A turn in the channel and we were steaming into a
silver bay which foraoveliness has no equal in the
world ; a bay so dotted with small green islands that
the explorer Schwatka said it could be mapped only
with a pepper-box. Between them on the right were
visible long vistas of morning calm on the broad Pacific.
On the left, Sitka itself came into view, a mass of
mingled light and shade nested in the V of wooded
mountains.
A dimming moongleam fell on the old Cathedral of
Saint Michael the Archangel, proclaiming the very
spirit of religious Russia in its golden three-barred
crosses, its bulbous steeples, its jade-coloured domes.
In the foreground rose the high, knoll-like Keekor,
which the Americans now call Castle Hill.
This rocky headland rising so precipitously from the
water is the most historic spot in Alaska. It is the site
of that stronghold of Baranov which once looked down
over a circle of mounted guns on the greatest fur-depot
this continent has ever known. And in the dawn of the
nineteenth century, vessels entering Sitka Harbour on
winter nights steered by the light that shone from the
top of the castle erected on the summit. Massive, ugly,
and sturdily Russian was that castle, built of great
spruce logs copper-bolted and riveted to the rocks of
the Keekor. In the cupola on its roof an armed sen-
tinel paced continually, and at night a brown Aleut
tended the four wide cups of seal-oil that burned before
a reflector — the first lighthouse on the Pacific coast.
Yet, while that crude light shone far out among the
wild islands, the walls beneath it rang to the gaiety of
balls and banquets that echoed the richness and mili-
tary splendour then prevailing in the courts of Europe,
for here were assembled, from the Imperial Court at
St. Petersburg, a gallant, reckless crew of colonisers,
among whom were nobles and cavaliers who had
brought their elaborate manners across the world to
bend above the slim hands of Sitka’s beauties.
Death lurked every moment outside the stockade,
where hordes of murderous Thlingets prowled, watch –
ing for any slackening of vigilance on the part of the
Russian sentinels ; but within that new world castle
flowed wine of regal vintage, silks and velvets billowed
in the candlelight, jewelled swords and gold-laced
uniforms glittered, while the merry company, scorn-
ing danger, danced their minuets to the tinkling music
of the clavichord !
That castle of memories is gone now. It burned to
the ground in 1894. Topping the Keekor to-day is
a large modern building set primly in the midst of a
flower garden. In the early morning light it loomed
before my eyes, high and white above the wharf
toward which my steamer was slowly moving.
But there was one thing left of that bygone time of
the Russians — Governor’s Walk, leading up from the
dock. Governor’s Walk, down which all the romantic
characters of Sitka’s past have sauntered to watch the
ships come in ! It was easy to vision them there — the
level-eyed Baranov with visiting nobles stalking beside
him in gay uniforms, their swords dangling at heels ;
haughty, treacherous Thlinget chiefs in paint and
blankets ; native women with labrets through their
lips ; squat Aleut sea-otter hunters ; bearded priests in
long, black robes ; laughing creole beauties; swag-
gering sea-dogs with pistols in their belts ; keen-eyed
traders ; fur-clad trappers — all that gay and careless
company, now of the dust. .
I started as several figures emerged from the dim,
narrow passage between two warehouses. But they
proved to be sleepy dock-hands grumbling at having
to get up so early to attend to the mooring of the
North-Western. After them shuffled half a dozen
shawled and kerchiefed squaws lugging flour-sacks
bulging with their handiwork.
As I walked aft toward my stateroom, I turned to
look again at slumbering Sitka, who, like a royal old
lady sure of her position in life, dares to sleep in the
presence of company. The Thlinget women, squatted
against the wall of the warehouse with their baskets
and beaded ware spread before them on the planks,
were waiting, in the patient manner of their race, for
the awakening of the ship’s tourists.
The ship’s bell chimed half-past two, and the sun
came up behind Mount Verstovia,
Then I stepped reluctantly into my stateroom to get
a few hours’ sleep before I went ashore to find out
what the Sitka of to-day had to offer me.
