Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago

by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore

There had not been a canoe in sight, nor a sign of life along the shores all that morning, but the ship’s officers had hardly settled the fact that they were hard aground before several canoes were seen in the wake, and the gangway was surrounded with bargaining Hooniahs, who held up furs, baskets, and trophies for us to buy. More and more of them came paddling down the narrow lane of emerald water, and family groups in red blankets were soon at home around blazing camp fires on the narrow ledges of the shore, and added greatly to the picturesqueness of the scene. Of all the little fiords we had been into, this one was the most beautiful, and even Naha Bay cannot surpass it. The narrow channel has steep, wooded hills on either side, and a rugged, snow-covered mountain stands sentry at the head of the fiord, and the clear, green water was so still that every tree and twig was clearly reflected; the ship rested double, and the breasts of the soaring eagles were mirrored in all the shadings of their plumage. The silence was profound, and every voice or sound on deck was echoed from the mountains, and could be heard for a long distance up the inlet. Had it not been for the Hooniah canoes following so promptly, we might have supposed ourselves explorers, who had penetrated into some enchanted region, or dreamers who were seeing this beautiful valley in a strange sleep. It was exploration to the extent that all our course up the inlet was across the dry land of all the charts then published, and the Idaho was aground in the woods according to the authorized maps.

This Idaho Inlet, as it is now put down, is the sportsman’s long-sought paradise. The stewards, who went ashore with the tank-boats for fresh water, startled seven deer as they pushed their way to the foot of a cascade, and the young men who went off in an Indian canoe caught thirteen large salmon with their inexperienced spearing. Mr. Wallace, the first officer, took a party off in the ship’s small boats, and we swept gayly up the inlet, over waters where the salmon and flounders could be seen darting in schools through the water and just escaping the strokes of the oar. At the mouth of the creek at the head of the inlet, the freshening current was alive with fish, and some of the energetic ones landed there, and, pushing ahead for exploration, were soon lost to sight in the high grass and the underbrush that fringed the forest. It began to rain about that time, and a dripping group remained by the boats, watching the rainbow fish playing in the waters, and enjoying the dry Scotch humor of the officer, who had led us off on this water picnic. Clouds rolled over our snow-capped mountain and blurred the landscape, and after an hour of quietly sitting in the rain, even the amphibious Scot began to wish, too, that the wanderers would return, lest the falling tide should leave us on the wrong side of the shallows at the mouth of the creek. As he took a less humorous view of the situation, all the rest joined in the strain and began to berate the Alaska climate with its constant downpour. Some one was impelled to ask the genial Scotchman if it was really true that the summit of Ben Nevis is never seen oftener than twice a year. He nearly upset the boat to refute that slander, and his emphatic “No!” may be still ringing and echoing around the north end of Chicagoff Island.

After the first officer had returned his boatloads of damp but enthusiastic passengers to the ship, the stories of fish, and boasts of the great bear-tracks seen on shore, disturbed the tranquillity of the anchorage. The captain of the ship took his rifle and was rowed away to shallow waters, where he shot a salmon, waded in, and threw it ashore. While wandering along after the huge bear-tracks, that were twelve inches long by affidavit measure, he saw an eagle flying off with his salmon, and another fine shot laid the bird of freedom low. When the captain returned to the ship he threw the eagle and the salmon on deck, and at the size of the former every one marvelled. The outspread wings measured the traditional six feet from tip to tip, and the beak, the claws, and the stiff feathers were rapidly seized upon as trophies and souvenirs of the day. A broad, double rainbow arched over us as we left the lovely niche between the mountains in the evening, and then we swept back to Icy Straits and started out to the open ocean, and down the coast to Sitka, having a glimpse, on the way, of the vast glacier at the head of Taylor Bay, that Vancouver and his men visited while his ships lay at anchor in Port Althorp, just west of our Idaho Inlet.

CHAPTER XI.
SITKA—THE CASTLE AND THE GREEK CHURCH.

At six o’clock in the morning the water lay still and motionless as we rounded the point from which Mount Edgecombe lifts its hazy blue slopes, and threaded our way between clearly reflected islands into this beautiful harbor, which is the most northern on the Pacific Coast. In the mirror of calm waters the town lay in shimmering reflections, and the wooded side of Mount Verstovaia, that rises sentinel over Sitka, was reflected as a dark green pyramid that slowly receded and shortened as the ship neared the shore. By old traditions the ravens always gather on the gilded cross on the dome of the Greek church when a ship is in sight, and one lone, early riser flapped his big black wings and croaked the signal before the ship’s cannon started the echoes. A steam launch put out quickly from the man-of-war Adams to carry the mail bags to that ship, and a sleepy postmaster came down to look after his consignments. There were signs of life in the Indian village, or rancherie, further up shore, and one by one the natives assembled on the wharf with their baskets and bracelets for sale, or, wandering down with the blankets of the couch wrapped about them, and lying face downward with their heads propped on their hands, yawned and studied the scene. They sprawled there like seals, and some of the members of this leisure class remained on the wharf for hours and for nearly all day without stirring.

