The Portland daily press., 1882-04-08
Notes from Alaska

10 the Editor OF the Press;
+ have received letter from friend ip Sit
ka, Alaska, and / thought some of she items
would be interesting to the public. He writes,
Oct. 5, 1885,
He says, 81 planted garden a month late,
but as the season has been unusually tlne Ii
turned out better than I expected. We raised
nice potatoes, cabbages, eaulifower, lettuce,
radishes, beets, turnips and green peas. The
peas came from the Agricultural Department
at Washington. They were dwarf pea, grow
ing about thirty inches high. They began to
blossom when that height but kept on growing
and are growing still, although they were
blown down when they were some eight or
nine feet high. We have so much rain and
the days are so long in the summer that any
thing that will grow, grows very lux uriantly.
Before Sitka was turned over to the United
States three thousand Russians lived here, and
there were some twelve or fourteen hundred
Indians. But all the Russians were offered a
free passage to Russia, and the larger part OF
the better class left. Now We have about three
hundred Russians and fifty or sixty whites OF
different nationalities, not counting the men
on the United States steamer, Wachusetts.
Gold was discovered AT place called Takoo
about two hundred miles north OF here, last
Fall, and nearly sll the whites rushed In there
this Spring. Where q year ago there was
nothing but forest there is now town OF
three hundred inhabitants and by next Fall
there may be as many thousand.
The houses of Sitka are built of logs, some of
them squared and then cased with two-incb
planks. Some OF them are very large. Our
house is ninety by forty feet and two and one
half stories high. The castle and guard house
are much larger.
The business of the Russians is salmon fish
ing until they get enough to buy hoochinoo.
vile kind OF liquor made from moaSseS, dis
filled kprOaaUa Their custom TO
keep dead drunk just as long as the hoochinoo-
las,s.
AS to marriage relation, there is none. Their
religion is that of the Greek church. 1t is a
standing joke that the Priest has the best whis-
key, and / have heard them laugh at the ne
cessity of carrying him home from drunk,
on shutter. As to the Indians, their contact
with the whites has as usual been a bad thing
for them. They have dwindled from l400
to about 500 A white man first taught them
how to make boochinoo which has been a
great curse to them. They are divided into
different families and If one kills another pur-
posely or by accident one of the other family
must be killed, or compensation made in
the Sitkas imprisoneda a Chilcat for threatening
the life of a Sitka. He hung himself during
the night In a couple of months three Chill
cat chiefs came with force and demanded Two
hundred blankets or the life Of Sitka Indian.
After long wan-wan-talk-they settled the
matter for seventy blankets.
Up at Takoo, two little Indian boys were
playing with hatchets and one of them acci-
dentally cut the others toe off. They came to
the officer there to settle it. He asked them
what they wanted. The father of the untoed
boy said he thought it would be fair to cut the
other boys toe off in the same place. The Off
Ger would not allow this, therefore the toe was
paid for With twenty-ssven yards of calico. In
case of a murder they would rather kill one OF
the murderer's friends than the murderer, for
thav he has die ANYWAY. that 1t is no
punishment to kill him, but if they kill one Of
his friends they make him feel sorry as long as
he lives.
JOSEPH KYTE.