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EPISODE 245 NORM SENDS PICTURES OF SKAGWAY … AND RESPONSES TO MY PRUNING (WHICH I CANCELLED)

EPISODE 245    YUKON DIARY    NORM SENDS SOME PICS OF SKAGWAY … AND  RESPONSES TO MY PRUNING 

alan skeoch
Feb. 5, 2021

First, my former boss in the mining business, Dr. Norman Paterson, also  visited Skagway with his wife.   He got to take
a peek inside a Skagway brothel that might interest readers.   You might notice the calculating  machine …
Skagway citizens made light of the prostitution in the Yukon.  My earlier Episode was closer to the truth.
It was an  unhappy business.   THANKS  for the pics Norm.  Dr. Paterson will be the subject of a future
episode…


> Sally and I did that trip the reverse way (Skagway to Whitehorse). Your photos are better than mine but here are two or so anyway. The tent brothel was in Skagway, along with a lot of other old timetheatrics. The sign on the side of the hill marks the original foot- and horse path.
> Norm 



Norm also  got this  great picture of a plus  slope (boreen rock slope) which is very unstable for horses  or human beings.  




Alaska Best (29).JPG

Alaska Best (21).JPG
February 3,  2021

NOTICE OF PRUNING…NOW WITHDRAWN


Hi

1)  Some people may not want these Episodes…now at 243…they  clutter up email, are offensive perhaps, etc. etc

2) So I will remove  all who have not responded in one way or the other.  You do not need  to do anything unless 
you want back  on the list.  Episode  243 will be  your last email story.  If you get Episode 244, you are still on the list.

3) Sorry for cluttering.

4) If I make an error and you want back on the BCC list, let me know by email

5) The Episodes started last March 2020 as a way for some of my friends to
get a daily relief from the isolation caused by Covid  19.  I never expected
to spend a whole year writing and  illustrating stories. I enjoy doing the stories.

alan

SOME OF YOUR RESPONSES…MADE ME FEEL GOOD…THANK  YOU.
I HAVE CANCELLED THE PRUNING.  HERE ARE A  FEW OF  THE REMARKS
I RECIEVED.   NICE.  

Alan


In 1980 my mom took our 2 eldest kids (Robert 14, Elizabeth 12) on an Alaskan cruise
One of the stops was Skagway. They talk about it to this day.

Al,
I NEED to be kept on the list.
Love every story and eagerly await my daily “fix”.
I had my first vaccine yesterday and Lesley is having hers today.
Trust you are both well.
Loved the photos of you both in the snow.
Also, laughed when reading how you stole the bus!
Keep safe,
Champs

Please keep me on the list. Although I don’t comment have enjoyed your emails.
Norma

Alan,


Nooooooooooooooooooo! 
Keep me in the loop!

Dan
~
I enjoy the stories especially the history.   The Yukon is not an area I knew much more about than Robert  Service’s poems .   Have been on the White Pass Railroad as it was an excursion from Skagway 3 years ago when we took an Alaskan cruise 

I am thoroughly enjoying your missives. I spent some time in Whitehorse in the mid eighties and followed the travails of those gold rush dreamers. You stories continue to enlighten and amuse from a life well led and well recorded. If you are comfortable continuing I am comfortable lurking and receiving.  Marilyn

Hope you are well. 

Keep me on the list! 

Please do not remove us from your list. Your stories have helped so much to keep us entertained through 2020. Just hope you are not doing yourself in, trying to keep up one per day!
David and Mary 🤗

Please keep going ….I get behind sometimes. I pass this on to Jim and he reads too.   Kate

For gosh sakes, don’t drop us from your valued list.

We are not Republicans. 

CBS

By all means — please keep me on your list! The stories are great!

By the way, I’m curious as to how many faithful readers you have out there.

Ron Nowell (PCI 67)
Calgary

Found a puppy for the girls by the way. We bring her home on Saturday! I’ll keep you posted with pictures! 

Skagway and up the rail. Unfortunately that was as close I ever got exploring the Yukon. I slept in one of those white things down the street.
Ed

Hi Alan, 

I am a friend of Bob Cwirenko and Mary Lee.  We live in the same condo building and share many get togethers (used to share, damn COVID) including drinks, bbqs and social events. I have enjoyed your memories and find them interesting and engaging. Especially enjoyed Episode 53 and harvesting the kelp on the island! 



Oh my Alan!!!!!

Please do not delete me from your email list. Admittedly, I did not read all, but was certainly entertained by many, and have forwarded some to family/friends whom I know would be entertained by your antics. 

In fact…..as a result of your escapade on the Don River, I understand that I will be taking part in that event this spring with my daughter Lindsay and her partner. 

In addition, I forward each and every episode to Jane Borland, (a RWTO friend) who lets me know if I fall behind in sending your daily email on to her. 

So please Al…..keep em coming.   Peggy

Keep me on the list, Alan.    I am waiting breathlessly for Ep 244.

Bob Cwirenko


How do we get you on a DARE I SAY GOVERNOR’S GENERAL’s LIST for recognition as a 20th century pioneer? Definitely your stories deserve a book which my own grandchildren let alone the hundreds from H.C.I. will get for  their  Christmas. You and Pierre Burton are neck and neck. Don’t prune nothing nohow. You wrote from the heart and the circumstances of the time.
I don’t know how you bloody well survived from the tales you told.  Marjorie obviously is the luckiest wife I know.
Choiketi – hoik.
Thom
 
Beautiful mountains in the background.

Funny isn’t it when the tourists come in off the big ships.

When I went to visit the Galapagos we stayed on the islands. During the day the tourist ships would disgorge hundreds of tourists, then they would be gone before dinner. Meanwhile, we got to eat in peace and quiet in outdoor restaurants on our own without the crowds and watch the sunset, and stroll on the beaches with the sea lions. 

We also saw areas in the off times from the ships and often had the place much to ourselves. It seems most people visit the Galapagos by ship and very few actually stay on the islands. 

Jeannette 



Please keep me on your list.  I look forward to reading your stories.  

They are a bright spot in this pandemic.  
Isn’t it hard to believe that a year ago we were running around like crazy getting ready for our Leap Day fundraising dinner at the brewery?!!! That was our last social event.  We flew to Florida the following week and then the fun began as Canadians were urged home, the borders closed and flights started to be cancelled.  

