The Heritage of Talkeetna

By Roberta Sheldon

Heritage of Talkeetna focus is on the people. From its beginning, Talkeetna seems to have been a lure for people noted for their character, individualism, sense of independence, and humor. This pattern remains true today, and in a thoughtful sense might almost be identified as an ongoing legacy. Despite tough, often harsh lives certain people remained for many years, providing durable threads that strengthened and maintained the fabric of the village. These people, their perseverance, and the manner in which they conducted their lives, shaped the character of what has become Talkeetna's special heritage. The reader will find that a substantial amount of activity in these pages occurs in the Yentna River and Cache Creek areas, which contributed no small amount to Talkeetna's past. People that trapped, prospected and mined in those areas relied on Talkeetna as a supply and service point, but perhaps more importantly, Talkeetna relied on the trade these activities provided. It was a symbiotic relationship, inseparable from the story of Talkeetna.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Release date: Mar 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781594339028

Roberta Sheldon

A lifelong Alaskan and longtime Talkeetna resident, Roberta Sheldon, shown here in the Dutch Hills, is the author of The Heritage of Talkeetna. She served for several years on the boards of Talkeetna's community council and historical society, and has been active on committees in many area land-use issues, including Talkeetna's comprehensive land plan. She and her husband, the late Don Sheldon, operated Talkeetna Air Service and raised three children in the village during the 1960s and 1970s.

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K’DALKITNU

"A caribou would run out and she would follow it. She would run up to it, saying, ‘Yehay!’ She carried a double-ended spear. She stabbed it. She already was an old woman. Her children were all grown. She was a fast-running woman. Those caribou would try to scare her away. She would laugh, that little one. ‘Hey, the caribou try to scare me away, but I cause them to be winded and then I run them into the lake.’

"Ch’anqet’ (was her name)… They hunted at Cheek Lakes (northeast of Talkeetna, and south of Stephan Lake). The people would run very fast in a group, and they would chase down these caribou.

Well, she started to become an old lady and her children drove in stakes across Creek that Flows Out," (Chunilna Creek) and they set a fish trap.

"‘Take care of the fish trap for me,’ she told them. Then she would go to the mountains with them (her dogs). She had lots of dogs and dog packs, and they would pack everything into the mountains. And how long would she stay up in the mountains with them? They would kill some caribou. She would wind-dry that meat. She would bundle it up nicely in dog packs and … she started back… The meat the dogs had packed, she hung it up high. And they built a nice smokehouse for putting up fish, and she hung up that meat. She harvested several winters’ supply of fish for her childrens’ food and her dogs’ food.

"Ch’anqet’ had six sons: K’uk’enesh, Ch’k’idetnishen, Sik’u, Sinidegga, Nits’uselen, and Kila Tlaq’a.

I don’t know what her husband’s name was. These were the last Mountain People. They all died in the 1918 flu. They died in Talkeetna. (¹)

This rare account of some of the individuals who lived in the Talkeetna area almost 200 years ago, was provided, before his death, by Shem Pete, a Tanaina Indian who has been recognized as a valuable source of Indian history in the Upper Cook Inlet Region. Because Talkeetna-area Indians kept no written documentation of their history, researchers must rely on scarce oral accounts like Shem Pete’s, or occasional observations of early white explorers. Only since the early 1800’s is some knowledge of these people available.

We know so little. We do know that artifacts located at Stephan Lake, north of Talkeetna, are estimated to be 6,000 years old, indicative of the presence of native people then. Whether these people were Eskimo or Indian, is not known.

One theory speculates that the Dena’Ina Indian group moved into Upper Cook Inlet Region approximately 1,500 years ago. Another Indian group, the Ahtna, located primarily around the Talkeetna Mountains to the north, inter-married with the Dena’Ina group. Researchers believe that this mesh produced a regional band called Dghelay Teht’ana, or the Mountain People.

These people were dominated and enriched by the great waterways of the area. The Susitna River wells from the dense wilderness of the Alaska Range in southcentral Alaska, and descends on a rugged southwestern course to the outbreak of a valley rich in woodlands, waterways, fish, furbearing animals, mineralization and scenic grace. Here it eventually joins with two other wild rivers, the Chulitna and the Talkeetna. At this confluence, just south of the powerful Alaska Range, and about 80 miles north of Cook Inlet, the Susitna continues, with added strength, to make its way through the lower Susitna River Valley to the ocean.

It was at this confluence of the three wild rivers, where the Talkeetna River emptied its rich burden, that the Mountain People spent much of their time. They lived with dramatic seasonal changes that controlled their lives; compelling cycles that maintained an uncompromising mastery over a land that the Mountain People alone traversed.

