Ch 2 : "The Wrangell Formation," Pt 4 from "Legacy of the Chief"

The  Wrangell Formation, Pt 4

Wesley Dunkle  -- Chapter 2 of "Legacy of the Chief"

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      “Where was I?  Oh yes. I first heard about the building of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway and of the fabulously rich Bonanza copper mine while I was working at an iron mine in Minnesota.  I wanted to become a part of it. It was the copper which first brought me to Alaska.   In 1914 I made the first detailed study of the geology of the ore occurrences at Kennecott while employed as a field exploration engineer.  It was my study which determined that the ore bodies ran primarily to the northeast as massive bodies of chalcocite ore.   This was important later because it meant that Kennecott had to consider the possibility that it was sharing the same orebody with an adjacent mine on the opposite ridge facing McCarthy Creek.  This was the Mother Lode Mine.  The Mother Lode camp was actually sitting on the Bonanza-Motherlode vein, though the owners of the company did not realize it at the time.  The Mother Lode ultimately extended the life of the Kennecott mine system by many years.

      “Back to the topic of the terranes.  Let me show you on this map.”

Mineral Deposits in Alaska

      Behind him was a large United States Geological Survey map showing mineral occurrences in Alaska.

       “The mountains of volcanic origin which concern us are those of the western part of the Wrangells, which  were all formed within the last four million years.  The Wrangells extend over an  area beginning a few miles east of the Copper River--here-- and continuing  past the  eastern Alaska border into an area of the Yukon Territory known as the Kluane Range--there.  The Wrangells are roughly  bounded to the north and west by the Copper and Slana Rivers and to the south by the Chitina and Nizina Rivers. This is all a part of the Wrangellia Terrane.  The terrane extends well past the Wrangells to include part of the south slopes of the Alaska Range in the area of my own Golden Zone mine,   but it is the Wrangell Mountain formation where we found the unique Kennicott formation which contained those high-grade copper deposits.

      “The south end of the Chitina River valley, which essentially runs east to west, marks the northern edge of  the Chugach coastal range, which extends all the way to the Gulf of Alaska.  Running east to west this takes in an area extending from Yakutat,  to Cordova, Valdez and Seward, and then inland to include Anchorage. 

      “The Copper River is the only river system of such great size to pass through this coastal range. This river is the greatest in south-central Alaska, and includes such tributaries as the Chitina, Nizina, Bremner, Tonsina, Klutina, Tazlina, Gulkana, Gakona, Chistochina, and Slana Rivers.  The Chitina River is easily the equal of the Copper.  It enters the Copper near Chitina.  Both rivers flow through extensive areas of geologically-recent glacial deposits,  as well as  volcanic ash deposition.  As a result these combined rivers  contain an enormous amount of silt which rivals, if not exceeds, that of the more famous Yukon and Tanana Rivers north of the Alaska Range.

      “As late as ten thousand years ago the present-day Copper River valley was largely under the waters of Ahtna Lake.  This extinct, but once enormous water body was blocked along the Chugach Range by massive ice fields.   My guess is that the Miles and Childs Glaciers which face each other at the Million Dollar railroad bridge about fifty miles east of Cordova were at one time locked together as one super ice mass which effectively blocked any drainage from this extensive lake north of the coastal range.  As the last ice age came to an end, these glaciers receded until the lake water was finally able to burst free.   This rapid flood of water probably carved out the Woods Canyon area and began the process of building the Copper River delta area. 

      “The Wrangellia terrane includes  Mounts Wrangell, Blackburn, Sanford, Drum and Regal.   This terrane is a  part of a more complex group which were formed in a tropical environment that was very close to the equator.   We know this because of  the vast amount of marine fossils we have found in the limestone formations which cap the base rocks of this region. 

      There are at least two other distinct terranes in this area.  The composite terrane immediately south of the Wrangellia terrane contains the northern part of the Chugach Range.  It is called a composite terrain because of its  complex origins which point toward the likelihood that it is probably two or more combined terranes. Immediately south of this is the  much younger Yakutat terrane which accreted itself to this part of Alaska in the last 26 million years,  initiating the Wrangell Range volcanic formations.

Geology of the Kennecott area

      “The Wrangellia terrane began as a volcanic arc thousands of miles to the south along the  North American continent  300 million years ago.   As the volcanic activity subsided, the resulting rift between the main part of the continent and the arc  caused a massive eruption of basalt lava flows. This included a  significant layer of basalt which has come to be known as the Nicolai greenstone. This name was borrowed  from the great chief himself since he was the one who first revealed the Nicolai Prospect--the discovery which set into motion the prospecting activity which resulted in the discovery of the great Bonanza outcropping.”

   



Continue

Ch 2 : "The Wrangell Formation," Pt 3 from "Legacy of the Chief"

The  Wrangell Formation, Pt 3

Wesley Dunkle  -- Chapter 2 of "Legacy of the Chief"

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      “Yes, young man. You have a question?  Who was Stephen Birch?

      “Birch was a mining geologist much like myself who came to Alaska at the turn of the century looking for the right opportunity.  He certainly found it here.   Mr. Birch was backed by a venture-capitalist named Henry Havemeyer. He was in Valdez when a man named Jack Smith found him. Smith was one of the members of the McClellan group of eleven.  He and Clarence Warner were the prospectors who discovered the Bonanza outcropping along the eastern ridge of the Kennicott Glacier valley.

      “Stephen immediately began buying out the interests of these eleven men. By an ironic twist in history, Dan Kain, who was the first to sell, later located gold placer claims which he sold to Stephen Birch that were near the confluence of Dan Creek and the Nizina River.  This was the  traditional home of Chief Nicolai.  The Nicolai Prospect is where all of this copper business started.

      “The young geologist soon convinced his financial backers to begin buying up all the claims owned by the McClellan group.  He saw this as an opportunity to make an enormous amount of money.  Stephen found what we call the proverbial mother lode.  He struck it rich because he was in the right place at the right time with money.”

