Glacier route? Not really. When, in 1898, men and women headed for the Yukon came to the Valdez Glacier they came in ignorance. Some left it a lot more educated. Some never left it at all. Valdez in Later History You hear that gold in some place called the Klondike is making men filthy rich. …
Tag Archives: Alaska
Rumble the Ground and Stir Up the Sea
Rumble the ground and stir up the sea, every now and again, as if Alaskans didn’t have enough to contend with from mother nature, earthquakes do that under them. They are relatively used to it. During the last few years Chris and I have worked on Far North History, traveled to the region twice and …
Harriet Pullen, Queen of Skagway
Harriet Pullen, one of the ladies who joined a flood of men in their rush for Klondike gold, found her fame and fortune in Skagway, Alaska. She had no need to go on to the Klondike. “I only had seven dollars to my name. I didn’t know a soul in Alaska. I had no place …
Rika Wallen–Roadhouse Savior
Rika Wallen and people like her couldn’t keep motorized vehicles and airplanes from killing off most of the roadhouses along the Richardson Highway. They could, though, save a single roadhouse by improving it and knowing how to run it. Big Delta where travelers ferried across the Tanana River on their way to Fairbanks hosted two …
Three Hundred Sixty-five Miles
Three hundred sixty-five miles of Richardson Highway, barren of towns or settlements lay between Valdez and Fairbanks when Richardson built it just after the turn of the century. For travelers, the rough road took a toll in exhaustion, and winter added snow and bitter cold. In summer people travelled it in wagons pulled by mules …
Richardson and His Highway
Richardson, Major Wilds Richardson, came to Alaska in 1906 to replace Abercrombie’s trail with an actual highway. Like Abercrombie Richardson started at the Port of Valdez, upgrading Abercrombie’s trail. But by 1906 the Klondike Gold Rush lay in the past. New gold fields lay close to Fairbanks. That and the city’s central location turned Fairbanks …
Luckily only a Few
Luckily few people had any reason to travel from the Port of Valdez into Alaska’s vast interior. Those who did faced a thoroughly daunting challenge. They faced subarctic weather; and, much worse, they faced range after range of virtually impassable glaciers and mountains. But then came the gold strike on the Klondike. Luckily no longer …
Grievous Error–Mine
Grievous errors, I commit them all too often. Here’s my latest. I’ve told you stories about Carcross Yukon many times, it’s a fascinating place. But until now I’ve completely ignored the town’s most famous and important citizen–Polly the Foul Mouthed Parrot. I apologize, and I am here tonight to correct that error or at least …
Alaska Nellie
Alaska Nellie took everything by storm. Born Nellie Trosper, she learned to take the woods that way on a farm near St. Joseph Missouri. She trapped and, a terrific shot, she hunted. In her spare time she helped her parents raise 11 younger siblings. As soon as her parents could spare her, though, Nellie headed …
Ada Blackjack—The Toughest Woman You’ve Never Heard About
Ada Blackjack travelled with four inexperienced young men on an ill-advised expedition to Wrangell Island in the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia. Stuck there for two years, the four young men died, leaving Ada to survive on her own. Link to another story “Badass Women” Ada, born Ada Deletuk, hailed from Spruce Creek just a …
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