Part 29 (2/2)
Adjoining the Bonanza on the north is a group of eleven claims owned by Messrs. Esterly, Meenach, and Keyes, which are in course of development.
There are many other rich claims on this island, on Knight's, and on others in the sound. Timber is abundant, the water power is excellent, and ore is easily s.h.i.+pped.
There is an Indian village two or three miles from Ellamar. It is the village of Tat.i.tlik, the only one now remaining on the sound, so rapidly are the natives vanis.h.i.+ng under the evil influence of civilization. Ten years ago there were nine hundred natives in the various villages on the sh.o.r.es of the sound; while now there are not more than two hundred, at the most generous calculation.
White men prospecting and fis.h.i.+ng in the vicinity of the village supply them with liquor. When a sufficient quant.i.ty can be purchased, the entire village, men and women, indulges in a prolonged and horrible debauch which frequently lasts for several weeks.
The death rate at Tat.i.tlik is very heavy,--more than a hundred natives having died during 1907.
Pa.s.sengers have time to visit this village while the steamer loads ore at Ellamar.
The loading of ore, by the way, is a new experience. A steamer on which I was travelling once landed at Ellamar during the night.
We were rudely awakened from our dreams by a sound which Lieutenant Whidbey would have called ”most stupendously dreadful.” We thought that the whole bottom of the s.h.i.+p must have been knocked off by striking a reef, and we reached the floor simultaneously.
I have no notion how my own eyes looked, but my friend's eyes were as large and expressive as bread-and-b.u.t.ter plates.
”We are going down!” she exclaimed, with tragic brevity.
At that instant the dreadful sound was repeated. We were convinced that the s.h.i.+p was being pounded to pieces under us upon rocks. Without speech we began dressing with that haste that makes fingers become thumbs.
But suddenly a tap came upon our door, and the watchman's voice spoke outside.
”Ladies, we are at Ellamar.”
”At Ellamar!”
”Yes. You asked to be called if it wasn't midnight when we landed.”
”But what is that _awful_ noise, watchman?”
”Oh, we're loading ore,” he answered cheerfully, and walked away.
All that night and part of the next day tons upon tons of ore thundered into the hold. We could not sleep, we could not talk; we could only think; and the things we thought shall never be told, nor shall wild horses drag them from us.
We dressed, in desperation, and went up to ”the store”; sat upon high stools, ate stale peppermint candy, and listened to ”Uncle Josh” telling his parrot story through the phonograph.
Somehow, between the s.h.i.+p and the store, we got ourselves through the night and the early morning hours. After breakfast we found the green and flowery slopes back of the town charming; and a walk of three miles along the sh.o.r.e to the Indian village made us forget the ore for a few hours. But to this day, when I read that an Alaskan s.h.i.+p has brought down hundreds of tons of ore to the Tacoma smelter, my heart goes out silently to the pa.s.sengers who were on that s.h.i.+p when the ore was loaded.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau
Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle
GRAND CANYON OF THE YUKON]
CHAPTER XXIII
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