Part 44 (1/2)

At this point Karluk River widens into a lagoon, in which the corrals are wired and netted off somewhat after the fas.h.i.+on of fish-traps, covering an area of about three acres.

Fish for the hatcheries are called ”stock-fish.” They are secured by seiners in the lagoon opposite the hatcheries, and are then transferred to the corrals. As soon as a salmon has the appearance of ripening, it is removed by the use of seines to the ripening-ponds.

In the hatching-house are more than sixty troughs, fourteen feet in length, sixteen inches in width, and seven inches in depth. The wood of which they are composed is surfaced redwood. The joints are coated with asphaltum tar, with cotton wadding used as calking material. When the trough is completed, it is given one coat of refined tar and two of asphaltum varnish.

In the Karluk hatchery the troughs never leak, owing to this superior construction; and it is said that the importance of this advantage cannot be overestimated.

Leaks make it impossible for the employees to estimate the amount of water in the troughs; repairs startle the young fry and damage the eggs; and the damp floors cause illness among the employees. The Karluk hatchery is noted for its dryness and cleanliness.

The setting of the hatchery is charming. The hills, treeless, pale green, and velvety, slope gently to the river and the lagoon. Now and then a slight ravine is filled with a shrubby growth of a lighter green.

Flowers flame everywhere, and tiny rivulets come singing down to the larger stream.

The greenness of the hills continues around the bay, broken off abruptly on Karluk Head, where the soft, veined gray of the stone cliff blends with the green.

The bay opens out into the wide, bold, purple sweep of Shelikoff Strait.

Every body of water has its character--some feature that is peculiarly its own, which impresses itself upon the beholder. The chief characteristic of Shelikoff Strait is its boldness. There is something dauntless, daring, and impa.s.sioned in its wide and splendid sweep to the chaste line of snow peaks of the Aleutian Range on the Aliaska Peninsula. It seems to hold a challenge.

I should like to live alone, or almost alone, high on storm-swept Karluk Head, fronting that magnificent scene that can never be twice quite the same. What work one might do there--away from little irritating cares!

No neighbors to ”drop in” with bits of delicious gossip; no theatres in which to waste the splendid nights; no bridge-luncheons to tempt,--nothing but sunlight glittering down on the pale green hills; the golden atmosphere above the little bay filled with tremulous, winged snow; and miles and miles and miles of purple sea.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

”What kind of place is Uyak?” I asked a deck-hand who was a native of Sweden, as we stood out in the bow of the _Dora_ one day.

He turned and looked at me and grinned.

”It ees a hal of a blace,” he replied, promptly and frankly. ”It ees yoost dat t'ing. You vill see.”

And I did see. I should, in fact, like to take this frank-spoken gentleman along with me wherever I go, solely to answer people who ask me what kind of place Uyak is--his opinion so perfectly coincides with my own.

There were canneries at Uyak, and mosquitoes, and things to be smelled; but if there be anything there worth seeing, they must first kill the mosquitoes, else it will never be seen.

The air was black with these pests, and the instant we stepped upon the wharf we were black with them, too. Every pa.s.senger resembled a windmill in action, as he raced down the wharf toward the cannery, hoping to find relief there; and as he went his nostrils were a.s.sailed by an odor that is surpa.s.sed in only one place on earth--_Belkoffski!_--and it comes later.

The hope of relief in the canneries proved to be a vain one. The unfortunate Chinamen and natives were covered with mosquitoes as they worked; their faces and arms were swollen; their eyes were fierce with suffering. They did not laugh at our frantic attempts to rid ourselves of the winged pests--as we laughed at one another. There was nothing funny in the situation to those poor wretches. It was a tragedy. They stared at us with desperate eyes which asked:--

”Why don't you go away if you are suffering? You are free to leave. What have you to complain of? _We_ must stay.”

We went out and tried to walk a little way along the hill; but the mosquitoes mounted in clouds from the wild-rose thickets. At the end of fifteen minutes we fled back to the steamer and locked ourselves in our staterooms. There we sat down and nursed our grievances with camphor and alcohol.

We sailed up Uyak Bay to the mine of the Kodiak Gold Mining Company.

This is a free milling mine and had been a developing property for four years. It was then installing a ten-stamp mill, and had twenty thousand tons of ore blocked out, the ore averaging from fifteen to twenty dollars a ton.

This mine is located on the northern side of Kadiak Island, and has good water power and excellent s.h.i.+pping facilities. Fifty thousand dollars were taken out of the beaches in the vicinity in 1904 by placer mining.

Here, in this lovely, lonely bay, one of the most charming women I ever met spends her summers. She is the wife of one of the owners of the mine, and her home is in San Francisco. She finds the summers ideal, and longs for the novelty of a winter at the mine. She has a canoe and spends most of her time on the water. There are no mosquitoes at the mine; the summers are never uncomfortably hot, and it is seldom, indeed, that the mercury falls to zero in the winter.