They called the Talkeetna River K’Dalkitnu, which translates as River of Plenty or Food is Stored River. They recognized the confluence of the Chulitna, Susitna, and Talkeetna River systems as significant, and called the merger Linghasdlent, or Where Streams Join.

Unlike many Indian groups that permanently settled in villages, the Mountain People were semi-nomadic. They moved according to their seasonal needs, but established hunting and fishing camps for long periods of time at the mouth of K’Dalkitnu. To the northeast, they hunted arctic ground (parky) squirrel, caribou and moose in the Prairie Creek area of the Talkeetna Mountains. Fish traps (basket and weir), smokehouses, meat caches, and skin-stretching frames were established at the mouth of Chunilna Creek, where that creek flowed into K’Dalkitnu, some seven miles northeast of the confluence of the three great rivers. Meat (wind-dried) and fish (king, silver, pink, and dog salmon) were packed out on dogs. Some of the Mountain People crafted boats from caribou skins and moved their meat by river. K’Dalkitnu was a major way-station for these people during their seasonal quests, nearly two centuries ago.

Ch’anqet’ of the Mountain People is believed to have been born in 1810 or 1820, and she died in 1904. Around this time two other individuals, the only ones officially documented as Mountain People chiefs, also died. They were Denyishla Iden, who passed away in 1905. And Ch’k’idetnishen (Ch’anqet’s son) who died in 1918, most likely as a result of the devastating flu epidemic.

A poet named Will Johnson, who authored a book of poetry in 1948, included his story of an Indian woman named Christine.(²) The extremely romanticized poem, The Saga of Christine, causes one to note similarities to Ch’anqet’. Both Shem Pete and Johnson depict a vital, courageous, skilled individual. In Johnson’s rendition the Indian woman deals with threatened starvation of her people:

"On the turbulent Talkeetna’s shore

In reverence is held this Indian lore

Of how, when Want, stark and lean,

Was vanquished by the lovely Christine

The skilled young bride of Chief Nickolai

Who wouldn’t idly let her people die.

"One-eye Nick, Aleck, and the great Stephan,

Mighty hunters all of the Indian clan,

Had combed the wilderness for game

With untiring efforts, all in vain

Until weak and waried in the quest,

Their one desire, in camp to rest.

"The dawn was yet unborn when Christine,

In huntress garb befitting the tribal queen -

Moose hide moccasins, parky of white,

Fur trimmed against the cold’s keen bite -

Set forth, the bitter north wind to face

On snowshoes, to seek the remembered place."

Christine sought a memory, a successful hunting area used by her father when she was a child. Though the region was badly stigmatized by tribal superstition, Christine boldly and bravely snowshoed to the area and made a shelter for the night. The next day she tracked a bull and cow moose to within firing range, and killed the bull with her gun.

"Her snowshoes were gliders a-skimming the snow,

Her heart was singing with rhythmic glow

As homeward on winged joy she sped,

To tell that the foul specter of famine was dead,

That life-renewing meat was theirs once more

To gladden all hearts on the Talkeetna’s shore.

"And thus runs the saga of the brave Christine,

Whose tribe then lived by Talkeetna’s stream,

And how she saved them from famine dire,

And won renown from son and sire

For glorious exploit of their tribal queen,

The bride of Chief Nickolai - Christine."

Just as the beautiful Indian name K’Dalkitnu would evolve into more common usage as Talkeetna, so did a common surname emerge for many of the Indian residents of the area. The name Nickolai (and other variations, such as Nicoli) dominates Indian history during this period, and reflects the Russian influence prior to the arrival of American gold seekers. Early explorers spoke of encountering individuals called Chief Nickolai and Talkeetna Nickolai. A few Nicoli descendants still live near Talkeetna today.

Dghelay Teht’ana (Mountain People), believed to be named Nicholi, living in Talkeetna in 1916. (photo by AEC engineer Ward Hall, courtesy Barbara Langlois)

THE SEALED BOOK

In the mid-1800’s the Susitna River area, including Talkeetna, was considered a profoundly isolated part of Alaska. A Russian-American historian named Petroff described the country as a sealed book.

The earliest penetration of the Susitna-Talkeetna region by the white man appears to have been that of Russian exploration parties on the Susitna River. There is some evidence that a Russian explorer named Petr Malakoff ascended the Susitna from Cook Inlet in 1834. Years later a Russian map suggested that a rough survey was made of the entire Susitna and Talkeetna Rivers by Russian parties in 1845.

