INNUIT LIFE AND LAND. 375 



per of the most patient and skilful navigator. It runs over these 

 shallows at certain turns of the tide, like the ebb and flow in the 

 Bay of Fundy, with a big, booming tidal wave, or " bore." The cur- 

 rent of this river may be discerned for a long distance out into Bris- 

 tol Bay, easily traced at the season of high water by its turbidity. 



Above the settlement of Nooshagak that river rapidly narrows 

 into a width of half a mile between banks for a long distance up its 

 winding course. It is very deep, with a succession of ripples, or 

 bars, that prevent navigation. When the northern bend is reached, 

 then it changes to a brawling, swift, and shoal current, with higher 

 rocky banks up to its source in the big lake which bears its gut- 

 tural name. It is clear and pure here, and is not muddy until it 

 reaches the shelving, alluvial banks of its lower course, which pre- 

 cipitate, by their caving and washing out, large quantities of soil 

 and timber into the stream. Its shores are, and all the country back 

 is, thickly wooded by spruce forests, and parked with grassy slopes 

 which reach out here and there, planted sparsely with thickets and 

 clumps of graceful birch- and poplar-trees. These nod and wave 

 their tremulous foliage as the summer gusts sweep now and then 

 over them. Countless pools, ponds, and lakes nestle in the moors 

 and in the forest hollows, upon which flocks of geese, ducks, and 

 all other kinds of hardy water-fowl breed and moult their plumage 

 during the short, hot summer. The traders say that this river is 

 the only one in Alaska, of the least magnitude, which has banks on 

 both sides of firm soil throughout its entire course. 



This site of Nooshagak village was an initial point of Russian 

 influence and trade among the great Innuit people of Alaska, who 

 live extended in their numerous settlements from the head of Bris- 

 tol Bay clear to the Arctic Ocean. Kolmakov established the post 

 in 1834, and named it Alexandrovsk. A simple cylindrical wooden 

 shaft, twenty feet high, surmounted with a globe, stands erected to 

 his memory on a small hillock overlooking the post below. The 

 village itself is located on the abrupt slopes of a steep, grassy hill- 

 side which rises from the river's edge. The trading-stores and the 

 residence of the priest, the church, log-huts of the natives and their 

 barraboras are planted on a succession of three earthen terraces, 

 one rising immediately behind the other. All communication from 

 flat to flat is by slippery staircases, which are fraught with great 

 danger to a thoughtless pedestrian, especially when fogs moisten 

 the steps and darkness obscures his vision. 



