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Unalaska, May 18, 1881.
THE Storm King of the North
is abroad today, working with a fine, hearty enthusiasm, rolling a multitude
of white combing waves through the rocky, jagged straits between this
marvelous chain of islands, circling them about with beaten foam, and
heaping a lavish abundance of snow on their lofty, cloud-wrapped mountains.
The deep bass of the gale, sounding on through the rugged, ice-sculptured
peaks and gorges, is delightful music to our ears, now that we are safely
sheltered in a land-locked harbor.
The steamer Thomas Corwin
safely arrived here about noon to-day, after a prosperous run of thirteen
days from San Francisco, intending to take on coal and additional supplies
of every kind for her long cruise in the Arctic in search of the Jeannette
and the missing whalers. Nothing especially noteworthy occurred on the
voyage. The weather was remarkably cold for this season of the year, the
average temperature for the first day or two being about 55° F., falling
gradually to 35° as we approached Unalaska, accompanied by blustering
squalls of snow and hail, suggestive of much higher latitudes than this.
On the morning of the fifteenth we met a gale
from the northeast, against which the Corwin forced her way with easy
strength, rising and falling on the foam-streaked waves as lightly as a
duck. We first sighted land on the morning of the seventeenth, near the
southeast extremity of Unalaska Island. Two black outstanding masses of
jagged lava were visible, with the bases of snowy peaks back of them, while
all the highlands were buried beneath storm-clouds. After we had approached
within three or four miles of the shore, a ragged opening in the clouds
disclosed a closely packed cluster of peaks, laden with snow, looming far
into the stormy sky for a few moments in tolerably clear relief, then fading
again in the gloom of the clouds and fresh squalls of blinding snow and
hail. The fall of the snowflakes among the dark, heaving waves and curling
breakers was a most impressive sight.
Groping cautiously along the coast, we at length
entered the Akutan Pass. A heavy flood tide was setting through it against
the northeast gale, which raised a heavy sea. The waves reared as if about
to fall backward, while the wind tore off their white curling tops and
carried them away in the form of gray scud. Never before have I seen the sea
in so hearty and exhilarating a motion. It was all one white, howling,
rampant, runaway mass of foam from side to side. We feared getting our decks
swept. Caught, therefore, as we were between the tide and the gale, we
turned to seek shelter and wait better times.
We found good anchorage in the lee of a red lava
bluff near Cook's Harbor, a few miles to the westward of the mouth of the
Pass. The sailors got out their cod-lines, and in a few minutes a dozen fine
cod were flapping on the deck. They proved to be excellent fish, eaten
fresh. But whether they are as good as the renowned Newfoundland article I
cannot judge, as I never have tasted fresh cod. The storm sounding on over
the mountains made fine music while we lay safely at anchor, and we enjoyed
it all the more because we were in a wild, nameless place that we had
ourselves discovered.
The next morning, the gale having abated somewhat, we entered the strait.
Wind and tide were flowing in company, but they were against us, and so
strong was the latter that we could not stem it, and were compelled to fall
back until it was near the turn. The Aleutian chain extends across from
continent to continent like an imperfect dam between the Pacific and Bering
Sea, and through the gaps between the islands the tide rushes with
tremendous speed and uproar. When the tide was favorable, we weighed anchor
and passed through the strait and around Kalekta Point into this magnificent
harbor [Dutch Harbor, on the eastern side of Amaknak Island in Unalaska
Bay.] without further difficulty.
The harbor of Unalaska is excellent, landlocked,
and has a good holding bottom. By virtue of its geographical position it is
likely to remain for a long time the business center of western Alaska. The
town [The chief town of Unalaska Island, the most important of the eastern
Aleutians, is Iliuliuk. It was founded by Solovief during the decade between
1760 and 1770, and its Aleut name, according to one interpretation, means
"harmony," according to another, "the curved beach." The name Unalaska is
often applied loosely to the town as well as the island.] is situated on a
washed and outspread terminal moraine at the mouth of one of the main
glaciers that united here to excavate the harbor. Just above the village
there is a glacial lake only a few feet above tide, and a considerable area
of level ground about it where the cattle belonging to the town find
abundance of fine grass.
