FEATURES OF THE SITKAN" REGION. 26 



tbe last hundred j-ears 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. Red-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, veiy 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 whai'f and a dirty trackway just 

 above the beach-level ; a dense forest and tangled jungle sirring uj) 

 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 imj^ortance 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 Avith the Hudson's Bay 

 peoj)le, 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 "Redoute 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, 3G' 4' June, 55° 3' October, 49' 2' 



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



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



