|
|
Return trip by
way of Kennicott Glacier and Kuskalina Glacier. Crossing the Lakina River
with great danger. Visit to Kennicott Pot Hole and Bonanza Mine.
From Scotty Crawford I learned that a rich strike of
copper ore had been made near Kennicott Glacier, and that I was within seventy
miles of the discovery. Having come thus far, I determined to see what there was
in the country. Wishing Scotty good luck, I returned to the horses and camped
for the night. The next morning I spent several hours rounding up the horses and
packing, and it was late before I started out.
My course lay over the Kotsina divide, across the
Kuskalina to Lakina, and from there up the Copper River I had no trail to
follow, but was told that there would be one after I left the Lakina River. My
saddle horse was a spirited animal, and for some reason I changed him for one of
the pack animals that day, which action probably saved my life. We had been
crossing some swampy ground, and I turned my horse's head up a steep hill to get
away from it. As the horse made the turn, with his forelegs up the ascent, his
hind feet sank into the morass and he fell over on his back with my right leg
under. Had it been my regular horse he would have struggled and thrashed about
and probably injured me, but fortunately this animal lay still, and when I saw
that he had quieted down I said gently, "Get up, Moore," and he rose without
giving me a scratch. I was then entirely alone one hundred and twenty-five miles
from Valdez, and had I suffered a broken leg my body would have been lying there
yet.
In due time we reached the Kuskalina Glacier. At
first glance I thought it was a
muddy river flowing down from a great cloudburst, the surface resembling a
choppy sea. The valley at this point was probably a mile wide, and was
completely filled with enormous masses of ice, the sides rising straight up a
hundred feet or so. It was necessary to cross this monster or else make a detour
of many miles, so I found a place where I could lead the horses to the top and
managed to make the crossing by following the riffles and dodging the big waves
of ice, From this ice sea I descended and wandered about as though I were lost,
but I followed an old Indian trail leading over a meadow of nigger heads for
many miles until I reached the Lakina River, which was running over the banks.
It was late in the day and I was tempted to camp for
the night In order to get some rest before attempting the ordeal of crossing the
swollen river. The warm sun had been melting the ice of glaciers during the day,
and water was running everywhere. However, as I had none too much food to carry
me through this detour on my way back to Valdez, it was necessary to make as
many miles as possible during the daylight hours.
My horses had hardly entered the river when one of
the pack animals stumbled against s boulder. The horses were tailed together,
and when one went down the others followed suit. Instantly we were
all floundering in the torrent. I slipped out of the saddle and turned my
animal loose. The water was up to my waist and I had difficulty in keeping my
feet, but I managed to work my way to one of the pack horses which was
struggling to get to his feet with the heavy pack dragging him down, and resting
his head on a boulder to keep his muzzle
above water I loosened the pack and managed to toss the packages to the
bank. The other horses were able to regain their feet without assistance.
As the river would be lower in
the morning, I decided to camp there and dry out my provisions and
clothes, and soon I had a rousing fire going. Being so far north, it was
daylight twenty-two hours and -twilight two hours more, so I was early in the
saddle and successfully negotiated the river.
Twenty miles down the Lakina, which is a good day's
travel in Alaska, I came in view of the Copper River, bordered by a wide expanse
of river bottom covered with timber, and reached what appeared to be a camping
place where I stopped. There I found a big blazed tree which bore this
information:
"Sixty- five miles to Tonsina
One
hundred and fifty miles to Valdez
Forty miles to the Kennicott Pot Hole
God bless our home."
The Kennicott Pot Hole is the place of discharge for
the melting waters of the Kennicott Glacier. The lower end of this body of ice
forms a quarter circle, and the river coming down underneath the glacier under
pressure boils up in the pothole like a turbulent cauldron. It is an awesome,
fearsome, and dangerous spot. The surrounding wall of ice is eighty to one
hundred feet high, which is another source of danger, as
great masses of the clear blue ice break off from above from time to time
and splash into the pool below.
The only way to cross over was by a narrow path,
which had been cut around the edge close to the seething, roaring up burst. I
dismounted and turned the horses loose. Then, watching my chance to cross
between avalanches of falling ice, I led one animal along the narrow trail to a
safe place. Returning, I did the same with the other horses, leading each one in
turn across the icy precipice.
Three miles beyond, I reached the camp of the
Bonanza Mine, soon to be famous. The Bonanza and Jumbo Mines, later to be
absorbed under the name of the Kennicott Corporation, had been discovered only a
few days before my visit by a party of grubstaked prospectors. They were
supposed to have obtained the information leading to the staking of the deposit
from Chief Nikolai of the Copper River Indians. Standing on one of the high
ridges that abound in that section, the bright green color of the outcropping
ore could be seen for miles, so that its discovery was a simple matter after
once having obtained the direction.
The whole party numbered eleven
men and these were grubstaked by eleven others, making twenty-two owners, all
told. The shares were divided into smaller units, and the four who had located
the mines were headed by Charles McClellan, who was the leader of the group.
Stephen Birch, who later became the president of the great Kennicott
Corporation, was there, at first only as a visitor like myself, but he had
purchased one of the interests and was then a full-fledged partner. He was said
to .be a relative of the Havemeyers, which seems to be borne out by the fact
that the sugar men later on purchased all the other interests at prices running
from $2,000 to $25,000.
No work had been done on the mine, for as a matter
of fact none was needed save to put the ore in sacks and ship it to market.
McClellan asked me for an estimate of the ore in sight, and I guessed six
thousand tons. He also asked whether I would make an offer for the whole
property, and being asked for a price he said it could be bought for about
$200,000.
On my offering to mine and market the ore on a
fifty-fifty basis, Mac said that if I would meet the whole party in Valdez when
we come out, he thought a deal could be arranged, When I left, Birch became one
of the party, and we each had packages of the ore. My samples assayed 76% copper
and twenty ounces of silver to the ton, which meant a value at that time of $250
per ton.
On arrival at Valdez, I cabled ay syndicate a report
of the find and recommended its purchase; but while they thought well of the
mine they balked at the $20,000,000 railroad necessary to properly develop it.
The Havemeyers completed their purchase, but for a year or more the mine lay
idle, during which the Alaska Copper Company made a vigorous fight for its
possession through the court, alleging that it was the source from which the
grubstakes were supplied. It was also claimed that Major Abercrombie, the trail
builder, had secured his interest by supplying army food to the discoverers. Be
this as it may, the Havemeyers won their ease. Delamar, an Idaho mining man,
sent his experts to appraise the Bonanza, but the railroad question was again
the stumbling block. Finally the Guggenheims entered the field, and how the
richest body of copper ore ever found on this continent was opened up in the
Bonanza and Jumbo Mines, how the railroad was finally built up the Copper River
from Cordova, the coal fields were opened up, and how the Kennicott Corporations
became one of the foremost copper producers, is now current history. All of
these enterprises were conducted in the face of almost unbelievable difficulties
through the conservation activities of the government. Since then the consensus
of opinion of the Alaska people has been. “Would that we had half a dozen
Guggenheim companies!” |
