Portrait of a passenger on the sternwheel steamboat PHILIP B. LOW, circa 1898

• Other Authors: University of Washington Libraries. Special Collections Division
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Women > Alaska > Saint Michael; Passengers > Alaska > Saint Michael; Yukon; Steamboat; Yukon river; Alaska; Huskies
• Online Access: http://cdm16786.contentdm.oclc.org:80/cdm/ref/collection/alaskawcanada/id/2941

Text on album page: July 1898. Taken on board the Yukon River Boat "Philip B. Low" at St. Michaels, Alaska, 90 miles f[r]om the Yukon River. Portrait possibly of a woman named "Helen." Cyanotype print. PH Coll 038.2. In the spring of 1898, the sternwheeler Philip B. Low began the journey to the interior Yukon gold fields at the mouth of the lower Yukon River at Saint Michael, Alaska. The shipmaster was Henry Bailey and the crew probably consisted of seven to fifteen men. Huskies were used as sled dogs to haul supplies and often accompanied miners to the gold fields During the Klondike Gold Rush, sternwheelers were often built at shipyards in Seattle, Victoria, Portland, and Vancouver, and then shipped and reassembled at the river site. Sternwheelers are paddle-wheel driven boats designed for travel on inland rivers. Saint Michael, Alaska was a popular trading post and supply depot for miners traveling to the Yukon Valley gold fields.