Sept-Oct, 2019
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Alaskan History
This is the digital edition of the September-October issue, and getting Alaskan History Magazine into this digital format for the last three issues has been a real education with a steep learning curve, but here we are, another issue done! As the popular women’s rightsera jingle went, “you’ve come a long way, baby!”
However, as with the last two issues, I have not figured out how to tweak the page count so it matches the print version; adding the cover and this ‘placeholder’ page throws everything off by two pages. Thus, what is pages 2 and 3 in the print magazine will be pages 4 and 5 in this digital version. I have edited the table of contents to match this edition. If any technical-minded readers know how I can solve this problem in Pages, I would be most grateful.
Helen
This is the last freely available digital issue! This issue of Alaskan History Magazine is the last one which will be available free in the digital version; future issues will be set behind a password-protected firewall and access will only be via the password which will be released to subscribers and those who purchase single issues. I know, it’s a disappointing reality, but to do otherwise would be unfair to those who pay for the content in each new issue. I have considered promoting digital-only subscriptions, and that might be an option in the future; I’m still researching the advisability of that approach, but the idea of saving trees from becoming magazine pages definitely appeals to me. If you have experience with digital subscriptions, or just thoughts on the subject you’d like to share, I would be very interested in hearing from you as I consider the idea. May-June, 2019
July-August, 2019
• Alaska Railroad • Yost’s Roadhouse • Addison Powell • All Alaska Sweepstakes • A-Y-P Exposition • Matanuska Colony Barns Plus: Alaskan photographers,
• Alaska’s First Pilots • The Esquimaux • Alaska Steamship Co. • Across the Kenai • Barrett Willoughby • Irving McKenny Reed Plus: Alaskan missionaries,
snowshoes and classic books
canvas tents, classic books
Be Sure to Check Out the May-June and July-Aug Digital Issues!
The first three digital issues can be shared with friends, family, and anyone interested!
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Sept-Oct, 2019 A Moment in History. This issue’s cover shows the Cascade Creek engineer’s camp at Mile 89 of the Copper River & Northwestern Railway, on Oct. 12, 1909.
The view is across the Copper River to the Wrangell Mountains in the background. Photographed by Eric A. Hegg, who signed on as company photographer for the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad, documenting its construction and views of Alaska until around 1918.
[ASL-P498-11 from the Walter L. Fisher Photograph Collection, 1909-1911. ASLPCA-498, at the Alaska State Library.] Eric A. Hegg
Inside this Issue: Alaskan History Magazine’s third issue brings the reader a bounty of the Last Frontier’s colorful past, from the endearing sled dog artwork of Josephine Crumrine’s menu covers for The Alaska Steamship Company to the unprecedented luxury cruise of railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman and his carefully selected passenger list of scientists and artists. An excerpt from a book in progress by noted Alaskan author Tim Jones highlights the importance of a key player in Alaska’s history: the sea otter; and the featured article for this issue is the story of the SS Nenana, the Last Lady of the River, by Fairbanks writer and historian Patricia De Nardo Schmidt. Other articles in this third issue include the history of Alaska’s flag, and an excerpt from Josiah E. Spurr’s 1896 expedition to map and chart the interior of Alaska for the USGS. His unvarnished descriptions of the Birch Creek Mining District are among the first ever recorded. Wrapping up this issue are brief highlights from half a dozen classic books on Alaska’s history, a guide to some of the sources used in researching this issue, and a little something extra, a timeline, which is expanded upon at the website for Alaskan History Magazine. ~•~
Subscriptions, Single Issues, Digital and Online: Single issues are $10.00 postpaid; a one year subscription, 6 issues, is $48.00 postpaid (U.S. addresses only), both include digital edition access. For more information visit our website: http://www.alaskan-history.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Alaskan History Sept-Oct, 2019
Volume 1, No. 3
ISBN 9781688482920
Published bimonthly
by Northern Light Media
ROADHOUSES
FOCUS: FISHING
OLD BOOKS
FOOD AND SHELTER ON THE TRAIL - 8
ALASKAN GROCERY SHOPPING - 46
THE HISTORY OF ALASKA BETWEEN THE PAGES - 48
ALASKAN HISTORY
S. S. Nenana -•- by Patricia De Nardo Schmidt At one period in Alaskan history, there were over 300 flat-bottomed sternwheelers navigating on the Yukon River and its tributaries. These sternwheelers were essential in the development of the history of Alaska. Of all these lifelines of the rivers, only one remains, the Steamer SS Nenana, located in Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. The western rivers-style steam sternwheel passenger boat Nenana is one of only three steam-powered passenger sternwheelers of any kind left in the U.S., and the only large wooden-hulled sternwheeler. [Photo: Univ. of Alaska Fairbanks UAF-2010-0046-00032.]
Article begins on page 32
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Sept-Oct, 2019
JOSEPHINE CRUMRINE’S
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ALASKAN SLED DOG PORTRAITS Alaskan artist Josephine Crumrine’s pastel sled dog portraits graced the menus of the Alaska Steamship Company in the 1940’s and ’50’s, and were popular enough with tourists to be sold in sets. ALASKA’S FLAG
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EIGHT STARS OF GOLD ON A FIELD OF BLUE After months of deliberation, 142 designs were chosen and sent to Juneau for final consideration by the selection committee. Among them was a simple blue flag with eight gold stars, designed by a 13-year-old Aleut boy from Seward.. BIRCH CREEK GOLD MINING DISTRICT 1896
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BY JOSIAH E. SPURR In this excerpt from Spurr’s account of the expedition to map and chart interior Alaska for the USGS, he, Frank Schrader, and Harold Goodrich have traveled over Chilkoot Pass and down the Yukon River, arriving in Circle City. RIM OF RED WATER
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BY TIM JONES At some time in prehistory, Enhydra lutris, largest of the weasel family, changed its habits of life on land and hunting at sea and one day remained in the ocean. THE 1899 HARRIMAN ALASKA EXPEDITION
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EXPLORING AND DOCUMENTING THE COAST OF ALASKA In the summer of 1899 railroad magnate Edward H. Harriman invited a large community of scientists, photographers, artists and naturalists to accompany his family on a voyage to Siberia and back.
Panoramic view of the main street of Circle City, September, 1899.
Notes & Comments . . . . . . . . . . 3
Focus on: Fishing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
In this Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 - 5
Alaskan Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
About this Magazine . . . . . . . . . 6
Timeline & Resources . . . . . . . . . 50
Alaskan Roadhouses . . . . . . . . . 8
Subscriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
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Alaskan History
Alaskan History
From the Publisher
M•A•G•A•Z•I•N•E
Timelines
Sept-Oct, 2019 Volume 1, Number 3
If I Could Put Time in a Bottle . . . .
Most of us remember timelines from our high school history classes. I remember a colorful and interesting timeline from a classroom at Chugiak High School, an engagingly illustrated length of paper which wrapped around the back of the room and portrayed events such as battles and wars, the coronations of kings, the discovery of the New World, the Crusades, the sinking of the Titanic, the dates of Presidential office-holding, and other notable happenings in the march of time.
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 9781688482920
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There have been many timelines for Alaska over the years, and entire books have been constructed around the significant dates and events of our great state. It can be interesting to study a good timeline and see, for example, the correlation between the purchase of Alaska in 1867, the territorial status gained in 1912, and statehood in 1959. There were the discoveries of gold at Juneau, Hope, Fortymile, Fairbanks, Nome, and Iditarod; and the dates of the many railroads which at one time speckled the territorial map. The founding of towns roughly followed the gold discoveries, while most of the towns between Seward and Fairbanks can be traced to 1916 and 1917, when the U.S. Government surveyed the sites and sold lots in Anchorage, Matanuska, Wasilla, Talkeetna, and Nenana as part of the Alaska Railroad construction. Many local historic societies have timelines on their websites; the Alaska Historical Society has a compilation of dates of significant events: “This Month in Alaska’s History.” It has been said that time is fleeting, time waits for no man, time will tell, and time marches on. To one who studies and appreciates history time is the key component, the central player, the framework upon which everything happens, and beginning with this issue I will be including a timeline for the articles which appear in these pages (see page 50), and they will be consolidated into a larger timeline at the magazine’s web site. http://www.alaskan-history.com/timeline
Helen Hegener Helen Hegener, Publisher
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Sept-Oct, 2019 Editor’s Note
Inspiring Alaskans
The Third Issue Welcoming New Writers
The first issue of this new magazine, May-June, was an anthology of articles from several books I’ve written and published under my business, Northern Light Media, a company I founded in 2007 to produce videos and publish books about Alaska. Researching and writing the books, whose topics ranged widely across Alaska’s past, gave me a broad perspective and an appreciation for the history of the Last Frontier. The second issue, July-August, was comprised of articles written entirely by me, a cross-section of topics which demonstrated the wide range of history which I hope to publish in these pages, from the territory’s first newspaper to canvas tents to Alaska’s first bush pilots. Now, with this third issue, I am pleased and proud to begin sharing the work of other historians, beginning with two Alaskan writers whose contributions I have long admired and appreciated. The first is Tim Jones, whose book The Last Great Race (Stackpole Books, 1988) is a true Alaskan classic and one of my favorites in any genre, capturing the essence of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and doubtlessly inspiring many mushers over the years. Tim lives in the Mat-Su Valley and is the author of several books and numerous articles for popular periodicals. The second writer joining us this issue is Patricia De Nardo Schmidt, a Fairbanks writer whose name will be familiar to anyone who frequents the many Facebook groups sharing Alaskan history, for she is a very knowledgable and generous contributor to the discussions which take place there. Patricia - Trish to her friends - has played a key role in the effort to save the last large wooden-hulled sternwheeler in the U.S., and in this issue she shares the construction, the history, and the restoration work of this unique Alaskan treasure - a National Historic Landmark. I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as I enjoyed the editing!
~Helen https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlaskanHistory/ https://twitter.com/HelenHegener https://www.instagram.com/akhistorymagazine/
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Leonhard Seppala Leonhard Seppala was a champion sled dog driver, three time winner of the All Alaska Sweepstakes (1915, 1916, and 1917), and a hero of the 1925 Serum Run to Nome, when a relay of dog teams carried diphtheria anti-toxin to the stricken town. Seppala also drove his team in the 1933 Winter Olympics sled dog demonstration race.
