"Old Timers" of the Yukon, 18

MODERN MAN TO HUNTING BAND: A READAPTION The Social Organization and Dynamics of the "Old Timers" of the Yukon. 1882-1 898. by Margaret Don Power B.A. (Honors) , Simon Fraser University , 1974 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in the Department 0 f Sociology & Anthropology @ Margaret Don Power 1976 Simon Fraser University August 1976 All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without permission of the author. APPROVAL Name : Margaret Don Power Degree: Master of Arts Title of Thesis : MODERN MAW TO HUNTING BAND: A READAPTION. The Social Organization and Dynamlcs of the "Old Tlmers" of the Yukon. 1882-1898. Examining Comni ttee: Chafmn: Keith Dixon Ian Whi taker Senior Supervisor Henry S. harp Hugh Johnston External Examber Associate Professor Department of History Data Approved : 5, /91? I I hereby grant to Simon Fraser University the right to lend my thesis or dissertation (the title of which is shown below) to users of the Simon Fraser University Library, and to make partial or single copies only for 'such users or in response to a request from the library of any other university, or other educational institution, on its 'own behalf or for one of its users. I further agree that permission for multiple copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Title of ~hesis I~issertation: Modern h To Hunting Band: A Reada~tation Author : (signature ) Auaust 23, 1976. (date) Before the rush for gold to the Klondike River area of Canada's Yukon Territory in 1897-98, there was in the vast land a small number of white frontiermen who, over the previous twenty years, had entered the region in small groups to explore and prospect, and eventually to reside in the Yukon. These were the men who found the gold which precipitated the greatest go rush the world has experienced. These "old timers", as they are dubbed in the 1iterature, were phys ical ly and linguistically indistinguishable from the Klondike gold seekers who followed. Both groups were, by a large majority, Americans or immigrants to the United States. However, the old timers as a viable group have been over- looked in the literature, being simply included with the "cheechako" (newcomer) stampeders. Research led to a strong impression that this inclusion is not valid. These early pioneers, under the ecological imperative of survival in a harsh primeval land (share and help one another or die), had with extreme rapidity formed a unique society which was quite unlike that of their fellow- countrymen, the Klondi ke stampeders. The two groups are entirely distinguish- able from each other in anthropological terms. They shared neither the same cultural values nor social organization. This impression was formed unexpectedly during what was intended as background reading in consideration of quite another problem. However, with the realization that this group of Yukon old tirqers had formed a separate unique society, and that this has been totally unrecognized in the historical literature, the problem became the verification of this strong impression. An ethnographic reconstruction, and identification of the theoretical category to which this society belonged, was undertaken through the use of historical evidence and -iv- anthropological theory. It was concluded that this group of modern American men in a land which permitted no a1 ternative, had taken on the social characteristics of the most simple full form of social organization, that typical of hunting- gathering societies all over the globe. Such readaption to the hunting- gathering mode of life is unusual, but not unknown to anthropologists. (It has been noted to have occurred in certain tribes in Ceylon and South America who once maintained an advanced form of agriculture and who have readapted to being "small -scale hunting and col 1 ecting" societies (Lathrap, 1968:25) .) To facil itate the inquiry, 1ibrary sources were utilized, consisting as far as possible of journals, diaries and memoirs of old timers, pub1 ished in the form of books at or near to the time of the actual experience. Such historical sources are both scarce and fragmentary, and as is usual with such sources, present only the aspects of the experience which the informant felt worth recording. Thus the study has an impressionistic character, rather than being holistic and conclusive. As first-hand old timers' memoirs are few, when necessary the works of outsiders to the society judged of high reliability are used to fill in gaps and to cross-check, adding the strength of verification to old timers' re- corded observations. Nhile no permanent conclusions can be drawn from such a study, it is useful as support for points regarding hunting societies which anthropologists have speculated upon. Most intriguingly, the study affords glimpses of a hunting society in formation, a rare anthropological experience. Me also see a society in the process of rapid social change, moving to- wards institutionalization, particularly in the judicial area, as they attempted to cope with a sudden influx of powerful outsiders to the society, their fellow- -v- countrymen, the Klondi ke go1 d seekers. