HUMAN FACE OF THE ALASKA GOLD RUSH: 2

HUMAN FACE OF THE ALASKA GOLD RUSH: 2

Alaskans have always been famous for their practical jokes. In the 1920s on Slate Creek near Kantishna, John Bowman, a notorious drunk, was having a birthday party. Bowman had made some money in the Klondike Strike but had drunk his way through his fortune in Dawson. Though he was not a successful miner, he always seemed to have enough to buy booze. On his birthday, sometime in midwinter, one of his buddies decided to play a practical joke on Bowman. The friend constructed a birthday cake out of wood and then covered it with frosting. After a birthday dinner, Bowman, well greased, was presented the cake. After vainly attempted to cut the cake, to the merriment of his friends, he laid down his knife and, with swimming fisheyes, said to the gathered revelers, “It musht be froshen.”[1]

* * *

One of the more dependable whaleboats turned passenger craft of the Alaska Gold Rush era — and well into the 1920s as well — was the Dora. In about 1910, the Dora was anchored at Cold Bay, near Unalaska in the Aleutians, when her anchor pulled loose. The crew bumbled too long and lost control of the vessel. Out into the North Pacific she floated, her compass broke, a prisoner of the tide and current. She went as far as Japan where she became caught on a reef and remained lodged for several hours before a wave set her free. Back she came across the Pacific until she ended where she had begun her life: Cape Flattery off Port Townsend. Once he recognized the coastline, the captain ordered everyone to heft an axe and find what fuel they could to bring the Dora home. Out of food and exhausted by their ordeal, the 21 men and one woman finally set foot on land after 92 days at sea. But the Dora had one more surprise for them. When the ship was hauled out at a dry dock, it was discovered that a rock from the Japanese reef had become lodged in her hull. The Dora had floated across the North Pacific with this natural plug in her hull. The rock was removed and until as late as 1956, the rock sat on a dock in Seattle.[2]

* * *

About 1910, Kenneth Gilbert and three of his friends were lured into a poker game in Ketchikan. After about an hour it was apparent that the men against whom they were playing was cheating. One of Gilbert’s friends, Joe, examined the back of the cards and noticed some strange splotches.

“What are those?” Joe said indicating the splotches.

“Them marks?” The hustler asked. “Why, they’re nothing more than dried stain of salmon eggs.”

“Then they must have been the smartest salmon that ever swum,” Joe replied, “because I notice that they laid their eggs only on the aces and kings.”[3]

* * *

Preacher Brown in the Fairbanks area was known for his dedication to God. Trying to collect contributions one evening from Billy Miles, the man of God was lured to a gaming table in the hopes of raising enough money for the construction of his church. After lengthy play, the Preacher walked away with $l,000 of Miles money. Only later did Miles find out that before he got religion, Preacher Brown has been “one of the slickest card-dealers in Nevada.”[4]

* * *

When the Stikeen River Journal asked a miner by the name of Frost about the quality of diggings in the Windham Bay District, the miner replied, “There is gold there, but there is a powerful lot of dirt mixed with it.”[5]

* * *

In the 1700s, a naturalist writing about the walrus, which he called a morse, stated that the walrus used his tusks for pulling himself up icy mountains. The Eskimos would seek out these walrus, presumably while they were asleep, cut holes in their flippers — which were “impervious to sensation” — and pass ropes through the holes. When the ropes were secured to giant rocks, the Eskimos would then created a great din which would awaken the walrus. In fright, the great beast would charge downhill and, in the process, jerk himself out of his skin. Reverend S. Hall Young also reported that he was asked by a Californian if walrus “brought forth their young alive or laid eggs and hatched them.”[6]

* * *

Mrs. Schwatka, wife of the famed explorer, was quoted in THE ALASKA AND KLONDIKE GOLD FIELDS as stating that “I have known persons to die merely from the bite of the mosquitoes.”[7] She also noted that “Alaska was a poor place for women and no place at all for children.”[8]

* * *

With the exception of Nome, Alaska appeared to be a calm setting for a Gold Rush. This could have been, as Miss Anna Fulcomer noted, because “‘lawyers and other disturbers of the peace’ are kept out.”[9]

* * *

On December 5, 1905, world famous Norwegian Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen, suddenly appeared in Eagle. He had mushed from Hershel Island, 1,000 miles to the north, where his sloop, the Gjoa, had become frozen in the ice pack. He came to Eagle because it was the closest community that had a telegraph and, from Eagle, he broadcast the news to the world that he had discovered the fabled Northwest Passage. Of course, he had had to sail through the passage at the speed of the ice pack. The first large ship to navigate the Northwest Passage under its own power was the SS Manhattan. It left Chester, PA on August 24, 1969 and was in Point Barrow on September 21. Its voyage was an exercise sponsored by three oil companies to see if it would be possible to ship Alaskan oil across the Arctic Ocean during the winter. This little experiment in polar transportation cost the three oil companies $40 million.[10] The first ship to reach the North Pole was the USS Nautilus. The ship, a nuclear submarine, left Point Barrow on August 1,1958 and was under the North Pole at the top of the world two days later. On August 4, she was in Atlantic, for a trip of 1830, the bulk of it under the polar ice pack.[11]

* * *

Noted Alaskan writer Rex Beach was once in a storm so bad that he had to lash his wrists to the handle bars of his sled to keep from losing touch with the sled.[12]

* * *

Paul Makinson, deckhand on the steamer Ida May, reported that the Indians along the Yukon River traded for soap, in this case, oxydol. “It seems they melt it down and coat their fish with it,” he wrote. “It evidently was quite a delicacy.”[13]

* * *

One Argonaut was pooh-poohed by his partners for carrying a grind stone up the 1,200, three foot steps of the Chilkoot Pass ice staircase. When he got to the top of the pass he set up shop and charged $.25 apiece to sharpen Argonaut ‘s picks. Then he “sat back and watched the men who had guyed him on the trail stand in line for him while he hauled in the dollars.”[14]

* * *

In the early years of mining on the Seward Peninsula, some miners were impressed by the hoar frost that coated the willow tree twigs along the creek in which they were prospecting. Since the twigs looked like candles, they named their community Candle.[15] (At least one other source, Merle Estes Colby, indicates that the candle-like objects were used by the Eskimo to light fires.)

* * *

At one time it was speculated that Alaska would be the ideal place for the development of an Arian Race. According to an article that appeared in the Alaska Capital on January 2, 1910, Alaska and the “northwest coast” was a wonderful location for health resorts for “neuroaesthenics.” (Webster’s defines “neuroaesthenia” as “an emotional and psychic disorder that is characterized by easy fatigability and often by lack of motivation, feelings of inadequacy and psychosomatic symptoms.”) Even more important, or so claimed the Alaska Capital, these areas were ideal “as a breeding ground for people who by their great brain power should continue to dominate civilization.”

* * *

Sightings of Noah’s ark seem to have been the rage during the Alaska Gold Rush. In July of 1902, the Valdez News ran an article on the discovery of a “petrified ship lying high up on the side of a mountain” on the Porcupine River to the north of Rampart. Indians from the area claimed the boat to be about 1,200 feet in length. The Indians, the paper noted, were “convinced that the ship is none other than Noah’s Ark.” Unexplained in the article was how the Indians accounted for the petrified “safe or chest” they found in the vicinity of this mysterious vessel. In spite of their efforts, they were unable to open the safe.

Then, in August of 1902, another “Noah’s Ark” was discovered 300 miles from Coldfoot. The vessel, about half a mile long, was apparently in such good condition that a Dr. Cleveland was considering opening “a roadhouse in the mythical vessel.”

Four years later, in May of 1906, yet another “Noah’s Ark” was discovered “on a high hill overlooking a string of lakes, 30 or 40 miles from the head of the Chandelar River. This craft was 14 feet high and 100 yards long “made with copper nails, bolts and washers.” The fact that there were Russian words on this structure tended to put a hole in the theory that this truly Noah’s Ark.[16]

Casey Moran, the newspaper editor who generated the rush to Barnette’s cache in the dead of winter in 1903, was also responsible for a story on the discovery of Noah’s Ark on a mountain top in the Koyukuk region. For a while the story did “considerable damage” to the “Mt. Ararat tradition.”[17]

* * *

Early on the morning of June 15, 1902, W. B. Koon successfully escaped from the Valdez jail for the second time in five days. Charged with assault and battery against Mrs. Barrett, Koon had jumped bail and had been discovered hiding in a coal bunker aboard the Perry. Re-arrested on Wednesday, June 11, he was escorted back to jail. Several hours later, someone stopped at the Marshal’s office and asked why Koon was still at liberty. Marshal Hasey made quick check of jail and discovered that one of the bars in the jail and been wrenched loose. Koon was lose for a number of days and then re-arrested. Then came the second break

Immediately after escaping, Koon awoke Reverend Cram and escorted the cleric to the home of Mrs. Barrett where he, Koon, married Mrs. Barrett. The marriage, not under duress, solved Koon’s legal problems “as the bride was the only witness against Koon he could not be tried on the charge for which he was arrested as a wife cannot be forced to testify against her husband.” But he was charged with defacing a building, I.E., the jail, and was re-arrested. However, as there was “little or no damage,” the jury acquitted him. But the jury did deliver a letter to the Commissioner stating:

Sir: The undersigned jurors in the aforementioned case are of the opinion that the present condition of the United States jail at this place presents a constant menace to the peace and security of the community and affords a standing invitation to prisoners to make an easy and hasty escape therefrom.[18]

* * *

Cannibalism was not unknown in the harsh conditions of Alaska’s winters. In May of 1899, the bodies of three men were found near Circle. The three men, Michael Daly (Providence, R.I.), Victor Edair (Woonsocket, R.I.) and M. Provost (Brockton, MA) had been on their way to Jimtown when they became disoriented and starved to death. After the bodies of Edair and Provost were discovered, a search was made for the third man. “Daly’s partially eaten body was found on the stove in the tent just as it was left when death overtook the others.”[19]

A case of almost-cannibalism took place in August of 1901, when two men with food stumbled upon two men preparing to make a repast of their former partner. Jack Huston and Joseph C. Thiery were found with the remains of their partner, George Dean, after they spent 23 days without food. Marooned on the Aqiapuk River near Teller, the men were described as “living skeletons” by their rescuers, Louis Reich and George Woods. The men had been hiking cross country and lost their way, barely making it to the barabara where they were found.

The men had tried to make a small boat to cross the Aqiapuk but the canvas they were using leaked too badly. They abandoned the craft and this was what attracted the attention of the rescuers. As they were examining the craft “they heard the unfortunate men in a weak voice crying to them for God’s sake to come into the barabara and rescue them.” Dean had died some six hours earlier and the two remaining men were “preparing a stew of flesh cut from his thigh.”[20]

There is also a highly speculative story of how an Indian who had been reduced to cannibalism during a famine. When asked if it was true that he had eaten his wife and child, the Indian replied, probably tongue in cheek, that this was not true. He had only eaten the child. [21] The Nome Nugget also published a story of cannibalism in the Dawson area but the story was only from one person. Supposedly the Indian, name not revealed, had killed and eaten his wife and when hunger again returned, he devoured his two children as well. Then, adding more speculation as to the veracity of the story, the Indian “made his way to the camp of some other Indians where he told of his crime” and was being shunned.[22] Why the Indian did not go the neighboring village when he go hungry in the first place was not stated in the article.