Leonhard Seppala’s bold spirit inspires the publication of Alaskan History Magazine!
Subscriptions, Single Issues, Digital and Online:
Single issues are $10.00 postpaid; a one year subscription, 6 issues, is $48.00 postpaid (U.S. only), both include access to the digital edition of the magazine. Visit our website: www.alaskanhistory.com and Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Alaskan History
Alaskan Roadhouses Shelter, Food and Lodging for Travelers in the Last Frontier
The Black Rapids Roadhouse, circa 1930’s in the photo above, was among the first to open of the more than thirty roadhouses which operated on the Valdez-to-Fairbanks Trail. One source says Peter Findler opened the roadhouse in 1902, but it seems more likely that Joe Hansen and his two sons built the roadhouse in 1904.
Black Rapids Roadhouse lies opposite 29-mile-long hugely crevassed Black Rapids Glacier; the roaring glacial Delta River separates them. For three months in 1937 the Black Rapids Glacier made national news by advancing across the valley at the rate of a mile a month, winning the nickname the "galloping glacier." The 27-mile long glacier has since retreated, but the moraine can still be seen from Richardson Highway pullout.
The Black Rapids Roadhouse is on the National Register of Historic Places. Jim Haly’s Roadhouse in Fort Yukon was a popular gathering place for residents of the region and for anyone traveling through the Fort Yukon area. Jim Haly was known for keeping a huge kettle of rabbit stew going at all times, and according to Above the Arctic Circle: The Alaska Journals of James A. Carroll, 1911-1922: “During the winter months Jim Haly used to buy rabbits by the hundreds. He had rabbits stacked up like cordwood in his cache. He never took a chance of running out of stock for his famous soup. Jim never turned anybody down for a meal or a bunk to sleep on. If you had no money you could stay at the Haly House as long as you wanted to. This generosity kept him more or less broke all the time, but Jim’s credit was always good at the local stores and he always managed to pay his bills.”
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Sept-Oct, 2019 The original Slana Roadhouse was built in 1912 by freighter, miner, mail carrier and fur trader Lawrence DeWitt. Born around 1890, DeWitt made his way to Alaska around 1910 and settled in with the Ahtna Athabascan tribe of Chief Nikolai, marrying his daughter Belle. DeWitt got the contract to carry mail between Slana and Nabesna, by pack horse in summer and dog team in winter, and he staked a homestead claim where the Slana River ran into the great Copper River, several miles east of the Valdez-Eagle Trail.
The first small log roadhouse, built to serve travelers on the trail to Chisana, no longer exists, but the second, larger roadhouse, built in 1928, is still owned by DeWitt’s descendants.
“Sourdough was a regular stop for the horse-drawn winter stages. Drivers would dive into the warm roadhouse with the passengers while the hostler, Frank Lampson, took the horses into the barn to feed and care for them. Then Frank harnessed a fresh team in their place. By the time the driver and passengers had eaten and were warm, the stage was ready to go on." ~Alaska’s Wolf Man, by Jim Rearden
The Sourdough Roadhouse, originally known as Hart's Road House, was constructed on Sourdough Creek, near the Gulkana River, sometime between 1903 and 1905, consisting of a four-room building constructed primarily of logs. Built along the route of the ValdezFairbanks Trail, which later became the Richardson Highway, it was one of the oldest continuously-operating roadhouses in Alaska.
The Sourdough Roadhouse was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. On December 27, 1992, a fire completely destroyed the Sourdough Roadhouse. Learn more about Alaska’s early roadhouses: https://alaskanroadhouses.wordpress.com
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Alaskan History
“Jack”
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Sept-Oct, 2019
“Wolf”
Josephine Crumrine’s Alaskan Sled Dog Portraits Collectors of Alaskan art and memorabilia are always delighted to come across the 1940s and ’50s-era menus printed by the Alaska Steamship Company which feature Alaskan sled dog portraits by Josephine Crumrine. Her soft pastel renditions of huskies - most of them widely-known in their day - are popular across many fields of collecting. The beautiful husky named “Jack” on the opposite page is described on the back of the menu he graces: “This beautiful malemute raced for two years in the annual Dog Derby as a member of the team driven by Mary Joyce. Jack, owned by Grover Bayless of Fairbanks, enjoyed sitting for his portrait and looked forward in happy anticipation (see picture) to his reward of raw beef.” Another of Mary Joyce’s dogs, a favorite named “Wolf,” appears on this page. Mary Joyce was an Alaskan adventurer of the highest caliber; when Alaska was still just a territory she owned and operated the remote Taku Lodge near Juneau, flew her own bush plane, and became the first woman radio operator in the territory. But Mary’s biggest claim to fame was her 1936 trip by dogteam from her home at Taku Lodge to Fairbanks, 1,000 miles away. Mary kept a journal of her trip which was published in 2007 with the title, Mary Joyce, Taku to Fairbanks, 1,000 Miles by Dogteam. Mary’s leader, “Wolf,” was featured on a menu for the Alaska
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“Husky Pups” Steamship Line series in 1954, with no mention of her epic journey. The caption reads: “A peerless leader of the famous team raced by Mary Joyce in the annual Alaska Dog Derby, Wolf has also made a trip to the States. He spent a season at Sun Valley, Idaho, hauling winter sports enthusiasts on a real Alaskan dog sledge.” Nina Crumrine, Josephine’s mother, was born in Indiana and trained at the Art Institute of Chicago. She lived in Seattle, where she gave birth to her daughter in 1917. In 1923, when Josephine was six, her parents divorced and mother and daughter moved to Alaska to live with Nina's uncle, H.V. McGee, in Ketchikan.
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Sept-Oct, 2019 They later took a sternwheeler down the Yukon River, traveling from Whitehorse to Marshall, a village on the lower Yukon River. From there they followed the coast of the Bering Sea to Nome, and traveled north to Point Barrow, stopping at villages to spend time while Nina painted pastel portraits of the Native Alaskans. Her artwork, like her daughter’s later work, would remain valuable to collectors down through the years. Josephine received her first art training from her mother, and Nina later sent her to study at the California School of Fine Arts and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. When Josephine returned to Alaska she and Nina became avid travelers, visiting every region of Alaska as well as South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. Eventually Nina acquired land in Haines, Alaska, and when Josephine married, she and her husband, Robert Liddell, built a house on her mother's property. Josephine was quite talented with pastels and became well known for her animal portraits. In the 1940s, the Alaska Steamship Company began commissioning her portraits of historically significant sled dogs for the covers of their cruise ship dining room menus, and sets of the menus became popular tourist souvenirs. A short biographical sketch on the back of each menu introduced the artist: “Josephine Crumrine is a young Alaska artist who lives in the Territory and specializes in painting dogs and animals. The most recent of Miss Crumrine’s many exhibits was at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In the dog portraits featured in this current series of menus Miss Crumrine has captured the spirit of the Old Alaska when the
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“Smokey”
“Mageik”
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“Rye”
“Blizzard”
chief mode of transportation was the husky-drawn sled. Her medium was pastels, here reproduced by four-color lithography.” The menu cover which features “Mageik” (pronounced “Magic”) includes this caption on the back: “Father Hubbard’s famous sled dog looks like a reincarnation of Buck, Jack London’s hero of The Call of the Wild. Like Buck, Mageik is no stranger to California, where he spends some winters with ‘the glacier priest,’ and is the constant companion of the noted geologist.” Other sled dogs on the Alaska Steamship Company menus include the striking “Blizzard:” “This blue-eyed Siberian husky is owned by Slim Williams, who, with Jack Logan, blazed the trail for the proposed International Highway from Fairbanks to Seattle. Blizzard was the third hero of the motorcycle expedition and shared the acclaim when it arrived in triumph in Seattle.” And “Smokey,” whose caption explained his role as a military sled dog: “A favorite among the forty army dogs formerly stationed at Chilkoot Barracks, Smokey was later sent to Ladd Field. He made the long journey to Fairbanks in January, 1941, and is an outstanding specimen of the true Alaska husky.” Quite a number of adventurer Mary Joyce’s dogs were painted for the menus, one of which was named “Rye”: “Given to the Army at Chilkoot Barracks by Mary Joyce, Rye formerly lived at Taku Lodge with his famous mistress. He is one of the forty dogs who made the long trek from Chilkoot Barracks to Fairbanks in January, 1941, and is now stationed at Ladd Field.” And then there was the gangly young pup “Cheechako,” portrayed on the sample menu on page 10: “Owned by Lieutenant Colonel Francis E. Maslin, Cheechako was the mascot of
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Sept-Oct, 2019 Elmendorf Field and Fort Richardson, at Anchorage. Miss Crumrine has captured the mischievious spirit which inspired the puppy to pilfer other tents and carry various belongings to his master’s headquarters. He died in 1940 and was mourned by the whole post.” Josephine Crumrine’s body of work also includes portraits of Alaska Natives done in pastel and landscapes in oils, and many of her much sought after paintings are in museums and private collections. During her lifetime, she passionately advocated for the humane treatment of animals. She passed away at her home Anchorage in 2005 at the age of 88. Strangely, there are almost no photographs of this great Alaskan artist. ~•~
Josephine Crumrine and an appreciative friend
“Balto and Toughie”
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The Benny Benson Memorial in Seward, and 13-year-old Benny with his flag, 1927.
Alaska’s Flag Eight Stars of Gold on a Field of Blue In 1926 Territorial Governor George A. Parks decided an important step on Alaska’s path from territorial status to statehood was having a flag. Since the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 the only flag which had flown over the land was the U.S. Stars and Stripes; every other territory had its own flag, so why not Alaska? Governor Parks engaged the Alaskan Chapter of the American Legion, and a plan was soon formulated to hold a contest, open to Alaskan schoolchildren in grades 7 through 12, to design a flag for the territory of Alaska. Contest rules were circulated throughout the territory in January, 1927. The rules stipulated that the first stage of the competition would take place at a local level, with each town setting up a panel of judges to determine the ten best local designs. These would be forwarded to Juneau, where the final competition would take place. The idea proved popular and more than 700 entries were submitted. Finally, after months of deliberation, 142 designs were chosen and sent to Juneau for final consideration by the selection committee. Among them was a simple blue flag with eight gold stars, designed by a 13-year-old Aleut boy from Seward.
