The fur seals are supposed to pass the winter somewhere in the South Pacific, but whether in the open sea or on land has never been definitely learned. From their mysterious southern hiding places, they set out for the North in the early spring. They first appear in March in the waters off California. Coastwise vessels find the sea alive with thousands of them. They travel slowly northward following the coast line, fifty or a hundred miles out at sea, feeding on fish and sleeping on the surface. Regularly each year in April, a revenue cutter setting out from Port Townsend for patrol service in Behring Sea and Arctic Ocean waters, picks up the herd and convoys it to the Pribiloffs to guard it against the attacks of poachers. The seals swarm through the passes between the Aleutian islands in May and arrive at the Pribiloffs in the latter part of that month or early in June.
They remain on the Pribiloffs during the breeding and rearing season and begin to depart for the South again in the latter part of September. They are all gone as a rule by November, though in some years the last ones do not leave until December. They are again seen as they crowd through the Aleutian channels, but all track of them is lost a few hundred miles to the south. At what destination they finally arrive on that southward exodus no man knows. It is one of the mysteries of the sea.
We saw no whales on our southward passage and did not much expect to see any, though we kept a lookout at the mast-head on the off chance of sighting some lone spout. The summer months are a second "between seasons," dividing the spring whaling in Behring Sea from that in the Arctic Ocean in the fall. The whales had all followed the retreating ice northward through Behring Straits.
The Fourth of July found us in the middle of Behring Sea. We observed the glorious Fourth by hoisting the American flag to our gaff-topsail peak, where it fluttered all day long. Mr. Winchester came forward with two bottles of Jamaica rum and dealt out a drink all around.
We entered Unalaska harbor by the same long, narrow, and precipitous channel through which we had passed on our voyage north when we put into the harbor to have the captain's leg set. Negotiating this channel—I should say it was about two miles long—was another illustration of our captain's seamanship. We had to tack innumerable times from one side of the channel to the other, our jib-boom at every tack projecting over the land before the brig came around. We finally dropped anchor opposite the old, cross-crowned Greek church which stands in the center of the struggling village.
[CHAPTER XVI]
SLIM GOES ON STRIKE
It was the heart of the Arctic summer and the high hills that rose all about the town were green with deep grass—it looked as if it would reach a man's waist—and ablaze with wild flowers. I was surprised to see such a riot of blooms in this far northern latitude, but there they were, and every off-shore breeze was sweet with their fragrance. The village was dingy enough, but the country looked alluring and, as the day after we dropped anchor was Sunday and nothing to do aboard, the crew decided to ask for a day's liberty ashore. Bill White, the Englishman, and Slim, our Royal Life Guardsman, agreed to act as the forecastle's ambassadors to the cabin. They dressed up in their smartest clothes and went aft to interview Captain Shorey on the quarter-deck. White made the speech of the occasion and proffered the forecastle's request in his best rhetoric. Captain Shorey puffed silently at his cigar. "I'll see about it," he said. That closed the incident as far as the captain was concerned. We got no shore leave.