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

The coming of outsiders to northwest Alaska was no surprise to local Inupiat for around the turn of the 19th century a number of Eskimos, including the gifted seer, Maniilaq ... had foretold it.

A new race, white men, would come into their land, Maniilaq said, and they would prove a mixed blessing. Some Inupiat would be made rich by them, others poor; and amazing changes would follow.

In the future, according to Maniilaq, it would be possible to travel upriver in a boat with ease without having to use a pull rope or paddle. Men would fly through the sky on iron sleds and speak through the air over long distances. Man would write on thin birch bark and a new kind of clothing would be introduced.¹

Nor was the presence of indigenous peoples in northern Alaska a surprise to Europeans. The centuries-old trade between the Chukchis and Eskimos of eastern Siberia and their Alaskan cousins had spurred the interest and avarice of eastward moving Cossacks long before Russian explorers actually sailed to the Great Land. As early as 1648 a disputed Russian reconnaissance may have sailed from the trading center of Nizhne-Kolymsk, on Siberia's north coast toward the strait between Asia.and America. Subsequent probes toward Chukotsk Peninsula and the descriptions brought back by Chukchi and Eskimo traders gave glimmerings of a land known to lie eastward, but still a mystery.

These portents inspired Peter the Great, just before his death in 1725, to plan a series of voyages that led to vitus Bering's fog-shrouded passage in 1728 through the strait that bears his name, and to his official discovery of Alaska in 1741. Between Bering's voyages, Mikhail Gvozdev and Ivan Fedorov were commissioned by their local commander in 1732 to sail from Siberia to explore islands and lands to the east. In their tiny ship Gabriel they briefly anchored off an Eskimo village at the later-named Cape Prince of Wales. Rising winds drove them back to sea before they could land. Though theirs was the first certain sighting of mainland Alaska by Europeans, their local venture was overshadowed by Bering's official discovery 9 years later.

Bering's course in 1741 took him to the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, where sea otters and fur seals abounded. This wealth of furs along Alaska's southern rim occupied Russian hunters and traders for many decades, saving delineation of the northern coasts to later explorers.²

The next phase of north Alaskan discovery began with British Capt. James Cook's voyage of 1778. Passing through the Aleutian Islands and Bering Strait to Icy Cape, he was blocked beyond 70 degrees north latitude by ice "... as far as the eye could reach ... as compact as a Wall."³ His venture and subsequent ones by Russians and Britons were moved by the quest for an Arctic Ocean passage between Europe and the Pacific. Imperial rivalry and traditions of naval exploratory prowess played no small part in this quest. Nor, as trade opportunities opened, was competition for furs a minor motive. Governments, scientific academies, and government-chartered companies--the Russian-American Company and the British Hudson's Bay Company foremost--focused these forces in a series of expeditions that by 1837 had charted Alaska's northern coasts and named its capes and bays after European sponsors and the discoverers and scientists from many nations who carried out their wishes.⁴

Meanwhile, Russian traders in 1833 established a post at St. Michael near the mouth of the Yukon. They cautiously probed the lower Yukon and in 1838-39 erected a post at Nulato, just downstream from the Koyukuk River junction, whence they traded as far up the Yukon as the Tanana River. Expansion of the Hudson's Bay Company westward via the Yukon and Mackenzie drainages resulted in founding of the Fort Yukon post in 1847.⁵ Thus the middle Yukon marked the transfer zone for European goods flowing northward to the central mountains.

Journals of official and company explorers mention random encounters with independent traders. For example, in July 1820 at Kotzebue Sound, Capt. Lt. Glieb S. Shishmarev of the Imperial Russian Navy hosted Capt. William J. Pigot of the American brig Pedler. Pigot had sailed from Hawaii to trade furs with the Natives.⁶

As charts improved and accounts of eager Native traders filtered to the outside world--where they quickly circulated amongst sea captains at Hawaiian and other wintering and refitting ports--the reach and pace of commercial activity increased. Various Royal Navy expeditions associated with Sir John Franklin's search for the Northwest Passage (beginning in the Alaskan arctic in 1826) and the subsequent expeditions that searched for him after his disappearance in 1847, opened up the arctic coasts and seas. Coastal Eskimo villages hosted first the explorers and searchers, eventually traders. Reports from the Franklin expeditions, describing great numbers of whales and walrus in arctic summering grounds, lured whaling captains north from the well-hunted Pacific. By the mid-1850s the arctic whaling industry was firmly established. In time, whaling ships would overwinter on the Arctic coast in places sheltered from the pack ice to get the jump on the migrating whales. In effect, the ships became winter trading posts, which, together with later shore-based whaling and trading stations, irrevocably altered Eskimo lifeways and social arrangements. Dependence on white man's trade goods and foods, acquisition of modern rifles, working as crewmen and caribou hunters for the whalers, and the devastating impacts of diseases and liquor, paired with the decline of caribou and sea mammal populations, variously attracted, repelled, and killed the heretofore isolated Eskimos.⁷

By the time of the American purchase of Alaska in 1867, the perimeter of northern Alaskan geography was well mapped and well trafficked. But straight lines between the Mackenzie River on the east and Kotzebue Sound on the west, between the Yukon to the south and Point Barrow to the north traversed vast stretches of unknown ground. Tentative probes from these outer limits had been made:

• In February 1843 Lt. L.A. Zagoskin of the Imperial Russian Navy ascended the Koyukuk River about 60 miles to the mouth of the Kateel River. Deep snow and reluctance of Indian guides foiled his attempt to follow Koyukon trade routes to Kotzebue Sound; he returned to Nulato.⁸
• Surgeon John Simpson of the Franklin search vessel Plover tracked the lower reaches of the Kobuk River during the ship's 1849-50 winter layover in Kotzebue Sound. His Native guides told of tribes and villages farther up the river, and of big mountains, but more than 30 years would elapse before these hints would be pursued.⁹
• In 1866-67, the Western Union Telegraph Company traversed the lower and middle Yukon River, surveying for an overland telegraph route via Canada, Russian America, and Siberia. But completion of the Trans-Atlantic cable killed the venture.¹⁰

The American purchase of Alaska in 1867 ushered in a series of government-sponsored reconnaissance expeditions designed in part to consolidate United States authority in the new possession. One of these, led by Capt. Charles Raymond of the Corps of Engineers, wrought portentous changes on the Yukon. Appropriately, on July 4, 1869, he departed St. Michael aboard the 50-foot-long paddle-wheel steamer Yukon; entering the mouth of the Yukon, he started the era of river steamboating that would dominate Interior Alaska transportation until World War II. His celestial observations at Fort Yukon, placing it well west of the 141st meridian, convinced the Hudson's Bay Company factor to evacuate the post. Its purchase by the Alaska Commercial Company, which had already taken over the St. Michael and lower Yukon posts of the Russian-American Company, gave the A.C. Co. initial control of Yukon River transportation and trade.¹¹

Far to the north, First Lt. Patrick Henry Ray in 1881-83 operated a Signal Service meteorological station at Point Barrow. This was the last effort in a short-lived attempt by enlightened army officers to give the army a major role in the scientific study and development of Alaska. In early 1883 Ray traveled by sled up the Meade River, reaching the northern limit of the arctic foothills. This was the deepest inland penetration toward the central mountains up to that time. His account and that of his naturalist-observer Sgt. John Murdoch provided a wealth of information about the coastal Eskimos and their relations with inland Eskimos and Indians.¹²

The last fringing expedition of note before commencement of direct exploration of the central mountains was that of First Lt. Frederick Schwatka. His Alaska Military Reconnaissance of 1883 was the first full-length traverse of what became the Gold Rush trail from Taiya Inlet and Chilkoot Pass to St. Michael, via the entire length of the Yukon River. His insistence upon the need for army posts and steamboat-transport capabilities if the army were to effectively operate in the Interior foreshadowed the army's Interior posts-and-communications system beginning in 1898.¹³

By 1883 the coastal and riverine fringes encircling the central mountains were known. Scattered outposts rimmed the region, serviced by ocean ships and a rudimentary river-boat transportation system. Explorers and traders, informed by Native travellers, dimly perceived a geography of mountains at the core and rivers draining outward to familiar terrain on the perimeter. The general pattern of Indian and Eskimo occupancy and trade relations could be inferred from the descriptions of informants and chance encounters along the rim.

A backflash to one of these encounters serves to illustrate how events had early overleaped the staged progression of civilization's march, and how the Natives, pursuing their own ends, could jar the already stereotyped expectations of arctic explorers. In late April 1854, Cmdr. Rochfort Maguire of Plover, a Royal Navy depot ship winter-based at Point Barrow to aid the Franklin search, took a sled party eastward toward Beechey Point. Along the way,

... he met "a party of four Indians, called by the Eskimaux, Ko-yu-kun," hunting at the mouth of the Colville. Maguire had been told that the interior Indians did not come to the coast except for summer trading, and he was surprised at their unseasonable presence; he was a bit anxious also, as each of the Indians carried a musket, while his own party had only two guns. Remembering well what had been the fate of Lieutenant [J.J.] Barnard [killed by Koyukon Indians in 1851] at Nulato, Maguire decided to return immediately to Point Barrow after giving the Indians printed notices of the Plover's station. The Indians, in turn, were disappointed that Maguire's party had brought nothing to trade.¹⁴

Maguire's main purpose at Point Barrow was to provide succor to Capt. Richard Collinson of Enterprise, a search vessel trapped by ice in the Canadian Arctic. In July 1854, Collinson finally broke free and made his way westward through the leads between pack ice and shore. Near Barter Island a group of Eskimos accompanied by Interior Indians visited him with letters from the Hudson's Bay Company agent at Fort Yukon: Plover was still on station at Point Barrow. Maguire's notices, given to the Indians at the mouth of the Colville in April, had reached Fort Yukon in June. From there, Indian messengers veered north to intercept Collinson on the Arctic coast in July. Of course he rewarded them with ample gifts.¹⁵ The Indians' use of established travel routes as messengers and recipients of prestigious gifts paralleled traditional practice. In this case golden opportunity beckoned in the form of coveted European goods, and the Indians employed their skills and interior lines to meet it.

Such prodigies of aboriginal travel were not unusual. For too long white men had watched Natives disappear into bordering woodlands or fade from sight over rolling tundra only to reappear hundreds of miles from their starting points. There seemed to be a great deal going on in the intervening unknown. Inevitably, blank spaces and speculative tracings on maps must be filled in and confirmed. Russians and Britons, and now Americans, had peered in from Alaska's rimlands. They had yet to traverse vast reaches of the center. By the 1880s machinery was in place to drive geographic exploration into all major unknown spaces. In the far north, the three military services--Army, Navy, and Revenue Marine (now the Coast Guard)--would sometimes combine, often compete for the honors of discovery.

Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, whose Northwestern Department of the Columbia included Alaska, was a competent, vain, and ambitious man with imagination. Despite opposition from an antagonistic, pinch-penny Congress and the rival ambitions of civilian scientific bureaus, Miles promoted a dominant role for the Army in Alaskan geographic exploration, as in the trans-Mississippi West a few decades earlier. Though the Army had been withdrawn from Alaska in 1877--replaced by the Navy in Southeast Alaska, the Revenue Marine along the western and northern coasts--Miles insisted that he must learn about this territory for which he was militarily responsible. Because he was a man of vision, energetic young officers rallied to his standard. Miles' persistence and the dedication of his junior officers allowed one last chapter in the history of original geographic discovery by the Army.¹⁶

Lieutenant Schwatka's 1883 trek over Chilkoot Pass and down the yukon was the first of the Miles-sponsored expeditions. Another, led by Capt. William R. Abercrombie in 1884, bogged down in the Copper River delta, failing its larger purpose to ascend the Copper and cross the Alaska Range to the Yukon drainage. It fell to Lt. Henry Tureman Allen to accomplish that purpose, and exceed it so far as the upper reaches of the Koyukuk. Allen's trek of 1885 inspired Morgan Sherwood to characterize it as "...the most spectacular individual achievement in the history of Alaskan inland exploration."¹⁷

Given mounting opposition to his designs, Miles' hopes for a systematic Army exploration of Interior Alaska could not be realized. But Allen's heroic journey gave the general great personal satisfaction and moved him to compare it to the achievement of Lewis and Clark, with which it certainly ranked: 1500 miles of unexplored country traversed: three major river systems mapped, the Copper, the Tanana, and the Koyukuk; a geographic framework that served later explorer-scientists for decades, with maps prepared under the most trying circumstances that "...remained for a dozen years the only source of topographical information on the regions he investigated and were found 'marvelously correct' ..." by a later explorer who retraced parts of his route.¹⁸

The outlines of Allen's trip to the Yukon, where he paused to refit before making the final push to the northern mountains, are these: In late March 1885, Allen, Sgt. Cady Robertson, and prospector Peder Johnson began the ascent of the Copper River, transported initially by Indians in their canoes where the water was open, pulling sleds through ice and slush where it was not. They carried a minimum of map-making instruments, rations, and camp gear. Pvt. Frederick W. Fickett soon joined them with additional supplies. But already the difficulties of travel forced a new logistical tactic. They quickly cut their supplies and equipage to the bone, abandoning even their tent, to get down to the 50-pound packs that tested the strongest man in their situation. Allen knew that Abercrombie's failure the year before was partly due to too many men with too much baggage. This knowledge, plus a three-man limit on Army personnel and a grudging budget of $2,000 imposed by Miles' nervous superiors, gave Allen the lean expedition he had recommended from the beginning. With recruitment of another prospector, John Bremner, found marooned and destitute at the Copper River Indian village of Taral, Allen was now ready to meet his charge to find out about the Indians and their country in the Copper and Tanana basins.

Picking up new guides or directions as they moved from one Indian territory to the next, often subsisting on roots and maggot-infested meat, tracking upriver in a moose-skin boat they had built--with many side adventures and near disasters--they reached the Copper River headwaters. They then passed over the Alaska Range, and, with a new boat made from caribou hides, ran down the raging Tanana to the Yukon. Some shoeless, some sick, all destitute, starved, and exhausted from the hardships endured, they staggered into the Nuklukayet trading station at the Yukon-Tanana confluence on June 25, nearly a thousand miles from their starting point.

His mission completed, Allen could have floated down the Yukon and sailed home, already a hero. Instead, he made a quick trip by canoe down the Yukon past Nulato to meet the steamboats New Racket and Yukon. Returning by steamboat to Nuklukayet with reviving food and supplies, he paid off his prospector companions, and sent the sick Sergeant Robertson to St. Michael. Then, with Fickett, Indian guides and packers, and pack dogs, he prepared to head north through the woods for the Koyukuk.¹⁹

*****

Allen's account of Yukon River trading, transportation, and Indian relations during the one-month interval between his arrival at Nuklukayet and departure for the Koyukuk gives a microcosmic view of pre-Gold Rush conditions on the river. It is a dynamic scene of flux and change as whites and Natives adjust to new realities. Many Natives still engage in traditional fishing at river camps as the various species of salmon arrive on scheduled runs. Others from the better trapping locales flock to the trading stations where traders compete for their furs. The designs of the Alaska Commercial Company to monopolize trade and close inefficient trading substations are resented by hold-over Russian Creoles, who, unemployed by these actions, tell the Natives of the exorbitant prices charged by A.C. Co. agents. Indian tyones or chiefs threaten to resist the closing of trading posts that would inconvenience them and consolidate the A.C. Co.'s prices and control. Prospectors are ranging the Yukon tributaries, laying the groundwork for later rushes that will soon sweep the country. Indians from the Tanana, Fort Yukon, and the Koyukuk gather at the Tanana's mouth, the historic boundary between British and Russian spheres of influence in the Yukon fur trade. Trading, games, dances, feasting, and fishing combine function and pleasure for Natives and whites alike, including patriotic salutes on July 4. New Racket, owned by old Yukon hands Arthur Harper, Al Mayo, and LeRoy Napoleon "Jack" McQuesten is hauling miners' supplies--the first such cargo to go up the river, but not the last. The A.C. Co.'s boat Yukon brings the usual supplies for Natives, catering to the fur trade, the older pattern of river commerce. Here, nascent but building, are all the patterns, complaints, and ventures that will rule the river for 50 years to come.

To this arterial river, en route from one unknown to another, comes an explorer accompanied by prospectors. He canoes down the Yukon with another, Joe Ladue, and the local Tyone's son. He transfers then to a steamboat, the hooting herald of a new technology that will strip the river's banks in insatiable lust for the wood fuel that powers paddlewheels and steam whistles.

Allen shakes off rumors of Koyukon treachery, for he is traveling to their country and only they can guide him. His own pre-expedition research into Russian, British, and American accounts, the spoken embellishments of his trader and prospector companions, and witnessed threats of Indian violence over the changing trade regime, confirm the danger. He has heard many versions of Russian Nulato's burnings and killings by Koyukon Indians trying to protect their own trade monopoly. So be it. More important, these sources of information tell Allen of trading ventures and trails to the Koyukuk. He knows of Zagoskin's progress to the Kateel, and of a later American post there that failed in the plot to intercept Indian traders with Nulato-bound furs. From the Canadian engineer of Yukon, Allen has just heard of a trading trip that the boatman and Al Mayo took the year before to a small village on the Konootena (Kanuti) River, a tributary of the Koyukuk, and he knows he has a choice of portage trails to this place.²⁰

He also knows that time is short for first exploration of the Koyukuk by the Army. Mayo's trading venture is one signal, but there is another. The Revenue Marine and the Navy are closing in from the Kobuk River side. Allen's July 23 entry in his field notebook--written during the steamboat passage back up the Yukon to Nuklukayet--includes this intelligence: "[Lt. John] Cantwell of Cutter Corwin wanted to cross over to Koyukuk but Capt. [Michael] Healy did not desire it, but wanted him to ascend Stoney [Kobuk River] as far as he could then return."²¹

The time has come to go. After dickering and delay, Koyukon guides are finally hired, supplies packed. The riverine strip of relative civilization is left behind. The woods briefly part then close as the explorer's party leaves the Yukon. And the other world, not quite trackless, begins again.

*****

Allen chose the portage route used by the Koyukuks. He and his party (Fickett, 4 Yukon River Indians, 3 Koyukuks, and 5 pack dogs) barged down the Yukon 7 miles with a Russian trader, then headed generally northeast across the Yukon Mountains "of the present charts," then corrected to a northerly course following the divide between the Tozitna and Melozitna rivers. His notebook entry for July 28--the day of departure--states a prime objective, a pointed reminder of past hardships: "Will certainly try not go hungry on this trip." The average pack of the Natives held 50 pounds; each dog carried 25. Fickett and Allen "...were in light marching order, carrying only our instruments and weapons. The bedding for both of us consisted of a piece of waterproof linen, the remnant of a sleeping-bag used on the Copper River, and a single blanket."²²

The Indians stayed on the ridges as much as possible, where high ground, sparsely vegetated or bare, was "fair for walking." But by the third day they descended from the mountains to swampy ground "...where the footing is miserable, the hummocks or tetes de femmes offer a very uncertain hold for the feet. To walk between them is to walk continually in water of uneven depth, which consequently is very tiresome." Hordes of mosquitoes and gnats brought more misery, but were displaced by other discomforts--days of cold wind and fog--which drove the insects to cover and were therefore welcomed. At night the wind died and the mosquitoes returned in force. To allow nightly repose, Allen and Fickett, following Native practice, rigged a 2-man "wickyup" covered with strips of cloth and sealed with moss.

Except for an occasional displaced twig or bit of moss, caused by a group of Koyukons preceding them, the "trail" lay unmarked across the land. Allen admired the Indians' ability to follow it, their keenness of eyesight. One incident of the march impressed him greatly: Field glasses lost early in the forenoon: the loss discovered several hours later. An Indian backtracks many miles over the imperceptible trail to the surmised point of loss. He returns that night to their camp with the coveted glasses.

Allen's references to the Indians' trail and camp knowledge, their astute avoidance of obstacles and discomforts, were mixed with notes of impatience. Lack of shared urgency over white man's schedules that disregarded bad weather and terrain, haggling over compensation for work performed, and waning enthusiasm as the yukon Indians progressed farther from home territory all caused delay and friction. Allen had learned to overcome these hindrances by tactics that transcended cultural differences. For example, when the Indians asserted that it would take 6 more days to reach the Koyukuk drainage, he informed them that rations would cease at the end of the fourth day. "They believed it. We reached the river at the end of the fourth day." On August 2, near Tatatontly (Todatonten) Lake, after a long march that would extend into the evening, the Indian packers issued their own challenge to the white men--a running race for a whole half hour, with packs on. Allen and Fickett hung on and finished the race, proving to the Indians that they could "...keep apace with them. Though I must confess that it was the most stubborn contest I ever engaged in..."

