At the end of twenty-three years there is a well-laid-out village, with two-story houses, sidewalks, and street lamps. A large Gothic church has been built, with a comfortable rectory adjoining, and around the village green a school-house, a public hall, and a store are prominent buildings. All of these structures have been built by the Indians, and, with their own saw-mill and planing-mill, they have turned out the lumber and woodwork required for the public buildings and their own houses. Mr. Duncan has taught them all these necessary arts, working with them himself, and dividing the profits of their labors among the Indians. Under his management the Indians have established their cannery and store as a joint-stock company, and these once savage islanders understand the scheme, and draw their dividends as gravely as if their ancestors had always done so before them. The cannery is a model of neatness, the salmon being headed and cleaned on an anchored boat far off shore, and brought to the cannery all ready to be cut and fitted into tins. Everything is done by the Indians themselves, from making the cans to filling, soldering, heating, varnishing, labeling, and packing, and the Metlakatlah salmon bring the highest price in the London market, and each year handsome dividends are paid to the islanders. An average of six thousand cases are shipped every year, and each visitor that morning bought a can of the Skeena River salmon to carry off as a souvenir of Metlakatlah.
The women have been taught to spin and weave the fleece of the mountain goat into heavy cloths, shawls, and blankets. Boots, shoes, ropes, and leather are also made at Metlakatlah, and there is a good carpenter shop in the town. A telephone connects the village store with the saw-mill a few miles distant, and the Indians ring up the men at the other end of the wire, and “hello” to their brother Chimsyans in the most matter-of-fact manner. The steam-launch belonging to the cannery is engineered by one of their number, and the village compares favorably with any of the small saw-mill settlements of whites on Puget Sound.
While we wandered about the village under the escort of Mr. Duncan and his faithful David, the members of the brass band gathered themselves together and played “Marching Through Georgia,” “Yankee Doodle,” and other of our national anthems in honor of the American visitors. Twenty stalwart Indians comprise the full band, and, although nearly half of the musicians were off salmon fishing, those left did some most excellent playing on horn, cornet, and trombone, and sent farewell strains over the water as we got into the small boats and were pulled away to the ship. The Indians keep a visitors’ house at the landing for the entertainment of friends in the adjoining tribes, and on the night preceding our arrival there had been a grand banquet and ball in honor of some canoe-loads of Haidas, who had come to pass a few days at these guest-houses of Metlakatlah. We found the Haidas looking much dilapidated on the morning after the ball, and among the picturesque groups sitting about the great square fireplace there was the most beautiful Indian maiden seen on the coast. The Haida beauty had a warm, yellow skin, with a damask bloom on her cheeks, a pair of large, soft, black eyes, and dazzling teeth. She gave a shy smile, and dropped her eyes before the admiring gaze and the exclamations of the party, and the susceptible young men from the ship immediately offered to stop off and stay with Mr. Duncan for a while. The Haidas had many curious things with them, and evinced a proper desire to make trade. One woman wore a pair of wide, gold bracelets, engraved with the totemic eagle and the Haida crest, and, putting her price at eighty dollars, sat stoical and silent through all the offers of smaller sums. They had fine silver bracelets, horn spoons, and carved trifles of copper and wood with them, but the desirable things were some miniature totem poles carved out of black slate stone, and inlaid with pieces of abalone shell to represent green and glistening eyes for each heraldic monster. These little totem poles are made of a soft slate found near Skidegate on the Queen Charlotte Islands. When first quarried it is very soft and easily worked, but hardens in a short time, and will crack if exposed to the sun or heat. It takes a fine polish, and for the small slate columns, fourteen and eighteen inches high, the Indians asked seven and ten dollars. We afterwards saw dozens and scores of these slate totems at the curio stores in Victoria, and though there seemed to be a sufficient supply of them for all the tourists of a season, the prices ranged from twenty to eighty dollars, and for plaques and boxes of carved slate the demand was proportionately higher.