* * *

One’s religious belief have very little to do with honesty. In June of 1899, W. H. Leamon, a Methodist preacher in Skaguay, salted a claim by adding some quartz with gold filings into a sample being pounded out. The claim was bought by three other Methodists from Leamon’s congregation. After the fake was discovered, Leamon “took advantage of the timely arrival of the City of Seattle and left for Everett, (Washington.)” Leamon apparently made good his escape — with $500 for his share of the salting deal.[23]

* * *

In June of 1906, Joe Cook, “a professional claim jumper,” took possession of one claim too many. The property in question had been staked by Joe Voegler and his partner and the men had dropped an 80 foot shaft. Voegler’s partner had become sick and, while the two were at the hospital in Fairbanks, Cook and his partner staked over the 80 foot shaft. When Voegler returned and complained about the trespass, Cook replied that if he didn’t like it they could go to court but to keep in mind that he, Cook, had the backing of a silent partner who would “see him through.” Voegler, broke, tried to talk Cook out of it but to no avail. Local miners heard of the dispute and gathered at McGuire’s Roadhouse when Cook happened by. “A rope was brought out, and Cook was given to understand that when a mosquito bites a man it is crushed, when a dog is so vicious that it becomes dangerous it is killed, and that he, being considered in the same light, his time had come.” Cook was that given the “choice of dangling at the end of a rope or leaving the country.” Needless to say, Cook decided to “hit the trail immediately.”[24]

* * *

In the summer of 1905, a decision was made to fill the numerous potholes in the Fairbanks street with whatever debris was available — and free. One of the items dumped was hay, bales of it that had been scorched in a fire and then wetted, presumably by the fire department. The owner of the hay filled holes and spread the rest of it over the street. For a short period of time Third Street appeared level. Then stray horses began eating the “pavement.” Though the outside of the bales had been inedible, the inside “was a sweet as a hickory nut.” The Mayor was furious but all he could do was frighten off the horses and “pray for the next meeting of the [City] Council when the ordinance preventing horses from running at large will become a law.”[25]

* * *

Chief Jack, one of the oldest (115) and most respected Natives in Alaska died in his home in Killisnoo in September of 1908. He had been present at the lowering of the Russian flag at Sitka and was considered an old man then.

He was well known to travelers for he met every steamer that docked in Killisnoo for more than 40 years dressed elaborately in one of his many stately uniforms. Once he turned up in Salvation Army Officer’s [outfit], another time he wore the uniform of a Russian rear-admiral, while his chief’s costume, which was worn many times, he varied with all kinds of decorations. Once he covered his [Native] dress with some thousand poker chips in various colors, while another time he [was] asserted to have worn attached to his dress, a set of church collection plates.

The Chief stored all of his uniforms in a ebony coffin which he had shipped to Alaska. He was deathly afraid of being buried alive and left “most explicit instructions” to make certain that he was indeed dead. There were several tests involved, including the “discharging of a cannon near his ear.”[26]

* * *

Rivalry between Alaskan cities at the turn of the century was not unusual. In October of 1905, the Seward Daily Gateway cheerfully described the fate of 14 workers for the Alaska Central Railway that had gotten off the steamer Santa Clara in Valdez:. [The Santa Clara] started with 70 [workers] but at Valdez fourteen misguided creatures fell victims to the alternating currents of hot and cold air generated by the boomers and the glacier, or [were] overcome by the coffin varnish dispensed there as whiskey, and dropped by the wayside. From some cause they are now classified on the books as “lost, strayed or stolen.”[27]

* * *

In August of 1905, when a dam outside of Valdez broke and flooded the city, the Seward Daily Gateway remarked that the bowling alley and several saloons were flooded. In the case of the former it was temporarily impossible to set ’em up in any alley and in the saloons visited by reckless waters “chasers” of great volume were about all the barkeeps could set up for a little while and no glasses were required. It has not yet been learned whether any whiskey was injured by mixing with the fluid abhorred by all Kentuckians.[28]

* * *

In December of 1900, S. L. Colwell of Nome was walking home when he was accosted by a thug with a mask holding a revolver. The bandit demanded that Colwell throw up his hands, which Colwell did. “But in throwing them up he took special care to throw his right hand, tightly clenched, under the thug’s jaw.” The criminal fell to the ground whereupon Colwell “administered a kick or two with heavy overshoes” and continued his promenade.[29]

* * *

Mt. McKinley was originally known as “Denali,” the “Great One” by the local Natives. The Russians named it “Bolshaya,” the “Great One,” and later it was known as “Densmore’s Mountain” for a local prospector. It was not until 1896 when W. Dickey of Montesano, Washington , named it “McKinley” did the name stick. But the name stuck because, as legend has it, because Dickey was a Princeton man, and his tales of Alaska were given great credence in the America press. Today, “Denali” is the name of the national park in which Mt. McKinley is located.[30]

* * *

As of September 15th, 1900, “all parties employing females in saloons or permitting them to drink at the bar of saloons” were in violation of the law.[31]

* * *

Wyatt Earp accepted the job as Deputy Marshal of Wrangell for ten days. His name “was a big help,” reported his wife, in a town so rough that Wyatt referred to it as “Hell-on-wheels.” On one of those ten days Wyatt was called upon to disarm a man waving a pistol about in a saloon. After the man had given up his pistol, he realized that he recognized the aging lawman.

“By Gawd, y’all’re Wyatt Earp ain’t you?”

After Earp nodded in the affirmative the man replied, “By damn if this don’t beat all! Here I go to the end of the earth, and the first man I run into when I let off a little steam is Wyatt Earp. Y’all threw me and a bunch of the boys in the pokey in Dodge City for the same thing twenty years ago!”[32]

Of more dubious authenticity is the claim that while in Alaska, Wyatt Earp met Butch Cassidy. And, on the same trip, allegedly, was the Sundance Kid. But there are some holes in this supposition — setting aside the generally-held belief that both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had been killed in Boliva in 1908. Supposedly the two former members of the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang met with Wyatt at his “gambling joint” in Anchorage in 1912. Doubt is cast on this allegation as Wyatt left Alaska in 1901 and was never in Anchorage because the city did not exist at that time. Further, in 1901, the whereabouts of Butch Cassidy were well known to the law enforcement community and his haunts did not include Alaska. The only reason this account should be given some credence is that Butch Cassidy’s sister, Lula Parker Betenson, confirmed that Cassidy under the name of William T. Phillips made a trip to Alaska, possibly in 1912.[33] But then again, Wyatt Earp was not in Alaska in1912.

* * *

The mainstay of most stampeders was beans and beans and more beans which was not particularly appetizing. When men had the money to order good food, they went for the American fare of meat and potatoes. But the memory of beans and beans was hard to forget. Reverend Rowe reported watching a sourdough who made big order a hearty meal of steak and potatoes. Then, at the last moment, the man ordered a plate of beans. When the beans came, the sourdough set the plate on his water glass and addressed the vegetables: “There, damn you, watch me enjoy a feast.”[34]

* * *

Since men outnumbered women by nine to one, it wasn’t hard for the women to dip into the miners’ pockets with ease. It was infinitely easier than standing hip-deep in any icy stream and dumping gravel into a sluice box. Thousands of women worked as dancehall girls, prostitutes, “actresses,” cardsharps and salon shills adding spice to the reputation of Alaska. Sometimes their names told all, like Ethel the Moose, Nellie the Pig, Three-Way Annie, Fewclothes Molly, Short and Dirty, Passionate Annie, May the Cow, Kitty the Bitch and others. Brothels were common and were usually open around the clock. But just like the miners, a few prostitutes left Alaska wealthy but most simply slipped into the pages of history as colorful vignettes of the wild and woolly north.

* * *

Many of the missionaries suffered scurvy, a disease the Natives somehow avoided. Some of the results of scurvy were open sores on the body and receding gums to the extent that teeth would fall out. One of the cures was the consumption of a raw, grated potato mixed with vinegar.[35]

* * *

In August of 1900, Barney Durand of Nome started the first shelter for “homeless and destitute canines.” A venture of the private sector, Durand would gather up stray dogs and charge the owners two dollars per animal and 50 cents per day to redeem the animal. By his third month in business he had gathered 160 dogs which created such a sanitation nightmare that to find the establishment all one had to do was “follow your nose.” Those dogs which died were buried on the grassy slope above the pound where derelict prospectors some of whom “got as high as one hind leg and a lobe of liver to the pan.”[36]

* * *

Sometimes the news coming from the Interior was spotty. The Seattle Times, in April of 1899, reported that in Circle on a date unknown “Bruce Lloyd, well known on the inside, married somebody and the result was a great celebration.”[37]

* * *

A uniquely Alaskan remedy for frostbitten fingers and toes was to immerse them in port wine.[38]

* * *

Even in the winter there was a way to make a dollar honestly. During the winter of 1901–1902, Dell Clark of Council City cut 30 tons of ice and packed them in sawdust anticipating that ice would be in great demand the next summer. This monopoly, the Council City News reported, was “probably why [Clark] has of late talked so much about the rights of trusts and monopolists, and walked around whistling, ‘Wouldn’t You Like to be an Iceman Now?’”[39]

* * *

Freida Goodwin, an Eskimo in Kotzebue who remembered the coming of the miners in 1898, recalled that they “put up lots of tents” to the east of what is now the city of Kotzebue. As a humorous aside, when the missionaries came to Kotzebue that year the women wore long dresses, something the Eskimos had never seen. The dresses hung all the way to the ground and covered the women’s feet. When the Eskimo children first heard the stomping of shoes they “wondered what kind of feet those women had since they always made noise. We tried to see their feet when they were wearing, but we couldn’t because of the long skirts. We wanted to see what kind of feet they had.”[40]

* * *

There are many tales, a great many of them apocryphal, of the reaction of Eskimos to the white man’s culture. One story, possibly true, relates how an Eskimo woman feared she would be unable to find her hotel room in the ten-story, San Francisco establishment and “blazed a trail with a jackknife on the banister all the way down the stairway.”[41] Other stories have Eskimos referring to a phonograph as “Canned White Man.”[42]

* * *

The Skaguay News ran a special on what women should be bring on the trek to Dawson. Written by a woman, Annie Hall Strong, the article emphasized that it took “strong, healthy courageous women to stand the terrible hardships that must necessarily be endured.” Only those women who were willing to subject themselves to such conditions should consider the trip, a journey that was ill-suited for “delicate women” or those who “love luxury, comfort and ease.” With the exception of the clothing, the list is nearly identical to that which a man should bring, which is understandable, but some of the unusual items suggested by Ms. Strong include “house slippers” and “knitted slippers.” She also suggested that the best footwear would be a “tall bicycle shoe with extra sole.”[43]

* * *

The mystic of Alaskan men also permeated to the lower states. In July of 1906, the Fairbanks Times reported that an article in a Seattle paper had informed matrimonially-minded single women in the contiguous states that there were “4,000 husky and well-fixed miners in the Fairbanks district that are pining for married happiness.” This brought a number of letters to the Fairbanks Times which were published. As could be expected, most of them seemed too good to be true. One woman asked for a husband who had a “pocketbook that holds enough for two.” Another woman, perhaps not sure how to approach to dating game, listed herself as “a healthy young woman, weight 180 pounds.” Some sent photos[44]

Not all communities welcomed the civilizing influence of women that easily. A few months later, in Wrangell, a Bachelor’s Club was established and a real war of the sexes began. In the vein of humor, the Fort Wrangell News printed a column entitled “Reflections of a Bachelor” with such classic tidbits as:

Reasonable women are about as rare as peaches without fuzz.

No girl has any idea how much she cares for a man till she begins to have an idea how little he cares for her.

A woman’s opinions on politics are just about as pronounced and reliable as her opinions on the women her husband knows but she doesn’t.

