It’s 1898 in central Alaska. News of yet another gold strike has brought many thinking they too can seek fortune and adventure in the expansive territory. A party of determined prospectors has been excavating in and around a local creek, deep in the wilds of a wooded region just south of the Yukon River. Day in and day out they exhaustively dig and pan for gold. The nearby makeshift encampment is made up of crudely built cabins that are more akin to rickety shacks than anything else. They offer shelter and place to get out of the fluctuating elements the land whips out. There is an abundance of natural resources for the miners to survive. Timber offers fuel for heat and cooking, along with construction. The fast-flowing creek supplies fresh water, and the forest
and nearby mountains are rich in game. Namely, ptarmigan. The bird, a common food staple, is a northern grouse of mountainous and arctic regions, with feathered legs and feet, and plumage that changes to white in the winter. The birds are abundant and are found in the willows and higher up in elevation, and are easily hunted with shotguns. The fowl are key to their survival in many ways. Unbeknownst to the gold-diggers, they have been shooting two kinds of birds, the willow and rock ptarmigan. Through tenacity and grit, gold is found along the stream. Not a lot, but enough to keep the men’s insatiable desire to strike it rich alive so that they keep tilling the ground. By 1908, the grand total of gold discovered in the area is thought to be $3,300. To stake their claim, the dredgers must file a notice of location by giving the creek a name.
The men immediately agree that the waterway should be named after the grouse, as the gamebirds were instrumental in keeping them fed and strong. However, none of the miners could spell ‘ptarmigan,’ so they settled on a bird they were familiar with; the quail. It’s a good bet that these men were from lower 45 states, most likely the Midwest or South. Thus, the 1486ft tributary was named Quail Creek for its brevity.
In 1904 the U.S Geological Survey (USGS) reported, “It is said that it was desired to call the stream 'Ptarmigan Creek', but as no one in the party could spell ptarmigan, it was named ‘Quail’, as the spelling was easier.”
A similar incident occurred twelve years earlier in 1886, 443 miles southeast of Quail Creek. A mining camp on the verge of perishing from winter starvation, sent out a hunting party to find food. The copious amounts of dimwitted ptarmigan in the area fell to the blasts of hungry villagers. In 1906 to be recognized as a town, the settlers unanimously agreed on the name Ptarmigan, but alas, nobody could spell it. Not wanting to look like buffoons, they agreed on Chicken, Alaska. Note that the literacy rate for the U.S. in the 1890s was thirteen percent.
So, who the hell is to blame for making it so difficult for commonfolk to spell ptarmigan? The first known use of tarmigan or tàrmachan was in 1599, however in 1684, Scottish naturalist Sir Robert Sibbald, added the silent “p” to the Gaelic derived word, which means “grumbler” or “croaker”, based on the sound of the willow ptarmigan’s grouchy voice. This falsely suggested a Greek origin, meaning “wing” or “feather".
Want more proof? William Bartholf, arrived in Knik, Alaska in 1906, hell-bent on prospecting for gold. In 1907, he struck a lode. In 1910, it happened again when Bartholf’s sons were hunting, that’s right, ptarmigan. Several were killed. After landing clean shots, one of the birds fell near a hole by a den next to a large chunk of quartz. One of the sons picked the precious mineral up and shouted, “I found gold, and it is rich!” The family honored their lucky hunting expedition by calling it the Lucky Shot Mine. Rumor has it they couldn’t spell ptarmigan.