Mt. Wrangell

      He received more chuckles.

      “Yes, even then it took money.  Being in the right place without it never did much good, in my opinion.”

      Wes evoked additional laughs from the comment.

      “Mr. Birch made his first visit to the Bonanza prospect in 1901. Early-on he experienced for himself the formidable nature of the vast  country.  He had been in the Copper Valley before, but never in this remote area of the Wrangells.  There were two things on which Stephen staked his reputation.  The first was that the Bonanza prospect was a copper mine like no other--worthy of the infusion of big money to develop the site.

      “The second was that it would take the construction of a new  railroad in order to make it all work.  He was either incredibly lucky or unusually brilliant or both.  I suspect he was both lucky and brilliant.  In any case, he was right.

      “I don’t suppose that you, Johnny, by any chance, had an opportunity to encounter the great Mr. Birch?”

      “Me? A Native? Meet the great Mr. Birch?  Yes, I did.”

      The room went dead-quiet.

      “I met Stephen Birch when he brought his bride Mary to Alaska in the summer of 1916. He met both me and my grandfather in a pool hall in Chitina.  Birch knew my grandfather well.  He was not ashamed to associate with us Natives.  I am not one to be impressed with whites.”

      Johnny heard the groans.

      “Sorry, if you were a Native, you’d understand.

      “But I was impressed with this man.  He was no ordinary miner or businessman.

Birch represented power, but it was understated. Modest. Unpretentious.  He was in it for the game.  Because of that, he recognized the need to deal with my grandfather, who still represented all of us Ahtna Indians at that time.

      “I met him again a second time when he made his last visit to Alaska in 1924.  After that, I had an opportunity to visit him at his home in New Jersey.”

      Wes’s eyes were beginning to widen.  He was wondering if this man was real or an impostor.

       How could an Indian have met someone in so lofty a  position as the great Mr. Birch.  And three times?  At his home in New Jersey? Could this be right?

      “Really?  Just who was your grandfather?  Could I have known him?”

      “I did not mean to get you off the subject, Mr. Dunkle, but . . .”

      “Please, Johnny, call me Wes.”

      “Thank you, Wes.  My Native family is Nicolai.  The Nicolai Prospect was named after my grandfather.”

      Johnny had gained the attention of the entire class.  Wes Dunkle took a step back and stood in silence for a moment.  He needed to collect his thoughts.

      This man is the real thing.  He’s the grandson of Chief Nicolai himself.  My God!

      After a few moments of silence, the old engineer finally addressed his audience.

      “Class, we are privileged beyond anything I could have imagined possible.  This is the grandson of the great Chief Nicolai.  Johnny I am speechless.  What a thrill for me to meet you.  Do you have any idea how highly Birch regarded your grandfather?”

      Johnny raised his eyebrows. It was his turn to be speechless.

      “Johnny, you have a heritage which is as close to royal as anything I can conceive.”

      “Wes, I did not come here to bring attention to myself. I never sought that.  It never even occurred to me that anything quite like this would happen.  I came here to learn more about the copper.  I grew up and lived with the old steam trains that brought nearly thirty years of worth of copper ore right through my home village on the way to the Tacoma Smelter.”

      “I want you to know that Birch always spoke highly of Nicolai.  He was annoyed that some people suggested that Nicolai had simply given away those huge copper deposits to Kennecott.  He used to tell us younger engineers that Nicolai was unique among the Indian chiefs and that his memory should be honored.  He insisted that we owed a great debt of gratitude to a man who could have made life miserable for all of us.” 

      “Thank you, Wes. Please, go on with the class.  I appreciate the kind words.”

      “Thank you, Son.  You have made this a particularly special moment for me. 

Nicolai of Taral at Valdez & Stephen Birch at  Kennecott

      Continue

Ch 2 : "The Wrangell Formation," Pt 2 from "Legacy of the Chief"

The  Wrangell Formation, Pt 2

Wesley Dunkle  -- Chapter 2 of "Legacy of the Chief"

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“Thank you, Mr. Benson.  It is indeed an honor to be here.  Class, let me give you a brief background on my professional life.  I came to Alaska in 1912 to work as a consultant for the Alaska Copper Company when the company which was the predecessor to Kennecott Copper Corporation began to try to determine the extent of the copper ore on its mine properties.  I worked along with such great men as Lewis Levensaler and Alan Bateman in developing a theory explaining the nature of the rich ore occurrences along what we called the Kennicott Formation.   We found that the ore was principally a copper sulfide and that it was much more extensive than originally believed.  This ultimately caused the company to acquire adjacent property it had originally rejected.  These were the Mother Lode claims. There is a fascinating story behind that.  I hope we have time today to pursue that story.

      “Successfully determining the probable lay of the copper ore became my main contribution to Kennecott. I later took a strong interest in the nearby Willow Creek gold district and ended up developing the Lucky Shot gold mine in 1928.  Those claims became the richest  in the district.   Now I’m working my own gold mine along the southern slopes of the Alaska Range in a mine I have optimistically named the Golden Zone.”

Wesley Dunkle's Golden Zone Mine

      The engineer received several laughs when he made that comment.

      “But I came here to speak on the subject of the occurrences of Alaskan copper in the Wrangell Range.  So that is where we will begin.”

      Wes looked around at the the very young faces.  In the back of the room he spotted a much older Native man who seemed to resemble men he had met many years ago in Chitina. 

      “You, sir.  Have I met you before?”

      “Not likely, Mr. Dunkle.  My name is Johnny Gadanski.  I had a father who worked at Kennecott as a painter and carpenter when you were there, but you probably didn’t know him.  I grew up in Chitina and worked in the Mother Lode and the Erie mines while William Douglass was in charge.”

      “Really? What a coincidence! Johnny Gadanski is it?  I can’t say I recognize the name.  But what a privilege to meet one of the men who worked on the site in those early days.”

