YUKON-CHARLEY RIVERS Yukon Frontiers Historic Resource Study of the Proposed Yukon-Charley National River

Technology changed another nineteenth-century occupation—trapping. Only the environment and the basic theory behind trapping remained the same. The greatest difference arose primarily with the increased number of white trappers. Previously only the Indians had trapped the fur-bearing animals for trade at white trading posts. With the increase of summer occupations such as steamboat work, prospecting, and single-man gold claims, trapping offered winter income. Moreover, transportation had changed radically. Trappers, white and Indian, now used dog teams more frequently than they walked their traplines. Although steamboats brought more supplies closer to the traplines, poling boats and scows were still utilized to a great extent. Eventually technology introduced the "iron dog" or the snowmobile that proved much faster, more powerful, and, in the long run, more effective than the dog team. Motorboats replaced poling boats and scows and lent ease to summer transportation. Airplanes allowed the trapper to utilize more remote and isolated areas.

Yet technology reaped its price. The trapper lost his self-reliance and independence—he now depended on the foibles of machinery and the ability of other people to supply fuel, parts, and expertise. Furthermore, the introduction of engines demanded a greater capital output and, thus, a greater harvest of fur. This in turn led to more effective trapping methods. Not only did steel traps replace deadfalls and repeating rifles supplant muskets, but nylon fishnets, fish wheels, and chain saws contributed to a more efficient exploitation of the resources with considerably less effort from the trapper. Nevertheless, despite all technological improvements, the trapper still trapped in a hostile and demanding environment where his knowledge of the land and its animals meant not only success but often survival. And the trapper still trapped for a fluctuating world market whose prices relied on the whims of fashion.

The story Evelyn Berglund Shore tells in Born on Snowshoes captures the life of the modern fur trapper. [1] On July 30, 1917, she was born on American Creek near Eagle City. Typically her father mined and did a little trapping. Two years later they moved to Nation City where they shared their "city" with six old-timers and twelve or fourteen Indians. Here they tried to earn a living by catching salmon to dry and sell supplemented by backyard trapping. They left Nation City in 1921 and for the next seven years trapped the Sheenjek River, a tributary of the Porcupine River. In 1928 Evelyn's father, crippled with arthritis, entered a hospital while his wife and three daughters, aged nine, eleven, and twelve, joined an old trapper on the Salmon River, a tributary of the Black River two hundred eighty miles from Fort Yukon. For the next thirteen years these women, with a self-reliance typical of the occupation, trapped and hunted to support themselves in a remote and demanding country far away from schools and friends.

Each summer they bought on credit a year's supply of food and necessary equipment which they loaded into hand-built scows and poling boats—a motor was added to help over the rough spots. Cases of canned goods and sacks of flour went on the floor of the boat with sugar and perishables on top. Then dogs and kids were added. The upriver trip took six weeks to two months as they poled and tracked the boats, fighting snags, riffles, and drift piles as they toiled along. They kept mosquitoes at bay, in the days before effective insect repellent, with hats, gloves, bandanas, and smudge fires.

Once at the home cabin, the women set to work fishing. Twelve dogs demanded great quantities of salmon, grayling, and pike. Gill nets and fishing poles provided sixty to seventy fish a day. They also cut dry grass to serve as winter bedding for the dogs. Repair work commenced on the home cabin while the picking of currants, cranberries, raspberries, and blueberries offered diversions not only in diet but also from tedious labors. With the arrival of September came the hunting season. Since there were only three weeks before the ice formed on the river and the moose grew too thin from rutting, they spent long, hard hours poling, stalking, and packing the required two moose and four or five caribou.

In November the trapping season began, and with it came the hardest work of the year—setting out the traplines. They cut new trails, cleared old trails, killed additional meat for the line cabins, built meat caches, and erected trail tents or constructed line cabins. Line cabins were small log structures often built without windows and with only two pole bunks, a pole bench, campstove, and green spruce boughs for the floor. Yet these simple structures required eight days of hard labor. In addition, adjacent dog shelters, usually made from the boughs and tops of trees meant more time and energy. Finally they built, wherever they saw tracks, typical trail sets for wolf, fox, wolverine, lynx, marten, mink, and ermine. Eventually they had 300 miles of trapping trails, 10 line cabins, several line trails, 12 tent camps, and a number of permanent caches. The hours were long and the work hard, but as Evelyn writes: "We never stopped to think what was girl's work and what was men's work. It was all work, and if it needed to be done, we had to do it." [3]

