Gulkana to Batzulnetas

Gulkana River to Batzulnetas

Cottonwood buds had begun to open, but Allen noted that the salmon wouldn’t arrive until the buds were entirely open and the leaves had begun to appear.  Ice was still floating in the river and water temperature was 43 degrees.  The party was depressed, they did not know what lay ahead and had been wearied by the hardships of traveling up stream, and the scarcity of food.  During the day the skin boat got stuck on a rock in the middle of the river, the dogs were thrown out but luckily all of the gear remained safe and dry.  Runners from Conaquanta’s camp brought moose meat to trade.

They passed the mouth of the Gulkana River called C’ulc’e Cae’e or ‘tearing river’ in the Ahtna language.  The Gulkana has three forks: the east fork has its source in Summit Lake, which at times can become glacial from the melting ice of Gulkana Glacier.  The Middle Fork drains a considerable area of marshland and has its head in Dickey Lake.  Like the Middle Fork, the West Fork of the Gulkana River drains a large area of swampland and has its head in a divide separating the Copper and Susitna River drainages.  The Gulkana River is an important spawning ground for sockeye and Chinook salmon.

Traveling required crossing and re-crossing river channels which caused problems with circulation and Allen complained of having to constantly get up at night to urinate.  On May 20 it was still freezing at night but the geese had begun to lay eggs that the party occasionally harvested.  They passed the mouth of the Gakona River and Allen noted that the volume of water in the main channel of the river above diminished.  In the Ahtna language the Gakona is called Ggax Kuna’ or ‘rabbit river.’  Few salmon migrate up the Gakona that terminates in the Gakona glacier high in the Alaska Range.

Since passing the mouth of the Tazlina, food was even scarcer and Allen commented he never encountered such destitution and hunger. All the Ahtna they met were hungry and eagerly awaiting the arrival of the salmon.  Several times the party attempted to hunt large game but was unsuccessful.  On May 24th they encountered a group of Ahtna who were thinnest, hungriest people Allen had ever seen.  They had very little food except a few small fish, rabbits and some roots.  Allen first thought of staying with them, but considering their condition decided to move on.

Why were the Ahtna hungry?  There are a number of reasons.  Alaska is not a Serengeti. Game is generally scarce.  In 1885 moose were just expanding their range into the Copper Basin and scarce.  Some caribou reside in the basin, but in the spring the large migratory herds were on their winter range outside of the basin.  Dall sheep are present but live in the high mountains and difficult to harvest in the spring.  Salmon are the most abundant source of food but only available in the summer.  Ahtna had methods for preserving food; meat and fish were dried and stored in underground caches lined with bark, but it was hard to keep food over long periods.  Water leaked into caches ruining food, or enemies found the caches and took the food or destroyed it.  Ahtna oral tradition is replete with stories about strangers from outside the basin raiding and stealing food.  This is one reason why food caches were often hidden in the woods.

As noted in an earlier post, spring is a very difficult time of year.  Traveling is hard because the snow melts and leaves the country a mushy quagmire.  Food harvested and put up in previous seasons is all but gone and, because they were hungry, men did not always have the strength to undertake long excursions to hunt game.  As Allen points out time and again, the expedition had all it could do to keep moving up river without having to hunt.

Another reason is that the Ahtna had a different view about food in the sense that they always shared food with visitors.  It was a requirement of Ahtna culture to be generous and share food.  Non-Natives, after encountering Ahtna often remarked on their generosity but also their apparent disregard for their own individual needs.  In this regard some non-Natives viewed the Ahtna as profligate, only concerned with living in the present.  Hunting is a hard way of life and hunters accept the fact that they may go hungry at different times of the year.  Part of Ahtna training was to withstand hunger and cold, and Allen often remarked at the stamina of his Ahtna guides.

Traveling became even more difficult; making six miles was a huge march.  Eventually they decided to reduce the size of the boat.  Near the mouth of Sinona Creek (called Snuu Na’ or ‘brushy creek’) they encountered a young man who was crippled. He claimed to be related to the headman of the upper Copper River and said he was willing to accompany the party.  From him the party learned there was a trail over the mountains at the head of the Copper River.  Initially Allen refused to accept the man’s invitation as guide, fearing he would have to support the man, but eventually found that he was very useful in digging roots, and Allen acknowledged that without the man’s services the party would have suffered. 

Here Allen adds information from Fickett’s journal.   These entries are from May 28, 29 and 30. Describes hunger, weakness, and cold.  The water temperature is 43 degrees and the Ahtna provided some old moose meat invested with maggots.  Apparently that was all anyone had to eat.

On the morning of May 28th they passed the mouth of the Chistochina River (Tsiis Tl’edze’ Na’ or ‘blue ocher river’).  Allen was confused about which to follow because both the Chistochina and Copper are similar.  The Ahtna accompanying them decided the issue by telling Allen that there were no Natives on the Chistochina but some on the Copper. Several miles above the Chistochina the party met a group of 23 Natives all who were ready to start downriver for Taral in order to fish for salmon.

On May 30 they encountered a small settlement of 4 Ahtna.  After that they abandoned the boat and began to hike, led by their crippled Ahtna guide.  Allen admired his speed and stamina.  Crossed a clear water stream with a campground littered with fish traps lying in and near the water.  The house had been burnt.  The country was covered with marshy lakes and dwarf spruce and cottonwood.  The leaves were almost in full and the variety of berry bushes were in bloom.

Camped about 3 miles west of the mouth of the Slana River.  Allen believed the Slana arose from Mentasta Lake.  In fact the Slana heads in the Alaska Range far above Mentasta Lake.  In Ahtna the Slana is called Stl’aa Na’ or ‘rear river’.  The Slana River is a major tributary of the Copper River and provides spawning habitat for sockeye and Chinook salmon.  There were at least 3 important Ahtna villages in the Slana River valley: a place called Stl’ aa Caegge’ or ‘rear mouth’ which was located at the mouth of the Slana River; Suslota or Saaluuggu’ Na’ located on Suslota Lake, and Mendaesde or ‘shallow lake place’ called Mentasta today.  Both Stl’ aa Caegge’ and Mendaesde have inherited chiefs titles associated with them.  These villages were important because they were located at the periphery of Ahtna territory.  The Mentasta chief controlled the Mentasta Pass, the gateway to the upper Tanana Valley.  This was an important trade route that increased in significance in the mid 19^th century after the Hudson’s Bay Company established posts at Fort Yukon and Fort Selkirk on the upper Yukon River.  It became even more important after American companies entered the trade and set up stores on the upper Yukon that the companies supplied with river streamers, thus increasing the amount the goods available to local Natives.  