But the Russian-American Company apparently had neither the manpower nor the financial means to establish any kind of significant presence here. It is important to note, however, that the Russian Orthodox church, which figures so predominantly in Alaskan native cultures, made a mark in this area. A Nickolai grave located in Talkeetna still bears the Russian Orthodox cross traditionally favored by Dena’Ina.

Gold, the ever sought element of trade and human endeavor, stimulated the infiltration of the Talkeetna area in two major ways during the late 1800’s.

First came the prospectors. The 1890 Alaskan census included a description of a party that attempted to make its way to the Susitna Valley from Cook Inlet in its search for gold. This evidence of the white man’s search for the mineral here prior to the historic Klondike gold strike is notable when considering the Susitna’s sealed book mystique. (The Klondike bonanza triggered an unprecedented influx of gold seekers to Alaska in 1898.)

These rare first parties found their efforts not easily rewarded. Discouragement came in the form of difficulty rowing upriver, the exacting terrain, and frustration over the lack of any data of the area. But the worst element of contention was the hordes of mosquitoes encountered. The prospecting party identified in the 1890 census spent three weeks attempting to negotiate the Susitna Valley, but returned in dismay, saying the area might contain the most beautiful scenery in the world or the richest mines, but that clouds of mosquitoes obscured their vision and occupied their attention to the exclusion of everything else.

This complaint turns up repeatedly in journals from this time. When George Carmack did hit it big with his major discovery at the Klondike River in 1896, the explorer-adventurer-prospector William Dickey was exploring the Susitna River Valley. His was one of 100 different parties that attempted to prospect the area at that time, but only about five parties managed to achieve any distance up the river from Cook Inlet. Dickey remarked that among those who gave up the quest were two partners, one of whom said he would not prospect a country where he was obliged to tie up his head in a gunny sack every night in order to escape the mosquitoes.

The second influence took form in several geological and military expeditions that, in 1898 and 1899, accomplished mapping and exploration of Susitna Valley rivers, including the Indian K’Dalkitnu. The push was on to identify an all-American railroad route to the Yukon gold fields that did not have to pass through Canadian territory. It was soon recognized that the Susitna Basin provided a logical origin point for a transportation corridor that would travel across the Alaska Range and ultimately connect with the Yukon. The Susitna-Talkeetna area received intent examination with an eye toward its potential for accommodating railroad work crews and camps.

Then, in the early 1900’s, gold was discovered in the Yentna-Cache Creek Basin, approximately 50 miles northwest of the Mountain Peoples’ seasonal camps at the mouth of K’Dalkitnu.

Thus it was that the Mountain People experienced an ever increasing number of encounters with the white man, who would eventually influence their destiny by frequenting the strategically located site at K’Dalkitnu. And, as time passed and information about the area was exchanged among travelers, the beautiful Indian name experienced a misuse, and the sparse settlement at the confluence of three wild rivers became known as Talkeetna.

THE YENTNA-CACHE CREEK GOLD FIELDS

The evolution of Talkeetna was closely related to the search for gold in the Yentna-Cache Creek areas of the Susitna River Valley. While it was actually the construction of the Alaska Railroad that targeted Talkeetna for growth, the railroad activity resulted in a supply point settlement that also provided easier access to the Cache Creek gold fields.

Originally, gold seekers worked their way north from Cook Inlet to a supply point called Susitna Station, about fifty miles downriver from Talkeetna. Here, an Alaska Commercial Company trading post supplied food, clothing, gear and other necessities for explorations farther north.

Documentation of those early day activities is found in a wealth of material recorded in 1950 by Dorothy Wolfe, a lady once married to Mike Trepte, a Cache Creek miner. Wolfe harboured a keen and sensitive interest in anything to do with the history of the Cache Creek gold fields, and we are indebted to her efforts at preserving the stories and information she solicited from virtually every miner she met. She tells about the access to the Yentna-Cache Creek region in 1905:

The only feasible route during the summer months to the Yentna-Cache Creek district was by way of the Susitna and Yentna rivers. Launches were used to carry both passengers and freight up the Susitna River to the Susitna Station. This village was the center of supplies for the Yentna-Cache Creek area. Built entirely on a shoestringlike strip of land on the east bank of the Susitna River where the Yentna River joins the Susitna, the village became a mecca for miners, trappers, and drummers selling general merchandise. The Road House had a corner partitioned off for the post office. The store keeper could outfit a customer with everything he’d need from needles to canvas hose. It took several long, large buildings to hold his supplies. The stern-wheelers pushing freight laden barges were common sights on the Susitna River. The unloading of these barges and the storing of the freight gave continuous work for a goodly number of men.

