Alaska’s Copper River has been navigated for trade and used for subsistence proposes since before the advent of recorded history. The river currently provides a rich Sockeye Salmon resource for commercial, personal use and subsistence fishermen. It is popular with paddle sports enthusiasts, offering many kayak and rafting adventures.
Location - Headwaters of the Copper River begin at the foot of Copper Glacier on the northern side of Mount Wrangell. From the glacier, the river flows some 287 miles to tidewater near Cordova and the Gulf of Alaska. The river runs through some the most rugged parts of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the Chugach and Wrangell mountains. George Herben has written book called Picture Journeys in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias that would interest visitors to the Park. Major tributaries, the Tanada, Slana, Chistochina, Sanford, Gakona, Gulkana, Tonsina, Kotsina, Chitina, Tiekel, Tasnuna, Bremner, Wernike, Allen, and Martin rivers add to its volume while reaching the Pacific Ocean. This river’s watershed drains more than 24,000 square miles of land.
Wildlife - Copper River Sockeye (Red) salmon are world renowned and form a vital part of the Alaska economy for both commercial and subsistence fishermen. Commercial fishing is the lifeblood of coastal Cordova and its fleet of gillnetters fishing the Copper River Delta. Personal use and subsistence fishermen ply the water with dip nets and fish wheels looking for the Red salmon. Popular locations along the River include Chitina and Gakona. King and Coho (Silver) salmon also migrate up the river each year. This river’s environment is home to Dall sheep, caribou, bison, moose and bear. Visiting Canada geese nest in large numbers on the river delta. Climates shift from those of the sub-arctic interior to the moist, maritime environment of Prince William Sound Read the rest of this entry »
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Kennecott is a historic mining town tucked away in a corner of the great Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Built to claim a truly huge and rich copper deposit in some of the wildest terrain of Alaska, much of this mining town remains in place. Congress designated Kennecott as a National Historic Landmark in 1986 and the site was taken into the National Park System in 1998 as part of the Wrangell-St. Elias Park.
History - Geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) first explored the region surrounding Root and Kennicott glaciers in 1899. They reported the area’s geology as favorable for copper formations.The Kennecott mine and town site was named after the nearby glacier, but there a misspelling of the name at some point in its history. Armed with the USGS information, Clarence Warner and “Tarantula Jack” Smith discovered a massive copper outcropping near the eastern edge of Kennicott Glacier. A guide with St. Elias Alpine Guides, the company that provides tours through the Kennecott Mill, remarked that “Tarantula Jack” had to be the perfect name for an old time prospector. The claim was referred to as the “Bonanza Mine Outcrop” and eventually came under the control of a mining engineer named Stephen Birch. Initial assays found the ore discovery to contain 70% copper. Modern copper mines are profitable with ore at the 1.5% copper levels.
Birch joined forces with eastern business partners, the Guggenheim Brothers and J. P. Morgan, to form the Alaska Syndicate. The group was even part of a political scandal involving President Taft, Gifford Pinchot of the Bureau of Forestry, and Seattle attorney Richard Ballinger. The Syndicate established the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1915, built the 196-mile Copper River and Northwestern Railway to tidewater at Cordova, and organized a steamship company to carry ore to Tacoma, Washington for processing. Birch’s group controlled the entire infrastructure necessary to bring the copper to market. Kennecott was a fully functional company town that employed nearly 600 people. There was a general store, powerhouse, hospital, hotel, bunkhouses, schoolhouse and recreation hall. As a company town, Kennecott was dry and adult entertainment was found in nearby McCarthy. Once it was apparent the copper ore was playing out, the company abruptly ceased operations and pulled out of the town in November of 1938. Read the rest of this entry »
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Wrangell is a community steeped in rich history, home to people for thousands of years. It is an island community in southern Southeast Alaska that has experienced the boom and bust resource development process so prevalent in Alaska’s past. Wrangell Island, strategically overlooking the mouth of the Stikine River, has been governed by four nations. People have lifeways dependent on subsistence gathering of food, commercial fishing, logging of the Tongass National Forest, and lately the tourism trade. Wrangell retains its unique character in a time of homogeny; gritty, independent and industrious.
Setting – The town of Wrangell is located on the extreme northern tip of the same named island. Wrangell is in the heart of the Tongass National Forest, an immense expanse of temperate rain forest. Tucked directly next to the mainland, the community lies some thirty miles from the border of British Columbia, Canada and is about halfway between the Alaskan cities of Ketchikan and Juneau.
