Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

Another singular characteristic of these Alaskan savages is the fact that none of the many tribes have any medicine whatever; nor have they any knowledge, so far as we can find out, of any medicinal herb or mineral, and this again is the most extraordinary item of it all. Every less or great indisposition is treated by a universal resort to the sweat-bath; this is the sole specific, and this is the only relief, except when the shaman is called in to worry the last hours of the unhappy patient to death, or, perhaps, in rare cases, to prolong his wretched existence for a longer period, by stimulating an undue or extra nervous tension, which then causes, at times, the usually languid and resigned sufferer to rally, as it were, before the flame flickers out. Truly these people are predestinarians; they are wonderful in their patience when suffering long and acutely, as they lie stretched out or squatted in their gloomy, noisome hovels.

All the traders, and every vessel that sails in Alaskan waters, have medicine-chests, and to their credit be it said that, as far as they can, they do everything in their power to aid the natives when sick; but the aborigines have not the right idea of taking physic, since they appreciate nothing but forcible treatment—large doses of something that acts immediately, or nothing at all. For instance, if the trader gives an Indian a dose of Epsom-salts, the amount given must be at least four or five times as much as would do for himself, or there will be no effect on the patient whatever. Consequently, the simplest remedies known are the only ones which the white man dare give to these people, and they have, as a matter of course, very little power to relieve them. During the last six or seven years a violent form of typhoid-pneumonia has been wasting whole settlements on the Kadiak and Aleutian coasts; the Creoles and the natives alike yield at once to the disease, making scarcely an effort to save themselves. The traders everywhere became seriously alarmed, as the force of sea-otter hunters was rapidly decreasing, and exerted themselves to their utmost in staying the epidemic, which seemed to be carried from one village to the other in vessels and by canoes. But the only medicines which can be used in the safe and successful treatment of this complaint were regarded as unworthy of notice by the suffering natives, who, not feeling immediately relieved after taking them, would then totally ignore their further use.

Bad enough are the indigenous ills of the savages in Alaska. They were, however, nothing to the horrors which followed the importation of small-pox by the Russians in 1838-39. This terrible scourge swept like wildfire up from its initial point at Sitka, over the whole length of the Alaskan mainland and island coast, until it faded out in the far north where it had nothing to prey upon. It actually carried in its grim grasp one-half of the whole population then living in that large area to an abrupt and violent death—several districts were so afflicted that not a soul escaped—every human being was exterminated; it was exceedingly fatal and virulent in the Sitkan archipelago. We, knowing the filth and exposure of the lives of these people, can readily understand how they fell down and were crushed under the march of this disease.[55] As might be supposed the Russians lost no time in thoroughly vaccinating the survivors; and they have been faithfully followed, in this duty, by our own sailors and traders who now live in the country.

Another imported evil, the measles, is almost as deadly up here among the natives as small-pox. While it is a simple trouble arousing no especial anxiety with us, yet in this climate, together with the careless methods of life, it assumes a black form and becomes malignant and fatal. The last extended attack took place principally in the villages of the Kadiak district in the winter of 1874-75, where it so alarmed and impressed the sojourning members of an Icelandic Commission as to shake their desire to emigrate to that region—at least, when they returned to their country, they were never heard from in favor of Alaska.

A very natural question arises in this connection as to whether or no the savages of Alaska will ever increase in numbers or diminish to actual extermination as time advances. It appears very plain, however, that the inhabitants of the Aleutian chain, the Peninsula, and Cook’s Inlet are nearly as numerous to-day as they have been ever since the small-pox decimation of 1838-39. But all authorities agree in declaring that these people have never regained their numerical force represented in the settlement prior to the advent of the scourge which depopulated them. As to the Eskimo of the Bering Sea coasts and the Koloshians of the Sitkan region, it seems well established, from what we can learn, that they have regained their former strength in part, and were they only provident they might live by hundreds where they now exist in tens. Indifferent, wholly indifferent when living, they are as apathetic when they face death.

