Iñupiaq men in qayaqs, Noatak, Alaska, circa 1929. Edward S. Curtis Collection, Library of Congress Digital Collections.
Crossing the Chilkoot Pass, circa 1898. Courtesy Candy Waugaman and Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park.
The Gold Rush boomtown of Nome on the Seward Peninsula, 1900. Courtesy of U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library.
“As the Old Flag Came Down: Eyewitnesses to the October 18, 1867 Alaska Transfer Ceremony”
Chris Allan, 2018.
This 32-page booklet offers 16 eyewitness accounts of the 1867 Alaska Transfer Ceremony held in Sitka, Alaska. Drawn from newspaper stories, letters, and journals, there is one pre-transfer account, one post-transfer account, and 14 that describe the event. It also includes some 1868 photographs taken by Eadweard Muybridge. These accounts provide a rare opportunity to see how multiple observers remember and record the same events differently. Beyond the descriptions of the transfer ceremony, these accounts offer remarkable portraits of Sitka as a community in flux as the Americans arrive and the Russians depart and the Tlingits adapt to the new regime.