CHRISTMAS IN ALASKA.
Thursday, December thirteenth: The old Eskimo whom I call "grandpa" came
from the Home with one of Mr. H.'s assistants for a load of supplies for
the place, and arrived in time for breakfast at half-past nine. They
loaded up the sleds, took hot coffee, and started back at eleven in the
morning. Mr. M. came back alone before noon, having given up his trip to
the Koyuk because his shoulder hurts him. The old horse had finally to
be killed, and Mr. M. decided that he did not want to take his place at
hauling, so turned back after selling part of his supplies to the
others. The weather is fine indeed. A little snow is falling this
afternoon, but there was a beautiful sky at sunrise and sunset, the
latter at half-past one o'clock.
While giving Jennie her lesson today I was introduced for the first time
to little Charlie, who spends a good deal of time with Jennie. He is
four years old, and a bright and beautiful child. His papa is an
Englishman, and his Eskimo mother is dead. After the lesson I read
stories to the two children, holding the little boy upon my lap, while
Jennie sat beside us in the lamplight, her big black eyes shining like
stars. She wore a brown serge dress, trimmed with narrow red trimming,
her hair neatly braided in two braids down her back, and tied with red
ribbons. Both children wore little reindeer muckluks on their feet, the
boy being dressed in flannel blouse waist and knee pants. They are a
very pretty pair of children.
Such a charming, soft-tinted, red, purple and blue sky today, stretching
along in bars above the snow-topped mountains. It makes one glad to be
here, and feel full of pity for those who cannot enjoy it with us. It is
good to enjoy everything possible as one goes along, for nobody knows
how long anything will hold out and what will come next. At noon two
hungry Eskimo children came, dirty, forlorn and cold, and we fed them.
Mr. H. came again toward evening with reindeer to get a load of
supplies, and the girls and M. went fishing. They had great sport, all
dressed in fur, with short fish poles, hooks, bait and gunny sack for
the game, coming in frosty and rosy after dark, and calling for hot
coffee.
I am quite interested in getting the fox skins for my coat. I have paid
the Eskimo girl five dollars for tanning my fur skins, and hope to have
a warm coat. My first three skins cost me twelve dollars, the next two
ten dollars, and now five dollars for tanning, but I have a lining, and
Mollie will make it for me next week.
After supper we had a caller who has been here once before with others.
He is a finely trained baritone singer, and comes from one of the
Southern States. He sang and played entertainingly on the organ for an
hour, while we sewed and knitted as we do each evening.
Saturday, December fifteenth: Eight weeks today since we landed at
Golovin Bay. Weather good, skies beautiful, but days are short. Sunset
at half-past one in the afternoon; sunrise about ten in the morning.
The Commissioner came with legal documents and customary jokes, and I
try to get the copying done in between times. He is going to Nome for
Christmas, and wants the papers all finished before he leaves. He is
considered a very "rapid" young man, and looks like it.
Sunday, December sixteenth: We had breakfast today at sunrise (ten in
the morning) and I went for a walk alone upon the ice in a southerly
direction, where the natives were fishing. There was a good trail which
has been made by a horse-team hauling wood from the other shore, and the
air was fine, so that I enjoyed it very much, though my hood was soon
frosty around my face. For a while I watched the natives haul tom-cod up
through the ice holes, but having no place to sit except upon the ice,
as they did, I returned after having been gone two hours, and was soon
dressed for dinner in Sunday suit.
After dinner Mr. H. arrived with the teacher to hold an evening service
in the kitchen, the latter taking Ricka and Mary with her to call upon
some native families, two of whose members were sick. When they returned
Ricka was full of laughter at the way they had entered the native
igloos, especially Mary, who is a large woman and could barely squeeze
in through the small opening called by courtesy a door. Ricka says it
was more like crawling through a hole than anything else, and at one
time Mary was so tightly jammed in that she wondered seriously how she
was ever to get out.
"Ugh!" said Ricka, when Mary related the incident, "that was not the
worst of it. I wanted to keep the good dinner I had eaten, but the smell
of the igloo almost made me lose it then and there, and as I was inside
already, and Mary stuck fast in the door so I could not get out, we were
both in a bad plight. When I tried to help her she would not let me, but
only laughed at me."
"Next time we will send Mrs. Sullivan," said Alma, laughing.
"And you go along with me," said I, knowing that I could stand as long
as Alma the smell of the Eskimo huts and their seal oil. So that was
settled, Miss J., I presume, thinking us all very foolish to make so
much fuss over a little thing like that in Alaska.
This evening, when the kitchen was filled with natives, their service
had begun, and while some of us sat in the sitting-room to leave more
chairs for the others, there came a knock at the door, and in walked the
Commissioner and the young baritone singer, who was persuaded to sing a
few solos after the meeting was through in the kitchen.
