“How was your lunch with Donald?” Pearl asked Emma, when she got back to the cabin.
“It was lovely. We talked and talked.”
“About what?”
“About our childhoods, him not noticing me when we were younger, what he’s been doing since he came here, gold panning, me quitting my job as a receptionist to come with you, everything.” Emma sighed happily. “He’s just as wonderful as I remember and I really think he likes me this time. We were having a good time until Sam barged in and demanded that Donald help them load their supplies onto the raft. They left us the stove in the cabin saying they could purchase one at the store.”
“When are they going?”
“I watched them leave about a half hour ago. Their raft was so loaded they could hardly make any headway with their poles.”
“I want to sketch some of the buildings of the town,” Pearl said. “Do you want to come with me?”
“Yes, I could use some exercise.”
When they reached the water, they met Ethel Berry sitting with a huge pile of supplies, furniture, and equipment on the shore.
“What are you doing?” Pearl asked.
“Waiting to catch the next sternwheeler going up river. I’m taking all these to our new claim.”
“Is another boat coming again so soon after the one we were on?”
“There are two trading companies that have posts in the north and each one has boats that come up the river to deliver supplies, mail, and passengers and to pick up return mail and prospectors heading south. They usually come within a few days of each other.”
“Is there a settlement where you are going?” Emma asked.
“No. We passed the mouth of the Klondike River on our way down the Yukon River this spring and from what I remember there are only a few brush buildings of a native fishing camp. From what Clarence heard, though, the gold is on a creek called Rabbit Creek which flows into the Klondike River.”
Pearl thought about Sam’s excitement over the gold he and his friends had found. She remembered the mass exodus just the day before of men from this very shore on their way to stake claims. Rabbit Creek and the Klondike River seemed to be the place to be right now. And she wanted to be there even if Gordon thought it was no place for a woman.
Pearl quickly made up her mind. “I’m coming with you.”
“Really?” Emma gasped.
“Yes. I’m going to see what is causing all this interest.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” Ethel asked.
“If there is a gold rush in the making, I want to be part of it.” Pearl looked at Ethel’s pile. It seemed like a lot for two people. “What do we need?”
“That depends on how long you are staying.”
Pearl hadn’t thought that far ahead. She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It took me a day to amass all this.” Ethel waved her hand. “You’ll definitely need a tent to stay in, food for at least a month, and a stove for cooking and heat. I doubt that you will find someone right now to chop wood for you or make furniture so you should purchase an axe, nails, hand saw, and hammer.”
“Maybe I should come with you,” Emma said.
Pearl looked at her cousin. “Are you sure you want to, or should you wait here for the boat sailing out so you can return home?”
“I’m not sure if I’m going home this fall,” she answered, with a slight smile.
“You’d better hurry because the men will be floating back here soon to stock up on their own supplies,” Ethel said.
“When will the steamer be here?” Pearl asked.
“I don’t know. They don’t have a fixed schedule.”
“Let’s get going,” Pearl said. She had sewn the majority of her money into the hem of one of her petticoats and they returned to the cabin to retrieve it. She also changed out of her rainy daisy into bloomers to make her movements easier.
In the store, they stared at the full shelves.
“I don’t know where to start.” Pearl felt her anxiety rising. They had to hurry. The boat could be here at any time.
“Let me help you,” Ethel Berry said, entering the building.
She began gathering items and setting them on the counter: flour, cornmeal, bacon, coffee, tea, sugar, salt, pepper, beans, candles, five boxes of matches, canned milk, and dried potatoes, vegetables, and fruit. She looked at the man packaging the supplies into boxes. “They also need a tent, a wood stove, frying pan, dishes, cutlery, and bedding.”
“We have our own bedding, dishes, and cutlery,” Pearl said. “But what about mattresses for sleeping on?”
The man shook his head. “Don’t have any of those.”
“Sam left the cabin stove for us to use,” Emma said. “We can take it.”
Ethel continued to rattle off a list until they had a pile on the counter and another on the floor in front of it. Emma and Pearl shared the cost but it took most of Pearl’s money to pay her share. So much for having enough to live here for a year, she thought.
