SITKA TO YAKUTAT
As we were detained at Sitka for a fortnight, making preparations for
the expedition, and waiting for W. to come up on the next boat, I may as
well give some description of one of the most beautiful places I have
ever seen. As the traveller lands on the pier, he has the Indian village
of about five hundred inhabitants on his left, while just in front are
the barracks of the United States marines, and the old Russian citadel,
from the top of which he will obtain a lovely view, somewhat resembling
that of the Bay of Naples, but with the additional charm of the snow
mountains and small glaciers at the head of Silver Bay. Numbers of small
green islands stretch across its mouth, while further away to the west
lies Kruzoff Island, humping itself into the dormant volcano of Mount
Edgcumbe and the double summit of the Camelsback. Due east, and almost
overshadowing the town, rises the sharp peak of Verstovia, so called
by the Russians from its being supposed to be exactly a _verst_ (about
three thousand feet) high, but the translation of the Indian name is
Arrowhead. To the north-east lies the little pool of Swan Lake, above
which the forest-clad hills sweep up again to the height of about two
thousand feet, while across the bay to the south rise mountains of very
respectable proportions.
As he goes on up the main street, our traveller sees on the left a broad
grassy _place_ beyond which are the remains of towers and stockades,
now no longer required to keep out the hostile Siwash, while on the
right are a row of stores, of which one or two are still the old log
buildings erected by the first inhabitants. He then passes the simple
but hospitable little Baranoff hotel on his left, and finds himself in
front of the Greek Church, the main feature of Sitka. Brilliantly though
rather tawdrily decorated inside, its service on Sunday was impressively
conducted and was well attended by many of the older Indians, and by the
few Russians left in Sitka.
The road continues along the shores of the bay to the Indian River, a
broad rapid stream, foaming in places over ledges of rock; the ground
in its neighbourhood has been reserved as a sort of public park, and,
though wild and uncared for, presents pictures of great beauty. But
though beautiful, the town is very diminutive, and its permanent white
population does not, I should think, amount to more than one hundred
souls. We had a letter of introduction to Mr. Vanderbilt, one of the
Sitka merchants, and, after securing rooms at the aforesaid hotel, went
to interview him with decidedly satisfactory results. His partner, Mr.
De Groff, was at that time at Yakutat, where he had established a small
store, and was supervising some gold mining that had been commenced
in the black sand on the shore. His small schooner, the ‘Alpha,’ was
expected back every day from sealing, and as soon as she returned she
would be sent up to Yakutat with stores for his partner, and could take
us as passengers. At that time we did not intend to take any white men,
trusting that we should be able to get canoes and porters at Yakutat,
Dick being the medium of communication.
We then decided to go on a little training expedition, and selected a
sharp peak we had noticed from the steamer in approaching Sitka, and had
set down as between seven and eight thousand feet high. To reach this we
departed one afternoon in a fair-sized canoe with its owner and Dick,
and rowed (for most of these large canoes are fitted with oars) in a
northerly direction for about six miles, till we reached the mouth of a
narrow bay known as Nusquashinsky or Nushanitzky. Here the wind, though
light, was in our favour, and we sailed peaceably up it, reaching its
head about seven o’clock, and camped by a broad stream, along which we
had at first thought we could make our way towards our mountain, which
the Indian informed us was called Sha-klokh, or Spear-peak, but the bush
in the valley was so dense that we struck straight up next morning,
till in about four hours we got above tree-level, and pitched camp at a
height of about two thousand feet close to a big bed of snow. Next day
we climbed our peak triumphantly in about three hours, and even put on
the rope to cross a big snow-patch hanging on the face, but its height
proved to be only 4,300 feet, so easily is one deceived at first in a new
country. We built a big stone-man on the top, which we afterwards found
was visible with a glass from the bay, and returned to the tents, where
we spent most of the afternoon in slumber. At this camp we got one or two
deer, and took a lot of venison back to Sitka, intending to dry it and
take it north, but unfortunately it all went bad in that moist atmosphere.
Our next expedition was to Kruzoff and Mount Edgcumbe, and this time
we had rather a sickener. As we had about fifteen miles of much more
open sea we took a bigger canoe, and had to pull the beastly thing all
the way, so landed in the first place which came handy, a very awkward
landing with a lot of big rocks about. From the appearance of clouds of
mosquitoes in the evening Dick prophesied bad weather, and he was right,
for it poured the whole of the next day, most of which we spent in the
tent. In the afternoon I went out to look for deer, but the bush was
so dense that it was impossible to get through it silently, and though
I just glimpsed a couple as they started away, I couldn’t even get a
snap-shot, and returned _bredouille_ in a very dripping condition. The
following day the weather was not quite so adverse, though there was
still plenty of rain, and getting our canoe afloat we rowed for an hour
and a half along the beach, till we reached a spot where the men said the
bush was not so thick. In this they were right, but the ground was broken
into countless ravines which always seemed to be at right angles to our
course, and getting up and down the slippery sides of these with a heavy
knapsack on one’s back proved rather exhausting, so that the afternoon
was well advanced by the time we began to climb the steeper slopes of
Edgcumbe itself. At last we came on a small clear space in the middle of
the thick scrub; and though no level spot could be found for the tent,
we decided to pitch camp. A lot of cedar boughs were cut and arranged as
evenly as possible for our bed, and after we had fried with bacon and
disposed of a ptarmigan H. had picked off with his rifle as we came up,
we made what the Indians called ‘a white man’s fire,’ and so got warm if
not dry before crawling into our blankets for the night. On the previous
evening we had made a nondescript meal off cockles and ‘gumboots,’ a
large species of _chiton_ found adhering to the rocks. The Indians
are very fond of these and attribute soporific powers to them, but I
certainly cannot recommend them, for they resemble nothing more than the
indiarubber after which they are named, being absolutely tasteless and
appallingly tough.
