Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago

by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore

Like Kouiu and Kuprianoff islands, the Prince of Wales Island is another home of the yellow or Alaska cedar. It was named by Vancouver, and when the Coast Survey changed his name of the George III. Archipelago to the Alexander Archipelago, this largest island of the group retained its former designation. It is from one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles long, and from twenty to sixty miles wide, but the surveys have never been complete enough to determine whether it is all one island or a group of islands. Great arms of the sea reach into the heart of the island, and dense forests of cedar cover its hills and dales. The salmon are found in the greatest numbers on every side of it, and the pioneer and most successful cannery and packing houses are on its shores. On account of its timber and its salmon, it was once proposed to declare the island a government reservation of ship timber for the use of the navy yards on the Pacific coast, and to lease the valuable fisheries. The very mention of Alaska has been provocative of roars of laughter in the houses of Congress, and though the reservation would have been larger than the State of New Jersey, and its value incalculable, the wits took their turn at the measure and nothing was done. A citizen of Alaska, who has chafed under the neglect and indignities put upon this Territory, made scathing comments upon the debates of both House and Senate, brought about by these cedar reservation bills and the bill for a Territorial government. His final shot was this:—

“If those Senators and Congressmen don’t know any more about the tariff, and the other things that they help to discuss, than they do about Alaska, the Lord help the rest of the United States. Their ignorance of the commonest facts of geography would disgrace any little Siwash at the Fort Wrangell School. What have they paid for all these special government reports for, if they don’t ever read them when they get ready to speak on a foreign subject, to say nothing of what can be found in the encyclopædias and geographies?”

These Alaskans are keenly critical of all that is written about their Territory, and they scan newspaper accounts with the sharpest eyes for an inaccuracy or a discrepancy. The statesmen who have assailed the Territory in speeches and debates in Congress are condemned with a certain thoroughness and sweep; and to introduce a copy of The Congressional Record, containing such efforts, causes even worse explosions than the one quoted. It was one of these revengeful jokers who laid the scheme for having an eminent senator introduce a bill to build a wagon road from Fort Wrangell to a point on the Canadian Pacific Railroad on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains[Mountains]. An appropriation of $100,000 was asked for, and every married citizen was to receive six hundred and forty acres of agricultural or grazing land in the Territory. As the contemplated highway would lead for a thousand miles across British Columbia, through the densest woods and over the roughest country, and from the island town of Fort Wrangell only ten leagues of the route would be within the Alaska boundaries, some of the joke can be discovered.

On the west shore of Prince of Wales Island there is a large salmon cannery and saw-mill at Klawak, belonging to Messrs. Sisson, Crocker, & Co., of San Francisco. It was established in 1878, and the shipments of salmon are made direct by their own schooners to San Francisco, or by their steam launch, which makes frequent trips to Kaigahnee and Fort Wrangell, the nearest post offices and landings of the mail steamer. In 1883 the Klawak cannery shipped 10,000 cases of salmon to San Francisco, and in 1884, 8,000 cases were sent below. The Klawak settlement is off the regular line of the steamer, and rarely visited by it, now that the cannery is well established and furnished with its own boats; but it is described as one of the many beautiful places in the archipelago where the silver salmon run in greatest numbers.

For salmon fisheries and salmon canneries there exists a perfect craze all along the Pacific coast, and from the Columbia River to Chilkat such establishments are projected for every possible place. At the most northern point of our cruise we picked up a piratical-looking man, in flannel shirt and tucked-up trousers, who had been sent to Alaska “to prospect for salmon,” by the owners of one of the large canneries at Astoria, Oregon. This piscatorial prospector had for years been a pilot on the Columbia River, and this fact, together with his buccaneer air, made him quite a character on deck. The prospector was the kindest and best-natured man that ever lived, with a bushy head and beard, and a mild, twinkling blue eye. Months of strolling in the mud and moisture of Alaska soil had taught him to roll his trousers well up at the heel, and he continued that cautious habit after he came on board, often pacing the dry and spotless decks of the Idaho with his checked trousers rolled halfway to his knees, and the gay facings of red leather streaking his nether limbs like the insignia of the knightly order of the garter. Confidentially he said to the mate one day, “Did you notice the terrible cold I had when I came up with you? Well, it was all because my wife made me wear that —— white shirt.” The sincerity and earnestness with which he said this sent his accidental listeners off convulsed, and the prospector’s latest remarks passed current in the absence of daily papers and humorous columns.

Not all of the “salmon prospectors” are as worthy and reliable as this shipmate, and in their solitary quests they have time to gather and manufacture some fish stories that leave all the Frazer River yarns far behind. At every place that we touched we were shown or told about “the biggest liar in Alaska.” These great prevaricators and embroiderers of the truth were not always in the salmon business, and quite as often were searching for coal or the precious metals. One pretty bay was famous as the residence of such a man, who had beguiled capitalists below into letting him sink $10,000 in a fishery. When the ship anchored off his lodge in the wilderness early one rainy morning, a hirsute man on shore ran down the beach, and, making a trumpet of his hands, conversed with the officers on deck. He had sent word previously that he had eighty barrels of salmon ready for shipment, but when the inquisitive men from the steamer went off to his packing house, not more than four hundred salmon lay pickling in the vats, with not a barrel ready. This Mulberry Sellers followed them back to the small boats, talking volubly all the way, and the last that we saw, as the anchor chains rattled in and the ship moved off, was the mendacious fisherman standing in the rain, and talking through his hand trumpet. “Captain! can’t you wait a while?” was the farewell plea that we heard wafting over the water, and all of that afternoon in the cabin, while the rain pelted overhead, we were entertained with anecdotes of this same celebrity and other champion prevaricators of the Territory.

