The steamer's whistle is the signal for a holiday in all Alaska ports,
and Sitka is no exception to the rule. Six o'clock in the morning, but
the sleepy town had awakened to the fact of our arrival, and the
inhabitants were out in force to greet friends or sell their canoes.
There are some 1,500 people living in Sitka, including all races. The
harbor is the most beautiful a fertile brain can imagine. Exquisitely
moulded islands are scattered about in the most enchanting way, all
shapes and sizes, with now and then a little garden patch, and ever
verdant with native woods and grasses and charming rockeries. As far out
as the eye can reach the beautiful isles break the cold sea into
bewitching inlets and lure the mariner to shelter from evil outside waves.
The village nestles between giant mountains on a lowland curve surrounded
by verdure too dense to be penetrated with the eye, and too far to try to
walk--which is a good excuse for tired feet. The first prominent feature
to meet the eye on land is a large square house, two stories high,
located on a rocky eminence near the shore, and overlooking the entire
town and harbor. Once it was a model dwelling of much pretension, with
its spacious apartments, hard-wood six-inch plank floors,
elaborately-carved decorations, stained-glass windows, and its amusement
and refreshment halls. All betoken the former elegance of the Russian
governor's home, which was supported with such pride and magnificence as
will never be seen there again. The walls are crumbling, the windows
broken, and the old oaken stairways will soon be sinking to earth again,
and its only life will be on the page of history.
[Illustration: DEVIL'S THUMB, ALASKA.
Reached via the Union Pacific Ry.]
The mission-school hospital, chapel, and architectural buildings occupied
much of the tourists' time, and some were deeply interested. There are
eighteen missionaries in Sitka, under the Presbyterian jurisdiction,
trying to educate and Christianize the Indians. They are doing a noble
work, but it does seem a hopeless task when one goes among the Indian
homes, sees the filth, smells the vile odors, and studies the native
habits.
These Indians, like the other tribes, are not poor, but all have more or
less money.