Alaska Part 36

North of Iliamna is Goryalya, or "The Redoubt," which is a lesser "smoker," eleven thousand two hundred and seventy feet high. It was in eruption in 1867, and ashes fell on islands more than a hundred and fifty miles away.

Iliamna Lake is one of the two largest lakes in Alaska. It is from fifty to eighty miles long and from fifteen to twenty-five wide. A pa.s.s at a height of about eight hundred feet affords an easy route of communication between the upper end of the lake and a bay of the same name on Cook Inlet, near the volcano, and has long been in use by white, as well as native, hunters and prospectors. The country surrounding the lake is said to abound in large and small game. Lake Clark, to the north, is connected with Lake Iliamna by the Nogheling River. It is longer than Iliamna, but very much narrower. It lies directly west of the Redoubt Volcano.

Iliamna Lake is connected with Behring Sea by Kvichak River, which flows into Bristol Bay. The lake is a natural hatchery of king salmon, and immense canneries are located on Bristol Bay, which lies directly north of the Aliaska Peninsula.

It is comparatively easy for hunters to cross by the chain of lakes and water-ways from Bristol Bay to Cook Inlet--which is known to sportsmen of all countries, both sh.o.r.es offering everything in the way of game.

The big brown bear of the inlet is the same as the famous Kadiak; and hunters come from all parts of the world when they can secure permits to kill them. Moose, caribou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, deer, and all kinds of smaller game are also found. There are many trout and salmon streams on the eastern sh.o.r.e of the inlet, and the lagoons and marshes are the haunts of water-fowl.

The voyage up Cook Inlet is one of the most fascinating that may be taken, as a side trip, in Alaska.

Large steamers touch only at Homer and Seldovia, just inside the entrance. There is a good wharf at Homer, but at Seldovia there is another rope-ladder descent and dory landing. There are a post-office, several stores and houses, and a little Greek-Russian church. Scattered over a low bluff at one side of the settlement are the native huts, half hidden in tall reeds and gra.s.ses, and a native graveyard.

Seldovia is not the place to buy baskets, as the only ones to be obtained are of very inferior coloring and workmanship.

My Scotch friend was so fearful that some one else might secure a treasure that she seized the first basket in sight at Seldovia, paying five dollars for it. It was not large, and as for its appearance--!

But with one evil mind we all pretended to envy her and to regret that we had not seen it first; so that, for some time, she stepped out over the tundra with quite a proud and high step, swinging her "buy" proudly at her right side, where all might see and admire.

Presently, however, we came to a hut wherein we stumbled upon all kinds of real treasures--old bows and arrows, kamelinkas, bidarkas, virgin charms, and ivory spears. We all gathered these things unto ourselves--all but my Scotch friend. She stood by, watching us, silent, ruminative.

She had spent all that she cared to spend on curios in one day on the single treasure which she carried in her hand. We observed that presently she carried it less proudly and that her carriage had less of haughtiness in it, as we went across the beach to the dory.

She took the basket down to the engine-room to have it steamed. I do not know what the engineer said to her about her purchase, but when she came back, her face was somewhat flushed. The Scotch are not a demonstrative race, and when she ever after referred to the chief engineer simply as "that engineer down there," I felt that it meant something. She never again mentioned that basket to me; but I have seen it in six different curio stores trying to get itself sold.

At Seldovia connection is made with small steamers running up the inlet to the head of the arm. Hope and Sunrise are the inspiring names of the chief settlements of the arm.

The tides of Cook Inlet are tremendous. There are fearful tide-rips at the entrance and again about halfway up the inlet, where they appeared "frightful" to Cook and his men. The tide enters Turnagain Arm, at the head of the inlet, in a huge bore, which expert canoemen are said to be able to ride successfully, and to thus be carried with great speed and delightful danger on their way.

Cook thought that the inlet was a river, of which the arm was an eastern branch. Therefore, at the entrance of the latter, he exclaimed in disappointment and chagrin, "Turn again!"--and afterward bestowed this name upon the slender water-way.

He modestly left only a blank for the name of the great inlet itself; and after his cruel death at the hands of natives in the Sandwich Islands, Lord Sandwich directed that it be named Cook's River.