Patricia

Keep me on the list,  and thanks for the $5.00.
Are we really in our eighties?
Eric

Hi Alan,

Enjoying all your writing. Keep up the good work.   


Your history lessons/teaching continues. I’m sure many of your readers would have no idea of what living, working, surviving in the Northern bush country requires of a person.

Say Hi to Marjorie.

Ted

Hi Alan,

I enjoy the stories and adventures !!

Rooter

Keep me on it Alan-amazing to read!!!!

Stay well and say hi to Marjorie.
Greg


Please keep me ON the list. Love your stories Alan.

Jayme

> Sally and I did that trip the reverse way (Skagway to Whitehorse). Your photos are better than mine but here are two or so anyway. The tent brothel was in Skagway, along with a lot of other old timetheatrics. The sign on the side of the hill marks the original foot- and horse path.
> Norm 
>

Etc. etc.   Lots more responses so I will keep going.

Alan
Posted on

EPISODE 244 YUKON DIARY ESCAPE TO JUNEAU ALASKA


NOTE:  The next Episode (245) really surprised me and  I would  like to share it with you.
I felt my stories were cluttering up some of your emails so decided to prune my BCC list.
Take off the people who never responded  in any way…felt I was  bothering them. What
a response!  Dozens sent notes  of  alarm.    Did not want to be cut off as they were
reading my stories as  a  kind of isolation therapy.  Surprised me as most of them
would never have been pruned anyway.  Touching.  Needs a special Episode.
I will send their messages only using first names of course.  End result makes
me feel like a prince.   So I will continue a story every day.  Takes a lot of time
but knowing most of  you read  the stories is a big  push factor.

alan



EPISODE  244    YUKON DIARY   ESCAPE TO JUNEAU , ALASKA


alan skeoch
Feb.2921

THURSDAY SEPT. 13,1962

Woke up in Skagway.   Last night I figured  how  to get out of town.  That issue troubled
me  for I was travelling by the seat of my pants.  Chasing rainbows.  How would I get
to Juneau, the  landlocked capital city of Alaska.  There are two alternatives.  Either I
book a small float plane or I try to find a water taxi.  Not really a choice.  Water taxi
would be cheapest.  So I booked passage on the Blue Star Taxi … room on the launch
for five or six passengers.  And the captain provided donuts  and coffee.
His water taxi would  get me to Haines…across the fjord.


I think that is  my ferry to Junceau…the S.S. Chilkoot in the distance.  The wrecks in the foreground got most of my attention.

My water taxi in the distance.  The Spot is being rebuilt obviously…charming little fishing boat.


jpg Alaska State Ferry Chilkoot cruising by Columbia Glacier
The S.S. Chilkoot…Alaskan state ferry from Haines to Juneau in 1962…small
enough to get close to the glaciers.

We powered our way across to Haines, an old military base that was once important when
fear of a Japanese invasion was  real.  After Pearl  Harbour The Japanese were sending  incendiary balloons
across the Pacific Ocean to set the west coast of  North America ablaze. A few actually arrived.
The Japanese also made a feint attack  up the Aleutian Chain of Islands.  Haines became  important.
As did Skagway for moving equipment to build the Alaska Highway.
Haines was a Nice clean  looking place.  

I was Enjoying my trip.  Historic events  had happened  here.
The mountains towered over us.  At Haines I was able  to board the S.S. ChilKoot, a
larger ferry bound for Juneau.  Six hour trip sitting on deck or in a small compartment .  Very few
passengers…maybe 5 or 6.   Several porpoises wanted to play tag with our ferry…bobbing
and  diving….sneaking side to side.

Had time to finish reading To Kill a Mocking Bird.  The book deserved all the praise 
it was getting.  When we reached  Juneau we were greeted by  a ferocious rainstorm.
A Tlinget (First Nations) family and I stood on the pier … confused as to our next 
step.  The city of Juneau  was high above us.   Night time.  Then one of the ferry crewmen offered
us a lift up into town.

Signed in to the Northlander Hotel at 11 p.m. Dead tired from doing nothing.  Travel
is tiring.  Still went out and  walked around the rainy streets.  Juneau is a weird place….a
city built where no city should be built….in what seems a long deep ravine running from
the Pacific Ocean to the Coastal  mountains.  If  shaken by an earthquake it seemed to
me that the whole city would slide into the sea. Stopped at a drug store for a hot dog
and root beer.  Cost surprising $1.70.  Crawled to bed.

NOTE:
I could see Douglas  Island across the channel from Juneau but I realized I  would
never get there.  Time was running out.  The great gold mine was gone anyway.,  
Well not exactly gone.  The mine had 45 miles of passageways criss crossing
beneath Douglas Island and out under the ocean.  Forty five miles!   Now a water
filled grave for the horses left below when that unusual high tide pushed up the
Channel.  Water is heavy.  A sudden influx of an extra few hundred thousand
gallons was  enough to break into a weakened fault in a  subterranean passage
triggering a race with death stalking the 300 miners scrambling to get up the shaft.
No room or time for the horses.

My Yukon boss, Dr. Norman Paterson, even sent pictures he once took in
Skagway.  His shot of the interior of a brothel is  particularly interesting as
you will see.  

All that remains of the  Treadwell  Gold Mine on Douglas Island, Alaska
The rest of the mine is still here…under the ocean filled with water.
THIS was the  Treadwell kitchen  for single men.  Lots of food made
in pots as big as  garbage pails.

