Alaskan Village Life.
With the morning coffee came a rumor of an Indian village on the
neighboring shore. We were already past it, a half hour or more, but
canoes were visible. Now this was an episode. Jack, the cabin-boy, slid
back the blind; and as I sat up in my bunk, bolstered among the pillows,
I saw the green shore, moist with dew and sparkling in the morning
light, sweep slowly by--an endless panorama. There is no dust here, not
a particle. There is rain at intervals, and a heavy dew-fall, and
sometimes a sea fog that makes it highly advisable to suspend all
operations until it has lifted. After coffee I found the deck gaily
peopled. The steamer was running at half speed; and shortly she took a
big turn in a beautiful lagoon and went back on her course far enough to
come in sight of the Indian village, but we did not stop there. It seems
that one passage we were about to thread was reached at a wrong stage
of the tide; and, instead of waiting there for better water, we loafed
about for a couple of hours, enjoying it immensely, every soul of us.
Vancouver Island lay upon our left. It was half veiled in mist, or
smoke; and its brilliant constellation of sky-piercing peaks, green to
the summit, with glints of sunshine gilding the chasms here and there,
and rich shadows draping them superbly, reminded me of Nukahiva, one of
the Marquesas Islands--the one where Herman Melville found his famed
Typee. It seems extravagant to associate any feature in the Alaskan
archipelago with the most romantic island in the tropical sea; but there
are points of similarity, notwithstanding the geographical
discrepancy--daring outlines, magnificent cloud and atmospheric effects,
and a fragrance, a pungent balsamic odor ever noticeable. This
impalpable, invisible balm permeates everything; it is wafted out over
the sea to us, even as the breath of the Spice Islands is borne over the
waves to the joy of the passing mariner.
Surely there can be no finer tonic for a fagged fellow with feeble lungs
than this glorious Alaskan air. There is no danger of surfeit here; the
over-sweet is not likely to be met with in this latitude; and, then, if
one really feels the need of change, why, here is a fishing station. The
forest is trimmed along the shore so that there is scant room for a few
shanties between the water and the wilderness. A dock runs but a little
way out into the sea, for the shores are precipitous and one finds a
goodly number of fathoms only a few yards from the shingle.
At the top of the dock, sometimes nearly housing the whole of it, stands
a shed well stored with barrels, sacks of salt, nets, and all the
necessary equipments of a first-class fish-canning establishment. A few
Indian lodges are scattered along the shore. The Indians, a hearty and
apparently an industrious and willing race, do most of the work about
here. A few boats and canoes are drawn up upon the beach. The atmosphere
is heavy with the odor of ancient fish. The water-line is strewn with
cast-off salmon heads and entrails. Indian dogs and big, fat flies
batten there prodigiously. Acres of salmon bellies are rosy in the sun.
The blood-red interiors of drying fish--rackfuls of them turned wrong
side out--are the only bit of color in all Alaska. Everybody and
everything is sombre and subdued.
Yet not all fishing stations are cheerless. The salmon fishery and
trading store located at Loring are picturesque. The land-lock nook is
as lovely as a Swiss lake; and, oh, the myriad echoes that waken in
chorus among these misty mountains! The waters of the Alaskan
archipelago are prolific. Vast shoals of salmon, cod, herring, halibut,
mullet, ulicon, etc., silver the surface of the sea, and one continually
hears the splash of leaping fish.
A traveller has written of his visit to the fishing-grounds on the Naass
river, where the tribes had gathered for what is called their "small
fishing"--the salmon catch is at another time. These small fish are
valuable for food and oil. They run up the river for six weeks only, and
with the utmost regularity. At the point he visited, the Naass was about
a mile and a half wide; yet so great was the quantity of fish that, with
three nails driven into a stick, an Indian would rake up a canoeful in a
short time. Five thousand Indians were congregated from British Columbia
and Alaska; their faces painted red and black; feathers upon their
heads, and imitations of wild beasts upon their dresses. Over the fish
was an immense cloud of sea-gulls--so many were there, and so thick
were they, that the fluttering of their wings was like a swift fall of
snow. Over the gulls were eagles soaring and watching their chance. The
halibut, the cod, the porpoise, and the finback whale had followed the
little ones out of the deep; and there was confusion worse confounded,
and chaos came again in the hours of wild excitement that followed the
advent of the small fry, for each and all in sea and air were bent upon
the destruction of these little ones.
