March-April 2020
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March-April 2020
Alaskan History Magazine Digital Edition • This digital edition includes the cover and this spacing page to keep the interior pages aligned. The page numbers are two digits different from the printed edition, adjusted herein. • The Alaskan History Magazine website features excerpts of almost every article which appears in the pages of this magazine. The website versions will often be expanded with additional information, photos, maps, and links to resources. Check it out at www.alaskan-history.com • Alaskan History Magazine is active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For information about each visit our website, click under Social Media. • Back issues of Alaskan History Magazine are always available, both in print and digital editions, see the website for details about ordering a single issue or a complete set.
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March-April 2020 This issue’s cover image is a vintage linen postcard, hand-tinted from an original photograph of Julien Hurley’s 10-dog team which raced in the 1930’s near Fairbanks.
Hurley’s Northern Light Siberians were widely known, and in 1930 the American Kennel Club asked Julien Hurley to write a Siberian sled dog standard in preparation for official recognition of the breed. The first Siberian accepted for registration was one of Hurley’s leaders.
The original postcard, from the collection of the publisher of this magazine, was mailed in 1940, from Ketchikan to Ohio, for a penny postage stamp.
Inside This Issue: This March-April, 2020 issue features a wide range of Alaskan history, from some of the first photographs and the earliest settlers at Valdez to an adventuresome lady musher who blazed trails where today’s Alaska Highway crosses the northern landscape. Eadweard Muybridge was a man as strange as his oddly-spelled name, but his photographs of southeastern Alaska and Sitka for the Department of the Army provide a fascinating look at the area barely six months after the transferral ceremony of the land purchased from Russia by the U.S. government. The second article explores the contentious disagreement over the geographic boundaries between the southeastern part of the territory of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, whose foreign affairs were still under British authority. Dr. Gary Stein shares letters penned in 1894 by physician James Taylor White, who wrote them to his mother while serving as surgeon aboard the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear, under Captain Michael A. Healy. Dr. White described the journey, the land, and the people, and shared his personal opinions about what he saw on his Arctic travels. Dr. Thomas Eley writes of the adventurous Luther Sage “Yellowstone” Kelly, an Indian scout from the Old West whose wide travels in Alaska helped write our state’s history. The founding and settling of the gold rush town of Valdez, and the 1,000 mile sled dog journey of Taku Lodge owner Mary Joyce, from Juneau to Fairbanks in the winter of 1936, round out this issue!
Subscriptions, Single Issues, and Foreign Orders: Single issues are $10.00 postpaid; a one year subscription, 6 issues, is $48.00 postpaid (U.S. addresses only). Outside the U.S. please use Amazon to order (single issues only). For information visit www.alaskan-history.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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March-April 2020 March-April 2020 VOLUME 2, NO. 2
ISBN 9798614096960
Published bimonthly by Northern Light Media
EARLY TRAILS
FOCUS:
OLD BOOKS
FROM HERE TO THERE AND BACK AGAIN - 8
PIONEER ADS: SELLING TO ALASKANS - 46
THE HISTORY OF ALASKA BETWEEN THE PAGES - 48
ALASKAN HISTORY
“My Dear Mother” Dr. James Taylor White’s letters home from the Bear, 1894, edited by Gary C. Stein
U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear. [Wikipedia photo]
In February 1894 Treasury Secretary John G. Carlisle authorized Captain Michael A. Healy to employ Seattle physician James Taylor White as surgeon for the upcoming Arctic cruise of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear. Dr. White wrote extensively to his mother, Ione Taylor White, throughout his 1894 cruise, describing not only what he saw but his personal opinions as well, some of which material never entered his diary.” Article begins on page 16
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March-April 2020 EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE
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EARLY ALASKAN PHOTOGRAPHS Some of the earliest photographs ever taken in Southeast Alaska, “his stereoscopic pictures painted Alaska in a mysterious, exotic light that sparked worldwide interest.” THE BOUNDARY DISPUTE
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A DISAGREEMENT ABOUT THE BORDER The U.S. maintained it had taken over the territory that appeared on the maps of the great British navigator George Vancouver, but those maps showed Russia owning more land than had been stipulated in the 1825 treaty. EARLY SETTLEMENT OF VALDEZ
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THE FIRST GOLD SEEKERS When the great Alaskan gold excitement sent thousands to land at Valdez, the old site of the town did not seem the proper place for a town, so a new site was selected, near deep water, a more suitable place for a thriving village. LUTHER SAGE “YELLOWSTONE” KELLY
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AN INDIAN SCOUT IN ALASKA, BY THOMAS J. ELEY, PHD. “Yellowstone Kelly was of a good family, well-educated and fond of good books, as quiet and gentle as he was brave, as kind and generous as he was forceful, a great hunter and an expert rifleman….” MARY JOYCE
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1,000 MILES BY DOGSLED Mary Joyce’s biggest claim to fame, besides her dauntless courage in trying new adventures, was her 1936 dogsled trip from her Taku Lodge near Juneau to Fairbanks, 1,000 miles away.
Workers on the Alaska Railroad bridge, Matanuska River, August, 1916. Cover Notes, In this Issue . . . . . . . 3
Early Trails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . 4 - 5
Focus on: Pioneer Advertising . . 46
Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Collectible History Books . . . . . . 48
Issue Notes & Quotes . . . . . . . . . . 7
Resources & Subscriptions . . . . . 50
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March-April 2020 Publisher’s Note Alaskan History M•A•G•A•Z•I•N•E
Photographs & Images
March-April, 2020
Illustrating this Magazine
Volume 2, Number 2
When I started thinking seriously about publishing a magazine featuring stories of Alaska’s past, I knew historic photographs, drawings, maps, and other types of images would be an important part of the format I wanted to share with readers. There’s a lot of truth in the old adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’
Published by Northern Light Media Post Office Box 870515 Wasilla, Alaska 99687 (907) 521-5245 www.Alaskan-History.com Email AlaskanHistory@gmail.com Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/ alaskanhistory/ Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/ AlaskanHistory/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/HelenHegener Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ akhistorymagazine/
ISBN 9798614096960
I find myself sometimes picking up books on Alaskan history and just perusing the photos, maybe reading the captions, but skipping over the words of text, especially if I am pressed for time or seeking something specific. Photographs are our timeless windows to the past, and we are fortunate to have many tens of thousands of photos taken by all manner of pioneer Alaskan photographers, from kids with boxlike cameras to the most studied professionals wielding the tools of their trade. On occasion I’ve been asked how and where I find the historic photos which grace these pages, but the answer, as I always explain, is not a simple one. Some are from old books or newspapers, some are from my extensive personal collection, many—such as the cover image for this issue—are actually postcards, and more than a few are borrowed from friends. Many photographs are from online collections such as the Alaska State Library, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the University of Alaska Anchorage, and the many local museum and historical society collections around the state, and even some from out of state. Many wonderful and often important historic photographs of Alaska reside in collections far from where they were taken, as the population has always been largely comprised of people merely passing through Alaska, for many reasons, and when their life’s work was donated it was most often to an institution near their permanent home, whether that home be in Seattle or Minneapolis or Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. One can scarcely imagine the marvelous photographs—hidden treasures—which may have found their way to cities around the world, taken by explorers, scientists, seasonal workers, and tourists visiting Alaska over the years. Thanks for reading, and, as always, for your support!
Helen Hegener Helen Hegener, Publisher
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March-April 2020 Issue Notes
Inspiring Alaskans
• Two outstanding contributions in this issue are from respected historians Dr. Thomas Eley and Gary C. Stein, Ph.D., see pages 14 and 30. • Alaskan artist Jon Van Zyle captured the spirit of pioneering musher Mary Joyce in the header for her article on page 38. You can see more of Jon’s Alaskan artwork at his website, jonvanzyle.com • Another change to the books section: A compilation of interesting old and new titles, under the heading Collectible Alaskan Books.
“Quotable” • The Valdez Daily Prospector (1915): “The Post Office Department has called Ship Creek, Anchorage, which will hereafter be the official name of the city as far as the Post Office Department is concerned.” • Lt. Antonio de Tova Arrdondo, in Malaspina at Yakutat Bay (1791, from an article by Donald C. Cutter in The Alaska Journal, Autumn, 1972): “We stayed ashore more than an hour to show the Indians that their great numbers could never intimidate us and because a hasty withdrawal would have entirely eliminated their respect of our power. Nothing would have been easier than to have made up for our loss and avenge the afternoon’s insult; but considering everything with a judicious calm, we returned aboard without causing the least harm, nor of having harm done to anyone later.” • Hugh A. Johnson and Keith L. Stanton, in Matanuska Valley Memoirs (1955): “The two years 1914 and 1915 were Knik’s golden years. The town was small but, because of its importance as a transportation center, it boasted four general merchandise stores, two hotels, two transfer companies, two combination bakery-restaurants, one law office, one billiard hall, one bar, one candy shop, one barber shop, one contracting firm, one newspaper, three qualified doctors and two dentists. A U.S. Comissioner also resided in Knik, but there was no deputy marshall. The marshall for the third district resided in Valdez.” • Louise Potter, Old Times on Upper Cook’s Inlet (1967): “...the Indians must have marked walking trails through the Upper Inlet country well before 1898 and, after that time, prospectors brushed-out trail after trail, both winter and summer, leading from the coast to the coal and gold mines. Many of these trails were later widened for the use of dog teams and for saddle and pack horses and sleds. Eventually, some even became the government mail routes and, today, are busy roads.”
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlaskanHistory/ https://twitter.com/HelenHegener https://www.instagram.com/akhistorymagazine/
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Lt. Billy Mitchell
From 1900 to 1904, Lt. Billy Mitchell oversaw construction of the 1,500 mile Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Te l e g r a p h S y s t e m ( W A M C AT S ) , w h i c h established a telegraph system to connect isolated US Army posts and civilian gold camps in Alaska, from Forts Liscum and Egbert to Ft. St. Michael.
Mitchell later became an outspoken proponent of American air power, and as Father of the US Air Force, received many awards and honors, including a Presidential commission to Major General.
The spirit of Lt. Billy Mitchell inspires the publication of Alaskan History Magazine!
Single issues are $10.00 postpaid; a one year subscription, 6 issues, is $48.00 postpaid (U.S. only). For information visit: www.alaskan-history.com • also on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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March-April 2020
Early Alaskan Trails From Here to There and Back Again The first trails in Alaska were made by animals, those which came after that showed where the earliest men and women traveled. Then came the explorers, the missionaries, the scientists, the prospectors….
The Yukon, Tanana, & Kuskokwim Rivers
The earliest trails in Alaska were generally those which relied on the frozen rivers, lakes, and streams which crossed the land, the largest rivers being the main thoroughfares, with smaller streams branching off toward destinations, and lakes and ponds providing easy access across sometimes rough country. Most early maps of Alaska include the notations for Winter Trails; in the other three seasons these trails simply did not exist, or they were traveled by rafts, boats or canoes. Still today many trails rely on frozen waterways for part of their length, i.e. the Iditarod Trail on the Yukon River between Ruby and Kaltag.
Carrying the mail along the Yukon River.
The Native Trails
Native groups traditionally created their own transportation networks, utilizing local paths for subsistence activities, while longer trails were used for hunting, intertribal trade, and occasional raiding trips. These routes usually followed the contours of the land, tracing natural corridors. Exploring Keystone Canyon north of Valdez in 1884, Lt. Abercrombie reported “a deep and well-worn trail up the canyon and across to the Tiekel River in the Copper River valley.”
Athabascans on the trail with their pack dogs, Copper River circa 1905.
Glacier Trails
Packtrain crossing the Russell Glacier en route to Chisana.
