Alaskan History Magazine March-April, 2021

March-April, 2021

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Alaskan History

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March-April, 2021 This cover image is a vintage postcard from the publisher’s collection showing the White Pass & Yukon Railway bridge over Dead Horse Gulch, on White Pass, 18 miles east of Skagway. Known as the Switchback Arch Bridge, it was designed by the Atlantic, Gulf & Pacific Co. of New York, and built by the Puget Sound Bridge & Dredging Co. of Seattle. The 400 foot long steel cantilever bridge, soaring 215 feet above the White Horse Fork, was the highest and farthest north steel bridge at that time (1901). It was built to eliminate a troublesome switchback in the original route.

Inside this issue: • John Ballaine & the Alaska Central Railway - Forerunner of the Alaska Railroad.

• St. Michael - Protected from the harsh weather of the open sea, this port became an important stop in the all-water route from ports on the west coast to the Klondike gold fields.

• Malamute Joe Henderson - By Thom “Swanny” Swan. Henderson’s goal was to follow the roughly 4,500 dog sled miles that Leffingwell explored and re-shoot photos of the same features to document the changes.

• A Woman Who Went to Alaska - May Kellogg Sullivan’s journey to the Yukon and Alaskan goldfields in 1899, a year after the height of the Klondike Gold Rush.

• The Cache Creek Murders - Disputes over mining rights in the foothills of Denali led to the brutal murder of four miners in 1939, and a mystery which has never been solved.

• John Phillip Clum - U.S. Postal Inspector John Clum was appointed in 1898 at the height of the Klondike and Alaskan gold rushes. For over ten years he oversaw post offices in Alaska.

• Dog Team Postcards - Intrepid and colorful mushers with their sled dogs stretched out before them were a popular subject for postcards sent home by Alaska’s first tourists.

www.alaskan-history.com www.northernlightmedia.com alaskan-history.com

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Alaskan History Mar-Apr, 2021 VOLUME 3, NO. 2 ISBN 9798706298463

Published bimonthly

by Northern Light Media

MEMORABLE PHOTOGRAPHS INTERESTING SCENES FROM AROUND THE NORTH - 6

ALASKAN HISTORY

John E. Ballaine and the Alaska Central Railway In 1902 a young real estate and newspaper businessman named John Ballaine founded a railroad beginning at the head of Resurrection Bay, with the help of his brother Frank, $2,000 in soldiers’ script and $4,000 in cash, and backed by $30 million in capital from a group of Seattle business owners.

He also founded and named the town of Seward, and his visionary railroad would one day become the southern terminus of The Alaska Railroad.

Article begins on page 22

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Engine #1, the first engine of the Alaska Central Railway, arriving in Seward, 1904. Originally built in 1883 for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

March-April, 2021 ST. MICHAEL

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GATEWAY TO THE YUKON AND THE KUSKOKWIM This port, protected from the harsh weather of the open sea, became an important stop in the all-water route to the Klondike via the Yukon River.

INTRODUCING MALAMUTE JOE HENDERSON

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BY THOM “SWANNY” SWAN Henderson’s goal was to follow the roughly 4,500 dog sled miles that Leffingwell explored and re-shoot photos of the same features to document the changes.

A WOMAN WHO WENT TO ALASKA

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MAY KELLOGG SULLIVAN The author’s journey to the Yukon and Alaskan goldfields in 1899, a year after the height of the Klondike Gold Rush.

THE CACHE CREEK MURDERS

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AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY FROM 1939 Four brutal murders in the gold fields west of Talkeetna brought a full-blown FBI investigation; sixty-seven single-spaced pages in length.

JOHN PHILLIP CLUM

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U. S. POSTAL INSPECTOR From the brawling streets of Tombstone, Arizona to the gold rush camps of Dyea, Nome, and Fairbanks, Inspector John P. Clum made sure the mail got through.

DOG TEAM POSTCARDS

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MUSHING THE MAIL, FREIGHT, & PASSENGERS The early postcards mailed from Alaska often featured colorful sled dog teams with their loads of freight, passengers, and mail.

“The novelty of everything, the excitement which came each day in some form or other, was as agreeable as the beautiful summer weather with the long, quiet evenings only settling into darkness at midnight.”

-May Kellogg Sullivan, page 30

Cover Notes, In this Issue . . . . . . . 1

Memorable Photographs . . . . . 6 - 7

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . 2 - 3

Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 to 39

Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Special Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Magazine Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Resources used in this issue . . . . 48

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Alaskan History

Alaskan History

Publisher’s Note

M•A•G•A•Z•I•N•E March-April, 2021 Volume 3, Number 2

Email Newsletter Twice weekly, free or paid subscriptions

In January I began sending a twice-weekly newsletter based on the articles appearing in the current and back issues of Alaskan History Magazine, and the response has been superb!

There are two versions:

Published by Northern Light Media Post Office Box 870515 Wasilla, Alaska 99687 (907) 521-5245 www.Alaskan-History.com Email AlaskanHistory@gmail.com Newsletter http://www.fsubstack.com/ alaskanhistory Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/ AlaskanHistory/ Twitter https://twitter.com/HelenHegener Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ akhistorymagazine/

ISBN 9798706298463

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• A free subscription includes at least one weekly update, news of issue contents, occasional articles and excerpts, and access to the first two years of archived back issues (2019-2020).

• A paid subscription ($5/month or $40/year) brings all of the updates, all of the articles from the print magazine (posted one or two per week), commenting and discussion of posts, and access to the complete archives through the current issue. A new feature for all subscribers is excerpts from the books published by Northern Light Media, see the website below for titles.

I am still searching for a workable solution for returning to print issue subscriptions; but for now the issues will remain available only on a per-issue basis from Northern Light Media, from Amazon, or from your favorite book source. The newsletter is an excellent way to stay updated on when new issues are available!

And now let’s explore more Alaskan history!

Helen Helen Hegener, Publisher • Northern Light Media ~ http://www.northernlightmedia.com • Alaskan History Magazine ~ http://www.alaskan-history.com • Newsletter ~ http://substack.com/alaskanhistory

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March-April, 2021 • Email Newsletter Alaskan History Magazine offers a twice-weekly email newsletter, free to everyone, or a $5.00/month subscription includes updates, all of the articles from the magazine, full access to the back issue archives, and other features. All of the articles from the first two years of the magazine (2019-2020) are available for anyone to read free at www.substack.com/alaskanhistory

Inspiring Alaskans

• Resources used in researching the articles for each issue are shared on page 48, with links to the websites, PDFs, videos, and digital media. The online resources are linked when the articles appear in the newsletter, which is sent via email and archived online at www.substack.com/alaskanhistory • The Facebook group for Alaskan History Magazine provides more access to the history of our great state, with links to the current issue, the website, the newsletter site, and interesting articles from other sources sharing an interest in northern history. Check it out at www.facebook.com/groups/AlaskanHistory/ • Social Media Alaskan History Magazine is active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For information visit the website: www.alaskan-history.com • Back Issues of Alaskan History Magazine are always available, and every bimonthly issue is 48 pages, full color, and ad-free. See the Northern Light Media website for details about ordering a single issue or a complete set. www.northernlightmedia.com • Books from Northern Light Media focus on the history of the North: • The Alaska Railroad: 1902-1923 • Alaskan Roadhouses • The 1935 Matanuska Colony Project • Matanuska Colony Barns • Alaskan Sled Dog Tales • The Beautiful Matanuska Valley • The First Iditarod • The All Alaska Sweepstakes • The Yukon Quest Trail Other titles at the website www.northernlightmedia.com

Frederick Mears Lieutenant Frederick Mears was the General Superintendent of the Panama Railroad in Central America, and also of the company’s steamship line, with six large ships under his command, when he was chosen as one of three members of the Alaskan Engineering Commission in May, 1914, to oversee construction of the Alaska Railroad.

During WWI he built a railway system for the Allied Forces in France.

After the war then-Colonel Mears returned to Alaska to complete the Alaska Railroad as Chief Engineer.

Fort Mears on Dutch Harbor was named for him.

The spirit of Frederick Mears inspires every issue of Alaskan History Magazine!

For information visit:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AlaskanHistory/ https://twitter.com/HelenHegener https://www.instagram.com/AKHistoryMagazine/

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www.alaskan-history.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Alaskan History

Memorable Photographs Capturing Alaska’s History on Glass Plates and Film

• Right: Mrs. Gasser and her pet cat, at Rampart, 1912-1914. [U. of Alaska Fairbanks, Rivenburg Collection. UAF-1994-70-242] • Below: View of rocks across from lagoon just before you get to Kugruk Bend on Imachuk side, Boris Magrids and Mrs. Holiday; Mr. Holiday took the picture. Near Deering, August, 1912. [Alaska State Library, Robin A. Daily Photograph Collection. ASL-PCA-112] • Page 7: Top: Five men and one boy on a boat named the “Ankle Deep” on the Chena River after a bird hunting trip, 1905-1917. [U. of Alaska Fairbanks, Albert Johnson, photographer, UAF-1989-166-462-neg glass] • Bottom: Fort Liscum, Summer 1914. Fort Liscum, which operated from 1900 to 1923, was located three miles from the head of Valdez Bay. The site is now the terminus of the TransAlaska Pipeline. [U. of Alaska Fairbanks, Jim Oyler Collection UAF-1986-37-51]

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March-April, 2021

Alaska’s Digital Archives: https://vilda.alaska.edu

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Alaskan History

Redoubt St. Michael, illustration from “Alaska and Its Resources,” by William Healey Dall, 1870

St. Michael waterfront, looking from the inner harbor toward the site of the North American Transportation and Trading Company’s plant, 1904. [J. C. Cantwell, Report of the Operations of the U. S. Revenue Steamer Nunivak on the Yukon River Station, 1899-1901. Washington, D.C.: U. S. Government Printing Office.]

