 
 use. About the same time the salmon canneries in Prince 
 William Sound, having exhausted the home streams, ex- 
 tended their operations to the Copper River delta, decreas- 
 ing the Indians' salmon catch, which had always provided 
 them with food for the bitter winters.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 389 
 
 These Indians are simple, kind-hearted, and have ever 
 been friendly and hospitable to the white man. They re- 
 spect his cache, although their own has not always been 
 respected by him. 
 
 At Copper Centre, which is connected by military 
 wagon road with the coast at Valdez, flour sells for twenty- 
 four dollars a hundredweight, and all other provisions 
 and clothing in proportion ; so it may be readily under- 
 stood that the white people of the interior cannot afford 
 to divide their provisions with the starving Indians, else 
 they would soon be in the same condition themselves. 
 Therefore, for these Indians, too, — fortunately few in 
 number, — the government must provide liberally and at 
 once.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 At sunset on the day of our landing at Belkoffski we 
 passed the active volcanoes of Pogromni and Shishaldin, 
 on the island of Unimak. For years I had longed to see 
 Shishaldin ; and one of my nightly prayers during the 
 voyage had been for a clear and beautiful light in which 
 to see it. Not to pass it in the night, nor in the rain, 
 nor in the fog ; not to be too ill to get on deck in some 
 fashion — this had been my prayer. 
 
 For days I had trembled at the thought of missing 
 Shishaldin. To long for a thing for years ; to think of it 
 by day and to dream of it by night, as though it were a 
 sweetheart ; to draw near to it once, and once only in a 
 lifetime — aud then, to pass it without one glimpse of its 
 coveted loveliness ! — that would be too bitter a fate to be 
 endured. 
 
 In a few earnest words, soon after leaving Valdez, I 
 had acquainted the captain with my desire. 
 
 It was his watch when I told him. He was pacing in 
 front of the pilot-house. A cigar was set immovably 
 between his lips. He heard me to the end and then, with- 
 out looking at me, smiled out into the golden distance 
 ahead of us. 
 
 " You fix the weather," said he, " and I'll fix the moun- 
 tain." 
 
 I, or some other, had surely "fixed " the weather. 
 
 No such trip had ever been known by the oldest member 
 of the crew. Only one rainy night and one sweet half- 
 
 390
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 391 
 
 cloudy afternoon. For the rest, blue and golden days and 
 nights of amethyst. 
 
 But would the captain forget ? The thought always 
 made my heart pause ; yet there was something in the 
 firm lines of his strong, brown face that made it impossi- 
 ble for me to mention it to him again. 
 
 But on that evening I was sitting in the dining room 
 which, when the tables were cleared, was a kind of general 
 family living room, when Charlie came to me with his 
 angelic smile. 
 
 " The captain, he say you please come on deck right 
 away." 
 
 I went up the companion-way and stepped out upon the 
 deck ; and there in the north, across the blue, mist- 
 softened sea, in the rich splendor of an Aleutian sunset, 
 trembled and glowed the exquisite thing of my desire. 
 
 In the absolute perfection of its conical form, its chaste 
 and delicate beauty of outline, and the slender column of 
 smoke pushing up from its finely pointed crest, Shishaldin 
 stands alone. Its height is not great, only nine thousand 
 feet ; but in any company of loftier mountains it would 
 shine out with a peerlessness that would set it apart. 
 
 The sunset trembled upon the North Pacific Ocean, 
 changing hourly as the evening wore on. Through scarlet 
 and purple and gold, the mountain shone ; through lav- 
 ender, pearl, and rose; growing ever more distant and 
 more dim, but not less beautiful. At last, it could barely 
 be seen, in a flood of rich violet mist, just touched with 
 rose. 
 
 So steadily I looked, and with such a longing passion of 
 greeting, rapture, possession, and farewell in my gaze and 
 in my heart, that lo ! when its last outline had blurred 
 lingeringly and sweetly into the rose-violet mist, I found 
 that it was painted in all its delicacy of outline and soft 
 splendor of coloring upon my memory. There it burns
 
 392 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 to-day in all its loveliness as vividly as it burned that 
 night, ere it faded, line by line, across the widening sea. 
 It is mine. I own it as surely as I own the green hill 
 upon which I live, the blue sea that sparkles daily be- 
 neath my windows, the gold-brilliant constellations that 
 move nightly above my home, or the song that the meadow- 
 lark sings to his mate in the April dawn. 
 
 The sea breaks into surf upon Sliishaldin's base, and 
 snow covers the slender cone from summit to sea level, 
 save for a month or two in summer when it melts around 
 the base. Owing to the mists, it is almost impossible to 
 obtain a sharp negative of Shishaldin from the water. 
 
 They played with it constantly. They wrapped soft 
 rose-colored scarfs about its crest ; they wound girdles of 
 purple and gold and pearl about its middle ; they set 
 rayed gold upon it, like a crown. Now and then, for a 
 few seconds at a time, they drew away completely, as if 
 to contemplate its loveliness ; and then, as if overcome 
 and compelled by its dazzling brilliance, they flung them- 
 selves back upon it impetuously and crushed it for several 
 moments completely from our view. 
 
 Large and small, the islands of the Aleutian Archipel- 
 ago number about one hundred. They drift for nearly 
 fifteen hundred miles from the point of the Aliaska Pen- 
 insula toward the Kamchatkan shore ; and Attn, the last 
 one, lies within the eastern hemisphere. This chain of 
 islands, reaching as far west as the Komandorski, or Com- 
 mander, Islands — upon one of which Commander Behr- 
 ing died and was buried — was named, in 1786, the 
 Catherina Archipelago, by Forster, in honor of the liberal 
 and enlightened Empress Catherine the Second, of 
 Russia. 
 
 The Aleutian Islands are divided into four groups. 
 The most westerly are Nearer, or Blizni, Islands, of which
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 393 
 
 the famed Attu is the Largest ; the next group to east- 
 ward is known as Rat, or Kreesi, Islands; then, Andrea- 
 noffski Islands, named for Andreanoff, who discovered 
 them, and whose largest island is Atka, where it is said 
 the baskets known as the Attu baskets are now woven. 
 
 East of this group are the Fox, or Leesi, Islands. This 
 is the largest of the four Aleutian groups, and contains 
 thirty-one islands, including Unimak, which is the largest 
 in the archipelago. Others of importance in this group 
 are Unalaska, formerly spelled Unalashka ; Umnak ; 
 Akutan ; Akhun ; Ukamak ; and the famed volcano 
 islands of St. John the Theologian, or Joanna Bogoslova, 
 and the Four Craters. Unimak Pass, the best known 
 and most used passage into Behring Sea, is between 
 Unimak and Akhun islands. Akutan Pass is between 
 Akutan and Unalaska islands ; Umnak Pass, between 
 Unalaska and Umnak islands. (These us are pronounced 
 as though spelled oo.') 
 
 Unalaska and Dutch Harbor are situated on the Island 
 of Unalaska. By the little flower-bordered path leading 
 up and down the green, velvety hills, these two settlements 
 are fully two miles apart ; by water, they seem scarcely 
 two hundred yards from one another. The steamer, after 
 landing at Dutch Harbor, draws her prow from the wharf, 
 turns it gently around a green point, and lays it beside 
 the wharf at Unalaska. 
 
 The bay is so surrounded by hills that slope softly to 
 the water, that one can scarcely remember which blue 
 water-way leads to the sea. There is a curving white 
 beach, from which the town of Unalaska received its 
 ancient name of Iliuliuk, meaning " the beach that curves." 
 The white-painted, red-roofed buildings follow this beach, 
 and loiter picturesquely back over the green level to the 
 stream that flows around the base of the hills and finds 
 the sea at the Unalaska wharf.
 
 394 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 This is one of the safest harbors in the world. It is 
 one great, sparkling sapphire, set deep in solid emerald 
 and pearl. It is entered more beautifully than even the 
 Bay of Sitka. It is completely surrounded by high 
 mountains, peak rising behind peak, and all covered with 
 a thick, green, velvety nap and crowned with eternal 
 pearl. 
 
 The entrance way is so winding that these peaks have 
 the appearance of leaning aside to let us slide through, 
 and then drawing together behind us, to keep out the 
 storms ; for ships of the heaviest draught find refuge here 
 and lie safely at anchor while tempests rage outside. 
 
 Now and then, between two enchantingly green near 
 peaks, a third shines out white, far, glistening mistily — 
 covered with snow from summit to base, but with a dark 
 scarf of its own internal passion twisted about its out- 
 wardly serene brow. 
 
 The Kuro S'iwo, or Japan Current, breaks on the west- 
 ern end of the Aleutian Chain ; half flows eastward south 
 of the islands, and carries with it the warm, moist atmos- 
 phere which is condensed on the snow-peaks and sinks 
 downward in the fine and delicious mist that gives the 
 grass and mosses their vivid, brilliant, perpetual green. 
 The other half passes northward into Behring Sea and 
 drives the ice back into the " Frozen Ocean." Dall was 
 told that the whalers in early spring have seen large ice- 
 bergs steadily sailing northward through the strait at a 
 knot and a half an hour, against a very stiff breeze from 
 the north. In May the first whalers follow the Kamchat- 
 kan Coast northward, as the ice melts on that shore earlier 
 than on ours. The first whaler to pass East Cape secures 
 the spring trade and the best catch of whales. 
 
 The color of the Kuro Siwo is darker than the waters 
 through which it flows, and its Japanese name signifies 
 "Black Stream." Passing on down the coast, it carries a
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 395 
 
 warm and vivifying moisture as far southwest as Oregon. 
 It gives the Aleutians their bahuy climate. The average 
 winter temperature is about thirty degrees above zero ; 
 and the summer temperature, from fifty to sixty degrees. 
 
 The volcano Makushin is the noted " smoker " of this 
 island, and there is a hot spring, containing sulphur, in 
 the vicinity, from which loud, cannon -like reports are 
 frequently heard. The natives believe that the moun- 
 tains fouofht together and that Makushin remained the 
 victor. These reports were probably supposed to be 
 fired at his command, as warnings of his fortified position 
 to any inquisitive peak that might chance to fire a lava 
 interrogation-point at him. 
 
 In June, and again in October, of 1778, Cook visited 
 the vicinity, anchoring in Samghanooda Harbor. There 
 he was visited by the commander of the Russian ex- 
 pedition in this region, Gregorovich Ismailoff. The 
 usual civilities and gifts were exchanged. Cook sent 
 the Russian some liquid gifts which were keenly appre- 
 ciated, and was in return offered a sea-otter skin of 
 such value that Cook courteously declined it, accepting, 
 instead, some dried fish and several baskets of lily root. 
 
 The Russian settlement was at Iliuliuk, which was dis- 
 tant several miles from Samghanooda. Several of the 
 members of Cook's party visited the settlement, not- 
 ably Corporal Ledyard, who reported that it consisted 
 of a dwelling-house and two storehouses, about thirty 
 Russians, and a number of Kamchatkans and natives who 
 were used as servants by the Russians. They all lived 
 in the same houses, but ate at three different tables. 
 
 Cook considered the natives themselves the most gentle 
 and inoffensive people he had ever " met with " in his 
 travels ; while as to honesty, " they might serve as a 
 pattern to the most civilized nation upon earth." He 
 was convinced, however, that this disposition had been
 
 396 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 produced by the severities at first practised upon them 
 by the Russians in an effort to subdue them. 
 
 Cook described them as low of stature, but plump and 
 well-formed, dark-eyed, and dark-haired. The women 
 wore a single garment, loose-fitting, of sealskin, reaching 
 below the knee — -the parka ; the men, the same kind of 
 garment, made of the skin of birds, with the feathers 
 worn against the flesh. Over this garment, the men 
 wore another made of gut, which I have elsewhere de- 
 scribed under the name of kamelinka, or kamelayka. All 
 wore " oval-snouted " caps made of wood, dyed in colors 
 and decorated with glass beads. 
 
 The women punctured their lips and wore bone labrets. 
 " It is as uncommon, at Oonalashka, to see a man with 
 this ornament as to see a woman without it," he adds. 
 
 The chief was seen making his dinner of the raw head 
 of a large halibut. Two of his servants ate the gills, 
 which were cleaned simply " by squeezing out the slime." 
 The chief devoured large pieces of the raw meat with as 
 great satisfaction as though they had been raw oysters. 
 
 These natives lived in barabaras. (This word is pro- 
 nounced with the accent on the second syllable ; the 
 correct spelling cannot be vouched for here, because no 
 two authorities spell it in the same way.) 
 
 They were usually made by forming shallow circular 
 excavations and erecting over them a framework of drift- 
 wood, or whale-ribs, with double walls filled with earth 
 and stones and covered over with sod. 
 
 The roofs contained square openings in the centre for 
 the escape of smoke; and these low earth roofs were used 
 by the natives as family gathering places in pleasant 
 weather. Here they would sit for hours, doing noth- 
 ing and gazing blankly at nothing. 
 
 The entrance was through a square hole in, or near, 
 the roof. It was reached by a ladder, and descent into
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 397 
 
 the interior was made in the same way, or by means of 
 steps cut in a post. A narrow dark tunnel led to the 
 inner room, which was from ten to twenty feet in 
 diameter. 
 
 These barabaras were sometimes warmed only by lamps ; 
 but usually a fire was built in the centre, directly under 
 the opening in the roof. Mats and skins were placed on 
 shelves, slightly elevated above the floor, around the 
 walls. Many persons of both sexes and all ages lived in 
 these places ; frequently several dwellings were connected 
 by tunnels and had one common hole-entrance. The 
 filth of these airless habitations was nauseating. 
 
 Their household furniture consisted of bowls, spoons, 
 buckets, cans, baskets, and one or two Russian pots ; a 
 knife and a hatchet were the only tools they possessed. 
 
 The huts were lighted by lamps made of fiat stones 
 which were hollowed on one side to hold oil, in which 
 dry grass was burned. Both men and women warmed 
 their bodies by sitting over these lamps and spreading 
 their garments around them. 
 
 The natives used the bidarka here, as elsewhere. 
 
 They buried their dead on the summits of hills, rais- 
 ing little hillocks over the graves. Cook saw one grave 
 covered with stones, to which every one passing added a 
 stone, after the manner fancied by Helen Hunt Jackson 
 a hundred years later ; and he saw several stone hillocks 
 that had an appearance of great antiquity. 
 
 In Unalaska to-day may still be seen several barabaras. 
 They must be very old, because the native habitations 
 of the coast are constructed along the lines of the white 
 man's dwellings at the present time. They add to the 
 general quaint and picturesque appearance of the town, 
 however. Their sod roofs are overgrown with tall 
 grasses, among which wild flowers flame out brightly. 
 
 (Unalaska is pronounced Oo-na-las'-ka, the a's having
 
 398 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 the sound of a in arm. Aleutian is pronounced in five 
 syllables : A-le-oo'-shi-an, with the same sound of a.) 
 
 The island of Unalaska was sighted by Chirikoff on his 
 return to Kamchatka, on the 4tli of September, 17-11. 
 
 The chronicles of the first expeditions of the Russian 
 traders — or promyshleniki, as they were called — are 
 wrapped in mystery. But it is believed that as early as 
 1744 Emilian Bassof and Andrei Serebrennikof voyaged 
 into the islands and were rewarded by a catch of sixteen 
 hundred sea-otters, two thousand fur-seals, and as many 
 blue foxes. 
 
 Stephan Glottoff was the first to trade with the natives 
 of Unalaska, whom he found peaceable and friendly. 
 The next, however, Korovin, attempted to make a settle- 
 ment upon the island, but met with repulse from the 
 natives, and several of his party were killed. 
 
 Glottoff returned to his rescue, and the latter's expedi- 
 tion was the most important of the earlier ones to the 
 islands. On his previous visit he had found the highly 
 prized black foxes on the island of Unalaska, and had 
 carried a number to Kamchatka. 
 
 I have related elsewhere the story of the atrocities 
 perpetrated upon the natives of these islands by the early 
 promyshleniki. During the years between 1760 and 1770 
 the natives were in active revolt against their oppressors ; 
 and it was not until the advent of Solovioff the Butcher 
 that they were tortured into the mild state of submission 
 in which they were found by Cook in 1778, and in which 
 they have since dwelt. 
 
 Father Veniaminoff made the most careful study of the 
 Aleutians, beginning about 1824. It has been claimed 
 that this noble and devout priest was so good that he per- 
 ceived good where it did not exist ; and his statements 
 concerning his beloved Aleutians are not borne out by
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 399 
 
 the proinyshleniki. Considering the character of the 
 latter, I prefer to believe Veniaminoff. 
 
 The most influential Aleuts were those who were most 
 successful in hunting, which seemed to be their highest 
 ambition. The best hunters possessed the greatest num- 
 ber of wives ; and they were never stinted in this luxury. 
 Even Veniaminoff, with his rose-colored glasses on, failed 
 to discover virtue or the faintest moral sense among them. 
 
 " They incline to sensuality," he put it, politely. " Be- 
 fore the teachings of the Christian religion had enlightened 
 them, this inclination had full sway. The nearest con- 
 sanguinity, only, puts limits to their passions. Although 
 polygamy was general, nevertheless there were frequently 
 secret orgies, in which all joined. . . . The bad example 
 and worse teachings of the early Russian settlers increased 
 their tendency to licentiousness." 
 
 Child-murder was rare, owing to the belief that it brought 
 misfortune upon the whole village. 
 
 Among the half-breeds, the character of the dark mother 
 invariably came out more strongly than that of the Rus- 
 sian father. They learned readily and intelligently, and 
 fulfilled all church duties imposed upon them cheerfully, 
 punctually, and with apparent pleasure. 
 
 Under the teaching of Veniaminoff, the Aleuts were 
 easily weaned from their early Pantheism, and from their 
 savage songs and dances, described by the earlier voyagers. 
 They no longer wore their painted masks and hats, al- 
 though some treasured them in secret. 
 
 The successful hunter, in times of famine or scarcity of 
 food, shared with all who were in need. The latter met 
 him when his boat returned, and sat down silently on the 
 shore. This is a sign that they ask for aid ; and the 
 hunter supplies them, without receiving, or expecting, 
 either restitution or thanks. This generosity is like that 
 of the people of Belkoffski; it comes from the heart.
 
 400 ALAtiKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The Aleutians were frequently intoxicated ; but this 
 condition did not lead to quarrelling or trouble. Murder 
 and attempts at murder were unknown among them. 
 
 If an Aleut were injured, or offended, after the intro- 
 duction of Christianity, he received and bore the insult in 
 silence. They had no oaths or violent epithets in their 
 language ; and they would rather commit suicide than to 
 receive a blow. The sting that lies in cruel words they 
 dreaded as keenly. 
 
 Veniaminoff found that the Aleuts would steal nothing 
 more than a few leaves of tobacco, a few swallows of 
 brandy, or a little food ; and these articles but rarely. 
 
 The most striking trait of character displayed by the 
 Aleut was, and still is, his patience. He never complained, 
 even when slowly starving to death. He sat by the shore ; 
 and if food were not offered to him, he would not ask. He 
 was never known to sigh, nor to groan, nor to shed tears. 
 
 These people were found to be very sensitive, however, 
 and capable of deep emotion, even though it was never re- 
 vealed in their faces. They were exceedingly fond of, 
 and tender with, their children, and readily interpreted a 
 look of contempt or ridicule, which invariably offended in 
 the highest degree. 
 
 The most beautiful thing recorded of the Aleut is that 
 when one has done him a favor or kindness, and has after- 
 ward offended him, he does not forget the former favor, 
 but permits it to cancel the offence. 
 
 They scorn lying, hypocrisy, and exaggeration ; and 
 they never betray a secret. They are so hospitable that 
 they will den}- themselves to give to the stranger that is 
 in need. They detest a braggart, but they never dispute 
 — not even when they know that their own opinion is the 
 correct one. 
 
 Veniaminoff admitted that the Aleuts who had lived 
 among the Russians were passionately addicted to the use
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 401 
 
 of liquor and tobacco. But even with their drunkenness, 
 their uncleanness, and their immorality, the Aleutian char- 
 acter seems to have possessed so many admirable, and even 
 unusual, traits that, if the training and everyday influ- 
 ences of these people had been of a different nature from 
 what they have been since the}'' lost Veniaminoff, they 
 would have, ere this, been able to overcome their inherited 
 and acquired vices, and to have become useful and desir- 
 able citizens. 
 
 They were formerly of a revengeful nature, but after 
 coming under the influence of Veniaminoff, no instance of 
 revenge was discovered by him. 
 
 They learned readily, with but little teaching, not only 
 mechanical things, but those, also, which require deep 
 thought — such as chess, at which they became experts. 
 
 One became an excellent navigator, and made charts 
 which were followed by other voyagers for many years. 
 Others worked skilfully in ivory, and the dark-eyed women 
 wove their dreams into the most precious basketry of the 
 world. 
 
 2p
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 We sailed into the lovely bay of Unalaska on the fourth 
 day of July. The entire village, native and white, had 
 gone on a picnic to the hills. 
 
 We spent the afternoon loitering about the deserted 
 streets and the green and flowery hills. One could sit 
 contentedly for a week upon the hills, — as the natives used 
 to sit upon the roofs of their barabaras, — doing nothing 
 but looking down upon the idyllic loveliness shimmering 
 in every direction. 
 
 In the centre of the town rises the Greek-Russian church, 
 green-roofed and bulbous-domed, adding the final touch 
 of mysticism and poetry to this already enchanting scene. 
 
 At sunset the mists gathered, slowly, delicately, beauti- 
 fully. They moved in softly through the same strait by 
 which we had entered — little rose-colored masses that 
 drifted up to meet the violet-tinted ones from the other 
 end of the bay. In the centre of the water valley they 
 met and mixed together, and, in their new and more mar- 
 vellous coloring, pushed up about the town and the lower 
 slopes. Out of them lifted and shone the green roof and 
 domes of the church ; more brilliantly above them, napped 
 thick and soft as velvet, glowed the hills ; and more lus- 
 trously against the saffron sky flashed the pearl of the 
 higher peaks. 
 
 There was a gay dinner party aboard the Bora that night. 
 Afterward, we all attended a dance. There was only one 
 
 402
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 403 
 
 white woman in the hall besides my friend and myself ; 
 and we three were belles ! We danced with every man 
 who asked us to dance, to the most wonderful music I have 
 ever heard. One of the musicians played a violin with his 
 hands and a French harp with his mouth, both at the same 
 time — besides making quite as much noise with one foot 
 as he did with both of the instruments together. 
 
 There were several good-looking Aleutian girls at the 
 dance. They had pretty, slender figures, would have 
 been considered well dressed in any small village in 
 the states, and danced with exceeding grace and ease. 
 
 We went to this dance not without some qualms of 
 various kinds ; but we went for the same reason that 
 "Cyanide Bill" told us he had journeyed three times 
 to the shores of the "Frozen Ocean" — "just to see." 
 
 Toward midnight a pretty and stylishly gowned young 
 woman came in with an escort and joined in the dan- 
 cing. As she whirled past us, with diamonds flashing 
 from her hands, ears, and neck, my inquiring Scotch 
 friend asked a gentleman with whom she was dancing, 
 "Who is the pretty dark-eyed lady? We have not 
 seen her before." 
 
 She was completely extinguished for some time by 
 his reply, given with the cheerful frankness of the 
 North. 
 
 "Oh, that's Nelly, miss. I don't know any other 
 name for her. We just always call her Nelly, miss." 
 
 We returned to the steamer, leaving " Nelly " to twinkle 
 on. Our curiosity was entirely satisfied. We went " to 
 see," and we had seen. 
 
 Captain Gray might be called " the lord of Unalaska." 
 He is the " great gentleman " of the place. He has for 
 many years managed the affairs of the Alaska Commer- 
 cial Company, and he has acted as host to almost every 
 traveller who has voyaged to this lovely isle.
 
 404 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 After supper, which was served on the steamer at mid- 
 night, we were invited to his home " to finish the evening." 
 
 "■At one o'clock in the morning!" gasped my com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Hours don't count up here," said our captain. " It is 
 broad daylight. Besides, it is the 4th of July. I think 
 we should accept the invitation." 
 
 We did accept it, in the same spirit in which it was 
 given, and it was one of the most profitable of evenings. 
 We found a home of comfort and refinement in the 
 farthest outpost of civilization in the North Pacific. 
 The hours were spent pleasantly with good music, sing- 
 ing, and reading ; and delicate refreshments were served. 
 
 The sun shone upon my friend's scandalized face as we 
 returned to our steamer. It was nearly five o'clock. 
 
 '' I know it was innocent enough," said she, " but think 
 liow it sounds! — a dance, with only three white women 
 present — not to mention ' Nelly ' ! — a midnight supper, 
 and then an invitation to ' finish the evening ' ! It sounds 
 like one of Edith Wharton's novels." 
 
 " It's Alaska," said the captain. " You want local color 
 — and you're getting it. But let me tell you that you 
 have never been safer in your life than you have been 
 to-night." 
 
 "• Safe ! " echoed she. " Fm not talking about the safety 
 of it. It's the /orm of it." 
 
 " Form doesn't count, as yet, in the Aleutians," said the 
 captain. " ' There's never a law of God or man runs 
 north of fifty-tliree ! ' " 
 
 " There's surely never a social law runs north of it," 
 was the scornful reply. 
 
 The next morning we went to the great warehouses of 
 the company, to look at old Russian samovars. Captain 
 Gray personally escorted us through their dim, cob- 
 webby, high-raftered spaces. There was one long counter
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 405 
 
 covered with samovars, and we began eagerly to examine 
 and price them. 
 
 The cheapest was twenty-five dollars ; and the most 
 expensive, more than a hundred. 
 
 '" But they are all sold," added Captain Gray, gloomily. 
 
 " All sold ! " we exclaimed, in a breath. " What — all ? 
 Every one? " 
 
 " Yes ; every one," he answered mournfully. 
 
 " Why, how very odd," said I, " for them all to be sold, 
 and all to be left here." 
 
 " Yes," said he, sighing. " The captain of a govern- 
 ment cutter bought them for his friends in Boston. He 
 has gone on up into Behring Sea, and will call for them 
 on his return." 
 
 Far be it from me to try to buy anything that is not for 
 sale, I thanked him politely for showing them to us ; and 
 we went on to another part of the warehouse. 
 
 We found nothing else that was already "sold." We 
 bought several holy-lamps, baskets, and other things. 
 
 " I'm sorry about the samovars," said I, as I paid 
 Captain Gray. 
 
 " So am I," said he. Then he sighed. " There's one, 
 now," said he, after a moment, thoughtfully. " I might — 
 Wait a moment." 
 
 He disappeared, and presently returned with a perfect 
 treasure of a samovar, — old, battered, green with age and 
 use. We went into ecstasies over it. 
 
 " I'll take it," I said. " How much is it ? " 
 
 " It was twenty -five dollars," said he, dismally. " It is 
 sold." 
 
 " How very peculiar," said my companion, as we went 
 away, "to keep bringing out samovars that are sold." 
 
 For two years my thoughts reverted at intervals to 
 those " sold " samovars at Unalaska. Last summer I 
 went down the Yukon. At St. Michael I was enter-
 
 406 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tained at the famous " Cottage " for several days. One 
 day at dinner I asked a gentleman if he knew Captain 
 Gray. 
 
 "Of Unalaska? " exclaimed two or three at once. Then 
 they all burst out laughing. 
 
 " We all know him," one said. " Everybody knows 
 him." 
 
 " But why do you laugh ? " 
 
 " Oh, because he is so ' slick ' at taking in a tourist." 
 
 " In what manner? " asked I, stiffly. I remembered that 
 Captain Gray had asked me if I were a tourist. 
 
 They all laughed again. 
 
 "Oh, especially on samovars." 
 
 My face burned suddenly. 
 
 " On samovars ! " 
 
 " Yes. You see he gets a tourist into his warehouses and 
 shows him samovar after samovar — fifty or sixty of them 
 — and tells him that every one is sold. He puts on the 
 most mournful look. 
 
 " ' This one was twenty-five dollars,' he says. ' A 
 captain on a government cutter bought them to take to 
 Boston.' Then the tourist gets wild. He offers five, ten, 
 twenty dollars more to get one of those samovars. He 
 always gets it ; because, you see, Gray wants to sell it to 
 him even worse than he wants to buy it. It always 
 works." 
 
 "We walked over the hills to Dutch Harbor — once 
 called Lincoln Harbor. There is a stretch of blue water 
 to cross, and we were ferried over by a gentleman having 
 much Fourth-of-July in his speech and upon his breath. 
 
 His efforts at politeness are remembered joys, while a 
 sober ferr^^man would have been forgotten long ago. But 
 the sober ferrymen that morning were like the core of the 
 little boy's apple.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 407 
 
 It was the most beautiful walk of my life, A hard, 
 narrow, white path climbed and wound and fell over the 
 vivid green hills ; it led around lakes that lay in the hol- 
 lows like still, liquid sapphire, set with the pearl of 
 clouds ; it lured through banks of violets and over slopes 
 of trembling bluebells ; it sent out tempting by-paths that 
 ended in the fireweed's rosy drifts ; but always it led on 
 — narrow, well-trodden, yet oh, so lonely and so still ! 
 Birds sang and the sound of the waves came to us — 
 that was all. Once a little brown Aleutian lad came 
 whistling around the curve in the path, stood still, and 
 gazed at us with startled eyes as soft and dark as a 
 gazelle's ; but he was the only human being we saw 
 upon the hills that day. 
 
 We saw acres that were deep blue with violets. They 
 were large enough to cover silver half-dollars, and their 
 stems were several inches in length. Fireweed grew low, 
 but the blooms were large and of a deep rose color. 
 
 Standing still, we counted thirteen varieties of wild 
 flowers within a radius of six feet. There were the snap- 
 dragon, wild rose, columbine, buttercup, Solomon's seal, 
 anemone, larkspur, lupine, dandelion, iris, geranium, 
 monk's-hood, and too many others to name, to be found 
 on the hills of Unalaska. There are more than two 
 thousand varieties of wild flowers in Alaska and the Yukon 
 Territory. The blossoms are large and brilliant, and they 
 cover whole hillsides and fill deep hollows with beautiful 
 color. The bluebells and violets are exquisite. The 
 latter are unbelievably large ; of a rich blue veined with 
 silver. They poise delicately on stems longer than those 
 of the hot-house flower ; so that we could gather and carry 
 armfuls of them. 
 
 The site of Dutch Harbor is green and level. Fronting 
 the bay are the large buildings of the North American
 
 408 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Commercial Com})any, with man}' small frame cottages 
 scattered around them. All are painted white, with 
 bright red roofs, and the town presents a clean and at- 
 tractive appearance. 
 
 Dutch Harbor is the prose, and Unalaska the poetry, of 
 the island. There is neither a hotel nor a restaurant at 
 either place. It was one o'clock when Ave reached Dutch 
 Harbor; we had breakfasted early, and we sought, in vain, 
 for some building that might resemble an "eating-house." 
 
 We finally went into the big store, and meeting the 
 manager of the company, asked to be directed to the 
 nearest restaurant. 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " There isn't any," he said. 
 
 " Is there no place where one may get something to eat ? 
 Bread and milk? We saw cows upon the hills." 
 
 " You would not care to go to the native houses," he re- 
 plied, still smiling. "But come with me." 
 
 He led the way along a neat board walk to a residence 
 that would attract attention in any town. It was large 
 and of artistic design. 
 
 " It was designed by Molly Garfield," the young man 
 somewhat proudly informed us. " Her husband was con- 
 nected with the company for several years, and they built 
 and lived in this house." 
 
 The house was richly papered and furnished. It was 
 past the luncheon hour, but we were excellently served by 
 a perfectly trained Chinaman. 
 
 For more than a hundred years the great commercial 
 companies — beginning with the Shelikoff Company — 
 have dispensed the hospitality of Alaska, and have acted 
 as hosts to the stranger within their gates. The managers 
 are instructed to sell provisions at reasonable prices, and 
 to supply any one who may be in distress and unable to 
 pay for food.
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 409 
 
 They frequently entertain, as guests of the company 
 they represent, travellers to these lonely places, not be- 
 cause the latter are in need, but merely as a courtesy ; 
 and their hospitality is as free and generous — but not as 
 embarrassing — as that of Baranoff . 
 
 That night I sat late alone u23on the hills, on a tundra 
 slope that was blue with violets. I could not put my 
 hand down without crushing them. The lights moving 
 across Unalaska were as poignantly interesting as the 
 thoughts that come and go across a stranger's face when 
 he does not know that one is observing. 
 
 All the lights and shadows of the vanishing Aleutian 
 race seemed to be moving across the hills, the village, the 
 blue bay. 
 
