A German writer of note once said, in the course of a discussion upon
certain French characteristics, that "the trouble with the French
people is,--they do not _know_ Geography."
Whether this is still true of the French, as a nation, or whether the
authority may be considered a good one, it is not pertinent for me here
to say; but I feel that of the nations of the world, this country,
above all others (England, perhaps, alone excepted), should not have
the want of knowledge of geography classed among its national failings.
We have, however, very much geography yet to learn, as individuals and
as a nation; not only of countries beyond our own but particularly of
our own continent and our own domain, while commercial geography is
almost an unknown and forbidden study.
Professional geographer as I am, as member of the naval service, I find
that every cruise adds to my geographic knowledge, and in giving an
account of the cruise during last summer of the ship which I had the
honor to command, I trust that I may be enabled to present some
geographic facts as interesting to my fellow-members of the Geographic
Society as they were novel and instructive to myself.
Before beginning my narrative, however, let me give you an idea of the
extent of the shore-line of the territory or semi-colonial province
along which so much of our cruise was made.
Alaska has an area of about 580,000 square miles, consisting of a large
mainland with a coast-line 6,650 miles in length, and also of more than
1,100 islands, with a coast-line of 2,950 miles, the entire coast-line
being 9,600 miles. The coast-line of the rest of the United States,
including islands, is only 6,580 miles, thus making the coast-line of
Alaska 3,020 miles more than the coast-line of all of the rest of the
United States.
Of this great country the part known best and visited annually by
tourists is that insignificant portion of southeastern Alaska which
consists of the Alexander archipelago and its neighboring main
coast-line, differing in its scenery, topography, climate, and native
inhabitants, from the greater part of this vast territory.
It is fortunate, however, that this corner of Alaska is so easily and
comfortably reached by the summer traveler, as, with the exception of
the coast-line and inlets between Sitka and Kodiak, which includes the
Fairweather ground and the St. Elias range of mountains, this portion
contains perhaps the finest and most striking scenery and the largest
and grandest glaciers in the territory, if not in all North and South
America.
The U. S. S. Thetis was assigned in 1889 to the duty of looking out for
the commercial and whaling interests of the United States in Bering sea
and the Arctic ocean, to which was subsequently added the duty of
assisting in the establishment and erection of a house of refuge in the
vicinity of Point Barrow, the most northerly point of our Arctic
possessions. The duty assigned to the Thetis did not include the
protection of the sealing interests of the United States, nor of those
interests enjoyed by the Alaska Commercial Company as the regular
lessees from the United States of the Pribyloff group of islands. This
was confided to the Revenue Marine Service of the Treasury Department.
[Illustration: The Arctic Cruise of the U. S. S. "Thetis" Lieut.
Comd'r. Chas. H. Stockton, U. S. N., Comd'g. in the summer and autumn
of 1889. The Norris Peters Co., Photo-litho., Washington, D. C.]
The Thetis left San Francisco on the 20th of April, 1889, and after a
detention of a month at Tacoma, upon the placid waters of Puget sound,
awaiting supplementary orders, reached Port Tongass, in extreme
southeastern Alaska, on the 31st of May, and Sitka, the territorial
capitol, upon the 2d of June. After a stay of six days at the latter
place the vessel left for the island of Ounalaska, one of the Aleutian
chain, which was safely reached, after a stormy passage, early on the
morning of the 17th of June.
The revenue-steamer Richard Rush, commanded by Captain Shepherd, was
found at anchor at this place, having arrived a few hours before the
Thetis; she had entered upon the duty of patrolling Bering sea, between
Ounalaska and the Pribyloff group, for the protection of the sealing
interests. The seals approach the hauling-out grounds and breeding
places upon the islands of St. Paul and St. George in lanes, as it
were, from the Pacific, reaching Bering sea by means of the various
passages between the Aleutian islands, and converging as they approach
the Seal islands, the position of which seems so well known to them.
The "marauders," as the men on the sealing schooners are called who
hunt them on their way north, shoot them from small boats, killing the
many in order to procure the few.
Ounalaska, or rather the village and harbor of Iliuliuk, upon the
island of Ounalaska, is the principal and most frequented harbor in the
Aleutian islands, and from its position is a most convenient port for
coaling, watering and provisioning en route to the Seal islands, St.
Michaels (at the mouth of the Yukon river), the anchorages in and near
Bering strait, and the Arctic ocean. This harbor is the headquarters of
all of the districts of the Alaska Commercial Company, and is the
principal coaling and distributing station and rendezvous of their
vessels in Alaska. The company here affords facilities in the way of
buoyage, wharfage, etc., which are not only useful to their own vessels
but of great service to government and other vessels whose duty or
interests call them to these waters.
The revenue steamer Bear was to be met by us at Ounalaska, in order
that we could take from her any portion of the stores and material to
be used in the constructing and provisioning of the house of refuge at
Point Barrow that her commanding officer desired to transfer to us.
