CHAPTER XI
Enormous Slaughter of Seals. – Manner of Killing. – Battles between the Bulls. – A Mythical Island. – The Seal as Food. – The Sea-Otter. – A Rare and Valuable Fur. – The Baby Sea-Otter. – Great Breeding-Place of Birds. – Banks of the Yukon River. – Fur-Bearing Land Animals. – Aggregate Value of the Trade. – Character of the Native Race.
Surgeon J. B. Parker tells us in a published article upon the fur-seals of Alaska, that just previous to the transfer of the country to this government five hundred thousand sealskins were being taken from these islands annually, though it was pretended by the Russians that they restricted the number to one quarter of this total. The strange instinct of the animals which causes them to return yearly in such marvelous numbers to be slaughtered is a mystery difficult to solve. Persistent cruelty exercised towards them for a century has not disturbed their affection for this chosen breeding-place of their ancestors in Behring Sea.
The seals are universally killed by a sharp blow upon the head from a club, which fractures the skull and produces instant death. The natives are so skillful in dealing this blow that a second one is not necessary, and the seal cannot reasonably be supposed to suffer any pain, so that the operation is robbed of all cruel features. The frequent battles fought between the old bulls to maintain possession of their chosen ground and their harems are represented to be of the fiercest character, sometimes ending in the death of one of the combatants, though they are so very hardy and tenacious of life that this is by no means common. The breeding season is at its height in the middle of July. Early in September, the pups having learned to swim, the “rookeries” are gradually broken up for the season, old and young departing together for the deep-sea feeding grounds, nothing being seen of them again as a body until the following May or June. It is quite a mystery as to where they go, but that they promptly disperse in various directions seems most probable, as no seals are met with in large numbers by navigators of the Pacific or the South Seas, and they only land for breeding purposes. The author has seen a few in the month of March off the Samoan group of islands, also in the month of December near the coast of Cochin China. And again, in crossing the Indian Ocean from Bombay to the mouth of the Red Sea, in February, an occasional head of the fur-seal would appear above the surface of the ocean, showing how widely dispersed these animals are. There is a theory which has long existed, to the effect that when the seals depart from Behring Sea they seek a lonely island group in the central Pacific Ocean, somewhere between 53° and 55° north latitude, and longitude 160° to 170° west, where they pass their winter months in peace and plenty. Expeditions have been fitted out at San Francisco for the purpose of discovering these possible islands, but no one has ever seen them. Those most conversant with seal-life do not entertain this supposition, and for good reasons. If any such land existed in the region designated it would surely have been discovered, as it is too near the direct track of commerce not to have been sighted long ago.
The flesh of the fur-seal is eaten by the natives, and the blubber also serves for fuel, as well as furnishing a much-used oil. The stench of the burning fat is extremely disgusting to one not accustomed to it. There is but little lean meat on the animal; nearly the whole body is composed of blubber. The whites eat the flesh of the young seal, which is not unpalatable when properly prepared, and is called Alaska pork. When the females arrive at the “rookeries,” like the old males, they are in remarkably good flesh, so much so, indeed, as to render locomotion difficult; but though they do not fast like the bulls, they nevertheless become quite thin by the end of the season.
St. George and St. Paul islands contain about three hundred and fifty Aleuts, whose sole business is killing and skinning the seals, and afterwards salting and packing the pelts for shipment. They are all in the regular employment of the Commercial Company, which leases the islands. By the terms of the lease from our government, only natives of the Aleutian group of islands can be employed to kill the seals; no whites except the overseers are permitted to remain on the two islands. An agent of the United States occasionally visits them to see that the spirit of the lease is faithfully adhered to; otherwise they are quite isolated from the outer world. Under the protective system, which is presumedly adhered to, the number of seals is said to be on the increase, and the space on the shores which they occupy is enlarged yearly. It has been officially estimated, after actual inspection, that over one million seals are born on these islands every year. It is asserted that double the number of pelts now authorized could safely be taken from the Pribyloff group annually, and it would certainly seem so, when this extraordinary fecundity is realized. But it must also be taken into consideration that man is not the only enemy which the fur-seal has to encounter. When the young ones leave the shore to begin their deep-sea life, they become the prey of many marine cormorants, among which the shark is said to be the most active. This tiger of the ocean does not attack the large, full-grown seals, who are too wary and active for him, but the young ones often fill his capacious maw.
