{"id":7448,"date":"2021-02-02T10:38:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-02T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7448"},"modified":"2021-02-02T10:47:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-02T15:47:14","slug":"episode-341-yukon-diary-doing-the-yukon-in-reverse-order-dead-horse-gulch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=7448","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 341 YUKON DIARY: DOING THE YUKON IN REVERSE ORDER: DEAD HORSE GULCH"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Note:  Sorry this story needs editing but I have no time\u2026trying to do one story each day<\/div>\n

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<\/div>\n

EPISODE  341    YUKON DIARY:   DOING THE YUKON IN REVERSE ORDER<\/p>\n

                               DEAD HORSE GULCH<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb.1 2021<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
There  were two passes to the Yukon.  The Chilkoot Pass and  the Dead Horse Pass\u2026renamed<\/div>\n
the White Pass. I took  the latter.  There were  a lot of dead horses here.  I never saw any. Their<\/div>\n
bone were now  as great as the rocks.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Only due to the lust for gold  were these passes found<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cThere is no route from Skagway to the Yukon.:<\/div>\n
\u201cNot so.\u201d, said the Tlinget native.<\/div>\n
\u201cThose  coastal  mountains are impassable.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNot so.\u201d said the Tlinget native<\/div>\n
\u201cImpassable\u2026no way to reach the Yukon River\u2026.Lake Bennett headwaters.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNot so.\u201d said the Tlinget naive<\/div>\n
\u201cProve it\u2026show me the way.\u201d said the white man<\/div>\n
\u201cSecret trail of my people.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cShow me.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWe have traded  with the interior people of the HighYukon plateau  for  many years\u2026through this<\/div>\n
 pass.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cShow me.\u201d<\/div>\n

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

<\/div>\n
Wednesday Sept. 12, 1962<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\"men<\/div>\n
Building the White Pass Railway  1890\u2019s<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Narrow gauge railroad that goes just about nowhere.  Climbs over the Coastal mountains<\/div>\n
from tiny inconsequential Skagway by twists and turns\u2026through tunnels that seem rough blasted\u2026over<\/div>\n
timbered bridges clinging to Mountainside.  <\/div>\n

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

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Chilkoot Pass\u2026no easy trip with 1 ton of  supplies per man<\/div>\n

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

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

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

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

<\/div>\n
How  many horses?  Dozens?  No.  Thousands\u2026perhaps as many as 3,000 horses<\/div>\n
died on this so called easier route to Lake Bennett.  Terrible  stories neglect and<\/div>\n
brutality.   Many of the men climbing through this Pass knew nothing about horses<\/div>\n
and pack saddles.  They just strapped the gear to horses backs.  When a hundred<\/div>\n
pound sack of flour shifted, horses fell over.  Often injured horses were killed.  I suspect<\/div>\n
even  this humane act was not done since some  horses rolled over  and over down<\/div>\n
the rock strewn slopes.  These thousands of horses were ill treated  before they ever<\/div>\n
got to Skagway.  Jammed bum to bum on steamships.  Some already weak and sick.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Best described by Jack London<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
“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.” <\/span>-Jack London, Journalist. <\/span>The God of His Fathers<\/u>, Doubleday Page & Co., New York, 1914, p. 70-80<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

