Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve ⓘ

“Who is there who can say that 20 years hence there will not be large fleets of planes operating in this lane? It is always the pioneer who gets the most criticism. If he succeeds, he is a wonder; if he fails, he was a ‘nut.’”

Visitors to Yukon-Charley Rivers NP are likely to see subsistence efforts in action. Learn more about this characteristic Alaskan lifestyle here .

During the 1930s industrial gold mining brought workers and whole families to Yukon River tributaries. This story tells of one man and his family during the early days of the Coal Creek dredge.

Mildred wrote over twenty letters to the Lower 48, telling of her and her family's life while living year-round at the Coal Creek gold dredge. Life in remote bush Alaska was hard, and Mildred tells of the challenges of raising a family and of being one of the few women in a male-dominated gold camp.

While many historic roadhouses have burned or have rotted away, Slaven’s Roadhouse has been restored and now serves as a public use cabin and landmark along the river between Eagle and Circle.

Today the Biederman Camp is on a private inholding inside Yukon- Charley Rivers National Preserve, and site still reminds visitors of the region’s tradition of self-reliance and the many hard miles of dog driving by mail carriers on the Yukon River ice.

In 1905 Roald Amundsen successfully navigated the fabled Northwest Passage. He then traveled 500 miles overland to Eagle, Alaska to announce his victory by telegraph.

Being a mail-carrier was difficult even when conditions were ideal and more often than not carriers faced unpredictable ice conditions, deep snow, and frigid temperatures.

Mining companies purchased Johnson's dredges for use in Alaska, Canada, Siberia, Portugal, Bolivia, and across the United States. Johnson adapted his machines to Far North conditions, making him a gold dredge pioneer for Alaska.

The Upper Yukon River region that includes Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve is full of stories. From those of the Han Athapaskans that have lived here for generations to the trappers and traders of the first Euro-American commercial interests, to the floods of people ensnared by the lure of Klondike gold. Some stories are still being written today such as those of the intrepid mushers taking part in the Yukon Quest.

The staff here at Yukon-Charley Rivers work to document and preserve these stories that they may be shared. The following links are just a few examples to pique your interest. make sure to check back for updates!

A Line in the Wilderness It seems a fact of life that the 141st meridian serves as the international border between Alaska and Canada, but it was not always thus.

Frontier Justice Frontier outposts and mining camps have a reputation for lawlessness and turmoil, and both the Canadian Klondike and Alaskan boomtowns like Eagle City and Circle City had their share.

Industrial Mining at Coal Creek The industrialization of gold placer mining along the Yukon River corridor demanded tremendous ingenuity and capital investment.

Drilling Rigs and the Search for Gold In 1934, when General Alexander McRae decided to mine Coal Creek on an industrial scale, his company, Gold Placers, Inc., would succeed only if he could guarantee that his gold dredge followed the band of subterranean gold called a paystreak. He would need not only a dredge but a specialized drill.

The Coal Creek Steam Boiler In 1898 when thousands of eager gold-seekers rushed to Alaska and the Klondike, they encountered an obstacle that many did not anticipate: permafrost.

What is Placer Gold Mining? Unlike hardrock mining, which extracts veins of precious minerals from solid rock, placer mining is the practice of separating heavily eroded minerals like gold from sand or gravel.

The Steam Traction Engine at Washington Creek Perched near the edge of the river, the machine with its hefty steel-clad boiler and menacing spiked wheels seems like a monster from another age. And in a sense it is.

The Yukon Quest Mittens and parkas hang by the wood stove to dry. Bacon and eggs sizzle on the griddle. A slumbering traveler’s contented snores drift downstairs from the bunkroom. Around a table laden with food, a few souls – unacquainted until just a few hours ago – nurse mugs of coffee while comparing notes on trail conditions.

The museum collections from Yukon-Charley are comprised of specimens representing the natural, cultural and historic foundations of the preserve and surrounding region. The collections are comprised of both historic and prehistoric archaeological specimens, natural history specimens representing botany, geology and paleontology, as well as an extensive archive tracing the formation of and scientific studies conducted within the preserve. They serve both as a record of the unique character of the preserve itself and as a resource for future research into the various aspects of that character.

Yukon-Charley is known largely for numerous historic gold mining enterprises which are well represented through historic artifacts, photos, and documentation from the earliest prospectors to the more recent industrial operations based around the Coal Creek/Woodchopper Creek region. Numerous prehistoric artifacts record the unwritten record of human habitation in the region. The natural history collections preserve a greater time depth and include paleontological specimens of Pleistocene megafauna and botanical specimens representing a relict Beringian landscape.

While most of the archaeological, archival, and historic collections are stored in a state of the art Curation facility at the Fairbanks Administrative Center, a portion of the natural history collections, notably the large number of herbarium specimens are stored and maintained at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks.

In addition to the various object and specimen based collections, Yukon-Charley Rivers maintains an archival records collection. This collection consists of the records of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. It includes records of activities related to administration, resource management, subsistence management and visitor use.

To learn more about this collection you can download the complete finding aid here (pdf 794kb) .

The Yukon-Charley museum collections have no permanent exhibit space but are used regularly incorporated in traveling and temporary exhibits, and can be explored virtually through an online catalog, and web-based exhibits. Contact that park curator to request access to collections for research or educational uses.

These virtual exhibits highlight a specific section of the collections They are a combination of stories and images that provide a deeper insight into a specific subset of the overall collection. The titles listed below will take you directly to an exhibit.

A new on-line collections web catalog is now available for anyone to browse. The collections can be searched in several different ways and many of the items have associated images that can be viewed.

Clarence O. Prest was born to take risks. As a teenager in San Bernardino, California, he raced motorcycles on motordromes and performed high-speed tricks in a small vertical track called the “Wall of Death.” With encouragement from his father, he built his own gliders and airplanes and sometimes took his sisters as passengers. By the time he was twenty-five, he had become famous in the American West for his innovative airplane designs and for breaking speed and altitude records. During World War I, he wanted to join the American Air Corps, but his many accident-related injuries disqualified him. Instead he created a flying school and trained Army pilots to fly combat missions in Europe.

In 1921, he and his friend Mort Bach decided to pioneer an air route from Mexico to Alaska and across the Bering Strait to Siberia. Their first attempt ended in Prince Rupert, British Columbia when a storm demolished their fragile bi-plane. The following year, Prest tried again, but this time he flew alone and brought a movie camera to create a travelogue to offset his expenses. He began in Buffalo, New York with plans to be in Fairbanks, Alaska to participate in Fourth of July celebrations. By the time he reached Seattle, some observers were questioning his planning and his sanity. A writer for the Seattle Star came to his defense, stating, “Who is there who can say that 20 years hence there will not be large fleets of planes operating in this lane? It is always the pioneer who gets the most criticism. If he succeeds, he is a wonder; if he fails, he was a ‘nut.’”

