Seward, Alaska

“ Eklutna—Fairbanks.—Since reaching Seward the almost incessant drizzles have ceased and the weather has been fine and pleasantly warm. Everything is green, grass is luxuriant, and there are many flowers.
The railroad journey is a regular scenic tour, with its crowning point a glorious view of Mount McKinley. The trains run only in the daytime. For the night a stop is made at a railroad hotel, in a quiet, picturesque location, at the edge of a good-sized river. They have foxes in cages here and a tame reindeer. There are no natives in this vicinity. ”

“ It rains and storms. But to-day we repaired the engine and we’re ready to start for Seward when it clears. Above every other thought now is the sad realization that our days on this beloved island are nearing an end. What is it that endears it so to a man near forty and a little boy of nine? We have such widely different outlooks upon life. It may be that Alaska stands midway between us, and that I, turning backward from the crowded world that I have known and learned to fear, meet Rockwell in his forward march from nothing—to this. ”

“ In the far-distant corners, hidden away from the eyes of man, one will come upon the scattered missions of the various churches to reach which one must journey thousands of miles! So, whenever a man from Nome speaks of Alaska he means that part of it which he himself knows,—the Seward Peninsula. The man from Cordova, [39] or Valdez, talks of the Prince William Sound country and calls it Alaska! The man from Juneau speaks of Alaska, but all that he means is the southeastern coast. This is why so much that is written of the country is contradictory. In fact, Alaska is not one but many countries! ”

“ There are many such lonely graves in Alaska, for scarce a winter passes that does not claim its victims in every section of the country. That same winter we heard of two men frozen on the Seward Peninsula, two on the Yukon, one on the Tanana, and one on the Valdez trail. ”

“ They touched at the Takou glacier and Fort Wrangell, went up the Stikine River to the mining camps on the bars near the boundary line, and last visited Fort Tongass. The adjoining village of Tongass Indians, with its many fine totem poles and curious houses, was very interesting to them, and the old chief Ebbitts paid great honors to the Tyee of all the Tyees. Mr. Seward carried away a large collection of Alaska curios and souvenirs, and his lavish purchases quite shook the curio markets of those days. ”

“ This afternoon late a small power boat appeared in the bay attempting to make its way toward Seward. After some progress the wind forced her steadily and swiftly back. When we last saw her she seemed to be trying to make the shelter of our island or one of the outer islands, the while driving steadily seaward. It’s a wild night to be out in the bay though doubtless calm at sea. It is such an adventure that we must be on our guard against. ”

“ It has grown very rapidly. Stumps still stand upon the business streets, and silver-barked log-cabins nestle modestly and picturesquely beside imposing buildings. The bank and the railway company have erected handsome homes. Every business and profession is represented. There are good schools and churches, an electric- [Pg 298] light plant, two newspapers, a library and hospital, progressive clubs, and all the modern luxuries of western towns.
When Mr. Seward was asked what he considered the most important measure of his political career, he replied, "The purchase of Alaska ”

“ The urging came from many, and Banks added in his high, tense key; "I guess we can stand it. Most of us saw the iron side of Alaska before we saw the golden."
"Well, then," Tisdale began reluctantly, "I must take you back a year. I was completing trail reconnaissance from the new Alaska Midway surveys in the Susitna Valley, through Rainy Pass, to connect with the mail route from the interior to Nome, and, to avoid returning another season, kept my party late in the field. It was the close of September when we struck Seward Peninsula and miserably cold, with gales sweeping in from Bering Sea. ”

“ Ruins of stone dwellings, without mortar, are said to exist in places on Norton Sound and Bay and on a lagoon near the western [Pg 183] end of the Seward Peninsula. The few houses on the Little Diomede are made of loose unhewn stone slabs. The dwellings of the King Islanders are built on the rocky slope of the island on platforms supported by poles, all of driftwood.
There is as a rule an absence of separate refuse heaps near the villages. The refuse apparently has been dumped about and between the houses rather than on separate piles.
Dead villages abound. ”

