LORD OF ALASKA: BARANOV AND THE RUSSIAN ADVENTURE—Hector Chevigny —Viking ($3).
ALASKA UNDER ARMS—Jean Potter—Macmillan ($2).
These two books reflect the fact that U.S. readers have at last caught up with the continental statesmanship of Lincoln's and Johnson's Secretary of State, William H. Seward, who forced the purchase of Alaska ("Seward's Icebox'') amid the catcalls of the isolationists of 1867. The Japanese in the Aleutians and the new global geography have made the U.S. suddenly conscious that Alaska is nearer Seattle (as a plane flies) than Seattle is near Los Angeles.
Author Chevigny's book is an attempt to let a little midnight sun into the darkness of Alaska's Russian past. Author Potter's book is a report on Alaska's precarious present.
Experienced Empress. Empress Catherine the Great of Russia was born too early to believe that he who controls Alaska may control the Pacific (as Rezanov, founder of the Russian-American Co., believed). When the rich merchants of Siberia pleaded with her to make Alaska a Russian colony, the Empress slapped them down. "England's experience with American colonies," she said dryly, "should be a warning to other nations."
Canny Catherine would furnish "neither men, ships, nor money" for trade with the Alaska region. But she was willing to let the merchants furnish them. So the Siberian sea trader, Grigor Shelekhov, decided (circa 1780) to plant a Russian, colony in North America.
Self-Made Russian. Shelekhov planted his settlement on Kodiak Island—in the lee of the peninsula that breaks into the bits and pieces of the Aleutians. To manage his new colony Shelekhov chose middle-aged Merchant Aleksandr Andrevich Baranov. Baranov was that rarest of Russians, a self-made man. He began as a small trader, worked his way to ownership of a Siberian glass factory. Baranov is the hero of Author Chevigny's impressive history of young Alaska.
Baranov intended to stay five years in the Northwest, long enough to make money out of trading in sea otter furs. He stayed 21.
When he took over the settlement, Baranov was left without a sailing ship. He built his own. He mixed native moss with hot pitch for calking, used mountain ash for hardwood. He set Russians and natives digging for coal and iron, made waterproof paint from whale oil and red ocher. His ship had three masts, two decks. For sails Baranov commandeered tents, trousers, jackets, sewed them into great sheets with seal gut thread.
Raw Rum. Baranov made money for his company from the start. Hundreds of canoes, manned by Aleutian islanders, scoured the shores for sea otter, seals and foxes. At the cost of hundreds of lives, the precious skins found their way to Siberia, were traded to eager Chinese for copper goods, tea, cloth.