Golden Places: The History of Alaska-Yukon Mining, With Particular Reference to Alaska’s National Parks, was written in 1990 by William R. Hunt, prepared as a special theme study to assist in the assessment of cultural resources associated with metal mining in Alaska’s national parks. Designed to focus on mineral discovery and development in the national parks, its first chapters explore the earliest prospecting efforts in the north country, through the Klondike Gold Rush years. From the first Cassiar discovery in the Stikine River country in 1862, through gold discoveries at Sitka, Juneau, Yakutat, the Fortymile country, the Circle Mining District, the stampede to Nome, the Nabesna and Nizina gold strikes, strikes at Kantishna, Kuskokwim, and the stampede to Iditarod, the complete history of gold in Alaska and the Yukon is presented clearly with a gold mining chronology.
Teams freighting to Chisana
The book, which is available free to read online, is divided into 18 chapters which detail the history with in-depth descriptions and fascinating details, such as this from chapter 12: “In February 1914 Chisana folks argued that their community had more log cabins than Circle, Fairbanks, or Dawson and deserved to be called ‘the largest log cabin town in the world.’ Four hundred cabins was one estimate, including seven general stores, a saloon, two restaurants, a clothing store, and ‘roadhouses galore.'”
Iditarod
There is a brief but good description of the history of the Iditarod Trail, shared here in full: “The Seward-Nome Trail, famed today as the Iditarod Trail because of annual dog-sled races from Anchorage to Nome, was never a major long-distance route. It consisted of a number of winter trails that had developed in the early prospecting days that were linked in 1910. When the upper Innoko strike attracted miners from Cook Inlet and elsewhere in 1906, a trail to tidewater appeared beneficial. In February 1908 the Alaska Road Commission began a survey of a new trail from Seward to Nome. After a Christmas strike on Otter Creek by prospectors W.A. Dikeman and John Beaton, the boom town of Iditarod developed. Over the winter of 1910 the Alaska Road Commission marked and cleared 1,000 miles of trail from Kern Creek, on the Alaska Northern railroad 71 miles north of Seward, to Nome. Some portions of the trail were new and some had been used by prospectors or natives earlier. The Seward-Knik section became a mail and supply route until the railroad was extended, and the Knik-Kaltag section was much used from 1910-20. Other portions of the wide winter trail network were used as needed, then abandoned when conditions changed.”
Detailed maps, charts, photographs and extensive notes and bibliographies at the end of each chapter make this book an outstanding online research tool, but also an enjoyable contribution to the history of Alaska for the more casual reader. An observation from the last chapter: “Alaska’s hunters, trappers, dog mushers, and hikers have a certain respect for those early miners. It required travel skills and a spirit of adaptation that is generally admired by Alaskans who have a particular sensitivity to their natural environment.”
![Gakona Roadhouse, by P. S. Hunt. [AMRC-b62-1-a-151 Crary-Henderson Collection]](https://northernlightmedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/gakona-roadhouse-by-p-s-hunt-amrc-b62-1-a-151-crary-henderson-collection.jpg?w=640)
In her book, Sisters, Coming of Age and Living Dangerously in the Wild Copper River Valley [Epicenter Press, 2004], Aileen Gallaher described stopping at the roadhouse on her way north from Valdez in 1926: “Our next stop was Gakona, about thirty miles north of Copper Center. The Gakona Roadhouse there was a huge log building, which really could not be called a cabin. It had a second story and a high-pitched roof. The Gakona River flowed swiftly about fifty feet in front of it. The lobby was a large room without any decoration and only a few wooden benches for furniture. In one corner, a staircase led to the bedrooms upstairs, and the other corner was occupied by the Post Office. Across the front next to the lobby were the dining room and the kitchen, and behind were the owners’ quarters. The two men who lived there and operated Gakona Roadhouse were Arne Sundt from Norway and Herb Hyland, from Sweden. Both welcomed me warmly to Alaska, and made me feel at home in this new, amazing world.”
