Nicolai had
chosen the path for his people. He extracted a small but significant
commitment from the whites. Over the years, the Nicolai Prospect would
become confused with the great Bonanza outcropping. Some people have
come to believe that Nicolai gave away the Bonanza lode. He did not. It
no longer matters. The name of Nicolai, tyone of Taral, would live on
long after the names of the other chiefs were long
forgotten because his name was forever linked with the tsedi. The spirit
of Nicolai would never fade away, for he truly was the last great tyone
of the Ahtnas. --Johnny Gakona
So
it finally came down to this. The three white men who called themselves the
McClellan Company, headed by a fellow named Edward Gates, and also including
James McCarthy and Art McNeer, appeared at the camp of Chief Nicolai, Tyone of
Taral, with their intentions clearly stated. Fourteen years before, Lieutenant
Henry Allen found Nicolai in his winter camp on Dan Creek. Nicolai called this
land the Tsedi Na. The white men changed that to Chittyna before finally
settling on Chitina--Copper River. It was the tsedi. They wanted the copper.
But not just any copper. An abundance of copper nuggets--some of them quite
substantial--could be found in the creek bottoms of the glacial steams in the
area. This type of nugget was called float by the white
men. It is just a showing. Had the metal been gold--a mineral of considerable
value--they might have contented themselves with what they could find in the
streams. After all, Stephen Birch and his brother
Howard did well in the gold-placer business on Dan Creek. But this was copper.
The highest copper value was about twenty cents a pound at a time when gold was
about twenty dollars an ounce. Typical white men. They wanted more. Copper was
only potentially valuable in our remote area as a high-grade metal in massive
quantities.
Was there a mother lode in the Wrangell Range?
They wanted the source. They knew there had to be one. Where was it?
What would it take to convince
one of you to lead us to the source?
The lieutenant had once asked.
“I see copper everywhere. I see it in the streams. It’s in your bullet casings
and your arrows and spears. Is there anything like this in the hills?”
The lieutenant held up a piece of rock sitting along the wall inside the tyone’s
lodge. It was obviously chipped out of a larger piece. It contained hues of
bright green and blue. It was not rounded like those
which could be found in the creek beds.
We used these pieces for arrowheads.
The chief turned toward the hills across the Nizina River. He pointed in the
direction of his favorite hunting area toward the north across the Chitistone
River.
Nicolai’s brother Skilly told us grandchildren this story. Skilly led the U.S.
Army party to Nicolai’s camp. He told us that all of the white men turned silent
upon watching Nicolai make that simple pointing motion and say those few words.
It was as if they had found the location of something holy. When he finally
asked Nicolai to describe the place, Nicolai waved him off and told him that it
was time to feast. Nicolai sensed that he had just done something he might later
regret. He did not discuss the location with a white man again until 1899.
The lieutenant only wanted to know that such a source existed. He was not a
prospector. He was just the head of a small expedition that came to assess the
attitude of the Natives toward the government, map the region, and do some
preliminary geological investigations. That was the end of that. Or so the chief
hoped.
This early meeting, however, was only the beginning of a series of government
expeditions. Then came the small independent prospecting activities fueled by
considerable speculation as to the value and
location of the copper lodes in the Wrangells.
Looking from the CRNW Railway
bed across the Copper River to Taral
Over the next fourteen years, the legend of a rich vein of copper which was now
reinforced by this early encounter between Nicolai and Allen, would grow. Then
came the white incursion of 1898-99 by way of the
Valdez-Klutina Glaciers.
Now they were once again at Nicolai’s door at what would soon be the last true
remaining Native village in our lower river area from the old days, Taghaelden--otherwise
known as Taral. Nicolai was still the
supreme chief. After that last embarrassing incident at Tonsina, the people of
Nicolai sheepishly began to filter back in, just as Goodlataw had said they
would. Fishing and hunting activities resumed with a
greater enthusiasm than ever. But it was late in the year. There was so little
time and the game remained scarce. The fish stopped running. Starvation appeared
to be inevitable unless the game which had been
absent all summer suddenly appeared in the frigid depths of the winter.
The timing could not have been better for Edward Gates and the other
prospectors. Nicolai headed a group of deathly-appearing people who were
beginning to resemble some of those early prospectors who came into Taral
half-starved.
