Yukon who is who

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Frank Ketchum (b. 1826)
	
Frank Ketchum was born in St. John, New Brunswick.((W.H. Dall, "A Yukon Pioneer, Mike Lebarge." //National Geographic Magazine,// No. 9, April 1898: 137-39. Yukon Archives, Pam #1898-14.)) 
When attempts to lay an Atlantic telegraph cable failed for the fifth time, the Western Union Telegraph Company decided to try and build a telegraph line from British Columbia through Russian America and across Siberia to Europe. The project got underway in 1865 with an Exploration Corps, to explore and collect data and specimens, led by Major Robert Kennicott.((Melody Webb, //The Last Frontier: A history of the Yukon Basin of Canada and Alaska.// Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985: 52.)) Frank Ketchum was Kennicott’s chief surveyor.((Ted Stone, //Alaska & Yukon History along the Highway.// Red Deer:  Red Deer College Press, 1997: 129.)) 

In 1866, Major Kennicott apparently committed suicide and he left a note to his crew directing that, in the case of his death, Ketchum, the oldest member of the party (forty years of age), should be in charge.((George R. Adams, //Life on the Yukon: 1865-1867.// Kingstone, Ontario: Limestone Press, 1982: 91.)) Two weeks after Kennicott's death, Ketchum travelled from Nulato to the upper Yukon with fellow Canadian Mike Lebarge and Ivan Lukeen, a Russian Creole fur trader. The Russian factor at Nulato went with them as far as Nukluklayet, at the mouth of the Tanana River. He was on his annual trading mission. Thirty miles above the Tanana, the trio overtook an English missionary and travelled with him up to Fort Yukon. The survey party then drifted back down to Nulato in eight days. They were joined there by William Dall, who had succeeded Kennicott as chief of the Scientific Corps and Frederick Whymper, a British artist.((Walter R. Borneman, //Alaska: Saga of a bold land.// New York: Harper Collins. 2003: 102-3.)) 

While Dall collected specimens and Whymper sketched from the base at Nulato, Ketchum and Lebarge travelled overland to Fort Selkirk which they reached in June 1867. They returned to Fort Yukon where they met Dall and Whymper, and they all floated down to Nulato where they learned that the Atlantic cable had been laid and their further efforts were not required.((Melody Webb, //The Last Frontier: A history of the Yukon Basin of Canada and Alaska.// Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1985: 54.)) After Western Union withdrew from Alaska in 1867, Kethchum and Laberge remained in Alaska as fur traders.((Dall 1869: 277 in Francois Xavier Mercier, //Recollections of the Youkon: Memoires from the Years 1868-1885.// Edited by Linda Finn Yarborough. Anchorage: The Alaska Historical Society, 1986: x.))