The next day, after a 4-hour march over marshy ground following the outlet of Todatonten Lake, Allen's party reached the Kanuti River. They fired shots to inform the nearby villagers of their approach, and were shortly paddled in canoes up the river to the village. The camp of 13 people was about 120 trail miles from Nuklukayet. Allen had pushed across the portage from Yukon to Kanuti in 6 1/2 days. He attributed this swift march across mostly poor footing to cool weather and light packs.²³

Within 2 hours Allen discharged his Koyukuk packers, obtained two birch canoes, and, with Fickett and the four Yukon Indians started downstream to the Kanuti's junction with the Koyukuk. After a l4-mile run they reached the big river--swollen with excessive rains, 300 yards wide, and flowing at 4 miles per hour. Allen's hopes of reaching the Koyukuk headwaters in 6 days from this point seemed impossible against such a volume and current of water.

Accompanying the explorers from the Kanuti village were three young men and an old man and his family, en route to the uppermost village on the Koyukuk. The Koyukon men traveled alone in small canoes, with the women and children following in a large "squaw" canoe of the type that Allen and Fickett commanded. Allen observed how they stayed close to the bank in shallow water where the current was slower, pushing themselves over the firm bottom with a light stick in each hand. The explorers immediately adopted this form of propulsion and soon had the knack of it, steering and moving forward with dispatch. Allen marveled at their swift progress. Fickett and Allen each had a canoe with two Yukon Indians, "hence each canoe had three pairs of sticks for propellers."

The river fluctuated radically with each rain shower. Allen attributed this to the combined effects of saturated moss on the ground surface and rocky or frozen layers immediately below, which shunted the rainwater directly into the streams.

The old Indian was quite a traveler. More than once he had crossed over the Alatna portage to the Kowuk (Kobuk) River, where "plenty Mahlamutes [Eskimos] live."²⁴ He mapped out the Allenkaket or Alatna River, tracing its five tributaries and describing the portage journey in days of travel under varying conditions.

By August 6 the tandem travelers had reached the mouth of the Nohoolchintna River, the South Fork of the Koyukuk on today's maps. On its bank, a few miles from the main Koyukuk, lay the last settlement on the upper Koyukuk drainage, which Allen estimated extended another 200 miles into the mountains. Before the Indians split off toward the South Fork village, Allen probed their knowledge of the country one more time. The old man told him that 2 long days or 3 short days would bring him to the Ascheeshna (John) River. Allen doubted the old man's claim that 15 days would be required to reach a second tributary, the Totzunbitna (Wild River), but the old man insisted, "... strengthening his statements by holding up his bare feet and counting the days' marches on his toes." The claim of 30 days' march to the Koyukuk's source was relegated to "a matter for future explorers" by the increasingly skeptical Allen. As it turned out the old man was correct about the John River but spaced out the more remote places. Still, Allen used the old man's descriptions and names to sketch the upper course and tributaries of the Koyukuk beyond his own limit of travel.

Departure of the Koyukuks and continued progress up the river disheartened the Yukon Indians. They became "...very timid, worked indifferently, and begged to be allowed to go back." They refused to eat until a visit by three South Fork villagers with salmon to barter relieved their dread of intruding strange country without local partners. Cold rain the next morning made them again "faint-hearted," reluctant to break camp. The Indians' sense of territorial limits and Allen's time-and-food supply limits combined to brake the northward journey. But the party pushed on toward the next big tributary, the Ascheeshna.

As they worked up the river gradient, first glimpses of snow-covered peaks changed to a horizon-filling range bearing east west. The waters split into swift-flowing channels and the forest became marginal. With increasing elevation, effects of early frost tinged the leaves of deciduous trees. A cold wind from the snowy mountains cleared the sky of rain clouds, "much to my delight," allowing a position observation for the first time in several days.

Finally, on August 9, they reached the Ascheeshna, named Fickett River by Allen, later named John River by prospectors in memory of Allen's former trailmate, John Bremner. Allen's matter-of-fact account of these few hours at the farthest-north point of his trek reveals by understatement the wild and remote nature of Brooks Range landscapes:

... We were beyond the habitations of the natives, in a country of little game, with about 8 pounds of rice and beans, 10 pounds of flour, 3 pounds of bacon, and 2 pounds of lard. It is true we had a cache of 60 pounds of food 68 miles below, yet we did not know what to expect before reaching Nulato. After ascending the Ascheeshna for 5 miles a halt was made to take an observation for latitude at our highest point, 67' 16'. The average width of this river is about 100 to 125 yards, with a depth near its mouth of 14 feet. Having become satisfied that this river would be navigable for many miles, we started down it to halt below its mouth, where the Koyukuk had 18 to 20 feet of water in it.

We ascended Mount Lookout to get, if possible, the general course of the rivers and the mountains. From its summit, about 800 to 1,000 feet above the river, we obtained a splendid view of the valley of the Ascheeshna and the mountains in which it rises. The extreme mountains whence it comes appeared to be 60 to 80 miles from us in a right-line course. The highest peaks I should judge are about 4,000 feet high and were snow-covered one-third the distance to their bases. The valley presented no marked contrast to other valleys previously described save in the absence of lakes. Its general course is NNE.

The bearing of the farthest visible water of the Koyukuk from Mount Lookout is NE by E. For about 6 miles the river bears NE.1/2° N., then for about 15 miles it bends towards Mount Cone (bearing E. by N.), thence by many turns to NE. by E. The more abundant growth of timber along the water enabled its course to be approximately traced. The mountains from which it seems to come are much farther away than those of the Ascheeshna, though doubtless the same. They appeared, as far as the eye, aided with field-glasses, could determine, to become lower to eastward, though not to westward. A break in the mountains bearing NE. was seen at a distance of 20 to 30 miles. It is possible that this marks the valley of the Totzunbitna, described by the old Koyukun.²⁵

That same evening, having fled the mosquitoes and gnats of Lookout Mountain, the party started downstream, "bound for home." Within minutes they met an Eskimo--resident on the upper Kobuk--who had come down the Alatna, visited the South Fork Koyukons, and was now heading up the John and over the mountains where there were "plenty Mahlemutes." He asked for cartridges for his old-model Winchester rifle, "which had been furnished by the Arctic whalers." Allen suspected that this man had guided Cantwell into the Koyukuk country, but since the Eskimo could not understand his questions, "we parted none the wiser." His outfit, including a patched and much-worn canoe, was "a rather sorry one," but he did have a bag of iron pyrites, "doubtless imagining he had a treasure," which he gave to one of the Yukon Indians when told it was worthless. Allen traded some tobacco for the Eskimo's pipe and three dried salmon. Here was a veritable epitome of the traditional and early-contact cultural mix.

The run down the Koyukuk was uneventful but long--and ever longer as the river matured into slow-flowing meanders through broad floodplains. Allen's field notebook filled up with bearings and topographical descriptions as he charted the river, its islands, and the environs. He was the first to do so for all but the lower reaches.

Progress was marked by encounters with the river people and the changing natural scene:

--The morning of the lOth they passed women and children from the South Fork village en route to the Alatna for fish. One of the women sheltered her child from cold rain by dropping it into the enlarged neck aperture of her parkie, next to her skin. --The cache of flour and bacon, hoisted in a tree, was recovered undisturbed.

--As they floated south (paddling without letup most of the time) the cold winds from the snow mountains ceased.

--One day they followed 37 different courses along the island-studded, meandering river. Eroded bluffs reminded Allen of Dakota and Montana.

--Broods of young ducks and geese improved their fare; they were taken "with scarcely any delay...while seated in canoes armed with one miserable shotgun and a carbine."

--At a Koyukon camp at the Batza River they obtained fish "dried during the present season and stored away for winter use." The entire encampment escorted Allen to the fish cache to supervise the bartering.

--After one day of 63 miles through tortuous meanders "equalling those of the Lower Mississippi," Allen noted a cut bank of solid ice covered with only a few feet of soil.

--Twelve miles below the Hogatza River they discovered a poverty-stricken family of Mahlemutes, partially clothed in ragged caribou skins, living precariously on young waterfowls "secured by means of a tri-tined spear." Their pyramidal dwelling, covered by spruce bark, was the only one of its kind seen by Allen in the Territory. "They pointed to the high mountains to the north, indicating that they would cross them when the litter of pups they were training had grown larger."

--Of the various fish camps Allen passed--usually of only two or three families--the people of only one had such sufficiency of fish, or the inclination, to donate fish to the explorers. At this camp of 17 souls some miles upstream from the Huslia River, the inhabitants "vied with each other in giving the greatest amount."

--Reflecting upon the hard condition of the Koyukuk Indians, Allen cautioned against a suggestion he had heard that shipwrecked sailors should be steered over the portages into that region "when unable to reach Saint Michael's by the coast on account of ice." Trusting to food from the Koyukuk Natives "would be fraught with more serious danger than a division of the party and the passing of the winter among the Eskimos."

--Three miles below the Dulbekakat (Dulbi River) Allen found "the metropolis of the Koyukuk River." In this village of 45 souls lived a famous shaman, Red Shirt, who had been implicated in the attack on Nulato in 1851, when Lieutenant John J. Barnard of the Royal Navy lost his life [after, it should be noted, expressing the intention to "send" for the principal Koyukon Tyone to appear before him at Nulato²⁶]. Allen had met Red Shirt a few weeks before on the Yukon, returning home to his village from a trading expedition to St. Michael. Now, on August 18, Red Shirt was traveling again, over the portage through the mountains to the Kobuk River, thence to guide Lieutenant Cantwell to the Koyukuk. "Meeting Lieutenant Cantwell shortly afterwards on the Corwin, I learned that he had passed down the Kowuk [Kobuk] before the arrival of Red Shirt."

--The next night Allen arrived at the mouth of the Kateel River, thus linking his original exploration on the Koyukuk to that of the Russian Zagoskin more than 40 years before. Allen noted the remains of the American trading station established soon after the Alaska purchase. The Koyukons had forced its abandonment, brooking no competition with their role as middlemen in the Kobuk-Koyukuk-Yukon trade.

--Finally, on August 21, after "wondering whether there was an end to the Koyukuk River," Allen's weary party reached the Yukon, and a few hours later, Nulato. They missed by hours passage to St. Michael on the steamboat, which, by previous arrangement, was to have waited for them at Nulato until August 23. Having been forewarned by Natives of the steamboat's maddeningly recent departure, Allen may have taken sardonic consolation in noting a stratified bluff just above Nulato where millions of years of earth history lay exposed.

