136 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



traders bring up liere especially to meet tliis demand. A small 

 deal-table, two or three empty cracker-boxes from the store, and a 

 rude bench or two constitute all the furniture, while a little cast-iron 

 stove, recently introduced, stands in one corner, and the heating and 

 cooking is created and performed thereon. The table-ware of a 

 hunter's wife and the household utensils do not require much room 

 or a large cu^Dboard for their reception. A few large white crockery 

 cups, plates, and saucers, with gaudy red and blue designs, and 

 several pewter spoons, will be found in sufficient quantity to enter- 

 tain with during seasons of festivity. She manifests a marked dis- 

 like to tin dishes, probably due to the fact that it is necessary to 

 take care of this ware, or it rusts out. Then, above all the strange 

 odors which arise here in this close, hot little room, we easily de- 

 tect the smell of kerosene, and, sure enough, it is the oil which is 

 burned in the lamp. 



Such a barrabkie built and furnished in this style and occujiied 

 by Kahgoon, his wife, two or three children, and a relative or so, is 

 a warm and a thoroughly comfortable shelter to him and his, as long- 

 as he keeps it in good repair. It is true that the air seems to us, 

 as we enter, oppressively close, and, in case of sickness, is posit- 

 ively foul ; yet on the whole the Alaskan is very comfortable. He 

 never stores up much food against the morrow — the sea and its 

 piscine booty is too near at hand. Whatever he may keep over he 

 does not have in a cellar, but hangs it up outside of his door on an 

 elevated trestle which he calls a " laabas," beyond the reach of the 

 village dogs, while there is no thought of theft from the hands of his 

 neighbors. He lives chiefly upon fresh fish — cod, halibut, salmon 

 and other varieties, which he secures the year round as they rotate 

 in the sea and streams. He varies that diet according to the suc- 

 cess of his hunting, by buying at the store tea, sugar, hard-bread, 

 crackers, flour and divers canned fruits or vegetables. Nature 

 sends him in season the flesh and eggs of sea-fowl, geese, ducks, 

 and a few land birds like willow-grouse. 



In this fashion the sea-otter hunter appears to us as we view him 

 now ; his children come, grow up, and branch out, to repeat his life 

 and doing, as they show themselves capable of living by their own 

 exertions as hunters and fishermen. He is a peaceful, affectionate, 

 and thoroughly undemonstrative parent, a kind husband, and he 

 imposes no burden upon his wife that he does not fully share, un- 

 less he becomes a drunkard, when, in that event, a sad change is 