A woman is pretty sure to see that the whole family hears her when she tells her husband he ought to be ashamed to talk so to her before the children.[45]

A Bachelor’s Club was soon formed in Fort Wrangell and then the war of the sexes erupted. The meetings were well publicized, and members of the Bachelor’s Club objected and speeches were made which “roasted to a fine brown” newspaper reporters. The meeting was adjourned to another location to avoid the prying eyes of the press and at that meeting, covered by the press, J. F. Collins did an oration on “The Death of Ceasar.”[46]

A week later the Club met again. Even though the location of the meeting was changed to prevent the news media from discovering its whereabouts — and the password was changed as well — the newspaper carried an article on the gathering. Then the president read a letter of protest from the “grass widows, genuine widows and maids” of Wrangell — 17 of whom signed the petition — to become an auxiliary. Now the fuse was lit. Col. Crittenden, who was hosting the secret meeting that everyone seemed to know about, immediately protested. Collins, who had given “The Death of Cesar Oration” the previous week, gave a ten minute speech in which he said he “had no use for women” and at that comment, “everybody commenced to snicker.” One of the bachelors present “nearly burst his sides with laughter” while Colonel Crittendon “crammed a rag into his mouth to suppress his mirth.” Several other men made statements, many of which were met with a horse laugh. When the mirth had subsided, the petition of the women was rejected.[47]

There were several secret meetings the next week and at one of them, the President read an anonymous letter he had just received:

You Old Sausage Cover:

You think you have did a bright thing in not lettin us women come to the club and jine it. You think you is smart don’t you? You are nothing but a lot of pumpkin rollers and gum chewers anyhow. I once though you was kinder nice, but this letter will let you know how I have changed my mind up.

Hatefully yours, An Old Maid

Then he gave a short speech about how he had “never been called such names before” and that he wasn’t against women, just against them in the club. Other speeches were made regarding the depressing nature of the letter and the president concluded that being called a pumpkin roller “was not to be passed over lightly” and suggested that a future meeting look into the matter.

As the speeches were winding down, a knock on the door attracted everyone’s attention. Though the stranger had the proper password, the doorkeeper was sure it was a woman. Three men were chosen to investigate the sex of the intruder. It was concluded that it was indeed a man and he was admitted. Shortly thereafter the meeting was adjourned.[48]

For several weeks thereafter, the antics of the secret meeting of the Bachelor’s Club were published the paper, including a satirical eye-witness account of a woman who swore she had attended one of the meetings dressed as a man. Eventually the Club passed from the scene, but it did serve to illustrate that in the more established communities — Wrangell having its birth in the 1830s — the refining influences of a feminine presence were not so highly prized.

* * *

While the demand for women, and particularly single women, was high, marital bliss was not universal. In Nome, Captain and Mrs. Banks had a parting of the ways in November of 1900, according a front page article in the Nome Chronicle. Mrs. Banks “picked up her doll rags and flew” from the room of her husband leaving him to “wrestle with a lot of wine bills and an angry creditor or two.” Mrs. Banks had married the Captain under the impression that he was a wealthy man. When it appeared he could not even pay the $500 for their drinks and the honeymoon apartment over the Nevada Saloon, she “flew the coop” leaving him to pay the bills.[49]

What makes this particular story memorable was that the Banks marriage had been headline catching. On September 24 of that year, Lillian Dale — the future Mrs. Banks — was seeing two men at the same time, Banks and a gambler named Riess. She apparently gave both men cause to believe that they were favored in her eyes. When Banks went to get a minister, Riess locked himself in the woman’s boudoir and refused to let Banks in or the woman out. Harsh words were said on both sides of the portal with curses that would have crinkled paint. Curses were followed by each party threatening to fire through the flimsy door. Neither party relented until the United States Deputy Marshal arrived and demanded that the door be opened. The door was opened and a few minutes later, Lillan Dale became Lillian Banks.[50]

* * *

Because there were so many Scandinavians in Fairbanks it was said that “Swedes were cheaper than timber.”[51] (At that time, the terms Scandinavian and Swedish were synonymous.)

* * *

In 1898 there was a brief fling at a colony of Finlanders to be established in the Yukon Valley. J. A. Nordenskeld of Helsingfors, Finland, and eight other Finlanders arrived in the Yukon Valley to prospect for land. As the Yukon Valley was at a similar latitude as their country, they felt they could raise crops as well in Alaska as Finland. These crops included oats, potatoes, rutabagas and beets. While wheat was not a viable possibility, Nordenskeld said, barley was, a fact taken by heart by the State of Alaska in the 1980s when the Delta Barley Project was established in the Fairbanks area.[52]

In 1903, there was still talk of settling Finns on an agricultural colony in Alaska. The Alaska Colony Company had been established to bring “shiploads of hardy immigrants of the agricultural class.” The draw of Alaska on the Finns was strong because “the people of Finland are, as a rule, tillers of the soil and nothing else.” Further, the Finns had no love for their sovereign who, at that time, was the Czar of Russia. (Finland would not declare its independence from Russian until December 6, 1917.) Therefore, “the bird of freedom holds a much higher place in the minds of these humble people than does the Russian bear.”[53]

Sheldon Jackson also convinced the United States government to contract with some individuals to choose the best place for a colony of Lapps in Alaska. After more than 1500 miles of exploring up the Yukon and Kuskokwim watersheds, the Lapps chose Unalaska as the most likely spot for the colony.[54]

* * *

There was quite a bit of myth in the early writers when it came to the Alaska Native. Since readers were expecting igloos, naturally, the diarist provided just that. Dietz, who survived the trek across the Malaspina Glacier reported that the Natives of Yakutat had “ice huts” and it was “like solving a Chinese puzzle to get into one of them without a guide.”[55] There may be some truth to this because the snow in Yakutat can get so deep that getting into a structure requires, quite literally, tunnels through the snow.

* * *

While Sheldon Jackson looked upon the establishment of reindeer stations as a success, many other Alaskans did not. These individuals looked upon the reindeer stations as “experimental” and did little good for too many Natives lived where the stations were not.[56] Mortality among the reindeer being transported from Siberia to Alaska was high. In November of 1901, it was reported that of the 425 reindeer that left Siberia, only 254 made it ashore alive. Some of the mortality was due to natural causes, like “being constantly thrown down by the action of the ship.” But other reasons for deaths of reindeer was the result of human stupidity. When the transport ships were assembled, the feeding troughs were built too high for many of the animals to reach.”[57]

* * *

Drunken Indians were treated by the press either as sad characters or comical for their antics. For instance, the death of “Humpy Stephen,” a well-known drunk around at the turn of the century, was treated with humor. Humpy, so named for a physical deformity, was officially a resident of “Tyoonok, but his habitat embraced the entire Cook Inlet region, especially the localities where the white man’s hooch grew rankest.”

Humpy had been a “sort of assistant priest or servitor in the Greek church” but was better known for his conniving skills which he practiced upon the religious brethren. When his con games left his short of cash, Humpy “would induce the lambs of his flock to join him in a poker game, in which he usually sheared them.” Inevitably, “all the Indian money came his way, but he always put it into circulation again and it gravitated rapidly to the white man.” Humpy came to sad end reported the Seward Daily Gateway, when he, under the influence of “Cook Inlet Vodka,” fell into the waters of Resurrection Creek. When his body was recovered, “it was found that his spirit had flown to the happy hunting ground.”[58]

* * *

As could be expected, the Natives were none too pleased with the miners and anyone of the white persuasion after the plague of 1900. Dr. Romig, a doctor in Bethel, reported that a missionary he had sent into the Arctic, a Native named Neck, found that at first the Natives of the north “would not let him talk” and when he tried to conduct religious ceremonies, the Natives “blew out the candles he tried to use in the ceremony.”[59]

* * *

When E. T. Barnette’s wife filed for divorce in San Francisco in September of 1918, she released two letters which her husband had written to his mistress, Mrs. Dorothy Pullen of New York. Mrs. Pullen apparently liked Alaskans for she had had affairs with both Barnette and his good friend and well-known womanizer, Leroy Tozier. Tozier had such a satyrific appetite that even Swiftwater Bill, legendary for his peccadilloes, noted that in Nome, Leroy Tozier was such a ladies man that “if I wanted to locate him at once, do you know what I would do? I’d go outside and make a noise like a woman’s skirt rustling.”[60]

* * *

By 1905, the concept of Alaska as being the wild and wooly north had changed substantially. When a stampede occurred on the Bearpaw River near Kantishna, old time Argonauts from Dawson “almost balked at the sight of women and children on the trail so close to the diggings,” reported the Fairbanks Weekly News. One of the Argonauts was quoted as saying that this strike was not

natural. It’s too tame like. You ride almost to the digging in upholstered seats on a steamer and find petticoats all along the line. I kept looking for the telegraph line, and it was hard to realize I was on a real stampede such as we used to follow in the old days. I suppose electric cars will be soon whirring up the canyon.[61]

* * *

Not everyone who invested in Barnette’s bank lost their savings. Legend has it that a man by the name of Frank Goan chased E. T. Barnette down the Circle Trail and caught up with him near Twelve Mile Summit. “You’ve got $30,000 of my money,” said Goan as he leveled a rifle at the fleeing banker. “Give me my money.” Apparently Barnette did.[62]

There have always been speculation as to E. T. Barnette’s money. Quite a bit of it went into land in Mexico. He bought a tract of land ten miles long by three and a half wide less than five miles from the ocean. His 20,000 acres cost him $2,000,000. Immediately after he bought the land he hired “the best white manager he could find” and ordered land cleared for 1,000 acres of bananas, 1,000 acres of tobacco, 2,000 acres of sugar cane and room enough for 25,000 coconut palms. He hired 150 Mexican workers and bought 1,400 head of cattle, 100 mules, 100 brood mares, 80 yoke of unbroken oxen, 40 yoke of broken oxen, and 40 saddle horses. The main house was built around a Mexican courtyard with a fountain and contained 36 rooms.[63]

* * *

At Holy Cross, the nuns didn’t help much with their attempted cure of the disease with “coal oil, flour and water, carbolic acid and whiskey.”[64]

* * *

If there was any doubt as to the existence of the Klondike Strike, it was extinguished two days later when the Portland docked in Seattle carrying more gold dust-laden prospectors. Though it was only carrying $700,000 in gold, according to the Post-Intelligencer, the Chicago Tribune jumped the quantity to “a ton.” There was so much gold on board, a Seattle paper noted, that some gold had been smuggled aboard the Portland to avoid the freight charge.

Interestingly, the vessel that brought the news of the Klondike Strike to Seattle, the Portland, made only two trips to Alaska during the Klondike era. She had been built in l885 as the Haitian Republic and began her career as a gun runner for rebels in Haiti. Four years later she was working as a cannery ship — until Federal authorities caught her smuggling Chinese and opium. She was bought at auction by the Alaska Commercial Company and renamed the Portland to be used in the passenger trade.

Adding to her fame, on her second trip back from Alaska, she was escorted by an American revenue cutter to protect her from “Chinese pirates” allegedly interested in the $2 million in gold award. The rumor that “Mongolians” had been recruited in San Francisco raised such a furor that the United States Revenue Cutter Bear was sent to look for these alleged brigands. There were, of course, none to be found.[65]

But the owners were taking no chances. A 37-mm Maxim rapid-fire gun was installed on the starboard side of the forward deck to fight off any pirates the ship might encounter. Newspapers captivated readers with tales of the romance of a treasure ship fighting off swarms of brigands of the North. Such sensational accounts turned out to be bad publicity for the Portland. She was reclaimed by her original owners and transferred to San Francisco. Thus she did not partake in the frenzied gold rush she had initiated.[66] After the enthusiasm for the Klondike Strike had ebbed, the Portland returned to Alaskan waters and sank at Katella in 19l0.

