Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin - Mary F. Nixon Roulet
"I'd like to give her something, and Kalitan, too." Ted's face looked
very grave. "When do I have to go, father?"
"Right away, I'm afraid," was the reply. "I've let you stay as long as
possible, and now we must start for our northern trip, if you are to see
anything at all of mines and Esquimos before we start home. The
mail-steamer passes Nuchek day after to-morrow, and we must go over there
in time to take it."
"Yes, sir," said Ted, forlornly. He wanted to see the mines and all
the wonderful things of the far north, but he hated to leave his
Indian friends.
"What's the trouble, Ted?" His father laid his hand on his shoulder,
disliking to see the bright face so clouded.
"I was only thinking of Kalitan," said Ted. "Suppose we take Kalitan
with us," said Mr. Strong.
"Oh, daddy, could we really?" Ted jumped in excitement.
"I'll ask the Tyee if he will lend him to us for a month," said Mr.
Strong, and in a few minutes it was decided, and Ted, with one great
bear's hug to thank his father, rushed off to find his friend and tell
him the glorious news.
CHAPTER IX
ON THE WAY TO NOME
"Well, boys, we're off for a long sail, and I'm afraid you will be rather
tired with the steamer before you are done with her," said Mr. Strong.
They had boarded the mail-steamer late the night before, and, going
right to bed, had wakened early next day and rushed on deck to find the
August sun shining in brilliant beauty, the islands quite out of sight,
and nought but sea and sky around and above them.
"Oh, I don't know; we'll find something to do," said Teddy. "You'll
have to tell us lots about the places we pass, and, if there aren't any
other boys on board, Kalitan and I will be together. What's the first
place we stop?"
"We passed the Kenai Peninsula in the night. I wish you could have
caught a glimpse of some of the waterfalls, volcanoes, and glaciers. They
are as fine as any in Alaska," said Mr. Strong. "Our next stop will be
Kadiak Island."
"Kadiak Island was once near the mainland," said Kalitan. "There was only
the narrowest passage of water, but a great Kenai otter tried to swim the
pass, and was caught fast. He struggled so that he made it wider and
wider, and at last pushed Kadiak way out to sea."
"He must have been a whopper," said Ted, "to push it so far away. Is that
the island?"
"Yes," said his father. "There are no splendid forests on the island as
there are on the mainland, but the grasses are superb, for the fog and
rain here keeps them green as emerald."
"What a queer canoe that Indian has!" exclaimed Ted. "It isn't a bit
like yours, Kalitan."
"It is _bidarka_," said Kalitan. "Kadiak people make canoe out of walrus
hide. They stretch it over frames of driftwood. It holds two people. They
sit in small hatch with apron all around their bodies, and the _bidarka_
goes over the roughest sea and floats like a bladder. Big _bidarka_
called an _oomiak_, and holds whole family."
"Some one has called the _bldarkas_ the 'Cossacks of the sea,'" said Mr.
Strong. "They skim along like swallows, and are as perfectly built as any
vessel I ever saw."
"What are those huge buildings on the small island?" asked Ted, as the
steamer wound through the shallows.
"Ice-houses," said his father. "Before people learned to manufacture ice,
immense cargoes were shipped from here to as far south as San Francisco."
"It was fun to see them go fishing for ice from the steamer when we came
up to Skaguay," said Ted. "The sailors went out in a boat, slipped a net
around a block of ice and towed it to the side of the ship, then it was
hitched to a derrick and swung on deck."
"Huh!" said Kalitan. "What people want ice for stored up? Think they'd
store sunshine!"
"If you could invent a way to do that, you could make a fortune, my
boy," said Mr. Strong, laughing. "The next place of any interest is
Karluk. It's around on the other side of the island in Shelikoff Strait,
and is famous for its salmon canneries. Nearly half of the entire salmon
pack of Alaska comes from Kadiak Island, most of the fish coming from
the Karluk River."
"Very bad for Indians," said Kalitan. "Used to have plenty fish. Tyee
Klake said salmon used to come up this river in shoal sixteen miles long,
and now Boston men take them all."
"It does seem a pity that the Indians don't even have a chance to earn
their living in the canneries," said Mr. Strong. "The largest cannery in
the world is at Karluk. There are thousands of men employed, and in one
year over three million salmon were packed, yet with all this work for
busy hands to do, the canneries employ Chinese, Greek, Portuguese, and
American workmen in preference to the Indians, bringing them by the
shipload from San Francisco."
"What other places do we pass?" asked Ted.
