ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 35 



cial Company agreed upon a code of regulations which should govern 

 their joint action in regard to the natives. It was a simple agree- 

 ment that these people should have a certain amount of dried sal- 

 mon furnished them for food everj^ y«?ar, a certain amount of fuel, 

 a schoolhouse, and the right to go to and come from tlie islands as 

 they chose, and also the right to work or not, understanding that in 

 case they did not work their places would and could be supijlied by 

 other j)eople who would work. 



The company, however, has gone far beyond this exaction of the Gov- 

 ernment. It has added the inexpressible boon of comfort in the forma- 

 tion of the dwellings now occupied by the natives, which was not 

 expressed nor thought of at the time of the granting of the lease. An 

 enlightened business policy suggested to the company that it would 

 be much better for the natives and much better for the company, too, 

 if these people were taken out of their filthy, unwholesome hovels, put 

 into habital)le dwellings, and taught to live cleanly, for the simple 

 reason that by so doing the natives, living in this improved condition, 

 would be able physically and mentally every season when the sealing 

 work began to come out from their long inanition and go td work at 

 once with vigor and energetic persistency. The sequel has proved the 

 wisdom of the company. 



Before this action on their part it was physically impossible for the 

 inhabitants of St. Paul or St. George islands to take the lawful quota 

 of 100,000 seal skins annually in less than three or four working months. 

 They take them in less than thirty working days now with the same 

 number of men. What is the gain"? Simply this, and it is everj'thing : 

 The fur-seal skin, from the 14th of June, when it first arrives, as a 

 rule, up to the 1st of August, is in i^rime condition; from that latter 

 date until the middle of October it is rapidly deteriorating, to slowly 

 appreciate again in value as it sheds and renews its coat; so much 

 so that it is practically worthless in the markets of the world. Hence, 

 the catch taken by the Alaska Commercial Company every year is a 

 prime one, first to last — there are no low-grade "stagy" skins in it; 

 but under the old regimen three-fourths of the skins were taken in 

 August, in September, and even in October, and were not woj-th their 

 transportation to London. Comment on this is unnecessary. It is the 

 contrast made between a prescient business policy and one that was 

 as shiftless and improvident as language can well devise. 



Schools and churches. — The company found so much difficulty 

 in getting the youth of the villages to attend their schools, taught by 

 our own j)eople, especially brought uj) there and hired by the com- 

 pany, that they have adopted the plan of bringing one or two of the 

 brightest boj^s down every year and putting them into our schools, so 

 that they may grow up here and be educated, in order to return and 

 serve as teachers there. This policy is warranted by the success 

 attending the experiment made at the time when I was up there first, 

 whereby a son of the chief was carried down and over to Rutland, Vt., 

 for his education, remained there four years, then returned and took 

 charge of the school on St. Paul, wliich he has had ever since, with 

 the happiest results in increased attendance and attention from the 

 children. But, of course, so long as the Russian church service is 

 conducted in the Russian language we will find on the islands more 

 Russian-speaking people than our own. The nonattendance at school 

 was not and is not to be ascribed to indisposition on the part of the 

 children and parents. One of the oldest and most intelligent of 

 the natives told me, explanatory of their feeling and consequent 



