Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

To the southward and westward of Saanak, stretching directly from it out to sea, eight or ten miles, is a succession of small, submerged islets, rocky, and bare most of them, at low water, with numerous reefs and stony shoals, beds of kelp, etc. This scant area is the chief resort of the kahlan, together with the Chernaboor Islets, some thirty miles to the eastward, which are identical in character. The otter rarely lands upon the main island, but he is, when found ashore, surprised just out of the surf-wash on the reef. The quick hearing and acute smell possessed by this wary brute are not equalled by any other creatures in the sea or on land. They will take alarm, and leave instantly from rest in a large section, over the effect of a small fire as far away as four or five miles distant to the windward of them. The footstep of man must be washed from a beach by many tides before its trace ceases to scare the animal and drive it from landing there, should it approach for that purpose.

The fashion of capturing the sea-otter is ordered entirely by the weather. If it be quiet and moderately calm, to calm, such an interval is employed in “spearing surrounds.” Then, when heavy weather ensues, to gales, “surf-shooting” is the method; and if a furious gale has been blowing hard for several days without cessation, as it lightens up, the hardiest hunters “club” the kahlan. Let us first follow a spearing party; let us start with the hunters, and go with them to the death.

Our point of departure is Oonalashka village; the time is an early June morning. The creaking of the tackle on the little schooner out in the bay as her sails are being set and her anchor hoisted, cause a swarm of Aleutes in their bidarkies to start out from the beach for her deck. They clamber on board and draw their cockle-shell craft up after them, and these are soon stowed and lashed tightly to the vessel’s deck-rail and stanchions. The trader has arranged this trip and start this morning for Saanak, by beginning to talk it over two weeks ago with these thirty or forty hunters of the village. He is to carry them down to the favored otter-resort, leave them there, and return to bring them back in just three months from the day of their departure this morning. For this great accommodation the Aleutes interested agreed to give the trader-skipper a refusal of their entire catch of otter-skins—indeed many of them have mortgaged their labor heavily in advance by pre-purchasing at his store, inasmuch as the credit system is worked among them for all it is worth. They are adepts in driving a bargain, shrewd and patient. The traders know this now, to the grievous cost of many of them.

If everything is auspicious, wind and tide the next morning, after sailing, bring the vessel well upon the ground. The headlands are made out and noted; the natives slip into their bidarkies as they are successively dropped over the schooner’s side while she jogs along under easy way, until the whole fleet of twenty or thirty craft is launched. The trader stands by the rail and shakes the hand of each grimy hunter as he steps down into his kyack, calling him, in pigeon-Russian, his “loobaiznie droög,” or dear friend, and bids him a hearty good-by. Then, as the last bidarka drops, the ship comes about and speeds back to the port which yesterday morning she cleared from, or she may keep on, before she does so, to some harbor at Saanak, where she will leave at a preconcerted rendezvous a supply of flour, sugar, tea, and tobacco for her party.

If the weather be not too foggy, and the sea not very high, the bidarkies are deployed into a single long line, keeping well abreast, at intervals of a few hundred feet between. In this manner they paddle slowly and silently over the water, each man peering sharply and eagerly into the vista of tumbling water just ahead, ready to catch the faintest evidence of the presence of an otter, should that beast ever so slyly present even the tip of its blunt head above for breath and observation. Suddenly an otter is discovered, apparently asleep, and instantly the discoverer makes a quiet signal, which is flashed along the line. Not a word is spoken, not a paddle splashes, but the vigilant, sensitive creature has taken the alarm, and has turned on to its chest, and with powerful strokes of its strong, webbed hind feet, has smote the water like the blades of a propeller’s screw, and down to depths below and away it speeds, while the hunter brings his swift bidarka to an abrupt standstill directly upon the bubbling wake of the otter’s disappearance. He hoists his paddle high in the air, and holds it there, while the others whirl themselves over the water into a large circle around him, varying in size from one-quarter to half a mile in diameter, according to the number of boats engaged in the chase.

THE SURROUND

A fleet of Sea-otter Hunters in the North Pacific, South of Saanak Island: marking the Wake of an Otter at the Moment of its Diving

The kahlan has gone down—he must come up again soon somewhere within reach of the vision of that Aleutian circle on the waters over its head; fifteen or twenty minutes of submergence, at the most, compel the animal to rise, and instantly as its nose appears above the surface, the native nearest it detects the movement, raises a wild shout, and darts in turn toward it; the yell has sent the otter down again far too quickly for a fair respiration, and that is what the hunter meant to do, as he takes up his position over the spot of the animal’s last diving, elevates his paddle, and the circle is made anew, with this fresh centre of formation. In this method the otter is continually made to dive and dive again without scarcely an instant to fully breathe, for a period, perhaps, of two or even three hours, until, from interrupted respiration, it finally becomes so filled with air or gases as to be unable to sink, and then falls at once an easy victim. During this contest the Aleutes have been throwing their spears whenever they were anywhere within range of the kahlan, and the hunter who has stricken the quarry is the proud and wealthy possessor, beyond all question or dispute.

In this manner the fleet moves on, sometimes very fortunate in finding the coveted prey; again, whole weeks pass away without a single surround. The landings at night are made without any choice or selection, but just as the close of the day urges them to find the nearest shore. The bidarkies are hauled out above surf-wash, and carefully inspected; if it is raining or very cold, small A-tents are pitched, using the paddles and spears for poles and pegs, into which the natives crowd for sleep and warmth, since they carry no blankets or bed-clothes whatever, and unless the wind is right they dare not make a fire, even to prepare the cherished cup of tea, which they enjoy more than anything else in the world, not excepting tobacco. After ninety or a hundred days of such employment, during which time they have been subjected to frequent peril of life in storm, and fog-lost, they repair to the rendezvous agreed upon between the trader and themselves, ready and happy to return for a resting-spell, to their wives, children, and sweethearts in the village whence we saw them depart. They may have been so lucky as to have secured forty or fifty otters, each skin worth to them at least fifty to sixty dollars, and if so, they will have a prolonged season of festivity at Oonalashka, when they get back. Perhaps the weather has been so inclement that this party will not have taken a half-dozen pelts; then gloomy, indeed, will be the reception at home.