The three women carried the supplies out to the shore and set them beside Ethel’s pile. Once they finished, Pearl and Emma returned to the cabin and packed up their trunks with their clothing and toiletries and the dishes they had bought. They removed the stovepipe and tin fireguard, careful of the soot that fell out.
“I wonder if we can take their table and chairs.”
“Sam said we could stay in their cabin as long as we want,” Emma said. “That means they are ours, so I guess we can. It will save us having to build our own because I have no idea how to do that.”
Pearl looked around the room wondering what else they could use. “Too bad the bunks are nailed to the wall.”
“How are we going to move the stove?” Emma asked. She went to one corner and tried to lift it. It barely moved.
“I wonder if there are any men around to help us.” Pearl stepped outside and looked. Two men were coming towards them. They appeared to be drunk.
“Excuse me,” Pearl said. “Would you mind helping us move our stove?”
One man took off his hat. “We aresh at your shervice,” he slurred, making a sweeping bow. He staggered and almost fell over.
Pearl wasn’t sure if she should just tell them to carry on or enlist their help.
“We need them,” Emma whispered.
Pearl nodded.
It was a slow process to move the stove from the cabin to the beach. The men alternated between wanting to show off their weight-lifting skills by insisting they could carry it by themselves to stumbling and dropping their side. But finally the four of them reached Ethel and their supplies and they gratefully set it down. Pearl offered the men payment but they refused.
“Tomorrow, we are going to shtake a gold claim,” one of them said. He hooked his arm over his buddy’s shoulders. “Wesh going to be rich.”
“What about our trunks?” Emma asked.
“I think we should do those ourselves.”
When the boat didn’t arrive by dusk, the three women ate their evening meal at the restaurant and spent the night in the three bunks of the cabin. They’d just finished their breakfast in the restaurant the next morning when they heard the whistle and saw the Alaska Commercial steamer Arctic come into sight. It docked at the NWMP wharf since that was where the trading company had its post. The women watched the crew unload its supplies. It was almost lunchtime before the boat churned over to where they waited.
Pearl and Emma stayed out of the way while Ethel directed the crew loading their supplies, then they carefully followed Ethel up the sloping plank onto the crowded little vessel. The lower deck barely cleared the water line. As the boat plied its way upriver, they went to the deck above to watch the scenery. Among the men already on board, was a young couple with a boy about ten years old.
Ethel went up to them. “Hello, my name is Ethel Berry and these are my friends, Pearl and Emma Owens.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to meet other ladies this far from civilization.” the small, lithe woman exclaimed. “My name is Isabel Drury and this is my husband Henry and our son Gregory.”
Henry was a tall, slender man. He raised his hat to the women. Gregory was blond and blue eyed. He bowed to the women like a miniature gentleman.
“Isn’t he cute?” Ethel smiled.
Gregory grinned impishly at her then with a quick look at his father, took off at a run.
“Gregory!” Henry called. “Get back here!”
Pearl could hear his joyous laughter as he dodged in and out of the men on the deck on his way to the stairs. He looked back then scurried down them.
Henry went over to the top of the stairs. “Gregory!” Apparently, Gregory ignored him, because Henry started down the stairs.
“He can be a bit of a handful at times,” Isabel smiled.
“He seems full of vim and vinegar,” Ethel said.
They heard a scuffle below and then Gregory’s laughter again. Soon they saw Gregory coming up the stairs on his father’s shoulders. His eyes sparkled with delight. It was obvious that the two of them had a great relationship.
“Are you on your way to stake a gold claim?” Ethel asked Isabel.
“Yes. My father prospected in this area for many years after my mother died. When he got too sick to stay, he came to live with us and he told us stories about his life here. That ignited a desire in Henry to try for gold and when dad died last year, Henry decided he wanted to come. I wasn’t about to let him take this daring excursion without me, so we all came.”
“Well, it seems like you picked the right time,” Pearl said.
