Cap Reynolds

Cap Reynolds stands with two of his dogs over a harvested bull caribou.

Courtesy of Frontier Historical Society, Colorado

Quick Facts

Significance:

Subsistence Miner

Date of Birth:

1869

Place of Death:

Sam Creek, Yukon River, Alaska

Date of Death:

1950

The story of Arthur and Sadie Reynolds illustrates the risks and rigors of life on the northern frontier and adds volumes to our understanding of the cultural landscape in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. The couple were married in 1881 and owned a ranch near Glenwood Springs, Colorado where they raised horses and cattle. Both of their children were born on the ranch but soon died of scarlet fever. In 1906, after hearing rumors of gold strikes in Alaska, Arthur and Sadie decided to sell their belongings, rent out their ranch, and move north for a new life along the Yukon River.

By 1907 the Reynolds had reached Alaska and were on their way by steamboat to the tiny outpost of Nation City near the mouth of Fourth of July Creek. For the next ten years, the couple worked a mining claim far up the creek, thawing frozen ground using a boiler and fires, digging ditches to deliver water to the camp, and processing gold-rich gravel with a device called a rocker. They periodically left the daily grind of mining to visit Seattle or to travel northern rivers in a steamboat Arthur Reynolds built around 1914 and learned to captain (this is where he got his nickname "Cap"). Possibly due to ill health, Sadie Reynolds left Alaska in 1921 for California and never returned.

Read all about the life and times of Cap Reynolds subsisting in the wilds of the Yukon River.