We sailed into the lovely bay of Unalaska on the fourth day of July. The
entire village, native and white, had gone on a picnic to the hills.
We spent the afternoon loitering about the deserted streets and the
green and flowery hills. One could sit contentedly for a week upon the
hills,--as the natives used to sit upon the roofs of their
barabaras,--doing nothing but looking down upon the idyllic loveliness
shimmering in every direction.
In the centre of the town rises the Greek-Russian church, green-roofed
and bulbous-domed, adding the final touch of mysticism and poetry to
this already enchanting scene.
At sunset the mists gathered, slowly, delicately, beautifully. They
moved in softly through the same strait by which we had entered--little
rose-colored masses that drifted up to meet the violet-tinted ones from
the other end of the bay. In the centre of the water valley they met and
mixed together, and, in their new and more marvellous coloring, pushed
up about the town and the lower slopes. Out of them lifted and shone the
green roof and domes of the church; more brilliantly above them, napped
thick and soft as velvet, glowed the hills; and more lustrously against
the saffron sky flashed the pearl of the higher peaks.
* * * * *
There was a gay dinner party aboard the DORA that night. Afterward, we
all attended a dance. There was only one white woman in the hall
besides my friend and myself; and we three were belles! We danced with
every man who asked us to dance, to the most wonderful music I have ever
heard. One of the musicians played a violin with his hands and a French
harp with his mouth, both at the same time--besides making quite as much
noise with one foot as he did with both of the instruments together.
There were several good-looking Aleutian girls at the dance. They had
pretty, slender figures, would have been considered well dressed in any
small village in the states, and danced with exceeding grace and ease.
We went to this dance not without some qualms of various kinds; but we
went for the same reason that "Cyanide Bill" told us he had journeyed
three times to the shores of the "Frozen Ocean"--"just to see."
Toward midnight a pretty and stylishly gowned young woman came in with
an escort and joined in the dancing. As she whirled past us, with
diamonds flashing from her hands, ears, and neck, my inquiring Scotch
friend asked a gentleman with whom she was dancing, "Who is the pretty
dark-eyed lady? We have not seen her before."
She was completely extinguished for some time by his reply, given with
the cheerful frankness of the North.
"Oh, that's Nelly, miss. I don't know any other name for her. We just
always call her Nelly, miss."
We returned to the steamer, leaving "Nelly" to twinkle on. Our curiosity
was entirely satisfied. We went "to see," and we had seen.
Captain Gray might be called "the lord of Unalaska." He is the "great
gentleman" of the place. He has for many years managed the affairs of
the Alaska Commercial Company, and he has acted as host to almost every
traveller who has voyaged to this lovely isle.
After supper, which was served on the steamer at midnight, we were
invited to his home "to finish the evening."
"At one o'clock in the morning!" gasped my companion.
"Hours don't count up here," said our captain. "It is broad daylight.
Besides, it is the 4th of July. I think we should accept the
invitation."
We did accept it, in the same spirit in which it was given, and it was
one of the most profitable of evenings. We found a home of comfort and
refinement in the farthest outpost of civilization in the North Pacific.
The hours were spent pleasantly with good music, singing, and reading;
and delicate refreshments were served.
The sun shone upon my friend's scandalized face as we returned to our
steamer. It was nearly five o'clock.
"I know it was innocent enough," said she, "but think how it
_sounds_!--a dance, with only three white women present--not to mention
'Nelly'!--a midnight supper, and then an invitation to 'finish the
evening'! It sounds like one of Edith Wharton's novels."
"It's Alaska," said the captain. "You want local color--and you're
getting it. But let me tell you that you have never been safer in your
life than you have been to-night."
"Safe!" echoed she. "I'm not talking about the safety of it. It's the
_form_ of it."
"Form doesn't count, as yet, in the Aleutians," said the captain.
"'There's never a law of God or man runs north of _fifty-three_!'"
"There's surely never a _social_ law runs north of it," was the scornful
reply.
The next morning we went to the great warehouses of the company, to look
at old Russian samovars. Captain Gray personally escorted us through
their dim, cobwebby, high-raftered spaces. There was one long counter
covered with samovars, and we began eagerly to examine and price them.
[Illustration: Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster &
Stevens, Seattle
DOG-TEAM EXPRESS, NOME]
The cheapest was twenty-five dollars; and the most expensive, more than
a hundred.
"But they are all sold," added Captain Gray, gloomily.
