THE ACCIDENTAL EXPLORER

FROM THE ALASKAN ARCTIC TO THE BEARPAW BATTLEFIELD IN MONTANA, CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD WAS A MAN OF ACTION AND ADVENTURE.

- MIKE СОРРОСK

In the spring of 1877, Sitka, Alaska, was one of the most dangerous locations in America. The Russians had taken the town from Tlingit warriors after fierce, bloody fighting. That was in 1804. The Tlingits vowed to take back the port. Massed against the wooden stockade for generations, warriors would try to breach the walls to attempt to kill everyone inside. Neither the Russians, nor later the Americans, had the military might to clear out the large Tlingit village that had grown up around the wall. Sitka residents lived in constant fear that one day Tlingits would enter the city, not to trade but to kill.

Sailing into this environment was Charles Erskine Scott Wood, a young, green Army lieutenant, with the man he was escorting, Chicago millionaire Charles Taylor. A noted mountaineer, Taylor had come to climb the highest mountain in North America, then thought to be Mount Saint Elias along the Alaska coast. For this adventure, he requested an Army escort.

General Oliver O. Howard, commander of the Department of the Columbia, assigned Wood the task. A big man resembling a stuffed bear, Wood had been the darling of Washington society, a favorite among the ladies. He wrote poetry. His father, a career Navy man, pulled strings to get him into West Point, hoping it would make a man of him. When that seemed to fail, the elder Wood quietly arranged for his son’s transfer to the Wild West.