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Schwatka's Last Search
By Frederick Schwatka
Annotated by Arland S. Harris
University of Alaska Press, 1996
278pp $20US
ISBN: 0-912006-87-0
Review by MICHAEL PEAKE --
Che-Mun Editor
Canoelit Home Page
Frederick Schwatka is one of the intriguing names of 19th century exploration. His just claim to fame is a remarkable expedition that succeeded in finding remains of the missing Franklin expedition in 1879. The trip featured a 3000 mile dogsled journey to the Arctic Ocean and back in one year. The account was little heard of and a 1987 translation finally appeared written by a member of Schwatka's party as Overland to Starvation Cove by Heinrich Klutschak. (ISBN: 0-8020-5762-4)
That book is a riveting read and worth finding. As for Schwatka himself, he died 13 years after that trip and very little was ever published. Now an Alaska editor has uncovered the account of Schwatka's final trip through Alaska and the Yukon.
The 1891 trip was sponsored by the New York Ledger newspaper which serialized it in their magazine the next year. One of the reasons Schwatka's narrative of this trip disappeared is because the newspaper did too, a few years after the trip.
The expedition started and ended in Alaska and passed through Yukon and British Columbia. Rivers travelled included the Copper, Nezina, Yukon, Teslin and Taku. They finished their trip in Juneau.
Schwatka was writing for a popular newspaper and his style reflects that. As today, people craved vicarious excitement and no doubt a few facts were spared to enliven the narrative. Combined with interesting photos and maps, Last Search is a nice nugget of northern history.
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