[70] The Russo-Greek religion is still maintained throughout Alaska, and nearly a hundred of its churches and chapels still exist throughout the country and in the Aleutian Islands.
But although this liquor law was enforced with severity ashore its infringement afloat was openly winked at by the authorities. Soldiers were stationed night and day with loaded rifles on the beach to prevent the importation of spirits, and yet within half a mile of them, anchored in the roadstead, were four or five hulks, floating public-houses, where a man might get as drunk as he pleased with impunity, and often for the last time, especially when a return to the shore had to be made through a nasty sea in a skin kayak. It was even whispered that "Hootch" (a fiery poison akin to "Tanglefoot") was manufactured at the barracks, and retailed by the soldiers to the natives, the very class for whose protection against temptation the prohibitive law was framed.
Eskimo Girls.
"All my men are intoxicated," the Commandant at St. Michael was said to have exclaimed. "So I suppose I had better get drunk myself."
But there was little love lost here between the civil and military element, and these were probably libels, for I have seldom seen a better drilled or disciplined set of men, although the hideous uniform of the American linesman is less suggestive of a soldier than of a railway guard.[71]
[71] Permanent military posts of the United States have been established as follows, throughout Alaska: Fort Egbert at Circle City, Fort Gibbon on the Tanana River, Fort Valdez on Prince William Sound, Fort Davis at Nome, and Fort St. Michael on the island of that name.
The heat at St. Michael was even more oppressive than at Nome, and it was impossible to stir out of doors at midday with any comfort. We were therefore not sorry to embark on board the Hannah, of the "Alaska Commercial Company," which contained one hundred state-rooms, of which barely a dozen were occupied, for at this season of the year travellers are mostly outward bound. The White Pass railway has practically killed the Yukon passenger trade, for people now travel to Dawson by rail, and to Nome by sea direct. They used to go by ocean steamer to St. Michael, and thence ascend the river to Dawson, for in those days the perilous Chilkoot Pass was the only direct way from the South into the Klondike region. Our fellow travellers, therefore, lacked in numbers but not in originality, for they included a millionaire in fustian, who preferred to eat with the crew; a young and well-dressed widow from San Francisco, who owned claims on the Tanana and worked them herself; a confidence-man with a gambling outfit, who had struck the wrong crowd; and last, but not least, Mrs. Z., recently a well-known prima donna in the United States, who, although in the zenith of her youthful fame and popularity, had abandoned a brilliant career to share the fortunes of her husband, an official of the "Alaska Commercial Company," in this inartistic land. I found the conditions of travel on the Yukon as completely changed as everything else. Even the technical expressions once used by the gold-mining fraternity were now replaced by others. Thus the "Oldtimer" had become "a Sourdough," and his antithesis, the "Tenderfoot," was now called a "Chechako." A word now frequently heard (and unknown in 1896) was "Musher," signifying a prospector who is not afraid to explore the unknown. This word is of Canadian origin, and probably a corruption of the French "Marcheur." Various passengers on board the Hannah were said to be returning to their homes with "Cold feet," also a new term, defining the disappointed gold-seeker who is leaving the country in disgust.
But a change which excited both my admiration and approval was that in the accommodation provided on board the Hannah and the really excellent dinner to which we sat down every day, although enforced teetotalism was somewhat irritating to those accustomed to wine with their meals. It is no exaggeration to say that an overland journey may now be made from Skagway to Nome City with as little discomfort as a trip across Switzerland, if the tourist keeps to the beaten track by rail and steamer. But the slightest deviation on either side will show him what Alaskan travel really was, and he will then probably curse the country and all that therein lies. The tourist may even experience some trying hours on the river-boat, for although the latter is fitted with cunning contrivances for their exclusion, mosquitoes invariably swarm, and the Yukon specimen is so unequalled for size and ferocity that I once heard an old miner declare that this virulent insect was "as big as a rabbit and bit at both ends." But this is about the only discomfort that travellers by the main route through Alaska need now endure. Otherwise the path of travel has been made almost as smooth as Cook's easiest tours.