Upper Slana River.  This photo was taken after a large earthquake had caused a landslide. 

Mentasta Lake

Mentasta Village in about 1899.  This photo provides details of a late 19th century Ahtna village.  In the foreground is a    fish weir in Mentasta Creek.  This weir was used to harvest salmon migrating into Mentasta Lake.  In the background are 2 large multifamily houses. 

Dewitt was a trader who lived and worked on the upper Copper River during the beginning of the 20th century.

Moffit was an USGS geologist. 

                           

Taral to the Tazlina River

Allen and his party stayed one day in Taral and then on May 6 headed up the Copper River with the skin boat.  The crew pulled the boat while Nicolai steered.  The current was strong 7 to 9 miles and hour.  Generally the Ahtna never boated upriver, they walked and then floated down on wood rafts.  Skin boats were used for long trips down river and if they had to be taken up river they were pulled using a long rode or cord.

A mile above the mouth of the Chitina was the home of an old man and his family composed of 9 people in all.

Allen notes that from this point until they reached the Yukon River they were able to purchase or trade for food from the Native people.

The following day they reached the home of Messala who was once the head man but had grown old leaving Nicolai and Conaquanta as leaders or “principal men.”  According to Allen, Messala was one of the Ahtna leaders involved in the destruction of one of the Russian expeditions and he was afraid that Allen had come to avenge those killings.  He was also upset that he could only offer Allen half a dried salmon. 

From Messala’s the party moved up river, spring was in the air and Allen described the green grass sprouting on the terraces along the river.  These terraces were so uniform they appeared man made.  Stopped at a camp with a single woman in residence, her husband having gone hunting. 

Party camped that night just above the mouth of the Konsina River or Kuslina Creek.   The following day, May 8 or 9, 1885, the party camped at Liebigstag’s settlement, the largest village yet encountered.  Allen recorded a population of 30 people.   Liebigstag was the Tyone or chief.  Allen apparently stopped on the east bank of the River but Liebigstag’s house was on the west bank just below a high bluff Allen reckoned was 600 feet high.  Allen, along with Nicolai and Fickett and several other Natives crossed the river to visit Liebigstag and have a feast.  The protocol was rigid, Allen and Nicoali sat on either side of Liebigstag, while his relatives sat to the right and the retainers to the left.  According to Allen, everything went to the Liebigstag, which rankled Allen’s sense of equality.  Ahtna chiefs did not consider Allen their equal and Allen’s men were below their horizon.  They could not understand why Allen carried his own pack.  Liebigstag had a considerable quantity of meat and there was plenty of help to pull the boat and hunt for food.

In the Ahtna language Liebigstag’s village is called Bes Cene or ‘base of the riverbank’.  The place is also known as Riverstack (Reckord1981; Kari 1983; McKinley and Kari n.d.) and is located in the vicinity of present day Kenny Lake.  This place has an inherited chief’s title associated with it called Bes Cene Denen or ‘Person of Riverbank Flat.’

Allen describes the view from Liebigstag that takes in the full scope of the Wrangell Mountains.  To the  southeast is Mt. Blackburn.  At 16,286 ft (4,964 meters), Blackburn in the highest peak in the Wrangell Mountains, named by Allen after the U.S. senator from Kentucky J.C. S. Blackburn.  Dominating the view is the massive shield volcano Mt. Wrangell, named after the head of the Russian American Company admiral Ferdinand P. Wrangell.  Mt. Wrangell is over 12,000 ft (3,700 meters) high.  North of Wrangell are Mts. Drum and Sanford.  Allen named Drum after the adjutant general of the U.S. Army. The Mountain is a stratovolcanoe 12,010 feet (3,681 meters) high.  Mt. Sanford was named after the Sanford family (Allen was related to Rueben Sanford), and is another shield volcano 16,237 feet (4,949 meters). 

Many of the principal peaks of the Wrangell Mountains are named after prominent non-Natives.  The Ahtna did not name high mountains or any other land forms after people.  In the Ahtna language Mt. Wrangell and the Wrangell mountains are called K’ełt’aeni (which is ambiguous) but seems to refer to the mountains as a causative agent (Kari 2008), i.e. creating weather.  Mt. Wrangell is also called Uk’ełedi or ‘the one with smoke on it’, and Wrangell does belch smoke or ash on occasion.  Mt. Drum has the name Hwdaandi K’ełt’aeni, or ‘downriver K’ełt’aeni’ while Mt. Sanford has the name Hwniindi K’ełt’aeni, or ‘upriver K’ełt’aeni.’  Mt. Blackburn is called K’a’si Tl’aadi or  ‘the one at cold headwaters,’ which puts the mountain in relation to other surrounding geographic features; the Kotsina Mountains are called K’a’si Tl’aadi (‘cold mountain’), while Kotsina glacier is called K’a’si Luu or K’a’si Tl’aa Luu’ (‘cold glacier’ or cold headwaters glacier’). As may be evident, Ahtna place names are part of a system in which different geographic features, such as Mts Wrangell, Drum, and Sanford, are viewed as clusters of geographic landforms, all related to one another.  For more information see Kari 2008, Ahtna Place Names List.

Mt Drum taken from easternside

Mt Sanford (to the right) and Mt. Wrangell taken from the Nabesna Road, on the north side of the Wrangells.

Seven Ahtna in addition to 2 chiefs and 2 hunters, to help pull the boat upstream, now accompanied the expedition.  Lived on moose meat provided by the Ahtna and when that ran out on rabbits, and a few migratory birds.  Passed the Klutina River and went into camp one mile above Conaquanta’s winter house.  The chief had gone hunting but Allen was greeted by a number of his “followers” all of whom were arrayed in their best clothes.  Here Allen saw 23 men, 8 women and 16 children.  This was the largest and wealthiest community yet encountered by the expedition.  The Ahtna had flour, tea and sugar and some fancy china cups and saucers.  The flour had come from a trading post at the mouth of the Susitna River (more on the economy in a later post).

