December 17, 2025 • 39 mins
The final stages of the expedition to summit Denali were grueling for Walter Harper and the rest of the team. And after that accomplishment, Harper's life was tragically short.
Research:
- Bishop, Click. “Sponsor Statement SB-144 – Walter Harper Day.” Alaska State Legislature. https://www.akleg.gov/basis/get_documents.asp?session=31&docid=58198
- Dean, Patrick. “How Hudson Stuck's Ascent of Denali Boosted Recognition of Indigenous Alaskans.” History News Network. 12/13/2020. https://www.hnn.us/article/how-hudson-stucks-ascent-of-denali-boosted-recogni
- Denali National Park and Preserve. “Superintendent Harry Karstens.” https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/photosmultimedia/station06a.htm
- Ehrlander, Mary. “Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son.” UAF Summer Sessions & Lifelong Learning. Via YouTube. 7/7/2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-FrvS3gONg
- Farquhar, Francis P. “Henry P. Karstens—1878-1955.” The American Alpine Club. https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12195611200/Henry-P-Karstens-1878-1955
- Hayes, Alan L. “One Congregation, Two Cultures: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Nenana, Alaska.” Anglican and Episcopal History, vol. 68, no. 1, 1999, pp. 141–46. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42612013. Accessed 24 Nov. 2025.
- James, David A. “In story of the legendary ‘Walter Harper: Alaska Native Son,’ Denali is just the beginning.” Alaska Daily News. 12/16/2017. https://www.adn.com/arts/books/2017/12/16/in-story-of-the-legendary-walter-harper-alaska-native-son-denali-is-just-the-beginning/
- James, David. “The Brief, But Bright Story of Walter Harper.” Alaska. 5/21/2022. https://alaskamagazine.com/authentic-alaska/the-brief-but-bright-story-of-walter-harper/
- John, Peter. “The Gospel According to Peter John.” Krupa, David J., editor. Alaska Native Knowledge Network. 1996. https://ankn.uaf.edu/publications/Books/Peter_John.pdf
- Johnson, Erik. “Honoring the Unsung Heroes of the 1913 Summit Expedition: Esaias George and John Fredson.” National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/dena-history-unsung-heroes.htm
- Johnson, Erik. “The Ultimate Triumph and Tragedy: Remembering Walter Harper 100 Years Later.” National Park Service. Denali National Park. https://www.nps.gov/articles/dena-history-harper.htm
- Manville, Julie and Ross Maller. “The Influence of Christian Missionaries on Alaskan Indigenous Peoples.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. Vol. 5, Article 8. 2009.
- Miller, Matt. “‘May Light Perpetual Shine Upon Them.’” KTOO. https://www.ktoo.org/2013/10/26/may-light-perpetual-shine-upon-them/
- New York Times. “Yukon Indian Opens Coney Island Eyes.” 6/1/1914.
- Stuck, Hudson. “A winter circuit of our Arctic coast; a narrative of a journey with dog-sleds around the entire Arctic coast of Alaska.” New York. C. Scribner’s Sons. 1920. https://archive.org/details/wintercircuito00stuc/
- Stuck, Hudson. “Ten Thousand Miles With A Dog Sled a Narrative of winter travel in Interior Alaska.” 1917. https://archive.org/details/tenthousandmiles0000huds/
- Stuck, Hudson. “The ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) a narrative of the first complete ascent of the highest peak in North America.” New York, C. Scribner's Sons. 1914. https://archive.org/details/ascentofdenalimo01stuc/
- Stuck, Hudson. “Voyages on the Yukon and its tributaries: a narrative of summer travel in the interior of Alaska.” New York : Charles Scribner's Sons. 1917. https://archive.org/details/cihm_76545/
- Walker, Tom. “A Brief Account of the 1913 Climb of Mount McKinley.” Denali National Park and Preserve. https://www.nps.gov/dena/learn/historyculture/1913ex.htm
- Woodside, Christine. “Who Led the First Ascent of Denali? Hudson Stuck, Archdeacon of the Yukon.” Vol. 63, No., 2 Summer/Fall 2012.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is part two of our podcast on Walter Harper
and the Summoning of Denali. In addition to Walter Harper,
at this point, this expedition to the Summit of Denali
included Hudson Stuck, who funded the expedition, Harry Carston's who
was the planner and led them out in the field,
(00:37):
and Robert Tatum and John Fredson. So every day three
men would go ahead and they would stake out a
trail using willow shoots that they had brought up from
lower elevations. And then two of those three men were
typically Carston's and Harper. And then while they did this,
the other two men would work with the sled dogs
(00:58):
to move all of their gear along that trail. Stuck
described Harper as running close to Carston's and strength, pluck,
and endurance, and Stuck credited Harper with keeping the party's
morale up. So, in Stuck's words quote, he took gleefully
to high mountaineering while his kindliness and invincible amiability endeared
(01:20):
him to every member of the party. We don't usually
like give a heads up that the person that we
are talking about in an episode is going to die,
because this is a history podcast and that's inevitable. But
Walter Harper's death was sudden and tragic and at a
very early age, and I felt like without that heads up,
(01:41):
it just came as a gut punch out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So just be aware it's coming. As the expedition continued
across the Muldro Glacier, the terrain they were crossing got
progressively steeper and more irregular. After sending Asias George back
to Nanana with one of their sled dog teams went
from using large sleds pulled by teams of seven dogs
two smaller sleds pulled by three dogs each. These sleds
(02:07):
were lighter and more maneuverable, but Carstons and Harper still
had to find ways for them to get around obstacles
and cross chasms on the surface of the glacier. Sometimes
they could find an existing way to get across, like
a natural bridge, but sometimes they had to build a bridge,
starting by finding a spot that had a stable enough
ledge below it, and then carving blocks of ice or
(02:29):
hardened snow to stack on top of that ledge. This
is obviously dangerous. Some of it sounds really terrifying. We've
been reading a lot from Stuck's account of this expedition,
and in Stucts words quote, every step of the way
up the glacier was sounded by a long pole, the
man in the lead thrusting it deep into the snow,
(02:51):
while the two behind kept the rope always taut. More
than one pole slipped into a hidden crevice and was
lost when the vigor of thrust was not matched by
the tenacity of grip. More than once a man was
jerked back just as the snow gave way beneath his feet.
The open crevasses were not the dangerous ones. The whole
(03:12):
glacier was criss crossed by crevasses completely covered with snow.
In bright weather, it was often possible to detect them
by a slight depression in the surface, or by a faint,
shadowy difference intent. But in the half light of cloudy
and misty weather, these signs failed, and there was no safety.
But in the ceaseless prodding of the pole. When I
(03:35):
was reading this passage, earlier to review it. I was like,
this is a big old noble lope. Yeah, clearly I
am a land child. At one point, one of the
lead dogs, named Snowball, broke through a snowbridge and slipped
out of his harness. Snowball landed on a ledge below,
(03:55):
and Walter Harper had to be lowered down by rope
to get him. After being rescued, Snowball was described as
being scared understandably, but not injured. In addition to being treacherous.
All of this was hard work. Those three dog teams
didn't have as much pulling power as a larger team
of sled dogs would, so climbing steep ascents required the
(04:19):
men and the dogs to work together, and that was
something that was so physically difficult that the men often
felt overheated, especially if they were in the direct sunlight.
In Stuck's description quote, sometimes it was bitterly cold in
the mornings, insufferably hot at noon, and again bitterly cold
toward night. It was a pity we had no black
(04:41):
bulb sun maximum thermometer amongst our instruments. For one is
sure its readings would have been of great interest. When
they were about halfway across Muldro Glacier. The expedition had
its first and really only major disaster. They had been
too tired to reach their plans stopping place for the night,
and instead they stopped and camped by one of the
(05:03):
caches that they had made The next day, they covered
up that cash, and they relayed some of their supplies
to their next campsite. Then they took a break, they ate,
and they went back for another load. But when they
approached the cash where they had slept the night before,
they saw smoke.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
At first, they thought another person had found their camp somehow,
like maybe there was another route up the mountain that
they didn't know about. But then they realized their cash
was on fire, and Stuck's words quote, we left the
dogs and the sleds and hurried to the spot. Some
things we were able to say, but not much, though
(05:41):
we were in time to prevent the fire from spreading
to our far hauled wood, and the explanation was not
far to seek. After luncheon, Carston's and the writer had
smoked their pipes, and one or the other had thrown
a careless match away that had fallen unextinguished upon the
silk tents that covered the cash presently. A little wind
(06:03):
had fanned the smoldering fabric into flame, which had eaten
down into the pile of stuff below, mostly in wooden cases.
