Gold, Salmon and Glaciers

Chapters 8, 9 & 10 describe the discovery and exploitation of the two most lucrative strategic commodities in Alaska: gold and salmon. There is a third "commodity" that is certainly treated as ruthlessly as these two, but it is not unique to Alaska. I'll attend to that subject later in my review. One of the most enjoyable aspects of reading Michener is that I always learn something. I know more about the life cycle of the sockeye salmon than, I'll bet anybody else I know. J.M. illustrates for us the trials of one fish, Oncorhynchus nerka, or Nerka, for short, from alevin to fry to fingerling to smolt. There are no grilse or kelt stages in Pacific salmon as in their Atlantic cousins because Pacific salmon die after spawning only once. (Bet'cha didn't know that.) Anyway, J.M. weaves the story of Nerka the salmon within the story of Tom Venn, our young proletariat, now fully immersed in the Ross & Raglan monopoly. Of all of the characters, Tom is the most conflicted. he is uneasy with the way the company exploits the available resources to near extinction, and hates having to work with the malfeasant Washington worm Marvin Hoxey. The Hoxey character is fictional, but is allegedly based on a genuine wor...(I mean) person named Alexander J. McKenzie, who really was pardoned by President McKinley. Tom, however doesn't hate his job enough to quit. He in fact marries the boss' daughter and seals his deal with the devil. I'm hoping that somehow Tom will redeem himself, like Captain Schransky in chapter 7. The story about the Matanuska Valley was also new to me. Matanuska isn't really a town, as in the novel, but is rather the name of a river, a glacier and a borough (or county) in Alaska. The Valley, or rather the Matanuska Colony was a real settlement; part of a New Deal agricultural experiment during the Great Depression. Impoverished families were imported from Minnesota to the Matanuska Valley as homesteaders. They became known as "Alaska Sourdoughs". The Valley is apparently the only place in Alaska where the land can actually support farming. As if the Russian names weren't bad enough to pronounce, now I'm trying to master Scandinavian names: like Vickaryous, Vasanojas and Sjodin. I didn't know that the U.S. government was actively engaged in resettlement and repopulation. Didn't Germany try that in Poland in 1939? When I wrote about a third "commodity" I was referring to the exploitation of the indigenous people of Alaska. As I said, this is not anything new or unique to Alaska. It seems that wherever the white man goes, his arrival is a harbinger of death and destruction for the people and culture of the original inhabitants. To call it racism is to minimize the reality. It's like saying the events of 9/11 were a "misunderstanding". The treatment of the native Aleuts, Athapascans, Tlingit, Eskimo and immigrant Chinese by white American (perhaps I should say, Caucasian) prospectors and industrialists in Alaska was deplorable. I think it is a part of our history that few acknowledge, if they even know about it at all. Sadly, once the damage is done and the indigenous people and their heritage are decimated, they are lost forever. I think J.M. hints at this sentiment in these chapters.