{"id":6788,"date":"2020-12-06T10:43:44","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T15:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6788"},"modified":"2020-12-06T10:49:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-06T15:49:34","slug":"episode-187-all-worldly-possessions-yukon-job-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=6788","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 187 … All worldly possessions YUKON JOB 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"

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EPISODE 187    ALL MY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS\u2026YUKON JOB 1962<\/div>\n

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NOTE:  THIS SHORT STORY WAS WRITTEN MARCH 10, 2018 DESCRIBING LIFE<\/div>\n
PROSECTING IN YUKON TERRITORY IN THE SUMMER OF 1962.   SOME READERS<\/div>\n
MAY HAVE SEEN IT BUT I WANT IT INCLUDED IN THE EPISODES .. EPISODE 187.<\/div>\n
YOU MIGHT MAKE OBSERVATIONS.  I KNOW THE PICTURE IS TOTALLY SELF <\/div>\n
CENTRED\u2026NARCISSISM.  PLEASE FORGIVE.<\/div>\n

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SEE IF YOU CAN FIND THE BIG BOX OF HOME MADE COOKIES MARJORIE SENT<\/div>\n
BY MAIL.<\/div>\n

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I MAY TRY TO RETRIEVE ALL THE YUKON STORIES.  THE JOB WAS QUITE AN ADVENTURE.<\/div>\n
IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ THE STORIES\u2026READ THEM AGAIN\u2026YOU HAVE NOTHING<\/div>\n
BETTER TO DO.  <\/div>\n

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ALAN
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From: <\/span> “alan.skeoch@rogers.com<\/a><\/a>” <alan.skeoch@rogers.com<\/a><\/a>>
Date: <\/span> Saturday, March 10, 2018 at 12:05 AM
To: <\/span> Marjorie Skeoch <marjorieskeoch@gmail.com<\/a><\/a>>
Subject: <\/span> Alan Skeoch … All worldly possessions YUKON JOB 1962
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DUBLIN GULCH CAMP, YUKON TERRITORY, 1962<\/div>\n

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NOW THIS IS REALLY SILLY\u2026(found in old 35 mm slide)<\/div>\n

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alan  skeoch<\/div>\n
March 2018<\/div>\n

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Readers  come in all sorts \u2026 interested and bored,  large and small, old and  young, critical and open-minded, full of evil thoughts and just plain joyful.  Which are you?<\/p>\n


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Some readers  might be interested  in this small corner of the universe  in the summer of 1962.   <\/div>\n
 It\u2019s a game\u2026.see what you can find.<\/div>\n

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SEE IF YOU CAN  FIND THESE ITEMS BELOW IN THE PICTURE ABOVE<\/div>\n

