May-June, 2020 VOLUME 2, NO. 3 ISBN 9798641168500
Published bimonthly
AGRICULTURAL
FOCUS:
OLD BOOKS
by Northern Light Media
EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS - 6
COMMERCIAL TRADING CARDS - 44
THE HISTORY OF ALASKA BETWEEN THE PAGES - 46
ALASKAN HISTORY
The 1935 Matanuska Colony Project The Remarkable History of a New Deal Experiment in Alaska The idea of starting a new life in a distant place like Alaska was so appealing to the disheartened families that the social workers found it difficult to determine which ones really were equipped to make the drastic move and which ones were simply motivated by wishful thinking. They reminded themselves of the bases for selection as laid down in the planning sessions in Washington. Article begins on page 14
A group of the colonists' children that play in the streets at Camp 8. [Willis T. Geisman ASL-P270-609 Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library]
THE 1918 INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC
8
GOVERNOR RIGGS SEEKS FEDERAL ASSISTANCE Mr. Sisson asked why the Eskimos were not trapping, to which Gov. Riggs replied that most of them were dead, and that the others either ill with the influenza or quarantined in their villages.
THE EAGLE POINT STOREHOUSE
12
STOREHOUSE NO. 4, IN HYDER, ALASKA One of Alaska’s most unusual contributions to the list of National Historic Places is a small stone storehouse on the U.S.-Canadian border, built under the command of a noted captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. PIONEER PACKHORSES IN ALASKA
26
THE COWBOY AND THE ENGLISHMAN In Seattle they bought “four short, chunky horses weighing about nine hundred pounds each,” and supplied themselves “with the requisite pack-saddles and harness, stores and ammunition.” HUDSON STUCK
30
ARCHDEACON OF THE YUKON, TANANA, AND ARCTIC REGIONS “The title might have claimed fourteen or fifteen thousand miles, for the title was adopted some years ago, and the journeys have continued. But ten thousand is a good round titular number, and none the worse for being well within the mark.” STEPHEN BIRCH
40
THE KENNECOTT MINE “One should not underestimate Mr. Birch’s ability as a financier and high grade business man. While he organized the Morgan-Guggenheim Alaska Syndicate, he was not a mere employee therein….”
Kalsin Bay Agricultural Experiment Station, 1916
Cover Notes, In this Issue . . . . . . . 1
Agriculture Experiment Stations . 6
Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . 2 - 3
Focus on: Trading Cards . . . . . . . 44
Publisher’s Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Collectible History Books . . . . . . 46
Magazine Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Resources & Subscriptions . . . . . 48
Alaskan History M•A•G•A•Z•I•N•E May-June, 2020 Volume 2, Number 3
Published by Northern Light Media Post Office Box 870515 Wasilla, Alaska 99687 (907) 521-5245 www.Alaskan-History.com Email AlaskanHistory@gmail.com Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/ alaskanhistory/ Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/ AlaskanHistory/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/HelenHegener Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ akhistorymagazine/
ISBN 9798641168500
Publisher’s Note
We’ve been here before… 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic
The past few weeks have been unusual in our lifetime, but not unprecedented in the history of Alaska. As most are aware, we’ve been here before, if not literally, then certainly historically. The influenza pandemic of 1918-19 was utterly catastrophic, wiping out entire communities and leaving so many orphaned children that facilities were overrun and struggled to care for them all. The devastation of the 1918-19 pandemic was described by Eva Greenslit Anderson, Ph.D. in her book about the venerable Dr. Joseph Romig, titled Dog Team Doctor, published by Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, in 1940: “The fight at Bethel lasted all summer. During six weeks of germ warfare, there were seventy-two deaths at the mission alone. Everyone in all Alaska was sick, or so it seemed. A census taken soon after revealed that of the 3,500 who had lived in that section, 1,500 had died. Half of the natives on the lower Yukon passed out of the picture that summer, too. Tied to the mission by the specter that haunted the place, Dr. Romig was unable to travel down the river, so the lower Kuskokwim natives suffered most. In one village below Bethel, where before the epidemic this doctor had counted 121 natives, not twenty were left.” Alaska recovered from the 1918-19 pandemic, of course, and we will recover from this current scourge as well. But just as in the past, the disease will leave an indelible mark on us all. This time will become a reference point in our lives, just as other disasters, both natural and man-made, have assumed their unwelcome places on the ever-marching timeline of history. Thanks for reading, and stay safe.
Helen Hegener Helen Hegener, Publisher
• Jon Van Zyle, a premier Alaskan artist, contributes splendid artwork for each issue of this magazine. In this issue his work can be found on page 12. To see more of his outstanding artwork visit his website: jonvanzyle.com
Inspiring Alaskans
• Agricultural Experiment Stations are the topic in our focus feature for this issue, but the photos are only a preview of an article which will run in the JulyAugust issue, about the life of Dr. Charles Christian Georgeson, who was appointed Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Agricultural Experiment Stations in Alaska, in 1898. • Online The Alaskan History Magazine website features excerpts of almost every article which appears in the pages of this magazine. The website versions will often be expanded with additional information, photos, maps, and links to resources. Check it out at www.alaskan-history.com • Collectible Books The collectible Alaskan history books featured in every issue have been added to the website, and many are for sale there. • Social Media Alaskan History Magazine is active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For information about each visit our website, click under Social Media. • Back Issues Back issues of Alaskan History Magazine are always available, see the website for details about ordering a single issue or a complete set.
Martha Greer “Mother” White
Much-loved pioneering businesswoman Martha Greer White (1867-1919) established businesses in Tyonek, Ladd’s Landing, Hope, Sunrise and Ship Creek, later renamed Anchorage. It was said she never turned away anyone needing help, whether they deserved it or not, and over 1,000 people were present when she was laid to rest.
The spirit of Martha G re e r “ M o t h e r ” W h i t e inspires the publication of Alaskan History Magazine! Subscriptions, Single Issues, eMags and Online:
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Agricultural Experiment Stations Sitka • Kodiak • Kalsin • Rampart • Kenai • Copper Center • Fairbanks • Matanuska The U.S. Agricultural Experiment Station at Rampart, on the Yukon River, was one of the first, founded in 1900 and active until 1925. Photos to the left show the Superintendent’s home and clearing land.
The first Alaskan Agricultural Experiment Station was established in 1898 in Sitka, and the Kodiak Station was founded the same year, focused on determining the practicality of raising cattle on the open range of the island (below).
The Kenai station (1899-1931) worked toward commercial dairy production, including the production of butter and cheese. Copper Center (1903-1908) struggled with poor crops and the high cost of transporting equipment.
Two Stations are still active: Fairbanks (1906) is the home of diverse research ranging from traditional agricultural science work to forestry; and the Matanuska Experiment Station (1916) is a working farm researching soils, plants, and livestock. ~•~
Top: Fairbanks 1918. Center left: Fairbanks, 1918. Center right: Sitka Station barn, built in 1901. Bottom left: Kalsin Bay, unloading beach grass silage, 1916. Bottom right: Rampart tractor.
Maynard Columbus Hospital staff in uniform standing on hospital porch, in Nome between 1910 and 1920. Lomen Brothers photograph, public domain.
