When I was “young” I worked as a ranger in Yellowstone doing snowmobile patrol. Here I am with my not so trusty snowmobile in January 1979. Just thought you all might like to see me doing something completely different.
Winter fly over!
So each day in the summer Paul Swanstrom flies his little red plane from Skagway and Haines over Glacier Bay. Just think what the miners would have thought if they could have flown over instead of crawled over the passes!
Here is a really neat video he posted of a winter trip!
J.W. Nee’s Hotel & Store at Sheep Camp
Joseph W. Nee was born in 1885 in Washington Territory. His parents, John and Maggie were born in Ireland and emigrated about 1869 to Kentucky where their first son was born. After that, based on the kids birthplaces, they moved to Alabama, Florida, Georgia, back to Alabama, Oregon and finally Washington Territory. His father John must have had a bar because in 1886 he was convicted of running a gambling house and having minors present in Lincoln County Washington. Joseph was the 8th living child in 1887. They all must have worked hard on the farm and so, in the gold rush, Joseph, at age 13 helped to run the Hotel and Store at Sheep Camp half way up the Chilkoot Trail. He stayed in the Yukon until 1903.
By 1910 he was back in Lincoln County Washington with a general store, a wife, Goldie and two kids.
Seen above is the store and hotel, the label says it is Dyea, while other records say it was at Sheep Camp.
Lundberg; Yukon site; Fairbanks news list
Happy Easter!
I will be away for a week but will return to storytelling soon!
Dr. Samuel D. Cameron
Dr. S.D. Cameron was famous for attending the autopsy on Soapy here in 1898. He was fairly young at the time, 24, having come from Ontario where he was born in 1874. He came from a big Scottish family, his parents were from Scotland. He worked at Log Cabin in 1901. After the Skagway bank robbery in 1902, he examined the body of the dead bank robber and chaired the coroners inquest here. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1902 and applied for his physicians license in Washington state also in that year.
In 1917 he married Laura Bouillard in Yakima, she was 26 then and Dr. Cameron was 43. He died on August 19, 1922 in Yakima and is buried there.
In the picture above, I believe that the young bloke to the far right is Dr. Samuel D. Cameron.
Howard Clifford p 142; yukon genealogy; 1920 Yakima census; Washington marriage, licensing, emigration and census records.
The Railroad Restaurant
In the same newspaper was an ad for John William’s “Railroad Restaurant” that had meals from 25 cents and up and that seated 50-60 people. They also had “private rooms” for ladies. The building that housed the restaurant still stands, it is part of the Richter’s store across the street from AB Hall. It was called the John Irving Building:
“British Columbia steamboat pioneer, John Irving, built this two-story false-fronted wood frame structure during the rush to Atlin in 1899. The John Irving Navigation Company, which operated a system of steamboats and a railroad from Bennett to Atlin, had a ticket office on the first floor as did Canadian Pacific Navigation. After the Atlin rush, the building became the Railroad Restaurant. After 1910 the Grand Truck Pacific Railway opened a ticket office for its steamships. In the 1930s the building became a part of Richter’s curio shop, the present occupant.”
Seen above, the 1910 is for the Richter’s Store, as the building is actually a gold rush building.
“Clearing Out Sale”
posted in the local paper on October 3, 1905:
“I am closing out for cash the following articles:
8 fine dogs – well broken to harness
16 pairs of fine Pennington wool mills woolen blankets
1 large Polar bear skin
1 buggy which would be well suited for a delivery wagon.
These are bargains for those that want them.
William Moore
Moore’s Park.”
First Tourist, William H. Seward
Today is Seward’s Day and the state and local offices are closed to honor the man who fought, and nearly died to acquire the great land of Alaska. During the Civil War, when funds were scarce and Russia, too, was nearly broke from funding their wars, a great real estate deal presented itself. Although the negotiations took years to complete, the man who had the vision was U.S. Secretary of State, Wiliam H. Seward. Working for President Lincoln, he nearly suffered assasination on the same night that Booth shot Lincoln. Another member of the successionist movement pushed his way into Seward’s home, attacking his family and stabbing Seward several times in the face and neck. Miraculously surviving, Seward was not deterred from his task, and in 1867 not only saw the purchase of Alaska, but he also decided to go see the property.
In June of 1869, after retiring, Seward began his vacation to Alaska with a railroad trip across the country on the – then barely one-month-old – transcontinental railroad. He saw buffalo and Indian camps and visited Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. He then visited Sacramento and San Francisco.
Seward boarded the steamship “Active” as a guest of Ben Holladay (a California businessman) to visit the Chilkats up Lynn Canal. The ship visited Seattle and Victoria B.C. and then arrived in Sitka near the end of July. When they got to Klukwan or the port we now know as Haines, by coincidence, there was a U.S. government survey team also in the area to view a rare total eclipse of the sun. The party had timed its visit with the Chilkats to coincide with the eclipse. The Chilkats referred to tourists as “Boston Men” and assumed that Seward was the “Great Tyee” of the Boston Men. Obviously there had been men from Boston who had visited earlier but they were doing business presumably and were not casual tourists as the Seward party was in 1869.
When Seward returned to Washington D.C. he praised Alaska and said it was impossible to exaggerate Alaska’s physical treasures such as its rivers and its wildlife and noted that its untapped mineral and forest resources will make Alaska a “shipyard for the supply of all nations.” How prophetic!
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.
Murderous Assault
Clyde Bernal Guptill was born October 31, 1874 in Maine. He was working as a steamship agent in Skagway on October 19, 1911 when he was apparently brutally assaulted and robbed. When the assistant, Mr. Berryman went to open the office in the morning he found poor Guptill lying in a pool of blood with a bloody axe lying near. EEEoouuu!
The San Francisco Call reported on October 20 that the physicians did not expect him to survive. Oddly, he had taken in a large amount of money the previous day in ticket sales for the outgoing vessel, but the money was all there intact. Hence, no robbery.
Now oddly there are records of him dying in 1937, 1952 and 1964 in Washington (all of which born in 1874). Which is it?
A typical steamship office in 1910 is seen above. I will go now and check the newspaper archive to see if I can find out more about this new murder.
UPDATE: I checked the local paper for October and November 1911 and found that miraculously Mr. Guptill survived the attack, albeit with a fractured skull. The doctors decided not to operate and remove the bits of skull and just let him rest and recover. Perhaps that is why he survived. His brother, L.L. Guptill from Victoria came to take care of him. The police rounded up the usual suspects including the assistant Berryman, but later released them all, as they all had alibis. I read several weeks ahead and it appeared that they never solved the case. So it appeared as though Mr. Guptill lived on, probably one of those that died later in Washington. HUZZAH!