Part 57 (1/2)
Rivers and their valleys are more famed in the northern interior than towns. Teslin, Tahkeena, Teslintoo, Big and Little Salmon, Pelly, Stewart, White, Forty-Mile, Indian, Sixty-Mile, Macmillan, Klota.s.sin, Porcupine, Chandlar, Koyukuk, Unalaklik, Tanana, Mynook,--these be names to conjure with in the North; while those south of the Yukon and tributary to other waters have equal fame.
As for the Klondike, it is the only stream of its size, being but the merest creek and averaging a hundred feet in width, which has given its name to one whole country and to a portion of another country. During the past decade it has not been unusual to hear the name Klondike Country applied to all Alaska and that part of Canada adjacent to the Klondike district. The tiny, gold-bearing creeks, from ten to twenty feet wide, tributary to the Klondike, are known by name and fame in all parts of the world to-day. They are Bonanza, Hunker, Too-Much-Gold, Eldorado, Rock, North Fork, All-Gold, Gold-Bottom, and others of less importance. The Bonanza flows into the Klondike at Dawson, and it is but a half-hour's walk to the dredge at work in this stream.
In 1833 Baron Wrangell directed Michael Tebenkoff to establish Fort St.
Michael's on the small island in Norton Sound to which the name of the fort was given. Three years later it was attacked by natives, but was successfully defended by Kurupanoff, who was in charge.
In 1836 a Russian named Glasunoff entered the delta of the Yukon, ascending the river as far as the mouth of the Anvik River. In 1838 Malakoff extended the exploration as far as Nulato, where he established a Russian post and placed Notarmi in command.
When the garrison returned to St. Michael's on account of the failure of provisions, the following winter, natives destroyed the fort and all buildings which had been erected. It was rebuilt and again destroyed in 1839. In 1841 it once more arose under Derabin, who remained in command.
The following year Lieutenant Zagoskin reached Nulato, ascending to Nowikakat in 1843.
The Russians were therefore established on the lower Yukon several years before the English established themselves upon the upper river.
In 1840 Mr. Robert Campbell was sent by Sir George Simpson to explore the Upper Liard River. Mr. Campbell ascended the river to its head waters, crossed the mountains, and descended the Pelly River to the Lewes, where, eight years later, he established Fort Selkirk.
This famous trading post was short-lived. In 1851 it was attacked by a band of savage Chilkahts and was surrendered, without resistance, by Mr.
Campbell, who had but two men with him at the time. They were not molested by the Indians, who plundered and burned the warehouses and forts.
Only the chimneys of the fort were found by Lieutenant Schwatka in 1883.
As late as 1890 this point was considered the head of navigation on the Yukon.
In 1847 Fort Yukon was established by Mr. A. H. McMurray, of the Hudson Bay Company. Following McMurray and Campbell, came Joseph Harper, Jack McQuesten, and A. H. Mayo, who established a trading post on the Yukon at Fort Reliance, six miles below the mouth of the Klondike.
In 1860 Robert Kennicott reached Fort Yukon, and in the following spring descended to a point that was for several years known as ”the Small Houses”--the most attractive name in the Yukon country. In 1865 an expedition was organized in San Francis...o...b.. the Western Union Telegraph Company for the purpose of building a telegraph line from San Francisco to Behring Strait--which was to be crossed by cable to meet the Russian government line at the mouth of the Amoor River. One party, headed by Robert Kennicott, was sent by ocean to the mouth of the Yukon; and another, in charge of Michael Byrnes, up the inside route to the Stikine River. Going from that river to the head waters of the Taku, they followed the chain of lakes and the Hootalinqua River to the Lewes, which they reached on the Tahco Arm of Lake Tagish. At that time it became known that the Atlantic cable had proven to be a success, and the daring and hazardous northern project was abandoned.
