Edmund Bean
	
In 1880, Edmund Bean was chosen by a group of Sitka, Alaska miners to lead them on a prospecting trip into the interior. United States Navy Captain L. A. Beardslee was commanding the //USS Jamestown// as protection against the Chilkats who owned the pass. The miners appealed to Beardslee, asking him to provide them with an escort. They pledged to behave in an orderly fashion and to carry no liquor for trade or barter. Beardslee organized an escort party under Lieutenant E.P. McClellan of three officers, thirteen men, and Marcus Barker of the Coast Survey as a scientific observer. He also wrote a letter to the chief of the Chilkat, Klotz-Kutch [Koh-klux] and Elqueslik, reminding them of their invitation to prospectors and their promise to treat them well. The Chilkats allowed the miners to pass through their country and also supplied packers to take their supplies over the Chilkoot summit. The Bean party arrived at Lake Bennett on 17 June and began whipsawing lumber and building boats. They started downstream on 4 July. Fifteen of the party prospected on the Hootalinqua (Teslin) River.((Alfred Hulse Brooks, //Blazing Alaska’s Trails,// Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1973: 323-25.)) \\
	
In 1881, George Langtry, Patrick McGlinchey and two other men, all of whom had been on the Bean expedition the year before, returned to the Yukon. This time they explored the Big Salmon River, ascending it almost 200 miles and finding good pay on some of the bars. This was the first significant gold find in the Yukon.((Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters: The Life and Times of Joe Ladue, Founder of Dawson City.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books. 2005: 52-53.))