Sitka, Alaska

“ Sitka Sound is fourteen miles long and from five to eight wide. It is more exquisitely islanded than any other bay in the world; and after passing the site of Baranoff's first settlement and Old Sitka Rocks, the steamer's course leads through a misty emerald maze. Sweeping [Pg 152] slowly around the green shore of one island, a dozen others dawn upon the beholder's enraptured vision, frequently appearing like a solid wall of green, which presently parts to let the steamer slide through,—when, at once, another dazzling vista opens to the view. ”

“ This fort is the present Sitka. Its establishment enabled the Russian-American Company to extend its operations to the islands lying southward and along the continental shore.
We now come to the most fascinating portion of the history of Alaska. Not even the wild and romantic days of gold excitement in the Klondike can equal Baranoff's reign at Sitka for picturesqueness and mysterious charm. The strength and personality of the man were such that to-day one who is familiar with his life and story, entering Sitka, will unconsciously feel his presence ”

“ At a first look Sitka wears the air and dignity of a town with a history, and can reflect upon the brilliant good old days of Russian rule, to which fifteen years of American occupancy have only given more lustre by contrast. ”

“ As missionary and governor, Mr. Brady has devoted many years to this splendid country; and the distressful troubles into which he has fallen of late, through no fault of his own, can never make a grateful people forget his unselfish work for the up-building and the civilization of Alaska. [Pg 218]
To-day, Sitka is idyllic. Her charm is too poetic and too elusive to be described in prose. A greater contrast than she presents to such hustling, commercial towns as Juneau, Valdez, Cordova, and Katalla, could scarcely be conceived. To drift into the harbor of Sitka is like entering another world. ”

“ Sitka is one of the oldest settlements on the northwest coast, and was the Russian headquarters. (See Sitka.) It is now the judicial and official centre of the territory; but owing to its distance from important mines, fisheries, etc., had a population in 1900 of only 1396. Larger and more active is the gold mining town of Juneau, at the entrance of Taku Inlet, which is the centre of a fairly permanent population of about 3000, At the head of Taku Inlet is Skagway, the seaport of the White Pass Railway, with a population of about 1500. ”

“ SITKA—AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. For a town of its size, strange, old, tumble-down, moss-grown Sitka has had an eventful history from first to last. Claiming this northwestern part of America by right of the discoveries made by Behring and others in the last century, the Russians soon sent out colonies from Siberia. ”

“ South of Sitka the bay is indented with many inlets, and ten miles below the town are the Hot Springs, destined to again become a resort and sanitarium, when Sitka regains the size and importance of old. The springs are situated in a beautiful bay, and the waters, impregnated with iron, sulphur, and magnesia, are efficacious in cases of rheumatism and skin diseases. The Russian Fur Company erected a hospital there for its employees, but in late years only the Indians, occasional hunters, and prospectors have patronized the springs to any extent. ”

“ Fairweather Outings, a small cruise business based in Sitka, Alaska, takes people on wilderness excursions in the west Chichagof-Glacier Bay area of the southeastern part of the State. The seabird rookeries are one of the principal attractions for the 90 people taking these trips each year. Over one-third of the clientele has been from outside Alaska; thus their dollars are new dollars to the State's economy. ”

“ The outspread wings measured the traditional six feet from tip to tip, and the beak, the claws, and the stiff feathers were rapidly seized upon as trophies and souvenirs of the day. A broad, double rainbow arched over us as we left the lovely niche between the mountains in the evening, and then we swept back to Icy Straits and started out to the open ocean, and down the coast to Sitka, having a glimpse, on the way, of the vast glacier at the head of Taylor Bay, that Vancouver and his men visited while his ships lay at anchor in Port Althorp, just west of our Idaho Inlet. ”

“ After Sitka, the most important settlement in the Territory, is Fort Wrangell. It is beautifully situated at the mouth of the Stickhin River, where there is an excellent and capacious harbor, surrounded by imposing mountains. The town consists of rather more than 100 houses, and includes about 500 permanent inhabitants. There are two or three large stores for the sale of goods to the natives and for the purchase of furs and other natural products, as well as the quaint [Pg 392] manufactures of the Indians. There is also a flourishing industrial school for the Indian girls. ”