NEXT STORY


I did not sleep well.
Posted on

WOW…I WILL NOT PRUNE THE LIST…WHAT A RESPONSE

I WAS STARTLED BY THE ANSWERS…I WILL ONLY DROP PEOPLE WHO WANT ME TO DROP THEM. WHAT A FLATTERING RESPONSE FROM SO MANY PEOPLE WHO LOVE THE STORIES. WHAT A GREAT FEELING…I WISH I HAD NEVER PRUNED…MOST PEOPLE WHO SENT NOTES WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PRUNED…THEY ARE ALL ..WHUPS!… I MEAN YOU ARE ALL PART OF OUR LIFE JOURNEY.
LOTS OF STORIES COMING
ALAN

Posted on

I am pruning my BCC list….let me know if I make a mistake. Alan

February 3, 2021
Hi
1) Some people may not want these Episodes…now at 243…they clutter up email, are offensive perhaps, etc. etc
2) So I will remove all who have not responded in one way or the other. You do not need to do anything unless you want back on the list. Episode 243 will be your last email story. If you get Episode 244, you are still on the list.
3) Sorry for cluttering.
4) If I make an error and you want back on the BCC list, let me know by email
5) The Episodes started last March 2020 as a way for some of my friends to get a daily relief from the isolation caused by Covid 19. I never expected to spend a whole year writing and illustrating stories. I enjoy doing the stories.
alan

Posted on

EPISODE 243 YUKON DIARY SKAGWAY IN 1962…suddenly a crowd


EPISODE 243    YUKON DIARY   SKAGWAY IN 1962

alan skeoch
Feb.  2021


White  Pass Railway today…with at least a dozen passenger coaches to handle the  one million tourists.  On my trip in 1962 there were only a few coaches…an empty train.


Skagway Today…before a tourist ship arrives.
Skagway…back then.

Wednesday Sept. 12, 1962

The White Pass Railway threaded the Dead Horse Pass needle slowly…carefully.  To make an
error … a full speed ahead kind of error….invited a swift and  catastrophic end to my Yukon  Diary.
So we Twisted our way down to Skagway.  (Excuse the double metaphors…i.e.threading a needle
and ‘ Twist Again Like  we Did Last  Summer’)   Travelling the Klondike trail in reverse.  Alone.  No baggage
except my brief case and  extra socks.

I find it hard to believe that just yesterday  I was tagging  mining claims in a God awful
swamp with patches of  Yukon  stunted  Spruce.  Carrying a 30-30 rifle and a Blazing axe.
My feet breaking through an inch of ice with each step.  Feet awash in ice water that my
body  temperature heated into a thin kind of hot soup as  my feet boiled.

And today I am sitting alone on a near empty passenger coach built in 1900 in the
expectation that the Yukon was  about to open up to settlement.  That never happened
so the White Pass Railway eked  out an existence with gawking tourists of which there
did not seem to be many and heavy shipments of silver ore destined  for an American
refinery.  

The rails screamed in protest with each turn.  Only 107 miles of track between Whitehorse
and Skagway.  But what a difference.  Whitehorse was Canadian territory where I met 
Waler Malecky by chance.  Small town atmosphere really.

Now Skagway was  something else.  First off, it was American territory.  Strange in a way.
I had  no  passport yet at no time was asked to show my identity.  I guess the powers that
be figured anyone coming or going from Skagway was no danger to either Canada  or
the United States.

The only austere part of the trip other than the yawning chasms was the lone Skeleton of
a Presbyterian church somewhere along the way.  A church where once there must have
been congregants.  Now as  solitary as the moon. A bit chilling.

The trip took longer than I expected.  Only 107 mlles….s couple of hours at most I thought. 
I should  have known  better for I  had been reading Pierre Berton’s Klondike which
made both passes…the Chilkoot and the Dead Horse Pass…terrifying, dangerous, deadly.

That was my state of mind as the train flattened out for a piece on its final  approach
to Skagway.   I was a miner.  A mining claim tagger.  A veteran of the Yukon.  Leaving tough,
hard drinking, foul mouthed, humorous and tragic Yukon veterans behind.  Yesterday 
my boots crashed through that ice foretelling the coming of a Yukon winter.

I often read  and re-read  Robert Service’s ‘Spell of the Yukon’.  Almost memorized.  I thought
of the men who sat around our campsites quoting Robert Service by heart.  Especially when
their tongues were loosened  by Double overproof rum. 

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
   I hurled my youth into a grave. 

Day dreaming my way down from the Coastal Mountains
to one of the strangest places on earth…Skagway.
Where  100,000 men and a few women rolled the dice
of life’s journey in a hopeless chance to grab the golden
ring of their trip on life’s merry go round.

It is  important that readers understand my state of mind.
I was trying to replicate things that happened here in 
Skagway sixty years ago…back just before mom and
dad were born.  Ancient times.

Skagway.  Finally I was there.  The intricate  plan of my
escape from the Yukon was really happening.  Skagway
“a tiny decrepit ghost town given life by a few  souvenir shops”
My verbatim Yukon Diary entry.   

I bought mom a  souvenir plate…$5.50 plus .65 tax or exchange .
What?   Everything is  going to cost 10% more than I  counted  upon.
Will I be able to manage?   Booked into the Skagway  Inn at $4.00
for the night.

Outside the single main street was suddenly full of  people.  Not men in
torn work pants taking a  leak in a ditch.  Not the kind of men I knew.
Men in sport clothes with women on  their arms.  Older people…lots
of them rubber necking their way from souvenir shop to railway cars.
Cameras  clicking.  People posing beneath a Soapy Smith shop sign.
Why would anyone want a picture of that son  of a bitch.  His name
was  obvious on Skagway storefronts.   Did no one know that Soapy
Smith was a murderiing thief who extorted money and goods from 
those poor deluded gold  seekers.  Did no one take joy in the fact
he was shot dead by a justifiably  angry fellow?   The people of Skagway
back in the gold rush days were little better than Soapy for they grew
wealthy  selling goods at inflated prices…buying half-dead  horses
from steamships knowing that those horses would  soon be overloaded
and plodding up Dead Horse Pass  .
There was no hay up there.  Those horses were starving.  Skagway
was  not a town to admire in those times.

I expected an empty town.  Now  it was suddenly full of people.  Where did
they come from.  More  people than buildings.  Skagway was a tiny
sliver of a place.  A bit of flatened gravel backed immediately by the
soaring Coastal  Mountains.   Where did all these people come from?  Where will all these people
sleep?

The answer came as  I reached the waterfront where a couple of large
sparkling clean  passenger ships were anchored.   The Lynne Canal is
a long and deep stretch of water snaking inland to Skagway.  Perfect
for shipping.  

Note:  There are 800 or so permanent residents  of Skagway today (2021)
but the town is capable of handling 10,000 people  daily.  Skagway
is the target town for those huge  passenger ships ferrying thousands
of tourist up and down the coastal northern waters of  Canada
and the United States.  Huge ships.  In 1962 the ships were not as large
and the volume of tourists was considerably less.  But Skagway was
a kind of Mecca nonetheless.

