Talk:Fort Stikine

Lots of citations yet to be done

I had a choice between trying to write this as a narrative, or plodding line-by-line, phrase-by-phrase as I added specifics from each of many sources; I tried to avoid synthesis of any kind but this was "freehand" so some interpretive or explanatory comments do occur, in the course of telilng the story or "explaining context". Details of events in Shakes' tenure (1843-1867) and other events during the US tenure, including other military/naval/trade confrontations, are all out there, with enough digging. Materials here, and related to those here, can also enrich the Chief Shakes article and the Fort Wrangel section here can be the "Main" template/split article for the history section of Wrangell, Alaska. I'd thought about creating the Redoubt as a separate item, likewise Fort Wrangel, but it made sense story-wise to string them all together. I'm under the impression from comparing readings/descriptions that the Redoubt, Fort Stikine, Shakesville and Fort Wrangel were all slightly different locations; the Redoubt appears to have been on Zarembo Island, Fort Stikine on Etolin Island (ostensibly Duke of York Island, but GNIS says that's Zarembo, Begg says it's Etolin...)...Shakes' house was never the same structure/location (same island, though) and FWIR the US fortification was a rebuild and moved from where the HBC post had been; it would be nice to get all of the latongs separately and map the area, including Choquette's store and the two locations for the boundary. I'm taking a break now but will add a references section, and do line-citations for some items as I remember where and when......Skookum1 (talk) 03:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Point Highfield re the Redoubt

Well, my life just got a lot more complicated with the new source in "Further reading"; lots of thorny details to try and summarize while still remaining accurate....the location of the Redoubt vs Shakes' House vs. Fort Stikine vs Ft Wrangell is still up in the air, despite attestations theyr'e all the same.....in the new source Point Highfield is mentioned as the site of the Redoubt, so I'm plopping its coordinates here so I can look at Googlemaps adn compare to Fort Wrangel....once I find where Fort Wrangel was, exactly....56°29′13″N 132°23′06″W....Skookum1 (talk) 02:46, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks to the IP user who fixed the off-place coordinates and put them in the city of Wrangell, which I guess will do, but as indicated in the previous paragraph there may have been slightly different locations for the Russian, British and American forts/fortifications, and still different again, slightly, for Shakesville, which seems to have been built right around Chief Shakes' house. The Russian location was on Point Highfield for sure, but whether the British occupied the same site is unclear, as is whether the US built their fort where the HBC had had its (dismantled, remember, in the 1840s). Guess I'll write the Wrangell Museum and ask; might be worth a small localized map of the Wrangell area to show the differences, if any....there might be a map in one of th various excellent histories of Russian America I've come across, though I haven't noticed any such plates in their online editions (mostly googlebooks)..Skookum1 (talk) 03:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

At least one quibble

On this bit: A treaty signed in 1838, known as the Anglo-Russian Convention, paid out a negotiated indemnity to Great Britain and also established the British right to build and maintain posts at the mouths of the Taku and Stikine as well as established a lease of the mainland and adjoining islands south from 56 degrees 30 minutes north, roughly the latitude of the Stikine.

First, wasn't it done in 1839? Second, Anglo-Russian Convention is a real link, but to the wrong page. Third, this is the "lease" contract, right--if so the HBC gave up its demand for payment in exchange for the lease, so no indemnity was paid. Finally, wasn't it a "private" contract not a treaty between governments, as per my talk page recently? Time for sleep, so just leaving this comment for now. Pfly (talk) 08:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

