Today is Walter Harper Day – honoring the mountaineer and guide who was the first person to climb to Denali’s highest summit. Alaskans are celebrating the day with work on a new statue of Harper, and a special episode of the Molly of Denali TV show.
This is the second annual Walter Harper Day – passed into legislation in April, 2020.
Senator Click Bishop who sponsored the bill, said “Walter Harper left an indelible mark on Alaska history when, at the young age of 20, became the first person to stand atop the summit of Denali on June 7, 1913.”
Alaska historian Dr. Mary Ehrlander stumbled on to Harper’s story when researching Hudson Stuck, the English immigrant, cowboy, and Episcopal Archdeacon of the Yukon (River). But it was Harper’s story, she thought, that needed telling.
?“I thought, this is a spectacular story! We will need to know about him. Every school kid should learn about Walter Harper.”
She wrote the book: Walter Harper, Alaska Native Son, published in 2017. Ehrlander was the director of Arctic and Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
In 1913 co-leaders, Hudson Stuck and Harry Karstens put together the team of Robert Tatum, Walter Harper, who was Stuck’s Athabascan assistant and guide, and two 15-year olds John Fredson and Esaias George. It took about three months to get from Fairbanks to the top. Fredson and George maintained the base camp for four weeks, while the expedition team summited Denali. It was Stuck who thought that an Athabascan should be the first to step on to the taller, southern summit.
A group of Alaskans formed the Walter Harper Project at the time of the centennial of the first summitting, in 2013. They have a website, WalterHaper.org, and are taking donations there to help erect the statue. Earlier this spring, Doyon, Limited put $25,000 in the pot. Spokesperson Sarah Obed says that’s because Native history matters.
“We really hope to educate the public about Walter Harper and his accomplishments and his life, we believe his leadership is something to emulate.”
Obed says Doyon has also offered a home for the statue near the Chena River.
“It’s a prominent landmark here in Fairbanks, and homeland of the Athabascan people and it will be a really great place for community members and visitors to learn about this part of our history.”
The committee has selected Gary Lee Price to design the Walter Harper statue, which is scheduled for unveiling a year from now on Walter Harper Day, 2022. Fairbankans may be familiar with Price’s work, as he did the sculpture of children in front of Denali School on Lathrop Street in Fairbanks. Historian Ehlander says one of the models for that sculpture was Mike Harper, Walter’s grand-nephew.
“We loved the movement in that sculpture, and just how lifelike the children were. And we wanted to convey that energy and enthusiasm and love of life and love of nature that Walter had.” ?
Those also inspired a special one-hour episode of the children’s animated series Molly of Denali. Airing today on PBS Kids. That’s at 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. on KUAC-TV.?
Ehrlander says it is not just the summitting of Denali that makes Harper remarkable, but his complement of subsistence skills and character traits.
“Here’s a guy who is universally admirable, whom every Alaskan could feel proud of.”
Harper was only 25 when he and his wife, Frances Wells, when the steamer Princess Sophia ran aground in Lynn Canal on Oct. 25, 1918. The couple were on their way to the Lower 48 so Harper could attend medical school.