Jimmy Jackson (b. 1868)
Jimmy Jackson was born at Taku, a son of Chief Onaklosh. He was in the Cassiar district as a boy. He worked as a miner for three years at Wrangel, Alaska, worked as a mail carrier for Sylvester and worked in the Sylvester sawmill in Wrangell. After that he returned to the Cassiar to work for the Hudson’s Bay Company.1)
Jackson moved to Juneau and started working for the United States Government as a mail carrier. In the winter of 1895/96, he was travelling with his nephew Albert Kolteen and another First Nations man delivering the mail from Juneau to Forty Mile.2) Ed McNealis and H.G. Hodges accompanied them with a load of magazines they hoped to sell at Forty Mile. They travelled up Taku Inlet and overland to Atlin Lake. The indigenous men left the white men there because they were having trouble keeping up. Jackson had a hard trip to Forty Mile and nearly died himself. When the white men did not turn up, the indigenous men were accused of murdering and robbing them. Jackson was exonerated when McNealis' skeleton was found near Windy Arm. Hodges was not found.3)
Jackson was carrying mail in the interior when he heard about the Klondike gold strike. 4) A Dawson newspaper reported that Jimmy Jackson, “well known through Alaska and the Northwest” was going to St. Michael, Alaska to pilot a river steamer for the company recently organized by Pat Galvin. The boat was the largest on the Yukon River at 240 feet long and 40 feet at beam. He worked as a pilot with Captain Turnbull on the river steamer Golden Star and continued to work as a pilot after that experience. 5)
In 1908, Captain Jackson started working for Taylor & Drury (T&D) in Whitehorse and he continued with the company and living in Whitehorse for the next fourteen years.6) T&D’s supply boat Kluane was small with a shallow draft and sturdy double-plank hull construction that was perfectly suited to the shallow streams where the T&D posts were located. It was said that the Kluane could float on a thick morning dew. The vessel earned its name on its maiden voyage up the White, Donjek and Kluane rivers. The Canadian government offered a generous bonus to the first vessel to successfully reach Kluane Lake by the all-water route. [In 1911?] the boat ascended the White for 100 miles to the mouth of the Donjek and then up the Donjek for another 100 miles to the mouth of the Kluane and then another 40 miles to the lake. The Kluane made it to the mouth of the Kluane River where pilot Jimmy Jackson and first mate “Buffalo” Pitts off-loaded everything they could to lighten the boat. They continued up the Kluane for 15-20 miles before being stopped by a series of cascading rapids.7)
Alex Van Bibber remembered that the T&D supply boat Thistle used to stop at his home at Mica Creek as well as the company stores at Carmacks, Selkirk, Mayo, Ross River, and Teslin. Captain Jackson was the pilot. Dave Silas, a deck hand from Fort Selkirk, told Alex that they were crossing Lake Laberge on the downriver trip in 1928, and the lake was very rough. One of the hog lines broke and caused a big crack that took in water. The whole crew piled on the barge and cut it loose. They were tossed around all night and then washed ashore. They walked to Lower Laberge and the telegraph station to report the loss of the steamer Thistle. All of the crew survived.8)
Jimmy Jackson trapped during the winter. One of the log cabins at Fish Lake was built around 1915 by Frank McKay and his father Captain Jim Jackson. The cabin was used during hunting and fishing trips.9)
Jackson was living in Whitehorse in 1922, the first season he was working on a boat when it was put away for the winter.10) In November 1941, Capt. Jackson was halfway across the ice on Fish Lake with his dog team when the ice gave way, and he fell into the water. He dug a pocketknife into the ice and was able eventually to pull himself out but he lost his three favourite dogs, his sleigh, and his trapping equipment.11)
Stella Jackson (1883-1941), Jimmy Jackson’s Tlingit wife, was born in Sitka. She came into the Yukon around 1909. 12)