← Stuff You Missed in History Class
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- [00:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
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- [00:39]
Holly Fry
Listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos, but now the old Gays are pulling back the curtain with their podcast Silver Linings with the Old Gays, brought to you in partnership with I Heart, Ruby Studio and Veeve Healthcare. Hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Josay share their favorite pride, memories and the importance of celebrating all year long in honor of Palm Springs Pride. So check out Silver Linings with the Old gays on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera, he's just a regular guy.
- [01:12]
OSA Patient/Spokesperson
People never believe me when I say I'm just like them. I take out the trash, do dishes, and I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa. And a lot of adults with obesity also struggle with moderate to severe osa. You know those scary breathing interruptions during sleep, the loud snoring, choking and daytime fatigue. I knew I had to talk to my doctor. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more at don't sleep sleep on.
- [01:34]
Holly Fry
Osa.Com this information is provided by Lily, A Medicine company.
- [01:38]
Cal Penn
Hey audiobook lovers. I'm Cal Penn.
- [01:40]
Tracy V. Wilson
I'm Ed Helms.
- [01:41]
Cal Penn
Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Hearsay. The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
- [01:51]
Podcast Guest (possibly Questlove)
Each week we sit down with your.
- [01:52]
Rob Gronkowski
Favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very.
- [01:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
Special guests to discuss the latest and.
- [01:57]
Rob Gronkowski
Greatest audiobooks from audible.
- [01:59]
Cal Penn
Listen to Earsay on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Earsay and start listen on the free iHeartradio app today.
- [02:10]
Holly Fry
Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.
- [02:20]
Tracy V. Wilson
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
- [02:23]
Holly Fry
And I'm Holly Fry.
- [02:25]
Tracy V. Wilson
This episode was inspired by a clip from the PBS animated TV show Molly of Denali, which an algorithm fed to me over Halloween. In this clip, Molly's classmate Jake wants to dress up as Walter Harper for Halloween. Walter Harper had Athabascan and Irish ancestry, and so Jake's costume is this homemade outfit that he has made to look like regalia. But Jake is not native. So this clip is about how regalia is not a costume and it's not appropriate for a non indigenous people to be dressing up in this way. Walter Harper was the first person to reach the summit of Denali. So Molly and her friends put together a more suitable Halloween costume for him using mountaineering gear. This is a really sweet clip. It's about friendship and about being respectful of people's cultures and traditions. But my first thought was, hey, do we have an episode about Walter Harper? Now we are about to have two, since this is a two parter.
- [03:28]
Holly Fry
Walter Harper's parents were Arthur Harper, who was born in Ireland, and Sintana, who was Koyakan Athabaskan. In some accounts, Santana is also referred to as Jenny. Arthur Harper had immigrated to the United States in the wake of the great famine in Ireland, and he and Cintana had met in 1874. Arthur was kind of a larger than life figure. He was a prospector and trader who Hudson stuck, later described as, quote, the first man ever to come to the Yukon country seeking, making gold. And we're going to talk about Hudson stuck a lot more in just a bit.
- [04:05]
Tracy V. Wilson
Arthur and Cintana had eight children together and Walter was their youngest. His exact birth date is not known, but it was probably sometime in the winter of 1892-1893. And his upbringing was a lot different from that of his older siblings. Arthur had wanted all of his children to be sent outside, meaning out of Alaska to be educated. For Walter's siblings, that meant that they were sent as far away as California once they reached school age. But Arthur and Cintana separated when Walter was just a toddler. Cintana moved to the village of Tanana, and she raised Walter according to Athabascan traditions that included him speaking Koyukon Athabaskan as his first language. He was the only one of his siblings to be raised in this way rather than being sent away to an English language school. School.
- [04:58]
Holly Fry
Arthur Harper died in 1897 when Walter was about 5. So Walter never really knew his father. And that happened just as the Klondike Gold rush was sweeping through Alaska and neighboring parts of Canada. About 100,000 people rushed to the area. And at first many of them were passing through Alaska to get to the Klondike in northwestern Canada. Soon people were looking for gold in Alaska as well.
- [05:26]
Tracy V. Wilson
This of course, brought just enormous changes to Alaska. And those changes also built on things that had been happening over the previous decades. The United States had purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867, but didn't start trying to organize it or implement a civil government until almost two decades later. The establishment of the District of Alaska and its civil government was in part motivated by federal efforts to establish mining laws in the territory.