* * *

Arriving in Eagle, a Dawson sourdough noted, “I haven’t sent my wife a letter with an American stamp for three years,” one ex-Dawson-ite not an Eagle-ite reported. “Gosh, but she’ll be glad to see this!”[67]

* * *

Occasionally the steamboat inspectors did order a ship to unload because it was dangerously top heavy. In August of 1897, the Moonlight was so loaded that Inspector W. J. Bryant objected to the “several thousand feet of lumber, piled high over the rail” and ordered the lumber removed before the ship was allowed to leave port. [68] The next year, on May 30, 1898, the Captain of the Rock Island became concerned that his ship “was loaded too deep for the ocean trip” from Seattle and he ordered coal taken off the boat. Enough coal was taken off to raise the ship ten inches.[69]

* * *

In Nome, prices were so high that a quarter ($8.75 in 2010 dollars) was the smallest denomination of change used.[70]

* * *

In March of 1899, Horace S. Conger noted that the Copper River Indians were hostile — all one of them –“for he was afraid,” but Conger was able to overcome this murderous intent of the one Indian with “a little tobacco.”[71]

* * *

All manner of locomotion devices for use in northern climes were invented as well. In September of 1897, A. W. Charleston of Seattle invented a dogsled that had had a mast and sail attached. Dogs would be used to pull the sled uphill and then, on the down side, the dogsled would sail. Steering would be by a “small rudder or block of wood under the front part of the sled.” What would happen to the dogs on the downhill side of the trail was never made clear.[72]

Another invention was the “snow locomotive.” The machine had sprinklers attached to its engine which wet the snow thus making it hard and slick. The locomotive would drag cars built like sleds behind it. Invented by Powers & Simpson and first used in northern Minnesota, the snow locomotive was alleged to have the ability to carry up to 50,000 feet of logs at a speed of up to eight miles an hour. This ability made it a “Klondike Possibility.”[73]

For smaller loads there was Palmtag’s Moving House, a house trailer with treads instead of wheels. Invented by M. Palmtage of New Whatcom, Wisconsin, the vehicle had wooden cleats for deep snow and cleats for travel over ice. As designed it was seven feet wide and 24 feet wide and would weigh three and a half tons and could carry eight passengers — and would require a contingent of 10 men to clear the ice of impediments as the Moving House cleated its way along the frozen surface of the river. (It was not made clear if the 10 men were passengers as well.)[74]

Another invention of dubious reliability was the Yukon “Go-Devil,” a stern-wheel bobsled. The vehicle was 30 feet in length of which four feet was composed of the drive wheel, a large drum which had steel spikes in which to drive into the ice for traction. A seven-horse power engine would drive it over the snow and, when the ice broke, a hull could be built around the vehicle to turn it into a boat. Invented by Col. R. H. Ballinger, the contraption had the added benefit of being worth a small fortune to a large mining operation for “a well-equipped machine shop goes with the outfit.”[75]

* * *

One Argonaut , Will R. Newland, came north on the Noyo and was sleeping among the timbers on an upper deck. A great lurch threw him from his bunk onto a fellow passenger’s pet skunk. The skunk thereupon “opened fire with his machine gun and poured hard and fast volley after volley” forcing the men to take themselves and their bed clothing outside.[76]

* * *

Several West Coast cities claimed they were the “Gateway to the Klondike.” Not the least of these was Seattle whose businesses struck it even richer than the miners on Bonanza Creek. All this was thanks to the unsung and unheralded Erastus Brainerd.[77] Born and raised on the East Coast, Brainerd began his career as a journalist. He wrote for the Atlanta Constitution and Philadelphia Press and was working for the New York World when he received an unexpected offer. In l890, a friend, W. A. Bailey, bought a struggling newspaper, the Seattle Press, and urged Brainerd to run it. Brainerd accepted the offer and came to Seattle. But his tenure was not long. He resigned shortly after arriving in Seattle to become a state land commissioner. His stay at this job was also brief. With the next election, he was out of a job.

Brainerd then served in a number of capacities, one as the Paraguayan consulate in Seattle, and was looking for other means of employment when the news of the Klondike Strike reached Seattle. Brainerd’s moment of opportunity rode the same tide as the gold ships. The Seattle Chamber of Commerce, attempting to secure its slice of the Klondike outfitting pie, named him to head a committee to look into the matter.

Brainerd was perfect for the job. A master of innovation, his journalistic background was put to good use in producing a stream of press releases and magazine articles. Further, as he knew quite a few East Coast editors on a first-name basis he would have no trouble getting Seattle news into the nation’s presses. With a fat expense account and a pen, Brainerd helped change the face of the Pacific Northwest forever.

He began his campaign conventionally: he advertised. But he did more than just place a few newspaper ads in a handful of papers. He blitzed the nation. Seattle was advertised in more newspapers, journals, magazines, tabloids and periodicals than all the other West Coast ports combined. From Hearst’s New York Journal to the myriad of smaller, regional and rural papers, he beat the drum for Seattle. Ads praising Seattle’s unique qualities and its proximity to the Klondike also appeared in such magazines as McClure’s, Century, Cosmopolitan, Munsey’s, Scribner’s and Review of Review’s.[78]

Brainerd pioneered techniques that would be used so effectively in the future. One of his innovative techniques was to pair civic-minded individuals and recent arrivals to Seattle with their home towns. Then, subscribing to a clipping service, every time Seattle was mentioned in any newspaper across the country, Brainerd had someone who could write to their home town paper and demand a correction, if necessary, or send a follow-up letter to the editor about the wonders of Seattle as the gateway to Alaska and the Klondike Strike. Usually the people “sending” the letter just signed their names to pre-written letters of which Brainerd had many. This duplicity did not diminish the value of the correspondence. Letters were published by the hundreds and Brainerd’s campaign for free publicity was off to a running start.

He also coordinated a letter-writing campaign to mayors across America offering advice and information for Argonauts and trumpeting the virtues of Seattle as a Klondike way-station. Pictures of Seattle were sent out gratis and Brainerd persuaded the State of Washington to produce a guidebook — which, of course, advertised Seattle as the gateway to Alaska and the Klondike — and sent it out as a promotional item. If there were any questions, he stated in the correspondence, please feel free to contact me in Seattle. He was flooded with responses. To each correspondent, he continued to preach the virtues of Seattle.

Brainerd would also mine new articles from old ones. He generated magazine articles from news stories and then wrote news stories from the magazine articles he had just written ad infinitum. This Niagara of words poured out-of-state to the armies of journalists hungry for Klondike News.

With an eye to convincing Argonauts to spend their equipment dollars in Seattle, he published a document called “Distance, Dangers and Probable Expenses” discussing the nuts-and-bolts and dollars-and-cents of Klondike travel. When the Post-Intelligencer printed a special Klondike insert, Brainerd bought l00,000 copies and sent them to every postmaster, library and mayor across the United States.[79] So great was Brainerd’s impact on the United States that in March of l898, Seattle formed a Bureau of Information to handle the increasing number of letters seeking information on transportation and outfitting for the Klondike Strike.[80]

Business in Seattle boomed. In August of 1897, the income of its businesses doubled.[[81]] But even this was not enough. The city’s merchants wanted to make every cent off the trade they could. Thus, in the Spring of l898, Brainerd was given another assignment — again with an unlimited budget. His instructions were simple: arrange to have the United States assay office for Klondike gold established in Seattle.[82] With the assay office located in Seattle, merchants could take advantage of both ends of the gold rush. They could sell supplies to miners on their way north and then providing the luxury items after the successful Argonaut had converted his yellow metal to cash.

Brainerd’s legacy was visible even in his lifetime. The push by Brainerd and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce to make Seattle the leading West Coast shipping port was stunningly successful. By October of l898, Seattle had doubled the output of San Francisco in the St. Michael trade and dwarfed that of Vancouver, Victoria and Portland as well. In the race for mercantile supremacy, Portland failed to even make an honorably showing. In the l898 shipping season, only two ships left Portland for St. Michael as opposed to 34 from Seattle. Portland tonnage for the entire season was 688 tons while Seattle’s was 22,000.[83]

* * *

Paul Makinson, working as a deck hand on the Ida May as she made her way up the Yukon, reported that the meat used for feeding the passengers was hardly kept in sanitary condition.

The meat was stored on the afterdeck; it was kept under a heavy canvas tarpaulin, which ran over a wooden frame and was fastened down at the four corners. This meat consisted of a couple sides of beef, about three whole hams, and a couple of sides of pork. We had no means of refrigeration on board, so the meat was hung where it would remain the coolest. I had the job of sweeping out the pilot house, which was up on the top of the Texas deck. And I went there and swept worms and maggots out of the wheel house; it sickened me. The captain said, ‘Do it early in the morning before the passengers are awake so that they won’t know.’”[84]

* * *

One of the nagging incidents which took place at the border was the brother of the California Gold Rush poet Joaquin Miller who “cut the halyards and pulled down the British Custom House flat which was flying over the place where British officials were transacting business connected with the Custom House. He kicked it contemptuously and threatened to do the same every time it was hauled up.”[85]

* * *

Just before Klondike Fever infected the world, many predicted that the strike would amount to very little. William M. Sauers of Gray’s Harbor, Washington, reported that Skagway was a ghost town in October of 1897. “A deserted village composed of disheartened men without money and without prospects,” he told the Seattle Times, “Skaguay is certainly a ‘busted’ town.”

There is no record of Mr. Sauer’s comments a year later.[86]

* * *

Skagway also had its novelties, including the blind Italian accordion player, an enterprising Italian from Naples who made a fortune selling balloons to the Argonauts, “Peter the Apostle” who patrolled the White Pass giving assistance and spiritual guidance to the flood of humanity, and the Kilkenny Wildcat, a boxer from Seattle. The Kilkenny Wildcat, it should be mentioned, went into a rage whenever he heard the sound of bagpipes. Fighting “The Platteville Terror,” a bartender in Skagway, bets were running heavily against the Wildcat. Midway through the fight it was apparent why. At a critical juncture in the fisticuffs, the plaintiff moan of bagpipes broke out. As the Wildcat looked around in a frenzy for the purveyor of such music, the Platteville Terror knocked him out.[87]

* * *

Skagway is Alaska’s windy city. The town gets its name from the local Indian word “Skagus,” meaning “Home of the North Wind” while Dyea originally meant the “carrying place” in Tlingit.[88] Skagway certainly lived up to its reputation as one Argonaut noted. The wind blows like the “mill tails of hell,” B. E. Axe reported.[89]

* * *

Mail was also important to the Argonauts and the postman was an important part of the rush. In Dyea, for instance, the post office was open Monday through Saturday and “a line of people anywhere from a couple of dozen to 300 to 400” would be waiting to check for mail. Further, since the postmaster would not allow any man to take mail for more than two people, men who came into town for ten people had to wait in line 5 times to get all the mail for their party. Because of the waiting time, it was not unreasonable for a man to spend a day and a half in line only to find that there was no mail for him or any of his party. The Postmaster at Dyea, Clara H. Richards, claimed that if she allowed men to ask for mail for more than 2 persons, she would have ended up with a line “several hundred feet long” in front of the Post Office every day.

