LOOKING BACK INTO MOUTH OF TANANA.
(Tanana Indians, Male and Female. From Petroff's Government Report on Alaska Census.)
As we drifted by its mouth we could only form an approximate idea of its width, which was apparently two or three miles, including all channels and islands, which may be of the nature of a delta. It seemed to be very swift and brought down quantities of uprooted drift timber of large dimensions as compared with that brought by the Yukon. Looking back it resembled a suddenly exposed inland lake on the borders of the main stream, and its swift waters so overwhelmed those of the Yukon that a great slackening took place in the latter near their confluence, forming a sluggish pool into which we helplessly drifted. All these circumstances give to the Tanana the appearance of equality with the more important stream. Once in its current we went skimming along at a rapid rate that revealed the force of the new stream.
At 1:40 P.M. we passed an Indian village of four tents and two birch-bark houses, containing from twenty to twenty-five souls. Among the canoemen who visited us was a half-breed Indian, very neatly and jauntily dressed, who spoke English quite well, and whom we hired to pilot us to the trading station at Nuklakayet, the channel to which was very blind, and difficult to follow, as we had been told at old Fort Yukon. An hour later a large native village was passed on the north bank, apparently deserted; and another hour brought us to the "opposition" store of the old Northern Trading Company, around which was grouped quite an extensive collection of Indian cabins, graves, caches, and other vestiges of habitation. The old store was nearly demolished, while the once thriving Indian village had hardly a sign of life in it.
At half-past four o'clock we passed two or three small Indian camps on the upper ends of some contiguous islands, upon which they were spending the summer in fishing for salmon. At the upper ends of these islands they build oblique weirs or wicker-work wing-dams converging to a certain point, at which a large wicker-work net is placed, and into the latter the salmon are directed and there caught. These wicker-work nets are similar to those heretofore spoken of as having been seen scattered along the beach in front of a small house just after entering the ramparts, and some of them are so large that a man might walk into their open mouths, while they are probably a score of feet in length. These, together with the native hand-nets, already spoken of, are the only appliances I saw used for catching fish; but they serve amply to supply the natives throughout the year, and to give their numerous dogs a salmon apiece every day.
A little after six o'clock we sighted the Nuklakayet trading station, and after much hard labor succeeded in making a landing there, for the channel was most tortuous, and without our Indian pilot we should probably have missed the place altogether, so much dodging through winding ways and around obscure islands was necessary. Mr. Harper, whom we found in charge, was the only white man present, although Mr. McQuestion, and another trader who was down the river at the time (Mr. Mayo), make the station their headquarters. It is the furthest inland trading post at present maintained by the Alaska Commercial Company—or any other corporation on the river—although there were formerly others of which mention has been made, but an occasional visit of the river steamer has taken their place. Nuklakayet was once on the flat bottom land at the junction of the Tanana and the Yukon, and was considered a sort of neutral ground for the British traders from above and the Russians below, there being at that time summer trading camps only in existence.
