The Sisseton weekly standard. (Sisseton, Roberts County, S.D.) 1892-1929, 1911-11-03
LIFE IN THE
FAR NORTH

Paul Messingham Writes Inter-
estingly Of Alaska in Genera,
and the Canning Industry in
Particular.
San Francisco, CAL, Oct. 1O-I
arrived in this city some time
ago, after five months stay in
Alaska. and before 1 settle down
again to life in ''the states" I
am going to tell the readers of
the Standard something about
my experiences in the far north.
In my previous letters, I guess
did not say much about the
life we spent at the cannery, and
that is more interesting than on
the vessel, but at the same time
gets as monotonous, as the only
thing you see is fish, natives and
dogs, mostly the latter, and on
the coldest nights we had while
there. when the snow was on the
ground, the dogs would bury
themselves in the snow, and sleep
all night, while the natives bury
themselves in dirt and live on
nothing but dried fish and tea.
Their huts are very interesting
to visit once, but that enough,
as their mode of living is such
that they are dying off fast.
They all do more or less work
J around the cannery during the
season and there is no "labor
union" any stronger than theirs
their leader. called the "tyone, -
arranges the wages and they
won't work for less than three
dollars a day and have to be
paid every night, so it was at
night that 1 got the benefit Of
their labors that day, as they
would all come to the store to
be paid off and spend it for
dress goods and everything in
general, and when there were
about twenty-five of them, all
jabbering their native tongue,
you couldn't hear yourself think.
They are somewhat like the
American Indians, in that some
of them can talk English if they
want to, but they refuse to, and
often l would not wait on some
Of them that 1 knew could talk
English, and it would not take
llong unit! they made their wants
known.
Another class of people we had
to deal with was the Chinese and
Mexicans, and they were worse
than the natives. / did have
some sympathy for the >Mexicans
during The late revolution in
Mexico, but 1 will have to
change my mind about them af-
ter being around where they
were for five months. 1t is no
wonder that their owners had to
drive them to work with whips.
While they were working in the
cannery if one Of them stopped
work for minute the whole
gang would stop and if the sea-
son had been anywhere near up
to former years it would have
been hard to have put the pack
up.
The Chinese boss. hires all of
them, and is supposed to feed
them. as he works under con-
tract with the Alaska packers
with guarantee Of so many
cases. OF course, all the Chinese
lived on was rice, and it was
hard for the Mexicans, of course,
to live on that, so that resulted
in their buying lots of provisions
at the store and every night
about fifty Of them would come
in and it was another pow-wow,
until you would think you were
in the midst Of the Mexican revo
luton. So by the time the ves-
sells We're ready to leave, some
of them did not have cent com
ing, as the Chinese boss was a
fine Capitalist and by selling
them doughnuts two for cents
and tomatoes at 40 cents can,
and running his fan-tan games,
they had worked for him all sum
mer just for the pleasure of it;
but they did not care; they said
they did not want any money
coming. Three of them stayed
J there this winter and were going
to live with the Indians, and one
Of them came in the store few
days before we left and bought
two cans of coffee and shirt fol
winter, so you can see how cheap
he figured he cOnld snend the