Although Unalashka has a custom house and is a port of delivery, the collector at Sitka only hears from his Unalashka deputy by way of San Francisco, and a prisoner arrested at Unalashka has to be taken first to San Francisco in order to reach the authorities at the capital of the Territory. The culprit travels three thousand nine hundred and ten miles to reach the Sitka jail, while the distance straight across is but twelve hundred and seventy-eight miles. Unalashka is a headquarters for the whaling fleet of the North Pacific, which now numbers thirty-eight vessels. The whalers call there for mail, water, and supplies, and stop on their way up each season to learn how the ice is beyond Bering Straits. They leave word as to the condition of the bergs and floes, the positions of the remaining ships and their catches, as they come down each fall.
At the Pribyloff Islands, two hundred and twenty and two hundred and seventy miles further north, neither whalers nor other trading ships are ever seen. The heaviest fogs rest upon them in summer, and ice floes beleaguer them in winter, stilling the heavy roar of the surf, and putting one and two miles of broken ice between the shores and the open water. The shallow waters, and the upward current through Bering Straits, prevent icebergs from floating down from the Arctic Ocean, and that element of danger does not threaten the navigators in those foggy waters. During the breeding season each summer, United States officers are stationed on the two smaller islands, Copper and Walrus, to prevent any seal pirates from unlawfully killing the animals, and on St. Paul and St. George islands special treasury and revenue agents watch closely that none of the regulations are disregarded.
The three hundred and ninety-eight natives who inhabit the two islands are mostly half breeds of the Aleut tribe. They live now after a certain civilized way, in neat and comfortable houses provided for them by the company, but it was at first difficult to get them to leave their filthy underground hovels. They are nearly all members of the Greek Church, and, with the help of the company, support a chapel on either island. Bishop Nestor used to include these little parishes on his annual visits, and celebrated the mass in his richest vestments before their altars. To prevent the evils of intemperance, the company is careful that no intoxicants are sent up with their stores, and sugar and molasses are sold to the natives, only in the smallest quantities, for fear that they might distil the same _hoochinoo_ as the Thlinkets. Failing these luxuries, the poor Aleut satisfies his sweet tooth with other substitutes. The greatest quantities of condensed milk are sold them each year, the seal hunters drinking a can of milk at a time, or spreading it thickly on their daily bread. The large sums they receive during the few weeks of the sealing season enable them to live in idleness and plenty for the rest of the year. They are inveterate gamblers, as well as feasters and idlers, and after the long hibernation and pleasuring of the winter they are anxious and ready for the summer’s work.