Gordon C. Bettles (1859 – 1945)
Gordon Bettles was born in Michigan. He migrated west in 1880 and was mining in western Montana in 1887. He heard about a gold discovery in Alaska from George “Tuck” Lambert. Sixty men started out from Montana and forty reached the Fortymile River in May 1888. Lambert and Bettles left the mouth about May 20 and travelled upstream on the Fortymile to Bonanza Bar where there were sixty or seventy men placer mining with rocker boxes. They reached Troublesome Point and found Frank Densmore, George Matlock, Skiff Mitchell, Joe Ladue, and three others working a line of rocker boxes. Bettles was a charter member of the Yukon Order of Pioneers. He and partner George “Tuck” Lambert prospected on the Fortymile and late in 1888 travelled to the un-prospected Kuskokwim River. 1)
Bettles was at Noukelakayet in 1888, near the mouth of the Tanana River, when the community heard about the murder of John Bremner. A miners’ meeting was convened, and a posse was formed. They commandeered a river steamer and appointed 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 Koyukuk River camp where Bremner was believed to have disappeared. They captured Silas, a young First Nations man 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. 2)
In 1890, a group of prospectors found gold on the Koyukuk tributaries north of the Arctic Circle. Bettles ordered twenty tons of supplies and formed a new trading company, G.C. Bettles and Company. 3) In 1891, Gordon Bettles was working with William Moore, mining on Tramway Bar and trading with the First Nations. 4) Bettles owned two sternwheelers, the Cora and the Koyukuk. He gained a reputation for generosity as he offered the miners a grubstake of food and supplies that they paid back after a season of prospecting. 5)
In 1891/92, Bettles took Fredricks place in a partnership with James Walker's as a trader at Old Station. This was Bettles first year as a trader on the Yukon River. First Nation people as far up the Tanana River as Nenana River traded at the Old Station. Fredricks died 1892 while outside and Bettles continued alone in 1892/93. 6) In 1892, Bettles married Sophie Kokrine, the daughter of a Russian fur trader on the lower Yukon River. 7)
In 1893 Bettles took the streamer Cora upstream to a few miles below the Hughes Bar and established Arctic Village. He and Al Mayo were partners, and Mayo remained at Old Station for the winter. A flood in the spring of 1894 made Bettles decide to relocate the Old Station post to Tanana. They built a store and a dwelling. Al Mayo and his family lived upstairs, and Bettles and his family lived on the main floor. They called the station Mayo's Landing. Bettles would become a trader at Noukelakayet, Tanana, and on the Koyukuk River. 8) Bettles signed the founding charter of the Yukon Order of Pioneers at Forty Mile in December 1894. 9)
In 1895, Bettles and Reverend Jules Prevost began the Yukon Press, the first newspaper in the Yukon River Valley. Bettles and his wife left Alaska from St. Michael on 1 September 1896 to obtain medical attention for Sophie and so he missed the Klondike strike. They returned to Alaska in 1897. 10) In 1898, two thousand stampeders who were disappointed in the Klondike flooded into the Koyukuk country. Responding to the opportunity, Bettles established stores at Bergman and Bettles. By the spring of 1899, only one hundred miners remained in the area, but additional gold discoveries were made in 1906 and 1909. 11)
Sophie died in 1920 and Bettles subsequently married Ethel Brainard, a teacher at Bettles. In 1925, Ethel started teaching in the Kuskokwim country and she and Gordon lived at Akiak, Ouinhagak, and Goodnews Bay where she taught school for four years. Ethel’s job then took them to Koyukuk and then Chenega Island near Latouche. In 1938 they moved to Seattle where Gordon died at the age of 86. 12) The Bergman and Bettles outposts were abandoned but the sites remain an important part of the Koyukuk history. 13)