      “My pleasure, sir.  Working at Kennecott was one of those rare privileges I’ll always treasure.  I was lucky enough to have come to town a few days ago when I read in the paper you would be speaking here. You might say I’m revisiting the old mines.”

      The rest of the class was now looking at the lanky man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties.  It was rare to find an Alaska Native in a class such as this.  It was especially unusual to encounter a Native who had worked in a large Alaskan mine.

      “Class, this man, Johnny,  in the rear of the class has made a good point.  He lived a piece of history at a copper mine which is unique in all the world.  We are both privileged to have been a part of it.  It is unlikely we will see anything quite like the Kennecott operation  in Alaska again.

      “Thank you, Johnny.  My pleasure to meet you.

Slide #1: movement of the Wrangellia composite terrane

      “Class, while the story of the copper seems to begin in the Wrangell Range of south-central Alaska, it is much more complicated than that.   The outstanding feature of the area is a series of mountains of  volcanic origin which include some of the tallest in North America.   The process of the formation of the earliest of these volcanoes began twenty-six million years ago as a result of the friction of one terrane moving into another.  Appropriately enough, we call this the Wrangellia Terrane.  The terrane began its long trek  from a place thousands of miles away,  much closer to the equator.  A terrane is a fault-bounded  area which has a geologic history distinct from its contiguous terranes.

       “The terranes move over a relatively fluid part of the earth crust deep below the surface called the asthenosphere.  The asthensosphere is the source of the magma which wells to the earth’s surface.  This process occurs along spreading rift zones or ridges, mostly in the ocean areas.  The rift zones separate the oceanic crustal plates.   New magma erupting along these ridges forces the older crust outward into the adjacent plates.  The older crust is then forced downward in a process called subduction by which the heavier oceanic plate plunges under the lighter continental plate.  The plates which specifically concern us are the Pacific plate and the continental North American plate. 

       “The theory of plate techtonics is very recent.  When we mining engineers at Kennecott developed our  hypothesis  regarding the origin of the copper ore, the theory did not exist.  For purposes of  predicting the likely lay of the copper deposits, however, it was not really necessary to understand the process.

Slide 2: the process of subduction under the Wrangell Range

      “Before going any farther, I want to say a few words about my relationship to Kennecott Copper.   Although the district is worked out,  it was once heralded as one of the great copper territories of the world.  At the turn of the century men fought and even died just to hold the exclusive rights to a small number of proposed railroad routes which passed through the coastal range from Katalla, Valdez and ultimately Cordova.  Only a handful of feasible routes existed. The promise of rich copper in the Wrangells was enticing to say the least.  But only an enormous infusion of money could make it all work.  This was the catalyst for the formation of the Alaska Syndicate, which primarily consisted of the Guggenheim family--a mining and smelting conglomerate, JP Morgan--the railroad financier, Kuhn-Loeb Brothers, and the Havemeyer family who were the original backers of the great Stephen Birch.

   

Continue with Part 3

Ch 2 : "The Wrangell Formation," Pt 1 from "Legacy of the Chief"

The  Wrangell Formation, Pt 1

Wesley Dunkle  -- Chapter 2 of "Legacy of the Chief"

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View from the top of the Kennecott mill looking north toward the Glacier Mine along Bonanza Ridge

The old geologist reviewed the notes he had prepared for the class.  So much had happened since Wes first signed on as a consulting engineer for Kennecott Corporation so many years ago.   A most significant development was an evolving theory called plate techtonics. The theory was proving to be momentous in the understanding of the process of mountain building and volcanoes and the causes of earthquakes. It held that the forces which move terranes or even entire continents result from the interaction of many semi-rigid plates which are the basis of the earth’s crust. 

      Wes was intrigued.  It made sense.  The theory went a long way toward explaining things which the engineers of his day had to assume as a given.  For instance, the geologists had no satisfactory explanation for the origins of the Nicolai greenstone.  This was the base layer in the southern slopes of Wrangell Range which appeared to be the ultimate source of the copper in the Wrangells.  

      Wes Dunkle was scheduled to present a talk to a group of students on the topic of volcanic origins of the copper in the Wrangell Range.  Wes had prospected much of the Wrangells while working as a consulting geologist for Kennecott.

     

It’s never too late to learn another wonderful thing about the world we live in.  What a privilege to share my old experiences along with this new theory with the young students in this class.

Wesley Earl Dunkle, consulting engineer for Kennecott

      The old man walked into the Anchorage  high school auditorium, which would be used tonight so Wes could speak before a large group of students taking a course on geology along with several others--teachers and interested residents--who had come just to listen to the famous guest speaker.        

      It all seemed so modern compared to the frontier-like atmosphere of those days not all that long ago back in the Kennecott of the 1920s.   The nation had just gotten out of a war in Korea. The prosperity of 1955 had reached the growing town of Anchorage--the largest community in Wes’s  adopted  home of Alaska.  The territory faced a strong likelihood of entering full statehood in the near future. He walked up the steps of a new school with the art-deco look that had come into vogue. The modern-looking building contrasted sharply with the utilitarian frontier appearance of pre-World War II Alaska.

 

The new school where W.E. Dunkle would have given his college-level class in 1956: This building was also used for the new community college.

      A geology instructor no older than thirty stood up to introduce this man who was already considered an Alaskan pioneer.

Historic image of Mt Blackburn from which the Kennicott Glacier originates

      “Good afternoon, class and visitors.  I have the privilege today of introducing Mr. Wesley Earl  Dunkle, a  retired mining engineer who is a living part of our early mining history in this great territory of ours.  I have asked him to speak on the formation of copper in the Wrangell Range--a topic on which he could be considered an expert by virtue of his personal experience.  Mr. Dunkle, meet my geology class 101 and our many guests, including other teachers, students from other classes and several interested locals who have come just to hear you speak.”

