Person:Frank Whalley (1)

"Frank Whalley and his partners made a trip out to the North Fork [of the Koyukuk River in Alaska] and without pick, pan or shovel, dug some $80 out of rock crevices with their pocket knives. They staked the creek and in 1903, took out over $100,000, practically all the gold that stream ever yielded."^S1

Frank Cuthbert Whalley was born in or near Bairnsdale, Victoria, Australia where his family had moved a few years earlier and where his father was a fellmonger. He spent his first years there likely on a sheep ranch, then moved to San Francisco, California, USA with his family. He grew up in San Francisco, and later in Oakland across San Francisco bay.

When the Yukon gold rush started in 1898 Frank was too broke and young to go along with his brother, Ernest and cousin Arthur, but he followed later. The Dawson area was all staked, so Frank joined others prospecting down the Yukon River and up the Koyukuk River in Alaska. He was lucky (see the first paragraph). He found gold and settled in the small mining camp of Nolan. With the gold proceeds he started a freighting company, using horse-drawn barges to haul from Bettles, the head of steamship navigation, to Wiseman^S2.

In the process he became acquainted with Gordon Bettles, founder of Bettles, and Marie Kokrine, Gordon's half sister in law. Events transpired, and Frank and Marie were married in Tanana, Alaska, by Father Jules Jette. Frank and Marie lived near the gold claim in Nolan, and later moved to Wiseman a few miles away.

When their sons became school age, Frank and Marie sold their freighting and mining interests and moved to a ranch on Elk Creek in Glenn County, California. He ranched there until WWII when help became hard to find, then sold and bought a smaller ranch near Cedarville in Modoc County, then a still smaller ranch near Alturas, Shasta County. He died in 1953.

1.   Flag Over The North.

   By L. D. Kitchener, Seattle Publishing Co., 1954, p 160

2.   Child of the Equinox - The Edith Smith Story.

   By Willy Lou Warbelow, Main Street Alaska Pub.Co, 1993. This gives an account of freighting between Bettles and Wiseman.