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

¹Stoney, Explorations in Alaska, 824.

²Terrence Cole, "Early Explorers and Prospectors on the Koyukuk," Alaska Geographic, 10(4), 1983, 29; Sherwood, Exploration of Alaska,151.

³Pierre Berton, The Klondike Fever (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1974), 6-8.

⁴Paraphrased from Joseph Ulmer's Historical Sketch of James Bender, typescript in Ulmer Collection, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives. One account of Bremner's killing, based on the perspective of an experienced Russian Creole, blamed the Native doctors or medicine men. They warned the Indians that too many white men were corning into the country and would scare away the game; maybe killing a few of them would keep them out. Plunder of Bremner's outfit seemed also to have been a motive. See Will H. Case, Reminiscences of Captain Billie Moore (Burton Publishing Co., Kansas City, Missouri: 1947), 153.

⁵William Domingo Moore, Application for Allowance to the Board of Trustees of the Alaska Pioneers Horne, June 1923, State Archives and Record Service, Juneau.

⁶Chase, Reminiscences of Captain Billie Moore, 212-23, 236; Gordon C. Bettles, "First Surgery on the Koyukuk," Alaska Life, July 1941, 5.

⁷Biographical sketch of Bettles and Howard by Judge James Wickersham; Yukon Press, Jan. 1, 1894; Bettles story in Seattle Sun-Times, July 11, 1937--all in UAF Per. 163 m/f.

⁸Yukon Press, Jan. 1, 1894, 1-8.

⁹Ibid., May 1, 1894, 8.

¹⁰Ibid., Jan. 1, 1896, 1-2.

¹¹Yukon Press, April 1897 and March 1898; Bearss, Klondike Gold Rush, Chap. VII; Webb, Yukon Frontiers, 73, et seq.; Berton, The Klondike Fever, Chap. 5; William Schneider, "Capt: P.H. Ray on the Alaskan Frontier in the Fall of 1897" (typescript report, Fairbanks, 1984), 6-11. The Schneider paper summarizes the wise and heroic control exercised by Captain Ray and Lt. W.P. Richardson in 1897-98, when they provided the only United States authority on the boiling Yukon frontier. It also details Captain Ray's significant influence on subsequent events and reforms made necessary by the gold rush: exploration for an All American Route the Alaska gold fields; establishment of army posts along the Yukon to both regulate and assist the hordes of miners flooding the country; regulation and inspection of Yukon River transportation and supply to prevent starvation, disorder, profiteering, and steamboat disasters; and the need to provide assistance to Indians, whose dependence on trading posts for their own supplies was by this time critical. The reports of Ray and Richardson are found in Compilation of Narratives of Explorations in Alaska (Washington, 1900).

¹²P.H. Ray, letter reports of May 5 and Jan. 13, 1898, to Adjutant-General, U.S. Army, in Compilation of Narratives, 501-02, 552-53.

¹³Ray, Ibid.; E. Hazard Wells, "Up and Down the Yukon," in Compilation of Narratives, 511-13.

¹⁴Ray, Ibid., 503.

¹⁵Berton, The Klondike Fever, 116-20; Cole, "Early Explorers and Prospectors on the Koyukuk," 29; Robert Marshall, Arctic Village (The Literary Guild, New York, 1933), 30-31; Lt. W.P. Richardson, "Report of an Expedition into Alaska [Feb.-July 1898]," in Compilation of Narratives, 504-07.

¹⁶Gordon C. Bettles, "First Surgery on the Koyukuk," Alaska Life, July 1941, 5, 20. The surgery was performed on Bettles himself. The pulling of a molar led to a near-fatal infection, finally lanced by "a Doctor Nolan, who had come in on the steamer Minneapolis." Ibid., 20. The later mining site of Nolan may have been named for the doctor.

¹⁷Cole, "Early Explorers and Prospectors," 31, 33.

¹⁸H. Pingel, "A Short History of Mining on the Koyukuk," The Pathfinder, 2(5), April 1921, 14.

¹⁹Earnest Gruening, ed., An Alaskan Reader, 1867-1967 (Meredith Press, New York, 1966), 165.

²⁰Ltr of E.G. Abbott, 6/16/98, in John Clark Hunt, "The Adventures of the Iowa Gold Seekers," Alaska Journal, 3(1), 1973, 5, 6.