"A lot of very interesting ones, and I wish we could coast along,
stopping wherever we felt like it," said Mr. Strong. "The Shumagin
Islands are where Bering, the great discoverer and explorer, landed in
1741 to bury one of his crew. Codfish were found there, and Captain
Cook, in his 'Voyages and Discoveries,' speaks of the same fish. There
is a famous fishery there now called the Davidson Banks, and the
codfishing fleet has its headquarters on Popoff Island. Millions of
codfish are caught here every year. These islands are also a favourite
haunt of the sea otter, Belofsky, at the foot of Mt. Pavloff, is the
centre of the trade."
"What kind of fur is otter?" asked Ted, whose mind was so inquiring that
his father often called him the "living catechism."
"It is the court fur of China and Russia, and at one time the common
people were forbidden by law to wear it," said Mr. Strong. "It is a
rich, purplish brown sprinkled with silver-tipped hairs, and the skins
are very costly."
"At one time any one could have otter," said Kalitan. "We hunted them
with spears and bows and arrows. Now they are very few, and we find them
only in dangerous spots, hiding on rocks or floating kelp. Sometimes the
hunters have to lie in hiding for days watching them. Only Indians can
kill the otter. Boston men can if they marry Indian women. That makes
them Indian."
"Rather puts otter at a discount and women at a premium," laughed Mr.
Strong. "Now we pass along near the Alaska peninsula, past countless
isles and islets, through the Fox Islands to Unalaska, and then into the
Bering Sea. One of the most interesting things in this region is called
the 'Pacific Ring of Fire,' a chain of volcanoes which stretches along
the coast. Often the passengers can see from the ships at night a strange
red glow over the sky, and know that the fire mountains are burning. The
most beautiful of these volcanoes is Mt. Shishaldin, nearly nine thousand
feet high, and almost as perfect a cone in shape as Fuji Yama, which the
Japanese love so much and call 'the Honourable Mountain.' At Unalaska or
Ilinlink, the 'curving beach,' we stop. If we could stay over for awhile,
there are a great many interesting things we could see; an old Greek
church and the government school are in the town, and Bogoslov's volcano
and the sea-lion rookeries are on the island of St. John, which rose
right up out of the sea in 1796 after a day's roaring and rumbling and
thundering. In 1815 there was a similar performance, and from time to
time the island has grown larger ever since. One fine day in 1883 there
was a great shower of ashes, and, when the clouds had rolled away, two
peaks were seen where only one had been, separated by a sandy isthmus.
This last was reduced to a fine thread by the earthquake of 1891, and I
don't know what new freaks it may have developed by now. I know some
friends of mine landed there not long ago and cooked eggs over the jets
of steam which gush out of the mountainside. Did you ever hear of using a
volcano for a cook-stove?"
"Well, I should say not," said Ted, amused. "These Alaskan volcanoes are
great things."
"The one called Makushin has a crater filled with snow in a part of
which there is always a cloud of sulphurous smoke. That's making
extremes meet, isn't it?"
"Yehl[13] made many strange things," said Kalitan, who had been taking in
all this information even more eagerly than Teddy. "He first dwelt on
Nass River, and turned two blades of grass into the first man and woman.
Then the Thlinkits grew and prospered, till darkness fell upon the earth.
A Thlinkit stole the sun and hid it in a box, but Yehl found it and set
it so high in the heavens that none could touch it. Then the Thlinkits
grew and spread abroad. But a great flood came, and all were swept away
save two, who tossed long upon the flood on a raft of logs until Yehl
pitied, and carried them to Mt. Edgecomb, where they dwelt until the
waters fell."
[Footnote 13: Yehl, embodied in the raven, is the Thlinkit Great Spirit]
"Old Kala-kash tells this story, and he says that one of these people,
when very old, went down through the crater of the mountain, and, given
long life by Yehl, stays there always to hold up the earth out of the
water. But the other lives in the crater as the Thunder Bird, Hahtla,
whose wing-flap is the thunder and whose glance is the lightning. The
osprey is his totem, and his face glares in our blankets and totems."
"I've wondered what that fierce bird was," said Teddy, who was always
quite carried away with Kalitan's strange legends.
"Well, what else do we see on the way to Nome, father?"
"The most remarkable thing happening in the Bering Sea is the seal
industry, but I do not think we pass near enough to the islands to see
any of that. You'd better run about and see the ship now," and the boys
needed no second permission.