All our sugar was gone, all our powdered milk, all
our baking powder, our prunes, raisins and dried apples, most
of our tobacco, a case of pilot bread, a sack
of woolen socks and gloves, another sack full of photographic
(06:26):
films all were burned. Most Fortunately, the food provided, especially
for the high mountain work, had not yet been taken
to the cash, and our Pemmican herbs, worst chocolate, compressed tea,
and figs were safe. But it was a great blow
to us and involved considerable delay at a very unfortunate time.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
In addition to the loss of crucial gear and supplies.
Stuck and Carsons were embarrassed that one or the other
of them had been careless enough to start that fire.
Stuck's rating about the incident makes it clear that both
of them ought to have known better, since the entire
party knew that the dry air and wind made fire
a much bigger risk in Alaska in the winter and
(07:09):
in the summer. They still had a camera in some film,
but it was a small camera belonging to Walter Harper,
rather than the more sophisticated one that they had brought
along planning to document the journey with it. They also
learned only after developing their pictures that they needed a
longer exposure time at the bright light and high altitude
(07:30):
of the summit for their pictures to really be clear.
This fire happened when they were not far from the
head of the Muldro Glacier, at an elevation of about
eleven five hundred feet. Once they got to the head
of the glacier, they made a camp that would serve
as an upper base camp, including building a structure out
of snowblocks to store their supplies in, with a snowblock
(07:52):
wall around it. They also dismantled the wooden crates that
their food had been stored in to make a floor
under the tent. To try to themselves from the damp,
which had been an issue at their earlier camps, they
covered this wooden surface with the dried hides of caribou
and sheep that they had killed earlier in the journey.
After that, Harper.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And Fredson went all the way back down to their
original base camp to retrieve some of the things they
had left there to support their return journey, including socks
and sled covers. They planned to use those sled covers
to make basic tents. While they were gone, Carston took
some time to make additional socks out of the lining
of his sleeping bag and to repair some of their gear.
(08:37):
This also gave Carston's a chance to stay out of
the sun for a bit. He was used to being
clean shaven, and he was having issues with ingrown hairs
as his beard grew back in his efforts to treat
that had only made things worse, and then being in
continual sun.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Exposure was not helping. After Harper and Fredson returned with supplies, Stuck, Tatum,
and Fredsen all went back to their lowest glacier camp
with their dog teams, and from there Fredson took the
dogs back to the lower base camp by himself. For
the rest of the expedition. He would be responsible for
caring for and feeding the dogs at base camp so
(09:14):
they would be ready to leave the mountain.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
When they parted ways, Stuck told Fredson that he'd see
him again in about two weeks. That is not what happened.
We will have more after a sponsor break. In Part one,
we talked about several previous attempts to summit Denali in
(09:40):
the early twentieth century. One, in particular, the nineteen twelve
Parker Brown expedition, had almost gotten to the summit, and
they probably would have if they had not been faced
with a blizzard that they could not see through when
they were almost at the top. Their account had described
this final ascent to the south summit as quote, a
(10:01):
steep but practicable snow slope. It also printed a photograph
that lined up with that description. So based on all
of this, the Carston Stuck expedition thought they would be
able to make that final ascent over relatively easy terrain
in just a couple of days.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
But when they got to the area the earlier expedition
had described, the landscape was dramatically different from what the
Parker and Brown expedition had seen in Stocksword's quote. The
upper one third of it was indeed as described, but
at that point there was a sudden, sharp cleavage, and
all below was a jumbled mass of blocks of ice
(10:39):
and rocks in all manner of positions, with here a pinnacle,
and there a great gap. Moreover, the floor of the
glacier at its head was strewn with enormous icebergs that
we could not understand at all. It did not take
long for them to make the connection between this unexpectedly
jumbled terrain and an earthquake that had struck the Denali
(11:00):
region on July sixth, nineteen twelve.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
People knew about this earthquake. Members of the earlier expedition
had described the earth shaking. There were at least thirty
other reports of people feeling it around Alaska. This included
reports on the other side of Alaska, on the western coast,
but no one else is known to have seen this
spot in between those two expeditions. Stuck and Carstons quickly
(11:29):
realized that if the earlier expedition had not turned back
when they did, they almost certainly would have been killed,
either crushed by the falling boulders and debris, or stranded
with no way to get across this newly disrupted landscape
and no food. The mountain was also still unstable, and
(11:49):
the men frequently heard the sounds of avalanches in the distance.
So the Stuck Carston's party had two choices at this
point to give up or to find a waste. So
over the next three weeks they used their axes to
carve steps over about three miles of ice. Although everyone
in the expedition was part of this effort, most of
(12:11):
it fell to Walter Harper and Harry Carston's. They couldn't
work on carving stairs into the mountain every day. Though
the expedition spent a lot of time waiting out bad weather.
Stuck spent some of their time waiting tutoring Harper.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Who was still hoping to continue his education. They worked
on a number of subjects, including reading and writing, geography, history,
and physics. As we said in.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Part one, Robert Tatum was a postulant, meaning that he
was working toward being ordained, so he spent his time
studying religious works. Carston's spent some of his time working
on a new motor boat design, and he also just
continually checked and rechecked all of their gear and supplies
to make sure everything was prepared for the summit. During
(13:00):
this week's long stair carving effort and their time waiting
for the weather to change, the expedition started running out
of supplies. One of the first things they ran out
of was sugar. In Stuck's words quote, our cocoa became useless.
We could not drink it without sugar. Our consumption of
tea and coffee diminished. There was little demand for the
(13:21):
second cup, and we all began to long for sweet things.
We tried to make a palatable potation from some of
our milk, chocolate reserved for the higher work and labeled
for eating. Only the label was accurate. It made a
miserable drink. The milk taste entirely lacking, the sweetness almost gone.
We're grateful that they had brought up so much wood,
(13:43):
but also it started to run short near the end.
As they slowly made progress up the mountain, the terrain
got even more treacherous. There were massive, impassable ice boulders everywhere.
When they managed to find a snow covered slow that
seemed more traversible, it often sheared off and slid down
(14:03):
the mountain, so they mostly had to stick to the
area that was covered in things like ice boulders. They
would chop stairs over or around them, or break them
down into rubble that they could get through, or they
would tip the ones that were precariously balanced down into
crevasses below I will take a boat and say please
do not tip boulders off of mountains. It is very dangerous.
(14:26):
You don't know who is below you. But this was
into crevasses in a glacier. They knew there was nobody
down there. Sometimes they would hack their way through a
boulder of ice, only to find that there was no
way out from the other side to another safe spot.
They couldn't find a safe place to make camp in
(14:47):
this disordered terrain, so every day involved a lot of
backtracking to get from where they finished their work to
where they could sleep at night. One day, desperate to
cut down on that long backtrack, they decided to load
up everything they could carry and get to a tiny
flat spot they'd found and make a new camp there.
(15:08):
Before long, they realized they had been way too ambitious
in how much they could carry. Even Carstons, who was
the most experienced person on the team and the person
most used to this kind of work, really started to struggle.
When a snowstorm blew in and forced them to turn back.
