Of this great country the part known best and visited annually by tourists is that insignificant portion of southeastern Alaska which consists of the Alexander archipelago and its neighboring main coast-line, differing in its scenery, topography, climate, and native inhabitants, from the greater part of this vast territory.
It is fortunate, however, that this corner of Alaska is so easily and comfortably reached by the summer traveler, as, with the exception of the coast-line and inlets between Sitka and Kodiak, which includes the Fairweather ground and the St. Elias range of mountains, this portion contains perhaps the finest and most striking scenery and the largest and grandest glaciers in the territory, if not in all North and South America.
The U. S. S. Thetis was assigned in 1889 to the duty of looking out for the commercial and whaling interests of the United States in Bering sea and the Arctic ocean, to which was subsequently added the duty of assisting in the establishment and erection of a house of refuge in the vicinity of Point Barrow, the most northerly point of our Arctic possessions. The duty assigned to the Thetis did not include the protection of the sealing interests of the United States, nor of those interests enjoyed by the Alaska Commercial Company as the regular lessees from the United States of the Pribyloff group of islands. This was confided to the Revenue Marine Service of the Treasury Department.
| THE NORRIS PETERS CO., PHOTO-LITHO., WASHINGTON, D. C. |
The Thetis left San Francisco on the 20th of April, 1889, and after a detention of a month at Tacoma, upon the placid waters of Puget sound, awaiting supplementary orders, reached Port Tongass, in extreme southeastern Alaska, on the 31st of May, and Sitka, the territorial capitol, upon the 2d of June. After a stay of six days at the latter place the vessel left for the island of Ounalaska, one of the Aleutian chain, which was safely reached, after a stormy passage, early on the morning of the 17th of June.
The revenue-steamer Richard Rush, commanded by Captain Shepherd, was found at anchor at this place, having arrived a few hours before the Thetis; she had entered upon the duty of patrolling Bering sea, between Ounalaska and the Pribyloff group, for the protection of the sealing interests. The seals approach the hauling-out grounds and breeding places upon the islands of St. Paul and St. George in lanes, as it were, from the Pacific, reaching Bering sea by means of the various passages between the Aleutian islands, and converging as they approach the Seal islands, the position of which seems so well known to them. The "marauders," as the men on the sealing schooners are called who hunt them on their way north, shoot them from small boats, killing the many in order to procure the few.
Ounalaska, or rather the village and harbor of Iliuliuk, upon the island of Ounalaska, is the principal and most frequented harbor in the Aleutian islands, and from its position is a most convenient port for coaling, watering and provisioning en route to the Seal islands, St. Michaels (at the mouth of the Yukon river), the anchorages in and near Bering strait, and the Arctic ocean. This harbor is the headquarters of all of the districts of the Alaska Commercial Company, and is the principal coaling and distributing station and rendezvous of their vessels in Alaska. The company here affords facilities in the way of buoyage, wharfage, etc., which are not only useful to their own vessels but of great service to government and other vessels whose duty or interests call them to these waters.
The revenue steamer Bear was to be met by us at Ounalaska, in order that we could take from her any portion of the stores and material to be used in the constructing and provisioning of the house of refuge at Point Barrow that her commanding officer desired to transfer to us.
While awaiting the arrival of the Bear, the Thetis was watered and coaled and prepared for the northerly trip before her. An opportunity offered me by the delay was availed of to inspect the store-houses of the Alaska Commercial Company at this point. The most interesting of the store-houses was that containing the skins and furs collected in the various parts of the district of which this place was the dépôt. The finest of the furs was that of the sea-otter, probably the most valuable fur in the world, a very superior skin of that animal having been sold at the great fur market in London for £170. Such otters are found in the vicinity of Ounalaska and the outlying rocks and islands as far east as Kodiak, and are becoming more and more difficult to obtain, causing greater risk and hardships every year to the Aleuts, who hunt these animals as a principal means of livelihood.
Besides the otters the store-house held the furs of the beautiful silver-gray fox, and those of the blue, the cross, and the snowy white Arctic fox. There were also black and brown bear skins, beaver, and fur-seal, the latter, though the greatest and most profitable source of revenue to the Company, being by no manner of means among the more valuable of the raw furs.