Following the discoveries of Behring and Chirikoff, Russian traders known as promyshleniki moved into the Aleutians, unleashing decades of exploitation, violence, and colonization. Grigory Shelikoff, hailed as the "Father of Russian America," established the first permanent Russian colony on Kodiak Island, later securing an imperial monopoly. His associate, Alexander Baranoff, became the tireless architect of expansion, navigating both native resistance and imperial politics. Amid cruelty and commerce, they laid the foundation for the Russian-American Company, which would dominate Alaska until its sale to the United States.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter forty. Authorities differ as to the proper boundaries of
Bristol Bay, but it may be said to be the
vast indentation of bearing sea, lying east of A line
drawn from Yunimak Island to the mouth of the Coscaquim River,
or possibly from Scotch Captu Cape. Newnham would be better.
The commercial salmon fisheries of this district are on the
(00:23):
ugashik Ijghak, knaknik Kitchak, Nushigak and Wood rivers and the
sea waters leading to them. Nushigak Bay is about fifteen
miles long and ten wide. It is exceedingly shallow and
is obstructed by sand bars and shoals. The Redoubt Alexander
was established at the mouth of the river in eighteen
(00:46):
thirty four by Komakov. The rivers are all large, and
with one exception, would river drain the western slope of
the Aleutian Chain, which beginning on the western shore of
cook Inlet, extend down the Aliaska Peninsula, crowning it with
fire and snow. There are several breaks in the range
which afford easy portages from Bristol Bay to the North Pacific.
(01:11):
The rivers flowing into Bristol Bay have lake sources and
have been remarkably rich spawning streams for salmon. The present
chain of islands known as the Aleutians is supposed to
have once belonged to the peninsula, and to have been
separated by volcanic disturbances which are so common in the region.
Copyright by F. H. Noel Seattle. Four Beauties of Cape
(01:35):
Prince of Wales with sled reindeer of the American Missionary Herd.
Copyright by F. H. Noel Seattle. Four Beauties of Cape
Prince of Wales with sled reindeer of the American Missionary Herd.
The interior of the Bristol Bay Country has not been explored.
It is sparsely populated by Inuit or Eskimox, who live
(01:58):
in primitive fashion in small settlements, usually on high bluffs
near a river. They make a poor living by hunting
and fishing. Their food is largely salmon, fresh and dried. Game,
seal and walrus are delicacies. The higher the food, the
greater delicacy is it considered decayed salmon heads and the
(02:22):
decaying carcass of a whale that has been cast upon
the beach by their own abominable odors summon the natives
for miles to a feast. Their food is all cooked
with rancid oil. Their dwellings are more primitive than those
of the island natives, for they have clung to the
baraberas and other ancient structures that were in use among
(02:44):
the allusions when the Russians first discovered them. Near these
dwellings are the drying frames so familiar along the Yukon,
from which hang thousands of red flesh salmon drying in
the sun. Little houses are erected on roots pole scaffoldings,
high out of the reach of dogs, for the storing
(03:04):
of this fish when it has become yukala, and for
other provisions. These are everywhere known as cases. The Inuit
summer home is very different from his winter home. It
is erected above ground of small pole frames, roofed with
skins and open in front, somewhat like an Indian teepee.
(03:27):
There is no opening in the roof, all cooking being
done in the open air in summer. These natives were
once thrifty hunters and trappers of wild animals, from the
reindeer down to the beaver and marten. But the cannery.
Life has so debauched them that they have no strength
left for this energetic work. Formerly, every Inuit settlement contained
(03:49):
a kashka or town hall, which was built after the
fashion of all winter houses, only larger. There the men
gathered to talk and manage the affairs of their small world.
It was a kind of corner grocery or back room
of a village drug store. The men usually slept there,
(04:11):
and in the mornings their wives arose cook their breakfast
and carried it to them in the kashka, turning their
backs while their husbands ate, it being considered exceedingly bad
form for a woman to look at a man when
he is eating in public, although they think nothing of
bathing together. The habits of the people are nauseatingly filthy,
(04:33):
and the interiors of their dwellings must be seen to
be appreciated. Near the canaries, the natives obtain work during
the summer, but soon squander their wages and debauches, and
are left when winter arrives in a starving condition. The
season is very short in Bristol Bay, but the run
(04:53):
of salmon is enormous. When this district is operating thirteen canaries,
it packs each day two hundred and fifty thousand fish
in Nushigak Bay. The fish frequently run so heavily that
they catch in the propellers of launches and stop the engines.
Bristol Bay has always been a dangerous locality to navigate.