Winter work entailed the running of the traplines. After each new snow, trail had to be broken by packing the trail in front of the toboggan with snowshoes. Each toboggan carried approximately 300 pounds. This included rations for 30 days, which were 20 loaves of frozen bread, 100 frozen doughnuts, 30 pounds of dried beans, 1/2 slab of bacon, 30 pounds of sugar, 30 to 40 pounds of flour, 2 pounds of tallow, 6 pounds of butter, 15 to 20 pounds of frozen cranberries, 50 pounds of frozen mooseburger patties, 5 pounds of dried milk, 2 to 3 pounds of dried eggs, 6 cans of tomatoes, a little macaroni, cheese, baking powder, and salt. The dishes consisted of a big kettle, two frying pans, two small pots, and a plate, knife, fork, spoon, and cup for each person. A caribou skin mattress and feather sleeping robes and pillows provided their bedding. The first trip each year included tents, campstoves, and 500 traps plus snares. Finally 200 to 250 pounds of cornmeal and dried fish for dog food and game rifles, evenly distributed, completed the load. Once they had set the traps and established the trail camps, the toboggan carried home the harvested fur. [4]

The trails were run every few weeks, depending on the weather and how remote they were. The large animals caught—lynx, wolf, and fox—stayed frozen until early spring when trapping season closed. The smaller animals—marten, mink, and ermine—were skinned as soon as they were caught. The women averaged three to fifteen marten each trip. One successful winter they trapped forty wolves. [5] Between trapping runs life at the home cabin was busy. Clothes were washed and dried in the sixteen-by-eighteen-foot cabin while meals of beans, bread, pies, and doughnuts cooked in quantities large enough to be frozen for trips. They used the less valuable skins for a number of purposes: rabbit skins for lining mittens, caribou and bear skins for mattresses, and untanned caribou strips for mending dog harnesses and threading snowshoes. [6] During the long evenings they played checkers, knitted, or listened to the radio.

Spring marked an end to the trapping season. But work continued. All traps, tents, and campstoves had to be collected. The larger animals had to be skinned and stretched. Any left over meat was cut in strips and smoked dry. For two weeks in April the women trapped beaver until they reached the limit of ten each. If time allowed it, they planted a small garden of lettuce, turnips, and other hardy vegetables. At long last they loaded the scow and poling boat with the furs and floated to Fort Yukon. Here they learned each year for eleven successive years that their $1,600 to $2,000 worth of supplies cost more than their furs had brought.

The twelfth year they finally worked themselves out of debt. The following year in February 1941 Evelyn, now twenty-three years old, left the trapline to marry a man she had met in Fort Yukon—another trapper. Almost contentedly she writes: "Four of my five children were born, as I was born, on snowshoes. It would not surprise me at all if some of them, at least, spent most of their lives wrestling loaded toboggans out from between niggerheads, lighting fires in the icy stoves of snowed-in cabins, making camp in the cold dark in lonesome tents away out in the timber with the northern lights pulsing from horizon to horizon and the wolves howling far away. They will never get rich, but they could do worse." [7]

Although most of the twentieth-century trappers of the Yukon-Charley area were either bachelors or men whose families remained behind in neighboring communities, the seasonal cycle described by Evelyn Berglund Shore applied to all the trappers in Alaska. Generally those utilizing the Yukon-Charley area, unlike the Berglund family, had their summers free because their home cabins were closer to a supply base. Thus, they used the summer months to pursue mining, woodchopping, commercial fishing, or wage labor.

A great majority of the historic sites within Yukon-Charley pertain to this twentieth-century trapping era. They are not as large or impressive as the roadhouses and mining operations, but they characterize a lifestyle still followed today. Six cabins—Nation Bluff cabin or Christopher Nelson's Cabin (#46), Charley River Mouth Cabin or Al Ames' Cabin (#81), James Taylor's Place (#51), George Beck's Cabin (#78), Kandik Mouth Cabin or Gordon Bertison's Cabin (#75), and the Bonanza Creek Cabin (#82)—are the best examples within the proposal. All have their roofs and walls intact. Some still have stoves and are used in trapping today. Christopher Nelson's Cabin (#46) is a typical cabin. The sod roof had been covered with flattened kerosene cans to repell the rain. A frame entranceway serves as a workroom and storage area as well. The original cabin is built from square-cut logs chinked with moss. Shelves line one wall with pole bunks on another. Al Ames' Cabin (#81) even has a small sluice box near it that depicts the alternate seasonal occupation of gold mining. Other cabins were used as a base for trapping—Sandy Johnson's (#116), Biederman's (#77), plus several whose roofs and walls have collapsed.