After reaching Juneau, Skagway, and Dawson City, Prest became the first pilot to land on the banks of the Yukon River at Eagle, and the next day he took off again with a compass, a map, and a .32 pistol. He planned to follow the Seventymile River to the Charley River headwaters and beyond to the Tanana River and Fairbanks. But after a day of waiting, the residents of Fairbanks grew concerned. The city offered $250 for news of his whereabouts, search parties set out from Eagle, and in Fairbanks the News-Miner editor eventually wrote,

Two days later they found him in an old log cabin about twenty miles from Eagle. His rescuers learned that engine trouble forced him down in a tussock bog, and that the propeller snapped when he tried to take off again. He had killed a caribou with his pistol, which supplied him with food, but wandered in the rain without sleep for three days. His rescuers, led by Deputy Marshal Clarence Dudney, took Prest back to town and then returned to salvage the plane’s wheels and Prest’s personal items. Dudney later retrieved the rest of the Polar Bear II and it spent several years in the mule barn of the abandoned U.S. Army fort at Eagle.

Prest had not been the first pilot to travel across North America to Canada and Alaska—the Army’s Black Wolf Squadron had done the same with four planes in 1920—but he was the first solo pilot, supported only by his wits and ambition, to attempt to “open” Alaska to aviation. In this sense, Prest was Alaska’s first bush pilot and he inspired future fliers wherever he went. As one observer wrote,

As he predicted, Alaska became a playground for private pilots—who routinely land planes on gravel bars and backcountry airstrips—and a major hub for commercial carriers and global air traffic.

Sam Creek Cabin is one of the oldest log structures in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Built by a local miner named Sandy Johnson near the banks of the Yukon River, the cabin was used as temporary lodging by people working their way up to mining claims on Sam and Ben Creeks. Arthur "Cap" Reynolds (seen at right with his wife Sadie in 1900) is the person most closely associated with the cabin and with Sam Creek.

I am planting my garden now; I usually raise enough garden to last me through the winter... I have everything to get along with; I don't need anything—only company.

By 1907 the Reynolds had reached Alaska and were on their way by steamboat to the tiny outpost of Nation City near the mouth of Fourth of July Creek. For the next ten years, the couple worked a mining claim far up the creek, thawing frozen ground using a boiler and fires, digging ditches to deliver water to the camp, and processing gold-rich gravel with a device called a rocker. They periodically left the daily grind of mining to visit Seattle or to travel northern rivers in a steamboat Arthur Reynolds built around 1914 and learned to captain (this is where he got his nickname "Cap"). Possibly due to ill health, Sadie Reynolds left Alaska in 1921 for California and never returned.

For most miners along the Yukon River overnight wealth was but a dream. Gathering gold dust and nuggets and selling mining claims was rarely profitable enough, and gold-seekers did other work to feed themselves and supplement their incomes. For example, after his wife left, Reynolds learned to drive sled dogs and took up hunting and trapping. He spent five years working for the Alaska Railroad and eventually returned to the Yukon River in 1927 to settle in a large cabin on Sam Creek. At this remote homestead he prospected for gold, hunted moose and caribou, ran a trapline to harvest furs, processed meat, tended his dog team, and visited with his closest neighbor Sandy Johnson (the man who built Reynolds' home cabin and the smaller one near the Yukon's banks). Today we call this lifestyle subsistence mining because it demanded that miners be versatile and multi-talented.

The cabin Reynolds lived in was several miles up Sam Creek, and in order to send a letter or to pick up supplies, he had to travel 8 miles roundtrip to the Yukon River to meet a steamboat or 13 miles to Coal Creek mining camp. During the 1940s, when Reynolds was in his 70s, arthritis and declining health made it difficult for him to hunt or to see to his trapline. Writing to his nephew Ray Morgan, he explained,

"I live so far out in the woods that it's hard for me to get a letter in the mail as we have 2 or 3 mails during the winter. I am so badly crippled with rheumatism that I can hardly get away from home. My dogs are so hard to handle that I don't hitch them up very often. They are as hard to handle as them Colorado broncos used to be."

He also wrote about digging prospect holes and setting traps and snares, but winter temperatures of 30 to 50 below had torpedoed these plans. By 1950 Reynolds was providing room and board to a young drifter named Harry Muller in exchange for help mining and doing chores. Evidence suggests that Muller robbed Reynolds and locked the old man out of his own cabin to freeze to death at the age of eighty-one.

Although today his home cabin is in ruins, the Sam Creek cabin used by Reynolds and others as temporary lodging near the Yukon is still standing, and in 2014 an NPS crew reinforced the walls and improved the roof in an attempt to preserve it for years to come. Near the cabin visitors can see remains of the elevated cache where Reynolds stored meat and other supplies and an example of the dog sleds that were so critical to the lives of all Yukon River pioneers.

On December 21, 1943 a high-altitude flight over the Alaskan interior ended in a fiery crash atop a mountain overlooking the Charley River inside what is today Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The airplane was a B-24 Liberator, a popular heavy bomber for Allied and American forces during World War II, and it carried a crew of five. Only one of them survived the disaster. Although co-pilot Lt. Leon Crane managed to save his own life by parachuting to earth, his narrow escape from death landed him in an equally perilous situation—for the next 84 days he was alone in the wilderness in the middle of an Alaska winter. Lt. Crane’s ordeal began as a routine test flight, but at 25,000 feet one of the plane’s four engines malfunctioned and the aircraft suddenly began to spiral out of control. Although Crane and pilot Lt. Harold Hoskins struggled with the controls, they could not right the aircraft. Buffeted by high winds and crushing centrifugal forces, they sounded the alarm to abandon ship. In the chaos, Lt. Crane managed to don a parachute before leaping through the open bomb bay doors. He later recalled the blast of biting cold that struck his hands and face as he floated toward the ground and the “huge blob of red flame” when his plane struck the mountainside.

In October 1944, Crane led a recovery team to retrieve the remains of two of his crewmen, Lt. James Sibert and Sgt. Ralph Wenz. No evidence of Master Sgt. Richard Pompeo (thought to have parachuted free of the plane) nor pilot Lt. Hoskins was found. In 2006 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command traveled to the site at the request of the National Park Service and found bone fragments believed to be those of Lt. Hoskins. The remains were returned to his family and then buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Today the tangled wreckage of the B-24 Liberator exists as a poignant reminder of lives lost and of a survival story that will endure for the ages.

A postscript to the survival story of Lt. Leon Crane from the journal of Lt. Arthur Jordan, U.S. Army Air Corps, stationed at Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska:

Another day I will always remember — tonight, at about 6:30 PM, I happened to be out in the hall when Major Kane came rushing over from Operations with some amazing news. A pilot of Wein Alaska Airlines had radioed that he was bringing in a Lt. Crane — we contacted him and asked whether Crane was alive or dead. The reply "Very much alive!!!" came back over the air. The plane was coming from a place called Woodchopper, which is up on the Yukon River some distance southeast of Circle. About five of us hopped into a car and drove over to Weeks Field in Fairbanks — at seven o'clock, the plane landed and out hopped old Crane.

What a thrill that was — we grabbed him and rushed out to the field, en route he told us the beginning of an unbelievable struggle for survival... his own experience since December 21, 1943 when Hoskins B-24 disappeared. Col. Keillor had him brought directly to his quarters, and a long distance call to his family in the States was put through... he had a hard job convincing his people that it was really their boy talking. In about an hour, after he had told Col. Keillor his story, he came out and we all went over to the cafeteria, where he started putting away food. Half the officers on the post swarmed over there — the news was traveling like wildfire.

