INTKODUCTIOJI OF DOMESTIC KEINDKKK INTO ALASKA. 47 



had not been ascertained. The traders of the Russian-American 

 Fur Company, for the most part, confined their operations to the 

 settlements along the lower reaches of the Yukon, seldom ascending 

 the river beyond Nulato. Every spring the energetic Scotchmen 

 of Fort Yukon were accustomed to descend the river about 300 

 miles to a point near its junction with the Tanana, where they met 

 the assembled Indian tribes and ])iu"c]iased their stores of bear, 

 marten, otter, mink, and fox skins before the tardy Russians from the 

 lower river, delayed by the swift current and masses of drifting ice, 

 could arrive at the rendezvous. The withdrawing of the Russian- 

 American Fur Company after the transfer of the country to the 

 United States inaugurated a new order of things. Several Ameri- 

 can companies established trading posts on the lower river, from 

 one of which a small party succeeded in ascending the river and 

 wintered at a point opposite the Tanana River. 



In the following spring, when the traders of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company paid their annual visit to their accustomed rendezvous, 

 their right to trade within the territory of the United States was 

 fiercely contested. In the spring of 1869 San Francisco capitalists 

 proposed to transport to St. Michael on the deck of a sailing vessel a 

 small steamer which would ascend as far as Fort Yukon, trading 

 with the tribes along the banks. These liiovements rendered it 

 extremely desirable that the position of Fort Yukon should be 

 officially determined, and occasioned the first action on the part of 

 the United States to ascertain something of the interior of the vast 

 region recently purchased from Russia. During the summer of 1869, 

 by direction of the Secretary of War, Capt. Charles P. Ra3'mond, 

 of the Engineer Corps, ascended the Yukon River to Fort Yukon to 

 determine whether it was in the domain of Great Britain or was 

 included in the district of Alaska. Fort Yukon was found to be 

 within the territory of the United States, and it was subsequently 

 abandoned by the British company. 



•In October, 1904, the Bureau of Education established a school 

 at Fort Yukon to provide school facilities for the cliildren of the 

 large tribe of natives who spend most of the year in this vicinity. 

 From the Rampart Mountains to Circle City, a distance of between 

 300 and 400 miles, the river traverses the level stretches known as 

 the Yukon Flats. Innumerable islands intersect, the wide, shallow 

 channel; countless sand bars and mud flats, blind sloughs, and 

 shifting shoals form a perfect maze. Four feet draft is perilous; 

 anything beyond that makes progress impossible. At some remote 

 period this region was the bottom of a great lake, of which the Ram- 

 part Mountains formed the western barrier. Into this lake the 

 Porcupine, Birch, and smaller streams emptied their sediment. 

 After the river had cut its way through the Rampart Mountains, 



