156 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



heavy roll of Akootan Straits and its violent tide-rips, the surf break- 

 ing on tlie " Bishop " and the point beyond it most grandly. A short 

 hour, and the rough water is passed. We have entered Captain's 

 Harbor, and are " fanning " along over a glassy surface up to our 

 anchorage off fi-om, but close by, the village of Oonalashka.* 



What San Francisco is to California, so is Oonalashka to all 

 Alaska west of Kadiak. It is the point of all arrivals and all de- 

 partures for and from this vast area. It is most fitly chosen, and 

 beautifully located. From earliest time, an Aleutian legend never 

 failed in its rendition to the dusky people then living in their 

 yourts and kazarmies to vividly impress upon the native mind a 

 full sense of those pleasures of life and hope at Illoolook ; not, how- 

 ever, as expressed so sadly by our own bard, whose inimitable 

 poem declares that the wolf howled long and dismally from this 

 lovely shore of Illoolook. 



Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow 

 From wastes that slumber in eternal snow, 

 And waft across the wave's tumultuous roar 

 Tlie icolfs lony Iiouifrom OunalaskaJ's shore. 



If Campbell had only substituted " Akoon " for " Oonalashka " 

 in this much-admired verse descriptive of savage desolation, he 

 would not have marred a famous passage by the slightest error — 

 but, at Oonalashka, never, never was a wolf ever known to be. lu 

 1830, however, two of these animals got over from Oonimak as far 

 west as Akoon — on drifting ice-floes, most likely. They were speed- 

 ily noticed by the natives, who killed them at once, so Veniaminov 

 says, for they were cordially hated by the Aleutes, since these 

 beasts "kill foxes and spoil the traps." 



The panorama of land and water here in summer is an exceed- 

 ingly attractive one — in its effect fully as charming as is the lovely 

 spread of Sitka Sound ; but its character is widely opposed. If 

 we chance to view Oonalashka in clear sunshine during a day in the 

 summer months, we will recall this picture to our mind's eye often 

 with positive pleasure. Here, strung along for half a mile just 

 back of a curved and pebbly beach, is an irregular row of frame, 

 single-story cottages, a large Greek church, and a fine parsonage, 



"The natives always called this settlement ''Illoolook," or "curved 

 beach." 



