Alaskan History Magazine May-June, 2020

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