Jerry Potts, born to an Indian mother and white father in Montana, learned to fight early. Good thing. Tough, smart, expert with pistol rifle or any other weapon that came to hand, he lived at the heart of a violent and murderous time in the Canadian and American northwest. Link to another story “A Quest …
Tag Archives: First Nations
Exquisite Pelts brought Outsiders
Exquisite pelts from various native animals attracted, in the 19th century, the first outsiders to the subarctic north. Russian fur traders made their way from Western Siberia across the Bering Sea to Sitka, Alaska and points south along the Alaska Panhandle. Link to another story “A Sailor Named Bering” From the south the North West …
Viciously Inhospitable
Viciously inhospitable, unique in the world, the remote, austere, breathtakingly beautiful area spanned by the intended route for the Alaska Highway made clear that in the subarctic north nature is a dictator, not a ‘mother’. Link to another story “The Subarctic North Lay in Wait” To this day the region is a vast expanse of …
Urine and Moccasins
Urine, human urine, cured moccasins made from moose hide. Donald “Smitty” Schmitt didn’t know that when he admired the ones of the feet of guide, Johnny Johns. When Donna Blazor-Bernhardt interviewed Schmitt, an officer in Company D of the 93rd, about his experience on the Alaska Highway project, he had lots of memories, but …
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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Defending Alaska
Defending Alaska? In the runup to WWII some senior officers in the United States Army thought a lot about that potential problem. Most did not. In August1941 they called the Alaska National Guard to active duty and moved most of it out of Alaska. Territorial Governor Earnest Gruening had seen that coming and he urged …
Nature, Dictator not ‘Mother’
Nature, a dictator, not a ‘mother’, rules the rugged, remote, austere, breathtakingly beautiful, and viciously inhospitable subarctic north. In 1942 the Corps of Engineers had no choice. A land route to Alaska, an Alaska Highway, would have to span this portion of nature’s turf. Link to another story “The Only Possible Route” To this day …
Epic Achievement
An Epic achievement, the construction of the Alaska Highway exemplifies a truth about the violent upheaval of World War II. Challenge requires response, and epic challenge requires epic response. The war, the most horrific event in recorded history, presented epic challenges to virtually every person alive. It brought death and destruction, but it also inspired …
First Woman of the Klondike
The first woman of the Klondike struck gold in the Klondike, but still lived the saddest life on record. Born Shaaw Tiaa, native Tagish, she married a Tlingit man and bore him a daughter. A flu epidemic killed them both. When Shaaw Tiaa’s sister passed away she married the widower, a white man named George …
Outsiders Inevitably Came to the Far North
Outsiders inevitably made their way further and further north. Europeans found their way to every part of the world that offered anything of value to them. When Europeans decided they liked clothing made from fur, European traders went north looking for the exquisite pelts of the native animals. Furs attracted the First White Men to …
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