STORIES OF COURAGE & BRAVERY IN ALASKA'S RUGGED COPPER RIVER VALLEY

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Copper River People Extreme Rescues Looking Back The Copper River Way
Showing posts with label Looking Back. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Looking Back. Show all posts

The Ahtna Probably Played A Role In Russia Abandoning Alaska

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How A Small Band Of Ahtna Villagers Beat Back The Russians In Interior Alaska & May Have Helped Pave The Way  


Celebrating 150 Years
Of American Rule

Far from the coast, in Ahtna Country, along the traditional border with the Tanana people, are some very old villages: Slana, Mentasta and Batzelnetus.

This is the historic heart of local Native legend. It’s the place where small cadres of Ahtna warriors played a very important role in America’s history. This is where Native villagers  beat back Russian soldiers who were trying to make inroads into their homeland. 

The Russians saw Alaska’s sea otters and coastal wildlife as raw material. Russians sailed on over, declared their ownership of Alaska lands, and began a wholesale slaughter of animals. They shipped their furs back to Moscow to be made into big fur hats. 

The Russians were brutal in every way. And the Ahtna, though separated from the coast by huge mountain ranges had heard the bad news about these invaders.

When various small groups of Russian soldiers forced their way into the Copper Valley, on exploratory expeditions, it never turned out well for the Russians. 

One Russian troop marched up the Copper Valley in the 1700’s. Vicious as ever, the Russians took to tying up and whipping the chiefs in every successive little Ahtna village, and stealing local women. Then they got to “Roasted Salmon Place” -- Batzelnetus. And that is where a small band of Ahtna killed them.

By 1848, the Russians had begun fretting about their deadly enemies, the British, who were headed across Canada on their own northern fur-gathering mission. The Russians tried again. They sent another small group of soldiers up into Ahtna Country. 

Once again, Russian soldiers slogged their way north across the wilderness. And they came to Slana, a little settlement very near Batzelnetus. 

Standing up to Russian soldiers; this was the danger that had been bred in the Ahtna people of this region for decades. In the night, as the Russians rushed out of their tents in their nightclothes, the Ahtna attacked. And hacked the Russian soldiers to death. 

Russians were getting the message. If they couldn’t make their way past a dedicated little band of Ahtna warriors, then they probably would have a hard time in the interior. Russia decided to cut their losses in Alaska. Only eleven years later, in 1859, Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States. But this idea was put on the back burner when the Civil War erupted. After the war ended, William Seward, Secretary of State, bought Alaska for America. This was exactly 150 years ago, in 1867.

It took another 20 years for Americans to successfully breach the Copper Valley. 

The Ahtna people changed the course of American history, by fighting off the Russians with their own Homeland Security forces.  Without Ahtna valor, Russia might have not given up and gone back home. And Alaska would still be “Russian America.”


 Coming Soon: Bearfoot’s book of true Alaska stories… 
Copyright, 2017. Northcountry Communications, Inc. 

Dragging Beans, Flour, Sugar & Evaporated Apples Into The Copper Valley Wilderness

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"What The Merchants Advised... Was Purchased Without Question"

  Northcountry Communications. All Rights Reserved.

 


A Copper Valley Gold Miner surrounded by the heavy material goods he had dragged up the mountain.


There were no shortages of "experts" on what to take to the Copper River Valley during the 1898 Gold Rush. Chief among them was the big, new Chicago mail order warehouse, Montgomery Ward.
Today, you can go to the Pioneer Museum in Fairbanks, and see a Montgomery Ward poster with the heading, 'We Know What You'll Need in Alaska." Montgomery Ward's "Grocery Outfit for One Man...12 to 14 Months" included:

400 lbs. of flour, 20 lbs. of corn meal, 40 lbs. rolled oats, 25 lbs. rice, 75 lbs. beans, 75 lbs split peas, 25 lbs salt pork, 2.25 ozs saccharine, 10 lbs. baking powder, 150 lbs bacon, 25 lbs dried beef, 2 lbs. soda, 6 packages of yeast cakes, 24 lbs salt, 2 dozen cans evaporated milk, 3 bars tar soap, 5 lbs. laundry soap, a 10 lb. tin of matches, 5 lbs. raisins,  25 lbs. coffee, 10 lbs. tea, 3 dozen soap squares, a lb. of pepper, half a pound of mustard, 20 lbs. evaporated apples, 6 jars beef extract, half a pound ground ginger, 20 lbs. evaporated peaches, 25 lbs. evaporated potatoes (in 5-lb canvas bags) and 5 lbs. evaporated onions. In case you happened to find yourself in Alaska, with "three or four men" requiring a meal, for an extra dollar, Montgomery Ward threw in an "Army Ration Packet" -- a 19th Century MRE --  that included Irish Stew and hard  tack -- weighing 4.75 pounds, and featuring little packets of salt, pepper, and coffee.