That's why it's called a convention rather than a treaty, I believe, but SFAIK the lease wasn't given up in exchange for the indemnity, which was in furs; maybe a lower indemnity, I'd have to re-read Begg again. The lease was renewable every ten years, and kept on being renewed, though of course post-1867 Russia washed its hands of it, and the US never acknowledged it (which is Begg's whole point). It may be that the furs in question were calculated out of teh amount extracted from the region by the HBC, that sounds vaguely familiar; but I think it was teh cash portion of the indemnity that got sidestepped by the lease.....clearly we need to make Anglo-Russian Convention (1839) - and I'm sure it was 1839 it was signed, or in effect anyway, though the terms may have been reached in 1838. And I note your changes on the North-Western Territory article - was it really Baron Wrangel? I'd thought it was Baranov, hence my own edit in that regard....Skookum1 (talk) 13:02, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The sources I browsed last night seem to agree that the payment was rent, not indemnity, and all agree it was Wrangel. A decent, to the point source: The Hudson's Bay Company, p. 154: The RAC leased to the HBC..the coastal strip..for an annual rent of 2,000 seasoned land otter skins.. And, the HBC relinquished its claims to damages for losses incurred in the Dryad incident of 1834. Not sure what you mean by "the lease wasn't given up in exchange for the indemnity"--you mean the Dryad damages in exchange for the lease? That source (and others) say that the negotiations began in 1838 and were more or less wrapped up near the end of 1838, but the agreement wasn't signed until Feburary 1839. I still haven't found the agreement referred to by name other than "lease", "agreement", "contract", etc--no "convention" I've seen yet. But I haven't looked that hard. I read quite a bit of the Alaska boundary tribunal debates, which gave me the impression that the US "acknowledged" the lease, but mainly for the purpose of trying to gain an advantage in the Alaska boundary dispute. And the British, in those negotiations, made quite the effort to wash its hands of the lease--saying it was a private contract between the HBC and RAC, with no power over the British government or claims thereof. A problem being, I think, that Simpson had used words like "south to 54-40 or thereabouts"--that "or thereabouts" becoming a problem during the negotiations. I'd be interested to read Begg's take. If he argues that the leased land should have become part of BC..well, that seems a rather extreme position, as far as I've read. oog..coffee.. Pfly (talk) 14:38, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I think I got the 1838 issue from this, which you should read if you haven't:

• The Dryad Affair: Corporate Warfare and Anglo-Russian Rivalry for the Alaskan Lisière, J.W. Shelest, Conference Paper for "Borderlands", June 1989

"This paper was originally presented at a 2-4 June 1989 conference dealing with the Yukon/Alaska/BC border and the issues surrounding this border held in Whitehorse, YT, Canada. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Yukon Historical & Museums Association (YHMA), Yukon College, The University of Victoria's Public History Group, and the Alaska Historical Society. The proceedings were published by the YHMA."

Yeah I'd confused Baranov and Wrangel, obviously....not sure where I saw the term "convention"....and wasn't aware the US "acknowledged" the lease, because Begg makes it sounds like they ignored it; certainly Ottawa and London/Whitehall ignored it, and yes that was Begg's (extreme) position, as commissioned by the BC government of the day; his argument about "Portland Channel" is interesting but the wording he claims means such-and-so is just as vague as anything else inscribedf by distant diplomats working off half-assed maps.... To me, Simpson was a f&&k-up in terms of these territories and was an uninformed boob from east of the mountains LOL but that's a long story....anyway as it keeps on appearing in various articles as a redlink, I created a Stikine Gold Rush article but it needs lots more work, including a steamboats section and an eventual Steamboats of the Stikine River article which maybe I can inspire User:Mtsmallwood to help with. The only cite there is "Choquette River". BC Geographical Names. but there's quite a bit more out there, including I think in Begg.....if you haven't read Buck Choquette please do so, he's quite the character.....(modern academic fashion likes to talk about "groups" re BC history, but it's guys like him and Harry McDame and Cataline and Morris Moss who demonstrate that BC history really is about individuals...). Anyway I'm about to create Mount Pereleshin though I still haven't been able to identify the specific Pereleshin involved; it's interesting that it still appears in GNIS even though it's not in US territory (since 1903, at which time it was reckoned to be at the boundary); the interesting part of that is that Pereleshin was sent upriver (in 1863) to make sure there had been no gold-extracting activity in what was claimed to be Russian territory, i.e. 10 leagues up the river, by their definition.20:13, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Baron Wrangel

Somewhere I saw today, maybe in his article, that he opposed the Alaska Purchase, which makes the US adoption of his name kinda ironic, no? -

the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was re-named Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded.