In the late 1880’s prospectors objecting to foreign control of the Chilkoot and White Pass transportation corridors began seeking an All American route to the Klondike goldfields, but they found only one way across the mighty Chugach mountain range: an exceptionally difficult and dangerous path over the Valdez and Klutina glaciers. In 1898, the army sent Abercrombie back to locate a safer way. Spotting the remains of a Chugach trail leading to the north toward Keystone Canyon, he proceeded to the interior via the Valdez Glacier, and found an Ahtna path leading up the right (or western) bank of the Copper River. Both were eventually utilized by the Valdez Trail.
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March-April 2020 The Iditarod Trail
Measuring the Seward-Nome route with a cyclometer attached to a dogsled.
The Iditarod Trail, 1,150 miles long, known historically as the Seward-to-Nome Trail, was comprised of a network of native trails of the Dena'ina and Deg Hit'an Athabaskan Indians and the Inupiaq and Yup'ik Eskimos. The main trail was first mapped and surveyed in 1908 with a dogteam-pulled mileage marker called a cyclometer. Nine months after the route was surveyed, two prospectors made a 'Christmas Day Strike' in the Iditarod Mining District, and the last great gold rush was on. In the winter of 1925, a deadly outbreak of diphtheria struck Nome, and the northern half of the Iditarod Trail became a lifeline as relaying dogteams rushed antitoxin over the 675 miles between Nenana and Nome, in the Great Race of Mercy.
The Bonnifield Trail
A good example of a seasonal trail, the region was discovered in 1906 and a winter trail cut from Fairbanks around 1908 by the Bonnifield Mining Company, for access to the mining operations on the northern flank of the Alaska Range, about 65 miles due south of Fairbanks. 1906: USGS Bulletin 314 by Alfred H. Brooks, et. al. states On Gold King Creek That 'About A Dozen Men Were Working On the Creek, and Wages Were $6 and Board Per Day…” The Trail “Is In Very Flat and Swampy Country and Being Impassable for Freight Traffic in the Spring."
Crossing steep slope on high, narrow trail above White River.
Report of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, 1919
The total mileage of roads and trails constructed by the commission aggregates 4,890 miles, consisting of 1,031 miles of wagon road, 636 miles of sled road, and 3,223 miles of trail, of which 2,866 miles forms a connected system extending from Valdez, on the coast, and Chitina, on the Copper River Railroad, to Fairbanks and vicinity, with trails extending from the road system to Eagle, to the settlements above the Arctic Circle, to the lower Yukon, Nome, Candle, and to other Seward Peninsula points. This system is joined at several points on the Yukon River by a second connected system of 1,736 miles, made of largely of trails which, beginning at the southern coast line of the Territory with roads at Seward and in the vicinity of Turnagain Arm, form a mail route for the Iditarod, Ophir, and Innoko districts. There are about 288 miles of short local roads and trails in other parts of the Territory. The system furnishes access to practically every developed portion of Alaska. The larger part of the wagon-road mileage is made up of earth roads, but approximately 400 miles may be classed as an improved road, mostly surfaced with gravel. The demands of traffic are, however, increasing much faster than the facilities can meet the requirements. Mail was handled by automobile on 160 miles of the Richardson Road between Chitina and Fairbanks during the entire winter. The use of automobiles has not been encouraged by the board, but their number is increasing rapidly. Approximately 90 per cent of the traffic on the main wagon roads is handled by motor, which has greatly increased the cost of road maintenance. —Construction and Maintenance of Military and Post Roads, Bridges, and Trails, Alaska. Board of Road Commissioners for Alaska, 1919.
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March-April 2020 “Muybridge accompanied General Henry Halleck on an early expedition to the scout the new land. During that trip, he captured photos of indigenous communities, the Russian orthodox communities and the untamed landscape. His stereoscopic pictures painted Alaska in a mysterious, exotic light that sparked worldwide interest.” ~Hank Davis for KTUU News, Feb., 2019
Eadweard Muybridge in Alaska In the summer of 1868, only a year after the purchase of Alaska from Russia and barely six months after the transfer ceremony was held in Sitka, reknowned photographer Eadweard Muybridge was hired to take photographs of the new land known as the Department of Alaska. In a direct Army commission, Muybridge was charged to “gather information about the commercial value and strategic usefulness of the territory.” He would conduct his photography during an expedition led by Major-General Henry W. Halleck, commander of the U.S. Military Division of the Pacific, who had been a prominent Union general in the Civil War, a pallbearer at President Lincoln’s funeral, and is credited as one of the people who gave Alaska— then known only as Russian America—its name. Eccentric and mysterious, Eadweard Muybridge was an English-American photographer who had nonetheless garnered widespread acclaim for his pioneering work in grand photographic studies of landscapes, and he would later become famous for his early work in motion-picture projection. His 1868 photographs taken at Fort Tongass, Fort Wrangle (later Wrangell), and Sitka were the first photographs of Alaska to be widely seen by the general public. Muybridge published 39 stereogram views of Southeast Alaska, that is, two side-by-side photographs taken simultaneously with a single camera, which, when seen through a viewing device called a stereoscope, merge into a single three-dimensional image. Think of the children’s version known as a Viewmaster, with its round cards of twin slideviews. This was cutting-edge technology in the 1860s, and Muybridge was an acknowledged master of the craft. He was born in the ancient town of Kingston-On-Thames, England, on April 9, 1830, to a coal merchant and his wife, John and Susan Muggeridge, and they named him Edward James Muggeridge. In 1852, at the age of 22, he emigrated to New York on the SS Liverpool to work as a publisher's agent, and began a bookselling partnership with a Mr. Bartlett. Three years later he
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March-April 2020 moved to San Francisco, where he continued with the publishing company while also opening another successful bookstore. Advertisements of the day in the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin noted he offered “Books imported to order from New York, London, and Paris on commission, at publishers’ prices.” In June, 1860, shortly before a trip east, Muygridge (as he was then spelling his surname) advertised in the same paper, stating he’d sold his bookstore and was: “…happy in receiving any commissions my friends may entrust me with for the purchase of books, engravings, or works of art.” On July 5th he boarded a Butterfield Overland Stage coach, bound for the eastern U.S., but near Fort Worth, Texas, the stagecoach left the road and tumbled down the rocky side of a mountain, killing one passenger, injuring several others, and leaving Muygridge unconscious. He woke up 150 miles away, in Fort Smith, Arkansas, where a doctor told him he would never fully recover. When Muygridge could travel again he resumed his trip to England for medical attention and spent the next six years recuperating there. He took up professional photography before going back to San Francisco in 1867 with the finest photographic equipment of the day. He returned with a new career, landscape photography, a new spelling of his name and a new pseudonym, “Helios” (Titan of the Sun), which he used on occasion. In the spring of 1867 Muybridge successfully photographed the magnificent granite monoliths and inspiring thousand-foot waterfalls of Yosemite Valley, photographs which made him world-famous and would later inspire the work of Ansel Adams. Muybridge’s photographs were innovative and technically excellent, and the following summer he was invited to tour Alaska with General Halleck to photographically document the nation’s newest acquisition. The Halleck military expedition, with Muybridge aboard, departed for Alaska on July 29 aboard the steamship Pacific, arriving at Tongass Island on August 13, before moving on to Wrangle (now Wrangell) and Sitka. They would be in Alaskan waters for two weeks. Photography was still a young technology in 1868, and cameras of the day were comprised of simple wooden boxes carefully fitted with lenses. The photographer would bathe a glass
Sitka from the Governor’s Garden
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Sitka from N.E.
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March-April 2020 plate in a chemical solution, then immediately expose it to the subject through the lens for several seconds or even minutes; subjects which moved during that critical time could appear blurred or even disappear altogether. Negatives would then be developed in the field immediately afterward. To accomplish this, Muybridge used a horse-drawn carriage to transport his photography equipment and darkroom, a traveling workroom he called The Flying Studio. He called himself a "photographic artist,” dressing the part by affecting the broad-brimmed hat and velvet cape of continental poets and painters. Tall and lean, with wild hair, bushy brows and a long white beard, he undoubtedly cut a striking figure at the Alaskan stops. Most of his work on the trip was photographed under his pseudodom, “Helios.” In an article titled ‘Helios Rampant,’ a reporter on the trip colorfully wrote, “The photographic artist, ‘Helios,’ … had come to Sitka with dismal forebodings that the fog would so obscure the face of nature as to render his art valueless, but now he had struck a streak of sunshine and was determined to make pictures while it lasted. With shirt-sleeves rolled up, and hair on end, he trotted his flying studio through the town while the daylight lasted, and was enabled to get a number of excellent views.” They are indeed excellent views, and among the first seen by the curious American public, who wondered about this new land of ice and snow and polar bears. The first stop of the SS Pacific was the newly commissioned Fort Tongass, a United States Army base on the east side of Tongass Island, in the southernmost Alaska Panhandle. Still under construction when they visited, it would be the first U. S. Army base established in Alaska following its purchase from the Russian Empire. A stereoscopic view shows a group of Native people in front of a totem pole; located adjacent to the new fort was a village of the Tlingit people. Another stereoscopic view shows a ship in the harbor of Sitka as seen from Japonski Island (Russian for Japanese Island), named by the Russians after a group of Japanese fishermen were stranded there in 1805; the Russians returned them to their homeland the following year.
Sitka, 1868
Russian Church, Sitka, 1868
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March-April 2020
Fort Tongass, a group of Indians, 1868
Sitka from Japanese Island, 1868
Many of Muybridges’/Helios’ photographs of Sitka showcase the magnificent St. Michael’s Cathedral, the earliest Orthodox cathedral in the New World, built in 1844-48 and an important legacy of Russian influence in North America. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1962. A few weeks after the expedition returned, General Halleck expressed his appreciation for the photographs in a letter to Muybridge, noting: “These views, besides being beautiful works of art, give a more correct idea of Alaska, its scenery and vegetation, than can be obtained from any written description of that country.” And on June 24, 1872, The Alaska Herald noted: “Just previous to the later General Halleck's departure East, he made a tour of inspection to Alaska Territory, and, by instruction of the Secretary of War, was accompanied by our celebrated photographic artist Muybridge, who made a series of the most picturesque and valuable photographs we have ever seen. The Hon. William H. Seward thought very highly of them and addressed Mr. Muybridge a very complimentary letter in acknowledgement of his appreciation.” (Vol.V No.107 p.54) In truth, Eadweard Muybridge’s trip to Alaska was a mere footnote in his illustrious life. He would go on to become one of the most celebrated photographers in history, developing, among many other processes and inventions, the concept of motion pictures which would later produce movies and television. He received prestigious awards and accolades and authored two books, The Horse in Motion (1882) and The Human Figure in Motion (1901), both still in print today. He was tried and acquitted in a controversial and widely-reported murder trial—even though he was in fact guilty of shooting his wife’s lover at point blank range, before witnesses. Exposing Muybridge is a documentary film now in production by Marc Shaffer, a documentary filmmaker in Oakland, California. Shaffer notes, “The photography of Eadweard Muybridge has had a profound and enduring impact on many fields including fine art, medicine, athletics, computer generated special effects, horseracing, even industrial manufacturing and nuclear physics.” In 1894 Muybridge returned to live out his days in his birthplace, Kingston, England, where he died of pancreatic cancer in 1904. ~•~
Exposing Muybridge For information visit https://www.muybridgethemovie.com
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March-April 2020
The Boundary Dispute When the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867, one of the best real estate deals in history was sealed, but the U.S. government also inherited a few headaches, not the least of which was a contentious disagreement over the geographic boundaries between the southeastern part of the territory of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, which had recently joined the newly formed Canadian Confederation, whose foreign affairs were still under British authority.