 Continue

Ch 1, Part 2 of 2, " Echoes" from "Legacy of the Chief"

 

 

Chapter 1:  Echoes, pt 2

"It is still possible to follow along the old railroad track bed in the places carrying the old names, such as Uranatina, or Chitina, Strelna, or McCarthy, but especially at Kennecott, and pick up the faint sounds of laughter or crying or shouting or some other echo of people long gone. Sometimes it is the sound of the clanging of the heavy metal tools. Occasionally the reverberations of a train working its way up the valley can still be heard. That can only be the legendary ghost train, Chitina Local No. 71, maintaining its unearthly schedule along the uninhabited valley. At some spiritual or other-dimensional level the train still runs, the mines still operate and the people never left."

The 95-ton Brooks Mikado sits at the CRNW roundhouse at Cordova in 1942, awaiting the cutter's torch.  The U.S. Army shipped this locomotive to the Alaska Railroad, where it was found unserviceable because the boiler blew up while the CRNW was still in operation (about 1936)  --photo courtesy of C.L. Siebert, Jr

It was late in August of 1900 when Clarence Smith and "Tarantula" Jack Warner worked their way up the Kennicott Glacier valley in search of exposed copper veins. The Nicolai Prospect itself is only a few miles and two ridges away. It had only been established the yera before and its existence suggested the possibilities for immense quantities of copper ore somewhere in the area. There was no mistaking the Bonanza outcropping for anything else but exposed high-grade copper, even from three miles away. It was near the mouth of Bonanza Creek by the Kennicott Glacier that the two prospectors first spotted the bright-green metallic rock. Legend has it that the exposed copper appeared to be an alpine meadow. When one of the men spotted copper float in Bonanza Creek, the two began following it toward the source. The float became richer and more plentiful as the two began an exhausting climb that brought them to the base of an old glacial cirque. As the prospectors approached the sheer cliff-face, little doubt remained that they had found a massive vein of almost pure copper. It must have taken all the rest of the day for the men to work their way up the steep, rugged ridge, 4,000 feet above the glacier, where they finally staked the outcropping. A geologist named Stephen Birch was in Valdez temporarily attached to a U.S. Army party headed by Captain Abercrombie. Birch learned of the spectacular find from Jack Smith. The real reason Birch came to Alaska was to investigate mineral investment opportunities. Operating as an agent for investors Henry Havemeyer and James Ralph, Birch began negotiations with the men who represented the larger company of prospectors known as the McClellan group. Dan Kain was the first of the eleven to sell an interest directly to Birch.

"Even as the other echoes gradually wane, those of the Ahtnas of the Raven Clan will not.  They cannot.  Here they must remain. For this is the land of Nicolai--the last great chief of a humble, but proud and unconquered people who were placed on this land of the 'Atna'tuuTs'itu' to be its guardians. These are the Ahtna Indians who were here from the beginning and who will be here until the very end of humankind--Saghani Utsuuy--the people of the Raven Clan--the Children of the Earth."

Ruins of the "Million Dollar Bridge, " CRNW Mile 49, looking east toward Miles Lake and Miles Glacier --Historic American Engineering Record

Only big business had the capital necessary to exploit massive copper deposits occurring deep within the Alaskan interior. Once Birch entered the scene, the door was wide open. What had started as a small, but superficially-spectacular copper outcropping in a remote place known as the Nicolai Prospect, mushroomed into an irresistible attraction for the powerful men who would build the railroad that would change everything. The wild frontier which those early prospectors had first encountered was rapidly transformed with the completion of a modern, standard-gauge, first-class railway in 1911, into a territorial mining district with most of the amenities of western civilization. It was soon possible to raise a family comfortably in the towns of Kennecott, McCarthy and Chitina on the southern slopes of the remote Wrangell Range.

The Million Dollar Bridge at 49 Mile (the cost was closer to 1.5 million dollars), looking west.   The Miles & Childs Glacier Bridge was built by Katalla Corporation and the American Bridge Company as a Pratt truss-through, single-track, four-span structure.  It was originally 1,570 feet long, including the approach trestles.  The rails stood 30 feet above the water.  The 1964 earthquake caused span no. 4 to fall into the river --Historic American Engineering Record

Kennecott was the largest and most modern town. It had the only hospital in the district. It also boasted a recreation hall where basketball could be played and films could be viewed, a library, dairy, cold storage plant, tennis court, and ready access to Sears and Roebuck catalog items, thanks to the railroad service. The huge power plant heated the many industrial buildings, cottages and even the wooden sidewalks through its system of buried steam pipes. The town had reliable power and running water throughout. All of the town structures except staff row were painted a neat barn-red with white trim. Staff row was painted white with dark green trim. This distinction was an indication of the upper-class status of staff row. By 1915 the railroad had eighteen locomotives, eight large passenger coaches and 256 freight cars. Whenever possible, it was soon operating six days a week between Cordova and Kennecott. Abruptly and almost rudely, after a brief but event-filled and heady period of just forty years, from 1898 when the Valdez-Klutina Glacier trek occurred until 1938 when the last train pulled out, it was all over. Kennecott quickly but quietly shut down. The white inhabitants of the towns and hamlets along the railroad deserted the district en masse overnight. It happened so quickly that many of the homes were left completely intact, right down to the china on the tables and the linen on the beds--as if the occupants had simply walked off, intending to soon return. None of them ever came back. It was over. But most believed that Kennecott’s rapid pull-out was just another temporary mine closure, like the one which had occurred during the Great Depression from 1932 until 1935. Yet while many believed that the large interior town of Kennecott and the mines on the ridge above were sleeping, in fact the life that was Kennecott had quietly slipped away like a man in the rear of a crowded room slipping unnoticed out the back door--death imitating sleep. Only the Ahtna Indians who had lived in the area since the end of the last Ice Age, and a very few hardy settlers and miners remained behind. The company town of Kennecott, with its fourteen-story mill and enormous power plant and other enormous buildings, along with the completely dependent supply-town of McCarthy, plus all 196 miles of railroad line now sat empty and forlorn. All services ended. The delivery of all those things along the entire railroad line which kept modern civilization alive in the wilderness, from mail and telegrams to bunker fuel and coal, to dry goods and groceries, to player pianos and Victrolas abruptly ceased. In short order, first the railroad rolling stock, then the steel rail, the power lines, the machinery and the buildings and their furnishings began to disappear. In time, the trestles began to collapse and the Copper River began washing out sections of the rail bed. The stretch of railroad south of Chitina and north of the old Million Dollar Bridge became inaccessible when the willows and alders took over the remaining railway line, strangling the rail bed under growth as thick as any tropical jungle. Remote buildings and other structures collapsed under the weight of successive winters of heavy snow until little remained of what had once been a magnificent railroad system. Yet even as the railroad remnants, from the very small to the gigantic, gradually vanished, the echoes remained. All those people engaged in so much intense activity in those four decades had left their indelible imprint upon the land. All those frustrations, triumphs, failures, the outright catastrophes, the deaths, the births, the new-found friendships and the marriages--all those things which are common in any human community--were somehow concentrated and magnified along the rail line. It is still possible to follow along the old railroad track bed in the places carrying the old names such as Uranatina or Chitina, Strelna or McCarthy, but especially at Kennecott, and pick up the faint sounds of laughter or crying or shouting or some other echo of people long gone. Sometimes it is the sound of the clanging of heavy metal tools. Occasionally the reverberations of the train working its way up the tracks, along with the hollow sound of a steam whistle echoing its way up the valley, can still be heard. That could only be the legendary ghost train, Chitina Local No. 71, maintaining its unearthly schedule along the uninhabited valley. From time to time a complete passenger train is rumored to have been spotted from the air, but none has never been found on the ground.

