Gates of the Arctic Gaunt Beauty ... Tenuous Life Historic Resource Study for Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve

¹Marshall, Arctic Village, 42-44. Marshall's table from pp.37-38 shows the periods of boom and decline in the Koyukuk camp:

²Ibid., 47.

³Ibid., 131: Susan M. Will and Pamela K. Hotch, The Wiseman Historical District, A Report on Cultural Resources (typescript), Bureau of Land Management, Fairbanks, 1982, 17, 20: Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, The Iditarod Trail and Other Gold Rush Trails (Anchorage, 1977), 142, 145.

⁴Ltrs and Petition for Wiseman Wireless Station, Alaska State Archives, Juneau: Marshall, Arctic village, 135.

⁵Ibid., 38.

⁶Irving McK. Reed, "Frank Yasuda," 44.

⁷A.W. Greely, Handbook of Alaska, Its Resources, products, and Attractions in 1924 (originally published in 1925 and reissued by Kennikat Press, Port Washington, N.Y., 1970), 256-59.

⁸Clark to Webster, Sept. 7, 1917: Webster to Governor, Jan. 1, 1918, in Wiseman School District ltr file, Alaska State Archives, Juneau.

⁹Ibid.

¹⁰Ibid., ltrs of 5/31/18 and 8/3/19.

¹¹Alaska Weekly, November 4, 1927, 5.

¹²Wiseman School District ltr file, ltr of 7/5/20.

¹³Ibid., ltr of 10/21/21.

¹⁴Ibid., ltr of 7/31/22.

¹⁵Ibid., ltr of 1/16/23.

¹⁶Ibid., ltr of 9/3/24.

¹⁷Ibid., ltr of 5/15/28.

¹⁸Ibid., telegram of 5/17/27.

¹⁹Ibid., ltrs of 2/10/28 and 4/2/28.

²⁰Ibid., ltr of 4/5/28.

²¹Ibid., ltr of 2/14/28.

²²Ibid., corres. of 4/5/28 to 10/17/28.

²³Ibid., ltr of 6/11/29.

²⁴This essay on upper country society and acculturation is based partly on personal observation, personal communications with Dr. William Schneider and David Libbey, interviews with old timers, and intuition: and partly on synthsis of key source material cited below. Marshall's discussions of Native-white accommodations and attitudes in Arctic Village is important here. See also Richard K. Nelson, "Relationships Between Eskimo and Athapascan Cultures in Alaska: An Ethnographic Perspective," Arctic Anthropology, XI-Suppl., 1974, 50-52: Don Charles Foote, "Human Geographical Studies in Northwestern Arctic Alaska, The Upper Kobuk River project, 1965," (typescript report, Montreal, Canada, June 1966): Arthur O. Roberts, Tomorrow is Growing Old, Stories of the Quakers in Alaska (The Barclay Press, Newberg,Oregon, 1978), 287-88: Grant Spearman, Anaktuvuk Pass: William Schneider, Beaver, Alaska: The Story of a Multi-Ethnic Community (doctoral dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1976): Hudson Stuck, A Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast (Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1920), 38.

²⁵Susan M. Will, Coldfoot. I am indebted to Ms. Will's outline of these events and her original probing of the sources used below.

²⁶Curt Madison and Yvonne Yarber, Oscar Nictune, Sr., Alatna, a Biography (Hancock House Publishers, Ltd., North Vancouver, B.C., 1980), 17.

²⁷Turak Newman (with commentary by William Schneider), One Man's Trail: An Old Timer Tells the Story of His Life (Adult Literacy Library, Anchorage Community College, 1978 , 9.

²⁸Ibid., 10-11.

²⁹Ibid., 11-12.

³⁰Curt Madison and Yvonne Yarber, Frank Tobuk, Evansville, A Biography (Hancock House Publishers, Ltd., North Vancouver, B.C., 1980), Chap. 1; quotation on 24.

