ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 423 



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 to work at once 

 with vigor and energetic persistency. The sequel proved the wisdom 

 of the company.' 



Many experiments, however, were made and a dozen houses built ere 

 the result was as good as the style of primitive housing, when it had 

 been well done and kept in best possible repair. In such a damp climate, 

 naturally, a strong moldy smell pervades all inclosed rooms which are 

 not thoroughly heated and daily dried by fires; and in the sirring and 

 fall frost works through and drips aud trickles like rain adown the walls. 

 The present frame houses occupied by the natives owe their dryness, 

 warmth, and protection from the piercing " boorgas," to the liberal use 

 of stout tarred paper in the lining. The overpowering mustiness of the 

 hallways, outhouses, and, in fact, every roofed-in spot where a stove is 

 not regularly used, even in the best-built residences, is one of the first 

 disagreeable sensations which the new arrivals always experience when 

 they take up their quarters here. Perhaps if it were not for the nasal 

 misery that floats in from the killing grounds to the novice, this musty, 

 moldy state of things up here would be far more acute as an annoyance 

 than it is now. The greater grief seems to soon fully absorb the lesser 

 one; at least in my own case I can afiSrm that result. 



We see here now at St. Paul and on St. George, in the place of the 

 squalid, filthy habitations of the immediate past, two villages, neat, 

 warm, and contented. Each family lives in a snug frame dwelling. 

 Every house is lined with tarred paper, painted, furnished with a stove, 

 with outhouses, etc., complete; streets are laid out, and the foundations 

 of these habitations regularly i^latted thereon. There is a large church 

 at St. Paul and a less pretentious but very creditable structure of the 

 same character on St. George. A pharmacy on St. Paul, with a full 

 and complete stock of drugs, and skilled physicians on both islands to 

 take care of the people free of cost. There is a schoolhouse on each 

 island, in which teachers have been paid by the company eight months 

 of every year to instruct the youth, Avhile the Eussian Church is sus- 

 tained entirely by the pious contributions of the natives themselves on 

 these two islands, and sustained well by each. There are 63 family 

 houses on St. Paul in the village, with 20 or 24 such houses to as many 

 families on St. George, and 18 other structures. The large warehouses 

 and salt sheds, built by the Alaska Commercial Company's skillful 

 mechanics, as have been the dwellings just referred to, are also neatly 

 painted, and, taken in combination with the other features, constitute a 

 picture fully equal to the average presentation of any one of our small 

 eastern towns. There is no misery, no downcast, dejected, suffering 



'Before this action ou their part it was physically impossible for the inhabitants 

 of St. Paul or St. George islands to take the lawfnl quota of 100,000 seal skins annu- 

 ally in less than three or four working months. They can take them in less than 

 thirty working days now with the same number of men. What is the gain ? Simply 

 this, and it is evei-ything: The fur-seal skin, from the 14th of June, when it first 

 arrives, as a rule, up to the 20th of July, is in prime condition. From that latter 

 date until the middle of October it deteriorates, to slowly appreciate again in value 

 as it sheds and renews its coat; so much so, that it is practically damaged in the 

 markets of the world. Hence the catch taken by the Alaska Commercial Company 

 every year was a prime one, tirst to last; there were no low-grade or "stagey" skins 

 in it. Under the old regimen three-fourths of the skins were taken in August, in Sep- 

 tember, and even in October, and many such were not worth 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. 



