In the harbor were hundreds of gulls, floating leisurely on the surface of the water or standing on the logs that drifted with the tide.
Among the passengers on the steamer was a delicate little lady with her three-year-old child, who was on the way to meet her husband at Iliamnia, some sixty miles across the bay. I remember how indignant the passengers were when they learned there was no person present to meet her when she arrived, and no prospect of her getting across Cook’s Inlet for more than a week. A purse was raised among the passengers, all contributing, and with the aid of the captain of the revenue cutter, who in ordinary cases would take no passengers, the little lady was started on her trip across the Inlet the following morning, happy in the expectation of meeting her husband.
Turbulent Shellicoff
The Ravens
While crossing the entrance to Shellicoff Straits we encountered a very rough sea and the steamer tossed and pitched among the billows. That evening, as we steamed towards Kodiak Island, the clouds were fringed with pink and purple and through a rift the sun illuminated sky and water with all the splendor and brilliance of those northwestern sunsets. Passing to the left of Afognak Island, we entered the harbor at Kodiak. The village, with its Greek church similar in structure to the old chapel at Sitka, is built on a plateau and surrounded with sloping, verdure-clad hills. The population consists of about four hundred, a few of them whites, the rest Aliutes and Creoles. The ravens (Corvus corax principalis) were very plentiful, and their croaking could be heard in all directions. One old fellow continually perched on the top of a shanty used as the district jail. Two of the prisoners were permitted to wander around, cut firewood for the warden, plant seed and the like. Once when the planter was putting in seed at one end of the row and the raven picking it out at the other, we heard the former call out, “Shoo, shoo, you’ll be put in jail for stealing next.”
We arrived in Kodiak on the morning of May 26th, and immediately began our preparations for the hunt. On our way up we became acquainted with the United States Marshal, who kindly invited us to stop at his home until we could arrange matters to go farther westward on the island, where we expected to hunt.