In Search of a Siberian Klondike

by Washington Baker Vanderlip; Homer B. Hulbert

Ghijiga River in Winter.

Several significant facts are to be deduced from this list: first, the low price that is paid for sables compared with the prices they bring in the European market; second, the comparatively high price the skin of the black fox brings, although it is only a fraction of what it costs at home (a single skin has brought as high as four thousand dollars in Paris); third, the extremely low cost of ermine; and fourth, the fact that there is no active trade in mammoth tusks, although they are plentiful. They are often ten feet in length, and it might be supposed that they would contain ivory enough to make them worth much more than they bring; but the fact is that it is fossil ivory, and the outside of each tusk is so far broken and decayed that only the very center of the tusk contains marketable ivory.

The common rule is to give the natives one year's credit; the tea, sugar, tobacco, and other articles which they receive this year being paid for by the skins which they bring next year. The plan works well, for the natives are scrupulous in the payment of their debts. And furthermore, the traders, being on the spot, have a wide personal acquaintance among the natives and know just whom they can depend upon.

Of course the most valuable portion of the produce of this north country is sable skins. There are four kinds, or rather grades, of sables. The finest come from the Lena River district; the second grade from the territory of which we are writing and within a radius of five hundred miles about the head of the Okhotsk Sea; the third grade from the Amur River district, and the fourth from Manchuria. Generally, the farther north one goes the better the sables.

Before Siberia was conquered by Russia, sables were extremely common, but gradually they were pushed back by the coming of settlers, for they will not remain in the vicinity of human dwellings. They live in holes, as do the martens or ermines, but those who have studied their habits say that they frequently build nests of sticks and grass in the branches of trees, and use them alternately with their holes. They usually sleep about half the day, and roam about in search of food the other half. In the early spring they live on hares, though they will also eat weasles or ermine. When the berries are in season they subsist solely on cranberries, blueberries, and especially the berries of the shad-bush. The natives say that eating these last causes them to itch and rub themselves against the trees, which for the time being spoils their fur; so that while the shad-bush is in berry no sables are caught.

About the end of March the sable brings forth its young, from three to five in the litter, and suckles them from four to six weeks.

The method of trapping sables has been well described by a quaint writer near the beginning of the nineteenth century, and, as there have been very few changes during the interval, he is worth quoting:

The sable hunters, whether Russian or native, begin to set out for hunting about the beginning of September. Some Russians go themselves, and others hire people to hunt for them, giving them proper clothes and instruments for hunting, and provisions for the time of their being out. When they return from the chase they give their masters all the game, and restore them likewise all that they received, except the provisions.

A company that agrees to hunt together assembles from six to forty men, though formerly there were sometimes even fifty. They provide a small boat for every three or four men, which they cover over; and take with them such persons as understand the language of the people among whom they go to hunt, and likewise the places properest for hunting. These persons they maintain at the public charge, and give them, besides, an equal share of the game.

In these boats every hunter lays thirty poods of rye-flour, one pood[2] of wheat-flour, one pood of salt, and a quarter of a pood of groats. Every two men must have a net, a dog, and several poods of provisions for the dog, a bed and covering, a vessel for preparing their bread, and a vessel to hold leaven. They carry with them very few firearms.

The boats are then drawn up-stream as far as they can go, where the hunters build for themselves. Here they all assemble and live until the river is frozen over. In the mean time they choose for their chief leader one who has been oftenest upon these expeditions; and to his orders they profess an entire obedience. He divides the company into several small parties, and names a leader to each, except his own, which he himself directs; he also appoints the places where each party is to hunt. As soon as the season begins, this division into small parties is unalterable, even though the whole company consists of only eight or nine, for they never all go toward the same place. When their leaders have given them their orders, every small company digs pits upon the road by which they must go. In these pits they lay up for every two men three bags of flour against their return, when they shall have consumed all their other provisions; and whatever they have left in the huts they are obliged to hide also in pits, lest the wild inhabitants should steal it.