(05:16):
It is only by the greatest vigilance and the most
careful use of the lead upon approaching the sure that
disaster can be averted. Nearly all the canaries in this
region are operated by the Alaska Packers Association, which also
operates the greater number of canaries in Alaska. In nineteen
(05:37):
oh seven, the value of food fishes taken from Alaskan
waters was nearly ten millions of dollars. In the forty
years since the purchase of that country one hundred millions.
Although up to eighteen eighty five the pack was insignificant,
at the present time it exceeds by more than half
a million cases. The entire pack of British Columbia Puget Sound,
(06:00):
owned Columbia River and the Oregon and Washington coasts. In
nineteen oh seven, forty four kenneries packed salmon in Alaska,
and those on Bristol Bay were of the most importance
the Nushigak River rivals the Karluk as a salmon stream,
but not in picturesque beauty. The Nushigak and Wood Rivers
(06:22):
were both closed during the past season by order of
the President to protect the salmon industry of the future.
Cod is abundant in Bearing Sea, Bristol Bay and south
of the Aleutian, Schumigen and Kadiak Islands, covering an area
of thirty thousand miles. Halibate is plentiful in all the
(06:42):
waters of southeastern Alaska. This stupid looking fish is wiser
than it appears and declines to swim into the parlor
of a net. It is still caught by hook and line,
is packed in ice and sent by regular steamer to Seattle,
whence it goes in refrigerator cars to the markets of
(07:02):
the East. Herring, black cod, candlefish, smelt, tom cod, whitefish,
black bass, flounders, clams, crabs, mussels, shrimp, and five species
of trout, steel head, dolly, varden, cutthroat, rainbow, and lake
are all found in abundance in Alaska. Cook entering Bristol
(07:24):
Bay in seventeen seventy eight named it for the earl
of Bristol with difficulty avoiding its shoals. He saw the
should entrance to a river which he called Bristol River,
but which must have been the Neshigac. He saw many
salmon leaping, and found them in the maws of cod
The following day, seeing a high promontory, he sent Lieutenant
(07:48):
Williamson ashore. Possession of the country in his majesty's name
was taken, and a bottle was left containing the names
of Cook's ships and the date of discovery. To the
promontory was given the name which it retains, of Cape Nunham.
Preceeding up the coast, Cook met natives who were of
(08:08):
a friendly disposition, but who seemed unfamiliar with the sight
of white men and vessels. They were dressed somewhat like Allucians,
wearing also skin hoods and wooden bonnets. The ships were
caught in the shoals of Couscaquin Bay. But Cook does
not appear to have discovered this great river, which is
(08:29):
the second in size of Alaskan rivers, and whose length
is nine hundred miles. In the bay, the tides have
a fifty foot rise and fall, entering in a tremendous bore.
This vicinity formerly furnished exceedingly fine black bear skins. Cook's
surgeon died of consumption and was buried on an island,
(08:50):
which was named Andersen in his memory. Upon an island
about four leagues in circuit, ay Rude's sledge was found
and the name of Sledge Island was bestowed upon it.
He entered Norton Sound, but only suspected the existence of
a mighty river, completely missing the Yukon. He named the
(09:12):
extreme western point of North America, which plunges out into
Bearing Sea, almost meeting the East Cape of Siberia Cape
Prince of Wales. In the center of the strait are
the two Diomede islands between which the boundary line runs,
one belonging to Russia, the other to the United States.
(09:33):
Cook sailed up into the frozen ocean and named Icy Cape,
narrowly missing disaster in the ice pack. There he saw
many herds of sea horses or walrus lying upon the
ice in companies numbering many hundreds. They huddled over one
another like swine, roaring and braying, so that in the
(09:54):
night or in a fog they gave warning of the
nearness of ice. Some members of the herd kept watch
they arouse those nearest to them and warned them of
the approach of enemies. Those in turn warned others, and
so the word was passed along in a kind of ripple,
until the entire herd was awake. When fired upon, they
(10:17):
tumbled one over another into the sea in the utmost confusion.
The female defends her young to the very last, and
at the sacrifice of her own life if necessary, fighting ferociously.
The walrus does not, in the least resemble a horse,
and it is difficult to understand whence the name arose.
(10:40):
It is somewhat like a seal, only much larger. Those
found by Cook and the Arctic were from nine to
twelve feet in length and weighed about a thousand pounds.
Their tusks have always been valuable, and have greatly increased
in value of recent years as the walrus diminished in number.
(11:00):
Cook named Cape Denby and Cape Darby on either side
of Norton Bay and Besborough Island. South of Cape Denby.
