A bronzed humming-bird[30] lies upon the author’s table, that once hovered and darted over the waters of Sitka Sound. Its torn and rudely stuffed skin was given to him at Fort Simpson with the remark that it came from the hot springs just below New Archangel; and that nowhere else in all of a vast wilderness, outside of the immediate vicinity of these springs, ever did or could a humming-bird be found. Should, therefore, a visitor to this Alaskan solitude chance to travel within it during the months of April and May, if he will but follow the path of that wee brave bird, he will be led into a veritable green and fragrant oasis, encircled all round about with savage icy mountains and snowy forests.
Twenty miles south of Sitka, on the same island, in a pretty little bay sheltered by a score of tiny islets, there—from the sloping face of a verdant bank, the finest hot springs known to Alaska flow up and out to the sea. Fleecy clouds of steamy moisture rise over all to betray from a distance this delightful retreat; the luxuriant vegetation, the variety of shrubs in full blossom here, when all botanical life about them is as dead as cold can make it, create thereon a spot in the early spring where all the senses of a traveller can rest with exquisite pleasure—the waters of the bay in front are covered with geese and ducks, while the rugged mountains that rise as a wall behind are teeming with deer and bear and grouse, secluded in the jungle.
The Indians, from time immemorial, have resorted to these hot waters of Baranov Island; four distinct and freely flowing springs take their origin in those crevices and fissures of the feldspathic granite foundation of the earth hereabouts; the temperature of the largest spring, at its source, is 150° to 160° Fah.; the waters are charged with sulphur to a very great extent. So jealous were the savages of any attempt among themselves which might savor of a monopoly of the use of these healing, beneficent warm streams, that no one tribe ever dared to build a village upon the site; but, by tacit consent, all were allowed to camp thereon. Some Indians often came from a distance of three hundred miles away to enjoy the sanitary result of bathing here, a few days or a few weeks, as their troubles might warrant.
Naturally the Russians, burdened at Sitka with all diseases which flesh is heir to, turned their attention very promptly to this sanitarium; they erected a small hospital and two spacious bathhouses over the springs, keeping everything in the strictest order and cleanliness, without and within doors. A sad change confronts us to-day—in so far as care of human hands; but the savage Sitkan is here, exulting in his renewed supremacy.
The occurrence, however, of hot springs is quite frequent everywhere in this archipelago; yet their extent and volume of outflow is not so great as evidenced by those we have just noticed of Baranov Island. Indians love to immerse their entire bodies in pools and eddies of these hot rivulets, which are cooled sufficiently by flowing a dozen or fifty yards from their origin over pebbly bottoms; Siwashes will soak themselves in this manner for hours at a time, with nothing but their heads visible. Though the Koloshian, like all others of his kind, never verbally complains, yet he is subject to acute rheumatism, to fevers, and to divers malignant cutaneous diseases; these springs, wherever known to him, are always well regarded as his happy relief and hope. Certain it is that when you behold the parboiled skin of a native, after bathing here, the fair almost white complexion really startles, for, prior to the immersion, he was a coppery brown or black.
Midway between these thermal fountains and Sitka is the site of an old Russian jail or prison; in a deep inlet, with no land in sight, but lofty mountains rising abruptly from the water’s edge, is the “Redoubt.” Here a small alpine lake empties itself in a foaming cascade channel of a few yards in width, that quickly plunges into a cañon, the perpendicular walls of which are a full thousand feet in mural height. The Russians erected mills of various kinds along the rapids to avail themselves of such abundant water-power; the buildings stood upon a bare rocky portion of the channel, and were kept in order by an old veteran in command; a squad of soldiers aided him; the fish, dried and salted salmon, which were required for the use of the company, were annually caught here as they swarmed up the cascade from the sea, into Gloobaukie Lake.
The great facility of travel afforded by these sheltered canals of the Alexander archipelago, has enabled and facilitated a most energetic and persistent search for gold and silver by our miners, but the rugged features of the country and its dense timber and jungle have rendered the progress of such investigation slow, and one of great physical difficulty. In the sands of every stream flowing between California and Cook’s Inlet the “color” of gold can be found, but the paying quantities therein seldom warrant a mining camp or settlement. To-day the only mining rendezvous which we find in Alaska is a little village of rough cabins called “Juneau City,” located on the north side of Gastineaux Channel, at a point near the upper end of that passage; near by, and adjacent, is established a large gold-quartz stamp-mill[31] on Douglas Island, where the mining experts feel justified in predicting a steady and inexhaustible yield of paying ore—it is paying handsomely at present.
This subject of what is, or what is not, a good mining region or investment is one to which no rational man can well afford to commit himself. Those who have had extended experience in these matters know that it is a topic which baffles the best investigator, and returns no safe answer to the most intelligent cross-examination. The true advice which can be honestly given is that which prompts every man interested to look and resolve wholly for himself, for he, in fact, knows just as much as anybody else. At the most, the finding of a rich or desirable lead of gold or silver in a new country is an accident or sheer opportunity of chance. Whether it will hold out, or end in a “pocket,” is also only to be determined by working it for all it is worth. Once in a while a man makes a rich find, and is rewarded; but an overwhelming majority of prospectors are ever wandering in fruitless, restless, tireless search for those golden ingots which are still hidden in the recesses of mountain ledges, or buried in the alluvium of river bottoms. The miners in Alaska embrace various nationalities—Australians and Canadians, Cornishmen and Californians, Oregonians and British Columbians predominate—but the number aggregated is not large.[32]
If gold or silver-quartz mines of free-milling ore (no matter how low the grade) can be located anywhere on the shores of these mountainous fiörds of the Alexander archipelago, their wealth will be great, because the transportation to them and from them is practically without cost. The expense of working such valuable quartz mines up a hundred or more miles from the sea, will result in abandonment, where reaching them involves frequent transfers of supplies, and the working season is cut by the rigor of winter to less than half or one-third of every year. The same mines, down within the dockage of an ocean-steamer in the Sitkan district would be a steady source of wealth and industry all the year round.
The coal which is found here is not satisfactory for steamers’ use—too heavily charged with sulphur. Copper ore is well-known, but not worked in competition with the Lake Superior and Arizona cheap outputs. At the present writing there are no active industries whatsoever in the Sitkan archipelago beyond the energetic stamp-mill of the Treadwell Mine on Douglas Island, and the limited placer diggings of Juneau City. Until a market is created for its large natural resources of food-fishes, the little canneries which our people have started here will not develop; nor will the timber be of much commercial importance until the great reservoirs of the lower coast are exhausted. Statisticians and political economists can easily figure out the time when a population of twenty-five or thirty millions of our own people will be living upon the Pacific coast alone; then the real value of those latent resources[33] of the Sitkan watery wilderness must be patent to a most indifferent calculator.