Chris Sonnikson (~1857 – 1901)
	
Chris Sonnikson was born in Denmark and immigrated to the United States with his family. He moved from San Jose, California to Alaska and was in Juneau in 1886.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) He heard stories of gold being found in the Stewart River, a tributary of the Yukon. Sonnikson crossed the coastal mountains into the interior with “French” Charley Braises and “Old” Solomon in late March and they built a boat to take them down the Yukon River. By the end of May or early June 1887, there were ten men prospecting the gravel bars of the upper Yukon River. They were encouraged by stories told by veteran prospector Frank Densmore who was also prospecting in this area. Sonnikson and Braises spent some time on the Big Salmon River and then Sonnikson joined another man to prospect the Hootalinqua [Teslin] River before returning to the Yukon River to meet Braises.((Thomas Stone, "Flux and Authority in a Subarctic Society: The Yukon Miners in the Nineteenth Century." //Ethnohistory,// 30(4) 1983: 203-216.))
	
Sonnikson and Braises were using a rocker box on a Yukon River bar near the mouth of the Hootalinqua [Teslin] River when they were joined by Jack Trembley, “French” Joe, and Henry Davis. They recovered some fine gold mixed with lots of black sand and they mined there for three weeks before the river rose in July and August to eventually cover their gravel bar.((John Gould, "Yukon Order of Pioneers: A History."  Unpublished manuscript. Nd: 51.)) Braises sold his portion of their outfit to Sonnikson and left for Juneau in September with the Densmore party. Sonnikson started building a boat to go down the Yukon River to the Stewart but was persuaded by [?] Doty to go out to Juneau. They moved slowly and the weather turned, so they went back down the Yukon River and stopped at Cassiar Bar to winter with a group already camped there.((Need source.))
	
The group were mining at Cassiar Bar in the spring of 1887 when they heard about the discovery of coarse gold on the Fortymile River. Sonnikson sold his bar claim to Missouri Frank, and he and Henry Davis travelled down to Stewart City where they found the camp virtually abandoned and the trading post out of supplies. On May 31, Al Mayo towed Sonnikson, Davis, and a number of others behind his steamer to the town of Forty Mile at the mouth of the Fortymile River. Sonnikson and Davis travelled up the Fortymile River to prospect and stayed for the winter.((Michael Gates, //Early Days in the Yukon.// Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994: 37, 52.)) In the spring of 1887, Sonnikson went back to Forty Mile and prospected on the Fortymile River before returning to the community in July to meet the New Racket and collect some supplies. He formed a partnership with Brendt and they prospected on the Yukon River to the Seventymile River. They continued on down the Yukon River and reached Fort Yukon in September.((Thomas Stone, "Flux and Authority in a Subarctic Society: The Yukon Miners in the Nineteenth Century." //Ethnohistory,// 30(4) 1983: 203-216.))
	
They spent the winter of 1887 at the Novikakat River.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) He may have been living at Kokrines, the site of a trading post and First Nation village on the Yukon River a few miles upstream from the Novikakat River. It was a stopping and central location for all early travellers in that area of the Yukon River and several pioneer prospectors found their brides there.((2018 web site: https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Place:Kokrines,_Yukon-Koyukuk,_Alaska,_United_States)) Novikakat was 80 miles from the mouth of the Tanana along the Yukon River.((//Klondike: The Chicago Record’s Book for the Gold Seeker.// The Chicago Record Co., 1897 :21.))
In early spring 1888, Sonnikson went up the Tanana River with a group of men that included Frank Dunmore, John Folger, John Hughes, and Jim Bender. This was one of the first prospecting trips to that area.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) Sonnikson was caught on a glacier in bad weather and froze his foot so badly that he couldn’t travel for twenty-two days. He waited another eight days until the river was low enough to be navigable in his handmade craft. He became stranded in the middle of the river on a rock but this saved him from a waterfall around the corner and he eventually made it back to his partners’ camp.((Michael Gates, //Early Days in the Yukon.// Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994: 37, 52.)) The group drifted back down the river after a summer of finding nothing.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.))
	
