Chapter 10: "Abercrombie Rapids Landing" |
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I have always been fascinated by the railroad. From the moment I saw that first locomotive approach Chitina in September of 1910 I was hooked. It was the first standard-gauge railroad to enter the interior of the territory, having crossed the Chugach Range to enter our valley. The CRNW began at a wharf near Cordova at Orca Inlet. The large terminal there included a roundhouse as large as the one constructed at Ship Creek for the new government railroad that began out of Seward. Alaska Steamship Lines could dock up to four of its vessels at the Cordova wharf. It was impressive.
Mom wanted to visit Dad at Abercrombie before continuing on to see some of her friends at Eyak. She brought my brother Charles and me to see the places Dad surveyed down to the wharf at Cordova where the railroad originated. We were anxious to see where it began after watching a succession of ore trains travel by us on their way to the Bonanza mine at Kennecott for the last four years.
We caught one of the trains headed south from Chitina depot in mid-June of 1914. Our overnight stop was to be Abercrombie Rapids Landing, mile 55 at the head of the canyon where Dad was working what was to be his final surveying job for the railroad. Then we were to continue on down the line to Cordova to visit the coastal people known as Eyaks, just as we in the Copper Valley are known as the Ahtna. Mom told us she had friends there. The railroad had a long-standing policy of providing free rides to Indians who lived along the railway, thanks to an old deal between Nicolai and Stephen Brich. Otherwise we might not have been able to make this trip at all. Those rides were too expensive for us at 12 1/2 cents a mile. |
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