Walter H. Pierce (d. 1890)
Walter Pierce came north in 1877 to prospect in the Cassiar District of British Columbia. In 1880 he was a resident of Sitka, listed in the census as single, American, and a miner. He was one of the first to arrive at Joe Juneau and Richard Harris’ gold discovery on Gastineau Channel in October 1880 and he staked claims with five others. Two of these, John Dix and Hugh Campbell, were experienced miners and Pierce partnered or worked with them in the early 1880s. Pierce staked two downtown claims in what would become Juneau and sold them in May 1881 to Mrs. George Pilz.1)
Pierce prospected and mined on the Alaskan coast for several years before starting to explore the interior. At that time, no boats were bringing supplies up the Yukon River. Pierce, and those he was travelling with, prospected up the Stewart River and met quite a few First Nation people who had never seen a white man before. A minister they only called “father” had visited the area to teach them many years before.2) This may have been Gwich’in minister John Ttssietla. Rev. Ttssietla was the first First Nations minister ordained in the Arctic.3)
By the 4th of July they were 100 miles upstream. The water level dropped enough that they built rocker boxes and started working the bars. Two-thirds of the party turned back home and left seven men to prospect further up the river. When the days shortened, the prospectors returned to the coast and Juneau. It was a hard trip out and some did not make it.4)
Pierce travelled again into the interior the following year. He and his travelling companions took provisions for 18 months. They started in March and used sleds so they could transport their goods without hiring First Nation packers. Some men stopped at a bar they found just downriver from the mouth of the Teslin but they all worked the bars until the water rose too high. They passed the White and Stewart rivers, and sometimes went up the steams to prospect. They found a little gold at several places until the prospects improved on the Fortymile River. They prospected in the hills and then returned to the mouth where they had cached their supplies and built houses for the winter. There is an extensive fictitious description of a battle with Nahanni “cannibals” that supposedly happened on the Fortymile River. The miners suffered from scurvy that winter.5)
In he spring, Pierce and his companions went up the Forty Mile and mined the bars until the water rose. They thawed the ground with fires. Pierce and six others decided to travel down the Yukon River to St. Michael, prospecting along the way.6)
In October 1886, Pierce reported his health was broken and he would not travel again into the interior. He got a job running the Music Hall in a town that became Douglas, just north of the Treadwell Mines. After a small riot that included gunfire, Pierce was arrested and charged with murder. He was tried in the fall at Sitka and the court heard two cases, the other being Frank [Francis] Fuller who was charged with the murder of Archbishop Charles Seghers on the Yukon River. Pierce was acquitted by the jury who decided that the murdered man, Klu-keetz, was too far away from the bar for Pierce to have hit. Pierce left Alaska in 1890 after being quite ill with consumption. He wrote a book, 13 years travel and exploration in Alaska, to help support himself and died within a year, or in the same year.7)