As soon as the rivers are frozen over and the season is proper for the sable hunting, the chief of the leaders calls all the huntsmen into the hut, and, having prayed to God, gives orders to every chief of each small company, and despatches them the same road which was before assigned them. Then the leader sets out one day before the rest to provide lodging-places for them.

When the chief leader despatches the under-leaders he gives them several orders; one of which is that each should build his first lodging in honor of some church, which he names, and the other lodgings to some such saint whose image he has with him, and that the first sable they catch should be laid aside in the quarter of the church, and at their return be presented to it. These sables they call "God's Sables," or the church's. The first sable that is caught in the quarter of each saint is given to the person who brought the image of that saint with him.

On their march they support themselves with a wooden crutch about four feet long; upon the end of which they put a cow's horn, to keep it from being split by the ice, and a little above they bind it around with thongs to keep it from sinking too deep in the snow. The upper part is broad like a spade, and serves to shovel away the snow or to take it up and put it into their kettles, for they must use snow, as they have frequently no water. The principal chief having sent out the small parties, starts with his own. When they come to the places of lodging they build little huts of logs, and bank them up with snow round about. They hew several trees upon the road, that they may the more easily find their way in the winter. Near every quarter they prepare their trap-pits, each of which is surrounded with sharp stakes, about six or seven feet high, and about four feet distant, and is covered over with boards to prevent the snow from falling in. The entrance through the stakes is narrow, and over it a board is hung so nicely that by the least touch of the sables it turns and throws them into the trap; and they must absolutely go this way to reach a piece of fish or flesh with which the trap is baited. The hunters stay in a station till they have a sufficient number of traps set, every hunter being obliged to make twenty in a day. When they have passed ten of these quarters the leader sends back half of his company to bring up the provisions that were left behind, and with the remainder he advances to build more huts and set more traps.

These carriers must stop at all the lodging-places to see that the traps are in order, and take out any sables they may find in them, and skin them, which none must pretend to do but the chief man of the company.

If the sables are frozen they thaw them out by putting them under the bedclothes with them. When the skins are taken off, all present sit down and are silent, being careful that nothing is hanging on the stakes. The body of the sable is laid upon dried sticks, and these are afterward lighted, the body of the animal smoked, and then buried in the snow or the earth. Often when they apprehend that the Tunguses may meet them and take away their booty, they put the skins into hollow pieces of wood and seal up the ends with snow, which being wetted soon freezes. These they hide in the snow near their huts, and gather them up when they return in a body. When the carriers are come with provisions, then the other half are sent for more; and thus they are employed in hunting, the leader always going before to build traps. When they find few sables in their traps they hunt with nets, which they can only do when they find the fresh tracks of sables in the snow. These they follow till it brings them to the hole where the sable has entered; or if they lose it near other holes, they put smoking pieces of rotten wood to them, which generally forces the sable to leave the hole. The hunter at the same time has spread his net, into which the animal usually falls; and for precaution his dog is generally near at hand. Thus the hunter sits and waits sometimes two or three days. They know when the sable falls into the net by the sound of two small bells which are fastened to it. They never put smoky pieces of wood into those holes which have only one opening, for the sable would sooner be smothered than come towards the smoke, in which case it is lost.

When the chief leader and all the hunters are gathered together, then the leaders of the small parties report to the chief how many sables or other beasts their party has killed, and if any of the parties have done anything contrary to his orders and the common laws. These crimes they punish in different ways. Some of the culprits they tie to a stake; others they oblige to ask pardon from every one in the company; a thief they beat severely, and allow him no part of the booty; nay, they even take his own baggage from him and divide it among themselves. They remain in their headquarters until the rivers are free of ice; and after the hunting they spend their time preparing the skins. Then they set out in the boats they came in, and when they get home they give the sables to the several churches to which they promised them; and then, having paid their fur-tax, they sell the rest, dividing equally the money or goods which they receive for them.

Before Kamchatka was conquered by the Russians the sables were so plentiful that a hunter could easily take seventy or eighty in a season, but they were esteemed more for their flesh than for their fur. At first the natives paid their tribute in sables, and would give eight skins for a knife and eighteen for an ax.