They were all a little relieved.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
The next day they tried again, carrying smaller loads and
doing a relay from point to point. On May twenty fifth,
the expedition finally established a new camp at an elevation
of about thirteen thousand feet. It was about five hundred
feet above the glacier floor. They were all sleeping together
in one very tiny tent, which was apparently so small
(15:48):
that if one of them wanted to turn over, they
all had to agree to do it at once. Stuck
described this as oddly pleasant, since it was the first
time they had really been cozy in a while, with
all of them packed together all of their body heat
in a confined space with direct sunlight. The camp was
also a little bit warmer than some of their earlier bases,
(16:10):
and the ground was not nearly as damp. They continued
to work their way through the area that had been
affected by the earthquake, with Carstons and Harper making and
marking the way, and Tatum and Stuck relaying their food
and supplies from one cash to the next. And on
May twenty seventh, Harper and Carstons finally got past the
last big cleavage made by the earthquake, But then they
(16:33):
faced another delay, this time dangerous winds that they just
had to wait out, and they ran out of another
food source. They had been making a sour dough style bread,
and the cold killed the micro organisms that allowed the
dough to ferment.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
On May thirtieth, they were able to see the Grand basin,
which Stuck later named the Harper Glacier. They had to
make a treacherous crossing to get there, in which three
of the four men all had to be on the
same snow slope at the same time, with only one
of them on more solid ground that men of the
(17:10):
snow gave way under them, there would be no way
for that one man to save all the others. He
would be pulled off with them. Harper and Carston's had
made this passage with just the two of them with
no problems, but with all four of them together it
was a lot more challenging. They made it, though, and
after this crossing they were on a part of the
mountain that had not been torn up by the earthquake.
(17:34):
Stuck named the final ridge that they would need to
cross Carston's Ridge. Stuck started really struggling with the altitude
as they got closer to the summit. He and Carstons
both smoked pipes, and Stuck started cutting back on his smoking.
He eventually quit entirely. That did not seem to make
much of a difference, though Stuck attributed his difficulties to
(17:57):
the fact that he was almost fifty.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
He was the oldest man on the team.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Carston's was thirty two, and Tatum and Harper were about
twenty one.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
On June sixth, the expedition moved their camp for the
last time, close to the base of the final Ridge,
at an elevation of about eighteen thousand feet. They had
about two weeks of supplies left, which they thought they
could stretch to three weeks if they had to wait
for a storm to clear, but it seemed like they
might not need to wait at all. The weather was
(18:27):
bright and clear. They decided they would get up at
three am the next day, before the sun was up,
but during the pre dawn twilight, so they could still
see and try to go all the way to the
summit that night, though Harper.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Did one of the few things that Stuck really criticized
in his books. They had been hauling around ten pounds
of flour, but without their sour nose starter, which had died,
or their baking powder, which had been burned up in
a fire, they didn't have a way to make it
into bread.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
They want.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I did to try to use it up, though, and
Harper made a stew and used the flour to make
noodles to thicken it. But he apparently made these noodles
too big and they did not cook thoroughly. Everybody but
Harper got sick after eating it. In spite of all that,
they all left camp at three am the next morning
is planned, carrying only their scientific instruments, Harper's camera, and
(19:24):
some lunch. In Stock's words, quote, we were rather a
sorry company. Carston still had internal pains, Tatum and I
had severe headaches. Walter was the only one feeling entirely himself,
so Walter was put in the lead, and in the
lead he remained all day. It was bitterly, bitterly cold,
(19:46):
and they all lost feeling in their fingers and toes.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
By eleven am.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
They thought the cold might be something that would actually
force them to turn back. They all agreed that if
one of them thought that their fingers or toes were
actually freezing, that they would all turn around. But by
that point everything was so numb that they didn't really
have a way of knowing whether that was happening. I
(20:11):
think it would be understandable for any of them to
also be reluctant to be like, hey, let's turn around
now right. The ridge they were on was shaped like
a horseshoe, and once they got around the curve and
into the sun, they all started to feel a lot warmer.
They stopped for lunch and drank some hot tea from
their thermoses, and after that they were confident that they
(20:33):
could make it to the summit that day. Stuck started
experiencing shortness of breath as they climbed, and Harper offered
to carry some of his load. Finally, though they saw
the summit, as Stuck wrote quote, with keen excitement, we
pushed on. Walter, who had been in the lead all day,
was the first to scramble up. A Native Alaskan, he
(20:55):
is the first human being to set foot upon the
top of Alaska's Great Mountain, and he had well earned
the lifelong distinction. Carstons and Tatum were hard upon his heels,
but the last man on the rope, in his enthusiasm
and excitement, somewhat overpassing his narrow wind margin, had almost
(21:15):
to be hauled up the last few feet, and fell
unconscious for a moment upon the floor of the little
snow basin that occupies the top of the mountain. Stuck
continued quote, So soon as wind was recovered, we shook
hands all round, and a brief prayer of thanksgiving to
Almighty God was said that he had granted us our
heart's desire and brought us safely to the top of
(21:36):
his great mountain. Robert Tatum raised a US flag. We'll
talk about what happened after reaching the summit after a
sponsor break.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Standing on the.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Summit of Denali on June seventh, nineteen thirteen, the Carstons
Stuck expedition set up an instrument tent. They took various
readings and measurements. They estimated their altitude. Their estimate was
twenty three thy three hundred feet. They also took photographs, although,
as we said earlier, after developing those photographs they realized
(22:16):
they had needed a longer exposure time for them to
really be capturing the scene. Stuck described the view from
the summit as splendid and so that they also saw
Dinali's wife for the first time during their ascent. This
became another piece of evidence that Frederick Cook had not
gotten to the summit as he had claimed, since his
(22:37):
account did not say anything about being able to see
the other mountain, which could only be seen from the
top of Denali, not on the way up. They had
reached the summit at about one thirty pm, and they
left just after three pm. They got back to their
camp about two hours later, and they decided to get
back down the mountain as quickly as possible, cashing a
(23:00):
lot of their surplus gear and supplies along the way
in case some future expedition needed them. It also sounds
like some of it they more just abandoned, like we
don't need this anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
We're not carrying it. They left it there. I don't
want to carry this.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
As the elevation decreased, the temperatures got a lot warmer
and things were starting to thaw. When the team needed
to cross that field of chasms and ice bridges, it
would have been safest to wait until night, when everything
was most frozen, but they knew that John Fredson was
waiting for them at the base camp, and they were
(23:36):
weeks behind when they had told him to expect them.
The longer it passed, the more time it might be
for him to either try to come after them or
think they must have died and leave, so they just
pushed on.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
They also ran into an unexpected annoyance, and that was mosquitos.
Mosquitoes are a known problem in Alaska in the warmer months,
but the expedition had not expected to be on the
mountain late enough into the spring to encounter any of them,
so they hadn't brought anything to try to deal with them.
Although it had been more than a month or about
(24:12):
a month since they parted ways, the four men did
eventually get to base camp and reunited with Fredson. While
they had all been gone, Fredson had hunted mountain sheep
and cariboo. He had kept the dogs fed, and he
had also saved the best cuts of the meat for
the human members of the expedition on their return. Fredson
had also saved his own ration of sugar, knowing that
(24:34):
the rest of the team's supply had been destroyed in
that fire, so the men all had some coffee sweetened
with sugar, which Stuck described as luxurious. He really praised
Fredson for having saved his own sugar for them, saying, quote,
there are not many boys of fifteen or sixteen of
any race who would voluntarily have done the like the
(24:55):
next day, the men made pack saddles out of canvas
for the sled dogs to wear. Since they were too
far into the thaw for dog sleds to be workable,
they took their time preparing to go, and they took
the opportunity to wash themselves in a thawing creek.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
They left base camp on June tenth, and they reached
Chanina ten days later. From there, they sent a telegraph
message to a Seattle newspaper reporting their successful expedition. Stuck
said he got a reply from the newspaper asking for
five hundred more words describing narrow escapes, and he did
not answer that because.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
There really had not been any.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Maybe he also did not just want to talk about
the fire that may have been his fault. I'm just
laughing to myself here, because it's like, even at this point,
it's very if it bleeds, it leads, like, oh, sure,
they just want they just want sensationalism. After becoming the
first person to summit De Nali, Walter Harper left Alaska
(25:57):
to continue his education. He went to Massachusetts to attend
Northfield Mount Herman, which is a college preparatory school that
was founded by evangelical preacher Dwight Moody. On the way there,
he stopped at Coney Island, where he attracted the attention
of a reporter from the New York Times. The resulting
article described Harper as hitting one of those test your
(26:18):
strength carnival attractions at Luna Park so hard that the
bell rang twice and the mechanism broke. He also went
to shoot at balls and hit them all. There was
also a dunk tank with a black man sitting on
the platform inside. The New York Times article refers to
him exclusively by his race. Harper had three balls and
(26:39):
he hit the target all three times. Then he went
to the beach and made a model of Denali out
of sand and traced the route they had taken to
the top. Harper studied at Northfield Mount Herman until nineteen sixteen,
and he had some struggles there. Although Stuck had tutored
him for years, Harper really had not had a lot
(27:00):
of formal education, and he was also really homesick. So
in nineteen seventeen, when Stuck proposed that Harper returned to
Alaska to accompany him on a mission trip around the
Arctic coast, with Stuck continuing to help him prepare for college.