As late as the date of this expedition it was not determined positively whether the Kwihkpak was one of the mouths of the Yukon, or a separate river. Upon the recall of the telegraph expedition, the only portion of the great river that had not been explored was the short distance between Lake Tagish and Lake Lebarge.
There have been several claimants for the honor of having been the first white man to cross the divide between Lynn Ca.n.a.l and the head waters of the Yukon. The first was a mythological, nameless Scotchman employed by the Hudson Bay Company, who is supposed to have reached Fort Selkirk in 1864, and to have proceeded alone over the old ”grease-trail” of the Chilkahts to Lynn Ca.n.a.l. He fell into the hands of the Indians and was held until ransomed by the captain of the _Labouchere_. Because he had long, flowing locks of red hair, he was supposed to be a kind of white shaman, and his life was spared by the savages. This story is doubted by many authorities.
The honor was claimed, also, by George Holt, who is known to have crossed one of the pa.s.ses in 1872, and twice in later years. James Wynn, of Juneau, went over in 1879 and returned in 1880.
About this time the Indians seemed to realize that packing over the trail might become more profitable than acting as middlemen between the coast Indians and those of the interior. In 1881 and 1882 small parties of miners, and even one or two travelling alone, crossed unmolested. In 1883 Lieutenant Schwatka had his outfit packed over the Dyea--Taiya, or Dayay, it was then called--Trail; and then, dismissing his packers, built rafts and made his perilous way down the unknown river--portaging, ”shooting” the Grand Canyon, White Horse, and Rink Rapids, sticking on sand-bars, almost dying of mosquitoes, and, saddest of all for us who come after him, naming every object that met his eyes with the deplorable taste of Vancouver.
Of a river, called Kut-lah-cook-ah by the Chilkahts, he complacently remarks:--
”I shortened its name and called it after Professor Nourse, of the United States Naval Observatory.”
Nourse, Saussure, Perrier, Payer, Bennett, Wheaton, Prejevalsky, Richards, Watson, Nares, Bove, Marsh, McClintock, Miles, Richthofen, Hanc.o.c.k, d'Abbadie, Daly, Nordenskiold, Yon Wilczek; these be the choice namings that he bestowed upon the beautiful objects along the Yukon. It is, perhaps, a cause for thankfulness that he did not rename the Yukon _Schwatka_ or _Ridderbjelka_! However, many of his namings have died a natural death.
The name Yukon is said to have first been applied to the river in 1846 by Mr. J. Bell, of the Hudson Bay Company, who went over from the MacKenzie and descended the Porcupine to the great river which the Indians called Yukon. He retained the name, although for some time it was spelled Youkon. For this, may he ever be of blessed memory. I should like to contribute to a monument to perpetuate his name and fame.
To-day Fort Selkirk is of some importance as a trading post and because of the successful farming of the vicinity, and all pa.s.sing steamers call there. Joseph Harper was located there at the time of George Carmack's brilliant discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek, in August, 1896. Harper and Joseph Ladue, who was settled as a trader at Sixty-Mile, immediately transferred their stocks to the junction of the Yukon, Klondike, and Bonanza, and established the town which they named Dawson, in honor of Dr. George M. Dawson.
In 1887 Mr. William Ogilvie headed a Canadian exploring party into the Yukon. His boats were towed up to Taiya Inlet by the United States naval vessel _Pinta_; and while waiting there for supplies, he, having asked for, and received, authority from Commander Newell, made surveys at the heads of the inlets. It was only through the intercession of the commander, furthermore, that Mr. Ogilvie was permitted by the Chilkahts to proceed over the pa.s.s. ”I am strongly of the opinion,” Mr. Ogilvie says in his report, ”that these Indians would have been much more difficult to deal with if they had not known that Commander Newell remained in the inlet to see that I got through in safety.”
Miners had been going over the trail for several years, but the Chilkahts were enraged at the British because employees of the Hudson Bay Company had killed some of their tribe.
In the meantime Dr. George M. Dawson, heading another Dominion party, was working along the Stikine River.