CHAPTER XXI

There is an open roadstead at Yaktag, or Yakataga. The ship anchors several miles from shore--when the fierce storms which prevail in this vicinity will permit it to anchor at all--and passengers and freight are lightered ashore.

I have seen horses hoisted from the deck in their wooden cages and dropped into the sea, where they were liberated. After their first frightened, furious plunges, they headed for the shore, and started out bravely on their long swim. The surf was running high, and for a time it seemed that they could not escape being dashed upon the rocks; but with unerring instinct, they struggled away from one rocky place after another until they reached a strip of smooth sand up which they were borne by the breaking sea, and where they fell for a few moments, exhausted. Then they arose, staggered, threw up their heads and ran as I have never seen horses run--with such wildness, such gladness, such utterance of the joy of freedom in the fling of their legs, in the streaming of mane and tail.

They had been penned in a narrow stall under the forward deck for twelve days; they had been battered by the storms and unable to lie down and rest; they had been plunged from this condition unexpectedly into the ocean and compelled to strike out on a long swim for their lives.

The sudden knowledge of freedom; the smell of sun and air; the very sweet of life itself--all combined to make them almost frantic in the animal expression of their joy.

We put down the powerful glasses with which we had painfully watched every yard of their progress toward the land.

I looked at the pilot. There was a moisture in his eyes, which was not entirely a reflection of that in my own.

It is one hundred and seventy miles from Yakutat to Kayak. Off this stretch of coast, between Lituya and Cape Suckling, the soundings are moderate and by whalers have long been known as "Fairweather Grounds."

Just before reaching Kayak, Cape Suckling is passed.

The point of this cape is low. It runs up into a considerable hill, which, in turn, sinking to very low land has the appearance of an island. It was named by Cook.

Around this cape lies Comptroller Bay--the bay which should have been named Behring's Bay. It was on the two islands at its entrance that Behring landed in 1741. He named one St. Elias; and to this island Cook, in 1778, gave the name of Kaye, for the excellent reason that the "Reverend Doctor Kaye" gave him two silver two-penny pieces of the date of 1772, which he buried in a bottle on the island, together with the names of his ships and the date of discovery.

Unhappily this immortal island retains the name which Cook lightly bestowed upon it, instead of the name given it by the illustrious Dane. It is now, however, more frequently known as Wingham Island. The settlement of Kayak is upon it. The southern extremity of the larger island retains the name St. Elias for the splendid headland that plunges boldly and challengingly out into the sea. It is a magnificent sight in a storm, when sea-birds are shrieking over it and a powerful surf is breaking upon its base. At all times it is a striking landmark.

I have been to Kayak four times. Landings have always been made by passengers in dories or in tiny launches which come out from the settlement, and which bob up and down like corks.

It requires a cool head to descend a rope-ladder twenty or thirty feet from the deck to a dory that rolls away from the ship with every wave and which may only be entered as it rolls back. There is art in the little kick which one must give each rung against the side of the ship to steady the ladder. At the last comes an awful moment when a woman must hang alone on the last swaying rung and await the return of the dory. If the sea is rough, the ship will probably roll away from the boat. When the sailors, therefore, sing out, "Now! Jump!" she must close her eyes, put her trust in heaven and fore-ordination, and jump.

If she chances to jump just at the right moment; if one sailor catches her just right and another catches _him_ just right, she will know by the cheer that arises from hurricane and texas that all is well and she may open her eyes. Under other conditions, other situations arise; but let no woman be deterred by the possibility of the latter from descending a rope-ladder when she has an opportunity. The hair-crinkling moments in an ordinary life are few enough, heaven knows.

There are several business houses and dwellings at Kayak; and an Indian village. The Indian graveyard is very interesting. Tiny houses are built over the graves and surrounded by picket fences. Both are painted white. Through the windows may be seen some of the belongings of the dead. In dishes are different kinds of food and drink, that the deceased may not suffer of hunger or thirst in the bourne to which he may have journeyed. There are implements and weapons for the men; unfinished baskets for the women, with the long strands of warp and woof left ready for the idle hand; for the children, beads and rattles made of bear claws and shells. The houses are on posts a few feet above the graves.