While awaiting the arrival of the Bear, the Thetis was watered and
coaled and prepared for the northerly trip before her. An opportunity
offered me by the delay was availed of to inspect the store-houses of
the Alaska Commercial Company at this point. The most interesting of
the store-houses was that containing the skins and furs collected in
the various parts of the district of which this place was the dépôt.
The finest of the furs was that of the sea-otter, probably the most
valuable fur in the world, a very superior skin of that animal having
been sold at the great fur market in London for £170. Such otters are
found in the vicinity of Ounalaska and the outlying rocks and islands
as far east as Kodiak, and are becoming more and more difficult to
obtain, causing greater risk and hardships every year to the Aleuts,
who hunt these animals as a principal means of livelihood.
Besides the otters the store-house held the furs of the beautiful
silver-gray fox, and those of the blue, the cross, and the snowy white
Arctic fox. There were also black and brown bear skins, beaver, and
fur-seal, the latter, though the greatest and most profitable source of
revenue to the Company, being by no manner of means among the more
valuable of the raw furs.
To exchange for furs collected, either directly by natives or by
independent traders, the Alaska Commercial Company has a large
assortment of stores, provisions, and goods, worthy of a large
country-store, or a Macy's in miniature, which are sold to the natives
for money or in exchange for the furs they bring to the company. And
just here can be seen the commercial aspects of civilization: as the
natives become used to the luxuries and comforts of a civilized and
semi-civilized state of life, their wants and their purchases increase
and the securing of one otter-skin will not, as in times past, satisfy
their wants or the requirements of their wives and families. Hence they
become both greater producers and consumers, more otters are hunted
for, and the Company is the gainer.
The houses in which the Aleuts and Creoles reside at Ounalaska were
found to be well built of frame, sufficiently large and fairly clean.
The old houses of earth and sod standing near by show the great
improvement that has been made of late years in the method of living.
Upon the 22d of June the Revenue Steamer Bear came in to the anchorage,
and the Thetis and the Bear, once companion ships in the Greely Relief
Expedition, met again in the far north.
Upon conference with the commanding officer of the Bear, Captain M. A.
Healy, it was found that he did not consider it desirable to break the
bulk of his cargo and share the stores for the refuge-station with us;
hence, being free to pursue our course, we left on the 24th of June for
the island of St. Paul, one of the Seal (or Pribyloff) islands.
We arrived at these islands on the evening of the 25th of June, after
groping around in the heavy and almost constant fog and mist that
envelop them. During our short stay at St. Paul we were able to see a
drive of seals from a rookery and the killing, skinning, and packing,
which followed; but what we found to be the most interesting was the
visit to the rookeries, both from the inshore side and from boats along
the sea front. The systematic partition of the grounds, the formation
of the harems, the exclusion of the young males, and the aggressive
conduct of the older ones, all proved most interesting and novel. This,
however, has been described so often that I will not here repeat it.
Leaving these islands, so unlike any others in the world, we proceeded
to the north and west to St. Mathew Island, a large and uninhabited
island in the middle of Bering sea. The object in visiting this island
was twofold, the first being to ascertain if there were any shipwrecked
persons upon the island, the other being to verify the statement made
upon the chart we possessed that the island was infested with polar
bears. Upon our arrival and landing upon the island we found plenty of
old tracks but no recent evidences of the existence of polar bears.
This was ascertained after honest and fatiguing endeavor to find them
by parties of officers and men from the ship, who scoured the eastern
part of the island, both upon the hills and upon the low tundra, but
without success.
St. Mathew island is probably the southern limit of the solid ice in
winter in this part of Bering sea, the ice below it to the southward
and toward the Aleutian chain being made up of newer ice and detached
floes of well broken ice. It is surrounded by the ice during seven
months of the year, and generally enveloped with fog during the
remaining five months. Winds and rains sweep over it during the summer,
the low land being composed of wet, grassy tundra, while the higher
elevations are formed of scoriæ and volcanic rock.
A large quantity of drift-wood found piled up upon the steep shingle
beaches probably came down the Yukon river from the interior of Alaska,
there being no growth of trees upon this desolate land.
After leaving St. Mathew island we stood over to the Siberian side of
Bering sea, in order to ascertain the whereabouts of the whaling fleet,
and, if possible, to gather some news concerning the fate of the
whaling bark "Little Ohio," a vessel that had been missing since the
previous autumn.
Plover bay, Cape Tchaplin and St. Lawrence bay, upon the Siberian side,
were all visited in turn, but without success, and I then determined to
pass through Bering strait and enter the Arctic ocean. This was done
upon the 3d of July, after a heavy snow-storm in the morning, followed,
later in the day, by a fog so dense that we passed through the straits
without seeing land on either side, or the Diomede islands, in the
middle.
Entering the Arctic we pushed on toward Point Hope, to the northward of
which the "Little Ohio" had last been seen. On the morning of the 4th
of July the land about Point Hope was sighted and soon afterwards we
met our first ice, coming out in floes from Kotzebue sound, stretching
some distance from the shore and slowly moving to the northward and
westward with the current.