“Yes, our destination was Fortymile but we heard someone had found gold near the Klondike River. We immediately changed our plans.”
“Maybe we’ll be neighbours,” Ethel said. “I’m on my way now to meet my husband who went ahead to stake a claim.”
“That would be so nice.”
Henry and Gregory came up to them, Henry lifting the boy off his shoulders. Pearl could see the love in Isabel’s eyes as she looked at Henry. She wondered if she would find a love like that.
* * *
When Sam and his friends reached the mouth of the Klondike River, they found it a hub of activity. Previous prospectors in their race to Rabbit Creek littered the bench above the Yukon River with canoes, boats, and rafts left behind. Everywhere they looked they saw men yelling and gesturing as they deserted their crafts, donned backpacks, grabbed shovels, and gold pans. One group no sooner left than another arrived, hollering and waving their arms as they tumbled out of their crafts and scrambled to pull them up the hill onto dry land. As fast as they could they grabbed their tools and backpacks and headed out.
The water had turned black with churned up mud as the men jostled and floundered their way up the Klondike River.
Sam recognized some of the men; others he didn’t know. Some had randomly erected tents farther up the shore. He wondered if they were just staying the night or if they believed it was a waste of time to go any farther.
Sam, Gordon, and Donald maneuvered their raft to the shore. They climbed off and secured it to a rock.
“Hi, boys.”
They turned and saw Joe Ladue striding towards them.
“So you heard about it.” Sam shook Joseph’s hand.
“I knew there would be a strike,” Joe replied with a grin.
“Are you staking a claim?” Donald asked.
“I don’t think I will have time for a claim. I have another idea.”
“What’s that?”
Joe waved his hand around the area. “What do you see?”
Sam looked around. “Stunted trees, a brush building and smokehouse from the fishing camp, swampy, moose pasture full of mosquitoes.” He turned back to Joe. “Why? What do you see?”
“I see streets lined with businesses and homes. I see a town with all the amenities for the miners.”
“Well, you’ve got better eyesight than I have.” Sam laughed.
“You just wait,” Joe admonished. “But I don’t have time to visit. I have to get a town site registered and bring my saw mill and lumber here to get started on my town.”
Sam watched Joe stride away. He took another look round the area. Just beyond the future site of Joe’s town towered a mountain with an open face of rock and swampland at its base covered with scrub brush. I sure don’t see a settlement full of people here.
Since they’d already staked their claims the three of them set up camp for the night, making a smudge to keep the mosquitoes away. Since they planned to leave early in the morning they didn’t put up their tent. They laid their bedding on the ground and sat around the fire until dusk. Other fires flickered throughout the site. When it was time for sleep, they draped mosquito netting over their faces.
After breakfast, they began the task of pulling their raft up the Klondike River. Men waded past them in the water, others tried to stay dry by fighting their way through the tangle of bush on the shore. After an hour, they had hardly gone any distance.
“You’ll never get there pulling that,” one man yelled, as he struggled past.
“He’s right,” Donald said. “We’re getting nowhere.”
“This is an impossible task,” Gordon threw his rope into the water. “I’m ready to go back to Fortymile.”
Sam didn’t plan to let that happen. He knew that many of the men around him were heading to Rabbit Creek out of an ingrained habit. Most of them had staked lots of claims in the past when a strike looked promising, but just as often it hadn’t amounted to much.
Some of them, once the ritual of reaching the area and marking their claim had been completed, hadn’t bothered to record their ground, or they’d sold it for next to nothing. Some had even gone on a drunk and totally forgotten about it.
“Let’s unload some of our things,” Sam said. “We can come back for it in a few days.”
“Are you sure it’s safe? Gordon asked, looking at the men slogging around them. “What if someone steals something?”
Gordon’s whining took Sam by surprise. When had he become so distrustful? No one worried about stealing out here.
It was an unwritten law in the north that if someone needed something they were welcome to help themselves. It would be returned or replaced once the person could afford it.
“Our stuff will be fine,” Sam said. “These men have gold on their minds.”
