Like Alaska, the importance of music is larger than life.
www.state.ak.us/local/akmap_page.html
Americans, even after a century of westward expansion, found it difficult to comprehend the huge mass of wilderness the United States had purchased from Russia in 1867. With 34,000 miles of coastline and uncharted rivers that emptied into three seas, Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas. Not until gold was discovered, however, did Americans in substantial numbers invade this new “last frontier.” They brought with them the ballads and songs popular at the time in the continental or “lower states” and they carried their instruments – banjos, balalaikas, dulcimers, guitars, fiddles, trombones, and trumpets, as well as pianos and even an organ – on river boats, dog sleds, and on foot. Those who arrived came face to face with Alaska’s unfathomable distances, mind-boggling isolation, extremes of sunlight and darkness, and, above all – the cold. Few before had experienced temperatures that could sink to the 50s and 60s Fahrenheit below (– 58 to – 85 Celsius).
News of the Alaska-Klondike gold strike burst upon the outside world in the summer of 1897, when several miners showed up in Seattle with 3 million dollars worth of nuggets. By autumn at least 100,000 stampeders were on their way north. Jean A. Murray wrote in her groundbreaking 1998 book Songs of the Alaska-Klondike Gold Rush that “we often envision the era of the great northern gold rushes as a silent panorama of sepia-toned stillness. The dramatic images that survive from that time hold tiny dark figures frozen in the white silence of the Chilkoot Pass; they stifle the bustle of Dawson street scenes; they compel our mental images to fit within the limits proscribed by the photographers’ plates. But it was not a time lived in black and white, nor – most definitely – in silence.”
Chilkoot Trail information http://bcadventure.com/adventure/explore/north/trails/chtoday.htm
Murray found in collecting more than 100 tunes from the period that the prospectors’ lives “were pervaded with music, from rowdy tunes that set their boots stomping in the dance halls to mournful laments for distant home and families.” Singers, dancers, and even whole orchestras joined the trail together with eager prospectors and determined entrepreneurs. Stephen Foster songs were often performed and stampeders made jokes by singing Let the Sunshine In while on the long, often cloudy, trips upriver in Northwestern Alaska. Parodies of then popular songs were numerous. Teacher Lesson Plans: Parody Songs
Some of the earliest gold explorations took place in southeast Alaska during the 1870s and around Cook Inlet a decade later. Exploration in Skagway, Circle and in creeks of the Seward Peninsula and near Forty Mile followed before the Klondike caught the full attention of the world by telegraph and newspapers. (Murray, 1-3)
Eagle, an interior town just inside the American border was established in 1897 by a group of gold prospectors who were unable to become rich from their Klondike claims. By 1898 the town had a population of 700 and became headquarters of both a military base (Ft. Egbert, 1899-1911) and the WAMCATS, a telegraph line built in 1902 that allowed messages to be sent between Eagle and Valdez, the first all-American communication to the Lower 48.
Instruments, including pianos and an organ, used for recitals, formal balls, and musical events of all sorts, were imported by boat on the Yukon River and the inhabitants of this remote outpost performed songs, arias, and instrumental pieces almost simultaneously with their New York premieres. http://www.eagleak.org/collect.htm
Many miners and their entourages left the Klondike and went to Nome when gold was discovered there in 1899. Soon the town on the gold rich beach had 100 saloons and “from the dance halls the scraping of a fiddle rose above the noisy chatter of heavy boots that sounded like a chariot race in an empty attic.” But by 1906 Nome’s most boisterous days were over. All the easy gold had been scooped from its sandy shores. The rowdiest claim jumpers and tinhorns had moved on and Nome became a respectable mining community. Even this era would prove fleeting; for in barely six more years the underground gold began to give out. Nevertheless, while the money lasted, Nome comported itself in style and the civilized pleasures enjoyed by the nouveau riche included Chinese cooks, cut glass, fine china, and parlor pianos as well as a Brass Band of sixteen brass players and a drummer that took part in parades, election rallies and community concerts.
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Memorial Day, Parade, May 30, 1908, Nome, Alaska. |
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From Nome and elsewhere itinerate miners traveled to Fairbanks where Felix Pedro had discovered a vast amount of underground gold on July 22, 1902. Many miners declared this interior town on the banks of the Chena and Tanana rivers to be “a place of permanence – a home” and soon their families were sent for.
The first picture of Fairbanks. (Alaska State Library)
A Presbyterian Church, a library, banks, bathhouses, and laundries were built and law offices were established. Music of every sort – from folk guitar sing-alongs in newly built log cabins to a performance of Gaul’s oratorio The Holy City conducted by soprano and physician Dr. Aileen Bradley – was performed in the earliest years of Fairbanks’ existence.