So the adventures of Allen and Fickett were not yet at an end. They continued their canoe travels down the Yukon, hiked across the Kaltag portage, canoed down the Unalakleet River, and --lastly--paddled, sailed, and cordelled an Eskimo skin boat along 55 miles of Norton Sound's windy and surf-battered coast to St. Michael. On September 5 they departed for San Francisco aboard the Revenue Cutter Corwin, Capt. Michael A. Healy commanding.²⁷

*****

Original exploration of the Koyukuk by Lt. Henry Allen and Private Fickett barely led the movement of white men into that river basin. Within months, during the depths of the 1885-86 winter, Engr. A.V. Zane of Lt. George M. Stoney's expedition portaged from the Kobuk to the Koyukuk, striking that river at mid-course, then proceeding downstream to the Yukon and St. Michael. He returned by essentially the same route, following established Native routes both ways.²⁸

In a larger sense, the white man's presence in northern Alaska had preceded them, having already wreaked radical change in the fabric of Koyukuk Native society. Allen astutely documented these changes, both in his narrative of encounters with Native people and in his summary reflections. He found that even the remote villagers on the Kanuti and the South Fork had suffered death or impairment from epidemics carried by Native vectors from trading stations on the Yukon and the coast. In these far places Allen noted a number of deaf mutes among those who had survived the diseases. He commented on the skewed demographics--few men to hunt for disproportionately large numbers of women and children. He understood that in hunting and gathering societies this is a most distressing condition, particularly at a time of extreme game scarcity, as then existed. He viewed the Indians' poverty-stricken and miserable lives with compassion, urging charity: "If the Government desires that this people should continue to exist, some provision for them should soon be made."²⁹

Exploration of the Kobuk River by the Revenue Marine Service and the Navy began in 1883 as the offshoot of a special mission of appreciation to Siberian Natives. After delivering gifts to the Siberians for rendering aid to shipwrecked sailors, Naval Lt. George M. Stoney proceeded to Kotzebue Sound aboard Captain Healy's Revenue Cutter Corwin. While Healy continued his cruise up the coast, Stoney, with a boat, rations, and a crewmember from the cutter, spent two weeks examining Hotham Inlet and the delta and lower course of the Kobuk. From a local Native he learned of an interior river (the Colville) that flowed to an ocean filled with ice, and of another major river (the Noatak) emptying into Hotham Inlet. His informant also told of portages and passes between the rivers. Thus was the basic geography of the western Brooks Range revealed. This initial and somewhat accidental collaboration of the two services led to rival claims of discovery of the Kobuk River by Stoney and Healy and impelled rival expeditions in following years. The Navy may have been out of bounds in pursuing interior exploration. But the upshot of competitive expeditions would be the rapid mapping of major rivers and travel routes in northern Alaska, thus integrating coastal, riverine, and mountain access until then known only to Natives.³⁰

Upon Stoney's return from the lower Kobuk reconnaissance in 1883, he requested authority from the Navy to further explore the river the next year. For he believed it to be "...an excellent highway into the heart of Arctic Alaska." His request was granted and in April 1884 he sailed north from San Francisco commanding the schooner Ounalaska.³¹

Meanwhile, Captain Healy organized his 1884 summer cruise in Corwin for full-scale exploration of the Kobuk by the Revenue Marine Service. Captain Healy's long career in Alaskan waters, though marred by bouts of intemperance, brought him praise from Congress, the whaling industry, and missionary groups as a "... zealous and efficient officer in the discharge of his difficult and perilous duties in the Arctic."³² As the Corwin's commander Healy directed the 1884-85 explorations of his officers Lt. John C. Cantwell and Engr. S.B. McLenegan on the Kobuk and Noatak rivers.

Upon Corwin's arrival at Kotzebue Sound, Third Lt. J.C. Cantwell took command of a steam launch and boat's crew and on July 8, 1884, began ascent of the Kobuk. His orders from Healy required survey of the river and description of its inhabitants and " ... in general, everything of interest to science and commerce" from mouth to source.³³

Stoney entered the Kobuk's mouth in a steam cutter eight days later. Both parties proceeded upriver more than 300 miles, mapping the river and gathering valuable experience for the next year's effort. The small steamboats proved balky and underpowered for upper river travel, so Native skin boats, until then towed, carried the explorers on the final legs of their upstream journeys. Cantwell turned back first, being short of rations and plagued by the troublous steam launch. The expeditions passed each other in the neighborhood of Jade Mountain, Stoney still on the ascent. Neither party reached the headwaters in 1884, but Stoney proceeded a few miles beyond Cantwell's farthest point. Low water forced the Navy party to resort to laborious tracking of the skin boat, pulling it through rocks and riffles with a sealskin towline. Informed by an Eskimo that the river (called Putnam by Stoney, after a naval officer lost at sea) headed in a series of large lakes, Stoney took off across country to discover and name one of them, Selby Lake. Upon his return downriver to the schooner, Stoney assigned Ens. J.L. Purcell to a week-long survey of Selawik Lake near the Kobuk delta.

Cantwell had also left the main river on a reconnaissance to Jade Mountain, where he gathered mineral specimens. Cantwell's relations with the Natives, whom he viewed as energetic if not attentive to personal hygiene, were mainly good. His ethnological notes of the 1884 expedition provide a valuable record of late-traditional, early-contact times on the upper Kobuk.³⁴

For both explorers the 1884 expeditions had been valuable shakedown cruises. The difficulties encountered led to improved outfits for the coming year. In Stoney's case, planning and logistics revolved around an overwinter expedition that could take full advantage of both riverine and overland travel. They both wanted to reach the Kobuk headwaters and prove by their own travels the geography and travel routes described by Native informants, particularly connections between the Kobuk, Koyukuk, Noatak, and Colville rivers. Both recognized the importance of a land link across the mountains to the Arctic Ocean to allow succor or rescue of ice-bound whalers. They wanted to fill in the blank spaces and contact new Native groups in the mountains and north of them. Cantwell would seek more data on valuable minerals, whose signs he had noted along the upper Kobuk.³⁵

The Revenue Marine expedition of 1885 aimed for the Kobuk River headwaters. Cantwell quickly reached the head of navigation for the improved steam launch, getting a few miles past Stoney's highest point of the year before. Leaving the launch in charge of Charles H. Townsend, whose natural science report helped make this expedition a scientific success, Cantwell proceeded upstream in a 28-foot skin boat. The Native crew led by Tah-tah-rok was faithful and hard working, often putting in 14-hour days. Their handling of the skin boat in what had become a swift mountain river of rocks and rapids elicited this praise from Cantwell: "...it is really marvelous what judgment and skill are shown by them in handling the skin boat...in this peculiar style of navigation."³⁶

As they worked up the river Cantwell noted the abundance of game, particularly young geese not fully fledged, which they easily caught. The low banks of the river supported dense willow thickets, which made finding campsites difficult. Heavy timber clung to ridges and mountainsides. Many streams heading in small lakes flowed into the river. The topography indicated that they were approaching the watershed between the Kobuk and the Koyukuk rivers.³⁷

On July 16 Cantwell and his Native crew passed the Ung-ee-let-ar-geeak (Reed) River and began the final push toward Big Fish Lake, called Car-loog-ah-look-tah by the Natives, now shown on maps as Walker Lake. The river became swifter as the mountains closed in on the valleys and canyons of the uppermost segment of the river. Big Fish Lake was the largest of the Kobuk's feeder lakes and symbolized for Cantwell the primary source of the great river. The struggle up the last 40 river- miles is best told by these excerpts from Cantwell's narrative: ³⁸

The weather continued fair and intensely hot. The mosquitoes were simply terrific, and our lives were a burden to us altogether until we emerged from the low country and reached a portion of the river inclosed by high bluff banks. At 6:30 the Indians stopped as if at a signal, and Tah-tah-rok called my attention to a low rumbling noise ahead. I thought at first it was thunder, but its steady sound, and the fact that thunder is seldom heard in these latitudes, convinced me that it was falling water. We pushed ahead, and my feelings can scarcely be imagined when, at 8 o'clock, we rounded a high, rocky bluff and came suddenly in sight of a seething mass of white water bursting its way through a gorge composed of perpendicular masses of slaty rock two hundred to three hundred feet high, surmounted by a forest of spruce and birch. The channel was completely choked with sharp-pointed rocks, past which the water flew with frightful velocity, breaking itself into mimic cascades of foam and spray. The Indians, as if sharing in my pleasure, set up a wild chant, which echoed along the steep banks, and caused hundreds of gulls nesting in the crevices of the rocks to leave their perches and with loud discordant cries to circle round our heads.

The head of boat navigation had been reached, just twelve days from the mouth of the river.

*****

Cantwell determined to get the boat as far upriver as possible, despite the barrier rapids. Using jammed logs to form "a kind of ways" over the rocks, Cantwell and his crew hauled the boat past the swift water. Shortly, they left the Kobuk's true headwater channel and tracked up Walker Lake's outlet stream. The shallows finally forced them to beach the boat and make camp. From this point they hiked to a hill from which they could see the lake:

Four or five miles away, and almost completely surrounded by mountains from twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet high, the blue sparkling waters of the long-sought lake burst upon my view. The sensations of pleasure and triumph which took possession of me as I gazed upon its waters, now for the first time seen by a white man, amply repaid me for the long, tedious journey. As the last rays of the setting sun gilded the rugged peaks and the shadows of approaching night crept silently upward, we turned back toward our boat, and the Indians set up a wild chanting "Hung-hi-hung-ay" of joy. ...                                                                   

Early next morning we left our camp and, taking with us our blankets and my instruments, we walked along the banks of the river toward the lake. ...The walking was for the most part good, being over the dry moss of the rolling plain. In the ravines we struck small thickets of willow, but by making circuits we were enabled to avoid them. When we reached the lake we made a temporary camp on the beach at the foot of the mountain not far from the outlet, and I began at once the work of taking observations, photographing, sketching, etc. ...                                                                  

With Tah-tah-rok and one other Indian I ascended the mountains which bordered the southern side, and from this point obtained a magnificent view of the entire lake and country in every direction. All the northern coniferae spread the deep green of their branches on the mountain slopes, and the larch, the birch, and willow were massed in clusters of deep foliage, through which the waters of the lake sparkled like a jewel.

The country to the northeast, north, and west was nothing but a series of short, detached, and rugged mountain ranges and isolated peaks, some of which were still snow-covered. On the south, west, and north sides of the lake the mountains were at the water's edge. In some places, especially on the south side, the sides of the mountains adjacent to the lake had broken down, leaving bare perpendicular cliffs of dark slaty rock one thousand feet high, while on the other side the thick moss grew almost to the summits. At a height of eighteen hundred to two thousand feet the ravines were morasses, through which we had to wade, up to our waists in water and thick grass, to reach the top. At the east end of the lake the country was low, rolling tundra land, through which the river flowed to the southwest.