³¹Tishu Ulen, as told to Shirley English, "Tishu's World," in the "Up the Koyukuk" issue of Alaska Geographic, 10(4), 1983, 98. The above vignettes of Tishu's life were derivedin part from the Alaska Geographic source, but mainly from discussions with Tishu in November 1983 and interviews of 10/24/84 and 2/1/85. Mark Standley and Bonnie Friedman arranged the Wiseman trip and assured Tishu's comfort throughout.

³²Daily Alaskan (Skagway), 8/21/08, 1: Seward Weekly Gateway, 10/1/10, 2.

³³Pathfinder, Jan. 1924, 14.

³⁴Pathfinder, Jan. 1925, 16.

³⁵John P. Clum, "Nellie Cashman," Arizona Historical Review, v. 3, Jan. 1931, 26-28.

³⁶Odie B. Faulk, Tombstone, Myth and Reality (Oxford University Press, New York, 1972), 199.

³⁷Pathfinder, Jan. 1925, 16.

³⁸Olaus J. Murie, Journeys to the Far North (The Wilderness Society and American West Publishing Company, Palo Alto, California, 1973), 104, 128;__________ , "Alaska-Yukon Caribou," North American Fauna, No. 54, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Bureau of Biological Survey, Washington, D.C., June 1935, 4-5; Adolph Murie, A Naturalist in Alaska (The Devin-Adair Co., New York, 1961), 3-4; Richard C. Stern, Eskimos, Reindeer and Land (Agricultural Experiment Station, Bull. 59, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1980), 24-31; Foote, The Upper Kobuk River Project, 33.

³⁹Adolph Murie, A Naturalist, 4.

⁴⁰Ibid., 6-7.

⁴¹Olaus Murie, "Alaska-Yukon Caribou," 50-51, 63-69.

⁴²Olaus Murie, Journeys, 131-32.

⁴³Olaus Murie Field Notebook, 1922-23, Record Unit 7176, Smithsonian Institution Archives, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Field Reports, 1860-1961, Boxes 11 and 12, 508, 510, 520. These notes provided the writer by Holly Rekord.

⁴⁴Olaus Murie, Journeys, 138-39.

⁴⁵Olaus Murie, typescript draft report, in Olaus Murie Collection, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives, Box 1, "Physiography," 5-6.

⁴⁶Ibid., 7.

⁴⁷Margaret E. Murie, Two In the Far North, second edition (Alaska Northwest Publishing Co., Anchorage, 1978), 75-91.

⁴⁸Ibid., 98-99. The following account is taken from Margaret Murie's narrative in the Upper Koyukuk section of her book; only extended quotations are cited by page number.

⁴⁹Ibid., 136.

⁵⁰Ibid., 145.

⁵¹Ibid., 171.

⁵²Ibid., 176-77.

⁵³Ibid., 184.

⁵⁴Ibid., 189-90.

⁵⁵Ibid., 191-92.

⁵⁶Ibid., 324.

⁵⁷Charles J. Keirn, Ahgvook, White Eskimo, Otto Geist and Alaskan Archeology (University of Alaska Press, College, Alaska, 1969), 53-62.

⁵⁸Ibid., 66-69; quotation on 68-69. There is some confusion about the Spring Creek residence site during the work on the Lake Creek drift mine. Al Withrow (the elder of a father and son by that name in the Bettles context) later took over the Frank Smith claims on Spring Creek. He informed the writer that the cabin ruin now standing at the Spring Creek site was the one built by Geist, et al., in 1924. Interview with Al Withrow, elder, 8/22/85. During a summer 1985 field inspection of this site, bundles of rabbit snares were discovered at the older cabin ruin.

⁵⁹Ibid., 72-73.

⁶⁰Ibid.

⁶¹Irving McK. Reed, Upper Koyukuk Region, 118.

⁶²Ibid., 120.

