The Feroë Islands (64° N. lat.) have undoubtedly a no very agreeable climate to boast of, but they may almost be said to enjoy Italian skies when compared with Unalaska (54° N. lat.), the best known of the Aleutian chain.
The Scandinavian archipelago is frequently obscured with fogs, but here they are perpetual from April to the middle of July. From this time till the end of September the weather improves, as then the southerly winds drive the foggy region more to the north, and enable the sun to shine during a few serene days upon the bleak shores of Unalaska. But soon the Polar air-streams regain the supremacy, and a dismal veil once more shrouds the melancholy island. Of Sitka, the chief town of Aliaska, Mr. Whymper says: “It enjoys the unenviable position of being about the most rainy place in the world. Rain ceases only when there is a good prospect of snow.” Snow generally begins to fall early in October, and snow-storms occur to the very end of May. There are years in which it rains continually during the whole winter. In the Feroës some service-trees are to be seen twelve feet high or more, while nothing like a tree ever grew in Unalaska. The difference between the temperatures of the summer and winter, which in the Feroës is confined to very narrow limits, is much more considerable in Unalaska, though here also the moderating influence of the sea makes itself felt. Thus in summer the thermometer rarely rises above 66°, but on the other hand in winter it still more rarely falls below -2°.
Of course no corn of any kind can possibly ripen in a climate like this, but the damp and cool temperature favors the growth of herbs. In the moist lowlands the stunted willow-bushes are stifled by the luxuriant grasses; and even on the hills, the vegetation, which is of a decidedly Alpine character, covers the earth up to the line of perpetual snow; while several social plants, such as the Lupinus nootkeanus and the Rhododendron kamtschadalicum, decorate these dismal regions with their brilliant color. The lively green of the meadows reminds one of the valley of Urseren, so well known to all Alpine tourists. The mosses and lichens begin already at Unalaska to assume that predominance in the Flora which characterizes the frigid zone.
99. SITKA.
A few degrees to the north of the Aleutian chain, which extends in a long line from the promontory of Aliaska to Kamchatka, are situated the Pribilow Islands, St. George and St. Paul, which are celebrated in the history of the fur-trade, the former as the chief breeding-place of the sea-bear, the latter as that of the sea-lion. Chamisso was struck with their wintry aspect, for here no sheltered valleys and lowlands promote, as at Unalaska, a more vigorous vegetation. The rounded backs of the hills and the scattered rocks are covered with black and gray lichens; and where the melting snows afford a sufficient moisture, sphagnum, mosses, and a few weeds occupy the marshy ground. The frozen earth has no springs, and yet these desolate islands have a more southerly situation than the Orkneys, where barley grows to ripeness. Before these islands were discovered by the Russians they had been for ages the undisturbed home of the sea-birds and the large cetacean seals. Under Russian superintendence, some Aleuts have now been settled on both of them. The innumerable herds of sea-lions, which cover the naked shores of St. George as far as the eye can reach, present a strange sight. The guillemots have taken possession of the places unoccupied by their families and fly fearlessly among them, or nestle in the crevices of the wave-worn rock-walls, or between the large boulders which form a bank along the strand.
Still farther to the north lies the uninhabited island of St. Matthew (62° N. lat.). A settlement was once attempted; but as the animals which had been reckoned upon for the winter supply of food departed, the unfortunate colonists all died of hunger.
Fogs are so frequent about the island of St. Laurence that navigators have often passed close by it (65° N. lat.) without seeing it. Chamisso was surprised at the beauty and the numbers of its dwarfish flowering herbs, which reminded him of the highlands of Switzerland, while the neighboring St. Laurence Bay, in the land of the Tchuktchi, was the image of wintry desolation. In July the lowlands were covered with snow-fields, and the few plants bore the Alpine character in the most marked degree. Under this inclement sky, the mountains, unprotected by vegetation, rapidly fall into decay. Every winter splits the rocks, and the summer torrents carry the fragments down to their feet. The ground is everywhere covered with blocks of stone, unless where the sphagnum, by the accumulation of its decomposed remains, has formed masses of peat in the swampy lowlands.
On sailing through Bering’s Straits, the traveller may see, in clear weather, both the Old and the New World. On both sides rise high mountains, precipitously from the water’s edge in Asia, but separated from the sea by a broad alluvial belt on the American side. The sea is deepest on the Asiatic border, where the current, flowing from the south with considerable rapidity, has also the greatest force. Here also whales may be often seen, and large herds of walruses.
In former times the baidar of the Esquimaux was the only boat ever seen in the straits, and since Semen Deshnew, who first sailed round the eastern point of Asia, European navigators had but rarely passed them to explore the seas beyond; but recently this remotest part of the world has become the scene of an active whale-fishery.