- [06:00]
Holly Fry
More than 50 gold mining camps were established in Alaska between 1897 and 1907. This was very similar to other oil and precious metal booms that we've talked about on the show before. If someone struck gold, a huge influx of people came to the area, and there was a corresponding spike in crime, lawlessness, and alcohol misuse. Some of these camps were temporary and they were abandoned when the gold ran out. But others grew into permanent towns and cities.
- [06:31]
Tracy V. Wilson
This gold rush also brought more missionaries to Alaska. There had been religious missions in Alaska going back to before the United States purchased it from Russia. But Starting in the 1880s, multiple Christian denominations in the United States basically divided Alaska up among themselves. They entered into comedy agreements that gave each denomination the exclusive right to operate in a particular region. In theory, this was supposed to reduce conflicts and prevent misunderstandings among the various denominations and missionary societies. But it also meant that the local people had absolutely no say in which denomination was available to them. And if they wanted missionaries to be involved in their lives and the place that they lived at all. The Episcopal Church took responsibility for the part of interior Alaska where Walter Harper grew up, possibly because the Anglican Church had missions in neighboring parts of Canada. If you're not aware, the Episcopal Church is the name for the Anglican Church in the United States.
- [07:42]
Holly Fry
One of the Episcopal missionaries who came to Alaska during all of this was Hudson Stuck, who would become a huge part of Walter Harper's life. Stuck had been born in London and immigrated to the US state of Texas in 1885. He seems to have been at least partially seeking adventure. He and some friends flipped a coin when they decided whether to go to Texas or Australia. Stuck worked as a cowboy and as a teacher and school principal before getting a scholarship to study at the University of the south in Suwannee, Tennessee. He studied theology and was ordained in 1892.
- [08:20]
Tracy V. Wilson
Stuck initially went back to Texas, where he became the dean of St. Matthew's Cathedral in Dallas. He was also a social reformer. He campaigned for one of Texas's first child labor laws and established a night school for mill workers and a home for impoverished women. But eventually, he did not think his work in Texas was challenging enough. In a letter, he wrote that quote, I design Quite frankly and honestly, to give some years of my life to the work of the missionary field, and I want it to be hard and remote work. In 1904, he was named archdeacon of the Yukon and of the Arctic regions to the north, and he moved to Alaska.
- [09:04]
Holly Fry
At this point, the U.S. government's policy toward the Indigenous peoples of Alaska was that they should be brought under the influence of Christian missionaries. Most of the schools in Alaska were being run by missionaries, and even as the government started establishing other schools, the teachers there were often missionaries or they were people the nearest mission had vetted. This included the creation of schools for indigenous children under the federal boarding school program, which we've talked about in a number of previous episodes. Many of Alaska's hospitals and medical clinics were also established and run by missionaries.
- [09:41]
Tracy V. Wilson
We have multiple previous episodes in which we've talked about ways in which these kinds of missionary efforts could harm indigenous peoples, even when the missionaries involved had the best intentions and were trying to help. This dividing up of Alaska among the various religious denominations was rooted in colonialism and imperialism. The federal boarding school program was an attempt to separate indigenous children from their families and their cultures and to force them to assimilate with white society, making it an act of cultural genocide.
- [10:16]
Holly Fry
At the same time, exactly how much the different missions in Alaska were focused on assimilation and proselytizing really varied from one denomination to another and even from mission to mission within a denomination. Hudson, stuck in particular, did not see any value in the idea of forcing Alaska's native peoples to assimilate. In his book Voyages on the Yukon, he wrote, quote, I find myself perhaps too easily vexed by the calm assumption of the infinite distance that separates the Indian from the white man merely because he is a white man. I am no foe to racial distinctions any more than I am to social distinctions, and certainly no friend to the admixture of bloods. I do not view with complacency the solution of racial problems by the absorption of the lesser breeds into the overwhelming white race. I hate the thing, even though I cannot shut my eyes to it. I do not see why different races should not perpetuate themselves with their special cultures and their special tongues. And I think the world will be a much less interesting world, and not on that score, one with the better world, when all the little people shall have been absorbed. All picturesque, distinct distinction of custom and costume broken down and a thousand vigorous, elastic indigenous languages superseded by pigeon English. From some points of view, the vaunted march of civilization is to me a mere ape's march to nowhere just for.