⁶³Gruening, The State of Alaska, 269-293; ARC Annual Reports, 1922-33. A detailed account of upper-country roads, trails, shelter cabins, and communities is found in Joseph Ulmer's 1923-34 Log of a Reconnaisance Survey, Fort Gibbon to Kobuk and Koyukuk Rivers, performed for the ARC, Joseph Ulmer Collection, Box 10, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives.

⁶⁴Interview in Wiseman with Walter Johnson, 6/12/84; Claus-M. Naske, "Paving Alaska's Trails: The Work of the Alaska Road Commission" (manuscript in preparation), 316.

⁶⁵Elizabeth Hays Goddard, Diary of Koyukuk River Journey Aboard the Episcopal Mission Boat Pelican (typescript, 1934), University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives, Elizabeth Hays Goddard Collection, Box 1, 101-02. See Melody Webb, The Last Frontier (University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1985), Chaps. 9, 10, and 11 for a comprehensive survey of transportation and its evolution in the Yukon Basin.

⁶⁶Alaska Weekly, 3/23/23, l; Webb, The Last Frontier, 221-22.

⁶⁷Gruening, The State of Alaska, 297-305; Naske, "Paving Alaska's Trails," 316-18.

⁶⁸Foote, Upper Kobuk River Project, 10-35.

⁶⁹Various issues of the Alaska Weekly from Mar. 5, 1926, through Sept. 27, 1929; author's site visits from Old Bettles to main Detroit Mining sites on Hammond River and Nolan Creek, 1984 and 1985.

⁷⁰Alaska Weekly, 9/27/29: 7.

⁷¹Alaska Weekly, 1/27/28: 8.

⁷²Alaska Weekly, 9/7/28: 7.

⁷³Newsclip dated "1928" from Joseph Ulmer Collection, Box 5, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives.

⁷⁴John C. Reed, Exploration of Naval Petroleum Reserve No.4 and Adjacent Areas, Northern Alaska, 1944-53, Part I, History of the Exploration, USGS Prof. Paper 301 (Washington, D.C., GPO,1958), 19-20; A. H. Brooks, Geology and Petroleum Resources of Northern Alaska and Plans for Survey of Naval Petroleum Reserve No.4 (typescript paper, 1923, obtained from Technical Data Library, USGS Menlo Park, CA.), 34-44; E. Leffingwell, The Canning River Region, Northern Alaska, USGS Prof. Paper 109 (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1919), 178.

⁷⁵Telephone interviews with North Slope petroleum geologists Gil Mull and Marvin Mangus, 12/16/85 and 12/17/85, respectively.

⁷⁶Philip S. Smith and J.B. Mertie, Jr., Geology and Mineral Resources of Northwestern Alaska, USGS Bull. 815 (Washington, GPO, 1930), 9-17; Reed, Exploration of Naval Petroleum Reserve, 19-20.

⁷⁷Ibid., 19.

⁷⁸Smith and Mertie, Mineral Resources, 87; Marvin D. Mangus, "A History of the Exploration and Development of North Slope Oil & Gas Reserves," in Mining in Alaska's Past (Office of History and Archeology, Alaska Division of Parks, Pub. No. 27, 1980), 61-68.

⁷⁹Evelyn Mertie, ed., Thirty Summers and a Winter (University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1982), 84.

^79aSmith and Mertie, Mineral Resources, 34.

⁸⁰Mertie, Thirty Summers.

⁸¹Ibid., 86.

⁸²Smith and Mertie, Mineral Resources, 12.

⁸³Mertie, Thirty Summers, 96-99.

⁸⁴J.B. Mertie, Jr., Naval Petroleum Reserve No.4, Field Notes book II, 1924 (USGS file No. 521), 7-8.

⁸⁵Smith and Mertie, Mineral Resources, 16.

⁸⁶W.T. Foran, Naval Petroleum Reserve No.4, Field Notebook (USGS File No. 484); Smith and Mertie, Mineral Resources, 17-19.

⁸⁷See Webb, The Last Frontier, 282-86.