Alan Skeoch

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  • NOT BERNIE SANDERS…BUT CLOSE



  • 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

    www.uphere.ca/sites/default/files/styles/article_masthead_mobile/public/p55-bus.jpg?h=cdef0258&itok=AOJN4q1k 768w, www.uphere.ca/sites/default/files/styles/article_masthead_tablet/public/p55-bus.jpg?h=cdef0258&itok=WYj9pkoI 800w, www.uphere.ca/sites/default/files/styles/article_masthead_desktop/public/p55-bus.jpg?h=cdef0258&itok=e8wK-wd4 1200w” sizes=”(max-width: 459px) 460px,(min-width: 460px) and (max-width: 767px) 768px,(min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 999px) 800px,(min-width: 1000px) 1200px” alt=”” typeof=”foaf:Image” apple-inline=”yes” id=”E6B77FEB-4FF7-4E74-B932-44A9AA338171″ src=”https://alanskeoch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/p55-bus.jpeg” class=””>
    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































  • WHAT A GREAT REWARD … TO BE READ…TO BE ENJOYED…TO BE VALUED

    HI…TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN READING MY EPISODES….NOW AT 239
    Dan and Thom and Marjorie (of course) and Rosalind and Pat and John and Owen and Dirk and Rooter…so many others … have sent me notes saying they were sad to see the Yukon Diary is coming to a close. What a nice thing to say. Sometimes I worry that my writing is a little too earthy for sensitive ears. Writers should write about what they know and that is what I have tried to do. There are still 6 or 7 more Yukon Episodes so the Yukon will continue. And then afterwards…perhaps Slovakia in the year when the Soviet Union collapsed or South Korea whose people may have hopped from island to island to North America by boat while others crossed the Bering land bridge thousands of years ago…or my First Class journey with big Red Stevenson…no end to the stories.
    My diary is so explicit that at times I feel my comments go too far. Your support is very important to me. Several of you think I am writing a book. I am not. Books are not read often. And the work writing a book often kills the spark…dampens the fire…puts out the fire. Writing Episodes is better for I actually know my readers. And, yes, I know those of you who do not read the Episodes…I do know but send them anyway.
    Years ago I was co author of a particular Canadian history book. My assignment was Quebec in the 1950’s. I was in Chibougamau on my first survey job when I was in Grade eleven. I saw hatred that summer… in the form of a butcher knife vibrating in front of me at it was slammed into a table….I saw a young girl my age about to launch into a career of prostitution…I saw what made the Quiet Revolution. I wrote about that summer. Guess what happened? Right! The real gutsy stuff that had meaning was edited out… scraps on the cutting room floor. When asked to write part of the second edition, I refused. They did not want me anyway.
    I much prefer to write to you.
    Many of you are still stuck in those goddamn isolated homes, rooms, condominiums…I hope my stories allow your minds to fly elsewhere … to be with me on different facets of life’s journey.
    Thanks for hanging around. You do not really have much choice. The Pandemic has got you…like a twist in your underwear.
    alan
    P.S. Sometimes just a couple of words can trigger a verbal avalanche…mammoth tooth, pebbly conglomerate, Daisy the Labrador, Grandma’s triumph over Parkinson’s, fanning mill, butterfly, snapping turtle, childbirth, Sikorsky S52 helicopter, Bunmahon copper caves, North Bay romance, Halifax Blonde Bomber, Arnold Red Skeoch…no end to these word triggers. Events that harbour both humour and tragedy. That is not just true of me…it is true of each of you.

  • EOISODE 238 YUKON DIARY TAGGING CLAIMS…SOUNDED EASY…SQUISH,SQUISH,SQUISH MY POOR FEET

    EPISODE 238   YUKON DIARY    TAGGING CLAIMS..SOUNDED EASY…SQUISH,SQUISH,SQUISH…MY POOR FEET!


    alan skeoch
    January 2021





    Monday Sept. 10,  2021

    Up at 7, breakfast at Luigi’s then met Bob Gilroy after arranging flight
    from Juneau to Vancouver … planned my exit adventure … getting from Mayo
    Landing to Juneau…(I really  did not know how to do it)

    We then drove to Silver Titan camp to pick up the claim tags…also
    a blazing  axe, compass, skinning knife and rifle (30.30)   Knife did not
    make much sense.  Drove  to the McQueston flats for  day of tagging
    claims…if I could find the base lines.  All alone in the silence of an oncoming
    winter.  There was an inch  or more of ice in the swamps and  most of
    the tagging was in surface water.  I wanted to be quiet lest a bear get
    wind of me.  Not possible.  Each step cracked a slab of ice. Lots of sound.
    CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!


    This is  the way I would meet a bear I imagined.   In truth bears stayed  away
    from humans.  We do not smell good.  


