Climate of Alaska.—Ample Grass for Domestic Cattle.—Winter and Summer
Seasons.—The Japanese Current.—Temperature in the Interior.—The
Eskimos.—Their Customs.—Their Homes.—These Arctic Regions once
Tropical.—The Mississippi of Alaska.—Placer Mines.—The Natives.—Strong
Inclination for Intoxicants.
It is a well-known fact, proven by official observations, that the
climate of the Pacific coast is considerably more temperate than that of
the same latitude on the Atlantic side of the continent. The record of
ten consecutive years, kept at Sitka, gave an annual mean of 46° Fah.
This is in latitude 57° 3′ north, and is found by comparison to be four
degrees warmer than the average of Portland, Me., or six degrees warmer
than the temperature of Quebec, Canada. The average winter is milder,
therefore, at Sitka than it is at Boston, however singular the assertion
may at first strike us, in connection with the commonly entertained idea
of this northwestern Territory. The mean winter temperature of Sitka and
Newport, R. I., are very nearly the same, and there is only a difference
of six degrees in their mean yearly temperature, though there is a
difference of sixteen degrees of latitude.
We have before us a printed letter which appeared in the “Philadelphia
Press,” signed by Mr. C. F. Fowler, late an agent of the Alaska Fur
Company, who has resided for twelve years in Alaska, in which he says:
“You who live in the States look upon this country as a land of
perpetual ice and snow, yet I grew in my garden last year, at Kodiak,
abundant crops of radishes, lettuce, carrots, onions, cauliflowers,
cabbages, peas, turnips, potatoes, beets, parsnips, and celery. Within
five miles of this garden was one of the largest glaciers in Alaska.” In
a certain sense it is surely a country of paradoxes.
The harbor of Sitka is never closed by ice, which cannot be truthfully
said of Boston or New York.
Dr. Sheldon Jackson, long resident in the Territory as United States
general agent of education for Alaska, tells us that the temperature of
Sitka and that of Richmond, Va., are nearly identical. Mr. McLean of the
United States Signal Service, who has been located at Sitka for several
years, says, “the climate of southern Alaska is the most equable I ever
experienced.”
There is in Alaska a very large section of country, composed of islands
and the mainland, where the average temperature is higher than at
Christiania, capital of Norway, or Stockholm, capital of Sweden,—where
the winters are milder and the fall of rain and snow is less than in
southern Scandinavia, which is the geographical counterpart of Alaska in
the opposite hemisphere. Sitka harbor is no more subject to arctic
temperature than is Chesapeake Bay. “It must be a fastidious person,”
said Mr. Seward in his speech upon Alaska, “who complains of a climate
in which, while the eagle delights to soar, the hummingbird does not
disdain to flutter.” If it is sometimes misty and foggy on the coast, it
is not so to a greater extent than is the case during a large portion of
the year in the cities of London and Liverpool.
Both the islands and mainland of this latitude afford ample grass for
cows, sheep, and horses, also producing, with ordinary care, the usual
domestic vegetables, as we have shown, the assertion of certain writers
to the contrary notwithstanding. We have not far to look for the cause
of this favorable temperature existing at so northerly a range of
latitude. The thermal stream known as the Japanese Current, coming from
the far south charged with equatorial heat, is precisely similar in its
effect to that of the better known Gulf Stream on our Atlantic coast,
rendering the climate of these islands and the coast of the mainland of
the North Pacific remarkably warm and humid. We speak especially and at
length of this subject of the temperature of Alaska, because a wrong
impression is so generally held concerning it. At a distance from the
coast the temperature falls, and most of the inland rivers are closed by
ice half the year. Even in the interior we are in about the same
latitude and average temperature of St. Petersburg. Thus on the line of
Behring Strait the annual mean at Fort Yukon, which lies just inside of
the Arctic circle, six hundred miles inland from Norton Sound, is
16.92°; this is in latitude 64° north. Along the coast of southern
Alaska the fall of snow is not greater in amount than is experienced
during an ordinary winter in the New England States, and it disappears
even more quickly than it does in Vermont and New Hampshire. In the
interior and at the far north, the quantity of snow is of course much
greater, and covers the ground for about half the year.