Montgomery Ward also had an equally heavy list of "clothing and hardware" necessities for a single miner.

"In making this list we offer only such articles as WE KNOW you should take to Alaska, and we confidently say, that with EVERY ARTICLE GUARANTEED AS REPRESENTED, there is no place in the world where, for the same money, you can duplicate this outfit in quantity and quality," Wards promised.

The well-prepared miner, said Montgomery Ward, needed 2 jumbo undershirts, 2 pairs of jumbo drawers, 2 summer undershirts, 2 pairs summer drawers, 2 pairs German socks, 3 pairs heavy hose, 4 pairs summer hose, a heavy sweater, with hood, a sleeping cap, a Danco cap, a Scotch camp, a blanket lined duck coat, a pair of duck pants, a mackinaw coat, a pair of mackinaw pants, 2 pairs duck overalls, a slicker, a pair of slicker pants, a souwester, 2 rubber blankets, 2 flannel overshirts, a "Klondike Esquimau" suit, a pair of horsehide gloves, 2 pairs horsehide lined mittens, 2 pairs woolen gloves, 2 pairs of supsenders, a 20 lb. sleeping bag, a Winchester 44. caliber rifle, a 44 Colt Revolver, bullets for both, a 7x7 wall tent, a pair of hip boots, a pair of leather boots, and 2 pairs of "Arctics."  For actual mining and household and personal maintenance, the miner also needed: a pair of U.S. blankets, a 20 lb. setting of "agate tableware" a miner's shovel and clamps, a 3 1/2 lb. ax, an extra ax handle, a 7 lbs board ax, 2 picks, 2 pick handles, a 3 lb. coffee mill for that 25 lbs of coffee, a 2 lb miner's gold pan, a rifle cover, a 4 1/2 lb. belt, a holster, a hunting knife and sheath, 2 pieces of mosquito nettings, 3 augers of various sizes with a handle, snow glasses, a 5 foot whip-saw, 5 1/2 foot cross-cut saws, a 28 inche rip-saw, 12 assorted files, a draw knife for peeling logs, a 30 lb. Yukon Stove, a 3 1/2 lb "heavy" hammer, and a light hammer, a pair of "Miner's Shoes", a "Miner's Glass", a brass pocket compass, and a 50 foot tape line.

Then, to top it off, a miner needed a ten-pound medicine chest, with 45 items in it, including medicines for colds, diarrhea, heart ailments, headaches, piles, toothaches, worms, gonorrhea -- and 50 cents worth of anti-scurvy medication.

Montgomery Ward warned potential miners:
"You should bear in mind that in a wild and inhospitable country, such as the Yukon is, where vegetables and fresh fruits are unknown, unless imported and sold at fabulous prices, something in the way of fruit is absolutely indispensable to ward off the dreaded scurvy. But there are other commodities which one's personal liking may induce him to take, as for instance, rice, syrup, oatmeal, hardtack and lime juice. "

The average miner's gear ran around 1,500 lbs. The problem of what to do with the gear once you got to Alaska was not addressed. How could one person move this amount of gear around the countryside, without roads, or horses -- or, in most cases, even dogs to help him?



An ax and knife grinder from the Gold Rush. It might have been the same one shown in the picture at the top of this page. This is at the Copper Center Museum.


Montgomery Ward cagily solved this problem of transport by showing illustrations of prospectors who somehow seemed to have beasts of burden show up in Alaska --  to help them with this task  One prospector is shown driving two horses and a large, heavily laden sled, across snow covered terrrain on an obvious trail.

The other prospector is sauntering along, leading a burro with some packs strapped to its back, and carrying a rifle. 

Addison Powell, in his book, Trailing & Camping In Alaska, commented on the gullibility of miners. He said,

"I traveled a thousand miles overland to Seattle, the metropolis of the northwest. Never again will that city be filled with such a mongrel lot of transients. They hailed from everywhere and were dressed in all sorts of clothes. What the merchants advised them to buy for their northern trip was purchased without question. They bought furs and striped and variegated mackinaw clothing, and proud of their purchases, paraded the streets in the most fantastic costumes."

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