After reading the quaint yet strong narrative of the ferocity and strength of the Kaniags which Shellikov[56] has given us, it is hard, indeed, to realize that bold pioneer’s feeling as we now look in upon the steep slopes of Three Saints Bay, where, at the head of it, within the sweep of a sand-spit, he erected the first permanent white habitation ever planted on Kadiak with the aid of the one hundred and fifty or sixty Russians who formed his company. Here, to-day, we see a cluster of sod-walled barraboras and two small, frame trading-houses, in which live one hundred and ninety of the descendants of those hardy savages who terrified and nearly annihilated the party of Shellikov one hundred years ago in this very spot. Nothing else is left, for Baranov in 1796 removed the post itself to the present site of Kadiak village. As we scan the settlement of Three Saints we notice that the most prominent object is the rough-hewn walls and thatched roof of an old Greek chapel, in front of which is a rude trestle; from the upper frame of this a bell hangs. Now a stooping figure emerges from the church door; he seizes the clapper, or bell tongue, with both hands and swings it vigorously. Promptly the villagers emerge from their huts; trotting and shambling in single file, they all troop into the chapel. Meanwhile the dusky sub-deacon still tolls and chimes away long after every inhabitant has been gathered in. These men and women who, with bowed heads and fervent crossings, bend and kneel as they enter that place of worship, are the children of the “blood-thirsty and implacable” Kaniags of whom Shellikov gave so vivid a picture to the Empress of all the Russias just a century ago.

They are hunting sea-otters, however, just as they did then, and living in precisely the same manner, save the variations of outward demeanor and intercourse due to the teachings of the Greek Church. But if you go among them and strive to have them tell you of the heroic battle made by their ancestors on the Oogak “kekour,” you will be rewarded by either a stupid stare of vacancy or a muttered “Bogue ezniet” (God knows)!

The deep recess of Eagle Harbor, which lies between this point of earliest Russian occupation and Kadiak village, affords the location of another large native village, and its region is called the best grazing ground in all Alaska. On the surf-beaten islets at the mouth of the inlet a great many sea-lions are always found, and thus yield to these hunters of Orlova a rich return in hides and sinews so essential for the construction of the “bidarka.” A few families of Creoles also reside here, who attend to a small herd of cattle, keep fowls, and generally look after their commissions as middlemen in the sea-otter revenues.

From the earliest colonial time to the present the little village of Karlook, on the north side of the island, has been the busiest spot in the country. Here is a salmon-fishing settlement right on the coast at the mouth of a small river, where from the ancient date of Russian occupation there has been a salt house and packing establishment, in which the salt and dried fish used throughout the entire Alaskan region was annually secured and prepared. To-day we find two large canning establishments set up and sustained by San Francisco merchants. The run of salmon into this river of Karlook at the height of the season is so great that it interferes with the free movement of canoes in crossing the stream; while the fishermen of long experience in such matters say that twenty thousand barrels of the red-meated flesh could be easily secured and packed away at Karlook every summer and autumn. This salmon,[57] so abundant here, is much smaller in average size than is the one common in Cook’s Inlet—it does not average ten pounds in weight. But the rich red color of its flesh is an object of the canner, who soon finds out what public taste prefers.

The rough, rocky islands of Trinity, which constitute the extreme southern limit of the Kadiak influence, are the chosen resort of sea-lions and many of the rare sea-otter. Their capture lures a few hardy natives to live in close juxtaposition to the favored haunts of these much-prized animals, and they have a most extended hunting range, reaching far away down to the westward and southward as low as that remarkable barren island of Ookamok, where the celebrated “Botany Bay,” of the old Russian régime, was established. That lonely, isolated, desolate spot was the point where the old-time criminals who were guilty of murder, arson, and other capital offences, were always shipped, and left largely to their own devices for a livelihood. They were literally entombed alive on this islet, where nothing but moss and lichens and scant sphagnum could exist upon the rough, rocky surfaces, where the soil was barely appreciable—elsewhere there was none. But, strange to say, upon this island great numbers of that lively little ground squirrel, Parry’s marmot, were found, and still continue to be found, which were characterized then as now by a peculiar bluish ground-tint to their fur. This color is most popular and the one so highly prized in those universal coats or cloaks used by the natives, and called “parkies” by them.