Sitka Alasa
The Curse of the Kushta-Ka
I think it was the obscure French philosopher
“What's-his-name” who said,
“Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.” A fine example of this quaint expression was
encountered on a recent canoe journey near Sitka, Alaska. It was part of a
canoe grudge that began sometime in the last century with an epic run down the
Dungeness River in high water, with the Lost Alaskan in the bow. White water
canoeing is a team sport. Communication is the key. At one point the river took
a sharp right. We went straight.
Crashing a canoe is not unlike wrecking a lot of things
like, friendships. With the hindsight of
years I had hoped the petty grudges and thoughts of revenge would erode into a
fond memory of a wilderness adventure. I should have known The Lost Alaskan was
going to get even if it was the last thing he did.
The free fishing trip to Sitka was what got me. Once called “The Paris of the Pacific” for its hospitable
people and lively social scene, Sitka has a connection to the Olympic Peninsula
that goes back before the invention of history.
The Ice Ace age locked up so much of the planet's water that
the ocean was 150 feet lower than the sea level we enjoy today. A thousand mile wide land bridge called
Beringia appeared between Siberia and Alaska which allowed the migration of
animals, plants and people between the two continents. The exact timing of the
appearance of the land bridge and the coastal migration route of the earliest
people is anyone's guess since its mostly underwater now.
They figure Beringia disappeared for good about 10,000 years
ago. It was too late by then. 13,800 years ago someone stuck a bone spear point
in a rib bone of mastodon at the Manis Mastodon Site near Sequim. It may be a
coincidence that the Pleistocene Mega-Fauna disappeared in the New World
shortly after the arrival of early man but the same thing happened in Indonesia
and Australia.
The Sequim mastodon hunters probably started fishing once
the mastodons went extinct about 10,000 years ago. While there are legends of
Chinese Explorers and stories of Japanese shipwreck survivors washing ashore,
the stone-age cultures of the Pacific coast lived in relative isolation until
the European Age of Exploration.
We are not exactly sure when the first European visitor
arrived. Around 1600 the Ozette Indian Village was buried under a mudslide. In
the 1970's archaeologists uncovered brass tacks and a European bead among the
artifacts at the site. They could have come from Sir Francis Drake who may have
sailed here in 1579. Called “El Draque”,
(The Dragon) by the Spanish, Drake sailed across the Atlantic and around Cape
Horn then up the west coast of South America pirating treasure from the Spanish
who had stolen it from the Incas. Drake sailed north to a location that people
have been arguing about ever since. King Phillip of Spain put out a 20,000
ducat, ($6.5 US million) reward for Drake's capture. Drake decided to set out
across the Pacific to avoid the Spanish Armada that was after him. He needed a
place to land and repair his ship; The Golden Hind. Drake buried an estimated
17 tons of treasure to lighten the ballast for the rest of the way around the
world. On his return to England all of Drakes’
charts were declared a “Queens Secret” by Elizabeth I and later burned in a
castle fire. All we know for sure is
that Drake claimed the Pacific Coast for England calling it “New Albion” a name
that stuck to the region for centuries.
To counter English land claims the Viceroy of New Spain sent
the Greek Navigator Apostostolos Valeridnos, AKA Juan de Fuca to find The
Strait of Anian. This was the name of a mythical body of water located somewhere
north of San Diego that may have come from one of Marco Polo’s maps. The Strait
of Anain was said to run directly from Cathay to Europe. In 1592 Juan de Fuca
claimed he found this mythical Strait at around 47 degrees north latitude. He claimed there was a large island and a
rock pinnacle or obelisk at the mouth of this strait.
The Russians had discovered Alaska in 1741. For supporting
the missionary work of the Russian Orthodox Church the Czar Alexander I granted
the Russian American Company exclusive rights to claim land and hunt for fur
south to Baja California. In 1775 the
Spanish sent Captains Heceta and Quadra up to Sitka to support the missionary
work of the Catholic Church, look for gold and enforce their own land claims as
far north as Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands.
