Yukon who is who

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Katherine “Kate” McQuesten, nee James,  Satejdenalno Negetah  (1860 – 1921)
	
Kate James (Satejdenalno Nagetah) was a Koyukon woman from Kokrines, Alaska located about 80 miles west of Tanana. She was educated at the Russian Mission on the lower Yukon River. In 1874, Jack McQuesten established Fort Reliance 13km downriver from the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers. In 1875, he went back down to Fort Yukon, Alaska and then moved up to Tanana near the village of Nuklukayet/Noochuloghoyet. McQuesten and Kate were married in 1878.((Thomas K. Bundtzen and Charles C. Hawley, “Leroy Napoleon (Jack) McQuesten.” Alaska Mining Hall of Fame Foundation 2019 website: https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/mcquesten.php. Revised 2009.)) Kate’s cousin Margaret, also a Koyukon woman who attended the Russian mission school, married another Yukon trader, Alfred Mayo.((“Jack McQuesten.” //Wikipedia,// 2019 website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_McQuesten))
	
Jack and Kate married while he was a fur trader at Fort Reliance. She was the daughter of the chief of one of the tribes with whom he traded. After the marriage, Jack hired a tutor to teach his wife English and cooking. They had eleven children: seven sons and four daughters.((//Fairbanks Weekly Times// (Fairbanks), Oct. 23, 1909; //Seward Gateway,// 11 September 1909; Clarence L. Andrews, //Alaska Life,// Oct. 1943.))
	
Kate McQuesten and Frank Dinsmore were leaders in organizing dances at Forty Mile. The dance would stop at midnight and the First Nation women would go home. The men would have a few hot rums and a song or two and then Frank Densmore would tell them tomorrow was Sunday and advise them to go to church in the morning.(("Early Social Diversions at Fortymile, //Yukon News// (Whitehorse), March 2, 1994 from Michael Gates, //Gold at Fortymile Creek.// UBC Press,1994.))
	
Circle City, Alaska was founded in 1894 and that year Jack and Kate established the Alaska Commercial Company store in the town. Kate was a community leader and an important multi-lingual interpreter for McQuesten and other traders. She was a cross cultural intermediary in the places she lived: Fort Reliance, Circle City, Tanana, and Rampart, Alaska. When the population of Circle declined in 1897, after gold was discovered in the Klondike, McQuesten sent his family to Berkeley, California where they lived in a large Victorian mansion. McQuesten was a multi-millionaire by 1898 and after he died in 1909 Kate McQuesten managed the estate. Some said that Kate had always looked after the business, making sure that the accounts were paid.((Thomas K. Bundtzen and Charles C. Hawley, “Leroy Napoleon (Jack) McQuesten.” Alaska Mining Hall of Fame Foundation 2019 website: https://alaskamininghalloffame.org/inductees/mcquesten.php. Revised 2009.))
	
Eight of Jack and Kate McQuesten’s eleven children lived more than a few years: Richard (1881-1918), Mary Louise (1884-1916), Henry (1889-1958), Crystal (1891-1992), Julia “June” (1874-1959), Elizabeth (1896-2001), Leroy Jr. (1898-1939) and Walter (1899-1965).((James A McQuiston, //Captain Jack McQuesten: Father of the Yukon.// Denver: Outskirts Press, Inc. 2007: 74-75.))