The Alaska citizen., 1910-08-13


 though it's first mapping remained to be done by the members of the scientific corps of the Western Union Telegraph expedition.
 In 1884 the Hudson Bay Company had hy high-handed proceedings at tempted to establish itself within Russian America. in what is now called Southeastern Alaska. but itI was promptly cjected by the Rus sian Company. After a conference this coastal belt was. in 1887. leased by the Russians to the Hudson Bay Company for term of ten years The Hudson Bay Company, from it's two posts in the Yukon drainage basin. controlled the trade on the lower river.
 One other expedition needs men tion-the last of the Russian official surveys ill America. In 1863, word American prospectors had found gold on the Stikine river, it was decided 10 send out an expedition to find out whether these discoveries were in Russian territory This party, in command of Commander Bassar- guine, of the Imperial navy, and ac- companied by the American geolo- sist William F. Blake, made a re connaissance survey of the lower part of the Stikine.
 In 1863 the Western Union Tele- graph Company determined to build an overland telegraph line from the western coast of the United States ] through British Columbia and what was then knWon as Russian America | to Boring Strait This line was to 1 be connected by cable with a trans 1 Siberian line, and thus telegraphic l communication was to be establish l ed between America and Europe. l The project, first conceived by Per | cy NJ. D. Collins, was a daring one | maintaining of q telegraph line through . thousands of miles of almost uneX- l pIored territory in America and l Asia The first essential to the pro iect was preliminary exploration of .he proposed route. The success of . thc Atlantic cable led to the aband- onmeut of the enterprise only three years after its organization, but even in that short time important con tribuions were made to a geographic | knowledge of Alaska and adjacent portions of Canadian territory, The explorations in Siberia were also fruitful of important results.
 The task which confronted the Western Union Telegraph survey in Russian America was not an easy one. The region to be explored was several thousand miles distant from The nearest port of the United States While there were some trading posts on Bering Sea and along the Lower Yukon, they were widely separated and the Russian Knowledge of the
 interior was practically limited to the lower part of the Yukon and the KuskokWim. Moreover, the Rus sian Outposts were small and ill- equipped, so that practically all sup plies had to be taken from the Pa cilic coast ports of the United States.
 Robert Kennicott was chosen as head of the scientific corps, serv- ing under Captain Charles s. Buck ley. engineer in chief of the eXpedi- ton. KennicOtt was fortunate choice, as he was an able and en- thusiastiC worker and his previous expedition into the far northwest, in lSGO-G1. when he had reached Fort Yukon by following the Hudson Bay Company route from the Mackenzie, had fitted him well for the undertak- ing. He did not live to see the exc cution of his comprehensive plans, for he died at NulatO in 1866, his death being brought about by the in cessant toll and exposure to which he had been subjected, William H. Dali, who took the leadership of the scientific corps, continued alone his researches on Norton Sound and the lower Yukon after the telegraph sur vey party was disbanded. His book, based on these investigations, and the reports which he wrote later un- der the auspices of the Coast Sur vey, are still the standard works on , Alaska.
 In 1865 Robert Kennicott, Frank Ketchum, and Michael Lebarge had started up the Yukon. After kenni- cotts death at Nulato in 1866 Ket- chum and Lebarge pushed on up the river to Fort Yukon. In the follow ing year they confined their eXplora tionS as far as Fort Selkirk. at the junction of the Lewes and t'elly riv- , CTS. Dall and Frederick Whymper f reached Fort Yukon in the summer of 1867, after making the first sur. } vey O. the lower Yukon. In the meanwhile, in 1865, Baron Otto von