THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK. 105 



natives also cut considerable cord-wood, for the use of such fur- 

 traders who ply to the treeless districts westward, and fuel 

 for fishing canneries at Karlook and Kassilov. Several little 

 mountain rivulets flow through the limits of this settlement, which 

 is everywhere well drained, and therefore dry in the streets by rea- 

 son of its position on the rising slopes of the lofty hills which 

 make a bold background, when the picture is viewed from the ship's 

 deck as you sail up to the anchorage. The presence here of some 

 thirty white men, pure Kussian Creoles, and several of our own 

 people who have really settled in the country, many of them mar- 

 ried, and who call the place home, makes Kadiak unique in this re- 

 spect. Elsewhere, if we find a white man living at the trading- 

 posts, or plying his vocation as a cod-salmon fisherman, or miner, 

 he always draws himself up and emphatically denies any idea of 

 permanent residence in Alaska. 



Looking down the bay, we observe a thickly timbered and a 

 somewhat more level island than usual it is the famous Wood 

 Island, where the largest spruce-trees in all this section grow ; upon 

 it is a small village of one hundred and fifty-six souls, living in 

 thirteen log houses, thickly clustered together ; they are all sea- 

 otter hunters during the summer. This village is also the depot of 

 that mysterious San Francisco corporation which has regularly cut 

 up and stored tons of ice here every winter since 1856, and never 

 has shipped a pound of it away ! and when the bright, hearty agent 

 of this corporation asks you to come out with him to the stable and 

 advises you to mount one of the three or four horses sheltered 

 therein, so that you can gallop round the island with him, your 

 astonishment is perfect. 



Sure enough, there is a road, incredible as it first seemed ; 

 for, in order that the horses might be exercised, a good track has 

 been made upon the entire tide-level circuit of the island, about 

 twelve miles in length, over which the ice company's stock is trotted 

 every summer at frequent intervals ; in the winter these unwonted 

 animals are busy hauling ice. You may well improve this oppor- 

 tunity, for it will not occur again as you travel in Alaska you will 

 not be able to ride elsewhere on a road worthy of the name. 



A number of small trading-sloops and schooners have been built 

 here in a boatyard, fashioned by the skill of some Creole ship- 

 carpenters, who were trained in the yards at Sitka when Russian 

 authority was dominant, and who have taken up their permanent 



