CHAPTER XII. 



INNUIT LIFE AND LAND. 



" Nooshagak ;" Wide Application of an Innnit Name. — The Post and River. — 

 Countless Pools, Ponds, and Lakes of this District bordering Bristol Bay. 

 — The Eskimo Inhabitants of the Coast. — The Features and Form of 

 Alaskan Innuits. — Light-hearted, Inconstant, and Independent. — Their 

 Dress, Manners, and Rude Dwellings. — Their Routine of Life. — Large and 

 Varied Natui-al Food-supplies. — Indifferent Land Hunters, but Mighty 

 Fishermen. — Limited Needs from Traders' Stores. — Skilful Carvers in 

 Ivory. — Their Town Hall, or "Kashga." — They Build and Support no 

 Churches here. — Not of a real Religious Cast, as the Aleutians are. — The 

 Dogs and Sleds ; Importance of Them here. — Great Interest of the Innuitin 

 Savage Ceremonies. — The Wild Alaskan Interior. — Its Repellent Features 

 alike Avoided by Savage and Civilized Man. — The Indescribable Misery 

 of Mosquitoes. — The Desolation of Winter in this Region. — The Reindeer 

 Slaughter-pen on the Kvichak River. — Amazing Improvidence of the 

 Innuit. — The Tragic Death of Father Juvenals, on the Banks of the Great 

 Ilyamna Lake, 179G. — The Queer Innuits of Togiak. — Immense Muskrat 

 Catch. — The Togiaks are the Quakers of Alaska. — The Kuskokviui Mouth 

 a Vast Salmon-trap. — The Ichthyophagi of Alaska. — Dense Population. — 

 Daily Life of the Fish-eaters. — Infernal Mosquitoes of Kuskokvim ; the 

 Worst in Alaska. — Kolmakovsky ; its History. 



" Nooshagak " is not a very euphonious name, yet it is employed in 

 Alaska to exj^ress the whole of an immense area that backs the 

 borders of Bristol Bay ; but, when strictly applied, it is the desig- 

 nation of a small trading-post at the head of a large, brackish estu- 

 ary of the sea, into which the Nooshagak River pours its heavy 

 flood. A cruise of three hundred and eight}' miles to the northeast 

 from Oonalashka in a trim little trading-schooner, which alone can 

 make the landing, takes you to this old and well-known Russian 

 outpost ; but the manner who pilots that vessel must be well ac- 

 quainted with those perilous shoals and tide-rips of Bristol Bay, or 

 you will never disembark at the foot of that staircase which leads 

 up to the doors of Alexandrovsk. The river here is a broad arm of 

 the sea, full of shifting sand-bars and mud-flats which trv the tern- 