Five islands were crowded together in the west end of the lake, and were covered with spruce and willow trees.

Our point of observation was about half way down the lake on the south side. Here the cliffs were almost perpendicular masses of granite, broken into many peculiar forms by frost. Upon one of these cliffs I carved my name and the date of the arrival of the party at this point.

Opposite, a sand-spit projected into the lake from the north shore. With this single exception, the beach on that side is an unbroken line of white sand, extending from the head to the foot of the lake. On the south side two projecting points divide the sheet of water into three almost equal portions.

From our high position we could see that the lake contained no shoal places, except at the mouth of the outlet. The depth of water must be very great, as we could not get bottom sounding with a forty-fathom line.

When hunting around this lake during the winter the Indians cross to the north shore at the point where the long sand-spit projects into the water. A short walk along the beach to the westward brings them to a place where the ascent of the mountains can be made, and they reach the ridge along which they travel in order to get around the head of the river. In this vicinity the deer are said to congregate in great numbers, and the dry river-bed, filled with snow, affords a natural and easy means of capturing them. ...

Having completed the reconnaissance of the lake, we returned to our boat, and next morning set out for the smaller branch of the river by means of a shallow stream which leads from the lake outlet almost across the low swampy land which lies between this river and the Kowak [Kobuk]. We made a short portage and reached the Kowak, up which we began to shove the boat. The river here was not over fifty yards wide and scarcely more than one foot deep anywhere. All day we pushed the boat up the shoal stream past the mouth of a small stream called the Kit-chah-ee-yak, and did not rest until the lightened boat, drawing five inches, would no longer float.

The Kit-chah-ee-yak River, which flows into the Kowak near the foot of Lake Car-loog-ah-look-tah, drains a valley in the southeast which lies at right angles to the Kowak Valley, and it is the most noticeable, in fact the only, break in the mountain-bounded horizon. The natives informed me that by crossing the ridge which forms the northern boundary of the Kit-chah-ee-yak one day's journey in winter brings them to the Ah-lash-ok [Alatna] River, which is a tributary of the Koyukuk. This is the route taken by the Kowak Indians when they wish to meet those of the Koyukuk in order to trade.

Cantwell's downstream journey through the Kobuk canyons was nearly foiled by the patched and battered skin boat. Protecting it with a false keel made of a spruce tree and basketwork bumpers made of woven willows, the crew lined and portaged through the narrow passages, finally reaching deep water and the launch.³⁹

While Cantwell steamed and boated up the Kobuk, another of Corwin's officers, Asst. Engr. S.B. McLenegan, and Seaman Nelson struggled up the Noatak River in a 3-hole kayak or bidarka 27 feet long. Theirs was an arduous journey through barren, rainy wilds with hardly any respite from hardship and suffering. During the month's ascent to a point more than 300 miles above the river mouth, they spent endless hours waist deep in the freezing current harnessed to the tracking line. Short rations, constant cold and wet, and grueling labor mark this heroic exploration.⁴⁰

In characterizing the river, McLenegan stated that "...it was known only from native accounts, for there is no record of it ever having been visited by white men." Even the Yukon traders knew nothing of this river, beyond a vague conception of its being there, indicating "...how utterly blank was that vast region even to those best informed." McLenegan traced the river through alternating mountains and lowlands, ending in its upper midcourse "lying on the tablelands of the interior ... an elevated plateau, rolling occasionally into hills and then stretching away into vast tracts of moorland."⁴¹

A few paragraphs of McLenegan's narrative of exploration distill his and Seaman Nelson's hardships and hardihood:⁴²

We had now gained one of the most desolate sections of country imaginable; in gazing over the portion already traveled nothing met the eye save an unbroken stretch of flats, unrelieved by forests or hills. ...The sense of utter desolation and loneliness which took possession of the mind was indeed difficult to dispel....No trace of human habitations could be found, and even the hardy waterfowl seemed to have foresaken the region, leaving nothing to remind us of the great and busy world thousands of miles below. ...                                                                

The stream again pursued a very tortuous course, winding in and around the mountains, through deep canyons and gorges, where, in spite of the wretched weather, we could not fail to admire the grandeur of the scenery. In the mean time the fresh breeze of morning had increased into a gale which fairly whistled through the chasms, and hoisting our sail, we were driven rapidly forward, notwithstanding the opposing current in the river. The work now became exciting in the extreme.... Imbued with a spirit of boldness bordering on recklessness, the canoe was driven before the gale. ...

Directly above here the river, by a sharp turn, leaves the mountains and enters upon a country of an entirely different character. Indeed, this sudden transformation of scene is one of the most peculiar and striking features of the Noatak River region.

As we entered upon this last section I cannot convey an idea of the picture which met our view. Behind us the dark wall of mountains through which we had just passed towered upward until their summits were lost in the clouds, and seemed like an impassable barrier, shutting us off from the outside world. Before us lay the level plains of the interior, stretching away in the distance, unrelieved by a single object upon which the eye could rest with any feeling of pleasure.

A fresh breeze sprang up, and as usual, we made sail in order to lighten our labor. Proceeding in this manner for a mile or more we reached a rapid portion of the river, which I determined, if possible, to sail through, hoping to save the cold bath which would otherwise be involved, for the tracking line could not be used in passing it. By dint of hard work we had gotten about halfway through when the bidarka fouled with a sunken rock. Before the calamity could be averted the canoe had whirled broadside to the current and capsized. Fortunately the water was not deep, and so soon as our senses were recovered we righted the craft and put into the bank. A survey of the damage revealed only a thorough wetting, and our next impulse was to indulge in a hearty laugh, even though there was nothing particularly ludicrous in the situation. The canoe had partly filled with water, by which everything was more or less damaged. The only serious loss was that of our footgear, which, by some unaccountable means, had disappeared in the excitement of the moment. Otherwise than an icy bath, however, and the loss mentioned, we experienced no particular hardship. ... Indeed, the difficulties encountered only seemed to awaken the stubborn elements of our natures, and with a determination not be baffled, we prepared ourselves to meet anything short of utter annihilation.

Late in the afternoon we found on the left bank what appeared to be a grave, and, prompted by curiosity, I determined to halt and examine it. Upon gaining the spot we discovered that it was a well-disguised cache, containing a large quantity of skins, native clothing, boots, and a general assortment of native possessions, together with a sledging outfit. The significance of these caches now became evident; the extreme difficulty attending the navigation above this point made it clear that the natives, on returning from the coast, abandoned the river here and completed their journey on sledges. ...

We had now gone beyond the head of canoe navigation and had reached, practically speaking, the headwaters of the river. The vast number of lakes which covered the face of the country, all of which were drained by the river, made it evident that it could not be traced to one source. Above us the Noatak divided into several branches, and as none were navigable, further progress was manifestly impossible. Every effort had been made to accomplish the object of the expedition, and now that we had achieved all that lay in our power, I determined to retreat without delay. ...

Late in the evening we gained the rapids above the canyons, and, with a common impulse, grasped the paddles for the coming struggle. Finally, after rounding a sharp turn, the canyons suddenly loomed up ahead, the lofty walls of which towered hundreds of feet above us. Swiftly we were drawn in by the rushing waters and soon. gained the gloomy depths of the gorge. Every faculty was now on the alert, for the dangers seemed to multiply as we advanced. ...

After 2 o'clock we entered the "home stretch" of the river and eagerly strained our eyes to catch the first glimpse of the sea. In the distance, on the opposite shore of the inlet, the clear-cut headlands stood out in bold relief against the evening sky. The feelings of joy and relief which rose within us found no room for expression, and the prospect of a speedy termination of our journey, after the many hardships of the summer, was indeed cheering.

In 1885, as in 1884, the Revenue Marine had "upstreamed" the Navy, Cantwell on his return down the Kobuk again passing Stoney on the way up. But the more deliberate Stoney had compensated by organizing and equipping for a new kind of interior arctic exploration. Not satisfied with the limitations of summer reconnaissance, he had provisioned for a 20-month overwintering expedition manned by a large contingent of officers and men. His well-laid plans included two river steamers, one a flat-bottomed boat for low-water travel, and a portable steam-driven sawmill. This he used to build a winter camp, Fort Cosmos, some 250 miles up the Kobuk. From this base, near the location of the modern village of Shungnak, he could send out expeditions in all directions--using dogs for extensive winter travel through the mountains and toward the Yukon. He assigned his officers specific scientific and expeditionary responsibilities, maintaining strict military schedules and discipline.⁴³ Under this regime an impressive list of accomplishments resulted, summarized here by Morgan Sherwood:

Once settled in at Fort Cosmos, Stoney organized a number of winter trips. Surgeon F.S. Nash was sent inland to collect ethnographic information. On December 26, Engineer A.V. Zane crossed over to the Koyukuk and descended it to the Yukon and St. Michael, returning in February of 1886. Stoney himself explored Selawik Lake and River, began observations for a base line to triangulate the Kobuk Valley, and examined the headwaters of the Noatak and the Alatna. He reached Chandler Lake and a tributary of the Colville, where he was told by natives about a route to Point Barrow. By the end of the summer of 1886, Stoney had completed an instrumental survey of the Kobuk Valley, prospected the famous jade mountain, and sent a party to complete a survey of the Noatak.

The most original exploration of the Stoney Expedition was undertaken in April by Ensign W.L. Howard. With two white men and two natives, Howard struck due north across the Noatak and portaged to a native village visited by Stoney earlier in the year. Howard then descended to the Colville and followed it a few miles before crossing to the Ikpikpuk, which took him to the Arctic Ocean near Point Barrow.⁴⁴

Stoney's full report with finished maps was never published, nor were the individual scientific reports of his officers. Stoney asserted that both the Secretary of the Navy and the Congress had approved report publication, but "In some way the papers have mysteriously disappeared."⁴⁵ Historians attribute the loss to various causes: interservice rivalry, personal rivalry between Stoney and Healy, or the fears of Navy brass that Congress would charge them with "wasteful duplication" of effort on the Kobuk River.⁴⁶ Alfred Hulse Brooks of the U.S. Geological Survey greatly admired Stoney's accomplishments and lamented that only Stoney's later abbreviated account, the expedition log, and the manuscript maps survived the suspected purge of records.⁴⁷ That abbreviated account, first published in the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute in 1899, remains the principal source for Lieutenant Stoney's 1885-86 Northern Alaska Naval Exploring Expedition. Manuscripts and the diary relating to Ensign Howard's northern Alaska crossing have recently been found and summarized by anthropologist Edwin S. Hall, Jr., allowing detailed insight into that momentous journey.⁴⁸

From both Stoney's account and the log book of U.S.S. Explorer (the shallow-draft sternwheeler that served as expedition workhorse on the Kobuk) emerges a picture of detailed planning, logistics, and camp operations. Stoney knew the value of Native clothing; he traded tobacco and other goods for Native boots, pants, parkies, mitts, and skins as the charter schooner Viking conveyed the party up the coast to Kotzebue Sound. He used Native labor extensively in relaying his elaborate inventory of supplies up the Kobuk, using cache camps at intervals up the river, for his boats could not haul all the goods at once. (This deliberate and staged advance gave Cantwell the short-term lead on the Kobuk that year, but was the key to Stoney's staying power over the winter.) Camp buildings copied Native cold-weather building technology, being semi subterranean and covered with dirt like Native winter houses.

