Unfortunately, there is no specific information available for Vern McAninch’s service during his |
two years in Alaska, and only the Army post records give any insight into Signal Corps life at |
Fort Gibbon during the 1910-1911-1912 years [Note 32, Appendix A, and Note 33, Appendix B]. |
The local Tanana newspaper did run multiple articles about Army life at Fort Gibbon, almost |
entirely about the activities of 16th Infantry Companies ‘A’ and ‘L’, with little mention of the |
Signal Corps, and with no names of Signal Corps personnel. |
Interior Alaska is a land of extreme weather, with winter lows as cold as -40's Fahrenheit, and |
summer highs up to +90 degrees. The latitude at Tanana is slightly north of Fairbanks, Alaska. |
However, both are still south of the Arctic Circle, so it’s not quite ‘the land of the midnight sun’, |
but there were mere hours of weak sunlight in the winter, with the sun very low on the horizon. |
On the other hand, the Yukon River valley has summer days with 23 hours of bright sunlight, and |
July and August can have great weather in the area. |
The Army built Fort Gibbon at Tanana in 1900, at the confluence of the Tanana River tributary |
with the main Yukon River [Note 21.d. (topo maps)]. Two years later, and another 160 miles up |
the Tanana River and its Chena River tributary, gold was discovered in 1902, and Fairbanks was |
incorporated in 1903. Later, in 1908, the Signal Corps built a radio telegraph tower in Fairbanks. |
It is possible that Vern McAninch could have visited Fairbanks, 160 miles away, by riverboat or |
stagecoach in the summer, or by dogsled in the winter, but we have no records of any such trip(s) |
[however, not by train; the narrow-gauge Tanana Valley Mines Railroad connected Fairbanks to |
the gold mines in the Tanana River valley, but did not run all the way to Tanana] [Note 37. c., d.]. |
During his second winter in Alaska, in January 1912, Vern started to experience his ‘final illness’ |
that would sadly lead to his death later that same year. |
Vern later reported that the ‘first symptoms’ of his disease came in January, 1912 [Note 15. e.]; |
it is possible that Vern is the ‘1 Sick’ enlisted man shown on the Signal Corps Company ‘K’ reports |
for the three months, January, March, and April, 1912 [Note 32, App. A, A.12]. Of course, it was |
deep in the middle of the Alaskan winter; the Yukon River had frozen over long ago, and there was |
no way out of Fort Gibbon before break-up in the late spring (late May, 1912). On June 12th, 1912, |
the Army Post Records show the change in personnel at Fort Gibbon, when Capt. Wm. N. Michel |
arrived to take command of the Signal Corps company. On June 12th, 1912, eight officers, including |
Capt. Knowles, left the post, and another group of personnel [no list] were being transferred to |
The Presidio, San Francisco, via Fort St. Michael, Alaska [Note 32, App. A, A.13, A.14, A.15]. |
Although there is no list in the Army Post Records, we know that Vern was transferred to |
The Presidio, San Francisco, and probably would have been in this group leaving on June 12th. |
Vern’s total travel time would have been 5-7 days down the Yukon River (with the current) to |
Fort St. Michael, and then another three weeks on the south-bound ocean voyage, over 3000 miles |
to San Francisco, California (the ship’s name, sailing dates, and exact route are not known). |
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McAninch Family History NL v.XX n.3 / July 2012 / Frank McAninch, Editor / page 2012-24 |