While they traveled, Harper agreed. The Arctic coast had been
part of Stuck's commission when he was named archdeacon, but
(27:22):
he had never actually visited there, and he hadn't met
many Inuit people who speak languages from a different family
than the Athabaskan speaking peoples that Stuck was most familiar with.
In Stuck's words, his purpose with this journey was quote
an inquiry into their present state physical, mental, moral, and religious,
industrial and domestic, into their prospects, into what the government
(27:45):
and the religious organizations have done and are doing for them,
and what should yet be done. Stuck planned to take
this trip by dog sled, which meant they had a
schedule to keep. They needed to get back home before
the bring thaw, but Harper got typhoid about three weeks
before they were supposed to set out. Replacing Harper was
(28:08):
just not an option, both because Stuck needed somebody that
he knew he could travel and live with over this
kind of a journey, and because tutoring Harper so he
could go to college had been part of this whole deal. Fortunately,
Harper recovered a lot faster than the doctor predicted he
would and they were able to leave only a few
days after Stuck had originally planned along the way. During
(28:32):
this journey along the coast, they met various people who
had known Arthur Harper, who all spoke very highly of him,
and Walter was really pleased about that, since he had
never known his father. Stuck and Harper were both working
toward the goal of Harper going to medical school and
then returning to Alaska to be a doctor in his
own Athabascan community, so their teacher student relationship was ongoing
(28:57):
during this trip. Stuck said a quote Walter displayed an
eagerness to learn in a new sharpened quickness of apprehension
that made teaching him a delight. But some things also
happened that had the potential to affect that med school plan.
One was World War One. The United States became directly
(29:18):
involved in the war in April of nineteen seventeen, and
the Selective Service Act was passed, setting up a draft
that may Although the Selective Service Act applied to all
men regardless of whether they were US citizens and regardless
of whether they lived in a state or in a territory,
in practice, most men with native ancestry who tried to
(29:40):
register in Alaska were rejected, but on this trip Harper
met a man whose two sons had been accepted into
the service, even though they were Native Harper started talking
about trying to enlist in the Army Air Service and
maybe going to college afterward.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Back at Fort U, Harper had also met Francis Wells,
a missionary nurse from Philadelphia who was stationed there, and
they had quickly formed an attachment. Toward the end of
this journey, Harper let Stuck read his journal, which is
when Stuck learned that the two were engaged. Stuck was
conflicted about all of this. He thought both military service
(30:21):
and marriage could interfere with Harper's education and his future
medical career, but at the same time quote, Indeed, so
far as the enlistment was concerned, I was proud that,
without any urging, he saw it as his duty, and
as soon as he saw it resolved upon it. I
was proud too that he had won the heart of
a cultivated gentlewoman.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Walter and Francis had not initially planned to get married
until after Walter finished medical school, but after Harper and
Stuck returned from the Arctic coast to Fort Yukon on
April twenty seventh, nineteen eighteen. The couple started talking about
getting married soon. The possibility of Harper joining the army
(31:03):
and going off to war surely played a part in
this decision making. They got married at fort Yukon on
September fourth, nineteen eighteen, with Hudson Stuck conducting the ceremony.
After they got married, Francis and Walter went on a
three week hunting trip together. Not long after that, Walter
and Francis boarded the SS Princess Sefaia bound for Vancouver.
(31:27):
They planned to travel from there to Philadelphia so that
Walter could meet Francis's family. Then he would either join
the Air Service or enrolling college, depending on what was
happening in the war. At that point, it seemed like
it might be over soon. On October twenty fourth, the
Princess Safaia struck a reef and it became lodged there.
(31:48):
About forty hours later, it was swept off of the
reef and it sank. The only known survivor was a
dog who managed to swim to safety covered in oil.
We have an episode on this which will be our
next Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Walter and Francis were buried in Juno, Alaska. Their grave
was marked with a stone that eventually became illegible. In
more recent years, a plate has been placed over the stone,
like a picture frame, and it contains the original inscription,
which reads, here lie the bodies of Walter Harper and
Francis Wells, his wife, drowned on the Princess Sophia, twenty
(32:25):
fifth October nineteen eighteen. May light perpetual shine upon them.
They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in
their death they were not divided. To Samuel one twenty three,
that Bible passage is a reference to Saul and Jonathan quote,
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
(32:45):
and in their death they were not divided. They were
swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lion's.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Hudson Stuck, who had come to see Walter Harper as
a son, was truly grief stricken. His book, recounting their
final journey together, was published in nineteen twenty as a
Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast, a narrative journey with
dog sleds around the entire Arctic coast of Alaska. This
book is dedicated to Walter Harper quote companion of this
(33:15):
and many other journeys, strong, gentle, brave and clean, who
was drowned in the Lynn Canal when the Princess Sofiah
foundered with her entire company. Twenty fifth October nineteen eighteen.
Perhaps because this is the book Stuck wrote after Harper
had died, it mentions him by name vastly more times
(33:36):
than any of his earlier works, even though Walter Harper
played a similarly important role in Stuck's missionary travels and
the summoning of Denali, the other things he had also
written books about. This book also includes a lot of
stuff about like their discussions about Shakespeare. Like a lot
of it is not strictly related to what Stuck was
(33:57):
doing in the missionary work. A lot of it is
really about Walter Harper.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
A memorial fund was established in honor of Francis Harper
to support the construction of a hospital as well as
the Francis Wells Harper Solarium. This was a facility to
try to treat tuberculosis through sunshine exposure while protecting patients
from the biting insects that are prevalent in Alaska. In
the warmer months.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, that was before the development of antibiotics to treat tuberculosis.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Obviously.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Hudson Stuck died of pneumonia at fort Yukon on October tenth,
nineteen twenty. Issias George died of influenza that same year.
Harry Carstons became the first superintendent of Denali National Park
in Preserve after it was established in nineteen seventeen. He
died in Fairbanks, Alaska, on November twenty eighth, nineteen fifty five.
(34:50):
Robert Tatum was eventually ordained as an episcopal priest, and
he later returned to Tennessee, where he died on January
twenty seventh, nineteen sixty four. John Fredsen left Alaska and
attended school at Northfield Mount Herman and then went on
to the University of the South also called Swani, graduating
from there in nineteen thirty. This made him one of
(35:13):
the first Alaska Natives to earn a college degree. Stuck
had sponsored him for admission into the college. After graduating,
Fredsen returned to Alaska, where he was a teacher, a leader,
and a political activist. This included working with linguists and
ethnographers to document the Gwichin language and culture, and working
with the Gwichin people to try to attain self governance
(35:35):
after the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of nineteen
thirty four. He died on August twenty second, nineteen forty five.
There is some natural speculation about whether Walter Harper would
have had a similarly important role among the Koyukon Athabaskan
people if his life had not been cut tragically short.
