February 26, 2011: Happy 112th birthday!

Today is the 112th anniversary of the founding of the Arctic Brotherhood. It's hard for me to even know where to begin in trying to think of what to write in honor of this incredible day.

I try and imagine that first night when the group was founded and I find that I can picture it pretty well. The eleven founding members were on board a ship, the City of Seattle, on their way back up north. Actually, depending on which source you look at, there's conflicting thoughts as to whether or not they had all been up here already by then. The Klondike Gold Rush took place between 1897-1898, with the biggest migration of people occuring in winter, '97-'98. According to folklore and certain sources, the eleven founders had all been northward during that rush. Some like to even believe that all of them had hiked one of the trails north to Bennett and points beyond, but only one of them can definitively say that his name was on the rosters of the NWMP's checkpoints.

Regardless, on the chilly evening of February 26th, 1899, eleven old friends united in the saloon (or dining room, depending who you ask) of the ship somewhere in the inside passage. Having been on a boat in those same waters countless times it's not that difficult for me to picture. Granted, the bar on the Alaska state ferry isn't exactly like what the saloon on the City of Seattle would have been, but it's a modern-day comparison.

As reminiscences of their northern experience flowed out, maybe along with anticipation and plans for the next part of their trip, the ship chugged along and the beer and champagne flowed. At some point in their revelry, as happens so often in bar room conversations, someone had a BRILLIANT idea. Unlike most of the drunk plans that i've been involved in ("let's make a 'This is Skagway' music video!" "We should all go on a road trip next weekend", "We are going to start our own business"....), this idea was more than a pipe dream. Three months later, the intoxicated plans of eleven men had become an elite force of three hundred. Ten years later, ten thousand men-- one sixth of Alaska's white population (THEY made that distinction, not me)-- had joined in the dream. But thirty years later, it had faded into just that, a dream.

Their plan, of course, was the formation of the Arctic Brotherhood.

Could these eleven men possibly have known what it turned into? (Does anyone reading this have any idea what it turned into?) Could they have seen that the brotherhood would be responsible for getting Alaska representation to congress, and champions of the cause of territorial government for Alaska? Could they have imagined that thirty-two camps of their order would be sprawled out throughout every corridor of transit north of the 54 degree line, from coastal towns to inland river camps? Could they have seen that three US Presidents, one Canadian Governor-General, three Alaska governors, and countless mayors, judges, and senators would join their ranks? Could they have really grasped what their pipe dream would turn into?

I imagine them, in the days before anyone knew about lung cancer and liver cirrhosis, sitting in the bar with their drinks and cigars, laughing and talking, everyone just trying to get a word in. "OH! So we could make it just like the masons..." one would say, "Except," another would interject, "it would JUST be for people in Alaska!"

"No, no, no," someone interjects. "It can't just be in Alaska, the gold is in the Yukon."

"And all the people who come to Alaska are just going to the Yukon anyway," someone else pipes in.

"Well," the first would say, "We could just have it be north of a certain latitude."

"North of Vancouver!" someone says definitively.

Someone who maybe up until this point has been quiet waits til the silent pause and says, "if we go north of Vancouver then Prince George will be in. They're not really a frontier town like we're looking for."

"The kid's right," someone says. "North of Prince George!" He slams his fist onto the table.

"North of Prince George!" they all say together, raising their glasses.

And from there...

When i first started doing research on the AB, I was fascinated by the one tiny detail that everyone seems to ask about: What happened to them? They lasted longer than many people expected and yet they were all but defunct within thirty years. Still-- that's thirty years longer and ten thousand people more than any idea i've ever had has gone. (That sentence was full of taxing syntax, sorry.) This detail, the demise of the AB, haunted me. I would not rest until I had figured it out.

All the research I put into trying to solve the mystery of the AB, which no one could explain to me, ended up becoming the obsession which has led to this blog, my latest tattoo, and the book I'm forty pages into writing. And in all that research what I've found to answer my question is...