Once established at Fort Cosmos, the race against winter commenced in earnest. The prime necessities were shelter, wood, meat, and fish--for heat and food, for man and dog. Both Natives and whites were employed in the many tasks according to Stoney's division of labor into specialized work gangs--fishermen, woodcutters, carpenters, and sawmillers. Native women dried salmon for winter use. Refined modes of water supply, heating, sanitation, and exercise, along with careful diet and food preparation, assured a healthy camp. Established routines, amusements, and technical instruction eased the psychological burdens of camp life. By late September the boats were laid out for the winter, beyond the reach of crushing winter ice. Supplies were cached. The men had moved into the large winter house and serious exploration could begin.⁴⁹

From the central location of Fort Cosmos, well up the Kobuk River, "... we were able to strike across the several divides into the adjoining river-valleys by comparatively short routes...."⁵⁰ As soon as ice and snow conditions allowed, beginning December 1st, individual exploring parties fanned out to the Noatak headwaters and across the Arctic Divide, to the Koyukuk and St. Michael, to the Reed River hot springs, and to Selawik Lake. Later Stoney set up a base line for triangulation of the Kobuk Valley: still later he proceeded from its head to the Alatna headwaters and over the Arctic Divide to Chandler Lake, named by Stoney for the Secretary of the Navy. On his trips across the divide where the streams flowed north into the Colville River, Stoney contacted mountain Eskimos. They refused to guide him to the Arctic Coast in winter because they would starve for lack of game, but they agreed to do so in the spring. This set up Howard's trip to Barrow.

On June 15, 1886, Fort Cosmos was abandoned and the boats started downriver. In the general movement toward the coast, and later from Camp Purcell on Hotham Inlet, side expeditions to the lower Noatak, Jade Mountain, and Selawik Lake completed Stoney's survey goals. On the night of August 25 the entire party carne together on the Revenue Cutter Bear, which had earlier retrieved Howard at Barrow, and sailed next morning for San Francisco, courtesy of Captain Healy.⁵¹

Stoney's summary of the expedition's work testifies both to his leadership and to the devoted service of the whites and Natives who made his crew:

The Northern Alaska Exploring Expedition was in existence one year, six months and fourteen days. From the time we landed from the "Viking" until we went aboard the "Bear" on our return trip, we were four hundred and eight days in the country, during almost every day of which time we were actively engaged in hard work, walking, rowing, tracking, surveying, housebuilding, sledging, etc.

Sledging excursions were out from the fort twice for more than a month at a time, during a total of two hundred and seventy-three days, covering some 3000 miles of journeyings.

During the whole period there was not an accident or a case of illness of any kind, though the life was one of unusual hardship and unceasing exposure, often in a temperature seventy degrees below zero. Each officer and man entered into the spirit and purpose of the work with cheerfulness and determination, and each and every one did his duty well, and in a manner worthy of the highest commendation, and I take this opportunity of again thanking them. Nor should the natives be forgotten. They were honest, willing and obedient, and of incalculable service to the expedition.⁵²

The following excerpts from Stoney's Explorations (including Howard's formal report of the Barrow trip) convey the discoverers' views of a new country. They also give a last view of interior Eskimo life at the break point between traditional ways and the new ways brought by traders, whalers, and other white men whom the Eskimos met each summer at the coast. By 1886, most of the Eskimo groups had been severely affected by the combination of caribou decline and the diseases and trade goods of the white man--particularly introduction of the rifle, which largely eliminated communal hunting patterns. Starvation, death from disease, and a desperate kind of mobility as people fought for survival and access to addictive trade goods had already disrupted normal seasonal rounds and wreaked social havoc. "Howard [and Stoney] traveled through an impoverished Eskimo world, shorn of many of its participants and contaminated by introduced traits, a world that would soon cease to exist."⁵³

Lieutenant Stoney's account comprises summary reflections on conditions and techniques of travel, shelter, and the like, punctuated with interludes of direct experience and observation. He is a bluff, no-nonsense man, seemingly impervious to doubt or introspection. This sampler, including trips to the Noatak headwaters and up the Alatna River past the Arrigetch Peaks, which Stoney recorded for the first time, shows a leader of exploration at work:⁵⁴

Experience has proven conclusively to me that in Arctic Alaska the surest and best routes for travel lay along the rivers and lakes. Going across the country is seldom practicable. In summer walking over the tundra land is so fatiguing that but little headway can be made. While in winter the snow lies to a depth of from ten to fifteen feet, in many places drifting to a much greater depth. A road has to be broken ahead of the sledges by men on snow-shoes, and the snow is so dry that the least motion in the air will cause it to move and cover your tracks before you can retrace them. Then, too, you encounter brush through which a way is hard to make. Along the rivers and lakes you have the banks to guide you, and where the snow has been blown off, which is often the case, you have a smooth surface to sledge over. In places where the current is strong, however, the ice overrides and makes it very rough, and a road has to be cut through or you must go around. ...                            

For transportation sledges drawn by natives or dogs or by both are the most practicable. Reindeer are not desirable, as they have little strength and endurance as compared with the others. The fact that the Siberian natives, who have herds of tame reindeer, use their dogs for transporting their camp outfits, proves the superiority of the latter. As between the natives and the dogs, the former are to be preferred, as in addition to their intelligence, they can pull nearly three times as much as the latter, and can exist on as little food. Four natives can pull a sledge-load of over one thousand pounds over a comparatively rough country, while it would require at least ten dogs to do the same work. My dogs were the subject of careful investigation; they were carefully weighed before and after trips, their habits were noted, and I fed them myself. ...

On December 1st, 1885, I left Fort Cosmos, with Ensign Howard and four natives, to explore the headwaters of the Notoark [Noatak] or Inland River, and to decide on the practicability of sledging to the northward to Point Barrow. My outfit consisted of three sleds, twenty dogs, rations for twenty-five days and a complete traveling equipment.

The route lay across the tundra on the northern side of the Putnam [Kobuk] valley, over to and up the Nut-vuck-to-wo-ark [Ambler] River. This road is good in early winter; later the snow is drifted into the valleys by the high winds to a great depth. A great objection to this route is that the rapids do not freeze; a thin ice forms over them, which is so deceptive that dogs and sleds break through, necessitating the making of roads along the banks among the growth of low brush; and even here are numerous springs so treacherous that I often went through. Sometimes there is no covering to the fast-flowing water and fordings have to be made; the water is shallow enough, but the dogs have to be pulled in, and one's boots of deer-hide must be changed for others of seal. The dogs suffer from the water freezing on them, and changing boots in an atmosphere of 50° F. below zero is not pleasant.

To cross the thin ice over running water, the natives make a bridge by laying saplings, two and three feet apart, over the crust and covering them with brush, which makes a slippery surface for the sleds. A long line is made fast to the end of the drag-rope and the other end is manned by natives on the other side of the bridge, who haul the dogs on to the bridge; once on, they quickly get over to the strong ice. By these bridges I crossed, with a sled weighing several hundred pounds, over ice so thin that it could not bear the weight of a single dog.

Whenever stops for the night were made, the dogs were chained up and the tent pitched when the weather was bad, otherwise a native camp was constructed, as follows: Selecting the most sheltered spot, a pit is made in the snow about fifteen feet square and six inches deep by stamping it down with the feet. Around this is built a wall about four feet high by laying young spruce trees on top of one another, and cutting off their inside branches on the side you sleep. This wall has two openings or breaks at one end opposite each other, dividing the wall and pit into two parts with a through passage way separating them. Along this way, which must always face the wind, a fire is made of dead wood. On one side of the fire, fine boughs are laid down on the snow and on top of them the sleeping gear. Such night camps are recommended; they are easily made and the coldest nights can be comfortably passed in them. The only drawback is the annoyance of getting wood. ...

On December 9th, I reached Nimyuk (Cotton-wood), the highest settlement on the Notoark River. The village consisted of four huts and thirty inhabitants, subsisting almost exclusively on deer-meat of which they had at least two thousand pounds on hand. The day of my arrival they killed thirteen deer: and in some of the caches were as many as thirty. I was considerably annoyed by the curiousity of these people and by their superstitions. As it was their dancing season, no meat could be cut with an axe, so I was compelled to saw up a frozen deer--a difficult task. Neither could any meat be cooked in a house nor any tea drawn: it had to be done outside and passed in through the chimney-hole. These fancies are persisted in because they think that to do otherwise would drive the deer from the mountains. In most places these habits could be overcome by paying, but I met with no success at Nimyuk though offering tempting inducements.

From Nimyuk I stood to the northward and eastward, following one of the branches of the Notoark to its source in the mountains, then over the dividing ridge where I struck the headwaters of the Colville River, down which I traveled several miles, corning to Issheyuk, a village of fifteen huts, situated near the northern limit of the mountain range. Approaching the settlement, I was stopped by some natives who demanded tribute; my natives becoming terrified, advised compliance. Suspecting foul play, I told them I would consider their request when the village was reached, and so proceeded on, and soon learned that my supposed ignorance of their ways had induced some scamps to attempt to impose on me. Their failure was laughed at by the body of natives at the village, where several hundred of them were gathered from all parts of the Notoark and surrounding country to have a big dance. This large body of natives surrounded us, the men beating torn-toms and the women singing, and for a time we felt anxious; but, their ceremonies over, they gave the hand of friendship and extended the freedom of their village. I remained one day at Issheyuk and learned that some of the natives went to Point Barrow every summer. This information was verified by the army blankets, army overcoats, and army buttons which they had, and which they said, they got from white men at Point Barrow, evidently the party of Lieut. [P.H.] Ray, U.S.A. I offered every inducement to be taken to Point Barrow, but without success, for they declared that to go at such a time would result in starvation. However, they offered to take me next spring. Not having enough provisions to last until then, I decided to return to Fort Cosmos and to try more to the eastward. Before leaving I made arrangements with the most influential man, Owpuk, to send a party with him to Point Barrow in the spring in case I could find no better route to the eastward. So on December 12th, I left for home, following the same route, and arrived at Fort Cosmos, December 19th.

