George Schwatka, Ind-a-yanek
Ind-a-yanek was Chilkat Tahk-heesh. His mother was Tahk-heese from the area of Fort Selkirk at the mouth of the Pelly River and he was familiar with the area. He was well past fifty years old in 1883. He travelled in a cottonwood canoe with his wife and three children. He was familiar with the river after the Takhini River entrance as he had been over the Chilkat Trail many times and over the Chilkoot Pass only once when he was a boy. He knew some of the people at the fishing camp below Selkirk [at Victoria Rock in English] as he had traded among them and there were many who spoke his language of Tahk-heesh. Frederick Schwatka started his 1883 trip into the Yukon River basin with four Chilkat guides, including Ind-a-yanek (Indianne).1) General Nelson A. Miles paid the bills for sending Frederick Schwatka into the Yukon to survey the Yukon River. By one account Schwatka left at least one bill unpaid, to a Tlingit guide. The guide denounced Schwatka and told him that he would take his name and use it as long as he lived. He was henceforth known as George Schwatka.2)
W. J. Arkell commissioned E. H. Wells to head an exploration party in 1890 for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. The party landed at Pyramid Harbour on the Lynn Canal in April and took on the services of the Chilkat “Duck-a-skin-aw Sin-quo-qua-da” or “Indiank.” He had been with Schwatka in 1883. The party crossed the Chilkoot Pass and explored the Chilkat Valley and travelled to the Yukon River.3)
James Wickersham described photos of three headmen of the Kok-wan-tan clan dressed in Chilkat blankets. K-sh-ak, the “monkey man”, Skandoo a notorious medicine man wearing the carved eagle hat of his clan, and Ind-a-yanek, known as Schwatka because he pointed out the old Chilkat Trail from Dyea to Lake Bennett to Lieutenant Schwatka and guided him to the Yukon River in 1883.4)
In 1911, Skookum Jim and Schwatka, First Nation men from Haines, Alaska were in Juneau awaiting cataract surgery.5)