THE LAND OF FURS.
In 1867, the United States government, for a payment to Russia of about a million and a half pounds sterling, received in exchange the strange isolated country in the far north known as Alaska, separated by one thousand miles of British colonial territory from the republican frontier. For some years there were constant conflicts with the Indians, and altogether the early history of the American occupation of Alaska is not a bright one. The San Franciscan speculators who had been attracted by hopes of gold and of untold wealth in forests and fisheries were wofully disappointed, and the majority of them gradually cleared out again.
A mere glance at the map hardly gives one an idea of the enormous superficial extent of this outlying possession of our American cousins. According to the special Report of the United States Census Commissioners—to which we are mainly indebted for the facts given in this article—the total area of Alaska is five hundred and thirty-one thousand four hundred and nine square miles, or about one-sixth of the entire area of the United States. But one hundred and twenty-five thousand two hundred and forty-five square miles are wholly within the arctic circle, an area which has rarely been traversed by the white man, and upon the coast-borders of which are a few Eskimo villages. The natives of these, it is sad to learn, are becoming rapidly deteriorated by commerce with the crews of the whalers which resort in summer to the neighbourhood, and seek only to barter what natural produce, in the shape of furs, or oil, or ivory, they can collect for the means of intoxication. The immense area of the northern division of Alaska is left to the bear, the fox, the reindeer, and other polar animals, and to somewhere about three thousand degraded Eskimos.
The largest geographical division of Alaska is that which the United States officials have named the Yukon section. It is so called because it comprises the valley of the river Yukon, said to be the largest river in America, if not in the world, and which discharges into Behring’s Sea a volume of water estimated at about one-third more than that of the Mississippi. The Yukon division contains one hundred and seventy-six thousand seven hundred and fifteen square miles, and is peopled by four thousand two hundred and seventy-six Eskimos, two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven Athabaskan Indians, eighteen whites, and nineteen creoles—total, six thousand eight hundred and seventy. The occupation of the natives is entirely in hunting fur-skinned animals, which they barter with the whites for sugar, flour, tea, cloth, hardware, &c. The money value of the skins bartered is said to be about fifteen thousand pounds annually. Foxes are the chief wealth-yielders of this district, and they are found of all shades, from silver-gray and black to red and snow-white. Next to these in importance are the skins of the martens (or sables) and land-otters; and then, but in a much smaller degree, those of the black and brown bears. The moose-skins and deerskins are all retained by the natives for their own purposes, for clothing, bedding, &c.
The principal trading-post is called Saint Michael, and here are kept stocks of coal for the use of the whaling-steamers which force their way into the arctic seas every year.
The third largest geographical division is called the Kuskokvim division, from the river which intersects it. The Kuskokvim division lies to the south of the Yukon division, is bounded on the east by a range of mountains, on the west by Behring’s Sea, and it comprises the valleys of three large rivers and an intervening system of lakes. There is a trading-station called Kalmakovsky, from which are brought down from the unknown interior, by the natives, skins of beaver, marten, and fox, which all appear to be very plentiful. This trade is carried on by a race which appears to be a mixture of the Eskimos and Indians; but below Kalmakovsky, down to the sea, and along the coast, the Eskimos alone appear. These Eskimos support themselves mainly by seal and salmon fishing. The salmon are caught in traps, and are dried upon poles, which line both banks of the lower river from June to August. The estuary is very wide, and the tide rushes in with tremendous force, the rise and fall being very great, sometimes over fifty feet when the wind is from the south-west.
The houses of the natives are much the same in all the divisions of Alaska. These dwellings are thus described: ‘A circular mound of earth, grass-grown and littered with all sorts of household utensils, a small spiral coil of smoke rising from the apex, dogs crouching, children climbing up or rolling down, stray morsels of food left from one meal to the other, and a soft mixture of mud and offal surrounding it all. The entrance to this house is a low irregular square aperture, through which the inmate stoops, and passes down a foot or two through a short low passage on to the earthen floor within. The interior generally consists of an irregularly shaped square or circle, twelve or fifteen feet in diameter, receiving its only light from without, through the small smoke-opening at the apex of the roof, which rises, tent-like, from the floor. The fireplace is directly under this opening. Rude beds or couches of skin and grass mats are laid, slightly raised above the floor, upon clumsy frames made of sticks and saplings or rough-hewn planks, and sometimes on little elevations built up of peat or sod. Sometimes a small hall-way with bulging sides is erected over the entrance, where, by this expansion, room is afforded for the keeping of utensils and water-vessels and as a shelter for dogs. Immediately adjoining most of these houses will be found a small summer kitchen, a rude wooden frame, walled in and covered over with sods, with an opening at the top to give vent to the smoke. These are entirely above ground, rarely over five or six feet in diameter, and are littered with filth and offal of all kinds; serving also as a refuge for the dogs from the inclement weather. In the interior regions, where both fuel and building material are more abundant, the houses change somewhat in appearance and construction; the excavation of the coast-houses, made for the purpose of saving both, disappears, and gives way to log-structures above the ground, but still covered with sods. Living within convenient distance of timber, the people (inland) do not depend so much upon the natural warmth of mother-earth.’
