Alaska Part 42

Immense fortunes have been made--and lost--in the fish industry during the last twenty years.

The superintendents of these canneries always live luxuriously, and entertain like princes--or Baranoff. Their comfortable houses are furnished with all modern luxuries,--elegant furniture, pianos, hot and cold water, electric baths. Perfectly trained, noiseless Chinamen glide around the table, where dinners of ten or twelve delicate courses are served, with a different wine for each course.

Champagne is a part of the hospitality of Alaska. The cheapest is seven dollars and a half a bottle, and Alaskans seldom buy the cheapest of anything.

It was on a soft gray afternoon that the _Dora_ entered Karluk Bay between the two picturesque promontories that plunge boldly out into Shelikoff Straits. It seemed as though all the sea-birds of the world must be gathered there. Our entrance set them afloat from their perches on the rocky cliffs. They filled the air, from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, like a snow-storm. Their poetic flight and shrill, mournful plaining haunt every memory of Karluk Bay.

Now and then they settled for an instant. A cliff would s.h.i.+ne out suddenly--a clear, tremulous white; then, as suddenly, there would be nothing but a sheer height of dark stone veined with green before our bewildered gaze. It was as if a silvery, winged cloud drifted up and down the face of the cliffs and then floated out across the bay.

Several old sailing vessels, or "wind-jammers," lay at anchor. They are used for conveying stores and employees from San Francisco. The many buildings of the canneries give Karluk the appearance of a town--in fact, during the summer, it is a town; while in the winter only a few caretakers of the buildings and property remain.

Men of almost every nationality under the sun may be found here, working side by side.

Ceaseless complaints are made of the lawless conditions existing "to Westward." Besides the thousands of men employed in the canneries of the Kadiak and the Aleutian islands, at least ten thousand men work in the canneries of Bristol Bay. They come from China, j.a.pan, the Sandwich Islands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Porto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and almost every country that may be named.

"The prevailing color of Alaska may be 'rosy lavender,'" said a gentleman who knows, "but let me tell you that out there you will find conditions that are neither rosy nor lavender."

There is a United States Commissioner and a Deputy United States Marshal in the district, but they are unable to control these men, many of whom are desperate characters. The superintendents of the canneries are there for the purpose of putting up the season's pack as speedily as possible; and, although they are invariably men who deplore crime, they have been known to condone it, to avoid the taking of themselves or their crews hundreds of miles to await the action of some future term of court.

For many years the District of Alaska has been divided for judicial purposes into three divisions: the first comprising the southeastern Alaska district; the second, Nome and the Seward Peninsula; the third, the vast country lying between these two.

In each is organized a full United States district court. The three judges who preside over these courts receive the salary of five thousand dollars a year,--which, considering the high character of the services required, and the cost of living in Alaska, is n.i.g.g.ardly. So much power is placed in the hands of these judges that they are freely called czars by the people of Alaska.

The people of the third district complained bitterly that their court facilities were entirely inadequate. Several murders were committed, and the accused awaited trial for many months. Witnesses were detained from their homes and lawful pursuits. Delays were so vexatious that many crimes remained unpunished, important witnesses rebelling against being held in custody for a whole year before they had an opportunity to testify--the judge of the third district being kept busy along the Yukon and at Fairbanks.

As a partial remedy for some of these abuses of government, Governor Brady, in his report for the year 1904, suggested the creation of a fourth judicial district, to be furnished with a sea-going vessel, which should be under the custody of the marshal and at the command of the court. It was recommended that this vessel be equipped with small arms, a Gatling gun, and ammunition. All the islands which lie along the thousands of miles of sh.o.r.e-line of Kenai and Aliaska peninsulas, Cook Inlet, the Kadiak, Shumagin, and Aleutian chains, and Bristol Bay might be visited in season, and a wholesome respect for law and order be enforced.

The burning question in Alaska has been for many years the one of home government. As early as 1869 an impa.s.sioned plea was made in Sitka that Alaska should be given territorial rights. Yet even the bill for one delegate to Congress was defeated as late as the winter of 1905--whereupon fiery Valdez instantly sent its famous message of secession.

Governor Brady criticised the appointment of United States commissioners by the judges, claiming that there is really no appeal from a commissioner's court to a district court, for the reason that the judge usually appoints some particular protege and feels bound to sustain his decisions. The governor stated plainly in his report that the most remunerative offices are filled by persons who are peculiarly related, socially or politically, to the judges; that the attorneys and their clients understood this and considered an appeal useless. Governor Brady also declared the fee system, as practised in these commissioners'

courts, to be an abomination. Unless there is trouble, the officer cannot live; and the inference is that he, therefore, welcomes trouble.

Whatever of truth there may have been in these pungent criticisms, President Roosevelt endorsed many of the governor's recommendations in his message to Congress; and several have been adopted. During the past two years Alaska has made rapid strides toward self-government, and important reforms have been inst.i.tuted.