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my very great debt to Dr. Ian Whitaker, senior supervisor, patient counselor and stimulating intellectual guide, whose interest in the Arctic and the subarctic regions first suggested this study, and whose belief in my abilities led to my making it. I must also thank my husband, Dr. John Power, and my children for their steady . faith, encouragement and interest. They have a1 1 contributed more than I can say, and I am grateful. -> TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page Approval Abstract Acknowledgements List of Illustrations, Pictures & Maps Preface Chapter One: Introduction Method01 ogy Historical Background Ethnic Origins Population Size Survival Time Span The Model Old Timer Cabins Chapter Two: Social Control Flux and Movement Groups and Partnerships Visiting "Sprees" Practical Joking Low Value on Gold Talking Exchange Chapter Three: The Pol itical Sphere The Deviant Leadership-Jack McQuesten Miners' Law Sanctions The Yukon Order of Pioneers Chapter Four: Survival : Conditions Affecting Yukon Adaptions 105 Marriage 105 Death 121 Health and Disease 127 Food 131 Horld View 138 Chapter Five: The Organization of Leisure 149 Entertainment 149 Story-Tel 1i ng 151 Drinking 153 Danci ng 164 Chapter Six: Avai lab1 e Women The Prostitutes The Dance Hall Girls The Indian Momen Chapter Seven: Religion Conclusions Footnotes Bi bliography -ix- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, PICTURES & MAPS 1. Gold Along the Yukon (Map) 2. Early Stove-Firepl ace (I1 1 ustration) 3. First Saloon in Dawson (Picture) PREFACE At a symposium held at the University of Chicago in 1965 anthropologists gathered to consider current research on the hunting way of life. Claude Levi- Strauss, one of the speakers at the gathering, presented a provocative paper entitled, "The Concept of Primitiveness". In it he suggests that instead of defining hunting-gathering cultures in terms of a number of specific groups that can be pinpointed on a map, "the concept should be defined in terms of a certain way of life that may exist in pure, blended, and even highly diluted ...forms." Thus it is a certain type of behaviour that should be the object of our studies, not merely individual tribes (1 968:344). Most interestingly, Levi -Strauss feels that in discussing the cultural category of the hunter-gatherers, "it would be foolish,. .to leave aside the direct experience we ourselves may have had in our own societies of hunting or gathering behavior." He suggests, by way of example, that we study the psy- chological experience of people in France and Russia and elsewhere who gather mushrooms as a full -fledged gathering activity (ibid:344). "We cannot consider the hunter-gatherers as be1 onging to a semi -animal condition of mankind," re- marks Levi-Strauss (ibid:349), recalling the assertion of another speaker (Lathrop), that in parts of South America and Ceylon certain groups of hunters are not primitive, but have regressed to the hunting way of life. No doubt this is the case "in many other places," Levi-Strauss suggests. This study is an ethnographic reconstruction and consideration of a hunting band society in one of those "other places" -- Canada's Yukon Territory, 1882-1 898. -1- CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The great Yukon River, fourth 1argest waterway on the North American con- tinent, has its inception in Canad ian territory, less than fifteen miles from the tidal waters of Dyea Inlet, at the northeasternmost tip of the Alaskan Panhandle. Gathering strength from a mu1 titude of tributary creeks and rivers, the Yukon flows northwest about 450 miles to touch the Arctic Circle, where it arcs abruptly southwestward, cutting more than 1,500 miles across the center of Alaska, to empty at length into the cold waters of the Bering Sea. In August 1896 an exceptionally rich gold strike was made on the*Klondi ke River, a tributary river which empties into the great Yukon in Canadian territory about 100 miles above the point where the Yukon crosses into the American territory of Alaska. This strike precipitated the greatest go1 d stampede that has ever occurred, tens of thousands of men and women, mainly from the United States, started north. Approximately 40,000 actual ly arrived in Dawson (Clark, 1962:93). This human tidal wave engulfed and submerged in its irresistible numbers a unique, distinct, and totally unrecognized small society which had formed among the small group of white men, the pre-Klondi ke "old timers" as they are usual ly referred to in the 1iterature.

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