In 1825 the Russian Empire and Great Britain had signed The Convention Concerning the Limits of Their Respective Possessions on the Northwest Coast of America and the Navigation of the Pacific Ocean, better known as The Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1825. Throughout the period of Russian colonization, from the 1780s to the United States’ purchase of the territory, the southeastern border of Russian America—known today as the Alaska Panhandle—was never firmly established, and when the U. S. bought Alaska the boundary terms were still ambiguous. It would take an international tribunal to resolve the dispute almost forty years later, in 1903.
In his review of a book by Norman Penlington, The Alaska Boundary Dispute: A Critical Reappraisal (MvGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1972), in the Summer, 1974 issue of Alaska Journal, the noted historian and University of Alaska emeritus professor Claus-M Naske wrote about the 1825 treaty and noted, “Trouble quickly arose however, over the clause which related to the boundary between Portland Canal and Mount Saint Elias. Drawn by diplomats who were entirely ignorant of the geography of the region, Russia interpreted the agreement of 1825 in an 1826 map which showed the boundary lines ten leagues distant from the coast until it reached the 141st meridian, then following that line. In 1827 Russian issued the same map
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March-April 2020 in French. If Great Britain, which must have been aware of the map, differed with the Russian interpretation, it should have protested then. No disagreement was voiced, however, and it was this boundary line which the United States accepted when it purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867.”
In 1871 the Canadian government requested a survey to determine the exact location of the border, but the United States rejected the idea as too costly because the border area was very remote and sparsely settled, and there was no economic or strategic interest in conducting a survey there. That was challenged with the Cassiar gold rush in 1862 and the Klondike gold strike in 1897 intensified the pressure to survey the border.
The desolate summits of Chilkoot Pass and White Pass, both at the head of Lynn Canal, comprised the main gateway to the Yukon, and when thousands of gold-seekers began pouring into the country the North-West Mounted Police sent a detachment to secure the border for Canada at those points. This was still disputed territory, as many Americans believed that the head of Lake Bennett, another 12 miles north, should be the location of the border. The Canadian government also sent the Yukon Field Force, a 200-man Army unit, to set up camp at Fort Selkirk, at the confluence of the Pelly and Yukon rivers, so they could be dispatched to deal with potential problems at the passes or on the 141st meridian west.
The provisional boundary set up by the North-West Mounted Police was accepted, but a more permanent deliniation was needed for the long term. A joint commission attempted to resolve the dispute in 1898–99 and failed. In 1903 the problem was referred to an international tribunal, whose members included three American politicians (Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge and George Turner), two Canadians (Sir Allen Bristol Aylesworth and Sir LouisAmable Jetté) and Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England.
The Canadian and American representatives favoured their respective governments’ territorial claims, and, to the dismay of the Canadians, Alverstone supported the American claim. The Canadians, outraged by what they saw as a betrayal by their colonial government, refused to sign the final decision, but the question had been put to binding arbitration, the decision took effect, and the resolution was issued on October 20, 1903. The boundary was considered a reasonable compromise, roughly approximating the Russian line on the map which had been unchallenged for almost 60 years. ~•~
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March-April 2020
Dr. James Taylor White in the Arctic Virginia L. Scammell-Tinling Collection
In February 1894 Treasury Secretary John G. Carlisle authorized Captain Michael A. Healy to employ Seattle physician James Taylor White as surgeon for the upcoming Arctic cruise of the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear. This was White’s third cruise to Alaska for the department’s Revenue-Cutter Service, a predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard. In 1894 White participated in missionary Sheldon Jackson’s three-year-old project transporting domesticated Siberian reindeer to Alaska to prevent supposed starvation among Alaska’s Native population.
White was an astute observer. Not only a physician, he was an avid naturalist and amateur ethnographer. Everything he saw interested him. While his 1894 diary thoroughly describes people and places he encountered, there is a briefer source offering another perspective of that summer on the Bear. His personal correspondence is in the Alaska and Polar Regions Collection and Archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He wrote extensively to his mother, Ione Taylor White, throughout his 1894 cruise describing not only what he saw but his personal opinions as well, some of which material never entered his diary.
White boarded the Bear at San Francisco in mid-April. At the end of that month the cutter sailed to Seattle for coal and then stood north for Sitka, arriving at Alaska’s capital on May 11. By early June the Bear had cruised along Prince William Sound to Kodiak Island.
Gary C. Stein received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in 1975 with fields in Western American History and U.S. History to 1860, specializing in Native American History. He has worked as a research historian for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in Anchorage, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. His personal research interests gravitated toward the history of the Revenue-Cutter Service in Alaska. He has retired to Florissant, Missouri and is hard at work writing up all the research material he gathered in Alaska more than 40 years ago.
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March-April 2020
U. S. Revenue Cutter Bear. John M. Justice Photo Album, National Archives, College Park, Maryland.
My dear Mother: We left St. Paul [harbor], Kadiak Island yesterday. … After having been in smooth water so long it rather upsets one to be suddenly plunging into a rough sea. Strange to say it affects me very little and I have noticed, as well as others, that it has little or no effect on my appetite. I have been warned that if the mess bill is high this year it will be my fault—a good fault it strikes me. … My eating however has been of some use. When I left Seattle I weighed 132 pounds—think of it? The fact startled me and made me think I was going into a rapid decline, but I feel better now. I was weighed in St. Paul and balanced the scales at 140 pounds. If I increase eight pounds in one month what will I do in seven? Just pause a moment and imagine your little sonny weighing 188 pounds—thus:
The trip has been delightful and peaceable. On the whole we have a nice set of officers and no trouble has been experienced, though it is rather too early to talk much. If all is as well when we get through the Arctic part of the trip as now I will be thankful, for that is when it tries one to the utmost. Mrs. H— [Mary Jane Healy, the Captain’s wife] is very pleasant to all and I think influences the Capt. more than he or anyone else imagines. [Furrier Julian] Liebes, our passenger, … is a very pleasant fellow, and the three of us, Mrs. H., Liebes, and I, play cards a good deal, and in that way pass many pleasant hours. But as I said before it is too early to comment so will wait ‘till later on. We remained several days at Orca Station [cannery] on Cordova Bay, and a dreary time it was. … Capt. and Mrs. H— remained one night at the canneries and a party left for the mouth of the Copper River but I did not go. I was sorry at the time but glad afterwards. They went up on one of the little
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March-April 2020 stern-wheel fish boats expecting to see a great deal new and interesting but were sorely disappointed. ... They stopped at a fish station and took on about 3,000 salmon and then ran on a sand bar and remained there several hours. When the tide allowed them to float again it was time to be back to the ship. I got desperate one day and went ashore to explore for clams. … I came back feeling better, soaking wet and with a half bushel of mussels. … We began eating salmon as soon as we reached the cannery and have been eating it ever since. … Salmon once in a while is a very fine dish and at first was a very acceptable substitute for salt beef and canned food, but to have it served for breakfast, fried, and for lunch in croquettes (?) and then for dinner, baked, day after day gets monotonous. On the 25th of May we ran down to Port Etches near the mouth of [Prince William] Sound. … Port Etches is called by the natives Nutchik and was, many years ago, an important Russian settlement, having a fort and a stockaded village, but the fort and stockade have disappeared as well as the Russians, and nothing now remains except a trading post and a dirty little village of natives. It is very picturesquely located on a little landlocked harbor with the ever-present mountains on all sides. I found a great deal of sickness there both among the men and women, and the agent said they were dying off rapidly. Leaving Nutchik we followed down the Kenai Peninsula. … On the 28th of May we entered Cook Inlet and once more enjoyed smooth water. … The first village we stopped at was Munina, or more properly speaking Nulchik. The population, only fifty-two all told, consists entirely of Russians. … It was a pretty little village situated partly on a bluff and partly on the bank of a small stream. The houses are all built of logs and are well kept, being clean and habitable inside, and the people are entirely different from those usually seen up here, many being blondes with blue eyes. They are all hunters and many bear, moose, and caribou are killed each winter, and too they raise for their own use potatoes, cabbages, and turnips. The soil is sandy and rich, and the climate is similar to New England. At Kchkmak, near the entrance to the Inlet, the thermometer has been seen as high as 98º F in summer and rarely goes below -8º F in winter. … Usually the winters are not long nor very severe, though considerable snow falls. Someday this will be a farming region, as wheat and oats have been raised with good success. The people here have quite a band of small Siberian cattle which looked as fat and round as some of these little Shetland ponies we see. One man too very proudly showed us his hen house and a lot of eggs and butter. The next day we continued up to Kenai, called by the Russians Fort St. Nicholas. … Here they were working the ground getting ready to plant, though the severe winter just past has made everything very backwards. It was warm and pleasant ashore, and it seemed nice to stretch one’s legs on green grass again after so much snow. About two miles beyond here is a village of Kenai Indians, and I was surprised to see how clean they not only kept themselves, but their house—such a marked contrast to the average native village. We were more fortunate going down the Inlet as the day was fairly clear, and we had a good view of the mountains. … There are two active volcanoes nearby, but they did not appear particularly so that day. Iliamna was quietly smoking, while the Redoubt was fast asleep. Another high mountain is an extinct volcano and occupies the whole of Augustine Island. A few years ago it was in violent eruption and the whole island was cracked from top to bottom. Just as we came into Shellikoff straits we overhauled a little schooner [the Jayhawker], not much larger than a good-sized sailboat. The master said he was sick and wanted the doctor. On going aboard I found the dirtiest, most filthy [boat] I ever saw. She had a crew of one man, the master, a boy
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Some place names mentioned in Dr. James T. White’s 1894 letters to his mother: 1. Sitka, 2. Orca Station Cannery, 3. Port Etches, 4. Kenai, 5. Kodiak Isd, 6. Unga Isd., 7. Belkovsky, 8. Unalaska Is. (Dutch Harbor), 9. Pribilof Isds., 10. St. Lawrence Isd., 11. Port Clarence/Teller, 12. Cape Espenberg, 13. Kotzebue Sound, 14. Point Hope, 15. Point Barrow, 16. South Head, Siberia, 17. Noclit, Siberia, 18. East Cape, Siberia, 19. Whalen, Siberia, 20. Cape Serdze, Siberia
of about eleven years, and a dog, age not known. … He told a pitiful tale of how he had left Juneau for a mine he had located and had been blown to sea some 300 miles and had finally brought up here. He was without food and altogether (including his sad story of hardship) presented a most miserable appearance. This so softened our hearts that we gave him food and medicine and sent him on his way rejoicing. And as we left the little schooner astern, we, each one, patted ourselves on the back and said, “How nice it is to be charitable and kind to the poor and afflicted.” When we got to St. Paul, we found the rascal was wanted in both Sitka and St. Paul for smuggling whiskey to the Indians. Such is life. On May 31st we anchored off Karluk. There is no harbor here, just a wide-open roadstead. There is an old native village here with its Greek Church and, too, a government school, but the place has lately become very important on account of the immense number of salmon caught in the Karluk river. It is only about ten miles long and about seventy-five feet wide, but is said to be the greatest salmon stream in the world, supplying as it does seven large canneries. Last year there were more than 3,500,000 fish taken here. Going down between Afognak and Kadiak Islands the scenery is very pretty but in a more quiet way than we had been having. The passage is very crooked, winding in and out among islands and rocks. There are no high snow-covered mountains and massive glaciers, but small hills densely wooded with dark green pine and spruce. We stopped off the town of Afognak for a couple of hours, but I did not go on shore as there was nothing to see in particular. Just the same as all the other towns in this section, a trading post, a mission, and a small collection of dirty log houses and barabaras. We reached St. Paul [harbor] that evening, and I was preparing to make myself comfortable for the night when I was sent over to Wood Island on some errand. The night was very cold, and the rain came down in torrents and by the time I got back to the ship I was soaked through & almost frozen.