At Nimyuk, at the headwaters of the Notoark, the natives live in hemispherically shaped huts similar to those of the Putnam; they have two ice windows on either side the entrance and a meat stand opposite. On this meat-stand at the back of the hut and opposite the entrance, several hundred pounds of deer-meat are always kept, so that a quantity will be on hand sufficiently thawed for use. As soon as I entered, some of this partially thawed meat was handed me on a tray. Meat is never cooked but once a day, in the evening before turning in. About 5 P.M. a large fire is started and the pots full of meat are put on. These pots, the ordinary boiling pots of civilization, they get in trade; in their absence pots made of clay from the Selawik River are used. The cooking is done by the women who taste the meat from the moment it is put on the fire until it is thoroughly cooked; then the fire is dexterously thrown out through the chimney hole in the roof, by young men using long sticks as tongs. When the hut is clear of smoke, the flap that covers the chimney is hauled over for the night, and all hands go to sleep. When the hunters return from a trip they are given a hot meal. Upon entering the hut they take off most of their clothes and their wives and daughters hang them up. Then they fall to, eating pounds of the boiled deer-meat and drinking gallons of the soup: a pipe is next enjoyed, and then all hands turn in for the night. All the household are fond of stripping and baking themselves before the fire, particularly the old people who go so close as to almost blister their skins: they say the heat makes them young and drives away their pains.

Stoney's trip to the Alatna River, providing the first recorded description of the Arrigetch peaks, occurred in March 1886:

Ten miles up the Al-lash-ook [Alatna] to the northward and westward, the A-koo-loo-ik River enters the left bank. Still higher up at the bend in the river, the Ping-ing-a-look River comes in on the left bank. At this point the valley narrows to less than two miles and is well wooded: the mountains are nearly bare and steep, with numerous waterfalls running down to the swift and tortuous river here only thirty yards wide. About five miles beyond, the Koo-to-ark [Kutuk] River comes in from the northward and eastward. The configuration of the surrounding heights [Arrigetch Peaks] at this junction is worthy of note. They appear in every conceivable way and shape; there are rugged, weather-scarred peaks, lofty minarets, cathedral spires, high towers and rounded domes. with circular knobs, flat tops, sharp edges, serrated ridges and smooth backbones. These fantastic shapes form the summits of bare, perpendicular mountains.

The Al-lash-ook followed to a fork near its head and then the Koo-to-ark, a small branch on the left bank, was taken, and followed to its headwaters. The Koo-to-ark River at its junction with the Al-lash-ook is thirty yards wide. It flows from the northward in a tolerably straight course. Coming close down to the water are dome-shaped mountains 3000 feet high, for the most part bare, with here and there little patches of soil with a scant growth. Twenty miles up the Koo-to-ark even this growth practically ceases, excepting at long intervals, when a few poor cottonwoods and willows are found. At one of these spots near the headwaters is the small village of Nimyuk (cottonwood), well up in the mountains. It is a stopping place for deer-hunters and traveling parties.

After thirty-five miles on the Koo-to-ark, I crossed the mountains to northward and eastward over a pass 1070 feet higher than the Koo-to-ark, and came to the village of My-og-arg-a-look. Twelve miles beyond to the northeast, we came to O-co-mon-e-look after crossing a pass 1000 feet higher than the previous one. The road then lay in the gorges over small streams filled with boulders and snow. When ten miles northeast from O-co-mon-e-look, I crossed another pass, unmistakably the work of a glacier, and reached a chain of lakes and the limit of the mountains.

The largest lake, which I named Lake Chandler, after the Hon. Secretary of the Navy, lies between two regular mountain chains, which rise 1050 feet above its level. The shape is regular, running ten miles in length, N.N.E.l/4E., and from one mile to 1000 yards in width, and it is so deep that no bottom can be seen. The lake was frozen with ice five feet three inches thick. There is no growth about the shores nor on the mountains. The lakes undoubtedly are supplied with water from springs; the numerous air-holes and cracks indicated this,as well as the bubbling appearance of the water. I was told that this lake rarely froze over completely, ordinarily a strip of water six feet wide remained open all winter. This part of the journey was still harder because of the scarcity of fuel and consequent sameness of food, frozen deer-meat.

When at the head of the last lake I felt the actual need of some warm food and drink. No fuel could be procured and my alcohol being out, I purchased a sledge for fuel so that some meat could be cooked and tea made. When the former owner of the sledge saw the labor of so many days' hard work being burnt, aroused by his superstitious fears, he became very much incensed. I was afraid for awhile I would have very serious trouble, which indeed, was only prevented by being very positive with the native, saying it was my sledge, and that I could do as I pleased with it.

I reached the lake on March 18, and learned that there were no natives beyond this point until the coast was reached. I again endeavored to get the natives here to go with me to the Point Barrow coast, but they refused, saying, however, that later, when the rivers that flowed to the northward broke, they would take me. Seeing the impracticability of going any further at this time, I decided on returning as quickly as possible, in order to send an officer with these people some of whom went to the Arctic Ocean every spring. So arrangements were made with them for taking a party later on.

Ensign Howard, by contrast to Stoney, had to overcome the normal human foibles of fear and uncertainty in strange places. With perseverance and growing confidence throughout his journey, he did overcome, brilliantly. A keen and respectful observer, he was willing to live off the country and follow the lead of the Natives, whose knowledge he admired. In short order, they incorporated him into their lifeways and seasonal rounds in a manner that transcended formal hospitality. On April 12, 1886, Howard left Fort Cosmos with Crewman F.J. Price and three Eskimos, en route to Barrow. As on the earlier trip with Stoney, the party ascended the Ambler River and crossed the divide into the Noatak basin in search of Owpuk, the Eskimo leader who in December had pledged to Stoney his guide services for the trip to Barrow. We pick up Howard's account as he proceeds through the villages of the Noatak and across the Arctic Divide to the Etivluk River in the Colville basin. What follows is a unique description of Eskimo life on the knife edge of tradition and transition. Howard's participation in and description of the traditional mountain Eskimo spring gathering and trade journey to the coast is one of a kind. There is no other first-hand record of this event, soon doomed to extinction.⁵⁵

April 15, made Koolooguck and learned that Owpuk, the native with whom I intended traveling to the coast, was still at Issheyuk. The deer hunters returned, bringing five deer. April 16, left the village and reached Aneyuk on the Notoark river, distant about ten miles N.W. Found the guide of my former trip, Ashewanuk, who said Owpuk was not at Issheyuk and that the village was deserted. Hired this guide to help me find him. Aneyuk is the highest point on the Notoark River reached by the natives in boats. In the fall they come here and wait for the snow to sled into the interior. The skins of the boats are cached until the next season and their frames are placed on high racks to prevent animals eating the lashings. In the spring the people come down by sleds to Aneyuk, put together their boats, and go by water to the coast. This custom is general, only a few families remaining in the mountains. April 17, left Aneyuk and arrived at Shotcoaluk twenty miles distant N.E. where I remained until the 20th on account of a heavy wind storm that filled the air with fine snow obscuring the nearest objects. Here I received one hundred pounds flour that had been sent ahead. April 20, left Shotcoaluk for the mountains. The snow drifted so the leading dogs could not be seen, and everybody suffered from the piercing cold. Connected all the dogs and sleds in line ahead and made for the nearest valley, clinging to the sleds to avoid getting lost. Finally went into camp in a shelter cut out of a large snow drift. April 21, left this camp; made about 12 miles north and reached the Etivluk River whose headwaters are at Issheyuk and which helps form the Colville River. The village, twenty miles west of Issheyuk, contained one family, and I was informed that all the natives had gone down this river and were encamped below. April 22, started down the Etivluki came to a deserted village and was disappointed in not finding Owpuk. Continued on and reached the village of Tooloouk where I found him. The natives seemed glad to see me and sent dogs to help as soon as we were sighted. There were ten houses in this village and seventy natives; but this number varied as people were constantly coming and going. After a long talk with the natives, Owpuk consented to take me to "salt water." In the meantime a special hut had been built for myself and party, out of poles stuck in the snow with their upper ends bowed and lashed together and over this frame was put a cover of sewed deer skins. At this place I discharged my new guide and sent back the two natives brought from Fort Cosmos, with a large sled and eight dogs, and a written report of my trip up to date.

We spent a week at this village situated in a deep valley just off the Etivluk River. On the hills above, natives were always on watch for deer, and when sighted, all the young men would leave for them. A number were killed which the women brought in, dressed and prepared. All the work in the village was done by the women: they sledded for and gathered the scarce wood, cooked the food and took it to the men who generally eat together sitting around in a circle. They eat ravenously until everything is gone, there being no apparent limit to their capacity. It is also wonderful the fatigue and exertion they can undergo without food or sleep, recuperating by eating and sleeping alternately for several days. These natives had immense bundles of skins to trade on the coast for seal oil, rifles, etc., the natives on the coast depending on them for their skin clothing. The skins are dried and kept in bundles outside the houses, except wolf skins which are hung from poles at some distance from the village, as a charm against disease. Whenever the sleds stopped the wolf skins were first taken off and hung away as above. A grand dance took place which I attended. This was a rehearsal in preparation for the dance upon meeting the Point Barrow natives. May 1, twelve sleds, including mine, left Tooloouk. Each sled averaged four natives and four dogs. Some were bound down the Colville River and some down the Ikpikpuk. Stopped twice to get deer and learned that the long wait at Tooloouk had been to allow the deer to get ahead as they depend upon them for food. All the deer killed were covered with parasites which the natives eat greedily.

May 2, under way; making frequent stops to allow the old people to catch up. All hands traveled on snowshoes, the sleds being too heavily loaded for any to ride. ...

[On May 5 the travelers made camp] at the limit of the mountains;on all sides and ahead was undulating land. May 6, under way, making frequent stops; made about six miles N. by W. During the day an addition was made to the party in the form of a baby boy. A place was hollowed out of a snowdrift and a couple of deer skins put in. The caravan then continued on leaving the woman behind alone. Towards evening the mother with her infant came into the camp, having walked a distance of three miles.

