[44] The greatest number of different mammals found wild in any one region of Alaska is to be recorded here: bears, brown and black; deer, reindeer and the woodland cariboo; big-horn mountain sheep, a long-haired variety. These animals are all shot. The trapped varieties are: beaver, land-otter, porcupines, whistling marmot or woodchuck, large gray wolves, lynx, wolverine, marten, mink, ermine, weasels, and muskrats. Wild-fowl: grouse both white and ruffled, geese, ducks, sandhill cranes, and the great northern swan. Berries: whortleberries, salmonberries, gooseberries, and cranberries; all gathered in season and mixed with the everlasting rancid oil used by every native in every section of Alaska.
[45] Oncorhynchus chouicha—examples of this species have a recorded weight of one hundred pounds each, and six feet in length; it is also abundant in the Yukon and Kuskokvim Rivers.
[46] Dr. T. H. Bean, who, as a trained ichthyologist, passed the season of 1880 investigating the fish of Alaska by cruising throughout its waters, says:
“The greatest fish-wealth of Alaska, so far as the shore fisheries are concerned, lies in the abundance of salmon of the genus Oncorhynchus, which is represented by five species—chouicha, keta, kisutch, nerka, and gorbuscha. The first three of these are the largest, the whole series being named in the order of their size. O. chouicha is the giant of the group, and is the most important commercially; it attains to its greatest size in the large rivers, which it ascends long distances in its spawning season. In Alaska it is known to extend as far north as Bering Strait, and it is especially abundant in Cook’s Inlet and in the Yukon. Individuals weighing nearly one hundred pounds are occasionally reported from these waters, and even in the Columbia. The finest product of this salmon is the salted bellies, which are prepared principally on the Kenai, Kassilov, and Yukon Rivers; the fame of this luxury once extended to the centre of government in Russia, The well-known ‘quinnat salmon’ is the same species; its importance, as evidenced by the efforts of the United States Fish Commission and other commissions toward its propagation and distribution, is too well understood to require additional mention. The great bulk of the salted salmon exported from Alaska are the small ‘red fish,’ O. nerka; and this species is sought after simply on account of the beautiful color of the flesh and not for its intrinsic value, which is far below that of most of the other species. All the salmon extend northward to Bering Strait, but only one, gorbuscha, is reported as occurring north of the Arctic Circle; gorbuscha is said by trustworthy parties to reach the Colville River. In the early part of its run the flesh of this little ‘humpback’ seems to me to be particularly good. Other members of the family of Salmonidæ, and very important ones, are the species of Salmo (purpuratus and gairdneri) and Salvelinus malma, two of which reach a large size in Alaska. The first two are not known to exist much to the northward of Unalashka, while malma is believed to extend to the Colville. S. gairdneri resembles the Atlantic salmon in size and shape, but its habits are different; it is found filled with mature eggs in June. I have not seen any very large examples of S. purpuratus from the Territory, but the species is extremely abundant and valuable for food. The red-spotted char, S. malma, is everywhere plentiful and is highly esteemed as a food-fish; it grows much larger in Northern Alaska than in California, and has some commercial value as an export in its sea-run condition under the name of ‘salmon trout.’ Natives of Alaska make water-proof clothing from the skins of this fish.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK.
Kadiak the Geographical and Commercial Centre of Alaska.—Site of the First Grand Depot of the Old Russian Company.—Shellikov and his Remarkable History, 1784.—His Subjection of the Kaniags.—Bloody Struggle.—He Founds the First Church and School in Alaska at Three Saints Bay, 1786, One Hundred Years ago.—Kadiak, a Large and Rugged Island.—The Timber Line drawn upon it.—Luxuriant Growth of Annual and Biennial Flowering Plants.—Reason why Kadiak was Abandoned for Sitka.—The Depot of the Mysterious San Francisco Ice Company on Wood Island.—Only Road and Horses in Alaska there.—Creole Ship and Boat Yard.—Tough Siberian Cattle.—Pretty Greek Chapel at Yealovnie.—Afognak, the Largest Village of “Old Colonial Citizens.”—Picturesque and Substantial Village.—Largest Crops of Potatoes raised here.—No Ploughing done; Earth Prepared with Spades.—Domestic Fowls.—Failure of Our People to Raise Sheep at Kolma.—What a “Creole” is.—The Kaniags or Natives of Kadiak; their Salient Characteristics.—Great Diminution of their Numbers.—Neglect of Laws of Health by Natives.—Apathy and Indifference to Death.—Consumption and Scrofula the Scourge of Natives in Alaska; Measles equally deadly.—Kaniags are Sea-otter Hunters.—The Penal Station of Ookamok, the Botany Bay of Alaska.—The Wild Coast of the Peninsula.—Water-terraces on the Mountains.—Belcovsky, the Rich and Profligate Settlement.—Kvass Orgies.—Oonga, Cod-fishing Rendezvous.—The Burial of Shoomagin here, 1741.—The Coal Mines here Worthless.
