Fort Wrangel history has been the primary focus of my research in Alaska. The Stikine River is an important part of that history. It begins with the Stikine Tribe migrating down the Stikine and later becoming the gateway to three gold rushes. It is a transboundary river, dividing Canada and the United States. During the gold rush period, river boats transported passengers, their gear and freight between Fort Wrangel and Glenora and/or Telegraph Creek in BritishColumbia. Prospectors used the Stikine to get to the gold fields in 1862, 1878 and 1898. The Stikine River was the original gateway to the Klondike Gold fields--before Skagway!

 
The Stikine River is the fastest navigable river on the North American continent and is a free-flowing river. It falls 600 feet in 160 miles from Telegraph Creek, at the head of navigation, to the mouth of the river just north of Wrangell Island.  It is navigable up to Telegraph Creek, 160 miles north of Wrangell Island, through most of the summer. It is accessed by boat by crossing the river delta at near or high tide in order to circumvent the many sand bars that are exposed at low water. The tidal influence disappears, on the average, about 20 miles upriver--depending upon the river's level.

 
The ice is normally out of the river by late April-early May. The river stage drops about October or November making navigation by boat of the upper part of the river almost impossible. The river freezes over to a point above the saltwater. The ice normally is not solid enough to allow travel over it until about January. Some years, the river remains "open."

The river drains an area of approximately 20,000 square miles and is about 400 miles long. The Stikine River begins in Spatsizi Wilderness Park in northwestern British Columbia. Only the last approximately 30 miles of it is in the United States. The upper part of the river flows westerly to a point near Telegraph Creek and then heads southwest and then south, crossing the Coast Mountains. It empties into Stikine Strait and Sumner Strait--at the Pacific Ocean. The river is a transboundary river protected under a cooperative treaty between the United States and Canada. It must remain open to commercial traffic.

 

  
The river is a multi-channeled river and is about 0.9 miles wide. Its glacier-fed waters are heavily laden with silt which is dumped, along the way, onto sand bars and at the mouth of the river. Glaciers still encompass the mountains and descend down to the shores of the river’s valley. Most of the glaciers of southeastern Alaska--from the Canadian border to the south to the Fairweather Range in the north--are located in two large ice fields of the Coast Mountains: the Stikine and Juneau ice fields. These two ice fields contain more than 2,500 square miles of the glacier-covered area within Alaska and cover a large area in British Columbia.

 
The Stikine ice field spans the crest of the Coast Mountains for about 120 miles from the Stikine River to the Whiting River. The ice field is composed of about a dozen glaciers of 10 miles in length or more. Several of the large glaciers descend to sea level from high elevations of a mile or more, terminating in the Frederick Sound and Stephens Passage fjords.

 
  Shakes Glacier and LeConte Glacier are one glacier. Shakes Glacier terminates at Shakes Lake on the Stikine River while LeConte drops into Frederick Sound. The LeConte is the southernmost tidewater glacier in North America. Across the U.S. and Canadian Border lies the Great Glacier and Choquette Glacier. These two glaciers, according to legend, were once one large creating a "bridge" over the Stikine River. The river flowed through a tunnel under the glacier. Telegraph Creek and the old town of Glenora (located 12 miles southwest below Telegraph Creek) were the landing points for prospectors during the gold rushes.

 
The Stikine River is fed by smaller tributary creeks and streams. Its major tributary is the Iskut River (Iscoote), about 35 miles north of the river’s entrance, just across the U.S. and Canadian border. Other rivers of the Stikine Valley are the Chutine River, Scud River, Porcupine River and Craig River. The Craig River is a tributary of the Iskut River. The Jekill River is a tributary to the Craig.

 
The area is forested with large stands of cottonwood trees and willow trees in the lower reaches of the river’s banks with Sitka spruce and hemlock covering the higher elevations. The undergrowth is populated by devil’s club, alder and huckleberry. The upper Stikine finds the dominant tree growth to be poplar with groves of conifers and cottonwood. It is the wildlife that abounds here that attracted the Tlingits to the area and the reason that they and the Tahltans guarded it so fiercely. The river’s estuary and wetlands are a major flyway for migrating waterfowl. The marsh habitat found in the intertidal zone provides a high quality waterfowl resting and feeding habitat and is also used by the anadromous fish, deer, moose and bear.

 
Salmon and eulochon fish (Theleichtys pacificus) migrate from the sea and return to spawn up the river bringing a hungry audience with them consisting of American Bald Eagles, sea lions, seals and sea gulls.

 
Mining for gold wasn’t the only mining activity that was engaged in on the Stikine River. A large garnet deposit is located at a ledge near the mouth of the Stikine. The burgundy-colored stones are not gem quality. The ledge has a long and interesting history. Copper, gold and sliver-lead-zinc deposits have been found in the Stikine River region, primarily along the Iskut River.

 
Text and photos copyright 1998 Patricia A. Neal