The territory now has a delegate to Congress. Upon the subject of home government the people are widely and bitterly divided. Those having large interests in Alaska are, as a rule, opposed to home government, claiming that it is the politicians and those owning nothing upon which taxes could be levied, who are agitating the subject. These claim that the few who have ventured heavily to develop Alaska would be compelled to bear the entire burden of a heavy taxation, for the benefit of the professional politician, the carpet-bagger, and the impecunious loafer who is "just waiting for something to turn up."

On the other hand, those favoring territorial government claim that it is opposed only by the large corporations which "have been bleeding Alaska for years."

The jurisdiction of the United States commissioners in Alaska is far greater than is that of other court commissioners. They can sit as committing magistrates; as justices of the peace, can try civil cases where the amount involved is one thousand dollars or less; can try criminal cases and sentence to one year's imprisonment; they are clothed with full authority as probate judges; they may act as coroners, notaries, and recorders of precincts.

The third district, presided over by Judge Reid, whose residence is at Fairbanks, is five hundred miles wide by nine hundred miles long. It extends from the North Pacific Ocean to the Arctic Ocean, and from the international boundary on the east to the Koyukuk. The chief means of transportation within this district are steamers along the coast and on the Yukon, and over trails by dog teams.

It is small wonder that a man hesitates long before suing for his rights in Alaska. The expense and hards.h.i.+p of even reaching the nearest seat of justice are unimaginable. One man travelled nine hundred miles to reach Rampart to attend court. The federal court issues all licenses, franchises, and charters, and collects all occupation taxes. Every village or mining settlement of two or three hundred men has a commissioner, whose sway in his small sphere is as absolute as that of Baranoff was.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

We found only one white woman at Karluk, the wife of the manager of the cannery, a refined and accomplished lady.

Her home was in San Francisco, but she spent the summer months with her husband at Karluk.

We were taken ash.o.r.e in a boat and were most hospitably received in her comfortable home.

About two o 'clock in the afternoon we boarded a barge and were towed by a very small, but exceedingly noisy, launch up the Karluk River to the hatcheries, which are maintained by the Alaska Packers a.s.sociation.

It was one of those soft, cloudy afternoons when the coloring is all in pearl and violet tones, and the air was sweet with rain that did not fall. The little make-believe river is very narrow, and so shallow that we were constantly in danger of running aground. We tacked from one side of the stream to the other, as the great steamers do on the Yukon.

On this little pearly voyage, a man who accompanied us told a story which clings to the memory.

"Talk about your big world," said he. "You think it 'u'd be easy to hide yourself up in this G.o.d-forgotten place, don't you? Just let me tell you a story. A man come up here a few years ago and went to work. He never did much talkin'. If you ast him a question about hisself or where he come from, he shut up like a steel trap with a rat in it. He was a nice-lookin' man, too, an' he had an education an' kind of nice clean ways with him. He built a little cabin, an' he didn't go 'out' in winter, like the rest of us. He stayed here at Karluk an' looked after things.

"Well, after one-two year a good-lookin' young woman come up here--an'

jiminy-cricket! He fell in love with her like greased lightnin' an'

married her in no time. I G.o.d, but that man was happy. He acted like a plumb fool over that woman. After while they had a baby--an' then he acted like two plumb fools in one. I ain't got any wife an' babies myself an' I G.o.d! it ust to make me feel queer in my throat.

"Well, one summer the superintendent's wife brought up a woman to keep house for her. She was a white, sad-faced-lookin' woman, an' when she had a little time to rest she ust to climb up on the hill an' set there alone, watchin' the sea-gulls. I've seen her set there two hours of a Sunday without movin'. Maybe she'd be settin' there now if I hadn't gone and put my foot clean in it, as usual.

"I got kind of sorry for her, an' you may shoot me dead for a fool, but one day I ast her why she didn't walk around the bay an' set a spell with the other woman.

"'I don't care much for women,' she says, never changin' countenance, but just starin' out across the bay.

"'She's got a reel nice, kind husband,' says I, tryin' to work on her feelin's.

"'I don't like husbands,' says she, as short as lard pie-crust.

"'She's got an awful nice little baby,' says I, for if you keep on long enough, you can always get a woman.

"She turns then an' looks at me.

"'It's a girl,' says I, 'an' Lord, the way it nestles up into your neck an' loves you!'

"Her lips opened an' shut, but she didn't say a word; but if you'd look 'way down into a well an' see a fire burnin' in the water, it 'u'd look like her eyes did then.

"'Its father acts like a plumb fool over it an' its mother,' says I.

'The sun raises over there, an' sets over here--but _he_ thinks it raises an' sets in that woman an' baby.'

"'The woman must be pretty,' says she, suddenly, an' I never heard a woman speak so bitter.

"'She is,' says I; 'she's got--'

"'Don't tell me what she's got,' snaps she, gettin' up off the ground, kind o' stiff-like. 'I've made up my mind to go see her, an' maybe I'd back out if you told me what she's like. Maybe you'd tell me she had red wavy hair an' blue eyes an' a baby mouth an' smiled like an angel--an'

then devils couldn't drag me to look at her.'

"Say, I nearly fell dead, then, for that just described the woman; but I'm no loon, so I just kept still.