The Alaska-Yukon Magazine reported in its “In Other Circle” article in the May 1909 issue that the Arctic Brotherhood Smoker celebrated on Saturday night, November 7, 1903:
. . . will go on record in the annals of the history of Fairbanks as the greatest event toward the upbuilding of the city. Going far to show that the true American spirit of harmony and good fellowship is predominant in this infant camp.
The event was the initial entertainment given by the members of the Arctic Brotherhood in Fairbanks, who have organized the camp. The Arctic Brotherhood touched the button which set free the pent up mirth and hilarity of many a man in this cap and for a few hours had dispelled the gloom of the scarcity of grub. Every face was radiant with joy, and as the festive bowl passed around may bright lights loomed up as good entertainers, thus bringing out the fact that by a display of good fellowship and brotherly love we can conquer the most morose and sullen.
At 8 o’clock the doors of the new A.B. Hall were opened, with a committee in attendance to meet the guests with a welcome hand and a cheering bowl. By 8:15 the hall was filled to its uttermost, there being present 250 or more guests and members. A few numbers on a phonograph selected by Mr. Howard Turner, and one by the orchestra, preceded the calling of the assemblage to order by Mr. Abe Spring, who, with a few brief remarks, called for and introduced Dr. Hall as chairman and master of ceremonies, who entered upon his duties with such zest that all were inspired with a feeling that a great treat was in store for them. Dr. Hall got down to business immediately by calling before him Capitan Barnette and Billie Robertson, whom he appointed marshals to preserve order, and bring before the assemblage those who had to pay the penalty for some misdemeanor by some song or story, both being installed with great pomp and ceremony. Then followed a selection by the orchestra. Seeing many thirsty souls around him, the doctor decided upon the necessity of waiters, and had brought before him Solly Spring, Jack Healey, Bert Carter, and Ralph Newcomb, who were officially installed as waiters.
. . . The orchestra was then introduced, which was composed of Casserley, Morgan, DeCamp, Burkhart, Lindig, and Campbell. . . . A sextette composed of Messrs Noble, Walsh, Campbell, Kellum, Thomas, and Sherman rendered the “Old Oaken Bucket” in such a masterly manner that an encore brought forth “Farewell, My Own True Love.”
The orchestra again responded. By special request Judge Kellum sang the following song, which made a decided hit:
The Song of the Salmon
(Tune – “There Is a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night.”)
Now come all ye young che-chac-cos, and ye hairy sourdoughs, do.
There is going to be a “smoker” and hell’ll be poppin’ too.
There will be hooch for everybody and something good to eat,
You can fill your hide with whisky and cigars that can’t be beat.
We want you all to have a jolly time,
And when you go home you will feel so very fine.
When we meet again you will surely be in line,
For there’ll be a hot time in Fairbanks to-night, our neighbors.
When you hear those corks go click, click, click.
Jump right up and quickly take your drink.
For when the hooch is gone you’ll never, never think
There was a hot time in Fairbanks to-night.
You will hear some funny stories, and some will make you guess.
That all the Arctic Brother are full of jolliness.
For the men who tell those stories and make you laugh and smile
Say its good for mumps and measles and will drive away the bile;
For we all will do our best to please you all, and you will do the rest,
If your tanks aren’t full, it will not be our behest,
For there is a hot time at Fairbanks to-night, ye soakers.
There is a village near our city, and its nine miles there they say
Where they catch the wily salmon on a universal lay,
And they catch him while he’s swimming and they catch him while he drinks,
That’s all there’s in this village and it stinks, and stinks, and stinks.
You can smell them ‘ere you reach the town
And the stench will nearly knock you down,
And the air is thick for miles and miles around.
But there’s a hot time at Fairbanks to-night, poor salmon.
But if you want to go against it, just go there to buy your grub,
You will get the marble heart and your name it will be mud,
For they think they can outwit us and make us come to them.
But to h—l with their opinion for we do not care a d—m,
For this is the place where all the miners come,
And we’ve got little Chena now badly on the run,
And if we don’t beat them let Johnny get his gun.
For we’ve for a hot time at Fairbanks to-night, O Chena!
If our neighbors down the river will only come to us,
We will be like Arctic Brother and stop this awful fuss,
We will gather in the gold dust and know what we are about,
When the miner comes to town our hooch will knock him out,
For we’ve always got our mitt in sight.
And they must pungle or they will have to fight,
And if we don’t land them, you will know t’will not be right,
For there is a hot time at Fairbanks to-night, poor miners.
A list of “those who attended this long-to-be remembered smoker, which next to the discovery of gold is the most important event of the camp” included one hundred and twenty-four names of early Fairbanksans.
The richness and diversity of music in Fairbanks has enriched the state’s second largest city from its inception until today.
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