a night in june 1917 found me under one of the brick-piles on the avion front in a safe little cellar that the hun had fixed up for himself and then turned over to us. i was seated on some sand-bags set against the wall, with a "capacity house" to hear a klondike tale. a few candles gave a dim light hazy with thick tobacco smoke, making it easier for fancy to have free course. there were no interruptions except the occasional call from the top of the dug-out stairs for some man to report for duty. the sound of shells and guns came dully to our ears and seemed unheard as, in imagination, we travelled afar to fairer climes and by-gone days.
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i'll tell you to-night of my first trip to the north and my first attempt to travel with a dog-team on a winter trail.
in 1899 i was a missionary in the back-woods of minnesota learning to preach, practising on our american cousins out of consideration for the feelings of my fellow-canadians! i was quite contented in my work, preaching at little country schoolhouses with long distances to drive between, but getting everywhere the best they had of hospitality.
one day in the winter of 1899-1900 a telegram came to me from dr. robertson our canadian superintendent of missions asking me, if agreeable, to report at winnipeg that week for duty in the yukon. i couldn't resist "the call of the wild" and i wired acceptance of the appointment. two weeks later i was on the c.p.r. headed for vancouver. there i got a berth on a little steamboat named the cutch, bound for skagway, alaska, the great gateway to the "golden north."
i'll not easily forget that trip. the boat was crowded beyond what seemed possible. every berth was twice taken, one man sleeping at night the other in the daytime. the floors of the cabins were occupied as berths night and day. they slept under the tables and on them and in the gangways and on the decks. meals were "on" all day in order to get everyone served. there were some wild times aboard and plenty of discomfort, but the greatest good-feeling generally prevailed for the boat was headed north and every hour brought them nearer to the land where fortunes were made in a day. amazing stories, and all the more amazing because they were true, had come south telling of the richness of the new gold-fields. gold-dust and nuggets lay scattered apparently without known limit in the gravels and schist of the creeks. it was a "poor man's diggings" too. a stout back, a pick, a pan, a shovel and a little "grub" were all you needed. after two or three days' work it might be your luck to strike the pay-streak and have your secret dreams of sudden wealth come true. why not you as well as those other fellows? there was lippi who had already cleaned up a million out of a part of his 250 feet on eldorado, macdonald "the klondike king," otherwise, "big alec the moose," who had been offered in london five million for his interests, dick lowe who owned a 50-foot "fraction" on bonanza that some said had almost as much gold as dirt in it. johannsen and anderson, the "lucky swedes" and "skiff" mitchell who worked no. 1 on eldorado. these all had been poor men and there were hundreds of others that had done nearly as well. besides, the claims were mostly just being opened up and nobody really knew what more marvellous finds might yet be made. aboard the boat were all sorts of men from all parts of the world but all alike were filled with high hopes. keen they were to try their luck in this big gamble where such alluring prizes were going to fortune's favorites. so nobody was looking for trouble. they had no lasting grievance against anyone who didn't interfere with their one great object of getting to dawson. the only growling was at the slow progress the boat made, but an "ocean greyhound" would not have been fast enough to satisfy their eager haste.
it was a glorious trip in spite of all we had to put up with. most of us were seeing for the first time the beautiful scenery of the western canadian coast. our boat sailed straight north for a thousand miles in the pacific yet with land always close in on both sides. it is the most magnificent combination of ocean and mountain scenery in the world. it is more majestic than the fiords of norway, nor can the inland sea of japan have anything more lovely, and here there is a full thousand miles of it. the ocean has inundated a great mountain range. for days we sailed through winding channels broad and narrow, and among giant mountain peaks that dwarfed our boat. sometimes the trees came right down to the water's edge, or we steamed between precipitous cliffs where the tide-rip ran like a mighty stream. as we got further north glaciers glistened within rifle-shot and we could see plenty of little ice-bergs around us that had toppled off into the water. it was mountain-climbing by steam-boat!