The voyage of two hundred miles to the head of the arm by steamer is slow and sufficiently romantic to satisfy the most sentimental. The steamer is compelled to tie up frequently to await the favorable stage of the tide, affording ample opportunity and time for the full enjoyment of the varied attractions of the trip. The numerous waterfalls are among the finest of Alaska.

Even to-day the trip is attended by the gravest dangers and is only attempted by experienced navigators who are familiar with its unique perils. The very entrance is the dread of mariners. The tide-rips that boil and roar around the naked Barren Islands subject ships to graver danger than the fiercest storms on this wild and stormy coast.

The tides of Turnagain Arm rival those of the Bay of Fundy, entering in tremendous bores that advance faster than a horse can run and bearing everything with resistless force before them. After the first roar of the entering tide is heard, there is but a moment in which to make for safety. There is a tide fall in the arm of from twenty to twenty-seven feet.

The first Russian settlement of the inlet was by the establishment of a fort by Shelikoff, near the entrance, named Alexandrovsk. It was followed in 1786 by the establishment of the Lebedef-Lastuchkin Company on the Kussilof River in a settlement and fort named St. George.

Fort Alexandrovsk formed a square with two bastions, and the imperial arms shone over the entrance, which was protected by two guns. The situation, however, was not so advantageous for trading as that of the other company.

In 1791 the Lebedef Company established another fort, the Redoubt St.

Nicholas, still farther up the inlet, just below that narrowing known as the "Forelands," at the Kaknu, or Kenai, River. At this place the sh.o.r.es jut out into three steep, cliffy points which were named by Vancouver West, North, and East Forelands.

Here Vancouver found the flood-tide running with such a violent velocity that the best bower cable proved unable to resist it, and broke. The buoy sank by the strength of the current, and both the anchor and the cable were irrecoverably lost.

Cook did not enter Turnagain Arm, but Vancouver learned from the Russians that neither the arm nor the inlet was a river; that the arm terminated some thirty miles from its mouth; and that from its head the Russians walked about fifteen versts over a mountain and entered an inlet of Prince William Sound,--thereby keeping themselves in communication with their fellow-countrymen at Port Etches and Kaye Island.

Vancouver sent Lieutenant Whidbey and some men to explore the arm; but having entered with the bore and finding no place where he might escape its ebb, he was compelled to return with it, without making as complete an examination as was desired.

The country bordering upon the bays along Turnagain Arm is low, richly wooded, and pleasant, rising with a gradual slope, until the inner point of entrance is reached. Here the sh.o.r.es suddenly rise to bold and towering eminences, perpendicular cliffs, and mountains which to poor Whidbey, as usual, appeared "stupendous"--cleft by "awfully grand"

chasms and gullies, down which rushed immense torrents of water.

The tide rises thirty feet with a roaring rush that is really terrifying to hear and see.

At a Russian settlement Whidbey found one large house, fifty by twenty-four feet, occupied by nineteen Russians. One door afforded the only ventilation, and it was usually closed.

Whidbey and his men were hospitably received and were offered a repast of dried fish and native cranberries; but because of the offensive odor of the house, owing to the lack of ventilation and other unmentionable horrors, they were unable to eat. Perceiving this, their host ordered the cranberries taken away and beaten up with train-oil, when they were again placed before the visitors. This last effort of hospitality proved too much for the politeness of the Englishmen, and they rushed out into the cool air for relief.

Indeed, the Russians appeared to live quite as filthily and disgustingly as the natives, and to have fallen into all their cooking, living, and other customs, save those of painting their faces and wearing ornaments in lips, noses, and ears.

The name "inlet," instead of "river," was first applied to this torrential water-way in 1794 by Vancouver, who also bestowed upon Turnagain the designation of "arm."

Vancouver, upon the invitation of the commanding officer who came out to his ships for that purpose, paid the Redoubt St. Nicholas, near the Forelands, a visit. He was saluted by two guns from a kind of balcony, above which the Russian flag floated on top of a house situated upon a cliff.