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Sept-Oct, 2019 John Ben Benson Jr. was born in Chignik, a small village on the south shore of the Alaska Peninsula. His mother, Tatiana Schebolein, was of Aleut and Russian descent, and his father, John Ben Benson, was Swedish-American. When Benny was three years old his family lost their home in a fire, his mother died of pneumonia, and due to his own ill health and other circumstances, Benny’s father was unable to care for his children, forcing a breakup of the family. Benny and his younger brother Carl were sent to the Jesse Lee Home for Children in Unalaska; a sister was sent to Oregon. In 1925 the Jesse Lee Home was moved to Seward, where Benny was living at the time of the flag design contest.
Benny’s design was adopted by the Alaska Territorial Legislature in May, 1927. He was awarded a gold watch engraved with his flag design, and $1,000, equal to about $15,000 today, to apply to his education. Benny’s description submitted with his design explained: "The blue field is for the Alaska Sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaskan flower. The North Star is for the future of Alaska, the most northerly in the union. The Dipper is for the Great Bear – symbolizing strength.” Benny applied his monetary award toward schooling in diesel mechanics in Seattle. He married, returned to Alaska, and made his home in Kodiak, where he raised two daughters and worked as a master carpenter and an airplane mechanic for Kodiak Airways. He died of a heart attack in 1972. The words to the song “Alaska's Flag” were written by Marie Drake, a long-time employee of the Alaska Department of Education, and set to music composed by Elinor Dusenbury, whose husband was commander of Chilkoot Barracks at Haines from 1933 to 1936. The Territorial Legislature adopted “Alaska's Flag” as Alaska's official song in 1955. ~•~ Below and left: Additional entries in the contest.
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Benny Benson, age 13, 1927
“Alaska’s Flag,” by Marie Drake
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“We of the flannel shirt and unblacked boot.” L to R: Frank C. Schrader, J. Edward Spurr, and Harold B. Goodrich, in San Francisco, California, 1896.
Through the Birch Creek Gold Mining District with Josiah E. Spurr in 1896 In 1896 Josiah Edward Spurr led the first expedition to map and chart the interior of Alaska for the United States Geological Survey. It was the first of two expeditions of historic importance, the second being his 1898 exploration down the length of the Kuskokwim River, naming mountains, mountain ranges, creeks, rivers, lakes and glaciers. At the end of the Kuskokwim expedition he made the first scientific observations of the Mount Katmai volcano, and what later became known as the "Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes.” After charting these regions, Spurr became the world's leading geological consultant, and was generally regarded as one of the world's foremost geologists. During the gold rush era his books were considered the definitive work on Alaskan minerals. Mt. Spurr, an active volcano 80 miles southwest of Anchorage, is named for him. In this excerpt from Spurr’s account of his first expedition in 1896, he and his men have traveled over Chilkoot Pass and down the Yukon River, arriving in Circle City. We reached that part of the river where Circle City was put down on the map we carried, but not finding it, camped on a gravelly beach beneath a timbered bluff. When we went up the bluff to get wood for our fire the mosquitoes fairly drove us back and continued bothering us all night, biting through our blankets and giving us very little peace, though we slept with our hats, veils, and gloves on. We afterwards found that Circle City had at first been actually started at about this point, but was soon afterwards moved further down, to where we found it the next day. We had been looking forward to our arrival in this place for several reasons, one of which was that we had had no fresh meat for over a month, and hoped to find moose or caribou for sale. As
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Sept-Oct, 2019 Beside a tent beneath spruce trees. Location unknown. USGS explorer Josiah E. Spurr was noted for being “a superb and pithy writer,” and in the chapter this photo graces he wrote these lines: “To wake up on a gloriously bright morning, in a tent pitched beneath spruce trees, and to look out lazily and sleepily for a moment from the open side of the tent, across the dead camp-fire of the night before, to the river, where the light of morning rests and perhaps some early-rising native is gliding in his birch canoe; to go to the river and freshen one's self with the cold water, and yell exultingly to the gulls and helldivers in the very joy of living; or to wake at night, when you have rolled in your blankets in the froststricken dying grass without a tent, and to look up through the leaves above to the dark sky and the flashing stars, and hear far off the call of a night bird or the howl of a wolf: this is the poetry, the joy of a wild and roving existence, which cannot come too often.”
our boat came around the bend and approached the settlement of log huts dignified by the name of Circle City, we noticed quite a large number of people crowding down to the shore to meet us, and as soon as we got within hailing distance one of the foremost yelled out: “Got any moose meat?” When we answered “No” the crowd immediately dispersed and we did not need to inquire about the supply of fresh meat in camp. We landed in front of the Alaska Commercial Company’s store, kept by Jack McQuesten. On jumping ashore, I went up immediately, in search of information, and as I stepped in I heard my name called in a loud voice. I answered promptly "Here," with no idea of what was wanted, for there was a large crowd in the store; but from the centre of the room something was passed from hand to hand towards me, which proved to be a package of letters from home—the first news I had received for over two months. On inquiry I found that the mail up the river had just arrived, and the storekeeper, who was also postmaster ex officio, had begun calling out the addresses on the letters to the expectant crowd of miners, and had got to my name as I entered the door—a coincidence, I suppose, but surely a pleasant and striking one. We obtained lodgings in a log house, large for Circle City, since it contained two rooms. It was already occupied by two customhouse officers, the only representatives of Uncle Sam whom we encountered in the whole region. One room had been used as a storeroom and carpenter-shop, and here, on the shavings, we spread out our blankets and made ourselves at home. The building had first been built as a church by missionaries, but as they were absent for some time after its completion, one room was fitted up with a bar by a newly arrived enterprising liquor-dealer, till the officers, armed in their turn with the full sanction of the church, turned the building into a customs house and hoisted the American flag, on a pole fashioned out of a slim spruce by the customs officer himself. The officers, when we came there, were sleeping days and working nights on the trail of some whisky smugglers who were
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Customs house at Circle City, where Spurr stayed. From Spurr’s book.
in the habit of bringing liquor down the river from Canadian territory, in defiance of the American laws. There were only a few hundred men in Circle City at this time, most of the miners being away at the diggings, for this was one of the busiest times of the year. These diggings were sixty miles from the camp, and were only to be reached by a foot trail which led through wood and swamp. Several newcomers in the country were camped around the post, waiting for cooler weather before starting out on the trail, for the mosquitoes, they said, were frightful. It was said that nobody had been on the trail for two weeks, on this account, and blood-curdling stories were told of the torments of some that had dared to try, and how strong men had sat down on the trail to sob, quite unable to withstand the pest. However, we had seen mosquitoes before, and the next morning struck out for the trail. It was called a wagon road, the brush and trees having been cut out sufficiently wide for a wagon to pass; taken as a footpath, however, it was just fair. The mosquitoes were actually in clouds; they were of enormous size, and had vigorous appetites. It was hot, too, so that their bites smarted worse than usual. The twelve miles, which the trail as far as the crossing of Birch Creek had been said to be, lengthened out into an actual fifteen, over low rolling country, till we descended a sharp bluff to the stream. Here a hail brought a boatman across to ferry us to the other side, where there stood two low log houses facing one another, and connected overhead by their projecting log roofs. This was the Twelve Mile Cache, a road-house for miners, and here we spent the night. Each of the buildings contained but a single room, one house being used as a sleeping apartment, the other as kitchen and dining-room. The host had no chairs to offer us, but only long benches;
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Sept-Oct, 2019 and there were boxes and stumps for those who could not find room on the benches, which were shorter than the tables. We ate out of tin dishes and had only the regulation bacon, beans and applesauce, yet it was with a curious feeling that we sat down to the meal and got up from it, as if we were enjoying a little bit of luxury—for so it seemed to us then. There were eleven of us who slept in the building which had been set apart for sleeping; we all provided our own blankets and slept on the floor, which was no other than the earth, and was so full of humps and hollows, and projecting sharp sticks where saplings had been cut off, that one or the other of the company was in misery nearly all night, and roused the others with his cursings and growling. The eight who were not of our party were miners returning from the diggings with their season's earnings of gold in the packs strapped to their backs; they all carried big revolvers and were on the lookout for possible highwaymen. Our packs were about twenty-five pounds each, and contained blankets, a little corned beef and crackers, and a few other necessities: they were heavy enough before the day was over. From Twelve Mile Cache to the diggings we travelled over what was called the Hog’em trail, since it led to the gulch of that name: it ran for the whole distance through a swamp, and was said to be a very good trail in winter—in summer it was vile. We had been informed of a way which branched off from the Hog’em route and ran over drier ground to a roadhouse called the Central House, but we were unable to pick up this; and we discovered afterwards that it had been blazed from the Central House, but that the blazing had been discontinued two or three miles before reaching the junction of the Hog’em trail, the axe-man having got tired, or having gone home for his dinner and forgotten to come back. So people like ourselves, starting for the diggings, invariably followed the Hog’em trail, whether they would or not, and those coming out of the diggings and returning by way of the Central House, followed the blazes through the woods till they stopped, and then wandered ahead blindly, often getting lost. The Hog’em trail was a continuous bed of black, soft, stinking, sticky mud, for it had been well travelled over. At times there was thick moss; and again broad pools of water of uncertain depth, with mud bottoms, to be waded through. We walked twelve miles of this trail without stopping or eating, for the mosquitoes were bloodthirsty. We arrived at night at what was called the “Jump-Off”—a sharp descent which succeeded a gradual rise—where we found two sturdy men, both old guides from the Adirondacks, engaged in felling the trees which grew on the margin of the stream, and piling them into a log house. This they intended to use as a roadhouse, for the travel here was considerable, especially in the winter. In the meantime they were living in a tent, yet maintained a sort of hostelry for travelers, in that they dispensed meals to them. As soon as they were through with the big log they were getting into place when we arrived, they built a fire on the ground and cooked supper, after which we were invited to spread our blankets, with the stars and the grey sky for a shelter. They made some apologies at not being able to offer us a tent—theirs was a tiny affair—and promised better accommodations if we would come back a month from then, when the cabin would be finished and the chinks neatly plugged with muck and moss. The next day’s journey was again twelve miles, over about the same kind of trail. Crossing a sluggish stream which was being converted into a swamp by encroaching vegetation, we were obliged to wade nearly waist deep, and then our feet rested on such oozy and sinking mud that we did not know but the next moment we might disappear from sight entirely. Further on, the trail ran fair into a small lake, whose shores we had to skirt. There was no trail around, but much burnt and felled timber lay everywhere, and climbing over this, balancing our packs in the
