Juneau and Stephens Passage
Wakeup call this morning found the Sea Lion making her way west in Gastineau Channel, heading for the capitol city of Alaska. Douglas Island was on the portside and the outskirts of Juneau were off the starboard side, as we cruised slowly into the center of town.
People have settled the waters of Gastineau Channel and the surrounding lands for thousands of years. The region was an established fishing ground for local Tlingit Indians in the late 1800’s when prospectors were searching for gold in Southeast Alaska. An enterprising mining engineer from Sitka sent messages around the area offering a reward to any Indian chief who could show proof of gold in their territories. Kowee of the Auk Tlingit tribe traveled to Sitka with samples of ore from the Gastineau Channel. Two prospectors, Richard T. Harris and Joseph Juneau were sent to investigate the claim. Harris and Juneau reached Gold Creek just outside of present day Juneau in 1880 and began sampling the gravels of that waterway. They found plenty of color but did not follow these leads to their source. At some urging by a local clan chief the pair of prospectors were brought back to Gold Creek. They climbed Snow Slide Gulch at the head of Gold Creek and looked down into the mother lode of Quartz Gulch and Silver Bow Basin. On October 18, 1880 they staked a 160-acre town site on the beach where, the following month, they were joined by the first boatloads of prospectors bound for the new gold strike on Gastineau Channel.
In a short period of time Juneau became a boomtown, moving immediately into large-scale hard-rock mining. The surrounding hills were honeycombed with tunnels and shafts. On Douglas Island, the ground reverberated with 960 stamps of the Treadwell Gold Mining Company. The Treadwell Gold mine reached its peak in gold production in 1915. In 1944, the A-J Mine in the Juneau area closed due to lack of manpower and supplies brought about by the United States focus on World War II. Interestingly enough, the city of Juneau had begun diversifying long before the mining gave out.
The government for the territory of Alaska had been transferred from Sitka to Juneau in 1906. On January 3, 1959 Juneau became the capitol of Alaska as that territory was being given statehood. Federal, state and local government employs one in every three people who call Juneau home. Douglas Island and the city of Juneau have formed a municipality with a population of approximately 30,000 people, the largest center of population in Southeast Alaska.
Though the hills and waterways resound with history, what we saw as we entered the main harbor were several large cruise ships and thousands of people adding to the population of Juneau. After our tour of Mendenhall Glacier and the Alaska State Museum, many of us wandered along Marine Way, Front Street and down Franklin Street past the Red Dog Saloon, and the Juneau Trading Post; wondering what it must have been like for those first prospectors. Streets a foot deep in mud, shortages of places to sleep, supplies, and the isolation of a boomtown. Walking back to the Sea Lion, many of us looked forward to returning to the quiet movement of our small ship as she continued her exploration, slowly moving south, passing blue icebergs looking out on a landscape of grey on grey with shades of dark green.
Wakeup call this morning found the Sea Lion making her way west in Gastineau Channel, heading for the capitol city of Alaska. Douglas Island was on the portside and the outskirts of Juneau were off the starboard side, as we cruised slowly into the center of town.
People have settled the waters of Gastineau Channel and the surrounding lands for thousands of years. The region was an established fishing ground for local Tlingit Indians in the late 1800’s when prospectors were searching for gold in Southeast Alaska. An enterprising mining engineer from Sitka sent messages around the area offering a reward to any Indian chief who could show proof of gold in their territories. Kowee of the Auk Tlingit tribe traveled to Sitka with samples of ore from the Gastineau Channel. Two prospectors, Richard T. Harris and Joseph Juneau were sent to investigate the claim. Harris and Juneau reached Gold Creek just outside of present day Juneau in 1880 and began sampling the gravels of that waterway. They found plenty of color but did not follow these leads to their source. At some urging by a local clan chief the pair of prospectors were brought back to Gold Creek. They climbed Snow Slide Gulch at the head of Gold Creek and looked down into the mother lode of Quartz Gulch and Silver Bow Basin. On October 18, 1880 they staked a 160-acre town site on the beach where, the following month, they were joined by the first boatloads of prospectors bound for the new gold strike on Gastineau Channel.
In a short period of time Juneau became a boomtown, moving immediately into large-scale hard-rock mining. The surrounding hills were honeycombed with tunnels and shafts. On Douglas Island, the ground reverberated with 960 stamps of the Treadwell Gold Mining Company. The Treadwell Gold mine reached its peak in gold production in 1915. In 1944, the A-J Mine in the Juneau area closed due to lack of manpower and supplies brought about by the United States focus on World War II. Interestingly enough, the city of Juneau had begun diversifying long before the mining gave out.
The government for the territory of Alaska had been transferred from Sitka to Juneau in 1906. On January 3, 1959 Juneau became the capitol of Alaska as that territory was being given statehood. Federal, state and local government employs one in every three people who call Juneau home. Douglas Island and the city of Juneau have formed a municipality with a population of approximately 30,000 people, the largest center of population in Southeast Alaska.
Though the hills and waterways resound with history, what we saw as we entered the main harbor were several large cruise ships and thousands of people adding to the population of Juneau. After our tour of Mendenhall Glacier and the Alaska State Museum, many of us wandered along Marine Way, Front Street and down Franklin Street past the Red Dog Saloon, and the Juneau Trading Post; wondering what it must have been like for those first prospectors. Streets a foot deep in mud, shortages of places to sleep, supplies, and the isolation of a boomtown. Walking back to the Sea Lion, many of us looked forward to returning to the quiet movement of our small ship as she continued her exploration, slowly moving south, passing blue icebergs looking out on a landscape of grey on grey with shades of dark green.
