The stampede to
Fairbanks began in the fall of 1902, and reached rather heavy proportions from Dawson and
the lower Yukon river country in February and March 1903.
In the summer of 1903
the camp was regarded as a faze, and received an awful black eye. In that summer
the majority of early stampeders left. No stocks of foodstuffs were ordered.
Supplies were scant and there was no demand for what there was.
Then shortly before
the freeze-up pay was found on Fairbanks Creek. That discovery established the
permanency of the camp.
The steamboats Hamilton
and Cudahy had left St. Michael with cargoes of food and other supplies for
Dawson, Y.T. But when gold was found on Fairbanks Creek, they changed their routing
when they reached the mouth of the Tanana and came up the Tanana and up the Chena, 11
miles downstream from Fairbanks. Cargoes of the craft furnished supplies for the
Thanksgiving that marked Fairbanks as a permanent
community.
There was canned
turkey for those that wanted it, but few, if any, did. There were plenty of wild
geese that fall, and goose was the fowl generally served at Thanksgiving dinners.
That first
Thanksgiving broke clear and warm. It was a most delightful day. There had
been a fine freeze-up that fall, the Chena's ice was as smooth as glass.
The old town of Chena
was an important place then, and the residents were celebrating Thanksgiving in 1903 with
a skating party. Word of the party reached Fairbanks, and many residents of this
city skated all the way down the Chena river to Chena. A sort of potlatch was held
there. Everybody had a grand time.
There have been many
notable Thanksgiving celebrations in Fairbanks in the intervening years between then and
now, but I recall none observed with more thankfulness and morehappiness than the
first--the Thanksgiving of 1903.