"Nicolai's presence proved to be crucial to the (Lt. Allen) expedition.  It guaranteed that the party would be able to proceed through the valley in peace and with a good supply of food.  Everywhere they went there was a welcoming feast honoring the tyone and his personal guests."

Native cache near Chitina --Candy Waugaman Collection

From the most distant mine sites--the lofty encampments of Erie, Jumbo, Glacier, Bonanza and Mother Lode, high along the Bonanza Ridge, on down the line through Kennecott and beyond to Blackburn, Shushanna Junction, McCarthy, Chokosna, Strelna, Chitina, Uranatina, Tiekel, Bremner Station, Abercrombie Rapids Landing and the Million Dollar Bridge--the wind whistles through them all. It carries a multitude of echoes through all these isolated places. Sometimes they are louder and more intense than at other times. But the echoes are always there. At some spiritual or other-dimensional level, the train still runs, the mines still operate, and the people never left. This is a very special, highly-energized place. Over time, as the players from those old days are forgotten, the echoes will begin to fade, but not all of them. Even as the other echoes gradually wane, those of the Ahtnas of the Raven Clan will not. They cannot. Here they must remain. For this is the land of Nicolai--the last great chief of a humble but proud and unconquered people who were placed on this land of the ‘Atna’tuuTs’itu’ to be its guardians. These are the Ahtna Indians who were here from the beginning and who will be here until the very end of humankind--Saghani Utsuuy--the people of the Raven Clan--the Children of the Earth.

Home of Chief Goodlataw, Anchorage Museum of History & Art, B74.36.2g

Continue to Chapter 2, "The Wrangell Formation"

Ch 1, Pt 1 : "Echoes," from "Legacy of the Chief"

Chapter 1: Echoes

click on picture for larger image: these pictures are the one which appear in the book for this chapter.

"All of the great steam engines, as well as the large, vintage 1910-era wooden passenger cars, and most of the freight equipment and maintenance stock, including the huge rotary snowplows, were shipped off into historic oblivion once the railroad ceased to exist."

Mogul engine No. 101 pulls a combine, day coach and observation care for the U.S. Army on the former CRNW rail near Cordova in 1942 --photo courtesy of C.L. Siebert, Jr.

The Copper River and Northwestern Railway--Can’t Run and Never Will

On November 10, 1938 a large, mixed freight and passenger consist headed by engine number 74, a 95 ton ALCO-Brooks Mikado-type engine, pulled out of the Kennecott mill site for the last time. In the twenty-seven years since the railroad began full operation, the CRNW hauled 154,270 car loads of ore 196 miles to the Alaska Steamship Lines wharf at Cordova. Those train loads consisted of over four and a half million tons of ore averaging thirteen percent copper, bringing gross revenues of 207 million dollars to the Kennecott Corporation and a net profit of about 100 million dollars, exceeding in monetary value the total production of the Fairbanks, Nome, and Willow Creek (Talkeetna Mountain) gold districts. The original construction of the railway, combined with the development of the Kennecott mine system, represented the largest private expenditure of money in Alaska during the entire time it was a territory. Only recently has this historic project finally been overshadowed by the privately-financed Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (the Alyeska construction project) of 1974-77.
With 1938 drawing to a close, the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, known affectionately as the "Can’t Run and Never Will," was about to end its nearly three decade-long life-span, fading away to become another part of the rich history of Alaska. No longer would a steam locomotive follow the Nizina, Chitina, and Copper Rivers on iron rails to Cordova.
All of the great steam engines, as well as the large, vintage 1910-era wooden passenger cars, and most of the freight equipment and maintenance stock, including the huge rotary snowplows, would be shipped off into historic oblivion.