Many of the trails within the proposal area are trapping trails, thus, winter trails. They cross muskeg and tussocks which, once snow covered, make nice open trails. During the summer, however, the trails fill with water and are difficult to walk on or follow. Tree blazes, which mark not only the trail but each trail set, are visible. Trapping trails radiate from Christopher Nelson's Cabin (#46), such as one following the Nation River (#49) and one following the Yukon (#50). An older trail, used probably during the 1920's, is Rock Creek Trail (#62). Even an occasional trap might be found in a forgotten set. These trails are utilitarian trails; their function was to transport supplies or to set out traps. Thus they do not necessarily make easy or enjoyable hiking nor do they take the most scenic or expedient route. Trails, like Rock Creek, which has a few trapping sets and blazes, illustrate not only the trapper's way of life but also the habits and behavior of fur-bearing animals.

A typical line camp is the tent frame (#36) found on Trout creek. The tent frame is quite substantial although one wall has fallen down. The structure stands twelve feet high with three feet high log walls upon which is the framework for a canvas tent. The place has been largely undisturbed and various utensils, some on cupboard shelves, depict the quality of life at a line camp. A number of line cabins undoubtedly remain along other trapping trails in the more remote portions of the proposal.

Similarity in trapping methods as well as lifestyles were the result of response to the environment. Skill in trapping required more than how to set a trap or snare. Trappers studied the behavior and habits of the animals and adapted the best techniques to exploit this behavior. Familiarity with the land—its hills, gullies, lakes, streams, meadows, and forests—coupled with the knowledge of the animals increased the annual take of fur. Whereas some trappers learned a few basic techniques to supplement their income, the expert trappers spent years perfecting their knowledge and skills.

Because of Alaska's isolation and transportation limitations, supplies were either scarce or prohibitively expensive. Thus, in exchange for labor-saving equipment, the early Alaskan trapper spent more effort and time on his trapline than trappers in more developed areas. Most illustrative was the use of the deadfall. The deadfall required no imported equipment except the basic axe but demanded considerably more labor than a metal trap or snare.

Two deadfalls (#63 and #85) illustrate an almost lost art in trapping. Both are built at the base of spruce trees. Neither employ any metal. One, (#63), was obviously designed for a large animal, either a wolf or a bear. It looks like a small cabin with one side consisting of a "door" made from heavy logs. This "door" was probably propped up with a small stick that served as a trigger. Then bait was situated so that the animal had to knock over the stick to get to the bait. Immediately the heavy logs fell and crushed the animal. The other deadfall, (#85), is much smaller but operates on the same principle. Here a "cubby" is built with eleven upright poles. A large log is placed in front of the cubby. On top of this log, propped up by a small stick, six inches high, is the killing log. The cubby is then baited. When an animal enters the cubby, he triggers the killing log and is crushed between the two heavy logs. Both deadfalls are in good condition.

As the twentieth century and its technology improved transportation, supplies became more plentiful. Metal traps and snares essentially replaced deadfalls. The most popular was the Newhouse trap, but Blake and Lamb, Victor, Oneida, and later Conibear were also used. These required less labor but did cost money and add weight to a trapper's outfit. Like deadfalls, traps needed occasional repair. Some trappers boiled their traps in water with spruce tips and alder bark added, then hung them in a dry, sheltered place away from human odor. Others went so far as to wax their traps to prevent rust. Various sizes were used for different animals: No. 1 for ermine, marten, and muskrat; No 1-1/2 for marten, mink, and fox; No. 2 and 3 for lynx and fox; No. 4 for beaver and wolverine; and No. 4-1/2 for wolf. Snares, on the other hand, were inexpensive, easy to transport, and easy to set. [8] They could be handmade from a roll of nineteen-strand wire. Those commercially made, however, came with a locking slide on double-twisted cable. Both came in different sizes for different animals. Lynx and beaver were most often snared and occasionally wolves.