The mail coming into Alaska at the start of the gold rush was no less voluminous. In February of 1898, the United States Post Office reported that it had received 135 sacks of mail in three and a half days — about a three and a half tons. Outgoing letters were being sent at the rate of 600 per day, the highest in the United States since 1884.[90] Postmaster was paid 10 cents a letter. Some men coming down from Dawson were charging a dollar a letter for delivery in Skagway. C. W. Watts reported that a man came from Dawson with 100 letters for which he was charging a dollar apiece. “He said he could just as well have brought 1000 — think of that,” Watts declared.[91]

There were so many Argonauts that the mail was backlogged, often sitting in port for weeks, victims of both the weather and too many recipients. Often the mail was taken to Dawson by enterprising individuals who charged a dollar a letter for the service. Wilson Mizner reported that he once received 26 letters in this manner — and 11 of them were bills.[92]

* * *

For a party of five, the recommended food list included:

350 pounds of flour

150 pounds of bacon

100 pounds of beans

15 pounds of tea

25 pounds of rice

50 pounds of dry salt pork

100 pounds of dried fruits

50 pounds of salt

2 pounds of evaporated vinegar

20 pounds of condensed milk

50 pounds of corn meal

50 pounds of rolled oats

50 pounds of coffee

100 pounds of sugar

25 pounds of dried beef

25 pounds of evaporated potatoes

10 pounds of evaporated onions

10 pounds of baking powder

2 pounds of condensed soup[93]

Were these foods adequate? In April of 1995, Sandra C. Burnham, M.P.H., R. D., a chronic disease nutritionist working for the State of Alaska, Department of Health and Social Services, Division of Public Health, examined the Argonaut ‘s list of food for its nutritional value. Basically, and to her surprise, she found that the foods were adequate.

“Considering what we know today and they didn’t know then, the foods as listed would support someone for a year.” If these foods were all someone ate, Burnham estimated that an Argonaut would consume about 5,000 calories a day, twice what an adult is eating today. But, she noted, “The [Argonauts] were probably doing much more physical labor/activity than your average 1990s kind of guy so they needed a lot of calories.” Additionally, “there aren’t any fresh fruits and vegetables” she noted, “and [the list is] a little low on Vitamin A, and calcium while the sodium and phosphorous content is a bit high.”

But was it healthy? “Yes,” stated Burnham, “but it’s not a very exciting diet.”

* * *

Wilson Mizner, a dubious character in his own right, reported that in Soapy Smith’s saloon he had an “accommodate” in the table where he played poker. This accommodate was in the form of “an almost invisible slit” in the felt of the table from which Soapy would “improve his hand.”[94]

* * *

A family by the name of Finnegan figured to cash in on the men flooding north and built a small, rickety bridge just outside of Skagway. Then they tried to collect tolls. That only worked until so many Argonauts were crossing the bridge that there was no way to enforce payment. So the Finnegan’s stopped asking for the toll and set up a saloon.[95] In the end, the family probably prospered more from the saloon than the toll road.

* * *

Though Alaska was not even a Territory in 1904, it discovered that often international events where played out on the streets of its cities. In August of 1904, while the Japanese-Russian War was raging in the Far East, a fight broke out between Japanese and Russian miners in Douglas. It began as a quarrel between “a son of the Mikado” and a “former soldier of the Czar.” When the fight erupted, more than 100 Japanese and Russians were involved and “staves and clubs and hob-nailed boots were used to effect.” One man had an eye put out and another a leg broken but, as quickly as the trouble stated, it ended. By the time the Marshal got to Douglas the next morning, all was calm.[96]

* * *

A little known fact of the Alaska Gold Rush is that the man responsible for the building of the Valdez to Eagle section of the telegraph line that was to link Alaska with the rest of the country was young Lieutenant by the name of William “Billy” Mitchell. Mitchell was appalled at the rush into Barnette’s cache in the middle of the winter but there was little he could do about it. “People like this should not be allowed to proceed,” he said the rushers who were afoot in the Alaskan winter with inadequate clothing and scant supplies of food. But there as nothing he could do about it as he was in the military and the rush was a “civil matter and I had no jurisdiction.”[97]

* * *

For more than six decades there has been a battle going over who was the first to climb Mt. McKinley. Frederick Cook claimed that honor and even had the photographs to prove his claim. However, careful examination of the photographs reveals that he probably did not reach the summit of the mountain. As late as 1996, the dispute was carried to a mock courtroom where Bradford Washburn showed documentary evidence that proved Cook could not possibly have done that he claimed to have done. Cook, in absentia because he had been dead for five decades, was represented by a court appointed attorney because the Cook Society refused to participate.[98]

The first party to reach what was believed to be summit was the so-called Sourdough Expedition. There were originally four men in the party — Charlie McGonagle, Tom Lloyd, Peter Anderson, and Billy Taylor but only two of them, Taylor and Anderson, made it to the crest of the north peak. There they planted their flag pole on the 18,470 foot level and claimed their place in mountaineering history. Only later was it discovered that they had not put it on the highest elevation, the south peak, which is officially 20,320 feet.

* * *

John Sidney Webb, writing in The Century Magazine in 1898, noted that “Alaska is a country of more square miles than square meals.”[99]

* * *

While there may have been men a plenty in Nome, some jobs were so unpleasant that manpower had to be gathered in an unusual manner. In June of 1908, the first case of land shanghaiing occurred when Otto Zoeckler and D. B. Patterson “were fallen upon by a band of fierce walrus hunters, taken from their beds and forced to drink drugs which made resistance on their part useless.”

However, it soon became evident that the crew of shanghaied walrus hunters were worse than no crew at all. Though the captain was cruel, the moment his back was turned shanghaied crew members would dash for the galley or the warm fur robes which were lying on the deck. Then the crew proceeded to eat until all of the provisions were gone and drink until all of the drinkables were consumed. In two days the ship was back and the shanghaied men beached outside of Nome.[100]

* * *

When a merchant could corner a market, he did. In October of 1902, two Nome merchants cornered the market on beer and, in a single day, jumped the price from $17.50 to $23.50 a barrel. Other prices were rising as well leading some to speculate that a winter of “famine prices” reminiscent of Nome’s recent history would prevail.[101]

* * *

In December of 1900, Tom Stevens and his partner Bill Lawson had a shootout over a woman in Teller. Lawson got the worst of the deal. He took three .41 slugs and his chances for recovery were “about even.” The two had been partners for years and Lawson, on what could very well have been his deathbed, insisted that nothing be done to Stevens as the fracas in which he took the four slugs was “only a family quarrel.”

* * *

In March of 1908, two Greek prospectors, Andrew Carllis and Rossetos Bortolis, were found frozen stiff. They had apparently been on the trail to the camp in Sinrock when they became lost in the storm. They had been missing 19 days when their sled was found, complete with their dogs still tied to the traces. The dogs, weak from hunger, “had been feeding upon the bodies of the dead. Two thirds of the flesh [was] eaten from both and in a number of instances the bones [were] bare.”[102]

* * *

According to the affidavit of Reimond Matlayo, a “native of Austria,” he estimated that 200 men had been killed in the Treadwell Mine and that he had personally seen 20 men killed and over 50 men injured by blasts or falling rocks. The Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Embassy wrote a letter of protest to the Governor of Alaska on May 3, 1910, protesting treatment of its subjects in the Treadwell Mine strike.[103]

* * *

While gold rushers would rush just about anywhere there was alleged to be a strike, the individuals most interested in a strike were the merchants. The real money wasn’t made in finding gold; it was made in selling merchandise to the miners. Thus it was in the interest of the merchants to get to a rush site quickly and the encourage other miners to join in the rush. This was called “boosting.”

In August of 1900, Charley Suter of the Cabinet Saloon in Nome reported that there was a “host of real estate boomers” at Port Clarence, 100 miles north of Nome on the coast, claiming “mild weather, good climate and everything under the sun that is desirable for a boost.” Wind, however, was not being mentioned by any of the boosters. Suter reported that while he was in Port Clarence, “the wind blew so hard . . . that front doors had to be fastened permanently and an entrance made at the back or leah side of the tent or building.”[104]

Today, Port Clarence is an abandoned United States Coast Guard LORAN station and those who have been stationed there will attest that the conditions described by the boomers do exist — for about a week-and-a-half each year.

* * *

As a young lawyer working as an Assistant United States Attorney, George Grisby — later a legend in Anchorage legal circles until as late as the 1960s — was infamous for his practical jokes. In Nome about 1900 he dared a lawyer to call the new judge, Alfred S. Moore, a “red headed sonovabitch.” The lawyer took up the challenge and told the judge “There are people at the bar who call you a red headed sonovabitch. I, of course, defended you.”[105]

* * *

Robert Dey reported that the Siberians wore “white man’s underwear” and had seen the Natives “stripping the fat off the entrails of a seal and eating it while it [was still] steam[ing] with animal heat.” As to personal hygiene, “their filthiness is most too horrible to describe and I dare say they never in their lives had a bath. Nevertheless, the passengers eagerly bought their lousy furs off their backs and expect to use them. I say lousy because I have seen them crawling over them thicker than mice in a corncrib.”[106]

* * *

Joe Carroll, a mail carrier of Nome, decided that there was an easier way of making a living. On December 31, 1900, he collected $2,000 for the delivery of letters to Dawson, and then ran up his debt in Nome buying a sled and provisions by promising to pay for them the next day. That night “got drunk, stole six dogs, left his letters and pulled out on the trail before daylight.” When the decamp of Carroll was discovered, those he had swindled grabbed rifles and “went in pursuit of the man with orders to shoot him on sight.” But Carroll’s lead was substantial and he escaped, probably into the Kotzebue area.”[107]

* * *

Rex Beach described Ramparts as a community that was “a mile long and eighteen inches wide, consisting of saloons, dance halls [and] trading posts.” He spent the winter there and, come spring, had the grand total of six dollars pass through his hands.[108]

* * *

James Herdman, in the Tyonek area near Anchorage, reported that the liquor there was known as “Hoocheru,” which he made from “three gallons of crude ‘Island’ sugar and 50 pounds of graham flour.” This batch made five bottles which were quite potent. After draining the five bottles in a Christmas celebration, one of the distillers had to be dragged home by his arms.

“The next day,” Herdman reported, “the Indians were out pointing and laughing at the snaky groove in the snow.”[109] How the Indians knew what tracks a snake would make is not clear.

* * *

“Dutch Mike” Max Gottschalk was a notorious bootlegger during the Alaska Gold Rush in the Nome area. To cover his tracks, confuse authorities, and upset a competitor, Gottschalk once painted his boat so it would like that of his competitor, and sold liquor to the Eskimo. Then, before he returned to Nome, he repainted his craft.[110]

* * *

In May of 1909, the Fairbanks News Miner reported a story that was so bizarre that the paper even checked the facts. Supposedly a flock of 1,300 sheep was moving up the trail from Valdez. Some of the old timers who knew the ways of sheep were skeptical because, in addition to the swamps, flies and mosquitoes, the flock would have to cross many streams. While a cow could swim a stream, “it [would be] up to the herders to pack or throw sheep across a ford one by one.” While other Alaskan papers commented on the existence of the sheep, there is no evidence in the Fairbanks News Miner that the flock ever arrived in Fairbanks.[111]

* * *

According to the By-Laws of the Circle Miners, membership was limited to anyone who was a “white male, of the full age of eighteen, years, of good moral character in sound health and a miner by occupation.” With regard to good moral character, members using “profane, obscene or abusive language in the hall of the Association” were to be fined $5.[112]

* * *

According to the sourdoughs,

You can always determine a camp’s age and stage of development by the price charged for drinks. Four-bit whiskey means recent occupation, unsettled conditions and the presence of one half barrel which some fellow has brought over the trail. Two-bit whiskey indicates that the regulation boom is on, that tenderfeet are plenty and regular communication with the outside world has been established. The next drop to three for a half is not a sign of a slump but merely shows that the first excitement has passed and the town is getting down to what they call a “business basis.” Fifteen cent drinks mean that the business basis is reached, courts have been established, claim-jumping has become bad form, plug hats are tolerated, and faro banks have moved upstairs. Any further decline is a danger signal. Two-for-a-quarter whiskey is a sure sign of deterioration , and five-cent beer means that a stampede has set in for the next diggings.[113]

* * *

On July 4, 1900, Clarence Warner and “Tarantula Jack” Smith staked the area which is now Kennecott, the “World Largest Ghost Town.” Eventually bought out by the Guggenheims, the Kennecott copper strike produced as much as $300 million in copper before it closed in 1938.[114]

* * *

In Fairbanks in 1904, a young Irishman, probably drunk, was brought into a hospital with a broken leg. He revealed that he believed that the walking stick he was carrying was the “invincible shillelagh” and with such he had attacked a moose. There is no reference to any damage to the moose from this ancient and feared weapon.[115]

* * *

Smuggling was common and frequent. A. H. Brown, who claimed to be an “innocent smuggler” reported how “Windy,” the bartender at the Herrington Saloon in Circle got his whiskey. Windy and an unsuspecting Brown mushed into a community unnamed and went to an unnamed company store.

