Category: Alaska

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Marion D. K. Weimer

Mr. Weimer was born in August 1853 in Ohio. He married Ella J. Tribby in 1879 in Trenton, Iowa and had a son named Howard L.

M.D. K. as he preferred to be called, and Ella were both teachers. In 1897 with so many other goldrushers, M.D.K. came to Alaska and settled in Eagle where he was the editor of the Eagle Reporter in 1898. He returned to Ohio by 1900 and then the family moved to Nebraska and then on to Los Angeles. Their son worked as a linotype printer in Alhambra and married there.

In 1903 he wrote a book called “The True Story of the Alaska Gold Fields” which can be found online for sale.  He died on February 2, 1931 in Los Angeles.

In May 2009 ice and floodwaters swept away more than 100 years of history with the destruction of Eagle Village. The small log cabins that had once populated the long-established community known as Ninak’ay to the Han people lay strewn along the banks of the Yukon River. The homes, which had been handed down from one generation to the next, were demolished. But now, three years later, a new village stands three miles away on higher ground, safe from floods. Seen above was one of the destroyed cabins from the gold rush.

familysearch; Yukon the Last Frontier by Melody Webb p. 137; 1900-1940 censuses; Rootsweb database of Iowa cemeteries; Alaska Gold Rush History of Alaska Newspapers; Fairbanks Daily News.

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Violet Iowa Denizen Allman Marquam

 

This woman’s history is complicated so I will make a stab at it.

Violet Denizen was born in Marysville, Iowa in 1876. Her first marriage was to Mr. Allman and she changed her first name to Iowa. Her second marriage was on March 2, 1903 to J. S. Harding, a “mining man” in Wenatchee, Washington. It must not have worked out because she went back to her first married name of Iowa Allman. She apparently came to Skagway either in 1897 or soon after her marriage to Harding,  and purportedly worked as a prostitute when she met the eminent Thomas Marquam, an Alaska Republican politician. See earlier blog on him:

http://www.skagwaystories.org/2009/11/thomas-alfrred-marquam.html

Iowa, or Violet,  died on February 21, 1917 at the age of 41 in Seattle. Her name then was Iowa Marquam, so presumably she married Marquam somewhere in there. Or she just used his name.

The picture above must have been taken between 1910 and 1913 because it says her name is Mrs. Iowa Marquam. In the 1910 census she was living with Thomas Marquam in Fairbanks as Iowa Allman. If she married, it would have been after that. One of the fellows pictured is Andrew Jackson Maiden who died in 1913, I believe.

From left to right they are Andrew Jackson Maiden, Hans Matson or Madsen, Albert Henry Mayo, Mrs. Iowa Allman Marquam, William “Bill” McPhee and James “Jim” Bender. These were old timers or Pioneers of Alaska who the Marquams were enterttaining.

Washington records.

 

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Capt. David Ogilvie Wallace

One of the early ships to come to Skagway was the Steamer Mexico in 1894. It was captained by David O. Wallace who had been navigating the Inside Passage at least since 1888 when he piloted the Corona for the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Then in November of 1888 he took the City of Topeka north.

Wallace was born in Newburgh, Fife, Scotland on January 22, 1853 and went to sea as a boy. He arrived in California in 1870 and his first command was the Idaho. He had also served as seaman on the Santa Cruz, the Los Angeles and the Ancon (until it sank) and later as captain of the City of Topeka.

He died on June 26, 1908 in Seattle at the age of 55.

 

from Lewis & Dryden’s marine history of the Pacific Northwest; WA death records; familysearch.

 

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Blind faith

I call this blind faith, but really, would you cross this crevasse on this snow bridge? This was taken in 1947 at Mt. McKinley.

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The Annual Bear Shoot

 


Two mornings ago I was walking to the gym at 5:30 am. It was dark and I was looking at the stars….suddenly a bear charged me . It was a terrifying experience, I screamed,  stumbled and fell, then got up and screamed some more. I focused on the 3-inch yellow claws but it was dark enough that I could not see its face, but I did see another bear behind it. I believe it was a Grizzly sow with cub and she had been eating garbage that was put out the night before. I unfortunately walked within a few feet of them and startled them which is why she charged me. She then turned and walked away.

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It was a perfectly predictable behavior on the part of the bear. I hold no anger against her but only sadness that eventually she and the cub will be shot as many others have been each fall. At this time of year they are trying to fatten up before winter and garbage is an easy food source.  The tragedy is that if this little community would invest in bear proof garbage cans for everyone, the problem would be greatly remedied.  I have had many people tell me that they are glad I am alive and that I am brave. I only acted as anyone would, but I am  grateful for the attention that this event has brought to our need for community action. I believe that our community has many good hearted people who would agree that the one time expense of buying the downtown households bear proof trash cans would be worth the cost and effort.