Going ashore, he encountered a family of natives, which he
and Captain King described in such wise that no one
having read the description can ever enter Norton Sound without
recalling it. The family consisted of a man, his wife,
(11:24):
an a child, and a fourth person who bore the
human shape. And that was all for He was the
most horribly, the most pitiably deformed cripple ever seen, heard
of or imagined. The husband was blind, and all were
extremely unpleasant in appearance. The under lips were bored. These
(11:47):
natives would have evidently sold their souls for iron. For
four knives made out of old iron hoop they traded
four hundred pounds of fish, and Cook must have lost
his conscience overboard with his anchor in Couscaquim Bay. He
recovered the anchor, he gave the girl child a few beads,
(12:08):
whereupon the mother burst into tears, then the father, then
the cripple, and at last the girl herself. Many different
passages or sentences have been called the most pathetic ever written,
but myself I confess that I have never been so
powerfully or so lastingly moved by any sentence as I
(12:28):
was when I first read that one of Cook's almost
equaling it. However, in Pathos is the simple account of
Captain King's of his meeting with the same family. He
was on shore with a party obtaining would when these
people approached in a canoe. He beckoned to them to land,
and the husband and wife came ashore. He gave the
(12:51):
woman a knife, saying that he would give her a
larger one for some fish. She made signs for him
to follow them. I had proceeded with them about a
mile when the man, in crossing a stony beach, fell
down and cut his foot very much. This made me stop,
upon which the woman pointed to the man's eyes, which
(13:14):
I observed were covered with a thick white film. He
afterward kept close to his wife, who apprised him of
the obstacles in his way. The woman had a little
child on her back, covered with a hood, and which
I took for a bundle until I heard it cry.
At about two miles distant, we came upon their open
(13:36):
skin boat, which was turned on its side, the convex
part toward the wind, and served for their house. I
was now made to perform a singular operation upon the
man's eyes. First, I was directed to hold my breath,
afterward to breathe on the diseased eyes, and next to
(13:56):
spit on them. The woman then took both my hands, and,
pressing them to his stomach, held them there while she
related some calamitous history of her family, pointing sometimes to
her husband, sometimes to a frightful cripple belonging to the family,
and sometimes to her child. Berry's birch, willow alders, broom,
(14:19):
and spruce were found, beer was brewed of the spruce.
Cook now sailed past that divinely beautiful shore upon which
Saint Michael's is situated, and named Stuart Island and Cape Stephens,
but did not hear the Yukon calling him. He did
find shoal water very much discolored and muddy, and inferred
(14:42):
that a considerable river runs into the sea, if he
had only guessed how considerable. Passing south, he named Clerks Gores,
and Pinnacle Islands, and returned to Unalaska.
Chapter forty. Authorities differ as to the proper boundaries of
Bristol Bay, but it may be said to be the
vast indentation of bearing sea, lying east of A line
drawn from Yunimak Island to the mouth of the Coscaquim River,
or possibly from Scotch Captu Cape. Newnham would be better.
The commercial salmon fisheries of this district are on the
(00:23):
ugashik Ijghak, knaknik Kitchak, Nushigak and Wood rivers and the
sea waters leading to them. Nushigak Bay is about fifteen
miles long and ten wide. It is exceedingly shallow and
is obstructed by sand bars and shoals. The Redoubt Alexander
was established at the mouth of the river in eighteen
(00:46):
thirty four by Komakov. The rivers are all large, and
with one exception, would river drain the western slope of
the Aleutian Chain, which beginning on the western shore of
cook Inlet, extend down the Aliaska Peninsula, crowning it with
fire and snow. There are several breaks in the range
which afford easy portages from Bristol Bay to the North Pacific.
(01:11):
The rivers flowing into Bristol Bay have lake sources and
have been remarkably rich spawning streams for salmon. The present
chain of islands known as the Aleutians is supposed to
have once belonged to the peninsula, and to have been
separated by volcanic disturbances which are so common in the region.
Copyright by F. H. Noel Seattle. Four Beauties of Cape
(01:35):
Prince of Wales with sled reindeer of the American Missionary Herd.
Copyright by F. H. Noel Seattle. Four Beauties of Cape
Prince of Wales with sled reindeer of the American Missionary Herd.
The interior of the Bristol Bay Country has not been explored.
