Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago

by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore

The fishery and trading-post at Naha Bay was established in 1883, and shipped 338 barrels of salted salmon that first season. In 1884 over 500 barrels were shipped, and throughout June and July the salmon were leaping in the bay so thickly that at the turn of the tide their splashing was like falling rain.

CHAPTER IV.
KASA-AN BAY.

Kasa-an, or Karta Bay opens from Clarence Strait directly west of Naha Bay, and the long inlet runs in from the eastern shore of the Prince of Wales island for twenty miles. There are villages of Kasa-an Indians in the smaller inlets and coves opening from the bay, and carved totem poles stand guard over the large square houses of these native settlements. The bay itself is as lovely a stretch of water as can be imagined, sheltered, sunny, and calm, with noble mountains outlining its curves, and wooded islands drifted in picturesque groups at the end. It was a Scotch loch glorified, on the radiant summer days that I spent there, and it recalled one’s best memories of Lake George in the softer aspects of its shores.

Smaller inlets opening from the bay afford glimpses into shady recesses in the mountain-sides, and one little gap in the shores at last gave us a sight of the trader’s store, the long row of lichen-covered and moss-grown sheds of the fishery, with the usual cluster of bark houses and tents above a shelving beach strewn with narrow, black canoes. A group of Indians gathered on shore, their gay blankets, dresses, and cotton kerchiefs adding a fine touch of color to the scene, and the men in the fishery, in their high rubber boots and aprons, flannel shirts and big hats, were heroic adjuncts to the picturesque and out-of-the-way scene.

There was a skurrying to and fro and great excitement when the big steamer rounded slowly up to the little wharf, and bow line, stern line, and breast lines were thrown out, fastened to the piles and to the trees on shore, and the slack hauled in at the stentorian commands of the mate. Karta, or Kasa-an Bay has been a famous place for salmon for a score of years, and is best known, locally, as the Baronovich fishery. Old Charles V. Baronovich was a relic of Russian days, and a character on the coast. He was a Slav, and gifted with all the cunning of that race, and after the transfer of the country to the United States, he disturbed the serenity of the customs officials by the steady smuggling that he kept up from over the British border. He would import all kinds of stores, but chiefly bales of English blankets, by canoe, and when the collector or special agent would penetrate to this fastness of his, they found no damaging proof in his store, and only a peppery, hot-headed old pirate, who swore at them roundly in a compound language of Russian, Indian, and English, and shook his crippled limbs with rage. He was also suspected of selling liquor to the Indians, and a revenue cutter once put into Kasa-an Bay, with a commander whom smugglers seldom baffled, and who was bound to uncover Baronovich’s wickedness. The wily old Slav received the officers courteously. He listened to the formal announcement of the purpose of their visit, and bade them search the place and kindly do him the honor of dining with him when they finished. Baronovich dozed and smoked, and idled the afternoon away, while a watch kept a close eye upon him, and the officers and men searched the packing-house, the Indian houses and tents, and the canoes on the beach. They followed every trail and broken pathway into the woods, tapped hollow trees, dug under the logs, and peered down into the waters of the bay, and finally gave up the search, convinced that there was no liquor near the place. Baronovich gave them a good dinner, and towards the close a bottle of whiskey was set before each officer, and the host led with a toast to the captain of the cutter and the revenue marine.

This queer old fellow married one of the daughters of Skowl, the Haida chief who ruled the bay. She is said to have been a very comely maiden when Baronovich married her, and is now a stately, fine-looking woman, with good features and a creamy complexion. While Baronovich was cleaning his gun one day, it was accidentally discharged, and one of his children fell dead by his own hand. The Indians viewed this deed with horror, and demanded that Skowl should take his life in punishment. As it was proved an accident, Skowl defended his son-in-law from the charge of murder, and declared that he should go free. Ever after that the Indians viewed Baronovich with a certain fear, and ascribed to him that quality which the Italians call the “evil eye.”

With the passion of his race for fine weapons and fine metal work, Baronovich possessed many old arms that are worthy of an art museum. A pair of duelling pistols covered with fine engraving and inlaying were bought of his widow by one of the naval officers in command of the man-of-war on this station, and an ancient double-barrelled flint-lock shot-gun lately passed into the hands of another officer. The shot-gun has the stock and barrels richly damascened with silver and gold, after the manner of the finest Spanish metal work, and the clear gray flints in the trigger give out a shower of sparks when struck. Gunnell of London was the maker of this fine fowling-piece, and it is now used in the field by its new owner, who prefers it to the latest Remington.

Baronovich was a man with a long and highly-colored history by all the signs, but he died a few years since with no biographer at hand, and his exploits, adventures, and oddities are now nearly forgotten. The widow Baronovich still lives at Kasa-an, unwilling to leave this peaceful sunny nook in the mountains, but the fishery is now leased to a ship captain, who has taken away the fine old flavor of piracy and smuggling, and substituted a régime of system, enterprise, and eternal cleanliness.

The wandering salmon that swarm on this coast by millions show clear instincts when they choose, without an exception, only the most picturesque and attractive nooks to jump in. They dart and leap up Kasa-an Bay to the mouths of all the little creeks at its head, and three times during the year the water is alive with them. The best salmon run in June and July, and in one day the seine brought in eighteen hundred salmon in a single haul. Two thousand and twenty-one hundred fish have weighted the net at different[different] hauls, and the fish-house was overrunning with these royal salmon. Indian women do the most of the work in the fishery—cleaning and splitting the fish and taking out the backbones and the worthless parts with some very deft strokes from their murderous-looking knives. The salmon are washed thoroughly and spread between layers of dry salt in large vats. Brine is poured over them, and they are left for eight days in pickle. Boards and weights are laid on the top of the vats, and they are then barrelled and stored in a long covered shed and treated to more strong brine through the bung-hole until ready for shipment. Of all salt fish the salt salmon is the finest, and here, where salmon are so plentiful, a barrelled dainty is put up in the shape of salmon bellies, which saves only the fattest and most tender portions of these rich, bright red Kasa-an salmon.

Over fifteen hundred barrels were packed in 1884, and under the new régime the Kasa-an fishery has distanced its rivals in quantity, while the quality has a long-established fame.