The early Russian adventurers of this part of the world have, it seems, been lost sight of, and have not had justice done them.  The names of the Dane Bering, the Russians Shelikoff and Baranoff, should mean to us something more than the name of a sea, strait or island.  A man who fitted out his expedition in Moscow, carried much of the building material for his two boats across Siberia to the rough shores of Kamtschatka, and sailed boldly eastward, deserves our warmest admiration.  Bering never reached home.  He died on the return voyage, and was buried on the small island of the Commander group which bears his name.  The story of the expedition is one of extreme hardship and of splendid Russian courage.

At Orca we were transferred to the Newport, with Captain Moore in command, and, as on the Excelsior, everything was done for our comfort.  We looked with envious eyes on Montague Island as we passed it in Prince William Sound, for we were told that the natives avoid fishing and shooting here, claiming that the big Montague brown bear are larger and fiercer than any others.

Our boat made a brief call at Homer, in Cook Inlet, one of the starting points for the famous Kenai shooting grounds.  This inlet was named for the renowned voyager, who hoped that it would furnish a water passage for him to Hudson’s Bay.

The trees stop at Cook Inlet, there being only a few on the western shore.  To the south the wooded line intersects the Kadiak group of islands, and we find the northeastern part of Kadiak, as well as the whole of Wood and Afognak, except the central portion of the last, well covered with spruce.

The absence of forests makes it often possible to see for miles over the country, and explains why the Barren Grounds of Alaska offer such wonderful opportunities for bear hunting.  There are bears all along the southern coast of the peninsula, but in the timber there, as elsewhere, the bears have all the best of it.

On leaving Cook Inlet, we kept a southerly course through the gloomy Barren Islands which mark the eastern boundary of the much-dreaded Shelikoff Straits, and early one morning passed Afognak, and made Wood Island landing, where we were most hospitably received by the North American Fur Company’s people.  Wood Island, about 1-1/2 miles from Kadiak, is small and well covered with spruce.  It has some two hundred people, for the most part natives, and under Russian rule was used for a huge ice-storing plant.  Kadiak Island, 100 miles by 30, is thickly studded with mountains, and extremely picturesque, with the white covering of early spring, as we found it, or when green with heavy grass dotted with wild flowers in July.

[Illustration:  ST. PAUL, KADIAK ISLAND.]