{"id":22562,"date":"2022-11-05T10:43:19","date_gmt":"2022-11-05T14:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=22562"},"modified":"2022-11-05T10:51:51","modified_gmt":"2022-11-05T14:51:51","slug":"episode-672-escape-from-the-yukon-in-1951-adream-nightmare-last-nig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=22562","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 672 ESCAPE FROM THE YUKON IN 1951 == ADREAM – NIGHTMARE LAST NIG"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
EPISODE 672    DATELINE 1961: ESCAPE FROM THE YUKON: A DREAM \/ NIGHTMARE LAST NIGHT TOLD AS I REMEMBER<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
biv, 6m 2022<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
The Yukon seemed  good place to grow a beard.  Made me look older.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Mom, DAd and Marjorie at Pearson Airport in 1961.   Mom and Marjorie would later pin me to the ground<\/div>\n
at the farm and snip off my beard.  Same thing happened to Samson when Delila snipped his beard according to the Bible.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

My next story was triggered by  a dream last night\u2026.bit of  a nightmare really.<\/p>\n

Took me back to my last two days in the Yukon in 1961.  All that summer I made<\/div>\n
plans to escape the Yukon by back tracking  the route taken by gold seekers of 1898.  To<\/div>\n
follow their route into the  Yukon but do it in reverse.  from the ghost town of<\/div>\n
Wernicke south to Keno City (Population almost nil) to Mayo Landing in our battered GMC Power Wagon.  A few beers<\/div>\n
with the boys in the Mayo Landing hotel then a night bus ride to Stewart Crossing<\/div>\n
where the morning bus from Dawson City would take me to Whitehorse and<\/div>\n
from there the White Pass Railroad through Dead Horse Gulch where the glistening<\/div>\n
bones of dead hoses horses marked the insanity of the Yukon gold rush.<\/div>\n
Then a stopover at  Skagway  before looking a ride on a water taxi though the Inland<\/div>\n
passage to landlocked Juneau,  And from there I would catch a flight to Seattle with a short <\/div>\n
hop to Vancouver and a final flight home to Toronto.  All this fuelled by cans of cold<\/div>\n
pork and beans and raw oat meal and occasional other staple food like salami and rye.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
All that summer of 1961 I lathered  myself with the words of Robert Service.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
On every exploration job done each summer I selected 3 or 4 books to pack with extra socks.<\/div>\n
In 1961 it was the collected works of Robert Service. His words became the beacon<\/div>\n
of my escape from the Yukon. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Getting to the Yukon in June 1961was easy but also an adventure.<\/div>\n
 e threaded our way north  in an<\/div>\n
overloaded DC 3.  Lots of freight and a few passengers.  My seat was close to the <\/div>\n
cursing pilot. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
 \u201cBastards oveerloaded us sgain\u2026can\u2019t get altitude so we will have to<\/div>\n
thread our way through the mountains to Mayo.\u201d <\/div>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s Mayo Landing like?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cAsshole of he world.  Tiny outpost on the Stewart River.  Aboriginals mostly with one hotel<\/div>\n
for people like you… Luigi\u2019s greasy spoon attached.   Take 60 seconds to see the sights<\/div>\n
of Mayo.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cIs that the Stewart River down there?\u201d<\/div>\n
Nope , that\u2019s the Yukon River\u2026.backbone of the Territory.  See that other river\u2026the Stewart<\/div>\n
joins the Yukon at Stewart Crossing\u2026big rivers.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This was going to be a big adventure.  Little did I know that Stewart Crossing would be<\/div>\n
visited in the darkness of a Yukon night in mid September in a ramshackle bus that I had<\/div>\n
to drive because the driver was asleep or drunk or both and his dogs would not let me close enough to wake him.<\/div>\n
Maybe sleeping off a binge.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
 I made my escape driving his bus and passengers west to Stewart Crossing.  \u00b5et the Dawson – Whitehorse bus<\/div>\n
 then an<\/div>\n
empty White Pass Railway to the lawless town of  Skagway\u2026and from there I had no idea.  But I sure enough<\/div>\n
was not going to fly directly home to Toronto when there was a slower route.  I had<\/div>\n
Robert Service and Pierre Berton as guides. Years later My boss, Dr. Norman Paterson of Huntech would <\/div>\n
describe me to an audience as \u2018precocious\u2019 whatever that means.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This story is long.  It will be broken into several Episodes.  You will either hate it or love it.<\/div>\n
I do not give a sweet goddamn which you choose.  Some may even think the Episodes are<\/div>\n
fiction.  No so.  These stories are part  of my life.  Why write the stories?  Do not really know.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Nov. 5, 2022<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
P>S>  The previous summer of 1960 I had been sent to Ireland.  Living there was easy.<\/div>\n
Our landlady in the tiny village of Bunmahon, Mrs. Lill Kennedy, commented to me<\/div>\n
\u201cWe had another Canadian mining crew in the village a few years ago.  They were<\/div>\n
drinkers and caroused a lot.  You are different\u201d<\/div>\n
.  If Mrs. Kennedy had been in the Yukon she might have reconsidered her comment.<\/div>\n
Must write a story about her\u2026a great woman.  She is long gone now.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
A FEW ROBERT SERVICE QUOTES<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cThere’s a race of men that don’t fit in, <\/span>
A race that can’t sit still;<\/span>
So they break the hearts of kith and kin, And they roam the world at will.<\/span>
They range the field and rove the flood, <\/span>
And they climb the mountain’s crest; Their’s is the curse of the gypsy blood, <\/span>
And they don’t know how to rest.\u201d <\/span>
\u2015 <\/span>Robert Service<\/span>\u201cLet us probe the silent place<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cLet us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;<\/span>
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.<\/span>
There’s a whisper on the night-wind, there’s a star agleam to guide us,<\/span>
And the Wild is calling, calling…let us go\u201d <\/span>
\u2015 <\/span>Robert W. Service, <\/span><\/span>The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s gold, and it\u2019s haunting and haunting; <\/span>
It\u2019s luring me on as of old; <\/span>
Yet it isn\u2019t the gold that I\u2019m wanting <\/span>
So much as just finding the gold. <\/span>
It\u2019s the great, big, broad land \u2019way up yonder, <\/span>
It\u2019s the forests where silence has lease; <\/span>
It\u2019s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, <\/span>
It\u2019s the stillness that fills me with peace.\u201d <\/span>
\u2015 <\/span>Robert W. Service, <\/span><\/span>The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201c<\/span>Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting<\/span>
So much as just finding the gold.<\/span>
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,<\/span>
It’s the forests where silence has lease;<\/span>
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,<\/span>
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.\u201d <\/span>
\u2015 <\/span>Robert W. Service<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n
NEXT EPISODE 673   \u2014 ESCAPE FROM THE YUKON REMEMBERED<\/b><\/font><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/b><\/font><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
This sluice box miner gave me the 10,000 year old tooth of a Hairy Mammoth.  The tooth was a great<\/div>\n
prop when I begin teaching history at Parkdale C.I. until some student to teacher stole it. <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
An aboriginal family another dogs rafting to their hunting grounds down the Stewart River at Mayo Landing in 1961<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Dodge Power Wagon could go anywhere\u2026even up or down fast flowing creeks where there were no roads<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 672    DATELINE 1961: ESCAPE FROM THE YUKON: A DREAM \/ NIGHTMARE LAST NIGHT TOLD AS I REMEMBER alan skeoch biv, 6m 2022 The Yukon seemed  good place to grow a beard.  Made me look older. Mom, DAd and Marjorie at Pearson Airport in 1961.   Mom and Marjorie would later pin me to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}