 Scarcely a day has passed that I have not gone back 
 across the blue and emerald water-ways that stretch be- 
 tween, to that lovely place and that luminous hour. 
 
 Perhaps, I thought, Veniaminoff may have looked down 
 upon this exquisite scene from this same violeted spot — 
 Veniaminoff, the humble, devout, and devoted missionary, 
 whom I should rather have been than any man or woman 
 whose history I know ; Veniaminoff, who lived — instead 
 of wrote — a great, a sublime, poem. 
 
 Unalaska's commercial glory has faded. It was once 
 port of entry for all vessels passing in or out of Behring 
 Sea ; the ships of the Arctic whaling fleet called here for 
 water, coal, supplies, and mail ; during the years that the 
 modus Vivendi was in force it was headquarters of the 
 United States and the British fleets patrolling Behring 
 Sea, and lines of captured sealers often lay here at 
 anchor. 
 
 During the early part of the present decade Unalaska 
 saw its most prosperous times. Thousands of people 
 waited here for transportation to the Klondike, via St.
 
 410 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Michael and the Yukon. Many ships were built here, 
 and one still lies rotting upon the ways. 
 
 The Greek church is second in size and importance to 
 the one at Sitka only, and the bishop once resided here. 
 There is a Russian parish school, a government day-school, 
 and a Methodist mission, the Jessie Lee Home. The 
 only white women on tlie island reside at the Home. The 
 bay has frequently presented the appearance of a naval 
 parade, from the number of government and other vessels 
 lying at anchor. 
 
 No traveller will weary soon of Unalaska. There are 
 caves and waterfalls to visit, and unnumbered excursions 
 to make to beautiful places among the hills. Especially 
 interesting is Samghanooda, or English, Harbor, where 
 Cook mended his ships ; while Makushin Harbor, on the 
 western coast, where Glottoff and his Russians first landed 
 in 1756, is only thirty miles away. 
 
 The great volcano itself is easy of ascent, and the view 
 from its crest is one of the memories of a lifetime. 
 Borka, a tiny village at Samghanooda, is as noted for its 
 Dutcli-liks cleanliness as Belkoffski is for its filth. 
 
 The other islands of the Aleutian chain drift on to 
 westward, lonely, unknown — almost, if not entirely, un- 
 inhabited. Now and then a small trading settlement is 
 found, which is visited only by Captain Applegate, — the 
 last remaining white deep-sea otter hunter, — and once a 
 year by a government cutter, or the Russian priest from 
 Unalaska, or a shrewd and wandering trader. 
 
 These green and unknown islands are the islands of my 
 dreams — and dreams do "come true" sometimes. This 
 voyage out among the Aleutians is the most poetic and 
 enchanting in the world to-day : and I shall never be 
 entirely happy until I have drifted on out to the farthest 
 island of Attn, lying within the eastern hemisphere, and 
 watched those lonely, dark women, with the souls of poets
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 411 
 
 and artists and the patience of angels, weaving their 
 dreams into ravishing beauty and sending them out into 
 the world as the farewell messages of a betrayed and van- 
 ishing people. As we treat them for their few remaining 
 years, so let us in the end be treated. 
 
 Alaska is to-day the centre of the world's volcanic ac- 
 tivity, and the mountainous appearances and disappear- 
 ances that have been recorded in the Aleutian Islands 
 are marvellous and awesome. To these upheavals in the 
 North Pacific and Behring Sea Whidbey's adjectives, 
 " stupendous," " tremendous," and " awfully dreadful," 
 might be appropriately applied. 
 
 On July the fourth, 1907, officers of the revenue cutter 
 McCulloch discovered the new peak which they named in 
 honor of their vessel. It was in the vicinity of the fa- 
 mous volcano of Joanna Bogoslova, or Saint John the 
 Theologian. 
 
 In 1796 the natives of Unalaska and the adjoining 
 islands for many miles were startled by violent reports, 
 like continued cannonading, followed by frightful trem- 
 blings of the earth upon which they stood. 
 
 A dense volume of smoke, ashes, and gas descended 
 upon them in a kind of cloud, and shut everything from 
 their view. They were thus enveloped and cannonaded 
 for about ten days, when the atmosphere gradually cleared 
 and they observed a bright light shining upon the sea 
 from thirty to forty miles north of Unalaska. The brave 
 ones of the island went forth in bidarkas and discovered 
 that a small island had risen from the sea to a height of 
 one hundred feet and that it was still rising. 
 
 This was the main peak of the Bogosloff group, and it 
 continued to grow until 1825, when it reached a height of 
 about three hundred feet and cooled sufficiently for Rus- 
 sians to land upon it for the first time. The heat was
 
 412 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 still so intense, however, and the danger from running 
 lava so great, that they soon withdrew to their boats. 
 
 In the early eighties, after similar disturbances, another 
 peak arose near the first and joined to it by a low isthmus, 
 upon which stood a rock seventy feet in height, which was 
 named Ship-Rock. In 1891 the isthmus sank out of sight 
 in the sea, and a new peak arose. 
 
 Since then no important changes have occurred. The 
 peaks themselves remained too hot and dangerous for ex- 
 amination ; but the short voyage out from Unalaska has 
 been a favorite one for tourists who were able to land 
 upon the lower rocks and spend a day gathering speci- 
 mens and studying the sea-lions that doze in polyga,mous 
 herds in the warmth, and the shrieking murres that nest 
 in the cliffs and cover them like a tremulous gray-white 
 cloud. 
 
 Every inch of space on these cliffs seems to be taken 
 by these birds for the creation of life. On every tiniest 
 shelf they perch upright, black-backed and white-bellied, 
 brooding their eggs — although these hot and steamy cliffs 
 are sufficient incubators to bring forth life out of every 
 egg deposited upon them. When the murres are sud- 
 denly disturbed, their eggs slip from their hold and plunge 
 down the cliffs, splattering them with the yellow of their 
 broken yolks. 
 
 The last week in July, 1907, I passed close to the 
 Bogosloff Islands, which had grown to the importance 
 of four peaks. Three days later a violent earthquake 
 occurred in this vicinity. Once more dense clouds of 
 smoke descended upon Unalaska and the adjoining islands, 
 and ashes poured upon the sea and land, as far north as 
 Nome, covering the decks of passing steamers to a depth 
 of several inches, and affecting sailors so powerfully that 
 they could only stay on deck for a few moments at a time. 
 
 On September the first, the captain and men of the
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 413 
 
 whaler Herman, passing the Bogosloff group, beheld a 
 sight to observe which I would cheerfully have yielded 
 several years of life. They saw the two-months-old 
 McCulloch peak burn itself down into the sea, with vast 
 columns of steam ascending miles into the air above it, 
 and the waters boiling madly on all sides. It went down, 
 foot by foot, and the men stood spellbound, watching it 
 disappear. For miles around the sea was violently agi- 
 tated and was mixed with volcanic ash, which also covered 
 the decks, and at intervals steam poured up unexpectedly 
 out of the ocean. 
 
 As soon as possible the revenue cutter Buffalo went to 
 the wonderful volcanic group, and it was found that their 
 whole appearance was changed. 
 
 There were three peaks where four had been; but 
 whereas they had formerly been separate and distinct 
 islands, they were now connected and formed one island. 
 
 This island is two and a half miles long. Perry Peak, 
 which arose in 1906, had increased in height ; and there 
 was a crater-like depression on its south side, around 
 which the waters were continually throwing off vast clouds 
 of steam and smoke. Captain Pond reported that rocks 
 as large as a house were constantly rolling down from 
 Perry Peak, and that the whole scene was one of wonder- 
 ful interest. To his surprise, the colony of sea-lions, which 
 must have been frightened away, had returned, and seemed 
 to be enjoying the steamy heat on the rocks of the main 
 and oldest peak of the group. 
 
 The disappearance of McCulloch peak was accompanied 
 by earthquake shocks as far to eastward as Sitka. 
 Makushin, the great volcano of Unalaska, and others, 
 smoked violently, and ashes fell over the Aleutian Islands 
 and the mainland. At the same time uncharted rocks 
 began to make their appearance all along the coast, to the 
 grave danger of navigation.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 In the heart of Behring' Sea, about two hundred miles 
 north of Unalaska, lie two tiny cloud and mist haunted 
 and wind-racked islands which are the great slaughter- 
 grounds of Alaska. Here, for a hundred and twenty 
 years, during the short seal season each year, men have 
 literally waded through the bloody gore of the helpless 
 animals, which they have clubbed to death by thousands 
 that women may be handsomely clothed. 
 
 The surviving members of Vitus Behring's ill-starred 
 expedition carried back with them a large number of 
 skins of the valuable sea-otter. From that date — 1742 — 
 until about 1770 the promyshleniki engaged in such an 
 unresting slaughter of the otter that it was almost exter- 
 minated. 
 
 In desperation, they turned, then, to the chase of the 
 fur-seal, and for years sought in vain for the rumored 
 breeding-grounds of this pelagic animal. The islands of 
 St. Paul and St. George were finally discovered in 1786, 
 by Gerassim Pribyloff, who heard tlie seals barking and roar- 
 ing through the heavy fogs, and, sailing cautiously on, 
 surprised them as they lay in polygamous groups by the 
 million upon the rocky shores. 
 
 Pribyloff was the son of a sailor who had accompanied 
 Behring on the jSt. Peter. He modestly named his price- 
 less discovery " Subov," for the captain and part owner 
 of the trading association for which he worked. He him- 
 self was not engaged in sealing, but was simply the first 
 
 414
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 415 
 
 mate of the sloop St. G-eorge. The Russians, however, 
 renamed the islands for their discoverer; and happily the 
 name has endured. 
 
 St. George Island is ten miles in length by from two 
 to four in width. It is higher than the larger St. Paul, 
 which lies twenty-seven miles farther north, and rises 
 more abruptly from the water. 
 
 The temperature of these islands is not low, rarely fall- 
 ing to zero; but the wind blows at so great velocity that 
 frequently for days at a time the natives can only go from 
 one place to another by crawling upon their hands and 
 knees. 
 
 To conserve the sealing industry, after the purchase of 
 Alaska, the exclusive privilege of killing seals on these 
 islands was granted to the Alaska Commercial Company 
 for a period of twenty years. When this lease expired in 
 1890, a new one was made out for a like period to the 
 North American Commercial Company, which still holds 
 possession. The company has agents on both islands, and 
 the government maintains an agent and his assistant on 
 St. Paul Island, and an assistant on St. George, to enforce 
 the terms of the concession. 
 
 When the Russians first took possession of the Pribyloff 
 Islands, they brought several hundred Aleutians and 
 established them upon the islands in sod houses, where 
 they were held under the usual slave-like conditions of 
 this abused people. They were miserably housed and 
 fed, received only the smallest wage, — from which they 
 were compelled to contribute to the support of the church, 
 — and were held, against their wishes, upon these dreary 
 and inhospitable shores. 
 
 With the coming of the American companies all was 
 changed. Comfortable, clean habitations of frame were 
 erected for them ; their pay was inci-eased from ten to 
 forty cents each for the removal of pelts ; schools and
 
 416 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 hospitals were provided, children being compelled to at- 
 tend the former ; and the sale of intoxicating liqnors was 
 prohibited. There are between a hundred and fifty and 
 two hundred natives on the islands at present. 
 
 The houses are lined with tar paper, painted white, with 
 red roofs, and furnished with stoves. There are streets 
 and large storehouses, and the village presents an at- 
 tractive appearance. 
 
 As a result of good care, food, and cleanliness, the 
 natives are able to do twice the amount of work accom- 
 plished by the same number under the old conditions. 
 They are healthier, happier, and more industrious. 
 
 The value of the fur-seal catch from the time of the 
 purchase of Alaska to the early part of the present decade 
 was more than thirty-five millions of dollars. In 1903 
 the yearly catch, however, had dwindled from two millions 
 at the time of discovery to twenty-two thousands. 
 
 Indiscriminate and reckless slaughter, and particularly 
 tlie pelagic sealing carried on by poachers — it being im- 
 possible to distinguish the males f ron the females at sea — 
 have nearly exterminated the seals. They will soon be 
 as rare as the sea-otter, which vanished for the same shame- 
 less reasons. In the government's lease it is provided 
 that not more than one hundred thousand seals shall be 
 taken in a single year ; but of recent years the catch has 
 fallen so far short of that number that the annual rental, 
 which was first set at sixty thousand dollars, has had a 
 sliding, diminishing scale until it has finally reached 
 twelve thousand dollars. 
 
 Great trouble has been experienced with pelagic sealers. 
 Pelagic sealing means simply following the seals on their 
 way north and killing them in the deep sea before they 
 reach the breeding-grounds. There have been American 
 poachers, but the majority have been Canadians. The 
 United States government at first claimed exclusive rights
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 417 
 
 to the seals, and patrolled the waters of Behring Sea, as 
 inland waters, frequently seizing vessels belonging to other 
 nations. 
 
 The matter, after much bitter feeling on both sides, 
 was finally submitted to the " Paris Tribunal," which did 
 not allow our claim to exclusive sealing rights in Behring 
 Sea. It, however, forbade pelagic sealing within a zone of 
 sixty miles of the Pribyloff islands. 
 
 These waters are now patrolled by vessels of both na- 
 tions ; but Japanese vessels are frequently transgressors, 
 the Japanese claiming that they are not bound by the 
 regulations of the Paris Tribunal. Both British and Ameri- 
 can sealers have been known to fly the Japanese flag when 
 engaged in pelagic sealing in forbidden waters. Trouble 
 of a serious nature with Japan may yet arise over this 
 matter. 
 
 The habits and the life of the seal are exceedingly interest- 
 ing. In many ways these graceful creatures are startlingly 
 human-like, particularly in their appealing, reproachful 
 looks when a death-dealing blow is about to be struck. 
 Some, it is true, yield to a violent, fighting rage, — grow- 
 ing more furious as their helplessness is realized, — and at 
 such times the eyes flame with the green and red fire of 
 hate and passion, and resemble the eyes of a human being 
 possessed with rage and terror. 
 
 The bull seals have been called "beach-masters," 
 " polygamists," and "harem-lords." 
 
 These old bulls, then, are the first to return to the 
 breeding-grounds in the spring. They begin to " haul out " 
 upon the rocks during the first week in May. Each lo- 
 cates upon his chosen " ground," and awaits the arrival of 
 the females, which does not occur until the last of June. 
 While awaiting their arrival, incessant and terrible fight- 
 ing takes place among the bulls, frequently to the death — 
 so stubbornly and so ferociously does each struggle to 
 2e
 
 418 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 retain the place he has selected in which to receive the 
 females of his harem. The older the bull the more suc- 
 cessful is he both in love and in war ; and woe betide any 
 young and bold bachelor who dares to pause for but an 
 instant and cast tempting glances at a gay and coquettish 
 young favorite under an old bull's protection. There is 
 instant battle — in which the festive bachelor invariably 
 goes down. 
 
 When the females arrive, a very orgy of fighting takes 
 place. An old bull swaggers down to the water, receives 
 a graceful and beautiful female, and beguiles her to his 
 harem. If he but turn his back upon her for an instant 
 another bull seizes her and bears her bodily to his harem ; 
 the first bull returns, and the fight is on — the female 
 sometimes being torn to pieces between them, because 
 neither will give her up. The bulls do not mind a small 
 matter like that, however, there being so many females ; 
 and it is never the desire for a special female that impels 
 to the fray, but the human -like lust to triumph over one 
 who dares to set himself up as a rival. 
 
 The old bulls take possession of the lower rocks, and 
 these they hold from all comers, yet fighting, figliting, 
 fighting, till they are frequently but half-alive masses of 
 torn flesh and fur. 
 
 The bachelors are at last forced, foot by foot, past the 
 harems to the higher grounds, where they herd alone. 
 As they are supposed to be the only seals killed for their 
 skin, they are forced by the drivers away from the vicin- 
 ity of the rookeries, to the higher slopes. 
 
 These graceful creatures drag themselves on shore with 
 pitiable awkwardness and helplessness. They proceed 
 painfully, with a kind of rolling movement, uttering 
 plaintive sounds that are neither barks nor bleats. They 
 easily become heated to exhaustion, and pause at every 
 opportunity to rest. When they sink down for this pur-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 419 
 
 pose, they either separate their hind flippers, or draw 
 them both to one side. 
 
 They are driven carefully and are permitted frequent 
 rests, as heating ruins the fur. They usually rest and 
 cool off, after reaching the killing grounds, while the men 
 are eating breakfast. By seven o'clock the butchery begins. 
 
 The seals are still brutally clubbed to death. The 
 killers are spattered with blood and bloody tufts of hair ; 
 and by-standers are said to have been horribly pelted by 
 eyeballs bursting like bullets from the sockets, at the 
 force of the blows. The killers aim to stun at the first 
 blow ; but the poor things are often literally beaten to 
 death. In either event a sharp stabbing-knife is in- 
 stantly run to its heart, to bleed it. The crimson life- 
 stream gushes forth, there is a violent quivering of the 
 great, jelly-like bulk ; then, all is still. It is no longer a 
 living, beautiful, pleading-eyed animal, but only a portion 
 of some dainty gentlewoman's cloak. I have not seen it 
 with my own eyes, but I have heard, in ways which make 
 me refuse to discredit it, that sometimes the skinning is 
 begun before the seal is dead ; that sometimes the razor- 
 like knife is run down the belly before it is run to the 
 heart — not in useless cruelty, but because of the great 
 need of haste. The tender, beseeching eyes, touching cries, 
 and unavailing attempts to escape, of the seal that is being 
 clubbed to death, are things to remember for the rest of one's 
 life. Strong men, unused to the horrible sight, flee from it, 
 sick and tortured with the pity of it ; and surely no woman 
 who has ever beheld it could be tempted to buy sealskin. 
 
 No effort is made to dispose of the dead bodies of the 
 seals. They are left where they are killed, and the stench 
 arising therefrom is not surpassed even in Belkoffski. It 
 nauseates the white inhabitants of the islands, and drifts 
 out to sea for miles to meet and salute the visitor. It is, 
 however, caviar to the native nostril.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Authorities differ as to the proper boundaries of 
 Bristol Bay, but it may be said to be the vast indentation 
 of Behring Sea lying east of a line drawn from Unimak 
 Island to the mouth of the Kuskokwim River ; or, pos- 
 sibly, from Scotch Cap to Cape Newenham would be 
 better. The commercial salmon fisheries of this district 
 are on the Ugashik, Egegak, Naknek, Kvichak, Nushagak, 
 and Wood rivers and the sea-waters leading to them. 
 
 Nushagak Bay is about fifteen miles long and ten wide. 
 It is exceedingly shallow, and is obstructed by sand-bars 
 and shoals. The Redoubt- Alexandra was established at 
 the mouth of the river in 1834 by Kolmakoff. 
 
 The rivers are all large and, with one exception, — 
 Wood River, — drain the western slope of the Aleutian 
 Chain which, beginning on the western shore of Cook 
 Inlet, extends down the Aliaska Peninsula, crowning it 
 with fire and snow. 
 
 There are several breaks in the range which afford easy 
 portages from Bristol Bay to the North Pacific. The 
 rivers flowing into Bristol Bay have lake sources and 
 have been remarkably rich spawning-streams for salmon. 
 
 The present chain of islands known as the Aleutians is 
 supposed to have once belonged to the peninsula and to 
 have been separated by volcanic disturbances which are 
 so common in the region. 
 
 The interior of the Bristol Bay country has not been 
 explored. It is sparsely populated by Innuit, or Eskimo, 
 
 420
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 421 
 
 who live in primitive fashion in small settlements, — usu- 
 ally on high bluffs near a river. They make a poor living 
 by hunting and fishing. Their food is largely salmon, 
 fresh and dried ; game, seal, and walrus are delicacies. 
 The "higher" the food the greater delicacy is it con- 
 sidered. Decayed salmon-heads and the decaying carcass 
 of a whale that has been cast upon the beach, by their 
 own abominable odors summon the natives for miles to a 
 feast. Their food is all cooked with rancid oil. 
 
 Their dwellings are more primitive than those of the 
 island natives, for they have clung to the barabaras and 
 other ancient structures that were in use among the 
 Aleutians when the Russians first discovered them. Near 
 these dwellings are the drying-frames — so familiar along 
 the Yukon — from which hang thousands of red-fieshed 
 salmon drying in the sun. Little houses are erected on 
 rude pole scaffoldings, high out of the reach of dogs, for 
 the storing of this fish when it has become " ukala " and 
 for other provisions. These are everywhere known as 
 " caches." 
 
 The Innuit's summer home is very different from his 
 winter home. It is erected above ground, of small pole 
 frames, roofed with skins and open in front — somewhat 
 like an Indian tepee. There is no opening in the roof, 
 all cooking being done in the open air in summer. 
 
 Th©se natives were once thrifty hunters and trappers 
 of wild animals, from the reindeer down to the beaver 
 and marten, but the cannery life has so debauched them 
 that they have no strength left for this energetic work. 
 
 Formerly every Innuit settlement contained a " kashga," 
 or town hall, which was built after the fashion of all 
 winter houses, only larger. There the men gathered to 
 talk and manage the affairs of their small world. It was 
 a kind of " corner grocery " or " back-room " of a village 
 drug store. The men usually slept there, and in the
 
 422 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 mornings their wives arose, cooked their breakfast, and 
 carried it to them in the kashga, turning their backs 
 while their husbands ate — it being considered exceed- 
 ingly bad form for a woman to h^ok at a man when he is 
 eating in public, although they think nothing of bathing 
 together. The habits of the people are nauseatingly 
 filthy, and the interiors of their dwellings must be seen 
 to be appreciated. 
 
 Near the canneries the natives obtain work during the 
 summer, but soon squander their wages in debauches 
 and are left, when winter arrives, in a starving condition. 
 
 The season is very short in Bristol Bay, but the " run " 
 of salmon is enormous. When this district is operating 
 thirteen canneries, it packs each day two hundred and 
 fifty thousand fish. In Nushagak Bay the fish frequently 
 run so heavily that they catch in the propellers of launches 
 and stop the engines. 
 
 Bristol Bay has always been a dangerous locality to 
 navigate. It is only by the greatest vigilance and the 
 most careful use of the lead, upon approaching the shore, 
 that disaster can be averted. 
 
 Nearly all the canneries in this region are operated by 
 the Alaska Packers Association, which also operates the 
 greater number of canneries in Alaska. 
 
 In 1907 the value of food fishes taken from Alaskan 
 waters was nearly ten millions of dollars ; in the forty 
 years since the purchase of that country, one hundred 
 millions, although up to 1885 the pack was insignificant. 
 At the present time it exceeds by more than half a million 
 cases the entire pack of British Columbia, Puget Sound, 
 Columbia River, and the Oregon and Washington coasts. 
 
 In 1907 forty-four canneries packed salmon in Alaska, 
 and those on Bristol Bay were of the most importance. 
 
 The Nushagak River rivals the Karluk as a salmon 
 stream, but not in picturesque beauty. The Nushagak
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 423 
 
 and Wood rivers were both closed during the past season 
 by order of the President, to protect the salmon industry 
 of the future. 
 
 Cod is abundant in Behring Sea, Bristol Bay, and south 
 of the Aleutian, Shumagin, and Kadiak islands, covering 
 an area of thirty thousand miles. Halibut is plentiful in 
 all the waters of southeastern Alaska. This stupid-look- 
 ing fish is wiser than it appears, and declines to swim into 
 the parlor of a net. It is still caught by hook and line, is 
 packed in ice, and sent, by regular steamer, to Seattle — 
 whence it goes in refrigerator cars to the markets of the 
 east. 
 
 Herring, black cod, candle-fish, smelt, tom-cod, white- 
 fish, black bass, flounders, clams, crabs, mussels, shrimp, 
 and five species of trout — steelhead, Dolly Varden, cut- 
 throat, rainbow, and lake — are all found in abundance in 
 Alaska. 
 
 Cook, entering Bristol Bay in 1778, named it for the 
 Earl of Bristol, with difficulty avoiding its shoals. He 
 saw the shoaled entrance to a river which he called Bristol 
 River, but which must have been the Nushagak. He saw 
 many salmon leaping, and found them in the maws of cod. 
 
 The following day, seeing a high promontory, he sent 
 Lieutenant Williamson ashore. Possession of the country 
 in his Majesty's name was taken, and a bottle was left 
 containing the names of Cook's ships and the date of dis- 
 covery. To the promontory was given the name which it 
 retains of Cape Newenham. 
 
 Proceeding up the coast Cook met natives who were of 
 a friendly disposition, but who seemed unfamiliar with 
 the sight of white men and vessels ; they were dressed 
 somewhat like Aleutians, wearing, also, skin hoods and 
 wooden bonnets. 
 
 The ships were caught in the shoals of Kuskokwim Bay, 
 but Cook does not appear to have discovered this great
 
 424 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 river, which is the second in size of Ahiskan rivers and 
 whose length is nine hundred miles. In the bay the tides 
 have a fifty-foot rise and fall, entering in a tremendous 
 bore. This vicinity formerly furnished exceedingly fine 
 black bear skins. 
 
 Cook's surgeon died of consumption and was buried on 
 an island which was named Anderson, in his memory. 
 Upon an island about four leagues in circuit a rude sledge 
 was found, and the name of Sledge Island was bestowed 
 upon it. He entered Norton Sound, but only "suspected " 
 the existence of a mighty river, completely missing the 
 Yukon. 
 
 He named the extreme western point of North America, 
 which plunges out into Behring Sea, almost meeting the 
 East Cape of Siberia, Cape Prince of Wales. In the 
 centre of the strait are the two Diomede Islands, between 
 which the boundary line runs, one belonging to Russia, 
 the other to the United States. 
 
 Cook sailed up into the Frozen Ocean and named Icy 
 Cape, narrowly missing disaster in the ice pack. There 
 he saw many herds of sea-horses, or walrus, lying upon 
 the ice in companies numbering many hundreds. They 
 huddled over one another like swine, roaring and braying ; 
 so that in the night or in a fog they gave warning of 
 the nearness of ice. Some members of the herd kept 
 watch ; they aroused those nearest to them and warned 
 them of the approach of enemies. Those, in turn, warned 
 others, and so the word was passed along in a kind of ripple 
 until the entire herd was awake. When fired upon, they 
 tumbled one over another into the sea, in the utmost confu- 
 sion. The female defends her young to the very last, and 
 at the sacrifice of her own life, if necessary, fighting fero- 
 ciously. 
 
 The walrus does not in the least resemble a horse, and it 
 is difficult to understand whence the name arose. It is
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 425 
 
 somewhat like a seal, only much larger. Those found by 
 Cook in the Arctic were from nine to twelve feet in length 
 and weighed about a thousand pounds. Their tusks have 
 always been valuable, and have greatly increased in value 
 of recent years, as the walrus diminish in number. 
 
 Cook named Cape Denbigh and Cape Darby on either 
 side of Norton Bay ; and Besborough Island south of Cape 
 Denbigh. 
 
 Going ashore, he encountered a family of natives which 
 he and Captain King describe in such wise that no one, 
 having read the description, can ever enter Norton Sound 
 without recalling it. The family consisted of a man, his 
 wife, and a child ; and a fourth person who bore the human 
 shape, and that was all, for he was the most horribly, the 
 most pitiably, deformed cripple ever seen, heard of, or im- 
 agined. The husband was blind ; and all were extremely 
 unpleasant in appearance. The underlips were bored. 
 
 These natives would have evidently sold their souls 
 for iron. For four knives made out of old iron hoop, 
 they traded four hundred pounds of fish — and Cook 
 must have lost his conscience overboard with his anchor in 
 Kuskokwim Bay. He recovered the anchor ! 
 
 He gave the girl-child a few beads, " whereupon the 
 mother burst into tears, then the father, then the cripple, 
 and, at last, the girl herself." 
 
 Many different passages, or sentences, have been called 
 "the most pathetic ever written"; but, myself, I confess 
 that I have never been so powerfully or so lastingly moved 
 by any sentence as I was when I first read that one of 
 Cook's. Almost equalling it, however, in pathos is the 
 simple account of Captain King's of his meeting with the 
 same family. He was on shore with a party obtaining 
 wood when these people approached in a canoe. He beck- 
 oned to them to land, and the husband and wife came 
 ashore. He gave the woman a knife, saying that he would
 
 426 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 give her a larger one for some fish. She made signs for 
 him to follow them. 
 
 "I had proceeded with them about a mile, when the 
 man, in crossing a stony beach, fell down and cut his foot 
 very much. This made me stop, upon which^the woman 
 pointed to the man's eyes, which, I observed, were covered 
 with a thick, white film. He afterward kept close to his 
 wife, who apprised him of the obstacles in his way. The 
 woman had a little child on her back, covered with a 
 hood, and which I took for a bundle until I heard it 
 cry. At about two miles distant we came upon their open 
 skin-boat, which was 'turned on its side, the convex 
 part toward the wind, and served for their house. I was 
 now made to perform a singular operation upon the man's 
 eyes. First, I was directed to hold my breath ; afterward, 
 to breathe on the diseased eyes ; and next, to spit on them. 
 The woman then took both my hands and, pressing them 
 to his stomach, held them there while she related some 
 calamitous history of her family, pointing sometimes to 
 her husband, sometimes to a frightful cripple belonging 
 to the family, and sometimes to her child." 
 
 Berries, birch, willow, alders, broom, and spruce were 
 found. Beer was brewed of the spruce. 
 
 Cook now sailed past that divinely beautiful shore upon 
 which St. Michael's is situated, and named Stuart Island 
 and Cape Stephens, but did not hear the Yukon calling 
 him. He did find shoal water, very much discolored and 
 muddy, and "inferred that a considerable river runs into 
 the sea." If he had only guessed how considerable ! 
 Passing south, he named Clerk's, Gore's, and Pinnacle 
 Islands, and returned to Unalaska.
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 A FAMOIJS engineering feat was the building of the 
 White Pass and Yukon Railway from Skaguay to White 
 Horse. Work was commenced on this road in May, 1898, 
 and finished in January, 1900. 
 
 Its completion opened the interior of Alaska and the 
 Klondike to the world, and brought enduring fame to 
 Mr. M. J. Heney, the builder, and Mr. E. C. Hawkins, 
 the engineer. 
 
 In 1897 Mr. Heney went North to look for a pass 
 through the Coast Range. Up to that time travel to the 
 Klondike had been about equally divided between the 
 Dyea, Skaguay, and Jack Dal ton trails ; the route by way 
 of the Stikine and Hootalinqua rivers ; and the one to 
 St. Michael's by ocean steamers and thence up the Yu- 
 kon by small and, at that time, inferior steamers. 
 
 Mr. Heney and his engineers at once grasped the pos- 
 sibilities of the "Skaguay Trail." This pass was first 
 explored and surveyed by Captain Moore, of Mr. Ogil- 
 vie's survey of June, 1887, who named it White Pass, 
 for Honorable Thomas White, Canadian Minister of the 
 Interior. It could not have been more appropriately 
 named, even though named for a man, as there is never 
 a day in the warmest weather that snow-peaks are not 
 in view to the traveller over this pass ; while from Sep- 
 tember to June the trains wind through sparkling and 
 unbroken whiteness. 
 
 Mr. Heney, coming out to finance the road, faced serious 
 
 427
 
 428 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 difficulties and discouragements in America. Owing to 
 the enormous cost of this short piece of road, as planned, 
 as well as the dai'ing nature of its conception, the bold- 
 est financiers of tliis country, upon investigation, declined 
 to entertain the proposition. 
 
 Mr. Heney was a young man who, up to that time, 
 although possessed of great ability, had made no marked 
 success — his opportunity not having as yet presented 
 itself. 
 
 Recovering from his first disappointment, he undaunt- 
 edly voyaged to England, where some of the most conserva- 
 tive capitalists, moved and convinced by his enthusiasm 
 and his clear descriptions of the northern country and its 
 future, freely financed the railroad whose successful build- 
 ing was to become one of the most brilliant achievements 
 of the century. 
 
 They were entirely unacquainted with Mr. Heney, and 
 after this proof of confidence in him and his project, the 
 word " fail " dropped out of the English language, so far 
 as the intrepid young builder was concerned. 
 
 " After that," he said, " I coiild not fail." 
 
 He returned and work was at once begun. A man big 
 of body, mind, and heart, he was specially fitted for the 
 perilous and daring work. Calm, low-voiced, compelling 
 in repressed power and unswerving courage and will, he 
 was a harder worker than any of his men. 
 
 Associated with him was a man equally large and equally 
 gifted. Mr. Hawkins is one of the most famous engineers 
 of this country, if not of any country. 
 