The 1918 Influenza Epidemic The 1918-19 influenza pandemic saw an estimated 500 million people, one-third of the world’s population, become infected with the virus. There were an estimated 50 million deaths worldwide, with around 675,000 deaths in the United States. Alaska was hit hard. In January, 1919, hearings were held before the Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations in Charge of Relief in Alaska and Porto Rico (as the southernmost territory was spelled at that time). Appearing before the committee would be the Governor of Alaska, Thomas Riggs, Jr., a former engineer, surveyor, and one of three commissioners who had overseen the construction of the Alaska Railroad. He had been in office less than a year. Appearing with him was P. P. Claxton, Alaska’s Commissioner of Education. The opening of the hearing can be read on page 8. At that point Mr. Sisson interrupted Mr. Riggs, asking how much of the education fund had been used. Mr. Claxton explained that all of the funds which had not been already allotted for other purposes had been exhausted. Mr Riggs. The surgeon general of the Public Health Service, who had an appropriation of $1,000,000 to combat influenza, authorized me to engage doctors and nurses where I could get them and that was done as to the ice-free portion of Alaska, but, of course, we could not reach the ice-bound portions. I have authorized, where I have had any funds with which to do it, the sending of relief expeditions for the gathering up of these orphans and have contracted for their keep; I have authorized the purchase of provisions for the indigent natives because they are not
allowed to travel and trap, and, as a matter of fact, most of them are dead. For instance, at Cape Prince of Wales, of a population of 300 natives, 5 adults were left alive; at Kodiak probably 50 per cent of the natives died; at Kakutat the surgeon general was able to reach them with a naval collier and so prevent very many deaths, and all along the line I have been controlling travel among the natives so that the disease would not get to the more isolated natives and affect the white population. I have kept the disease well out of Fairbanks, Iditarod, and the Yukon River country. I have authorized up to date about $107,000. The territorv had a small fund of $5,000 for the control of epidemics but that was gone in no time at all. If it were merely for the relief of the white population I should not come to Congress for 1 cent. 1 should put that on the territory where, I think, it rightly belongs, but when it comes to what we consider the wards of the Nation, who are not taxpayers and who, in other parts of the United States, are attended to by the Government, I consider that our small treasury should not be diminished by the sum necessary. We need that for our schools and roads; we have not a very large treasury, and we can not handle it ourselves: it has gone beyond our control.There were approximately 2,000 deaths, as I figure it, in Alaska from influenza, which are scattered all over the Territory. The Territory is two and a quarter times the size of Texas, and many places there are without any means of communication. I sent one doctor 400 miles by dog team, an expensive trip. He got to the afflicted community and died Mr. Wood. The doctor died? Mr. Riggs. Yes. Of influenza. After discussions about how many had died and where, with Gov. Riggs pointing out that the influenza was affecting the Native population more violently than the whites, the talk focused on what would be done with the money. Gov. Riggs noted that he had originally asked for $200,000, but that amount had been cut in half in the Senate. He stated that he had asked the Red Cross for relief, but “did not receive any encouragement from that quarter.� Asked about recent news from Alaska, Gov. Riggs read from a letter dated January 2, 1919, from Nome: “Ten villages this district affected. Three wiped out entirely, others average
85 per cent deaths. Majority of children of affected villages saved by relief parties sent by te Bureau of Education. Teachers in stricken villages all sick, two dead, rest recovering. Total number of deaths reported 750, probably 25 per cent this number frozen to death before help arrived. Over 500 children to be cared for, majority of whom are orphans. Am feeding and caring for surviving population of five large villages. Seven relief hospitals operated in affected villages; no trained nurses or physicians available, but splendid work done by white people in charge. Cost to date estimated $70,000 for native relief alone; will need about . $15,000 this month. May be necessary send relief several quarantined villages owing to regulations preventing natives from trapping, and can not purchase necessities. Impossible at this time to lift quarantine zones in outlying affected villages. Appalling and beyond description. Am giving 90 orphans to mission at Nome to care for at $10 per month, but hope department will plan for large industrial training school this district next summer. Splendid opportunity for educational advancement for the Eskimos.” Mr. Sisson asked why the Eskimos were not trapping, to which Gov. Riggs replied that most of them were dead, the others either ill or quarantined in their villages. Mr. Sisson asked how supplies and materials had been obtained thus far, and Gov. Riggs replied, “On my personal credit, my personal word it would be paid, as Governor of Alaska.” There was then lengthy discussion of many related issues, blunt questions, patient answers, concerns about setting precdents, accounting, and the potential for misappropriation of the funds. Mr. Sisson asked about expenses again, and Gov. Riggs told of sending dog teams from Nome to Kotzebue, 10 men, 3 dogteams, at a cost of $3,000. “It costs $1 a day to feed a dog.” Mr. Riggs noted there were around 20,000 white people in Alaska, and Mr. Sisson asked, “You have more Indians than white people?” To which Gov. Riggs replied “Yes, about 27,000,” and Mr. Claxton commented, “Probably a few more than that.” Possibly feeling exasperated, Gov. Riggs stated, “These are our own people; they are not from Austria, Turkey, Belgium, or Serbia; our own American people, who belong to us. It is a very serious situation.”
The Eagle Point Storehouse Storehouse No. 4, in Hyder, Alaska One of Alaska’s most unusual contributions to the list of National Historic Places is a small stone storehouse on the U.S.-Canadian border between Stewart, British Columbia and Hyder, Alaska. One of four such storehouses built in the area in 1896, it is also one of the oldest stone and masonry buildings in Alaska.
Hyder is a small community, established in 1907 at the mouth of the Salmon River, near the head of Portland Canal. Rich gold and silver lodes discovered in the upper Salmon River basin led to Hyder becoming the primary access and supply point for the mines by 1917.
The area around Portland Canal was first explored in 1896 by Captain David du Bose Gaillard of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the American-Canadian Boundary Dispute. Captain Gaillard had been instrumental in the construction of the Panama Canal, being in charge of the central district of the Canal, designing and engineering the Gatun Dam and the notorious Culebra Cut through the backbone of the isthmus.
On August 17, 1896, during an increasingly heated dispute over the boundary between Alaska and Canada, when ownership of the Portland Canal was in contention, Captain Gaillard received orders from Washington, D.C. to build four masonry storehouses at the head of Portland Canal in southeastern Alaska, and to make a strategic military reconnaisance of the area. In Portland, Oregon the Captain requisitioned and fitted the lighthouse tender Manzanita, hired 22 civilian workers, secured all the supplies except masonry, and sailed north.
The nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places notes Capt. Gaillard established his base of operations at Eagle Point and, utilizing the excellent sand at Halibut Bay, proceeded to build storehouses in four locations: Manzanita Cove (Storehouse No. 1), Lizard Point (No. 2), Halibut Bay (No. 3), and Eagle Point (No. 4). When the boundary was changed in 1906 storehouses nos. 1 and 2 became Canadian possessions.
The Eagle Point Storehouse, also known as Storehouse No. 4, has interior dimensions of 10 by 15 feet and its walls are 12 to 18 inches thick, with a hip roof covered in cedar shingles. The NRHP form notes a dressed stone laid in the wall with a neatly cut inscription: “U.S. Property, Do Not Injure.” About 25 feet from the storehouse stood a 35’ spruce flagstaff, upon which was carved, “U.S. Sept. 14, 1896.” The NHRP form says, “….on which date a United States ‘storm flag’ 4 feet 9 inches by 8 feet was first hoisted, which was done with a salute, three cheers, and uncovered heads.” (The flagpole is no longer there.)
The NHRP form also explains: “Although nothing appears in official documents, the timing, placement and massive masonry design of the four structures would suggest a military strongpoint, rather than civilian use. Considerable animosity had generated in Canada’s desire to have a North Pacific seaport; denied them if the U.S. had held fast to the terms of the purchase with Russia.”
“Storehouse No. 4 is significant for the course of history it represents and for its distinguished builder. It offers rare remaining physical evidence of National stress which, fortuitously, was peacefully resolved. Less significant, it is one of four structures which were probably the first masonry structures in Alaska.”
In addition to the construction of the four stone storehouses, Captain Gaillard made meticulous observations which remain a contribution to Alaska science and literature. His 18 page study of the climate, tides, geographic features, natural and human resources of the region was published in the Annual Report of the U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, 1897. In fulfiling his orders the captain travelled 9,000 miles and reported the mission completed only two months after leaving Washington, D.C. ~•~
Eagle Point Storehouse and the Canadian boundary marker. [Photo by Roy Atchison, Hyder, Alaska, Alaska Resource Heritage Survey, June 16, 1976.]
Captain David du Bose Gaillard U. S. Army Corps of Engineers
Joseph Puhl, assisted by neighbors, works on his cabin. Arvid Johnson (l), Henning Benson with pipe, Virgil Eckert with adz, Joseph Puhl, right. [Willis T. Geisman ASL-P270-293 Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library]
The 1935 Matanuska Colony Project “If the government is going to set up colonies all over the country, why not one for Alaska?” Colonel Otto F. Ohlson Alaska’s dramatically beautiful Matanuska Valley sits at the head of Knik Arm, crossed by two major rivers and surrounded by towering mountains on three sides. Today it is the state’s agricultural heartland, the ongoing legacy of the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project. The picturesque farms with their soaring-roofed Colony barns are historic landmarks, and reminders of an all-but-forgotten chapter in American history, when the U.S. government rolled the dice and offered 204 Depression-distraught families an opportunity to begin their lives over again, with government financing and support, in this wild northern land.