When the plane left here, it went down over Big Delta, up through the overcast, developed engine trouble, lost the instruments, and went into a series of spins — Crane bailed out and saw Pompeo (the crew chief) go also. He never saw Sgt. Pompeo's chute in the air. He left Hoskins in the plane, trying to get into his chute — the other two were in the back of the plane and he doesn't know whether they bailed out or not. He pushed the alarm bell and heard that ringing as he left the ship. He saw the ship crash in flames and explode some distance from where he landed.

He walked for nine days without food, finally coming upon a trapper's cabin that was stocked with provisions. He left the cabin twice - each time he returned to it after nearly expiring. He stayed until the middle of February, finally starting downstream on the Big Charlie (Charley) River, and he reached the Yukon about a week ago... a trapper took him to Woodchopper, and he took the first plane through there back to Fairbanks. He does not look unhealthy... the cabin had only beans, rice, and flour in it, yet he does not appear to have lost any weight. He was still clad in the clothes he had on when he left here in December — they were quite black and torn in many places. No one believes he is back until they see him — he does not seem to have been affected mentally, either... a credit to the Air Corps; Lt. Crane is that and more!!!

Its two diesel engines began coughing; the winchman moved the dredge out . . . and the bucket line started to revolve and bite into the gravel. It was a great moment to hear.

The year was 1936. Gold Placers, Inc. had recently imported an enormous dredge to extract gold on an industrial scale from a Yukon River tributary called Coal Creek. The dredge had traveled north from San Francisco by steamboat, rail, and barge before it was reassembled at Coal Creek. It was designed to eat 3,000 cubic yards of gravel from the drainage each day, leaving behind mounds of discarded rock. Once the dredge was in place, company manager Ernest Patty needed a skilled winchman to work the machine's elaborate system of winches, bucket lines, and conveyor belts. Patty hired a Seattle man named Alvin Hendricks, who was already in Alaska working on a different gold dredge about seventy-five miles to the south of Coal Creek. Alvin, his wife Mildred , and their son Alvin, Jr. moved into a log cabin near the new dredge -- in what is now the heart of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The dredge coughed to life and continued processing gravel for the next four decades.

Living in Seattle in the 1920s, Mildred Curtis likely never thought of gold along Alaska's Yukon River. "Mil", as she was known to her friends, grew up in Butte, Montana to English immigrant parents. After her marriage to Al Hendricks in 1927, and the birth of their son Al Jr. a few years later, the young family began a new life with an unusual move to Alaska during the Great Depression. Al had gotten a job working as a dredge operator at Coal Creek, and invited his wife and young son to join him.

Missing her friends and family back home, Mildred wrote over twenty letters to the "Lower 48" over the next four years, telling of her life at Coal Creek and Walker Fork gold dredges. Life in remote bush Alaska was hard, and Mildred tells of the challenges of raising a family and of being one of the few women in a male-dominated gold camp.

The following essays are excerpts from her various letters, along with Hendricks family photographs, that tell the story of her perspective of life at Coal Creek in the fall of 1936 and winter of 1937.

This is Mildred's first letter from the gold dredge camp, written to her Aunt Bessie Boomer and cousin Lucilla Kinsman:

Well, have been so busy haven't taken the time to write since I arrived here. We have been here a little over three weeks now & the time has just flew by...we live in the cook house so we all have to cook together...so we usually have about 10 people for every meal including breakfast...Mrs. Cowdin & Mrs. Bolstead do the cooking, but I guess I will have to start in after they leave & that is going to be in two days. It will seem lonesome after they leave, but might as well get used to it...Say, what do you think, we had two feet of snow already & we went dog sledding. The camp where the dredge is, is two miles from here & we went down by dog team, can you imagine this time in the year & having enough snow for that...Our water has frozen. Al has to pack water every night for all of us & it sure is a job. We have been out picking cranberries & blueberries but the snow had to come & that was the finish of that. The blueberries up here are like the ones we had in Montana.... I don t know what day of the week it is anymore, as the boys work every day, so Sunday is like any other days....We had a real good time coming up on the boat, & also on the river boat...we are getting along okeh & I am feeling fine. You know I cant concentrate very much as there are too many here— we are only going to have 10 for dinner; how would you like that many for every meal?

This is going to be a hurried up note again as the boys just came in today and are leaving again in the morning, and we didn’t expect them to leave for about three days. We are all feeling fine & I have tried to have school every day, but have too many interruptions to get anywhere. Mrs Bolsted & her husband eat over here & she spends most of her time here, so haven’t a minute to myself, will tell you more about that situation later, it sure is the bunk right now, but the dredge will be closing down in about two weeks, & I guess there will be some changes. (Our cook) is still over here baking & Al & Alvin [Jr.] are trying to sleep, boy if there ever was a boss she sure is one... Al works about fourteen hours a day & is sure tired in the evenings. I like it up here so far; we had some more snow today, & it is freezing tonight...Also Mrs Cowdin said to tell you to be sure & send anything you are going to get Alvin for Christmas to send it right away or otherwise he wont get it...It seems so funny to be away up here & not be able to go to the store. I have had so much company tonight haven't had time to do anything I wanted to do.... I am trying to write this letter with seven people laughing around me so excuse any mistakes.

I just got thru writing some letters for Alvin so must write a few lines, the only mail I have gotten was from you Lue & Auntie, Mrs Bolstad gets about ten letters every mail, but then I don’t expect to get mail when I don’t write, but I have been so busy, haven't had time to do anything, not even time to think, & Mrs Bolstad has been at our house since she came up & there has been an undercurrent all around, but we have things straightened out now, so maybe things will go along a little more smartly…[Mrs. Bolstad] was spreading stories down at the camp about me (we live two miles from camp) & you know that seems to be all people think about up here is talking about one another, & she thought she was going to get some place by making up things about me, but Al has so many good friends up here they told Al what she was saying & said they didn’t believe a word of it & they all treat me so nice & everything & want us to run camp this winter so I guess that is what we are going to do. It will be a little hard for me but Al is going to help me a lot, & I am going to enjoy it. Mrs Bolstad wanted to get Al’s job away from him this winter & tried her darndest to say everything bad she could about him too, but Mr Cowdin thinks the world of Al & promised him this job a long time ago, & told him absolutely he was to run camp & also told Mrs Bolstad so….I was telling Al it sure is too bad, there isn't some kind motherly lady here with us, I only wish there was, I don’t like that petty larceny stuff, she even told down to camp that I was dirty & lazy & I have been working harder than I have for a long time, but am feeling fine, so don’t worry about me…. I haven't been able to teach Alvin very much as yet, & I don’t care to have Mrs Bolstad do it although she would like to... I will write you a longer letter then & tell you about our house, what we cook, & about carrying water, & so many things. Don’t let anyone see this letter about Mrs Bolstad. Write often please & address all letters to Dawson.

