Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

The manner in which the natives capture and drive up “holluschickie” from the hauling-grounds to the slaughter-fields near the two villages of St. Paul and St. George, and elsewhere on the islands, cannot be improved upon. It is in this way: At the beginning of every sealing-season, that is, during May and June, large bodies of the young “bachelor” seals do not haul up on land very far from the water—a few rods at the most—and, when these first arrivals are sought after, the natives, to capture them, are obliged to approach slyly and run quickly between the dozing seals and the surf, before they can take alarm and bolt into the sea; in this manner a dozen Aleutes, running down the sand beach of English Bay, in the early morning of some June day, will turn back from the water thousands of seals, just as the mould-board of a plough lays over and back a furrow of earth. When the sleeping seals are first startled, they arise, and, seeing men between them and the water, immediately turn, lope and scramble rapidly back up and over the land; the natives then leisurely walk on the flanks and in the rear of this drove thus secured, directing and driving it over to the killing-grounds, close by the village. The task of getting up early of a morning, and going out to the several hauling-grounds, closely adjacent, is really all there is of that labor expended in securing the number of seals required for a day’s work on the killing-grounds. The two, three, or four natives upon whom, in rotation, this duty is devolved by the order of their chief, rise at first glimpse of dawn, between one and two o’clock, and hasten over to Lukannon, Tolstoi, or Zoltoi, as the case may be, “walk out” their “holluschickie,” and have them duly on the slaughtering field before six or seven o’clock, as a rule, in the morning. In favorable weather the “drive” from Tolstoi consumes from two and a half to three hours’ time; from Lukannon, about two hours, and is often done in an hour and a half; while Zoltoi is so near by that the time is merely nominal.

A drove of seals on hard or firm grassy ground, in cool and moist weather, may be driven with safety at the rate of half a mile an hour; they can be urged along, with the expenditure of a great many lives, however, at the speed of a mile or a mile and a quarter per hour; but that is seldom done. An old bull-seal, fat and unwieldy, cannot travel with the younger ones, though it can lope or gallop as it starts across the ground as fast as an ordinary man can run, over one hundred yards—then it fails utterly, falls to the earth supine, entirely exhausted, hot, and gasping for breath.

The “holluschickie” are urged along over paths leading to the killing-ground with very little trouble, and require only three or four men to guide and secure as many thousand at a time. They are permitted frequently to halt and cool off, as heating them injures their fur. These seal-halts on the road always impressed me with a species of sentimentalism and regard for the creatures themselves. When the men drop back for a few moments, that awkward shambling and scuffling of the march at once ceases, and the seals stop in their tracks to fan themselves with their hind flippers, while their heaving flanks give rise to subdued panting sounds. As soon as they apparently cease to gasp for want of breath, and are cooled off comparatively, the natives step up once more, clatter a few bones, with a shout along the line, and this seal-shamble begins again—their march to death and the markets of the world is taken up anew.[133]

I was also impressed by the singular docility and amiability of these animals when driven along the road. They never show fight any more than a flock of sheep would do; if, however, a few old seals get mixed in, they usually grow so weary that they prefer to come to a stand-still and fight rather than move; otherwise no sign whatever of resistance is made by the drove from the moment it is intercepted, and turned up from the hauling-grounds, to the time of its destruction at the hands of the sealing-gang.

This disposition of the old seals to fight rather than endure the panting torture of travel, is of great advantage to all parties concerned, for they are worthless commercially, and the natives are only too glad to let them drop behind, where they remain unmolested, eventually returning to the sea. The fur on them is of little or no value; their under-wool being very much shorter, coarser, and more scant than in the younger; especially so on the posterior parts along the median line of the back.

This change for the worse or deterioration of the pelage of the fur-seal takes place, as a rule, in the fifth year of their age—it is thickest and finest in texture during the third and fourth year of life; hence, in driving the seals on St. Paul and St. George up from the hauling-grounds the natives make, as far as practicable, a selection only from males of that age. It is quite impossible, however, to get them all of one age without an extraordinary amount of stir and bustle, which the Aleutes do not like to precipitate; hence the drive will be found to consist usually of a bare majority of three and four-year-olds, the rest being two-year-olds principally, and a very few, at wide intervals, five-year-olds, the yearlings seldom ever getting mixed up in it.

As this drove progresses along that path to those slaughtering-grounds, the seals all move in about the same way; they go ahead with a kind of walking step and a sliding, shambling gallop. The progression of the whole caravan is a succession of starts, spasmodic and irregular, made every few minutes, the seals pausing to catch their breath, making, as it were, a plaintive survey and mute protest. Every now and then a seal will get weak in the lumbar region, then drag its posteriors along for a short distance, finally drop breathless and exhausted, quivering and panting, not to revive for hours—days, perhaps—and often never. During the driest driving-days, or those days when the temperature does not combine with wet fog to keep the earth moist and cool, quite a large number of the weakest animals in the drove will be thus laid out and left on the track. If one of these prostrate seals is not too much heated at the time, the native driver usually taps the beast over the head and removes its skin.

NATIVES DRIVING “HOLLUSCHICKIE”

The Drove passing over the Lagoon Flats to the Killing Grounds under the Village of St. Paul. Looking S. W. over the Village Cove and the Lagoon Rookery