Schools in Alaska.—Natives Ambitious to learn.—Wild Flowers.—Native
Grasses.—Boat Racing.—Avaricious Natives.—The Candle Fish.—Gold Mines
Inland.—Chinese Gold-Diggers.—A Ledge of Garnets.—Belief in Omens.—
More Schools required.—The Pestiferous Mosquito.—Mosquitoes and
Bears.—Alaskan Fjords.—The Patterson Glacier.
The general plan of this school at Wrangel struck us as being the most
promising means of improvement that could possibly be devised and
carried forward among the aborigines of Alaska. We were informed that
fourteen government day schools were in operation in the Territory,
under the able supervision of that true philanthropist, Dr. Sheldon
Jackson, United States General Agent for Education in the Territory. The
natives almost universally welcome and gladly improve the advantages
afforded them for instruction, especially as regards their children.
Many individual cases with which the author became acquainted were of
much more than ordinary interest; indeed, it was quite touching to
observe the eagerness of young natives to gain intellectual culture.
Surely such incentive is worthy of all encouragement. One could not but
contrast the earnestness of these untutored aborigines to make the most
of every opportunity for learning with the neglected opportunities of
eight tenths of our pampered children of civilization. Here is the true
field of missionary work, the work of education.
In the neighborhood of Fort Wrangel plenty of sweet wild flowers were
observed in bloom, some especially of Alpine character were very
interesting,—“wee, modest, crimson-tipped flowers,”—while the tall
blueberry bushes were crowded with wholesome and appetizing fruit, with
here and there clusters of the luscious salmon-berry, yellow as gold,
and so ripe as to melt in the mouth. At the earliest advent of spring
the flowers burst forth in this latitude with surprising forwardness, a
phenomenon also observable in northern Sweden and Norway. Such white
clover heads are rarely seen anywhere else, large, well spread, and
fragrant as pinks. Among the ferns was an abundance of the tiny-leaved
maiden’s hair species, with delicate, chocolate stems. The soil also
abounds in well-developed grasses, timothy growing here to four feet and
over in height, and the nutritious, stocky blue grass even higher.
Vegetation during the brief summer season runs riot, and makes the most
of its opportunity. Although south of Sitka, Fort Wrangel is colder in
winter and warmer in summer, on account of its distance from the
influence of the thermal ocean current already described.
Sometimes a purse is made up among the visitors here and offered as a
prize to the natives in boat-racing. A number of long canoes, each with
an Indian crew of from ten to sixteen, take part in the aquatic
struggle, which proves very amusing, not to say exciting. The native
boats are flat-bottomed, and glide over the surface of the water with
the least possible displacement. An Alaskan is seen at his best when
acting as a boatman; he takes instinctively to the paddle from his
earliest youth, and is never out of training for boat-service so long as
he lives and is able to wield an oar. No university crew could
successfully compete with these semi-civilized canoeists. Well-trained
naval boat-crews have often been distanced by them.
The avariciousness of the natives is exhibited in their readiness to
sell almost anything they possess for money, even to parting with their
wives and daughters to the miners for base purposes; though, as we have
seen, they do draw the line at totem-poles. It should be understood that
these queerly carved posts are emblems mostly of the past; that is to
say, although the natives carefully preserve those which now exist, few
fresh ones are raised by them. Toy effigies representing these emblems
are carved and offered for sale to curio-hunters at nearly all of the
villages on the coast, and as a rule are readily disposed of.
There is very little if any use in Alaska for artificial light during
the summer season, while nature’s grand luminary is so sleepless; but
when these aborigines do require a lamp for a special purpose, they have
the most inexpensive and ingenious substitute ever ready at hand. The
water supplies them with any quantity of the ulikon or candle-fish,
about the size of our largest New England smelts, and which are full of
oil. They are small in body, but over ten inches in length. They are
prepared by a drying process and are stored away for use, serving both
for food and for light. When a match is applied to one end of the dried
ulikon, it will burn until the whole is quite consumed, clear and bright
to the last, giving a light equal to three or four candles. So rich are
these fishes in oil that alcohol will not preserve them, a discovery
which was made in preparing specimens for the Smithsonian Institution.
When the Indians of the interior visit the coast, as many of them do
annually, they are sure to lay in a stock of candle-fish to take back
with them for use in the long Arctic night. This fish runs at certain
seasons of the year in great schools from the sea, invading the
fresh-water rivers near their mouths, when the natives rake them on
shore by the bushel and preserve them as described. When boiled they
produce an oil which hardens like butter, and which the Alaskans eat as
we do that article, with this important difference, that they prefer
their oil-butter to be quite rancid before they consider it at its best,
while civilized taste requires exactly the opposite condition, namely,
perfect freshness. Putrid animal matter would certainly poison a white
man, but the Alaskan Indians seem to thrive upon it.
