January 12
He has done his best to put my mind at ease. Nearly a hundred years. That’s how long it has been since the Indians massacred the Russians in Alaska. Beyond that, Allen said, there are few details as to what caused the attack. And just as I believed, the American expeditions since have been turned back by the Wolverine River, well before any remote tribes could be met.
“We don’t go there looking for a fight, love. I’ll keep our necks safe, you have my word.”
January 13
At my request, Allen retrieved my travel trunk last night, though he gently suggested it might be too soon to begin to pack. I would not listen to common sense, though, and this morning I set to organizing my belongings. I soon saw the folly in it. It is not as if I have a dozen dresses that I can wear now and another dozen I can pack for later. And so, I have shoved the trunk into a corner and now sit at the bedroom window to write.
It is a winter afternoon like many others in this country– chill, gray, and rainy?—?yet my view of it has been altered somehow. When we first arrived in Washington Territory, I was enthralled by all the wild country we saw, and even the barracks seemed a far outpost of civilization. With the thought of Alaska in my head now, however, this neat line of officers’ houses, the cultivated trees and trimmed hedges and clapboard barracks, the muddy roads?—?it all seems so tame and ordinary.
Sitka is on the southern-most arm of the Alaska Territory, yet it is well beyond the reaches of common civilization, railroad, or telegraph. We will see mountain glaciers that calve into the sea, breaching whales, and perhaps birds native only to those northern landscapes. And then we will arrive at the end of the map, and Allen will disappear over its edge. It is both exhilarating and terrifying, and I find I can think of nothing else. These next weeks before our departure will be long indeed.
It is good that Mr Tillman has organized a dance, and that Allen and I are obliged to attend. If nothing else, it will provide a distraction.
I will go in search of Miss Evelyn to see if she has a gown I might borrow, since she insists my black wool dress won’t do.
Ivashov and his men were sleeping on their sleds when, at a prearranged sign, the Midnooskies crushed each of the men’s skull with axes.
?—?From Journal of the Russian Geographical Society,
St. Petersburg, 1849 (translated from the Russian)
Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester
March 24, 1885
Point Blake, Alaska
We set foot on the main land at last, yet the Wolverine River remains out of reach. We crossed in a storm that pushed us two miles to port, made land at Point Blake. The shore between here & the mouth of the river is mile after mile of slick, blue-yellow mud. Tracks crisscross the tidal flats where Indians slide their dugouts over scant water. Our row boats, weighted with 1,000 pounds of provisions, do not slide so well.
We have made our way into a small cove where we spotted a group of Indians stringing clams. The old Eyak was the first to jump from the boat to the rocky beach. He is agile even with his deformed leg. I thought he meant to flee Tillman, but instead he hopped & ran to the pile of clam shells. He plucked one, then another, slurped at them. An Indian woman smacked him with her hand. Yelled?—?Aiii! As if to shoo a pest. The old man was quick on his feet, dodged, then scooped up another clam. Another. The Indian woman chased him about the beach.
?—?Looks like he was hungry after all, Tillman said. —?Crazy old man.
We remain here the afternoon & night, with hopes of catching the tide at dawn to row to the river’s mouth. Tillman & I raised the tent on the beach. The trapper gathers firewood.
Lieut. Pruitt strives to photograph the Indians. He has a quick mind for scientific devices. When he served under me in Arizona Territory, I was much impressed with his scholarly ways. While most soldiers caroused for leisure, he read books of science & literature. Regularly he would push his wire-rimmed spectacles up his nose, then fire away with his many questions. It irritated some officers, but I found his youthful curiosity a respite.
When I wrote to him of the expedition, I said I would have him collect data for mapping, as I know he is handy with sextant & artificial horizon. Barometer, psychrometer?—?such weather implements would be his chore as well. In his returning letter, he said he would also like to employ a camera for the journey. Recent advances make it possible for them to be brought easily afield, he said.
?—?It would be worth its weight, he wrote.