Living and mining near Wiseman, 1930s

These scenes were filmed by miner Harry Leonard during the 1930s at or near Wiseman, Alaska, a small mining community along the Middle Fork of the Koyukuk River in the Brooks Range, about 270 miles north of Fairbanks. Scenes include men at the Wiseman roadhouse (Left to Right - unidentified, Phil Sundquist, Ace Wilcox, Poss Postlethwaite, Albert Ness, Martin Slisco and unidentified); Phil Sundquist with rifle; the Hope Family at camp, including Ludi Hope and her adopted son Henry, son of Japanese whaler and miner James Minano; men including Ace Wilcox and Vern Watts at sluice box; Biner Wind’s mining camp; Biner Wind on runners of dog sled; Harry Leonard with dog in front of tent; Phil Sundquist sharpening saw; spring breakup on Koyukuk River; miners shoveling ore into sluice box at Biner Wind's mining operation on the Hammond River; Roshier H. Creecy panning sample in a washtub over a campfire during the winter at Gold Creek; Roshier Creecy pulling sled over ice and then dogs pulling sled on snow; Harry Leonard waving to camera; Roshier Creecy waving to camera; dog yard; log church (possibly at Allakaket?); Harry Leonard prospecting with pack dog; and the mountains near Wiseman. Roshier Creecy, born just after the Civil War ended, was one of the few known African Americans who made their living by prospecting and mining in Alaska in the early 1900s. (B&W/Silent/8mm film).
Leonard's films were preserved in 2019 through a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF), and with substantial support from the Wien Endowment Fund. To view the films in their entirety, please visit: archives.librar...
This sequence contains excerpts from AAF-1866 from the James and George Lounsbury collection of Harry Leonard films held by the Alaska Film Archives, a unit of the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives Department in the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska Fairbanks. For more information please contact the Alaska Film Archives.
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