A photographer’s 1898 journey to Alaska: No gold however a treasure trove of photos

Part of a seamless weekly sequence on Alaska historical past by native historian David Reamer. Have a query about Anchorage or Alaska historical past or an thought for a future article? Go to the shape on the backside of this story.

On May 13, 1898, Will H. Leigh boarded the schooner Dora Bluhm at San Francisco, certain for St. Michael, Alaska. It was the excessive days of the Klondike gold rush, and a lot of the passengers supposed these legendary goldfields as their ultimate vacation spot. The prospectors have been almost mad of their eagerness, so certain have been they of the wealth to come back, simply ready for them to select it off the bottom. The locals alternately mocked and indulged the fortune hunters, relying on the timing, whether or not funds had already been fleeced for gear and tickets.

But Leigh sought a unique type of treasure, one other option to exploit Alaska and produce its sources again south. He was a photographer, employed by the Keystone View Co. and their consultant to what was, for them, the foreboding and frozen north. The purpose was photos of Alaska throughout a time when gold rush tales, tall and in any other case, already saturated newspapers and dime novels. If there was gold available, all the higher, although Leigh held some dour suspicions in that regard.

The Keystone View Co. was the dominant producer of stereograph playing cards, additionally known as stereoscope playing cards and easily stereo playing cards. The playing cards themselves have been manufactured from thick cardstock, with two almost an identical photos, normally images, subsequent to one another. When considered by way of a tool unsurprisingly known as a stereoscope, the resultant picture gained depth. That is, it appeared as if in three dimensions.

And these playing cards have been massively well-liked. They have been produced from the 1850s into the Forties, in units and singles. Every form of retailer offered them. Advertisements have been frequent in newspapers and magazines, and there have been even stereoscope door-to-door salesmen. Modern costs differ wildly, however many examples are cheap. Even in Anchorage, I’ve discovered dusty, worn assortments in vintage shops.

After 38 uncomfortable, rolling days at sea, the Dora Bluhm lastly landed at St. Michael, off the west coast of Alaska, southeast of Nome and southwest of Unalakleet. During the Klondike gold rush, St. Michael was an important waypoint on the water path to the gold fields. From there, prospectors may board smaller boats that will journey up the Yukon River. Rushers with the required bankroll may thus keep away from the bodily hardships of the paths from Dyea and Skagway into Canada, the cheaper and extra well-liked route.

At St. Michael, Leigh joined the lots carried by lighters to shore, their individuals and belongings dumped into mounds. When he started the journey, the photographer was alone. The time, proximity and lack of anything to do whereas at sea meant he had, by now, made some associates. The photographer joined a celebration intent on the Klondike, and collectively they spent the subsequent month prepping a steamship for journey up the Yukon, departing on July 19.

However, the steamer was small and underpowered for its anticipated use, a typical prevalence through the heyday of the Klondike gold rush, when delivery calls for far exceeded ship availability. Many less-than-perfectly seaworthy vessels have been pressed into duties past their capabilities, just like the rotting Eliza Anderson, which returned to service in 1898 and wound up deserted at Dutch Harbor throughout its first tried journey north.

[The last voyage of the Eliza Anderson: A gold rush tale of the worst ship to ever sail to Alaska]

Leigh and firm supposed to journey their steamer all the best way alongside the Yukon and its tributaries, however the present was too sturdy, and the underpowered ship would wreck lengthy earlier than it reached the Klondike. Instead, they switched to the Koyukuk River and ventured north. Along the best way, Leigh took images of the passing villages, as he would on his return journey a number of months later.

From 1898 to 1899, the higher Koyukuk area — assume Allakaket — was the location of its personal transient gold rush. Some prospectors accurately realized the Klondike was oversaturated with fortune hunters, but believed there was extra gold available in broad Alaska, maybe from much less frequented locales. One of these males, Jasper Wyman, an beginner photographer himself, wrote of the Koyukuk, “Splendid reports come from there, but it has never been much prospected as it has been very difficult to get in there with grub enough to stay any length of time.” In this fashion, he foretold the long run, together with his personal.

Leigh’s celebration stopped at Arctic City, the northernmost navigable level of the river. Arctic City, named for its proximity to the Arctic Circle, was largely wrecked by a spring flood, so they didn’t cease. The group nursed their steamer onwards, up the Alatna River, then known as the Allenkaket River. They made it almost 100 miles north of the place any steamship had but gone in Alaska, earlier than abandoning it in a slough nonetheless some time in need of their vacation spot.