It rained all night, but the Edgington tent stood it well, very little
coming through, and that, I fancy, only where carelessness had left some
article touching the canvas. With a view to assisting the commissariat
department, we separated in the morning, E. and H. going up to the top
of Edgcumbe, and securing two more ptarmigan on the way. They found
the bottom of the shallow crater covered with snow, and on the summit
itself encountered the tracks of one of the enormous Alaska brown bears
(_Ursus Richardsonii_). I took Dick towards the Camelsback, but we never
saw a sign of deer or bear, and so about two o’clock I turned to come
home, giving him the rifle that he might make a last effort to procure
venison. I had no doubt about being able to find my way back, for I had
taken my bearings carefully, and a fair-sized dead tree standing in the
middle of our small clearing afforded a capital landmark. I went at a
fair pace, and though all the ravines were very much alike, I presently
felt pretty sure I was nearing camp, an opinion confirmed in a minute
or two by hearing, as I thought, the crooning song of the Indian we had
left behind. Still no dead tree appeared, and thinking I must have been
mistaken, I pushed on for another quarter of an hour, by which time I
felt sure I had gone far enough. I struggled up the mountain, I scrambled
down, I shouted and yelled, I had an exciting chase after a couple of
ptarmigan, one of which I managed to bag with my revolver, but nowhere
could I see this mangy tree, and began to feel very unhappy, as it was
gradually borne in on me that I was very decidedly lost. At last I saw
far below me two tiny lakes which we had passed on the previous day, and
decided to go down to them, as I felt pretty sure I could make camp
from there. Hardly had I descended a hundred yards, when I came into
the corner of a clearing, and heard E.’s voice. And then the mystery
was explained; the other Indian, with praiseworthy but most mistaken
industry, had cut down the dead tree for firewood. It had rained all day,
and in the night a tremendous south-west gale came on which proved the
last straw, and we settled to return to Sitka, where we were going to
dismiss the Dude, with whom we had had a row. He had accidentally left
his blankets on the beach by the canoe, and though we had lent him one of
ours, he was very dissatisfied, and apparently coming to the conclusion
that serving us was not likely to be all beer and skittles, announced
that he was not coming to Yakutat. We made no attempt to get him to
change his mind, for we had already come to the conclusion that he had
much too good an opinion of himself, and was more than a little lazy,
though he was an entertaining conversationalist, and gave us interesting
scraps of information, either social, such as the number of slaves he had
till quite recently possessed, or geographical, such as that twenty-one
miles up the Copper River a glacier stretches across its whole width, a
phenomenon which existed on the Stickheen till comparatively lately. He
added that the river was two miles wide at this point, and that a portage
of fifteen miles across the ice was made by the Indians with skin canoes,
or bidarkies, but as he had never been there I am inclined to doubt his
details. Although we were unanimous as to the expediency of dismissing
him, we were not at all so united as to how he was to be replaced, and
became, indeed, a little despondent as to whether we should get further
than Yakutat, so that had we been able to communicate by telegraph with
W., I am not at all sure that the expedition would not have then and
there come to an end, and the members of it taken refuge in the Selkirks.
Luckily we had to wait for him, and in the interval more cheerful
counsels prevailed.
Meanwhile we packed down again to the canoe; the wind was very high and
there was a lot of sea, but the men thought that as the wind was fair we
might venture, and after lunch off a confiding grouse which had fallen a
victim to E.’s rifle, we started, and found that, whether we liked it or
not, we had got to go on, as returning to the island in the teeth of the
gale was quite impossible. The rollers were enormous, but with a little
scrap of sail we flew along finely, and in about two hours were back in
Sitka harbour.
The next few days were spent chiefly in endless confabulations with
various white men and Indians who were willing to accompany us as
porters, which resulted in the engagement of two white men, Lyons and
McConnahay, and four Sitka Indians, the former to receive three, the
latter two dollars a day and their food. E. and I occupied ourselves
one morning in the ascent of Verstovia. We left at four o’clock along
the Indian River by a fair trail for about an hour, and then, crossing
the stream by a fallen tree, struck up to the right through the most
abominable bush, full of devil’s clubs, an exceedingly evil plant with
large green leaves and scarlet berries, covered as to the stem and the
backs of the leaves with minute prickles which penetrate the human skin
with unpleasant facility, and, if left in, cause festering sores. It
was steamingly hot in the low ground, but we struggled up somehow, or
rather I did the struggling, for E. appeared provokingly cool while I
was dripping and breathless, and eventually reached the top of the sharp
rocky cone which forms the highest peak, at half-past seven, getting just
scrambling enough in the last hundred feet to find our rifles rather
a nuisance. As we had been told we should take at least six hours, we
were rather pleased with ourselves, and after spending an hour on the
top and setting up a flagstaff left there some years before by a party
of marines, we descended leisurely by the west face, instead of the
north-west ridge up which we had come, and got back to Sitka just after
eleven.
