page_title: Portus B. Weare (steamship)
section_title: 1892 - 1896
hierarchical_section_title: Portus B. Weare (steamship) / Operation / 1892 - 1896
caption_attribution_description: English: The Portus B. Weare leaving St. Michael Island, Alaska immediately after its launch. Its construction does not appear to be complete as it is missing its pilot house and tall smokestacks.
context_page_description: Portus B. Weare was a wooden sternwheel steamship built in 1892 for service on the Yukon River. She played a notable role in the Klondike gold rush, being the second ship to bring news of the Klondike gold strike and an estimated $1 million in gold down the river in 1897. This set off the gold rush. The vessel carried freight and passengers up the Yukon to Dawson City and later Fairbanks. She was abandoned in 1926 or 1927, after the need for steamboat transport to the interior declined.
context_section_description: Immediately after launching and sea trials, the new steamship was loaded with trade goods.  Captain J. C. Barr and John Healy took her up the Yukon, crossing the bar at the river's north mouth on September 28, 1892.  By October 1, Portus B. Weare was about 500 miles up the river, but by October 5, when she was about 800 miles up the Yukon, the thickness of the ice made further travel impossible.  She was frozen in for the winter.  Charles H. Hamilton snowshoed from the ship to Dyea via Chilkoot Pass, reaching Seattle on April 11, 1893.  He reported the status of the venture to Weare in Chicago, and then returned to the St. Michael with another load of provisions for Portus B. Weare to take up the river in the spring of 1893.  The energetic Hamilton later became secretary of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, and had one of its Yukon Steamers named after him.
  After the break-up of the ice in the spring of 1893 made the Yukon navigable again, Healy went on to establish a new trading post, Fort Cudahy, near the mouth of the Fortymile River and stocked it with food and mining supplies carried by Portus B. Weare. Healy undercut the prices of the Alaska Commercial Company trading post across the river, and his goods sold well.  During the winter of 1893 - 1894, the ship was moored in a slough near Fort Cudahy.
  Healy sailed out of the interior in the fall of 1894 for the first time since ascending the Yukon on Portus B. Weare's first trip in 1892.  He reported back to Weare in Chicago about his success selling goods to the miners.  Additional capital was raised and Healy returned to St. Michael with more trade goods for the spring of 1895. With the additional capital, he had a second steamer built at Fort Get There, J.J. Healy, in 1895.
  Placer gold strikes at Birch Creek and Fortymile River brought more miners to the region. The strikes also brought the North-West Mounted Police.  There were several thousand men in the Canadian portion of the Yukon and, as of 1894, exactly one policeman.  The Dominion of Canada correctly predicted that the new strikes would draw yet more miners to the region and decided to place a post on the river with 20 men.  On July 5, 1895 Portus B. Weare left St. Michael with the Canadian contingent.  The ship reached Fortymile River on July 24, 1895 and the Canadians unloaded their supplies near Fort Cudahy.  The ship took eight of the men further upstream to Twelve Mile River where they cut timber which was floated back down to Fort Cudahy.  The Mounties rented the North American Transportation and Trading Company sawmill there, and used the lumber they produced to build Fort Constantine, the first police post in the Yukon.
caption: Portus B. Weare immediately after launch in September 1892 leaving St. Michael Island for the Yukon
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