Seward daily gateway., 1931-06-18

Thousands upon thousands of Alaska sea otter pelts were sent to Petersburg, Moscow and world markets Untold shipments of Alaska seal beaver. fox mink land otter, weasel, lynx and wolverine is- sued forth from this vast northern domain to Russia and the world and financial rewards amounted to many millions of dollars annually
 Pain aud Death, the Price of Fur
 During that coorful period greed for Alaska furs knew no bounds In their covetous demand for pelts hunters and traders often treated the native Indians with extreme cruelty. Violence threats and com- pulsion followed by outrage after another re- suited in numerous reprisas with much shedding of Russian and Indian blood. Scurvy, disease massa- ere and death pursued in the wake of those easly traders but the endless stream of fur flowed ever onward to the enrichment of the Russian coffers.
 Fur Only Object of Conqueror
 Summing up the part which fur played in the conquest exploration colonization of Alaska the historian Bancroft chroniced: Call it science or patriotism, progress, there is this to be said about the first Russian discoveries in Amerca-itte would have been heard of them for some time to come. if ever had it not been for the beautiful furs brought back from Boring Island and elsewhere. Siberia was still sufficient to satisfy the Czar for purposes of repatriation, and the Russians were not such zeaots as to undertake conquest for the sake cf conversion and to make religion cloak for their atrocities; hence. but for these costly skns each which proclaimed in oudest strains the glories of Alaska, the Great Land might long have rested un- disturbed"
 Rxssio and Great Britain Clash
 the subsequent struggle to share in the nelf followed the Englishmen, James Cook and George Vancouver, and in l77s established Great Britains claim to portion of the rich domain.
 Contesting Russias supremacy in northwestern America and her encroachments upon the rights of her western possessions the Spanish fighters, Ensign Juan Perez, Lieutenants Juan Francisco de Bodega Quadra, Bruno Hecata Ignacio Areteaga, Salvador Fidalgo, Estevan Martiney Gonzales Haro and the Italian navigator Alexandra Malaspina in the service of Spain.
 The riches of Alaska fur drew into its vortex the French trader La Perouse, and into the whirlpool of frenzied madness the intrepid American Captain Roys commander of the whaler Superior, who in 1848, ventured through Behring Strait into the unknown and flung Arctic, the first commercial American vessel to pass that point preceding the Civil War.
 Purchase Of Alaska from Russia
 The fierce rivalry for commercial supremacy of fur barter in Alaska intensified and nearly led to open conflict between England and Russia. Finan- cally crippled by the Crimean War and fearing that Great Britain would seize Alaska, the Russian ruler opened negotiations for the sale of Russian Amer ica to the United States and on March 30 1867, the great fur domain of Alaska passed forever from Russian sovereignty to American ownership and control for the sum of s720o 900 or two cents an acre.
 JT0rId's Last Fur Domain
 The year 1881 marks the two hundred and third anniversary of Aaskas fur industry From generation to generation it has grown steadily and more stable