Monday, December seventeenth: Mollie is cutting my fur coat for me, but
says I must have one or two more skins to make it large enough. She says
she is too busy to study before Christmas, but will afterwards. The
Commissioner brought more copying for me to do, and told me I could have
the money for my work at any time. Some tell me he never pays anything
he owes, and that I must look sharp or I will not get anything. The
other Commissioner has invited me to go to a New Year's party at
Council, fifty miles away, saying he will take me there and back behind
his best dogs, but I refused, telling him that I never dance, and that I
am a married woman. At that he laughed, said he was also married, with a
wife in the States, but that does not debar him from having a good time.
Word comes of a new gold strike not far away, but I think we are not
really sure that it is bona fide, and must not put too much dependence
on what we hear. The Commissioner comes with his copying, and is full of
jokes.
Wednesday, December nineteenth: A man came from the Home yesterday who
has persuaded M. to go with him on a short staking expedition. They
think they know of a new "find" very near home, and I ran over to the
Recorder's to get two attorney papers made out for them to take as they
say they will stake for the girls and me. The Commissioner paid me
twenty dollars on copying, and said he would settle the remainder when
he got back from Nome, as he and the other Commissioner were just
setting out with a dog-team for that place. I have had to buy another
fox skin for my coat, making twenty-seven dollars paid out on the
garment thus far.
Right sorry I was today that Mr. H. carried away the big velvet couch
yesterday that I have slept on nights since coming here, and I tried
last night the wooden settle brought down from upstairs to the
sitting-room. I found it a most uncomfortable thing to sleep on, as my
feet hung at least six inches over the end of the lounge, and they were
icy when I wakened in the morning. I then decided to go upstairs to one
of the canvas bunks in the northeast room, and I find it much better
every way. The bunk is long, wide and warm enough with a reindeer skin
under me, and all my blankets and comforters over me, while I have the
room alone, temporarily, at least.
Saturday, December twenty-second: This is the middle shortest day of
winter, and a fine one, too, though we had not more than three and a
half hours daylight. The skies are beautiful, with many bright colors
blended in a most wonderful way.
The girls are hard at work cooking for Christmas, and while the boys
were all away today and we needed wood brought into the house, I rigged
myself in rag-time costume and fetched several loads in my arms. How the
girls laughed when they saw me, and declared they would fetch the kodak,
but I ran away again.
This afternoon M. and the other man returned from their little trip,
looking bright and happy over having staked some claims for themselves
and us not very far away. These are our first claims staked, and we
naturally feel more than usually set up, though the men say of course
there may be nothing of value in them.
When I went to give Jennie her lesson I heard her father and another man
talking of a party of five persons who have been taken out to sea on the
ice, near Topkok. They started about three days ago from here, and one
was the sick woman who has been at the hotel, all on their way to Nome
by dog-team.
There were two women and three men, two dog-teams and sleds. They were
crossing the ice between two points of land while upon the winter trail
to Nome, the wind had loosened the ice, and when they tried to get upon
shore again they found it impossible, and they were blown directly out
to sea. Without food or shelter, and with the nights as cold as they
are, how can they live on the ice at sea? Some men have arrived bringing
the news, and say that two men went out in a boat to their rescue, but
broke their oars, the ice closed in on them, they were soaked through,
and were obliged to use their best efforts to save themselves.
The following night was very cold, and all think the unfortunates must
have perished. What a terrible fate, and one that may happen to any one
traveling in this country, though it does seem as if this ice should
soon freeze solidly.
Sunday, December twenty-third: Soon after breakfast today a man came to
our door asking for iodine, or remedies for a dog bite. A mad dog had
rushed upon a man sleeping in a tent in the night and bitten him quite
severely upon the hands and leg. Mary and I put on our furs immediately
and started out with the man, who piloted us into a small saloon, where
the poor fellow sat by the stove with a white and pinched face.
Several other men were standing about, after having done all they could
for the injured man, but Mary washed the torn flesh in strong carbolic
acid water, and tied it up in sterilized bandages, for which he seemed
very thankful.
The little saloon was neat and clean, containing a big stove, six or
eight bunks across the back end, and a long table, upon which were
spread tin plates, cups and spoons. A short bar ran along one side by
the door. The men said that the mad dog had been shot immediately after
the accident, but there were others around in the camp, they feared.
I could easily see that the injured man was badly frightened as to the
after-effects of the dog bite, and both Mary and I did all in our power
to suggest away his fear, knowing well that this was as harmful as the
injury. I told him that the missionary, Mr. H., had had a great deal of
experience with such accidents, but never yet had seen a person thus
bitten suffer from hydrophobia, which appeared to comfort him greatly.
When we left the place he seemed more cheerful, though still very pale,
and Mary promised to come again to see him. He belongs to a party of
three men bound for Koyuk River. The young man who sings so well
sometimes at the Mission is one of the three, but the other I have not
yet seen.