All the islands in Alaskan waters are mountainous, some of the elevations rising from four thousand to eight thousand feet; but the entire division is devoid of trees. The soil is a mixture of loam, clay, and volcanic detritus; and grasses of all kinds grow in great abundance. Coal has been discovered in the island of Ounga; but this is the only mineral riches yet disclosed, although ‘prospecting’ has been carried on for years. The coal is of very poor quality. The climate of this division is more temperate than that of the other districts, and at one time it was thought that the rich grasses might allow of cattle-breeding on a considerable scale. The long winters, however, have shown this to be impracticable; and it has been found that hay, even, can be imported from San Francisco cheaper than it can be grown and cured on the spot. The only part where cattle are kept by the priests and white traders is at Oonalashka, and the fact is interesting as indicating the danger of trusting to poetic descriptions of places. Thomas Campbell, it may be remembered, speaks of ‘the pilot’ guiding his bark where
Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow;
And waft across the wave’s tumultuous roar,
The wolf’s long howl from Oonalashka’s shore.
As a matter of fact, the country here is neither ‘wastes,’ nor does it ‘slumber in eternal snow.’ The summer is warm; the vegetation, as we have said, is rich; and it may be doubted if the ‘wolf’s long howl’ has ever been heard by the oldest inhabitant. At anyrate, we can find no mention of wolves there now, although foxes are abundant enough. The Aleutian islands are well peopled; and the people are semi-civilised, the Russians having had relations with them and settlements and missions among them for more than a century. There are now schools at which both English and Russian are taught, and ‘stores’ at which the natives can provide themselves with the clothing of civilisation. The Aleutian ladies, indeed, whose lords have grown rich with their seal-fishing, can even sport silks on great occasions, and at all times display a fondness for ribbons and ‘trade’ jewellery. Only the exceptionally rich, however, can afford bonnets or hats; and the Russian-peasant fashion of tying a handkerchief over the head is the prevailing one. The men are especially fond of the broad-crowned, red-banded caps of the Russian uniforms, which were the first examples of civilised clothing ever seen on their shores. While the men devote themselves to the fishing, the women make mats, baskets, cigar-cases, and other articles of grass-cloth; and they turn out some very delicate and beautiful work. The waters are rich in fish of all kinds; but the most important industry is the seal-fishing that is now conducted under leases from the United States government, which retains the monopoly.
The south coast of the eastern half of the Alaska peninsula, with the adjacent islands and a portion of the mainland, forms another geographical division called the Kadiak section. It comprises altogether some seventy thousand eight hundred and eighty-four square miles, and has a population of four thousand three hundred and fifty-two, of which thirty-four are whites, and nine hundred and seventeen creoles. This district is mountainous, well watered, abounds in fur-clad animals, and the men, when not hunters, are fishers. Several settlements and missions were founded by the Russians in various parts of this district; and at one time there was even a ship-building establishment in Resurrection Bay. The forests are dense, and some of the timber is of immense size, especially the spruce.
A narrow strip of coast running from Mount St Elias to the boundary-line of British Columbia, forms the last or south-eastern division of Alaska. It covers twenty-eight thousand nine hundred and eighty square miles, and it forms a wedge of some five hundred miles in length between Canada and the western sea. In character, this section of Alaska differs from all the rest, and is essentially similar to that of the British possessions. It is mountainous and densely wooded; the forests come quite down to the sea-line, and are very valuable; the coast is indented by countless bays and fiords, and is sheltered the greater portion of its length by a chain of islands, forming the Alexander Archipelago. The spruce and the yellow cedar are the most valuable of the forest-trees, and the timber of these is annually exported in considerable quantity. Coal exists on several of the islands, and at some places on the mainland, but has not been worked yet to any great extent. Both copper and gold are known to exist, and have been and are to some extent being mined. Other minerals are supposed to exist, and the Americans expect that this division of Alaska will in time become a great mining field. Already the mining industry has thrown the fur-trade into the second place, and yet the yield of fox, marten, otter, bear, and beaver skins is annually very considerable. The hunting is carried on by the natives, who are of the Thlinket Indian race; the rest of the population of seven thousand seven hundred and forty-eight being made up of two hundred and ninety-three whites and two hundred and thirty creoles. Salmon, halibut, and herring fishing are carried on along the coast; and there are two or three salting and canning establishments. There are also factories for the production of oil from the herring, the dog-fish, and the shark; and on the islands there is some seal-fishing.