And that's when the Redoubt was founded; he was relieved of his duties for the indiscretions against the 1825 treaty committed in 1833, though not for that embarrassment alone. Anyway I just thought it curious that the Americans would name their first major establishment in Alaska (after Tongass) after a Russian who opposed selling to them.....also to note the way the British washed their hands of the "corporate" nature of hte lease, as they were quite content to embrace the HBC as teh rationalization for their erstwhile claims south of 49, which weren't even a lease....Skookum1 (talk) 23:16, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Heh, yea--it seems that the British government enjoyed the quasi-political / quasi-private nature of the HBC (and the Russian government with the RAC)--it let the government pick and choose when and how to use the HBC as a imperial instrument, so to speak. Also, I'm not sure how much the government "washed their hands" of the lease--all I saw was that it came up during the Alaska boundary negotiations with the US and apparently in that context it was in Britain's interest to distance themselves from it..not exactly sure why..something to do with Portland Channel/Canal I think. Pfly (talk) 23:34, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd have to go to the specific lines in the Treaty of St Pete to see what the consequences would be, but if the US formula of Portland Channel=Portland Canal is adopted (and Begg says it was a fiction coined by US mapmakers around 1860), it would make lands on the east side of the "Channel" north to 56-30 part of the lease, i.e. part of Russian America, ergo Alaska; which would be all of what we call the Stewart Country and the Nass Country and most of the Iskut and what lies between. Begg digs into the logic of the description in detail, to make his case, arguing that the boundary line should run north from the southern tip of Prince of Wales Island, and that no intervening bodies of water (then mostly unnamed, but impliclitly Chatham Strait) are crossed or mentioned. He maintains that the term Portland Channel was coined by the diplomats but it was on no current map at the time; would have helped if the distinguished and honourable sirs had thought fit to make at least a rough sketch of their intent; maybe between the vodka and the canapes they just never got around to it. AS noted, in all the years of the lease neither the HBC nor, even with the establishment of the Stikine Territory, was anything done with the region in question (largely Misty Fjords National Monument now), though BC did press its objections at the lease not being respected from 1867 onwards, nor did the US behave as if they practically acknowledged it; otherwise they never would have established Fort Tongass with the express purpose of collecting customs/tariffs from Cassiar-bound Britons heading for the Stikine (which, again, the British and so British Columbians had a right of access to). But as both you and I have learned with history in this region, nothing's logical and legal precedents and territorial reality do not have any bearing on outcomes, which is all about political expediency; and the reality is the British were in no mood, or disposition, for a war with teh US over possession of the Yukon and/or British Columbia (a troublesome place still today LOL, but ever since its inception a burden to the Colonial Office in many ways). Begg's arguments make no mention of Skagway etc, which I find curious considering they were the more strategically valuable, even to British Columbia, than the wild mountains of Revillagigedo Island and environs. Just rambling, maybe more tomorrow when I re-read your points again....Skookum1 (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

note the wording though:

Commencing from the Southern-most Point of the Island called Prince of Wales Island, which Point lies in the parallel of 54 degrees 40 minutes, North Latitude, and between the 131st and 133d Degree of West Longitude (Meridian of Greenwich), the said line shall ascend to the North along the Channel called Portland Channel, as far as the Point of the Continent where it strikes the 56th Degree of North Latitude;

"from the point [etc]....the line shall ascend to the North" with pretty explicit indications of longitude, with no mention of the longitude of today's Portland Channel, or Portland Canal.....this also plays into the 1833 dispute, when Wrangell had the Dryad seized, even though it was within what should have been the British zone had Begg's interpretation been right; but on the other hand Wrangell was also ignoring the "no harrassment" clauses of teh treaty, so clearly he could have been wilfully ignoring the territorial side of teh agreement too ("Portland Channel? - what's the Portland Channel?? It's not on any map *I* have" etc...).Skookum1 (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I just reread one of Begg's papers about the boundary issue--I had forgotten how adamant he was about his interpretation; and how he wrote so repeatatively and dry. He makes a better case than I remembered, though hardly watertight. The wording about the line ascending to the North is interesting. The idea that Chatham Strait was what was meant by Portland Channel is hard to buy though. I suppose it's possible, but the loose swapping of Channel and Canal seems much more likely--even Vancouver played loose with the two terms--labeling Hood Canal on his map as Canal but writing in his log/journal Hood Channel, for example. There's a bunch of other..hmm, issues..with Begg's take--but I kinda like the idea of BC having the entire mainland up to 56 degrees and the US having only the islands. It seems like a more logical border--certainly would have been easier to survey!