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Eurybia siberica (arctic aster), one of 13 flora specimens White collected at Cape Espenberg on July 28, 1894. Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Natural History, Dept. of Botany Collections
Wood Island is where the old Russian Ice Co. had its plant and used to supply San Francisco with ice before the railroads opened up the mountain lakes about Truckee. When I was here before [1890] their icehouse and stables were still standing, but they have now disappeared. St. Paul is quite a large place, having a population of some 600. It is the headquarters of two large trading companies besides being the rendezvous for all the little schooners employed in fishing, trading, and prospecting. There is lots of prospecting going on in Alaska, and a number of excellent claims have been located, but the lack of transportation prevents their being worked to any great extent. We arrived at Unga on the 6th but did not stay very long. I found a few people onshore who wanted assistance, but aside from this there was nothing to do. There is a government school here and a Baptist mission and a trading post, and at one time this was an important station, but trade has fallen off greatly. In the afternoon we went over to Sand Point. This is a great rendezvous for the sealing schooners, there being seven in there now. They all have Indian crews from Victoria, ‌ and such a howling and noise they keep up you never heard. Some of the officers went hunting, and as I did not they brought back a lot of ptarmigan. In the eve we had quite an exciting race between the two cutters, Mr. White [2nd Lieutenant Chester M. White] in one boat & Mr. Dodge in the other. A dispute arose at the finish and they are to settle it in Unalaska. This part of the letter should be dated at Belkoffski, June 8, where we are now. ‌ Coming over we came through a group of little islands most of which are nothing more than bare rocks. Unfortunately, it was very foggy and we could see very little, but once the fog raised in one direction giving us a glimpse of Mt. Shishaldin and Mt. Pavlof, both active volcanoes. Belkoffski is a little town of about 250 people, situated at the foot of a high mountain on the mainland. There is no harbor here but an open roadstead, and from the water presents a very pretty picture. Unlike most of the other places, the houses
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March-April 2020 here are painted blue, green, red and other brilliant colors giving it quite a holiday appearance. At one time Belkoffski was famous for the great number of sea otter skins caught, but now they are few and far between. The people spend most of their time making and drinking quass and trying to get the [Alaska Commercial] company to feed them. Dutch Harbor Alaska. June 11th ‘94 My dear Mother: Just a few finishing lines to this as I will send it on the Bark Jno Wooster, and they will mail it on Puget Sound. We had a very disagreeable trip from Belkoffski here, the first real bad weather since leaving Sitka. It was very thick and blowing a small sized gale and after being in smooth water so long it rather up[s]et our livers. We came through Unimak Pass like a racehorse but could not see a point of land until we were well into Bering Sea, and then the fog raised a little and gave us a glimpse of Akoutan volcano. Then it shut down thick again, and we stood off and on all night and at daylight came into Unalaska. Dutch Harbor is the headquarters of the new trading company [North American Transportation and Trading Company], and as it is their interests we are to look after we stay here. It is only a couple of miles from Unalaska, so we spend most of our time there. I went over yesterday to attend some of the school children, and I am going in today to patch up a broken head. Just when we leave here for the Arctic I don’t know but presume it will be about the 16th inst. We have received no mail so far and if the mail steamer is not on time, we will not receive any until next September. Not knowing how things are there I can but hope and wish that all of you are well and that my letters when received will speak of good and happy times. Today is beautiful, bright and warm. We are taking on coal and everything is dirty and upset. To be continued in my next---I remain, well and contented your affectionate Son James. Whalen, Siberia July 19, ‘94 My dear Mother: Since leaving Port Clarence on the 10th inst. we have done nothing but keep under the lea of the land and let the wind blow over us, and at times it has blown pretty hard. We first went to South Head [Siberia] to take back some natives who had been employed at the Teller Reindeer Station (the official name) as herders. Each one was paid about $100.00 in trade goods for the year’s work. Then we went up St. Lawrence Bay and anchored off the village of Noclit, behind a little sand island in about the same spot where the “Rogers” wintered and was burned in 1881. This is a good place for ducks, and it was to get some of them we came up here, so the Captain said. In about two hours five of us got 48 birds, most of them being eider ducks as big as a brant goose. Since then we have been living on ducks, and mighty fine they are after so much salt “pok,” salt “junk,” and canned stuffs. From there we came up to East Cape, but a heavy northerly wind drove the ice down hard, so we anchored to the southard about ten miles near a camp of deermen. For several days it blew very hard, and nobody went ashore though the natives came off at times. One night when a lot of them were on board a school of walrus came by, and then the greatest confusion began. Everybody wanted a shot at the animals, but they kept away from the vessels and only the natives had a chance at them. They
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Capt. Michael A. Healy, reindeer, and Sami (Lapp) reindeer herder, 1894. Virginia L. Scammell-Tinling Collection.
went out in their boats forming a big circle and gradually drawing closer finally shot one and brought him aboard. The Capt. had it skinned and salted (the skin) and is going to give it to some museum, I believe. We gave the carcass to the natives and kept the liver, which is excellent eating, being like young calves’ liver. Finally, the wind changed to the south and moved the ice north, so we went around East Cape and anchored in the Arctic Ocean off the village of Whalen. We came here to buy deer but have not had very good success. The chief man, Tenerskin, owns nearly all the deer and he won’t part with them, at least will not sell them, but to show his importance, made us a present of five. Of course, the Captain in return made him a present, which paid for the deer. They never give you anything without expecting something of equal value in return. One man, Frank, sold us two deer, and I believe more have been promised. Frank spent three years in San Francisco once, washing dishes in a restaurant and can speak very good English, and is a smart fellow, rapidly gaining wealth and power. But again, we have had to lay here doing nothing, for the wind has been blowing a gale from the southard, preventing our taking off deer. One day a party of us went ashore, and while some of them went hunting I wandered about the village picking up any little thing I could. As a rule these people are very hospitable and like you to visit them. And as for wrecked men thrown among them, they are always taken the best care of. This is not saying I would like to live among them, but I really do enjoy being among them for a little while. Trade of any kind has been exceedingly scarce. I have seen very few furs and no good ones. Two white bear and a few white fox has been all so far, and as for curios, there is such a demand for
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March-April 2020 them I stand little chance of getting anything very nice. Between Mrs. H—, Mr. Liebes (our passenger, and of course a privileged character) and the several new officers who have never been here before, it is a scramble to see who shall have first say. The natives are not blockheads, and take advantage of this; consequently the prices for everything are put away up. As for first say, the after end of the ship [senior officers] gets there just the same and the wardroom when it can. I tell this so the girls won’t be disappointed if I don’t bring back a few coats, capes, muffs, etc. etc. I may have a chance yet. Yesterday, the Capt. sent a party, in charge of Mr. White, to Cape Serdze about 100 miles west of here, to buy deer so it would not take so long when we come to get them. The party consisted of two white men and eight natives in an omyak (native boat) and they expect to be gone about a month. I wanted to go very much but could not. It would have been an excellent chance to study the natives in their home life, but Capt. H. thought I would be of more use here. Whalen is a good-sized village of Chukchee deer men (there are two classes, the deer men & Mazinkas or those who live by hunting walrus, seal etc.). Their houses are built of a number of poles bound like ribs and fastened at the top. These are covered with walrus hide, neatly sewed together, and when finished appear like a hemi-sphere with the flat side resting on the ground. A flap of hide answers for a door and on one or more sides is a piece of translucent skin to admit the light. Inside, in the center, is an open fire on which all do the cooking. On one side are the beds, made of reindeer skins and walled in with deer skin curtains, and the rest of the house is a general storeroom. Two families usually live in one house. I could not find out if they had any marriage ceremony or not, but polygamy does exist, optional with the man. As one man said: “Maby sometime, wyenne no good, no can sew good, no make um good boot, alle same dam bad, then catchum ‘nother wyenne. Two wyenne no good, alle time fight. One time me go Cape Serdze, me wyenne stop East Cape. Me catchum ‘nother wyenne Cape Serdze, come East Cape stop. Bymeby me sleep, wyenne here, wyenne here (pointing to either side of him). Me no sleep, alle time fight.” And he went through motions as though he was scratching somebody’s eyes out. He got rid of one wife by saying he was going to the Diomede Island. So, taking his last love he left, but instead he came to Whalen. The first wife went to Diomede and can’t get back, so he is now happy with one wife, and says he won’t get any more. Sometimes a man without a wife will steal (elope we call it) someone else’s, but if caught a fight ensues and the best man takes the prize. So far as I have seen the women are treated very well, unlike our Indians, and the children are treated particularly well. Now and then considerable affection is manifested between the younger couples. They have a very summary way of getting rid of all those unable to take care of themselves. When they become a burden to the others, someone kills them. This is done by a friend usually appointed by the invalid and is one of the greatest marks of friendship. The dead are then sewed up in skins and dragged to the place of burial by dogs. Here the body is covered over with stones and left to the tender mercies of wolves, foxes, and the half-tame dogs. Of their religion I could find out little. They apparently believe in a spirit life and the existence of a good spirit and a bad spirit. One writer says it is mere devil worship, for they make offerings to the evil spirit to appease his wrath, but the good spirit doesn’t need any as he does them no harm. That is the base of most aboriginal worship. July 26th ‘94 We are now back again at Port Clarence and are anchored off the Reindeer Station. Early in the morning of the 22d we left Whalen for the westward. We had finally gotten on board 16 deer, all the
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March-April 2020 natives would sell, after much talking and hard work. … About 1 o’clock on the same day we anchored off the village of Tsha-tshong (that’s as near as I can get it) some 75 miles west of East Cape. Here we picked up Mr. White and party. He had bought some deer for us and was about to proceed to the west of Cape Serdze for more. Tsha-tshong is a village of deer men containing about ten huts. … The natives had a herd of 500 or more deer and were very loathe to part with them. This was the first place I have seen any demonstration of feeling at the taking away of deer. As we began to load the deer into the boat the women set up a wail and shed real tears. The village was the dirtiest I have seen and the inhabitants about the same. While the deer were being caught, I walked about a mile along a high bluff to take a look at their place of worship. This consisted of piles of rocks and designs made on the ground with places for fires and offerings, but their uses I could not find out, and the natives either could not understand me or would not tell me about them. After taking on 22 deer we got out as the heavy Arctic ice was making down fast. A few walrus were seen and one shot, and except bumping into ice nothing more of interest took place until we anchored here. Point Hope Alaska Aug 1st ‘94 Dear Mother: On the 27th of July we left Port Clarence for our regular cruise into the Arctic and are now in our own territory. The 27th was … clear, warm and still, so the Capt. had drill at general quarters. Could an old admiral of the Navy have seen us he would have turned up his nose in scorn, and indeed it must have been a ludicrous sight. The officers had a mixed uniform, half navy & half whaler, fur pants and boots and navy blouse, cap, and sword. Although the men have been drilled a good deal, they are anywhere but perfect, and for two hours they had a circus on deck. The wardroom was given to me as a sick bay and the dining table turned into an operating table, all instruments being spread out ready for use. While the men were being shot on deck I instructed some how to carry and care for the wounded. After lunch we got underway and … stood into Kotzebue Sound. The next day (28) … we coasted close to shore and passed many winter villages, now deserted. That eve we anchored near Cape Espenberg, and some of us went on shore to hunt. When we got in I found things more interesting than hunting game so started off by myself. … A range of sand dunes make the beach, then comes a wide stretch of marsh, then another range of sand dunes, and then a series of lakes. Beyond this is a range of good-sized hills, the Mulgrave Hills. In the first sand dunes I found scattered about the remains of underground houses that had been empty a long time. The flora was varied, containing many plants I had not seen before, among them being the cranberry. These last covered acres and were now in a green state. The beach was strewn with shells, many very pretty ones. So altogether I had lots to amuse me. We returned to the ship about 12 midnight and got underway immediately, proceeding up the Sound to Cape Blossom, where we expected to find some good trade. About 5.30 the next morning I was awakened by the engine making a big noise and a general excitement on deck, and looking out … I saw the vessel was not moving. It turned out afterwards that we had run onto a sand bar, and for a while it looked as though we were there to stay. All day we stuck fast. and it was not until eight o’clock that evening that we got off. During the day a good many natives came off and quite a trade was kept up, but such a high price was asked that we received very little for our trade goods. We all supposed that this would be our last chance to trade as the whalers are
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White’s drawings of Siberian Native stone circles and rock piles (July 26, 1894) that were published in Sheldon Jackson, Report on Introduction of Domestic Reindeer into Alaska, 1894 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1895).
