THE GREAT ISLAND OF KADIAK. 103 



nearly all the smaller trading companies bad been fairly crowded 

 out of the country. But it was not always the power conferred 

 upon a great firm by its favor at Court and larger capital that 

 gained supremacy in Alaska during those early days — it frequently 

 occurred that the employes of one association resorted to physical 

 force of arms in dispossessing those of another, and then, this 

 order initiated, the strongest organization was sure to eventually 

 dominate the coveted region. This commercial anarchy led to the 

 autocratic monopoly of the Russian American Company in a very 

 few years — it was the best thing that could then have transpired 

 for Alaska and its people. 



The approach to Kadiak from the ocean is striking, because 

 it and the numerous islets and islands that join it closely are 

 mountainous and hilly, with many lofty peaks that have plateaux 

 and ravines full of eternal snow. It is not often seen clearly, how- 

 ever, along its full extent of wild topography, on account of clouds, 

 fog and boisterous weather, which terrifies the navigator, driving 

 him from its vision. It is, however, an island that affords the 

 greatest number of safe and snug harbors, and has no rival as the 

 most enjoyable place for the traveller to visit. It so justifies us in 

 our mind to-day, just as it w*arranted the Russians in exjDressing 

 their preference for it a full hundred years ago. 



Nature has drawn across Kadiak in a firm line, the ultimate 

 limit of timber growth to the westward. It seems to be as arbi- 

 trary and capricious as if ti-aced there by the humor of a human 

 ruler. Only one-third of the island itself, its northern extremity, 

 is covered with si^ruce-forest ; the invisible barrier to the west 

 seems to be a jjerfectly straight line over from the heads of Orlova 

 Bay on the south side to that of Ooganok on the north coast. Here 

 the change from a vigorous growth of spruce-forest to bare hills 

 and grassy tundra is most abrupt and astonishingly sharp in defini- 

 tion ; you pass from the jungle of the woods, at a single step, into 

 heather of the moor. This line, with a slight curve to the westward 

 only, strikes the same definition over on the mainland of the peninsula 

 opposite, and runs right up north to Bering's Straits' latitude, avoid- 

 ing the coast everywhere except at Cape Denbigh, Norton's Sound. 



There is scarcely any lowland, indeed none at all, on the large 

 island itself ; it is everywhere mountainous and abruptly rolling, 

 with spaces here and there in which the grasses flourish to a great 

 extent. A legion of small streams rush down to the bavs from 