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Robert Kennicott

Robert Kennicott was born in New Orleans on November 13, 1835. In April 1859, supported by the Smithsonian Institution, the Audubon Society of Chicago, and the Hudson’s Bay Company, he set off on an expedition to collect natural history specimens in the subarctic boreal forests of northwestern Canada in what is now the Mackenzie and Yukon river valleys and in the Arctic tundra beyond. Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders in the area liked him and so Kennicott encouraged them to collect and send natural history specimens and First Nations artifacts to the Smithsonian. He returned to Washington at the end on 1862. With the Civil War in full play in 1862-64, Robert and his younger brother lived in the Smithsonian Castle along with Edward Drinker Cope and other noted naturalists.

He traveled across the Unalakleet portage to Nulato over the winter of 1865-1866 with Charles Pease and 2 Canadians, Frank Ketchum and Michael Lebarge.

In 1866, Kennicott failed to reach Fort Yukon, where he expected to meet another party from the Frazer River. One story says that this failure so preyed on his mind that he took a dose of strychnine. Other reports state that he died of a heart attack, but in any event we know he died on May 13, 1866. His remains were returned to the Kennicott Family plot in Glenview, Illinois at The Grove, which is a National Historic Landmark.

To commemorate his efforts on behalf of science, the Kennicott Glacier, Kennicott Valley, Motor Vessel Kennicott, and the Kennicott River were named after him.

Alaska and its Resources by William Healey Dall; The Dyea Trail January 19, 1898; Wikipedia.

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Bargain Cruise


I saw this on Ebay and was wondering where one could get such a good deal today!
train from San Francisco to Seattle and then cruise to Skagway, then take the train to Carcross with sidetrips to Taku all for $453 for three persons.

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AYP Exposition Seattle


Here is a photo of the AYP in 1909 which opened with 80,000 visitors.
Brothers John and Frederick Olmstead, designed the fairgrounds. The central portion of the grounds was oriented along axes that exploited the natural beauty of the setting, with views of Mount Rainer, Lake Union and Lake Washington. Built on 250 acres of the largely undeveloped campus of the University of Washington (and partially funded by the state legislature for later use by the University), the AYPE grounds were close to downtown and convenient transportation. Though most of the buildings, designed by John Galen Howard, were too poorly built to survive, the landscaping of the grounds added value to the university by removing wilderness and opening new possibilities for future university installations.

The grounds were centered around the Arctic Circle, with its cascading fountain and reflecting pool, and the surrounding Court of Honor, flanked by two wings of three buildings on either side. Descending from the domed Government Building, these six building were named for Europe, Asia, Alaska, Hawaii and the industries of Manufacturing and Agriculture. Among other notable AYPE buildings was the Forestry Building, a massive structure built entirely of huge logs in their natural state and surviving for several years after the Exposition as the Washington State Museum, until it was damaged by beetles and razed in 1931.

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Heywood Walter Seton-Karr


Mr. Seton-Karr was born on this day, June 2, 1859 in Belgaum, India. He became a famous artist, explorer and “archaeologist” and came to the great Northwest in 1886. He kept a wonderful diary in which he sketched scenes such as the one above of Lynn Canal. It looks like Skagway with the jagged peaks behind.
Seton-Karr “discovered” the Altsehk or Dalton Pass near Haines. He died in 1938 in Paddington, England.

The Alaskan of June 28, 1890; Alaska State Archives.

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An uncommon silence

Mt Blackburn about 10 miles from the base of Muir Glacier apparently “erupted” on April 10, 1902. A geologist, J.C. McFarland who happened to be nearby stated:
“On April 11 at about 7:30 in the morning the air about me became oppressive with a distinct and uncommon silence. In my wanderings through different wilds I had become used to many strange freaks of nature, but this one appalled me. I was in a rough mountainous country, I should judge about 10 miles from the base of Mount Blackburn, in Southeastern Alaska, not far from the starting point of a glacier called Muir Glacier. Suddenly the earth beneath my foot shook, a low rumbling sound accompanied the quaking. I glanced up at Mount Blackburn. Instantly it seemed as though the peak had opened; a cloud of ashes and smoke shot out into the air several hundred feet, and then there seemed to flow from the opening in the top a stream of dirty stuff mixed with large and small boulders. This continued only for about ten minutes then ceased as suddenly as it had begun.
It was three days after many perilous attempts before I succeeded in reaching the base of the mountain. Then I discovered that the country for miles around had been affected. The small undergrowth of the trees had been entirely covered. This stuff which poured from the top of the mountain was not even warm, but seemed to consist purely of dust rocks and other substances. As far as I can discover this mountain had never been considered of a volcanic nature.”

The official story is that the last time Mt Blackburn erupted was 3-5 million years ago. The 1902 incident was probably just a geologic burp.

New York Times, June 3, 1902