The Colonists' arrival at Palmer, 5:20 PM, May 10th, 1935. Mrs. Elvi Kerttula with daughter Esther disembarking from the train on arrival. [Willis T. Geisman ASL-P270-124 Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library] Elvi Kertulla’s son, Jalmar Martin “Jay” Kertulla, born in Wisconsin in 1928 and seven years old when the family came to Alaska, grew up to serve in the Alaska House and Senate from 1961 to 1995, making him the longest-serving member of the Alaska Legislature. His daughter Beth Kertulla, Elvi’s granddaughter, was a state representative for 15 years, until she took a fellowship at Stanford University and then a post in the Obama Administration.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Wikipedia). Project Manager Don Irwin (l) and Alaska Railroad manager Otto F. Ohlson (ASL-P270-140), W. T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
The Matanuska Colony Project was part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s optimistically grandiose New Deal, a series of economic programs designed to provide the “3 R’s”: Relief, Recovery, and Reform.” Relief for the poor and the unemployed, Recovery of the economy to normal levels, and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. It was an era of outlandish programs dreamed up by bold visionaries, but none were bolder or more outlandish than the government’s rural rehabilitation and resettlement projects, which included Dyess Colony, Arkansas; Arthurdale, West Virginia; the Phoenix Homesteads in Arizona; and similar colonies in over a dozen other states, and the Territory of Alaska. On April 23, 1935, the Bureau of Indian Affairs ship North Star, chartered from the Department of the Interior by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, left San Francisco bound for Seward, Alaska. On board was a large contingent of administrators, staff, and construction supervisors charged with laying the groundwork for the Matanuska Colony Project. General Manager Don Irwin, Director of Construction Col. Frank Bliss, his staff, and many others, including an architect, an engineer, a physician and many more who would play key roles in the government’s bold New Deal experiment in Alaska, were transporting the tents, stoves, trucks, tractors, well-drilling equipment and other materials necessary for creating a new community in the Alaskan wilderness. Also on board were 118 transient workmen, the first group of several hundred who would be building the homes, barns, administrative buildings and roads for the new colony.
A 1935 map showing the locations of the colony tracts, note the towns of Matanuska and Palmer. A 1935 WPA poster for FDR’s New Deal Resettlement Administration, architect of the Matanuska Colony Project and others.
Joining this advance guard as the official photographer was an earnest young graduate from the University of California at Berkeley named Willis Taubert Geisman. His thorough documentation of the project was a monumental achievement, and has become the single most frequently referenced work on that uniquely important part of Alaska's history. Over the decades his compelling and beautiful photographs of the Matanuska Colony have appeared in hundreds of books, magazines, news articles, on television, and in films. On February 4, 1935, President Roosevelt, by Executive Order, withdrew 8,000 acres in the Matanuska Valley from homestead entry, along the lower reaches of the Matanuska River in the eastern part of the Valley. Framed on three sides by the towering Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges, open to the west with a view toward Denali, and bounded along its southern edge by the glacial Knik River, the mighty Matanuska River enters the northeastern corner of the Valley and empties into Knik Arm in close proximity to the Knik River. Farming in Alaska had been proven feasible by the U.S. government’s territory-wide cadre of agricultural experiment stations, including one near Matanuska. There was no highway from the Valley to Anchorage; weekly passenger and freight train service provided the only mechanical means of travel in or out of the Valley. Palmer, then known as Warton, was only a railroad siding on the branch line to the Jonesville coal mines at Sutton and Chickaloon. There was a freight warehouse and a post office, and a handful of nearby homesteaders. The town of Matanuska, at the junction of the main railroad line and the spur line to the coalfields, had been created when the government railroad held an auction of townsite lots in
1916. The government built a railroad depot and a freight warehouse at the site, and a small town took shape around them, with a general store, a liquor store, a roadhouse, a post office, a grade school and a high school, and a dance and meeting hall. The name of the town, later applied to the Colony, came from an old Russian translation of a term for the ‘Copper River People,’ who used the mountainous Matanuska River corridor between the Valley and their homeland in the Copper River Basin. There were already many farms in the area. In Matanuska Valley Memoir, Bulletin #18 from the Alaska Experiment Station, July, 1955, authors Hugh A. Johnson and Keith L. Stanton describe early farming development: “Agriculture in the Valley came into its own in 1915. Most of the 150 settlers filing for homesteads came intending to farm. Some cleared enough land to put in a crop the next year. Settlement was concentrated in the vicinity of Knik, across the Hay Flats and up the Matanuska River with a few homesteads spotted along the trails leading to Fishhook Creek. The greatest influx of settlers occurred in 1916 and 1917. By the end of that period nearly all the available land had been homesteaded--a fact not commonly known.” In her classic Old Times on Upper Cook’s Inlet, author Louise Potter printed a list of 132 people who had homesteads near Knik in 1915, noting, “That such a list is possible at all is apt to come as a surprise to many who have been encouraged to believe that 1935, the date the ’Colonists’ arrived in the Matanuska Top: Staff members. ASL-P270-078 Middle: Mess tent under construction. ASL-P270-479 Bottom: Well rig and water tank. ASL-270-100 All by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
Valley, marks the beginning of the history of agriculture in the Upper Inlet Region...” It was the Colonists’ good fortune to land in a dramatically beautiful Valley which already had a rich agricultural history, for Alaska had been advertised and promoted to farmers for many years before the Colonists headed north. Arville Schaleben was a cub reporter working for The Milwaukee Journal in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, when he was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. The newspaper offered to send the young journalist to Alaska with the Matanuska colonists in return for a series of articles about the government's unusual New Deal experiment. Schaleben leapt at the offer and travelled to Alaska with the Wisconsin families, living alongside them in the Palmer tent city that first summer, writing and filing stories almost daily - over 150 stories and more than 400 photographs - which appeared in The Milwaukee Journal and were also syndicated in newspapers around the country. The resulting series of articles was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and cemented Schaleben’s reputation as a journalist. Historic photographs show parallel rows of neat white cabin-style tents built for the colonist families, and inside each tent was a new coal- and wood-burning cookstove, already burning to warm the tent inside and Top: Palmer post office and tent city. ASL-P270-591 Middle: Construction camp. ASL-P270-112 Bottom: Trading post construction. ASL-270-490 All by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
Colonist families arriving at the railroad depot, and going to their new tent homes. Photos by Willis T. Geisman, 1935. (ASL P270-225 and ASL P270-484, ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library)
with a bucket of coal alongside for stoking throughout the night. Simple beds with springs, mattresses, sheets, and blankets awaited the tired colonists, and each tent was stocked with food and the basic necessities. Original plans for the colony had called for all of the families to remain in the central tent city while their homes were being constructed, but that plan changed, and they were split up into eight different camps, to enable each household to be near their own farms while the land was being cleared and permanent homes built. On May 23 the drawing for farm tracts was held, the majority were 40 acres in area, but some tracts contained as much as 80 acres. With their tract locations determined the colonists were moved into the tent camps closest to their new farms, some close in to Palmer and others several miles away, including some closer to the railroad town of Wasilla and a large group across the Matanuska River at Bodenburg Butte. Life in the tent camps during the first few weeks was challenging, with firewood and water to haul, and deep mud from the cold and rainy weather, but the families made do, knowing their homes were being built and the tent camp situation was only temporary. Five plans for houses were offered to the colonists, each a single-family “rustic cottage� design developed by the FERA architects in Washington, D.C., working under David R. Williams. Most of the homes, which ranged in size from 900 to 1,500 square feet, were one-and-one-half story with rectangular or L-shaped floor plans, although a few were single-story homes. Constructed of log, frame, or a combination of both, the houses featured gable roofs; four of the designs were
three-bedrooms with a combination kitchen and living room, storage room, and many built-in elements; the fifth was a similar four-bedroom design. None of the homes included indoor plumbing or bathrooms, but there were spaces for the future development of indoor bathrooms. Likewise, none of the original plans had a full basement, but some of the colonists elected to dig their own basements after the fact. The barns built for the colonists’ farms were of a standard design, 32’ by 32’ by 32’ high, recommended to support a subsistence family farmstead as originally intended by the government planners. Other outbuildings included chicken coops, well houses, sheds, and of course, outhouses. Wells were driven to supply each farm with an adequate source of water. The cost of the homes and farm buildings was reported in the 1950 study for the U. S. Department of the Interior by Kirk H. Stone, titled Alaskan Group Settlement: The Matanuska Valley Colony: “Homes, barns, and wells cost more than was anticipated... The estimates in March, 1935 were $1100 for a home and well and $200 for a barn. These figures were revised in May to: $985 per house, 50 barns at $598 each, and material for 150 barns at $200 each, and $140 per well. Actually, the appraised costs in May, 1936 averaged: $1830 per dwelling, $506 for each barn, and $511 per well. The estimate on the barns was the only building cost anticipated accurately, but the barns were the buildings considered least suitable by the colonists.” The colonists’ camps were vibrant places where dozens of children and dogs raced and played as the women shared recipes along with the latest news from other camps. The men formed crews to cut logs for their homes and barns while developing croplands and pasture.