History – Inhabitants settled Wrangell Island long before European contact with the coastal shores of Alaska. Tlingit people lived in settlements along the island and controlled trade with Natives of Canada’s interior via the Stikine River that passes through the coastal mountains. Wrangell was an outpost of Russian-America with establishment of Redoubt St. Dionysius built to protect the fur trade from Hudson’s Bay Company in 1834. Under the British flag, Hudson’s Bay Company leased land south of Cape Spencer and founded Fort Stikine to replace Redoubt St. Dionysius. On 18 October 1867, Amercian Secretary William Steward negotiated with Russian ambassador Baron Eduard de Stoeckel to purchase the Alaska Territory for $7.2 million. The United States became the fourth country to rule over Wrangell after the Tlingit, Russians and English. Read the rest of this entry »
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The watercourse running from the Spatsizi Plateau to the Pacific Ocean is a territory of superlatives, yet known simply as the Stikine River. Naturist John Muir’s initial trip up the river changed his life. He noted 300 glaciers along its shores. Details are in his book Travels in Alaska. Muir says of the Stikine, it’s a “Yosemite 100 miles long.” Alaskans note with some disappointment that the majority of the river lies within Canada, with the States’ portion being only 64 kilometers (40 miles) from the border.
Read more about the Stikine River in Bonnie Demerjian’s book Roll on! Discovering the Wild Stikine River
First People – The Tlingit people of Southeast Alaska named the river Stikine for Great River. Tlingit migration lore tells of their people’s travel west looking for a new homeland. They encountered a glacier that was too great to cross. A meltwater tunnel was visible at its base and several young men volunteered to attempt a passage through the crevasse. At the last moment, a couple of elders took the trip upon themselves fearing loss of the youth to the future of the group. These elders passed safety through the glacier and found the rich land of Southeast Alaska, Lingít Aaní. The remaining people followed their elders into their new land and became the first Tlingits. Stikine Tlingit traded historically with the Tahltan living on the upper reachs of the river. Read the rest of this entry »
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Alaska’s Panhandle is a rocky, narrow strip of land closely abutting British Columbia, running some 644 kilometers (400 miles) from Ketchikan to the upper end of the Inside Passage at Skagway. Steamships carried thousands of prospectors through Inside Passage from Seattle to jam the docks of Skagway and Dyea. Access to the Yukon River and ultimately Dawson City came via the Chilkoot Pass 1,140 meters (3,739 feet) above Dyea.
In its heyday, Dyea proclaimed itself like many other towns yet to come as the largest city in Alaska. Stampeders crossed Chilkoot Pass with their ton of goods in the effort to strike it rich in the Klondike goldfields starting in 1898. Thousands now come to hike the 53 kilometers (33 miles) through history to Lake Bennett each year. Those interested paddling from Lake Bennett to Dawson City on the Yukon River should read Jennifer Voss’s Yukon Trail.
Dyea – Little remains of this gold rush boomtown of 10,000 souls located at the delta of the Taiya River. Once the White Pass & Yukon Route (WP&YR) Railroad was completed, the town was dismantled and shifted towards Skagway. The Chilkoot Trailhead is 500 meters (1,640 feet) from the campground in Dyea. It is 12.5 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the trailhead passing through Finnegan’s Point to Canyon City
Canyon City – The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) campground at Canyon City is the first approved camping site on the trail. A side trail provides access to the old Canyon City town site were many relics of the gold rush remain in view. From Canyon City, hikers will pass through Pleasant Camp and travel a total of 8.4 kilometers (5.2 miles) to Sheep Camp.
Sheep Camp – A large campground is found at Sheep Camp that can handle 80 people. Most travelers on the Chilkoot Trail spend the night at Sheep Camp since it takes a good day of effort to make it from here 12.1 kilometers (7.5 miles) over the pass to Happy Camp in Canada. At its peak of use, 7,000 stampeders could be found around Sheep Camp. Two key historic landmarks are encountered enroute to the summit, the Scales and Golden Stairs. The Golden Staircase is the classic picture representative of the Yukon Gold Rush. If you look at the current State of Alaska vehicle license plate, the Golden Stairs will easily be seen at its center. Read the rest of this entry »
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July 8th, 2007 