    Worse still was the water that percolated through the holes  in my
    gum rubbers and over the tops on occasion. Goddamned cold.  Best
    thing, however, was to keep moving once I found the base line
    leading to the claim posts.  This was  no picnic…no easy money…this
    was as  bad  or worse than conducting the Turam  survey.  Worse,
    because I was all alone.  I guess that was  why Bob  gave me the
    rifle.  Jesus!  I never fired rifle except once in western Alaska when we were
    armed in case of Kodiak bear attacks.  We dumped  the rifles because 
    the Kodiaks were stuffing their guts with dead  salmon.  No danger.
    And we were dropped into our location by an  S 52 Sikorsky helicopter.
    Airborne rescue could be fast.

    Here I was alone.  Not too sure I even found the old base line. Seemed 
    to be some blazes but they were old.  And I was cold.  This was a winter
    day in the Yukon…sept. 10, 1962.

    Trying to follow an old claim line was sometimes like the proverbial needle in a haystack.

    But I did find the claim posts  more by chance than design.  The best kind of
    claim post is a living tree that has been decapitated and marked by axe slices
    on two sides.  One side faces the direction of the claim…the other faces the
    direction where the other claim post can be found.  Two claim posts.   At one time these posts
    had  fresh slices…easy to see.  After a year these slices had  turned Grey
    and  the spruce gum had oozed our\t as if trying to scab the wound.

    Every year the claims had to be tagged to indicate work had been done
    on the claim.  No work had been done on any of these claims.  No one had
    been in here for some time.   Later i discovered that in lieu of work the
    claimer could pay $100 which is what seems to have happened on these
    Silver Titan claims.  

    While  miserable I was at the same time rather proud  of myself.  Bob Gilroy
    thought I knew what I was doing.  He did not know that I had never
    staked or tagged mining claims in my life.  But I did it.  Took a full 
    day of squishy squishing my way through these swamps and forests
    of stunted Yukon spruce.  But I did it.  And  I sure needed whatever
    extra money they paid me.  “Be bold, Alan, pretend you know  what
    you are doing…and you may discover that you do know who you are doing.”

    My feet were as wet as the feet on these moose.  They were designed for that.
    I was not.  (see postscript)

    Made my way…squish, squishing…back to the road at 4.30.  No one there.
    Walked …squish,sguishing…for 2.5 hours until I met Steve and his 
    truck heading for Mayo.  No supper.   Met Bill Scott and Alex Doulis
    who were in a fine good mood fuelled  by rum I assumed.  Good to see
    them.  My feet were tingly at first but soon became normal.
     Ate a can of cold pork and  beans as a supper around 9.

    Reported to Bob Gilroy and drew  a rough map of the tagging.  around 8 p.m.
    Then Mrs.
    Gilroy cooked me a nice T bone steak around 9 …(did  not mention the pork and beans
    consumed earlier).  Packed gear in back of truck and drove to Hutton’s where
    I had my personal stuff weighed and shipped home.  From this point I will
    be travelling light.just clothes on my back, my camera and  diary.

    Dropped in at the bar at 10 p.m. where Bill awaited with a couple of  drinks.
    Met Fred Carter who wanted  me to see his 35mm slides. Great pictures
    including interior of the Dawson City church which was slowly sinking into
    the permafrost…weird to see sunday  school basement with chairs and lecturns
    half covered by clear ice…sort of unsettling.   Other pics, of course, of live bears.   
    Then we went back to the
    bar to drink that dreaded ‘double OP’ with Fred  and Jim Moran.  

    All in all the day was better at the end than it was at the beginning and
    the middle.  

    Now, if anyone asks me about staking mining claims I can assume 
    the posture of a veteran.

    Expenses    Food … Shipping personal gear  $10.52

    Post script: MY FEET

    Friction between  underbrush and my gum rubbers was hard on my feet.  Eventually the gum rubbers
    got holes in them.  Rub!Rub! Rub!  Sometimes I stepped  on what I thought was  solid  ground and found  my foot
    submerged in water. Slosh! slosh! slosh!  I got used to it.  On  the Alaska  job  I was lucky if a pair of rubber boots lasted
    three weeks.  Dr. Paterson was persuaded to foot the bill for new rubber boots on that job.   The 
    Yukon job  was similar  but I Kept my mouth shut.  Who wants to appear to be a  suck? Even when my feet were protesting.  When the
    summer ended my feet were as  white as ivory and as  pock marked as  a No Hunting sign targeted
    by a shot gun.  Skin could be peeled.  This final claim staking job was  the worst for my feet but
    that was clearly my own fault.  I know this sounds trivial.  Not so.  Do an  experiment.  Walk around
    for a few days with water in your boots .  Water that starts off cold but soon becomes heated by
    our body temperature.  The result is  not pretty.