“ He has forty thousand head of reindeer in the Seward Peninsula, and they had to listen to him. We may get action.”
“May!” Captain Rifle grunted his doubt. “Alaska has been waiting ten years for a new deck and a new deal. I doubt if you’ll get anything. When politicians from Iowa and south Texas tell us what we can have and what we need north of Fifty-eight—why, what’s the use? Alaska might as well shut up shop!”
“But she isn’t going to do that,” said Alan Holt, his face grimly set in the moonlight. “They’ve tried hard to get us, and they’ve made us shut up a lot of our doors. ”

“ There is a good wharf and a safe harbor; the bay extends inland eighteen miles, is completely land-locked, and is kept free of ice the entire year, as is the Bay of Valdez and Cook Inlet, by the Japan current.
It is estimated that the Alaska Central Railway will cost, when completed to Fairbanks, at least twenty-five millions of dollars. Several branches will be extended into different and important mining regions.
The road has a general maximum grade of one per cent. The Coast Range is crossed ten miles from Seward, at an elevation of only seven hundred feet. ”

“ They call for early attention.
To the west of Norton Bay, on the southern coast of Seward Peninsula, is Golovnin [64] Bay. On the eastern shore of this bay are now, as there were in Russian times, two settlements, but the name of one has been misplaced. On Zagoskin's map it is clearly seen that the village Ching or Chinig corresponds in location to what now is the mission, while what is now called "Cheenik" was in 1840 Ikalik or Ikalikhaig. ”

“ Aft of the smoking-room he paused, tipping the ash of his cigar over the edge of the rail. A little group of three stood near him, and he recognized them as the young engineers, fresh from college, going up to work on the government railroad running from Seward to Tanana. One of them was talking, filled with the enthusiasm of his first adventure.
“I tell you,” he said, “people don’t know what they ought to know about Alaska. In school they teach us that it’s an eternal icebox full of gold, and is headquarters for Santa Claus, because that’s where reindeer come from. ”

“ Seven million two hundred thousand dollars for a field of stony mountain, icebergs and glaciers! Had Seward gone mad? Ah, no. He builded wiser than he knew. Alaska is nine times the size of the New England States and cost less than one-half cent per acre.
The northwest coast of Alaska was discovered and explored by a Russian expedition under Behring, in 1741. Russian settlements were made and the fur trade developed.
The climate is no colder than at St. Petersburg and many other parts of Russia. The warm Japan current sweeps the coast and tempers the climate. ”

“ Yes, it was in Alaska and about five years ago. The season I gave up getting rich in a hurry and went back to geological work. I had spent the winter on the Tanana with David Weatherbee. We had staked a promising placer, and we were ready to begin sluicing with the first spring thaw, when he sold his interest unexpectedly to meet an obligation down in the States. That nettled me, and I sold out my own share to the same men and accepted a position with the department, who had written to ask me to take charge of a party working above Seward. ”

“ Since the loftiest and noblest peak of North America was doomed to be named for a man, it should have borne the name of this dauntless, loyal, and far-seeing friend of Alaska and of all America. Since this was not to be, it was very fitting that a young and ambitious town on the historic Voskressenski Harbor should bear this honored and forever-to-be-remembered name. If Seward and Valdez would but work together, the region extending from Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet would soon become the best known and the most influential of Alaska, as it is, with the addition of the St. ”

“ The exception in favor of natives, miners, and explorers must be construed strictly. It must not be used merely as a pretext to kill game out of season, for sport or for market, or to supply canneries or settlements; and, under no circumstances, can the hides or heads of animals thus killed be lawfully offered for sale.
Every person who has travelled in Alaska knows that these laws are violated daily. An amusing incident occurred on the Dora, on the first morning "to Westward" from Seward. Far be it from me to eat anything that is forbidden; but I had seen fried moose steak in Seward. ”

