Digital Bob Archive

Johnson Creek - one of the sixteen Johnson Creeks in Alaska - is the first creek entering the Taku River upstream from Taku Lodge. The Dictionary of Alaska Place Names has this information: Local name reported in 1932 by B. D. Stewart, USGS, to be \"derived from the surname of the first known settler in the district who resided near the mouth of the stream.\" But who was Johnson? Did he have a Christian name as well as a surname? Some rather widespread inquiry by this writer has failed to turn up an identity, although it is quite possible I just did not ask the right person.

The phrase \"first known settler\" would seem to exclude the Tlingits who had a village not far downstream from the mouth of Johnson Creek. Or did it? In 1930 an Indian named Johnson was drowned at the mouth of the Taku and his body was not recovered. It may be that he had a house at Johnson Creek, or that he had had one there in the past. But so far as documentation is concerned, the Johnson of Johnson Creek is still an unknown.

Upstream from Johnson Creek, on the east side of the Taku River Is Yehring Creek, a long stream that flows in part from the Swineford Lakes, named for Alaska's second governor. That name was also reported in 1932 by B.D. Stewart who that year made an investigation of the Taku area for the U.S. Geological Survey. He reported it as a local name \"for Oscar Yehring, a settler who resided in the vicinity of the mouth of this stream.\"

In September 1935, a Juneau newspaper reported that Yehring was visiting Douglas from his homestead and picking up supplies. It went on to report that he had come to Douglas in 1902 and had worked for the water company until about 1915, when he moved to the Taku. At some date subsequent to 1935 Oscar Yehring left the Taku and Alaska. There are reports that he moved to California but efforts to trace him have been futile.

The Sittakanay River flows into the Taku River from the east at Canyon Island, a short distance below the Canadian border. The Tlingit name was reported by the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey in 1895. The meaning of the word has not been ascertained. The Sittakanay was sometimes known as Ryan Creek, perhaps for Mike Ryan whose misadventures were related in No. 9 of this series.

It was near the Sittakanay that Ray Deardorf, a packer for the U.S. Geological Survey, tangled with a grizzly bear in September 1932. The survey party, under Engineer B.D. Stewart, had its camp at what was known as Flanagan's Slough. That name does not appear on the maps of the area and the origin of the name is unknown. A member of the party discovered a fresh moose kill and Deardorf and others went to try to salvage some of the meat. The bear, which probably had made the kill, jumped the unarmed Deardorf who played dead and thus probably escaped being killed. He was given first aid, taken to Hack Smith's Twin Glacier Camp, and flown to Juneau the following day.

Canyon Island was not officially reported as a local name until 1960, but the name was in use at least as early as 1935 when a radio station was placed there, as will be related in due course.