Finally, they established a brand new city, Beaver City, close to Helpmejack Creek, a number of miles shy of what’s now the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve. When the river started to freeze on Oct. 1, Beaver City contained 16 cabins and 100 residents. Social occasions livened the darkish months. Neighboring mining communities, corresponding to Rapid City, the place Wyman wound up, gathered collectively for boxing matches and live shows. Contact with the skin world was uncommon. When Wyman obtained three letters from his household, it was one of many standout experiences of his sojourn in Alaska.

Alas, there is no such thing as a identified origin story for “Helpmejack,” although we will think about a state of affairs the place somebody not named Jack was caught in a spot of hassle and required help from one other man named Jack. History is rife with such wild leaps of logic.

The Beaver City males, a lot of them from Galesburg, Illinois, weren’t ready for the size and ferocity of a north Alaska winter. Some of them deserted camp even earlier than the river froze. Mining continued after the primary frost, although the prospectors have been pressured to construct massive fires, thawing and eradicating the earth in foot-deep increments, an arduous and harmful course of. And like most prospectors, their outfit had been inadequate, missing the required dietary selection. As winter dragged on, abdomen points weakened lots of the settlers.

The chilly itself was past something that they had ever skilled, the kind of frigid depths they knew solely from journey tales. Wyman almost misplaced his toes on one mining tour; his celebration was pressured to cease and construct a hearth. When they arrived again at camp, they realized the temperature that day reached 56 under zero. Wyman joked, “had we known it was so cold, we certainly would have frozen.” Leigh claimed a nadir of 74 levels under zero on Feb. 19, 1899.

Meanwhile, Leigh took images in all places when not hindered by the identical circumstances. The low temperatures that threatened the prospectors’ lives likewise inhibited his digicam. He adopted miners on their rounds, from their claims to provide runs between the cities. He additionally visited the encircling Alaska Native villages. He captured the surroundings, from rivers to mountains.

Still, there was a restrict to the themes he may doc. And the miners struggled to seek out gold in paying portions, although extra substantial deposits can be found within the space a number of years later, just like the Nolan Creek discover in late 1903. So, Leigh and the remainder, for various causes if unified exhaustion with Alaska winters, deserted Beaver City in May 1899. Their cabins have been chopped into firewood for the journey south, as ultimate a departure as might be imagined. Along the best way, he noticed damaged sheets of ice as much as 7 toes thick. Sailing down the Yukon River, Leigh counted 11 different small steamers, all deserted the place that they had floundered. Going downstream, he reached St. Michael 31 days after leaving Beaver City. Wyman returned to Illinois.

At St. Michael, a number of of the boys traveled to Nome, within the early days of that gold rush. More of them returned house, shaken and poorer for the expertise, however now pleased sufficient to have survived. There was no gold, not in any considerable amount, removed from sufficient to make any sense out of the general endeavor. Leigh, nevertheless, fled Alaska with greater than 700 negatives. His journey north had been a wild success. Somewhere round 200 of his photos wound up on stereograph playing cards, although he was not credited. The copyright on the again of the related playing cards is within the identify of firm founder B. L. Singley, a normal Keystone observe.

As with many prospectors again house, Leigh was inundated with requests to share his story, to inform the tales of the wild north. Much of the data right here comes from his account that was reprinted within the October 1899 problem of the Keystone Review, the Keystone View Co.’s inner journal. The article ends soberly: “Although Mr. Leigh’s trip has been very successful from a photographic standpoint, he does not care to return to Alaska and search for gold, as it is his opinion that more gold is expended by prospecting parties on outfits, transportation, etc., than is taken from the mines.”

As a bonus, I’m additionally sharing right here a stereograph card of the Park Strip golf course in Anchorage. The {photograph} was taken in June 1930, throughout a Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce tour of Alaska. Anchorage people have been so excited that they ran quick biographies for each member of the over 150-person journey celebration on the entrance web page of the native newspaper. The Park Strip, in fact, was initially cleared as a firebreak south of the unique townsite, then transformed right into a golf course and the city’s first airstrip within the Twenties. By the time of the Chamber go to, Merrill Field was open, to the good reduction of each pilots and golfers.

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Key sources:

Lindberg, Melissa. “The Keystone Review: Shedding Light on the Stereograph Business.” Library of Congress. July 24, 2024.

“A Short History of Mining on the Koyukuk.” National Park Service. Last up to date April 14, 2014.

“Stampede to Koyukuk Gold Country.” National Park Service. Last up to date December 2, 2021.

“A Trip Through Alaska.” Keystone Review. October 1899, 1-2.