The following morning the party left Conaquanta’s house, but only with four Ahtna, Nicolai, Wahnie, Chetoza and one other.  Allen refers to Whanie as a “vassal” of Nicolai’s.  Allen mentions that whenever they encountered Ahtna there was considerable ceremony and he felt their acute sense of rank oppressive.  Nicolai was very conscientious of his rank, as were many other Ahtna, who would not even sell Allen food without first consulting Nicolai, who always advised selling at a high price. Allen writes his party was usually forced to accede to the Ahtna’s demands.

They passed the mouth of the Klutina River (called Tl'atina' or 'rear water').  The Ahtna told Allen the Klutina came from a large lake (Klutina Lake).  The Klutina River flows into the Copper River at Copper Center.  Good salmon spawning habitat is found in parts of Klutina Lake and in several tributaries.  Klutina Lake is about 18 miles long and 2.5 miles at its greatest width.  Important tributary streams flowing into the lake are Mahlo River, St. Anne Creek, the Hallet River, and the Upper Klutina River.

Klutina Lake is called Tl’atibene or ‘headwaters lake’ in the Ahtna language, (bene is the word for lake, na the word for river) and provides a majority of the sockeye salmon to the Copper River salmon fishery.  In 1898 about 3,000 prospectors headed for the Klondike gold fields came over the Valdez Glacier and into the Klutina River valley.  Lt. Abercrombie (1900), who reached the Klutina drainage in August 1898, reported, “the climate of this region must be rapidly changing.”  In many places the moss was dead and dry as punk so that campfires were impossible to put out. Moss would smolder for days and then fan into a blaze torching the dry spruce trees.  According to Abercrombie the entire valley seemed on fire, which made traveling very dangerous.

Klutina River looking up stream 

At this point Allen packs up all his glass plate negatives and sends them down river with Nicoali, but the plates never reach their destination and are lost, so there are no photographs from the expedition.

At the mouth of the Tazlina River Nicolai departed the expedition because it was moving out of his territory. Travelers in the Copper Basin at the end of the 19^th century noted the strength of Ahtna territorial boundaries.  According to the American army officer Abercrombie (1898) the Ahtna had, by common consent, divided the Copper Basin into geographical districts, each band had its own hunting territory which included salmon fishing sites.  Bands resented any intrusion by strangers and another traveler named Treloar wrote that no tribe was allowed to go into another tribe’s territory without permission or invitation.  Outsiders were not categorically excluded, but depending on their relationship to the leader they either had the right to share in the harvest or were granted permission to harvest animals or fish.  Permission to hunt, fish or gather was usually granted, especially in times of starvation.  Intermarriage between bands carried certain obligations to share so that members of several bands might have access rights to a particular territory.  Hunting areas were usually identified with the men of the band while salmon fishing sites were identified with women (see Holly Reckord 1983).  Denae or headmen such as Nicolai and Conaquanta regulated access to resources with their band’s territory by giving or denying permission for outsiders to use those resources.  Ahtna elder Annie Ewan called the denae a “Big chief, like you call somebody live in a place for years.  Like somebody born there and died in that place, is more important. A rich man.”  In Annie’s description we see the very close relationship between leadership and place.  The chief’s titles reflected this close association and the long-term institutionalized nature of the chief’s control over a particular place.  

As Allen moved up river he was assigned a guide as he entered each band’s territories (whether he knew it or not). After passing the Gakona River he was joined by an Ahtna whom Ahtna elder Katie John says was the chief of Gakona.  He led Allen up the Copper River as far as Batzulnetas. 

According to Ahtna elder Andy Brown Nicolai told Allen “we have a law in our village that you can’t stay here.  You have to get your own place to stay…we got law here and it’s the same all the way up the river” (quoted in Holly Reckord 1983).  Nicolai then told Allen he would send a man so that nothing happened to Allen and the guide would tell other Ahtna…”They not Russians.  Americans look like good people to us.  Don’t bother them.” 

Allen considered ascending the Tazlina but decided against it.  The Ahtna told Allen he had no chance to reach the source of the Copper River, could not pull a boat upstream because the current was too swift and there were many channels in the river.  

A short history of Copper in the lower Copper River Basin

Copper dominates the early history of the Chitina Basin.  Copper can be found lying on the ground throughout much of the Chitina Basin but particularly rich deposits are located within a 120 km arch stretching between the Kotsina and Chitistone rivers (Mendenhall and Schrader 1903:16; Moffit and Maddern 1909:47).  Archaeologists think that the Ahtna began using copper between 1,000 and 500 years ago producing arrowheads, awls, beads, personal adornment, knife blades, and copper wire probably through a process of heating and pounding or cold hammering (Workman 1977; Pratt 1998).  Copper was also widely traded throughout eastern Alaska so it is not surprising that Europeans learned of the region’s copper deposits early on in their contact with Alaska Natives.

The first written reference to the Ahtna and to copper comes from a report describing a Russian expedition to the mouth of the Copper River in 1783.  On that expedition the Russians encountered a group of Alutiiq (Native people who inhabit Prince William Sound, the lower Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak Island and portions of the Alaska Peninsula) who told them of traveling up the Copper River to trade for furs and copper (de Laguna 1972).  In 1797 A. A. Baranov, director of the Russian America Company, sent Dimitri Tarkhanov to explore the Copper River and look for the source of copper (Grinev 1993).  Tarkhanov reached the Lower Ahtna village of Takekat, or Hwt'aa Cae'e (Fox Creek village), located across from the mouth of the Chitina River, and was therefore probably the first European to see the Chitina River (Grinev 1997; Kari 2005).  But he never learned the source of the copper.  According to Tarkhanov (Grinev 1997), the chief of Takekat, who was named Kaltysh, and his family went in the fall to mouth the Copper River to prepare yukola, or split dried fish and while there Takekat probably “conducted a profitable trade in copper which his fellow tribesmen procured on the upper reaches of the river.”

In the intervening years between Tarkhanov’s visit and the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867, the Russians explored much of the Copper Basin and succeeded in establishing a small trading post in the vicinity of Taral (Ketz 1983, Pratt 1998, VanStone 1955), but they apparently never explored the Chitina River or located the source of copper.

Allen (1900) may have been the first non-Native to be shown a source of copper.  Whether the prospector John Bremner actually explored the Chitina River is uncertain (Pratt 1998).  Bremener spent the winter of 1883/84 at Taral and was said to have explored the Chitina River sometime between February and April 1885 (see VanStone 1955).

