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

¹"Maniilaq's Vision," in The Kotzebue Basin, Alaska Geographic,8(3), 1981, 182. The term Inupiat, meaning "The Real People," is the proper collective name for the Eskimos of northern Alaska.

²Summary of early explorations from Dorothy Jean Ray, The Eskimos of Bering Strait, 1650-1898 (University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1975), 11-26.

³A. Grenfell Price, ed., The Explorations of Captain James Cook in the Pacific as told by Selections of His Own Journals, 1768-1779 Dover Publications, Inc., New York, 1971), 240.

⁴Melody Webb (Grauman), "A Historical Overview of the Seward Peninsula-Kotzebue Sound Area" (National Park Service typescript report, 1977), 10-23.

⁵Melody Webb (Grauman), Yukon Frontiers (Cooperative Park Studies Unit, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, 1977), 22-27.

⁶Ray, The Eskimos of the Bering Strait, 69.

⁷For accounts of exploration, trading, and whaling--and their effects--see, e.g., Ibid. Oswalt, Eskimos and Explorers: Burch, Eskimo Kinsmen.

⁸Clark, KoyukukRiver Culture, 82-83. Clark states that no further explorations occurred on the Koyukuk until after the 1867 purchase, and approaches to the upper reaches awaited trader Al Mayo's visit to the Kanuti River village of Kenootena in 1884.

⁹Lael Morgan, ed., "Exploration and Development," The Kotzebue Basin, Alaska Geographic, 8(3), 1981, 68.

¹⁰Webb (Grauman), Yukon Frontiers, 29-30.

¹¹Ibid., 30-32. In 1901, mergers of competing shipping and mercantile interests, with Alaska Commercial Co. as prime mover, resulted in two corporations: Northern Navigation Co., for transportation and shipping: Northern Commercial Co. for mercantile trade. See L.D. Kitchener, Flag Over the North (Superior Publishing Co., Seattle, 1954), 46.

¹²Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 93-97: P.H. Ray, "Report of the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska," in Compilation of Narratives of Exploration in Alaska (56th Cong., 1st. Sess., Senate Rpt. 1023, Washington, 1900), 371-374.

¹³U.S. Army, The Army's Role in the Building of Alaska (Headquarters, U.S. Army in Alaska, Pamphlet 360-5, 1969), 24: Maj. Gen. A.W. Greeley, Handbook of Alaska, Its Resources, products, and Attractions in 1924 (Kennikat Press reprint edition, Port Washington,New York, 1970), 28-30: Edwin C. Bearss, Proposed Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park Historic Resource Study National Park Service, Washington, 1970), 13-17.

¹⁴Gary Stein, "History of the Northwest Arctic," typescript report prepared for Cooperative Park Studies Unit, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1978, 105-106: William H. Dall, Alaska and Its Resources (Lee and Shepard, Boston, 1870), 48-52.

¹⁵Ibid., 110-111.

¹⁶Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 98, 99.

¹⁷Ibid., 118.

¹⁸Ibid., 115, 116.

¹⁹Ibid., 109-114: Lt. Henry T. Allen, Report of An Expedition to the-copper, Tanana, and Koyukuk Rivers, in the Territory of Alaska in the Year 1885 (Washington, 1887), 89-93.

²⁰Allen, Report of an Expedition, 26-28, 89-93.

²¹H.T. Allen, Lieut. U.S. Army, Cmdg Alaska Expedition, field notebook, Henry Allen papers, Library of Congress. The references to Lt. John C. Cantwell and Capt. Michael A. Healy of the Revenue Cutter Corwin, and to the Stoney (Kobuk) River, an oblique reference to Lt.George M. Stoney, U.S. Navy, who had already explored 300 miles of the Kobuk in 1884, not only juxtaposes the principals of mid-1880s northern Alaska military exploration, but also illustrates the rapid flow of transportation and communications around the closing rim of the diminishing central wilderness.