It was from Susitna Station that prospector Dock Herning traveled upriver in 1905. He traveled with another group of men, one of whom, Wolfe documents, remarked, Each one of us wanted to be the first to find gold and stake a rich claim, yet we all wanted to stay together, since there was safety in numbers. At first it wasn’t bad going, but soon we struck swift water with falls breaking over boulders… (which) at times rose from the water like walls of rock. Since we couldn’t navigate the falls, we had to pack the heavy boats around them, chop a trail through the jungles of alder and willows while eaten up by mosquitoes. You could just reach out and grab a handful of the pests.

The men changed their plan and decided to ascend the Chulitna River, then move up the Tokasitna River to a small lake they named Home Lake. Here they set up a base camp. Operating out of Home lake, Herning worked his way to a creek he later called Nugget, where he discovered gold and established claims that eventually came to be the richest mine to be developed in the Yentna-Cache Creek area. The other men then discovered gold in the Peters Creek and Cache Creek basins. One of them, Henry Bahrenburg, found gold at a creek he named Dollar Creek, because the first gravel washed netted a dollar pan.

Word circulated rapidly that Susitna’s sealed book character had been jarred. The following spring, in 1906, a new surge of gold seekers arrived in Alaska to hunt the elusive metal. A young man named Albert Stinson was among them, and his recollection of that time, related to Wolfe in 1950 when Stinson was in his eighties, provides an exact and entertaining account of his experiences:

"I left the States and came north to Alaska to seek gold and adventure. I put the gold first, for it was the prime reason I left Seattle aboard a north-bound ship. Adventure, I knew, would follow in the wake of the search for gold.

"In the early part of 1906, while in the southern part of Alaska, I heard about a strike beyond Seward. I took the next boat stopping there. From Seward a trail ran north to Hope, an old Russian gold village. It seemed as though every man in Seward was heading north along that snow covered trail toward Hope. Some walking with heavy packs on their backs, like my load, some driving huskies hitched to loaded sleds, and some even had pack horses. Log roadhouses were located conveniently along the trail to take care of the traveler, his dogs’ or his horses’ needs. Here also, were heard bits of information about the trail’s condition ahead of us.

"At Hope I boarded a stern-wheeler pushing a barge loaded with freight for Susitna Station, the supply point for the trappers and the prospectors in the Yentna-Cache Creek country. Looking back now, I can see myself as I paced the freighter’s deck. I was a mighty proud young fellow, still in my twenties. I stood over six feet tall in my socks, full of vim and vigor and vinegar. I could out-walk, out-work, and out-pole boats better than most. I wasn’t the cripple you see now, going about my prospecting on crutches.

"When I stepped ashore at the Susitna Station dock I found a thriving village opposite the mouth of the Yentna River. Here hunters, trappers, and prospectors outfitted for the trail. It didn’t take me long to make acquaintances. Some of these men getting supply orders filled were planning to leave by dog team in the morning. I asked a trapper, who’d finished packing his freight, who the fellows were that had found the first gold.

Since he told me so much about the Home Lake country I went there first to prospect, working my way up Long Creek. The prospector that named this creek did a good job of it. I thought I’d never come to its head. I had to chop my way through jungles of alder clumps and willow. Swarms of hungry mosquitoes, gnats, and a tiny fly called no-see-um" by the Indians, made me long for a hat net and a smoke screen.

"Crossing a low summit I began to work my way down a creek called Poorman, This creek heads in washed out gulches cut down into rocks of slate and graywacke series, then it digs into soft coal-bearing beds. This coal has no commercial value being lignitic, but miners still use it for fuel. One of the miners had named the creek Poorman, for here the gold was so easy to mine that a poor man had a chance to better himself without much effort. I visited several days with the miners working their claims. The men showed me some of the gold they’d recovered. The creek gold was coarse and rusty-like, the bench gold was brighter and not so coarse. I recovered a nugget valued at $28.00. Gold then assayed (at) $17.85 an ounce.

"I should have stayed on Poorman and taken a claim, for the following year, 1907, six men worked the shallow gravels that lay on the slate bedrock and recovered 1,329 ounces of gold. But I left to go over the trail of the original discoverers and just to prospect this season. Poorman runs into Cottonwood Creek, which received its name from the cottonwood (trees) that line its benches. One of the prospectors I visited said as he slapped at the blood thirsty mosquitoes, ‘Cottonwood has plenty of insect life, plenty of plant life, and beautiful flowers, but not much gold.’