But where the sun shines continuously throughout the twenty-four hours,
the growth of vegetable life is extremely rapid. The snow has hardly
disappeared before a mass of herbage springs up, and on the spot so
lately covered by a white sheet, sparkling with frosty crystals, there
is spread a soft mantle of variegated green. The leaves, blossoms, and
fruits rapidly follow each other, so that even in this boreal region
there is seed-time and harvest. The annual recurrence of this carnival
season is all the more impressive in the realm of the Frost King.
The Japanese Current, already referred to, strikes these shores at Queen
Charlotte Island in latitude 50° north, where it divides, one portion
going northward and westward along the coast of Alaska, and the other
southward, tempering the waters which border upon Washington, Oregon,
and California; hence their mild climate. Sea captains who frequently
make the voyage between San Francisco and Yokohama have told the author
that this Japanese Current—with banks and bottom of cold water, while
its body and surface are warm—is so clearly defined as to be
distinguishable in color from the ordinary hue of the Pacific Ocean, and
that its deep blue forms a visible line of demarcation between the
greater body and itself along its entire course. The thermometer will
easily define such a current, and this the author has often seen
demonstrated from a ship’s deck; but it must be a very keen eye that can
distinguish such differences of color at sea as the above assertion
would indicate.
In so extended a territory as that of Alaska, with broad plains, deep
valleys, and lofty mountain ranges, it is reasonable to suppose there
must be a great diversity of climate. The brief inland summer is
represented to exhibit marked extremes of heat, and the winter
corresponding extremes of cold. W. H. Dall, an undoubted authority in
all matters relating to the valley of the Yukon, though his book upon
the country was published some twenty years since, says: “At Fort Yukon
I have seen the thermometer at noon, not in the direct rays of the sun,
stand at 112°, and I was informed by the commander of the post that
several spirit thermometers graded up to 120° had burst under the
scorching sun of the Arctic midsummer.” Fort Yukon is the most northerly
point in Alaska inhabited by white men. It is estimated that ten or
twelve thousand Eskimos live in the uninviting region north of the Yukon
valley. They are a most remarkable people, who are struggling with the
cold three quarters of the year, and who seem to be strangely content
with a bare existence. Their days and nights, their seasons and years,
are not like those of the rest of the world. Six months of day is
succeeded by six months of night. They have three months of sunless
winter, three months of nightless summer, and six months of gloomy
twilight. No Christian enlightenment or religious teaching of any sort
has ever found its way into this region. The people believe in evil
spirits and powers who are in some way to be propitiated, but have no
conception of a Divine Being who overrules all things for good. Like the
southern Alaskans they are superstitious to the last degree, and
discover omens in the most ordinary occurrences. The decencies of life
are almost totally disregarded among them, their highest purpose being
apparently the achievement of animal comfort and gorging themselves with
food and oil.
Their sky is famous for its beautiful auroral display—gorgeous
pyrotechnics of nature—in the long, chill winter night, when a brilliant
arch spans the heavens from east to west, marked with oscillating hues
of yellow, blue, green, and violet, rendering everything light as day
for a few moments, then falling back into darkness. So off the coast of
Norway among the Lofoden Islands, the hardy men who pursue the
cod-fishery in that region, during the winter season, depend upon the
Aurora Borealis to light their midnight labor, that being considered the
most favorable hour of the twenty-four to secure the fish. Without this
nocturnal meteoric illumination, it would be darkness indeed in the
polar regions for half the year.
This phenomenon in its Arctic development is so much intensified as to
quite belittle the exhibition with which we are familiar in New England,
and which is called the Northern Lights.
