Nelson In 1916, the Toledo Weekly Blade reporter, Frank Carpenter, was on his way across the Yukon River by the mouth of the Klondike River. The boat broke down and the occupants landed on an island with farms and started walking. Carpenter reported seeing a number of potato patches and the first farm was owned by a Swede named Nelson. Nelson had eleven acres under cultivation - half in potatoes and half in oats. The oats, grown for hay, were being harvested. Some stood in shocks over the author's head and the uncut grain was halfway to Nelson’s waist. He was bringing in $60 a ton. Nelson's potatoes were in bloom. He fixed the price at $90 a ton but thought it might reach $100. When the Guggenheims started up their mining operation they employed large numbers of men, and potatoes were scarce. Nelson had just harvested a crop of thirteen tons at the time, and he sold them for 13 1/2 cents a pound, or $270 per ton for the whole. Since then, he had raised only potatoes and oats.((Frank G. Carpenter, "Farming in the Yukon: The story of Chicken Billy and his ten-thousand-dollar potato patch." //The Toledo Weekly Blade// (Toledo), 13 July 1916.))