Early in the forenoon the
clouds had lifted and the sun had come out, revealing a host of noble
mountains, grandly sculptured and composed, and robed in spotless white,
some of the highest adorned with streamers of mealy snow wavering in the
wind - a truly glorious spectacle. To me the features of greatest interest
in this imposing show were the glacial advertisements everywhere displayed
in clear, telling characters - the trends of the numerous inlets and canons
pointing back into the ancient ice- fountains among the peaks, the sculpture
of the peaks themselves and their general outlines, and the shorn faces of
the cliffs fronting the sea. No clearer and more unmistakable glacial
inscriptions are to be found upon any portion of the mountain ranges of the
Pacific Coast. It seems
to be guessed in a general way by most observers who have made brief visits
to this region that all the islands of the Aleutian chain are clearly
volcanic upheavals, scarce at all changed since the period of their
emergence from the sea. This is an impression made, no doubt, by the
volcanic character of the rocks of which they are composed, and by the
numerous extinct and active volcanoes occurring here and there along the
summits of the highest masses. But it is plain that the amount of glacial
denudation which these ancient lavas have undergone is very great; so great
that now every feature presented, with the exception of the few recent
craters, is glacial.
The glaciers, that a short time ago covered all the islands, have sculptured
the comparatively featureless rock masses into separate mountain peaks, and
perhaps into separate islands. Certainly they have done this in some cases.
All the inlets or fords, also, that I have seen are simply the channels of
the larger of those old ice rivers that flowed into the sea and eroded their
beds beneath its level. The size and the trend of every one of these fords
correspond invariably with the size and the trend of the glacier basin at
its head, while not a single fiord or cañon may be found that does not
conduct back to mountain fountains whence the eroding glacier drew its
sources. The Alaska Peninsula, before the coming on of the glacial period,
may have comprehended the whole of the Aleutian chain, its present condition
being mostly due to the down-grinding action of ice. Frost and fire have
worked hand in hand to produce the grand effects presented in this majestic
crescent of islands.
Unalaska, May 21, 1881.
The Aleutian chain of islands is one of the most
remarkable and interesting to be found on the globe. It sweeps in a regular
curve a thousand miles long from the end of the Alaska Peninsula towards
Kamchatka and nearly unites the American and Asiatic continents. A very
short geological time ago, just before the coming on of the glacial period,
this connection of the continents was probably complete, inasmuch as the
entire chain is simply a degraded portion of the North American coast
mountains, with its foothills and connecting ridges between the summit peaks
a few feet under water. These submerged ridges form the passes between the
islands as they exist to-day, while it is evident that this segregating
degradation has been effected by the majestic down- grinding glaciers that
lately loaded all the chain. Only a few wasting remnants of these glaciers
are now in existence, lingering in the highest, snowiest fountains on the
largest of the islands.
The mountains are from three thousand to nine
thousand feet high, many of them capped with perpetual snow, and rendered
yet more imposing by volcanoes emitting smoke and ashes - the feeble
manifestations of upbuilding volcanic force that was active long before the
beginning of the great ice winter. To the traveler from the south,
approaching any portion of the chain during the winter or spring months, the
view presented is exceedingly desolate and forbidding. The snow comes down
to the water's edge, the solid winter-white being interrupted only by black
outstanding bluffs with faces too sheer for snow to lie upon, and by the
backs of clustering rocks and long rugged reefs beaten and overswept by
heavy breakers rolling in from the Pacific Ocean or Bering Sea, while for
ten or eleven months in the year all the mountains are wrapped in gloomy,
ragged storm-clouds.
Nevertheless, there is no lack of warm, eager life even here. The stormy
shores swarm with fishes - cod, halibut, herring, salmon trout, etc.; also
with whales, seals, and many species of water birds, while the sea-otter,
the most valuable of the fur-bearing animals, finds its favorite home about
the outlying wave-washed reefs. The only land animals occurring in
considerable numbers are, as far as I have been able to learn, three or four
species of foxes, which are distributed from one end of the chain to the
other, with the Arctic grouse, the raven, snowbirds, wrens, and a few
finches. There are no deer, wild sheep, goats, bears, or wolves, though all
of these are abundant on the mainland in the same latitude.