ahead of us, so we got rid of about everything, but when we got here and found a lot more furs, cheaper than the others, we kicked ourselves (as well as we could). Now I am completely out of everything and all I have been able to get, besides a few curios, are two cub brown bear, and one cub black bear, one lynx, one white fox, and four red fox. Just what they are good for I don’t know, but I have them and that’s all. To sell them I can just about get back my money put into trade goods. Leaving Kotzebue Sound, we coasted up in pretty bad weather, but when we reached here on the 31st July it cleared up again. Of course, I have been ashore and rummaged about the old graveyard, and in addition to my other amusements I have been trying to sketch. If I can tell what they represent when I get back, I will show them to you. Port Clarence Alaska My dear Mother We have been to Point Barrow and back and have experienced during that time plenty of fine weather. … Our stay there was shortened by the sudden coming in of the ice, and for two days we were in the midst of it.—more ice than I ever saw before. At several places along the coast we stopped, and of course I took every opportunity to go ashore. Several times we went hunting but without much success except at Point Hope, where I succeeded in getting a big bunch of plover. One day, at C. Sabine, I was actually driven aboard the ship by the mosquitoes. The day was very warm and tramping over the marshy tundra is not the easiest. I could have stood this, but the mosquitoes most drove me crazy. Some of the others looked as though they had the measles, and my hands and face were so sore I could hardly touch them. Even my scalp was too sore to use a comb on. On our return to East Cape we picked up Mr. White who had then been a month with the natives
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Photo postcard, Scene near Belkofsky, Alaska, by John E. Thwaites.
buying deer. He had had quite an experience and is not sorry he went, and I only wish I had been with him. The ice was so bad we could not reach Cape Serdze again, so we came here stopping on our way at the Diomede Islands. I have thought of a scheme and if you will let me, I will carry it out and make a stake. It is this: Dr. Jackson wants someone to buy deer for him. Mr. White and I will come up next year and establish headquarters at Cape Serdze, Siberia; get somebody like Liebes or Foster to stake us fur trading and whaling and try a year or two. With any luck at all we can make big money. Two men at Pt. Barrow made this year about $20,000.00. Just think about it a little bit, and when I come back, we will talk it over. St. Lawrence Is Aug. 27 ‘94 We are here fixing up the quarters for the schoolteacher [Vene Gambell and his wife, Nellie] and trying to get the house as comfortable as possible. Just think of a man bringing up a young wife to live here on a barren island, miles away from any white man and with just enough grub to live on. That’s some of Jackson’s work and mismanagement. We left Port Clarence on the 22d and that evening stopped at C. Prince of Wales to deliver some stuff at the station there. There is a big village there with a government school, but the natives, unlike the others, are a bad lot and last year they killed the teacher [missionary Harrison Thornton]. But from many accounts it was partly his fault. The teacher’s [W. T. Lopp] baby was sick, so I went in to attend it. This is a nasty place to land, being a long shallow beach with several lines of breakers through which we have to go. I went in one of the native’s skin boats or omyaks and after I had filled my boots full of water, I made up my mind they are not the best of surfmen. From there we started for here and caught the heaviest blow we have had since leaving Sitka, giving us all a good shaking up and stirring our livers about pretty lively. We had been in smooth water so long that we had lost our sea legs.
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March-April 2020 Bering Sea 100 mi from Unalaska Sept 20 ‘94 My dear Mother: This letter has been written by fits and starts as the mood may be. Since the last date at St. Lawrence Island we have made a good many miles, having been to Cape Serdze and back. After leaving the Carpenter at St Lawrence Island to complete the mission house, we started north to buy deer and finish up our Arctic business. … Fortunately, we found the west coast quite free of ice and went some 15 mi. west of C. Serdze. … Here we met a lot of deer men and purchased a load of live deer besides a good many dead ones for food. Tame deer meat is fine, resembling nice spring lamb about as much as anything. The natives were slaughtering quantities of deer and in one place I saw over a hundred carcasses on the ground. Our trip back was not quite so smooth as the ice had worked south, and for a while (all one night) our getting out looked rather dubious. But we did and reached Port Clarence safely where we unloaded the deer and cleaned ship generally. From Port Clarence we went to St Michaels where we lay a couple of days and then back to St. Lawrence Is. and all this time having fine weather. … A breathing spell off St Paul and a short stop off St George brings us here. Unalaska Alaska Sept 21 ‘94 My dear Mother: We arrived here this AM and received some of our mail. Unfortunately some of it was sent to the Mackenzie river and will now freeze. Since coming in everything is upside down and otherwise. We have a lot of freight to be taken out and 30 passengers to transfer besides a lot of red tape to go through. Worst of all we have to dress in uniform—no Mazinka [Arctic Native] clothing allowed. As for myself I am really in excellent health; without any exaggeration, and weighed yesterday just 141 pounds, somewhat weather-stained and rather fuzzy about the face, but otherwise appear about as usual. In many respects the cruise has been a very pleasant one and I have enjoyed it beyond my expectations. Have received several invitations to “come and spend a winter with us” from both whalers and missionaries, and personally would not object a little bit. I am very glad to hear you are all well and have not been too lonesome all summer. So far there is no news as to the time of our starting south, but there are all kinds of rumors–all the way from November 1st to Jan 1st. With me it is more time, more pay. With much love to all—some of which I collected in the Arctic and enclose in this letter—I remain affectionately Your Son James Between September and November the Bear continued its patrol around Unalaska and the Pribilof Islands. On November 1 the cutter left for San Francisco, arriving on November 14. White was discharged the following day, and it would be another six years before he returned to Alaska, this time on the Revenue Steamer Nunivak that patrolled the Yukon River in 1900. ~•~
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Unloading caches on the ice shelf at the head of Valdez Bay, March 9, 1898. A ship is moored just to the left, see anchoring ropes in the ice. This is described in the sidebar, page 29. Photo by Neal D. Benedict. [Alaska State Library, Neal D. Benedict Photograph Collection P201-012]
Early Settlement of Valdez The Pathfinder is the official publication of the Pioneers of Alaska, a fraternal group which traces its history to the Yukon Order of Pioneers, organized at Fortymile in 1898. The following article on the early settlement of Valdez is from The Pathfinder, February, 1920. The issue is available to read or download, see Sources, page 48.
On the 22nd day of September, 1897, the schooner Laninfa sailed from San Francisco with 33 passengers aboard enroute to the mouth of the Copper River in Alaska. They had been told that they could navigate this river with small power boats and were fully equipped to make a trip up that turbulent stream. On their arrival at Orca they learned that it was impossible for them to ascend the Copper River with any kind of boat, so about 20 of the men in the party chartered a cannery craft and came on up to Valdez Bay having been told that men had gone to the Copper River by that route thus landing above the glaciers and rapids of that river. The cannery boat carrying 22 men came into Valdez Bay on the 10th day of November, 1897 and landed its passengers at the place now known as Swanport, just below where Fort Liscum now is built. This was the first settlement on the shores of Valdez Bay. Prior to this time Tom Olson, a trader and agent for the Northern Trading Company had built a cabin over in what was afterwards known as “Hangman’s Town,” but at the time of the landing of the Swanport party this was abandoned and not a soul lived in the then “weird wild whiteness” of Valdez Bay. “Bald-headed Cris,” now dead, at times occupied the cabin at Hangman’s Town, but at this time he was “not at home” and had been gone for some time. W. C. L. Beyer, who was a fur
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March-April 2020 agent at that time down the sound on one of the islands was a frequent visitor to the Valdez Bay in quest of furs from the natives who came across from the Copper River but he did not live on the bay at any time. So the Swanport party may well be called the first settlers on Valdez Bay. After these argonauts got ashore with their supplies in the snow several feet deep, they began to “excavate” for their buildings, made of canvas. Before this was fairly done they had a craving appetite for something to eat, and on snowshoes gathered some dry limbs from distant trees to their first fire. While eating their hastily prepared meal darkness commenced to hover around them and once more they had to don their snowshoes and hunt for boughs to make themselves a bed. The only man of that party of 22 yet remaining in Valdez is Adam Swan, now treasurer of the Pioneers of Alaska, Valdez Igloo. Only once in the more than 20 years since he first slept on the bed of boughs across the Bay has he visited the states or scarcely so much as left the bay. And his faith in Valdez is unshaken by all the adversities with which he has met. He is still firm in the faith that Valdez will yet be the “Golden Gate to the Golden Interior.” His family of boys and girls have grown up and all of the children now have comfortable homes in Portland, Brooklyn, Tacoma and other parts of the Union, anxious to have the “Father of Valdez” come and live with them, but he clings to his adopted child of the North with an anxiety for its future state that is most remarkable. About a month after landing on the Bay, Adam assisted Capt. Zain Moore and Jack Shepard, now a resident of Cordova, to erect the first building on the present townsite of Valdez. This building was for the Pacific Steam Whaling Co. and was to be used for a trading station. Sixty acres of land was staked off for a trading site and it was called “Copper City.” This company was then operating vessels between Puget Sound and Prince William Sound,
The Excelsior unloading on the ice, March 9, 1898, Valdez Bay. Photo by Neal D. Benedict. [ASL P201-010]
A tent on the trail, June 12, 1898. Neal D. Benedict. [Alaska State Library, P201-030]
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Port Valdes (Valdez), at the head of Valdez Bay. Valdez Glacier is between the mountains on the right side. Aug. 27, 1898. Neal D. Benedict. [Alaska State Library, Neal D. Benedict Photograph Collection P201-145]
and points to the westward. Mr. Swan was appointed land agent for the Company and had charge of the mail. About this time the A. C. Company’s agent Mr. Washburn purchased from Adam a portion of the Swanport tract and made him agent for the Company, which position he held until 1900. The A. C. Company at that time was operating the steamship Dora between Seattle, Valdez Bay and Kodiak. This Company erected a wharf at Swanport, the first wharf to be built in the waters of Valdez Bay. In 1898 Capt. Abercrombie arrived in Valdez Bay for the purpose of opening a road from the Bay to the Interior. He located a military reservation which included some of the ground that the Pacific Steam Whaling Co. had staked, and the building that had been erected. Sometime in December, about a month after the landing of the Swanport party, the schooner Bering Sea hove into port with a large number of passengers bound for the Klondike by way of the Copper River. In this party was Dan Greenig, now of Cordova, and Chas. Sponberg, still a resident of Valdez. In February, 1898, the steamer Valencia arrived in the Bay with 600 passengers, and crafts of all kinds then came thick and fast until there were over 4,000 men climbing over the glacier bound for the Copper River enroute to the Klondike. At this time Mr. Swan made up his mind to stake out a townsite so he called a meeting and the 80 people present adopted a code of rules and regulations under which each man or woman could possess one lot 50 by 150 feet in size. And this was the beginning of Valdez, just 22 years ago. Seems to the old-timers but a few days ago, but the incidents of the men’s lives who have lived here during the major portion of that time would make a screen picture that would cause one’s hair to stand pompadour. ~•~
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March-April 2020 In the winter of 1898 a group of gold seekers traveled to Alaska aboard the schooner Moonlight, bound for Valdez and the Copper River country beyond its great glacier. Among these prospectors were Charles Margeson, who would write a book of their adventures (Gold Hunters in Alaska, 1899, see Sources), and Neal D. Benedict, who took many photographs. Arriving in Valdez Bay in March, 1898, Margeson was dismayed to find not the wharf they’d expected, but a large shelf of ice extending a long ways out into the bay. He described their landing and unloading, and what they found when going ashore: “About one o’clock we drew up along the edge of the ice near where the steamers were unloading. Going back some distance from the edge, we cut a hole in the ice, and hooked our anchor into it, and our boat was thus held firmly in place. The ice was about eighteen inches thick, and covered with three feet of snow, while away from the ice the snow measured eleven feet on the level. “About a mile from where the schooner was anchored was a piece of timber containing two or three hundred acres, and running down through this was a clear stream of pure water. In the edge of this timber, and near this little stream, were about one hundred tents, clustered together, and others were being set up. This unique camp—for it was about that—presented a scene of unusual activity. Some were tramping down the snow, preparing a place to put up their tents; some were cutting tent poles, and others were cutting firewood, while others were getting their dog teams ready for hauling their goods up to the foot of the glacier, which was five miles away,
Schooner Moonlight in Valdez Bay, March, 1898. Neal Benedict [ASL Neal D. Benedict Collection P201-009]
“Situated about two miles from our camp, in another piece of timber, and about the same distance from the glacier, were a few rude log cabins and several tents, the former having been built several years. One man had lived here nine years. This was Valdez proper, and the old Indian trading post. Years ago many Indians came over the glacier during the latter part of winter, bringing sled-loads of valuable furs and articles of their own manufacture, and traded them for beads, brass trinkets, gaudy-colored clothing, provisions and such other articles as seemed to strike their fancy. “When the great Alaskan gold excitement sent thousands to land at Valdez, the old site of the town did not seem to them to be the proper place for a town, so a new site was selected, near deep water, and seemed to be a more suitable place for a thriving village. Upon this new plot streets were laid out, and during the summer many log and some frame buildings were erected, so that in the fall of 1898 Port Valdez was a village of three hundred people. The first boat-load of gold seekers that landed at Valdez took up their quarters at the old town site.”
