Chief Isaac (c1847 – 1932)
Chief Isaac and his brothers Jonathon Wood and Walter Benjamin came from the area around Eagle, Alaska before the gold rush.1) Isaac lived at Forty Mile when he was young, and Bishop Bompas gave him his Christian name Isaac. Jonathon was a lay reader at the St. Barnabas Church in Moosehide, and Walter Benjamin presided at the Episcopal Church mission in Eagle, Alaska. Isaac was living in Forty Mile when his marriage was arranged, and he went to the Klondike River to marry Eliza Harper, the daughter of a Han hereditary chief ‘Gah St’at (aka Abraham Harper). Chief ‘Gah St’at (Catseah / Catsah) named Isaac a chief after he and Eliza married.2)
During the Klondike gold rush, the residents of the Dawson area were short of food. Tappan Adney travelled with Chief Isaac on a hunting trip up the Klondike River in a party of about forty or fifty people and as many dogs. The manager of the Alaska Commercial Company (AC Co) had refused to grubstake the hunters, instead offering to trade goods for meat. This was a change from the way the trading company had operated before the gold rush. The hunters returned to Dawson with about eighty moose and sixty-five caribou most of which they sold to the Dawson miners under the advice of the ACCo manager.3) After this experience the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in took other hunting trips to supply themselves and Dawson with meat.4)
In 1902, Chief Isaac and younger brother Walter took a trip to San Francisco and Seattle sponsored by the Alaska Commercial Company, the North American Trading & Transportation Company, and the Northern Commercial Company. He saw the sights and met an old friend, Black Sullivan, living in Seattle. In different words he told the southern newspaper that, although the white man destroyed First Nation trading, hunting, and fishing, they were still welcome in the Yukon.5)
Chief Isaac often stated his views on the lack of resources and employment left for the Hän after the invasion of settlers into the area. His comments were always blunt, but sometimes they were cloaked in humour. In 1902, he threatened to sell the Yukon for $10,000 to people he met in San Francisco.6) After California rainmaker Charles Hatfield failed to deliver rain to the Klondike miners who had agreed to pay $10,000 upon delivery, Chief Isaac claimed his failure was due to the power of Hän medicine men and offered to produce oceans of rain for only $5,000.7)
Chief Isaac was a good medicine man and a good provider for his family. Joy Isaac was told by her mother that they were never poor because of the medicine bag that he always carried with him. He made medicine to bring good luck to his people, give him guidance, and give him protection from enemies, jealousy, and bad spirits. He also used it for guidance in hunting, healing illness, and altering the weather. The medicine bag was made of red cloth and contained natural spiritual items. It was used in dreams to protect his people from evil. Joy’s mother told her there were other medicine men in Moosehide, and a bad medicine man moved there from Peel River. He would bother Chief Isaac in dreams and Chief Isaac asked his brother Walter Ben to send the dream back to this bad medicine man. Walter Ben was a good medicine man who lived in Eagle, Alaska. The missionaries told them to get rid of their medicine because it had devil power. Chief Isaac believed in God and only used his medicine for good luck.8)
Chief Isaac removed culturally important items from Canada to protect them from a Canadian government prohibition against potlatches. In 1912, he took songs, dances, drums, and a gannock (dance stick) to the Upper Tanana people at Mansfield Lake for safe keeping. In 1917, he took other ceremonial objects to Tetlin, Alaska.9) Chief Isaac represented his people at formal events, and was presented to Lady Byng, wife of Canada’s governor general in 1922. He intervened on behalf of Hän citizens who were in trouble with the law or seeking assistance from the government. Chief Isaac Hall in Dawson is named in his honour, and Mount Chief Isaac is located north of Dawson in the Ogilvie Mountains.10)
Chief Isaac and Eliza had five children that lived to be adults: Edward, Fred, Charlie, Patricia Mary Jane “Princess Pat” (Lindgren), and Angela Gladys (Lopashuk). Charlie Isaac became a Hän chief after his father’s death. Chief Isaac died during an influenza epidemic. Two white horses pulled a sleigh carrying his coffin down the Yukon River from Dawson to Moosehide and he was buried in the Moosehide Cemetery.11)