The trapper's outfit also included a collection of lures. These consisted of scents and baits that lured the animal into the traps or snares. Trappers regarded the scent as more valuable because it lasted longer and created greater curiosity in the fur-bearer. Occassionally, however, the trapper used bait in addition to the scent. Bait most often was the entails or skin of moose or caribou but could also be fresh or frozen salmon. Although some trappers used commercial lures, most had their own favorites, which they often kept secret from their competitors. All agreed, however, that different lures attracted different animals, thus no one lure served all. Sometimes the urine, feces, or glands from animals served as lures by themselves. Most used beaver castor as an important ingredient, but others had lynx liver, fish oil, muskrat musk, aniseed oil, and fancy commercial additives. [9] Before setting the trap or snares the trapper smeared the lure onto rabbit fur, bird wings, flat pieces of wood, or moose skin. To keep the trap set attractive, the trapper replaced both scent and bait each time he ran the trapline.

The trapper's traps, lures, and knowledge of the land and its animals culminated in the planning, placement, and building of the trap set. Each animal and geographic location required a different set. Sometimes the lay of the land dictated the form the set would take, other times the habits of the animal. The care taken in designing the set often determined the success of the trapper. In the Yukon-Charley area marten and lynx trap sets were, and still are today, the most common.

The marten, a member of the weasel family, resembles the mink but is longer and heavier. [10] The color of its fur is yellowish brown to dark brown with an orange patch of fur under its neck. Its diet consists of squirrels, hares, mice, lemmings, and occasional birds. The marten lives in hilly country forested with spruce but is very mobile and will leave a region without warning or reason. For this reason trappers generally set trap sets where they find marten tracks.

The most common marten set is the pole set with its different variations. Generally a tree is chopped down about three feet from the ground. Its branches are stripped off, and it is inclined against its stump, which has been notched to hold it. The pole is squared off about one foot from the upper end where the trap is loosely tied. The trap's chain, however, is tied securely above the trap. Bait is then placed above the trap. When the marten smelled or saw the bait, he would run up the inclined tree, step into the trap, struggle to free itself, pull the trap free, and fall quickly to its death.

After the marten are brought in from the trapline, they are skinned. The trapper makes a cut across the anus from foot pad to foot pad of the hind legs. The skin is pulled back from the legs, and the carcass is stripped out of the tail. Then the skin is pulled down over the head, inside out, using a knife to cut around the ears, eyes, nose, and mouth. The cased skin is slipped on a stretcher, which is a tapering board, three feet long and three inches wide, cut down the middle but hinged at the pointed end so it can be spread apart by a wooden peg. All the fat is scraped off the skin with a dull table knife. The pelt is then hung from the cabin ceiling and dried overnight. Once dry it is turned right side out so the quality of the fur can be examined by the fur buyer.

The lynx is the second major animal trapped in the Yukon-Charley area and is similar to the bobcat of the American West. It has, however, long legs and large paws that help to keep it on top of deep snow. The fur is a dark gray with a beardlike ruff around the neck. It averages three to three and a half feet long and weighs between fifteen and thirty pounds. Forested river valleys provide its home. A diet, almost exclusively of snowshoe hares, makes the number of lynx each year fluctuate in accordance with the hare ten-year cycle.

The lynx is extremely curious, and trap sets are designed to take advantage of it. A piece of rabbit skin, a bird's wing, or even bright colored ribbons attract its attention. Once it has come to investigate the attractions, it smells the scent, which is generally some scent mixed with beaver castor smeared on something in back of the trap. Thus the lynx is lured farther into the trap and forced to step into the trap by appropriately placed sticks and branches. These trap sets are built along "cat" trails, natural funneling caused by rock outcroppings, and steep banks. Most lynx sets used in the Yukon-Charley during the 1970's are trail sets. Traps chained to a heavy pole, are placed in the middle of a sideline trail or "cat" trail. The trapper tries to direct the lynx into the trap by narrowing the trail with cut branches and by poking small sticks into the snow on either side of the trap.

Although cubby sets were once the major way to trap lynx, they are only occasionally used currently. A cubby is a man-made enclosure that is baited and trapped. It is usually built at the base of a spruce tree with walls of sticks and branches placed in teepee fashion, extending out about two feet from the tree, and standing about two feet high. Whereas the walls of a marten cubby are always tightly built, the lynx cubby is larger and more loosely built, even haphazard in construction. During August and September the cubby is baited with fresh fish or meat. After the lynx has become trained to associate the cubby with food, in November the cubby is baited with a trap.