 The difficult miles that these two men tramped; the 
 long, long hours of each day that they worked; the hard- 
 ships that they endured, unflinching ; the appalling ob- 
 stacles that they overcame — are a part of Alaskan 
 history. 
 
 The first twenty miles of this road from Skaguay cost
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 429 
 
 two millions of dollars ; the average cost to the summit 
 was a hundred thousand dollars a mile, and now and then 
 a single mile cost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 The road is built on mountainsides so precipitous that 
 men were suspended from the heights above by ropes, to 
 prevent disaster while cutting grades. At one point a 
 cliff a hundred and twenty feet high, .eighty feet deep, 
 and twenty feet in width was Wasted entirely away for 
 the road-bed. 
 
 Thirty-five hundred men in all were employed in con- 
 structing the road, but thirty of whom died, of accident 
 and disease, during the construction. Taking into con- 
 sideration the perilous nature of the work, the rigors of 
 the winter climate, and the fact that work did not cease 
 during the worst weather, this is a remarkably small pro- 
 portion. 
 
 A force of finer men never built a railroad. Many were 
 prospectors, eager to work their way into the land of gold ; 
 others were graduates of eastern colleges ; all were self- 
 respecting, energetic men. 
 
 Skaguay is a thousand miles from Seattle; and from the 
 latter city and Vancouver, men, supplies, and all materials 
 were shipped. This was not one of the least of the hin- 
 drances to a rapid completion of the road. Rich strikes 
 were common occurrences at that time. In one day, after 
 the report of a new discovery in the Atlin country had 
 reached headquarters, fifteen hundred men drew their 
 pay and stampeded for the new gold fields. 
 
 But all obstacles to the building of the road were sur- 
 mounted. Within eighteen months from the date of be- 
 ginning work it was completed to White Horse, a distance 
 of one hundred and eleven miles, and trains were running 
 regularly. 
 
 A legend tells us that an old Indian chief saw the canoe
 
 430 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 of his son upset in the waves lashed by the terrific winds 
 that blow down between the mountains. The lad was 
 drowned before the helpless father's eyes, and in his sor- 
 row the old cliief named the place Shkag-ua, or " Home of 
 the North Wind." It has been abbreviated to Skaguay ; 
 and has been even further disfigured by a w., in place of 
 the u. 
 
 Between salt water and the foot of White Pass Trail, 
 two miles up the canyon, in the winter of 1897-1898, ten 
 thousand men were camped. Some were trying to get 
 their outfits packed over the trail; others were impatiently 
 waiting for the completion of the wagon road which George 
 A. Brackett was building. This road was completed 
 almost to the summit when the railroad overtook it and 
 bought its right of way. It is not ten years old ; yet it 
 is always called "the old Brackett road." 
 
 At half-past nine of a July morning our train left 
 Skaguay for White Horse. We traversed the entire 
 length of the town before entering the canyon. There 
 are low, brown fiats at the mouth of the river, which spreads 
 over them in shallow streams fringed with alders and 
 cottonwoods. 
 
 Above, on both sides, rose the gray, stony cliffs. Here 
 and there were wooded slopes ; others were rosy with fire- 
 weed that moved softly, like clouds. 
 
 We soon passed the ruined bridge of the Brackett road , 
 the water brawling noisily, gray-white, over the stones. 
 
 Our train was a long one drawn by four engines. There 
 were a baggage-car, two passenger-cars, and twenty flat 
 and freight cars loaded with boilers, machinery, cattle, 
 chickens, merchandise, and food-stuffs of all kinds. 
 
 After crossing Skaguay River the train turns back, 
 climbing rapidly, and Skaguay and Lynn Canal are seen 
 shiningin the distance. . . . We turn again. The river 
 foams between mountains of stone, hundreds of feet below
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 431 
 
 — SO far below that the trees growing sparsely along its 
 banks seera as the tiniest shrubs. 
 
 The Brackett road winds along the bed of the river, 
 while the old White Pass, or Heartbreak, Trail climbs and 
 falls along the stone and crumbling shale of the opposite 
 mountain — in many places rising to an altitude of several 
 hundred feet, in others sinking to a level with the river. 
 
 The Brackett road ends at White Pass City, where, ten 
 years ago, was the largest tent-city in the world ; and where 
 now are only the crumbling ruins of a couple of log cabins, 
 silence, and loneliness. 
 
 At White Pass City that was, the old Trail of Heartbreak 
 leads up the canyon of the north fork of the Skaguay, di- 
 rectly away from the railroad. The latter makes a loop of 
 many miles and returns to the canyon hundreds of feet 
 above its bed. The scenery is of constantly increasing 
 grandeur. Cascades, snow-peaks, glaciers, and overhang- 
 ing cliffs of stone make the way one of austere beauty. In 
 two hours and a half we climb leisurely, with frequent 
 stops, from the level of the sea to the summit of the pass ; 
 and although skirting peaks from five to eight thousand 
 feet in height, we pass through only one short tunnel. 
 
 It is a thrilling experience. The rocking train clings to 
 the leaning wall of solid stone. A gulf of purple ether 
 sinks sheer on the other side — so sheer, so deep, that one 
 dare not look too long or too intently into its depth. 
 Hundreds of feet below, the river roars through its narrow 
 banks, and in many places the train overhangs it. In 
 others, solid rock cliffs jut out boldly over the train. 
 
 After passing through the tunnel, the train creeps 
 across the steel cantilever bridge which seems to have been 
 flung, as a spider flings his glistening threads, from cliff to 
 cliff, two hundred and fifteen feet above the river, foaming 
 white over the immense boulders that here barricade its 
 headlons: race to the sea.
 
 432 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Beautiful and impressive though this trip is in the green 
 time and the bh^om time of the year, it remains for the 
 winter to make it sublime. 
 
 The mountains are covered deeply with snow, which 
 drifts to a tremendous depth in canyons and cuts. 
 Through these drifts the powerful rotary snow-plough 
 cleaves a white and glistening tunnel, along which the 
 train slowly makes its way. The fascinating element of 
 momentary peril — of snow-slides burying the train — 
 enters into the winter trip. 
 
 Near Clifton one looks down upon an immense block of 
 stone, the size of a house but perfectly flat, beneath Avhich 
 three men were buried by a blast during the building of 
 the road. The stone is covered with grass and flowers 
 and is marked with a white cross. 
 
 At the summit, twenty miles from Skaguay, is a red 
 station named White Pass. A monument marks the 
 boundary between the United States and Yukon Terri- 
 tory. The American flag floats on one side, the Canadian 
 on the other. A cone of rocks on the crest of the hill 
 leading away from the sea marks the direction the boun- 
 dary takes. 
 
 The White Pass Railway has an average grade of three 
 per cent, and it ascends with gradual, splendid sweeps 
 around mountainsides and projecting cliffs. 
 
 The old trail is frequently called "Dead Horse Trail." 
 Thousands of horses and mules were employed by the 
 stampeders. The poor beasts were overloaded, over- 
 worked, and, in many instances, treated with unspeakable 
 cruelty. It was one of the shames of the century, and 
 no humane person can ever remember it without horror. 
 
 At one time in 1897 more than five thousand dead 
 horses were counted on the trail. Some had lost their 
 footing and were dashed to death on the rocks below ; 
 others had sunken under their cruel burdens in utter ex-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 433 
 
 * 
 haustion ; others had been shot ; and still others had 
 been brutally abandoned and had slowly starved to death. 
 
 " What became of the horses," I asked an old stampeder, 
 " when you reached Lake Bennett? Did you sell them ?" 
 
 "Lord, no, ma'am," returned he, politely; "there 
 wa'n't nothing left of 'em to sell. You see, they was 
 dead." 
 
 " But I mean the ones that did not die." 
 
 " There wa'n't any of that kind, ma'am." 
 
 " Do you mean," I asked, in dismay, " that they all 
 died ? — that none survived that awful experience ? " 
 
 "That's about it, ma'am. When we got to Lake Ben- 
 nett there wa'n't any more use for horses. Nobody was 
 goin' the other way — and if they had been, the horses 
 that reached Lake Bennett wa'n't fit to stand alone, let 
 alone pack. The ones that wa'n't shot, died of starvation. 
 Yes, ma'am, it made a man's soul sick." 
 
 Boundary lines are interesting in all parts of the 
 world; but the one at the summit of the White Pass 
 is of unusual historic interest. Side by side float the 
 flags of America and Canada. They are about twenty 
 yards from the little station, and every passenger left 
 the train and walked to them, solely to experience a 
 big patriotic American, or Canadian, thrill ; to strut, 
 glow, and walk back to the train again. Myself, I gave 
 thanks to God, silently and alone, that those two flags 
 were floating side by side there on that mountain, beside 
 the little sapphire lake, instead of at the head of Chil- 
 koot Inlet. 
 
 There are Canadian and United States inspectors of 
 customs at the summit ; also a railway agent. Their 
 families live there with them, and there is no one else 
 and nothing else, save the little sapphire lake lying in 
 the bare hills. 
 2f
 
 434 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Its blue waves lipped tlie porch whereon sat the young, 
 sweet-faced wife of the Canadian inspector, with her baby 
 in its carriage at her side. 
 
 This bit of liquid sapphire, scarcely larger than an arti- 
 ficial pond in a park, is really one of the chief sources of 
 the Yukon — which, had these clear waters turned tow- 
 ard Lynn Canal, instead of away from it, might have 
 never been. It seems so marvellous. The merest breath, 
 in the beginning, might have toppled their liquid bulk 
 over into the canyon through which we had so slowly and 
 so enchantingly mounted, and in an hour or two they 
 might have forced their foaming, furious way to the ocean. 
 But some power turned the blue waters to the north and 
 set them singing down through the beautiful chain of 
 lakes — Lindeman, Bennett, Tagish, Marsh, Labarge — 
 winding, widening, past ramparts and mountains, through 
 canyons and plains, to Behring Sea, twenty-three hun- 
 dred miles from this lonely spot. 
 
 This beginning of the Yukon is called the Lewes River. 
 Far away, in the Felly Mountains, the Felly River rises 
 and flows down to its confluence with the Lewes at old 
 Fort Selkirk, and the Yukon is born of their union. 
 
 The Lewes has many tributaries, the most important 
 of which is the Hootalinqua — or, as the Indians named 
 it, Teslin — having its source in Teslin Lake, near the 
 source of the Stikine River. 
 
 After leaving the summit the railway follows the shores 
 of the river and the lakes, and the way is one of loveliness 
 rather than grandeur. The saltish atmosphere is left behind, 
 and the air tings with the sweetness of mountain and lake. 
 
 We had eaten an early breakfast, and we did not reach 
 an eating station until we arrived at the head of Lake 
 Bennett at half after one o'clock; and then we were 
 given fifteen minutes in which to eat our lunch and get 
 back to the train.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 435 
 
 I do not think I have ever been so hungry in my life — 
 and fifteen minutes! The dining room was clean and 
 attractive ; two long, narrow tables, or counters, extended 
 the entire length of the room. They were decorated with 
 great bouquets of wild flowers ; the sweet air from the 
 lake blew in through open windows and shook the white 
 curtains out into the room. 
 
 The tables were provided with good food, all ready to 
 be eaten. There were ham sandwiches made of lean ham. 
 It was not edged with fat and embittered with mustard ; it 
 must have been baked, too, because no boiled ham could be so 
 sweet. There were big brown lima beans, also baked, not 
 boiled, and dill-pickles — no insipid pin-moneys, but good, 
 sour, delicious dills ! There were salads, home-made bread, 
 " salt-rising " bread and butter, cakes and cookies and 
 fruit — and huckleberry pie. Blueberries, they are called 
 in Alaska, but they are our own mountain huckleberries. 
 
 No twelve-course luncheon, with a different wine for 
 each course, could impress itself upon my memory as did 
 that lunch-counter meal. We ate as children eat; with 
 their pure, animal enjoyment and satisfaction. For fifteen 
 minutes we had not a desire in the world save to gratify 
 our appetites with plain, wholesome food. There was no 
 crowding, no selfishness and rudeness, — as there had been 
 in that wild scene on the excursion-boat, where the struggle 
 had been for place rather than for food, — but a polite con- 
 sideration for one another. And outside the sun shone, 
 the blue waves sparkled and rippled along the shore, and 
 their music came in through the open windows. 
 
 Here, in 1897, was a city of tents. Several thousand 
 men and women camped here, waiting for the completion 
 of boats and rafts to convey themselves and their outfits 
 down the lakes and the river to the golden land of their 
 dreams. 
 
 Standing between cars, clinging to a rattling brake, I
 
 43G ALASKA : THE GllEAT COUNTRY 
 
 made the acquaintance of Cyanide Bill, and he told me 
 about it. 
 
 "Tents!" said he. "Did you say tents? Hunh ! 
 Why, lady, tents was as thick here in '97 and '98 as seeds 
 on a strawberry. They was so thick it took a man an 
 hour to find his own. Hunh ! You tripped up every 
 other step on a tent-peg. I guess nobody knows anything 
 about tents unless he was mushin' around Lake Bennett in 
 the summer of '97. From five to ten thousand men and 
 women was camped here off an' on. Fresh ones by the 
 hundred come strugglin', sweatin', dyin', in over the 
 trail every day, and every day hundreds got their rafts 
 finished, bundled their things and theirselves on to 'em. 
 and went tearin' and yellin' down the lake, gloatin' over 
 the poor tired-out wretches that just got in- Often as 
 not they come sneakin' back afoot without any raft and 
 without any outfit and worked their way back to the 
 states to get another. Them that went slow, went sure, 
 and got in ahead of the rushers. 
 
 "I wisht you could of seen the tent town! — young 
 fellows right out of college flauntin' around as if they knew 
 somethin' ; old men, stooped and gray-headed ; gamblers, 
 tin horns, cut-throats, and thieves ; honest women, workin' 
 their way in with their husbands or sons, their noses bent 
 to the earth, with heavy packs on their backs, like men ; 
 and ga}', painted dance-hall girls, sailin' past 'em on horse- 
 back and dressed to kill and livin' on the fat of the land. 
 I bet more good women went to the bad on this here lay- 
 out than you could shake a stick at. It seemed to get 
 on to their nerves to struggle along, week after week, 
 packin' like animals, sufferin' like dogs, et up by mosqui- 
 toes and gnats, pushed and crowded out by men — and 
 then to see them gay girls go singin' b}^ livin' on luxu- 
 ries, men fallin' all over theirselves to wait on 'em, 
 champagne to drink — it sure did get on to their nerves!
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 437 
 
 " You see, somehow, up here, in them days, things didn't 
 seem the way they do down below. Nature kind of gets 
 in her work ahead of custom up here. Wrong don't look 
 so terrible different from right to a woman a thousand 
 miles from civilization. When she sees women all around 
 her walkin' on flowers, and her own feet blistered and 
 bleedin' on stones and thorns, she's pretty apt to ask her- 
 self whether bein' good and workin' like a horse pays. 
 And up here on the trail in '97 the minute a woman begun 
 to ask herself that question, it was all up with her. The 
 end was in plain sight, like the nose on a man's face. The 
 dance hall on in Dawson answered the question practical. 
 
 " Of course, lots of 'em went in straight and stayed 
 straight ; and they're the ones that made Dawson and 
 saved Dawson. You get a handful of good women located 
 in a minin'-camp and you can build up a town, and you 
 can't do it before, mounted police or no mounted police." 
 
 I had heard these hard truths of the Trail of Heartbreak 
 before ; but having been worded more vaguely, they had 
 not impressed me as they did now, spoken with the plain, 
 honest directness of the old trail days. 
 
 " If you want straight facts about '97," the collector had 
 said to me, " I'll introduce you to Cyanide Bill, out there. 
 He was all through here time and again. He will tell you 
 everything you want to know. But be careful what you 
 ask him ; he'll answer anything — and he doesn't talk 
 parlor." 
 
 " The hardships such women went through," continued 
 Cyanide Bill, " the insults and humiliations they faced and 
 lived down, ought to of set 'em on a pe-c?es-tal when all was 
 said and done and decency had the upper hand. The 
 time come when the other'ns got their come-upin's ; when 
 they found out whether it paid to live straight. 
 
 " The world'll never see such a rush for gold again," 
 went on Cyanide Bill, after a pause. " I tell you it takes
 
 438 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 a lot to make any impress on me, I've been toughenin' up 
 in this country so many years ; but when I arrives and 
 sees the orgy goin' on along this trail, my heart up and 
 stood still a spell. The strong ones was all a-trompin' the 
 weak ones down. The weak ones went down and out, 
 and the strong ones never looked behind. Men just went 
 crazy. Men that had always been kind-hearted went 
 plumb locoed and 'u'd trample down their best friend, to 
 get ahead of him. They got just like brutes and didn't 
 know their own selves. It's no wonder the best women 
 give up. Did you ever hear the story of Lady Belle ? " 
 
 I remembered Lady Belle, probably because of the name, 
 but I had never heard the details of her tragic story, and 
 I frankly confessed that I would like to hear them — 
 " parlor " language or " trail," it mattered not. 
 
 " Well," — he half closed his eyes and stared down the 
 blue lake, — " she come along this trail the first of July, 
 the prettiest woman you ever laid eyes on. Her husband 
 was witli her. He seemed to be kind to her at first, but 
 the horrors of the trail worked on him, and he went kind 
 of locoed. He took to abusin' her and blamin' her for 
 everything. She worked like a dog and he treated her 
 about like one ; bat she never lost her beauty nor her 
 sweetness. She had the sweetest smile I ever saw on 
 any human bein's face ; and she was the only one that 
 thought about others. 
 
 " ' Don't crowd ! ' she used to cry, with that smile of 
 her'n. 'We're all havin' a hard time together.' 
 
 " Well, they lost their outfit in White Horse Rapids ; 
 her husband cursed her and said it wouldn't of happened 
 if she hadn't been hell-bent to come along ; he took to 
 drinkin' and up and left her there at the rapids. He 
 went back to the states, sayin' he didn't ever want to see 
 her again. 
 
 " She was left there without an ounce of grub or a cent
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 439 
 
 of money. Yakataga Pete had been workin' along the 
 trail with a big outfit, and had gone on in ahead. He'd 
 fell in love with her before he knew she was married. 
 He went on up into the cricks, and when he come down 
 to Dawson six months later, she was in a dance hall. 
 Dawson was wild about her. They called her Lady 
 Belle because she was always such a lady. 
 
 "Yakataga went straight to her and asked her to marry 
 him. She burst out into the most terrible cryin' you ever 
 hear. ' As if I could ever marry anybody ! ' she cries 
 out ; and that's all the answer he ever got. We found 
 out she had a little blind sister down in the states. She 
 had to send money to keep her in a blind school. She 
 danced and acted cheerful ; but her face was as white as 
 chalk, and her big dark eyes looked like a fawn's eyes 
 when you've shot it and not quite killed it, so's it can't 
 get away from you, nor die, nor anything ; but she was 
 always just as sweet as ever. 
 
 " Two months after that she — she — killed herself. 
 Yakataga was up in the cricks. He come down and 
 buried her." 
 
 It was told, the simple and tragic tale of Lady Belle, 
 and presently Cyanide Bill went away and left me. 
 
 The breeze grew cooler ; it crested the waves with 
 silver. Pearly clouds floated slowly overhead and were 
 reflected in the depths below. 
 
 The mountains surrounding Lake Bennett are of an 
 unusual color. It is a soft old-rose in the distance. The 
 color is not caused by light and shade ; nor by the sun ; 
 nor by flowers. It is the color of the mountains them- 
 selves. They are said to be almost solid mountains of 
 iron, which gives them their name of " Iron-Crowned," I 
 believe ; but to me they will always be the Rose-colored 
 Mountains. They soften and enrich the sparkling, al- 
 most dazzling, blue atmosphere, and give the horizon a
 
 440 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 look of sunset even at midday. The color reminded me 
 of the dull old-rose of Columbia Glacier. 
 
 Lake Bennett dashes its foam-crested blue waves along 
 the pebbly beaches and stone terraces for a distance of 
 twenty-seven miles. At its widest it is not more than 
 two miles, and it narrows in places to less than half a 
 mile. It winds and curves like a river. 
 
 The railway runs along the eastern shore of the lake, 
 and mountains slope abruptly from the opposite shore 
 to a height of five thousand feet. The scenery is never 
 monotonous. It charms constantly, and the air keeps the 
 traveller as fresh and sparkling in spirit as champagne. 
 
 For many miles a solid road-bed, four or five feet 
 above the water, is hewn out of the base of the moun- 
 tains ; the terrace from the railway to the water is a 
 solid blaze of bloom ; white sails, blown full, drift up 
 and down the blue water avenue ; cloud-fragments move 
 silently over the nearer rose-colored mountains ; while in 
 the distance, in every direction that the eye may turn, the 
 enchanted traveller is saluted by some lonely and beauti- 
 ful peak of snow. It is an exquisitely lovely lake. 
 
 We had passed Lake Lindeman — named by Lieutenant 
 Schwatka for Dr. Lindeman of the Breman Geographical 
 Society — before reaching Bennett. 
 
 Lake Lindeman is a clear and lovely lake seven miles 
 long, half a mile wide, and of a good depth for any navi- 
 gation required here. A mountain stream pours tumul- 
 tuously into it, adding to its picturesque beauty. 
 
 Sea birds haunt these lakes, drift on to the Yukon, and 
 follow the voyager until they meet their silvery fellows 
 coming up from Behring Sea. 
 
 Between Lakes Lindeman and Bennett the river con- 
 necting link is only three quarters of a mile long, about 
 thirty yards wide, and only two or three feet deep. It is 
 filled with shoals, rapids, cascades, boulders, and bars ;
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 441 
 
 and navigation is rendered so difficult and so dangerous 
 that in the okl '■'■ raft " days outfits were usually portaged 
 to Lake Bennett. 
 
 During the rush to the Klondike a saw-mill was estab- 
 lished at the head of Lake Bennett, and lumber for boat 
 building was sold for one hundred dollars a thousand 
 feet. 
 
 The air in these lake valleys on a warm da}^ is indescrib- 
 ably soft and balmy. It is scented with pine, balm, Cot- 
 tonwood, and flowers. The lower slopes are covered with 
 fireweed, lark-spur, dandelions, monk's-hood, purple as- 
 ters, marguerites, wild roses, dwarf goldenrod, and many 
 other varieties of wild flowers. The fireweed is of special 
 beauty. Its blooms are larger and of a richer red than 
 along the coast. Blooms covering acres of hillside seem 
 to float like a rosy mist suspended in the atmosphere. 
 The grasses are also very beautiful, some having the rich, 
 changeable tints of a humming-bird. 
 
 The short stream a couple of hundred yards in width 
 connecting Lake Bennett with the next lake — a very 
 small, but pretty one which Schwatka named Nares — 
 was called by the natives " the place where the caribou 
 cross," and now bears the name of Caribou Crossing. At 
 certain seasons the caribou were supposed to cross this 
 part of the river in vast herds on their way to different 
 feeding-grounds, the current being very shallow at this 
 point. 
 
 There is a small settlement here now, and boats were 
 waiting to carry passengers to the Atlin mining district. 
 The caribou have now found less populous territories in 
 which to range. In the winter of 1907-1908 they ranged 
 in droves of many thousands — some reports said hun- 
 dreds of thousands — through the hills and valleys of the 
 Stewart, Klondike, and Sixty-Mile rivers, in the Upper 
 Yukon country.
 
 442 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Miners killed them by the hundreds, dressed them, and 
 stored them in the shafts and tunnels of their mines, 
 down in the eternally frozen caverns of the earth — thus 
 supplying themselves with the most delicious meat for a 
 year. The trek of caribou from the Xanana River valley 
 to the head of White River consumed more than ninety 
 days in passing the head of the Forty-Mile valley — at 
 least a thousand a day passing during that period. They 
 covered from one to five miles in width, and trod the 
 snow down as solidly as it is trodden in a city street. A 
 great wolf-pack clung to the flank of the herd. The 
 wolves easily cut out the weak or tired-out caribou and 
 devoured them. 
 
 Caribou Crossing is a lonely and desolate cluster of 
 tents and cabins huddling in the sand on the water's edge. 
 Considerable business is transacted here, and many pas- 
 sengers transfer here in summer to Atlin. In winter they 
 leave the train at Log-Cabin, which we passed during the 
 forenoon, and make the journey overland in sleighs. 
 
 The voyage from Caribou Crossing to Atlin is by way 
 of a chain of blue lakes, pearled by snow mountains. It 
 is a popular round-trip tourist trip, which may be taken 
 with but little extra expense from Skaguay. 
 
 Tagish Lake, as it was named by Dr. Dawson, — the 
 distinguished British explorer and chief director of the 
 natural history and geological survey of the Dominion of 
 Canada, — was also known as Bove Lake. Ten miles from 
 its head it is joined by Taku Arm — Talik-o Lake, it was 
 called by Schwatka. 
 
 The shores of Tagish Lake are terraced beautifully to 
 the water, the terraces rising evenly one above another. 
 They were probably formed by the regular movement of 
 ice in other ages, when the waters in these valleys were 
 deeper and wider. There are some striking points of
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 443 
 
 limestone in this vicinity, their pearl-white shoulders 
 gleaming brilliantly in the sunshine, with sparkling blue 
 waves dashing against them. 
 
 Marsh Lake, and another with a name so distasteful that 
 I will not write it, are further links in the brilliant sapphire 
 water chain by which the courageous voyagers of the 
 Heartbreak days used to drift hopefully, yet fearfully, 
 down to the Klondike. The bed of a lake which was un- 
 intentionally drained completely dry by the builders of 
 the railroad is passed just before reaching Grand Canyon. 
 
 The train pauses at the canyon and again at White 
 Horse Rapids, to give passengers a glimpse of these famed 
 and dreaded places of navigation of a decade ago. 
 
 At six o'clock in the evening of the day we left Skaguay 
 we reached White Horse.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 This is a new, clean, wooden town, the first of any im- 
 portance in Yukon Territory. It has about fifteen hun- 
 dred inhabitants, is the terminus of the railroad, and is 
 growing rapidly. Tlie town is on the banks of Lewes 
 River, or, as they call it here, the Yukon. 
 
 There is an air of tidiness, order, and thrift about this 
 town which is never found in a frontier town in "the 
 states." There are no old newspapers huddled into gutters, 
 nor blowing up and down the street. Men do not stand 
 on corners with their hands in their pockets, or whit- 
 tling out toothpicks, and waiting for a railroad to be built 
 or a mine to be discovered. They walk the streets with 
 the manner of men who have work to do and who feel 
 that life is worth while, even on the outposts of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 All passengers, freight, and supplies for the interior 
 now pass through White Horse. The river bank is lined 
 with vast warehouses which, by the time the river opens 
 in June, are piled to the roofs with freight. The ship- 
 ments of heavy machinery are large. From the river one 
 can see little besides these warehouses, the shipyards to 
 the south, and the hills. 
 
 Passing through the depot one is confronted by 
 the largest hotel, the White Pass, directly across the 
 street. To this we walked ; and from an upstairs 
 window had a good view of the town. The streets are 
 wide and level; the whole town site is as level as a 
 
 444
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 445 
 
 parade-ground. The buildings are frame and log ; 
 merchandise is fair in quality and style, and in price, 
 high. Mounted police strut stiffly and importantly up 
 and down the streets to and from their picturesque log 
 barracks. One unconsciously holds one's chin level and 
 one's shoulders high the instant one enters a Yukon 
 town. It is in the air. 
 
 Excellent grounds are provided for all outdoor sports ; 
 and in the evening every man one meets has a tennis 
 racket or a golf stick in his hand, and on his face that 
 look of enthusiastic anticipation which is seen only on a 
 British sportsman's face. No American, however enthu- 
 siastic or " keen " he may be on outdoor sports, ever 
 quite gets that look. 
 
 There was no key to our door. Furthermore, the door 
 would not even close securely, but remained a few hair 
 breadths ajar. There was no bell ; but on our way down 
 to dinner, having left some valuables in our room, we re- 
 ported the matter to a porter whom we met in the hall, 
 and asked him to lock our door. 
 
 " It doesn't lock," he replied politely. " It doesn't 
 even latch, and the key is lost." 
 
 Observing our amazed faces, he added, smiling : — 
 
 " You don't need it, ladies. You will be as safe as 
 you would be at home. We never lock doors in White 
 Horse." 
 
 This was my first Yukon shock, but not my last. My 
 faith in mounted police has always been strong, but it 
 went down before that unlocked door. 
 
 "Possibly the people of White Horse never take what 
 does not belong to them," I said ; " but a hundred 
 strangers came in on that train. Might not one be 
 afflicted with kleptomania ? " 
 
 " He wouldn't steal here," said the boy, confidently. 
 "Nobody ever does."
 
 446 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 There seemed to be nothing more to say. We left our 
 door ajar and, with lingering backward glances, went 
 down to the dining room. 
 
 Never sliall I forget that dinner. It was as bad as our 
 lunch had been good. The room was hot ; the table-cloth 
 was far from being immaculate ; the waitress was untidy 
 and ill-bred ; and there was nothing that we could eat. 
 
 Nor were we fastidious. We neither expected, nor de- 
 sired, luxuries ; we asked only well-cooked, clean, whole- 
 some food ; but if this is to be obtained in White Horse, 
 we found it not — although we did not cease trying while 
 we were there. 
 
 We went out and walked the clean streets and looked 
 into restaurants, and tried to see something good to eat, 
 or at least a clean table-cloth ; but in the end we went 
 hungry to bed. We had wine and graham wafers in our 
 bags, and they consoled ; but we craved something sub- 
 stantial, notwithstanding our hearty lunch. It was the 
 air — the light, fresh, sparkling air of mountain, river, 
 and lake — that gave us our appetites. 
 
 When we had walked until our feet could no longer 
 support us, we returned to the hotel. On the way, we 
 saw a sign announcing ice-cream soda. We went in and 
 asked for some, but the ice-cream was "all out." 
 
 " But we have plain soda," said the man, looking so 
 wistful that we at once decided to have some, although 
 we both detested it. 
 
 He fizzed it elaborately into two very small glasses and 
 led us back into a little dark room, where were chairs and 
 tables, and he gave us spoons with which to eat our plain 
 soda. "Let me pay," said ray friend, airily; and she put 
 ten cents on the table. 
 
 The man looked at it and grinned. He did not smile ; 
 he grinned. Then he went away and left it lying there. 
 
 We tried to drink the soda-water ; then we tried to
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 447 
 
 coax it through straws ; finally we tried to eat it with 
 spoons — as others about us were doing; but we could 
 not. It looked like soap-bubbles and it tasted like soap- 
 bubbles. 
 
 " He didn't see his ten cents," said my friend, gather- 
 ing it up. "I suppose one pays at the counter out there. 
 I would cheerfully pay him an extra ten if I had not 
 gotten the taste of the abominable stuff in my mouth." 
 
 She laid the ten cents on the counter grudgingly. 
 
 The man looked at it and grinned again. 
 
 " Them things don't go here," said he. " It's fifty 
 cents." 
 
 There was a silence. I found my handkerchief and 
 laughed into it, wishing I had taken a second glass. 
 
 " Oh, I see," said she, slowly and sweetly, as a half- 
 dollar slid lingering down her fingers to the counter. 
 "For the spoons. They were worth it." 
 
 It was two o'clock before we could leave our windows 
 that night. It was not dark, not even dusk. A kind of 
 blue-white light lay over the town and valley, deepening 
 toward the hills. In the air was that delicious quality 
 which charms the senses like perfumes. Only to breathe 
 it in was a drowsy, languorous jo3^ At White Horse one 
 opens the magic, invisible gate and passes into the en- 
 chanted land of Forgetfulness — and the gate swings shut 
 behind one. 
 
 Home and friends seem far away. If every soul that 
 one loves were at death's door, one could not get home in 
 time to say farewell — so why not banish care and enjoy 
 each hour as it comes ? 
 
 This is the same reckless spirit which, greatly inten- 
 sified, possessed desperate men when they went to the 
 Klondike ten years ago. There was no telegraph, then, 
 and mails were carried in only once or twice a year. 
 Letters were lost. Men did not hear from their wives.
 
 448 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and, discouniged and disheartened, decided that the 
 women had died or had forgotten; so they went the way 
 of the country, and it often came to pass that Heartbreak 
 Trail led to the Land of Heartbreak. 
 
 In the morning we learned that the boat for Dawson 
 was not yet " in," and, even if it should arrive during the 
 day, — which seemed to be as uncertain as the opening of 
 the river in spring, — would not leave until some time 
 during the night; so at nine o'clock we took the Skaguay 
 train for the Grand Canyon. 
 
