THE WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ALASKA––Capt. Keen 1842-1933

 

Captain James Keen
1842-1933
"Father of the Beavers"
Sea captain and fur trader
Pacific Northwest & Alaska.
Low-res scan of a gelatin-silver photo
from the archives of the 
Saltwater People Historical Society©

"In 1842 James W. Keen was born in Devonshire, England. As a boy, he roamed the docks of London along with many other British youths, dreaming of a day when he would be called 'Captain.'
His dreams persisted in the face of family opposition until he sailed before the mast to land halfway around the world.
        Entries of Captain Keen's life of adventure in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest are recorded in the logs of United States revenue cutters which he piloted from 1869 to 1915 when he was retired.

      The part he played in settling a boundary-line dispute between Canada and Alaska has become a matter of historical importance. Lights and buoys marking 80 danger points of the Inside Passage were placed as navigation aids at his suggestion.
      Captain Keen's father was born at sea and love of the spume and salty air was passed on to his son. At the age of 16, after an unhappy experience of shipping out as a runaway and being returned, young James was apprenticed to the Hudson's Bay Co. for five years.
      His first assignment was to sail on the bark-rigged steamer Labouche, through the Straits of Magellan. He arrived in Victoria, B.C. on his 17th birthday 1 April 1859. There he was transferred to a vessel sailing for Alaska to engage in fur trading.
      When his apprenticeship expired, Keen was 21 years old and believed he knew enough of the sea to captain his own ship. He left the HBC and took out his first license in Sitka, AK, (which then belonged to Russia) procured a schooner, and set about the business of trading on his own.
      Ermine he bought for as little as 25 cents a skin. A yard and a half of calico, carelessly measured by the stretch of an arm, was standard trade for one marten skin––valued at $6 in the Vancouver, B.C. market. A yard of heavy blanket material was worth 12 marten skins. Guns brought fabulous prices and as an example, two weapons costing $4 and $5 were traded for 70 marten skins and exchanged in Vancouver for $420.
      While plying back and forth on Alaska journeys Keen was storing up a vast knowledge of the waters and the life and language of the people of the North.
      Five years after beginning his independent business the young captain had an experience that has been told and retold in the Keen circle.
      Sailing north in his schooner, Sweepstakes, he was overtaken by an American vessel and asked to draw alongside. Capt. Chris Dahl, in command of the steamer Active, advised Keen that Secretary of State Seward was aboard and that they were bound for a vantage point on the Chilkat River to view a total eclipse of the sun and to hold a powwow with the Natives.
      Neither of the two pilots on the Active was familiar with the region and their ship had missed the inlet. Keen was asked to go aboard and pilot the ship to its destination and to act as a Native interpreter for Secretary Seward.
      An agreement was made and the Active continued on––with the Sweepstakes in tow.
      The Seward expedition resulted in Keen becoming known among the Natives as 'Father of the Beavers,' a highly complementary title. In previous years the young navigator had read astronomical forecasts and had told the Natives time and again that the Great White Father someday would make medicine powerful enough to hide the sun and make the moon and the stars come out at midday. The immensity of the boast brought derisive laughter from the Natives.
      Immediately after lunch on 7 August, Keen left his party temporarily and joined the Natives. He was well-versed in the art of interpretation and began to put on an act––moaning and groaning after the fashion of the Native medicine men. As the sun began to darken his groans increased and the Natives, terrified by the awesome twilight at midday, huddled with their blankets pulled over their heads.
      When requested to make known the reason for taking away the sun Keen answered that it was proof of the powerful medicine of his country, which had purchased Alaska the previous year. He further explained that Seward had paid $7,000,000 to the Russian government and that $7,000,000 was equal to seven barrels of gold.
      'Whey you no come to me?' asked the old chief. 'I would have sold you the whole thing for two buckets of silver dollars.'
      Even after the incident of the sun's eclipse, the Natives believed Keen simplicity and he further secured his standing.
      His word among white people was equally respected and during a dispute over the boundary of Alaska, Keen's testimony was the deciding factor that obtained the Lynn Canal for the United States.
      The Canadians laid their claim to possession by right of the Hudson's Bay Co. raising the British colors at Pyramid at the mouth of the Chilkat River.
      Keen, however, made an affidavit that although the company had traded at Pyramid, all transactions had been made from the decks of its vessels. In fact, so great was Native hostility to trespassers, Native chiefs customarily were taken aboard and held hostage at such times as it was necessary to the mate and interpreter to go ashore to measure cordwood.
      Keen's background of early-day fur trading and his reputation for uncompromising honesty balanced the scales in favor of the United States.
      The captain's long service as pilot on revenue cutters is unique. Between the years 1869 and 1915, he was attached to every revenue cutter in Washington and Alaska waters. Every safe passage and every point of danger, every pier and cove, Native village and miner's settlement, he knew in such detail as to be dubbed 'The Walking Encyclopedia of Alaska' by Gov. Henry Kinkade.
      In 1874 a scientific expedition to the fur-seal islands in the Bering Sea was undertaken by the RCS and Keen was signed on as pilot of the Reliance. In a period of ten days, 150,000 fur seals were counted on St. George Island.
      In 1933, years after his retirement, the captain told his daughter, that he was tired of sitting around doing nothing and would like to go back to sea. He was 91-years old.
      A letter went out to Adm. Harry G. Hamlet head of the Coast Guard in WA, D.C., and informed him that he would like to return to active duty and take out a ship.
      The admiral's reply came promptly, saying that he did not have a ship he could recommission at the moment but just as soon as he did he would let Capt. Keen know.
      However, the captain passed away tranquilly two months later."

Words above by Charlotte Widrig. Published by The Seattle Times. 1953.

❖ Capt. James W. Keen was famous as the pioneer pilot of Washington and Alaska as the holder of the oldest navigator's license on record and as the man whose word settled a dispute between the US and Great Britain over the Alaska boundary. H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Gordon Newell. Superior Publishing. 1965.