- [11:45]
Tracy V. Wilson
The sake of clarity. He had the terms lesser breeds, pigeon, English and march of civilization all in scare quotes, as though he was saying so called before each of those terms. Later on in the same book, he denounced the idea of forcing indigenous students to speak only English, saying that such efforts involved, quote, a great deal of stamping without much stamping out. He went on to say, quote, it is probable that the English speech will prevail over the Native speech of these peoples by natural process, though in many places it will be a long time yet, and I cannot say see to save my life why it is so devoutly to be wished. But there is no sort of advantage in seeking to expedite the process beyond its natural rate, nor in repressing the Indian tongue by speaking contemptuously of it and as far as may be proscribing its use.
- [12:44]
Holly Fry
Stuck also saw the influx of miners and mining camps to Alaska as sources of harm to the indigenous population, bringing alcohol and its associated problems and debasing indigenous women. At various points during his time in Alaska, he went on speaking tours in the lower 48, both to raise money and to try to advocate for Alaska's Native peoples, including raising awareness about how new industries in Alaska, like commercial salmon canning, could harm Indigenous communities. So he was not a flawless man by any means, and the language he used could definitely be underpinned by the prejudices of of the time he was living in. But he does seem to have been more supportive of Alaska Native people's cultures and sovereignty than a lot of other religious and missionary figures in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
- [13:37]
Tracy V. Wilson
We'll of course be talking more about Hudson Stuck, but for now. About five years after he arrived in Alaska, he met Walter Harper at a fish camp. Harper was about 16. We'll talk more about that after a sponsor break.
- [13:57]
IBM Advertiser
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- [14:24]
Rob Gronkowski
This is Rob Gronkowski from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and jewels. For the second season in a row, I partnered with T Mobile's Friday night 5G lights powering up hometown football across America. This year, T mobile invested over $4 million in prizes to help schools take their Friday nights to the next level. The votes are in. And now it's time to crown our $1 million grand prize winner. Congratulations to Derrick's High School and Derrick's Arkansas, home of the Outlaws and your 2025 T Mobile Friday night 5G lights champion. The Outlaws and their community rallied to help them score a game changing home field upgrade, a Gronk Fitness weight room makeover, an epic 2026 tailgate party and a VIP trip to the SEC Championship game. To every school that competed, posted and rallied your communities. Thank you and to T Mobile for making it all possible. This season may be over, but the story isn't. Stay tuned for season three in 2026. Congratulations again to Derek's High School Outlaws.
- [15:36]
Trainer Games Announcer
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000.
- [15:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is where mindset comes in.
- [15:57]
Trainer Games Announcer
Someone will be eliminated.
- [15:59]
Tracy V. Wilson
Pressure is coming down.
- [16:01]
Cal Penn
Trainer Games on Prime Video January 8th watch the trailer on trainergames.com hey audiobook lovers. This week on the podcast I'm sitting down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove, we're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that gives you the most control?
- [16:31]
Podcast Guest (possibly Questlove)
So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. The Beatles broke up in seven and a half years and we're going on 35.
- [16:56]
Cal Penn
Listen to HearSay, the Audible, and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [17:15]
Tracy V. Wilson
When Hudson Stuck met Walter Harper at a fish camp in 1909, Stuck was immediately impressed. Harper was deeply knowledgeable in Athabaskan traditions and ways of living, including how to survive and live off the land. He was also relentlessly optimistic, charismatic, and personable. People also thought of him as very handsome.
- [17:39]
Holly Fry
Stuck convinced Walter's mother, Santana, to send him to St. Mark's Mission School in Nenana. While Stuck doesn't seem to have been focused on the idea of forcing Alaska Native children to assimilate with white culture, that wasn't necessarily the case for the teachers at this mission school. For Example, Athabaskan Chief Peter John, who died in 2003, spent about five years at this school, and in his adult life, he talked about being hit with a switch if he spoke Athabascan and of not being allowed to do things the Athabascan way. He said the school taught him the basics of subjects like reading and writing, but that he mostly did manual labor there and he taught himself English later on.
- [18:23]
Tracy V. Wilson
Walter didn't attend St. Mark's Mission School for very long, but while he was there, he was well liked by the other students. A lot of them were also impressed by his knowledge of the outdoors and of Athabascan traditions.