For more information visit the Valdez Museum & History Archive www.valdezmuseum.org
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Luther Kelly at Portage Bay (Whittier) with an Indian snowshoe, 1898. [Photo taken by Walter Mendenhall, USGS, and courtesy of the USGS, public domain.]
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March-April 2020 "I feel my body will rest better in Montana, the scene of my earlier activities, than it would in the vastness of Arlington, where I purposed having it laid."
Luther Sage “Yellowstone” Kelly An Indian Scout in Alaska Thomas J. Eley, PhD., Itinerant Geographer* The United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867—365,039,104 acres for $7.2 million dollars (US). A year later Alaska was designated as the Department of Alaska under the aegis of the U.S. Army as part of the War Department’s Department of the Columbia. The War Department, Congress, and the President did not know what to do with the newly acquired Territory of Alaska as little was even known about it. Alaska sat in benign neglect for over 14 years. As one unearths the story of Alaska and the American West, you find individuals that played pivotal roles in history at a point-in-time, yet these individuals generally never even garner a footnote about their roles. Once such individual was Luther Sage “Yellowstone” Kelly who played parts in both the Old West and Alaska. On July 27, 1849, Luther Sage “Kelly was born in Geneva, New York. Instead of going into the seminary as his mother wanted, Kelly’s real interest was in soldiering. The Civil War was raging so he lied about his age and joined the Union Army and fought in the final days of the Civil War, most notably the occupation of Richmond, VA. After the War, Kelly was sent to the Dakota Territory and was discharged later from Fort Ransom. Like a number of young men of the post-Civil War days, Kelly could not abide the East, and longed for adventures in the West on trails no man had trod before. After being discharged, he ventured north into Canada, joining miners who were going up the Red River *Thomas J. Eley, PO. Box 230329, Anchorage, Alaska 99523 • thom@mapmakers.com
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March-April 2020 of the North. Kelly then returned to his beloved [from his soldiering days] Yellowstone River Valley where he hunted, trapped and explored. He rapidly gained fame for his knowledge of the Yellowstone country. For his knowledge and experience, he was soon recruited by the Army as a scout, interpreter, guide, dispatch rider, and to conduct special assignments. “Yellowstone” Kelly earned his nickname as a scout in the Yellowstone Country from 1869 to about 1885. During these days he was attacked by two Sioux Indians, who he summarily killed with his Henry rifle. During the skirmish, Kelly took an arrow to the knee and lost the tip of his right little finger to an Indian’s musket ball [the stub of his finger can be seen in many photographs of Kelly]. Kelly was soon selected as Chief of Scouts by Brig. Gen. Nelson Appleton Miles (1839-1925). Miles, who was a legendary general of the Civil War and the leader of nearly all campaigns against the American Indian tribes of the Great Plains and Geronimo in Arizona, was appointed commander of the Department of Columbia, which included Alaska in 1881. “Nelson Appleton Miles may have been the most ambitious soldier ever to wear the uniform of the United States Army… Vain to a fault,” (Keenan 2006:81). He would assume any responsibility, even those not specifically his, which he thought would enhance his career. Miles reported that “Yellowstone Kelly was of a good family, well-educated and fond of good books, as quiet and gentle as he was brave, as kind and generous as he was forceful, a great hunter and an expert rifleman; he explored that extensive northwest country years before serious hostilities occurred and acquired a knowledge of its topography, climate and resources that was extremely valuable. He could quote Shakespeare, skin a bison, and kill Indians when necessary” (Keenan 2006). Kelly’s skills and friendship with Gen. Miles would have a major effect on Kelly’s future. His favorite quote was “Keep not firmly rooted, to briskly venture, briskly roam,” by Goethe, but Kelly used it so often back in the day, many folks thought that it was Kelly’s own quote. Assuming the command of the Department of Columbia, Miles discovered that the United States had no information on Alaska, and the territory had been totally abandoned by the United States. I’m sure that Miles recognized that Indians lived in Alaska, but no one knew whether they were friendly or unfriendly Indians. He set about to learn more about the United States’ new land. He dispatched a number of exploring expeditions to Alaska to fill the information void without the de facto permission or financial support of Washington, D.C. The Army expeditions basically lived off the land and were rescued from starvation several times by Alaskan Indians. Table 1 summarizes the expeditions Miles dispatched to Interior Alaska as Commanding General of the Department of Columbia, Commanding General of the Division of the Pacific, and later as Commanding General of the U.S. Army. In 1898, General Miles dispatched Expedition Number 3, under the command of Capt. Edwin Glenn (1857-1926), with the mission being to explore and map, as well as to find a transportation corridor for a railroad or wagon paths from ice-free ports (Portage Bay [Whittier] and Seward) to the Yukon and Tanana Rivers (Learnard 1900 and Yanert 1900a and 1900b). Luther Kelly was assigned to this expedition by General Miles as chief scout and tracker. General Miles’ order explicitly details the information that the expedition was to
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collect. This intelligence included a detailed background on the geography, potential transportation corridors, Native peoples, and economic potential in Alaska. Gen. Miles was intensely interested in all aspects of this new territory. A major reason that Kelly was sent on the 1898 Expedition was because of his field skills and that all the expedition’s officers, except perhaps Glenn, were too young to have been in the Indian Wars. Yellowstone Kelly’s Alaska Accomplishments Kelly was deposited in Portage Bay with other expedition members on April 12, 1898. Kelly was paired with a young Quaker, USGS Geologist Walter Mendenhall (1871–1957) who would later become the fifth director of the USGS. The pairing of Kelly, an expert on frontier living, tracking and scouting, and dealing with Indians, with Mendenhall, a field geologist, was a wise one. Luther Kelly, at 49 years-old, was one of the older, if not the oldest member of the Expedition, while Capt. Edwin Forbes Glenn, the expedition’s Commanding Officer, was only 41. Mendenhall was just 27. The duo’s first assignment was to find routes from Portage Bay across Portage Glacier, which took more time than expected because of the difficulty getting the team and its gear across the glacier safely. They also discovered that government-issued snowshoes were not
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March-April 2020 satisfactory in Alaska. Kelly ultimately bartered with a group of Indians for two sets of the Indian’s snowshoes for Mendenhall and himself, which worked considerably better. Their next assignment was to find a trail from Portage Bay to Knik. They spent many days fighting mosquitos, thick brush, incessant rain, fog, bears, exhaustion, forest fire smoke occluding the trail, valley, and hills and exploring dead-end valleys and mountain trails. All these problems aside, Kelly and Mendenhall found two routes over the Chugach Mountains. Yellowstone Kelly and Walter Mendenhall discovered an “alleged Indian Trail” from Portage Bay to Knik. The route took them from Cabin Creek and up the middle or main fork of Twenty-Mile River to the vicinity of Lake Glenn. The lake was named for Capt. Glenn. They could see Turnagain Arm in the distance. The route up Twenty-Mile River was difficult, and they were plagued with mosquitoes, rain, and fog. They reached mountains which appeared at first impassible, but they found a path through to Winner Creek and then up and over the Crow Creek Pass and down Yukla-hitna (Eagle River) Valley. This trail became known as the Kelly Trail. Kelly (1899: 292) wrote: “There does not appear to be any material obstacles in the way of making a practicable trail or wagon route down this river…. I consider the route traversed from Portage Bay to the Knik Arm a practicable one. As to whether the heavy snowfall in winter in the divide will block travel for animals remains to be proven by actual trial, but should a trail once be established, and be kept open by travel I believe it would be all right.” Remember these comments are from an Army mentality as their vision is for a horsedrawn wagon road over the pass. Mendenhall was not enthralled with the Kelly Trail and Mendenhall wrote in Kelly (1899:292): “This route appears not to have been known before…and will probably not be much used except by prospectors who wish to reach Raven Creek or the upper reaches of the Yukla. A pack trail could be constructed over it, but not without considerable outlay.” A second trail across the Chugach Mountains was found after talking with Indians in the area. It started at present day Indian and Indian Creek, which was accessed by following trails along the present-day Alaska Railroad right-of-way, and following Ship Creek to the Eagle River Flats, then along a trail that approximately followed the now Glenn Highway to Knik at the head of Knik Arm. Kelly didn’t much like the trail as it was very muddy and boggy in the summer and passage was difficult. The trail is passible in winter but would have significant avalanche hazards. On the contrary, Mendenhall preferred this trail and he wrote: “…there are at least two routes by land [between Knik and Turnagain Arms]. One, much the shortest, easiest, and best known, is by way of…Indian Creek.” (Mendenhall’s comments in Kelly 1899) The relationship between the Quaker scientist Mendenhall and the Indian scout Kelly had been a concern of Glenn. Because of their considerably different backgrounds could they work together? It did, however, seem to work as they respected each other’s views even if
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March-April 2020 they didn’t agree. Kelly was impressed with Mendenhall’s physical shape for traveling while lugging a heavy camera and geologist’s tools. They truly worked as a team and became friends as well as colleagues. In his report to the Secretary of War, Kelly (1899:290) wrote: “I wish to express my indebtedness to Mr. Mendenhall, of the United States Geological Survey, not only for his excellent sketches of Crow Creek and Yukla-hitna River, but also for his help generally since it made it possible for me to finish this work.” Kelly and Mendenhall significantly increased the knowledge of the geology, geography, natural resources and Kelly’s party crossing Portage Glacier with Lt. H.G. Learnard in the lead followed by Luther Kelly. indigenous peoples of Alaska. After working [Photo taken in 1898 by Walter Mendenhall, USGS, with Kelly, Mendenhall joined other and courtesy of the USGS, public domain.] expedition teams and crossed South Central Alaska to the Tanana River and ended up in experiences in the West, he found that Kotzebue (Mendenhall 1902 and 1905). Alaskan Indians did not understand signMendenhall also wrote a number of language and they couldn’t understand geological reports (Mendenhall and smoke signals. Schrader 1903). He departed Alaska in 1899, Miles was interested in field and combat never to return. From 1903 to 1911, he was communications over long distances, and he sent to the deserts of SE California and SW was a promoter of the heliograph. A Nevada to work on water resources. He heliograph is a wireless telegraph that sends served as the Chief Geologist of the USGS signals of flashes of sunlight reflected by a for 8 years and from 1930 to 1943, mirror and sent in Morse code. Kelly was Mendenhall was the 5th Director of the able to send and receive messages to Capt. USGS, guiding the Service through the Great Glenn across Turnagain Arm. Depression and World War II. Interestingly, all the officers left the territory for the winter of 1898-1899, Yellowstone Kelly and the Alaskan Indians including Kelly. Glenn, however, left all the enlisted soldiers to overwinter at the mouth Kelly was very diligent in his efforts to of the Susitna River with Sgt. Yanert in assess the “Indian Situation.” He “talked” command (Eley 2002). Having to remain in with Indians whenever he could, and found Alaska over the winter caused considerable them to be knowledgeable, friendly, and consternation among the troops, especially certainly not war like. Different from his since all the troops wanted to get back to the
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Luther Kelly and party “enjoying” the rain, Portage Bay, AK, 1898. Note that his right little finger is missing. [Photo taken by Walter Mendenhall, USGS, and courtesy of the USGS, public domain.]