 One "• oldest " resident of White Horse told us that it 
 was only a mile to the canyon ; another oldest one, that 
 it was four miles ; still another, that it was five ; all 
 agreed that we should take the train out and walk back. 
 
 " There's a tram," they told us, " an old, abandoned 
 tram, and you can't get lost. You've only to follow the 
 tram. Why, a goose couldn't get lost. Norman McCau- 
 ley built the tram, and outfits were portaged around the 
 canyon and the rapids two seasons ; then the railroad 
 come in and the tram went out of business. " 
 
 We took our bundles of mosquito netting and boarded 
 the train. In summer the travel is all " in," and we were 
 the only passengers. When the White Pass Railway Com- 
 pany was organized, stock was worth ten dollars a share ; 
 now it is worth six hundred and fifty dollars, and it is not 
 for sale. Freight rates are five cents a pound, one hun- 
 dred dollars a ton, or fifty in car-load lots, from Skaguay to 
 White Horse. Passenger rates are supposed to be twenty 
 cents a mile. We paid seventy-five cents to return to the 
 canyon which we passed the previous day. This rate 
 should make the distance four miles, and we barely had 
 time to arrange our mosquito veils, according to the in- 
 structions of the conductor, when the train stopped. 
 
 We were told that we might not see a mosquito ; and 
 again, that we might not be able to see anything else.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 449 
 
 We were put off and left standing ankle-deep in sand, on 
 the brink of a precipice, four miles from any human being 
 — in the wilds of Alaska. At that moment the trainmen 
 looked like old and dear friends. 
 
 " The path down is right in front of you," the collector 
 called, as the train started. " Don't be afraid of the 
 bears ! They will not harm you at this time of the 
 year." 
 
 Bears ! 
 
 We had considered heat, mosquitoes, losing our way, 
 hunger, exhaustion, — everything, it appeared, except 
 bears. We looked at one another. 
 
 "I had not thought of bears." 
 
 "Nor had I." 
 
 We looked down at the bushes growing along the 
 canyon; little heat-worms glimmered in the still atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 " Perhaps it is an Alaskan joke," I suggested feebly. 
 
 We stood for some time trying to decide whether we 
 should make the descent or return to White Horse, when 
 suddenly the matter Avas decided for us. I was standing 
 on the brink of the sandy precipice, down which a path 
 went, almost perpendicularly, without bend or pause, to 
 the bank of the river several hundred yards below. 
 
 The sandy soil upon which I stood suddenly caved and 
 went down into the path. I went with it. I landed 
 several yards below the brink, gave one cry, and then — 
 by no will of my own — was off for the canyon. 
 
 The caving of the brink had started a sand and gravel 
 slide ; and I, knee-deep in it, was going down with it — 
 slowly, but oh, most surely. There was no pausing, no 
 looking back. I could hear my companion calling to me 
 to "stop"; to "wait"; to "be careful" — and all her 
 entreaties were the bitterest irony by the time they floated 
 down to me. So long as the slide did not stop, it was 
 2g
 
 450 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 useless to tell me to do so ; for I was embedded in it half- 
 way to my waist. We kept going, slowly and hesitat- 
 ingly ; but never slowly enough for me to get out. 
 
 It was eighty in the shade, and the sand was hot. I 
 was wearing a white waist, a dark blue cheviot skirt, and 
 patent-leather shoes; and my appearance, when I finally, 
 reached level ground and cool alder trees, may be im- 
 agined. Furthermore, our trunks had been bonded to 
 Dawson, and I had no extra skirts or shoes with me. 
 
 My companion, profiting by my misfortune, had armed 
 herself with an alpenstock and was " tacking " down the 
 slope. It was half an hour before she arrived. 
 
 I have never forgiven her for the way she laughed. 
 
 We soon forgot the bears in the beauty of the scene 
 before us. We even forgot the comedy of my unwilling 
 descent. 
 
 The Lewes River gradually narrows from a width of 
 three or four hundred yards to one of about fifty yards at 
 the mouth of the Grand Canyon, which it enters in a great 
 bore. 
 
 The walls of the canyon are perpendicular columns and 
 palisades of basalt. They rise without bend to a height 
 of from one to two hundred feet, and then, set thickly 
 with dark and gloomy spruce trees, slope gradually into 
 mountains of considerable height. The canyon is five- 
 eighths of a mile long, and in that interval the water drops 
 thirty feet. Halfway through, it widens abruptly into a 
 round water chamber, or basin, where the waters boil and 
 seethe in dangerous whirlpools and eddies. Then it again 
 narrows, and the waters rush wildly and tumultuously 
 through walls of dark stone, veined with gray and lav- 
 ender. The current runs fifteen miles an hour, and rafts 
 " shooting " the rapids are hurled violently from side to 
 side, pushed on end, spun round in whirlpools, buried for 
 seconds in boiling foam, and at last are shot through
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 451 
 
 the final narrow avenue like spears from a catapult — only 
 to plunge madly on to the more dangerous White Horse 
 Rapids. 
 
 The waves dash to a height of four or five feet and 
 break into vast sheets of spray and foam. Their roar, flung 
 back by the stone walls, may be heard for a long dis- 
 tance ; and that of the rapids drifts over the streets of 
 White Horse like distant, continuous thunder, when all 
 else is still. 
 
 We found a difficult way by which, with the assistance 
 of alpenstocks and overhanging tree branches, we could 
 slide down to the very water, just above Whirlpool Basin. 
 We stood there long, thinking of the tragedies that had 
 been enacted in that short and lonely stretch ; of the lost 
 outfits, the worn and wounded bodies, the spirits sore ; of 
 the hearts that had gone through, beating high and strong 
 with hope, and that had returned broken. It is almost 
 as poignantly interesting as the old trail ; and not for two 
 generations, at least, will the perils of those days be 
 forgotten. 
 
 It was about noon that, remembering our long walk, we 
 turned reluctantly and set out for White Horse. 
 
 Somewhere back of the basin we lost our way. We 
 could not find the " tram " ; searching for it, we got into 
 a swamp and could not make our way back to the river ; 
 and suddenly the mosquitoes were upon us. 
 
 The underbrush was so thick that our netting was torn 
 into shreds and left in festoons and tatters upon every 
 bush; yet I still bear in my memory the vision of my 
 friend floating like a tall, blond bride — for my dark- 
 haired Scotch friend was not with me on the Yukon voyage 
 — through the shadows of that swamp before her bridal 
 veil went to pieces. 
 
 Her bridal glory was grief. In a few moments we were 
 both as black as negroes with mosquitoes ; for, desperately
 
 452 ALASKA: TUE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 though we fought, we could not drive them away. The 
 air in the swamp was heavy and still ; our progress was 
 unspeakably difficult — through mire and tall, lash grasses 
 which, in any other country on earth, would have been 
 alive with snakes and crawling things. 
 
 The pests bit and stung our faces, necks, shoulders, and 
 arms ; they even swarmed about our ankles ; while, for 
 our hands — they were soon swollen to twice their original 
 size. 
 
 We wept ; we prayed ; w^e said evil things in the hear- 
 ing of heaven ; we asked God to forgive us our sins, or, 
 at the very least, to punish us for them in some other 
 way ; but I, at least, in the heaviest of my afflictions, did 
 not forget to thank Him because there are no snakes in 
 Alaska or the Yukon. It seemed to me, even, in the 
 fervor of my gratitude, that it had all been planned seons 
 ago for our special benefit in this extreme hour. 
 
 But I shall spare the reader a further description of 
 our sufferings. 
 
 I had always considered the Alaskan mosquito a joke. 
 I did not know that they torture men and beasts to a 
 terrible death. They mount in a black mist from the 
 grass; it is impossible for one to keep one's eyes open. 
 Dogs, bears, and strong men have been known to die of 
 pain and nervous exhaustion under their attacks. 
 
 After an hour of torture we forced our way through the 
 network of underbrush back to the river, and soon found 
 a narrow path. There was a slight breeze, and the mos- 
 quitoes were not so aggressive. There Avas still a three- 
 mile walk, along the shore bordering the rapids, before 
 we could rest ; and during the last mile each step caused 
 such agony that we almost crawled. 
 
 When we removed our shoes, we found them full of 
 blood. Our feet were blistered ; the blisters had broken 
 and blistered asfain.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 453 
 
 But we had seen the Grand Canyon of the Yukon — 
 which Schwatka in an evil hour named Miles, for the 
 distinguished army-general — and White Horse Rapids; 
 and seeing them was worth the blisters and the blood. 
 And we know how far it is from the head of the canyon 
 to White Horse town. No matter what the three " oldest " 
 settlers, the railway folders, Schwatka, and all the others 
 say, — we know. It is fifteen miles ! Also, among those 
 who scoff at Rex Beach for having the villain in his last 
 novel eaten up by mosquitoes on the Yukon, we are not 
 to be included. 
 
 Numerous and valuable copper mines lie within a ra- 
 dius of fifteen miles from White Horse. The more impor- 
 tant ones are those of the Pennsylvania syndicate. The B. 
 N. White Company, The Arctic Chief, The Grafter, the 
 Anaconda, and the Best Chance. The Puebla, operated 
 by B. N. White, lies four miles northwest of town. It 
 makes a rich showing of raagnatite, carrying copper values 
 averaging four and five per cent, with a small by-product 
 of gold and silver. 
 
 In the summer of 1907 this mine had in sight two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand tons of pay ore. The deepest 
 development then obtained had a hundred-foot surface 
 showing three hundred feet in width, and stripped along 
 with the strike of the vein seven hundred feet, showing 
 a solid, unbroken mass of ore. Tunnels and cross-cuts 
 driven from the bottom of the shaft showed the body to 
 be the same width and the values the same as the surface 
 outcrop. 
 
 The Arctic Chief ranks second in importance ; and 
 extensive development work is being carried on at all 
 the mines. The railway is building out into the mining 
 district. 
 
 Six-horse stages are run from White Horse to Dawson
 
 454 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 after the river closes. The distance is four hundred and 
 thirty-live miles ; the fare in the early autumn and late 
 spring is a hundred and twenty-five dollars ; in winter, 
 when sleighing is good, sixty dollars. 
 
 White Horse was first named Closeleigh by the railway 
 company ; but the name was not popular. At one place 
 in the rapids the waves curving over rocks somewhat 
 resemble a white horse, with wildly floating mane and 
 tail of foam. This is said to be the origin of the name. 
 
 White Horse is only eight years old. The hotel accom- 
 modations, if one does not mind a little thing like not 
 being able to eat, are good. The rooms are clean and 
 comfortable and filled with sweet mountain and river air. 
 
 At eight o'clock that evening the steamer Dawson 
 struggled up the river and landed within fifty yards of 
 the hotel. We immediately went aboard ; but it was 
 nine o'clock the next morning before we started, so we 
 had another night in White Horse. 
 
 The Yukon steamers are four stories high, with a place 
 for a roof garden. I could do nothing for some time but 
 regard the Daivson in silent wonder. It seemed to glide 
 along on the surface of the water, like a smooth, flat stone 
 when it is " skipped." 
 
 The lower deck is within a few inches of the water ; 
 and high above is the pilot-house, with its lonely-looking 
 captain and pilot ; and high, oh, very high, above them — 
 like a charred monarch of a Puget Sound forest — rises the 
 black smoke-stack, from which issue such vast funnels of 
 smoke and such slow and tremendous breathing. 
 
 This breathing is a sound that haunts every memory of 
 the Yukon. It is not easy to describe, it is so slow and 
 so powerful. It is not quite like a cough — unless one 
 could cough in instead of out ; it is more like a sobbing, 
 shivering in-drawing of the breath of some mighty animal. 
 It echoes from point to point, and may be heard for
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 455 
 
 several miles on a still day. Day and night it moves 
 through the upper air, and floats on ahead, often echoing 
 so insistently around some point which the steamer has 
 not turned, that the " cheechaco " is deluded into the 
 belief that another steamer is approaching. 
 
 The captains and pilots of the Yukon are the loneliest- 
 looking men! First of all, they are so far away from 
 everybod}'- else ; and second, passengers, particularly 
 women, are not permitted to be in the pilot-house, nor on 
 the texas, nor even on the hurricane-deck, of steamers 
 passing through Yukon Territory. 
 
 Between White Horse and Lake Lebarge the river is 
 about two hundred yards wide. The water is smooth and 
 deep. It loiters along the shore, but the current is strong 
 and bears the steamer down with a rush, compelling it to 
 zigzag ceaselessly from shore to shore. 
 
 Going down the Yukon for the first time, one's heart 
 stands still nearly half the time. The steamer heads 
 straight for one shore, approaches it so closely that its 
 bow is within six inches of it, and then swings powerfully 
 and starts for the opposite shore — its great stern wheel 
 barely clearing the rocky wall. 
 
 The serious vexations and real dangers of navigation 
 in this great river, from source to mouth, are the sand and 
 gravel bars. One may go down the Yukon from White 
 Horse to St. Michael in fourteen days ; and one may be a 
 month on the way — pausing, by no will of his own, on 
 various sand-bars. 
 
 The treacherous current changes hourly. It is seldom 
 found twice the same. It washes the sand from side to 
 side, or heaps it up in the middle — creating new channels 
 and new dangers. The pilot can only be cautious, un- 
 tiringly watchful — and lucky. The rest he must leave 
 to heaven. 
 
 It is twenty-seven miles from White Horse to Lake
 
 456 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Lebarge. Midway, the Tahkeena River flows into the 
 Lewes, running through banks of clay. 
 
 Lake Lebarge is thirty-two miles long and three and a 
 half wide. The day was suave. The water was silvery 
 blue, and as smooth as satin; gray, deeply veined cliffs were 
 reflected in the water, whose surface was not disturbed 
 by a ripple or wave ; the air was soft ; farther down the 
 river were forest fires, and just sufficient haze floated 
 back to give the milky old-rose lights of the opal to the 
 atmosphere. There is one small island in the lake. It 
 was not named ; and it received the name — as Vancouver 
 would say — of Fireweed Isle, because it floated like a 
 rosy cloud on the pale blue water. 
 
 The Indians called this lake Kluk-tas-si, and Schwatka 
 favored retaining it ; but the French name has endured, 
 and it is not bad. 
 
 The Lake Lebarge grayling and whitefish are justly 
 famed. Steamers stop at some lone fisherman's landing 
 and take them down to Dawson, where they find ready 
 sale. At Lower Lebarge there is a post-office and a 
 telegraph station. Our steamer paused ; two men came 
 out in a boat, delivered a large supply of fish, received a 
 few parcels of mail, and went swinging back across the 
 water. 
 
 A dreary log-cabin stood on the bank, labelled " Clark's 
 Place." A woman in a scarlet dress, walking through 
 the reeds beside the beach, made a bit of vivid color. It 
 seemed very, very lonely — with that kind of loneliness 
 that is unendurable. 
 
 A quarter of a mile farther, around a bend in the shore, 
 the boat landed at the telegraph station, where the Cana- 
 dian flag was flying. 
 
 The different reaches of the Yukon are called locally 
 by very confusing names. The river rising in Summit 
 Lake on the White Pass railway is called both Lewes and
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 457 
 
 Yukon ; the stretch immediately below Lake Lebarge is 
 called Lewes, Thirty-Mile, and Yukon. When we reach 
 the old Hudson Bay post of Selkirk, however, our per- 
 plexities over this matter are at an end. The Pelly River 
 here joins the Lewes, and all agree that the splendid 
 river that now surges on to the sea is the Yukon. 
 
 It is daylight all the time, and no one should sleep be- 
 tween White Horse and Dawson. Not an hour of this 
 beautiful voyage on the Upper Yukon should be wasted. 
 
 The banks are high and bold, for the most part spring- 
 ing sheer out of the water in columns and pinnacles of 
 solid stone. There are also forestated slopes rising to 
 peaks of snow ; and the same kind of clay cliffs that we 
 saw at White Horse, white and shining in the bluish light 
 of morning, but more beautiful still in the mysterious 
 rosy shadows of midnight. 
 
 There are some striking columns of red rock along 
 Lake Lebarge, and their reflections in the water at sunset 
 of a still evening are said to be entrancing : " two warm 
 pictures of rosy red in the sinking sun, joined base to 
 base by a thread of silver, at the edge of the other shore." 
 
 There are many high hills of soft gray limestone, 
 veined and shaded with the green of spruce ; vast slopes, 
 timbered heavily ; low valleys and picturesque mouths of 
 rivers. 
 
 Five-Finger, or Rink, Rapids is caused by a contraction 
 of the river from its usual width to one of a hundred and 
 fifty yards. Five bulks of stone, rising to a perpendicular 
 height of forty or fifty feet, are stretched across the chan- 
 nel. The steamer seems to touch the stone walls as it 
 rushes through on the boiling rapids. 
 
 The Upper Ramparts of the Yukon begin at Fort Sel- 
 kirk. Here the waters cut through the lower spurs of 
 the mountains, and for a distance of a hundred and fifty 
 miles, reaching to Dawson, the scenery is sublime.
 
 458 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 " Quiet Sentinel " is a rocky promontory which, seen in 
 profile, resembles the face and entire figure of a woman. 
 She stands with her head slightly bowed, as if in pra3^er, 
 with loose draperies flowing in classic lines to her feet, 
 and with a rose held to her lips. One of the greatest 
 singers of the present time might have posed for the 
 " Quiet Sentinel." 
 
 Rivers and their valleys are more famed in the northern 
 interior than towns. Teslin, Tahkeena, Teslintoo, Big 
 and Little Salmon, Pelly, Stewart, White, Forty-Mile, 
 Indian, Sixty-Mile, Macmillan, Klotassin, Porcupine, 
 Chandlar, Koyukuk, Unalaklik, Xanana, Mynook, — these 
 be names to conjure with in the North ; while those south 
 of the Yukon and tributary to other waters have equal 
 fame. 
 
 As for the Klondike, it is the only stream of its size, 
 being but the merest creek and averaging a hundred feet 
 in width, which has given its name to one whole country 
 and to a portion of another country. During the past 
 decade it has not been unusual to hear the name Klondike 
 Country applied to all Alaska and that part of Canada 
 adjacent to the Klondike district. The tiny, gold-bearing 
 creeks, from ten to twenty feet wide, tributary to the 
 Klondike, are known by name and fame in all parts of 
 the world to-day. They are Bonanza, Hunker, Too- 
 Much-Gold, Eldorado, Rock, North Fork, All-Gold, 
 Gold-Bottom, and others of less importance. The Bo- 
 nanza flows into the Klondike at Dawson, and it is but 
 a half-hour's walk to the dredge at work in this stream. 
 
 In 1833 Baron Wranofell directed Michael Tebenkoff to 
 establish Fort St. Michael's on the small island in Norton 
 Sound to which the name of the fort was given. Three 
 years later it was attacked by natives, but was success- 
 fully defended by Kurupanoff, who was in charge.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 459 
 
 In 1836 a Russian named Glasunoff entered the delta 
 of the Yukon, ascending the river as far as the mouth ot 
 the Anvik River. In 1838 Malakoff extended the explo- 
 ration as far as Nulato, where he established a Russian 
 post and jolaced Notarmi in command. 
 
 When the garrison returned to St. Michael's on ac- 
 count of the failure of provisions, the following winter, 
 natives destroyed the fort and all buildings which had 
 been erected. It was rebuilt and again destroyed in 
 1839. In 1841 it once more arose under Derabin, who 
 remained in command. The following year Lieutenant 
 Zagoskin reached Nulato, ascending to Nowikakat in 1843. 
 
 The Russians were therefore established on the lower 
 Yukon several years before the English established them- 
 selves upon the upper river. 
 
 In 1840 Mr. Robert Campbell was sent by Sir George 
 Simpson to explore the Upper Liard River. Mr. Camp- 
 bell ascended the river to its head waters, crossed the 
 mountains, and descended the Pelly River to the Lewes, 
 where, eight years later, he established Fort Selkirk. 
 
 This famous trading post was short-lived. In 1851 it 
 was attacked by a band of savage Chilkahts and was sur- 
 rendered, without resistance, by Mr. Campbell, who had 
 but two men with him at the time. They were not 
 molested by the Indians, who plundered and burned the 
 warehouses and forts. 
 
 Only the chimneys of the fort were found by Lieuten- 
 ant Schwatka in 1883. As late as 1890 this point was 
 considered the head of navigation on the Yukon. 
 
 In 1847 Fort Yukon was established by Mr. A. H. 
 McMurray, of the Hudson Bay Company. Following 
 McMurray and Campbell, came Joseph Harper, Jack 
 McQuesten, and A. H. Mayo, who established a trading 
 post on the Yukon at Fort Reliance, six miles below the 
 mouth of the Klondike.
 
 460 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 In 1860 Robert Kemiicott reached Fort Yukon, and in 
 the following spring descended to a point that was for 
 several years known as " the Small Houses " — the most 
 attractive name in the Yukon countr}^ In 1865 an ex- 
 pedition was organized in San Francisco by the Western 
 Union Telegraph Company for the purpose of building a 
 telegraph line from San Francisco to Behring Strait — 
 wliich was to be crossed by cable to meet the Russian 
 government line at the mouth of the Amoor River. One 
 l)arty, headed by Robert Kennicott, was sent by ocean to 
 the mouth of the Yukon ; and another, in charge of 
 Michael Byrnes, up the inside route to the Stikine River. 
 Going from that river to the head waters of the Taku, 
 they followed the chain of lakes and the Hootalinqua 
 River to the Lewes, which they reached on the Tahco 
 Arm of Lake Tagish. At that time it became known 
 that the Atlantic cable had proven to be a success, and 
 the daring and hazardous northern project was abandoned. 
 
 As late as the date of this expedition it was not deter- 
 mined positively whether the Kwihkpak was one of the 
 mouths of the Yukon, or a separate river. Upon the re- 
 call of the telegraph expedition, the only portion of the 
 great river that had not been explored was the short 
 distance between Lake Tagish and Lake Lebarge. 
 
 There have been several claimants for the honor of 
 having been the first white man to cross the divide be- 
 tween Lynn Canal and the head waters of the Yukon. 
 The first was a mythological, nameless Scotchman em- 
 ployed by the Hudson Bay Company, who is supposed to 
 have reached Fort Selkirk in 1861, and to have proceeded 
 alone over the old " grease-trail " of the Chilkahts to 
 Lynn Canal. He fell into the hands of the Indians and 
 was held until ransomed by the captain of the Labouchere. 
 Because he had long, flowing locks of red hair, he was 
 supposed to be a kind of white shaman, and his life was
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 461 
 
 spared by the savages. This story is doubted by many 
 authorities. 
 
 The honor was claimed, also, by George Holt, who is 
 known to have crossed one of the passes in 1872, and 
 twice in later years. James Wynn, of Juneau, went over 
 in 1879 and returned in 1880. 
 
 About this time the Indians seemed to realize that pack- 
 ing over the trail might become more profitable than act- 
 ing as middlemen between the coast Indians and those of 
 the interior. In 1881 and 1882 small parties of miners, 
 and even one or two travelling alone, crossed unmolested. 
 In 1883 Lieutenant Schwatka had his outfit packed over 
 the Dyea — Taiya, or Day ay, it was then called — Trail ; 
 and then, dismissing his packers, built rafts and made 
 his perilous way down the unknown river — portaging, 
 " shooting " the Grand Canyon, White Horse, and Rink 
 Rapids, sticking on sand-bars, almost dying of mosquitoes, 
 and, saddest of all for us who come after him, naming 
 every object that met his eyes with the deplorable taste 
 of Vancouver. 
 
 Of a river, called Kut-lah-cook-ah by the Chilkahts, he 
 complacently remarks: — 
 
 " I shortened its name and called it after Professor 
 Nourse, of the United States Naval Observatory." 
 
 Nourse, Saussure, Perrier, Payer, Bennett, Wheaton, 
 Prejevalsky, Richards, Watson, Nares, Bove, Marsh, 
 McClintock, Miles, Richthofen, Hancock, d'Abbadie, Daly, 
 Nordenskiold, Von Wilczek ; these be the choice namings 
 that he bestowed upon the beautiful objects along the 
 Yukon. It is, perhaps, a cause for thankfulness that he 
 did not rename the Yukon Schwatka or Ridderhjelka ! 
 However, many of his namings have died a natural death. 
 
 The name Yukon is said to have first been applied to 
 the river in 1846 by Mr. J. Bell, of the Hudson Bay 
 Company, who went over from the MacKenzie and de-
 
 462 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 scended tlie Porcupine to the great river which the In- 
 dians called Yukon. He retained the name, although 
 for some time it was spelled Youkon. For this, may he 
 ever be of blessed memory. I should like to contribute 
 to a monument to perpetuate his name and fame. 
 
 To-day Fort Selkirk is of some importance as a trading 
 post and because of the successful farming of the vicinity, 
 and all passing steamers call there. Joseph Harper was 
 located there at the time of George Carmack's brilliant 
 discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek, in August, 1896. 
 Harper and Joseph Ladue, who was settled as a trader at 
 Sixty-Mile, immediatel}' transferred their stocks to the 
 junction of the Yukon, Klondike, and Bonanza, and estab- 
 lished the town which they named Dawson, in honor of 
 Dr. George M. Dawson. 
 
 In 1887 Mr. William Ogilvie headed a Canadian ex- 
 ploring party into the Yukon. His boats were towed up 
 to Taiya Inlet by the United States naval vessel Pinta; 
 and while waiting there for supplies, he, having asked for, 
 and received, authority from Commander Newell, made 
 surveys at the heads of the inlets. It was only through 
 the intercession of the commander, furthermore, that Mr. 
 Ogilvie was permitted by the Chilkahts to proceed over 
 the pass. " I am strongly of the opinion," Mr. Ogilvie 
 says in his report, " that these Indians would have been 
 much more difficult to deal with if they had not known 
 that Commander Newell remained in the inlet to see that 
 I got through in safety." 
 
 Miners had been going over the trail for several years, 
 but the Chilkahts were enraged at the British because em- 
 ployees of the Hudson Bay Company had killed some of 
 their tribe. 
 
 In the meantime Dr. George M. Dawson, heading an- 
 other Dominion party, was working along the Stikine 
 River.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTBY 463 
 
 Dr. Dawson and Mr. Ogilvie — afterward governor of 
 Yukon territory — made extensive surveys and explora- 
 tions throughout the Yukon district; their reports upon 
 the country are voluminous, thorough, and of much in- 
 terest. They were both men of superior attainments, and 
 their influence upon the country and upon the people who 
 rushed into the new mining district was great. To-day 
 the name of ex-Governor Ogilvie is heard more frequently 
 in the Klondike than that of any other person, even though 
 his residence is elsewhere. He served as governor during 
 the reckless and picturesque days when to be a governor 
 meant to be a man in the highest sense of the word.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 Dawson ! It was a name to stir men's blood ten years 
 ago, — a wild, picturesque, lawless mining-camp, whose like 
 had never been known and never will be known again. 
 
 All kinds and conditions of men and women were rep- 
 resented. Miners, prospectors, millionnaires, adventurers, 
 wanderers, desperadoes ; brave-hearted, earnest women, 
 dissolute dance-hall girls, and, more dangerous still, the 
 quiet, seductive adventuress — they were all there, side by 
 side, tent by tent, cabin by cabin. 
 
 Almost daily new discoveries were made and stampedes 
 occurred. Every little creek flowing into the Klondike 
 was found rich in gold. The very names that these 
 creeks received — All-Gold, Too-Much-Gold, Gold-Bottom 
 — turned men's blood to fire. Tlie whole country seemed 
 to have gone mad of excitement and the lust for gold. 
 The white mountain passes grew black with struggling 
 human beings — fighting, falling, rising, fighting on. It 
 was like the blind stampeding of crazed animals upon a 
 plain ; nothing could check them save exhaustion or death. 
 When the fever burned out in one and left him low, an- 
 other sprang to take his place. Dawson, like Skaguay, 
 grew from dozens to hundreds in a day ; from hundreds 
 to thousands; tents gave place to cabins; cabins, to sub- 
 stantial frame buildings. 
 
 Ah, to have been there in the old daj's ! Who would 
 not have suffered the early hardships, paid the price, 
 and paid it cheerfully, for the sake of seeing the life and 
 being a part of it before it was too late ? 
 
 464
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 465 
 
 Now it is forever too late. The glory of what it once 
 was is all that remains. To-day Dawson is so quiet, so 
 dull, so respectable, that one unconsciously yawns in its 
 face. 
 
 But men's eyes still kindle when their memories of old 
 days are stirred. 
 
 "They were great times," they say, looking at one 
 another. 
 
 " They could only come once. They were times of 
 blood and gold ; of dance and song ; of glitter and show 
 — and starvation and death. We worked all day and 
 danced or gambled all night. Our only passions were 
 for women and gold. If we couldn't get the women we 
 wanted, the men that did get 'em fought their way to 
 'em, inch by inch ; if we couldn't dig the gold out of 
 the earth, we got it in some other way. 
 
 "All the best buildings were occupied by saloons. 
 Every saloon had a dance-hall in the back of it; not 
 that the girls had to keep to their quarters, either — they 
 had the run of the whole shebang. Every saloon had 
 its gambling rooms, too — unless the tables and games 
 were right out in the open. I tell you, it was tough. 
 You can't begin to understand the situation unless you'd 
 been here. There wasn't a hotel nor a corner where a 
 man could go in and get warm except in a saloon — 
 and with the thermometer fooling in the neighborhood 
 of fifty below, he didn't stand around outside with his 
 hands in his pockets, not to any great extent. Most 
 likely his pockets was naturally froze shut, anyhow, and 
 the only way he could get 'em thawed out was to go 
 into a saloon. TTiat thawed 'em quick enough. It not 
 only thawed 'em out ; it most gen'rally thawed 'em wide 
 open. 
 
 "I tell you, the worst element in a mining-camp is 
 women. They follow a man and console him when he's
 
 466 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 down on his luck ; they follow him through thick and 
 thin ; and they get such a hold on him that, when he 
 wants to get back to decent ways and decent women, 
 he just naturally can't do it. Young fellows don't real- 
 ize it. They don't see it being done; they see it after 
 it is done and can't be undone. 
 
 "As soon as the mounted police took holt of Daw- 
 son, with Inspector Constantino at the head, there was 
 a sure change. Still, even the mounted-police doctrine 
 does have some drawbacks. I noticed they couldn't 
 make the post-office clerks turn out letters unless you 
 slipped two-three dollars into their outstretched hands. 
 I noticed that." 
 
 To-day Dawson is a pretty, clean-streeted town built 
 of log and frame buildings. In the hottest summer the 
 earth never thaws deeper than eighteen inches, and no 
 foundation can be obtained for brick buildings. For the 
 same reason plastering is not advisable, the uneven 
 freezing and thawing proving ruinous to both brick and 
 plaster. 
 
 The first objects to greet the visitor's eyes are the 
 large buildings of the great commercial and transpor- 
 tation companies of the North, along the bank of the 
 river. Passing through these one finds one's self upon a 
 busy, but unconventional, thoroughfare. Dawson is built 
 solidly to the hill, extending about a mile along the 
 water-front ; and the most attractive part of the town 
 is the village of picturesque log cabins climbing over 
 the lower slopes of the hill. They are not large, but 
 they are all built with the roof extending over a wide 
 front porch. The entire roof of each cabin is covered 
 several inches deep with earth, and at the time of our 
 visit — the first week of August — these roofs were grown 
 with brilliant green grasses and flowers to a height of 
 from twelve to eighteen inches. They were literally cov-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 467 
 
 ered with the bloom of a dozen or more varieties of 
 wild flowers. Every window had its flaming window- 
 box ; every garden, its gay beds ; and there were even 
 boxes set on square fence posts and running the entire 
 length of fences themselves, from which vines drooped 
 and trailed and flowers blew. Standing at the river 
 and looking toward the hill, the whole town seemed 
 a mass of bloom sloping up to the green, which, in 
 turn, sloped on up to the blue. 
 
 We had heard so much about the exorbitant prices of 
 the Klondike, that we were simply speechless when a very 
 jolly, sandy-haired Scotch gentleman offered to take our 
 two steamer trunks, three heavy suit cases, and two shawl- 
 straps to the hotel which we had blindly chosen, for the 
 sum of two dollars. We had expected to pay five ; and 
 when he first asked two and a half, we stood as still 
 as though turned to stone — and all for joy. He, how- 
 ever, evidently mistaking our silence, doubtless felt the 
 prick of the stern conscience of his ancestors, for he 
 hastily added : — 
 
 "Well, seeing you're ladies, we'll call it an even two." 
 
 We agreed to the price coldly, pretending to consider 
 it an outrage. 
 
