upon the same subjects, and his library and cabinet, his journals and sketch-books, contain many wonderful things relating to the history and life of these strange people.
CHAPTER V.
FORT WRANGELL AND THE STIKINE.
Those who believe that all Alaska is a place of perpetual rain, fog, snow, and ice would be quickly disabused could they spend some of the ideal summer days in that most lovely harbor of Fort Wrangell. Each time the sky was clearer and the air milder than before, and on the day of my third visit the fresh beams of the morning sun gave an infinite charm to the landscape, as we turned from Clarence Straits into the narrower pass between the islands, and sailed across waters that reflected in shimmering, pale blue and pearly lights the wonderful panorama of mountains. Though perfectly clear, the light was softened and subdued, and even on such a glorious sunny morning there was no glare nor harshness in the atmosphere. This pale, soft light gave a dreamy, poetic quality to the scenery, and the first ranges of mountains above the water shaded from the deep green and russet of the nearer pine forests to azure and purple, where their further summits were outlined against the sky or the snow-covered peaks that were mirrored so faithfully in the long stretches of the channel. The sea water lost its deep green tints at that point, and was discolored and tinged to a muddy tea green by the fresh current of the Stikine River, which there reaches the ocean.
The great circle of mountains and snow-peaks, and the stretch of calm waters lying in this vast landlocked harbor, give Fort Wrangell an enviable situation. The little town reached its half-century of existence last summer, but no celebrations stirred the placid, easy-going life of its people. It was founded in 1834 by order of Baron Wrangell, then Governor of Russian America and chief director of the fur company, who sent the Captain-Lieut. Dionysius Feodorovich Zarembo down from Sitka to erect a stockade post on the small tongue of land now occupied by the homes, graves, and totem poles of the Indian village. It was known at first as the trading post of St. Dionysius, and, later, it assumed the name of Wrangell, the prefix of Fort being added during the time that the United States garrisoned it with two companies of the 21st Infantry. The Government began building a new stockade fort there immediately after the transfer of the territory in 1867, and troops occupied it until 1870, when they were withdrawn, the post abandoned, and the property sold for $500. The discovery of the Cassiar gold mines on the head waters of the Stikine River in 1874 sent a tide of wild life into the deserted street of Fort Wrangell, and the military were ordered back in 1875 and remained until 1877, when General Howard drew off his forces, and the government finally recalled the troops from all the posts in Alaska.
During the second occupation of the barracks and quarters at Fort Wrangell, the War Department helped itself to the property, and, assigning a nominal sum for rent, held the fort against the protest of the owner. The Cassiar mines were booming then, and Fort Wrangell took on something of the excitement of a mining town itself, and being at the head of ocean navigation, where all merchandise had to be transferred to small steamers and canoes, rents for stores and warehouses were extravagantly high. Every shed could bring a fabulous price. The unhappy owner, who rejoices in the euphonious name of W. King Lear, could only gnash his teeth and violently protest against the monthly warrants and vouchers given him by the commandant of the post. Since the troops have gone, the Government has done other strange things with the property that it once sold in due form, and Mr. Lear has a just and plain claim against the War Department for damages. The barracks and hospital of the old fort are now occupied by the Presbyterian Mission. No alteration, repairs, or improvements having been made for many years, the stockade is gradually becoming more ruinous, weather-worn, and picturesque each year, and the overhanging block-house at one corner is already a most sketchable bit of bleached and lichen-covered logs.
The main street of Fort Wrangell, untouched by the hoof of horse or mule for these many years, is a wandering grass-grown lane that straggles along for a few hundred feet from the fort gate and ends in a foot-path along the beach. The “Miners’ Palace Restaurant,” and other high-sounding signs, remain as relics of the livelier days, and listless Indian women sit in rows and groups on the unpainted porches of the trading stores. They are a quiet, rather languid lot of klootchmans, slow and deliberate of speech, and not at all clamorous for customers, as they squat or lie face downward, like so many seals, before their baskets of wild berries. In the stores, the curio departments are well stocked with elaborately carved spoons made of the black horns of the mountain goat; with curiously-fashioned halibut hooks and halibut clubs; with carved wooden trays and bowls, in which oil, fish, berries, and food have been mixed for years; with stone pipes and implements handed down from that early age, and separate store-rooms are filled with the skins of bears, foxes, squirrels, mink, and marten that are staple articles of trade. Occasionally there can be found fine specimens of a gray mica slate set full of big garnet crystals, like plums in a pudding, or sprinkled through with finer garnets that show points of brilliancy and fine color. This stone is found on the banks of a small creek near the mouth of the Stikine River, and great slabs of it are blasted off and brought to Fort Wrangell by the boat-load to be broken up into small cabinet specimens in time for the tourist season each summer. None of the garnets are clear or perfect, and the blasting fills them with seams and flaws. The best silver bracelets at Fort Wrangell are made by a lame Indian, who as the chief artificer and silversmith of the tribe has quite a local reputation. His bracelets are beautifully chased and decorated, but unfortunately for the integrity of Stikine art traditions, he has given up carving the emblematic beasts of native heraldry on heavy barbaric wristlets, and now only makes the most slender bangles, adapted from the models in an illustrated jeweller’s catalogue that some Philistine has sent him. Worse yet, he copies the civilized spread eagle from the half-dollar, and, one can only shake his head sadly to see Stikine art so corrupted and debased. For all this, the lame man cannot make bracelets fast enough to supply the market, and at three dollars a pair for the narrower ones he pockets great profits during the steamer days.
On the water side of the main street there is a queer old flat-bottomed river-boat, stranded high and dry, that in its day made $135,000 clear each season that it went up the Stikine. It enriched its owner while in the water, and after it went ashore was a profitable venture as a hotel. This Rudder Grange, built over from stem to stern, and green with moss, is so settled into the grass and earth that only the shape of the bow and the empty box of the stern wheel really declare its original purpose. There is a bakeshop in the old engine-room, and for the rest it is the Chinatown of Fort Wrangell. A small cinnamon-bear cub gambolled in the street before this boat-house, and it stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air curiously when it saw the captain of the ship coming down the street, bestowing sticks of candy on every child in the way. Bruin came in for his share, and formed the centre for a group that watched him chew up mint sticks and pick his teeth with his sharp little claws.
The houses of the Indian village string along the beach in a disconnected way, all of them low and square, built of rough hewn cedar and pine planks, and roofed over with large planks resting on heavy log beams. One door gives entrance to an interior, often twenty and forty feet square, and several families live in one of these houses, sharing the same fireplace in the centre, and keeping peacefully to their own sides and corners of the common habitation. Heraldic devices in outline sometimes ornament the gable front of the house, but no paint is wasted on the interior, where smoke darkens everything, the drying salmon drip grease from the frames overhead, and dogs and children tumble carelessly around the fire and over the pots and saucepans. The entrances have sometimes civilized doors on hinges, but the aborigine fashion is a portière of sealskin or walrus hide, or of woven grass mats. When one of the occupants of a house dies he is never taken out by the door where the others enter, but a plank is torn off at the back or side, or the body is hoisted out through the smoke hole in the roof, to keep the spirits away.
Before many of the houses are tall cedar posts and poles, carved with faces of men and beasts, representing events in their genealogy and mythology. These tall totems are the shrines and show places of