It was with real regret that we parted with Mr. Duncan at the wharf, and it was not until we were well over the water that we learned of the serpent or the skeleton in this paradise. Though Metlakatlah might rightly be considered Mr. Duncan’s own particular domain, and the Indians have proved their appreciation of his unselfish labors by a love and devotion rare in such races, his plainest rights have been invaded and trouble brewed among his people. Two years ago a bishop was appointed for the diocese, which includes Fort Simpson, Metlakatlah, and a few other missions. Fort Simpson is the older and larger mission settlement, and the higher officers of the church have always resided there, but Bishop Ridley, disapproving of Mr. Duncan’s Low Church principles, went to Metlakatlah and took possession as a superior officer. Mr. Duncan moved from the rectory, and the bishop took charge of the church services. In countless ways a spirit of antagonism was raised that almost threatened a war at one time. The bishop informed the Indians that their store and warehouse was situated on ground belonging to the church. Instead of compromising, or leaving it there under his jurisdiction, the matter-of-fact Metlakatlans went in a body, pulled down the building, and set it up outside the prescribed limits. In endeavoring to prevent this, the bishop was roughly handled, and as he appreciated the hostile spirit of the greatest part of the community he sent to Victoria, asking the protection of a British man-of-war. The whole stay of the bishop has been marked by trouble and turbulence, and these scandalous disturbances in a Christian community cannot fail to have an influence for evil, and undo some of the good work that has been done there. Mr. Duncan made no reference to his troubles during the morning that we spent at Metlakatlah, and his desire that we should see and know what his followers were capable of, and understand what they had accomplished for themselves, gave us to infer that everything was peace and happiness in the colony. One hears nothing but praise of Mr. Duncan up and down the coast, and can understand the strong partisanship he inspires among even the roughest people. His face alone is a passport for piety, goodness, and benevolence anywhere, and his honest blue eyes, his kindly smile, and cheery manner go straight to the heart of the most savage Indian. His dusky parishioners worship him, as he well deserves, and in his twenty-seven years among them they have only the unbroken record of his kindness, his devotion, his unselfish and honorable treatment of them. He found them drunken savages, and he has made them civilized men and Christians. He has taught them trades, and there has seemed to be no limit to this extraordinary man’s abilities. When his hair had whitened in this noble, unselfish work, and the fruits of his labor had become apparent, nothing could have been more cruel and unjust than to undo his work, scatter dissension among his people, and make Metlakatlah a reproach instead of an honor to the society which has sanctioned such a wrong. An actual crime has been committed in the name of Religion, by this persistent attempt to destroy the peace and prosperity of Metlakatlah and drive away the man who founded and made that village what it was. British Columbia is long and broad, and there are a hundred places where others can begin as Mr. Duncan began, and where the bishop can do good by his presence. If it was Low Church doctrines that made the Metlakatlah people what they were a few years since, all other teachings should be given up at mission stations. Discord, enmity, and sorrow have succeeded the introduction of ritualism at Metlakatlah, and though it cannot fairly be said to be the inevitable result of such teachings, it would afford an interesting comparison if the Ritualists would go off by themselves and establish a second Metlakatlah as a test.
A later expression of opinion on the troubles of Metlakatlah appears in the last annual report (1884) to the Dominion Government, by Colonel Powell, Superintendent of Indians in British Columbia. He writes as follows:—
“I am exceedingly sorry to state that serious trouble and the most unhappy religious rancor still exists at Metlakatlah, dividing the Indians, and causing infinite damage to Christianity in adjacent localities, where sides are taken with one or other of the contending parties. The retirement of either or both would seem the only true solution of the difficulties, and if the latter alternative is not desirable, and as fully nine tenths of the people are unanimous and determined in their support of Mr. Duncan, the withdrawal of the agents of the society to more congenial headquarters would, I think, be greatly in the interests of all concerned. Since the schism has occurred, the larger following of Mr. Duncan have resolved themselves into an independent society, with that gentleman as their guide and leader. The forms of the Anglican Church have been discarded, and they have designated themselves ‘The Christian Church of Metlakatlah,’ each member of which subscribes to a declaration pledging themselves to exclusively follow the teachings of the Bible as the rule of faith, and that they will, to the utmost of their power, prevent any divisions among the villagers, and do their utmost to promote the spiritual and temporal prosperity of the community. This association includes all the young and active residents of the village, hence they are all enthusiastic and determined in their desire for success. In addition to the large store, which, I was told, belonged to the Indians, and was a co-operative arrangement, Mr. Duncan has devoted his spare energies to the establishment of a salmon cannery, which, he informed me, was placed upon the same footing. This has afforded employment for a great majority of the inhabitants, and has kept them so busy for the last few months that happily they have had no time to give to contention. The secret of Mr. Duncan’s great popularity with the Indians at Metlakatlah is his desire and fondness for inaugurating industries, which, after all, is the strongest bond that can be made to unite these people. The present difficulties, however, at Metlakatlah cannot continue much longer without culminating in serious consequences, means to avert which, of whatever nature they may be, should be promptly and effectually enforced.”