"All sold!" we exclaimed, in a breath. "What--_all_? Every one?"
"Yes; every one," he answered mournfully.
"Why, how very odd," said I, "for them all to be sold, and all to be
left here."
"Yes," said he, sighing. "The captain of a government cutter bought them
for his friends in Boston. He has gone on up into Behring Sea, and will
call for them on his return."
Far be it from me to try to buy anything that is not for sale. I thanked
him politely for showing them to us; and we went on to another part of
the warehouse.
We found nothing else that was already "sold." We bought several
holy-lamps, baskets, and other things.
"I'm sorry about the samovars," said I, as I paid Captain Gray.
"So am I," said he. Then he sighed. "There's one, now," said he, after a
moment, thoughtfully. "I might--Wait a moment."
He disappeared, and presently returned with a perfect treasure of a
samovar,--old, battered, green with age and use. We went into ecstasies
over it.
"I'll take it," I said. "How much is it?"
"It was twenty-five dollars," said he, dismally. "It is sold."
"How very peculiar," said my companion, as we went away, "to keep
bringing out samovars that are sold."
For two years my thoughts reverted at intervals to those "sold" samovars
at Unalaska. Last summer I went down the Yukon. At St. Michael I was
entertained at the famous "Cottage" for several days. One day at dinner
I asked a gentleman if he knew Captain Gray.
"Of Unalaska?" exclaimed two or three at once. Then they all burst out
laughing.
"We all know him," one said. "Everybody knows him."
"But why do you laugh?"
"Oh, because he is so 'slick' at taking in a tourist."
"In what manner?" asked I, stiffly. I remembered that Captain Gray had
asked me if I were a tourist.
They all laughed again.
"Oh, _especially_ on samovars."
My face burned suddenly.
"On samovars!"
"Yes. You see he gets a tourist into his warehouses and shows him
samovar after samovar--fifty or sixty of them--and tells him that every
one is sold. He puts on the most mournful look.
"'This one was twenty-five dollars,' he says. 'A captain on a government
cutter bought them to take to Boston.' Then the tourist gets wild. He
offers five, ten, twenty dollars more to get one of those samovars. He
always gets it; because, you see, Gray wants to sell it to him even
worse than he wants to buy it. It always works."
* * * * *
We walked over the hills to Dutch Harbor--once called Lincoln Harbor.
There is a stretch of blue water to cross, and we were ferried over by a
gentleman having much Fourth-of-July in his speech and upon his breath.
His efforts at politeness are remembered joys, while a sober ferryman
would have been forgotten long ago. But the sober ferrymen that morning
were like the core of the little boy's apple.
It was the most beautiful walk of my life. A hard, narrow, white path
climbed and wound and fell over the vivid green hills; it led around
lakes that lay in the hollows like still, liquid sapphire, set with the
pearl of clouds; it lured through banks of violets and over slopes of
trembling bluebells; it sent out tempting by-paths that ended in the
fireweed's rosy drifts; but always it led on--narrow, well-trodden, yet
oh, so lonely and so still! Birds sang and the sound of the waves came
to us--that was all. Once a little brown Aleutian lad came whistling
around the curve in the path, stood still, and gazed at us with startled
eyes as soft and dark as a gazelle's; but he was the only human being we
saw upon the hills that day.
We saw acres that were deep blue with violets. They were large enough to
cover silver half-dollars, and their stems were several inches in
length. Fireweed grew low, but the blooms were large and of a deep rose
color.
Standing still, we counted thirteen varieties of wild flowers within a
radius of six feet. There were the snapdragon, wild rose, columbine,
buttercup, Solomon's seal, anemone, larkspur, lupine, dandelion, iris,
geranium, monk's-hood, and too many others to name, to be found on the
hills of Unalaska. There are more than two thousand varieties of wild
flowers in Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The blossoms are large and
brilliant, and they cover whole hillsides and fill deep hollows with
beautiful color. The bluebells and violets are exquisite. The latter are
unbelievably large; of a rich blue veined with silver. They poise
delicately on stems longer than those of the hot-house flower; so that
we could gather and carry armfuls of them.
* * * * *
The site of Dutch Harbor is green and level. Fronting the bay are the
large buildings of the North American Commercial Company, with many
small frame cottages scattered around them. All are painted white, with
bright red roofs, and the town presents a clean and attractive
appearance.
