CHAPTER V. 

 THE SEA-OTTER AND ITS HUNTING. 



The seaotter, like the fur-seal, is another illustration of an 

 animal long known ami highly prized in the commercial world, 

 yet respecting the habits and lif^ of which nothing definite 

 has been ascertained or published. The reason for this is obvi- 

 ous, for, save the natives who hunt them, no one properly quali- 

 fied has ever had au opportunity of seeing the sea-otter so as 

 to study it in a state of nature, for, of all the shj', sensitive 

 beasts, upon the capture of vrhich man sets any value, this 

 ■creature is the most keenly on the alert and dififlcult to obtain ; 

 and, like the fur-seal in this Territory, it possesses the enhanc- 

 ing value of being principally confined to our country. A truth- 

 ful account of the strange, vigilant life of the sea-otter, and of 

 the hardships and perils encountered by its hunters, T\'Ould sur- 

 pass in novelty and interest the most attractive work of fiction. 



When the llussian traders opened up the Aleutian Islands 

 they found the natives commonly wearing sea-otter cloaks, 

 which they parted with at first for a trifle, not placing any es- 

 pecial value on the animal, as they did the hair-seal and the 

 sea-lion, the flesh and skins of which were vastly more palata- 

 ble and serviceable to them; but the offers of the greedy 

 traders soon set the natives after them. During the first few 

 years the numbers of these animals taken all along the Aleu- 

 tian Chain, and down the whole northwest coast as far as Ore- 

 gon, were very great, and compared with what are now captured 

 seem perfectly fabulous ; for instance, when the Prybilov Isl- 

 ands were first discovered, two sailors, Lukannon and Kaiekov, 

 killed at Saint Paul's Island, in the first year of occupation, 

 five thousand; the next year they got less than a thousand, and 

 in six years after not a single sea-otter appeared, and none have 

 appeared since. "When Shellikov's party first visited Oook's 

 Inlet, they secured three thousand ; during the second year, 

 two thousand ; in the third, only eight hundred ; the season 

 following they obtained six hundred ; and finally, in 1812, less 

 than a hundred, and since then not a tenth of that number. 

 The first visit made by the Russians to the Gulf of Yahkutat, 



