OUTLOOK OF ALASKA by J. C. Cantwell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 7, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 27.

OUTLOOK OF ALASKA.

By J. C. Cantwell

BY J. C. CANTWELL.

WHAT the general public knows of Alaska has been mostly gained by reading such works as "Our Arctic Province," "Icebergs and Glaciers," "The Land of the Midnight Sun," and other contributions to the literature of Alaska, whose very titles send cold shivers down one's back, to say nothing of the impression of utter desolation which is made by a perusal of the text.

After an experience of nine years in Alaska—along the coast line from Sitka to the Arctic Ocean, and among the beautiful Aleutian Islands—notwithstanding the fact that my trips were all made during the summer season, I am forced to the belief that if all the authors who have written about this country were sincere, the majority of them must have been suffering from some sort of disease which requires a very warm, dry climate as an environment. Alaska has not that sort of climate. Neither has Washington, Oregon, or British Columbia, but it would be equally as just or sensible to condemn either of these localities on account of the preponderance of rainy days during the year, as undoubtedly has been the case with Alaska.

It is not within the scope of this article to discuss the climate of Alaska except in a general way, but incidentally it may be stated that it is not all an ice capped, glacier-girt, or inundated land. There are regions now easily accessible in which a man can make a comfortable living, where the sun shines as brightly, and the grass is as green, and the wild flowers grow as profusely six months in the year, as in the majority of the Northern States. In these places the winters are not nearly so severe as in Montana, Idaho, or any of the New England States.

The reason for this state of things is exactly similar to that which makes the northern countries of Europe inhabitable, and which preserves the perennial green covering of the Emerald Isle. What the gulf stream does for the western and northern countries of Europe is done in exactly the same way by the great kurasiwo, or Japan current, which washes the southern shores of the Aleutian Islands, and, bending southward and eastward from Kodiak Island, across the Gulf of Alaska, dashes in a warm, life-giving flood against the shores of Southeastern Alaska.

The "bad lands" of Alaska—the ice-capped mountain region, where the big glaciers are found, and where the country will probably never afford the means of sustaining any but a meager population—lie to the north of the Sitka region, forming the eastern and northern shores of the Gulf of Alaska. This is the region of high, inaccessible, and eternally snow-clad mountain ranges. Here Mount St. Elias marks the highest point on the North American continent, while Fairweather, Crillon, La Perouse, and a half dozen others not yet named, are fit mates to their grand neighbor. Flowing to the southward, down the slopes of this Alpine region, numerous glaciers follow the valleys and pierce through all obstacles till they reach the inland waterways made so familiar by tourists' descriptions. The sight of these ice streams, the crashing of their faces as they break and fall into the water, the floating bergs, apparently about to hem in and destroy the steamer, all tend to leave in the minds of people who see only this part of Alaska an impression of desolate grandeur not easily effaced.

But the glacier region of Alaska is comparatively small. It is, in fact, a rare incident, and not a type of the general topography of the country.

Leaving the region just described and steering westward, the traveler leaves all trace of this forbidding landscape behind, and his first glimpse of land some 500 miles west from Sitka is of low green hills, softly rounded and clothed from base to summit in verdure. Patches of timber darken the valleys and mark the course of innumerable streams, while every islet—almost every rock—has its clustering growth of trees. From Kodiak Island westward the timber on the Aleutian Islands is confined to the smaller species of trees. Willow and larch thickets still cling to the lower valleys, but all the rest of the country is covered during the summer with an exceedingly rich growth of grass. During the winter months the grasses gradually die, until nothing is seen except the thick mantle of moss which grows everywhere in Alaska.

Such, in brief, is a description of this almost virgin country. What has been done in the way of testing its capabilities to support man since its occupation?—Almost nothing. People have gone to Alaska year after year and waxed rich in the fur business, and have actually suffered for the want of fresh meat and vegetables, simply because someone, who probably knew nothing about the matter, had stated in an authoritative manner that cattle could not live through the winter, or that vegetables would never come up if planted in this country. Of late years, especially during the last decade, many of these false theories have been exploded, and it is now known that on nearly every island of the Aleutian group, among the Shumagin Islands, and even in such exposed situations as Chirakoff Island, excellent results can be obtained by judiciously planting any of the hardier vegetables.