- [18:36]
Holly Fry
When Harper was 17, Stuck hired him for help with his missionary work. For about the next three years, Harper acted as a guide, a riverboat pilot in the summer and a sled dog handler in the winter. He was also an interpreter and a liaison with Alaska's Indigenous communities and acting as a bridge between Stuck and his missionary work and the Indigenous communities that he was trying to help. Harper also came to trust Stuck, and he let other Indigenous people know that he thought Stuck was worthy of trust.
- [19:08]
Tracy V. Wilson
Stuck was also Harper's tutor and became a father figure to him. This paternalism is totally understandable since Harper was 16 when they met and only 17 when they started working and traveling together. But Stuck would also repeatedly acknowledge that he had trouble thinking of Harper as a grown man once Harper reached adulthood. This was probably complicated by the fact that Stuck was still teaching and tutoring Harper in multiple subjects when Harper was in his 20s and was preparing to go to college.
- [19:41]
Holly Fry
Stuck's writings describe Harper as smart and resourceful, like once they were traveling on the mission's riverboat called the Pelican. And the Pelican had a four cylinder engine and a cast iron bracket that was holding one of the cylinders in place. Broke Stuck and the crew talked about hobbling back to the last town that they had been to on three cylinders to try to find a repair. But Harper thought that if he had a piece of very hard wood, he could fashion a new bracket and mount it onto the boat with wire. Stuck was so confident in Harper's abilities that he allowed him to use the one piece of hardwood that they had that was the stock of their shotgun. And this solution worked. In Stuck's words, quote, there are no limits to Walter's ingenuity.
- [20:27]
Tracy V. Wilson
I don't remember if he specifically said, but I am assuming that later when they got to the next town or village, they were able to replace that stock somehow. In 1913. When Harper was 20 or 21, he became part of an expedition Stuck was funding to try to summit Denali. That name comes from Athamaskin, for great one probably also heard it called Mount McKinley. In 1896, a gold prospector named William Dickey had proposed to call Denali Mount McKinley, after then US presidential candidate William McKinley. William McKinley had no connection to the mountain or to Alaska, but the name Mount McKinley started to gain popularity after he had been elected president and then assassinated, which was in 1901. Although that name was not yet formally recognized by the federal government, it was one that a lot of people, especially outside of Alaska, were using by the time this expedition was being planned.
- [21:33]
Holly Fry
Hudson Stuck objected to the name Mount McKinley, as well as to the naming of a neighboring peak as Mount Foraker, after Ohio Senator Joseph B. Foraker. Stuck wrote that Mount Foraker's name in Athabaskan translated to the woman or Denali's wife. He said of the names McKinley and Foraker, quote, they should stand no longer, since if there be right and reason in these matters, they should not have been placed there at all.
- [22:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
He went on to say, quote, it is probably true of every great mountain that it bears diverse native names, as one tribe or another on this side or on that of its mighty bulk speaks of it. But the area in which, and the people by whom this mountain is now known as Denali preponderates so greatly as to leave no question which native name it should bear.
- [22:24]
Holly Fry
Later he wrote, quote, there is to the author's mind a certain ruthless arrogance that grows more offensive to him as the years pass by. In the temper that comes to a new land and contemptuously ignores the native names of conspicuous natural objects, almost always appropriate and significant, and overlays them with names that are commonly neither the one nor the other. The learned societies of the world, the geographical societies, the ethnological societies, have set their faces against this practice these many years past, and to them the writer confidently appeals.
- [23:02]
Tracy V. Wilson
Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America, with an elevation of 20,310ft above sea level. It's also thousands of feet taller than most of the other mountains in the Alaska range. Because of its massive size and the relative isolation of the Alaska range from other mountain ranges and the way that Denali interacts with prevailing winds and air currents, it is sometimes described as creating its own weather.
- [23:30]
Holly Fry
There have been several known attempts to summit Denali in the early 20th century. Dr. Frederick Cook had launched an expedition in 1906, and he claimed to have reached the summit alone, while the rest of his team had stayed at a lower elevation. His claims were quickly discredited, and he later made other claims that ranged from dubious to straightforwardly fraudulent. He wound up being convicted of an unrelated mail fraud.
- [23:56]
Tracy V. Wilson
In 1923, a team known as the Sourdough Party, made up of Tom Lloyd, Peter Anderson, Billy Taylor and Charles McGonagall, tried to summit Denali in 1910. They probably did reach a summit, but it was the North Peak, which is about 850ft lower in elevation than the South Peak. That is something they did not know at the time. Hudson Stuck's expedition spotted a pole that the Sourdough Party left on the lower summit through binoculars.