 " My name is Angus McDonald," said he, with re- 
 proach. " When a McDonald says that his price is the 
 lowest in the town, his word may be taken. If you come to 
 Dawson twenty years from now, Angus will be standing 
 here waiting to handle your baggage at the lowest price." 
 
 We gave him our keys and he attended to all the cus- 
 toms details for us. We had left Seattle on the evening 
 of the 24th of July ; had stopped for several hours at 
 Ketchikan, Wrangell, Metlakahtla, Juneau, Treadwell, 
 and Taku Glacier ; a day and a night at Skaguay ; two 
 nights and a day at White Horse ; had made short pauses 
 at Selkirk and Lower Lebarge — to say nothing of hours
 
 468 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUyTRY 
 
 spent in " wooding-np," which is a picturesque and sure 
 feature of Yukon voyages ; and at noon on the fifth day 
 of August we were settled at the " Kenwood " — the 
 dearest hotel at Avhich it has ever been my good fortune 
 to tarry even for a day. I do not mean the most stylish, 
 nor the most elegant, nor even the most comfortable; nor 
 do I mean the dearest in price ; but the dearest to my 
 heart. It is kept in a neat, cheerful, and homelike style 
 by Miss Kinney — who had almost as many malamute 
 puppies, by the Avay, as she had guests. 
 
 When we gave Mr. Angus McDonald our keys, it was 
 not quite decided as to our hotel ; but when we learned 
 that we were sufficiently respectable in aijpearance to be 
 accepted by Miss Kinney, we telephoned for our trunks. 
 Then we forgot all about paying for them, and set out for 
 a walk. When we returned, luncheon was being served ; 
 our trunks were in our rooms, but — Mr. Angus Mc- 
 Donald had gone off with our keys ! We did not know 
 then what we know now ; that Mr. Angus McDonald and 
 his retained keys are a Dawson joke. It seems that when- 
 ever one does not pay in advance for the delivery of his 
 trunks, Mr. McDonald drives away with the keys in his 
 pocket, whistling the merriest of Scotch tunes. 
 
 The joke has its embarrassments, particularly when one 
 has descended to the Grand Canyon of the Yukon in a 
 sand-slide. 
 
 The traveller in Alaska who desires to retain his own 
 self-respect and that of his fellow-man will never criticise 
 a price nor ask to have it reduced. He is expected 
 to contribute liberally to every church he enters, every 
 Indian band he hears play, every charitable institution 
 that may present its merits for his consideration, every 
 purse that may be made up on steamers, whatsoever its 
 object may be. Fees are from fifty cents to five dollars. 
 A waiter on a Yukon steamer threw a quarter back at a
 
 ALA SKA : THE G RE A T COUNTRY 469 
 
 man who had innocently slipped it into his hand. Later, I 
 saw him in the centre of a group of angry waiters and 
 cabin-boys to whom he was relating his grievance. 
 
 Since one is constantly changing steamers, and has 
 a waiter, a cabin-boy, a night-boy, and frequently a 
 stewardess to fee on each steamer, this must be counted 
 as one of the regular expenses of the trip. 
 
 Other expenses we found to be greatly exaggerated on 
 the "outside." Aside from our amusing experience with 
 soap-bubble soda at White Horse and a bill for eight dol- 
 lars and fifty cents for the poor pressing of three plain 
 dress skirts and one jacket at Nome, we found nothing to 
 criticise in northern prices. 
 
 The best rooms at the " Kenwood " were onl}^ two dollars 
 a day, and each meal was one dollar — whether one ate 
 little or whether one ate much. It was always the latter 
 with us ; for I have never been so hungry except at Ben- 
 nett. I am convinced that the climate of the Yukon will 
 cure every disease and every ill. We walked miles each 
 day, drank much cold, pure water, and ate much whole- 
 some, well-cooked, delicious food — including blueberries 
 three times a day ; and our sleep was sound, sweet, and 
 refreshing. 
 
 Dawson has about ten thousand inhabitants now ; it 
 once had twice as many, and it will have again. Mining 
 in the Klondike is in the transition stage. It is passing 
 from the individual owners to large companies and cor- 
 porations which have ample capital to install expensive 
 machinery and develop rich properties. It is the history 
 of every mining district, and its coming to the Klondike 
 was inevitable. Its first effect, however, is always " to 
 ruin the camp." 
 
 "Dawson's a camp no longer," said one who "went in" 
 in 1897, sadly. " It's all spoiled. The individual miner 
 has let go and the monopolists are coming in to take his
 
 470 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 place. The good days are things of the past. Pretty 
 soon they'll be giving you change when you throw down 
 two -bits for a lead pencil ! " he concluded, with a lofty 
 scorn — as much as to say : " It will then be time to die." 
 
 Dawson is connected with the " outside " by telegraph. 
 It has two daily newspapers, — which are metropolitan in 
 style, — an electric-light plant, and a telephone sj^stem. 
 Its streets are graded and side walked, and it is piped for 
 water; but its lack of systematized sewerage — or what 
 might be more appropriately called its systematized lack 
 of sewerage — is an abomination. It is, however, not 
 alone in its unsanitation in this respect, for Nome follows 
 its example. 
 
 Both homes and public buildings are of exceeding plain- 
 ness of style, owing to the excessive cost of building in a 
 region bounded by tlie Arctic Circle. The interiors of 
 both, however, are attractive and luxurious in finish and 
 furnishings ; and owing to the sway of the mounted 
 police, the town has an air of cleanliness and orderliness 
 that is admirable. 
 
 A creditable building holds the post-office and customs 
 office, and there is a public school building which cost 
 fifty thousand dollars. The handsome administration 
 building, standing in a green, park-like place, cost as 
 much. There is a large court-house, the barracks of the 
 mounted police, and other public buildings. Only the 
 ruins remain of the executive mansion. on the bank of 
 the river, which was destroyed by fire two years ago and 
 has not been rebuilt. It was the pride of Dawson. It 
 was a large residence of pleasing architecture, lighted by 
 electricity and finished throughout in British Columbia 
 fir in natural tones. It contained the governor's private 
 office, palatial reception rooms and parlors, a library, a 
 noble hall and stairway, a state dining room, a billiard 
 room and smoking room, and spacious chambers.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 471 
 
 The governor's office in the administration building is 
 large and handsomely furnished. Tlie commissioner of 
 Yukon Territory is called by courtesy governor, and the 
 present commissioner, Governor Henderson, is a gentle- 
 man of distinguished presence and courtly manners. He 
 had just returned from an automobile tour of inspection 
 among " the creeks." 
 
 Governors, elegant executive mansions and ofSces, and 
 automobile tours — where eleven years ago was nothing 
 but the creeks and the virgin gold which brought all that 
 is there to-day ! We did not rebel at anything but the 
 automobile; somehow, it jarred like an insult. An auto- 
 mobile up among the storied creeks! 
 
 There is a railroad, also, on which daily trains are run 
 for a distance of twenty miles through the mining dis- 
 trict. Six and eight horse stages will make the trip in 
 one day for a party of six for fifty dollars. 
 
 Thirty dollars is first asked. When that price is found to 
 be satisfactory, it is immediately discovered that the small 
 stage is engaged or out of repair ; a larger one must be 
 used, for which the price is forty dollars. When this price 
 is agreed upon, some infirmity is discovered in the second 
 stage; a third must be substituted, for whose all-day use 
 the price is fifty dollars. If one cares to see the "cricks," 
 with no assurance that he will stumble upon a clean-up, 
 at this price, he meekl}^ takes his seat and is jolted up 
 into the hills, paying a few dollars extra for his meals. 
 
 He may, however, take an hour's walk up Bonanza 
 Creek and see the great dredges at work and the steam- 
 pipes thawing the frozen gravel ; and if he should voyage 
 on down to Nome, he may take an hour's run by railway 
 out on the tundra and see thirty thousand dollars sluiced 
 out any day. Almost anything is preferable to the 
 "graft" that is worked by the stage companies upon 
 the helpless cheechacos at Dawson.
 
 472 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Tlie British Yukon is an organized territory, having a 
 commissioner, three judges, and an executive legislature, 
 of whose ten members five are elected and five appointed. 
 The governor is also appointed. He presides over the 
 sessions of the legislature, giving the appointed members 
 a majority of one. 
 
 The Yukon has a delegate in parliament, a gold com- 
 missioner, a land agent, and a superintendent of roads. 
 Three-fourths of the population of the territory are Ameri- 
 cans, yet the town has a distinctly English, or Canadian, 
 atmosphere. In incorporated towns there is a tax levy 
 on property for municipal purposes. 
 
 Order is preserved by the well-known organization of 
 Northwest Mounted Police, whose members might be 
 recognized anywhere, even when not in uniform, by 
 their stern eyes, set lips, and peculiar carriage. 
 
 The first station of mounted police in the Yukon was 
 established at Forty-Mile, or Fort Cudahy, in 1895, when 
 the discovery of gold was creating a mild excitement. 
 Although so many boasts have been made by the British 
 of their early settlement of the Yukon, not only was Mr. 
 Ogilvie compelled to cross in 1887 under protection of 
 the American Commander Newell, but in 1895 the mem- 
 bers of the first force of mounted police to come into the 
 country were forced to ascend the Yukon, by special per- 
 mission of the United States government, so difficult 
 were all routes through Yukon Territory. 
 
 There are at the present time about sixty police 
 stations in the territory, as well as garrisons at Dawson 
 and White Horse. The smaller stations have only three 
 men. They are scattered throughout the mining country, 
 wherever a handful of men are gathered together. Be- 
 tween Dawson and White Horse, where travel is heavy, a 
 weekly patrol is maintained, and a careful register is kept 
 of all boats and passengers going up or down the river.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 473 
 
 On the winter trail passengers are registered at each 
 road house, with date of arrival and departure, making it 
 easy to locate any traveller in the territory at any time. 
 In the larger towns the mounted police serve as police 
 officers ; tliey also assist the customs officers and fill the 
 offices of police magistrate and coroner. A police launch 
 to patrol the river in summer has been recommended. 
 
 Dawson is laid out in rectangular shape, with streets 
 about seventy feet wide and appearing wider because the 
 buildings are for the most part low. In 1897 town lots 
 sold for five thousand dollars, when there was nothing but 
 tents on the flat at the mouth of the Klondike. The half- 
 dollar was the smallest piece of money in circulation, as 
 the quarter is to-day. Saw-mills were in operation, and 
 dressed lumber sold for two hundred and fifty dollars a 
 thousand feet. Fifteen dollars a day, however, was the 
 ordinary wage of men working in the mines ; so that such 
 prices as fifty cents for an orange, two dollars a dozen for 
 eggs, and twenty-five cents a pound for potatoes did not 
 seem exorbitant. 
 
 There are rival claimants for the honor of the first 
 discovery of gold on the Klondike, but George Carmack 
 is generally credited with being the fortunate man. In 
 August, 1896, he and the Indians " Skookum Jim " and 
 "Tagish Charlie," — Mr. Carmack's brothers-in-law — 
 were fishing one day at the mouth of the Klondike 
 River. (This river was formerly called Thron-Dieuck, 
 or Troan-Dike.) Not being successful, they concluded 
 to go a little Avay up the river to prospect. On the six- 
 teenth day of the month they detected signs of gold on 
 what has since been named Bonanza Creek ; and from the 
 first pan they washed out twelve dollars. They staked a 
 " discovery " claim, and one above and below it, as is the 
 right of discoverers. 
 
 At that time the gold flurry was in the vicinity of
 
 474 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTET 
 
 Forty-Mile. The first building ever done on the site of 
 Dawson was that of a raft, upon which they proceeded 
 to Forty-Mile to file their claims. On the same day 
 began the great stampede to the little river which was 
 soon to become world-famous. 
 
 The days of the bucket and windlass have passed for 
 the Klondike. Dredging and hydraulicking have taken 
 their place, and the trains and steamers are loaded with 
 powerful machinery to be operated by vast corporations- 
 It is certain that there are extensive quartz deposits in 
 the vicinity, and when they are located the good and 
 stirring days of the nineties will be repeated. Ground 
 that was panned and sluiced by the individual miner is 
 now being again profitably worked by modern methods. 
 Scarcity of water has been the chief obstacle to a rapid 
 development of the mines among the creeks ; but experi- 
 ments are constantly being made in the way of carrying 
 water from other sources. 
 
 It was perplexing to hear jDeople talking about " Num- 
 ber One Above on Bonanza," "Number Nine Below on 
 Hunker," " Number Twenty-six Above on Eldorado," 
 and others, until it was explained that claims are num- 
 bered above and below the one originally discovered on a 
 creek. Eldorado is one of the smallest of creeks ; yet, 
 notwithstanding its limited water supply, it has been one 
 of the richest producers. One reach, of about four miles 
 in length, has yielded already more than thirty millions 
 of dollars in coarse gold. 
 
 The gold of the Klondike is beautiful. It is not a fine 
 dust. It runs from grains like mustard seed up to large 
 nuggets. 
 
 When one goes up among the creeks, sees and hears 
 what has actually been done, one can but wonder that 
 any young and strong man can stay away from this mar- 
 vellous country. Gold is still there, undiscovered; it is
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 475 
 
 seldom the old prospector, the experienced miner, the 
 "sour-dough," that finds it; it is usually the ignorant,- 
 lucky "cheechaco." It is like the game of poker, to 
 which sits down one who never saw the game played and 
 holds a royal flush, or four aces, every other hand. How 
 young men can clerk in stores, study pharmacy, or learn 
 politics in provincial towns, while this glorious country 
 waits to be found, is incomprehensible to one with the 
 red blood of adventure in his veins and the quick pulse 
 of chance. Better to dare, to risk all and lose all, if it 
 must be, than never to live at all ; than always to be a 
 drone in a narrow, commonplace groove ; than never to 
 know the surge of this lonely river of mystery and never 
 to feel the air of these vast spaces upon one's brow. 
 
 No one can even tread the deck of a Yukon steamer 
 and be quite so small and narrow again as he was before. 
 The loneliness, the mystery, the majesty of it, reveals his 
 own soul to his shrinking eyes, and he grows — in a day, 
 in an hour, in the flash of a thought — out of his old self. 
 If only to be borne through this great country on this 
 wide water-way to the sea can work this change in a man's 
 heart, what miracle might not be wrought by a few years 
 of life in its solitude? 
 
 The principle of " panning " out gold is simple, and 
 any woman could perform the work successfully without 
 instruction, success depending upon the delicacy of manip- 
 ulation. From fifty cents to two hundred dollars a pan 
 are obtained by this old-fashioned but fascinating method. 
 Think of wandering through this splendid, gold-set 
 country in the matchless summers when there is not an 
 hour of darkness ; with the health and the appetite to 
 enjoy plain food and the spirit to welcome adventure ; to 
 pause on the banks of unknown creeks and try one's luck, 
 not knowing what a pan may bring forth ; to lie down
 
 476 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 
 
 one night a penniless wanderer, so far as gold is con- 
 cerned, and, perhaps, to sleep the next night on banks 
 that wash out a hundred dollars to the pan — could one 
 choose a more fascinating life than this? 
 
 Rockers are wooden boxes which are so constructed 
 that they gently shake down the gold and dispose of the 
 gravel through an opening in the bottom. Sluicing is 
 more interesting than any other method of extracting 
 gold, but this will be described as we saw the process 
 separate the glittering gold from the dull gravel at Nome.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 The two great commercial companies of the North 
 to-day are the Northern Commercial Company and the 
 North American Transportation and Trading Company. 
 The Alaska Commercial Company and the North Ameri- 
 can Transportation and Trading Company were the first 
 to be established on the Yukon, with headquarters at St. 
 Michael, near the mouth of the river. In 1898 the Alaska 
 Exploration Company established its station across the bay 
 from St. Michael on the mainland ; and during that year 
 a number of other companies were located there, only 
 two of which, however, proved to be of any permanency — 
 the Empire Transportation Company and the Seattle- 
 Yukon Transportation Company. 
 
 In 1901 the Alaska Commercial, Empire Transportation, 
 and Alaska Exploration companies formed a combination 
 which operated under the names of the Northern Commer- 
 cial Company and tlie Northern Navigation Company, the 
 former being a trading and the latter a steamship com- 
 pany. Owing to certain conditions, the Seattle-Yukon 
 Transportation Company was unable to join the combina- 
 tion ; and its properties, consisting principally of three 
 steamers, together with four barges, were sold to the 
 newly formed company. During the first year of the 
 consolidation the North American Transportation and 
 Trading Company worked in harmony with the Northern 
 Navigation Company, Captain I. N. Hibberd, of San Fran- 
 cisco, having charge of the entire lower river fleet, with 
 the exception of one or two small tramp boats. 
 
 477
 
 478 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 By that time very fine combination passenger and 
 freight boats were in operation, having been built at 
 Unalaska and towed to St. Michael. In its trips up and 
 down the river, each steamer towed one or two barges, 
 the combined cargo of the steamer and tow being about 
 eight hundred tons. It was impossible for a boat to make 
 more than two round trips during the summer season, the 
 average time required being fourteen days on the "up" 
 trip and eight on the " down " for the better boats, and 
 twenty and ten days respectively for inferior ones, with- 
 out barges, which always added at least ten days to a 
 trip. 
 
 After a year the North American Transportation and 
 Trading Company withdrew from the combination and 
 has since operated its own steamers. 
 
 Of all these companies the Alaska Commercial is the 
 oldest, having been founded in 1868 ; it was the pioneer 
 of American trading companies in Alaska, and was for 
 twenty years the lessee of the Pribyloff seal rookeries. 
 It had a small passenger and freight boat on the Yukon 
 in 1869. The other companies owed their existence to 
 the Klondike gold discoveries. 
 
 The two companies now operating on the Yukon have 
 immense stores and warehouses at Dawson and St. Michael, 
 and smaller ones at almost every post on the Yukon ; 
 while the N. C. Company, as it is commonly known, has 
 establishments up many of the tributary rivers. 
 
 As picturesque as the Hudson Bay Company, and far 
 more just and humane in their treatment of the Indians, 
 tlie American companies have reason to be proud of their 
 record in the far North. In 1886, when a large number 
 of miners started for the Stewart River mines, the agent 
 of the A. C. Company at St. Michael received advice from 
 headquarters in San Francisco that an extra amount of 
 provisions had been sent to him, to meet all possible de-
 
 ALASKA : THE GBEAT COUNTRY 479 
 
 mands that might be made upon him during the winter. 
 He was further advised that the shipment was not made 
 for the purpose of realizing profits beyond the regular 
 schedule of prices already established, but for humane 
 purposes entirely — to avoid any suffering that might 
 occur, oAving to the large increase in population. He 
 was, therefore, directed to store the extra supplies as a 
 reserve to meet the probable need, to dispose of the same 
 to actual customers only and in such quantities as would 
 enable him to relieve the necessities of each and every 
 person that might apply. Excessive prices were pro- 
 hibited, and instructions to supply all persons who might 
 be in absolute poverty, free of charge, were plain and un- 
 mistakable. 
 
 Men of the highest character and address have been 
 placed at the head of the various stations, — men with the 
 business ability to successfully conduct the company's im- 
 portant interests and the social qualifications that would 
 enable them to meet and entertain distinguished travellers 
 through the wilderness in a manner creditable to the com- 
 pany. Tourists, by the way, who go to Alaska without 
 providing themselves with clothes suitable for formal 
 social functions are frequently embarrassed by the omis- 
 sion. Gentlemen may hasten to the company's store — 
 which carries everything that men can use, from a tooth- 
 pick to a steamboat — and array themselves in evening 
 clothes, provided that they are not too fastidious concern- 
 ing the fit and the style ; but ladies might not be so for- 
 tunate. Nothing is too good for the people of Alaska, 
 and when they offer hospitality to the stranger within 
 their gates, they prefer to have him pay them the compli- 
 ment of dressing appropriately to the occasion. If voya- 
 gers to Alaska will consider this advice they may spare 
 themselves and their hosts in the Arctic Circle some un- 
 happy moments.
 
 480 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Yukon summers are glorious. There is not an hour 
 of darkness. A gentleman who came down from " the 
 creeks " to call upon us did not reach our hotel until 
 eleven o'clock. He remained until midnight, and the 
 light in the parlor when he took his departure was as at 
 eight o'clock of a June evening at home. The lights were 
 not turned on while we were in Dawson; but it is another 
 story in winter. 
 
 Clothes are not '' blued " in Dawson. The first morn- 
 ing after our arrival I was summoned to a window to 
 inspect a clothes-line. 
 
 " Will 3^ou look at those clotlies! Did you ever see 
 such whiteness in clothes before?" 
 
 I never had, and I promptly asked Miss Kinney what 
 her laundress did to the clothes to make them look so 
 white. 
 
 " I'm the laundress," said she, brusquely. " I come 
 out here from Chicago to work, and I work. I was half 
 dead, clerking in a store, when the Klondike craze come 
 along and swept me off my feet. I struck Dawson broke. 
 I went to work, and I've been at work ever since. I 
 have cooks, and chambermaids, and laundresses ; but it 
 often happens that I have to be all three, besides landlady, 
 at once. That's the way of the Klondike. Now, I must 
 go and feed those malamute pups ; that little yellow one 
 is getting sassy." 
 
 She had almost escaped when I caught her sleeve and 
 detained her. 
 
 "But the clothes — I asked you what makes them so 
 white — " 
 
 " Don't you suppose," interrupted she, irascibly, " that 
 I have too much work to do to fool around answering the 
 questions of a cheechaco ? I'm not travelling down the 
 Yukon for fun ! " 
 
 This was distinctly discouraging; but I had set out to
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 481 
 
 learn what had made those clothes so white. Besides, I was 
 beginning to perceive dimly that she was not so hard as 
 she spoke herself to be ; so I advised her that I should not 
 release her sleeve until she had answered my question. 
 
 She burst into a kind of lawless laughter and threw her 
 hand out at me. 
 
 " Oh, you ! Well, there, then ! I never saw your beat ! 
 There ain't a thing in them there clothes but soap-suds, 
 renched out, and sunshine. We don't even have to rub 
 clothes up here the way you have to in other places; and 
 we never put in a pinch of blueing. Two-three hours of 
 sunshine makes 'em like snow." 
 
 " But how is it in winter ? " 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 " Oh, that's another matter. We bleach 'em out enough 
 in summer so's it"ll do for all winter. Let go my sleeve 
 or you won't get any blueberries for lunch." 
 
 This threat had the desired effect. Surely no woman 
 ever worked harder than Miss Kinney worked. At four 
 o'clock in the mornings we heard her ordering maids and 
 malamute puppies about ; and at midnight, or later, her 
 springing step might be heard as she made the final rounds, 
 to make sure that all was well with her family. 
 
 We were greatly amused and somewhat embarrassed on 
 the day of our arrival. We saw at a glance that the only 
 vacant room was too small to receive our baggage. 
 
 " I'll fix that," said she, snapping her fingers. " I just 
 gave a big room on the first floor to two young men. I'll 
 make them exchange with you." 
 
 It was in vain that we protested. 
 
 " Now, you let me be ! " she exclaimed ; " I'll fix this. 
 You're in the Klondike now, and you'll learn how white 
 men can be. Young men don't take the best room and let 
 women take the worst up here. If they come up here 
 with that notion, they soon get it taken out of 'em — and 
 
 2i
 
 482 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Vm just the one to do it. Now, you let me be ! They'll 
 be tickled to death." 
 
 Whatever their state of mind may have been, the ex- 
 change was made ; but when we endeavored to thank 
 her, she snapped us up with: — 
 
 " Anybody'd know you never lived in a white country, 
 or you wouldn't make such a fuss over such a little thing. 
 We're used to doing tilings for other people tip here" she 
 added, scornfully. 
 
 Miss Kinney gave us many surprises during our stay, 
 but at the last moment she gave us the greatest surprise 
 of all. Just as our steamer was on the point of leaving, 
 she came running down the gangway and straight to us. 
 Her hands and arms were filled with large paper bags, 
 which she began forcing upon us. 
 
 "There! " she said. "I've come to say good-by and 
 bring you some fruit. I'd given you one of those mala- 
 mute puppies if I could have spared him. Well, good-by 
 and good luck ! " 
 
 We were both so touched by this unexpected kindness in 
 one who had taken so much pains to conceal every touch of 
 tenderness in her nature, that we could not look at one an- 
 other for some time ; nor did it lessen our appreciation to 
 remember how ceaselessly and how drudgingly Miss Kin- 
 ney worked and the price she must have paid for those 
 great bags of oranges, apples, and peaches — for freight 
 rates are a hundred and forty dollars a ton on " perishables." 
 It set a mist in our eyes every time we thought about it. 
 It was our first taste of Arctic kindness ; and, somehow, 
 its flavor was different from that of other latitudes. 
 
 Dawson is gay socially, as it has always been. In 
 summer the people are devoted to outdoor sports, which 
 are enjoyed during the long evenings. There is a good 
 club-house for athletic sports in winter, and the theatres 
 are well patronized, although, in summer, plays commence
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 483 
 
 at ten or teii-tliirty and are not concluded before one. As 
 in all English and Canadian towns, business is resumed at 
 a late hour in the morning, making the hours of rest cor- 
 respond in length to ours. 
 
 Two young Yale men who were travelling in our party 
 had been longing to see a dance-hall, — a " real Klondike 
 dance-hall," — but they came in one midnight, their faces 
 eloquent with disgust. 
 
 "We found a dance-hall at last,'' said one. "They hide 
 their light under such bushels now that it takes a week to 
 find one; the mounted police don't stand any foolishness. 
 Then — think of a dance-hall running in broad daylight! 
 No mystery, no glitter, no soft, rosy glamour — say, it 
 made me yearn for bread and butter. Do you know 
 where Miss Kinney keeps her bread jar and blueberries? 
 Honestly, I don't know anything or any place that could 
 cultivate a taste in a young man for sane and decent things 
 like one of these dance-halls here. I never was so dis- 
 appointed in my life. I can go to church at home ; I didn't 
 come to the Klondike for that. Why, the very music it- 
 self sounded about as lively as ' Come, Ye Disconsolate! ' 
 Come on, Billy ; let's go to bed." 
 
 No one should visit Dawson without climbing, on a clear 
 day, to the summit of the hill behind the town, which is 
 called " the Dome." The view of the surrounding country 
 from this point is magnificent. The course of the winding, 
 widening Yukon may be traced for countless miles ; the 
 little creeks pour their tawny floods down into the Klon- 
 dike before the longing eyes of the beholder ; and faraway 
 on the horizon faintly shine the snow-peaks that beautify 
 almost every portion of the northern land. 
 
 The wagon roads leading from Dawson to the mining 
 districts up the various creeks are a distinct surprise. 
 They were built by the Dominion government and are 
 said to be the best roads to be found in any mining district
 
 484 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 ill the world. A Dawson man will brag about the roads, 
 while modestly silent about the gold to which the roads lead. 
 
 " You must go up into the creeks, if only to see the 
 roads," every man to whom one talks will presently say. 
 " You can't beat 'em anywheres." 
 
 Claim stakiiior in the Klondike is a serious matter. 
 The mining is practically all placer, as yet, and a creek 
 claim comijrises an area two hundred and fifty feet along 
 the creek and two thousand feet wide. Tliis information 
 was a shock to me. I had always supposed, vaguely, that 
 a mining claim was a kind of farm, of anywhere from 
 twenty to sixty acres; and to find it but little larger than 
 the half of a city block was a chill to my enthusiasm. 
 They explained, however, that the gravel filling a pan 
 was but small in quantity, that it could be washed out in 
 ten minutes, and that if every pan turned out but ten 
 dollars, the results of a long day's work would not be bad. 
 
 Claims lying behind and above the ones that front on 
 the creeks are called "hill" claims. They have the same 
 length of frontage, but are only a thousand feet in width. 
 In staking a claim, a post must be placed at each corner 
 on the creek, with the names of the claim and owner and 
 a general description of any features by which it may be 
 identified; the locator must take out a free miner's license, 
 costing seven dollars and a half, and file his claim at the 
 mining recorder's office within ten days after staking. 
 No one can stake more than one claim on a single creek, 
 but he may hold all that he cares to acquire by purchase, 
 and he may locate on other creeks. Development work 
 to the amount of two hundred dollars must be done yearly 
 for three years, or that amount paid to the mining re- 
 corder; this amount is increased to four hundred dollars 
 with the fourth year. The locator must secure a certifi- 
 cate to the effect that the necessary amount of yearly 
 work has been done, else the claim will be cancelled.
 
 
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 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 When the D. R. Camphell drew away from the Dawson 
 wharf at nine o'clock of an August morning, another of 
 my dreams was "come true." I was on my way down 
 the weird and mysterious river that calls as powerfully in 
 its way as the North Pacific Ocean. For years the mere 
 sound of the word "Yukon" had affected me like the 
 clash of a wild and musical bell. The sweep of great 
 waters was in it — the ring of breaking ice and its thun- 
 derous fall ; the roar of forest fires, of undermined plung- 
 ing cliffs, of falling trees, of pitiless winds ; the sobs of 
 dark women, deserted upon its shores, with white children 
 on their breasts ; the mournful howls of dogs and of their 
 wild brothers, wolves; the slide of avalanches and the 
 long rattle of thunder — for years the word "Yukon" had 
 set these sounds ringing in my ears, and had swung 
 before my eyes the shifting pictures of canyon, rampart, 
 and plain ; of waters rushing through rock walls and 
 again loitering over vast lowlands to the sea ; of forestated 
 mountains, rose thickets, bare hills, pale cliffs of clay, and 
 ranges of sublime snow-mountains. Yet, with all that I 
 had read, and all that I had heard, and all that I had 
 imagined, I was unprepared for the spell of the Yukon; 
 for the spaces, the solitude, the silence. At last I was to 
 learn how well the name fits the river and the country, 
 and how feeble and how ineffectual are botli descrijDtion 
 and imagination to picture this country so that it may be 
 understood. 
 
 485
 
 486 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Six miles below DaAvson the site of old Fort Reliance is 
 passed, and forty-six miles farther Forty-Mile River 
 pours its broad flood into the Yukon. About eight miles 
 up this river, at the lower end of a canyon, a strong cur- 
 rent has swept many small boats upon dangerous rocks 
 and the occupants have been drowned. The head of 
 the Forty-Mile is but a short distance from the great 
 Xanana. 
 
 The settlement of Forty-Mile is the pioneer mining- 
 camp of the Yukon. The Alaska Commercial Company 
 established a station here soon after the gold excitement 
 of 1887; and, as the international boundary line crosses 
 Forty-Mile River twenty-three miles from its mouth and 
 many of the most important mining interests depending 
 upon the town for supplies are on the American side, a 
 bonded warehouse is maintained, from which American 
 goods can be drawn without the payment of duties. As 
 late as 1895 quite a lively town was at the mouth of the 
 river, boasting even an opera house; but the town was 
 depopulated upon the discovery of gold on the Klondike. 
 Six years ago the settlement was flooded by water banked 
 up in Forty- Mile River by ice, and the residents were 
 taken from upstairs windows in boats. The former name 
 of this river was Che-ton-deg, or " Green Leaf," River. 
 
 Now there are a couple of dozen log cabins, a dozen or 
 more red-roofed houses, and store buildings. The steamer 
 pushed up sidewise to the rocky beach, a gang-plank was 
 floated ashore, and a customs inspector came aboard. On 
 the beach were a couple of ladies, some members of the 
 mounted police in scarlet coats, and fifty malamute dogs, 
 snapping, snarling, and fighting like wolves over the food 
 flung from the steamer. 
 
 The dog is to Alaska what the horse is to more civil- 
 ized countries — the intelligent, patient, faithful beast of 
 burden. He is of the Eskimo or " malamute " breed,
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 487 
 
 having been bred with the wolf for endurance; or he is a 
 " husky " from the Mackenzie River, 
 
 Eskimo dogs are driven with harness, hitched to sleds, 
 and teams of five or seven with a good leader can haul 
 several hundred pounds, if blessed with a kind driver. In 
 summer they have nothing to do but sleep, and find their 
 food as best they may. Along the Yukon they haunt 
 steamer-landings and are always fed by the stewards — 
 who can thus muster a dog fight for the pleasure of heart- 
 less passengers at a moment's notice. 
 
 With the coming of winter a kind of electric strength 
 seems to enter into these dogs. They long for the harness 
 and the journeys over snow and ice ; and for a time they 
 leap and frisk like puppies and will not be restrained. They 
 are about the size of a St. Bernard dog, but of very differ- 
 ent shape ; the leader is always an intelligent and superior 
 animal and his eyes frequently hold an almost human appeal. 
 He is fairly dynamic in force, and when not in harness will 
 fling himself upon food with a swiftness and a strength 
 that suggest a missile hurled from a catapult. Nothing 
 can check his course ; and he has been known to strike his 
 master to the earth in his headlong rush of greeting — 
 although it has been cruelly said of him that he has no 
 affection for any save the one that feeds him, and not for 
 him after his hunger is satisfied. 
 