Pulling up logs for gable construction (ASL-P270-484). Drilling holes for pins to strengthen walls (ASL-P270-482). Both photographs by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library]
They fished in the streams, and talked and played endless card games in the evenings. Through shared hardships and hard work, community meetings, church services, and events such as dances in neighboring towns, the intrepid families who left their stateside homes and ventured north to Alaska were slowly building a new life. The A.R.R.C. General Manager Don Irwin was liked and appreciated by the colonist families. He was an understanding and patient man, a hard worker, a fair administrator, and a very keen observer. A case in point was Irwin’s descriptive appraisal of the Milwaukee Journal reporter, Arville Schaleben, in his later book, The Colorful Matanuska Valley: “He felt that this project rated something more than a few days of exciting, inflammatory headlines. He dug deeply into what was going on. He was not afraid to walk, thumb a ride on a Corporation truck, or borrow a horse from a Colonist to ride, if he could get the exact information he needed for his reports. It was not at all unusual to see Schaleben riding a horse bareback, at a lope, coattails, elbows, dispatch case and camera flying, hurrying to the railroad depot to file a deadline report for his paper. He was with the colony for four months. It is certain that the more conservative press in the South 48 states depended a great deal on information supplied by Schaleben through his Milwaukee Journal reports.� Throughout the summer of 1935, Arville Schaleben kept the Matanuska Colony in the headlines of The Milwaukee Journal, but he also devoted many columns of newsprint to sharing stories of the mundane, day-to-day lives of the Colony settlers. He wrote about the housewives tending their chores, the children playing games, a colonist being chased by a black bear, the
E. Huseby and son in their garden behind their tent home (ASL-P270-759). Photographers publicized the pioneers (ASL-P270-613). Both by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
Doing washday chores together (ASL-270-265a), and Mrs. Carl Erickson (Minn.) in her tent home (ASL-P270-646). Both photographs by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
workers building the homes, events in the community, the officials, the land, and even the weather. He punctuated his stories with photographs which added a visual dimension, with striking images of life in the Alaskan colony such as neat white tents in a row, transient workers heaving logs into place for a colonist's cabin, children playing marbles in the dirt, and scenes from the first funeral held by the colonists, for little Donald Henry Koenen. At the tender age of four he had died of “heart trouble, possibly aggravated by two weeks of measles.” Schaleben shared details of the child’s burial “...in a homemade wooden casket covered with wild roses and bluebells that his playmates had gathered.” On Thursday, August 13, 1935, a short item ran at the top of the front page of The Milwaukee Journal, bylined “By Special Cable to the Journal” and signed by Will Rogers, famous actor, author, humorist and social commentator, who had been contributing to the newspaper for nine years. Titled “Nothing to Do, So He Flies Over Peak,” the article shared the travels of Rogers and his friend and pilot, Wiley Post, who were en route to Siberia for a holiday of hunting and fishing. At the bottom of the same front page, Arville Schaleben wrote about the popular humorist’s visit to the colony, after which Rogers commented, “The valley looks great. It looks fine, fine. You got a mighty nice place here..” The next morning Milwaukee Journal readers were startled to see a large quarter-page photo of Will Rogers and Wiley Post standing beside Post’s airplane, under a bold black page-wide headline which read “Crash Kills Will Rogers, Post.”
Robert Biller and son Bobby Jr. of Wisconsin carrying water to his tent (ASL-P270-618). Cultivating (ASLP270-682). Both by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
The beloved humorist and the flier who had circled the world had crashed on their way to Point Barrow. Rogers was mourned world-wide, and his presence, which had brought laughter and renewed hope at a time when the nation most needed it, would be greatly missed by the American public. His lasting tribute to the Matanuska Colony was a one-liner in his final dispatch which mused, “There’s a whole lot of difference in mining for gold and mining for spinach!” Throughout the late summer and early fall of 1935 the colonist families continued to work on their farmsteads, and from the vantage point of thirty-three years later, Don Irwin summed up the situation: “The summer was over. The efforts of the construction crews had produced excellent results. The families and livestock were under roof. There was a lot to be done by the individual families to finish the interior of their homes, but life seemed not so tense and the prospects looked much brighter even though their personal indebtedness was mounting.” The indebtedness of the colonist farmers was a source of contention, to be sure, but an article by colonist wife Klaria Johnson, who had traveled to Alaska from Wisconsin with her husband, Victor, portrayed an exuberant joy in her newfound home: “‘Martyrs’ with their lurid stories of danger, hardship, and injustice aroused more concern than the quiet, patient, pioneering-minded people who expected to put up with the bitter and the sweet. We colonists weren’t really having a bad time. We went about building our home without the help of corporation carpenters–four neighbors went together. Each day I walked out to our tract and
cooked lunch for the workers on a campfire under the birches. The fragrance of new-cut timber and moist earth, mingling with the good smells of coffee and frying bacon, will always be to me symbolic of those busy days of home-building and the high hope that was in us. Four months after landing in Palmer, we moved into our new house.” Although fraught with inevitable bureaucratic entanglements, frustrating delays, personality clashes and a myriad of other distractions, the Matanuska Colony actually thrived for the most part, and the majority of the families remained to raise their families and make their permanent homes in Alaska. Highways were built, the wide Matanuska and Knik Rivers were bridged, and the town of Palmer became the center of commerce and society in the Valley. By 1948, production from the Colony Project farms provided over half of the total Alaskan agricultural products sold. Today the Matanuska Valley draws worldwide attention for its colorful agricultural heritage and its uniquely orchestrated history. The iconic Colony barn, often seen around the Valley now in artwork, logos, advertising and other uses, has become a beloved symbol of this unique chapter in Alaska’s history. ~•~ Excerpted from “A Mighty Nice Place,” The History of the 1935 Matanuska Colony Project, by Helen Hegener (Northern Light Media, 2016). See Sources & Resources on page 48 for more information.
Top: Buddy and Victor Yohn in their new cabin. (ASL-P270-593) Middle: Cabin No. 93. (ASL-P270-355) Bottom: Cabin No. 140. (ASL-270-322) All by Willis T. Geisman. ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble Collection, Alaska State Library.
Pioneer Packhorses • E. J. Glave In the last few years of the 19th century, Alaska was viewed by most Americans as a land of mystery and wonder, unknown and unexplored, and therefore filled with stories of potentially dangerous adventure. Popular magazines and newspapers seized every opportunity to reward their readers with exciting tales of this new land, and the public’s appetite for news of the north country seemed insatiable, with avid readers eagerly anticipating each new episode. And so, in 1890 a five-man expedition was formed, under the auspices of the highly popular weekly serial Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, with the goal of exploring the largely unknown mountainous area between the Yukon Territory and the coast of Alaska. Led by E. Hazard Wells, who would later write extensively of his travels in the north as a correspondent and photographer for the Cincinnati Post, the small group included the scientist and astronomer A. B. Schanz, F. B. Price, John “Jack” Dalton, and English journalist and travel writer E. J. Glave. Edward James Glave was, at 28, already well-known as an associate of the African explorer Henry M. Stanley, who was famous for his successful search for the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Leslie’s newspaper hoped Glave would provide its readers with the kind of harrowing adventure stories which he had popularized in his lectures on the Belgian Congo, and Glave did not disappoint. When the expedition reached Kusawa Lake, southwest of Whitehorse, the party split up, with Glave and Dalton turning west to return to the coast while the others continued north to the
Yukon River. The two men had found qualities to appreciate in each other, and Glave would later write of Dalton, “He was a most desirable partner, having excellent judgement, cool and deliberate in time of danger, and possessed of great tact in dealing with Indians. He thoroughly understood horses, was as good as any Indian in a cottonwood dugout or skin canoe, and as a camp cook I never met his equal.” Jack Dalton had some experience in northern travel; he had been with the noted explorer Frederick Schwatka four years previously in an ill-fated attempt to climb Mt. St. Elias. When Schwatka’s health failed the expedition was aborted, but Dalton remained in the area, successfully prospecting for coastal coal deposits. Glave and Dalton followed the Tatashinshini River to the Alsek River, where they purchased a dugout canoe and hired an Indian guide. Their harrowing trip down the whitewater river to the coast was detailed in popular articles and greatly increased interest in this unknown territory. The following year, in May of 1891, Glave and Dalton returned to the area to explore the feasibility of freighting from the coast to the interior with packhorses, even though the other freighters warned them that it was a foolhardy idea. In Seattle they bought “four short, chunky horses weighing about nine hundred pounds each,” and supplied themselves “with the requisite pack-saddles and harness, stores and ammunition,” and then, with their horses and equipment aboard a steamship, they sailed one thousand miles north to “Pyramid Harbor, near the mouth of the Chilkat River, which is by far the most convenient point from which to start for the interior. No horses had ever been taken into the country, and old miners, traders, and prospectors openly pitied our ignorance in imagining the possibility of taking pack-animals over the coast range.” Leaving from roughly the current location of Haines, Alaska, Glave and Dalton ran into deep snow in the coast range and were forced to backtrack to the Chilkat village of Klokwan, 24 miles up the Chilkat River from the coast. Their horses enjoyed the abundant grass and the two explorers learned about the local tribesmen, who Glave characterized as “buccaneers and pirates.” He wrote, “The chief, Klenta Koosh, has a strange collection of firearms, and outside his house two iron cannons defend the approach with threatening array—all stolen from a Russian ship which stranded on the Alaskan shore in former days.” Toward the end of May Glave and Dalton saddled their horses and struck out again. They towed their horses across the Chilkat River, deep and swift from the melting snows, with a canoe which they further utilized to carry their supplies as far as navigation permitted. Then they once again