- [24:29]
Holly Fry
Then, in 1912, a team led by Belmore Brown and Herschel Parker tried to reach the south summit of Denali. They had previously made other expeditions on the mountain, including one to conclusively disprove Cook's claims of having summited. And on their final attempt, they almost made it. They were probably within about 125ft of the summit when they were forced to turn back due to a storm with total whiteout conditions and extreme cold. The snow was falling so fast that it filled their footprints, so they could barely make out a return route to their camp. They tried again, but they were again forced to turn around because of a blizzard. And by that point, they were running out of food that they could eat. Their most calorie dense food was pemmican, which is a food developed by the indigenous peoples of the far north that's typically made from dried meat, animal fat, and sometimes berries. Pemmican is a frequent flyer on the podcast lately.
- [25:26]
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, it became a staple food for a lot of 19th century expeditions.
- [25:30]
Holly Fry
Oh, I meant we just mentioned it on the cranberry episode.
- [25:33]
Tracy V. Wilson
We did do that. We've mentioned it in other episodes also, which is what I was thinking of. Yeah.
- [25:40]
Holly Fry
Their canned pemmican had started to disagree with their digestive systems at very high altitudes, and they had given up on trying to eat it near the summit.
- [25:48]
Tracy V. Wilson
They pretty much were like, we're not getting any value from this food anymore because it makes us.
- [25:53]
Holly Fry
It's doing more harm than good.
- [25:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah. Accounts from the Parker Brown expedition made it sound like reaching the summit of Denali could be possible if the weather cooperated. And Hudson's was one of the people who wanted to try. Another was Henry P. Karstens, known as Harry. Karstens had been born in Chicago in 1878 and had come to Alaska at the age of 19 during the Klondike Gold Rush, his prospecting along the Seventy Mile river had earned him the nickname the Seventy Mile Kid. In addition to being a prospector and a trader, Karstens had become an expert dog sled handler. He had helped establish a trail between Fairbanks and Valdez and then had operated a private mail service along that route while the government was still getting an official mail service established. Karstens had done a lot of work with naturalist and big game hunter Charles Sheldon and initially had hoped to plan a Denali expedition with Sheldon. That didn't work out though, and he started working with Hudson Stuck.
- [27:01]
Holly Fry
Karstens was the one who did most of the tactical planning and scouting of their route. He really led the expedition with Walter Harper being a big help in those efforts. Day to day, Stuck provided most of the money for food, equipment and miscellaneous expenses, which was an amount he characterized as, quote, not far short of a thousand dollars. A mere fraction of the cost of previous expeditions, it is true, but a matter of long scraping together for a missionary.
- [27:29]
Tracy V. Wilson
Other people who were part of the Carstenstuck expedition included Robert G. Tatum, a postulant to the Episcopal priesthood who was originally from Tennessee and was working at the mission in Nenana. He had arrived in Alaska in 1911. There were also two Alaska Native teenagers named John Fredson and Esaias George who were selected from the oldest boys at the Nenana School.
- [27:55]
Holly Fry
With the exception of Robert Tatum, these men were all either native to Alaska or had spent a significant number of years there. While Tatum was a relative newcomer, he had lived through two winters in Nenana and had various experience surveying and doing other work in the backcountry. He also did a lot of wintertime hiking in preparation for the expedition. Everyone involved had experience traveling by boat, by dog sled and on foot and surviving in remote parts of the Alaskan interior. The one thing they hadn't experienced was the high altitudes of Denali.
- [28:32]
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, I would say that as a group they were more experienced and prepared than some of the other expeditions we've talked about on the show. We will get some more detail about their preparations for this expedition after a sponsor break.
- [28:51]
IBM Advertiser
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- [29:20]
Rob Gronkowski
This is Rob Gronkowski from Dudes on Dudes. With Gronk and jules. For the second season in a row, I partnered with T Mobile's Friday night 5G lights, powering up hometown football across America. This year, T mobile invested over $4 million in prizes to help schools take their Friday nights to the next level. The votes are in. And now it's time to crown our $1 million grand prize winner. Congratulations to Derrick's High school and Derrick's Arkansas, home of the outlaws and your 2020 5T mobile Friday night 5G lights champion. The Outlaws and their community rallied to help them score a game changing home field upgrade, a Gronk Fitness weight room makeover, an epic 2026 tailgate party and a VIP trip to the SEC championship game. To every school that competed, posted and rallied your communities. Thank you and to T Mobile for making it all possible. This season may be over, but the story isn't. Stay tuned for season three in 2026. Congratulations again to Derek's High School Outlaws.