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March-April, 2021

Postcard with caption “General view of St. Michels, Alaska” Note the spelling, one of several variations.

St. Michael Gateway to the Yukon and the Kuskokwim Treeless, windswept, boggy St. Michael Island, 8 miles wide and 36 miles long and separated from the mainland by the North Branch of Big St. Michael Canal, lies along the southern coast of Norton Sound, off the Bering Sea, 125 southeast of Nome and some 48 miles southwest of Unalakleet. Adjacent to the southeast part of the island lies St. Michael Bay, the closest deepwater port to the mouth of the Yukon River, approximately 40 miles to the southwest.

This port, protected from the harsh weather of the open sea, became an important stop in the all-water route from Seattle, San Francisco, and other ports on the west coast to the Klondike and Fortymile gold fields via the Yukon River. For those who did not care to face the harrowing challenges of the notorious Chilkoot Pass and a wild trip down the lakes and rivers to Whitehorse and Dawson City, the St. Michael route offered an easier and more convenient, although much longer, trip.

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The Russian redoubt (fortified trading post) at St. Michael, circa 1843. [From A Russian Scientific Expedition to California and Alaska, 1939-1849: The Drawings of I. G. Voznesenskii, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 2]

Historically, the first non-native settlement was St. Michael Redoubt, a fortified trading and supply post established by the Russian-American Company in 1833, at the location of what is now the city of St. Michael. The fort, established by order of Ferdinand Wrangel for trading with the Yu’pik people of the area, would later be used as a logistics point for the exploration of southwestern Alaska and the Alaskan interior via the Yukon and other rivers.

In his 1870 book, Alaska and Its Resources, scientific explorer William Healey Dall described the redoubt: “It is built of spruce logs, brought by the sea from the mouths of the Yukon and Kuskokwim, which annually discharge immense quantities of driftwood. This is stacked up by the Russians in the fall, for miles along the coast north and south of the Redoubt, and is carried in winter to the fort over the ice by means of dogs and sleds. No other fuel exists on the island and adjoining shores. These are entirely destitute of wood, if we except low, scrubby willows and alders, which are found in the vicinity of water.”

When the Russians left Alaska after the territory’s purchase by the United States in 1867, the Alaska Commerical Company took over the operations, but several of the Russian post's traders stayed behind, as St. Michael remained a popular trading post for Eskimos to trade their goods for supplies. William Dall’s very detailed 1870 description continues: “The fort is composed of log buildings with plank roofs, placed in the form of a square, and with the intervals filled by a palisade about ten feet high, surmounted by a chevaux-de-frise of pointed stakes. This is continued round the eaves of the buildings. There are two outlying bastions, pierced for cannon and musketry, and containing a number of pieces of artillery of very small

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March-April, 2021 calibre and mostly very old-fashioned and rusty, except two fine brass howitzers of more modern manufacture. The principal buildings are the commander’s house,—consisting of two private rooms, an armory and a counting-room, or contorum,—a couple of buildings used as storehouses, a bath-house, and separate houses for married and unmarried workmen.

There is a flagstaff leaning apologetically as if consciously out of place, and a gallery for the watchman, who is on duty day and night, with reliefs, who tolls a bell on the hour to notify the inmates that he is not asleep.”

Dall’s description of the redoubt, inhabitants, and daily life at the trading post is available online at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/1870alaskaitsres00dalluoft The first prospectors reportedly arrived at St. Michael aboard the steamship Dora in 1880.

As river traffic increased with the discoveries of gold in Alaska and the Yukon, St. Michael became the transfer point for passengers and freight from ocean-going ships to the shallowdrafted steamboats which could ply the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers. As demand for the smaller boats grew, St. Michael also became a construction center for river steamers. Private enterprises flourished with the river traffic, with one hotel, Healey’s, reportedly designed to accommodate 500 guests, and estimates of people wintering at St. Michael while awaiting transportation to or from the goldfields ran as high as 10,000.

St. Michael, 1901, showing the Russian blockhouse, made of wood, from the original Redoubt St. Michael, 1844. [from the U. S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)]

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Alaskan History

Fort St. Michael, from a U. S. Coastal & Geodetic Survey map, 1907.

The United States established a weather station at the site sometime around 1874, a government school in 1885, and at some point before 1893 a post office; the only U. S. post office—other than the one at Circle City—between Dawson City and the Bering Straits.

In 1897 a United States military post, Fort St. Michael, was established. General Order 59, issued by the War Department on October 20, 1897, declared St. Michael Island and all land within 100 miles of the flagstaff a military reservation. The fort was surveyed the following year, and its buildings constructed, a complex of yellow and white frame buildings, including barracks, an armory, a jail, and several warehouses sporting metal siding. Along the waterfront a quartermaster’s depot and shipyard, and on the eastern tip of the island were the Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System (WAMCATS) station and the post cemetery.

When the War Department created the Department of Alaska on January 19, 1900, Fort St. Michael was selected to be the headquarters. Along with Fort Egbert, at Eagle, near the eastern extent of the Yukon River in Alaska, Fort St. Michael was initially thought to be sufficient to establish and maintain order along the Yukon River.

Fort St. Michael was the western terminus of the WAMCATS communications system, constructed by the U. S. Army Signal Corps between 1900 and 1904. When the telegraph system was replace by radio transmissions the primary reason to maintain the fort was gone, and when the Alaska Railroad was completed in 1923 the seasonal river traffic was replaced

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March-April, 2021 by year-round rail service. In 1925 the U. S. Government closed the fort. In 1929 the fourteen bodies buried in the fort cemetery were moved to the National Cemetery in Sitka, and in 1930 the Customs House at St. Michael was closed. When surveyed for the U. S. Department of the Interior in 1976, only three buildings remained of the once extensive installation; the surviving elements of the Russian redoubt and the U. S. Army fort were separately listed on the National Register of Historic Sites in 1977.

A harsh but tempered description of St. Michael is included in John P. Clum’s 1899 report titled A Trip to the Klondike: “A permanent residence at St. Michaels is not a thing to be desired, particularly by persons of sociable disposition, for the winters are long and dark and cold, for hundreds of miles in every direction the waters are locked in their fetters of ice, and from September until the following June the residents of this little island are almost absolutely cut off from communications with the outside world. There is little opportunity for divertisement beyond reading and the occasional hunt with dog teams along the coast or toward the interior. The summer season, however, is delightful, and the scenes and experiences at St. Michael will afford many fascinating memories to those tourists who are fortunate enough to pass theis way during the open season. The nearness of this locality to the Arctic Circle gives a maximum of sunshine and a minimum of twilight during June, July, and August. Although the island is entirely devoid of forests, the formation is rugged and broken, giving a mountainous effect to the general outline, and at twilight the sun tints upon the clouds and sea and landscape are often exquisite beyond description.” ~•~

Group of people standing in front of the Northern Commercial Company retail store and office, circa 1903.

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Joe breaking trail toward Barter Island. [Photo by Andrea Loveland]

Introducing Malamute Joe Henderson "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

By Thom “Swanny” Swan My home community of Two Rivers, Alaska is perched on the very edge of civilization. Traveling due north from my back door I could drive my dogs to the North pole encountering only a single dirt road and perhaps a couple of long-abandoned mining claims, but nothing else recognizable as manmade. Like the frontier communities of the eighteenth and early 19th century America, we enjoy only the basic trappings of civilization such as a small postal station, a general store and our own version of a colonial tavern.

'The Lodge' is the de facto gathering place of our community. It hosts town meetings, wedding celebrations and funeral wakes. It's where we learn the news and gossip of the day and argue over current events. Workers are hired and fired over a pint and valid real estate contracts are sometimes scribbled onto beer or whiskey stained bar napkins.

We are a community of characters and The Lodge reflects the character of our community. One of the characters I most enjoy seeing at The Lodge is "Malamute Joe" Henderson. He and I share a love of northern history experienced behind a strong team of traditional sled dogs and our conversations quickly turn to strong dogs, cold camps, earlier times and adventures of the trail. Names heard in our conversations frequently include the likes of Samuel Hearne, Alexander McKenzie, John Franklin, George Back or Dr. John Rae.

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March-April, 2021

Joe in his winter traveling garb with lead dog Ben. [Photo byAndrea Loveland]

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Tandem sleds haul supplies.

Joe’s malemutes.