our voyage ended at skagway, a typical "tough" frontier town that boasted the last and worst "gun-man" of the west, soapy smith. but that is "another story." i spent a night there and then took the narrow-gauge railway over the white pass to log-cabin, where i left the train. from log-cabin, a lonely-looking, huddled-together group of a dozen small log buildings, i was to start on my first trip on a northern trail in mid-winter. the fan-tail trail it was called, running over these wind-swept summits seventy-five miles to atlin on atlin lake, one of the great lakes that feed the yukon river. i was to go with a dog-driver or "musher" named stewart who had been commissioned to bring in the new sky pilot "dead or alive." it was afternoon before i reached log-cabin but stewart decided not to wait until next day but to start right away. he wanted to make it over the summit, eighteen miles, to the tepee, the first roadhouse on the trail, and there put up for the night. this would break the journey and enable us to do the rest of the trip to atlin—sixty miles, before nightfall the next day. it all sounded vague to me, seemed indeed a very big proposition, but i agreed, being green and not wishing to display my ignorance by discussing it. moreover i was young and ready to tackle anything. stewart was experienced, knew the trail, and was as hard as nails. he had a team of six dogs hitched tandem to a sleigh about eight feet long and two feet wide on which he had lashed a high built load of freight. i trotted along bravely enough after stewart and his dogs and for a few miles held my own, but when we got out into the drifts i commenced to lag. he tried me sitting on top of the load but that made it top-heavy and we had several upsets. twice we had to unlash the load, get the sleigh up on the trail again and reload, all the time working in snow up to our waists. it showed that plan worse than useless. then he suggested that i try if i could guide the sleigh holding the handles, like plough-handles, that projected behind. to hold these gave me help and it would have been fine if i had been able to keep the sleigh on the trail, but that is learned only by long practice.
after several bad mishaps i had to give that up. then stewart told me to go ahead on the trail and make the pace according to my strength. but that wouldn't work either, for, in the drifts my feet could not find or keep the trail, and the dogs following me were continually getting into tangles in the deep snow. there was nothing for me but to follow as best i could. when within five miles of the tepee we left the wind-swept plateaus and entered a forest. there the trail slanted down to the gulch where our night's journey was to end. among the trees there were no drifts and while it was easier going for me so it was for the dogs. they knew well enough where they were, that there was rest and dinner for them at the end of that five miles, and nothing could hold them. i was pretty well "all in" but i struggled on trying to keep up until a sort of partial unconsciousness came over me. i seemed to see only the two moccasined heels of the musher ever disappearing before me. all i seemed to know at last was to keep my eye on them as they slipped away, away, ever away, from me into the darkness. stewart could hear me coming and of course didn't appreciate the situation. i hadn't trail-sense enough to tell him to go on and i would follow slowly for now the trail was comparatively easy. i heard the timber wolves howling but there was no danger from them that winter as long as i kept going. i know this now, but i was a "tenderfoot" then. stewart knew my brother john as the best musher on the teslin trail and thought, no doubt, that i'd be able to stick it without trouble. when we got near enough to hear the dogs at the roadhouse howling, ours quickened their pace and i was left hopelessly in the rear. i grew faint and sick with my efforts, staggering along, running into the trees and off the trail, to crawl back again and go a few yards on hands and knees. at last, stumbling like a drunken man, i ran into the roadhouse yard and right into my brother's arms! he had reached the tepee that night on his way out from atlin to log-cabin. i could eat no supper, slept not a wink all night, for every nerve and muscle in my body seemed on fire, nor could i touch breakfast, except a cup of tea.
as long as i live i shall never forget my first hours on the trail. even now i can close my eyes and see again those moccasined heels slipping away from me into the snow-white darkness and feel again something of the sick exhaustion of those last few gruelling miles.
in the morning our teams lined up again. my brother headed for log-cabin, thence vancouver, then eastern canada and home. i to travel wearily on for another day towards a mining camp with all its unknown problems for me as a green missionary. i was homesick, anxious, and physically felt almost useless. maybe i had some unshed tears in my eyes as we stood together a moment before saying good-bye, for john said, "well, george, you're just at the present moment the 'wateriest-looking' preacher i think i've ever seen." it was "good medicine" for it made us all laugh and so we parted.
the rest of the trip was luckily easy for me. stewart had left part of his load at the tepee and i was able to ride on the sleigh whenever i wished. by noon my appetite asserted itself with redoubled force. we stopped at the half-way house and had a satisfying dinner. by the time we came within sight of atlin, across the five miles of frozen lake, the clouds had cleared away and i felt the zest for adventure and love for my work, that had brought me north, coming into their own again.
it was a week before i got the stiffness of that run over the "fan-tail" out of my muscles. my memory will ever hold a clear-cut and painful recollection of it.