CHAPTER XXII.
HOMEWARD BOUND.
Life on the waveless arms of the ocean has a great fascination for one on these Alaska trips, and crowded with novelty, incidents, and surprises as each day is, the cruise seems all too short when the end approaches. One dreads to get to land again and end the easy, idle wandering through the long archipelago. A voyage is but one protracted marine picnic and an unbroken succession of memorable days. Where in all the list of them to place the red letter or the white stone puzzles one. The passengers beg the captain to reverse the engines, or boldly turn back and keep up the cruise until the autumn gales make us willing to return to the region of earthly cares and responsibilities, daily mails and telegraph wires. The long, nightless days never lose their spell, and in retrospect the wonders of the northland appear the greater. The weeks of continuous travel over deep, placid waters in the midst of magnificent scenery might be a journey of exploration on a new continent, so different is it from anything else in American travel. Seldom is anything but an Indian canoe met, for days no signs of a settlement are seen along the quiet fiords, and, making nocturnal visits to small fisheries, only the unbroken wilderness is in sight during waking hours. The anchoring in strange places, the going to and fro in small boats, the queer people, the strange life, the peculiar fascination of the frontier, and the novelty of the whole thing, affect one strongly. Each arm of the sea and the unknown, unexplored wilderness that lies back of every mile of shore continually tempt the imagination.
Along these winding channels in “the sea of mountains,” only the rushing tides ever stir the surface of the waters where the surveyor’s line drops one hundred, two hundred, and four hundred fathoms without finding bottom, and the navigator casts his lead for miles without finding anchorage. All piloting is by sight, and when clouds, fogs, or the long winter nights of inky darkness obscure the landmarks, the fog whistle is kept going according to regulation, and the ship’s course determined by the echoes flung back from the hidden mountains. Such feats in time of fog gave zest to ship life, and Captain Carroll, who performed them, was accused of being the original of Mark Twain’s man, who made a collection of echoes. At every place in Alaska he had a particular echo that he brought out with the cannon’s salute. At Fort Wrangell the hills repeated the shot five times; and at Juneau it came back seven times, before dying away in a long roll. At Sitka there was the din of a naval battle when the cannon was fired point blank at Mt. Verstovaia, and up among the glaciers, the echoes drowned the thunder of the falling ice.
Captain Carroll, for so many years in command of the mail steamer on this Alaska route, is a genius in his way, and a character, a typical sea captain, a fine navigator, and a bold and daring commander, whose skill and experience have carried his ships through the thousand dangers of the Alaska coast. He is a strict disciplinarian, whose authority is supreme, and the etiquette of the bridge and quarter-deck is severely maintained. When he leaves the deck and lays aside his official countenance, the children play and tumble over him and cling to him, and he is a merciless joker with the elders. He is possessed of a fund of stories and adventures that would make the fortune of a wit or raconteur on shore, and their momentary piquancy, as of salt water and stiff winds, makes it impossible for one to repeat them well. His fish stories are unequalled, and the despair of the most accomplished anglers. He leaves nothing undone to promote the pleasure and comfort of his passengers, who are in a sense his guests during the three or four weeks of a summer pleasure trip, and gold watches and several sets of resolutions have expressed appreciation of his courtesy and attentions to travellers. He is deeply interested in the welfare of the region that he has seen slowly awakening to the march of progress, and, being so identified with these early days and the development of the territory, is destined to live as an historic figure in Alaskan annals.