Malamute Joe isn’t a 'historical reenactor' as we usually think of the term, yet he has done the most astounding historical treks I know of. During the winters of 2005 through 2008 Joe reenacted the arctic explorations of the nearly forgotten arctic explorer Ernest de Koven Leffingwell.

Leffingwell started as a leader of the Anglo-American Polar Expedition (1906-1908) to explore the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. The expedition fell apart when their ship, the Duchess of Bedford, became ice-bound and had to be abandoned. Most of the expedition members were rescued by whaling vessels, but Leffingwell and Einar Mikkelson, stayed behind. Using supplies and lumber salvaged from the wrecked ship they built a cabin on the Alaskan Arctic coast. Mikkelson stayed one more year before hiking out to publish his journals, but Leffingwell persevered and spent six winters exploring and mapping the Alaskan Arctic coast and parts of the rugged Brooks Range.

Henderson’s reenacting goal was to follow the roughly 4,500 dog sled miles that Leffingwell explored and to re-shoot photos of some of the same geographic and geologic features to document the changes that have occurred in this incredibly isolated region since its earliest exploration by nonindigenous people. At some point during Joe’s reenactment of Leffingwell’s travels he was bitten by the Arctic exploration bug, and bitten badly. Every winter since, Joe and his of team of Alaskan Malamutes have spent more than 100 days on the North Slope, exploring a new region each time.

The primary difference between Malamute Joe and Ernest Leffingwell is that the latter enjoyed the assistance of Inupiat Eskimo helpers. Joe travels alone, relying on a team of up to 25 dogs to haul everything needed to spend the entire winter exploring the most inhospitable region of our planet with no hope of resupply. At the start of Joe's expeditions his train of three sleds contain as much as a ton and a half of equipment and supplies.

Joe doesn’t make a conscious attempt to duplicate historical appearances or methods, and doesn’t claim to be anything other than a unique 21st century adventurer. Nevertheless, most of the equipment

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March-April, 2021

Taking a break at camp.

Malemute power.

and supplies he relies on for his very survival would have been immediately recognized by any Hudson’s Bay Co. engage' at Churchill or North West Company voyageur on the Mackenzie River.

"The old time Arctic explorers were provided the most modern and best equipment available to them."

Joe said. "However, through experience they learned what worked best in the Arctic. Most of the stuff that worked best then, still works best today."

One of the most obvious examples is the clothing Henderson wears during his expeditions. In his account of the Anglo-American Polar Expedition, Ejnar Mikkelson wrote “According to our way of thinking, furs, properly made, are far superior to wool, as they are warmer and lighter, while the spare clothing which we have to carry weighs considerably less than when wool is used by a sledge party.

But, of course, if furs are worn they must be soft and light, such as our clothing, which was made by natives, entirely in native fashion and from the skins of fawns shot during August and the beginning of September. A complete fur suit consists of two parkeys, that is, coats to be pulled over the head, with a hood fringed with wolverine skin attached to it. The inner parkey is usually sufficient for traveling, but whenever the party stops both ought to be put on. The fur is turned inwards on the inside parkey and out on the outside one.” (Mikkelsen 176) Leffingwell wrote, "On the upper part of the body a light fawn-skin shirt is worn with the fur next to the body. A similar shirt is worn over this one, with the fur outside. When the snow is drifting a light silk or cotton shirt is worn over all, to keep the snow out of the clothes. The writer preferred to wear a sleeveless woolen undershirt next to the skin, but this is objected to by others .... These fur shirts are furnished with hoods which fit tightly around the face. There is usually a fringe of long fur, such as wolverine or wolfskin, around the opening of the hood."

“The boots come to the knee and fasten with draw strings. For travel inland, where the snow is dry, the best boot has soles of bull caribou and uppers made from caribou legs. The soles are worn

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Alaskan History hair inside; the uppers may have the hair either in or out. For travel over sea ice, which is usually salty, soles of the hide of the bearded seal are the best which can be obtained in the country. Insoles of some kind must be worn for warmth and dryness. These insoles may be made of several thicknesses of blanket sewn together into shape or be made of grass or shredded rope. (Leffingwell 28) Like Mikkelsen and Leffingwell's garb, Joe’s outermost garments are made from the hides of caribou that he harvests and tans himself. He takes two parkas on his trips, one made of skin harvested in August for what he considers “everyday winter travels”, and the other of the thicker October fur for extremely cold temperatures. Cut square like a blanket capote or 18th century workman’s frock, these simple hooded garments help him survive actual temperatures as low as -70 degrees F, even when the wind chill factor is considerably colder.

Joe’s mukluks are also made of August hides and he wears two pair. The first is donned with the fur on the inside and the second pair slip over the first with the fur facing out. He always carries two or three extra pairs of mukluks in the sled in case the ones he is wearing become wet. His caribou hide mitts are made with the fur facing in. Because he completely wears out several pairs during a winter of travel, he carries materials to make replacements while in the field.

During a conversation at the lodge, Joe explained why historical clothing is superior. “Even the best synthetic materials trap moisture. Most of us won’t notice it too much if we’re only out for two or three weeks and have a chance to dry our gear regularly. If you have to wear your gear for longer than a few days even the best synthetic insulation and materials trap enough moisture to ice up, and then it’s like wearing a very cold suit of armor.”

Joe can only rarely ride one of his sleds until nearing the end of his trips. The weight of cargo alone is all his massive dogs can draw through the deep, dry arctic snow until they’ve consumed a lot of food. There are no established trails, so Joe spends day in and day out breaking trail on snowshoes.

Once again his preference is for traditional wood and rawhide webbed snowshoes, rather than the aluminum and nylon monstrosities of today. "Nylon, plastic parts and even some metals become extremely brittle at 40-below and colder," Joe explained. "When the temperature is as cold as 70-below I'd end up destroying the things in the first mile” A camp on the tundra.

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March-April, 2021 On the windblown drifted snows of the North Slope, Joe prefers the type of snowshoes historical Athabascan Natives called “hunting” snowshoes. Today they are called ‘Alaskan’ or ‘Alaskan trail’ snowshoes. Joe’s raquets are 12 inches wide by 60 inches long. The long, narrow shoes allow him to walk or trot with the long stride that is necessary when trying to stay ahead of 20 or more eager and energetic dogs. Though he frequently has to repair the rawhide babiche webbing, Joe says he has not yet broken a wooden frame, but that the frames do wear down relatively quickly.

"Most people don't realize that the fine snow of the arctic is extremely abrasive." Joe explained. "It works on wood just like sandpaper, so I replace snowshoes when the frames are starting to get pretty thin." Joe can usually get two seasons out of a pair of new snowshoes, but during 2013 expedition he completely wore out a new pair. "I was spending my time up in the Brooks (mountain) Range, in narrow valleys where snow tends to drift and accumulate. It was just a tough year on my snowshoes.”

There is very little natural shelter on the arctic slope, yet shelter from the 80 mph winds and -70 degree F. temperatures is crucial to survival. The closest thing resembling trees are patches of windtortured willows that border streams. Some Inuit people were adept at building temporary snow houses but Alaska’s Inupiat and Yupik Eskimos more commonly relied on tents.

Joe spent several years trying to find a tent that would meet his needs, but nothing commercially available worked. He experimented with his own designs until settling on the one he has used for many years now. While researching for his reenactment of Leffingwell's expedition, he was shocked when he saw a photo of Leffingwell's Native-designed tent. It was nearly a mirror image of the design that Joe spent so many years trying to develop.

Leffingwell wrote "The tent used by the Eskimo on the north shore of Alaska is the warmest and safest that is known to the writer. The framework consists of about 20 light, curved willow sticks, which are stuck up in the snow and lashed into a hemispherical form. Over this framework two thicknesses of light cloth are thrown. Snow is then shoveled around the margin of the tent to hold the cloth in place. The low, rounded form and the numerous sticks enable this tent to withstand anything short of a hurricane. The two light covers with the enclosed air space are many times as efficient in insulation as a single thickness of the heaviest canvas, so that at night the heat emanating from the occupants will keep the temperature notably above that of the air outside." (Leffingwell 21) Camp Comparison

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Ice-block entryway to Joe’s tent.

The old Eskimo design is simple and easily erected even in 60 mph winds. The tent was simply draped over a half-oval frame of willow sticks, creating a structure similar to an Eastern Woodland Native wigwam.

Joe explains that inside the tent it’s important to dig down several feet, or as far as possible when there is little snow, leaving a “cold hole” for the frigid air to seep into. The elevated sleeping and living platform takes up about two-thirds of the remaining tent space. Like Leffingwell, Joe heats his tent with a small sheet iron stove, burning the dead willows or driftwood he collects wherever he encounters them.

Most of the 'small stuff' in Joe's outfit is also as historically authentic, and as useful, as the tools of the 18th or 19th century Hivernant. His ice chisel with a 6 foot handle is identical to the 'tranche' referenced in many Hudson’s Bay Co., Northwest Co., and other northwestern fur trade documents, and is used for the same tasks. With a 26 inch handle, his axe is similar to the 'half-axes' that were a mainstay of the historical trade.

