The next day we stopped at the native village of Anvik. By this time we had left the land of the Indians or Ingeliks, which reaches down the river below Nulato, and had reached that of the Innuits or Eskimos. Anvik was the first Eskimo village I had seen and the impression I carried away with me was one of extreme disgust. The whole place was a human sty, from which arose an overpowering stink. The houses were mere shacks built of poles laid close together, with holes in the centre to allow the smoke to escape. All around the houses, in front, behind, and along the paths, was ordure. Most of the people whom we saw had the appearance of being diseased: whole rows of the maimed, the halt, the blind, and the scrofulous, sunned themselves in front of the huts. Others sat huddled in their long fur shirts or parkas (which constitute their only garment), and coughed constantly, too sick to show much interest in the white visitors. A little apart, in front of the houses, a woman squatted, sobbing, while beside her crouched an old crone with a mouth like a fish, who crooned incessantly a weird, monotonous and mournful chant, to which the sobbing woman made brief responses at intervals. Other women sat around in their doors, all looking sad, and many sobbing. A young Indian boy from the steamer, who had picked up some English in a mission school, explained the scene to us. "That woman's baby die," he said. "Everybody all day cry."
We were glad to turn away from the most dismal and degraded set of human beings it had ever been my lot to see; on our way back to the steamer we passed a building of sawed boards used as a mission, and met the missionary, who was properly attired in a suit of clerical black, with white linen and tie. He had a book in his hand. I had rather seen him dressed in a parka, with an axe over his shoulder.
Below Anvik a short distance, we came to the Holy Cross Mission, a Catholic station located at another Eskimo village. The village was only a little better than that of Anvik to look at, but somewhat better to smell of. The mission itself, however, was a model. The buildings were well-built and clean, and there was a flourishing garden, containing potatoes, rutabagas, cabbages and lettuce, the whole surrounded by a rail fence; and in another little enclosure there was a real live cow, almost as much a novelty to us as to the natives from further up the river, who left the steamboat and pressed around the strange animal with wondering eyes, as children view the elephant at their first circus. We saw many little girls, pupils of the school, spotlessly arrayed in new calico dresses, with gay silk or cotton handkerchiefs on their heads. They made quite a pretty picture, and the contrast of the little maidens with their relatives at Anvik was something almost startling. These children had been taken away from their parents by the sisters who teach at the Mission and were being brought up by them, to be sent away again only when grown.
Between the Holy Cross Mission and the Yukon delta the river grows continually wider till it is in places fully five miles from bank to bank, without islands. The banks themselves become low and very flat, and the timber disappears almost entirely, leaving the swampy plains known as tundra. Along here the only fuel is driftwood; and this the natives had stacked up in places ready for the steamer. Landing to take on wood was always the opportunity for a run on shore, dickering with the natives for curiosities, and general hilarity. The people here were wonderfully different from those on the Yukon from Nulato to the headwaters, being round and rosy, rather small in stature, and with a certain Mongolian appearance. They are childlike in look and action, with round wondering eyes, and mouths always ready to smile broadly and unreservedly at any hint of a joke. They were dressed in the Eskimo parka, made of furs of various sorts, especially squirrel, mink, reindeer, or muskrat. The whole sustenance of the people in this barren tundra district appeared to be fish, and many of them had been obliged to make their parkas and leggings out of the fish skins, which were sewn together with much neatness and taste, and were ornamented with red ochre. In wet weather they wore long shirts made of the entrails of animals, split open and sewn together; these had tight-fitting hoods and sleeves, and were practically watertight. The Eskimo kayak or covered boat, made by stretching seal or walrus skins over a wooden frame, makes its appearance along here, although the birch canoe is still to be seen. In the houses of these people we saw sealskins full of oil laid up as a provision against the winter.
Three-Hatch Skin Boat, or Bidarka.
At a mission further up the river a Russian priest of the Greek Catholic church had gotten on board. He wore the plain black gown, full beard and long hair of men of his class, and spoke broken English. He seemed well acquainted with the country, however, and assured us that these people were distinct both from the Kolchane or Indians, who were found all along the Yukon above Nulato, and from the Mahlemut Eskimos. These middle people he called Kwikpaks; but I am sure they are really Eskimos, with perhaps some peculiarities, due to their position on the border-line of two races differing so greatly as do the Eskimos and the Indians.
The same day we left the Yukon for good, emerging from the northern or Ap-hoon mouth, (for the Yukon forms a delta which spreads out many miles and includes many channels) out on the open sea. We were struck with the color of the clear green water, after so long viewing the muddy brown Yukon or the clear black of some of its tributaries. Before us the country was barren, untimbered, and black, with volcanic cones rising here and there. As we advanced, low islands rose out of the sea around these cones,—fields of lava, covered with swamps and ponds,—while we left behind us the dead level untimbered tundra of the Yukon delta. We anchored under the lee of an island that night, and as usual we were roused from our sleeping places before daylight the next morning by the cook. The sun rose gloriously from behind the low black volcanic hills and just as we were getting around to breakfast at the fourth table we steamed into St. Michael's.
FOOTNOTE
[2] Dried salmon.