The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-02-04
FEsTIvIry IN ALASKA.
Continued from Fourth Page.)

Lney encountered storms Whlcn drove
the frozen snow like bullets through the
air. They lay down at night on snow
banks thirty feet deep and, wrapping
more furs about them, slept securely
the wolves bowling in the vicinity, but
not venturing to make an attack. They
lived mostly on saknon, dried salmon
and smoked salmon, as they journeyed.
Their appetites were good enough to
give anything eatable a relish. They
never lost their way because they
travelled every man of them by compass.
They were navigators Of the snow.
Charles Foster of Berkeley was the
only Californian who was present at
the Christmas Eve dance in Odiak in
1895. He had been living in Odial1
some month, his time being occupied in
building boats, large and small. He
told yesterday the story of the Christ
mas Eve dance in which he participated
The event was characteristic Of Alaska
and of no other place,
| They had the dance in a building
which, in the season is used by the
| Alaska Packers Association. Walter
| Storey of San Francisco has charge of
| it. 1t is a two-story affair sheathed
| with rustic and built very strongly to
stand the heavy gales that blow there.
The upper floor is a bunkroom. The
lower part is divided in to dining-room
kitchen and storehouse. The building is
about 4Ox9O feet long and the dining
room, where the dance took place, was
more than half the whole of the ground
| are.
| Around the room were benches. AT
one end was a pile of benches built up
into sort of rough stage for the musi-
| clans. The orchestra was somewhat
primitive, consisting of two fiddlers and
banjo player. The fiddlers were trad
ers, both Swedes. The banjo player
was a pastry cook, who is employed by
the Pacific Steam Whaling Company
at Orca station, which is four miles
| from Odiak. He was sent for by a
native. who went in canoe. In fact,
other fisherman were sent for in canoes
Some of them came in single canoes
and some in a three hatch bedarky.''
! The ''prompter" was Jack Shepard, a
hunter, who was master of ceremonies
He has lived lin Alaska fifteen years,
1 and has hunted all along the Yukon.
| Now there are no white women in
Odiak. In the village there may be $50
persons. Among those are native girls
who can dance, Siwashes, Aleuts and
Kinkats. Some of them are very good
| looking, with black eyes straight black
hair and fair figures. They all came
! to the dance. So, in fact did every
| inhabitant of the village, men, women
| and children. The natives were dressed
as ordinary, all except the girls, who
fiared out in various patterns of calico
goWns-every one of them being in
calico.
| Two hunters with refectors, throwing
out blaze like the headlight of a loco
motive and half a dozen kerosene lamps
which were fastened up in brackets
about the sides of the room furnished
| the necessary illumination. The natives
filled their allotted share of the benches.
Among the spectators were little Aleut
| babies, fastened to boards and placed
not very far from the big box stove,
were store, red hot glowed at the end
| of the. room farthest from the orches-
| ira.
That was great night in Odiak--the
greatest in it's history-and it will sup
ply a dateby which toplace othe event
which will be recalled hereafter as
| having taken place before Of after the
Christmas Eve dance of 1875. The
proceeding were opened at : o'clock in
the evening with few preliminary
plunk-er plunks on the pastry cook S
banjo and some very vigorous saving
of on the hunters fiddles. Then the voice
of Jack Shepard rose with the announce
ment of a square dance, and the hun
tiers, prospectors, miners fisherman and
traders in fur went at it with enjoyment
and vigor, according to the labor which
they had undertaken and accomplished
to be there.
The most of the hunters and others
were dressed in thick wooden clothing,
some with blue shirts and all in a rough
and-ready way, with one exception
I'This one exception was a traper who
had somewhere found full dress suit.
This he wore in spirit of fun, and the
party SO had one dude. Every girl
danced every dance, when invited,
round and square. BY 10 o'clock the
dude" had shed his coat; at II he was
also without his vest. AT IL dancing
was Oll Luz d. IllIlG anu Tie IlleH went
into the kitchen and sat around pine
tables and had refreshments.
The man did not invite the squaws to
eat with them, The first table was only
for the white men, who varied the pro-
ceedings by few songs and some
speeches. Then the girls ate and then
the dancing was resumed. In the mean
time the native men and older women
made their way to the kitchen and ban
quoted The bill of fare began with
salmon, ended with salmon and had sal
mon in the middle. The fish diet was
washed down with coffee. If any o.
the white men had pocket TASKS they
did not show them up. The natives
all drank coffee.
| The banjo player strummed until his
fingers were sore. The fiddlers worked
out all their repertoire and then worked
it over again. The native babies Wen
to sleep on their boards to be awakened
by some shout of glee at some unusua
terpsichorean feat and then sank of
stoically into slumber again. The pa
tives sat around chewing tobacco ant
| occasionally using it for snuff Their,
were hundreds of grunts of approva
from them during the progress of thei