File:Picturesque Alaska - a journal of a tour among the mountains, seas and islands of the Northwest, from San Francisco to Sitka (1893) (14784257055).jpg

Identifier: picturesquealask00wood (find matches)
Title: Picturesque Alaska : a journal of a tour among the mountains, seas and islands of the Northwest, from San Francisco to Sitka
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Woodman, Abby Johnson, 1828-1921
Subjects: Alaska -- Description and travel Northwest Coast of North America
Publisher: Boston : Houghton, Mifflin Cambridge : Riverside Press
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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alute ofour ship in the night, and found soon afterthat she was motionless at the pier at FortWrangell. It was raining fast, and I failed to riseupon the occasion, but lay in bed untilpast four oclock. Fort Wrangell is thelargest place we have seen since we leftNanaimo. The village is mostly occupiedby the Stickeens. We are told there arenine white ladies at Wrangell and but afew more gentlemen. There is a govern-ment house very much resembling an old-time New England country tavern, with asquare hip roof and broad piazza, and thenational flag floating over it. The housesare all in a dilapidated condition, they neverwere painted, and most of them are builtof logs. I observed that the chiefs house,however, is an exception, and a few of thepickets about the burial places show signsof having once received a coat of red or yel-low paint. In the most pretentious of theirhouses they build their fires upon stoneson the ground in the centre of its singleapartment. Above it is a square hole in
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wo o c PUB ASTO FORT WRANGELL. I 39 the roof, for the escape of smoke, whichis sometimes partially covered by boards,making a kind of boxlike excrescence fora chimney. A fat old woman, wrapped in her blanket,sat upon the ground beside one of thesesqualid, dirty huts, and watched us quite ascuriously as we did her. Upon a sharp little knoll, standing outinto the sea, were several very time-wornold structures, ten by fifteen feet in size,with roofs and vent-holes above. Thesecontained the bodies of their departed sha-mams or medicine men, who are neverburned or buried, but are placed to moul-der in these tomb-like buildings. Everyhouse of consequence had its totem polebefore it. We left FortWrangell at six a. m., tak-ing a westward course, back to ClarenceChannel. The day came on cold and rainy,with prospect of a more severe storm. Our most direct course to Juneau, thenext objective port of entry, lay northwardthrough Wrangell Strait. This passage isa rough one, an

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