There is some question as to why Nicolai would reveal the source of copper to Allen when according to most Russian sources the Ahtna violently resisted showing them (Grinev 1993, 1997).  One reason Nicolai may have been disposed toward Allen, according to some Ahtna elders, was because he was a “nice guy” who wanted to know what Indians knew and wanted their help, in contrast to the Russians who were “pretty bad guys.”  In any event, while Allen learned the general location of the copper the exact location of the vein was not revealed until 1899 when a group of prospectors succeeded in obtaining a map and guide from Nicolai (Pratt 1998).

The novelist/historian Ronald Simpson provides one interpretation of the situation in his novel Legacy of the Chief.  As Simpson imagines it, Nikolai shows Allen the source of the copper, pointing across the Chittystone River and as he points the white men turn silent…“ [i]t was as if they had found something holy.”  When Allen asks Nicolai to describe the place, Nicolai waves him off sensing that “he had just done something he might later regret.”  Nicolai reasons that Allen is only the leader of a small expedition, not a prospector, and he only wants to know that the source of the copper exists, or so Nicolai hoped.  Of course that was not the end of it.  More expeditions follow, and then in 1898/99 a flood of prospectors poured into the Copper Basin.  Most were headed for the Klondike, but some stayed to prospect.  In the meantime the legend of the rich copper vein grew.

In fact Nicolai and his people were facing hard times in the fall of 1899.  Simpson imagines this was because earlier in the season many of Nicolai’s young people had taken up with the prospectors, drinking and carrying on, instead of preparing for winter.  By the fall of 1899 they had returned to Taral but the situation is exacerbated by the presence of a commercial fishery at the mouth of the river (begun in 1889), and hundreds of prospectors who were hunting for game and setting fire to the country.  

Lone Janson in her book The Copper Spike writes that Nikolai and his people were facing starvation at the onset of winter in 1899.  Janson does not write about the extenuating circumstances: the commercial fishery and the presence of prospectors, but USGS geologist Fred Moffit  (1915; 1930), who visited the Chitina Basin soon after, writes that forest fires were a problem as prospectors burned “many square miles” of timber, in part to get rid of mosquitoes and to provide forage for stock.  The geologist Oscar Rohn (1900) who traveled up the Chitina River during the summer of 1899 wrote that animal populations had either declined or the animals had migrated out of the valley because he had found large numbers of animal skulls and bones but saw few animals.

For these reasons it could not have been a better time to approach Nicolai with a proposition for learning the location of the copper.

The facts of the situation are that Nicolai did reveal a source of copper for a cache of supplies and for this he has been demeaned by some as the savage innocent who “traded a multimillion-dollar copper mine for a cache of food” (Janson 1975; Mendenhall and Schrader 1903).  From this perspective the Ahtna are considered passive participants who made little contribution to the history of the region except to reveal the source of the copper that gave the industry its start (Pratt 1998). 

In Simpson’s view Nicolai is smarter and more calculating. He cannot know the value of the copper to the outside world, but realizes it must be worth something and therefore has to wring some meaningful concessions from the white men.  The prospectors suggest that they split their cache of food with the Ahtna, but Nikolai bargains, asking for all of the food and the prospectors’ word that they will build a clinic for the Indians.  In the end Nicolai reveals the source of the copper, gets the food, staving off starvation, and eventually a clinic, though it is built long after Nicolai dies.  This fictional account leaves out the fact that what Nicolai revealed to the prospectors was essentially worthless to the Ahtna, who had no need to mine copper since they could easily pick it up off of the ground.  It was also worthless to the mining industry.  As National Park Historian Geoff Bleakley points out, richer copper deposits were found further west in the Kennicott valley and the Nicolai prospect never produced any copper.

But overriding the argument of whether Nicolai was duped or not is the fact that the Ahtna were never compensated by the mining industry for the use of Ahtna lands or the minerals extracted from those lands.

As Simpson’s Nicolai knows, the world is changing, but little is written about how those changes affected the Ahtna.  Instead historians have focused on the heroic efforts to build the Copper River Northwestern railroad and the Kennicott mine.  Simpson’s Nicolai sees a different story.  The whites have introduced disease and whisky, “which is like a disease.”  As a result traditional society begins to fall apart as young people stop listening to their leaders and go off to live the easy life and work for wages.  Men become drunk and useless and it falls to the women to take up the slack.  In interviews with Ahtna elders it appears that outlying villages and camps on the Chitina River were abandoned by the 1920s.  Certainly the more remote areas further up the Chitina River were abandoned early on.  No elder interviewed in the last 20 or 30 years lived at Tebay Lakes or Nicolai’s camps on the Kiagna River or at Dan Creek.  Pratt (1998) notes that the Ahtna may have, for religious reasons, avoided the Nizina River following Nicolai’s death around 1899 or 1900.  According to VanStone Taral was occupied until the construction of the Copper River Northwestern Railroad in 1911 when everyone moved to Chitina, though Constance West thinks people lived there for sometime after that.

Eventually a syndicate of eastern financiers, that included the Guggenheim brothers and the House of Morgan, developed the Kennicott valley prospects and built the Copper River Northwestern Railroad to transport the ore to tidewater.  The town of Chitina was established first as a construction camp for the railroad and later became a stop on the railroad and commercial center for the region.  In 1920 a school was built for the local Native population, prompting the final abandonment of villages such as Taral and Tonsina because Ahtna children were supposed to attend school during the winter months (Buzell and McMahan 1995).  The school operated sporadically until 1927 when it became permanent.  Both the Native and non-Native population of Chitina increased until 1939 when Kennicott closed the mine and the railroad was shut down.  The Alaska Road Commission closed its offices in Chitina in 1942, adding to the decline in population and in 1956 both the infirmary and the school closed and the remaining population dispersed to other places where jobs and health care were available.  However many people who had been raised in Chitina or still had relatives there returned in the summer.

The Chitina River, installment 3

The Chitina River is the principal eastern tributary of the Copper River, draining the entire southern slope of the Wrangell Mountains and much of the north-facing slope of the Chugach Range.  In the Ahtna language the Chitina is called Tsedi Na' or 'copper river.'  In other words, it is the true Copper River.  What is marked on maps as Copper River is called is simply called 'river' or Atna'.  In Upper Ahtna the river is called K'etna'.  