secured their load on the packhorses and, as Glave explained, “riding on the packsaddles, proceeded on our way along the stony valley of the Kleeheenee, which we had to swim several times on horseback, where the precipitous bluffs on one bank stopped our advance and compelled us to cross. At one place I had a bad fall. The horse I was riding sank into a small bed of quicksand, and, struggling to free himself, reared and fell backward. Fortunately I was thrown off a sufficient distance to be safe from his plunging and kicking, and finally Dalton and I helped him out.” “Fearing that we might have a lot of soft snow to cross on the summit, we constructed sets of four snow-shoes for our horses. We trimmed some stout young spruce saplings, then lashed these into hoops fourteen inches in diameter, and filled them with plaited rope, each, when finished, resembling the exaggerated head of a lawn-tennis racket. The horse’s hoof was placed in a pad in the center of the shoe, and and a series of loops drawn up and laced around the fetlock kept it in place. When first experimenting with these, a horse would snort and tremble upon lifting his feet. Then he would make the most vigorous efforts to shake them off. Standing on his hind legs, he would savagely paw the air, then quickly tumble onto his forelegs and kick frantically. We gave them daily instruction in this novel accomplishment till each horse was an expert, but our precaution proved unnecessary, for all the snow we crossed during the season was packed hard.” Glave wrote of crossing the towering coast range and then, “After two more days of hard traveling we reached a wooded bluff overlooking an Indian village. Descending to the banks of a river the course of which we had been following, we fired a couple of rifle shots, which is the
Indian signal of approach. Soon a crowd appeared on the opposite bank, and shoved their dugout canoes into the stream; we unsaddled our horses, and swam them across the river, and the Indians carried our belongings over in their canoes. We loaded up again, and a few minutes’ walk took us to the village of Neska-ta-heen. Dalton and I had met these people the previous summer; we then approached this settlement from the north on our way down the Alseck River to the Pacific Ocean. The road over which we now traveled was the direct way from the coast. No glaciers or insurmountable difficulties obstruct this route. Our arrival at this point with the pioneer band of horses is a most important event in Alaskan history, destined in the near future to recive due recognition.” Glave and Dalton’s journey over the Coast Range did indeed receive recognition. In the 1900 Annual Report for the Department of the Interior the great geologist Alfred H. Brooks credited them in his report on the Reconnaissance from Pyramid Harbor to Eagle City, Alaska, comprised of six men with 15 packhorses carrying 100 days’ provisions and equipment and following much of their route. Brooks wrote, “E.J. Glave and Jack Dalton, with four pack horses, followed up the Chilkat River, crossed the two forks of the Alsek, and reached the upper end of Lake Kluane, then returned to the coast by the same route. They were the first to use pack horses in Alaskan explorations.” Brooks also noted, “Mr. Dalton, of Pyramid Harbor, is the best informed man of the region, and we are much indebted to him for information he furnished us.” Glave and Dalton weathered many adventures with their four packhorses, including several narrow escapes. Through it all they cared for their little band, and Glave wrote, “Everywhere we found convenient camping places, with good water and plenty of feed for our horses, which, although incessantly worried by mosquitos and other flies, remained in good condition. We nursed the little band of horses with the greatest care, attended at once to any soreness or lameness, and loaded very lightly any animal at all unwell. We used them simply for packing our belongings; each of us took charge of two of them, which were led tied one behind the other. Through this wild land the management of four horses proved ample employment for us, combined with our other duties, which consisted of striking camp in the morning, loading up the pack-bags, and saddling up, searching out the trail, cutting roads through timber lands, and at night pitching the tent, unharnessing, stacking away supplies, cooking, and maintaining a constant lookout for our horses.” Edward J. Glave wrote a two-part article about their trip, “Pioneer Packhorses in Alaska,” for The Century magazine, Vol. XLIV, Nos. 5 and 6, September and October, 1892. Glave and Dalton never took another journey together, for the Englishman returned to Africa, where he died a few years later, at the age of only 32. Jack Dalton remained in Alaska and blazed a pack trail over their route, setting up trading posts along the way, and during the Klondike Gold Rush he herded cattle over his Dalton Trail to the miners in Dawson City. He eventually moved to Washington state, where he died in 1945 at the age of 89. ~•~ E. J. Glave’s articles for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and The Century magazine are available online, to read or download, see Resources, page 48. Also see Alaskan Books on page 46, for the 2013 title, Travels to the Alseck, Edward Glave’s Reports, published by the Yukon Native Language Center, Whitehorse, Yukon.
Hudson Stuck, circa 1914, and three of his five books on his work and travels in Alaska.
“In the wilds at 50° below zero there is the most complete silence. All animal life is hidden away. Not a rabbit flits across the trail; in the absolutely still air not a twig moves. A rare raven passes overhead, and his cry, changed from a hoarse croak to a sweet liquid note, reverberates like the musical glasses. There is no more delightful sound in the wilderness than this occasional lapse into music of the raven.” ~Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled
Hudson Stuck
Ready to hit the trail, circa 1913
"Archdeacon of the Yukon and Tanana Valleys and of the Arctic regions to the north of the same" In The Alaskan Missions of the Episcopal Church, A brief sketch, historical and descriptive, by Hudson Stuck, D.D., published in 1920 by the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, the following lines open Chapter VI, By Dog-Sled or Launch: “With the building of Fairbanks it became evident that the work of the Church in the territory was grown too large for the constant personal supervision of the Bishop [Peter Trimble Rowe], and in this year (1904) the present writer, then Dean of St. Matthew's Cathedral, Dallas, Texas, responded to an appeal of the Bishop, mainly with a view of relieving him of his winter journeys. He went to Fairbanks that summer with a commission as ‘Archdeacon of the Yukon and Tanana Valleys and of the Arctic regions to the north of the same’--a sufficiently wide scope for any man's wanderings and charge.” After a description of his founding of St. Matthews Mission and Hospital in Fairbanks, the writer, Hudson Stuck, notes, “There began in 1904 a series of archdiaconal winter journeys with a dog sled, each covering from 1,500 to 2,000 miles, in which the populated parts of the whole Yukon basin were reached and the whole Arctic coast was visited; twelve winters having been so spent at this writing.” Those winter journeys over a territory of 250,000 square miles would result in one of the most fascinating books of northland travel ever written, Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled, published in
1914. The book detailed Stuck’s missionary activities as he traveled between the villages of northern Alaska, establishing missions at at Nenana, Chena, Salcha, Tanacross, and Allakaket, and it would be the first of his five books on his travels and missionary work in Alaska. Traveling incessantly by dogsled in winter and boat in summer, Stuck ministered to miners and woodchoppers of Alaska's Interior and championed the Indians and Eskimos. He was noted as an active defender of the region's indigenous peoples, whose contact with "low-down whites," he believed, doomed them to eventual extinction, and he always emphasized the value of education. The son of James and Jane (Hudson) Stuck, Hudson was born in Paddington, London, England, on November 11, 1865. He attended Westbourne Park Public School and King's College. In 1885, eager for "wide-open spaces," heralded in a railway advertisement, he tossed a coin: heads for Australia, tails for Texas. It landed tails, and Stuck, in a phrase of the era, was G.T.T.-"gone to Texas.” He emigrated to the United States in 1885, settling in Texas, where he worked as a cowboy near Junction City and taught in one-room schools at Copperas Creek, San Angelo, and San Marcos. In 1889 Stuck entered the theology department of the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, graduating as an ordained a priest in 1892. He served for two years at Grace Church in Cuero, Texas, before moving to St. Matthew's Cathedral, Dallas, where he served as dean for several years. His notable accomplishments during this time included founding a home for indigent women, a boys’ school, and a children’s home; and in 1903 he pioneered the first state law to curb the “indefensible abuse” of child labor. After moving to Alaska in 1904, Hudson Stuck became a relentless force for advancing the Espiscopal church’s mission in the Last Frontier. In 1905, Rev. Charles E. Betticher, Jr joined Stuck in Alaska as a missionary, and the two men worked together for the next decade, establishing schools, hospitals, and churches across the northernmost wilderness. While the Reverend Stuck had a special
“Rough going on the Yukon,” a photograph from Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled (1914)
“Striking across from the Tanana to the Kantishna,” from The Ascent of Denali (1914).