It is certainly very odd that these boreal natives, the Eskimos proper,
should have precisely the same mode of salutation which the New Zealand
Maoris practice, though they are separated by so many thousand miles of
ocean, namely, the rubbing of noses together between two persons who
desire to evince pleasure at meeting. No matter how oily the Eskimo’s
nose may be, or however dirty the Maori’s face, to decline this mode of
salutation when offered is to give mortal offense, either in tropical
New Zealand or in arctic Alaska, at Point Barrow or at Ohinemutu. “The
home of the Eskimos,” says Bancroft, in his excellent work on the
natives of the Pacific coast, “is a model of filth and freeness. Coyness
is not one of their vices, nor is modesty ranked among their virtues.
The latitude of innocency characterizes all their social relations; they
refuse to do nothing in public that they would do in private.” They seem
to live in a primitive state, without craving anything of the white
man’s possessions, except tobacco and rum, which are smuggled to them by
contrabandists, who come on to the coast to trade for furs and ivory.
This class of traders, sailing from San Francisco, and stopping at the
Hawaiian Islands to procure a few hogsheads of the vilest intoxicant
which is made, pass along the northern coast of Alaska, touching at
certain places where they are expected annually. The walrus not only
supplies the Eskimo with food, but its tusks are used as the common
currency among them, and are secured in considerable quantities by the
illicit traders. The encroachment of unscrupulous contrabandists renders
the utter extinction of the walrus only a question of time. It is to be
regretted that the wholesale slaughter of this animal cannot be
prevented. If this could be brought about, as in the instance of the
fur-seal, we might continue to get ivory from the shores of the Frozen
Sea for all time. The natural enemy of the walrus is the polar bear, but
his most relentless pursuer is man.
These Eskimos wrap their dead in skins closely sewed and lay them in the
tundra, together with the worldly possessions of the deceased, without
any funeral ceremonies. It would be sacrilege for any one to disturb
this property left with the body, and no member of the tribe would think
of doing so.
In the Yukon Valley the remains of elephants and buffaloes are found
fossilized, as those of the rhinoceros were discovered on the opposite
continent in Siberia, thus showing that this now arctic region was once
tropical, a conclusion, nevertheless, which seems to be almost
impossible to the traveler while gazing upon Niagaras of frozen rivers
in the month of July.
The Yukon River is the Mississippi of Alaska, forming with its several
tributaries the great inland highway of the Territory. As yet there are
no roads in the country, everything is transported by water or on the
backs of the natives; the great importance of such an extensive
water-way can therefore be readily understood. The magnitude of the
Yukon—one of the twelve longest rivers in the world—will be realized by
the fact that it is still a matter of doubt among different writers
which of the two rivers named is the largest with respect to the volume
of their currents, though Ivan Petroff, in his report as agent of the
Secretary of the Interior, speaks thus confidently upon the subject:
“The people of the United States will not be quick to take the idea that
the volume of water in an Alaskan river is greater than that discharged
by their own Mississippi; but it is entirely within the bounds of honest
statement to say that the Yukon River, the vast deltoid mouth of which
opens into Norton Sound, of Behring Strait, discharges every hour of
recorded time as much, if not one third more, water, than the ‘Father of
Waters’ as it flows to the Gulf of Mexico.”
This writer does not seem to us given to exaggeration, but still we are
a little inclined to question the accuracy of his estimate as to the
volume of water borne seaward by this great Alaskan river.