Brendt took the steamer out in the fall but Sonnikson remained in the Fort Yukon area.((Thomas Stone, "Flux and Authority in a Subarctic Society: The Yukon Miners in the Nineteenth Century." //Ethnohistory,// 30(4) 1983: 203-216.)) He went prospecting with Tom O'Brien, T. Evans, and "Old Herman" on the Beaver River.((Michael Gates, //Early Days in the Yukon.// Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994: 37, 52.)) He discovered some good gold property in 1889 and this drew more men into that area to prospect. Sonnikson spent that winter again in Novikakat where he married.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) His wife Kate was of Russian/Athapaskan ancestry and a sister to Erina Cherosky Callahan who worked for many years as a translator at Jack McQuesten’s Yukon River trading posts.((Claire Rudolf Murphy and Jane G. Haigh, //Children of the Gold Rush.// Boulder, Colorado: Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1999: 11.))
	
In 1890, Sonnikson was back at Forty Mile and then he moved on to the Stewart River but found nothing to keep him there, so he returned to prospect at Franklin Gulch on the Fortymile River. He and Peter Gorlet bought an interest in a claim on Troublesome Point and he stayed there until a gold discovery on Davis Creek drew him there in 1892.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) He then sold his Fortymile claim and moved to the Stewart River and developed a homestead at the mouth of Maisie May Creek in 1892.((Bill Holmes, "Sourdough side of the story." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 14 March 2007.))
	
During the winter of 1993-94, Sonnikson was on the Sixtymile River and he recalled that the temperature dropped to - 40 degrees for 119 days during the 157 days between November 15th and April 20th.((//Klondike Nugget// (Dawson), 11 March 1899.)) In 1895, Sonnikson was at Circle City, Alaska running a freighting business.((Bill Holmes, "Sourdough side of the story." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 14 March 2007.)) Arthur Walden met Sonnikson in Circle City during the winter of 1896/97 and described him showing off his dog who would do tricks for salmon treats.((Arthur T. Walden, //A Dog-Puncher on the Yukon.// New York: The Riverside Press Cambridge, 1928: 40.)) 
Sonnikson moved to Dawson in the summer of 1897.((Bill Holmes, "Sourdough side of the story." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 14 March 2007.)) He and Samuel Henry had been prospecting partners, after Henry arrived in the country in 1896, and they started a freighting business in Dawson during the gold rush.((Ken Coates and Bill Morrison, //The Sinking of the Princess Sophia: Taking the North Down with Her.// Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990: 30.)) Sonnikson and Henry Freighters offered to haul, drag or pack anything, anywhere, anytime. They sold wood and hay and in 1900 they put in a bid to deliver the mail to Hunker and Dominion creeks once a week for six months at a cost of $25 per trip.((Yukon Archives, Gov 1625 f.3014.))
	
At some point between 1898 and 1901, Sonnikson owned the 22’ by 94’ Yukon River steamer //Gold Star.//(Ed and Star Jones, //All That Glitters.// Whitehorse: Wolf Creek Books, 2005: 173-181.)) In the summer of 1899, Sonnikson made his only trip out of the Yukon when he travelled to San Jose where he bought a farm.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) 
In October 1899, a half mile of shore in front of Dawson was lined with hay rafts filled with wild hay cut from the flats above Dawson. There was one lot of tame hay in the line-up from Chris Sonnikson’s farm at Maisie May. His hay was selling at 15 cents per unbales pound, three cents a pound more than the wild hay.((Jeremiah Lynch, //Three Years in the Klondike.// Chicago: The Lakeside Press, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 1967: 326.)) Sonnikson and Henry were pioneer farmers at Sonnikson’s homestead at Maisie May. They eventually had 75 acres under cultivation in millet, oats, red top, and garden vegetables.((Bill Holmes, "Sourdough side of the story." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 14 March 2007.))
	
Chris Sonnikson died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 43 in May 1901 at his home in Klondike City. He left an estate of between $40,000 and $50,000. He wife and five children were in San Jose with his parents where the children were attending school. His children included boys aged 12, 8, and 2 and a 17-year-old adopted girl.(("Crosses the great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) His executors were Thomas O’Brien, Frank Holmes, Sam Henry, and a brother living outside.((Bill Holmes, "Sourdough side of the story." //The Klondike Sun// (Dawson), 14 March 2007; "Crosses the Great Divide: Chris Sonnikson, Pioneer, is dead." //Dawson Weekly News// (Dawson), 31 May 1901.)) Sam Henry was by this time owner and operator of the Masie May farm.((//The Dawson Record// (Dawson), 25 July 1903.))
	
A photo of Chris, Kate and their children is held in the Alaska State Library Wickersham collection, PCA 277-1-63.