Skirting along this ice with the hope of getting around it to the
northward of Point Hope, without success, we entered it, and after
working through it for several miles with considerable difficulty we
finally cleared it and came to anchor off the native village at Point
Hope, finding there two whalers who had just preceded us, and obtaining
the news that the bark "Little Ohio" had been wrecked directly opposite
the point where we were then at anchor. Taking on board, the next day,
those survivors of this shipwreck who still remained at this place, we
left for St. Michaels, near the mouth of the Yukon river, there to
transfer the survivors to the steamer of the Alaska Commercial Company,
and to send the news of this sad disaster to the Navy Department and to
the world. In passing through the ice outside of Point Hope the first
polar bear of the season was sighted, posing upon a high floe of ice. A
few shots settled his case and his body was fortunately secured, his
skin now forming one of the trophies of the cruise.
On our way back through Bering strait we found the vexatious
combination (to be met with again and again in the cruise) of a heavy
fog, much drift ice, and an opposing current.
Reaching St. Michaels we found there two steamers of the Alaska
Commercial Company at anchor, besides several river-steamers, and a
summer rendezvous of natives from the coast, miners from the interior,
and traders and missionaries from the Yukon,--all here to meet their
annual mails and supplies. In addition there was a party of government
surveyors to determine the boundary-line, an account of whose early
journey has been given to the Society by Mr. Russell. There were
seventy-three tents, by actual count, pitched about St. Michaels at the
time of our stay, the abodes of these temporary residents.
St. Michaels is the most northerly settlement and trading post of the
Alaska Commercial Company. It is the outlet of the Yukon river trade
and also the source of supplies for the country bordering upon the
Yukon and its many tributaries, reaching in this way a portion of the
Northwest Territory of the Dominion of Canada, west of the Rocky
Mountains.
In the winter-time the post consists of the offices and store-houses of
the Alaska Commercial Company, with a few residences for their white
employees, and a small native village.
Small, light-draught, stern-wheel steamers ascend the Yukon and its
tributaries for a distance of 1,700 miles, reaching the mouth of that
river in part by an inside channel and in part by sixty miles of
outside coasting.
After a short stay at St. Michaels we proceeded to Port Clarence, where
a large number of the whaling fleet were met, consisting of seven
steam-whalers, six sailing whalers, one trading vessel, and a sailing
tender. From the tender these vessels receive coal, provisions, and
supplies, sending back to San Francisco the oil and whale-bone of the
spring catch.
Port Clarence is the best, as it is the last, harbor on the American
side before reaching the Arctic, where no harbors exist worthy of the
name, west of Herschel island. There is no native settlement of any
size on the bay, but natives assemble here from the surrounding country
and islands to trade with the whale-ships in summer.
Leaving Port Clarence we ran to the southward by King island to St.
Lawrence island, in search of a sailing tender that was long over-due;
returning, after a short stay off the village near Cape Prince of
Wales, we again entered the Arctic ocean. As it was too early to go to
Point Barrow we proceeded to Kotzebue sound and Hotham inlet. In the
vicinity of the latter place, every year, a summer rendezvous of
natives occurs for trading purposes, the Eskimos from the Diomedes and
Cape Prince of Wales bringing articles of trade from Siberia, while the
Eskimos from Point Hope bring articles obtained from the whalers; these
Eskimos are met by the inland natives from the rivers that flow into
Hotham inlet and Kotzebue sound, principally from the Kowak, the Noatak
and Salawik rivers. The nearest available anchorage we found was Cape
Blossom, from which place we visited the rendezvous and were visited in
turn by the natives. We had now been enjoying for some time
twenty-fours hours of daylight, the midnight-sun having lighted our way
to and from Point Hope during our first visit to that place.
Leaving Cape Blossom upon the 24th of July we stood out of Kotzebue
sound for the northward, running the greater part of the time in a
heavy fog. We passed Point Hope on the 25th, Cape Lisburne on the 26th,
and anchored off Cape Sabine early in the morning of the 27th of July.
Near by was a very wide vein of lignite coal, from which the Thetis had
been coaled the previous year and to which the name of "Thetis coal
mine" had been given. This had been worked during the present summer,
also, and a party of natives who were encamped near by had furnished
coal to some of the whalers.
Being now in the vicinity of a stream known to the natives as the
Pitmegea, I went in a whaleboat to examine its mouth and entrance, as
this stream was unknown to but few whites and did not exist upon any
charts or maps. It was found to have but three feet of water on the bar
at its entrance, but after crossing this a depth of six feet was found.
The stream was found so full of bars and shoals that we could ascend
but a short distance after entering it. The river and its narrow valley
were very winding, the general course being northwest from its source
to the coast. After the spring thaw, and the rains that follow, the
stream rises to a depth sufficient for the natives to ascend and
descend it with their light-draught skin-boats for a distance of about
forty miles. Its length is estimated to be over one hundred miles. The
river had been explored the previous year by John W. Kelly, who was
this summer employed on board the Thetis as the official interpreter,
and to him I am indebted for the following description of the ice-cliff
existing upon the banks of the Pitmegea, and also of a peculiarly built
stone hut near the source of one of the tributaries.