Some of the boys are leaving in a few days so will try & scribble off a few lines to you. It seems I never have time to write, always someone coming in & interrupting, but this winter I will have more time to write, I hope. The dredge shut down a few days ago so that means winter is really here, although we haven't had such real cold weather as yet, it has been ten below several times. Was just interrupted again one of the fellows came in to get a cup of tea, said he was sick, but just an excuse, cause he just left & is he feeling fine. Mrs Bolstad made some peanut butter cookies & he only ate ten of them & two cups of tea. I have been doing quite a bit of typing & bookwork for the Mr Cowdin, besides helping with the cooking & trying to teach Alvin, etc., that I don’t know where the time goes, up at six most every morning but do I go to bed early at night— I don’t think any night later than nine o'clock. Oh! Yes. I forgot only on bath night, & then do we have fun. Al bought two big tubs, thinking Alvin would use the smaller one, but nothing doing he wants to take the large tub, which is really only big enough for him, but he sure misses his showers every morning. Quite a few of the boys are going out & Alvin is sure begging them to take him with them, he misses his school & everyone so much. I try to make school interesting for him but he misses the other children...

Un-mailed, Mil's November 3rd letter remained, so she took up her pen again today, and continued writing to her family back in Washington State, telling of work and Thanksgiving:

Well this is November 26th, Thanksgiving Day & just got thru work, 8:30, have been trying to find time to write to you, but haven't had the time. Al & I have the cook-house this winter & when the Dredge closed down there was eighteen to cook for & did we work. Mrs Bolsted & I did the cooking, there is eleven of us now & it sure keeps us busy every minute, most every day we have breakfast at 7:30—Dinner at 12, & supper at 5:30 & have to have three cooked meals a day—can you imagine me doing it that & dishes, dishes, dishes; we have to plan all the meals & there are as many things we havn’t got which makes it rather hard. Mr Duisner is going to Fairbanks tomorrow so wanted to write you a few lines as I haven’t written to anyone for so long, & haven't had any mail from anyone, but it seems I am so busy haven't time to be lonesome. Today was Thanksgiving & have I been busy, we had breakfast at 9:30—which usually consists of fruit, creal, bacon, pancakes & toast. Then at one o'clock they had coffee & doughnuts & at three o'clock we had a big roast oh I amagine it weighted about 12 lbs, it took 5 hrs to roast it, & is it hard to turn, but Al usually does that, then we had corn, & mashed potatoes, & Jelly & cookies for desert, then after that I made two chocolate cakes, fudge icing, & they just got thru eating again & Al is doing the dishes...Tell everyone we wish them a “Very Merry Christmas, & Happy New Year”, & I hope they understand that I really want to write but just am so busy—Also Tell Sam & Emma & Jack & Dude/ Well will see you in the movies, ten oclock, & am I tired.

This is going to be a hurried up note, as one of the men came in & said he was going to Steele Creek this morning, & as I was so tired last night, couldn’t put my mind to writing a letter. We have been so busy these last two months haven’t had time to write to anyone, & what do you think, I haven’t heard from any of you folks for about 3 months, & do I get lonesome to hear from you. Alvin just got your Christmas package three days ago & you should have seen the package, it was a mess, they dropped it from the airplane & the Jelly was smashed & some of Alvin's things- his slippers & my pajamas were covered with jam etc.,so I am sending you the slips so you can get a refund, as they are not supposed to drop things from an airplane...The nuts were just all mashed, & another toy of Alvin's I couldn’t make out, it was smashed up so— It certainly is too bad, as we do look forward to packages up here so much. Alvin has a lot of packages at Steele Creek that we haven't got yet. The mail service up here is terrible, & we have a lot of accidents, so don’t ever send anything without insuring it. Gee, my pajamas are real cute even though they are full of jelly, & Alvin's slippers are just filled with jelly, so we haven't been able to try them on.... Well our Christmas was quite a different one, we had eighteen here to cook for, they all came down from the woodcamps & then some of the fellows that live around here came also, so it was just work, work, & then some more work. I am glad I had some things sent for Alvin for Christmas otherwise he wouldn’t have had anything, & it didn’t seem like Christmas anyway. We did have a Christmas tree though, & Mrs. Bolstad had some Christmas tree decorations, so we got along fine with the tree. We are having a mild winter, & makes it hard traveling on account of overflows, all the mail was lost in the 40 Mile River--horses and all, they say the horses are just frozen right in the ice. Alvin is feeling fine, but is awful homesick for Seattle, & would go back in a minute if he could, but he is getting to mush dogs pretty good, & we got him a parka & gloves for Christmas, also some skis, & he can ski pretty good. We haven’t had time to teach him, so I guess he will have to get his schooling this summer, and we will be thru with this job the first of April I hope...

Al is going to Steele Creek tomorrow, so must write you a little of the goings on up here. Alvin hasn’t received some of his Christmas packages as yet, so I guess Al will pick them up when he goes to Steele for the mail. They have had a lot of trouble with mail this winter as the weather has been so mild, & the rivers don’t freeze underneath & it causes overflows, the mail I believe has been lost twice & their schedule is about a month and a half late...You know we freeze all our cakes, pies & bread, then thaw them out as we need them, and it is surprising how good they are. It wouldn’t be so bad if we could got to the store & buy cakes, etc once in a while but no such luck here. Lue I am going to try & answer some of the questions you have been asking, haven’t had time to think before, as there has been so many around when I have been trying to write. We use gas lamps & they sure are hard on your eyes, but the days are getting longer now. But for a while we had to have them going most of the time, we have one kerosene light that we use in our bedroom...I do wish I could go out more & take hikes, but I will have to wait until next year. We had a professional baker here for a couple of days. He made me some bread & Oh Boys it didn’t take him long to make up 15 loaves of bread & 110 doughnuts, he told me I was too fussy, as these fellows sure eat a lot & 3 hot meals a day. No fresh onions, eggs – or fruit – but am getting used to cooking with canned eggs, but the canned onions are terrible. Alvin is sure having a good time these days—he takes the dogs out most every day & goes skiing everyday-he is determined to be a good skier. His daddy reads to him every night, & he sure is crazy about his daddy & he is awful good to him, also is very thoughtful of me, but we took the cooking job otherwise Al would be gone so much as it is he is with us all the time, & does all the hard work for me, but it is just that I have to be on my feet so much, but it will soon be over I hope, by the 1st of April...

Had to get up at 5:30 this morning as the men are leaving & they have 6:30 breakfast as supposed to have and they come straggling in at seven o'clock, I can hear Auntie in the morning when every one is late for breakfast. Well, we have been away six months now and it does seem a long time and I don’t know when well be coming back. This is going to be a hurried up note as the fellows are leaving in a few minutes. It keeps me hopping when they are home, as I have ten to cook for & then they are gone for a few days & I have five to cook for but also have to cook bread, cakes, etc for them to take with them. We baked seven loaves of bread yesterday. Haven't had any news from any of you since November—One of the fellows brought the mail the other day and no mail for me, only a couple of bills...We also received the phonograph records & they are real good, couldn’t have pleased me more with Silent Night and Al likes that real well too. & Alvin sure likes his record to but he broke it two days after he got it, but just at the end so he starts in the middle & plays it. Thanks for sending the needles...I had a real nice present given to me the other day, a coyote skin & there is a $20 bounty on them. This Alaska Native man also gave Alvin a .22 Special gun & he has been practicing shooting and is getting very good...When this job is finished which I hope is April 1st will write you some real long letters.

Alvin is feeling fine + having a pretty good time but he misses children to play with & then we haven't much time to be with him but he is having a wonderful experience. He is out playing his record now he knows the words all of by heart — We are thinking of getting a piano accordion; what do you think?