The aborigines employed upon the seal islands do not reach a very old age; persons of over fifty years are seldom found among them. Consumption is the most fatal disease which they encounter; this runs its course with singular speed after being once contracted. All attempts of the physicians are in vain; the patient, falling into a condition of hopeless indifference, soon passes away. We were told that the natives of Alaska generally were very difficult to treat medically, ignoring the benefit of medicines, and generally refusing to take them. These semi-savages will not hesitate to resort to incantations to exorcise evil spirits (or disease, which to them is the same thing), but they fear to use the white man’s agent to remove these evil influences.
For a number of years the manufacture of oil from seal blubber was followed by the fur company with profit, thus disposing of the carcasses of the animals whose skin had been removed; but oil-making on the seal islands has been discontinued, as being no longer a paying business.
The sea-otter is a large animal, having fine, close black fur, sprinkled with long, white-tipped hairs, which strongly individualize it and add much to its beauty. Its pelt is used mostly for trimming, being both too heavy and too expensive for making up into entire garments. The size of a full-grown skin is about four feet in length by about two and a half wide. It is a solitary marine animal, never seen in numbers, rarely even with a mate, and is extremely shy, demanding great patience and shrewdness in the hunter to insure its capture. This animal rarely lands except to bring forth its young, and the natives say that it sometimes gives birth to its progeny on floating sedge or kelp at sea. Of this material the ingenious creature makes a sort of buoyant nest, according to the natives’ ideas. When sleeping, it floats upon its back, carrying its young clasped to its body in a ludicrously human fashion. The Indians hunt the animals by going out a considerable distance to sea in their frail canoes, and watching for the appearance of the otter’s nose above the water, they paddle silently towards it so as not to disturb the game. At the proper moment the well-balanced and delicate lance is thrown with unerring aim. A careful watch is then kept for the reappearance of the otter, which must soon come to the surface to breathe, being a warm-blooded, respiratory animal. A second lance is pretty sure to disable the otter, when it floats helpless on the surface, falling an easy prey to the pursuer. At times six or eight natives in single canoes join in the hunt, so as to form a broad circle; the nearest one to the otter when he rises after being wounded is the one to throw the second lance. The hunters obtain from the local traders between forty and fifty dollars for a full-grown otter skin, and sometimes double that amount, so that if successful in the pursuit they are well rewarded for many hours of patient watchfulness, aside from which they realize a keen enjoyment in the pursuit as sportsmen.
The hunters oftenest pursue their game alone, and if a native secures an otter after a whole week of watching he feels well repaid, though during that time he has lived on a scanty supply of food, and has slept nightly in the open air exposed to the rain. Sometimes his watch is kept in his boat upon the sea, and sometimes among the rocks on the shore, in a bay where the otters are known to resort occasionally. A few years of such rough life and exposure ages even an Alaskan Indian, and it is not surprising that rheumatism and consumption should so prevail among them. Up to a certain stage such a life may harden the hunter, but the turning-point comes at last, and when the native begins to fail in physical strength he does so rapidly; simply giving way to the first attack, rejecting all medicine which the white man may offer, and unless he is an important member of his tribe, a chief or a leader of some sort, even the shaman or medicine man with his incantations is not called in. Good nursing is discarded, the invalid considers it to be his fate to die, and seems to go half way to meet the grim destroyer.