Misc replies to various things you wrote above:

Huh, yes it is weird that GNIS has an entry for Pereleshin Mountain. I note the entry says the coordinates are "unknown" and the county is "no data found". Perhaps one of those GNIS flukes. Were you saying that Pereleshin was sent upriver to the limit of Russian territory, "10 leagues"? Ie, that the idea that the 1825 treaty gave Russia the coast 10 leagues into the continent (not just the islands as Begg has it)? That seems to be the assumption of the book The Hudson's Bay Company I linked to somewhere above--which recounts the HBC under Simpson as working under this interpretation. Here, I'll quote some of it, from a section about Simpson's plans to construct a post at Nass in order to intercept land furs coming down the river (I guess Simpson died around this time? But the plan was carried forward anyway):

On one fact of geography, however, there could be no mistake. The harbor of Stikine lay in Russian territory. But this was no deterrent to the exploitation of its resources by the HBC, as Gov. Simpson pointed out to the governor and committee. The sixth article of the convention of 1825 accorded British subjects the right to navigate all streams that crossed the boundary south of Mount Saint Elias, and the seventh article granted them the priviledge for ten years of trading along this section of the coast. The Company could established a post on the river over ten leagues from the coast, in British territory, and could supply it from the sea by the rights accorded by Article VI. At the same time, by the privileges granted in Article VII, which did not expire until 1835, the Company's ships could trade with the natives along the coast in Russian territory. In this way the RAC would be exposed to superior competition on the coast..The execution of this plan would, therefore, almost inevitably drive the Russian traders from their own coastal territory. The Russians suspected that these were the intentions of the HBC before the governor and committee decided to carry them out. Lieutenant Simpson, who was apparently more communicative than he was required to be, told Baron Wrangell that he planned to build a post on the Stikine in British territory.

And a bit further on,

• Wrangell knew that he could not halt the plan by economic means alone. But the treaty that gave the HBC its opportunity also contained an article that Wrangell hoped to utilize to the advantage of the RAC. The second article provided: [..that British subjects shall not land at any place where there may be a Russian establishment, without the permission of the Governor or Commandant..]. If a Russian fort could be established at the mouth of the Stikine before the British ships arrived, a pretext might be found in this article for refusing to allow the British to proceed beyond that point. Wrangell was aware that such an interpretation of the treaty strained language to the breaking point and was not justified by the manifest intent of the article, but the threat called for desperate expedients.

Later on it says that once the Dryad was at the Stikine mouth The Russian and British accounts of what transpired..are somewhat divergent, the British insisting that Zarembo threatened to use force and Zarembo emphatically denying the allegation. I've seen somewhere or other on Wikipedia the claim that warning shots were fired at the Dryad--perhaps this was the British allegation, denied by the Russians? Perhaps shots were not fired? Maybe no one can say?

Another bit--you wrote, and wasn't aware the US "acknowledged" the lease, because Begg makes it sounds like they ignored it; certainly Ottawa and London/Whitehall ignored it.. As far as I could tell from reading the boundary tribunal texts, everyone agreed that the HBC had leased the "coastal strip", but generally agreed that it was irrelevant--the territory was under Russian sovereignty and only, well, leased by the HBC. Thus the US purchase of Alaska included all territory under Russian sovereignty. The lease was irrelevant. At least, that's my impression.

Another--I read and watchlisted Stikine Gold Rush, but gold rushes are, for some reason, not an exciting topic for me. I'm not sure why. Your links to various BC people are interesting though. And over these last few years you've certainly altered my understanding of British Columbia--from a rather naive rose-glasses thing to something more complex. I'm still taking in the idea that much..most of the land was never legally acquired from the First Nations. Man! I'm also increasingly struck by how independent the Canadian provinces are compared to the US states; and how weak the federal government is as well. It makes me wonder whether Canada might be taken as a sort of example of how America might have ended up had the Civil War era in the US had resulted in the long-term establishment of states' rights over the federal government instead of the reverse. Clearly there are pros and cons to both systems--more or less powerful provinces/states vs. federal governments.

Anyway, finally, I hadn't heard that Wrangel was opposed to the Alaska Purchase. That would be ironic, given the US naming Wrangel for him. For a long while I've been focusing on areas farther south and not Alaska. So this is all a bit new to me. To make it real I'd need to take a trip to Alaska, via the Inside Passage preferably. Have you done that? Been to Alaska at all? I have a few friends from there, but never been myself. Perhaps when the kids are a little older an Inside Passage trip could be done. For now I'm just hoping to get a short trip to BC into this summer. We need to get our passports updated. Damn this new era and its need for passports to cross the border. It wasn't that way when I was growing up in Buffalo!