Say Hello to everyone for me + thanks Lue for all the news you write, Mrs King gets the Readers Digest but haven’t had time to read it, but will do so this summer.

On my part, I was wild with eagerness to get to a telegraph office and send the news to the world of our success in conquering the Northwest Passage.

In the community of Eagle on the banks of the Yukon River visitors often stumble upon a small park and a gleaming metallic monument dedicated to the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. It is not immediately obvious why the first man to sail through the Northwest Passage would be so honored 500 miles from the Arctic Coast, but the reason soon becomes clear: he traveled to Eagle because he needed a telegraph station. As far back as the Middle Ages, European explorers yearned to discover a sea route across North America that would deliver them easily to rich Asian markets. However, the quest for this "northwest passage" remained a dream beyond reach until Amundsen and his crew sailed over the top of the continent in 1905. The reason he needed the telegraph station was to announce this achievement to world.

Born in Borge, Norway in 1872, Amundsen dreamed of becoming a polar explorer even as a small boy. He devoured all the literature he could about the poles and devoted much time to training and strengthening his physique to ready himself for hazardous adventures. At the urging of his parents he studied medicine, but when he was 21 years old both of his parents died and the young man abandoned this career to pursue his dream. He first traveled north as a sailor on an Arctic sealing vessel and then south as first mate on an expedition to investigate the coast of Antarctica. After listening to many scientists debating whether the magnetic poles were fixed or if they moved over time, he had an idea. If he could discover this secret of the North Pole, it would provide a scientific justification (and funding opportunities) for his real goal: sailing through the Northwest Passage in Canada's Arctic Archipelago.

In 1900 Amundsen bought a 72-foot wooden herring boat that he christened the Gjoa . He also selected a six-man crew, men who would become like family in one of the world's most isolated places. On June 15, 1903, the Gjoa was ready to set sail, piled high with provisions for five years of travel and many boxes of scientific equipment. After reaching a protected harbor they called Gjoa Haven in the heart of the archipelago, Amundsen and his men settled down to begin their studies of the magnetic North Pole. Before long a band of Nitsilik Eskimo people arrived and began living alongside the Norwegians. The Eskimos taught their new neighbors how to dress in skins, build houses, and hunt on the ice.

Two years later, on June 1, 1905, the Amundsen party continued its journey, this time through the last uncharted waterways that made up the Northwest Passage. The Gjoa groped its way through fog into a shallow, island-studded bottleneck called Simpson Strait with help from Eskimo men in kayaks. The currents were unpredictable and floating ice made the journey exceedingly dangerous. In My Life as an Explorer (1927), Amundsen would later write:

Day after day, for three weeks—sounding our depth with the lead, trying here, there, and everywhere to nose into a channel that would carry us clear through to the known waters to the west. Once, in Simpson Strait, we had just an inch of water to spare beneath our keel!

After threading their way through the maze of islands, the explorers emerged victorious, but they were still far from home. By mid-August their path was once again blocked by sea ice and they settled in for another long Arctic winter near Herschel Island off the north coast of Canada's Yukon territory. American whaling ships were also frozen in nearby, and when the ice was thick enough, the crews began visiting each other. Desperate to notify newspapers of his historic feat, Amundsen formed an alliance of convenience with Captain William Mogg, whose ship had been crushed by the ice. The captain needed to return to San Francisco for a new ship, and the two men hired an Eskimo couple, Jimmy and Kappa, as guides to take them south. With two dog sleds the group set off for the Yukon River 300 miles away.

After a month of hard travel, they arrived at Fort Yukon, a village at the northernmost bend in the river. After saying goodbye to their guides, Amundsen and Mogg started out again for the town of Eagle another 200 miles upriver near the U.S.-Canada border. When Amundsen finally stumbled into Eagle he had no money to pay for a telegram and he looked like just another discouraged prospector. But soon the locals realized they had a celebrity in their midst and offered to send his now-famous telegram. However, extreme cold led to delays and frustration:

I wrote out about a thousand words which were at once put on the wire. By an odd freak of circumstance, they had no sooner been sent than the cold somewhere on the line broke the wires, and it was not until a week later that they were repaired and I received confirmation that my telegram had reached the outer world.

Amundsen would remain in Eagle for two months, resting and reading messages of congratulations wired in from around the world. He was a guest of Alaska Commercial Company agent Frank Smith and participated in the town's winter social functions. In early February 1906 he left Eagle and followed his previous route back to the Gjoa, and five months later the ship and its crew reached Nome to become the first expedition ever to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Arctic. In the coming years Amundsen joined the race to reach both the North Pole and the South Pole and went on to become one of the most famous explorers of all time. Today Amundsen's 1000-mile detour to reach a telegraph station on the Yukon River has become part of the history of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

The majority of Klondike stampeders were from the United States, and when they realized they would be subject to Canadian laws and taxation, many left Canada to stake claims in Alaska. Others, hearing that the Klondike was “all filled up,” set their sights on Alaskan gold and never entered Canada at all.

When the world became aware of Klondike gold in 1897 many people were confused about the location of the gold fields. Some imagined the gold (and the boomtown of Dawson City) to be in American territory. Others knew it was in Canada but anticipated the area would soon be annexed by the United States. Tensions mounted between the two countries over the not-yet-established border at critical mountain passes and whether or not Canada would have an ocean port in southeast Alaska. As for the gold-seekers, they cared less about questions of sovereignty and more about locating a golden horde—wherever it might lie.

From the beginning stampeders took two main routes to reach Klondike gold. The least expensive, and therefore the most popular, was over Chilkoot Pass and neighboring White Pass starting at the towns of Dyea and Skagway respectively. The journey over the coastal mountain range was a colossal effort that involved not only hauling a year's worth of food and supplies over rough trails and alpine terrain but also boat-building, lake-crossings, and river-running at the Yukon headwaters to reach Dawson City. This approach became known as the "poor man's route" because even a stampeder of modest means could make the trip. The "rich man's route" involved a sea journey from Seattle or San Francisco through the North Pacific and Bering Sea to St. Michael at the mouth of the Yukon River. From there the men and freight were transferred to a steamboat for the 1,500-mile river journey to Canada.

Almost as soon as stampeders arrived on Klondike River and its tributaries they began to complain of "petty tyranny" by Canadian officials who limited the size of mining claims and demanded a ten percent tax on gold. As the reporter Sam Wall of the San Francisco Call explained, "The conditions are all so hateful here that the American citizen, who composes so large a proportion of the population, ever has his ear strained for reports of the expected strike somewhere, anywhere, on the American side of the line."

The gold in Alaska's many waterways allowed independent miners (called pick-and-shovel men) to form partnerships and wander the land in search of fortune. When they were down on their luck they might ask to be grubstaked (with money to buy a year's supplies) by a shopkeeper or by a more successful acquaintance with the understanding that the money would be paid back later. When a miner did locate a paying claim, he might invest in a restaurant or hotel and give up the ceaseless toil of mining, or he might take his moosehide pokes of nuggets and dust and move to more temperate climes. However, for many of the gold rush pioneers, stampeding became a way of life. Rumors of gold sparked stampedes to the Kobuk and Koyukuk Rivers in Arctic Alaska at the same time the Klondike was booming;in 1899 thousands rushed to Nome; and in 1903 a new strike on the Tanana River led to the founding of Fairbanks.