In 1778 Captain James Cook came to the Pacific Coast. The
English government had offered a prize of 20,000 pounds to anyone who could
discover the Northwest Passage. Captain
Cook didn't find a Northwest Passage or Strait of Juan de Fuca but then he
missed the Columbia River and hundreds of miles of shoreline in the fog that
typically hugs this coast. In one of the strangest navigational mysteries in
history Cook named Cape Flattery at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca
because it flattered him with hopes of finding a harbor. Cook charted the Pacific Coast north from
Cape Foulweather to the Aleutians in a voyage so tough he forced the crew to
eat walrus meat.
To make clothing for their northern journey the starving
crew on Cook's ship had traded with the Yuquot on Nootka Sound for sea otter
furs. Eventually Captain Cook was killed in Hawaii but the survivors reached China
where the furs brought an astounding ten dollars apiece.
In 1787 Charles
Barkley discovered a wide body of water at 48 degrees north latitude. There was
an island later named Tatoosh and a stone pinnacle or obelisk but it was on the
southern not the northern shore as Juan de Fuca described it. Barkley named his discovery the Strait of
Juan de Fuca
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In 1792 the American Captain Robert Gray discovered the
Columbia River and traded some iron chisels and beads for sea otter and beaver
pelts which he traded for tea in Canton. Gray continued around the Cape of Good
Hope to Boston becoming the first American to circumnavigate the globe.
The discovery that a few scraps of metal, some glass beads
or an article of disease infected clothing could be traded on the Northwest
Coast for a sea otter pelt worth a fortune in China set off the treachery and
slaughter of the fur trade. Alcohol, gunpowder and disease were introduced to
the stone-age cultures with devastating results. By 1800 the entire west coast of North
America had been claimed by the Spanish, English, Americans and Russians who
ignored each other's competing claims and the Native's right to the land.
Located near Sitka. Called L'ux by the Tlingit. Named Montana de San Jacinto (Mount Saint Hyacinth) in 1775 by Spanish Captain Bodega and Mount Edgecumbe by British Captain Cook in 1778. Photo taken from Pirate's Cove. It was the location of a band of Tlingit who raided fur traders on their way to the Russian Fort at Sitka
The Russians had built their first fort in Alaska in 1799 in
Sitka. The Tlingits resented the Russians for taking their land, using their
enemies the Aleuts to exterminate the sea otter and disrupt traditional trade
patterns between the tribes. In 1802 the Tlingits burned the Russian fort.
In 1804 Russian-American Company Manager Alexander Baranov
returned and burned the Tlingit Town, Noow Tlein and built a new fort, Novo
Arkhangelsk or what we call Sitka today.
It was a great land for furs but too far north for
agriculture. In 1808 Baranov sent the Russian ship Sv. Nikolai under Navigator
Nikolai Bulygin from Sitka to claim land for an agricultural colony somewhere
south of Vancouver Island. Instead the
ship was becalmed and wrecked on the Olympic Peninsula just north of the mouth
of the Quileute River.
Site of Nikolai Shipwreck at mouth of Quileute River
Just across the river lay the largest Quileute village, LaPush. The Russians knew the Natives south of Cape Flattery had a fierce reputation. On July 14, 1775 Captain Quadra had landed and erected a large cross as part of a possession ceremony near Pt. Grenville. Later that day he had sent seven men on a landing party to get water. They were attacked and killed by an estimated 300 Quinault Indians who had apparently understood the meaning of the possession ceremony. Quadra named a nearby island, Isla de Delores.
Site of Nikolai Shipwreck at mouth of Quileute River
Just across the river lay the largest Quileute village, LaPush. The Russians knew the Natives south of Cape Flattery had a fierce reputation. On July 14, 1775 Captain Quadra had landed and erected a large cross as part of a possession ceremony near Pt. Grenville. Later that day he had sent seven men on a landing party to get water. They were attacked and killed by an estimated 300 Quinault Indians who had apparently understood the meaning of the possession ceremony. Quadra named a nearby island, Isla de Delores.
In 1787 Captain Barkley of the British Ship Imperial Eagle
lost another boat load of six men at the mouth of the Hoh River. Barkley called
it the Destruction River a name that was later transferred to the island in
memory of his crew.
