Al Hill
Al Hill was a famous Mississippi riverboat pilot of some twenty-two years’ experience. In 1898, the Alaska Commercial Co. brought Hill into the Yukon River basin to study and navigate the Yukon flats in Alaska. Hill became the “river flat” pilot and got on every company boat at about eighty miles above Ft. Hamlin.1)
Elizabeth Robins was travelling on the Yukon River in August 1900. Second Pilot Billy Bledsoe was at the wheel of the sternwheeler Sarah. Captain Al Hill was behind him directing, and a third pilot was attending. Hill took the Sarah as far as Circle, Alaska and then boarded the Susie for the downriver trip. Hill had drawn his own hand-drawn river chart – about 150 feet long.2)