Alaska Part 38

It is unlawful for any non-resident of Alaska to hunt any of the protected game animals, except deer and goats, without first obtaining a hunting license; or to hunt on the Kenai Peninsula without a registered guide, such license not being transferable and valid only during the year of issue. The fee for this license is fifty dollars to citizens of the United States, and one hundred dollars to foreigners; it is accompanied by coupons authorizing the shipment of two moose,--if killed north of sixty-two degrees,--four deer, three caribou, sheep, goats, brown bear, or any part of said animals. A resident of Alaska may ship heads or trophies by obtaining a shipping license for this purpose. A fee of forty dollars permits the shipment of heads or trophies as follows: one moose, if killed north of sixty-two degrees; four deer, two caribou, two sheep, goats, or brown bear. A fee of ten dollars permits the shipment of a single head or trophy of caribou or sheep; and one of five, that of goat, deer, or brown bear. It costs just one hundred and fifty dollars to ship any part of a moose killed south of sixty-two degrees. Furthermore, before any trophy may be shipped from Alaska, the person desiring to make such shipment shall first make and file with the customs office of the port where the shipment is to be made, an affidavit to the effect that he has not violated any of the provisions of this act; that the trophy has been neither bought nor sold, and is not to be shipped for sale, and that he is the owner thereof.

The Governor of Alaska, in issuing a license, requires the applicant to state whether the trophies are to be shipped through the ports of entry of Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, and he notifies the collector at the given port as to the name of the license holder, and name and address of the consignee.

After reading these rigid laws, I cannot help wondering whether the Secretary of Agriculture ever saw an Alaskan mountain sheep. If he has seen one and should unexpectedly come across some poor wretch smuggling the head of one out of Alaska, he would--unless his heart is as hard as "stun-cancer," as an old lady once said--just turn his eyes in another direction and refuse to see what was not meant for his vision.

The Alaskan sheep does not resemble those of Montana and other sheep countries. It is more delicate and far more beautiful. There is a deerlike grace in the poise of its head, a fine and sensitive outline to nostril and mouth, a tenderness in the great dark eyes, that is at once startled and appealing; while the wide, graceful sweep of the horns is unrivalled.

The head of the moose, as well as of the caribou, is imposing, but coa.r.s.e and ugly. The antlers of the delicate-headed deer are pretty, but lack the power of the horns of the Alaskan sheep. The Montana sheep's head is almost as coa.r.s.e as that of the moose. The dainty ears and soft-colored hair of the Alaskan sheep are fawnlike. From the Alaska Central trains near Lake Kenai, the sheep may be seen feeding on the mountain that has been named for them.

Cape Douglas, at the entrance to Cook Inlet, is the admiration of all save the careful navigator who usually at this point meets such distressing winds and tides that he has no time to devote to the contemplation of scenery.

This n.o.ble promontory thrusts itself boldly out into the sea for a distance of about three miles, where it sinks sheer for a thousand feet to the pale green surf that breaks everlastingly upon it. It is far more striking and imposing than the more famous Cape Elizabeth on the eastern side of the entrance to the inlet.

CHAPTER XXIX

The heavy forestation of the Northwest Coast ceases finally at the Kenai Peninsula. Kadiak Island is spa.r.s.ely wooded in sylvan groves, with green slopes and valleys between; but the islands lying beyond are bare of trees. Sometimes a low, shrubby willow growth is seen; but for the most part the thousands of islands are covered in summer with gra.s.ses and mosses, which, drenched by frequent mists and rain, are of a brilliant and dazzling green.

The Aleutian Islands drift out, one after another, toward the coast of Asia, like an emerald rosary on the blue breast of Behring Sea. The only tree in the Aleutian Islands is a stunted evergreen growing at the gate of a residence in Unalaska, on the island of the same name.

The prevailing atmospheric color of Alaska is a kind of misty, rosy lavender, enchantingly blended from different shades of violet, rose, silver, azure, gold, and green. The water coloring changes hourly. One pa.s.ses from a narrow channel whose waters are of the most delicate green into a wider reach of the palest blue; and from this into a gulf of sun-flecked purple.

The summer voyage out among the Aleutian Islands is lovely beyond all description. It is a sweet, dreamlike drifting through a water world of rose and lavender, along the pale green velvety hills of the islands.

There are no adjectives that will clearly describe this greenness to one who has not seen it. It is at once so soft and so vivid; it flames out like the dazzling green fire of an emerald, and pales to the lighter green of the chrysophrase.