Captain Dixon, the most pious navigator I have found, with the exception of the Russians, extolled the Supreme Being for having so bountifully provided in Cook Inlet for the needs of the wretched natives who inhabited the region. The fresh fish and game of all kinds, so easily procured, the rich skins with which to clothe their bodies,--inspired him to praise and thanksgiving.

For the magnificent water-way pushing northward, glaciered, cascaded, blue-bayed, and emerald-valed, with unbroken chains of snow peaks and volcanoes on both sides,--up which the voyager sails charmed and fascinated to-day,--he spoke no enthusiastic word of praise. On the contrary, he found the aspect dreary and uncomfortable. Even Whidbey, the Chilly, could not have given way to deeper shudders than did Dixon in Cook Inlet.

The low land and green valleys close to the sh.o.r.e, grown with trees, shrubbery, and tall gra.s.ses, he found "not altogether disagreeable," but it was with shock upon shock to his delicate and outraged feelings that he sailed between the mountains covered with eternal snow. Their "prodigious extent and stupendous precipices ... chilled the blood of the beholder." They were "awfully dreadful."

Dixon, as well as Cook, mentions the wearing of the labret by men, but I still cling to the opinion that they could not distinguish a man from a woman, owing to the attire.

Dixon also reported that the natives have a keen sense of smell, which they quicken by the use of snakeroot. One would naturally have supposed that they would have hunted the forests through and through for some herb, or some dark charm of witchcraft, that would have deprived them utterly and forever of this sense, which is so undesirable a possession to the person living or travelling in Alaska.

The climate of Cook Inlet is more agreeable than that of any other part of Alaska. In the low valleys near the sh.o.r.e the soil is well adapted to the growing of fruits, vegetables, and grain, and to the raising of stock and chickens. Good b.u.t.ter and cheese are made, which, with eggs, bring excellent prices. Roses and all but the tenderest flowers thrive, and berries grow large and of delicious flavor, bearing abundantly.

"Awfully dreadful" scenes are not to be found. It is a pleasure to confess, however, that many features, by their beauty, splendor, and sublimity, fill the appreciative beholder with awe and reverence.

The coal deposits of the region surrounding the inlet are now known to be numerous and important. Coal is found in Kachemak Bay, and Port Graham, at Tyonook, and on Mata.n.u.ska River, about fifty miles inland from the head of the inlet. It is lignitic and bituminous, but semi-anthracite has been found in the Mata.n.u.ska Valley.

Lignitic coals have a very wide distribution, but have been, as yet, mined only on Admiralty Island, at Homer and Coal Bay in Cook Inlet, at Chignik and Unga, at several points on the Yukon, and on Seward Peninsula.

The new railroad now building from Cordova will open up not only vast copper districts, but the richest and most extensive oil and coal fields in Alaska, as well.

Semi-anthracite coal exists in commercial quant.i.ties, so far as yet discovered, only at Comptroller Bay. A fine quality of bituminous coal also exists there, extending inland for twenty-five miles on the northern tributaries of Behring River and about thirty-five miles east of Copper River, covering an area of about one hundred and twenty square miles.

Southwestern Alaska includes the Cook Inlet region, Kodiak and adjacent islands, Aliaska Peninsula, and the Aleutian Islands. Coal, mostly of a lignitic character, is widely distributed in all these districts. It has also been discovered in different localities in the Sus.h.i.tna Basin.

All coal used by the United States government's naval vessels on the Pacific is purchased and transported there from the East at enormous expense. Alaska has vast coal deposits of an exceedingly fine quality lying undeveloped in the Aliaskan Peninsula, two hundred miles farther west than Honolulu, and directly on the route of steamers plying from this country to the Orient. (It is not generally known that the smoke of steamers on their way from Puget Sound to j.a.pan may be plainly seen on clear days at Unalaska.)

This coal is in the neighborhood of Portage Bay, where there is a good harbor and a coaling station. It is reported by geological survey experts to be as fine as Pocahontas coal, and even higher in carbon.

Possibly, in time, the United States government may awaken to a realization of the vast fortunes lying hidden in the undeveloped, neglected, and even scorned resources of Alaska,--not to mention the tremendous advantages of being able to coal its war vessels with Pacific Coast coal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by J. Doody, Dawson