(35:56):
In twenty thirteen, the Talkitna Ranger Station was re named
Walter Harper Talkit and a Ranger Station. This is the
ranger station where people who hope to climb Dnali or
other peaks in the Alaska Range stop to get their
climbing permits.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
And that is Walter Harper.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
The disaster of the SS Princess Thefai was a tremendous
loss to Alaska and the adjacent parts of Canada and
to the Alaska Native communities. There's more on that in
that episode, which will be the next Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Do you have listener mail for us? I do.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
This is another email from October and it's referencing an
earlier episode and it is from Caroline. Caroline wrote, Hello,
Holly and Tracy. Love your work, especially the way you
continue to speak from your hearts and spotlight the history
we don't know but need to. Longtime listener who may
have emailed a time or two. I started listening to
your William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells episode a
(36:59):
while ago and got interrupted. At the time, I couldn't
think why the UV light treatment sounded so familiar. Today
I had time to finish it and remembered a story
about Chicago's wastewater treatment using it to clean up the
water that is returned to the Chicago River see story below.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I know it's not air.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Treatment, but I hope you'll find it interesting. Speaking of Chicago,
I visited the Art Institute recently to see the Gustav
Kayabut exhibit, which closes on October fifth, and was great
and discovered Elizabeth Katlett, whose art is not only stunning,
but her life is so interesting. Her exhibit closes on
January fourth, twenty twenty six. Could she get added to
(37:37):
a future episode list? I hope you'll get to visit
Chicago and see it for yourselves. I've included a photo
of her statue pensive a teaser from the exhibit love
her Glasses, along with my usual suspect pet tax Penny.
And then there is an article linked to an article
about the UV disinfection for the wastewater in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yes, there are lots.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Of things that UV light can be used to sanitize
and disinfect. In addition to the air that we talked
about in the William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells episodes.
This sculpture picture is very intriguing. This is not an
artist who I know anything about at all, and so
(38:23):
I will see maybe this will be an episode we'll see.
And then a puppy dog on a couch with his
face resting on a pillow, looking forlorn. I want to
give this dog some snuggles.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Is this dog not a boy? Is it Penny? Okay,
I'm sorry. She looks like a very good girl. It
jumps out to me because I immediately go it's time
for a Penny cartoon, because oh yeah, yeah, sure, I
love some Peewey's playhouse.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So if you would like to send us a note
about this or any their podcasts or at history podcasts
at iHeartRadio dot com. I'll try not to mis gender
your pets. You can subscribe to our show on the
iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts.
(39:17):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is part two of our podcast on Walter Harper
and the Summoning of Denali. In addition to Walter Harper,
at this point, this expedition to the Summit of Denali
included Hudson Stuck, who funded the expedition, Harry Carston's who
was the planner and led them out in the field,
(00:37):
and Robert Tatum and John Fredson. So every day three
men would go ahead and they would stake out a
trail using willow shoots that they had brought up from
lower elevations. And then two of those three men were
typically Carston's and Harper. And then while they did this,
the other two men would work with the sled dogs
(00:58):
to move all of their gear along that trail. Stuck
described Harper as running close to Carston's and strength, pluck,
and endurance, and Stuck credited Harper with keeping the party's
morale up. So, in Stuck's words quote, he took gleefully
to high mountaineering while his kindliness and invincible amiability endeared
(01:20):
him to every member of the party. We don't usually
like give a heads up that the person that we
are talking about in an episode is going to die,
because this is a history podcast and that's inevitable. But
Walter Harper's death was sudden and tragic and at a
very early age, and I felt like without that heads up,
(01:41):
it just came as a gut punch out of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So just be aware it's coming. As the expedition continued
across the Muldro Glacier, the terrain they were crossing got
progressively steeper and more irregular. After sending Asias George back
to Nanana with one of their sled dog teams went
from using large sleds pulled by teams of seven dogs
two smaller sleds pulled by three dogs each. These sleds
(02:07):
were lighter and more maneuverable, but Carstons and Harper still
had to find ways for them to get around obstacles
and cross chasms on the surface of the glacier. Sometimes
they could find an existing way to get across, like
a natural bridge, but sometimes they had to build a bridge,
starting by finding a spot that had a stable enough
ledge below it, and then carving blocks of ice or
(02:29):
hardened snow to stack on top of that ledge. This
is obviously dangerous. Some of it sounds really terrifying. We've
been reading a lot from Stuck's account of this expedition,
and in Stucts words quote, every step of the way
up the glacier was sounded by a long pole, the
man in the lead thrusting it deep into the snow,
(02:51):
while the two behind kept the rope always taut. More
than one pole slipped into a hidden crevice and was
lost when the vigor of thrust was not matched by
the tenacity of grip. More than once a man was
jerked back just as the snow gave way beneath his feet.
The open crevasses were not the dangerous ones. The whole
(03:12):
glacier was criss crossed by crevasses completely covered with snow.
In bright weather, it was often possible to detect them
by a slight depression in the surface, or by a faint,
shadowy difference intent. But in the half light of cloudy
and misty weather, these signs failed, and there was no safety.
But in the ceaseless prodding of the pole. When I
(03:35):
was reading this passage, earlier to review it. I was like,
this is a big old noble lope. Yeah, clearly I
am a land child. At one point, one of the
lead dogs, named Snowball, broke through a snowbridge and slipped
out of his harness. Snowball landed on a ledge below,
(03:55):
and Walter Harper had to be lowered down by rope
to get him. After being rescued, Snowball was described as
being scared understandably, but not injured. In addition to being treacherous.
All of this was hard work. Those three dog teams
didn't have as much pulling power as a larger team
of sled dogs would, so climbing steep ascents required the
(04:19):
men and the dogs to work together, and that was
something that was so physically difficult that the men often
felt overheated, especially if they were in the direct sunlight.
In Stuck's description quote, sometimes it was bitterly cold in
the mornings, insufferably hot at noon, and again bitterly cold
toward night. It was a pity we had no black
(04:41):
bulb sun maximum thermometer amongst our instruments. For one is
sure its readings would have been of great interest. When
they were about halfway across Muldro Glacier. The expedition had
its first and really only major disaster. They had been
too tired to reach their plans stopping place for the night,
and instead they stopped and camped by one of the
(05:03):
caches that they had made The next day, they covered
up that cash, and they relayed some of their supplies
to their next campsite. Then they took a break, they ate,
and they went back for another load. But when they
approached the cash where they had slept the night before,
they saw smoke.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
At first, they thought another person had found their camp somehow,
like maybe there was another route up the mountain that
they didn't know about. But then they realized their cash
was on fire, and Stuck's words quote, we left the
dogs and the sleds and hurried to the spot. Some
things we were able to say, but not much, though
(05:41):
we were in time to prevent the fire from spreading
to our far hauled wood, and the explanation was not
far to seek. After luncheon, Carston's and the writer had
smoked their pipes, and one or the other had thrown
a careless match away that had fallen unextinguished upon the
silk tents that covered the cash presently. A little wind
(06:03):
had fanned the smoldering fabric into flame, which had eaten
down into the pile of stuff below, mostly in wooden cases.
All our sugar was gone, all our powdered milk, all
our baking powder, our prunes, raisins and dried apples, most
of our tobacco, a case of pilot bread, a sack
of woolen socks and gloves, another sack full of photographic
(06:26):
films all were burned. Most Fortunately, the food provided, especially
for the high mountain work, had not yet been taken
to the cash, and our Pemmican herbs, worst chocolate, compressed tea,
and figs were safe. But it was a great blow
to us and involved considerable delay at a very unfortunate time.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
In addition to the loss of crucial gear and supplies.
Stuck and Carsons were embarrassed that one or the other
of them had been careless enough to start that fire.
Stuck's rating about the incident makes it clear that both
of them ought to have known better, since the entire
party knew that the dry air and wind made fire
a much bigger risk in Alaska in the winter and
(07:09):
in the summer. They still had a camera in some film,
but it was a small camera belonging to Walter Harper,
rather than the more sophisticated one that they had brought
along planning to document the journey with it. They also
learned only after developing their pictures that they needed a
longer exposure time at the bright light and high altitude
(07:30):
of the summit for their pictures to really be clear.
This fire happened when they were not far from the
head of the Muldro Glacier, at an elevation of about
eleven five hundred feet. Once they got to the head
of the glacier, they made a camp that would serve
as an upper base camp, including building a structure out
of snowblocks to store their supplies in, with a snowblock
(07:52):
wall around it. They also dismantled the wooden crates that
their food had been stored in to make a floor
under the tent. To try to themselves from the damp,
which had been an issue at their earlier camps, they
covered this wooden surface with the dried hides of caribou
and sheep that they had killed earlier in the journey.