Marvellous sunset effects are frequently seen on these waters. There was one which we saw in broad gulfs, which gathered in a point on the purple water about nine o'clock. Every color and shade of color burned in this point, like a superb fire opal; and from it were flung rays of different coloring--so far, so close, so mistily brilliant, and so tremulously ethereal, that in shape and fabric it resembled a vast thistle-down blowing before us on the water. Often we sailed directly into it and its fragile color needles were shattered and fell about us; but immediately another formed farther ahead, and trembled and throbbed until it, too, was overtaken and shattered before our eyes.

At other times the sunset sank over us, about us, and upon us, like a cloud of gold and scarlet dust that is scented with coming rain; but of all the different sunset effects that are but memories now, the most unusual was a great mist of brilliant, vivid green just touched with fire, that went marching down the wide straits of Shelikoff late one night in June.

Early on the morning after leaving Cook Inlet, the "early-decker" will find the _Dora_ steaming lightly past Afognak Island through the narrow channel separating it from Marmot Island. This was the most silvery, divinely blue stretch of water I saw in Alaska, with the exception of Behring Sea. The morning that we sailed into Marmot Bay was an exceptionally suave one in June; and the color of the water may have been due to the softness of the day.

We had pa.s.sed Sea Lion Rocks, where hundreds of these animals lie upon the rocky shelves, with lifted, narrow heads, moving nervously from side to side in serpent fashion, and whom a boat's whistle sends plunging headlong into the sea.

The southern point of Marmot Island is the Cape St. Hermogenes of Behring, a name that has been perpetuated to this day. The steamer pa.s.ses between it and Pillar Point, and at one o'clock of the same day through the winding, islanded harbor of Kadiak.

This settlement is on the island that won the heart of John Burroughs when he visited it with the famous Harriman Expedition--the Island of Kadiak.

I voyaged with a pilot who had accompanied the expedition.

"Those scientists, now," he said, musingly, one day as he paced the bridge, with his hands behind him. "They were a real study for a fellow like me. The genuine big-bugs in that party were the finest gentlemen you ever saw; but the _little_-bugs--say, they put on more dog than a bogus prince! They were always demanding something they couldn't get and acting as if they was afraid somebody might think they didn't amount to anything. An officer on a ship can always tell a gentleman in two minutes--his wants are so few and his tastes so simple. John Burroughs?

Oh, say, every man on the ship liked Mr. Burroughs. I don't know as you'd ought to call him a gentleman. You see, gentlemen live on earth, and he was way up above the earth--in the clouds, you know. He'd look right through you with the sweetest eyes, and never see you. But _flowers_--well, Jeff Davis! Mr. Burroughs could see a flower half a mile away! You could talk to him all day, and he wouldn't hear a word you said to him, any more than if he was deef as a post. I thought he was, the longest while. But Jeff Davis! just let a bird sing on sh.o.r.e when we were sailing along close. His deefness wasn't particularly noticeable then!... He'd go ash.o.r.e and dawdle 'way off from everybody else, and come back with his arms full of flowers."

Mr. Burroughs was charmed with the sylvan beauty of Kadiak Island; its pale blue, cloud-dappled skies and deep blue, islanded seas; its narrow, winding water-ways; its dimpled hills, silvery streams, and wooded dells; its acres upon acres of flowers of every variety, hue and size; its vivid green, gra.s.sy, and mossy slopes, crests, and meadows; its delightful air and singing birds.

He was equally charmed with Wood Island, which is only fifteen minutes'

row from Kadiak, and spent much time in its melodious dells, turning his back upon both islands with reluctance, and afterward writing of them appreciative words which their people treasure in their hearts and proudly quote to the stranger who reaches those lovely sh.o.r.es.

The name Kadiak was originally Kaniag, the natives calling themselves Kaniagists or Kaniagmuts. The island was discovered in 1763, by Stephen Glottoff.

His reception by the natives was not of a nature to warm the c.o.c.kles of his heart. They approached in their skin-boats, but his G.o.dson, Ivan Glottoff, a young Aleut interpreter, could not make them understand him, and they fled in apparent fear.

Some days later they returned with an Aleutian boy whom they had captured in a conflict with the natives of the Island of Sannakh, and he served as interpreter.

The natives of Kadiak differ greatly from those of the Aleutian Islands, notwithstanding the fact that the islands drift into one another.

The Kadiaks were more intelligent and ambitious, and of much finer appearance, than the Aleutians.

They were of a fiercer and more warlike nature, and refused to meet the friendly advances of Glottoff. The latter, therefore, kept at some distance from the sh.o.r.e, and a watch was set night and day.

