282

ALASKA.

 

are under the supervision of an inspector
appointed by the United States Commis-
sioner of Education. There are now about
twenty-four schools in the several settle-
ments of the territory, two of which are in
Sitka.

or industrial education, the various trades,

One of these is devoted to manual

as blacksmithing, shoe-making, carpenter-
ing, etc., being taught. This school em-
ploys quite a corps of teachers and instruc-
tors and had, when I was there, something
over two hundred pupils in attendance.
The schools have had a most beneficial and
far-reaching effect, and are considered the
most civilizing agency yet introduced into
the country and are also a refuge for native
youth, misused at home.

Here is a land vast enough for an empire.
For twelve hundred miles its shores are
washed by the placid waters of the Pacific,
a distance as great as from Maine to Florida.
Westward it stretches its way to the island
of Attu, nearly three thousand miles west
of San Francisco, which is therefore really
east of the center of the Union. We can-
not credit it, yet it is true. The island is
only four hundred miles from Kamchatka,
and an equal distance from the nearest
Alaskan village. Here dwell a small but
vigorous band of Aleuts, one hundred and
forty in number, whom no reward can in-
duce to leave their lonely island home.
They have their chapel and their priest and

seem content to spend their lives in hunt-

 

ing and fishing. Blue foxes roam the hills;
wild geese nest here; sea-lions sport along
the rocky shore; and cod and halibut in
countless numbers swarm its waters. What
wonder these hardy people love their native
land?

Near the end:of a rainy, dismal day our
party stood on the narrow beach, watching
a weary fisherman pulling his heavy laden
canoe toshore. Ashe landed the sun burst
forth in a blaze of glory ere going to rest.
We felt his parting rays and knew that in

the far-off east the morning sun was stream-

_ ing out upon the toiling woodsmen of the

What a thought! A

country of such imperial dimensions that

Penobscot forests.

the sun never sets upon its broad domains
during the summer months.

Islands are numerous, as a glance ata
map will show. Some are inhabited by
bold Eskimo walrus hunters whose homes
are built on stages constructed on the steep,
rocky slopes, one above another, like ter-
races. One-third of Alaska lies within the
Arctic circle, a land of short, hot summers;
of long, cold winters. Along its coast and
upon its river banks amid its always frozen
fields, where neither fruit nor cereals grow,
dwell some 18,000 Eskimo.

moor, snow-covered mountains, and mos-

Its frozen

quito haunted marshes offer small induce-
ments to the traveler, but these hardy peo-
ple seem to lead a merry life. They are

taller and stronger than their Greenland