When I first visited Kluckwan in 1885, the large old communal houses of the Kon-nuh-ta-di were still standing, the principal one of which, that of the hereditary chief, Yough-hit, "Whale house," was in the last stages of decay and uninhabitable, although the interior fittings were intact and it was still used upon festival occasions. It was unquestionably the most widely known and elaborately ornamented house, not only at Chilkat, but in Alaska. It occupied the site of much older houses and it is claimed much larger ones. It is said to have been built by Kate-tsu about or prior to 1835 and stood in the middle of the village. It represented the best type of Tlingit architecture, a broad low structure of heavy hewn spruce timbers, with noticeably high corner posts, that gave it a degree of character wholly wanting in the larger houses of the Vancouver Island people. It faced the river with a frontage of 49 feet 10 inches and a depth of 53 feet which was approximately the proportions of Tlingit houses large and small. The four broad, neatly finished corner posts, and the intermediate ones on the sides and back were mortised in length, to receive the ends of the wall planks of spruce or hemlock that were laid horizontally along the sides and back, while the front was formed by two heavy bed pieces placed one above the other extending across the front, dove-tailed into the corner posts, and reaching to the height of the door sill, cut out along the upper edge to receive the lower ends of the broad vertical planks that extend to the roof, and fitted under corresponding grooves in the cornice cappings that in the rear of the corner posts were notched and grooved to fit in the post. It will thus be seen that the old houses formed a solid structure, the frame and planking supporting each other without the use of spikes. The doorway, that was the only opening in the walls, was approached by two steps over three feet above the ground, it was narrow and low as a defensive measure, so that but one could enter at a time, and then only in a stooping posture equally impossible for attack or defense. The roof covering consisted of a confusion of overlapping spruce boards and slabs of bark that originally had been held down by smaller tree trunks extending the depth of the structure and held in place by heavy boulders at the ends. The smoke hole in the center of the roof which both lighted and ventilated the interior had been protected by a movable shutter balanced on a cross bar resting on two supports so that it could be shifted to either side as desired. [Illustration: Fig. 4. The Whale House of the Chilkat.] [Illustration: Fig. 5. Groundplan of the Whale House. In size, it was 49 ft. 10 in. front by 53 ft. deep. From a plan drawn by the author.]