114 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
the thermometer below zero in a wild, northerly and westerly gale of wind, is better 
imagined than portrayed. 
To the southward and westward of Sannak, stretching directly from it out to 
sea 8 or 10 miles, is a succession of small, submerged islets, rocky and bare, most 
of them, at low water, with numerous reefs and stony shoals, beds of kelp, etc. 
This scant area is the chief resort of the kalan, together with the Chernabura 
Islets, some 30 miles to the eastward, which are identical in character. The otter 
raiely lands upon the main island, but he is, when found ashore, surprised just out of 
the surf-wash on the reef. The quick hearing aud acute smell possessed by this wary 
brute are not equaled by any other creatures in the sea or on land. They will take 
alarm and leave instantly from rest in a large section, over the effect of a small fire 
as far away as 4 or 5 miles distant to the windward of them. The footsteps of 
man must be washed from a beach by many tides before its trace ceases to scare the 
animal and drive it from landing there, should it approach for that purpose. 
The fashion of capturing the sea otter is ordered entirely by the weather. If it be 
quiet and moderately calm to calm, such an interval is employed in “speariug sur- 
rounds.” Then, when heavy weather ensues, to gales, “ surf-shooting ” is the method ; 
and if a furious gale has been blowing hard for several days without cessation, as it 
lightens up, the hardiest hunters “club” the kalan. Let us first follow a spearing 
party ; let us start with the hunters and go with them to the death. 
Our point of departure is Unalaska village ; the time is an early June morning. 
The creaking of the tackle on the little schooner out in the bay as her sails are being 
set and her anchor hoisted causes a swarm of Aleuts, in their bidarkas, to start out 
from the beach for her deck. They clamber on board and draw their cockle-shell 
craft up after them, and these are soon stowed aud lashed tightly to the vessel’s deck- 
rail and stanchions. The trader has arranged this trip and start this morning for San- 
nak by beginning to talk it over two weeks ago with these 30 or 40 hunters of the 
village. He is to carry them down to the favored otter-resort, leave them there, aud 
return to bring them back in just three months from the day of their departure this 
morning. For this great accommodation the Aleuts interested agreed to give the 
trader skipper a refusal of their entire catch of otter skins — indeed, many of them 
have mortgaged their labor heavily in .advance by pre- purchasing at his store, inas- 
much as the credit system is worked among them for all it is worth. They are adepts 
in driving a bargain, shrewd and patient. The traders know this u ow, to the grievous 
cost of many of them. 
If everything is auspicious, wind and tide the next morning, after sailing, bring 
the vessel well upon the ground. The headlands are made out and noted ; the 
natives slip into their bidarkas as they are successively dropped over the schooner’s 
side while she jogs along under easy way, until the whole fleet of twenly or thirty 
craft is launched. The trader stands by the rail and shakes the hand of each grimy 
hunter as he steps down into his kyack, calling him, in pigeon-Russian, his “loob- 
aiznie droog,” or dear friend, and bids him a hearty good-by. Then, as the last 
bidarka drops, the ship comes about and speeds back to the port which yesterday 
morning she cleared from, or she may keep on, before she does so, to some harbor at 
Sannak, where she will leave at a preconcerted rendezvous a supply of flour, sugar, 
tea, and tobacco for her party. 
If the weather j>e not too foggy and the sea not very high, the bidarkas are 
deployed into a single long line, keeping well abreast, at intervals of a few hundred 
feet between. In this manner they paddle slowly and silently over the water, each 
man peering sharply and eagerly into the vista of tumbling water just ahead, ready 
to catch the faintest evidence of the presence of an otter, should that beast ever so 
slyly present even the tip of its blunt head above for breath and observation. Sud- 
denly an otter is discovered, apparently asleep, and instantly the discoverer makes 
a quiet signal, which is flashed along the line. Not a word is spoken, not a paddle 
splashes, but the vigilant, sensitive creature has taken the alarm, and has turned 
