Outlaw Tales of Alaska by John W. Heaton

Author:John W. Heaton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781493017607
Publisher: TwoDot

Thomas Johnson:The Blueberry Kid

Thomas Johnson, the Blueberry Kid, may have loved to eat wild blueberries when he worked as a steam hoist operator on a Cleary Creek mine near Fairbanks, but he was no kid. His fellow workers at the mine described him as a man in his mid-forties in 1912. That was the year that he allegedly murdered John Holm-berg, Marie Schmidt, and Frank Adams. The “Kid,” it seemed, was in fact a serial killer in the Territory of Alaska.

In the late summer of 1912, Johnson owned and operated a steam launch called the Seal Pup on the upper Koyukuk River, a major tributary of the Yukon River that drew its waters largely from the Brooks Range in Northwest Alaska. It was rugged country as far as Alaskan prospectors were concerned. Small camps with names such as Coldfoot dotted the river and underscored the challenges posed by the climate to those who sought mineral wealth from the region’s surface and subsurface.

Athabascan peoples knew the area as a tough place to make a subsistence living. Fish provided their main source of sustenance, since large game like moose and other fur-bearing animals remained relatively scarce in this district. By the early twentieth century, the central economic activity came from mining, followed by jobs in the service fields, created by the mining industry.

While most non-Natives who ventured into the Koyukuk country scratched out a subsistence living, a few managed to earn small fortunes. John Holmberg, for example, came north in 1897 during the Klondike rush. He spent more than a decade prospecting throughout the Yukon Territory and into Alaska, where his luck changed in 1909 near the mining community of Wiseman on the Koyukuk.

He staked a claim on the Hammond River and spent the winter by himself, digging a shaft through the permafrost to bedrock, about 150 feet. By the spring of 1910, he struck pay dirt and began to extract significant amounts of gold. Two years later, Holmberg had made good money, and was ready to leave the cold winter conditions on the Koyukuk for the easy living in the States. He leased out his claim for $50,000 and booked passage down the Koyukuk on the Kid’s launch.

Accompanying Holmberg on this trip was his fiancée, a woman called Marie Schmidt, or “Dutch Marie.” Holmberg and Dutch Marie went back many years to his days as a prospector in the Klondike near Dawson City. A working girl at the time, Dutch Marie had busily compiled her own little fortune before Holmberg hit it big. The two spent many a carefree hour together and fell in love over time. Dutch Marie continued to work her trade, but she did follow Holmberg to Alaska. When he hit the big gold seam, he talked her into retiring and going south with him to Seattle.

One other traveler had booked passage on the Seal Pup that September. Frank Adams had spent many years in the Far North, mainly as a laborer, but occasionally as a prospector. He did not enjoy much success in any venture, unlike his two traveling partners.

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