The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-10-03
PROSPECTOR'S LIFE
UP IN ALASKA
An Interesting Letter from IN lnteil ige0t
Gold Miner.
WILD BUT ENTERTAINING CAREER
Why II Is That So Many Scarchers
After Treasure in Our Polar
Province Meet with Disappoint.
mennt..fOOd supplies. Coal. eli.
mate and Miscellaneous Features
Of Existence in the Alaskan Cola
Territory.

A leSter recently received by James
NJ. Everhart. of this city, from W. u.
Jack, a prospector located at Tyoonok.
Alaska. contains some statements cl
public interest. Tyoonok. now small
Indian town o. about fifty native IN
habitants, was. 100 years ago. the lars-
est place in Alaska. 1t had In thos"
days a population of over l5.WDo. mostly
Russians. The name Tyoonok means
greatest" most powerful. Mr.
Jack writes:
The town consists of about thir'!
ne-story log houses. Most OF the ma
tives belong to the Greek or Russian
church. A Russian priest visits them
several times during the summer. The
natives are very hospitable and gener-
Gus in this respect. being entirely an
ferent from the southeastern Alasha
native. They speak different Ian
guage, but most of them understand
the Russian language. Their language
consists of Russian FL eGSn. Phlenket,
and ! believe Japanese and Chlnese'
as near as can learn it is conglom-
Grafton Of the above mentioned IAN
guages. They are not inclined to Re
hostile, although there are some bad
natives the same as whites. l nave
taken charge of the company'S busi-
ness for q few days, while the agent
has gone up the Sushetna river to
their trading post, about eighty miles.
Some of the natives came In from there
yesterday and told him that bad ma
tive l9 years Old) was going to Kill
the agent up there and burn the post.
Mr.. Hanmore. the agent here, is the
head agent for the Inlet. there being
four other posts about eighty miles re-
spectively in different directions from
lit. hot hA hot iS ~
bad and has caused him a great deal
of uneasiness. He burned "A young
squaw To death last winter because
she would not marry him. His own
tribe are afraid of him. Mr.. Hanmore
says that he may have to hang him.
The natives here give us all the fish
ana game we can eat. They catch
large quantities of king and silver
salmon here. They gave us about $50
pounds of choice salmon this morning,
which they catch In sight Of our house.
They use gil nets, also dip nets, made
of moose sinew They dry and smoke
enough to last them until next season.
They are catching them ON this tide.
| can see them from where | am sit
ting. II keeps them busy taking them
out of their nets. The most of them
are in their small skin canoes (twO and
three men canOeS) or bydarnS. The
doctor would enjoy fishing here; there
are unlimited number of trout in all of
the creeks here ! was out for an hour
last evening fishing about half II mile
from town and caught sixty. that
number being more than | could carry.
Some OF them were twenty Inches long
and weighed two and One-half and
three pounds. There are three species
of trout that l have seen here. the
largest being the rainbow
There Is plenty of game here. the
moose being the most plentiful The
natives smoke and jerk large quantities
of it for winter, although they Kill Il
great many In the winter season but
they are very poor At that time of the
year. They are unusually large here.