The climate of this division is not very cold, the average mean temperature being forty-three degrees twenty-eight minutes; but the rainfall is heavy, ranging from eighty to one hundred inches per annum. The principal settlement of this district is Sitka. Here are the headquarters of the United States naval station for Alaska, and here also resides the collector of customs, who is the civil representative of the government of Washington in the territory. In the time of the Russians, there were several schools and churches at Sitka, but now there is only one church, and the teaching is left practically to the missionaries of the Presbyterian and Roman Catholic bodies.
The total population of the whole of the enormous country called Alaska is computed at only 33,426, and of this number, only four hundred and thirty are whites; creoles number 1756; Eskimos, 17,617; Aleuts, 2145; Athabaskans, 3927; Thlinkets, 6763; and Hydas, 788. Of the habits, customs, and beliefs of these curious peoples, we may tell something on another occasion.
To sum up, it may be said that the acquisition of Alaska by the Americans has been a good deal of a disappointment to them. They thought it would be an excellent district for extensive settlement for agricultural purposes, and the country, as we have seen, is quite unsuited almost everywhere for such purposes. Then they had glowing dreams of rich mineral deposits; but although gold and silver and coal have been found, and are being partially worked, the mining industry is a secondary feature in Alaskan wealth. The extent of the forests, however, has been found greater than was expected. On this point, the United States Commissioner thus enlarges: ‘The timber of Alaska ... clothes the steep hills and mountain sides, and chokes up the valleys of the Alexander Archipelago and the contiguous mainland: it stretches, less dense, but still abundant, along the inhospitable reach of territory which extends from the head of Cross Sound to the Kenai peninsula, where, reaching down to the westward and south-westward as far as the eastern half of Kadiak Island, and thence across Shelikhof Strait, it is found on the mainland and on the peninsula bordering on the same latitude; but it is confined to the interior opposite Kadiak, not coming down to the coast as far eastward as Cape Douglas. From the interior of the peninsula, the timber-line over the whole of the great area of Alaska will be found to follow the coast-line at varying distances of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from the seaboard, until the section of Alaska north of the Yukon mouth is reached, where a portion of the coast of Norton Sound is directly bordered by timber as far north as Cape Denbigh. From this point to the eastward and north-eastward, a line may be drawn just above the Yukon and its immediate tributaries as the northern limits of timber to any considerable extent. There are a number of small watercourses rising here, that find their way into the Arctic, bordered by hills and lowland ridges, on which some wind-stunted timber is found, even to the shores of the Arctic Sea.
But although the tree-clothed area is thus enormous, the market value of the timber is not so great as one might imagine. The most valuable is the yellow cedar; but this is not nearly so abundant as the spruce or fir, and even that is not of the very best quality.
More important than the timber is the produce of the waters, for it is said that in the seas which wash the shores of Alaska there are no fewer than seventy-five species of food-fishes. Many of these, however, are only considered as suitable for bait wherewith to catch the richer kinds. The chief of these is the cod, which abounds off the whole of the southern coasts, and the catching and curing of which promises to become an important industry. The quality is said to be quite equal to the cod of the North Atlantic. We have already spoken of the salmon, the herring, and halibut, all of which swarm in the waters in shoals of countless myriads; and there are also many valuable white-fishes, which at present are caught for native consumption only. Fish, indeed, is the chief diet in Alaska, and the consumption is enormous.
But the real wealth at present of Alaska rests in the abundance of its fur-skinned animals. It was for the fur-trade that the Russians occupied the country after it had been discovered by Behring, and it was mainly for the fur-trade that the Americans acquired it from Russia. The extent of the trade has proved greater even than was expected at the time of the transfer. The shipments of sea-otter and fur-seal skins alone have more than doubled since 1867, and now average annually about three hundred thousand pounds in value. Of land-furs, as they are called, the list is a long one, and in the order of wideness of distribution may be thus given: land-otter, beaver, brown bear, black bear, red fox, silver fox, blue and white fox, mink, marten, polar bear, lynx, and musk-rat. Rabbits, marmots, and wolverines are also common, but the skins are retained by the natives. The annual value of the furs, sea and land, now obtained from Alaska is estimated to average about half a million sterling, and there is no sign of decrease in the yield. On the contrary, the competition of the traders for skins has stimulated the natives to greater industry in hunting; while the prices now paid to the hunters are from four to ten times more than were current during the Russian rule.