interest in the indigenous peoples, he also wanted to reach the scattered population of miners, prospectors, roadhouse operators and other frontiersmen. Stuck started the Church Periodical Club, which collected and distributed periodicals to all the missions and other settlements. Based in Fairbanks, it provided much more than just church literature, and was often the only reading material available. Stuck explained in 1920, “Church people generally throughout the United States were brought into line, and a stream of weekly and monthly publications began to pour into Fairbanks, and to go out again to the remotest corners of the country, until the number handled annually rose above twenty thousand. Many an isolated prospector depends to this day for his winter reading upon packages supplied from the Fairbanks mission.” In 1908 Hudson Stuck acquired a small riverboat, the Pelican, which he used on the Yukon River and its many tributaries, ranging several thousand miles every summer to visit the Athabascan Indians in their fishing and hunting camps. These travels he also later described, in his book Voyages on the Yukon and its Tributaries (1917). In The Alaskan Missions of the Episcopal Church, Stuck wrote glowingly of his Pelican: “Of all aids in the direction and supervision of enterprises now widely scattered throughout the interior, the launch Pelican, built and brought to the Yukon in 1908, at an expense of nearly $5,000, has been the greatest; indeed without some such craft the visiting of all these stations in any one summer would be an impossibility. The Pelican at this writing has made twelve seasons' cruises, ranging from i,800 to 5,200 miles each summer, and has travelled an aggregate distance of upwards of 30,000 miles on the Yukon and its tributaries. She is a comfortable ‘glass cabin cruiser’ with a draught of sixteen inches and a speed of about nine miles an hour, has accommodations for sleeping and cooking and a gasoline capacity of 250 gallons, depots of gasoline being maintained at several central points so that prolonged cruises lasting most of the summer can be made in her. The only mission in the interior that she does not visit is the Tanana Crossing, her one attempt to reach that point having been defeated by a violent sudden freshet which filled the river with driftwood. She has never had
Archdeacon of the Yukon Hudson Stuck
With co-leader with Harry Karstens (R), 1913.
professional pilot or engineer, but has been handled altogether by native help. An appropriation of $500 per annum, which about pays for her gasoline and lubricating oil, is made by the Department of Missions; chiefly contributed by the boys at several well-known preparatory schools in New England. “This craft enables the Bishop and the archdeacon to visit, not only the mission stations but the scattered camps of natives all along the rivers, engaged in their summer salmon fishing; to stay at any place as long as may be necessary, to leave when it is convenient. The traveller dependent upon steamboats who should break his journey at mission stations would spend most of the short season waiting for boats, and would not be able to visit the camps and riverside cabins at all. She has again and again been useful in conveying desperately injured persons to speedy medical aid, in taking children to the schools at Nenana and Anvik, and regularly transports quantities of reading matter for distribution.” Stuck had experience in mountain climbing, including the Canadian Rockies and the dormant volcano Mount Rainier in Washington state. In 1907 he wrote of the great Denali, “I would rather climb that mountain than discover the richest gold-mine in Alaska.” In 1913, at the age of 50, he recruited the respected wilderness guide and musher Harry Karstens to join an expedition to the summit of Denali (then known as Mt. McKinley). Other members were Walter Harper, of Alaska Native and Irish descent, Tennessee native Robert G. Tatum, and two student volunteers from the mission school at Nenana, Johnny Fred (John Fredson), and Esaias George. The small party left Nenana on March 17, 1913 and Stuck described their base camp: “Our approach was not directly toward Denali but toward an opening in the range six or eight miles to the east of the great mountain. This opening is known as Cache Creek. …We pushed up the creek some
three miles more to its forks, and there established our base camp … at about four thousand feet elevation.” The men cautiously crossed the treacherous, crevasse-ridden Muldrow Glacier, with Stuck noting, “The work on the glacier was the beginning of the ceaseless grind which the ascent of Denali demands.” He described their dangers: “It took several days to unravel the tangle of fissures and discover and prepare a trail that the dogs could haul the sleds along. Sometimes a bridge would be found over against one wall of the glacier, and for the next we might have to go clear across to the other wall. Sometimes a block of ice jammed in the jaws of a crevasse would make a perfectly safe bridge; sometimes we had nothing upon which to cross save hardened snow. Some of the gaps were narrow and some wide, yawning chasms. Some of them were mere surface cracks and some gave hundreds of feet of deep blue ice with no bottom visible at all.” The climbing party reached the summit of Denali on June 7, 1913. When they returned to base camp Stuck sent a messenger to Fairbanks, and their groundbreaking achievement was announced to the world on June 21, 1913, by The New York Times. Harry Karstens, Stuck’s co-organizer, went on to become the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park when it was established in 1917. Twentyone year old Robert Tatum, from Tennessee, was teaching at the mission school at Nenana when he met Stuck on one of the Archdeacon’s visits to the mission and was engaged as a camp cook for the expedition. Walter Harper, the Irish-Koyukon Alaska Native, was the first to reach the summit of Denali on June 7. After the climb, Harper continued his formal education, and he planned on going to medical school. In September, 1918 Harper married Frances Welles with Archdeacon Stuck officiating, and he and his wife boarded the ill-fated steamer SS Princess Sophia, en route to Seattle, for their honeymoon. The ship ran aground on a reef in a snowstorm, was broken up in a gale, and sank on October 25, 1918. All 268 passengers and 75 crewmen were lost in one of Alaska’s greatest sea tragedies. After his successful climb, Hudson Stuck worked as an Episcopal priest in Alaska for the rest of his life,
Robert G. Tatum’s Diaries, Saturday, June 7, 1913: “Today stands a big red letter in my life as our party of four Hudson Stuck Harry Phillipp Karstens, Walter Harper + my self reached the summit of Mt. McKinley (Denali) some 20,600 feet above the sea level the highest mountain on the N. American continent. I was quite sick + so was Mr. K. but we left this morn at 4:00 am and reached the summit at 1:00 pm. Arch D was very short winded and had great difficulty.”
Hard work for dogs as well as men on the Muldrow Glacier. -The Ascent of Denali (1914)
“Forefront in this book, because forefront in the author’s heart and desire, must stand a plea for the restoration to the greatest mountain in North America of its immemorial native name. If there be any prestige or authority in such matter from the accomplishment of a first complete ascent, “if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,” the author values it chiefly as it may give weight to this plea.” -The Ascent of Denali (1914). Postcard, circa 1910
writing five books, in part to reveal the abhorrent exploitation of the Alaska Native peoples that he witnessed in his work. He did not mince words in describing the situation, as shown in this foreword to his first book, Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled (1914), and his stout and heartfelt plea stands as his true legacy to Alaska’s history: “There are, of course, those who view with perfect equanimity the destruction of the natives that is now going on, and look forward with complacency to the time when the Alaskan Indian shall have ceased to exist. But to men of thought and feeling such cynicism is abhorrent, and the duty of the government towards its simple and kindly wards is clear. “A measure of real protection must be given the native communities against the low-down whites who seek to intrude into them and build habitations for convenient resort upon occasions of drunkenness and debauchery, and some adequate machinery set up for suppressing the contemptible traffic in adulterated spirits they subsist largely upon. The licensed liquor-dealers do not themselves sell to Indians, but they notoriously sell to men who notoriously peddle to Indians, and the suppression of this illicit commerce would materially reduce the total sales of liquor. “Some measure of protection, one thinks, must also be afforded against a predatory class of Indian traders, the back rooms of whose stores are often barrooms, gambling-dens, and houses of assignation, and headquarters and harbourage for the white degenerates—even if the government go the length of setting up co-operative Indian stores in the interior, as has been done in some places on the coast. This
last is a matter in which the missions are helpless, for there is no wise combination of religion and trade. “So this book goes forth with a plea in the front of it, which will find incidental support and expression throughout it, for the natives of interior Alaska, that they be not wantonly destroyed off the face of the earth.” In October, 1920, barely a month before his 55th birthday, Hudson Stuck, a lifelong bachelor and the venerable Archdeacon of the Yukon, died of bronchial pneumonia in Fort Yukon. At his own request he was buried in the local cemetery, still a British citizen. ~•~ Hudson Stuck published five highly collectible books about his years in Alaska, two of which were edited by Maxwell Perkins, the legendary Scribner's editor who also edited Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. They are available to read online or download, see page 48 for links. • Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled: A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska (1914) • The Ascent of Denali: A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest Peak in North America (1914) • Voyages on the Yukon, and Its Tributaries: A Narrative of Summer Travel in the Interior of Alaska (1917) • A Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast: A Journey with Dog-Sleds Around the Arctic Coast of Alaska (1920) • The Alaskan Missions of the Episcopal Church, A brief sketch, historical and descriptive (1920)
The Upper Koyukuk. From Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled (1914).
