16 December 2008

• I found a Boston newspaper article written only days after Jack passed away. The information was likely provided by Jack's immediate family in Litchfield, NH, which isn't that terribly far from Boston. The article agrees that Jack came back from the Yukon with about $2 million that he panned out of the Stewart River. It goes on to say that he made some of his fortune on Dominion Creek and was the third person to arrive there once gold was found. Dominion Creek was hit about the same time as the Klondike but was overshadowed by that great rush. While the Klondike had more gold per mile, Dominion had more miles of it and so they were nearly equal in output. The first rush took place in June of 1897 and continued on for many years. Jack left the Yukon in 1898 although he returned again in 1899, and perhaps after that. Being a cagey old prospector with 40+ years under his belt he likely worked the Dominion while everyone else was rushing to the Klondike. He also very likley understated his claims to avoid Canadian customs men.

  My sister also found a couple of card games from the Yukon, one being named Yukon. In this game the Jacks are high with the Jack of Spades being called the Grand Yukon and the others simply Yukons. Thus Yukon Jack could well have been somehow associated with this game. Captain Jack spoke of spending endless cold winter months playing cards. The other card game was called Klondike, but was originally called Canfield. Jack's assistant in setting up Fort Reliance was a boy named Banfield. Perhaps there is some link here.

  Finally, both Alaska Magazine and Gold Prospectors Magazine are going to review my book!

21 November 2008

• Heard from the family of trapper, James Monroe Bean, yesterday. I had guessed that this was his full name since some records had him as James Bean and others as Munroe Bean. Since James Monroe was president not too long before this it seemed like a good guess, and was correct. James' wife was perhaps the first white women in Alaska. She was certainly the only white women during Jack McQuesten's first few years along the Yukon. Mercier reports this as fact and there is no other evidence that I have yet seen to refute it.

  James and his wife had a son named Elbridge who survived the Indian attack. He is said to be the first white child born in the interior of Alaska. His nickname was Ellie and he was brought back to San Francisco and sent, by train, to Illinois. My thanks to Bean's great granddaughter, Marcia, and her husband, Mike Hansen, for this new information.

  In addition to the Bean family, and of course the McQuesten family, I have also heard from Kate McQuesten's Athabascan people, and from the family of Gordon Bettles, the famed Alaska newspaper man, and friend of Captain Jack. Others I've met in Yukon had family members who worked with Jack, and still more individuals have passed on stories they've heard of Jack while visiting Alaska or Yukon. Leroy Napoleon "Captain Jack" McQuesten is still bringing people togeher after all these years.

17 November 2008

• I've just received a copy of a report by Smithsonian ornithologist, Edward Nelson, that mentions Captain Jack McQuesten several times. I am adding a new link to the website "Jack, the Naturalist" to record some of the new information. I regularly get snippets about Jack to add to our overall knowledge of him. One is a quote by him about a fight he witnessed between a lynx and a red fox. Jack states, "The lynx sprang upon the fox, in comparatively open ground, evidently trying to capture it for food. The fox instantly made tight, and for a few moments the fur flew right and left. Then a short pause followed and the fight was renewed. A second pause ensued, and after the two had glared at one another for a few moments they slowly withdrew in opposite directions, the hair on each bristling defiance, but each apparently satisfied to close accounts."

13 October 2008

• I'm all excited about the Iditarod show that's going to start on Discovery TV very soon. I live in a small Pennsylvania town, which, suprisingly, has one of the larger dog sled races in the lower 48. The town is Warren, PA and the race is held in conjunction with an event caled the Winterfest, this year to be held January 25 - 27. I updated a few of the pages on this website tonight, just to keep them current and informative.

10 October 2008

• I signed up for a new service at newspaperarchives.com. It costs a little each year to be a member but has lots of old articles scanned in. I just started and here's what I've found, so far.

  1910 Boston Journal article, which was written a few days after Jack's death, claims he came back with about $2 million and that Jack London was his friend.

  9/16/1897 New Haven Register - "Every man now going to Dawson" says McQuesten, "either by St, Michael or the Chilkoot is taking his life in his hands. While there is plenty of food in St. Michael, it cannot be taken up the river in time, this season. The river is very low, the past season having been extremely dry." Regarding royalty levied by the Canadian government, McQuesten thinks that it will not be collected for the miners will not stand such an imposition and will move over to the American side, where, he maintains, equally good diggings can be found. He says, also, that agents for the Rothchilds and other British banking companies are now in the country endeavoring to buy as many claims as they can secure options upon.

  9/6/1912 Daily Alaska Dispatch (article called "Viva Le Sourdough") - The arrival in Dawson last night of Mrs. Jack McQuesten, wife of the Father of the Yukon, recalls vividly, to earlier comers, the glory of those wild, free days when the North lay slumbering. The giants of those days hewed the way over mountains and through the valleys. They inspired others to come, who located the gold. The Yukon will do well to honor these first empire builders of the territory with a monument.

