ALASKA AS IT WAS AND IS. 
145 
formerly prosperous village. There is some admixture of 
blood in marriages between the often attractive “ Creole ” 
women and the incoming settlers. These marriages are 
often very fruitful, but the pure-blooded natives seem to be 
diminishing. The Aleuts, whose census is accurately made 
annually by the Greek church, are distinctly losing ground, 
and will doubtless pass away in a few generations. The 
same is probably true of the Tlinkit people. As we ap¬ 
proach the Arctic region, changes of all sorts are less marked 
and civilization has had less effect. Here the subsistence 
of the natives presents serious and increasing difficulties. 
Their natural food supply has been practically destroyed 
by the whites and by repeating firearms, of which the 
natives have many. The whales are almost extinct, and 
the whaling fleet itself is nearly so. The walrus preceded 
the whale, and the hair seal has never been sufficiently 
abundant in this region for a sole resource. The chief 
salmon streams are or soon will be monopolized by the 
whites near the sea, and the natives of the upper Yukon 
will go hungry. The present law allows unrestricted fish¬ 
ing to the natives and a close time of one day a week for 
the whites. The latter hire the natives to fish during the 
prohibited day, and so the salmon have no close time. 
Where a salmon stream is monopolized by one firm, they 
do not usually cut their own throats by taking all the 
salmon, but where there are several competing firms there 
is little respite for the fish. 
The cod fishery was for some years carried on by two 
competing firms, who have now composed their differences. 
They had salting stations on shore, and bought fish at so 
much a thousand from fishermen, who used small sailing 
vessels or dories and fished near shore. Now it is found 
cheaper and, for other reasons, preferable to return to the 
older system of fishing in the open sea from a sea-going 
vessel, as on the banks at the east. The preparation of the 
Alaska fish has often been hasty, careless, and inferior to 
that done in the east; so Alaska codfish, originally of equal 
