Alaska, Its Southern Coast and the Sitkan Archipelago

Although Alaska is nine times as large as the group of New England States, twice the size of Texas, and three times that of California, a false impression prevails that it is all one barren, inhospitable region, wrapped in snow and ice the year round. The fact is overlooked that a territory stretching more than a thousand miles from north to south, and washed by the warm currents of the Pacific Ocean, may have a great range and diversity of climate within its borders. The jokes and exaggerations that passed current at the time of the Alaska purchase, in 1867, have fastened themselves upon the public mind, and by constant repetition been accepted as facts. For this reason the uninitiated view the country as a vast ice reservation, and appear to believe that even the summer tourist must undergo the perils of the Franklin Search and the Greeley Relief Expeditions to reach any part of Alaska. The official records can hardly convince them that the winters at Sitka are milder than at New York, and the summers delightfully cool and temperate.

In the eastern States less has been heard of the Yukon than of the country of the Congo, and the wonders of the Stikine, Taku, and Chilkat rivers are unknown to those who have travelled far to view the less impressive scenery of the Scandinavian coast. Americans climb the well-worn route to Alpine summits every year, while the highest mountain in North America is unsurveyed, and only approximate estimates have been made of its heights. The whole 580,107 square miles of the territory are almost as good as unexplored, and among the islands of the archipelago over 7,000 miles of coast are untouched and primeval forests.

The Pribyloff or Seal Islands have usurped all interest in Alaska, and these two little fog-bound islands in Behring Sea, that are too small to be marked on an ordinary map, have had more attention drawn to them than any other part of the territory. The rental of the islands of St. Paul and St. George, and the taxes on the annual one hundred thousand sealskins, pays into the treasury each year more than four per cent interest on the $7,200,000 originally paid to Russia for its possessions in North America. This fact is unique in the history of our purchased territories, and justifies Secretary Seward’s efforts in acquiring it.

The neglect of Congress to provide any form of civil government or protection for the inhabitants checked all progress and enterprise, and kept the country in the background for seventeen years. With the development of the Pacific northwest, settlements, mining-camps, and fisheries have been slowly growing, and increasing in numbers in the southeastern part of Alaska, adjoining British Columbia. The prospectors and the hardy pioneers, who seek the setting sun and follow the frontiers westward, were attracted there by the gold discoveries in 1880, and the impetus then given was not allowed to subside.