“Suddenly there were crowds of people”…the reason is  obvious in this picture.  One million
people visit Skagway today.  They sleep in that white thing at the end of the Skagway street.



So I joined the crowd.  Soon got over the shock.  Later in the evening
I  even went to the DAYS OF ’98 show put on by Skagway  local citizens,
a rather delightful  amateur production.  Sincere…repeated each night
for the tourists ships that come and go on schedule.

Gambling was another piece of  the Skagway mystique.  I lost a couple
of dollars.  But had  fun.  Easy  to get to know the tourists.  They wanted
to meet locals.  Wanted to meet descendants of the gold rush  throng. 
I fitted that image better than most.  I had walked those bleak Yukon Hills
in search of silver.  I had nursed  those Double  OP’s with men like 
Aaro Aho, Moses Lord,  Waler Malecky, Bob  Gilroy, Bill Dunn,Bill Scott…Alex,  Andy,
Dinky…so  many characters.

And I had a  full red beard  as  was expected  of a person ‘who moiled for  gold’
I had  even done some successful gold panning as proved by he specs of gold
on swatches  of  black electrical tape mailed to Marjorie.  The only image that
did not fit was the smell.  I had bathed twice…once in Whitehorse and once in
Skagway.  I smelled  like  a tourist awash in Aqua Velva after shave  lotion.
There were a couple of poorly disguised patches on my pants which may have
 clues that I was  one of the  Yukoners…a  Miner.


I talked with a lot of people.  Asked  around.  Like “how do I get out
of Skagway?  There are no roads south to Juneau where I have booked
a flight.  One group of young ladies  offered to hide me on their big passenger 
ship destined  for Seattle.  They said no one would  notice.  The offer was  made
in jest I think.  Not sure Marjorie would be too enthusiastic had I taken the offer
seriously.

But I was  very serious.  How in hell was I to get out of Skagway.  The only road was
north to the the Alaska Highway and on to Anchorage…miles and miles the wrong
direction.  I got a bit alarmed  when I hit the sack.   Needlessly so.  The answer
was simple but a little more expensive than I had anticipated.


Expenses (not eligible for expense account)
Train   $19.00
Hotel   $4.00
Ceramic Plate  $6.15   (*Goddamn Tax of  .65)
Show, Days of ’98   $1.00
Food   $1.65
Stamps and  cards   .53
Gambling  $1.50  

This trip was costing more than I had planned

“They’re making my money diminish
I’m sick of the taste of champagne
But I’ll battle on to he finish
And head back  to the Yukon again.”

*Funny…I remember this Robert Service  fragment
so well that I can almost quote it verbatim now in 2021.
Perhaps  one of my readers would  like to check my
accuracy. I  do not have time for that right now.
I must ‘battle on to the finish’ even though I will
never get the chance “to go back to the Yukon again.”

alan skeoch
Fev. 2021

POST SCRIPT:   Some Critics of Robert Service…pompously …accuse
him of doggerel poetry.  I think those who love poetry were a little more broad minded
than that.   Read this aloud…enjoy it.  Forget about metaphors and  convoluted  meanings.

The Spell of the Yukon

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
   I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
   I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it— 
   Came out with a fortune last fall,— 
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
   And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
   It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
   To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
   Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
   For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);
   You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
   And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
   It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it’s been since the beginning;
   It seems it will be to the end.

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
   That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
   In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
   And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
   With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever;
   The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
   The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
   The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
   O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
   The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
   The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
   The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
   I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
   And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
   And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
   There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
   And I want to go back—and I will.

They’re making my money diminish;
   I’m sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish
   I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight;
   It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before;
And it’s better than this by a damsite—
   So me for the Yukon once more.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
   It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
   So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
   It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
   It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Robert Service
This  shows how small Skagway appears when dwarfed by both luxury ships and the Coastal Mountains.

END … NEXT EPISODE WILL BE       
                      YUKON DIARY   THURSDAY SEPT. 13, 2016


skagway.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Skagway-1898-may-300×208.jpg 300w” sizes=”(max-width: 766px) 100vw, 766px” class=”wp-image-5357″ apple-inline=”yes” id=”46A6F100-044F-4E70-AC83-C45D42638E7F” src=”http://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Skagway-1898-may.jpg”>

Posted on

EPISODE 242 YUKON DIARY THE WHITE PASS AND YUKON RAILWAY

EPISODE 242   YUKON DIARY    RIDING THE WHITE PASS  AND  YUKON RAILWAY


alan skeoch
FeB 2021


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Wednesday  Sept. 12, 1962

Dark and dreary day.  Tough day for my ride on the White Pass Railway from Whitehorse
to Skagway.   The downhill run.   Narrow Gauge railway…3 feet between rails…cheaper
to build than a standard railway.  The  builders had enough trouble trying to find a route
over the Coastal  Mountains.   International…toughest part from White Pass to Skagway.
…only 107 miles long.   Completed in 1900.

The White  Pass and  Yukon Railway was just about  worn out by 1939…old  engines
and old coaches.   Relied on freight from Yukon  mines…such as Keno Hill, Galena Hill
and others that shipped their concentrate  down to Skagway and then by steamships to
refineries in the United States.   The Great Depression led to the closing of many mines.

Then  came the 1960’s…boom times for everyone.

Opened August 1,  1900
Closed   October 2, 1982
Re opened  May 24, 1988

NOTE:   IN 1963, the year after  I left the Yukon,  70 tons of stollen 
silver ore was surreptitiously shipped from  the Yukon.  The story
will be coming shortly.  An unbelievable adventure.  This stollen silver
or was being moved  to hiding spots near Elsa …The  thief,  Mr. Preist
was arrested by a  fluke action taken by a White Pass trucker who wanted
a cup of coffee in Elsa before driving to Whitehorse.  Priest was arrested
and  testified that “the 70 tons of  silver were his because the 70 tons “fell
from the Moon”     I had no idea this was happening while  we were
doing our survey.  The story is riveting.

