Alaska, the Great Country

by Ella Higginson

By strength of his unbreakable will alone, he arose from a bed of illness and painfully and sorrowfully arranged all the affairs of his office, to the smallest and most insignificant detail, preparatory to the transfer to his successor.

It was in January, 1818, that Hagemeister had made known his appointment to the office of governor; it was not until September that Baranoff had accomplished his difficult task and turned over the office.

There was then, and there is to-day, halfway between the site of the castle and Indian River, a gray stone about three feet high and having a flat, table-like surface. It stands on the shore beside the hard, white road. The lovely bay, set with a thousand isles, stretches sparkling before it; the blue waves break musically along the curving shingle; the wooded hills rise behind it; the winds murmur among the tall trees.

The name of this stone is the "blarney" stone. It was a favorite retreat of Baranoff's and there, when he was sunken in one of his lonely or despondent moods, he would sit for hours, staring out over the water. What his thoughts were at such times, only God and he knew,—for not even his beloved daughter dared to approach him when one of his lone moods was upon him.

In the first hour that he was no longer governor of the country he had ruled so long and so royally, he walked with bowed head along the beach until he reached his favorite retreat. There he sat himself down and for hours remained in silent communion with his own soul. He had longed for relief from his arduous duties, but it had come in a way that had broken his heart. His government had at last listened to complaints against him, and, ungrateful for his long and faithful service, had finally relieved him with but scant consideration; with an abruptness and a lack of courtesy that had sorely wounded him.

Nearly thirty of his best years he had devoted to the company. He had conquered the savages and placed the fur trade upon a highly profitable basis; he had built many vessels and had established trading relations with foreign countries; forts, settlements, and towns had risen at his indomitable will. Sitka, especially, was his own; her storied splendor, whose fame has endured through all the years, she owed entirely to him; she was the city of his heart. He was her creator; his life-blood, his very heart beats, were in her; and now that the time had really come to give her up forever, he found the hour of farewell the hardest of his hard life. No man, of whatsoever material he may be made, nor howsoever insensible to the influence of beauty he may deem himself to be, could dwell for twenty years in Sitka without finding, when it came to leaving her, that the tendrils of her loveliness had twined themselves so closely about his heart that their breaking could only be accomplished by the breaking of the heart itself.

Of his kin, only a brother remained. The offspring of his connection with a Koloshian woman was now married and settled comfortably. A son by the same mistress had died. He had first thought of going to his brother, who lived in Kamchatka; but Golovnin was urging him to return to Russia, which he had left forty years before. This he had finally decided to do, it having been made clear to him that he could still be of service to his country and his beloved colonies by his experience and advice. Remain in the town he had created and ruled so tyrannically, and which he still loved so devotedly, he could not. The mere thought of that was unendurable.

All was now in readiness for his departure, but the old man—he was now seventy-two—had not anticipated that the going would be so hard. The blue waves came sparkling in from the outer sea and broke on the curving shingle at his feet; the white and lavender wings of sea-birds floated, widespread, upon the golden September air; vessels of the fleet he had built under the most distressing difficulties and disadvantages lay at anchor under the castle wherein he had banqueted every visitor of any distinction or position for so many years, and the light from whose proud tower had guided so many worn voyagers to safety at last; the yellow, red-roofed buildings, the great ones built of logs, the chapel, the significant block-houses—all arose out of the wilderness before his sorrowful eyes, taking on lines of beauty he had never discovered before.

From this hour Baranoff failed rapidly from day to day. His time was spent in bidding farewell to the Russians and natives—to many of whom he was sincerely attached—and to places which had become endeared to him by long association. He was frequently found in tears. Those who have seen fair Sitka rising out of the blue and islanded sea before their raptured eyes may be able to appreciate and sympathize with the old governor's emotion as, on the 27th of November, 1818, he stood in the stern of the Kutusof and watched the beloved city of his creation fade lingeringly from his view. He was weeping, silently and hopelessly, as the old weep, when, at last, he turned away.