Sitka

“ It is a link to connect the Sitka of the past, the Novo Arkangelsk of the great Russian American Company in the romantic days of the fur trade when it was the center of the vast domain of Russian America and gathered to its magazines the pelts of sea-otter and fox, with the Sitka of today with its fisheries and mines. The old landmarks are fast disappearing, scarce a year passes without some monument passing away, and even their location will soon be forgotten unless some record is made for those who do not know where they stood. ”

“ Katleanski Bay, on which was situated Old Sitka; Silver Bay, a Norwegian fjord transplanted to Alaska; Lisianski Bay, named for the Russian navigator of a century ago; the inlet at Ozerskoe Redoubt and Globokoe (Deep) Lake; the island-studded way to the Hot Springs; each with its individual charm; the ocean, with the deep, rich, marine tints of northern waters; the forest of blue, that folds like a robe over the mountains; the mountain summits beside the glaciers, clad in the exquisitely wonderful green of the Northland, all are delightful. ”

“ SITKA CHARLEY
Um good woman.
MRS. EPPINGWELL
(With an angry movement of arm and clenching of hand.)
Oh!
SITKA CHARLEY
(Looking surprised and getting stubborn.) Me know Freda long time—two years. Um good woman. Um tongue speak true. Um just like you, no afraid. Um just like you, travel Long Trail with me. No afraid, very soft heart; sorry for dogs; no ride on sled when dogs tired. Um tired, but um walk. And um tongue straight; all the time speak true. I am Sitka Charley—I know. ”

“ The old Russian town of Sitka, the most northern on the Pacific coast, she describes as a straggling, peaceful sort of town, edging along shore at the foot of high mountains, and sheltered from the surge and turmoil of the ocean by a sea-wall of rocky, pine-covered islands. The moss has grown greener and thicker on the roofs of the solid old wooden houses that are relics of Russian days, the paint has worn thinner everywhere, and a few more houses tumbling into ruins complete the scenes of picturesque decay. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Tears coursed down the great man's weather-beaten cheeks. "I am a nobleman; but Sitka is lost! I do not care to live; I will go and either die or restore the possessions of my august benefactor."
Then back came Baranof to Sitka on his errand of vengeance, with three hundred bidarkas and six small Russian ships, to be almost wrecked in Sitka Sound. Here he was joined by the Neva just out from Kronstadt, the first to carry the Russian flag around the world.
Upon the hill where Sitka stands to-day, the Indians had built a fort of logs piled around with tangled brush. ”

“ In life one must always take exactly what it offers, and neither refuse its goods nor ask for more, either in addition or exchange. Sitka would give me something, but perhaps not a picture as I had hoped.
I looked at her in silence for some seconds, musing on her curious beauty.
"I shall call you 'Sitkar-i-buccheesh,'" I said after a minute.
Suzee looked frightened and made a rapid pass over her head.
"What is that?" she asked. "It sounds a devil's name."
"It only means the gift of Sitka," I answered. "This city has given you to me, has it not? or it will," I added in a lower tone. ”

“ From prehistoric time this has been the home of the Sitka Kwan of the Thlingit people. For sixty-three years it was the scene of the chief activities of the Russian American Company, who represented the rule of the Muscovites, who, when Chicago was but a blockhouse in a sedgy swamp on the banks of a sluggish, reedy river, and when San Francisco was but a mission and a Presidio of sun-burned bricks, maintained in Sitka a community of busy people who were casting cannon and bells, and who were building ships for commerce. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The American soldiers were quartered in the barracks of the Siberian Battalion, and the sentries of the United States walked the beats of the Russian guards. Sitka gradually adjusted itself to the new conditions, to the crowds of adventurers who thronged its streets seeking a profit in speculations in lands and furs. They were doomed to disappointment, for the titles to lands were withheld and the fur trade was overdone, so most of the newly arrived drifted away as they came. Distinguished visitors came and were entertained in the old castle where the Commandant dispensed hospitality. ”

“ 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; then, and not till then, will we make peace and go home.”
“Very well,” replied the Stickeen chief, “you know my rank. You know that I am worth ten common men and more. Take me and make peace.”
This noble offer was promptly accepted; the Stickeen chief stepped forward and was shot down in sight of the fighting bands. ”

“ But a madness came upon me, and I threw the well-filled pouch from me, and swore that my trail had reached an end, till her tired eyes grew soft with tears, and she said: ‘Among men has Sitka Charley walked in honor, and ever has his word been true. Does he forget that honor now, and talk vain words by the Caribou Crossing? Does he remember no more the men of Forty Mile, who gave him of their grub the best, of their dogs the pick? Ever has Passuk been proud of her man. ”

“ When we strolled in the deep shade of the dense forest behind Sitka, some of these impudent fellows settled in adjoining trees and held dialogues and debates, possibly upon our human characteristics. They would harange and then seem to crack coarse jokes, when one of them would almost laugh in low gutturals, not unlike the gurgling of water running from a two gallon jug. A wag among us declared they were making ward stump-speeches, and was willing to wager that if ravens language could be understood, we should find that some of the jokes were utterly unfit for polite ears. ”