“proper Army” so they could participate in the Spanish-American War, as promotions come fast in a war. The Expedition resumed in 1899 despite the Spanish-American War’s demand on Army personnel and resources. Kelly, however, elected not to return. Kelly: 1899 to 1928 In 1899, Edward Harriman, a wealthy railroad magnate, organized an expedition to explore the coast of Alaska for two months with a short detour to Siberia so his wife could put her feet on Siberia. The expedition is often called “The Last Great Exploring Expedition.” They traveled on the SS George W. Elder, a steamship lavishly refitted for the expedition. Harriman brought with him a group of noted scientists, artists, photographers, naturalists,
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March-April 2020 hunting guides, chefs, family members and taxidermists to explore and document the Alaskan coast. Harriman’s personal goal for the expedition was to hunt Kodiak bear, and his personal guide was Luther Kelly. At the various stops, Kelly got off the ship and assisted the scientists. Arriving at Kodiak, Yellowstone Kelly guided Harriman on his hunt, and he got his bear. Clinton Hart Merriam, the Science Director, decided to leave a party of scientists on Popof Island in the Shumagin Islands to do a more detailed study. The scientists included a geologist, entomologist, biologist, botanist, and Luther Kelly, who was requested by the four scientists. The rest of the expedition went along the Alaskan west coast and then to Siberia, and then homeward with a short stop to pick up Kelly and his scientists. The expedition started on May 31, 1899 so most of the participants were anxious to get home, and they arrived in Seattle on July 30, 1899. In August, 1899, Kelley was promoted to Captain with the Army’s 40th Volunteers and by November they were in the Philippines doing their part in the Philippine Insurgency. Kelly remained in the Philippines for three years assisting the civilian governor. Tiring of the Philippines, he went home in 1902. He had several jobs when he returned home, including Indian Agent for the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona and a gold miner in Nevada. Luther and his wife settled in Paradise, California in 1915, and grew fruit. Luther Sage “Yellowstone” Kelly died on December 17, 1928, poor and almost blind. His obituary simply said he was a fruit farmer. He was buried on rimrocks, now called Kelly Mountains, above Billings, Montana, and the Yellowstone River Valley. A permanent exhibit on Yellowstone Kelly was added to the Gold Nugget Museum in Paradise, California. Unfortunately, the museum, as well as most of the town, was burned to the ground in the 2018 Camp Fire, and everything was destroyed. ~•~ BIBLIOGRAPHY Eley, T.J. 2002. Sgt. William Yanert: The Cartographer from Hell. Geographical Review 92(4):582-596. Glenn, E.F. 1900. A trip to the Region of the Tanana. Pp: 629-648. In Compilation of Narratives of Explorations in Alaska. Committee on Military Affairs, 56th Congress, Washington, D.C.: GPO. Keenan, J. 2006. The life of Yellowstone Kelly. Albuquerque, NM: Univ. New Mexico Press. Kelly, L.S. 1899. Report of Mr. Luther S. Kelly, submitted by Capt. E.F. Glenn, U.S.A., Commanding Exploring Expedition No. 3. Pp: 289-293, in Reports of Explorations in the Territory of Alaska (Cooks Inlet Sushitna, Copper, and Tanana Rivers) 1898: Made Under the Direction of the Secretary of War, Capt. E.F. Glenn and Capt. W. R. Abercrombie (eds.), Washington, DC: GPO. Kelly, L.S. and M.M. Quaife. 1926. Yellowstone Kelly: The Memoirs of Luther S. Kelly. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Learnard, H.G. 1900. A trip from Portage Bay to Turnagain Arm and up the Sushitna. Pp:648-677. Committee on Military Affairs, 56th Congress, Washington, D.C.: GPO. Mendenhall, W.C. 1902. Reconnaissance from Fort Hamblin to Kotzebue, by way of Dall, Kanuti, Allen, and Kowak Rivers. USGS Professional Paper No. 10. Washington, D.C.: GPO. Mendenhall, W.C. 1905. Geology of the Central Copper River region, Alaska. USGS Professional Paper No.41. Washington, D.C.: GPO. Mendenhall, W.C. and Schrader, F.C. 1903. The mineral resources of the Mount Wrangell district, Alaska. USGS Professional Paper No.15. Washington, D.C.: GPO. Mathys, F. 1900. A story quickly told. Pp:737. In Compilation of Narratives of Explorations in Alaska. Committee on Military Affairs, 56th Congress, Washington, D.C.: GPO. Sherwood, M.B. 1992. Exploration of Alaska: 1865-1900. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press. United States Army Alaska Command. 1969. The Army’s Role in the Building of Alaska. APO Seattle, WA: Public Information Officer, Headquarters United States Army, Alaska. Yanert, W. 1900a. A trip to the Tanana River. Pp:677-679. In Compilation of Narratives of Explorations in Alaska. Committee on Military Affairs, 56th Congress, Washington, D.C.: GPO. Yanert, W. 1900b. From Middle Fork of Sushitna to the Talkeetno. Pp:736. In Compilation of Narratives of Explorations in Alaska. Committee on Military Affairs, 56th Congress, Washington, D.C.: GPO.
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She mushed her dogteam 1,000 miles across the trackless north, from her remote lodge near Juneau to Fairbanks, where she was the Miss Juneau entrant in the 1936 Miss Alaska Contest.
Mary Joyce, Adventurer Mary Joyce was an Alaskan adventurer of the highest caliber, and when Alaska was still just a territory she owned and operated a remote lodge near Juneau, became the first woman radio operator in the territory, and flew her own bush plane. In later years, after selling her lodge, she joined Pan Alaska Airways as a stewardess, and then settled in Juneau, where she worked as a nurse and bought two popular local bars. But Mary Joyce’s biggest claim to fame, besides her dauntless courage in trying new adventures, was her 1936 dogsled trip from her Taku Lodge near Juneau to Fairbanks, 1,000 miles away. Mary was invited to participate in the 1936 Fairbanks Ice Carnival as a representative for the City and Borough of Juneau. Always ready for an adventure, she decided to drive her sled dogs on the thousand-mile journey, and she kept notes on index cards while on the trail and later wrote a book about the trip based on those notes. Her book was not published until 2007 when her cousin, Mary Anne Greiner, edited her manuscript and published it under the title, Mary Joyce, Taku to Fairbanks, 1,000 Miles by Dogteam (AuthorHouse, 2007): “She was the first white person over a portion of the trail which later became part of the Alcan Highway. Her
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Twin Glacier Camp on the Taku River. [Alaska State Library, Mary Joyce Collection ASL-P459-591]
narrative and descriptions of Alaska’s people, dogteams, vast landscapes and dangers encountered on the trail are wrapped in her wry humor and perspectives of the 30s…” Another book, TAKU: Four Amazing Individuals-Four Incredible Life Stories and The Alaskan Wilderness Lodge That Brought Them Together (Will Pub., 2006), by Karen Bell and Janet Shelfer, tells the larger story of the lodge and Mary’s history with it, which is a fascinating account full of adventure, love, heartbreak, and surprise. Mary’s adventures are also described in Women Pilots of Alaska: 37 Interviews and Profiles (McFarland, 2005), by Sandi Sumner, and her biography is included in the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame, among other places. The most riveting account of Mary's trip, however, is her handwritten notes on the index cards she carried on her journey. On each card, every day, she recorded statistics such as the time, temperature, barometer, ceiling, visibility, her driving time out on the trail, her timeouts, or rest stops, the miles driven, where she spent the night, and any additional thoughts which needed inclusion. These note cards are all online at the Alaska State Library website (see the Sources on page 48), and also online to read is her original typewritten manuscript, which captures the real essence and flavor of her adventure. The spellings, misspellings, and phrasings in the excerpts below (in italics) are all from Mary’s notes and manuscript. Leaving in late December for the March event in Fairbanks, Mary hitched five dogs to her sled and joined a group of Natives headed for Atlin, British Columbia for the initial part of the long trip. The country she would be traveling through was bona fide wilderness, largely without
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Portrait of Mary Joyce. [Alaska State Library, Mary Joyce Collection ASL P-459-491]
An example of Mary’s handwritten cards. [ASL, Mary Joyce Collection, 1899-1976. ASL-PCA-459]
roads and often without trails: “The pilots did not know if there were passes through the mountains between the headwaters of the Kulane and the Tanana Rivers. It did not look very promising from the air…” At the Native village of Tulsequah, the little party crossed the nearly frozen Taku River. Mary wrote of her trail guides: “Chocak Lagoose, Billy Williams to you scolded his two sons and made them put boughs over the poles, so I could not see the water underneath while crossing. ‘White Lady—plenty scared. She fall in river—we never get her—out.’ I crossed on my hands and knees and the dogs followed like soldiers. We crossed the upper Taku and another place over ripids on hugh cakes of ice, three and four feet apart, held by sweepers and snags. They put a chain on Tip and as each dog fell in the water they pulled him out on another cake of ice. Some of the cakes of ice were only two feet wide, just room for the sled, with water leaping over and gurgling underneath. I jumped over and just made it but they had a chain on me too.” Over the next few days she traveled through the mountains and over sled dog mail trails with her Indian guides, and by January 9th Joyce had made it to Atlin, recorded the temperature as 14 below, and noted: “Mail plane left for Telegraph Creek this am. Got the jitters last night. If I hear anymore about frozen feet, and two feet of slush ice I have to go through, I'll go crazy. If I can't make it from here to Whitehorse alone, I might as well turn around and go home. Hope Whitehorse will forget to mention terrors of trail, it will be time enough to think if I get in a jam. Of course I'm afraid.” Mary’s journey had barely begun. Her index cards tell of her progress; on January 19 she pulled into Whitehorse at 4:30 in the afternoon with the temperature around zero. The next card
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March-April 2020 is a week later, January 26: “Danced all night, packed load at 6 am. Called manager at 7:30 to pay my bill. Had toast and coffee. Hitched dogs…” Mary had done more than just dance while in Whitehorse, she toured the city and enjoyed a week of exploring and visiting with all types of people. She lodged at the Whitehorse Inn and attended local gatherings, spoke to school students about her trip, and saw the cabins of Sam McGee and Robert Service, and in the latter she signed the guest book with her name and added “Taku to Fairbanks by dogteam or bust.” She visited old-timers at the hospital, and talked with three old prospectors who advised: “‘My girl, you have a tough trip ahead of you. One glacier to go over in which many lives have been lost, between Kluane and Chisana. It was a rough road in the early days and no one has been over it in years.’ ‘But no, I am not going by way of Chisana.’ A glacier was something I positively would not go over… ‘I am going in a straight line from Burwash Landing to Tanana Crossing, the way the planes fly.’ ‘But no white man has ever been that way before. There is no trail.’” Mary had tea with a Sergeant of the Mounties and “his beautiful and charming wife,” and a bit later she recounts a Mountie story: “The handsome young officer from Teslin three hundred miles away arrives with his dogteam. Black fur cap tied under his chin, handsome fur parka, beaded moose moccassins up to his knees, beaded caribou mitts up to his elbow. An Irishman in His Majestie’s service. He told me ‘the greatest hardship I ever had to endure on the trail was when I ran out of marmelade.’”
