238 NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS IN ALASKA. 



on their feeding grounds by packs of wolves. Tlie introduction of lire-anns has nearly exterminated 

 the reindeer, and the scarcity of the deer is fully equalled by that of the wolves in the coast region 

 of Northern Alaska. Near Saint Michaels wolves were very common ten or fifteen j ears ago but 

 during the past few years only two or three were noted each winter. About the headwaters of the 

 Yukon and Kuskoquim Rivers they are still numerous, and several hundred skins are secured there 

 every year. Although endowed iu the north with all the cunning and success in the chase for 

 which they are noted elsewhere, I could not learn of a single instance in which they had 

 destroyed human life or attempted to do so. Several instances were related to me of forays made 

 by them at night among the dogs at villages, iu which some of the latter were carried off and 

 devoured, and in one instance they attacked the dogs at a neighboring post while I was at Saint 

 Michaels, but were beaten off by the latter. The Eskimo sometimes secure the cubs, and some 

 years ago an old Eskimo near Saint Michaels secured several, which he kept until winter and broke 

 them to haul his sledge. They worked well, but became so vicious that they were killed. The 

 natives also claim to have had crosses between wolves raised in this manner and dogs. This is not 

 surprising when the close resemblance between some of the dogs and a wolf is noted, and one can 

 easily believe that such crosses are fertile. 



Among several thousand wolf-skins brought into Saint Michaels during my residence there 

 only a single albino was seen and this was a beautiful snow-white skin. Large numbers of the 

 black or melanistic variety were brought in, and it is a noteworthy fact that the headwaters of the 

 YYikou yielded a large majority of these black skins, and that from the same district come nearly 

 all of the black fox-skins obtained in Northern Alaska. These dark skins vary in endless grada- 

 tion from the ordinary gray to a glossy coal-black. As a rule the black skins are considerably 

 smaller than the gray ones and the fur is shorter upon them. 



Few or no wolf-skins are shipped from Saint Michaels, and one season a lot was brought 

 there by steamer to supply the local trade. The Eskimo of the entire coast north of the Yukon 

 find difficulty in securing a sufiQcient number of wolf-skins to border the hoods of their fur coats. 

 The finest wolfskins with a coat of long, heavy fur will bring a very high price in trade, sometimes 

 netting $25 or $30 worth of more marketable skins. The gray skins are the only ones that ever 

 bring a good price; the fur on the black skins is too short and the color is not liked. 



The black and gray wolves hunt in the same packs, and are distributed over the same range. 

 The black kind predominates about the head of the Yukon, and the gray variety is most abundant 

 toward the coast region, but the difference seems to be too ill-defined for any definite line to be 

 drawn. The wolf ranges north to beyond the 71st degree of latitude to the Arctic coast, and in 

 Veniaminoff's account of the Territory, written the first part of this century, it is stated that two 

 wolves were killed on Akun Island in 1830, and that they are among the resident animals of Uni- 

 mak Island. Both these islands are at the extreme eastern end of the Aleutian chain, and this 

 animal is unknown elsewhere among these islands. 



The wolf is trapped by the Alaskan Eskimo in a peculiar manner, which is also practiced 

 among the Eskimo north of Hudson's Bay. A piece of whalebone about 8 inches long and 

 the size of a flattened lead-pencil sharpened at both ends is soaked in water until it becomes 

 thoroughly softened. It is then bent on itself in folds about an inch long and is tied in this posi- 

 tion until dry. The coi'd is then removed and the coil retains its position. It is then covered 

 about an inch thick with tallow and laid out for the wolf to find. The latter picks up the morsel 

 of fat containing the whalebone, and not being able to chew it gulps it down entire. In a short 

 time the juices and warmth of the animal's stomach act upon the whalebone and it slowly straight- 

 ens out and the sharp points transfix the stomach, and if they do not enter the heart or tnngs 

 and produce death at once they cause the animal such agony that he lies down and becomes an 

 easy prey for the hunter who follows his trail. 



The wolf figures largely iu the mythology of the Alaskan Eskimo, as it does with the Tlinkets 

 of the coast farther south. 



Among the Eskimo it is endowed with supernatural powers. Is one of their most prized 

 totemic animals, and the wolf gens is widely spread along the coast and interior. 



