INVESTIGATION OF THE FUR-SEAL INDUSTRY OF ALASKA. 689 



as at some time previous. He at first was not much aroused by the complaint, because 

 he saw a vast concourse of seals, and it was not until 1808 that he became himself 

 fully aware of the significance of the lament of the natives. He saw a great falling off 

 from 1S04 to 1808, and made it the subject of a long letter to the church at Sitka and 

 united with the agent on the islands to stop the killing for awhile. It was held up 

 on St. Paul two years and resumed in 1810, but no great good came of the "zapooska," 

 or rest. By 1818 the loss of life was so apparent that a still more urgent letter of 

 remonstrance was sent down to Sitka from my father. The governor at Sitka sent it 

 to the directors of the company at St. Petersburg, and in the spring of 1819 Capt. 

 Yanovsky came up from Sitka charged by the directors to make a full examination 

 into my father's complaint. He passed the entire summer on St. Paul Island, and 

 when he went down with his report in November he left my father a letter telling him 

 that in every respect was he in full accord with the remonstrance and that he was 

 going to ask that my father's wish to suspend all killing on the island for a few years 

 be met by the board. Yanovsky did so report, but the directors were not willing to 

 let up even for one season, even though they did not question the truth of Yanovsky's 

 report and the sense of his recommendations. 



"Well, you know the result. In 1834 my father again was compelled to make a 

 third protest. He showed them at Sitka that there were only a few thousands of 

 seals left alive, and that if the order to kill was not suspended at once and indefinitely 

 their complete extinction was close at hand. He had in this third attempt the power- 

 ful friendship of Bishop Veniaminov, who was then at Sitka, and he succeeded in 

 getting the killing stopped. It was just in time. 



" I have here copies of all the letters which my father wrote, both to the head office 

 at Sitka and to the bishop, which tell the whole story of this business from 1808 down 

 to the death of father in 1856. There are also some letters of Veniaminov, in reply 

 and in question, to my father in that box. 



"I can not let you take them to Washington — no; something might happen; for not 

 only the seals are written about, but church affairs are also discussed in confidence 

 between them. You may read them all through here and copy the fur-seal matters. 

 You know I am head priest of this Unalaskan district, and it might hurt me were 

 these letters to be published. There are very jealous and envious men in our church, 

 and I do not want to give them any cause to complain of me. 



"I am sorry that I am unable to part with these letters; yet I can tell you all that 

 they contain about the seals, because I have read them many times, and what they 

 show is well known to me; ask — ask me; what I know I am glad to tell. 



"Oh, they did not care much about the seals then, when the company first came in. 

 It was all sea otter. "Get otters, get otters, " was the order of Baronov, and nothing 

 was said about seals then. Why? Because a sea-otter skin was worth 50 to 100 

 roubles, and a fur seal not over 6 or 7 roubles. There were a great many sea otters 

 then; thousands of them then where we have none to-day. So you see there was 

 little attention given by the company to the numbers or the condition of the fur seals 

 on the islands; indeed, Baronov was so indifferent to them that he never went up to 

 the islands, although he was politely urged to go by my father in 1808, when he saw 

 that the seals were growing less and less. Baronov was the best governor the company 

 ever had, and only on account of his age and high temper was he removed in 1814. 



"No; it is not known how many seals, at any time, there were on these islands; you 

 have given the first figures I have ever known. The Russians did not even estimate 

 their numbers; they just said "extraordinary number — plenty, plenty." That's all 

 I have ever heard when there were all that they wanted for their requisition, and 

 "very few — very, very little" when they order a "zapooska" (rest). If it had been 

 sea-otter life, they would have known; yes, indeed; they would have known it all. 

 Why, the sea-lion and walrus skins and guts and throats were as important — even 

 more important — to the old company then as were the seals — more so, I verily believe, 

 because we could not go sea-otter hunting without sea-lion or walrus "laftak" to 

 make the bidarkas with, and Baranov had every Aleut driven into that work 'way 

 down to Sitka by 1810. 



"In 1800, when the company began, the requisition never was greater than 40,000 

 to 50,000 skins on St. Paul and 20,000 on St. George, so the Stareeks say — not half so 

 many as carried away every season. There was no trouble about getting this quota 

 every year until 1807; then, instead of "making this quota," only about half that 

 number was gathered. My father was alarmed, and he, as I told you, wrote a long 

 letter to the church at Kodiak and to the governor, Baranov, at Sitka, and told them 

 that such "hard toiling had had at last its effect; the seals must have a rest (zapooska)." 

 Baranov ordered the killing on St. Paul to stop in 1808, and he let more than half of 

 the Aleuts go down to visit their relatives in Unalaska — just kept up the sea-lion 

 and walrus work of that year and the next (1809). Then, in 1810, the killing was 



53490—14 44 