And last, Simpson was a f&&k-up in terms of these territories and was an uninformed boob from east of the mountains--hahaha! Pfly (talk) 10:37, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

More in Simpson later, and on the separate subject of gold rushes re BC history, but found something tangential of interest this morning: see Talk:Andrei_Alexandrovich_Popov and also note new material on Talk:Mount Pereleshin.Skookum1 (talk) 14:42, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Couple more quibbles

Just changed the date of Ogden and the Dryad incident to 1834, according to Mackie (and elsewhere)--Ogden apparently did a reconnaissance up the river in 1833. From what I've read recently on the topic (and I admit it is mostly new to me), the claim that Ogden "was met with armed opposition" is uncertain--that the HBC made the claim that the RAC threatened force, but the RAC denied the allegation. If it is uncertain, perhaps it would be better to say Ogden "was prevented", or "according to British sources.."--that kinda thing? Also, I hadn't heard that the RAC seized the HBC's "stores, intended for trade and the establishment of the upriver post". I thought Ogden left the Stikine area and used his materials to move Fort Simpson to its second location. Also, I read just last night that the RAC built Redoubt St Dionysius before the Dryad arrived, but the text here makes it sound like that came afterwards. There's also still the question of whether the 1838/39 lease agreement included indemnity payments or not. Pfly (talk) 08:29, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I think some of that's in Howay & Scholefield, I'll try and re-read it over the weekend; other than that maybe in the cited article from the Yukon history group. Sounds like it was a poker game and my impression was that the Redoubt was built first, but in anticipation of the northward probings of the HBC, maybe in response to the 1833 expedition; also the Redoubt seems to have been at a different location than Highfield Point, which is where Fort Stikine and its successor Fort Wrangell were; and "Shakesville", the townlet built up around the Big House of Chief Shakes, was at Highfield Point too, I think....I really gotta get my letter to the Wrangell Museum done I guess. On a sorta-related tangent if you look at the Choquette River citation from BCGNIS, which is also linked on Stikine Gold Rush, the westward probings of Robert (?) Campbell from the area of Telegraph Creek were turned back (at Tahltan, British Columbia) by warnings of a war party sent to repel them by Shakes' people, as it says in BCGNIS; Campbell's journal calls them "Russian Indians"....not sure what year that was...interesting though that the British were probing the area from both directions (and from two different fur districts, in fact).Skookum1 (talk) 13:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh yea, the Redoubt was built for the purpose of blocking the HBC's Stikine plan--Simpson apparently told Wrangel about the plan outright. A while ago I tried to figure out the location stuff--Highfield vs. someplace else, and Shakesville, etc. I couldn't quite figure it out. Lots of sources describe the redoubt as original ft stikine, maybe even ft wrangel, as being on a tiny peninsula with barely room for anything, and perhaps made into a near-island at high tide. Doesn't sound like the point at the north end of the island--at least topo maps don't make it look like it would be. There is a little peninsula like that in Wrangel's harbor, and a little island next to it known as Shakestown, or something--said to have been one of Shakes's villages. But I couldn't confirm that the redoubt was in what's now Wrangel harbor. It seems to usually be sited at Highfield Point. So I dunno, much confusion on it, it seems. There were other Shakes villages on the lower Stikine River, I think. And multiple Chief Shakes, just to complicate everything. Oh, and I did look at the Choquette BCGNIS entry, but must have been too tired to take it in. I'll look again..maybe after coffee. Pfly (talk) 16:47, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

And yea, somewhere I read that the HBC found the upper Stikine River from the Interior, called it Pelly's River, and guessed it was the Stikine, but didn't know for sure until sometime around the Dryad incident. Or maybe before--maybe it was the basis of the 1833-34 plan.. Pfly (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2010 (UTC):::I found a detailed account that has most of what you/we need; it's very engrossing and I just wound up finding all kinds of things about the Liard forts and canyons, well worth a read; but around p. 114 they gt to the logistics of the redoubt and the encounter betwene Ogden adn Zarembo, then Ogden and Wrangel, and also with Shakes....as for Shakes, it's this one Shakes≤ all others since do have a history, and it is a title, or conferred name (not exactly hereditary) but he was one of three main chiefs there who increasedd his power by the deals he took and positions he made. The account says the Redoubt was at Highfield Point....Skookum1 (talk) 00:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Is !"stikine" pronounced "sti-keen" or "sti-kee-nee"? Mjroots (talk) 11:34, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

The former; see Stikine River.Skookum1 (talk) 11:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC)