Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-11-11
ALASKA'S CAPITAL.
THE CURIOUS OLD TOWN OF SiTKA,
FORMERLY NEW ARcHANGEI.

First Impressions of the Settlement-NO
Place Like Home-The Castle and
the Cathedral-Logs in the Primeval
Forest.
We were picking our way through per-
feet wilderness of islands, on the lookout for
the capital, of which We had read and heard
90 much. Surely the Alaskan pilot must
have the eve and the instinct of a seabird or
he could never find port in that labyrinth.
Moreover the air was misty; we felt that we
were approaching the sea Lofty mountains
lowered above US; sometimes the islands
SWAN apart-they seemed all in motion, as if
they were swinging to and fro on the tide
and then down magnificent vista we saw
the richly wooded slopes of some glorious
height that loomed out of the vapor and
bathed its forehead in the sunshine. Some
times the mist grew denser and we could see
hardly a ships length ahead of US; and the
air was so chilly that our overcoats were
drawn snugly about US, and we wondered
what the temperature might be "down south"
in Dakota and New England
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
In the grayest of gray days we came to
Sitka, and very likely for this reason found
it disappointment at first sight Certainly
it looked dreary enough as we approached it
"a little cluster of tumble-down houses scat
tered along bleak and rocky shore. We
steamed slowly past it, made a big turn in
deep water, got tolerable view of the city
from one end of it to the other, and then
crept up to the one little dock, made fast, and
were all granted the freedom of the capital
for couple Of days. 1t is gray place, gray
with greenish tinge-in 1.-THE kind of green
that looks perennial, dark dull evergreen.
There was some little show of color among
the costumes of the people on shore-bright
blankets and brighter calicoes-but there was
no suspicion Of gayety or Of a possible show
of enthusiasm among the few sedate people
who came down to see us disembark.
began to wonder if these solemn specta-
tors that were grouped along the dock were
ghosts materialized for the occasion; If the
place were literally dead-dead as the ancient
Russian cemetery on the hill, where the white
crosses with their double arms, the upper and
shorter one aslant, shone through the sad
light of the waning day. We had three little
Russian maids on our passenger list, daugh-
ters of Father Mitropolsli, the Greek priest
at Sitka- They were returning from a con-
vent school at Victoria, B. c., and were bub-
bling over with delight at the prospective
joys Of q summer vacation at home; but no
sooner had they received the paternal en-
braces upon the deck than the virtue of hap
piness went out Of them, and they became Sc
date little Sitkans, whose dignity belied the
riotous spirit that had made them the life of
the ship on the way up.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
We also brought home little Russian chap
who had been working down at Fort Wrang-
ell, and having made a fortune-it was for
tune in his eyes-he was coming back to stay
in the land of his nativity He was quiet
enough on shipboard; indeed, he had almost
escaped observation until we sighted Sitka,
but then his heart could contain itself no
longer, and he made confidants of several of
us to whom he had spoken never a word until
this moment. How glad he was to greet its
solemn shores, to him no doubt the dearest
spot in all the earth. A few hours later we
met him. He was swinging on the gate at the
homestead in the edge of the town-a sweet
primitive place that caught our eye before the
youngster caught our ears with his cheerful
greeting.
"Oh, l SO gladi" said he, with mist in his
eye that harmonized with everything else. II
make $50 in four month at WrangelL My
sister not know me when get home 1 so
glad to come back to Sitka I not go away
any more" OF course we poured out of the
ship in short order and spread through the
town like ants. At the top of the dock is the
Northwest Trading company's store-how we
learned to know these establishments Some
secured it for first choice and got the pick
of the wares, but here, as elsewhere, we found
the same motley collection of semi-barbaric
bric-a-brac- brilliantly painted Indian pad
dies spread like sunburst against the farther
wall; heaps of wooden masks and all the fan
tastical carvings such as the aborigines de-
light in and in which they almost excel. Up
the main street of the town is another store,
where a series of large rooms overfowing
with curios fairly bewilders the purchaser of
grotesque wares.
THE CASTLE AND THE CHURCH.
At the top of Katalan's rock, on the edge
of the sea, stands the Colonial castle 1t is a
huge wooden structure, looking more like a
barrack than a castle At the foot of the
rock are the barracks and custom house. A
thin sprinkling of marines, a few foreign
looking citizens full-hedged Rusk of the
unmistakable type is hard to find nowadays
and troupes of Indians give a semblance Of
life to this quarter. At the top of the street
stands the Russian Orthodox church, and this
structure, with its quaint tower and spire, is
really the lion of the place. st. Michael's was
dedicated in 1874 by the venerable Ivan Ven
ianimoff, metropolitan of Moscow, for years
priest and bishop at Ounalaska and Sitka-
saw in a woods back of the town an i'm
mense log. 1t was in the primeval forest,
and below it were layers of other logs lying
crosswise and in confusion. know not how
far below me was the solid earth, for mats Of
thick moss and deep beds of dead leaves filed
the hollows between the logs; but this log,
nearly three feet in diameter, was above
them all, and out of it-from a seed no
doubt imbedded in the bark-had sprung a
tree that is to-day as great in girth as the log
that lies PROSTATE beneath its roots. These
mighty roots have clasped that log in an ever
lasting embrace and struck down into the soil
below. You can conjecture how long the log
has been lying there in that tangle of mighty
roots-yet the log is to-day as sound bit of
timber as one is likely to find anywhere
Cor San Francisco Chronicle.