Candle Fish.
Since Alaska lies so far north, the winter must be long and dark. No lamps are needed to light the huts, however, if the children and their parents have provided themselves with enough candle-fish. These fish are about ten inches long, but quite thin. Strange to say, they are full of oil, and after being carefully dried, they will burn like torches. One of them will give as much light as two or three candles. At certain times of the year, schools of candle-fish enter the mouths of the rivers which empty into the ocean. The Indian children watch for their coming, and as soon as they appear, they and their parents go down to the shore and rake them out of the water by the bushel.
The Indian mothers not only dry the candle-fish for lighting their winter homes, but they also boil great numbers of them, for in this way they get a supply of hardened oil that takes the place of butter. The older and the more rancid this oil is, the better they like it.
In the short Alaskan summer the fruits and flowers grow very fast. It seems as though they must make the best possible use of the sunshine. In the southern part of the country the children can pick the most beautiful bouquets of white clover, maiden-hair ferns, and bright-colored wild flowers. They go berrying to their hearts’ content, too. There are fields and fields filled with tall blueberry bushes; there are the juicy yellow salmon berries; there are cranberries, blackberries, red and white currants, and bilberries, but the best of all are the sweet, wild strawberries that almost melt in the mouth. Certainly the children of the greater part of Alaska can feast on good things in summer. Why, the berries are so plentiful that not only the boys and girls, but the birds of the country get fat with the rich living. Many of the wild geese, indeed, can hardly fly after the summer’s feast, and are then easily caught by the boys and their fathers.
Even in winter there are berries to add to the dinner of fish and oil, for during the summer the children gather many bushels for their mothers to dry and store away. Berries, fish and oil! Surely, think the people, a person should be content if he has plenty of these three dainties. There are deer and bears, mountain goats, wild ducks and geese. All these are good for a change, but they cannot compare with fish, either fresh or dried, with an abundance of hardened oil spread over them.
Along the coasts there are clams and oysters, mussels and crabs. The natives like these, too; they dry and string them on long blades of grass for the winter season. Thus they have more variety of food than the people of Greenland.