Our Arctic province

by Henry Wood Elliott

MAP OF ST. PAUL ISLAND—PRIBYLOV GROUP.

Showing the Area and Position of the Fur Seal Rookeries and Hauling Grounds. Surveyed and drawn (1873-74) by Henry W. Elliott.

As to sea-weeds, or mosses,—the extent, luxuriance, variety, and beauty of the algæ forests of those waters of Bering Sea which lave the coasts of the Pribylov Islands, call for more detail of description than space in this volume will allow, since anything like a fair presentation of the subject would require the reproduction of my water-colored drawings. After all heavier gales, especially the southeasters in October, if a naturalist will take the trouble to walk the sand-beach between Lukannon and northeast point of St. Paul Island, he will be rewarded by the memorable sight. He will find thrown up by the surf a vast windrow of kelp along the whole eight or ten miles of this walk—heaped, at some spots, nearly as high as his head; the large trunks of Melanospermæ, the small, but brilliant red and crimson fronds of Rhodospermæ interwoven with the emerald-green leaves of the Chlorospermæ. The first-named group is by far the most abundant, and upon its decaying, fermenting brown and ochre heaps, he will see countless numbers of a buccinoid whelk, and a limnaca, feeding as they bore or suck out myriads of tiny holes in the leaf-fronds of the strong growing species. Actinia or sea-anemones, together with asteroids or starfishes, Discophoræ or jelly-fishes, are also interwoven and heaped up with the “kapoosta” or sea-cabbages just referred to; also, many rosy “sea-squirts,” yellow “cucumbers,” and other forms of Holothuridæ.

On the old killing-fields, on those spots where the sloughing carcasses of repeated seasons have so enriched the soil as to render it like fire to most vegetation, a silken green Confervæ grows luxuriantly. This terrestrial algoid covering appears here and there, on these grounds, like so many door-mats of pea-green wool. That confervoid flourishes only on those spots where nothing but pure decaying animal matter is found. An admixture of sand or earth will always supplant it by raising up instead those strong growing grasses which I have alluded to elsewhere, and which constitute the chief botanical life of the killing-grounds.

In order that the reader can follow easily the narrative of that remarkable life-system which is conducted by the fur-seal as it annually rests and breeds upon the Pribylov group, I present a careful chart of each island and the contiguous islets, which are the only surveys ever made upon the ground. The reader will observe, as he turns to these maps, the striking dissimilarity which exists between them, not only in contour but in physical structure, the Island of St. Paul being the largest in superficial area, and receiving a vast majority of the Pinnipedia that belong to both. As it lies in Bering Sea to-day, this island is, in its greatest length, between northeast and southwest points, thirteen miles, air-line; and a little less than six at points of greatest width. It has a superficial area of about thirty-three square miles, or twenty-one thousand one hundred and twenty acres, of diversified, rough and rocky uplands, rugged hills, and smooth, volcanic cones, which either set down boldly to the sea or fade out into extensive wet and mossy flats, passing at the sea-margins into dry, drifting, sand-dune tracts. It has forty-two miles of shore-line, and of this coast sixteen and a half miles are hauled over by fur-seals en masse. At the time of its first upheaval above the sea, it doubtless presented the appearance of ten or twelve small rocky, bluffy islets and points, upon some of which were craters that vomited breccia and cinders, with little or no lava overflowing. Active plutonic agency must have soon ceased after this elevation, and then the sea round about commenced a work which it is now engaged in—of building on to the skeleton thus created; and it has progressed to-day so thoroughly and successfully in its labor of sand-shifting, together with the aid of ice-floes, in their action of grinding, lifting, and shoving, that nearly all of these scattered islets within the present area of the island, and marked by its bluffs and higher uplands, are completely bound together by ropes of sand, changed into enduring bars and ridges of water-worn boulders. These are raised above the highest tides by winds that whirl the sand up, over and on them, as it dries out from the wash of the surf and from the interstices of rocks, which are lifted up and pushed by ice-fields.

