8 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



let them breed. During the winter months these are fed 

 by their keepers with cooked meal, dried fish, and seal- 

 meat. When a good stock has been raised, a certain 

 number are annually killed for their skins ; this being 

 done between the end of November and the beginning of 

 January, when the fur is at its best. Fur-seals are now con- 

 fined to the Pribiloff Islands, in Bering Sea, which are hired 

 from the Government at an enormous rent by the North 

 American Commercial Company for the purpose of catching 

 seals. 



The description of the natives inhabiting the coast of 

 Alaska is too large an undertaking to be dealt with, even 

 briefly, in a work of this kind. The number of small tribes 

 (if they may be so called), differing slightly from one another, 

 is bewildering. We find distinct racial types, ranging from 

 the Indians around Sitka and in the south, to Aleuts along 

 the Alaska Peninsula, and westward again, to tribes of 

 Esquimaux along the Bering Sea shores. There are indeed 

 so many forms and varieties of language that often the 

 natives of one place cannot understand the language of those 

 in another settlement at no great distance from their own. 

 In such cases they generally have recourse to the Russian 

 tongue, which is more or less universally spoken by all. 

 Taken as a whole, the natives on the coast may be classed 

 as fishermen rather than hunters. Fish of all kinds are in 

 profusion, and form their staple form of food. Hence it is 

 really a hard matter to obtain good native hunters, as 

 compared with those of other wild regions. 



The influence of the Russian Church still predominates 

 amongst the natives throughout the country ; and most of 

 the big settlements can boast a local priest, who in many 

 cases is the controlling factor amongst the inhabitants. 