"What happens when the mine runs out? Do you really think there will be a McCarthy after that? You know what will happen. What always happens? The white men take their precious metals and they run.  Those gold rush towns from twenty-five years ago that were all over the territory--how many of them would you say are still real towns, Johnny?  There aren't any left now.  McCarthy won't last either.  It will become history just like those others. Even if McCarthy survives Kennecott, it won't be the same.  It lives by the railroad, and this is just a mining railroad. I know it looks like something more than that, but without the mine, I don't think there could be a railroad." --Cap Goodlataw talking to Johnny Gakona, 1924

Brooks Mikado engine No. 72 and rotary No. X-2, having been sold, sit on the deck of an Alaska Steam Lines ship, ready for the trip south in 1938.  All of the engines at Cordova in 1942 were shipped out of Cordova before the end of World War II. --Photo courtesy of Al Swalling

This railroad was the center of life for the Copper River valley almost until the Second World War, drastically impacting the lives of those who had been there from the beginning--the Ahtnas, or "people of the great river." During its existence the CRNW Railway served the richest lode mine of any kind ever developed in Alaska until well after World War II. The railroad brought a level of civilization to the valley which has never been restored. It was directly responsible for the creation of the communities of Kennecott, McCarthy, Blackburn, Strelna and Chitina. The railroad company transformed Cordova from a small cannery port originally known as Eyak into a busy shipping terminal. Finally the ore played out. As the winter of 1938 approached, the last train arrived in Cordova, leaving in its wake a string of ghost towns.
The east coast industrialist interests locally known as the Alaska Syndicate built the CRNW Railway mainly to exploit a series of high-grade copper deposits found in Bonanza Ridge in August of 1900. The search for this copper can be traced back to the time of the Russian occupation of the coastline of Alaska in the previous century. But it was with the expedition of Lt. Henry Allen--the first official representative of the U.S. Army to successfully breech the coastline and enter the interior--that the search for copper really began.
Lieutenant Allen concluded that it was essential to seek the approval of the supreme Ahtna chief, Nicolai, Tyone of Taral, if he was to successfully complete the expedition. Nicolai was not at Taral on the Copper River as Lt. Allen had hoped. Instead the young chief was to be found at his home village on the confluence of what is now Dan Creek and the Nizina River. The two men made an informal peace between the Ahtna people and the U.S. government which proved to be a lasting one.
The Ahtnas were never a conquered people. They merely stepped out of the way of an unstoppable freight train, then jumped on the rear to join the ride.
It would be difficult to overstate the role of Nicolai--the first and most prominent interior Athabascan chief encountered by the U.S. government. Nicolai’s people saved Lieutenant Allen’s party from almost certain starvation. The chief accompanied Allen’s party through the Copper River country, pointing them toward the headwaters of the Tanana River--the heart of Athabascan country. Nicolai could easily have chosen a hostile approach toward the small U.S. Army group, but he recognized almost immediately the futility of that approach. He knew that life as his people had known it was about to change drastically, regardless of what the chief or his people may have wanted for themselves.

"Chitina is the only town containing first-class accommodations for the traveler between Fairbanks and Cordova.  The Hotel Chitina, oddly out of place in this dusty wilderness, is truly a pleasant surprise and an especially welcome respite after so many days of traveling through such primitive country. . . (but) it is plain as the nose on this reporter's face that Chitina and  the whole Copper Valley are doomed.  The vast interior is not dying, it is dead.  The people who live here seem to overlook the obvious.  The copper will not last."  -- Freelance writer John deHaviland, at Chitina 1923

The Hotel Chitina, CRNW railroad depot, warehouse, two-bay locomotive barn, 50,000 gallon water tower, and a box-stock car, stand abandoned in March of 1939.  The U.S. Army dismantled the depot about 1944.  Oscar Breedman's crew disassembled the entire hotel in 1942 and shipped the pieces to Kodiak.  --Anchorage Museum of History & Art, B75.134.197

Farthest reaching of all was the chief’s decision to confirm to the lieutenant that a rich lode of copper existed in the mountains north of Nicolai’s C’ena’-tsedi winter camp. When the lieutenant asked about the source of the rich copper, Nicolai simply pointed in the direction of the mountain where fourteen years later, Ed Gates and the Chittyna Exploration Company would lay claim to the Nicolai Prospect.
So it was that Lieutenant Allen noted the possible existence of extensive rich copper formations in the Wrangell Range near the headwaters of the Nizina River. The Klondike gold rush of 1898 brought in the first large wave of white prospectors and settlers. These hardy souls entered the interior by way of the Valdez and Klutina Glaciers. Most came in search of gold, but among them were those who were seeking the source of the legendary copper. These included Edward Gates, Jack Smith and Clarence Warner.
The next year one of Nicolai’s brothers led Ed Gates and his party to the location of the Nicolai Prospect. This was only after ten hours of hard bargaining which resulted in terms that have been misrepresented to this day. The consequences resulting from this single deal would endure for generations.

Continue withEchoes, pt 2

"Legacy of the Chief"

Part 2 of 2 to " Preface" to "Legacy of the Chief"

Legacy of the Chief:   Preface part 2

Route of the CRNW Railway --Simpson files

The business car the Kennecott was most likely number 100, which was the CRNW observation and dining car. Number 100 was one of two coaches shipped off to the Alaska Railroad at the end of the project of the eight CRNW passenger cars that once existed. None of these wooden open-ended coaches are known to have survived.
 
 Here a few of the most significant historic events and names and other notes which are relevant to this historic novel:
 1) Mt. Wrangell is known to have erupted in 1784, 1885 and 1900.
 
 2) Edward Gates staked the Nicolai (Nikolai) claims in July, 1899. Clarence Warner and Jack Smith staked the Bonanza claims the following year.
 
 Dan Kain and Clarence Warner staked Dan Creek, birthplace of Chief Nicolai. Dan Creek was named after Dan Kain. It was primarily a gold placer mining operation, though the creek yielded about forty tons of copper nuggets.
 
 3) Stephen and Mary Birch visited Alaska on their ill-fated honeymoon in 1916. Birch’s last trip to Kennecott was in 1924. 
 
 4) Kate Kennedy was the madame of McCarthy who stayed there until the very end. 
 
 5) The Kennecott power plant burned down in August 1924. Thanks to the existence of the Mother Lode power plant in McCarthy, Kennecott was able to resume limited operations almost immediately. The new power plant was built on the foundations of the old one at a cost of about one million dollars. It was in operation by late September.
 
