248 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



saw here for the first time, and wbicli filled Lira with amazement, 

 that they would be wiped out by the end of another season ; al- 

 though he was the gainer then, and would be perhaps at the end, 

 if they should be thus eliminated, yet he could not forbear say- 

 ing to himself that it was wrong and should not be. To this Cap- 

 tain Morgan also assented, and Captain Niebaum joined with them 

 cordially. In the fall of 1868 Mr. Hutchinson and Captain Mor- 

 gan, by their jDersonal eiforts, interested and aroused the Treas- 

 ury Department and Congress, so that a special resolution was 

 enacted declaring the Seal Islands a governmental reservation, 

 and prohibiting any and all parties from taking seals thereon 

 until further action by Congress. In 1869, seals were taken on 

 those islands, under the direction of the Treasury Department, 

 for the subsistence of the natives only ; and in 1870 Congress 

 passed the present law, for the protection of the far-bearing animals 

 on those islands, and under its provisions, and in accordance there- 

 with, after an animated and bitter struggle in competition, the 

 Alaska Commercial Company, of which Mr. Hutchinson was a prime 

 organizer, secured the award and received the franchise which it 

 now enjoys and will enjoy for some time yet. The company is an 

 American corporation, with a charter, rules, and regulations. They 

 emj)loy a fleet of vessels, sail and steam : four steamers, a dozen or 

 fifteen ships, barks, and sloops. Their principal occupation and 

 attention is given naturally to the Seal Islands, though they have 

 station sscattered over the Aleutian Islands and that portion of 

 Alaska west and north of Kadiak. No post of theirs is less than 

 five hundred or six hundred miles from Sitka. 



Outside of the Seal Islands all trade in this territory of Alaska 

 is entirely open to the public. There is no need of protecting the 

 fur-bearing animals elsewhere, unless it may be by a few whole- 

 some general restrictions in regard to the sea-otter chase. The 

 country itself protects the animals on the mainland and other 

 islands by its rugged, forbidding, and inhospitable exterior. 



The treasury officials on the Seal Islands are charged with the 

 careful observance of every act of the company ; a copy of the lease 

 and its covenant is conspicuously posted in their office ; is trans- 

 lated into Russian, and is familiar to all the natives. The company 

 directs its own labor, in accordance with the law, as it sees fit ; se- 

 lects its time of working, etc. The natives themselves work under 

 the direction of their own chosen foremen, or "toy ones." These 



