AHS Blog
Date Posted: November 4, 2013
Categories: 49 History
By Anjuli Grantham
The Alaska Commercial Company is indisputably one of the most important businesses in the history of Alaska. A recent acquisition by Kodiak’s Baranov Museum helps Alaska’s museums and historical societies to better understand and exhibit this history.
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Alaska, 1888. Images courtesy Kodiak Historical Society/ Baranov Museum
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The Baranov Museum recently purchased a map from 1888, showing all of the Alaska Commercial Company’s trading stores and listing all known settlements within AC’s trading districts. Also included on the map are the names of all AC employees in the Territory, listed at the trading stations at which they work. For Kodiak, this map includes the names of individuals significant to local history. For example, P.D. Blodgett was the founder of the first cannery within the town of Kodiak and the oldest licensed bar in Alaska, the B&B. M.L. Washburn was the General Agent of the Kodiak District, making him the manager of a trading area that stretched from the Kodiak archipelago to Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, and portions of the Alaska Peninsula. He was also a founder of the Semidi Propagation Company, one of the earliest Alaskan fox farms.
This map’s significance comes from more than just the names listed. The Alaska Commercial Company was the economic heartbeat of much of Alaska for around the forty years following the U.S. purchase of Alaska. If you received mail, stirred sugar into your tea, owned a pair of boots, or opened a can of peaches from 1868-1908, chances are it was due to AC.
Yet, the merchandise and mail contracts were minor compared to the company’s control of the fur trade. I’m not just talking about the Pribilof fur seal industry, the massive operation which AC managed for many years. The reach of the company into the Alaska fur trade as a whole was impressive. In Kodiak, trappers brought fox, bear, and land otter pelts to the company and received a high premium for these furs, all of which were critical for the international fashion market. But only Natives could hunt fur bearing sea mammals. As a result, the company financed sea otter and seal hunting trips around the archipelago. In 1900, the company purchased sea otter pelts from Kodiak Alutiiq for $200 each.One additional detail that the map contains is sailing distances between major trading stations. This hints at Alaskan supply routes and includes information that is unexpected. For example, it shows the sailing distance from Kaguyak on the south end of Kodiak Island to San Francisco (1760 miles). This indicates that the schooners would depart St. Paul (modern day Kodiak), load up on furs at the station in Kaguyak, and then bring them back to the AC’s warehouses in San Francisco. From correspondence, we know that the station agent in Kaguyak worked with Native hunters from all around the south end of the island. From this illustration, we see what a major fur way station Kaguyak really was.
The Baranov Museum is currently in the planning stages of a permanent exhibit redesign. This map will feature prominently in the redesigned exhibits as a testament to the impact that AC had on both local and statewide history.
Date Posted: November 2, 2013
Categories: 49 History
From the Alaska State Archives comes news of the completion of the Exxon Valdez Litigation Records Project. The two-year project appraised and organized 3,500 boxes of Alaska Department of Law court case records, ultimately selecting 918 boxes for permanent preservation. The collection is now organized and its catalog record posted at WorldCat:
www.worldcat.org/oclc/856591471
From the Archives’s announcement: “Project staff identified about 2,700 boxes in Juneau that do not have permanent value, and provided appraisal guidelines for both permanent and nonpermanent files still in Anchorage. In accord with the original Exxon Valdez civil settlement consent decree, the state and the United States submitted a detailed plan in 2006 for a proposed restoration project, the Reopener for Unknown Injury. Research to support the reopener is ongoing. Once resolved, the state will be able to dispose of nonpermanent files in Anchorage and Juneau, and permanent files in Anchorage will join those already in the State Archives.
“Project staff also made consistent efforts to reach out to the public, particularly those living in the spill region. Staff contacted cultural agencies to offer information about the State Archives collection and to find out about Exxon-related collections in spill-area communities. To aid those who may want to study the Exxon Valdez incident, project staff created a website (
https://archives.alaska.gov/education/evos.html ) to help navigate the spill, the response, and court proceedings.”