In two short excursions that I made to the top
of a mountain, about two thousand feet high, back of the settlement here,
and to a grassy island in the harbor, I found the snow in some places well
tracked by foxes and grouse, and saw six species of birds, mostly solitary
or in twos and threes. The vegetation near the level of the sea and on bare
windswept ridges, up to a height of a thousand feet or more, is remarkably
close and luxuriant, covering every foot of the ground.
First there is a dense plush of mosses and
lichens from six inches to a foot in depth. Out of the moss mantle and over
it there grow five or six species of good nutritious grasses, the tal1esi
shoulder-high; also three species of vaccinium, cranberry, empetrum, the
delightful linmea in extensive patches, the beautiful purple-flowered
bryanthus, a pyrola, two species of dwarf willow, three of lycopodium, two
saxifrages, a lupine, wild pea, archangelica, geranium, anemone, drabae.
bearberry, and the little gold-thread coptis, besides two ferns and a few
withered specimens that I could not make out.
The anemone, draba, and bearberry are already in
bloom; the willows are beginning to show the ends of their silky catkins,
and a good many green leaves are springing up in sheltered places near the
level of the sea. At a height of four or five hundred feet, however, winter
still holds sway, with scarce a memory of the rich and beautiful bloom of
the summer time. How beautiful these mountains must be when all are in
bloom, with the bland summer sunshine on them, the butterflies and bees
among them, and the deep glacial fords calm and full of reflections! The
tall grasses, with their showy purple panicles in flower, waving in the wind
over all the lower mountain slopes, with a growth heavy enough for the
scythe, must then he a beautiful sight, and so must the broad patches of
heathworts with their multitude of pink bells, and the tall lupines and
ferns along the banks of the streams.
There is not a tree of any kind on the islands
excepting a few spruces brought from Sitka and planted by the Russians some
fifty years ago. They are still alive, but have made very little growth - a
circumstance no doubt due to the climate. But in what respect it differs
from the climate of southeastern Alaska, lying both north and south of this
latitude, where forests flourish exuberantly in all kinds of exposures, on
rich alluvium or on bare rocks, I am unable to say. The only wood I noticed,
and all that is said to exist on any of the islands, is small patches of
willow, with stems an inch thick, and of several species of woody-stemmed
heathworts; this the native Aleuts gather for fuel, together with small
quantities of driftwood cast on the shores by the winds and currents.
Grass of good quality for stock is abundant on
all the larger islands, and cattle thrive and grow fat during the summer
wherever they have been tried. But the wetness of the summer months will
always prevent hay from being made in any considerable quantity and make
stock-raising on anything like a large scale impossible.
The agricultural possibilities of the islands
are also very limited. Oats and barley head out but never fully mature, and
if they did, it would be very difficult to get them dry enough for the
granary. Potatoes, lettuce, cabbage, turnips, beets, etc., do well in spots
that are well drained and have a southern exposure.
According to the census taken last year, the
inhabitants of these islands number 2451. Of this population 82 are whites,
479 creoles, and 1890 Aleuts. The Aleuts are far more civilized and
Christianized than any other tribe of Alaska Indians. From a third to one
half of the men and women read and write. Their occupation is the hunting of
the sea-otter for the Alaska Commercial Company.
A good hunter makes from four
hundred to eight hundred dollars per annum. In this pursuit they go hundreds
of miles in their frail skin-covered canoes, which are so light that the may
easily be carried under one's arm. Earning so much money, they are able to
support themselves with many comforts beyond the reach of most of the
laboring classes of Europe. Nevertheless, with all their advantages, they
are fading away like other Indians. The deaths exceed the births in nearly
every one of their villages, and it is only a question of time when they
will vanish from the face of the earth.
On the way back to the ship I sauntered through
the town. It contains about one hundred buildings, half of them frame, built
by the Alaska Commercial and Western Fur and Trading Companies. Aleutian
huts are called "barábaras." They are built of turf on a frame of wood; some
of them have floors, and are divided into many rooms, very small ones. The
smells are horrible to clean nostrils, and the air is foul and dead beyond
endurance. Some of the bedrooms are not much larger than coffins. The floors
are below the surface of the ground two or three feet, and the doors are at
the end away from the direction of the prevailing wind. There are one or two
small windows of glass or bladder, and a small pipe surmounts a very small
Russian stove in which the stems of empetrum are burned.