After that, Harper.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And Fredson went all the way back down to their
original base camp to retrieve some of the things they
had left there to support their return journey, including socks
and sled covers. They planned to use those sled covers
to make basic tents. While they were gone, Carston took
some time to make additional socks out of the lining
of his sleeping bag and to repair some of their gear.
(08:37):
This also gave Carston's a chance to stay out of
the sun for a bit. He was used to being
clean shaven, and he was having issues with ingrown hairs
as his beard grew back in his efforts to treat
that had only made things worse, and then being in
continual sun.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Exposure was not helping. After Harper and Fredson returned with supplies, Stuck, Tatum,
and Fredsen all went back to their lowest glacier camp
with their dog teams, and from there Fredson took the
dogs back to the lower base camp by himself. For
the rest of the expedition. He would be responsible for
caring for and feeding the dogs at base camp so
(09:14):
they would be ready to leave the mountain.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
When they parted ways, Stuck told Fredson that he'd see
him again in about two weeks. That is not what happened.
We will have more after a sponsor break. In Part one,
we talked about several previous attempts to summit Denali in
(09:40):
the early twentieth century. One, in particular, the nineteen twelve
Parker Brown expedition, had almost gotten to the summit, and
they probably would have if they had not been faced
with a blizzard that they could not see through when
they were almost at the top. Their account had described
this final ascent to the south summit as quote, a
(10:01):
steep but practicable snow slope. It also printed a photograph
that lined up with that description. So based on all
of this, the Carston Stuck expedition thought they would be
able to make that final ascent over relatively easy terrain
in just a couple of days.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
But when they got to the area the earlier expedition
had described, the landscape was dramatically different from what the
Parker and Brown expedition had seen in Stocksword's quote. The
upper one third of it was indeed as described, but
at that point there was a sudden, sharp cleavage, and
all below was a jumbled mass of blocks of ice
(10:39):
and rocks in all manner of positions, with here a pinnacle,
and there a great gap. Moreover, the floor of the
glacier at its head was strewn with enormous icebergs that
we could not understand at all. It did not take
long for them to make the connection between this unexpectedly
jumbled terrain and an earthquake that had struck the Denali
(11:00):
region on July sixth, nineteen twelve.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
People knew about this earthquake. Members of the earlier expedition
had described the earth shaking. There were at least thirty
other reports of people feeling it around Alaska. This included
reports on the other side of Alaska, on the western coast,
but no one else is known to have seen this
spot in between those two expeditions. Stuck and Carstons quickly
(11:29):
realized that if the earlier expedition had not turned back
when they did, they almost certainly would have been killed,
either crushed by the falling boulders and debris, or stranded
with no way to get across this newly disrupted landscape
and no food. The mountain was also still unstable, and
(11:49):
the men frequently heard the sounds of avalanches in the distance.
So the Stuck Carston's party had two choices at this
point to give up or to find a waste. So
over the next three weeks they used their axes to
carve steps over about three miles of ice. Although everyone
in the expedition was part of this effort, most of
(12:11):
it fell to Walter Harper and Harry Carston's. They couldn't
work on carving stairs into the mountain every day. Though
the expedition spent a lot of time waiting out bad weather.
Stuck spent some of their time waiting tutoring Harper.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Who was still hoping to continue his education. They worked
on a number of subjects, including reading and writing, geography, history,
and physics. As we said in.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Part one, Robert Tatum was a postulant, meaning that he
was working toward being ordained, so he spent his time
studying religious works. Carston's spent some of his time working
on a new motor boat design, and he also just
continually checked and rechecked all of their gear and supplies
to make sure everything was prepared for the summit. During
(13:00):
this week's long stair carving effort and their time waiting
for the weather to change, the expedition started running out
of supplies. One of the first things they ran out
of was sugar. In Stuck's words quote, our cocoa became useless.
We could not drink it without sugar. Our consumption of
tea and coffee diminished. There was little demand for the
(13:21):
second cup, and we all began to long for sweet things.
We tried to make a palatable potation from some of
our milk, chocolate reserved for the higher work and labeled
for eating. Only the label was accurate. It made a
miserable drink. The milk taste entirely lacking, the sweetness almost gone.
We're grateful that they had brought up so much wood,
(13:43):
but also it started to run short near the end.
As they slowly made progress up the mountain, the terrain
got even more treacherous. There were massive, impassable ice boulders everywhere.
When they managed to find a snow covered slow that
seemed more traversible, it often sheared off and slid down
(14:03):
the mountain, so they mostly had to stick to the
area that was covered in things like ice boulders. They
would chop stairs over or around them, or break them
down into rubble that they could get through, or they
would tip the ones that were precariously balanced down into
crevasses below I will take a boat and say please
do not tip boulders off of mountains. It is very dangerous.
(14:26):
You don't know who is below you. But this was
into crevasses in a glacier. They knew there was nobody
down there. Sometimes they would hack their way through a
boulder of ice, only to find that there was no
way out from the other side to another safe spot.
They couldn't find a safe place to make camp in
(14:47):
this disordered terrain, so every day involved a lot of
backtracking to get from where they finished their work to
where they could sleep at night. One day, desperate to
cut down on that long backtrack, they decided to load
up everything they could carry and get to a tiny
flat spot they'd found and make a new camp there.
(15:08):
Before long, they realized they had been way too ambitious
in how much they could carry. Even Carstons, who was
the most experienced person on the team and the person
most used to this kind of work, really started to struggle.
When a snowstorm blew in and forced them to turn back.
They were all a little relieved.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
The next day they tried again, carrying smaller loads and
doing a relay from point to point. On May twenty fifth,
the expedition finally established a new camp at an elevation
of about thirteen thousand feet. It was about five hundred
feet above the glacier floor. They were all sleeping together
in one very tiny tent, which was apparently so small
(15:48):
that if one of them wanted to turn over, they
all had to agree to do it at once. Stuck
described this as oddly pleasant, since it was the first
time they had really been cozy in a while, with
all of them packed together all of their body heat
in a confined space with direct sunlight. The camp was
also a little bit warmer than some of their earlier bases,
(16:10):
and the ground was not nearly as damp. They continued
to work their way through the area that had been
affected by the earthquake, with Carstons and Harper making and
marking the way, and Tatum and Stuck relaying their food
and supplies from one cash to the next. And on
May twenty seventh, Harper and Carstons finally got past the
last big cleavage made by the earthquake, But then they
(16:33):
faced another delay, this time dangerous winds that they just
had to wait out, and they ran out of another
food source. They had been making a sour dough style bread,
and the cold killed the micro organisms that allowed the
dough to ferment.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
On May thirtieth, they were able to see the Grand basin,
which Stuck later named the Harper Glacier. They had to
make a treacherous crossing to get there, in which three
of the four men all had to be on the
same snow slope at the same time, with only one
of them on more solid ground that men of the
(17:10):
snow gave way under them, there would be no way
for that one man to save all the others. He
would be pulled off with them. Harper and Carston's had
made this passage with just the two of them with
no problems, but with all four of them together it
was a lot more challenging. They made it, though, and
after this crossing they were on a part of the
mountain that had not been torn up by the earthquake.
(17:34):
Stuck named the final ridge that they would need to
cross Carston's Ridge. Stuck started really struggling with the altitude
as they got closer to the summit. He and Carstons
both smoked pipes, and Stuck started cutting back on his smoking.
