“The natives would rather have a dead whale drift ashore,” says Mr. George Wardman, United States Treasury agent in Alaska, “than to own the best crop of the biggest farm in the United States. Dead whale is a great blessing in the Aleutian part of our Alaska possessions, and agricultural products are but little sought after or valued. The dead whale may be so putrid that the effluvia arising from it will blacken the white paint of a vessel lying one hundred yards distant, but, all the same, the whale is a blessing.”
There is a variety store kept on Attoo by an agent of the Alaska Commercial Company, where the natives exchange their furs for tea, sugar, and hard biscuit, besides tobacco and a few fancy articles.
The mountains which surround the settlement are two or three thousand feet in height, “rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,” and are white with snow for a considerable portion of the year. These Aleutian Islands, bounded by wave-battered rocks, stretching far out in the Pacific towards Asia, have no trees, the soil not having sufficient depth to support them, but they are thickly covered with a low-growing, luxuriant vegetation in great variety. Between the mountains and the sea are many natural prairies, with a rich soil of vegetable mould suitable for domestic gardening. The wood consumed by the inhabitants as fuel is the product of drift-logs or trees reclaimed from the sea. On the breaking up of winter in the large islands at the northeast and on the mainland, the unsealing of the ice-bound rivers sends down from the great forests through which they flow thousands of fallen trees, many of which are very large. This is especially the case with the Yukon River, which empties its immense accumulation of debris into Norton Sound, and the Kuskoquin, emptying into a bay of the same name one hundred and fifty miles farther south. When these tree trunks find their way to the open sea, the prevailing currents bear them southward to the Aleutian Islands, where a large number become stranded at Attoo, and are promptly secured and stored for use as fuel. It would seem to be rather a precarious source of supply to depend upon for this purpose, but we were told that, as a rule, it was ample to meet the demand. There is also a stocky vine growing in great abundance upon the islands, which the native women gather and dry, and this makes a quick, strong fire. At certain seasons the women may be seen in long lines coming from the hills, each one bearing upon her back a monster bundle of this product, which they store for use when the other source of fuel fails them or proves insufficient. The people of Attoo have tamed the wild goose, of which they rear considerable flocks for domestic use, similar to our New England custom with the tame bird, and it is said they are the only tribe in Alaska who do so. Long since the blue fox was by some means introduced upon the island, and being at first properly protected, the place has become fairly stocked with them, a certain number only being killed annually by the natives, and from their valuable fur these Aleuts realize quite a large sum. Were it necessary, lumber could be brought in small quantities from the island of Kodiak, or even from the mainland far away; but there is very little use for it in Attoo, the houses being built of drift-logs and not of boards. Besides the low, thrifty species of shrubbery growing on these islands, there are also wild berries in great abundance, the original seeds having probably been brought by the birds from the mainland. Grasses grow luxuriantly, being cut and cured to feed a few small Siberian cattle through the winter months, though it is hardly necessary to house them at all. They are kept on only one or two of the larger islands of the group. Domestic animals might do well here with a little care, but the attention of the natives is given almost exclusively to the products of the sea, whose very bounty demoralizes them. At Unalaska, of this same group, the natural grass grows to six feet in height, and with such body that one must part it by exerting considerable force in order to get through. The natives braid it into useful and ornamental articles, hats, baskets, mats, and the like. This prolific growth is represented to be remarkably nutritious, and cattle are very fond of it. W. H. Dall predicted that this Aleutian district will yet furnish California with its best butter and cheese; while Dr. Kellogg, botanist of the United States Exploring Expedition, wrote: “Unalaska abounds in grasses, with a climate better adapted for haying than the coast of Oregon. The cattle are remarkably fat, and the milk abundant.” This is the refitting station for all vessels passing between the Pacific Ocean and Behring Strait, and here also is the principal trading post of the Alaska Commercial Company.
Mr. George Wardman, United States Treasury Agent, that stated on his late visit to this island he saw in one warehouse sea-otter skins ready for shipment which were worth quarter of a million dollars in the London market. This will represent, perhaps, two thirds of all this class of pelts furnished to the world annually, as comparatively few go from any other quarter. Other land furs are brought here for shipment to San Francisco, two fur companies having headquarters at Unalaska. The place has some sixty native houses, and perhaps five hundred inhabitants. Unalaska is known to be rich in both gold and silver mines, one of which is owned by a San Francisco company, and which it is proposed to fully develop and work during the coming year, careful tests having proven its prospective value.
The same fertility seen at Unalaska exists also at Kodiak and Atagnak, where the small breed of cattle that live upon the grass are as fat as seals, and require no shelter all the year round. There is a small ship-yard near the first named island, where vessels of twenty-five and thirty tons are built for fishing in the neighboring sea. These two islands, situated just off the eastern shore of the Alaska Peninsula, are called the garden spots of this region, enjoying more sunshine and fair weather than any other part of the Territory. They contain rich pastures, beautiful woodlands, and broad open fields, which during the summer are carpeted with constant verdure and wild flowers. Kodiak was for a long time the capital of the Russian American possessions, but the government headquarters were removed for some reason to Sitka. On Wood Island, opposite Kodiak, is the clear and spacious lake which so long furnished ice to the dwellers on the Pacific coast, but particularly to the people of San Francisco. The whole range of Aleutian Islands from Attoo to Kodiak contains between four and five thousand inhabitants, nearly all of whom are called Christians, being members of the Greek Church. They are very generally half-breeds, that is, born of intermarriage between emigrant Russians and native women. Professor Davidson was struck by the strong resemblance of the aboriginal tribes inhabiting these islands to the Chinese and Japanese, and was satisfied that they came originally from Asia. There are many very intelligent persons among them. “They are docile, honest, industrious, and very ingenious,” says Professor Davidson. The women of Unalaska have always been noted for the beauty and variety of their woven grass mats and various other ornamental work, particularly in the combinations of colors and unique designs.
This cunning of the hand and artistic ingenuity is not confined to the women; the men are also skillful carvers and engravers. Whenever they have been afforded a fair degree of instruction, and the opportunity to exercise their ability, they have proved themselves to be adepts especially in this last mentioned branch of skilled labor. We have seen artistic work produced by a native Unalaskan which it was difficult to believe was not the performance of some experienced and thoroughly educated European.
The thirty-eight charts in the Hydrographic Atlas of Tebenkoff were all drawn and engraved on copper by a native Aleut.
On the island of Unga, one of the Shumagin group, situated half way between Unalaska and Kodiak, is a small settlement of a score of white men and about a hundred and fifty natives. By a regulation of our Treasury Department, only natives are allowed to hunt the sea-otter, and therefore these white men have married native wives, thereby becoming natives in the eyes of the law. The revenue derived from the sea-otter trade on this island is said to average from six to seven hundred dollars a year to every family. Off the southern shore of the Shumagin group is the best cod fishing bank that is known. It is estimated that a million good-sized cod were taken here last season and shipped to San Francisco. This metropolis of California once depended upon the product of our Newfoundland fisheries for its salted cod, but has drawn its supply for the last few years almost entirely from the coast of Alaska, and the consumption has increased every year.