Nevertheless, the Kadiaks made an early-morning attack, firing upon the watches with arrows and attempting to set fire to the ship. They fled in the wildest disorder upon the discharge of firearms, scattering in their flight ludicrous ladders, dried moss, and other materials with which they had expected to destroy the ship.

Within four days they made another attack, provided with wooden shields to ward off the musket-b.a.l.l.s.

They were again driven to the sh.o.r.e. At the end of three weeks they made a third and last attack, protected by immense breastworks, over which they cast spears and arrows upon the decks.

As these shields appeared to be bullet-proof and the natives continued to advance, Glottoff landed a body of men and made a fierce attack, which had the desired effect. The savages dropped their shields and fled from the neighborhood.

When Von H. J. Holmberg was on the island, he persuaded an old native to dictate a narrative to an interpreter, concerning the arrival of the first ship--which was undoubtedly Glottoff's. This narrative is of poignant interest, presenting, as it does, so simply and so eloquently, the "other" point of view--that of the first inhabitant of the country, which we so seldom hear. For this reason, and for the charm of its style, I reproduce it in part:--

"I was a boy of nine or ten years, for I was already set to paddle a bidarka, when the first Russian ship, with two masts, appeared near Cape Aleulik. Before that time we had never seen a ship. We had intercourse with the Aglegnutes, of the Aliaska Peninsula, with the Tnaianas of the Kenai Peninsula, and with the Koloshes, of southeastern Alaska. Some wise men even knew something of the Californias; but of white men and their ships we knew nothing.

"The ship looked like a great whale at a distance. We went out to sea in our bidarkas, but we soon found that it was no whale, but another unknown monster of which we were afraid, and the smell of which made us sick."

(In all literature and history and real life, I know of no single touch of unintentional humor so entirely delicious as this: that any odor could make an Alaskan native, of any locality or tribe, sick; and of all things, an odor connected with a white person! It appears that in more ways than one this old native's story is of value.)

"The people on the ship had b.u.t.tons on their clothes, and at first we thought they must be cuttle-fish." (More unintentional, and almost as delicious, humor!) "But when we saw them put fire into their mouths and blow out smoke we knew that they must be _devils_."

(Did any early navigator ever make a neater criticism of the natives than these innocent ones of the first white visitors to their sh.o.r.es?)

"The ship sailed by ... into Kaniat, or Alitak, Bay, where it anch.o.r.ed.

We followed, full of fear, and at the same time curious to see what would become of the strange apparition, but we did not dare to approach the ship.

"Among our people was a brave warrior named Ishinik, who was so bold that he feared nothing in the world; he undertook to visit the ship, and came back with presents in his hand,--a red shirt, an Aleut hood, and some gla.s.s beads." (Glottoff describes this visit, and the gifts bestowed.)

"He said there was nothing to fear; that they only wished to buy sea-otter skins, and to give us gla.s.s beads and other riches for them.

We did not fully believe this statement. The old and wise people held a council. Some thought the strangers might bring us sickness.

"Our people formerly were at war with the Fox Island people. My father once made a raid on Unalaska and brought back, among other booty, a little girl left by her fleeing people. As a prisoner taken in war, she was our slave, but my father treated her like a daughter, and brought her up with his own children. We called her Plioo, which means ashes, because she was taken from the ashes of her home. On the Russian ship which came from Unalaska were many Aleuts, and among them the father of our slave. He came to my father's house, and when he found that his daughter was not kept like a slave, but was well cared for, he told him confidentially, out of grat.i.tude, that the Russians would take the sea-otter skins without payment, if they could.

"This warning saved my father. The Russians came ash.o.r.e with the Aleuts, and the latter persuaded our people to trade, saying, 'Why are you afraid of the Russians? Look at us. We live with them, and they do us no harm.'

"Our people, dazzled by the sight of such quant.i.ties of goods, left their weapons in the bidarkas and went to the Russians with the sea-otter skins. While they were busy trading, the Aleuts, who carried arms concealed about them, at a signal from the Russians, fell upon our people, killing about thirty and taking away their sea-otter skins. A few men had cautiously watched the result of the first intercourse from a distance--among them my father." (The poor fellow told this proudly, not understanding that he thus confessed a shameful and cowardly act on his father's part.)

"These attempted to escape in their bidarkas, but they were overtaken by the Aleuts and killed. My father alone was saved by the father of his slave, who gave him his bidarka when my father's own had been pierced by arrows and was sinking.