He eventually quit entirely. That did not seem to make
much of a difference, though Stuck attributed his difficulties to
(17:57):
the fact that he was almost fifty.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
He was the oldest man on the team.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Carston's was thirty two, and Tatum and Harper were about
twenty one.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
On June sixth, the expedition moved their camp for the
last time, close to the base of the final Ridge,
at an elevation of about eighteen thousand feet. They had
about two weeks of supplies left, which they thought they
could stretch to three weeks if they had to wait
for a storm to clear, but it seemed like they
might not need to wait at all. The weather was
(18:27):
bright and clear. They decided they would get up at
three am the next day, before the sun was up,
but during the pre dawn twilight, so they could still
see and try to go all the way to the
summit that night, though Harper.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Did one of the few things that Stuck really criticized
in his books. They had been hauling around ten pounds
of flour, but without their sour nose starter, which had died,
or their baking powder, which had been burned up in
a fire, they didn't have a way to make it
into bread.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
They want.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
I did to try to use it up, though, and
Harper made a stew and used the flour to make
noodles to thicken it. But he apparently made these noodles
too big and they did not cook thoroughly. Everybody but
Harper got sick after eating it. In spite of all that,
they all left camp at three am the next morning
is planned, carrying only their scientific instruments, Harper's camera, and
(19:24):
some lunch. In Stock's words, quote, we were rather a
sorry company. Carston still had internal pains, Tatum and I
had severe headaches. Walter was the only one feeling entirely himself,
so Walter was put in the lead, and in the
lead he remained all day. It was bitterly, bitterly cold,
(19:46):
and they all lost feeling in their fingers and toes.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
By eleven am.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
They thought the cold might be something that would actually
force them to turn back. They all agreed that if
one of them thought that their fingers or toes were
actually freezing, that they would all turn around. But by
that point everything was so numb that they didn't really
have a way of knowing whether that was happening. I
(20:11):
think it would be understandable for any of them to
also be reluctant to be like, hey, let's turn around
now right. The ridge they were on was shaped like
a horseshoe, and once they got around the curve and
into the sun, they all started to feel a lot warmer.
They stopped for lunch and drank some hot tea from
their thermoses, and after that they were confident that they
(20:33):
could make it to the summit that day. Stuck started
experiencing shortness of breath as they climbed, and Harper offered
to carry some of his load. Finally, though they saw
the summit, as Stuck wrote quote, with keen excitement, we
pushed on. Walter, who had been in the lead all day,
was the first to scramble up. A Native Alaskan, he
(20:55):
is the first human being to set foot upon the
top of Alaska's Great Mountain, and he had well earned
the lifelong distinction. Carstons and Tatum were hard upon his heels,
but the last man on the rope, in his enthusiasm
and excitement, somewhat overpassing his narrow wind margin, had almost
(21:15):
to be hauled up the last few feet, and fell
unconscious for a moment upon the floor of the little
snow basin that occupies the top of the mountain. Stuck
continued quote, So soon as wind was recovered, we shook
hands all round, and a brief prayer of thanksgiving to
Almighty God was said that he had granted us our
heart's desire and brought us safely to the top of
(21:36):
his great mountain. Robert Tatum raised a US flag. We'll
talk about what happened after reaching the summit after a
sponsor break.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Standing on the.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Summit of Denali on June seventh, nineteen thirteen, the Carstons
Stuck expedition set up an instrument tent. They took various
readings and measurements. They estimated their altitude. Their estimate was
twenty three thy three hundred feet. They also took photographs, although,
as we said earlier, after developing those photographs they realized
(22:16):
they had needed a longer exposure time for them to
really be capturing the scene. Stuck described the view from
the summit as splendid and so that they also saw
Dinali's wife for the first time during their ascent. This
became another piece of evidence that Frederick Cook had not
gotten to the summit as he had claimed, since his
(22:37):
account did not say anything about being able to see
the other mountain, which could only be seen from the
top of Denali, not on the way up. They had
reached the summit at about one thirty pm, and they
left just after three pm. They got back to their
camp about two hours later, and they decided to get
back down the mountain as quickly as possible, cashing a
(23:00):
lot of their surplus gear and supplies along the way
in case some future expedition needed them. It also sounds
like some of it they more just abandoned, like we
don't need this anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
We're not carrying it. They left it there. I don't
want to carry this.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
As the elevation decreased, the temperatures got a lot warmer
and things were starting to thaw. When the team needed
to cross that field of chasms and ice bridges, it
would have been safest to wait until night, when everything
was most frozen, but they knew that John Fredson was
waiting for them at the base camp, and they were
(23:36):
weeks behind when they had told him to expect them.
The longer it passed, the more time it might be
for him to either try to come after them or
think they must have died and leave, so they just
pushed on.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
They also ran into an unexpected annoyance, and that was mosquitos.
Mosquitoes are a known problem in Alaska in the warmer months,
but the expedition had not expected to be on the
mountain late enough into the spring to encounter any of them,
so they hadn't brought anything to try to deal with them.
Although it had been more than a month or about
(24:12):
a month since they parted ways, the four men did
eventually get to base camp and reunited with Fredson. While
they had all been gone, Fredson had hunted mountain sheep
and cariboo. He had kept the dogs fed, and he
had also saved the best cuts of the meat for
the human members of the expedition on their return. Fredson
had also saved his own ration of sugar, knowing that
(24:34):
the rest of the team's supply had been destroyed in
that fire, so the men all had some coffee sweetened
with sugar, which Stuck described as luxurious. He really praised
Fredson for having saved his own sugar for them, saying, quote,
there are not many boys of fifteen or sixteen of
any race who would voluntarily have done the like the
(24:55):
next day, the men made pack saddles out of canvas
for the sled dogs to wear. Since they were too
far into the thaw for dog sleds to be workable,
they took their time preparing to go, and they took
the opportunity to wash themselves in a thawing creek.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
They left base camp on June tenth, and they reached
Chanina ten days later. From there, they sent a telegraph
message to a Seattle newspaper reporting their successful expedition. Stuck
said he got a reply from the newspaper asking for
five hundred more words describing narrow escapes, and he did
not answer that because.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
There really had not been any.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Maybe he also did not just want to talk about
the fire that may have been his fault. I'm just
laughing to myself here, because it's like, even at this point,
it's very if it bleeds, it leads, like, oh, sure,
they just want they just want sensationalism. After becoming the
first person to summit De Nali, Walter Harper left Alaska
(25:57):
to continue his education. He went to Massachusetts to attend
Northfield Mount Herman, which is a college preparatory school that
was founded by evangelical preacher Dwight Moody. On the way there,
he stopped at Coney Island, where he attracted the attention
of a reporter from the New York Times. The resulting
article described Harper as hitting one of those test your
(26:18):
strength carnival attractions at Luna Park so hard that the
bell rang twice and the mechanism broke. He also went
to shoot at balls and hit them all. There was
also a dunk tank with a black man sitting on
the platform inside. The New York Times article refers to
him exclusively by his race. Harper had three balls and
(26:39):
he hit the target all three times. Then he went
to the beach and made a model of Denali out
of sand and traced the route they had taken to
the top. Harper studied at Northfield Mount Herman until nineteen sixteen,
and he had some struggles there. Although Stuck had tutored
him for years, Harper really had not had a lot
(27:00):
of formal education, and he was also really homesick. So
in nineteen seventeen, when Stuck proposed that Harper returned to
Alaska to accompany him on a mission trip around the
Arctic coast, with Stuck continuing to help him prepare for college.
While they traveled, Harper agreed. The Arctic coast had been
part of Stuck's commission when he was named archdeacon, but
(27:22):
he had never actually visited there, and he hadn't met
many Inuit people who speak languages from a different family
than the Athabaskan speaking peoples that Stuck was most familiar with.
In Stuck's words, his purpose with this journey was quote
an inquiry into their present state physical, mental, moral, and religious,
industrial and domestic, into their prospects, into what the government
(27:45):
and the religious organizations have done and are doing for them,
and what should yet be done. Stuck planned to take
this trip by dog sled, which meant they had a
schedule to keep. They needed to get back home before
the bring thaw, but Harper got typhoid about three weeks
before they were supposed to set out. Replacing Harper was
(28:08):
just not an option, both because Stuck needed somebody that
he knew he could travel and live with over this
kind of a journey, and because tutoring Harper so he
could go to college had been part of this whole deal. Fortunately,
Harper recovered a lot faster than the doctor predicted he
would and they were able to leave only a few
days after Stuck had originally planned along the way. During
(28:32):
this journey along the coast, they met various people who
had known Arthur Harper, who all spoke very highly of him,
and Walter was really pleased about that, since he had
never known his father. Stuck and Harper were both working
toward the goal of Harper going to medical school and
then returning to Alaska to be a doctor in his
own Athabascan community, so their teacher student relationship was ongoing
(28:57):
during this trip. Stuck said a quote Walter displayed an
eagerness to learn in a new sharpened quickness of apprehension
that made teaching him a delight. But some things also
happened that had the potential to affect that med school plan.
