We have excavated quite a few privies in Skagway, and they are remarkably
similar.  Privies were used beginning when Klondike stampeders founded the
town in 1897, and some were used until the 1930's, although there seems to
have been a general shift to larger septic systems in the 1920s.  From
1897-1916 there were also a few indoor "earth" closets.  During the period
18987-1905, there were several thousand people living in town at one time,
certainly more in the earlier years.  But by 1910 the population had dropped
to about 800, and 500 by 1920 where it remained relatively stable until WW2.
We have found lime used rarely, and when it was, it seems to have been used
at specific times during the use of the privy to cut down on odor etc.
Generally, new privy holes may have been dug about once every 5 years.
Almost without exception, the indicator of a privy is a fill in its upper
strata consisting of burnt rock, coal and charcoal, presumably from cleaning
out the heating/cooking stoves of the residences.  "Night soil" in these
upper strata does not occur.  Some privies are wood-lined, some are not.  We
have no clear evidence that the privies were regularly cleaned out, but I
suspect that it did sometimes occur.  They probably just dumped the waste
into the ocean, like everything else, but on the other hand.... Skagway was
known as the "Garden City" of Alaska until WW2.  Four of these privies are
reported in Archeological Investigations in Skagway, Volume 6: Residential
Life on Block 39 (Cooper 1998)(no more copies available, sorry, however,
many were sent to libraries), and another was reported in Father Turnell's
Trash Pit (Spude et al. 1993) (also no more copies available, but again are
in libraries).  All had macrofloral analyses and also some had pollen work.


Doreen Cooper
Skagway, Alaska