Dead sites are known to exist from west to east, at Cape Wooley; at the mouth of the Sonora or Quartz Creek; at the mouth of the Penny River—some natives are said to still go to fish there in summer; at the mouth of a small river 3 miles east of Nome; both west (a larger village) and east (a small site) of Cape Nome; and 18 miles east of Nome (the "Nook" village).
Most of these sites have been peopled within the memory of the oldest inhabitants.
Thanks to the kind aid of the Reverend Doctor Baldwin, I was able to visit several of the sites east of Nome, more particularly the Nook village, and it was still possible to find two skeletons and a skull on these sites.
The Nook site must have been one of considerable importance. It was an especially large village, or rather two near-by villages, in one of which I counted upward of 30 depressions, remnants of the semisubterranean houses with vestibules, such as are elsewhere described from the Yukon.
Here a clear illustration was had of what changes on sites of this nature may be wrought in a short time by the elements.
Fifteen years ago, I was assured, there were still many burials and skeletal remains scattered along the coast near the Nook village. Then in 1913 came a great southwestern storm, which at Nome ripped up the cemetery and carried away some coffins with bodies, scattering them over the plains in the vicinity. Since that storm not a vestige remains of any of the burials or bones near the large Nook village. On prolonged examination I found nothing but sands overgrown with the usual coast vegetation. Everything had been carried away or buried and the pits of the houses were evidently themselves largely filled in.
The burials on this coast west of Golovnin Bay were evidently all of a simpler nature than those on Norton Sound and the Yukon. There is plenty of driftwood, but for some reason this was not hewn into boards with which to make burial boxes. The dead were merely laid upon and covered with the driftwood, though this was done, as later seen on Golovnin Bay, rather ingeniously. One of the two skeletons found near Cape Nome, an adult male, lay simply among the rocks on the lower part of the slope of the hill.
Old sites, though often small, may be confidently looked for along all these coasts in the shelter of every promontory, at the mouth of each stream, and on the spits which separate the ocean from inland lagoons (as in the case of the Nook village).
Nome—Bering Strait—Barrow
Friday, July 23. Received word to be on the Bear, which arrived yesterday, before 10 o'clock this morning. Due to the shallowness of the water the boat, though drawing only 18 feet, stands far out from the shore and makes a pretty sight, looks also quite large in these waters where there is nothing above a few hundred tons.