Later on Mary and I called upon Alice, the Eskimo girl, who lives with
her mother, near the hotel, and who is suffering with quinsy. I found
Jennie and Charlie there, and took them out for a walk down on the
beach, where the little girl's aunt was cutting ice. As we passed the A.
E. Store I noticed a dog lying on the porch having a bloody mouth, but
as he lay quietly I did not think much about it. After we had passed
down the trail for a block or so, I heard a commotion behind us, and
looking back saw a young man rush out into the trail and shoot a dog,
the one, as I afterwards learned, that I had seen on the porch. It had
been mad, and snapping around all day, but the men could not find it
earlier, and the two little children and I had passed within a few feet
of it without being conscious of danger.
Mr. H. came in to supper, also two others from the camp of the
shipwrecked people, thirty miles away to the east of us. At supper one
of the men offered to stake some claims for us over near their camp,
where they think there is gold. They took our names on paper, and said
that after prospecting, if they found gold, they would let us into the
strike before any others. They will remain over night, and leave early
in the morning. Mr. H. and Mary called after supper to see the man who
was bitten by the mad dog, and found him looking better, and not so
worried as this morning. His friend was playing on the banjo, and all
were sitting quietly around the fire.
Monday, December twenty-fourth: The two boys, G. and B., came in late
last evening, tired and hungry, from the Nome trail, glad to arrive at
home in time for Christmas.
Early this morning Mary dressed herself up hideously as Santa Claus,
bringing a big box of presents in while we sat at the breakfast table
and distributing them. Of course there were the regulation number of
fake packages, containing funny things for the boys, but each one had a
present of something, and I had a souvenir spoon just from Nome, an
ivory paper knife of Eskimo make from the girls, and later a white silk
handkerchief.
Going into the sitting-room after breakfast, we were met by the fumes
of burnt cork, hair or cotton, and upon inquiry were told that Santa
Claus had had a little mishap; his whiskers had been singed by coming
into contact with the lamp chimney and that it had delayed matters
somewhat until Ricka, his assistant, could find more cotton on the
medicine shelves; but the end of all was hearty laughter and a jolly
good time; an effort to forget, for the present, the day in our own
homes thousands of miles away.
This morning, before noon, all in the Mission went to the Home to the
Christmas tree and exercises, leaving me alone to keep house, the first
time this has happened in Alaska. Mr. H. had left the dog-teams, two
reindeer, and three sleds, with which they were to drive over, and a
merry party they were. When they had gone I worked for some time at
getting the rooms in order, and making all as tidy and snug as possible,
but I had no holly berries nor greens with which to decorate. All was
snowy and white out of doors, and a cheerful fire inside was most to be
desired. In the afternoon I gave Jennie her lesson as usual. I am
invited to eat Christmas dinner tomorrow with Mollie, the captain and
little Jennie, and shall accept. A good many in camp have been invited,
I understand, and I am wondering what kind of a gathering it will be.
Tuesday, December twenty-fifth: Christmas Day, and I was alone in the
Mission all night, so I had to build my own fires this morning. I did
not get up until ten o'clock, as it was cold and dark, and I had
nothing especial to do. There is plenty of wood and water, and
everything in the house, so I do not have to go out of doors for
anything.
By noon I had finished my work, put on my best dress, and sat down at
the organ to play. I went over all the church music and voluntaries I
could find at hand, read a number of psalms aloud, and as far as
possible for one person I went through my Christmas exercises.
If a certain longing for things and people far away came near possessing
me, I would not allow it to make me miserable, for longing is not
necessarily unhappiness, and I had set my mind like a flint against
being dissatisfied with my present state. With what knowledge I possess
of the laws of auto-suggestion, I have so far since my arrival in Alaska
managed the ego within most successfully, and tears and discontent are
not encouraged nor allowed.
We are creatures of voluntary habits, as well as involuntary ones, and
habitual discontent and discouragement, gnawing at one's vitals are
truly death-dealing. The study of human nature is, in Alaska,
particularly interesting in these directions, to the one with his mind's
eye open to such things, and I am resolved, come what will, that I will
keep the upper hand of my spirit, that it shall do as I direct, and not
harbor "blues" nor discouragement.
About two in the afternoon in came M. and one of the visiting Swedes,
after having walked from the Home, where they had attended the Christmas
party, and they were well covered with icicles. I prepared a hot lunch
for them, and ate something myself. Later a native was sent by Mollie to
fetch me over to the hotel to dinner, it being dark, and as I was
already dressed for the occasion, I went with him.
When I arrived at the dining-room they were just seated at table, and
the waiters were bringing in the first course. Twenty-five persons sat
at the Christmas board, at one end of which sat the captain as host with
his wife and little Jennie at his left. At his right sat the young
musician, who had entertained us at the Mission several times with his
singing, and the storekeeper, but with a place between them reserved for
me.