It was not many days before they knew everybody on board, from captain
to deck hands, and were prime favourites with them all. Ted and Kalitan
enjoyed every moment. There was always something new to see or hear, and
ere they reached their journey's end, they had heard all about seals and
sealing, although the famous Pribylov Islands were too far to the west of
the vessel's route for them to see them. They sighted the United States
revenue cutter which plies about the seal islands to keep off poachers,
for no one is allowed to kill seals or to land on this government
reservation except from government vessels. The scent of the rookeries,
where millions of seals have been killed in the last hundred years, is
noticed far out at sea, and often the barking of the animals can be heard
by passing vessels.
"Why is sealskin so valuable, father?" asked Ted.
"It has always been admired because it is so warm and soft," replied Mr.
Strong. "All the ladies fancy it, and it never seems to go out of
fashion. There was a time, when the Pribylov Islands were first
discovered, that sealskins were so plentiful that they sold in Alaska for
a dollar apiece. Hunters killed so many, killing old and young that soon
there were scarcely any left, so a law was passed by the Russian
government forbidding any killing for five years. Since the Americans
have owned Alaska they have protected the seals, allowing them to be
killed only at certain times, and only male seals from two to four years
old are killed. The Indians are always the killers, and are wonderfully
swift and clever, never missing a blow and always killing instantly, so
that there is almost no suffering."
"How do they know where to find the seals?" asked Ted.
"For half the year the seals swim about the sea, but in May they return
to their favourite haunts. In these rookeries families of them herd on
the rocks, the male staying at home with his funny little black puppies,
while the mother swims about seeking food. The seals are very timid, and
will rush into the water at the least strange noise. A story is told that
the barking of a little pet dog belonging to a Russian at one of the
rookeries lost him a hundred thousand dollars, for the seals took fright
and scurried away before any one could say 'Jack Robinson!'"
"Rather an expensive pup!" commented Ted. "But what about the
seals, daddy?"
"You seem to think I am an encyclopedia on the seal question," said his
father. "There is not much else to tell you."
"How can they manage always to kill the right ones?" demanded Ted.
"The gay bachelor seals herd together away from the rest and sleep at
night on the rocks. Early in the morning the Aleuts slip in between them
and the herd and drive them slowly to the killing-ground, where they are
quickly killed and skinned and the skins taken to the salting-house. The
Indians use the flesh and blubber, and the climate is such that before
another year the hollow bones are lost in the grass and earth."
"What becomes of the skins after they are salted?"
"They are usually sent to London, where they are prepared for market.
The work is all done by hand, which is one reason that they are so
expensive. They are first worked in saw-dust; cleaned, scraped, washed,
shaved, plucked, dyed with a hand-brush from eight to twelve times,
washed again and freed from the least speck of grease by a last bath in
hot sawdust or sand."
"I don't wonder a sealskin coat costs so much," said Ted? "if they have
got to go through all that performance. I wish we could have seen the
islands, but I'd hate to see the seals killed. It doesn't seem like
hunting just to knock them on the head. It's too much like the
stock-yards at home."
"Yes, but it's a satisfaction to know that it's done in the easiest
possible way for the animals.
"What a lot you are learning way up here in Alaska, aren't you, son?
To-morrow we'll be at Nome, and then your head will be so stuffed with
mines and mining that you will forget all about everything else."
"I don't want to forget any of it," said Ted. "It's all bully."
CHAPTER X
IN THE GOLD COUNTRY
A low sandy beach, without a tree to break its level, rows of plain
frame-houses, some tents and wooden shanties scattered about, the surf
breaking over the shore in splendid foam,--this was Teddy's first
impression of Nome. They had sailed over from St. Michael's to see the
great gold-fields, and both the boys were full of eagerness to be on
land. It seemed, however, as if their desires were not to be realized,
for landing at Nome is a difficult matter.
Nome is on the south shore of that part of Alaska known as Seward
Peninsula, and it has no harbour. It is on the open seacoast and catches
all the fierce storms that sweep northward over Bering Sea. Generally
seacoast towns are built in certain spots because there is a harbour,
but Nome was not really built, it "jes' growed," for, when gold was
found there, the miners sat down to gather the harvest, caring nothing
about a harbour.
Ships cannot go within a mile of land, and passengers have to go ashore
in small lighters. Sometimes when they arrive they cannot go ashore at
all, but have to wait several days, taking refuge behind a small island
ten miles away, lest they drag their anchors and be dashed to pieces on
the shore.