Dutch Harbor is the prose, and Unalaska the poetry, of the island. There
is neither a hotel nor a restaurant at either place. It was one o'clock
when we reached Dutch Harbor; we had breakfasted early, and we sought,
in vain, for some building that might resemble an "eating-house."
We finally went into the big store, and meeting the manager of the
company, asked to be directed to the nearest restaurant.
He smiled.
"There isn't any," he said.
"Is there no place where one may get _something_ to eat? Bread and milk?
We saw cows upon the hills."
"You would not care to go to the native houses," he replied, still
smiling. "But come with me."
He led the way along a neat board walk to a residence that would attract
attention in any town. It was large and of artistic design.
"It was designed by Molly Garfield," the young man somewhat proudly
informed us. "Her husband was connected with the company for several
years, and they built and lived in this house."
The house was richly papered and furnished. It was past the luncheon
hour, but we were excellently served by a perfectly trained Chinaman.
For more than a hundred years the great commercial companies--beginning
with the Shelikoff Company--have dispensed the hospitality of Alaska,
and have acted as hosts to the stranger within their gates. The managers
are instructed to sell provisions at reasonable prices, and to supply
any one who may be in distress and unable to pay for food.
They frequently entertain, as guests of the company they represent,
travellers to these lonely places, not because the latter are in need,
but merely as a courtesy; and their hospitality is as free and
generous--but not as embarrassing--as that of Baranoff.
That night I sat late alone upon the hills, on a tundra slope that was
blue with violets. I could not put my hand down without crushing them.
The lights moving across Unalaska were as poignantly interesting as the
thoughts that come and go across a stranger's face when he does not know
that one is observing.
All the lights and shadows of the vanishing Aleutian race seemed to be
moving across the hills, the village, the blue bay.
Scarcely a day has passed that I have not gone back across the blue and
emerald water-ways that stretch between, to that lovely place and that
luminous hour.
Perhaps, I thought, Veniaminoff may have looked down upon this exquisite
scene from this same violeted spot--Veniaminoff, the humble, devout, and
devoted missionary, whom I should rather have been than any man or woman
whose history I know; Veniaminoff, who _lived_--instead of _wrote_--a
great, a sublime, poem.
* * * * *
Unalaska's commercial glory has faded. It was once port of entry for all
vessels passing in or out of Behring Sea; the ships of the Arctic
whaling fleet called here for water, coal, supplies, and mail; during
the years that the _modus vivendi_ was in force it was headquarters of
the United States and the British fleets patrolling Behring Sea, and
lines of captured sealers often lay here at anchor.
During the early part of the present decade Unalaska saw its most
prosperous times. Thousands of people waited here for transportation to
the Klondike, via St. Michael and the Yukon. Many ships were built
here, and one still lies rotting upon the ways.
The Greek church is second in size and importance to the one at Sitka
only, and the bishop once resided here. There is a Russian parish
school, a government day-school, and a Methodist mission, the Jessie Lee
Home. The only white women on the island reside at the Home. The bay has
frequently presented the appearance of a naval parade, from the number
of government and other vessels lying at anchor.
No traveller will weary soon of Unalaska. There are caves and waterfalls
to visit, and unnumbered excursions to make to beautiful places among
the hills. Especially interesting is Samghanooda, or English, Harbor,
where Cook mended his ships; while Makushin Harbor, on the western
coast, where Glottoff and his Russians first landed in 1756, is only
thirty miles away.
The great volcano itself is easy of ascent, and the view from its crest
is one of the memories of a lifetime. Borka, a tiny village at
Samghanooda, is as noted for its Dutch-like cleanliness as Belkoffski is
for its filth.
The other islands of the Aleutian chain drift on to westward, lonely,
unknown--almost, if not entirely, uninhabited. Now and then a small
trading settlement is found, which is visited only by Captain
Applegate,--the last remaining white deep-sea otter hunter,--and once a
year by a government cutter, or the Russian priest from Unalaska, or a
shrewd and wandering trader.
These green and unknown islands are the islands of my dreams--and dreams
do "come true" sometimes. This voyage out among the Aleutians is the
most poetic and enchanting in the world to-day; and I shall never be
entirely happy until I have drifted on out to the farthest island of
Attu, lying within the eastern hemisphere, and watched those lonely,
dark women, with the souls of poets and artists and the patience of
angels, weaving _their_ dreams into ravishing beauty and sending them
out into the world as the farewell messages of a betrayed and vanishing
people. As we treat them for their few remaining years, so let us in the
end be treated.