Date Posted: October 29, 2013
Categories: 49 History
By Laura Samuelson, Director, Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum
For the last five weeks of Nome’s brief summer, the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum has been pleased to present excerpts from the diary of Wilfred A. McDaniel Sr. Wilfred and his brother Ed were two of the 20,000 Argonauts who streamed to the Nome Gold Rush in 1900. We are grateful to Wilfred’s daughter Irene McDaniel and her husband Robert Johnson as well as son Wilfred Jr. and Lois McDaniel who donated the photographs, writings, and artifacts collected between 1899 and 1907. The family preserved and protected Wilfred’s legacy for 93 years until the collection was donated to the people of Nome in 2001.
We conclude this series with a burning question: Should the boys stay in Nome or go south for the winter? Brother Ed voted with his gold nuggets and bought two tickets to San Francisco on the Senator. They had two days to close up camp and high tail it to Nome…
ALASKA BECKONS
By Wilfred A. McDaniel
On the morning of the 25th, the tent was taken down and with stove and cooking utensils, was cached with our other possessions. In the afternoon, carrying our luggage and blanket rolls, we mushed into Nome.
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WHERE THE HECK ARE MY SEA LEGS?! – Returning to California on the
hurricane deck of the steamship Senator in November 1900 storm
in the North Pacific. “The grub is as follows. Breakfast: Mush – very poor,
with lumps as big as an egg in it, boiled potatoes and fried meat and belly
wash coffee. Dinner: Boiled potatoes. Mush is left out and stew substituted.
Supper: Just read the dinner menu backwards and you have it.” Caption & Photo
by Wilfred McDaniel from the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum Archives
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The town was alive with the great influx of miners from the creeks and distant points, some making preparations for the long winter, others, like ourselves, arranging transportation to “The Outside.” Many were utterly discouraged, others in high spirits, according to the smiles of the Goddess Fortune!
On the evening of the 25th, from the heaving deck of the Senator, we saw the twinkling lights of Nome gradually fade away, as the Senator turned her bow southward, and it was with a feeling of regret that we saw the last gleam dim out, as the mists closed in.
Thoughts soon turn to the more comfortable prospects ahead in sunny California, and home, together with future plans for the coming spring, when the call of the North would lure us back to that desolate, but fascinating land!
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SEE YOU NEXT SUMMER, HANDSOME! – Just like 2013, this Gibson gal bids adieu to her fair weather Nome
beau back in 1902. Photo by Wilfred McDaniel from the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum Archives
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Date Posted: October 22, 2013
Categories: 49 History
By Laura Samuelson, Director, Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum
With less and less hours of daylight, everything is freezing especially the Brothers McDaniel. Do we stay or go? Spend the winter in a tent at -20F or go home to sunny San Jose, California and return next June. Which would you choose?? …
ALASKA BECKONS
By Wilfred A. McDaniel
“How cold is it?” Ed inquired, as I proceeded to get the breakfast, after a chilly night. I looked at the thermometer hanging outside, over the tent door. “Ten below zero,” I replied, “We can’t stand this much longer!”
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TAKE ME HOME, SWEET VICTORIA – “Steamers were anchored in the roadstead,
and a number had already departed with miners returning to “the States.” The
passenger ship, Victoria, carried Nomeites south for the winter for almost forty
years. Photo Wilfred McDaniel, Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum Archives
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After all of the outfit had been stacked, engine and pump bearings and moving parts sealed in heavy grease and canvassed, the respite from the strenuous labor of the season just finished, was indeed, a welcome relaxation! Many details still occupied our time, however, and there was still an important decision to be made. We must soon make permanent plans for the long winter, just beginning, or if we decide to go “Outside,” make reservations for the trip out. This was our final decision, for from experience gained, many changes in the pumping plant could be made, making necessary the selection and purchase of needed parts, which could best be done there.
Steamers were anchored in the roadstead, and a number had already departed with miners returning to “the States.” Navigation would soon close and all craft would be compelled to leave in a few days or risk the Arctic pack, which usually drifted in, early in November, effectually closing navigation until the following June.