For a number of years Kayak was the base of operation for oil companies. In 1898 the Alaska Development Company staked the country, but later leased their lands to the Alaska Oil and Coal Company--commonly known as the "English" company--for a long term of years, with the privilege of taking up the lease in 1906. This company spent millions of dollars and drilled several wells.

The Alaska Petroleum and Coal Company--known as the Lippy Company--put down two holes, one seventeen hundred feet deep. The cost of drilling is about five thousand dollars a hole of two thousand feet; the rig, laid down, six thousand five hundred dollars.

These wells are situated at Katalla, sixteen miles from Kayak, at the mouth of the Copper River. The oil lands extend from the coast to the Malaspina and Behring glaciers.

Since the recent upspringing of a new town at Katalla, the centre of trade has been transferred from Kayak to this point. Katalla was founded in 1904 by the Alaska Petroleum and Coal Company; but not until the actual commencement of work on the Bruner Railway Company's road, in 1907, from Katalla into the heart of the coal and oil fields, did the place rise to the importance of a northern town.

It has attained a wide fame within a few months on account of the remarkable discoveries of high-grade petroleum and coal in the vicinity.

For many years these two products of Alaska were considered of inferior quality; but it has recently been discovered that they rival the finest of Pennsylvania.

The town has grown as only a new Alaskan, or Puget Sound, town can grow. At night, perhaps, there will be a dozen shacks and as many tents on a town site; the next morning a steamer will anchor in the bay bearing government offices, stores, hotels, saloons, dance-halls, banks, offices for several large companies, electric light plants, gas works, telephones--and before another day dawns, business is in full swing.

For fifteen miles along the Comptroller Bay water front oil wells may be seen, some of the largest oil seepages existing close to the shore. The coal and oil lands of this vicinity, however, are about a hundred miles in length and from twenty to thirty in width.

During the fall and early winter of 1907, Katalla suffered a serious menace to its prosperity, owing to its total lack of a harbor.

The bay is but a mere indentation, and an open roadstead sends its surf to curl upon the unprotected beach. The storms in winter are ceaseless and terrific. Steamers cannot land and anchors will not hold.

As Nome, similarly situated, is cut off from the world for several months by ice, so is Katalla cut off by storms.

Steamer after steamer sails into the roadstead, rolls and tosses in the trough of the sea, lingers regretfully, and sails away, without landing even a passenger, or mail.

In October, 1907, one whole banking outfit, including everything necessary for the opening of a bank, save the cashier,--who was already there,--and the building,--which was waiting,--was taken up on a steamer. Not being able to lighter it ashore, the steamer carried the bank to Cook Inlet.

Upon its return, conditions again made it impossible to enter the bay, and the bank was carried back to Seattle. When the steamer again went north, the bank went, too; when the steamer returned, the bank returned.

In the meantime, other events were shaping themselves in such wise as to render the situation extremely interesting.

A few miles northwest of Katalla, the town of Cordova was established three years ago, with the terminus of the Copper River Railway located there. Mr. M. J. Heney, who had built the White Pass and Yukon Railway, received the contract for the work. The building of wharves in the excellent harbor and the laying out of a town site capable of accommodating twenty thousand people--and one that might have pleased even the fastidious Shelikoff--was energetically begun.

Early in 1907 the Copper River Railway sold its interests to the Northwestern and Copper River Valley Railway, promoted by John Rosene, and financed by the Guggenheims. It was semi-officially announced that the new company would tear up the Cordova tracks and that Katalla would be the terminus of the consolidated line. The announcement precipitated the "boom" at Katalla.

Mr. Heney retired from the new company and spent the summer voyaging down the Yukon.

