The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-09-16
TRIED AN AMERICAN STOVE.
Attempts of an Alaskan Indian ut Modern
Culinary Methods.


Culinary Methods.
There was wild excitement in ISL
washtown," as the struggling row of
Indian log huts above the cannery was
called, when it was known that Sam,
ore of the Indian fishermen, had bought
the superintendent old coollstove
For Montus Annie, Sans wife, had
craved for the precious piece of furni-
ture. Now it was safely set up in her
log hut, the fire was burning merrily,
and the Chinese cook, especially retained
at considerable expense to give private
lessons in the art Of cooking, was in
structing Annie in the mysteries of
making biscuit.
Every "kloochman'' (Alaskan for
woman) in the settlement crowded into
Sans house to watch the proceedings
and gave vent to their admiration in
cultural "wahs.'' Only the superin-
tendent of the cannery and the store
keeper winlzed and smiled at each other,
for had they not a large stock of very
strong butter and lard on hand and was
not the willy Chinaman standing in with
them?
That night lard rose five cents and
butter fifteen cents pound at the store.
All day long smoke poured from Sans
stovepipe. He no longer worked regu-
lar hours at the canncry. His time was
spent in cutting firewood and fetching
butter and lard from the store to his
house, for the Chinaman had impressed
on Annie the fact that no dish whatever
could be properly prepared without an
abundance of these articles.
Sam soon saw insolvency staring him
in the face. He was not earning any
thing and his store bill for butter and
lard amounted in one week to ten dol
lars "Reminiscences were useless, as
Annie ruled him with a rod of iron, as
every Alaska hlooehman does her hus-
band. One day the cannery people
were blasting out some rocks in the bed
of the salmon stream. Sam sat in
solemn silence and watched them
His brain was working all the time,
and at last brilliant idea struck him.
Whilst everyone was watching the eff
fects Of blast he snealled up and stole
three sticks of powder Returning
home he divided these into small pieces,
which he carefully concealed in his
wife's butter keg. Then he got all his
personal property together, packed it
in his canoe, and started out on a deer
hunt, announcing that he would be abb
sent for three or four days.
When he returned log hut, stove and
Annie bad gone to better land. More
over, another "kloochman," who had
been admiring Annie's culinary per-
formances, had also disappeared, all
but very little of her, which one OF
the neighbours boys found down on
the beach and brought home in basket.
As she had met her fate in SANS
abode, he, according to Alaskan native
laws, was responsible for the accident
and had to settle with the bereaved
husband The woman was old and
ugly, but she could bead moccasins
cleverly, so they valued her at 500 pay
able in skins, guns aud blankets.
When Sam saw that remonstrances
were useless he bowed to the newt
able, and having induced the creditor
to give him time to meet his liabilities,
he went to work again in the cannery.
Next spring he was lucky at bear
hunting, liquidated his debts, and after
working all the summer, in fall pur-
chased another kloochman.
The chief articles of diet of the new
menage is plain smoked salmon, and
whenever any cooking has to be doLe it
is carried on in an ordinary open fire.
place and not in an American stove
San Francisco Chronicle.