Walter Harper

Walter Harper
Personal information
Harper in 1913.
Main discipline	Mountain climber
Born	1893 Tanana, District of Alaska
Died	October 25, 1918 (1918-10-26) (aged 25) Lynn Canal, Territory of Alaska
Nationality	American
Career
Starting age	20
Notable ascents	Denali (June 7, 1913)

Walter Harper (1893 – October 25, 1918) was an mountain climber and guide of mixed white and Alaska Native ancestry. On Saturday, 7 June 1913, he was the first person to reach the summit of Denali (Mount McKinley), the highest mountain in North America.^[1] He was followed by the other members of the small expedition team, guide Harry Karstens, Episcopal archdeacon Hudson Stuck, who had organized the effort, and Episcopal missionary Robert Tatum.

After gaining more formal education, Harper married in 1918 and planned to attend medical school in Philadelphia. He and his wife took the steamer SS Princess Sophia from Skagway to Seattle for their honeymoon before setting off cross-country. The ship ran aground on a reef in a snowstorm, and was broken up in a gale, sinking on October 25. All 268 passengers and 75 crew were lost.

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What's the point of climbing a mountain? What lessons are you, or others, really supposed to gain from the experience? For four men 100 years ago on June 7, 1913, it may have been about earning distinction as the first to reach the summit of Mount McKinley, the highest peak in North America. Denali is not a highly technical climb, but it can be among the most challenging big peaks on earth because the wind and weather can be so cold and unpredictable. To this day, only about half the people who try make the top. Now imagine making the attempt a hundred years ago in 1913, four years before Congress created Mount McKinley National Park. Prior to 1913, eight previous expeditions failed to reach the summit. They included accomplished climbers, adventurers, and a scoundrel or two. What set the team of 1913 apart was that they were all hardened travelers of vast distances of Alaska wilderness in winter. For these pioneer climbers, there would be no modern, 40-minute flight from Talkeetna to a base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier at 7,200 feet. Their journey to the top and back would not be over within today's average of 17 to 21 days. Instead, the Stuck-Karstens expedition began with 90 miles of overland travel by dog team from Nenana, then up the Muldrow Glacier relaying ever higher more than a ton of supplies. From their base camp, they cut and hauled firewood thousands of feet above tree line. They hunted Dall sheep and caribou to make hundreds of balls of pemmican, a slow cook dinner that would sustain them for much of their 77 days on the mountain. On the whole, their journey amounted to 93 days, from winter, through spring, and into summer. The expedition faced challenges beyond the mountain and fierce conditions. The team leaders quarreled, sometimes stridently. A fire in a supply cache torched silk tents, clothing, critical supplies, precious film and camera equipment. An earthquake the year before destroyed what had been an easier route for earlier expeditions. Instead of a relative stroll at one point, they spent weeks chopping a staircase more than three miles long through shattered ice boulders and debris. And then on the night before the summit, three of the climbers were beset by bad cooking by the fourth. After only a few hours of attempted rest, the men set out at three o'clock in the morning when the temperature was 21 below zero. A bitter north wind that day very nearly blew them off an icy slope. But after ten hours of slow, exhausting work, they achieved their goal. Clearly, the Stuck-Karstens expedition staked a place in achievement lists and history books. But what else can we try to learn from their venture? When it came to homework and legwork the leaders of this climb managed plenty of both. They sought out the experience of others, and studied mistakes to avoid making them their own. They settled upon a best approach, and paid close attention to detail. When much of their supplies went up in smoke, they responded to the setback with ingenuity. Rising above panic and despondence, one group traveled to base camp and back for reserves while another cobbled together what they could from the remains. They sewed together a new tent from canvas. They found a way somehow to make due, and move forward. When they found their route was blocked by the work of an earthquake, they persevered. Despite severe storms and the crushing enormity of what they faced, they hacked footholds for themselves up more than three miles of broken ice. At this point in their journey, there simply was no other way around but through. The composition of this climbing team proved that diversity works. One was an Episcopal Archdeacon, born in England, who had spent time as a teacher and cowboy in Texas. Another was a gold prospector, mail carrier, and legendary outdoorsman who eventually would be appointed the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park. Another was a mission volunteer from Tennessee, and was noted for strong character. And the fourth was a young Alaska Native whose strength and relationship to the landscape proved invaluable time and again to the survival and success of the group. If anything, this group might teach us a little something about respect. On the day of the summit, expedition co-leader Harry Karstens chose to leave Walter Harper out front, a challenging position that Harper had performed admirably for most all of the climb. So now history records that a 21-year-old Alaska Native earned distinction as the first person to set foot at the top of a great mountain. Within two days of the summit, they all made it safely back down to base camp where a loyal assistant had been waiting and tending camp without word for weeks longer than anyone expected. By June 20, their accomplishment was sealed when word was cabled to newspapers in Seattle and Fairbanks. Over the years, the climbers acknowledged that this trip changed their lives. What now are you going to draw from the experience?