“ It has been so changeable to-day that we are still uncertain of Olson’s intentions. We snowshoed down the beach in the beautiful, soft, new snow so at least to have a look toward Seward. There lay the bay calm and beautiful—and spotless. The scale of things is so tremendous here that I’ve little idea how far we shall be able to see the little, bobbing boat when it does come.
We sawed a lot of wood to-day bringing our pile clear up into the gable peak. It becomes a mania seeing the pile grow. In quiet weather we cut to forestall the storm ”

“ The Russians in time came to call the country itself Alashka; the peninsula, Aliaska; and the island, Unalashka. Alaska is an English corruption of the original name.
A great Russian moved under inspiration when he sent Vitus Behring out to discover and explore the continent lying to the eastward; two great Americans—Seward and Sumner—were inspired when, nearly a century and a half later, they saved for us, in the face of the bitterest opposition, scorn, and ridicule, the country that Behring discovered and which is now coming to be recognized as the most glorious possession of any people ”

“ However, even the males tend to differ. Both sexes show absolutely a somewhat broader skull than that of the northerners; in both sexes the skull, as seen from the cranial module, is slightly larger in the Seward Peninsula series than in either of the other groups; but the principal differences are seen in the face, which in the Seward Peninsula group is perceptibly larger and especially higher than it is in either the Igloo or the Greenland series. The orbits also in the southerners are larger and the nose is slightly higher. ”

“ The State that had been so potent for compromise was at last the battle-ground itself, and the places selected for the various debates of Lincoln and Douglas marked the strongholds and the outposts of the antagonistic forces.
At this time the kinship of western New York and the dominant element in the Northwest was clearly revealed. Speaking for the anti-slavery forces at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1860, Seward said: "The Northwest is by no means so small as you may think it. I speak to you because I feel that I am, and during all my mature life have been, one of you. ”

“ The first call at port after Prince Rupert is at Ketchikan, seven hundred miles from Seattle, with a population of some two thousand people, the distributing point for the mines and fisheries of Southern Alaska. On its crescent-shaped harbour and with its eternal guard of mountains, with its lake and its falls and its wonderful gorge, three miles distant into the woodlands, it is a picturesque town, and with its electric lighting and steam heating it leaves little to be desired for comfortable residence. ”

“ Yet my heart always turns to review the early scenes of settlement and civilization in Seward county with a peculiar thrill of personal emotion and special joy in the risen and rising fortunes of those who there built the foundations of a great commonwealth. No land can be dearer than the land of one's childhood and none can ever draw my thoughts further over plain or ocean than the happy valley upon West Blue whose waters spring spontaneously from beneath the soil to water her fortunate acres. ”

“ Tonight it was probable that no woman in the world could have interested him, except as the always casual observer of humanity. Another and greater thing gripped him and had thrilled him since he first felt the throbbing pulse of the engines of the new steamship Nome under his feet at Seattle. He was going home. And home meant Alaska. It meant the mountains, the vast tundras, the immeasurable spaces into which civilization had not yet come with its clang and clamor. It meant friends, the stars he knew, his herds, everything he loved. ”

“ The most sanguine do not expect to see Alaska enter the sisterhood of States during this century, but they claim with reason that southeastern Alaska will develop so rapidly that it will become necessary to make it a separate Territory with full and complete form of government, and skeleton rule be confined to the dreary and inhospitable regions of the Yukon mainland. ”

“ The United States took charge of the islands and the fisheries. Natives may kill annually only enough seals to provide themselves with food and clothing. The destruction of the herds was thus halted by the government and in 1912 the census revealed two hundred and fifteen thousand, nine hundred and forty seals.
From the sale of fox furs and seal skins the government has derived during the last twenty-five years a direct revenue almost covering the total purchase price of Alaska. There are approximately twenty thousand white people in the [136] territory. ”