“If you will visit my lodge in Ketchikan, a day’s journey to the northward,” concluded the Story Teller, “I shall show you one of the guns used in that last big fight. It was given to me by my grandmother, she who was a blood relation of Chief Skowel. She told me it was made in Sheet-kah (Sitka) in the days when the Russians made many guns and cannons and built great ships to send over the Big Water. It is a flint lock and made fine and strong. Many come to see it and offer me plenty furs or bags of the white man’s money for it.” [[17]]
“The Star House had a round door”
[[18]]
The Battle with the Sand Fleas
The rain had ceased and the sun had swept aside the veil of mist disclosing a glorious panorama of sea and sky. We stepped into our canoe and turned its nose northward.
The sun was setting in a riot of gorgeous colors as we rounded Pinnoch Island and saw the thriving little city of Ketchikan stretching for miles along the waterfront. “Ketch-kaw” the Indians named it, meaning wedged in between two mountains. The harbor was crowded with ships. Great concrete buildings rose against the sky. One by one lights began to flash out from pretty homes crowding hillside and waterfront and were reflected in the waters of Tongass Narrows. As lovely a scene as any famed Venice can boast.
Then the Story Teller broke the long silence.
“It was here that the Thlingets fought and conquered the Tsimpseans. It ended the war that began so long ago that no one can remember. One, two, perhaps three hundred years ago.