“ The Sitka and the 183Stikine kwans seem to affiliate most, but visits from members of all the tribes make the Sitka rancherie an aborigine metropolis. Busybodies and cosmopolitans, like Sitka Jack, live all over the archipelago, and it was this roaming propensity that gave the military forces so much trouble during garrison days at Sitka. The land forces could do nothing with the scornful Indians in their light kanims, and when the order was given to let no Indian leave the rancherie, they snapped their fingers at the challenging and forbidding sentries, and paddled away at their pleasure. ”

“ Looking inland are the glacier-clad summits of the interior mountains, Vostovia predominating, where few people, even among the Indians of the country, have ever been. Taking all its surroundings, it may be well said, as has been written, that Sitka Bay rivals in scenic beauty its nearest counterpart, the far-famed Bay of Naples. Near Sitka comes in a beautiful mountain stream called the Indian river. A most picturesque road leads out to this rambling brook, and a less frequented trail winds up its valley ”

“ SITKA, ALASKA.
Leaving Killisnoo, we cross Chatham Strait almost at right angles to its [Pg 73] course (or due west) , here about ten miles wide, and enter Peril Straits, about thirty-five miles long. They sweep boldly to the north in a great arc, and, like all winding and rapidly and alternately widening and narrowing of the inland channels, they are extremely picturesque, more from the contrast of different scenes so swiftly changed before one's eyes, than from anything radically new so presented. ”

“ A grand salt-water river it is that stretches from Puget Sound, itself a beautiful sheet of water, to our distant colony of Alaska, a good round thousand miles, and whose waters are as quiet as an Alpine lake, even though a fierce gale rage on the broad Pacific outside.
Beyond the parallel of Sitka, though the grand scenery may be no more imposing than that through which the tourist will have passed in coming from Washington Territory, he will find some of the curiosities of nature which are to be found only in the dreaded frigid zones,—icebergs and glaciers. ”

“ A brief account of Sitka will be found in Franchère, note 68. Sitka and New Archangel were identical. Sitka was destroyed by the Indians in 1802 and in 1804 a post called New Archangel, was built at the same place. It is situated on Sitka Sound, Baranoff Island, in latitude 57° north. St. Paul is on the north-east shore of Kadiak Island, off the coast of Alaska, in latitude 58°.—Ed.
87. Astor felt that he had been cheated in the transfer of Astoria, and charged McDougal with betraying his interests. ”

“ She tells us that the winters at Sitka are milder than those in New York, while the summers are delightfully cool and temperate. Some of the grandest scenery of the continent is to be found along the Alaska coast, in the region of the Alexander or Sitkan Archipelago, and the monthly mail steamer is crowded with tourists during the summer season. It is one of the easiest and most delightful trips to go up the coast by the inside passage and cruise through the archipelago ”

“ Most of the houses of Sitka are heavy log dwellings, some of which are clapboarded outside and smoothly finished within. In the winter 300season about a thousand Indians live here, the white population being composed of the usual government officials and agents, with a few storekeepers engaged in the fur traffic and general trade with the aborigines. Four or five hundred miners and prospectors gather here also in the winter, when it becomes too cold to prosecute their calling far inland, where the thermometer often falls to 20° below zero. ”

“ No man, of whatsoever material he may be made, nor howsoever insensible to the influence of beauty he may deem himself to be, could dwell for twenty years in Sitka without finding, when it came to leaving her, that the tendrils of her loveliness had twined themselves so closely about his heart that their breaking could only be accomplished by the breaking of the heart itself. ”

“ Sitka is the see of a Greek Catholic and of a Protestant Episcopal bishop. In its early history it was the leading trading post of Alaska. After the discoveries of gold in the last decade of the 19th century it wholly lost its commercial primacy, but business improved after the discovery of gold in 1905 on Chicagoff Island, about 50 m. distant. There is a very slight lumber industry; salmon fisheries are of greater importance. ”