Map White Pass and Yukon Route en.png
Commercial operations
Original gauge 3 ft (914 mm)
Preserved operations
Reporting mark WP&YR
Length 107 miles (172 km) (Skagway to Whitehorse); 67.5 miles (108.6 km) (Skagway to Carcross)
Preserved gauge 3 ft (914 mm)
Commercial history
Opened August 1, 1900
Closed October 8, 1982
Preservation history
May 24, 1988 Reopened as The White Pass Route
Headquarters Skagway, Alaska



WHITE PASS AND YUKON RAILWAY…AND  WORLD WAR II
(Critical  supply source for the Alaska Highway)

Alaska became strategically important for the United States during World War II; there was concern that the Japanese might invade it, as Alaska was the closest part of the United States to Japan. Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the decision was made by the US and Canadian governments to construct the Alaska Highway as an all-weather overland route to ensure communication. One of the principal staging points for construction was Whitehorse, which could be supplied by the WP&YR.
By that time the railroad was a financially starved remnant from Klondike gold rush days, with well-worn engines and rolling stock. Despite this, the railroad moved 67,496 tons during the first 9 months of 1942, more than double its prewar annual traffic. Even this was deemed insufficient, and so the U.S. Government leased the railroad for the duration, effective at 12:01 a.m. on 1 October 1942, handing control to the United States Army. What became the 770th Railway Operating Battalion of the Military Railway Service took over train operations in company with the WP&Y’s civilian staff.
Canadian law forbade foreign government agencies from operating within Canada and its territories, but Japanese forces had occupied some of the Aleutian Islands by this time, and an accommodation was quickly reached to “make an illegal action legal.”
The MRS scoured the US for usable narrow-gauge locomotives and rolling stock, and soon a strange and colourful assortment began arriving at Skagway. The single largest group was seven D&RGW K-28 class 2-8-2’s acquired prior to the lease in August 1942. 2-8-0’s from the Silverton Northern and the Colorado & Southern, all over 40 years old, and a pair of ET&WNC 4-6-0’s soon appeared, among others, as well as eleven new War Department Class S118 2-8-2’s. WP&Y’s original roster of 10 locomotives and 83 cars was soon eclipsed by the Army’s additional 26 engines and 258 cars.
The increase in traffic was remarkable: In the last 3 months of 1942, the railroad moved 25,756 tons. In 1943 the line carried 281,962 tons, equivalent to ten years worth of typical prewar traffic. All this despite some of the most severe winter weather recorded since 1910: Gales, snowdrifts and temperatures of -30 degrees F. succeeded in blockading the line from 5 – 15 February 1943 and 27 January – 14 February 1944.
The peak movement occurred on 4 August 1943, when the White Pass moved 38 trains north and south, totalling 3346 gross / 2085 net tons, and 2236 locomotive-miles in 24 hours.[33]



ENJOY THE  TRIP…THE PICTURES ARE MORE DRAMATIC THAN ANY WORDS
I COULD WRITE.












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END EPISODE  242    YUKON DIARY

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EPISODE 341 YUKON DIARY: DOING THE YUKON IN REVERSE ORDER: DEAD HORSE GULCH

Note:  Sorry this story needs editing but I have no time…trying to do one story each day


EPISODE  341    YUKON DIARY:   DOING THE YUKON IN REVERSE ORDER

                               DEAD HORSE GULCH
alan skeoch
Feb.1 2021

There  were two passes to the Yukon.  The Chilkoot Pass and  the Dead Horse Pass…renamed
the White Pass. I took  the latter.  There were  a lot of dead horses here.  I never saw any. Their
bone were now  as great as the rocks.

Only due to the lust for gold  were these passes found

“There is no route from Skagway to the Yukon.:
“Not so.”, said the Tlinget native.
“Those  coastal  mountains are impassable.”
“Not so.” said the Tlinget native
“Impassable…no way to reach the Yukon River….Lake Bennett headwaters.”
“Not so.” said the Tlinget naive
“Prove it…show me the way.” said the white man
“Secret trail of my people.”
“Show me.”
“We have traded  with the interior people of the HighYukon plateau  for  many years…through this
 pass.”
“Show me.”

And the Tlinget revealed the mountain pass now called the Chilkoot Pass.  Steep with
jumbles of loose rock on a formidable incline.  Then snow and ice high above the Ocean
far below.  Crested slot that then tipped downward to the icy waters of glacial Lake Bennett.
But this was not the end of the trek.  Only the beginning.  From Lake Bennett the gold seekers
still had 550 more miles to cover if they were to reach Dawson City.

Wednesday Sept. 12, 1962


men working to build a railroad on the side of a steep mountain
Building the White Pass Railway  1890’s

Narrow gauge railroad that goes just about nowhere.  Climbs over the Coastal mountains
from tiny inconsequential Skagway by twists and turns…through tunnels that seem rough blasted…over
timbered bridges clinging to Mountainside.  

The White Pass moves slowly. As if expecting catastrophe any moment.  Screaming braking system
jawing musically as metal on metal maintains the slow descent through Dead Horse Gulch.  This is
not the Chilcoot Pass route.   The railway follows another somewhat gentler but loner route named
after a long forgotten politician.   This is the Dead Horse  Gulch Pass.


Chilkoot Pass…no easy trip with 1 ton of  supplies per man

In 1897 the  Yukon Territory was virtually an unknown land peppered here and there by  
natives.  Even these people avoided the eastern part of the Yukon in fear of evil spirits that
were  living there.   A few white trappers and even fewer white placer miners eked out a
shaky existence.   Food, other than wild meats, had to be carried over the coastal mountains
or steamed up the  Yukon River.  Not worth the  aggravation was the conclusion of most people.
There were better places.  As a result much of the Yukon was an empty land.  That changed when the gold fever of the Klondike.  And then,
when the easy  gold ran out, along came the silver boom at Keno Hill.  

White Pass Railway was the route out for the silver ore.  Refined in the United States.
Think of the Yukon as a huge tank of water with one tiny spigot at the bottom.  The White Pass.

My passenger car  was made in 1900 just when  the White  Pass route was completed
Ancient.   Coal stoves for  heat in each car.  Soft seats now but I bet they were once  slatted
seats.