Immediately upon his return to Seattle in September, he journeyed to New York. In a few days, newspapers devoted columns to the sale of the Rosene interests in the railway, also a large fleet of first-class steamers, and wharves, to the Copper River and Northwestern Railway Company.

The contract for the immediate building of the road had been secured by Mr. Heney, who had returned to his original surveys. The terminus at once travelled back to Cordova; and the itinerant bank may yet thank its guiding star which prevented it from getting itself landed at Katalla.

Important "strikes" are made constantly in the Tanana country, in the Sushitna, and in the Koyukuk, where pay is found surpassing the best of the Klondike.

The trail from Valdez to Fairbanks may yet be as thickly strewn with eager-eyed stampeders as were the Dyea and Skagway trails a decade ago. Never again, however, in any part of Alaska, can the awful conditions of that time prevail. Steamer, rail, and stage transportation have made travelling in the North luxurious, compared to the horrors endured in the old days.

The Guggenheims have been compelled to carry on a fantastic fight for right of way for the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. In the summer of 1907, they attempted to lay track at Katalla over the disputed Bruner right of way. The Bruner Company had constructed an immense "go-devil" of railway rails, which, operated by powerful machinery, could be swung back and forth over the disputed point. It was operated by armed men behind fortifications.

The Bruner concern was known as the Alaska-Pacific Transportation and Terminal Company, financed by Pittsburg capital, and proposed building a road to the coal regions, thence to the Copper River. They sought right of way by condemnation proceedings.

The town site of Katalla is owned by the Alaska Petroleum and Coal Company, which had deeded a right of way to the Guggenheims; also, a large tract of land for smelter purposes. At one point it was necessary for the latter to cross the right of way of the Bruner road.

The trouble began in May, when the Bruner workmen dynamited a pile-driver and trestle belonging to the Guggenheims, who had then approached within one hundred feet of the Bruner right of way.

On July 3 a party of Guggenheim laborers, under the protection of a fire from detachments of armed men, succeeded in laying track over the disputed right of way.

Tony de Pascal daringly led the construction party and received the reward of a thousand dollars offered by the Guggenheims to the man who would successfully lead the attacking forces. Soon afterward, he was shot dead by one of his own men who mistook him for a member of the opposing force. Ten other men were seriously injured by bullets from the Bruner block-houses.

In the autumn of the same year a party of men surveying for the Reynolds Home Railway, from Valdez to the Yukon, met armed resistance in Keystone Canyon from a force of men holding right of way for the Guggenheims. A battle occurred in which one man was killed and three seriously wounded.

The wildest excitement prevailed in fiery Valdez, and probably only the proximity of a United States military post prevented the lynching of the men who did the killing.

Ever since the advent of the Russians, Copper River has been considered one of the bonanzas of Alaska. It was discovered in 1783 by Nagaief, a member of Potap Zaikoff's party. He ascended it for a short distance and traded with the natives, who called the river Atnah. Rufus Serrebrennikof and his men attempted an exploration, but were killed. General Miles, under Abercrombie, attempted to ascend the river in 1884, with the intention of coming out by the Chilkaht country; but the expedition was a failure. In the following year Lieutenant H. T. Allen successfully ascended the river, crossed the divide to the Tanana, sailed down that stream to the Yukon, explored the Koyukuk, and then proceeded down the Yukon to St. Michael and returned to San Francisco by ocean.

His description of Miles Glacier was the first to be printed. This glacier fronts for a distance of six miles in splendid palisades on Copper River. This and Childs Glacier afford the chief obstacles to navigation on this river, and Mr. A. H. Brooks reports their rapid recession.

The river is regarded as exceedingly dangerous for steamers, but may, with caution, be navigated with small boats. Between the mouth of the Chitina and the head of the broad delta of the Copper River, is the only canyon. It is the famous Wood Canyon, several miles in length and in many places only forty yards wide, with the water roaring through perpendicular stone walls. The Tiekel, Tasnuna, and other streams tributary to this part of the Copper also flow through narrow valleys with precipitous slopes.