After a quiet Christmas greeting to those around me, I took my seat, and
the dinner was then served. A bottle of wine was ordered by the host for
me, and brought by the waiter, who placed it with a glass beside my
plate. At each plate there had already been placed the same
accompaniments to the dinner, with which great care had been taken by
the two French cooks in the kitchen, and upon which no expense had been
spared by the captain, who was host. While the waiters were serving the
courses, and conversation around the table near me became quite general,
on the aside I studied the company. It was cosmopolitan to the last
degree. Opposite me sat the hostess (Mollie) with her little Jennie,
dressed in their very best, the woman wearing a fashionable trained
skirt, pink silk waist and diamond brooch, while the little child wore
light tan cloth in city fashion, and looked very pretty. Below them sat
the regular boarders at the hotel, hotel clerk, the bartender, miners,
traders and the woman who kept the saloon. The latter appeared about
thirty years of age, dark, petite and pretty, richly and becomingly
gowned in garments which might have come along with her native tongue
from Paris. On our side of the long table, and opposite this woman, sat
the only other white woman besides myself present, and she, with her
husband, the two neighbors who had given us our first sleigh ride behind
the grey horse. On this side sat more miners and the few travelers who
happened to be at the hotel at this time. The clerk, next his employer,
who sat at my right, and the musician on my left, completed the number
of guests, with the exception of the one at the farther end of the
board, opposite the host. This was a young man in a heavy fur coat, his
head drooping low over his plate.
"Don't let H. fall upon the floor, boys," said the captain, as he saw
the pitiable plight of the young man. "Poor fellow, he has been
celebrating Christmas with a vengeance, and it was too much for him,
evidently. It don't take much to knock him out, though, and this wine,"
taking up his wine glass and looking through the liquid it contained,
"won't hurt a baby."
"Do you never take wine?" politely inquired the musician of me, as he
noticed that my wine glass remained untouched, and a glass of cold water
was my only beverage.
"I never do," said I firmly, but with a smile, as I noticed that both he
and the gentleman at my right barely touched theirs, while others drank
freely.
"Waiter, bring Mellie another bottle of that wine," called the
bartender, from the other side of the table, "those bottles don't hold
nothin' anyway, and a woman who can't empty more'n one of 'em ain't
much," and a second bottle was handed the female dispenser of grog, a
connoisseur of long standing, and one who could "stand up" under as much
as the next person. By this time the woman opposite her was considerably
along the road to hilarity, and shouts and laughter came from both,
called forth by the jests of their companions alongside.
Meanwhile the dinner progressed. The turkey was bona fide bird, and not
a few gull's bones from a tin quart can, while the cake and ice cream
with which my meal was ended, were all that could be desired in Alaska.
All voted that the cooks had "done themselves proud," and no one could
say that Christmas dinners could not be served in Chinik.
Before rising from the table, at the close of the meal, toasts to the
host and hostess were drunk by those at the bottles, and Christmas
presents were distributed to many, principally to members of the family
and from boarders of the house. There were silk handkerchiefs, red
neckties, "boiled shirts," and mittens, and in some instances moosehide
gloves and moccasins, made by the Eskimo hostess herself, while "Mellie"
came in for a share, including a large black bottle of "choice
Burgundy."
Upon leaving the dining table, the company separated, most of the men
going into the bar-room and store, while the family and invited guests
repaired to the living-room. Here a good-sized Christmas tree had been
arranged for Jennie and Charlie, and their presents were displayed and
talked over. In the meantime, the long dining table was cleared and
spread again for the Eskimos, who soon flocked into the room in numbers.
Some one proposed that we go to the Mission and have some songs by the
musician, to which all assented, and nine of us, including the captain,
his wife and Jennie, started over about half-past eight o'clock. There
we found the rooms bright and warm, the two men keeping house in my
absence having escaped to the upper rooms on hearing the party
approaching. Here a pleasant hour or two were passed in listening to the
songs of the musician, who always accompanies himself on his
instrument, whether banjo or organ. He sang the "Lost Chord," "Old
Kentucky Home," and many other dear old songs, closing with "God Be With
You Till We Meet Again," and the doxology. After that they pulled on
their parkies and fur coats and went out into the snow storm (for by
this time the snow was falling heavily), and to their homes, while I sat
down alone in the firelight to review the events of the day--my first
Christmas Day in Alaska. How different from any other I have ever spent.
What a disclosure of the shady side of human nature this is,--and yet
there is some good intermingled with it all.
Many here cannot endure the stress of the current, nor pull against it,
and so float easily on towards the rapids and destruction. Here is a
field for the Christian worker, though Mr. H. says he moved his little
flock twelve miles across the bay in order to get it farther away from
this iniquitous camp.