- [30:32]
Trainer Games Announcer
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000.
- [30:51]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is where mindset comes in.
- [30:52]
Trainer Games Announcer
Someone will be eliminated.
- [30:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
Pressure is coming down.
- [30:57]
Cal Penn
Trainer games on Prime Video January 8th. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com hey, audiobook lovers. This week on the podcast I'm sitting down with musician, producer and walking in psych encyclopedia Questlove, we're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before, Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that gives you the most control?
- [31:27]
Podcast Guest (possibly Questlove)
So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No, no band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. Like the Beatles broke up in seven and a half years and we're going on 35.
- [31:51]
Cal Penn
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcast.
- [32:11]
Tracy V. Wilson
Getting shipments from other parts of the world can be challenging in Alaska today. And that was an even bigger issue when Hudson Stuck and Harry Karsten started trying to provision an expedition to Denali in the early 1910s. Stuck described the ice axes that they ordered as gold painted Toys with detachable heads and broomstick handles. When they arrived, they wound up having ice axes custom made in Fairbanks, Alaska from steel and hickory. They also needed crampons and wound up having to have those made for them as well. The resulting contraptions were again, in Stuck's words, quote, terribly heavy, clumsy rat trap affairs.
- [32:59]
Holly Fry
And they had real trouble getting suitable boots. They ordered alpine boots that turned out to be much too small for their purposes. They were going to be climbing through deep snow and expected temperatures near the summit of Denali to be so cold that they would need multiple layers of socks. Their alpine boots just were not going to accommodate many extra layers. They bought rubber boots that were big enough for extra socks and they had leather soles nailed to them, but that didn't work either. They were passing through the Kantishna region on the way to Denali when they found their most workable option. That was moccasins with five layers of socks underneath.
- [33:38]
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, when we say cold, like many tens of degrees below zero. And also very windy.
- [33:46]
Holly Fry
No, thank you.
- [33:48]
Tracy V. Wilson
In addition to those challenges, some of the equipment that they ordered from outside of Alaska did not arrive in time for their largest advance shipment to their staging point in Nenana. That advance shipment was sent to Nenana the autumn before the expedition, before the rivers froze over. Some of what they ordered also just never showed up in Alaska at all. Stuck said of all this, quote, such are the difficulties of any undertaking in Alaska, despite all the precautions that foresight may dictate.
- [34:20]
Holly Fry
But some of their gear actually worked better than expected. Members of the expedition had previously used glasses with blue or smoked glass lenses to try to prevent the snow blindness, but that hadn't been entirely effective. Some of the treatments for snow blindness at the time included eye washes made with boric acid or zinc sulfate. They were prepared with these eyewashes. But they also acquired new glasses with amber lenses, which seemed to work much better than anything they had worn before. In Stuck's words, the invention of the amber snow glass is an even greater blessing to the traveler in the north than the invention of the thermos bottle.
- [35:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
Other supplies included a huge amount of food. They had 724 ounce packages of herbswurst, which is a ready to eat sausage like preparation of pea flour, pork, belly fat, onions and spices from Germany that can also be dissolved in water to make a soup. They also had 20 pounds of milk chocolate, 5 pounds of Chinese tea in tablets, 10 pounds of figs, and 10 pounds of sugared almonds. All of this was meant to be saved for the highest altitude parts of the expedition.
- [35:37]
Holly Fry
They had a large silk tent for use at low elevations and smaller ones for later in the journey. There were also stoves, dishes, down, quilts, camel's hair, blankets, and a sleeping bag lined with down and camel's hair. Carstens contributed a wolf robe that weighed about 25 pounds. They also had various weather instruments to take readings on the mountain and cameras to record their journey.
- [36:03]
Tracy V. Wilson
In March of 1913, Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens, and Walter Harper made their way to Nenana, Alaska, where they met up with Robert Tatum, John Fredson, and Esaias George. The six of them needed to arrive at Denali late enough in the spring to have a chance of milder weather at the summit. But they also needed everything to be frozen enough to travel by dog sled on the way there. And during their initial ascent, they wound up setting out from Nenana on St Patrick's Day, which was actually a couple of weeks later than they planned.