²²Allen, Report of an Expedition, 93, 94. Earlier, on the Copper River, having jettisoned tent and extra blankets to reduce weight, Allen and his men adopted the Native practice of sleeping "doubled up" for warmth. Ibid., 43.

²³Ibid., 93-97.

²⁴Allen's field notebook, August 4, 1885.

²⁵Allen, Report of an Expedition, 101. The general account from the Kanuti to the Ascheeshna is in Ibid., 97-101.

²⁶Dall, Alaska and Its Resources, 48.

²⁷Allen, Report of an Expedition, 101-113: field notebook entries, Aug. 9 to Sept. 5.

²⁸George M. Stoney, "Explorations In Alaska," in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September and December, 1899 (Shorey Reprint, Seattle, 1974) 802-810.

²⁹Allen, Report of an Expedition, 141-42.

³⁰Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 124-125, 130. The role of the Revenue Marine Service (precursor of the Coast Guard) in north Alaskan waters is summarized in Jon M. Nielson, "Conduct Most Becoming: The Revenue Marine Service in Alaska," Alaska Journal, 9(3), 1979, 12-13, 91. Its responsibilities included law enforcement, civil administration, navigation aids and rescue, medical services, transportation, mail, and supply. As arm of government and link to the outside world, the revenue cutters "...were sources of law, comfort and security for Native and white alike" (Ibid 12).

³¹Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 535-36.

³²Gary C. Stein, "A Raving Maniac: Captain Michael A. Healy's Cruise of 1900" (Typescript, 1984), 1.

³³Capt. Michael A. Healy, Report of the Cruise of the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin in the Arctic Ocean in-the-Year 1884 Treasury Department, Washington, 1889), 49.

³⁴Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 541-544; Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, l24-l27; Dennis L. Noble, "Fog, Reindeer, and the Bering Sea Patrol, 1867-1964," in The Sea in Alaska's Past (History and Archeology Publications No. 25, Alaska Division of Parks, Anchorage, November 1979), 118-123; John E. Caswell, Arctic Frontiers, United States Explorations in the Far North (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1956), 198-199; Cantwell's "Alaskan Ethnological Notes" in Cruise of the Corwin, 1884, 79-85.

³⁵Healy, Cruise of the Corwin, 1884, 51-52, 107; Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 548-49

³⁶Cantwell's narrative, in Michael A. Healy, Report of the Cruise of the Revenue Marine Steamer Corwin in the Arctic Ocean in the Year 1885 (Washington, 1887), 33; Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska 127-28.

³⁷Report of the Cruise of the Corwin, 1885, 33-34.

³⁸Ibid., 34 et seq.; the excerpts are selected from pp. 34-40.

³⁹Ibid 41.

⁴⁰Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 128-29; McLenegan's narrative, Cruise of the Corwin, 1885, 59, et seq.

⁴¹Ibid., 58.

⁴²Ibid., 59, et.seq

⁴³Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 129-30; Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 550-53.

⁴⁴Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 130.

⁴⁵Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 533.

⁴⁶Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska, 131; Caswell, Arctic Frontiers, 200.

⁴⁷Brooks, Blazing Alaska's Trails 278. The expedition log (ship's log of the U.S.S. Explorer) is in Record Group 24, National Archives; the rough maps are in the National Archives map section, Alexandria.

⁴⁸Edwin S. Hall, Jr., "William Lauriston Howard and the First Crossing of Interior Northern Alaska" (typescript, Brockport, New York, 1978). This study includes Howard's diary.

⁴⁹The expedition log's September entries provide a detailed account of camp work.

⁵⁰Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 561.

⁵¹Ibid., 561-63, 846.

⁵²Ibid., 846-47.

⁵³Edwin S. Hall, Jr., "William Lauriston Howard," 11, 15-16.

⁵⁴Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 563-577.

⁵⁵Ed Hall's "A Memento of the Northern Alaska Naval Exploring Expedition of 1885-86," Alaska Journal, 7(2), 1977, 81-87; and his study of Howard (n. 48) are the sources for this sketch.

⁵⁶Howard's report in Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, excerpts from 812-22.