Some natives patrol the small island shores, and during the winter make a good harvest picking up dead otters which have washed ashore. This happens in winter, because it is during severest weather that the otter freezes his nose, which means death. The pelts from these frozen animals, however, bring only a small price.
In earlier days nets were spread beneath the water around rocks shown by the hair rubbings to be resting places of otter. The method was often successful, as the poor beast swam over the trap in gaining his rock, but when leaving dove well below the surface, and was caught. This barbarous custom, together with the netting of ducks in narrow passageways, has, fortunately, long been a thing of the past.
In Kadiak Village, we met a Captain Nelson, the first man down from the north that spring, who had sledded from Nome to Katmai on Shelikoff Straits in two months. At Katmai he was held up several days, his men refusing to cross the straits until the local weather prophet, or astronom, as he is called, gave his consent. Seven hours of hard paddling carried them over the twenty-seven miles, the most treacherous of Alaskan narrows.
These astronoms are relics of an interesting type, who formerly held firm sway over the natives. They are supposed to know much about the weather from reading the sunrises, sunsets, stars, moon and tides, and often sit on a hilltop for hours studying the weather conditions. They are still absolutely relied upon to decide when sea otter parties may start on a trip, and are looked up to and trusted as chiefs by the people of the villages in which they live.
At Wood Island we heard of Messrs. Kidder and Blake, two other sportsmen from Boston, who had already left for their hunting grounds in Kaluda Bay.
The spring was backward, and the bears still in their dens, but Merriam and I decided to take the North American Company's schooner Maksoutoff on its spring voyage around the island, when it carries supplies and collects furs from the natives. We were to sail as far as Kaguiac, a small village on the south shore, and were here promised a 30-foot sloop by the company. We added to our equipment two native baidarkas for hunting and a bear dog belonging to an old Russian hunter, Walter Matroken. Tchort (Russian for Devil) looked like a cross between a water spaniel and a Newfoundland, and though old and poorly supplied with teeth, many of which he had lost during his acquaintance with bears, he proved a good companion, game in emergencies, and a splendid retriever.
Our rifle and camera batteries were as follows:
Merriam had a.45-70 and a.50-110 Winchester, both shooting half-jacketed bullets. My rifles were a.30-40 Winchester, a double .577, and a double .40-93-400, kindly lent me by Mr. S.D. Warren, of Boston, and on which I relied. Besides the pocket cameras and a small Goerz, I carried one camera with double lenses of 17-1/2-inch focus, and one with single lense of 30-inch focus. The last two were, of course, intended for animals at long range.
Hoping to prove something in regard to the weight of the Kadiak bear, I brought a pair of Fairbanks spring scales, weighing up to 300 pounds, and some water-tight canvas bags for weighing blood and the viscera.
We selected two good men as hunters for the trip, Vacille and Klampe.