In 1906 Great Britain and the United States signed a treaty providing for the survey and demarcation of the boundary line, and surveyors selected a place they called Boundary on the bank of the Yukon River as the site for determining exact longitude. The work then began under the leadership of American engineer Thomas Riggs, Jr. who established distinct teams. The projection party marked the boundary line at points on ridges between ten and twenty miles apart. The reconnaissance team selected observation stations and erected signals for use by the triangulation team , which carefully measured the meridian line. The topographical parties followed, mapping the landscape in a five-mile band along the meridian. Next the line-cutting parties cleared timber for ten feet on either side of the line, and last came the monumenting parties to erect permanent markers in concrete, each one visible from the next.

The work required to survey and mark the 550-mile line was enormous, and soon Canadian teams joined the effort. The American and Canadian parties included between 30 and 50 men each, and a friendly rivalry developed to see which side could accomplish the most in the shortest time. Still, the work was difficult and dangerous. As Riggs explained, climbing mountains was just the beginning:

Heavy theodolites and topographic cameras must be carried, and instead of being able to throw themselves down to rest and enjoy the glorious panorama, there is immediate work to be done, and a few clouds hovering over some distant mountain, instead of lending beauty to the view, may send the poor surveyor behind some sheltering rock to wait, shivering with cold, until morning will allow him to complete his observations.

On July 15, 1912, both teams reached Demarcation Point on the Arctic coast, and Riggs and his Canadian counterpart celebrated the occasion by wading out among the icebergs. "It was rather a lost feeling," wrote Riggs, "that we arrived at the shore of the Arctic Ocean and saw the practical completion of the work on which we had been engaged for so many years." Not only had the boundary been surveyed, mapped, and marked, but the project cemented good relations between the two countries.

Today international teams continue to maintain the border as a visible landmark, and Yukon River travelers, as they float past, can see on the bank one of the original markers (a metallic obelisk) and the 20-foot-wide clearing in the trees. North of the Yukon River, the border forms the eastern limit of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, and to the south, motorists cross the border along both the Alaska Highway and the Top of the World Highway.

I could see the finer gravel, which would be sand and gold, dropping through slots in the screen and onto gold-saving sluices.

The industrialization of gold placer mining along the Yukon River corridor demanded tremendous ingenuity and capital investment. Before the arrival of gold dredges like the one at Coal Creek (and its twin in neighboring Woodchopper Creek), miners worked mostly with hand tools, sluice boxes, and small steam boilers for thawing permanently frozen ground. The dredges by contrast could process 3,000 cubic yards of gravel every 24 hours, making relatively poor ground pay handsomely. Weighing hundreds of tons, the mighty machines moved across the landscape by floating in a lake of their own making. As a dredge’s buckets ate away at the earth in its path, the dredge floated forward, leaving behind arc-shaped mounds of discarded rock called tailings. Today piles of tailings cover seven miles of the Coal Creek streambed.

One of the challenges of placer mining on an industrial scale in northern Alaska is the need to thaw large sections of permafrost ahead of the dredge. At Coal Creek the process of thawing began with bulldozers that stripped away the trees and brush and the layer of tundra that served as an insulating blanket for the ice below. This exposed the frozen, muddy ooze called muck that varied in depth between 6 and 26 feet. To remove the muck, they used pressurized water from a hillside ditch to blast away a few inches each day. Once the gravel was exposed, they employed a third tactic: injecting steam into the earth with steel pipes tipped with chisel bits called steam points. Because producing so much steam took time and money, the miners later used normal water in the same thawing apparatus.

When the dredge was in operation it traveled for miles along the creek valley, making it necessary to construct a camp for the workers built on log skids that could periodically be moved. Today the Coal Creek mining camp has been restored by the National Park Service and includes a number of bunkhouses, a mess hall, an assaying and refining office, and machine shops. The camp, gold dredge, and many other artifacts of the industrial gold mining era are all part of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve.

National Park Service Natural Resource Report: A history of NPS clean-up efforts at the historic Coal Creek Mining District

Industrial placer gold mining is a messy business. To make it pay, miners turn the earth upside down by excavating the richest mineral-bearing gravels and casting away all but the dust, flakes and nuggets of gold. This operation requires not only men and machines but also chemicals, heavy metals, and large amounts of petroleum-based fuels and lubricants. And when the mining is done, these hazardous materials often remain. [...] This was the situation in 1986 when Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve acquired a group of mining claims along Coal Creek, a tributary of the Yukon River roughly eighty miles from the U.S.-Canada boundary. The following is the story of gold mining at Coal Creek and the impressive campaign launched by park managers to make the Coal Creek watershed safe for use by the public and by National Park Service employees.

"Perfectly adapted to transportation by airplane, dog sled or poling boat, the modern prospect boiler . . . is proving to be a boon to the Northland’s No. 1 Citizen, the prospector."

In 1898 when thousands of eager gold-seekers rushed to Alaska and the Klondike, they encountered an obstacle that many did not anticipate: permafrost. Unlike at southern latitudes, the ground in the Far North was frozen all year round, locking the gold in an icy embrace. The earliest arrivals in northern gold fields had no choice but to build wood fires to melt the rock-hard combination of soil, gravel, and ice, but the work was painstakingly slow. The process of drift mining involves digging vertical shafts down to bedrock and then horizontal tunnels along the gold-rich layer called a paystreak. Building wood fires was not only inefficient—it used large amounts of wood and only thawed about one foot of gravel in a day—but the tunnels quickly filled with smoke and carbon monoxide which burned the miners' eyes and could kill by asphyxiation.

The Klondike-Alaska Gold Rush inspired much innovation, particularly in the field of thawing. An inventor named Greenleaf W. Pichard tried and failed to use an electric-powered furnace to melt frozen ground; others pumped hot water into and out of their mine shafts; and it was an accident in 1898 that led to the widespread use of steam in the thawing process. A Dawson miner named Clarence Berry was using a steam-powered hoist to drag logs up a hill to his mining claim when he noticed that steam spouting from an exhaust hose had melted a hole in a pile of frozen gravel.

"The thawing machine has proved a great labor-saving device, and is much more economical than the old method, burning far less wood. The thawing machines so far consist of a boiler of, say, ten horsepower, a small engine, and piping. There will be a demand for all brought in."

Large mining operations in the Klondike and Alaska were soon importing boilers that weighed several tons and could power dozens of steam points at a time. The units cost thousands of dollars and were so heavy that a steamboat was needed to deliver them up the Yukon and a bobsled with a team of horses was necessary to deliver them to mining sites. But for the pick-and-shovel miners, who formed partnerships of two or three men, huge boilers were not an option.

Small-scale miners were frequently on the move and needed a thawing machine to sink prospecting holes and to thaw modest amounts of "paydirt" in remote locations. For them the only way was to have a custom boiler built that was light enough to be carried or transported by dog sled. Instead of the barrel shape of traditional boilers, these novelties were small and boxy and received the nickname "doghouse boilers."

