Portus Baxter Weare (January 1, 1842 - February 23, 1909[1]) was born in a log cabin[2] at Otsego, Michigan, then a remote settlement.

[7] The goal of the company was not to mine for gold, but to provide goods and services to the anticipated rush of miners in the same way that Weare traded with fur trappers and grain farmers.

Here Weare contracted with John J. Holland, a well-regarded shipwright, to build a steamer that could travel upstream from the Pacific Ocean to the gold fields in the Yukon.

The Weares, Healy, Holland and a crew of 14 of his shipyard workers,[8] all the materials for the ship, the ways on which to build it, and 300 tons of trade goods and supplies were loaded onto the schooner-rigged steamship Alice Blanchard.

The Alice Blanchard was forced to anchor two miles offshore and to ferry supplies to the beach in the ship's boats and a 40' scow built on site.

Even this task was fraught with difficulty, however, because the competitors at the Alaska Commercial Company tried to hire Holland's men at double their wages.

Its captain, Michael A. Healy, was reported to have threatened the laborers with hanging if they did not get to work, and offered some of Bear's tools and crew to help with the job.

[9][12] Nonetheless, it is a testament to Holland's skill that, despite the complete lack of any facilities and the labor unrest, the Portus B. Weare was launched on September 17, 1892, less than two months after arriving on St. Michael Island.

Portus B. Weare would typically take between two and three weeks to ascend the river from St. Michael to Dawson City, and somewhat less heading downstream.

During her service on the Yukon she would typically make 2-3 round trips per season,[15] but in at least one year made four deliveries to Dawson City.

Steamers on the Yukon, including Portus B. Weare, often towed, pushed, or were lashed to barges to increase the freight they could move.

[17] Captain Benjamin Franklin Horn earned the nickname "Driftwood" by grounding Portus B. Weare on a sand bar while engaged in gathering fuel.

[18] Passengers would often leave the ship to pick berries, hunt ducks, or just stretch their legs on shore while the crew was "wooding up".

After the break-up of the ice in the spring of 1893 made the Yukon navigable again, Healy went on to establish a new trading post, Fort Cudahy, near the mouth of the Fortymile River and stocked it with food and mining supplies carried by Portus B.

The Government of Canada correctly predicted that the new strikes would draw yet more miners to the region and decided to place a post on the river with 20 men.

The ship took eight of the men further upstream to Twelve Mile River where they cut timber which was floated back down to Fort Cudahy.

The Mounties rented the North American Transportation and Trading Company sawmill there, and used the lumber they produced to build Fort Constantine, the first police post in the Yukon.

When Portus B. Weare stopped at the company's trading post at Circle City she was boarded by a committee of the local miners.

Unfortunately, after the miners in Circle City helped themselves to her cargo, the supplies aboard skewed toward mining equipment and whiskey rather than food.

Faced with potential scurvy and starvation in Dawson, the ship was loaded to over capacity with miners and sailed back down the river.

[31] The piracy on Portus B. Weare and other incidents where desperate miners had taken trading posts by force showed that Alaska and the Yukon were essentially lawless.

He is reported to have purchased a Maxim machine gun in 1897 for Portland, the sea-going vessel he chartered for runs between Seattle and St.

[37] No doubt the whiskey would have sold well, but given the ongoing issue of food shortages in the interior, Weare ordered the ship back to St. Michael to change her cargo for more practical provisions.

A bit of good news came in 1902 when gold was discovered in Fairbanks, Alaska, on the Tanana River, a tributary of the Yukon about 900 miles from St. Michael.

[42][43][44][45] One of the two partners who organized Merchants' Yukon Line was the same energetic Charles Hamilton who had walked out from the frozen-in Portus B. Weare in 1892.

Off-loading the deeply laden vessel allowed the two ships to bring the full load up the shallow Tanana to Fairbanks.

[51] The title "captain" is somewhat ambiguous in that it was applied to both the master in charge of the vessel and the pilot, who focused only on the tricky navigation of the river.

1892: Captain John Jerome ("Johnny") Healy, the general manager of the North American Transportation and Trading Company, is credited by some sources as taking the vessel up the Yukon immediately after its construction.

1899: Captain Benjamin Franklin ("Frank") Horn earned the nickname ""Driftwood" by grounding Portus B. Weare while collecting fuel for the boilers.

The North American Transportation and Trading Company published a book on conditions in the gold fields as a marketing tool targeted to potential miners.