Before Alaska was a Territory it was a District. The first Governor of the District of Alaska was John Kinkead. Liquor was illegally in the District but the Governor had a stock of “stewed tomatoes” which “tasted like Scotch and had the same effect.” Native liquor was known as hooch from the village of Hoochenoo and the liquid was “certain death to a healthy dog at 100 yards.” The imported liquor, er, “stewed tomatoes,” were not much better. There was RED EYE and RED DYNAMITE along with SKULL BENDER, BLOCK AND TACKLE and JOY JUICE. It was said three drinks of JOY JUICE could induce a man to “save his drowning mother-in-law.” BRAVE MAKER could “make a humming bird spit in a rattlesnake’s eye” and FORTY-ROD was described as having the ability to make “a man climb a telegraph pole backwards, run up the side of a house [and] spit in the face of a Kodiak bear.”
THE HUMAN FACE OF THE ALASKA GOLD RUSH