There are a number of trap sets throughout the Yukon-Charley area—pole sets, trail sets, cubbies, and other variations. Most illustrative are the numerous sets (#48), primarily cubby sets, around Christopher Nelson' Cabin (#46). Because of their size and construction, these cubbies were probably designed for lynx rather than marten. Some are typically made from cut spruce branches leaned up, teepee fashion, against a tree. The trap is set at the entrance, and the bait or scent is put in the rear of the cubby. Some are crudely and expeditiously made of spruce branches. Others are more unusual—one from large salvaged logs, another from the bow of a boat. These cubbies show the innovative and creative approaches to trapping. Trappers today prefer to out think the lynx by placing traps where they travel rather than training the lynx to come to the traps.

Wolves and wolverines are also trapped but less frequently. They are usually trapped near moose-kill sites and in natural corridors or crossings but are often snared as well. Their pelts are also cased inside out until dried. Since their fur has been traditionally less valuable than the marten and lynx, only a few wolves or wolverines are caught each year. In fact, trappers once only trapped wolves for the fifty-dollar bounty that the Territory of Alaska rewarded for the killing of moose and caribou predators. Now, however, wolf and wolverine fur have become valuable in their own right.

Aside from the bear only the beaver is skinned open. The beaver usually has a limit of 20 pelts per trapper, but the limit has varied from year to year and place to place. Because it is trapped under the ice, it is difficult and hard work to trap. Generally it is trapped in the spring after the season for other furs-bearers has closed. A bait pole of freshly cut poplar or similar wood and a pole strung with a number of set snares are placed beneath the ice in the middle of the beaver's runway which connects its lodge and feed pile. Once caught the beaver is cut anus to chin and stretched on a circular form. The meat is tender, fat, and usually eaten. Also important are the beaver castors that provide an essential scent for trapping lures. Other animals, such as mink, muskrat, fox, and ermine, are occasionally trapped or snared but with less certainty.

The fur is usually sold to a local fur buyer or shipped to a fur auction. These auction houses, West Coast Fur Sales and Seattle Fur Exchange, operate on a straight commission. They accept the furs, grade the pelts, put them in lots of similar size and quality, and then offer them for sale at widely publicized auctions. The results of the auction, minus the commission, are mailed to the trapper.

Historically as much as today, the auction houses had very little control over the price of fur. Fashion and the quality and quantity of fur harvested determined the market value. As with any product, the market rose and fell, responding to international economic forces such as war and depression. These fluctuations affected the Alaskan trapper and his quality of life.

During the early 1900's the fur market remained fairly stable. Then in 1914 the market fell until stimulated by the first World War's demand for fur. Prices rose again in 1917. [11] At the same time the hare and lynx cycle met their maximum population cycle, and one trapper observed that the "country was alive with lynx," trapping 225 lynx that sold for $8 each. [12]

After the war fur, like many other products, suffered a recession until approximately 1923 when the market recovered. The years from 1923 until 1929 marked the real boom of twentieth-century trapping. The United States replaced England as the raw fur marketing center and Russia as the purchasing center for expensive, finished furs. [13] Lynx brought trappers up to one hundred dollars each. [14] The Alaska Game Commission, established in 1925, feared that marten might be trapped into extinction and thus closed the season in many areas of Alaska. From the winter of 1916 to the spring of 1929, the season on marten was open only during three winters. [15] Moreover, the season on beaver trapping was also closed during 1925, 1926, and 1929. [16] Thus the price on marten and beaver crept from six dollars each to twenty-six dollars for beaver and thirty dollars for marten and sometimes much higher. [17] Regardless of the closed seasons the greatest peak in trapping occurred during 1924-25. [18]

During the Great Depression fur prices declined. [19] Either from over trapping during the high fur prices or from scarcity of food for the fur-bearer, the fur catch also declined. [20] The high prices of the 1920's had tripled the number of trappers exploiting the fur resources—in 1929 more than 5,265 trappers made their entire living from the fur business not including 2,500 unlicensed Indian trappers. [21] The poor season of 1929-30, however, discouraged several trappers within the Yukon-Charley area as well as others throughout Alaska. [22] For several of the seasons during the 1930's the shortage of fur precipitated limiting marten and beaver to ten each per trapper. In addition, the lynx cycle started on the downward swing. Thus, local conditions contributed to the fur depression as well as the international business failure and the scarcity of money. [23] By 1936 the number of trappers increased, the quantity of fur improved, and prices began to climb. [24] In 1937-38 above average prices coupled with increasing numbers of fur-bearers produced the best harvest return for the Depression era. [25] In 1939 the value of the fur exports exceeded that of the fisheries and minerals. [26] Thus during the hard times of the Depression, the fur market provided trappers a low but steady and secure income.

