96 FUR-SEAL FISHEKIES OF ALA8KA. 



men stretching: along- the co;isl almost to the Ikiti.sh Possessions, and 

 without anycoiuumnication between these nine men, who are several hun- 

 dred miles apart. — A. They are strung along over 1,500 miles of coast 

 line in all. 



By the Chairman : 



Q. What do they do 1 — A. Tbey sim])ly represent the company when 

 traders bring the furs down. They maintain the stores for the ex- 

 change of goods for pelts ; and I might say here that that whole busi- 

 ness, which we call the mainland business, is of so little value that 

 were it not for the fact that the company by reason of the lease has to 

 keep steamers and vessels of its own, they would not for a moment think 

 of pursuing this business — the country is so large and distances so 

 great, and the supply of pelts brought in from the different stations is 

 so small and scattering. 



Q. Will you state just here whether or not the native hunters and tra- 

 ders could find a market foi- their furs if some other company did not 

 maintain a trading station? How would they reach a market for their 

 furs ? — A. The only way in which they could would be by some vessels 

 coming there ; otherwise it would be quite impossible. Sometimes ves- 

 sels might touch on the northern division, but the Arctic division, to 

 which the gentleman referred just now, has a considerable amount of 

 Indian trade in furs, and various vessels go across Bering Straits and 

 sell to Russian traders on the Sil)erian coast. The company could, if 

 they chose, send a vessel up there and divert that trade, but it is too 

 insufficient, for one reason, and anotherreason is — perhaps the principal 

 one — that it always pertained to the inhabitants of Russian Siberia, 

 and it was considered rather an act of courtesy to let the trade alone. 



If the company leasing the seal islands were prohibited — suppose 

 such a case — from doing any trading with the mainland, the trappers 

 and hunters and general collectors of furs on the mainland would suffer 

 to just the extent that any business would suffer from whom its best 

 support was withdrawn. If the Alaska Commercial Company was pro- 

 hibited from maintaining these few stations and the nine or ten men 

 which it has in that Territory and buying the furs of people who collect 

 them they would be absolutely forced to accept whatsoever in the way 

 of trade they might get from the few vessels sent from British Columbia. 



Q. What class of i>eople collect these furs ? — A. They are known in 

 the West as hunters and trappers. 



Q. Are they natives ? — A. The most of them are white men who have 

 taken to the woods and are like those who live on the frontiers. The 

 Indians themselves collect furs, and these people collect from the In- 

 dians and they bring them to tlie jioints where the Alaska Commer- 

 cial Company's agents buy them. 



Q. Your company, then, buys second-hand from the traders' — A. 

 Yes, sir. 



By Mr. Cummings : 

 Q. These traders are in the interior? — A. They have stations on the 

 rivers and in the ulterior. 



By the Chairman : 



Q. These traders trade with the natives ? — A. Yes, sir. 



Q. Is there competition amongst them f — A. Yes: there are quite a 

 number scattered through the country — men who have gone up there 

 induced by the reports of the mining prospects, who found, when they 

 got there, that the prospects were not equal to the reports. The long 



