There is a small monthly newspaper published at Sitka in the interest of the Training School called “The North Star.” It is inexpensively produced, and is calculated to disseminate information in behalf of the excellent mission, as well as to add interest to its local affairs. The type-setting and all the work on this little paper is done by native boys. In his last published report Dr. Sheldon Jackson says in relation to the Alaskan natives: “Christianize them, give them a fair school education and the means of earning a living, and they are safe; but without this the race is doomed. We believe in the gospel of habitual industry for the adults, and of industrial training for the children. By these means they can be reclaimed from improvident habits, and transformed into ambitious and self-helpful citizens.”
The Industrial Training School at Sitka was established as a day school by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions in 1880, with Miss Olinda A. Austin as teacher. The following fall circumstances led to the opening of a boarding department. Since then the institution has grown until there are connected with it two large buildings (one for boys and the other for girls), an industrial building sheltering the carpenter and boot and shoe shops, the printing-office and boat house, a small blacksmith shop, a steam laundry, a bakery, a hospital, and six small model cottages. Every building has been constructed by the pupils themselves under the direction of the one carpenter, who acted as their instructor. Even the domestic furniture, such as beds, chairs, bureaus, and the like, is the handiwork of these native boys. We can testify from personal observation that all is wonderfully well done, and of excellent patterns.
There is a valuable gold mine situated six or eight miles southeast of Sitka, eight hundred feet above the sea level and about a mile from deep water, on Silver Bay, where the largest ships may lie beside the shore, the wharfage having been prepared by Nature’s own hand. The quartz rock is here represented to be of excellent quality, showing thirty dollars to the average ton, and there is never-failing water near at hand sufficient for running a hundred stamp-mill. Gold has been mined at Silver Bay in a primitive way for several years. Numerous other mines have been located and opened on Baranoff Island which give great promise, but this just mentioned has accomplished thus far the best results. We took notes of eleven mines upon which much work had been done, shafts sunken, and tunnels run. “The island is besprinkled with these gold-quartz veins,” said an intelligent citizen to us. “Prospectors and miners have been attracted elsewhere in the Territory by still more promising gold deposits. This, together with the want of capital, is the reason the mines have not been opened and worked on an extensive scale. This will follow, however, in due time, for miners can work here all the year round, with comfort as regards the weather, and at the minimum cost of living.”
The arrival of an excursion steamer at Sitka is made the occasion of a regular holiday, which is very natural with a people who live in so isolated a place. As the steamer enters the several harbors of the inland passage northward, her presence is announced by a report from the cannon on the forecastle, which awakens a score of sonorous echoes from the rocky cliffs and nearest mountains, also serving to arouse the sleepy natives and put the dealers in curios on the qui vive. The few cafés do a thriving business; the nights, never very dark in summer, are turned into day, and hours of revelry prevail. The aboriginal women drive a lively business with their home-made curios, and indiscreet native girls promenade freely with strangers. Peccadilloes are overlooked; no one seems to be held strictly to account. The officials are unusually lenient on such occasions, just as they are in Boston or New York on the Fourth of July.
The immediate environs of Sitka present many rural beauties, including river, forest, and wild flowers, with here and there a rapid, musical cascade. The same species of highly-developed white clover as was seen at Fort Wrangel is a charming feature here, fragrant and lovely,—“Beautiful objects of the wild bees’ love.” Buttercups and dandelions are twice the size of those which we have in New England. Ferns are in great variety, and the mosses are exquisite in their velvety texture, while tenderly shrouding the fallen and decaying trees they present an endless variety of shades in green. There are over three hundred varieties of wild flowers found on Baranoff Island, and wild berries abound here as among all the islands and on the mainland. The wild raspberry, salmon-berry, and thimbleberry are especially luxuriant and fine in size and flavor. The woods are full of song-birds and of others more gaudy of feather. These are only summer visitors, to be sure, among which the rainbow-tinted humming-bird made his presence obvious. A pleasant walk is finely laid out along the banks of the sparkling Indian River, a swift mountain stream, hedged with thrifty and graceful alders, by which means the citizens have created for themselves a charming and favorite promenade. Along the left bank of this beautiful watercourse are woodland scenes of exquisite rural beauty.