The boldest and the most striking cape in this wilderness of bluffy headlands and jutting promontories is that point which marks the dividing line between the Kadiak region and Cook’s Inlet—Cape Douglas. It is a lofty alpine ridge or spur, abruptly thrust out at a right angle to the coast, and into and over the sea for a distance of three miles, where it drops suddenly with a sheer precipitous fall of over one thousand feet into the waves that thunder on its everlasting foundations. Baffling winds here, and turbulent tide-rips distress that navigator who, coming down from the inlet, seeks the harbor of St. Paul’s village. He hardly regards this seared and rugged headland with that admiration which the geologist and the artist always will. The “woollies,” which blow fiercely off from it, worry him and challenge all his nautical skill.
Kadiak Island is the centre, geographical and commercial, of a most interesting and wide-extended district, perhaps the most so, of the Alaskan Territory, and Kadiak village, or Saint Paul Harbor is, in turn, the central and all-important settlement of this district.[47] It was the site of the first grand depot of the old Russian American Company, and also the location of the first missionary establishment and day-school ever founded on the northwest coast of the continent. From the quiet moorings of this beautiful Kadiak bay hundreds of shallops and vessels bearing courageous monks and priests have set out in every direction over all Alaska, carrying scores of them to preach the gospel among its savage inhabitants, who then were savage indeed to all intents and purposes.
The first visit ever made by white men to the great Island of Kadiak was the landing here in the autumn of 1763, at Alikitak Bay, of Stepan Glottov, a Russian sea-otter trader, who went into winter-quarters at the southeastern extremity of the island, on a spot now called Kahgooak settlement. The natives were ugly, hostile, refused all intercourse, and kept the Russians in a chronic state of fear. Scurvy broke out in their camp and nearly destroyed the invaders, leaving less than one-third of them alive in the spring. They managed then, with the greatest effort, to launch their vessel and get away, the savages meanwhile constantly attempting to finish that destruction which bodily disease had so well-nigh effected.
The beginning of the eighth decade of the eighteenth century is a true date of the real epoch of Russian domination in Alaska. All history of white exploration in this country prior to that is simply the cruel legend of an eager, heartless band of outraging Muscovites, doing everything just for the gain of the present moment, sowing so badly that they dared not remain and reap. One of those big-brained, cool, and indomitable Russians, who gave then as they give now, the stamp of high character to the race, was for several years prior to 1780 prominently engaged in the American fur trade. Grigor Ivan Shellikov was this man. He was a citizen of the Siberian town of Roolsk. He resolved to survey in person those scenes of rapid demoralization and ruin to the profitable prosecution of his Alaskan business, and, if possible, to attempt a change for the better. An evident decrease in furs, together with the hostile attitude of the natives, provoked altogether by their inhuman treatment at the hands of the “promishlyniks,” called for reform in the most emphatic manner. After a carefully deliberated plan of action had been determined upon between himself and his partners, the brothers Gollikov, he at once proceeded to the Okotsk Sea and fitted out three small vessels for his expedition.[48] He did not reach Kadiak until 1784, two years after starting out, when two of his vessels came to anchor in the harbor now known, as it was then christened by him, Three Saints Bay. Shellikov was a ready and willing correspondent. His numerous letters to his Siberian partners and his own published “Journeys” give us a clear idea of the hardihood of his enterprise, and they have a rare ethnographic value. From them we learn of the great liking which Shellikov’s party took to the Island of Kadiak, and how they resolved, soon after making a short reconnoissance, to establish themselves permanently if they could gain the confidence of its savage inhabitants.