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Destruction Island
In 1788 John Meares was at Friendly Cove at Nootka Sound
when he was offered a dried human hand that was said to have belonged to one of
Capt. Barkley's men. When Meares demanded an explanation Chief Maquinna said
the hand had come from a distant tribe. This confirmed Meares suspicion that
the Indians were cannibals a common though unproven accusation. Both sides of the fur trade thought the
others were cannibals. Captain Vancouver once offered some venison pie to an
Indian aboard his ship who wouldn't eat it until the old navigator showed him
the venison haunch the meat came from.
In 1796 the trading ship Ruby under the English Captain
Charles Bishop was anchored in the Columbia River. The ship was visited by a canoe full of
Indians from the village of Queenhythe located somewhere to the north. The
Chief of these Indians said a longboat crew which included a Mr. Miller was
invited to shore where they began to trade. The Indians killed them all. Their
clothes and bodies were divided and sent to neighboring tribes. Captain Bishop
arrested the Chief and planned take him back to England where he could be
punished by Mr. Miller's father. Later Captain Bishop was forced to release the
Chief, in order to trade with the Chinook Indians.
Losing sailors on these around-the-world voyages was not
uncommon. The Russian explorer Alexsi
Chirikov lost men when first meeting the Tlingit off Kruzof Island in
1741. Fifteen well armed Russian sailors
in a longboat went to shore and were never seen again. It was assumed they were
killed by the Tlingit but the Russians had muskets, pistols, a small cannon and
two signal rockets. There was no sound of any firing. The Tlingits claim the
Russians who came ashore didn't want to return to the ship because of the
cruelty and oppression on board. Many sailors of the European Navies were
impressed prisoners who would not survive the disease and hard labor on their
forced voyage on high seas. Running away from the ship to live with the natives
was an attractive alternative to burial at sea.
To this day there are families on the Olympic Peninsula who can trace
their lineage back to sailors who “Jumped Ship.”
The Quileute of
LaPush had every right to be war-like. They were constantly at war with their
neighbors for plunder and captives who raided them in return. After the arrival of the fur traders who
routinely enslaved, poisoned and robbed the natives, the Quileute quickly
learned to never trust a white man.
At first the relations between the Quileute and the Russian
survivors of the shipwrecked Nikolai were cordial but things quickly
deteriorated. The Russians headed south in a running battle, hoping to meet up
with another Russian ship that was believed to be in Gray’s Harbor. The party
included Anna Petrovna, wife of Captain Bulygin. She was captured during an
attempted crossing of the Hoh River.
The survivors hiked up the river and built a timber
blockhouse similar to the one preserved in Sitka.
Russian Blockhouse, Sitka
During the winter Bulygin tried to ransom his wife with some
of the crew’s remaining firearms. Anna Petrovna refused to join her husband’s
camp in the wilderness saying she was being treated very well by her captors.
She advised the others to surrender to the Indians who would ransom them back
to the first passing European ship.
This drove the Captain mad. He tried to shoot Anna, the
interpreter, the Chief of the Hoh and himself. Bulygin surrendered his command
to Timofei Tarakanov, a Russian Promyshlennik that is a
hunter/trapper/trader/mountain man whose skill in the wilderness and dealings
with the Indians kept the shipwrecked survivors together and alive through the
winter. The castaways survived mostly on dried salmon obtained by trade from
the same Indians they were fighting.
Eventually all of the shipwreck survivors were captured,
drowned or killed. Out of the 22 people who set out on the Nikolai, 13 survived
to be ransomed by the American Captain Brown of the brig Lydia in May of 1810
at Neah Bay.
This ended the Russian attempt to claim the Olympic
Peninsula. By 1867 with the expense of the Crimean War, the near extinction of
the sea otter and the hostility of the Tlingit, Russia decided to sell Alaska
to the United States.
The Tlingit had already made a name for themselves in
Washington Territory. The northern tribes of Tlingit, Haida and Tshimshans had
a long history of raiding south in war canoes that carried 60 or 70 warriors.