   6)Descriptions of the main barracks buildings at Erie, Jumbo, Bonanza and Mother Lode are based on the original plans and photos. Only the Erie barrack still stands.
 
   7)The first Jumbo-Erie cross-cut tunnel was completed in 1924. The second was completed in 1930, extending all the way to the Mother Lode incline. Main access into the stope areas was by means of  four incline tunnels. The Mother Lode incline was the deepest, extending to the 2,800 foot level. The Erie was the shortest, extending from the Erie 100 level to the 1,050 level, where it met the Motherlode 2,600 cross-cut tunnel (the one completed in 1930). The Jumbo was the longest, running from the 180 to the 2,500 level at a thirty-degree angle. Bonanza was the first to open and the last to close. 
 
 8) Dwyer’s Inn at Strelna burned down in 1925. It was never replaced.
 
 9) The mill, like all the Kennecott industrial structures, was originally painted red. All red buildings had white trim around the windows, doors, and along the corners. The four staff buildings were painted white with dark-green trim. In 1925, in a most unusual departure, the upper part of the mill was painted light-gray. No other buildings on the site were ever painted gray. By the early 1930s the Kennecott painters restored the mill to the standard barn-red color. 
 
 10) The drug store block of downtown McCarthy burned down in 1941.
 
 11) Green Butte was a small copper mine on McCarthy Creek which last produced in 1925. John Barrett, founder of McCarthy, staked the claims in 1909.
 
 12) Operators of Consolidated-Wrangell, a surface mining company, destroyed the electricians’ warehouse, the staff house, the superintendent’s residence and the Stephen Birch House. They also burned down the Bonanza barracks in 1968. The systematic destruction of Kennecott began well before these operators when a small-time salvager named Ray Trotuchau somehow convinced Kennecott to let him “salvage” (destroy) the mill site as early as 1957.
 
 13) Photos of Natives have appeared in the building of the railroad, proving that they were involved with the railroad from the very beginning. The company relied on all-Native crews based in Chitina to perform some of the seasonal maintenance along the Chitina Local branch, which is where most of this story takes place.
 
 14) Haley Creek received its name after the railroad ceased operation. For ease of writing, I have used the name as though it existed from the beginning of construction.
 
   15)A central part of the book is the destruction of Mother Lode camp. I was the only one to this day  to recognize a photo I found at the McCarthy Museum showing the upper ML tram terminal after it was destroyed in the avalanche. I have included the photo in this book. In the decade that I researched Kennecott, I never found a single written reference to the destruction of the upper camp. The complete absence of information on the fate of the ML camp was puzzling. 

I am convinced that something happened up there which the high management of Kennecott chose to cover up. In the last few years, the best way to describe my experience with the Mother Lode and the Marvelous operation is that it haunted me, to the point of nearly relentlessly pursuing me. The Mother Lode event, above all else, was the prime motivation for the writing of this book. I cannot explain how I pieced it together, but I am satisfied that I treated the Mother Lode properly. How I accomplished that will probably remain a mystery to the reader much as the destruction of the ML upper camp itself was a mystery to me.
 
 The cultural shock which hit the Ahtna Natives with the advent of the white prospectors from the Valdez-Klutina Glacier trek in 1898-99, with the coming of the railroad in 1909-11, and with the Chisana gold rush of 1913, is well documented.

The clash of the two cultures reverberates to this day, largely at the expense of the rural Natives. The Ahtna Indians remain rooted to the land, still observing many of the old traditions, especially that of the the potlatch, as well as a more modern form of subsistence which relies heavily on the use of the Columbia River fish wheel. A larger version of this fish wheel can still be seen along the Yukon and lower Tanana Rivers.
 
  White families come and go. There are few in the Copper River valley who can trace their roots as far back as World War II, though there are a handful who are descendants from the Valdez-Klutina Glacier trek-survivors of 1898. Native families, on the other hand, remain firmly rooted to the land. This is the only land they have ever known. Individual Natives occasionally move to Anchorage or Fairbanks, or even to the continental United States, but  most ultimately return to the valley of the ‘Atna’tuuTs’itu’. Just as Nicolai was so fond of reminding everyone, the Ahtna people were here in the beginning and the Ahnas will still be here until the very end of humanity itself.

This is the future which the white men will leave you--useless, empty buildings--some of them gone completely.  No railroad. No mine at Kennecott--just scars on the land.  Don't listen to these white people.  They are not here to stay.  They're here to take and to spoil, and then to leave.  --Chief Nicolai appearing to Cap Goodlataw in his vision at McCarthy, 1925.

Close-up of the ruins of Jumbo barracks nos. 3 and 4, located on the Bonanza Ridge above Kennecott, circa 1965 --Simpson files.

The original book started as a history Kennecott. It began with a description of the geological processes which formed the rich copper in the Wrangell Range. This description is given to us in this novel by Wesley Dunkle--one of Alaska’s great mining engineers. The account closely follows a published work actually written by Dunkle, except I have updated and simplified the geological explanation. A mountain of rich copper that extended deep within the Bonanza Ridge started it all. It was only the depletion of the high-grade copper ore within the ridge which brought this part of Alaskan history to an end.

 If you pay close attention to Nicolai’s Raven Story of Creation after reading Wes Dunkle’s explanation of the mountain-bulding process, you will realize that Nicolai’s traditional raven story suggested an explanation of how the Wrangells were formed which largely parallels the scientific explanation provided by the mining engineer.

 As the book advanced, it was the railroad which became central to the story. Everything rode on the rails of the CRNW Railway. The story depends on the railroad, just as the people who once lived at Chitina did. What has been largely forgotten is that the railroad quickly became an integral part of the life of the lower Copper River Ahtna people.

