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"Historic Alaska-Native Adventure Novel with a twist of the supernatural:"  Legacy of the Chief

  
 
     

 
   
The real deal: Ahtna Chief Nicolai of Taral, 1867-1918: The one who made the deal which would one day result in the formation of one of the world's greatest copper conglomerates: Kennecott Copper Corporation
     
     
     
Kennecott Copper & its Copper River & NorthWestern Railway
The original railroad to enter interior Alaska from the coast:
 
It  was only the reluctant words of Ahtna Chief Nicolai that caused one of his own brothers to reveal the legendary and spectacular Nicolai lode in 1899.  That event almost immediately led to the discovery of the enormously rich Bonanza mine, opening the Territory of Alaska to the world of big business in the form of the "Great Man."  Stephen Birch and his Alaska Syndicate.  The Bonanza lode became the catalyst for the world-wide Kennecott conglomerate. 

 Kennecott Copper Corporation and its Copper River & Northwestern Railway would change forever the lives of the people of the Ahtna 'tuu Ts'itu.  Many of the Copper River Indians gathered at Chittyna Village at CRNW mile 131 in 1910 to witness the coming of the ket-chee ten-eh thloo-da-kee--the white man's iron machines--the mammoth locomotives of the CRNW.  It was the railroad once considered impossible to build or operate, and derisively known as the "Can't Run and Never Will" Railway. 

This is a Native tale of these incredible, yet historic events, and of Nicolai's curse which would aggressively purse the railroad men, miners, and engineers and all others who provoked the ancient Indian spirits of the Copper River Valley, as told by the oldest grandsons of the greatest of Alaska's Athabascan chiefs and medicine men--Skolai Nicolai, the tyone of Taral. 

--from the back cover of "Legacy of the Chief"

 
 
 
     
  Ahtna Chief Goodlataw, Taral Tyone at the time of the coming of the Copper River & Northwestern Railway into the Copper River Valley in 1910   
The story of his father, Nicolai of Taral, who revealed the original source of the copper which resulted in the creation of the world-wide conglomerate known as the Kennecott Copper Corporation was written by Ronald Simpson in 2001 as a historic novel known as                 Legacy of the Chief.
 
  A Sample Chapter: The Preface  
 

  

 
 
 
 
 
Experience history by viewing the ultimate operating historic model railroad in large scale ("G"- 1:24) which provides an artistic interpretation of significant elements of the Chitina Local Branch of the CRNW Railway.

The CRNW began at the wharf at Cordova, which was CRNW mile zero.  Chitina was CRNW mile 131, McCarthy was CRNW mile 189, and Kennecott--the interior terminal--was mile 195. 

The Chitina Local Branch of the CRNW Railway began at mile 131, crossing the Copper River at mile 132, and continuing east another 60 miles to McCarthy, then 4 1/2 miles north to Kennecott and the mines. 

The railroad operated from 1911 until abandonment in 1938, primarily serving Kennecott Copper Company's mines which fed the mill at  the town of Kennecott. Kennecott was the richest high-grade copper mine ever, significantly out-pacing in dollar production all of the Alaska gold mines and all but one of the more famous Alaska gold districts.

 

 
 

Directly related to this history is my CRNW model railroad project. This includes models of significant historic parts of Chitina, McCarthy and Kennecott. These models and parts of the model railroad diorama can be viewed  here.

 

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