Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

The formation of these islands, St. Paul and St. George, was recent, geologically speaking, and directly due to volcanic agency, which lifted them abruptly, though gradually, from the sea-bed. Little spouting craters then actively poured out cinders and other volcanic breccia upon the table-bed of basalt, depositing below as well as above the water’s level as they rose; and subsequently finishing their work of construction through the agency of these spout-holes or craters, from which water-puddled ashes and tufa were thrown. Soon after the elevation and deposit of the igneous matter, all active volcanic action must have ceased, though a few half-smothered outbursts seem to have occurred very recently indeed, for on Bobrovia or Otter Island, six miles southward of St. Paul, is the fresh, clearly blown-out throat, with the fire-scorched and smoked, smooth, sharp-cut, funnel-like walls of a crater. This is the only place on the Seal Islands where there are any evidences of recent discharges from the crater of a volcano.

Since the period of the upheaval of the group under discussion, the sea has done much to modify and even enlarge the most important one, St. Paul, while the others, St. George and Otter, being lifted abruptly above the power of water and ice to carry and deposit sand, soil, and boulders, are but little changed from the condition of their first appearance.

The Russians tell a somewhat strange story in connection with Pribylov’s landing. They say that both the islands were at first without vegetation, save St. Paul, where there was a small “talneek,” or willow, creeping along on the ground; and that on St. George nothing grew, not even grass, except on the place where the carcasses of dead animals rotted. Then, in the course of time, both islands became covered with grass, a great part of it being of the sedge kind, Elymus. This record of Veniaminov, however, is scarcely credible; there are few, surely, who will not question the opinion that the seals antedated the vegetation, for, according to his own statements, these creatures were there then in the same immense numbers that we find them to-day. The vegetation on these islands, such as it is, is fresh and luxuriant during the growing season of June and July and early August, but the beauty and economic value of trees and shrubbery, of cereals and vegetables, are denied to them by climatic conditions. Still I am strongly inclined to believe that, should some of those hardy shrubs and spruce trees indigenous at Sitka or Kadiak, be transplanted properly to any of the southern hill-slopes of St. Paul most favored by soil, drainage, and bluffs, for shelter from saline gales, they might grow, though I know that, owing to the lack of sunlight, they would never mature their seed. There is, however, during the summer, a beautiful spread of grasses, of flowering annuals, biennials, and perennials, of gayly-colored lichens and crinkled mosses,[90] which have always afforded me great delight whenever I have pressed my way over the moors and up the hillsides of the rookeries.

THE NORTH SHORE OF SAINT GEORGE

View of the Coast looking East from the North Rookery over to the Village and the Landing

There are ten or twelve species of grasses of every variety, from close, curly, compact mats to tall stalks—tussocks of the wild wheat, Elymus arenaria, standing in favorable seasons waist high—the “wheat of the north”—together with over one hundred varieties of annuals, perennials, sphagnum, cryptogamic plants, etc., all flourishing in their respective positions, and covering nearly every point of rock, tufa, cement, and sand that a plant can grow upon, with a living coat of the greenest of all greens—for there is not sunlight enough there to ripen any perceptible tinge of ochre-yellow into it—so green that it gives a deep blue tint to gray noonday shadows, contrasting pleasantly with the varying russets, reds, lemon-yellows, and grays of the lichen-covered rocks, and the brownish-purple of the wild wheat on the sand-dune tracts in autumn, together, also, with innumerable blue, yellow, pink, and white phænogamous blossoms, everywhere interspersed over the grassy uplands and sandy flats. Occasionally, on looking into the thickest masses of verdure, our common wild violet will be found, while the phloxes are especially bright and brilliant here. The flowers of one species of gentian, Gentiana verna are very marked in their beauty; also those of a nasturtium, and a creeping pea-vine on the sand-dunes. The blossom of a species of the pulse family is the only one here that emits a positive, rich perfume; the others are more suggestive of that quality than expressive. The most striking plant in all of a long list is the Archangelica officinalis, with its tall seed-stalks and broad leaves, which grows first in spring and keeps green latest in the fall. The luxuriant rhubarb-like stems of this umbellifer, after they have made their rapid growth in June, are eagerly sought for by the natives, who pull them and crunch them between their teeth with all the relish that we experience in eating celery. The exhibition of ferns at Kamminista, St. Paul, during the summer of 1872, surpassed anything that I ever saw: I recall with vivid detail the exceedingly fine display made by these luxuriant and waving fronds, as they reared themselves above the rough interstices of that rocky ridge. From the fern roots, and those of the gentian, the natives here draw their entire stock of vegetable medicines. This floral display on St. Paul is very much more extensive and conspicuous than that on St. George, owing to the absence of any noteworthy extent of warm sand-dune country on the latter island.

When an unusually warm summer passes over the Pribylov group, followed by an open fall and a mild winter, the elymus ripens its seed, and stands like fields of uncut grain in many places along the north shore of St. Paul and around the village, the snow not falling enough to entirely obliterate it; but it is seldom allowed to flourish to that extent. By the end of August and the first week of September of normal seasons, the small edible berries of Empetrum nigrum and Rubus chamæmorus are ripe. They are found in considerable quantities, especially at “Zapadnie,” on both islands, and, as everywhere else throughout circumpolar latitudes, the former is small, watery, and dark, about the size of an English or black currant; the other resembles an unripe and partially decayed raspberry. They are, however, keenly relished by the natives, and even by American residents, being the only fruit growing upon the islands. Perhaps no one plant that flowers on the Seal Islands is more conspicuous and abundant than is the Saxifraga oppositofolia; it grows over all localities, rank and tall in rich locations, to stems scarcely one inch high on the thin, poor soil of hill summits and sides, densely cespitose, with leaves all imbricated in four rows; and flowers almost sessile. I think that at least ten well-defined species of the order Saxifragaceæ exist on the Pribylov group. The Ranunculaceæ are not so numerous; but, still, a buttercup growing in every low slope where you may chance to wander is always a pleasant reminder of pastures at home; and, also, a suggestion of the farm is constantly made by the luxuriant inflorescence of the wild mustard (Cruciferæ). The chickweeds (Caryophyllaceæ) are well represented, and also the familiar yellow dandelion, Taraxacum palustre. Many lichens (Lichenes) and soft mosses (Musci) are in their greatest exuberance, variety, and beauty here; and myriads of golden poppies (Papaveraceæ) are nodding their graceful heads in the sweeping of the winds—the first flowers to bloom, and the last to fade.

The chief economic value rendered by the botany of the Pribylov Islands to the natives is an abundance of the basket-making rushes (Juncaceæ), which the old “barbies” gather in the margins of many of the lakes and pools.

The only suggestion of a tree[91] found growing on the Pribylov group is the hardy “talneek” or creeping willow; there are three species of the genus Salix found here, viz., reticulata, polaris, and arctica; the first named is the most common and of largest growth; it progresses exactly as a cucumber-vine does in our gardens; as soon as it has made from the seed a growth of six inches or a foot upright from the soil, then it droops over and crawls along prostrate upon the earth, rocks, and sphagnum; some of the largest talneek trunks will measure eight or ten feet in decumbent length along the ground, and are as large around the stump as an average wrist of man. The usual size, however, is very, very much less; while the stems of polaris and arctica scarcely ever reach the diameter of a pencil case, or the procumbent length of two feet.