In most of the huts that I entered I found a
Yankee clock, a few pictures, and ordinary cheap crockery and furniture;
accordions, also, as they are very fond of music. All such bits of furniture
and finery of foreign manufacture contrast meanly with their own
old-fashioned kind. Altogether, in dress and home gear, they are so meanly
mixed, savage and civilized, that they make a most pathetic impression. The
moisture rained down upon them every other day keeps the walls and the roof
green, even flowery, and as perfectly fresh as the sod before it was built
into a hut. Goats, once introduced by the Russians, make these hut tops
their favorite play and pasture grounds, much to the annoyance of their
occupants. In one of these huts I saw for the first time arrowheads
manufactured out of bottle glass. The edges are chipped by hard pressure
with a bit of deer horn.
As the Tlingit Indians of the Alexander
Archipelago make their own whiskey, so these Aleuts make their own beer, an
intoxicating drink, which, if possible, is more abominable and destructive
than hootchenoo. It is called "kyass," and was introduced by the Russians,
though the Aleutian kvass is only a coarse imitation of the Russian article,
as the Indian hootehenoo is of whiskey. In its manufacture they put a
quantity of sugar and flour, or molasses and flour, with a few dried apples,
in a cask, fill it up with water, and leave it to ferment. Then they make
haste to drink it while it is yet thick and acrid, and capable of making
them howling drunk. It also creates a fiery thirst for alcohol, which is
supplied by traders whenever they get a chance. This renders the misery of
the Aleuts complete.
There are about two thousand of them scattered along the chain of islands,
living in small villages. Nearly all the men are hunters of the fur seal,
the most expert making five hundred dollars or more per season. After paying
old debts contracted with the Companies, they invest the remainder in
trinkets, in clothing not so good as their own furs, and in beer, and go at
once into hoggish dissipation, hair- pulling, wife-beating, etc. In a few
years their health becomes impaired, they become less successful in hunting,
their children are neglected and die, and they go to ruin generally. When
they toss in their kayaks among surf- beaten rocks where their prey dwells,
their business requires steady nerve. But all the proceeds are spent for
what is worse than useless. The best hunters have been furnished with frame
cottages by the Companies. These cottages have a neat appearance outside,
but are very foul inside. Rare exceptions are those in which one finds
scrubbed floors or flowers in pots on window-sills and mantels.
We called at the house of the priest of the
Greek Church, and were received with fine civility, ushered into a room
which for fineness of taste in furniture and fixtures might well challenge
the very best in San Francisco or New York. The wall-paper, the ceiling, the
floor, the pictures of Yosemite and the Czar on the walls, the flowers in
the window, the books on the tables, the window-curtains white and gauzy,
tied with pink ribbon, the rugs, and odds and ends, all proclaimed exquisite
taste of a kind that could not possibly originate anywhere except in the man
himself or his wife. This room would have made a keen impression upon me
wherever found, and is, I am sure, not dependent upon the squalor of most
other homes here, nor upon the wildness and remoteness of Unalaska, for the
interest it excites. He spoke only Russian, so that I had but little
conversation with him, as I had to speak through our interpreter. We smoked
and smiled and gestured and looked at his beautiful home.
Bishop Nestor, who has charge of the Alaskan
diocese, is said to be a charming and most venerable man. He now resides in
San Francisco, but is having a house built in Unalaska. He is empowered to
build and support, at the expense of the home church, a certain number of
parish churches. Two out of seven of these are located among the Aleuts - at
Unalaska and Belkofski. The other Aleutian villages which have churches, and
nearly all have, build and support them at their own expense. The Russian
Church claims about eleven thousand members in all Alaska. About one half of
these are Aleuts, one thousand creoles, and the rest Indians of Nushagak,
Yukon, and Kenai missions, over which the Church exercises but a feeble
control. Shamanism with slight variations extends over all Siberia and
Alaska and, indeed, all America. |
