A Summer's Outing, and The Old Man's Story

by Carter H. Harrison

The salmon canneries of Alaska are not all in the neighborhood of the towns at which the excursion steamer calls, but are at or near every considerable stream which flows into the straits, channels and inlets. The instinct of the fish send them at regular seasons into fresh water, where and near which, they are caught in vast numbers. Other steamers, some of them carrying passengers and requiring a week longer to make the trip, call at stated times at several places, to which the Queen does not go, to take on and unload freight. The natives are the principal fishermen using, both nets and hooks from their trim canoes. These are dug out from a single log, some barely holding a man, others carrying with safety fifty or more. A log of two feet diameter will make a canoe nearly twice as large at its waist. When dug out to a thin shell almost as light as birch bark, the frame is filled with water, into which hot stones are thrown until the wooden walls are thoroughly steamed, hot and pliable. Sticks of different lengths, the longest at the canoe waist, are then set into the frame, which is spread out into a fine, cutter-shaped keel. A high prow and somewhat raised stern are cut out of the log or set into it. Some of the crafts present finely modeled keels. The shell of a canoe holding over sixty people, is often less than a half inch thick, and so light that two people can easily pull it high on dry land. The native squats in the bottom of his canoe and paddles it with great speed.

We saw a boat not twenty feet long, the whole filled to the top with light firewood. On this were perched two men, three women, a dog, a small tent, and the cooking utensils of the family. They were sailing from Juneau to another village several miles away. A native gets into his canoe as lightly and carefully as if he were treading on eggs. In this instance, the boat sank until its upper line was not four inches out of water. We expected to see it swamped, for there was a light wind and a few white caps. We watched it with our glasses until safely landed at a village several miles away. The natives, of villages quite distant from the towns at which the steamers call, bring their wives, dogs, and household utensils, together with what they may have to sell in the curio line to these places on the day the steamers are due. They pitch their tents on the shore not far from the steamboat pier, draw their canoes upon the strand above high water mark, and seem as much at home as if regularly domiciled. They remain as long as they see a chance for trade and then fold their tents and silently steal away. They require only a few minutes to get themselves and their worldly possessions aboard their little dugouts. At Juneau there were several of these temporary inhabitants. They all embarked after sundown, and with the long twilight were able to reach their permanent abodes before well-set dark.

The people catch fish at or near their respective villages. The canneries each have a small steambarge, which is sent to several villages daily to pick up the catch. In this way the salmon are landed at the packing-places when perfectly fresh. The Alaskan salmon is as a rule small, averaging only about six pounds, while "sock eye" of the Frazer River run evenly at eight pounds, and the Columbia River furnishes an average of nearly twenty pounds. Large fish, however, were brought to our steward, also magnificent halibut, which the passengers enjoyed greatly. One soon becomes satiated with salmon on the Pacific Coast. It is as thoroughly an every day food, as is the hog and hominy on a southern plantation. Except to the Indian, it does not seem to be as good for a steady diet as the southerner's homely fare. Several other varieties of salt water fish furnish a less surfeiting every day food than this famous beauty. We hailed with pleasure, the change to halibut given us by our steward when we reached Alaska. No where is this solid denizen of the sea, found in better kelter than up here.

A PICTURE OF SITKA.

Our ship on the excursion stops at Seattle and Port-Townsend, in Washington; Victoria and Nanaimo, on Vancouver's Island; and at Fort Wrangle, Juneau, and Sitka, in Alaska; at each long enough to afford passengers full time to satisfy themselves. Juneau is the largest place owing to the rich mines in the vicinity. All have large canneries near by, which employ natives, many of whom have acquired considerable property. A native woman, widow to a white trader, and her daughter were passengers from Juneau to Chilkat. She is a sort of Merchant, continuing the business of her defunct husband. She bore herself most decorously in her half mourning, and seemed quite able to steer her own bark through the remaining voyage of life. She is reputed to be worth several thousand dollars, and manages her affairs shrewdly. Her eligibility was suggested to the late friend of Persia's shah. His eyes rested more fondly upon her plump daughter, who displayed much agility and a trim ankle when she descended the gangway in a high sea out side of Chilkat.

