The Ketchikan district is also remarkably rich. At Niblack Anchorage, on Prince of Wales Island, the ore carries five per cent of copper, and the mines are most favorably located on tide-water.
Native copper, associated with gold, has been found on Turnagain Arm, in the country tributary to the Alaska Central Railway.
A half interest in the Bonanza, a copper mine on the western side of La Touche Island, Prince William Sound, was sold last year for more than a million dollars. This mine is not fully developed, but is considered one of the best in Alaska. It has an elevation of two hundred feet. Several tunnels have been driven, and the ore taken out runs high in copper, gold, and silver. One shipment of one thousand two hundred and thirty-five pounds gave net returns of fifty dollars to the ton, after deducting freight to Tacoma, smelting, refining, and an allowance of ninety-five per cent for the silver valuation. A sample taken along one tunnel for sixty feet gave an assay of over nine per cent copper, with one and a quarter ounces of silver.
The Bonanza was purchased in 1900 by Messrs. Beatson and Robertson for seventy-two thousand dollars. There is a good wharf and a tramway line to the mine.
Adjoining the Bonanza on the north is a group of eleven claims owned by Messrs. Esterly, Meenach, and Keyes, which are in course of development. There are many other rich claims on this island, on Knight's, and on others in the sound. Timber is abundant, the water power is excellent, and ore is easily shipped.
There is an Indian village two or three miles from Ellamar. It is the village of Tatitlik, the only one now remaining on the sound, so rapidly are the natives vanishing under the evil influence of civilization. Ten years ago there were nine hundred natives in the various villages on the shores of the sound; while now there are not more than two hundred, at the most generous calculation.
White men prospecting and fishing in the vicinity of the village supply them with liquor. When a sufficient quantity can be purchased, the entire village, men and women, indulges in a prolonged and horrible debauch which frequently lasts for several weeks.
The death rate at Tatitlik is very heavy,—more than a hundred natives having died during 1907.
Passengers have time to visit this village while the steamer loads ore at Ellamar.
The loading of ore, by the way, is a new experience. A steamer on which I was travelling once landed at Ellamar during the night.