“ By listening intently one might yet hear the vibrations. Two white men died and three Indian villages burned directly as a result, but it happened in places distant from Sitka, and, as they say, it is another story.
On a June day of 1877 the troops of the United States army embarked on a ship for the States and sailed away from Sitka. The buildings and property were left in charge of the Collector of Customs, who, with the Postmaster, constituted the only officials in the Territory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Around and behind Sitka are lofty foot hills clothed in forests, making a perfect amphitheater, while behind them rear pointed, rocky mountains more or less snow flecked. The town is on the great island of Baranoff, which is a mass of pinnacled mountains, the northern slopes of which are always white with sheets of snow. ”

“ Most of the Sitkan Kolosh kept aloof from the Russian settlement after the establishment of the new fort on Chatham Strait, near the entrance of Peril Strait. All the kwans, the Khootznoos, the Hoonahs, the Chilkats, the Auks, Stikines, Kakes and others, joined with the Sitkas in the hatred of the Russians. Parties going out from the fort at Sitka for hunting expeditions, for cutting of wood, for traveling to the Hot Springs, had to be on their guard and with arms at hand prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. [9] Small groups were often cut off and murdered. ”

“ Hunters and fishermen by nature and training, they are skillful boatmen, and in those days they built wonderfully beautiful canoes of the red cedar, some of them large enough to carry sixty men at the paddles. Each spring more than a thousand men gathered together in Sitka Bay, coming from the different villages, to fish for herring at the spawning time, when those fish run in countless myriads in those waters. ”

“ Clown startles Sitka Charley by unexpectedly hitting him a resounding blow with bladder between the shoulders. Sitka Charley runs in and out amongst people, pursued by Doorkeeper and Clown. The Doorkeeper is slow and ponderous, and falls down. At the moment he falls, Sitka Charley dashes into group where stands Capt. Eppingwell, whom he strips, with one rush, of domino. Sitka Charley swiftly puts domino on himself and dashes, on, still pursued by Clown, who is striking him with bladder. Both make exit to left. ”

“ For more than seventy years the Russian Government sought for some sign of their fate. [1] Tales were told of a colony of Russians existing on the coast but each upon investigation proved but a rumor.
There is a dim tradition among the Sitkas of men being lured ashore in the long ago. They say that Chief Annahootz, the predecessor of the chief of that name who was the firm friend of the whites at Sitka in 1878, was the leading actor in the tragedy. Annahootz dressed himself in the skin of a bear and played along the beach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And now the stranger-man looks back over his shoulder. And Sitka Charley, standing upright, maybe falls down and stands upright again.
“After a long time the stranger-man crawls no more. He stands slowly upon his feet and rocks back and forth. Also does he take off one mitten and wait with revolver in his hand, rocking back and forth as he waits. His face is skin and bones and frozen black. It is a hungry face. The eyes are deep-sunk in his head, and the lips are snarling. The man and woman, too, get upon their feet and they go toward him very slowly. And all about is the snow and the silence. ”

“ The French ship “Solide,” in 1791, sailed from France to gather a portion of the harvest. Her captain, Étienne Marchand, anchored in Sitka Bay, and called it Tchinkitinay, as he declares it was known to the natives. To his ship flocked the painted and skin-clad natives with their peltries for barter. On their persons he saw articles of European manufacture, showing that other ships had visited there, and in the ears of one young savage were hanging pendant two copper coins of the colony of Massachusetts. ”

“ Properly speaking the name belongs to the natives of the Aleutian Islands, but the term was also applied to the natives of Kodiak Island and the surrounding islets. These speak a different language from the true Aleuts, but otherwise resemble them closely. During the hunting season they scoured the seas in their skin bidarkas, in the pursuit of fur animals. In winter many of them remained at Sitka instead of returning to their homes. Their time was spent in idleness, spending the summer’s earnings in the pleasures and vices of the white man. ”

“ His English vocabulary was very limited and he was accustomed for many years to fly the Russian flag over his canoe when he went out to a neighboring village for a potlatch.
Some of the silversmiths were skilled workmen. Sitka Jack, and Kooska, and Hydah Jake, all fashioned bracelets, spoons, and other articles, carved with totemic designs of delicate beauty and line of proportion, made from silver coins which they melted down.
Some of the shamans of the olden time acquired great influence and made life miserable for their fellow-citizens by the practice of witchcraft. ”

“ On July 7th he landed at a bay six miles north of the present town of Sitka, purchased a tract of land from Skayeutlelt, a local chief, and began the construction of a post which he named redoubt St. Michael. The building was done under great difficulties. Rain fell incessantly. There were but thirty Russian workmen as most of the Aleuts returned to Kodiak, hunting as they went. Of the men who remained ten had to stand guard constantly, for the Thlingits were not to be trusted. Barracks, storehouses, quarters for the commanding officer, were constructed ”

“ Our little company separated at Sitka. Stickeen and our Indian crew were the first to leave, embarking for a return trip to Wrangell by canoe. Stickeen had stuck close to Muir, following him everywhere, crouching at his feet where he sat, sleeping in his room at night. When the time came for him to leave Muir explained the matter to him fully, talking to and reasoning with him as if he were human. Billy led him aboard the canoe by a dog-chain, and the last Muir saw of him he was standing on the stern of the canoe, howling a sad farewell. ”