Report of a Military Reconnaissance in Alaska, made in 1883., maps, 1st edition

Report of a military reconnaissance in Alaska, made in 1883 -- Letter from the Secretary of War, transmitting in answer to Senate resolution of April 18, 1884, the official report of Lieutenant Schwatka of his military reconnaissance of 1883 in Alaska. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1885. 1st Edition. 1p.l.,121pp. Octavo. illustrations from photos and drawings, and 20 folding maps at the end of the book. Rebound in three-quarter leather and marbled boards; marbled endpapers; the name Geo B. Fleming in gilt at the bottom of the spine.

Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (29 September 1849 – 2 November 1892) was a United States Army lieutenant with degrees in medicine and law, and was a noted explorer of northern Canada and Alaska. In 1878 he volunteered his pluck for an American Geographical Society search for relics of Sir John Franklin's Northwest Passage expedition, missing since 1845. During this 11-month, 3,251-mile dogsled journey in –60-degree weather, Schwatka hunted muskoxen and—when in Rome…—ate like the Inuit and slept in "peculiarly constructed domes of snow." He located naval artifacts, wreckage from one of Franklin's longboats, and skeletal remains of four bodies scattered about. Active, with a keen mind, Schwatka acquired Native language vocabularies while dabbling in botany and zoology. He built and launched rafts after crossing the Chilkoot Pass for a U.S. Army reconnaissance 13 years before the Klondike strike brought gold-hungry crowds. His party floated the Yukon River source to sea. At 1,300 miles, it was the longest journey by logs at the time, "the most difficult part of which was unknown."