Mary with her sled dogs, by Harry T. Becker. [Alaska State Library, Harry T. Becker Collection P67-0246]
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Mary Joyce’s typed manuscript for ‘One Thousand Miles by Dogteam’ is available as a PDF at the Alaska State Library. [Mary Joyce Collection, 1899-1976, ASL-PCA-459]
Mary Joyce’s cousin, Mary Anne Greiner, published her book, ‘One Thousand Miles by Dogteam,’ with Authorhouse Publishing in 2007.
Mary wrote, “I climbed up the hill to the landing-field. God must have looked far ahead when he carved this perfect table, high above the Yukon. From the days when men scantily clad broke their hearts to get to Dawson, long days of weeks and months toiling into an unknown country. Today boys in wollen ski suits, fur parkas, and mukluks land here in a few hours from all parts of the north. Joe Crosson and Walter Hall fly down from Fairbanks in the Pacific Alaska Airways Lockheed Electra, dips his wings in salute over Whitehorse and goes on to Juneau. A message from Walter Hall ‘tell Mary Joyce, its a hell-of-a-long ways to Fairbanks. And he measures distance by mountains and lakes and rivers at one hundred and eighty miles an hour, and I measure those same mountains and rivers at twenty-five miles a day if a good trail. maybe he’s right.” Mary tells of cooking “hugh amounts of corm-meal and tallow for the dogs” and notes they were getting restless for the trail, adding, “Theres a thrill to driving a dogteam found in no other sport. Though you cannot sing a song, songs will be sung in your heart, though you cannot write a poem, poetry will be written on your soul.” A week later Mary and her Indian guide reached the most hazardous part of the trip, between Burwash Landing and Tanana Crossing, where she was following the Kluane River in temperatures reaching sixty degrees below zero: “We were on the edge of the river with hugh cakes of ice piled up which made the going very rough. I held onto the handlebars and thought if I do fall between them perhaps my snowshoes will catch and hold me up. I took the flashlight out of the hindsack, but the battery was frozen and it would’nt light. By this time I could’nt even see the sled and I gripped the handlebars tighter, I could hear the water rushing under the ice. I hoped the dogs knew what they were doing because I didn’t.” Mary and her guide braved the passage, often blazing their own trail, crossed the border into Alaska and eventually found the village of Tanana Crossing, less than 200 miles from Fairbanks. A biographical note at the Alaska State Library Historical Collections explains what happened next: "She flew to the Winter Carnival after
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March-April 2020 realizing she would not complete the trek in time, but returned to her sled and completed the mush after the event. The route Mary traversed followed the path of what eventually became the Alaska Highway. For this effort she was awarded a Silver Cup from the city and a rare 'Honorary Member' title from the Pioneers of Alaska. Her story attracted national media attention." Mary returned to Tanana Crossing on March 16, 1936 and completed her trip. “I wanted to see the country and experience some of the things the old-timers did,” she told reporters. “I just wanted to see if I could do it.” After her dogsled adventure she became a flight stewardess on Pan-Alaska Airlines, a subsidiary of Pan-American Airlines, on the Alaska-Seattle-Montana route. She co-starred in a film that was shot on location in the Taku River region, Orphans of the North (1940). During the Second World War, after warnings of an impending Japanese invasion of Alaska, she moved into the capitol city of Juneau and worked as a nurse at St. Ann’s Hospital until the end of the war. At the conclusion of the war Mary sold Taku Lodge and purchased the Top Hat Bar in Juneau. Later she bought the Lucky Lady and lived in an apartment above it. Mary was reportedly an important and well-loved Alaskan figure who was regularly invited to speeches and ceremonies both in Alaska and in the contiguous United States. She lived in Juneau the remainder of her life. In 1950 she led the statehood parade in Juneau with a dogteam, and in 1973 she spoke at the pre-race banquet and cut the ribbon for the inaugural Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race from Anchorage to Nome. In 1976 Mary suffered two heart attacks, the second of which took her life at the age of 77. She is buried at the Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau." ~•~
Newspaper photograph and caption which ran nationwide in April, 1936, upon completion of her trip.
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FOCUS ON
Pioneer Advertising
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Alaskan Newspapers Online: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
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Collectible Alaskan History Books
Alaska Trail Dogs, Elsie Noble Caldwell (1945) Sandy, Blossom, Arctic, Hurricane, Rowdy, Lasco, and Pickpocket are real dogs from Alaska’s early years, when a good sled dog was a valuable asset and truly man’s best friend. The author writes of prospectors, trappers, and dog drivers who were saved by the skill, courage, and uncanny judgement of their heroic sled dogs. “Around blazing spruce fires of outpost roadhouses dog-drivers of starlit crystal trails still gather, and it is here that stories are told of the valor and sagacity of these four-footed couriers, and of the days when dogsleds were the only means of cross-country transportation.”
John Muir and The Ice that Started A Fire, Kim Heacox (2014)
The Heritage of Eklutna: Mike Alex 1908-1977, James Kari (1978)
The great naturalist John Muir first glimpsed Glacier Bay in 1879 from his seat in a Tlingit canoe, where he gazed upon “the imposing fronts of five huge glaciers flowing into the berg-filled expanse of the bay.” Muir would return to Alaska many times, and as his experiences in Alaska changed and formed him, he in turn changed popular American attitudes toward the natural world. His writing and speaking greatly influenced popular opinion about how we should view and relate to our mountains, rivers, forests and glaciers. Kim Heacox paints a vivid portrait of the man, his legend, and his legacy.
James Kari, a linguist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, shares the life story of the last traditional chief of the Athabascan Tanaina (Dena’ina) people, who lived at Eklutna. Mike Alex was the son of Eklutna Alex, one of the last shamans of his tribe, who was born at the old village site near what is known today as Bodenburg Butte, on the Matanuska River southeast of Palmer. Published by Eklutna Alex Associates Inc., this is a small (20 pages) booklet with a color cover but black and white photos within, but the rare photos and original names for places make this a valuable resource.
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Collectible Alaskan History Books The Drive of Civilization: The Stikine Forest Versus Americanism, by Diane Purvis (2016) A compelling historical narrative detailing how the Stikine Tlingit, of SE Alaska’s Alexander Archipelago, fought against the federal government‘s alarming support of the timber companies who were relentlessly harvesting the valuable Tongass Forest resources. The Tlingit fought to retain their rights and their traditional lands in a historic battle which saw their case taken all the way to the Supreme Court. Old Times on Upper Cook’s Inlet, by Louise Potter (1967) In this slim paperback, Wasilla historian Louise Potter writes about the early history of the land near Cook’s Inlet, including Knik and Turnagain Arms, “with keen observation and meticulous research,” adding photographs, illustrations, maps, descriptions, town views, locations, and detailed field notes to her writing about the first inhabitants, the first explorers, and the colorful stories of Tyonek, Hope, Sunrise, Goose Bay, Knik, and many other towns and communities along the upper inlet. Bent Pins to Chains: Alaska and Its Newspapers, by Evangeline Atwood and Lew Williams Jr. (2006) This history of newspapers in Alaska is written by two people whose lives were deeply involved in newspaper publishing, and they cover their growth from handwritten flyers to the modern newspapers which led the push for statehood, from four pioneer newspaper publishers who became governors to the winning of Pulitzer prizes and the infamous newspaper war between the Anchorage Daily News and the Anchorage Times.
Fort Ross: California Outpost of Russian Alaska 1812-1841, E.O. Essig, Adele Ogden, and Clarence John DuFour (1991) An excerpt and reprint of much earlier materials, this is an introduction to the history of the settlement at Fort Ross in California, designed to be a fur trading center, the home of the Russian governor, and to oversee and protect the farms in the area. Illustrated with many maps, drawings, and photographs, with a bibliography, indexed and heavily footnoted, this is a useful resource for further study of this era. [Limestone Press, Fairbanks]
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Sources & Resources The links and references below reflect the specific sources used in researching the articles which appear in this issue, and includes reference books, videos, websites and other media. Lengthy URLs have been shortened. EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE • A Famous Photographer Visits SE Alaska, by Dave Kiffer https://tinyurl.com/tuyeqes • Eadweard Muybridge: Defining Modernities https://www.eadweardmuybridge.co.uk • The Compleat Eadweard Muybridge www.stephenherbert.co.uk/muybCOMPLEAT.htm • Exposing Muybridge https://www.muybridgethemovie.com THE BOUNDARY DISPUTE • Statement of Facts Regarding the Alaska Boundary Question, Compiled for the Govt. of British Columbia (1902) https://tinyurl.com/ugnbnat • The Alaska Boundary Line T. C. Mendenhall (1900) https://www.jstor.org/stable/197286 • The Alaska Boundary Dispute: A Critical Reappraisal, by Norman Penlington (1972) • Alaska-Canada Boundary Dispute Murray Lundberg/ExploreNorth http://tinyurl.com/vg2zjcc “MY DEAR MOTHER”: DR. JAMES TAYLOR WHITE • Gary C. Stein “‘A Desperate and Dangerous Man’: Captain Michael A. Healy's Arctic Cruise of 1900.” The Alaska Journal, 15 (Spring 1985): 39-45. • Gary C. Stein “‘The Old Man is Good and Drunk Now’: Captain Michael A. Healy and the Cruise of 1889.” Alaska History, 24 (Spring 2009): 16-43. • Gary C. Stein “‘Their Feast of Death’: The Wreck of the Whaler James Allen.” Coriolis, 7 (No. 2, 2017): 21-48. https://ijms.nmdl.org/article/view/18181 • Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Dept. of Botany Collections. https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/botany/ EARLY VALDEZ • Valdez Museum & Historical Archives https://www.valdezmuseum.org • Experiences of Gold Hunters in Alaska, Charles Margeson https://tinyurl.com/wwfjpwj • History of the Valdez Trail National Park Service https://tinyurl.com/w2cbbax • History of Valdez https://www.valdezalaska.org/discover/history/ LUTHER SAGE “YELLOWSTONE” KELLY • "Yellowstone Kelly": The Memoirs of Luther S. Kelly https://tinyurl.com/rsgr5gn • Luther Kelly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Kelly • Find A Grave Memorial https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7802310/luther-sage-kelly MARY JOYCE • Mary Joyce, Taku to Fairbanks, 1,000 Miles by Dogteam Mary Anne Greiner (2007) • TAKU: Four Amazing Individuals-Four Incredible Life Stories and The Alaskan Wilderness Lodge That Brought Them Together Karen Bell and Janet Shelfer (2006) • Mary’s manuscript Alaska State Library (Mary Joyce Collection, 1899-1976, ASL-PCA-459) GENERAL RESOURCES • Alaska & Polar Regions Collections & Archives http://library.uaf.edu/apr • Alaska’s Digital Archives https://vilda.alaska.edu • Google Books https://books.google.com • Gutenberg.org https://books.gutenberg.org • Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov • Chronicling America https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
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