FEATURES OF THE SITKAN REGION. 25 



the last hundred years has failed to disclose in all the extent of this 

 Sitkan region an arable or bottom-land piece large enough to rep- 

 resent a hundred-acre farm, save in the valley of the Tahkoo River, 

 where for forty or fifty miles a low, level plateau extends, varying 

 in width from a few rods to half a mile, between the steep mountain 

 walls that compass it about. Bed-top and wild timothy grasses grow 

 here in the most luxuriant style, as they do for that matter every- 

 where else in the archipelago on little patches of open land along 

 the streams and sea-beaches ; the humidity of the climate makes 

 the cost of curing hay, however, very great, and prevents the profit- 

 able ranging of cattle. 



We have strayed from the landing which we made at "Wrangel, 

 and, returning to the contemplation of that town, candor compels 

 an exclamation of disappointment it is not inviting, for we see 

 nothing but a straggling group of hastily erected shanties and frame 

 store-houses, which face a rickety wharf and a dirty trackway just 

 above the beach-level ; a dense forest and tangled jungle spring up 

 like a forbidding wall at the very rear of the houses, which are sup- 

 plemented by a number of Indian rancheries that skirt the beach 

 just beyond, and hug the point ; this place, however, though now in 

 sad decline, was a place of much life and importance during 1875- 

 79, when the Cassiar gold-excitement in British Columbia, via the 

 Stickeen River, drew many hundreds of venturesome miners up here, 

 and through Wrangel en route. This forlorn spot was still earlier 

 a centre of even greater stir and activity, for, in 1831, the Russians, 

 fearing that they would be forced into war with the Hudson's Bay 

 people, made a quick movement, came down here from Sitka, and 

 built a bastioned log fortress right where the present Siwash ranch- 

 eries stand. Lieutenant Zarenbo, who engineered the construction, 

 called his work " R^doute Saint Dionys," and had scarcely got un- 

 der cover when he was attacked by several large bateaux, manned 



had this service fully organized up there during the last ten years ; the in- 

 quirer can easily gain access to a large amount of published data touching this 

 subject. 



The mean temperature of the year will run throughout the months in the 

 Sitkan region about as follows an average, for the time, of 44 7' Fah. 

 January, 29" 2' May, 45 5' September, 51 9' 



February, 36 4' June, 55 3' October, 49 2' 



March, 37 C 8' July, 55 6' November, 36 6' 



April, 44 7' August, 56 4' December, 30 2' 