 The Chitina River is approximately 112 miles long,  swift and turbid with water flow dependent chiefly on mountain runoff, so that the greatest flow occurs during hot, dry weather.  On the upper Chitina the grade is 33 feet to the mile but becomes less steep on the lower river.  The major tributaries of the Chitina are the Nizina, Lakina, and Kuskulana on the north bank, and the Tebay and Tana on the south bank.

Allen and the expedition made their way up the Chitina River accompanied by one Ahtna guide.  They tried to live off the country but found only hares or rabbits.  The snow was nearly gone.  Initially they traveled along the riverbed and found rough going over boulders and gravel.  On April 13 they caught up with Skilly, one of the Ahtna who had accompanied Allen up the Copper River to Taral.  Skilly had parts of a moose that some wolves had killed.  In addition an old woman brought in another small piece of moose meat and a moose’s nose.  The old woman was Wahnie’s mother who lived near the Chitina River.  A little later on they met a hunting party composed of 2 men and 2 women along with several children.

Allen learned that Nicolai was further up the Chitina near the headwaters of the Chittystone River.  Allen describes the Chitina as having two forks, and he says Skilly lived some way up the central fork of the Chitina – possibly on the Tana or Kiagna rivers.  This is confusing because Allen says the Ahtna told him the south fork of the Chitina is uninhabited. Looking at a map the south branch referred to may be the Tana River.  It is known that Ahtna lived on the smaller tributary of the Kiagna River.  The Chitina has one major fork the Nizina River.  The Chittystone River flows into the Nizina.

The Ahtna, as do most Natives, make short fast marches and never load themselves down with packs that exceed 20 pounds.  The men carry only a light gun and a skin blanket while the women and workers (who Allen refers to as slaves) are loaded down with camp paraphernalia. 

As discussed in an earlier posting, skilly is Allen’s interpretation of the Ahtna word ciile’.  The term means clan helper.  Ciile’ were usually the nephews of the headmen, that is his sister’s sons. In the 19^th century Ahtna society was highly stratified; at the top was a headman who often had several wives.  These wives were frequently from different clans.  In this way the headman could spread his influence to many different segments of Ahtna society.  Second and third wives did most of the work.  The Ahtna word for slave is ‘elnaa.  In the Ahtna dictionary slaves are defined as drudge, helper, servant or second wife who works in the home.  Below the headman and his family were lesser families and then orphans and widows, people who had no family support and were dependent on the largess of the headman and more prosperous families.  Allen often commented on the refusal of Ahtna men to carry anything on the trail except their gun or weapon.  When Allen tried to carry a load that is equal to those of his men the headmen ridiculed him for acting like a slave or drudge.

Skilly agreed to accompany the party to Nicolai’s camp but refused to carry anything but Allen’s pack.  After several hours of travel the party lunched on moose meat and 2 or 3 blue geese.  Allen noted that the party was weak because they could not get enough meat to keep up their strength.  They ate all of the food and moved on.

As they approached Nicolai’s camp, the chief gave them a salute of gunfire, which the expedition returned. Allen says the more shots fired the higher the status of the headman.  On one occasion 150 shots were fired in welcome.

Nicolai’s house was supposed to be in the heart of the “mineral region” and Allen writes that he showed them the locality of a vein of copper that in April was above the snow line.  Nicolai told Allen the pure Copper was on the “Chittyto River” and on other tributaries of the “Chittyna’.”  Nicolai had bullets of pure copper that he said he had obtained from Natives on the other side of the Mountains (no direction given).

Allen concludes, “I do not believe that the natives guard as a secret treasure the copper or other mineral beds, but think that they would willingly reveal to the white man their knowledge in the matter.”

The Copper River gets its name because of the deposits of raw copper found there.  Nuggets of pure copper could be picked up off the ground and pounded into arrowheads, knife blades, and things like pedants.  Copper was an important item of trade and the Ahtna traded it to the Tlingit living at Yakutat on the Gulf of Alaska who then hammered copper ingots into bow tie shaped forms that were worth slaves and given away at potlatches.

Ahtna traders brought copper to Nuchek on Hinchenbrook Island in Prince William Sound.  Davidson, writing in the Alaska Coast Pilot of 1869 notes that “…the principal source of [pure copper] is on the Atna or Copper River, about twenty-five or thirty miles above its mouth, where discovery and research are retarded on account of the reported hostility of the natives.”

The Russian American Company sent people to locate the source of copper but they never did.  At end of the 19^th century American prospectors found the source and in the early 20^th century built a mine and railroad to bring the raw copper out to tide water.  Some say that Nicolai and the Ahtna were cheated and they blame Nicolai for revealing the source and making a bad deal.

Nicolai had food, a 5 gallon pot filled with meat.  The party ate their fill, consuming about 5 pounds of meat each along with gallons of soup.  Most of the food was fat run into the small intestines of a moose. They all immediately fell asleep after eating and when they awoke continued to eat more.  During the following days they ate moose, beaver, lynx, and rabbits. 

Allen convinced Nicolai that he should have a moose skin boat built and accompany the exploring party back to Taral.  Nicolai refused to go with Allen further up the Copper River.  Nicolai told Allen there were plenty of sheep (tebay in Ahtna) in the vicinity but the hunters were able to kill only two of them. 

On April 27, after a day of hunting, the women and children began hiking down river to join Allen, Nicolai and the moose skin boat at the mouth of the Chittystone.  The boat was 27 feet long with a beam 5ft. The boat was covered with untanned moose skins over a wood frame built with knives and ax of Native manufacture (meaning stone or copper?). Seams were double sewn with sinew and the hide strapped to the frame with rawhide.  The boat was extremely flexible but according to Allen, “unsightly.”  Not much water in the Chittystone and the boat often grounded so the crew had to jump out and push the boat along, most of the time they waded rather than rode.  The current averaged 6 miles an hour.  Ice, 4 to 6 feet lined the bank of the river.  Allen noted the passing of Chititu Creek that had yellow colored water caused by the presence of so much copper, and which salmon never ascend.

Nicloai acted as helmsmen.  He shouted “To Kwul-le” or “To Keelan” or A-to.  The first two words were shallow water and deep water, the last was “paddle.”  Allen writes that Nicolai provided him important lessons in steering a boat that later proved useful on the Tanana River.

Eventually the party reached the confluence of the Chitina and Nizina where they camped and were joined by the woman and children who had walked down. 