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Alaskan History meantime, was “such fun.” Sometimes we would jump down from a high log, and, slipping a little, our packs would turn us around in the air, and we would fall on our backs, sprawling like turtles, and often unable to get out of our awkward position without help from our comrades. Reedy lakes such as this, fringed with moss and coarse grass, with stunted spruce a little distance away, are common through this swampy country, and have something of the picturesque about them. The surrounding vegetation is very abundant. Excellent cranberries are found, bright red in color and small in size; and on a little drier ground blueberries nourish. Raspberries of good size, although borne on bushes usually not more than two or three inches high, are also here; and red and black currants. At the end of the second day we arrived at Hog’em Junction, where the Hog’em trail unites with that leading off to the other gulches where gold is found. Here was the largest roadhouse we had seen. There were fifteen or twenty men hanging about, mostly miners returning or going to the diggings, and a professional hunter—a sort of wild man, who told thrilling stories of fighting bears. One of the structures we saw here was called the dog-corral and was a big enclosure built of logs. Dogs were used to carry most of the provisions to the Birch Creek diggings from Circle City, freighting beginning as soon as the snow fell and everything froze hard. There was a pack of these animals around the inn —a sneaking, cringing, hungry lot, rarely barking at intruders or strangers, and easily cowed by a man, but very prone to fight among themselves. They were all Indian dogs, and were of two varieties; one long-haired, called Mahlemut, from the fact that its home is among the Mahlemut Eskimo of the lower Yukon; the other short-haired, and stouter. Both breeds are of large size, and a good dog is capable of pulling as much as 400 pounds on a sleigh, when the snow is very good, and the weather not too cold. The dog-corral is used to put the sleighs in when the freighter arrives, and the dogs are left outside, to keep them away from the provisions. The winter price for freight from Circle City was seven cents per pound; in summer it was forty. We ate breakfast and supper at Hog’em Junction, paying a dollar apiece for the meals; and when we learned that the bacon which was served to us had cost sixty-five cents a pound, the charge did not seem too much. No good bacon was to be had, that which we ate being decidedly strong; and even this kind had to be hunted after at this time of the year. Not only was food very high in the diggings, but it could not always be bought, so that in the winter, when freighting was cheap, enough could not often be obtained to last through the next summer, and the miners had to wait for the steamer to come up the Yukon. The Hog’em Junction innkeeper paid twenty dollars for a case of evaporated fruit, such as cost a dollar in San Francisco; condensed milk was one dollar a can, and sugar eighty-five cents a pound. The previous winter beans brought one dollar a pound, and butter two and a half dollars a roll. In summer all prices were those of Circle City, plus forty cents freighting, plus ten cents handling. So a sack of potatoes, which I was told would cost twenty-five cents in the state of Washington, cost here eighty-five dollars. Even in Circle City the prices, though comparatively low, were not exactly what people would expect at a bargain counter in one of our cities. Winchester rifles were sold for fifty dollars apiece, and calico brought fifty cents a yard. Luckily there were few women folks in the country at that time! Of the Hog’em Junction Inn I have little distinct recollection except concerning the meals. We were so hungry when we reached there that the food question was indelibly branded on our memory. For the rest I remember that when supper was cleared away, the guests wrapped themselves in their private blankets and lay down anywhere they thought best. There was a log
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Sept-Oct, 2019 outhouse with some rude bunks filled with straw, for those who preferred, so in a short time we were stowed away with truly mediæval simplicity, to sleep heavily until the summons came to breakfast,—for there were no “hotel hours” for lazy guests at this inn, and he who did not turn out for a seven o’clock breakfast could go without. We three separated on leaving here, each taking a different trail, so that we might see all of the gulches in a short space of time. I shouldered my blankets and after a seven mile tramp through the brush came to the foot of Hog’em Gulch, which was in a deep valley in the hills that now rose above the plain. This gulch derived its name from the fact that its discoverer tried to hog all the claims for himself, taking up some for his wife, his wife’s brother, his brother, and the niece of his wife’s particular friend; even, it is said, inventing fictitious personages that he might stake out claims for them. The other miners disappointed him in his schemes for gain, and they contemptuously called the creek “Hog’em." Be that as it may, I noticed a remarkable difference between the men whom I found working their claims along the creek and the miners of Forty Mile. Nobody showed the slightest hospitality or friendliness, except one man on the lower creek, who invited me to share his little tent at night. He had not enough blankets to keep him warm, so I added mine, and beneath them both we two slept very comfortably. In the morning he cooked a very simple meal over a tiny fire outside of the tent—wood was scarce along here—and invited me, with little talk, to partake of it with him. He was evidently far from happy in this cheerless existence; he was working for wages, which, to be sure, were ten dollars a day, but with provisions as high as they were this was nothing much, and the work was so hard that, great stalwart man as he was, he
On the trail again. From Spurr’s book.
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Alaskan History had lost thirty pounds since he had begun. He would have liked to return to the States, for he was somewhat discouraged, but he could not save enough money to pay for the expensive passage out. After I left this silent man, I found none who showed much interest. Some of them were a little curious as to what I was doing, but most of them were fiercely and feverishly working to make the most of the hours and weeks which remained of the mining season; the run of gold was ordinarily very good, and all were anxious to make as good a final clean-up as possible. At dinner-time everybody rushed to their meal, and I sat down by the side of the trail, ate stale corned beef, broken crackers, and drank the creek water. When I was half-way through I observed two young men in a tent munching their meal, but watching me; and a sort of righteous indignation came upon me, as must always seize the poor when he beholds the abundance of the rich man’s table. I walked into the tent and asked for a share of their dinner. They gave me a place, but so surlily that I said hotly, “See here, I’ll pay you for this dinner, so don’t be so stingy about it.” The offer to pay was an insult to the miner’s tradition and one of them growled out, “None of that kind of talk, d’ye hear? You’re welcome to whatever we’ve got, and don’t yer forget it! Only there’s been a good many bums along here lately, and we was getting tired of them.” After this they were pleasanter, although I could not help reflecting that I was actually a bum, as they put it, and mentally pitied the professional tramp, if his evil destiny should ever lead him into the Yukon country. As it grew near nightfall I climbed out of the gulch, and, crossing the ridge, dropped down into Greenhorn Gulch, which, with its neighbor Tinhorn Gulch, form depressions parallel to
Hog ‘em Junction Roadhouse. From Spurr’s book.
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Sept-Oct, 2019
On Hog ‘em Gulch. From Spurr’s book.
Hog’em. There was only one claim working here, and on this the supply of water was so scarce that not much washing could be done. The people seemed like those of Hog’em Gulch, and took little notice of strangers. I climbed out of the gulch and walked along the mountain ridge for a while, encountering, whenever there was no wind, swarms of the tiny gnats which the miners often dread worse than the mosquitoes. They are so numerous as actually to obscure the sun in places and they fill nose, ears, and eyes; there is no escape from them, for they are so small that they go through the meshes of a mosquito net with the greatest ease. On top of the ridge, where the wind blew, they disappeared. As I walked along here I met a prospector, and after a friendly talk with him, dropped down another mountain-side to the bed of Independence Creek, and followed that to the junction of Mammoth Creek, so called from the number of bones of the extinct elephant, or mammoth, which are buried there. The next day a tramp of seventeen miles brought me to the Central House, on the way home from the diggings; for although our rendezvous should have been at Mammoth Junction, yet I concluded to wait for the others at Circle City. ~•~ Edited from ‘Through the Yukon Gold Diggings,’ by Josiah Edward Spurr, Geologist, United States Geological Survey, published by Eastern Publishing Company, Boston, 1900. Available to read online at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44038
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Alaskan History
RIM OF RED WATER TIM JONES
In Kodiak and several other settlements along the coast of Alaska, people wear t-shirts which quip, "This may not be the end of the earth, but you can see it from here." Out across those open turbulent waters in the Aleutian Islands, among the last to be explored by Europeans, is where Christopher Columbus, if he could have sailed farther, might have taken his three ships right off the edge of the Earth, somewhere west of Kodiak. Twenty-one years after Columbus made his famous landing, when the Spanish explorer Balboa hiked across the Isthmus of Panama and had his first view of the ocean he called "pacific," he might not have used that term if he could have seen to the north toward that edge of the Earth in the waters where the weather begins, the Gulf of Alaska, the Bering and Chukchi Seas and the Sea of Japan. The violence of the storms generated in those waters would have brought to mind anything but “pacific." The most recent United States Coast Pilot for the area describes it this way: "The weather of the Aleutians is characterized by persistently overcast skies, strong winds and violent storms. It is often variable and quite local. Clear weather is
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Sept-Oct, 2019 seldom encountered over a large area. About 30 to 75 inches of precipitation occurs on 200 to more than 300 days. Example: at Adak there is an average of 335 days with measurable precipitation.... The poorest visibilities in the Alaska area occur along the Aleutians.� And, if the waters generated the violent weather of the North Pacific, the lands that bordered them proved no less volatile. Formed by plates moving out from the center of the ocean and then colliding with the North American continent, sliding along it, subducting under it, and giving rise to the volcanoes that come with subduction, the land rose to steep mountains from the very shorelines, and erupted and separated into archipelagos and island chains. Through the middle of this maelstrom of nature's violence, the chain of volcanic islands that would come to be called the Aleutians rose from the subduction and vulcanism of the Aleutian Trench to stand in defiance of the storms, and formed the crown of the Pacific Rim. Because of their history of volcanoes they also became part of what is called the Ring of Fire. In forming their barrier between the Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea, the Aleutian Islands created a geological phenomenon that provided well for those animals and men who inhabited this land at the end of the earth. Strong currents developing as far south as where Balboa stood flowed to the north and west unobstructed through the Pacific until they met the land mass of Alaska and the Aleutians. In the islands, as those currents slid along the continental shelf, they created what are called upwellings, some of them constant or inertial, others wind driven and variable as to location. These upwellings caused a vertical mixing of the ocean's waters, and in the process, drew rich nutrients from deep water into the sunlit shallows around the islands. At Samalga Pass, which separates Umnak Island from the Islands of the Four Mountains, modern scientists have found one of the highest nutrient
Vintage print of sea otters
By Marshal Hedin from San Diego - Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris), CC BY-SA 2.0, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? curid=66140539
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Aleutian Sea Otter Hunters, by Charles Melville Scammon in The Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of North America, Described and Illustrated; Together With an Account of the American Whale-Fishery (1874)
concentrations in the world. The Samalga Pass upwelling is inertial and constant, while others along the islands vary with the wind and changing currents. These upwellings and the food sources they draw from the bottom provide a rich environment for a wide variety of life forms, from the smallest of microscopic fauna to the great whales. It was into these rich waters one land mammal reversing the popular evolution theory slowly evolved into a creature of the sea. At some time in prehistory, Enhydra lutris, the largest of the weasel family, changed its habits of life on land and hunting at sea and one day remained in the ocean, developing, as it grew, webbed hind feet and a broadened flatter tail for propulsion, and retractable front claws for opening the mollusks that provided their main food source. Last in a line of mammals entering the sea, they did not develop the underlying layers of blubber that keep most marine mammals insulated against constant immersion in cold waters. Where other marine mammals developed that blubber and lost most of their hair in the process, the sea otter instead grew thick luxuriant fur that gave them comfort and almost led to their extinction. Men eventually joined the other predators in those sustaining waters around the Aleutian Islands. Though the lands and waters of the north defied the myth of European discovery for more than 200 years after Balboa first saw the Pacific, the islands had been populated for thousands of years before. If they needed discovering, the people living there didn't know it. They had done their exploring and discovering long before Balboa, and they had done it out of necessity as the land they had formerly occupied on the south shore of the Bering Land Bridge gradually disappeared under waters rising with the melting of the great glaciers of North America and gave way to the Bering Strait. As far as they knew, the land was already discovered. Along with other inhabitants of the land bridge they had ventured eastward toward the North American continent where the peoples of the bridge separated into distinct groups. Inupiaq remained in the North and Yup'ik in western Alaska, while Indians moved farther east into the interior and then south deeper into the continent. The first islanders, sharing a common heritage with Inupiaq, descended from a population dating back as far as 10,000 years before Christ.