The queer and out-of-the-way capital of our latest Territory seemed quite a metropolis after the unbroken wilderness we had been journeying through, and the rambling collection of weather-beaten and moss-covered buildings that have survived from Russian days, and the government buildings, in their coats of yellow-brown paint, smote us with a sense of urban vastness and importance. At a first look Sitka wears the air and dignity of a town with a history, and can reflect upon the brilliant good old days of Russian rule, to which fifteen years of American occupancy have only given more lustre by contrast. It is a straggling, peaceful sort of a town, edging along shore at the foot of high mountains, and sheltered from the surge and turmoil of the ocean by a sea-wall of rocky, pine-covered islands. The moss has grown greener and thicker on the roofs of the solid old wooden houses that are relics of Russian days, the paint has worn thinner everywhere, and a few more houses tumbling into ruins complete the scenes of picturesque decay. Twenty years ago there were one hundred and twenty-five buildings in the town proper, and it is doubtful if a dozen have been erected since. The æsthetic soul can revel in the cool, quiet tones of weather-worn and lichen-stained walls, and never be vexed with the sight of raw boards, shingles, and shavings in this far northern capital. A gravelled road leads straight from the wharf to the front of the Greek church, the board walk beside it painted with lines of white on either edge, to guide the wayfarer’s steps on the pitch-dark nights, that set in so early and last so long during the winter season.

SITKA.

The barracks, the custom house and the governor’s castle form a group of public buildings on the right of the landing-wharf, and the small battery at the foot of the castle terrace is quite imposing. The castle is a heavy, plain, square building, crowning a rocky headland that rises precipitously from the water on three sides, and turns a bold embankment to the town on the other. According to Captain Meade, this eminence was called Katalan’s Rock by the early Russian settlers, in memory of the chief who lived on it, and the governors made it a perfect fortress, with batteries and outer defences and sentries at all the approaches. This colonial castle is in latitude only 17´ north of Queen Victoria’s summer home at Balmoral. Two buildings have crowned Katalan’s Rock before the present one, the first rude block-house being destroyed by fire, and the second one by an earthquake. The castle is one hundred and forty feet long and seventy feet wide, built of heavy cedar logs, while copper bolts pierce the walls at points, and are riveted to the rock to hold it fast in the event of another earthquake. The Russian governors of the colony resided in the castle, and many traditions of social splendor hang to this forlorn and abandoned old building. The Russian governors were usually chosen from the higher ranks of the naval service and of noble families at home. These captain-counts, barons, and princes deputed to rule the colony maintained a miniature court around them, and lived and entertained handsomely. Lutke, Sir Edward Belcher, Sir George Simpson, and other voyagers of the early part of this century, give charming pictures of the social life at Sitka. State dinners were given by the governor every Sunday, and a round of balls and gayeties made a visitor’s stay all too pleasant.

Baron Wrangell’s wife was the first chatelaine of the castle who left a social fame. She was succeeded in her pleasant rule by the wife of Governor Kupreanoff, who accompanied her husband to Sitka in 1835, crossing Siberia on horseback to Behring Sea. It was Madame Kupreanoff who entertained Captain Belcher, and after a line of many charming women there came the second wife of Prince Maksoutoff, a beautiful chatelaine, who made the castle the abode of a gracious hospitality, and left many social traditions to attest her tact and charm. Society was more democratic in her days than it has been at any time since, and the noble Russian hostess overlooked rank and class, and welcomed all to the castle on an equality. The admiral of the fleet and the pilot were on the same social plane while under the governor’s roof, and at a ball the governor made it his duty to lead out every lady, and the princess danced with every one who solicited the honor, no matter how humble his station. Caviare and strong punches marked every banquet board, and at the beginning of a ball the ladies were first invited out by themselves to partake of strong and pungent appetizers, and then the gentlemen gathered around the side tables and took their tonics. A big brass samovar was always boiling in the drawing-room, and day or night a glass of the choicest caravan tea was offered to visitors. Some beautiful samovars were brought out from Russia by the families of the higher officers, and after the brass foundry was established, they were manufactured at Sitka. Some of these old Sitka samovars are still to be found by the curio-hunters, and, as they grow rarer, they are the more highly prized.