Allen's Incredible Journey

Lieutenant Henry T. Allen led a five-month expedition across 1,500 miles of largely unexplored interior Alaska in 1885, including this valley, as the last of a series of Army expeditions during the 1880s to explore and map the region. Ordered to investigate the unmapped Copper and Tanana river valleys, Allen began up the Copper River in March 1885 with Sergeant Cady Robertson and Private Frederick W. Fickett. The hardest part of the journey was ascending the Copper River through glacier ice, rushing torrents between vertical rock walls, and multiple braided channels. Delayed by winter's ice, the party made a side trip up the Chitina River to buy food from Native people and learn about copper deposits they used. Two months into the journey, they passed this point, continued to the headwaters of the Copper River, and entered the Tanana Valley. The explorers then descended the Tanana River. Robertson went to the Bering Sea coast while Allen and Fickett trekked from the Yukon to the headwaters of the Koyukuk River, explored that drainage, then joined Robertson on the coast and left Alaska. The expedition provided information on the Copper, Tanana, and Koyukuk rivers, and Allen's findings about Native people and the resources of interior Alaska later greatly benefited gold seekers who arrived in the 1890s.

Slana, Alaska · United States