Windy tried to buy whiskey with $1,600 in gold but the company agent refused saying, “You see it’s against the law for us to break the seals [on the whiskey kegs.] The stuff is bonded through to Dawson, so I can’t sell it to you.” Then, reported Brown, the clerk gave Windy a “very knowing look” and said, “You know we’re going to move the whiskey out of that old warehouse. Maybe the men will leave eight ten-gallon kegs outside tonight. But, I say [Windy], you’d better leave that $1,600 sack of dust with me if you’re afraid to carry it back to Circle City.” Thus was the transaction completed, Brown stated, as “both men were on their honor.”

Clearly the law took a different view. On the trail back to Circle, Windy took out his pistol and began cleaning it. “Officer Holmes has declared that if he ever catches me with a load of whiskey he will send me to Sitka and he swears he’ll shoot [my favorite dog] too.” Windy squinted along the barrel of his pistol and then said, “I guess he won’t be any too anxious to meet us when we get [into Circle.].”

Fortunately they didn’t. But they did get a scare at the edge of town. As they came to the custom house, the door suddenly opened and Windy snapped his revolver to the ready. Then he relaxed as a Native woman with a “guilty little laugh” ran past them. Windy’s only comment was “Durn if I didn’t really plug a hole through that squaw.” [116]

* * *

Cultural clashes between Native and non-Native were frequent. Though both ethnic groups could leave in peace side-by-side, some Native customs caused incredulity. Sorcery and shamanism, for instance, raised eyebrows when it was mentioned. Sickness was supposedly caused by evil spirits that had to be exorcised, sometimes in a painful manner. The treatment, overseen by the shaman, was considered vulgar at the very least by Americans and steps were taken to break the power of the Indian medicine doctors.

In December of 1898, for example, Captain Glass of the Jamestown, arrived in Sitka to destroy all the Native stills he could find because the Natives who were drinking hoochinoo became “veritable brutes” under the influence of the “vile beverage.” (The newspaper made no mention of destroying stills owned by non-Natives.) Additionally, to break the power of the shaman in the area, Glass “shaved off the hair of every Indian doctor he could find.” Since the Natives believed that the long hair allowed the shaman to communicate with the spirits, known as “Yek,” a shaman without long hair was like Sampson without his locks. Glass was clearly successful in his attempts to drive the shaman from Sitka for his actions precipitated the death of some of the shaman and the “remained left Sitka.”[117]

* * *

Accusing someone of being a witch was an odious charge and it has surfaced more than once in Alaskan history. John Panter was probably the first to actually be indicted. On October 19, 1898, Panter was indicted for accusing a Native woman, An-Ki-Lat with being a witch with the intent of having her driven from the Native village of Sitka. The Grand Jury charged him with “disturbing the public peace.”[118]

On March 10, 1905, Scundoo,(possibly Scumdo), an Indian in Haines, convinced an Indian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Whiskers, that he could tell them who was bewitching their daughter, Carrie Joel. Carrie was “very sick with consumption” so the Whiskers paid Scundoo “twenty three dollars and fifty cents, in money and Blankets[sic.]” After he received the money, Scundoo claimed that “Kitty Jones, and Mrs. Joe Tagcook were the witches that had bewitched the sick woman, and said that the witches must be tried for witchcraft.” After the Whiskers paid the money and blankets and the daughter did not get better, Scundoo was reported to the authorities who charged him with “intent to defraud.”[119]

This was not the only case of witchcraft to reach the courts. In December of 1909, Shorty Johnson and his wife, Mrs. Shorty Johnson, went to the home of Mrs. Phillips in Angoon and accused her of being a witch and that she was “bewitching their daughters and bringing sickness upon them which would result in death.” Mrs. Phillips was concerned for Shorty and his wife threatened to have her pronounced a witch. She had reason to be concerned for if a person were declared a witch, it was

the practice of the [N]atives to tie the witch by the hands and hair to a tree for a period of seven or eight days without food or drink and then, if the [Indian] doctor does not find that the vile spirits have been driven out of the victim, death is inflicted.”

After the United States Commissioner, Sidney E. Flower, heard the case, he had “good reason to fear the commission of a crime” and fined Shorty and his wife $100 apiece.[120]

* * *

In Nome, circa 1900 a sheepherder claimed that the dog of lawyer Albert Fink had killed 28 of his sheep. Fink turned the courtroom upside down by declaring that his dog had not killed those sheep in malice but had “repelled the attack of these bloodthirsty ship, which disfigured [his dog, Dick] forever and nearly killed him.” The sheep, Fink declared, had clearly been gored by their neighbors in the mad pandemonium. Just after the case was remitted to the jury, the offending herd of sheep came thundering down the street and Fink had to tackle his malamute to keep it from leaping in the herd to slaughter more sheep.

“Poor old Dick,” Fink said in a calming tone as the courtroom erupted into laugher. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t let those wild sheep hurt you.”

The jury found for Fink.[121]

* * *

In 1906, trials were often as animated as the crimes themselves. In January of 1906, two lawyers in Nome — Albert Fink and A. J. Daly — “engaged in a fist fight” during a murder trial. The judge had called a recess so that Daly could interview two witnesses but Daly objected to Fink’s “sticking around” and the fisticuffs broke forth. “During the melee the Court sought refuge in the Marshal’s office.”[122]

* * *

On May 22, 1906, the city of Fairbanks appeared doomed. A massive fire was threatening to burn down the entire city and all that stood between the roaring flames and extinction were the fire hoses. But there were too many fire mains opened and the pressure was dropping critically low. When word was sent to the power station for more pressure but the man operating the boilers had no more wood.

Had that man not been Volney Richmond, Fairbanks manager of the Northern Commercial Company, the city of Fairbanks would have been, quite literally, wiped off the map of Alaska. Resourcefully, Richmond ordered the larder of the Northern Commercial Company opened and 2,000 pounds of bacon removed. Slab by slab the bacon was tossed into the city’s boilers and the pressure of the fire hoses went up. Fairbanks was saved and the Northern Commercial Company was in the odd position of saving its own bacon by consuming it.[123]

* * *

Alaska writer Rex Beach noted that there were three basic commandments of the north whose violation could mean instant death:

Thou shalt not steal they neighbor’s grub.

Thou shalt not refuse him when “up against it.”

Thou shalt not send him on fake stampedes. [124]

* * *

Alaska did not have vigilante groups that would compare with the famous Committees of Vigilance of San Francisco. While there certainly were groups that gathered to deal with intolerable situations, as in the case of Skagway with Soapy Smith and Nome with Judge Noyes, in most cases the vigilantes were more of a one-time organization. In June of 1906, Joe Cook, “a professional claim jumper,” was given a choice. Leave the vicinity or be hung. Cook chose to leave.[125] A vigilante committee of 100 was established in Chena to help the police department.[126]

* * *

As most Hollywood productions revealed accurately, drunks were treated as comical characters rather than sad individuals with no self-control. A classic example of the hilarity with which drunks were treated was the McGinley vs. Cleary. In August of 1904, Judge James Wickersham was asked to make a ruling as to the legality of contract drawn up between two drunks over a gambling debt which had been written when both were in a state of advanced inebriation.[127]

Wickersham’s decision, written officially with tongue in cheek, revealed that on November 30, 1903, McGinley, the owner and bartender of the Fairbanks Hotel, had been “engaged on his regular night shift as barkeeper in dispensing whiskey by leave of this court on a Territorial license to those of his customer who had not been able, through undesired or the benumbing influence of the liquor, to retire to their cabins.” At 3 am, he and Cleary, a miner, were “mutually enjoying the hardships of Alaska by pouring into their respective interiors unnumbered four-bit drinks, recklessly expending undug pokes, and blowing into the next spring cleanup” when the men decided to “tempt the fickle goddess of fortune by shaking the [McGinley’s] dicebox.” McGinley lost badly and later claimed that his “brains were so benumbed by the fumes or the force of his own whiskey” that he was mentally incompetent in the matter of signing any IOU. His opponent, however, swore otherwise and even produced a witness. However, at the time of the dice game in question, the witness, Tupper Thompson, was as drunk as the gamblers. He had been sleeping “bibulously behind the oil tank stove” when he was rudely awakened to witness the IOU. Later, when asked of the sobriety of McGinley, Tupper replied that he, Tupper, was more sober than the barkeeper because he, Tupper, “could stand without holding to the bar.” Judge Wickersham concluded that Tupper’s testimony was not credible for, in addition to being drunk at the time of the incident in questions, “it is quite evident that [Tupper] had a rock in his sluice box.”

Cleary, the miner, then had the good sense to encourage McGinley, the barkeeper, have the IOU legally recognized. In spite of the two men’s “temporary intellectual eclipse” they did stagger to the cabin of Commissioner Cowles, about a block away. Cowles, however, was less than thrilled to see two drunks on his doorstep at three in the morning and told them to come back in the morning. When the men did return the next day, there was dispute as to whether the IOU had said that McGinley had lost 1/2 of the Fairbanks Hotel or 1/4 of the establishment, whether Clearly had agreed to give 1/2 of his mining claim to McGinley, and how the alleged loss of $1,800 in gambling debt was to be resolved. The men subsequently settled on 1/4 of the Fairbanks Hotel being given to the miner for one dollar. Both men signed the IOU.

But the tale was not over. McGinley had a change of heart soon after and brought suit to set aside the IOU “upon the ground of fraud (1) because he was so drunk at the time he signed the deed as to be unable to comprehend the nature of the contract, and (2) for want of consideration.” The “want of consideration” meant he had not received the single dollar state in the contract.

“It is currently believed that the Lord cares for and protects idiots and drunken men,” Wickersham wrote and decided in favor of Cleary. “Equity will not become a gambler’s insurance company, to stand by while the gamester secures the winnings of the drunken, unsuspecting, or weak-minded in violation of the law, ready to stretch forth its arm to recapture his looses when another as un[s]crupulous or more lucky than he wins his money or property.”

* * *

The trip home from Alaska after prospecting was not a piece of cake. In addition to the problems of being captured by the Bering Sea ice, weather was just as much a factor going south as it was going north. Though the ships were not as packed with cargo going south, they were still overloaded from a safety point of view. Food was limited and space at a premium.