Started down the Chitina, and met another boatload of Ahtna.  All were stopped by the ice and had to camp in a patch of willows for the night.  As the neared the mouth of the Chitina the ice disappeared and the current ran about 6 miles and hour.  The snow had disappeared from the hills and riverbed, a wind blew, blowing up great clouds of dust that made it difficult to see.  Made an early camp, sent out hunters to kill sheep.  They were able to kill 6 animals.  The next day the party left camp in a snowstorm, which turned to rain in the afternoon.  Passed the mouth of the Tebay River.  Reached Taral late in the Afternoon of May 4th.

An aerial view  of Wood Canyon and railroad right of way used by the Copper River and Northwestern Railroad to transport copper from the Kenicott mines on the upper Chitina River.  The dotted line is a proposed hydro electric dam that was never built.

Cliffs along the Nizina River.  The Chittystone flows in from the right.

Aerial photo of the confluence of the Chitna and Copper rivers.  The Chitina flows in the from the upper right corner of the photo.  Taral is located just above the sand bar along the Copper River in the right hand side of the picture.  

Taral, installment 2

Ahtna house located near the mouth of the Chitina River, circa 1900.  This photo taken by the USGS geologist Frank G. Schrader.  To the left is a house made from spruce bark.  The man and boy wear the most modern style, clothes brought in by miners and non-Native traders.  The woman is wearing a traditional style of dress made from cloth instead of skin.  

Mouth of the Chitina River in about 1900.  This photo was taken by the USGS geologist Frank G. Schrader.

Allen called Taral the metropolis of the Copper River country. In the Ahtna language Taral is called Taghaelden or ‘dike place.’ The name Taghaelden comes from the Ahtna word taghael, which Ahtna elder Andy Brown said was derived from the word takalghael, a term for willow brush that was cut and bound up or made into bundles from 6 to 8 feet long.  Bundles of brush were used to build fish weirs.  A fish weir was like a fence that was used to block a small creek, such as Taral Creek, which flows into the Copper River near  Taral.  A small fish trap was inserted into an opening in the weir.  The trap was used to catch grayling, trout, and Dolly Varden.  Ahtna elder Frank Billum explained: "Taral, tay’delghael they put brush in creek to make a weir with a small trap, only for trout and grayling.” 

Taral had an inherited chief’s title.  The chiefs of a least 12 of the most important Ahtna villages had an inherited chief's name associated with the village.  The title was based on the place name of the village plus the term denen or ghaxa (the Ahtna words for chief or headman).  Such a system of inherited titles is unusual.  The chief of Taral was known as Taghael Denen or ‘Person of Barrier in Water.’  

Taral, which is no longer inhabited, was located on the east bank of the Copper River just below the mouth of the Chitina River. In the 1800s two other villages were located near Taral.  Three brothers were headmen or chiefs of these villages.  Allen only saw one of these villages, Taral.  The other two places were located near the mouth of O'Brien Creek, and the mouth of Fox Creek, across the river from Taral.  

 When the three brothers died sometime in the mid 19^th century a man named Nicolai took over as chief.  Nicolai and his younger brothers Hanagita and Eskilida were nephews of the chief at O’Brien Creek.  Nicolai controlled a territory that encompassed most of the Chitina River drainage.  He had houses in several places, but Taral was his wife’s fish camp.  At Taral Allen first heard about Nicolai, but in order to meet him he had to go to one of Nicolai's houses up the Chitina River.  

As Allen approached Taral the Natives with him asked to salute the village with gunfire, a tradition or accepted method for announcing your arrival – probably meant to assure the residents that you came in peace with empty firearms.  The salute was answered with a single shot.  As they approached the village they saw a single man, one woman and two children.  

The man was John Bremner – “certainly the most uncouth specimen of manhood that I had, up to that time, ever seen.”  

Bremner was expecting the return of an Ahtna trading party and had been reduced to a single round.  He had been living on rabbits or hares – snaring them in the vicinity of the village.  Bremner had spent the winter at Taral and had almost starved to death.  

Allen and his party had reached Taral on April 10 with 230 pounds of food, which was supposed to sustain them until they reached the Yukon.  Food would be a problem throughout the entire trip and without help from the Natives it is doubtful that Allen and his part would have survived.  

Those Eyak which had come up river with Allen were dismissed and headed back down river – a perilous journey since the ice was nearly gone.  All of the Ahtna, expect one called Wahnie. went their separate ways – two going up the Chitina River and the other further up the Copper River.  

Taral consisted of a summer and winter house.  Bremner lived in the winter house.  Located about 1.5 miles from Taral was a rectangular house made of spruce boughs used by several women and children.  This may have been a house used to sequester young woman who are having their first period.  

At Taral Allen found a larger Russian Orthodox cross and the remnants of a Russian trading post.  He  sent one of the Ahtna to purchase dried fish and the man returned with 25 dried salmon, ten of which they gave to the women.  The explorers cached 180 pounds of provisions at Taral before leaving to explore the Chitina River. 

People of Taral.  This photo was taken circa 1910-1920.  Chief Eskilida is sitting in the front row.

Lt. Henry Allen's expedition, installment 1

INTRODUCTION

In 1885 Lt. Henry Allen and four companions traveled 1,500 miles, ascending the Copper River, crossing the Alaska Range, floating down the Tanana River to the Yukon, then crossing overland from the Yukon to Koyukuk River, floating down that river to the Yukon and then out to St. Michael on the Bering Sea coast.  Allen’s report provided some the earliest and most detailed information about this great expanse of interior of Alaska.

Allen was born in Kentucky in 1859, attended West Point and served in the army for 41 years, including as commander of the American Occupation Forces in Europe between 1919 and 1923. 

Allen’s expedition was one of several launched by the US Army to explore Alaska.  The Indian wars were coming to an end and the veteran Indian fighter Nelson A. Miles was put in charge of the Army’s operations in the Pacific Northwest.  Miles was fascinated with reports from Alaska and in 1883 sent Lt. Frederick Schwatka on an expedition to explore the Yukon River.  Schwatka’s success led Miles to determine a more ambitious goal, to ascend the Copper River and cross the Alaska Range into the Yukon River drainage.  No other non-Native had made such a journey.  Several Russian expeditions had tried but perished. 

