Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-11-14
ALASKAN.


sions in America first thrilled the hearts
of the American people, the feeling was
general that 1t was an unwise move and
that, financially, it would prove poor
bargain. Some flippantly called Alaska
"Uncle Sans Ice Box" and it is still
popularity supposed to consist mainly of
rocks, mountains and ice. 1t is not
strange that the true condition of things
is not understood because of the want of
facilities for communication. The isola-
ton of every part of it from every other
part, as we'll as from the outside world,
is most complete and terrible. The
absence of accurate knowledge of the
country and its people has rendered pos
sible the most careless and extravagant
statements by sensational writers whose
business is to sell their illusions or to
secure for themselves cheap notoriety.
1t is not the intention in this article to
attempt anything like full description
of the country, or to write a history of
its people, or to discuss them ethnologi-
cally, or even to correct the errors that
have been the stock in trade of some very
good men who have lectured or written
about Alaska. A few brief statements
giving information which may be service
able to persons desiring it for purposes
of business or pleasure will fill all the
space allotted.
The territory embraces about $4,000
square miles, extending through twenty
degrees of latitude and forty-four degrees
of longitude, and is about one-sixth of
the whole area of the United States. 1t
is made up of a mainland and about eleven
hundred islands large enough to be COM
puted as part of the national domain,
with great variety of soil, climate and
physically conditions, which are not well
understood by people who have visited
the country and which are the subject of
gross misapprehension by the people
of the States generally. Although its
physical and climatic conditions are not
the most favorable for human life and
business, it has quite population and
its business is simply enormous. There
are perhaps $4,000 people calling the ter
ritory their home, OF whom about 1000
are whites and creoles. The natives may
be divided into six classes based on lam
guage and other distinct differences. The
Innuits or Eskimos number about $1,000
and occupy the coast regions about the
Arctic Ocean and Boring Sea, Cooks Inlet
alaskan Indians, sometimes known as
Stick Indians, some tribes also called
Ingaliks, number about 1 600 and occupy
the interior, the valley of the Yukon, and
extend down to the coast at the head of
Cooks Inlet. The Aleuts number about
POO and occupy the Aleutian archipela-
go, the Shumagin group of islands. and
the western end of the Alaska peninsula.
The Thlinkets, numbering from 5000 to
| 1000, live in some fifteen villages in
Southeastern Alaska. There are also
about 500 Hydahs residing in the south
end of Prince of Wales island and some
700 Tsimpseans located on Annette
island.
All the natives are short of stature,
have straight black hair, dark eyes,
brown complications, high cheek bones,
massive heads, small and shapely hands
and feet, and the males have very little
or no beard. They are phlegmatic and
administrative, docile, peaceable, gen.
orally shrewd and apt in directions to
which their minds are accustomed. They
have mechanical turn of mind. The
remaining population consists of some
100 creoles, or descendants of Russian
fathers and Aleut mothers, and some
1000 or 5000 other white people of every
nationality of Europe and America.
More than 2000 Cinnamon make Alaska
their summer home, and some of them
seem to have as much permanency as
any of the immigrant settlers.
This population is scattered over this
immense country in about three hundred
towns and villages, and they can only
of the universal highway, the sea, which
forms the most intricate system of water.
ways in and out among its islands and
bold headlands, and through the channel,
of its wonderful rivers.
Morally and physically the natives are
in sad condition. Naturally hardy and
strong, they are still thought to be rapid
ly dying out, through the prevalence Of
pulmonary and scrofulous disease super
induced perhaps by their habits of ex
posure and filth, together with the in
fectons for which the whites were origi
nally responsible. 1t is certain that tn,
term of human life with them is less than
the allotted three score and ten years
Morality and virtue, among those no
under the influence of the missionaries
and better classes of white people, are a
low ebb. 1t cannot be said of then