Provisions for Joe's expeditions contribute most of the weight to the massive load on Joe's sleds at the start of his expeditions. Most of that is feed for his dogs. Years of breeding the traditional Malamutes in Joe's kennel have resulted in dogs, some weighing over 100 lb., that are particularly easy keepers. Although Joe's Alaskan Malamutes are unusually large, his team of 20 to 25 dog teams require no more than 30 pounds of food per day.

Joe's own diet is restricted by gluten intolerance and sensitivity to sugars and salt. His provisions consist of meat, cheese, brown rice, olive oil and copious amounts of coffee. Like the explorers and fur-traders of old, he augments his provisions with fish and game harvested along the way. When the opportunity presents, caribou ranks high on the menu, but "I kill and eat a lot of ptarmigans." Joe said, referring to the 'white partridges' that were equally important to many historical hivernant's diets.

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March-April, 2021 The numerous lakes and rivers of the North Slope provide ample opportunity for Joe to use his ice chisel to cut fishing holes. With a simple hand-line he provides himself nutritious meals of arctic char, lake trout, whitefish and other far northern species. Henderson estimates he consumes between 8,000 to 10,000 calories per day during his adventures, and still looses weight.

"In many ways, I've spent the past 30 years rediscovering what those historical explorers knew from the very beginning." Echoing the lament of many historical reenactors Joe said, "Those old guys were really good at writing down what they did, but they almost never explained how they did it. That leaves it up to us to rediscover what they already knew. Doing so is an art, and art is an ongoing process."

You aren't likely to find Malamute Joe Henderson hanging out around a rendezvous council fire or participating in a historical reenactment. Between May and October, if very lucky, you may run across him at The Lodge after work. Between September and December you might greet him on the wellestablished trails in our community as he trains and conditions himself and his dogs. The rest of time you'll have to travel even further, literally to the end of our earth. Be sure you're wearing and carrying the proper traditional gear, though. The modern stuff sold in even the best sporting goods stores won't serve nearly so well as that which has stood the test of history when traveling beyond the end of the trail. ~•~ To learn more about Joe Henderson's amazing expeditions, visit his website at www.arcticalaskanexpeditions.com, or pick up a copy of his book Malamute Man; Memoirs of an Arctic Traveler, by Joe G. Henderson, ISBN 978-0-615-58766-0.

References: • Henderson, J: Expedition Gear: Mushing #42, May/June: 2008.

• Leffingwell, E: The Canning River Region of Northern Alaska: United States Geological Survey: Professional Paper #109: Government Printing Office, Washington DC: 1919.

• Mikkelsen, Ejnar; Conquering the Arctic Ice; William Heinemann; London; 1909.

The remnants of the cabin Leffingwell built out of his ice-locked expedition ship, the Dutchess of Bedford.

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John E. Ballaine and The Alaska Central Railway “Ballaine’s decision was a compound of necessity, careful decision, intuition, and hope.” William H. Wilson, Railroad in the Clouds (Pruett Publishing, 1977) Gold, coal, timber and other natural resources were the motivating factors in the construction of early railroads in the territory of Alaska, and there were many of them, by one count over thirty. In 1900 John E. Ballaine, a young real estate and newspaper businessman in Seattle, foresaw the value of an "all-American" route to the rich Klondike gold fields in Canada, while also noting the potential wealth of resources which opening such a route would make available in Alaska. He began investigating the options for a rail line from Alaskan tidewater, where a port could be established, to the large interior rivers such as the Tanana and the Yukon, which were already well-traveled by freight barges and big steam-driven sternwheelers.

Dismissing the sites of Cordova and Valdez due to their formidable construction problems and already being claimed by the Morgan-Guggenheim Alaska Syndicate, and bypassing what would later be the ports of Whittier and Anchorage because of tricky access problems, Ballaine settled on a site at the head of Resurrection Bay which remained ice-free even in winter. A longabandoned Native village site was located near the head of Resurrection Bay; Frank Lowell and his family settled there in 1884. In 1895, when gold was discovered in the Sunrise-Hope area, the old Native trails provided a popular access route for mail and supplies from the head of the Bay to the new goldfields on Turnagain Arm. On May 30, 1898, a small party of the United States Geological Society (USGS), lead by Lt. H.G. Learnard, landed at Resurrection Bay with the purpose of exploring the territory for a route from tidewater to the Tanana River. Learnard’s party mapped the trails from Resurrection Bay to Turnagain Arm and from Crow Creek across the Chugach Mountains to Eagle River, a route which would come to be known as the Iditarod Trail. The official reports included references to extensive coal fields along the Matanuska River, and the agricultural possibilities of the Matanuska Valley, and they influenced the decision of John Ballaine to pursue a route from the head of Resurrection Bay to the head of Turnagain Arm and thence along the north side of the Arm before curving around the bulk of the Chugach Mountains to Knik Arm and beyond.

With the help of his brother Frank and a large group of Seattle businessmen who liked his northern venture, Ballaine raised over $30 million dollars in capital and organized the Alaska Central Railroad Company in March, 1902. He acquired the Lowell family homestead, situated on land which would one day become the town of Seward, and formed the Tanana Construction Company to build the new railway.

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First completed mile of the Alaska Central Railway, and headquarters, 1904.

In 1902 Anton Eide began carrying the U. S. mail from Resurrection Bay to Sunrise and Hope under a contract which included a monthly steamer coming into the bay. Also in 1902 the steamer Bertha dropped a survey party led by F. G. Bleckly and John G. Scurry, who set out to scout and survey a route for the Alaska Central Railway Company, meeting a party at Broad Pass which was led by William G. Atwood, who had left Seattle in February bound for Nenana.

Then, on August 28, 1903, the steamer Santa Ana brought a landing party headed by the Ballaine brothers, John and Frank. They arrived with the intent to build the railroad - and with a party of settlers who would build a town to serve as the terminus. A year later there was a dock, a wharf, and a terminal, and two steamship companies were servicing the new town, the Alaska Pacific Navigation Company and the Alaska Commercial Company. By 1906 Seward was averaging 20 to 30 steamers a month.

Ballaine’s efforts to build a railroad into the wilderness exhausted his backers’ initial investment after only twenty miles of track, but the astute businessman set out on a crosscountry fund-raising campaign, extolling the virtues and the potential of Alaska, and in the wake of several gold rushes he found an interested and willing audience. In her sterling biography of Frederick Mears, the man who would one day oversee construction of the Alaska Railroad, Katharine Carson Crittenden, the author of “Get Mears!,” described Seward’s founder John E. Ballaine in colorful terms: “...a natty, energetic railroad owner, nearly bald, with a carefully clipped mustache.”

Crittenden explains what happened next: “Two financiers, A. C. Frost of Chicago and H. C. Osborne of Toronto, jumped at the chance to build a railroad in Alaska. They made an offer Ballaine could not refuse, starting their negotiations at $2.5 million. Soon after, backed by the

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Seward’s main street, 1904.

Sovereign Bank of Canada to the extent of $3.5 million, with a contingent promise of up to $18 million more, they took over the line.”

All the previous investors were paid off, Frost became president of the company, and Ballaine held a minority share of the stock. The new investors built the rail line another twenty miles, to Mile 47, before bankruptcy forced the project into receivership. The Sovereign Bank of Canada stepped in, renamed the line the Alaska Northern Railroad, and built another twenty-five miles of track. By 1908, when construction stopped, the line had reached Kern Creek, at the head of Turnagain Arm, 72 miles from Seward.

An article from the Seward Daily Gateway, on January 1, 1906, featured an article titled “How Seward Was Founded,” by John E. Ballaine, touted as “Originator and Promoter of the Alaska Central Railway and Founder of Seward, Alaska.” Ballaine wrote: When I decided, in the latter part of 1901, to organize and promote a railroad from the Pacific Coast through Central Alaska to the Yukon valley, my first aim was to establish the ocean terminus on a harbor easy of access and free from obstruction every hour of every day of the year. My other requirements of the harbor were, if possible, that it should afford good shelter, ample depth of water, terminal facilities for wharves and bunkers, adjacent room for factories and smelters, an outlet for a railroad, and land area to accommodate an ultimate population of not less than 500,000.

I held the view that the ocean terminus was of prime importance for it would serve all future generations and in time become one of the world's important centers of commercial and industrial activity.

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March-April, 2021 From every source of available information I examined in turn Tyonok, Seldovia, Knik, Port Wells, Valdez, Illiamna, Cordova Bay, Port Nellie Juan, Controller Bay, and Resurrection Bay. Odd as it may now seem, Resurrection Bay was the last that came to my notice, for it was then perhaps the least known harbor on the entire southern coast of Alaska.

My investigations had convinced me that the resources tributary to the route were diversified and abundant, including gold, copper, high grade coal, and the best timber and agricultural lands in Alaska. I therefore, in November 1902, definitely selected Resurrection Bay as the ocean terminus of the Alaska Central Railway.

The name of the future city was not finally chosen by me until the spring of 1903. By that time I had made encouraging headway in my efforts to raise money for the building of the Railroad, and it was important to have the starting point named even thought it then existed only in a virgin forest.