In June of 1900, Deputy Collector Hatch in Sitka reported assessing fines on two ships, the barge New York and the steamer which was hauling it, John C. Barr. The duo had a passenger list of 170 but inspectors counted “100 in excess of that number.” Further, the New York had no license to carry passengers and no licensed mate on board. The barge was find $600, which Hatch declared was appropriate as “if ever there was a just fine imposed on a vessel this is one.”[128]

The schooner Hera, which left Nome September 26, 1900, was at sea for almost a month before it docked in Seattle. During the trip the passengers were “treated like dogs,” survivors were quoted as saying, and two passengers died of “starvation and exposure” while another dozen were “too weak and famished to take care of themselves.” At least one man “dropped from sheer hunger.” Another, “crazed from lack of food,” ironically, “was kept lying on the dining room table until meal time when he was placed somewhere else.”[129]

* * *

Being a literary genius does not necessarily mean that one must know how to read. This was proven by Uyaquq (Neck) of Bethel at the turn of the century. Though he could not read or write English or Yup’ik, this Eskimo developed a phonetic system for writing the Yup’ik language. While some cultures too thousands of years to master a phonetic writing system, Uyaquq did it in less than a decade and ranks as one of the few individuals in the history of mankind to have “invented” writing.[130]

* * *

So many ships using so much coal and wood necessarily stripped the forests along the Pacific Coast and Yukon River. In 1901, even after the collapse of the Klondike Strike, steamers were still using “no less than 1,000 cords of wood a day,” according to Special Agent Dixon of the Department of the Interior. [131]

* * *

When someone came down with the fever in Nome, the usual cure prescribed by “all the doctors in Nome” was “a diet of milk and whiskey”[132]

* * *

Not everyone was intent on making their money in Kotzebue Country from gold in the ground. Because there was more money to be made in transportation, chicanery was sometimes involved. Captain Jens B. Neilson of the General McPherson arrived at St. Michael from Seattle with a ship full of “coal, lumber and hardware.” Because the cargo was so valuable, he imprisoned the owner’s representative, James Poole, and sold part of the cargo in St. Michael. Then he left for Kotzebue Sound — with James Poole still under lock and key below deck — where he sold another portion of the cargo and took on passengers at $500 apiece. (Quite a steep price but then again, it was the right time of year.)

Neilson made it back to Kotzebue a second time where he sold more supplies and spent the winter — Poole still being under lock and key. In January of 1899, the McPherson was still in Kotzebue — and Poole under boat arrest — when the owners heard a rumor that Neilson was going to make a run for Manila when the ice broke. Assistance of the United States Attorney General of Alaska was requested for one of the owners to go onboard the Bear to witness the arrest of Neilson. (Neilson had done this before in Mexico where he had served time.)[133]

* * *

Infrequently the death of a Native made the news. Akpak was an exception. When he died in Council City in August of 1902, his passing made the front page of the Council City News. There was good reason for Akpak’s death from pneumonia to be publicized as it was the “first death from natural causes in the history of this section since the advent of the white man.” Though Akpak had only been 18 when he died, his funeral was attended by many residents.[134]

* * *

Some whalers, in this case the notorious James McKenna, regularly took on liquor for the specific purpose of debauchery. In June of 1904, for instance, the Nome Nugget published the apparent fact that McKenna was in Unalaska with two whaling ships and schooners which were loaded with “40 tierces (1680 gallons) of alcohol on board for Native debauching purposes.”[135]

This news story appears to have been misleading. The Revenue Cutter Service investigated the claim and found it to be in error. In fact, Captain Hamlet stated that the total amount of liquor on board was actually 12 cases. Hamlet’s investigation also revealed that McKenna had tried to trade liquor in Siberia and he had been “ordered off by a Cossack at the point of a gun.” Apparently the Russians were as displeased with the liquor traffic as the Americans. Hamlet could also find no evidence of the debauch as reported in the Nome Nugget. However, Hamlet did concede that illegal liquor was an ongoing problem as was the problem of how to keep Native women away from the men on the whaling vessels.[136]

McKenna did not drink or smoke but it was said that he would “feed whiskey to a baby.” He is best remembered as the man who traded for all the furs, seal oil and blubber on St. Lawrence Island in 1879, leaving the Natives to starve that winter. Death rates in the village of Kukulook were recorded at about 90 percent. When missionaries went to the village two years later, skeletons littered the village. Notably missing were any skeletons of children “the supposition being that they had been eaten by starving adults.”

When McKenna was appraised of the disaster, he took it as a joke. “Tut, tut, man,” he said. “I just sell then Snake River. There is so much water in the stuff it would not harm an infant.” This was little consolation for the village of Kukulook.[137]

As an interesting tidbit of history, one of the few to better McKenna was his second in command, Charles Klengenberg. Placed in command of McKenna’s second schooners, the Olga, Klengenberg gave McKenna the slip in a dense fog and absconded with the ship. When he reappeared, only five of the original nine men on board were still alive. It was the loss of the four that generated his trial in San Francisco.[138]

* * *

One of the forgotten tidbits of history is that Jimmy Doolittle, later to be famous for his “Thirty Seconds over Tokyo” grew up in Gold Rush Nome.

* * *

The wind blowing down the trail near Yost’s Roadhouse, (Mile 208 on the old Fairbanks-Valdez Military Trail, just beyond Summit Lake on the Delta River), was so strong that during the winter that some people actually died within sight of the structure. To alleviate the situation, the owner, Charlie Yost, constructed a fence where the trail crossed the Delta River. This prevented travelers who fell on the ice from being blown down the river. He also installed a bell and an outside light so that travelers could locate the roadhouse even on windy, stormy nights.[139]

* * *

The feeling was that the gold on the beach in Nome was part of a belt that extended under the Bering Sea all the way to Siberia.[140] Though nothing was to come of it, in March of 1898, the Russian Ambassador in Washington D. C. told the United States government that certain areas of Siberia would be open to mining. Specifically, the area open to claim ran from Marcia to Indian Point, a distance of about 150 miles, and mining was allowed no further than 30 miles from the coast. For all gold extracted from Russia, a tax of 10 percent would be levied.[141]

With the opening of Siberia, there was also a push for one of the great pipe dreams of the era: an Alaskan-Siberian railway. Supposedly this railway would like Skagway and Dyea in the south and Vladivostock in Siberia. In October of 1899, Captain Siem, an agent of the Kimball Company, was in Nome to make arrangements for the railway. Anticipating the opening of Siberia to mining the next year, he was in the Nome area getting the right of way for the railway — and talking about a tunnel beneath the Bering Straits. One of the touchy questions which he tip-toed around was what would happen to the claims of miners who were on the beach when right of way was granted. While Siem claimed that the Alaskan-Siberian railway “was not a scheme to gobble up the beach diggings” he did say that the rights of individual miners “would be worked out.” At the same time, he did concede that a railroad in Alaska would receive, gratis, a 200 foot wide right of way from the Secretary of the Interior, as well as land for stations and other railway yards and buildings.[142]

* * *

Men with money would often hire “bummers” for “$15 a day and expenses” to stake claims for them. This, however, was not a sterling idea as many of the bummers would drink their pay and then “appear with fictitious claim notices on mythical creeks” which were then duly recorded. Some men held as many as 6,000 acres of bogus claims.[143]

* * *

No ground was sacred to the Argonauts in Nome. When it was discovered that the graveyard had a shroud of gold covering it, the graves themselves were tunneled out.[144]

* * *

There was a lot of money to be made in the liquor business in Nome and everyone was trying to get a “piece of the action.” Wise to the ways of the world, Jordan was quick to pay a $100 “clearance charge” assessed by the ship to insure himself “against breakage.”[145] Moving quickly, he bought a lot on Front Street and erected tent, naming his business the Ophir Saloon. Jed Jordan’s “bar” was a 20-foot plank laid on barrels. There was also a shortage of bottle Miners liked to break whiskey bottles when they were through with them, and this led to a shortage of bottles.

Jordan also reported watching the drinking customs of the “Loblocks,” a derogatory term for the Laplanders who had been imported along with the reindeer from Lapland by Sheldon Jackson. One Loblock would order a drink, take a sip and pass it down the line of his friends. When the drink was finished, the second man in line ordered a drink and the sequential imbibing was repeated. Hour after hour it continued, each man taking a sip and passing it along to his neighbor.[146]

* * *

In 1898, the United States Post Office flirted with the idea of using reindeer to carry mail. The idea went as far as buying more than 500 and establishing reindeer mail stations in Haines and Chilcat. John Clum, Alaska’s first Postmaster, examined the herds in March of 1898 but the idea never took off.[147]

* * *

A saloon in Alaska, one cheechako noted was nothing more than “a tent, a board counter a foot wide and six feet long, a long fellow in a Mackinaw coat, and a bottle of whiskey.”[148] Even Tex Rickard’s Northern was “bare and barnlike” with the exception of “a long mirrored bar and a few crystal chandeliers” and, true the traditions of the Old West when you walked into the establishment, “somebody was playing an upright piano that was on a platform, but you could hardly hear it over the nose and confusion at the bar.”[149]

* * *

Even though James Wickersham brought some semblance of law and order to Nome, the city was slow to change its irresponsible ways. As late as 1903, Governor James G. Brady wrote to the Secretary of the Interior, his superior in Washington D. C., that law and order was a sham in many parts of Alaska. As one instance, he wrote of a United States Marshal in Nome who was found guilty of fixing juries and fined $300. He appealed the case and was still on duty enforcing the law. Further stalling law and order in Nome, the District Attorney had “left his post of duty and was absent all winter.” How can we expect Alaskans to feel secure,” he asked the Secretary, “if there is such law and order in Alaska?[150]

* * *

Stowaways on northbound ships were not uncommon but they were hard to spot with so many people milling around on deck and in the dining rooms. One passenger, Mont Hawthorne, on the George W. Elder reported a search by troops for four stowaways on board. Hawthorne was rooting for the stowaways and fearing what would happen when they were caught. Then he caught sight of one of the stowaways. “He was dressed up in an army uniform, and was going all around looking for himself.” The other three stowaways were also dressed like soldiers and, of course, they did not find themselves.[151]

While this story is very fanciful, it might not be true. Depending the date when Hawthorne made his trip, the troops may very well have been black and the majority of the passengers and stowaways white. But then again, the stowaways could have been black as well.

* * *

John Clum, Alaska’s first Postmaster noted in St. Michaels that one of the vessels on its way to Kotzebue had “a full blown brass band which discoursed sweet music as the setting sun gilded the sky and sea with a glorious blending of most exquisite tints.”[152]

* * *

Florence Hartshorn recalled that most of the clothing she saw on the Chilkoot Trail was somber gray. But “one young man added a bit of color,” she reported, “in the form of scarlet. His name [was] not known but everyone knew of his presence.” Later she learned that his name was Jack London.[153]

* * *

Tales of evil-doers flaunting the court system are as old as America and the Alaska Gold Rush was no different. In the early days of Nome, a rich pimp was brought before a judge on the charge of running a brothel. At that time the established fine was $1,000 — $27,000 in 2010 dollars — and the pimp decided to flaunt the court. So he set about to collect every dollar bill he could find. When he was able to find 1,000 one dollar bills, he made a great show of dumping the thousand dollar bills onto a table in front of the judge.

The judge sat back in his chair and said, “. . . and one year in prison. Do you have that in the grip?”[154]

* * *

The firewood shortage in Nome was so severe in the winter of 1899 that every source of the substance was exploited — including Native burial caches. Frances Fitz reported seeing a burial cache with a sign that read “Please do not use this grave for firewood.”[155]

* * *

On August 20, 1900, Edward C. Hasey, United States Marshal for Ketchikan, wrote to United States Attorney General for Alaska, James M. Shoup, in Juneau regarding a death in Ketchikan. The report, in its entirety, stated:

August 13, I received a warrant to arrest one Daniel Robinson for assault and after several unsuccessful chases, I at last came up to him and placed him under arrest. He resisted and in the scuffle that ensured, he being armed with an oar, I received some injuries, arm and ribs broken and a few other small ones. He succeeded in getting away. He then armed himself with a rifle and a revolver and announced his intentions to kill me and leave the country. Learning he was coming, I took a rifle and went out in front of the jail, and when he came I fired first. Attached please find copy of coroner’s jury inquest. I am still doing the business of this office.

