HISTORY; ^
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ALASKA- FOR YOUR INFORMATION
ALEUT TAN ISLANDS IIVTIOHAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, AL1SKA VPART. II„ tIJ_
On June 4, 1741 • two Russian ships, under the command of Captain-Commander Vit
us Bering sailed on-a; voyage of exploration from Kamchatka, Siberia* They sail-*'!#
ed eastward and touched, at several points in Alaska, notably the Aleutian Islands, ft
The story of their two voyages (for they were early separated) makes 'fascinating |f
reading but the drama that unfolded in the years following discovery of the Is -ft#
lands is a tale of high adventure and ruthless exploitation.. Bering*s expedition#
brought back several hundred skins of sea otters, fur seals, and foxes. When this#
news reached the Siberian fur hunters (called promvshlenniki) there began a 4 0; |
year reign o terror and depredation that reduced the Aleuts (natives of the Aleut
ian Islands ) to virtual slavery, exterminated the Steller’s manatee, and seriously?*
depleted the populations of sea otters in the western Aleutians and the Commander.-1
Islands. This period was followed by the establishment of a trading company that#
ultimately came under the management of Alexander Baranof. The fortunes of the##
Russian-American Company, as it was called, pursued an erratic course that was in-,’
extricably bound to the (l) fur resources (2) the Aleuts as otter hunters3 (3) the'
amazing courage and administrative ability of Baranof, and (4) the hazards of sail
ing ships in the Aleutian Islands. The company had not simply a matter of oversee*
ing a job and keeping accurate accounts. In a large measure they represented theft
C7ar in far*»off St. Petersburg. Theirs was the problem of adjusting the views ••' offt
ecclesiastics (for the Orthodox Church sent its emissaries to Russian-America) andft
the ambitions of a lusty people in contact with an aboriginal group and a wholly./#;
new moral, code.- They had to. equate the needs of all these people and the require*#
ment of making a -profit, and then to absorb the frequent losses of ships bringing#
supplies from Siberia or returning with valuable cargoes of furs. The company be-f
came faced with the affects of uncontrolled hunting of sea otters and fur seals &#
began practicing limited management of the resource. They provided for defense 8,#
carried active warfare to the hostile Indians of Sourtheastern Alaska.. Foundries,#
were built, shipyards came into being, and serious attempts to establish agric ft##
ultural communities were made in Alaska and as far south as the San Francisco Bayftft
area. Meanwhile the ships of other nations entered the highly competitive seaft
otter trade. Altogether it was a remarkable and colorful history.
Then in 1867 Alaska was sold to the United States and the fur resource wa‘s again
plundered. By 1910 the sea otter was almost extinct and the fur seals were threat
ened with the same end. Since then the trend has been reversed and a much happier-1
outlook can be presented,
During the period of the mid to late nineteen twenties and throughout the 30*s#f
an extensive use was made of the Refuge lands in fox farming. Most of the foxesf#
produced were the blue phase of the Arctic fox but some reds and a few silvers were
also farmed. The R .-fuge islands were '’leased'1 on an annual basis -and the foxetA##
were introduced by the "lessee" to make their way as best they could. This they##
did in-most instances remarkably well at first, and within three years a larger##
harvest of valuable furs was taken from many islands. The initial success,- how-#!,
ever was at the expense of bird populations mainly, and with their inevitable de-'fft
cline the foxes stabilized at a population level supported by foods available on %
the beaches. Today the main fox food sources on most of the Aleutian Islands is}
a small crustacean known locally as a sand flea. On certain islands, such as Se-ftft’
gula in the western Aleutians, where sea birds nest in very large colonies the fox
es still feed extensively on birds at certain periods of the year. This fur enter
prise brought many hundreds of thousands of dollars to the fox farmers but it was|
terminated by WWII and subsequent low fox fur prices. The Refuge has been left,.,#*
however, with the foxes that in some instances have become an obstacle to the man#
agement of certain wildlife species,
(Continued on page 9 )