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Alaska Gold Prospecting

FIRST GOLD SENT OUT

The first gold known to have come from any part of the Yukon basin to the outside world was sent to St. Michael in 1880 by George Holt, an employee of the Alaska Commercial Company. It con- sited of two small nuggets, and he stated they were given to him by a Tanana River Indian, but just where they were found does not appear. Mr. Holt is also credited with having led the first party over the Dyea Pass and down the Yukon in 1875. Five years later another party, led by a Mr. Edward Bean, crossed the summit, but how far he went beyond is not known. Between 1882 and '83 it is said that a small number of nuggets were brought from the upper Yukon to San Francisco, but this appears to me doubtful, as no coarse gold was found there again till quite recently, and if such a discovery were once made it would hardly be allowed to lapse.

According to de Wolfe, before quoted, in 1882a party of Arizona prospectors entered the upper Yukon and went down as far as the Stewart, up
which three of them went, they said, two hundred miles, prospecting. If they attained this distance they would have reached the falls. At one or two places on this stream I saw where prospecting holes had been sunk in the gravel on the bank, which the age of the brushwood grown in them showed must have been dug about that time. They reported to Edward Schieffelin of Tomb-stone, Arizona, to whom we have already referred. The report mentioned the existence of gold, silver, nickel, copper, and coal, which showed that those gentlemen must have been exaggerating no nickel is known now, and as for coal, they might have noticed it at Five-finger Rapids, button likely anywhere else. Copper is found near White Horse, but miles away from the Yukon.

This statement is quoted from de Wolfe's paper, but his date must be wrong, for both he and McQuesten agree that SchiefFelin came up the river from St. Michael in 1883. Now as conditions then were, Schieffelin would have to sail from the Pacific coast of the United States in August of 1882 to reach St. Michael that fall, as McQuesten says he did. He might possibly leave a month later, but it is very unlikely. Then, too, it is not probable that any party would try to traverse Dyea Pass until June, as Lake Labargeseldom opens to navigation till the eighth or tenth of that month ; from that date till August would give the party a very short time in which to make such an extensive exploration, and they would have to start on the return trip at that date if they expected to report to Schieffelin in time to let him get away to St. Michael. There are other hindrances to mention that would put the question beyond a doubt, but I think I am safe in saying that the prospectors made their exploration 1 88 1 if they made it at all. Silver has been found up the Windy Arm part of Tagish Lake, a place so far out of the direct line of travel that they were not likely to have gone there.

McQuesten says Schieffelin and party went up the Yukon from St. Michael in the fall of 1882to Tanana Station, where they wintered. The next spring they prospected in the vicinity, and found coarse gold in a gulch called Maybeso Gulch, but it did not pay, and in the fall the party all left the country, except a man named Phillip Fancio. De Wolfe says Schieffelin was in search quartz lodes, and was not interested in placer-digging.

In the summer of 1883 four men Richard Poplin, Charles McConkey, Benjamin Beach, and
C. Marks went over the Dyea Pass and down the Yukon, prospecting as they went, and when they reached the Stewart went up it to the McQuesten. By this time they had to make for Fort Reliance, as their supplies were running out, and when they reached there it was found the steamer had broken down on the lower river, and they had to continue to Tanana, where they wintered. In the spring McQuesten took them up on the boat, and they spent the summer prospecting on the Stewart. In the fall they all went out over the Dyea Pass, so they could not, at most, have put in more than three months' prospecting. On the way up the Yukon they met Thomas Boswell and Franklin, who were mining on the upper river, working on the banks and bars. Poplin and party told Boswell that he could find plenty of better digging on the Stewart. Boswell and party took the hint, and went down to Reliance, where they remained through the winter. In the month of April they sleighed up to the Stewart, hauling the sleds themselves, the custom then, and prospected the river as they went, by building fires on the bars, thawing the gravel and washing it. They marked the bars that would pay as they determined them in this way, but striking Chapman's Bar, about ninety miles up, they found it so good that they determined to work it for the summer. The average per man for the season was about one hundred dollars per day, which, with rockers to wash it with, was considered extraordinary.