Northern Soul
Why, in the whole of North America, did the Russians
choose to colonise Unalaska? Jeremy Atiyah (possibly the first tourist here
since Captain Cook) discovers the remote islands where hard men enjoy wild
surf, snow-topped hills and a very warm welcome from Brenda
Published: 10 November 2002
The last time I set out over the north Pacific, my flight was cancelled
owing to "extreme conditions beyond King Salmon". But now here I am
again, en route to the
island of Unalaska.
Any land down there? Luckily, there is. I espy the perfect volcanic cones of
Unimak
Island emerging through the cloud base. Thus do the
Aleutians
begin: stepping stones that will span this wild ocean from
Alaska
to Russian Kamchatka.
The plane is practically empty, of course. Few tourists have made it to
Unalaska since a June day in 1778, when Captain Cook, aboard the Discovery,
heard the approaching roar of breakers through the fog. No one but a fisherman
would bother about these wind- and rain-blasted islands. In fact, the oddest
thing about them is that they have their own indigenous people, the Aleuts.
Why, 9,000 years ago, when the whole of the north American continent was
available for colonisation, did people choose to settle here?
Anyway, settle they did, safe and splendidly isolated. No trees grow on
islands like Unalaska, but the Aleuts found driftwood aplenty and other
building materials, including whalebone, grass and sand. And by the time the
white man arrived, 9,000 years later, the Aleuts were paddling about in nimble,
unsinkable little boats called baidakas, built from driftwood frames and
stretched sea lion skins. Not only had these ingenious people designed the
parka (the original version of this waterproof garment, made from finely sewn
strips of seal gut), but they had also devised a means for sealing themselves
into the hatches of their baidakas with spray skirts, so that these could not
fill with water. In peaked caps that kept the rain out of their eyes, men spent
their days hunting birds, seals, sea lions, walruses and whales, while women
maintained semi-subterranean sod-covered homes.
There were 20,000 of these rain-proof Aleuts living on the islands when
gangs of wild Russian Cossacks finally began floating in from
Kamchatka
in the mid-18th century. And even now, the thought of the Russian-Aleut
encounter makes me depressed. What (I ask myself) did those fur-grubbing,
land-lubbing Russians think they were doing, setting out across the stormy
Pacific, when they could have stayed at home, hunting sable in the forests of
Siberia?
"The Tsar is far away and God is high above," Cossacks declared to
one another. Restraint was thrown aside. With guns and ammunition, they
promptly made war on the Aleuts, enslaving many, harnessing their hunting
skills and agility at sea, for the purpose of procuring the furs of as many sea
otters as possible.
We drop into the clouds. By the time we emerge into visibility, we seem to
be almost at sea level. In fact, goddamnit, we are almost in the sea. Only at
the last moment do cliffs and brown hills wobble into view. We dodge them.
Then, before I can say "might is right" we have landed, and are
braking uncommonly hard. So, this is
America's
number one commercial fishing port? It is raining, of course. The airport is
the size of a bus stop. It is a half-mile walk into town and through the grey,
watery wind, I spy a large red-roofed building resembling a block of flats on
the tundra. "That's it, the Grand Delusion Hotel," says the only taxi
driver, stretching to shake my hand. "Welcome, my friend, to
Unalaska!" He pronounces Un-alaska like "Un-thinkable" or
"Un-bearable". He then mentions that rooms at the Grand Aleutian
Hotel cost $180 a night and that I might consider Brenda's bunkhouse instead.
I will not regret this. Brenda is a lovely bosomy lady from
Michigan
whose aim in life is to make the hardest men on the globe feel warm and
comfortable inside. She does this by sitting them down in her roomy kitchen and
frying sausages and baking cookies for them. "A tourist?" roars one
man, from his plate, when she introduces me to the group. "Hell! What did
you do? Stick a pin in the map, and miss?"
The clients in Brenda's bunkhouse are not only thousands of miles from home,
but also involved in dangerous professions such as fishing or the cleaning of
oil spills. "I like it here with them 'cause it's safer than
Seattle,"
Brenda tells me, firmly, later on. She was frying eggs for 10 at the time.
After some brief chat, which ranges through bear attacks, gunfights, plane
crashes and drownings, I take a walk across the island, though the gloom, into
the city of
Unalaska (population
4,000).
I'm rubbing my eyes as I go. Is there something wrong? All colours other
than grey and brown have vanished from the world. (Perhaps it happened when the
Russians arrived.) Unalaska rises from grey surf on one side, and sinks into
grey surf on the other. Snow-covered hillocks gleam white through black clouds.
Monochrome, bald-headed eagles sit about on the sides of trucks and on the tops
of lamp poles, while seals frolic in the shallows. I can't help feeling that I
may be the first Englishman to walk this island since Captain Cook.
Which brings me to that travelling superman. In him, of course, the ice and
storms of the north Pacific inspired no fear. He first made it to Unalaska one
day near the end of June in 1778; he had recently discovered
Hawaii,
and was now searching for the north-west passage to
Europe.
But having weighed anchor at this unknown island to replenish his water stocks,
Cook and his men were surprised to be approached by an "Indian"
wearing an undergarment of sewn, feathered bird-skins, trying to cadge a quid
of tobacco and a pinch of snuff.
Cook was not used to arriving on remote islands already tainted by European
vices: the Russians, it seemed, had got here first. But he was soon enamoured
of the native Aleuts of Unalaska. He declared that they were "the most
peaceable inoffensive people I ever met with, and as to honesty, they might
serve as a pattern to the most civilised nation on earth". (I find it
regrettable that he later attributed these positive qualities to their
"connection with, or rather, subjection to, the Russians".)