So
it finally came down to this. The three white men who called themselves
the McClellan Company, headed by a fellow named Edward Gates, and also
including James McCarthy and Art McNeer, appeared at the camp of Chief
Nicolai, Tyone of Taral, with their intentions clearly stated. It was
the tsedi. They wanted the copper. --Johnny Gakona
A white man with a cache of food was in a strong bargaining position. Ed Gates
and his party laid out their proposal simply enough. They had a full season’s
cache of food for their party which they had stashed earlier along the Bremner
River. They would consider splitting it up with Nicolai’s people in return for
access to the lode which was known only by a handful of Ahtna Natives.
The first indications of the impending starvation had already set in. The white
man diseases were beginning to take their toll as well. The game was scarce and
the supply of salmon was nearly gone. The white men had entered the area in
force. With them had come an unending supply of alcohol. Even if winter game
moved in, little doubt remained as to who would get most of it. The future of
the Ahtnas was in doubt. Too much had changed too quickly.
Most of those who had crossed the river to live on the west bank, with the
relatively easy access to white men’s goods and especially whiskey, had changed
their outlook. The Ahtnas listened to their tyone only when it suited them. His
word no longer carried the weight it once had. For many, the old ways of life
had become nothing more than a memory.
The future had been laid out for all to see. It was a white man’s society. Life
was about grow easier. The time was coming when it would no longer necessary
that everyone hunt, trap, and fish as before. The new society had brought in the
goods that made life a measure easier as long as money could be obtained.
Trapping for valuable pelts and guiding
for rich trophy-hunters became more important than hunting and traditional
trapping and fishing. Guiding in those early days was particularly lucrative.
Many Indians would be able to benefit from their intimate knowledge of the
Wrangells and the Copper River valley.
In Nicolai’s old society, a strict class structure existed. At the very top was
the tyone , then came his chiefs, their warriors and their lead hunters. In a
class of their own were the solitary sleep-doctors. They were in a world of
their own, and would quietly survive the white system which would destroy the
tyone.
At the bottom were the young men, followed by the women and children. At least
they were valued and protected. They had no voice in the activities of the clan.
Several clans existed in the valley. Nicolai’s Raven clan was dominant when
Lieutenant Allen first ascended the Copper River. Each clan had its own village
or camp and was headed by its own
chief. Room existed for only one tyone. He, above all else, represented the
past.
The old class system crumbled rapidly with the coming of the white man. The
women began to see many of their own men as mainly drunk and largely useless.
They began assuming more of the traditional male roles in order to preserve
their families. In the early days only a few of the women participated in the
drinking, but almost all of the men did. In a few generations the women began
taking control of the villages.
The villages became more important than the clans. The old clan ways began to
disappear along with the elders and their system headed by the tyone.
Despite the worst fears of the tyone, there is something in the nature of being
an Indian which just would not go away. The old system was doomed, but the
Indians would always be Indians. One day, the pride which was so badly damaged
in these early days of the intrusion of the white man, would begin to seep back
in. One day, the spirit which was
Nicolai would begin to return.
In the winter of 1899 the breakdown of the clan system was apparent everywhere.
Much to the embarrassment of the chief, it was equally obvious to the white
prospectors. On that particularly fateful day in midwinter, the prospectors
simply showed up. They had worked their way up the river ice from the Bremner
area to the south.
The Nicolai Prospect --USGS photo
Winter Freighting in the Copper Valley
Nicolai’s lode. The tyone had never
thought of it that way. This was what those prospectors wanted. They even named
the legendary copper after him. The chief had never been all that impressed with
what the white men had to offer, though he loved the rifles, the blankets and
the rice. He had also developed a taste for the tea. The rice complemented
the moose meat and the fish well. Not long ago all this could be obtained by
trading in the old way, indirectly through the Eyaks, first
with the Tlingits, then the Russians, and finally the early Americans. No more.
The merchants had arrived at his very doorstep.
The offer was something to consider. James McCarthy insisted that it was a very
large cache which they had drug over the pass the entered the Tasnuna River.
Half of it could be his for almost nothing but some information.
The Head of Nicolai Creek, looking west toward the Nizina River --USGS
photo