The Yukon rises in the Rocky Mountain range of British Columbia;
entering Alaska at about 64° north latitude, and pursuing its course
nearly from east to west across the entire Territory, it finally
empties, as stated, into Behring Strait through Norton Sound. The river
is navigable for fifteen to eighteen hundred miles, while its entire
length is computed at over two thousand miles, with an average width of
five miles for half the distance from its mouth. There are several
places on the lower Yukon where one bank is invisible from the other. It
is seventy-five miles across its five mouths and the intersecting
deltas. At some places, six or seven hundred miles inland, the river
expands to twenty miles in breadth, thus forming in the interior a
series of connected lakes, which explorers pronounce to be deep and
navigable in all parts. This great water-way can only be said to have
been partially explored, but those persevering pioneers who have made
the attempt to unravel its mysteries have given us extremely interesting
details of their experiences, all uniting in bearing witness that its
banks are rich in fur-bearing animals, and that its waters are stocked
with an abundance of fish, including the all-pervading salmon. These
valuable fishes follow the same instinct which they exhibit in other
parts of the world, in their annual pilgrimage of reproduction, that is,
after entering a river’s mouth, to advance as far as possible towards
its source. Besides fish and fur-bearing animals, the region through
which the Yukon flows contains abundant deposits of gold, silver,
copper, nickel, and bituminous coal. Some placer gold mines which were
worked on its banks and in its shallows, so long as the season
permitted, are credibly reported to have yielded to one party of
prospectors nearly eighty dollars per day to each man.
The trouble to be encountered in working these placers is owing to their
remoteness from all sources of supply, and the exposure to the long
winters which prevail in the placer gold-producing regions. These are
obstacles, however, which will one of these days be overcome by the
erection of suitable shelter, and a rich new mining field will thus be
permanently opened. There are a number of trading-posts along the course
of the Yukon at which white men reside permanently to traffic with the
natives, purchasing furs from such as will hunt; and there are many who
are represented to be industrious and provident, supplying the whites
with meat and fish as well as with pelts, fully appreciating the
advantage of steady habits and regular wages. In this respect the inland
tribes differ materially from most of those living on the coast; the
latter care little for work or wages until they are driven by necessity
to seek employment. We speak in general terms; there are of course many
worthy exceptions, but savage races have little idea of thrift, and like
the wild animals are aroused to action only by the demands of hunger. In
equatorial regions where the nutritious fruits are so abundant that the
natives have only to pluck and to eat, they are sluggish, dirty, and
heedless, living only for the present hour. In this Arctic region where
the sea is crowded with food and the fields are covered with berries,
the same listlessness prevails as regards the future with nine out of
ten of the aborigines. These remarks do not apply to the Aleuts, from
whom the Commercial Company obtains its workmen. These are mostly
half-breeds, who are far more civilized than are our Western Indians.
The proprietors of the Treadwell gold mine, Douglass Island, and of the
works at Silver Bow Basin, employ large numbers of the natives, finding
them to be reliable and industrious laborers.
“Where we can separate these Alaskan natives from the objectionable
influences which are apt to grow up in populous centres, and especially
from multitudes of adventurous miners who come from a distance, we find
them to be faithful and tractable workers,” said an employer to us.
“How about the Chinese?” we asked.
“They are excellent workers,” was the reply. “Set them a task, show them
how to perform it, and it will surely be done. They are almost like
automatons in this respect and require no watching.”
“Then why not employ them more generally?”
“Because of the prejudice, the unreasonable prejudice, against them. Our
other workmen rebel if we keep many Chinamen on the pay-roll.”
This corresponded exactly with the author’s experience elsewhere, in
various parts of the world where the Chinese have sought a new home
outside of China. John is not perfect, but he is infinitely superior to
a large portion of the drinking, rowdy, and restless foreign element
which fills so large a place in the labor field of this country.
The greatest care is necessary to keep spirituous liquors away from the
aborigines, a craving for which is beyond their control where there is a
possibility of its being obtained. When they fall under its influence
they seem to utterly lose their senses, and become dangerous both to
themselves and to the whites. As has been intimated, the only means of
locomotion is afforded by the watercourses, and the natives, being
excellent canoeists, find ample employment of this nature, both in
traversing the rivers and along the shore of the islands. The waters of
the Yukon, like those of the Neva at St. Petersburg, freeze to a depth
of five or six feet in winter.
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