Seven thousand salmon have been taken at one haul of the seine in this
latitude. Most of these salmon weigh sixty pounds each, and some have
been caught that weigh a hundred and twenty pounds. Yet there are no
game fish in Alaska. Let sportsmen remember that far happier hunting
grounds lie within twenty miles of San Francisco, and in almost any
district of the Northern or Eastern States. On a certain occasion three
of our fellow-voyagers, armed in fashionable fishing toggery, went forth
from Sitka for a day's sport. A steam launch bore them to a land where
the rank grass and rushes grew shoulder high. Having made their way with
difficulty to the margin of a lake, they came upon a boat which
required incessant bailing to prevent its speedy foundering. One kept
the craft afloat while the others fished until evening. They caught
nothing, yet upon landing they found five fish floundering under the
seats; these swam in through a hole in the bottom of the boat. I say
again, on good authority, there are no game fish in Alaska. There are
salmon enough in these waters to supply the world--but the world can be
supplied without coming to these waters at all. The truth is, I fear,
that the market has been glutted and the business overdone.
One evening we anchored off a sad and silent shore. A few Indian lodges
were outlined against the woods beyond. A few Indians stolidly awaited
the arrival of a small boat containing one of our fellow-passengers.
Then for some hours this boat was busily plying to and fro, bringing out
to us all that was portable of a once flourishing, or at least
promising, fishery and cannery, now defunct. Meanwhile the mosquitoes
boarded our ship on a far more profitable speculation. It was pitiful to
see our friend gathering together the _debris_ of a wrecked fortune--for
he had been wealthy and was now on the down grade of life--hoping
almost against hope to be able to turn an honest penny somehow,
somewhere, before he dies.
At times we saw solitary canoes containing a whole family of Indians
fishing in the watery waste. What solemn lives they must lead! But a
more solemn and more solitary scene occurred a little later. All the
afternoon we had been sailing under splendid icy peaks. We came in out
of the hot sun, and were glad of the cool, snow-chilled air that visited
us lightly at intervals.
It was the hour of 9.30 p. m. The sun was dropping behind a lofty
mountain range, and in its fine glow we steamed into a lovely cove under
a towering height. A deserted, or almost deserted, fishing village stood
upon a green bottom land--a mere handful of lodges, with a young growth
of trees beyond, and an older growth between these and the glacier that
was glistening above them all. A cannery looking nearly new stood at the
top of a tall dock on stilts. On the extreme end of the dock was a
figure--a man, and a white man at that--with both hands in his pockets,
and an attitude of half-awakened curiosity. The figure stood
stock-still. We wondered if it lived, if it breathed, or if it was an
effigy set up there in scorn of American enterprise. We slowed up and
drew near to the dock. It was a curious picture: a half dozen log-built
lodges; a few tall piles driven into the land for steamer or trading
schooner to make fast to; a group of Indians by a feeble camp
fire,--Indians who never once changed their postures more than to
wearily lift their heads and regard us with absolute indifference.
When we were near enough to hail the motionless figure on the dock, we
did not hail him. Everybody was wildly curious: Everybody was perfectly
dumb. The whole earth was silent at last; the wheels had stopped; the
boat was scarcely moving through the water. The place, the scene, the
hour seemed under a spell. Then a bell rang very shrilly in the deep
silence; the paddles plunged into the sea again; we made a graceful
sweep under the shadow of the great mountain and proudly steamed away.
Not a syllable had been exchanged with that mysterious being on the
dock; we merely touched our hats at the last moment; he lifted his,
stalked solemnly to the top of the dock and disappeared. There is a bit
of Alaskan life for you!