ALASKA AS IT WAS AND IS. 
137 
Greek church, an apathetic reticence replaced the rollicking 
good nature characteristic of the Eskimo people. In 1865 
they were supported by the company; the men shipped off 
in hunting parties in search of the sea-otter were separated 
from their families sometimes for many months and re¬ 
warded according to their success; but, while the company 
provided food for all who needed it, the time of the Aleut 
was not his own. I have already mentioned that the fur- 
seal at that time had very little commercial value. The 
fishery on the Pribiloff islands was conducted by Aleuts 
under supervision, and the skins were mostly shipped to 
China or Europe. It has been noted as surprising that the 
value of the fur-seal fishery is so little referred to in the argu¬ 
ments urging the acquisition of the territory in 1867. This 
was not an oversight; the seal fisheries at that time were 
not especially lucrative, and the millions which the industry 
has since produced could not have been predicted in 1867. 
At the time of my first visit and until very recently the 
sole productive industry of the Aleut people consisted in the 
sea-otter hunting and the fur-seal fishery. Much of their 
subsistence was and is obtained from the natural products 
of the region—fish, wild fowl, and the flesh of marine mam¬ 
mals. The custom of preparing clothing from the skins of 
birds and animals has long been abandoned. The Aleut and 
his family now dress in clothing of wool or cotton, burn 
kerosene in an American lamp, and cook their food on an 
iron stove. The barabora or native hut, built of sod and 
stones, has been generally replaced by a frame cottage, and 
the means for supplying these artificial wants has been ob¬ 
tained from the income derived from the seal and sea-otter. 
Now that these animals are approaching extinction, at least 
from a commercial standpoint, the question of how to pro¬ 
vide even the modest income needed for these people is a 
serious one. While it is not yet settled that the half-starved 
Eskimo of the northern coast will adopt the new mode of 
life necessitated by the care and maintenance of large herds 
of tame reindeer, and the success of that experiment is still 
