Walter Russell Curtin


Walter Russell Curtin was born in 1878 in California and spent a terrible winter onboard the Yukoner where he froze. He wrote about that experience in 1938, more than thirty years after the gold rush.

“I had thirty five cents in my pocket when I set foot in Alaska, but I gave that to a mission church at Dutch Harbour. I did not have so much left when I left the country more than two years later…….

I made exactly nothing, but if I could turn time back, I would do it over again for less than that”
He died in Los Angeles on March 10, 1951.

The Yukoner is seen above going through the infamous 5-finger rapids on the Yukon River.

Yukon voyage;: Unofficial log of the steamer Yukoner, by Walter Russell Curtin (Hardcover – 1938)