The fur of the sea-otter varies in beauty of texture and value according to the animal’s age and the season of the year in which it is captured. They are considered to be in their prime when about five years old, and those skins which are taken in winter are always of a more beautiful texture than those which are secured in summer. Of all animals hunted by man it is most on the alert, and, as we have said, most difficult to obtain. One intelligent statement declares that before they were so systematically hunted eight thousand skins were shipped from Alaska in a single year, but we believe that from four to five thousand otter skins would be considered a good twelve months’ yield in these days. The Saanack islets and reefs are the principal resort of these animals on the coast, and hither the natives come from long distances to hunt them, camping on the main island. Frequent attempts have been made to rear the young sea-otter, specimens being often taken when the mother is captured, but they always perish by starvation, never partaking of food after being separated from the mother; a well-known fact, which was referred to with not a little sentiment by the experienced hunter who related the circumstance to us. “Him die of broke heart,” said the native, attempting an expression of tenderness upon his egg-shaped features, which proved a ludicrous caricature. We saw a stuffed specimen of a young sea-otter in a native cabin at Juneau, consisting of the skin only, but very cleverly mounted and preserved by the hunter who had captured its mother.
It is somewhat singular that the world’s supply of otter fur, like that of sealskin, comes almost entirely from the coast of Alaska, in the North Pacific and Behring Sea. Otter fur may be said to be almost confined in its geographical distribution to the northwest shores of America.
The successful pursuit of the animal, so far as the natives are concerned, is of even more importance than that of the fur-seals, for contingent upon its chase, and from the proceeds of its pelts, some five thousand natives are enabled to live in comparative luxury. It requires, as we have shown, great energy, hardihood, and patient application to effect its capture, but the sea-otter is a most beneficent gift of Providence to these aborigines, and administers, as well, to the pride of the fashionable world. The natives in former times attached great importance to preparing themselves for hunting the sea-otter, fasting, bathing, and performing certain mystic rites before embarking for the purpose. After his return from a successful hunt the Aleut was accustomed to destroy the garments which he wore during the expedition, throwing them into the sea, so that the otters might find them and come to the conclusion that their late persecutor had been drowned and there was no further danger in frequenting the shore. This practice, ridiculous as it seems to us, serves to illustrate the superstitious character of the Alaskan natives, who seldom fail to see omens in the most trifling every-day occurrences.
The interior and northern parts of Alaska are the greatest breeding-places for birds in the world, being the resort of innumerable flocks, which come from various parts of this continent, and others which make the tropical islands their home a large portion of the year on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of America. These myriads of the feathered tribes consist largely of geese, ducks, and swans, coming hither for nesting, and to fatten upon the wild salmon berries, red and black currants, cranberries, blackberries, bilberries, and the like, which greatly abound during the brief but intense Arctic summer. There are eleven kinds of edible berries which mature in August, among which the wild strawberries are the finest flavored we have ever eaten. It is said that the geese especially become so fat feeding upon the plentiful supply of wholesome food that at the close of the season they can hardly fly, and are thus easily caught by the natives, who, in turn, feast luxuriously upon their tender and succulent flesh. Explorers tell us that they have seen on the banks of the Yukon – the great river of central Alaska, and the third in magnitude in America – the breeding-place of the canvas-back ducks, which has been heretofore a matter of some mystery. They prepare on the banks of this northern watercourse broad platforms of sedge, mingled with small twigs and bushes, laid compactly on marshy places, and without building a carefully arranged nest deposit their eggs in untold numbers. That keen and scientific observer, the late Major Kennicott, says he saw on the banks of the Yukon acres of marshy ground thus covered with the eggs of the canvas-back ducks, in numbers defying computation. “The region drained by the Upper Yukon is spoken of by explorers,” says Mr. Charles Hallock, editor of “Forest and Stream,” “as being a perfect Eden, where flowers bloom, beneficent plants yield their berries and fruits, majestic trees spread their umbrageous fronds, and song-birds make the branches vocal. The water of the streams is pure and pellucid; the blue of the rippled lake is like Geneva’s; their banks resplendent with verdure, and with grass and shining pebbles.”
