That’s when my brother and I started the drive from Utah to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. Four days later – on Friday, July 29 – we met up with my nephew, fresh out of the Army.
In due course, my brother and I – alone and aged 70 and just-turned-65 – paddled our canoes “‘up’ the Yukon River.” (440 miles in 12 days.)
But first, we two brothers – joined by our nephew-son – hiked the Chilkoot Trail. (See Naked lady on the Yukon.) And to hike the Trail you have to start in Skagway, Alaska. (Above left, the day we arrived.) I also noted that people call the Chilkoot Trail the “meanest 33 miles in history.”
Also in Naked lady on the Yukon, I posted this news flash:*
There’s a reason [why] they call it the “meanest 33 miles in history.” I’ll be detailing that little jaunt in a later post. (To be titled, “On the Chilkoot &$%# Trail!”)
And so, here it is – drum roll please – my blog-post on the Chilkoot &$%# Trail!
First of all, note the picture at the top of the page. It includes an easy-to-miss orange pole. (You see them marking the “trail.” The one in the photo above is to the hiker’s right – the viewer’s left – and “up the trail” a bit.) Note also: There doesn’t seem to be a “trail” anywhere around, either in the top photo or the ones below. Just one big pile of &$%# rocks after another.
So now you’re getting a feel for “hiking the Chilkoot.”
More background: Before doing the hike I learned that the trail actually started in Dyea, Alaska. (It ends in Bennett, British Columbia.) I also learned that Dyea is actually pronounced “DIe-eeee,” perhaps prophetically. (As in, “that’s what you feel like doing once you get on the &$%# Trail!”)
Further, the Chilkoot was a major access route – from “DIe-eeee” to the Yukon goldfields – in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896–99. That gold rush “transformed the Chilkoot Trail into a mainstream transportation route to Canada’s interior.”
And I learned that the only other route to the gold fields was through White Pass. (Up to 1899, when a railroad was built from Skagway to the Yukon.) As to which route was better, a pioneer – Mont Hawthorne – said there really was no choice: “One’s hell. The other’s damnation.”
A side note: White Pass was also called “Dead Horse Trail,” apparently renamed by Jack London: “Nearly 3,000 pack animals died. Drivers rushing over the pass had little concern for beasts. Exhausted horses starved, were hurt on rough ground, became mired in mud and fell over cliffs.”
Which also gives you a feel for “hiking the Chilkoot.”
And finally – after the fact and back at the Westmark Hotel, Whitehorse – I saw a plaque about the Trail. It noted that every Klondike “stampeder” had to haul a year’s supply of food – 2,000 pounds – up and over the Chilkoot Pass. “This often took 35 to 40 trips up and back down.” Further, the last 1,000 feet of the climb “took an average of 6 hours with a loaded pack.”
Which made me feel better about my performance – detailed below – but only after the fact. (On Tuesday – August 2, the day we climbed over the pass itself – we averaged a little over half a mile an hour. Which turned out to be not too bad, historically speaking.)
By then I’d already developed a host of blisters, one of which – a blister-on-a-blister on my right heel – got infected. It was still throbbing – from time to time – and didn’t fully heal until well after two weeks of canoeing and then six days driving back home from Dawson City. (I’m sure the 12 days of feet being wet and cold 11 or 12 hours a day canoeing on the Yukon didn’t help.)
But we digress…
I packed a notebook for the hike – which lasted four days – and duly made an entry at 8:32 p.m., August 1. (Day 1 of the hike.) But then I didn’t make any more entries until August 4, when we finally got to the railroad station at Bennett. There I noted: “I wrote no more until we reached Bennett, on the 4th day. Too [&$%#] tired and late arriving on the 2d day. And the 3d.”
There’s more on those second and third days below.
But on the first day we made Sheep Camp: “13 miles or so – nobody seems sure of the miles – by 7:30 p.m.” That included crossing the swaying footbridge, à la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (There’s a picture from the movie in the notes below.) There’s more on that in Part 2, but unfortunately, I’m now approaching the limit of the ideal length for a blog-post. (No more than 1,200 words.*) So, I’ll wrap up “Part 1” with a story relating to the photo below.
I took the photo on Day 4, when we finally reached the railroad station at Bennett. But it relates back to an incident that occurred on the second – the worst – day of the “Trail.”
We were approaching the summit of the Chilkoot Pass. (Slowly in general and especially slowly for me.) What with my lack of depth perception, going over “one big pile of *&$% rocks after another” was like negotiating a minefield. I wore heavy hiking boots, but they felt like ballet slippers. Every step was sheer torture, and brought new pain to each aching foot.
I had just taken one of many missteps – especially bad that day – and let loose a string of pungent epithets. Then I looked behind me and there – climbing “personfully” behind me – was this sweet young thing. Sheepishly I apologized, noting that I had “no depth perception.”
She went ahead and passed me. (And probably rolled her eyes in the process…)
A short while later I had another misstep – again, the “Trail” is sheer torture for someone with only one good eye – and let loose another string of pungent epithets. I looked behind me again, and there was a young couple, including another “sweet, innocent young thing.”
So I said to myself, “Hey, I may be on to something here!”
Unfortunately I tried it a few times later on the trail, but my magic formula didn’t work. (On the other hand there I did see that “Naked lady on the Yukon,” 10 days later, on August 12…)
The point being that on the forth day of the ordeal, most of the people who’d been hiking the Trail met up on again at the railroad station in Bennett. There was only one train, at 3:15, so all us hikers had a chance to sit on something besides rocks, and pitch our tents to dry out. (It had rained the night before.) Including the young lady I’d insulted on Day 2…
But before we got to the end of the trail, I had to experience the phantom pack phenomenon – weaving and rolling like a drunken sailor – and slip and slide down a glacier or two. Then I got to the point where “if I could have cried I would.” (Hey, I’m secure in my masculinity.)
And finally, we got to take part in a little parade. (See On the Chilkoot &^%$# Trail! – Part 2.)
* * * *
One of many happy hikers who finished the Chilkoot Trail at Bennett, B.C.
* * * *
Unless otherwise noted, the images in this post – including the photos at the bottom and top of the page – are ones I took during the aforementioned “hike.” (More like sheer torture…) Also, an asterisk (“*”) in the main text indicates that a word or two of explanation will be made in these notes.
For example, the “news flash” image is courtesy of www.dralionkennels.com/newsflash.
Re: “One’s hell. The other’s damnation.” The quote is from The horror of the White Pass Trail | Yukon News. Also, “Dead Horse Trail” was also known as Dead Horse Gulch. The photo accompanying the paragraph is courtesy of the Yukon News.
Re: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. See also happyotter666.blogspot.com, which included the image at left, of a bridge like the one we crossed on the Chilkoot’s second day of hiking.
Re: Ideal length of a blog-post. See How Long Should My Blog Posts Be? (Suggested length, 800-1,200 words.) But see also The Ideal Length for All Online Content – Buffer Blog, indicating a preferred post-length of 1,600 words.
Re: “The end of the trail.” The link-quotation notes that the “trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.” I could have used that quote both on the Chilkoot Trail and again on the Yukon River, when I was always “slow ship in the convoy.” See e.g. The Pacific War Online Encyclopedia: Convoys: “The convoy can only advance at the speed of the slowest merchant ship in the convoy, which negates the speed advantage of the faster ships.”
I could have used that little quote too, if only to ease my own own mind…