The Kadiak Bear and his Home 



about i^ miles from Kadiak, is small and well 

 covered with spruce. It has some two hundred 

 people, for the most part natives, and under Rus- 

 sian rule was used for a huge ice-storing plant. 

 Kadiak Island, lOO miles by 30, is thickly studded 

 with mountains, and extremely picturesque, with 

 the white covering of early spring, as we found it, 

 or when green with heavy grass dotted with wild 

 flowers in July. 



The Kadiak group looks as if it might have 

 fallen out of Cook Inlet, and one of the native 

 legends tells us that once the Kadiak Islands were 

 so near the Alaskan shore that a mammoth sea 

 otter, while trying to swim through the narrow 

 straits, got wedged between the rocks, and his tre- 

 mendous struggles to free himself pushed the 

 islands out into their present position. The sea otter 

 and bear have always been most intimately con- 

 nected with the lives of the Kadiakers, and have 

 exercised a more important influence on their char- 

 acters than any of their surroundings except the 

 sea. It is no wonder, then, that the natives en- 

 dowed these animals with a strength and size which 

 easily takes them into the realm of mythology. 

 The sea otter being nearly extinct, the bear is now 

 made to shoulder all the large stories, and, strong 

 as he is, this is no light burden. 



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