We sailed up Uyak Bay to the mine of the Kodiak Gold Mining Company. This is a free milling mine and had been a developing property for four years. It was then installing a ten-stamp mill, and had twenty thousand tons of ore blocked out, the ore averaging from fifteen to twenty dollars a ton.
This mine is located on the northern side of Kadiak Island, and has good water power and excellent shipping facilities. Fifty thousand dollars were taken out of the beaches in the vicinity in 1904 by placer mining.
Here, in this lovely, lonely bay, one of the most charming women I ever met spends her summers. She is the wife of one of the owners of the mine, and her home is in San Francisco. She finds the summers ideal, and longs for the novelty of a winter at the mine. She has a canoe and spends most of her time on the water. There are no mosquitoes at the mine; the summers are never uncomfortably hot, and it is seldom, indeed, that the mercury falls to zero in the winter.
From Kadiak Island we crossed Shelikoff Straits to Cold Bay, on the Aliaska Peninsula, which we reached at midnight, and which is the only port that could not tempt us ashore. When our dear, dark-eyed Japanese, "Charlie," played a gentle air upon our cabin door with his fingers and murmured apologetically, "Cold Bay," we heard the rain pouring down our windows in sheets, and we ungratefully replied, "Go away, Charlie, and leave us alone."
No rope-ladders and dory landings for us on such a night, at a place with such a name.
The following day was clear, however, and we sailed all day along the peninsula. To the south of us lay the Tugidak, Trinity, Chirikoff, and Semidi islands.
At six in the evening we landed at Chignik, another uninteresting cannery place. From Chignik on "to Westward" the resemblance of the natives to the Japanese became more remarkable. As they stood side by side on the wharves, it was almost impossible to distinguish one from the other. The slight figures, brown skin, softly bright, dark eyes, narrowing at the corners, and amiable expression made the resemblance almost startling.
At Chignik we had an amusing illustration, however, of the ease with which even a white man may grow to resemble a native.
The mail agent on the Dora was a great admirer of his knowledge of natives and native customs and language. Cham-mi is a favorite salutation with them. Approaching a man who was sitting on a barrel, and who certainly resembled a native in color and dress, the agent pleasantly exclaimed, "Cham-mi."
There was no response; the man did not lift his head; a slouch hat partially concealed his face.