 The Eskimo dog seldom barks, but he has a mournful, 
 wolflike howl. His coat is thick and somewhat like wool, 
 and his feet are hard; he travels for great distances with- 
 out becoming footsore, and at night he digs a deep hole 
 in the snow, crawls into it, curls up in his own wool, and 
 sleeps as sweetly as a pet Spitz on a cushion of down. 
 His chief food is fish. If the Alaska dog is not affection- 
 ate, it is because for generations he has had no cause for 
 affection. No dog with such eyes — so asking and so 
 human-like in their expression — could fail to be affec-
 
 488 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tionate and devoted to a master possessing the qualities 
 which inspire affection and devotion. 
 
 In winter all the mails are carried by dogs, covering 
 hundreds of miles. 
 
 Half a mile below Forty-Mile the town of Cudahy was 
 founded in 1892 by the North American Trading and 
 Transportation Company, as a rival settlement. 
 
 Fifty miles below Forty-Mile, at the confluence of Mis- 
 sion Creek with tlie Yukon, is Eagle, having a population 
 of three or four liundred people. It has the most north- 
 erly customs office and military post, Fort Egbert, be- 
 longing to the United States, and is the terminus of the 
 Valdez-Eagle mail route and telegraph line. It is also of 
 importance as being but a few miles from the boundary. 
 
 Fort Egbert is a two-company post, and usually, as at 
 the time of our visit, two companies are stationed there. 
 The winter of 1904-1905 was the gayest in the social his- 
 tory of the fort. Several ladies, the wives and the sisters 
 of officers, were there, and these, with the wife of the com- 
 pany's agent and other residents of the town, formed a 
 brilliant and relined social club. 
 
 From November the 27th to January the 16th the sun 
 does not appear above the hills to the south. The two 
 " great " days at Eagle are the 16th of January, — "■ when 
 the sun comes back," — and the day " when the ice breaks 
 in the river," usually the 12th of May. On the former 
 occasion the people assemble, like a band, of sun-worship- 
 pers, and celebrate its return. 
 
 The vegetable and flower gardens of Eagle were a reve- 
 lation of what may be expected in the agricultural and 
 floral line in the vicinity of the Arctic Circle. Potatoes, 
 cabbages, cauliflower, lettuce, turnips, radishes, and other 
 vegetables were in a state of spendthrift luxuriance that 
 cannot be imagined by one who has not travelled in a 
 country where vegetables grow day and night.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 489 
 
 In winter Eagle is a lonel}^ place. The only mail it 
 receives is the monthly mail passing through from Daw- 
 son to Nome by dog sleds ; and uo magazines, papers, or 
 parcels are carried. 
 
 It was from Eagle that the first news was sent out to 
 the world concerning Captain Amundsen's wonderful dis- 
 covery of the Northwest Passage; here he arrived in mid- 
 winter after a long, hard journey by dog team from the 
 Arctic Ocean and sent out the news which so many brave 
 navigators of early days would have given their lives to 
 be able to announce. 
 
 Within five years a railroad will probably connect Eagle 
 with the coast at Valdez ; meantime, there is a good gov- 
 ernment trail, poled by a government telegraph line. 
 
 Eagle came into existence in 1898, and the fort was 
 established in 1899. 
 
 " Woodings-up " are picturesque features of Yukon 
 travel. When the steamer does not land at a wood yard, 
 mail is tied around a stick and thrown ashore. Fancy 
 standing, a forlorn and homesick creature, on the bank 
 of this great river and watching a letter from home 
 caught by the rushing current and borne away! Yet 
 this frequently happens, for heart affairs are small 
 matters in the Arctic Circle and receive but scant 
 consideration. 
 
 On the Upper Yukon wood is five dollars a cord ; on 
 the Lower, seven dollars ; and a cord an hour is thrust 
 into the immense and roaring furnaces. 
 
 During " wooding-up " times passengers go ashore and 
 enjoy the forest. There are red and black currants, crab- 
 apples, two varieties of salmon-berries, five of huckle- 
 berries, and strawberries. The high-bush cranberries are 
 very pretty, with their red berries and delicate foliage. 
 
 Nation is a settlement of a dozen log cabins roofed with 
 dirt and flowers, the roofs projecting prettily over the
 
 490 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 front porches. The wife of the storekeeper has lived 
 liere twenty-five years, and has been " outside " only once 
 in twelve years. Passengers usually go ashore especially 
 to meet her, and are always cordially welcomed, but are 
 never permitted to condole with her on her isolated life. 
 The spell of the Yukon has her in thrall, and content 
 shines upon her brow as a star. Those who go ashore to 
 pity, return with the dull ache of envy in their worldly 
 hearts ; for there be things on the Yukon that no worldly 
 heart can understand. 
 
 We left Eagle in the forenoon and at midnight landed 
 at Circle City, which received this name because it was 
 first supposed to be located within the Arctic Circle. We 
 found natives building houses at that hour, and this is 
 my most vivid remembrance of Circle. Gold was dis- 
 covered on Birch Creek, within eight miles of the settle- 
 ment, as early as 1892 ; and until the Klondike excite- 
 ment this was the most populous camp on the Yukon, 
 more than a thousand miners being quartered in the 
 vicinity. Like other camps, it was then depopulated ; 
 but many miners have now returned and a brilliant dis- 
 covery in this vicinity may yet startle the world. The 
 output of gold for 1906 was two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand dollars. About three hundred miners are operating 
 on tributaries up Birch Creek. The great commercial 
 companies are established at all these settlements on the 
 Yukon, where they have large stores and warehouses. 
 
 Early on the following morning we were on deck to 
 cross the Arctic Circle. One has a feeling that a line 
 with icicles dangling from it must be strung overhead, 
 under which one passes into the enchanted realm of the 
 real North. 
 
 " Feel that ? " asked the man from Iowa of a big, un- 
 smiling Englishman.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 491 
 
 "Feel — er — what?" said the Englishman. 
 
 " That shock. It felt like stepping on the third rail of 
 an electric railway." 
 
 But the Iowa humor was scorned, and the Englishman 
 walked away. 
 
 We soon landed at Fort Yukon, the only landing in the 
 Arctic Circle and the most northerly point on the Yukon. 
 This post was established at the mouth of the Porcupine 
 in 1847 by A. H. McMurray, of the Hudson Bay Com- 
 pan}^ and was moved in 1864 a mile lower on the Yukon, 
 on account of the undermining of the bank by the wash 
 of the river. During the early days of this post goods 
 were brought from York Factory on Hudson Bay, four 
 thousand miles distant, and were two years in transit. 
 The whole Hudson Bay system, according to Dall, was 
 one of exacting tyranny that almost equalled that of the 
 Russian Company. The white men were urged to marry 
 Indian, or native, women, to attach them to the country. 
 The provisions sent in were few and these were consumed 
 by the commanders of the trading posts or given to chiefs, 
 to induce them to bring in furs. The white men received 
 three pounds of tea and six of sugar annually, and no flour. 
 This scanty supply was uncertain and often failed. Two 
 suits of clothes were granted to the men, but nothing else 
 until the furs were all purchased. If anything remained 
 after the Indians were satisfied, the men were permitted to 
 purchase ; but Indians are rarely satisfied. 
 
 Fort Yukon has never been of importance as a mining 
 centre, but has long been a great fur trading post for the 
 Indians up the Porcupine. This trade has waned, how- 
 ever, and little remains but an Indian village and the old 
 buildings of the post. We walked a mile into the woods 
 to an old graveyard in a still, dim grove, probably the 
 only one in the Arctic Circle.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 The Yukon is a mighty and a beautiful river, and its 
 memory becomes more haunting and more compelling 
 with the passage of time. From the slender blue stream 
 of its source, it grows, in its twenty-three hundred miles of 
 wandering to the sea, to a width of sixty miles at its mouth. 
 In its great course it widens, narrows, and widens ; cuts 
 through the foot-hills of vast mountain systems, spreads 
 over flats, makes many splendid sweeping curves, and 
 slides into hundreds of narrow channels around spruce- 
 covered islands. 
 
 It is divided into four great districts, each of which has 
 its own characteristic features. The valley extending 
 from White Horse to some distance below Dawson is 
 called the " upper Yukon," or " upper Ramparts," the 
 river having a width of half a mile and a current of four 
 or five miles an hour, and the valley in this district being 
 from one to three miles in width. 
 
 Following this are the great "Flats" — of which one 
 hears from his first hour on the Yukon ; then, the " Ram- 
 parts"; and last, the "lower Yukon" or "lower river." 
 
 The Flats are vast lowlands stretching for two hundred 
 miles along the river, with a width in places of a hundred 
 miles. Their very monotony is picturesque and fascinates 
 by its immensity. Countless islands are constantly form- 
 ing, appearing and disappearing in the whimsical changes 
 of the currents. Indian, white, and half-breed pilots 
 patrol these reaches, guiding one steamer down and 
 
 492
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 493 
 
 another up, and by constant travel keeping themselves 
 fairly familiar with the changing currents. Yet even 
 these pilots frequently fail in their calculations. 
 
 At Eagle a couple of gentlemen joined our party down 
 the river on the Campbell., expecting to meet the same day 
 and return on the famous Sarah — as famous as a steamer 
 as is the island of the same name on the inland passage ; 
 but they went on and on and the Sarah came not. One 
 day, two days, three days, went by and they were still 
 with us. One was in the customs service and his time 
 was precious. Whenever we approached a bend in the 
 river, they stood in the bow of the boat, eagerly staring 
 ahead ; but not until the fourth day did the cry of 
 "iS'araA" ring through our steamer. Hastening on deck, 
 we beheld her, white and shining, on a sand-bar, where 
 she had been lying for several days, notwithstanding the 
 fact that she had an experienced pilot aboard. 
 
 Throughout the Flats lies a vast network of islands, 
 estimated as high as ten thousand in number, threaded 
 by countless channels, many of which have strong currents, 
 while others are but still, sluggish sloughs. Mountains 
 line the far horizon lines, but so far away that they fre- 
 quently appear as clouds of bluish pearl piled along the 
 sky; at other times snow-peaks are distinctly visible. 
 Cottonwoods, birches, and spruce trees cover the islands 
 so heavily that, from the lower deck of a steamer, one 
 would believe that he was drifting down the single chan- 
 nel of a narrow river, instead of down one channel of a 
 river twenty miles wide. 
 
 It is within the Arctic Circle that the Yukon makes its 
 sweeping bend from its northwest course to the south- 
 west, and here it is entered by the Porcupine ; twenty 
 miles farther, by the Chandelar ; and just above the Ram- 
 parts, by the Dall. These are the three important rivers 
 of this stretch of the Yukon.
 
 494 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Many complain of the monotony of the FLats ; but for 
 me, there was not one dull or uninteresting hour on the 
 Yukon. In my quiet home on summer evenings I can 
 still see the men taking soundings from the square bow of 
 our steamer and hear their lioarse cries : — 
 
 " Six feet starboard ! Five feet port ! Seven feet star- 
 board ! Five feet port ! Five feet starboard ! Four feet 
 port ! " At the latter cry the silent watchers of the pilot- 
 house came to attention, and we proceeded under slow bell 
 until a greater depth was reached. 
 
 On the shores, as we swept past, we caught glimpses of 
 dark figures and Indian villages, or, farther down the 
 river, primitive Eskimo settlements ; and the stillness, 
 the pure and sparkling air, the untouched wilderness, the 
 blue smoke of a wood-chopper's lonely fire, the wide spaces 
 swimming over us and on all sides of us, charmed our 
 senses as only the elemental forces of nature can charm. 
 One longs to stay awake always on this river ; to pace 
 the wide decks and be one with the solitude and the still- 
 ness that are not of the earth, as we know it, but of God, 
 as we have dreamed of him. 
 
 The blue hills of the Ramparts are seen long before en- 
 tering them. The valley contracts into a kind of canyon, 
 from which the rampart-like walls of solid stone rise 
 abruptly from the water. The hills are not so high as 
 those of the Upper Ramparts, which bear marked resem- 
 blance to the lower ; and although many consider the 
 latter more picturesque, I must confess that I found no 
 beauty below Dawson so majestic as that above. Many 
 of the hills here have a rose-colored tinge, like the hills 
 of Lake Bennett. 
 
 In places the river does not reach a width of half a 
 mile and is deep and swift. The shadows between the 
 high rock-bluffs and pinnacled cliffs take on the mysteri- 
 ous purple tones of twilight ; many of the hills are cov-
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 495 
 
 ered with spruce, wljose dark green blends agreeably with 
 the gray and rose color. The bends here are sharp and 
 many ; at the Rapids the current is exceedingly rapid, 
 and Dall reported a fall of twelve feet to the half mile, 
 with the water running in sheets of foam over a granite 
 island in the middle of the stream. This was on June 1, 
 1866. In August, 1883, Schwatka, after many hours of 
 anxiety and dread of the reputed rapids, inquired of 
 Indians and learned that he had already passed them. 
 They were not formidable at the time of our voyage, — 
 August, — and it is only during high stages of water that 
 they present a bar to navigation. 
 
 We reached Rampart at six o'clock in the morning. 
 After Tanana, this is the loveliest place on the Yukon. 
 Its sparkling, emerald beauty shone under a silvery blue 
 sky. There was a long street of artistic log houses and 
 stores on a commanding bluff, up which paths wound 
 from the water. Roofs covered with earth and flowers, 
 carried out in brilliant bloom over the porches, added the 
 characteristic Yukon touch. Every dooryard and win- 
 dow blazed with color. Narrow paths ran through tall 
 fireweed and grasses over and around the hill — each 
 path terminating, like a winding lane, in a pretty log- 
 cabin home. There was an atmosphere of cleanliness, 
 tidiness, and thrift not found in other settlements along 
 the Yukon. 
 
 Captain Mayo, who, with McQuesten, founded Rampart 
 in 1873, still lives here. The two commercial companies 
 have large stores and warehouses ; and residences were 
 comfortably, and even luxuriously, furnished. 
 
 Rampart is two hundred and thirty miles below Fort 
 Yukon, and is about halfway between Dawson and the 
 sea. It has a population of four or five hundred people 
 — when they are in from the mines ! — and almost as 
 many fighting, hungry dogs. Its street winds, and the
 
 496 ALASKA: THE GREAT (JOUNriiY 
 
 buildings follow its windings ; sometimes it stops alto- 
 gether, and the buildings stop with it — then both go on 
 again ; and in front of all the public buildings are clean 
 rustic benches, where one may sit and " look to the rose 
 about him." The river here is half a mile wide, and on 
 its opposite shore the green fields of the government ex- 
 perimental station slope uj) from the water. 
 
 Gold was discovered on Minook Creek, half a mile from 
 town, in 1895, and the camp is regarded as one of the 
 most even producers in Alaska. In 1906, despite an un- 
 usually dry season, the output of the district was three 
 hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
 
 In the afternoon of the same day we reached Tanana, 
 which is, as I have said, the most beautiful place on the 
 Yukon. It has a splendid site on a level plateau ; and 
 all the springlike greenness, the cleanliness and order, 
 the luxuriant vegetation, of Dawson, are outdone here. 
 One walks in a maze of delight along streets of tropic, in- 
 stead of arctic, bloom. The log houses are set far back 
 from the streets, and the deep dooryards are seas of tremu- 
 lous color, through which neat paths lead to flower-roofed 
 homes. Cleanliness, color, and perfume are everywhere 
 delights, but on the lonely Yukon their unexpectedness 
 is enchanting. 
 
 In 1900 Fort Gibbon was established here, and this 
 post has the most attractive surroundings of any in Alaska. 
 Tanana is situated at the mouth of the Tanana River, 
 seventy-five miles below Rampart, and passengers for 
 Fairbanks connect here with luxurious steamers for a 
 voyage of three hundred miles up the Tanana. It is a 
 beautiful voyage and it ends at the most progressive and 
 metropolitan town of the North.
 
 CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 In the autumn of 1902 Felix Pedro, an experienced 
 miner and prospector, crossed the divide between Birch 
 and McManns creeks and entered the Tanana Valley. 
 
 Previous to that year many people had travelled 
 through the valley, on their way to the Klondike, by the 
 Valdez route ; and a few miners from the Birch Creek 
 and Forty-Mile diggings had wandered into the Tanana 
 country, without being able to do any important prospect- 
 ing because of the distance from supplies; but Pedro was 
 the first man to discover that gold existed in economic 
 quantities in this region, and his coming was an event of 
 historical importance. 
 
 One of the best tests of the importance ant^ value of 
 geological survey work lies in the significant report of 
 Mr. Alfred H. Brooks for the year of 1898 — four years 
 before the discoveries of Mr. Pedro : — 
 
 "We have seen that the little prospecting which has 
 been done up to the present time has been too hurried and 
 too superficial to be regarded as a fair test of the region. 
 Our best information leads us to believe that the same 
 horizons which carry gold in the Forty-Mile and Birch 
 Creek districts are represented in the Tanana and White 
 River basins. ... I should advise prospectors to care- 
 fully investigate the small tributary streams of the lower 
 White and of the Tanana from Mirror Creek to the 
 mouth." 
 
 Pedro's discovery was on the creek which bears his 
 2 k 497
 
 498 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 name, and before another year gold was discovered on 
 several other creeks. In 1901 a trading post was estab- 
 lished by Captain E. T. Barnette, on the present site of 
 Fairbanks, and the development of the country progressed 
 rapidly. The F'airbanks Mining District was organized 
 and named for the present Vice-President of the United 
 States. In the autumn of 1903 eight hundred people 
 were in the district, and about thirty thousand dollars 
 had been produced, the more important creeks at that 
 time being Pedro, Goldstream, Twin Creek, Cleary, Wolf, 
 Chatham, and Fairbanks. In the fall of 1901 nearly 
 four thousand miners had come in, and the year's output 
 was three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fairbanks 
 and Chena had grown to thriving camps, and a brilliant 
 prosperity reigned in the entire district. Roads were 
 built to the creeks, sloughs were bridged, and Fairbanks' 
 " boom " was in full swing. It v/as the old story of a 
 camp growing from tents to shacks in a night, from 
 shacks to three-story buildings in a month. The glory 
 of the Klondike trembled and paled in the brilliance 
 of that of Fairbanks. Every steamer for Valdez was 
 crowded with men and women bound for the new camp 
 by way of the Valdez trail; while thousands went by 
 steamer, either to St. Michael and up the Yukon, or 
 to Skaguay and down the Yukon, to the mouth of the 
 Tanana. 
 
 Fairbanks is now a camp only in name. It has all the 
 comforts and luxuries of a city, and is more prosperous 
 and progressive than any other town in Alaska or the 
 Yukon. It started with such a rush that it does not seem 
 to be able to stop. It is the headquarters of the Third 
 Judicial District of Alaska, which was formerly at Ram- 
 part ; it has electric light and water systems, a fire de- 
 partment, excellent and modern hotels, schools, churches, 
 hospitals, daily newspapers, a telegraph line to the outside
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 499 
 
 world which is operated by the government, and a tele- 
 phone system which serves not only the city, but all the 
 creeks as well. 
 
 The Tanana Mines Railway, or Tanana Valley Railway, 
 as it is now called, was built in 1905 to connect Fairbanks 
 with Chena and the richest mining claims of the district ; 
 and two great railroads are in course of construction 
 from Prince William Sound. 
 
 In 1906 the output of gold was more than nine millions 
 of dollars, and had it not been for the labor troubles in 
 1907, this output would have been doubled. In the 
 earlier days of the camp the crudest methods of mining 
 were emploj^ed ; but with the improved transportation 
 facilities, modern machinery was brought in and the diffi- 
 culties of the development were greatly lessened. 
 
 Upon a first trip to Fairbanks, the visitor is amazed 
 at the size and the metropolitan style and tone of this 
 six-year-old camp in the wilderness. 
 
 It is situated on the banks of the Chena River, about 
 nine miles from its confluence with the Tanana. It has 
 a level town site, which looks as though it might ex- 
 tend to the Arctic Circle. The main portion of the 
 town is on the right bank of the river, the railway 
 terminal yards, saw-mills, manufacturing plants, and in- 
 dustries of a similar nature being located on the oppo- 
 site shore, on what is known as Garden Island, the 
 two being connected by substantial bridges. The city 
 is incorporated and, like other incorporated towns of 
 Alaska, is governed by a council of seven members, 
 who elect a presiding officer who is, by courtesy, known 
 as mayor. The executive officers of the municipal gov- 
 ernment consist of a clerk, treasurer, police magistrate, 
 chief of police, chief of the fire department, street com- 
 missioner, and physician. 
 
 The municipal finances are derived from a share in
 
 500 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 federal licenses, from the income derived from the local 
 court, from poll taxes, and from local taxation of real 
 and personal property. From all these sources the 
 municipal treasury was enriched during the year of 1906 
 by about ninety-five thousand dollars. 
 
 Each of the three banks operates an assay office under 
 the supervision of an expert. The population of the dis- 
 trict is from fifteen to twenty thousand, of which five 
 thousand belong permanently to the town. The climate 
 is dry and sparkling ; the summers are delightful, the 
 winters still and not colder than those of Minnesota, 
 Montana, and the Dakotas, but without the blizzards of 
 those states. In 1906 the coldest month was January, 
 the daily mean temperature being thirty-six degrees below 
 zero, but dry and still. Travel over the trail by dog team 
 is continued throughout the winter, skating and other 
 outdoor sports being as common as in Canada. 
 
 Five saw-mills are in operation, with an aggregate daily 
 capacity of a hundred and ten thousand feet, tlie entire 
 product being used locally. There is an abundance of 
 poplar, spruce, hemlock, and birch ; an unlimited water 
 supply ; a municipal steam-heating plant ; two good hos- 
 pitals ; two daily newspapers ; graded schools, — the four- 
 year course of the high school admitting the student to 
 the Washington State University and to high educational 
 institutions of other states; a Chamber of Commerce and 
 a Business Men's Association ; twelve hotels, five of which 
 are first class ; while every industry is represented several 
 times over. 
 
 This is Fairbanks, the six-year-old mining-camp of the 
 Tanana Valley.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 At Tanana our party was enlarged by a party of four 
 gentlemen, headed by Governor Wilford B. Hoggatt, of 
 Juneau, who was on a tour of inspection of the country 
 he serves. 
 
 Our steamer, too, underwent a change while we were 
 ashore. We now learned why its bow was square and 
 wide. It was that it might push barges up and down the 
 Yukon ; and it now proceeded, under our astonished eyes, 
 to push four, each of which was nearly as large as itself. 
 All the days of my life, as Mr. Pepys wotdd say, I have 
 never beheld such an object floating upon the water. 
 The barges were fastened in front of us and on both sides 
 of us; two were flat and uncovered, one was covered, but 
 open on the sides, while the fourth was a kind of boat and 
 was crowned with a real pilot-house, in which was a real 
 wheel. 
 
 We viewed them in open and hostile dismay, not yet 
 recognizing them as blessings in disguise ; we then laughed 
 till we wept, over our amazing appearance as we went 
 sweeping, bebarged, down to the sea. Four barges to one 
 steamboat ! One barge would have seemed like an insult, 
 but four were perfectly ridiculous. The governor was 
 told that they constituted his escort of honor, but he would 
 not smile. He was in haste to get to Nome ; and barges 
 meant delay. 
 
 We swept down the Yukon like a huge bird with wide 
 wings outspread; and those of us who did not care 
 
 501
 
 502 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 whether we went upon a sand-bar or not soon became in- 
 fatuated with barges. Straight in front of our steamer 
 we had, on one barge, a low, clean promenade a hundred 
 feet long by fifty wide; on the others were shady, se- 
 cluded nooks, where one might lie on rugs and cushions, 
 reading or dreaming, ever and anon catching glimpses 
 of native settlements — tents and cabins ; thousands of 
 coral-red salmon drying on frames ; groups of howling 
 dogs ; dozens of silent dark people sitting or standing 
 motionless, staring at their whiter and more fortunate 
 brothers sweeping past them on the rushing river. 
 
 Poor, lonely, dark people ! As lonely and as mysterious, 
 as little known and as little understood, as the mighty 
 river on whose shores their few and hard days are spent. 
 Little we know of them, and less we care for them. The 
 hopeless tragedy of their race is in their long, yearning 
 gaze ; but we read it not. We look at them in idle curi- 
 osity as we flash past them ; and each year, as we return, 
 we find them fewer, lonelier, — more like dark sphinxes 
 on the river's banks. As the years pass and their 
 numbers diminish, the mournfulness deepens in their 
 gaze ; it becomes more questioning, more haunting. The 
 day will come when they will all be gone, when no longer 
 dark figures will people those lonely shores ; and then we 
 will look at one another in useless remorse and cry : — 
 
 " Why did they not complain ? Why did they not ask 
 us to help them ? Why did they sit and starve for every- 
 thing, staring at us and making no sign ? " 
 
 Alas ! when that day comes, we will learn — too late ! 
 — that there is no appeal so poignant and so haunting as 
 that which lies in the silence and in the asking eyes of 
 these dark and vanishing people. 
 
 Below Rampart the hills withdraw gradually until they 
 become but blue blurs on the horizon line during the last 
 miles of the river's course. It is now the lower river
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 503 
 
 and becomes beautifully channelled and islanded. Across 
 these low, wooded, and watered plains the sunset burns 
 like a maze of thistledown touched with ruby fire — burns 
 down, at last, into the rose of dawn ; and the rose into 
 emerald, beryl, and pearl. 
 
 Not far above Nulato the Koyukuk pours its tawny 
 flood into the Yukon. For many years the Koyukuk has 
 given evidences of great richness in gold, but high prices 
 of freight and labor have retarded its progress. During 
 the past winter, however, discoveries have been made 
 which promise one of the greatest stampedes ever known. 
 Louis Olson, after several seasons in the district, experi- 
 enced a gambler's "hunch" that there "was pay on 
 Nolan Creek." He and his associates started to sink, and 
 the first bucket they got off bedrock netted seven dollars ; 
 the bedrock, a slate, pitched to one side of the hole, and 
 when they had followed it down and struck a level bed- 
 rock, they got two hundred and sixty dollars. 
 
 " Our biggest pan," said Mr. Olson, telling the story 
 when he came out, one of the richest men in Alaska, " was 
 eighteen hundred dollars. You can see the gold lying in 
 sight." 
 
 Captain E. W. Johnson, of Nome, who had grub-staked 
 two men in the Koyukuk, " fell into it," as miners say. 
 They struck great richness on bedrock, and Captain John- 
 son promptly celebrated the strike by opening fifteen 
 hundred dollars' worth of champagne to the camp. 
 
 Within ten days three pans of a thousand dollars each 
 were washed out. Coldfoot, Bettles, Bergman, and 
 Koyukuk are the leading settlements of this region, the 
 first two lying within the Arctic Circle. Interest has re- 
 vived in the Chandelar country which adjoins on the east. 
 
 Really, Seward's " land of icebergs, polar bears, and 
 walrus," his " worthless, God-forsaken region," is doing 
 fairly well, as countries go.
 
 504 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Nulato, nearly three hundred miles below Tanana, is 
 one of the most historic places on the Yukon, and has the 
 most sanguinary history. It was founded in 1838 by a 
 Russian half-breed named Malakoff, who built a trading 
 post. During the following winter, owing to scarcity of 
 provisions, he was compelled to return to St. Michael, 
 and the buildings were burned by natives who were jeal- 
 ous of the advance of white people up the river. The 
 following year the post was reestablished and was again 
 destroyed. In 1841 Derabin erected a fort at this point, 
 and for ten years the settlement flourished. In 1851, 
 however. Lieutenant Bernard, of the British ship Enter- 
 prise, arrived in search of information as to the fate of Sir 
 John Franklin. Unfortunately, he remarked that he in- 
 tended to "send for " the principal chief of the Koyukuks. 
 This was considered an insult by the haughty chief, and 
 it led to an assault upon the fort, which was destroyed. 
 Derabin, Bernard and his companions, and all other white 
 people at the fort were brutall}^ murdered, as well as 
 many resident Indians. The atrocity was never avenged. 
 
 Nulato is now one of the largest and most prosperous 
 Indian settlements on the river. A large herd of reindeer 
 is quartered there. There was, as every one interested in 
 Alaska knows, a grave scandal connected with the rein- 
 deer industry a few years ago. Many of the animals im- 
 ported by the government from Siberia at great expense, 
 for the benefit of needy natives and miners, were appro- 
 priated by missionaries without authority ; but after an 
 investigation by a special agent of the government there 
 was an entire reorganization of the system. In all. Con- 
 gress appropriated more than two hundred and twenty 
 thousand dollars, with which twelve hundred reindeer 
 have, at various times, been imported. There are now 
 about twelve thousand head in Alaska, of which the gov- 
 ernment owns not more than twenty-five hundred. There
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 505 
 
 are also stations at Bethel, Beetles, Iliamna, Kotzebue, 
 St. Lawrence Island, Golovnin, Teller, Cape Prince of 
 "Wales, Point Barrow, and at several other points. They 
 are used for sledding purposes and for their meat and 
 hides, really beautiful parkas and mukluks — the latter 
 a kind of skin boot — being made of the hides. 
 
 A native woman named Mary Andrewuk has a large 
 herd, is quite wealthy, and is known as the " Reindeer 
 Queen." 
 
 We reached Anvik at seven in the evening. Anvik 
 is like Uyak on Kadiak Island, and I longed for the 
 frank Swedish sailor who had so luminously described 
 Uyak. If there be an3'thing worth seeing at Anvik — 
 and they say there is a graveyard! — they must first kill 
 the mosquitoes ; else, so far as I am concerned, it will 
 forever remain unseen. Under a rocky bluff two dozen 
 Eskimo, men and women, sat fighting mosquitoes and 
 trying to sell wares so poorly made that no one desired 
 them. Eskimo dolls and toy parkas were the only things 
 that tempted us ; and hastily paying for them, we fled on 
 board to our big, comfortable stateroom, whose window 
 was securely netted from the pests which made the very 
 air black. 
 
 We left Anvik at midnight. We were to arrive at 
 Holy Cross Mission at four o'clock the same morning. 
 Expecting the Campbell to arrive later in the day, the 
 priest and sisters had arranged a reception for the gov- 
 ernor, in which the children of the mission were to take 
 part. Thinking of the disappointment of the children, 
 the governor decided to go ashore, even at that unearthly 
 hour, and we were invited to accompany him. We were 
 awakened at three o'clock. 
 
 The dawn was bleak and cheerless ; it was raining 
 slightly, and the mosquitoes were as thick and as 
 hungry as they had been at the Grand Canyon. Of all
 
 506 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 the passengers that had planned to go ashore, there 
 appeared upon the sloppy deck only four — the governor, 
 a gentleman who was travelling with him, my friend, and 
 myself. We looked at one another silently through rain 
 and mosquitoes, and before we could muster up smiles 
 and exchange greetings, an officer of the boat called out: — 
 
 " Governor, if it wasn't for those damn disappointed 
 children, I'd advise you not to go ashore." 
 
 We all smiled tlien, for the man had put the thought 
 of each of us into most forcible English. 
 
 We were landed upon the wet sand and we waded through 
 the tall wet grasses of the beach to the mission. At every 
 step fresh swarms of mosquitoes rose from the grass and 
 assailed us. A gentleman had sent us his mosquito hats. 
 These were simply broad-brimmed felt hats, with the 
 netting gathered about the crowns and a kind of harness 
 fastening around the waist. 
 
 The governor had no protection ; and never, I am sure, 
 did any governor go forth to a reception and a " pro- 
 gramme " in his honor in such a frame of mind and with 
 such an expression of torture as went that morning the 
 governor of "the great country." It was a silent and 
 dismal procession that moved up the flower-bordered walk 
 to the mission — a procession of waving arms and flapping 
 handkerchiefs. At a distance it must have resembled a 
 procession of windmills in operation, rather than of human 
 beings on their way to a reception in the vicinity of the 
 Arctic Circle. 
 
 So ceaseless and so ferocious Avere the attacks of the 
 mosquitoes that before the sleeping children were aroused 
 and ready for their programme, my friend and I, notwith- 
 standing the protection of the hats, yielded in sheer ex- 
 haustion, and, without apology or farewell, left the unfor- 
 tunate governor to pay the penalty of greatness ; left him 
 to his reception and his programme ; to the earnest priests.
 