Some inland districts, which are most easily reached from this point,
are rich in gold-bearing quartz and placer mines, but especially in the
latter. We were credibly informed that over three million dollars’ worth
of gold was shipped from here in a period of five years, though no
really organized and persistent effort at mining had been made, or
rather we should say no modern facilities had been employed in bringing
about this result. The machinery for reducing gold-bearing quartz has
not yet been carried far inland because of the great difficulty of
transportation. Gold quartz ledges are numerous and quite undeveloped in
the neighborhood of Wrangel. The well-known Cassiar mines are situated
just over the Alaska boundary on the east side in British Columbia, but
the gold discoveries in Alaska proper are proving so much more
profitable that those of the Cassiar district have ceased to attract the
miners. There is a curious fact connected with these deposits of the
precious metal in the region approached by the way of Wrangel. In more
than one instance, as reported by Captain White of the United States
Revenue Service, placer gold, which is usually sought for in the dry
beds of river courses and in lowlands, is here found on the tops of
mountains a thousand feet high, where the largest nuggets of the
precious metal yet found in the Northwest have been obtained. Many of
the lumps of pure gold picked up in this region have weighed thirty
ounces and over. The idea of finding placer deposits on the tops of
mountains is a novelty in gold prospecting.
The Stickeen River, which is the largest in the southern part of the
Territory, has its mouth in the harbor of Fort Wrangel, discoloring the
waters for a long distance with its chalk-like, frothy flow, a
characteristic of all Alaska streams into which the waters of the snowy
mountains and glaciers empty. The river is navigable for light-draft
stern-wheel steamers to Glenora, a hundred and fifty miles from its
mouth. After reaching this place, the way to the Cassiar mines is
overland for an equal distance by a difficult mountain trail, it being
necessary to transport all provisions and material on the backs of
natives, who have learned to demand good pay for this laborious service.
The interior upon this route is broken into a succession of
sharply-defined mountains, separated by narrow and deep valleys, similar
to the islands off the mainland. This is so decided a feature as to lead
Mr. George Davidson of the United States Coast Survey to remark: “The
topography of the Alexander Archipelago is a type of the interior. A
submergence of the mountain region of the mainland would give a similar
succession of islands, separated by deep narrow fjords.” The sandy bed
and banks of the Stickeen are heavily charged with particles of gold,
ten dollars per day each being frequently realized by gangs of men who
manipulate the sand only in the most primitive fashion. Numbers of
Chinamen availed themselves of this opportunity until they were expelled
by both the whites and the natives. The poor “Heathen Chinee” is
unwelcome everywhere outside of his own Celestial Empire, and yet close
observation shows, as we have already said, that these Asiatics have
more good qualities than the average foreigners who seek a home on our
shores.
The scenery of the Stickeen River is pronounced by Professor Muir to be
superb and grand beyond description. Three hundred glaciers are known to
drain into its swift running waters, over one hundred of which are to be
seen between Fort Wrangel and Glenora. Near the mouth of the river is
the curious ledge of garnet crystals, which furnishes stones of
considerable beauty and brilliancy, though not sufficiently clear to be
used as gems. Choice pieces are secured by visitors as cabinet
specimens, however, and can be had, if desired, by the bushel, at a
trifling cost. They occur in a matrix of slate-like formation, some so
large as to weigh two or three ounces, and diminishing from that size
they are found as small as a pin-head. It requires three days of hard
steaming against the current to ascend the river as far as Glenora from
the mouth, whereas the same distance returning, down stream, has
frequently been made in eight or ten hours. So necessarily rapid is the
descent of the Stickeen as to make the downward trip quite hazardous,
except in charge of a careful pilot. In the neighborhood of Fort Wrangel
there are some very active boiling springs, which the natives utilize,
as do the New Zealanders at Ohinemutu, by cooking their food in them.