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Sept-Oct, 2019 They moved south along the coast of Alaska and then west again along the Alaska Peninsula toward the Aleutian Islands, where they established themselves as early as 4,000 years ago. What those early discoverers found was a chain of more than 100 windswept treeless islands stretching 900 miles out into the ocean, and as time passed they ventured westward, eventually occupying all of the major island groups. Â Sites in the Fox Islands, those closest to the mainland, show evidence of occupation almost 3,000 years before Christ. Examination of several living sites along the Aleutians shows those early discoverers moved from east to west rather than coming across the ocean directly from Siberia. Evidence of populations in the western Aleutians is more recent, 1,000 years BC in the Andreanof Islands and 600 BC in the Near Islands, so named because they were the closest to Russia at the Kamchatka Peninsula. In the Aleutians, though these first people found one of the worst climates on earth, they also found the same richness in the sea that had sustained the otters and other ocean creatures long before they arrived. And so it was to the sea they turned for their sustenance. The land provided little for these early settlers; grasses, birds and eggs, some small animals, but in the sea supported by the upwelling systems, a myriad of food sources awaited the savvy hunter. In directing their efforts toward the sea, the Unanguan peoples of the Aleutians gained an immense knowledge of the critters who inhabited it. Because of this knowledge and the more constant source of food the ocean provided, the people seldom had to endure the cycles of feast and famine that plagued so many aboriginal groups. They studied the animals in their environment,
Aleut men in Unalaska in 1896 used waterproof kayak gear and garments to hunt sea otters. [Wikipedia]
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Alaskan History testing, experimenting, using those that fit their purposes and ignoring those that didn't. One of those hunted infrequently was the sea otter that preyed in the same waters. Probably more than 200,000 otters populated the shallow waters around the Aleutian Islands prior to Russian contact, largely unmolested by the hunters from land. They were hunted, but not often, because their meat and skins had limited use. Principally the fur was used for women's clothing, as trim or sometimes in full coats. The skin and fur were not particularly to the liking of the men, who needed lightweight waterproof clothing. The otter fur proved too heavy, too warm, for men working. The meat of the otter was all but inedible. One Native who tried it said it tasted like mud. Only in the Rat Islands, the second most westerly group, were otters used for food and all evidence shows that stopped shortly after the Russians began hunting there. Nevertheless, otters were held in high esteem by the Unanguans. At least in pre-contact times they considered the otter an honored animal, and believed it had human origins. In the mythology of the people, the otters were transformed humans who were most vain in the preference for fine dress and adornments, particularly those worn by women. Many artworks recovered in the Aleutians depict otters dressed in some sort of ceremonial garb. That otter fur was used mostly in women's dress may have complemented the legend. Men preparing to hunt would observe several precautions to win the favor of the human presence in the otter. They wore their own personal finery in keeping with the otter's preferences, and even added articles of their wives’ clothing because of this particular partiality of the sea otter. In many ways the Unanguan culture advanced beyond their hunter-gatherer way of life. Because of the plenty around them, they had time to examine more carefully their surroundings and the otter became one object of that study. Perhaps their belief in the human origins of otters came from their recognition that of all the animals around them, the otter was closest to man in physical structure. Unlike seals and sea lions and whales, the otter had legs and paws rather than flippers. It had ears and fur rather than blubber. The people became knowledgeable about anatomy to the point of performing autopsies on people in order to learn how they had died. As the animal most closely resembling humans, the sea otter actually became the object of comparative anatomy. They dissected otters and compared what they saw with what they'd seen looking inside the human body. From their autopsies and from the dissecting of sea otters, the original people knew the basic functions of the organs of the body, the skeletal and musculature systems. But for a food source the hunters moved in other directions. Sea lions, seals and at times whales were much more to their liking and just as plentiful. They fished for salmon when they ran in the streams at spawning time and for halibut in the deeper waters. They hunted birds on land and took the eggs. And they scoured the intertidal zones for crustaceans and mollusks. And the sea sustained the people very well. The average longevity of an Aleut was about the same as a resident of the American colonies could expect in the 1770s. The bounty of the sea and the knowledge of the people led to this longevity, which was uncommon in Native societies. For instance, the Unanguans understood some complicated medical practices which helped slow the rate of infant mortality. Older people, too, benefited from the environment. In other
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Sept-Oct, 2019 societies when people reached their elder years they often became a burden on the group. But in the Aleutians, though a man might no longer be able to hunt the open ocean, he could still fish in protected bays, and help with the salmon catch; in short, an older man or woman could be a productive member of the society. and sustain life to some extent. The Unanguans and the sea otters prospered in their intimidating environment and for many years after Balboa's first view of their ocean, defied the myth of European discovery. While the seafaring nations of the world explored ever farther from their homelands, they concentrated in the warmer latitudes, seeking the riches of temperate climates, and those like the Aleuts, living on the perimeters, remained insulated from intrusion by the very climate that at times could make their lives so miserable. But those early explorers and later the merchants, ever restless, ever reaching out, were relentless in their searches for new lands and new riches, and as exploration spread it reached closer to the Aleutian Islands. Many of the early explorations, though not actually touching the islands, had a bearing on their future. And the sea otters became the valued objects that drew the first Europeans to Aleutian and subsequently Alaskan shores. ~•~ From "Rim of Red Water" by Tim Jones. Tim Jones is the author of several books
on Alaskan subjects and maintains a blog at http://alaskaatitude.blogspot.com.
The first twenty chapters of Tim Jones’ book, Rim of Red Water, can be read online: http://alaskaatitude.blogspot.com/p/attempts.html
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Steamship Nenana. Taken on the Tanana River [Henry S. Kaiser Jr. papers, University of Alaska Anchorage UAA-HMC-1148]
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Sept-Oct, 2019 The wooden-hulled, western rivers-style steam sternwheel passenger boat Nenana is a living museum of history that must be preserved for perpetuity.
THE STEAMER NENANA The Last Lady of the River —•— by Patricia De Nardo Schmidt —•— Sternwheelers at one time plied the rivers of Alaska, bringing in fortune seekers from all over the world to find their riches in gold. Though few seeking gold struck it rich, the sternwheelers continued to bring people and supplies to fish camps, villages, and towns of pioneer Alaska. At one period in Alaskan history, there were over 300 flat-bottomed sternwheelers navigating on the Yukon River and its tributaries. These sternwheelers were essential in the development of the history of Alaska. Of all these lifelines of the rivers, only one remains, the Steamer SS Nenana, located in Pioneer Park in Fairbanks. The wooden-hulled, western rivers-style steam sternwheel passenger boat Nenana is one of only three steam-powered passenger sternwheelers of any kind left in the U.S., and the only large wooden hulled sternwheeler. She is a living museum of history that must be preserved for perpetuity. She was built and operated by the Alaska Railroad. With the completion of the railroad from Seward to Fairbanks in 1923, a way to haul freight to the villages and towns was needed. On September 16, 1922, the War Department deactivated the steamers General Jeff C. Davis, and General J. Jacobs from the U.S. Army and made them available to the Alaska Railroad free of charge by Executive Order. By 1931 the two older boats were no longer efficient for the railroad. To cut operating costs the railroad contracted for a single large boat to replace the Davis and Jacobs. March 5th, 1932 William C. Kickum, a Seattle Marine Architect, submitted plans for a steam-driven sternwheeler to the Alaska Railroad which was accepted for the build. The Berg Shipbuilding Company in Ballard, Washington, was the low bidder at $131,326.60 and was awarded the contract in June of 1932. The equipment contract went to Washington Iron Works, who built the boilers. Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company supplied the electrical and condensing equipment. Worthing Company in Seattle furnished the pumps. Mr. Berg of the Berg Shipbuilding Company advertised that they had seasoned timber and lumber on hand in Seattle, gathered with other necessary equipment and tools, that would be shipped to start the construction in Nenana about July 15, 1932. The materials were shipped from Seattle to Seward by regular steamship lines, then transported 450 miles on the Alaska Railroad to Nenana. It was stipulated that all labor, except skilled mechanics and foremen from the Berg Shipbuilding Company, had to be performed by residents of the Alaska territory.
