Alaska -- Antiquities; Eskimos; Eskimos -- Anthropometry; Indians of North America -- Alaska; Indians of North America -- Yukon
Have arrived off Savonga. The sky is now clear and there is not much
wind, but the swell is and keeps on such that, notwithstanding the
repeated calls of our siren, the Eskimo whom we see above the beach
near their boats, do not dare to launch these and come, nor does the
captain care to risk one of our own launches, though we need fresh
reindeer meat and all would like once more to meet the nice lot of
natives of this village. After a prolonged wait and as conditions show
no improvement, nothing remains but to leave the island.
Our next stop, if the weather permits, is to be at Nunivak Island.
This is a large island off the Alaskan coast, well below the present
delta of the Yukon and some distance above Kuskokwim Bay. The island
is one of the least explored, and the people living upon it one of
the least known. It is only during the last few years that a trading
and a reindeer post has been established on this island, and only
the second year that there is a teacher. What little is known of the
natives, a branch of the Eskimo, shows that they have many different
habits from those farther north, in clothing, decoration, etc. They
make rather good black pottery, and from this island come the most
elaborate carvings in ivory, reminding strongly of small totem poles.
A photograph of a group of these people, seen at the Lomen Studio at
Nome, showed remarkably broad and short faces, unlike the Eskimo of the
north. All of which made me very anxious to visit the island.
To be brief such a visit, though promised to me by the captain, could
not be realized. The waters about the island are so imperfectly
charted that in weather that continued half rough it was thought
unwise to risk a landing. I felt this keenly, as the various other
impossibilities of the trip. But I could never forget all the
unexpected help I received from the Revenue Cutter Service, for
which I was deeply grateful, and had to acknowledge the justice of
the captain's position. We came so near that the land birds from the
island were already about us, but then turned toward the Pribilofs and
Unalaska....
Only little remains to be told. At the Pribilof Island, St. Paul, we
stopped at night, to take on four live fur seals for the Academy of
Sciences of San Francisco, and there we ran once more into stormy
weather. Here are a few notes from this period:
August 27. Toward evening again a gale, southwest. At night worse. Ship
tossing rather wildly. No possibility to me of either getting up or
resting. Barely keep from being horribly ill again.
Later in night ship had to be turned back and just drift.
August 28. All day the storm continues. I could take no meals, not even
a drop of water. In bed and barely standing it. Ship hove to at last
and just drifting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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