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CONTENTS:- The First Outsiders
- Seeing the First K'uch'an
- The Name of Carmacks
- Diseases and Epidemics
- Big Changes Ahead
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The First OutsidersAccording to Cruikshank (1997), the Southern Tutchone name for white people is K'ochen, or "cloud people", referring to the cloudy colour of their skin. The Northern Tutchone pronounce the word "K'uch'an".
There were a few hundred K'uch'an prospectors around the Yukon by the mid-1800s. They had mostly come over the Chilkoot Pass with the help of Tlingit and Tagish packers. HBC trader Robert Campbell instead travelled to Yukon from the east, and established Ft. Selkirk in 1848. Within four years, Chilkat Tlingit traders sacked the fort and evicted Campbell.
In 1883, the U.S. Army sent Lt. Fredierick Scwhatka to explore Alaska. On his way, he gave English names to many natural features, most of which already had names in aboriginal languages. Near Carmacks, he named several features, including:
Tantalus Butte (called Gum Tthi - "Worm Rock" in Northern Tutchone)
Five Finger Rapids (called Tthi Cho Nadezhe - "Big Rocks Standing Up")
Nordenskiold River (Tsalnjik Chú - "River Following a Marsh").
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Frederich Schwatka (Detail from The Illustrated London News c. 1860).1860
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The remains of Fort Selkirk1883
Fort Selkirk, Yukon
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Seeing the First K'uch'anShratthegan Billy told the story of 'The First Whiteman' to his grandchildren. The Northern Tutchone people had heard of white people, but had not seen one before.
The First Whiteman (From Charlie, D. and Clark, D., 2002).
People were staying at Little Salmon Villlage when the first Whiteman they ever saw in person came into their camp. There were a bunch of little boys who were there at that time and Shratthegan Billy was one.
Someone hollered, "Hey! Come you guys and see what we see! It's Whiteman come, come on!" so all the kids ran to see this strange site. "We run there," Shratthegan Billy said. "We see Whiteman standing up! They look so funny! The funny people they saw had really short hair, long, long necks, and the strangest looking clothes they had seen. Their pants were big and wide on top and skin tight from the knee down (britches). Shratthegan Billy and the other children turned around and ran way back in the bushes, and laughed and laughed.
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George W. Carmack1905
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The Name of CarmacksThe English name for the village comes from a K'uch'an from California called George Carmack who came north to prospect for gold in 1885. He married the Tagish woman, but she soon passed away. He then married her sister, Shaaw Tláa, who became known as Kate Carmack. Kate's brother Skookum Jim (Keish) and nephew Tagish Charlie (Káa Goox) became Carmack's prospecting partners. Together they made the gold strike on Bonanza Creek in 1896 that was to trigger the Klondike Gold Rush (who exactly made the strike is somewhat in dispute).
Before that, Carmack had mined coal at Tantalus Butte (at present-day Carmacks) and at Fiver Finger Rapids (about 30 km downstream). He built a small trading post at Tantalus, but the post and the mine weren't successful enough to keep him there. He left the area for the Klondike area by 1896, before Carmacks became an established settlement.
By 1903, Seymour Rowlinson and Eugene Mack had built a Roadhouse and Inn at the junction of the Nordenskiold and Yukon Rivers to serve the travellers on the Daswon Road. According to Frank Goulter, a long-time Carmacks resident, Rowlinson had known George Carmack in the early days. He arranged to have the name 'Carmack's Landing' put on a large sign for the Roadhouse. The person that painted the sign forgot the apostrophe, and since then the community has been called Carmacks.
There is no official Northern Tutchone name for the area of present-day Carmacks, though it could be referred to as Tsalnjik Chú Dachäk ("Mouth of the Tsalnjik [Nordenskiold] River"). On his trip in 1883, Schwatka recorded the Tlingit name for this important trading area - Thuch-en-dituh ("We will meet here again").
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Shaaw Tláa, a.k.a Kate Carmack.1900
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Diseases and EpidemicsProbably the biggest consequence of the K'uch'an arrival was the diseases they brought to the First Nation people. Their immune systems had no resistance to these foreign diseases, such as influenza, diptheria, measles, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and pneumonia. Northern Tutchone people probably felt the effects of disease even before they met K'uch'ans, because Tlingit traders would have spread diseases they had caught when trading with Russians on the coast.
According to Legros (1981), epidemics caused an estimated 30% decline among the Northern Tutchone groups between 1848-1893, and 36% decline from 1893-1908. In 1902, the entire group at Braeburn Lake (Tatl'a Huchoa hud'än - "End of lake people" ) was wiped out by epidemic. An influenza epdemic in 1918-19 devastated Little Salmon, Big Salmon and Carmacks.
Becasue of all the deaths, groups of people began to move to new areas and join together, partly to escape the diseases and partly because their numbers had become so small. Epidemics played a large role in people's choice to move towards Carmacks, and in its growth into a major centre.
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Big Changes AheadThe first K'uch'ans in the Yukon interacted with Northern Tutchone and other First Nations peoples, traded with them, sometimes married them, but had no real influence over their lives. In fact, K'uch'ans were often dependent upon First Nations people for their own survival, needing guidance and knowledge in a foreign land.
However, the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-9 was to change everything. A few hundred K'uch'an in the Yukon was to become over 30,000 in just a few short months. While few stayed, those that did very soon wanted to establish their society in the Yukon. The consequences for the First Nations people already living here would be severe.
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