Frederick James Currier

February 13, 1860 to November 25, 1935

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Although many are familiar with the exploits of Felix Pedro, who is widely credited with the 1902 discovery of gold in what became the Fairbanks Mining district, few are aware that a number of prospectors proceeded the famed Italian discoverer in the search for gold in the Tanana River basin. Frederick J. Currier was one of those early Tanana River Basin prospectors. Currier was also one of the first prospectors to mine gold in what became the historic and ‘pre-Klondike’, Circle Mining district.

Frederick James Currier was born on February 13, 1860 in River Falls, Wisconsin to James Kimball Currier and Florilla Locke Currier. He had two younger sisters, Mary Louise and Lillian, and a brother, Harry. As a youth growing up in Wisconsin, Frederick was always a young man looking for adventure. He loved the outdoors, camping, fishing, and hiking. He was a graduate of River Falls Normal School, majoring in natural sciences. He married Abbie M. Parker of River Falls on June 24, 1885, when he was 25 and she was 22. They had five children: Gladys, Ruth, Donald, Maxwell, and Geneva. The two older children were born in River Falls, and the others were born in Turton, South Dakota, where the family moved to a wheat and stock farm in 1888. In 1893 the family returned to River Falls, leasing the farm in South Dakota, so the older children could be entered in the primary schools and have better educational advantages than were offered in the Dakota territory.

In March of 1894 Fred J. Currier went by way of the Canadian Pacific Railroad to Vancouver, B.C., intending to go down into Oregon to purchase an apple orchard and then move his family out there. Instead, he met two miners in a hotel in Victoria who were about to depart on a trip into the interior of Alaska to seek gold. They showed Fred J. nuggets and invited him to accompany them. Fred accepted, forgetting the apple orchard idea.

Fred teamed up with five other men to form a partnership for their trip to Alaska. They traveled by ship up the famed Inside Passage of Southeast Alaska. They stopped in Juneau to purchase clothing, food and mining gear. They proceeded on further north and landed at Dyea. From there, the party hiked up through Chilkoot Pass and down to the chain of lakes on the north side.

The party began the trip with 800 pounds of supplies for the party of six. People coming north a few years later were required to have 1000 pounds of gear per person before being granted permission to ascend the pass. Currier’s party came before such regulations were in place. The group built a raft and began floating downriver to the 40 Mile country. The raft promptly hit a rock and they lost half their gear. Despite this loss, their spirits remained high, a trait which would characterize Currier and his various mining partners over the next ten years.

The group developed a well-organized plan for making camp at the end of each day on the river. Two mean were responsible for gathering firewood. Another pair set up their tent and gathered spruce boughs for a “mattress.” The final pair served as cooks. Utilizing this system, the team completed all the necessary tasks with maximum efficiency.

The crew stopped to build boats, which would result in safer and faster travel on the river. At this time, Currier learned the joys of whip-sawing lumber from full trees. They built two boats, each of which was 32 feet long with a five-foot beam. They traversed the infamous Five Finger Rapids on the Yukon with no problem.

The party eventually arrived at 40 Mile, after 42 days on the trail from Juneau. They spent most of the summer of 1894 in 40 Mile working for the owner of a local trading post. Their work consisted mostly of turning trees into lumber and lumber into cabins. They learned of a big strike on Mastodon Creek downriver, west-southwest of Circle Hot Springs. They purchased a claim on the Creek. At the end of the summer, the group split up to pursue their personal goals. Two men stayed with Currier. They built a scow (18 feet long, with a beam of eight feet and three foot sides) and launched for Circle. The trip nearly ended in disaster, as the river began to freeze around their boat. After eight days on the river, hey landed nine miles above Circle, just as the Yukon turned into a river of ice.

The crew built a cache to protect their gear and hiked into Circle, which was a boom town with more than 100 cabins. They built a cabin, where they would spend the winter of 1894-95. Many of the men in camp played a musical instrument and the Currier cabin became a nightly gathering place for dances and card games. Like most men new to the country, Currier loved the Northern Lights but had difficulty adjusting to the long nights. Christmas festivities included dog races, human races, wrestling, shooting, a feast and a dance.

A dark and serious event occurred that winter. Food and other items were stolen from at least two caches, including one cache belonging to local Natives. The miners called a community-wide meeting to address the problem. The incident was handled as formally and officially as possible, given their remote location and lack of an organized government. In the end, the culprit was ordered to leave the community with no food or equipment. In reality, it was a death sentence.

The local Indian chief died that winter, and Currier was able to witness the selection of a new chief. Currier was intrigued by the gift-giving process woven into the fabric of a Native potlatch. He also hunted moose with the local Natives. Currier took a moose and five wolves.

