Roster of Yukon/Alaska Sternwheelers

Northern Ships and Shipping

Dateline: April 21, 2025.

Please note that, at present, this is merely an accumulation of data, part of a database of material on all Yukon-Alaska steamboats compiled by by Murray Lundberg. Additions, corrections or comments are always welcome - just drop Murray a note.

• U.S.Reg.#27578

• wooden-hulled screw propeller; 49 feet long, with 12 foot beam and 3 foot hold. Gross 20.21 tons.

• powered by steam boiler.

• drew 15 inches of water (Downs. p.63)

• 1869, built for the Alaska Commercial Company.

• June 1869, arrived at St. Michael on the ACC steamer COMMODORE.

• July 4 1869, left St. Michael under Captain G.S. (Benjamin) Hall on the first commercial steamer trip up the Yukon River (Note that Affleck says the WILDER was operated on the river in 1866 by the Russian-American Telegraph Company). On board was Captain Charles W. Raymond, U.S. Army, sent to survey the lower Yukon. A few hours later she was aground on a sandbar in the delta, and it took a full day to free her (Downs, p.63).

• she was so small "that she had to tow all the goods in barges and she only had accommodation for the crew to handle her. She had no cabin; the stove was in the fire room and four could sit down to the table at a time." Any passengers rode on the barges (Wright, p.133).

• July 7, 1874, left St. Michael for the first commercial steamer trip into British Yukon territory. Arrived at the Trondiuck (Klondike) River on August 20.

• May 19, 1883, smashed by the spring ice while on the beach at Fort Yukon. A replacement, also called the YUKON, was already being built at St.Michael when the old boat was destroyed.