[This is from Steven Levi’s HUMAN FACE OF THE ALASKA GOLD RUSH available on Kindle.]

[156]

[1]Brown, pages 116–7.

[2]Kosmos, pages 27–8.

[3]Gilbert, pages 19–20.

[4]Gilbert, pages 27–29.

[5]Stikeen River Journal, June 24, 1899.

[6]Young, page 159.

[7]Harris, page 218.

[8]Harris, page 225.

[9]Harris, page 227.

[10]FACTS & DATES, 697.

[11]WORLD ALMANAC.

[12]Ravitz, page 7.

[13]”Yukon River in Alaska’s History, page 83.

[14]Hartshorn, Dyea, page 3.

[15]Moffit, page 47,50,61, and 18.

[16]”Noah’s Ark,” Valdez News, July 12, 1902; August 10, 1902, Nome Nugget; May 9, 1906, Dawson Daily

News. The article in the Dawson Daily News indicated that the structure could have been a Russian fort which had floated away in high water. But how such a structure could have floated away and become beached “on a high hill” was not explained.

[17]Cole, BARNETTE, pages 42–3.

[18]”Broke Jail,” June 14, 1902, Valdez News; “Koon Case,” Valdez News, June 21, 1902.

[19]”Horror of the Klondike,” New York Times, June 20, 1899.

[20]”Were Starving,” August 31, 1901, Valdez News.

[21] Farnsworth, page 24.

[22]“Indian Eats his Family,” Nome News, April 27. 1906.

[23]”Skaguay Preacher Skips,” June 24, 1899, Stikeen River Journal.

[24]”Nearly Lynched,” June 18, 1906, Fairbanks Times.

[25]”Horses Eat Up the Street,” June 2, 1905, Fairbanks Times.

[26]”Picturesque Indian is Dead,” Seward Daily Gateway, October 1, 1908.

[27]”Santa Clara Arrives,” Seward Daily Gateway, October 16, 1905.

[28]”Dam Breaks at Valdez,” Seward Daily Gateway, August 28, 1905.

[29]”Outwitted the Thug,” Nome Chronicle, December 1, 1900.

[30]Barry, page 66.

[31] “Saloon Men Are Notified,” Nome Daily News, September 15, 1900.

[32]Earp, page 160.

[33]Pointer, page 219 and Kirby, page 111. Butch Cassidy, according to Pointer, lived into the 1930s in

Spokane, Washington, under the alias of William T. Phillips. The Sundance Kid, according to Kirby, lived under the alias of Hiram Bebee and died in 1955 at the Utah State Prison in Salt Lake City. With regard to historical documentation regarding Cassidy in Alaska, this author could find none.

[34]Jenkins, page 185.

[35]Savage, page 81.

[36]”Home for Indigent Dogs,” Nome Chronicle, August 22, 1900.

[37]”Suffering at Circle City,” Seattle Times, April 27, 1899.

[38]Chitna Leader, December 10, 1910.

[39]”Stored His Ice,” Council City News, May 24, 1902.

[40]Goodwin interview.

[41]Jordan, page 19.

[42]Jenkins, page 186.

[43]”From a Woman’s Standpoint,” Skaguay News, December 31, 1897. Anna Hall Strong was the wife of J.

F. A. Strong, Governor of the Territory of Alaska form 1913 to 1918.

[44]”Alaskans Are In Big Demand for Husbands,” Fairbanks Times, July 19, 1906.

[45]Fort Wrangel News, June 15, 1898.

[46]”The Bachelor’s Club,” Fort Wrangel News, August 31, 1898.

[47]”The Bachelor’s Club,” Fort Wrangel News, September 7, 1898.

[48]”the Bachelor’s Club,” Fort Wrangel News, September 14, 1898.

[49]”Left Banks to Pay the Bills,” Nome Chronicle, November 17, 1900.

[50]”Locks Up the Captain’s Bride,” Nome Chronicle, September 24, 1900.

[51]Engstrom, page 46.

[52]”Finlanders in Alaska,” Seattle Times, February 1, 1898.

[53]”Colonize Alaska,” April 4, 1903, Valdez News. This was a reprint of a “dispatch” that had been

published in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

[54]”Lapps to Colonize Alaska,” July, 1897, The Eskimo Bulletin.

[55]Dietz, pages 69–70.

[56]”Indians Neglected,” Valdez News, August 16, 1902.

[57]”Many Died,” November 16, 1901, Valdez News.

[58]”Mumpy Stephen Drowned,” Seward Daily Gateway, November 11, 1905.

[59]Anderson, page 237.

[60]Jordan, page 201.

[61]”Stampeders Line Trail,” Fairbanks Weekly News, August 9, 1905.

[62]Wendt, page 21.

[63]”Captain Barnette Buys Wonderland,” Fairbanks Daily News, March 12, 1909.

[64]Fortuine, page 222.

[65]Robertson, page 51.

[66] Berton, pages 122–123; Morgan, 161; “A Gun to Guard Gold,” Post-Intelligencer, August 28, l897; “In

the Drydock with a Maxim Gun,” Post-Intelligencer, September 3, l897. The last article includes a freehand sketch of the gun and its mount.

[67]Davis, SOURDOUGH, page 225.

[68]”Moonlight Goes Tonight,” Seattle Times, August 24, 1897.

[69]Rock Island log book, May, 30, 1898.

[70]Fitz, page 46.

[71]Conger, page 209.

[72]”A New Dogsled,” Seattle Times, September 17, 1897.

[73]”Is a Locomotive a Klondike Possibility,” Seattle Times, December 4, 1897.

[74]”Whatcom Klondike Scheme,” Seattle Times, November 27, 1897.

[75]”A Yukon ‘Go-Devil,’” Seattle Times, December 31, 1897.

[76]Newland, page 1.

[77]Morgan, pages 159 to 168. Purely by accident the author came across a microfilm of the scrapbook of

Erastus Brainerd at the Rasmuson Archives at UAF. Alas, the microfilm was so poor that I could not make out any the articles. The original scrapbook is in the Library of Congress and appears to be a a collection of news articles and letters.

[78]”City will Advertise,” Post-Intelligencer, August 31, l897.

[79]The special Klondike issue for l897 appeared on October 13, l897.

[80]”All Questions Answered,” Post-Intelligencer, March 27, l898.

[81]Berton, pages 113–114.

[82]Speidel, page 332.

[83]”Convincing Evidence that Seattle has the Great Bulk of the Alaska Trade,” Post-Intelligencer, October

20, l898.

[84]”Yukon River in Alaska’s History,” page 83.

[85]Governor John G. Brady to Secretary of the Interior, June 29, 1901, Revenue Custom

Agent Files, NA-AR.

[86]”Unfortunate Skaguay,” Seattle Times, October 2, 1897.

[87]Collier, pages 249–252.

[88]Pillips, page 43.

[89]Axe, February 3, 1898.

[90]”Post Office Business,” Skaguay News, February 18, 1898.

[91]Watts, January 20, 1898.

[92]Sullivan, page 107.

[93]”When and How to Outfit,” Skagway News, December 31, 1897.

[94]Johnston, MIZNER, pages 86–7.

[95]Morgan, pages 39–40.

[96]”War Spreads to Alaska,” Nome Semi-Weekly News, August 12, 1904.

[97]Cole, BARNETTE, pages 47–8.

[98]”McKinley Brouhaha Goes to Court,” Anchorage Daily News, February 4, 1996.

[99]Webb, The Century Magazine, March, 1898.

[100]”Shanghaied on Nome Streets,” Nome Pioneer Press, June 1, 1908.

[101]”A Big Boom in Booze,” Council City News, October 25, 1902.

[102]”Two Men Meet Death — Are Eaten by Dogs,” Pioneer Press, March 31, 1908.

[103]Letter is in the Law and Order file of the Office of the Territories papers, National

Archives — Washington D. C.

[104]Nome Daily News, August 30, 1900.

[105]Cravez, page 24.

[106]Dey, page 14.

[107]”Destination is Unknown,” Juneau Record Miner, March 31, 1900.

[108]Ravitz, page 7.

[109]Herdman, page 15.

[110]”A Man Fit to Become A Legend,” Anchorage Daily News, April 17, 1995. There is a photograph of

Max Gottschalk in Burnham’s RIM OF MYSTERY facing page 48.

[111]”Mystified by Sheep Drive,” Fairbanks News Miner, May 26, 1909,

[112]Bylaws of the Miners of Circle, Alaska State Library.

[113]”The Alcoholic Thermometer,” Nome Chronicle, August 11, 1900.

[114]CORDOVA TO KENNECOTT, pages 9–13.

[115]Dean, page 72.

[116]”An Innocent Smuggler,” Seattle Times, August 25, 1898.

[117]”Sorcery is Practiced,” Skaguay News, December 16, 1898.

[118]United States vs. John Panter, Sitka Criminal file, Box 15, RG 21, NA-AR.

[119]Skagway Criminal File #191, Box 4, NA-AR.

[120]United States vs. Shorty Johnson and Mrs. Shorty Johnson, Sitka Criminal File #695, Box 22, RG 21,

NA-AR.

[121]Hines, pages 123–136. It is rumored but cannot be confirmed that Albert Fink was later the lawyer who

defended Al Capone.

[122]”Lawyers Fight in Court,” Council City News, January 27, 1906.

[123]Kitchener, pages 1–3.

[124]Ravitz, page 10.

[125]”Nearly Lynched,” Fairbanks Times, June 18, 1906.

[126]”Vigilantes to Assist Federal Officials,” Alaska Forum, June 3, 1905.

[127]McGinley vs. Cleary, Alaska Reports, Vol. 2, Third Division, Fairbanks, August 8, 1904.

[128]Hatch to Collector of Customs, June 28, 1900, Customs.

[129]”Death from Starvation,” Nome News, March 10, 1900. Author’s note: The length of time between the

incident and the news story is probably due to the lack of ability of news to get to Nome during the winter.

[130]Lenz, pages 22–3.

[131]”News of the Northwest,” Valdez News, November 16, 1901.

[132]Young, ADVENTURES, page 65.

[133]Donald H. Smith to United States Attorney General, January 28, 1899, Custom Service Records.

[134]”’Good Injun Gone Muckey,’” Council City News, August 9, 1902.

[135]The line came from “News of Whalers,” published in the Nome Nugget on June 15, 1904. This author’s

source was the Revenue Cutter Service records, NA-AR.

[136]Hamlet to Secretary of the Treasury, November 12, 1904, RCS.

[137]Burnham, pages 68–9. There is a photograph of some of the bones and skulls at Kukulook opposite page

96.

[138]Bockstoce, WHALES, pages 332–4.

[139] ALASKA’S HISTORIC ROADHOUSES,page 20.

[140]Campbell, CAPE NOME, page 5.

[141]”Siberia is Open,” Nome News, March 24, 1900 and “To Develop Siberia,” Teller News, August 29,

1901.

[142]”Next a Railroad,” Nome News, December 23, 1899.

[143]Jordan, pages 40–1.

[144]Lomen, page 21.

[145]Jordan, page 34.

[146]Jordan, 36.

[147]Clum, March 28 and 29.

[148]Morgan, page 40.

[149]Hines, page 5.

[150]Brady to Secretary of the Interior, May 18, 1903, RCS, NA-AR.

[151]McKeown, page 95.

[152]Clum’s notebook which has no page numbers.

[153]Hartshorn, Dyea, page 3.

[154]Chase, SOURDOUGH, pages 173–174.

[155]Fitz, page 67.

[156]