I have always scouted the prevailing notion that there is any bad luck connected with the number thirteen! I had no more than fallen asleep when I was awakened by the jar of the machinery. My first thought was that the Captain had decided to make a final attempt to buck the ice and I was confident that this could have but one result,--the wrecking of the boat. I dressed immediately and went on deck, only to come face to face with another of those mysterious twists of fortune which ofttimes in an instant turn danger to safety and just as frequently make of apparent surety a disaster. Right ahead of us, as far as the eye could see, was an open channel, straight as a die and just a little wider than the boat!
All was activity now. It seemed only a moment until we were under way. Once started we forged ahead with all possible speed in order that we might get out of the ice pack before the channel should close again. Luck favored us. A few hours later we landed at Nome. There was no coal to be had here and as we had only enough for twelve hours, after unloading the passengers the _St. Croix_ headed immediately for St. Michael. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the _thirteenth_ day of June, I reached my destination.
No steamers can land at the island. Both passengers and freight have to be lightered ashore. The inner bay was filled with ice. We anchored five miles out. I went ashore with a friend in his gasoline launch which had been sent out for him. We left the _St. Croix_ at two-thirty, and we had to get out several times and pull the boat along the ice until we could launch her again in open water. At seven o'clock we reached the beach. I stepped ashore and took a look at what was to be my abiding-place for the next five years. Home was never like this! I was informed that the largest building in sight was the Steamboat Hotel. I took my way thither and was the sole occupant of this now-historic hostlery for more than a week.
The writer lays no claim to being an historian, but a word in regard to Alaska's early history and how the country came to be a part of our national possessions may not be amiss.
When the Russians first came to the island of Unalaska they learned from the natives there of a vast country lying to eastward, the name of which was _Alayeksa_. Their own island, one of the Aleutian group, they called _Nagun-Alayeksa_, which means "the land next to Alayeksa." As is usually the case, especially in primitive languages, the word was gradually modified and in time it assumed three different forms. The Russians called the country itself _Alashka_. The peninsula became _Aliaska_, the island _Unalaska_. In English the word changed once more to the present name, _Alaska_, which means "The Great Country." It is a fitting name. All honor to those two good Americans, Seward and Sumner, who in the teeth of the most withering scorn, ridicule, and even opprobrium, saved for our country her most glorious and valuable possession,--the land discovered and partly explored by Vitus Bering in 1741.