At the first approach of winter the augmented millions of birds take flight for the low latitudes, or their homes in the temperate zone, the old birds accompanied by the broods which they have hatched in the solitudes of the far north. Those which have come from the neighborhood of the Caribbean Sea turn in their flight unerringly in that direction; those from the South Pacific islands heading as surely for that tropical region. Only the ptarmigan and the Arctic owl, with a few of the white-hawk family, remain to brave the winter cold of northern Alaska, with the hardy Eskimo, the walrus, and the polar bear. The smaller tribes of birds are well represented here in the summer season, even including several species of swallows, martins, and sparrows, these tiny creatures seeming to follow some general bird instinct. Even the domestic robin is seen as far north as Sitka. Limited scientific research has recognized and classified one hundred and ninety-two different kinds of birds which are found in this Territory, a considerable number of which were unknown to science previous to 1867.
We have said nothing relative to the hair-seals, or sea-lions, of Alaska, because their importance is comparatively insignificant, having no commercial value. Nevertheless, they are utilized by the ingenious natives in various ways; the hides serve as a covering for a certain class of boats, made with wooden frames, and are also employed for several domestic purposes. The walrus is found in largest numbers on the north coast, in the true Arctic region, affording some valuable oil, together with considerable ivory, in carving which the natives are very expert. Though the fur-trade of the land is by no means equal to that of the sea, still its aggregate results are very considerable. It employs numerous hunters and gives profitable business to many white traders, nearly all of whom make a permanent home in the Territory. Undoubtedly the most prolific and valuable fur-yielding district on the mainland is the valley of the Yukon, where the beaver, marten, several kinds of bears, with the wolf and fox, afford the best fur. We saw at the principal store in Wrangel many packages of bearskins prepared for shipment to San Francisco. These packages would average five hundred dollars each in value, and had been gathered from those brought in by the natives during the two weeks intervening between the arrival of the regular steamers. Single bearskins sell here, according to their marketable character, for from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars each. The natives make little or no use of these skins, preferring the woolen blanket of commerce. The red and cross fox is found everywhere in the Territory, and its skin is comparatively cheap. It is singular that the blue fox is found only on the islands of St. Paul, St. George, Attoo, and Atkha, while the white fox is to be sought only at the far north. There is also the black fox, which, however, is a great rarity, thought to be an occasional accident of nature; the skins always bring extravagant prices from the traders. The black fox is not found in any special locality, but occurs now and again in any part of the Territory. The skin of the silver fox is also highly prized, and proves a valuable peltry to the native hunters, forty dollars each being the usual price paid by the white traders. Only a few hundred are taken yearly. The land-otter and the beaver so abound as to make up a large total value annually. The latest official records show that there has been produced and shipped from Alaska annually an average of fifty-seven thousand beaver skins; eighteen thousand land-otter skins; seventy-one thousand foxes’ skins of the various sorts; and of musk-rats two hundred and twenty-one thousand. These figures should be largely added to in each instance (we were told by one official that this aggregate estimate should be doubled), in order to include the unregistered pelts which are annually secured by various hunters, both whites and natives, and which find their way to distant markets through irregular channels, more especially over the borders of British Columbia.
This fur-trade is open to all, but requires capital, organization, and persistency to make it profitable. The natives do nearly all of the hunting and trapping, and will only engage in it, as a rule, to supply themselves with means to procure certain luxuries from the trader’s store, such as sugar, tea, and tobacco. We are sorry to add to these comparative necessities the article of whiskey, which is only too often furnished illicitly to the eager natives. When these wants are supplied they idle away their time until stimulated once more by their necessities to go upon the trail of the fur-bearing animals. Of course there are some exceptions to this, many of them being steady and willing workers, but we speak of the average native. There is no fear of the supply of furs being exhausted under this system of capture; even a combined and vigorous effort on the part of the hunters could not accomplish that in many years. Unlike our western Indians, these Alaskans are a comparatively thrifty race, entirely self-sustaining, and never require support from the government, notwithstanding idleness is their besetting sin, as is, indeed, characteristic of uncivilized people everywhere.
We were told of several of these aborigines who had learned the lesson of thrift from the whites to such good effect as to have saved sums of money varying from one to five hundred dollars, which they had deposited in the Savings Bank of San Francisco, and upon which they drew their annual interest; an investment, the safety and economy of which they fully appreciated.