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Alaskan History The SS Nenana was primarily a working vessel. It was a blending of steam, wood, and paddlewheel technology. The sternwheeler was completed on May 10th, 1933 and was named after the town she was built in, the former Native village which became the Northern Division Headquarters for construction of the Alaska Railroad. She was fitted with 24 berths with two-berth staterooms, dining salon, purser’s office, purser’s stateroom with one berth, steward’s stateroom with two berths, smoking room, observation room, pantry, and men’s and women’s toilets. The housing for officers’ quarters and pilot house was above the saloon deck. Engine room, crew’s space, and crew’s toilets were on the cargo deck; also, along with the galley and bakery. Food for the dining salon was lifted on a dumbwaiter from the galley. Passenger and officers’ rooms were fitted with porcelain washbowls and electric lights. The SS Nenana was made out of clear, vertical grain; kiln-dried fir. With a total weight of 1,128 tons and 237 feet in overall length. The deck of the Nenana is 20,000 square feet. She could carry 300 tons of cargo in her hold and still could push up to six barges when on the Yukon River, one barge on the Tanana River, which was narrower and winding. With a 210-foot hull, she had five decks, was 42 feet wide and 47 feet tall. Yet unloaded the Nenana sat in the water only 18 inches or a maximum of three feet six inches with a capacity load. ENGINES The SS Nenana’s twin tandem 300-horsepower horizontal condensing engines were among the most powerful designed at that time. The locomotive engines of the period were 30 x 6.6 feet and produced 220 pounds per square inch of power. She was the only single-stacked sternwheeler with a high/ low-pressure twin compound condensing steam engine. Making the steam that ran the steamboats required vast quantities of river water and burned up to a cord of wood an hour. The excess steam was then discharged through her smokestack, creating a forced draft that made it possible to burn any kind of wood, wet or dry. She could carry up to 230 cords of wood on board. The Nenana’s engine room had been designed to include a condenser; the used steam could be cooled, resulting in clean distilled water recycled back through the boilers then reheated into steam and used over and over. Crew members who are still with us today talk of how clear and clean the river water was after going through this system. Because she was able to create her own water supply, she was the only overnight packet (passenger and freight transportation) that had an unlimited supply of water and could boast of flushing toilets and showers. Wood camps were located about every 50 miles along the river for stops to load more wood for the boilers. Contracts were made with the villagers before each season by the purser for the next years-wood supply. HOGGING The first season for the steamer in 1933 found a design flaw with the hogging and the main king post. The heavy cargo overstressed her hogging system, making her so flexible that the pitman arms that drove the paddle wheel were misaligned. Its paddle was also placed so high that there was hardly any steerage control. That winter her hogging system was completely redesigned. The double king posts were replaced with a single central post. The vertical struts were leaned longitudinally, giving the hull
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SS Nenana being built, 1932. [1968-013-025 Bill Berry Coll. [Property Pioneers of AK Museum of Fairbanks.]
more load strength. The wheel was lowered a full three feet. A lighter hollow wheel shaft replaced the original. A newly designed hydraulic steering system gave her better control. CREW AND OPERATION The ship required a crew of 30 to 35 people, which included a Captain, Pilot, First Officer, and Second Mate, Chief Engineer, Purser, Chief Cook, Cooks, Baker, Steward, Oiler, three firefighters, four stewards, and 16 deckhands. The SS Nenana’s first captain was Charles Wilbur Adams. Captain Adams also holds the distinction of being the owner and captain of the Lavelle Young that brought Elbridge Truman Barnette and partner Charles Smith to the banks of the Chena River, which later became Fairbanks. When the water on the Chena became too shallow for the heavy sternwheeler to continue, it was forced to turn around. Adams did not want to risk the ship going aground. Barnette’s and Adams's contract stated if the Lavelle Young could no longer navigate the river, the freight and passengers would be unloaded onto its banks. Adams captained the SS Nenana for the next 14 years, until he was forced to retire at 65. Earl Wier served as the second captain for only one year. Charles Adams’ nephew, Howard Adams, had worked as a mess boy in the early days of the SS Nenana. Howard served as the last captain, retiring the boat from passenger service in 1949 and then as a cargo steamer in 1954. The Steamer Nenana carried a variety of freight and food. The most prized to the villagers was the fresh fruit that came in on those first runs in the spring. The SS Nenana had a large refrigeration unit on the lower deck that allowed perishable goods, like milk, eggs, and cheese to be delivered to the villages. The barges the SS Nenana pushed carried coal, lumber, grain, hardware, mining equipment, horses, dog teams — even the first cars and trucks into the villages.
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Alaskan History
Scaffolding behind pilothouse was being built so smokestack could be lowered for the trip to Fairbanks, to go under railroad bridge at Nenana. [Property of the Pioneers of Alaska Museum of Fairbanks. 2009-032-003]
The meals on the SS Nenana were excellent. The cooks served meals every six hours. The bakers started at 5:30 A.M. every day. They even employed three women as cooks and bakers on board. Stewards served the meals to the passengers. Officers kept the staterooms clean. The SS Nenana ran from May through September 24 hours a day. In the early fall or during poor weather when it was dark, a huge searchlight made forward progress possible. She ran on a two-week schedule from Nenana to Marshall on the Yukon River, with occasional trips to Whitehorse, Canada, or St. Michael on the Bering Sea. There was always a big load of mail on the first trip of the season. The captain would start blowing the whistle about ten miles from each village, so everyone knew they were coming. The first run of the year there was always a party for the arrival of the sternwheeler in each village, with lots of food and dancing. THE WAR YEARS The SS Nenana could accommodate 52 passengers but was never licensed to carry more than 16 by the Steamboat Inspection Service because it only carried two lifeboats. During World War II, federal officials and military were not considered “Passengers for Hire.” The SS Nenana would carry more people on board during those years. The SS Nenana, being a federally-owned vessel, fulfilled a significant role during World War II. She transported equipment and personnel needed to construct airfields and other military installments, including facilities and aircraft for the Lend-Lease Act of 1941 which were transported on the barges that were pushed by the SS Nenana. [1] The Steamers were the only means of transporting equipment and supplies needed to construct these bases. Thousands of troops and construction personnel had to be transported
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Sept-Oct, 2019 to places like Tanacross, Ruby, and Galena. The SS Nenana proved highly effective in the war effort transporting freight, building materials, military supplies and men between Canada and Alaska. THE END OF AN ERA The end of the war brought a slower pace to the people of Alaska. Because of the changing economics and the costs of running the steamer using wood, which was being depleted, the engines were switched in 1948 to oil burning. The boat’s engines had the most advanced design of the time: four 60,000 lb. fuel oil tanks were installed. There was a surplus of planes available in Alaska after the war. Scheduled flights were starting to fly into the villages. The Alcan Highway that was built during the war was supplying the bigger cities; they were no longer using the train to bring in freight from ships. In an effort to keep the SS Nenana competitive, at the close of the 1952 navigation season she was completely reconditioned at Whitehorse. She returned to run for one more season in 1953. The age of diesels spelled the finish for the SS Nenana. The Alaska Railroad pulled the SS Nenana from service in 1954. The smaller sternwheeler Idler was owned and operated by Capt. George Black of Black Navigation. He ran his riverboat on the side streams. The smaller "fish camps" were the strong point for Black Navigation. He made strong ties to individual customers; service was the reason for the success and survival of Black Navigation Co. The company became Yutnana Barge Lines and leased the SS Nenana in 1954. He operated the SS Nenana to haul freight on rivers for one season but discontinued the lease as it was unprofitable. THE SS NENANA COMES TO FAIRBANKS Tourism was a big part of business in Fairbanks. Each year thousands of tourists came to Alaska, but the problem was a great number were shunning Fairbanks. In 1956 Fairbanks leaders felt if they did not do something to generate some kind of easily accessible tourist attractions in the Fairbanks area, the city would continue to lose important revenue. The Chamber of Commerce discussed purchasing the SS Nenana from the Alaska Railroad. In 1956 a group of Fairbanks businessmen formed the group Greater Fairbanks Opportunities Inc. which was an offshoot of the Chamber of Commerce. Their major plan was to make and spend money to promote tourist attractions in Fairbanks. The Chamber of Commerce purchased the SS Nenana for $40,000.00 in 1956, then sold it to the Greater Fairbanks Opportunities Inc. for $18,893.00. They felt it would more than pay for itself in a few seasons. The SS Nenana left her namesake town on May 19, 1957, with a volunteer crew. She arrived in Fairbanks on May 21st. She was opened in Fairbanks in June of 1957, where tourists were housed only when other commercial housing was filled. They ran her as a boatel (a boat hotel) on the Chena River. They would have nightly native dancers appear and show the old travelogue movies. She also served as a meeting place for different organizations during the summer months. When the bank loan on the boat became due, the six remaining directors were called upon to assume their proportionate share of their obligation. Without the funds to make the payment, it was the end of the boatel on the river. In 1960 she was moved to a pond of water off the Chena, where she sat until 1965, rapidly being reduced to ruin.