  7/16/1916 Dallas Morning News (article called "Dawson Dwindles with Klondike Gold Supply) - A man was telling last night of Jack McQuesten who lived at Forty Mile, a camp on the Yukon. McQueston's (sic) store was in a log cabin and he had goods of every description. One day a miner came in and asked for a needle. He was handed out one and told that the price was 75 cents. The man took the needle between his thumb and finger, looked hard at it, and then asked McQueston:

  "Say, pard, 'ain't you mistaken? Can't you make it a bit cheaper? That's a hell of a price for a needle."

  "No", said the storekeeper, "I'd like to if I could, but, man, just think of the freight!"

  Also found a newspaper notice where Jack's grandfather, James, filed for divorce against Ann Moor. Another article has a quote from James on the election of Andrew Jackson. I'll post these stories at a later date.

6 October 2008

• Part two of the PBS documentary on dogs aired last night and I watched this episode, too, with interest. The writers seem very sure that all dogs descend from wolves, that the earlist evidence of domestication took place in northern China and/or Siberia and that these breeds spread across Europe and America from there. They also say that dogs are very easily bred for specific purposes and that the breed can change dramtically through the years. They showed old photos of bulldogs who were much leaner and taller than today's breed, and much more suited for their job of controlling bulls. So my early images of Siberian "huskies", although they look somewhat different, may indeed be the forebearers of the modern Siberian Husky. My research included many old books written at the very time of exploration of the Great White North and based on information gleaned from the people actually raising and breeding these animals. Jack entered the Yukon with four dogs. I would love to know what kind of dogs they were.

3 October 2008

• I received an email from a gentlemen, well versed in Yukon history, yesterday. He pointed out a few corrections for the book. Most important is that the picture I have identified as Ed Scheiffelin, is not him but rather his photographer. This was not my error as it is apparently mislabeled in the Alaskan archives where I found it, and this man and others are petitioning the archives to replace it with an actual picture of Ed. The other two smaller items were that Muir was apparently not the first whiteman to visit Glacier Bay, although he was first to research and investigate it. My source says different so I need to review this. Also, he claims Chief Hole-in-the-face was at the attack on Fort Sekirk, where my source says it was his father. In this case we could both be right in that both men could have been there. I'll need to look into this one, too.

  Awhile ago I received my only other correction. Julia Horsfall was apparently not Jack's daughter, Julia, as I had been told by a few historians in Dawson. They weren't sure and were investigating the story so I tried to make this clear, in my writings, that this was only a theory. Now proof has appeared to discount this story.

  Considering how in-depth the book is, four small errors don't seem too bad at all.

  I've also received a half dozen new stories about Jack, which I will post here. If I ever revise the book or do a sequel I'll make corrections and additions there, too.

  On my last day in Dawson I was sitting with many Yukon historians, with substantial credentials. They were arguing about a few points in history, here and there, proving that even the experts aren't always 100% sure. I said that I wanted this book to be the definitive biography of Jack McQuesten and someone said, "It will be, as soon as it is published. That's when you'll get letters with corrections or additions."

  A few of the others chuckled over the statement and agreed. They were right, by golly.

28 September 2008

• Tonight, PBS had a special on about the domestication of the dog. Their research strongly supports what I have written about the dogs of the north.

  Highlights include recent Swedish DNA testing, which seems to point to upper China or Siberia as the source for all domesticated dogs, beginning about 15,000 years ago.

  PBS also pointed out that, based on testing done in Siberia, on wild foxes, it is possible to produce a tame pet from wild parentage, through breeding, in as short a period as ten years. Just as I pointed out in my article, offspring were chosen for their tameness, and bred with others of similar nature until an entirely tame fox was produced. In the case of the Husky this was done with wolves. One interesting footnote: breeding for tameness also tends to breed out coloring other than black and white. Thus we have wolves principally of brown colors, whereas the Herschel Island Huskies, and many other sled dogs, tended to be of white, grey, and black colorings.

  Finally, the documentary pointed out that, without the domesticated dog, regions like the Artic would never have been settled, so important were the services of the animal, from pulling loads to hunting, from watchdog to companionship, to herding other animals, especially goat and sheep who tend, in the wild state, to live in rugged, rocky mountains, often only accesible by dogs.

26 September 2008

• A diary has been found recently, which was kept by a doctor at Forty Mile. In it he describes how he purchased a camera and darkroom equipment and took pictures of Jack and his friends, Al Mayo and Mickey O'Brien, and of Jack's wife and some of their children. These are some of the pictures I purchased from the University of Berkeley, which appear in my book. Someone is currently transcribing the entire diary and I hope to add it's pertinent contents to this website as soon as they are available.