At last the ‘Alpha’ returned from sealing with 119 skins on board and
was beached for repairs. She was followed next day by the ‘Elder,’
which brought W., and after two or three days’ packing and arranging,
we actually started on Tuesday, July 3, at 10.30 A.M. About half of
the slender population of Sitka came down to see us off, and to wish
us every success. While the little five-and-twenty-ton schooner was
beating out between the islands against the fresh north-west breeze we
discovered that we were being pursued, and soon afterwards a boat came
up, bringing an American flag, provided by the kindness of Mr. Hayden,
the Acting Governor, and we accordingly hoisted the Stars and Stripes at
the masthead. Mrs. Hayden had previously presented us with a small silk
flag to be left on the summit of Mount St. Elias, if we ever got there.
Dinner was soon announced and we proceeded below, but recoiled from the
fearful heat and smell, caused by the want of ventilation in the cabin
in which was the cooking-stove. E., who was proof against anything,
remained below, but H., W., and I retired to the deck, where we ate our
meals during the greater part of our voyage. Shortly afterwards we three
yielded to the gruesome attacks of seasickness, as the little vessel was
now pitching freely; W., who had often cruised off the east coast of the
United States in small yachts, soon recovered, but H. and I remained more
or less prostrate the whole time we were on board.
The wind was dead ahead, west by north (magnetic), and our craft made so
much leeway that our onward progress was insignificant. Next morning,
under a grey sky, we were only fifteen miles from Sitka; Edgcumbe was
still in sight the morning after that; and it was not till Friday the 6th
that we sighted Mounts Fairweather and Crillon, some sixty miles off, and
right ahead. Next day we were only about twenty miles from them, and went
tacking steadily up the coast, the glories of which were veiled in almost
constant rain and cloud, without making much progress.
On Sunday we at last got past Lituya Bay, near which we saw a
humming-bird. In the evening, the wind, which we now regarded as a
personal enemy, since, blowing from the north-west, it ought at least to
have brought fine weather, began to die away, and at about two in the
morning a vigorous south-easter sprang up, so that we flew along finely
in the right direction at last; but, to our intense disgust, Captain
Jimmy, whose only fault was over-caution, perhaps a natural one on these
very dangerous coasts, hove to, fearing lest we might be driven ashore
in the thick weather that prevailed. In the evening the wind collapsed
and we got a glimpse of land, as to the identity of which there arose a
considerable argument, but on the whole those who had been there before
held the opinion that we were about thirty miles from Ocean Cape, which
view proved correct, as next morning, which was more or less fine, we
were only ten miles off. Mount St. Elias and the range as far east as
Mount Vancouver were visible, but swathed in clouds. Their height did
not impress us much at first sight, but we were greatly struck with the
enormous mass of the Malaspina Glacier, the white upper part of which
presented such a curiously regular appearance that at first we believed
it to be a layer of cloud, till undeceived by the telescope. There was
hardly any wind, but we crept round Cape Phipps at last, and came in
sight of Yakutat. Once round the corner, the light breeze from the west
sent us along faster, and we were soon abreast of the ‘ranche’ on Kantag
Island. Great was the excitement among our men: ‘There’s De Groff,’—‘and
Callsen,’—‘and Dalton.’
We had hoisted our flag, but the halliards got entangled and the Stars
and Stripes were an unsightly ball, omen perhaps of what was to befall
us, for as we rounded the point at the end of the island, we kept a
little too far out, the tide, ebbing swiftly through the narrow channel,
caught our bows, and we ran hard and fast on to a rocky shoal instead
of sailing into the harbour known as Port Mulgrave. We were evidently
a fixture till the tide rose again, and so went ashore in the hope of
finding strawberries, in which we were disappointed, as, though there
were any number of plants, the Indian women and children had been
beforehand with us, and we only collected a meagre half-dozen. We made
the acquaintance of Mr. De Groff, Vanderbilt’s partner, and so part-owner
of the ‘Alpha,’ a short, rather good-looking man, with blue eyes and
fair hair and beard. Our Siwashes soon found friends and relations in
the village, and we agreed to pay them board wages at the rate of $1.25
per day for the lot, while McConnahay (‘Shorty’) and Lyons were to feed
with us on the ‘Alpha.’ Another little schooner, the ‘Three Brothers,’ of
Kayak Island, was in the harbour when we arrived, but took her departure
next day.
There being some alarm as to whether the water would not come in and
damage our stores when the schooner floated, we at first resolved to sit
up, but eventually we gave it up and turned in. About midnight she was
got off and beached in front of the ranche without our knowing anything
about it, and without taking in any water.
From this point onwards I give the events just as they are noted in my
diary.