CHAPTER XXVI.
ALASKA.
Purchase of Alaska by the United States.—The Russian American Telegraph Scheme.—Whymper’s Trip up the Yukon.—Dogs.—The Start.—Extempore Water-filter.—Snow-shoes.—The Frozen Yukon.—Under-ground Houses.—Life at Nulato.—Cold Weather.—Auroras.—Approach of Summer.—Breaking-up of the Ice.—Fort Yukon.—Furs.—Descent of the Yukon.—Value of Goods.—Arctic and Tropical Life.—Moose-hunting.—Deer-corrals.—Lip Ornaments.—Canoes.—Four-post Coffin.—The Kenaian Indians.—The Aleuts.—Value of Alaska.
In 1867 the Russian Government sold to the United States all of its possessions in America, comprising an area of more than 500,000 square miles, equal in extent to France, Germany, and Great Britain, stretching from 54° 40´ north latitude to the Arctic Ocean. The sum paid was about seven and a quarter millions of dollars. In this purchase is included Mount St. Elias, the highest peak in North America, rising to a height of more than 18,000 feet, and one of the loftiest single peaks on the globe. The real value of this new acquisition was quite unknown to both buyer and seller. In the southern part, and on the islands, there is considerable vegetation and forests of large trees; and it is said that there is some mineral wealth. But the greater part of the territory is essentially Arctic. It now bears the designation of the Territory of Alaska, an abbreviation of Aliaska, the name of the peninsula stretching into the North Pacific Ocean.
Little information has as yet been gained of this region. The most important is the result of a journey up the River Yukon, performed in 1866 by Mr. Frederick Whymper, an artist connected with the Telegraph Expedition. This telegraph enterprise was undertaken in the confident expectation that the cables laid directly across the Atlantic would fail, and that telegraphic communications between London and New York must be mainly by land. The proposed line, starting from the mouth of the Amoor, to which point it was already constructed, should bend around the head of the Sea of Okotsch, thence run eastward and northward through Kamchatka to the 63d degree of north latitude, then cross the narrow Strait of Bering, and run southward through what was then Russian America, British Columbia, Washington Territory, and Oregon, to San Francisco; thence across the American continent to New York. A dispatch from London to New York by this route would travel something more than 25,000 miles, while the distance in a straight line across the Atlantic was about 3000 miles. The company undertaking this enterprise had surveyed a considerable part of the distance, and expended some millions of dollars, when it was announced that the Atlantic cable was a success, and the work was abandoned.
In the mean while Mr. Whymper undertook a trip up the great River Yukon. This is essentially an Arctic river, though its mouth is far southward of the Arctic Circle. It is probably the greatest of the Arctic rivers, and in length and volume of water is exceeded by not more than six rivers of the globe.
The party of which Mr. Whymper was one consisted of six Europeans and three Indians. In October, 1865, they started from Unalachleet, on Norton Sound. A trip of 200 miles would bring them to Nulato, a Russian trading-post 700 miles from the mouth of the river, which here runs almost parallel with the coast.
They were to travel on foot over frozen rivers and through deep snow. To convey their supplies they had four sledges, each drawn by five dogs. Such a team will draw about 350 pounds. The dogs of this region are not of a good class. Mr. Whymper thinks they have in them quite as much of the wolf as of the dog. Their usual food is fish; their regular daily allowance in winter is a dried salmon a day: in summer they are expected to fish for themselves. They will, however, eat almost any thing, and, if they can get enough, will grow fat upon it. They even took kindly to beans, provided they were boiled soft—a thing which Kane could never induce his Esquimaux dogs to undertake.
They set out on the 27th of October at 11 o’clock—that is, just after sunrise—the thermometer standing at 30° below freezing-point. Their trip was begun a little too early, for the deep snow had not become packed hard, and a bit of thaw would transform it into slush; and the streams which they had to cross were not all frozen over. Fortunately, they had a light skin boat, which not only stood them in good stead now, but served them afterwards for more than a thousand miles of winter travel. Whenever they came to a frozen stream, the Indians would break a hole through the ice to get a draught of water. They always filled up the hole with loose snow, through which they sucked the water. This they said was to filter out the little red worms with which they said the water was infested.
The travellers wore snow-shoes; the use of which, although indispensable in going over the soft snow, is very fatiguing, obliging the wearers to lift a dozen pounds of snow at every step. Sometimes they had to break a path for the sledges. The men would go on ahead for a space, then return and start on again, thus traversing the distance three times. Often they could not accomplish more than ten miles a day.
