Ivan John Minook (1874 – 1940)
John Minook was the son of Pitka Pavlof Minook and grandson of Peter Alexander Ismailovitch Pavlof and his wife Diadau from the Kuskokwim region.1) John Minook was the brother of Pitka and Erinia Pavlof.
John Mynook prospected on Mynook, Hess, and the Tanana watersheds and found coarse gold. Active mining began on the creeks in 1896. First Nation labour was employed on Mynook Creek, one of the few to do so. A First Nation man staked out a claim but was not allowed to hold it, on the grounds that it was illegal for a native to own mining land.2)
In 1888, John Bremner was up the Koyukuk and was short of supplies when he encountered Jim Bender and a few others. He borrowed a boat and few days provisions to get him to the mouth of the river. He stopped at an Ahtna camp and invited a young man to share a meal. While he was packing his boat to continue his trip, the young man picked up Bremner’s shotgun and killed him. John Minook had been travelling behind Bremner. He missed seeing him and sent word to all the communities about his disappearance. Bender learned about Bremner’s disappearance on 4 July and travelled to Nuklukyet / Noochuloghoyet where a miners’ meeting was convened, and a posse was formed. They commandeered a river steamer and appointed Gordon Bettles as the captain with Minook as the river guide. They found Bremner’s outfit and part of his boat in a river cache, so they were ready for a fight as they approached the river camp where Bremner was believed to have disappeared. They captured young Silas and his elderly uncle without a fight and took them back to the mouth. Silas admitted his guilt and the men of the posse hung him, leaving the elderly uncle to make his way home. At Tanana, both McQuesten and Al Mayo congratulated the men on their quick resolution of the event.3)
In the mid-1890s, John Minook was living at Rampart, Alaska at the mouth of Minook Creek. John and his wife had children Ambrose, Lucy, Eliza, and Fannie. John participated in a number of early placer gold discoveries and often travelled with his children as partners.4)
In 1893, John Minook and other prospectors, including Oliver C. Miller, prospected the length of the Koyukuk River. In the same year, he found the first gold on Minook Creek and other creeks in the Rampart mining district and on Hess Creek in what became the Livengood district. In 1899-1900, he found gold on the Koyukuk, near the Hammond River in the Wiseman district. In 1908, John and his daughter Eliza discovered gold in the Melozitna River are on the Yukon River below Tanana. In all these areas, John was able to stake and record claims. This was allowed because when the Rampart mining district was formed in 1896, the organizers made an exception to the federal law banning Native ownership of claims and recognized Minook's right to own, sell, and work his claims. When Minook applied for U.S. citizenship in 1904, Judge Wickersham ruled that he was already a citizen. In the 1920s, this ruling helped open up mineral location and development right for Native Americans.5)