Mining experts on the future site of the Kennecott Mine, July, 1902. Stephen Birch is second from the left. [National Archives]
Stephen Birch and the Kennecott Copper Mine “One should not underestimate Mr. Birch’s ability as a financier and high grade business man, even on Wall Street. While he organized the Morgan-Guggenheim Alaska Syndicate, he was not a mere employee therein — he was the third member of the Syndicate and furnished the ideas and the rules upon which its copper trust and business was based. He furnished these ideas and plans and carried them to success, while the New York partners merely furnished capital.” —James Wickersham, in a letter to Ernest Gruening, 1938
Frontier historian and photographer Clarence L. Andrews wrote in his magnum opus history of the northland, The Story of Alaska (Lowman & Hanford Co., Seattle, 1931), “The copper of that region had been known for more than one hundred years before the discovery was made. Baranof knew of it and collected metal from the Indians to cast a bell (1795). The finding of the Mountains of Red Metal was one of the parts of the story of the Trail of Ninety-Eight, when the gold-seekers passed through the Copper River Valley in the effort to reach the Klondike, and some of them tarried and found copper. Not only were the rich deposits of copper glance and bornite discovered in those stupendous mountains threaded with glaciers, but pure copper in masses of tons in weight, silver in nuggets, and placer gold. The story only began with the finding of the riches, then the question was, how to bring it out from its fastnesses?”
“Birch succeeded where others failed because he had assets that many p ro s p e c t o r s l a c k e d — a t e c h n i c a l education, wealthy friends, and remarkable tenacity.” Elizabeth A. Tower Ghosts of Kennecott
An exploratory party formed by R. F. McClellan in 1898 made the original location of the huge copper deposits. In the late summer of 1899 the Nikolai group of copper mines on a branch of the Chitina Fork of the Copper River was located, and in 1900 explorations culminated in the discovery of the Bonanza mines some 200 miles northeast of Valdez. Mining engineer Stephen Birch was in Valdez when the exploration company returned there in the fall of 1900. He was greatly impressed by their reports of the unique outcrop of the Bonanza, and when one of the owners needed cash he bought a small interest in the mine. In a slim biography titled Ghosts of Kennecott: The Story of Stephen Birch (©1990, Elizabeth A. Tower, Anchorage), 1996 Alaska Historian of the Year Elizabeth Tower told of Birch’s childhood, which would play a large role in his future: “Birch was born in 1872 in New York. He was the second son out of six children. His father was a Union Army sergeant who died when Stephen was only ten years old. Three years after her husband's death, Stephen's mother moved her six children from Brooklyn to Mahwah, New Jersey, to be near relatives. The young Birches quickly became friends with the children of their neighbors, Theodore Havemeyer, the vice-president of American Sugar Refining Company, and his wife Lillie. Mrs. Havemeyer took a special interest in young Stephen, providing financial assistance for his education at Trinity School, New York University, and the Columbia University School of Mines.” In early 1898 Stephen Birch was working with an engineering team that was surveying for the New York City subway system when he read news of the Klondike gold rush. He decided to go north and, while his friends and family scoffed at the idea, his childhood friend Mrs. Havemeyer took him seriously, and as a result, her son H. O. Havemeyer II and several associates not only offered to pay for his trip north, but made arrangements for a proper connection so there would be no concerns about his safety and welfare. Their intervention on his behalf resulted in young Mr. Birch arriving in Valdez in the early summer of 1898 with a letter
The Kennecott Copper Mine, 1912
Published in Anchorage, AK, 1990
of introduction to Capt. W. R. Abercrombie, who was mounting an expedition to explore routes to the Interior of Alaska. Birch was assigned as one of two civilian horse wranglers and packers designated to accompany Lieutenant P. G. Lowe north to the Fortymile River via Mentasta Pass, with the goal of locating a route from Valdez to the Yukon. The first stage of the trip was over the treacherous Valdez Glacier, and Lt. Lowe detailed the hazardous trip in his offical report: “By zigzagging I was enabled to find points along the crevasses narrow enough for the horses to jump over. In many places the snow covered the ice, and the crevasses were not discovered until some of the horses had gotten a leg or two in them. Every horse managed to get one of two legs in a number of times, and they practically hung by their ‘eyebrows.’ At times it required the prompt and united efforts of the entire party to rescue them. After some floundering the expedition managed to get through, but we had not an inch too much snow under us.” The small party of men traveled north via Copper Center, up the Copper River to the Slana, across Meiklejohn Pass and into the Tanana River drainage, overland to the Fortymile, and they reached the Yukon River on September 25. Three weeks later they arrived at the White Horse Rapids, then traveled across the White Pass Trail and reached the end of construction of the new railroad over the pass. Gratefully climbing aboard, they rode the last 12 miles into Skagway. At the end of the journey Stephen Birch returned to New York, but he knew he would return the following summer. Meanwhile, he continued his studies at the Columbia University School of Mines, financed by his old friend, Mrs. Havemeyer. In the spring of 1899 Capt. Abercrombie received an order: “Capt. W. R. Abercrombie, Second Infantry, commanding Copper River Exploring Expedition, accompanied by Stephen
Birch, guide, will proceed at once to Fort Keogh and Livingston, Montana, there inspect, accept, and brand such pack horses, not to exceed 30 head, as come up to the required standard. On completion of this duty Capt. Abercrombie, accompanied by Guide Birch, will proceed to Seattle, Wash. The travel enjoined is necessary for the public service.” So Stephen Birch returned to Valdez as a horse-packer. The government was building a military road through Keystone Canyon and over Thompson Pass, which gave Birch more opportunities to explore the Copper River country. Returning to his studies at Columbia University that winter, Birch was once again in the Valdez area in the summer of 1900. On July 22 two prospectors in the McLellan partnership, Clarence Warner and “Tarantula” Jack Smith, were prospecting in the Mt. Blackburn area, at the headwaters of the Kennicott River, when they made a fabulous discovery, a huge outcropping of copper ore which they named the “Bonanza.” Returning to Valdez that fall, they set about searching for investors for that claim and others, and Jack Smith described the Bonanza find to Birch: “Mr. Birch, we’ve got a mountain of copper up there. There’s so much of the stuff sticking out of the ground that it looks like a green sheep-pasture in Ireland when the sun is shining at its best!” Stephen Birch believed Smith, and when the opportunity arose to buy an interest a few weeks later, Birch made his move and purchased a one-eleventh share in the claim. He returned to Valdez in the early spring of 1901 to personally inspect the claims, describing the trip in a 1940 letter to Ernest Gruening: “In April, 1901, I started in with R. F. McLellan. There were no trails in the country and we had to travel on foot a distance of more than 200 miles. It was a hard trip as I think of it now, but mining engineers are prepared for that kind of thing.”
Kennecott Mine circa 1909, photo by Eric A. Hegg, Cordova
Birch liked what he found, and the following winter he traveled around the country to find the other shareholders and purchase as many options as he could. After a visit to the claims by mining experts from New York and California, Birch retraced his journey to exercise his options and purchase the claims from the prospectors, once again with backing from his friends, the Havemeyers. In total, Birch bought 21 claims and in 1903 he consolidated them as the Alaska Copper and Coal Company. Equipment and supplies had to be hauled in by boat and horse team to the remote site at the base of the Kennicott Glacier, so Birch began looking into options. In the summer of 1904 he surveyed routes for a railroad, and over the next couple of years he continued developing the prospects while searching for investors. With his friend Judge James Wickersham, Birch went to visit Daniel Guggenheim, who was interested in mining properties and planning to go to Alaska in the early summer of 1906. Upon his return to New York, Guggenheim joined with the House of Morgan to form the Alaska Syndicate, which would provide development capital for Birch’s plans. The Syndicate purchased a 40% interest in Birch’s Alaska Copper and Coal Company, the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, and a 46.2% interest in the Northwestern Commercial Company, whose steamships could transport the copper ore to a smelter in Tacoma, Washington, which the Guggenheim interests already owned. Stephen Birch was named one of three Managing Directors of the Alaska Syndicate, in charge of the Kennecott Mining Company. As the Syndicate set about building a railroad from Cordova up the Copper River and between the Miles and Childs Glaciers, Elizabeth A. Tower described what Stephen Birch was doing in her book, Ghosts of Kennecott: “Birch forged ahead with development of his mine. All supplies for buildings and tramways were brought by pack train over Marshall Pass from Valdez to the Copper River, where they could be loaded on boats and carried up the Copper, Chitina, and Nizina Rivers. In order to assist construction of the mine and upper reaches of the railroad before completion of the bridge between the glaciers, the steamship Chittyna was carried over the pass in pieces by pack train during the winter of 1907. In 1907 Birch and his workmen built the general manager’s office and a storehouse, and the next year they added a sawmill, bunkhouse, blacksmith shop, and the tramway terminal. When the railroad tracks reached Abercrombie Landing on the lake in front of Miles Glacier, Birch was able to send ore samples by boat to meet trains that carried them to the port at Cordova. Foreseeing the eventual need for a settlement at the junction of the Copper and Chitina Rivers, Birch homesteaded a site for the town of Chitina in 1908.” The Kennecott mines were among the nation’s largest and richest, built upon an ore deposit whose quality was unequaled anywhere. On April 8, 1911, the first trainload of copper was shipped from Kennecott in 32 railroad cars, valued at $250,000. Five years later, in 1916, the mine produced $28,042,396 worth of copper and was classed among the nation’s largest. On April 12, 1915, the Guggenheim and Morgan interests formed the Kennecott Copper Corporation, with holdings to include the Kennecott Mines Company, the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, the Alaska Steamship Company, and Stephen Birch became the first president of the corporation. On June 24, 1916, at the age of 44, Stephen Birch married the daughter of a prominent Minnesota family, Mary C. Rand, almost 15 years his junior. His lifelong friend H.O. Havemeyer II
was Birch’s best man. Stephen Birch planned an elaborate honeymoon trip to Alaska for his bride, complete with a specially remodelled room on the steamship Mariposa, a private railcar on the CR&NW Railway, and a slendid cottage at the Kennecott mine, in anticipation of spending several weeks in Alaska. But Mary Birch insisted on returning to New York almost immediately, and there is no record of her ever returning. The couple had two children, also named Stephen and Mary, but in 1930 Mary Birch died of cancer when they were only 12 and 13. Stephen moved to a 730-acre estate near where he’d grown up in New Jersey and his sister Emily moved in to care for the children. The Kennecott Copper Company continued to prosper, and Stephen Birch continued acquiring properties. When the Kennecott mines were closed in 1938, after producing an estimated $200 million worth of copper, the profits had provided the capital for the corporation to purchase mines in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and South America, and the Kennecott Copper Corporation became the nation’s largest copper company and an international force in the metals market. In his autobiography of his northland travels, God’s Loaded Dice (Caxton, 1948), Edward Morgan wrote, “Of all the many sourdoughs I met in my 30 years in the North, Birch was the most romantic and inscrutable figure. Thirty-odd years ago a prospector warming his beans in a skillet over a fire on the Arctic trail, he became a millionaire many times over, a power only less potent in the political world than in the mining world, and the most outstanding personality in all Alaska. Yet in New York, where he worked eighteen hours a day when not traveling over the country inspecting his vast properties, his name meant less to the general public than that of a fairly prosperous broker on Wall Street. And that was as Stephen Birch would have it. Years ago Jack London and Rex Beach told me that, attracted by the glamour of his Alaskan exploits, they had asked Birch’s permission to write his life. He refused them with so much finality that they did not insist.” ~•~
FOCUS ON
Trading Cards
Commercial trading cards were a popular free advertising tool for coffee, cigarettes, and other goods, giving customers a reason to keep the advertiser’s name and message as they admired the colorful and informative trading cards. Today they are prized acollectibles.