The Copper River has its source in the mountains east of its great plateau, whose eastern margin it traverses, and then, passing through the Chugach Mountains, debouches across a wide delta into the North Pacific Ocean between Katalla and Cordova. It rises close to Mount Wrangell, flows northward for forty miles, south and southwest for fifty more, when the Chitina joins it from the east and swells its flood for the remaining one hundred and fifty miles to the coast.

The Copper is a silt-laden, turbulent stream from its source to the sea. Its average fall is about twelve feet to the mile. From the Chitina to its mouth, it is steep-sided and rock-bound; for its entire length, it is weird and impressive.

By land, the distance from Katalla to Cordova is insignificant. It is a distance, however, that cannot as yet be traversed, on account of the delta and other impassable topographic features, which only a railroad can overcome. The distance by water is about one hundred and fifty miles.

In the entrance to Cordova Bay is Hawkins Island, and to the southwest of this island lies Hinchingbroke Island, whose southern extremity, at the entrance to Prince William Sound, was named Cape Hinchingbroke by Cook in 1778. At a point named Snug Corner Bay Cook keeled and mended his ships.

This peerless sound itself--brilliantly blue, greenly islanded, and set round with snow peaks and glaciers, including among the latter the most beautiful one of Alaska, if not the most beautiful of the world, the Columbia--was known as Chugach Gulf--a name to which I hope it may some day return,--until Cook renamed it.

A boat sent out by Cook was pursued by natives in canoes. They seemed afraid to approach the ship; but at a distance sang, stood up in the canoes, extending their arms and holding out white garments of peace. One man stood up, entirely nude, with his arms stretched out like a cross, motionless, for a quarter of an hour.

The following night a few natives came out in the skin-boats of the Eskimos. These boats are still used from this point westward and northward to Nome and up the Yukon as far as the Eskimos have settlements. They are of three kinds. One is a large, open, flat-bottomed boat. It is made of a wooden frame, covered with walrus skin or sealskin, held in place by thongs of the former. This is called an oomiak by the Innuits or Eskimos, and a bidarra by the Russians. It is used by women, or by large parties of men.

A boat for one man is made in the same fashion, but covered completely over, with the exception of one hole in which the occupant sits, and around which is an upright rim. When at sea he wears a walrus-gut coat, completely waterproof, which he ties around the outside of the rim. The coat is securely tied around the wrists, and the hood is drawn tightly around the face; so that no water can possibly enter the boat in the most severe storm. This boat is called a bidarka.

The third, called a kayak, differs from the bidarka only in being longer and having two or three holes.

The walrus-gut coats are called kamelinkas or kamelaykas. They may be purchased in curio stores, and at Seldovia and other places on Cook Inlet. They are now gayly decorated with bits of colored wool and range in price from ten to twenty dollars, according to the amount of work upon them.

There is a difference of opinion regarding the names of the boats. Dall claims that the one-holed boat was called a kayak by the natives, and by the Russians a bidarka; and that the others were simply known as two or three holed bidarkas. The other opinion, which I have given, is that of people living in the vicinity at present.

Each of the men who came out in the bidarkas to visit Cook had a stick about three feet long, the end of which was decorated with large tufts of feathers. Behring's men were received in precisely the same manner at the Shumagin Islands, far to westward, in 1741; their sticks, according to Mueller, being decorated with hawks' wings.

These natives were found to be thievish and treacherous, attempting to capture a boat under the ship's very guns and in the face of a hundred men.

Cook then sailed southward and discovered the largest island in the sound, the Sukluk of the natives, which he named Montagu.

Nutchek, or Port Etches, as it was named by Portlock, is just inside the entrance to the sound on the western shore of the island that is now known as Hinchingbroke, but which was formerly called Nutchek.

