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Updated: June 4, 2025
Some miles from Afognak the baidarkas drew up side by side in a long, even line, our baidarka joining in. Drasti and Chemi came to me from all sides, for I had from time to time met most of the native hunters of this island, and they seemed to regard me as quite one of them. Two days later my friend joined me.
I have already described bear hunting in the spring, when we stalked our game upon the snowy hillsides, and again on the Alaska Peninsula, where we hunted across the open on foot, and also in the baidarka. I will now speak of another form. Toward the end of June the red salmon begin to run. These go up only the streams that have their sources in lakes.
The baidarka is made with a light frame of some strong elastic wood, covered with seal or sea lion skin; not a nail is used in making the frame, but all the various parts are tied firmly together with sinew or stout twine. This allows a slight give, for the baidarka is expected to yield to every wave, and in this lies its strength.
Blake in his baidarka, and I in mine, paddled along, side by side, and pushed up to the extreme head of the bay, where we came upon an old deserted Indian camp of the year before.
Nikolai Pycoon, my other native, was younger and shorter in stature, and had also a great reputation as a hunter, which later I found was fully justified, and furthermore was considered the best baidarka man of Afognak. He was a nice little fellow, always good natured, always keen, always willing, and the only native whom I have ever met with a true sense of gratitude.
The morning after the storm broke we made a four o'clock start. There was a strong favoring breeze, and we made a sail of one of the blankets. The baidarka fairly flew, but it was rather ticklish work, as the sea was quite rough. Early that afternoon we turned into the narrow straits which lie between the islands of Afognak and Shuyak.
I used the glasses with much interest until shortly after four o'clock, when he slowly fed into the brush. We had just finished supper when we saw another bear in a better position, and I proceeded to make the stalk, going part of the way in the baidarka, for the great meadow was intersected by a stream from which small lagoons made off in all directions.
They almost all belong to the Greek Church, the Russians, when we bought Alaska, having reserved the right to keep their priests in the country. The baidarka, the most valuable possession of the native in a country so cut up by waterways that little traveling is done by land, deserves a word. These are trusted in the roughest water more than any other craft, except the largest.
I therefore determined to take my two natives and hunt from a baidarka the deep bays of the Island of Afognak, while Blake, not yet having obtained his bear from Kadiak, went back to hunt there. He had been extremely good to his men, and in settling with them on his return from the Alaska Peninsula had good-naturedly paid the excessive demands they made.
So expert are the natives, that, after shooting several arrows, they gather them all up together in one hand as they sweep by in a baidarka. The arrow is not sent straight to the mark, but describes a considerable curve. Good bows are valued very highly, and on an otter expedition will not be swapped even for a rifle.
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