The first Chief Engineer of the Railway Company, C. M. Anderson, had designated the place Vituska on all the blueprints he had prepared. He explained it to be a combination of Vitus, Captain Behring's given name, with the last syllable of Alaska. But the only names that occurred to me for serious consideration were Seward, McKinley, and Roosevelt. I finally concluded that the city destined to be the metropolis of the great territory could fittingly bear no other name than that of the man of his day who foresaw the ultimate primacy of the Pacific Ocean in the world's commerce. Accordingly, in March, 1903, I bestowed upon the new town-to-be the name of Seward, in honor of William H. Seward, President Lincoln's Secretary of State.

Engine #1, the first engine of the Alaska Central Railway, arriving in Seward, 1904.

Originally built in 1883 for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

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Brothers John (left) and Frank Ballaine, 1915. Above:The Ballaine House in Seward, built in 1905 by Frank Ballaine, became a local landmark.

Frank also founded the first newspaper, the Seward Gateway, in 1904.

In 1903 the steamship Santa Ana arrived with the first cargo of construction material and a force of about thirty men to commence the preliminary construction of the Alaska Central Railway, such as building the wharf, setting the sawmill to work and clearing right of way, in preparation for permanent construction the following spring.

“On the Santa Ana also were a score of men who promptly established themselves in business. The construction force and these few business men, less than 100 in all, made up the bulk of Seward's population until March 1904, when the construction of the railroad was undertaken in earnest, and the growth of the town assured form and activity.”

The Engineering News, A Journal of Civil, Mechanical, Mining and Electrical Engineering, published Sept. 8, 1904, in New York, included the following article by A. W. Swanitz: A Year’s Work on the Alaska Central Railway The project of the Alaska Central railway was conceived, about two years ago, by a number of prominent Northwestern men, under the advice of Mr. C. M. Anderson, C. E. (Chief Engineer Alaska Central Ry. Co., Seward, Alaska) of Seattle, who was more or less familiar with central Alaska and the advisability of obtaining a practical line into the Interior. Government explorations and geological surveys, under Mendenhall and Major Glenn, have confirmed Mr. Anderson’s statement, not only as to the feasibility of the line, but also as to the vast agricultural and unsurpassed mineral resources of the country between Resurrection Bay, the Turnagain Arm country, the Matanuska, Sushitna, Chulitna and Cantwell River valleys and the Tanana River.

The principal questions to be solved were, first, an open-all-the-year-round harbor on the Pacific Coast, grades practicable for economic hauling of ore and coal at a reasonable cost, and the governing passes of the Alaska Coast range and mountains east of Mt. McKinley.

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March-April, 2021 Accordingly eight engineer corps were placed in the field, under C. M. Anderson, Chief Engineer, two years ago, with instructions to obtain the solution to these questions by a preliminary survey from the Coast to the Tanana River. Their various reports fully confirmed previous impressions, showing a possible alignment almost due north from Resurrection Bay; showing an unsurpassed landlocked harbor at the southern terminus, and crossing, at Moose Pass, of the Coast Range, at a maximum elevation of 900 ft., and a crossing of the mountain range east of Mt. McKinley, at Broad Pass, at 2,300 ft. maximum elevation.

Again, their reports showed the wonderful resources of that country in placer and ledge gold fields; in coal of superior quality, assaying from 65% to 90% fixed carbon; in large outcroppings of copper ore; in tin and platinum on the upper reaches of the Sushitna River; in fertile valleys of grazing lands, and confirming the official reports of the Government agricultural stations showing that all of the vegetables of the northern temperate zone, grains and grasses were, and could be, raised in the interior valleys with equal success and results as in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

Encouraged by these reports, further preliminary capital was raised and the first actual construction party was landed at Resurrection Bay under the writer, in August, 1903. Nothing was there to encourage newcomers but a forest of spruce, hemlock, etc. Today, after nine months, there is a town of about 900 inhabitants, with stores, electric light and telephone systems and all the appurtenances of a Northwestern railway and mining town.

The original construction party, at landing, was provided with tools and supplies of all kinds, from a box of pills to a sawmill outfit; from calico and coffee to pile driving machinery. In short order the Headquarters of the Alaska Central Railway, built for $55,000 at the corner of Fifth and Adams Streets. Photo circa 1909.

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Tracks of the Alaska Central Railway at Mile 22, Lake Kenai, 1906

sawmill was set at work, and the first piles for the wharf were driven by Nov. 15 of last year. A small force of from forty to fifty men was kept at work, without interruption, every day of last winter.

The construction force was largely increased by the last of March, and a substantial wharf, warehouse, with pile trestle approach to the wharf, was completed in April. The first rails of the Alaska Central Railway were laid on the wharf at Seward, the southern terminus, on April 16. Since then, regular construction work has been pushed, under increasing pressure, with the result that at the date this is written, July 12, seven miles of track have been laid, the first eleven miles of grading have been completed and an additional twenty miles is under fair progress of construction.

Considering the distance of this enterprise from the labor and supply market, its cost to date has been very reasonable and much below the original estimates. About half the distance of the 413 miles passes through a heavily timbered country of spruce and hemlock, with some cedar, birch and Balm of Gilead trees. The other half traverses largely the grazing lands of the Sushitna and Chulitna valleys.

The heavier construction work consists principally of sidehill cuttings. The cost of labor has been firmly established, at this time, at $2.50 per day for all shovel work, grading, and surfacing; at $2.75 for drilling and powder work; at $3.00 for bridge carpenters and steel men; and at from $3.50 to $4.00 per day for foremen. Comparatively few teams are used on grading. Teams for logging, tie and sawmill work are paid, with driver, $6.00 per day; the cost of feed averages 98 cents per team per day; driver’s wages $2.75; stable and harness repairs, about 21 cents. The cost of earthwork, under these circumstances, being nearly all pick, shovel and barrow work, has averaged to date about 17 1/2 cts. per yd; solid rock work, 72 cts. per yd, counting 29 cts. per yd. for cost of powder and its

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March-April, 2021 transportation. The character of the rock varies somewhat. Micaceous schist and slate seems to be prevailing. Auriferous quartz and limestone has been found in a number of cuts.

The cost of bridge work has been found much below the general average and running as low as $2.95 per lin. ft. on pile bridging. The company’s sawmill furnishes 8 x 16 x 28 ft. stringers at $8 per M; piles are 1¢. to 1 1/2¢. per lin. ft. delivered. 6 x 8-in. x 8-ft. ties cost 25 cts. delivered on the right of way. There is a superabundance of heavy timber within easy reach at nearly all points of the line. The Alaska spruce, used for piling, has been found to be of excellent quality and piles 100 ft. long, 10 ins. at the small end, and showing scarcely any effect at last hammer blow with a 3,000-lb. hammer.

The construction company is maintaining a large and efficient commissary, furnishing board to its employees at $6 per week, but no employee is prohibited from keeping his own mess, and many of the smaller station men and subcontractors claim $4 per week covers all their expenses. The only labor difficulty and trouble experienced so far is caused by frequent findings of rich placer gold locations. A large number of prospectors are constantly at work on creeks and river tributaries within easy traveling distance. These men will come to Seward, the road’s southern terminus, with nuggets and gold dust often showing net earnings of from $8 to $15 per day with rocker and pan, and generally, after a payday, a not inconsiderable portion of the grading and tracklaying forces scatters to try prospecting in hopes of big finds. About one in twenty will succeed, in a week’s time, in finding a good place, while the others straggle back, quite willing to resume the company’s shovel and pick.

All things considered, there is a great future for this railway. It will place the Yukon River, Nome and Dawson and the great new mining district of the Tanana within five days easy travel of Seattle, Portland, and Tacoma, as against 28 to 30 days now.

Glowing reports aside, Ballaine’s Alaska Central Railway was never completed. Edwin M. Fitch explained in his 1967 book, The Alaska Railroad: "The fifty miles of railroad that were built and somewhat shakily operated by the company paid nothing on its stock, and the railroad failed to survive the panic of 1907. Bankrupt in 1908, The Alaska Central operated under receivership until 1910, when it was reorganized as the Alaska Northern Railway Company."

In 1909, when the Alaska Northern Railway took over, there was a little more than 50 miles of useable track laid, including the unusual but unfinished “Loop District,” an engineering marvel designed to allow travel over the backbone of the Kenai Mountain range.

On September 15, 1912, four federal railroad commissioners stepped ashore at Seward with a Congressional mandate to study and recommend the Alaska railroad routes which would best “develop the country and the resources thereof for the use of the people of the United States.”

In April, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson selected a route for The Alaska Railroad, beginning at Seward and including purchase of the Alaska Northern Railway, proceeding northward around Cook Inlet, across the Matanuska and Susitna Valleys, through the Alaska Range at Broad Pass, and crossing the Tanana River to end in Fairbanks. ~•~ Excerpted from The Alaska Railroad: 1902-1923, by Helen Hegener, Northern Light Media, 2017

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The Alaska Commerical Company advertisement

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March-April, 2021 “The novelty of everything, the excitement which came each day in some form or other, was as agreeable as the beautiful summer weather with the long, quiet evenings only settling into darkness at midnight.”

