George Nickelson (or Nicholson)

George Nickelson started prospecting in the Peel River district around 1871. He met Jack McQuesten and Al Mayo at the Peel River post [Fort McPherson] in 1873.¹⁾ The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) provided them with Gwich’in packers and they travelled over the mountains to LaPierre House where James McKniff was waiting with lumber to build a boat. They arrived at Fort Yukon in August and drifted down the Yukon River to visit three men camped about forty miles below on Beaver Slough. One of these men was McQuesten's cousin. The three, Sam Williams, Arthur Kensley, and George Finch, were former HBC men. McQuesten, Mayo, and Nicholson spent the winter at the Beaver Slough camp.²⁾

Nickelson was hired as a fur trader by the Alaska Commercial Company in 1874, at the same time as Hart, Mayo, and McQuesten. Francois Mercier suggests that Nickelson prospected with Harper and Finch for a time after 1874.³⁾