When we left Sitka on the Ancon, and went out over the rolling main and around Cape Ommaney, the first stopping-place was at the north end of the Prince of Wales Island, where a narrow winding channel, not more than twice the width of the ship’s beam, leads into the beautiful basin of Red Bay.

This intricate little place was known to the Russian traders long ago, and called Krasnaia Bay, but it was only in 1884 that a packing-house was built and the shining silver salmon decoyed into seines. It is a beautiful little place, hidden away on the edge of the great island, and its air must be restful to the nerves. The beating of the ship’s paddle-wheels could be heard for miles in such quiet land-locked waters, and the steamer’s whistle gave warning of its presence long before it rounded the last bends of the bay. Nevertheless, there were no signs of life or excitement about the fishery, and the two men in sight and at work on the beach did not even turn their heads to look at the large ocean steamer bearing down towards them. No freight seemed ready, neither boats nor canoes put out, and the passengers longed to be listeners when the captain and purser went ashore in the first gig and held parley with the easy-going fishermen on the beach. When we followed in the next boats the spicy part of the interview was over, and we simply found that Red Bay was the most awful smelling place in Alaska, the beach a dirty quagmire covered with kelp and heads and tails of salmon, and the Indians a hard and fierce-looking set. The captain had only the pleasure of the scenery and the excitement of some skilful pilot practice for going in there, as the lone fishermen had no salmon ready to ship after all the requests for the steamer to call on the July trip.

Once out of the tortuous channel and along the shore some miles, we anchored at the mouth of Salmon Creek, where a lighter lay ready loaded at the packing-house, and three hundred and twenty-five barrels of salted salmon were towed out to the ship and put on board as the result of the first catch of the first year of this new fishery. There was an energetic proprietor running that establishment, and he welcomed the boat-load of visitors on shore and led them over a half-acre of shavings into the side door of the packing-house. A prying man of the party spied a great string of salmon trout on the floor and raised hysterical shrieks. “Oh! that’s nothing,” said the proprietor coolly, “a little mess that I caught for the captain of the ship. The creek is full of them out here. This Injun will get you some lines.” A veritable war-whoop followed the announcement, and the anglers broke into a war-dance, circling at all hands round, doing the pigeon-wings and chains in such a frenzied manner that the astonished Indians crept up on the barrels and sat gaping and trembling in their blankets at the sight of their uncivilized white brethren.

The Indians brought the fish lines, with common hooks and small stones tied on for sinkers, and the anglers were rowed out in an old scow and anchored not fifty feet from the front of the packing-house. It was not artistic fishing with fancy flies, and anglers with patent reels and nets would have looked scorn at the little group steadily pulling in all the hungry trout that snapped at the bits of salmon or salmon eggs hung out to them. An old Indian and a small boy came paddling around in a leaky canoe, and were pressed into service to cut bait for the busy fishermen. As the trout flopped into the scow faster than one a minute, wild shouts rent the air, and the Siwash adjutants joined in the yells that would have frightened off anything else in scales but these untutored Alaska trout. The flapping fish splashed and spoiled the clothes of the fishermen, but they never heeded that, and a tally-keeper was installed on the flour bags and barrels at the end of the scow. The excitement was communicated to the idlers who had stayed on the ship, and soon a second boat put out for the fishing ground, full of wild-eyed anglers anxious to join in the carnival. They anchored near the scow, and their efforts were received with shouts of derision as they began pulling in devil-fish, toad-fish, sculpin, skate, and marine curios enough to stock a museum, before a single trout was hooked. The Indians came down and sat in solemn rows on the logs on shore to watch the crazy white fishermen, and they made picturesque groups that were repeated in the glassy mirror of water before them. One old fellow in a red blanket made a fine point of color against the thick golden-green wall of spruce-trees on the shore, and children and dogs gave a characteristic fringe to all the groups. When the last lighter put out for the ship the lines were wound up, and the tally-keeper on[tally-keeper on] the flour bags read the record written on the barrel tops. The two men, one small boy, and the brave creature in six-button gloves who baited and tended her own hook, caught altogether one hundred and ten trout in the hour and a quarter at anchor in the old scow. The weight was sixty pounds, and the fishermen were wild with glee. The one fair angler and the tally-keeper having mopped the slimy boat and the pile of fish with their dresses, and then seated themselves on flour bags, had full view of the fishing scene photographed on every breadth of their gowns. “What shall I do with my dress?” asked one of them when she reached the calm and well-dressed company on deck, and a cheerful woman said briskly: “I guess you’d better fry it, now that it is dipped in batter.”