A Woman Who Went to Alaska vMay

Kellogg Sullivan v

My first trip from California to Alaska was made in the summer of 1899. I went alone to Dawson to my father and brother, surprising them greatly when I quietly walked up to shake hands with them at their work.

Father had gone to the Klondyke a year before at the age of sixty-four, climbing Chilkoot Pass in the primitive way and "running" Miles Canyon and White Horse Rapids in a small boat which came near being swamped in the passage. My brother's entrance to the famous gold fields was made in the same dangerous manner a year before; but I had waited until trains over the White Pass and Yukon Railroad had been crossing the mountains daily for two weeks before myself attempting to get into Alaska's interior. At that time it was only a three hours' ride, including stops, over the Pass to Lake Bennett, the terminus of this new railroad, the first in Alaska.

By the middle of July, 1899, the steamers leaving Dawson on their way down the Yukon to St. Michael and the new gold fields at Nome, were well filled with those who were anxious to try their luck in Uncle Sam's territory where they can breathe, dig, fish, hunt, or die without buying a license. By August the steamers coming from St. Michael brought such glowing accounts of the Nome gold fields, that while few people came in, they carried as many out as they could accommodate. By September the rush down the Yukon was tremendous, and of the twelve thousand people in Dawson many hundreds left for Nome.

When, after six weeks spent in curiously studying conditions and things,—not to say people,—in the great mining camp, it was decided that I should accompany my brother down the Yukon to Cape Nome, and so "out"

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Alaskan History home to San Francisco, I felt a very distinct sense of disappointment. The novelty of everything, the excitement which came each day in some form or other, was as agreeable as the beautiful summer weather with the long, quiet evenings only settling into darkness at midnight.

In September came the frosts. Men living in tents moved their little Yukon stoves inside, and brought fresh sawdust and shavings from the mills for their beds. Others packed their few possessions into small boats, hauled down their tents, whistled to their dogs, and rolling up their sleeves, pulled laboriously up the swift little Klondyke to their winter "lays" in the mines.

Hundreds were also leaving for the outside. Steamers, both large and small, going to White Horse and Bennett, carried those who had joyfully packed their bags and smilingly said good-bye; for they were going home to the "States." How we strained our eyes from our cabin window or from the higher bank above, to see the people on the decks of the out-going boats. How the name of each tug and even freight-carrier became a familiar household word, and how many were the conjectures as to whether "she" would get through to White Horse Rapids in the low water before a freeze-up!

One day our own steamer came. She was a magnificently equipped river boat called the "Hannah," belonging to the Alaska Commercial Company, and had cost one hundred thousand dollars. This was to be her last trip for the season, and with us it was "home now, or here all winter," and we made ready to leave. No lunches were needed. The cuisine of the Hannah was said to be as perfect as could be in this far away corner of the globe, and we trusted to that.

We were now in the midst of a group, cosmopolitan beyond our wildest dreams. Pushing their way through the crowd to the gangplank came men, women and dogs, carrying grips, kodaks, tin cash boxes, musical instruments, army sacks, fur robes, and rolls of blankets. Struggling under the weight of canvas tents, poles, Yukon stoves and sleds, as well as every conceivable thing, they climbed the stairway to the deck. Here, and in the main saloon, all was deposited for the time being.

There was a woman with a fine grey cat, for which she had been offered fifty dollars, wrapped in a warm shawl, much to pussy's disgust. A number of women had dogs and were weeping, probably at leaving other canines behind. Several persons carried little grips so heavy that they tugged along—evidently "Chechako," or paper money, was more scarce with them than dust and nuggets.

As freight, there was a piano, many iron-bound boxes containing gold bullion, securely sealed and labeled, and tons of supplies for the consumption of the passengers, of whom there were now five hundred.

Then the whistle again sounded—the gangplank was hauled in, handkerchiefs fluttered, the band struck up "Home Sweet Home"—we were headed down the Yukon River and toward the Arctic Circle.

We had now a journey of seventeen hundred miles before us. We were to traverse a country almost unknown to man. We were two of a party of five hundred persons, the majority of whom, if not actually desperadoes, were reckless and given over to the pursuit of gold regardless of the manner of its getting. There were loose characters of the town by hundreds; there were gamblers running a variety of games both day and night; there were dance house girls and musicians; there were drunks and toughs, and one prize fighter. No firearms or knives were seen, though many, no doubt, had them.

With the enormous amount of gold on board (for the steamer's safe was overflowing, and the purser's room well packed with the precious stuff), with the numbers of hard characters we carried, and the now increasing remoteness from centres of government, there were dangers, we were forced to confess, but which we only admitted in whispers.

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Alaska Commercial Company steamship ‘Hannah’

Three hours after leaving Dawson we were taking on wood at Forty Mile. This is the oldest camp on the Yukon River, and the early home of Jack McQuesten. The river banks were lined with canoes; many natives stood looking at us from the shore, and while stevedores handled the wood, many passengers visited the town.

It was not long before they came back with hands full of turnips, just pulled from the ground, which, had they been the most luscious fruit, could not have been eaten with more relish.

To the right of the landing at Forty Mile, just across a small stream which runs into the Yukon, is Fort Cudahy, containing the stores and warehouses of one of the large companies, as well as a post-office. But we were soon off again, steaming along between hills yellow with fading poplar leaves and green streaked with pines. Many rocky spurs towered grandly heavenward, with tops, like silvered heads, covered with newly fallen snow. The Yukon is here very crooked and narrow, and abrupt banks hedged our steamer in on all sides.

Next morning early we arrived at Eagle City, Alaska. We were now in Uncle Sam's land, and breathed more freely. We felt at home. We cheered and waved our handkerchiefs to the blue uniformed soldiers on the river bank who had come to see us.

We went ashore and called upon lieutenant L., lately from his home in Connecticut and campaigning in Cuba. Taking us into a log house near by, he pointed out forty thousand rounds of ammunition and one hundred and fifteen Krag-Jorgensen rifles of the latest pattern.

Here were stationed one hundred and fifteen men, some of them at that time out moose hunting and fishing. Captain Ray, an old white-haired gentleman, stood outside his cabin door. At Eagle we saw the new government barracks just being finished, the logs and shingles having been sawed at the government saw-mill near by, at the mouth of Mission Creek.

We were particularly struck with the very youthful appearance of our soldiers, and their wistful faces as they watched our preparations for departure. The lieutenant had said that life in Cuba, or in almost any old

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Eagle City on the Yukon River

place was preferable to that at Eagle, with the long winter staring them in the face, and we could see that the poor fellow longed for home. We were quite touched, but tried to cheer him as best we could.

Circle City, on a big bend of the river from which it derives its name, was reached the following evening.

Here all hands crowded over the gangplank and into the stores. In less time than it takes to write it, these places were filled with miners, each man pulling away at his strong, old pipe, the companion of many weary months perhaps; while over the counters they handed their gold dust in payment for the "best plug cut," chewing gum, candy, or whatever else they saw that looked tempting. Here we bought two pairs of beaded moccasins for seven dollars.

As a heavy fog settled down upon us, our captain thought best to tie up the steamer over night, and did so.

Next morning by daylight we saw the offices of the United States marshal; both log cabins with dirt roofs, upon which bunches of tall weeds were going to seed. We hoped this was not symbolical of the state of Uncle Sam's affairs in the interior, but feared it might be, as the places seemed deserted. Many of the one thousand cabins at Circle were now vacant, but it is the largest town next to Dawson on the Yukon River.

During the whole of the next day our pilots steered cautiously over the Yukon Flats. This is a stretch of about four hundred miles of low, swampy country, where the Yukon evidently loses its courage to run swiftly, for it spreads out indolently in all directions between treacherous and shifting sand-bars, fairly disheartening to all not familiar with its many peculiarities.

We now learned for the first time that we were practically in the hands of three pilots, two of whom were Eskimos, one of them on a salary of five hundred dollars per month. This man was perfectly familiar with the entire river, being an expert pilot, as he proved during this trip to the satisfaction of all.

Owing to the near approach of winter, and the extremely low water at this point, the captain, crew, and many others, wore anxious faces until the Flats were well passed. Should our steamer stick fast on a sand-bar, or take fire, we might easily be landed; but to be left in such a bleak and barren place, with cold weather approaching, snow beginning to fall, no shelter, and only provisions for a few days, with traveling companions of the very worst type, and no passing steamers to pick us up, we would indeed meet a hard fate, and one even the prospect of which was well calculated to make strong men shudder.

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March-April, 2021 We were now at the Arctic Circle. For three days we had no sunshine, and flurries of snow were frequent.

The mountain tops, as well as the banks and sand-bars of the river, were spread with a thin covering of snow; enough at least to give a wintry aspect. This added to the leaden sky above, made the warmth of big coal fires acceptable indoors, and fur coats comfortable on the decks.

At Fort Yukon the low water prevented our landing. We were told, however, that the place contained one hundred log houses, as well as an old Episcopal Mission, in which Mrs. Bumpus had lived and taught the natives for twenty years. Many of the Eskimo girls are trained as children's nurses and make very satisfactory ones.