It is sparsely populated by Inuit or Eskimox, who live
(01:58):
in primitive fashion in small settlements, usually on high bluffs
near a river. They make a poor living by hunting
and fishing. Their food is largely salmon, fresh and dried. Game,
seal and walrus are delicacies. The higher the food, the
greater delicacy is it considered decayed salmon heads and the
(02:22):
decaying carcass of a whale that has been cast upon
the beach by their own abominable odors summon the natives
for miles to a feast. Their food is all cooked
with rancid oil. Their dwellings are more primitive than those
of the island natives, for they have clung to the
baraberas and other ancient structures that were in use among
(02:44):
the allusions when the Russians first discovered them. Near these
dwellings are the drying frames so familiar along the Yukon,
from which hang thousands of red flesh salmon drying in
the sun. Little houses are erected on roots pole scaffoldings,
high out of the reach of dogs, for the storing
(03:04):
of this fish when it has become yukala, and for
other provisions. These are everywhere known as cases. The Inuit
summer home is very different from his winter home. It
is erected above ground of small pole frames, roofed with
skins and open in front, somewhat like an Indian teepee.
(03:27):
There is no opening in the roof, all cooking being
done in the open air in summer. These natives were
once thrifty hunters and trappers of wild animals, from the
reindeer down to the beaver and marten. But the cannery.
Life has so debauched them that they have no strength
left for this energetic work. Formerly, every Inuit settlement contained
(03:49):
a kashka or town hall, which was built after the
fashion of all winter houses, only larger. There the men
gathered to talk and manage the affairs of their small world.
It was a kind of corner grocery or back room
of a village drug store. The men usually slept there,
(04:11):
and in the mornings their wives arose cook their breakfast
and carried it to them in the kashka, turning their
backs while their husbands ate, it being considered exceedingly bad
form for a woman to look at a man when
he is eating in public, although they think nothing of
bathing together. The habits of the people are nauseatingly filthy,
(04:33):
and the interiors of their dwellings must be seen to
be appreciated. Near the canaries, the natives obtain work during
the summer, but soon squander their wages and debauches, and
are left when winter arrives in a starving condition. The
season is very short in Bristol Bay, but the run
(04:53):
of salmon is enormous. When this district is operating thirteen canaries,
it packs each day two hundred and fifty thousand fish
in Nushigak Bay. The fish frequently run so heavily that
they catch in the propellers of launches and stop the engines.
Bristol Bay has always been a dangerous locality to navigate.
(05:16):
It is only by the greatest vigilance and the most
careful use of the lead upon approaching the sure that
disaster can be averted. Nearly all the canaries in this
region are operated by the Alaska Packers Association, which also
operates the greater number of canaries in Alaska. In nineteen
(05:37):
oh seven, the value of food fishes taken from Alaskan
waters was nearly ten millions of dollars. In the forty
years since the purchase of that country one hundred millions.
Although up to eighteen eighty five the pack was insignificant,
at the present time it exceeds by more than half
a million cases. The entire pack of British Columbia Puget Sound,
(06:00):
owned Columbia River and the Oregon and Washington coasts. In
nineteen oh seven, forty four kenneries packed salmon in Alaska,
and those on Bristol Bay were of the most importance
the Nushigak River rivals the Karluk as a salmon stream,
but not in picturesque beauty. The Nushigak and Wood Rivers
(06:22):
were both closed during the past season by order of
the President to protect the salmon industry of the future.
Cod is abundant in Bearing Sea, Bristol Bay and south
of the Aleutian, Schumigen and Kadiak Islands, covering an area
of thirty thousand miles. Halibate is plentiful in all the
(06:42):
waters of southeastern Alaska. This stupid looking fish is wiser
than it appears and declines to swim into the parlor
of a net. It is still caught by hook and line,
is packed in ice and sent by regular steamer to Seattle,
whence it goes in refrigerator cars to the markets of
(07:02):
the East. Herring, black cod, candlefish, smelt, tom cod, whitefish,
black bass, flounders, clams, crabs, mussels, shrimp, and five species
of trout, steel head, dolly, varden, cutthroat, rainbow, and lake
are all found in abundance in Alaska. Cook entering Bristol
(07:24):
Bay in seventeen seventy eight named it for the earl
of Bristol with difficulty avoiding its shoals. He saw the
should entrance to a river which he called Bristol River,
but which must have been the Neshigac. He saw many
salmon leaping, and found them in the maws of cod
The following day, seeing a high promontory, he sent Lieutenant
(07:48):
Williamson ashore. Possession of the country in his majesty's name
was taken, and a bottle was left containing the names
of Cook's ships and the date of discovery. To the
promontory was given the name which it retains, of Cape Nunham.
Preceeding up the coast, Cook met natives who were of
(08:08):
a friendly disposition, but who seemed unfamiliar with the sight
of white men and vessels. They were dressed somewhat like Allucians,
wearing also skin hoods and wooden bonnets. The ships were
caught in the shoals of Couscaquin Bay. But Cook does
not appear to have discovered this great river, which is
(08:29):
the second in size of Alaskan rivers, and whose length
is nine hundred miles. In the bay, the tides have
a fifty foot rise and fall, entering in a tremendous bore.