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1) Pants\u2026note knee patches  made of medical first aid  tape\u2026only had 1 pair of pants, no time to wash them.<\/div>\n
2) Bed\u2026made of light canvas and  metal rods\u2026never lasted long\u2026flat to floor eventually<\/div>\n
3) Baby Rabbit\u2026given to me by Moses Lord, First Nations  member of our crew, caught it by  hand, eventually freed the little fellow but meanwhile he<\/div>\n
lived in my gum rubber boot in the evenings leaving a few soft marbles each morning.<\/div>\n
4) Escapade magazine\u2026must be good article in there on geophysics, else why would I keep it?<\/div>\n
5) assorted  soda cans and bottle of  stuffed  olives<\/div>\n
6) 2 pairs  of socks drying on my clothesline beside bed\u2026socks were so important\u2026dominated all.<\/div>\n
7) 1 bottle of antiseptic\u2026kill microscopic bastards trying to kill me  by slipping in open  wounds chewed  open<\/div>\n
bu larger bastards  (mosquitoes,  black flies, moose flies,  deer flies, grand  wasps)<\/div>\n
8) A small library including Pierre Berton\u2019s Klondike, Michener\u2019s Fires of Spring, Steinbeck\u2019s East of Eden, <\/div>\n
9) boot insoles drying on top shelf\u2026holes in boots meant water sloshed around most  days, body heat boiled  my  feet, pock marked.<\/div>\n
10) Hair brush that was never  used<\/div>\n
11) Moose lower jaw bone   (mailed back to Toronto with pair of caribou  antlers)<\/div>\n
12) single caribou antler. Moses Lord got me  a  full rack to send home by freight truck.<\/div>\n
13) Scottish tam at top. When I started teaching my principal, Mr Ellis, said to me privately \u201cYou will never get ahead<\/div>\n
if you continue to wear that tam.\u201d   Wonder what he would have said if he saw this picture?  Probably say \u201cI knew it!\u2026look at him.”<\/div>\n
14) Alarm clock\u2026rang at 5.45 a.m. Get up, dress, make breakfast, slather bait for bugs, and be on trail by 7.30 or so.<\/div>\n
15) PICTURE OF MARJORIE\u2026WE WERE ENGAGED\u2026SHE GRADUATED U. OF T 1962, I DID SO IN 1961,  POST GRAD YEAR 1962<\/div>\n
16) bottle of Eno\u2019s fruit salts\u2026for upset stomach.  Food we ate made that necessary.<\/div>\n
17) candle in wine bottle…<\/div>\n
18) Huge box of cookies sent as a  Care package from Marjorie who was back in North Bay.  She also sent chocolate cakes.<\/div>\n
19) Mosquito lotion<\/div>\n
20) Camera case and  pile of magazines\u2026maybe scientific journals but more likely the other kind.<\/div>\n
21) Diary on top of stump table<\/div>\n
22) My brief  case in which was wrapped my idea of Yukon gold (see 23)<\/div>\n
23) my Mastodon  Tooth found in a gold  sluice box  in Dublin Gulch.  It was a great teaching item when  presenting the theory<\/div>\n
of Beringia\u2026where Asiatic  people migrated to North America 10,000 to 20,000 years  ago when the Bering Sea was a vast dry plain feeding  Mastodons,<\/div>\n
Mammoths and other giant now extinct creatures.  Must have been  a good lesson for some student stole the tooth the first  year I taught high school.<\/div>\n
24) Alan Skeoch, 23 years old, bearded,  post-adolescent, Rover Scout, potential groom, Geophysical Field  Man. future teacher\u2026immature… reticent to give up<\/div>\n
the life of luxury implied by this photograph .   Marjorie took the view that \u2018if you can\u2019t beat them join them\u2019  and  Marjorie Joined our  crews on jobs<\/div>\n
in North Ontario at Paradise Lodge and Wart Lake in 1963 and a short and final job at Merritt, British Columbia.,in 1964 where the local mining executives thought<\/div>\n
she was a hooker. <\/div>\n
25) Prospectors rock hammer<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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  26) plank under cot to prevent collapse<\/font>
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27) gold nuggets \u2026 tiny \u2026 really just gold dust which I dropped on black electrical tape and  mailed to Marjorie.   Should do a story about<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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our discovery of gold.  In 1962 gold sold at $35 an  ounce and was controlled by he Canadian government.  Today it sells at around $2,000 an ounce and the Gold Standard<\/p><\/div>\n

has been abandoned.  A friend  in Dublin Gulch had  a slab of  gold as a kind of knuckle duster if he was ever robbed.  His cabin was amazing\u2026Mammoth tusks and bones<\/div>\n
leaning against the walls\u2026and those huge teeth.
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WHAT A WONDERFUL LIFE.<\/div>\n

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ALAN SKEOCH<\/div>\n
MARCH 2018<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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EPISODE 187    ALL MY WORLDLY POSSESSIONS\u2026YUKON JOB 1962 NOTE:  THIS SHORT STORY WAS WRITTEN MARCH 10, 2018 DESCRIBING LIFE PROSECTING IN YUKON TERRITORY IN THE SUMMER OF 1962.   SOME READERS MAY HAVE SEEN IT BUT I WANT IT INCLUDED IN THE EPISODES .. EPISODE 187. YOU MIGHT MAKE OBSERVATIONS.  I KNOW THE PICTURE […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}