There had been a tremendous storm at Nome the day before Ted arrived, and
landing was more difficult than usual, but, impatient as the boys were,
at last it seemed safe to venture, and the party left the steamer to be
put on a rough barge, flat-bottomed and stout, which was hauled by cable
to shore until it grounded on the sands. They were then put in a sort of
wooden cage, let down by chains from a huge wooden beam, and swung round
in the air like the unloading cranes of a great city, over the surf to a
high platform on the land.
"Well, this is a new way to land," cried Ted, who had been rather quiet
during the performance, and his father thought a trifle frightened. "It's
a sort of a balloon ascension, isn't it?"
"It must be rather hard for the miners, who have been waiting weeks for
their mail, when the boat can't land her bags at all," said Mr. Strong.
"That sometimes happens. From November to May, Nome is cut off from the
world by snow and ice. The only news they receive is by the monthly mail
when it comes.
"Over at Kronstadt the Russians have ice-breaking boats which keep the
Baltic clear enough of ice for navigation, and plow their way through ice
fourteen feet thick for two hundred miles. The Nome miners are very
anxious for the government to try this ice-boat service at Nome."
"Why did people settle here in such a forlorn place?" asked Ted, as they
made their way to the town, which they found anything but civilized. "I
like the Indian houses on the island better than this."
"Your island is more picturesque," said Mr. Strong, "but people came here
for what they could get.
"In 1898 gold was discovered on Anvil Creek, which runs into Snake River,
and this turned people's eyes in the direction of Nome. Miners rushed
here and set to work in the gulches inland, but it was not till the
summer of 1899 that gold was found on the beach. A soldier from the
barracks--you know this is part of a United States Military
Reservation--found gold while digging a well near the beach, and an old
miner took out $1,200 worth in twenty days. Then a perfect frenzy seized
the people. They flocked to Nome from far and near; they camped on the
beach in hundreds and staked their claims. Between one and two thousand
men were at work on the beach at one time, yet so good-natured were they
that no quarrels seem to have occurred. Doctors, lawyers, barkeepers, and
all dropped their business and went to-rocking, as they call
beach-mining."
"Oh, dad, let's hurry and go and see it," cried Ted, as they hurried
through their dinner at the hotel. "I thought gold came out of deep
mines like copper, and had to be melted out or something, but this seems
to be different. Do they just walk along the beach and pick it up? I
wish I could."
"Well, it's not quite so simple as that," said Mr. Strong, laughing.
"We'll go and see, and then you'll understand," and they went down the
crooked streets to the sandy beach.
Men were standing about talking and laughing, others working hard. All
manner of men were there scattered over the _tundra,_[14] and Ted became
interested in two who were working together in silence.
[Footnote 14: The name given to the boggy soil of the beach.]
[Illustration: "'LET'S WATCH THOSE TWO MEN. THEY HAVE EVIDENTLY STAKED A
CLAIM TOGETHER.'"]
"What are they doing?" he asked his father. "I can't see how they expect
to get anything worth having out of this mess."
"Beach-mining is quite different from any other," said his father. "Let's
watch those two men. They have evidently staked a claim together, which
means that nobody but these two can work on the ground they have staked
out, and that they must share all the gold they find. They came here to
prospect, and evidently found a block of ground which suited them. They
then dug a prospect hole down two to five feet until they struck
'bedrock,' which happens to be clay around here. They passed through
several layers of sand and gravel before reaching this, and these were
carefully examined to see how much gold they contained. Upon reaching a
layer which seemed to be a good one, the gravel on top was stripped off
and thrown aside and the 'pay streak' worked with the rocker."
"What is that?" asked Ted, who was all ears, while Kalitan was taking in
everything with his sharp black eyes.
"That arrangement that looks like a square pan on a saw-buck is the
rocker. The rockers usually have copper bottoms, and there is a great
demand for sheet copper at Nome, but often there is not enough of it, and
the miners have been known to cover them with silver coins. That man you
are watching has silver dollars in his, about fifty, I should say. It
seems extravagant, doesn't it, but he'll take out many times that amount
if he has good luck."
The man, who had glanced up at them, smiled at that and said:
"And, if I don't have luck, I'm broke, anyhow, so fifty or sixty plunks
won't make much difference. You going to be a miner, youngster?"
"Not this trip," said Ted, with a smile. "Say, I'd like to know how you
get the gold out with that."