 ALASKA: THE GEE AT COUNTRY 507 
 
 the smiling, sweet-faced sisters, and the little solemn-eyed 
 Eskimo children. 
 
 This mission is cared for by the order of Jesuits. Two 
 priests and several brothers and sisters reside there. 
 Fifty or more children are cared for yearly, — educated 
 and guided in ways of thrift, cleanliness, industry, and 
 morality. They are instructed in all kinds of useful 
 work. About forty acres of land are in cultivation; the 
 flowers and vegetables which we saw would attract 
 admiration and wonder in any climate. The buildings 
 were of logs, but were substantially built and attractive, 
 each in its setting of brilliant bloom. How these sisters, 
 these gentle and refined women, whose faces and manner 
 unconsciously reveal superior breeding and position, can 
 endure the daily and nightly tortures of the mosquitoes 
 is inconceivable. 
 
 " They are not worth notice now," one said, with her 
 sweet and patient smile. " Oh, no ! You should come 
 earlier if you would see mosquitoes." 
 
 "Our religion, you know," another said gently, "helps 
 us to bear all things that are not pleasant. In time one 
 does not mind." 
 
 In time one does not mind! It is another of the lessons 
 of the Yukon ; and reading, one stands ashamed. There 
 those saintly beings spend their lives in God's service. 
 Nothing save a divine faith could sustain a delicate 
 woman to endure such ceaseless torment for three months 
 in every year; and yet, like the lone woman at Nation, 
 their faces tell us that we, rather than they, are for pity. 
 The stars upon their brows are the white and blessed stars 
 of peace. 
 
 The steamer lands at neither Russian Mission nor An- 
 dreaofsky; but at both may be seen, on grassy slopes, 
 beautiful Greek churches, with green, pale blue, and yellow 
 roofs, domes and bell-towers, chimes and glittering crosses.
 
 508 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Down where the mouth of the Yukon attains a width 
 of sixty miles we ran upon a sand-bar early in the after- 
 noon, and there we remained until nearly midnight. It 
 was a weird experience. Dozens of natives in bidarkas 
 surrounded our steamer, boarded our barges, and offered 
 their inferior work for sale. The brown lads in reindeer 
 parkas were bright-eyed and amiable. Cookies and gum 
 sweetened the way to their little wild hearts, and they 
 would hold our hands, cling to our skirts, and beg for 
 " more." 
 
 A splendid, stormy sunset burned over those miles of 
 water-threaded lowlands at evening. Rose and lavender 
 mists rolled in from the sea, parted, and drifted away into 
 the distances stretching on all sides; they huddled upon 
 islands, covering them for a few moments, and then, with- 
 drawing, leaving them drenched in sparkling emerald 
 beauty in the vivid light; they coiled along the horizon, 
 like peaks of rosy pearl; and they went sailing, like elfin 
 shallops, down poppy-tinted water-ways. Everywhere 
 overhead geese drew dark lines through the brilliant atmos- 
 phere, their mournful cries filling the upper air with the 
 weird and lonely music of the great spaces. Up and 
 down the water-ways slid the bidarkas noiselessly; and 
 along the shores the brown women moved among the 
 willows and sedges, or stood motionless, staring out at 
 their white sisters on the stranded boat. There were 
 times when every one of the millions of sedges on island 
 and shore seemed to flash out alone and apart, like a daz- 
 zling emerald lance quivering to strike. 
 
 They are dull of soul and dull of imagination who com- 
 plain of monotony on the Yukon Flats. There is beauty 
 for all that have eyes wherewith to see. It is the beauty 
 of the desert ; the beauty and the lure of wonderful 
 distances, of marvellous lights and low skies, of dawns 
 that are like blown roses, and as perfumed, and sunsets
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 609 
 
 whose mists are as burning dust. When there is no color 
 anywhere, there is still the haunting, compelling beauty 
 that lies in distance alone. Vast spaces are majestic and 
 awesome ; the aye goes into them as the thought goes into 
 the realm of eternity — only to return, wearied out with the 
 beauty and the immensity that forever end in the fathom- 
 less mist that lies on the far horizon's rim. It is a mist 
 that nothing can pierce ; vision and thought return from 
 it upon themselves, only to go out again upon that mute 
 and trembling quest which ceases not until life itself ceases. 
 The northernmost mouth of the Yukon has been called 
 the Aphoon or Uphoon, ever since the advent of the Rus- 
 sians, and is the channel usually selected by steamers, the 
 Kwikhpak lying next to it on the south. By sea-coast 
 measurement the most northerly mouth is nearly a hundred 
 miles from the most southerly, and five others between 
 them assist in carrying the Yukon's gray, dull yellow, or 
 rose-colored floods out into Behring Sea, whose shallow 
 waters they make fresh for a long distance. It is not 
 without hazard that the flat-bottomed river boats make 
 the run to St. Michael ; and the pilots of steamers cross- 
 ing out anxiously scan the sea and relax not in vigi- 
 lance until the port is entered.
 
 CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 We were released from the sand-bar near midnight, 
 and at eight o'clock on the following morning we steamed 
 around a green and lovely point and entered Norton 
 Sound, in whose curving blue arm lies storied St. Mi- 
 chael. 
 
 St. Michael is situated on the island of the same name, 
 about sixty miles north of the mouth of the Yukon. It was 
 founded in 1833 by Michael Tebenkoff, and was originally 
 named Michaelovski Redoubt. The Russian buildings 
 were of spruce logs brought by sea from the Yukon and 
 Kuskoquim rivers, as no timber grows in the vicinity of 
 St. Michael or Nome. Some of the original Russian build- 
 ings yet remain, — notably, the storehouse and the redoubt. 
 The latter is an hexagonal building of heavy hewn logs, 
 with sloping roof, flagstaff, door, and port-holes. It stands 
 upon the shore, within a dozen steps of the famous " Cot- 
 tage," — the residence of the managers of the Northern 
 Commercial Company, under whose hospitable roof every 
 traveller of note has been entertained for many years, — 
 and in front of it the shore slopes green to the water. In- 
 side lie half a dozen rust}^ Russian cannons, mutely testify- 
 ing to the sanguinary past of the North. 
 
 The redoubt was attacked in 1836 by the hostile Una- 
 ligmuts of the vicinity, but it was successfully defended 
 by Kurupanoff. The Russians had a temporary landing- 
 place built out to deep water to accommodate boats draw- 
 ing five feet ; this was removed when ice formed in the 
 
 510
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 511 
 
 bay. The tundra is rolling, with numerous pools that flame 
 like brass at sunset ; only low willows and alders grow on 
 the island and adjacent shores. The island is seven miles 
 wide and twenty-live long, and is separated from the main- 
 land by a tortuous channel, as narrow as fifty feet in places. 
 The land gradually rises to low hills of volcanic origin 
 near the centre of the island. These hills are called the 
 Shaman Mountains. The meadow upon which the main 
 part of the town and the buildings of the post are situated 
 is as level as a vast parade-ground ; but the land rises 
 gently to a slender point that plunges out into Behring 
 Sea, whose blue waves beat themselves to foam and music 
 upon its tundra-covered cliffs. 
 
 On the day that I stood upon this headland the sunlight 
 lay like gold upon the island; the winds were low, murmur- 
 ous, and soothing; flowers spent their color riotously about 
 me; the tundra was as soft as deep-napped velvet ; and 
 the blue waves, set with flashes of gold, went pushing 
 languorously away to the shores of another continent. 
 Scarcely a stone's throw from me was a small mountain- 
 island, only large enough for a few graves, but with no 
 graves upon it. In all the world there cannot be another 
 spot so noble in which to lie down and rest when " life's 
 fevers and life's passions — all are past." There, alone, — 
 but never again to be lonely ! — facing that sublime sweep 
 of sapphire summer sea, set here and there with islands, 
 and those miles upon miles of glittering winter ice ; with 
 white sails drifting by in summer, and in winter the wild 
 and roaring march of icebergs ; with summer nights of 
 lavender dusk, and winter nights set with the great stars 
 and the magnificent brilliance of Northern Lights ; with 
 the perfume of flowers, the songs of birds, the music of lone 
 winds and waves, out on tlie edge of the world — could 
 any clipped and cared -for plot be so noble a place in which 
 to lie down for the last time ? Could any be so close to God ?
 
 512 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The entire island is a military reservation, and it is only 
 by concessions from the government that commercial and 
 transportation companies may establish themselves there. 
 Fort St. Michael is a two-company post, under the com- 
 mand of Captain Stokes, at whose residence a reception 
 was tendered to Governor Hoggatt. The filmy white 
 gowns of beautiful women, the uniforms of the officers, the 
 music, flowers, and delicate ices in a handsomely furnished 
 home made it difficult for one to realize that the function 
 was on the shores of Behring Sea instead of in the capital 
 of our country. 
 
 There is an excellent hotel at St. Michael, and the 
 large stores of the companies are well suj^plied with furs 
 and Indian and Eskimo wares. Beautiful ivory carvings, 
 bidarkas, parkas, kamelinkas, baskets, and many other 
 curios may be obtained here at more reasonable prices 
 than at Nome. There are public bath-houses where one 
 may float and splash in red-brown water that is never any 
 other color, no matter how long it may run, but which is 
 always pure and clean. 
 
 No description of St. Michael is complete that does 
 not include " Lottie." No liquors are sold upon the mili- 
 tary reservation, and Lottie conducts a floating groggery 
 upon a scow. It has been her custom each fall to have her 
 barge towed up the canal just beyond the line of the mili- 
 tary reservation, ten miles from the flag-staff at tlie bar- 
 racks, thus placing herself beyond the control of the 
 authorities, greatly to their chagrin. In summer she 
 anchors her barge in one of the numerous bights along 
 the shore, and they are again powerless to interfere with 
 her brilliantly managed traffic, since it has been decided 
 that their sway extends over the land only. 
 
 It is Lottie's practice to have the barge made fast in 
 such a way that a boat can be run to it from the shore 
 on an endless line. One desiring a bottle of whiskey
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 513 
 
 approaches the boat and drops his money and order into 
 the bottom of it. The boat is then drawn out to the 
 barge, whiskey is substituted for the money, and the pur- 
 chaser pulls the boat ashore, where it is left for the next 
 customer. 
 
 There is no witness to the transaction and it has been im- 
 possible to prove, the authorities claim, who put the money 
 and the whiskey into the boat, or took either therefrom. 
 
 Lottie's barge has operated for many years. Its illicit 
 transactions could easily have been stopped had the civil 
 authorities on shore taken a firm stand and worked in 
 conjunction with the military ; but there was the usual 
 jealousy as to the rights of the different officials — and 
 Lottie has profited by these conditions. Furthermore, 
 many people of the vicinity entertained a friendly feeling 
 for Lottie — not only those who were wont to draw the 
 little boat back and forth, but others in sheer admiration 
 of the ingenuity and skill with which she carried on her 
 business. She was careful in preserving order in her 
 vicinity, was very charitable, and frequently provided 
 for natives who would have otherwise suffered. Thus, 
 by her diplomacy, self-control, good business sense, and 
 many really worthy traits of character, Lottie has been 
 able to outwit the officials for years. Her barge still 
 floats upon the blue waves of Norton Sound. However, 
 it seems, even to a woman, that Lottie must be blessed 
 with " a friend at court." 
 
 We had been invited to voyage from St. Michael to 
 Nome — a distance of a hundred and eleven miles — on 
 the Meteor, a very small tug ; being warned, however, 
 that, should the weather prove to be unfavorable, our 
 hardships would be almost unendurable, as there was 
 only an open after-deck and no cabin in which to take 
 refuge. We boldy took our chances, remaining three 
 days at St. Michael. 
 
 2i>
 
 514 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 Never had Behring Sea, or Norton Sound, been known 
 to be so beautiful as it was on that fourteenth day of 
 August. We started at nine in the morning, and until 
 evening the whole sea, as far as the eye could reach in all 
 directions, was as smooth as satin, of the palest silvery 
 blue. Never have I seen its like, nor do I hope ever to 
 see it again. To think that such seductive beauty could 
 bloom upon a sea whereon, in winter, one may travel for 
 hundreds of miles on solid ice! At evening it was still 
 smooth, but its color burned to a silvery rose. 
 
 The waters we sailed now were almost sacred to some of 
 us. Over them the brave and gallant Captain Cook had 
 sailed in 1778, naming Capes Darby and Denbigh, on 
 either side of Norton Bay; he also named the bay and the 
 sound and Besborough, Stuart, and Sledge islands ; and 
 it was in this vicinity that he met the family of cripples. 
 
 But of most poignant interest was St. Lawrence Is- 
 land, lying far to our westward, discovered and named by 
 Vitus Behring on his voyage of 1728. If he had then 
 sailed to the eastward for but one day ! 
 
 Every one has read of the terrors of landing through the 
 pounding surf of the open roadstead at Nome. Large ships 
 cannot approach within two miles of the shore. Passen- 
 gers and freight are taken off in lighters and launches 
 when the weather is "fair " ; but fair weather at Nome is 
 rough weather elsewhere. When they call it rough at 
 Nome, passengers remain on the ships for days, waiting to 
 land. Frequently it is necessary to transfer passengers 
 from the ships to dories, from the dories to tugs, from 
 the tugs to flat barges. The barges are floated in as 
 far as possible; then an open platform — miscalled a cage 
 — is dropped from a great arm, which looks as though it 
 might break at any moment ; the platform is crowded 
 with passengers and hoisted up over the boiling surf,
 
 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 515 
 
 swinging and creaking in a hair-crinkling fashion, and at 
 last depositing its large-eyed burden upon the wharf at 
 Nome. I had pitied cattle when I had seen them un- 
 loaded in this manner at Valdez and other coast towns! 
 
 We anchored at eleven o'clock that night in the Nome 
 roadstead. In two minutes a launch was alongside and 
 a dozen gentlemen came aboard to greet tlie governor. 
 We were hastily transferred in the purple dusk to the 
 launch. The town, brilliantly illuminated, glittered like 
 a string of jewels along the low beach ; bells were ring- 
 ing, whistles were blowing, bands were playing, and all 
 Nome was on the beach shouting itself hoarse in welcome. 
 
 There was no surf, there was not a wave, there was 
 scarce a ripple on the sea. The launch ran smoothly 
 upon the beach and a gangway was put out. It did not 
 quite reach to dry land and men ran out in the water, 
 picked us up unceremoniously, and carried us ashore. 
 
 The most beautiful landing ever made at Nome was the 
 one made that night ; and the people said it was all 
 arranged for the governor. 
 
 There was an enthusiastic reception at the Golden Gate 
 Hotel, followed by a week's brilliant functions in his 
 honor. 
 
 Three days later the Meteor came over from St. Michael, 
 with a distinguished Congressman aboard. The weather 
 was rough, even for Nome, and for three blessed days 
 the Meteor rolled in the roadstead, and with every roll it 
 went clear out of sight. 
 
 There were those at the hotel who differed politically 
 from the Congressman aboard the little tug ; and, like the 
 people of Nome when the senatorial committe.e was landed 
 under such distressful circumstances a few years ago, 
 their faces did not put on mourning as they watched the 
 Meteor roll.
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 Nome ! Never in all the world has been, and never 
 again will be, a town so wonderfully and so picturesquely 
 built. Imagine a couple of miles of two and three story 
 frame buildings set upon a low, ocean-drenched beach and, 
 for the most part, painted white, with the back doors of 
 one side of the main business street jutting out over the 
 water; the town widening for a considerable distance 
 back over the tundra; all things jumbled together — 
 saloons, banks, dance-halls, millinery-shops, residences, 
 churches, hotels, life-saving stations, government build- 
 ings, Eskimo camps, sacked coal piled a hundred feet high, 
 steamship offices, hospitals, schools — j)i'6senting the ap- 
 pearance of having been flung up into the air and left 
 wherever they chanced to fall ; with streets zigzagging in 
 every conceivable and inconceivable, way — following the 
 beach, drifting away from it, and returning to it ; one 
 building stepping out proudly two feet ahead of its 
 neighbor, another modestly retiring, another slipping in at 
 right angles and leaving a V-shaped space ; board side- 
 walks, narrow for a few steps, then wide, then narrow 
 again, running straight, curving, jutting out sharply ; 
 in places, steps leading up from the street, in others the 
 streets rising higher than the sidewalks ; boards, laid upon 
 the bare sand in the middle of the streets for planking, 
 wearing out and wobbling noisily under travel; every 
 second floor a residence or an apartment-house ; crude 
 signs everywhere, and tipsy telephone poles ; the streets 
 
 516
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 517 
 
 crowded with men at all hours of the day and night; and 
 a blare of music bursting from every saloon. This is 
 Nome at first sight ; and it was with a sore and disap- 
 pointed heart that I laid my head upon my pillow that 
 night. 
 
 But Nome grows upon one ; and by the end of a week 
 it had drawn my heartstrings around it as no orderly, 
 conventional town could do. From the very centre of 
 the business section it is but twenty steps to the sea ; 
 and there, day and night, its surf pounds upon the beach, 
 its musical thunder and fine mist drifting across the 
 town. 
 
 Ten years ago there was nothing here save the golden 
 sands, the sea that broke upon them, and the gray-green 
 tundra slopes ; there is not a tree for fifty miles or more. 
 To-day there is a town of seven thousand people in sum- 
 mer, and of three or four thousand in winter — a town 
 having most of the comforts and many of the luxuries to 
 be obtained in cities of older civilization. Nome sprang 
 into existence in the summer of 1899, and grew like Fair- 
 banks and Dawson ; but it is more wonderfully situated 
 than, probably, any town in the world. For eight months 
 of the year it is cut off from steamship service, and its front 
 door-yard is a sea of solid ice stretching to the shores of 
 Siberia, while its back yard is a gold-mine. There are 
 many weeks when the sun rises but a little way, glimmers 
 faintly for three or four hours, and fades behind the pali- 
 sades of ice, leaving the people to darkness and un- 
 speakable loneliness until it returns to its full brilliance 
 in spring and opens the way for the return of the ships. 
 
 Nome is picturesque by day or by night and at any 
 season. Its streets are constantly crowded with traffic 
 and thronged by a cosmopolitan population. The Eskimo 
 encampment is on the " sand-spit " at the northern end of 
 the main street, where Snake River flows into the sea ;
 
 518 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 and the men, women, and children may be seen at all hours 
 loitering about the streets in reindeer parkas and mukluks. 
 Especially in the evenings do they haunt the streets and 
 the hotels, offering their beautifully carved ivories for sale. 
 Both the Eskimos and the Indians are lovers of music, 
 and the former readily yield to emotion when they hear 
 melodious strains. When a " Buluga," or white whale, is 
 killed, a feast is held and the natives sing their songs 
 and dance. The music of stringed instruments invariably 
 moves them to tears. At a recent Thanksgiving service 
 in Fairbanks, some visiting Indians were invited to sing 
 "Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful." With evident pleasure, 
 they sang it as follows : — 
 
 " Oni, tsenuan whuduguduwhuta yilh ; 
 Oni, yuwhun dutlish, oni nokhlhan, 
 Oni, dodutalokhlho, 
 Oni, dodutalokhlho, 
 Oni, dodutalokhlho, 
 Lud." 
 
 At Point Barrow, three hundred miles northeast of 
 Behring Strait, an old Eskimo who could not speak one 
 word of English was heard to whistle " The Holy City," 
 and it filled the hearer's heart with home-loneliness. A 
 trader had sold the old native music-lover a phonograph, 
 receiving in pay two white polar bear-skins, worth several 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 Some one gave an ordinary French harp to a little Es- 
 kimo lad on our steamer ; and from early morning until 
 late at night he sat on a companionway, alone, indifferent 
 to all passers-by, blowing out softly and sweetly with 
 dark lips the prisoned beauty of his soul. 
 
 All the islands of Behring Sea, as well as the coast of 
 the Arctic Ocean, are inhabited by Eskimos. From the 
 largest island, St. Lawrence, to the small Diomede on 
 the American side, they have settlements and schools.
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 519 
 
 St. Lawrence is eighty miles long by fifteen in width ; 
 while the Diomede is only two miles by one. The natives 
 beg pitifully for education — " to be smart, like the white 
 man." We shrink from their filth and their immorality, 
 but we teach them nothing better ; yet we might see 
 through their asking eyes down into their starved souls 
 if we would but look. 
 
 In many ways Nome is the most interesting place in 
 Alaska. It is at once so pagan and so civilized; so crude 
 and so refined. It is the golden gateway through which 
 thousands of people pass each summer to and from the 
 interior of Alaska. Treeless and harborless it began 
 and has continued, surmounting all obstacles that lay in 
 its way of becoming a city. It has a water system that 
 supplies its household needs, with steam pipes laid parallel 
 to the water pipes, to thaw them in winter — and then it 
 has not a yard of sewerage. It has a wireless telegraph 
 station, a telephone service, and electric-light plant ; and 
 it is seeking municipal steam-heating. Electric lighting 
 is excessively high, owing to the price of coal, and many 
 use lamps and candles. There are three good newspapers, 
 which play important parts in the politics of Alaska — 
 the Nugget, the Grold-Digger, and the News; three banks, 
 with capital stocks ranging from one to two hundred 
 thousand dollars, each of which has an assay-office ; 
 two good public schools ; three churches ; hospitals ; 
 and a telephone system connecting all the creeks and 
 camps within a radius of fifty miles with Nome. The 
 orders of Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, 
 Eagles, and Arctic Brotherhood have clubs at Nome. The 
 Arctic Brotherhood is the most popular order of the 
 North, and the more important entertainments are usually 
 given under its auspices and are held in its club-rooms; 
 the wives of its members form the most exclusive society 
 of the North.
 
 520 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 The spirit of Nome is restless ; it is the spirit of the 
 gold-seeker, the seafarer, the victim of wanderlust ; and it 
 soon gets into even the visitor's blood. Millions of dol- 
 lars have been taken out of the sands whereon Nome is 
 now built, and millions more may be waiting beneath it. 
 It seemed as though every man in Nome should be digging 
 — on the beach, in the streets, in cellars. 
 
 " Why are not all these men digging ? " I asked, and 
 they laughed at me. 
 
 " Because every inch of tundra for miles back is 
 located." 
 
 " Then why do not the locators dig, dig, day and night? " 
 
 " Oh, for one reason or another." 
 
 If I owned a claim on the tundra back of Nome, nothing 
 save sudden death could prevent my digging. 
 
 New strikes are constantly being made, to keep the 
 people of Nome in a state of feverish excitement and 
 dynamic energy. When we landed, we found the town 
 wild over a thirty-thousand-dollar clean-up on a claim 
 named " Number Eight, Cooper Gulch." Four days later 
 an excursion was arranged to go out on the railroad — for 
 they have a railroad — to see another clean-up at this 
 mine. 
 
 We started at nine o'clock, and we did not return until 
 five ; and it rained steadily and with exceeding coldness 
 all day. There was a comfortable passenger-car, but 
 despite the wind and the rain we preferred the box -cars, 
 roofed, but open at the sides. The country which we 
 traversed for six miles possessed the indescribable fascina- 
 tion of desolation. Behind us rolled the sea ; but on all 
 other sides stretched wide gray tundra levels, varied by 
 low hills. Hills they call them here, but they are only 
 slopes, or mounds, with here and there a treeless creek 
 winding through them. The mist of the rain drove across 
 them like smoke. 
 
 J
 
 ALASKA: THE GBEAT COUNTRY 521 
 
 We were received at the mine by Captain and Mrs. 
 Johnson and Mr. Corson, the owners. The hidies were 
 entertained in the Johnsons' cabin home and the gentle- 
 men at a near-by cabin, there being twelve ladies and 
 twenty gentlemen in the party. An immense bowl of 
 champagne punch — the word " punch " being used for 
 courtesy — stood outside the ladies' cabin and was not 
 allowed to grow empty. Late in the afternoon the heap 
 of empty champagne bottles outside the gentlemen's cabin 
 resembled in size one of the numerous gravel dumps scat- 
 tered over the tundra ; yet not a person showed signs of 
 intoxication. They told us that one may drink cham^ 
 pagne as though it were water in that latitude ; and 
 this is one northern " story " which I am quite willing to 
 believe. 
 
 At noon a bountiful and delicious luncheon was served 
 at the mess-house. It was this same fortunate Captain 
 Johnson, by the way, who opened fifteen hundred dollars' 
 worth of champagne when bedrock was reached in his 
 Koyukuk claim. 
 
 Sluicing is fascinating. A good supply of water with 
 sufficient fall is necessary. Some of the claims are on 
 creeks, but the owners of others are compelled to buy 
 water from companies who supply it by pumping-plants 
 and ditches. Boxes, or flat-bottomed troughs, are formed 
 of planks with slats, or " riffles," fastened at intervals 
 across the bottom. Several boxes are arranged on a 
 gentle slope and fitted into one another. The boxes 
 at " Number Eight " were twenty feet in length and 
 slanted from the ground to a height of twelve feet on 
 scaffolding. A narrow planking ran along each side of 
 the telescoped boxes, and upon these frail foundations we 
 stood to view the sluicing. The gravel is usually shovelled 
 into the boxes, but "Number Eight" has an improved 
 method. The gravel is elevated into an immense hopper-
 
 522 ALASKA : THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 like receptacle, from which it sifts down into the sluice- 
 boxes on each side, and a stream of water is kept running 
 steadily upon it from a large hose at the upper end. Men 
 with whisk brooms sweep up the gold into glistening heaps, 
 working out the gravel and passing it on, as a housewife 
 works the whey out of the yellowing butter. The gold, 
 being heavy, is caught and held by the riffles ; if it is very 
 fine, the bottoms of the boxes are covered with blankets, 
 or mercury is placed at the slats to detain it. 
 
 The clean-up that day was twenty -nine thousand dol- 
 lars, and each lady of the party was presented with a gold 
 nugget by Mrs. Johnson. We were taken down into the 
 mine, where we went about like a company of fireflies, each 
 carrying his own candle. The ceiling was so low that we 
 were compelled to walk in a stooping position. On the 
 following morning we went to a bank and saw this clean- 
 up melted and run into great bricks. 
 
 The lure and the fascination of virgin gold is undeni- 
 able. It catches one and all in its glistening, mj^sterious 
 web. A man may sell his potato patch in town lots and 
 become a millionnaire, without attracting attention ; but 
 let him "strike pay on bedrock" — and instantly he walks 
 in a golden mist of glory and romance before his fellow- 
 men. It may be because the farmer deposits his money in 
 the bank, while the miner "sets up" the champagne to 
 his less fortunate friends. Be that as it may, it is a slug- 
 gish pulse that does not quicken when one sees cones of 
 beautiful coarse gold and nuggets washed and swept out 
 of the gravel in which it has been lying hundreds of years, 
 waiting. If Behring had but landed upon this golden 
 beach, Alaska — despite all the eloquence and the earnest- 
 ness of Seward and Sumner — might not now be ours. 
 
 To the Nome district have been gradually added those 
 of Topkuk, Solomon, and Golovin Bay, forty-five miles to
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTBT 523 
 
 eastward on the shores of Norton Sound, Cripple Creek, 
 Bluff, Penny, and a chain of diggings extending up the 
 coast and into the Kotzebue country, including the rich 
 Kougarok and Blue Stone districts, Candle Creek, and 
 Kowak River. 
 
 When gold was discovered at Nome, prospectors scat- 
 tered over the Seward Peninsula in all directions. Some 
 drifted west into the York district, near Cape Prince of 
 Wales, the extreme western point of the North American 
 continent. In this region they found gold in the streams, 
 but sluicing was so difficult, owing to a heavy gravel which 
 they encountered, that they abandoned their claims, not 
 knowing that the impediment was stream-tin. Wiser 
 prospectors later recognized the metal and located claims. 
 The tin is irregularly distributed over an area of four hun- 
 dred and fifty square miles, embracing the western end of 
 the peninsula. The United States uses annually twenty 
 million dollars' worth of tin, which is obtained largely 
 from the Straits Settlement, although much comes from 
 Ecuador, Bolivia, Australia, and Cornwall. Tin cannot at 
 present be treated successfully in this country, owing to 
 the lack of smelter facilities ; but now that it has been 
 discovered in so vast quantities and of so pure quality in 
 the Seward Peninsula, smelters in this country will doubt- 
 less be equipped for reducing tin ores. 
 
 The centre of the tin-mining industry is at Tin City, a 
 small settlement three miles west of Teller, Cape Prince 
 of Wales, and is reached by small steamers which ply from 
 Nome. Several corporations are developing promising 
 properties with large stamp-mills. Both stream-tin and 
 tin ore in ledges are found throughout the district. 
 
 The Council district is the oldest of Seward Peninsula, 
 the first discovery of gold having been made there in 1898, 
 by a party headed by Daniel P. Libby, who had been 
 through the country with the Western Union's Expedi-
 
 524 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 tion in 1866. Hearing of the Klondike's richness, he re- 
 turned to Seward Peninsula and soon found gold on Fish 
 River. He and his party established the town of Council 
 and built the first residence ; it now has a population of 
 eight hundred. This district is forestated with spruce of 
 fair size and quality. 
 
 The Ophir Creek Mines are of great value, having pro- 
 duced more than five millions of dollars by the crudest of 
 mining methods. The Kougarok is the famous district of 
 the interior of the peninsula. Mary's Igloo — deriving its 
 name from an Eskimo woman of some importance in early 
 days — is the seat of the recorder's office for this district. 
 It has a post-office and is an important station. May it 
 never change its striking and picturesque name I 
 
 The entire peninsula, having an area of nearly twenty- 
 three thousand miles, is liable to prove to be one vast gold- 
 mine, the extreme richness of strikes in various localities 
 indicating that time and money to install modern machin- 
 ery and develop the country are all that are required to 
 make this one of the richest producing districts of the 
 world. 
 
 The leading towns of the peninsula are Council, Solomon, 
 Teller, Candle, Mary's Igloo, and Deering, on Kotzebue 
 Sound. Solomon is on Norton Sound, at the mouth of 
 Solomon River ; a railroad runs from this point to Coun- 
 cil. 
 
 The early name of Seward Peninsula was Kaviak — the 
 name of the Innuit people inhabiting it. 
 
 Gold was discovered on Anvil Creek in the hills behind 
 Nome in September, 1898, by Jafet Lindeberg, Erik Lind- 
 blom, and John Brynteson, the "three lucky Swedes." 
 In the following summer gold was discovered on the beach, 
 and in 1900 occurred the memorable stampede to Nome, 
 when fifteen thousand people struggled through the surf 
 during one fortnight. Then began the amazing building
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 525 
 
 of the mining-camp on the northwesternmost point of the 
 continent. Anvil Creek, Dexter, Dry and Glacier creeks. 
 Snow and Cooper gulches, have yielded millions of dol- 
 lars. The tundra reaching back to the hills five or six 
 miles from the sea is made up of a series of beach lines, 
 all containing deposits of gold. Five millions of dollars 
 in dust were taken from the famous " third " beach line in 
 one season ; and its length is estimated at thirty or forty 
 miles. The hills are low and round-topped, and beyond 
 them — thirty miles distant — are the Kigluaik Mountains, 
 known to prospectors by the name of Sawtooth. Among 
 their sharp and austere peaks is the highest of the penin- 
 sula, rising to an altitude of four thousand seven hundred 
 feet by geological survey. 
 
 There are several railroads on the peninsula. Some are 
 but a few miles in length, the rails are narrow and " wavy," 
 the trains run by starts and plunges and stop fearsomely ; 
 but thej^ are railroads. One can climb into the box-cars 
 or the one warm passenger-coach and go from Nome out 
 among the creeks, — to Nome River, to Anvil Creek, to 
 Kougarok and Hot Springs, from Solomon to the Coun- 
 cil Country, — and Nome is only ten years old. 
 
 Nome has a woman's club. It is federated and it owns 
 its club-house, a small but pretty building. Its name is 
 Kegoayah Kosga, or Northern Lights. It held an open 
 meeting while we were in Nome. Bishop Rowe described 
 a journey by dog sled and canoe. Congressman Sulzer 
 gave an informal talk, and the ladies of the club pre- 
 sented an interesting programme. The afternoon was 
 the most profitable I have spent at a woman's club. 
 
 For two or three months in summer it is all work at 
 Nome ; but when the snow begins to drive in across the 
 town ; when the last steamer drifts down the roadstead 
 and disappears before the longing eyes that follow it ; 
 when the ice piles up, mile on mile, where the surf
 
 526 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 dashed in summer, and the wind in the chimneys plays 
 a weird and lonely tune ; then the people turn to cards 
 and dance and song to while away the long and dreary 
 months of darkness. The social life is gay; and poker 
 parties, whereat gambling runs high, are frequent. 
 