- [36:38]
Holly Fry
They arrived at Eureka in the Kantishna region on March 21, which was good Friday, and a few days later arrived at Diamond City on the Bearpaw River. Along the way, they picked up caches of food and supplies that had been shipped ahead of them. In total, they wound up with about one and a half tons of food and supplies that had to be carried to the foot of the mountain in a relay. They would take a load ahead and cache it at the midway point of the day's journey, then double back and take a second load all the way to where they were stopping for the night, then go back and get what they had cached. To do this, they used two dog sleds and two teams of seven dogs, each following a path that had been laid out by the Sourdough Expedition.
- [37:23]
Tracy V. Wilson
The Karsten Stuck expedition made a series of camps on their way to the mountain, either to support them as they tried to cross various geographic features or to provide for their return journey after they came down from the summit. One of their earlier camps was at about 4,000ft in elevation, and it had an additional purpose. In Stuck's words, quote, our prime concern at this camp was the gathering and preserving of a sufficient meat supply for our subsistence on the mountain. It was an easy task. First Karstens killed a caribou, and then Walter, a mountain sheep. Then Esaias happened into the midst of a herd of caribou as he climbed over a ridge and killed three. That was all we needed. Then we went to work preparing the meat. Why should anyone haul canned pemmican hundreds of miles into the greatest game country in the world. We made our own pemmican of the choice parts of the. It's tender, juicy meat and we never lost appetite for it or failed to enjoy and assimilate it. I feel like he is throwing some shade here at the earlier expedition.
- [38:31]
Holly Fry
Yeah, like, oh, you wusses. Do you know, it's the homemade versus canned cranberry debate of mountaineers.
- [38:37]
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, well, and to be fair, like, there have been other expeditions where their plan was like, oh, we will just hunt for food when we get there. That really did not work out for them. Yeah. So the fact that they did, which, you know, was expected. They knew what they were doing and they knew the landscape. But still, there have been other expeditions where that plan would not have worked.
- [38:59]
Holly Fry
Right. I mean, it fails to acknowledge that there is a degree of luck to how well they did. Right. So here is how they made their pemmican quote. A 50 pound lard can, three parts filled with water, was set on the stove and kept supplied with joints of meat. As a batch was cooked, we took it out and put more into the same water, removed the flesh from the bones and minced it. Then we melted a can of butter, added pepper and salt to it, and rolled a handful of the minced meat in the butter and molded it with the hands into a ball about as large as a baseball. We made a couple of hundred of such balls and froze them and they kept perfectly. When all the boiling was done, we put in the hocks of the animals and boiled down the liquor into five pounds of the thickest, richest meat extract, jelly, adding the marrow from the bones with this pemmican and this extract of caribou. A package of herbs first and a cup full of rice. We concocted every night the stew, which was our main food in the higher regions.
- [40:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
Yeah, we've talked about pemmican as using dried meat and they were able to use it with fresh meat because everything was staying frozen all the time, which allowed it to keep. On April 15, the expedition finished their supply relay. Esaias George returned to Nenana with one of the dog sled teams. Since they no longer needed that many dogs, the weather at lower elevations had gotten a lot warmer than it had been when they had set out from Nenana in March. And so a lot of the time, George had to travel at night when everything froze back over.
- [40:34]
Holly Fry
The base camp they had established at this point was remote, but not so remote that no one else was around. One day In April, an indigenous family arrived at one of their camps, hoping Stuck would baptize their child. The family had tried to catch up with the party before they left the Kantishna region, but they hadn't been able to, and the expedition speculated about how far they would have continued to travel looking for Stuck if they hadn't been at the base camp.
- [41:02]
Tracy V. Wilson
From there, the party established a cache at the pass that they would use to access the Muldrow Glacier. That glacier was one that earlier expedition had used to work their way toward the summit. Stuck wrote of their first view of this glacier. Quote that day stands out in recollection as one of the notable days of the whole ascent, where the glacier stretched away broad and level, the road to the heart of the mountain, and as our eyes traced its course, our spirits leapt up that at last we were entered upon our real task. One of us at least knew something of the dangers and difficulties its apparently smooth surface concealed. Yet to both of us it had an infinite attractiveness, for it was the highway of desire.