Miles first sent Lt. William Abercrombie to explore the Copper River, but he failed.  So in the spring of 1885 Allen and two hand picked men, Sgt, Cady Robertson and Pvt. Frederick W. Fickett (Fickett's unpublished journal is in the University of Alaska, Anchorage archives), began their expedition.  They were later joined by John Bremner (see Bremner’s journal in Seton-Kerr "Shores and Alps of Alaska") and Pete Johnson.  The goal of the mission was not only to explore uncharted territory but to make a report on the disposition of the Native people, including whether they posed a threat to future development of the territory.  The Ahtna, whose territory included most of the Copper River drainage, had a fierce reputation and memories of the ill-fated Russian expeditions lingered. 

This is a synopsis of the Allen expedition taken from Allen’s report published by for the Northern History Library, Alaska Northwest Publishing Company 1985 and edited by Terrence Cole. Additional information comes from a number of sources.

Allen began his report with a synopsis of what was known about the exploration of all three rivers. More was known about the Copper River than the Tanana or Koyukuk.  In fact very little was known about the Tanana – which was known as the least explored river in Alaska or North America.  Since Allen’s time we have learned much more about Russian exploration of the Copper River.

Departure

The party departed Portland Oregon for Sitka with stops in Townsend Washington, Victoria and Nanaimo British Columbia, Wrangell and Juneau Alaska.  Arrived in Sitka.  The steamer Leo, which was supposed to take Allen and his party to Nuchek in Prince William Sound, had headed south.  Allen was finally able to get permission for the US Navy steamer Pinta to take the party to Nuchek.  They left Sitka on March 16th and arrived in Nuchek March 19. 

Nuchek was an Alutiiq village which had also been the site of a Russian trading post.  In 1885 it was still an Alutiiq village but the trading post was run by the Alaska Commercial Company.  When Allen arrived at Nuchek he was told that an Ahtna trading party was expected but had stopped in an Eyak village at the mouth of the Copper River.  (Seton Kerr describes Nuchek)

The problem now was how to get from Nuchek to the mouth of the Copper River.  Allen finally obtained a couple of row boats and some Native people to man them.  He also picked up a prospector named Peter Johnson, who was married to an Eyak woman.  Johnson was partners with John Bremner, another prospector, who had gone up the Copper River the pervious summer and was still there in the spring of 1885.

The trip between Nuchek and the mouth of the Copper River took several days because of bad weather and tides.  From Nuchek the party went north, around Johnstone Point and stayed the night on the north side of Hinchenbrook Island.  The next day they rowed on to Point Whitshed where they met two elderly Eyak stringing clams.  (Cordova was once called the clam capital of the world).  They stayed the night at Point Whitshed and started out at 3:00 to take advantage of the high tide.  By the middle of the day the tide had gone out and the party was stranded on mud flats so they made camp and Allen and Johnson walked to the village of Eyak on the Eyak River about 1 mile below what is now called Eyak Lake.   Returning from Eyak village, Allen and Johnson ran into two Natives, an Ahtna whom Allen called “Skilly” and an Eyak he called Kawkus. (Skilly is not a proper name but a noun describing a worker or man who works for his chief or clan leader.  The person is classified as a younger brother or male parallel cousin – that is, some one who is considered a relative or relation. In the Ahtna language the word is ciile’(See Kari 1991, the Ahtna dictionary)).  Later in the expedition Allen refers to certain Ahtna as Skilly.

Information on Eyak village from the anthropologists de Laguna and Birket-Smith: the village was visited by Jacobsen and Abercrombie in the late 1880s.  Jacobsen, who was a German ethnographer working for a Berlin museum, saw 10 houses.  Abercrombie, an American military officer, saw a dozen houses built of logs, slabs of wood and planks.  Allen found 5 houses and the U.S. census of 1890 reports 27 houses with 28 families.  The village was demolished at the end of the 19th century to make room for a cannery that was never built.  The people moved closer to Cordova. 

Allen calls Skilly the captain of the Ahtna trading party.  He and Kawkus are taking a load of furs, which the Ahtna has brought down the Copper River, to Nuchek.  Allen purchases the furs and has the two men take them back to Alaganik, an Eyak village at the mouth of the Copper River.

Information on Alaganik – Abercrombie described Alaganik as a fishing village located on one of the branches of the Copper River near its mouth.  He says there were about 7 houses. Abercrombie thought the village was founded in 1868 after a measles epidemic, but Eyak oral tradition says the village was very old, possibly one of the oldest of the Eyak villages.  The village was abandoned toward the very end of the 19th century after a severe epidemic and people moved to Cordova.  Allen reported that a Russian trading post had been built in 1788 just south of Alaganik but when he was there in 1885 he found no trace of the post. 

At this point Allen and his party continue on to Alaganik.  They make the mouth of the Copper River and start upstream on the western most tributary but are blocked by an ice jam that forces them to ferry supplies by foot.  All this time it had been raining and blowing and Allen describes how the crew is drenched to the skin and tired out.  There is no firewood with which to make a fire, warm up and dry out.  From where they have cached the supplies the party splits up into 3 groups each starting out on foot to find Alaganik in the dark and sleeting rain.  After walking 2 hours Allen and his group find the village which consists of two houses.  In the house where Allen slept there were 29 people and 10 dogs.  At Alaganik were two Ahtna.  Allen hired these two men and all the others to ferry his supplies to the village, but had to give up completing the task because everyone was so worn out.  At this point Allen returns to Alaganik and finds Skilly and Kawkus.  None of the Natives want to continue up river, and the Ahtna are content to wait until another Ahtna trading party comes down river in May, before returning up river.  Allen has all he can do to get all of his supplies to Alaganik.

The party leaves Alaganik and starts up the Copper River using canoes and sledges purchased in Sitka.  The weather is terrible, with rain and snow.  The rain melts the snow and weakens the ice making travel extremely difficult.  Eventually the canoes are abandoned and one is cut in half to serve as sledge.  Supplies, including the tents are abandoned, and the party ends up hauling 150 pounds of flour, 40 pounds of rice, two sides of bacon, 15 pounds of tea, extract of beef, deviled ham and chocolate.  They exist on a piece of fired bacon and one flapjack.  