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

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

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

<\/div>\n
\"men<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

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

<\/div>\n
Or just abandon the horses\u2026or sell them\u2026or eat them.   Horses do wander away unless<\/div>\n
fenced.   Mares can be captured  by stallions.   In  1962 there were wild horses here and<\/div>\n
there in the Yukon.  In small herds of mares with one stallion.  Where  did they come from.<\/div>\n
I think we saw  a small string on our trip to Dawson. Almost hidden in the brush.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
These horses from Skagway do not look abused.  They are hauling goods not<\/div>\n
carrying them.  Not much room for error here.  But no precipices either.  Each<\/div>\n
man had to show he was brining  1 ton of supplies to Canadian authorities\u2026i.e. Sergeant Sam<\/div>\n
Steele of  the NWMP otherwise  refused entry to Canada\u2019s Yukon Territory.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
MY interest was triggered by a misty event on our two day holiday to Dawson City in midsummer.<\/div>\n
Three or four of our gang of joyriders  were jammed into the back of a  Peso Silver half ton truck<\/div>\n
for that long 3 to 4 hour jaunt.  At one point we noticed movement in the brush at the side of<\/div>\n
the road.  There was something alive behind the screen of scrub.  Several animals\u2026not a single<\/div>\n
animal like a moose.   <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cCould be wild  horses, mares with a stallion.  Several strings of them<\/div>\n
have been sighted.  A couple have been  hit on the highway around Dawson\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cYou must be kidding?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cCheck it out.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Which is exactly what I did.  The wild horses are  a concern on the Alaska highway where<\/div>\n
they seem to cluster in several strings.  Very wiley creatures.  Efforts to catch them have failed.<\/div>\n
How can horses survive the brutal winters?   Simple answer.  On each side of the Dawson<\/div>\n
Highway are the remains of large hay fields.  Yukon summers are full daylight\u2026maybe 16 hours.<\/div>\n
Lots still grows in these wild fields.  From the gold rush days to the 1930\u2019s horses were <\/div>\n
important as a means of  transportation.  Every 20 or 25 miles of the old Dawson  road there<\/div>\n
were roadhouses where teamsters could  get fresh horses or give their 4 to 6 horse teams a<\/div>\n
rest.  Some of these roadhouses were decent places.  Others were as  dirty and neglected  as<\/div>\n
the hubs of  hell.  Eventually the internal combustion engine replaced  all the horses hauling <\/div>\n
goods  from Whitehorse to Dawson.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I do  not know what happened to those horses.  Many would be slaughtered of course\u2026dog food<\/div>\n
for sled dogs along with moose.  Some just got loose.  Turned loose or abandoned.  Most would<\/div>\n
die  but it seems there  were\u2026there are\u2026.a few stallions with their mares trotting cautiously <\/div>\n
through the underbrush  of the Yukon.  I think I saw a string of them from the back  of that <\/div>\n
half ton truck.  <\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Now this next comment is  a real  stretch.  Total  speculation\u2026ridiculous  speculation.  It might just<\/div>\n
be possible  that the wild horses running in the Yukon in 1962 might have been survivors who crawled<\/div>\n
up Dead Horse Gulch (White Pass) and survived because their owners knew how to handle  a horse<\/div>\n
and  knew that horses could be useful in the mining business.  In the 1920\u2019s there were 98 horses<\/div>\n
working on Keno Hill\u2026and at the same time there were far more doing work on the Dawson Road<\/div>\n
living in the barns beside those roadhouses.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Wouldn\u2019t it be wonderful if those wild horse strings had a genetic connection to Dead  Horse Gulch.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Wild horse  herds did exist in the year 1962 in the Yukon Territory.   In 2010 one of the last herds of<\/div>\n
wild Yukon horses was captured and all eleven including the stallion were put up for auction in hope<\/div>\n
that some horse  lover would want to rehabilitate them\u2026i.e. break them, make them docile.  Whether<\/div>\n
this happened or not is not mentioned in the CBC news release.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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 \u2026 poof, and they’re gone,” Heynen told CBC News.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


<\/div>\n

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

<\/div>\n
ANCIENT WILD HORSES OF THE YUKON<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Wild horses once commonly roamed the Yukon as has  been proven by a bone  found by  Duanne Froese, an earth<\/div>\n
science  professor ar the University  of Alberta.   The bone was found in the permafrost enveloping the<\/div>\n
Thistle Creek  gold  mine about 100 km. south of Dawson City.<\/div>\n
in 2013.  The bone fragment\u2019s genome once annilysed turned out to be  700,000  years old.   <\/div>\n
It seems that Horses have thrived in the Yukon for a long long time.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
Feb. 1, 2021<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Post Script<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
Events have a curious way of coming together and making sense.  Serendipity is the word.  It means a coming together<\/div>\n
of seemingly disparate events.  Here\u2019s a weird one.  In 1963-64, Marjorie (then Hughes) was  teaching high school<\/div>\n
in Napanee, Ontario.  Miles  and miles from western Canada.  A group of girls joined Marjorie in forming their cell<\/div>\n
of the Canadian Wild Horse society.  They donated some money to support the survival  of wild horses primarily in<\/div>\n
Alberta but also  in the Yukon.  These horses needed protection.  The Canadian government considered horses<\/div>\n
an introduced species\u2026therefore  gave them no protection.  Marjorie\u2019s students and  other young people, mostly<\/div>\n
girls, were assuring that a few herds of wild horses continued to roam through the Rocky Mountain valleys.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I am not sure that is still the case.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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

Note:  Sorry this story needs editing but I have no time\u2026trying 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 […]<\/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-7448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448","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=7448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}