This vicinity formerly furnished exceedingly fine black bear skins. Cook's
surgeon died of consumption and was buried on an island,
(08:50):
which was named Andersen in his memory. Upon an island
about four leagues in circuit, ay Rude's sledge was found
and the name of Sledge Island was bestowed upon it.
He entered Norton Sound, but only suspected the existence of
a mighty river, completely missing the Yukon. He named the
(09:12):
extreme western point of North America, which plunges out into
Bearing Sea, almost meeting the East Cape of Siberia Cape
Prince of Wales. In the center of the strait are
the two Diomede islands between which the boundary line runs,
one belonging to Russia, the other to the United States.
(09:33):
Cook sailed up into the frozen ocean and named Icy Cape,
narrowly missing disaster in the ice pack. There he saw
many herds of sea horses or walrus lying upon the
ice in companies numbering many hundreds. They huddled over one
another like swine, roaring and braying, so that in the
(09:54):
night or in a fog they gave warning of the
nearness of ice. Some members of the herd kept watch
they arouse those nearest to them and warned them of
the approach of enemies. Those in turn warned others, and
so the word was passed along in a kind of ripple,
until the entire herd was awake. When fired upon, they
(10:17):
tumbled one over another into the sea in the utmost confusion.
The female defends her young to the very last, and
at the sacrifice of her own life if necessary, fighting ferociously.
The walrus does not, in the least resemble a horse,
and it is difficult to understand whence the name arose.
(10:40):
It is somewhat like a seal, only much larger. Those
found by Cook and the Arctic were from nine to
twelve feet in length and weighed about a thousand pounds.
Their tusks have always been valuable, and have greatly increased
in value of recent years as the walrus diminished in number.
(11:00):
Cook named Cape Denby and Cape Darby on either side
of Norton Bay and Besborough Island. South of Cape Denby.
Going ashore, he encountered a family of natives, which he
and Captain King described in such wise that no one
having read the description can ever enter Norton Sound without
recalling it. The family consisted of a man, his wife,
(11:24):
an a child, and a fourth person who bore the
human shape. And that was all for He was the
most horribly, the most pitiably deformed cripple ever seen, heard
of or imagined. The husband was blind, and all were
extremely unpleasant in appearance. The under lips were bored. These
(11:47):
natives would have evidently sold their souls for iron. For
four knives made out of old iron hoop they traded
four hundred pounds of fish, and Cook must have lost
his conscience overboard with his anchor in Couscaquim Bay. He
recovered the anchor, he gave the girl child a few beads,
(12:08):
whereupon the mother burst into tears, then the father, then
the cripple, and at last the girl herself. Many different
passages or sentences have been called the most pathetic ever written,
but myself I confess that I have never been so
powerfully or so lastingly moved by any sentence as I
(12:28):
was when I first read that one of Cook's almost
equaling it. However, in Pathos is the simple account of
Captain King's of his meeting with the same family. He
was on shore with a party obtaining would when these
people approached in a canoe. He beckoned to them to land,
and the husband and wife came ashore. He gave the
(12:51):
woman a knife, saying that he would give her a
larger one for some fish. She made signs for him
to follow them. I had proceeded with them about a
mile when the man, in crossing a stony beach, fell
down and cut his foot very much. This made me stop,
upon which the woman pointed to the man's eyes, which
(13:14):
I observed were covered with a thick white film. He
afterward kept close to his wife, who apprised him of
the obstacles in his way. The woman had a little
child on her back, covered with a hood, and which
I took for a bundle until I heard it cry.
At about two miles distant, we came upon their open
(13:36):
skin boat, which was turned on its side, the convex
part toward the wind, and served for their house. I
was now made to perform a singular operation upon the
man's eyes. First, I was directed to hold my breath,
afterward to breathe on the diseased eyes, and next to
(13:56):
spit on them. The woman then took both my hands, and,
pressing them to his stomach, held them there while she
related some calamitous history of her family, pointing sometimes to
her husband, sometimes to a frightful cripple belonging to the family,
and sometimes to her child. Berry's birch, willow alders, broom,
(14:19):
and spruce were found, beer was brewed of the spruce.
Cook now sailed past that divinely beautiful shore upon which
Saint Michael's is situated, and named Stuart Island and Cape Stephens,
but did not hear the Yukon calling him. He did
find shoal water very much discolored and muddy, and inferred
(14:42):
that a considerable river runs into the sea, if he
had only guessed how considerable. Passing south, he named Clerks Gores,
and Pinnacle Islands, and returned to Unalaska.
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.