Neville Alexander Drummond Armstrong OBE (1874 - 1954)
Neville Armstrong was the son of an English baronet. In 1897, at age twenty, he came up the Yukon River to look over his father’s interests in the Klondike and he became assistant manager of the Yukon Goldfields Mining Company.1) He acquired claims on Bonanza and Cheechako Hill and became manager of the company.2) He was reputed to find the biggest nugget at 64¼ ounces on his claim at 4 Below Bonanza Creek. He met A.N.C. Treadgold through friend David Doig, manager of the BNA bank. Armstrong and Doig were partners at one time and sold Treadgold a rich bench claim on Cheechako Hill.3)
[Thomas] Duncan Gillis, interested in selling his mining concession on Russell Creek, approached Armstrong in the spring of 1901 and they took trips into the area to prospect and hunt. On 27 September, 1899, Armstrong received an office letter appointing him the game warden of the Macmillan River. In 1914, Armstrong recorded a big game guiding trip that he undertook in August. The trip is described in Armstrong's book on hunting in the area.4)
Armstrong enlisted in the 48th British Regiment in 1915 as a major. He served in France, England and Canada.5) He served in France between 1915 and 1917, being mentioned in dispatches four times. He was Chief Instructor at the 2nd Army School of Scouting, Observation, and Sniping from 1915-16, and Commandant of the Canadian Corps School of Sniping from 1917-18. Armstrong’s book Fieldcraft Sniping and Intelligence, published by Gale and Polden Ltd in 1942, became a classic text. He was awarded the OBE for his service.6) Lt. Col. Armstrong spent 1919 at Defense Headquarters in Ottawa and was discharged in the spring of 1920.7)
Armstrong formed a mining syndicate among his military friends with himself as managing director and the purpose of drill test holes at Russell Creek. His mining activities between 1920 and 1926 are extensively described in his diaries.8) In 1925, water pipes and two monitors were put in at Russell Creek, ready for mining in 1926. A Whitehorse newspaper reported that $100,000 was spent on the property by a dozen Victoria investors.9)
In 1926, Armstrong decided to turn his back on the Russell Creek area due to heavy rocks, shortage of labour, and no gold. In his books, Armstrong mentions being back at Russell in 1929. The Russell Creek cabins remained untouched for some years after 1926, were later ransacked, and one by one their roofs collapsed. The old steam drill and steel hydraulic pipe are reported to be still in place. Mount Armstrong, named for Neville Armstrong is the highest peak in the Russell Range at 7083 feet.10) Neville Armstrong is listed in the Yukon Prospectors Association Hall of Fame.
Neville Armstrong's writing includes: “Klondike Memories” (The Beaver, March 1951), After Big Game in the Upper Yukon. (London: John Lang, 1937), and Yukon Yesterdays: Thirty Years of Adventure in the Klondike. (London: John Lang, 1936).
