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Category Archives: Alaska History
The Alaska Diaries of Dr. James Taylor White
In the last half of the nineteenth century the ships of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Revenue-Cutter Service patrolled the waters of the Bering Sea, the coast of Alaska, and the Yukon River. For several of those voyages a bright and engaging young physician, Dr. James Taylor White, served aboard and recorded his adventurous work in personal correspondence and journals. Now a new book, “I Wish You Could Come Too,” The Alaska Diaries of Dr. James Taylor White, by Gary Stein, Ph.D. provides a first-hand look at life aboard a revenue cutter during Alaska’s early years. Continue reading
Jan-Feb Alaskan History
Inside this issue: • CR&NWRR Steamboats on the Copper River – Between 1907 and 1911 the Copper River and Northwestern Railway operated a fleet of steamboats on the Copper and Chitina Rivers in support of railroad construction and mining operations at … Continue reading
Posted in Alaska History, Explorers, Geology, Gold Rush History, missionaries, News & Information, Transportation
Tagged 1901 Yukon River Ethnographic Questionnaire, Alfred A. Selden, Anvik, Bethel, Captain William R. Abercrombie, Christ Church, Copper River, Copper River and Northwestern Railroad, CR&NWRR Steamboats, Dall River, Dr. James Taylor White, Dr. Joseph Romig, Eagle, Eagle-Valdez Trail, Edward J. Knapp, Glacial Lake Ahtna, Holy Cross, Ikogmiut, Issac Jones, John Wesley Powell, John Wight Chapman, Joseph Jules Jetté, Joseph Raphael Crimont, Juneau, Koserefsky, Lt. John C. Cantwell, Nulato, Oscar Fish, Patsy Ann the Bull Terrier, Rampart, Russian Mission, St. Andrews, St. James, St. Michael, St. Peter Claver, steamboats, Tanana, The Dog Team Doctor, trails, U. S. Army, USS Nunivak, Valdez
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Nov-Dec Alaskan History
The Nov-Dec issue of Alaskan History Magazine is now available! Articles in this issue cover a wide range of topics: Mottram Delany Ball • History of Fort Yukon • Episcopal Church in Iditarod • The Silent City • Nellie Cashman • 1922 Mushing Guide • The First American Musher in Alaska, by Thom “Swanny” Swan Continue reading
Posted in Alaska History, Alaskan History Magazine, News & Information
Tagged Alaskan History Magazine, Alexander Hunter Murray, Dick Willoughby, Episcopal Church, Fort Yukon, Hudson Stuck, Iditarod, Mottram Dulaney Ball, Muir Glacier, mushing history, Nellie Cashman, Rand McNalley, Robert Kennicott, Silent City, T. A. Rickard, Thom Swan, Yukon River
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Hudson Stuck’s Sled Bag
The Episcopalian minister Hudson Stuck, known as the Archdeacon of the Yukon, published five books about his travels and adventures in Alaska, including Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled, published in 1914.
In that book a photograph appears, and a sled bag can be seen hanging from the handlebars. That sled bag is on permanent display at the University of Alaska Museum of the North in Fairbanks. Continue reading
Alaskan Roadhouses
This 284-page book presents historic photos of dozens of individual roadhouses, along with the colorful histories are first-hand accounts of those who stayed at the roadhouses while traveling the early trails and roads of Alaska, including the Reverend Samuel Hall Young, Frank G. Carpenter, Judge James Wickersham, Leonhard Seppala, Col. Walter L. Goodwin, and Matilda Clark Buller, who opened a roadhouse near Nome in 1901, at the height of the Nome Gold Rush. Continue reading
Posted in Alaska History, Books, News & Information, Roadhouses
Tagged Alaskan Roadhouses, Col. Walter L. Goodwin, Fairbanks-McGrath Trail, Frank G. Carpenter, Helen Hegener, Jim Reardan, Judge James Wickersham, Lake Minchumina, Leonhard Seppala, Lone Star Roadhouse, Matilda Clark Buller, Nome, Sam O. White, Samuel Hall Young, Valdez-to-Fairbanks Trail
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Leonhard Seppala House
The Leonhard Seppala House was named as one of the Ten Most Endangered Historic Properties for 2020 by the Alaska Association for Historic Preservation, Inc., which is dedicated to the preservation of Alaska’s prehistoric and historic resources through education, promotion and advocacy. Preservation of the built environment provides a vital link and visible reminder of the past, emphasizing the continuity and diversity of Alaska. Continue reading
Posted in Alaska History, Gold Rush History, News & Information, Sled Dog History, Sled Dog Races
Tagged Balto, Fritz, Leonhard Seppala, Nome, Seppala House, Togo
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Rt. Rev. Peter Trimble Rowe
The Right Reverend Peter Trimble Rowe D.D. (1856-1942), appointed first Missionary Bishop of the Espicopal Church in Alaska in 1895, crossed the Chilkoot Trail and tended the medical needs of the Klondike gold miners and the Native peoples, eventually founding hospitals, churches, and boarding schools throughout the territory. Continue reading
The Alabama Claims
“The Alabama Claims were a series of demands for damages sought by the government of the United States from the United Kingdom in 1869, for the attacks upon Union merchant ships by Confederate Navy commerce raiders built in British shipyards during the American Civil War. The claims focused chiefly on the most famous of these raiders, the CSS Alabama, which took more than sixty prizes before she was sunk off the French coast in 1864.” Continue reading
Togo’s Serum Run
As the worldwide fight against the coronavirus goes on we are reminded almost daily that pandemics and epidemics have happened before, and we have struggled through them with far fewer resources and much less medical and scientific knowledge than we have now. That is a very real comfort, and lends a bit of perspective to what we are facing. One such epidemic was a deadly diphtheria outbreak which raged across Alaska almost 100 years ago. Continue reading
Posted in Alaska History, News & Information, Sled Dog History
Tagged Bering Sea, Bluff Roadhouse, Dexter Roadhouse, diphtheria, Dr. Curtis Welch, Elizabeth Ricker, Golovin, Governor Bone, Iditarod Trail, Isaac's Point, Kaltag, Leonhard Seppala, Manley Roadhouse, Minto Roadhouse, Nenana, Nome, Nulato, Olson Roadhouse, Port Safety Roadhouse, Scott Bone, Seppala, Serum Run, Shaktoolik, Siberian huskies, Solomon Roadhouse, The Cruelest Miles, Togo, Tolovana Roadhouse, Unalakleet, Unlakleet
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A People at Large
That more or less indefinite region north of the Yukon known as the Chandalar Country owes its name to one given by the early French-Canadian traders of the Hudson’s Bay Company to the singular native tribes that ranged there. Because these came from none knew where, recognizing no boundaries and taking to themselves no local designations, they were called gens de large––people at large. With peculiar fitness the name applies to all Alaskans, for in more ways than one we are a people at large. Continue reading
Posted in Alaska History, Books, News & Information
Tagged Anchorage, Chandalar, Chitina, Copper-Tints, Cordova, Eustace P. Ziegler, Fairbanks, Gulkana, Hudson's Bay Company, Iditarod, Interior, Juneau, Katherine Wilson, Ketchikan, Kodiak, Koyukuk, Kuskokwim, Nome, Nushagak, Paxson’s Roadhouse, Porcupine, Sitka, St. Michaels, Strelna or Kennekott, Tanana, The Trail
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