In the crater of Goreloi, on Burned Island, is a vast boiling spring, or
rather a boiling lake, which has never been intelligently described, and
which is represented by those who have seen it to be unique. This
strange body of water is eighteen miles in circumference. The natives
are well supplied with legends relating to these remarkable natural
phenomena, including the extinct and active volcanoes. Genii and dreaded
spirits are supposed by them to dwell in the extinct volcanoes, and to
make their homes in the mountain caves. They believe that good spirits
will not harm them, and therefore do not address themselves to such, but
the evil ones must by some active means be propitiated, and to them
their sole attention is given, or, in other words, their religious
ceremonies when analyzed are simply devil worship. All of the tribes, if
we except the Aleuts, are held in abject fear by their conjurers or
medicine-men, who seemed to us to be the most arrant knaves conceivable,
not possessing one genuine quality to sustain their assumptions except
that of bold effrontery. This seems particularly strange, as the
aborigines of the Northwest are more than ordinarily intelligent,
compared with other half-civilized races, both in this and other lands.
They are firm believers in signs and omens. When Rev. Mr. Willard and
wife first came to the Chilcat country the winter was one of deep snows
and stormy weather. The natives said that the weather-gods were angry at
the new ways of the missionaries. A child had been buried instead of
burned on the funeral pyre in accordance with their customs. The mother
of the child became alarmed and felt that her life was in jeopardy for
permitting her child to be buried, so she kindled a fire over the grave
in order to appease the gods and bring fair weather. At school the
children had played new games and mocked wild geese. So the girls of the
Sitka Training School brought on a very cold spell of weather by playing
a game called “cat’s-back,” and which caused a commotion at the native
village. A white man out with some natives picked up some large
clam-shells on the beach to bring home with him; the natives
remonstrated with him, saying that “a big storm may overtake us, our
canoe might capsize, and all be drowned the next time we go on the
water.”
In tempestuous weather the native propitiates the spirit of the storm by
leaving a portion of tobacco in the rock-caves alongshore, but in calm
weather he smokes the weed himself. It was noticed, however, that the
aboriginal Alaskans were little given to the use of tobacco, less,
indeed, than any semi-civilized race whom the writer has ever visited.
Governor Swineford, in his annual report to the department at
Washington, dated 1886, says: “I have no reason to change or modify the
estimate I had formed on very short acquaintance of the character of the
native Alaskans. They are a very superior race intellectually as
compared with the people generally known as North American Indians, and
are as a rule industrious and provident, being wholly self-sustaining.
They are shrewd and natural-born traders. Some are good carpenters,
others are skillful workers in wood and metals. Not a few among them
speak the English language, and some of the young men and women have
learned to read and write, and nearly all are anxious for the education
of their children.”
Our government should act upon this hint and freely establish the means
of education among the Alaskans. True, it is systematically engaged in
promoting the cause in various ways, though not very energetically,
Congress having voted forty-five thousand dollars to be expended for the
purpose during the year 1889. “School-houses are the republican line of
fortifications,” said Horace Mann. “Among those best known,” says Dr.
Sheldon Jackson, speaking of the native tribes, “the highest ambition is
to build American homes, possess American furniture, dress in American
clothes, adopt the American style of living, and be American citizens.
They ask no special favors from the American government, no annuities or
help, but simply to be treated as other citizens, protected by the laws
and courts, and in common with all others furnished with schools for
their children.” It was made the duty of the Secretary of the Interior,
by the act providing a civil government for Alaska, to make needful and
proper provision for the education of all children of school age without
reference to race or color, and all true friends of progress and
humanity will urge the matter until a common school is established in
every native tribe and settlement having a sufficient number of
children.
We were told that there is good hunting inland a short distance from
Fort Wrangel; winter, however, is the only season when this can be
successfully pursued near to the coast in the wild districts. The marshy
“tundra” is then frozen and covered with snow, making it possible to
cross. This is the period of the year also when the natives of the
interior prosecute their most successful trapping and hunting, coming
down to the coast by the river in the summer to sell their pelts and to
purchase stores of the white traders. The Russians have long since
taught the aborigines to depend much upon tea, but they care very little
for coffee. Rifles are greatly prized by them, and though they are
contraband nearly every Indian manages to possess one and knows how to
use it most effectually. They are very economical of ammunition, and
never throw away a shot by carelessness.
The pestiferous and ubiquitous mosquito is not absent from these high
latitudes. They are very troublesome during the short summer season in
northern Alaska as well as among the islands of the Alexander
Archipelago. Strange that so frail an insect should have reached as far
north as man has penetrated. Even while climbing the frosty glaciers the
excursionist will find both hands required to prevent their biting his
face from forehead to chin. If they are a persistent pest in equatorial
latitudes, they are ten times more venomous and voracious in these
regions during certain seasons. The author has experienced this fact
also in Norway at even a much higher latitude than he visited in the
western hemisphere. The bites of these mosquitoes fortunately, like all
flesh wounds in this northern region, heal quickly, venomous as they
are, owing to the liberally ozonized condition of the atmosphere as well
as the absence of disease germs and organic dust.