Sitka has one of the prettiest sites and harbors in the world, and its climate just now is simply delicious. It is built on slightly rising ground on a bay running some miles from the sea, with beautiful little islands, clustered in large number in front of the town. These lift with rounded rocky foundations naked and water-washed at low tide, but are clothed in rich green shrubbery above high water mark. They would make an exquisite water park for a large city. Over one edge of this park lifts a few miles away, Mount Edgecumbe, a perfect volcanic cone about 3,000 feet high. Its lower two thirds are clothed in green. Its upper third, beneath its broad extinct crater, is of rich red rock. Long points of the red run down into the green, while points of the green run up into the red. It reminds one much of famous Fuji-yama in Japan. The god-mountain of Japan is over four times as high, but Edgecumbe is seen so close that the contrast does not entirely belittle it.

Around and behind Sitka are lofty foot hills clothed in forests, making a perfect amphitheater, while behind them rear pointed, rocky mountains more or less snow flecked. The town is on the great island of Baranoff, which is a mass of pinnacled mountains, the northern slopes of which are always white with sheets of snow. When we sailed, a few days before, northward through Prince Frederick Sound, these mountains formed a wonderfully beautiful background. Prince Frederick Sound is about twenty by thirty odd miles. All around it lie grand mountains of exceeding ruggedness on their highest peaks, but green below, with stripes, bands and patches of white. Through a break to the south the sound stretches some miles further, backed by the Baranoff range, rising in innumerable sharply pointed pinnacles, and about their shoulders as purely white as loftiest Alpine heights. All the mountains are comparatively uncovered when seen on their southern, western, and eastern exposures, while those seen from the north although not more lofty, are clothed in blankets of white, as if to protect them from the northern blasts.

The entire Alaskan trip presents a constant succession of gorgeous scenery, and if the weather be fine, it is worth the time taken and the cost in money to one who loves the picturesque and enjoys the rugged grandeur of nature, even if they were no grand glaciers. The time is not far distant, when commodious hotels will be maintained in these northern possessions as summer resorts. Many people will then spend weeks in them, and with the aid of small excursion barges will find health and delights.

An intelligent man who has resided for several years in Sitka, assured me he much preferred its winter climate to that of southern Ohio, where he had grown up to mature manhood. The average winter climate is rather milder than that of Washington, but with no extreme of cold. The frequent rainy days during the summer are a great draw back to the pleasure of excursion tourists. The chances are decidedly that he will find everything wet when he arrives. Our party was one of the lucky ones. The air was clear and balmy. The sun made a parasol agreeable to the ladies. I lolled for an hour on the stoop of a deserted house, with my head in shade, but my body and lower limbs warmed by a delicious sun bath, while my eyes feasted upon the glorious picture spread before me of mountain peak and green slopes, and gently rippling water as the tide slowly crept up the soft beach of the little bay behind the town.

Except when sailing across four entrances or broad straits running out to the open sea, the entire voyage to and from Alaska, usually is and always may be through straits, canals, and fiords so thoroughly protected from the ocean's angry waters that the smallest steamer can hardly feel a toss. On this excursion of ours, the briny depths below us were often as smooth as glass, reflecting the mountains, as from a mirror. As the swell from our steamer would roll off in smooth, rounded and diverging lines, they would weave fantastic forms, upon their mirror like surface, of green forest, rugged rocks, or snow caps. Towards the land beyond the effect of the swell, the mountains would often be so perfectly delineated upon the mirror, that a photograph of them would show them as distinctly below as above. The picture could be turned upside down with but little detriment to the view. Near the steamer the rounded crest of the swell would reflect long weird lines of forest, which would spread out behind us as the swell sank to a lower level.