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Alaskan History 100th YEAR CELEBRATION OF THE PURCHASE OF ALASKA In 1965 plans were being made for the 100th year celebration of the purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867. The Alaska 67 State Centennial Exposition site of 44 acres was secured. They wanted to purchase the SS Nenana as the main focal point for the park. Present owners of the SS Nenana stockholders transferred the title of the sternwheeler to the Centennial Organization. In exchange, they would get the first claim to its earnings at the exposition. In 1965 a channel was dug from the Chena River to a man-made pond early that September, the SS Nenana was floated down the Chena into the park as the first structure in the park. Unfortunately, the boat was looked on as a source of revenue and not a historic vessel that should be restored and saved. The staterooms were removed and the “Sandbar Restaurant” was added to the Saloon deck which opened in June of 1967. The boat was not made for year-round use, so this caused great damage to the walls of the ship. Further damage was done when roofs were added to different levels for protection. The weight of the roofs and heavy snowfall damaged the hull. THE SS NENANA’S REBIRTH In 1987, Jack Williams founded the Fairbanks Historical Preservation Foundation, a public, nonprofit organization. With crucial help from local government, the State of Alaska, and especially the Pioneers of Alaska Igloo No. 4 and Auxiliary No. 8. The foundation led the restoration of the SS Nenana. From 1987 to 1992 the SS Nenana was fully restored to her original beauty. The restaurant and kitchen were removed, and the staterooms were rebuilt. They replaced the mahogany walls in the dining area. The whole ship was stripped, painted, and authentically recreated. The SS Nenana was designated as a national historic landmark on May 5, 1989 (www.nps.gov/places/nenana.htm). Sadly, the Fairbanks Historical Preservation Foundation faltered and came to an end, and it once again became the responsibility of the Fairbanks North Star Borough to maintain her as part of Alaskaland, the park that is now called Pioneer Park. THE CLOSING OF THE SS NENANA Years of deferred maintenance have left many historic structures and much of the infrastructure in a state of disrepair in Fairbanks. The SS Nenana has been one of those historic structures. In March of 2018, it was announced that the SS Nenana was being closed to the public due to safety concerns. There was a possibility she may be demolished. FORMING OF THE FRIENDS OF THE SS NENANA Hearing the danger of the possibility of losing the SS Nenana brought concerned citizens of Fairbanks together to form the organization “Friends of SS Nenana.” They are a state non-profit organization working under the guidance of North Star Community Foundation’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit umbrella. Thanks to early efforts, the SS Nenana was added to the Alaska Association for Historic Preservation’s Ten Most Endangered Historic Properties in 2018 and again for 2019. In June of 2019, the non-profit organization was able to retain Paul Zankich, P.E., Principal Naval Architect, Owner, and President of Columbia-Sentinel Engineers, Inc. to do a full
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Sept-Oct, 2019 inspection of the boat for repairs. He is doing a full written report, pro bono, on what needs to be repaired and how to do each of these tasks safely and historically correct. Without substantial fundraising, public and private funds advocacy, and a close working partnership with the borough, we will lose the SS Nenana, a historic sternwheeler that is the last of her kind. Our mission is to enable renovation and preservation of this historic sternwheeler. With strategic planning for future maintenance and ways to make the boat more selfsupportive, she will be an invaluable tool of learning that will be enjoyed for countless generations to come in perpetuity. For more information about Friends of SS Nenana or how to get involved, go to their website (friendsofssnenana.com) or their Facebook page: Friends of SS Nenana. Donations to help support the SS Nenana can also be made through these sites or the North Star Community Foundation SS Nenana page (www.nscfundalaska.org/FSSN). [1]
National Historic Landmark https://www.nps.gov/places/nenana.htm
Patricia De Nardo Schmidt came to Alaska in 1959 growing up in Anchorage and Fairbanks. She has lived in Fairbanks since 1969. She married in 1978 in Fairbanks and has two grown children who both live in Fairbanks. She is a student of history, especially that of Alaska and Fairbanks. Patricia watched the history of Fairbanks being lost over the years as buildings were being demolished or falling into ruin and collapse. When she heard the Steamer SS Nenana was closed to the public in March of 2018 and in danger of being demolished she knew she had to take action. Joining with others who had the same interest in saving the Alaskan steamship, the group Friends of SS Nenana was formed.Â
SS Nenana pushing a barge. [Guilbert G. Thompson collection, University of Alaska Fairbanks 77-55-37]
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Alaskan History Historians question why Harriman wanted to go to Alaska. Some think he was considering developing Alaskan resources. Some think he was considering building a railroad to the Alaskan territory. Some people at the time openly wondered if he was going to buy Alaska, or build a railroad bridge from Alaska to Siberia for a railroad around the world. Nothing seemed impossible for Edward H. Harriman
Polmoniums from Kadiak (Kodiak)
Title page of a private souvenir album created collectively by the members of the Harriman Alaska Expedition. Although the date on the cover proudly proclaims “May to August, 1899, the voyage began May 30 and ended July 30, 1899.
The 1899 Harriman Alaska Expedition ~ Exploring and Documenting the Coast of Alaska ~ A Stellar Voyage to a Great Land, Amongst Artists and Scientists In early 1899 Edward Henry Harriman of New York was one of the most powerful men in America, a wealthy railroad magnate with control of several railroads. His work had left him literally exhausted, and his doctor decreed that he needed a long vacation. Never a man to do anything in a small way, Harriman decided to go to Alaska to hunt Kodiak bears, but rather than go alone, he conceived the idea of taking with him an elite community of scientists, artists, photographers, and naturalists to explore and document the Alaskan coastline. And so, in cooperation with the Washington Academy of Sciences but entirely at his own expense, he organized an expedition to Alaska. He invited as his
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guests three artists and twenty-five men of science, representing various branches of research and including well-known professors in universities in both sides of the continent, and leaders in several branches of Government scientific work. Those ultimately selected for the voyage included Arctic experts such as the naturalist John Muir, who had explored Glacier Bay in 1879 and the Inside Passage in 1880; and William Healy Dall, a paleontologist and geographer and author of the 1870 book, Alaska and Its Resources. The official trip photographer was Edward Curtis, and Louis Agassiz Fuertes, a bird artist, joined two other nature artists. To record the trip in writing became the responsibility of John Burroughs, a popular nature writer, and George Bird Grinnell, the editor of Forest and Stream magazine and an expert on Native American culture. The scientists and artists joined Harriman’s family and their servants, along with a medical team, a chaplain, and Harriman’s hunters, packers, guides, and taxidermists. Altogether, with the ship’s crew, 126 people were aboard. Harriman had the 250-foot steamship SS George W. Elder luxuriously refitted for the expedition. The remodeled ship featured lecture rooms, a library with over 500 volumes on Alaska, a stable for animals, taxidermy studios, and well-appointed rooms for the passengers. By the end of May, the ship's guests and passengers had all arrived in Seattle, and the Elder left Seattle on May 31, 1899. Large cheering crowds saw them off at the docks and newspapers around the world ran front-page stories about the unprecedentedly glamorous trip to Alaska.
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Alaskan History
The 250-foot steamship SS George W. Elder. Photograph taken by Edward Henry Harriman.
C. Hart Merriam described their voyage in Vol. 1 of the 14-volume Harriman Alaska Series published by Doubleday in 1901: “From Puget Sound to Juneau and Lynn Canal the vessel threaded her way northward among the forested islands and fiords of the 'inside passages'; a side trip was made from Skagway, at the head of Lynn Canal, to the summit of White Pass, by way of the newly contructed White Pass and Yukon railroad, whose officials courteously placed a special train at our disposal. At Sitka she entered the open ocean and took a northwesterly course in front of the stupendous glaciers and snow-capped peaks of the Fairweather and St. Elias ranges; at Cook Inlet she changed her course from northwest to southwest and skirted the Alaska peninsula and Aleutian Islands, touching the emerald shores of Kadiak and the Shumagins; at Unalaska she again turned her prow northward, entered the troubled waters and treacherous fogs of Bering Sea, called at Bogoslof Volcano, the Pribilof or Fur-Seal Islands, and the islands of Hall, St. Matthew, and St. Lawrence; and finally, after visiting Eskimo settlements on both the Asiatic and American coasts, and peering poleward through Bering Strait -- the gateway to the Arctic -- she put about and began the homeward voyage.” Merriam continued, “During the two months' cruise a distance of nine thousand miles was traversed. Frequent landings were made, and, no matter how brief, were utilized by the artists, geographers, geologists, botanists, zoologistsm, and students of glaciers. From time to time longer stops were made and camping parties were put ashore that more thorough work might be done. Thus one or more camping parties operated at Glacier Bay, Yakutat Bay, Prince Willima Sound, Kadiak Island, the Alaska Peninsula, and the Shumagin Islands. Large and important collections were made, including series of the small mammals and birds of the coast
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Sept-Oct, 2019 region, enormous numbers of marine animals and seaweeds, and by far the largest collection of insects and land plants ever brought from Alaska.” By June 25th the Elder had reached Prince William Sound, and Merriam noted, “In Prince William Sound a new fiord fifteen miles in length and abounding in glaciers was discovered, photographed, and mapped. Its entrance, hidden by the huge projecting from of Barry Glacier, was disclosed by accident while we were attempting to photograph the land attachments of the glacier. In honor of the expedition it was named Harriman Fiord.” Merriam continued, “Native settlements were visited at various places -- of Indians along the southwest coast form British Columbia to Yakutat Bay, of Eskimo and Aleuts from Prince William Sound northward and westward. The shortness of the stops precluded serious ethnological studies; still numerous articles of interest were secured, and a series of photographs of permanent value was obtained.” While the scientists had some control over where they stopped to explore, Harriman retained the final decision-making. He was anxious to hunt a bear, and he decided to head toward Kodiak Island when he heard there were bears there. Merriam wrote: “Mr. Harriman had the good fortune to kill a Kadiak bear, the only one secured by the Expedition and the first ever measured and photographed in the flesh…" On 7 July, they reached Popof Island in the Shumagin Islands. Harriman’s wife wanted to put her feet on Siberian soil, so the Elder continued northward, but four of the scientists, accompanied by a guide, decided to camp on Popof Island while the rest of the scientists
Edward Henry “E. H.” Harriman and a map of the route of the Harriman Alaska Expedition.