"At first we used to put a blanket in the rocker, and wash the pay dirt
on that. Our prospect hole has water in it, and we can use it over and
over. Some of the holes are dry, and there the men have to pack their pay
dirt down to the shore and use surf water for washing. Most of our gold
is so fine that the blanket didn't stop it, so now we use 'quick.' I
reckon you'd call it mercury, but we call it quick. You see, it saves
time, and work-time up here is so short, on account of winter setting in
so early, that we have to save up our spare minutes and not waste 'em on
long words."
Ted grinned cheerfully and asked: "What do you do with the quick?"
"We paint it over the bottom of the rocker, and it acts like a charm and
catches every speck of gold that comes its way as the dirt is washed over
it. The quick and the gold make a sort of amalgam."
"But how do you get at the gold after it amalgams, or whatever you call
it?" asked Ted.
"Sure we fry it in the frying-pan, and it's elegant pancakes it makes,"
said the man. "See here," and he pulled from his pocket several flat
masses that looked like pieces of yellow sponge. "This is pure gold. All
the quick has gone off, and this is the real stuff, just as good as
money. An ounce will buy sixteen dollars' worth of anything in Nome."
"It looks mighty pretty," said Ted. "Seems to me it's redder than any
gold I ever saw."
"It is," said his father. "Nome beach gold is redder and brighter than
any other Alaskan gold. I guess I'll have to get you each a piece for a
souvenir," and both boys were made happy by the present of a quaintly
shaped nugget, bought by Mr. Strong from the very miner who had mined it,
which of course added to its value.
"You're gathering quite a lot of souvenirs, Ted," said his father. "It's
a great relief that you have not asked me for anything alive yet. I have
been expecting a modest request for a Maiamute or a Husky pup, or perhaps
a pet reindeer to take home, but so far you have been quite moderate in
your demands."
"Kalitan never asks for anything," said Ted. "I asked him once why it
was, and he said Indian boys never got what they asked for; that
sometimes they had things given to them that they hadn't asked for, but,
if he asked the Tyee for anything, all he got was 'Good Indian get things
for himself,' and he had to go to work to get the thing he wanted. I
guess it's a pretty good plan, too, for I notice that I get just as much
as I did when I used to tease you for things," Teddy added, sagely.
"Wise boy," said his father. "You're certainly more agreeable to live
with. The next thing you are to have is a visit to an Esquimo village,
and, if I can find some of the Esquimo carvings, you shall have something
to take home to mother. Kalitan, what would you like to remember the
Esquimos by?"
Kalitan smiled and replied, simply, "_Mukluks_."
"What are _mukluks_?" demanded Ted.
"Esquimo moccasins," said Mr. Strong. "Well, you shall both have a pair,
and they are rather pretty things, too, as the Esquimos make them."
CHAPTER XI
AFTERNOON TEA IN AN EGLU
The Esquimo village was reached across the _tundra_, and Teddy and
Kalitan were much interested in the queer houses. Built for the long
winter of six or eight months, when it is impossible to do anything
out-of-doors, the _eglu_[15] seems quite comfortable from the Esquimo
point of view, but very strange to their American cousins.
[Footnote 15: The _eglu_ is the Esquimo house. Often they occupy tents
during the summer, but return to the huts the first cool nights.]
"I thought the Esquimos lived in snow houses," said Ted, as they looked
at the queer little huts, and Kalitan exclaimed:
"Huh! Innuit queer Indian!"
"No," said Mr. Strong; "his hut is built by digging a hole about six feet
deep and standing logs up side by side around the hole. On the top of
these are placed logs which rest even with the ground. Stringers are put
across these, and other logs and moss and mud roofed over it, leaving an
opening in the middle about two feet square. This is covered with a piece
of walrus entrail so thin and transparent that light easily passes
through it, and it serves as a window, the only one they have. A
smoke-hole is cut through the roof, but there is no door, for the hut is
entered through another room built in the same way, fifteen or twenty
feet distant, and connected by an underground passage about two feet
square with the main room. The entrance-room is entered through a hole in
the roof, from which a ladder reaches the bottom of the passage."
"Can we go into a hut?" asked Ted.
"I'll ask that woman cooking over there," said Mr. Strong, as they went
up to a woman who was cooking over a peat fire, holding over the coals an
old battered skillet in which she was frying fish. She nodded and smiled
at the boys, and, as Esquimos are always friendly and hospitable souls,
told them to go right into her _iglu_, which was close by.
They climbed down the ladder, crawled along the narrow passage to where a
skin hung before an opening, and, pushing it aside, entered the
living-room. Here they found an old man busily engaged in carving a
walrus tooth, another sewing _mukluks_, while a girl was singing a quaint
lullaby to a child of two in the corner.