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Yukon
Memories and the Klondike Gold
Rush
by
Jerry W. Bird
There
where the rapids churn and roar
And the ice floes bellowing run
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of
blood
Rush to the setting sun
I've packed my kit and I'm going now
Ere another day is done.
Robert
W. Service
 While
most travelers approach the fabled 'Inside
Passage' from various points due south, my
first experience of this 1,200 mile Marine
Highway, was from Canada's Klondike,
having plied the Yukon River for four
eventful days aboard the SS Casca, a
classic paddle-wheeler ; chugging and
puffing our way upstream from Dawson City
to Whitehorse. After an overnight at the
Regina Hotel, with its ornate lamps and
Victorian furnishings, we boarded the
narrow-gauge White Pass & Yukon
Railway for a day trip, detraining on a
wooden platform at historic Skagway. This
sleepy little seaport on Alaska's Lynn
Canal, came to fame 100 years ago, as a
lawless, rough and ready frontier town at
the foot of the White Pass.
 Yes,
the north had its own Al Capone, a con man
known as Soapy Smith, diabolically clever,
tough as nails, and a ruthless killer. To
Yukoners headed for what we call the
"outside," this town was where the Inside
Passage really began. So with eager
anticipation, we hustled up the wooden
gangplank of the Princess Norah, one of
Canadian Pacific's coastal armada.
Vancouver, here we
come!
Today,
the Yukon paddle- wheelers Klondike and
Keno are all that's left of the
British
Yukon Navigation Company's proud fleet;
both are tourist museums.
I
recently heard from Len Brown, one
of our readers who attended a "Last Spike"
ceremony on July 29, 2000. Here is an
excerpt from his letter: " Al York & I
do contract work for the Yukon Government,
and I was up there working and took in the
celebration. It was fantastic - up to an
estimated 5000 people were there during
the day - steam rides some 5 miles
alongside Lake Bennett and back .. and a
Steam Meet of 73 and 40. I am a steam nut
(co-owner of 30053 - an M7 tank engine
that runs on the Swanage Railway in
Dorset, England), so have availed myself
of many steam rides on the WP&YR - I
even appeared in a video White
Pass & Yukon Route
-
the Railway Built of Gold.
As a
Yukoner by birth, I hope someday there
will be an extension of this historic rail
line
at least as far as Carcross, Yukon ...
short for 'Cariboo Crossing, ' a common
sight at one time. The Manager of
WP&YR in Skagway is Tina Cyr, whose
aunt Gloria Cyr of Whitehorse was my
mother's best friend for many years.
More
sweet music was the Yukon Government's
decision to restore the Steamer Keno,now
beached at Dawson. I was a crew member on
the Keno for two summers, as it toted
ore-laden barges from Mayo on the Stewart
River, to the Yukon River junction.
There's nothing like the whoosh of giant
steam driven pistons, as the bright orange
paddle wheels kick up a spray that kisses
your face with an icy cool, refreshing
shower of river water. As Grant
MacConachie's newly formed CPA, the
world's Air Highway and an improved Alaska
Highway brought the "outside" in, a
romantic era of river travel came to a
close.
Down
to the sea in
ships:
While protected by outer islands, pristine
in its beauty and a marvel to behold, the
Inside Passage is a treacherous route,
shrouded in fog much of the year, laden
with booby traps and submerged rock
ledges. During the Klondike Gold Rush, the
Inside Passage witnessed numerous
shipwrecks, some rivaling the Titanic in
their impact at the time. Aside from
reading about such events in Pierre
Berton's "Klondike" and similar volumes, I
found a record of numerous sinkings on the
Inside Passage at a Nautical Museum, near
my Grandparents home at Palos Verdes,
California.
The
Yukon River fleet suffered its own
disasters; even our sturdy Steamer Keno
cracked up against the rock walls at Five
Finger Rapids, near Carmacks. As a result,
myself and the other deck hands spent a
week ashore attending to repairs. Ports of
call: South of Skagway are a number of
unique ports: Juneau, Alaska's Capital
with its Imperial Russian heritage;
Ketchikan, home of Alaska's main fishing
fleet and Prince Rupert, which played a
key role during the Gold Rush and the dark
days of '42, with the war on our doorstep
and the Alaska Highway a do or die
project.
While the
sea voyage was smooth, a few bouts of
seasickness occurred crossing Millbank and
Queen Charlotte Sounds. The final port
o'call for Canadian Pacific Steamships was
Alert Bay, a quaint native village
south
of Port Hardy. Entering Vancouver harbor
under the Lions Gate Bridge was a
magnificent sight, as it is for today's
cruise passengers. If you have an item on
the Inside Passage or any of the places
mentioned, let's hear from you
[Send
mail]
.
Beringia:
The
Yukon's First Nations made their home in
Beringia during the last Ice Age, some
24,000 years ago, when the Yukon, Aaska,
Siberia and much of Canada was covered in
massive sheets of ice. Because of its
climate Beringia was basically untouched
by the spreading glaciers; the landscape
consisted mainly of vast steppes, tundra
that could support a broad variety of
flora and fauna. Interpretive
Center in Whitehorse,
Yukon
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