The sand that plays so important a part in the formation of the Island of St. Paul, and which is almost entirely wanting in and around the others of this Pribylov group, is principally composed of Foraminifera, together with Diatomacea, mixed in with a volcanic base of fine comminuted black and reddish lavas and old friable gray slates. It constitutes the chief beauty of the sea-shore here, for it changes color like a chameleon, as it passes from wet to dry, being a rich steely-black at the surf-margin and then drying out to a soft purplish-brown and gray, succeeding to tints most delicate of reddish and pale neutral, when warmed by the sun and drifting up on to the higher ground with the wind. The sand-dune tracts on this island are really attractive in the summer, especially so during those rare days when the sun comes out, and the unwonted light shimmers over them and the most luxuriant grass and variety of beautiful flowers which exist in profusion thereon. In past time, as these sand and boulder bars were forming on St. Paul Island, they, in making across from islet to islet, enclosed small bodies of sea-water. These have, by evaporation and time, by the flooding of rains and annual melting of snow, become, nearly every one of them, fresh; they are all, great and small, well shown on my map, which locates quite a large area of pure water. In them, as I have hinted, are no reptiles; but an exquisite species of a tiny fish[96] exists in the lagoon-estuary near the village, and the small pure-water lakes of the natives just under the flanks of Telegraph Hill. The Aleutes assured me that they had caught fish in the big lake toward Northeast Point, when they lived in their old village out there; but, I never succeeded in getting a single specimen. The waters of these pools and ponds are fairly alive with vast numbers of minute Rotifera, which sport about in all of them wherever they are examined. Many species of water-plants, pond-lilies, algæ, etc., are found in those inland waters, especially in that large lake “Mee-sulk-mah-nee,” which is very shallow.

The backbone of St. Paul, running directly east and west, from shore to shore, between Polavina Point and Einahnuhto Hills, constitutes the high land of that island: Polavina Sopka, an old extinct cinder-crater, five hundred and fifty feet; Bogaslov, an upheaved mass of splinted lava, six hundred feet; and the hills frowning over the bluffs there, on the west shore, are also six hundred feet in elevation above the sea. But the average height of the upland between is not much over one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet above water-level, rising here and there into little hills and broad, rocky ridges, which are minutely sketched upon the map. From the northern base of Polavina Sopka a long stretch of low sand-flats extends, enclosing the great lake, and ending in a narrow neck where it unites with Novastoshnah, or Northeast Point. Here that volcanic nodule known as Hutchinson’s Hill, with its low, gradual slopes, trending to the east and southward, makes a rocky foundation secure and broad, upon which the great single rookery of the island, the greatest in the world, undoubtedly, is located. The natives say that when they first came to these islands Novastoshna was an island by itself, to which they went in boats from Vesolia Mista; and the lagoon now so tightly enclosed was then an open harbor in which the ships of the old Russian Company rode safely at anchor. To-day, no vessel drawing ten feet of water can safely get nearer than half a mile of the village, or a mile from this lagoon at low tide.

The total absence of a harbor at the Pribylov Islands is much to be regretted. The village of St. Paul, as will be seen by reference to the map, is so located as to command the best landings for vessels that can be made during the prevalence of any and all winds, except those from the south. From these there is no shelter for ships, unless they run around to the north side, where they are unable to hold practicable communication with the people or to discharge. At St. George matters are still worse, for the prevailing northerly, westerly, and easterly winds drive the boats away from the village roadstead, and weeks often pass at either island, but more frequently at the latter, ere a cargo is landed at its destination. Under the very best circumstances, it is both hazardous and trying to unload a ship at any of these places. The approach to St. Paul by water during thick weather is doubtful and dangerous, for the land is mostly low at the coast, and the fogs hang so dense and heavy over and around the hills as to completely obliterate their presence from vision. The captain fairly feels his way in by throwing his lead-line and straining his ear to catch the muffled roar of the seal-rookeries, which are easily detected when once understood, high above the booming of the surf. At St. George, however, the bold, abrupt, bluffy coast everywhere all around, with its circling girdle of flying water-birds far out to sea, looms up quite prominently, even in the fog; or, in other words, the navigator can notice it before he is hard aground or struggling to haul to windward from the breakers under his lee. There are no reefs making out from St. George worthy of notice, but there are several very dangerous and extended ones peculiar to St. Paul, which Captain John G. Baker, in command of the vessel[97] under my direction, carefully sounded out, and which I have placed upon my chart for the guidance of those who may sail in my wake hereafter.

When the wind blows from the north, northwest, and west to southwest, the company’s steamer drops her anchor in eight fathoms of water abreast of the black bluffs opposite the village, from which anchorage her stores are lightered ashore; but in the northeasterly, easterly, and southeasterly winds, she hauls around to the lagoon bay west of the village, and there, little less than half a mile from the landing, she drops her anchor in nine fathoms of water, and makes considerable headway at discharging her cargo. Sailing-craft come to both anchorages, but, however, keep still farther out, though they choose relatively the same positions, yet seek deeper water to swing to their cables in: the holding-ground is excellent. At St. George the steamer comes, wind permitting, directly to the village on the north shore, close up, and finds her anchorage in ten fathoms of water, over poor holding-ground; still it is only when three or four days have passed, free from northerly, westerly, or easterly winds that she can make the first attempt to safely unload. The landing here is a very bad one, surf breaking most violently upon the rocks from one end of the year to the other.