Socio-historical construction and representation of space in the Schieffelin expedition

Abstract

America’s continental expansion tells a story of conquest coined by settlers and supported through natural resources that Indigenous peoples used sustainably since time immemorial. Exploratory prospecting ventures and their tools of achievement are at the forefront of bringing about change to these landscapes gazed upon by the rapacious nation. For prospectors like Edward Schieffelin, remote spaces, such as the interior of Alaska, exert a daring pull to strike it rich or find self-discovery in nature. Schieffelin’s expedition employed and introduced new technologies - the sternwheeler and dry plate photography, allowing for the integration of Alaska's interior into the nation's commercial mining endeavors and capturing the public imagination and collective effervescence. The party’s new means of transportation shaped the perception of the space by compressing space-time and enhancing trading opportunities while showcasing Tanana Athabascan's contributions to the local success of the steamship technology. Charles Farciot, the engineer and licensed pilot of the expedition, employed the new tool of photography in the interior - namely dry plate technology, that presented the party’s colonial lens to an audience in the contiguous states. Interpreted as displays of reality, the resulting images influenced settler attitudes and anticipatory geographies in helping to reinforce colonial and capitalist agendas while promoting a romanticized and often misleading view of the Alaskan interior. For Alaska’s historical records, the study uncovered the underappreciated contributions of the Schieffelin expedition in bringing Alaska into the nation's collective consciousness by contextualizing the technological advancements that facilitated the opening of this frontier.