People from these tribes would work in sawmills and farms in Victoria where
they were entitled to the diplomatic rights of British subjects. As such they
could not be extradited by American authorities.
In November of 1856 a party of Northern Indians was
threatening the sawmill at Port Gamble. The U.S. Steamship Massachusetts
shelled a number of canoes which may have killed as many as 50 Indians
including a Chief. That summer the Tlingits returned to Whidbey Island and
murdered Col. Isaac Ebey for revenge.
In 1859 the Schooners Blue Wing and Ellen Marie were
attacked with 17 people murdered and the ships burned and sunk on the west side
of Vashon Island. American officials went to Victoria to demand the guilty
Indians be turned over but were refused.
As a new possession of the United States, Alaska faced the
constant threat of a general native uprising.
The Territory was administered in part by the U.S. Navy who
in 1871 sent the Sloop of War U.S.S.
Jamestown commanded by Captain L.A. Beardslee to Alaska to stop the
slave trade and free native prisoners of war. Captain Beardslee surveyed and
named Glacier Bay and reopened an important trade route to the interior, the
Chilkoot Trail.
In 1895 as Commander of The U.S. Navy Pacific Squadron, then
Rear Admiral Beardslee brought the warships of the Fleet to Port Angeles harbor
for the summer. Rear Admiral Beardslee was such an avid angler. He caught 350
trout on his first trip to Lake Crescent. The locals honored the Admiral by
naming a trout after him, the Beardslee.
Lake Crescent
Port Angeles was just a little fishing town until the
seasonal influx of up to 20,000 sailors livened up the social scene. Many fine
establishments were built in Port Angeles during this period to service the
entertainment needs of the U.S. Navy. The untiring efforts of the local
moonshiners and easy access to Canada with its vast reserves of whiskey
guaranteed our Navy would not go thirsty on summer maneuvers. At the time it
was said the Port Angeles girls wore wool socks in the spring and silk
stockings by summer.
You could get all the salmon you wanted in Port Angeles by rowing
around inside of the harbor dragging a hand-line with a hammered brass spoon.
By the 1900's the inventions of diesel power, refrigeration and the tin can lead
to the industrial exploitation of the fisheries with predictable results. Port
Angeles was home to a commercial fishing fleet and a salmon cannery whose
“American Flag” salmon provided steady employment until the salmon ran
out.
In 1962 Port Angeles declared itself “A Sportsman's
Paradise” as part of its Centennial Celebration. Port Angeles was home to a recreational
fishing fleet of charter boats that took tourists from around the world out to catch
salmon. There was a yearly salmon derby that as the biggest celebration in
town. Catching a salmon was as easy as trolling a flasher and herring past the
mouth of the Port Angeles harbor and out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
In 1974 The Boldt Decision gave the Treaty Tribes the right
to fifty percent of the salmon harvest. This set off a fish war where each side
tried to kill the last fish.
In the 1980's an Atlantic salmon fish farm was established
inside Port Angeles harbor in a spot well-known to the locals as the best place
to catch a salmon. By 1994 catching a
salmon became a complicated matter of quotas, seasons and gear
restrictions. Salmon fishing in Port
Angeles Harbor was outlawed. The yearly salmon derby was discontinued.
Fisheries management became a cycle of abuse where Alaska
intercepted fish bound for Canada who caught fish bound for Washington. People
in Washington were forced to go to Alaska to catch a fish.
The invasion of Alaska by the Washington fishing fleet was
greeted by the Alaskans with a degree of contempt Washingtonians had previously
reserved for Californians. Alaska responded by using the sport fishing industry
to bait in even more tourists. Today a trip to Sitka is like a journey back in
time to 40 years ago when Washington was the Salmon Capitol of the World.
Sitka Fishing Fleet
In Alaska there are many theories about how to deal with the
bears but it is generally agreed they only eat tourists. Some people carry
firearms. Others insist that bear spray is the best method of stopping a
charging brown bear at close quarters. Never use bear spray on a bear. It might
make them mad. Spray the tourist. The bear will get the tourist and give
everyone else a chance to get away.
I got in the canoe. As fate would have it, I was in the bow.
