Alaskan History
Luck is often an essential factor in historical research, but researchers must be lucky enough. In my case I was lucky enough in 1980 when I found the John W. White and James T. White Papers in the archives of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. That collection of diaries, correspondence, photographs, and ethnographic material has resulted in forty years of writing Alaska’s history, especially as it pertains to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Revenue-Cutter Service (a predecessor of the U.S. Coast Guard) in Alaska’s waters. This is one more story. On April 6, 1900, California physician James T. White was assigned as surgeon for the Alaska cruise of the Revenue Cutter Hugh McCulloch. Although White’s original orders stated that his appointment would last only until the McCulloch returned from a brief northern cruise, he was obviously also informed that once he reached the Alaska port of St. Michael he would be reassigned to the Revenue Steamer Nunivak. The stern-wheeled Nunivak, commanded by Lt. John C. Cantwell, had already spent one year patrolling the Yukon River in the wake of the Klondike Gold Rush and, after reprovisioning at St. Michael, would start up the Yukon again in the summer of 1900 (see Map). White had many interests aside from his medical profession. He was particularly fascinated by Native ethnology. He had collected over 500 Alaskan and Siberian Native “curios” that became the core of the University of Washington Museum’s ethnographic collection. He was also a naturalist, a photographer, a diarist, and a bit of an artist. With an opportunity to study Athabascan Natives living along the Yukon, he wrote to John Wesley Powell, director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, requesting Smithsonian Institution publications that might help him in collecting ethnological data. Powell wrote back, wishing White success in his research but explaining that many instructional manuals that might be useful were out of print. Powell did send White a copy of the Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages (written by Powell himself) and recommended that White use it in his studies, as familiarity with linguistics was key to ethnographic research and rapport with Native groups. White would not receive Powell’s reply until the Nunivak returned to St. Michael in the summer of 1901, but even without that assistance he compiled Native vocabulary and place-name lists while the Nunivak was iced-in on the Dall River, a thousand miles upriver from the Yukon’s mouth, where the cutter spent the winter of 1900-1901. On March 18, 1901, as preparations were underway to cut the Nunivak Gary C. Stein received his Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in 1975 with fields in Western American History and U.S. History to 1860, specializing in Native American History. He has worked as a research historian for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources in Anchorage, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. His personal research interests gravitated toward the history of the RevenueCutter Service in Alaska. He has retired to Florissant, Missouri and is hard at work writing up all the research material he gathered in Alaska more than 40 years ago. Gary presented a version of this article at the Western History Association's 2020 annual meeting. You can write to him at drgarystein@gmail.com
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