“ In the latter, Sitka Jack has a summer-house as well as at Fort Wrangell, but, instead of finding this potentate at home, his door was locked, and the neighbors said that he had gone up to Chilkat for the salmon fishing. On one of the largest houses in the village was the sign: “Klow-kek, Auke Chief.” Over another doorway was written:
“Jake is a good boy, a working man,
Friend of the whites, and demands protection.” The Indians came from both villages and huddled in groups on the wharf. ”

“ An eccentric old lady, who writes blank-verse letters to the President and the Secretary of the Navy when things go wrong in Sitka, spent some weeks in solitude at the springs one summer, and was highly indignant when the naval commander sent down and insisted upon her return to the settlement, as they were all alarmed for her safety. The lazy Indians who go to the springs are said to sit in the pools of warm water all night, rather than gather the wood for a camp-fire, and they have great faith in the powers of the medicated waters. ”

“ Sitka, the capital of Alaska, sleeps, save when she is awakened for a day or two by the arrival of a steamer-load of tourists. Fort Wrangell, the premature offspring of a gold rumor, died, but rose again from the dead when the lust of gold turned the human tide toward the Klondike. Juneau, the metropolis, was the only settlement that showed any signs of vigor before the Klondike day; and she lived a not over-lively village life on the strength of the mines on Douglas Island, across the narrow straits. ”

“ He visited all the points in the archipelago, fought the great naval battle of Kootznahoo, and cruised off to the settlements on the Aleutian Islands. Peace and order reigned in the rancherie at Sitka, the Indians and miners of Juneau were chastised when they deserved it, and protected in what few rights they or any one had in the abandoned territory, and crooked traders and distillers of hoochinoo had an unfortunate time of it. ”

“ John G. Brady, United States commissioner at Sitka, writes from there as follows: “Though Alaska is no agricultural country, yet there is plenty of land for growing vegetables for a vast population which can be easily cleared and cultivated. The food of this coast is assured unless the Pacific current changes and rain ceases. Perhaps there is not another spot on the globe where the same number of people do so little manual labor and are so well fed as in Sitka.” ”

“ The capital is Sitka, on Baranof Island, a city founded by the Russian Governor of that name in 1799, and the oldest town in Alaska. The sale of liquor to the natives is governed by special regulations. From 1867 to 30 June, 1903, the Government revenues amounted to $9,555,909, of which $7,597,331 were paid in as a tax on fur seals, and $528,558 as customs.
VI. Education.—The pupils are under the official supervision of a United States general agent for education in Alaska, who resides in Washington. In 1905, there were fifty-one public schools, with sixty-two teachers and 3,083 pupils. ”

“ The portion of the country which is at present visited by excursionists is the southeastern coast line and the archipelago of the Sitkan Islands or Alexander group. If one desires to reach the vast country and islands lying to the west and northwest, the proper way to do so is to sail direct from San Francisco for Unalaska and Kodiak. The last named island lies south of Cook’s Inlet, one of the most remarkable volcanic regions in the Territory. Sitka is five hundred and fifty miles to the eastward of Kodiak. ”

“ They dare not go to the salmon-streams or berry-fields for winter supplies, and if this war goes on much longer most of my people will die of hunger. We have fought long enough; let us make peace. You brave Sitka warriors go home, and we will go home, and we will all set out to dry salmon and berries before it is too late.”
The Sitka chief replied:—
“You may well say let us stop fighting, when you have had the best of it. You have killed ten more of my tribe than we have killed of yours. Give us ten Stickeen men to balance our blood-account ”

“ There are a plenty of domestic cattle at Sitka, where we partook of as sweet and rich milk as can be produced on our 302choice dairy farms at the East. The southern portions of the Territory, both the islands and the mainland, are better adapted to support a civilized white population than are the larger portions of Norway and Sweden. It may be doubted if there is anything finer in color than the June greenery of Sitka. ”