There were a lot of factors involved in the dissolution of the AB. But that's not what's important. What's important is that they did exist, and that they did have an amazing impact on the North. Captain Richardson, who was in command of all the road building in Alaska (hence Richardson Highway), was an AB. The President of the WP&YR railroad was an AB. S. J. Marsh, one of the first white men to explore the Arctic, was an AB. We owe our roads, our railroads, our maps, our infrastructure, our very independence, to these men who called themselves Arctic Brothers (though none of them lived north of the Arctic Circle). Why they disbanded isn't the most important detail of this story. What they accomplished, that's the story.

And all of this because... 114 years ago, a man named Henry left his hometown in Sidney, Maine, with his wife, Pauline, heading west. Why? Probably the same reason that anyone else did-- gold. Fortune. Relief from the economic depression. A fresh start. When he got to Skagway, he went no farther. His trade as a barber proved enough for him to make money in the town that was the gateway to the gold fields. He set up his business in a store front on Broadway that had been a hotel at one time.

4 years ago, a girl named Ashley left her home on the east coast, heading west. Why? Maybe some of the same reasons as Henry. A fresh start. Independence. A new beginning. When she got to Skagway, she knew it was home. The first place she went into when she got there, a place called Moe's Frontier Bar, had been in business for decades... but at one time it had been a barber shop in a store front on Broadway.

And the only reason I started delving into the Arctic Brotherhood was because Henry, the barber, shares my last name. He was an AB and in an attempt to learn everything I could about him to find a link between his lineage and mine, I found my brothers. They've given me a purpose and a goal unlike any I've ever had. Beause of Henry Bowman of Sidney, Maine, I know what I want to do with my life: write a book about the Arctic Brotherhood and bring their story, hidden for so long, back into light. And, God willing, bring their organization back into existence.

Thinking about Dr. Moore

I've been taking long AB documents-- newspaper and magazine articles-- and transcribing them, typing them into Works Word Processor. The goal is that not only will i read them in the process, but then I'll have a more legible and more easily navigated digital copy of the sources. Last night I started typing Dr. Moore's serial for Alaska Weekly magazine which began in 1931-- a history of the AB. I typed all through Clash of the Titans, which i really wanted to watch but somehow lost interest in as soon as it started.

A few lines really stood out to me as I typed:

"I will aim in this article to give you the origin of the Arctic Brotherhood as I recall it, and to remind you of its influence upon early life in Alaska with the hope that it may help perpetuate its history authentically while facts are yet fresh in the memory of some of its early members."

That's my purpose, after all, in writing my book...

"On this holiday occasion let us survivors of the Arctic Brotherhood-- as we recall our early history-- think of those who have passed to the Camp of the Last Pass, fill our glasses, and drink to the memory of our living and absent brothers."

This is exactly how I felt when I sat in the Arctic Club in Seattle...

"To write of the men who, by crushing rock and sifting sands, produced gold and silver from a land which yields immortal youth and stored energies of inexhaustible mines, is like speaking of an imperishable race whose achievements are wonderful in scope and splendid in promise."

I just thought it was interesting that he made the metaphor of an imperishable race... considering the ABs' writings implied that they considered Alaska Natives inferior to them.

"With tender recollections of our precious cabin home in Alaska and of associations with the grand characters who made that country, I offer this second section of my story as the tribute of a grateful heart. No garlands of rhetoric or language of mine can do justice to those of whom I write and the grandeur and glory of their wonderful country I ask you to accept it with its outlines as a tribute of love which I give to associations of my life that are my richest heritage."

As I read Dr. Moore and re-type his words, the way he writes about trying to preserve the heritage of an organization that, by the time he was writing, had already fallen apart, inspires me to do the same in the book that someday will be finished. As of now it's only thirteen pages (half the length of my senior thesis, and two hundred pages shy of the length of the longest work of fiction i've ever written), but all the research is there in two massive binders and files on my desktop. It's a massive and humbling undertaking and I only hope that I can honor the memories of the men who so influenced the great land I live in.

November 1-2 in AB history... part one.

Last month i introduced Arctic Brotherhood camp #11, Council City, on the Seward Peninsula near Nome (western Alaska for the cheechako). Camp #11 was organized in October of 1900 and became, according to the 1909 book the AB put out, an important part of Council City's social culture. The town had no kind of meeting place or recreational facilities, so the AB was poised to give a lift to the population. At the time of its inception, Council City was the "most northernly camp" in the AB's ranks.