 " Vd like to give a poker party for you," said a hand- 
 some young woman, laughing, " but I suppose it would 
 shock you to death." 
 
 We confessed that we would not be shocked, but that, 
 not knowing how to play the game, we declined to be 
 "bluffed" out of all our money. 
 
 " Oh, we are easy on cheechacos," said she, lightly. 
 "Do come. We'll play till two o'clock, and then have a 
 little supper ; curlew, plovers, and champagne — the ' big 
 cold bottle and the small hot bird.' " 
 
 When we still declined, she looked bored as she said 
 politely: — 
 
 " Oh, very well ; let us call it a five-hundred party. 
 Surely, that is childlike enough for you. But the 
 men!" 
 
 I laughed at the thought of the men I had met in 
 Nome playing the insipid game of five-hundred. 
 
 " Then," said she, dolefully, " there's nothing left but 
 bridge — and we just gamble our pockets inside out on 
 bridge; it's worse than poker, and we play like fiends." 
 
 We suggested that, as General Greeley had come down 
 the river with us and would be over from St. Michael the 
 next day, they should wait for him ; when the first player 
 has led the first card. General Greeley knows in whose 
 hand every deuce lies, and I wickedly longed to see the 
 inside of Nome's composite pocket by the time General 
 Greeley had sailed away. 
 
 There was no party for us that night ; but there is a 
 wide, public porch behind a big store by the life-saving 
 station. It projects over the sea and about ten feet above
 
 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 527 
 
 it, and upon this porch are benches whereon one may sit 
 alone and undisturbed until midnight, or until dawn, 
 for that matter, but alone — with the glitter of Nome 
 and the golden tundra behind one, and in front, the far, 
 faint lights of the ships anchored in the roadstead and 
 the tumultuous passion of waves that have lapped the 
 shores of other lands. 
 
 Sitting here, what thoughts come, unbidden, of the 
 brave and shadowy navigators of the past who have 
 sailed these waters through hardships and sufferings 
 that would cause the stoutest hearts of to-day to hesi- 
 tate. Read the descriptions of the ships upon which 
 Arctic explorers embark at the present time — of their 
 stores and comforts ; and then turn back and imagine 
 how Simeon Deshneff, a Cossack chief, set sail in June, 
 two hundred and sixty years ago, from the mouth of the 
 Kolyma River in Siberia in search of fabled ivory. In 
 company with two other " kotches," which were lost, he 
 sailed dauntlessly along the Arctic sea-coast and through 
 Behring Strait from the Frozen Ocean. His " kotch " 
 was a small-decked craft, rudely and frailly fashioned of 
 wood ; in September of that year, 1648, he landed upon 
 the shores of the Chukchi Peninsula and saw the two 
 Diomede Islands, between which the boundary line now 
 runs. He must have seen the low hills of Cape Prince of 
 Wales, for it plunges boldly out into the sea, within twenty 
 miles of the Diomedes, but probably mistook them for 
 islands. Half a century later Popoff, another Cossack, 
 was sent to East Cape to persuade the rebellious Chuk- 
 chis — as the Siberian natives of that region are called — 
 to pay tribute ; he was not successful, but he brought 
 back a description of the Diomede Islands and rumors of 
 a continent said to lie to the east. The next passage of 
 importance through the strait was that of Behring, who, 
 in 1728, sailed along the Siberian coast from Okhotsk,
 
 528 ALASKA: THE GREAT COUNTRY 
 
 rounded East Cape, passed through the strait, and, after 
 sailing to the northeast for a day, returned to Okhotsk, 
 marvellously missing the American continent. Geogra- 
 '{:)hers refused to accept Behring's statement that Asia and 
 North America were not connected until it was verified 
 in 1778 by Cook, who generously named the strait for 
 the illustrious Dane. 
 
 Less than a day's voyage from Nome is the westernmost 
 point of our country — Cape Prince of Wales, the " King- 
 egan " of the natives. It is fifty-four miles from this cape 
 to the East Cape of Siberia, and like stepping-stones be- 
 tween lie Fairway Rock and the Diomedes. Beyond is 
 the Frozen Ocean. These islands are of almost solid 
 stone. They are snow-swept, ice-bound, and ice-bounded 
 for eight months of every year. But ah, the auroral 
 magnificence that at times must stream through the gates 
 of frozen pearl which swing open and shut to the Arctic 
 Sea ! What moonlights must glitter there like millions 
 of diamonds ; what sunrises and sunsets must burn like 
 opaline mist ! How large the stars must be — and how 
 bright and low! And in the spring — how this whole 
 northern world must tremble and thrill at the mighty 
 march of icebergs sweeping splendidly down through the 
 gates of pearl into Behring Sea !
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 In the preparation of this volume the following works have 
 been consulted, which treat wholly, or in part, of Alaska. 
 After the narratives of the early voyages and discoveries, 
 the more important works of the list are Bancroft's " History," 
 Dall's " Alaska and Its Resources," Brooks' " Geography and 
 Geology," Davidson's "Alaska Boundary," Elliott's "Arctic 
 Province," Mason's " Aboriginal Basketry," Miss Scidmore's 
 " Guide-book," and " Proceedings of the Alaska Boundary 
 Tribunal." 
 
 Abercrombie, Captain. Government Reports. 
 
 Alaska Club's Almanac. 1907, 1908. 
 
 Bales, L. L. Habits and Haunts of the Sea-otter. Seattle 
 Post-Intelligencer. April 7, 1907. 
 
 Bancroft, Hubert H. History of the Pacific States. 
 Volumes on Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, 
 and Northwest Coast. The volume on Alaska is a consci- 
 entious and valuable study of that country'-, the material for 
 which was gathered largely by Ivan Petroff. 
 
 Beattie, W. G. Alaska-Yukon Magazine. October, 1907. 
 
 Blaine, J. G. Twenty Years of Congress. Two volumes. 
 1884. 
 
 Brady, J. G. Governor's Reports. 1902, 1904, 1905. 
 
 Brooks, Alfred H. The Geography and Geology of 
 Alaska. 1906. Also, Coal Resources of Alaska. 
 
 Butler, Sir William. Wild Northland. 1873. 
 
 Clark, Reed P. Mirror and American. 
 
 Cook, James. Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. 1784. 
 
 Coxe, William. Russian Discoveries. Containing diaries 
 of Steller, the naturalist, who accompanied Behring and Sheli- 
 koff, who made the first permanent Russian settlement in 
 2 m 529
 
 530 APPENDIX 
 
 America; also, an account of Deshneff's passage through 
 Behriug Strait in 1648. Fourth Edition. Enlarged. 1803. 
 
 CuNNixGHAM, J. T. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 Dall, William Healy. Alaska and Its Resources. An 
 accurate and important work. This volume and Bancroft's 
 Alaska are the standard historical works on Alaska. 
 
 Davidson, George. The Alaska Boundary. 1903. Also, 
 Glaciers of Alaska. 1904. jVlr. Davidson's work for Alaska 
 covers many years and is of great value. 
 
 Dixon, George. Voyage Around the World. 1789. 
 
 Dorset, John. Alaska- Yukon Magazine. October, 1907. 
 
 Dunn, Robert. Outing. February, 1908. 
 
 Elliott, Henry W. Our Arctic Province. 1886. This 
 book covers the greater part of Alaska in an entertaining 
 style and contains a comprehensive study of the Seal Islands. 
 
 Georgeson, C. C. Report of Alaska Agricultural Experi- 
 mental Work. 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906. 
 
 Harriman. Alaska Expedition. 1904. 
 
 Harrison, E. S. !N"ome and Seward Peninsula. 
 
 Holmes, W. H. Report of the Bureau of American Eth- 
 nology. 1907. 
 
 Irving, Washington. Astoria. 
 
 Jewitt, John. Adventures. Edited by Robert Brown. 
 1896. John Jewitt was captured and held as a slave by the 
 Nootka Indians from 1803 until 1805. 
 
 Jones, R. D. Alaska- Yukon Magazine. October, 1907. 
 
 Kinzie, R. a. Treadwell Group of Mines. 1903. 
 
 KosTROMETiNOFF, George. Letters and Papers. 
 
 La Perouse, Jean Francois. Voyage Around the World. 
 1798. 
 
 Mackenzie, Alexander. Voyages to the Arctic in 1789 
 and 1793. Two volumes. 
 
 McLain, J. S. Alaska and the Klondike. 1905. 
 
 Mason, Otis T. Aboriginal American Basketry. An ex- 
 quisite and poetic work. 
 
 Moser, Commander. Alaska Salmon Investigations. 
 
 Muir, John. The Alaska Trip. Century Magazine. August, 
 1897.
 
 APPENDIX 531 
 
 MtJLLER, Gerhard T. Voyages from Asia to America. 
 1761 and 1764. 
 
 NoRD, Captaix J. G. Letters and papers. 
 
 PoRTLOCK, Nathaniel. Voyage Around the World. 1789. 
 
 Proceedings of the Alaska Boundary Tribunal. Seven 
 volumes. 1904. 
 
 ScHWATKA, Frederick. Along Alaska's Great River. 1886. 
 Lieutenant Schwatka voyaged down the Yukon on rafts in 
 1883 and wrote an interesting book. His namings were un- 
 fortunate, but his voyage was of value, and many of his sur- 
 mises have proven to be almost startlingly correct. 
 
 Scidmore, Eliza Ruhamah. Guide-book to Alaska. 1893. 
 Miss Scidmore's style is superior to that of any other writer on 
 Alaska. 
 
 Seattle Mail and Herald. March 7, 1903. 
 
 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 1906, 1907, 1908. 
 
 Seattle Times. 1908. 
 
 Seward, Frederick W. Inside History of Alaska Pur- 
 chase. Seward Gateway. March 17, 1906. 
 
 Shaw, W. T. Alaska- Yukon Magazine. October, 1907. 
 
 Simpson, Sir George. Journey Around the World. 1847. 
 
 Sumner, Charles. Oration on the Cession of Russian 
 America to the United States. 1867, 
 
 TuTTLE, C. R. The Golden North. 1897. 
 
 Vancouver, George. Voyage of Discovery to the North 
 Pacific Ocean. Three volumes. 1798.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abercrombie, Captain, 266, 287, 288. 
 Admiralty Island, 107, 108. 
 Afognak, 343-345. 
 Agricultural Experimental Work, 
 
 213-215. 
 Alaska Central Railway, 298, 299. 
 Alaskan Range, 224. 
 Alert Bay, 16. 
 Aleutian Islands, 392, 393. 
 Aleutian Range, 224. 
 Aleuts, The, 395-401. 
 Anderson Island, 424. 
 Annette Island, 59-64. 
 Anvik, 505. 
 Aphoon, The, 509. 
 Apollo Mine, 368. 
 
 Aristocracy of Alaska, The, 140, 141. 
 Atlin, 441. 
 Average Tourist, The, 11. 
 
 B 
 
 Baird Glacier, 106. 
 
 Baranoff, Alexander, 163-185. 
 
 Baranoff Island, 149. 
 
 Barren Islands, 300. 
 
 Basketry, 99-102. 
 
 Beaver Dam, 284, 285. 
 
 Behm Canal, 84. 
 
 Behring, Vitus, 153-161. 
 
 Belkoffski, 376-382. 
 
 Berner's Bay, 133. 
 
 Besborough Island, 425. 
 
 Bidarkas and Kayaks, 246. 
 
 Bishop of All Alaska, The, 210-212. 
 
 Boas, Franz, 16. 
 
 Bogosloff Volcanoes, 411-413. 
 
 Bonanza, The, 254, 255. 
 
 Boundaries, 37-49. 
 
 Brackett Road, The, 430, 431. 
 
 Brady Glacier, 135. 
 
 Brady, Governor, 217, 349-350. 
 Bristol Bay, 301, 420-423. 
 Brooks, Alfred H., 497. 
 Bruner Railway Company, 240. 
 Brynteson, John, 524. 
 Burke Channel, 23. 
 
 Call of Alaska, The, 19, 20. 
 Campbell, Robert, 459. 
 Camp Comfort, 276-278. 
 Cape Darby, 425, 514. 
 Cape Denbigh, 425, 514. 
 Cape Douglas, 300. 
 Cape Elizabeth, 300. 
 Cape Fanshaw, 106. 
 Cape Newenham, 423. 
 Cape Prince of Wales, 424. 
 Cape St. Elias, 238. 
 Cape St. Hermogenes, 320. 
 Cape Suckling, 23S. 
 Caribou Crossing, 441, 442. 
 Carmack, George, 473. 
 Chatham Strait, 134. 
 Chena River, 499. 
 Chief Kohklux, 141. 
 Chief Shakes, 90. 
 Chief Skowl, 68. 
 Chignik, 366. 
 
 Chilkaht Blanket, 136, 140. 
 Chilkaht Inlet, 134. 
 Chilkaht River, 139. 
 Chilkoot Inlet, 136. 
 Chilkoot River, 140. 
 Chirikoff, Alexis, 153-161. 
 Chiswell Rocks, 300. 
 Chitina River, 244, 245. 
 Cholmondeley Sound, 68. 
 Chugach Alps, 224. 
 Chugach Gulf, 246, 251, 252. 
 Chugatz Islands, 300. 
 
 533
 
 534 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Claim Staking in the Klondike, 484. 
 
 Clarence Strait, 85. 
 
 Clerk's Island, 426. 
 
 Climate, 259-264. 
 
 Cluster of Hops, A, 129-131. 
 
 Coal, 307-310. 
 
 Coal Harbor, 310. 
 
 Cold Bay, 365. 
 
 Columbia Glacier, 257-259. 
 
 Commercial Companies of the North, 
 477-479. 
 
 Comptroller Bay, 238. 
 
 Convict Settlement, The, 230, 231. 
 
 Cook, James, 245-250, 423-426. 
 
 Cook Inlet, 299-307. 
 
 Copper Mines, 253-255, 453. 
 
 Copper River, 244, 245. 
 
 Copper River and Northwestern Rail- 
 way, 242-244. 
 
 Council, 523. 
 
 Croyere, Lewis de Lisle de, 154. 
 
 Cudahy, Fort, 488. 
 
 D 
 
 Dall, William H., 97. 
 
 Davidson Glacier, 134, 139. 
 
 Dawson, 464—485. 
 
 Dawson, George M., 462, 463. 
 
 De Fuca, Juan, 4, 5. 
 
 Dementief, Abraham Mikhailovich, 
 
 155. 
 Deshneff, Simeon, 527. 
 Devil's Thumb, 105. 
 Diomede Islands, 424, 528. 
 Discovery Passage, 14—16. 
 Disenchantment Bay, 232, 233. 
 Dixon Entrance, 65. 
 Dixon, George, 228. 
 Dcrra, The, 370-374. 
 Down in a Great Gold Mine, 123-128. 
 Dryad Trouble, The, 85, 86. 
 Duncan, William, 55-64. 
 Dundas, 100-102. 
 Dutch Harbor, 393, 406-408. 
 
 E 
 
 Eagle, 488-490. 
 
 Early Oil Companies, 240. 
 
 East Cape, 424. 
 
 Egbert, Fort, 488. 
 
 ICgegak, 420. 
 
 Ellamar, 253-256. 
 
 Emmons, G. T., 95, 385. 
 
 Eskimo, 384-387, 421-426, 502, 518. 
 
 Eskimo Dog, The, 486, 487. 
 
 Fairbanks, 498-500. 
 
 Fairweather Range, 223, 224. 
 
 Father Juvenal, 327-332. 
 
 Finlayson Channel, 27. 
 
 Fiords of British Columbia, 24. 
 
 First Russian Settlement, 326. 
 
 Fitzhugh Sound, 22, 23. 
 
 Five-Finger Rapids, 457. 
 
 Fording Glacial Streams, 286-287. 
 
 Forests of Alaska, 33-36. 
 
 Fort Rupert, 17. 
 
 Fort Wrangell, 85-92. 
 
 Forty-Mile, 486. 
 
 Eraser Reach, 27. 
 
 Eraser River, 9. 
 
 Frederick Sound, 105. 
 
 G 
 
 Galiana Island, 9, 17. 
 
 Game Laws, 312-317. 
 
 Gardner Canal, 30. 
 
 Gastineau Channel, 114. 
 
 Gay Life at Sitka, 175-185. 
 
 Georgia, Gulf of, 9. 
 
 Gibbon, Fort, 496. 
 
 Glacier Bay and its Glaciers, 219. 
 
 Glottoff, 321-326. 
 
 Golovin Bay, 522. 
 
 Gore's Island, 426. 
 
 Goryalya Volcano, 301. 
 
 Government of Alaska, 348-351. 
 
 Government of the Yukon, 472. 
 
 Graham Reach, 27. 
 
 Grand Canyon, 448-453. 
 
 Great Bonanza Copper Mine, 290- 
 
 294. 
 "Great Unlighted Way," The, 295- 
 
 297. 
 Greek-Russian Church at Sitka, 193, 
 
 194. 
 Grenville Channel, 27, 31-33.
 
 INDEX 
 
 535 
 
 H 
 
 Hagemeister, 180, 181. 
 Haidahs, 70. 
 Haines Mission, 142. 
 Hanna, James, 22. 
 Hawkins Island, 248. 
 Heikish Narrows, 27. 
 Henderson, Governor, 471. 
 Heney, M. J., 242, 427, 428. 
 Hinchingbroke Island, 248. 
 Hoggatt, Governor, 501, 505, 515. 
 Holy Cross Mission, 505, 507. 
 Homer, 311, 312. 
 Hootalinqua River, 89, 434. 
 Howkan, 68. 
 Hubbard Glacier, 232. 
 Hunt, Wilson P., 176-178. 
 "Husky," The, 486, 487. 
 
 Icy Cape, 424. 
 
 Icy Straits, 219. 
 
 Iliamna Lake, 301. 
 
 Iliamna Volcano, 300. 
 
 Indian River, 200, 201. 
 
 Indians of Alaska, 69-84. 
 
 In Keystone Canyon, 278-279. 
 
 Inlets of British Columbia, 12, 13. 
 
 Innuit, The, 385-387, 421-426. 
 
 Japonski Island, 152. 
 Johnstone Strait, 17. 
 Juneau, 114-120. 
 
 K 
 
 Kachemak Bay, 307. 
 
 Kadiak Island, 318-342. 
 
 Kaknu River, 300. 
 
 Kamelinka, or Kamelayka, 246, 247. 
 
 Karluk, 346-363. 
 
 Karluk Hatcheries, 358—363. 
 
 Kasa-an, 68. 
 
 Kassitoff, 300. 
 
 Katalla, 240-245. 
 
 Kayak, 238, 239. 
 
 Kaye Island, 238. 
 
 Kenai Range, 224. 
 
 Kennicott Glacier, 290-292. 
 
 Ketchikan, 50-55. 
 Klondike, 458-484. 
 Knight's Island, 248. 
 Knik River, 300. 
 Kodiak, 334-338. 
 Koloshians, 70, 167, 217. 
 Koyukuk, 503. 
 Krusenstern, 172-174. 
 Kuskokwim River, 420, 423. 
 Kvichak River, 420. 
 Kwakiutl Indians, 16. 
 Kwikhpak, The, 509. 
 
 Labret, The, 25-26, 228, 229. 
 
 Lake Bennett, 434-441. 
 
 Lake Clark, 301. 
 
 Lake Lebarge, 456, 457. 
 
 Lake Lindeman, 440. 
 
 Lama Pass, 23. 
 
 La P6rouse, Jean Frangois, 225-229. 
 
 Last Indian Trouble at Sitka, 208— 
 
 209. 
 La Touche Island, 254. 
 Lewes River, 434. 
 Lindblom, Erik, 524. 
 Lindeberg, Jafet, 524. 
 Lisiansky, 172-174. 
 Lisiere, or "Thirty-Mile Strip," 45- 
 
 49. 
 "Little Redbirds," The, 76-78. 
 Lituya Bay, 225-229. 
 Loring, 66. 
 "Lottie," 512-513. 
 Lowering of the Russian Flag, 206- 
 
 208. 
 Lower Yukon, 501. 
 Lynn Canal, 132-134. 
 
 M 
 
 McKay Reach, 27. 
 Makushin Volcano, 395. 
 Malamutes, 486-487. 
 Malaspina Glacier, 235. 
 Marmot Island and Bay, 319. 
 Marsh Lake, 443. 
 Mason, Otis T., 95. 
 Matanuska River, 300. 
 Meares, John, 4, 5, 251. 
 Mendenhall Glacier, 132.
 
 536 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Metlakahtla, 55-64. 
 
 Miles Glacier, 244. 
 
 Millbank Sound, 26. 
 
 Modus Vivendi, The, 48-49. 
 
 Moira Sound, 68. 
 
 Montagu Island, 248. 
 
 Mount Crillon, 225. 
 
 Mount Drum, 285. 
 
 Mount Edgecumbe, 149, 220. 
 
 Mounted Police, 472, 473. 
 
 Mount Fairweather, 225. 
 
 Mount La P^rouse, 225. 
 
 Mount Lituva, 225. 
 
 Mount McKinley, 224, 297. 
 
 Mount Regal, 290. 
 
 Mount Wrangell, 290. 
 
 Mr. Whidbey is "humane," 137-138. 
 
 Muir Glacier, 219. 
 
 Miiller, Gerhard T., 154. 
 
 N 
 
 Naha Bay, 66. 
 
 Naknek River, 420. 
 
 Needs of the Natives, 382-389. 
 
 Niblack Anchorage, 68. 
 
 Nizina District, 288. 
 
 Nome, 514-528. 
 
 Norton Sound, 424, 425. 
 
 Nulato, 504. 
 
 "Number Eight, Cooper Gulch," 
 
 520-522. 
 Nushagak Bay, 420, 421. 
 Nutchek, or Port Etches, 247, 
 
 O 
 
 Ogilvie, William, 462, 463. 
 
 Oomiak, 246. 
 
 Orca, 247. 
 
 Over "the Trail," 271-294. 
 
 Pedro, Felix, 497. 
 Peril Strait, 150. 
 Pinnacle Island, 426. 
 Popoff, 367, 527. 
 "Potlatch," The, 81-82. 
 Pribyloff Islands, 414-420. 
 Prince of Wales Island, 68. 
 Prince William Sound, 245-252. 
 
 "Promyshleniki," 162-164. 
 Purchase of Alaska, 185-188. 
 Pyramid Harbor, 139. 
 
 Q 
 Queen Charlotte Sound, 18. 
 
 R 
 
 Railway Wars, 243, 244. 
 Ramparts, Lower, 494-496. 
 Ramparts, Upper, 457. 
 Reindeer, 504-505. 
 Revilla-Gigedo Island, 65. 
 Ridley, Bishop, 58-59. 
 Rink Rapids, 457. 
 Rowe, Bishop, 210-212. 
 Russian-American Company, 165- 
 
 185. 
 Russian Discoveries, 153-161. 
 Russians on Cook Inlet, 304-307. 
 
 Safety Cove, or "Oatsoalis," 22. 
 
 Sailing for Alaska, 3. 
 
 St. Augustine Volcano, 300. 
 
 St. Elias Alps, 224. 
 
 St. Lawrence Island, 154, 514. 
 
 St. Michael's, 426, 458, 509-514. 
 
 Salmon Industrv, The, 420-423. 
 
 Sand Point, 374-375. 
 
 San Juan Island, 6. 
 
 "Sarah, The Remembered," 27-29. 
 
 Schafer, Professor, 41. 
 
 Seaforth Channel, 23. 
 
 Sealing Industry, 414-419. 
 
 Sea-otter, 377-380. 
 
 Seldovia, 302, 303. 
 
 Selkirk, Fort, 459. 
 
 Semidi Islands, 341. 
 
 Seward, 297-299. 
 
 Seward Peninsula, 515-.528. 
 
 Seward, William H., 186-188. 
 
 Sevmour Narrows, 15. 
 
 Shelikoff, Grigor Ivanovich, 163-165. 
 
 Shishaldin Volcano, 2, 31, 390-392. 
 
 Simpson, Sir George, 56, 86, 195-197. 
 
 Sitka, 167-217. 
 
 Skaguay, 143-148. 
 
 "Skookum Jim," 473. 
 
 I
 
 INDEX 
 
 537 
 
 Skowl Arm, 68. 
 
 Sledge Island, 424. 
 
 Sluicing, 521-522. 
 
 Snettishani Inlet, 109. 
 
 "Soapy" Smith, 145-146. 
 
 Solomon, 522. 
 
 Spanberg, Martin Petrovich, 153-161. 
 
 Steller, Georg Wilhelm, 154. 
 
 Stephens' Passage, 107. 
 
 Stikine River, 85. 
 
 "Strait of Anian," The, 4. 
 
 Strait of Juan de Fuca, 4. 
 
 Stuart Island, 426. 
 
 Sumdum Glacier, 107. 
 
 Sumner, Charles, 187, 188. 
 
 Sumner Strait, 103-105. 
 
 Sweetheart Falls, 109. 
 
 "Tagish Charlie," 473. 
 Tagish Lake, 442. 
 Taku Glacier, 109. 
 Tanana, 496. 
 Thirtv-Mile River, 457. 
 Thlinkits, The, 70-84. 
 Three Saints Bay, 326, 333. 
 Thunder Bay Glacier, 106. 
 Tin, 523. 
 Topkuk, 522. 
 Totemism, 69-81. 
 "To Westward," 3, 220-224. 
 "Trail of Heartbreak," 431. 
 Trails and Roads, 284, 285. 
 Treadwell, 121-128. 
 Twelve-Mile Arm, 68. 
 
 U 
 
 Ugashik River, 420. 
 Ukase of 1821, The, 37. 
 Unalaska, 393-410. 
 Unga, 367. 
 Uphoon, The, 509. 
 Uyak, 364, 365. 
 
 Valdez, 265-270. 
 
 Vancouver, George, 21, 25, 135, 
 305. 
 
 Vancouver Island, 9-17. 
 
 Veniaminoff, 189, 195, 398-401. 
 
 Voskressenski, or "Sunday," Har- 
 bor, 164. 
 
 W 
 
 Walrus Herds, 424. 
 
 Western Union Telegraph Company, 
 
 460. 
 Whidbey, Lieutenant, 30, 135-138, 
 
 305. 
 White Horse, 444-454. 
 White Horse Rapids, 451. 
 White Pass and Yukon Railway, 427— 
 
 443. 
 White Sulphur Springs, 212-213. 
 Wingham Island, 238. 
 Wood Canyon, 245. 
 Wood Island, 338-341. 
 Wood River, 420, 423. 
 Wrangell Narrows, 103-104. 
 Wright Sound, 30. 
 
 Yakataga, 237. 
 
 Yakutat Bay, 229-236. 
 
 Yakutats, The, 83. 
 
 Yanovskv, 180-181. 
 
 Yehl, 77-78. 
 
 Yukon Flats, 492-494, 508. 
 
 Yukon, Fort, 491. 
 
 Yukon River, 459, 485, 492, 508-509. 
 
 Yukon Soda, 446, 447. 
 
 Zarembo Island, 103. 
 Zarembo, Lieutenant, 85-86.
 
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 describes in direct, sincere English; of what she feels she can give an 
 equally lucid report." — The Tributie, Neiv York. 
 
 POEMS Each, cloth, $i-2j net; by mail, $1.35 
 
 When the Birds go North Again 
 
 "The poetry of the volume is good, and its rare setting, amid the 
 scenes and under the light of a sunset land, will constitute an attractive 
 charm to many readers." — The Boston Transcript. 
 
 The Voice of April-Land and Other Poems 
 
 The Chicago Tribune says that Mrs. Higginson in her verse as in her 
 prose " has voiced the elusive bewitchment of the West." 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New Tork
 
 In the Heart of the 
 Canadian Rockies 
 
 By JAMES OUTRAM 
 
 With maps and forty-six illustrations, 
 reproduced from photographs. Cloth, 
 imperial 8vo, gilt top, $2.jo net 
 
 "There is an unexpected freshness in the whole treatment, a vigor of 
 movement in the narrative, and a brilliancy of touch in the drawing 
 that are altogether exceptional. No one, we think, will be able to read 
 this work without forming a strong desire to visit the Canadian Rockies, 
 and the admirable photographs which have been used in th illustra- 
 tions will strengthen that desire." — Church Standard. 
 
 "An invaluable guide in laying out a trip in a section of Canada which 
 is bound to be overrun with tourists one of these days. The traveller 
 may then take the book along with him, and if he does not want to 
 find the way up Assiniboine, he can sit on the piazza of the Banff 
 Hotel and read about it; if he has not the energy to climb Lefroy or 
 tramp to the Valley of Ten Peaks, he can read about that also as he 
 contemplates from the Lake Louise chalet one of the most beautiful 
 views on earth; if the long Yoho Valley trip is too much for him, he 
 can enjoy Mr. Outram's description the while he looks out on Emerald 
 Lake from another chalet, and similarly he may learn about the sources 
 of the Saskatchewan, the Ottertail group, and Mt. Stephen without 
 stirring from the hostelry at Field. Mr. Outram goes thoroughly into 
 the history of the exploration of the Canadian Rockies, incidentally 
 telling all about the death of young Abbot — the one tragedy of this 
 new haunt of the mountain-climber." — Town and Country. 
 
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 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York
 
 Mr. LUCAS'S BOOKS OF TRAVEL 
 A Wanderer in Holland 
 
 " Mr. Lucas assures us that Holland is one of the most delightful coun- 
 tries to move about in, everything that happens in it being of interest. 
 He fully proves his statement, and we close his book with the convic- 
 tion that we shall never find there a more agreeable guide than he. 
 For he is a man of taste and culture, who has apparently preserved all 
 the zest of youth for things beautiful, touching, quaint, or humorous, — 
 especially humorous, — and his own unaffected enjoyment gives to his 
 pages a most endearing freshness and sparkle. ... In short, the book 
 is a charming one." — New York Tribune. 
 
 With 20 illustrations in color by Herbert Marshall and 34 
 illustrations after "Dutch Old Masters." Cloth, $2.00 net 
 
 A Wanderer in London 
 
 " We have met with few books of the sort so readable throughout. It is 
 a book that may be opened at any place and read with pleasure by 
 readers who have seen London, and those who have not will want to see 
 it after reading the book of one who knows it so well." — JVew York 
 Evening Sun. 
 
 16 plates in colors and other illustrations. Cloth, $1.75 net 
 
 NEW BOOKS OF "OLD WORLD TRAVEL" 
 Along the Rivieras of France and Italy 
 
 Written and illustrated in color and line by Gordon Home. 
 
 Venetia and Northern Italy 
 
 By Cecil Headlam. Illustrated in color and line by Gordon Home. 
 
 The first volumes of a new series which aims to do for districts what the 
 " Mediaeval Towns Series" has done for cities. No books of description 
 could be more welcome to the travel lover, either as a reminder of the 
 past or as preparation for the future. The text is worthy of the superb 
 illustrations. 
 
 Each has 25 plates in color, reproduced from 
 
 paintings by Gordon Home. Each is attrac- 
 tively bound in cloth, square 8vo, at $2.^0 net 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York
 
 BOOKS FOR THE TRAVEL LOVER 
 
 By Mrs. Alice Morse Earle 
 Stage Coach and Tavern Days 
 
 With over one hundred and fifty illustrations. 
 
 By Dr. Edward Everett Hale 
 
 Tarry at Home Travels 
 
 With over two hundred fine illustrations from interesting prints, photo- 
 graphs, etc., of his own collection. 
 
 By M. A. DeWolfe Howe 
 Boston : The Place and the People 
 
 With over one hundred illustrations, including many from pen drawings 
 
 executed especially for this volume. 
 
 By Agnes Repplier 
 
 Philadelphia: The Place and the People 
 
 With eighty-two illustrations from drawings by Ernest C. Peixotto. 
 
 By Grace King 
 
 New Orleans: The Place and the People 
 
 With eighty-three illustrations from drawings by Frances E. Jones. 
 
 By Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel 
 Charleston: The Place and the People 
 
 Illustrated from photographs and drawings by Vernon Howe Bailey. 
 
 By Katherine Lee Bates 
 Spanish Highways and Byways 
 
 With forty illustrations from original photographs. 
 
 By Clifton Johnson 
 Among English Hedgerows 
 The Isle of the Shamrock 
 The Land of Heather 
 
 Each is illustrated by reproductions from seventy-five original photo- 
 graphs by the author. 
 
 Along French Byways 
 
 With forty-eight full-page plates and vignettes in the text from photo- 
 graphs. 
 
 Each in decorated cloth, rounded corners, $2.00 net 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Sixty-four and Sixty-six Fifth Avenue, New York
 
 I
 
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