²¹Ltr of T.T. Barbour, 6/26/98, Ibid, 7.

²²Ibid., 11.

²³Capt. W.P. Richardson, "The Mighty Yukon as Seen and Explored," in Compilation of Narratives, 747, 750.

²⁴All selections are from "Diary of an unidentified miner" in the Robert and Jessie Bloom Papers, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Archives, Box 5, File 41. Identification of "Charlie" as Charlie Miller is based on a listing of the members of the party in the Aug. 17, 1898, entry. These included Charlie Miller, D.J. Gordon, Mr. Roovers, and a Dr. Russell, who early withdrew from the party. As did many participants in the Gold Rush, Charlie maintained a diary of letters, which were mailed in batches when opportunity carne. Evidently the Blooms, a Fairbanks business family, did not know the diarist. With minor exceptions for clarity, the diary is presented exactly as written.

²⁵According to the Yukon Press of January 31, 1899, Peavy was the largest town on the Koyukuk. J.R. Austin, recorder for the whole Koyukuk district, resided there and had deputy recorders at other points. Jim Town was the most important supply center; Bergman had a post office. On the more remote creeks, miners' meetings designated a recorder for initial staking, with the local records eventually deposited with the official recorder. The same issue reports 53 boats wintered in on the Koyukuk, rather than the 68 recalled by Bettles in later years. Given the many types of boats and their scatter on many creeks, the disparity is understandable.

²⁶Evey Ruskin, ed., "Letters to Lizzie: A Koyukuk gold seeker writes home," Anchorage Daily News, May 6, 1984, Magazine Section, "We Alaskans," 0-8 to 0-13; quotations from 0-9 and 0-12.

²⁷Thomas W. Moore, undated typescript at British Columbia Provincial Archives, Victoria; furnished to author by Dr. Wendy Arundale, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

²⁸Capt. J.D. Winchester's Experience on a Voyage from Lynn, Massachusetts, to San Francisco, Cal., and to the Alaskan Gold Fields (Newcomb & Gauss, Printers, Salem, Mass., 1900). Below selectionsquotes from 198-203, 205-209, 218-219, 221-222, 227-228, 230-232, 234-235.

²⁹Herman Carpenter, Three Years in Alaska (The Howard Company, Philadelphia, 1901), 78.

³⁰Ibid., 40-77.

³¹Philip S. Smith and Henry M. Eakin, "The Shungnak Region, Kobuk Valley," in Alfred H. Brooks, Mineral Resources of Alaska, Report on Progress of Investigations in 1910, USGS Bulletin 480 (Washington, 1911), 280; Edward H. Cobb, Placer Deposits of Alaska, USGS Bulletin 1374 (Washington, 1973), 59-60.

³²Joseph Ulmer, "Original Discoveries," one-page typescript, n.d., UAF Archives, Ulmer papers, Box 4, Folder 5; Berton, Klondike Fever, 116-17.

³³Ulmer, "Original Discoveries."

³⁴Joseph Grinnell, Gold Hunting in Alaska (David C. Cook Pub. Co., Elgin, Ill., 1901, Facsimile Reproduction, 1964), 3.

³⁵Ibid., 10.

³⁶Ibid., 10.

³⁷Ibid., 27.

³⁸Ibid., 31-32.

³⁹Ibid., 52.

⁴⁰Ibid., 60.

⁴¹Ibid., 52-53.

⁴²Ibid., 67.

⁴³Ibid., 81.

⁴⁴Ibid., 86.

⁴⁵Ibid., 96.

⁴⁶G.L. Webb, edited by Dorothy Jean Ray, "Kobuk Diary," Alaska Sportsman, 27(8, 9, 11, 12), 28(1-5), 1961-62: letter quoted from 28(5), 42.

⁴⁷See for example Maurice Hattem, ed., "The Letters of William K. McKee From Alaska During the Gold Rush of '98," The Branding Iron, Los Angeles Corral of Westerners, No. 142, March 1981, 1, 4=12: Eugene McElwaine, The Truth About Alaska (Published by the Author, 1901).

⁴⁸Arthur O. Roberts, Tomorrow is Growin Old, Stories of the Quakers in Alaska (The Barclay Press, Newberg, Oregon, 1978), 181, et. seg.

⁴⁹Ibid.