104 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



their mountain sources, but none of them are navigable they are 

 mere rapids and cascades in their entire length. A growth of the 

 characteristic circumpolar annuals and biennials on the slopes of 

 these hills of Kadiak is of exotic luxuriance, and of the most varied 

 beauty of floral display in June, July, and August. Willows and 

 alders fringe the borders of the streams in their range throughout 

 the woodless area, while stunted birch and green grasses reach to 

 the very summits of the hilly ridges of the interior. 



Although Shellikov had established the headquarters of his 

 Russian Company on Three Saints Bay with good reason at the 

 time, yet when the entire Alaskan region went into the control of a 

 single organization, it became necessary to have a grand central 

 depot of supplies. Therefore Baranov promptly removed to the 

 site of the present village of Kadiak. Upon that wooded island in 

 the offing he procured the lumber and timbers necessary for the 

 erection of those huge warehouses and numerous dwellings of many 

 sizes required to house the merchandise, furs, and his employes. 

 The harbor, too, is ample, and so situated that sailing-craft . can 

 come and go in all winds. Sadly, indeed, did the Russians, a few 

 years later, abandon Kadiak for Sitka, as the numerous letters and 

 protests still on file show ; but the menacing encroachments of for- 

 eign traders in the far-distant Alexander archipelago were too grave 

 in their portents of loss and usurpation of vested rights to allow of 

 any other action. 



To-day many of the ancient Russian structures are still pointed 

 out in the village here which commands the harbor of Saint Paul, 

 and in which some three hundred Creoles are living in well-built 

 log and frame houses. Everything is clean* and orderly, but very, 

 very quiet, inasmuch as no commerce, no monthly steamer, no 

 tramping miners invade the solitude of its location. It supports a 

 large Greek church and the priest attendant. Its people, as a rule, 

 are wholly engaged in the business of trading fur and hunting sea- 

 otters. Small codfish schooners often rendezvous here, and thfc 



* Cleanliness and comfort, however, were but little regarded by the Rus- 

 sian fur-traders, who gave their surroundings of residence no sanitary atten- 

 tion whatever. Even Baranov himself was supremely indifferent, and when 

 the Imperial Commissioner, Resanov, called on him at Sitka in 1805, the chief 

 manager of the Russian American Company was living in a mere hut, " in 

 which the bed was often afloat," and a leak in the roof too small a matter to 

 notice I 