Here Baranoff, several years later, built the ships that bore his first expedition to Sitka. The Russian trading post was called the Redoubt Constantine and Elena. It was a strong, stockaded fort with two bastions.

There is a salmon cannery at Nutchek, and the furs of the Copper River country were brought here for many years for barter.

Orca is situated about three miles north of Cordova, in Cordova Bay. There is a large salmon cannery at Orca; and the number of sea-birds to be seen in this small bay, filling the air in snowy clouds and covering the precipitous cliffs facing the wharf, is surpassed in only one place on the Alaskan coast--Karluk Bay.

For several years before the founding of Valdez, Orca was used as a port by the argonauts who crossed by way of Valdez Pass to the Copper River mining regions, and by way of the Tanana River to the Yukon.

Prince William Sound is one of the most nobly beautiful bodies of water in Alaska. Its wide blue water-sweeps, its many mountainous, wooded, and snow-peaked islands, the magnificent glaciers which palisade its ice-inlets, and the chain of lofty, snowy mountains that float mistily, like linked pearls, around it through the amethystine clouds, give it a poetic and austere beauty of its own. Every slow turn of the prow brings forth some new delight to the eye. Never does one beautiful snow-dome fade lingeringly from the horizon, ere another pushes into the exquisitely colored atmosphere, in a chaste beauty that fairly thrills the heart of the beholder.

The sound, or gulf, extends winding blue arms in every direction,--into the mainland and into the many islands. It covers an extent of more than twenty-five hundred square miles. The entrance is about fifty miles wide, but is sheltered by countless islands. The largest and richest are Montagu, Hinchingbroke, La Touche, Knight's, and Hawkins. There are many excellent harbors on the shores of the gulf and on the islands, and the Russians built several ships here. In Chalmers Bay Vancouver discovered a remarkable point, which bore stumps of trees cut with an axe, but far below low-water mark at the time of his discovery. He named it Sinking Point.

There is a portage from the head of the gulf to Cook Inlet, which, the earliest Russians learned, had long been used by the natives, who are of the Innuit, or Eskimo, tribe, similar to those of the Inlet, and are called Chugaches. The northern shore of Kenai and the western coast of the Inlet are occupied by Indians of the Athabascan stock.

* * * * *

Cook found the natives of the gulf of medium size, with square chests and large heads. The complexion of the children and some of the younger women was white; many of the latter having agreeable features and pleasing appearance. They were vivacious, good-natured, and of engaging frankness.

These people, of all ages and both sexes, wore a close robe reaching to the ankles--sometimes only to the knees--made of the skins of sea-otter, seal, gray fox, raccoon, and pine-marten. These garments were worn with the fur outside. Now and then one was seen made of the down of sea-birds, which had been glued to some other substance. The seams were ornamented with thongs, or tassels, of the same skins.

In rain they wore kamelinkas over the fur robes. Cook's description of a kamelinka as resembling a "gold-beater's leaf" is a very good one.

His understanding of the custom of wearing the labret, however, differs from that of other early navigators. The incision in the lip, he states, was made even in the children at the breast; while La Perouse and others were of the impression that it was not made until a girl had arrived at a marriageable age.

It appears that the incision in time assumes the shape of real lips, through which the tongue may be thrust.

One of Cook's seamen, seeing for the first time a woman having the incision from which the labret had been removed, fell into a panic of horror and ran to his companions, crying that he "had seen a man with two mouths,"--evidently mistaking the woman for a man. Cook reported that both sexes wore the labret; but this was doubtless an error. When they are clad in the fur garments, which are called parkas, it is difficult to distinguish one sex from the other among the younger people.

I had a rather amusing experience myself at the small native settlement of Anvik on the Yukon. It was midnight, but broad daylight, as we were in the Arctic Circle. The natives were all clad in parkas. Two sitting side by side resembled each other closely. After buying some of their curios, I asked one, indicating the other, "Is she your sister?"

To my confusion, my question was received with a loud burst of laughter, in which a dozen natives, sitting around them, hoarsely and hilariously joined.

