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.