I mention Chirakoff Island in this connection because of its isolated and unprotected situation. The island is about 200 miles from any very large body of land to protect it from the winter storms, which we have been led to believe as a frequent occurrence along the whole Alaskan peninsula, and in itself composed

of low, undulating plains, in no place attaining an altitude of more than 600 or 800 feet above the sea. Yet on this island, during the month of July last—to be exact, on the second day of the month—I found in a garden that had been planted near the beach the preceding spring, a flourishing assortment of as fine vegetables as I have ever seen in any place.

There were potatoes, turnips, radishes, carrots, beets, spinach, onions, and lettuce. The growth of these vegetables had been accomplished without the aid of any fertilizer, and they showed no effects of climatic repression whatever, but were, as before stated, of excellent quality.

At Sitka, Juneau, Wrangel, Kodiak, and every other place where a reasonable amount of care has been exercised, all these vegetables have been easily raised. The local market at Sitka is now well supplied with vegetables, which a very few years ago it was thought necessary to import from the United States.

I mention these facts in regard to the raising of vegetables, not with a view to encourage emigration to Alaska for the purpose of opening up the country to agricultural pursuits, but simply to show that settlers who come to this country to engage in the many other lines of work and business which the region affords, will not be entirely dependent for the necessaries of life upon what is brought here from the South.

Another popular fallacy which the experience of recent years has exploded is that cattle and sheep cannot survive the winters on the Aleutian Islands. Some ten years ago the late Lieutenant Schwatka passed through the Aleutian Islands on his way home from the exploration of the Yukon. He was so impressed with the luxuriant growth of grasses on the islands that he gave it as his opinion that not many years would elapse before this country would be the grazing ground of countless bands of sheep destined for the markets of the Pacific States. Schwatka's ideas were ridiculed, and he suffered from the odium heaped upon him by the oldest inhabitants, who told him that, while he might know a good deal about exploring Arctic regions, he was densely ignorant of the first principles of sheep raising. One of the most strenuous objections to sheep raising on the Aleutian Islands was said to be the moist character of the all-pervading moss. Sheep, the wise men said, would succumb to foot rot before they would become acclimated. Schwatka, being possibly aware that his knowledge of sheep was not inexhaustible, discreetly dropped out of the controversy. But during the time of the great seal controversy, when the presence of the naval fleets in Bering Sea caused a demand for fresh meat, large bands of sheep were transported to Alaska and put on the islands to shift for themselves. I have never heard of a single case of foot rot occurring there, and the only trouble experienced was in the case of a small band of thirty sheep, which were placed on a small island in Oonalaska Harbor, and which had to be removed to a larger island on account of the lack of moisture on their first grazing ground.

Cattle can be successfully raised on the Aleutian Islands, as has been proved beyond question. At Kodiak, Belkofsky, and Oonalaska the Alaska Commercial Company have for years maintained herds of cattle with very little trouble, it being possible for them to live in the open during nine or ten months of the year. It is quite true that the lack of continuous sunshine sometimes prevents the easy-going Aleut from making a sufficient quantity of hay during the summer to last until spring. But other localities are similarly afflicted, and the more energetic inhabitants meet the difficulty by means of silos.

It does not appear improbable that cattle would thrive as well on ensilage in Alaska as they do in other moist climates. The time for raising sheep or cattle for a market has not yet arrived, but when the demand is made, it will be found that the Aleutian Islands will be able to supply it. Already, however, a beginning has been made in this direction, by Mr. Feeney, on a small island near St. Paul, Kodiak Island. Mr. Feeney has a band of cattle here that he proposes to herd for the purpose of furnishing fresh meat to the employees of the Karluk salmon canneries, on the other side of Kodiak Island. The project will undoubtedly prove successful.

Meanwhile there are springing up in Alaska many industries which are new, and other older ones are being extended so rapidly that employment for settlers who are not afraid of work is assured.—San Francisco Chronicle.