The lost Alaskan said this particular lagoon was only dangerous in a rare North
wind and we had perfect calm.
The bay was perfectly calm.
We paddled a mile or so without tipping over and entered the
mouth of the secret creek. We began paddling upstream to the secret lake where
the steelhead swarmed.
Steelhead
The creek was shallow across the tide flats. I got out and walked on the beach. There were
little holes dug all over the beach. I wondered what was wrong with these
Alaskan clam diggers. Don't they know you're supposed to fill in your holes?
Back in Washington we’d call in the SWAT team to cope with a situation like
this. Expressing my outrage to the Lost Alaskan he agreed and said,
“Bears.” I knew that.
Le Voyageur
After a while we ditched the canoe. We walked through a
dense rain forest of spruce and hemlock where I was introduced to the sport of
“post-holing”. That's where you walk through slush as deep as a post hole
making every step like ice-skating in a pool of frozen cement. Where the snow had melted the forest floor
was carpeted with leftover fish bones from the fall salmon run. The leftover
fish parts are a sign of a healthy eco-system. It's the bear's job to fertilize
the trees and feed the many species of birds, bugs and animals that can't catch
fish for themselves. Since the eradication of the salmon on the Olympic
Peninsula our bears have been largely unemployed.
The Tlingit believed that animals are rational beings
capable of understanding human speech.
Encountering a bear they might speak to it and say,
“Give me luck,” Which would not be the first thing that came
into my head but whatever works. Bears were respected by the Tlingit but strangely
enough, it was the otters that were feared more than anything. The Kushta-Ka or
“River Otter Man” was a dangerous spirit who could drive you mad, change people
into werewolves and enslave the souls of those drowned at sea or lost in the
woods.
I was not about to let a silly native superstition deprive
me of a story about how a healthy eco-system could survive a modern industrial
fishery, no.
Walking upstream we came upon a fish weir. Except for being
made of aluminum it was not unlike the weirs described by the first explorers
on the Olympic Peninsula where the salmon were forced into a trap to be
harvested. The salmon in this weir were to be counted and released as they swam
upstream. If not enough fish make it upstream to spawn the fishing season was closed.
In Washington we manage our salmon with an entirely
different system. We dam the streams
every spring to trap and count the baby salmon going out to sea in hopes of
predicting how many salmon will return in the future. This is a lot like
counting your chickens before they are hatched.
Smolt Trap on Ennis Creek in Washington. Otters, bears, birds and poachers kill the fish trapped in these devices. Here a poacher digs worms to use for bait in the smolt trap.
When the salmon fail to return we blame the loggers. Washington efforts to restore the salmon
include shutting down the fish hatcheries and making log jams. Counting your chickens
before they are hatched is one thing but to use this analogy in Washington, we
kill our chickens before they get a chance to lay the egg.
Depressed and disoriented I made my way to the secret lake
where disappointment awaited. The secret lake was frozen over.
Stupid Frozen Lake
I almost didn't need to see the river otters, but I did.
Were they the dreaded Kushta-Ka? All I know is a brisk North wind came up,
stirring the tree tops. We were forced to beat our way through the whitecaps of
the lagoon with the canoe on our return voyage.
I should never have tried to cheat fate and fish out in the
ocean off Sitka either. Once out to sea
there was a mechanical problem. I wasn’t worried until some of the crew began
blowing up the life raft. They were just abandoning ship but it was nothing to
be concerned about. Apparently it’s something that happens all the time in
Alaska.
Abandon Ship. This is not a drill.
The funny thing was I had not seen any otters yet. Those of
us unlucky to be left on board the doomed ship were able to limp back to shore
before the motor died. Then the weather turned into a fine penetrating mist
pushed by a brisk Alaska wind. There was no more talk of fishing. I returned
from Sitka fishless. It all made sense when I read my horoscope, “You'll love
seeing parks, buildings, boutiques, galleries and the creative works of
others”.
I wanted to write about my Alaska fishing adventure but my email
got hacked and my website crashed. The curse of the Kushta-Ka lives.
I admire the creative work of others.
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