90 



OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



plains intersected by such well-worn routes of travel, but the 

 mountains themselves and ridges, to the very summits thereof, are 

 thus laid out ; and the judgment of a bear in traversing a rough, 

 mountainous divide is always of the best his track over is sure to 

 be the most practicable route. On the steep, volcanic uplands of the 

 mountainous coast of the west shore in Cook's Inlet, groups of 

 twenty, and even thirty, of these huge bears can be seen together 

 feeding upon the berries and roots which are found there in 

 season. Their skins are not valuable, however, being "patched" 



Bear "Roads" over the Moors of Oonimak Islands. 



and harsh-haired. Then they are very fierce, so that they are not 

 commonly hunted anywhere except by the Kenaitze, who, like all 

 other aboriginal hunters, respect them profoundly, and invariably 

 address a few eulogistic words of praise to a bear before killing or 

 attempting to kill it.* 



A peculiar dread which all the natives of this region have, of 

 visiting those areas where volcanic energy manifests itself, is taken 

 advantage of by those dumb beasts upon which the savage wages 

 relentless warfare ; the immediate vicinity of craters, of steaming 



* Perhaps fully half the brown-bear skins taken by the Alaskan natives are 

 retained by them, used as bedding, and hung up as portieres over the entrance- 

 holes or doors to their houses ; the smaller skins are tanned and then cut into 

 straps and lines to use in sledge-fastenings, snowshoe network bottoms, be- 

 cause this leather does not stretch when moist like deer and moose skin. 