And  I bet dollars to donuts the White  Pass railroad passed by the piles of dead horses 
whose  putrifying remains littered the crevices and deep trenches along the way.  Dead
Horse  Gulch in particular.   I strained my eyes expecting to see  a boneyard far below
but saw nothing.  In 60 to 70 years the bones got as grey as the rocks.

How  many horses?  Dozens?  No.  Thousands…perhaps as many as 3,000 horses
died on this so called easier route to Lake Bennett.  Terrible  stories neglect and
brutality.   Many of the men climbing through this Pass knew nothing about horses
and pack saddles.  They just strapped the gear to horses backs.  When a hundred
pound sack of flour shifted, horses fell over.  Often injured horses were killed.  I suspect
even  this humane act was not done since some  horses rolled over  and over down
the rock strewn slopes.  These thousands of horses were ill treated  before they ever
got to Skagway.  Jammed bum to bum on steamships.  Some already weak and sick.

Best described by Jack London

“The horses died like mosquitoes in the first frost and from Skagway to Bennett they rotted in heaps. They died at the rocks, they were poisoned at the summit, and they were starved at the lakes; they fell off the trail, what there was of it, and they went through it; in the river they drowned under their loads or were smashed to peices against the boulders; they snapped their legs in the crevices and broke their backs falling backwards with their packs; in the sloughs they sank from fright or smothered in the slime; and they were disemboweled in the bogs where the corduroy logs turned end up in the mud; men shot them, worked them to death and when they were gone, went back to the beach and bought more. Some did not bother to shoot them, stripping the saddles off and the shoes and leaving them where they fell. Their hearts turned to stone- those which did not break- and they became the beasts, the men on the Dead Horse Trail.” -Jack London, Journalist. The God of His Fathers, Doubleday Page & Co., New York, 1914, p. 70-80



There are  other even more gruesome stories about these horses. Men impoverished and
starving cut slabs from these dead horses for food.  Hard to believe?   Try starving yourself
to near death and see  if your opinions change.






men with horses carrying bales of hay

And suppose a great many horses actually  survived and  made it to the shores of
Lake Bennett.  What then? Load them aboard the hand made boats that rafted down
the Yukon To Dawson.  Shoot them?  Sell them?

Or just abandon the horses…or sell them…or eat them.   Horses do wander away unless
fenced.   Mares can be captured  by stallions.   In  1962 there were wild horses here and
there in the Yukon.  In small herds of mares with one stallion.  Where  did they come from.
I think we saw  a small string on our trip to Dawson. Almost hidden in the brush.



These horses from Skagway do not look abused.  They are hauling goods not
carrying them.  Not much room for error here.  But no precipices either.  Each
man had to show he was brining  1 ton of supplies to Canadian authorities…i.e. Sergeant Sam
Steele of  the NWMP otherwise  refused entry to Canada’s Yukon Territory.


MY interest was triggered by a misty event on our two day holiday to Dawson City in midsummer.
Three or four of our gang of joyriders  were jammed into the back of a  Peso Silver half ton truck
for that long 3 to 4 hour jaunt.  At one point we noticed movement in the brush at the side of
the road.  There was something alive behind the screen of scrub.  Several animals…not a single
animal like a moose.   

“Could be wild  horses, mares with a stallion.  Several strings of them
have been sighted.  A couple have been  hit on the highway around Dawson”
“You must be kidding?”
“Check it out.”

Which is exactly what I did.  The wild horses are  a concern on the Alaska highway where
they seem to cluster in several strings.  Very wiley creatures.  Efforts to catch them have failed.
How can horses survive the brutal winters?   Simple answer.  On each side of the Dawson
Highway are the remains of large hay fields.  Yukon summers are full daylight…maybe 16 hours.
Lots still grows in these wild fields.  From the gold rush days to the 1930’s horses were 
important as a means of  transportation.  Every 20 or 25 miles of the old Dawson  road there
were roadhouses where teamsters could  get fresh horses or give their 4 to 6 horse teams a
rest.  Some of these roadhouses were decent places.  Others were as  dirty and neglected  as
the hubs of  hell.  Eventually the internal combustion engine replaced  all the horses hauling 
goods  from Whitehorse to Dawson.

I do  not know what happened to those horses.  Many would be slaughtered of course…dog food
for sled dogs along with moose.  Some just got loose.  Turned loose or abandoned.  Most would
die  but it seems there  were…there are….a few stallions with their mares trotting cautiously 
through the underbrush  of the Yukon.  I think I saw a string of them from the back  of that 
half ton truck.  

Now this next comment is  a real  stretch.  Total  speculation…ridiculous  speculation.  It might just
be possible  that the wild horses running in the Yukon in 1962 might have been survivors who crawled
up Dead Horse Gulch (White Pass) and survived because their owners knew how to handle  a horse
and  knew that horses could be useful in the mining business.  In the 1920’s there were 98 horses
working on Keno Hill…and at the same time there were far more doing work on the Dawson Road
living in the barns beside those roadhouses.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if those wild horse strings had a genetic connection to Dead  Horse Gulch.

Wild horse  herds did exist in the year 1962 in the Yukon Territory.   In 2010 one of the last herds of
wild Yukon horses was captured and all eleven including the stallion were put up for auction in hope
that some horse  lover would want to rehabilitate them…i.e. break them, make them docile.  Whether
this happened or not is not mentioned in the CBC news release.


“Animal control officer Paul Heynen said he has spent years trying to capture the Takhini Valley herd of wild horses, but the animals have proven to be elusive.

“I can have a report that they’re out there and I can be there in an hour and they’re gone. You know, they’re just like ghosts … poof, and they’re gone,” Heynen told CBC News.”



These  horses were not easy to handle once corralled  because the stallion went wild once
fenced in.  Lunging at the fences.. Longing to escape.  While government officials believed
this was the last herd ofYukon wild  horses, many locals believe one  or two strings of
them still thrives in hidden places.  They are as wily as wolves, never staying long in
one place and therefore difficult to trap.

