Surf washes out the scent of the
man track. Surf out-sounds noise of the man killer; and no fires are
lighted, be it winter or summer, unless the wind is straight from the
southward; for the sea-otter always frequent the south shores. The
only provisions on the carrying schooner are hams, rancid butter or
grease, some rye bread and flour; the only clothing, what the Aleut
hunters wear.
No sooner has the schooner sheered off the hunting-grounds, than the
Aleuts are over decks with the agility of performing monkeys, the
schooner captain wishing each good luck, the eager hunters leaping into
their bidarkas following the lead of a chief. The schooner then
returns to the home harbor, leaving the hunters on islands bare as a
planed board for two, three, four months. On the Commander Group,
otter hunters are now restricted to the use of the net alone, but
formerly the nature of the hunting was determined entirely by the
weather. If a tide ran with heavy surf and wind landward to conceal
sound and sight, the hunters lined alongshore of the kelp beds and
engaged in the hunt known as surf-shooting.
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