They poked the unfortunate object of my curiosity in the ribs, pointed at him derisively, and kept crying--"She! She!" until at last the poor young fellow, not more embarrassed than myself, sprang to his feet and ran away, with laughter and cries of "She! She!" following him.

I have frequently recalled the scene, and feared that the innocent dark-eyed and sweet-smiling youth may have retained the name which was so mirthfully bestowed upon him that summer night.

But since the mistake in sex may be so easily made, I am inclined to the belief that Cook and his men were misled in this particular.

A most remarkable difference of opinion existed between Cook and other early explorers as to the cleanliness of the natives. He found their method of eating decent and cleanly, their persons neat, without grease or dirt, and their wooden dishes in excellent order.

The white-headed eagle was found here, as well as the shag, the great kingfisher of brilliant coloring, the humming-bird, water-fowl, grouse, snipe, and plover. Many other species of water and land fowl have been added to these.

The flora of the islands is brilliant, varied, and luxuriant.

In 1786 John Meares--who is dear to my heart because of his confidence in Juan de Fuca--came to disaster in the Chugach Gulf. Overtaken by winter, he first tried the anchorage at Snug Corner Cove, in his ship, the _Nootka_, but later moved to a more sheltered nook closer to the mainland, in the vicinity of the present native village of Tatitlik.

The ill-provisioned vessel was covered for the winter; spruce beer was brewed, but the men preferred the liquors, which were freely served, and, fresh fish being scarce, scurvy became epidemic. The surgeon was the first to die; but he was followed by many others.

At first, graves were dug under the snow; but soon the survivors were too few and too exhausted for this last service to their mates. The dead were then dropped in fissures of the ice which surrounded their ship.

At last, when the lowest depth of despair had been reached, Captains Portlock and Dixon arrived and furnished relief and assistance.

In 1787-1788 the Chugach Gulf presented a strange appearance to the natives, not yet familiar with the presence of ships. Englishmen under different flags, Russians and Spaniards, were sailing to all parts of the gulf, taking possession in the names of different nations of all the harbors and islands.

In Voskressenski Harbor--now known as Resurrection Bay, where the new railroad town of Seward is situated--the first ship ever built in Alaska was launched by Baranoff, in 1794. It was christened the _Phoenix_, and was followed by many others.

Preparations for ship-building were begun in the winter of 1791. Suitable buildings, storehouses, and quarters for the men were erected. There were no large saws, and planks were hewn out of whole logs. The iron required was collected from wrecks in all parts of the colonies; steel for axes was procured in the same way. Having no tar, Baranoff used a mixture of spruce gum and oil.

Provisions were scarce, and no time was allowed for hunting or fishing. So severe were the hardships endured that no one but Baranoff could have kept up his courage and that of his suffering men, and cheered them on to final success.

The _Phoenix_--which was probably named for an English ship which had visited the Chugach Gulf in 1792--was built of spruce timber, and was seventy-three feet long. It was provided with two decks and three masts. The calking above the water-line was of moss. The sails were composed of fragments of canvas gathered from all parts of the colonies.

On her first voyage to Kadiak, the _Phoenix_ encountered a storm which brought disaster to her frail rigging; and instead of sailing proudly into harbor, as Baranoff had hoped, she was ignominiously towed in.

But she was the first vessel built in the colonies to enter that harbor in any fashion, and the Russian joy was great. The event was celebrated by solemn Mass, followed by high eating and higher drinking.

The _Phoenix_ was refitted and rerigged and sent out on her triumphal voyage to Okhotsk. There she arrived safely and proudly. She was received with volleys of artillery, the ringing of bells, the celebration of Mass, and great and joyous feasting.

A cabin and deck houses were added, the vessel was painted, and from that time until her loss in the Alaskan Gulf, the _Phoenix_ regularly plied the waters of Behring Sea and the North Pacific Ocean between Okhotsk and the Russian colonies in America.