Cook's ships then spent some days at anchor in foggy weather, surrounded by
cheerful traders in canoes. As I now learn, glancing through the journal of
David Samwell (the surgeon of the Discovery), this proved an enjoyable time for
the men. Soon after their arrival, Samwell noted, it was discovered that the
local women were "handsome in their persons" and could easily be purchased
by a few leaves of tobacco. Some of the crew even took time to visit the
underground homes of the Aleuts on Unalaska, in the manner of a royal visit.
"The houses," wrote Samwell, "were not to be seen, until we came
close upon them. Then we were much surprised at finding small hillocks of earth
and dirt scattered here and there with a hole in the top of them, through which
we descended down a ladder ... into a dark and dirty cave seemingly
underground, where our noses were instantly saluted with a potent stink of
putrid fish."
Of abominable stenches or filth (of any kind) there is little evidence in
21st-century Unalaska. I look in vain for such houses as those described by
Samwell. Instead, in the darkness, I see clapboard homes, city offices, a bank,
a supermarket, a library, a high school, even a Greek restaurant run by an
exile from
Crete. Only later, in the incessant rain,
when I drop in at the town bar, do I find anything faintly subterranean. Inside
the Elbow Room, 10 crab fishermen are being kept in line by two blonde female
bartenders resembling lion tamers.
"We're tough bastards," one of the fishermen says in my ear,
apologetically. He has a jutting beard that seems to have blown up on to his
nose and stuck there. "We got more friends dead than alive."
"Settle down!" shouts one of the bartenders. "Settle down!
One more false move from you and you are Out!"
Not until the next morning do I finally come across a real, living Aleut.
She is an 18-year-old girl who works in the Unalaska tourist office. She speaks
like an American but her features are distinctly east Asian.
"You are genuine?" I gasp.
"Oh well, yeah ..." she smiles, as if recalling a fond family
memory, "... but you know those early Russians, they like, made it, with
the Aleut women? So today we're all mixed up."
The Aleuts turn out to have a surprisingly soft spot for mother
Russia.
Partly this is because
Washington's
record as a colonial master has been no better than that of the Tsars. (In 1942
the Aleuts were evacuated en masse to mainland north America; only with great
difficulty did any of them ever make it back.) But the main reason is this:
that long before being sold to the
US
in 1867, the Aleuts converted to the Russian Orthodox Church. Today, the
dominant sight in the tiny harbour is the green onion dome of the Russian
Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Ascension, usually bedecked with eagles. Another
grey day is fizzling out. I drop in on the local museum, to the shock of the
curators who come running to unlock the door, panting, "Well, it's usually
kinda quiet at this time of year ..." But there's one thing I have got to
see: the sketch by Cook's official artist, John Webber, entitled Woman of
Ounalashka.
We have a vivid description of that pleasant July afternoon in 1778, when
Webber originally made this sketch, all because the hard-bitten travelling
surgeon David Samwell seemed to fall in love on the spot. The woman whom Webber
was drawing, he declared, was not only "very beautiful" and
"altogether very prettily dressed", but "we were all charmed
with the good nature and affability with which she complied with our wishes in
staying to have her picture drawn, and with what readiness she stood up or sat
down according as she was desired, seeming very much pleased in having an
opportunity to oblige us. She was withal very communicative and intelligent
...".
And here she is now, in front of me, smiling and intelligent, her hair
curled deftly forward, her lips and chin ornamented with walrus-teeth
piercings. I consider the wanderings of this sketch, from the
Aleutian
islands, via
Hawaii,
Kamchatka, south
China,
Java, the
Cape of Good Hope and back to
London,
where it was shown to King George III. Neither Samwell nor Webber could have
dreamt that the Woman of Unalaska would one day be returned to her point of
creation: a treeless island deep in the north Pacific, sodden with constant
wind and rain.
The Facts
Getting there
Alaska Airlines flies daily from
Anchorage
to
Dutch Harbor,
Unalaska, weather permitting. Standard tickets are extremely expensive, but
Jeremy Atiyah used an Alaska Airlines Best of the West air-pass. To qualify for
the pass, you must be resident outside the
US,
and need to purchase only between two and 10 flight coupons. You do not need to
purchase the international leg of your journey at the same time. Coupons for
internal
Alaska flights cost $109
(£70) each, and flights between
Alaska
and mainland
US
cost $169 (£108).
Jeremy thus flew
Los Angeles to
Anchorage
to
Dutch Harbor
for $556 (£356) return, which is by far the most economical way of reaching the
island, or any other remote part of
Alaska.
The airline's agent in the
UK,
which sells these tickets, is Offline Marketing (01992 441517).
Otherwise, from April to October only, there is the monthly AMHS ferry that
sails from
Kodiak Island to Unalaska. The trip takes two
and a half days, costing about $200 (£128) one way without a cabin(001 907
4653941;
www.state.ak.us/ferry).
Jeremy travelled fromthe
UK
to
Los Angeles as a guest of
British Airways (0845 7733377). Prices drop below £300 return off-season.
Being there
On Unalaska, comfortable accommodation, with shared bathrooms, is available
at Brenda's Bunkhouse, more formally known as Amaknak Camp, for $60 (£38) per
person per night; homely and inexpensive meals are also served, in the company
of hard oil workers and fishermen. Alternatively, try the far more expensive
Grand Aleutian Hotel (001 907 5813844) which offers rooms from $175 (£112) per
night.
Further information
Unalaska/Port of Dutch Harbor Convention and Visitors Bureau,
PO
Box 545, Unalaska, Alaska
99685 (001 907 581 2612;
updhcvb@ arctic.net).