Collectible Alaskan History Books
Travels to the Alseck, by Edward J. Glave (1891)
The Wilderness of Denali, Charles Sheldon (1930)
Arctic Village, Robert Marshall (1933)
Travels to the Alseck, subtitled Edward Glave’s reports from southwest Yu k o n a n d s o u t h e a s t Alaska, 1890–91, edited by Julie Cruikshank, Doug Hitch and John Ritter, is the author’s account of two exploratory trips made from Southeast Alaska to southwest Yukon in 1890 and 1891 by the English explorer Edward J. Glave and his trail partner, Jack Dalton. The article on page 26 is based on their trips. Illustrated with photos and drawings from the original trips, with modern photos and notes for clarity, this book brings Glave and Dalton’s pioneering travels into focus and makes their importance clear.
The Wilderness of Denali: Explorations of a H u n t e r- N a t u r a l i s t i n Northern Alaska is a memoir of the author’s hunting mountain sheep in the area surrounding Mt. McKinley from 1906 to 1908, with a young Harry Karstens as an assistant packer. Sheldon was a Congregationalist minister a n d a p r o l i f i c w r i t e r, authoring over 40 books, primarily about religion, but he also penned books about hunting large game in Canada (1904 and 1912). The Wilderness of Denali was written by his campfire each evening as Sheldon discovered what is still regarded as an important wilderness area.
Robert Marshall was an American forester, writer, and wilderness activist, who spent over a year living in Wiseman and the Koyukuk River area in 1930, while conducting research on tree growth near the Arctic Divide. His book provides a very in-depth cultural history of what life was like in a small town in northern Alaska. A founder of the Wilderness Society in 1935, author of numerous influential essays and two books, Robert Marshall carried forward John Muir's battle for conservation. The Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana is named for him, and he influenced the recognition of Gates of the Arctic National Park.
Collectible Alaskan History Books Travel and adventure in the territory of Alaska, F. Whymper (1871) Frederick Whymper was a British artist and explorer who was hired to document the 1865 Russian-American Telegraph Project, an attempt to string a wire from San Francisco to Moscow. He spent the winter of 1866 at Nulato, Alaska with W.H. Dall, and travelled up the Yukon River to Fort Yukon, where he witnessed the first American flag being raised over the new territory of Alaska. His excellent sketches are among the most detailed descriptions of the time when Alaska became part of America. Journeys to the Far North, by Olaus J. Murie (1973) Olaus J. Murie spent nearly half a century in northern Alaska, a land he came to know well and love deeply. What Murie experienced on these travels was recorded in the sketchbooks and journals that he always carried with him. Along with his fascinating collection of photographs, they form the basis for a narrative that combines a scientist’s eye for detail and a naturalist’s reverence for wilderness. Edited by Margaret E. Murie, who shared her husband's love of the Alaskan Arctic. Tundra, by Marshal Bert Hanson (1930) Bert Hanson was 16 years old when he came to Alaska in 1896, two years before the Klondike gold rush. He worked as a packer on the Chilkoot Pass, labored on the Copper River & Northwestern Railway, hiked the length of the Valdez-to-Fairbanks Trail, and in time he became a Deputy U.S. Marshal. Upon signing papers he was advanced $1,000 and told to buy an outfit and a dogteam, and he was advised to get the best, “Because your life may depend on them!”
Alaska, Our Beautiful Northland of Opportunity, Agnes Burr (1919) Agnes Rush Burr’s encyclopedic exploration of Alaska gives her readers a thorough and comprehensive picture of every facet of the Territory, from the multitude of scenic features to the towns and settlements, the history, the native peoples, the opportunities for business development, the flora and fauna, the fishing and mining industries, transportation routes and means, Alaska’s unique form of government and more, with a fold-out map and 54 photos, six of which are in color.
Sources & Resources The links and references below reflect the specific sources used in researching the articles which appear in this issue, and includes reference books, videos, websites and other media. Lengthy URLs have been shortened. 1918-1919 INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC • 1919 House Committee Hearings https://tinyurl.com/sqcen8f • Alaska Packers Association Report https://tinyurl.com/qt2xy4w • 1918 Influenza Pandemic CDC History https://tinyurl.com/y8yc4vp6 • 1918 Influenza Pandemic CDC Historic Timeline https://tinyurl.com/y83bp7od THE EAGLE POINT STOREHOUSE • Storehouse No. 4, Eagle Point, NHRP form https://tinyurl.com/ycxweyao • Storehouse No. 3, Halibut Bay, NHRP form https://tinyurl.com/ybbkljfs • Wikipedia entry for Storehouse No. 4 https://tinyurl.com/yda9zccj • Wikipedia entry for Storehouse No. 3 https://tinyurl.com/y9xrmjjt THE 1935 MATANUSKA COLONY PROJECT • The 1935 Matanuska Colony Project, by Helen Hegener, 2016 https://tinyurl.com/uc53cez • The Matanuska Colony Barns, by Helen Hegener, 2012 https://tinyurl.com/ruc9646 • ARRC Album, Mary Nan Gamble collection, Alaska State Archives https://tinyurl.com/wln9hg8 • Palmer Historical Society, Palmer, Alaska. http://palmerhistoricalsociety.org PIONEER PACKHORSES • Pioneer Packhorses in Alaska, The Century https://tinyurl.com/roags8d • Review of Travels to the Alseck https://tinyurl.com/ubd93j9 • Edward James Glave at Wikipedia https://tinyurl.com/v3d3mwm HUDSON STUCK • Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled https://tinyurl.com/yxxbfgvk • The Ascent of Denali https://tinyurl.com/w58d6jb • Voyages on the Yukon and Its Tributaries https://tinyurl.com/tnyn936 • The Alaskan Missions of the Episcopal Church https://tinyurl.com/stxv8o6 • A Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast https://tinyurl.com/r7uejhc STEPHEN BIRCH & THE KENNECOTT MINE • Ghosts of Kennecott, The Story of Stephen Birch, by Elizabeth A. Tower, 1990 • Historic American Engineering Record https://tinyurl.com/yx2td32c • History of the Kennecott Mines https://tinyurl.com/s3popsp • Nat. Park Service, The Golden Places https://tinyurl.com/ycj7pqyt GENERAL RESOURCES • Alaska & Polar Regions Collections & Archives http://library.uaf.edu/apr • Alaska’s Digital Archives https://vilda.alaska.edu • Google Books https://books.google.com • Gutenberg.org https://books.gutenberg.org • Library of Congress https://www.loc.gov • Chronicling America https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
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