14 GEOGKArHIC DICTIONARY OF ALASKA. [bull. 187. 



ORIGIN OF NAMES. "-k 



The ircotrraphic names of any rej>ion may be likened to the co3 ,^ 

 ciivuhiting in a great .seaport. As these coins are stamped by varic . 

 nations. ,so ocographic names are stamped by a conquering, colonizinj^ ' 

 or exi)l()ring people upon the regions they visit, colonize, or conquer. 

 As some coins are by long use worn till their origin is unrecognizable, 

 so some geographic names, Avell known and most useful, are of so 

 uncertain origin that men disagree and dispute about them. Other 

 coins, and other geographic names, are less worn, and their origin 

 and history can be traced. Alaskan geographic names comprise a 

 comparati\el3' small number either so old or so corrupted as wholly 

 to conceal their origin or meaning. They are derived almost exclu- 

 sively from six sources, which may be briefly characterized as follows: 



1. Names hestmved hy the Bmsians. — Prior to about 1750 Russian 

 America, now Alaska, was a blank on our maps. Beginning with 

 Bering's first expedition in 1725, dim and obscure outlines began to 

 appear on this blank space, and as they appeared the Russians who 

 were tilling this space applied names to the geographic features which 

 the}' discovered and explored. First came the fur hunter, then the 

 official explorer, and later the}^ worked side by side. On the part of 

 the Russians the work continued till the purchase of Alaska by the 

 United States in 1867. Thus the period of Russian nomenclature is 

 about one hundred and twenty-five years, dating from Bering's second 

 voA'age in 1741 and ending with the cession of the territory to the 

 United States in 1867. 



2. Names hestowed hy the Sjxmiards. — There are few names in 

 Alaska of Spanish origin. All of them were bestowed in the interval 

 between 177-4 and about 1800. The exploratory work of the Spaniards 

 was all coastwise and extended from the southern boundary of Alaska 

 to and including Prince William sound. One expedition, indeed, 

 went as far west as Unalaska and named a few points along this 

 stretch of coast. Most of these names, owing to tardy and obscure 

 publication, have disappeared from the maps. 



8. jVavies hestoived hy the Emjlkh. — English names in Alaska date 

 from Cook's voyage thither in 1778. From time to time during the 

 seventy -five or eighty years following Cook's voyage, and to a limited 

 extent to the present time, English traders and naval vessels have 

 contributed to a knowledge of Alaskan geography and to its nomen- 

 clature. Noteworthy in the last century, after Cook, are the voyages 

 of Dixon, Mcares, and Portlock, British fur traders, but especially are 

 we indebted to the incomparable Vancouver for his masterly explora- 

 tion and survey of the coast from Kodiak eastward and southward to 

 lower California. Vancouver named man}^ features. At the same 

 time the features named were so fully described, mapped, and pub- 



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