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Expedition members pose on beach at deserted Cape Fox village, photo by Edward S. Curtis. On July 26, 1899, the expedition landed in Cape Fox, at an abandoned Tlingit village. The village had been deserted for about five years, but many pieces of Tlingit artwork and totem poles were still there. Some members of the expedition (in protest of other members) removed some of the artifacts from the village. While this has been described by some as "looting," it must be considered in the context of the times. Members of the expedition believed that the indigenous cultures of Alaska would soon be extinguished by the encroaching of modern civilization. Their desire was to save to museums what they believed would be the last remnants of the Tlingit artwork and culture. The expedition saw the artifacts as inanimate objects from a deserted village. To the Tlingit living nearby, the artifacts were a sacred part of their identity. The Cape Fox artifacts were indeed preserved in museums. In 2001, a group of scientists retraced the steps of the 1899 Harriman Expedition. The 2001 scientists and crew, including the great-great-granddaughter of Edward Harriman, returned a number of artifacts to the descendants of the original Cape Fox Tlingit residents.
continued on to Siberia. This allowed the four scientists to make much more detailed notes about the area, rather than quick notes on frequent stops along the way. By July 11th, the ship had put into Plover Bay in Siberia, but by this time Harriman was impatient and ready to get back to work, so the Elder steamed southward, picking up the party on Popof Island. On July 26th, the Elder made one last stop, at an abandoned Tlingit village at Cape Fox, and four days later, on July 30th, the ship pulled into the dock at Seattle. In many ways, the expedition was an intersection of 19th-century and 20th-century science, often representing the best of the new century’s science, but also showing how scientists thought in the previous century. They discussed the potential loss of the wilderness and the indigenous peoples. They saw the remnants of the Yukon gold rush, and how self-serving
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Sept-Oct, 2019 treasure hunters were plundering the countryside and the dignity and viability of the indigenous cultures. The greatest benefit of the expedition turned out to be the fourteen-volume Harriman Alaska Series, financed by Harriman and published by Doubleday beginning in 1901; it remains a landmark of Arctic exploration. The scientific reports included maps and charts showing the over 9,000 mile expedition route and geographical features of the coast. They charted the geographic distribution of many species, and claimed to have discovered some 600 species that were new to science, including 38 new fossils. They discovered an unmapped fiord and named several glaciers, and the work on glaciers represented new thinking in the field. On the voyage the naturalist John Muir became friends with Harriman, and several years later, Muir recruited Harriman to help with governmental lobbying on National Park legislation. It was John Muir who gave the eulogy at Harriman’s funeral in 1909. ~•~ For further information: • Harriman Alaska Expedition at Wikipedia (much of the above is edited from this entry): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriman_Alaska_expedition • Smithsonian Institution Archives, Harriman Alaska Expedition Collection, 1899-1900: https://siarchives.si.edu/collections/siris_arc_217400 • University of Washington Libraries Digital Collection of Harriman Expedition 254 photographs: https://content.lib.washington.edu/harrimanweb/index.html
On June 25th the expedition reached Prince William Sound and discovered an undocumented fiord in the northwest corner of the Sound and named it Harriman Fiord for their host. Barry Glacier is at the entrance.
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Alaskan History
FOCUS ON : FISHING
"A King Salmon". [Picture of a King Salmon nearly as big as the boys holding it up. Three girls stand in the background.] Photo by Frederick Blount Drane. [Drane Family Collection UAF-1991-46-452] No. date.
Fish wheel on Yukon River - Tanana, Alaska. Photograph of a fishwheel, fish cleaning work station, and a man in a boat with a dog. [Richard Frank Photograph Collection, 1913-[on-going] UAF-1997-122-10] No date.
Yukon River Salmon. “A woman holds a king salmon while four men and boys pose with a cart full of large king salmon. A dog hopes for an opportunity to hold a salmon too.� Fort Yukon. [Dr. Ernest A. Cook Photograph Collection UAF-2003-109-19] Date between 1913 and 1939.
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Mrs. Asher Felter and Mrs. Blatchford. Album page reads, "Fishing thru the ice at Golovin, Alaska. Dec. 1939.” [George C. Folger Papers. UAF-1982-5-119]
A man holds a fishing pole while a child grabs a fish on the end of the line. May 10, 1909. [R. C. Force papers, 1900-1910. UAF-2003-174-50] No location.
Louis Clever, weaving a fishtrap from spruce bound with willow. Photo by Elizabeth Hayes Goddard, 1934. [E. H. Goddard Diary. UAF-1967-48-27]
"Fish trap across Salcha River.” [Drane Family Collection. UAF-1991-46-590]
"At Grafton's camp, Henry, a fourteen year old boy, came rowing in, his boat filled with a large salmon catch. He held up two to have his picture taken.” Photo by Elizabeth Hayes Goddard, 1934. [E. H. Goddard Diary. UAF-1967-48-38]
Web trap in Cook's Inlet for catching salmon. Photo by H. M. Weatherbee. Date1889? - 1904? [Weatherbee Family Papers. UAF-1959-866-21]
• Search for more photographs at https://vilda.alaska.edu •
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Alaskan History
Alaskan Books
Conquering the Arctic Ice, by Ejnar Mikkelsen (1909)
A Dog Puncher on the Yukon, by Arthur Treadwell Walden (1923)
Dog Team Doctor, The Story of Dr. Romig, by Eva G. Anderson (1940)
In October 1907 the Danish polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen, co-leader (with Er nest de Koven Leffingwell) of 1906-1908 Anglo-American Polar Expedition, which established that there was no land north of Alaska, set out on a formidable journey, which would take him west along the Arctic coast from Flaxman Island to Barrow, Nome, Fort Gibbon, Manley Hot Springs, Fairbanks, and then down the FairbanksValdez Trail to Valdez, where he boarded a ship for home. His trip was detailed in his book, published in London in 1909 by William Heinemann. ~•~
Arthur Treadwell Walden was a dog driver during the Klondike and Alaskan gold rushes. He would become a respected trainer and freighter on Admiral Byrd’s 1928-29 expedition to Antarctica, but thirty years before, in northern Canada, he gained fame as a sled dog driver and freighter over the northern gold rush trails near Dawson City, Circle City, and Nome. After returning to New England Walden began a breeding program which produced the Chinook breed, based on a dog by that name which he knew as a sled dog driver in the North. ~•~
In 1896 Dr. Joseph H. Romig traveled to Bethel, Alaska, and opened the first doctor’s office and hospital west of Sitka, at a time when there were very few non-native people living in remote southwest Alaska. For a time, Dr. Romig was one of the only physicians in Alaska, and he became known as the “dog team doctor” for traveling by dog sled throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the course of his work. Four decades later a book would be written about the good doctor’s adventurous and life-saving exploits across the vast northern territory. ~•~
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Sept-Oct, 2019 Seward’s Icebox, by Archie W. Shiels (1933) Archibald Williamson Shiels, born in Scotland, emigrated to the US in 1893. He became chief of staff to railroad contractor Michael Heney, supervising the construction of the White Pass & Yukon Railway, and was later involved in the construction of the Copper River and North Western Railroad. Shiels joined the Pacific American Fisheries in 1916, the largest salmon cannery in the world, and served as President of the company from 1930-1946. Shiels collected a vast amount of informational material, from which he researched and wrote many historical manuscripts, books, and speeches. His well-researched Seward’s Icebox begins in 1867 with the transfer of Russia to the United States and continues to the date of publication. Tillicums of the Trail, by George C. F. Pringle (1922) Subtitled ‘Being Klondike Yarns Told to Canadian Soldiers Overseas by a Sourdough Padre,’ this is a collection of true stories from the Klondike and nearby regions, as told to troops by the Chaplain to the 43rd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Forces, at Avion, France, during the First World War. Pringle was a pioneer bush pilot and United Church minister and this book contains some classic northern tales, “….because in every man there is something that stirs responsive to tales of the mystic Northland, vast, white, and silent.” Pringle’s true stories to his men included his first trip by dogteam, the legend of the Lost Patrol, the story of Skagway’s notorious “Soapy” Smith, a trip down the Yukon River by scow from Whitehorse to Dawson City, Christmas and wedding celebrations in the Klondike and more. Available to read online. Ploughman of the Moon, by Robert W. Service (1945) Ploughman of the Moon: An Adventure into Memory is the autobioigraphy of Robert Service, famed Bard of the Yukon whose popular poetry includes The Spell of the Yukon, The Cremation of Sam McGee, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, and countless others. This warmly personal account traces the first half of his life, from his boyhood in Scotland to his emigration to Canada at the age of 21 with his Buffalo Bill outfit and dreams of becoming a cowboy, drifting around western North America from California to British Columbia, being sent to Whitehorse and later Dawson City by the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and gaining fame for his captivating way with words. The book is available to read online; search for the title at gutenberg.ca
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Alaskan History
Timeline & Resources Timeline for articles in this issue: • 1896 - J. E. Spurr leads expedition to map Alaska’s interior for USGS. • 1899 - The Harriman Alaska Expedition explores the Alaskan coastline. • 1901 - Jim Haly’s Roadhouse was built in Fort Yukon. • 1903 - The Sourdough Roadhouse was built between 1903 and 1905. • 1904 - The Black Rapids Roadhouse was built in either 1902 or 1904. • 1912 - Slana Roadhouse was built on the trail to Chisana. • 1927 - 13-year-old Benny Benson wins the Alaska flag design contest. • 1928 - A second Slana Roadhouse was built. • 1933 - Steam sternwheeler Nenana is completed and begins service • 1937 - The Black Rapids Glacier advances across the valley. • 1940 - Alaska Steamship Co. commissions artist Josephine Crumrine. • 1954 - Alaska Railroad retires the SS Nenana from service. Viisit the website for an expanded timeline incorporating the first three issues of Alaskan History Magazine: http://www.alaskan-history.com
Some of the resources used in researching this issue’s articles: • Alaska & Polar Regions Collections & Archives [http://library.uaf.edu/apr] Materials that document the past and present of Alaska and the polar regions. • Alaska’s Digital Archives [https://vilda.alaska.edu] Photographs, albums, oral histories, moving images, maps, documents, physical objects, and other materials from libraries, museums and archives throughout our state. • Project Gutenberg [http://www.gutenberg.org and gutenberg.ca] Thousands of books available to read online, free. •
• Library of Congress [https://www.loc.gov] The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. • The Internet Archive [https://archive.org] A digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. • Wikipedia [http://www.wikipedia.org] a free online encyclopedia, created and edited by volunteers around the world and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
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