Gordon continued to grumble, but he helped Sam and Donald guide the raft to shore. They rummaged through their supplies and unloaded what they figured they wouldn’t need immediately. They piled them in the bush and wrote their names on some of the packages so others would know who they belonged to.
It was still a struggle and they barely spoke to each other as they needed save their energy. All day men continued to pass them everyone in too much of a hurry to slow down and assist. At the end of the day, they found a gravel bar for the night, where each of them opened a can of beans for supper and slept out in the open.
It was late the next morning when they reached their claims. Their shovels and gold pans were still leaning against the tree stumps where they had carved their claim information.
“Let’s set our camp up on Donald’s claim,” Sam said. “Then once we’re organized we can decide how to begin finding our gold.”
They erected their canvas tent and laid out their bedding. What they didn’t want to get wet if it rained they piled inside along one wall. The rest they left outside and covered with a piece of canvas.
* * *
It was late afternoon when Pearl stood with Emma, Ethel, and the Drurys and watched the shore as the paddlewheel’s rotation slowed until they stopped in the middle of the Yukon River. They had reached the mouth of the Klondike River but the area certainly didn’t look like an empty moose pasture as Ethel had described. It looked more like a graveyard for abandoned river craft of all different types and sizes. Even the few tents didn’t make it look more inviting.
“This is it?” Pearl turned to Ethel standing beside her.
“It’s different than I remember it, but I guess those boats all belong to the men who came to stake claims.”
The captain of the vessel refused to get closer to shore. He didn’t know what the riverbed was like and he didn’t want to run aground. He threw out the anchor to maintain their position in the water.
“There isn’t a dock.” Emma looked around worried. “How are we going to unload our supplies?”
“Well, I think we could probably borrow some of those boats on shore,” Ethel said.
“It looks like everyone has that same idea.” Pearl gestured at some men who had jumped off the lower deck and were half swimming, half wading to the gravelly beach.
Like the Drurys, these men had heard of the gold strike and were changing their plans and getting off at the Klondike River.
Henry Drury removed his coat and handed it to his wife. “I’ll go get one for us.” He headed towards the steps to the lower deck.
“What are we going to do?” Emma looked at Pearl.
“I’ll bring back a second one for you ladies,” Henry said, before hurrying down the steps.
Pearl watched as Henry followed the other men to the shore and found a suitable rowboat. He then tied a second boat to the first and rowed back to the sternwheeler.
“I think it would work best if one of us gets into the boat and the other two pass the supplies,” Ethel said. “Then one will get into the boat and there will be two to unload.”
“That sounds fine,” Pearl said and Emma nodded. The girls were glad to have Ethel there to take charge as they needed a guiding hand right now.
But all the others on the steamer had the same idea. There was a lot of brushing and bumping as they maneuvered for a position close enough to throw their supplies into boats or onto rafts, but fortunately Henry managed to get both boats to the side of the sternwheeler.
Pearl thanked her foresight in wearing bloomers as she climbed into the boat. She positioned herself at the front and held tight to the side of the steamer while Emma and Ethel loaded packages. It took a long time. The men on the steamer had to carry their sacks and boxes from the storage room to the deck. They, too, banged into each other as they shuffled in an impromptu line from place to place.
When they had filled the boat as full as possible, Ethel held onto her long skirt and climbed in and Pearl began rowing to shore. She had to work her way through the lineup of others waiting for their turn. Once at the shore, she and Ethel stepped into the water, heedless of their shoes and clothes.
They pulled the boat onto the gravel, thankful it was only a small embankment, lugged the supplies from the boat and set them in a pile. Then Ethel rowed back and they waited their turn to get back to the side of the sternwheeler. They could see Emma stockpiling some of their bags on the deck.
They had only made three trips when darkness fell. Some stopped, but others lit lamps to provide light and continued their unloading.
The steamer wasn’t heading farther upstream until the next day, so Pearl and Emma, with Ethel’s help, set up their tent. The three laid out their bedding then lit a fire outside to cook supper. Exhausted, they climbed into bed.