It would be foolish to suggest the idea that Alaska promises to become eventually a great agricultural country; but it is equally incorrect to say, as did a certain popular writer not long since, that “there is not an acre of farming land in the Territory.” There are considerable areas of good arable land now under profitable cultivation in the Sitka district, and large farms, rich in virgin soil, could be had for a mere song, as the saying goes, in desirable localities, by clearing away the timber and draining the land. Some twenty-five milk cows are kept at Sitka; milk is sold at ten cents per quart. Fresh venison is cheap and abundant, and fish of various kinds cost nearly nothing. In the immediate vicinity there are three thousand acres of arable land, much of which is well grassed and covered with white clover. On the foot-hills there is plenty of grass for the sustenance of sheep and goats. Experienced residents told us that wool-growing might be profitably pursued as a business here, and that there was not a month in the year when the animals would absolutely require to be housed. Hay is easily made, and is in abundance at cheap rates. “I have never seen finer potatoes, turnips, cabbages, and garden produce generally, than those grown here,” says Governor Swineford in his annual report to the Department at Washington.
There is a great abundance of natural and nutritious grasses in most parts of the country, but especially in the southern islands and the Kodiak group. The great prosperity of Alaska, however, to be looked for in the near future, lies in the energetic development of her coal trade, her fisheries, and her extraordinary mineral wealth. The immense supply of timber, some of which is unsurpassed in its merchantable value, will come into use one or two generations later. The fur-trade, already of gigantic proportions, cannot be judiciously developed beyond its present volume, otherwise the source of supply will gradually become exhausted. It might be quadrupled for a few years, but this would be killing the goose that lays the golden egg. If protected, as our government is striving to do for it to-day, it will continue indefinitely to meet the market demand without glutting or overstocking it. In this connection, and after some inquiry, we cannot refrain from expressing the fear that the legal limit as regards the slaughter of the seals is greatly exceeded. Over three million dollars’ worth of canned salmon were exported from Alaska last year. “This Territory can supply the world with salmon, herring, and halibut of the best quality,” says Dr. Sheldon Jackson.
Twenty miles south of Sitka, on the same island, there are a number of hot springs, strongly impregnated with iron and sulphur, the sanitary nature of which has been known to the Indians for centuries, and hither they have been in the habit of resorting for the cure of certain physical ills, especially rheumatism, to which they are so liable. Vegetation in the neighborhood of these springs is tropical. The temperature of the water is said to be 155° Fah. At the time of the Russian possession the whites built bath-houses on the spot, and much was made of this sanitarium. But all is now neglected, except that the natives still occasionally resort to the place to enjoy the tonic and recuperating effect of the waters. Anything which will promote cleanliness among the Alaskan tribes must be unquestionably of benefit to them. There are plenty of hot mineral springs all over the various island groups of the Territory, and especially that portion which makes out from the Alaska Peninsula westward towards Asia. The most fatal diseases prevailing among the aborigines after consumption are scrofulous affections; the latter is thought to be aggravated, if not induced, by their almost exclusive fish diet, supplemented by their gross uncleanliness. The Aleuts of the south, the Eskimos of the north, and the natives generally of the coast and the interior sleep and live in such dark, dirty, unventilated quarters, reeking with vile odors, that they cannot fail to poison their blood and thus induce a myriad of ills. As we have said, none of these natives seem to have any intelligent idea of medicine, and they do not possess any herbs, so far as we could learn, which are used for medicinal purposes. If a native is furnished with a prescription after the manner of the whites, he requires at least twice the amount of medicine which it is customary to give to a white man, otherwise the dose will have no apparent effect upon his system. This is a never varying experience which medical men have found repeated among all savage races.
As far as one is able to comprehend the religious convictions of the native Sitkans, other than the few who have gone through the form of professing Christianity, they seem to entertain a sort of animal worship, a reverence for special birds and beasts. Like the Japanese they hold certain animals sacred and will not injure them. It is thus that they have some mystical idea about the bear, which prevents them from willingly hunting that animal. Ravens are nearly as numerous in Sitka as they are in Ceylon, and no one will injure then. They believe that the spirits of the departed occupy the bodies of ravens, hawks, and the like. One is reminded that in the temples of Canton the Chinese keep sacred hogs; the Parsees of Bombay worship fire; the Japanese bow before snakes and foxes, as divine symbols; the pious Hindoo deifies cows and monkeys; so there is abundant precedent to countenance these simple natives of Alaska in their crude worship and superstitions.
Their aboriginal belief is called Shamanism, or the propitiating of evil spirits by acceptable offerings. It is significant that the same faith is participated in by the Siberians, on the other side of Behring Strait. This is no new or original form of religion; it was the faith of the Tartar race before they became disciples of Buddhism.