  In the end, the people of the Saghani Ggaay hijacked this story, transforming it from merely an interesting piece of Alaskan Americana into an engaging tale of how the Ahtnas became closely linked to the CRNW Railway. The Ahtnas became a part of the railroad while at the same time staying apart from it. 

It was through the lower Ahtna people, as expressed in the words and deeds of the complex man who was Chief Nicolai and his dedicated follower Cap Goodlataw, that this fascinating history became for me a truly spiritual quest. 

We've been forced into a world we never chose.  We're no different from anyone else except that we know where we're from.  We're tied to the land.  The white man is lost. He has no roots and no feel for the land.  He would rather exploit it than try to live with it.  We can live with the white man, but not his foolishness . . . We're all that stands between the white  man and a world that would destroy him if he continues as he has.  --Johnny Gakona in an interview with John deHaviland at Chitina, 1923

Doc Billum and Old Glory at the Copper River near Lower Tonsina, circa 1909. --AMHA, B94.22.254

Continue with

The Story Begins

Part 1 of 2 to " Preface" to "Legacy of the Chief"

Preface to   "Legacy of the Chief"

Mother Lode lower and upper camps --Cap Hubrick photo

This is a Native story of Chief Nicolai of Taral and the people of the ‘Atn’atuuTs’itu at the time of the prospecting, development and operation of the historic Kennecott Copper Company and its Copper River and Northwestern Railway of Alaska in the years 1885 until 1938.

 The Native family names I have used are well known in the Copper River valley and are held high esteem to this day. They are the families of Nicolai, Eskilida, Goodlataw and Billum.
  Some historic disagreement exists over the exact age and year of death of Chief Nicolai. In this story Nicolai was born in 1867, which was also the year the United States purchased the Russian interest in Alaska. He appears to have died in 1918, most likely a victim of the Spanish flu. 

Nicolai was born at a Native encampment somewhere near the confluence of Dan Creek and the Chitistone and Nizina Rivers to the southeast of the Nicolai Prospect.  There can be little doubt as the the enormous impact Nicolai had on history.

Chief Nicolai, tyone of Taral, 1867-1918. Anchorage Museum of History & Art (AMHA), 380.98.52

Some historians disagree with these dates, suggesting he was born in the 1840s and died about 1900. Descendants of Nicolai tend to support my dates, especially that of his death.  Look at the drawing of him with his family  done by Lt. Allen in 1885. He is obviously a young man in that sketch.


 Nicolai was born at a Native encampment somewhere near the confluence of Dan Creek and the Chitistone River to the southeast of the Nicolai Prospect. There can be little doubt as to the enormous impact which Nicolai had on the history starting with Lt. Henry Allen’s entry into the country in 1885.


 Cap Goodlataw was one of a very few Natives who actually worked in the Kennecott mines. He once considered entering the Golden Gloves boxing circuit because his fighting skills were phenomenal. Cap disappeared from Chitina on May 23, 1932. Suspicious circumstances pointed to a man named R.L. Read who allegedly shot Cap at Read’s home site four miles north of Chitina and then buried the body in a turnip patch on the property. The Valdez all-white jury found Read innocent of first degree murder in November 1932. Cap was among a handful of rare leaders whose loss to the Native community was immense.

 Johnny Gakona Nicolai Gadanski is a composite fictional character who could have been any of a number of half-breed people both living and deceased. 

Doc Billum's ferry site at the confluence of the Tonsina and Copper Rivers.  --Simpson files

Doc Billum, Chief Eskilida, Chief Goodlataw, Hanagita and Tom Bell were real players whose roles were much as described in this book.

 Stephen Birch is often considered the founder of the modern Kennecott Corporation. It was his hard work, political skills and incredibly good luck combined with a determination and vision far ahead of his peers which made the mine and railroad system a reality.

In short order, first the railroad rolling stock, then the steel rail, the power lines, the machinery and the buildings and their furnishings began to disappear. In time, the trestles began to collapse and the Copper River began washing out sections of the rail bed. The stretch of railroad south of Chitina and north of the old Million Dollar Bridge became inaccessible when the willows and alders took over the remaining railway line, strangling the rail bed under growth as thick as any tropical jungle. Remote buildings and other structures collapsed under the weight of successive winters of heavy snow until little remained of what had once been a magnificent railroad system.

Bremner Station, CRNW Mile 78.  --UAF, Julie Sweeney Collection, 97-139-690

Earl Tappan Stannard was a protege of Birch who developed the ammonia leaching process and managed Kennecott during World War I. Daniel Jackling was one of the genius engineers who held a prominent seat on the Kennecott board of directors. Charles Earl and C.T. Ulrich were on the board of directors of the Mother Lode Coalition Mines Company. John N. Steele was the general counsel for Kennecott. F.A. Hanson was the superintendent of the CRNW Railway. Wesley Earl Dunkle and Alan Bateman were prominent consulting engineers for Kennecott. Bert Nieding was the manager when William C. Douglass became superintendent in 1920. Douglass arrived in Kennecott in 1916 and left late in 1929. W.C. Douglass was the most popular and influential of all the personalities at the site. W.A. Richelson was chief engineer and the last superintendent of Kennecott. Chris Jensen was the much-respected Norwegian master carpenter for most of the Kennecott years.
 
 Frank Buckner is a composite character based on Frank Buckie, the junior engineer who worked at Kennecott until the Mother Lode avalanche disaster.

 The last load of ore came off the Bonanza aerial tram on October 21 following the completion of mining operations at both the Jumbo and Bonanza mines on October 16, 1938. The mill shut down October 31. The last train pulled out of Kennecott on November 10, 1938.
 
 Descriptions of the railroad, the mines, the mill town, Chitina, McCarthy and Taral are as accurate as the historic record allows. Likewise, the description of the demise of these historic places is very close to what actually occurred. Engine number 74 was the one which crashed through the trestle crossing at Chitina in 1918. It had the distinction of being the Last Train Out and the was also last known engine from the CRNW Railway line to be scrapped.

Continue to Part 2 of the Preface