- [41:49]
Holly Fry
We are going to get to their crossing of the glacier and they're continuing to the summit next time. In the meantime, do you have listener mail?
- [41:57]
Tracy V. Wilson
I do. It is about outdoorsy things, but in a very different climate from Denali this is from Kristen. Kristin wrote back in October and said hi Holly and Tracy. I discovered your podcast during the pandemic and shared them frequently with my kids as I homeschooled them and now listen mostly when I am driving or weaving at home or work. Thanks for everything you do to provide a deeper dive into so many interesting topics. My ears perked up when I heard mention of the Lyme vaccine trial currently in progress. Because I am a participant in this study, Kristen gets into like where the study was taking place and how long it took to get there. Actually, the place that Kristen went would have been perfectly convenient for me. It would have been fine. It was not a location that I was offered to get back to the email. This was my first experience participating in a clinical trial and I was glad to be able to contribute. I spend a lot of time out in the woods as a geocacher. I'm particularly high risk because I bushwhack off trail more than the average hiker. When a family member of mine finally realized he had Lyme, he was told that every month that goes undiagnosed equals about a year of recovery. So as important as it is to have an effective vaccine, it's also crucial to get tested promptly. If you suspect you have a tick borne illness. I wanted to share a tip that I use to help prevent tick bites. I keep a lint roller in my car and when I'm done with a hike I roll it over my clothes to pick up any unwanted travelers. It works on dogs too. I also keep the lint roller within easy reach in the car. Ticks like to crawl upwards, so sometimes when I'm driving I'll notice a tick crawling up my pants leg. With the roller I can get it off me quickly and safely. Our household is currently pet free, but I'm sharing a photo of my beautiful cat Phoenix, who was with me for 13 years and was such a princess. I'm also attaching a photo of a stunning red tailed hawk who's swooped in on a critter in my garden and let me get a few feet away for a closeup before flying off with a snack. Best to you both and keep up the good work. Kristen we have an adorable orange cat perched on a chessboard baby and man, that is a very beautiful view of that hawk. This is a great tip with the lint roller. Yeah, that's a great idea. I don't think I had ever thought of that or heard anybody suggest that as a thing to do, but it makes a lot of sense. I also think I have mentioned on the show before that my doctor's office has a thing on their on their portal in my chart where as soon as you log in it's like have you been bitten by a tick? Get medical advice. So I continue to encourage that. If you live in a place where there are tick borne diseases, if you have a ticket bite, even if you think you're fine, it's a good idea to speak to a doctor real quick. See what they think. Thank you so much Kristin for this email. If you would like to send us a note or about this or any other podcast, we're a history podcast@iheartradio.com and you can subscribe to our show on the iheartradio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf 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.
- [45:30]
Trainer Games Announcer
10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract worth $250,000.
- [45:49]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is where mindset comes in.
- [45:51]
Trainer Games Announcer
Someone will be eliminated.
- [45:53]
Tracy V. Wilson
Pressure is coming down.
- [45:55]
Cal Penn
Trainer games on Prime Video January 8th. Watch the trailer on trainergames.com hey, audiobook lovers. I'm Kalpin.
- [46:02]
Tracy V. Wilson
I'm Ed Helms.
- [46:03]
Cal Penn
Ed and I are inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with our new podcast, Earsy, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
- [46:12]
Podcast Guest (possibly Questlove)
Each week we sit down with your.
- [46:14]
Rob Gronkowski
Favorite iHeart podcast hosts and some very.
- [46:17]
Tracy V. Wilson
Special guests to discuss the latest and greatest audiobooks.
- [46:21]
Cal Penn
From Audible, listen to Hearsay on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow earsay and start listening on the free iHeartradio app today.
- [46:31]
Coca Cola Advertiser
What a matchup we got, y'.
- [46:33]
Holly Fry
All.
- [46:33]
Coca Cola Advertiser
This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non stop action. The band is rockin and the crowd lit Chance echo drum beat everybody showing that school pride. A game like this. Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there. Yeah, that taste always hits the right note. Just like the band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors every everywhere and in ice cold Coca Cola, that's a winning combo no matter the sport, no matter the yard. Everybody knows fan work is thirsty work so grab a Coca Cola and keep that HBCU pride going.
- [47:18]
Holly Fry
Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera, he's just a regular guy.
- [47:21]
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- [47:45]
Holly Fry
This information is provided by Lily, A Medicine company.
- [47:48]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.