TELEGRAPH SURVEYS 2OI 



Small Houses. In 1863 Strachan Jones, commanding at 

 Fort Yukon, descended the Yukon to Nowikakat. This 

 point had been reached by Zagoskin, ten years earlier, 

 from the sea; but neither the Russians nor the Hudson 

 Bay men appear to have been aware of the work of the 

 rival party. Hearing now of the presence of the Eng- 

 lish, the Russian commander at Nulato sent Ivan Lukeen, 

 a half breed, with a party of Indians, up the river to gather 

 information. This party reached Fort Yukon where they 

 traded and returned to St. Michael. 



The successive failures of several Atlantic cables to 

 work for any length of time, had disposed many telegraph 

 men to believe that no permanently working cable of that 

 length could be expected. This led to a plan for an in- 

 ternational telegraph overland from the mouth of the 

 Amur River in Siberia to Bering Strait, crossing by a 

 short cable, and thence again overland up the valley of the 

 Yukon and through British Columbia to civilization. The 

 cooperation of the Russian government was secured and 

 the command of an expedition to make the necessary ex- 

 plorations was entrusted by the Western Union Telegraph 

 Company to Capt. Charles S. Bulkley. This expedition 

 was organized in San Francisco in 1865, and included a 

 number of scientific men under Robert Kennicott, selected 

 through the good offices of the Smithsonian Institution. 



Through their explorations it was first made known to 

 the world that the Yukon of the English and the Kwik- 

 pak of the Russian maps were one and the same great 

 river, which was first mapped with approximate accuracy 

 from their rough surveys. 



Kennicott died during the spring of 1866, but Frank 

 Ketchum and Michael Lebarge carried out his plans and 

 ascended the Yukon to Fort Yukon. Kennicott was suc- 

 ceeded in charge of the scientific corps of the expedition by 

 William H. Dall, who with Frederick Whymper in 1867 



