File:Alaska and the Klondike (1905) (14761455156).jpg

Identifier: alaskaklondike00mcla (find matches)
Title: Alaska and the Klondike
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: McLain, John Scudder, b. 1853
Subjects: Alaska Klondike River Valley (Yukon) -- Gold discoveries
Publisher: New York : McClure, Phillips & co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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omeof them smoking with internal fires, the soft green of thehills and valleys, and dark waters of the ocean, makes apicture of which the eye never tires. The climate is mild,the mean winter temperature being about thirty degreesabove zero and the average for midsummer only twentydegrees higher. There is a great deal of rain and snowand fog. Unajaska, on account of its excellent harbour, was madea base of operations by the Russians from the early daysof their occupation of the northwest American coast. Itwas an important point in the fur-trading business a hun-dred years ago and more, when the fox and that mostvaluable of fur-bearing animals, the sea otter, weretaken in large numbers, to the practical extinction of thelatter. To this island of Unalaska the senatorial party cameon the morning of August 5, and dropped anchor in thebay twenty-four hours after leaving the seal islands.There are two settlements on this harbour, the one ofmost commercial importance being known as Dutch Har-
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3O 198 ALASKA AND THE KLONDIKE hour, where large docks have been erected and where arethe offices and storehouses of one of the Alaskan com-mercial companies. Farther inland lies the old Russianvillage of L^nalaska or Iliuliuk, which means curvingbeach. Dutch Harbour is important as a coaling station,and when we arrived we found there the North Pacificfleet, consisting of the flagship New York, the Concord,the Bennington, the Marblehead, and the Fortune, withAdmiral Glass in command. The revenue cutter Bear wasalso in the harbour, and soon after our arrival the revenuecutter Rush, bound for St. Michael and Nome, came in.The Bear was awaiting the return of the British shipShearwater from the seal islands, with which vessel theBear alternates in guarding the sixty-mile limit aroundthose islands, and the islands themselves, from poachers.The Shearwater arrived before our departure, so that theharbour looked somewhat as if a naval review were aboutto take place. Admiral Glass and the offi

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