Into the Yukon Flats empty the Porcupine River, Birch Creek and other streams. Fort Yukon was established by the Hudson Bay Company many years ago, all supplies coming in and shipments of furs going out by way of the McKensie River and the great Canadian Lakes. Toward evening one day, while the stevedores were busy handling wood, we went ashore and visited an Eskimo family in their hut. It was built on the high river bank among the trees, quite near the steamer's landing. On the roof of the hut, there lay, stretched on sticks to dry, a large brown bear skin. The short path back to our steamer lay through a poplar grove, and under our feet was spread a carpet of brown and yellow leaves, which, in the cool night air, smelled ripe and woodsy.

Next came Fort Hamlin, where we again saw some of Uncle Sam's boys, and where we trudged out through the soft light snow and took some kodak views. Rampart City was reached in the early evening. One long row of houses upon the south bank of the Yukon, near the mouth of the Big Minook Creek constitutes the town.

Here empty the Little Minook, Alder, Hunter, and many other gold-bearing creeks, and a bustling town sprung up only to be almost depopulated during the Nome excitement.

By this time several inches of snow had fallen, and the ground was freezing. We managed here to climb the slippery steps of the log store building in the dusk and buy a pound of ordinary candy, for which we paid one dollar. Again we were in deep water. This time so very smooth that the hills, peaks, trees and islands were all mirrored on its surface, and very beautiful. The days were now quite short. About five in the afternoon the electric lights were turned on through the steamer, fresh coal again piled on the fires, and we reminded ourselves how comfortably we were traveling.

Many short stops were made along the river. A few little settlements were passed during the night. At Holy Cross and Russian Mission we saw flourishing Catholic schools for the natives.

The Yukon was now getting wider and wider, the water was shallow and more shallow, then suddenly we felt a heavy jar. The big stern wheel refused to move,—we were stuck fast on a sand-bar! Here we remained all day, dreading a hard freeze which was liable to settle down upon us at any time, fixing our boat and us in the ice indefinitely. But we were now in the Aphoon, or eastern mouth of the Yukon, and near enough to Behring Sea to get the benefit of the tides; so that in the early evening we again heard the thud of the big machines,—the steamer quivered,—the stern wheel again revolved,—we had entered the Behring Sea! By four o'clock next morning we were in St. Michael Bay, having covered the sixty miles from the mouth of the river during the night. Snow was falling heavily through which we saw the lights of the harbor, and a number of vessels at anchor. By daylight we counted eleven ships and two revenue cutters lying under the lee of the island. Breakfast was served on board, and an hour later we went ashore. We now sought the steamer company's hotel, and had no difficulty in getting good rooms and seats at table; for we were still in their care, having bought through tickets to San Francisco. Here we were to wait for the ocean steamer "Bertha," which was A Woman Who Went to Alaska can be read at Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22409

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Ed and Belle Lee’s Talkeetna Trading Post, which served miners from the Cache Creek Mining Area

The Cache Creek Murders An Unsolved Mystery from 1939 The highest mountain peak in North America, Denali—The High One—lies just north of the Cache Creek Mining District, and as the foothills of the great massif roll down into the upper Susitna Valley, the Dutch Hills and the Peters Hills offer the last two prominences of notable size.

This is a vast wild country, bordered by swift rushing rivers and crossed by tributary streams such as Peters Creek and Cache Creek. The area is prime grizzly bear habitat, remote and isolated, generally accessible in summer by four wheel drive or a cautious driver with good clearance; in winter only by snowmachine or airplane.

Cache Creek was likely named for a storage cache built by a Dena’Ina Indian known as Susitna Pete, who found gold in the area near the turn of the century. Peters Creek and the hills around the fast rushing stream were named for Henry Peters, who prospected in the area in 1905 with several others when they heard about Susitna Pete’s discovery. Peters and his friends

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March-April, 2021 also discovered gold, and three years later, in 1908, the Cache Creek Mining Company was formed and purchased all of the claims along twelve miles of the creek.

Among the prospectors who came to the area seeking gold were two men from California, Frank Jenkins and Richard (Dick) Francis. Jenkins arrived in the Cache Creek area around 1911, having previously explored and prospected in South America and Nome. Francis came into the area in 1914, and sent photos of his friends, his cabin, and his favorite husky to his mother in California. He explored as far north as the Brooks Range, but made sure his mining obligations in the Cache Creek District were met.

By the 1920s a trail had been blazed east from the mining area to the new settlement of Talkeetna, on the also-new Alaska Railroad, and the enterprising owners of the Talkeetna Trading Post, Ed and Belle Lee, along with Ed’s brother Frank, freighted supplies to the miners, mostly purchased from H.W. Nagley’s mercantile. Sometime around the early 1930’s they constructed a roadhouse halfway between Talkeetna and the mining district; it became known as the Peters Creek or Forks Roadhouse, and it was a popular stop for the miners.

Mining the placer gold claims of the area necessitated having a source of water for sluicing, or washing the dirt and gravel overburden to find the gold. For this reason the miners would file for rights to use the water just as they filed for the rights to find gold, and because the gold was often found on the hillsides high above the creeks, they would dig ditches to channel the water

Petersville, the largest mining operation in the area and communications point for the investigating team. June 11, 1936. [Photo by S.W. Dish for the Alaska Road Commission, Alaska State Library ASL-P61-010078]

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Frank Lee, chief freighter for the Talkeetna Trading Post, was among the searchers; he found Mrs. Jenkins’ body.

to wherever it was needed. The flow of water through these ditches, and the interruption of that flow, became the basis of contentious ongoing litigation between Frank Jenkins and Dick Francis throughout the decade of the 1930s, with both Jenkins (and his feisty wife) and Francis making multiple trips to the court of law in Anchorage, racking up considerable legal fees, and fueling a heated feud between the two miners, a conflict well-known to all who lived and worked in the area.

In early September, 1939, the mining community and Talkeetna were shocked by the news that Dick Francis had committed suicide in his isolated cabin on Ruby Creek. Three days later the brutally battered bodies of Frank Jenkins and his mining assistant, Joy Brittell, were found less than a mile away, covered with leaves and grass. Their discovery set off a search for Frank’s missing wife, and a week later her remains were found three miles away, hidden under a grassy overhang, with massive injuries to her head and the pockets of her clothing turned inside out.

On September 19 the Anchorage Daily Times reported under large black headlines: “Speculation as to the motive of the murders has been rife ever since the discovery of the crime and it was said that the conditions of the pockets of the clothing of Mrs. Jenkins is the first evidence to substantiate the contention that Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins were murdered for their gold.

Joy Brittell, who was with Mr. Jenkins, was also murdered and the life of Dick Francis was taken in an attempt to make the crime appear as a triple murder and suicide, according to one theory.”

The U.S. Commissioner in Talkeetna, Ben Mayfield, began investigating the murders from the first, but he was not trained for the type of inquiry demanded by these heinous murders, and a

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The cover of Roberta Sheldon’s book. News article from the Nome Nugget, reprinted from the Anchorage Daily Times.

request was sent to Washington, D.C. for the FBI to take a hand in the proceedings. There was only one FBI agent in Alaska, Ralph C. Vogel, based in Juneau. He was dispatched to Talkeetna

by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, but not before the Anchorage Daily Times, unaware that the agent was en route, fired off a telegram to Hoover: THREE MEN AND ONE WOMAN BRUTALLY BEATEN TWO WEEKS AGO NEAR TALKEETNA STOP KILLER STILL LOOSE ALASKA AUTHORITIES UNABLE SOLVE STOP HUNDRED IN COMMUNITY TERRORIZED MANY PACKING FIREARMS PLEADING FOR EXPERT INVESTIGATION STOP HOW CAN YOUR DEPARTMENTS ASSISTANCE BE OBTAINED Special Agent Vogel began investigating the case near the end of September, 1939, and he would continue working on the case until 1943. Despite the full-blown investigation, hundreds of hours of interviews, and tracking clues and potential suspects across several states, the murders were never satisfactorily resolved; the primary suspect was never charged.

In 2001 Talkeetna resident Roberta Sheldon wrote The Mystery of the Cache Creek Murders (Talkeetna Editions/Publication Consultants, Anchorage), which extensively detailed the history of the Cache Creek Mining District, the people who settled and mined the area, the murders and their aftermath, and the larger world events which undoubtedly colored the FBI proceedings.

Sheldon slowly unravels the complex and complicated history of the unsolved case, quoting from news stories and FBI reports, detailing letters and interviews from people who remembered the incident, with photos and maps which contribute to the reader’s understanding the convoluted events of 1939. Her book is widely available. ~•~

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U.S. Post Office Inspector John Clum in Sheep Camp, Alaska, on the Chilkoot Pass trail. [LoC photo]

John Philip Clum, Gold Rush Postal Inspector Tombstone, Arizona Territory, labeled “the town too tough to die,” was founded in 1879 by U. S. Army scout Ed Schieffelin, who was told he would only find his tombstone in the desert.