In the spring of 1985, the Currier crew moved out to their claim on Mastodon Creek. The claim was two miles above the tree-line. All wood needed for building and for fires had to be hauled that distance. Because they were just getting started, the party had no extra cash to buy equipment or hire workers. All that wood was carried by Fred and the team. Water is necessary for any placer mine. The partners learned early on that it was wise to build a dam to hold back water in the spring. They didn’t need the water at that time but couldn’t be sure that the creek would still be flowing later in the summer when they would need it.

In mid-summer, they heard a report of a big strike on the Porcupine River, a tributary of the Yukon. They dropped what they were doing and rushed off with half the men on the creek in hopes of staking a rich claim. The initial report turned out to be a fabrication. It was another lesson learned.

During the winter of 1985-86, the party drift-mined their Mastodon Creek claim. It was one way of remaining productive during the cold months, but it was also back-breaking work.

The Currier group had an opportunity to sell their claim in 1896 and accepted the offer. This development gave Currier a chance to pursue another idea which had been brewing in his head. He dreamt of exploring for gold prospects on the Tanana River drainage. After returning home to Wisconsin, Fred contracted to have a small sternwheeler (40 feet, with a 50-horsepower boiler) built, which he named the Potlatch. In the spring of 1898, the boat was shipped by rail to Seattle and then on a large boat to Unalaska. Fred also recruited a new team of partners.

At the very beginning of their trip up the Yukon River, the Potlatch was joined by another mining crew aboard the Tanana Chief. The two parties loosely agreed to work together. After a long trip up the Yukon and Tanana Rivers, they entered the Chena. Their boat was not ideally-suited for a trip to the headwaters, so they “parked” the Potlatch in a side slough, and began ferrying equipment and supplies upriver.

Half the team would hike approximately ten miles upriver and stop to build a crude cabin. It generally took them three days to complete the structure. The other half of the party would begin carrying supplies up to the cabin. The construction crew would then walk another ten miles and the process would be repeated. The team eventually reached what we now call the Middle (or East) Fork of the Chena, where they decided to look for gold. At this point, they built a larger (more permanent) cabin, which they named Fort Independence. We assume the name arose because the gold they hoped to find would give members of the party their financial independence. Another group of miners aboard the Jennie M joined up with the crew of the Potlatch and over-wintered on the Middle Fork.

During their first season of mining on the upper Chena, the party broke into groups of two men and each prospected a different area. After determining the best area, they teamed back up and worked together. The group was included in the 1900 national census, which suggests that census workers in Alaska were a tad more dedicated than those in the Lesser 48.

In 1900, the miners received word of a big strike in Nome. They decided to abandon their claims on the Chena and head to the Seward Peninsula. When they got back down to the Potlatch, beavers had dammed up the slough where they boat had been left. They worked for days trying to gain it’s freedom but eventually gave up and left aboard the Jennie M. Unfortunately, Currier arrived in Nome too late to secure a productive claim.

Never deterred, Currier went upriver to Dawson for the winter of 1900-01. He landed a job as a mine manager. He learned a new technique of using steam points to thaw frozen ground. The mine owner was curious to see the area between Circle and the Chena, where Currier had mined previously. They bought horses and spent three months.

When the two men returned to Dawson, Currier was once again put in charge of a large mining crew, this time on Dominion Creek. The area was thriving. Unfortunately, Currier’s crew felt that their services were being under-compensated. They threatened to strike unless they were given a raise. Currier and the mine owner struggled with the situation, but eventually decided to fire the entire crew and hire new men.

In the autumn of 1903, Currier returned to his home in Wisconsin. In 1904, Fred moved his family to the Santa Clara Valley of California, settling in Saratoga where he purchased a prune orchard. Fred’s first wife, Abbie, died in 1908. In 1918, Fred married Jennie (Jean) B. Smith of Saratoga. They honeymooned in various California beauty spots for six months. Fred then accepted a position as manager of the California Prune and Apricot Growers packing house in Red Bluff, California. He had sold his prune orchard in the Santa Clara valley before his second marriage. A daughter, Amy June, was born to Jean and Fred on June 11, 1920.

In 1929 the Currier family returned to Saratoga and built a beautiful home on a five-acre wooded estate which they called “Brookbanks” because Saratoga Creek ran through the property. They also purchased a prune orchard adjoining the property and Fred went back to ranching for the next six years, until his death on November 25, 1935. His death was the result of a blood clot in the pulmonary artery of the heart after abdominal surgery. He was 75 years old when he died. He is interred in Madronia Cemetery, Saratoga.

Written by Randy Zarnke; edited by Tom Bundtzen. Derived from the book An Alaskan Adventure, A Story of Finding Gold in the Far North from 1893 to 1903, which is available for purchase from the Alaska Trappers Association

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