BY November 2 of 1900 it was a serious question as to whether or not the campw ould survive because of the exodus that occurs in Alaska in the fall. As a result, five "faithful and energetic men" met to decide the camp's future. It was a close vote-- but majority ruled that day as 3 of the 5 voted in favor of continuing the camp. They quickly added eight more members and within a month the camp's numbers had doubled.

Unlike so many other camps, #11 survived past its infancy. In November of 1902 the Arctic Brothers decided to put together a library-- "for the hours of reading are long in the winter time, as Council is but one degree below the Arctic Circle, and is isolated from the rest of the world from October to June, except by transportation by dog sled." See, even though Council was right up the river from Nome, on the coast, ships at the time didn't head that far north in the winter.

The library was a success. From November of 1902 to March of 1903, 1090 books were checked out of the stacks to 116 customers. According to the Ab's, "brooding and gloomy despondency lessedned by 25,000 hours!"

The brothers pointed out that the Council area of the Seward Peninsula hadn't yet been mined. Most of its inhabitants, according to wikipedia (oh-so-reliable, sarcasm) migrated to Nome when the gold fever moved that way in 1900. Today there is one B&B in Council (also according to wikipedia), making it, along with a handful of others, an AB town that is no more.

Because there was a HUGE controversy in the Arctics on November second of 1909--the most divisive of its kind, which pitted camp against camp-- this will have to be continued tomorrow for a Tuesday edition of This Week in AB History.

October 25 and beyond

Of all the tragedies to hit the Skagway area, as far as I can tell, the most sensational is the wreck of the Princess Sophia. She was southbound from Skagway carrying 300 passengers and 65 crew members, 92 years ago today. That’s more than the Palm Sunday avalanche, and it’s a story more shrouded in mystery than the Christmas Day murders. The main reason that so little was known for so long – and in many ways, so little is still known today—is that the company who owned the vessel destroyed all records related to the incident. Bad press, you know?

At the time of the wreck, in 1918, Sophia was one of many regularly-scheduled ships to cruise up and down the coast much like today’s Alaska marine highway ferry system. This was before regular air service, and before well-developed roads, so the water was the main form of transit for many. Each fall, just like today, a mass exodus left Skagway. In 1918 it wasn’t just Skagway's summer workers heading home; back then Skagway was one of the main access ports to getting in and out of the Yukon, northern BC, and interior Alaska. The exit from Skagway was made up of people from all over; most notably Dawson.

Members of Dawson’s Arctic Brotherhood who were on board included entrepreneurs William C. Sharron and Albert Pinska; Sam Henry; carpenter Thomas Collins; James A. Clarke; and customs officer Edmund Ironside. The wife and daughter of C. J. Vifquain were also on board, as well as Council City member John Haynes. Ironside is the most notable character of the AB group on the ship. The book written by Betty O’Keefe and Ian MacDonald on the subject give light to the well-loved officer of the law. According to a tale by Ironside, another passenger, Lulu Mae Eads, was the same “Lady Lou” of the Robert Service poem “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.” Ironside himself had no misgivings in admitting that his own poetry was modeled after Robert Service’s—at the time, many amateur Northern poets styled their poems after their favorite poet (who, by the way, mentions the AB in two poems but was not himself a member).

Ironside was traveling with his mother for a winter holiday. Nostalgia raged among the passengers, crew, and the farewell parties in Skagway as Sophia’s final voyage of the season lay ahead. This year, according to O’Keefe and MacDonald, there were more people leaving than usual. Unlike past years, many of them planned to never return. Ironside, wrought in emotion as well as everyone around him, captured the moment in a short poem called “Leaving Dawson.” The final few lines:

It isn’t “goodbye” forever
That is the message you vain would send,
To the magic city of Dawson as the
Ship sails around the bend.

Unfortunately, Ironside’s words held an ominous foreboding, as for at least 365 oceangoers, it would be goodbye forever.