May 7, under way. Made about twelve miles N. by W. when reached the village of Etivoli-par. This is situated at the point where the Etivluk River flows into the Kungyanook, or Colville River. At this place those who go down the Colville River leave their boats in the fall and wait for snow to sledge to the mountains. Most of the natives with whom I was traveling remained here waiting for the ice on the Colville to break up. The woman with the baby had hard work to keep up; upon my offering her a ride the other interfered, saying she must go on foot; she also had to make her own fire, cook her own food and use her own special utensils; according to their superstitions to do otherwise would result in misfortune to the child. May 8 to 12, remained at the village, during which time it was either snowing or raining. The natives opened their caches made last fall, and deer meat and fish were taken out frozen solid and in perfect condition. On May 11, the first goose of the season flew over, the natives were very jubilant and by imitating the goose's call kept it circling overhead several minutes. I was not allowed to shoot it. Natives here brought me a small mammoth tusk, but I left it on account of my load and their telling me there were plenty on the Ikpikpuk.

May 12, eight sleds, including my own, started for the Chipp or Ikpikpuk River, going on down the Colville. ...May 23, under way. Made the rendezvous village of Kigalik, consisting of thirty tents and one hundred and fifty natives. Just before arriving at Kigalik, carne upon the racks holding the boat frames, and each native examined his to see that it was all right. Counted eighteen oomiak and twenty kyak frames. Under the frames was a cache containing the boat covers. As we neared the village our party was met and assisted with extra dogs and escorted to the lower end of the camp which had been reserved for us. In the center of the village a large dance house had been made by sticking poles into the ground and hanging skins over them, everyone furnishing a few skins. In this house the men worked at new boat frames during the day and all hands danced at night, their food being carried there by the women. The latter spent their time in tanning skins and making clothing. The wood for the boats came from the rivers to the southward, passing through many native hands. The boats are lashed with strips of whalebone: the oomiaks are covered with sealskin and the kyaks with deerskins.

May 24 to 30. In camp at Kigalik Made a sledging trip to the headwaters of the Ikpikpuk River. It is formed by the junction of several smaller streams which drain the hills between it and the Colville. From the top of the highest hill on the river (500 feet), I got a good view of the Ikpikpuk. It is tortuous in the extreme, bending and doubling upon itself in a remarkable manner. During my absence the natives had made all preparations for starting down the river, boats were covered, sleds put away, etc. I gave my sleds and dogs to Owpuk.

June 2 to 8. In camp at village. The ice began breaking and the river rising. The high water forced everybody to leave the quarters on the spit and move into the interior. Many natives moved only a foot or two at a time. The shamans gathered at the bank and would stick their knives at the water's edge to prevent any rising beyond it. Each failure was greeted with derisive laughter as the discomfited medicine men stepped back and picked up their submerged knives. Instead of dancing in the evenings the favorite amusement now was tossing in the sealskin blanket. The river rose six feet by June 6, and then commenced falling. Boats were got ready and all stuff not needed for the journey was cached. June 8 left Kigalik, five oomiaks starting, and made about fifty miles down the river. Just before camping passed a small creek corning in on the left which was stated to be very long. The boats are loaded and handled very skillfully: poles are stuck along the sides to keep the load in place, which is piled four feet above the gunwale. Some heavily loaded oomiaks have kyaks lashed each side to insure stability. The owner steers from the stern, the family sit in the bow and paddle with short handled broad bladed paddles. Each boat has a long handled narrow bladed oar which the women pull, using a hide oarlock. Stopped often to get mashoo root for food, and killed three deer at the last stop. Upon reaching camp the boats were discharged and turned up to dry. This rule was always followed, and occasionally they were well rubbed with oil. ...I learned that in going down only a few boats went together as enough food could not be provided for all hands at the same time. Their principal food now was the seal meat and oil which had been brought up the previous fall and cached. The young men were out after deer all the time. The dogs were fed on bones and pieces of deer skins with the hair soaked in seal oil. Sighted a few deer, all hands started after them, some going barefooted over the snow and ice tundra, but none were killed. ... The surrounding country was now changed to a level waste of tundra with an occasional mound-shaped sandhill from 50 to 100 feet high. The river banks were low and of sand, on top of this was a network of roots. Low brush grew in scattered places. From this point no rocks were met with, hence all the boats carried stones to crack bones upon.

June 15 to 19. In camp; detained by bad weather. The snow was all gone so the deer had to be brought in on dogs saddled with sealskin bags or blankets placed over the back and tied around the neck and under the belly. These contained pockets on both sides in which the dressed deer meat was put. Two dogs can carry a deer. I noticed a great number of sick people, especially women and children who appeared to have severe colds. I gave them medicine and as they all recovered I was always consulted. ... June 20, under way and made about twelve miles. June 21 to 23, in camp, detained by sick people. The natives could not shoot game on this account and I was asked to do it. Only wooden bowls could be used in dipping water from the river as to use metal pots would cause the fish to leave. The fish caught here were dried and kept for future use, as they became less plentiful lower down.

June 24, under way and made about thirty-five miles. Banks of river so low as to be scarcely perceptible. Passed through two lakes made by the river widening over the tundra. ...While crossing the second lake we sighted two tents of Point Barrow natives which caused the wildest excitement, the natives paddling their hardest, and shouting with all their might, although the tents were several miles away. I came to the conclusion from later observations that these people are afraid of the Point Barrow natives, though they have never harmed each other. The paddling and shouting were kept up until we reached the tents. These Point Barrow natives were filthy in appearance and condition, their clothing being covered with grease and oil. As soon as we landed they brought us whale and walrus blubber to eat which even the dogs refused, though the natives ate it with apparent relish. Their language I could not understand at first, the words seemed the same but the pronunciation different, being short and jerky, like that of the Yukon people. These natives had left Point Barrow a week before and were at this place to hunt deer and fish. We camped near these tents and the natives began visiting us. These people were on their way to the Colville and Mackenzie rivers, and crossed the tundra to meet us. They were making their way along the Arctic coast with dogs, sleds and boats, carrying the boats on sleds over the ice until they meet water. The trip from Point Barrow to Mackenzie River and return occupies two years. They communicate and trade with the Hudson Bay natives, the latter sometimes visit Point Barrow, and some of them visited us at this camp. They differed in appearance from the Alaska natives; the tattooing, only seen on the women, being several parallel strips across the checks. The women wore their hair in a knot on top of the head standing about six inches high similar to that of the Eskimos of Greenland. They spent the day dancing and feasting. On hearing that I was out of flour they gave me a fifty-pound sack, which they packed several miles across the tundra.

June 25 to July 12. Remained at this camp waiting for the ice to break off from the coast. I offered every inducement to natives to take me to Point Barrow, but without success. One day a party arrived from the Point to trade. In the evening they got drunk on liquor they brought with them, and insisted upon coming into my tent, making all sorts of threats one moment and the next attempting to embrace us. The sober men of the party had taken their knives from them, and I was cautioned to keep my firearms out of sight. They stole everything they could put their hands on, the women returning them as fast as taken. The orgie lasted all night, and the next day they boasted of having been drunk and wanted more liquor. Considerable trading was done here, the interior natives exchanging all kinds of skins for rifles, cartridges, caps, lead and tobacco, which the coast natives had in abundance. ... July 12. Ten oomiaks started for Point Barrow. We followed, the edge of the ice being out of sight of land about an hour. Camped on beach. July 13, in camp, detained by ice. July 14. Underway, pushing through the ice. Dense fog set in part of the time and we were out of sight of land. The navigating of these people was wonderful. We made our way through leads, heading in every direction, and towards evening made the beach along which we tracked until 4 A.M. the next day, only six boats reaching this camp, the others being delayed by the ice and difficult navigation. July 15, tracked along the coast, and at 9:30 P.M. made Point Barrow six miles above the old headquarters of the U.S. Signal Station, under Lieutenant [P.H.] Ray, U.S. Army. I made my way overland, and at 2 A.M., July 16, reached the house, ninety-six days from Fort Cosmos.⁵⁶

*****

As a result of the military explorations of 1883-86 the geographic framework of the central mountains and upper rivers became available to experts on the Arctic and to the prospectors who now began to filter into the region. Given its remote location hundreds of miles up difficult and fluctuating rivers, this fringe land above the Arctic Circle offered little to white men. Even the Natives were few in number and scattered across vast distances. Gold mining in these early years centered on the upper Yukon, hundreds of miles away. Trading posts found no profit where only occasional prospectors roamed, where Native trappers and fur-bearing animals were spread thin. The explorers' search for a trans-mountain rescue trail from Kobuk or Koyukuk to Arctic Coast had died in the mountain topography and seasonally closed expanses of northern Alaska. Evidence of precious metals brought back by the explorers and the prospectors who followed them would bring miners in some numbers to the region, especially in the false rush of 1898-99, but never near the scale of the Yukon and Nome rushes. Remoteness and difficult access would hold the region essentially in trust until the airplane and the recent discovery of giant oil fields broke the barriers of distance and economic limbo. Thus, geographic discovery did not trigger an ordered progress of settlement and civilization in this region. Instead, excepting occasional short-lived gold-mining flurries, the country would remain largely a refuge for people who liked being on the edge of nowhere, Native and white person alike. Lacking the necessary critical mass of economic incentives and numbers of people, progress passed the region by.

In this perspective, the history that ensued after 1886 is a story of minor booms and long busts, of tiny communities not quite getting there, struggling to keep alive such symbols of civilization as a post office or a school, or folding entirely--with the deserted sites then salvaged by the hard core of Natives and whites who dwelt in the distant camps of a marginal place. It is this concept of the margin, of the borderland, and of the kinds of people who by heritage or choice lived there that dominates the history. The fact is, until World War II the history of most of Interior Alaska was like this. The Gates of the Arctic region, being a margin of the margin, was until very recently the epitome of that earlier Alaska--a place where time usually stood still, then jolted forward a bit, and again fell back after the current boom ran its short course. In this arrested space-time environment, the evolving guard of old timers and a few new recruits who stayed after each boomlet kept alive until just yesterday traditions of both Native and frontier-American sort that had just about vanished in most of America at the very time this region's history started.

The nature of this remote world and the responses to it and to each other of the people who lived and visited there form the central theme of this history. People were few, institutions practically nil. So this is personal history--biographical and anecdotal. Great movements and faceless masses did not surge this far north. Everyone who stayed more than a season hardened up and became a part of the country. The code of time and place allowed plenty of room for idiosyncrasy; it required self-reliance. But individualism was tempered by the notion that nobody would let down a neighbor when the chips were down. The selection process, a fine screen of demanding natural and social conditions, worked along these lines.