Early life and education

The youngest of eight children, Walter Harper was born in 1893 as the son of Arthur Harper, an immigrant from County Antrim, Ireland, and Jennie Seentahna (née Bosco) Harper, of the Koyukon people from the Koyukuk region. They married in 1874 when Harper was 39 and Jennie was 14, at Koyukuk. Harper and his partner Al Mayo founded a trading post in Tanana, near the Athabascan site of Nuklukayet. Harper also did some mining there, after years of experience in California and British Columbia. Mayo married Margaret, a cousin of Jennie.^[2]

The couple separated permanently in 1895, and Arthur Harper left the area. He died of tuberculosis in 1897. Jennie reared Walter as a Koyukon. All the older Harper children had been sent for education to boarding schools "Outside", mostly in San Francisco, California. Harper's partners also adopted this practice for their mixed-race children.^[2]

At the age of 16, Walter Harper started attending Tortella School, an Episcopal boarding school associated with St. Marks Mission in Nenana, Alaska.^[3] There he met Hudson Stuck, Episcopal archdeacon of the Yukon, who served a large area of the Interior as a missionary.^[4] Stuck was impressed by Harper's intelligence, manners, and skills in fishing, tracking, trapping, fire-building, and dog handling.^[5] He hired him to work as his interpreter, guide, and dog driver. He also encouraged him to continue with his formal education.^[2]^[6]^: 6^[7]

Denali expedition

Stuck invited Harper, then 20, to be part of his 1913 expedition to climb Denali. Others in the party were the chief guide and co-director Harry Peter Karstens; Robert Tatum, an Episcopal missionary, who served as cook;^[8] and two Gwich'in teenagers, Johnny Fredson and Esaias George,^[9] who helped prepare and maintain the base camp. This pair also brought the dog teams down when the terrain became too rough for their use.^[8]

On March 17, 1913, the expedition left from Nenana to climb Denali. The first day, they hiked 30 miles (48 km) along the Tanana River valley with two sleds of supplies, pulled by fourteen dogs. The 110-mile (180 km) journey up the river to Eureka took eight days; there, they replenished supplies and celebrated Easter.^[9]

It took them weeks to reach their final camp. Their journey had been much longer than expected. They had made it through the steep, crevasse-filled Muldrow Glacier; and a tent fire. But it took them three weeks to get through the Karstens Ridge, where the trail was blocked by huge rocks and blocks of ice thrown up by an earthquake the year before. They also survived a 50-foot (15 m) icefall. On June 6, they arrived at their final camp, at an elevation of 18,000 feet (5,500 m), the highest camp ever established in North America.^[9]

At 4:00 a.m. the next morning, the climbers left camp for their final summit attempt. At 1:30 p.m., the party reached the top of Denali, an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190 m).^[10] Harper was the first to gain the summit. They spent an hour and a half on the summit, during which Tatum planted a flag he had made earlier from handkerchiefs. He compared the view to "looking out of a window of heaven".^[9] Stuck ensured they also put up a six-foot cross.^[11]

After taking readings from their instruments to establish the height of the mountain, the party began the descent. Compared to the 50-day journey up the mountain, it took them just two days to make it back to base camp. The expedition returned to Tanana on June 20, three months and four days since they left.^[9]

Later life

Encouraged by Stuck, at age 21 Harper entered Mount Hermon School where he studied for two years, leaving in 1916.^[12] He continued his education in Alaska, while continuing to work on the frontier. He planned to attend medical school in Philadelphia. On September 1, 1918, he married Frances Wells in Fort Yukon, with Archdeacon Stuck officiating. For their honeymoon, the couple took the SS Princess Sophia from Skagway to Seattle. From there, they would travel to Philadelphia, where Harper had been admitted to medical school, and his wife planned to join the Red Cross. They embarked on October 23 at Skagway, and the four-year-old Scottish steamer left at 10:00 that night.

A day later, as the ship was passing through Lynn Canal en route to Juneau, it encountered a strong gale and heavy snow. Princess Sophia went 1 mile (1.6 km) off course and ran aground on Vanderbilt Reef, the flat, rocky tip of an underwater mountain. Initially the sea was calm, but another gale began. The ship asked by radio for help, but neither ships nor small boats could get close enough to rescue the people aboard because of the dangerous conditions. After about 40 hours, Princess Sophia broke apart and sank on October 25, killing all 268 passengers and 75 crew, a total of 343 persons lost.^[13]

After the Harpers' bodies were recovered, the couple was buried side by side in Juneau.^[5]^: 70–71^[14]

Legacy

In 1913, Stuck named Harper Glacier after the first man to reach the summit. The 4-mile-long (6.4 km) glacier runs from Denali Pass on Denali to the Great Icefall before becoming Muldrow Glacier.^[15] It was also named for Walter's father Arthur.^[6]^: 121
On June 7, 2012, the 99th anniversary of the first ascent, Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced bill S. 2273, to "designate the Talkeetna Ranger Station in Talkeetna, Alaska, as the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station."^[16]^[17]
In 2020, Alaska Senator Click Bishop introduced and saw passed Alaska SB 144, to have June 7 annually designated Walter Harper Day. ^[18]^[19]^[20]
On July 19, 2022 the Walter Harper Project unveiled a life-sized bronze statue of Walter Harper in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska^[21]