* * * * *
Alaska is to-day the centre of the world's volcanic activity, and the
mountainous appearances and disappearances that have been recorded in
the Aleutian Islands are marvellous and awesome. To these upheavals in
the North Pacific and Behring Sea Whidbey's adjectives, "stupendous,"
"tremendous," and "awfully dreadful," might be appropriately applied.
On July the fourth, 1907, officers of the revenue cutter _McCulloch_
discovered the new peak which they named in honor of their vessel. It
was in the vicinity of the famous volcano of Joanna Bogoslova, or Saint
John the Theologian.
In 1796 the natives of Unalaska and the adjoining islands for many miles
were startled by violent reports, like continued cannonading, followed
by frightful tremblings of the earth upon which they stood.
A dense volume of smoke, ashes, and gas descended upon them in a kind of
cloud, and shut everything from their view. They were thus enveloped and
cannonaded for about ten days, when the atmosphere gradually cleared and
they observed a bright light shining upon the sea from thirty to forty
miles north of Unalaska. The brave ones of the island went forth in
bidarkas and discovered that a small island had risen from the sea to a
height of one hundred feet and that it was still rising.
This was the main peak of the Bogosloff group, and it continued to grow
until 1825, when it reached a height of about three hundred feet and
cooled sufficiently for Russians to land upon it for the first time. The
heat was still so intense, however, and the danger from running lava so
great, that they soon withdrew to their boats.
In the early eighties, after similar disturbances, another peak arose
near the first and joined to it by a low isthmus, upon which stood a
rock seventy feet in height, which was named Ship-Rock. In 1891 the
isthmus sank out of sight in the sea, and a new peak arose.
Since then no important changes have occurred. The peaks themselves
remained too hot and dangerous for examination; but the short voyage out
from Unalaska has been a favorite one for tourists who were able to land
upon the lower rocks and spend a day gathering specimens and studying
the sea-lions that doze in polygamous herds in the warmth, and the
shrieking murres that nest in the cliffs and cover them like a tremulous
gray-white cloud.
Every inch of space on these cliffs seems to be taken by these birds for
the creation of life. On every tiniest shelf they perch upright,
black-backed and white-bellied, brooding their eggs--although these hot
and steamy cliffs are sufficient incubators to bring forth life out of
every egg deposited upon them. When the murres are suddenly disturbed,
their eggs slip from their hold and plunge down the cliffs, splattering
them with the yellow of their broken yolks.
The last week in July, 1907, I passed close to the Bogosloff Islands,
which had grown to the importance of four peaks. Three days later a
violent earthquake occurred in this vicinity. Once more dense clouds of
smoke descended upon Unalaska and the adjoining islands, and ashes
poured upon the sea and land, as far north as Nome, covering the decks
of passing steamers to a depth of several inches, and affecting sailors
so powerfully that they could only stay on deck for a few moments at a
time.
On September the first, the captain and men of the whaler _Herman_,
passing the Bogosloff group, beheld a sight to observe which I would
cheerfully have yielded several years of life. They saw the
two-months-old McCulloch peak burn itself down into the sea, with vast
columns of steam ascending miles into the air above it, and the waters
boiling madly on all sides. It went down, foot by foot, and the men
stood spellbound, watching it disappear. For miles around the sea was
violently agitated and was mixed with volcanic ash, which also covered
the decks, and at intervals steam poured up unexpectedly out of the
ocean.
As soon as possible the revenue cutter _Buffalo_ went to the wonderful
volcanic group, and it was found that their whole appearance was
changed.
There were three peaks where four had been; but whereas they had
formerly been separate and distinct islands, they were now connected and
formed one island.
This island is two and a half miles long. Perry Peak, which arose in
1906, had increased in height; and there was a crater-like depression on
its south side, around which the waters were continually throwing off
vast clouds of steam and smoke. Captain Pond reported that rocks as
large as a house were constantly rolling down from Perry Peak, and that
the whole scene was one of wonderful interest. To his surprise, the
colony of sea-lions, which must have been frightened away, had returned,
and seemed to be enjoying the steamy heat on the rocks of the main and
oldest peak of the group.
The disappearance of McCulloch peak was accompanied by earthquake shocks
as far to eastward as Sitka. Makushin, the great volcano of Unalaska,
and others, smoked violently, and ashes fell over the Aleutian Islands
and the mainland. At the same time uncharted rocks began to make their
appearance all along the coast, to the grave danger of navigation.