The new boiler was a machine shop creation assembled from parts already available in mining centers like Dawson and Fairbanks. To reduce weight, the typical unit was a simple box of riveted sheet metal with a set of water tubes inside. And instead of having its own fire-box like traditional boilers, it was heated from below by a fire built on the ground. But, like a full-size boiler, the doghouse boiler also needed a safety valve to prevent explosions, an asbestos jacket to prevent the fire from burning through the shell, and a pump to circulate water through the tubes.

In 1938, in an effort to revive the flagging gold industry, the Northern Commercial Company in Fairbanks announced it had designed a boiler weighing 200 pounds that could be carried by two men using poles inserted through sturdy steel loops on the boiler's housing. A glass water-level indicator and brass pressure gauge made it a high-tech tool for the independent placer miner, and the boilers were snapped up by customers across the region. The package also came with a six-foot steam point, twelve feet of steam hose, and thirty feet of 3/8 inch pipe.

Colorado Creek is a small tributary of Coal Creek in the heart of what is today Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. During the Klondike-Alaska gold rush wandering prospectors found coal and then gold in the Coal Creek drainage. By 1935 most of the small-scale gold miners who held claims along Coal Creek had sold out to a gold dredging operation run by former University of Alaska president Ernest Patty. Although the gold dredge obliterated most evidence of the old-timers' work, some examples of their earlier, small-scale approach remain. In the spruce forest and tussock mounds along Colorado Creek, hikers will find old trails for winter travel, the ruins of a miner's cabin (a tiny example at 11x11 feet), and the doghouse boiler prospectors used in their search for gold-rich gravel deposits. Today at least four examples of this uniquely northern thawing apparatus can be found in the national preserve and they exist as reminders of the fierce determination and ingenuity of gold-seekers along this stretch of the Yukon River corridor.

Fueling the Gold Rush One of the stranger sights greeting visitors traveling along the Yukon River between Eagle and Circle is a steel behemoth called the Washington Creek Steam Tractor. Perched near the edge of the river, the machine with its hefty steel-clad boiler and menacing spiked wheels seems like a monster from another age. And in a sense it is. The thirteen-foot-high hulk represents the age of coal and an era when gold was not enough to sustain the Klondike-Alaska Gold Rush -- paddlewheel steamboats also needed energy! In 1897 and 1898, when gold-seekers swarmed north to the Klondike, nearly one hundred steamboats plied the Yukon River carrying people and supplies to Canada and to gold camps on the American side of the border. Each vessel burned large amounts of firewood or a mixture of wood and coal from British Columbia, which ship captains bought near the mouth of the river at St. Michael for $15 a ton. Meanwhile, woodchoppers stashed thousands of cords of wood at key points along the river. But, carrying enough coal for a 3,000-mile roundtrip was difficult and convenient stands of timber on the upper Yukon were soon depleted.

Discovery at Washington Creek Recognizing that a fortune could be made in supplying coal to the steamboats, a prospector named N.B. LaBrie discovered promising quantities in 1897 along a Yukon River tributary called Washington Creek. After forming the Alaska Coal and Coke Company, LaBrie began extracting coal from tunnels about 12 miles inland from the Yukon River. Soon, a second group arrived to sink their own tunnels and began transporting coal to the river by dogsled. The work was difficult and dangerous, and it seemed unlikely the coal miners could keep costs low enough to meet the price of imported coal. Quality was another problem with the Washington Creek deposits. Initial reports indicated that the coal was "the equal of any coal found in the world," and early tests in steamboat engines seemed to support this conclusion. However, more sober assessment by the U.S. Geological Survey revealed that the coal was "soft" or sub-bituminous, meaning that in steam boilers it produced too much ash, not enough power, and too much of a glass-like build-up called "clinker." In addition, the soft coal was prone to "slacking," the process of drying and fragmenting that made it more prone to spontaneous combustion while in storage.

Arrival of the Tractor During the Gold Rush the north country became for many a field of dreams, and the coal miners at Washington Creek would not be discouraged. The Alaska Coal and Coke Company's grand plans included using a train to carry coal to the banks of the Yukon and convincing the Valdez & Yukon Railroad to make Washington Creek the terminus of a trans-Alaska railway (neither happened). By 1905 the company had imported the 110-horsepower steam tractor, also called a "traction engine," built by the Best Manufacturing Company in San Leandro, California. Patented in the 1890 by a California grain farmer and inventor named Daniel Best, the steam tractor was originally designed to replace teams of draft horses in the fields, but it soon became popular in the timber and mining industries as a means of transporting heavy loads. At Washington Creek the machine was supposed to pull a string of five cargo sleds, each carrying ten tons of coal, from the coal mine to the bank of the Yukon during the winter. The coal would then be stockpiled until summer when it could be sold to passing steamboats. However, the enterprise was already doomed. In 1906, Alfred H. Brooks, chief of the U.S. Geological Survey in Alaska, explained,

Washington Creek has been the scene of some ill-advised attempts at coal mining. Though there is considerable lignite [sub-bituminous coal] in the basin, much of the money spent in development has been wasted on experiments in transportation rather than in testing the seams as to extent and quality. . . . the outlook for profitable exploitation is not hopeful.

Not only was the quality of the coal insufficient, but the market for coal along the Yukon River was drying up as steamboats converted to oil power and their numbers dropped from one hundred to fewer than twenty-five. It is unknown if the steam tractor ever hauled coal sleds or how well it functioned, but within a year the mine was shut down and the tractor was left to rust.

An Historical Curiosity In later decades the abandoned mine served as a hardware store for resourceful locals. During the 1930s a local trapper named George Beck removed the tractor's water tank and transported it by dogsled down the river to serve as a rain barrel, and spokes from the eight-foot-high wheels were turned into bolts for Ed Biederman's fishwheels. It is not know where the smoke stack ended up. In 1980 the area became the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, a park unit created in part to preserve and interpret the history of the Klondike-Alaska Gold Rush. Today the old steam tractor serves as a reminder of the fever-pitch of the Gold Rush, the entrepreneurial spirit of the stampeders, and the challenges faced by anyone trying to pry profits from the North's frozen soils.

For thousands of years Alaska's indigenous people traveled extensively over the landscape, making a living through hunting, fishing, and gathering activities. In modern times, these activities became known collectively as subsistence, and both Alaska Natives and local rural users live off the land, relying on fish, wildlife and other wild resources. Alaska's abundance of natural resources forms the backbone of life and economy for many residents of the state. In Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, local users are busy all year round, with nature's bounty providing sustenance for families living in the surrounding areas. Subsistence users have a unique connection to the land fostered by tradition and lifelong experience.

If you are a subsistence person, you have to utilize what is available around you…Subsistence means your ability to survive in this harsh climate with what you've got.

When Europeans first visited Alaska's shores, all the people they met were engaged in subsistence lifeways. As the population grew through the territorial days, many new and conflicting demands were placed on Alaska's natural and cultural resources. Development of various kinds, like the harvest of marine and inland mammals, commercial fisheries, mining operations, agriculture, the development of military bases, and the establishment of cities and towns impacted local resources and subsistence activities. By the time Alaska gained statehood in 1959, subsistence patterns in some of Alaska's more populated areas were greatly diminished.