An old friend, Robert Lutz, sent me the link to an 
over Crow Pass before dropping down into the Eagle River Valley. From there the trail turned north and wound around Knik Arm, through the trading post of Knik and over the Alaska Range to the gold rush town of Iditarod, just south and west of Denali (Mt. McKinley), and continued on to another gold rush town on the edge of the Bering Sea called Nome.
One of the early travelers over the Iditarod Trail was a hearty adventuring Presbyterian minister known as ‘the Mushing Parson.’ The Reverend Samuel Hall Young had spent time traveling in southeastern Alaska with none other than the great naturalist John Muir, who would come to be known as the “Father of the National Parks” and founder of the Sierra Club. The 
A slim little booklet came to my attention at the Palmer library recently; if memory serves me it was tucked into their collection which cannot be checked out of the library but must remain in the building. Titled Iditarod Trail, The Old and The New, published by Alladin Publishing in Palmer, Alaska around 1990, the booklet was apparently authored by M. Carter; across the bottom of the front cover are the words “Story by Joe Redington.”
In 1896 Dr. Joseph H. Romig traveled to Bethel, Alaska, and opened the first doctor’s office and hospital west of Sitka, at a time when there were very few non-native people living in remote southwest Alaska. Four decades later a book would be written about the good doctor’s adventurous and life-saving exploits across the vast northern territory.
For a time, Dr. Romig was one of the only physicians in Alaska, and he became expert at dog mushing, as his practice stretched for hundreds of miles. He became known as the “dog team doctor” for traveling by dog sled throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the course of his work.
In 1939, Dr. Romig was appointed chief surgeon at Anchorage’s newly constructed state-of-the-art Providence Hospital, but he retired shortly thereafter, and purchased land on what would later be called Romig Hill. From his log cabin on the property, he started a “Board of Directors” club which eventually provided the founding members of the Anchorage Rotary Club. In the 1950’s and ’60’s 
Joseph and Emily Romig moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Joseph died in 1951. Although he was originally buried in Colorado, his remains were later disinterred and moved to Alaska to be buried in the family plot in 
This story is excerpted from the new book Alaskan Sled Dog Tales, which will be published May 14, 2016; advance orders are available now. All advance ordered copies will be signed by the author, Helen Hegener; after May 14 books will be shipped directly from the publisher and will not be signed. Alaskan Sled Dog Tales, by Helen Hegener. $24.95 plus $5.00 shipping & handling. 320 pages, 6′ x 9″ b/w format, includes maps, charts, bibliography, indexed. 
In 1910, a Scottish nobleman who lived in Nome, Fox Maule Ramsey, crossing the Bering Strait to Siberia and purchased 70 Siberian racing huskies. In that year’s All Alaska Sweepstakes race, a 408-mile run from Nome to Candle and return, Ramsay’s dogs won 1st, 2nd and 4th places, with the first place team driven John “Iron Man” Johnson with his peerless lead dog Kolyma setting the pace. Named for the great Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia, the striking black-and-white blue-eyed Siberian husky was Johnson’s favorite, and his constant companion.
San Francisco, Cal., Jan. 9, 1915 – John Johnson, “The Iron Man of Alaska,” and his pack of $30,000 Siberian wolf dogs, winners of the All Alaska Sweepstakes race, have come down here to loaf a little while in the land of soft delights. With Johnson is Bill Brady, another celebrity of the “land that God forgot,” and his string of huskies, valued at $20,000.
Lake Tahoe’s Winter Carnivals were much-anticipated and popular events in the early 1900’s, and while dog sledding and racing began during winter carnivals in the late 1890’s, the first and official sled dog race in the continental U.S. was reportedly held in Truckee, California, in 1915. Bert Cassidy, editor of the Truckee Republican (Sierra Sun), described the event: “Crowds of people had been arriving in Truckee on each train… all hotel accommodations had long since been taken… movie cameramen were legion… all the bigger papers had sent sports editors.”
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