“Well,” said Ed, one morning. “I’ll go to Nome and get a couple of steamer tickets, and you had better burn out that amalgam and fix it up, and we’ll take it out to ‘Frisco, to the mint.
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GOLD FEVER REWARDS – “This I did, putting the mixture of gold and
quicksilver into the iron retort, heating it in the stove to a red heat,
recovering the quick’ in a pan of water…” Photo Wilfred McDaniel,
Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum Archives
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This I did, putting the mixture of gold and quicksilver into the iron retort, heating it in the stove to a red heat, recovering the quick’ in a pan of water in which the small tube from the retort was placed. This done, weighing and packing it safely came next. The gold was weighed on the scales which we had purchased from the, now, defunct New York Company! The bullion tipped the balance at 125 ounces, not bad for a season of inexperience and handicaps. Expenses for labor and operating the plant, amounting to about fifteen hundred dollars, had required the sale of nearly another hundred ounces, and this had been sold to the banks in Nome.
Ed returned with the tickets. “The Senator sails on the 25th,” he said, “We’ve just two days left to get packed and get down to Nome!”
Continued the week of October 28.
Date Posted: October 15, 2013
Categories: 49 History
By Laura Samuelson, Director, Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum
Last week Ed and Wilfred were mining fish as well as gold. The pump was sucking up tomcod and dumping them into the sluice box. This week their mining days are numbered…
By Wilfred A. McDaniel
The short days of October passed quickly, with a noticeable decrease in daylight, from day to day. From the continuous day light of summer to the long, dark nights of winter, the change is rapid.
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PREPARED FOR WINTER – “It was with no great reluctance that we
stacked the sluices, after making the last clean-up, and gave King
Winter undisputed sway!” Note the driftwood stacked against the tent
for insulation and protection from the wind. Photo by Wilfred
McDaniel from the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum Archives
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Increasing cold came as the sun came southward, lowering slowly toward the horizon, as each day passed. Heavy freezes came during the longer nights and working hours were often shortened because of frost and ice in the pits. Thawing of the pump became necessary, and as the weather grew colder, to prevent damage, a complete draining of the water from pump and engine was required.
Owing to the fact that saltwater freezes at a lower temperature, mining on the beach continued for some time after the creek placers had shut down for the winter.
Our work went on during the shortening hours of sunshine, but the discomfort of working in the stinging cold, and accomplishing so little was disheartening. Even the gold lost its lure, and when icicles hung from the pump and sluice-boxes, and slush ice formed on the seepage water under foot, it was with no great reluctance that we stacked the sluices, after making the last clean-up, and gave King Winter undisputed sway!
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A TIME FOR EVERY SEASON – “With lowering temperatures, living and sleeping
in the tent became an uncomfortable problem!” Photo by Wilfred
McDaniel from the Carrie M. McLain Memorial Museum Archives
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October 15th marked the end of the mining season. A record kept showed that we had worked almost eighty days of actual mining, and under the conditions during which this was accomplished, it seemed a real achievement! The mining season over, removal and storage of engine and pump was undertaken at once. This was found to be much easier now, for the hard, frozen beach made an ideal pavement and by aid of planks from the wrecked lighter, with pinch bars and rollers, the various heavy parts were placed safely back on the bench and wrapped in canvas, soon to be buried under the deep snows of winter.
With lowering temperatures, living and sleeping in the tent became an uncomfortable problem! The heavy cast-iron stove was now useless. During the summer it had been set up in a shelter attached to the tent, but its bulk and poor heating capacity made it unfitted for present conditions, and a sheet iron Yukon stove replaced it. While fire remained in the Yukon stove the interior of the tent would be dry and comfortable, but at night, after we had rolled in the blankets, the fire soon died out. Water left on the stove at night would be ice in the morning, and our damp outer garments would be stiff with frost, but soon thawed after dressing!
Continued in the week of October 21.