Comment: Through the entire journey the party has trouble finding food.  At one point they try to trek and hunt at the same time, but that does not work out.  Eventually they rely on the Natives to provide food or go hungry.  Spring in Alaska is the most difficult time of the year for finding food.  The thaw makes it hard to travel over land while river ice presents a problem for river travel.  Towards the middle of May the Ahtna began congregating along the Copper River waiting for the salmon.  Caribou and moose were upland away from the river.  But interior Alaska has never had abundant food resources.  Starvation has always been a constant threat.  During the summer the Ahtna gorged on salmon, and at certain times of the year they intercepted herds of caribou.  But in May there was little fresh food and the winter supply was all but gone.

On their way up river they pass the faces of several glaciers.  Goodwin glacier, then Childs and Miles glaciers.  They have to cross the foot of Childs glacier – that creates the west bank of the Copper River and causes the river to form a single channel.  Today the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has a sonar counter across from Childs glacier which is used to count salmon as they ascend the Copper River.  Also located here is the Million Dollar bridge built for the Copper River and Northwestern. Completed in 1910, the Million Dollar Bridge was the crux of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, built to carry copper oar 196 miles from Kennicott to Cordova. Childs Glacier did not engulf the bridge, but the glacier crept to within 1,475 feet in June 1911.

Every morning Allen had problems getting his Native helpers to leave camp.  They preferred to stay in their shelters than face the bad weather. 
“On the morning of the 3rd of April, after a terrible night, so reluctant were they to leave that I was compelled to pull down the small pieces of shelter that had erected and drag each one from his resting place onto the snow.”

They eventually got beyond Abercrombie Canyon and the weather partially cleared, which raised their sprits.  Camped at Baird Canyon – named after Prof. S.F. Baird of the Smithsonian Institution - that evening it snowed and in the morning the party was completely covered.  In an aside Allen describes their sleeping bags were made of water proof linen.  The bag was 6.5 feet and large enough so as not to cramp the arms.  A poncho was pulled over the head in place of closing the bag.

Allen thinks that Baird Canyon marks the transition between the coast and the interior climates and the sun came out again.  The snow was firmer and it was easier going.  Along the river the snow measured 4.5 feet deep.  Walked until 10 pm that night.  During the day the sun had melted the snow but after sunset it became cold and the snow clogged up the webbing on their snowshoes making it difficult to walk.  Next day they passed the Bremner River which the Ahtna told Allen thaws earlier than the Copper River.

Allen’s eyes began to bother him, as did the eyes of the Eyak.  Several times Allen said he had to bathe the eyes of the Eyaks, whose eyes would be so swollen when they got up that could not open them.

They pass the Tiekel River (Konsina) which enters the Copper River from the west.  Night of April 6 they camp at the mouth of the Uranatina River.  On the opposite bank – east side – across from the mouth of the Uranatina is Spirit Mountain (see photograph below), which Allen supposed was Mt. Wrangell.

At this point everyone in the party beings to realize that they cannot hunt while at the same time make headway on their trek upriver.  The men begin to husband their food, and for the first time they attempt to eat the entrails of a porcupine.  One morning the Eyak smear their faces with ashes, which they explained was protection against against Mt. Wrangell – which was known to spit fire and smoke and to produce great rumblings which the Eyak thought were the workings of a great sprit.

Walked through Wood Canyon – named after Col, Clay Wood - - canyon zig zags so that the expedition cannot seen very far forward or rearward.  Allen reports the walls of the canyon are from 100 to 500 feet height and the river narrows down – the twists and turns of the river creates chambers or sections – in one of the chambers Allen describes an ice wall 100 feet high and 30 feet wide.  

At the upper end of Wood Canyon they see their first habitation since leaving Alaganik.  Does not say on what bank the house is located, but that it is about 11 by 14 with a long low entry way that the party has to crawl through.  Found some half spoiled dried salmon, which they ate.  This house may have been located at or near the mouth of Eskilida Creek – and may have been the fish camp of Eskilida.  Ts’enłt’e’ Cae’e, mouth of Eskalida Creek (Reckord 1983a:95, No. 3; Kari 1983:6, No. 54; McKinley and Kari Ahtna Tape (AT) 23.  Chief Eskalida had a fish camp at this location. 

Chief Eskalida dipping for salmon in Wood Canyon.   This photo was taken in the summer, circa 1920.

Chief Eskalida's fish camp on the Copper River.  This is mile 136 of the Copper River Northwestern Railroad

These are Ahtna men of Taral, the Ahtna village visited by Allen.  This photo taken circa 1915-120.

The expedition reached Taral the following day.

Retirement

In January of this year I retired.  After 11 months I find myself with a lot of time on my hands and a lot of ideas about what I want to do.  Before retiring I worked for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as an anthropologist.  Anthropology and art are my two main interests.  I retired to focus more on art, but have not lost my interest in anthropology.  This blog combines these two interests as well as my life long fascination with military uniforms from Napoleonic era.  At different times I will focus on anthropology, then art and sometimes military uniforms.

The idea for a blog started with the idea of writing popular books about the history and culture of east central Alaska.  Professionally I have focused on the history and culture of the upper Tanana and Copper rivers.  This area of Alaska has a rich cultural history.  Athabaskan people have inhabited the area for thousands of years.  My interest is in the more recent history of the area beginning with the advent of the fur trade in late 18th century.  Russian explorers, looking for fur and copper, were the first non-Natives to penetrate the region.  Almost every expedition sent by the Russian American Company met with a bad end.  As a result the region was largely unexplored until the American Army Lt. Henry Allen made his epic journey in the summer of 1885 walking up the Copper River, crossing over the Alaska Range through Suslota Pass, floating down the Tanana River to its confluence withe Yukon, taking a detour to the Koyukuk River, and floating down the Yukon to reach St. Michael, all in one summer.  Coincidently I have been to many of the places Allen visited.

Allen published a detailed journal which has since been republished and widely read.  This blog will begin with a re-telling of Allen's epic laced with all sorts of additional information which I and others have learned.  Before going on I want to acknowledge many of the people who have contributed to the historical and cultural record of the area.  First and foremost are the Native people some of whom I will list here: Andrew Isaac, Oscar Isaac, Martha Isaac, Silas Solomon, Annie Denny, Maggie Isaac, Kenneth Thomas Sr.  Gaither Paul, Gene Henry, Walter Northway, Titus David, Katie John, Fred Ewan, Robert and May Marshall, Lena and Jerry Charlie, Steven John, Jim McKinley, and Emma Jonathan.  Others who made important contributions are the linguist Dr. James Kari, and the anthropologists Frederica de Laguna and Catherine McClellan, and Holly Reckord.