In the years that followed, the pace of change accelerated and development abounded in Alaska's remote areas. In response, rural residents began to organize, and before long they petitioned government officials in hopes of retaining some protection for their land base and their subsistence way of life. In deliberations leading to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, the U.S. Congress acknowledged the importance of subsistence hunting and fishing to Alaska Natives but provided no specific protection on federal public lands.

In 1980, Congress formally recognized the social and cultural importance of protecting subsistence for both Native and non-Native rural residents when it passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). This legislation created millions of acres of new national park and national preserve lands in Alaska and helped to preserve subsistence use and a unique connection to the land fostered by tradition and lifelong experience. The new law defined subsistence as:

Customary and traditional uses by rural Alaska residents of wild, renewable resources for direct personal or family consumption as food, shelter, fuel, clothing, tools or transportation; for the making and selling of handicraft articles out of non-edible by-products of fish and wildlife resources taken for personal or family consumption; for barter, or sharing for personal or family consumption; and for customary trade.

When Representative Morris Udall and others were writing ANILCA during the 1970s, they recognized the importance of people's connections to the land and their need to harvest subsistence resources. As a result, the architects of the lands act included Title VIII to protect subsistence needs for rural Alaskans. The wording of Title VIII reveals the unusual conditions of life in Alaska's rural areas:

1. the continuation of the opportunity for subsistence uses by rural residents of Alaska, including both Natives and non-Natives, on the public lands and by Alaska Natives on Native lands is essential to Native physical, economic, traditional, and cultural existence and to non-Native physical, economic, traditional, and social existence;

2. the situation in Alaska is unique in that, in most cases, no practical alternative means are available to replace the food supplies and other items gathered from fish and wildlife which supply rural residents dependent on subsistence uses;

With the passage of ANILCA, the American people made a promise to preserve and protect some of our nation's most splendid natural ecosystems and treasured landscapes while providing the opportunity for those engaged in a traditional subsistence way of life to continue to do so. In this way, the landmark law that created many of Alaska's national park units confirms the strong connection between local residents and the land.

In Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve subsistence users and sport hunters and fishers coexist. Local residents from Eagle, Eagle Village, Circle and Central, as well as those living on remote homesteads, enter the Preserve to hunt moose and caribou; to trap lynx, marten and wolf; and to catch salmon and other northern fish species. Visitors to the Preserve will likely see fish wheels floating near the river's edge and local residents boating to their favorite hunting areas. Living so far from major population centers makes these seasonal harvests important not only to put food on the table but also as a means of maintaining a relationship with the land and traditional ways.

The mighty Yukon River and its drainages have provided subsistence resources to all people who have passed through its stretches and to those who had the desire to stay. Resource harvesting equipment has changed throughout the years, but one type of technology that has persevered is the fishwheel.

Public spirited citizens in Eagle procured the abandonment of two squatters' lots favorably situated on the public land . . . There being no architect in the country the judge and other officials after much talk and more wasted paper, drew and agreed upon plans and specifications.

Frontier outposts and mining camps have a reputation for lawlessness and turmoil, and both the Canadian Klondike and Alaskan boomtowns like Eagle City and Circle City had their share. However, even during the pioneer days some measure of law existed to curb crime and anti-social behavior. The informal Miners' Code allowed a delegation of miners to mete out punishments to wrong-doers. Typically these included fines for minor infractions, banishment for theft, and hanging for murder. Before long, however, a new form of law and order arrived in the person of Judge James A. Wickersham.

As increasing numbers of prospectors arrived in the Yukon River basin in the 1880s and 1890s, they were forced to settle disputes like theft and claim jumping (usurping another man's gold claim) among themselves. The Canadians had not yet established a presence in this corner of their vast northern territories and the only civil government for Alaska was hundreds of miles away in Sitka. In 1893, in the mining camp of Fortymile, miners formed the Yukon Order of Pioneers, a fraternal organization that tried to enforce moral behavior (the order's motto was "Do unto others as you would be done by"). In addition, miners with a complaint could call a meeting that served as an improvised court. In 1894 the Canadian policeman Charles Constantine described the result of one such meeting:

After the excitement of the gold rush, the United States divided Alaska into three judicial districts and President McKinley selected James Wickersham as judge for the Third District to be headquartered in Eagle on the banks of the Yukon River near the border with Canada. In July 1900 Wickersham arrived with his wife Debbie and son Howard and immediately began levying taxes on businesses in Eagle and the Yukon River towns of Circle and Rampart to build a courthouse and jail. The annual fee for a saloon license was $1000, and for the stores it was a fixed percentage of annual sales. At the time Eagle had just under 400 residents, but it had five saloons and three mercantile establishments which did much of their business with passing steamboats. By May 1901 the construction was done, and young Howard Wickersham raised the stars and stripes over the country's northernmost courthouse.

Judge Wickersham rented a small cabin for his family in Eagle and began the daunting task of bringing the law to a district that covered half of Alaska from the Aleutian Island to the Arctic Ocean. It took time for the miners to give up their independent ways regarding the mechanisms of justice, but with the courthouse and Ft. Egbert, the U.S. Army post constructed next to Eagle two years earlier, the town had become less of a gold camp and more a bastion of civil government. Before long the judge was also traveling on a mid-winter circuit to hold court in Rampart and Circle. In 1903, accompanied by his wife and son, he also traveled to the Aleutian Islands and then to Nome where he was sent to remove a corrupt judge.

This place has a colorful past. Numerous people have passed through the upper Yukon River region and left their histories to be interpreted. Some have stayed and continue to build those histories. The following pages will allow you to explore some aspects of these people; their lives and livelihoods, their ways and customs, their trials and tribulations.

People have been a part of the Upper Yukon River region and surrounding uplands for thousands of years and people remain an integral part of this landscape today.

As people have passed through this landscape they left their marks on the places the inhabited. Some are mere shadows of the past, visible only to the trained eye; others are more imposing, commanding one's attention. Some of these places simply say "home."

Stories are the threads that people have woven into the tapestry of the past. Each is unique and worthy of telling, yet it is in their connectedness that we come to see the whole picture.

Museum collections allow us to learn about the stories of people who are lost to time. They also tell us stories of the landscape that persists, but cannot speak for itself. They document moments in time and so, are of timeless importance.

Learn more about Alaska's ancient history and rich cultural traditions

Without preservation we would not have these stories to tell. For left to themselves, the people and places, objects and tales, would disappear into the depths of time. We do what we can to secure them for those yet to come.

Alpine tundra communities occur in mountainous areas and along well-drained rocky ridges. The soils tend to be coarse, rocky and dry. A community of low, mat-forming heather vegetation is characteristic of much of the area. Exposed outcrops of talus sustain sparse islands of cushion plants, such as moss campion and saxifrage, interspersed with lichens. The low-growth forms of these plants protect them from snow and sand abrasion in the windswept environment. Other important plants include dryas, willows, heather, lichens and especially reindeer lichens. Grasses, sedges and herbs are also present. Moist tundra is found in the foothills and in pockets of moderately drained soils on hillsides and along river valleys. Cotton grass tussocks, 6-10 inches high, predominate in these areas. Tussocks form as a cotton grass clump, which grows, then dies back each year, accumulating dead leaves that decompose slowly in cold temperatures. Moses and lichens grow in the moist channels between the tussocks. Other plants include grasses, small shrubs (dwarf birch, willow and Labrador tea).