ANCIENT WILD HORSES OF THE YUKON

Wild horses once commonly roamed the Yukon as has  been proven by a bone  found by  Duanne Froese, an earth
science  professor ar the University  of Alberta.   The bone was found in the permafrost enveloping the
Thistle Creek  gold  mine about 100 km. south of Dawson City.
in 2013.  The bone fragment’s genome once annilysed turned out to be  700,000  years old.   
It seems that Horses have thrived in the Yukon for a long long time.


alan skeoch
Feb. 1, 2021

Post Script

Events have a curious way of coming together and making sense.  Serendipity is the word.  It means a coming together
of seemingly disparate events.  Here’s a weird one.  In 1963-64, Marjorie (then Hughes) was  teaching high school
in Napanee, Ontario.  Miles  and miles from western Canada.  A group of girls joined Marjorie in forming their cell
of the Canadian Wild Horse society.  They donated some money to support the survival  of wild horses primarily in
Alberta but also  in the Yukon.  These horses needed protection.  The Canadian government considered horses
an introduced species…therefore  gave them no protection.  Marjorie’s students and  other young people, mostly
girls, were assuring that a few herds of wild horses continued to roam through the Rocky Mountain valleys.

I am not sure that is still the case.

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EPISODE 240 YUKON DAIRY DOING THE YUKON IN REVERS… DEAD HORSE PASS, CHILCOOT TRAIL TO SKAGWAY IN 1962

EPISODE  240    YUKON DIARY    DEAD HORSE PASS, CHILCOOT TRAIL TO SKAGWAY IN 1962

TITLE:   DOING THE YUKON IN REVERSE



alan skeoch
Jan.2021

Have you ever got so immersed in a dream that you want to live
that dream in real life?   No joke.  I dream a lot.  Good dreams for
the most part .  Dreams that I would like to live out in  my real life.
That’s the way I felt about the Yukon.  Stop.  Change the tense from
past to present.  That’s the way I feel  about the Yukon to this day.
I relive it.  All that revelry in the Mayo barroom was a replication of
the Yukon gold rush days … right down to the drunkenness…the  story
telling…the  indescribable  brutal work that was a necessary base to brining
the Yukon tensions and  glories of discovery back to life.Vomit, staggering,
laughing, agonizing, fear, joy, triumphs, tragedies.   Almost every feeling a  human
being  can share  is there…’Is’ not ‘was’…present not past.

No Yukon replication  is complete  without the mystique of Skagway.
The brutality of Skagway.  So I planned this  lonely trek as an integral
part of living out the dream.   To not do so would mean the whole Yukon 
experience  would  be truncated.  A tree without roots.  A dream without 
meaning.

Wednesday , Sept. 12, 1962

Arose  early today.  Nervous that I would miss a connection.  I have no watch.
Never have had one.  My body usually serves  me well if I mentally set my
brain correctly.  “Alan, get up early, you must board the White Pass Railway
on its downhill trip to Skagway.”   And  click…brain lock…woke in  time to
get my ticket,  $19.00, for the down hill rumble to Skagway…down mountain says it better.

We  are descending from theYukon plateau to a tiny village hanging on the hostile glacier clad
shores of the Pacific Ocean.   Descending.  Imagining how the gold crazed men and s
few women made the trek upwards when there  was  no railway.  Only the impossible near 
vertical climb up the Chilcoot Pass.  Could I have made that climb?  Did  I have the guts
and determination those men and women shared.  Did I have a thirst for great wealth
the would  free me from labour for the rest of my life?   Not sure.  But I  think I could
do it.

Hindu philosophy says “You can have whatever you want in life.” Which forces the
big secondary question. “What do I really want?”  Great wealth? Fame?  No, I want 
to live my life to the fullest.  I want to share my life with others.  I want to marry
Marjorie as a starter.  And  one small goal… I want to complete  my experience of the Yukon.

And there before me on this day were two passes through the coastal mountains.  White Pass, also  called  the Dead Horse  Pass
and the Chilcoot Pass.  Men … 100,000 of them had  answered the Hindu question.  They wanted Wealth and  were prepared  to
die to get it.  Gold. Gold  Gold.

I  stared at those rocky slopes  from my railway car.

FLASH: I thought of those back breaking loads three of us carried on the Groundhog River
job way back in 1959.  Loads so heavy that the metal packframes twisted into scrap and
our backs screamed.   i thought I could do it.  Why would  I want to?  Fair question.  I  suppose
the answer makes no real sense.  I wanted to prove something to myself.  I could take it.
Not pride of strength.  But force of will.  There comes a time in everyone’s life when there is
challenge where failure  and success are both present at the same time.  On the Groundhog River
job three of us  lived  cut off from normal life for nearly three months.  I hated and loved that
job  in equal measure  I  failed sometimes and succeeded  in other times.  I met that wall.
On that job Floyd  Faulkner, our crew chief, named  me Fucking Al.  A compliment. I think
and still do.  He did not call me a crybaby…a quitter…
Funny how that all came back to me as our near empty train made its slow descent.

AND NOW I AM DOING THE YUKON IN REVERSE ORDER

Dead horse pass   

STORY COMING IN EPISODE 241






CONTINUED IN EISODE 241


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EPISODE 239 YUKON DIARY TUESDAY SEPT. 11, 1962 to Sep[t. 12, 1962 I HAD TO STEAL THE BUS…WITH PASSENGERS


EPISODE 239   YUKON DIARY   TUESDAY SEPT 11, 1962 to Sept. 12, 1962   I HAD TO STEAL THE BUS…WITH PASSENGERS

alan  skeoch
January 2021

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No yellow line…no pitch black night…this is not the bus I stole but it is the Mayo 
Road to Stewart Crossing.  And winter is coming a month from now…



Did I have  to steal that bus? I really had no choice.  Bill Scott had already flown out to Toronto. Job is over.
 Either I stay in Mayo Landing and then fly to Toronto via Whitehorse and  Edmonton or I steal
the local bus and hightail it to Stewart Crossing, abandon the bus and board the White Pass bus to Whitehorse.  This
was not an easy decision.  Not something I  would normally do.  But my intricate plans to see more of  the Yukon depended
upon getting to the junction of the Alaska Highway  then southbound to Whitehorse.  Without this bus all  plans  would collapse.
 I did  pay the bus fare…maybe.  Here is how it
happened.  Hard to forget.