At this time the Alaska Game Commission and Northern Commercial Company began an active program of education for the trappers. Slide shows, bulletins, and on-site lectures covered the proper methods for handling fur. In addition, the Game Commission discouraged the wasteful shooting of beaver, which contributed to increasing losses of the animal, and encouraged trapping, which was more difficult but brought greater market value without wasteful losses. [27]

When encouragement failed to produce results, the Commission required that all beaver skins be tagged or sealed in thirty days and closed the season earlier. These actions, which prevented shooting and required trapping, decreased the take of beaver on the upper Yukon. [28]

World War II, however, created another boom in fur prices. [29] Fur parkas for troopers in northern theaters of war contributed to the boom. [30] The scarcity of lynx and the closed seasons on marten brought high prices for these furs. [31] Although fur prices were high and fur appeared in abundant supply, the number of trappers decreased. The high wages of defense work and the Selective Service recruited trappers from their traplines. The resultant void was partially filled by untrained novice trappers who moved into the vacant cabins and traplines to the anger and helpless frustration of their absent owners. [32] Nonetheless, the fur catch for 1941 amounted to two and a quarter million dollars. [33] Because of the few trappers and the closed season on marten, the 1942 fur harvest dropped to the lowest since 1935. [34]

Immediately after the war, in 1946, increased trappers in the field and high market prices resulted in more intensive trapping. [35] As in the years following World War I, the fur market fell and remained low throughout the 1950's and 1960's. [36] Initially trappers claimed that the high price of the finished furs discouraged the public from buying them. These high prices, which in turn were caused by a federal tax on fur, inflated labor and other costs in processing and manufacturing fur, and high mark-ups on the part of retail furriers, brought hardship to the trapper and raw fur traders. [37] But these reasons failed to explain the continued doldrums of the fur industry. Even though airplanes could be chartered to fly supplies and trappers into previously inaccessible areas, trappers lost interest in the unprofitable and demanding occupation and sought other jobs in the developing territory. [38]

Only in the early 1970's has trapping, at least in the Yukon Charley area, had a resurgence of interest. Prices are high but not compared to wages. Trappers are returning for values other than profit. These latter-day trappers represent a "return to the land" syndrome, resulting from an environmentally conscious society and a recognition of lost values of self-sufficiency and rugged individualism. Although many if not all are in "trespass", they epitomize the historic use of the land traced from the early Indian through the Russian and English fur trader, into the supplemental occupations of the gold-rush miner, and throughout the profitable trapping eras of the 1920's and 1930's.

In this last frontier the Yukon-Charley area represents an alternative to Turner's progressive frontiers. The Yukon area, as much because of time and technology as environment, failed to evolve from small, striving towns into booming industrial cities. In part the environment with its severe winters, short summers, and poor agricultural land hampered the farming and ranching frontiers that, at least in the Turner scenario, preceded town and city development. Yet at the same time, the Yukon provided a great navigational waterway not unlike the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers. Nonetheless no Cincinnati, New Orleans, or St. Louis developed. Rather, like many parts of the West, the progressive frontiers passed on to other places, such as Anchorage and Fairbanks, and the Yukon was left to a few hardy modern-day pioneers.

Despite the fact that Turner in 1893 perceived the frontier as already closed and failed to recognize Alaska as an extension of the West, his general thesis of the development of American character holds as true for Alaska as for any part of America. He summarizes: "That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom—these are traits of the frontier". [39] These traits, described nearly eighty-four years ago, closely characterize the "river people" today. Yet time and technology are contributing factors to any frontier. The discovery of a new exploitive resource, such as oil in the Kandik River Basin or asbestos in the Fortymile area, could change the land beyond recognition and wipe out the lifestyle of this modern frontiersman who leads a tenuous but romantic existence on the edge of Turner's overlooked and last frontier.