One was World War One. The United States became directly
(29:18):
involved in the war in April of nineteen seventeen, and
the Selective Service Act was passed, setting up a draft
that may Although the Selective Service Act applied to all
men regardless of whether they were US citizens and regardless
of whether they lived in a state or in a territory,
in practice, most men with native ancestry who tried to
(29:40):
register in Alaska were rejected, but on this trip Harper
met a man whose two sons had been accepted into
the service, even though they were Native Harper started talking
about trying to enlist in the Army Air Service and
maybe going to college afterward.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Back at Fort U, Harper had also met Francis Wells,
a missionary nurse from Philadelphia who was stationed there, and
they had quickly formed an attachment. Toward the end of
this journey, Harper let Stuck read his journal, which is
when Stuck learned that the two were engaged. Stuck was
conflicted about all of this. He thought both military service
(30:21):
and marriage could interfere with Harper's education and his future
medical career, but at the same time quote, Indeed, so
far as the enlistment was concerned, I was proud that,
without any urging, he saw it as his duty, and
as soon as he saw it resolved upon it. I
was proud too that he had won the heart of
a cultivated gentlewoman.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Walter and Francis had not initially planned to get married
until after Walter finished medical school, but after Harper and
Stuck returned from the Arctic coast to Fort Yukon on
April twenty seventh, nineteen eighteen. The couple started talking about
getting married soon. The possibility of Harper joining the army
(31:03):
and going off to war surely played a part in
this decision making. They got married at fort Yukon on
September fourth, nineteen eighteen, with Hudson Stuck conducting the ceremony.
After they got married, Francis and Walter went on a
three week hunting trip together. Not long after that, Walter
and Francis boarded the SS Princess Sefaia bound for Vancouver.
(31:27):
They planned to travel from there to Philadelphia so that
Walter could meet Francis's family. Then he would either join
the Air Service or enrolling college, depending on what was
happening in the war. At that point, it seemed like
it might be over soon. On October twenty fourth, the
Princess Safaia struck a reef and it became lodged there.
(31:48):
About forty hours later, it was swept off of the
reef and it sank. The only known survivor was a
dog who managed to swim to safety covered in oil.
We have an episode on this which will be our
next Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Walter and Francis were buried in Juno, Alaska. Their grave
was marked with a stone that eventually became illegible. In
more recent years, a plate has been placed over the stone,
like a picture frame, and it contains the original inscription,
which reads, here lie the bodies of Walter Harper and
Francis Wells, his wife, drowned on the Princess Sophia, twenty
(32:25):
fifth October nineteen eighteen. May light perpetual shine upon them.
They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in
their death they were not divided. To Samuel one twenty three,
that Bible passage is a reference to Saul and Jonathan quote,
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
(32:45):
and in their death they were not divided. They were
swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lion's.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Hudson Stuck, who had come to see Walter Harper as
a son, was truly grief stricken. His book, recounting their
final journey together, was published in nineteen twenty as a
Winter Circuit of Our Arctic Coast, a narrative journey with
dog sleds around the entire Arctic coast of Alaska. This
book is dedicated to Walter Harper quote companion of this
(33:15):
and many other journeys, strong, gentle, brave and clean, who
was drowned in the Lynn Canal when the Princess Sofiah
foundered with her entire company. Twenty fifth October nineteen eighteen.
Perhaps because this is the book Stuck wrote after Harper
had died, it mentions him by name vastly more times
(33:36):
than any of his earlier works, even though Walter Harper
played a similarly important role in Stuck's missionary travels and
the summoning of Denali, the other things he had also
written books about. This book also includes a lot of
stuff about like their discussions about Shakespeare. Like a lot
of it is not strictly related to what Stuck was
(33:57):
doing in the missionary work. A lot of it is
really about Walter Harper.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
A memorial fund was established in honor of Francis Harper
to support the construction of a hospital as well as
the Francis Wells Harper Solarium. This was a facility to
try to treat tuberculosis through sunshine exposure while protecting patients
from the biting insects that are prevalent in Alaska. In
the warmer months.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, that was before the development of antibiotics to treat tuberculosis.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Obviously.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Hudson Stuck died of pneumonia at fort Yukon on October tenth,
nineteen twenty. Issias George died of influenza that same year.
Harry Carstons became the first superintendent of Denali National Park
in Preserve after it was established in nineteen seventeen. He
died in Fairbanks, Alaska, on November twenty eighth, nineteen fifty five.
(34:50):
Robert Tatum was eventually ordained as an episcopal priest, and
he later returned to Tennessee, where he died on January
twenty seventh, nineteen sixty four. John Fredsen left Alaska and
attended school at Northfield Mount Herman and then went on
to the University of the South also called Swani, graduating
from there in nineteen thirty. This made him one of
(35:13):
the first Alaska Natives to earn a college degree. Stuck
had sponsored him for admission into the college. After graduating,
Fredsen returned to Alaska, where he was a teacher, a leader,
and a political activist. This included working with linguists and
ethnographers to document the Gwichin language and culture, and working
with the Gwichin people to try to attain self governance
(35:35):
after the passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of nineteen
thirty four. He died on August twenty second, nineteen forty five.
There is some natural speculation about whether Walter Harper would
have had a similarly important role among the Koyukon Athabaskan
people if his life had not been cut tragically short.
(35:56):
In twenty thirteen, the Talkitna Ranger Station was re named
Walter Harper Talkit and a Ranger Station. This is the
ranger station where people who hope to climb Dnali or
other peaks in the Alaska Range stop to get their
climbing permits.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
And that is Walter Harper.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
The disaster of the SS Princess Thefai was a tremendous
loss to Alaska and the adjacent parts of Canada and
to the Alaska Native communities. There's more on that in
that episode, which will be the next Saturday Classic.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Do you have listener mail for us? I do.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
This is another email from October and it's referencing an
earlier episode and it is from Caroline. Caroline wrote, Hello,
Holly and Tracy. Love your work, especially the way you
continue to speak from your hearts and spotlight the history
we don't know but need to. Longtime listener who may
have emailed a time or two. I started listening to
your William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells episode a
(36:59):
while ago and got interrupted. At the time, I couldn't
think why the UV light treatment sounded so familiar. Today
I had time to finish it and remembered a story
about Chicago's wastewater treatment using it to clean up the
water that is returned to the Chicago River see story below.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I know it's not air.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Treatment, but I hope you'll find it interesting. Speaking of Chicago,
I visited the Art Institute recently to see the Gustav
Kayabut exhibit, which closes on October fifth, and was great
and discovered Elizabeth Katlett, whose art is not only stunning,
but her life is so interesting. Her exhibit closes on
January fourth, twenty twenty six. Could she get added to
(37:37):
a future episode list? I hope you'll get to visit
Chicago and see it for yourselves. I've included a photo
of her statue pensive a teaser from the exhibit love
her Glasses, along with my usual suspect pet tax Penny.
And then there is an article linked to an article
about the UV disinfection for the wastewater in Chicago.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Yes, there are lots.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Of things that UV light can be used to sanitize
and disinfect. In addition to the air that we talked
about in the William Firth Wells and Mildred Weeks Wells episodes.
This sculpture picture is very intriguing. This is not an
artist who I know anything about at all, and so
(38:23):
I will see maybe this will be an episode we'll see.
And then a puppy dog on a couch with his
face resting on a pillow, looking forlorn. I want to
give this dog some snuggles.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Is this dog not a boy? Is it Penny? Okay,
I'm sorry. She looks like a very good girl. It
jumps out to me because I immediately go it's time
for a Penny cartoon, because oh yeah, yeah, sure, I
love some Peewey's playhouse.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So if you would like to send us a note
about this or any their podcasts or at history podcasts
at iHeartRadio dot com. I'll try not to mis gender
your pets. You can subscribe to our show on the
iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts.
(39:17):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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