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Vol. 25:1 ISSN 0160-8460 April 1997
Siberian Native at Emma Harbor, July 1921
At its February meeting, the Commission awarded $13,944 to the Denver Museum of Natural History to support the preservation of the Bailey Alaska Collection. Alfred M. Bailey, a former director of the museum, had been hired to travel to Alaska to collect specimens for the museum. Bailey's description of the man, published in the Colorado Museum of Natural History's Birds of Arctic Alaska (Popular Series No. 8, 1948, p. 47), reflects the sentiments of the times,
"We haggled with one of the natives for his services; he had a rowboat made of the skin of a walrus stretched over a frame of driftwood, and he knew enough English words to make him a valuable ally. After considerable negotiation, he agreed to help me for the afternoon for one pound of tobacco, and in the ensuing five days he aided us in securing many specimens, taking tea, tobacco and hard tack in payment. He was a picturesque bare-headed fellow, dressed in deerskins, and his glossy black hair trimmed about the crown added to his barbaric appearance."
