Walter Harper (1892 – 1918)

Walter Harper was born at Nuchelawoya in the Koyukuk River area of Alaska, the youngest son of the early Yukon trader Arthur Harper and his Athapascan wife Jenny Albert (Seentaána). Walter had seven older brothers and sisters and Arthur sent each child outside to be educated when they were age six or seven. Arthur and Jenny separated when Walter was a few years old, and his mother took him back to her home region of Nuchelawoya to raise.¹⁾

Walter attended St. Mark’s Mission in Nenana in 1909 and the following year he became a Bishop Hudson Stuck’s translator, river boat pilot, and winter trail guide. He acted as an intermediary between Stuck and the Alaskan Athapaskans as he endorsed Stuck’s views and gave them credence.²⁾ Stuck took Harper on his pioneering expedition to the top of Mount McKinley and praised him as a past master of bush arts. In 1918, Harper married Frances Wells, a nurse from Philadelphia serving at Stuck's mission. He was going south to train as a medical missionary but first he was liable for military service. He and his bride drowned in 1918 when the Princess Sophia sank in the Lynn Canal.³⁾