It is said that when the otter hunters or others among the aborigines
get wounded in any way, their treatment is simple and efficacious, and
however severe the wound may be, it is nearly always quickly healed. The
victim of the accident puts himself uncomplainingly on starvation diet,
living upon an astonishingly small amount of food for a couple of weeks,
and the cure follows rapidly.
Frederick Schwatka, in his excellent book entitled “Along Alaska’s Great
River,” tells how the mosquitoes conquer and absolutely destroy the
bears, and it seems that the native dogs are sometimes overcome by them
in some exposed districts of the Yukon valley. The great brown bear,
having exhausted the roots and berries on one mountain side, cross the
valley to another range, or rather makes the attempt to do so, but is
not always successful. Covered by a heavy coat of hair on his body, his
eyes, nose, and ears are the only vulnerable points of attack for the
mosquitoes, and hereon they congregate, surrounding the bear’s head in
clouds. As he reaches a swampy spot they increase in vigor and numbers,
until the animal’s forepaws become so occupied in striving to keep them
off that he cannot walk. Then Bruin becomes enraged, and, bear-like,
rises on his hind legs to fight. It is a mere question of time after
this stage is reached until the bear’s eyes become so swollen from the
innumerable bites that he cannot see, and in a blind condition he
wanders helplessly about until he gets mired and starves to death. The
cinnamon and black bears are most common, the grizzly being less
frequently met with. The great white polar bears are not found south of
Behring Strait, though they are numerous on the borders of the Arctic
Ocean.
At every landing made by the steamer on our meandering course among the
islands Indians come to the wharves to offer their curios or home-made
articles, only valuable as souvenirs of the visit. As they mass
themselves here and there, either on the shore or the ship’s deck, they
form picturesque groups, made up of bucks, squaws, and papooses,
presenting charming bits of color, while they amuse the stranger by
their peculiar physiognomy and manners. During the excursion season they
must reap quite a harvest by the sale of baskets and various domestic
trinkets.
After leaving Fort Wrangel we are soon in the wild, picturesque, and
sinuous narrows which bear the same name. The water is shallow; here and
there are many dangerous rocks in the channels. Inlets or fjords are
often passed, so quiet and inviting in their appearance as to tempt the
traveler to diverge from the usual route. Some of these marine nooks are
deep enough to float the largest ship, yet far down through the clear
water one can see gardens of zoöphytes invaded by myriads of curiously
shaped fish, large and small. The bottom of these waters, like the land
and sea of Alaska, teems with animal life. A few hours’ dredging would
supply the most enthusiastic naturalist with ample material for a year’s
study. In the many stops of the steamer to take or deliver freight,
brief boat excursions can be enjoyed. On one of these occasions we saw
the first live octopus, or devil-fish, with two of its fatal arms
encircling a small fish, which, after squeezing out its life, the
octopus would devour. The one which was seen on this occasion was not
very large, the rounded body being, perhaps, eighteen or twenty inches
across, but its vicious looking tentacles, six in number, two of which
securely clasped its victim, were each three times that length. The
large eyes seemed out of proportion to the animal’s size, and were
placed on one side like those of the flounder.
The Patterson glacier is the first of the many which come into view on
this part of the voyage, but they multiply rapidly as we steam
northward. It is vast in proportions, though partly hidden behind the
moraine which it has raised. Three or four miles back from its front
rises a wall of solid ice nearly a thousand feet in height. The whole
was rendered marvelously beautiful, lighted up as we saw it by bright
noonday sunshine, which brought out its frosty and opaline colors of
white, scarlet, and blue, in brilliant array. Little has been written
about the Patterson glacier, but it is one of the most remarkable in
size and other characteristics in all Alaska. Vessels from San Francisco
have taken whole cargoes of ice from these Alaskan glaciers and
transported the same for use in California. There seems to be no reason
why the gathering of such a supply should not be both possible and
profitable, though ice can now be so easily manufactured by artificial
means.
The fact that these glaciers are slowly decreasing in size leads to the
conclusion that the extreme Arctic temperature in the north is slowly
growing to be less intense. Intelligent captains of whaleships have made
careful observations to a like effect. It was once tropical in the Yukon
valley,—of that there is evidence enough; who can say that it may not
again be so a few thousand years hence?
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