Lazy day in Mayo Landing.  My last day.  Got all geophysical equipment crated and ready for  CPA  air freight to Toronto…to be
confirmed when I get to Whitehorse tomorrow.
Tonight at 1a.m. I will board the local bus for the ride
to Stewart Crossing.  Then catch the morning bus to Whitehorse.  Tight connection.  No time to spare.  Waiting
for the next bus is  out of the question.  There is  only one bus leaving Mayo Landing.   Must get on it.
Had farewell drinks with the boys…walked  around  Mayo for last time…then joined the boys in the
Chateau Inn for another beer.  That should help me sleep on the night bus.

Then I stood outside the Chateau Inn waiting for the bus.  Others were there.  Not many.  I waited  in the dark.  No bus.   Waited more.  No bus. ” Jesus, where the hell is the bus?  If I don’t get
it tonight all my plans are doomed   Where in hell’s half acre is the bus?”  I asked Al, the bartender. We  had the same first name…knew each other. By now it was  1.30 a.m.

“Where is the fucking bus?”
“Parked over on east side of town, I expect.”
“how in hell will I get to Stewart Crossing in the morning””
“Go and wake the driver…happens often.”

So I walked a distance to the edge of town. And there was the bus..sitting
there.  Doors open. Ready.  But no driver.  I went to knock on his 
cabin door but did not make it.  He had a bunch…two or three…of sled dogs
on guard.  Alsations.  Big teeth and slathering mouths. They did not like me at all. Looked  hungry or protecting or both.
Bottom line was that I could not awaken the bastard driver.  Could not get
close to his house.  How in hell would I get out of Mayo Landing tonight.

I tried the bus horn.  The bastard would not wake up.  And there dangling beside
the horn were the bus  keys.  Dare i do it?  Dare I steal the bus?  Bit of a dilemma.  Either
I take the bus or I return to Toronto by air.  My intricate plans were in jeopardy.

(Readers will not believe my decision.  I cannot believed it even now 58 years later. Some
readers will think the whole story is fabricated.  Busses are not easy to drive. And taking
a bus without a special licence is  a crime.  But Al, the bartender, said the bus driver often
misses his schedule.  Was Al also inferring that a passenger could take the bus to
Stewart Crossing and  someone would drive it back to Mayo? About 53 km.)

I just have this one chance to get to Skagway.  Limited  funds.   Must get back
to Toronto for new academic year.  Only a few days leeway.  I have already cashed in my
CPA  flight … using that money to help me take this great adventure.  The dye is cast.  So I will take the bus…car theft?  No.  I have
a ticket.  Very lame excuse.  

I  would just be  borrowing the bus…doing  the bus driver’ route…a favour…with his customers.
Hardly  theft.  But deep down I knew these excuses were pretty lame.  Finally
I justified my actions just Like a criminal would.  “There will be no one of the road
to stop me or know what I was doing.” Traffic on the night road was  about nil.

So I turned the key.  The motor fired smoothly.  I reached for the big handle that closed
the  door,  slipped in the  clutch, shifted to first gear…eased  out the clutch and the great
big bus began to move.

The passengers were waiting at the hotel.  Same place I had been waiting.  I pulled up
opened the door with the hand lever and said “Anyone going to Stewart Crossing?”  About 
four or five people…I forget how many…stepped up and found a  seat without comment
or worry.  This must have happened before.

The is only one road from Mayo to Stewart Crossing.  I think there was  a nice yellow
line for me to follow.   Not sure of that.  Once we got rolling there was no looking back.  I did not say
good bye to my crew.  They were all  in bed.  We had said our farewells
and they assumed I was on the road to where I  would meet the morning bus to Whitehorse
at Stewart Crossing…about two hours  away.

That was  a long time ago.  And my memory could be faulty..  Was I  nervous?  Probably
but there was no time for worry.  I  had  to follow … to straddle at times…that yellow  line.
No  speeding  But no delay either.  If I was late at Stewart Crossing my morning bus
to Whitehouse would be gone and then I would  really be in s pickle.

The night was black.  Traffic was nil I think.  Drivers preferred the Mayo road in
daylight in case an errant moose got in the way at night.  That was a bit of a thought
so I kept my foot ready to brake.  But nothing happened  Once in third gear I never
changed  gears until I  geared down at Stewart Crossing.  

My passengers disembarked without comment. Some nodded acknowledging the theft with
amused gratitude,  I think some were First Natons
people but unsure.  This  theft was  a non event.  It had happened  before.

It was daylight when we pulled into Stewart Crossing So I must have driven
very slowly.  Not as heroic I guess.  

We met the southbound bus with a little time to spare but not much. I asked the
garageman aT Stewart Crossing where to put he bus.  He shrugged and gave a 
laconic  “Over there, out of the way.”  So this must have happened  before.  My 
worry that the RCMP would nab me before I got to Whitehorse seemed less
and  less likely.

Boarded the White Pass bus with my riders  and sank into a
double seat to grab some shut eye.   Relief and fatigue.  We rolled  into
Whitehorse around 11 a.m.   Arranged with the CPA agent to pick up
our Turam  equipment in Mayo Landing and ship it to Dr. Paterson in Toronto.

Signed into he Capital Hotel and went to sleep.  Awoke at 3.30 pm and had a nice
hot bath and then a roast beef dinner at the Taku Motel where I met Walter Malecky…drunk
but still a fascinating man.  One of the really famous old timers.  Extroverted close
friend of Moses Lord.  We had  a drink.

Later in the evening Went to the movies to see ‘All Fall Down’…good.  Then read
a little more of ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’  before dozing off.  Quite a day. I was now
totally on my own.  Skagway here I come.   

The strangest sensation settled over me.  Loneliness. Being alone is not too much
fun.  I wonder how drunk the boys are now back in Mayo Landing.  Do I wish I was
back there?  Time moves on.  I got the distinct feeling that my adventures would 
always be centred in Keno Hill.  Hell, that was one of the big reasons I wanted
to get to Skagway, then Juneau.  Just opposite Juneau is Douglas Island where
one of the great North American mining disasters happened.  The Treadwell Mine
disaster. And that disaster
cut Livinston Wernecke loose.  And he became a legend that cannot die.  Without him
Keno City would never have had those boom years of hookers, alcohol,…his story
is still to come.

Expenses

Hotel   $5.00
Meals $5.50
Taxi    $2.00
Phone calls  .20


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Takhini River Bridge, Yukon