The Yukon Waterway in the Development of Interior Alaska

Abstract

MUCH OF ALASKA must still be considered a frontier region, although white men have been exploring and exploiting the area for more than two hundred years. In contrast to the permanently ice-free coast south of the Alaska Peninsula, and the more northerly coasts, open to navigation during summer months, the great mass of interior Alaska, with its gold and furs, has been difficult to conquer. To penetrate the interior the early explorer was forced to leave the comparative comfort and safety of a ship and travel inland by foot, dogsled, river boat, or raft. The climate is far more severe than along the coast, and little exploration could be done during the winter. Economic considerations, however, have to some extent led men to overcome physical obstacles, and settlement has slowly increased. The interior is drained largely by the 1,979-mile Yukon River, the fourth longest river on the North American continent. The Yukon basin comprises about 56 per cent of the land area of present-day Alaska, and by 1950 the number of white persons living in the Yukon basin had reached about twenty thousand.' Most of these were concerned directly or indirectly with fur trapping and gold mining, although today an increasing number are in Alaska to serve the needs of the expanding military establishment. Because the basin is separated from the southern coast by the formidable Alaska Range, the easiest natural routes into the interior are along the Yukon, either upstream from its mouth or downstream from its headwaters in British Columbia near the head of the inside waterway from Seattle. The early explorers using the first route were faced with the necessity of combating the river's current, and they had only four ice-free months in which to do it. Later, prospectors opened up the second route after overcoming difficulties caused by hostile Indians and customs inspectors. Somewhat more slowly several overland winter routes were developed, and in 1923 the completion of the Alaska Railroad from the south coast at Seward to Fairbanks in the interior brought