With Sack and Stock in Alaska — Background and Themes

st difficulty we obtained a fairly airy but exceedingly diminutive cabin, for at first we found ourselves condemned to a pocket edition of the Black Hole. H. tried to make us believe that the majesty of his presence had over-awed the purser, but we somehow fancied that bribery and corruption had something to do with it. In consequence of this mob of passengers there were three breakfasts, three lunches, etc., a most horrible arrangement, while at all of them the food was bad, and the waiting worse. Thus we grumbled, little thinking with what enthusiasm the same cookery would be received on our return.

As a sea voyage this trip up to Sitka is quite unique, though possibly travelling among the fiords of Norway might be compared to it in quality if not in quantity, for these steamers travel about eight hundred miles between Victoria and Sitka, only about thirty miles of which, the crossing of Queen Charlotte’s Sound, can in any sense be termed open sea, though the whole of it is on salt water. The whole coast up to Cape Spencer is fringed with a mass of islands separated by deep and very narrow channels, in some instances so narrow that, as in the case of Peril Straits and Seymour Narrows, even a steamer can only pass them at slack water. One American gentleman assured me that in the latter strait the tide had been known to run seventeen knots! All these islands are densely wooded with conifers, among which may every now and then be detected the white streak of a waterfall racing down the steep hill-side.

We stopped to coal at Nanaimo, and while this objectionable process was going on, H. and I spent the afternoon in drifting about the harbour in an Indian canoe, a dug-out about twelve feet long, managed in just the same way as the Canadian canoes we have in England, and in endeavouring to acquire some Chinook, the jargon invented more or less by the old traders, and used all over British Columbia and the southern part of Alaska. It contains chiefly Indian words, most of which are common to various different tribes, a few English, a few Russian, and a good many French words, such as Siwash (i.e. _sauvage_) for Indian, and _sawmon_ for any kind of fish.

Then for six days it rained at intervals, while a grey pall of cloud stretched ceaselessly over our heads, and we spent most of our time playing whist or euchre in our cabin, which would just hold four people. Our fourth on these occasions was a most cheerful Scotchman, known to us as the King of Cassiar, to which kingdom he was now returning. He possessed a large stock of most excellent whisky when he came on board. During these sad and gloomy days we visited sundry salmon canneries, and about midnight on Sunday the 10th we arrived at Wrangel. We had now got so far north that there was quite light enough even at that hour to walk about the streets, and I accompanied our Scotch friend ashore, as he was to leave us here and go up the Stickheen river. While in the town I gleaned the information that canoes went up almost every summer from Hooniah to Yakutat along the unprotected part of the coast, and we proceeded to sketch out plans for conveying our expedition in the same way.

The next day was still wet and cold, and though we met sundry small icebergs floating down from the glaciers in Taku Inlet, we saw nothing of the mountains which gave them birth. Some excitement was caused by our stopping about eleven o’clock to pick up a fair-sized canoe with four of Mr. Duncan’s Metlakatla Indians in her, who had encountered rough weather and damaged their frail craft. We reached the mining city (!) of Juneau in the evening, and H. and I plunged about till late at night, seeking, with the assistance of Mr. Reed, a Juneau store-keeper, for some sloop or schooner which might convey us up to Yakutat. This we failed to find, but we engaged a certain Dick as interpreter, who was said to be the smartest Indian in Alaska, and rejoiced in the appellation of the Dude. For this aristocratic Siwash’s services we weakly consented to pay four dollars a day and his food, and he accompanied us on board, his luggage being about as voluminous as that of a Swiss guide.

On Tuesday the 12th we had at last a perfectly beautiful day, during which we steamed from Douglas Island, the seat of the biggest gold-mine in Alaska, up the Lynn Canal to Pyramid Harbour. The mountains on each side of the narrow inlet were covered with glaciers, all obviously shrinking, and none of any great size, till we came to the Davidson Glacier, close to Pyramid Harbour, which at a distance appears to come right into the sea, though it is really separated from it by a narrow belt of moraine. Retracing our course next day down the Lynn Canal, we then went down Chatham Strait to Killisnoo, where I saw the biggest salmon that I ever came across in Alaska, a brace of about fifty pounds each, and then, passing through most beautiful scenery in Peril Straits, finally reached Sitka at 11 P.M.

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.