The wreck happened in the midst of a blizzard. Many rescue attempts were thwarted by the weather. It was another Arctic Brother, Governor Thomas Christmas Riggs, who orchestrated the recovery efforts and coordinated the search for bodies from Juneau. Charles Garfield, a member of Nome’s AB camp, was the sailor who confirmed that none of the passengers or crew of Sophia survived. If Dawson had the most passengers on board, Juneau was equally captivated by the disaster by heading up relief efforts. No one in Juneau was unaffected by the search.

After the Titanic sinking in 1912, ship safety had been heightened; but the Princess Sophia had added extra berths last minute to over-extend their passenger capacity. The final report ended in much controversy by stating that the ship's pilot had indeed been going too fast as well. In spite of the hope that many ships gave the passengers and crew in the hours following the initial cause of the wreck-- collision with a reef, about halfway between Skagway and Juneau-- no rescue would occur. Many passengers wrote out their final wills and letters to loved ones in the moments before water filled the boat and the lives of 365 were lost.

Shortly after the disaster, Governor Riggs quarantined Juneau, banning all maritime traffic due to an influenza outbreak. It was this same Spanish flu that had tragically ended the young life of Skagway officer Vincent Dortero in October of 1918, around the same time. Dortero was in Iowa serving with the military. Not only was he an AB, he also was a member of the Eagles, Pioneers, and Knights of Pythias. His death was reported in the Skagway papers, and was a rude awakening to many.

On a more positive note to close out October in AB history, the 1909 Arctic Brotherhood book documents two clubs being founded in this month.


October 22nd of 1900 marked the founding of Camp #11, Council City. The camp was established with fifteen charter members by Walter H. Ferguson, the US Commissioner for that district. Council City was located in the vicinity of Nome on the Seward Peninsula. At the time of the camp’s founding, Council City was on the decline. It was debatable as to whether the camp would survive at all… more on that next month!!

Also in October of 1907 the Arctic Brotherhood camp in Fairbanks, #16, was re-organized. It had originally been founded in 1903, but poor management had caused its breakdown and its members decided that a re-establishment was in order. Next month Fairbanks is in the spotlight again, with a night to remember for many.

October 1-18 in Arctic Brotherhood History

First off, it's important to note that today, October 18th is Alaska Day... not just a day off from work, it marks the day that Alaska went from Russian hands to American. KTNA in Talkeetna explains the difference between Alaska Day and Seward Day.




It's fitting to begin this blog on Alaska Day, because the day that the United States took control of Alaska is, essentially, the first in many steps toward the Arctic Brotherhood's inception. In an abstract and removed way, that makes October 18 of 1867 a very important day in the AB's history.




There are a few other dates from October 1st through the 18th that are directly significant to the Arctic Brotherhood:




October 9, 1901: Camp Dawson, #4

Work on Dawson's AB hall began today, according to Ken Spotswood. The Daily Nugget, newspaper in Dawson, reported on the new construction. According to the paper, the building was slated to be 50 feet by 100 feet, and to stand at a story and a half high. The construction took only three weeks and $16,000.




October 10, 1907: Camp Skagway, #1

One of Skagway's newspapers reports that on this date new officers were elected to Arctic Brotherhood camp #1. Among them were Arctic Chief Edward Rasmusson, who at the time was US Commissioner; and Vincent Dortero and his father Tony.




October 15, 1908: Camp Hot Springs, #24

Deputy Grand Arctic Chief C. A. Davidson on this date established an AB camp at the town of Hot Springs, 100 miles west of Fairbanks in the Tanana Valley. According to the Arctic Brotherhood's book, published 1909, "the camp has such a position in the Tanan valley that it is sure of acquiring a goodly membership, and at present shows a healthy growth." 21 charter members were present at the first meeting.




October 16, 1917: Camp Juneau, #32

Juneau, one of the most short-lived camps in the rolls of the Arctic Brotherhood, began in January of 1916 with 130 members at its first meeting. Its last recorded entry in the attendance roster book at the Alaska state archives in Juneau is on this date, with only one member present. What happened to Juneau's camp? Your guess is as good as mine... but there were many factors involved.




October was a busy month for the AB's! In the next posting, a few more camps will be established, and the AB blog will pay tribute to some fallen ABs. One was killed at the young age of 22, and at least six more perished during one of the North's most sensational (and oft-forgotten) disasters.