But he found silver, a vein a foot wide and fifty feet long which he dubbed the Tombstone claim, and the rest became history. The following spring an enterprising newspaper publisher named John Clum and his wife Mary left Tucson, where they’d been publishing the Tucson Citizen, and founded the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper, noting “every tombstone needs an epitaph.”

John Clum had arrived in Arizona Territory in 1874 as the Indian Agent for the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, a position fraught with corruption, violence and animosity generally instigated by the military and far-off politicians. Only 23, Clum took a different approach, befriending the Apaches and encouraging them to try farming and raising cattle. But after three years of contentious relations with the military and an Indian Bureau administration who disagreed with his methods, Clum resigned; he often referred to his work among the Apaches as the finest and noblest work he had ever done.

Clum founded the Tombstone Epitaph in May, 1880, and helped organize a committee to end lawlessness in the town. In December of that year his wife Mary died shortly after giving birth to the couple's daughter Belle, who died the following summer. Their two year old son, Henry Woodworth, was raised by Clum’s parents in Washington, D.C. John Clum would marry two more times; his second wife, Belle Atwood, was the mother of his only other child, Caro Kingsland Clum, born in 1883 in Washington, D.C.

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March-April, 2021 John Clum was elected the first mayor of Tombstone in 1881, and became lifelong friends with Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp and his brothers, of later OK Corral fame. Clum’s friendship with the Earps and his outspoken support of business leaders made him a target for the lawless faction, and after an attempt on his life and the murders of his associates, including Morgan Earp, Clum wrote, “They were picking us off one by one. We could never put our hands definitely on those who were doing it. I decided to settle elsewhere.”

While serving as a postal inspector in Washington, D.C. in the late 1890s, Clum was appointed as special commissioner to Alaska Territory, "to examine into postal affairs.” Clum arrived in Skagway, Alaska on March 26, 1898, and named himself postmaster and Postal Inspector. Over the next five months he would travel 8,000 miles, equipping existing post offices and establishing several new post offices across Alaska. He carried everything he needed to create a post office: postage stamps, mailbags, postal locks, keys and postmarking devices.

The first post office he put in place was at Sheep Camp on the Chilkoot Trail to the Klondike gold fields, on April 4, 1898. Joseph G. Brown was named postmaster of the tent city at the upper limit of timber, on the Taiya (Dyea) River, described in 1898 as a “couple hundred tents straggled along the floor of the gorge,” and approximately forty wooden buildings which housed stores, saloons, two drug stores, a hospital, fifteen hotels and restaurants, and lodging houses too numerous to mention. The day before Clum had helped dig out survivors and victims of the terrible Palm Sunday avalanche just above Sheep Camp, which claimed over 65 lives.

Sheep Camp on the Chilkoot Trail, April, 1898. [E.A. Hegg photo]

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In the spring of 1900 John Clum concentrated his efforts on Western Alaska and the Bering Sea, extending postal service to the Bering Sea coast, and establishing semi-monthly postal service between Nome and Point Blossom, near Kotzebue. Then, in the summer of 1900, finding that Nome Postmaster George Wright was absent ‘Outside,' Postal Inspector John Clum assumed charge of the Nome Post Office. With a gold rush in full swing, Nome was the largest general delivery address in the U.S. postal system. The mail was distributed from a 12' x 12' room manned by two shifts of eleven sorters each, running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In his book, Alaska's First Free Mail Delivery in 1900, letter carrier Fred Lockley noted that the postal clerks had to use five filing boxes just to sort letters for people named “Johnson." Clum authorized his clerks to accept placer gold dust for postal transactions, and in July the intake exceeded $130,000.

Clum found his old friends from Tombstone were also in Nome, Wyatt and Josephine Earp were running the Dexter Saloon and roadhouse, and George Parsons, a mining agent, librarian, and diarist, who wrote in August, 1900: “John Clum and I had an oldtimer with Wyatt Earp tonight at his place, a regular old Arizona time, and Wyatt unlimbered for several hours and seemed glad to talk to us who knew the past. It was a very memorable evening.”

On January 17, 1906, John Clum was appointed to be the second Postmaster of Fairbanks, preceded by Fairbanks founder E. T. Barnette, who had been appointed three years previously.

Old friends from Tombstone (left to right), Ed Eiechstadt, Wyatt Earp, and John Clum on the beach at Nome.

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March-April, 2021 His daughter Caro, then 23, worked in the office as a postal clerk, and the following year a small mining town on the Chandalar River, which flows into the Yukon River a short distance below Fort Yukon, showed their gratitude for Clum’s work to bring mail to the mining towns by naming their town after his daughter.

As in Nome, Clum scouted around the Fairbanks area mine diggings for some color, but reportedly never found anything worth staking a claim. In 1908 he ran for public office, but lost to the very popular Judge James Wickersham. He left Alaska the following year, in 1909.

Postal Inspector John Clum worked for the Inspection Service off and on until 1911. In honor of his retirement, his fellow inspectors surprised him with a gold and diamond locket with the U.S. Post Office Department official seal. Inside the locket were the names of his fellow inspectors, and a letter from the inspectors touting their admiration and respect for Clum, noting: ”We have ever found you genial, courteous and high-minded, faithful in the discharge of every duty assigned to you in the many years of your service, loyal in every respect to that which loyalty is due, marked with a calmness, serenity and certitude in action and urbanity in speech, that has made your name proverbial."

Clum spent the next several years touring the country and lecturing on the American west for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He retired for a second time in 1920 and moved to a farm near Los Angeles with his third wife, Florence. Clum lived quietly there, spending most of his time writing articles for various publications on the history he had seen first-hand.

John Clum died on May 2, 1932, at the age of 80, three years after he and George Parsons served as a pallbearers for their life-long friend, Wyatt Earp. As Clum's friends mourned his death, one noted that it was "a sign of the passing of the Old West.” ~•~

Political banner, “John P. Clum for Delegate to Congress, Independent Candidate,” Fairbanks, 1908.

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This famous 1908 photograph of Milton Weil’s ‘Malamute Chorus’ became a popular postcard.

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Postcard from a photograph by Ed Nowell, Nome, 1908. Compare with the postcard below.

With the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle seal in the corner, this postcard is the unedited version of the postcard above. Text on the back: “This Alaska Dog Team carried a party of polar bear hunters from Nime (sp.) to the Far North. The distance travelled on this trip was 1,000 miles.”

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“The Fast Mail, Alaska.” No date or photographer identification.

Dogteams ferry freight and passengers from ships as much as two miles offshore due to Bering Sea ice.

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“A crack dog team, Alaska.” No date or photographer identified.

Dogteam hauling wood in the Fairbank Mining District, circa 1910.

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Sources & Resources The links and references below reflect the specific sources used in researching the articles which appear in this issue, and include reference books, videos, websites and other media. Lengthy URLs have been shortened.

St. Michael • Alaska & its Resources, Wm. Dall https://archive.org/details/1870alaskaitsres00dalluoft • NHRP Nomination form https://tinyurl.com/FtStMichaelNHRP • Images and files https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:St._Michael,_Alaska • St. Michael https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael,_Alaska Malamute Joe Henderson • Joe Henderson’s website http://alaskanarcticexpeditions.com • Joe’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/alaskanexpeditions/ • Joe’s book, Malemute Man tinyurl.com/semqkbsc • Leffingwell Camp Site NHL https://www.nps.gov/places/leffingwell-camp-site.htm John E. Ballaine and the Alaska Central Railway • The Alaska Railroad 1902-1923 https://tinyurl.com/NLM-AKRR1902-1923 • Alaska Central Railway https://tinyurl.com/AKcentralRR • NRHP Tunnel No. 1 https://tinyurl.com/AKCentraltunnel1 • The Alaska Railroad 1902-1923 website https://thealaskarailroad.wordpress.com A Woman Who Went to Alaska • Book at Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22409 • Book video trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-Ea7fFEyk • Library of Congress file https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdclccn.02029911/?st=gallery • NLM book review https://tinyurl.com/MKsullivan The Cache Creek Murders • Guide to the Petersville Road https://sites.google.com/a/alaskafreegold.com/www/home43 • Review of Sheldon book tinyurl.com/19489p76 • Cache Creek Mining District tinyurl.com/8y6hy960 • Review of Sheldon book https://sites.google.com/a/alaskafreegold.com/www/home4322 John Phillip Clum • Alaska Mining Hall of Fame https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/clum.php • John Clum in Alaska https://postalmuseum.si.edu/john-clum-in-alaska • A Trip to the Klondike by Stereoscope, by John P. Clum https://tinyurl.com/jpclum • Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14731883/john-philip-clum Sled Dog Team Postcards • Resource https://www.ebay.com • Resource https://www.oldpostcards.com • Resource https://www.vintagepostcardboutique.com • Resource https://www.thepostcard.com GENERAL RESOURCES • Alaska & Polar Regions Collections & Archives http://library.uaf.edu/apr • Alaska’s Digital Archives https://vilda.alaska.edu • Statewide Library Electronic Doorway [SLED]: https://lam.alaska.gov/sled/history • Google Books https://books.google.com • Gutenberg.org https://books.gutenberg.org • Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov • Chronicling America https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

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