74 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



to keep young, and memories are fatal, mere aiders 

 and abettors of Anno Domini. 



We sailed by the Trinity Islands to the Semidi 

 Islands. On the North Semidi the first fox ranche was 

 established with the idea of making a great industry 

 of raising blue foxes to supply the fur markets of the 

 world. Nobody has made a fortune out of it, but the 

 foxes can be reared to great perfection, the animals 

 being killed between November and January. The 

 blue fox living wild is now exceedingly rare in Alaska, 

 but the islands set apart for the raising of them in 

 domesticity are numerous, the sine qua non being 

 that it must be two miles away from any other land. 

 This to prevent the foxes swimming away. Some 

 of the islands have as many as a thousand head. The 

 food provided is meal and fish, mixed together, given 

 once a day. The beautiful creatures get to know the 

 hand that feeds them, not dreaming that some day it 

 will turn and rend them. It takes about nine months 

 for the cubs to grow to maturity, and the litters usually 

 number six to eight. 



One or two islands go in for propagating the silver- 

 grey fox, whose pelt is worth so much more than the 

 blue. The silver-grey, however, is less profitable in 

 the long run, because it is so difficult to take them 

 without harming the fur. A blue fox will readily 

 enter his death chamber, the box trap, without in- 

 quiry. Not so his cousin, the silver-grey. No schem- 

 ing will induce him to enter anything of the trap 

 variety, and poison does not answer because males 

 and females alike swallow it. 



