Yukon River, Alaska, Fort Yukon, Anvic Indians cm711

Oriental Rug Review/Asian Trade is pleased to offer an original article from Century Magazine: "The Great River of Alaska, II, Exploring the Middle and Lower Yukon," by Frederick Schwatka. This is an original article from Century Magazine, Vol. XXX, #6, Oct., 1885, 11 pp. (loose), 10 Illustrations, 6 1/2" x 9 1/2".

About the Subject and/or Author

The Yukon River is a major watercourse of northwestern North America. Over half of the river lies in the U.S. state of Alaska, with most of the other portion lying in and giving its name to Canada's Yukon Territory, and a small part of the river near the source located in British Columbia. The river is 3,700 km (2,300 mi) long and empties into the Bering Sea at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. The average flow is 6,430 m³/s (227,000 ft³/s). The total drainage area is 832,700 km² (321,500 mi²), of which 323,800 km² (126,300 mi²) is in Canada. By comparison, the total area is more than 25% larger than Texas or Alberta. The longest river in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, it was one of the principal means of transportation during the 1896–1903 Klondike Gold Rush. Paddle-wheel riverboats continued to ply the river until the 1950s, when the Klondike Highway was completed. Yukon means "great river" in Gwich'in. The river was called Kwiguk, or "large stream", in Yupik. The Lewes River is the former name of the upper course of the Yukon, from Marsh Lake to the confluence of the Pelly River at Fort Selkirk. The Yukon River has had a history of pollution from gold mining, military installations, dumps, wastewater, and other sources. However, the Environmental Protection Agency does not list the Yukon River among its impaired watersheds, and water quality data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows relatively good levels of turbidity, metals, and dissolved oxygen. The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council, a cooperative effort of 64 First Nations and tribes in Alaska and Canada, has the goal of making the river and its tributaries safe to drink from again by supplementing and scrutinizing Government data.

Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (29 September 1849 – 2 November 1892) was a United States Army lieutenant with degrees in medicine and law and a noted explorer of northern Canada and Alaska. Schwatka was born in Galena, Illinois to a Polish-American family. (There us some question as to whether the Schwatka family was Polish or German. Schwatka's paternal grandfather and grandmother are listed as members of the German Lutheran Old Otterbein Church in Baltimore, Maryland.) When he was 10 his family moved to Salem, Oregon. Schwatka later worked in Oregon as a printer's apprentice and attended Willamette University. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1867 and graduated in 1871, serving as a second lieutenant in the Third Cavalry in the Dakota Territory. Studying law and medicine simultaneously, he was admitted to the Bar association of Nebraska in 1875 and received his medical degree from Bellevue Medical College in New York in the same year. He died in Portland, Oregon at the age of 43 in 1892. The New York Times reported his death as the outcome of an accidental overdose of morphine but the Coconino Sun of Coconino county (Flagstaff), Arizona listed his death as a suicide by laudanum.

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